Guild Wars 2

Initially this post was going to go into the Kralk discussion that someone laid out, but I realised that this was an entirely different topic and don’t want to take the thread into another direction.

The main concern is about two things, this active status that Taimi has placed on both Jormag and Primordus and the whole cycle thing. Forgive me for being a little confused on the matter.

So, I realise that Anet are going for the unreliable narrator thing, but I’m a little confused about this active status that Taimi is suddenly putting on Jormag and Primordus. Why is this a new thing? Shouldn’t here have been constant activity that could have been monitored by anyone? There seems to have been a surge of activity only after Mordremoth’s defeat, but was there no detectable activity before that? Why? Were the elder dragons on their way to napping again before receiving the magical version of an adrenaline shot from both Zhaitan’s and Mordremoth’s deaths?

It’s confusing, and I know that just because there may be no activity detected doesn’t mean that there is no activity, the last we heard of the dwarves, they went down to attack primordus and his minions, but destroyers keep popping up in all sorts of places. So it’s strange to me that there is this sudden idea that the dragons may be ‘active’ instead of just chilling somewhere, doing nothing.

And it sorta leads into the second question. We know that the seers made the bloodstone and all the elder races besides the mursaat placed their magic into the bloodstone. With the help of glint they also hid away until the Elder Dragons fell asleep. We assume that the elder dragons go on this cycle where they awaken, consume magic, then fall asleep, releasing magic back into the world and leylines. Thus, it would seem that the elder dragons seem to hibernate once they’re full, and awaken when they’re hungry. If there wasn’t enough magic to sustain them, wouldn’t they have died 10k years ago after the bloodstone’s creation? because of the lack of magic means they had nothing to feed on, but with all the magic that was placed in the bloodstones means they couldn’t have fed enough to sustain themselves. It seems weird.

Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe the magic placed in the bloodstones (or hidden by the mursaat) wasn’t significant enough to affect the nourishment of the elder dragons, maybe I’m just looking at things the wrong way.

I apologise for the blabbering and being confused, any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: the first three paragraphs all began with “So”, this lead me to removing that word from the first two paragraphs and capitalising appropriately.

The first point is something that bothers me as well.

For the second, though, we’re told that the Seers made their stone near the end of the last cycle, once the Dragons were nearly done eating anyway. To cite the most recent word we had on the subject, they were out to “scrape together the tiny bit of energy that was left”. There’s been plenty of speculation on whether it had an effect on the Elder Dragon cycles, but that certainly doesn’t sound like enough of a difference to kill them.

Thanks for clearing that up about the second part. At least that makes sense.

Regarding the “active status” thing, it is desperately important to note that there is a difference between “being awake” and “being active”.

The Elder Dragons have shown to have an ebb and flow with their activity. Their periods of activity are relatively short, and come to an end when the dragon’s army took a big blow (such as leading champion’s death) or when they’ve completed their objective. For example, Zhaitan was active only during these periods:

• 1219 AE, when waking, ended shortly after, likely due to having resources (magic and corpses) available.
• 1229 AE, attack on Port Stalwart, ended with sinking of a few dead ships including Harbinger.
• 1256 AE, attack on Krytan navy, ended with death of Whiting and Maw
• 1325 AE, attack on Claw Island, ended with death of Blightghast/Zhaitan

Between 1219 and 1229, Zhaitan’s very existence was outright questioned – few were certain it existed because it was inactive still, gathering its forces for a major assault (on Port Stalward), and it had remained inactive for so long between 1229 and 1256 that people largely questioned whether it was ever going to be a threat at all.

Primordus has even longer periods of inactivty, as proven by a line in Sea of Sorrows in which Jormag was mentioned as the only other Elder Dragon besides Zhaitan – Primordus had remained awake for nearly 100 years with its very existence unknown to standard Tyrians… because it was inactive (if not for the whole time, then for most of the time).

Unlike those two, Jormag had 4 years of activity (if not more) before becoming inactive for some time (his activity ending – to our knowledge – with the battle against Owl forcing him to retreat). But he became active again with the Dragonspawn’s activity which ended in 1319 AE (beginning date of activity unknown, but it was quite a while), becoming inactive until now, 1329 AE.

TL;DR

When an Elder Dragon is called “active”, this is not referring to whether or not the dragon is asleep (despite Taimi’s confusing wording), but rather refers to whether or not the Elder Dragon is actively sending minions to attack civilizations.

