Guild Wars 2

Posted by: shadowfanatik.5160

shadowfanatik.5160

in response to the “baldham” question, in many tribal cultures it is a custom to shave your head to represent mourning the loss of a family member or other loved one. I can only assume it is a way for the norn to express the same mourning.

Raak Bloodmaw

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Cobalt Raven.3986

Cobalt Raven.3986

I have a few.

LS2-HoT
Caithe knew what Trahearne was up to. She also said that “soon the world will know” regarding to the origin of Sylvari. Why didn’t she tell Trahearne? Why did she just stay silent and let scores of Sylvari turn or die?

Why did Trahearne fly the entire fleet into the jungle without sending scouts to explore first? If someone says “to stop the dragon before it fully awakens”- how does it count as being half awake when it’s been around for at least 2 years, and has extended its reach as far as the Iron Marches? (This is also partially a gripe, as comparing Trahearne’s behavior during vanilla PS to this- he should not be this careless.)

Where the bloody heck is the Commander for 2+ years and why was there no report or some indication of correspondence with Trahearne? In such an organization, one cannot go AWOL for that long and still have a position.

HoT proper (I’ll try not to gripe too much)- starting at Verdant Brink:

What happened to those Pact Vigilantes you ran off?

What exactly is the Coztic Itzel’s deal?

How did the Itzel and Nuhoch meet? (My curiosity)

Do the Itzel know the bandits?

More info on the Blighting Tree? Could it be that that tree IS Malyck’s tree and he was one of the, if not the only “minion” to escape Mordremization and instead became “Sylvari”? Also, where are the Blighting Tree seeds? <pure curiosity, I want to see where the Sylvari came from, in terms of specific place of origin.

Where’s Malyck, anyways?

Why did Rytlock tell Eir and Faolain to run to the overpass first, despite knowing that Faolain can’t be trusted (novel inference), and knowing that Eir is weakened and unarmed?

Also, Eir is a Norn. Why did she just stand there and take the shot despite still being able to move, and knowing that there is a small group of very armed warriors near her, at least one of whom could do first aid?

Why are the human nobility here, what exactly do they bring now that they’re stuck in the jungle thanks to Faren’s harebrained idea that it was a good time to go over Magus Falls on a joyride?

Auric Basin:
Why are the Exalted there, exactly? Who else lived in the Golden City? What happened to the Forgotten? Do they have a connection to the Zephyrites? How are they keeping the Mordrem at bay? How are they keeping Mordremoth’s influence out?

Tangled Depths:

If you’re a Sylvari, how come you aren’t hearing Mordy’s voice/feeling its presence at the surface?

Actually, general question: How are we able to resist the dragon?

Where did the Chak come from? How did they get so numerous?

Is it possible to reverse Mordremization? One guy seemed to be coming back to his mind.

What’s up with Taimi? Her mentor Zojja is captured, why doesn’t she mention this at all? Does Taimi just not care or…?

Why do we HAVE to go to Rata Novus? {this one is more of a gripe- if I think about it, I see that there were no Novans sighted for at least a few decades, if not much longer, according to that one Exalted where the ley line map is. No Novans came to shoot at me or talk to me either, despite hundreds on thousands of trespassers in the area and a dragon at the doorstep.}

Dragon’s Stand

Now going in reverse:

Did we actually kill Trahearne, or was that a clone? I say this because his death wasn’t acknowledged, which ANet usually doesn’t overlook, even for minor characters, much less for a major player like this guy. Also I noticed that this Trahearne was roughly comparable to Diarmuid, Hareth and Adrian. Eggy also showed that Trahearne was going to be/was cloned, and as you reached him last, the possibility of him being cloned is VERY high.

If Trahearne did in fact die, what the heck ANet, why no acknowledgement?

How is the PC not affected either physically or mentally by this? The PC thinks they just offed someone that they’ve been working with/might have been friends with for an extended period. Also, that ley energy blast had to have been at least 3-5 hubs’ worth. How the heck are we not dead? We basically got nuked with Tyrian World magic! And never mind the magic, the blast was big enough to be seen from the upper atmosphere and strong enough to blast us right out of the instance. How aren’t we injured from shrapnel or something?

Speaking of clones:
Egg said there were clones. I don’t think we saw all of them. Where are they? Do we ever see them again? Also I noticed that at least Zojja’s inherited some of her will. Now that Mordy’s out of the picture, if they do fully ripen and emerge, how will this work? Actually is Mordy even out of the picture? How do we know he’s not lurking in a plant or a Mordrem somewhere, severely weakened but still there?

Nightmare Court: In the meta event, we fight alongside them. What exactly is their deal now? Do we get more definite development from them?

Major Question: What exactly is the Dream? It was said Mordy could use Wyld Hunts as an access point, how does that work exactly?
——————————————-
About the Magus Falls Hylek being able to understand Common: There are bandits going in and out very close to their village (Spirit Vale is near Jaka Itzel). It’s possible they might have learned to speak Common from the bandits.

And the White Mantle miiiiight be a thing in the Raid, once they finish releasing all the wings and its associated story.

I am totally Sylvari trash.

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Kossage.9072

There are a few other things that are just as mysterious:

Based on Peter Fries’s comments on the forum, we know that the devs haven’t forgotten about the subplot of the Consortium being interested in the seeds/debris of the Tower of Nightmares. There was even supposed to be an extra event which would’ve revealed more about the Consortium’s plans but it was dropped due to scheduling issues. With the ever so subtle hints of the Consortium showing up in story releases every now and then, I wouldn’t count out the possibility that we may see the Consortium attempt to do something with ToN stuff in the future if the devs deem it an interesting enough story.

Based on what we learn in the Silverwastes and during the secret skritt meeting at LA, the skritt are up to something, and news of their ship-building and weather wizard is spreading among them. We also see that smugglers are operating a lot more openly in LA and that the pirates are none too pleased about skritt taking over their black market cave. Time will tell if these plot threads will be explored more.

There’s also a charr-specific mystery set up in S2: who was Rox spying on in Camp Resolve and why (an issue she tried to avoid talking about but ended up hinting at accidentally via slip of the tongue when we questioned her), who’s “Monti Scythescrape” (if that is the aggressive charr’s real name since he only reveals his name to a charr PC reluctantly after we pressure him about it), what kind of deal does he have with Rox (after all, Rox became visibly uneasy during and after their tense confrontation in the camp), and what’s his mission? I wonder if this issue will be discussed in S3 after Colin’s blog post mentioned potential charr politics now that news of Rytlock’s return as a revenant have spread to the Black Citadel.

I’ll try to answer some of the questions posted in this thread:

CaptainVanguard.4925:
What ever happened to Braham’s “girlfriend” back in Cragsted?

Ottilia left Cragstead with the merchant Ebbe and hasn’t been seen since. I’d be surprised if we see her ever again; her leaving served the plot point of Braham finally moving on from his old life at Cragstead now that he had nothing left to hold him there and embracing his friendship with Rox and the PC as part of the new adventuring guild.

With Scarlet supposedly being “responsible for everything” How? Is my question, perhaps we should have a segment where we play Scarlet as she formed the three alliances?

It seems unlikely we’ll ever see more of Scarlet’s interactions with the alliances except for the snippets of holorecordings and diary entries unless they rerelease S1 at some point and expand on the story instances (the latter of which I doubt).

It’s possible, but not confirmed (so this is only a theory with a shaky basis), that Mordremoth may have subtly manipulated the minds of the leaders of said alliances to make even the most xenophobic of them to trust/be intimidated by Scarlet. It wouldn’t surprise me if Mordy revealed the location of the obelisk to Scarlet, thus making it easier for her to lure the krait into the Toxic Alliance.

We know from Mordremoth’s Theme’s first use in the Tower of Nightmares that by that point Mordremoth’s power was already growing and its corruption was affecting both factions in the Toxic Alliance, hence their changed, glowing look (and why the Toxic Hybrid may in fact have been a mordrem krait similar to the three reborn Mordrem Guard Commanders and/or the mordrem itzel/saurians etc. instead of the hybrid we were led to believe as its conception via a pod is similar to what we see of the Commanders’ births at the three towers in Dragon’s Stand).

How the hell did “we” know about Mordremoth? Considering it was never mentioned even by name once by any character.

I believe there are two answers for this:

1) Bobby Stein posted on the forum after players asked that exact question back in the day, and he replied that what happened wasn’t conveyed well in the story but basically we learned the dragon’s name “off screen” due to our high rank in the Pact as the Priory would’ve shared its findings with us. This is the official lore answer regarding the matter.

