Guild Wars 2

What I see is Tyria’s version of spartans, they’re brave and loyal soldiers even after they became ghosts they fight for Ascalon, we even trick them and fight on their side in one explorable path, even in fractals they protect their statue and we bring a shaman to destroy it and make rituals over its ruins, why the hate for Ascalonians, I love them, I don’t want to hurt them!

Trust me, as someone who played as an Ascalonian in the first game, I hate it too. As to the why- well, when we aren’t actively tricking them, the ghosts have an unfortunate habit of trying to kill us.
As you’ve apparently done the Ascalonian Catacombs, I’m going to assume you’re familiar with the Foefire. The ghosts hate the living because of it- the only way you can reason with them is by pretending to be one of them. It’s hurt or be hurt, they don’t leave much choice in the matter.

Because the Charr are cute, fluffy, and can do no wrong? They would especially never nuke an entire region, then try to enslave the remaining populace… Never…

/sarcasm

As for why they are considered bad guys, is because their story is mostly told from the Charr’s PoV. The Charr really don’t consider anything they did to the Ascalonian human as bad, or how their 20 year war might have driven the king to an act of madness, like unleashing the Foefire.

Oh, the charr know they’re responsible for pushing Adelbern into a corner. The reason they don’t think it was bad is because the charr don’t have a concept of just war. To them, the ends really do justify the means. The Searing, enslaving and murdering civilians… those weren’t bad because the charr use a different moral scale.

Because technically they are?
Ascalon was never a human kingdom to begin with. They simply stole it from the Charr and claimed it as their own.

If someone invaded and occupied your homeland you wouldn’t really see them as the good guys now would you?

As for the ghosts: They ARE evil. The Foe-Fire locked them into a state where they see every single living creature as an invader and will try to kill them.

Ascalon wasn’t charr to begin with either. To the best of our knowledge, the first intelligent race to live there was the grawl. The charr conquered Ascalon- it’s a bit hypocritical to say humans are in the wrong for doing the same thing.

As Aaron said, Ascalon was never Charr land originally either. They came in and conquered the area from another race, so you can’t really use the homeland excuse. Another reason you can’t is that excuse, is because you can actually see the Charr Homelands on the map. Its the green area, above the Ascalon region, in the far NE corner.

Also, the Ascalonian humans held that area for over a thousand years before the Searing. Any land rights the Charr held for it, are long since dead and ancient memories. It would be like Mongolia saying that all the land their empire held, 700-800 years ago, justly belong to them, just because they once owned it.

Ascalonians aren’t evil. Their ghosts are just a bit crazy because adleburn condemned them to protect ascalon in their death…

It isn’t that they’re evil, just that they’re too dangerous and run the risk of killing living people if they aren’t taken care of, they are after all ghosts – they deserve to go into the afterlife in the mists or whatever it is ghosts are meant to do.

As for the grawl being an intelligent race – that’s debatable, I think they come across as intelligent because for some bizarre reason Anet thought it was ok to have people do their voice acting and not edit the vocals in any way..

It’s not the way they come across, though the grawl voices are a little disappointing (I remember fondly the guttural “WE RA RA”), but rather that they are capable of spoken language that displays their intelligence. Language is the foundation and primary indicator of abstract thinking.

Abstract thinking of living in huts and worshipping anything they find as a god…I’d say 5 skrit are more intelligent

Probably, but they do have a concept of ‘godly’ or ‘divine’.

The grawl are certainly not the most intelligent of the sapient races, but they are sapient, and we have been told that they were native to Ascalon and conquered by the charr.

On the original post – when ArenaNet talked about the fractals back when they were introduced, they specifically cited the urban battleground fractal as something that many characters would be appalled by – humans because they’re put on the side of the charr during the Searing, charr because they’re put in the bodies of Flame Legion. However, you have to do what you have to do in order to stabilise the fractal.

Erukk.1408:

As Aaron said, Ascalon was never Charr land originally either. They came in and conquered the area from another race, so you can’t really use the homeland excuse. Another reason you can’t is that excuse, is because you can actually see the Charr Homelands on the map. Its the green area, above the Ascalon region, in the far NE corner.

Actually no, you can see the BLOOD LEGION homeland on the map.
We also know that the Flame Legion homelands seems to be Fireheart Rise.
We don’t however have any information about where the rest of the legion have their homelands. (Although Iron Legion seems to have claimed Ascalon as their base of operations at the moment).

We also have no information about which (if any) race inhabited Ascalon before the Charr came there. All we know is that the Charr took the lands sometime before year 100 BE. And the fact that they took the land does not have to mean they actually invaded and occupied it from another race. It could have been a no mans land before the Charr came.

Yes, I stand corrected. Those are the Blood Legion homelands now. The original Charr homelands are still east of the Blazeridge Mountains though.

No longer clamoring over the same territories, the unified Charr spread throughout the northern reaches of their homeland, and down into the lands east of the Shiverpeak Mountains. The Charr subjugated or destroyed any and all who dared defy them within their territories; they were masters of all they surveyed.

That’s from the Ecology of the Charr. That statement also implies that they conquered the sentient races in the area, to claim it as their own. If it was really a no mans lands, there would be no need to “subjugate or destroy any and all who dared to defy them”.

