Guild Wars 2

i hope they all answered a call and went east of ascalon where they all rallied under the banner of a mighty demonic king who is building an army of stone creatures and we have to travel to strike at the heart of this army before they can invade the rest of the known kingdoms

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I think too many people are trying to relate too many things to the Elder Dragons – which is actually the opposite of what ArenaNet said they want to do (make their stories “wider” and not “deeper” – that is to say, not connect everything together making a deeper plot) – and in fact, they do what they said they wanted to do (bandits, centaurs, Ascalonian ghosts, ogres, and so forth aren’t tied to Elder Dragons).

Kain Francois.4328:

Maybe it’s something to do we Mordramoth? We know he uses earth-based magic, and Gargoyle’s are stone?

I have to agree with Konig and Narcemus. Not everything can be directly linked to the EDs. The charr don’t even know what happened to them. For all we know theey could have had a fixed lifespan which simply ran out. I find it unlikely that even if Mordramoth is one of the EDs we haven’t seen that it would have had an effect of the gargoyles of both Kryta AND Ascalon. Considering the Ash legion controls lands east of the Blazeridge Mountains, I would expect them to know if the gargoyles moved in that direction. Only time will tell if we will learn how and why they vanished over night with no trace.

So I just looked at the timeline, and (not sure if someone mentioned this) it only says that the Ascalonian gargoyles disappeared. Probably an error, but this could change some theories, since that doesn’t explain the Krytan ones

I don’t mean to hijack the topic, but it has the same sort of meaning. Do we have any sort of reason for the sudden appearance of the giants in game? I mean I know there are ‘giants’ in GW1 but these creatures are merely like twice the size of our characters. The giants that have appeared in areas in GW2 are so tall that our characters barely reach their mid shin. Has anyone found any lore on this?

At this moment I don’t think there is any lore on the gargoyles, but feel free to prove me wrong. I mean for all we know it could be tied to Halloween, lol.

That’s kinda like asking why there are suddenly Pinipals or Colocals. Or where the non-raptor dinosaurs went.

Best explanation is that Anet wanted “more wildlife” and “less wildlife” – since their sudden appearance/disappearance isn’t brought up, it’s likely to just be a retcon like how the Losaru of GW1 got changed from looking like Tyrian centaurs to looking like Elonian centaurs.

@Mystic Starfish: It only says “gargoyles” because this is what we’re told by wording – however, mergoyles are merely aquatic (looking?) gargoyles.

Narcemus.1348:

I don’t mean to hijack the topic, but it has the same sort of meaning. Do we have any sort of reason for the sudden appearance of the giants in game? I mean I know there are ‘giants’ in GW1 but these creatures are merely like twice the size of our characters. The giants that have appeared in areas in GW2 are so tall that our characters barely reach their mid shin. Has anyone found any lore on this?

At this moment I don’t think there is any lore on the gargoyles, but feel free to prove me wrong. I mean for all we know it could be tied to Halloween, lol.

Giants don’t exist anymore… They are long gone from Tyria, they were once a powerful creatures who ruled the world.

nino you’re talking about Giganticus Lupicus.
These very well do exist in the game. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Giant

If you believe the Thuln the Lost there was an age of giants where the Giganticus Lupicus, Jotun, norn and others ruled the world. There are problems about this though, being as this is the first Dragon Awakening that the norn have been through.

Thruln never mentions the Giganticus Lupicus, just “giant races” – which, naturally, one would think to include jotun, norn, ogres, G-Lupe, and the generic “Giants” (possibly the tall kodan as well, though that’s unlikely).

Despite my constant misgivings about Thruln’s information, I think this Age of Giants did exist – but that norn weren’t a part of it, and simply added for the sake of tales twisted to fit the audience. I suspect this Age of Giants occurred between 2 and 3 ED rises ago, or 3 and 4 ED rises ago – which I would place as 6,000-2,000 BE (roughly) or 10,000-6,000 BE (roughly) (side note: my research has led me to believe the ED risings span about 1,000 years each and begin roughly around 10,000 BE, 6,000 BE, 2,000 BE, and now 1,000 AE – usually having a rounded average of 3,000 year span between the risings, though with this one being oddly sooner (I suspect due to the Bloodstone – both its creation and Abaddon’s spreading of magic, if the hypothesis that the ED rise based on magic levels in the world holds – alternatively, it could be due to how races survived and were brought to Tyria by the Six, if they awake based on the amount of life on the world)).

