Guild Wars 2

So… what’s the story behind him?
It seams unrelated to any elder dragon. It looks like something Abaddon would create.
What are your thoughts?

Not like something Abbadon would make (his stuff tends to be more purple), but something Grenth or Dhuum might make (being an underworld creature and all). It’s just an idea, but maybe Grenth’s lack of contact with Tyria is resulting in much larger and more powerful creatures escaping from the underworld. Perhaps they are even motivated by Dhuum – after all, it’s been over 200 years since we forced him back down in GW1.

Yeah, Dhuum can be a big threat that we’ve not heard about. After all, the dragons are not everything…

it’s just a monster escaping from the underworld.

that place isn’t exactly known for its friendliness.

But something must be happening there that made him pierce the veil.

probably, but that’s the realm of the “what ifs”. as far as we know, he does it because he can, and he can because he’s just a bamf like that.

it’s worth noting, though, that all of godslost swamp is filled with portals to the underworld, and the place is seeping with magic due to its origins. take that how you will.

So you’re saying that they appear there just because it is the temple of ages’ ruins and the gods opened portals there before, so the veil is kind of weak.
Did I get that right?

Like what they did for the release of Dhuum, it is probably caused by the sheer numbers of player characters that used the temple of ages for many years tearing apart the veil so it is weak there. It’s all our fault!

Ludovicus.7980:

So you’re saying that they appear there just because it is the temple of ages’ ruins and the gods opened portals there before, so the veil is kind of weak.
Did I get that right?

it’s certainly a possibility.

the only other place with underworld creatures i can remember is the Grenth statue in Lornar’s Pass. and that general area is a dimentional whack.

That swamp is where the Temple of Ages was in Guild Wars 1 – the entrance to the Underworld and a major farming area. If you talk to one of the NPCs in the swamp she says something like “Can you believe people used to go through the portal chasing treasure?”

There’s also something about all the activity in the underworld having weakened the border between the Underworld and the real world which is what causes the portals to form. I’m not sure if the Behemoth is specifically Dhuum/Grenth’s creation or anything, but it stands to reason he’s an Underworld monster.

Yes, something’s lurking in the mists…

So the centaurs are pissed at humans because some old centaur land was a farming ground in GW1 and resulted in the deaths of a ton of centaurs.

And now the swamp has turned into happy green portal death time because all the GW1 characters using some portal to farm.

Blasted oldbies not thinking about the repercussions to their actions. I’m almost glad I never played GW1 and can blame the GW1 players for ruining the world.
Good job breaking it heroes!

Hey! We didn’t mean for Palawa Joko to takeover Elona, or save the empreror so his successors could slaughter the Canthans and Kurzicks, or…or give Vizier Khilbron unimaginable power so he could turn himself into a lich, or sacrifice Kormir, or not kill Primordius while he was sleeping because we were blind, or not kill Drakkar because we thought he would remain frozen under the lake, or…

…ya…

…we did break the world.

Eurantien.4632:

Hey! We didn’t mean for Palawa Joko to takeover Elona, or save the empreror so his successors could slaughter the Canthans and Kurzicks, or…or give Vizier Khilbron unimaginable power so he could turn himself into a lich, or sacrifice Kormir, or not kill Primordius while he was sleeping because we were blind, or not kill Drakkar because we thought he would remain frozen under the lake, or…

…ya…

…we did break the world.

Hahaha, priceless…
We did some goods too.
We defeated Abaddon and the lich that we helped creating.
We formed an alliance with the centaurs in elona.
We defeated Shiro and at least helped the dwarves vanquish the great destroyer.
We created the fundations of the human/norn/asura/char alliance and helped raise the pale tree.

Ludovicus.7980:

Eurantien.4632:

Hey! We didn’t mean for Palawa Joko to takeover Elona, or save the empreror so his successors could slaughter the Canthans and Kurzicks, or…or give Vizier Khilbron unimaginable power so he could turn himself into a lich, or sacrifice Kormir, or not kill Primordius while he was sleeping because we were blind, or not kill Drakkar because we thought he would remain frozen under the lake, or…

…ya…

…we did break the world.

Hahaha, priceless…
We did some goods too.
We defeated Abaddon and the lich that we helped creating.
We formed an alliance with the centaurs in elona.
We defeated Shiro and at least helped the dwarves vanquish the great destroyer.
We created the fundations of the human/norn/asura/char alliance and helped raise the pale tree.

actually we had nothing to do with the pale tree, we just managed to not screw THAT one up.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Ludovicus.7980:

Eurantien.4632:

Hey! We didn’t mean for Palawa Joko to takeover Elona, or save the empreror so his successors could slaughter the Canthans and Kurzicks, or…or give Vizier Khilbron unimaginable power so he could turn himself into a lich, or sacrifice Kormir, or not kill Primordius while he was sleeping because we were blind, or not kill Drakkar because we thought he would remain frozen under the lake, or…

…ya…

…we did break the world.

