Guild Wars 2

Ok, so I am by no means a lore buff, so I’m mostly just kind of curious:

When exploring Scarlet’s room in Dry Top, one of the pieces you can investigate is a picture of the Pale Tree as the center of a “mechanical” drawing of Tyria. Now, the team makes note of that, but brushes it off as being due to Scarlet being a Sylvari, so naturally revering the Pale Tree. HOWEVER, we also know that Scarlet was Asura educated, and that she had a scientific (albeit maybe MAD science) mind, and dug much deeper into things than a mere surface regard. Now, with her research into ley lines and the diagram on her wall, this makes me wonder if perhaps she determined that the Pale Tree stood at some sort of nexus of ley lines. Is it possible that this is what makes the Pale Tree remarkable over its “sister” trees? After all, I seem to recall that in the Sylvari story line where you meet the Sylvari from ANOTHER tree, he mentions that there is no dream with his tree. This could also give some reasoning behind why the Pale Tree has some level of prescience (you’re given a glimpse of the future when you visit her with Traehern).

It’s possible, but it opens a gaping plot hole if its true. Why did Scarlet attack Lion’s Arch instead of the more lightly-defended Grove? The Grove has very few visible defenses and it’s out of the way (as opposed to LA, which is smack-dab in the middle of Tyria), making it more difficult to reinforce. It’s not like Scarlet wouldn’t leap at the chance to burn the Pale Tree to the ground. The Pale Tree’s tough, but not ‘withstand-a-coordinated-attack-from-sky-land-and-sea’ tough.

Well, obviously this is pure speculation, but here’s what I was thinking: IF she was acting on behalf of Mordremoth (that’s a big “if”), it’s possible that the pale tree may be seen as either a great meal for an elder dragon OR that with Mordremoth awakened, that she felt he could have some level of sway over the tree eventually. It could potentially even be something as simple as not wanting to commit genocide against her own people (we don’t know what kind of impact the loss of the Pale Tree would have on the Sylvari as a whole, as the children of the Pale Tree seem to have some level of connection to it throughout life — if she destroyed the tree, would that have meant her own suicide?). Again, all complete speculation — I suppose we’ll get a better picture as the story presses on.

One thing I do definitly think is that the Pale Tree’s roots go very deep and connect with Ley Lines giving her the ability to grant visions and such.

Mordremoth is the Pale Tree. You heard it here.

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

SkipOne.8430:

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

It really does, but I see no way they could connect the two.

narwhalsbend.7059:

SkipOne.8430:

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

It really does, but I see no way they could connect the two.

Considering they tied the Thaumanova to Scarlet, you could assume they planned on tying the Fall of Abaddon to her as well.

What I mean to say is that regardless of our choice between Kiel and Evon, and thus Thaumanova or Abaddon, the story had to play out to the same conclusion, with the Ley Lines being an important factor in it. The Fall of Abaddon would have had to provide us with the same information. This might just be a bit of art which was created at the time when the choice was up in the air.

If there really was a choice to begin with

This is the lore forum. You don’t need spoiler tags here, the discussions here by their very nature are spoilers. The only times spoilers would be worth using would be if you have early access to something (like from a preview from a stream) and it’s not yet in the game.

narwhalsbend.7059:

SkipOne.8430:

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

It really does, but I see no way they could connect the two.

I think there’s been a general assumption that the Jungle Dragon is somehow responsible for nightmare, but maybe it isn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any connection between Torment and Nightmare but perhaps this is the first clue to suggest there is.

Stooperdale.3560:

narwhalsbend.7059:

SkipOne.8430:

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

It really does, but I see no way they could connect the two.

I think there’s been a general assumption that the Jungle Dragon is somehow responsible for nightmare, but maybe it isn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any connection between Torment and Nightmare but perhaps this is the first clue to suggest there is.

Now that you mention it, I seem to recall the realm of torment having the giant thorny tendrils, much like the ones in Dry Top and Nightmare Court areas. Wiki also says that it’s called the Nightmare Realm. Sort of interesting, but Mordremoth has been thrown around a bit in the lore, and the teaser was pretty clear about a dragon awakening, so where would that all fit in with this?

igmolicious.5986:

Nightfall was only brought about by the actions of a god, a god which has been dead for 200 years and replaced by a new god as long. There’s no reason to believe he suddenly came back to life, took his powers back from Kormir, and decided to do his plan the exact same way again. The “thorny tendrils” are just vines. Whether the vines have something to do with Mordremoth or not is unknown but it’s not the first time that vines have done magical things. In GW1, you would use vine seeds to build vine bridges, for example.

Stooperdale.3560:

narwhalsbend.7059:

SkipOne.8430:

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

It really does, but I see no way they could connect the two.

I think there’s been a general assumption that the Jungle Dragon is somehow responsible for nightmare, but maybe it isn’t. There doesn’t seem to be any connection between Torment and Nightmare but perhaps this is the first clue to suggest there is.

