Guild Wars 2

So, I was discussing the lore of guild wars with a freind the other day, and we got talking about necromancy and undead. Now, it is clearly apparent that the necromancy used by player necromancers is diferent to the dragon-magic used by Zhaitan, but there also appears to be a third type, namely that used by the lich Palawa Joko.

Player necromancy seems to be a very simple form of necromancy, whereby flesh and bone is used to create what is essentially a golem, an unthinking tool, with none of the soul, personality or memories of the corpse or corpses used to make it. It is basically the same as taking apart a few Charr-built tanks, then using the spare parts to assemble a new one.

Zhaitans magic, on the other hand, seems to trap a part of the soul in the body. This seems to have two effects: the first is that it causes the bosy to go through sone of the basic, repetative tasks it would have done in life, seeming unaware that it is undead until Zhaitan gives it an order, or it senses the presence of the living. The second effect seems to be that it traps the soul, either on Tyria or in the mists, preventing it from going to the afterlife. This is shown by the NPC in, i think, Mount Maelstrom, who is a ghost who claims to be there because her body was raised by Zhaitan. The trapping of souls, compared to just using the body, is why Zhaitans magic is reviled, while player necromancers are alowed to practice their art in relative peace.

The third source of necromancy, Palawa Joko, seems to be very different to the other two, though it shares more similarity with Zhaitans magic. It seems to take the whole soul of the person being raised, but doesnt enslave them. As shown by the dialogue and the numerous quest lines in Guild Wars: Nightfall that revolve around dealing with rebel undead generals, the raised person retains most, if not all, of their personality, and is also very aware that they are dead. Joko seems to have created more of a nation of the dead than a shambling horde of minions. This actualy lead me and my freind to some specualation that Joko’s undead may become a playable race, possibly a rebal faction of them, but this was quickly cast aside for two reasons: one being that Joko has such a wide varity of undead, from humans to centaurs and giants, and the other being the ever-present issue of “WoW did it first.”

Now, what we where unable to think of was what the source of Joko’s magic could be. It is so different in nature to Zhaitan’s dragon-magic and the player’s from of necromancy that it has to come from an entirely different source. Does anyone have any ideas? Does anyone have some information that adds to, or completely overturns our observation? Being the lore nerd i am, i would vewry much like to hear it :P

Tl:DR: Player necromancy good, Zhaitan necromancy bad, Joko necromancy ????

I would say Joko’s magic is the only one that could claim to be ‘good’ while player magic is nuteral (if it really does have no effect on the souls of the dead it uses) and the dragon necromancy is obviously evil.
The problem is, like you say, that we know so little about Joko’s magic.

I love this kind of lore nerdiness :P

Joko’s and the PC’s necromancy is more or less the same – it’s just that Joko’s more potent. In Ghosts of Ascalon, Killeen (a standard necromancer) makes an undead out of a full corpse – no shambling horror created. It seems that standard necromancers prefer making shambling horrors from corpses for minions, which are less stable, than using a full corpse as it was. Joko, btw, is known to trap souls – as are some standard necromancers and ritualists (in both GW1 and GW2).

Zhaitan’s necromancy isn’t really necromancy from my observation. No matter how fresh the corpse, Risen are ALWAYS rotten. And if it were necromancy, Zhaitan would be an odd-man-out of the other Elder Dragons. It’s a particular reason why I hate it when Risen are called undead. Yeah, they’re reanimated corpses, but there are Icebrood which are the same yet they’re never called undead. Risen are dragon minions, not undead, pure and simple.

Also, it seems only the more powerful minions of Zhaitan (those given more corrupted magic) trap the soul – there’s a few cases where souls are wondering free while their corpse is a Risen.

Hmm, i must say, i havnt actually read Ghosts of Ascalon. If PC and Joko’s necromancy are the same, why then do Joko’s undead display some signs of indeviduality, rather than just being shambling minions?

I am in full agreemant regarding Zhaitans minions though. On a side note, icebrood are corupted corpses? i always assumed that they where just very corrupted living beings. where does it say that they are allready dead?

