So this has bugged me since the game’s release, but it feels like there’s two attributed dates for the previous dragonrise (the term ‘dragonrise’ comes from the chapter title of EoD’s chapter that featured Kralkatorrik rising).
On one hand, you have a Priory theory continuously stated for 10,000 BE as the previous dragonrise approximate date, with a tying in with the Giganticus Lupicus’ extinction. You have Varra Skylark’s gathered information from Arah explorable pointing to roughly that time (+/- 1,000 years), and there were a few pre-release lore interviews hinting at stuff (including mention of the Giganticus Lupicus being wiped out during the previous dragonrise).
But on the other hand you have:
Which all points to the previous dragonrise being +/-2,000 BE.
So there’s a conflict here. One of the two are wrong, but we can’t tell which – there’s too little information.
If the first is correct, which given this included interviews with Ree Soesbee is probable unless this is like her statements of the Secondborn’s age being retconned, then it means that the Prophecies manual timeline is false (no big surprise), Sieran for some oddity said “over 2,000 years old” rather than “over 10,000 years old” (or dwarven civilization died and was reborn), and Glint lost +/- 8,000 years of memory.
Alternatively, if the latter is correct, then Priory theory is false (no big surprise), Ree Soesbee’s interviews got retconned (again), and Varra Skylark’s entire revelation about stars relating indirectly to Elder Dragon rising is 100% complete bull.
I unfortunately don’t have any true conclusions to add, as this matter is at a standstill. So I’m putting a request for ArenaNet: can you tell us which is the case?
Important Sources
With Sieran she could quite possibility be talking about the Delrimor civilisation, rather than a ‘dwarven civilisation’ as a whole. It’s sort of an odd way to think about it, but it could explain it (or at least be used to patch over the screw up).
With the Forgotten is it possible that after the last dragonrise they found some way of going into the mists and decided to leave Tyria since they knew the dragons would wake again? Or possibly went to where the Six were in the mists and then after the Six came to Tyria were brought back to be protectors of humanity? They do by all appearances seem to have once again left Tyria evading the current dragonrise (presumably they all went into the realm of torment to redeem it with Kormir?).
I’m at a loss for how you would explain Eir’s comment away.
1769 BE – The Forgotten arrive in Tyria.
1320 AE – Edge of Destiny takes place. Kralkatorrik, the Elder Crystal Dragon awakens.
3089 years since the arrival of the forgotten until the death of Glint. That would explain Eir’s statement on Glint having three thousand years of memories, she doesn’t take into account the time Glint was under Kralkatorrik’s command.
What about the possibility of two previous dragonrises?
A possible explanation for Varra’s dialogue:
- This is an amazing discovery! The jotun’s sky-sweeper shows a stellar match with the last time the dragons awoke.
What does this prove?
- It shows that the awakening of the dragons is a natural and cyclical thing. The stars only indicate the passing ages. They do not determine events here.
When did it last happen?
- Around ten thousand years ago. You know what this means? The Elder Dragons may have been responsible for the extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus!
Maybe Jotun’s sky-sweeper doesn’t meassure time in years but in seasons. So if a year has four seassons that means the last awakening would have been 2500 years ago. That is closer to other theories, but would have been a weird mistake by Varra.
Hopefully someone answers you.
By the way, do we know the date of the six god’s arrival to Tyria? Where they in Tyria during the last dragonrise?
With the Forgotten is it possible that after the last dragonrise they found some way of going into the mists and decided to leave Tyria since they knew the dragons would wake again? Or possibly went to where the Six were in the mists and then after the Six came to Tyria were brought back to be protectors of humanity? They do by all appearances seem to have once again left Tyria evading the current dragonrise (presumably they all went into the realm of torment to redeem it with Kormir?).
So you’re arguing that the Forgotten came from the Mists, left for the Mists, came from the Mists, and once more left for the Mists? That doesn’t make much sense.
As for those in the Realm of Torment – they’ve been there since the Exodus, so there were two “colonies” of Forgotten (at least) in GW1’s time: one in the Crystal Desert, and one in the Realm of Torment, acting as protectors of Ascension/Glint and wardens for Abaddon respectively.
1769 BE – The Forgotten arrive in Tyria.
1320 AE – Edge of Destiny takes place. Kralkatorrik, the Elder Crystal Dragon awakens.3089 years since the arrival of the forgotten until the death of Glint. That would explain Eir’s statement on Glint having three thousand years of memories, she doesn’t take into account the time Glint was under Kralkatorrik’s command.
