Am I still Vigil?
I think our relationship with our order is similar to what Marjory has with Durmand’s Priory. It’s more like a connection but not active participation
you were an active member of the Vigil, as much as any other order should you have chosen so, however, you step down from your order to be an unbiased party, the commander of the pact (second only to the Marshal), to govern the Pact without biases..
whew.. I gotta rephrase that sometime in the future.
In short: you were a member, and you remain to be a ‘honorable mention" on their contact list, but you’re no longer a registered member.
While I agree it’s nice the player is realistically drawn out of their order, I feel like the orders have been greatly neglected since Heart of Thorns, as much as the villanous orders like the Inquest. I mean, they were aggresively working on the MK-golem series, tracing and experimenting on Elder Dragon magic, and all whatnot.. Kudu could hardly be considered a boss, he was just overseeing a branch facility. Give us the juicy stuff, anet!
They really leave it up to player interpretation. There was no point where you formally leave- NPCs of your faction refer to you as a member of your order as late kitten (although Makkay seems to call you a Scholar- perhaps an off-screen demotion due to your inactivity?), and dialogue during the party after Zhaitan’s defeat displays that the heads of your order certainly still considered you a member… but on the other hand, you haven’t done any work for your order since Flame and Frost at the start of S1, and the next time you see Almorra in S3 it certainly doesn’t sound like you’re treating her as a superior.
(Regarding Kudu, that’s also unclear. I don’t think he was the leader, but given that that ‘branch facility’ was the Inquest’s largest known base by a vast margin, the possibility still exists.)
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(Regarding Kudu, that’s also unclear. I don’t think he was the leader, but given that that ‘branch facility’ was the Inquest’s largest known base by a vast margin, the possibility still exists.)
I get your point, but there are still other plenty of large groups, and i feel like they wouldnt drop a project as heavily invested as hexagodronal dragon magic collider, just because its supervisor kicked the bucket
probably not smart to actually RP as the pact leader & founder of dragon’s watch though.
Publicly? Probably. But if it’s personal RP, or with a small group who gets behind it, there’s no harm in embracing the game’s storyline.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I recently retconned my main character out of being “the commander” to “companion of the commander” because of such identity complications and paradoxes. I then promoted an alt to “canon commander”, so I have them be the protagonist and my other characters are just occasional invisible party members for story purposes.
There was one particular paradox that stuck in my mind at the Mordremoth fight, because we have “the commander” going into the story instance while the “pact army” is fighting the mouth of mordremoth. Well, this was perfect retcon material.
- My main (a norn) was retconned into the “pact army” as a lightbringer/magister/warmaster. The only personal story that applied to them now was their racial story and order story up to the Battle of Claw Island. Past that point they become a close companion of the real commander, a party member who participates in the Orr campaign and the slaying of Zhaitan etc.
- My sylvari character, made just for Heart of Thorns, became my nominated “canon commander” character. My main character would be in this character’s close circle of companions and share certain merits, like “slayer of Zhaitan”.
The thing that really made me do the retcon was that “the commander” does things and says things, and has things said to them, that just doesn’t fit my norn character at all. The sylvari, sure. So I did the retcon in my mind and I ironed out how my sylvari and norn relate to each other (which is quite like the Vilnia Shadowsong and Noxia pairing I suppose).
I’m sure that all the asura players will have the same feeling every time Taimi opens her mouth to them. Fine if she’s talking to a naive sylvari, but the Snaff Savant?!
And of course a sylvari “commander” makes perfect lore sense. They have their Zhaitan-slaying destiny given to them in a dream and are naturally immune to Zhaitan’s zombie making powers. The perfect warrior to lead the Pact. And of course Trahearne is right there from the start in their racial story instances and Caithe, your racial mentor has the exact same Zhaitan-slaying quest as you do.
Every other race has other preoccupations. My norn is 100% focussed on Jormag – what the hell is this Zhaitan distraction anyway? And as an aside, I was really annoyed not to be adventuring with Braham to get that scroll and make the fire bow that cracks Jormag’s Tooth – why would my norn be doing anything else? Totally out of character.
Likewise the Charr have their eyes on the Flame Legion and Kralkatorrik, the asura on Primordus, the humans on the centaurs and bandits that would ultimately lead to confronting the White Mantle. And of course the humans have no such Zhaitan-slaying destiny awaiting them – you’re just a street urchin, commoner or noble with other concerns entirely. Like, where the hell are the gods? Oh – there’s one!! (Hi Balth!)
The latest story with the Shining Blade has rightly got a lot of players a bit miffed. Confuzzled even. One guy was an Ash Legion Centurion… being inducted into a human spy organisation. Riiiiiight. See, there are some great stories to be told that one single canon character can’t really fit into. It’s like ArenaNet need to split this character up or something and get some branching back in so that things can make sense again.
The “commander” is wearing too many hats.