I wasn’t saying there wasn’t one. I was just pointing out an interesting subject that is, in all honesty, no better than just speculation. And I only say that last part because his entire speech is relatively iffy most of the way through, and because of this if ArenaNet wanted too they could completely toss that idea out without breaking any lore technically. It is a very interesting piece of information though, and I could see it being a magnificently glorious time of grand architecture and amazing innovations. I do wonder though how the Jotun survived multiple dragon awakenings. I mean we know the 4 races (being as Mursaat scrammed) survived the last awakening only because of Glint hiding them.

They aren’t here now because the writer’s either didn’t want to include them, or forgot about them. Period.

Most of the time the answers in this thread are just plain simple. Maybe some gal/gal at ANet lost the papers on them, maybe those papers were used as a coffee coaster, or maybe some writer just hates gargoyles. Who knows. The point is trying to connect the lore between the two games is silly. They might as well have different names.

‘They forgot about them’
Except for an NPC in the Black Citadel specifically mentions his studying of why they disappeared.
If they wanted them to just be un-included, they could be like the dinosaurs of the tarnished coast-gone without a trace(I don’t remember hearing anything on why they’re gone)

Narcemus.1348:

I wasn’t saying there wasn’t one.

Never claimed you were saying such. I was merely saying there’s no indication that the G-Lupe were definitely part of this so-called “Age of Giants” as only jotun and norn are explicitly mentioned.

Narcemus.1348:

I do wonder though how the Jotun survived multiple dragon awakenings. I mean we know the 4 races (being as Mursaat scrammed) survived the last awakening only because of Glint hiding them.

Well you have to keep in mind a couple things:

1) Mursaat seem like they were going to be their main weapons this time around.
2) Seers took all magic away.
3) By all appearances, jotun had magitech rather than advance magic and technology. And we’ve seen how effective asuran magitech is compared to standard magic.
4) With their magic taken, their magitech is useless, thus they were on the short end of the stick.
5) If Thurln’s tale of the Age of Giants is to be believed, then the Age of Giants would have ended before that ED rise, so the jotun were already in the decline during the last rise.

@Obsidian and Mystic Starfish: Or the hydras of Ascalon, or the dryders of the Shiverpeak Mountains, or the behemoths of Ascalon and the Maguuma, or Nightmares that were all over (like the Ravagers of the Maguuma). And so forth and so forth.

The very fact that ArenaNet explained away their disappearance to such a minor degree shows that it’s not just a simple “forgetting” or “ignoring.”

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The very fact that ArenaNet explained away their disappearance to such a minor degree shows that it’s not just a simple “forgetting” or “ignoring.”

I totally agree with this. I personally think some of the other creatures that haven’t made an appearance in GW2 will show up somewhere else in the game, or have something written about them to explain what might have happened.

Gargoyles have stuff written about them so they either moved (went under ground or to another area that we don’t have access to yet) or they died off. Since they are associated with Grenth and the underworld, Grenth could have recalled them ( just a guess here, not sure the the lore backs it though)

But the other creatures (dinosaurs, hydras, behemoths) could have either went extinct or migrated to somewhere safer with the rise of the dragons. So I think as more content is added we will find more out about the different creatures and give us a better idea about the why and how.

I don’t think anything claims they’re tied or associated with Grenth.

The only association between them and Grenth are that they live in the Catacombs in pre-searing (a whole area devoted to Grenth and death), and/or the gargoyles of GW2 having come from the Mad King’s Realm which is a distinct part of the Underworld. These are veeeeeeery loose connections though. Just something living in an area that is devoted to Grenth doesn’t mean that they are tied for them. For all we know they could be scavengers and like to use the catacombs to scavenge through the dead. And we have no proof that the Gargoyles of GW2 and the Gargoyles of GW1 are related at all, especially since they have completely different models, and because the Gargoyles of GW1 were never seen in the mists before then.

Has anyone checked this out? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gargoyle I don’t know if the name is just for the sake of the event or what. I don’t know much about the gargoyles in guild wars 1 since I haven’t played the game but I just wanted to point this out. Though, something tells me this is completely unrelated, but again I was just pointing this out. :l

@Narcemus: I wouldn’t say the whole of the Catacombs is devoted to Grenth and death. Firstly, we only go to a portion of the Catacombs in GW1 – and other portions in GW2, one area includes a statue of Kormir (yeah, that confuses me though I guess they had 15 years to build it), and even in the GW1 catacombs, there’s a mural of… I think its Melandru down there.

@Leohart: Yes, you’d note that folks have, especially if you read the post above yours. ;P

Safari.3021:

Their disappearence coincides with the release of the HoM calculator and the sudden need for stacks of granite

This actually sounds like a legit explanation, even though it breaks the fourth wall.

