Guild Wars 2

One of the things that struck me with HoT was how passive Mordremoth was presented to be. Most of his actions appear to be reactive rather than active. Canach notes that Mordremoth likes surprises but ultimately Mordremoth isn’t shown to actually do a lot. As the Elder Dragon whose sphere includes Mind I’d have chalked Mordremoth up as something of a schemer, which would fit in with Canach’s description of him. This disparity between how Mordremoth is described and what we see of his actions could be explained away as poor writing, but for once, I don’t think that’s actually the case. I think Mordremoth had a game plan and came dangerously close to pulling it off.

The first part of the plan happened in LS2 where Mordremoth attacked Camp Resolve and pressured Trahearne to assault the Maguuma. If you speak to Trahearne in that instance after the attack he’ll comment that he thinks if they don’t launch the attack soon they’re not going to have another chance. This puts the Pact in the position of either waiting for Mordremoth to get his ducks in a row and overwhelm them or attacking into Maguuma. And we saw the result of taking the fight into the Maguuma, Mordremoth’s ambush, the Pact fleet destroyed, the Call, boatloads of corpses for blighting trees and the capture of Trahearne. I don’t think this was dumb luck on Mordremoth’s part but rather a planned development.

The capture of Trahearne here is something that I also think was a planned move. Mordremoth treats Trahearne with a special degree of attention and care, even going so far as to essentially turn Trahearne into a horcrux. From what we know of Elder Dragons, they shouldn’t care that much about any single baseline minion. You could argue that Trahearne was a special case given his standing as the firstborn of the Firstborn sylvari and therefore it was a question of status, but I still don’t think that’s the reason.

I think the reason Mordremoth placed so much focus on Trahearne has to do with Caladbolg. Trahearne mentions that he’s connected to Caladbolg. Which is interesting considering we’ve seen what happens to other people when they are affected by a powerful dragon artifact. Kellach is corrupted by Zhaitan’s power essentially becoming a cursed Risen magnet and Steag is corrupted by Jormag’s Sanguinary Blade becoming an icebrood. Yet we also see Zephyrites using Zephyrite crystals which are dragon artifacts from Glint with no real adverse effects. From this we can infer that it’s not necessarily dragon magic nor dragon artifacts that are inherently dangerous, but rather the individual dragons they are connected to. From this I’m led to believe that dragon artifacts act as conduits for the dragon’s power and influence. After all, how could a sword make the decision to corrupt someone and if dragon magic itself isn’t inherently corruptive then what we have left is the individual dragon exerting their influence and desire to corrupt and control.

If my view here is correct, then what Trahearne essentially has in Caladbolg is a conduit to the Pale Tree’s power and influence. If Mordremoth can corrupt Trahearne, I believe Mordremoth can use Trahearne’s connection to Caladbolg to assault the Pale Tree and attempt to corrupt her. In her weakened state I don’t believe that the Pale Tree would be able to offer much resistance. The corruption of the Pale Tree would then ultimately be leveraged against Sylvari beyond the Maguuma and used to corrupt them as well. This would have given Mordremoth a new army of Mordrem Guard, a powerful Dragon Champion who doubles as a blighting tree and access to an Asura Gate that leads right into an Asura Gate hub in the heart of Lion’s Arch which would lead to a situation akin to the Central Transfer Chamber being captured by Destroyers.

This would allow Mordremoth to open a widescale fronts essentially anywhere while the Pact is grounded, mired and fighting for survival far to the west in the Maguuma wilds. If Mordremoth had not been stopped by the Commander this would have been a game over situation.

This is, of course, mostly speculation and theory but it does neatly answer questions like why Mordremoth was so focused on Trahearne and why it seemed like Mordremoth wasn’t doing much of anything overtly. Please let me know what you think.

I’d like to go further with your theory.
I think mordy, no matter how powerful he is, is a plant dragon and has severe issues fighting far from his roots. Look, it sends vines here and there but fails to do any severe damage to the pact infrastructures.
Lore wise, the “Mordrem Attack” we had prior to HoT release, was a failed attempt from Mordremoth to take over a part of Tyria. He realized then that his breachers and husks are not all-powerful. He needs an army adapted to the ground he wants to take.

WARNING —SPOILER AHEAD (chapter 15+16)

In Tangled Depths, you’ll see an army of mordrem that cannot be reached marching eastward. While we’re behind enemy lines fighting and pushing towards Mordremoth, Mordremoth is invading eastward with his new army of mordrem saurians, mordrem guard, etc.

He’s also constantly assaulting Tarir and even created the mordrem vinetooths specifically to hunt down the Exalted, whom he cannot corrupt, and surviving Pact forces.

He’s not being reactive there at all. It’s just that he over-estimated how the surviving Pact troops could fight back.

This… makes a lot of sense.

We were constantly cautious of Mordremoth springing a trap on us. The Commander constantly mentions how we’re being lured into something- and Destiny’s Edge was the bait.

I agree with the idea that the final fight -was- the trap, Mordremoth just didn’t expect us to be able to use his own rifts against him…

…I mean, neither did I, now that I think about it. Where’d we learn to do that?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

He’s not being reactive there at all. It’s just that he over-estimated how the surviving Pact troops could fight back.

I think you mean Underestimated. And yes this would make sense. Lets be Honest. Lets be honest. Mordy shot down the entire Fleet from the Sky. Most people would die from the crashing Airships alone, not counting the Explosions. Then Mordy could take control of enough Sylvari to thin out the Pact Member even more.
The surviving Pact Members would have to deal with the Maguuma Jungle, and would likely mistrust the Sylvari Members, some would even go out and kill Sylvari on Sight. This is what Mordy thinks will happen and that they weren’t a Threat anymore and more likely tring to just survive in the Jungle.

Which was a massive miscalculation.

There’s one big thing I don’t understand about Mordremoth. Elder Dragon’s consume magic. Rata Sum is right next to him. You can literally see Rata Sum from Dragon’s Stand. I could have sworn I saw an Asura wave at me from afar. Instead of hopping over and wiping out one of the most powerful magical races that stands against you, you ignore them and instead send most of your forces north through Tangled Depths, Auric Basin, Verdant, the Maguuma Wastes, and just on the fringes of Brisban. You make a giant wide arc AWAY from Rata Sum.

Auric Basin obviously had a worthy target to go after…but what is there to gain from the rest of that wasteland? Rata Sum is right there! I know the answer is…plot. It would be too much to write Rata Sum being in trouble and have that cross over with new players doing Zhaitan stuff…but still.

Well, his vines – and forces – follow the route of the ley lines. Particularly the ley line that Scarlet messed up – which goes from LA (main hub) towards southern Dry Top, then arcs downward through Tangled Depths (and Rata Novus) into Dragon’s Stand. Another one heads straight to Tarir from Dragon’s Stand.

However, the real reason seems to be “don’t pull players out of HoT areas for the storyline”, otherwise it would have made sense to bring us to LA to witness the reaction of sylvari in LA and how the revelation affects them – or the Grove – and to go to Rata Sum to fend off an attack.

It wouldn’t be too much to write Rata Sum being in trouble – they did that for the Grove in Season 2! Ever since LA attack people think it has to be messing with the open world – but it doesn’t, if they don’t have permanent vines added in. They have Vine Crawlers, Mordrem Breachers, and Mordrem Spitfires for a reason – a mobile vine they can remove.