Hahaha, priceless…
We did some goods too.
We defeated Abaddon and the lich that we helped creating.
We formed an alliance with the centaurs in elona.
We defeated Shiro and at least helped the dwarves vanquish the great destroyer.
We created the fundations of the human/norn/asura/char alliance and helped raise the pale tree.

actually we had nothing to do with the pale tree, we just managed to not screw THAT one up.

So you mean all the /dancing and /sitting I did next to the Pale Tree in GW1 was for nothing?!

At the risk of going a little off topic, I do however feel some clarification is in order on a minor point. We didn’t create a Lich. Vizier Kilhbron is suggested to have turned into an Undead Monstrosity along the same time he sank the city of Orr (however we never find out if the destruction of Orr was his intent or if he was genuinely trying to save the city from the Charr). This can in fact be seen in one of the early Kyrtan mission cinematic where the White Mantle have just discovered the Scepter of Orr and they reveal the Lich in all his ugliness.

What we did do was help the Lich unleash an army of shapechanging demons on the world that resulted in the near complete destruction of an entire race of sentient beings. So I think we should totally take some credit for the almost complete genocide of the Mursaat while simultaneously putting every major city on the Tyria Continent at risk.

To get back on the Shadow Behemoth target though, I’d say the theory about the problem at both Godslost Swamp and Lornars Pass are very likely due to our actions in the first game weakening the veil between the Mists and Tyria. Both areas have heavy Underworld presences and both being access points to the Underworld in the first game.

^ oh yeah, because that’s much better, right? :P “we didn’t make him, we just gave the doom staff of doomy doomliness so he could unleash the wrath of the ancient god on us”.

Yeah, it is known that Vizier Khilbron wanted to destroy Arah. You see in Nightfall you meet the spirit of a friend of Khilbron who turns out to be a demon, and you learn that Khilbron was a worshiper of Abaddon. Abaddon orchestrated the whole events of prophecies in order to destroy Arah and eventually release the Titans, most likely to shepherd in Nightfall faster than normal.

It is an interesting thought though, if our characters didn’t exist. Let’s see, Ascalonians would be stuck in Ascalon, the refugees would have died in the shiverpeaks, especially after Rurik failed. Mursaat would most likely attempt to take over Ascalon as well creating two human kingdoms, and destroying the dwarves in between. They would do this to assure no other chosen would show up. Then, with no one to help him, Vizier Khilbron would become a rogue agent trying to free some poor sap chosen in order to do what he needs to be done.

Moving forwards, Shiro Tagachi would most likely take over all of Cantha through Shiro’ken and Afflicted. Master Togo was good, but he wasn’t able to do many main things without the help of our character, so he would probably die before he had a chance to save his brother, the emperor.

Now we move on to nightfall, well suffice it to say, without us to lead the Sunspears it would probably fall to someone like Dunkoro. This just sounds terrible, he would have stayed in Kourna fighing a civil war while Varesh wiped out the princes of Vabbi and freed Abaddon from the Realm of Torment.

At this point in time you have a world that’s been transformed into torment, ruled over by demons, afflicted, mursaat, and a forgotten god… Then Primordius awakens right away because there was no one really left to fight the great destroyer (especially since the dwarves all died instead of becoming stone dwarves).

So yeah, I’m pretty sure we did the best we could, with the odds terribly against us.

Also an NPC from the nearby monastery (beer!) states that the veil between the Mists and Tyria are thinnest in the swamp and the sunken temple.

The Mists are the crossroads of everything:

The Mists is the oldest thing in existence, constituting the fabric of time and space that connects the multiverse together. The Mists is the proto-reality that exists between the worlds which in turn are the building blocks of reality. The Mists resonate from the worlds around them, forming bits of their own reality – islands of existence that reflect the histories of their worlds.

This creature belongs to Menzies.

Eh, doesn’t seem quite right for Menzies. He always fought with armies, Dhuum and Abaddon were the ones who liked large demonic like creatures.

Ummmmm, he totally fought with demons. The Greater Darkness’s were demons I believe.

