Guild Wars 2

Short detour about Malyck;
It is stated on the wiki that Malyck decided to head into Magus Falls to find his people and tell them of the Grove. Apparantly Magus Falls lies in the GW1 areas of Magus Stones and The Falls.
There is an interesting thing I discovered in that area, specifically in the area north of The Falls, Reed Bog. In Reed Bog several Sylvari-like “structures” can be found atop of thick branches.
Could it be that the Tree Malyck sprouted from lies in that zone?

Screenshot of these structures: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Reed_Bog.jpg

If I remember right those structures were supposed to have been inhabited by the druids, which was a group of Krytans (if I remember right) who went into the jungle to commune with nature. They eventually shed their physical form and became spirits that you interact with on a consistent basis.

It was always speculation what/who those “structures” belonged to. There were typically two candidates for druid housings, that being more natural looking of the two.

Either way, it is highly unlikely that they belonged to Sylvari, especially since the race wasn’t born til 200 some years later. I mean the race was born from seeds that weren’t planted until someone found the seed around the same time (if not after) our characters would see these structures for the first time. It is likely that the only reason for the similarity is from them being buildings grown from vegetation. Who grew them is the question, and in the time of GW1 it was definitely not the Sylvari.

Well, it is possible still that the sylvari are older than we think, but from an unexplored area. The Maguuma may have been the closest the race got to in their own travels. But that’s a big “if” there.

It’s pure speculation, but might the Sylvari actually be descendents of a truly ancient race that predated even the old races like the Seers, Mursaat, Jotun and Dwarves? (Heck, maybe even the Giganticus Lupicus?) We have no idea how old the trees that sprout the Sylvari live, or how long their seeds might have remained in hibernation, waiting for a chance to sprout again after the Elder Dragons returned to slumber.

Certainly is possible, but at the moment that’s no different than saying that the karka and djinn are as old as well. In fact, it’s less likely given that Zommoros says the karka were last surfacing when the continents were a different shape, and we’ve confirmation the karka were around during the last ED rise; implying both races are older than the last ED rise.

I’m not sure if this bit has been noticed before, but…

Remember the Shadow of the Dragon you face in the start of the Sylvari storyline right after character creation? While Caithe and the Pale Tree seem to think fighting this thing means you’re to fight Zhaitan, it actually also hints at the nightmare being connected to Mordremoth. The Shadow of the Dragon is very plantlike, with trees all over its back and wings made of branches, and uses thorns and brambles to attack you..much like the Blighted. Another thing is that the only enemies you face before the dragon are Nightmare Hounds. No Courtiers show up at all throughout this.

^ There was a thread about that. But I admit, I noticed that too and have been keeping an eye on that notion.

That dragon is a curiousity. Unlike the Shatterer or Claw of Jormag, which shares frames with Tequatl and other Zhaitan dragon champions, the Shadow of the Dragon uses the same shape as well. Same kind of slim head and all that.

I wouldn’t put much stock into it being plant like on its own, however what’s interesting is the design of that plantlike. Take a look at the orange/yellow glow…

Look familiar? If you’ve fought husks, it would. The gut of husks – most noticeable in Summoned Husks and Flametouched Husks it is also noticable in the more rotten appearance the Avatars of Blight use.

Its got its hinted ties to something other than Zhaitan, but being a plant dragon is not it in of itself. Though it also has hints to it being tied to Zhaitan (shape, NPCs claims of what it represents).

Ronan was a member of the Shining Blade in the era of the Krytan civil war around 250 years ago. A soldier called to battle, he was at one point separated from his patrol and, in wandering, stumbled upon a guarded cavern filled with mysterious seeds. Escaping with a single seed the size of a man’s fist, he stowed it away to show to his daughter. However, it was not to be: he returned to his village only to find his family murdered by mursaat and the village in ruins. In grief, he then swore to lay down his weapons and planted the seed upon the graves. It was near this tree that he would stay for the rest of his life.