Fantasy worlds often have enemies who are evil because they want to be evil. In the real world there are many evil acts perpetrated for a ‘greater good’ and even if the cause is good it cannot justify the acts. In GW2 the Asclonians believe the greater good is the defense of their nation and they will mercilessly kill everyone they see. However there is no nation to defend so they are just merciless evil killers.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Ascalonians aren’t evil. Their ghosts are just a bit crazy because adleburn condemned them to protect ascalon in their death…

It isn’t that they’re evil, just that they’re too dangerous and run the risk of killing living people if they aren’t taken care of, they are after all ghosts – they deserve to go into the afterlife in the mists or whatever it is ghosts are meant to do.

This would have been my reply as well.

I don’t see the Ascalonian ghosts as evil, but instead as confused and dangerous. They died during the war and now they are forever preserved in the state they died in, incapable of changing opinions or taking on other viewpoints or ever making peace with anything or anybody. They’re no longer persons capable of independent thought, they’re shadows / reflections / echoes of persons who are long dead. And that’s why you can’t reason with them.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

As for the grawl being an intelligent race – that’s debatable, I think they come across as intelligent because for some bizarre reason Anet thought it was ok to have people do their voice acting and not edit the vocals in any way..

That’s always struck me as odd, especially after playing the personal story chapter that deals with the Grawl. They’re depicted as simple minds, but at the same time capable of complex speech. Not sure what to make of this, as for me, complex speech always indicates complex thought processes, but maybe the Grawl are just special in the way that they do one without doing the other.

I don’t think the Ascalonians are even stuck in their own state of mind. Many Ascalonians had given up and were retreating. I personally doubt that they would be preserved in the state that they are in today. IMO the Ascalonian ghosts are all tied to the mind of the man that holds their souls here in the first place, Adlebern. If you look at the Ascalonians stuck in his mindset, a grief stricken madman, they kinda make sense.

I used to hate killing Ascalonians, although I haven’t yet brought my human into Ascalon. I have to try and push away my old feelings and realize how my characters are thinking. My charr has no problem blowing them away, and my sylvari only thought to save charr lives that could be put to better use fighting the Elder Dragons. When I take my human there, who is descended of a certain Ascalonian hero, I want to feel the mixed emotions that he feels. Knowing that to get through he has to kill them, but at the same time feel the pity for the way they are trapped and slight anger at the charr for all they have done. He won’t be a friend of these charr, but he’s smart enough not to start a war with them over it.

dunnberry.2964:

Abstract thinking of living in huts and worshipping anything they find as a god…I’d say 5 skrit are more intelligent

OHHHHh the irony, you just described the charr of gw1.

So the humans was justified then? Fine, get off our lawn.

Ascalonians are not viewed as the bad guys, imo. The charr hate them, but that’s not making them bad guys – just a hatred among two “not bad guys” (I wouldn’t call either side “good” mind you).

Ascalonian ghosts however, are more of victims that are forced against their will to be evil. Adelbern’s curse on them makes them view every race as a charr, and they are all forced to share Adelbern’s immense insane hatred for charr – effectively making every single ghost out there (except Necromancer Bria who broke free of the curse somehow) an insane extremist racist who’ll fight to the death to reclaim “their” land.

lordkrall.7241:

Actually no, you can see the BLOOD LEGION homeland on the map.
We also know that the Flame Legion homelands seems to be Fireheart Rise.
We don’t however have any information about where the rest of the legion have their homelands. (Although Iron Legion seems to have claimed Ascalon as their base of operations at the moment).

We also have no information about which (if any) race inhabited Ascalon before the Charr came there. All we know is that the Charr took the lands sometime before year 100 BE. And the fact that they took the land does not have to mean they actually invaded and occupied it from another race. It could have been a no mans land before the Charr came.

Flame Legion don’t have homelands. They were exiled into the Blazeridge Steppes and lost their lands to the other three legions, and they just made an entrenchment in Fireheart Rise upon their return (though the Citadel of Flame may be Hrangmer – hard to tell, and somewhat unlikely).

As for who inhabited Ascalon – we know that grawl did. And it seems based on Kathanrax and Edge of Destiny, that the dwarves were in Ascalon and the now-called Blood Legion Homelands (that’s just charr territory, not where they are from – as Erukk said they came from east of the Blazeridge, per that line, and effectively made an n shape conquest around the Blazeridge Mountains – likely due to the Forgotten’s presence there). The novel mentions an underground dwarven village that would be placed around underneath Fields of Ruin (roughly), and with a dwarven hero who held back charr in the Blood Legion/Charr Homelands, it seems that the dwarves lived there before the Shiverpeaks – which would, in turn, explain how the jotun ruled all of the Shiverpeaks in the past, yet not hold conflict with the dwarves. The jotun’s ruling were likely before the dwarves lived in the Shiverpeaks – before they were displaced there like the grawl were.

Cause they are just vengeful hate mongering ghosts. Good or not in life, Adelbern was a stubborn man who murdered his own people, essentially binding them to an eternity of war. If I was one of his victims of that, Id be mad too. They arent the people they were when they were alive though.

The ghosts aren’t evil, they are cursed to see every living being as a Charr. Unfortunately that means that we have to defend ourselves if attacked by them.

