Guild Wars 2

Both were living creatures whose mind was corrupted by the dragon, body covered with ice/crystal. Just Kralkatorrik could even corrupt sparks.

Jormag could have been cooler if it only corrupt those who accepted its offer of power, willingly turned into its minion. Icebrood is too generic, especially in GW’s setting.

I don’t think they’re too similar- or more to the point, that they’ll turn out to be too similar. It’s just a matter of being the two dragon minion factions who have yet to have a plot dedicated to them, and so being largely undeveloped beyond “these are minions of a dragon” and surface level aesthetics. There are all sorts of small hooks and quirks that can only be heard about from one or two places in the game, and I expect at least some of those will be expanded upon, or other new information will be introduced, when the spotlight passes to them.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I don’t think they’re too similar- or more to the point, that they’ll turn out to be too similar. It’s just a matter of being the two dragon minion factions who have yet to have a plot dedicated to them, and so being largely undeveloped beyond “these are minions of a dragon” and surface level aesthetics. There are all sorts of small hooks and quirks that can only be heard about from one or two places in the game, and I expect at least some of those will be expanded upon, or other new information will be introduced, when the spotlight passes to them.

There are a lot of plot about the Icebrood already.

But it’s all been secondary, and never directly about them anyway. The closest we’ve had is EoD, where an icebrood lieutenant is the goal of the first 2/3 of the book, but they only appear in a handful of chapters, and we aren’t given much information on anything besides said lieutenant. In-game? We fight them when dealing with the Sons of Svanir, we fight them when dealing with the dredge, we fight them when traveling through the overworld, we fight them when saving the grawl, the quaggan, and the kodan- but at no point has it actually been about them, and it’s tied up in the racial personal story or dungeon or hearts, all the realm of side story, to boot.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

But it’s all been secondary, and never directly about them anyway. The closest we’ve had is EoD, where an icebrood lieutenant is the goal of the first 2/3 of the book, but they only appear in a handful of chapters, and we aren’t given much information on anything besides said lieutenant. In-game? We fight them when dealing with the Sons of Svanir, we fight them when dealing with the dredge, we fight them when traveling through the overworld, we fight them when saving the grawl, the quaggan, and the kodan- but at no point has it actually been about them, and it’s tied up in the racial personal story or dungeon or hearts, all the realm of side story, to boot.

Not just EoD, these pretty much let us know how were they turned and how do they operate. Let me ask, what else do you want to know?

Branded don’t have crystals growing on them. Rather, their insides become crystalline – beneath their skin – instantly upon corruption. Icebrood on the other hand have their skin, then muscle, slowly turn to ice.

Furthermore, not all branded were living beings (note: Shatterer).

Their behavior and appearance also differs fairly greatly (sans Branded Ogers/Icebrood Goliath, but that’s because they’re reskins of each other).

@Aaron: If you play a norn, who joins the Priory, and has quaggan or grawl as sympathetic race (not sure if quaggan is an option but I know grawl is), then the personal story is about Sons of Svanir/icebrood either directly or indirectly from start until Claw Island. Especially if you don’t take the “blacked out” storyline.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Branded don’t have crystals growing on them. Rather, their insides become crystalline – beneath their skin – instantly upon corruption. Icebrood on the other hand have their skin, then muscle, slowly turn to ice.

Furthermore, not all branded were living beings (note: Shatterer).

Their behavior and appearance also differs fairly greatly (sans Branded Ogers/Icebrood Goliath, but that’s because they’re reskins of each other).

@Aaron: If you play a norn, who joins the Priory, and has quaggan or grawl as sympathetic race (not sure if quaggan is an option but I know grawl is), then the personal story is about Sons of Svanir/icebrood either directly or indirectly from start until Claw Island. Especially if you don’t take the “blacked out” storyline.

That’s just minor difference of their appearance, but they were not much different other than that. Both were living things, corrupted by the dragon on both the mind and the body.

Not all Icebrood were living being as well. There were Icebrood elementals and corrupted Ice as well.

By that very general definition, you need to include risen in there. Then you have to say that mordrem, destroyers, and the as-of-yet-unseen DSD minions are too similar.

That’s indirectly my point, Konig. Yes, if you take the trouble, you can line it up so you get icebrood in the story- and just as easily, my first, and second, character never went near them as part of their stories. Everything we’ve had with them so far has been considered optional stuff, things you can miss without hurting the main story, or at best things you can work through to get to what the narrative treats as important. At no point is fleshing them out a priority- consider how many icebrood talk to us, compared to how many risen. Arguably, feel free to deduct the ones in HotW, on account of seriously subpar dungeon story. What does killing Pet Svanir Wolf #557 tell us about the icebrood? How does wading through them in the dredge holes flesh them out beyond “living creatures whose mind was corrupted by the dragon, body covered with ice”? My argument is not that they have no presence- it’s that their presence is treated as incidental.

That… was a lot rantier than the point required. Tad confrontational too. My apologies, I find expounding addictive this late at night.

@slowpoke we learned how a relatively small subset are turned and operated. Remember, what we’ve seen so far is just the fringe of Jormag’s activity. We hardly know anything about the icebrood beyond the Sons of Svanir, let alone Jormag. As for want, I’m going to take the boring out and admit I don’t really care; my point was observing that the reason the differences between the two factions seems surface deep is that that’s how far the story’s gotten into them.

@Slowpokeking What exactly is the problem? It sounds like you are complaining that they are similar when, really, it makes sense that they’d be similar. What exactly is your complaint about: the lore or the art?

Koviko.3248:

@Slowpokeking What exactly is the problem? It sounds like you are complaining that they are similar when, really, it makes sense that they’d be similar. What exactly is your complaint about: the lore or the art?

I hope to see more difference.

Jormag is quite cool when it offers people power and sway them to his side, this makes it unique and manipulative, but the ability to direct corrupt the mind against others’ will is very dull.

Maybe a little. Something to note…

Icebrood are more of a psychological corruption BEFORE the physical. Via lust for power for example.
Branded were transformed near instantly and seemingly lose their rational thought as well upon corruption.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

That’s indirectly my point, Konig. Yes, if you take the trouble, you can line it up so you get icebrood in the story- and just as easily, my first, and second, character never went near them as part of their stories. Everything we’ve had with them so far has been considered optional stuff, things you can miss without hurting the main story, or at best things you can work through to get to what the narrative treats as important.

Every norn has to deal with them, however.

Which was my point. Yeah, you can ignore them if you play charr, human, etc. but you can avoid bandits in the same fashion; you can avoid Flame Legion in the same fashion; etc. etc.

Yet those forces have been a story focus. Just not the story focus (which has been Zhaitan, Scarlet, and Mordremoth in order).