Guild Wars 2

draxynnic.3719:

DarcShriek.5829:

I have trouble with the speculation that the zephyrites weren’t aware of Mordy’s awakening. The festival lasted quite a few weeks, and the awakening was pretty big news. Word would of had to have gotten to the Minister of Peace.

Strictly speaking, our characters didn’t know that the roar was Mordremoth the Elder Dragon awakening in the jungles – our characters didn’t actually see that cutscene. We just heard a dragon roar. It wasn’t until after S2E1 – which is to say, after the Zephyrites crashed – that we really confirmed what was going on. Until then, in-character there were some who figured that a dragon was stirring, but nobody had any idea where. Mr E’s letter directing us to Brisban was the first indication that anyone had made any connection whatsoever between the jungle and the roar.

More importantly, if my speculation is right (or even if it’s wrong and the egg is exactly what it appears) it’s likely that the Zephyrites have been preparing the jungle sanctuary since they recovered Glint’s remains in 1320AE. So even if, hypothetically, the Zephyrites had known Mordremoth was in the jungle and waking up as soon as that roar happened, they’d already committed six years of effort to the sanctuary, possibly to the point where it just wasn’t practical to do anything other than go ahead despite the added risk.

I still disagree with your position that nobody knew where the roar came from. Here’s why. The first thing that comes to mind is that in our conversations with the Pale Tree, it seems heavily implied that she knew from the beginning. There fore someone knew.

Now, the roar was a pretty big deal, everyone heard it. Many of them attended the festival that the zephyrites held for the stated purpose of rebuilding Lions Arch. There is no way that the story of Scarlett and the roar didn’t reach the ears of the master of peace.

Now as the head of an ancient organization dedicated to an elder champion dragon, it’s your job to check out possible dragon roars. As the head of the order, you’re probably well aware of the existence of Mordy. You probably have a good idea of where his final resting place is. It’s a simple matter to send scouts to get better information.

It’s my position that not only did the zephyrites know that it was Mordy awakening, it’s also my position that is why there went there.

The Zephyrites exist for the purpose of protecting Glint’s magic, not acting as scouts and detectives on possible Elder Dragon risings. I don’t see how it is the master of peace’s job to check out possible dragon roars. His job is to protect Glint’s legacy – that’s it. Also I don’t see why he would be aware of Moredremoth’s existence? Or why he would know Mordremoth’s final resting place, given that knowledge of Mordremoth was not common knowledge and nobody is alive now who was alive during the last dragon rise.

lakdav.3694:

Just as a regular musing on the phylosophy of elements, not entirely related to the GW2 universe, just some thinking i have:

The original 4 elements of Plato mostly explain the 3 stages of matter, (earth-solid, water-liquid, air-gas) and the fourth “element” fire, being the concept of change, or basicly Temperature, the key between the three stages of matter.

Another thought concerning the element of Life or Preservation. This element is usually associated to be the polar opposite of Death and Destruction, rightly so. However when it comes to undead creatures, we usually immedietly jump to the conclusion that undeath is connected to Death. I cant imagine why, though. Its un-death. If anything, undeath is the unnatural preservation of something that should be dead. Death is as much about change as Fire, the transition between stages, while Preservation and Necromancy are about keeping the status quo permanently if possible.

By this viewpoint, the difference between a healer and a necromancer is mostly who, what and why they practice their arts on. While a healer uses aspects of preservation and restoration on the living to keep them alive, their own souls in their own body, healthy and all, a necromancer would use other alien (or the original subjects) souls/spirits/raw life-force to animate magically preserved dead matter, be it a fresh corpse, or a construct made of flesh (GW minions) or something else (golems).

The attached picture is the classical Greek interpretation of the four elements by Aristotle. While it explains the Elementalist rather well….doesn’t help with Elder Dragons when you have elements like Plant and Shadow being thrown into the mix.

(although it is interesting to note that we have a hot, wet, cold, and possibly dry dragon (Primordus, DSD, Jormag, Kralkatorrik))…..Wherever Anet got their inspiration for the Elder dragons, they either made up the hierarchy on the spot, or they got their ideas from a much more complex model.

I drew the priory map of the Antikytheria, picked out the lines and started finding meanings.

Horizontal lines – opposing lines?
“S” (dsd) —-—Kralkatorrik

Zhaitan —-—-Mordremoth

Primordus —-Jormag

So, that would be something like…

Fluid?———Solid?
Decay———Growth?
Hot————-Cold

Then there are the diagonal lines. “S” connects to Jormag and Primordus to Kralkatorrik. Zhaitan’s and Mordremoth’s diagonal lines connect to each other on empty lots of the outer ring, forming a square. Lines of common themes, perhaps?

“S”———————-Jormag – water?

Primordus——Kralkatorrik – earth?

Zhaitan upper———-Mordremoth upper – Death-Life-Birth (Mordremoth creates jungle, no?)

Zhaitan lower———-Mordremoth lower – would hazard a guess it’s to do with their secondary spheres, but right now I can’t think of a suitable connection.

Keep in mind that each dragon seems to represent TWO aspects, not one. And often one is a seemingly neutral aspect (fire, water, ice, shadow, plants, crystals) and one is a negative aspect (mind, destruction, death, corruption, temptation).

It seems like all of the Elder Dragons embody corrupted versions of magical aspects that could be good, in the hands of the gods. For example, Mordremoth is plants and the mind, but he is really an invasive weed (life at the cost of other life), and corruption of the mind. Where as Melandru is the exact opposite, diversity of life and freedom.

Kralkatorrik is crystals and lightning. But he corrupts (brands) with his crystals, turning everything into twisted branded creatures, and the lightning destroys and warps. Glint shows us what these aspects could have been had they been good: Wisdom and beauty.

Primordus is fire and destruction. But his fire leaves devastation in its wake, and there is no honor in his destruction, only anger and cruelty. Balthazar represents fire and the glory of battle. There is honor in the wars conducted in Balthazars name, and it isn’t simply destruction for the sake of destroying things. Two sides of a coin.

When Grenth rose to power, he borrowed water from the defeated Abaddon, but his aspect became ice instead. And he took the aspect of death from the defeated god Dhuum. Kormir would later receive order and truth, rather than secrets. We know Jormag embodies ice, but his ice corrupts and transforms creatures. We do not know what Bubbles does with water, but we can assume it isn’t good.

This is the important part VVV

But I don’t think we should see the Elder Dragons as exact opposites to the gods. What I think what we are seeing, is different ways to use the many aspects of magic. Good versus evil. The Elder Dragons embody all the bad and destructive things of magic, while the gods embody the good (mostly). There have of course also been bad gods, who used magic for evil too.

Underdark.3726:

The Tyria in the center of the diagram is the world or the continent? Cos what I don’t understand is that if we are talking about the world why are all 6 dragons so close to each other? We can now see the map of the world and is quite big, so why are they all around the continent of Tyria? If we talking about the continent only what does that mean? That the rest of the world does not have magic or that there are other 6 dragons circling around other continents? Or is there some other thing that I’m missing?

Yes, very interesting. Very interesting indeed! Almost as if beings possessed of magics more elementally powerful (and harmonious) than anything we have yet seen had chosen to keep all these unruly and unfriendly beings confined within a specific area, not unlike a great corral…

I think what they mean is The Thyria as more than just the world Tyria, and certainly not limited to just the continent.

If the Human Gods were in some way related to the magical ecosystem, did they change the magical balance when they came and did they change the balance when they left?

They changed it bigtime. They may not have created Tyria per se, but there’s a lot of references that they terraformed it and made it what it is today. And then there’s the whole thing with the Bloodstones…

(Also, I think Mrs Thorn may be onto something there. It’s worth noting that Balthazar’s rival Menzies is known as the Lord of Destruction, which gives him similar aspects to Primordus, although Menzies’ minions are of course very different to Destroyers.)

lakdav.3694:

Just as a regular musing on the phylosophy of elements, not entirely related to the GW2 universe, just some thinking i have:

The original 4 elements of Plato mostly explain the 3 stages of matter, (earth-solid, water-liquid, air-gas) and the fourth “element” fire, being the concept of change, or basicly Temperature, the key between the three stages of matter.