I’ve presumed it deals with how they’re made. Take the Afflicted, for example – they resemble undead in that they’re reanimated corpses (albeit bloated and not considered undead by many) – most are mindless but some still have a semblance of cognition. Many of Joko’s undead seem rather low-minded or mindless too, akin to the Orrian undead from Prophecies (by all appearances, at least) though the officers (be they generals or lesser) seem to be the main ones with cognition.

I have figured that the cognition comes from binding a soul to the corpse, while mindlessness is caused by the lack of such – where the necromancer instead uses his or her own energy to animate the corpse rather than a such soul (if you take note, most mindless undead stop being able to differentiate between friend and foe when their master(s) are gone – though GW2’s minions are different for unknown reasons in this regard, they still lack their own free will and obviously are not animated via a soul).

And some Icebrood are corpses – Edge of Destiny shows a norn turned into an Icebrood who had half of his face caved in. There’s no way he’d be living with that. Furthermore, Edge of Destiny says that their flesh and blood slowly turns into ice the longer they live from being corrupted – initial stages of icebrood are just some ice coating on the skin and hair, but further down you get like the oakheart-like Icebrood Norn or the Icebrood Colossus. Side note: said icebrood norn seem to have their flesh rotted off half of their face, and the colossi appear as skeletons in blocks of ice. There’s another model, used twice in the game as far as I’m aware (once in Durmand Priory storyline, and another time in CoE explorable) which has a second “ice knocked off” form which shows a skull (little to no flesh on it) – the model was akin to this concept art.

In other words, most icebrood are corrupted as living beings, but their body degenerate and rot like any recently deceased would – and Jormag is willing, seemingly, to corrupt corpses as well.

I’ve always assumed that the limitations on the PC’s minions were self imposed . As common as it may be in Tyria, necromancy is still basically “messing with dead folks”. It’s bound to make people uncomfortable to see their friends and family’s body parts shuffling around. I imagine there’s a “line” that most necromancers don’t cross, that line being the soul-binding that seems to be required for the more advanced stuff. After all, it’s one thing to see your grandma’s arm attached to a walking meat-monster, it’s an entirely different to know that dear Granny’s tormented soul is bound up in the thing and she’s fully conscious of the whole horrid ordeal. I imagine a part of the training the average necromancer goes through includes lessons on what they can and can’t generally get away with without getting lynched by an angry mob. Now take somebody like Palawa..who can’t find a single #$%@ to give about how the general public feels about what he does..and those limitations are removed.

There are 5 main types of undead in the game.

1) Natural zombies and ghosts- There are undead that just appears. External power might not have been involved. They might be restless spirits taking over dead bodies.

2) Golems made from flesh – These undeads are deemed “legal” and “acceptable” since they do not play with souls and spirits at all. They are golems made from the flesh of the deceased. The flesh could have came from any animal or people. They are mindless and totally obeys their creator. Any skill and spells used by these golems came from the necromancer, not the golem itself.

3) Spirits – A ritualist can summon “willing” ancestors and spirits to aid them in battle. Since the spirit came willingly, their magic is deemed legal.

4) Liches’ undead – Liches can raise more powerful undeads. These undeads maintain the power and spells from their previous life. Often times the souls and spirits of the undead is forced back into the bodies. As such this line of magic is deemed illegal. Some even have memories from their previous life, and might act on their own. Joko and the Lich are both liches.

5) Zhaitan’s undead – These undead and their soul has both been corrupted by Zhaitan. So these undead “willingly” fights for Zhaitan after their corruption.

It comes down to this. The battle knowledge and experience lies within the soul. The ONLY way you can make a zombie that can use his/her original skills and spells (e.g. just as powerful) is by FORCING his/her soul back into his/her original body (or a new, just as capable body). And that’s why this is deemed illegal.

