Guild Wars 2

I always believed Hrangmer (Jaws of Oblivion) and Citadel of Flame were the same place, for obvious reasons:

-Flame Legion capital
-Volcano in northeastern Ascalon

But I’m surprised to find zero references to the old name in-game. Did they just forget, or they are two different places? Any ideas?

No they are not the same. Hrangmer isn’t on the map so the exact location is unknown. But the citadel of flames, being on the map means this is a different place.

Keep in mind that the charr homeland is a lot bigger and that after the events of GW1 the flame legion got pushed to be an outcast legion compared to the others. Given the fact that the ash legion currently holds the most lands that where once flame legion, I guess it is somewhere in the ash legion’s lands

It could be the same place, but it’s not really certain. Both are (in) a volcanic mountain (ergo, volcano), and both are/have a citadel within/built into said volcano. But we don’t know where the Plains of Golghein are and Hrangmer is northeast of those plains which in turn should be northeast of Rin. Given that Fireheart Rise is north of Rin, not northeast, Hrangmer may be east of the Citadel of Flame.

@Mercury: I would like your sources for the following claims:
1) That Hrangmer isn’t on the map.
2) That Ash Legion took Flame Legion lands.

Because we were never told the exact location of Hrangmer, so how can you be so certain that it shouldn’t be on the map? And furthermore, we don’t know what was officially “Flame Legion lands” nor do we know where Ash Legion lands are. Iron Legion took over Ascalon, and Blood Legion holds lands to the north (formerly “Charr Homelands” in GW1) and to the east of the Blazeridge Mountains.

We were however told that the Flame Legion fled to Hrangmer’s citadel after their loss in the Plains of Golghein, and we were similarly told they then retreated into the Blazeridge Mountains when they lost power – the two can be in the same location. So it’s likely that Hrangmer is along the border of the Blazeridge, which would imply east of the Flame Citadel, but it’s not entirely certain where the Blazeridge Mountains’ edges are either (and seeing how they seem to make an effective backwards C shape…).

Personally, I’m inclined to think Hrangmer isn’t the Citadel of Flame. Partially it’s because of that ‘northeast’ line – while we don’t know where the Plains of Golghein actually are, as far as I know they’re not anywhere on the playable map, which means either they’re in the southwestern region of Ascalon that we haven’t been to in GW2 yet (which is still largely due south of the Citadel of Flame, and it would be strange for the big decisive battle of the charr civil war to be in a far corner of their territory) or further north, outside of the currently available areas. Secondly, the CoF is in a region that was Ascalonian before the Searing, and thus not necessarily accessible to the Flame Legion before that event – it’s more likely that the (former?) Flame Legion capital would be further north.

Drax, I believe we were told the Plains of Golghein are northwest of Rin. It’s at the very least definitely on the northern side of it (regardless of how east or west one must go first).

Northwest of Rin takes you directly into the Shiverpeaks, and then into the Verdant Cascades. I don’t think there’s anything in that direction that could be where the decisive battle of the charr civil war was fought.

If it’s north or north-north-east, then the Plains would have to be in Diessa or Fireheart for the CoF to be Hrangmer, and I’d assume that there would be some sort of marker for the location.

I would expect such too. However, how many volcanic citadels would one expect the Flame Legion to have? With the almost complete (if not complete) lack of Flame Legion on the east side of the Dragonbrand I’m inclined to say that Hrangmer is west of it (I would doubt they’d want to cross the Dragonbrand should Hrangmer remain their main fortress which one would suspect to be so given its historical significance).

The only reason why the Citadel of Flame wouldn’t be Hrangmer would be, besides the lack of denoting where the Plains of Golghein are, that its so far south – though this can be countered by the fact we don’t know how far north Ascalon went in ~870 AE. 200 years is more than enough time for humanity to push the charr far enough north to have an estate a few miles north of the Citadel of Flame (their reach didn’t go that much further north of it, iirc, based on The Flight North from GW1).

Well, something I think it’s clear is that Citadel of Flame is at the border of Ascalon, because Charr Homelands are directly north of it.

The only remaining place for it would be east of Iron Marches and north of Blazeridge Steppes, the hypothetical zone where Surmia and Drasciir would be located.

Well, from Guild Wars we know that it is not located in Surmia and Drasciir. We can visit both of these locations, I also find it hard to believe that the Flame Legion would have a citadel so close to the human capital, before the charr invaded. The humans would do everything in their power to keep this from happening. I do wonder, personally, about the extreme lack of any evidence, in the area, of any volcanoes at all.

We’ll probably get more information once the Blood Legion Homelands open up for exploration. I always assumed Hrangmer and the Flame Citadel were one and the same because of what some above have said. Flame Legion has been so decimated that they can’t have much territory—how many volcano-citadels could they possibly have? Not many, I’d think. Also because there don’t seem to be many volcanoes in the region, from a geographical standpoint.
However, there are many holes in information. Like where the Plains of Golghein are (not shown), and the “north-east” specification. So yeah, I’d wait until Blood Legion Homelands open before making any more guesses.

Regarding the question of how many volcano-citadels could the Flame Legion have?

Potentially, quite a few. The Flame Legion seem to have found a lot of volcanikittentle outposts around Ascalon… despite a complete lack of volcanic activity in the region beforehand. We can’t access the location of the Flame Citadel in GW1, but most of those ‘castrums’ dotting Ascalon we can… and nothing in GW1 indicated that Ascalon was a volcanic region with lots of little mini-volcanoes.

Personally, I’d say that the Flame Legion have discovered ways to generate small volcanoes pretty much wherever they hang out for extended periods of time. Thus, it’s entirely possible that the volcanism of the Flame Citadel was artificially created rather than being a natural volcano, and that the actual Hrangmer volcano is elsewhere.

As for why the Flame Citadel is now apparently their capital… they may have been forced out of Hrangmer. Or it may be that they found something in the new Flame Citadel that they didn’t have at Hrangmer.

I think those “volcanic outposts” around Ascalon are made “volcanic” by the Flame Legions’ magic, rather than being naturally formed. A scorching there, a burning here, and any run of the mill elementalist can duplicate many of those castrums.

Considering the Flame Citadel’s interior – there’s a “Mausoleum of the Khan-Ur” – this gives me indication that the place has been around for a while, as the name implies it holds bodies of past attempted Khan-Ur – something that Gaheron hasn’t been able to do, so despite that being where he’s trying to be resurrected, I doubt its named after his death.