Every Elder Dragon is active for a short time after it wakes – Zhaitan’s was the shortest due to having a nation of dead at his feet (no need to go out and gather an army unlike the rest) – but then goes inactive for no less than a decade (so far) before becoming active again.
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Regarding the Seers/Bloodstone question and starvation: On top of what Aaron said, the Elder Dragons go to hibernation when they are lacking food to eat, so they would not have remained awake long enough to actually starve to death.

In theory, it could have resulted in multiple potential scenarios had the Bloodstone plan worked (“thank you” Six Gods):

• Shorter hibernation period (less magic to give off, having to wake up before starving to death in sleep) but in turn a shorter awakening cycle as there’d be less magic to eat next time as well – this may result in the Elder Dragons actively going after each other because they’re backed into a corner of death in combat or death by starvation, or surviving by killing someone after the same food source.
• Longer hibernation period (takes longer for the “right amount of magic” to rise in the world), which would only be possible if they could control how much magic they release, or if they actually cannot die by starvation from magic.
• Indefinite magic because:

It should be noted that the Elder Dragons actually needed magic this time around to wake up – it’s unclear if this is always true, but most of the Elder Dragons had a “herald” champion to feed them magic (Great Destroyer, Drakkar, risen Giganticus Lupicus, Scarlet – except for Scarlet, all of these were champions that survived the previous dragonrise and hibernation period), and those that lost such took longer to wake up (Primordus, Kralkatorrik).

In theory, it may be that had the Six Gods never re-released magic in the world, and those heralds not be able to fulfill their role, it could have meant the Elder Dragons would never awaken, or at least have taken much longer to wake up.

To build a bit on what Konig said regarding activity- it’s also worth noting that those phases seem to be in regard to the view point of the playable races. During that century or more of “inactivity”, as Taimi would put it, Primordus was clearing out vast tracts of subterranean area and warring against the dwarves- it was only “inactive” because the races we play as didn’t see the damage. That goes for most of the dragons here. Jormag’s “inactive” phase after it drove the norn south included the part where it all but destroyed kodan civilization, leaving a scant handful of sanctuaries intact enough to limp south. That decade after Zhaitan woke, while not a trouble to the big Krytan ports, saw hylek villages wiped out, a process that by GW2 may have killed as much as 94% of the population of what had once been their most populous region.

The vexing part is that while we players know this, our exposition dump plot device doesn’t. Taimi announced two of the most basic facts about Primordus- it’s awake, and it moves- like it was some great revelation. Knowing where it moved to was a big deal, yes- that gives us a target we can work with, or would if we had more than three characters working with us now. The rest, though… so the confusion is this: did they write Taimi that way deliberately, to show that she’s still very new to this study of Elder Dragons? If so, did they consider what compromising her authority on the subject might do when her conclusions are what have been driving the anti-dragon effort of this season’s plot? If this was all conscious, and a way to set Taimi up for a massive mistake, as some have speculated, then that’s well and good, but why would our character who knows better not call her on it? And that also means they’re tripping over their own format again. Leaving your players uneasy about whether they’re seeing deliberate foreshadowing or bungled writing over one of the core characteristics of your Big Bad for… six months and counting, now… that’s not a climate that builds excitement, or confidence.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

To build a bit on what Konig said regarding activity- it’s also worth noting that those phases seem to be in regard to the view point of the playable races. During that century or more of “inactivity”, as Taimi would put it, Primordus was clearing out vast tracts of subterranean area and warring against the dwarves- it was only “inactive” because the races we play as didn’t see the damage. That goes for most of the dragons here. Jormag’s “inactive” phase after it drove the norn south included the part where it all but destroyed kodan civilization, leaving a scant handful of sanctuaries intact enough to limp south. That decade after Zhaitan woke, while not a trouble to the big Krytan ports, saw hylek villages wiped out, a process that by GW2 may have killed as much as 94% of the population of what had once been their most populous region.

Personally, I would consider these part of the ‘active’ phase.

