Guild Wars 2

Someone caught this and posted on reddit:

http://jayvux.tumblr.com/post/90603464918/what-is-the-realm-of-torment-doing-on-scarlets

So for someone who never ventured that far in GW1, what could this mean for us?

New dungeons of sorts? How does this connect us to Mordremoth?

Or is it just a tease/reference in homage to GW1 players?

As was recently brought up in another thread, the alchemy circle things are just generic maps of the Mists. It could mean any realm in the Mists, only one of which is the Realm of Torment, or the Mists as a whole, which was more or less the consensus among the characters.

Well the resemblance is noteworthy but…

Vol.7601:

So for someone who never ventured that far in GW1, what could this mean for us?

I’ve got the same problem myself when it comes to GW1 lore (the wiki isn’t always the best source). So I’d be interested in hearing the opinions of those more knowledgeably.

CureForLiving.5360:

I’ve got the same problem myself when it comes to GW1 lore (the wiki isn’t always the best source). So I’d be interested in hearing the opinions of those more knowledgeably.

If you want to learn something from GW1, the wiki is pretty well done and filled with the right information.

As I said elsewhere on this topic:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The issue is that the idea of an alchemy circle being used to map out the Mists predates that – in Prophecies and Factions’ backgrounds you could sometime see some faint alchemy circle – it was brought up once what this was, and the response was Lord Odran’s map of the Mists. It should be noted that there were three total designs seen in GW1 – one of which was the Realm of Torment map, and the third was a dual disjointed half-circle (in that there were two “half-circles” which are a bit messed up and not lined up to each other) used in the background of some Nightfall stuff.

In at least the synergetics intro choice, you can see an alchemy circle much like this, and the description led to the circle that surrounds the tree drawing fits as well.

Maps of the Mists, the “maps” of Eternal Alchemy, and what appears to be a mapping of what surrounds the Pale Tree… all appear very similar.

For those who don’t know what I speak of in all this:

• Original Prophecies Alchemy Circle
• Nightfall Alchemy Circle
• Realm of Torment world map

And here’s one of a few old discussions on that alchemy circle after being told what it truly is.

I’ll have to actually go make a new character to get the circles in the asura intro cinematic. But this is all irrelevant to talking about Mordremoth’s corruption of Soundless.

Though it does make an interesting furthering of the Dream and the Mists’ potential ties.

I wouldn’t expect much of the RoT overall, but this does seem to be an overarching background concept going on.

If the drawing was the Realm of Torment, that’d put the Pale Tree at the center of it – which would lorewise be the Heart of Abaddon, the deepest and most central part of the Realm of Torment in which Abaddon was imprisoned for 1,000 years, and on top of that, was put in constant ultimate torment for all that time. Which would mean the Pale Tree would also be in constant pain and agony… and that doesn’t seem the case.

What if it isn’t the Pale Tree at the center of Scarlet’s map but the Tower of Nightmares instead?

I’m wondering… Year ago, we had an option to choose Evon and venture into Fall of Abaddon.

Up to this day I believe that we got Reactor because it was needed for Scarlet plot explanation.

But what would be the point of Fall of Abaddon? Leylines again? Or something else, linked more likely with more present LS story? In wonder.

Stooperdale.3560:

What if it isn’t the Pale Tree at the center of Scarlet’s map but the Tower of Nightmares instead?

The fact it’s a white tree-like drawing would argue otherwise.

The white “tree-like” drawing looks more like the 2 circles containing Abaddon’s Gate and the Gate of Torment…..

It could be refering to the Gate of Torment and Abaddon’s Gate either overlapping each other or colliding….

We may need a better and closer angle of the picture to be sure it’s not a tree….

I don’t see how it would hold any significance if it were meant to be the realm of torment since Kormir and the Forgotten are technically supposed to have taken over… As in, the realm of torment is no longer the realm of torment.

As other’s have pointed out I think it’s just more generally meant to signify the mists through its use of alchemy circles.

Considering multiple NPCs use the term Realm of Torment as a curse the majority of that realm is still a Realm of Torment….

Needless to say it’s possible Kormir’s ascension is the reason the two central circles are white(if I’m right in assuming it’s not the Pale Tree but the circles containing the Gate of Torment and Abaddon’s Gate) rather than black like the other spheres.

In other words it’s possible that a few holdouts of Abaddon’s army are hiding out with the Shadow Army of Menzies the Mad in the Realm of Torment(it’s specifically stated that Menzies the Mad is using the Ravenheart Gloom as his army’s staging area).

The Realm of torment is supposedly infinite, so there could be other things out there, including Menzies, The Darkness, and whatever was connected with the Lunatic Court in GW1 before it got cancelled.

