Guild Wars 2

So, lets gather some observations:

- Since when did we knew Mordremoths name? Was it mentioned somwhere before? Was it mentioned last patch and i just missed it?

- Varesh Ossa and Kourna mentioned —> Nightfall? Abaddon? (i know he is gone, but real of torment anyone?)
- am officially “the Boss”
- Nicholas Sandfort…
- So magnetic field like thingy on the RoT Map is the pale tree for sure?
- Pact member is has kourna ancestors
- Even the NPCs refer Lions Arch as LA
- The incident with Aerin is widly known (you can ask a pact member about him)
- Skritt holes

will continue later

We get to see what Scarlet saw, or close to it. First thing i thought when i walked into the room; I better be the one to go in that machine! Fantastic job Anet.

We get to see how Modremoth corrupted the Pale Tree……

What we saw wasn’t the Eternal Alchemy but a map of the Dream and how Modremoth managed to invade the Pale Tree to create the Nightmare….

Scarlet did start off wandering through the Eternal Alchemy yet her curiosity led her to dive inside the Pale Tree where she got exposed to Modremoth’s invasion of the Pale Tree….

She should have went around the tree and continued seeking out the real mysteries of the Eternal Alchemy honestly…..

- Krytan locket? always shows the true heir? Kasmeer is the one, i call it :p (she has a gift that is about to awake? dun dun duuunnnn)

- Penelopee and bloomaloo are very fast travelers… nice that they have a home now

- Dead thirsty quaagan

- creating a new character just to kill it off… i am not really fine with that. Sure it is tragic, but we had enough. That is just for dramatic effect and feels wrong. Even if it pushes Kasmeer more into a possible leader role, beside the main (The locket…) character

Of the 6 Elder Dragons surrounding the Pale Tree only 1 actually sought to corrupt her…..

And it was in it’s sleep too…..

We still don’t know about the Elder Dragons in other locals…….

I liked the final instance. There was something very satisfying about being the one to experience What Scarlet Saw (or part of it – I really wanted to experience that in game and this is arguably better than somehow showing us Scarlet’s experience). It was the first time the Living Story made me legitimately excited and I felt like I mattered. It reminded me a little of ascension in GW1, not in a right of passage kind of way, but a big personal moment for my character.

The centaur tribe with the tree flag doesn’t represent a sylvari mother tree from what I read (I think, I’m leaving it open as a possibility), it’s an ancestral tree according to one of the NPCs. Konig was right, they just reused assets from the beta. The centaurs also mention no relation to Ventari, you can ask them about him and they suggest it might be similair lineages but not a direct relationship.

Belinda was a dark moment. A legitimate dark moment. Seeing so many Zephyrites die (and Lion’s Arch citizens) might seem dark, but it’s sort of normal for the game because nameless characters die all the time, it doesn’t feel personal. Belinda felt a little more personal. I felt bad for her and for Marjory. I’m still not a fan of biconics and people expected Belinda’s fate, but it still sucked. I’m glad the story is taking on this more sinister tone and actually allowing it to be close to us. I’m curious if Belinda’s sword will play a role in some funeral rite, anything for a Cantha reference. The vines strangling people were also very dark, it’s a very intimate form of murder and that comes across.

The line about Varesh Ossa doesn’t suggest Abaddon imo, it’s another in a series of attempts to “fix” the character of Scarlet. She was poorly established with minimal information from season one. This reference specifically tries to explain why Scarlet was so keen on making alliances.

There were a few moments where our dialogue options were more… broad than before. You could actually almost end conversations business-like and abrupt instead of personal and… engagied. I liked that. It felt wrong to only have the one “option” (making it not feel like an option) from past releases. It didn’t really matter but you could pick Rox or Braham at one point, that was interesting.

Looks like a big plot in the near future will be which leader(s?) is Mordremoth’s target. The two options given are Trahearne and Jennah. I hope Trahearne doesn’t die (that would be pandering) and he is the biggest threat to Mordremoth, also being a sylvari might make him vulnerable. Jennah would be interesting, they did introduce an amulet this update that shows the current heir of the throne (seems like a weird item given that the heir to the throne is pretty obvious?). If Jennah was killed, that could be groundwork for a future plot chasing down the heir to the throne. I suspect it’s either a coincidence or a red herring to fuel speculation. Pale Tree would be another option given Scarlet’s vision and a vine strangling the tree.