What does seem to be the case is that the dragons essentially have an ‘active’ phase and a ‘consolidation/recovery’ phase. During the ‘active’ phase, they actively seek to seize new territory, including sending powerful minions to launch assaults on enemy strongholds. Such phases typically end when an assault force is defeated, although it’s possible that there have been cases where a dragon has simply decided it’s bitten off enough for the time being and it’s time to consolidate. When an active phase comes to an end, the dragon concentrates on claiming the magic within its territory and building up strength for its next active phase. Such dragons are still not exactly ‘passive’ – they still send minions they consider to be expendable to push against lightly defended borders and/or to claim resources in raids (such as Zhaitan’s forces sending bodies back to Orr). However, any such gains are largely through opportunism rather than being part of the dragon’s strategy.

One could consider the distinction between a ‘non-active’ dragon and an ‘active’ one to be similar to the ‘phony war’ in the early months of World War 2 versus the blitzkrieg. In one case, they’re definitely hostile and will take advantage of any weaknesses presented, but they’re still conserving their strength. In the other, it’s an all-out attack (or preparing for one).

One problem with this interpretation is that we’re told Jormag is active, but thus far we haven’t really seen any indication of this apart from the Sons of Svanir being stirred up yet again - and the Sons of Svanir don’t follow the usual pattern of dragon minions, so the Sons of Svanir being stirred up doesn’t necessarily mean they’re receiving instructions from Jormag to attack. In Primordus’ case, we could consider his seizure of the Fire Islands to be all but a done deal – there are various places remaining on the surface, but Primordus may not care about them, and with maps being stuck in time, who says they weren’t all evacuated shortly after the PC’s visit? In Jormag’s case, though, the claim that Jormag is active probably should be backed up by Jormag doing something big, sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, given the way ArenaNet seems to be currently operating, Hoelbrak doesn’t really have an adjacent empty map region that can be turned into a battlefield. Maybe they could have the norn meet Jormag’s invasion head-on in Anvil Rock.

Possibly, but I suspect observation bias is at play here- we can only evaluate what we see, and what we see is largely limited to what the five playable races see. If this topic had come up before Sea of Sorrows was published, we might be arguing that Zhaitan’s ‘active’ phase was limited to attacking Port Noble and Port Stalwart… and conversely, according to Watch Commander Talon, there’d been six ‘major’ attacks on Claw Island in the four years he’d been stationed there, with an implication that there’d been more even further back.

I do agree that there’re clear blitzkriegs, as you put it- the last attack on Claw Island, and the following attacks on the Order headquarters, were far beyond what anyone had been expecting- but I don’t think it’s accurate to surmise that all the rest of the time a dragon is merely consolidating or making opportunistic attacks outside of its major strategy. The way I read it, that steady pressure is the strategy, allowing the dragon to grind away its foes in a battle of attrition that gives it a clear advantage, while also stockpiling a ridiculous excess of forces around itself to become well-nigh unassailable. Almost all of the places we see risen outside Orr- that is, the territory Zhaitan had claimed- seem to have been infested through this approach. The surges, where it throws forces at a major target, seem to be the exception, not the rule, reserved for the period immediately after awakening when it needs to carve out a core territory and used periodically thereafter against targets large enough to be immune to the pressure tactic, and even then Zhaitan’s approach of only using a small fraction of its forces seems to have been meant more to keep Lion’s Arch on the defensive, and to do crippling damage in a surprise attack to the Orders, than it was to actually expand and conquer territory. Meanwhile, between surges, there’s no sign that the pressure elsewhere ever let up. (Our sample size is also problematic here- a lot of our conclusions are drawn from generalizing Zhaitan’s behavior across all the other dragons. It corresponds well enough to what little we know, but it also makes assumptions to fill in the blanks, and in some cases it doesn’t match up. We’ve been downplaying those last points as exceptions, but in such a small pool of data, those outliers hold weight.)

Regardless, though, my main point is that the observation that they’re not ‘active’ against us doesn’t mean that they’re not ‘active’ somewhere else. That seems to be the mistake Taimi and Braham are making with Primordus and Jormag, respectively, and quite frankly, allowing the dragons to be portrayed in that way by the core cast is the chief driver of their Villain Decay.

Certainly. When I said that gains were from opportunism rather than strategy, I meant the specific gains, not the overall process. The ‘pressure’ stage clearly is part of the dragon’s strategy (whether it thinks of it as strategy or not). However, the dragon doesn’t care about specific targets.

