Guild Wars 2

(TL;DR at the bottom)

With the Expansion on the way, the Jungle Dragon revealed and its – possible climatic – demise at hand there a few things I never really understood about this particular dragon.

First in line would be how the Dragons got their specific names. Risen and Icebrood speak about their respective masters and even though no destroyer states Primordus name I assume the dwarves know it from its last awakening.

Which leaves us with Kralkatorrik (I never read the Edge of Destiny), Mordremoth and “Bubbles” the unknown and – considering the whole retcon during season 2 of the Living World – I have a hard time following the history of Mordremoth outside of the Living World installments.

Subject Alpha refered to Mordremoth even before we even knew about Scarlet but the name was never mentioned anywhere and suddenly Kasmeer and Marjory know him? (Don’t get me started on the contents of the priory book in DR about the “Five Dragons” and the lecture in Arcana Obscura)

Next would be the thread title: What exactly IS a Mordrem besides the spawn of the Elder Dragon Mordremoth? Each and every other known miniongroup tells you something about said group and the Dragon:

Risen = Reanimated Dead/Zhaitan
Destroyer = Enemies of the Dwarves and resposible for the surfacing of the Asura/Primordus
Branded = Path of destruction left behind by/Kralkatorrik
Ice-Brood = Use Ice in combat/Jormag
Mordrem = ???/Mordremoth

We don’t refer to Primordus minions as “Primordi” or Kralkatorriks as “Kralka” but why are Mordremoth’s minions called Mordrem?

Finally, now that 5/6 dragons are revealed I cannot help but think that every race has its own dragon nemesis. Naturally, the dragons a dangerous for all five races but every race seems to have a deeper connection to a certain dragon.

Asura vs Primordus – He almost wiped them out, destroyed multiple laboratories and now resides in their former “home” (i.E. the underground). He also drove out the Skritt, the Dredge and currently fights the Dwarves. What we know about his minions suggests that they are artificial and not corrupted. Asura forces mostly consists of their golems – artificial constructs.

Norn vs Jormag – Since Jormag is responsible for the death of three Spirits, considered a Spirit by the Sons of Svanir and led to the demise of Svanir I think this match-up is quite clear. Jormag promises power and strength – important aspects in Norn society.

Charr vs Kralkatorrik – This one is a bit more complicated as Ascalon belonged to both the Charr and the Humans. The High-Legions lead assaults against the Branded and conduct research about the Brands proporties.

Human vs Zhaitan – As a deminishing race and with Zhaitan influence over Orr this is somewhat of a classic match i.E. the living against the dead. Zhaitans army mostly consists of reanimated humans with the orrian royalty as leaders (Eyes of Zhaitan, various royals). Furthermore, Orr is also the place of origin of the human religion.

Sylvari vs Mordremoth – Since the Sylvari are Mordremoths minions this match is clear. Scarlet and Aerin are two major examples of “corrupted” Sylvari and the Nightmare Court will have quite the identity crisis (Absolute freedom vs permanent control by Mordremoth)

With this out of the way, all we know about Bubbles is that he drove the Krait, the Karka, the Quaggan and possible the Largos too from their original homes. Following my aforementioned nemesis theory: Would that mean that the possible sixth race might be from the bottom of the sea?

TL;DR:

-Who is responsible for Elder Dragons names, Mordremoths in particular?
-What does the term Mordrem stand for besides being a minion of Mordremoth?
- Would you agree that every race has its own Elder Dragon nemesis? (Human vs Zhaitan, Sylvari vs Mordremoth, etc)
- If the former is true, will we receive a sixth race consisting of underwater dwellers once we take the fight to Bubbles? (Quaggan for Everyone!)

Since you mentioned DSD, I wonder was that blue orb that could stop Zhaitan’s corruption actually part of its power?

-I don’t think anyone is really responsible for the names. They seem to actually be the names of the dragons, or at least names the dragons have accepted, and not just something the races made up to make talking about them earlier. As for where we learned Mordremoth’s name- even if you don’t want to start on it, I’d put my money on the Scroll of the Five Gods.