It’s weird defending a Pact outpost with biconics and not primarily working with my fellow Pact members – I was a Pact founder. Sounds like the next update will bring more allies into the fold, so maybe this is just temporary. I look forward to seeing Trahearne.

Jaken.6801:

- Krytan locket? always shows the true heir? Kasmeer is the one, i call it :p (she has a gift that is about to awake? dun dun duuunnnn)

If she was a potential heir to the throne, wouldn’t she probably have some type of Shining Blade bodyguard? Because you know they would at least keep an eye on her.

…

…

By the Six, it’s Marjory isn’kitten ? Classic Royal/Bodyguard romance.

well, we know that the true heir of Ascalons Throne is unknown after Rurik and Adelbernd died and that Queen jenna is only the one next in line, however she is not the “true” heir by blood, as far as i know

Jaken.6801:

well, we know that the true heir of Ascalons Throne is unknown after Rurik and Adelbernd died and that Queen jenna is only the one next in line, however she is not the “true” heir by blood, as far as i know

This could explain why nobody ever looks in the locket and why the Priory moves it around. Just knowing who it is could cause a massive power shift in Kryta, and possibly a new war over the throne, possibly lowering the defenses of humanity long enough for somebody to take advantage of it.

Very convinient for us to use our access to the Eternal Alchemy through Omadd’s machine to get inside the Pale Tree’s mind…..

Scarlet most likely got overtaken by the Nightmare immediately upon getting too close a look at the Mordremoth corrupted Pale Tree…..

Explains the vines she was using upon climbing out of the machine….

Does not explain the entity giving her good ideas making her more intelligent than she originally was…..

Plant Dragons logically shouldn’t be technologically inclined!

The Master of Peace is too suspicious to be trusted…. Especially since his extracting a certain energy from Aerin got him corrupted by Mordremoth.

If he plans on exploiting Scarlet and other Mordremoth corrupted entities connection to Mordremoth then he is a serious threat….

Jaken.6801:

well, we know that the true heir of Ascalons Throne is unknown after Rurik and Adelbernd died and that Queen jenna is only the one next in line, however she is not the “true” heir by blood, as far as i know

Why would a Krytan locket show Ascalonian heirs?

Mhm… you are right
I mixed the two kingdoms history and mythology a bit.

Okay, seen the end i am a bit suprised. Now we do a Comander Sheppard, eh?

However what have we seen? We have seen the “eternal alchemy” or at least how Tyria is magical bound.
We have seen six orbs flying around a central body, which seems to be the pale tree.
Each of these orbs was obviously representing one of the eldar dragons and the one for Mordremoth was attacking the pale tree.

the tree itself seems to be something like a central source of energy. Given the symbolic nature of it beeing shown as “infinity” i can only presume that it has a much bigger influence then only “purifying”.

I can only see it work like the Mana Tree in the Seiken Densetsu Series.
A powerfull magical beeing filtering and protecting the magic of the world.

Except we are led to believe there is at least one other sylvari mother tree (Malyck’s). There was only one Mana Tree. I don’t think the Pale Tree is as important as the Mana Tree. If the big circle does indeed represent the Pale Tree, I suspect it’s because we are seeing “Scarlet’s vision” and it’s framed from the perspective of a sylvari? That’s actually something I wonder about the vision, is it our PC’s unique interaction with the device or is it our PC’s experiencing a replay of Scarlet’s interaction (with the added benefit of the adjustments Scarlet made to it). What I did find interesting is that it was unsafe when Scarlet used it but our PCs used it fine (including sylvari PCs). Either Scarlet’s adjustments made a difference, the Entity is not around atm or the device was incidental to the Entity.

The vision in Omadd’s device could mean any numbers of things. Did anyone clearly hear what the voices were saying? I thought it might be Scarlet’s conversation with the Pale Tree when she accessed the device.

We were passing by alchemical symbols before reaching the Pale Tree and diving into it……

What we saw after that was either the inner workings or even the mind of the Pale Tree herself….

We entered the Eternal Alchemy from the Maguuma Jungle as did Scarlet Briar……

If we were to enter the Eternal Alchemy somewhere else we would most likely run into another powerful entity or mind…….

Did anyone see Canach?

