Guild Wars 2

So everyone across the forum – lore and elsewhere – have been talking about the ceiling design that’s mimicing the vision from Episode 2.

When there’s a second one, seen right before it, that everyone seems to have overlooked. Attachments 1 and 2.

Above the statue of Abaddon lies a different circle with its own designs. Those whom were part of the lore forum for years now – since the days of GW1 – may recognize the design. It is an old one, from Guild Wars 1 itself. Lord Odran’s Alchemy Circle. Attachment 3.

The “Alchemy Circle” as it was called by fans due to its appearance, was originally something seen only on the box, website background, and manual background designs. It was never part of the game’s lore. One day, a lore goer asked a dev what it was, and we got an answer:

It was made by Lord Odran, (the story of Odran for those who don’t know, as he’s only mentioned twice in all of GW2 ) and it is his map of the Mists. The mention of this was in an obscure place, so unfortunately it’s been lost to me; if memory serves me right, it was on the incgamers forum, which has as I look now been altered beyond recognition from the time.

But it seems this is making a come back into the lore.

People had tried to interpret it, but as you can see in Attachment 3, the writing on it is more or less illegible.

The ceiling, however, is not – it has much more details to it. And most interesting, it has Old Ascalonian writing. This ceiling was caught – minorly – in the Point of Interests Episode 9, though only a few words were able to be deciphered; and barely at that, due to quality.

For those wanting to see it from the trailer, 2:02 to 2:03 (it’s a very brief view, sadly).

The Ascalonian writing is on the front side of the statue, and as such it is mostly blocked even now. But with the teaser in PoI E9, folks on reddit (myself included) were able to make out what appeared to be the words “beware” (right side of image) and “kept” (left side of image). See Attachment 4.

Comparing to the EotP trailer, Beware is the first word of what’s written, and kept is the last.

Given that it’s 2:30 am now, my eyes are too tired to try to make out the word before “kept” which is potentially discernible from the trailer. So I’ll return to translation tomorrow… er, today.

One thing of interest to me is that the center icon appears to be a sun with an eye inside of it. Very different than the original! Another difference is that it appears to have been flipped sideways (mirror image) and and flipped upsidedown (basically: the top right is now bottom left; bottom right is now top left; etc.).

The original also had a shining triangle – many interpreted to be a representation of the Eye of Janthir and thus possibly tied to the mursaat – is now a circle with a simple depiction of a star/sun inside.

The third large icon seems unchanged though, interestingly enough.

Others’ thoughts?

The first that came to mind after watching these back-to-back is that the central image is typicly a Sun/star depiction. However to my knowledge other than the hylek, there is no worship of the sun, and other than for the ancient Jotun, no great relevance is attributed to stars either.

The eye in the triangle is a common enough icon, and of course in Guild Wars it is always assumed to be related to the Eye of Janthir and to the Mursaat, but at this point i consider this wishful thinking more than anything else. Our wish to get the mursaat back into the story might blind us to other possible meanings.

However there are significant differences between the original Alchemy Circle and the one on the ceiling. You could say that its just iterative design, but frankly, if it had no meaning i dont think ANet would have bothered about changing it.

So back to my thought that the central image is a star or possibly the sun, coupled with the concept of it changing and especially with the “Beware” warning, i have the guess that it is supposed to point out a specific time and event.

The movement of stars and the Sun have been the main contributor and source of human cultures of measuring time. Even today if you want to write down a specific date in a language that doesnt have the common religious and cultural references, you take the movement of stars, moon and sun as a basis. You take the idea of how the sky would look like on that day. The fact that this picture is on a ceiling with the background color of a night sky seems to be in accord with this theory.

As to what that day would be or what event would it be a warning of, taking into account that the mural is above Abaddon’s statue and remembering the burst of stars (central star/sun figure) relating to Elder Dragon risings, i would think that it is indeed a warning about the dragons rising.

I have taken the liberty to overlay the original Alchemy Circle to the ceiling to show the differences. Keep in mind that the ceiling might have some perspective distortion, even though i tried to mitigate it. The significant differences should be quite visible though.