-It’s too early to tell, and it might be intended to be a mystery, but… maybe the Mordrem are of Mordremoth’s body, either directly in case of the tendrils and the Vinewrath, or, by way of seeds or spores, descended from Mordremoth’s physical body. It’s still just a theory, and one that’s a bit out there at that, but it does fit with what little we’ve seen and it also would make much more meaningful an otherwise dreadfully lackluster name.

-I would not want to- it’s A.) too predictable and B.) means the humans completely miss out, since what we actually see of the Zhaitan campaign hinges almost entirely on asura, charr, and sylvari. I agree, though, that not counting the DSD it does seem that there are some nice parallels.

-I wouldn’t count on it- this is way in the future, and way beyond my ability to guess, but I will note that the last year or two has seen ANet move rather pointedly away from underwater combat. (Removing the parts of WvW and sPvP that have it, ignoring or simply not having it in new maps, including the coastal Labyrinthine Cliffs and the island Southsun Cove, only including underwater weapons in 2 of the 15 black lion skinsets that’ve been released to date…)

Aaron Ansari.1604:

-It’s too early to tell, and it might be intended to be a mystery, but… maybe the Mordrem are of Mordremoth’s body, either directly in case of the tendrils and the Vinewrath, or, by way of seeds or spores, descended from Mordremoth’s physical body. …

Would make the most sense to me with the Sylvari being born from the Pale Tree which is in return a seed/champion/supplier of Mordremoth cleansed by Ronan and Ventari. Additionally, the Beta stress-test revealed humanoid enemies called Mordrem Court, showing that there is at least one “normal/corrupted” Pale Tree out there.

Then again, the husks, thrasher and wolves fit into the whole “part of a bigger being” context but trolls and griffs look more corrupted to me. Again, this doesn’t have to mean a thing since the typical Dragon Champions and some other higher ups are disconnected parts of their respective Dragon aswell. (Mouth of Zhaitan, Tequatl,…)

Or the Court (and wasn’t the name changed to Guards?) were Pact sylvari that just turned, or not sylvari from a tree at all. It’s premature to jump to conclusions. At this point, the discussion is healthier if we take the care to clarify we’re only dealing in possibilities.

As for the trolls, it’s been observed that they look like a normal creature that’s been overcome by some sort of fungus.

This topic again. Anet needs to fix that search engine of theirs.

• Zhaitan comes from dwarven legends/Scroll of the Five True God.
• Primordus comes from dwarven legends/Scroll of the Five True God.
• Jormag comes from dwarven legends/Scroll of the Five True God.
• Kralkatorrik comes from Glint/Scroll of the Five True God.
• Mordremoth comes from the Scroll of the Five True Gods.

Presumably, the jotun records also contain the names. Though why the deep sea dragon’s name is continuously missing is curious.

As for minion names:

• Destroyers destroy.
• Risen have risen from the dead.
• Icebrood are a brood made of ice.
• Branded are those branded by Kralkatorrik/the Dragonbrand.
• Mordrem are those that come from Mordremoth (lamest).

The later was were I made a joke once that because the Sclerite weapons look like something that could be the DSD’s corruption that the DSD’s name is Scleritefin just as Mordrem→Mordremoth.

Why we call them Mordrem? Dunno. I guess “sylvari” was too spoiler and “Blighted” (see here ) was too unimaginative?

Each race doesn’t have its own dragon nemesis. Not really. If it was “humans vs Zhaitan” then humans would have had a much bigger role in Orr. They didn’t.

-Who is responsible for Elder Dragons names, Mordremoths in particular?
Given that there’s no reason for dragon minions that never heard the Elder Dragons’ names before corruption (see: Orrian risen) to use names from the gods or ancient races, most likely the dragons themselves.

-What does the term Mordrem stand for besides being a minion of Mordremoth?
Mordrem: Being of Mordremoth. (read: comes from Mordremoth – “we come from the jungle dragon”)

Seems pretty simple the logic behind it. Now, the logic behind not using something else? That’s the question.