2) The next bit can be taken with a bit of grain of salt, but here goes if you’re curious: some dataminer(s) went against dataminer “netiquette” and leaked the ending of S1 before it was released. In this supposed “original” ending (which may have been scrapped long before the leak as often happens with development while the audio files remained in the data) we would’ve heard, among other things, Scarlet actually namedrop Mordremoth the Jungle Dragon as her master before her demise. This would explain us learning the name (as well as the whole speculation about the dragon’s roar that appeared in the dialogue afterwards making sense plot-wise). The dialogue for early eps of S2 was recorded by then, the text had been written, and for whatever reason the sudden namedropping of Mordremoth remained in S2 without a fix and has since then been explained away as learning “offscreen knowledge” as mentioned by Bobby Stein. Sadly no one to my knowledge has any of the audio files etc. from the earlier S1 ending saved, so we can’t verify any of this and only have to take the more reputable dataminers’ (like that_shaman who didn’t leak the ending as per netiquette but was aware of it) word for it.

Where exactly “did” the Zephyirites “go” to in season 1 and return from in season 2? Was it Cantha? Was it somewhere new?

Based on all the hints in dialogue and what we saw of the decorations during the S2 prologue with the Zephyrites, the destination was implied to have been Cantha, yes. And if it indeed was Cantha, we learned that that nation had been prosperous/peaceful enough to allow foreign visitors to enter its territory and let them trade and leave without a hassle, which has made a lot of lore forumers speculate on the future of that nation.

Who the hell is E how long are you gonna keep us in suspence kitten it?!

It’ll likely take a while for Anet to reveal that although potential political turmoil in DR (if Canach is attacked and if Logan’s time in Mordremoth’s pod ends up playing a role in the plot with Caudecus deciding to make a move) could force E to make an appearance. I still believe E is Ela Makkay for various reasons, but we’ll see. Either way, if E is truly part of Ogden’s little circle of friends who are tied to Glint’s legacy, I’d expect E or Ogden to spill the beans now that we’ve definitely passed the trials of the Forgotten and proven our trustworthiness/dedication (not to mention the fact that the egg specifically chose us as its champion).

In Dry Top, the now Mordrem infested Village was intended to be some kind of mining colony for a group to the north allegedly an entire bandit city is roaming somewhere there, will we ever see it, are they white mantle?

There may be a connection between that smuggler ring and the bandits in Forsaken Thicket raid wings, and the latter are pretty much all but confirmed to be White Mantle thanks to all the hints we’ve seen so far in Spirit Vale (and Salvation Pass will likely reveal even more about them and their actual plans). Whether we ever get to see the alleged “New Kryta” hinted at in Silverwastes remains to be seen but could have potential in future Living World seasons unless that story is concluded in the raid.

The Pale Tree has collapsed after the attack from the Shadow of the Dragon, has she re-awoken yet? Was she corrupted by Mordremoth?

It’d be surprising if she didn’t awake sometime during S3 unless Anet wants to keep us in suspense. The damage she received was extensive, though, so it’ll take some time for her to recover. There should be no way for her to be corrupted by Mordremoth since the Mordrem Guard weren’t corrupted either. The Pale Tree has bigger ties to the Dream than the sylvari, and we know the Dream protects her and the sylvari from Mordy and other dragons’ corruption somehow (hence the Mordrem Guard scene in Rata Novus), so it would make no sense for her to fall, especially now that Mordremoth is dead and its call has ended.

Caithe and Faolain’s backstory was a little too rushed and didnt really explain why Caithe even fell in love with her in the first place, care to explain where their relationship started?

We need to keep in mind that lore-wise the first flashback with Faolain shows the Secondborn after they’re already a few months old, and by that time the Firstborn had existed for two years. By that time Caithe and Faolain had already traveled the world and gone to Orr where they first encountered the Nightmare. I believe that it was only after that encounter when Faolain’s personality began changing into the cruel being she would later become, so we’ve never actually seen THE good Faolain Caithe fell in love with in-game or in the novel. It would be nice to see a flashback of how their relationship started, but sadly it seems that ship has only sunk after what happened with Faolain in HoT.

How “will” the Zephyrites survive as a culture, will they rebuild in Dry-Top? Perhaps form a new human culture there?

Now that the Zephyrites’ secret mission is over (the egg has been delivered to the reactivated Tarir safely), the surviving Aspect Masters (who alone know the truth) could lead the Zephyrites back to the Bazaar of the Four Winds area, thus giving us an excuse to open it up as a permanent map. All Anet would have to do would be to simply remove the Masters of Peace and Sun (who died) and Aerin from that map and maybe tweak some dialogue a bit to reflect the current plot but otherwise it could be left as it was. I guess we’ll see what plans Anet has in store for them.

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Kossage.9072

That kitten ed egg, a red herring plot that has yet to reveal its true purpose or what exactly it was there for in the first place, more to come later.

What exactly is going on with the Egg and it absorbing Mordremoths magic, is it going to hatch, is it corrupted, what? Will we be some kind of dragonborn chosen creature in a future season?

These are basically about the same thing, so here goes:

We may not know all the details yet, but we do know the egg will play a crucial part in Glint’s legacy which is to ensure a bright, safer future for all of Tyria. Essentially the hatchling is meant to absorb power from Elder Dragon(s) so it can grow in power and be raised as a benevolent Elder Dragon to replace the more selfish and evil dragon overlords. We know that we need to defeat the current Elder Dragons but we also know that if we don’t replace them with other similar beings after their deaths, magic will run rampant and destroy the world, so the best option is to have a good Elder Dragon on our side to keep the balance in check.

Apparently Kasmeer can tell when people are lying, is this a magical gift, or a capacity for body language reading?

Unclear. I wonder if Kasmeer being pricked by the toxic thorn during the Tower of Nightmares adventure in S1 may have affected her in some way since it wasn’t until after that update that we started seeing her develop her lie-detecting powers. The tower was deeply connected to Mordy (and very likely a “corrupted” juvenile sister of the Pale Tree as the Tower was said to be sentient and operated like a Blighting Tree), and we know Mordy is the Dragon of both Plants AND Mind. Would be a cool twist if the dragon’s power would’ve left some subtle mark on Kas although I suppose it’s more likely at this stage that the pricking scene wasn’t meant to have any more significance and the lie-detection stuff is unrelated to it. But who knows…

Also, how is it that too much magic apparently attracts dragons, tied to the same question.

Well, we know the Elder Dragons’ sole purpose is to devour all the magic they can get their claws on and they raise minions that will help them do this faster. They go into hibernation once there’s too little magic left in the world to sustain them, after which the magic leaks out of their bodies over centuries until they awaken again to devour it all over again, hence continuing the cycle. So it makes sense the EDs would be attracted to large pockets of magic, and was likely the reason why Mordy wanted Scarlet to carry out the scheme in LA so it’d have a proper ley line breakfast in bed, so to speak.

What the heck was that kitten trip vision we saw in Omadd’s machine, was it our vision, was it Scarlett’s memories? What was that weird thing, the Eternal Alchemy? What are the orbs? Are they the dragons, or something else?

The vision was a bit of both to my understanding. We hear the Pale Tree’s lines during it which are very reminiscent of what she said to Scarlet in the short story, which implies we recreated the vision.

That weird thing we saw was the Antikytheria, also known as the All, which is discussed more in depth in one of the books found in the Durmand Priory library. The six spheres we see moving around the central body, Thyria, correspond with the six Elder Dragons, and appear to activate in the order of each dragon’s respective awakening. However, those six bodies might not symbolize the Elder Dragons but also spirit realms or maybe something else; it’s left deliberately ambiguous. The lime-green orb we see crashing into Thyria in the vision symbolizes Zhaitan (seen in the order of the spheres’ awakening and in the Priory’s map of The All in the ceiling, also seen in the wiki article), which shows that by killing Zhaitan we created an imbalance between the spheres which led to Mordremoth’s becoming a threat as it no longer had a direct opposite sphere to react to.

The Itzel magically know us, thats convinent, they can also speak our language despite having a trait involving learning their language?

It’s stated by the Pact scout after “Torn in the Sky” that the Pact has made contact with the Itzel before we arrive, so they’re aware of the Pact by then. The Itzel/Nuhoch have their own language (which we learn in masteries to earn their goodwill) but they also speak the common tongue which they use to talk to us. You can see this by how Ibli first uses ‘kaana’ but quickly corrects himself and explains that it means ‘chieftain’ as he knows we don’t know his language.

Who exactly are the Exalted, besides being former humans created by glint to defend Tarir, are they Zephyrites formerly?

The Exalted were actually recruited by the Forgotten who carried out Glint’s mission. The Exalted originally came from the same people who became the Zephyrites but were chosen after a series of trials etc. that proved their worthiness to the cause. There’s more info (and useful links to actual sources) about them in their wiki article. We learn a bunch about them by discussing stuff with Exalted NPCs and doing the “A Study in Gold” achievement which details the last Forgotten’s speech to them.

Did Faolain actually “die” or was she captured after being stabbed and forcefully transformed, is she even dead?

We don’t know if Faolain actually died when the Vinetooth captured her; she was impaled but could’ve survived that. If we go by Leah Hoyer’s promo text for HoT about the Mordrem Guard, however, only the three Mordrem Guard Commanders’ minds are transplanted into new bodies after they die unlike rank and file Mordrem Guard, so this would imply that Faolain was still alive when she was turned into the Vinetooth hybrid.