This is really, really interesting.

random note, but we’ve known NPCs call lion’s arch LA and divinity’s reach DR for a while now :P

as for what we (and scarlet) saw… i still think there’s a chance we’re projecting, and thus, misinterpreting it. i’m with the asura, “seeing the eternal alchemy” is preposterous, it’s like claiming you could see the fabric of reality, seeing something with far more dimensions than our brain (which can’t fathom more than three) can handle.

maybe it is the pale tree, and mordremoth corrupting it. i think the symbol is abstract enough that it could be something else, but i doubt it. i’m more interested in the true nature of what we saw. going by that realm of torment likeness, maybe it’s an abstract map of the mists, or of a specific part of the mists.

i’m of the opinion that the smaller orbs represented the elder dragons, since they seem pretty conveniently color coded.

and on the subject of the pale tree being the center of all tyrian magic… it’s not even 300 years old. it didn’t even exist back when orr sank and the asura first surfaced. it would be a huge oversight (probably their biggest yet) if they ignored the fact that she’s not a constant in tyria. on the contrary, she’s an incredibly recent variable.

Obviously I’m not any more qualified than the lot of you, but my two cents on the vision: I think what we saw was the totality of magic. Whether that constitutes the Eternal Alchemy or not is semantics. I think the center orb in the vision is Tyria, and the Pale Tree having a central place in the vision has something to do with her being the only known creature that interfaces directly with Tyria, and by extension, magic (though that isn’t enough to explain why non-sylvari would see her). I think the Mordremoth sphere becoming so much more prominent could be explained three ways(in order of my opinion of least to most likely): It’s a representation of some connection between him and the Pale Tree, whom we passed through/into to reach that stage; as the PC explains, Mordremoth was reacting to our presence within the device (perhaps due to his intermingling with the leylines, presumably including the one that appears to be powering the device); or it’s because he’s the only one who’s literally spreading through the ley lines, which in theory would rapidly allow him to become the most efficient at consuming magic and thus allow him to out-compete the others.

@Poplolita between that and the magic locket that really doesn’t work (wasn’t the succession in SoS determined simply by the king’s death bed whim?), I feel Jennah’s going to be coming back into the foreground very soon. Great.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I feel Jennah’s going to be coming back into the foreground very soon. Great.

New version of Mini Jennah’s for 2nd anniversary? Jennah is Abaddon – confirmed.
Remember Abaddon need not really be dead, we only got it here on internet not in-game so …

Forget Abaddon. I’m much more terrified of the prospect of having to again play uncomfortable bystander while Anise and Logan quarrel over which one loves Jennah more. We’ve got quite too much of that already between Rox and Taimi.

My guess on the Leader Mordremoth wants dead is the Pale Tree itself. The Leader falls and the rest fall in line. My guess is that the Pale Tree is the only thing keeping Mordremoth from corrupting the Sylvari wholesale.

Interestingly, it seems Mordremoth’s attacks on Fort Salma and Concordia had more to do with magical artifacts stored there rather than some tactical move. At Fort Salma he was after the Krait artifacts and in Concordia, after the Priory artifacts stored there. The mention of the locket I suspect is a seed for later content.

Interesting note, there was a book next to the Hologram console that theorised on ghosts being magical energy constructs. Might be the basis for the holographic minions Scarlet used. Basically, artificial ghosts.

The central orb has a map on it….. It could represent the continent…..

In which case we should not be surprised that entering the Pale Tree from the Eternal Alchemy would show us that since she unlike Malyck’s tree is connected to the Dream….

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Very convinient for us to use our access to the Eternal Alchemy through Omadd’s machine to get inside the Pale Tree’s mind…..

Scarlet most likely got overtaken by the Nightmare immediately upon getting too close a look at the Mordremoth corrupted Pale Tree…..

Explains the vines she was using upon climbing out of the machine….

Does not explain the entity giving her good ideas making her more intelligent than she originally was…..

Plant Dragons logically shouldn’t be technologically inclined!

The Master of Peace is too suspicious to be trusted…. Especially since his extracting a certain energy from Aerin got him corrupted by Mordremoth.

If he plans on exploiting Scarlet and other Mordremoth corrupted entities connection to Mordremoth then he is a serious threat….

I go the impression that she had been that intelligent all along. Iirc, she had already done at least two Asuran Colleges before ever stepping in the machine, maybe all three.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

@Poplolita between that and the magic locket that really doesn’t work (wasn’t the succession in SoS determined simply by the king’s death bed whim?), I feel Jennah’s going to be coming back into the foreground very soon. Great.

Well… They can go a several different ways with that.

They can either go with the sickenly sweet romantic route and have Jennah abdicate her throne willingly, and that would leave open the possibility of her and Logan finally getting married. They then spend their honeymoon killing dragon minions together.

