Guild Wars 2

So the stasis Chamber reveals Lazarus potential hiding place or the domain in which Lazarus was regaining his power.

Id like to talk about exactly how powerful Lazarus actually is, and what makes him an iconic character for the GW2 universe.

I believe there is a great danger, that if A-net does not recognise just how influencial this guy could be and how important writing him is, it could make his role feel weak and meaningless.

So then, where to start and how:

The Bitter Survivor

Lazarus is hardly a MAJOR player in the lore of GW1, but he has the GREATEST potential to become THE most iconic villian of GW2. An all but minor character appearing in War in Kryta’s final act and basically being the sole survivor of the Mursaat that roamed in Kryta (Assuming he may even be the last of his race) he has every reason to hate and resent Humanity and all its potential allies.

Once, he stood atop a pedistal where he was all but worshipped as a god. He was there when Saul first created the mantle, even playing a part in helping found it by being one of the Mursaat present. Lazarus has a very important role to play as a leader and as an influencial character.

What kind of personality should Lazarus have?

I would assume, given that he has lost literally his entire race to his knowladge and equally helped elivate mankind to power in the first place. That he is going to be a vindictive individual, he is going to be particualrly angry and cruel but not without patience, he has had to be patient for over 250 years gathering revenge on the world.

He clearly has had time to “think” but I do not think he can completley let go of the scar humanity left on him. His power turned against him, his body crumbling, hes had to live humilated in rage for 250 years of enduring humanities disgusting existance and seen it form alliances with new races that now bolster its strength.

The idea alone must aggrivate him beyond all reason, but perhaps it also inspires him to undermine those alliances.

How would Lazarus be iconic?

Lazarus must be conveyed in a way that makes him a figurehead, not just a presence. He is clearly revered by the White Mantle as a god, rightly so, because he is in many ways a deity at this point by what we can assume is “alot” of blood stone infusion. My hypothesis, is that the infusion has made him vampiric after his bodies power was turned against him, forcing him to feed on lots of magical energy to survive.

I believe Lazarus needs alot of power and character, to be elegant, charismatic, confident and to an extent, extremely arrogant and enraged at humanity. The Mantle are but a means to an end to a Mursaat that has lost “everything” because of Humanity and obviously this fellow would seek nothing less than complete armageddon for the human race.

Thus, I believe he should work on undermining their alliances as stated above, weaving distrust between humanity and other races. Breaking bonds, undermining the unity of the five races as the dragons threaten to rip them apart. This distrust could give him the sword he needs to destroy them all, while the dragons do the work, all he has to do, is make sure they cant stand together against them.

He should not be the kind of villian that laughs evilly and steps into the frey making monologes, he sould be someone activly plotting and weaving chaos into the world.

That, is the villian id like Lazarus to be, someone who has lost his power, someone who wants to regain it, but above all else, humanity and everything it stands for, its allies included.

Must be wiped off the face of Tyria for him to be content.

He should not die in Season 3

If Lazarus “is” introduced into Season 3, I want him to carry into Expansion 2, because I think a good iconic villian needs more than one story to stand out.

He needs to be a regular face we can loathe and love to hate, like Scarlet, but done somewhat better even if Scarlet herself was fun.

Great post I love the mursaat and they’re probably in my top 5 favorite game villains of all time.

I think if there’s anything we can glean about his role in the gw2 story will come from the 10-year-old foreshadowing from when Naveed faced him in gw1’s “The Justiciar’s Revenge” quest. Just to refresh everyone’s memory, from the wiki:

Lazarus the Dire: “Pitiful humans. My brothers are dead, but I will tolerate your existence no longer.”
Justiciar Naveed: “Wait! It is me you’re after, Lazarus. There’s no need to harm these people any further. I…I surrender to your will.”
Lazarus the Dire: “Surrender? That was never an option. Your only choices are death and…death. You are a tool that has served its function. Your usefulness has ended. Disappear, now, from this world.”
Justiciar Naveed: “Goodbye…”
Lazarus the Dire: “What…? What…is this? Something is wrong! My power twists upon itself! What have you done to me?”
Lazarus the Dire: “Accursed human! You have done this to me! I will not forget this!”
Lazarus the Dire: “Countless generations will suffer for your actions this day!”

The “countless generations” part is a bit unclear; whether he is referring to generations of humankind or generations of Naveed’s bloodline is inconclusive. If it’s the latter then we can expect a new ally, that of Naveed’s direct descendant, to join the lore. If the former then it opens up more possibilities for which direction his revenge will lead him.

Also, at the end of the quest we hear Glayvin say, “That creature, the one you called an Unseen One, possesses such frightful power. It is removed from the pattern of the world, but for how long?” Says that the mursaats power is removed from the world, but as the name Unseen One implies, they can remove themselves from the mortal dimension, existing beneath the skin of the world. So it’s unclear if there are other mursaat in hiding that could come out and rally behind Lazarus, which would become quite a huge threat.

Before the Seers sealed all the magic of the world into the bloodstone to starve the Elder Dragons and it broke into five pieces, splitting magic into four disciplines (Aggression, Destruction, Preservation, and Denial), the mursaat slunk back into hiding and were unaffected by the separation of the schools of magic. This means the mursaat can use magic from every school and are, effectively, every magic-wielding class in gw2 rolled into one. This makes a single mursaat a massive threat to even a large organized force. They can utilize the large-scale damage-dealing spells of an elementalist, the massive crowd-control and denial skills of a mesmer, the focused pressure of necromancer attacks, plus the dedicated healing and enchanting abilities of a monk that are no longer known to the world of gw2. Obviously, this makes him a perfect raid boss. I also feel like this makes him a contender for one of the main villains of the next expansion. Not only is he an amalgam of all the potent magic of the world but he wields the rending power of spectral agony, the ability to summon Jade constructs and, most importantly, the cunning to dominate and manipulate the weak willed. Now, if there are any beings in the world that have a shattered will, no master, and no purpose it’s the Mordrem. It is a bit far-fetched to think that he could sweep in and recoup the losses of the slain Mordremoth, but it would be interesting if he could extract and manipulate Mordremoths dragon essence (I mean, beings of malice often share quintessentially evil energy, so why wouldn’t they be compatible?) from the remaining mordrem and imbue it into himself or an army of white mantle.

One last thing. To me, what makes a good villain is something that is all-emcompassingly evil. Something that is overwhelmingly powerful but also cunning and cowardly. Over confident enemies like Mordremoth are, quite frankly, easy to predict. You can always count on a megalomaniac to draw out a battle and inevitably lose rather than strike fast and with desperation. These enemies are boring and lack depth. The Elder Dragons were dormant, not feeling hate or fear or jealousy in all their millennia of stagnancy. They’re just sort of lawful evil without true determination or purpose besides hackneyed “world domination”. If there were something that could really add an edge to the gw2 lore and player experience it would be something so ominous and terrible as an ancient mursaat with centuries of vengeance burning inside him.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Lazarus is hardly a MAJOR player in the lore of GW1, but he has the GREATEST potential to become THE most iconic villian of GW2. An all but minor character appearing in War in Kryta’s final act and basically being the sole survivor of the Mursaat that roamed in Kryta (Assuming he may even be the last of his race) he has every reason to hate and resent Humanity and all its potential allies.

Slight correction, Lazarus did not appear in War in Kryta at all. His quest already happened during Eye of the North and he made an appearance in Saul’s Bonus Mission.

Where is his potential hiding place? I am not a raider so I don’t mind a spoiler here. Feel free to put the answer under a black spoiler highlight though.

The very fact that the White Mantel are operating again shows that Lazarus is an inevitable entity that will either parley are invade. given that as far as lore goes, Lazarus is the last remaining Mursaat left in Tyria as they where decimated first by the titans then by the Krytan civil war. To Abaddon, the Mursaat where ants to be exterminated.

Lazarus will be a major figure in the future, but not as the most iconic villain. i feel he will be written similar in a manner that Varrish Osa was, and the REAL iconic villains of GW2 will be Dhuum, Menzies and Palawa Joko. 2 of these have already proven to be far more dangerous then the Mursaat and the 3rd has far more potential then even the Kralkatorrik or the sea dragon. Still want to see Lazarus fully flushed out as a character though.

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

the REAL iconic villains of GW2 will be Dhuum, Menzies and Palawa Joko. 2 of these have already proven to be far more dangerous then the Mursaat and the 3rd has far more potential then even the Kralkatorrik or the sea dragon.

You’re mentioning villains whose stories have already played out and are completely removed from the GW2 lore. Joko is sealed beneath Elona, and us ever going there again in GW2 is EXTREMELY unlikely due to how far away it is from the central tyria areas, many of which are still unexplored like the woodland cascades, blood legion homelands, and the blazeridge mountains. Menzies was last seen in the realm of torment and who knows what happened to him after Mallyx was destroyed. Dhuum is also similar to Joko, he was sealed back in the hall of judgement by Grenth’s reapers.

None of these villains have any foreshadowing of ever coming back, unlike Lazarus (it’s even in his name ffs) They are all too far removed from GW2 lore and as far as anyone is concerned their stories are told and done.

szshou.2193:

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

the REAL iconic villains of GW2 will be Dhuum, Menzies and Palawa Joko. 2 of these have already proven to be far more dangerous then the Mursaat and the 3rd has far more potential then even the Kralkatorrik or the sea dragon.

You’re mentioning villains whose stories have already played out and are completely removed from the GW2 lore. Joko is sealed beneath Elona, and us ever going there again in GW2 is EXTREMELY unlikely due to how far away it is from the central tyria areas, many of which are still unexplored like the woodland cascades, blood legion homelands, and the blazeridge mountains. Menzies was last seen in the realm of torment and who knows what happened to him after Mallyx was destroyed. Dhuum is also similar to Joko, he was sealed back in the hall of judgement by Grenth’s reapers.

None of these villains have any foreshadowing of ever coming back, unlike Lazarus (it’s even in his name ffs) They are all too far removed from GW2 lore and as far as anyone is concerned their stories are told and done.

Joko wasn’t sealed beneath Elona.

At the end of Nightfall he was back in his fortress in the Desolation, and we were told in The Movement of the World that after the end of the game he took over all of Elona, destroyed the Sunspears and enslaved the people.

To my mind he’s a much bigger threat that 1 mursaat (who weren’t actually that had to kill, once you could see them) and one I’d really like to sort out since in GW1 we were directly responsible for freeing him.

Whether we will or not is anyone’s guess. It does seem likely that we’re going to focus on the Tyrian continent and the dragons for the time being, but hopefully at some point we will get back to Elona.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I believe there is a great danger, that if A-net does not recognise just how influencial this guy could be and how important writing him is, it could make his role feel weak and meaningless.

You mean like how they wrote Adelbern, Faolain, Shukov, Kudu, Gaheron, Zhaitan, and Mordremoth?

Creating iconic villains well is something ArenaNet lost between Factions and GW2 sadly. They went back to how they did their Prophecies villains – Bonfaaz, Markis, Dorian, Dagnar, and Caliph were all big time villains who’s deaths were underplayed.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

He should not die in Season 3

If Lazarus “is” introduced into Season 3, I want him to carry into Expansion 2, because I think a good iconic villian needs more than one story to stand out.

