Guild Wars 2

So the popular theory for some lore hounds for a while now, and to a lot of the general player base after finding Scarlet’s bunker, is that the voice in her head is probably Mordremoth, the jungle dragon that some other parts of the game have alluded to.

Since pre-launch. Way…way prelaunch, we knew of the four elder dragons. Zhaitan, Jormag, Primordus and Kralk. There was some teasing about a deep sea dragon that players named Bubbles, but a lot of speculation favored it not being an elder dragon strictly, but a big kitten dragon in the water or even something else. Either way, there has been no Bubbles news for well over a year.

Now it is seeming more and more likely we are getting a brand new dragon. And I wanted to know how people feel in general about getting Mordremoth when we haven’t even seen three of the four original elder dragons? All of the minions, and lore, and lieutenant battles, and displaced races, and damage those creatures have wrought…that we have essentially ignored for, going on, two years now. Primordus has had time to tunnel under and swallow all of Kryta and Ascalon in a sink hole. Kralk could have branded the entire continent by now if he was motivated.

What would you think of all of the attention getting shifted to this new dragon, that has come out of pretty much no where, as a result of living story…while three of the original four remaining ultimate destroyers of worlds sort of sit by the wayside and continue to be the most threatening, non-threat in Tyria?

Considering the various theories and such over the past several years, I wouldn’t say this Elder Dragon came out of no where.

Still, if this dragon is just now waking up, I could see how our attention might end up focused on it. Considering the damage the other dragons did upon their awaking (all of which are pre-game release), it might be in our best interests to maybe try to deal with this one as he’s waking up (if that’s indeed the case) rather than after he’s gotten a foothold.

Why do I think we’re in an awaking stage? Couple of reasons:

First, we know that Primordus’ awaking was delayed when we took out his master minion in GW1. If the pale tree was indeed to be the jungle dragon’s champion, it’s corruption to the side of good could have had an equivalent effect on the jungle dragons awaking, pushing it back.

Second, because we don’t have any information on this dragon. We don’t have any displaced races (examples: Jormag pushed out the norn and kodan, bubbles pushed out the krait and largos, Primordus pushed out the asura) . We don’t have any unaligned dragon minions. We have nothing, except the minor hint that the dragons and human gods may somehow be linked (6 gods, 6 dragons. does sort of make sense) and Themanova. We know the reactor was using draconic energy, it’s been confirmed.

Just my 2c I guess.

It works rather well since the others have already awoken, whether it was told via GW1 (first stirring of Primordus) or the novels (Kralkatorrik, Zhaitan). Since we missed Jormags rise, it would be rather cool to experience the awakening of a new Dragon in game first hand.

Whether that is the case….we will find out, but I personally think it makes more sense to do this than go up against one of the 3 known ones so early in the game’s life.

I don’t like this theory, which is admittedly gaining strength, because the ED’s have never been “one to talk”. In the novels they were forces of nature…. it’s hard to see how Scarlet would have an ED voice in her head. I can see Mordremoth corrupting her and Scarlet acting towards the ED’s end, but this always seemed more like what a god would do.

The other thing is that she opened this window by checking out the Eternal Alchemy. I just find it hard to believe that a “force of nature” was waiting for this window to be opened. Assuming in the first place that ED’s exist beyond the threshold of Tyria (i.e., in the Eternal Alchemy more like a god), I just find it weird that it would be able to pinpoint a person.

If it is Mordremoth it will be really interesting to see how ANet gets around that force of nature ideal.

Zhaitan is talking with you quite a few times during the Personal Story.

Kralkatorrik also had rather clear thoughts during the Edge of Destiny.

Ravious.4269:

I don’t like this theory, which is admittedly gaining strength, because the ED’s have never been “one to talk”. In the novels they were forces of nature…. it’s hard to see how Scarlet would have an ED voice in her head. I can see Mordremoth corrupting her and Scarlet acting towards the ED’s end, but this always seemed more like what a god would do.

The other thing is that she opened this window by checking out the Eternal Alchemy. I just find it hard to believe that a “force of nature” was waiting for this window to be opened. Assuming in the first place that ED’s exist beyond the threshold of Tyria (i.e., in the Eternal Alchemy more like a god), I just find it weird that it would be able to pinpoint a person.

If it is Mordremoth it will be really interesting to see how ANet gets around that force of nature ideal.

I get the distinct impression that Zaihtan spoke to his lieutenants, based on several of the story scenes. The wraith champ (can’t remember which story this is from, where you save a couple of priory teams then Trehearne summons a bunch of golems to help fight your way out), the eyes, the mouth. They all give them impression that Zaihten ‘speaks’ to them. Obviously he must in some fashion in order to give commands.

Of course we don’t really know for sure, whether they speak or not. Of course, they is nothing that says forces of nature don’t ‘talk’ either. Fantasy realm and all.

Sure, I think ED’s are a driving force of nature. Certain Lt.‘s seem to keep some of their intelligence, but they deeply feel the need to do things in service of that will of the ED. I don’t disagree that through the combination, as evidenced by some of the Personal Story speech, the Lt’s can’t be quite ingenius.

But Scarlet says, “Ever since I came out of Omadd’s machine, you’ve been taking credit for my ideas. They are mine! Not yours.”

I don’t think an ED would “claim” credit for an idea. I don’t think ED’s have ego. They just are.

I dunno. I am just put off by the idea of another dragon, when we haven’t even explored the idea of perusing the current ones.