Actually, fire maps nicely onto the fourth state of matter, plasma, as much as people in Greek times had the opportunity to experience it. So the four ‘elements’ are essentially the four states of matter, interpreted through the eyes of philosophers from over two millenia ago.

By this viewpoint, the difference between a healer and a necromancer is mostly who, what and why they practice their arts on. While a healer uses aspects of preservation and restoration on the living to keep them alive, their own souls in their own body, healthy and all, a necromancer would use other alien (or the original subjects) souls/spirits/raw life-force to animate magically preserved dead matter, be it a fresh corpse, or a construct made of flesh (GW minions) or something else (golems).

I’ve seen this interpretation taken in other settings, but I don’t think it’s the case in Guild Wars. Necromancy can be used to heal, although lorewise if not mechanically it usually does so by stealing life force from somewhere else. More powerful healing comes from different schools of magic, however.

@DarcShriek: The Pale Tree “knew” it was a dragon awakening*, yes, and many other people had suspicions, but we didn’t actually know for sure until we started encountering Mordrem. The Pale Tree also has information sources the others don’t. Either way, she certainly didn’t share this information until it was independently confirmed.

Also, the way the Zephyrites were portrayed in the second Bazaar was most definitely NOT that of a scouting force that was planning to enter hostile territory to perform a potentially dangerous reconnaissance mission. Taimi – I think it was – talks about how the Zephyrites were eager to go to their next destination: such eagerness speaks of them achieving some hoped-for goal (such as achieving their seven-year goal of hatching Glint’s egg), not investigating a military threat. While the Zephyrites are willing to fight, they’re certainly not charr who will regard putting themselves in danger against an unknown enemy as something to be eager about. Furthermore, if it was a scouting expedition, the Zephyrite fleet had more than a single airship – why would they risk the ship carrying the egg anywhere near Mordremoth, and even if they did, if the MoP’s objective was scouting, why the kitten would he run deeper into the jungle, alone, with the Zephyrites’ most precious artifact?

Everything points to the Zephyrites’ reason to be out there to be related to the hatching of the egg, and Mordremoth simply wasn’t part of their plans.

With that in mind, if the Zephyrites knew that Mordremoth was awakening in the jungle, why did they delay with the second Bazaar before heading out? Yes, they had an agreement with LA, but hatching the egg safely is going to be their primary concern – if they’d known that delaying was putting the eggs at risk, I think they’d have ditched Lion’s Arch in an instant, particularly since the impression I had was that the second Bazaar was going above and beyond the terms of the agreement. While the Zephyrites were impatient to leave, their impatience was due to eagerness to complete their mission, not due to concern that the delay was giving Mordremoth the chance to become more powerful and thus a greater threat to the egg. Had they known, they would have planned to go somewhere else for the hatching if possible, or gone immediately while the danger was least if not.

From my analysis of the evidence, if the Zephyrites knew the roar as another dragon awakening (as opposed to, say, one of the already awake dragons roaring its pleasure at an unexpected ley line meal) they certainly had no idea that they were going to be flying straight at the new threat.

• In my experience, when people say “I’ve known since…”, what that actually usually translates to is a strong suspicion that was confirmed afterwards.

@draxynnic – First, a word about recon missions. Recon missions are not done by large ships floating in the air. They are done by small squadrons in secret. So while the festival is going on, the zephyrites had plenty of opportunities to send out small squadrons. Also, there was no way they would take off right away, first the information from the recon missions would need to be interpreted. send missions to different places in tyria, ask people what they knew, collate and triangulate. It takes time. The rebuilding of Lions Arch provides excellent cover. But news of the dragon’s roar was too big to be ignored by a cult that specializes in elder dragons. They had to investigate. There’s no way the Master of Peace didn’t know.

@DarcShriek: Except that the Zephyrites aren’t ‘a cult that specialises in elder dragons’. They’re a group that seeks to preserve the legacy of Glint. Yes, this means that the elder dragons are involved, but their purpose is not intelligence gathering – it’s protecting Glint’s legacy.

The closest thing to ‘a cult that specialises in elder dragons’ is the Pact, and they had NFI that Mordremoth was in the jungle until reports came in well after the Zephyrite airship(s) crashed. They knew that there was the sound of a dragon’s roar. They may even have had the general direction, if the sound actually travelled through conventional means and not, say, through the ley line network. But they didn’t know ‘Mordremoth was waking in the Maguuma Wastes.’

Why would the Zephyrites – a group which has always been portrayed as attempting to remain, literally, above the events of the world expect specifically where it relates to their narrowly-defined purpose – go to such effort to scout out a region for elder dragon activity when there are three orders that have united into a Pact that does specialise in fighting the Elder Dragons on a military, intelligence, and scholarly level? And why the ever-loving kitten would they knowingly fly a ship full of noncombatants and containing their most precious artifact over a region they know to be highly dangerous, unless preparations they’ve made previously on the assumption that there wouldn’t be another dragon awakening for another four decades or so have already committed them to the region for reasons beyond simple reconnaissance?

draxynnic.3719:

(Also, I think Mrs Thorn may be onto something there. It’s worth noting that Balthazar’s rival Menzies is known as the Lord of Destruction, which gives him similar aspects to Primordus, although Menzies’ minions are of course very different to Destroyers.)

I hadn’t thought of that yet, that is a very good point.

draxynnic.3719:

I’ve seen this interpretation taken in other settings, but I don’t think it’s the case in Guild Wars. Necromancy can be used to heal, although lorewise if not mechanically it usually does so by stealing life force from somewhere else. More powerful healing comes from different schools of magic, however.

Bare in mind that the big difference between Grenth and Dhuum, was that Grenth allowed resurrection. In other words, giving life back. So necromancy isn’t always about taking life from somewhere else. It is just as much about controlling life and death in general.

True, but necromancers had no resurrection magic in GW1 beyond the standard res sig (and PvE skills when they came in, like the Sunspear sig), and every necromancer skill that grants health is themed around taking life from somewhere else, be it a living enemy or exploiting a corpse. In some cases, with greater than 100% efficiency, but even those are rare.

Powerful healing magic, including resurrection beyond the signet, was limited to monks, ritualists, paragons, and dervishes. Of those, monks were explicitly a separate school, and paragons had nothing in common with necromancers. Dervishes had a little, but generally felt more like a melee mix of monk and elementalist.

Ritualists… well, we really don’t know much about where exactly they fit in. Strictly speaking, ritualists are actually, ironically, probably closer to the original idea of ‘necromancy’ than the profession actually called necromancers, but in the context of GW1 they’re something entirely distinct, and in the context of GW2… we know from SoS that some ritualist ended up in the guardian, and I have an entirely unproven conjecture that some of it did end up in the necromancer.

Either way, the ritualist did fit the proposed image of controlling life and death, having the power to both take and grant life and to exercise control over the passage of souls to and from the afterlife. However, this is something distinct from both the GW1 and GW2 necromancer.

Furthermore, the profession that was most known for healing is the one that was explicitly a different school of magic to necromancy. lakdav’s conjecture that the difference between a healer and a necromancer is in how they use their powers is, thus, incorrect in the context of preservation magic users (monks and guardians), as they are explicitly using a different form of magic to necromancers. The same is true or GW2-esque water magic elementalists and, well, basically anything that isn’t explicitly a necromancer.

