Guild Wars 2

A little continuation of my Guess that Last Gen Destroyer thread, and inspired by BrotherBelial’s Is the Shatterer one of Glints Baby’s thread and Tamias’ Crazy theory corner: tengu and Orr thread – I’d like to postulate the potential races not mimicked by Primordus.

Now, there’s the obvious eight races already confirmed:

• Jotun (survived)
• Dwarves (survived)
• Seers (barely survived)
• Forgotten (survived)
• Mursaat (fled into the Mists)
• Giganticus Lupicus (extinct)
• Karka (survived)
• Djinn (survived)

But there’s a bit more to it, and this takes three forms.

1. There are more than one kind of Giganticus Lupicus. It is a term akin to Dinosaur, not for a singular specific species but many giant ones.
2. There are races that are hinted, or hint themselves, at having been around during the previous dragon rise.
3. Glint’s dialogue in Edge of Destiny.

Number One: Giganticus Lupicus
[spoiler]GuildMag (Draxynnic): Back in Guild Wars 1, we had that mention of the last appearance of the Giganticus Lupicus ten thousand years ago. And then the first people to get to the explorable dungeons in Arah were probably rather surprised to find the Giganticus Lupicus corpse sitting there waiting for them. Is there a story behind how one got to be there?

Jeff Grubb: How one got to be there… I think brought from its original resting place by Zhaitans minions for that big arena, central cathedral area as a watchdog, as a guardian. The whole… In many ways, the whole tale of the Elder Dragons begins with that one line – that was the first line of the timeline. During the Cantha project I said ‘what does this mean’ – well, we have some big skulls out in the wilderness and we didn’t know what they were so that’s what they are. But when we started telling the story of the Elder Dragons it just fit in so neatly that well, if they’ve come before, when did they come? Hey, we have the Giganticus Lupicus being wiped out in this era! Oh, okay, THAT must have been the last time the Elder Dragons showed up, and the story evolved from there. It’s one thing we’re very good at moving forwards – we leave a lot of hooks so future designers, future storytellers, ourselves in the future have a lot of potential that we can build off.

GM (Thalador): I was personally wondering that in the Crystal Desert back in Guild Wars 1 we saw lots of skeletons lying around and we considered them to be the skeletons of the Giganticus Lupicus.

JGrubb: Some of them are, yes.

GM (Thalador) : When we see him – the recent specimen in the centre of Arah, he’s sort of a jackal-like, Anubis sort of thing, and yet the skeletons back in Guild Wars 1 were sort of draconic or with large tusks or larger…

GM (Draxynnic) : Sea monsters.

JGrubb: I think the look of the Giganticus Lupicus evolved over time – in the fact that we started off with “okay, here’s the skull, build us a creature that looks like this.” Giganticus Lupicus also – Lupicus has a wolf origin to it, so we were thinking in terms of wolves at the time, and from there we basically got to that jackal-headed, Anubis type of figure. So they basically… I could see the older, larger versions of the Giganticus giganticus would be the huge skulls, because of course, with limitations within the game we could only put the figure so large and still have you be able to fight it in any reasonable sense.

Ree Soesbee: And I think that much like the centaurs, you’re gonna have this ancient creature that has some distinction according to territory, according to how it has evolved. So you can have a couple of different skulls that have similarities but aren’t.[/spoiler]http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm

Here we have confirmation that some but not all Crystal Desert giant skeletons were Giganticus Lupicus. They appear unlike our jackal-like friend in Arah because they evolved differently, like different breeds of a species, as well as having been larger.

This hints at a possible two or three ancient gigantic(us) species. Beyond the Great Giant jackals, there’s this tusked creature, and another more serpentine one – I’m guessing that the latter would have been our jackal friends because the tusked ones had more herbivore-like teeth (they were flat and large, appearing to be adapted to chewing rather than tearing) and dogs are carnivores. Though it looks, as mentioned, more serpentine or draconic than canine.