Later on, Ronan would be joined by the centaur Ventari. Sharing similar values on peace and friendship, they would find new purpose in tending both the budding Pale Tree and their safe haven near the ocean. This outpost, attended by Ronan, Ventari, and others that sought the shelter of friendship, would last past Ronan’s death until Ventari’s passing; the site would emerge again with the birth of the sylvari and the creation of The Grove.

the pale tree is obviously someone’s kid from the bolded text above. it’s got a strong sense of justice mostly due to ronan/ventari’s teachings through the tablet.. due to which it grew knowing the good and the bad stuff in the world of tyria.

of everything that is present in this day of guild wars, pale tree is one of the most knowledgeable creature which knows stuff about the mursaat, white mantle etc if ventari’s book had his teachings along with the knowledge of ronan and the world prior to his death. (centuars live longer than humans)

It is possible that the Pale Tree is a dragon champion. She just don’t know it since she never meet her jungle elder dragon mother.

NO!

15 characters.

@Telekinesis: the Pale Tree doesn’t know what Ronan and Ventari knew. There is no evidence she knows about the White Mantle and Mursaat. She was sentient and watched as she grew, thus what she knows is limited only to what happened around her in regards to prior to the sylvari’s birth.

After the race’s birth, she knew all they found out. And a little extra via the nature of the Dream of Dreams (which she may have known prior to the sylvari’s birth).

Just now found this, linked in another thread. A great read and worth a bump, excellent job!

Also grotesquely out of date. 8D

Should probably do a more up to date research…

Didn’t the movement of the world say ronan found the see in a cavern guarded by terrible plant creatures do you think the blighted husk are the same creatures

I do not. The husks seem unrelated to the sylvari overall – I don’t recall the details but there is an event chain in Sparkfly Fen about the Nightmare Court making and selling a husk to the Inquest. Though I use “making” loosely as they mention using sacrifices to, iirc, tame “the spawn” which imply they give sylvari as sacrifices to gain allegiance of husks.

But if that is wrong then husks are likely made by the Nightmare Court, making them successors not precursors of sylvari.

I have always viewed the cavern full of plant creatures seen in Eye of the North.

Well… if the husks are created by sylvari, it would make sense for something like them to be posted as guardians over the seeds. Possibly not the husks themselves – unless the previous Pale Tree had fallen to Nightmare – but we’ve seen that the Pale Tree can create a variety of forms (fern hounds as well as regular sylvari, for instance) – it would make a lot of sense that, on creating seeds for a new Tree, the ancestral Tree might also have budded off specially made guardian creatures to protect and, once they had matured, distribute those seeds.

What they may have looked like, though, is anyone’s guess.

I was really hoping to see a dragon awaken in game. Everyone in game gets wiped by a giant cataclysm

My 2 cents,

• Trahearne fell an intense (Trahearne-style) relief after completing his Wyld Hunt unlike Caithe and the PC which leads me to think that the PC and Caithe’s Wyld Hunt is to kill Mordy, the Zaithan thing is a misinterpretation from the Pale Tree.

• Bubbles awoke far before other ED, remember Acolyte Jin : “When Jin was a young girl growing up on the coast of Cantha, her family was slain by monstrous creatures in the dead of night” from GW1 : hint that Kraits (because murder/kidnapping on coast is krait-typical) fled from BSD at GW1 time.

• Mordy seems to like “the right of strength”, i think that the cave where the seed of Pale tree was found is an arena where the seeds would have to grown in competition with each other and only the stronger will be chosen by Mordy to be its champion or his new kind of minions (like a hive creating low-end minions aka sylvari). Roran disrupts it by slaying the guardians, removing Mordy’s influence and thus ruining its plan. Malyck (sylvari not from Pale Tree) is just a temporary renew from one seed, like a flower having a last blossom before dying, his tree was nearly dead that’s why he did not have a Dream-mental structure-like. The way Nightmare Court raise hounds is like Mordy raise its minions. This is a whole “food web” : ED -> tree -> sylvari -> hounds.