The idea of the school of magic that can be used equally for healing or for necromancy does apply to ritualists (if you count necromancy as manipulating the undead in general rather than the necromancer profession), and could also apply to some necromancer builds in GW2 (although they also seemed to be themed around stealing life from elsewhere, it’s just the mechanics are less explicit about it), but the idea that all magical healers would be necromancers if they just used their powers a little differently is not true in the Guild Wars context.

Unless we take it all the way back to magic being a unified whole, and then one can make the same claim that, say, all necromancers, Your Demented Highness included, are the same as mesmers except that they use their powers a little differently.

draxynnic.3719:

True, but necromancers had no resurrection magic in GW1 beyond the standard res sig (and PvE skills when they came in, like the Sunspear sig), and every necromancer skill that grants health is themed around taking life from somewhere else, be it a living enemy or exploiting a corpse. In some cases, with greater than 100% efficiency, but even those are rare.

Correct. And there’s also a theme in GW1’s necromancy, that everything comes at a price. This is perhaps best shown by GW1 skills such as Grenth’s Balance and Blood is Power (Or Blood Ritual for that matter). The necromancer makes a personal sacrifice (literally her own blood) to give energy/magic to her allies. GW2’s Well of Blood seems to just heal, without a price. But it could be argued that since it is called “of Blood”, that it some how utilizes spilled blood to heal allies.

draxynnic.3719:

Unless we take it all the way back to magic being a unified whole, and then one can make the same claim that, say, all necromancers, Your Demented Highness included, are the same as mesmers except that they use their powers a little differently.

Ladidadida! -Covers ears-

Yeah, pretty much. The point is that it is emphatically not required to be a Necromancer to be a healer. Necromancers can be healers, but they’re not the best at it, and as you say, everything comes at a price.

Regarding GW2 wells, my feeling is that they’re like minion creation skills – whether some long-dead corpse underground, some reagent the necromancer is carrying, or a melding of necromancer and ritualist… at some stage, something died and some of its life force has gone into the well.

One of the things that bothers me about the “Tyria is imbalanced without the EDs” theory is simply that I don’t see an imabalance after Zhaitan’s death. Zhaitan was defeated two years ago and aside from Tequatl getting a mechanics update (which is suggested to be lore, but it’s a single thing) and another functional update (increasing the size of some risen models to better communicate their animations) I have seen almost no change in the parts of Tyria which would represent Shadow or Death.

If Tyria is out of balance, how is the Living World communicating with us to show us the spheres of Shadow and Death are out of balance without Zhaitan? Wouldn’t necromancers (death magic) and thieves (shadow magic) sense something about a change in the world’s balance? Wouldn’t there be a rise in shadowy or undead creatures?

Tyria has been rather peaceful for the last two years. Primordus, Kralkatorrik and Jormag have done squat aside from what they were already doing. Mordremoth would likely still be sleeping if it weren’t for Scarlet. Aside from Scarlet’s mess and the Consortium upsetting a few karka, Tyria has been looking pretty good these days.

If killing an Elder Dragon causes an imbalance in the world, where is the imbalance caused by Zhaitan’s defeat?

Shiren.9532:

One of the things that bothers me about the “Tyria is imbalanced without the EDs” theory is simply that I don’t see an imabalance after Zhaitan’s death. Zhaitan was defeated two years ago and aside from Tequatl getting a mechanics update (which is suggested to be lore, but it’s a single thing) and another functional update (increasing the size of some risen models to better communicate their animations) I have seen almost no change in the parts of Tyria which would represent Shadow or Death.

If Tyria is out of balance, how is the Living World communicating with us to show us the spheres of Shadow and Death are out of balance without Zhaitan? Wouldn’t necromancers (death magic) and thieves (shadow magic) sense something about a change in the world’s balance? Wouldn’t there be a rise in shadowy or undead creatures?

Tyria has been rather peaceful for the last two years. Primordus, Kralkatorrik and Jormag have done squat aside from what they were already doing. Mordremoth would likely still be sleeping if it weren’t for Scarlet. Aside from Scarlet’s mess and the Consortium upsetting a few karka, Tyria has been looking pretty good these days.

If killing an Elder Dragon causes an imbalance in the world, where is the imbalance caused by Zhaitan’s defeat?

I believe that’s a long process when magic slowly returns to the world.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Dragon_Primer

Shiren.9532:

One of the things that bothers me about the “Tyria is imbalanced without the EDs” theory is simply that I don’t see an imabalance after Zhaitan’s death. Zhaitan was defeated two years ago and aside from Tequatl getting a mechanics update (which is suggested to be lore, but it’s a single thing) and another functional update (increasing the size of some risen models to better communicate their animations) I have seen almost no change in the parts of Tyria which would represent Shadow or Death.

If Tyria is out of balance, how is the Living World communicating with us to show us the spheres of Shadow and Death are out of balance without Zhaitan? Wouldn’t necromancers (death magic) and thieves (shadow magic) sense something about a change in the world’s balance? Wouldn’t there be a rise in shadowy or undead creatures?

Tyria has been rather peaceful for the last two years. Primordus, Kralkatorrik and Jormag have done squat aside from what they were already doing. Mordremoth would likely still be sleeping if it weren’t for Scarlet. Aside from Scarlet’s mess and the Consortium upsetting a few karka, Tyria has been looking pretty good these days.

If killing an Elder Dragon causes an imbalance in the world, where is the imbalance caused by Zhaitan’s defeat?

It is said that they will cause an imbalance, but they never mentioned the how long that imbalance would take to create a visible effect.

There is also the theory that dragon champions would be able to become an elder dragon themselves over time (like Ogden believing Glint would have been able to become one). This could explain the strenght boost Tequatl has had since Zhaitan’s fall, that he is absorbing some of Zhaitan’s magic and that in time he can become his replacement.

Okay, crazy question as I tend to not log in at all… but what if Shadows is actually referring to Menzies sphere of influence? In GW1, there actually was no Darkness or Shadow affiliation with the Gods that I know of. Having checked the old wiki, the closest we get is Menzies. And while he may not be worshiped by Humans as a God, he is the brother of Balthazar, and could theoretically have similar power.

In addition, because the lines don’t perfectly match up and spheres of influence in the Pantheon tend to change more often than not, we also see that Lyssa was predominantly the patron for all manner of energy management. We see that she was offered the patronage of “energy storage elementalists, mysticism dervishes, and mesmers” source. This to me links her not only with Illusions (which I personally read as Mind but I think that’s a fairly debatable topic) but some kind of Energy. While I’m hesitant to just say “MAGIC” like a dweeb, because all the Elder Dragons consume all kinds of Magic, there seems to be a connection with the manipulation of this force and a sphere of influence. Would this give some kind of Correlation with Kralkatorrik whom we see plenty of lightning strikes (a form of energy) and branded elementals (air elemental skins)? This is of course, assuming you can consider Energy a sphere of influence.

Also, we saw in the transference of power from Abaddon to Kormir that “Secrets” became “Truth”. Honestly, this to me feels like a propaganda change on Kormir’s part. I think it’d be easier to refer to this sphere of influence as “Knowledge”, as accounts of Abaddon and Kormir in their respective roles in the Pantheon, are often considered ‘wise and intelligent’. Secrets and Truth are simply forms of Knowledge, and the malleability of what its called seems to offer some wiggle room here as to exactly what the spheres of influence can be.

Which kind of brings me to my next last point. The Sphere’s of influence as we know them with the Human’s aren’t likely to be copy-pastable to the Dragons. The names of their sphere’s have changed again and again and again as the Gods in the Pantheon change again and again and again.

So that’s why I think it’s likely safer to read Lyssa’s influence over ‘Illusions’ is in reality influence over ‘Minds’. Illusions are simply that, tricking the mind into thinking something is there when it’s not.

In addition that would easily allow for Nature to become “Plants”. So what if some of these others are straight up not spheres of influence (I’m looking at you ‘War’ and ‘Courage’) or simply sphere’s of influence that could go by synonymous names? It’d open up for things like Primordius holding the sphere of influence over Fire and Earth for instance. Or Earth potentially being a more broadened term for Crystals thus giving it to Kralky?