He needs to be a regular face we can loathe and love to hate, like Scarlet, but done somewhat better even if Scarlet herself was fun.

I disagree with this here. First off, a good villain does not need to be long lasting. In fact, long lasting villains tend to get tiresome eventually.

Second off, please do not highly Scarlet as a well done villain – she wasn’t. She was a little-miss-perfect in villain shoes. In all honesty, I prefer how they protrayed the dungeon story mode bosses more than how they did her. Scarlet is a prime example of a villain being too over the top.

There are two aspects that are vital for making a good villain:

• Believability
• Relatability

You always need to have the villain’s actions be believable in proportion to what their power is – or what people think their power is. This is where Scarlet, who was able to do everything perfectly right, fell terribly short. Even for a genius, the things she did was beyond the realm of believable given established lore – leaving people with the sense that she broke or bent lore (and to a degree this is very true – see Toxic Alliance).

To me, Xera fails in this too – her powers is so beyond what should be possible for humans, even with bloodstone access. In fact, she is beyond the believable especially given the bloodstone access, given that both Randall Graystone and Matthias both showed that a human trying to control too much magic via bloodstones backlashes – yet this never seems to happen with Xera (unless I missed something). I mean, seeing the Xera fight just made me wonder one thing: why the hell didn’t she just waltz into DR herself and just shift the city into some mental hellhole nightmare fuel? She clearly is fully capable of that given she made the Twisted Castle.

Lazarus, however, comes from what was always established as a powerful spellcaster race, so if he’s as powerful as Xera it wouldn’t come as a shock. So long as he doesn’t go transforming entire regions into twisted nightmares (something done only by Elder Dragons and gods thus far).

But again, long lasting isn’t important – it’s ensuring that the story and writing itself is good. A good villain can only make the story so good. The story itself needs to be good as well. Lazarus being a regular face wouldn’t be bad – but it won’t necessarily be good either.

He just needs to be seen more than once or twice – unlike all villains in GW2 thus far beyond Scarlet (I think Scarlet, Faolain and Kudu are the only villains seen more than twice before being killed).

szshou.2193:

Nightbringer Tenchi.5794:

the REAL iconic villains of GW2 will be Dhuum, Menzies and Palawa Joko. 2 of these have already proven to be far more dangerous then the Mursaat and the 3rd has far more potential then even the Kralkatorrik or the sea dragon.

You’re mentioning villains whose stories have already played out and are completely removed from the GW2 lore. Joko is sealed beneath Elona, and us ever going there again in GW2 is EXTREMELY unlikely due to how far away it is from the central tyria areas, many of which are still unexplored like the woodland cascades, blood legion homelands, and the blazeridge mountains. Menzies was last seen in the realm of torment and who knows what happened to him after Mallyx was destroyed. Dhuum is also similar to Joko, he was sealed back in the hall of judgement by Grenth’s reapers.

None of these villains have any foreshadowing of ever coming back, unlike Lazarus (it’s even in his name ffs) They are all too far removed from GW2 lore and as far as anyone is concerned their stories are told and done.

Your post couldn’t be more wrong. All three are still around and still being threats – especially Joko.

Joko is not sealed – he conquered and currently rules Elona. He was sealed before GW1, and set free by our actions in GW1. And “due to how far away it is from central Tyria areas” – seriously? It’s literally across the Crystal Desert. It’s adjacent to Kralkatorrik’s current resting place. And last we heard, the only thing keeping Joko from invading Tyria was Zhaitan. And Zhaitan’s been gone for three years now… Joko could quite literally invade at any moment.

Menzies was never seen in GW1 at all, but his major forces were not in the Realm of Torment but the Fissure of Woe. Either way, his fate is unknown, and nothing implies that he was hindered in any way, shape, or form.

Dhuum’s story was that he was repeatedly breaking free – not that “he is reimprisoned again and all is well”, but that “his reimprisonment is only temporary” – ArenaNet practically told us “Dhuum’s going to be a major threat in the future”. And now, all we know of the Underworld is that powerful demons are trying to break free (Shadow Behemoth) and that these demons are tied to Dhuum’s power ( Dhuum-Touched Crystalline Phial )

Both Joko and Dhuum have heavy foreshadowing of returning. Menzies is the only one who’s completely in the air, but nothing really prevents his return.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And Zhaitan’s been gone for three years now… Joko could quite literally invade at any moment.

Reading thise sentence just gave me the coolest vision. Imagine that, Living Story Season whatever steers us towards Kralky. The commander and friends are on mission to find an OoW agent who has an urgent message for the Marshall (whoever that is at that point). We help him deliver the package and end the season with cinematic, similar to season 2, as a lead into a new expansion.

Cut to a land covered in sand, a merciless sun shines on a bright yellow desolation. A narration begins about how sometimes to defeat a common enemy you must find allies in the strangest places. The camera zooms into a temple like structure through a dark hall way. The clicking and cracking of old bones shuffeling around can be heard as the camera ventures deeper into the complex, while the narration continues to describe Machiavelian scheming. Finally we arrive in a throne room covered in shadow. Two torches just shine in light to make out a figure sitting on the throne. As the figure finishes his narration he leans forward revealing the mumified face of Joko. He might say something cheezy, like “guess who’s joining the party”.

And there you have a cliché ridden, yet instantly awesome trailer. Pretty much perfect for Joko.

Joko wont be a villian tbh, as much as it is plausable.

Joko to me is more likley the “necessary” evil he was in GW1, we are going to need him against Kralkatorrik, the future beyond that may change, but I definatley think at the very least, Joko will be an ally, before he is an enemy though probably one we have very tense truces with.

Also, Scarlet wasnt that great no, but the idea behind her was brilliant, her introduction and death were her two most flawless pieces particularly the latter which symbolised just how far she was willing to go for her cause.

The story definately “is” important too, but I feel like GW2 lacks a baddie that actually feels personal at this present point.

Faolain was a downright sin, wasting her like that was patheticly bad even if it served to eliminate Eir in the process.

But Mordremoth was downright proof that dragons will never be interesting villians, so far they have absoleutely failed to make them engaging or threatening beyond their inital presence. Frankly, I think Mordy would have been “more” interesting if he never talked even once and simply used trip visions to get into Vari’s heads instead.

Mordy didnt need a voice, but Lazarus? Lazarus is honestly one of the big ones. Messing up Lazarus would be fatal for the storytelling as it would be proof they simply cant write a good villian and so far they have made that mistake at least 2 times.

A third would be the final nail in the coffin, Lazarus “cannot” be boring, as a bad guy, they “need” to give him layers, “alot” of layers, even the potential to grow along side the protagonist, even change his viewpoints or way of thinking.

He cant just be another random obsticle to us, he needs to be the most iconic antagonist so far we have ever encountered.

Now…

Granted… Dhuum, Menzies (Menzies especially tbh) and Joko have potential to be someone.

We also have potential in the form of Cantha’s current Empire which was left isolated and potentially xenophobic turning it into a tyrannical empire. The last we know of cantha in GW2 is that it merged the vassal nations of the Kurzic and Luxon people into itself once again and has become somewhat more hostile to outsiders. This suggests the Canthans themselves could be a villian blindly driven into a human supremist agenda.

Elona however, I see as a hostile friend, Joko will be “needed” as ive said, to defeat Krally, albiet bitter-sweet, he will probably use us as much as we use him which will probably lead to an eventual betrayal but not until “after” hes done with the dragon, too many dangers.

Theres even Saul himself, whos fate is unknown, he could be a hero, he could be a villian, and we have Mai-Trin of the Aether Pirates and Caudecus.

Who knows…

Theres alot of faces right now, what we need however, is one that wont be forgotten any time soon, someone whos personality, depth and layers dwarf any other villian in GW2 to this point.

And whos story can carry the plot even beyond their own storyline.

Though I do hope they dont pull a Matyrdom twist with Lazarus like they did with Scarlet, he needs a far more simple death than she had.

My own theory for Lazarus

I would ideally like Lazarus to be inavertly or even directly responsible for the Death of Queen Jennah, plummeting Kryta into utter chaos. I also want him to force the Pact Commander into an unwinnable situation, launching an attack on Tarir in order to take the Egg (he probably found out about it from the pact prisoners) while maybe Krally attacks Ebonhawke.

We are forced to abbandon the egg in order to save Ebonhawke, which allows Lazarus to take it for some nefarius agenda (like trying to create and control an elder dragon).

Eh, fanon there but… you get the point, its possible he would seal himself in the golden city and its various provinces, using them as a fort to hold off the invaders (you) from the city using mantle soldiers and traps and bloodstone monstrocities.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Joko wont be a villian tbh, as much as it is plausable.

Joko to me is more likley the “necessary” evil he was in GW1, we are going to need him against Kralkatorrik, the future beyond that may change, but I definatley think at the very least, Joko will be an ally, before he is an enemy though probably one we have very tense truces with.

Nothing really implies that Kralkatorrik and Joko are close to each other yet – Joko never invaded beyond the southern Crystal Desert thanks to Zhaitan, and Kralkatorrik’s location has been unknown since he was in the far northern Crystal Desert.

Furthermore, in GW1 his forces were shattered and fractured, he had a very small base of power at the time. He was a “necessary evil” because he was the only one with the answer for how to chase after Varesh. There’s very little chance he can provide some key to defeating Kralkatorrik, and even if he can he is not only at a seat of high power (ruler of all Elona) but also the sworn enemy of one of the three orders (Order of Whispers). Even in GW1, the Order of Whispers were acting to counteract Joko’s works and had the PC help, so I doubt they’d be willing to ally with him after their fears came true (Joko invaded Elona again) and they’ve been fighting him for over 190 years since GW1.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

The story definately “is” important too, but I feel like GW2 lacks a baddie that actually feels personal at this present point.

Which, truth be told, is what Mordremoth should have been. He had a great potential that, like Gaheron, Kudu, Faolain, and Adelbern, was left barely touched and he was killed too quickly. Would have been better if we learned that he could continuously respawn his body after Heart of Thorns and S3.

Hopefully the other Elder Dragons (particularly Kralkatorrik) and Caudecus won’t fall for that same pit.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

But Mordremoth was downright proof that dragons will never be interesting villians, so far they have absoleutely failed to make them engaging or threatening beyond their inital presence. Frankly, I think Mordy would have been “more” interesting if he never talked even once and simply used trip visions to get into Vari’s heads instead.

It wasn’t the voice that killed Mordremoth – it was the lack of interaction. Even for sylvari, his interaction was minimal at best, literally only talking in four story instances (the first two and the last two). He’s never heard in the entirety of Act 2 or 3, and despite Canach’s and sylvari PC’s dialogue of Mordremoth being in their heads during Prisoners of the Dragon, we don’t have a single line from Mordy there.

Yes, visions would have been a bit more interesting – I think ArenaNet nailed Mordremoth during Bitter Harvest… when you notice what they didhis shadowy face pops up and disappears here and there, watching your progress.

