Guild Wars 2

I’ve done all Arah explorable paths quite recently and they’re HEAVY on lore, providing more questions than answers, but also sheding some light onto the conundrums of old.
Spoilers ahead!

Arah explorables in general are about the older races that came up together at one point to fight the ‘Six Great Swallowers’ – the dwarves, the jotun, the Seer, the Mursaat and the Forgotten.
There’s no ‘dwarf path’, but i think we have enough of dwarven lore all around, especially in GW1 – Tome of Rubicon, the idea of the Great Dwarf being the hivemind of dwarven community; we know about the dwarves as a race quite a lot. We did not, however, know anything about the other races; not much at least.
It is quite possible that more races fought the Dragons last time, sentient and not alike, but only those five actually survived. It is believed that the Dragons caused extinction of the Lupicus race, and we are hinted that they swallowed or destroyed most of the world back then.

Arah 1 is about the jotun.
We learn that they were not as bloodthirsty, stupid giants as we know them from GW1 or open PvE. They were astronomers, ‘stargazers’, and they’ve discovered that each time the Elder Dragons awake, new stars appear on the sky. We could even take a glimpse through an ancient jotun telescope at the end of the path.
This actually means a few things. First of all, the jotun race must be really, really old. If they’ve managed to find out a pattern and connect new stars to Elder Dragons, whatever it means, they must have witnessed at least two Dragons’ awakenings before.
Not much else is told about the jotun themselves, but it appears that they were scholars as well, given the sky observation, not just homicidal maniacs.

I have no idea what to think about the new stars popping up along with the Dragons’ awakening. It seems that it marks some connection between the Dragons and the very primal forces of the universe, not just Tyria, or that the Dragons are ‘controlled’, manipulated and awakened by something – or someone – from a world far away. The new stars might be actually some sort of beams that awake the primeval forces of magic all across the universe, manifested as Dragons on Tyria. Those beams might be either controlled by some unknown beings or simply a natural occurence.
The other way around – the Dragons actually popping new celestial bodies to appear – seems much too Tyrian-centric to me and doesn’t make much sense.

Arah 2 deals with the Mursaat race.
First of all, we learn that they have fled the battlefield and abandoned the other races. They have found a way to ‘phase out’ from the world, walk onto another plane of existence, away from the Dragons. For that, they were tasked to guard the Door of Komalie.
We know quite a bit of things about the Mursaat from GW1. They were revered as gods by the White Mantle. They helped to prevent the charr invasion of Kryta soon before our characters arrived there, taking Saul D’Alessio away with them and ensuring constant flow of the Chosen to sacrifice on the Maguuman bloodstone, what empowered the Door of Komalie, keeping the Titans away. We know that becoming Ascended allows to see the Mursaat – otherwise they are the Unseen Ones, still phased out from the world to a degree.

This all begs for some theories that would explain the connection between all puzzles.

The phasing out thing. While we get phased out in Arah 2 ourselves for a while, we don’t completely leave Tyria for another world; i guess it’s just a glimpse at how phasing out would work given it enough time. The Mursaat fled the fight against the Dragons, and that would mean moving onto another plane of existence or to another world whatsoever, not just becoming invisible and partially invulnerable. Given that we are about to face Agony in Fractals of the Mists, we are to get Ascended gear there and we are about to Infuse it to gain protection against the Agony, i believe we are about to see the Mursaat in their flesh as bosses in late phases of Fractals. Fractals, or some of them, might be THE place the Mursaat had fled to.

Then there’s something about the connection between the bloodstone(s) and the Door of Komalie. The Door are a gateway from (possibly also into) the Realm of Torment, old Abaddon’s domain and prison, with lots of his wicked creations there. It actually is a door to the Foundry of Failed Creations in Realm of Torment, and it must be shut or else the Titans will flood Tyria, bringing flame and destruction. It’s what the Flameseeker Prophecies were about, with Khilbron being the Flameseeker.
The Mursaat had their White Mantle lackeys to find ‘the Chosen’, special people of Kryta with potential to ‘ascend’, using the Eye of Janthir (some Chosen-detection device of probably Mursaat origin, but it may predate them, as the task to guard Komalie was given upon them – probably they might have received the Eye from another race, possibly the Seer), and then sacrifice them on a bloodstone in the Maguuma Jungle. This powered up the Door of Komalie, constantly worn down by the pressure from the Realm of Torment.

I am still puzzled HOW exactly the bloodstone sacrifices were able to power up the Komalie. The souls of ascension-worthy people were required to keep the batteries charged – ok, got it. But how the Maguuman bloodstone was able to transfer the captured power of the souls to a door in the Ring of Fire?
Given what we found out in Arah 4 (read below), i believe the Door of Komalie is another Seer invention, designed to be connected with the bloodstones, attuned to draw the ‘soul power’ captured by the bloodstones. This would also mean that the Seer race were overseeing the humiliation of the Mursaat and it was them who tasked them with guarding the door, providing them the bloodstones, the Door and possibly the Eye as well. This would also hint at the supposed hatred between the two races – it might not be hatred per se, just revenge and guard/prisoner kind of relationship, with the Seer being put in charge of the Mursaat guarding the Door.

Arah 3, the Forgotten path, tells us something about Glint, called Glaust back then.
She was a Kralkatorrik’s champion, probably a very high ranked one as well. The Forgotten found a way to break her connection to Kralkatorrik and free her will by a special cleansing ritual after trapping Glint. From what i understood, it took place in Arah, at the special altar built for the occassion, where we also purify and bring free will to an undead chicken in the Arah 3 finale, in order to test out the purifying ritual. It worked fine and the chicken ceased to be bloodthirsty – and became a normal chicken, even if still a bit undead.

