Guild Wars 2

Hello my fellow Explorers,

You must know, I’m the kind of person, that immediatly tries to find out what happens if he gets to a place where something has been destroyed or something big happend. Like for example Fallout 3, I talked to every NPC to find out more about the actual war.

But this is about Gw2 and Arah and Orr. Since I’m doing Explorer Mode runs at the moment, I always take the time, if there aren’t any lethal risen around who want to drink my blood, to look around, up in the sky. And there is so much to see, big ruins of old Ring-like pillars high up in the sky, all the ruins, and the search for knowledge about what exactly happend, how did it looked like before the cataclysm, how where the people there and all that stuff drives me crazy because I can’t find anything.

I’ve searched the internet like an priory explorator an ancient tomb, going berserk on my keyboard to find out more, but nothing, nothing that satisfies my hunger. Probably there isn’t much information yet, what makes me really sad, but then atleast I want to discuss with people who might know something little, a little piece of bread for a starving man, imprisoned in his own misery of a desperate search for knowledge.

To get it started, I have a few questions that you either can answer or discuss about the answer:

Is there any source of knowledge about how Arah and Orr looked before the cataclysm?
Is there hope for Orr to be freed from the dragons minions (As we have done, but of course the monsters in the regions remain) and fully explored in the future?
Do you think we may be able to explore all of Orr one day? As there are only the Northern parts of the Island are exploreable.
If the gods would return, do you think Orr would look like it once did?
Will we be able to learn more about the fallen and forgotten races, the jotun, mursaat, the forgotten and the seers?

Greetings from a Knowledge seeker driving insane!

Yeah, the lack of lore on Orr is a bit disappointing, but there’s also still quite a lot if you pay attention… just not to much on the PoIs and the like.

There have been past threads asking about the pre-Cataclysm look of Orr. We have only a handful of concept art, including the Explorable Mode loading screen for Arah (which is also featured in the story mode cinematic).

For the current zones? Unlikely. It could be done, but then new players would have a really messed up personal story where they go into instances and you got risen everywhere but once outside, no risen and no corruption? Doesn’t really work out. However, there’s room for three new zones (one between Arah and Malchor’s Leap/Straits of Devastation – thin and long like Lornar’s Pass is; one on the south end of Orr; and one on the east end of Orr) which could be made to show this.

Peninsula* not island (though it’s called an island, it is only in the means that you have very shallow water surrounding a very thin strand of land). As to if the new areas will be made explorable – depends on why it would be. Without a plot relevant, no. But with one, yes. Best bet is for going to Elona.

No, you’d still have years and years of construction to fix all those wrecked structures. I guess the gods could possibly snap their fingers a few times and its done, but I don’t think any are a “god of construction” (as their power seems to focus only in their domain, and not being all powerful in all regards). Besides, first you’d have to get the gods to return, and it doesn’t seem like they will, imo.

More than likely.

Justdeifyme.9387:

what exactly happend

I think I can answer this one specifically.

From my knowledge, the Charr army went for an invasion of Orr, and in the fear of them conquering it, the Grand Vizier Khilbron sunk the entire thing into the sea, killing both the Charr army and all the people on it. Then, later, Zhaitan awoke and lifted it above again, and that’s why you have all the corals and sea life around the land.

If you want the full details on The Cataclysm, there’s a WHOLE lot more than that on just the years prior to and of The Cataclysm, which you can garner from the History of Tyria (from the Prophecies manual), and the Orrian History Scrolls (from Shelter Docks, GW2).

Basically, during the Third Guild War, King Reza sent out most/all of the Orrian military to quell the conflicts – but this only escalated the death toll during the war. When the charr invaded and all three nations pulled back, Orrians felt they were going to be fine because they had enough time to prepare. However, for still unknown reasons, the charr were easily able to break through the Orrian defenses (I suspect that it was a combination of the soldiers not making it back in time and the Orrians over-estimating the threat – after all, their navy seems to have been never mobilized for the threat).

The charr came with at least three Searing Cauldrons, intending to set off the Searing in Orr (presumably from Arah as that was their destination by all appearances). Their direction of invasion was the same as the Pact’s – they invaded via the same islands, through Malchor’s Leap, and into Cursed Shore. When they reached Cursed Shore is when the Cataclysm occurred, no charr making it within Arah.

During the invasion, Khilbron announced he had a plan to push the charr back and stole the Lost Scrolls from Arah’s catacombs before returning to his tower (which is where the Searing Cauldrons can be found scattered around). How he got back to his tower is not explicitly stated, but given how he teleports in GW1, that probably has to do with it. And he set off the Cataclysm from said tower in the now Straits of Devastation.

Wait, I can find remains of the Searing Cauldrons from a war that happend over 200 years ago? I have to investigate!

Yeah, there are three in Straits of Devastation around the island The Vizier’s Tower is on and around the Broken Spit. There’s one right next to the Broken Spit Waypoint.

I actually would like to see Orr restored at some point, maybe get some more sense of what that civilization used to be like – not sure it’ll happen though.

Once the undead are gone it’ll be great for the archaeologists, I can say that much.

There’s also a searing cauldron in Fireheart Rise, I believe, and some Flame Legion shamans try to set off another cataclysm, but there’s only enough magic left in it to take down a small town nearby.

Iron Marches – it’s the one used to cause the actual Searing; well, one of them.

Dang it, I knew I was forgetting the zone name. Close enough :P