If anything, I actually think that Mordremoth is proof that Elder Dragons CAN be an interesting villain.

If they actually interact with the player throughout instead of just at the end. That is the #1 problem both Mordy and Zhaitan had – not enough interaction, either directly or via a recurring dragon champion. Zhaitan didn’t even have a recurring dragon champion and wasn’t even interacted with until the very end.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

A third would be the final nail in the coffin, Lazarus “cannot” be boring, as a bad guy, they “need” to give him layers, “alot” of layers, even the potential to grow along side the protagonist, even change his viewpoints or way of thinking.

He cant just be another random obsticle to us, he needs to be the most iconic antagonist so far we have ever encountered.

Eh… maybe not layers, or “a lot of layers” and he doesn’t need to be “the most iconic” antagonist, but they do need to make him better than the previous main villains thus far. I think you’re overplaying the importance of Lazarus more than just a tad, tbh.

And layers doesn’t equate a good villain; at least not the definition of layers as I – as a writer – think of, which would be how many motivators, quirks, flaws, and goals/plans an individual has.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Theres even Saul himself, whos fate is unknown, he could be a hero, he could be a villian, and we have Mai-Trin of the Aether Pirates and Caudecus.

Saul seems to be ultimately dead. Not only is he human, but the mursaat wouldn’t have need to keep him alive. Likely, his soul was reaped on the bloodstone.

Mai Trin and Caudecus have potential to be good sub-bosses. There’s also the still-alive-and-unknown leaders of the Molten Alliance and Toxic Alliance.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I would ideally like Lazarus to be inavertly or even directly responsible for the Death of Queen Jennah, plummeting Kryta into utter chaos.

What is with everyone wanting the death of Jennah?

Even just another assassination attempt and the return of the White Mantle alone would be enough to throw Kryta into utter chaos.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I also want him to force the Pact Commander into an unwinnable situation, launching an attack on Tarir in order to take the Egg (he probably found out about it from the pact prisoners) while maybe Krally attacks Ebonhawke.

No one in the Pact knows about the egg but Trahearne, Destiny’s Edge, the biconics (+Canach) and the Pact Commander.

The Pact already has quite a number of strains, the Order of Whispers doesnt necessarily “have” to be the good guy forever, hell it could even make things more interesting having Joko work with the players and even turning the OOW against you temporarily.

Mordy however and all the Dragons so far have failed to be interesting, the worst part ot me is that honestly I felt more threatened by Mordremoth “before” we got to see HoT, in S2 his presence was more threatening and more impactful than his actual voice and actions in HoT. HoT turned him into a steriotypical destroy the world baddie rather than having something more elaborate. You know its bad when Shadow of the Dragon in season 2 felt more of a danger and personal threat to me than his superior did in HoT’s entirety.

Also, regarding antagonists and layers, as a writer myself, it is very important for a character to have a personality for a person to interact and care about it. An example being: People were more invested in Marjory in Season 1 because of the time we spent getting to know her, granted not everyone cared about her “near death” experience but it was far more impactful than the actual death of her sister Belinda in Season 2 because the latter had next to “no” character at all.

Faolain had potential, because we knew of her via Caithe and her interaction with her, but it was shallow and empty, lifeless.

When you invest story in a video game it works differently from writing it in a book or a roleplay. You have to actually interact “with” the player the antagonist has to “feel” like an obsticle, both metaphorically and literally. Their actions have to be the thing that impedes your progress, and gives you motivation to surpass that in order to progress.

I also have to be pointed that nobody ever said the Pact Commander themselves is incapable of being a villian even partially. The Commander by now is going through some serious vietnam flashbacks and it wouldnt surprise me if even your character is capable of doing some questionable actions to continue moving forwards.

However, on the subject of Lazarus and Layers:

Lazarus tie to the White Mantle and the White Mantle itself is what makes both factions so iconic. The Mantle was literally “the” main antagonist for the majority of Prophecies until the end itself. Their role is hard to even hope to come close to measuring compared to that of Dhuum or Menzies because those two only had roles to play in more expanded parts of the lore. That isnt to say either couldnt be touched upon frankly id love to see some Menzies especially since he got next to no attention in GW1.

However, when your dealing with something thats already got previous establishment then fans “do” expect a faithful replica and depth to be cared for, they want to see layers. They want to see what happened to the mantle 250 years after it fell they want to know what was left behind.

There is potential in that to add mystery, to add story, it isnt just about the antagonist himself, but he definatley has a large part to play.

Lazarus is after all the last “currently” known living Mursaat (be there more or less of his race) with a name and a face. He is the only noteable individual amoung the mantle and the mursaat with any real power at this point and so that alone gives him importance.

He has to be significant, because anything less would make him pointless. Sometimes you need a villian to monologue, have evil plans, and do terrible things to “give” the player a reason to even care about them.

The protagonist, you, cannot just be motivated by a simple desire for loot and glory. Your the Pact Commander, your role is to protect the world from the Dragons, and that does extend beyond them to threats outside the Dragons themselves.

Lazarus can fill that void, he is the only antagonist so far within the proximity of the settings current storyline that has enough power and influence to be your greatest personal nemesis.

If Xera’s claim is true then the Mantle has been around in more than just the culture of Human society, but among the Asura, Sylvari, Norn and Charr while it rebuilt itself.

It has had “time” to regain itself, regain its strength and influence new allies into its ranks.

See the Mantle has something that Joko, the dark gods and the Dragons do not.

It represents in many ways, your literal nemesis, the anti-pact, the force devoted to something other than trying to save the world, it represents trying to “rule” the world itself and that in many ways makes it a very interesting villian.

And if You are the leader of your faction, then Lazarus, must be the leader of his, he must be important.

By that logic, as an antagonist, he cannot simply be killed off after 2 encounters, he needs “many” encounters to become a constant annoyance until we are genuinley tired of him and want him so dead we could personally leap into his face and stab it.

Antagonists succeed when they are that annoying, that impeding, which is why Scarlet worked well, because even if she was mostly just a bragging rights antagonist who said “I did it” half the time, and didnt really “do” much visually for us she showed how much she had expanded her reach. She also showed when attacking LA that she was “more” than capable of backing a threat.

Lazarus has the potential to surpass even Scarlet in scale and actions, because unlike Scarlet, he has the patience, years of experience and wisdom to succeed where she failed. To kill Jennah, to upset the unity between humanity and charr, to destroy the trust between the Norn and Asura.

He has been party to a race already “known” to undermine loyalty and build its own power base, which is after all how the mantle itself even rose to power.

So yes…

Lazarus “is” important.

As for the Egg…

The Zephyrites most likely know of it in some way or form considering that it was around as early as the second visit to Labarynthine Cliffs. Any number of people could have seen the glowing cargo the Zephyrites Carried with them and more.

The Knowladge of the Egg is not that sacred, what it actually is “may” be but the fact that it exists isnt.

Finding it wouldnt be that hard, plus it is guarded in Tarir, which is hardly a hidden city.

You also have to remember that the most powerful sorceror species on this current setting was none other than the Mursaat themselves.

So if anyone could sense powerful magic nearby, its going to be Lazarus.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

The Pact already has quite a number of strains, the Order of Whispers doesnt necessarily “have” to be the good guy forever, hell it could even make things more interesting having Joko work with the players and even turning the OOW against you temporarily.

Completely agree here. In order to make the Mordremoth campaign interesting Anet had to destroy the Pact physically, doing that again would be boring. A Joko alliance could solve several problems.
A: The Pact’s never ending ressources. After losing the entire airship fleet the Pact shouldn’t have the funds to go after the next ED alone, so an alliance with Joko’s forces could make a Kralkatorrik campaign believable.

B: The Pact already knows how to kill EDs, so you need to weaken them to make it thrilling again (not like they’d lose, but you catch my drift). So an inner conflict could solve this. The Vigil wants to ally with Joko for practical reasons, the OoW is adamantly against that, knowing what happened the last time and the Durmand Priory understands both sides, but pushes for the alliance thinking, they can learn from past mistakes and not repeat them (i.e. containing Joko after the ED’s death). This could lead to the OoW leaving the Pact and fighting Joko as an indepentend force.

C: We actually get to see the Marshall organizing the Pact and trying to preserve order. A lot of criticism for Trahearne came from the players not knowing what he actually does. He seems to either tag along with the commander or let him make all important tactical decisions. If he didn’t have Caladbolg and knew his way around Orr, he wouldn’t have been of any use at all for the Pact. And even then it was debatable if he needed to be Marshall, as the things we saw him do, could have been done from a counselor position. But dealing with a large rift in your forces, now that is a Marshall’s duty.

Also this could be a good set-up for a raid and new Living Story: After we have dealt with the dragon, we make good on a promise to the OoW to seal Joko and free Elona.

The Zephyrites, or at least their higher echelons, definitely knew of the egg, but they kept it a secret… and I consider it unlikely that the White Mantle could have infiltrated them. It’s actually quite likely that none outside the Exalted, the PC’s close allies, and the Zephyrites know that the egg exists. When talking with other members of the Pact, Caithe is described as carrying a backpack, not an egg, and apart from the moment of narrative-fueled indiscretion with Ruka, the PC is cagey about what it is that Caithe is carrying. The charges of magic that occurred as the egg was taken to Northwatch and then into Tarir could easily be interpreted simply as being Exalted magic in action.

The mursaat are powerful, but I’m not sure you could say that they were the most powerful sorcerer species. If you look at the alliance of the elder races, each brought something to the table. The mursaat brought Spectral Agony, which is a powerful weapon, but the Seers and Forgotten both have magics that the mursaat don’t. The mursaat also didn’t stand for long against a bunch of human heroes with the Gift of True Sight and infused armour.

Besides, the most powerful sorcerer-species is clearly the dragons.

For Lazarus to be able to just take Tarir would be a step towards assuming the Villain Sue status that Scarlet had. Tarir was able to hold off mordrem sieges, and the Exalted are more powerful than regular humans, quite likely have access to divine fire and other powers associated with Ascension, and may, due to their nature, be immune to Spectral Agony. Even with whatever’s been done with the bloodstones, I don’t think Lazarus would find Tarir to be a trivial nut to crack.

Plus, in all seriousness, if the Pact Commander had a choice between saving Tarir or Ebonhawke, (s)he would probably choose Tarir. The Pact Commander knows what’s at stake.

That said, I think it is very possible that Lazarus’ plans have a greater scope than just humans. After all, there was an asura involved in the corruption of his essence as well. He may well blame the charr for starting the series of events that lead to his downfall. There are indications that the White Mantle have alliances with the Inquest and at least a faction of the Nightmare Court, and that may mean that Lazarus has the potential to pick up what’s left of Scarlet’s alliances as well.

Regarding Joko:

As Konig says, I don’t think our next meeting with Joko is likely to be as friendly as our last, with the Order of Whispers being a sworn enemy and all.