EDIT: Great Destroyer was killed in 1078 and Ministry of Purity was established in 1079. HoM and the Gargoyle genocide was before the rise of the Ministry. Even then, a genocide usually isn’t “mysteriously vanish”.

Gargoyles disappeared in 1185. Your theory is false.

What about the mergoyles they’re also gone? They’re not even from ascalon yet they aren’t mentioned. For shame A-Net choosing only to mention one species of gargoyle (racism).

The gargoyles are only mentioned by a single charr, so its’ more of an environmental/situational mention.

Though technically, mergoyles are also gargoyles and thus count as disappearing mysteriously either way.

@ Konig

True, I prolly should have said the area was devoted to death, and thus a large portion was devoted to Grenth. But either way, it doesn’t ruin the point I was trying to make.

Well the first time you run into the gargoyles is underground so guessing they somehow went dormant if not extinct. Still possible to bring them back along with any other underground races like the dwarves through a few twists of fiction or groups from far off lands.

This may be relevant.

A remnant of presumed-extinct gargoyles.

I’m calling it now, the owner of the mysterious floating castle summoned all of them to the castle to protect it.

If that were so, then why would Isgarren use elementals for the village below?

Wait, wait, you mean you guys haven’t seen that Gargoyles movie from way back in 1972? It explains everything! Gargoyle eggs hatch once every 500 years. The events depicted in the original Guild Wars took place at a time just after a major hatching so there were bunches of gargoyles around, but as usual the other races (cough humans cough) all but wiped them out. So we’ve got a while yet before all the gargoyle eggs hidden away start hatching again. Another 250 years at least.

That, or they all moved to Cantha.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If that were so, then why would Isgarren use elementals for the village below?

Because gargoyles are stronger than elementals so he’s keeping them for his personal defense system? You kinda need those things with elder dragons and just owning that castle seems to create enemies…

I’d say elementals are/can be stronger than gargoyles, tbh.

They were all fed chili peppers and shoved into the walls of the Ascalonian Catacombs to ward off pesky dungeoneers.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’d say elementals are/can be stronger than gargoyles, tbh.

Yes, but for the most part the gargoyles tend to be stronger, they have mesmer and elemental magic, not to mention a few of them were able to repair themselves after dying.

And whose to say that the owner of the castle doesn’t also have extremely powerful elementals to defend himself and he’s just letting the weaker ones defend the town below?

Now you’re contradicting your own claim. You said Isgarren would have called the gargoyles to defend the castle, now you’re saying he has more powerful elementals instead. Make up your mind.

The timeline comes from the guild wars books, right? If so, I would think that it is likely that there was a plot reason for it. Otherwise anet went through a bit of trouble to get it mentioned in the book for something that is a simple “world remodeling”.

@Durzlla: I don’t recall a single mention of gargoyles repairing themselves after death.

As Tuomir said, you line about more powerful elementals is contradictory.

@Ikarushka: Yes, the books have a timeline, but the wikis’ timelines are fan-made from not just the officially given timelines but from dates given to us in-game. The date for gargoyle’s disappearance comes from a single NPC who states that they mysteriously disappeared without a trace (iirc, he also mentions it being in a single day).

I don’t see how it’s contradictory to have some really powerful elementals and then all the gargoyles to defend yourself, it’s like saying “oh why would I want to arm my troops with rifles when I have RPGs?”

@Konig, yeah, I thought the resurrect gargoyles rezed themselves, was mixing their mechanic up with the Ikungi from The Deep (near the kraken who just pick themselves up after X time). It appears they do Rez others though, but certainly me mistaking mechanics!

I know that I’m a digger, but what do you think about ending of AC story?

" King Adelbern: “You’ve defeated me, but what’ve you gained? Much deadlier things stir beneath us. They’ll consume you all!” "

It might be worth mentioning that in the Mad King’s Realm there are Gargoyles (and if I remember correctly, they look a little stone-y). Their design has completely changed from the Ascalonian gargoyles, but they’re there.

There’s a WoodenPotatoes theory that they were somehow related to one of the rituals needed to set Thorn free.

The Link

Yes, but it’s also worth mentioning that since that video was posted a dev livestream said that the Mad Realm gargoyles have no connection to the Ascalonian gargoyles- they just thought that gargoyles would be a good Halloween prop.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Yes, but it’s also worth mentioning that since that video was posted a dev livestream said that the Mad Realm gargoyles have no connection to the Ascalonian gargoyles- they just thought that gargoyles would be a good Halloween prop.

That escaped my memory. I just remembered watching the youtube video recently. xD

Zordon.8237:

I know that I’m a digger, but what do you think about ending of AC story?