Caudecus gets his wish, and he is able to finally able to dethrone Jennah. Before he can claim power though, someone brings up the possibility of another potential heir to the throne, which throws his plans into disarray. Probably reverts to the first option in the end.

Finally, the last possibility, Jennah gets killed, possibly by dragon minions or saboteurs, and Caudecus makes his power play. Logan rages and/or falls into grief that his love as died, and the Shining Blade scrabble to find a replacement and the creditable evidence to back the claim. Weakened locket might not be enough.

Come on possibility three!

Lutinz.6915:

Interesting note, there was a book next to the Hologram console that theorised on ghosts being magical energy constructs. Might be the basis for the holographic minions Scarlet used. Basically, artificial ghosts.

This could possibly add onto an old theory as well, stating that the Elder Dragons are just huge magical energy constructs, and they take the form of dragons for whatever reason.

Still not sure how they would get their personality or name though.

Shiren.9532:

Except we are led to believe there is at least one other sylvari mother tree (Malyck’s). There was only one Mana Tree. I don’t think the Pale Tree is as important as the Mana Tree. If the big circle does indeed represent the Pale Tree, I suspect it’s because we are seeing “Scarlet’s vision” and it’s framed from the perspective of a sylvari? That’s actually something I wonder about the vision, is it our PC’s unique interaction with the device or is it our PC’s experiencing a replay of Scarlet’s interaction (with the added benefit of the adjustments Scarlet made to it). What I did find interesting is that it was unsafe when Scarlet used it but our PCs used it fine (including sylvari PCs). Either Scarlet’s adjustments made a difference, the Entity is not around atm or the device was incidental to the Entity.

The vision in Omadd’s device could mean any numbers of things. Did anyone clearly hear what the voices were saying? I thought it might be Scarlet’s conversation with the Pale Tree when she accessed the device.

On the pale tree
The Mana Tree, depending on which game we are talking about, is not a singular being, but something that can sprout saplings.
In Secret of Mana for example it is the only remaining tree left.
So multiple Pale Tree with similiar function could still be the case if we use this analogy.

If we really entered from the Eternal Alchemy into part of the nearest Pale trees conciousness however, it can be asumed that it displayed what was coming or allready happening.

That the pale tree is only part (gear) of the eternal alchemy (or magical construct) of Tyria and the eldar dragons as well.
They are spun into motion or out control and now attacking the other parts. Either by design or by malfunction. We do not know yet.

All we know it seems like they are part of a system that in some way is connected.

On the machine
Okay, we know Scarlet entered the machine as Caera, so she was there with Omadd.
She took the name of Scarlet and then killed Omadd went crazy, etc.

However the machine the PC and Taimi enter is in some way different then the one Scarlet used, since she did some upgrading.

We know that Scarlet heared a voice and that she did not want to be controlled by it. While she was lead by Mordremoth, she had still her personality, which fought back a bit. She followed the orders, but she wanted to do it her way. She mentioned that it all was still “her work”.

So upgrading the system to get a closer look at the “eternal alchemy” is only logical.

Even more if we consider that she might be diverted to the pale tree instead. Her signal was jammed there.
It could be an extra insentive to follow Mordremoth, since the pale tree is in her way as well.

What i am confused about is, that i did not see the “red thorny vein” that Scarlet was supposed to see.
We allready guessed that it was symbolizing her, however we only saw green in our vision

Can anyone clearly make out the voice from the vision?

I think I hear (I’m guessing for the first two, I feel confident about the last quote)…
“…in us all” – Pale Tree
“I saw it…” – Scarlet
“Don’t question the Dream, we must all play our part…” – Pale Tree

The Pale Tree actually says that last sentence in the sylvari Personal Story.

Avatar of the Tree: Caithe, I wish for the Valiant to meet my eldest child.
Caithe: Trahearne has returned from Orr? Mother, is that wise?
Avatar of the Tree: Do not question the Dream. We must all play our parts.
Caithe: Yes, Mother Tree. I will see that it’s done.

The tree diagram seems to show the Pale tree and the six elder dragons, or energies related to the dragons. We don’t seem to have many clues what the connections and circle around the tree mean. Does it show some sort of balance? Does it show a shield?

I really don’t think the orb crashing into the center was Mordremoth, but perhaps Zhaitan’s sphere returning to the magic pool (2 orbs glowed green) It would also line up the lighting up of the orbs to the awakening of the EDs as well. Hope we get some clarification, and glad to see there are fun things to speculate about again! …and yeah, how DO the BiConics know Mordie’s name?? very strange.