However, the Faolain-beast itself is definitely gone by now. We killed her at the end of “Bitter Harvest”, and Caithe stayed behind to burn the body to ensure Faolain couldn’t be harvested and “recreated” by the mordrem. Unless Anet decides to resurrect her or find another way to bring her back, but I doubt that will happen even if I’d like to see more of her after how the story treated her so poorly.

“We’ll talk later” this got very tedious, what exactly is Rytlock hiding about his incidents in the Mists, talking about baggage and voices in his head?

The revenant lore blog post from a while ago mentioned that revenants hear the voices of the legends they’re channeling and may even have conversations with them. So in Rytlock’s case he’s hearing the voices of the echoes of Glint, Ventari and other legends in his head, hence the comment about “baggage”. Do note, however, that the legends aren’t the actual spirits of the slain heroes/villains the revenants channel; they’re more like fractal echoes, copies of the originals, which explains why you can have two revenants channeling Shiro simultaneously, for instance.

Why are there ghosts displaced roaming the spirit vale? Are these Ascalonian Ghosts displaced by Rytlocks actions?

Those ghosts seem to be unrelated to Ascalonian ghosts and appear to instead be victims of what seems to be the White Mantle who are angry but also suffer from amnesia and don’t seem to remember what they’re supposed to be angry about. The magic released by Mordremoth’s death stirred them, and some of them apparently broke free from something (as a dev slipped up during a stream before he shut up) and fused together to become Gorseval. Some speculate some of these spirits may have been trapped in soul batteries.

Salvation Pass raid will likely reveal more lore about this, or maybe Bobby Stein will hint at stuff in the upcoming Guild Chat episode which centers on raid lore.

Taimi gets left behind after season 2 where she clearly was in deep trouble being left behind the last time

She argued she could handle herself, and we agreed, so the joke’s on us for allowing it to happen. However, she was in a safe-ish area with the laser and other gizmos protecting her, and we later see the Rata Novus meta during which the Order of Whispers basically activates defense golems, clears out the remaining chak from the area and turn the turrets friendly, so by now Taimi will be even more secure than back when we left her.

How exactly is lobotomising the dragons brain going to stop its wild and rampant vine expanded body from growing into chaotic insanity?

Well…this is basically what happens if Laranthir’s dialogue is taken as canon during the Mouth of Mordremoth fight. xD

His dialogue box’s contents change depending on if you’ve finished the final mission or not. When we talk to him after finishing the final mission, we wonder how the Mouth can still be alive after we killed Mordremoth’s mind, and Laranthir explains that the Mouth, as the physical manifestation of Mordremoth, now represents the dragon’s hunger and has become a mindless beast.

Basically this means that the Mouth regrew/renegerated and attacked us one more time after Mordy’s mind had already been slain, and this time we put it down for good. Either this other battle is non-canonical, or the released explosion of magic from Mordy’s demise (seen both in the story mission and when we slay the Mouth) affected the Mouth who was at ground zero and allowed it to make one last comeback (similar to how the released magic also mutated Slothasor boss in the upcoming Salvation Pass raid).

What exactly “did” Mordremoth plant in Treesus to make him corrupted, some kind of thought? A corruption in his body, what?

Trahearne mentions a terrible seed, and Mordy later took over Trahearne who was connected to it via the vine, so the dragon basically uploaded its mind into Trahearne as a backup plan in case we prevailed and defeated the mind’s avatar in the Dream.

(edited 2016-03-08 11:13:58 by Kossage.9072)

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Hyper Cutter.9376

Hyper Cutter.9376

It’s stated by the Pact scout after “Torn in the Sky” that the Pact has made contact with the Itzel before we arrive, so they’re aware of the Pact by then. The Itzel/Nuhoch have their own language (which we learn in masteries to earn their goodwill) but they also speak the common tongue which they use to talk to us. You can see this by how Ibli first uses ‘kaana’ but quickly corrects himself and explains that it means ‘chieftain’ as he knows we don’t know his language.

Also, the text for the frog language masteries basically says you’re learning their languages to talk to the members of the tribes who can’t or won’t speak yours. And while the story-related ones speak English, presumably for practical reasons on Anet’s end, there’s a lot of random Itzel you can talk to that don’t (without the mastery, you just get a dialog box full of unintelligible text).

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Kossage.9072

Cobalt Raven.3986:
Caithe knew what Trahearne was up to. She also said that “soon the world will know” regarding to the origin of Sylvari. Why didn’t she tell Trahearne? Why did she just stay silent and let scores of Sylvari turn or die?

That’s an issue that will hopefully get addressed in a future storyline, assuming that the writers deem it important enough to address. But basically I’d imagine Caithe was being the ever secretive Caithe, not thinking too far ahead and instead not wanting to spread panic among the Pact by revealing something that could threaten the races’ campaign against the Elder Dragons. If she deemed that the PC didn’t initially have to know her reasons for stealing the egg (even after everything the PC had done for her in the dungeon stories, especially if your PC was a sylvari with whom she shared the initial Wyld Hunt), then she must’ve viewed Trahearne the same way: as someone not needing to know the specifics. It would be a shame if this remains unaddressed, especially because Caithe’s choice to keep the info led to the fall of many sylvari.

What’s far more interesting to me is why the Pale Tree never felt like informing Trahearne of the threat Mordremoth posed. The Trahearne post-Orr is a much stronger and confident individual than the one we see in the flashbacks and in the early Personal Story, so he should’ve been deemed stable enough to handle the truth. As the first of the Firstborn he should’ve been told about Mordremoth and its sylvari connection ASAP so he’d be aware of the risk of bringing sylvari to Magus Falls while the dragon was stirring. However, it’s possible that the Pale Tree actually intended to let Trahearne know about it in private after the summit but the Shadow of the Dragon’s attack prevented that from happening.

Why did Trahearne fly the entire fleet into the jungle without sending scouts to explore first? If someone says “to stop the dragon before it fully awakens”- how does it count as being half awake when it’s been around for at least 2 years, and has extended its reach as far as the Iron Marches? (This is also partially a gripe, as comparing Trahearne’s behavior during vanilla PS to this- he should not be this careless.)

Two reasons:

1) Trahearne realized the threat Mordremoth posed and wanted to end its threat quickly before the dragon would actually rise and become stronger. That meant they were already racing against the clock so scouting could’ve taken too much valuable time while an all-out assault would defeat the threat in one go or at least severely weaken it. As the fleet had already been very effective against Zhaitan and its risen in Orr, and the only flying mordrem we’d seen had been the Shadow of the Dragon, Trahearne likely assumed the fleet would face little resistance and would be safe high in the air while the dragon was still weak from awakening and that they could just carpetbomb the entire jungle to stop a potential land-based mordrem assault.

2) In some of the story instances in S2, Trahearne admitted to the PC that he was angry about Mordremoth daring to attack the Pale Tree, which was a far more personal attack to him than what Zhaitan did. It’s basically comparable to Mazdak slaying Riannoc, a deed that had to be avenged, and many sylvari felt the same way. Trahearne also apologized for his outburst to the PC. Basically what this means is that Trahearne was also acting out of worry and a need to avenge the Pale Tree by making Mordremoth pay for hurting her, so while his plan to carpetbomb the jungle with the fleet was solid, he still wasn’t acting as logically due to being overcome by emotion as he would’ve under different circumstances.

The sad thing is that even with the surprise assault from Mordremoth’s vines, the fleet could’ve still dealt a major blow to the mordrem as many of the ships were actually unharmed in the initial assault. However, it turned out that this vine attack was not only meant as an attack but also as a distraction in Mordremoth’s master plan. The true blow came when several sylvari suddenly snapped and turned against their allies and began sabotaging the ships from within, and this was what really turned the tide and led to the fleet’s demise as they couldn’t handle both the vines and the turned sylvari (one fifth of the Pact’s forces) at the same time.

Where the bloody heck is the Commander for 2+ years and why was there no report or some indication of correspondence with Trahearne? In such an organization, one cannot go AWOL for that long and still have a position.

We went on an extended leave after the Orr campaign. While on our time off, we got involved in the plot with Scarlet’s alliances that began popping up and then focused on ending her threat. The Pact’s sole purpose was fighting the dragons and at the time they were only in the planning stage for the assault on Kralkatorrik, so Scarlet wasn’t deemed a big enough threat at first for them to get involved with.

Trahearne likely reasoned that the PC didn’t have to sit around coordinating logistics and whatnot for the next assault on an Elder Dragon, so we were allowed to have our adventure. The PC is always at his or her best leading a vanguard into battle and is a force of nature on his/her own, so the PC did more good dealing with Scarlet than being stuck in the Pact’s main base. While we were gone, Trahearne had divided our duties to other Commanders who dealt with the more mundane planning stuff; sadly this kind of backfired as the Aetherblades managed to steal a few airships right under the Pact’s noses…

What happened to those Pact Vigilantes you ran off?