What I could see is OoW characters getting a treatment similar to sylvari characters in HoT. The Pact allies with Joko, but the Order of Whispers withdraws in protest (or possibly because Joko insists on it). Of course, the Order of Whispers has infiltrated the other orders, and takes the opportunity of the alliance to start setting up a revolution to happen once the alliance’s purpose is filled. If your character is Order of Whispers, your character gives a grand speech about how the needs of the present are more important than the grudges of history and formally and publicly withdraws from the Order of Whispers…

…but that withdrawal is of course a sham, and OoW characters then get special objectives in story instances to prepare the way for Joko to be brought down after Kralkatorrik is. The season after the Kralkatorrik expansion then starts off with the Order of Whispers initiating the revolution.

PS Please, please don’t make taking down Joko a raid wing. Not everyone enjoys that gameplay, and people who don’t shouldn’t be forced to miss out on such a significant event.

Im fairly sure if A-net added major characters being taken down in raids, many people would quit in mass, they cant do that and they “know” they cant.

It’d ruin the entire game, they’d be “forced” to add a story mode for raids, something many raiders are scared of happening which would remove exclusivity to raids. As it stands, even if I dont like it, raids do have some lore exclusive to them, but not enough fortunatley, that major chars will ever be boss fights in them.

Nobody wants raids that exclusive except the die hards in the raid community.

In the end, no matter “how” you cut the cookie, Gw2 is a “personal” story, and thats what it advertised, so taking down joko, kral, everyone else.

No, no one else but “you” gets to do that, the world is just an addition to the game itself.

I don’t know if I accidentally sparked the Joko in raid discussion by mentioning raids as a possibility to continue the story, but if I did I have to reiterate that I wrote raid and new Living Story. The way I see it a new raid should introduce the theme of the next LS, not be the end of it.
In other words I was imagining the raid like this: While the Pact is busy fighting Kralky, the OoW finds a fort build by Joko’s forces which holds an artifact that would allow him to absorb the dying dragon’s magic. So they recruite a team for a covered ops mission to destroy the device before it can be used. Of course it would be heavily guarded, by some elite mooks but not Joko himself.
This incident, among others that could happen during the expansion would spark the OoW vs. Joko war and then you have the next LS. Just as an example how it could be done.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

The Pact already has quite a number of strains, the Order of Whispers doesnt necessarily “have” to be the good guy forever, hell it could even make things more interesting having Joko work with the players and even turning the OOW against you temporarily.

But what about the characters who are OoW? They turn to fight against everyone else?

What about the hundreds OoW members in the open world? They going to be removed/turned red out of nowhere? Or just ignored?

CaptainVanguard.4925:

HoT turned him into a steriotypical destroy the world baddie rather than having something more elaborate.

If that’s what you really think, then you didn’t look deep into his persona. :P

He is more of a “replace the world with myself” or a “I am/will be what sustains all life” individual. Which is an interesting take on villains. The other Elder Dragons are similar – they’re more than “mwuahahah I will eat and consume all life” but more of “I will create a new world in my image” with that “my image” being more about world functionality than just simply them leading it.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Also, regarding antagonists and layers, as a writer myself, it is very important for a character to have a personality for a person to interact and care about it.

True, but I wouldn’t call having many layers a good thing. Sometimes simple characters can be very interesting too.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

An example being: People were more invested in Marjory in Season 1 because of the time we spent getting to know her, granted not everyone cared about her “near death” experience but it was far more impactful than the actual death of her sister Belinda in Season 2 because the latter had next to “no” character at all.

That is less about personality and more about interaction and relateability.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Faolain had potential, because we knew of her via Caithe and her interaction with her, but it was shallow and empty, lifeless.

Her in HoT, yes. Her in EoD, Twilight Arbor story weren’t. And … well… can we please ignore Season 2 which was a complete 180 on her persona? Yes, let’s.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I also have to be pointed that nobody ever said the Pact Commander themselves is incapable of being a villian even partially. The Commander by now is going through some serious vietnam flashbacks and it wouldnt surprise me if even your character is capable of doing some questionable actions to continue moving forwards.

ArenaNet said from the beginning that they will always want the player to be the good guy, the hero. Unquestionably.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

He has to be significant, because anything less would make him pointless. Sometimes you need a villian to monologue, have evil plans, and do terrible things to “give” the player a reason to even care about them.

This I agree.

But it seems you and I have different concepts of “layers” in character development. Because you’ve only listed – by the sounds of it – personality and establishment.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

If Xera’s claim is true then the Mantle has been around in more than just the culture of Human society, but among the Asura, Sylvari, Norn and Charr while it rebuilt itself.

I didn’t see/get that anywhere…

CaptainVanguard.4925:

It represents in many ways, your literal nemesis, the anti-pact, the force devoted to something other than trying to save the world, it represents trying to “rule” the world itself and that in many ways makes it a very interesting villian.

Which is exactly what Scarlet had until the last four releases (all those in 2014) revealed she was just a puppet. She literally made an anti-Pact herself. The White Mantle doing the same would just be a repetition of old themes.

And trying to rule the world is exactly what the Elder Dragons do. Your claims of an “interesting villain” is the very markers that made the previous villains you claim are boring.

Starting to sound contradictory to me.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

As for the Egg…

The Zephyrites most likely know of it in some way or form considering that it was around as early as the second visit to Labarynthine Cliffs. Any number of people could have seen the glowing cargo the Zephyrites Carried with them and more.

The Knowladge of the Egg is not that sacred, what it actually is “may” be but the fact that it exists isnt.

Actually, knowledge of the egg is sacred. Only the Aspect Masters – of which there are four – are known to have known about the egg’s existence or the Zephyrite’s actual purpose for existing. And since half of those are dead now…. There’s literally less than twelve individuals excluding the Exalted (who’s sole purpose in living is to protect the egg) who know about the egg.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Finding it wouldnt be that hard, plus it is guarded in Tarir, which is hardly a hidden city.

It actually is. While we players see it easily, Tarir is supposed to be magically hidden and physically hidden as well.

For Lazarus to know about the egg and Tarir requires him to put many pieces together – something he couldn’t have before the third raid wing because he was still recuperating in the Stronghold of the Faithful. And for him to get at it, requires fighting through the entire army of Exalted, effectively wiping them out – something even Mordremoth could not do when creating minions especially designed to do that (Vinetooths and Octovines).

That plot idea literally takes Lazarus out of the realm of the believable because he’d be achieving something that an Elder Dragon – a being capable of reshaping the world – could not do.

draxynnic.3719:

PS Please, please don’t make taking down Joko a raid wing. Not everyone enjoys that gameplay, and people who don’t shouldn’t be forced to miss out on such a significant event.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Im fairly sure if A-net added major characters being taken down in raids, many people would quit in mass, they cant do that and they “know” they cant.

I’m not sure about quitting in mass, but yes, I agree with both statements.

If ArenaNet is so intent on making story content group based, just make them dungeons as tough as Aetherpath. Though personally I prefer how Hearts of Minds went – a normal “easier” mode and an Extreme mode for a full party that shows the true strength of the foe.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There are two aspects that are vital for making a good villain:

• Believability
• Relatability

To me, Xera fails in this too – her powers is so beyond what should be possible for humans, even with bloodstone access. In fact, she is beyond the believable especially given the bloodstone access, given that both Randall Graystone and Matthias both showed that a human trying to control too much magic via bloodstones backlashes – yet this never seems to happen with Xera (unless I missed something). I mean, seeing the Xera fight just made me wonder one thing: why the hell didn’t she just waltz into DR herself and just shift the city into some mental hellhole nightmare fuel? She clearly is fully capable of that given she made the Twisted Castle.

To me it looks like Xera created the Twisted Castle when she wasn’t able to control her Magic. The Castle is not an Illusion, it is Reality bent by too much Magic that couldn’t be controlled and perhaps she got some Power Limiters cast on her or the Magic she released made her left with low enough amount of it behind that she can control it. We don’t see any Reality Bending Mechanics in her Fight. Just her warped appearence and her Human Form ( after we force her to go back into it, implying that this is a temporary Form ) and her Mechanics deal about Bloodstones rather then Mesmer Magic ( there is some but its not as important as Matthias Elemental Magic ). Right now she can control her Magic but from what she showed us here, she doesn’t seem to have the same Amount she had when creating the Twisted Castle. I would say, if she had that amount of Magic now as she had “creating” the Castle and if she was able to control it, she would have steamrolled DR.

And with Matthias, well he was already losing control of his Magic, us punching his Nose a few times might have been too much for him, but he still had some Semi-Control, like with the Hadouken Attack. He is still intelligent ( Phasing him at a Bad Time will him getting the Lines " Your sacrifice will bring him Life" " He will not be pleased" and " A worthy Sacrifice" with his Abomination Voice ) and if I’m not wrong when he dies he reverts back into his Human Form.

Walhalla.5473:

We don’t see any Reality Bending Mechanics in her Fight. Just her warped appearence and her Human Form ( after we force her to go back into it, implying that this is a temporary Form ) and her Mechanics deal about Bloodstones rather then Mesmer Magic ( there is some but its not as important as Matthias Elemental Magic ).

You forgot about the solid non-illusionary platforms that appear and vanish. That’s warping reality in of itself.

Those platforms and her giant psuedo-mursaat form are what I was talking about with her powers and why she couldn’t just stroll into DR and rend it asunder.

During the entire encounter with Xera she repetitively summons Bloodstone Shards as both a source of power and a measure to attack the heroes with.

If I had to consider the difference between how Matthias wielded Bloodstones compared to Xera, I would say that Matthias probably did not intend to live beyond the point where he radically transformed into an abomination once he went into his last stand. His animations where he literally rips apart his body to attack the heroes with his bloodstone-infused organs, not to mention his inflated unnatural form make me believe he gave up being human at all costs to kill the group.

Xera, however, I believe was the last true guardian protecting Lazarus as he recovered. Unlike Matthias she, besides being a higher ranking White Mantle and likely more powerful than Matthias, probably understood the benefits and downsides of Bloodstone shards the most. It’s very plausible that she could have gone all in on DR and destroyed the place, but I believe her fixation on bringing back Lazarus was her highest priority.

Would it be wrong to suggest that her main mission was to allow Lazarus to recover completely, as his rebirth would stir even more trouble than her own presence going out to DR?

Would it also be wrong to suggest that because of her knowledge of the bloodstone shards and their potential, that she used them in a more effective manner as to become an empowered version of herself (the Massive Xera) until they were disturbed or destroyed thus revealing her true human self? I doubt a guardian would want to perish so readily, she likely sought to outlast the group without going as far as Matthias went to infuse herself with Bloodstone Power.

Unfortunately my lore-expertise is not quite adequate, I cannot say whether or not Matthias turning into his Abomination form would reduce his lifespan, but I do like to presume that taking too much from the Bloodstones given what they actually are likely isn’t healthy for self-preservation.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Walhalla.5473:

We don’t see any Reality Bending Mechanics in her Fight. Just her warped appearence and her Human Form ( after we force her to go back into it, implying that this is a temporary Form ) and her Mechanics deal about Bloodstones rather then Mesmer Magic ( there is some but its not as important as Matthias Elemental Magic ).