I think I’m rambling at this point and will go back to quietly watching this discussion.

Chrispy.5641:

my (simplified) opinion….

I think its referencing the fact that the universe is a complex machine, a computer (eternal alchemy) :::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

A marvellous mechanism, but limited by over-simplification and lacking in finesse.

An interesting metaphor.

draxynnic.3719:

Actually, fire maps nicely onto the fourth state of matter, plasma, as much as people in Greek times had the opportunity to experience it.

Actually fire or flame, is (usually) too cool to be a plasma. It behaves mostly like a normal gas. Plasma behaves more like a magnetic field (or some sort of nebulous conductor) than a gas.

http://www.plasmacoalition.org/plasma_writeups/flame.pdf

Good thing too, because you wouldn’t want to be around a fire if it was radiating like plasma does. Some welding torches come close to being plasma – imagine if your hearth fire was as hot as a welding torch…

Anyway, that’s kind of off topic.

What it more relevant is that I think any attempts to systematise the understanding of dragons and Gods is doomed to failure. They aren’t going to fit into any neat little pigeon holes.

Wanderer.3248:

Chrispy.5641:

my (simplified) opinion….

I think its referencing the fact that the universe is a complex machine, a computer (eternal alchemy) :::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

A marvellous mechanism, but limited by over-simplification and lacking in finesse.

An interesting metaphor.

One interesting about the Mechanism was that it showed every Known object in the universe at the time of its creation, and their positions relative to earth.

Could the Antikytheria be showing the same?

@Wanderer: None of the classical elements are a perfect correlation to a state of matter (the ancients still considered ice to be water, after all, even though it is solid, and on the flipside there are many room-temperature liquids that do not contain water…). It’s true that not all flames contained plasma, but if you showed a genuine plasma to an ancient Greek, what do you think they’re going to call it? They certainly regarded the Sun as fire, and we know that IS a plasma.

Ratphink.4751:

Also, we saw in the transference of power from Abaddon to Kormir that “Secrets” became “Truth”. Honestly, this to me feels like a propaganda change on Kormir’s part. I think it’d be easier to refer to this sphere of influence as “Knowledge”, as accounts of Abaddon and Kormir in their respective roles in the Pantheon, are often considered ‘wise and intelligent’. Secrets and Truth are simply forms of Knowledge, and the malleability of what its called seems to offer some wiggle room here as to exactly what the spheres of influence can be.

That much has been officially confirmed. Kormir and Abaddon are both gods of knowledge primarily, but they’ve approached it in different ways. The norn use ‘Knowledge’ to refer to Kormir regardless.

So that’s why I think it’s likely safer to read Lyssa’s influence over ‘Illusions’ is in reality influence over ‘Minds’. Illusions are simply that, tricking the mind into thinking something is there when it’s not.

That is an interesting way of looking at it. We’ve typically looked at ‘Mind’ as being connected to Knowledge, but now that you mention it, most of what’s associated with Lyssa has been stuff that’s associated with the mind:

Illusion? Influence over the mind, particularly in GW1.
Domination? A different form of influence over the mind.
Beauty? Strictly speaking, the recognition of beauty is something that happens in the mind…
Inspiration: A process that happens inside the mind.

We also see Lyssa presiding over courtship and weddings, which are matters of emotion… something else that happens in the mind (the gods and the rules of magic may know this even if Tyrian humans regard it as happening in the heart).

Basically, when you boil it down, knowledge can be regarded as being largely simply information. All of the stuff that actually directly influences minds does seem to be under Lyssa’s purview. So under this metric, we could regard Lyssa’s true domains as mind and water, or mind and chaos, or all three.

What puzzles me is the whole Tower of Nightmares episodes. Scarlet’s creation used a poison gas that invokes hallucinations in everyone. And she was apparently serving Mordremoth. Is this what Mordremoth’s mind affecting powers are like? In the form of pollen in the air, that causes hallucinations? I wonder if there are some parallels between the Tower of Nightmares, and the abilities of Mordremoth. It’s also note worthy that despite his sphere of influence being the mind, we haven’t seen a whole lot mind affecting things since his rise. Not from his minions for sure.

I was wondering where the whole Mind aspect came from for Mordremoth according to the Priory. Totally forgot about the Tower of Nightmares.

Its true that we havent seen any mind-influencing stuff from Mordremoth on a large scale ever since the ToN. Aside from that, his only influence on the mind is the first corruption of sylvari minds, and only those unprotected by the Dream. Thats a very low demographic to call the whole aspect of Mind into Mordremoths sphere of influence.

I would be cautios about this though. We still dont know if Scarlet really was Mordremoth’s servant or if she did what she did to try and fight his influence. For all we know, she might have just immunized much of Kryta to Mordrem spores with the Tower of Nightmares pollens, effectively halfing his threat.

lakdav.3694:

I would be cautious about this though. We still don’t know if Scarlet really was Mordremoth’s servant or if she did what she did to try and fight his influence. For all we know, she might have just immunized much of Kryta to Mordrem spores with the Tower of Nightmares pollens, effectively halving his threat.

Interesting idea for a plot twist.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What puzzles me is the whole Tower of Nightmares episodes. Scarlet’s creation used a poison gas that invokes hallucinations in everyone. And she was apparently serving Mordremoth. Is this what Mordremoth’s mind affecting powers are like? In the form of pollen in the air, that causes hallucinations? I wonder if there are some parallels between the Tower of Nightmares, and the abilities of Mordremoth. It’s also note worthy that despite his sphere of influence being the mind, we haven’t seen a whole lot mind affecting things since his rise. Not from his minions for sure.

Maybe Mordremoth is really a giant mushroom. My money, though, is on the Pale Tree being a Pale Mushroom and all of this, all of GW2, all along, has been her doing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Trip_(The_X-Files)#Plot

Chrispy.5641:

Wanderer.3248:

Chrispy.5641:

my (simplified) opinion….

I think its referencing the fact that the universe is a complex machine, a computer (eternal alchemy) :::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

A marvellous mechanism, but limited by over-simplification and lacking in finesse.

An interesting metaphor.

One interesting about the Mechanism was that it showed every Known object in the universe at the time of its creation, and their positions relative to earth.

Could the Antikytheria be showing the same?

Sounds like ANet is trying to revitalize the Science Fantasy subgenre.

To be fair, they’ve already had a dozen or so subgenre’s, what’s one more?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What puzzles me is the whole Tower of Nightmares episodes. Scarlet’s creation used a poison gas that invokes hallucinations in everyone. And she was apparently serving Mordremoth. Is this what Mordremoth’s mind affecting powers are like? In the form of pollen in the air, that causes hallucinations? I wonder if there are some parallels between the Tower of Nightmares, and the abilities of Mordremoth. It’s also note worthy that despite his sphere of influence being the mind, we haven’t seen a whole lot mind affecting things since his rise. Not from his minions for sure.

It should be noted that the threshers don’t use poison to kill us. They use torment. Torment implies a type of mental pain rather than physical. This was also the main condition spread by the Toxic Alliance, which just adds more parallels.

There’s several creatures that cause torment, but I’ve never really interpreted it as specifically mental damage. There are after all a lot of physical attacks from monsters that also cause Torment.

An additional note: maybe it’s even possible to fit the races into this “6 magic spheres” structure. After all, according to the conversation with Scholar Trueclaw , there may have also been 6 (main) races fighting the dragons in the previous cycle. Maybe each race (both then and now) leans towards one of the 6 magic spheres?

Then we have 6-6-6… OMG relevant :P

Actually… I don’t know that we can say there are just six (or twelve). The historian’s quote is “All those other circles are spheres of influence and powerful magic.” There’s a lot more than twelve circles up there- I count at least 42, overlapping each other to various degrees.

