“This is one of two landmarks (other one being the Spider’s Heart) that hints at a dead spider deity “Arachnia” and is one of many landmarks (others being the Spider’s Heart, Harvestman’s Lair, and Vale of Shadows) that hint to insectoid gods."
That was a bit of GW1 lore hidden into the gw.dat, making it of questionable canon. The idea there is that throughout the Realm of Torment- Abaddon’s prison- and in places where it overlaps Tyria, there are insectoid tendrils/landmarks that may (again, questionable canon) be the remains of gods/powerful beings that ruled over/were imprisoned in the Realm of Torment at some point in the past. That’s all we really have to go on. A lot of the mysteries surrounding the gods are still very open-ended, so the lack of information is not unusual.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Arachnia is the name of a dead spider god which is said to be older than Abaddon or the other human god. Since it is unimplemented content it is most likely non-canonical data that simply weren’t deleted from the gw.dat file.
From what I could gleam from the Guild Wars article on the matter and Abaddon, I would say Arachnia was supposed to be the depose god that Abaddon gained his power directly from. If that true then it would suggest that the Human Gods each gained their power after deposing of the gods of these insectoid beings, much in the way Kormir gained her god-like powers after Abaddon’s defeat.
We could see this implemented later on, perhaps as the Durmand Priory delve deeper into the age the Elder Dragons were last active.
I’m the Asura Elementalist that stole all your cookies, well except the oatmeal ones.
Chaos always finds a way, who you think Evil learned it from?
There’s really only what’s stated in that wiki note you quoted.
“Arachnia” is just a repeated name found from Guild Wars 1’s gw.dat file when Nightfall was released. The name is only shown in two landmark entries – The Spider’s Heart and Arachnia Plateau – thought to be found within the Realm of Torment that speak of a long-dead spider god that is said to predate the Six Gods. There’s a couple other similar landmark entries – Harvestman’s Lair and Vale of Shadows – which make mention of large insectoid carapaces, the former surrounded by spider webbing.
Beyond this, nothing is known. It’s not even known if these descriptions are meant to be canon anymore, since it’s part of the gw.dat and not released content, and the devs refused to comment upon them since it was never-released-content. All we have is the landmark descriptions.
There’s a couple theories about it that I’ve seen, from Arachnia being Abaddon’s unnamed predecessor to these insectoid gods all being predecessors to the Six Gods or that they were a separate group of gods that waged war with the Six Gods and then some others still. But there’s really nothing more about it than those four landmark descriptions.
Edit: Ninja’d when I got distracted.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
Except Kormir never took on any semblance of a form from Abaddon.
Well if Arachnia really an indication of how the human gods came to be then it is possible that after a while their form is mutated or twisted into a hybrid of humanoid and whatever the insectoid god they took the power from was. Also it could be how Abaddon chose to reform himself since the gw.dat also says his original form was destroyed in the imprisonment process.
Another possibility is the gods can alter their ‘god form’ to suit whatever their desires or needs are. Since we were facing him in his lair he could assume this arachnid form to either intimidate us or make us doubt his kin as he is the former god of Secrets. Maybe he was trying to tell us the biggest secret of all, the origin of his kind.
I’m the Asura Elementalist that stole all your cookies, well except the oatmeal ones.
Chaos always finds a way, who you think Evil learned it from?
Make sense why Abaddon in Guild Wars 1 look like a spider of some sort. It seems like Abaddon inherited Arachnias form too.
Now I wonder about the other Gods
Per the gw.dat, Abaddon’s body looked like such – insectoid floating head and hands – because his body was destroyed when the Five Gods beat him down in 1 BE. During the course of Nightfall – at each ritual that Varesh performed (Gendara, Sebelkeh (sp?), and Mouth of Torment being the main ones performed), one of the gates in the Realm of Torment (Gate of Fear, Gate of Madness, Gate of Anguish, etc.) that were keeping Abaddon and his power imprisoned unlocked, and thus he was capable of creating a new body. The process was incomplete, hence the form we see. IIRC, the gates opened for him to remake parts of his body were Anguish, Fear, and Pain.
In other words, the reason why he looks like such is because his body is quite literally made out of the Realm of Torment itself.
Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.
For anybody who wants to watch that, the Arachnia bit starts at the ten minute mark- before that he’s talking about Anvil Rock.
