Guild Wars 2

So, the trailer for the next episode is out ( Trailer ) and we are going to the Fire Island

I know there are threads going into possible connections to Rytlock, Primordus, etc. already, however the purpose of this topic is to collect impressions of the actual patch and some little bits of ideas and informations, you got from the material leading up to it.

So, same as always.

Trailer impressions

• An old enemy could be obviously Lazarus, however it could have the double meaning or Primordus getting active again. I personaly hope, we won’t linger on the ED too long and just push him more into the world, instead of him becoming the next focus. I prefer him just being active there and nothing more.

• The fire dragon ist just active, nothing more, so i hope we don’t focus on him too much.

• Ah, fire worms. I was already scolded on Reddit for being annoyed with that enemy type, mostly because I forgot that they were a rare creature there. My mistake.

• Now the skull and fire motive is interesting. Not because it is a possible throwback to GW1, but if they are clever they could work in Berserker profession lore . The skull design here is very similiar to the Berserker helmet, the island is based on fire, like the profession. This area could just be a training area for Berserker Warriors, which in turn influenced their style. Unfortunatly I guess that would give them too much credit, but I hope to be proven wrong.

• The temperature in Tyria is raising , ah yes, the confirmation of global warming, even in Tyria. I knew these fire and brimstone based Charr tech is doing no good. Safe the planet, stop the Charr… or somethig like that. However in all seriousness, i guess these are just buzz words, unless the shiverpeaks start melting and open new paths.

• Skritt pirates were allready confirmed and there will be a Skritt Pirate Queen in one event, based on one article. So yeah, Skritt fun I guess.

• Destroyer in several forms. Even a Great Destroyer. I hope they bring some old designs back. That would be interesting. The disks with the Karka roll…

• Saurians somehow managed to get on the island. If not just reused models I am courious how they got there. Seing the last saurian I was reminded of the EotN final boss. Unfortunatly I was wrong.
  Would be cool to see his design coming back, though.

• I really hope that dealing with another dragon doesn’t mean actually preparing to fight him. Can’t we take a break and handle some of the dozens of other conflicts first?

Anyway, great trailer, unexpected new area and a lot of possible missdirection.
At least I hope so.

I don’t think Arenanet is pushing us toward fighting Primordus. I think that’s what the characters in-game BELIEVE is about to happen, but I’ll be very surprised if the focus stays on him for more than two episodes at most. Lazarus is clearly the big bad of this season, and taking us to the Fire Islands is probably a way to give us some background on the Mursaat race before we set out to kill one.

Plus… there was some dialogue at Eir’s funeral where a norn NPC told us that the Icebrood were becoming more active after Mordremoth’s death. It was easy to miss, but it suggests that maaaybe Primordus won’t be the only Elder Dragon to stir by the time Lazarus is done. With all the ley line craziness going on, I expect other dragons to throw their hats into the ring as well.

The skull and fire motif. The skulls were present in GW1 Ring of Fire – they represent the supernatural elements of the island.

I think you are right about the temperature rising being a buzz word. With Primordus more active and more destroyers appearing, it makes sense as a trailer buzz line.

Didnt see anything that looked like The Great Destroyer.

As for Saurians, we know Hydras were on the Ring of Fire. No reason to think there werent Saurians on the islands we didnt meet or migrated in some way during the global land changes brought by Zhaitans rise.

“The fire dragon ist just active, nothing more, so i hope we don’t focus on him too much.”

“JUST ACTIVE”? Explain me what do you mean.
Primordus is active- that means he awoke.
I probably don’t have to say that Ley Line spread out in 4 directions.

If the new map is full of the ley line (we will can use Ley Line Gliding) it means that a lot of ley line came to Primordus, and other dragons (current events).

He ate a lot of ley line and as something from the Pacts said “I didn’t think we’d be dealing with another dragon so soon”. It means he is fully awakened and “SO SOON” means he will show himself soon.

Taimi knows better than us. Her voice wasn’t playful, she said it with conviction (I mean “Primordus is active”)

After when Mordremoth awake, nobody said that we will dealing with him soon.
We had to wait and we had to kill his champion- Shadow of the Dragon, and we had to repair his disturbances like in Salma, waypoints etc.

We got new dragon “so soon” because as I said, 4 (or 5) dragons ate ley line after when Mordremoth died.

Lazarus won’t be stopped, he will eat Bloodstones and he will disappear.
I really don’t know what happen if he will eat 5 Bloodstones. He will be more powerful than Dragons and any force in Tyria, I think.

We have truly “Triple Trouble”- Caudecus wants throne, Lazarus wants Bloodstones, Primordus is active.

We don’t know when we will see Baby Dragon (“the key to defeating the dragons”), We don’t know about new Sylvari, we didn’t see Pale Tree. We didn’t see Logan and Zojja. We don’t know about Queen.

We have a lot of questions, but we have not answers.

“The temperature in Tyria is raising”
I don’t expect that in Shiverpeaks the ice will melt. I remind you that in Shiverpeaks Jormag (Elder Ice Dragon) lives.

And in the end I really believe that chapter 2 won’t happen in Ring of Fire all the time…
I want have answers for another threads first, not Dragons the whole time.

What would I see in the new chapter?
1)Meeting with Queen Jennah
2)Research in Rata Novus part 2 (Taimi and Zojja in duo)
3)Dragon’s Watch against enemies in Ring of Fire
4)Big fire champion in the end. And after when we will kill a champion, we will see cutscene when Primordus will show himself.

And we will wait next 2/3 months and we will lead the Pact against Primordus.

Here’s the next video, talking about the environment. Josh Foreman helped design the area for GW1 and had a lot of fun revamping it for this release.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ember-bay-behind-the-scenes/

There are a few creature glimpses along with a lot of terrain, and a seemingly moving ship (could be in a cinematic).

Arden.7480:

“The fire dragon ist just active, nothing more, so i hope we don’t focus on him too much.”

“JUST ACTIVE”? Explain me what do you mean.
Primordus is active- that means he awoke.
I probably don’t have to say that Ley Line spread out in 4 directions.

If the new map is full of the ley line (we will can use Ley Line Gliding) it means that a lot of ley line came to Primordus, and other dragons (current events).

He ate a lot of ley line and as something from the Pacts said “I didn’t think we’d be dealing with another dragon so soon”. It means he is fully awakened and “SO SOON” means he will show himself soon.

Primordus has been fully awake and active for approx. 200 years. We do not know if he has consumed ley line energy – nothing in game has confirmed this at all. It is a reasonable assumption he is pursuing more energy from either the release from Mordremoth or any residual from the exploding bloodstone.

At the moment our logical reason for going to the islands is either Lazarus (due to a Mursaat Stronghold being there from GW1 times) or chasing down whatever was displacing magic from the Central Transfer Chamber under Frostgorge. That does not automatically assume Primordus will make an appearance since there are no known links between Primordus and the Ring of Fire (yet).