This means that Glint was freed from Kralkatorrik’s influence after Arah has been built, with the Gods present and helping the Forgotten to break the connection. An Elder Dragon’s champion was somehow found – roaming or in slumber, more likely the latter – while the Dragons were still asleep, and purified from the Dragon’s corruption.
It also means that Glint was indeed ‘good’ and is explicitly said to have been a powerful and valuable ally.

Arah 4, the Seer path, is all about bloodstones.
It was the Seers that created the bloodstones.
It was the Gods who then used them – why, how and so on is yet to find out. What was told is that the Six took a Seer invention, a bloodstone (or its shard?) and put it in the place where Arah is now, and then built Arah around it. The bloodstone channels magic, and that place was full of raw magical energy.
Why that location? Zhaitan. As explicitly said in Arah 4, the Six didn’t know about Zhaitan. They were like the asura in EotN – they’ve found a spot with raw magic, and thought ‘awesome! let’s build some cool magical stuff here’, pretty much. They ‘drained’ (?) and channeled Zhaitan’s own power, deep in slumber under Arah’s location even before it was built, to… what?

This shows the Human Gods in a new light. They didn’t realise that they were building their capital city on an Elder Dragon. They didn’t realise that the magic they were using was coming from an Elder Dragon. They didn’t create the bloodstones but merely ‘enhanced’ them, found another use for them – i don’t really remember the exact quotes and i might have interpreted something wrong.

It seems that the Seer race managed to trap and channel the magic that Elder Dragons radiate. It seems that the Gods later found the bloodstone and used them, and possibly their shards, to ascend into actual godhood – to gain more power, so to speak. They might have been nothing more but regular human leader from that time who were first to figure out and exploit the inventions and the heritage of older races.
Then Abaddon might have thought it was wrong to keep all that magic to themselves, with the Seers gone and the Elder Dragons asleep, and ‘released’ the power trapped in the bloodstones – power drained from Dragons – onto the world, granting humans magic.
He was subsequently punished for it by imprisonment in a realm away from Tyria that has become the Realm of Torment, and now is home to Kormir, purified from Abaddon’s power. This means that the Gods were against releasing magic onto the world, they wanted to keep it for themselves – as possibly only high magic is what makes Gods and humans different.

All of it also means that the Tyrian magic does not come from Gods at all, but possibly from Dragons which then eat it back when they awake. They might also awaken because of their hunger in the first place – they become hungry once they’ve radiated enough magic out into the world. Then they want to eat as much as possible, regenerate the strength, and go on swallowing rampage. They get defeated, fall into slumber again until they become hungry again.
Think about it the next time you’re shooting fireballs.

My theory about the Gods is that they were, indeed, only human leaders that brought the human race onto Tyria. Once there, they have found powerful artifacts of the old races, particularly the Seer bloodstones, and used them to become much more powerful than their subordinates via means of ‘high’ magic – some kind of magic much stronger than what our characters can use.
The fact that they ‘brought’ the human race to Tyria means that they had the means to travel cross-realms, either by some means of magic from their original world or other artifacts found there. Once securing their people in Tyria, they opened new portals and each of them found and took/conquered a realm for themselves, thus leading to the ‘creation’ of the Underworld, the Realm of Torment and so on. They were just different world/realms, in the Mists or not, which the Gods have found and took over.
Grenth being half-god, half-human when born only hints that the Gods and humans can (could) procreate and produce offspring, what seems impossible between as closely visually related races as humans and the norns – if it was possible, surely we would hear of human-norn hybrids by now, even as oddball NPCs. While there is no evidence to back up the cross-breeding restriction, lack of evidence supporting it is enough to outweigh the other assumption.

The rise to power of humans in Tyria, the Ascension of the Chosen, the shattering of the bloodstone, the rise of Dragons – all of that summed up for the Gods’ Exodus and, finally, total departure from Tyria. But i think it was the Abaddon’s gift of magic that made the Gods hide in Arah and then leave the Tyrian plane in the first place. After all, if the Gods were only old human leaders who got immortality and lots of power through magic drained from Dragons, they would lose a lot in the eyes of people who might find out what the Gods truly were – using the same magic, even if less powerful. It was safer to leave while they still were Gods rather than let humans and other races unmask their true identity, limitations and earlier exploits.

One more question that begs for an answer that can be theorised based on Arah findings is why the Gods have brought humans to Tyria. What was wrong with their original world? Was it just conquest? Doesn’t seem so. Was it exploration? Thirst of knowledge? Wanderlust? I don’t think so either.
They were fleeing.
The celestial beams shot across the universe, reaching the original human world later than Tyria, and awakening their own ‘Elder Dragons’. It might have been Giant kittenroaches there, or just primeval forces causing natural disasters like constant floods, droughs, hurricanes and so on, shattering their original world. Thus they had to leave and found Tyria.

Pretty nice to see it all written out. Thanks for putting your time into this.
I have but one question: Is it known why Glint’s name is changed from Glaust to Glint?

Nothing pointed at it in Arah or i have missed something, but i don’t think there was anything told outright.
I’d theorise that she wanted to cut away from Kralkatorrik, have a fresh start – the name ‘Glaust’ could have been hated and feared.

very nicely done

well explain, and nice idea.

perhaps the elder dragons simply want to reclaim what’s was already theirs?

As for the Mursaat guarding the Door of Komalie. I didn’t really see a reason as to why they’d need to do it? Sure, the Seers could have forced the Mursaat to this duty, but besides the fact that Titans want to inexplicably kill Mursaat, what’s the point? Just a bit strange to me
Also, we are hinted that the Gods brought humans to Tyria because they were indeed fleeing. I think in the scrolls on the gods in Orr, the Lyssa one says she’s trying to make them happy again, or take away their fear.
And I think in EotN, a Norn says Humans and Norn can procreate

I don’t think the gods will turn out to be these awful people who stole power, kept it away from others, and then ran when it got others might get it. It would invalidate the entire culture of humans. Who wants to call on power from a bunch of cowardly, self-centered, immortal beings?

