Guild Wars 2

Let’s say Kralkatorrik offers the Pact a peace treaty, would you take it?

After the battle against Destiny’s Edge, Kralkatorrik is in a very weakened state. Hence it went into hiding. Trapped in the Crystal Desert, it battled with the forces of Joko, which are much stronger than they were 300 years ago. They also cannot be corrupted because they are already undead. The Branded, while powerful, were no match against Joko’s superior military tactics, and suffered defeat after defeat.

The only way for it to survive was to offer the Pact a peace treaty. Kralkatorrik appeared as a harmless looking little girl, and offered to help the Pact battle against other Elder Dragons. In return, it asks for help against Joko’s forces.

The members of Destiny’s Edge would obviously be against this. However Queen Jennah and others might not feel the same.

“Kralkatorrik, why are you pretending to be human?”
“Because experience with your kind shows that looks matters to you, a great deal. It must be easier to talk with me when I look like this. I and other dragons only see creatures by the magic within them.”

“No way! It killed Glint!”
“Killing is the wrong way to put it. Her existence came from me. I merely re-absorbed the power that I gave her long time ago.”

“No way! It killed Snaff!”
“And he tried to mind control and kill me. I must put down such a serious threat, .”

“No way! It turned so many into the branded!”
“I can transform them back any time. If you want to save the branded, ally yourselves with me. Look.” (transformed a Branded Human back into human)
“Noooooooo my master! Give me back your gifts! I can’t live without you!”
“No. You will never become branded again. I am a dragon of my words.”

“Enough talk! We can kill it right here right now!”
“Don’t be so eager to fight me. Young one. If I wasn’t certain that I can defeat all of you today, I won’t be here. And trust me, I can. But it is moot point. As you know, our magic can never be destroyed. If you by chance kill me, my lieutenant will take over, and this endless cycle continues.”

“Why ally with the Pact? Why not with Joko?”
“Joko is a brilliant trickster, and has always been. The Pact at least have a bit of honour left in them.”

Will this alliance be made?

No thank you.

That would just absolutely destroy the concept behind the Elder Dragons and the personality Kralkatorrik is implied to have through the Branded and Edge of Destiny. It’d be a worse insult to the lore than Scarlet’s existence seemingly redacting the build-up of GW2 or the GW2 “no longer human-centric”ness destroying the lore behind Abaddon and the bloodstones (just because it’s not human-centric doesn’t mean the humans have to be wrong about everything, ya know…).

Let’s say the Pact and Kralkatorrik had a treaty. What happens after they defeated Palawa Joko? Kralkatorrik will just stab the Pact in the back or worse: kill Trahearne in the process. Trahearne’s death could cause the Pact’s disbandment (unless our characters stepped in and become the Marshal).

Yeah…no thanks. While this scenario was interesting, Kralkatorrik turning into a little girl just broke all immersion. And there’s no way they’d try reasoning with us in that manner.

No.

Joko might be a dictator ruling with an iron fist, but at least he can be reasonable on certain regards He also seems to be content just ruling Elona for right now. Kralk, on the other hand, still wants to corrupt and rule the entire world.

And the little girl transformation? It sounds like that idea got ripped off from an anime or manga.

Exosferatu.2961:

Let’s say the Pact and Kralkatorrik had a treaty. What happens after they defeated Palawa Joko? Kralkatorrik will just stab the Pact in the back or worse: kill Trahearne in the process. Trahearne’s death could cause the Pact’s disbandment (unless our characters stepped in and become the Marshal).

After all the other elder dragons are dead, the Pact can deal with Kralkatorrik if it betrays them.

Erukk.1408:

No.

Joko might be a dictator ruling with an iron fist, but at least he can be reasonable on certain regards He also seems to be content just ruling Elona for right now. Kralk, on the other hand, still wants to corrupt and rule the entire world.

And the little girl transformation? It sounds like that idea got ripped off from an anime or manga.

We don’t know how powerful Joko has become. And the most dangerous part about Joko is his mind. This guy is actually high intelligent, unlike the other enemies we seen so far who rely on raw might and power.