I don’t think the dragons were “bad” because of their “personality”, but because of the power behind them, they are like natural’s forces, if we replace them with another, that one might become the same over time.

Given how Elder Dragons can be replaced, and it apparently requires a creature of great power to substitute them, could the Pale Tree be a possible candidate to replace Mordremoth? Because it might be that while we save the egg, we could be saving it to take over for Kralky while Tequatl is taking over for Zhaitan.

Chrispy.5641:

Wanderer.3248:

Chrispy.5641:

my (simplified) opinion….

I think its referencing the fact that the universe is a complex machine, a computer (eternal alchemy) :::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

A marvellous mechanism, but limited by over-simplification and lacking in finesse.

An interesting metaphor.

One interesting about the Mechanism was that it showed every Known object in the universe at the time of its creation, and their positions relative to earth.

Could the Antikytheria be showing the same?

Makes you wonder what all those extra circles are for. Lesser dragons? Champions? Minor aspects of magic?

draxynnic.3719:

It’s true that not all flames contained plasma, but if you showed a genuine plasma to an ancient Greek, what do you think they’re going to call it? They certainly regarded the Sun as fire, and we know that IS a plasma.

That’s was my point. We know the Greeks were flat our wrong about the Sun being made of fire. Similarly, and attempts to pigeonhole Dragons and Gods into known categories could be just as misguided.

I’ve been avoiding responding to this thread as I was out of town and wanted to give a good response after I saw it get a lot of length posts.

draxynnic.3719:

Three of the magical schools do line up nicely to the gods – monks/guardians to Dwayna (although Balthazar also has a stake), Mesmers to Lyssa, and necromancers to Grenth. Elemental magic, however, is spread out among most of the gods and most of the dragons as well. The only god that doesn’t currently have a stake in elemental magic is Kormir, and among the dragons, Zhaitan and arguably Mordremoth.

Now, any comparison between magical spheres as shown by the dragons and gods would require there to be additional schools of magic that aren’t known to mortals. With this being the case, it’s probably not too much of a stretch that there is actually seven schools – six that come from external sources (the six orbiting spheres) and one that represents the magic of the world itself (elementalism). This would explain why the other schools are all mystical and otherworldly to a certain degree while elementalism remains firmly based in the physical.

You’re lining up professions, however, and not the schools. By your argument, the “natural magic of the world” would be the school of Destruction – as Elementalists were confirmed to use the Destruction school pre-release.

That seems like an odd combination to me.

Though this theory would explain why the jotun think elementalism to be primitive magic.

draxynnic.3719:

Similarly, while Lyssa is more focused on illusion while Kralkatorrik may be more inclined towards chaos magic, the fact that both draw from the ‘purple’ end of the magical spectrum may in fact be significant, and overall the overlap between the two meant that mesmerism came out intact.

As brought up in other threads since, I don’t see much chaos with Kralkatorrik – or anything, beyond the color purple, lining up with Lyssa.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I think Kralkatorrik’s two spheres of influence is crystal and sky/air (lightning, golden breath – similar to sunlight – and turning into a sandstorm (combination of small crystals + fierce winds); then the three aspects of Glint: sun, wind, lightning).

This would line Kralkatorrik up halfway with Dwayna, both being tied to air magic.

Chrispy.5641:

my (simplified) opinion….

I think its referencing the fact that the universe is a complex machine, a computer (eternal alchemy) :::
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

And here, I am trying to make sense of that complex machine. To a degree.

draxynnic.3719:

If this is the case, then I could see there being the following areas of focus for the gods:

Dwayna: Weather, Life
Balthazar: Fire, Strength
Melandru: Growth, Earth
Grenth: Death, Darkness
Lyssa: Illusion, Chaos
Kormir: Mind, Secrets?

This compares to the following possible sets for the dragons:
Primordus: Fire, Earth
Jormag: Weather, Strength
Zhaitan: Death, Darkness
S-Dragon: Secrets?, Life?
Kralkatorrik: Chaos, Illusions (note that Glint has powerful illusionary powers, even if we don’t see much of that from Kralky. Crystals are also able to make optical illusions just as water can…)
Mordremoth: Growth, Mind

If we limit the Six Gods’ spheres of influence to two, then I would link them to their Spirits of Action name, and their Eye of the North Facet – thus getting:

Abaddon/Kormir: Knowledge; Spirit
Balthazar: War; Destruction
Dhuum/Grenth: Death; ??? (Darkness?)
Dwayna: ??? (Life? Air?); Existence
Lyssa: ??? (Beauty?); Illusions
Melandru: ??? (Nature?); Creation

We don’t know how the norn refer to Dwayna, Lyssa, and Melandru, and the EotN facet for Grenth is death, leaving those four with only 1 sphere to go from. Darkness seems to be something that could be related to both Dhuum and Grenth, though loosely for both, and I’d imagine Life, Beauty, and Nature to be Dwayna, Lyssa, Melandru by the norn respectively, as they are often the first of the two things most associated with the goddesses.

Interestingly, Existence could be argued to be another way of saying Life (thus what is Dwayna’s second? Air, I’d bet, given that after Life, that’s the most common association.

Similarly, Creation can coincide with “Growth”, which Melandru’s often referred to.

Then going towards the Dragons, we have:

Zhaitan: Death; Shadows (Shadows and Darkness can easily be the same)
Mordremoth: Plant; Mind (Mind and Knowledge can easily be the same)
Primordus: Fire; ??? (Destruction?)
Kralkatorrik: Crystal; ??? (Air?)
Jormag: Ice; ??? (Spirit? – a lot of Jormag’s stuff deals with spirits and the Mists)
“Scleritethin”: ??? (Water?); ???

If one presumes a partial overlap, rather than a full overlap, we see that Kormir overlaps halfway with Mordremoth and Jormag; Balthazar and Grenth could overlap completely with Primordus and Zhaitan respectively – if Balthazar were Destruction (in the form of war) and Fire, and Primordus Fire and Destruction; and Dwayna and Kralkatorrik could have a partial overlap.

But then the similarities would cease.

As always, trying to line up god to dragon perfectly, does not work. But also as always, similarities and overlapping occurs – a halfway overlap, specifically.

Hence my belief that the Six Gods (including predecessors) were basically the human homeworld’s variation of the Elder Dragons. They would have different-but-similar spheres of magic.

Jaken.6801:

If we put in the idea that Champions like Tequattle are able to become the new Eldar Dragons in the future, then we have to dismiss the thought of them being a physical being but existing as energy or on a different plane.

Not quite sure why you say this, given that even though Kralkatorrik is described in Edge of Destiny as “more magical than physical”, the Elder Dragons seem to be very physical, and all dragons consume magic. Glint included, as we’ve known since Bazaar of the Four Winds.

Iason Evan.3806:

So when the dragons return to the dream the gods wake up or return and vice versa? It’s a very yin and yang thing to me.

No, both would be awake at the same time by theory – it’s just that while the Elder Dragons are about in Tyria, the Six Gods’ duty of balancing magic somewhere else.

Shiren.9532:

But Kormir required a gift from the five gods before she could absorb Abaddon’s power.

[…]

Considering that Kormir was capable of containing Abaddon’s power and ascended to god status as a human, I think we are thinking to narrowly by only considering dragons as potential candidates to replace an Elder Dragon. Assuming the replacement could ideally be related to the spheres of an Elder Dragon they replace, the Pale Tree might make an ideal candidate to replace Mordremoth. I don’t think Elder Dragons are technically the same species as dragons like Glint or Kunnavang. I suspect Kunnavang is more closely related to my pet river drake than she is to Jormag or Zhaitan. In that sense you might also have the Great Dwarf replace Primordus and Glint’s offspring replace Kralkatorrik.

Unlike humans (such as Kormir), dragons can naturally consume magic. This makes them ideal balancers of magic, since they consume and exude magic as naturally as breathing.

