Guild Wars 2

I was replaying GW1 and I replayed the HoM part of the story and the Scrying Pool stood out to me again. First it gives the player visions about Primordus’ minions, presumably to help us stop them, but later we use it with Gwen to track down Kieran when he goes missing after the Battle for Lion’s Arch.

In GW2 our characters (of any race) have casual access to the HoM via the portal stone but no mention is made of the Scrying Pool’s powers. We never found out why there is a pool of water in the Northern Shiverpeaks that has magical powers. Where does the power come from? In the past the player worked with Glint who gave humans the Flameseeker Prophecies, does she also have something to do with the HoM Scrying Pool? Why aren’t we using it now? Rytlock has gone missing and no-one seems concerned, would it be possible to use the Scrying Pool to track him down? Is it just a relic of GW1, shuffled into irrelevance to GW2’s story and best to only view it as a functional location simply used for charming pets these days?

As for the Rytlock thing, just be patient. I know realistically, he’s been gone for weeks, since that’s how long ago the living story section has been out, but since he disappeared near the end of the living story, as far as the game timeline is concerned, he’s been gone for like…an hour. I’m sure they’ll get around to it. They MAY use the scrying pool to find him, but honestly, I REALLY doubt it.

As for the “what is the significance of the scrying pool” bit, I just don’t know. It’s just one of those things that the GW team never explained. Personally, I feel they’ve been doing a pretty poor job of making anything from GW1 relevant in GW2. I mean, I like the story well enough, and I enjoy the “new” lore GW2 has, but it feels like it may as well be an entirely different universe from GW1, more often than not. We have so many relics of GW1 just lying around that are never mentioned or explained. The scrying pool being one of them.

I think there are quite a few posts (one being very recent, and still on the front page of this forum) that mention the Eye of the North tower and people’s speculation on it. You can try going there for ideas, but really, I don’t think you’ll get any definite answers.

The Scrying Pool, like much of the Eye of the North, seems to have taken heavy damage. You can swim in it, which wasn’t possible in GW1, and I think the water level is higher. The merchant who sells the HoM rewards is even standing on a lily-pad in the scrying pool. All of this suggests it’s not active right now. What happened is never explained, and unlikely to be since it’s just a location to allow GW1 rewards to be carried forth to GW2. Sadly, I don’t think we’ll be getting much more info about this place unless we get to explore the lands around the outside of it.

The ghosts there are of the Ebon Vanguard, so whatever happened must have happened around the Foefire. Why they are not hostile (if they are infact Foefire ghosts) i dont know, maybe its the distance to the actual source of the Foefire, or they fell prey to charr or something else. As for what happened to the building itself, i suppose that was Jormag’s growing influence in the region.

Im somewhat on the opinion that the Eye of the North itself is of Seer origin, mainly because of the Scrying Pool. If there is an ancient ruin with a mystical pond that allows some sort of clairvoyance, and you have an ancient race called Seers, the two kinda adds up. No proof though.

Personally, I think the damage is due to Jormag’s rise and the subsequent flooding. You gotta figure an earthquake bad enough to shatter a mountain range will do some damage to a structure in said mountains.

As for the ghosts, they seem to just be members of the Vanguard who died a natural death and stayed on to watch over the HoM and our GW1 stuff. Definitely not Foefire- they’re far out of range and non-hostile.

Shiren.9532:

Rytlock has gone missing and no-one seems concerned, would it be possible to use the Scrying Pool to track him down?

Well according to Sharpeye he’s at Lions Arch, so I’m not exactly sure people even know he’s disappeared into the mists… I’m thinking Smodur doesn’t like the Blood Legion all that much, so if he reported that the tribune was gone they’d just send another one, so he made up some story about Rytlock going to LA…

Or ANet simply hasn’t updated the text yet since Jungle Worm…