I compared what i have found in Arah and remember from GW2 in-game lore with all the lore known from GW1 and there are obvious discrepancies, some as big as outright stating that ‘the gods created the bloodstones to control magic’. I see two explanations for those differences, one does not rule out the other – (a) the scholars have found out much more old lore throughout 250 years and even more thanks to access to Orr and Arah now, and (b) the devs decided to rewrite some bits of the lore, causing more havoc than they possibly have foreseen in all the details – bit then they have the safe excuse in (a).
Either way, i believe we should base our knowledge and theories on GW2 lore and more contemporary out-of-the-game info, rather than old GW1 data.

With that in mind, Glint might have created the Flameseeker Prophecies as one of the mechanisms keeping the Mursaats in place, ensuring they would guard Komalie. After all, as it turns out, it was the Forgotten who ‘changed’ Glint, thus Glint was their powerful ally but also, let’s say, ‘subordinate’, and not the other way around as it seemed in GW1.
Side question – do we know of any in-game prophecies other than the Flameseeker ones? As in, do we know how divination works there, or at least do we have something to compare the Flameseeker Prophecies to? We have theorised that Glint might have been simply lying and manipulating everyone – as it turns out, possibly on someone else’s command or suggestion, aka the Forgotten/Seer/jotun alliance.

@Excelliate:
Exactly! That’s why they had to keep their legendary status quo and move away before they could have been unmasked
It’s just a theory, though, and it seems not that solid even to me, but it’s still the most likely option i see tbh, much more likely and fun from storyteller point of view than ‘the gods brought humans to Tyria, period’.

Having the discrepency between the gods making the bloodstones and the seers making them makes sense with your theories. If the gods wanted to appear all powerful and have the ability to limit magic, they would have told their followers that the bloodstones were created by them. this makes no lore conflict because humans would truely believe that the bloodstones were made by the gods, as indicated in GW1, when in actuality, as in GW2, we find out they were made by the seers.

Good investigating. It makes me think of Asuran gate technology as a plot device. Maybe the original humans teleported here or flew here with an advanced form of that technology?

That’s what i assumed as well, trying to keep the discrepancies in-lore and not blaming the devs for forgetting stuff from GW1 or creating plot loopholes.
I remember GW1 stating that the gods created the bloodstones, sealed with blood of King Doric (hence blood part, i guess?), and that the bloodstones ‘represented’ (after wiki), controlled or somehow managed/channelled ‘schools’ of magic, or facets of magic. GW2’s Arah 4, however, explicitly states it was the Seers who have created the bloodstones, and out of the two i trust GW2’s lore sources for two reasons – (a) it’s more likely that the toons in-game have found out more about Dragons, Gods and related stuff throughout 250 years, especially now with the Dragons’ awakening and the Gods’ departure, and (b) it’s a much fresher material and it’s much more reliable from the storyteller point of view, as it’s understandable that the devs changed outlook on some stuff, decided to change or twist something etc.

Not throwing the GW1’s lore away and taking all the actions of the Gods into account, i got my theories presented above.

Linking Door of Komalie to bloodstones is the next step given that the bloodstones were a Seer creation, knowing about the Seer/Mursaat ‘hatred’ and the Mursaat betrayal. Still, GW1 lore may be true with it and it was the Mursaats only who took care of Komalie because they feared the Flameseeker Prophecies.

But this brings yet another twist, now that we know that the Forgotten weren’t Glint’s lackeys, as we were told in GW1, and they weren’t ‘put in the world by the Gods’, but they predate the Gods – at least in Tyria. We now know that Glint, while being a valuable ally and stuff, was actually freed from Kralkatorrik’s influence by the Forgotten and it was probably done by force (without her consent anyway – no Dragon champion would agree to break free before it has happened); i assume that Glint, while being independent and a faction on her own, was indebted to the Forgotten rather than their ‘leader’.
This alone shows the whole Flameseeker Prophecies in a new light, knowing that the Forgotten and the Seer were allied and fought the Dragons together, and together were betrayed by the Mursaat. The Flameseeker Prophecies might have been a plotted self-fulfilling prophecy in order to put the Mursaat in guard of the Komalie and, eventually, punish them hard for their betrayal with hands of another race.

Maybe the gods didn’t come from somewhere else, but from some when else.

I think the “gods” are just space travelers who tried to terraform an already inhabited world. And then when the natives fought back they fled, leaving the poor humans they put on the planet at the mercy of the natives. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again…Guild Wars 3 should see the humans join the charr in hunting down and exterminating these false gods who left humanity to fend for itself at the time the gods were most needed, the awakening of the elder dragons.

I personally don’t see the inconsistencies as the gods manipulating humanity. I mean everything that we have seen in game (GW1) shows that the gods loved humanity and left because their interference was causing trouble. My personal interpretation, coming from years of devotion to the 6 True Gods, is that humans made assumption in their history, which lead to them glorifying the gods even more. I mean we do know that the gods, specifically Melandru, did some terraforming of the land, and this could have lead to the assumption that they created the land. The same goes for the spreading of magic and the separation through the Bloodstones.

Good work putting this together it is really rather informative. However I agree with Narcemus and your idea at the same time when it comes to the gods.

Here is my theory, and I am kind of throwing out a bit of what A-net has said before that there is no connection between Abaddon and the elder dragons. I actually believe that Abaddon (the god of secrets) has a kind of Loki persona, and is the one responsible for putting the bloodstone in the place where the elder dragons were sleeping. I think he knew what exactly what was sleeping down below Tyria. However he did not tell his associates (the other 5 gods) about what was down there; for he knew it would be the perfect shortcut for ultimate power. The problem was though that he needed a way to make himself to not look selfish in any shape or form. So Abaddon invited his naive associates to join with him to become gods amongst mortals. Therefore in their eyes they could supposedly save humanity.