I would be happy if we, as the players, were given a choice about how to treat the ghosts, but we aren’t. I feel pity for them but do not have much faith in ANet to handle this situation well, should the time come when the ghosts will be put to rest (if we will ever see that happen), given how the Charr are seemingly preferred over humans in GW2.

I have been to Ascalon with my human characters, but i avoid killing ghosts as much as i can, and i’ll never complete certain areas (not interested in world completion, i scraped along every corner in GW1, that was sufficient for me).

@ Saelune, the Charr would have murdered every human in Ascalon City, and any prisoner taken would have met some gruesome end as well. The blame for the Foefire falls upon the Charr, do not confuse cause and effect.

Frosch, I don’t think you can absolve Adlebern of his sins by saying the charr caused the Foefire. Adlebern had chances to leave, to give his people a chance to live life in another country, but he let his arrogance and his blind hatred hold him and a large portion of his people there until the bitter end (which he doomed them to). The charr aren’t sinless, but many other people deserve blame for the situation as well.

I’m not sure that anyone should feel guilty towards ghosts. We do not even killing them.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_ghost
“killing an Ascalonian ghost outright is difficult – attacking them only removes ectoplasm from the form until they dissipate and, after a period of time (which may vary) the ghost will simply reform”

The Adelbern we see in GW2 is pretty different from the tired monarch full of regrets that we met during “The last day dawns” in GW1. I was actually just irritated at seeing how he acts in the AC video and count that as Charr propaganda.

What was his “sin” then, that he refused to leave with Rurik? Every Ascalonian was given the chance to leave, and many did. You may blame Adelbern for making people stay, maybe because they believed that things would turn out alright…but the Charr are responsible for the deaths of the Ascalonians, not Adelbern.

The Forefire made the dead defenders rise again, Ascalon City was the last remaining human stronghold in Ascalon at that time (disregarding Ebonhawke as it was not affected by the Foefire). One could as well argue that Adelbern sent a lot of people to safety in Ebonhawke, as it was him who ordered them to leave.

Sure, in the end you can blame Adelbern for the Foefire, but the Charr’s view of him does not give him justice imo. He may not be sinless, but his sin was pride, not mass murder. That falls to the Charr alone.

His sin wasn’t mass murder?

We do not know that Ascalon city was the last human held area in Ascalon. In fact the ghosts found throughout Ascalon seem to point to the idea that there may have been some other settlements that were being besieged at the same time. Also, not everyone in Ascalon City was dead when he caused the Foefire, far from it. The charr had just breached the gate and the Ascalonian soldiers were dropping weapons and running for their lives from a group that far outnumbered them. Now do I doubt that they would have all been killed by the charr? Absolutely not. I am certain of it, but that would honestly be preferable to what their own king did. He not only chose to nuke his own country, condemning every living being in the country (considering that ebonhawke is on the very outskirts) to both immediate death, and to have their souls tied to the land possibly forever in a state of total madness.

And yes, for years before they came out with Ghosts of Ascalon and before they showed me his portrayal in GW2, I called him King Adledbrains because of the fact that he was most obviously insane and stupid. He walked into the charred ruins of his capital and said, “We Can Beat Them!” and his son looked at him and said, “Are You Crazy?!?” (complete and total paraphrase). And the Ascalonians weren’t “allowed” to follow Rurik, they were exiled from Ascalon. There’s a difference, they were forced to leave EVERYTHING behind if they left and never return. Why? Because he hated Krytans, other human beings who were offering him and his people shelter. Neither side of this war is good. I mean yes there were completely innocent individuals caught up in the crossfire, but both sides caused major atrocities. Adlebern wasn’t just a prideful man. He was a mass murdering psychopath, with a tenancy to be prideful.

Narc

I disagree. There were a few npc’s about who, when speaking of Adelbern, always thought of him a good and just king, especially in pre-searing. He was known for being a respectable leader. And whereas some would say his convo in the quest “The Last Day Dawns” is an exception to the rule, I would say his argument with his son is the real exception. That’s really the only time he loses his temper in all our encounters with him in Guild Wars. Yeah he didn’t trust Krytans, or Orrians for that matter, they had been at war(you know, the Guild Wars) for decades before the Charr blitzed Ascalon. It’s only natural a king would find a sudden offer of help from a longtime enemy as suspect.

Why did he fly off the handle like that? Who knows for sure. Maybe the writer’s simply needed a mechanism to advance the storyline over the Shiverpeaks and into Kryta. Whatever the reason, they never developed it. Personally his decision to stay and fight is the right one in my eyes. Here’s what I wrote in a different post:

“I guess it just boils down to opinion but by my eyes Adelbern was vindicated by his insistence on staying. He won, albeit with help from the Chosen Ones(you). Rurik’s decision to leave cost him his life. And Adelbern’s distrust of Kryta was a two-way road. Keep in mind the the ambassador to which you are referring to was wearing Mantle clothes. It wouldn’t be a stretch at all to think the Mantle and Mursaat offered help only to eventually subjugate Ascalon. He was stubborn and what he did to Rurik was wrong, but he wasn’t mad.”

Additionally, Rurik should have counseled with Adelbern on the matter in private, not in public in front of Ascalonian citizens. Telling a king he’s an old fool and that your taking his countrymen away from him would put you under the guillotine in some Middle Age kingdoms lol.

