Basically, when you look at the Prophecies campaign…
Mission 2 basically just reversed the losses from Mission 1. Mission 3 the Ascalonians push north on the eastern front as a rescue mission, but don’t hold any ground. Mission 4, it turns out that while all that was happening in the east, one of two known Ascalonian cities that were still inhabited had been trashed.
Nothing happened there to blunt the charr war effort apart from the loss of a few soldiers, while meanwhile half of Ascalon’s remaining infrastructure, and who knows how many civilian casualties, were lost. The first four missions of Prophecies were, by any military rationale, an overall win for the charr – all the Ascalonian “victories” in that period was just limiting the damage. Last Day Dawns was more of a true victory, but mostly in the blow it struck against charr morale – it bought time, but without the ability to rebuild their numbers and defenses, or to go on the offensive on their own, all it did was postponed the inevitable.
Meanwhile, until tkittenon Vanguard got up north, the Ascalonians weren’t touching the charr homelands at all, while the charr were able to keep breeding and training new waves of warriors. Each charr assault, in turn, hurt the Ascalonians and took lives they could ill-afford to lose. Meanwhile, the Ascalonian lands had pools of tar in place of water and cracked parched land where almost nothing would grow instead of farmland – when you consider that they had virtually no sources of food or water, it’s amazing they held out as long as they did. Pyre’s comment about ‘when you can eat ash and sleep in flame’ is very telling – Ascalon simply didn’t have the resource base to fight a war.
Now, I do disagree with Narcemus in that I don’t think there was no way that Ascalon could have won. If, instead of being a xenophobic moron, Adelbern had accepted Krytan help in 1080, and then that Krytan help got bolstered from the other human nations, then Ascalon would probably still be a human nation now. However, Ascalon could never stand alone, and that’s what Adelbern insisted on doing.
Well…I never considered the central area we get to explore is all there is of Ascalon. Why assume that’s all there is left when we don’t do that for the other factions? Kryta had lands we couldn’t explore, and I doubt the Deldrimor Dwarves only owned those few cities we were able to visit. Same with Cantha and Elona. The Charr lands we don’t even get to see until EotN, but it’s just assumed they have fertile and populated lands up north.
Most games like this don’t try to accurately reflect demographics. They show you a piece of the pie, and you’re left with assumptions or allusions to the rest. It’s up to the writer’s to expand on that aspect, and when they did that for the Charr it makes so much sense that Ascalon was doomed. They could have just of easily done the same for Ascalon though. Oh there’s another city past that fishing village to the south, or the wizard’s tower, or Khylo in the SW, or something farther east who knows?
I never assumed that the relatively small area we get to explore of Ascalon in the game was all there was of it, just like for other kingdoms. Maybe that’s just me though. :/
Pretty much all of Ascalon was blasted by the Searing though, whether we visited it or not. There just wasn’t enough to grow much food on – that was the real damage done. Ascalon was still initially strong enough to keep the charr at bay for years – but they had no hope of keeping that up indefinitely.
Adelbern I see as more of a tragic figure. If I recall, in his younger days he was something of a war hero in the battles against Kryta and Orr during the Guild Wars – and that appears to have colored his view against those nations permanently. He took great pride in his own nation and distrusted the other two – even after the world changed, Orr was destroyed, and Ascalon was burned. Eventually the qualities that served him so well when his adversaries were other human kingdoms no longer helped him and, maybe, led to Ascalon’s final fall (except for Ebonhawke, but we have the Vanguard to thank for that who seemed to be a different, more pragmatic breed).
I agree that the only explanation for his actions in causing the Foefire required at least some twisting of the mind, though. His advanced age and the rapidly approaching specter of total defeat may have been contributing factors there. He probably reasoned that he and his people were about to die anyway, and why give the hated charr the satisfaction of a real victory? Evidently at that stage revenge mattered more to him than the fact that he’d be condemning his people to a grotesque eternal unrest.
I don’t think that makes him evil though – just stubborn to the last, and he pretty much lost all perspective on things.
Adelbern is almost as mad as the Mad King Thorn(are they related?)!
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.)
Then there is the other issue … “all this war, death, starvation and hellhole of a landscape is such a big turn on, anyone else feeling highly motivated to replenish our numbers?”
