A couple of months ago, on a forum post , I used an analogy to describe how the human gods fragmented the original Bloodstone: four bloodstones were obtained much like when white light passes through a prism and gets dispersed into its component colors; and much like a second prism can make the light white again, the fifth piece, the Keystone, would make the Bloodstone whole once more.

• White light = Magic in the original Bloodstone
• First prism = Gods’ intervention
• Component colors = Schools of magic, four bloodstones
• Second prism = Keystone (together with royal blood?)

Turns out that magic kind of works like this, as proposed by the PC to Taimi in Taimi’s Game:

<Character name> So magic is almost like light. Broken up into a spectrum.
Taimi: That’s a perfect way to think about it!
Taimi: Magic as we know it is like white light, composed of all the different types of dragon magic.

Weirdly, Taimi talks about dragon magics when referring to magic as we know it, supposedly the same magic possessed and used by characters on a daily basis. If this is the case, then the term dragon magic could be a misnomer: Elder Dragons possess a great mastery over the type of magic they have presidence on (spheres of influence), and those same types of magic might have profoundly modified their appearence and behaviour, but the different types of magic should exist regardless of the Elder Dragons.

We know that when they’re sleeping magic seeps from each one of them, a different colour for each dragon (to recall the analogy): when all of them are alive, the total seeping magic will result to be white.

The balance of magic in the world was first broken when Zhaitan died, and all the immense quantity of death (also shadow?) magic he possessed now flooded Tyria (notice how the so called dragon magic didn’t stop to exist after Zhaitan’s death). We now know that some of that magic was absorbed by Mordremoth, hence why he was able to bring his fallen creations back to life (do you think that shadow magic played a part in its nightmarish creations?). Following Mordremoth’s death, his presidence over plant (and mind?) magic was no longer such, and Primordus (and possibly other dragons too) was able to harness his type of magic too.

I guess all of this could make sense somehow, what do you think?

Originally when I heard this I was somewhat confused. I didn’t understand why it is that each Dragon only gets their own type of magic. I mean, Primordus was awake decades before the others, who what kept him from absorbing all of the magic. And obviously Zhaitan didn’t have all death magic inside of him when we fought him. I mean he was still collecting magic and he was starved by us during the campaign. This is when I started thinking about the All, and the spheres. I started to wonder if maybe what the spheres represented was a domain of magic, and it then showed the Dragon that held dominion over it. This would explain why Primordus didn’t consume death magic before Zhaitan awoke, because even though he wasn’t awake, he still held dominion over it and the other dragons could not touch it. But, when Zhaitan was killed, the magic domain was released and was masterless, thus it became free game to whoever wanted to claim some of it. This is actually kind of worrying, but it gives some hope. Perhaps, If the dragons claimed that domain in the past, we can find a way to transfer that dominion over to another creature, such as glint’s baby or possibly the Pale Tree. I have to wonder if that might not be Lazarus’ game. Getting us to kill Primordus while he is there and then claim Primordus’ domain of magic for himself…

I wonder if there is any harm in absorbing magic that is not part of a dragon’s sphere of influence. While on the one had, it allows a dragon to create new minions it may also be slowly killing it.

It would make a lot of sense if that is what Lazarus considers to be a “virtuous pursuit” as Kormir already did it before with Abbadon. Then again, if this is how magic works for Elder Dragons, there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t work like that concerning the gods either. Would be nice if that explained out why the gods worked out together to begin with (they had to join because each one only had control over certain parts of the magic spectrum) and why other gods went to war with the others: perhaps Abbadon’s “gift of magic” consisted of spreading the whole of magic everywhere, which sounds as dangerous as lighting up a star on your neighborhood considering the new facts. There’s also Menzies, who was probably (or still is) seeking out Balthazar’s share of magic, as well as Dhuum who was in slumber during some time and during that, Grenth ruled over the Underworld magic.

Well, it has already been theorized that the Gods were the Elder Dragons of the world that they came from. Perhaps they are a glimpse of what benevolent ED’s can look like, although it is worth mentioning that they abandoned that world… bringing humanity to Tyria and creating (or conquering, who knows) their own realms within the Mists.

Elder Dragons feed off of magical energy, if they don’t consume it they might die. Similarly to Chak, they might also filter out the type of magic that’s damaging to them: their weakness. Let’s consider Zhaitan: did he consume and used just death magic, while filtering out all the other types, or did he consume some types of magic, filtering out his weakness (let’s pretend, for example, it was plant or life), while storing death magic for its uses?

Narcemus.1348

[…] Primordus didn’t consume death magic before Zhaitan awoke, because even though he wasn’t awake, he still held dominion over it and the other dragons could not touch it.

More than a dominion, or an exclusive use over different types of magic (necromancers wouldn’t be able to use death magic otherwise), it’s like if the different personalities of the Elder Dragons drove them towards a specific type of magic, and, over the eons, this differentiation led to a point where each dragon turned into a physical manifestation of their respective type, while naturally drawing in their chosen magical type.