We know very little of the elder dragons’ actual goals, tbh.

Kralkatorrik didn’t actually transformed into a girl. It just appears like a girl for the negotiation. She could be its avatar or something. Kralkatorrik is still a dragon.

There is risk involved of course. But the prospect of turning one elder dragon on our side cannot be ignored. The Pact killed Zhaitan, only to have its lieutenant take over its power. Kralkatorrik might know the secret of killing an elder dragon for good. It depends on the paying price.

If the heroes always think of betrayal first, the story of GW Prophecies and Nightfall would be very different. Heroes got betrayed many times there.

Not saying Kralkatorrik would even betray in the first place. Would it? No one knows yet. We cannot just assume that it will.

Possible ulterior motives aside, we know from a dev interview that the Elder Dragon’s balance Tyria’s magic levels, by keeping it in a constant state of flux. When they awaken, they devour the world’s magic. Once it reaches a low enough level, they go back into hibernation, and then they radiate a clean(?) magic over time.

The rub, of course, is that the entire world is infused with magic: the earth, water, plants, living, dead, possibly the very air, but most importantly us. As long as we carry magic, we’re up on the dinner table for the Elder Dragons’ “balancing”.

In the end, no matter how dangerous, Joko is never going to be as dangerous to us as a whole as the Elder Dragons are going to be, because Joko can be bargained with. The Elder Dragons are always going to try and kill/devour us. It’s their very nature.

Alternate storyline:

We march in to the desert to kill Kralk, Joko shows up and offers to help… as long as we don’t murder him.

We agree, Joko uses his massive undead army to help, and all together we kill Kralk.

200 years later Joko has taken over all known civilized lands and rules over a kingdom of the dead much larger than he would have without our assistance. All because we didn’t murder him at the very first opportunity

This sounds kinda familiar actually…

an elder dragon would never side with puny insects, would you join offer a peace treaty to a nest of ants? no

@PopeUrban

To be fair, we don’t even know if we can kill Joko, because liches have a horrible habit of being unkillable. The only way were we able to kill Khillbron is because there were soul batteries involved. I would imagine those are really hard to come by now though, since the Mursaat are gone.

@erukk, sever the head, arms and legs, seal the torso and limbs in different places in the world, give the head to grenth; alternatively, throw the severed remains in lava – mount maelstrom has to be useful someday

Elona is better with Joko anyways. He might be a dictator, but he is a wealthy dictator who brought Green and Water to the desolation.

Would you have really preferred Kourna with its evil military generals, or Vabbi with its too-stupid-to-live oligarchy? Istan might have been better than those 2, but they are the birthplace of Kormir…. That leaves Joko to fix up this mess.

what about the oppression of the people, its all well and good that there is no war in elona but what is peace if the people lose their free will?

CHIPS.6018:

Exosferatu.2961:

Let’s say the Pact and Kralkatorrik had a treaty. What happens after they defeated Palawa Joko? Kralkatorrik will just stab the Pact in the back or worse: kill Trahearne in the process. Trahearne’s death could cause the Pact’s disbandment (unless our characters stepped in and become the Marshal).

After all the other elder dragons are dead, the Pact can deal with Kralkatorrik if it betrays them.

Okay. Maybe in the end Kralkatorrik wasn’t bad after all. It will turn into a child once more and let our character (Marshal of the Pact) choose between:

Red Ending: Destroy all dragon minions and magic.

Blue Ending: Assume direct control of all dragon minions and the Marshal, our character, becomes the vanguard of all Tyria.

Green Ending: Everyone in Tyria becomes imbued with crystals and powerful magic.

Alternative Ending: Marshal punches Kralkatorrik in the face while it’s in child form. Kralkatorrik enraged and threaten the Marshal “So be it! The cycle continues.”

Getefix.9150:

@erukk, sever the head, arms and legs, seal the torso and limbs in different places in the world, give the head to grenth; alternatively, throw the severed remains in lava – mount maelstrom has to be useful someday

It wouldn’t work. Turai Ossa tried something similar given the inscription on the monument of Joko’s defeat.