Then there is the other issue … “all this war, death, starvation and hellhole of a landscape is such a big turn on, anyone else feeling highly motivated to replenish our numbers?”
This is a pretty brilliant insight into how a situation actually works. Unless the king was going to issue mandatory procreation, and actually enforce it using guards in the marital room, replenishing numbers is a big problem no matter what the kingdoms need is. Stress starvation and doom would make it pretty difficult for a lot of people feel like engaging in the act. Then there’s the moral dilemma for each family as to whether they even want to bring children into that kind of world. Not to mention the practical aspect of life being hard enough as it is without needing to care for an extra mouth and another full time job of raising infants.
Then there is the other issue … “all this war, death, starvation and hellhole of a landscape is such a big turn on, anyone else feeling highly motivated to replenish our numbers?”
This is a pretty brilliant insight into how a situation actually works. Unless the king was going to issue mandatory procreation, and actually enforce it using guards in the marital room, replenishing numbers is a big problem no matter what the kingdoms need is. Stress starvation and doom would make it pretty difficult for a lot of people feel like engaging in the act. Then there’s the moral dilemma for each family as to whether they even want to bring children into that kind of world. Not to mention the practical aspect of life being hard enough as it is without needing to care for an extra mouth and another full time job of raising infants.
Actually, in times of danger and war, it’s not uncommon for people’s libidos to INCREASE. When people feel that they may not have much time left to live, they often have sex more (and with more partners) due to an subconscious urge to procreate before they die. This is why you often see baby booms during or following wars and other times of great calamity.
However, that still doesn’t get around the issue of having enough food and resources to support said increasing population. If anything, I believe that having new families to care for would only spur MORE Ascalonians to flee the country and try to give their children the best possible start in life in better circumstances, thereby making Adelbern’s situation even worse.
Times of modern war that’s true, where we remain fairly comfortable. Times of desolation takes it’s toll on the libido though. Especially when they were previously very comfortable in their lifestyle.
Pretty much all of Ascalon was blasted by the Searing though, whether we visited it or not.
How do you know that?
Pretty much all of Ascalon was blasted by the Searing though, whether we visited it or not.
How do you know that?
Worldmap?
Oh, you mean the entire region got the same shelling? For some reason I thought it was concentrated in the middle and lessened as you went out.
That’s prolly my own assumption though. :/
Whether or not it was worse in the middle and lessened on the way out the landscape was blasted. Green doesn’t appear on the map until the Blazeridge Mountains, even if stuff started growing back, there would be at least 1-2 years of little to no agricultural growth and very few sources of water, with all lakes and rivers either emptied or turned to tar.
Well…I never considered the central area we get to explore is all there is of Ascalon. Why assume that’s all there is left when we don’t do that for the other factions?
Well, the problem with that is that we do have a map…
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/3/30/Tyria_unexplored_map_2.jpg
You can see there there is mountain rang to the south of the area affected by the searing and below that some area that appears to still be farm-able land, but the question becomes was that Ascalonina territory? I don’t think it was.. because Ebonhawk would be in those mountain ranges, and I think it was established that Ebonhawk was the most southern ascalon city..
Oh I don’t know, I mean that whole snowy area in pre with the Wizard’s Tower is outside the “brown-out” zone, and that was considered Ascalon. When I look at that map it’s easy to see the extent of the Searing, perhaps people assume that giant, upside-down, pear-shaped brown-out doubles as the borders of Ascalon? Sure the gameplay limits you to the central area, but is that really all there is?
~note: I’m considering Ebonhawke outside the realm of my argument since it is GW2 material.
Yes people, you must continue to remember that when talking with Obsidian in the GW2 LORE FORUMS that GW2 lore is obscene and has no holding on anything. It is inaccurate, demeaning, and plain false. Using GW2 lore to debate something with Obsidian is like trying to tell a Trekker that the new Star Trek movies are awesome, lol.
A reminder, none of what I said about the lore is true at all, but Obsidian considers himself deserving of special consideration because of his own whims. Obviously he is much greater than us lesser being that just accept things as they are shown to us.
Oh my…
o.o
GuildMag: Why did only the inhabitants of Ebonhawke survive the Foefire, which has killed every other human in Ascalon and turned them into ghosts?