To be honest, i do see the realm of torment resemblance, but if i look a bit closer into the drawing itself i notice some other stuff as well:

The white/pale tree
Is it just me, or does look more like a magnetic field? Going by the notions that we are talking about some kind of energy source and have a “north” and a “south” polarity there, then this drawing would depict the attraction of these forces similiar to magnetic or other energy flows + to -

The round shape
We “know” that Tyria is a globe. At least every depiction we have so far is a globe (i do not imagine it being a Discworld or Cube in the end, though it would be highly amusing).
We know ley lines are traveling underground, under the planets crust and rocks, like some kind of network. In our world we have a similiar, much more dangerous flow with the earth molten rock, magma.
We got that from the heat produced by the earths core.
While the round shape could depcit a radius (or area of influence) around a “pale tree”, it could also be a theory about tyrias magic “reactor” in its core.

The 6 circles
Right now the number 6 has a certain meaning for the people of Tyria. 6 Gods, 6 Eldar Dragons (even though not known to all, though the inquests are on their track, predicting Mrodremoth, before he even awoke. maybe we should really raid them for information).
The 6 circles could mean a lot right now, however given the picture, it could also mean something in balance.
It could have been arranged in every other way, to create a balanced circular picture, however we have 3 circles on each side, close to each other.
That means these circles have something in common or that they are needed to be balancing something.
It could be parts of the eternal alchemy for example. Maybe some certain elements have to be preserved, so everything works.

In many stories there are elements, artefacts or beings that have to be alive or untouched, so the world or all of reality does not tumble towards chaos. Maybe that is something that happens here.

Realm of Torment likeness
While there is a resemblence, i feel it is to early to tell, till we have more information about the comback of the realm.
So far the map of the realm of toment is nothing more then a rough chart depicting how the people who went there have experienced it.
A loose connection of gateways, around certain themes which all make up the realm, but are not connected in a way we can discribe.
The map is just there to somehow map something you cannot describe, since the mind cannot understand. like explaining how an esher painting works.

I do not think you could map the infinity. You can only give a gradient of how things are.

For all i know this could be just a coincident, sind the number 6 was prevalent in GW1 as now in GW2 and the design of the realm could have been more artisticaly chosen for the “stages” they build at that time, then something that comes back for GW2.

Though it could be interesting to see in which way the realm could play a role here… i mean, there is the “Gate of Madness” there, isn`t it?

It annoyed me to no end that my pc and Marjory glaced at this drawing and immediately concluded that this is a schematic on Ley lines with the Pale Tree in the center.

I’m sorry, when did we become experts on Ley lines and obscure symbolic drawings again?

Jaken.6801:

To be honest, i do see the realm of torment resemblance, but if i look a bit closer into the drawing itself i notice some other stuff as well:

The white/pale tree
Is it just me, or does look more like a magnetic field? Going by the notions that we are talking about some kind of energy source and have a “north” and a “south” polarity there, then this drawing would depict the attraction of these forces similiar to magnetic or other energy flows + to -

The 6 circles
Right now the number 6 has a certain meaning for the people of Tyria. 6 Gods, 6 Eldar Dragons (even though not known to all, though the inquests are on their track, predicting Mrodremoth, before he even awoke. maybe we should really raid them for information).

Haven’t people been theorizing on a seventh elder dragon ? (I stopped paying attention to that discussion a long time ago).

But you aren’t the only who thinks it looks like a magnetic field. And I sure as hell don’t see a tree anywhere in that picture, even after looking at it over and over again I have no idea how Marjory immediately thought “oh wow ! Those circles must be the Pale Tree !”

She assumes Scarlet would treat the Pale Tree with importance and as such assumed that the 2 overlapping white circles(which seem to match the 2 central circles holding the Gate of Torment and Abaddon’s Gate in the Realm of Torment map) were the Pale Tree simply based on both the color and that fact.

She is not an expert on Ley Lines nor does she know what’s on Scarlet’s mind…..

If that is indeed the Realm of Torment then a variant of the Realm of Torment map is what Scarlet saw when in Omadd’s device….

Could that realm be considered the entire Eternal Alchemy? Of course not! It’s part of the Eternal Alchemy/Mists yet not all of it….. The most dangerous part to say the least…. Scarlet is ignorant of what she saw and assumed in her insanity that a small speck of the Eternal Alchemy is the entire Eternal Alchemy!

and in the end, we are nothing but stardust…

i mean just part of the mists.

Am i the only one who thinks it is weird to try and map an everchanging multidimensional thing like the mists, which by definition holds everything and can be everything?
Isn`t the world we play in just a conicident and every place outside (realm of torment, battlegorunds) are just the next “dimensions” we are able to enter?

To be honest. I think it is rather weird that we “want” to go there. I mean, we haven`t even charted our own world completly, yet alone are able to leave it.
Somehow the progression is a bit messed up (okay, it is a magical world and dimensionwarping and stuff is natural) but i would have expected more “grounded” targets for travels, then the realm of the gods (but we are talking about humanitys myths here, which turned out to be real. Humanity always wanted to dethrone gods, so who am i to argue).