Now this is all messed up to no end because of the direction the writers went with the Charr in GW2. On the one hand you can actually say that Adelbern and Ascalon won the war after the defeat of the Charr Titans. But then GW2 lore comes out and all of a sudden in EotN they are still fighting somehow.

It seems fairly obvious to me that the GW2 writers saw both Adelbern’s outburst with his son, and there being no “official” end to the war(I mean, the Charr supposedly still held most of land north of the wall at the end of Last Day Dawns right?), as a great opportunity to develop the Charr and use Adelbern as the perfect villain: he hates Charr, he’s stubborn and has been known to lose his temper, and, most importantly, his kingdom lies right where the Charr lands lie in GW2.

They just used his under-developed persona, as well as a few holes in the story, to create an alternate scenario where he’s some psychopath that hates life. I don’t buy it. Not at all.

I’m not sure that the majority of the Ascalonian ghosts are even fully aware of what they’re doing. Judging by many of the ambient conversations I’ve heard from ghosts, most of them seem to be trapped in a bizarre state between life and death where they constantly relive the events of the past. There was a pair of Ascalonian ghostly peasants in Plains of Ashford who are talking about the Charr invasion getting closer, and when you approach, they scream about Charr and run, but they don’t attack unless you chase and corner them.

Then there’s also NPCs like Captain Calhaan in the same map who seem to be reliving the events of the past over and over (talking about the Great Wall mission in GW1). These lead me to believe that, with the exception of more powerful ghosts like Adelbern, most of these ghosts can’t even tell what’s really happening. They’re a tragic part of history, locked in the past and unable to escape it even as the world moves on without them. That was Adelbern’s greatest crime; forcing this on his own people because of his refusal to admit defeat. (Whether or not Adelbern was right in choosing to stay and fight instead of trying to start a new life like Rurik tried to do is a matter of personal determination. I think that while using the Foefire against the Charr in the final assault on Ascalon was a fitting “if we go down, we’re taking as many of you kittens with us as we can!” moment, the price it exacted from thousands of Ascalonian civilians was not justified.)

lordkrall.7241:

Erukk.1408:

As Aaron said, Ascalon was never Charr land originally either. They came in and conquered the area from another race, so you can’t really use the homeland excuse. Another reason you can’t is that excuse, is because you can actually see the Charr Homelands on the map. Its the green area, above the Ascalon region, in the far NE corner.

Actually no, you can see the BLOOD LEGION homeland on the map.
We also know that the Flame Legion homelands seems to be Fireheart Rise.
We don’t however have any information about where the rest of the legion have their homelands. (Although Iron Legion seems to have claimed Ascalon as their base of operations at the moment).

We also have no information about which (if any) race inhabited Ascalon before the Charr came there. All we know is that the Charr took the lands sometime before year 100 BE. And the fact that they took the land does not have to mean they actually invaded and occupied it from another race. It could have been a no mans land before the Charr came.

Unfortunately, it’s been taken down with the other prerelease blog posts, but Planet of the Grawl makes it pretty clear that the grawl lived in Ascalon before being forced out (or into the outskirts) or enslaved by the charr.

On the discussion regarding Adelbern – Adelbern’s mind basically cracked with the Searing, and afterwards he was so obsessed with holding onto what he still had that he was unable to take or authorise any action that might actually change the status quo for the better (such as going on the offensive or leaving). His irrational hatred of Krytans, additionally, had nothing to do with having some insight into the White Mantle, but comes purely from Guild Wars-inspired prejudices. If I recall correctly, there are characters who, while not saying it outright out of respect, allude to all this in Prophecies.

That said, I think it is fair to put the blame of the Foefire on the Charr. It was the Charr who decided they’d rather destroy land they hadn’t owned for over a thousand years rather than let bygones be bygones, and it was the charr that pushed Adelbern to a point where he was forced to employ his own magical superweapon. It’s arguable whether the ghosts elsewhere represent holdouts or whether they’ve been drawn to those locations through some other means, but odds are without the Foefire any human still in Ascalon would have been dead or worse not long afterwards anyway. In fact, without the casualties of the charr army both directly and indirectly from the Foefire, odds are pretty good Ebonhawke wouldn’t have survived either, and that without the distractions of Ebonhawke and the Foefire ghosts, the charr might well then have gone on a rampage elsewhere.

Especially when you consider the possibility that the disgrace of the Flame imperator in charge of the assault may have contributed to the rebellion.

The Foefire is certainly distasteful, but it’s quite possible that Tyria was better off for it having happened than not. The alternative could have been the charr still under Flame rule going on a rampage west (before the norn were pushed south) and taking out Kryta

Obsidian.1328:

They just used his under-developed persona, as well as a few holes in the story, to create an alternate scenario where he’s some psychopath that hates life. I don’t buy it. Not at all.