Jeff Grubb: Ebonhawke was not part of Ascalon at the point, though it was an outpost. It was beyond the effects of the spell.
http://www.guildmag.com/gmblitz-lore-interview-with-jeff-grubb
Correct me if I’m wrong; but according to the lore now that both swords have been obtained, Queen Jenna (Provided Rytlock let’s her borrow his sword… I don’t see that he wouldn’t) is now in a position to undo Adelbern’s curse and free the souls of the Ascalonians and stop the daily slaughter of innocent Charr.
…the fact that she hasn’t seems like a pretty hostile action.
You know… if a nation claiming to be your ally had something set up that killed you citizens on a daily basis, and had the power to shut down that something, but refused to – you’d probably stop considering them your allies in relatively short order
Correct me if I’m wrong; but according to the lore now that both swords have been obtained, Queen Jenna (Provided Rytlock let’s her borrow his sword… I don’t see that he wouldn’t) is now in a position to undo Adelbern’s curse and free the souls of the Ascalonians and stop the daily slaughter of innocent Charr.
…the fact that she hasn’t seems like a pretty hostile action.
You know… if a nation claiming to be your ally had something set up that killed you citizens on a daily basis, and had the power to shut down that something, but refused to – you’d probably stop considering them your allies in relatively short order
It needs to be someone descended from Adelbern, not just someone of royalty.
GuildMag: Why did only the inhabitants of Ebonhawke survive the Foefire, which has killed every other human in Ascalon and turned them into ghosts?
Jeff Grubb: Ebonhawke was not part of Ascalon at the point, though it was an outpost. It was beyond the effects of the spell.
http://www.guildmag.com/gmblitz-lore-interview-with-jeff-grubb
I see, so Jeff is saying that Ascalon ends right at the southern-most explorable part of the pre-searing map. If today’s Ebonhawke was placed in that map you could literally throw a rock at the gates from a hill there. And yet, when reading the history books found in Ebonhawke, they somehow traveled for days out of Ascalon to reach that old mining camp.
Must have been all the tar slowing them down.
Oh I don’t know, I mean that whole snowy area in pre with the Wizard’s Tower is outside the “brown-out” zone, and that was considered Ascalon.
Uh… you may want to reexamine the change from pre-Searing and post-Searing, because Wizard’s Folly, in its entirety, was struck by the Searing. The Searing effectively melted some of the eastern Shiverpeak Mountains.
~note: I’m considering Ebonhawke outside the realm of my argument since it is GW2 material.
You cannot just simply ignore pieces of evidence, for or against, just because you want to ignore it.
Correct me if I’m wrong; but according to the lore now that both swords have been obtained, Queen Jenna (Provided Rytlock let’s her borrow his sword… I don’t see that he wouldn’t) is now in a position to undo Adelbern’s curse and free the souls of the Ascalonians and stop the daily slaughter of innocent Charr.
…the fact that she hasn’t seems like a pretty hostile action.
You know… if a nation claiming to be your ally had something set up that killed you citizens on a daily basis, and had the power to shut down that something, but refused to – you’d probably stop considering them your allies in relatively short order
It needs to be someone descended from Adelbern, not just someone of royalty.
Rytlock easily would keep his own weapon, given how he acts about it in Edge of Destiny. He’s rather greedy when it comes to his super-powerful magical sword.
I don’t see why people presume Jennah must be the one to undo the curse – or even if Jennah could undo the curse. The legend – and need I emphasize the word legend? – is about the “rightful king of Ascalon” returning to the throne. Nothing about bloodlines, nor queens. And for all we know, it has to be convincing Adelbern to give up and that Ascalon will continue in human hands. Or the legend could be just that – a legend that doesn’t work.
And of course, there’s also the fact that Magdaer’s in Eir’s possession… kind of. Rather, it’s in the possession of either Eir or the unnamed blacksmith she said would fix it. And a broken sword isn’t really going to help Jennah much – or Logan, who was the target of the gift.
I see, so Jeff is saying that Ascalon ends right at the southern-most explorable part of the pre-searing map. If today’s Ebonhawke was placed in that map you could literally throw a rock at the gates from a hill there. And yet, when reading the history books found in Ebonhawke, they somehow traveled for days out of Ascalon to reach that old mining camp.