Also I think what Nihilus is trying to reference here is that the creature is called the Shadow Behemoth, and Menzies’s army is often referred to as the Shadow Army. Personally I think saying it belongs to Menzies though is a bit of a stretch. Menzies has never really involved himself with the conflict of the Underworld and the portals filling the Swamp are fairly specific on where they go to…

Well, okay, I’ll give you that the Greater Darknesses were demons, but the point of fighting in the Domain of Anguish was a place where you had to fight off Abaddon’s 5 greatest champions, which would make the Greater Darkness a champion of Abaddon, being defended by the servants of Menzies.

Except the Darknesses are not under the command or champions of Abaddon. They are under the command of Menzies. Just because creatures are found in the Realm of Torment do not instantly put them under the command of Abaddon. It was revealed in the Domain of Pain mission after all that both the servants of Dhuum and Menzies himself were working towards aiding Abaddon, no doubt because Abaddon likely promised to aide both in their campaigns against the Six. However, this never put them in the direct command of Abaddon himself.

Similarly to how Menzies was rumoured to be lurking somewhere in the Ravenheart Gloom (which makes sense due to his association with Shadows).

EDIT: Would also like to point out that my link actually makes for more supporting evidence that the Shadow Behemoth may in fact be a servant of Menzies. >__>; The things you learn when you re-read old wiki articles when looking for supporting facts.

Yes, but the Greater Darkness is a servant of Mallyx the Unyeilding, as is mentioned in the quest ‘Mallyx, the Unyeilding’. And Mallyx was one of the greatest servants of Abaddon.

“To defeat Mallyx the Unyielding, we must break into his Ebony Citadel. However, it will not be quite so simple as just knocking on his tower door. Mallyx the Unyielding has four great servants…the General, the Fury, the Greater Darkness, and the Dreadspawn Maw…known collectively as the overlords.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mallyx_the_Unyielding_%28quest%29

Menzies Article”

Thus far, the Priest of Menzies, Shakahm the Summoner, and the Greater Darkness are the highest ranked members of Menzies’ army observed in the game.

Again I would argue that Menzies used the Greater Darkness to help fortify not only Mallyx (who at this point was fighting his own war to gain control of the Realm of Torment after Kormir ascended to Godhood, and not fighting for Abaddon) but also to fortify his hold over the Ravenheart Gloom where a large portion of his army was situated at the time.

I would also point out that we fought Terrorweb Dryders and Dreamriders in the DoA, but both of those are still considered Servants of Dhuum. Neither owing any allegiance to Mallyx or Abaddon.

Abbadon, Dhuum, Menzies – All Allies. The Fallen Gods’ army is all the same. Its natural to have a chain of command. It doesn’t matter that the Greater Darkness is under Mallyx. Mallyx is under all 3.

There was a chain of command, but each god’s servants were still loyal to their specific god first, and the alliance of fallen gods second. There’s even visual in some missions about certain emissaries squabbling with Abaddon’s servants.

Narcemus.1348:

There was a chain of command, but each god’s servants were still loyal to their specific god first, and the alliance of fallen gods second. There’s even visual in some missions about certain emissaries squabbling with Abaddon’s servants.

Doesn’t really mean anything Shadow Behemoth is Menzies’ property. End of discussion gentlemen.

Well, looking at the shadow army models, the shadow behemoth surely looks like something Menzies would command.

Well looking at the shadow army models, it looks like Menzies controls the white mantle after their death, but this isn’t the case.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Wiki:Projects/Unanswered_questions/Game_mechanics#Models

And Nihilus, if everything that had shadow in the name was Menzies, we should really fear him. Because his army has made incursions into every portion of Tyria and beyond. :P

We have nothing to say it is Menzie’s beast except shadow in the name, and it comes from the Underworld surrounded by aatxe’s and shades, so it seems obvious to me that it is a servant of Dhuum.

^ he also summons aatxe’s and shades by opening UW portals during the battle.

Narcemus.1348:

Well looking at the shadow army models, it looks like Menzies controls the white mantle after their death, but this isn’t the case.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Wiki:Projects/Unanswered_questions/Game_mechanics#Models

And Nihilus, if everything that had shadow in the name was Menzies, we should really fear him. Because his army has made incursions into every portion of Tyria and beyond. :P

We have nothing to say it is Menzie’s beast except shadow in the name, and it comes from the Underworld surrounded by aatxe’s and shades, so it seems obvious to me that it is a servant of Dhuum.

You didn’t read a single thing I wrote did you? Go over it all at least 10 times and you might get it.

I think the bigger picture is what’s important here. If the six human “gods” have lost touch with the world, then Grenth may have lost touch with the domain he took from Dhumm. Balthazar may have lost touch with the Fissure of Woe. For all we know Dhumm and Menzies are currently in full scale war with one another over the entirety of the old domains of those “gods”

I mean, Abaddon is dead, and without their war against the six, those two have no reason to continue their alliance.