DarcShriek.5829

I wonder if there is any harm in absorbing magic that is not part of a dragon’s sphere of influence.

That’s an interesting idea: are they willingly using these other types of magic or is it against their willpower? And is it somehow weakening them? Consider Primordus and its destroyers: we’ve seen destroyers that are immune to burning (those in core Tyria), but in Ember Bay there’s just one example I can think about (the Dominator); in Ember Bay we’re now also observing destroyers susceptible to chill, vulnerable to cold conditions (could be just mechanics though).

maxwelgm.4315

[…] if this is how magic works for Elder Dragons, there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t work like that concerning the gods either.

And much like the Elder Dragons they are able of corruption. Unlike the ED though, the human gods don’t force their corruption over unwilling beings, they instead spread it to those who showed and proved them particular devotion, as a reward; for example: Grenth’s Seven Reapers or even Abaddon’s margonites.

Sock.2785:

That’s an interesting idea: are they willingly using these other types of magic or is it against their willpower? And is it somehow weakening them? Consider Primordus and its destroyers: we’ve seen destroyers that are immune to burning (those in core Tyria), but in Ember Bay there’s just one example I can think about (the Dominator); in Ember Bay we’re now also observing destroyers susceptible to chill, vulnerable to cold conditions (could be just mechanics though).

Just because a destroyer doesn’t say it’s immune to burning doesn’t mean it’s not. I forget which one I tested this on, but my ranger was running around with a flame trap for a bit, but the destroyers weren’t catching on fire. I do like that these new destroyers are at least vulnerable to cold, something which I missed from GW1 where certain element types were more effective on certain enemies. I’m really hoping that our next batch of elite specializations includes a whole bunch of chilling effects.

@Rognik Funnily enough, even though it states that the Molten Dominator is immune to burning, it actually takes damage from it… and I remember being able to blind a couple of dredges. It’s a weird buggy topic.

Sock.2785:

maxwelgm.4315

[…] if this is how magic works for Elder Dragons, there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t work like that concerning the gods either.

And much like the Elder Dragons they are able of corruption. Unlike the ED though, the human gods don’t force their corruption over unwilling beings, they instead spread it to those who showed and proved them particular devotion, as a reward; for example: Grenth’s Seven Reapers or even Abaddon’s margonites.

With that in mind I’m wondering what Magic corruption created the Afflicted and the Jade Wind. Affliction corruption looks quite different from Zhaitan’s Death and Shadow Magic combination…

Mixing dragon magic can make chaos explosions etc. but its seems to be a case of proportions. So question is proportion of mixed magic perfect in all those destroyers, champions and their spawner. If proportion is wrong especialy in case of champion or elder what will happen, when and what will try to do with that.

One interesting conundrum that the theory raises is that the magic of the professions and the spheres of the dragons do not line up. Necromancer fits with Zhaitan. Mesmer… you could argue Primordus, but we don’t really know enough to make that claim. Elementalist is split between at least two dragons (and possibly more likely four) and guardian/monk… I don’t really know where they might fit in. There is no dragon of forcefields and light that we know of.

Meanwhile, Mordremoth’s domain of plants… nobody uses that except sylvari, rangers (and they don’t use a lot), and followers of Melandru.

I suspect the way the gods divided the bloodstones might have been a factor in that, but it is interesting that we now have two different arrangements of magic that are not easily reconciled.

Sock.2785:

Elder Dragons feed off of magical energy, if they don’t consume it they might die. Similarly to Chak, they might also filter out the type of magic that’s damaging to them: their weakness. Let’s consider Zhaitan: did he consume and used just death magic, while filtering out all the other types, or did he consume some types of magic, filtering out his weakness (let’s pretend, for example, it was plant or life), while storing death magic for its uses?

One of the Exalted says that their preservation magic is anathema to Mordrem, which is reinforced by divine fire repelling Mordrem at the end of Season 2. Is that because it falls within the sphere of one of the other dragons? Or do the Forgotten – and by inheritance, the Exalted – have a branch of magic that’s bad for all of the Elder Dragons?

The classes don’t split magic the same way they did in GW1. Yeah, each of the 6 initial classes had one of the gods as a patron (with Elementalist essentially worshipping them all), but we also have many more martial base classes than base then.

Also, Primordus uses fire magic, which is mostly Elementalist and Guardian (although that’s closer to holy fire). If the mesmer’s magic is close to anything, it’s either Mordremoth’s mind magic or Kralkatorrik’s crystal magic (it’s purple, and the champion is called The Shatterer. Pretty sure Kralk’s anti-chaos while the mesmer is pro-chaos).