Must have been all the tar slowing them down.
There’s quite a lot more distance to Ebonhawke – which has expanded over the 240 years, mind you – than a mere “stone’s throw away” (there’s the whole of Fields of Ruin tacked on, if not more). And the several days walk – with civilians, including elderly and children I believe, which likely needed constant breaks – was from Ascalon City to Ebonhawke anyways. It was likely a slow march.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
There are actually lots of reasons Jennah wouldn’t – the question of whether it would work to begin with (keeping in mind, among other things, that Adelbern really doesn’t like Krytans), and the fact that her going would represent considerable personal risk. With respect to that, Wade is probably much more likely, as he is specifically Ascalonian and of the Ascalonian royal line while Jennah is only tangentially connected.
Oh I don’t know, I mean that whole snowy area in pre with the Wizard’s Tower is outside the “brown-out” zone, and that was considered Ascalon. When I look at that map it’s easy to see the extent of the Searing, perhaps people assume that giant, upside-down, pear-shaped brown-out doubles as the borders of Ascalon? Sure the gameplay limits you to the central area, but is that really all there is?
The whole Wizard’s Folly map is in the ‘brown-out’ area. We may not be able to visit it, but you can figure out where it is based on the locations of landmarks in post-searing Old Ascalon versus presearing Lakeside, and you can also see some of the topography in the world map that roughly matches the topography in the Wizard’s Folly map.
On top of that, the map distinctly shows the Shiverpeaks and Blazeridge Mountains coming together not too far south of presearing. The snowed-over part of Wizard’s Folly is an offshoot of the Shiverpeaks, while the Prophecies map did quite clearly show the two joining no more than a zone-width below the southern edge of Regent Valley.
The region south of the Wall really is pretty small – which probably goes a long way to explain why, just before the invasion, half of Ascalon was actually north of the Wall.
(edited by draxynnic.3719)
I’d say that it was quite possibly much more than half of Ascalon, if you take into account where exactly Duke Gaban’s estate was north of the wall, further than any of the seared lands.
Oh I don’t know, I mean that whole snowy area in pre with the Wizard’s Tower is outside the “brown-out” zone, and that was considered Ascalon.
Uh… you may want to reexamine the change from pre-Searing and post-Searing, because Wizard’s Folly, in its entirety, was struck by the Searing. The Searing effectively melted some of the eastern Shiverpeak Mountains..
Excellent, then there are areas beyond the explorable map that were struck by the Searing, and the Searing hit Ascalon in its entirety. Noted.
~note: I’m considering Ebonhawke outside the realm of my argument since it is GW2 material.
You cannot just simply ignore pieces of evidence, for or against, just because you want to ignore it..
You also shouldn’t ignore pieces of reasonable argument, for or against, just because you want to ignore it.
I see, so Jeff is saying that Ascalon ends right at the southern-most explorable part of the pre-searing map. If today’s Ebonhawke was placed in that map you could literally throw a rock at the gates from a hill there. And yet, when reading the history books found in Ebonhawke, they somehow traveled for days out of Ascalon to reach that old mining camp.
Must have been all the tar slowing them down.
There’s quite a lot more distance to Ebonhawke – which has expanded over the 240 years, mind you – than a mere “stone’s throw away” (there’s the whole of Fields of Ruin tacked on, if not more). And the several days walk – with civilians, including elderly and children I believe, which likely needed constant breaks – was from Ascalon City to Ebonhawke anyways. It was likely a slow march.
Wizard’s Folly I was just baiting. Just like if you overlay the map, Ebonhawke gates literally touch the edge of the southern explorable area in Pre-searing. Or why in the world can you see the North Wall running east to the horizon from Fort Ranik…I mean, if the areas we visit in-game are all there is of Ascalon, and we can’t go there as players, did Ascalonians just build that and abandon it? But whatever, I’m obviously nitpicking.
At any rate, my point in all this nonsense is not to take the landscape visuals as factual clues to the actual size of things. The areas we get to explore in-game are simply the areas the devs wanted to, or had time to, show us. Cantha has whole swaths of blurred-out city-scape, it’s simply not something they developed further…for whatever reason. Same with parts of Kryta and Elona.