“This monument commemorates the defeat of Palawa Joko at the Battle of Jahai. After 100 days of bloody battle, Turai Ossa and his elite troops defeated Joko’s undead forces of grey giants and undead centaurs. Yet, despite attempts made with magic, blade and even darker means, Palawa Joko could not be killed. Turai Ossa’s elite forces chained him by magic and bound him deep in the earth. Thus the undead lord’s defeat was complete and Palawa Joko sealed away forever in a location kept secret by the Order of Whispers.”

Erukk.1408:

Getefix.9150:

@erukk, sever the head, arms and legs, seal the torso and limbs in different places in the world, give the head to grenth; alternatively, throw the severed remains in lava – mount maelstrom has to be useful someday

It wouldn’t work. Turai Ossa tried something similar given the inscription on the monument of Joko’s defeat.

“This monument commemorates the defeat of Palawa Joko at the Battle of Jahai. After 100 days of bloody battle, Turai Ossa and his elite troops defeated Joko’s undead forces of grey giants and undead centaurs. Yet, despite attempts made with magic, blade and even darker means, Palawa Joko could not be killed. Turai Ossa’s elite forces chained him by magic and bound him deep in the earth. Thus the undead lord’s defeat was complete and Palawa Joko sealed away forever in a location kept secret by the Order of Whispers.”

you forget, there is no volcano in elona…. however, 350 years later, we have super mega lasers, bet they didnt try that back in the day… if not we can just either chuck him into mount maelstrom, or tie him to a boulder (or seal him in one) and then chuck that into the sea or into the volcano

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(just because it’s not human-centric doesn’t mean the humans have to be wrong about everything, ya know…).

This. It’s rather becoming anti-human centric and asura-centric.

I totally hate the asura race now. Even at the time i was amazed during the bazaar content, in the second minute i heard a dialog about a Zephyrite telling about their culture to an asura, and the asura, with the tone you use when you talk to someone mentally kittened, said" Aaaaah, so it’s the eternal alchemy, just in much more primitive approach" – i loath them. They destroy the atmoshpere as always.

Anyone who is not an asura is trash. It’s not just what all the asuras think, but what the game wants us to feel like.

Gandarel.5091:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(just because it’s not human-centric doesn’t mean the humans have to be wrong about everything, ya know…).

This. It’s rather becoming anti-human centric and asura-centric.

I totally ahte the asura race now. Even at the time i was amazed during the bazaar content, in the second minute i heard a dialog about a Zephyrite telling about their culture to an asura, and the asura, with the tone you use twhen you talk to someone mentally kittened, said" Aaaaah, so it1s the eternal alchemy, just in much more primitive approach" – i loath them. They destroy the atmoshpere as always.

Anyone who is not an asura is trash. It’s not just what all the asuras think, but what the game wants us to feel like.

Off topic, but come on. No race make others feel as trashy as Sylvari. Scarlet for example has 100 times smarter than any Asura alive.

I actually like it

There would never be a peace. There would only ever be a cease fire. It’s also unlikely that any ruler would surrender their land to dragon corruption, or a dragon respect the boundaries of any nation.

Getefix.9150:

an elder dragon would never side with puny insects, would you join offer a peace treaty to a nest of ants? no

These “insects” just took down Zhaitan. That is bound to get Kralkatorrik attention. Kralkatorrik is also weakened from the fight with Destiny’s Edge.

If he is weak enough to need help, then we can deal with him just fine.

When one dragon dies, another takes its place. We have 4 other dragon to deal with, and Teq the next Zhaitan. Kralkatorrik’s knowledge on these ancient dragons will be very valuable. Perhaps now we can put an end to elder dragons once and for all.