The shadow behemoth could simply be fallout from the weapons of that war. What is plainly obvious is that he’s an underworld creature of some kind, and that his place of origin is the underworld.

Ludovicus.7980:

Yes, something’s lurking in the mists…

Not to be a spoil sport or anything, but something is always lurking in the mists. It’s the mists’ modus operandi to have weird lurky things.

In the mists, having hugely horrible creatures born out of nothing try to escape into Tyria is what we call the status quo. Re: creatures forming out of nothing, see Razah.

Kerithlan.1659:

Ludovicus.7980:

Yes, something’s lurking in the mists…

Not to be a spoil sport or anything, but something is always lurking in the mists. It’s the mists’ modus operandi to have weird lurky things.

In the mists, having hugely horrible creatures born out of nothing try to escape into Tyria is what we call the status quo. Re: creatures forming out of nothing, see Razah.

Also, to clarify:

The underworld != the mists.

The mists are the space between dimensions, and quite literally where and how those dimensions, and indeed all things initially form in the GW universe.

The underworld, like Tyria, or the Fissue of Woe, or the domain of anguish, or the myriad tiny PVP islands, or the Hall of Heroes, is a dimension. Think of the WvW realms as “islands” in the mists and the underworld, tyria, etc. as “continents”

In fact I believe what technically ranks you as “God Tier” in the GW universe is the ability to control or utilize the mists as they are the base building block of everything, and possibly possess a consciousness of their own.

Nihilus.3015:

This creature belongs to Menzies.

I think I understood what you wrote the first time I read it. You wrote a statement of fact with no supporting evidence, thus you wrote a speculation and nothing more.

Narcemus.1348:

Nihilus.3015:

This creature belongs to Menzies.

I think I understood what you wrote the first time I read it. You wrote a statement of fact with no supporting evidence, thus you wrote a speculation and nothing more.

Okay little one. The Fallen Gods alliance, Menzies and Dhuum. Can use eachothers minions. I don’t know why you don’t get it.

@Nihilus: Okay dude, this is a conversation about fictional deities in a video game. There’s really no need to get patronizing. Maybe time to step back for a second?

@PopeUrban: Actually the interesting thing about the Mists, is that the more your find out about them, the more you find that they’re less segregated islands and more woven together like a strange patchwork of co-opted landscapes. I mean, The Underworld is the one we know the most about, similarly we know that it’s connected to the Realm of Torment via the River of Souls that goes through the Domain of Pain before coming to the Underworld. Similarly we know that the Mad King’s Realm is also considered a jurisdiction of the Underworld.

Now, this last part is purely speculation, but considering the overall atmosphere of the Fissure of Woe, I don’t think I’d be terribly surprised to find out that it too is somehow connected to either the Underworld or Realm of Torment simply due to its own association with the dead (ghostly Eternals). For some reason I had actually though I read that the Eternals were those warriors who died in battle fighting for Balthazar, but can’t seem to find any supporting evidence so I’m left to assume I made this up.

Now on the topic of the Shadow Behemoth, while I agree that they all fought the same battle 250 years ago when they allied with Abaddon to combat the six, I’m really not sure if this would be the case anymore. However without any real word from Balthazar or Grenth on the state of affairs in their respective realms anything we surmise at this point would be speculation. That being said, I think the dialogue in the Domain of Pain adequately demonstrates that though they fight for the same cause, they are not subordinate to one other deities. This can be seen in the dialogue between the Emissary of Dhuum and the Lich in that mission.

There’s a difference between having an alliance, and intermingling everyone’s minions. I mean in real world standards, in WWII there were the Allies, and sure you may have had Americans following orders from the English and such, but in the end their allegiance was always to America.

And even if there was this full fledged mingling of minions, it wouldn’t be a champion of Menzies or Dhuum, but a champion of the Alliance of Fallen Gods.

Ratphink.4751:

@PopeUrban: Actually the interesting thing about the Mists, is that the more your find out about them, the more you find that they’re less segregated islands and more woven together like a strange patchwork of co-opted landscapes. I mean, The Underworld is the one we know the most about, similarly we know that it’s connected to the Realm of Torment via the River of Souls that goes through the Domain of Pain before coming to the Underworld. Similarly we know that the Mad King’s Realm is also considered a jurisdiction of the Underworld.

Now, this last part is purely speculation, but considering the overall atmosphere of the Fissure of Woe, I don’t think I’d be terribly surprised to find out that it too is somehow connected to either the Underworld or Realm of Torment simply due to its own association with the dead (ghostly Eternals). For some reason I had actually though I read that the Eternals were those warriors who died in battle fighting for Balthazar, but can’t seem to find any supporting evidence so I’m left to assume I made this up.

