Guild Wars 2

Hello guys! I saw the new mask and some ideas started cooking in my head. Although, i am not sure if it fits the lore. But i’l jut go ahead and ask some questions about the idea.

1. Can a charachter be possed or host a spirit sort of like Anders in DragonAge:2?
2. If it is possible, is there any spirits in the game and is there any lore about spirts?

1. Yes, but all examples seen require the original spirit to be out of the body (see the heart Fight life-stealing minions in Hellion Forest in which Bria’s Shadow Fiend inhabit the body of charr loggers after their spirits have been displaced).
2. There’s a bunch of lore on spirits/ghosts. If you’ve been to Ascalon, you’ve seen an army of them. There really isn’t a one-stop-shop for spirit lore, and the entirety of lore on souls is rather large and wide to just give a brief summary (as unlike other things, the lore around spirits is more of “a little about different things” than “a lot about few things”).

Don’t those shadow fiends force out the Charr’s spirit during the “possession” process? I could have sworn that’s what happened when I saw it, but that was nearly a year ago…

More or less what I was saying – all examples (aka that one area is our only example) has a “one soul, one body” rule.

Big Tower.5423:

Hello guys! I saw the new mask and some ideas started cooking in my head. Although, i am not sure if it fits the lore. But i’l jut go ahead and ask some questions about the idea.

1. Can a charachter be possed or host a spirit sort of like Anders in DragonAge:2?
2. If it is possible, is there any spirits in the game and is there any lore about spirts?

1: Not normally. While yes, Bria’s fiends seem to do it (I’ve not done much in that corner of Ascalon sadly), otherwise it almost never happens.

2: Yes, plenty of spirits. You can find many named ghosts in some areas wandering about (friendly). Displaced spirits around the ruins of the temple of ages (Queensdale), and of course, hostile ones (Ascalonian ghosts).

Those are the human ones, we of course have the necro shadow fiends/shades, the various ones summoned by mist portals in Queensdale and other spots of the world, the Gw1 rituatlist spirits and even to an extreme end, Razah.

Though, to be more pointed, what’s your ideas? I don’t mind unique ones and unlike some, I’m willing to help make it match the lore mostly or try to without robbing the idea of it’s core.

In case you are worried about breaking the lore*, wouldn’t it be fine if, instead of actually being possessed in the sense of hosting another entity, your character could be possessed in the sense of being heavily influenced by some external source?
Similar examples would include Varesh Ossa (she even ended up being turned into a demon through that influence) and, more recently, Ceara (that is, unless she has indeed been corrupted. We don’t have a definitive answer to that, yet).

*We haven’t seen anything where a single vessel hosted two souls/spirits, but I don’t think it has been stated anywhere that it’s outright impossible. Which means, you could go ahead and say that it works, but you might end up in a situation where we actually do get confirmation on this and then your character bio would be pretty much screwed.

And lastly, a question to everyone: What do we know about possessed/sentient/cursed items, by the way? If worn, they tend to exhibit traits similar to possession in other stories (e.g. The One Ring to rule Them all, several weapons, trinkets etc. in The Forgotten Realms, and so on).

I am gonna post my ideas later, just gonan brainstorm a little more. Thanks for the inputs so far!

As far as the spirits go, by their reference to Dragon Age, I assume Big Tower is speaking in the sense of supernatural entities from other planes (or, in this case, the Mists), and not the souls of deceased mortals. That kind of spirit we know a lot less about than ghosts and the like, and broadly speaking can be broken down into two categories: demons and related, less maleficent sorts (i.e. Razah), who are never seen to possess others and likely cannot on account of having a corporeal form, and nightmares, which, while also never seen to possess someone (see below), are also much more mysterious, having had practically no lore expounded on in Guild Wars 1 and not even mentioned by name in GW2. Therefore, I am much less comfortable speculating on what they can or cannot do.

So, for my answer to your questions:

1. It’s never been seen before (in addition to the other shortcomings of Bria’s methods that others have mentioned, her shadow fiends are also necromancer minions, and so I hesitate to classify them as nightmares, as they may only be as comparable to other spirits in the way bone minions are to other beings of flesh and blood), but I’d stop short of saying that it’s impossible, and would speculate that if it did happen it’d be done by a member of the nightmare family (the nightmares and vaettir of GW1, and probably also the aatxe, shades, and shadow behemoth that GW2 players will find more familiar… and just maybe, by extension, also the shadow fiends such as Bria uses).