While magic can be split in different domains as seen in episode 2, one could also argue that different combination could be achieved.
From the map of the All, there seems to be 6 great waves (for 6 dragons) but their combinations could also overlap. For example Moredremoth domains are Plant and Mind, yet it seems Primordus only tapped into the Plant one, meaning Mordremoth wave could actually be fragmented into smaller wavelets. That is why I am not sure we can attribute one type of magic to every single profession, I think the combinations are more numerous than 6. For example Mesmer could totally fill the role of being mind oriented.

I also wonder how magic was divided among the elder races, if they all had a bit of each main branch or different ones. In fact I could imagine that when Seers made the Bloodstone they gathered all magic minus Mursaat one into the stone, creating an uncomplete spectrum of magic. Centuries after magic may have been re distributed differently (also the human Gods split of the Bloodstone may have created a new 4"colors" spectrum). But now I am wondering if by, absorbing the BF Bloodstone, Lazarus could have absorbed another part of the spectrum and if he would get a full spectrum if he absorbed all bloodstones.

@Rognik: When it comes to the magical professions, we do. Three of the four GW1 magical professions also exist in GW2. The Guardian is essentially a combination of monk, paragon, and ritualist (all of which were similar enough that they could have been drawing from the same set, with ritualists also drawing power from the Mists like revenants do now).

Engineer and revenant are the only completely new professions. Revenants use Mists magic, albeit not in the same way ritualists did. Warriors and rangers are warriors and rangers, while thieves are essentially a less specialised and less overtly magical form of assassins. Engineers we’ve been told don’t directly use magic, and the magic revenants use is not of Tyria. So when it comes to the way the professions are broken up magic-wise, it’s actually more straightforward than it was in Guild Wars 1.

(Plus, even with the six original professions, it was more complex than each one having a patron: monks were split between Dwayna and Balthazar. And the gods were only ever patrons – they didn’t have control over those branches of magic, at least not in Tyria, although they could provide blessings to make a practitioner of that magic stronger.)

Bottom line is, Guild Wars 2 still has four primary spellcasting professions using Tyrian magic (the three scholars and guardians, who are the heirs of monks), with revenants using non-Tyrian magic. These professions, though, don’t line up with the dragons except as discussed in my previous post (as I said, mesmer could be argued to be Kralkatorrik because all the purple lightning and beams from Kralkatorrik’s minions look similar to mesmer effects beyond just being purple – but as you said, and I was thinking but I skipped for brevity, the weakness is that Mind is also a mesmer thing, splitting mesmer across at least two).

What I think might be going on is that magic is actually divided among at least 12 domains. The dragons each have two, while for the professions it’s messier, and some might be missing altogether in the professions. It’s also possible that there are some domains that none of the dragons have been able to claim… or which may not have been a natural part of the Tyrian system and which is only present now because it was brought to Tyria by the gods and the Forgotten.

draxynnic.3719:

What I think might be going on is that magic is actually divided among at least 12 domains. The dragons each have two, while for the professions it’s messier, and some might be missing altogether in the professions. It’s also possible that there are some domains that none of the dragons have been able to claim… or which may not have been a natural part of the Tyrian system and which is only present now because it was brought to Tyria by the gods and the Forgotten.

Draxy has the right approach.

We made the mistake before in our reality when we confined the spectrum of light to sensory experience. With more research we found out roygbiv is not all there is. Similarly Tyria is discovering there is more to magic than they thought. Lets say denial is violet, aggression is green, destruction is red, preservation is blue. What is thaumanovic radiation? There is clearly an other, we just don’t know how big the other is.

!https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/EM_spectrumrevised.png!

With science we explored the spectrum and we found out that pink is an illusion our brains made to fill in the gaps in our sight. So is Kralkatorrik really making Mesmer chaos fields? Or do the citizen of Tyria have difficulty seeing dragon energies correctly?

Birds can see ultraviolet, snakes can sense infrared, perhaps dragons can interact with magic in ways unknown to the post-bloodstone races. Hopefully Taimi and others will develop technologies to explore the spectrum accurately. And perhaps even to experience it directly as we have with infrared goggles.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Mixing dragon magic can make chaos explosions etc. but its seems to be a case of proportions. So question is proportion of mixed magic perfect in all those destroyers, champions and their spawner. If proportion is wrong especialy in case of champion or elder what will happen, when and what will try to do with that.

What was said, actually, was mixing dragon magic with chaos magic.

This implies that dragon magic is not all of the magic. The notion drax brings up about some professions not matching any Elder Dragon’s known spheres matches with this. There is no Elder Light Dragon, no Elder Chaos Dragon (despite common claims about Kralk), no plant profession, no crystal profession, etc.

draxynnic.3719:

What I think might be going on is that magic is actually divided among at least 12 domains. The dragons each have two, while for the professions it’s messier, and some might be missing altogether in the professions. It’s also possible that there are some domains that none of the dragons have been able to claim… or which may not have been a natural part of the Tyrian system and which is only present now because it was brought to Tyria by the gods and the Forgotten.