Unclear. Either they rejoined the Pact and were put on trial for their crimes (and likely pardoned due to Pact being low on manpower and given a second chance to prove themselves), or they abandoned their allies and traversed back home like some of the Pact soldiers did in the “Torn from the Sky” story mission.

They should be tried in court for what they did, however, as their behaviour (while understandable given what had happened with the sylvari) was still unacceptable for a military unit which was supposed to follow orders.

What exactly is the Coztic Itzel’s deal?

We learn during story (from one of the Itzel scouts if I recall) that the Coztic Itzel turned hostile against everyone after they felt they were being threatened by outside influences (namely the mordrem invasion and the Zintl hylek fanatics). As for why they’d turn on the Jaka Itzel, they likely viewed these more tolerant Itzel as traitors for aiding the outsiders. The same reasoning can be applied to the equally xenophobic Xolotl nuhoch who joined forces with the Coztic.

Do the Itzel know the bandits?

Would be surprising if they hadn’t noticed bandits every now and then as even lax Itzel scouts like Acan took notice of anyone passing by their watch post. It seems unlikely they would know any crucial information about the bandits and their plans, however, just that the bandits are out there. For all we know, the bandits could’ve even used Itzel hospitality to their advantage at first to survive in the jungle.

More info on the Blighting Tree? Could it be that that tree IS Malyck’s tree and he was one of the, if not the only “minion” to escape Mordremization and instead became “Sylvari”?

Where’s Malyck, anyways?

We now know for certain thanks to Bobby Stein’s comment about Malyck on Reddit that none of the Blighting Trees seen in Magus Falls is Malyck’s Tree for the simple reason that no content about Malyck or his Tree ever appeared in HoT beyond early planning stages. I’ll let the man speak for himself:

Bobby Stein on Reddit
Bear in mind that my involvement with HoT was minimal, but I did partake in many discussions about scoping and such in the early phases of the project. There simply wasn’t the time or resources to do that story justice. And while it’s hard for a team to make that call, it’s a very real part of game development. You can’t do everything all the time because it’s just impossible. (Source)

This was in response to a redditor bringing up the subject of Malyck in a lengthier discussion about whether the GW2 writing team is neglecting long-standing mysteries of GW verse and why the story content of HoT was limited in scope.

What this means is Malyck and his Tree are still unaccounted for in one of the areas in the world map not yet revealed to us. Whether we ever get to see his story concluded one way or another remains to be seen but seems unlikely at this stage as we’re now moving on towards new adventures.

Why did Rytlock tell Eir and Faolain to run to the overpass first, despite knowing that Faolain can’t be trusted (novel inference), and knowing that Eir is weakened and unarmed?

Faolain was unarmed and weakened (likely drained from magic as she never cast any mesmer spells) as well, so Rytlock may have believed she’d be no real threat to Eir who was, after all, a strong norn. He would also expect Faolain to worry more about saving her hide from the threat than stop and try to do something to Eir. Granted, he couldn’t have foreseen Faolain noticing the Vinetooth in the canopy above her and Eir when the Eir stopped to help her and then deciding to turn the odds in her favour by injuring Eir for the Vinetooth to snatch.

Also, Eir is a Norn. Why did she just stand there and take the shot despite still being able to move, and knowing that there is a small group of very armed warriors near her, at least one of whom could do first aid?

Matthew Medina responded on this forum when people questioned the writing team about this issue. Basically Faolain’s thorn cut in deep and was meant to be a lot more gory and more severe than it ended up looking like in the cinematic. The moment Eir pulled the thorn out of her midsection, she knew she’d be done for as the injuries and bloodloss were too severe for her in her already weakened state, and that’s why she couldn’t put up a fight against the Vinetooth. However, she was a norn and had enough strength to stand tall and face the threat defiantly head on when any other lesser person would’ve collapsed then and there had they been in her condition.

Why are the human nobility here, what exactly do they bring now that they’re stuck in the jungle thanks to Faren’s harebrained idea that it was a good time to go over Magus Falls on a joyride?

Talking to the nobles in Verdant Brink and listening to their chatter reveals that Faren organized the nobles to participate in the Pact’s supposedly glorious assault on the mordrem as spectators. The battle was basically an exciting show to them, and they couldn’t even fathom the victorious Pact being defeated, let alone the nobles themselves getting in danger in the process. It’s similar to how in the American Civil War era certain wealthy southerner families gathered on a nearby hill on a picnic to witness the clash between Union and Confederate troops as a spectacle. Not exactly a wise decision, but the rich tend to do weird stuff like that to alleviate their boredom and to have something “cool” to talk about in fancy parties later on.

Why are the Exalted there, exactly? Who else lived in the Golden City? What happened to the Forgotten? Do they have a connection to the Zephyrites? How are they keeping the Mordrem at bay? How are they keeping Mordremoth’s influence out?

The Exalted are in Auric Basin because that site was deemed useful for the Forgotten’s plans of carrying out Glint’s legacy (after the Forgotten moved on from Lost Precipice and Gilded Hollow which were early attempts at finding a suitably strategic location to protect the egg), and they built the city to safeguard the last of Glint’s eggs once it would be delivered there at a specific moment. The area was shielded by powerful magic (which reactivated as the Exalted reawakened and Glint’s egg was brought to one of the watchposts) which repels dragon minions. It likely has similar properties to the divine fire which likewise acted as a repellant against dragon minions like the Shadow of the Dragon.

The Forgotten are said to have left Tyria based on the speech of the last Forgotten to the Exalted (seen in the tablets throughout Tarir) as well as comments from some of the Exalted NPCs. Although some interpret this as the Forgotten dying off, to me the context implies that the remaining Forgotten instead moved on to the Mists like the gods had done prior to them and left the Exalted to finish the job to lead Tyria to a brighter and safer future as per Glint’s plan.

If you’re a Sylvari, how come you aren’t hearing Mordy’s voice/feeling its presence at the surface?

We do hear Mordy on the surface. When we play through the story as a sylvari, there are several moments when the dragon’s voice is audible and understandable, and it grows more and more frequent the closer we get to Dragon’s Stand. I’ve also heard occasional creepy albeit unintelligible voices/whispers in my sylvari’s head while wandering in Central Tyria, but these ceased after I completed the final HoT story mission.

I also recall from one of the BWEs that when I created a beta sylvari character, I actually heard creepy voices in the background of the character creation screen, which must’ve been a reference to Mordy whispering to the sylvari even when they were still in the Dream. I haven’t tested if this is still the case in actual shipped HoT as I haven’t created another sylvari character, but I’d be surprised if this “feature” isn’t present as it was a very cool effect.

(edited 2016-03-08 16:56:19 by Kossage.9072)

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Kossage.9072

Actually, general question: How are we able to resist the dragon?

It’s because we have very strong willpower. As Canach states during story, only weak-willed sylvari succumb to Mordremoth while the strong ones still struggle to resist the dragon’s siren song.

HOWEVER, as we learn in the later story missions in Tangled Depths and Dragon’s Stand (if you play a sylvari), Mordremoth does eventually manage to crack even strong sylvari’s mental defenses as seen with Caithe and Canach who nearly succumbed to the power of the Blighted opponents in the Dream, Trahearne whom Mordy takes over as a last ditch effort by bruteforcing itself into his mind, and last but not least, the sylvari PC.

There are three instances in HoT story where the sylvari PC really feels Mordy’s power: “Roots of Terror” where the PC gets dazed briefly before having to choose from one of the tree paths while assuring Braham that he or she is okay; “Bitter Harvest” where the PC gets left behind and temporarily sees a Mordrem Guard as an ally and is greeted as a friend by said guard until the PC overcomes the effect and fights off the guard; and finally in “Hearts and Minds” when the PC gets the closest to succumbing to Mordy’s siren song when facing the avatar of Mordremoth’s Mind in the very heart of the dragon’s power. In fact, despite being so strong willed, the PC would’ve definitely succumbed then and there if his or her sylvari allies (Caithe or Canach) hadn’t helped the PC fight off the dragon’s influence to repay the favour of the PC helping them face their Blighted manifestations of their subconscious fears earlier.

Where did the Chak come from? How did they get so numerous?

They came from underground and were eventually lured to the asura, but much of them and their origin is left mysterious, so there’s not much we can say about them at the moment except what little snippets of info we learn in Rata Novus.

Is it possible to reverse Mordremization? One guy seemed to be coming back to his mind.

Yes, it is possible. The thing is that the Mordrem Guard aren’t “fully” corrupted at all unlike your typical dragon minions; this is because the Grove sylvari are still protected by their connection to the Dream via the Pale Tree and because they are the offspring of what appears to be a purified dragon champion, so the dragon can’t simply recorrupt them again as it’s been implied in lore that a purified dragon minion can’t be recorrupted again (at least by the dragon that originally corrupted them; see Kralkatorrik vs. Glint and Kralky choosing to kill her instead of trying to recorrupt her).