A bit of clarification: We do know, from in-game quests, that Abaddon had a predecessor. The gw.dat also states that Arachnia is a dead spider god whose remains are in the Realm of Torment. WP connected those dots, as indeed many do, but there’s nothing explicit yet linking the two (or stating that Arachnia is canon.)
I’m not sure where the Arachnia Plateau as a server bit came from, but if that was ever intended it obviously didn’t make it to launch.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Yeah, talking about god forms, I saw Abaddon’s form change to be somewhat of a reflection of his personality. I mean the first description we have of him comes from a GW1 guide that I know Konig and a few others have posted a few times that talks about him holding a somewhat fair and possibly even handsome appearance. That being said, a lot of murals and images of him (some merely concept art) show him in a more demonic, mutated form. Now honestly, we do not know what exactly he looks like during the final fight against the gods, but I would guess his form may have changed, though not because of where he got his powers from, but instead what his personality is reflecting. It makes me think back to Lord of the Rings and Melkor/Morgoth and Sauron. These two originally had beautiful and fair forms, but eventually they grew so cruel and evil that they could no longer hold their forms in that state, and instead they reflected the personality within.
Yeah, talking about god forms, I saw Abaddon’s form change to be somewhat of a reflection of his personality. I mean the first description we have of him comes from a GW1 guide that I know Konig and a few others have posted a few times that talks about him holding a somewhat fair and possibly even handsome appearance. That being said, a lot of murals and images of him (some merely concept art) show him in a more demonic, mutated form. Now honestly, we do not know what exactly he looks like during the final fight against the gods, but I would guess his form may have changed, though not because of where he got his powers from, but instead what his personality is reflecting. It makes me think back to Lord of the Rings and Melkor/Morgoth and Sauron. These two originally had beautiful and fair forms, but eventually they grew so cruel and evil that they could no longer hold their forms in that state, and instead they reflected the personality within.
Heh … the only way to find out how he looked in the final fight would be if Evon wins.
Now for the bit about Abaddon being evil. Was he really evil? I haven’t really delved all that deeply into the lore but my generally impression was that he was a bit like Prometheus in Greek mythology.
The fact is, we don’t know. Next to nothing is known of his motivations. What little we do know has the feel of propaganda, history written from the perspective of those who glorified the other five. Supposedly, there’s a translated bit of… Taiwanese, maybe, material floating around that I’ve heard sheds further light on the issue, but I’ve never seen it myself, and I’m not sure something released only to a certain region can be considered canon, and not the localization team taking artistic license.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Yeah, talking about god forms, I saw Abaddon’s form change to be somewhat of a reflection of his personality. I mean the first description we have of him comes from a GW1 guide that I know Konig and a few others have posted a few times that talks about him holding a somewhat fair and possibly even handsome appearance. That being said, a lot of murals and images of him (some merely concept art) show him in a more demonic, mutated form. Now honestly, we do not know what exactly he looks like during the final fight against the gods, but I would guess his form may have changed, though not because of where he got his powers from, but instead what his personality is reflecting. It makes me think back to Lord of the Rings and Melkor/Morgoth and Sauron. These two originally had beautiful and fair forms, but eventually they grew so cruel and evil that they could no longer hold their forms in that state, and instead they reflected the personality within.
Your theory make sense since most of the Gods now similarly resemble a bit like humans, whereas Abaddon who seem corrupted got his image alter to more like Arachnia.
Yeah, talking about god forms, I saw Abaddon’s form change to be somewhat of a reflection of his personality. I mean the first description we have of him comes from a GW1 guide that I know Konig and a few others have posted a few times that talks about him holding a somewhat fair and possibly even handsome appearance. That being said, a lot of murals and images of him (some merely concept art) show him in a more demonic, mutated form. Now honestly, we do not know what exactly he looks like during the final fight against the gods, but I would guess his form may have changed, though not because of where he got his powers from, but instead what his personality is reflecting. It makes me think back to Lord of the Rings and Melkor/Morgoth and Sauron. These two originally had beautiful and fair forms, but eventually they grew so cruel and evil that they could no longer hold their forms in that state, and instead they reflected the personality within.
Your theory make sense since most of the Gods now similarly resemble a bit like humans, whereas Abaddon who seem corrupted got his image alter to more like Arachnia.
Take notice that the shape of the other gods that we see in statues and murals and such is all based on statues made by one man, Malchor, who took just a glimpse at each god to avoid being blinded, save for the statue of Dwayna, which he took his time to make. It would stand to reason that he filled in for what he couldn’t remember from the short glimpse at the gods with human features.