Honestly I think this is a player created dragon. Maybe an antagonist that was originally planned and then scrapped due to time, but was resurrected when players began discovering all the artifacts of his existence (Project Alpha’s skills for one). I mean Scarlet and her activities really don’t mesh well with the dragons we have already. I just get the feeling that if this ends up being the case, that they just realized they needed a big finisher about halfway through and drew Mordremoth out of a bucket.

I hope we get a Living Story season 1 postmortem.

Mordremoth being the sixth Elder Dragon would actually be a clean slate for Arena Net to work on compared to the other Elder Dragons. Not much is known about it. Either be it’s minions or how it corrupts. One major problem I have had with the Elder Dragons in Guild Wars 2 is they never felt like a personal threat. They are very impersonal when it comes to the destruction they cause. So when we finally killed Zhaitan in a very anti-climatic conclusion. I walked away from that battle with this in mind: “one down five more to go."

Which is depressing because I know this is not what the writers intended. Especially with build up of making Zhaitan become diabolical to you personally through it’s minions or exterminating your closest companions (& hope). Zhaitan then would make promises to bring your beloved NPC’s back to life if you sacrificed yourself body and soul to it’s cause. By the end you were suppose to feel like death is a natural part of life, and what Zhaitan was offering you was a blasphemous/unnatural escape from reality. The problem was the message was too mottled, because of the rush design of the whole personal story. Which turned Zhaitan into another typical destructive/consume antagonist.

However if it does turn out to Mordremoth being behind Scarlet. It probably means that Arena Net is trying to fix those problems. As well create a central identity (more background information) for the Elder Dragons, and why we should find them personally threatening. It would be interesting if Mordremoth not only had power of nature but was much more of a cerebral opponent. Constantly playing games with it’s enemies in order to destroy it’s competition. I think it would be proving ground in creating an overarching narrative behind Mordremoth slowly through the living story. So they can get feedback on what the community likes/dislikes about it. I take it that season one being centered around Scarlet was a way to flesh out any issues adapting a story to the living world structure. Before they got into the real meat and bones of Mordremoth narrative. Finally we never actually have witnessed an Elder Dragon awakening and how destructive it can be.

As why not continue with the other established Elder Dragons? Actually I think Arena Net is probably going to continue their plot line but will be on a grander scale. Hence why Mordremoth would be a “B” plot line, while the other Elder Dragons would eventually be destroyed “one by one” in the main narrative. If they did rush any of the other dragons right now I don’t think we would be happy with the results, because it would repeat past mistakes. Nevertheless that does not mean we will be fighting Mordremoth by the end of Season 2. Mordremoth could throw other obstacles in our way before we could even get to it. Probably as going as far as to killing, corrupting, or kidnapping some profound characters in the Guild Wars universe to show off it’s power. Maybe some of the original destiny edge members will be it’s next target. Or perhaps Mordremoth could even bring back some older adversaries that have been dormant since the end of GW1.

Ravious.4269:

I don’t like this theory, which is admittedly gaining strength, because the ED’s have never been “one to talk”. In the novels they were forces of nature…. it’s hard to see how Scarlet would have an ED voice in her head. I can see Mordremoth corrupting her and Scarlet acting towards the ED’s end, but this always seemed more like what a god would do.

The other thing is that she opened this window by checking out the Eternal Alchemy. I just find it hard to believe that a “force of nature” was waiting for this window to be opened. Assuming in the first place that ED’s exist beyond the threshold of Tyria (i.e., in the Eternal Alchemy more like a god), I just find it weird that it would be able to pinpoint a person.

If it is Mordremoth it will be really interesting to see how ANet gets around that force of nature ideal.

Scarlet came out crazy from the machine, what if for some reason the machine accidentally interacted with Mordremoth?

The ED got his chance and corrupted Scarlet driving her crazy, all that “speaking” she thinks she’s hearing on her head is just part of her… “allucinations” or madness.

In the personal story of the Sylvari, there is hint of another tree like the pale tree…could be related to Mordremoth?

I don’t know why you don’t know about Mordremoth, but he is quite clearly in the game since launch.

1. His minions are all over the sylvari starting area. The great jungle wurm being the biggest one. I mean I have to hear that guy talk about corruption in the jungle every day to get the wurm to spawn. You fight these giant corrupted husks and vines and everything.

2. You fight his lieutenant in the dream in the sylvari tutorial. You misinterpret afterwords because you need to get shoehorned into the zhatian storyline like everyone else, but the first thing you do in the dream is fight a bunch of corrupted jungle dogs and a jungle dragon.

3. He’s mentioned in CoE a couple of times by name I believe, if you listen and read everything there.

He is certainly just as present as the other dragons in the game, the only one we really haven’t heard from is bubbles, but even his effects are seen in the krait coming to shore and more recently the kakra.

Ravious.4269:

I don’t like this theory, which is admittedly gaining strength, because the ED’s have never been “one to talk”. In the novels they were forces of nature…. it’s hard to see how Scarlet would have an ED voice in her head. I can see Mordremoth corrupting her and Scarlet acting towards the ED’s end, but this always seemed more like what a god would do.

Keep in mind it’s not a new thing for a Dragon to talk. Jormag is stated outright to promise power on numerous occasions usually resulting willing converts, and Zhaitan talked through his minions.

Dragons may or may not “talk” in the way that we do, but they absolutely do “talk” in some way. Plus, we don’t know the nature of Morde, for all we know he/she could be the most intelligent of the dragons.