Glint was freed during the previous dragonrise – hence the fact that Glint hid the surviving races from the Elder Dragons. Your basically saying “Glint was freed during the dragonrise which took place about 3,000 years ago” and does nothing but say “the second scenario is the case”.
What about the possibility of two previous dragonrises?
Well it’s established that the Elder Dragon rose many times. This thread is about the previous dragonrise. As in, the latest one to happen prior to the current.
A possible explanation for Varra’s dialogue:
- This is an amazing discovery! The jotun’s sky-sweeper shows a stellar match with the last time the dragons awoke.
What does this prove?
- It shows that the awakening of the dragons is a natural and cyclical thing. The stars only indicate the passing ages. They do not determine events here.
When did it last happen?
- Around ten thousand years ago. You know what this means? The Elder Dragons may have been responsible for the extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus!Maybe Jotun’s sky-sweeper doesn’t meassure time in years but in seasons. So if a year has four seassons that means the last awakening would have been 2500 years ago. That is closer to other theories, but would have been a weird mistake by Varra.
Hopefully someone answers you.
By the way, do we know the date of the six god’s arrival to Tyria? Where they in Tyria during the last dragonrise?
Or the previous dragonrise wasn’t documented by the sky-weeper. Either way, Varra is incorrect, which makes that path weird: why have three correct revelations, and one wrong?
We do not know when the Six Gods arrived, but we do know they were not in Tyria at the time. It’s stated that the Tome of Rubicon, war between mursaat and seer (which is hinted by Randall to have been during the previous dragonrise), and the freeing of Glint to be pre-Six Gods’ arrival. Unless yet another interview by Ree Soesbee is wrong (for Tome of Rubicon/war between mursaat and seers) as well as Warden Illyra.
By the way, do we know the date of the six god’s arrival to Tyria? Where they in Tyria during the last dragonrise?
“At an unknown time after the writing of the Tome of Rubicon but prior to 786 BE, the Six Gods arrived on the world and brought the humans with them, but from where is not known.”
If the Forgotten arrive in 1769 BE and were supposed to have been placed on Tyria by the Gods then I’d think they may have even arrived prior to that date, rather than 786.
All indications suggest they weren’t here during the last dragonrise. If they were they would have been huge targets or alternatively you’d think they would have helped out.
With the Forgotten is it possible that after the last dragonrise they found some way of going into the mists and decided to leave Tyria since they knew the dragons would wake again? Or possibly went to where the Six were in the mists and then after the Six came to Tyria were brought back to be protectors of humanity? They do by all appearances seem to have once again left Tyria evading the current dragonrise (presumably they all went into the realm of torment to redeem it with Kormir?).
So you’re arguing that the Forgotten came from the Mists, left for the Mists, came from the Mists, and once more left for the Mists? That doesn’t make much sense.
As for those in the Realm of Torment – they’ve been there since the Exodus, so there were two “colonies” of Forgotten (at least) in GW1’s time: one in the Crystal Desert, and one in the Realm of Torment, acting as protectors of Ascension/Glint and wardens for Abaddon respectively.
Actually. I was suggesting they were native to Tyria but left for the Mists at some point after the previous dragonrise (possibly to wherever the Gods came from), and were then brought back to Tyria by the Gods to be humanities protectors (they would be a logical choice for the Gods since they would have been familiar with Tyria already). And then now have once again potentially left.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t make sense. If you survived a dragonrise but knew that at some point in the future the dragons would wake again and you had no easy way of stopping them, wouldn’t you want to leave?
If the Forgotten arrive in 1769 BE and were supposed to have been placed on Tyria by the Gods then I’d think they may have even arrived prior to that date, rather than 786.
All indications suggest they weren’t here during the last dragonrise. If they were they would have been huge targets or alternatively you’d think they would have helped out.
If the Forgotten did arrive in 1769 BE, then the dragonrise was not over (or begun?), so the line about the Six Gods bringing them would be false (or rather, maybe the Six sent rather than brought?).