We’ll find out soon enough I suppose, they will eventually release elona for guild wars 2

Joko’s undead forces (with the exception of Effigies, which seem to be animated statues) also all seem to have been mummified upon their death. Some of Joko’s servitor undead have also been known to speak and think, so it’s possible that Joko uses a special kind of reanimation process that involves mummification and binding the soul of the deceased back to its original body. It’s perhaps also telling that the name for Joko’s undead back in GW1 were called the “Awakened”.

@CHIPS: There is no single situation where a zombie “naturally forms” – all leaderless/necromancerless undead were formed by some event, usually magical or necromantic in nature – and your “natural ghosts” and “spirits” are essentially the same in regards to necromancy since ritualism isn’t necromancy. Also, you don’t need to be a lich to make those longer lasting undead either – see Murakai, Fendi Nin, and Oberan as three examples from GW1.

If I remember right though, Fendi Nin was considered a lich lorewise wasn’t he? And Murakai was THE original vengeful ascalonian spirit (note not Foefire spirit). Which leaves Oberan, and well we know Oberan and Verata were two necromancers from GW1 that had decided to screw the rules and go as forbidden as things go when it comes to necromantic magic. I was a necromancer first and foremost when it comes to GW1 and I remember getting the quests to hunt them both down.

No, Fendi Nin was never called a lich. Only Khilbron, Palawa Joko, and Zoldark were ever called liches in GW1.

And there were vengeful spirits before Murakai too. She was just a necromancer spirit.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@CHIPS: There is no single situation where a zombie “naturally forms” – all leaderless/necromancerless undead were formed by some event, usually magical or necromantic in nature – and your “natural ghosts” and “spirits” are essentially the same in regards to necromancy since ritualism isn’t necromancy. Also, you don’t need to be a lich to make those longer lasting undead either – see Murakai, Fendi Nin, and Oberan as three examples from GW1.

1) The Catacombs of Ascalon are filled with Skeletons. There is no mention of anyone summoning them. The Blood Fanatics, failed and dead students of Kasha Blackblood, were risen as undead. They had no master.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Catacombs
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Power_of_Blood

Its the same thing for Fahranur. There is no mention of anyone summoning those skeletons. They are master-less.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Fahranur,_The_First_City

2) Ritualists summon spirits and ghosts that are willing to help out. Those spirits are controlled. Roaming spirits kill anyone they see. That’s the difference.

3) There are laws and rules of necromancy. The only legal summons are mindless golems made from flesh. Undead servants are banned because it involves forcing the original spirit back into the body (or another body, as in Shiro’ken). The spirit didn’t want to fight, but it had to.

Obviously the Liches won’t follow those rules. And necromancers that has left the The Order (and general sociality) also won’t obey those rules. Liches and Zhaitan are masters of this act and their undead servants maintained pretty much all their fighting ability while alive.

There is no indication that summoning undead servant is difficult at all. It seems any necro can potentially do it, as shown by Oberan, to various degree. It is only the rules and laws from the sociality that’s banning them.

Fan Fiction: Of course back in GW1 many felt it foolish to follow such meaningless laws and rules, with the Charrs right on Ascalon’s footsteps. Many necros secretly do their own research. It wasn’t pretty. At the end The Order’s laws and rules were “maintained”, one way or another, and Ascalon did eventually fall. The rest was history.

So how did my GW2 necro know this history? That’s a story for another day. ^^

@Konig

Narcemus.1348:

Murakai was THE original vengeful ASCALONIAN spirit (note not Foefire spirit).

That being said, I know it isn’t mentioned specifically, but the story of the Shards of Orr is that Fendi made a pact with Zoran, father of Reza’s advisor, and this eventually lead to all of them turning into undead. Well I don’t know if this has been mentioned before, but there is a very good chance that this advisor was the Vizier Khilbron. Khilbron was well known to be a servant of Abaddon, perhaps he used some of Abaddon’s potential magic to curse Fendi and those he killed? It’s honestly not stretching things too far. As for the undead in the catacombs of pre-searing, if I remember right the quests they added to later Pre-Searing said that those undead were risen by undead necromancers that had become restless. Now no one knows why those necromancers rose, but I wouldn’t be stretching too far to point to oberan the reviled who made his residence there.