2. It depends on how you define spirits, but the examples I listed above would most likely fall under that category, and loathe as I am to admit it, the imps are most likely examples of the corporeal demons that may or may not count as spirit, depending on definition. The lore on them is very hazy, but demons are essentially the matter that makes up the Mists spontaneously taking on material form and malign will, while the nightmares are of uncertain origin, but have been associated with the Underworld, demonic influence, fallen nature spirits, and negative emotions. Neither kind are widespread in Tyria at the time of GW2, with the exception of the elementally attuned demons called imps. Coincidentally, a parallel to Dragon Age can be drawn in that malevolent spirits are the norm, while benevolent spirits are all but unknown.

I must say conceptually the Fade (from Dragon Age) seems to have a lot of similarity to the Mist. Both can be used to construct magical places and entities, although where the Fade ties in heavily to the creation myth of Dragon Age, the Mist sort of does the same but is a bit more unclear about the who and how and why.
So could there be a spiritual entity pop out of the mist and posses someone? Why not, the Mist is the building blocks of all reality, so why not build a possessing-spirit.

@Aaron: Nightmares are effectively malevolent spirits by all indications, and that’s what shades may be too – spirits summoned by the necromancer (akin to ritualists in GW1). So the Shadow Fiends and Shades may only differ in that one is bound and the other is wild.

Similarly, “demons” in GW can simply defined as “a living being formed directly from the Mists”. Razah would count as such – including all things within the Fractals and any other native to the Mists. Malevolence in them is common, but not absolute.

Possibly, but I’m going to stress your ‘may be’ and compare it to my ‘may only be’. We just don’t know enough to be sure of the relation, and I find it highly suspect that the phenomena of possession is only seen in the shadow fiends where there is reasonable doubt as to their exact nature, and not any of the free shades.

As for the demons, I included ill intent in the definition because it was included in the original definition, and while the inclusion of imps makes it clear the term has degraded to some degree into a more general sense, it’s never been communicated, explicitly or implicitly, that the malevolence clause doesn’t still hold. If a more kindly sort of being with similar properties came to be widely known, I greatly doubt the Tyrians would call them a demon. I will point out that I’m only disagreeing with you on semantics here- I don’t deny that demons, Razah, and the artificially formed creatures of the Fractals all share a basic nature.

I wouldn’t see how binding a spirit (/Shade) would be a “phenomena” to the necromancer profession given the inclusion of spectral skills (Spectral Armor, Spectral Form, Spectral Grasp). These skills show that necromancers delved into the spiritual side of things in the past 250 years – rather, they delved more into it, given that non-Canthan necromancers took on the main Ritualist role of guiding spirits to the afterlife.

In Greek mythology daemons could be good (eudaemons) or evil (cacodaemons). The Greeks believed that they could possess people and guide them to do good or evil.

Because of Christian belief that anything magical that wasn’t God must be evil, western culture has come to view all daemons and other supernatural beings as necessarily evil.

In the bible a daemon could possess people (or many at once, as in the host of devils that called itself legion).

Since Tyrian culture isnt monotheistic, it’s unlikely that they’d have the same view of daemons as being only evil.

Greek daemons were said to inhabit “chaos”, the void between heaven and earth (sounds a bit like the mists). In the bible they were evil spirits that came from the pit; hell.

Its also not uncommon for spirits in myths and stories to have a physical form in the next world, but only be able to enter the real world by possession. Alternately, some spirits could take on a form in the real world that was different from their ‘natural’ form on the other side.

Jinn for example have a natural form of fire, but according to legend can appear to humans as dragons or men, and can possess people.

On another note: symptoms of dissociative identity disorder may appear to the superstitious to be cases of possession. Its interesting to consider that Scarlet may have been simply insane, rather than insane and possessed.

I always assumed that Shiro was possessed to some degree when he unleashed the Jade Wind as he died. He doesnt have any magical ability of that scale up to that point, and the demon who manipulated him was nowhere near, at least physicly.

I might remember wrong, but isnt the entirety of Shiro’s plague mostly centered around possessions of a sort?

lakdav.3694:

I always assumed that Shiro was possessed to some degree when he unleashed the Jade Wind as he died. He doesnt have any magical ability of that scale up to that point, and the demon who manipulated him was nowhere near, at least physicly.

I might remember wrong, but isnt the entirety of Shiro’s plague mostly centered around possessions of a sort?

It definately ties into his murdering the emperor. We see some glow of sorts leave the Emperor and surround him. I’ve read somewhere on these forums it’s a corruption/twisting of Dwayna’s magic.