-Continued in next post-

This means we had a large, tusked, herbivore race that lived in the previous rise. In regards to skeleton placement, the non-tusked skulls are more spread than tusked skulls, the tusked ones only being in the Crystal Desert, Desolation, and Ascalon (if memory serves me right), while the non-tusked skulls being in the same places, as well Kourna, the Southern Shiverpeaks, and interestingly: the Underworld.

Regardless, we here have two races that lived primarily around the Crystal Sea (hinted to be, by Glint, part of Kralkatorrik’s domain during the previous rise).

On a side, in the topic of skeletons:

Scholar Fryxx (at the end of The Long Way Around achievement) hints that the Leviathan bones he’s found may be tied to the previous Elder Dragon rising.

Number Two: Hinted Races
“This is not the first time the dragons have risen, though it may—or may not—be the last. That remains to be seen. " – Genzhou Talonrend, Tengu

“Now all things grow and all things die; even the glacier is not unchanging. And there came to be a great storm that did not end though month after month and season after season passed. " – Kodan (Jormag is known to have made a five year long blizzard when he descended south on the norn; sadly, I have not been since able to locate the skaald NPC which mentions this)

“We wanted to make the ogres an old race and follow that with the jotun, since the two species are interlinked.” – Ogres

These minor lines hint to us that the tengu, kodan, and ogres may have also found means to survive without the jotun’s knowledge.

Number Three: Glint’s words and being

In Edge of Destiny, Glint mentions some interesting choice words:

“Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat, and then fell, sated.The darkness of those days slowly gave way to a new dawn—a bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts. From that time to this, I have feared one of those sleeping dragons. My master, Kralkatorrik.”

But yet we know this isn’t true – they did not consume until there was nothing left during the previous rise. Aside from a writer’s perspective of not spoiling the Durmand Priory NPC dialogues, why would she not mention that some races survived the last dragon rising?

The answer could be quite simple: She’s speaking of two different dragon rises here. Or more, even. She could even be speaking of the first dragon rise. Just simply speaking of an awakening cycle in which all life was destroyed, leaving no remnant of knowledge of the Elder Dragons.

This hints not to a race of the previous dragon rise, but before that: Dragons. Not just the Elder Dragons, but a race of them.

The existence of the Claw of Jormag (which is ice coating bones by appearances), Glint (originally named Glaust that was a corrupted living being), and Zhaitan’s minions (fleshy dragon-shaped beings with names), and even Bone Dragons from Guild Wars 1 all hint to such.

This may even give a hint to the nature of the Elder Dragons themselves, but that is a theory for another time.

(mandatory expression of disappointment at the failure of any sort of ogre lore blog to manifest)

Another interesting bit- Genzhou also says “My people remember things that too many others have forgotten.” That implies that not only were the tengu around for the last dragon rise, but were in contact with multiple other races that had lost that portion of their history. I suspect dwarves may have been one of them, but I’m curious what my fellow forum-goers think may be the others.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

These minor lines hint to us that the tengu, kodan, and ogres may have also found means to survive without the jotun’s knowledge.

Not necessarily. If the five races even come from a jotun source, and I can’t recall any NPC ever saying that, those would still just be the five that could be gleaned from studying decaying and long-abandoned jotun monoliths. It could well be that the jotun knew of more survivors and simply didn’t feel they warranted inclusion on their monuments, or that they were included and that particular bit of stonework crumbled in the thousands of intervening years. A small point, but it means we can’t rule out other races that potentially came into contact with the jotun.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But yet we know this isn’t true – they did not consume until there was nothing left during the previous rise. Aside from a writer’s perspective of not spoiling the Durmand Priory NPC dialogues, why would she not mention that some races survived the last dragon rising?

The answer could be quite simple: She’s speaking of two different dragon rises here. Or more, even. She could even be speaking of the first dragon rise. Just simply speaking of an awakening cycle in which all life was destroyed, leaving no remnant of knowledge of the Elder Dragons.

This hints not to a race of the previous dragon rise, but before that: Dragons. Not just the Elder Dragons, but a race of them.