You forgot about the solid non-illusionary platforms that appear and vanish. That’s warping reality in of itself.

Those platforms and her giant psuedo-mursaat form are what I was talking about with her powers and why she couldn’t just stroll into DR and rend it asunder.

Even if the Platforms are Reality Warping its not on the same Level as the Twisted Castle, not even close.
The Castle is a big Area blown up with Reality Warping Magic on par with a small Nuke, the Reality Warping there is so strong that our Characters can go insane from just being there. If she welded that much Magic on the Fight against her, she would have torn the Heroes out of Reality but even in her Bloodstone-Form, there wasn’t that much. And that Castle doesn’t look like it was intended, it was more of an Accident. Also the Stasis Chamber was there. Why blowing up this Area on Purpose and thus Risking the Life of the last known Mursaat on Tyria? An Accident, where they were lucky not getting Lazarus killed, is much more plausible.

Considering what Sykper said, its likely that she knew how to use Bloodstones as an Energy Source. I mean we can force her from Bloodstone-Form into Human-Form by destroying the Bloodstones. She was using a limited Amount of Bloodstones and I think this was the Maximum she could harness without getting out of Control and she wasn’t willing to risk it, since it could go Bang like the Time the Twisted Castle was created and this Time killing Lazarus.

BobbyStein.2315:

She wouldn’t have had access to those magic reserves outside the Stronghold of the Faithful, which is why should couldn’t have performed such an assault on DR. Also, she had more pressing matters at the moment.

What would prevent her – or someone as powerful as her – from just carting a bunch of bloodstone shards into DR?

After all, with the barrels of bloodstone shards being shipped about (or so the raid wings imply), isn’t that what the White Mantle are doing already?

BobbyStein.2315:

Hopefully, this all came through in the dialog and game mechanics of the final wing. If not, then I’ll take this as constructive feedback to improve on the narrative presentation next time around.

Being someone who can’t really find consistent groups to raid with (and someone who heavily disdains having glass cannon gear), I can’t really say much about the dialogue and game mechanics beyond what videos and the wiki shows.

So Bobby you are saying that the Twisted Castle was intentional from Xera? For me it looked like some Accident while handling too much Magic over a short Time. More like a Mesmer Nuke went off after she reached the critical Mass of Magic.

And why she didn’t wreck DR like she did with her own Castle, there is another Reason. The White Mantle wants to Rule over Kryta, not destroy it. Reality Rending DR would turn most of the White Mantle supporters against them and they have quite a few Supporters in Kryta. I would say, enough to start a Civil War, they are all over the Human Population. Politicians, Soldiers, Lords, Ladies, the Common People, Criminals, there are Supporters everywhere.
The Picture we see in the Stronghold and the Twisted Castle is also there in different Locations in Kryta and if I’m right there should be another one in Caudecus Manor.

I would say LS3 will be the beginn of a bloody Civil War, we didn’t kill the Leadership of the Mantle, just some Inquisitors. There was no Confessor there and now Lazarus is revived, cleansed of the twisting Magic, whatever. They have their God back and now its the Time for them to strike.

Please don’t let this derail the thread, but it is worth pointing out, once again, that compelling interactive storytelling of this nature is exactly why (one of the reasons, actually) the accessibility of the raid to players with a wider range of playstyles/skill/commitment levels is so very very important.

This is something that should be done in an area of the game where everyone interested in story can participate in (not just read about or see) the content without having to compromise how they enjoy playing the game. If raids are not going to be designed with that in mind (and they should be), then this doesn’t belong in the raid.

Again, don’t let this derail the thread and discussion about story – just wanted to insert another friendly reminder of the above point of view.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What would prevent her – or someone as powerful as her – from just carting a bunch of bloodstone shards into DR?

After all, with the barrels of bloodstone shards being shipped about (or so the raid wings imply), isn’t that what the White Mantle are doing already?

Coming soon to GW2…

The Battle For Divinity’s Reach: The Wrath of the Grand High Sovereign!— err…. I mean, The Wrath of Lazarus!

(Though I would be totally ok if Lazarus tries to turn himself into some sort of god emperor figure.)

BobbyStein.2315:

Could they sneak in barrels over time? Maybe. But it wasn’t their priority. Xera was doing something very specific in the raid, and all her resources were focused on its completion.

I know it’s probably still a bit of an open secret to a portion of the playerbase, but I think it’s would be safe to say, and the Lore forums at least, that she was just stalling for time. She had to make sure her “god” was off the life support slab, fully rejuvenated, and all hopped up on the sacrificed infused magical bloodstone steroids after all.

BobbyStein.2315:

Edit: When players enter the Twisted Castle area, Xera says some dialog that alludes to this. It’s not listed on the wiki, though, so I would imagine that’s why this detail is hazy for some folks.

There’s a fair amount of dialog that triggers during this section. It’s easy to miss because of all the action, which is one reason why we tend to place most of the narrative bits between fights instead of during them (with a few exceptions).

A lot of dialogue in general is missing from the wiki. Raid dialogue that differs from race is a big one.

Could you provide a list of dialogue (particularly from Season 1, which is no longer available, and the raids, which is not easily obtained by all and is so heavily dependent on race/gender/profession), so we can add it to the wiki?

This is all so fascinating.

Whyyy is it stuck behind content I can’t play :’(

What’s interesting now is:
We got bloodstone and reasearch related to it now.

While it is interesting that there is not that much repurposing of enemy tech (Like taking Scarlets hologram/puppet army for example), the bloodstone could be an interesting weapon for later use.

Who else sees a bloodstone charged cannon later on? Moutned on the weird lighthouse in LA?

Looks like Bobby beat me to the punch – pretty much said what I was going to say, so good to know my thinking was on the right track!

Another consideration is that the Mesmer Collective coughShiningBladefrontcough would probably have something to say about it if someone was to attempt to ruin Divinity’s Reach by force of magic. Jennah and Anise are both powerful mesmers, even though Jennah’s power in particular doesn’t seem to be well suited for close combat situations. Vera might still have been able to succeed if she’d managed to get all the components in place, but it’s tipping their hand in a pretty big gamble: I don’t think the White Mantle want to reveal to the general public that there’s anything more than a bunch of independent bandit gangs until they have a greater certainty of success. An attempt to trash Divinity’s Reach which is fended off by the queen and the Shining Blade would be a pretty big boost to the royalist faction, especially if the royalist faction is able to follow it up with credible evidence that links Caudecus to the attack.

Blaeys.3102:

Please don’t let this derail the thread, but it is worth pointing out, once again, that compelling interactive storytelling of this nature is exactly why (one of the reasons, actually) the accessibility of the raid to players with a wider range of playstyles/skill/commitment levels is so very very important.

This is something that should be done in an area of the game where everyone interested in story can participate in (not just read about or see) the content without having to compromise how they enjoy playing the game. If raids are not going to be designed with that in mind (and they should be), then this doesn’t belong in the raid.

Again, don’t let this derail the thread and discussion about story – just wanted to insert another friendly reminder of the above point of view.

This. A billion times this. I literally cannot upvote this enough.

The crossover between the people who enjoy raid-type play and the people who are most invested in the lore and story is coincidental at best. I’ve talked to a lot of people who are feeling alienated by something that’s coming across as possibly the most interesting story for quite a while (certainly before HoT) being locked behind something that requires a high degree of organisation and a playstyle that many find unentertaining.

Jaken.6801:

What’s interesting now is:
We got bloodstone and reasearch related to it now.

While it is interesting that there is not that much repurposing of enemy tech (Like taking Scarlets hologram/puppet army for example), the bloodstone could be an interesting weapon for later use.

Who else sees a bloodstone charged cannon later on? Moutned on the weird lighthouse in LA?

Another interesting Thing is, that we ( at least the ones who were there for Tower of Nightmare ) have something similar to a Bloodstone Shard in our Home Instance. The Krait Obelisk Shard. I don’t know the exact Text but a Priory Researcher said that the Krait Obelisks are very similar to the Bloodstones and also holds vast amounts of Magical Energy. I have to look again in LS2 but I’m sure that the Priory has some Shards now.

Perhaps, to defeat Lazarus ( if his Resurrection empowered him ) he have to Tap into the same Amount of Magic Matthias and Xera did. We have two possibilities for that. Bloodstone and the Obelisk Shards.

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What would prevent her – or someone as powerful as her – from just carting a bunch of bloodstone shards into DR?

After all, with the barrels of bloodstone shards being shipped about (or so the raid wings imply), isn’t that what the White Mantle are doing already?

Logistics. A full-on frontal assault would be impractical. Sure, they could run caravans full of bloodstone shards, I suppose, but I think they’d be overwhelmed by the Seraph and players before they’d break through the city defenses.

Could they sneak in barrels over time? Maybe. But it wasn’t their priority. Xera was doing something very specific in the raid, and all her resources were focused on its completion.

I have thought she prefers to work silently, because of an other, more strategic reason.

If White Mantle wants to rule the Kryta they have to play nice. Of course no one knows that they are kidnapping people, taking valuable informations out of them and then taking their lives. No one survives to tell the story, so it’s cool. They don’t want to be seen as an opressors because then the population of Kryta would most likely rally against them. The same story as in Guild Wars. People had liked them until they learnt the truth. So the full-blown open war is a lost cause. They have to use propaganda to win this political battle – White Mantle posters added in the recent patches. If it is not enough? No problem. They can dress like a bandits, attack the Krytan settlements and then when all hope is lost the White Mantle would come together with some briliant ideas/reforms from Caudecus to save the day. It would be enough to get the support of the citizens of Kryta.

PS:
I like how the Guild Wars 2 story in the expansions is darker than the core personal story. And then the story in Forsaken Thicket is even more ominous.

Edit: typo

I know I’m kinda late to the discussion, but I felt it’d be better to posting this feedback in this thread since I’ll reference Bobby’s posts from this thread, stuff from raids and Living World season 3, and it does tie into the whole Lazarus and Xera stuff as well as things we’ve learned from the journals found in Bloodstone Fen.

First of all, I’d like to thank Bobby for his insightful replies in this thread and the Raid Narrative and Lore thread, including his reply to my post in the latter thread; it’s always great to have back and forth between the developers and the community, something I hope we’ll see more of especially in the Lore section (or at least Reddit) from the narrative designers although I understand it’s not always possible due to the designers’ schedules and whatnot. Perhaps bringing back the Dolyak Express concept from previous years would be an option?

Regarding the continuity and lore between the raid and Season 3, I think the team has done a good job getting people who haven’t raided up to speed and summarizing most of the crucial stuff that took place in raids. I particularly liked posthumous character development given to Matthias, showing just how big of a kitten Justiciar Bauer really was (I did like Bauer’s aggressive, no nonsense stance, and how all the three journal entries intertwined and complimented one another).