- Would you agree that every race has its own Elder Dragon nemesis? (Human vs Zhaitan, Sylvari vs Mordremoth, etc)

Nope. Otherwise humans got the short end of the stick, and sylvari got two dragons. Because Zhaitan was mostly about ze plants! And what wasn’t was about charr and, arguably, asura. Very little norn and human interference (and all norn interference we see resulted in risen norn!).

- If the former is true, will we receive a sixth race consisting of underwater dwellers once we take the fight to Bubbles? (Quaggan for Everyone!)

Largos.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Or the Court (and wasn’t the name changed to Guards?)

According to Matthew Medina, it wasn’t so much “changed” but a bug that it said Court. There is no Mordrem Court (according to Matthew Medina).

I preferd the name Overgrown for the Mordrem. They used it at the very beginning of LS season 2, in Gates of Maguuma. It did fit much better with the names of the other dragon minions imo. I wonder why they changed it.

Good post by Konig Des Todes; helped clarify that there’s a history to the name behind dragons, that they aren’t specifically associated with a particular race.

I agree that ‘overgrown’ is more fun than ‘mordrem’ (and it’s easier to type, too).

However, in the grand scheme of things, if the writers are going to change a minor bit of lore, this might be last on my list of things I hope to see addressed. Plus, it is usually fairly resource intensive to change the names of a a few dozen creatures (the ‘change’ itself is usually easy — the testing and confirming that such changes don’t affect anything else is what ends up being complicated).

tl;dr ‘mordrem’ is fine

edit: added clarifying phrase

BobbyStein.2315:

We showed the enemy nameplates as “overgrown” for the duration of the first episode two-week window, and then switched them to “Mordrem” when the second episode went live once Mordremoth’s name was established in the story. This was to prevent spoiler nameplates in the open world before episode 2 hit the servers.

Makes sense, but still, why change it at all? The Icebrood aren’t called Jorms, the Branded aren’t Kralkos, the Destroyers aren’t Primos and so on. They all have names that sound like the come from someone observing what they look like or what they do, which makes sense in my opinion. Now of course you could say, the pact knew they came from Mordremoth, so they called them Mordrem to describe that relation, still I think Overgrown or even Blighted would have been a better fit with the existing naming patterns. Just my two cents.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

BobbyStein.2315:

We showed the enemy nameplates as “overgrown” for the duration of the first episode two-week window, and then switched them to “Mordrem” when the second episode went live once Mordremoth’s name was established in the story. This was to prevent spoiler nameplates in the open world before episode 2 hit the servers.

Makes sense, but still, why change it at all? The Icebrood aren’t called Jorms, the Branded aren’t Kralkos, the Destroyers aren’t Primos and so on. They all have names that sound like the come from someone observing what they look like or what they do, which makes sense in my opinion. Now of course you could say, the pact knew they came from Mordremoth, so they called them Mordrem to describe that relation, still I think Overgrown or even Blighted would have been a better fit with the existing naming patterns. Just my two cents.

I’m thinking… If we have Steve…. Would the Leviathan’s name be Steve Junior?

As far as the Largos and DSD go, from what little interaction we have in game with a Largos, they’re still down there fighting and only those solitary Largos out hunting have left their territory, the rest have remained at “home”…at least that is what I gained from the limited conversations with the few Largos we talk to.

I think the reason Mordremoth’s minions are called Mordrem and not some thematic take like the other minions is because Tyria as a whole is better informed about what the kitten is going on with these dragon minions.

