Guild Wars 2

The corrupted trolls and wolves are the most obvious ones but the rest I’m having difficulty figuring out. The teragriffs looks vaguely like griffons if you break their wings and remove the feathers, but those huge horns aren’t griffon like at all. The thrashers look a bit like corrupted wind riders but not definitively close enough for me to call it. Menders look like midget Charr so I have no idea at all what they’re meant to be originally.

Is there any official word or strong speculation lying around as to what the various Mordrem critters were before they were corrupted?

I think it is quite possible that many (but not all) modrem were grown, rather than corrupted.

From the wiki:

The appearance and shape of the Mordrem vary, but all of them have traits commonly associated with flora, being composed of corrupted plant matter. When they appear, a growth of small vines and other vegetation can be seen on the ground as they rise. They can take various shapes, such as the Mordrem Wolves appearing more animalistic and the Mordrem Husks as tall lumbering creatures. The process of Mordremoth’s corruption remains unclear, however, such as whether the creatures are formed into new shapes from vegetation or if Mordremoth takes animals and turns them into plant-like creations. However, there’s been no shown cases of the latter in the places attacked, and those the Mordrem kill are left displayed strangled by the vines.

So officially, it’s not clear, whether it is animals and creatures turned into plant monsters, or if it’s plants turned into creatures.

My personal opinion on the matter is that it is plant matter turned into creatures. If it was the latter, then we would see those killed by Mordrem be converted into Mordrem themselves. Much like the Risen, or the Branded.

At the very least, we would see human/charr/asura and others as Mordrem if it was creatures being turned into Mordrem, and not just plant matter in the shape of creatures.

Also, Teragriffs, more resemble Colocal then griffons. But griffons and Colocal are of the same family.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Colocal

pdavis.8031:

So officially, it’s not clear, whether it is animals and creatures turned into plant monsters, or if it’s plants turned into creatures.

My personal opinion on the matter is that it is plant matter turned into creatures. If it was the latter, then we would see those killed by Mordrem be converted into Mordrem themselves. Much like the Risen, or the Branded.

I think it’s some from column A, some from column B. Unless the plants grew fur and bones, the mordrem wolves were clearly animals at one point, and on the other end of the spectrum the husks seem to be altogether plant. It wouldn’t be unprecedented- we see it a bit with the icebrood, and per developer interviews Primordus could corrupt creatures as well as stone if he cared to.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

pdavis.8031:

So officially, it’s not clear, whether it is animals and creatures turned into plant monsters, or if it’s plants turned into creatures.

My personal opinion on the matter is that it is plant matter turned into creatures. If it was the latter, then we would see those killed by Mordrem be converted into Mordrem themselves. Much like the Risen, or the Branded.

I think it’s some from column A, some from column B. Unless the plants grew fur and bones, the mordrem wolves were clearly animals at one point, and on the other end of the spectrum the husks seem to be altogether plant. It wouldn’t be unprecedented- we see it a bit with the icebrood, and per developer interviews Primordus could corrupt creatures as well as stone if he cared to.

True, the Mordrem wolves WERE animals at some point, but they were dead when they become corrupted.
“Mordrem Wolves are mordrem which are made from the corpse of a wolf with the roots of a flower burrowing into its body and wrapped around its spine and skull.”

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mordrem_Wolf

It seems that Elder dragon corruption in general works a bit differently per dragon.

Zhaitan seemed only able to corrupt the dead, thus creating the risen. One wouldn’t turn risen until they had been killed first.

Jormag can corrupt the living, but generally only does so to those who come to him.

Kralkatorrik seems to be able to corrupt anything physical with his breath. Which means that his energy isn’t doing the corruption.

Primordus seems to create his minions from stone and fire, rather than corrupting living beings. (Not sure about that interview though, I’ll have to look it up.)

And Mordremoth…well thats what we are trying to find out

Most are likely corrupted plantlife made mobile – thrashers, for example, could be various flowers that were malformed and enlarged, given magic to float and so forth.

But some, like wolves, are clearly part corpses – though whether it’s a case of a plant minion puppeteering a wolf corpse, or a corpse growing planty-appendages is unclear.

Every other dragon we’ve seen minions of are known to be capable of corrupting living beings and landscapes, and most can corruption plants as well.

• Primordus is known to corrupt landscape and living being. But most minions are corrupted landscape.
• Jormag is known to corrupt landscape, living being, and corpse. But most minions are corrupted living beings.
• Zhaitan is known to corrupt landscape, living being, corpse, and plantlife. But most minions are corrupted corpses.
• Kralkatorrik is known to corrupt landscape, living being, and plantlife. But most minions are corrupted living beings.

