Guild Wars 2

The foefire, as everyone know i hope, killed the humans and the charr in a area in ascaloon. But only in one area. And made the humans into ghosts.
But i wonder, how far did it reach?
“the viewing hill” is the hill/ point of intrest in plains of ashford where a warband watched from a safe distant, and saw the foefire to tell the others about what happend.
What i find really intresting is, that not far away, is the heart of the foefire! (also a point of intrest in plains of ashford)

So the foefire did not go that far right, beacouse the pois are so close to eatch other? But why is it ghosts beyond the viewing hill then?

The Foefire had two affects:

Killing charr
Turning humans (and some cows/cats) into undying ghosts.

The kill charr part of the blast only happened within the city itself. The rest stretched much further – reaching into the southern half of Iron Marches, Diessa Plateau, and western Blazeridge Steppes. It didn’t reach Ebonhawke, though I find that a bit strange since I think Ebonhawke is closer than the furthest part of Diessa with ghosts in it.

As Konig said, the reason the charr watching didn’t get incinerated was because it only killed them in the city. Have you read The Ghosts of Ascalon? Cool stories about this in it.

The human-killing blast actually reached Fireheart Rise, too. Ghosts can be found in the area called Rebel’s Seclusion, which is a Jumping Puzzle.

And Konig, I think you wanted to say Iron Marches when writing about the distance “issue.”

No, I meant Diessa. The ghosts I’ve seen in Iron Marches are closer to the Foefire’s Heart in Ascalon City Ruins than those from Oldgate in Diessa.

Anyways, I compared distances, and with how far the ghosts are in Diessa and at Nolani Academy, the Foefire would have reached just north of Ebonhawke in that direction. Though I had forgotten about Rebel’s Seclusion – so those might be further, which would then put Ebonhawke in the Foefire’s path unless it wasn’t a nice little circle.

When the Foefire happened, Ebonhawke might have been a lot smaller, so it could have been just out of range, back then. Depending on where the historical core of the town is.

Given that the Ghosts continue acting like they used to (I think they don’t even know they’re ghosts?), it’s possible that many guards were caught in the foefire while being far from home as they were at war, and their ghosts continued their way home after it.

This could explain that the foefire wasn’t large enough to reach Ebonhawke, but still there are Ghost.

A second option would be magic, which explains many things, so maybe Ebonhawke is protected somehow.

A third option is Mass Effect, which explains everything Magic can’t…

Mountain shielded it?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

When the Foefire happened, Ebonhawke might have been a lot smaller, so it could have been just out of range, back then. Depending on where the historical core of the town is.

“In 1080 AE, King Adelbern sent Gwen Thackeray and the Ebon Vanguard to the city of Ebonhawke in order to solidify supply lines to Ascalon City and to act as a last-ditch holdout position. When Gwen arrived, she fortified the city and withstood siege after siege. After the Foefire, Ebonhawke became the last place in Ascalon to be controlled by humans. "

This implies Ebonhawke was already pretty big by that time. I guess it was the mountain or something, or Ghosts that wandered off, which doesn’t make sense as they haunt the place they died at.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

When the Foefire happened, Ebonhawke might have been a lot smaller, so it could have been just out of range, back then. Depending on where the historical core of the town is.

Well, it was a mining town before it was a fortress, so I’d imagine the southern portion – where the graves, farms, and yes, mine is.

Lokheit.7943:

A second option would be magic, which explains many things, so maybe Ebonhawke is protected somehow.

In an interview, Jeff Grubb said that Ebonhawke was out of range of the Foefire. Meaning it didn’t reach that far.

However, he also said that it was because it wasn’t “part of Ascalon at the time” (which isn’t true… so I’m guessing on that he was mistaken).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Lokheit.7943:

A second option would be magic, which explains many things, so maybe Ebonhawke is protected somehow.

In an interview, Jeff Grubb said that Ebonhawke was out of range of the Foefire. Meaning it didn’t reach that far.

However, he also said that it was because it wasn’t “part of Ascalon at the time” (which isn’t true… so I’m guessing on that he was mistaken).