Donari.5237:

Here’s the next video, talking about the environment. Josh Foreman helped design the area for GW1 and had a lot of fun revamping it for this release.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ember-bay-behind-the-scenes/

There are a few creature glimpses along with a lot of terrain, and a seemingly moving ship (could be in a cinematic).

I tried not to watch too much to avoid to many exploration spoilers. My only minor concern is the amount of smoke effects and I’m hoping my PC can handle it. It’s the only thing it ever struggles with in GW2.

Otherwise what little I glimpsed is looking great – a nice blend of a GW1 familiarity in a revamped GW2 style. And more Karka fights \o/

Randulf.7614:

Arden.7480:

“The fire dragon ist just active, nothing more, so i hope we don’t focus on him too much.”

“JUST ACTIVE”? Explain me what do you mean.
Primordus is active- that means he awoke.
I probably don’t have to say that Ley Line spread out in 4 directions.

If the new map is full of the ley line (we will can use Ley Line Gliding) it means that a lot of ley line came to Primordus, and other dragons (current events).

He ate a lot of ley line and as something from the Pacts said “I didn’t think we’d be dealing with another dragon so soon”. It means he is fully awakened and “SO SOON” means he will show himself soon.

Primordus has been fully awake and active for approx. 200 years. We do not know if he has consumed ley line energy – nothing in game has confirmed this at all. It is a reasonable assumption he is pursuing more energy from either the release from Mordremoth or any residual from the exploding bloodstone.

At the moment our logical reason for going to the islands is either Lazarus (due to a Mursaat Stronghold being there from GW1 times) or chasing down whatever was displacing magic from the Central Transfer Chamber under Frostgorge. That does not automatically assume Primordus will make an appearance since there are no known links between Primordus and the Ring of Fire (yet).

Simply said, being active (again) doesn’t mean he pops up. He might just be shifting his minions or Taimi is able to locate him via her device.

Nothing more.

It’s like saying Kralkatorik or Jormag is active, because we constantly bump ehads with his champions.
Or that Zaithan is still active, because of Tequattles power-up.

We might just see a shift in frontlines.

Even if Primordus says: “hey, look who is here.” and he pushes towards us, it doesn’t mean we are fighting him next.
As far as we are concerned the EDs don’t really care about us (up till now).
Right now I only expect one of them coming up and push us back: “Now calm down and wait till I have time for you.”

As for the shiverpeaks, i didn’t meant for them to be molten completly, but parts. Allowing us to get into new territory (dwarfen area in the south shiverpeaks maybe? Up to the transferchamber?) or getting an interesting fire/ice dynamic going, with Jormag and Primordus minions side by side.

“It’s like saying Kralkatorik or Jormag is active, because we constantly bump ehads with his champions. Or that Zaithan is still active, because of Tequattles power-up.”

Taimi said “PRIMORDUS is active” It doesn’t mean something like “a weird, big champion is active”.
I trust her because she said in another trailer “There is a hotbed of activity up north”.
And she was in Rata Novus, not in Bloodstone Fen. So, how did she know about it?
If she said “Primordus is active” it means he is active. And he is preparing to show himself and his power.

Jormag and Kralkatorrik sent their champions (the Shatterers, Claws) and they are like security of Dragons and their territories.

After when Zhaitan died, undeads lost their boss. And “the corruption of Orr has begun to reverse” (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zhaitan).

And Mordremoth died as well, but Sylvari and Mordrems are still alive. Why? Because they are created by Mordremoth, and it doesn’t mean that they have to die with him, when he is gone.

Actually, throughout the game when people say “Elder Dragon is active” what that phrase means is basically “this Elder Dragon is sending an army of minions” not “this Elder Dragon is personally doing stuff”.

Zhaitan was considered active at only four points: when it woke up, when Captain Whiting assaulted Port Stalwart in 1229 AE, when Captain Whiting + The Maw assaulted the Krytan navy in 1256 AE, and when Blightghast assaulted Lion’s Arch + Order HQs in 1325.

Jormag was considered active when it woke, when it pushed the norn south 4 years later, while the Dragonspawn was around, and lastly in 1325 (norn and Durmand Priory PS mainly).

Primordus would be considered active when it woke, and in 1319 with the Destroyer of Life, and then now in 1329 AE.

The Claws of Jormag do not function as security for Jormag’s territory – they are actively hunting down Jormag’s foes (kodan, specifically) and spreading corruption further south (Blasted Haven).

Arden, what does Taimi know about the intentions of an elder dragon?

She has a device that monitors magical energy.

She is only to see how things change and thus her observations are mostly interpretations of her data.

By all means Primordus could just send more forces in a certain direction, move his own body (represented by a large amount of magical energy, maybe her device is sensitive enough to distinct between the different types) or anything else.

Taimi knows more about Primordus than us right now, because she has access to the Rata Novus data and by that possible the means to know where Primordus is roughly (till the data aquisition stopped, because the whole thing was overrun).

It doesn’t mean that she knows anything exactly (till she has shown/said it to us, though that would be incredible helpful).

However it wouldn’t exclude an ED showing himself. I believe at some point an ED will rain chaos over the continent, shaking things up for that particular part of the story.
Though I don’t believe the devs are ready for such a big undertaking right now.

Btw. her “hotbed of activity” was based on magical energy flow, not on elder dragons specific.

Canonicly each champion is either fought only once (hence why the event never changes) or is reoccouring (when there was an update to the fight).

This is best represented throughout LS2, with the Shadow of the Dragon , a dragon like champion, which we only defeat once and then he never appears again.

However this is story vs gameplay, so it’s open to interpretation.

My best bet would be that either this episode or an episode after this one, we will fight a true champion of Prim, a familiar and difficult Destroyer model likely something from GW1.

The dervish version of the avatar of destruction would be a 10/10 trolling from the devs

Concerning the fire resistance, while I would like it to be a thing (GW:EN was a cool thing when all Ele had to at last change their build) on a champion boss, I think that for gameplay reasons it will be like Megadestroyer and (for this one I am not sure anymore) Pyroxis.

I am a little bit curious about some things:
Why do elder Dragons take a territory? They eat magical energy, so they do not need to hunt. Risen in general have no order to steal things as it seems, so they probably do not collect a hoard. Megalomania only? A classic dragon has a territory bcause he´s a megalomaniac, needs to hunt then and when and wants to find treasures to add to his hoard.
Holding a territory for the sake of holding it seems a pretty worthless thing for an engine of destruction with the knowledge and the patience of thousands of years. The only other creatures it has to fear do not rise over the count of probably 20, and many of them know that attacking an elder dragon can easily result in the own destruction.
It makes sense to have some powerful enforcers, bodyguards and researchers to outmaneuver or battle the few foes that actually are there or buy them time if they have to flee from one of their foes. But the need to have a grunt army is pretty strange for me, yet every dragon has one. Even in the deep sea where a territory is the most worthless thing to have with wandering fish and not much plant life in general, the dragon drove out the Karka and Krait.

Why hatch secret plans? Why don´t they swoop in or dig under a city and gorge itself at the leyline magic if there happens to be a city in the way and leave if they are sated?
If confronted, it could just say:
“You are nothing compared to me. But I spare your city if you do not disturb me and buzz off right now.”
So either the gorge takes too long, makes the creature vulnerable or sleepy or something.