The existence of the Claw of Jormag (which is ice coating bones by appearances), Glint (originally named Glaust that was a corrupted living being), and Zhaitan’s minions (fleshy dragon-shaped beings with names), and even Bone Dragons from Guild Wars 1 all hint to such.

This may even give a hint to the nature of the Elder Dragons themselves, but that is a theory for another time.

It could be that she’s referring to magic, maybe? The dragons aren’t motivated to consume flesh, but rather the magic that is imbued within every individual. Maybe she’s saying that the dragons consumed until there was nothing left from their point of view, i.e. everything that wasn’t hidden by Glint or sealed within the Bloodstone. Admittedly this doesn’t line up exactly with the wording of her dialogue, but it could have been written before the writers had the nature of the Elder Dragons nailed down, or it could be that two writers had slightly different ideas of how they worked. It’s annoying to have to try to account for this, I know, but it just seems doubtful to me that they’d be dropping hints about the rise before the last, given that we have so little information from the last rise.

I do like your theory about there being an ancient race of Dragons, though. There was always going to be trouble reconciling the fact that there were dragons in GW1 with the storyline of GW2, and they originally said that the Elder Dragons were as different to Glint and Kuunavang as night is to day. Given that more often than not, Zhaitan, Jormag and Kralkatorrik seem to work by corrupting others rather than creating minions from scratch, there being an ancient race of Dragons is a tidy explanation of why Dragon champions often look like the friendly ones we saw in GW1. The only trouble then is explaining why the Elder Dragons are draconic as well, and for an answer to that I suspect we’d have to be looking back to the earliest days of Tyria, to the time of the Colossus. But as you say, maybe that’s for another thread.

As an aside, Konig, I went out and found that norn you mentioned- Thyrie Bylund, a Durmand Priory scholar down at Might and Main. It was four years, not five, but curiously she only mentions that part to non-Priory, which may account for your trouble finding her.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

“Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat, and then fell, sated.The darkness of those days slowly gave way to a new dawn—a bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts. From that time to this, I have feared one of those sleeping dragons. My master, Kralkatorrik.”

While I think that dragon theory is really interesting, the bolded part contradicts that idea (IMO of course).

That dark, dragon dominated world she mentions, was “that time”. And forever after, she feared that her old master would awaken.
We know that she was freed by the Forgotten during the last dragon rise. Before that, she would not have feared, but rather welcomed Kralkatorrik’s awakening.

Which I think strongly suggests that “that time” she talks about was in fact the last dragon rise.

The things you mention are more of a case of her being stuck in her “prophetic lizard” persona – she’s a kitten fabulous drama queen, and she knows how to make things sound impactful.
Your main argument is that she said that nothing was left, and that we know that this is not true. But I mean, had the dragons truly consumed “EVERYTHING” during that first, primordial rise, Tyria couldn’t possibly have a biodiversity as rich as it is now (unless all living beings have, at some point or another, come from an alien world; or evolution from microorganism to proper species is pretty pretty fast in Tyria; or the Elder Dragons have been rising for billions of years which would have allowed new creatures to evolve after that initial tabula rasa).

So yeah, I think she’s just being poetic.
And anyway, from an Elder Dragon’s perspective, consuming everything might just be like us eating a whole meal. There’s always some gravy, breadcrumbs, rice grains or whatever else left behind.
Eating everything doesn’t mean that only nothing can be left.

In short: I think she does in fact talk about the last dragon rise, and either we shouldn’t take her too literally in concerns to the “nothing left”, or do so from an (Elder) Dragon’s perspective (comparing Tyria to that Thanksgiving turkey we have all reduced to the point where “nothing was left”).

E:
I mean seriously, how would this sound otherwise?
Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat – apart from these races that I hid, and that other race that hid themselves, and then there were some guys who simply managed to avoid them and yeah well anyway, ahem, gotta get back in my dragon voice – , and then fell, sated.

Arguably, they are writers, so they should be able to make it work where I can’t be bothered, but still… It just doesn’t seem necessary.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Another interesting bit- Genzhou also says “My people remember things that too many others have forgotten.” That implies that not only were the tengu around for the last dragon rise, but were in contact with multiple other races that had lost that portion of their history. I suspect dwarves may have been one of them, but I’m curious what my fellow forum-goers think may be the others.

