Guild Wars 2

“Over eight thousand years after the Giganticus Lupicus disappeared, a race of serpents known as the Forgotten were brought to Tyria by the True Gods to be the guardians of the world. For centuries, they did their job with order, though they couldn’t keep peace with races such as the Charr, they maintained balance in the world and the races flourished, until the Humans arrived.”

Balance. The Kodan speak openly of it, but their voices are lost in the din of others’. Hence, the topic is largely ignored by most. Scholars like Ogden Stonehealer represent those few who are prepared to explore the concept, although even he admits that he is learning. When briefing players about what he calls the “natural balance of magic”, Ogden confesses that the subject is difficult to understand, “somewhat abstract”. Personally, however, I don’t think that is why the majority do not discuss it.

For every right, there is a wrong; for every light, there is darkness. You cannot have one without the other.

The Kodan believe that, in some way, the world is imbalanced. Their opinions are divided about the source of this imbalance. Some believe that the Elder Dragons are the source, others, that the ancient serpents are in fact correcting it. I regard the latter opinion to be the reason for the races’ hesitance to discuss the balancing of magic in Tyria, as it presents the Elder Dragons as a necessary evil.

Civilisation fears the necessary evil. The Pale Tree speaks for this fear when she relates that the Elder Dragons raze everything. They are just like the firestorms of our world, such as the Old Fire of the San Bernardino Mountains. To the ordered mind, these raging infernos cannot possibly contribute anything good to life. But nature’s wilds know better. Recent studies have revealed that some ecosystems rely on fire to maintain biodiversity. This is the great irony of the untamed blaze. From one of the most destructive forces known to man comes some of the most vibrant life ever encountered.

The Elder Dragons have fixed their gaze on the planet’s “fertile crescent”, the continent of Tyria. They encircle it, forming a great corral restricting passage in and out of the region, and even seek to prevent movement within it. Primordus temporarily disabled the asuran gate network and Mordremoth is now disrupting the asuran waypoint network. Both transportation systems provide creatures with the freedom to circumvent the perimeter of the dragons’ corral (the Ebonhawke Gate, for example, allows travelers to avoid crossing the Dragonbrand). Air travel also facilitates this, but if the suspicions of the playerbase prove true, even it has been affected, with a Zephyrite airship blasted out of the sky by an Elder Dragon minion before it could pass the westernmost extremes of the serpents’ cordon. If the Elder Dragons are correcting an imbalance, then, said imbalance must be found somewhere within their corral.

What could the nature of this imbalance be? In the opinion of the writer of the Guild Wars 1 wiki, the arrival of humans to Tyria disturbed the balance. This may be an important point, as it suggests that the scales are more likely to tip when new races emerge from the Mists. The reason humans disrupted the balance is probably personified in their former god Abaddon. Players have long suspected that the dead diety risked waking the dragons; the dangers associated with this led to the war within the pantheon, the imprisonment of Abaddon, his eventual destruction and replacement. Essentially, because the fledgling race of humans was unfamiliar with the Elder Dragons, they showed little or no restraint in the practice of magic. In contrast, the elder races had developed ways of drastically reducing their reliance on the magic generated by the dragons. Part of this reduction involved the creation and utilization of the bloodstone.

Although humanity was introduced to the bloodstone, their spell casting consumed the magic within it at such an alarming rate that it became imperative to reduce the magical profile of individual casters. If this was not done, humanity would soon need other sources of magic to satiate their demands, sources such as the Elder Dragons. So the human gods created “schools” of magic, a process that involved spitting the bloodstone into fragments and introducing the concept of specialization to magic-wielders. Basically, the magic within the bloodstone pieces could only be “accessed” through the practice of the professions associated with the human gods. Over time, these professions were adopted by rhe majority of the intelligent races (in more recent times, races such as the norn, asura, charr, and sylvari), allowing more than just humanity to draw upon the magic stored within the bloodstone shards.

If the migration of races to Tyria is a clue as to when the balance therein was disturbed, it may be helpful to look for other races, in addition to humans, that have recently emerged from the Mists. To identify them, we need to look for evidence demonstrating the ability to navigate through the multiverse.

The first race to whom we will turn our attention are the norn. Their havrouns are capable of entering the Mists; they can also create portals into the Mists for others.

The second race is the charr. They have largely abandoned the practice of magic in recent times. A work in the Durmand Priory’s Special Collections section suggests that they survived the previous dragon-rise, indicating that they may be indigenous to Tyria.

The third race, the asura. The asura have a knack for developing transportation infrastructure, pioneering first a network of gates, then waypoints, both of which allow for rapid displacement from one point of Tyria to another. However, thus far they have not exercised any magic capable of granting access to the Mists. The portals they have built at Lion’s Arch which lead into the Mists simply make use of an earlier version left by Balthazar.

The fourth race: sylvari. The Pale Tree, the mother of the sylvari, does have the ability to grant passage into her Dream (Caithe travels back into it from Tyria during the awakening of the sylvari PC and other non-sylvari later travel into it through a portal to witness a vision). It is unclear exactly where the Dream is located; prevailing theories propose that it is somewhere within the Mists..