Like it or not, this is the official lore. In this regard, we can point to the Warhammer 40k universe. Warhammer lore was changed many times, many fans were unhappy or disagree with this, but it did not change anything. Even if the owner will say – “the sky is pink, rain comes from the bottom up, sausages grow on trees, and the protagonist is the reincarnation of Batman” – it will be deemed 100% reliable fact within this universe.

drax & Zax

I agree kinda. I’d say Adelbern’s mind was fine…until the GW2 team tweaked it and Ghosts of Ascalon was released. Had he not been portrayed in that manner, none of us would be having this discussion. The decision to stay and fight is, in my mind, admirable because he drew a line in the sand against a horde of evil(how the Charr were portrayed before EotN), where others, including Rurik, decided a better chance at life trumps defending your homeland. Where would Greece had been if a brave few Spartans hadn’t sacrificed and given Greece the time they needed to assemble an army to beat the Persians? It’s more important to die for freedom than live in slavery, or even exile, in my opinion. :/

I didn’t mean to imply that he knew about the Mantle outright, only that his distrust of them because they were Krytan saved Ascalonians from that possibility. A case of prejudice ending up helping you? /shrug

At any rate, it’s important to distinguish between the GW1 Adelbern and the GW2 Adelbern because they aren’t the same individual.

Rednik

Official or not, you owe it to your audience to present a believable narrative. Yeah, they can change any darn thing they want and call it fact, but people have their own brains. If they don’t care to make things sound legit, then people won’t take them as legit. The dev/player or writer/reader relationship is based on a certain amount of trust, and if they want to start changing things that don’t make sense they shouldn’t expect people to just blindly accept it. Which is why these forums are chock full of these discussions.

I really don’t think they changed Adelbern all that much. He just grew old, and his mind was probably slipping towards the end. The 20 year outright war, the time between the Searing and the Foefire, against the Charr didn’t help his mind either. He was 78-79 when he died.

He might have seemed fine at the end of The Last Day Dawns, but then you need to add the stress of another 10-15+ years of war to get to him at the Foefire. All of his soldiers and countrymen slowly getting picked away, attack after attack, battle after battle by the Charr.

I really can’t blame him for going insane at the end. Plus with him being in his late 70s, and him thinking that Rurik’s still alive sometimes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he developed Alzheimer’s or something.

Zaxares.5419:

I’m not sure that the majority of the Ascalonian ghosts are even fully aware of what they’re doing. Judging by many of the ambient conversations I’ve heard from ghosts, most of them seem to be trapped in a bizarre state between life and death where they constantly relive the events of the past. There was a pair of Ascalonian ghostly peasants in Plains of Ashford who are talking about the Charr invasion getting closer, and when you approach, they scream about Charr and run, but they don’t attack unless you chase and corner them.

Then there’s also NPCs like Captain Calhaan in the same map who seem to be reliving the events of the past over and over (talking about the Great Wall mission in GW1). These lead me to believe that, with the exception of more powerful ghosts like Adelbern, most of these ghosts can’t even tell what’s really happening. They’re a tragic part of history, locked in the past and unable to escape it even as the world moves on without them. That was Adelbern’s greatest crime; forcing this on his own people because of his refusal to admit defeat.

That’s what I meant earlier, you described it better than I could have ^^

Why are Ascalonians considered bad guys? They’re not. Some are, such as ghosts who’ve had their actions fuelled by their hate for the charr due to the foe fire, and separatists that refuse change (though they are not evil, they’re just a bit old-fashioned).

But most aren’t, as you can see by a few Ascalonian settlements around Kryta, namely the Ascalon Settlement in Gendarran Fields.

Ascalonians are the ‘bad guys?’ Has anyone told Ebonhawke about this?

Erukk.1408:

I really don’t think they changed Adelbern all that much. He just grew old, and his mind was probably slipping towards the end. The 20 year outright war, the time between the Searing and the Foefire, against the Charr didn’t help his mind either. He was 78-79 when he died.

He might have seemed fine at the end of The Last Day Dawns, but then you need to add the stress of another 10-15+ years of war to get to him at the Foefire. All of his soldiers and countrymen slowly getting picked away, attack after attack, battle after battle by the Charr.

I really can’t blame him for going insane at the end. Plus with him being in his late 70s, and him thinking that Rurik’s still alive sometimes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he developed Alzheimer’s or something.

This. And Adelbern’s slide was pretty predictable once the Searing opened the floodgates. For a good example of a leader of the people losing his kitten as his country disintegrates, go watch Downfall.

(I’m not saying Adelbern is comparable to a certain paperhanging kitten, just that their final days were likely comparable.)

Uruz Six.6594:

Ascalonians are the ‘bad guys?’ Has anyone told Ebonhawke about this?

Erukk.1408:

I really don’t think they changed Adelbern all that much. He just grew old, and his mind was probably slipping towards the end. The 20 year outright war, the time between the Searing and the Foefire, against the Charr didn’t help his mind either. He was 78-79 when he died.

He might have seemed fine at the end of The Last Day Dawns, but then you need to add the stress of another 10-15+ years of war to get to him at the Foefire. All of his soldiers and countrymen slowly getting picked away, attack after attack, battle after battle by the Charr.

I really can’t blame him for going insane at the end. Plus with him being in his late 70s, and him thinking that Rurik’s still alive sometimes, I wouldn’t be surprised if he developed Alzheimer’s or something.

This. And Adelbern’s slide was pretty predictable once the Searing opened the floodgates. For a good example of a leader of the people losing his kitten as his country disintegrates, go watch Downfall.

(I’m not saying Adelbern is comparable to a certain paperhanging kitten, just that their final days were likely comparable.)

But ya did compare the two.

And that is one heck of a comparison lol.