Dwarves and Forgotten is my thought.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Not necessarily. If the five races even come from a jotun source, and I can’t recall any NPC ever saying that, those would still just be the five that could be gleaned from studying decaying and long-abandoned jotun monoliths. It could well be that the jotun knew of more survivors and simply didn’t feel they warranted inclusion on their monuments, or that they were included and that particular bit of stonework crumbled in the thousands of intervening years. A small point, but it means we can’t rule out other races that potentially came into contact with the jotun.

The information the Priory has all comes from two sources in regard to the previous dragon awakening: dwarven texts which got heavily altered and rewritten thus are unreliable (such as the Tome of Rubicon), and jotun stelae (not their monuments) which is where most of their information seems to come from – and would likely be more accurate, given the fact of the jotun fall thus they wouldn’t know to alter the writings. With the large number of jotun stelae they have and the multitude references of five surviving races, it seems unlikely that in all the mentions, the jotun did not include others.

Tamias.7059:

It could be that she’s referring to magic, maybe? The dragons aren’t motivated to consume flesh, but rather the magic that is imbued within every individual. Maybe she’s saying that the dragons consumed until there was nothing left from their point of view, i.e. everything that wasn’t hidden by Glint or sealed within the Bloodstone. Admittedly this doesn’t line up exactly with the wording of her dialogue, but it could have been written before the writers had the nature of the Elder Dragons nailed down, or it could be that two writers had slightly different ideas of how they worked. It’s annoying to have to try to account for this, I know, but it just seems doubtful to me that they’d be dropping hints about the rise before the last, given that we have so little information from the last rise.

That seems unlikely because J. King had access to the constantly updated “internal wiki” of ArenaNet, and the case of Elder Dragons consuming in non-traditional senses was presented around or before the time of the novel’s release, though the magic bit was unknown still.

And it seems unlikely that Glint would speak as if they consumed the entire world, rather than the world as they saw it and happened to miss this huge buffet for them.

Tamias.7059:

The only trouble then is explaining why the Elder Dragons are draconic as well, and for an answer to that I suspect we’d have to be looking back to the earliest days of Tyria, to the time of the Colossus. But as you say, maybe that’s for another thread.

I was going to go into this but I figured it would take the topic too off track so I left it with “This may even give a hint to the nature of the Elder Dragons themselves, but that is a theory for another time.” I also want to research a bit more before entering this realm after so long, which I’ll do after I return home tomorrow and be able to actually handle GW2 for longer than 30-ish minutes.

But the short of it: I think the Elder Dragons’ appearance is based from this ancient race of dragons. It could go multiple ways, really, for why this is so but that’s the end outcome of the theory: that the Elder Dragons’ own bodies are copies of this ‘first race of Tyria’ that were dragons.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

As an aside, Konig, I went out and found that norn you mentioned- Thyrie Bylund, a Durmand Priory scholar down at Might and Main. It was four years, not five, but curiously she only mentions that part to non-Priory, which may account for your trouble finding her.

Much appreciated. Though I looked through Might and Main the other day seeking this fella out, on my Vigil norn, with no luck. Odd.

SunRoamer.5103:

While I think that dragon theory is really interesting, the bolded part contradicts that idea (IMO of course).

That dark, dragon dominated world she mentions, was “that time”. And forever after, she feared that her old master would awaken.
We know that she was freed by the Forgotten during the last dragon rise. Before that, she would not have feared, but rather welcomed Kralkatorrik’s awakening.

Which I think strongly suggests that “that time” she talks about was in fact the last dragon rise.

I interpreted it differently. I interpret “that time” not referring to the dark “dragon-dominated world”, but rather from the “a bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts” time.