• Sylvari being created by a ED is a valid reason for them being insensible to corruption. The Dream mental web is kind of the Risen one but the lack of leader (aka ED) allows sylvari to be free. The real corrupted sylvari are the good ones, the nightmare are in fact the “full corrupted” minion, the “partially corrupted” are husks and others “former” Mordy minions.

• Nightmare Court come from the Nightmare which is a way for Mordy to claim is leadership over sylvari. But the Dream, which I believe to be/act like an non-physical organic creature, resists by creating Wyld Hunt to stay alive (biased Dark Hunt that are orders from Master Mordy) : very similar to regulation/immunity system.

• Actually, Caithe does feel a burden of relief… But mention she intends to go after all Elder Dragons. It’s possible that Zhaitan isn’t the full Wyld Hunt, or she got a new one with Zhaitan’s death (it is known sylvari can get new Wyld Hunts after their previous US completed).
• Krait fled the Unending Ocean 50 years prior to gw2, not during/before gw1. See http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Mostly_Harmless_Quaggan
• Except that’s just not how dragon corruption works. The mental fanaticism present in all minions would not break so easily.
• Actually, as pointed out multiple times, dragon minions are not immune to other dragon’s corruption – see Crucible of Eternity, primarily Kudu, Judy’s Monster, and Subject Alpha – beings corrupted by multiple dragon energies (one, Judy’s Monster, was originally a risen based on model). Sylvari are not so much “immune” though – when touched by corruption, they simply die. And stay dead.
• I’m not entirely sure how you mean this… But I don’t think the Dream of Dreams is sentient. It seems more like a computer server and database more than some sentient entity.

^Was that Kudu’s monster?

Yes. kitten ation to phone autocorrect.

Here is a YouTube video done by WoodenPotatoes discussing the Mystery surrounding the 6th elder dragon

And here is another video discussing the possibilities that the Pale tree could possibly be apart of and or the 6th elder dragon in some way.

…No

…Just no.

…By all that is holy, unholy, and ambivalent, no.

Purecura, that second video is over a year old, from before launch. It is hopelessly out of date. Back then that was a valid theory; now it has been rather thoroughly disproved.

• I don’t remember Caithe saying something like “My Wyld Hunt is completed”, she just follows her mate in the standard “Zhaitan is dead I’m happy”. The sylvari PC does not show this either (based on wiki dialogues didn’t finish the PS with a sylvari yet)
• Yeah my bad
• That’s a point. Maybe I can reply that the Pale Tree is a living organism that learn from older when it grew up and Ventari take the Mordy’s role but it seems not enough.
• Judy’s Monster don’t know what/who is it? Asura storyline shows that dragon are magic sponge that use minions like a antenna, I think that Inquest manage to break the link between the ED and the minion by stopping the magic flux. When a minion is linked to its ED, the ED will absorb magic around the minion (even other ED magic → corruption immunity) but once the link broken, the minion is like everybody else prone to receive corrupted energies and thus allowing Inquest to create multiple corrupted monster. The point is that sylvari are like ED minions but linked to the pale tree (the top of the “food web”), pale tree does not need magic as ED but the link still interfere with corruption allowing them to be immune (we still have to see a Soundless or Malyck resisting to corruption to discredit this theory). It’s normal corruption kill someone, even sylvari, the flow of draconic energy is too intense to survive, sylvari indeed die from corruption but that’s because others races, sensible to draconic influence, will get shielded from dying (except Zhaitan ones) because the ED won’t them to die then serve (more costly in power in long term) but to corrupt theirs mind and body to make them servile to death (more rentable in term of magic cost).
• Maybe not a organic but something like a hive. The dream is not sentient but it has (to follow you in the computer metaphor) anti-virus and defensive programs to defend itself. The Wyld Hunt is an internal routine inside sylvari minds that curve their lives into being Dream protector against Mordy & others threats. Mordy is like a hacker (even if he was the Dream creator) that use the Nightmare Court as a computer worn/Trojan horse to take control over the Dream (while sleeping imho).