I noticed this ceiling when I watched the trailer but didn’t really know what to make of it. If this is related Lord Odran that can mean a number of good things I guess, but one can only hope. First thing that came to my mind when you said Lord Odran was that maybe we’ll be finding a portal to the Mists. Now the way I see this links to LS is that Rytlock jumped into a bluish hue portal which we speculated could be the Mists. Maybe we’ll find info on another portal to the Mists and go after Rytlock. Could also be possible he ended up in the HoH where we meet Prince Rurik and he tells us how to remove the Curse of the Foefire. Another point to take in mind is that it’s been stated that some of the Elder Dragons (at least Jormag) have been trying to invade the Mists.

Is it possible that there’s a 5th gate to the Mists other than the 4 known GW1? Maybe there’s someone that knows of such gate? Glint maybe and the knowledge was passed onto the Zepherites?

I’m sure it’s been already pointed out in the past, but those symbols in the bottom right of the achemy circle (top left in the new image) seem to represent the gods.

By the time of Lord Odran, Abaddon was already imprisioned, but he probably had knowledge of him. One symbol is repeated, both in the six symbol group and alone with three triangles, with a minnor difference. I would say that’s Abaddon’s symbol, and maybe it’s predecessor.
There is a symbol made with two circles: Ilya and Lyss (Lyssa)
The couple of symbols next to the triangle with the circle in it may be Dhumm and Menzies. One of the symbols if similar to another symbol of the group of six, that may correspond to Dhumm-Grenth or Menzies-Balthazar (I would bet for Dhumm-Grenth).

What if what we’re seeing here is a workshop of Odran’s? It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say he may have been a follower of Abaddon (though not exactly supported, either), which would explain the statue. Lord Odran walked many realms – potentially far beyond the scope that we know, and may have learned of the nature of all-powerful beings such as gods and elder dragons, insight that could be (partially) revealed to us in the coming living story chapter.

All conjecture from the assumption that that is Lord Odran’s workshop of course, which is more of a hunch than anything.

Even if it isn’t (one of) his workshops, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if we find out he might have been a follower of Abaddon, or at least him having a healthy respect for Abaddon’s ways. Maybe not for the very beginning, but he could have easily found knowledge of Abaddon’s existence from his numerous travels around the Mists.

To me, he’s almost the epitome of the whole, “Act with magic, act within reason, act without mercy.”

I posted it on the reddit forum too but the letters we see in front of ‘kept’ were being guessed as NTO and NTS as possibilities. After staring at the blurs myself for a bit I think it’s also possible those three letters are ‘ETS’.

Thanks to his head blocking it it’s entirely conjecture but… it’s also Abaddon’s temple. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s ‘Beware _________________ secrets kept’.

Those look like trajectory maps for bodies traveling round a point of attraction. Orbits are commonly associated with astronomy but they can appear in may places in nature (such as the subatomic level). The Jotun observatory in Arah path 1 shows that the Elder Dragons are associated with celestial changes. It must be plausible for these celestial changes to have an impact on the ‘eternal alchemy’ and in particular the flow of ley lines (in same way that gravity changes tides).

This may be the point in the story where we learn how the ‘Fall of Abaddon’ fractal would have fitted into the Scarlet storyline.

I was under the impression that celestial changes happened due to the Elder Dragons awaking.

“It shows that the awakening of the dragons is a natural and cyclical thing. The stars only indicate the passing ages. They do not determine events here.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Varra_Skylark

lakdav.3694:

The first that came to mind after watching these back-to-back is that the central image is typicly a Sun/star depiction. However to my knowledge other than the hylek, there is no worship of the sun, and other than for the ancient Jotun, no great relevance is attributed to stars either.

Actually, humans outside Tyria have attributed relevance to the stars – Cantha has the whole thing with the celestials, and one of the outposts in Istan was an astrological observatory.

Tuomir.1830:

What if what we’re seeing here is a workshop of Odran’s? It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say he may have been a follower of Abaddon (though not exactly supported, either), which would explain the statue. Lord Odran walked many realms – potentially far beyond the scope that we know, and may have learned of the nature of all-powerful beings such as gods and elder dragons, insight that could be (partially) revealed to us in the coming living story chapter.

All conjecture from the assumption that that is Lord Odran’s workshop of course, which is more of a hunch than anything.