The problem came when the other 5 gods learned the horrifying truth about the source of their power. To correct there mistake they tried to subdue the power that the bloodstone were giving out. Nevertheless Abaddon was not too keen on this idea and threw out the power to everyone trying to make him the favorite amongst the god’s entire devotees. In the end Abaddon was punished for his crime but never was willing to give up his power.

Which bring us to the question then why did the gods leave their followers to face the oncoming threat of the elder dragons? The answer would be simple: to keep history from repeating itself. It would seem the real downfall from everyone who faced the elder dragons before was the manipulation, greed, deception, and a hunger for raw power. Even the gods could not undo what was already set in stone (terrible pun btw). I think when this happened they knew it was time to leave because it was disheartening to see everything they worked for demolished because of one mistake.

Abaddon has always been the one I look at and still believe we don’t know the full story. For all the scheming he came up with to get his revenge, it does not seem like this was his first time using mass manipulation. Most of what the gods have done has been for a type of benevolent means associated to their individual power. However what Abaddon did by giving out free power always looked like it had a more insidious alternative motive. Probably he believed once he was praised for his gift, he would have all the power he would need before the elder dragons re-awakened.

Good read, thank you for taking the time to write this down. Arah explorable is definatly a dungeon I need to complete by the sound of it!

I really really like these theories, I have had similar ones aswell, almost identical. I’m very glad someone else is thinking the same thing about the orgin of the gods and humans and wrote them out so well. Great Job.:D

Been meaning to read and respond to this for a while. Here we go:

• We actually learn from scholars in the Priory structure, if you’re of the order, that the jotun have creation myths of a series of cycles for the Elder Dragons, implying that knew of more than two past awakenings, beyond predicting the current one.
• So guarding the Door of Komalie was a punishment? Am I understanding you right? Who gave them this task and why, is that said? And was there any more given (as I’ve only seen up to the GL of that path) of when they returned, when they met Saul (we’re never actually given a time for this), or about the mursaat-seer war (beyond “they used to work together, but betrayed the others”)?
• Welp, your theory of mursaat in fractals proved wrong. :P Though if the mursaat fled the world, they had to go into the Mists.
• It wasn’t so much the act of sacrifices or the bloodstones, but the soul batteries that were powered by souls. Souls are energy, and the door was powered by thousands of souls’ energies. Chosen killed on bloodstone, bloodstone transfered to soul batteries, batteries transported via ship to RoF, then attached to Door of Komalie and RoF bloodstone.
• I can’t see the seers being the ones who tasked the mursaat, especially tasking them to do so via soul sacrifices, given the last known survivor (there may be others ofc) wanted them dead. Unless the plot was to have mursaat kill their own kind off.
• Path 3 seems to hint not that Arah existed back then, though it could have given the Orrian History Scrolls’ line of Dwayna in Shelter Docks, Malchor’s Leap. Rather, it indicates Orr was previously forgotten territory/homeland. The gods didn’t seem to have been present at the time – if so, then humanity was on the world for over 9,000 years longer than we’ve ever had any indication of. Glint was active, btw, as we know she left Kralkatorrik of her own free will while protecting Kralkatorrik. Given what she says in Edge of Destiny, she likely continued serving Kralkatorrik after the ritual, but turned shortly thereafter. We also know that Glint was turned before the ED went to sleep, as she’s credited to being the one who hid the surviving races while the Elder Dragons ravaged the world until nothing was left.
• Zhaitan isn’t the only magical source in Orr – The Artesian Waters is also magical, and of a different nature than Zhaitan, as shown in the personal story. Was it explicitly stated they were taking Zhaitan’s magic? Or did it merely state that Orr was magical and they were taking that magic? Because if the former, then we’d all been using Elder Dragon magic and everything should be a shambling undead fanatic for Zhaitan, which makes no sense.
• You got the bloodstone’s purpose backwards. The bloodstone was used to capture and hold uncorrupted magic – magic untainted by the Elder Dragons. Not to contain their magic. Unless the latter half of the seer path contradicts the first half.
• Given the feats of the Six Gods recorded before Arah’s establishment and, in fact, when they arrive on the world, I’m going to need to see some quotes before I believe that “the Gods later found the bloodstone and used them, and possibly their shards, to ascend into actual godhood”

On your theory:

• If the gods were only human, then how did they bring the entire race to Tyria?
• Grenth is never said to be half-human. He’s said to be the son of Dwayna and a mortal sculptor. Who or what that sculptor was is unknown. It could have been a largos for all we know (and it wouldn’t surprise me considering: 1) largos have arabic origins just as Orrians; 2) At least one largos can read Orrian fluently; 3) the statue of Dwayna said to depict her true form, although corrupted, is of a seemingly-scrapped-and-reused corrupted female largos model; 4) Dwayna and Grenth both have depictions of having wings, and largos have wings, though Grenth isn’t always depicted with said wings).
• BTW, we were told by Jeff Grubb a long while back via an interview that the five playable races cannot cross-breed.

