Guild Wars 2

Okay from what I understand, based on what I’ve been able to read about the explorable Arah paths, the mursaat were able to become unseen by learning how to use their magic to shift out of phase. Now what this means exactly no one seems to really know, but it seems that many people predict that the mursaat somehow live in a civilization outside of the realm of Tyria, perhaps tied to the mists, though there is no concrete proof of this. And at some point in time around the war between the mursaat and the Seer races, the Seers created the bloodstones which trapped all magic within. Now I understand I could be reading things wrong, but what if the creation of the bloodstones and the syphoning of magic is the reason the mursaat disappeared in the first place. Trapped in a realm out of phase because of losing their magic the mursaat survive for a time without notice from dragons or anything. The gods release magic to the races within Tyria, but because of the way in which they released magic it didn’t become available to the mursaat. But perhaps when Abaddon’s Mouth blew and the bloodstones and their magic was released into the world it slowly flows through and back into the hands of the mursaat. They eventually come back to Tyria only to learn about the Flameseeker Prophecy and they protect the Door of Komalie to prevent anything from happening to their people. We know that the Mursaat were gone for a while “only to appear recently”. Perhaps this is part of the reason.

Not sure if that’s right or not but imo it makes more sense that the bloodstone was created after the mursaat left but before the remaining races were hidden away by Glint, thus they retained their own uncorrupted magic while the other races lost theirs. The creation of the bloodstone caused the jotun civilization to collapse. The seers were few in number due to heavy losses to both the Elder Dragons and the war with the mursaat and never fully recovered. The forgotten and the dwarves, less reliant on magic than the jotun, were eventually able to re-establish themselves for a time, though the forgotten were later pushed out of their former territories by new races such as the humans and possibly the charr. The dwarves were the most successful of the surviving races and were able to make peace with the humans in Tyria. The mursaat most likely returned to Tyria at most a few centuries before being discovered by Saul D’Alessio. The forgotten may have left Tyria after the Elder Dragons went back to sleep and returned just over a thousand years before the arrival of humans and their gods.

I don’t think the forgotten left and returned – I previously did, but that was when I was under the belief that the last Elder Dragon rise was in ~10,000 BE; recently, however, I have been believing the last ED rise was in ~2,000 BE. Sieran says during one of the DP storyline missions that the dwarven civilization is “over 2,000 years old” which is rather odd if they were around in 10,000 BE. This would coincide with the forgotten arriving on Tyria (never mentioned to be world or continent) in 1,768 BE per the timeline. And the timeline(s) never say the Giganticus Lupicus, which the Durmand Priory believe went extinct during the last Elder Dragon rise, went extinct in 10,000 BE (but rather that they disappeared from/last walked upon continental Tyria).

From all I’ve seen, I’d presume the following for the last ED line timeframe wise:

Elder Dragons awake->Mursaat betray the other races, nearly wiping out the seers->Mursaat flee Tyria->Forgotten free Glint->Seers make Bloodstone->Glint hides the races->ED go back to sleep->Jotun fall into continuous civil war and the forgotten turn to shepherds for the races that survived the ED (a job formerly done by jotun if Thruln the Lost is to be believed)

I’m also led to believe that the kodan, tengu, and krait survived this last rise, unknown to the jotun (as the whole “five races against six Elder Dragons” come solely from jotun records) – but this is off-topic. Along with this, I believe that the mursaat’s magic – given the effectiveness of it seen during Arah explorable – was the alliance’s primary weapon against the Elder Dragons, but with the mursaat fleeing they turned to other means (Bloodstones).

I do not attribute the Bloodstone to why the mursaat disappeared. If they were already gone from Tyria – and we’re told that they fled the world, not just went unseen or “out of phase” (their magic allows them to go out of phase, but they also fled the world) – then their magic would have been unaffected by it, as it only affects magic in Tyria (and if it affects magic in the Mists, damn that’s overpowered kitten right there).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think the forgotten left and returned – I previously did, but that was when I was under the belief that the last Elder Dragon rise was in ~10,000 BE; recently, however, I have been believing the last ED rise was in ~2,000 BE. Sieran says during one of the DP storyline missions that the dwarven civilization is “over 2,000 years old” which is rather odd if they were around in 10,000 BE. This would coincide with the forgotten arriving on Tyria (never mentioned to be world or continent) in 1,768 BE per the timeline. And the timeline(s) never say the Giganticus Lupicus, which the Durmand Priory believe went extinct during the last Elder Dragon rise, went extinct in 10,000 BE (but rather that they disappeared from/last walked upon continental Tyria).