• You have to talk with her in the final instance of Victory or Death before entering Fort Trinity. She mentions how thankful she is for helping her complete her and Trahearne’s Wyld Hunt. And if you’re a sylvari, she says (paraphrased) “perhaps we should make you an honorary Firstborn, having aided two of us complete our Wyld Hunt” (they each have 2 dialogues there – one for their own race, I’ve only seen sylvari and charr, and one for the other races).
• The tablet is just a tablet… I don’t see why folks are so intent to make it some magical minion-to-ED-connection severing device…
• See following posts. Was a phone typo of Kudu’s Monster from CoE story. But you think that the Inquest managed to do something that only the Forgotten could do, and furthermore something which was so groundbreaking and only discovered after Zhaitan’s defeat, but Zojja – who stole the Inquest’s research on the Elder Dragons from CoE, kept this to herself but gave the Pact the means to harm Zhaitan? Yeah, I don’t buy it. It just makes no sense. I’m not even sure what you’re talking about with the death part… And the connection between sylvari and Pale Tree is much different than minions to their Elder Dragon. The sylvari’s connection is not direct but instead via the Dream of Dreams – something the Pale Tree doesn’t control. And we know that the DoD is different from minion to ED connection because it is a place non-sylvari can access – see A Light in the Darkness and the White Stag. The Dream of Dreams is a place, capable of even seeing the future. I’m just not seeing a similarity when you delve deep into the nature of it. The sylvari and minion similarities are only skin deep. Oh, and the sylvari lack the sole psychological attribute that all ED minions hold – fanatical devotion to their dragon. Not even the Nightmare Court have this.
• that’s kind of my theory. Mordremoth is “hacking” into the Dream of Dreams in the form of the Nightmare. But NOTHING points to either the Dream or the sylvari or the Pale Tree being linked, directly, to Mordremoth. There are far too many differences when you get past the surface (which few do because, I guess, they don’t want their theory beaten by their own research).

Odd. I got that Firstborn comment on my human (it’s been far too long for me to remember from my sylvari).

Maybe I was mixing the two. But she does mention that her Wyld Hunt was completed at that point in time irregardless of your race.

Konig, one interesting thing you mentioned is the known fact that “dragons can’t corrupt the Sylvari through death.” From only what we have been told (excluding theories) is this the exact idea, or is it more along the lines of “dragons can’t corrupt the Sylvari – full stop?”

The wording is important, the one allows for a loophole the other does not. I really don’t personally know because I haven’t found the will-power to run through a Sylvari personal storyline (I just can’t handle them, it’s painful).

I really like you write-up Konig. Good thought-provoking stuff.

@zamalek

From what I remember, though I could be wrong, the Sylvari can’t seem to be corrupted physically. Any type of physical corruption, which most of the Elder Dragons seem to use, causes the Sylvari to die and wither up into a unusable husk.

The theory about Mordremoth is that he/it is using the Nightmare in the Dream to possible corrupt them mentally, which would be the possible “loophole” to corrupting them. Once they have fallen into Nightmare, their outward appearance starts to shift into what we typically see from the Nightmare Court, and that could come from the Sylvari’s natural trait/ability for their outward appearance to match their mood and mentality.

Sadly, still only a theory though.

zamalek.2154:

Konig, one interesting thing you mentioned is the known fact that “dragons can’t corrupt the Sylvari through death.” From only what we have been told (excluding theories) is this the exact idea, or is it more along the lines of “dragons can’t corrupt the Sylvari – full stop?”

The wording is important, the one allows for a loophole the other does not. I really don’t personally know because I haven’t found the will-power to run through a Sylvari personal storyline (I just can’t handle them, it’s painful).

I really like you write-up Konig. Good thought-provoking stuff.

What I said/meant is that when hit with corruption, a sylvari dies – rather than becoming transformed, they die.

This is immunity to corruption, but they don’t survive it.

It should be noted that it isn’t simply just a failsafe – Elder Dragons are capable of corrupting corpses (Zhaitan and Jormag at least have done such) as well as the physical landscape (all four seen have done this).

This information doesn’t come from the game though – it came from an interview a long while back now, during what was called “sylvari week.” Not everything has survived since then on the internet…