I believe that Primordus realized, maybe through spies or my magical devices, that something big has happened in the fen. The dragon closest to the bloodstone has been vanquished lately, so there should be additional attention on the task at hand. White mantle is also on the rise, and that could mean a mursaat or a mursaat artifact return(like return of the Sith). Maybe unlike the Jedi who sat there with their fingers in the ears all the time, Primordus learned from the mistake of his two slain fellow dragons and did not send a soso champion but is on the way to investigate himself and destroy the mursaat threat in one way or the other. Maybe he also wants to be the fly on the wall and see who is the ant that led to the death of two other dragons by commanding and army and winning key battles against them and now wants to see how he fares against a powerful mursaat.

Simply put, dragons claim territory because more territory means they have access to more magic.

You say that Risen in general have no orders to steal things, but there is evidence that they do. There’s a story step in the personal story where the Risen are delivering a load of magical artifacts to a Mouth of Zhaitan to be consumed, while in the Dragon’s Reach parts of Season 2, Mordremoth largely attacks locations where magical artifacts are to be found. It’s possible that Zhaitan’s strategy was to seize territory first and then claim any magic items there, rather than having his minions perform thefts (he seemed to keep most of his more intelligent minions in Orr – the front-line Thralls, Brutes and Abominations wouldn’t have the intelligence for burglary).

It’s also worth noting that living creatures have magic, and sapience requires more magic still. This is why some minions are automatons, while other minions retain some measure of their own agency, according to an interview from some time ago. When a dragon corrupts a new creature as a minion, it gains control of that minion’s magic. Usually, the dragon sucks out the magic that was embodied in that minion’s sapience (if any), leaving it no capacity to think for itself – so the dragon gets magic, and happens to get a grunt soldier as an added bonus. When the dragon wants a more capable minion, it either allows a minion that shows promise to retain the magic needed for the minion to remain sapient (but still subservient to the dragon), or may even infuse it with additional magic to create a more powerful champion.

Which is probably part of the reason why dragons don’t go to cities and say ‘let me gorge and I won’t kill you’ – because the citizens ARE part of the magical feast. The other part is that while the Elder Dragons seem to largely regard the races as ants, they are aware that the ants can be dangerous: sending armies of minions is a low-risk strategy for the dragon, while if they make a personal appearance there is the possibility, however low they may think that possibility is, that they will be personally injured or even slain.

(Primordus, incidentally, doesn’t seem the type to use spies. It’s possible that he has access to magical devices to track magic, but I personally think that the Elder Dragons simply have a natural ability to sense magic. The explosion of the Bloodstone was something that it’s likely that all of the Elder Dragons felt.)

But wouldn´t that have left Zhaitan in a very insecure position?
Let´s assume it is so that he wants to take territory first and collect the scrap magic later, taking only the choiciest bits right and and let the morsels where they are until the land is blight.
What prevents for example the Hylek, Centaurs or Krait to evacuate their magic elsewhere like the Kodan also did? All three races are aware of the dragons power and probably realize when their cause is lost. Trolls, Spiders and Drakes would unwillingly buy them time against the risen when they flee. This strategy only looks promising if the hunted run out of places to go, but they have places to escape to like fortified cities that are defended by siege weapons and armies. The worst scenario is if they settle in a realm held by another dragon to die there because they are weak. He would have probably fed his neihgbors in this way.
And why deplete your food source? Orr is totally devoid of people until the pact attacks. Wouldn´t it make more sense to keep sapient being alive and devour them only when he is actually hungry?

Primordus on the other hand does not use minions as the other dragons do. Creating destroyers is probably costing magic instead of raking in magic. So he either has large quantities of magic to spend, or he may be the physically most imposing dragon or the actual master of his prime domain no dragon dares to attack.
Jormag also has a quite interesting approach I find more compelling than Zhaitans. He has icebrood as his own troopers and the sons of Svanir who retain their intelligence. He has forces deep in his enemies territory but does not directly scare people off. Quite the contrary, he injected himself into the culture of his prey.

I might give a more detailed response later, but to address one point:

I don’t think the Elder Dragons, when active, eat magic the way we eat food – they get hungry, they have a meal, they digest it, they get hungry again. It’s more like they absorb magic like an infinite sponge – they can keep soaking it up as they need it. They have no concept of rationing it out for later because they can just absorb it now and they have it.

Zhaitan was starved in the personal story not just because we denied him magic, but because the military campaign was forcing him to expend magic to try to force the Pact out of Orr.

One could think of the Elder Dragons as players of a strategy game where magic is the primary resource, and any unit or structure can be recycled for its magic at its original cost. They can always build up more magic in reserve if they can collect it, and they can only be “starved out” by a combination of denying them access to more magic and inflicting attrition on their forces, structures, and so on in order to dispose of the magic they already have.

So the dragons have no need to keep sapient beings alive and only devour them when they’re actually hungry. They’re always hungry for more magic, and devouring those sapients now means the magic is theirs, and they can use it to create or empower new minions as they see fit (including leaving those sapients exactly as they were, but now loyal to the dragon).

Jormag has a different strategy, as you note, but that seems to be more of a “catch more flies with honey than vinegar” approach than a “save them for later” approach.

Well holy kitten if there wasn’t some lore bombs here.

1. Magic is like “light” with each dragon energy being a component of said light. Other Dragons can and have absorbed other Elder Dragon’s magic. The combine energy forms Ley-line energy or “white” light.

2. The Mursaat, according to the tablets weren’t all that bad. They were abandoned by the other races.

3. The Mursaat and Forgotten assaulted Zhaitan together but failed. Also they both used constructs.

4. Mother-kittening-ing Aurene, the new baby elder dragon.

5. Lazarus is a “good” guy now.

6. The Chak filter out Death magic.

mexay.3902:

2. The Mursaat, according to the tablets weren’t all that bad. They were abandoned by the other races.

Seriously?

So they build so much lore that’s loved. And decided to go ‘lul nope’.

The mursaat from day one were developed as bad guys. They were the ones who betrayed the other races. They were the ones who committed genocide. Twice.

Now they’re the victims? Now they’re the good guys?

kitten .

While we’re at it, let’s say that the jotun themselves were gods, the Six were mursaat, and largos are dragon minions. It makes as much sense as this ‘twist’.

mexay.3902:

3. The Mursaat and Forgotten assaulted Zhaitan together but failed.

So we finally get some lore about Zhaitan’s activities in the previous dragonrise. Question is… did they do such in Arah? Because if so, there’s a huge lore conflict, because they purified Glint there – a champion of Kralkatorrik. Such a dragon champion would not have gone to another Elder Dragon’s front door, and I doubt that the Forgotten would be capable of pulling off that ritual with an Elder Dragon breathing down their neck.

And we were told that the ritual is geographically restricted.

And if they fought Zhaitan there after purifying Glint, then wouldn’t the mursaat have left the world – having betrayed (or as its been retconned as: having been betrayed by) the other races.