More in following post

My own theories regarding the Six Gods coming to Tyria:

• We’re told the Six Gods brought the forgotten to Tyria, but they were around during the last ED rise. We’re also told the Six Gods arrived after the mursaat/seer war, and the writing of the Tome of Rubicon (which happened at the same time), and with the Arah lore, it’s implied the war was part of that betrayal – the war ending with the seer race being on the brink of extinction thanks to Spectral Agony.
• This indicates to me that it may be possible that, instead of the Six bringing the forgotten, it was the other way around. I believe the forgotten traveled into the Mists, met the Six Gods and humanity, and brought them to Tyria.
• The previously mentioned Orrian History Scrolls’ bit on Lyssa states that the two sisters lived among humans in Wren, working apart from the other gods in order to sooth humanity’s sadness and forget the past. This indicates to me that humanity – perhaps the gods, were refugees.
• Given Arah is the site of forgotten structures, and given the Orrian History Scrolls’ claim that Dwayna brought humanity to the world there, with the stone floor of Arah in place, even if the “bringing humanity” there is wrong, that indicates that Arah had structures. We know that the Six had built the city, and that humanity traveled to continental Tyria in 205 BE. This to me indicates that the Six Gods took forgotten ruins, and expanded/renovated them, and at the same time set out to study the world as humanity thrived elsewhere, away from their experimentations that was with the ancient societies’ magic (we know that the mursaat were gone by that time, and that the jotun had already fallen, when the Six Gods brought those relics to Arah). Being new to the world, of course you won’t know much and you would want to study it, so this makes probable sense to me.

drkn.3429:

Side question – do we know of any in-game prophecies other than the Flameseeker ones? As in, do we know how divination works there, or at least do we have something to compare the Flameseeker Prophecies to?

Quite a few. The second most major one is the prophecy of Nightfall which, go figure, was foretold in the stars.

@Sindex.9520: I like to believe that Abaddon had a more noble persona before his fall. Sure he was evil in GW1, but after being tortured for 1,075 years, who wouldn’t be? He only showed wanting to break free and wanting revenge on the other gods. I wouldn’t call that “evil” per say anyways. Though given his motto on the Mural of Abaddon found in Khilbron’s tower in Orr, it does seem he had a rougher philosophy than the other gods… except Balthazar, perhaps. That motto was “act with magic, act within reason, act without mercy.” Doesn’t sound like the motto of a loki-esque figure for sure.

It seemed that he was a pro-magical usage kind of guy, rather than having everyone toil the soil with their own hands in order to have a chance at growing good crops. And the other five disagreed with the extent of his reasoning.

I don’t ever recall reading anything anywhere saying Grenth was fathered by a mortal sculptor, but if he was I’d have to put money on Malchor (since…well he was the only human to sculpt the gods via a firsthand account, he was in love with dwayna, ect ect). Very possible he had a little whoop-de-whoop with dwayna before he took the Big Plunge off crazy cliff.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I don’t ever recall reading anything anywhere saying Grenth was fathered by a mortal sculptor, but if he was I’d have to put money on Malchor (since…well he was the only human to sculpt the gods via a firsthand account, he was in love with dwayna, ect ect). Very possible he had a little whoop-de-whoop with dwayna before he took the Big Plunge off crazy cliff.

Priestess Rhie mentions it if you talk to her during the Speaker of the Dead quest.

WarriorOfAsgard.3705:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

I don’t ever recall reading anything anywhere saying Grenth was fathered by a mortal sculptor, but if he was I’d have to put money on Malchor (since…well he was the only human to sculpt the gods via a firsthand account, he was in love with dwayna, ect ect). Very possible he had a little whoop-de-whoop with dwayna before he took the Big Plunge off crazy cliff.

Priestess Rhie mentions it if you talk to her during the Speaker of the Dead quest.

Duly noted. I’ll pay closer attention next time.

All of it also means that the Tyrian magic does not come from Gods at all, but possibly from Dragons which then eat it back when they awake.

Well, there IS plenty of precedent in Guild Wars history for what appears to be the bad guys actually taking back what’s rightfully theirs. The charr and Ascalon being the obvious example, the Shining Blade in GW1…

@Konig – I had never considered how the largos might fit into the human gods’ lore, but oh boy, that could be awesome! It makes a lot of sense. I’m not familiar with lore around the Artesian Waters, but if the only major source of non-Dragon magic around Orr and Arah is a marine one… well, that holds strong potential for largos connections. I can think of a number of ways that might work, the choice of Arabic names for largos suddenly has extra connotations… good thought

As a side note regarding Abbadon, I’ve written about it before, but my simplified view has always been this: either he handed power to a humanity that wasn’t ready for it and didn’t take responsibility for its use, thus dooming the humans of the time without the other gods intervening (the orthodoxy); OR he handed power to humanity knowing that they would struggle and war with it, but knowing that was needed for humanity to grow on their own and develop independently of their divine patrons. I like to think that Abbadon wanted to see humanity learn from their troubles, but the other gods decided to just take away that power instead, and Abbadon (as god of magic and secret knowledge) resented that lost opportunity.

When the gods first showed up on Tyria, they seem almost a little naive to me.

At the time, only some races were able to use magic; the mursaat, seers, jotun, forgotten, etc. were probably ruling the world before the dragons re-awoke. So Abbadon looks at the magic and thinks, “hey, why can’t everybody have that?”

So Abbadon gives magic not just to humans, but to all of those ‘lesser’ races: dwarves, charr, tengu, grawl, etc. But these races, being more primitive than the magical ones, aren’t used to that kind of power, and start killing each other. King Doric asks the gods to get rid of magic, because it’s destroying his people.

The gods, mad at Abbadon for causing this mess, use the bloodstones to regulate magic, stopping the massacre. Abbadon rebels, probably for a couple of reasons: not just that the other gods messed with his gift, but also because the other gods just didn’t like him. Just imagine big, bad Balthazar picking on little introverted Abbadon.

Abbadon is defeated by the other gods, and locked up in the Realm of Torment. A thousand years later, he recovers enough to try to escape.

My two cents.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• The previously mentioned Orrian History Scrolls’ bit on Lyssa states that the two sisters lived among humans in Wren, working apart from the other gods in order to sooth humanity’s sadness and forget the past. This indicates to me that humanity – perhaps the gods, were refugees.