Finally, we return to humanity. This race of spell casters has forgotten the power they once wielded, power with which they traversed the aether. For they tend to credit their ability to successfully navigate the Mists to their gods. It is said that the gods bought them from the Mists and later left them for the Mists. But do not believe everything that the servants of the Six tell you.

In days past, there was at least one human spell caster who traversed the Mists without the aid of his gods. This knowledge is the dirty laundry that even Minister Caudecus’ maids wouldn’t wash, laundry soaked in blood. It belongs to a man long forgotten by all but the most ancient of minds: Lord Odran. This powerful arcanist sacrificed countless souls to facilitate his travels into the Mists. When Krytans think of human sacrifice, they remember the mursaat. But don’t let that fool you. The masked stranger is easier to hate than the open-faced friend, and the true monster in this myth is not the bookah under Queen Jennah’s bed, its the man in the mirror. It was Lord Odran – a human – who developed the very techniques the mursaat later adopted; it was Lord Odran who began the mass murder of the chosen; and considering that creating the portals through which the dreaded lord traveled required the deaths of countless souls, its unsurprising to learn that the deaths of countless more was required to stabilize them.

“Blood is power”. The sundering of the bloodstone weakened the spell casting of human magicians, rendering Mist travel all but impossible for most practitioners, even modern-day mesmers. Thus, Odran’s lust for power led him away from the professions associated with the “True Gods” – professions powered by the broken bloodstone – to spells of his own devising; spells of similar power to those cast by human mages of old; spells requiring massive amounts of magical energy. He generated this energy through the sacrifice of souls.

Truly, the roads into the Mists are paved in blood. It is through death that Tyrians journey them, whether the death of oneself or the death of others. Each path requires the shedding of blood. Indeed, the human gods probably entered the Mists in like fashion. Balthazar is said to have emerged onto Tyrian soil, clutching the head of his father; and the six are said to have departed back into the Mists as a result of the death of Abaddon. Be sure then that murderers walk the Mists.

Lord Odran created numerous portals into the Mists across continental Tyria. In and of itself, this was not enough to disturb the planet’s balance. However, the fact that those aliens who found his portals could freely migrate to Tyria made it difficult to ensure that they would not also disturb the Elder Dragons. Like humanity and the elder races before them, aliens arriving on Tyria would doubtless be ignorant of the dragons and the consequences associated with the reckless practicion of magic. Thus, policing Lord Odran’s portals became paramount to the elder races, for which reason the forgotten were stationed at those portals most likely to be accessed by human and alien alike, such as the Tombs of the Primeval Kings; and for which reason the mursaat may have attempted to keep portals created by Odran in the western Maguuma closed. Yes, the mursaat were trying to hold Abaddon, a fallen human god, back. However, consider that Abaddon’s rage would mean that were he left to his own devices he would waken the dragons, thus holding him back not only ensured that the mursaat were not destroyed but also that they would have a Tyria to return to.

(To be continued…)

Stephen.6312:

The Elder Dragons have fixed their gaze on the planet’s “fertile crescent”, the continent of Tyria. They encircle it, forming a great corral restricting passage in and out of the region, and even seek to prevent movement within it. -snip rest of post-

The major flaw in this is that your supposition presumes the Elder Dragons work together, however, we have been told that they are not allied and that if met, Elder Dragon minions would fight (unless they decide to retcon Ree Soesbee once more).

Stephen.6312:

In the opinion of the writer of the Guild Wars 1 wiki,

coughs

And, uh, who is this “one writer” exactly? Given I’ve written (part of) a majority of the lore articles on the GWW and I certainly wouldn’t say that. :P

Sides, you shouldn’t use wiki opinions as an arguing point.

Because we know the imbalance: magic is high in the world. And the Elder Dragons do fix this – by extremes, letting magic build up too high, then bringing it down too low. The question really is “is this their intention? if so why?”

Stephen.6312:

In contrast, the elder races had developed ways of drastically reducing their reliance on the magic generated by the dragons.

Asura say hi.

Stephen.6312:

Although humanity was introduced to the bloodstone, their spell casting consumed the magic within it at such an alarming rate that it became imperative to reduce the magical profile of individual casters. If this was not done, humanity would soon need other sources of magic to satiate their demands, sources such as the Elder Dragons.

I don’t think this is possible. The issue presented has always been that the gift of magic (which we’ve recently learned was just Abaddon passing the Bloodstone around) was too destructive and caused wars. Given the new information, it would seem that the problem was just like what sparked the Guild Wars: greed.

Furthermore, the Bloodstone held all uncorrupted magic in the world at the time it was created, draining the open world of all magic. The Elder Dragons may not have been good sources of magic due to this – depending, of course, on how much magic they consumed and corrupted before the Bloodstone’s creation.

Stephen.6312:

So the human gods created “schools” of magic, a process that involved spitting the bloodstone into fragments and introducing the concept of specialization to magic-wielders. Basically, the magic within the bloodstone pieces could only be “accessed” through the practice of the professions associated with the human gods. Over time, these professions were adopted by rhe majority of the intelligent races (in more recent times, races such as the norn, asura, charr, and sylvari), allowing more than just humanity to draw upon the magic stored within the bloodstone shards.