Am i the only one who wants to take to the continents or at least to the stars, before i start dabbling in wormholes? (though that train is allready gone i guess, seing how we merryly enter the mists to fight a war… btw. why are we fighting there anyway? Did we ever get a real reason, aside from “fame”)

I’m not suggesting that we visit the Realm of Torment but that Menzies merge the Realm of Torment with Tyria like Abaddon attempted in Nightfall.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• Original Prophecies Alchemy Circle
• Nightfall Alchemy Circle
• Realm of Torment world map

Where do these images come from originally? Box art or …?

-nudge- Still like to know where those GW1 images came from.

I like to subscribe to the idea that its a map of the realm of torment because of everything abaddon-related they’ve been pushing into the game; the choice between fractals where one was supposed to be related to Abaddon, Tormented Weapon Skins, The title of Season 2 LS being very similar to the Gate of Madness and now the possibility that scarlet drew the realm of torment.

Also, I think(not entirely sure on this) someone once mentioned somewhere that scarlet could of seen Abaddon when she went mad while viewing the Eternal Alchemy. If there’s truth to that, then that could be one more thing to the pile of Abaddon-kitten they are pumping into the game.

Rainshine.5493:

-nudge- Still like to know where those GW1 images came from.

The original prophecies one was all over the website at one point. I can’t remember if it appeared anywhere else and where.

The Nightfall one was somewhere on one of the boxes, if I remember right, and was on the site for a time during its release.

Realm of Torment map is the map that’s actually in game.

Here is the link to the final cutscene.What do you think about the eternal alchemy?

We can see six elements and a big core.
I would say the elements/natures are:

blue – deep see dragon
green – Mordremoth
red – Primordus
purple – Kralkatorrik
first black/ then glowing yellow – Zhaitan
white – Jormag

But what does the core do?

just to compare the human gods vs the elder dragons, I will show you the colors of the gods from Divinity’s Reach.

blue – Dwayna
green – Melandru
white – Kormir
purple – Lyssa
black – Grenth
red – Balthasar

That part at the end is the Pale Tree’s mind obviously.

The start is the Eternal Alchemy though once you pass through the tree you enter the Mind of the Pale Tree and see how Mordremoth corrupted her with the Nightmare….

Such a shame….. If we hadn’t dove into the Pale Tree we would have had a more indepth look at the Eternal Alchemy…..

At least I know enough about Tyria to know what is the Eternal Alchemy and what is part of the Pale Tree’s mind….

The only reason we ran into the Pale Tree in the Eternal Alchemy was because we were in Maguuma Jungle….. Her home……

If we had entered the Eternal Alchemy in Cantha we would have run into something different….. Maybe Kuunavang’s mind….. She seems associated with stars so looking into her mind could give us data on the Celestials.

SkipOne.8430:

Here is the link to the final cutscene.What do you think about the eternal alchemy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-dgaR-k7vo

Aside from getting a 2001 vibe and that I am not only the Boss, but i want to call myself now Comander Sheppard?

We see the Pale Tree shown with the symbol of “infinity” sourounded by a clockwork, which is often a representation on how the universe works.

We got six spheres sourounding it. Each obviously representing an elder dragon

While the mirror positions are still courious (They could easily soround the center, but they are aligned left and right, like two opposing forces), we see them light up one after the other.

Red → Primordus
Blue → DSD
Purple → Zaithan
Yellow → Kalkratorik

Then we got white and green, with the later pushing into our faces, growing and entering the Pale Tree, assimilating it.

The clockwork stops and all is green.

We also see the “dragons” orbiting the center like satelites, which could indicate that they are atracted by it (instead of gravity, i guess its magic power?)

They feed on Magic and Mordremoth merely corrupted this food source first!

Jormag is heading south and is likely seeking the Pale Tree as well…..

I agree the vision from Ormad machine does confirm the speculation that each elder dragon represent a realm of torment from GW 1 according to the chart. Well each elder dragon absorb magic so they could be like conduits to their respective realms when magic flow into these respective realms and then flow out again in a transformed state. The blood stones were created because of elder dragons and related to them so blood stones are similar to elder dragons in the sense of magic conduits to the realms of torment/alternatively batteries with the magic transformed again and flow out to Tyria.

I agree with the speculation that the central realm in the chart could represent the Pale Tree and does represent the Pale Tree according to our current understanding of in game lore. The vision from Ormad machine envision that the realm of Mordremoth/green invaded and transforming the central white/Pale Tree realm in our current age.

In regard to the Great Alchemy, in a GW 1 quest players saw it represented by a white ghostly dragon and then a white ghostly lady. Aspects and facets of the Great Alchemy quest also showed it represented in respective dragons as pointed out by a Wooden Potatoe video.

The Dragon Glint was part of it in GW 1. In GW 2 the role of Glint seemed to be resurrected in the form of the Pale Tree. If Mordremoth can corrupt the Pale Tree in GW 2 then in GW 1 Glint could have been corrupted by Kracky in a similar way. In addition if the Pale Tree represents Tyria in GW 2 then in GW 1 Glint could have represented Tyria in a similar way.