Guild Wars 2

Why is Mordremoth called the Elder Dragon of Plant and Mind?

Is it because of how he corrupts(through assaulting the mind) or is he the most intelligent Elder Dragon?

Scarlet who was one of the Mordrem was a genius with high tech who created 5 factions working for her(Steam Creatures, Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, Twisted Watchworks and the Toxic Alliance) which none of the other Elder Dragons’ minions were able to replicate at all so I would assume the Mind part of the omnicidal Mordremoth’s sphere refers to intellect not where he targets.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Why is Mordremoth called the Elder Dragon of Plant and Mind?

Is it because of how he corrupts(through assaulting the mind) or is he the most intelligent Elder Dragon?

Scarlet who was one of the Mordrem was a genius with high tech who created 5 factions working for her(Steam Creatures, Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, Twisted Watchworks and the Toxic Alliance) which none of the other Elder Dragons’ minions were able to replicate at all so I would assume the Mind part of the omnicidal Mordremoth’s sphere refers to intellect not where he targets.

I can’t find the topic I read some months ago explaining how Mordremoth sweeps into the minds of their victims, but it said something like Mordremoth puts false thoughts onto its victims’ mind and then if the victim trusts those thoughts, he/she is utter turned (corrupted).
About Ceara and her intellect: well, she was very curious since her beginning and if you read her journal, it seems that her Dream was a nightmare, likely. Mordremoth was communicating with her through images of death, destruction and destiny. When she uses that Nietzschian quote “(…)tonight, I saw it. I stared into the abyss and it stared back into me(…)” hints that moment was when she fell into sleep and could see or feel Mordremoth’s influence. Throughout her story, we don’t know if she was aiming to aid the dragon (the sylvari belongs to Mordremoth) or to fight it, but at least we know that she WAS concious about her situation.

It’s unclear how the Elder Dragons’ spheres of influence work. All we know is that we’re told the two spheres for Zhaitan and Mordremoth. Based off of these two examples, the situation seems to be that one sphere is for how the corruption takes shape (death and plants respectively), and how they corrupt (shadow and mind respectively).

Zhaitan primarily corrupts corpses, but he can corrupt plants and living animals too – however, all he corrupts results in a decayed zombie appearance. How he corrupts is never specified, but it’s all got to do with proximity.

Mordremoth’s primary corruption isn’t exactly clear yet – likely to become clear in HoT – but we see corpses being corrupted (Mordrem Wolves and Trolls) while all of his corruption takes the form of plants (most commonly vines, but also flowers and fungi). How he corrupts is similarly not exactly clear yet, but with Aerin, Scarlet, and the other sylvari he gets into their minds.

Scarlet’s intelligence compared to other dragon minions isn’t so clear cut. Keep in mind that all champions retain some level of intellect – and Mordremoth’s corruption on Scarlet isn’t clear. All sylvari have a degree of protection against the Elder Dragons, including Mordremoth, so we don’t know the level of influence Scarlet had – was she fully corrupt, or was she not corrupted at all, merely mentally tied to Mordremoth? It’s not very clear. Her capabilities in creating what she made all comes from BEFORE Mordremoth’s influence, however, so if anything Mordremoth’s corruption merely does not reduce intelligence, rather than increasing it.

But again, even risen dragon champions are highly intelligent if they were in life. So it’s plausible that Scarlet was a mere standard dragon champion, only capable of continuing on with such intellect merely because she had it before corruption and it was not taken from her due to being a champion.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Mordremoth’s primary corruption isn’t exactly clear yet – likely to become clear in HoT – but we see corpses being corrupted (Mordrem Wolves and Trolls)

I must have missed something. Where did we see this?

Why would Mordremoth even need to corrupt corpses? The Pale Tree can grow a hound, but Mordremoth has to corrupt a corpse to get a wolf? The Pale Tree can grow a plant in the shape of a human, but Mordremoth has to corrupt a corpse to get a plant in the shape of a troll?

Given that:

• there were other seeds in the cave that Ronan found
• at least one of those seeds could grow into a tree that can produce independant plant life forms in shapes mimicking non-plant life forms
• Mordremoth was the source of those seeds

I had assumed that Mordremoth had mordrem “factories” somewhere out there in the jungle that were growing whatever critters seemed useful to the cause: wolves, husks, trolls, teragriffs, etc. I had assumed that the Pale Tree was designed to be one such factory, operating as intended in growing minions except for the inconvenient fact that she got free of the dragon’s control.

But you tell me that actually he’s making them from corpses? Well, assumptions seem to have led me astray, as they often do. When was this information revealed to us?

Shiren.9532:

Maybe Ella (the Priory member who stated this) is just not very smart and didn’t notice that only sylvari were being impacted?