This reminds me…

The Bloodstone contains magic that the other Elder Dragons hadn’t yet taken… what if the Seers put in entire domains in it – namely, four of them? (yup, the schools)

That would mean there are not 12 but 16 domains of magic – at least – in the world. And it would then answer the discrepancies in the profession-to-ED magical fields. Even moreso if professions use multiple domains.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The Bloodstone contains magic that the other Elder Dragons hadn’t yet taken… what if the Seers put in entire domains in it – namely, four of them? (yup, the schools)

That would mean there are not 12 but 16 domains of magic – at least – in the world. And it would then answer the discrepancies in the profession-to-ED magical fields. Even moreso if professions use multiple domains.

Let’s not expand this too far before we learn more. Currently, we’re just learning that magic comes in different flavours, but we don’t even know what that fully means. Is death magic the only magic necromancers use? How easy is it to mix magic, or filter magic (like light through a prism)? What are the realms of the other 4 (known) dragons? Where do magic users draw their magic from? Not all of these are necessarily relevant, but if we get too far ahead of ourselves, we’re just going to go down the wrong path and not really learn anything. I think it might be better to just hold tight until we learn more.

We always knew that magic came in “different flavors”. Even back in GW1, we had dark, chaos, holy, and elemental (further divided into water, fire, earth, and air/lightning) magic – in addition to the four schools of magic.

Even ley lines having all different types of magic was pretty obvious, TBH, given that it’s all magic that’s flowing together.

The only real revelation – other than explicit mention of what could be observed but was never said – is Taimi’s claim that all death magic was Zhaitan’s domain (and the further extention of such), and that an ED can take a dead ED’s domains/magic.

Elder Dragon domains haven’t been directly associated with magic usable by the races, nor was dragon magic ever considered such (it was always used to describe the corruptive magic Elder Dragons and their minions spread).

You’re right that learning the domains of the other ED is important, though – we know one of them for three EDs (Ice for Jormag, Crystal for Kralkatorrik, Fire for Primordus) and we have strong indication for the second domain for two EDs (Soul/Spirit for Jormag, Air/Sky for Kralkatorrik), but both for the DSD’s are unknown.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We always knew that magic came in “different flavors”. Even back in GW1, we had dark, chaos, holy, and elemental (further divided into water, fire, earth, and air/lightning) magic – in addition to the four schools of magic.

OK, pausing it here for a moment. Maybe this was just my interpretation (and it’s been a while, so forgive me if I occasionally forget these things), but I always assumed these weapons that did dark. chaos, holy and elemental damage was directly tied to each class’s magic speciality: Necros used dark magic, Mesmers chaos, Monks holy, and Elementalists elemental. So I wouldn’t call the schools of magic different.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Elder Dragon domains haven’t been directly associated with magic usable by the races, nor was dragon magic ever considered such (it was always used to describe the corruptive magic Elder Dragons and their minions spread).

You’re right that learning the domains of the other ED is important, though – we know one of them for three EDs (Ice for Jormag, Crystal for Kralkatorrik, Fire for Primordus) and we have strong indication for the second domain for two EDs (Soul/Spirit for Jormag, Air/Sky for Kralkatorrik), but both for the DSD’s are unknown.

I feel like Kralkatorrik’s main sphere is probably more Order. Crystal has never really been labeled as an element, but the concept of crystals is these random particles align into a beautiful and precise order, mostly on its own. Now Order is the opposite of Chaos, and I think most people will agree that Chaos is one of the types of magic, so I feel that its opposite must also exist, thus Order. Might even be tied to holy magic somehow, calling back to the monks of old.

I’ll eat my rare adventurer’kitten if one of the DSD’s spheres isn’t Water. After all, it’s the Deep Sea Dragon.

And finally, I don’t remember if I said it before or not, but we’d need a full list of what all the magic realms are. We can guess and intuit, but without the Priory telling us, I’m not sure we ever would’ve known Zhaitan was Shadow and Death (what’s the difference?) and Mordremoth was Mind and Plants (although the plant part was kinda obvious). Do the dragons rule over all the realms of magic, or are there branches that are untouched for one reason or another?

Daniel Handler.4816:

draxynnic.3719:

What I think might be going on is that magic is actually divided among at least 12 domains. The dragons each have two, while for the professions it’s messier, and some might be missing altogether in the professions. It’s also possible that there are some domains that none of the dragons have been able to claim… or which may not have been a natural part of the Tyrian system and which is only present now because it was brought to Tyria by the gods and the Forgotten.

Draxy has the right approach.

We made the mistake before in our reality when we confined the spectrum of light to sensory experience. With more research we found out roygbiv is not all there is. Similarly Tyria is discovering there is more to magic than they thought. Lets say denial is violet, aggression is green, destruction is red, preservation is blue. What is thaumanovic radiation? There is clearly an other, we just don’t know how big the other is.