I’m sure there are many games that have defenseless looking (girls) people that are dragons…

I known for sure Aion has Tiamat who is essentially a “big bad” and their equivalent of an Elder Dragon (except more draconic than crystal\bone\ice)

Plot seems bland and like someone pointed this would destroy lore. Also dragons are suppose to be forces of nature and should only have “primitive” emotions (with Jormag that seems to be an exception) like Zhaitan roaring in fear

Also no offense, but this sounds like a pretty awkward and cheesy situation, even if ANet managed to write the dialog “epic”

CHIPS.6018:

When one dragon dies, another takes its place. We have 4 other dragon to deal with, and Teq the next Zhaitan. Kralkatorrik’s knowledge on these ancient dragons will be very valuable. Perhaps now we can put an end to elder dragons once and for all.

That is speculation, since we still have no idea how Teq is “evolving”. All we know is that its evolution is going to tie into the living story at some later date. So. we really can’t say Teq is or isn’t the next Zhaitan, until it’s confirmed or denied.

Plus, Kralk would never give us information on how to truly kill an Elder Dragon, because he’s an Elder Dragon. He would basically be giving us the weapon to kill him with. Truce or no truce, with all the other Elder Dragons supposedly dead, Kralk still needs to devour magic. That hunger is sooner or later going to make us enemies again. So there is no point in him giving us info on how to deal with the other Elder Dragons, since it would only be used against him later.

Even with how the undead Elder was killed I was unhappy. It would have made it only worse if Kally became a freaking anime loligirl. No, please, Elder Dragons are Elder Dragons, Dragons, not metamorphs or oozes. They are the prime race(other than gods or titans) and will never take the form of any other creature.

Guild Wars is a western-reality style based lore. Morphing Dragons are a carry-over from Gods of greek(legendary creatures taking the form of humans) and is quite unintuitive! Dragon battles should be hopeless — People should be dying all over the place instead of being able to hide around like little leechers and getting their loots.

Make it so that taking down even a lesser dragon cannot be achieved without great casualties, but make it so that the whole world is gravely affected by the lesser dragon’s presence, so as to make the scale of the dragon’s power feel awesome. Yes, I used the word awesome as was intended. Anyway, right now the problem we have with boss battles is that its just tank and spank, where the tanks is your HP bar, and the spank is just waiting for people who know what they are doing to kill the kitten world boss.

I feel that this is against the spirit of what the dragons are as “forces of nature” that consume magic.

While I agree that the dragons are sentient creations that control their own actions, I feel that how they are portrayed is very important and that this would sort of break the presentation of them that we were given.

This even more so due to Kralkatorrik being the most impacting dragon to the game lore due to ties to Destiny’s Edge and Glint. There is an air of “natural selection ruthlessness” to the dragons that would be destroyed if a portrayal like this was presented.

While there are other games and media content that this would be fitting in (mostly stuff on crunchy roll), this would not be the right lore setting.

However this idea can work in its own way. I disagree with the little anime girl presentation. Crucia was done as a human transmorgrification in RIFT and it worked very well.

She would have to be a ruthless “evil queen” type grown woman with some inhuman features for it to work imo. That and she should give off this idea that she is just waiting for the Pact to turn their back on her so she can backstab them.

Erukk.1408:

CHIPS.6018:

When one dragon dies, another takes its place. We have 4 other dragon to deal with, and Teq the next Zhaitan. Kralkatorrik’s knowledge on these ancient dragons will be very valuable. Perhaps now we can put an end to elder dragons once and for all.

That is speculation, since we still have no idea how Teq is “evolving”. All we know is that its evolution is going to tie into the living story at some later date. So. we really can’t say Teq is or isn’t the next Zhaitan, until it’s confirmed or denied.

Plus, Kralk would never give us information on how to truly kill an Elder Dragon, because he’s an Elder Dragon. He would basically be giving us the weapon to kill him with. Truce or no truce, with all the other Elder Dragons supposedly dead, Kralk still needs to devour magic. That hunger is sooner or later going to make us enemies again. So there is no point in him giving us info on how to deal with the other Elder Dragons, since it would only be used against him later.

I am sure by killing other elder dragons, there are more than enough magic for Kralkatorrik to consume.

Helping the Pact kill other elder dragons and Joko is part of the deal. So Kralkatorrik will have to give up the secrets in killing elder dragons. That’s what lure the Pact into the deal.