That would thus fit into the theory: at first there were dragons, then the Elder Dragons came and twisted the dragon-dominated world into one of darkness and consumed everything there was, then fell to sleep sated. In time, new races came and dominated the world, unknowing of the Elder Dragons, who eventually rose again to consume. And it was from that latter time that Glint protected Kralkatorrik as he slept, until the Forgotten freed her and, in time, she grew to fear him.

And on a side thought: do we know that the Forgotten performed the ritual during the last dragon rise… and not before Kralkatorrik rose back then?

SunRoamer.5103:

Your main argument is that she said that nothing was left, and that we know that this is not true. But I mean, had the dragons truly consumed “EVERYTHING” during that first, primordial rise, Tyria couldn’t possibly have a biodiversity as rich as it is now (unless all living beings have, at some point or another, come from an alien world; or evolution from microorganism to proper species is pretty pretty fast in Tyria; or the Elder Dragons have been rising for billions of years which would have allowed new creatures to evolve after that initial tabula rasa).

“Before there were humans or dwarves, before there were even worlds or the stars that light the night sky, there was but one thing in the universe—the Mists. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past, present, and future. They are the source of all good and evil, of all matter and knowledge. It is said that all forms of life, no matter how simple or complex, can trace their origins back to this one place.”

Prophecies manual. All things eventually come from the Mists. With the Mists overlapping the world itself in various places (be it things like as seen in the Protect the Mists norn storyline, where we enter the Mists from Snow Leopard’s Wayfarer Foothills shrine and again in the Great Lodge, resulting in just a spiritual copy of both places; or things like Godslost Swamp, the stone circle in Varajar Fells (in GW1), or Reaper’s Gate), is it so hard to believe that the Mists couldn’t create brand new life on a desolate world?

Furthermore, the jotun place the cyclic nature of the Elder Dragons in their creation myths with known mentions of multiple risings (see Scholar Caterin ), an odd place to put them if the world wasn’t fully or near fully ravaged at least during one rise.

SunRoamer.5103:

Eating everything doesn’t mean that only nothing can be left.

And that’s not really what I meant. But it certainly would mean that almost everything that’s edible would be. But the Bloodstone was made with almost all of the world’s magic – specifically everything that was not corrupted by the Elder Dragons already. That’s like eating a meal of a salad and steak, leaving the steak alone and saying you ate everything.

SunRoamer.5103:

I mean seriously, how would this sound otherwise?
Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat – apart from these races that I hid, and that other race that hid themselves, and then there were some guys who simply managed to avoid them and yeah well anyway, ahem, gotta get back in my dragon voice – , and then fell, sated.

Arguably, they are writers, so they should be able to make it work where I can’t be bothered, but still… It just doesn’t seem necessary.

Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until they saw nothing left to eat, and then fell, waiting for life to begin anew so they may rise once more.

Not very hard to do. And certainly not so obviously biased and silly as your example.

What if Konig Des Todes is onto something. What if the Elder Dragons aren’t actually dragons but are some kind of living magical beings, similar to the Gods. Perhaps that is why the gods became silent, these being predate even the most ancient of gods and thus are more powerful than them. Or perhaps the gods serve these beings by resowing the “crops” after the previous feast. The reason why the races are allowed to build and resist is maybe the Elder Dragons believe themselves to superior that they find it amusing.

That is nowhere near the direction I was trying to go.

Besides, we know that Grenth and Zhaitan are enemies from the personal story. And we know that the Six Gods aren’t even related to Tyria’s distant past. They first walked the world after the last dragon rise (or arguably, during, depending on if you believe the Priory or the other evidence).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

That is nowhere near the direction I was trying to go.

Besides, we know that Grenth and Zhaitan are enemies from the personal story. And we know that the Six Gods aren’t even related to Tyria’s distant past. They first walked the world after the last dragon rise (or arguably, during, depending on if you believe the Priory or the other evidence).

Is that learned in the human personal story or am I forgetting something?

Anyways ok my hypothesis of the various gods working alongside the Elder Dragons as a means to restock the buffet was false. Is it still possible that if the Elder Dragons are indeed beings composed of magical energy then their origins may be connected to the origins of the various gods?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cathedral_of_Silence_%28story%29

Any race can see it.