While I go into it tommorow, when i have time, I will just say this:

The game said it allready. Lazarus is offering the same deal as before.

He “doesn’t have to be the good guy”.

Also, remember what these writings are. Tablets written from one perspective.
They could be written out of frustration etc..

Well even Lazarus said himself that they weren’t really Victims, that they hid for Self Preservation.

The “Victim” Thing could be the one where both the Mursaat and Forgotten attacked Zhaitan but failed because the other Races weren’t there and well the Mursaat were pretty kittened. ( The “Betrayal” Thing looks like it was written while still raging )
Also it looked like that the older Races couldn’t really agree on how to deal with the Elder Dragons. ( Seers storing Magic was also mentioned )

Konig Des Todes.2086:

mexay.3902:

2. The Mursaat, according to the tablets weren’t all that bad. They were abandoned by the other races.

Seriously?

So they build so much lore that’s loved. And decided to go ‘lul nope’.

The mursaat from day one were developed as bad guys. They were the ones who betrayed the other races. They were the ones who committed genocide. Twice.

Now they’re the victims? Now they’re the good guys?

kitten .

While we’re at it, let’s say that the jotun themselves were gods, the Six were mursaat, and largos are dragon minions. It makes as much sense as this ‘twist’.

mexay.3902:

3. The Mursaat and Forgotten assaulted Zhaitan together but failed.

So we finally get some lore about Zhaitan’s activities in the previous dragonrise. Question is… did they do such in Arah? Because if so, there’s a huge lore conflict, because they purified Glint there – a champion of Kralkatorrik. Such a dragon champion would not have gone to another Elder Dragon’s front door, and I doubt that the Forgotten would be capable of pulling off that ritual with an Elder Dragon breathing down their neck.

And we were told that the ritual is geographically restricted.

And if they fought Zhaitan there after purifying Glint, then wouldn’t the mursaat have left the world – having betrayed (or as its been retconned as: having been betrayed by) the other races.

When you get a chance, go to the Mursaat section and read the tablets. It seems somewhat believable.

I’ll grab some screenshots when I get a second.

I don’t trust Lazarus at all… neither do I trust Mursaat tablets. Heck, even Lazarus pretend that he has “changed” (which imply that he was an kitten before, like other Mursaat but isn’t anymore). I smell something seriously fishy here.

With the Tablets. Don’t forget that they are written from the Mursaats Perspective in the Time of the last Elder Dragon Rise. Its from their View and this can be quite different than what… lets say the Seers saw it. I haven’t found every Tablet but i’ll search for more. Also some Tablets read like they were written when the Musaat who wrote them was kittened.

With Lazarus.

We don’t know if we can trust him, we still don’t know what his Goals are ( since we cdon’t trust him we also don’t know if the Things he is saying are true. ). He could try to get our trust to use us for his own Goal since we already killed 2 Elder Dragons, where entire Civilisations were unable to even kill one. He knows that we are powerful and having a powerful Ally is not a bad Idea, for whatever Goal he has.
Right now I see him as a dangerous Ally. Someone who can help us getting Stuff done but who is also not to be trusted.

The other possibility is that he really had a Change of Character due to his near Death Experience. Don’t know if that would be good for the Story, but this isn’t unrealistic. A Near Death Experience can Change someone really hard. To the Point that others wouldn’t recognize that Person anymore. Anet could go that Route.

But I think that Lazarus has also something in Mind. Right now we have the same Enemy and thus working together is possible. But we don’t know what he will do after the Elder dragons are no more.

The mursaat aren’t the good guys (hell, from what we’ve seen the mursaat are just Lazarus anyway). I don’t know what’s going on with the tablets in Ember Bay, I’ve only found a few, but it seems to be a pretty believable expansion of their history as GW2 re-framed it vaguely back in 2012. To betray the other races they first have to have a reason to think they could trust the mursaat in the first place. The idea that the mursaat themselves were betrayed might be newish, but afaik the entire story about the ancient races fighting the EDs is all GW2 stuff anyway – EDs weren’t a factor until Eye of the North.

Lazarus isn’t here to help us, he’s here to use us to get closer to the dragon (which btw is not a baby elder dragon, Glint is a dragon champion not an Elder Dragon, her offspring aren’t Elder Dragon level). Glint is basically responsible for the near extinction of the mursaat – while the mursaat are responsible for their own actions, it’s arguable that the mursaat acted the way they did primarily because of Glint’s prophecy. They feared the Chosen because Glint foretold the Chosen would cause their extinction iirc, had Glint never told that prophecy (or if she had seen the impact of letting the mursaat know that future) it’s possible they wouldn’t have ever gone after the Chosen. So from Lazarus’ perspective, Glint is dead but her legacy lives on in Aurene or w/e its name is (what happened to Gleam?). If Glint arguably orchestrated the events that led to the extinction of my entire race, I might see her child as an opportunity to get revenge in the absence of Glint herself.

Aurene is also a valuable asset, even before we knew what it was (early season two) we’ve placed the egg as our top priority which didn’t make sense given everything else that was going on (like the Pact assault on Mordremoth). It seems like the writer’s knew the egg was important but, in my opinion, they hadn’t clearly established in the narrative why a senior Pact commander would abandon the assault on Mordremoth (which we had said during the Summit was our top dragon priority, and dragon priorities basically trump all others) to chase an egg we knew nothing about. It was like we were acting on faith that one day the narrative would lead us here.

So Aurene is valuable, and given Marjory’s speculation that Glint could absorve ED magic to replace them, paired with the development this episode of destroyers absorbing Zhaitan and Mordremoth magic, it seems obvious the path they are going down with Aurene. Likely this will be the plot going forward – Aurene is an asset of great power and we will fight to protect it from threats. Aerin wanted it for Mordremoth, Primordus wanted another glint baby in the Shiverpeaks in GW1 (Brotherhood of the Dragon challenge mission) so what could Lazarus do if he got control over Aurene? I suspect that will be the question going forward.

We may actually see what happened to Gleam as a method of exploring Aurene’s future – maybe Primordus did get its hands on Glint’s other children. I wouldn’t be surprised if Gleam now serves Primordus and absorbed its magic. It would be a way of tieing up that loose end, establishing the threat of Aurene falling into the wrong hands and emphasizing the importance of Aurene (keep in mind Marjory theorized Glint’s ability to absorb ED magic was partly because of her age so a newly hatched dragon shouldn’t have the same potential).

I read the tablets thanks to a poster on reddit. Link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/53pduh/spoiler_tablets_of_the_unseen/

This is a complete blatant and terrible retcon, or the tablets are 100% lies. But if there is no point for such HUMONGOUS lies to be written for themselves.

