Guild Wars 2

Here’s my idea: What if, unlike previously assumed, there were not five Great Races the last time the Elder Dragons cycled through, but six? This sixth race was not mentioned by the other races because, like the dragon it faced, it was off in the Deep doing its own fighting. This race, in which case, I would believe to be the Krait. There are two reasons I think this. Firstly is the little that is written or at least recovered about the Deep Sea Dragon, meaning that perhaps the Great Races did not have a great deal of knowledge of it. The second is that the Krait have objects of similar nature to the bloodstones[Obelisks] and at least had great magic users of sorts[Prophets]. At first, I thought that perhaps the obelisks were just bloodstone that Krait got when Abbadon was giving freebies to everyone, but the problem lies that they weren’t made from the same material. So, in this case, perhaps the Krait Prophets understood the DSD’s intent and sealed their magic into stone in the same way that the Seers did with bloodstone.

Now, going off nothing, I’m thinking the Prophets might have “foreseen” the next time the dragons came, or at least their defeat, and absconded into the Mists. In the case they wanted to come back to fight again, maybe they’ll show up again?

And, if the theory that the Krait were a 6th Great Race, perhaps the Largos are now their replacement?

Well, the main theory is the first part, you can think what you want of the part. Any thoughts about the 6th Great Race theory?

Hrrrmn. I don’t think there’s anything specifically significant about their being five (or six) elder races versus five (or six) modern powerful races. There are nonplayable races that I would argue that are on the same level power-wise as the playable races – centaurs, dredge, and, yes, krait.

The krait having been around at the time of the last rise is certainly plausible. If they previously had the power to make artifacts such as bloodstone-like obelisks and the blue water orb, though, they’ve certainly fallen far, if not as far as the jotun. Probably because, while they didn’t succumb to civil war, at some stage they got taken over by a religious caste more interested in maintaining its own power than krait knowledge.

@ draxynnic
Sorry to burst the bubble, but Sayeh confirmed that the krait did not make the blue orb when you ask about it in Temple of the Forgotten God. :P (She could be wrong since this isn’t WoG but seems unlikely the way this was presented.)
However it was an object of legend to them and they treated it as a sacred relic, so they still might have some ancient history with it.

@Dongadora

There’s already plenty of confirmation that more than 5 races survived the Elder Dragons. We’ve got Djinn, Tengu, Karka… and possibly more. We don’t know when Ogres split from Jotun, but even they have legends about Elder dragons as example.

Though the krait having been around for last time still seems like a possibility to me.
There’s a whole lot of mystery about their…everything.

(As example, doesn’t their ability to transform pretty much bypass the restriction of the magic schools set by the blood stones? Correct me if I’m wrong.)

It’s even in the realm of possibility that they knew when approx. the Elder dragons would wake up since trying to predict things with magic and numerology is their thing. My personal idea is that the reason they appeared in Tarnished Coast 250 years ago might have been to scout for possible refuges for when Bubbles wakes up.

Though other than guessing we can’t do much atm. Since I write a character who’s studying krait I end up with a lot of theories but there’s only so much we can deduct from the game in its current state :p

Ah, yes. It’s been a long time since I ran that mission. Mind you, that 1) doesn’t affect my thoughts in the post, and 2) if those thoughts are accurate, than it’s likely that the krait forgot they they made it as part of their fall.

Regarding their transformation bypassing the restrictions of the bloodstones: It actually doesn’t. In GW1, they could only transform from Neoss (warrior) to spellcaster – they couldn’t transform from one spellcaster to another. In GW2, the only transforming krait (apart from witches transforming into something else entirely) is the hybrid, which only had one magic-using form if it had any at all.

It wouldn’t make much sense for Sayeh to mention at all that the krait didn’t create it, they only found it if she wasn’t certain to some extent though. What I meant to say is, she specifically stated the orb is known to deep dwellers only – Largos and krait being these deep dwellers.

And yeah in GW1 we only ever saw Neoss transform once. However we don’t really have any specifics on the transformation itself since we only ever witnessed it in context of short to-death battles.

We don’t know for certain if it’s a once-in a lifetime ability meaning they are stuck with what they picked during that one life-threatening moment for the rest of their life, if they revert back to a different form when danger subsides or if it triggers more than just once in their life when in near-death confrontations.

We just know it happens near-death.

Though if what you say is true that’d at least explain why we haven’t ever seen any transforming krait beside the hybrid – every other krait we meet already is transformed.