Furthermore, it makes sense for the current game to encapsulate Ascalon to only what we can see in-game, otherwise they’d have to either extend the radius of the Searing and/or Foefire, or explain away all the random satellite towns/villages/forts/whatever that would surround any kingdom. You don’t see them because a)no one really gives a hoot and b)it’s just implied that there’s more stuff out there. It’s window dressing.
(edited by Obsidian.1328)
The wall does stop eventually – in fact, IIRC, if you go far enough east in Eastern Frontier you can actually come to a point where it just kinda peters out (although this could have been the result of damage due to the Searing).
Certainly, southern Ascalon in GW1 was bounded by the Shiverpeak and Blazeridge Mountains, and the entirety of that region was ruined by the Searing. The village that grew into Ebonhawke was one of those satellite settlements you refer to, and has been observed (it’s not that far south of Regent Valley) it was still within the devastation zone.
It seems to me that game scale =/= lore scale. But that quote seems to confirm that all of Ascalon was indeed hit by the foefire.
Overlaying a GW1 map to GW2 is just entirely wrong. Even entire mountains got moven in just to border the new regions, and some outposts slightly got moved away.
lso, the Foefire’s rang isn’t like “well, let’s take this map, and within this drawn border of our kingdomn eveyone will die”, more like a giant circle radious, and Ebonhawke was south enough to avoid that.
Btw there are many thing in the lore that would fail if we would analyze the in-game map.
The foefire may actualy have targeted the borders of the kingdom. It definitely targeted the citizens within it without raising the charr into ghosts.
BTW, magical destruction in this world surely can be distorted and weakened unexpectedly. As an example, the survival of Almorra Soulkeeper.
The foefire may actualy have targeted the borders of the kingdom. It definitely targeted the citizens within it without raising the charr into ghosts.
Well, I’d say it targetted the geographical borders of the territory called Ascalon, but not the borders of the kingdom of Ascalon, because Ebonhawke is considered to be in the Blazeridge mountais, but still inhabited by Ascalonians and was a part of the kingdom after established.
Do we know if the Foefire was actually a spell or not? To me, it sounded more like the magic of Magdaer trying to fulfill Adelbern’s wants/needs/desires. More of a magic gone awry, then an actually spell. Though, that’s only my personal opinion.
He wanted to fight the Charr, no matter the cost, and he wanted his men to never be able to flee ever again. When he struck the sword against the ground, the magic in the sword reacted to his desires and produced the Foefire.
I’m not sure how you would target the Ascalon region alone with it. The Foefire was unleashed in a fit of rage. I don’t think Adelbern was giving much thought about the AoE ending at his borders.
Concerning the question how far the Foefire reached, GoA mentiones that it “killed every human in the entire country” (p.239) as well that “it affected every bit of the nation except for Ebonhawke” (p.240). Adelbern may have decided to spare Ebonhawke, or it was simply too remote a place.
I also assumed that every human in Ascalon outside of Ascalon City (and with the exception of Ebonhawke) had been dead since the Charr had control over all of Ascalon except of Ascalon City (“conquering it would have eliminated the last outpost of human resistance in the region” – GoA, p.279), but we can meet ghosts outside of the ruins of Ascalon City itself, which only does fit into the picture to show that the Foefire did indeed cover all of Ascalon.
And the Foefire was magic of a powerful kind which could probably be extended or limited by the person unleashing it. So i assume Adelbern wanted it to cover all of the original human kingdom of Ascalon, with the exception of Ebonhawke.
Or we could say Adelbern’s magic didn’t kill any humans, just brought the recently fallen back as ghosts, that’s why Ebonhawke was unaffected.
Unfortunately, no – there are depictions of the Foefire ripping the ghosts out of Ascalonian soldiers. In fact, it seems as if the Foefire might have been limited to those who died to the Foefire itself or to the Charr between the Searing and the Foefire.