• First off, every piece of lore we have – Seers, Priory Scholar, and Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb directly – state that the Seers were wiped out by the mursaat. The mursaat tablets claimed that they fell to civil war and killed themselves (that’s what the jotun did, you golden dunces).
• Second, the Crystal Desert didn’t even exist back then. It didn’t exist until Year 0, long after mere “centuries after 10,000 years ago”.
• Where was the supposed betrayal by the mursaat – the one that involved them committing genocide? According to the tablets, they set out for war but was ignored by the others, then left the world. There was no betrayal, according to the tablets every race hid in their own way. There’s no act that could possibly be seen as betrayal by the other races in the mursaat tablets.
• Addendum to above, all lore – again, from Priory scholars and the developers directly, and ancient dwarven, ancient Forgotten, ancient jotun and even Glint herself; the very foundation of the lore provided for why all the races speak the same language – is that the surviving races were hidden by Glint – so how could they have hidden in separate ways?

If this was a similar but not the same retelling of what we knew, then it could be easily passed as mursaat lies to themselves. But this? We’re getting two different stories in the same setting. It’s like watching the Hobbit movies and reading the Hobbit book. Vastly different, though same overarching plotline.

ArenaNet, you did so well with Episode 1. Even the things that initially made no sense was explained in a perfectly believable way. It was your redemption from Season 1 and HoT’s sad storytelling.

But then we get this…

And turning Lazarus to be a good guy makes no sense, not after he swore eternal revenge on countless generations of humanity and asura-kind. But I’ll reserve that full judgement to playing through the main storyline.

And though not lore, the mursaat outfit + backpiece… -sigh- obvious money getting move is obvious. Would be nice to have a foe that’s humanoid and is fully unique for once. Should have been Lazarus, but screw uniqueness and screw continuity, I’m guessing?

Yeah, I’m a bit stingy. This and Dhuum are the plots I was really looking forward to being closed, was promised years ago “epic plans” and now we get a “screw old lore, we’re changing it all”.

As many people said, there are a lot of discrepancies in those tablets…
Yet, it is not utter thrash or complete lies…
Before leaving, who could doubt the Mursaat?
And now, at least, we got a reaason for why they slipped in their “strange” dimension…they felt betrayed (by Dwarves, Jotuns and Seers), and utterly defeated (as mentioned, they did assault Arah once…or whatever it was before the human gods came).

So they left, and returned centuries later…

World has changed, it was now a world devoid (or almost devoid) of Magic, where former evolved societies felt (Jotun example).
Dwarves remain hidden, Jotun are lost, Forgotten absent (they seem to have taken their Glint Ritual during the Mursaat disappearance), and those Seers were about to release Magic in these conditions…
And our Mursaats were probably feeling resentment towards them, and i can imagine easily why some of them wanted to retain control of all magic, and strive to CONQUER the world…bad people exist, don’t they?

In essence, what we see as lore-errors coulb be explained by the Mursaats disappearance.
They did flee, but the world still continued to change/live, and they weren’t quite pleased with it when they returned.

Oh, and by the way, i’m 120% sure that Lazarus lies to our PC.
Enacting his revenge and protecting Tyria from Primordus and Co are his 2 goals, and they don’t seem to be incompatble to me…
He probably wants to use Aurene for himself, and is playing a charade with every sides…

Yet, as an optimistic guy (who am i gonna fool?^^), maybe being the last Mursaat alive, in a world where 2 Dragons have been defeated already, did change his point of view…
I mean, he is no longer fighting for Mursaat supremacy (he’s alone now), give no s*** about human politics and Kryta, and , if that come to pass, may find reliable allies like our PC, unlike in the past…
So why not?

Guguwars.4263:

Oh, and by the way, i’m 120% sure that Lazarus lies to our PC.
Enacting his revenge and protecting Tyria from Primordus and Co are his 2 goals, and they don’t seem to be incompatble to me…
He probably wants to use Aurene for himself, and is playing a charade with every sides…

His offer to work together is probably genuine. Not out of the kindness of his heart but simply because it’s necessary to defeat the elder dragons. After that, he’ll probably turn on us.

Here’s the thing, Guguwars. EVERY single piece of lore about the “mursaat betrayal” states that they waged war with the seers as their act of betrayal, and that they nearly wiped the seers out in said war while the tablet claims the seers were wiped out by civil war and not a single indication of the mursaat invoking retribution (the theory that was the mursaat’s saving grace). Every single piece of lore also states that the races hid together, under Glint, and did so after the mursaat left the world – while the tablets state that the races hid separately and before the mursaat left.

We’re not talking one source versus one source. We’re talking 10 or so sources – in-game lore from Glint, dwarves, jotun, seers, Priory scholars, as well as out-of-game lore from two major writers of the series (Ree and Jeff) – versus one, more recent (which is often the rule of ‘new trumps old’ sometimes) source.

The accounts are so drastically different that the mursaat tablets cannot even count as a subjective view. It’s an entire rewrite of history.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

• Where was the supposed betrayal by the mursaat – the one that involved them committing genocide? According to the tablets, they set out for war but was ignored by the others, then left the world. There was no betrayal, according to the tablets every race hid in their own way. There’s no act that could possibly be seen as betrayal by the other races in the mursaat tablets.

I thought that act of leaving the plane by the Mursaat was the betrayal, and the results because of that leave was blamed on the Mursaat, not that they actively did anything (aside from maybe against the Seers which I though happened when they returned). Plus, they are Mursaat slabs, they wouldn’t paint themselves in a bad light, it’s the first rule of history. (Might add that we don’t know when the tablets were written, if they were written closer to GW1 time than when the dragons were last awake, the history could have been distorted by time or propaganda).

The others are concerns that are legitimate, but could be explained as propaganda or distortion of facts over time. I doubt that Lazarus isn’t fully good, he just isn’t as up front about his ill will as Joko had been.

The betrayal was wiping out the seer race. Which the tablets make no mention of. The fleeing the world came after the betrayal.

If it was merely a case of “the victors write the history” case, then the tablets would be talking about righteous retribution against those who would steal their magic and cower with it all. It wouldn’t say the seers wiped themselves out.

From the Wiki " The races agreed to give their magic to the seers, who would seal it within a Bloodstone, starving the Dragons. The mursaat, however, having found a way to become invisible, to literally become out of phase with Tyria, betrayed the other races and left them to rot, keeping their own magic and fleeing into a half-world. Some time later, at the time of writing of the Tome of the Rubicon, they warred with the Seers, nearly wiping out the race"

There it is stated that the Betrayal of the Mursaat is not the Genocide of the Seers but the withdrawal of the World. Slipping out of Phase and the Tablet doesn’t even state that the Seers wiped themselves out. They had a Civil War after the Dragons went to slumber again but the outcome has not been stated by the Tablet.

And trying to hide in the War itself and then get hidden by Glint doesn’t contradict each other.

Ok lets make sense out of that.