Given that the information from the timeline is mostly based on human knowledge I can see your point on the forgotten never leaving. That was something I hadn’t considered.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m also led to believe that the kodan, tengu, and krait survived this last rise, unknown to the jotun (as the whole “five races against six Elder Dragons” come solely from jotun records)

I had this theory as well, based on how the krait priesthood makes subtle changes to the wording/interpretation of their legends, it wouldn’t be too much to think that the krait have some knowledge of a previous rise but it has been altered to the point that it is no longer recognizable. Living in the deep ocean trenches, the krait would not have had much, if any, contact with the jotun. They most likely had some interaction with the DSD though, so I suspect this kind of knowledge to be contained within their religious texts, far from the eyes of outsiders. Their prophets may have been minions of the DSD or revered its power similar to the way the Sons of Svanir revere Jormag.

The kodan’s “Great Storm” could have been the result of a previous dragon rise, and they could have been spread in the lands north of what we currently know of Tyria, separated by the vast seas. When Jormag woke this time, some of the Sanctuaries were scattered and driven south. It is possible that the jotun never traveled into old kodan lands and thus never knew of them. The kodan could also have been a young race at the time and largely ignored by the jotun. They could have also battled the Elder Dragons, most likely Jormag or some of his minions, preventing them from making contact with the races in Tyria.

Tengu are the most well known of the races suspected to have knowledge of the previous dragon rise. If we are to believe that the tengu are spread throughout the world, then I would suspect them to have been cut off from Tyria during the last cycle. This idea assumes that the EDs are either exclusive to the Tyrian continent or the tengu simply hadn’t reached this part of the world at the time. If the EDs are spread beyond just being in Tyria, they could have been fighting elsewhere and the remnants of their empire were scattered and broken after the last rise.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I do not attribute the Bloodstone to why the mursaat disappeared. If they were already gone from Tyria – and we’re told that they fled the world, not just went unseen or “out of phase” (their magic allows them to go out of phase, but they also fled the world) – then their magic would have been unaffected by it, as it only affects magic in Tyria (and if it affects magic in the Mists, damn that’s overpowered kitten right there).

Yes, that would be a bit much. Thus my theory that the bloodstone only affecting the races in the world of Tyria. If the mursaat left prior to its creation they would have retained any magic they possessed at the time.

As I stated, this was merely a cohesion of many ideas floating around about the combination of the mursaat/seer war, the bloodstone creation, and the Elder dragon’s rise, plus some ideas of my own. But I think there are good ideas here, and that with some tweaking they could make logical sense.

For one, it seems hard to believe that the seers were able to create the bloodstone after they had almost been annihilated as a race, not to mention we have no clue what the catalyst in this fight was to begin with. I mean it is quite possible that the seer and mursaat races had problems with each other long before the ED rise, much like the humans and charr. But it seems possible also that the bloodstone itself might be the catalyst for the war.

The mursaat were a massively strong spellcasting race, but the seers did not trust them to stick with their alliance so in the case that the mursaat abandoned the group the seer would create the bloodstone as a way to remove all magic from the world and starve out the dragons. The mursaat learned about this and because of it they waged war against the seers. The seers were able to finish their work on the bloodstone, and because of this the mursaat left the world to save their magic from the effects of the bloodstone, but not before much of the seers were wiped from the earth.

Now with the bloodstone active, the mursaat never felt safe returning to tyria. The gods eventually showed up and released the magic, making it so the bloodstones no longer would effect the mursaat’s magic, but with more large mystical beings at large around Tyria the mursaat waited until the gods had finally moved out of the world. Then the mursaat saw their chance at a return and the rest is history.

The issue with the theory that the Bloodstone was made before the mursaat wiped out the seer race is due to how the mursaat wiped out the seer race – with Spectral Agony. And the seers developed infusion near the end of the war, which itself is magical. One cannot have a magical war without magic, ergo, the war precedes the Bloodstone.

I guess I have a question for you then, do we learn at all how the Bloodstone was created in the dungeon instance or not?

I ask this because it seems to me that you are right in the sense that the Bloodstone could not have been active during the war, but I also could be correct. You see when a group of people are about to be annihilated they become desperate. So my theory is that they had the plans and the “ingredients” (spells, materials, etc…) in order to create a Bloodstone, should the situation be deemed necessary. Now the mursaat and Seers went to war and the Seers lost a large portion of their population before they discovered the infusion. If I remember right in the Iron Mines of Moladune mission the seer states that they discovered infusion but it was already too late, which leads me to believe by that point in time the Mursaat outnumbered them. So on an even playing field magically they would have lost. So at that point in time they decided to do what any race would, create a stalemate. The seers knew that they could never win, but without their magic the mursaat could easily be wiped by any of the other races, if the seers could gain allies somehow. And the mursaat, being the courageous individuals that they are, learned about this and instead of barging in and stopping it’s creation they opted to flee.

Now again we get to why the war in the first place? Simple, when you have an enemy that has the ability to take away your power at the flip of the switch, you try and pre-emptively remove that threat to your civilization before it can be created. But as I have said before, this is just a theory, and most likely will be proved different somehow by the loremasters at ArenaNet. And honestly I look forwards to the day that we learn exactly what happened, and how things were resolved.