Bennett’s dialogue, and him taking into account whether the PC had rescued him or not, had nice touches and helped develop him as a character; I liked the light comedy between him and an asura Vigil soldier whether he’s lucky or not to have survived near-death experiences just as I liked Bennett recalling the horrific experiences he went through in the Forsaken Thicket which helped fuel him to aid the Pact bring down the White Mantle.

1) Identifying Sabetha

There’s one nitpicky thing I have to mention as I’ve noticed it occurring in both Forsaken Thicket and Bloodstone Fen: the way Sabetha is identified. To me it’s somewhat jarring that Falgeir and Bennett immediately refer to her as merely Sabetha as if the PC would recognize her as the bandit leader before even knowing any better (start of Spirit Vale for a raider, or Bloodstone Fen for a non-raider who would have no idea who all these antagonists from the raid would be). I think a better approach would’ve been adding a small line before mentioning her name for the first time in the raid and S3 such as:

’’’Falgeir:‘’’ We fought hard but we were outnumbered. The bandit in charge ordered her crew to take prisoners, and then left. (This leader would then be identified as Sabetha in another branch of Falgeir’s dialogue as it already exists in Spirit Vale under “Tell me more about the bandits.” where we get the nice introduction: “They were led by a nasty one they called Sabetha. She burned a soldier nearly to ash right before my eyes.”)

’’’Bennett:‘’’ Saw one of my men lit up like a Wintersday bonfire, and the gloating bandit leader who had caused it. Sabetha and her lackeys torched everything, laughing as they went. (Here we’d first reference the leader of the bandits, then follow it with her name, thus linking the two in the PC’s mind)

It’s like if a character first referenced Jennah, then later added that she’s the Queen of Kryta. Granted, maybe the idea was to emulate how IRL we may first reference a notable individual by name and then, when we realize that our friend doesn’t realize what we’re talking about, we give more context to the name? Maybe I’m alone with this, but the way Sabetha was referred to without much context did seem a bit odd given what little the PC knew about her at the time of talking to either Falgeirr or Bennett at that point in the story.

2) Timeline of Lazarus’s revival, and Xera’s motivation

As I was editing the wiki page for Xera, I noticed something curious about the timeline that I’d like to ask Bobby (or Ross if he can post here as I understand he was responsible for writing the journals in Bloodstone Fen) about.

Bobby brought up the point that Xera used the twisted castle to slow the raiders down; this seems to imply it was Xera’s last ditch effort to make the raiders not reach the revival chamber until Lazarus had awakened safely. However, some journal entries seem to hint at Lazarus having awakened earlier based on what events they reference. Here are the important quotes (emphases mine):

Justiciar Bauer

2 Zephyr, 1329 AE
Our supreme leader arrived today. We have been ordered to tell no one for fear that interlopers will interrupt his grand plan. The moment of our vengeance is at hand. Nothing will stand in the way of the White Mantle. We shall claim our birthright—first in Kryta and then the world. Glory to the Unseen Ones!

Grand Savant Valis the Learned

13 Zephyr, 1329 AE
[…] A recent raid on our nearby keep resulted in Matthias’s death and the halt of continued bloodstone infusions into humans. Despite this, Justiciar Bauer demands more results, both to have something to show the confessor and to help strengthen our fortifications around the bloodstone.

Justiciar Bauer

14 Zephyr, 1329 AE
The girl who usually brings me my mail barged into my office today, rambling about a crack in the bloodstone and throwing notes and diagrams at me. Somehow, she knew about the ritual. I don’t know what else she knew, but she was pretty annoying, so I took her head just to be sure. Once the ritual is complete, we can proceed with our leader’s virtuous pursuits!

Grand Savant Valis the Learned

17 Zephyr, 1329 AE
Justiciar Bauer has been especially cryptic recently and refuses to answer my inquiries into the status of our unseen god’s resurrection. This is despite the fact that he sent many of our resources and the majority of our harvested bloodstone shards up north to our keep prior to it being raided by filthy nonbelievers. I fear the worst, but pray the Dire survived the dastardly attack. Justiciar Bauer is ordering me down into a rickety mine shaft that he had dug for a reason he won’t tell me, to oversee a ritual he won’t explain to me, and to accomplish a goal he won’t state.

Although one could surmise that the supreme leader being referenced would be Caudecus due to him being the Confessor of the White Mantle, Bauer’s entries overall, if looked at in context, would actually suggest he’s referencing Lazarus here. Bauer, Xera and a few other conspirators were working behind Caudecus’s back to bring Lazarus back, and we’ve seen Bauer referring to Caudecus as the confessor in other entries rather than as a supreme leader who Lazarus would be. To those wondering why Bauer wouldn’t refer to Lazarus as a god, other entries suggest Bauer isn’t quite that religious (as seen with how he viewed the more religious fanatics like Matthias) but sees the Mantle’s campaign from a more layman perspective while still supporting the idea of returning Lazarus via Operation Rebirth rather than simply focusing on the bloodstone weaponization plan like Caudecus is. To Bauer, the last mursaat appears to be less of a god in a religious sense and more of a powerful general who will lead the Mantle to victory on the battlefield.

So, with all of that out of the way, we get to the actual timeline issue here. Xera’s desperate actions and boasting dialogue would suggest that the revival of Lazarus was still going on by the time the raiders reached Stronghold of the Faithful, which is why she was trying to stall them from reaching the revival chamber. Yet, as seen from Bauer and Valis’s entries, there’s a gap of over a week between Bauer mentioning the supreme leader’s (who, as evidence from the journal entries seems to suggest, would imply Lazarus and not Caudecus as surely the Shining Blade would’ve noticed if Caudecus had fled from the palace weeks ago) arrival and Valis referencing Matthias’s death at Salvation Pass. Even more time passes until the siege on the stronghold (and the subsequent death of Xera) is referenced in Valis’s entry.

If Lazarus had already been revived by that point and he would be preparing for the bloodstone magic absorbing ritual (as was hinted at in the journal entries as well as that little cinematic we saw when we witnessed the ritual flashback with Caithe in the Episode 1 story), wouldn’t Xera’s boasting be contradictory? After all, she’d have no reason to stall the raiders from reaching the revival chamber when Lazarus would’ve already been taken safely to Bloodstone Fen for the final ritual.

I’m simply asking for clarification so we’ll know what the timeline actually is and how these reveals fit into Xera’s stalling motivations during Stronghold of the Faithful. If there’s more story to be revealed about this later on in Season 3, however, I understand if this question can’t be answered, but it would be nice to have at least some inkling of what’s going on here if possible.

I liked Scarlet. Yes, maybe she was a little bit Mary Sueish, but I liked her thinking:
*Gather the opressed and annoyed, make them offers of powers they can´t refuse or bully them into service like the aetherblades.
*Build a giant machine to kill people by stomping them. Arrogant and funny all at once.
*I also think that she was not inheritantly or unredeemably evil. There is even an item stating that Caithe will see how Tyria would have needed her for its continual survival. It was pretty hard for me to kill her.^^

@Assic
I think Caudecus and the white mantle as noble benefactors of Kryta have no chance of happening now.
Caudecus as a master politician is lost because he actively sought to kill the former pact commander, a hero without any shady secrets and the dispatcher of two elder dragons, by issuing a direct command. You can´t probably reveal yourself more, but I applaud Anet for this idea. Him just skulking around in his manor was dissatisfying at best if you thought aqbout how much potential he has. Maybe, and that is a big maybe, a civil war could break out between royalists and seperatists who support Caudecus ideas to make Kryta great again at any cost, akin to Adelbern.
I assume that the word of the commander in the Identification of Caudecus as a major bad guy and no just a lousy, elitist vice president of some sort is so solid and believable that people would rally behind the throne if he supports it.
Caudecus was clearly identifed as white mantle leader, so the organization itself was also discredited.

On a different note, Justiciar Bauer seems to be a terrible leader killing people left and right for totally bogus reasons, not even sparring his own supposed master race brethen. Kind of reminds me of a kitten concentration camp commander who also did so just because he could.

Kossage.9072:

So, with all of that out of the way, we get to the actual timeline issue here. Xera’s desperate actions and boasting dialogue would suggest that the revival of Lazarus was still going on by the time the raiders reached Stronghold of the Faithful, which is why she was trying to stall them from reaching the revival chamber. Yet, as seen from Bauer and Valis’s entries, there’s a gap of over a week between Bauer mentioning the supreme leader’s (who, as evidence from the journal entries seems to suggest, would imply Lazarus and not Caudecus as surely the Shining Blade would’ve noticed if Caudecus had fled from the palace weeks ago) arrival and Valis referencing Matthias’s death at Salvation Pass. Even more time passes until the siege on the stronghold (and the subsequent death of Xera) is referenced in Valis’s entry.

If Lazarus had already been revived by that point and he would be preparing for the bloodstone magic absorbing ritual (as was hinted at in the journal entries as well as that little cinematic we saw when we witnessed the ritual flashback with Caithe in the Episode 1 story), wouldn’t Xera’s boasting be contradictory? After all, she’d have no reason to stall the raiders from reaching the revival chamber when Lazarus would’ve already been taken safely to Bloodstone Fen for the final ritual.

I’m simply asking for clarification so we’ll know what the timeline actually is and how these reveals fit into Xera’s stalling motivations during Stronghold of the Faithful. If there’s more story to be revealed about this later on in Season 3, however, I understand if this question can’t be answered, but it would be nice to have at least some inkling of what’s going on here if possible.

I think Lazarus arrived in either the chamber or in a not really living state. The ritual itself could have taken weeks to finish or to prepare. So it’s possible that it wasn’t finished at the time of the 3rd wing.

@Kossage:

There are a couple of resolutions to the points you bring up:

One is that none of the quotations you reference actually indicate that Lazarus is active. “Our supreme leader arrived today” could be “Our comatose supreme leader arrived today.” The third quotation could simply be making the (quite reasonable) assumption that Lazarus would have something he wants to do after his rebirth. “I pray the Dire survived their dastardly attack” could be representing a very real fear that Lazarus was still in a helpless state and could very easily have been finished off if the raiders had come across him.

Another is to note that right after Lazarus’ essence was corrupted in the first place, he was still conscious and able to act (if only to retreat). It’s entirely possible that his condition had worsened since, but despite the mythological reference it’s possible that Lazarus was only ever ‘very, very sick’ but not in a state where he’s unable to communicate with his followers at all. I think that’s less likely, though:

Since Caudecus was able to get away with deprioritising Operation Rebirth, and given how hostile Lazarus was to Caudecus, it doesn’t seem that Lazarus would have put up with Caudecus being the confessor if Lazarus had any influence. It’s possible, though, that Lazarus recognised that Caudecus’ resources were needed for Operation Rebirth to occur in the first place and that he figured he’d deal with Caudecus after his rebirth.