As for his plague/affliction, IIRC it was more of forcing the peoples spirits to be ripped from their bodies and then shoved back in.

According to the GW1 wiki, Shiro Tagachi had already turned to forbidden magic while he was still serving as a bodyguard (though I don’t really remember anything like that being mentioned anywhere in the game… well, it might have been mentioned in some side quest?).
That did not make him powerful enough to unleash the Jade Wind, however the Emperor had received a lot of magic from Dwayna during the ritual at the end of the Harvest Festival (this blessing would usually have been used to ensure a bountiful harvest).
With the Emperor slain, it was Shiro instead who absorbed this magic (along with the Emperor’s own soul/power).
The Jade Wind was unleashed as Shiro was slain and all this magic was being released.

Now, my guess is that this “forbidden magic” was one of the reason he was able to absorb the Emperor’s soul and Dwayna’s magic. It might also have played a part in the creation of the Jade Wind, although I think it would well be possible that this was caused simply by the violent release of unstable magic; it could just as well have been corrupted through Shiro’s resentment and bitterness as he drew his last breath.

Meaning, this can be explained without any sort of demon possession being involved

Is forbidden magic so easy to come by that potentially psychotic warriors can go around gathering them and learning a great deal from them as a hobby (next to the job of serving as bodyguard to the most important person inCantha)? Without any additional influence and help, maybe from the very demon that would have wanted to make sure that the job is done? The demon who serves the entity famous for his “forbidden” theme?

It can be explained without any direct demonic manipulation (not counting the fortuneteller disguise), but it can also be explained with it.

We know that manipulation definitely happened, but that doesn’t equal possession (and neither does “direct demonic manipulation”).

She could even have influenced him in such a way that she cast magic on him to deteriorate his sanity and spurn on his paranoia, for all I know, but this is still different from what this thread was about

What you are describing (external influence) is a solution that some people have proposed to the OP so that he doesn’t have to rely on “possession”.

(I kind of agree with you though in that, if you drive the idea of “manipulation and influence” far enough, it could become a sort of possession – depending on your definition of what being “possessed” means. It’s a really semantic argument, but it’s important since the latter concept might be disproven one day if ANet ever decides to put out more lore on it)

I was actually referring to the subtle manipulation akin to the Fade demons of Dragon Age, as the OP asked (though i confess, its not the showy-sparky Anders case with the glowing eyes and whatnot, more like how the Pride demon would have sneaked into the mage character in DA:Origins). Many mages in that universe can be ignorant of the possession if a subtle enough demon takes a hold of them.

Its both a kind of external and internal influence i think…. But im a bit unclear where one ends and the other begins. In the case of possession, where does the possessed end and where does the possesser begin?

We really dont have too much lore on that to work with. Too bad.

lakdav.3694:

I always assumed that Shiro was possessed to some degree when he unleashed the Jade Wind as he died. He doesnt have any magical ability of that scale up to that point, and the demon who manipulated him was nowhere near, at least physicly.

I might remember wrong, but isnt the entirety of Shiro’s plague mostly centered around possessions of a sort?

The Jade Wind was caused by magic supposedly gifted by Dwayna to the emperor during the Harvest Ceremony. Said magic was supposed to be spread to the people, but Shiro took his enchanted soul-stealing swords (the lore explanation of vampiric weapons I suppose) and took this magic for himself upon killing Emperor Angsiyan (sp?). When he died, the magic was all released at once and thanks to Shiro’s state of mind/forbidden rituals he performed beforehand (reason isn’t exactly clear, it may just be how the magic ends up when released all at once), petrified things.

The Afflicted and Shiro’ken aren’t cases of possession but Shiro’s ability as an envoy to control other spirits.

lakdav.3694:

Is forbidden magic so easy to come by that potentially psychotic warriors can go around gathering them and learning a great deal from them as a hobby (next to the job of serving as bodyguard to the most important person inCantha)?

I don’t think so. They’re explicitly stated to be illegal, and he was the Emperor’s bodyguard so he likely got easy/easier access to the illegal stuff.

Plus, the full line is:

But somewhere along the way, dark forces corrupted Shiro Tagachi, forces that he sought out against the laws of his empire and his gods. He learned the ways of forbidden sorcery and engaged in studies and rituals well beyond the disciplines of the Assassin. He found that these taboo powers were second nature to him, and the darkest forms of magic were the easiest of all.

From An Empire Divided.