There has been long speculation on races not part of the Five elder races that seem to have been in an alliance surviving

Karka, djinn, tengu, kodan, krait, and even charr and norn all have some hints or knowledge (often via myth) to come to such a possibility. Unlike Elysian’s claim, we have no confirmation for any of them. And I have never heard if the ogres having legends of the Elder Dragons.

Charr and norn apparently have myths on the dragons.
Kodan have the story of “the great storm” which sounds like something Jormag does.
Tengu seem to have unsaid knowledge on the Elder Dragons.
Zomorros mention a time when Karka fled the see once before, when the continents shaped differently, indicating but not proving djinn and karka being around the last rise.
And krait is the most speculative; there is the Blue Orb, the obelisks, and the prophets all pointing to such.

The origin of the Orb is lost, and said that there are consequences with having it – if literal, it may be a case of corruption taking hold like the artifacts Kellach and Necromancer Rissa had that spread Zhaitan’s corruption.

The origin and purpose of the obelisks are also lost.

As is who the prophets were.

That is a lot of lost knowledge for a race of powerful memory and smart mathematicians.

A theory that I adhere to is that the prophets that seek flooding the world were actually the DSD’s champions (and/or The DSD itself). And that the obelisks were used to trap their magic when the champions were killed, to keep it from returning to the Elder Dragon(s).

@Konig

Have you never played the Ogre-branch of the PS Konig? I’m surprised you missed that. ;P
Upon finishing it and starting the Claw-island lead-up mission, some Ogre representatives show up as npcs, claiming that their most ancient legends seem to be true and that it is a ‘time of trial’ again.
Might have a screenshot of that conversation somewhere, if I find it I’ll upload it.

As for a lotsa lost knowledge for a race with powerful memory… just a hunch, but if you draw a parallel to real life, the tradition to passing down a religion vedic-fashion is also part of one of the oldest beliefs in the world.
Maybe krait history is a lot more ancient than we might suspect.

Another thought, rather than being intended bloodstone copies, the Obelisks might be used to measure the ambient magic level of the world. Them containing magic could be a side-effect of just that.

Or at least… I like to hope that wherever the story goes with the krait, it won’t be something dread boring and obvious like “and Bubbles and co. were their prophets all along!” Zealot faction XYZ worshipping the cardboard cut-out of evil is kinda turning into a meme in GW at this rate.

Actually no, due to how few races get access to that plot, it is the one personal storyline chapter I have not had the pleasure of experiencing. And a lot of dialogue in PS steps – especially talking to NPCs during and even more so after steps – are missing on the wiki.

What I’d like to see with the krait is that the DSD & champs do turn out to be their prophets, but because of this revelation there becomes a civil war amongst the krait race (well, more of one there is) creating three groups:

Toxic Krait, whom have already schismed away after their minds altered by Scarlet (Mordremoth influence, I suspect)
DSD-corrupted krait, including all of the Oratuss that’re pre-corrupted by the DSD, who end up becoming champions themselves (thus proclaiming themselves as prophets), with the most zealous and xenophobic krait amongst them
And rebellious krait, whom have a good-guy-bad-guy relation to the other races; when they’re in a pinch they’ll accept aid, but usually prefer to prove they’re still the top dog of the world and they don’t need no stinking Elder Dragon to flood the world for them, they’ll do it themselves with their own Prophets (aka denying the belief that the prophets are DSD champs)

Could create an interesting dynamic – do you assist the rebels at risk of them being enemies later on (almost undeniably), or see them as just another threat (still) and take them out now?

That could be an interesting dynamic, albeit one that I think would need to involve ArenaNet having some means of tracking what the player body is doing by aggregate. For instance, have a step where you make a choice whether to work with a particular band of rebellious krait or exterminate them – but the ultimate decision is made according to how many times each version of the deciding instance is run.

(If a particular player turns out to be in the minority, they can get dialogue reflecting that they chose one option, but the majority of the other Pact commanders chose the other.)

Do we know of any relation between the Krait and the Forgotten? Or is it simply a coincidental similarity.

CureForLiving.5360:

Do we know of any relation between the Krait and the Forgotten? Or is it simply a coincidental similarity.

Such has yet to really be brought up, however it’s been confirmed that naga and Forgotten are unrelated, and the Forgotten come from the Mists (supposedly around the previous dragon rise – the date humans give to them arriving from the Mists is 1769 BE, so either humanity’s wrong there, or the previous dragonrise was not in 10,000 BE).