I mean, none of the names of the Elder Dragons showed up at all in GW1, though in retrospect, you could see their influence on the world as far back as Prophecies (the Orrian Undead you fought in the zones/missions on the coast of Kryta, anyone?) It’s pretty easy then to see how they might be named something that has no relation to the Dragons because noone at the time made the connection. Destroyers were named such because that’s what the Dwarves called them, based on an old doomsday prophecy (which turned out to be true) and likely because the name “Primordus” was taboo (as it’s mentioned a couple of times that true name of the Great Destroyer read aloud would summon him) Risen dead, as I mentioned before, were a problem for Kyrta and the Tarnished Coast ever since Orr sunk, and I can see Norn sharing campfire horror stories about a poor hunter encountering one of the mythical “Icebrood:” mad, corrupted beasts or Norn covered in some strange ice radiating power and a deathly cold, only to slowly realize over the years until Jormag’s awakening that these stories are becoming more prevalent, and no longer something that your cousin’s wife heard from her best friend’s brother at a moot three months ago. It probably wasn’t until the dragons awakened that people began to see the connection.

As for Branded… Kralkatorrik’s awakening and creation of the Brand was a very sudden thing; I suspect very few, if any of the humans and charr who first fought them were aware of the Elder Dragon’s name (even though he’s been a mountainous island in the middle of the Charr/Blood Legion Homelands until that moment) So “Branded,” as in “creatures from the Brand” was likely the name people picked up on.

However, when we get to Mordremoth, some of the first people to see it’s awakening influence (i.e. the player and their companions) are also well-informed able to recognize the actions of an Elder Dragon, and even the name of the dragon in question, so IMO it’s easy to see how the name “Mordrem” might get attached to Mordremoth’s minions before some local nomenclature managed to stick.

That being said, it wouldn’t shock me if the intelligent races living the Magumma Jungle we find in HoT will have their own names for Mordremoth’s minions, kinda like the hylek calling Risen “Sunless”

I’ve a probably lame theory on this, based on:

-Sylvari are Mordremoth’s minions, with a deep if unwitting mental connection to the dragon.

-Sylvari names do tend to the Gaelic/Arthurian, and “Mor” is a prefix often used for Arthurian villains/dark sorts (Morgan, Mordred, the Morrigu, etc).

-The Priory and the Pact are riddled with Sylvari.

So, though this is a bit of a retcon, perhaps the reason everyone just suddenly knew the dragon’s name, and applied it to its minions, was that enough sylvari were around to feed in the “hey, this is so clearly the name, let’s use it” feeling.

@Foefeller: GW1 Orrian undead were not related to Zhaitan. There is currently nothing beyond the shared concept of undeath that connects the two. Khilbron’s appearance being draconic is purely coincidental and he – or any other Orrian undead – acts nothing like a risen.

The term “risen” isn’t even used in Sea of Sorrows – not even in the end that takes place in 1259 AE, roughly 30 years after Zhaitan rose.

The first icebrood that the norn ever encountered was Svanir. After that, it wasn’t until Jormag rose that they had such terms.

Destroyers come from the dwarven’s knowledge of the previous rise.

Branded is explicitly named after those of the Dragonbrand, well after the knowledge of the Elder Dragons was commonplace, and knowledge of Kralkatorrik was probably known by Priory and Whispers (though that the mountain was Kralkatorrik would have been unknown, naturally).

So the names are not a result of not knowing about the Elder Dragons. In fact, one of them (Destroyers) come from the biggest source of knowledge on the Elder Dragons.

@Donari: It’s already been explained how folks “suddenly” knew Mordremoth’s name. It was knowledge the characters had that the players didn’t. Poorly written but there you have it.

Yep, you’re right! Hence me calling it a bit of a retcon. Sort of the same way people try to make sense of Star Trek physics that were written to serve episodic plots with no original intent to form a cohesive whole

I’m not saying it was planned that way all along, just that I can head-canon it more successfully that way.

Donari.5237:

-Sylvari names do tend to the Gaelic/Arthurian, and “Mor” is a prefix often used for Arthurian villains/dark sorts (Morgan, Mordred, the Morrigu, etc).

Mordrem is an example of a phonestheme – we infer a meaning from other similar sounding words, like murder, murky and mortal and morbid. Probably due to the influence of the Latin mort, from which we derive mortalitity, and the French morte (death). And/or maybe from The old German mora for dark.

Tolkien deliberately based many nasty elvish names on the German mora: Mordor, Moria, Morgoth etc.