The Seventh Reaper: The keeper of this shrine has fallen to Zhaitan. Grenth wishes him returned, but I am too weak to perform the task. Destroy the keeper, and I will aswer your questions.
[…]
Avatar of Grenth: Destroy the corruption. Return the soul of the keeper. Go.

There’s nothing to suggest the Elder Dragons’ origins are in any way shape or form related to any deity – Six Gods or otherwise.

The ancient dragon race is a pretty interesting idea, although there are still multiple possibilities for what the ED’s actually are.
Could be some alien invader that took the form of the dragons since they were the dominant species, or maybe the ED’s are just an evolution of the dragons or individual dragons that gained so much magical power that they became these living disasters. Maybe the ED’s were deliberately created as a weapon or something else by the dragons and something went horribly wrong.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cathedral_of_Silence_%28story%29

Any race can see it.

The Seventh Reaper: The keeper of this shrine has fallen to Zhaitan. Grenth wishes him returned, but I am too weak to perform the task. Destroy the keeper, and I will aswer your questions.
[…]
Avatar of Grenth: Destroy the corruption. Return the soul of the keeper. Go.

There’s nothing to suggest the Elder Dragons’ origins are in any way shape or form related to any deity – Six Gods or otherwise.

Well that explains why I don’t know it I haven’t gotten to that point in the personal story yet.

I’m not suggesting the two have any direct relation with one another, as in the gods exist to counter the Elder Dragons, but rather if both of them originally originated in the Mists or a different realm entirely. Since the Elder Dragons have shown at least minor capability of accessing the Mists perhaps they originated within that realm or at one point had crossed through it.

Glint

I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat

If Glint is not using hyperbole here; it would mean that there was absolutely no life left on Tyria (except for the dragons of course). What was left for everything else to evolve from?

A less interesting answer would be the Gods kept reseeding life and the records of their actions never survived to recent history.

My poor, but interesting, attempt to answer that would be: dragon minions. I’m too tired to try and determine if none of the native sentient races fit the bill; but, isn’t it strange how most of the sentient races (especially the more primitive ones) tend to a specific element (if not magical, the element itself). I’ll list off a few strong candidates:

• Dredge: they spend 90% of their time underground in the earth; this could be argued as a spin-off (or evolution of) the fire/earth dragon race (i.e. Primordius). Interestingly they also have acoustic magic – maybe some dragons went extinct never left minions to evolve (in this case the air dragons). Air could be a spin of ice, in theory.
• Sylvari: they are such a good fit that we all question whether they are Mordremoth minions. Maybe Pale Tree Sylvari could be the first generation of minions that evolved past their ties to their dragon race.
• Tengu: air (once again the missing dragon race).
• Asura: possibly earth. Possibly a missing arcane element (an element which is magic in the most literal sense).
• Norn and Kodan: I would venture to guess arcane once again.
• Krait: water.

I’m really taking liberty with some of those, so this is likely a bad theory – but still worth sharing.

Some races may be mixes of the dragon elements. I’m going to ruin a thread with mentioning a certain name – maybe Scarlet’s experiments were centered around mixing these primal elements? Given her involvement with the Inquest – maybe a more dilute (but therefore more controllable) version of Subject Alpha?

How about some different thinking:
- Perhaps the Elder Dragons can bring fellow dragons into the world in the same way that the human Gods brought the humans.
- If the Elder Dragons came from somewhere perhaps they can go back there. Perhaps dragons in general can go back there. If not, are they exiled or are other forces at work?
- Is there anything to stop the Elder Dragons laying eggs and creating offspring after they arrive in Tyria?

@AsgarZigel.4530: I wasn’t trying to say that the Elder Dragons are of this supposed ancient draconic race, actually. Though I’ve seen such a theory before, I do not agree with it. Zhaitan appears too non-draconic, like he’s just trying to mimic a dragon. I think that the “Elder Dragons” are merely draconic, not dragons – that is, they look like dragons, but aren’t.