I want to write this stating that this isn’t meant to discard your theory, but merely to try and understand it better. Now we know that humanity was in Tyria hundreds of years before appearing in Tyria (Orr specifically). The only reason I write this is because if Lyssa was helping the people of Wren overcome their sadness this would have been many generations after they came out of the mists and into the land south of Cantha. All in all, I’m relatively still confused as to the story of the human beginnings.

WarriorOfAsgard.3705:

Priestess Rhie mentions it if you talk to her during the Speaker of the Dead quest.

Wrong – during that personal story step, she just says he’s the son of Dwayna.

The son of a mortal sculptor comes from one of the last personal story steps, Cathedral of Silence, where you chose between beseeching Grenth or looking for Romke’s ghost.

Dreamwalker.3617:

At the time, only some races were able to use magic; the mursaat, seers, jotun, forgotten, etc. were probably ruling the world before the dragons re-awoke. So Abbadon looks at the magic and thinks, “hey, why can’t everybody have that?”

The biggest flaw in this is that the mursaat were not on the world, the seers were (mostly) destroyed, and magic was sealed in the Bloodstone by the time the Six Gods arrived.

Narcemus.1348:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• The previously mentioned Orrian History Scrolls’ bit on Lyssa states that the two sisters lived among humans in Wren, working apart from the other gods in order to sooth humanity’s sadness and forget the past. This indicates to me that humanity – perhaps the gods, were refugees.

I want to write this stating that this isn’t meant to discard your theory, but merely to try and understand it better. Now we know that humanity was in Tyria hundreds of years before appearing in Tyria (Orr specifically). The only reason I write this is because if Lyssa was helping the people of Wren overcome their sadness this would have been many generations after they came out of the mists and into the land south of Cantha. All in all, I’m relatively still confused as to the story of the human beginnings.

I should make a correction to my old post, as since writing that I’ve realized that the Orrian History Scrolls are saying that Lyssa’s bringing the gods happiness and helping them forget the past. Or at least that’s a possible interpretation. “Them” is used, so it’s a bit ambiguous. The Orrian History Scrolls also bring up Wren after bringing up the forgetting the past. The full Lyssa excerpt, typo and all:

The two who are one, Issa and Lys, brought with her the hope and beauty of humanity. While the other gods focused on building Arah and beginning a new future, Lyssa gave them joy and helped them forget the past. For a while she lived, veiled and hidden, in the village of Wren. When the building of Arah was completed Lyssa was commanded to join the other gods, though her tears fell like rain among the western road.

[note: names are wrong in here, it’s Lyss and Ilya]

As to the story of human beginnings… that’s all fairly unclear still, but as it stands it seems the Six Gods arrived on the world at Arah, which seems to hold forgotten ruins even now so likely did then (as the ruins in question were where Glint was “purified” of Kralkatorrik’s corruption which happened during the ED’s last rise), and brought humanity to a location south of Cantha – from there, humanity slowly moved northward as the Six Gods built Arah, and gathered magical artifacts of the ancient races (completely oblivious to the fact Zhaitan rested beneath them, it seems).

That scroll excerpt about Lyssa is fascinating. I really will have to finish my personal story and spend more time in Orr hunting these things down! Wren fits with the old ‘Scriptures of Lyssa’ stuff from the GW1 statues; I may have to go and read over the other old scripture excerpts for clues too, heh.

I find “brought with her the hope and beauty of humanity” to be a very interesting choice of phrase. We know the Six are supposed to represent parts of human nature, writ large as it were, an it has been said that all humans have a little of all the gods in them. That phrase almost makes it sound as if the gods came out of humanity and not vice versa, though! Could just be ambiguous phrasing, I don’t know.

I don’t know about Abbadon logic being clean when it comes to giving out magic freely. I mean you could be right about him not fully understanding repercussions of doing what he did. However it’s a bit hard to believe that the war he had with the other 5 simply escalated because of a misunderstanding. I mean the other gods have had personal arguments before that never turned Tyria into a war zone. Unless Abbadon was being stubborn with his logic and believed he was being singled out.

I think whenever A-net decides to give us a flash back before the conclusion in the desolation we will never know what his true intent really was. However it is kind of frustrating to see people label Abbadon as the protagonist, while labeling the other 5 as the antagonist. Simply because Abbadon was willing to give out magic in the first place while the other gods felt it was a poor judgment call.

Well, according to a Chinese-only document that was released with Nightfall promotions (only recently translated due to a reignited interest in it over on Guru2), the war was initiated by the Margonites who acted of their own violition to dessicrate the other five gods’ shrines at the Temple of the Six along the Crystal Sea’s shore – in turn, the Forgotten waged war on the Margonites, nearly wiping them out until Abaddon stepped in to save the people who worshiped only him. Then the other five stepped in.

Of course, the authenticity of this repeated document on Chinese fansites are in question. The translation can be found here: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/76125-why-abaddon-turned-evil/page__st__30#entry2100579

And I don’t think the gods’ actions could ever be labeled as a thinking Abaddon’s was a “poor judgment call” since they acted to stiffen magic only after being pleaded to by King Doric – as far as we know at least.

I’m really hoping that we will definitely be able to learn more about the War of the Gods when we reach Elona (whenever that will be). I mean with the Durmand Priory around putting their noses into everything ancient, and the Order of Whispers finally being re-united with their order’s headquarters (not that they were ever “separated”) I could see lots of new information coming to light. Either that, or if we ever get to see more of Orr, I mean the area we’ve seen so far is so small, lol.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

WarriorOfAsgard.3705:

Priestess Rhie mentions it if you talk to her during the Speaker of the Dead quest.

Wrong – during that personal story step, she just says he’s the son of Dwayna.

The son of a mortal sculptor comes from one of the last personal story steps, Cathedral of Silence, where you chose between beseeching Grenth or looking for Romke’s ghost.