Actually. I was suggesting they were native to Tyria but left for the Mists at some point after the previous dragonrise (possibly to wherever the Gods came from), and were then brought back to Tyria by the Gods to be humanities protectors (they would be a logical choice for the Gods since they would have been familiar with Tyria already). And then now have once again potentially left.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t make sense. If you survived a dragonrise but knew that at some point in the future the dragons would wake again and you had no easy way of stopping them, wouldn’t you want to leave?
This doesn’t work. We’ve been explicitly told – even recently reaffirmed in Hidden Arcana (see link “The Forgotten Not Forgotten”) that they are not native to Tyria (world). That is why it wouldn’t make sense. We know that their origins do not come from Tyria, and the one and only time that they arrived in Tyria (to our knowledge) is 1768 BE. Meaning that if they left and were brought back by the Six, their timeline would be “arrived, left, arrived, potentially left”.
As an aside, they were not human protectors, but world balancers. Quite a big difference, since they worked with all races (supposedly) to keep balance within the world (like actually effective kodan!).
There’s nothing anywhere that suggests that Giants were around for the last dragonrise, so Varra must be talking about an earlier one. Could just be badly written.
sigh Has no one read the links I posted?
From Arah:
Scholar Yissa: That’s the corpse of a Giganticus Lupicus!
Scholar Yissa: Their extinction matches the possible last time the Elder Dragons awoke.
From Varra Skylark:
→ When did it last happen?
Around ten thousand years ago. You know what this means? The Elder Dragons may have been responsible for the extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus!
Varra says ten thousand years ago for the last star birth – aka dragonrise per her statements. Yissa and Varra both state the Elder Dragons’ last awakening as the time of the G-Lupe’s extinction.
…
1769 BE – The Forgotten arrive in Tyria.
1320 AE – Edge of Destiny takes place. Kralkatorrik, the Elder Crystal Dragon awakens.3089 years since the arrival of the forgotten until the death of Glint. That would explain Eir’s statement on Glint having three thousand years of memories, she doesn’t take into account the time Glint was under Kralkatorrik’s command.
Glint was freed during the previous dragonrise – hence the fact that Glint hid the surviving races from the Elder Dragons. Your basically saying “Glint was freed during the dragonrise which took place about 3,000 years ago” and does nothing but say “the second scenario is the case”.
…
That’s true. Unless Glint didn’t hid the races from the Elder Dragons but from the remaining minions, which may be awake even if their master isn’t. In fact Kralkatorrik didn’t attack Glint just as she was freed. Either he didn’t realised back then or he was already sleeping.
But the second scenario (~2000BE as the last dragonrise) seems to be more likely, has less mistakes.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, but the only conclusion I’ve come to is that the Forgotten come from the Mists (true) but the date from Prophecies is wrong. We’re talking about a race called the Forgotten here after all, come on. :P
Warden Illyra tells us the Forgotten predate the earliest civilizations on Tyria.
So they must have been around before the Jotun and dwarves.
Though the 3000 years of memories statement about Glint can mean a lot of things and doesn’t necessarily have to mean that she only lived 3000 years.
Example:
Lets assume, last Dragonrise, 10,000 years ago
Unknown time from rise to Forgotten ritual: ?? years
Time between Forgotten ritual and Glint deciding to betray Kralkatorrik: A couple of hundreds of years according to Glint herself in EoD IIRC
Timespan Glint hid the races during the razing of the EDs: ??
We also don’t know when Kralkatorrik corrupted/created?? Glint either.
It’s possible Glint had to go to sleep herself for a couple of millenia, albeit not as long as the EDs.
I’m not certain enough to play with exact dates tho, so here’s my guesses on what this mess could mean. :P
Warden Illyra tells us the Forgotten predate the earliest civilizations on Tyria.
So they must have been around before the Jotun and dwarves.
2,000 years prior to 1325 AE would be before 674 BE (note: Year 0 exists so it’d be 674 at the 2,000 year mark, rather than 675). So per Sieran’s note on dwarven civilization… the Prophecies date works there – there’s an approximate 1,000 gap for there to be made.
Jotun is hard to explain though, since they have knowledge of multiple dragonrises, however something I forgot earlier was The Natural War which lists jotun and dwarves being as old as 10,000 BE. Now, this can be excused as the Priory assuming that since they place the last ED dragonrise at 10,000 BE, then the races that survived the last dragonrise was around then too. I’m not too sure on the credibility of The Natural War, given that it claims the G-Lupe were without weapons – possible, but the risen G-Lupe we see utilizes cybernetics and we were told in an interview that said G-Lupe was corrupted from a previous dragonrise.
