Guild Wars 2

What do we know about this figure? Was it a mighty dwarf, or more long the lines of demigod or god for it to have faced the great destroyer? Is/Was its strength comparable to one of the human gods? It is shown to be something between a shared consciousness once the ritual is completed. The wiki says it makes the dwarves who undergo the ritual immortal (I’m guessing that means they just won’t die of natural causes). If its strength is comparable to a human gods that would mean that Elder dragons>6 gods since the great Dwarf’s struggle was with the great destroyer not even Primordius itself.

Sorry lots of speculation and questions on this one.

The way I understood it, the Great Dwarf isn’t actually one figure. It’s a collective consciousness among the Dwarves created by the ritual that allows them to combat the Great Destroyer. It’s just that he’s referred to as a single entity.

So, if my memory is right, there really is no good comparison to the 6 Gods or the EDs in terms of the rituals power. It’s enough to give the Dwarves a distinct edge against the Great Destroyer and Primordus’ forces, but obviously not enough to really be much more than a pain in the rear since the destroyers are just whittling the Dwarves down.

That is definitely how it seems to be used in EotN but this is from the wiki that makes me think it must have multiple aspects or something “The Great Dwarf is the patron god of the Dwarves. It is said that when the Great Dwarf still walked on the world of Tyria, he used Anvil Rock as his forge, and at another time used the Anvil of Dragrimmar to forge weapons with the strength of the Dwarven people and shields as unbreakable as their collective will. Ages ago, the Great Dwarf battled against the Great Destroyer and in order to defeat the creature, stole its name and sealed it within the Tome of Rubicon. It is also said that when he left Tyria, he traveled to the Great Forge that lies within the Rift and currently rules there.”

That is true and really the confusion and why I’m not 100% sure that what I remember is correct. I’m sure someone with more know-how will come along and make the corrections.

But, still in line with the theory that it is just the collective entity – we don’t know a whole heck of a lot about the Dwarves during the last time of the ED rise (I might know even less as I haven’t done any of the Arah explorable paths, if there’s any key tidbits in there). Some of that might be a case of storytelling – not all recorded history is actual fact or written by who it was claimed to be. I will point to our own Bible (and such related religious books that have very little to no proof of what was written about being actuality).

If there was an actual Great Dwarf, his power (or part of it) was what was given the the Dwarves in the Rite. It could be there was a guy, and he’s off in the Mists now and what remains is the power channeled from him in the Rite. Or it could be that the Dwarves had a collective consciousness in the past and the Tome of the Rubicon describes their acts as if it was done by a single entity, written by one under its effects. A simple matter of interpretation.

Couldn’t tell ya where the creation of the Dwarves would have come from, though, if that was the case (another known god, perhaps?).

It is rather odd when it comes to the Great Dwarf. ArenaNet had obviously started playing with subjective truth by that point in time. I mean by even Nightfall many of us had started doubting what we held as truth. The beliefs of the Great Dwarf by the dwarven race we see in GW1 made it seem very much as if the Great Dwarf was a singular entity that created them upon Anvil Rock, but the Rite of the Great Dwarf was said, also, to turn the dwarves into the Great Dwarf in order for the Great Dwarf to destroy his nemesis the great destroyer (who we kill actually). So it is really unclear what exactly everything is. Still, whatever the Great Dwarf is, something happened at Anvil Rock. Because if the dwarves were in their “Great Dwarf” form in the original battle, something occurred at Anvil Rock to make them into the race that they were when we met them in Prophecies.

The Rite of the Great Dwarf changed the way the dwarves defined him- from a creator god, to the embodiment of their collective might- but we don’t know which interpretation, if either, is objectively correct. There are indications that sometime in their vast past the dwarves lost near to the sum total of their culture, so it could be the god version of the Great Dwarf arose from a partial recollection of a previous Rite. It could just as easily be the case that the Rite twisted the dwarves so much that the collective Great Dwarf idea is entirely unsubstantiated. We just don’t know.

There’s two things to really consider for what the Great Dwarf is/could be:

• The legends claim it to be a single individual who created the race.
• But Jeff Grubb said the Great Dwarf is the collective consicousness.