For instance, consider Kralkatorrik (which seems to be what this conversation has spawned from – I really should read the initial thread…). The Dragonbrand is, essentially, in ‘pressure’ mode: every so often Branded boil out of the Brand and attack whatever targets their champions see fit to attack. However, it’s unlikely that Kralkatorrik really cares about whether a given ogre village gets corrupted or a Sentinel outpost gets overrun – it just cares that the pressure is maintained in general terms. Meanwhile, when the Dragonbrand was formed it was clearly in ‘active’ mode – Kralkatorrik had a clear target in mind (Glint) and was going to take its target out.

Now, you’re right that there may be an observer bias in play – just because the dragons aren’t launching an all-out attack on us doesn’t mean that they’re not launching an all-out attack on someone else. However, I think it is reasonable to presume that the dragons do have ‘pressure’ and ‘blitzkrieg’ periods from the evidence we have. The alternative would be assuming that most of the dragons spend most of their efforts throwing their big attacks at everyone except us and only occasionally think to direct their attention towards Tyria… which may work for dragons that are a long way off like Jormag, but doesn’t make so much sense for Zhaitan. (Note that those attacks on Claw Island you mention are all attacks that Commander Talon is using as his basis for laughing off the warning of Trahearne and the PC – they weren’t genuine attacks aiming to take the city, they were simply probing attacks to test the defences.)

Regarding Primordus and Jormag presently, though… I’d be curious as to just what the basis for deeming them ‘active’ is. In Primordus’ case it’s presumably the simple fact of his movement, detected by Taimi’s use of the magic map… but if he just claims the Fire Islands and stays there, this might not be a big deal for the rest of Tyria (unless he finds and eats the Komalie bloodstone, of course). In Jormag’s case… we purely have Braham’s word for it, and who knows what that big oaf interprets as ‘active’? He might be interpreting some ambitious Svanir initiating a push as Jormag being ‘active’, when in truth it’s just a minor escalation of the ‘pressure’ phase that Jormag doesn’t really care about.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

To build a bit on what Konig said regarding activity- it’s also worth noting that those phases seem to be in regard to the view point of the playable races. During that century or more of “inactivity”, as Taimi would put it, Primordus was clearing out vast tracts of subterranean area and warring against the dwarves- it was only “inactive” because the races we play as didn’t see the damage. That goes for most of the dragons here. Jormag’s “inactive” phase after it drove the norn south included the part where it all but destroyed kodan civilization, leaving a scant handful of sanctuaries intact enough to limp south. That decade after Zhaitan woke, while not a trouble to the big Krytan ports, saw hylek villages wiped out, a process that by GW2 may have killed as much as 94% of the population of what had once been their most populous region.

I would argue that those are active phases as well, but since they’re of the past people do not mention them. They never say “Zhaitan was active in the past but inactive now” – they simply say “Zhaitan is now active”.

This would be the unreliable narrator at work, where rather than being false they’re simply misleading in the wording.

On an aside: while we know some kodan sanctuaries were destroyed we don’t have a figure or even estimate, and we know some sanctuaries were scattered in other directions besides south (or at least, besides to the Far Shiverpeaks/northern Shiverpeaks). Like draxynnic, I would say this is part of Jormag’s active phases (and, it is implied, part of his four-year first active phase).

Also, the assaults on hyleks seem relatively more recent, and seem to be a precursor to the Blightghast active phase (much like the personal story for norn/Priory/grawl/quaggan, Honor of the Waves, and the short S2 bit is a precursor for Jormag’s activity in S3). With every dragon, they have this “ramping up” period preceding being “active” in which they’re more forcibly consolidating forces for the upcoming assault.

I’m not sure Zhaitan’s forces assaulting the hyleks is considerable to be an active phase in of itself, because it seems by dialogue that such is just a slow war of attrition where the risen are just slowly expanding and overwhelming the hyleks over years, rather than an actual force assaulting the hylek and taking them out in hours/days.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The vexing part is that while we players know this, our exposition dump plot device doesn’t. Taimi announced two of the most basic facts about Primordus- it’s awake, and it moves- like it was some great revelation. Knowing where it moved to was a big deal, yes- that gives us a target we can work with, or would if we had more than three characters working with us now. The rest, though…

There’s an additional conundrum with that: Seis’ studies in the Current Events. That implies that Primordus had remained in the same position until just very recently, despite all other lore saying otherwise.