!https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/EM_spectrumrevised.png!

With science we explored the spectrum and we found out that pink is an illusion our brains made to fill in the gaps in our sight. So is Kralkatorrik really making Mesmer chaos fields? Or do the citizen of Tyria have difficulty seeing dragon energies correctly?

Birds can see ultraviolet, snakes can sense infrared, perhaps dragons can interact with magic in ways unknown to the post-bloodstone races. Hopefully Taimi and others will develop technologies to explore the spectrum accurately. And perhaps even to experience it directly as we have with infrared goggles.

It’s possible that we’re not even seeing the full visible spectrum.

Elemental magic is often associated with reddish hues because fire, but arcane skills – which have the best claim to represent the ‘natural’ appearance of elemental magic before being converted into a physical element that has its own colour – are a yellowish-white. It’s worth noting that the paleness of arcane magic skills suggests that elemental magic may span a broader spectrum than other professions (which fits the observation that it appears to cover the domains of several dragons – Primordus and Jormag at the very least), but it at least peaks around yellow.

The hybrid professions also have colours that are similar to those of the primary spellcaster whose magic they dabble in. Vanilla rangers appear to be using mostly elemental stuff, and sure enough, most of their magic auras are yellow… except when they’re using poison, when it becomes green. Thief auras are indigo, approaching mesmer purple. Healing magic of all professions (including druid) has a tendency to be blue, reflecting what was once a monk speciality.

We tend not to see anything redder than yellow. Some necromancer blood magic is red, but that’s probably because it’s manipulating blood (like how the natural colour of elemental magic may be being largely overridden by the colours of the elements it conjures). Some revenant stuff, especially where it opens a rift, is red, but all of the legends fit in the yellow-violet region of the spectrum, so at most that could be regarded as dabbling (possibly the magic to form rifts fits generally into the red area of the spectrum – which would be a retcon from the teal of GW1 ritualists, but since magic has clearly been retconned since Factions was made that could simply be an inconsistency that comes from the retcon). Otherwise, red and orange auras mostly seem to be associated with warriors… who probably aren’t fully utilising its potential.

While scientifically speaking the spectrum of light extends beyond the visible region, it’s likely that, as previous settings that associate colours with styles of magic have done, ArenaNet will keep it to the visible spectrum, possibly even making it more of a wheel with red being adjacent to purple than a spectrum. In this case, though, the underrepresentation of the red end means they have the opportunity to bring in stuff that hasn’t been seen before. It could well be interesting to speculate on what might be present at that end…

For instance, berserkers are associated with red and invoke rage and fire. Elementalists focusing on fire magic in GW1 (and Flame Legion in GW2) have generally been portrayed as easily angered, so a connection between fire and rage is easy to make. So elementalists may have a significant presence in the red area after all – it’s just that they combine it with earth, water, and lightning, which might all be around yellow or even drifting towards blue (guardians have some lightning-oriented skills, and healing water is likely drawing from the blue region at least partially).

(Did they reduce the maximum post length?)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The Bloodstone contains magic that the other Elder Dragons hadn’t yet taken… what if the Seers put in entire domains in it – namely, four of them? (yup, the schools)

That would mean there are not 12 but 16 domains of magic – at least – in the world. And it would then answer the discrepancies in the profession-to-ED magical fields. Even moreso if professions use multiple domains.

That was a thought I had myself – it’s possible that the various domains weren’t evenly split between the bloodstone and the dragons.

Necromancers seem pretty closely linked to Zhaitan’s domains, utilising both death and shadow. This could mean that the domains were split between Zhaitan and the bloodstone, or the necromancer profession as we know it might exist because of how the gods unwittingly drew from Zhaitan’s powers when they meddled with the bloodstone, pouring necromantic magic into it when previously there might not have been.

The various elemental domains are also clearly shared between the dragons and the bloodstone.

Plants seem to be underrepresented in the professions, which could be because Mordremoth managed to claim nearly all magic in that domain. The magic of guardians and monks, on the other hand, does not seem to be present in any of the dragons we’ve met. Now, that could mean that the Deep Sea Dragon holds the appropriate domain, but it could also be that it’s a form of magic that the dragons didn’t manage to get any of.

Certainly, I think elemental magic and necromancy are somewhat ‘shared’ by mortals and dragons. Mesmerism you can argue is shared between mortals on the one hand and Mordy and Kralky on the other, or it might be that mesmerism is something separate that only has superficial similarities to Mind and Kralkatorrik’s purple lightning. Guardian/monk magic does not appear to be employed by any of the dragons that we’ve identified so far. Meanwhile, Plant, and possibly other domains that we haven’t seen, seems to have been unavailable to mortals until recently.

Rognik.2579:

OK, pausing it here for a moment. Maybe this was just my interpretation (and it’s been a while, so forgive me if I occasionally forget these things), but I always assumed these weapons that did dark. chaos, holy and elemental damage was directly tied to each class’s magic speciality: Necros used dark magic, Mesmers chaos, Monks holy, and Elementalists elemental. So I wouldn’t call the schools of magic different.