Torolan.5816:

@Assic
I think Caudecus and the white mantle as noble benefactors of Kryta have no chance of happening now.
Caudecus as a master politician is lost because he actively sought to kill the former pact commander, a hero without any shady secrets and the dispatcher of two elder dragons, by issuing a direct command. You can´t probably reveal yourself more, but I applaud Anet for this idea. Him just skulking around in his manor was dissatisfying at best if you thought aqbout how much potential he has. Maybe, and that is a big maybe, a civil war could break out between royalists and seperatists who support Caudecus ideas to make Kryta great again at any cost, akin to Adelbern.
I assume that the word of the commander in the Identification of Caudecus as a major bad guy and no just a lousy, elitist vice president of some sort is so solid and believable that people would rally behind the throne if he supports it.
Caudecus was clearly identifed as white mantle leader, so the organization itself was also discredited.

I’m not sure about that. Caudecus is a fairly slimy politician, and it would be easy to paint the Pact Commander as being biased in favour of the queen – particularly for a human PC. For other races, it would be easy to play the “the Pact Commander is lying because of course it’s to (insert race here)’s benefit for the Queen to be in power rather than a leader who truly (values the interests of humanity)/(understands the plight of the common people)/(could make Kryta strong again)/(insert fascist buzzwords here)!”

I suspect the Pact Commander being able to say with a straight face that Caudecus proclaimed that an outlawed organisation would “carry me to the throne of Kryta!” before attempting to kill the Pact Commander will be enough to shake the confidence of some who might otherwise follow Caudecus, but it won’t be a political deathblow. And the other witnesses… well, that’s Anise’s criminal potplant, an expelled Ministry Guardswoman with a chip on her shoulder*, and a filthy charr – can you really think any of those are trustworthy? Basically, he can throw up enough of a smokescreen of doubt that most of his followers (that aren’t already White Mantle or bandits, however much of a difference there truly is between the two) will believe it’s a conspiracy against him.

*For the record, this is not an accurate representation of Marjory’s history, but it would be very easy for Caudecus to paint it that way, and that’s without even bringing in Marjory’s close association with a disgraced ex-noblewoman.

Good points.

You are sadly right with Canach, I would not trust him either. He is a reformed criminal working for a shady councelor. He helped kill Mordremoth, but that does not really better his position because he is a Silvary.

Marjorys word also does not hold much weight for the reasons you stated(the disgruntled exguard), although I think that being a part of the guild of the clean pact commander and her help in defeating Mordremoth gives her some credibility back, at least more than with Canach.

And Rhytlock, Rhytlock is technically a hero as part of destinys edge. I personally don´t see him as such because of his behaviour and outright racism against humans in the first arch of GW2, but I am pretty sure that his word holds weight in a trial as Logan will step in and proclaim his confidence in his friend. Of course you can twist that too as Logan is the love interest of the queen and still feels guilty for leaving Rhytlock hang out to dry, but people love the shiny goof and Caudecus has still a lot of dirt to explain himself with his daughter and other issues, so a battle of mud hurling probably would not end well for Caudecus in this case.

I think his major problem will be the loss of bandwaggoner ministers and even more so, the loss of confidence in the ministry guard for him.
Let´s say survivors come back from the Fen and tell their families and friends:
“You know Minister Caudecus? The pact commander told us that he is a traitor and a white mantle cultist! I saw how this area is twisted by evil magic with my own eyes, saw my comrades turning mad with bloodstone magic! What if the same happened to Minister Caudecus?”
As a loyal to the ministry – ministry guard, I would ask myself some questions then:
*Where is the ministry guard that were charged to protect him? Did he dispose of them, or were they cultists too?
*Was the pact commander right all along, and I follow the bad guys here?
*What business has Caudecus in such a location?
Word will make rounds then, and I guess some ministry guard will not sleep very well after such a revelation.

The most forward solution would be that Caudecus will put all his eggs in a basket and try to conquer Divinitys reach in a full brunt assault with all his forces, aka Bandits, Separatists and white Mantle loyal to him. That would probably end in him bathing in a temporary victory until Lazarus shows up and easily kills him. The problem with this is that it would have to be a very hasty assembly of troops and several journals stating that the white mantle has no hope of defeating Divinitys reach on his own.

Caudecus could attempt to weasel his way out of being a traitor. He could even confess and say that he was looking for the good of Kryta and had no idea that Lazarus was out to destroy humanity, but that would end with him being exiled or executed.

Caudecus could retreat and basically give up his white mantle membership and be the new shadow boss of the Separatists.

Torolan.5816:

Caudecus could retreat and basically give up his white mantle membership and be the new shadow boss of the Separatists.

I don’t think so. Separatists are basically an Ascalonian thing, and Caudecus is as Krytan as they come. It looks like they cooperated when their interests briefly aligned, but that doesn’t mean they’d let Caudecus join them, and they certainly wouldn’t answer to him.

It’s also worth considering Caudecus’ state of mind. He’s upset, frustrated, bitter, even before Lazarus ruined what should have been his crowning moment. He’s spent the last three or four years firmly under the queen’s thumb, and skipped town under very shady circumstances. I believe him when he says he won’t go back unless it’s at the head of an army.

As for the politics- it’s all well and good to talk about maneuvering, but it needs to be remembered that there’s no indication that Kryta has a constitution or the like. The Ministry exists because the monarch allows it to exist, and it’s meant to be an advisory body. The Shining Blade’s jurisdiction supersedes all others whenever and wherever the queen wants it to. Yes, Jennah has been playing nice, but that seems to only be because A.) she’s facing the very real possibility of a civil war and doesn’t want to fan the flames, B.) she supports the ‘everyone should have a voice’ principle that the Ministry is supposed to embody, and C.) Caudecus has done a masterful job of keeping his own hands clean while his underlings do the dirty work. None of that applies anymore. He snuck away to join with enemies of the state right as they incited a magical disaster that nearly leveled Kryta. An officer of the Shining Blade (and that’s what would matter legally, not Canach’s background beyond Kryta’s borders) found him there, and heard Caudecus confess to being the Confessor, and to his intent to lead the forces he’d already gathered to overthrow the crown. The, until very recently, highest ranking authority of the most universally lauded organization on the continent witnessed it. Politics can play clean-up afterwards, but right now, Jennah has far more than enough to justify Caudecus’ execution.

There are indications that they do have an equivalent to a constitution, actually. The “Krytan Rule of Law”, as mentioned in The Line of Duty, is capitalised in such a way that it sounds like a formal document, and, furthermore, a formal document that serves as the basis of other laws (one of the purposes of a constitution is to provide legal basis for other laws – if I remember correctly, the German constitution is called the “Basic Law” because of this).

We don’t know exactly what’s in it, and The Line of Duty specifically refers to the military orders and doesn’t tell us much beyond that but it does lay out a separation of powers between royal agents (Seraph and Shining Blade) and the ministry. Specifically, the ministry effectively controls the judiciary system for all but foreigners, and especially where nobles are involved. This is part of where Caudecus’ power has come from: he effectively controls the courts, so unless a case really is beyond reasonable doubt such that he wouldn’t get away with it, anything that went through the courts system that he cared about tended to go the way he wanted it to.

More generally, the impression I get is that the best analogy is that the Queen’s powers are similar to the US president (which were modeled on the powers that European kings of the day had – the presidential system was basically designed to give them an elected king for a term that could represent the US on the foreign stage) while the Ministry is legislature and judiciary rolled into one (a dangerous combination). This is how, for instance, the Ministry were able to threaten to take Jennah to court on accusation of conspiring with Scarlet.

Since Caudecus, as Legate Minister, is basically in charge of the courts, any legal action taken against him probably needs to be absolutely airtight. It’s likely that the Rule of Law has no allowance for the possibility that the Legate Minister is a traitor, so it’s possible that any action that Jennah takes against Caudecus would have to be effectively extralegal (although his acceptance of ‘house arrest’ after CM suggests that he believes there is something Jennah could do, since the situation Jennah set up was such that refusing protective custody is de facto admitting that he was part of the conspiracy).

I suspect you’re right in that the way the story will go is that Caudecus is unmasked and his efforts from now on will be overtly leading an armed rebellion – however, in that circumstance, he can cast enough doubt on the testimony that he can present himself as the victim of a royal conspiracy rather than the perpetrator of an anti-royal conspiracy. It is possible, however, that it will go back to ‘you can’t prove a thing’, and caudecus will slip back into his legal position, while the royalist faction grits their teeth even harder to avoid the civil war that would trigger if they went for Caudecus without absolutely indisputable evidence.

(This is probably why Anise was hoping for Canach to take Caudecus out. “Killed in Bloodstone Fen after effectively confessing to a respected figure” would probably be something that the royal faction can spin so that it doesn’t become a civil war, as long as Caudecus is too dead to spin a counter-story. With Caudecus around to play the victim and spin a counter-story, though, it’s likely to be a lot messier.)

Good points, all. It’s just the question of why it got to be that way that trips me up. As far as we know, Kryta has never undergone the kind of internal pressures and transformations that led to monarchs accepting parliaments and fetters to their power, and it seems weird that the system would just spring into being without that.

I did go back and pick through the interviews to try to track where I’d derived my notions from, and I think the Halloween TowerTalk Lore Special is the one.

It’s near the end (there’s no timestamps, but if you move the little bar under the ‘und’ you’ll be close) that they get into talking about the division of powers. They also make the comparison to the American system, but the reasoning behind it is interesting. While Scott McGough does make the point that Jennah ultimately calls the shots and that it’s very difficult for the Ministry to get anything done against her will, he then goes on to say that nothing gets done unless the queen and Ministry work together. He describes the basis for the division of powers, though, not in terms of laws or the rights or voice of the people, but instead:

“Kryta is a large and complicated kingdom, and it’s too large and too complicated for one person to say ‘the entire nation is going this way’. There are so many moving parts, you need a hierarchy with people in charge of different parts of the government itself to make everything work, and so that’s why Jennah suffers the kind of machinations that Caudecus was up to in the personal story. She needs the Ministry to effectively govern. I mean, I suppose if she were to become a bloody-minded tyrant she could wipe out the Ministry and replace them with her own hand-picked people, but that wouldn’t really solve the problem of needing those people to run the government. It’s better to have competent people who are all dedicated to the future of Kryta, rather than just have people who are going to rubber stamp what you want. Kryta is so large and so complicated at this point that one person, a single monarch, really can’t effectively govern it, and so it’s very much a balancing act between Jennah needing to maintain her position and her prestige, but she also needs to Ministry to make sure the wheels of government keep turning.”

It is odd that he stresses Kryta’s size so often when it only covers about half the area it did in GW1, but put that way, while it still makes the politicking a necessity, it sounds less like a constitutional monarchy and maybe more like a Canthan style of bureaucracy that happens to incorporate Kryta’s existing noble class. That makes for some interesting parallels between Caudecus and Reiko. It’s very possible I’m just reading too much into it, though.

As a little sidenote because it was broughtnup:
We don´t have a constitution in Germany in a sense. Yes, we have something you could call the constitution(The Grundgesetz) which indeed governs the other law books and overrides them if the need arives, but technically, we were long a land under allied command and did not even have a peace treaty with France despite them and us being friends again now after centuries of warfare(Karl the Great, Napoleon, WWII etc etc.. ) for decades after WWII.
That´s why it is so ridiculous when Trump sets Clinton akin to Merkel. The US president would have to loose a lot of decision power to be akin to the Chancelor. The Bundestag, Bundesrat and Bundesgerichtshof can, do and have succesfully challenged many laws of the party of the reigning chancellor, even such prominent figures as Brandt and Adenauer had to bow to their will.