10.000 Years ago the Elder Dragon’s awoke.
The five Elder Races forged an Alliance to fight them Back, but they couldn’t agree on how to fight them.
The Mursaat and Forgotten went for a more direct Approach and the Seers were working to store Magic, while the Dwarfes and Jotun went for a more defensive approach and tried to hide after, we don’t know, many years.
Then the Mursaat and Forgotten attacked Zhaitan and failed. Mursaat were getting kittened at the other Races and the Forgotten after that went elsewhere. Somewehere after that Glaust was being freed from Kralkatorriks Control, trying for a something different to get an advantage, didn’t worked really since even after freed, she remained loyal to his Master for a while.
The Seers then made a Suggestion. They knew how to store Magic and dveloped the Bloodstone. They suggested that the Magic of Tyria had to be sealed to starve the Dragons, and every Race also had to give in their Magic. The Mursaat, being kittened at the other Races said " screw you" and left the World, not giving in their Magic and withdrawing every Support they gave before that, thus betraying the other Races. Even with the Bloodstone it seems that not all Magic could be contained and the Races had to hide to survive, and this is where Glint comes in, who hid the Races. Something the Mursaat didn’t seem to know,

Ok now the Races were hidden and the Elder Dragons were sleeping again. The whole Cycle left s an impact on the other Races. The once mighty Jotun devolved into bloodthirsty Brutes. The Seers also seem to have a Society Collapse with violent Tribes warring each other for the Control of the Bloodstone. And well if the War between Mursaat and Seers started, it started there. We don’t know if the Seers were still warring then or had a funtioning Society again at this Time. Perhaps we get more information about this.

Well there are still some Holes but integrating the Tablets with the known Lore is possible without retconning the Lore of the Elder Races.

Considering how wrong those tablets are I’ll just assume they were written by some unstable mursaat who was high on oven cleaner.

If Jormag is getting some fire power, would it weaken the dragon?

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Considering how wrong those tablets are I’ll just assume they were written by some unstable mursaat who was high on oven cleaner.

some of it is new perspective and information – our sources before this were more limited, and history we know isn’t always the entire story

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The betrayal was wiping out the seer race. Which the tablets make no mention of. The fleeing the world came after the betrayal.

If it was merely a case of “the victors write the history” case, then the tablets would be talking about righteous retribution against those who would steal their magic and cower with it all. It wouldn’t say the seers wiped themselves out.

The betrayal was not agreeing to give their magic to the seers to be sealed in the bloodstone, and then fleeing. They fought the seers after they came back.

I see nothing overtly wrong with the tablets. Remember, they’re written in the perspective of the mursaat so we aren’t supposed to take it as gospel. From my understanding, the 5 ancient races handled the elder dragon rise differently. The jotun/dwarves hid. The seers tried to store magic and the mursaat/forgotten allied with each other. The mursaat and forgotten attacked Zhaitan but failed. Some time after that the seers must have approached the other races and proposed they all store their magic in the bloodstone. The mursaat didn’t want to so abandoned the other races and slipped out of phase with Tyria (the betrayal). Sometime before or after that, the forgotten had freed Glint and she sheltered the four remaining races from the dragons until they went back to sleep.

The part where it says “The Seers set about sharing their stored magic with the world, though society had devolved into divided, violent tribes. Wars broke out over control of the magic pool” doesn’t say at all that these wars were between Seers. It may even be talking about the wars that lead King Doric to go to Arah to get the gods to reseal the magic in the bloodstones.

I don’t see a reason for the Murssat to have a war against the Seers before the Elder Dragons went back to sleep.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Considering how wrong those tablets are I’ll just assume they were written by some unstable mursaat who was high on oven cleaner.

Or they were written after the Mursaat returned to Tyria, and are in fact truthful…I only say this because if I recall, Glint NEVER mentioned what happened with the Mursaat prior to their sacrifices of the chosen. If she had, then yes, this would be a retcon and bad, but if it was never mentioned by her or the Flameseeker Prophecies, there IS a chance it could be true.

In which case the history we know would be propaganda, created simply because the races refused to believe they had a hand in causing their own destruction. You know what happens when races take the high ground and have a ‘holier than thou’ air to them…anything that could be considered bad is twisted in their favor. “History never lies. Historians, however…”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I read the tablets thanks to a poster on reddit. Link here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/53pduh/spoiler_tablets_of_the_unseen/

This is a complete blatant and terrible retcon, or the tablets are 100% lies. But if there is no point for such HUMONGOUS lies to be written for themselves.

• First off, every piece of lore we have – Seers, Priory Scholar, and Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb directly – state that the Seers were wiped out by the mursaat. The mursaat tablets claimed that they fell to civil war and killed themselves (that’s what the jotun did, you golden dunces).
• Second, the Crystal Desert didn’t even exist back then. It didn’t exist until Year 0, long after mere “centuries after 10,000 years ago”.
• Where was the supposed betrayal by the mursaat – the one that involved them committing genocide? According to the tablets, they set out for war but was ignored by the others, then left the world. There was no betrayal, according to the tablets every race hid in their own way. There’s no act that could possibly be seen as betrayal by the other races in the mursaat tablets.
• Addendum to above, all lore – again, from Priory scholars and the developers directly, and ancient dwarven, ancient Forgotten, ancient jotun and even Glint herself; the very foundation of the lore provided for why all the races speak the same language – is that the surviving races were hidden by Glint – so how could they have hidden in separate ways?

If this was a similar but not the same retelling of what we knew, then it could be easily passed as mursaat lies to themselves. But this? We’re getting two different stories in the same setting. It’s like watching the Hobbit movies and reading the Hobbit book. Vastly different, though same overarching plotline.

ArenaNet, you did so well with Episode 1. Even the things that initially made no sense was explained in a perfectly believable way. It was your redemption from Season 1 and HoT’s sad storytelling.

But then we get this…

And turning Lazarus to be a good guy makes no sense, not after he swore eternal revenge on countless generations of humanity and asura-kind. But I’ll reserve that full judgement to playing through the main storyline.

And though not lore, the mursaat outfit + backpiece… -sigh- obvious money getting move is obvious. Would be nice to have a foe that’s humanoid and is fully unique for once. Should have been Lazarus, but screw uniqueness and screw continuity, I’m guessing?

Yeah, I’m a bit stingy. This and Dhuum are the plots I was really looking forward to being closed, was promised years ago “epic plans” and now we get a “screw old lore, we’re changing it all”.

I recommend you go back and read those tablets again. Nowhere do they mention that the Seers had a civil war.

DarcShriek.5829:

I recommend you go back and read those tablets again. Nowhere do they mention that the Seers had a civil war.

I think the Mursaat were talking about the younger races had a devastating war due to magic.

Lux Dominatoris.3941:

Disgusting turn of events. Really turned my stomach backwards. Out of the blue, the Mursaat are good guys who want to help, they were poor oppressed minorities out of all the races of their time and suddenly whoop-de-doo, we are all friends now, every race out there is dancing around the perfection of multiculturalism.

2 dragons, the most evil race of all times reborn, inner turmoil after the pact defeat at the hands of Mordramoth. So many turns, twists, and possible sides fighting all at once and sabotaging each other. Imagine having the 2 dragons fight each other, we go in with Glint’s baby but right when we would have a chance to strike at one of them, Lazarus comes with an army and pits them both against us, with his faction as the 3rd. What would we do in this situation? And this is merely one example out of dozens such beautiful scenarios.