Ascalonians are fine. Murderous ghosts who kill everybody they meet, not so much.

Also, Id like to express my gratefulness to the posters that chose to look past their racial preferences in favor of the actual current GW lore. It’s good for worthy discussion. +1 to you all

Dustfinger.9510:

Ascalonians are fine. Murderous ghosts who kill everybody they meet, not so much.

Also, Id like to express my gratefulness to the posters that chose to look past their racial preferences in favor of the actual current GW lore. It’s good for worthy discussion. +1 to you all

touche sir!

Clever word usage. You’re either a civilized modernist or some kind of game-racist. -_-

For the record, it has nothing to do with racial preferences and everything to do with good story-telling and practical continuity. I really don’t care what the race is as long as it all makes good sense and fits together with some kind of plausibility.

I would also like to express my gratefulness to the posters who look past their dev preferences in favor of actual past GW lore.

So then Obsidian, you don’t think that Adlebern would go insane? You think that he, in reality, after another 20 years of war and the eventual slipping away of his kingdom he wouldn’t have had issues? I mean in 1072 Ascalon was broken. They survived because the charr were stupid and just rushed right through to get to Orr only to be obliterated. Because of this they survived, honestly mostly through guerrilla tactics. They had a few tactical holds, but they were losing land by the day, as was seen in the Nolani Academy mission. What was left of the wall did not in any way stop charr from coming through the many breach points. Twenty years pass. They hold on because of our actions constantly putting the charr in disarray. After Prophecies we kill the Flame Legion gods (aka titans) which forces them to slow down their assault and re consolidate power. Then in EotN (I realize by now we’re getting into the lore you choose not to believe in), we slow the charr down again by helping instigate a rebellion. So up until 1078 the charr have been tied up in our shenanigans keeping them from laying out any full scale assault on Ascalon, this doesn’t mean the land is 100% safe. Ascalon has most likely suffered greatly under the hands of the charr, just not against the full military might. 12 years later the charr come down in full force, Adlebern already seems to know that failure is possible, which would be why he had Ebonhawke created (again lore you would rather forget). He sees the army surround his city, and starts realizing that everything that he has worked for in his life is about to be taken away from him. That his people will die and his enemies will succeed, and he has no lineage that will keep his legacy going. In that minute he makes the decision to make certain that the charr will never truly own Ascalon. He breaks his sword creating the foefire and cursing every living human in Ascalon to quite possibly “eternally” protect the land from anything living.

EDIT: Don’t get me wrong. I loved GW1. I still get on pre-searing every once and a while to listen to the music and run around Barradin Estate and Ashford and Ascalon City just because they are about my favorite locations in the whole Guild Wars universe (Second only to Shing Jea because of my love of their portrayal of that asian inspired continent). That being said, unlike you I do not see the transformation of Adlebern in GW1 to the Adlebern of GW2 to be an unexpected leap. In fact, as I stated, I saw it as exactly what I expected to come of him, even way back then. Sure it isn’t quite what we wanted to occur. I would have loved to see a re-established kingdom of Ascalon with a white gleaming northern wall and a beautiful Serenity Temple. But you don’t always get exactly what you want out of a story. You seem to think that the way you want the scenario to play out is the only one that makes sense, but sometimes the exact opposite makes much more sense.

Obsidian.1328:

touche sir!

Clever word usage. You’re either a civilized modernist or some kind of game-racist. -_-

For the record, it has nothing to do with racial preferences and everything to do with good story-telling and practical continuity. I really don’t care what the race is as long as it all makes good sense and fits together with some kind of plausibility.

I would also like to express my gratefulness to the posters who look past their dev preferences in favor of actual past GW lore.

I just saw a lot of different opinions and after the first couple post I expected a lot more “faction cheerleaders” (race cheerleaders?) than there turned out to be. I figured I’d encourage this in the future by “rewarding” the behavior. Nothing more

Dustfinger.9510:

Obsidian.1328:

touche sir!

Clever word usage. You’re either a civilized modernist or some kind of game-racist. -_-

For the record, it has nothing to do with racial preferences and everything to do with good story-telling and practical continuity. I really don’t care what the race is as long as it all makes good sense and fits together with some kind of plausibility.

I would also like to express my gratefulness to the posters who look past their dev preferences in favor of actual past GW lore.

I just saw a lot of different opinions and after the first couple post I expected a lot more “faction cheerleaders” (race cheerleaders?) than there turned out to be. I figured I’d encourage this in the future by “rewarding” the behavior. Nothing more

I can see you miss me

Btw yes, the whole Ascalon lore is given from the charr PoV in GW2, some like that and some don’t. It’s just bad how they changed the whole charr and Ascalonian lore to makeplace for the charrs as a playeable race, however, charrs are almost the rarest choice by the ppl, still the fav of Arenanet.

Narc

Hmm…well, to me, the way it was presented we were actually pushing back the Charr day by day. On the east side, you push the Charr back north in the Fort Ranik mish, then make a raid north of the wall to save some ele’s, then run back to the capital to kill off the Charr who bum-rushed your capital. In every mish ‘cept the first one you’re wiping out their army and saving an area. Where is the losing ground that you see?