Regarding the Kryta thing, this is actually the best way for a monarch to invite people to treason. Of course I would try to oust people that want to topple me if I can. I can´t just waltz in and just command it because that would indeed be the sign of a tyrant, but I could look for suitable candidates from the start and makle live hard for my enemies with special taxes for the rich or something.
Make influential people happy, because that is exactly the way Caudecus does it. He is basically the Nixon or the JFK of Kryta if he stays popular. Jenna does not seem to be very good at this matter, and I guess the influence of Anise and some independent ministers who suspect caudecus to be a traitor anyway kept her in the game against Caudecus.

My understanding of the German situation was that the Grundgesetz was intended to be temporary until unification and renormalisation, but at the time the Grundgesetz was intended to be replaced (after reunification) you basically decided it worked well enough and kept it anyway.

Still, you’d know it better than me. The general point was that the “Krytan Rule of Law” sounds like something similar – maybe not quite as developed as a constitution per se, but a basic law that governs what the lawmakers can do.

When it comes to Jennah’s image: It’s actually been said a few times, including in the document that I quoted, that Jennah is actually more popular among the common people. If it did come to a civil war and no factions outside of Kryta (New Kryta, centaurs, other playable races, the orders…) intervened, I think Jennah would have won… but it would be a pyrrhic victory and she knows it. She has the majority supporting her, but it’s a slim enough majority that if it came to open conflict, the nation would be left even weaker than it is now, even with its divisions.

Part of the issue is that Jennah does focus on genuinely improving the lives of the common people. Caudecus doesn’t care about commoners, so he focused his resources on lining the nests of potential allies among the nobility while distracting the commoners with bread and circuses… while undermining Jennah by sabotaging Kryta’s defenses.

@Aaron: The impression I’ve had is that the Ministry is theoretically representative, with each minister representing a constituency (whether they actually care about their constituents is another question: I suspect the method by which ministers are chosen isn’t exactly a free and fair vote of the people). Like the cabinet in Westminster-style systems, it’s likely that senior ministers also have other responsibilities, including judicial responsibilities since the Ministry runs the courts.

Each Minister is, I suspect, also effectively running the district that they represent. So unlike most modern democracies where the national representative for an electorate is entirely separate from the local government, in Kryta the minister is the local government as well as the representative. Basically think of it as like the House of Lords before there was a House of Commons: the noble rules the lands and represents the people of the land in the Ministry. (I think Kryta does allow for the possibility that the Minister is not actually the local noble, but it seems that the majority of them are).

We don’t know how far the formal separation of powers goes, but we do know that the Ministry takes care of the courts. It’s possible that there was no point at which somebody formally decided that there would be a separation of powers, it’s just that some tasks have been delegated to the Ministry for so long that it has its own momentum. It’s the sort of thing where if the Ministry is sincere about doing it’s job there’s no reason not to let it do so, while if the Ministry is self-serving it’s obviously going to resist losing power.

It’s possible that this is the first time in Kryta that the ministry system has gone wrong, and it will be the trigger for reforms in the future.

draxynnic.3719:

One is that none of the quotations you reference actually indicate that Lazarus is active. “Our supreme leader arrived today” could be “Our comatose supreme leader arrived today.” The third quotation could simply be making the (quite reasonable) assumption that Lazarus would have something he wants to do after his rebirth. “I pray the Dire survived their dastardly attack” could be representing a very real fear that Lazarus was still in a helpless state and could very easily have been finished off if the raiders had come across him.

Another is to note that right after Lazarus’ essence was corrupted in the first place, he was still conscious and able to act (if only to retreat). It’s entirely possible that his condition had worsened since, but despite the mythological reference it’s possible that Lazarus was only ever ‘very, very sick’ but not in a state where he’s unable to communicate with his followers at all. I think that’s less likely, though:

Since Caudecus was able to get away with deprioritising Operation Rebirth, and given how hostile Lazarus was to Caudecus, it doesn’t seem that Lazarus would have put up with Caudecus being the confessor if Lazarus had any influence. It’s possible, though, that Lazarus recognised that Caudecus’ resources were needed for Operation Rebirth to occur in the first place and that he figured he’d deal with Caudecus after his rebirth.

Yeah, the interesting thing about it is that we have different and somewhat differing points of view from the authors of the journals with Justiciar Bauer’s notes being the most reliable in this case due to him being in the know the most as he was part of the inner circle led by High Inquisitor Xera.

On the one hand we have Valis referring to the goal “to awaken our wounded god” and to Lazarus’s “resurrection” (which in this context can mean many things) and then we have Bauer commenting on the supreme leader’s grand plan. While Valis’s quotes suggest Lazarus would’ve been in asleep/comatose/what have you, the wording of Bauer’s entry from later on in the timeline is quite interesting and ambiguous in that it uses the passive voice to inform the reader of what’s going on: “We have been ordered to tell no one for fear that interlopers will interrupt his grand plan.”

Would this mean they were ordered by Xera who would be the second highest ranking member of the Mantle behind the Confessor, or were these orders directly from Lazarus who might’ve regained consciousness later on before being moved to Bloodstone Fen? Either way, what’s also interesting about it is that the entry refers to “his grand plan”, which indicates that Lazarus must’ve been conscious at some point to let the inner circle in on his plans, while Caudecus either remained unaware of Lazarus’s goals or simply ignored them from whatever books the goals might or might not have been written into due to Caudecus’s desire to focus on the Krytan throne instead.

As I’ve read the notes again a couple more times trying to piece the contents together (in which the wiki page for Conspiracy of Dunces has been helpful), I wonder if maybe the following had happened in the timeline canonically to reconcile the different versions and keep them in line with Bobby’s statements (despite many of the entries being somewhat ambiguous on purpose):

In 1325 AE, Bauer receives green light from Caudecus to direct more resources and manpower to Bloodstone research, which Bauer, Xera and others in the inner circle also use for the dual goal of working on “resurrecting/awakening” Lazarus behind Caudecus’s back while keeping Valis etc. thinking they’re all doing it for Caudecus. Materials and manpower move from Fort Vandal to both Bloodstone Fen for Bloodstone research and to the Stronghold of the Faithful to fortify the keep and prepare it for Lazarus etc. Valis’s research bears fruit over the following years, and the inner circle decide to move forward with their plan despite the Bloodstone shard injections not providing stable enough results yet in test subjects.

By 1329 AE, Bauer receives Lazarus (whether comatose, half-awake, or in some other state) from an unknown area to the Stronghold of the Faithful while Valis remains in Bloodstone Fen continuing the Bloodstone research. Depending on whether it was Xera or Lazarus issuing orders not to let anyone know what was really going on due to ambiguous wording in Bauer’s entry, Lazarus is injected with some Bloodstone shards, which allows him to possibly regain consciousness (unless he was already awake enough to issue orders if the order giver wasn’t Xera) albeit not return him to full power yet.

Raiders reach the Stronghold of the Faithful, forcing Xera to intervene to stall them at the cost of her life while Lazarus is moved (or moves if he’s strong enough to do so) south to Bloodstone Fen in secret so the final ritual can take place there. The raiders miss Lazarus being transported out just by a few minutes or whatnot. Lazarus reaches Bloodstone Fen safely while the raiders and the majority of the White Mantle are none the wiser about him surviving the raid. Bauer, having prepared the ritual site, kills Kasandra and has Valis sacrificed in the ritual, likely dying there himself as well due to the blast he didn’t take into account as Lazarus absorbs the magic and is fully rejuvenated.

The fact that the stronghold had many books about various subjects regarding Tyrian history, Lazarus must’ve learned of it either from his followers reading the books to him while he was recovering, or he learned it sometime during his trip or chilling out period in Bloodstone Fen. Unless Lazarus's line about the inconsequential Krytan politics simply show that he merely listened to Caudecus's speech at the colosseum and commented on it without knowing any better (or even caring for what had happened between GW1 and GW2), but that's difficult to say for sure without us being given more information about the matter.

It makes me wonder which area the White Mantle were hiding Lazarus in before his arrival at the stronghold after all this time and if this information will ever be revealed in game or via a dev comment. Could lead to some juicy details or hints at such.

As for the stuff you put behind spoiler tags:

Kossage.9072:

although I wonder how that information would be relevant to the ongoing storyline considering how minor a role Esthel played in the Unknown Parents branch of the human personal story.

To be fair, though, she was only minor because we stamped her out so fast. She was apparently ‘out in the open’ because she was personally overseeing the assassination of a boatload of the Queen’s faction, including Anise and Logan, who probably rank as the third and fourth most influential humans in Tyria. If she had actually gotten to attempt to pull in off, it would have been at least as big a deal as what went down in Caudecus’ Manor. It was just her bad luck that she didn’t know her first target had plot armor.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

To be fair, though, she was only minor because we stamped her out so fast. She was apparently ‘out in the open’ because she was personally overseeing the assassination of a boatload of the Queen’s faction, including Anise and Logan, who probably rank as the third and fourth most influential humans in Tyria. If she had actually gotten to attempt to pull in off, it would have been at least as big a deal as what went down in Caudecus’ Manor. It was just her bad luck that she didn’t know her first target had plot armor.

Indeed, which is why the comments about Esthel in the Guild Chat episode are quite intriguing if there are plans for her story to be expanded down the line, whatever that may entail, considering that her role was far less impactful than Caudecus who at least was referenced in each human personal story branch in some manner. Esthel suffered from the same syndrome many other antagonists with great potential in the lore did in the Personal Story; they would show up for one mission or so before they were unceremoniously stamped out, and we moved on to new threats.

It’s interesting that in said story branch the Inquisitor who came after the human PC later actually was presented as much more of a threat than the Confessor herself, but then again Esthel probably was more of a mastermind than actual combat specialist similar to the current Confessor. Makes me wonder how much knowledge the Mantle lost due to her demise although I guess the Mantle would’ve had contingency plans for the sudden death of their Confessor to keep the operations going in Kryta despite such setbacks before selecting a successor from their ranks.

I for one welcome any extra lore which future reveals might have (I adored the reveal of the initially heroic Vorpp having shady history with sylvari in Season 2, after all, which was just as surprising as namedropping Esthel was in the Guild Chat or seeing Valette Wi make an appearance). It’d be nice if we get to read the new Confessor’s journals or some other information source to learn how Esthel’s successor was chosen over other candidates and if there might’ve been any, uh, relationship between the two to show why other capable candidates were bypassed in the selection process and especially if that ties into that lovely easter egg of a mirror in the ceiling above the bed in the manor since I imagine Esthel would’ve visited various Krytan locations in the Mantle’s many disguises and could’ve feasibly had some secret candle-lit meetings with the charming Legate Minister. Then again, I don’t think the writers would actually go that far even if Caudecus is the most interesting man in Tyria at the moment like a few redditors so eloquently put it.