Guild Wars 2

I write this with some hesitation. I’m not entirely confident this is the picture at all regarding Orr nor am I confident that the Leylines have any relationship to this idea. Nevertheless, these elements are individually present in the game so I’m going to try to discuss them as best I can.

I’m too bored right now to get into this as much as I could. This is going to end up being a bit clipped, but here goes…

The Cathedral in Orr was all about the sacrifice of the dead.
-The Priestess of Lyssa is a …necromancer
-There are ringed structures there.
Leylines are ‘something’ stuff that eat holes in rock.
- Leylines form channels or otherwise ‘flow’
Magic is a ‘something’ stuff
- Magic tends to be like a ‘well’, concentrating into a single type of magic for reasons unknown
In the Spirit-Vale there is a river of souls
- the bandits may be sacrificing people
- The Cathedral has some weird designs on the top of it where the rings, usually standing upright, are laying flat – apparently carved into the floor deliberately.

What if the Orrians were practicing some kind of blood magic whereby each individual god used the concentrations of the others to create a one-concentrate sort of magic that was ‘conscious’?
What do I mean by this? Well, if you have each of the Orrian gods being worshiped that’s puzzling. There seems to be no reason to do this. In fact, it’s mostly just a pain to have people worshiping you. I mean, it’s human beings worshiping you. It would be frustrating to have to deal with that degree of stupidity for any length of time. So, there’s got to be more to gain from it than we’re seeing. I thought perhaps that this would lead to changing the Dragons in some way. Perhaps the individual gods were acting as conduits to change the natures of the individual Elder Dragons through this worship? That’s what I thought and maybe there’s something to that. However, it seems more logical in watching the ritual for the dead at the Cathedral that actually the Orrians were blending magics.
The obvious benefit of this would be if the individual traits of the gods’ could in some way be manifest within this blending as well. Worship of Dwayna plus the worship of Balthazar equals the magic Guardians use, for instance. This would explain all the Orichalcum circuitry like meshing inside the concrete like stone all over Orr. The whole of Orr is just a magical circuit board connecting and channeling the energies of the different temples all across Orr into a single “well” of magic. This well, when functioning, could then distribute or blend the minor wells of the god-temples into a more potent, but also more complex, magic.
Now, why do this? Well, Grenth basically. Magic, if it is a mindless elemental force would have properties. It would essentially be some sort of particle physics. That’s fine, great even, and totally workable. With that sort of set up you’d easily end up heading in the direction Ascalon took with its academies; if, then, else statements. On the other hands… if you could take the latent potential of consciousness… spirit energy… and lace that into the magic you are working…

Well, with magic like that you could quite possibly ‘talk to’ or at least ‘influence’ a rock. Granted you might end up having to ‘think’ like a rock. No few chances that could go wrong and leave you cracked, but still… much easier to negotiate with something to do the work of figuring itself out for you. The conversation would go something like this, The Elementalist: “Open the door Hal.” The rock it’s trying to Jedi squint at: …“I can’t do that, Dave,” except with the benefit of the rock going, “But here’s why…” I’m sure this would all be much more ‘alluded’ by ‘urges’ and ‘strange synchronicities" that an Asura would be quick to point out are ’above the statically probabilities of random chance’.

And there you have it… magic.

It probably is just that scary, too.

It might be that ley-line energy is something like the Life Stream in Final Fantasy 7 or more probably the Far Plane in Final Fantasy X. The more the dragon’s consume ‘magic’ the more they are, in reality, messing with the inherent traits of everything. Simplified… If Zhaitan had been able to go on doing its thing perhaps Tyrians actually would have become stupider as it continued: just look at the Jotun.

Eirdyne.9843:

The Cathedral in Orr was all about the sacrifice of the dead.
-The Priestess of Lyssa is a …necromancer

• There’s five cathedrals. They each had their own tombs – for the dedicated followers of the god the cathedral is for – but they were not “all about” the sacrifice of the dead. You may be referring to the story step at the temple of Lyssa which depicts the funerary rites of Lyssan followers. That is not the entire purpose of the temple at all.
• The fight clearly shows her using illusions – that’s necromancy.

Eirdyne.9843:

- Magic tends to be like a ‘well’, concentrating into a single type of magic for reasons unknown

I’m not quite sure where you get this. Or what you entirely mean.

Eirdyne.9843:

- The Cathedral has some weird designs on the top of it where the rings, usually standing upright, are laying flat – apparently carved into the floor deliberately.

Per some concept art and some hero challenges, the rings throughout Orr that are laying flat and deep in the ground were floating.

Eirdyne.9843:

What if the Orrians were practicing some kind of blood magic whereby each individual god used the concentrations of the others to create a one-concentrate sort of magic that was ‘conscious’?

Uhm, no. Definitely not. I mean, some might have used blood magic – which is a common and not-evil trait of necromancy, but the only god that would be tied to blood magic – magic fueled by blood used primarily for life stealing and life transferring – would be Grenth.

The others would have no need of it.

Eirdyne.9843:

What do I mean by this? Well, if you have each of the Orrian gods being worshiped that’s puzzling. There seems to be no reason to do this. In fact, it’s mostly just a pain to have people worshiping you. I mean, it’s human beings worshiping you. It would be frustrating to have to deal with that degree of stupidity for any length of time. So, there’s got to be more to gain from it than we’re seeing.

This argument makes no sense to me.

Eirdyne.9843:

Perhaps the individual gods were acting as conduits to change the natures of the individual Elder Dragons through this worship?

There is no direct tie between the dragons and gods. It [pretty much got confirmed in Season 2.]()

Eirdyne.9843:

That’s what I thought and maybe there’s something to that. However, it seems more logical in watching the ritual for the dead at the Cathedral that actually the Orrians were blending magics.

There’s nothing magical about the funerary rites for Lyssan followers.

Eirdyne.9843:

The obvious benefit of this would be if the individual traits of the gods’ could in some way be manifest within this blending as well. Worship of Dwayna plus the worship of Balthazar equals the magic Guardians use, for instance. This would explain all the Orichalcum circuitry like meshing inside the concrete like stone all over Orr. The whole of Orr is just a magical circuit board connecting and channeling the energies of the different temples all across Orr into a single “well” of magic. This well, when functioning, could then distribute or blend the minor wells of the god-temples into a more potent, but also more complex, magic.

Mixing magical energies results in disasters like Thaumanova…

Which Orr was not.

Eirdyne.9843:

It might be that ley-line energy is something like the Life Stream in Final Fantasy 7 or more probably the Far Plane in Final Fantasy X. The more the dragon’s consume ‘magic’ the more they are, in reality, messing with the inherent traits of everything. Simplified… If Zhaitan had been able to go on doing its thing perhaps Tyrians actually would have become stupider as it continued: just look at the Jotun.

I haven’t played any Final Fantasy game, but I can tell you that ley-line energy is just generic magical energy.

Ley lines are in every way the passageway of ambient magic. So the energy within ley-lines is just pure concentrated undefined magic.

Amount of magic is not tied to intelligence. Jotun’s stupidity is not caused from magic but years and years (centuries, really) of inbreeding and civil wars that focused on destroying the enemies’ scholars.