Issue: Ritualists, a magical profession, existed prior to the Bloodstone’s division. And according to Thruln the Lost humanity had elementalists when they arrived by boat onto the continent of Tyria (which would be 205 BE) – and this was called primitive magic by Thruln, indicating that they already had knowledge of mesmers and necromancers that we saw in GW1.

Furthermore, though the link has been lost, there was an interview stating that the asura utilized magic and felt a boost of magic in the world for a short time, but didn’t know why that boost came – or went (ironically, this rather contradicts the new lore of Abaddon passing the giant stone around cultures; which also contradicts the Shelter Docks lore of him giving unique magic to the different groups; yay contradictions! -.-).

Stephen.6312:

The first race to whom we will turn our attention are the norn. Their havrouns are capable of entering the Mists; they can also create portals into the Mists for others.

However, like the charr, they have stories of the Elder Dragons in their ancient history.

Stephen.6312:

In days past, there was at least one human spell caster who traversed the Mists without the aid of his gods. This knowledge is the dirty laundry that even Minister Caudecus’ maids wouldn’t wash, laundry soaked in blood. It belongs to a man long forgotten by all but the most ancient of minds: Lord Odran. This powerful arcanist sacrificed countless souls to facilitate his travels into the Mists. When Krytans think of human sacrifice, they remember the mursaat. But don’t let that fool you. The masked stranger is easier to hate than the open-faced friend, and the true monster in this myth is not the bookah under Queen Jennah’s bed, its the man in the mirror. It was Lord Odran – a human – who developed the very techniques the mursaat later adopted; it was Lord Odran who began the mass murder of the chosen; and considering that creating the portals through which the dreaded lord traveled required the deaths of countless souls, its unsurprising to learn that the deaths of countless more was required to stabilize them.

Alright, where to start:

1. The mursaat had their dimensional travel since the previous Dragonrise – this is how they survived – which would be thousands of years before Odran.
2. Odran’s race is actually never stated. Lords exist in other races, no doubt. Though recent lore does indicate that Odran was seeking audience with the gods.
3. Nothing says that Odran sacrificed Chosen. Just that he had many sacrifices. The numbre of which isn’t hinted at other than being large.
4. Odran did not invent the art of sacrificing.
5. The souls of the Chosen weren’t stablizing Odran’s portals, rather they were powering a device – no different than Inquest using souls to power golems, really – which happened to be a barrier around a portal/tear in the fabric of reality/whatever it is (we don’t know the Door of Komalie’s origin).

Stephen.6312:

Truly, the roads into the Mists are paved in blood. It is through death that Tyrians journey them, whether the death of oneself or the death of others. Each path requires the shedding of blood. Indeed, the human gods probably entered the Mists in like fashion. Balthazar is said to have emerged onto Tyrian soil, clutching the head of his father; and the six are said to have departed back into the Mists as a result of the death of Abaddon. Be sure then that murderers walk the Mists.

And yet you so easily forget the Havrouns you only recently mentioned, who can create portals to the Mists without death.

You forget the Avatars of GW1, capable of sending beings to the Mists (specifically the Underworld, Fissure of Woe, and Realm of Torment) without sacrifices.

You forget that there were no sacrifices for the portal leading to the Fractals of the Mists – that was but a freak accident, in fact.

While deaths do seem to weaken the veil between Tyria and the Mists, it is far from a requirement of opening portals into the Mists. For even frequent portal opening to the Mists can result in the very same (Temple of the Ages).

Stephen.6312:

Lord Odran created numerous portals into the Mists across continental Tyria.

Two. He created two portals. One in Drascir, one in Tombs of the Primeval Kings. He opened a third on the Battle Isles – no others are known by him.

Stephen.6312:

Thus, policing Lord Odran’s portals became paramount to the elder races, for which reason the forgotten were stationed at those portals most likely to be accessed by human and alien alike, such as the Tombs of the Primeval Kings; and for which reason the mursaat may have attempted to keep portals created by Odran in the western Maguuma closed.

There were no such portals in western Maguuma; there were no Forgotten at Tomb of the Primeval Kings, though they were near there at Glint’s lair.

Stephen.6312:

Yes, the mursaat were trying to hold Abaddon, a fallen human god, back. However, consider that Abaddon’s rage would mean that were he left to his own devices he would waken the dragons, thus holding him back not only ensured that the mursaat were not destroyed but also that they would have a Tyria to return to.

There is no evidence of this, no support in the like. It is a famous old theory, but Guild Wars 2 reveals something vitally important about the mrusaat and the likelihood of this theory:

The mursaat are royal, selfish, kittens. As a race.

They had the best weapon against the Elder Dragons during the previous dragonrise – a perfect defense against them, and a grand offensive against them. But they fled the world, after nearly annihilating one of the four other races in the alliance.

Arah paths make it clear that the mursaat care for one thing: mursaat. They knew of the Flameseeker Prophecies, and killed thousands within five years just to keep their own golden kitten alive.