She says this information comes from the scroll of the five true gods which is where the Priory got most of its information (a recent retcon/change, as originally ‘most of its information’ on Elder Dragons came from jotun and dwarven records, not the gods’).

Shiren.9532:

The only link between Mordremoth and the minds of non-sylvari’s is based off of the assumption that Scarlet’s toxin had something to do with Mordremoth.

There’s actually very heavy implication of this.

1. We know that the Toxic Krait were changed both mentally and physically
2. We know that Scarlet was corrupted by Mordremoth, and the seed that became the Tower of Nightmares came from Scarlet
3. The Tower of Nightmare’s toxins are compared to dragon corruption by various NPCs.
4. Various art assets used by the ToN arc is re-used for Mordremoth’s corruption (air pollution, glow hue, etc.).
5. The Tower of Nightmare’s flower’s appearance is visually similar to the Mordrem Vinewrath.

While we haven’t had confirmation that the Toxic Alliance are corrupted by Mordremoth, it seems highly likely to be the case.

BrettM.9062:

I must have missed something. Where did we see this?

Why would Mordremoth even need to corrupt corpses? The Pale Tree can grow a hound, but Mordremoth has to corrupt a corpse to get a wolf? The Pale Tree can grow a plant in the shape of a human, but Mordremoth has to corrupt a corpse to get a plant in the shape of a troll?

First off, I would like to note that I never said that Mordremoth needs to corrupt corpses. I stated that he can and has.

The Mordrem Wolf is very clearly a plant embedded itself inside the corpse of a wolf – just get a good look at the model. It has a skull and fur and flesh, there’s no way to argue that they aren’t corpses.

The troll is less obvious, but seems to be the same – fungi embedded inside a corpse.

Though there’s the question of whether this is a case of the corpses being corrupted – like we’ve seen with Zhaitan and Jormag – or if we have puppeteering plants (effectively functioning akin to the ophiocordyceps unilateralis )

To throw the question back at you: why do you seemingly claim that Mordremoth can’t corrupt corpses?

BrettM.9062:

I had assumed that Mordremoth had mordrem “factories” somewhere out there in the jungle that were growing whatever critters seemed useful to the cause: wolves, husks, trolls, teragriffs, etc. I had assumed that the Pale Tree was designed to be one such factory, operating as intended in growing minions except for the inconvenient fact that she got free of the dragon’s control.

Technically speaking, that’s exactly what the Vinewrath is doing – spawning minions.

BrettM.9062:

But you tell me that actually he’s making them from corpses? Well, assumptions seem to have led me astray, as they often do. When was this information revealed to us?

I never said he’s making them all from corpses. And it was never revealed so much as shown.

Just go in game on a thief, stealth yourself on first person camera, and look at mordrem wolves. Or even go on the wiki – that picture, while not perfect, still shows the fur front paws and hind legs, and if you look closely enough you can see its rib cage with vines/roots of the flower wrapping around it.

BrettM.9062:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Mordremoth’s primary corruption isn’t exactly clear yet – likely to become clear in HoT – but we see corpses being corrupted (Mordrem Wolves and Trolls)

I must have missed something. Where did we see this?

[…]

But you tell me that actually he’s making them from corpses? Well, assumptions seem to have led me astray, as they often do. When was this information revealed to us?

What follows is a mild spoiler from the Heart of Thorns demo story. In that story instance the Pact Commander and his/her companions talk with a Pale Reaver whom they managed to free from the Mordrem Guard, and the Reaver tells them the following:

Pale Reaver: Mordremoth’s forces overpowered us. They locked us up here, with corpses from the crash site. They took the others south ‘to join the jungle dragon’s army.’ We would have been next.

Although it’s not an outright confirmation as far as the fate of the corpses goes, the above lines, along with the specific looks of the Mordrem Wolves and Trolls as Konig explained, do imply that Mordremoth has plans for the corpses. Why else would his minions have gathered the corpses to the same location the sylvari prisoners were being held in as seen in the linked video? This actually reminds me of how Zhaitan created the Risen Abominations in the Personal Story where corpses were similarly being collected to a specific location to be ‘processed’ into minions.

The fungi discussion and the process of turning into Mordrem raises interesting questions as some clues (or red herrings) may have already been planted in the game even as we speak.

The miasma which Scarlet unleashed on Lion’s Arch during the attack was a modified version of the antitoxin she had manipulated the Commander to create as we attemped to destroy the Tower of Nightmares. Even when the miasma was cleared, it left a lasting effect on some of the victims: Scarlet’s Rattle, which keeps affecting not only sylvari but also members of other races as well such as Lionguard Atrix who has developed a raspy cough because his lungs were ravaged by it. We even hear that Durmand Priory members like Scholar Ailis are presently comparing Scarlet’s Rattle to the toxic debris of Tower of Nightmares to find a cure, possibly hinting at future developments with this plotline.