The Pale Tree might be capable of such… but at the same time, she might not of. As you said, Kormir was given a gift by the gods to absorb Abaddon’s magic. Presuming that’s what the gift was (all we saw/heard were words, after all).

lakdav.3694:

If dragons by their very nature consume magic and store it, and Elder Dragons are really just the most ancient dragons that lived for very long and basicly became the (governors of the) magic they consumed, it stands to reason that time=power. Glint may have been old enough to gather enough magic in time, especially if she survived the Elder Dragons in this era.

If dragons by nature could consume massive amounts of magic immedietly (like Kormir absorbed Abaddon’s power and how we now think that the baby dragon would be able to take charge of Zhaitan’s/Mordremoth’s power), I think they just would. By that proxy the first to awaken would have gained all.

Keep in mind that the Elder Dragons must consume magic that exist across the world.

Kormir, on the other hand, absorbed magic that was in one centralized location.

Glint had time, but was in a magicless world for a long time; it’s entirely possible that she was starving for the first few hundred years.

Underdark.3726:

The Tyria in the center of the diagram is the world or the continent? Cos what I don’t understand is that if we are talking about the world why are all 6 dragons so close to each other? We can now see the map of the world and is quite big, so why are they all around the continent of Tyria? If we talking about the continent only what does that mean? That the rest of the world does not have magic or that there are other 6 dragons circling around other continents? Or is there some other thing that I’m missing?

My theory has and continue to be the Bloodstone.

Kralkatorrik during the previous rise seems to have had heavy influence over what is now Orr (Glint was freed from his control in Arah), the Crystal Desert (he bled there during battles during the previous dragonrise), and Blood Legion Homelands (where he fell to sleep); Primordus had wars with the dwarves, though location unknown; and Jormag had some influence with dwarves and the far shiverpeaks, but that influence is limited to Drakkar and the Sanguinary Blade.

Zhaitan and Mordremoth have next to no known influence in the locations of their hibernation during the previous dragonrise. Jormag awoke just off the world map, and the DSD seemingly woke near the krait (or alternatively, assaulted the krait ~100 years after waking).

I suspect that the five ED near Tyria were attracted by the Bloodstone – the last known magic in the world – while the DSD was attracted by the krait obelisks, which function akin to the Bloodstones – presuming that the krait were indeed around during the previous dragonrise.

draxynnic.3719:

I think there is somewhere that it’s said that the gods were drawn to Orr specifically, but I can’t remember exactly where.

Talking to Trahearne at the end of Cathedral of Silence story step, as a non-charr (or at least, as a human or sylvari).

lakdav.3694:

To my knowledge the Mursaat-Seer war was quite a constant conflict that was put aside for a time to fight the dragons along with the other elder races, and was reignited after the mursaat turned tail and retreated from the world.

We really have no true indication of when the war happened other than ‘while the Tome of Rubicon was being written’. Thing is, after the dragons went to sleep, the musaat were already gone from the world for milleniums.

Best guess I have is that the war is the “betrayal” – we have no indication that there was conflict between them before the supposed five race alliance. Per the conversation with Randall Greyston:

-> Weren’t the Seers and mursaat enemies?
“Indeed. They worked together once, but the mursaat betrayed the other races and fled from the world, returning as the Unseen Ones.”

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

These do not make sense.

Kralkatorrik is clearly crystal and chaos.

I cannot really see chaos in Kralkatorrik, no matter how I look at it.

I just see purple fire, purple lightning, and beams of purple light. In his minions.

Temihal.8651:

We now know that Gods and Elder Dragons both have two “dominions” (I’ll use this word from now on in absence of a better one) each.
So we should have a total of 12 dominions for the Gods and 12 for the Elder Dragons.

Technically, we don’t know how many spheres of influence (the Priory’s term for your “dominions”) the Six Gods have each. They are attributed with at least 5 things each, most often.

Temihal.8651:

Ideally they would be the same 12 or else this theory loses its meaning, so I’m going ahead and taking that for granted.

This I think is fallicious, as attempts have been made many times without success. With the dragons having 2 spheres of influence known, this remains impossible.

Temihal.8651:

We also know that Abaddon water dominion shifted to Lyssa after his defeat.

Technically, this is only half-true.

While Abaddon was imprisoned, Grenth took over a quite a bit of the knowledge/secrets aspect – see House Durheim of the Kurzicks, for instance, whom are praised for knowledge of ancestry, and look to Grenth.

Lyssa had water even before Abaddon’s death. In Orr, her ancient temple is over Mirror Bay; in Vabbi, she had a temple over “Lyss’s Mirror”. The concept of reflective water is where Lyssa’s ties to water lie, and though she was never called the goddess of water before Abaddon’s death, she had this connection to reflective water before – and during – Nightfall.

Temihal.8651:

Finally, we know (I don’t remember if this is confirmed or not) that Grenth had control over Ice before taking Dhuum’s place.
Dhuum and Grenth both had a singol element, respectively Death and Ice.

I’m not sure what you’re saying here – that Grenth was a god of ice before he overthrew Dhuum? If that’s what you mean, then that’d be false. He was a half-god who was referred to as the Prince of Ice and Sorrow. He then took over the mantle of god of death, becoming a full-fledged god.

Temihal.8651:

I’d go as far as saying that there could have been more than six dragons before, they clashed and the six remaning are the winners.

This is something I had theorized this possibility in the past before the Antikytheria concept was presented. I had, when first reading this, thought to be debunked, but I suppose as you point out that’s not entirely true.

CureForLiving.5360:

What happened to all the dragons? Currently it seems like the Elder Dragons just happened to be on Tyria first with the natural ability to absorb magic and things naturally followed from there. So they’re like dinosaurs that didn’t die out. But I’m wondering if they directly or indirectly caused the death of all other dragons, cause dragons happen to be few and far between (even though the seem like apex predators and wound be pretty numerous).

A long standing theory I’ve hard was a war amongst the dragon race, which led to its (near) extinction.

Theoretically, it may be possible for multiple dragons to maintain magic of a single sphere of influence – in modern times, this may be managed by Elder Dragon and dragon champions (something akin to a 70:30 magical retention relation, perhaps).

CureForLiving.5360:

Second, what is meant by chaos, in terms of too much magic? Will the planet explode outright, or will we end up in a situation where every ambient creature has the power to blow up mountains, and rip the earth asunder?

I’d imagine a scenario akin to Thaumanova, personally. The place just becomes seeped in magical radiation, hazardous to life, with unpredictable results.

lakdav.3694:

Another thought concerning the element of Life or Preservation. This element is usually associated to be the polar opposite of Death and Destruction, rightly so. However when it comes to undead creatures, we usually immedietly jump to the conclusion that undeath is connected to Death. I cant imagine why, though. Its un-death. If anything, undeath is the unnatural preservation of something that should be dead. Death is as much about change as Fire, the transition between stages, while Preservation and Necromancy are about keeping the status quo permanently if possible.

By this viewpoint, the difference between a healer and a necromancer is mostly who, what and why they practice their arts on. While a healer uses aspects of preservation and restoration on the living to keep them alive, their own souls in their own body, healthy and all, a necromancer would use other alien (or the original subjects) souls/spirits/raw life-force to animate magically preserved dead matter, be it a fresh corpse, or a construct made of flesh (GW minions) or something else (golems).

In GW1, the school of magic that necromancy seemed tied with was aggression. Many of their skills focused on benefitting or triggering upon but not preventing movement – aggression is the active of fierce movement, or inciting movement. Undeath can be used as “magically preserved dead matter” – but also as making inanimate matter move.

Mesmers, on the flip side, focused more on preventing or hindering movement – hence the thought of tying it to Denial.

DarcShriek.5829:

I still disagree with your position that nobody knew where the roar came from. Here’s why.The first thing that comes to mind is that in our conversations with the Pale Tree, it seems heavily implied that she knew from the beginning. There fore someone knew.