Ebonhawke may have been spared due to a range issue (there are few ghosts in Fireheart Rise apart from a JP, suggesting that far northern Ascalon might also have been spared), because even though it’s technically Ascalonian, Magdaer didn’t regard it as part of the country, because Ebonhawke was actually intended as a means for Adelbern to exile those he saw as political opponents (such as anyone getting too close to Kryta) and he didn’t see them as truly Ascalonian, or because in all his madness Adelbern recognised that Ebonhawke actually stood a chance of surviving the fall of Ascalon City when humans anywhere else in Ascalon were doomed either way.
They’re driven quite mad in death. They’re vengeful spirits that see all living things as intruders. Wouldn’t you want to expel a ghost from a house so you could live in it?
All this time I assumed the Foefire was limited to Ascalon City.
So…when it comes to power and range, it was technically on par with the Searing Cauldron then?
And if so, why aren’t more Tyrians trying to find these obvious game-changers? (Magdaer and Sohothin I mean)
Rytlock has Sohothin. (No one has any idea where/how he got it.)
Eir reclaimed Magdaer after AC story. She sent it to an unknown skilled blacksmith to get reforged.
So…does anyone know how to activate the sword’s power or anything?
The link I posted earlier seems to indicate that every human in Ascalon was killed by the foefire. Only ebonhawke was spared because it was merely an outpost of ascalon so beyond the reach of the spell.
So to recap this is what I think we’re looking at:
-The entirety of the kingdom was affected.
-The kingdom was targeted by the spell because ebonhawke survived only due to being an outpost (Maybe the spell could only work on the kingdom of the ruler or maybe it was a matter of the spells radius encompassing the whole kingdom)
-The spell didn’t count the outpost of ebonhawke as “within” the kingdom and neither do the devs. (since they described it as “merely an outpost”.)
-Ebonkawke was the only outpost to be excluded from the spell since “only they survived”. (Possibly due to any number of things like distance/how integral they were to the kingdom/how new the outpost was/or as froch said, the other outposts were already dead by charr. We don’t know.)
(edited by Dustfinger.9510)
Not more people are searching for Sohothin and Magdaer because the setting is like that, and that was a choice the devs made. I had the faint hope that it is all for the good of a future game expansion where we, the players can take part in putting the ghosts to rest, but by now i doubt that any such plans exist. I was wondering when i read EoD that Sohothin was not more of a topic, that it stayed in the hands of a Charr. My ingame character blames Logan for not taking it, and hopes for an opportunity to take it away.
And yes, the Foefire was on a level with the Searing (which killed roughly half the population of Ascalon).
About how to “undo” the Curse, we only know that it is said that the rightful king of Ascalon needs to return either Sohothin or Magdaer to Ascalon City. We do not even know if that means that it has to be someone from the royal line of Ascalon, or if it can be a descendant of Doric. Wade Samuelsson would most likely qualify. Adelbern knew in advance what he would cause with the Foefire, that means there was some sort of source available from where he got the knowledge, and that source could still exist and maybe tell something more about how to lift the curse.
(edited by Frosch.7809)
I think I get it now. Sohothin and Magdaer were probably written in as something akin to “divine” Orrian artifacts. Meaning they seem to bear resemblance to the Scepter of Orr and the Staff of Mists. Both sets are twins of each other, and both sets are divine in origin(bestowed to humans by the gods). Also, all of them are supposed to be very powerful, correct?
So, in a not-so-odd way, the Foefire was written in such a way that it resembles the Cataclysm. Power-hungry madman unleashes a nuke to kill Charr(oops humans too), Bitter old madman unleashes nuke to kill Charr(oops humans too). Also, after the Cataclysm Orrian undead rose and wandered the land throughout the remains of Orr, sound familiar? (undead =/= ghosts…sure w/e)
I have to say I would never have considered Adelbern to be a “Vizier-caliber” villain.
Bravo ANet.
And yes, the Foefire was on a level with the Searing (which killed roughly half the population of Ascalon).
What I don’t get with that is that there were Charr at the Viewing Hill that lived through the Foefire. The Viewing Hill is right next to Ascalon City. And yet, every human in the entirety of Ascalon was affected by the Foefire? So either there’s something I’m missing, or the Foefire was not so much to kill Charr but rather to curse humans so they could eternally kitten with Charr. Which means Adelbern was reeeeeeeally off his rocker.
I don’t buy it.