However, Mordy is the dragon of plants and mind and found a loophole in this defense. While it couldn’t corrupt the sylvari directly, it could abuse their connection to the Dream/Nightmare’s Wyld/Dark Hunt imperatives and implanted its thoughts into the sylvari’s minds, making the sylvari genuinely believe that it’s totally okay switching over to the dragon and embracing their true heritage. Essentially the affected sylvari think these are their own thoughts while they’re actually Mordy’s imperatives for them to serve it. It’s possibly Mordy never could’ve pulled this off if the Pale Tree had been at full health protecting her children, but the Shadow of the Dragon’s attack on the Grove left her just weak enough for Mordy to begin slipping through the cracks of the defense. Hence we had Aerin’s initially cryptic note “…leader will die. The rest will fall in line” introduced in Episode 1 of Season 2, which now makes full sense given what we’ve learned of Mordy’s sinister master plan.

The sylvari who succumbed to Mordy’s siren song underwent an intense physical transformation. We know from lore that sylvari who express heightened emotions (e.g. a traumatic experience) can change drastically in appearance: that’s why we see Caithe adopting Wynne’s hairstyle out of guilt and as a way to remind herself of the burden she now has after Wynne’s death at her hands, and why Canach turned from a handsome sylvari into the more rough, barky and world-weary look he currently has because of the intense Consortium manhunt for him after the karka invasion fiasco at Southsun when the Consortium placed the blame on him and wanted to eliminate him as a witness.

With Mordy now gone and its call having ended, many if not all Mordrem Guard should now return to their senses unless there’s some backdoor thing preventing them from doing so.

What’s up with Taimi? Her mentor Zojja is captured, why doesn’t she mention this at all? Does Taimi just not care or…?

This drew my attention as well, but we’ve got to remember she’s a teen who geeks out very easily and was more into discovering new stuff in Magus Falls and trying to find a way to stop the dragons. I would’ve expected some reference to Zojja from her, but this was likely one of the characterization moments scrapped from the story to keep it tight and focused.

What is even more curious to me, however, is why Zojja keeps specifically mentioning Taimi more than once after being released and not even asking anything about Eir. Perhaps this was the writers’ effort in making us sympathize with Zojja by showing that she’s really come to care for Taimi (as we gradually learned over the course of S1 and especially S2).

Why do we HAVE to go to Rata Novus? {this one is more of a gripe- if I think about it, I see that there were no Novans sighted for at least a few decades, if not much longer, according to that one Exalted where the ley line map is. No Novans came to shoot at me or talk to me either, despite hundreds on thousands of trespassers in the area and a dragon at the doorstep.}

We go there initially, believing that we might find survivors who would ally with us. By the time we speak with Tizlak who reveals what the nuhoch know about the place, we learn that the asura there are long gone (some of them escaped through the asura gates, others were left behind to be killed by the invading chak and taken to chak nests to feed the brood as we see asura bones in certain chak hives).

By then our focus shifts from meeting new allies to discovering if these asura left any useful info on dragons behind. We do find information except that info turned out to be mostly useless (all dragons have a specific weakness unique to each one of them, but not what these weaknesses are) although the PC encourages others by saying that now they have hope because they weren’t sure before if Mordy could be defeated and now they just need to figure out what its specific weakness is.

The Rata Novus excursion basically served the plot by foreshadowing the somewhat sudden moment in “Hearts and Minds” where the PC miraculously declares that Mordremoth can be defeated in its domain of the mind, hence us travelling to the Dream to confront the avatar of the mind.

Yes, that whole plot thread could’ve been established and handled better, but it appears it was trimmed down for length like so many plot elements in HoT were as Anet wanted to streamline the story to keep it focused and tight for the expansion.

If Trahearne did in fact die, what the heck ANet, why no acknowledgement?

From what we can gather, that was indeed the real Trahearne. Had he been a mordrem clone, I doubt he would’ve been so kind with us and let us into Mordy’s domain since the dragon wasn’t happy about the idea. None of the mordrem clones we’ve seen (except the three reborn Mordrem Guard Commanders) have ever shown much sentience to begin with except being mostly mindless thralls to their dragon master. Had Trahearne been a clone, he would’ve been Mordy’s true masterpiece, way beyond even the already impressive Logan/Zojja clones.

Then again, one could argue that Mordy’s master plan was in fact to lure the PC into its domain and corrupt him/her there, but the dragon didn’t count on our group’s unity, friendship and resolve being so great that we overcame the fear it tried to instill on us.

Also, the vision the egg showed us was a potential bad future that would come to pass unless we stopped Mordy. That’s what prompts us to leave the egg which we’d been after and focus on stopping Mordy 100% from then on. Thankfully we managed to stop the clone production in time by slaying the few Logan/Zojja clones that had already been born in their weakened state and removed both heroes from Mordy’s touch in the process as well as slew Trahearne before Mordy could fully reincarnate in him and unleash Trahearne clones.

How is the PC not affected either physically or mentally by this? The PC thinks they just offed someone that they’ve been working with/might have been friends with for an extended period.

This left me scratching my head. Maybe Anet decided that since such a vocal minority hated Trahearne’s guts, they didn’t want to spend any time mourning this apparently hated character? Or maybe, due to the cliffhanger ending of HoT, they intend to save the in memoriam scene for Trahearne and/or Eir at the beginning of S3. I’d really want to see the latter happen to give us some closure as well as say a farewell to two great heroes, but we’ll see what they’ve planned for the beginning of the next season.

Also, that ley energy blast had to have been at least 3-5 hubs’ worth. How the heck are we not dead? We basically got nuked with Tyrian World magic! And never mind the magic, the blast was big enough to be seen from the upper atmosphere and strong enough to blast us right out of the instance. How aren’t we injured from shrapnel or something?

It’s magic; don’t question it.

On a more serious note, it’s unclear if blasting us out of the instance is supposed to be canon or just a game mechanic with no lore tied to it as we know the devs will sometimes add stuff with little lore basis (see Gorseval’s look which came to be because of the rule of cool more than anything else). However, we find Rytlock and company unharmed above after “Hearts and Minds” so one canon way of looking at it is that if the Pact force was pushed back by the explosion, we survived said explosion because of being deep in the Heart of Thorns tree which the explosion didn’t affect as much.

Egg said there were clones. I don’t think we saw all of them. Where are they? Do we ever see them again?

From my understanding those were all the clones Mordy could create after getting hold of the captives; if there were more, why wouldn’t the rest have come to attack us as well? The dragon simply didn’t have enough time to mass-produce them considering how Logan, Zojja and Trahearne were still on their way to Mordy at least during early stages of HoT story.

Actually is Mordy even out of the picture? How do we know he’s not lurking in a plant or a Mordrem somewhere, severely weakened but still there?

Seems unlikely to me as Colin’s blog post (which mentioned the story setup for Season 3) mentioned that two Elder Dragons are dead and the other Elder Dragons will react in some way to their brethrens’ fall. Unless this is supposed to be misdirection and Mordy is secretly alive, but I highly doubt it. If Mordy did survive, it would diminish what we accomplished in Magus Falls and the Dream, and I don’t think Anet would go in that direction, especially because they didn’t revisit the Zhaitan plot and let that dragon perish too.

Nightmare Court: In the meta event, we fight alongside them. What exactly is their deal now? Do we get more definite development from them?

It was stated by Matthew Medina and Bobby Stein on Reddit that they did initially have plans for Nightmare Court for the expansion (as also hinted by Leah Hoyer in the promo pieces) but they had to reorganize the story later on, which meant leaving certain less important subplots on the cutting room floor to fit the narrower, more straightforward story scope of the expansion (and likely because they had rush the release out and wouldn’t have had time to implement all this story in time, but this is just my speculation).

However, the fact that Duchess Chrysanthea did show up as the lone Nightmare Courtier in Dragon’s Stand with Taimi’s voice actress and a unique model and with no explanation whatsoever (likely a remnant of the former plot before it was cut), I’d be very surprised if we don’t see her (and likely the splinter faction of NC she leads) in the story at some point again, whether that means Season 3 or some future season/expansion.

Major Question: What exactly is the Dream? It was said Mordy could use Wyld Hunts as an access point, how does that work exactly?

All we know about the Dream has been pretty much mentioned in the sylvari personal story and via some specific sylvari open world NPCs as well as Ogden in Season 2 (all of which are detailed on the wiki). We know that aside from Dreamer and Nightmare sylvari, other entities like Mordremoth and the White Stag are also somehow connected to the Dream. Malyck’s people, for whatever reason, don’t appear to have a connection to the Dream via their Tree.