But no, we all get along with each-other, everything forgotten, we are all living in some sort of pathetic “utopia” with 4 bad lizards going around. Good God, they really ruined a whole franchise for me. This was a bad stab in my book, a very bad stab.

But I am sure that many others will like it so there won’t be anything stopping them in continuing this path. RIP GW Lore 2005-2016.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

mexay.3902:

2. The Mursaat, according to the tablets weren’t all that bad. They were abandoned by the other races.

Seriously?

So they build so much lore that’s loved. And decided to go ‘lul nope’.

The mursaat from day one were developed as bad guys. They were the ones who betrayed the other races. They were the ones who committed genocide. Twice.

Now they’re the victims? Now they’re the good guys?

kitten .

While we’re at it, let’s say that the jotun themselves were gods, the Six were mursaat, and largos are dragon minions. It makes as much sense as this ‘twist’.

mexay.3902:

3. The Mursaat and Forgotten assaulted Zhaitan together but failed.

So we finally get some lore about Zhaitan’s activities in the previous dragonrise. Question is… did they do such in Arah? Because if so, there’s a huge lore conflict, because they purified Glint there – a champion of Kralkatorrik. Such a dragon champion would not have gone to another Elder Dragon’s front door, and I doubt that the Forgotten would be capable of pulling off that ritual with an Elder Dragon breathing down their neck.

And we were told that the ritual is geographically restricted.

And if they fought Zhaitan there after purifying Glint, then wouldn’t the mursaat have left the world – having betrayed (or as its been retconned as: having been betrayed by) the other races.

I think it’s pretty obvious the notes are just the mursaat bullkittenting around and painting themselves as the real good guys of the whole shebang. They’ve been shown from the get-go as traitorous, genocidal and holier-than-thou, do you really think they would do anything but put themselves on a pedestal?

Lazarus is clearly up to no good and the game definitely wants you to think so too. Otherwise they wouldn’t have the Commander seeing red flags straight away

DarcShriek.5829:

I recommend you go back and read those tablets again. Nowhere do they mention that the Seers had a civil war.

Also a Way to see it. The Tablet mentioned that Society devolved into violent Tribes. It could be that the SeersSociety devolved but it also could mean that the Society of every other surviving Race devolved into Tribes and Civil War.

But even if the Tablet is telling us about a Seer Civil War, it never mentioned or hinted that they wiped themselves out.

I think the tablets actually make sense, if we keep in mind that the Unreliable Narrator principle is in play. Here’s my take on what actually happened:

The Elder Races form an alliance. However, three of the races just want to survive, while the mursaat and Forgotten choose to fight (tablets I and II). This does NOT, incidentally, mean that the mursaat are heroes. The mursaat clearly prioritise their magical power – they may have chosen to fight, possibly knowing of the danger should the Elder Dragons be destroyed, because they’d rather risk Tyria’s destruction than plot a safer course that requires giving up magic.

The Forgotten and mursaat attack Zhaitan without the other three, and get their butts kicked. (tablets III-V) The Forgotten shrug and move on, but the mursaat view this as a betrayal.

The mursaat refuse to stick around and have their magic put into the Bloodstone, so they decide to leave. The Seer-mursaat war erupts (I don’t think we’ve ever really got a reliable indication of just how that started). It ends when the mursaat successfully phase out. For whatever reason, the mursaat didn’t record the war (tablet VI).

Over the period where the mursaat are out of phase, they don’t know what’s happening in Tyria. In this time, the cleansed Glint hides the other races from the Elder Dragons. (tablet VII)

When the mursaat return, they look at the world through the prism of what they think they know. They look at the jotun, remember that the jotun were willing to abandon magic to the dragons, and when they see the jotun as brutes without magic, they assume that this is by choice, rather than the result of a civil war that collapsed jotun society. (tablet VIII)

They also recognise that magic is re-entering the world from the bloodstones, and that the nations of Tyria are fighting over it… but not knowing just how badly Seer society was kittened, they assumed that the Seers were responsible. (tablet IX)

The mursaat note that the Forgotten are dealing with prophecies rather than concentrating on the present, and decide to take over the world. (tablet X)

Glint sees that the mursaat are going to be a problem, and takes steps to bring them down. (Flameseeker Prophecies)

One thing I kept seeing repeated was this idea that the tablets said the Seers destroyed themselves through civil war. While I have time at my last hour of slacking at work, I’d like to point out that the tablets never said that anywhere. The closest line we get is from tablet 9 stating :

“IX. The Seers set about sharing their stored magic with the world, though society had devolved into divided, violent tribes. Wars broke out over control of the magic pool.”

The seers shared their stored magic with THE WORLD (all the races of the time). And SOCIETY (No indication that SEER society) had devolved and divided. Which understandably would be problematic to a race trying to give them back some of their former glory.
Seer society (weakened by dragons no doubt, but in no way fractured to infighting) was still very much likely destroyed by the Mursaat after they returned to the world.

And none of that really changes the established lore that the Mursaat betrayed the world by bailing on it. To the Mursaat, their dimensional sliding may have been justified, so obviously their tablets would paint them as the betrayed ones who just left a hopeless situation. But to all the other races, disappearing was a betrayal no matter how the Mursaat tried to justify it. And until now we’ve only read the lore from the races that were not Mursaat. This isn’t really saying “The Mursaat aren’t the bad guys we thought they were”. Just that we should stop getting so caught up on “good guys and bad guys” and accept shades of grey and dubious justifications. The entire GW series seems to really REALLY bank on the fact that literally any information we get is heavily biased by whoever is giving it. I don’t see this as being any different.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mursaat_Lore_Tablet

Now that I’m home!
I’d also like to agree with Konig on the whole “what the Fook is going on with the Crystal Desert that should be a sea” thing.
As for particularly Lazarus, it really should be no surprise he’d come to our aid against dragons. Practically everyone already speculated it. But that doesn’t mean he just “saw the error of his ways”. It’s just logical that he doesn’t want to be eaten by a dragon.
Everything else he said could still be a lie, but do you really expect him to come on the scene like "I fully intend to murder you all someday soon, but trust me anyways while I use you to save my own skin from a dragon first "

And gaining your trust would be the best way to kill you. Arrogant though Lazarus may be, you did already kill two dragons. And if you kill two more, you and the races clearly cement yourself as “the hardest thing in Tyra to kill”. And I doubt Lazarus would want that to know he’s out to get them.

To add to what Squee said…

I don’t think there’s anything in the tablets that mean that the mursaat were the good guys, certainly not at the time of Prophecies. In Prophecies, we see them megalomaniacally trying to take over the world. In the final tablet, we see them… megalomaniacally declaring that one day the world would be theirs.

On the other hand, the hints that the mursaat weren’t always the bad guys were there as soon as we knew there was an alliance among the elder races. Yes, they betrayed and abandoned their allies… but before then, they were part of the alliance, and in fact the strongest fighters in the alliance. Why did they betray their former allies, go to war with the Seers, and abandon Tyria? Well, now we know they’re side of the story – from their perspective, they were the ones that were betrayed and abandoned.