It’s a little more complicated than that. Chaos was also related to arcane, and some necromancer and monk attributes were linked to cold and fire respectively… and that’s without considering the ritualist.

That said, I’d consider the damage types to represent the physical/spiritual effects something has rather than the magic type per se. Fire damage was anything that physically applies heat, cold was anything that drains it – neither is necessarily originating from elemental magic. Dark is draining life force, chaos is the chaotic effect of uncontrolled magic, and holy appeared to be attacking the spirit (although at times the line between holy and fire seemed a little blurry).

However, I’m not inclined to think of them as domains, simply the effects of different types of magic on their victims… and two types of magic having the same damage type does not need to be related. For instance, I would be inclined to think that necromancer effects that deal cold damage (or inflict chill) are doing so by draining the heat from the target or area affected, while elementalists cool things down by conjuring ice and/or wind that then has a cooling effect.

To draw an analogy with physical attacks, the damage type is whether you’re cutting, stabbing, or smashing, while the magic type is whether the striking surface of your weapon is made of wood, stone, metal or crystal. The fact that a weapon cuts does not tell you what it’s made of, but it can suggest that it’s more likely to be metal or crystal than wood, for instance.

Rognik

I feel like Kralkatorrik’s main sphere is probably more Order. Crystal has never really been labeled as an element, but the concept of crystals is these random particles align into a beautiful and precise order, mostly on its own. Now Order is the opposite of Chaos, and I think most people will agree that Chaos is one of the types of magic, so I feel that its opposite must also exist, thus Order. Might even be tied to holy magic somehow, calling back to the monks of old.

I’ll eat my rare adventurer’kitten if one of the DSD’s spheres isn’t Water. After all, it’s the Deep Sea Dragon.

Order doesn’t really fit, though. Kralkatorrik’s mindscape in Edge of Destiny is a raging storm that is the very opposite of ordered contentment. Plus, as noted above, many of the effects associated with his minions look similar to mesmer chaos effects (because damage types no longer exist, we don’t have that method of identifying what they actually are).

It’s tempting to associate crystals with order, but there’s two things that go against that. The first is that crystals are also generally associated with storing magic: Kralkatorrik might simply like crystals because they’re a good way of storing magic. The second is that while a perfect crystal is highly ordered, in reality a crystal (particularly an uncut natural crystal) is rarely perfect – they’re often filled with imperfections, intrusions of some other mineral, different phases with different chemical compositions, daughter crystals sprouting off at any angle. In a way, a crystal might well be a demonstration of something that could be ordered but which is instead highly chaotic. The third is that to someone who’s not familiar with how reflection and refraction works, the way that light interacts with a crystal – even a well-cut one – can appear to be highly chaotic.

Connecting guardian/monk magic to Order might well be accurate – order is often associated in other settings with that style of magic or (ironically) mesmer-style magic. However, nothing we see of Kralky suggests that he has a connection to guardian/monk style magic.

Regarding the DSD: I’d be surprised if water isn’t one of its domains too. However, we don’t know – it’s possible that it isn’t, and it chooses to live underwater for some other reason. The line in the Movement about the DSD forming tentacled horrors out of water does seem indicative, but that might have been retconned. The Movement also says that such minions “rose from every lake and river of the land”, and we don’t see that.

And finally, I don’t remember if I said it before or not, but we’d need a full list of what all the magic realms are. We can guess and intuit, but without the Priory telling us, I’m not sure we ever would’ve known Zhaitan was Shadow and Death (what’s the difference?) and Mordremoth was Mind and Plants (although the plant part was kinda obvious). Do the dragons rule over all the realms of magic, or are there branches that are untouched for one reason or another?

Yes, the lack of knowledge of the other spheres does make it hard to pin things down for sure. However, I’m not holding my breath – we probably won’t get the full list until we’re gearing up to fight the last one.

(Regarding shadow and death… I would associate shadow with making things dark and possibly draining heat and similar energy, while death is associated by draining the life force out of things, animating corpses, and entropy in general. The two are often related, particularly since both are considered to ‘dark’, but they’re not always intertwined. D&D and Warhammer both kept shadow and death magic separate, for instance.)

Let’s take a step back.
One way to get white light is by primary colours: they are mixed or added together with the proper intensity. The most common set of primary colours is Red, Green and Blue (RGB), exactly the three colours we see running through the ley lines (those we ride with our gliders too).

Ranael.6423

While magic can be split in different domains as seen in episode 2, one could also argue that different combination could be achieved.

Interesting idea. The mixing together (or addition) of two or three of the three primary colors of light (RGB) with varying degrees of intensity can produce a wide range of other colors, not just white. What if there are primary magics from which all other kinds of magic are generated? And how to obtain them: do they naturally occur or does the mind of an individual play an important role in shaping the magic (consider Kormir turning into the Goddess of Truth whereas Abaddon was the God of Secrets)?