There are 2 versions of this story, one involves surviving charrs and that the Foefire only affected Ascaloncity, and the other, that the charr army was destroyed and the humans had been turned to ghosts.
Mixing them isn’t something that is going to work.
There are 2 versions of this story, one involves surviving charrs and that the Foefire only affected Ascaloncity, and the other, that the charr army was destroyed and the humans had been turned to ghosts.
Mixing them isn’t something that is going to work.
Well yeah, but the one where the Charr army is destroyed and the humans turned to ghosts is the same one where the group of Charr on Viewing Hill live. That’s the Charr version supported by Savione’s accounts.
The human version only affected Ascalon City and had Magdaer and the Claw of Khan-Ur(sp?) combining powers to ignite the Foefire upon the city proper.
The destroying of the charr may have just been a magical explosion because of the power of such a spell. But the inner working of the spell may have been intended to make the ascalonians “unbeatable”. but like the Sorcerers apprentice, he may not have undersrood the full implications of such an act because of his irrationality at the time.
Well reading the Foefire description on the GW2wiki, it’s the first time I’ve seen Adelbern referred to as a “sorcerer-king.” Was he hiding this dark, magical talent his whole life?
*or perhaps he chose necro as his 2ndary profession, lawl!
There are occasions when someone’s hair turned white due to extreme physical stress, if that applies to the Charr too then we may see the limit of the Foefire’s range when it came to affecting the Charr here. If that was intentional or not, and if Adelbern decided about it, who knows…
About Adelbern, he dug up the procedure for the Foefire from somewhere, earing him the nickname “sorcerer-king”, not necessarily meaning he had some hidden magical talents. The power of the Foefire came from the gods, and the last thing the Charr would admit is that it was through them that Adelbern could wield such power.
I would consider the “sorcerer king” title much like the “goremonger” title. It’s the charr despising their enemies. I would put it on the same level of false information as some of the human stories that we have seen to turn untrue. The only sorcery that Adlebern was ever known for was the Foefire. He never even tried to use sorcery to fight off the Titans in Last Day Dawns. I would personally say that the “whole charr army destroyed” makes plenty of sense with the other Foefire stories because of the fact that everything we have seen points to the Charr having just broken in the gates and started rampaging into the city. Because of this their army would all be extremely close to the city, and the small radius of Charr destruction was large enough to envelop them all, but not touch the viewing hill, although one could state that perhaps they were on the very verge of being killed as well, thus their fur changing color.
I wouldn’t put it as due to the charr despising their enemies. Or as charr not wanting to give the gods credit for giving humanity power since that is the only way they account for humans defeating charr in the first place. That the gods gave them the power to do it and that lead them to seek gods of their own. I would say it is false information however due simply to how the situation would look from an outside perspective.
A king casts a great and powerful spell. That king would look like a sorcerer to anyone who didn’t know he wasn’t one. The same way one might be considered a sorcerer if they were using a magical artifact to grant themselves magical abilities. basically, if they can cast spells of that calliber, then they must be a sorcerer.
I would consider the “sorcerer king” title much like the “goremonger” title. It’s the charr despising their enemies. I would put it on the same level of false information as some of the human stories that we have seen to turn untrue. The only sorcery that Adlebern was ever known for was the Foefire. He never even tried to use sorcery to fight off the Titans in Last Day Dawns. I would personally say that the “whole charr army destroyed” makes plenty of sense with the other Foefire stories because of the fact that everything we have seen points to the Charr having just broken in the gates and started rampaging into the city. Because of this their army would all be extremely close to the city, and the small radius of Charr destruction was large enough to envelop them all, but not touch the viewing hill, although one could state that perhaps they were on the very verge of being killed as well, thus their fur changing color.
Pretty much this. The Foefire converted all of the Ascalonians in a wide radius into ghosts, but only destroyed charr within the city. The thing was that, whether because that’s when he was desperate enough to do it or whether he was deliberately aiming to catch as many charr in the blast as he could, Adelbern waited until the majority of the charr army was inside the walls before detonating. The Fire Knives survived to tell the tale because they were outside the city, and there were probably other charr that, for whatever reason, hadn’t got in yet and survived, but the majority of the charr army was inside the walls – and thus, for most practical purposed, that army was destroyed as a fighting force.
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