Dreamwalker.3617:

At the time, only some races were able to use magic; the mursaat, seers, jotun, forgotten, etc. were probably ruling the world before the dragons re-awoke. So Abbadon looks at the magic and thinks, “hey, why can’t everybody have that?”

The biggest flaw in this is that the mursaat were not on the world, the seers were (mostly) destroyed, and magic was sealed in the Bloodstone by the time the Six Gods arrived.

Narcemus.1348:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• The previously mentioned Orrian History Scrolls’ bit on Lyssa states that the two sisters lived among humans in Wren, working apart from the other gods in order to sooth humanity’s sadness and forget the past. This indicates to me that humanity – perhaps the gods, were refugees.

I want to write this stating that this isn’t meant to discard your theory, but merely to try and understand it better. Now we know that humanity was in Tyria hundreds of years before appearing in Tyria (Orr specifically). The only reason I write this is because if Lyssa was helping the people of Wren overcome their sadness this would have been many generations after they came out of the mists and into the land south of Cantha. All in all, I’m relatively still confused as to the story of the human beginnings.

I should make a correction to my old post, as since writing that I’ve realized that the Orrian History Scrolls are saying that Lyssa’s bringing the gods happiness and helping them forget the past. Or at least that’s a possible interpretation. “Them” is used, so it’s a bit ambiguous. The Orrian History Scrolls also bring up Wren after bringing up the forgetting the past. The full Lyssa excerpt, typo and all:

The two who are one, Issa and Lys, brought with her the hope and beauty of humanity. While the other gods focused on building Arah and beginning a new future, Lyssa gave them joy and helped them forget the past. For a while she lived, veiled and hidden, in the village of Wren. When the building of Arah was completed Lyssa was commanded to join the other gods, though her tears fell like rain among the western road.

[note: names are wrong in here, it’s Lyss and Ilya]

As to the story of human beginnings… that’s all fairly unclear still, but as it stands it seems the Six Gods arrived on the world at Arah, which seems to hold forgotten ruins even now so likely did then (as the ruins in question were where Glint was “purified” of Kralkatorrik’s corruption which happened during the ED’s last rise), and brought humanity to a location south of Cantha – from there, humanity slowly moved northward as the Six Gods built Arah, and gathered magical artifacts of the ancient races (completely oblivious to the fact Zhaitan rested beneath them, it seems).

No offence to your ideas and opinions, they are still good and possible, and I usually agree with you, but here I don’t.

The problem I see with your idea is that for your idea to work, all the things written by humans about the gods has to be correct. And the idea that drkn seems to be suggesting, and that I want to agree with, is that this is not the case.

The whole idea of the gods manipulating humans, of being humans originally, is that they put out stories and tales that they did this and that, that they brought humanity to tyria, that they reshaped the world. But thats all it is, tales, to make the humans believe in them.

Which is the sole reason a plot point like this could work out.

I am not saying that your theory is wrong, but there is a basis to why it could be wrong.

Of course thats ignoring the existence of Balthazar’s half brother Menzies and Dhuum. Dhuum could perhaps be handwaved as being the owner of the UW before Grenth discovered his way into the realm, but for Menzies to be Balthazar’s half brother and have power to potentially rival him, it would suggest that the gods had parents, who were gods themselves. Of course again, we havn’t actually seen Menzies, so this could be another made up story.

Not everything, just the things that are not yet discounted for.

We’re outright told by the developers that the Six Gods brought humanity to Tyria – this is an out-of-universe thing told to us, therefore it is not subject to the notion of “the historians were wrong” – unlike the notion that the gods created the world.

And given how power is passed on, Balthazar’s and Menzies’ shared parent doesn’t have to be a god – Balthazar could have risen to godhood the same way Kormir was. And through Grenth and the Seven Reapers, or even the Celestials, we know that mortals can be given power and made “immortal” like the gods, but not as strong. Balthazar could have done such to Menzies, but Menzies might not have been contempt with such. Alternatively, we only know that Menzies’ army rivals Balthazar’s army – so Menzies could be your run of the mill spirit who’s seeking the power of a god who just so happens to lead a powerful army.

fair enough then, also content, not contempt

This would make a very good book if written out in a narative like The Children of Hurin. Excellent theories from all.

I’ve been following this thread, and I’m confused about something. I have not done any of the Arah explorables and lack the time to on most days. So here’s my question.

Can I get a time line of the following events? The writing of the Tome of Rubicon, the Mursaat/Seer war, the last rise of the EDs, the creation of the Bloodstones, the arrival of the Six Gods with the Humans, and…well, anything in between?

I was under the impression that the Six created the Bloodstones (well, five of them). Now, from what I’m reading, it was actually the Seers? So confused…I really have to do those explorables.

There really is no time frame provided. In an old interview with Ree Soesbee (linky) we’re told that the writing of the Tome of Rubicon and the mursaat/seer war happened at about the same time – and that this was before the Six Gods and humanity arrived on the world.

In Arah, we’re told that the mursaat betrayed the races, the seers in particular, then fled the world while the Elder Dragons were awake, and returned “recently” as the Unseen Ones – though not stated, this implies that the mursaat didn’t return until shortly before being found by Saul (“shortly” being in comparison to the 11,000 years that passed, so I’d say little over 100-300 years at best but this bit is complete conjecture). From this we can deduce that the betrayal included the mursaat/seer war that nearly wiped the seers out – which would mean the war occurred during the Elder Dragons’ rise. But this is only logical deduction on limited information.

It’s also indicated that the betrayal and fleeing happened after the Bloodstone’s creation, though I don’t recall outright if this is explicitly stated or simply implied.

So how it seems the events were: Bloodstone creation->Mursaat/Seer war and writing of Tome of Rubicon->Mursaat leave the world->Glint hides the remaining races from Elder Dragons (when she was freed from Kralkatorrik’s corruption is never given comparison to other events)->Elder Dragons go to sleep->Sometime later, Six Gods arrive and bring humanity.