Mickey Frogeater.1470

With that in mind I’m wondering what Magic corruption created the Afflicted and the Jade Wind. Affliction corruption looks quite different from Zhaitan’s Death and Shadow Magic combination…

It’s worth noting that Shiro got indirectly influenced by Abaddon, who drove him to insanity, making Shiro turn to forbidden magic: was he blessed with Abaddon’s magic? And what role did Dwayna’s magic (which he absorbed from the emperor) play?
The Affliction is subsequent to his mortal death, when Shiro was already an Envoy. Envoys can control souls and influence the dead; the Afflicted aren’t dead nor risen: they are living creatures who came too close to Shiro’s malevolent spirit. Is like if the bodies and the spirits of the Afflicted have been poisoned, slowly being tortured and tormented in a way.

draxynnic.3719

[…] divine fire repelling Mordrem at the end of Season 2.

Divine Fire is associated with Ascension and the human gods. Are Ascended beings uncorruptible? Did the Forgotten make Glint Ascend in order to cleanse her? Is the Pale Tree also Ascended (both her and Glint show prophetic abilities)? Are the Exalted Ascended? Certainly the Elder Dragons aren’t.

In gw1 any proffesion could use dmg type weapon – you could put dmg part into any weapon, so weapons dmg type isn’t associated with proffesion, but rather with domains. Hmm, now is gw2 we have similar situation. With legendaries mostly or auric weapons.

About chapter2 fire Island heart near molten dominator sell amulet with auqa name suggesting that it deals minor dmg to destroyers.

Nextly first stage of mixing domains that we speculated about long ago occurs. Now shadow flames/ shadow plants / mind flames/ mind shadows / plant fire etc.. Each of them is like new domain. Now we can still differ parts of domains that make it, but will they last? or will new ones even more tangled occur. Maybe Primordus will no longer be of fire domain if it will be going in that curse.

And at last some speculation about deep sea one. S stands for South for Cantha its faction. As well Mysterious E writing letters stand for E as East for Elona next fraction.
S stand for dragon, looks like snake and its sound of what snake make. Its domain is flow – speculation based on how races afflicted cuz of him behave – quagans and krait go with flow, running, they don’t fight current. PS. In cantha we have also people who go with purity flow or against (dirty). On other hand largos challenge it.
Next domain can be dynasty – yes something vague like that – death of head of dynasty and his live have is of much importance. We have quenn karka.
Next domain hive – to protect self from outer world. Its very connected to flow, but I decided to split it.
Nextly about chak that ’’flow’’ where ley-lines are and that they filter magic. You can filter water etc you can filter something from impurity to make it pure.

About that S. Where the page was torn. Our PC comment that the torn was where full name should be, but I think its was torn on purpose to throw us on wrong path and make us forget about the most common meaning of S. To torn page can have its hidden purpose.

I would say that arcane is just golden, yet never uderstand that pink icons -.-

More about elemental domains: ele had spell that changed all incoming dmg in earth, probably there was one more in air, but I forgot. If I recall hunter had one spirit too.

Now question where hunter gw1 spirit that prevented from rezzing stands? death? you can’t rez is in the same domain as creating walking dead? or its preservation to not touch sanctum of dead so nature aspect and respect to cycle of life. Its like mix of all of those.

Rognik.2579:

OK, pausing it here for a moment. Maybe this was just my interpretation (and it’s been a while, so forgive me if I occasionally forget these things), but I always assumed these weapons that did dark. chaos, holy and elemental damage was directly tied to each class’s magic speciality: Necros used dark magic, Mesmers chaos, Monks holy, and Elementalists elemental. So I wouldn’t call the schools of magic different.

Elementalists had chaos damage, necromancers had dark, shadow, and unholy.

Further, in GW2 we get comments of both chaos magic (most commonly known about – anything related to Thaumanova talks about chaos magic), light magic and dark magic (the latter two’s most prominent mention being the Prime Hologram fight at the end of S1).

Do note that I didn’t call them schools of magic, but types of magic. I’m not entirely sure yet we can call the schools and domains to be the same thing, but those three magical energies exist and existed before we ever heard about the Elder Dragons having domains.

And though I cannot recall exactly, I do think there was mention in GW1 about chaos, holy, and dark magic in context to the magic used by mesmers, monks, and necromancers but not in reference to their typical damage types.

Rognik.2579:

I feel like Kralkatorrik’s main sphere is probably more Order. Crystal has never really been labeled as an element, but the concept of crystals is these random particles align into a beautiful and precise order, mostly on its own. Now Order is the opposite of Chaos, and I think most people will agree that Chaos is one of the types of magic, so I feel that its opposite must also exist, thus Order. Might even be tied to holy magic somehow, calling back to the monks of old.