Unless there is some unwritten rule that says the Charr have unlimited numbers and just keep spawning north of the wall like the undead do in Orr DE’s, then it’s a little silly to assume they just keep coming. I mean, they blitz Ascalon and Orr with a mega zerg, and get wiped by the Cataclysm. Blitz Kryta with a normal zerg, and get wiped by the Mursaat. Regroup, blitz Ascalon again with a mini zerg because apparently they just ran right through it last time and didn’t bother to kill everyone, and get wiped again by you and what’s left of the Ascalon army. Yet they still keep massing armies in the north…their females must be dead tired with all those cubs they are producing… -_-

That not enough, ok well 2 years later those Titan baddies that gave the Charr all that power and zerker rage just got wiped in front of their very eyes. And the gods didn’t even help this time…just you, some half-beaten grisly Ascalonians, and an old king who can barely hold up his sword anymore. Where’s this Charr dominance??

As for Adelbern, given the situation where his back was against the wall in Ascalon City, then yeah…he probably would have tried something like the Foefire in order to kill off all the Charr there. But he wouldn’t have done it out of hatred and blind rage, he would have done it to save his people and his kingdom. There’s a very important difference there. Because the way ANet portrays him in the AC dungeon with those fiery demonic eyes and raging rhetoric, it’s hard to see him as anything but psychopathic. That not-so-subtle shift from “stalwart defender” to “genocidal lunatic” is what I take issue with, not the general facts of those events.

King Adelbern was nuts. look at the old Nolani Academy mission it gave hints to how wacky he was

[Quote] Prince Rurik: “Trumpets! The king must be near. The fall of Rin will have darkened his heart. Hail King Adelbern!”
King Adelbern: “Rise, my son. you have done well. The discovery of Stormcaller is surely a sign of victory.”
Prince Rurik: “It is a powerful weapon, but I fear not powerful enough. The Charr have amassed an army of many thousands.”
King Adelbern: “You overestimate these beasts, Rurik. Do not be afraid.”
Prince Rurik: “I am not afraid, father. I have seen them in battle. Rin has been destroyed! It would be wise to escape while we can. We should make for Kryta and rebuild our strength. Not wait here for death.”
King Adelbern: “I will never allow Ascalons to live in the shadow of the Krytans! It is Rin that will be rebuilt. And you will learn your place.”
Prince Rurik: “You have grown proud, Adelbern of Ascalon…proud and foolish!”
King Adelbern: “You would dare call your king a fool? I will hear no more. I banish you from Ascalon! You are no longer my prince, and you are no longer my son!”
[/quote]
Looks kinda loopy to me Than to make it worse the he stabed his own chief courtier and left the poor guy for dead under a table. only to be found by a Charr warband. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Savione

Also you don’t kill any foe fire ghosts you temporarily disperse them. your just eliminating a very real threat to your own person. I feel that the Ascalon Ghosts are all in there own way tormented souls forced to wander the world by there Mad king’s Insanity

Lastly not all Ascalonians are shown as evil the people in Ebonhawk are not “badguys” the people of the Ascalon settlement in Kryta are good people but, it could be argued that Ascalon took over Kryta’s culture

Gandarel.5091:

I can see you miss me

Btw yes, the whole Ascalon lore is given from the charr PoV in GW2, some like that and some don’t. It’s just bad how they changed the whole charr and Ascalonian lore to makeplace for the charrs as a playeable race, however, charrs are almost the rarest choice by the ppl, still the fav of Arenanet.

Lol.

Ehhhhh. Room was definatly made for the charr. There’s no denying that but I wouldn’t say it’s given from a charr pov since the ghosts really do kill everyone. And a-net wrote that the King wasn’t thinking straight from the beginning. then there are hints in game that certain members of charr don’t even think they got the complete story of history. seems to me a-net is giving us views of ascalonian lore from multiple pov’s.

Obsidian.1328:

But he wouldn’t have done it out of hatred and blind rage, he would have done it to save his people and his kingdom.

You know, this is a VERY odd way to save your people and kingdom, because if your kingdom is no longer have any citizens alive, it can hardly be called a kingdom. Adelbern could say “ah, hell with it, we can retreat to Kryta, eat our pride and ask for help, and after rebuilding our strength we will come back and kick those cats out of my kingdom”. But apparently he loved his power and his pride far more than his own people, and he chose to sacrifice them, to stay and rule as king of the dead, rather than ask for help.

So… Condemning all your people to “eternal” undeath so that you can keep your enemy from winning is good? (I write “eternal” because we do not know if/when the curse will ever be lifted or if Adlebern knew it could be liften at all) In my mind, straight up death would have been a better option than having your soul ripped out of your body and permanently trapped in a nightmarish world of charr constantly rampaging (remembering that every living thing appears as charr to the ghosts). Try as you want, by the end of even prophecies the view of him as Stalwart Defender was waning, you just didn’t want to see it.

As for the charr numbers, there are a lot of charr. I mean we know that the charr own what was called the Charr Homelands in GW1 plus loads of land east of the Blazeridge Mountains. I highly doubt that the armies that they originally sent were near their full forces, although I am certain that the death of their armies at Orr did have a major impact on their numbers. So 20 years pass, you do realize that this is plenty of time for a full new generation of charr to fill in the ranks.

