Guild Wars 2

I recently rediscovered a love for my necromancer and thought I’d make Eye of Rodgort for him. I’m wondering, though, who the heck Rodgort was. I’m aware that two abilities from the original GW referenced Rodgort, and I’m also aware that the wiki claims that the name is in possible reference to a cartoon character’s name spelled backwards. None of this tells me much about Rodgort, however, except that he (she?) appears to be associated with fire.

Since several other game items reference figures from the lore (for example, Usoku’s Needle, Lost Seal of Usoku), I’m wondering if there’s some buried lore about Rodgort that I just can’t seem to find.

It’s just a funny reference, there is no further lore attached to the name.

Rodgort is a name attached to fire elementalist skills in the first game, which was basically about inflicting the “Burning” status and making use of it. Back then it was (as is so much other stuff ArenaNet did) a reference to Internet culture.

Here’s a hint, reverse the spelling and Google it.

ahem

As much as we know, it’s just a name tied to those two fire elementalist skills, one of which depicted a draconic like figure. This is all there is, other than the appearance of the legendary in GW2.

I’d say it’s more than “just a funny reference” – even if it began as such (heck, wasn’t there another figure that started as “just a funny reference” which grew to be a prominent figure in subsequent content updates? There’s quite a few, actually. Like Kilroy!).

Some of the legendaries do seem to hold a currently-hidden lore behind them, and Rodgort could be one such situation, meaning that all Rodgort is, would be a very well known torch which has possibly still unknown (to us) history.

(Also, Tobias, you should read the OP more often, ja?)

There’s no special lore about it, it’s just a funny play on Trogdor. I would assume that’s why everything looks all dragon-y and fiery as well. As a fan of Homestar Runner, I’ve loved this reference ever since I saw the skills in GW1.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(Also, Tobias, you should read the OP more often, ja?)

Probably, but that would leave nitpickers with nothing to do and I’m a firm believer in offering employment to the less fortunate.

. . . also I should probably stop posting in the lore section altogether. I get it 10% wrong more often than not.

Only 10% of what you post being wrong is probably better than most. :P

As the story goes, Rodgort was a man, or more precisely a dragon-man, though some scholars contend he was just a dragon… but in any event, he was still Rodgort.

rogdort is trogdor backwards ….TROGDORRRRRR!!!!!!!

Trogdor aside, given the way the GW1 skills that reference ‘Rodgort’ are named (Rodgort’s Invocation, Mark of Rodgort), I always assumed he was a famous pyromancer of times past who invented some spells which are now commonly used. Other games have used this convention of spells bearing the name of the mage who devised them. I don’t think there’s any solid lore on the person, though (my assumption has been that he was a man).

Even GW uses that kind of convention – see all the Verata skills, or the skills named after Canthan henchmen and ancient heroes. There’s even others like Bonetti’s Defense (Bonetti being a bandit in Ascalon that has a random chance of spawning).

I used to think Rodgort was a fire dragon/drake, under this assumption, given the depiction in the Rodgort’s Invocation skill being such, and most named skills have a figure that at least look like the named NPC to some degree (even if its as loose as general <insert race> figure).

But given the torch, I wouldn’t be surprised if the skills were either named after the torch, or the torch and skills are named after a Flame Legion charr. The head looks fairly charr-like, and its obtained via Citadel of Flame tokens.