Why would Kralkatorrik do it? It was weakened by the fight against Destiny’s Edge, making it the weakest of the 5 surviving dragons. It saw Zhaitan got killed by the Pact’s new weapons. It is trapped between the Pact and Joko’s forces, and Joko is a military genius on top of being mega powerful. Teaming up with the Pact gives its the highest chance of survival.

I can’t bealieve you are talking about this nonsense in a totally serious way.

Kralkatorrik offers peace, it’s like “What if a hurricane offers peace for the East coast and attacks the West?!”

LORE should switch real interesting in case a dragon, I prefer Kralkatorrik, turns out to HELP the Pact – so he can rule the world silently… Well it would make a fair deal to sacrifice a piece of land for him to keep others untouched.

I believe the Elder Dragons are very smart. And that they won’t just mindless berzerk the worlds.

So if Kralkatorrik offers power/solution against the other dragons – so he can be the highest one surviving… amm. got me?

i will play russian roulette with it.

Because RNG.

Take it. Because who wants to fight dragons when fighting Scarlet is so much more fun?

I also think this is unlikely, however I do like the idea of giving actual personalities to the Elder Dragons (because fighting a tornado is much less engaging than fighting a person that has wronged you).
But retconning something that essential when people are even getting up in arms that the tyrian calender got changed from 360 to 365 days would be lore-suicide.

CHIPS.6018:

We don’t know how powerful Joko has become. And the most dangerous part about Joko is his mind. This guy is actually high intelligent, unlike the other enemies we seen so far who rely on raw might and power.

If only Joko had been the mysterious enemy instead of Scarlet…

Exosferatu.2961:

Let’s say the Pact and Kralkatorrik had a treaty. What happens after they defeated Palawa Joko? Kralkatorrik will just stab the Pact in the back or worse: kill Trahearne in the process. Trahearne’s death could cause the Pact’s disbandment (unless our characters stepped in and become the Marshal).

You say it like it’s a bad thing for Trahearne to be killed :P

Kain Francois.4328:

Elona is better with Joko anyways. He might be a dictator, but he is a wealthy dictator who brought Green and Water to the desolation.

Would you have really preferred Kourna with its evil military generals, or Vabbi with its too-stupid-to-live oligarchy? Istan might have been better than those 2, but they are the birthplace of Kormir…. That leaves Joko to fix up this mess.

Well…he brought water and greenery to the desolation by redirecting the Elon river…that means Vabbi got owned.

Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.

Words to live by thanks to another game I play, it works here too.

Exosferatu.2961:

kill Trahearne in the process.

All of a sudden I support this proposition.

Konig touched on it. Sylvari are very much the reason GW2 was made in the first place: all the lore puts them in a central and pivotal role in some way. Other races are probably going to continue to be completely insignificant for the duration of GW2 era (accept it, learn to hate the Sylvari, and move on). Things like dragons, gods etc. are a very remote possibility.

Additionally it’s simply not within the reach of the psyche built into EDs. They are here to consume magic. Even while you were effectively tearing off Zhaitan’s eyes and mouth he was still out to get you. From what we have been shown EDs are absolutely single-minded in their goals.

Also branded are not undead: there is probably no reason you can’t have an undead branded (heck, we even have branded elementals – which aren’t necessarily living in the first place). Joko’s forces would be immune to Zhaitan, at best.

Kralkatorrik is an ELDER DRAGON

They exist to devour everything magical in the world, then fall asleep and wait for the world to recharge.

Come to think of it, they’re basically Reapers without the cool voice-overs.

If Karl had the voice of Harbinger, I’d flip! :x

Edit: Just noticed the misspell, I’m goin’ for it!

Karl Katorrik’s used charr emporium! You’d be krazy to miss out on these branded!

Exosferatu.2961:

Let’s say the Pact and Kralkatorrik had a treaty. What happens after they defeated Palawa Joko? Kralkatorrik will just stab the Pact in the back or worse: kill Trahearne in the process. Trahearne’s death could cause the Pact’s disbandment (unless our characters stepped in and become the Marshal).

…

I’m okay with this.