Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,

So with Zhaitan being dead in the Living Story and with so much changing in game I always wondered what would be a valid excuse to keep the Risen lore wise. The only other way to bring back the dead is via necromancy so I figured what if Zhaitain had a group of living necromancers? The concept is similar to the Sons of Svanir but the differences are that this cult comprises of multiple species and that they’re much more extreme in practicing their faith. Now that their master is dead, the cult is doing everything to keep Zhaitan’s memory and legacy alive by creating more Risen and finding a way to revive him. That’s all I have for now so feel free to leave any comments, criticism, or contributions that you see fit.

I don’t recall ever seeing living servants of Zhaitan.

Lostwingman.5034:

I don’t recall ever seeing living servants of Zhaitan.

There is Necromancer Rissa in the Charr storyline.

This is an MMO. Players need to to accept that if they want to play together then they might be on different story timelines. Excuses are not needed. At the moment we have Zaitan’s corruption in Orr and it doesn’t matter if a player is still on the personal story or seeing the aftermath of the personal story. It doesn’t break immersion any more than the same Quaggans getting kidnapped every five minutes in Queensdale.

Rissa is actually a risen, I believe, in the same manner as Kellach – never dead, but twisted by the corruptive magic.

Risen and undead are not the same. And the risen don’t just drop dead because of Zhaitan’s death – they roam, they spread corruption still, and they can even grow stronger (Tequatl Rising). There’s apparently a plot to be had behind Tequatl Rising but we never got an inkling of what said plot is, sadly. We may never get it, in the end, since it seems that it was just an door opening release so that ArenaNet can get back to it when they’re ready (which in lore terms may end up being 10 years after the PS given the rate of the LW and their silly calendar syncing).

Lostwingman.5034:

I don’t recall ever seeing living servants of Zhaitan.

My toons volunteer as tributes

Anyway, we can have a group of superstitious seafaring folks, who worship Zhaitan and make offerings (hmmmm… quaggan firstborns?) for safe passage when they are sailing around Orrian waters. My 2 coppers

loneknight.8425:

Anyway, we can have a group of superstitious seafaring folks, who worship Zhaitan and make offerings (hmmmm… quaggan firstborns?) for safe passage when they are sailing around Orrian waters. My 2 coppers

Well if Glint (a former champion) can have a cult why not a ED.

An ED does have a cult: Sons of Svanir.

One can argue that the Stone Summit were a cult for the Great Destroyer too.

Which just goes to show that the idea’s been done. But unlike the Sons of Svanir, it’s kind of hard to picture a cult focused around immortality through undeath (the biggest shared theme of risen). Especially with the Elder Dragon dead now.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Which just goes to show that the idea’s been done. But unlike the Sons of Svanir, it’s kind of hard to picture a cult focused around immortality through undeath (the biggest shared theme of risen). Especially with the Elder Dragon dead now.

We can borrow the cult mentality from Flame Legion, who believes their ‘God’ Gaheron Baelfire can be resurrected, or depending on how the current cult leader spins it, that ED is just taking a nap before making a big comeback.

lol, this whole undead god cult thing sounds like something from Lovecraftian universe

The difference is a pre-existing fanaticism with godhood that has developed over 500 years, and Gaheron’s soul actually interacted with his shamans post-mortem.

But you just go to prove that the ploy’s been done already. Let’s have something more original, shall we?

Ok, so the main point is to have an original plot device to keep risen lore relevant to current LS, or to justify that it is possible to have Zhaitan’s minions still going strong despite their master went down in blaze of gory (no typo)?

Wasn’t it explained that the Risen are still around because all of Zhaitains control and power over them was passed on to his ‘next-of-kin", a.k.a. the OTHER Undead Dragons like Tequatl(who was already the strongest of them, so got a massive powerboost by Zhaitan’s demise).
I’ve always viewed the Elder Dragon’s strongest lieutenants, the other dragons, as being like his children or kin in some way, instead of just another minion type. They control portions of the armies of the EDs in a more or less autonomous way(e.g. Shatterer and The Brand) and feed off magic in a similar manner as their ‘father’, just in a lesser amount. So if daddy dies, they would have to spread control among the remaining dragons, thus they all get stronger. (possibly, if given enough time, the strongest of the bunch could even attain the powers of the original Elder Dragon and thus repairing the power vacuum and balance of the Tyrian Universe)

No, such explanation was never given. All we have is really “the risen remain a threat, they did not fall when Zhaitan fell”. Which is highly open to interpretation.

Tequatl was never said to be the strongest of Zhaitan’s champions. Not prior to Tequatl Rising, at least (and even then, is not said to be such).

Dragon champions – not just the dragon shaped ones at that – do have control over their respective dragon minion armies, but this is a matter of being smarter and more powerful, rather than being “next of kin” or the like. It is why the term “dragon champion” and “dragon lieutenant” are synonymous. All dragon minions feed off of magic (and give it to their Elder Dragon, it is implied).

The last bit – that the remaining dragons/champions would, if given time, become Elder Dragon-like – is one of the theories revolving around the still unexplained powerboost that Tequatl got.

Have thought of the option that corruption just is a “permanent” thing?

I mean, if we’d kill Kralkatorrik, would the Brand and the Branded just vanish or die? Do they have some kind of “hivemind” that prevents them from doing anything if the boss dies?