The Dream and Nightmare appear to have some sort of modus operandi as the Wyld and Dark Hunts which the Dream/Nightmare gives imperatives to Dreamers and Nightmare Courtiers are both opposed to the Elder Dragons but achieve those goals in different ways (the Nightmare definitely being more ruthless about it than the more benevolent Dream). Nightmare Courtiers believe that by doing horrific enough things in the world and subjecting sylvari to it will allow Nightmare to grow stronger than the Dream and thus tip the scale in its favour; whether this is actually true or not remains unknown, but it would fit into the dualistic, Celtic mythology-inspired view of Light and Darkness being both needed forces in the world and being in constant flux.

Mordremoth basically used the sylvari’s Wyld and Dark Hunts as a means to bypass the Dream/Nightmare’s protection and implanted its own thoughts in the form of subtle hunts into the minds of sylvari, making that hunt about serving the dragon by any means necessary. We hear some hints of how this works via Faolain-beast’s and the Mordrem Guard’s dialogue in the story and in some of the dynamic events.

Beyond that, the Dream and Nightmare still largely remain a mystery but they do appear to be connected to the All (Antikytheria) in some way if Scarlet’s vision of the Pale Tree is anything to go by. Hopefully the writers will expand on this plot as it’s one of the more intriguing plot threads that could receive lots of fascinating development.

(edited 2016-04-14 08:15:20 by Kossage.9072)

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Answering what questions are known/partially known:

- What ever happened to Braham’s “girlfriend” back in Cragsted?

She started dating a traveling merchant after breaking up with Braham. This was shown during unrelated Season 1 releases – small dialogue packets added to Cragstead.

- With Scarlet supposedly being “responsible for everything” How? Is my question, perhaps we should have a segment where we play Scarlet as she formed the three alliances?

She did it by being a mary sue – literally. There were explanations on forums, and attempts in S2, and all were bad. Basically, she promised the dredge and Flame Legion the other group was already working for her and willing too cooperate, which ‘somehow’ managed to convince the groups to work together – when they found out that she lied, they didn’t care. She got the krait to work with her by holding the obelisk shards ransom, which makes no sense given that the krait are xenophobic and egotistical to new heights, and how they wouldn’t wage war on her instead is beyond explanation. Basically, they broke the lore to make these ‘oddball pairings that Scarlet loves so much’ into the story.

- How the “hell” did Taimi know about us, is she some kind of time traveler? Was it just her fangirlism for Scarlet?

How wouldn’t she know about the Pact Commander who slew Zhaitan? How wouldn’t she know about a mass terrorist and the five individuals trying to stop her? Both would be all over the newspapers and whatever other information spreading network there is – which we know that Rata Sum has some pretty accurate news networks of some sort, given that Taimi repeatedly mentions it in Season 2 and in the HoT prologue.

- How the hell did “we” know about Mordremoth? Considering it was never mentioned even by name once by any character.

Bobby Stein answered this – basically, Mordremoth while never named to players, both its existence and name was known by anyone who studied the Elder Dragons. This includes most of the Orders and the Pact, and of course includes the second-in-command of the Pact – the PC. It was, ArenaNet admits, (another) bad storytelling bit.

- Where exactly “did” the Zephyirites “go” to in season 1 and return from in season 2? Was it Cantha? Was it somewhere new?

Never explicitly stated, but there’s enough subtle hints from Marjory and some Zephyrites to indicate that it was either Cantha or somewhere with Canthan culture. Marjory is of Canthan descent and outright states that some things the Zephyrites brought back is very similar to her grandfathers’ stuff and stories.

- What ever happened to the refugee’s that were “enslaved” by the Consortium to help rebuild Southsun a second time, only to fail?

At the end of Last Stand at Southsun [we blew up the contracts that ‘enslaved’ them](http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Contractually_Obligated) and afterwards we can see a number of the individuals in Cragstead and North Nolan Hatchery – including those who had the scavenger hunts in Flame and Frost, who still recognize you if you returned their items!

- Where exactly ‘is’ the Consortium located centrally including what island there actually holding their main base, their agenda, and generally who they actually are aside from a get rich group of mischievous wannabie lionguard trying to vie for control over LA?

Nothing actually says their HQ is on an island. And… whoever said they’re trying to control LA or replace the Lionguard? Their guards only protect Consortium interests, not LA. And Consortium interests is just their facilities and profits – they’re more after replacing the Black Lion Trading Post, rather than controlling LA. The two aren’t the same.

- Kiels promises were only partially forfilled, and she obviously failed to deliver on many other things, will LA reject her as part of the captains council for her failures?

Actually, everything Kiel promised was given. They were mostly temporary – same with Evon – though. Only time Kiel didn’t deliver was when the rest of the Captain’s Council stonewalled her for fortifying LA against Scarlet’s incoming invasion (because ‘no one would attack us twice’ logic – said ArenaNet writers).

- Mai Trin is still out there, last I checked, she ran off into the edge of the mists and hasnt appeared since, when will we see the aether captain and her forces cause trouble again?
- Same goes for the Toxic and Molten Alliances, Remenants of both survived from what I know.

*Angel McCoy said a while ago that the three alliances of Scarlet still have stories that will be told. Honestly, I expected the Toxic Alliance to play a part (even if minor) in Heart of Thorns. Then again, I expected the expansion to have story parts in Central Tyria too, and be at least twice the length it was.

- Canach’s past was vaguley touched upon mostly via indirect confrontation when he was in prison, what lead him to join the consortium in the first place? We already know the rest but how did it begin?

He didn’t join the Consortium. He was a third-party contract mercenary hired to lead an expedition onto the island. This was explained in The Lost Shores, though I’m sure many missed it due to it being weekend only content and highly buggy due to everyone trying to interact with the same NPCs at once.

- In Dry Top, the now Mordrem infested Village was intended to be some kind of mining colony for a group to the north allegedly an entire bandit city is roaming somewhere there, will we ever see it, are they white mantle?

Wait for raid to finish, because Silverwastes and Spirit Vale talks about this city too, supposedly. I’m betting that the name of the third wing will be “New Kryta” – a white mantle city built atop Bloodstone Fen, led by Lazarus.

BTW, yes, bandits = White Mantle. This has been confirmed for a long time.

- The Pale Tree has collapsed after the attack from the Shadow of the Dragon, has she re-awoken yet? Was she corrupted by Mordremoth?

We saw her wake up – and we talk to her – in Episode 7. So yes, and no. Respectively.

- The White Fire was mysteriously effective at purging corruption from the dragons influence, how, what exactly made the shadow of the dragon adverse to it and why isnt it used more often?

Divine Fire* and it didn’t purge corruption, but was destructive against it. It isn’t used often because of how rare it is – as shown in Season 2. We had to break a one-time seal of an ancient Forgotten artifact just to get that one torch.

Mind you, I would have expected the Exalted to have some of this information, but seems they don’t for whatever reason…

- The Zephyrites left in Drytop need to rebuild their society, but there was an entire fleet of Zephyrites, considering that supposed entire fleet was destroyed, wouldnt it be safe to assume there are “others” out in the jungle?

Aerin only sabatogued one ship. And that ship hit only a few others. In total, only four out of 11+ ships fell. But yes, there should be others elsewhere – I think it was meant to be implied they touched ground after the wreckage when we meet with the three Aspect Masters in Silverwastes.

- How “will” the Zephyrites survive as a culture, will they rebuild in Dry-Top? Perhaps form a new human culture there?

Why would they? Technically speaking, their task is complete. And even if they do reform, it isn’t like they cannot build four replacing airships (if they even need them with their death count). Raise a new Master of Sun, and another Master to replace the Master of Peace, and they can be on their way once regathered. For all we know, they already are on their way – remember that maps are stuck in time!

- That kitten ed egg, a red herring plot that has yet to reveal its true purpose or what exactly it was there for in the first place, more to come later.

Red herring is a great misnomer here. Red herrings means that it is a distraction – a false lead. The egg is the main plot.

Its purpose has been hinted at, but yeah, nothing ever gets pointed out to why the PC even cares.

- The Durmond priory carried a pendant that revealed the true krytan heir to the throne, does that mean Jennah is a puppet queen? Also, why did Jennah let Scarlet into the palace, and why did Anise even think that was a good idea given she is one of Kryta’s most espionage heavy informats.

On the Scarlet bit – this was long before the events of Clockwork Chaos, remember. This was before Scarlet was known as an international terrorist. She had known ties to the Inquest, but had been publicly disgraced and went different ways from them. So at the time, Scarlet wasn’t a well known villain. Even the most espionage heavy informants wouldn’t know everything, and Scarlet had a known history of never interacting with humanity prior to that moment – so how she’d react to humanity was an unknown.

- Why did Kasmeer get dragged off by Anise for a private chat, is she the true heir?

Why would Kasmeer, a low noble, be a true heir. Besides, all dialogue indicates that Jennah is a true heir, but that there is another possible heir.

- Apparently Kasmeer can tell when people are lying, is this a magical gift, or a capacity for body language reading?

Been confirmed. It’s both.