I have only been able to do the first half of that path, so I cannot answer that but from what I have seen of the second half, it doesn’t seem so.

Narcemus.1348:

I guess I have a question for you then, do we learn at all how the Bloodstone was created in the dungeon instance or not?

I ask this because it seems to me that you are right in the sense that the Bloodstone could not have been active during the war, but I also could be correct. You see when a group of people are about to be annihilated they become desperate. So my theory is that they had the plans and the “ingredients” (spells, materials, etc…) in order to create a Bloodstone, should the situation be deemed necessary. Now the mursaat and Seers went to war and the Seers lost a large portion of their population before they discovered the infusion. If I remember right in the Iron Mines of Moladune mission the seer states that they discovered infusion but it was already too late, which leads me to believe by that point in time the Mursaat outnumbered them. So on an even playing field magically they would have lost. So at that point in time they decided to do what any race would, create a stalemate. The seers knew that they could never win, but without their magic the mursaat could easily be wiped by any of the other races, if the seers could gain allies somehow. And the mursaat, being the courageous individuals that they are, learned about this and instead of barging in and stopping it’s creation they opted to flee.

Now again we get to why the war in the first place? Simple, when you have an enemy that has the ability to take away your power at the flip of the switch, you try and pre-emptively remove that threat to your civilization before it can be created. But as I have said before, this is just a theory, and most likely will be proved different somehow by the loremasters at ArenaNet. And honestly I look forwards to the day that we learn exactly what happened, and how things were resolved.

I wonder how the jotun reacted to the idea of giving up their magic, which seems to be the foundation of their own society, or if they had already descended into civil war before the bloodstone had been created. Any theories on that possibility?

If Thruln’s claim for why jotun fell to civil war holds any amount of truth, it’d be that the civil war began due to the Bloodstone’s creation – that it was done without their knowledge.

And how greatly might this have effected the dwarves and the forgotten? Of the five races, the dwarves’ civilization seems to have been the most successful at re-establishing itself after the previous dragon rise. The forgotten may have lasted for a while themselves but they do seem to have come into direct conflict with humans and younger races, especially in Tyria, and eventually retreated to the Crystal Desert.

Well, if you take a serious look at things, the dwarves, at least as we knew them, had the least amount of “addiction” to magic. Of all of the magical beings in Tyria in GW1, the Dwarves are the most warrior like and craftsman like, leaving magic as a side-note. This could be attributed to how they survived as a race, or just that they grew used to life without magic and never strongly brought it back into their society. The Forgotten seemed to survive decently well too, but I don’t know at all how. In GW1 they seem to be very affluent with magic, using teleportation and most of their professions being magic weilding, not to mention how they are able to create enchanted weapon/armor sets. This could be attributed to their closeness with the gods though, as they were named shepherds of the world. Perhaps the gods gave them special powers or abilities in their shepherding of the world.

Mursaat disappeared because of the Titans. Don’t look too much into it. The players started a genocide in prophecies and finished it in EotN. Even if some are left, they are only a minor threat until at least they get superior magic/tech/numbers again.

I’m pretty sure they will appear some place or another, they are the quintessential Guild Wars enemy and one of the cornerstones of the lore.

@marnick

We’re talking about prior to Guild Wars 1.

marnick.4305:

Mursaat disappeared because of the Titans. Don’t look too much into it. The players started a genocide in prophecies and finished it in EotN. Even if some are left, they are only a minor threat until at least they get superior magic/tech/numbers again.

I’m pretty sure they will appear some place or another, they are the quintessential Guild Wars enemy and one of the cornerstones of the lore.

Technically they started the genocide by sacrificing the Chosen. The titans were simply a means to an end used by Glint and the seers to bring justice to the mursaat for abandoning their allies during the last dragon rise. They might have been a race of decent people at one time but that went out the window the day they left the other four elder races to fend for themselves.

Well, I don’t think they can technically be considered as starting a genocide for killing a few dozen people every year, that is unless you consider the Chosen to be an evolution of humanity and thus that the mursaat were preventing humanity from continuing to grow. The only genocide they committed was against the seers. And honestly it doesn’t seem that starting a genocide is really a deciding factor in the “evilness” of a civilization anyways, considering both humans and charr have strived for this.

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group”. I would say the Chosen fall under one or more of these categories. The mursaat used the White Mantle to kill thousands of Chosen on the bloodstones to power their soul batteries.

Still, genocide is more widely considered what the mursaat did to the Seers, what the humans eventually did to the mursaat, or what the charr tried to do to the humans. Plus I do not believe we were ever given numbers as to how many humans were killed on the bloodstone. It seems that thousands in the less than 2 years they were in control would be a very obvious statement, and would have lead to many more uprisings against the white mantle.