Guild Wars 2

Was just wondering, has anyone else noticed his tomb in the Harathi Hinterlands?
The tomb’s located at the Ruins of Holy Demetra in the area, and inside there’s an open tomb that reads " Here lies the empty tomb of Saul D’ Alessio. The markings on the side of it are ornate but worn with time." Also, a bit further in to the structure there is a old, worn statue of Dwayna. There’s really one thing that strikes me as odd, and it’s the fact that the tomb is empty. Now, not in the sense of no body, seeing as that’s explained in GW1 lore, but the fact that the tomb is cracked open. Secondly, it makes me wonder why in the world his tomb was put in the Harathi Hinterlands, and what Holy Demetra is…
So, does anyone know why his tomb would be located in such a random place?

Holy Demetra was back in GW1 “Demetra”. It’s where there was this holy fountain that purified you from all your sins. And when purified, you could “hold” the Eye of Janthir, which was an eye that could spot the “Chosen ones” that in fact were potential threats to the Mursaats, and they got sacrified, they souls were captured in Soul Stones to keep the Door of Komalie shut so Titans couldn’t be a threat to Mursaat. And if you didn’t know the link between Saul and the Mursaat, there it is ; Saul wanted to protect Kryta from the Charrs. He couldn’t accomplish that alone, so he “found” unseen gods which are Mursaats. The Mursaats, however, were just using the White Mantle as puppets. Saul found out, and to keep him in silence, the Mursaat kidnapped him and brought him to their country/city/whatever located in Janthir. Krytans didn’t find Saul’s body, so they just made a tomb to his name in respect for him.

Thanks for the quick answer, yeah, I knew the connection between Saul and the Mursaat, but I’ve never directly played GW1, so didn’t know what Demetra was, but that makes sense.

Djahlat is wrong – where the Eye of Janthir was in GW1 would be Shaemoor. Demetra is where the Bonus Mission Pack mission, The Rise of the Mantle, took place. It is the village that Saul defended and launched his sneak attack from, and became a holy site for the White Mantle.

That is why his tomb is there – though there’s never been a body – because it’s where he died (well, close to where). It’s open due to the heart NPC – a sylvari scholar who was researching the area, specifically old religions.

Light the candle and kneel before the statue!!!!

You’ll be in for a rather pleasant surprise!

Ah, thank you for the correction Konig. Also, Karast, I felt there was something with that area, but I never thought to kneel before the statue lol.

I adored the fact you could do that. It made the area feel very rich.

It’s not clear to me yet why the mursaat killed the white mantle and Saul D’Lessio (as far as we know) after the battle against the charr. Why did they help Saul when he first came to their city as a dying man if they didn’t want people knowing about them? He returned to Kryta, formed the White Mantle, and successfully pushed back the char with help from the mursaat. He was a champion for the mursaat cause you might say. Why did they agree to help the White Mantle only to kill them afterwards? Yet they allow some of them to live. It doesn’t make sense to me. In GW1 we fight against the White Mantle and the mursaat; therefore, they wanted to rule Tyria. It’s not like we don’t know about them although they are called “the Unseen.” After the battle with the char, the survivors would have continued to spread the word and believe in the mursaat. Why would they care about witnesses to what they had done? If they did, then why not kill all of them. If they wanted the White Mantle to continue helping them, why kill some instead of letting them all go out to proclaim the superiority of the mursaat. Just don’t see the logic or the motivation in their actions. If anyone has more info or insight into these questions, please expand. Thanks!

Well for one the mursaat had given Saul D’Alessio control of their magic to help him drive out the charr, they could not obviously let him teach anyone else their magic, so to remove this threat they removed him as well. And in doing this instead of setting Saul up as the leader of the White Mantle they made it certain that those who survived knew for a fact that the mursaat were their leaders, in the end.

To expand on Narcemus point. I suppose you could also argue that in the aftermath had Saul survived he would have been a hero of Kryra. The Mursaat wanted to control Kryta and Saul stands as a problem. What if afterwards he lost faith? He wanted to drive Kryta in another direction opposed to that of the Mursaat?

Killing him and instilling fear in a few others would create something stronger and make Saul an even bigger legend (who wouldn’t be a threat to them later).

Killing Saul or removing him, as we don’t know if they actually killed him, let them invent whatever myth they wanted to about Saul. They could cow his disciples into accepting the story, but Saul himself knew too much to accept that. So by removing him, they made a legend. A legend they could manipulate.

Rosen: It’s because of the reason why the mursaat wanted control of Kryta – they wanted access to the Chosen in order to sacrifice them.

If you talk to the members of the Mantle in Rise of the White Mantle, there are two distinct sets of personalities that come out. Those that were spared were religious fanatics that believed wholeheartedly in the religion of the Unseen. Those that weren’t spared were those who talked more about a duty to defend Kryta than devotion to the Unseen. Essentially, if you consider the White Mantle to be the army of a theocracy, you have some people who are there as crusaders for their religion, and some that are simply there because joining that army is the best way to defend their country. The first group would quite happily slaughter innocents if their gods told them it was the right thing to do, while the second group would be more inclined to mutiny.

And that’s why the second group was slain – the mursaat wanted to ensure that control of the White Mantle afterwards fell to the fanatics.

In Saul’s case… despite his background, Saul was a good person, and he believed the mursaat to be entirely benevolent up until the moment where his followers were slain. That made him the right person to rally people to the cause of the White Mantle, but meant that when the mursaat revealed their true motives, he would likely baulk. Thus he got removed in exchange for someone more suitable for their future goals. Simply killing him would have shaken the faith of the others – taking him, on the other hand, gives at least the plausible deniability that he was taken to be rewarded rather than simply to get him out of the way.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate all the great detail in your explanations. Now it makes sense …. funny how even after playing GW1 for so many years I’m finding pieces of lore that I hadn’t paid as much attention to.

That’s the beauty of this game. I played Guild Wars for 4 years before starting Guild Wars 2, and I am personally loving getting this new lore and comparing it to the old lore and seeing how these things expand upon each other, and even how they differ in places.

has anyone figured out what the deal is with the statue in sauls tomb? I got the impression from the dwayna ghost that if you speak the name of the white mantle ghost he will appear and you can defeat him to remove the curse. she then tells you his name.

I couldnt find a way to make it work and got frustrated by the stupid fast respawn times on the spirits and gave up. I think think there might be something to it though.

you light the candle, kneel in front of the statue, and the ghost appears, telling you the name
then you go and interact with saul’s tomb, and a ‘kill veteran ghost’ event appears basically

see, i talked to her and she told me the name, but when i went and interacted with the tomb afterwords it just said it was a waste of time and i should move on. thought maybe i was missing something. maybe it was just on cool down or something. I guess I’ll try again. thanks!

yeah, maybe someone tried it before you, or i think it’s a timed thing, she says you’ll forget the guy’s name if you wait too long

It’s timed – in fact, you have to move pretty quickly to do it (best to have friends along who can keep the other ghosts under control so you don’t have to fight your way through).

To do the statue event in Saul’s tomb: Move quickly, and yes as someone mentioned, it is on a reset timer. I’ve tried it a minute or two after someone else and it didn’t work, came back half hour later it worked fine. People have tried it right after me as well and it didn’t work.