I’d argue that Mordremoth is capable of corrupting landscape, corpse, and plantlife from what we’ve seen, but most minions are likely corrupted plants.

Mordrem Menders do actually look really suspicious, because….they look like Gargoyles, just smaller. They even use animations that look like ones used by Gargoyles from GW1.

Wiki says they’re mini trolls, but I know my stuff!

Rym.1469:

Mordrem Menders do actually look really suspicious, because….they look like Gargoyles, just smaller. They even use animations that look like ones used by Gargoyles from GW1.

Wiki says they’re mini trolls, but I know my stuff!

Mordy wiped out the Gargoyles!

They share animations with trolls (which I think also use the same skeleton as charr and tengu – akin to how norn and kodan both use the same skeleton, and humans/sylvari/largos do, and icebrood goliath/branded ogre/ogre share the same skeleton, and griffons, rock dogs, icebrood wolves, colocals, and teragriffs all share the same skeleton, etc. etc. etc.).

That is what the wiki means, I believe.

I think I’ve managed to convince myself that thrashers are corrupted wind riders. They float, have tentacles, have a prominent central eye and they do that spinny wind rider attack animation. They’re mutated, sure, but there’s enough wind rider there to convince me. It would also explain the complete lack of wind riders in Mordremoth controlled territory. The Maguuma should be absolutely lousy with them and yet the only place we’ve seen them is in Dry Top.

Although, as Konig has rightly pointed out, many different creatures share animations and skeletons. Some of them are wildly different in nature, for instance, air elementals and karka. Yet there’s enough similarities between thrashers and wind riders for me to think there’s a link here beyond animation sharing.

I for one would like to see the sentient races being infected by parasitic spores that overtake the host’s body when severely weakened. It brings horror and dire to the atmosphere of the game. Not only are the Sylvari in danger of failing to resist Mordremoth’s whispers, other people are also in danger of becoming servant abominations of Mordremoth themselves.

Tapioca.9062:

I think I’ve managed to convince myself that thrashers are corrupted wind riders. They float, have tentacles, have a prominent central eye and they do that spinny wind rider attack animation. They’re mutated, sure, but there’s enough wind rider there to convince me. It would also explain the complete lack of wind riders in Mordremoth controlled territory. The Maguuma should be absolutely lousy with them and yet the only place we’ve seen them is in Dry Top.

Although, as Konig has rightly pointed out, many different creatures share animations and skeletons. Some of them are wildly different in nature, for instance, air elementals and karka. Yet there’s enough similarities between thrashers and wind riders for me to think there’s a link here beyond animation sharing.

The similarities you point out exist in Eyes of Zhaitan too. But we know that Eyes were not made by corrupting wind riders.

Plus, the yellow thrashes don’t have that big eye.

Further, in GW1 the Wind Riders lived in the heavily jungled areas, not the arid places. So I find it odder that we have seen riders in Dry Top and northeast Brisban than not seeing them in Silverwastes.

You make good points, Konig, and I don’t like that because I was fond of this wind rider theory.

Unless the Kings of Orr were also secretly wind riders. Consider the following: Wind riders and Orrians are both renown for their ability and affinity with magic. No? No. I’ll just have to channel my inner Elsa and let it go.

Tapioca.9062:

You make good points, Konig, and I don’t like that

The story of my life.

8)

Seems to me like they are creations of corrupted plant matter. The mordrem wolves aren’t really corrupted wolves as much as they are a mordrem minion using the remains of a wolf as a vehicle.

This is unlike risen, in which the entity itself is corrupted by the dragon’s energy (Zhaitan can only corrupt animal matter) but rather that the corrupted entity is indigenous plant life, and because plants are by their nature largely non-animate Mordy favors using the structure of more animate materials to give them some additional mobility.

Think about a Mordrem wolf like a Risen driving a car, basically, and look at the other risen through that lens. Some are grown around a corpse, some are grown inside one, some don’t use a corpse at all, and some use pieces of several different corpses.

Like most of the other dragons, Mordy seems to have the ability to create minions from scratch, but it is likely more difficult to do so than corrupting existing matter within his sphere of influence (plants) This is similar to how Zhaitan deploys a much larger number of corrupted risen than organically grown tendrils, eyeballs, and other “non-corrupted” minions.

It’s likely that creating minions takes some of the dragon’s power no matter the dragon, and the largest portion of that is used to create their champions (which is why champions commonly appear to be “made” rather than “corrupted” in most cases) While they find it easier to create larger armies of lesser minions by using a fraction of their power and leveraging environmental materials as the “hull” and the material they create themselves as the “engine”