Though the 3000 years of memories statement about Glint can mean a lot of things and doesn’t necessarily have to mean that she only lived 3000 years.
Example:
Lets assume, last Dragonrise, 10,000 years ago
Unknown time from rise to Forgotten ritual: ?? years
Time between Forgotten ritual and Glint deciding to betray Kralkatorrik: A couple of hundreds of years according to Glint herself in EoD IIRC
Timespan Glint hid the races during the razing of the EDs: ??We also don’t know when Kralkatorrik corrupted/created?? Glint either.
It’s possible Glint had to go to sleep herself for a couple of millenia, albeit not as long as the EDs.
I’m not certain enough to play with exact dates tho, so here’s my guesses on what this mess could mean. :P
Well about the hundreds of years for Glint to betray Kralkatorrik… she doesn’t mention that she was freed by the Forgotten, so since the ritual only gives free will, I’ve interpreted that as “Glint had free will, but did not betray right away”.
It’s overall rather confusing…
To offer up my two cents- I’ve always been pretty skeptical of this in the past. Sieran freely admitted to not paying attention to Ogden’s lectures the instance after, and was all around very amateurish in filling us in on the dwarves in the instance prior. That felt like unreliable narrator to me. The forgotten date came from sources we were basically asked to entirely rethink anyway, and doesn’t make a strong case by itself in any event. Eir’s line, though, felt much too blatant to dismiss. I suppose it could be argued she’s basing her supposition off inaccurate human legends, but this close to what’s shaping up to be a major reveal about Glint’s nature is a very bad time to be reminding us that we can’t trust what we hear, even if the revelation turns out to be only indirectly relevant.
I would like to put forward a third theory, admittedly pretty tenuous, but I feel no more so than those already being discussed- what if the previous dragon rise lasted 7,000 years or more? We’ve seen that Zhaitan was spreading pretty slowly, and I believe it’s also been confirmed that two centuries into this dragonrise magic is still at a higher level than it was fifty years beforehand. What if they take much, much longer than we’ve assumed to deplete the world’s magic? Do we know of anything that might support or torpedo that hypothesis?
I would like to put forward a third theory, admittedly pretty tenuous, but I feel no more so than those already being discussed- what if the previous dragon rise lasted 7,000 years or more? We’ve seen that Zhaitan was spreading pretty slowly, and I believe it’s also been confirmed that two centuries into this dragonrise magic is still at a higher level than it was fifty years beforehand. What if they take much, much longer than we’ve assumed to deplete the world’s magic? Do we know of anything that might support or torpedo that hypothesis?
Except that Ogden states that ‘It was over ten thousand years ago that the dragons last returned to their slumber.’
http://gyazo.com/43d9d1dfbcb99b1801724c2b9aa63ab8
(Gates of Maguuma, Prosperity’s Mystery, Scarlet’s Room, The Nature of Dragons by Ogden Stonehealer)
The entire book:
http://gyazo.com/749e42493575fc26535eec8340d1bf5a
http://gyazo.com/ead4eadf6c4f04c29e3fdcc2188e9c98
http://gyazo.com/755e1e28cadd832ede5410894cc401fa
http://gyazo.com/c1da7766d5c690fa8900b97b22c28732
sigh Has no one read the links I posted?
From Arah:
Scholar Yissa: That’s the corpse of a Giganticus Lupicus!
Scholar Yissa: Their extinction matches the possible last time the Elder Dragons awoke.From Varra Skylark:
-> When did it last happen?
Around ten thousand years ago. You know what this means? The Elder Dragons may have been responsible for the extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus!Varra says ten thousand years ago for the last star birth – aka dragonrise per her statements. Yissa and Varra both state the Elder Dragons’ last awakening as the time of the G-Lupe’s extinction.
Konig, I bolded the two most important parts of these statements, by stating possible and may have been, both Yissa and Varra are covering their tracks in case they’re wrong about the last dragonrise being responsible for G-Lupicus extinction. Therefore, they don’t really know when G-Lupicus went extinct and suppose the last dragonrise was responsible, when it very well could have had nothing to do with it.
If that doesn’t help any, well, I made an attempt.