Whether this means Primordus had retained the Central Transfer Chamber area as his “home base” until recently moving to the Ring of Fire permanently, or if they’re retconning the situation has been left unclear.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

If this topic had come up before Sea of Sorrows was published, we might be arguing that Zhaitan’s ‘active’ phase was limited to attacking Port Noble and Port Stalwart… and conversely, according to Watch Commander Talon, there’d been six ‘major’ attacks on Claw Island in the four years he’d been stationed there, with an implication that there’d been more even further back.

Not sure there’s any difference now compared to before Sea of Sorrows – the only thing Sea of Sorrows added on this matter was a date for two large assaults and confirmation Zhaitan has had periods of “rest” (something we actually knew).

That said, I would not consider Talon’s comment of “six major attacks” to be of much value because he clearly underestimated Blightghast’s assault, which is on par to the assault that Whiting led against the Krytan navy in Sea of Sorrows (the assault in Port Stalwart was smaller but still significant). Talon Mira were both treating that single Dead Ship as a standard major attack, from the sound of the dialogue, which implies that the “six major attacks” Talon had seen was likely just one or two dead ships, not a fleet of them like what attacked Stalwart, Noble, and the Krytan Navy.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Meanwhile, between surges, there’s no sign that the pressure elsewhere ever let up. (Our sample size is also problematic here- a lot of our conclusions are drawn from generalizing Zhaitan’s behavior across all the other dragons.[…])

Just a note: rather than 1, it’s 2 dragons we have a reasonable sample size for: both Jormag and Zhaitan had steadily expanded territory through minions slowly marching outside of “old” territory boundaries, without leadership of powerful champions or armies for them.

Thanks everyone for the info. To me there doesn’t seem to be any more discrepancies with lore related to the elder dragons.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(and, it is implied, part of his four-year first active phase).

Ah, you’re right. I was misremembering that bit of the lore blog.

Also, the assaults on hyleks seem relatively more recent, and seem to be a precursor to the Blightghast active phase (much like the personal story for norn/Priory/grawl/quaggan, Honor of the Waves, and the short S2 bit is a precursor for Jormag’s activity in S3).

There’s mention in Sea of Sorrows (pg 238) of the Dead Ships wiping out hylek villages. You could argue that the attacks stopped after the Indomitable and Whiting were destroyed, but ultimately, there’s no evidence either way.

I’m not sure Zhaitan’s forces assaulting the hyleks is considerable to be an active phase in of itself, because it seems by dialogue that such is just a slow war of attrition where the risen are just slowly expanding and overwhelming the hyleks over years, rather than an actual force assaulting the hylek and taking them out in hours/days.

Which is what I elaborate on later- just because a massive assault isn’t coming our way doesn’t mean that the dragon isn’t wiping out other races.

There’s an additional conundrum with that: Seis’ studies in the Current Events. That implies that Primordus had remained in the same position until just very recently, despite all other lore saying otherwise.

Whether this means Primordus had retained the Central Transfer Chamber area as his “home base” until recently moving to the Ring of Fire permanently, or if they’re retconning the situation has been left unclear.

Or that Primordus had been moving around, and just happened to pass through the already cleared area around the CTF as part of moving to the Fire Islands from somewhere even more distant. Seis, at least, has a pretty simple explanation that can be provided- although it still veers into the territory of us making excuses for the writers.

Not sure there’s any difference now compared to before Sea of Sorrows – the only thing Sea of Sorrows added on this matter was a date for two large assaults and confirmation Zhaitan has had periods of “rest” (something we actually knew).

What was before arguably phrased as one surge of activity was separated into three- Port Stalwart in 1229, Lion’s Arch in 1256, and Port Noble at some point after that. (There might even have been more- Isaye’s line regarding Cobiah’s reaction to the Indomitable implies that it’d attacked LA before, and anything involving the flagship of the dead fleet probably qualifies as a surge in its own right.) That sets a precedent for periods of ‘activity’ that we otherwise wouldn’t know about, narrows the gaps between them, and in general makes it seem less like there’s a binary switch between ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ and more like there’s an ebb and flow along a continuum of activity.

That said, I would not consider Talon’s comment of “six major attacks” to be of much value because he clearly underestimated Blightghast’s assault, which is on par to the assault that Whiting led against the Krytan navy in Sea of Sorrows (the assault in Port Stalwart was smaller but still significant). Talon Mira were both treating that single Dead Ship as a standard major attack, from the sound of the dialogue, which implies that the “six major attacks” Talon had seen was likely just one or two dead ships, not a fleet of them like what attacked Stalwart, Noble, and the Krytan Navy.