Now on the topic of the Shadow Behemoth, while I agree that they all fought the same battle 250 years ago when they allied with Abaddon to combat the six, I’m really not sure if this would be the case anymore. However without any real word from Balthazar or Grenth on the state of affairs in their respective realms anything we surmise at this point would be speculation. That being said, I think the dialogue in the Domain of Pain adequately demonstrates that though they fight for the same cause, they are not subordinate to one other deities. This can be seen in the dialogue between the Emissary of Dhuum and the Lich in that mission.

Its an odd concept (The mists) but Jeff’s statement in this interview:

http://www.guildmag.com/gmblitz-lore-interview-with-jeff-grubb

Seems to indicate that the mists are sort of the “evolutionary soup” of reality. So, wheras the mad king’s realm is within the underworld, the underworld is within the mists. As a primal force of creation it seems to suggest that the mists autonomously create realms large and small of their own volition, but we do know that the six human “gods” are beings with some degree of ability to manipulate the mists.

It isn’t clear if this is an innate or learned ability, but what is clear is that creating realms within the mists isn’t something that is easy to do, and possibly something those entities don’t fully control. Its similarly possible that the gods lied about creating any of those domains, and rather the mists themselves created those domains as the gods travelled through them, in the same manner that the mists created several PvP battlegrounds in close “proximity” (as things are measured there) to the realm of Tyria, which took on aspects and features of Tyria.

What we do know for a fact is that the gods have some ability to travel through/in the mists, and that it seems unlikely that this is an innate ability as much as that they posess some form of transportation. To use the ocean analogy again, the gods don’t seem to be able to “swim” in the mists as much as they possess a “boat” of some sort. This would account for various stories in which gods are trapped/imprisoned/or otherwise “stuck” in one realm or the other. In effect, whatever tool/power they use to travel is somehow unavailable to them at that time.

We also know that they have an ability to create access points from realm to realm or to various points in the mists. In the case of the shadow behemoth, it’s equally likely that it is directed to our realm by another entity, or that its appearance is just a function of the mists themselves weaving a more permanent connection between our world and the underworld after hundreds of years of frequent point to point contact at ToTa and grenth’s temple.

This, mechanically wouldn’t be so much a barrier weakening as it would be like a path in the woods forming itself after hundreds of years of people and animals taking that path. This seems to jive completely with the understanding we have of how the mists work, in that they’re naturally adaptive to their surroundings and create things to suit them.

Narcemus.1348:

There’s a difference between having an alliance, and intermingling everyone’s minions. I mean in real world standards, in WWII there were the Allies, and sure you may have had Americans following orders from the English and such, but in the end their allegiance was always to America.

And even if there was this full fledged mingling of minions, it wouldn’t be a champion of Menzies or Dhuum, but a champion of the Alliance of Fallen Gods.

The Shadow Behemoth belongs to Menzies.

And the gods are merely dragon champions of a much epically stronger Elder Dragon, and the Humans are merely it’s minions.

Look I said it, and with confidence. Therefore it must be real!!!

Narcemus.1348:

And the gods are merely dragon champions of a much epically stronger Elder Dragon, and the Humans are merely it’s minions.

Look I said it, and with confidence. Therefore it must be real!!!

The horses are the Elder Dragon that the gods serve.

It is an elder dragon made up of horses, just like Zhaitan was an elder dragon made up of dragons

Narcemus.1348:

It is an elder dragon made up of horses, just like Zhaitan was an elder dragon made up of dragons

We must dig deeper!

Ok… this post is deviating…
I’m glad to hear your responses. Now I have a much clearer idea about the shadow behemoth, the mists and lots of stuff.

Considering we most likely only saw a fraction of the realm of the underworld, who’s to say the behemoth wasn’t just something from a farther corner of that realm? And for those who think we saw all of UW, go to a high spot and lookout on the scenery, there’s vast vast amounts of land (term used loosely in a spirit world lol) out in the distance, consider, too, areas like tomb of primeval kings entrance, that was in a part of UW that wasn’t directly connected to the main UW hub and it had unique creatures in it. It’s just a new spooky we haven’t seen before, no need to get all yippity about it lol. As to who it belongs to? Well, who do all the UW denizens belong to? Who was the creator and original owner of UW? We assume from what we were told it was Dhuum, so it stands that he was most likely the creator, despite me wanting it to belong to Menzies myself (there just wasn’t enough lore about him in GW1 imo).