However, there’s something extra Jeff Grubb said that’s often forgotten:

“The Great Dwarf can best be thought of as collective consciousness of the dwarves themselves (indeed, in making the prophesy of the Great Dwarf defeating the Great Destroyer coming true). Has anyone MET the Great Dwarf, and found him to be a real being? Well, that has not happened.”

Or rather, given how Jeff tends to word things, it has not happened “as far as it is known.”

My personal theory is that the Great Dwarf was indeed a singular person in ancient history… but he was no god. Take the dwarfs’ current form – stone, unable to breed, unable to die, and seemingly unable to be corrupted by the Elder Dragons. Makes them great tools against them.

Take Seiran’s comment of the age of dwarven civilization during Bad Blood…

The dwarven civilization lasted for more than two thousand years

This would place their civilization at lasting from ~1,900 BE to ~1,100 BE. But according to the Priory, the last Elder Dragon rise matches the suspected G-Lupe extinction date – 10,000 years ago (well, originally we were told 11,000 years ago, but the Priory only mentions 10,000 years ago not 10,000 BE).

So what happened to dwarven civilization during those 7-8 thousand years? They were present during the last rise.

Maybe for those thousands of years, they were living stone, and thus held no culture or civilization – they were a living weapon to combat the Elder Dragons.

Of the races from that time, the dwarves and the jotun are the only ones without mentioned contribution to the Elder Dragons. The jotun had their knowledge of their age and foretelling of their race, but for such a magical civilization one would think that there’d be mention of weapons they used like the seers, mursaat, and forgotten had…

My theory is that the original single “Great Dwarf” was a jotun giant-king, who created these uncorruptable living stone statues to fight the Elder Dragons. This would explain why they would have had the Sanguinary Blade, as the sword corrupts those who wield it for too long (or who are cut by it) – and it would explain the stone sheath that prevents that corruption.

So then the question becomes: why did they suddenly become of flesh and gain a civilization? Well…. what other event is known to happen around that time?

1,769 BE is the year given to the Forgotten arriving on Tyria. This seems dubious now, of course, but that year – is roughly a millennium before humanity arrived on Cantha (and they were on the world for some unknown amount of time before) so it may be a decent date for when the Six Gods arrived. Why is this relevance? Because Dwayna.

Dwayna and Grenth are worshiped by a select number of dwarves, no other of the Six Gods were. What if the goddess of life, gave the dwarven race the life of flesh and blood? Hence why they worship her (and Grenth by extension being her son, perhaps)?

Though I have my doubts about the last dragon rise being at 10,000 or even 9,000 BE, this explanation – even if the dwarves weren’t stone for those 7,000/8,000 years – would explain a few questions.

Thus the “Great Dwarf” is a twisted tale of the dwarven race’s original form, and the giant-king who crafted them (upon Anvil Rock).

Very interesting theory, Konig…

of all the theories that have graced this forum, i think this may be the one i like the most… (well, this and the one about “dragon” just being short for “dragon-like entity”)

the 7-8 thousand years may have been the time between different rising of dragons, as we know, dragons have risen before, in my point of view, Giganticus lupicus became extinct after a dragon rising, since then they have fallen asleep, maybe woke up a few times, and then 2000 years ago, rose, fought the elder races, went back to sleep and now again returned (for the last time) what im sort of worried about is why the elder dragons are here, and if we kill them, what will happen to the world or us (what if we make things worse)

i know this is non canon, but the first plotline of gw2 was to have the angels and demons going to tyria to judge people. what if they use the dragons to absorb magic, then transfer the magic to power their cities, i dont know about you guys, but if some insects/rodents managed to take away our sources of energy, id be pretty annoyed, lets just hope that this isnt the case and that after we deal with the world’s current problems, new ones dont take their place (i dont wanna look to the skies and see this http://www.mangareader.net/the-god-of-high-school/108/26)

According the Varra Skylark from the Arab dungeon, the last Elder Dragon rise was 10,000 years ago. I think placing it at 3,000 would make more sense for that gap of no history though, but that’s what we got. And if Varra is wrong then shed be the only Arab path with false information.

Wow Konig! That would be awesome if it ends up being true. It’s honestly pretty sound compared to some of the theories I’ve heard in the past.

it could be misinterpreted info, after all, no one we know was alive back then, maybe the dwarves but even they seemed to not know the nature of the dragons during eotn

Which would make sense if they only truly came alive around the time humans arrived in Tyria :P