As for what I saw in the storyline, it was the same that Rurik saw. We lost the wall, and we were able to beat them back out of sheer luck (repairing a trebuchet and using it to destroy a large part of their forces). Then we pushed ahead, only to get badly outnumbered and forced to retreat to Nolani, where we have to break a small siege force only to find that the CAPITAL has fallen. Not just any city, the capital city, most likely the safest place around, at least I know I would make my capital the safest, and the charr have demolished it. Sure we wipe out the forces, but you really think this was a winning war? The army itself never made any headway, only small bands of soldiers thinking outside of the box, and those small bands eventually die out.

Rednik.3809:

Obsidian.1328:

But he wouldn’t have done it out of hatred and blind rage, he would have done it to save his people and his kingdom.

You know, this is a VERY odd way to save your people and kingdom, because if your kingdom is no longer have any citizens alive, it can hardly be called a kingdom. Adelbern could say “ah, hell with it, we can retreat to Kryta, eat our pride and ask for help, and after rebuilding our strength we will come back and kick those cats out of my kingdom”. But apparently he loved his power and his pride far more than his own people, and he chose to sacrifice them, to stay and rule as king of the dead, rather than ask for help.

Well…that’s because of the way they wrote him. Before the new lore he was a lot like Theoden at Helm’s Deep. Stubborn, prideful, but still very much in charge of himself. Theoden actually laughs at the 10k zerg trying to storm his castle. Then, at their bleakest hour, he basically says “Eff it, if we’re gonna die we’re gonna do it throttling an orc on the way out. RALLY!!” He doesn’t know what Aragorn knows, that Gandalf and the others are nearly there, he just wants to go out fighting like a true soldier would.

Now…they could have written it so that Adelbern and Ascalon City went out like that, went out fighting and dying instead of him murdering his squire and dropping a nuke out of madness. Why do you think they didn’t? Because if they did, ANet would have made martyrs out of Adelbern and the Ascalonians with the player base and there’d be even less players wanting to roll a Charr. It’s painfully obvious! You can’t turn a main antagonist into a main protagonist inside a former protagonist’s land without introducing something that provides some legitimacy to it. ANet had to make something or someone in Ascalon look bad somehow so that some players will rally to the new race. And Adelbern was the obvious choice for that.

Simply expand on his outburst with his son, let him stew for 20 years inside Ascalon City watching his kingdom slowly get gutted, and his mind starts to falter…

…and poof! instant crazy old man.

Narc

The same could be said for Ascalonians just as easy. 20 years could have brought Ascalon a brand new army as well. Keep in mind that just like before EotN we didn’t get to see all the Charr lands to the north, we also didn’t get to see all the Ascalon lands to the south. Heck, post-searing Ascalon has a large strip of it cut off from it in the south that we could go to in pre-searing. Not to mention all the other unkown/unwritten towns and keeps to the east, west, and south. At first, we were only shown parts of both the Ascalon and Charr lands, albeit less of the Charr. But they simply chose to expand upon the north and the Charr…and then everyone says ermagerd it’s so obvious that Ascalon was done dude…look at all the land the Charr still have!

It was simply a choice they made when they decided to have the Charr be a playable race, nothing more. But I think we went over that topic in length a few days ago. :P

To answer your other question: why do I play the game? Well 80% of my time is spent in WvW. My server has an awesome teamspeak community that I find extremely enjoyable…and I like large-scale pvp. 10% hanging out with friends in pve, 5% leveling alts, and 5% helping with the temple chains or guild missions. That’s about it.

Same question for GW1? 80% running around solo or with friends doing missions, quests, skill hunting, build experimenting, and just plain enjoying Tyria; 10% in Jade Quarry pvp, 10% doing guild stuff like dungeons, etc. I would do missions over and over because they were both fun to do, and I liked reliving the storyline.

Yeah, 20 years could have brought in a new generation of Ascalonians, minus those that were exiled with Rurik, minus those that died of disease, starvation, and just plain lack of resources in a withering and dying land. The charr had a much easier time raising the next generation, you can’t deny that. They had fertile land for grazing cattle, homes, shelters, and their only major enemy at the time was trapped behind a wall in the south except for a few freedom fighters that attacked caravans once and a while. I personally can’t think of a scenario, even with a post WiK Kryta assisting (even if Adlebern agreed to Krytan help, which I doubt he would) I don’t think that both of their rattled armies (after major wars) would have been able to push out the charr and rebuild Ascalon as a human kingdom. Heck, I bet if Kryta tried to come to their assistance Adlebern would march his army up there and tell them to march their kittens back to their own kingdom.

I don’t doubt that Ascalon tried to replenish its numbers over the 20 years between the Searing and the Foefire, but there were just too many factors against it working. The Searing not only demolished much of the Great Wall, but it also turned the land into a burnt, smoking hellhole. Coupled with the destruction of valuable infrastructure like aquaducts, it would have made farming almost impossible in Ascalon. Since the key to a population boom is a surplus of food, that setback alone means that Ascalon would have struggled to repopulate.

It could still have worked had trade routes to Kryta and other nations still been open, but Adelbern’s deep distrust of Kryta likely meant that he also rejected all aid from the closest human kingdom capable of supporting him. (Indeed, I seem to recall Ambassador Zain saying he came to offer the White Mantle’s support and aid to Ascalon, but Adelbern rebuffed him.)