- Why exactly did Taimi’s “Machine” suddenly fix the asura waystones after Mordremoths tentacles initally disabled them, wouldnt it have taken the Asura ages to build those in mass production and apply them? Also, how is it that too much magic apparently attracts dragons, tied to the same question.
*Taimi’s Waypoint Reconfiguring Device (W.R.D.) did not fix any waypoints. If you go through the maps, the waypoints that were shattered still are (except for the one in LA – that one got fixed). What the device did, as explained in the story instance, was change the wavelength of the magic resonance the waypoints use to make them seem invisible to any mordrem seeking out magic.

Dragons eat magic. Magic is their food source, their goal, their purpose. So magic draws dragons – this has been known and explained in the personal story. And in Season 2.

- What the heck was that kitten trip vision we saw in Omadd’s machine, was it our vision, was it Scarlett’s memories? What was that weird thing, the Eternal Alchemy? What are the orbs? Are they the dragons, or something else?

It was The All, which is basically Tyria’s metaphysical moon system – the orbs are not entirely defined, but are suspected by some Priory to be spirit realms, and they are known to be affected by the Elder Dragons’ risings (and are directly connected to the Elder Dragons). This is what Scarlet saw, but what we see is not the same as Scarlet’s visions – Scarlet claims this is the Eternal Alchemy but it is not. The Eternal Alchemy is the interworkings of all things, while The All is just the interworkings of Tyria and its magic. This is all explained in Season 2 – Hidden Arcana, specifically.

- Caithes “Ninja” looting of the Egg felt very cheap and unexplained, why is it the pale tree wanted us to take the egg, and yet Caithe just ran off with it because of some dumb “wildhunt” revealed in HoT?

Bad storytelling. Caithe was a McGuffin, who’s sole purpose was to drag out the story, pull players away from the Pact Fleet, and make a dramatic reveal of the sylvari’s true nature. ArenaNet just couldn’t devise a real reason for Caithe’s actions.

-continued in next post-

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

More answers we know to OP’s questions:

- The Itzel magically know us, thats convinent, they can also speak our language despite having a trait involving learning their language?

They don’t magically know us. Do The Jungle Provides story instance – this is the Itzel meeting the Pact for the first time. As for language… yeah, that’s just bad writing/mechanic communications.

- Who exactly are the Exalted, besides being former humans created by glint to defend Tarir, are they Zephyrites formerly?

Not really. It’s explained in the panels related to the achievement “A Study in Gold”. Basically, they are the friends and families of the first generation of Zephyrites who passed additional challenges. One of which shares names and origins with an NPC from GW1: Herta.

- Did Faolain actually “die” or was she captured after being stabbed and forcefully transformed, is she even dead?

As provided in a reddit post by Matthew Medina, she doesn’t die until we kill her during Bitter Harvest.

- Why are there ghosts displaced roaming the spirit vale? Are these Ascalonian Ghosts displaced by Rytlocks actions?

No, they are not related to the Foefire ghosts. There are many, many more ghosts in the world than the Foefire ghosts. The full story of them will be told, no doubt, in the second and third raid wing, but the hints provided thus far imply that they are the souls of people killed by the White Mantle over the past 250 years atop of the Bloodstone. Their behavior matches the souls who were imprisoned in the Soul Batteries in Prophecies, the location is next to Bloodstone Fen, and the formation of Gorseval matches that of titans which are formed from tormented souls and make bodies out of their surroundings.

Basically, the entire raid is a continuation of Prophecies.

- What exactly is going on with the Egg and it absorbing Mordremoths magic, is it going to hatch, is it corrupted, what? Will we be some kind of dragonborn chosen creature in a future season?

They already promised to answer this in Season 3.

- White Mantle teasers in Season 2 lead to nothing, good to know, come on, wheres the mantle?!

Didn’t lead to nothing. It lead to the raid. Have you even played it?

- Caithe betrays us and we dont even at any point attempt to beat the snot out of her for it? Logic.

She didn’t betray us. Why would we beat her up, anyways? She’s our ally – and she’s always acted this way – by taking matters into her own hands, acting before thinking, and playing to personal logic instead of considering others’ emotions. What’s strange is why the PC, Canach, and Rytlock are so aggressive towards her. How she acts is literally not uncommon – what’s uncommon is that she blames her actions on a Wyld Hunt.

- Braham gets Eir’s bow and never used it once, logic.

Actually, he didn’t get it yet. It wasn’t on her when she died. It’s somewhere among the rubble. Do you really think he’d spend the time to look for it while deep in enemy territory and his mothers’ killer is threatening Tyria?

- Taimi gets left behind after season 2 where she clearly was in deep trouble being left behind the last time, or season 1 when scruffy got broken up in the edge of the mists, does she have some kind of personal pride? Is she eventually going to die or get into serious trouble she cant escape from because of it?

She’s never in serious trouble in Season 2. As for why she’s left behind – in Season 1 she was left behind because she’s a child (Scruffy was fixed by the time she was left behind). In Season 2 she’s left behind because she has schooling to attend. In HoT she’s left behind because she’s a cripple and cannot run – or walk fast – without Scruffy. No Scruffy = very slow and non-combat able Taimi.

- Is Taimi a villian? She appears to have some sinister agenda’s despite her heroic nature, generally involving power hungering and getting more power for herself even to the point of dismissing her friends lives.

Her “sinister agenda” is “learn more and get famous”. That’s not very sinister. Everyone, to varying degrees, want to be smarter than they currently are (asura exemplify this human trait), and she just wants to be credited for all the work she does (because, as a kid, asura society deems her unable to be credited with anything – it’s all “the college’s work” not “Taimi’s work while in the college”).

- Eir’s death, was it really necessary, I feel we deserved a longer time with Eir considering the lack of bonding Braham and Eir had in Season 2, ON screen.

I agree. Luckily – kinda – apparently they were originally going to kill Eir off in the very first HoT instance…

- What was in the weird Mordremoth trip vision we saw, Divinities Reach or somewhere else?

Tarir. It was effectively showing Mordremoth’s desire to assault the one thing that he believed could resist him effectively and pose a threat: the Exalted and the Egg. I kind of see it as depicting the Attack on Tarir meta fight (Octovines).

- How exactly is lobotomising the dragons brain going to stop its wild and rampant vine expanded body from growing into chaotic insanity?

Talk to Laranthir during the Mouth of Mordremoth fight after Hearts and Minds. It technically didn’t. Basically, as I understand it, Mordremoth’s powers allowed him to transfer his mind into his corruption from which he could regrow a body. So he was effectively immortal so long as you couldn’t destroy his corruption faster than it can grow (which was basically several dozen feet a second); to kill him, they attacked his connection to the Dream, which prevented this act of immortality. They would then need to kill any ‘seeds’ of his mind – such as in the Mouth of Mordremoth (his physical body) and in Trahearne.

- What exactly “did” Mordremoth plant in Treesus to make him corrupted, some kind of thought? A corruption in his body, what?

A copy of Mordremoth’s own mind. That was his specialty – transferring and copying minds across plant bodies.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Cobalt Raven.3986:
I have a few.

Why did Trahearne fly the entire fleet into the jungle without sending scouts to explore first? If someone says “to stop the dragon before it fully awakens”- how does it count as being half awake when it’s been around for at least 2 years, and has extended its reach as far as the Iron Marches? (This is also partially a gripe, as comparing Trahearne’s behavior during vanilla PS to this- he should not be this careless.)

Other than typical idiot ball handling that the Living World writers loved (dear Anet, please leave the ball in its corner), Mordremoth could count as ‘not fully awaken’ because there was no massive disaster. Jormag, Kralkatorrik, and Zhaitan all awoke with a major disaster followed by an army’s assault – Trahearne explicitly states in Season 2 that his primary goal is to kill Mordremoth before it can build a minion army. So time is of the essence.

Where the bloody heck is the Commander for 2+ years and why was there no report or some indication of correspondence with Trahearne? In such an organization, one cannot go AWOL for that long and still have a position.

He was out saving the world from non-Elder Dragon threats. Namely, this ended up taking the form of Scarlet, and figuring out what she did to cause a dragon’s roar.

What happened to those Pact Vigilantes you ran off?

Depends on which you mean. If you mean the ones in Torn from the Sky, you can follow them to the exit to Silverwastes – if you mean in the Pact Camp open world, then probably back to camp?

What exactly is the Coztic Itzel’s deal?

Explained in The Jugnle Provides. They suffered harder than the Jaka Itzel and has turned bitter and untrusting because of that. Also, if we go with original hylek lore – blue and green hylek have less poison in their bodies than red, yellow, and orange. Having higher amounts of poison results in a higher aggressive personality – unlike the Jaka Itzel, the Coztic Itzel (and the hostile Nuhoch tribes) are all red, orange, and yellow skinned. In other words, they are biologically more aggressive. Then add in the death tolls added by mordrem (and probably the mindless firing into the jungle by the Pact…).

How did the Itzel and Nuhoch meet? (My curiosity)

Enjoy your reading

Hmm… that needs to get added to the wiki still, it seems.