I don’t think the vision is a vision of how things are but how things could end up being.

If Mordie was to become too powerful, he would totally and utterly consume the world. He is that determined, may be more so than the others. Which is probably the reason he overshadows them at the end.

The vision reminds me of the Scrying pool [http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Scrying_Pool] in GW1 and how that showed us possibilities and a bit of what was going to happen or could happen if we did nothing.

Another theory could be that, what we’re seeing is the dream of dreams and at the beginning Mordremoth and the rest of the dragons were just variables or distant threats in the eyes of the pale tree.
The problem is, Mordremoth is becoming a direct threat to the dream of dreams and threatens the Sylvari’s main purpose.

Apearently the Orbs are indeed are representing the Eldar Dragons.
At least if what is in the journal after you finish the Episode…

Well, how much of it is true is debatable.
Since it is only the interpretation of our PC it might not be the truth, though it might be, if we think that what he has seen was indeed what he believed to see…

Argh it doesn`t matter from which angle we look at it, they can easily rewrite it to fit the needs of the story later on -_-

I had another idea about the orbs, and the order of their awakening: what if they’re the gods? In order of awakening, the orbs are:

• Blue – water – Abaddon
• Red – fire – Balthazar
• White – ice air – Dwayna
• Green – nature – Melandru
• Purple – chaos – Lyssa
• Black – death – Grenth

This almost matches up with a couple of possible ways of ordering the gods. According to the Orrian History Scrolls, the order in which they arrived on Tyria is Dwayna → Balthazar → Melandru → Lyssa → Abaddon → Grenth, and in terms of age, the best guess is Melandru → Abaddon → Dwayna → Balthazar → Lyssa → Grenth.

And of course, no discussion of the Eternal Alchemy is complete without mention of this quest line. This definitely fits into this quite well, but I can’t quite see how yet. With all the images of stars etc. we see in Omadd’s machine, it’s worth remembering the Mystic Telescope and Bahltek.

Poplolita.2638:

Did anyone see Canach?

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Canach is going to be part of the Shining Blade

This is really, really interesting.

Where is this in-game?! Looks like we could be getting a White Mantle side-story after all!

Tamias.7059:

I had another idea about the orbs, and the order of their awakening: what if they’re the gods? In order of awakening, the orbs are:

• Blue – water – Abaddon
• Red – fire – Balthazar
• White – ice air – Dwayna
• Green – nature – Melandru
• Purple – chaos – Lyssa
• Black – death – Grenth

This almost matches up with a couple of possible ways of ordering the gods. According to the Orrian History Scrolls, the order in which they arrived on Tyria is Dwayna -> Balthazar -> Melandru -> Lyssa -> Abaddon -> Grenth, and in terms of age, the best guess is Melandru -> Abaddon -> Dwayna -> Balthazar -> Lyssa -> Grenth.

And of course, no discussion of the Eternal Alchemy is complete without mention of this quest line. This definitely fits into this quite well, but I can’t quite see how yet. With all the images of stars etc. we see in Omadd’s machine, it’s worth remembering the Mystic Telescope and Bahltek.

Poplolita.2638:

Did anyone see Canach?

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Canach is going to be part of the Shining Blade

This is really, really interesting.

Where is this in-game?! Looks like we could be getting a White Mantle side-story after all!

And what does Secrets/Truth have to do with water? Did Kormir just feel like taking over some of Grenth’s powers one day?

narwhalsbend.7059:

And what does Secrets/Truth have to do with water? Did Kormir just feel like taking over some of Grenth’s powers one day?

Um, Abaddon was god of secrets, knowledge, and water. After the Ascension of Kormir, she became goddess of truth and knowledge, and water became the domain of Lyssa. Grenth isn’t involved in any way—he has always been god of ice and death.

As mentioned in other places https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FeFuKw9G.jpg. The story journal suggests the orbs do represent the six elder dragons.

Lyssa took over water after Abaddon’s death. Grenth is tied in with ice. The theory kinda goes into disarray at that point, with Lyssa having chaos and water, and Grenth claiming frost and death. That leaves both Dwayna and Kormir with no ties.

If anything, the elemental ties the gods have probably have nothing to do with their actually godhood. It probably just their preferred style of magic.

Not to mention, Grenth didn’t arrive in Tyria. He was born here. Dhuum would have been the one to arrive in Tyria, but I don’t think we have a record of when in the Orrian scrolls.