Naga and the GW2 design of krait are rather similar – far more than either to Forgotten – so the chances of naga and krait being related are decent, while the chances of krait and Forgotten is low.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Actually no, due to how few races get access to that plot, it is the one personal storyline chapter I have not had the pleasure of experiencing. And a lot of dialogue in PS steps – especially talking to NPCs during and even more so after steps – are missing on the wiki.

What I’d like to see with the krait is that the DSD & champs do turn out to be their prophets, but because of this revelation there becomes a civil war amongst the krait race (well, more of one there is) creating three groups:

Toxic Krait, whom have already schismed away after their minds altered by Scarlet (Mordremoth influence, I suspect)
DSD-corrupted krait, including all of the Oratuss that’re pre-corrupted by the DSD, who end up becoming champions themselves (thus proclaiming themselves as prophets), with the most zealous and xenophobic krait amongst them
And rebellious krait, whom have a good-guy-bad-guy relation to the other races; when they’re in a pinch they’ll accept aid, but usually prefer to prove they’re still the top dog of the world and they don’t need no stinking Elder Dragon to flood the world for them, they’ll do it themselves with their own Prophets (aka denying the belief that the prophets are DSD champs)

Could create an interesting dynamic – do you assist the rebels at risk of them being enemies later on (almost undeniably), or see them as just another threat (still) and take them out now?

On the note of the Toxic Alliance, I have a random little theory: What if the Toxic Sylvari are immune to Mordremoth? Again, this is a random thought that popped into my head, but if Scarlet turns out to be a tragic villain or redeemable, it might be a fun idea to think of her alliances as anti-Mordremoth weapons: Toxic to create Sylvari immune to Mordremoth’s corruption, Molten to burn up his underground roots, Aetherblades too… I don’t know. But, it was mentioned how Scarlet was fighting Mordremoth’s corruption. Given her willpower to last longer than Aeryn and her intellect, this plan might not be beyond her.

Well, that’s completely off topic. Back onto point, it just seemed strange how it seems Tyria is surrounded by this number 6[6 Dragons, 6 Gods] and then there’s only 5 Great Races. But there’s this trend going in the Guild Wars universe, that the ocean seems to hide and obscure things. Abbadon was the forgotten god, DSD is still nameless and there’s little information on him, and the Largos just come out of nowhere now. Assuming the Largos are the current sixth Great Race, it might not be a stretch that the Krait with their obelisks were the old sixth Great Race along with the ogres, seers, forgotten, etc.

I’ve been seeing a lot of ties to the Tower of Nightmares in the Mordrem.

• In Iron Marches, where you can collect samples, there’s pollen in the air which was used during Tower of Nightmares. Similarly, at the Gravelash, the thorn-vine ground texture was used in ToN.
• The giant ‘flower’ at the end of Caithe’s Reconassiance Mission is very similar to the heart of the Tower of Nightmares. Main difference is that the Tower of Nightmares had mechanical pumps strapped to it.
• The Toxic Alliance had their minds messed with, and the pollen from the tower was mind-altering. Mordremoth’s second sphere of influence? Mind.
• The Vine Crawlers have a very similar function to Toxic Offshoots.

And even more similarities pop up as you start trying to relate the Nightmare to Mordremoth.

So rather than the Toxic Alliance being ‘immune’ to Mordremoth, I think theyr’e pre-corrupted by Mordremoth via Scarlet.

I… don’t really think there’s anything to the idea of there being six great races. Six gods (but is it really six?) and six dragons (ditto) might naturally come out of the rules of magic, but for there to be six powerful races by default would require some deeper meddling in Tyrian affairs to ensure that the ‘right’ races come out on top. Consider that, at the moment, there are multiple nonplayable races that appear to be of similar power to the playable races – the playable races are just the most powerful of those that have more or less banded together against the dragons.

The only mechanism I can see is if each of the six ‘spirit realms’ attunes to the most compatible race, and that this gives the race an advantage that makes it more likely to be powerful. Still, for all we know, if there is a sixth race it may well be quaggans, and they’re not powerful because, to put it bluntly, whatever benefit they get out of being ‘one of the six’ is overshadowed by how hard they’ve been hit. Or one or more of the playable races may not actually be among the six, and they’ve grown powerful despite this.