-points to OP-
On one hand, you have a Priory theory continuously stated for 10,000 BE as the previous dragonrise approximate date
Note the bolded.
The possibility of the Priory theory being wrong has always been there in my argument.
What perilisk said was:
There’s nothing anywhere that suggests that Giants were around for the last dragonrise, so Varra must be talking about an earlier one. Could just be badly written.
I pointed out that yes, there is.
They may be wrong, there may be wright, but perilisk was wrong by claiming nothing suggests the previous dragonrise and when the G-Lupe were wiped out were the same timeframe. But that’s the more common argument, in fact.
Yes, the Priory could be wrong, but as I stated in the OP, it would also mean that an interview with Ree Soesbee (which unfortunately I haven’t been able to find again…).
As for when the G-Lupe were wiped out, that’s been known to be approximately 10,000 BE since the days of Prophecies – it was part of the first lore we got. In fact, Jeff Grubb stated in this interview that the Giganticus Lupicus’s lore was the foundation for the Elder Dragons’ creation. The Priory theory is that they suppose that the G-Lupe extinction was brought by the ED, and this could be true (likely is, we see a risen GL from a previous rise), but it’s not the one and only thing pointing to 10,000 BE – just the most numerous.
Thing is, if 10,000 BE isn’t the previous rise of the Elder Dragons… ArenaNet sure are pushing almost everything to make us think it is.
-points to OP-
On one hand, you have a Priory theory continuously stated for 10,000 BE as the previous dragonrise approximate date
Note the bolded.
The possibility of the Priory theory being wrong has always been there in my argument.
What perilisk said was:
There’s nothing anywhere that suggests that Giants were around for the last dragonrise, so Varra must be talking about an earlier one. Could just be badly written.
I pointed out that yes, there is.
They may be wrong, there may be wright, but perilisk was wrong by claiming nothing suggests the previous dragonrise and when the G-Lupe were wiped out were the same timeframe. But that’s the more common argument, in fact.
Yes, the Priory could be wrong, but as I stated in the OP, it would also mean that an interview with Ree Soesbee (which unfortunately I haven’t been able to find again…).
As for when the G-Lupe were wiped out, that’s been known to be approximately 10,000 BE since the days of Prophecies – it was part of the first lore we got. In fact, Jeff Grubb stated in this interview that the Giganticus Lupicus’s lore was the foundation for the Elder Dragons’ creation. The Priory theory is that they suppose that the G-Lupe extinction was brought by the ED, and this could be true (likely is, we see a risen GL from a previous rise), but it’s not the one and only thing pointing to 10,000 BE – just the most numerous.
Thing is, if 10,000 BE isn’t the previous rise of the Elder Dragons… ArenaNet sure are pushing almost everything to make us think it is.
Well, I could definitely be wrong. I just never got the sense that there were still giants around when the Seers/Mursaat/Forgotten/Dwarves/Jotun faced off against the dragons (why not invite them on the team?), so it seemed like there must have been two dragonrises.
There having been three dragonrises between now and 10,000 BE (@~10,000 BE, ~2,000 BE, and ~2,000 AE) is the most likely, imo. It seems a bit far fetched for the Elder Dragons’ current rise to match the same span as all previous ones given the Bloodstone (both creation and gift-of-magic-fiasco).
But in the current theory, it very well could be that the Giganticus Lupicus were wiped out prior to the alliance of the five races.
Edit: I just want to re-iterate: the thread is about THE previous dragonrise. As in, the one to happen before the current. There really is no denying that a dragonrise occurred at 10,000 BE. The question is: was there one since then and before now? If so, how many?
So the question is rather asking “when did the Alliance of Five exist? 10,000 BE, or later?”
There is no doubt that there were many previous dragonrises – as I pointed out already, Scholar Caterin at the Durmand Priory pointed out that jotun creation myth mentions multiple cycles of a sextant of swallowers (Elder Dragons). This means there were at least 2 dragonrises before the jotun lost their civilization (this may mean 2 rises prior to 10,000 BE, or two rises prior to some later date, including the 10,000 BE rise).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Could be interesting to have a fractal take us to an age during a previous Dragon Rise
Not affiliated with ArenaNet or NCSOFT. No support is provided.
All assets, page layout, visual style belong to ArenaNet and are used solely to replicate the original design and preserve the original look and feel.
Contact /u/e-scrape-artist on reddit if you encounter a bug.