We were originally told that the Six created the bloodstones, but this turned out to be false human history – they found the Bloodstone, Abaddon tampered with it in 1 BE to give all races magic, then the other five split it to reduce the magic.

You don’t really have to do the explorables, btw, as most of the lore comes in the briefing at the beginning and there’s no foes before said briefing. The actual explorables is more about confirming what the NPCs said (to varying degrees) and showing how the things worked. From my understanding, only jotun and seer paths give additional insights, though I may be wrong on this.

I wonder if Dhuum will play apart in the fight against the EDs. I mean we know that he was a god but what do not know is his relation to the others. It seems only Grenth had issue with him because as far as we know none of the others helped him which could be why Dhuum is still alive. I want to learn more about the journey that the humans took with the gods to Tyria and what caused their journey in the first place.

Defeating Dhuum was Grenth’s way to show his worth as a god to Dwayna (and perhaps the others), by the sounds of the lore we’ve gained surrounding the event. So I would say the other gods were for it, but instead of taking out Dhuum themselves went to Grenth and basically said “defeat Dhuum and we’ll accept you as one of us.”

As to why the gods wouldn’t take out Dhuum themselves – probably for the same reason they didn’t take out Abaddon, which is likely related to why Kormir was needed to be present when Abaddon was killed in Nightfall. A transferance of power is required to kill a god, and I would presume that, considering Dhuum’s still alive and Grenth was a half-god but Grenth still absorbed some power, that there’s a limit to how much divine power a single entity can have – so Grenth went from half-god to full-god, and Dhuum went from full-god to half-god (and perhaps regained his power via the deaths in the Underworld which allowed him to repeatedly break out before being re-imprisoned).

Various theories on the human gods and the exodus:

1. They knew the dragons would rise and feared being corrupted, so they left not only out of self-preservation, but a desire to prevent their power from being turned against humanity.
2. The appearance of new stars led them to investigate elsewhere.
3. They went hunting for the mursaat.
4. They were hunting in the woods and found a strange cave and, upon investigating, accidentally walked back through the wardrobe.

Also, on Abbadon’s distribution of magic: The Bloodstone was supposed to contain all magic that had not been corrupted by the dragons (taken from uncited source on the wiki). It is possible that magic was free for all before the Seer’s created it, and they craeted it defensively to protect against the dragons. If the human gods were taking all that power for themselves, it would be raesonable for one of them to dissent and feel that all races and people should be entitled to wield the magic.

This brings up a question for me, if abbadon controled the demons/titans in the realm of torment and those same titans really wanted to kill the Mursaat what may have happened in the past to fuel abbadon’s hatred for the Mursaat?

More than likely the Titans only wanted to kill the Mursaat because they have been a pain in Vizier Khilbron’s neck and he wanted to be done with them.

drkn.3429:

I am still puzzled HOW exactly the bloodstone sacrifices were able to power up the Komalie. The souls of ascension-worthy people were required to keep the batteries charged – ok, got it. But how the Maguuman bloodstone was able to transfer the captured power of the souls to a door in the Ring of Fire?

If you observed over the bloodstone there were floating crystalline objects. These same obejcts are seeing powering the barrier over the door of khomali, at the docks of the khomali base facility there is also a number of the devices being stored and shattering one of them releases a chosen’s soul

Basiclly those are your batteries and how the power was transferred; by boat in giant crystalline devices.

There’s a couple possibilities for why the mursaat were wiped out.

Firstly, just because the Flameseeker Prophecies foretold it. Do take note that the players took out most of the known mursaat, the titans under Khilbron just cleaned up the mess. Khilbron was very much into the prophecies and becoming the Flameseeker to obtain an army to take over Tyria – because of this he may simply felt it best to follow the Prophecies to the t and wipe out the mursaat as foretold.

Secondly, Khilbron may have had a personal vendetta against them – in The Vizier’s Tower poi/jumping puzzle in Straits of Devastation, one can find a Broken Mursaat Statue – the text of which indicates Khilbron struck it with a sword in anger.

Thirdly, in Hell’s Precipice the Ancient Seer tells us “Over the eons, much has changed in Tyria. But not these Titans.” and are unchanged; in the Realm of Torment several Forgotten Wardens which give a bounty on killing titans tell us “Titans, ancient creatures dating back nearly as far as my own kind […]” – given that we know the forgotten and seers were both around during the last Elder Dragon rise, this may imply that the titans too were around Tyria at the time. Given this, there might have been a past rivalry between titans and the other races (particularly mursaat, forgotten, and seer).

The mursaat also had Glint on their kitten She can read the mind of any creature any where on Tyria. They can’t think with out her hearing them and could probably direct titans to them.

Like how Drakkar whispered to jora and svnair and tryed to lure them. She has kind of a good reason to hate them they left the other races to die because they probably thought converting Glint was hopeless and fled.

She probably the one that made up the flame seeker prophecies, she said she heard about it but glint is known a known fibber.

I don’t know where you get that “anywhere on Tyria” bit – she only states “I can hear the thoughts of creatures. I am an oracle. I heard their plots against my master, stopped them before they reached him, killed them in their tracks. But I also felt their loss, their agony. It grieved me.”

Hardly “anywhere on Tyria” – probably has quite some distance to it, but I doubt it’s too far.

And Glint doesn’t control or direct the titans – that’s the whole point of the Titan Quests in GW1. They presented a larger threat than she anticipated/foresaw, and to prevent them from destroying civilizations had the PCs go after them.

And the only lying Glint’s done is in her origin, not in her powers.

thought she was able to feel the pain of family’s that lost a their sons, husbands and fathers that were the solders sent to kill her. I doubt there familys were 20 miles away. Even if its not all of Tyria looking into the minds of enemys may have helped