There was a comment by a dev – I think Angel McCoy – in which it was stated that the roar was heard, and those who deal with the dragons knew it was a dragon’s roar, but they didn’t know who.

The Pale Tree was an exception, and for some reason, she kept quiet. If anyone else knew the roar was Mordremoth waking, they also kept quiet.

DarcShriek.5829:

You probably have a good idea of where his final resting place is.

If people knew where Mordremoth was sleeping, you could bet your kitten that they would have tried killing it before it woke up.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Keep in mind that each dragon seems to represent TWO aspects, not one. And often one is a seemingly neutral aspect (fire, water, ice, shadow, plants, crystals) and one is a negative aspect (mind, destruction, death, corruption, temptation).

I think that both spheres of influence are ‘negative’ in the hands of the Elder Dragons, but at the same time, both can be ‘positive’.

Glint and Kralkatorrik is the perfect example as you point out. Kralkatorrik’s crystals are twisted, malevolent, and come from burnt appearance – they’re purple which has been attributed as “the color of evil” in the GWverse (hence why we’re seeing purple glows amongst the more powerful Mordrem, and why Abaddon was purplish). Glint’s crystals are transparent, blue, smooth and more natural looking. Kralkatorrik’s lightning and storms darken the sky, twisting the things they touch; Glint’s air aspects are bright.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

When Grenth rose to power, he borrowed water from the defeated Abaddon, but his aspect became ice instead.

Grenth was the prince of ice and sorrow before becoming a god, per the Orrian History Scrolls.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

But I don’t think we should see the Elder Dragons as exact opposites to the gods. What I think what we are seeing, is different ways to use the many aspects of magic. Good versus evil. The Elder Dragons embody all the bad and destructive things of magic, while the gods embody the good (mostly). There have of course also been bad gods, who used magic for evil too.

What you just described is opposites. Same things but different manners of usage. Good and evil are opposites, and you suggest they’re the same magic.

But that comparison, which is no different than the typical “gods and dragons are the same” speculations, fall short after 2 or 3 comparisons.

draxynnic.3719:

(Also, I think Mrs Thorn may be onto something there. It’s worth noting that Balthazar’s rival Menzies is known as the Lord of Destruction, which gives him similar aspects to Primordus, although Menzies’ minions are of course very different to Destroyers.)

It should also be noted, then, that Grenth is associated with Destruction too (ambient dialogue in DR). As is Balthazar (EotN Facet).

Shiren.9532:

One of the things that bothers me about the “Tyria is imbalanced without the EDs” theory is simply that I don’t see an imabalance after Zhaitan’s death. Zhaitan was defeated two years ago and aside from Tequatl getting a mechanics update (which is suggested to be lore, but it’s a single thing) and another functional update (increasing the size of some risen models to better communicate their animations) I have seen almost no change in the parts of Tyria which would represent Shadow or Death.

If Tyria is out of balance, how is the Living World communicating with us to show us the spheres of Shadow and Death are out of balance without Zhaitan? Wouldn’t necromancers (death magic) and thieves (shadow magic) sense something about a change in the world’s balance? Wouldn’t there be a rise in shadowy or undead creatures?

Tyria has been rather peaceful for the last two years. Primordus, Kralkatorrik and Jormag have done squat aside from what they were already doing. Mordremoth would likely still be sleeping if it weren’t for Scarlet. Aside from Scarlet’s mess and the Consortium upsetting a few karka, Tyria has been looking pretty good these days.

If killing an Elder Dragon causes an imbalance in the world, where is the imbalance caused by Zhaitan’s defeat?

It takes, supposedly, 10,000 years for magic in the world to go from the “nearly gone” state to the “very high” state.

I think it would take more than two years for an Elder Dragon’s magic to be depleted when said Elder Dragon was consuming magic for ~100 years, excluding any magic given to him by potentially awake champions from the previous dragonrise (the Giganticus Lupicus and The Maw are two possibilities) feeding magic to Zhaitan.

We may not see it yet – we may never see it if the magic normally consumed by Zhaitan ends up consumed by another Elder Dragon (nothing says that the Elder Dragons are limited to their two spheres, or cannot repurpose magical energy from one sphere into another) or by Tequatl (which seems to be the case).

And technically, Jormag had indeed increased his pressure on the Tyrian races in the past two years.

Ratphink.4751:

Okay, crazy question as I tend to not log in at all… but what if Shadows is actually referring to Menzies sphere of influence? In GW1, there actually was no Darkness or Shadow affiliation with the Gods that I know of. Having checked the old wiki, the closest we get is Menzies. And while he may not be worshiped by Humans as a God, he is the brother of Balthazar, and could theoretically have similar power.

Grenth was, indirectly, tied to darkness just as necromancy was.

Menzies is never said to be a god, so I’ve always likened him to be akin to Mad King Thorn – a very powerful, and very old, spirit that leads other spirits (Shadow Army).

It should be noted thatb eyond the Shadow Army, Menzies has no ties to darkness. He’s the Lord of Destruction, but that’s all really.

Ratphink.4751:

This to me links her not only with Illusions (which I personally read as Mind but I think that’s a fairly debatable topic) but some kind of Energy. While I’m hesitant to just say “MAGIC” like a dweeb, because all the Elder Dragons consume all kinds of Magic, there seems to be a connection with the manipulation of this force and a sphere of influence. Would this give some kind of Correlation with Kralkatorrik whom we see plenty of lightning strikes (a form of energy) and branded elementals (air elemental skins)? This is of course, assuming you can consider Energy a sphere of influence.

“Energy” I think is a bit too generic of a concept, and too commonly replaced with ether – raw magical energy. Which all Elder Dragons consume.

Amongst the gods, the god most tied with lightning would be Dwayna – air magic being within her domain as goddess of air.

Ratphink.4751:

Also, we saw in the transference of power from Abaddon to Kormir that “Secrets” became “Truth”.

Fun fact:

In GW1, Kormir is referred to as the goddess of secrets a few times; she’s also called goddess of knowledge, goddess of truth, and goddess of truth and knowledge.

Similarly, via out of game lore, Abaddon was related to wisdom, not secrets, before his fall.

Ratphink.4751:

So that’s why I think it’s likely safer to read Lyssa’s influence over ‘Illusions’ is in reality influence over ‘Minds’. Illusions are simply that, tricking the mind into thinking something is there when it’s not.

However, it is Zhaitan – not Mordremoth – that makes use of illusions; and it is Jormag who does more direct mental mindscrews.

Mordremoth’s sphere of mind seems to be very different from the fields of magic that mesmers – who focus on illusions and mental mindscrews and telepathy – utilizes. Both cases of mind-messing Mordy has, Scarlet and Aerin, are both related to technological individuals; so I think linking Mind to Knowledge is more likely.

I do, however, agree with the notion that spheres of influence names can be changed/altered.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

What puzzles me is the whole Tower of Nightmares episodes. Scarlet’s creation used a poison gas that invokes hallucinations in everyone. And she was apparently serving Mordremoth. Is this what Mordremoth’s mind affecting powers are like? In the form of pollen in the air, that causes hallucinations? I wonder if there are some parallels between the Tower of Nightmares, and the abilities of Mordremoth. It’s also note worthy that despite his sphere of influence being the mind, we haven’t seen a whole lot mind affecting things since his rise. Not from his minions for sure.

I’ve noted quite a few parallels thus far – the giant ‘minion manufacturing plant’ at the end of Caithe’s Reconnassiance Squad story step looked very similar, to me, to the Tower of Nightmare’s heart (the thing we pumped full of the antitoxin), which was said to have been sentient. But there’s been no hallucinations yet.

But at the same time, beyond Aerin and Ceara, we haven’t seen direct cases of (potential) corruption. Mind may be how he corrupts, rather than how he assaults.