Maybe Ebonhawke was not within the official boundaries of Ascalon despite being an outpost. Like how the US has military bases in other countries but those are considered US territory but are not within the US.

Technically couldn’t you say Ebonhawke is part of the Blazeridge mountains. They aren’t part of Ascalon, they’re simply bordering it?

I’d also be inclined to think that a lot of the ghosts have simply moved further back out to their patrol roots and in an attempt to reclaim the land from the Charr. I don’t think the blast from the foefire was actually that massive, the ghosts cover a bit too much land.

The ghosts relive the last day of their life time and time again. So no matter what, they’d eventually return to where they were during the Foefire, every day at the same time of the day. We don’t see ghosts traveling halfway across Ascalon on a daily basis, so I cannot see that being the case.

Well that’s not entirely the case. Unless there was a repeat of events, Calhaan’s Haunt keeps replaying the events of the Charr Invasion seen in the Great Northern Wall mission in GW1 which took place years before the Foefire.

That’s a very odd-ball event. Because it completely removes the GW1 player character, and those two ghosts were not in GW1 as far as I remember.

It could be that the people involved in the Foefire aren’t just re-living that last day, but instead they are reliving their most traumatic events involved in the Human-Charr war. This would explain why there are so many humans in Nolani, Grendich, Oldgate, Barradin’s Estate, etc… The Charr aren’t stupid. They know that you don’t lay siege to a major city with many large groups of enemies on your rear, they most likely would have taken all of those locations before taking out Ascalon City itself. This lead to many people routing to Ascalon City which was their only hope of survival bringing all of the trauma of the war with them, only to be consumed by their king’s fire.

Yes Konig but can you imagine the game developers having every single ghost patrolling the map instead of a small area and then all returning to a certain place at a certain time of day. That would be nightmarish to code into the game. Can you imagine all the different spawn points they would have to create xD.

@Narcemus: THen that’s be going against all set up lore ever since Ghosts of Ascalon and even into the game itself. An alternative and, imo, more likely situation is that Calhaan didn’t die in the Foefire but sooner – especially given that spot isn’t at all near where the mission was.

Or it’s a massive slip on Anet’s part.

@FlamingFoxx: I think it’s far more likely that there were humans in those areas and the Foefire was wider than you’re suspecting. It has always been said that all of Ascalon was covered by the Foefire’s wave.

I certainly can’t imagine that all these ghosts were inside Ascalon City, when it’s been explicitly mentioned time and time again that the Foefire reached far beyond that. It just didn’t reach Fields of Ruin is all. Maybe the blast simply wasn’t a perfect circle – that is far more realistic to believe than “ghosts who relive the day of the Foefire (so all lore statements say – even those from the developers themselves) patrol out to the furthest reaches of Ascalon.”

One thing to point out about Ebonhawke is probably it’s biggest feature, the mountain that it is carved into. I don’t find it too unlikely that the mountain may have shielded the Ebon Vanguard a bit, especially since it was at the fringes of the effect anyways.

And I honestly don’t see how this would at all break the lore of the Foefire. Nothing about the Ascalon Catacombs dungeon would make sense if the ghosts were just reliving the day of the Foefire, no one would have any reason to be in the catacombs under the city, especially Adlebern, who was in the city within his tower at the time. It’s obvious that at the very least Adlebern has the ability to control the ghosts and place them as he wants. Also, to note, none of the people who died before the Foefire were effected by it’s curse. As was seen in the instance of Savoine.

It seems that Adelbern and those he chooses are not limited to that reliving their last day bit – as there are leaders (often lieutenants or prominent GW1 figures) that lead attacking armies out of their norm (such as the charr tutorial). And I’ve always suspected that the four main ghosts in AC story were dead prior to the Foefire – I mean, Vassar and Ralena have coffins, and Kasha hardly sounds hostile (she only fights because Rytlock goes “grr, all ghosts must die!”). Or at least three of them.

And there is at least one case of a ghost breaking the curse of the Foefire’s mental change on her own – a powerful necromancer in life, Bria (Kasha may end up being the same situation as Bria, just nicer).