There’s actually a fairly sinister coincidence that points in this direction – it was shortly after Odran’s jaunting that Abaddon’s agents started causing mischief in the world (manipulation of Shiro, Titans appearing to the charr). I’ve generally interpreted this as Odran kittening up, but another possibility is that Odran’s entire objective was to crack Abaddon’s prison.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

“It shows that the awakening of the dragons is a natural and cyclical thing. The stars only indicate the passing ages. They do not determine events here.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Varra_Skylark

Remember that NPCs are not always reliable narrators. Varra’s claim directly contradicts Factions lore, which states that new constellations can and have been placed in the sky to commemorate important people and possibly events.

Varra speaks of the Elder Dragons, not souls ascended into the stars.

Though I do think that Varra is wrong with her conclusions. 10,000 year cycles still seem a bit too much to me, given the known history of the dwarves and Forgotten.

True, but once you’ve got a means by which the stars can be altered by Tyrian events, whether directly linked to the dragons or not, you have a possible causal link that breaks her hypothesis. For instance, a third party creating new stars as a warning.

In fact, given that we see the birth of new stars when we look through the telescope, presumably a warning of Mordremoth… this itself might be an indication that the stars ARE influenced, since Mordremoth seems to have been awakened prematurely. Mind you, it’s possible that the ‘warning system’ was supposed to be decades in advance rather than less than two years…

I’ve always taken that star seen then to be about Kralkatorrik. He awoke 5 years prior to the witnessing of the star’s formation, and if light travels similarly in GW lore as it does to earth, it could mean it was simply 5 light years away.

Though there’s also the interpretation that there’s one star per cycle (or per Varra, once every 10,000 years), so the ‘birth of a new star’ would happen at any point during the cycle (at the 10,000 year mark).

I had the impression myself that the star formation served as a warning, and that’s why the jotun looked for them. Wouldn’t be much point as a warning if it generally didn’t come up until AFTER the dragons were already out and chewing on everything.

“Your Majesty! The astrologers report that another time of dragons is upon us!”

(while tugging a blade out of a Destroyer) “Don’t they think that the fact that we’ve been fighting them for the last two centuries might have tipped us off?”

That could be true if it’s something that’s created by an intentional artificial means. But if it’s natural like Varra suggests, then it’d be unrelated; and if it’s artificial but unintentional then it would a side-effect rather than a forewarning.

For natural events occuring in a repeating pattern to be associated with cyclical celestial events, they need to happen more than once and needs to be observed more than once. Unless the Jotun species is much older than any other species on Tyria that have lived through more than one dragon rises (that would make them more than 20 000 years old). Or there was another (or more than one other) race in the cycles before the Jotun that the jotun based their astrology on.

I would be interested in what stars actually are in Tyria. If they are like in reality, giant masses of hydrogen in constant nuclear fusion light-years away, I dont see how they would relate to one lonely planet and some dragons that although are highly magical, they dont go further than their corners on Tyria. Unless its not the dragons that invoke the change in the stars, but the other way around through some dark matter/magic explanation.

If the stars are absolutely not what they are in reality, but celestial bodies of magical importance with stories of gods and champions and the like with constellations and roots to the magical map of Tyria, then there is no use arguing about light-years. But in that case the dragons return can be the cause of celestial changes, because they are the most massive magical things in the world of Tyria, things that ‘even the stars tremble to behold’ or something.

It’s possible that it’s both – some ‘stars’ are other solar systems (or whatever Tyria and it’s local equivalent is) at great distances. Others are something quite a bit closer.

Either way, the celestial lore from Factions shows that at least some stars are influenced by events on Tyria. My suspicion is that Varra either doesn’t know this, or discounts it as a quaint human superstition.

But then if there are other worlds in the physical scale revolving around distant stars, what does that make the Mists? Or the Rift? Is it (or access to it) unique to Tyria? Why or why do we not see visitors from other worlds in there if its not? And how does the Mist Wars come into play?

Taking the stars from Guild Wars as stars from reality brings up a lot of questions

The Mists/Rift is stated to be accessible by the multiverse – and in lore, while we don’t see it, the Hall of Heroes is where heroes of countless worlds end up.

Also: https://i.imgur.com/V4crBUB.jpg

The cieling texture pulled out of the dat.

Words read:

Beware the danger of secrets kept.

And we got ourselves a triforce in the Map of the Mists. Or, in GWverse, the Triforge Pendant’s design.