Assumptions built on top of assumptions. Alas with the nature of GW lore we’re less often given detailed explanation so much as hints and parts. I still think ANet needs to include a bestiary / codex or something similar in game, so we have a solid clear source from which to reference. Although the conversations might become less interesting in this here forum.

From my understanding most of these assumptions are built on the Sylvari == Mordy minions and similar theories. With the latest lore there does seem to be some tentative link between Sylvari and Mordy, but the nature of the link is still unknown (although it might have something to do with ley lines).

I thought that when the characters said that the globe drawing with the Pale Tree in the middle was a representation of how Sylvari witness and experience Tyria. That they didn’t mean that in a literal sense. Not that The Pale Tree is the literal midpoint of the Tyrian world or leylines for everyone else.

The Dream is by itself the heart of the Sylvari world. It’s where they come from, where they are grown. The Dream gives them their knowledge of the world and it’s by living different lives that they want to expand the knowledge of the Dream and by extension the future generations of Sylvari. It’s their purpose in life more or less.

As such, wouldn’t it make perfect sense for a pre-corrupted Sylvari (Scarlet in her student era) to draw a world with the Pale Tree at it’s heart?

Evans.6347:

narwhalsbend.7059:

SkipOne.8430:

you meen this painting? It looks more like the Realm of Torment

It really does, but I see no way they could connect the two.

Considering they tied the Thaumanova to Scarlet, you could assume they planned on tying the Fall of Abaddon to her as well.

What I mean to say is that regardless of our choice between Kiel and Evon, and thus Thaumanova or Abaddon, the story had to play out to the same conclusion, with the Ley Lines being an important factor in it. The Fall of Abaddon would have had to provide us with the same information. This might just be a bit of art which was created at the time when the choice was up in the air.

If there really was a choice to begin with

That piece of art has been there since GW1 iirc

Interestingly, I tried interpreting the diagram as a literal map of the ley lines. Using the Pale Tree as a central point doesn’t really work, but if you shift it to where the Breachmaker landed, and put the awakening spots of each of the six dragons at the points… the resemblance to Scarlet’s diagram is uncanny. (see attachment)

This even matches up with the cutscene at the end of the Battle for Lion’s Arch. The cutscene shows the leyline passing through some Krytan farmland, followed by the Thaumanova Reactor, then into the Maguuma Jungle. The diagram on the Breachmaker’s control panel even shows two sets of three ley lines branching from the centerpoint underneath the Breachmaker (though the top two fork for unknown reasons). Of course, in this cutscene the ley lines are depicted as jagged, whereas I’m treating them as straight lines.

I did have to use guesswork for some of the dragon locations:
Zhaitan: Central Orr
Kralkatorrik: In the middle of that big lake in Dalada Uplands
Primordus: Approximately where Dragon’s Gullet used to be (it’s a bit off from where the Central Transfer Chamber marker was in EotN, but Dragon’s Gullet is more logical thematically)
Jormag: Somewhere off the map, north of the Far Shiverpeaks
Bubbles: Probably also off the map, extending Kralk’s line through LA brings it to SW of the Ring of Fire
Mordremoth: Somewhere in Magus Falls

Of course, this could all just be pure coincidence, if ANet just put the dragons where they did because they wanted the dragons to be on the outer edges of the known world, spread far enough apart that they aren’t interacting with each other.

I think you’re reaching Scutilla. As you mentioned, you’ve guessed things like Bubbles and you’ve moved some dragon locations to fit your theory (like Primordius). The locations of Everyone by Primordius, Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik are unknown. We have a general idea of where we think Jormag and Mordremoth are, but we don’t know for sure.

Also not the diagram is circles, not lines pointing to each location, and the Pale Tree was stated (to be fair, by Marjory, not Scarlet) to be the center, not Lion’s Arch. You’ve “fudged” too many things to make a solid argument.

I don’t know why we are talking about the election, the Realm of Torment etc when it comes to ley lines in this release, when there are several references in Dry Top to a ley line that Scarlet was investigating near the mine. At least two NPCs mention something that sounds like breaching the earth around what sounds like a ley line near the town of Prospect. Maybe it’s just the writers laying the background for a story tracking the ley line to it’s destination – Mordremoth. Somewhere along the lines Scarlet figured out that rupturing a ley line in Lion’s Arch would send an impact along the ley line to Mordremoth. Maybe that’s what they are trying to tell us?

Also note that if Lion’s Arch was the center of Scarlet’s diagram, why did the ley line rupture in Lion’s Arch only travel to Mordremoth? Wouldn’t it travel six ways?

The mentioned ley-line is still very close to Thaumanova. I wouldn’t be surprised if it belongs to Thaumanova intersection.

It’s very interesting that these ley-lines seem to have a physical appearance.