Do the Itzel know the bandits?

Nothing indicates so.

More info on the Blighting Tree? Could it be that that tree IS Malyck’s tree and he was one of the, if not the only “minion” to escape Mordremization and instead became “Sylvari”? Also, where are the Blighting Tree seeds? <pure curiosity, I want to see where the Sylvari came from, in terms of specific place of origin.

There are five (possibly six) Blighting Trees across HoT. According to the personal Story, Malyk’s tree is along the river that flows between Tangled Depths and Metrica Province. If any tree in HoT is his, it would be Morwood in Auric Basin.

As for ‘escaping mordremization’ – such a thing isn’t possible on an individual case, or even group case, without some external interference. That’s a very long process though, but basically – we never see the Pale Tree undergo some rite of purification like Glint did, so it is most likely that the Pale Tree’s and Malyck’s tree’s seeds were all purified as seeds

Why did Rytlock tell Eir and Faolain to run to the overpass first, despite knowing that Faolain can’t be trusted (novel inference), and knowing that Eir is weakened and unarmed?

Because the only other option is “stay there and we’ll run around the long way to reach you instead of you running to meet us halfway!”

They were taken to a peninsula – there was only one way out from where Eir and Faolain were taken.

Also, Eir is a Norn. Why did she just stand there and take the shot despite still being able to move, and knowing that there is a small group of very armed warriors near her, at least one of whom could do first aid?

Because she was starved for days, injured, the thorn Faolain stabbed her with being a very damaging strike (they couldn’t show blood due to T rating but devs have said it was meant to be a near fatal strike), and she had no weapons. She knew she couldn’t do jack kitten against the Vinetooth, so rather than run like a coward she faced her enemy like a norn who was completely out of options would.

She could move, but not fast enough to escape. She could move, but couldn’t fight well enough to survive or do any damage.

Why are the human nobility here, what exactly do they bring now that they’re stuck in the jungle thanks to Faren’s harebrained idea that it was a good time to go over Magus Falls on a joyride?

Talk to the NPCs. They explain it. And if you think watching a battle from afar when you believe it’s a sure victory… go read up on the American Civil War and what families did.

Spoiler: Families, often noble families, would set up picnics on the edges of battlefields to ‘enjoy the view of battle’. Needless to say, yes, stray canons did kill some of those dolts.

You may see it as harebrained but… it’s historically accurate.

Why are the Exalted there, exactly? Who else lived in the Golden City? What happened to the Forgotten? Do they have a connection to the Zephyrites? How are they keeping the Mordrem at bay? How are they keeping Mordremoth’s influence out?

In order:
To await and protect Glint’s Egg – and more duties that will be revealed to them in time when Glint’s Egg is no longer needed in Tarir.
The Forgotten.
They left or died off.
Yes, the Exalted were friends and families to the first generation of Zephyrites.
Forgotten magic is immune to dragon corruption. We saw this in Arah. Exalted are immune and have immune magic.
Same as above.

If you’re a Sylvari, how come you aren’t hearing Mordy’s voice/feeling its presence at the surface?

You do – in the story. You never do in the open world, probably because it would be to hard to code for placement in the story and placement in the open world.

Actually, general question: How are we able to resist the dragon?

This is a very long answer. Basically, Mordrem Guard are not naturally corrupted. Mordremoth is capable of whispering into sylvari’s minds in a manner that makes them think these whispers are their own thoughts. Whether a sylvari falls to Mordremoth or resists him is whether or not they believe these whispers to actually be their own thoughts – those who know who they are and know that they wouldn’t normally think thoughts of killing their comrades, wouldn’t turn. Thus, the “how” is based on individual and their acknowledgement of self – as Occam says “I know who I am” so he doesn’t even consider the whispers to be anything other than odd thoughts. He doesn’t even acknowledge that Mordremoth’s in his mind – apparently, Occam is a major kitten. Their physical change is something common to all sylvari and we see happen to Canach and Caithe – it’s just more drastic in this situation.

Where did the Chak come from? How did they get so numerous?

Underground. They lay a kitten ton of eggs, if you notice while inside their hives.

Is it possible to reverse Mordremization? One guy seemed to be coming back to his mind.

In theory. As I said, “mordremization” for sylvari as you call it (a huge misnomer since they’re not ‘true mordrem’) is not actual corruption. If they are taken out of Mordremoth’s ‘range’ (be this distance or interferrence based), then they could potentially come out of the mentality caused by believing the whispers.

What’s up with Taimi? Her mentor Zojja is captured, why doesn’t she mention this at all? Does Taimi just not care or…?

As shown in Torn from the Sky, Taimi is either very confident they’ll be fine, or has been remaining confident for Braham’s sake.

Why do we HAVE to go to Rata Novus? {this one is more of a gripe- if I think about it, I see that there were no Novans sighted for at least a few decades, if not much longer, according to that one Exalted where the ley line map is. No Novans came to shoot at me or talk to me either, despite hundreds on thousands of trespassers in the area and a dragon at the doorstep.}

Because of the potential of a very powerful weapon to use against our enemy. Same reason why we see Pact in CoF. Same reason why we go after the Blue Orb (that one actually proved fruitful) in the personal story.

Also, the Exalted were only awake for a few weeks/months. They awoke when the Egg drew near, so they woke up after Mordremoth did. They weren’t awake for ‘a few decades’ so they couldn’t know that Rata Novus had fallen – they were too busy with mordrem. They didn’t know why they weren’t around, but couldn’t spare the manpower to find out. We could.

Did we actually kill Trahearne, or was that a clone? I say this because his death wasn’t acknowledged, which ANet usually doesn’t overlook, even for minor characters, much less for a major player like this guy. Also I noticed that this Trahearne was roughly comparable to Diarmuid, Hareth and Adrian. Eggy also showed that Trahearne was going to be/was cloned, and as you reached him last, the possibility of him being cloned is VERY high.

Trahearne’s appearance was due to how long Mordremoth has been digging into his mind. He was falling to Mordremoth’s call, even if slowly. But the idea that he was a clone is interesting. But all indication shows that he is dead.

If Trahearne did in fact die, what the heck ANet, why no acknowledgement?

Because they cut off too fast and have no conclusion.

How is the PC not affected either physically or mentally by this? The PC thinks they just offed someone that they’ve been working with/might have been friends with for an extended period. Also, that ley energy blast had to have been at least 3-5 hubs’ worth. How the heck are we not dead? We basically got nuked with Tyrian World magic! And never mind the magic, the blast was big enough to be seen from the upper atmosphere and strong enough to blast us right out of the instance. How aren’t we injured from shrapnel or something?

Again, the story cuts off with Trahearne’s death. So we don’t really see the aftermath of his death – on the PC or others.

As for the blast, at the end of Season 1 no one saw that giant flash and trail of energy, but a small flash of light. When we kill the Mouth of Mordremoth (which is supposedly happening at the same time), he just blinks the same color of light.

So what we see in the concept art cinematics is NOT how characters see it physically. It would just be like a big lightbulb blinking on then off.

Egg said there were clones. I don’t think we saw all of them. Where are they? Do we ever see them again? Also I noticed that at least Zojja’s inherited some of her will. Now that Mordy’s out of the picture, if they do fully ripen and emerge, how will this work? Actually is Mordy even out of the picture? How do we know he’s not lurking in a plant or a Mordrem somewhere, severely weakened but still there?

Uh… in Order!
We killed them.
They dead.
If there were suvrivors, maybe?
Honestly, we can’t be 100% sure but most likely he is – like Zhaitan.
See above.

Nightmare Court: In the meta event, we fight alongside them. What exactly is their deal now? Do we get more definite development from them?

This was somewhat answered in the AMA – basically, it was a plot scrapped for time and duration of plot. There was to be more Nightmare Court stuff during Prisoners of the Dragon.

Major Question: What exactly is the Dream? It was said Mordy could use Wyld Hunts as an access point, how does that work exactly?

All we really know is that it’s a mindscape that can be accessed by powerful individuals in the Maguuma Jungle region (which includes Magus Falls and Tarnished Coast) – the known magically powerful individuals being Mordremoth, the Pale Tree, and the White Stag. Malyck’s Tree does not seem to be tied to the Dream – in theory, his whole tree would be immune to Mordremoth.

About the Magus Falls Hylek being able to understand Common: There are bandits going in and out very close to their village (Spirit Vale is near Jaka Itzel). It’s possible they might have learned to speak Common from the bandits.

Spirit Vale is actually rather far north. While we access it from Verdant Brink, nothing really indicates that the bandits would too. It’s closer to Silverwastes, so they likely have a path straight there.

And the White Mantle miiiiight be a thing in the Raid, once they finish releasing all the wings and its associated story.

White Mantle are definitely a thing in the raid. Sabetha’s trinkets are all named after GW1 White Mantle bosses, and all bandits are ultimately backed by the White Mantle.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

Unanswered Questions, a Living World Problem

Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086