There’s nothing relating Kralkatorrik to “order”, first off.

Second off, so far the first domain has always been the Elder Dragon’s ‘title’. Elder Fire Dragon. Elder Death Dragon. Elder Plant/Vegetation Dragon/Jungle Dragon. Elder Crystal Dragon.

In addition, that first domain has always been what the corruption takes the form of – so again, fire, death/decay, ice, plant, and crystal.

Lastly, nothing says that any domain of an ED has to be elemental, or that there can be only one elemental domain. After all, neither shadow nor death are elemental in nature, and those are Zhaitan’s domains.

So Crystal being one of Kralkatorrik’s domain is downright confirmed.

As an aside: the opposite of chaos would really be every other magic, in the sense that the nature of chaos is to break rules and order, and all the other magics have their own individual rules and order to them (fire burns, water is wet, earth is dirty, etc.)

Rognik.2579:

I’ll eat my rare adventurer’kitten if one of the DSD’s spheres isn’t Water. After all, it’s the Deep Sea Dragon.

This naming comes in the same variety as the “Orrian Dragon” (aka Zhaitan) and the “Desert Dragon” (aka Kralkatorrik), just as the other way of referring to the DSD – dragon of the deep sea – matches the nickname “Dragon of the Depths” (aka Primordus). In other words, this manner of naming is for specifying the Elder Dragon’s location, not what their domain is.

Otherwise we’d better start calling “Orr” and “desert” domains of magic.

The best guess to a domain we have for the DSD, given how what we know about the other ED’s domains function, is “tentacles”. Literally, just “tentacles” – because that’s the best we know about the form the DSD’s corruption takes.

Behold, Selbbub, the Elder Tentacle Dragon… Japanese schoolgirls beware.

We have to know the second domains to be sure. But here is one possible idea:

• Primordius, fire/earth, red/orange
• Mordremoth, plant/mind, yellow/green
• Zhaitan, death/shadow, dark green
• Jormag, ice/spirit, pale blue
• Bubbles, water/? , blue
• Kralkatorrik, crystal/air, violet
• Mist energies, translucent or the color of the location in the mist

And the spectrum is:

• red/fire is ele, ranger, and berserker
• orange/earth is ele, ranger, and berserker
• yellow/plants is ranger
• green/mind is mesmer, and thief
• dark green/shadow is mesmer, thief, and necro
• greenish black/death is necro
• blueish white/spirit is necro, guardian, ranger
• pale blue/ice is ele, and ranger
• blue/water is ele, and ranger
• violet/air is ele, and ranger

If correct this leads to some interesting insights

• magenta is the inverse of green, an extra spectral color our minds produce. Mesmers take away your ability to doubt. And you do what is natural, you perceive the loss of green as magenta
• plant magic would not be green because green plants can’t absorb green light. Instead they went with the standard of a yellow sun fueling growth
• hues add light magic, shades add dark magic,
• the mind is green/perception, a phantasm is magenta fueled by stolen green, shadow is when you add darkness to perception, minions are when you add a dash of mind magic to a large amount of darkness, l

There is more insights. I’ll upload an image soon

Phantasms appearing magenta because they’re the result of green being subtracted from white is an interesting idea, but it does have the flaw in that all Mesmer magic is purple, not just the illusions.

Instead, I’d be inclined to develop the observation that plant magic is not necessarily green, since green is the colour that plants don’t use. Instead, most of the magic that seems to promote life is in the blue region, so it could be that plant magic is actually in the blue region. We see some evidence towards this in that the druid healing seeds and things of that nature appear blue. The mind domain, then, could sit adjacent in the purple region, so that Mordremoth overlaps with Mesmer magic on that side.

From what I remember at least, this is evidenced through energies associated with Mordremoth – such as the energy in his mindscape and seen swirling around some of his more powerful minions – often being blue or purple in colour (including the Tower of Nightmares which might have been influenced by Mordremoth in some manner, and certainly in any sense was probably strong in the plant and mind domains). We also don’t see much red or yellow in the ley lines associated with Mordremoth: those in the jungle are white tinged with teal, and it’s not until Season 3 that we start seeing the red-gold lines.

Putting Mordremoth in this space of the spectrum would appear to put thieves right in his territory, but this could be explained by thieves using a mix of Mesmer-like magics (purple) with shadow magic (possibly in the green region, although by nature it typically appears black because it property is to create darkness), with the indigo-black that we see from most thief effects being how that mixture works out.

I believe I have completed the spectrum. http://imgur.com/F0rEpCY
Edit- the spectrum for magic is correct, the labeling of deities is off

Here is the magic spectrum using CYMK subtractive color theory
http://imgur.com/7lo0GP1 – rough draft, finished version coming soon

The explanation is complicated. It will take at least 2 days to write a post explaining the spectrum. Mainly because thermodynamics is involved. I will make a new post when it’s ready.