This doesn’t mean that they’re suddenly the good guys. It just means that they have a backstory to why they went bad.

In the meantime, it’s going to be interesting to see where Lazarus goes. I think they’ve created a real wildcard here in that we really don’t know which way Lazarus is going to go. Has he had a genuine change of heart? Or is he just saying whatever lies will get him what he wants? There are arguments that can be presented in favour of either, and there’s really no way we can genre-savvy our way into figuring out if he’s really helping us or whether we’ll someday be performing a finisher on him at the end of some setpiece battle.

Which I think might actually be a new thing for Guild Wars – previously it’s been fairly black and white (even in Joko’s case we pretty much new he still had his old ambitions, we just figured a risk in the future was better than the world being destroyed now).

@Walhalla, Mada and a few others:

There is no explicit mention what the betrayal was, but we do know that the mursaat waged war and wiped out the Seers before fleeing the world (per interviews with Jeff and Ree – unfortunately the site that was on seems to be down ) and that the mursaat betrayed the Seers (possibly the other races) before fleeing the world (per Randall Greyston in Arah).

The act of betrayal wasn’t explicitly just leaving the world. It wasn’t explicitly wiping out the Seers either. However, we know that they betrayed then left; and we know they wiped out the Seers then left.

They fought “around the time the Tome of Rubicon was written” – the old lore wording – which was written before the Elder Dragons fell asleep. Which in turn means that the mursaat waged war before they left.

And true, it doesn’t say that the seers were wiped out by their civil warring, but it seems implied in the wording.

@Squee: On second look, I suppose you’re right that the line could be twisted to be indicating that it’s talking about the world’s societies. However, the key thing to look at is that it’s a singular society that devolved and divided into violent tribes.

@Drax: I never said “the mursaat were never good guys.”

The problem is that the tablets are telling a brand new version of the lore. And it’s not a matter of perspective when you’re telling a tale so drastically different that major events which never took place are mentioned and events which did take place are ignored.

The dwarves fought back, against Jormag and Primordus at least (note: Sanguinary Blade and Tome of Rubicon). Mursaat waged war before leaving (per above), destroying their civilization. Those are the two major ones.

There’s a difference between telling your version of history, and telling a different version of history.

The former case, you’re talking about the same events but different causes and reasons.

The latter case, you’re talking about different events entirely.

The tablets do the latter. And that’s the problem I see.

Felix.7586:

Lazarus is clearly up to no good and the game definitely wants you to think so too. Otherwise they wouldn’t have the Commander seeing red flags straight away

My problem with the Lazarus thing atm is that the Commander reacts to him the exact same way he responded to Canach and to Caithe in S2 (and HoT, in Caithe’s case).

Both cases were very bad writing with very overexaggerated reactions and knee-jerk changes by writers (or so it felt).

The tablets leave a lot of details out, and some of the things you talk about could be among the details.

Yes, the dwarves fought, but we don’t know the timeline or how they fought. Did they fight at the start, before deciding to withdraw? Did they fight after the mursaat left? Did they fight throughout the whole time, but they fought a defensive fight while the mursaat wanted to go on the offensive, and thus the mursaat derisively call it “withdrawing” when the dwarves were actually fighting as hard as the mursaat were but on a different front?

The omission of the seer-mursaat war could be any number of reasons. Maybe, for some reason, they were ashamed of it and they’ve deliberately whitewashed it from their history (although that seems unlikely, since what IS there seems to indicate that they planned to get revenge by leaving the other races to the dragons). Maybe from their perspective the war was fought purely so they could secure their escape from Tyria, and thus that’s what the tablets focus on (there’s several thousand years of history distilled into 25 sentences, there are bound to be omissions). Probably the most likely scenario is that they stole things from the Seers in order to make their escape, and those thefts left the Seers vulnerable – so while there was a Seer-mursaat war as the mursaat seized what they wanted, the near extinction of the Seers came afterwards as an indirect result of mursaat actions, rather than directly as a result of them. (I could see the histories of other races not caring for the distinction between the mursaat doing the deed personally, and the mursaat compromising the defenses of the Seers so their population got wiped out by dragon minions.)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

They fought “around the time the Tome of Rubicon was written” – the old lore wording – which was written before the Elder Dragons fell asleep. Which in turn means that the mursaat waged war before they left.

Isn’t the link you wanted this one ? : http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue1-may.pdf
If so, it says the Seers originates from the time of the tome of Rubicon but not more. There is also an issue with the Tome itself. So far the only source I could find (on Google) dating the Tome to before the dragons felt asleep is either you (guru or other sites) or Santax (wiki). In your case you said it should have been written before the fall of the ED because it describes how one general of Primordius fell.
Since then we know that ED champs and ED themselves don’t follow the same cycle so it leaves time between the last Fall of ED and the war between Mursaat and Seers.

There is one thing that puzzles me with the tablets though (outside of the Crystal desert ofc) which is the last one “We mursaat… we returned and built a base among the Fire Islands, as strong as ever.”. Which means that when they came back their main stronghold was on the fire islands…. but Saul couldn’t have met them here, because it does not seem only a 4 days walk (and I am not counting the fact of crossing the sea). They must have migrated after the writing of these tablets. Interestingly In Gw1 their fortress on the fire islands was said to have been built to watch the door of Komalie.

So were the tablets written short after the comeback of the Mursaat in Tyria, that is before they planned to conquer the world, before their war with the Seers and hence during or short before the writing of the tome?

Ranael.6423:

If so, it says the Seers originates from the time of the tome of Rubicon but not more. There is also an issue with the Tome itself. So far the only source I could find (on Google) dating the Tome to before the dragons felt asleep is either you (guru or other sites) or Santax (wiki). In your case you said it should have been written before the fall of the ED because it describes how one general of Primordius fell.
Since then we know that ED champs and ED themselves don’t follow the same cycle so it leaves time between the last Fall of ED and the war between Mursaat and Seers.

You missed a few other things.

Trueclaw mentions that records are sparse from the previous dragonrise, but also mentions they have the Tome of Rubicon though it’s reliability is an issue. Randall Greyston mentions that the mursaat returned to become named the Unseen Ones, meaning that they only returned shortly before GW1. The “Ancient Seer”: from GW1 mentions they fought the mursaat “for centuries” which contradicts Randall’s line if we presume that the war happened after the mursaat returned.

And though I cannot find it atm, I believe it was stated that the war between mursaat and seer was ancient by GW1’s time. Ree also calls it an “ancient war”.

Of course, the point of mursaat’s return to the world is another point of contention between lore. Some say they returned shortly before they were discovered in GW1, the tablets say they returned mere centuries after leaving.

So until these tablets, we never had reason to believe the mursaat have been skulking in the shadows of the world for thousands of years rather than simply not yet returning to Tyria.

So either the tablets are wrong or severely and strangly lacking, or the war isn’t so ancient (aka retcon on what Ree said – again), or Randall (who is an expert on the topic, thus implying all of the Priory) are wrong.

EDIT: FORUM BUG BEGONE!