Especially in the case of the risen I think they’d just go on to be mindless undead creatures – Champions already were largely autonomous I think, so the could just go on to command their armies of lesser corrupted.

And since EDs were descripbed as, I think, more like predatory animals than seintient beings, there wouldn’t be any reliance on a “guidance” from the ED, since it would not do much anyway…

They do have a hivemind or sorts, as we can find out via Edge of Destiny and related interviews, but the minions aren’t commanded (always/solely) by the Elder Dragon – the mindless ones within the hivemind (the grunts, typical minions) are commanded by the more intellectual and powerful ones (or “bullied by” as Jeff and/or Ree once put it) such as champions.

What we see in Arah explorable is likely to be the case elsewhere: they remain fanatic to their Elder Dragon, they remain active, and champions control the lesser minions nearby still. In short, the risen in Arah act like Zhaitan never died.

We do see Kralkatorrik taking direct command of his minions in Edge of Destiny, so I think that description of “predatory animals” is not exempting them being sentient beings (we actually have no comment anywhere of them being said to not be such, and per Bobby Stein/Angel McCoy’s owns words, comments in interviews/posts are superseded by in-game/in-book evidence, which offers support to the Elder Dragons indeed being sentient and sapient).

How I choose to make sense of the whole corruption thing it is caused by what is currently being called ‘dragon energy’ (or ‘chaos energy’ according to inquest), not by the will of ED itself. Therefore, even ED is gone, the corruption still takes place as long as this energy is present.

According to Professor Gorr storyline in PS, the amount of dragon energy imbued in a minion is proportional to the amount of its power and intelligence. So I assume that it’s the energy that forms the will of the minions and guide them, so ED needs not to be physically involved in command and control.

Chaos energy and dragon energy are two different things. It’s just that the Inquest at one point mistook dragon energy as chaos energy due to similar properties (but then knowingly worked with both at once).

Just a little clarification.

AsmrtOtaku.5084:

Hi everyone,

So with Zhaitan being dead in the Living Story and with so much changing in game I always wondered what would be a valid excuse to keep the Risen lore wise. The only other way to bring back the dead is via necromancy so I figured what if Zhaitain had a group of living necromancers? The concept is similar to the Sons of Svanir but the differences are that this cult comprises of multiple species and that they’re much more extreme in practicing their faith. Now that their master is dead, the cult is doing everything to keep Zhaitan’s memory and legacy alive by creating more Risen and finding a way to revive him. That’s all I have for now so feel free to leave any comments, criticism, or contributions that you see fit.

I got great news for you: The Cult of Zhaitan is FAN-CREATED LORE from the Tarnished Coast server. It’s been in existence for the past year. It’s not part of official lore… yet. (One can hope!) It is definitely part of my main character’s history (http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/home/m/2737230/viewthread/14016844-tc-lapis-n-lazuli-wip).

The Cult of Zhaitan was created by members of the guild, Apocalyptic Armageddon [AARM], as a guild Teamspeak 3 joke. I loved the guild joke so much that I turned it into a real random RP event on the TC server. Eventually, the idea found its way into my main character’s storyline.

Here is what I wrote on my Enjin page (http://www.enjin.com/profile/8202671):

*" “The Cult of Zhaitan” was an [AARM] guild TS3 joke that eventually became part of Lapis N Lazuli’s Orr campaign history. Whenever someone logged on to TS3 chat, people who were part of the cult asked, “Excuse me, sir (or ma’am). Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Zhaitan?”

“People who joined the cult had their Ts3 chat names end in “of Zhaitan”. Their TS3 avatar would be a picture of a baby Mouth of Zhaitan with a RL celebrity’s face on its stomach. The celeb’s face has to have an open mouth.

“This inspired a real random RP event in which members of the cult had to convert other players to Zhaitan in-game (including the devs).”

Over the past year, myself and other light RP guildies would RP the cult by going to random areas on the map trying to covert people (NPCs, PCs, and devs) to Zhaitan’s cause. Some times RPers ignored us. Other time, folks joined in on the joke.

I’m no longer an officer of AARM, and other players who were part of the event are off doing their own things. I haven’t done RP stuff related to this event in the last few months.

Feel free to create your own spin on this fan-created lore. It’s possible that a group of necromancers could be so fascinated by Zhaitan that they’ll try to keep the memory of the Undead Dragon alive. If you use this idea, be sure to credit me!

kta.6502:

*" “The Cult of Zhaitan” was an [AARM] guild TS3 joke that eventually became part of Lapis N Lazuli’s Orr campaign history. Whenever someone logged on to TS3 chat, people who were part of the cult asked, “Excuse me, sir (or ma’am). Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Savior, Zhaitan?”

“People who joined the cult had their Ts3 chat names end in “of Zhaitan”. Their TS3 avatar would be a picture of a baby Mouth of Zhaitan with a RL celebrity’s face on its stomach. The celeb’s face has to have an open mouth.

“This inspired a real random RP event in which members of the cult had to convert other players to Zhaitan in-game (including the devs).”

I LOL’d hard at this. Care to share the background story of this cult RP? Any contribution from devs to the fan lore?

Please tell me someone used Nicholas Cage.