" King Adelbern: “You’ve defeated me, but what’ve you gained? Much deadlier things stir beneath us. They’ll consume you all!” "

Refers to Gravelings. Which may be a special breed of skelk given the models.

I love it when old threads are re-animated necro-style :P I would definitely say that I’ve got a good feeling that they have SOMETHING planned for this. It just doesn’t seem like them to throw out a thread like this without something behind it. I mean there are dozens of other monster types missing that have no mention whatsoever.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Hrm. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but I’ll have to take the blame for inflating this beyond what it is. At the time I was creating the content in Black Citadel, everyone was abuzz about waves of “mysterious” bird deaths and thinking it was a sign of something apocalyptic, when in every case the deaths were quite ordinary and not notable.

When I thought about the absence of gargoyles from the areas of Ascalon where they used to live in large numbers (which, as a player, is a detail I would have noticed), I wanted to say something about it, but without saying what actually happened to them. With the conversation on the scholar in the Black Citadel, I didn’t set out to answer that question as much as I wanted to explore how some people in Tyria, just as they do in real life, respond when presented with things in nature they don’t have an explanation for.

Gargoyles and Mergoyles have disappeared, and at least one person is looking into it. Whether we expand on that story in the future comes down to whether the story of their absence is interesting enough to be worth exploring, and fits in with other stories we want to tell.

As long as there is a story that will be told.
It is just annoying having something like this in the timeline and not much mentioning beyond that.

It could be somethign symbolic or just something natural. They went away, they got the flu, who knows.

The only thing i might want is a little bone thrown to us here and there. Update something secretly, even though we are right now a bit buzzed about Rythlok roaming around and we just now noticed.

If it is coming someday, just place it somwhere, so we can find some little clues.
if it is happening “now” make it a bit more visible

As I remember it’s tribute to a specific player who [from what I understand] made lots of Youtube videos involving him/her farming them.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Narcemus.1348:

I love it when old threads are re-animated necro-style :P I would definitely say that I’ve got a good feeling that they have SOMETHING planned for this. It just doesn’t seem like them to throw out a thread like this without something behind it. I mean there are dozens of other monster types missing that have no mention whatsoever.

Hrm. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but I’ll have to take the blame for inflating this beyond what it is. At the time I was creating the content in Black Citadel, everyone was abuzz about waves of “mysterious” bird deaths and thinking it was a sign of something apocalyptic, when in every case the deaths were quite ordinary and not notable.

When I thought about the absence of gargoyles from the areas of Ascalon where they used to live in large numbers (which, as a player, is a detail I would have noticed), I wanted to say something about it, but without saying what actually happened to them. With the conversation on the scholar in the Black Citadel, I didn’t set out to answer that question as much as I wanted to explore how some people in Tyria, just as they do in real life, respond when presented with things in nature they don’t have an explanation for.

Gargoyles and Mergoyles have disappeared, and at least one person is looking into it. Whether we expand on that story in the future comes down to whether the story of their absence is interesting enough to be worth exploring, and fits in with other stories we want to tell.

That is slightly disappointing, lol. I do hope that it comes forward with some interesting storylines though

I wonder if it’s a canon thing that the other things that were in GW1 but not GW2 (hydras, behemots, dryders, aloes/stalkers/other plants, non-raptor dinosaurs) had disappeared unexpectedly and it’s just that no one cares.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I wonder if it’s a canon thing that the other things that were in GW1 but not GW2 (hydras, behemots, dryders, aloes/stalkers/other plants, non-raptor dinosaurs) had disappeared unexpectedly and it’s just that no one cares.

The disappearance of Aloe’s and Hyrda’s bugs me the most >.>
Especially the aloe’s, they were pretty prominent.
Also the disappearance of moss scarabs is a bit weird, because I feel like they would be thriving in Metrica and Caledon…

Moss Scarabs were further north than either. One may argue northern Metrica but not really. They’d be more prominent in Brisban Wildlands, and certainly weren’t in Caledon’s area during GW1.

I think Maguuma scarabs have been remade into Undergrowth Bloodfangs. Their coloring is very similar to the old scarab looks and they both steal life.

If it’s true, we’ve another case of lore cutting for simplicity’s sake.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Moss Scarabs were further north than either. One may argue northern Metrica but not really. They’d be more prominent in Brisban Wildlands, and certainly weren’t in Caledon’s area during GW1.

Yes I know that, but the Magguma Jungle is no longer a Jungle and unless that happened extremely quickly you would expect the wildlife to have migrated away from the changing landscape that was ruining their way of life…