Arguably nitpicking, but Talon repeatedly said that they’d faced worse even when the whole fleet showed up. I’m willing to put that down to bravado, but even Mina seems to treat a single ship as nothing of consequence, implying that the attacks in the past involved a larger group.

Just a note: rather than 1, it’s 2 dragons we have a reasonable sample size for: both Jormag and Zhaitan had steadily expanded territory through minions slowly marching outside of “old” territory boundaries, without leadership of powerful champions or armies for them.

I disqualify Jormag because we know there’s another front he’s engaged on and don’t know anything about his behavior there. We have adequate reason to believe Zhaitan sat around in Orr the entire century it was awake, but from what scraps we know about Jormag, we couldn’t say whether he’s been sitting still in the Sea of Desperation or roving around clearing everything between Frostgorge and the arctic circle. At the very least, the fact that he sent his Claws out to harass his enemies and spread his corruption- something Zhaitan didn’t do until the PS, and even then only with Blightghast and Tequatl- speaks to a more aggressive posture during his ‘pressure’ phase.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

There’s mention in Sea of Sorrows (pg 238) of the Dead Ships wiping out hylek villages. You could argue that the attacks stopped after the Indomitable and Whiting were destroyed, but ultimately, there’s no evidence either way.

The hylek personal story heavily indicates that the risen are only recent there, for sure.

And I recall dialogue saying that it was only in “recent generations” that the hylek were under such heavy assault by the risen in Sparkly Fen (I want to say by the NPCs in/around Zintl Holy Grounds), and hylek generations are shorter than almost every other race.

This would point to it stopping for a time.

The order of events on the invasion is:

• West beach side feint; Mira is questioning.
• Dead Ship arrives, bombards Abominations, killing Brakk.
• Mira’s unit is overrun, when we revive her she says “I’m injured… bad. Get me to Talon. I don’t think we can hold out this time.”
• Conversation with Talon: And let Lion’s Arch think we’ve lost? No, Mira, not yet. Claw Island’s withstood much worse.
• Sinking the ship and more arrive, talking to Talon then:

Deputy Mira: Talon, this is no normal attack! The Lionguard cannot hold! We’re overwhelmed!
Watch Commander Talon: Claw Island has stood for nearly a hundred years. It cannot fall!
Watch Commander Talon: We’ll fight them to the last soldier! To the last sword! We’ll never surr-

Mira definitely sees this as a major assault the moment that first dead ship arrives and overwhelms the fort defenses and patrol units. Talon is definitely being stubborn throughout the whole thing, in your cliche’d “I won’t let my name go down in history as the first to lose” military officer persona. Even his final request was, effectively, meant to worsen the blow to his name.

Talon was clearly an individual who cared more for how he was remembered than for seeing the situations as they truly were.

On top of that – and more as bonus points to Talon – for the sake of moral, he had to claim that Claw Island’s withstood worse – say otherwise, and moral breaks down, and it becomes harder to keep troops in line.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I disqualify Jormag because we know there’s another front he’s engaged on and don’t know anything about his behavior there. We have adequate reason to believe Zhaitan sat around in Orr the entire century it was awake, but from what scraps we know about Jormag, we couldn’t say whether he’s been sitting still in the Sea of Desperation or roving around clearing everything between Frostgorge and the arctic circle. At the very least, the fact that he sent his Claws out to harass his enemies and spread his corruption- something Zhaitan didn’t do until the PS, and even then only with Blightghast and Tequatl- speaks to a more aggressive posture during his ‘pressure’ phase.

Ehhh, three things here.

Firstly, we know that Zhaitan had a second front we know nothing about (against Elona).

Secondly, there’s actually no indication that, beyond his awakening, Jormag’s been spreading his forces in any direction but south – while certainly possible and no reason to believe he doesn’t, nothing to point to it either.

Thirdly, in Episode 3, we’re told that Jormag is (believed to be) sitting just north of Bitterfrost Frontier, near a frozen tundra just beyond that zone. By the sounds of it, Bitterfrost Frontier is unto Jormag what eastern Straits of Devastation (across the straits from Orr) was for Zhaitan, or Silverwastes for Jormag.

Given this, I’d say we know as much about Jormag as we do of Zhaitan, in regards to their expansion rates and methods.