Guild Wars 2

Zhaitan is the Undead Elder Dragon, the supreme master of everything Undead. His Minions operate on a whole different level then a Necromancers Minions, but isn’t it still a form of Necromancy?
Why didn’t the Pact gather Tyria’s most powerful Necromancers into a kind of Anti-Zhaitan collective?
A group containing;
- Trahearne, the Sylvari Firstborn and expert on Orrian Undead.
- Weibe, Havroun of Raven and one of the most powerful Norn Necromancers
- Marjory Delaqua, member of ’Destiny’s Edge 2.0’
etc…

I’m not suggesting that this coven of Necromancers would be able to outright stop Zhaitan, but they could perhaps get a greater understanding of it’s undead and their vulnerabilities. Or, more hands on, perhaps they could also bundle their powers to convert, cripple or lay waste to a portion of Zhaitan’s army(timed right before a kittenault?).
It feels like an overlooked opportunity to me…

Dragon minions – risen included – are nothing like standard undead. The only reason why Zhaitan is called the Elder Undead Dragon is because of his preference for corrupting corpses.

But we see two cases, at least, where he corrupts the living as well. And even in instantaneous corruption cases, his minions become rotten and gray-skinned – unlike standard undead. His minions are also fanatically devout, when they aren’t mindless, much like all other dragon minions; necromancer minions are mindless regardless unless they have souls in which they have said soul’s personality – no alterations.

Trahearne was studying the risen as was the most well known scholar on them. Marjory was distant from the threat and so was Weibe – why would they be considered (especially Marjory who’d be a no body at the time)? Trahearne did give a greater understanding of the risen through his studies – this is why he was respected by all three orders, and why he was the one placed in charge of the Pact in the first place.

Necromancers cannot control the risen, for they are not “true” undead – no necromancer could hold sway, unless they’re corrupted like Necromancer Rissa was (by all indications).

The average Risen and necromancy might mostly share the “(un)dead” part, only because it’s Zhaitan’s preference for minion, but any similarities between the two kinda break down past that, and the key to those differences lies in the magic used to actually corrupt/turn things into dragon minions.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/New-lore-interview-to-Anet-lore-team/first#post4226670

• What is the exact process by which someone is corrupted by a dragon? Is there any way to protect yourself from dragon corruption or repel it?

The magic Elder Dragons use to corrupt things is ancient, powerful, and barely understood by the greatest magical minds on Tyria. There have been spells that could successfully cleanse a living thing of dragon corruption (see the Ruined City of Arah dungeon’s Forgotten path, or the climax of the Pact’s campaign in Orr) but they are not well understood, require significant resources to cast, and must be cast in a particular geographic location, so they are not universally available.

Corruption of the living aside, Zhaitan does use corpses for his minions(the Corpse Ark proves this.) and Necromancers have magical power over the dead. So a conglomeration of powerful Necromancers should have the potential to return the basic minions of Zhaitan to their dead state, thus pacifying them. Stronger minions, those who received Zhaitans Premium Package deal, would possibly be a different matter since they have a conscious mind and a limit amount of free will.
Also, the Risen Abominations are little more then Necro Minions 2.0, they are corpses fused together and resurrected. They show about the same amount of brainpower of a Necro’s minions.

I mentioned Marjory, but of course, back then she was not on anyone’s radar.(Maybe a Priestess of Grenth would be better suited) Wiebe however, could certainly be contacted and perhaps conscripted(he is both well known and powerful). Havroun Grechen of Bear was present in Orr(may she rest in peace) to assist the Pact, so why not Weibe?

MaxTNT.3154:

Corruption of the living aside, Zhaitan does use corpses for his minions(the Corpse Ark proves this.) and Necromancers have magical power over the dead. So a conglomeration of powerful Necromancers should have the potential to return the basic minions of Zhaitan to their dead state, thus pacifying them. Stronger minions, those who received Zhaitans Premium Package deal, would possibly be a different matter since they have a conscious mind and a limit amount of free will.
Also, the Risen Abominations are little more then Necro Minions 2.0, they are corpses fused together and resurrected. They show about the same amount of brainpower of a Necro’s minions.

They might be both using dead being, but the magics used to control and animate them are completely different. Necromancers use death magic, and Elder Dragons use a their own brand of magic, as I linked above, it’s “ancient, powerful, and barely understood by the greatest magical minds on Tyria.”

Necromancers trying to work their magic on Risen would be like us trying to play a PS game on Xbox, or visa versa. Incompatible software.

I’d also add that even in the case of conventional undead, such as the armies of Khilbron or Joko, necromancers have never (that I’m aware) displayed any greater capabilities to combat or otherwise affect them (with the sole exception of ghosts, possibly as a result of hybridization with ritualist magic/methods). I suspect that necromancy as a school of magic in Tyria covers only minions, not what we traditionally think of as undead.

It’s been mentioned a few times that while Zhaitan may make use of the same raw material, the process of creating Risen is as different to normal necromancy as Jormag’s ice powers are to water magic – there’s enough similarity that studying the mortal school of magic can give you a little insight, but they’re not really comparable beyond the most basic level.

Certainly, it’s telling that over the century that Zhaitan was active, if it was possible for mortal necromancy to have any particular effect on Risen (beyond that they’d have against any other target) someone would probably have hit on it well before now. Possibly it’s been tried and failed, or possibly any necromancer in a position to try has sensed that it wasn’t going to work (Marjory’s Story indicates that necromancers can sense necromantic magic, so it might be that necromancers can tell by looking at the Risen that the 1325AE equivalent of Verata’s Gaze isn’t going to work).

Either way, the most likely explanation for the ‘missed opportunity’ is that NPCs with more information than we have decided that it wasn’t going to work.

We are also not going to be able to gather a few druids and turn Mordemoth’ minions into a flower garden.