What if Scarlet’s legacy continues and the Rattle is more sinister than we’ve been led to believe? What if the effects are a symptom of some Mordrem fungi, which spread via the miasma, attaching itself to the lungs of the victim and slowly finding its way into blood circulation before taking over the brain cordyceps style and turn the affected body into a host of a Mordrem plant/fungus similar to the Mordrem Wolf or Troll? I may be reading too much into it, but after Peter Fries, one of the writers, specifically called out biological weapon stuff when we discussed what exactly the Consortium would hope to use the Nightmare Tower toxins for in another thread, it does make me wonder if he wasn’t just joking but was actually hinting at some sinister developments—not from the Consortium but from Mordremoth who wouldn’t be above using parasitic Mordrem fungi/flowers to infect the free peoples of Tyria. But this is just wild speculation, of course.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Shiren.9532:

The only link between Mordremoth and the minds of non-sylvari’s is based off of the assumption that Scarlet’s toxin had something to do with Mordremoth.

There’s actually very heavy implication of this.

[…]

While we haven’t had confirmation that the Toxic Alliance are corrupted by Mordremoth, it seems highly likely to be the case.

Let me present a very convincing piece of evidence for this theory from a point of view people may not have considered. It’s a little something I’d like to call the Mordremoth leitmotif, composed by Maclaine Diemer, which can be heard in the soundtracks for Living World seasons 1 and 2. A leitmotif is a term in music theory which basically means a recoccurring theme representing an idea, mood, place, object or person (for example, the Imperial March from Star Wars films is a leitmotif which represents Darth Vader and the Empire as a whole).

The music track that was playing during our adventures within the Tower of Nightmares in S1 was the first canonical appearance of the Mordremoth leitmotif in GW2 story (to my knowledge, anyway). The distinctive and sinister four-note theme can be heard around 0:15 into that track and is occasionally joined by Scarlet’s leitmotif which plays alongside it (e.g. around 1:18 into the same track). These two themes playing in unison signifies a connection between the two characters, and I would even dare say that Scarlet’s leitmotif is based around the general Mordremoth motif (after all, the Scarlet Briar persona wasn’t born until Ceara accidentally opened herself to Mordremoth in Omadd’s machine). Of course at the time we didn’t yet know this threatening, mostly ambient theme would end up representing Mordremoth. We are given even more hints of this connection when we face Scarlet in the Battle on the Breachmaker track and hear some of the chords and notes of the Mordremoth leitmotif being played by the brass underneath Scarlet’s leitmotif which drives the theme forward, signifying that Scarlet has become little more than a mad puppet and minion of the dragon by now.

The connection between the Tower of Nightmares and Mordremoth became apparent in the story by the time we saw the final cinematic of S1 that would set up S2. As Scarlet dies and her drill hits the leyline under LA and redirects it, a very familiar leitmotif starts playing from 0:22 onward in that cinematic as we follow the leyline into the Heart of Maguuma and to the very dragon that leyline is now feeding with magic.

If that wasn’t enough, we hear the same leitmotif again in S2, giving us even more proof of the connection between Mordremoth, Mordrem, Scarlet, the Tower of Nightmares and thus also the affected Toxic Alliance. The Mordrem track actually shares certain chords with the Mordremoth leitmotif underneath it as well as some of that leitmotif’s melodic progressions, revealing the sinister master behind these invading minions.

Not only that, but by the time we confront the Shadow of the Dragon and its thrilling battle music start playing, the Mordremoth leitmotif returns yet again (first appearing at 0:10 in a somewhat evolved form and later appears throughout the track in various guises). This time we hear the Mordremoth leitmotif in its most glorious form as the Shadow, being the Elder Dragon’s lieutenant, heralds the rise of its master Mordremoth as the greatest threat to the existence of Tyria and its free races.

All of Diemer’s musical foreshadowing and storytelling, in addition to the other pieces of evidence Konig presented above, are all the proof I need to say that the Toxic Alliance were slowly falling under Mordremoth’s corruptive power, with the Toxic Hybrid being an experimental Mordremized krait. If we want to look at how Mordremoth might affect other races than just sylvari, perhaps we should start looking closer at the Toxic Hybrid, its rapid “evolution” and also its quotes to figure out what sort of horrors might await us once we take the fight to Mordremoth’s turf.

Kossage, that’s some brilliant observations and brilliant subtleness added by Diemer if so.

I’m now really wanting to see a return of the Toxic Hybrid. It’s dialogue made it my favorite boss in the entire game thus far – only the Molten Berserker’s second phase and Giganticus Lupicus have made it to be similar favorites.