Arvid.3829:

An additional note: maybe it’s even possible to fit the races into this “6 magic spheres” structure. After all, according to the conversation with Scholar Trueclaw , there may have also been 6 (main) races fighting the dragons in the previous cycle. Maybe each race (both then and now) leans towards one of the 6 magic spheres?

Actually, Trueclaw says there were five races against six Elder Dragons.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Actually… I don’t know that we can say there are just six (or twelve). The historian’s quote is “All those other circles are spheres of influence and powerful magic.” There’s a lot more than twelve circles up there- I count at least 42, overlapping each other to various degrees.

True, it would just be the spheres for the Elder Dragons. There could be more out there – including spheres of influence for the gods.

Slowpokeking.8720:

I don’t think the dragons were “bad” because of their “personality”, but because of the power behind them, they are like natural’s forces, if we replace them with another, that one might become the same over time.

I disagree.

The comparison to natural forces is always a Tyrian’s viewpoint on the Elder Dragons that they know nothing about. Or a comment about how they balance magic.

The Elder Dragons do show to have specific and unique goals and personalities, even if we can only grasp straws at what they are in some cases.

As Marjory puts it: the Elder Dragons may just be too different to understand the races and/or care about them. Glint, however, was able to understand and care. So she could have been different entirely if able to replace an Elder Dragon.

Wanderer.3248:

Makes you wonder what all those extra circles are for. Lesser dragons? Champions? Minor aspects of magic?

I’d guess “minor aspects of magic”.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You’re lining up professions, however, and not the schools. By your argument, the “natural magic of the world” would be the school of Destruction – as Elementalists were confirmed to use the Destruction school pre-release.

That seems like an odd combination to me.

Though this theory would explain why the jotun think elementalism to be primitive magic.

I deliberately lined up professions instead of schools to help limit the possibility of confusion – the professions are more recognisable. In my mind, the four primary casting professions (monk/guardian, mesmer, necromancer, elementalist) and the four Bloodstone schools are essentially equivalent concepts.

As for the names of the various schools… I, personally, don’t think there’s actually anything mystically significant about the names of the schools. It’s likely that those names were coined by humans shortly before or after the Exodus, when they hadn’t fully explored what could be done by the various schools and had only latched onto the most obvious aspects – conjuring fire to destroy, using interrupts to deny, and so on. The professions are much larger in scope now. Part of my thinking for elementalism being ‘world magic’ is also that rangers are mostly using elemental-style magics, albeit with less proficiency than elementalists.

As brought up in other threads since, I don’t see much chaos with Kralkatorrik – or anything, beyond the color purple, lining up with Lyssa.

The purple fire, purple lightning, and so on that you mention are associated with mesmers, which in turn are associated with Lyssa. Furthermore, while many mesmer skills look like lightning, strictly speaking, they’re chaos energy, not lightning. Killing an enemy with Spatial Surge doesn’t generate the ‘electrocution’ animation, for instance.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to tell whether such effects from Branded count as chaos or electricity, but in a lot of cases they behave more like chaos to me (with the exception of branded air elementals as a special case, of course).

It’s also based somewhat on an observation that the schools of magic do seem to form a spectrum. Using the bloodstone terms, denial is purple, preservation is blue, and aggression defaults to green. Destruction is harder to pick because usually it’s used to conjure an element… but something to note is that cases in GW2 where an elementalist skill is using magical force directly rather than conjuring an element, such as with the arcane skills, it’s a slightly greenish yellow – close to, but yellower than, the ranger colour.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If we limit the Six Gods’ spheres of influence to two, then I would link them to their Spirits of Action name, and their Eye of the North Facet – thus getting:

Personally, I don’t put too much stock in the facets to understand the gods in their totality. They are, after all, facets - they represent a facet of the god, but not necessarily one of the defining elements.

If we are going to condense the gods down to two elements each, than I think those two elements need to be ones from which you can derive all the areas of interest of that god. Now, most of the facets you could do that with the appropriate accompaniment, but for Lyssa I think beauty and illusions are derived concepts, not the starting points. Keeping in mind that Lyssa is a goddess associated with illusions and deception – her pubic domains being beauty and illusion, and her facet being illusion, may be another set of masks.

Didnt Scarlet say that chaos magic and Elder Dragon energies are the same (in the Thaumanova fractal)?

Traditionally Chaos is considered to be the original state of the world before creation. Pretty akin to the Mists in the GW universe. Raw, unrefined and unpredictable magic that who knows what it will do. Maybe it will teleport a poor polar bear from the Shiverpeaks into the Crystal Cavern or the Thaumanova disaster site. Maybe it will burn someone, while envigorating another.

At this point i must wonder: had we not associated illusions and chaos the same color palette, purple/violet, would we ever link them together (Lyssa aside)?
I guess, on a remote level. Illusions have the potential to be anything other than what they actually show you, so there is a little unpredictability in them. But that has little to nothing to do with the actual physical chaos. Illusions are made to invoke expectations that turn out to be false, while chaos is barely controllable (only adding “barely” because mesmer chaos skills help allies and hinder foes, not even sure if thats supposed to be lore or just gameplay convenience), the definition of anomaly. Illusions invoke expectations, chaos is just being unpredictable, and the concept of “expectations” is meaningless.

As a side note, I completely agree with Konig that Kralkatorrik is crystal and air. That makes much more sense.

One thing I find interesting is how the Antikytheria diagram is reminiscent of an atom.

Proton (Tyria), and surrounding electrons.
Also the name itself… “Antikytheria”

Anti-ky-theria.

Anti: counter
ky: ??
Theria: Thyria?

Perhaps the name itself references how it’s a system of balance, Thyria, and it’s “anti”, the counterweight, the sphere surrounding the proton – the electrons – the dragons.

On an unrelated note, as a scientifically minded person I was really annoyed by what Ogden said. Personally I wouldn’t believe everything he says. His perspective is just that – a perspective. He disses the Asura’s way of defining the universe around them, but I don’t see this this criticism as any different than how mysticists and religious zealots try to discredit science in the real world. I do believe the GW universe can be understood through reason and science, like the Asura are doing, but like all things it will take time. Ogden is a very old person. His opinions are like his body – set in stone. I’m sure that a few hundred years ago, a person saw lightning and said “we are not meant to understand it”. Science has been proving these people wrong time and time again.

I think it’s more likely the name refers to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

It’s an ancient analogue computer, named after the Greek island of the same name, where it was found on board a shipwreck.

Eh… I have a scientific background myself, and I’m willing to accept that in a fantasy setting, there are things that the scientific method cannot handle. The philosophy of the scientific method itself states that there may well be things that cannot be verified by experiment (at least, not with our current tools) but which may nevertheless be true. Using your analogy, for instance – one person might look at lightning and say ‘we are not meant to understand it’ while another might say ‘we do not yet have the tools to understand it’.

The problem, furthermore, might not be in that the asura are attempting to understand the All (in fact, I think he’s implying that he thinks he understands it better than the asura do), but in how they’re doing so. The asura essentially seem to be regarding the Eternal Alchemy as a giant machine. This is an approach that’s worked well for them on smaller scales, and it matches the almost deterministic viewpoint that prevailed among the scientific community around the late 1800s – when it was believed that science was close to being ‘finished’ and that in the end, given the starting conditions of the universe and a set of undoubtedly fiendishly complicated equations, it would, at least in theory, be able to perfectly predict the evolution of the universe as if it was a giant machine. (Possibly occasionally messed up by acts of free will – if such a thing actually existed and was not an illusion.)

However, what we’ve seen of the Mists suggest that they do not act like a big, orderly machine. They’re chaotic, unpredictable, and prone to spontaneous acts of creation.

Basically, to draw my own analogy, it’s like the asura are trying to explain and quantify the inner workings of the nucleus using nineteenth-century physics. It’s just not going to work.