My main hypothesis (I say so because I have yet to delve fully into the possibility) would be that they’re demons. The Mists is known for creating imperfect creatures that relish destruction (“demons” are beings made from the Mists; many demons are rather destructive, and seek out living; some demons are known for devouring souls, while others like imps are known for consuming magic). Demons made by the Mists, in imperfect copying of dragons.

@Darkbattlemage.9612: The Elder Dragons actually have shown just about no capability of accessing the Mists. Jormag can access the Mists, by all indications, solely through the Sons of Svanir. Zhaitan was capable of pulling a soul (or many) from the Mists, but this may not be Zhaitan himself doing it, but one of his minions much like Jormag.

Still, nothing seems to show any natural tie between dragon and god – direct or indirect. There is the tie that the Six Gods, unknowingly, pulled magic from Zhaitan; and there’s the tie of the Six Gods knowing and working with the Forgotten (and supposedly Glint). But that’s not a natural tie – not one of shared origins or the like.

zamalek.2154:

A less interesting answer would be the Gods kept reseeding life and the records of their actions never survived to recent history.

Seems unlikely, since we have developer statements that the Six Gods are only “a little bit” older than the Six Gods (at least on Tyria).

zamalek.2154:

My poor, but interesting, attempt to answer that would be: dragon minions. I’m too tired to try and determine if none of the native sentient races fit the bill; but, isn’t it strange how most of the sentient races (especially the more primitive ones) tend to a specific element (if not magical, the element itself). I’ll list off a few strong candidates:

-snip race lists-

I’m really taking liberty with some of those, so this is likely a bad theory – but still worth sharing.

Some races may be mixes of the dragon elements. I’m going to ruin a thread with mentioning a certain name – maybe Scarlet’s experiments were centered around mixing these primal elements? Given her involvement with the Inquest – maybe a more dilute (but therefore more controllable) version of Subject Alpha?

That seems… extremely unlikely if I’m understanding you correctly. Dragon minions are fanatic in their very nature. You’re suggesting that, at the core, all native life on Tyria are dragon minions? The issue is that dragon minions 1) cannot reproduce and 2) are made of elements. There’d be no flesh and blood (except rotting flesh and putrid blood) in dragon minions.

@Stooperdale.3560: Well the lore of the Elder Dragons claim that they have “always been there” (on Tyria). It would be reason to believe that like their minions, Elder Dragons cannot reproduce – otherwise, why would Glint be a corrupted other-creature, and the other dragon-shaped Elder Dragons be considered minions? Alternatively, why wouldn’t we see these youngling Elder Dragons?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The information the Priory has all comes from two sources in regard to the previous dragon awakening: dwarven texts which got heavily altered and rewritten thus are unreliable (such as the Tome of Rubicon), and jotun stelae (not their monuments) which is where most of their information seems to come from – and would likely be more accurate, given the fact of the jotun fall thus they wouldn’t know to alter the writings. With the large number of jotun stelae they have and the multitude references of five surviving races, it seems unlikely that in all the mentions, the jotun did not include others.

Stelae are monuments- “an upright stone slab or pillar bearing an inscription or design and serving as a monument, marker, or the like” if you want to get precise. I’ve been assuming that means the large flat-faced stones that make up the majority of known jotun ruins, which in lore probably don’t all have the same set of carvings.

As for the forgotten… that’s an interesting thought, but I’m not convinced. According to GW1, Vissh Rakissh lived for over a thousand years. It’s hard to see a race losing track of the fact that they were almost destroyed ten of their lifetimes ago- or two or three, by your theory. Especially given their close relationship with Glint.

Myself, I think the jotun might be part of that list. They definitely fit the forgetful criteria, and we saw them in the vicinity of the Quetzal tribe in GW1.

I took your mention of “monuments” as the citadels since those are usually the “jotun monuments”. But I digress. There were also the jotun runestones (which we deal with in a Wayfarer heart).

As for the forgotten – I wasn’t suggesting they had forgotten (ba dum tsh), but rather that, well, we don’t have any of their records (even though the Durmand Priory has been to the Crystal Desert), they’re gone, they were widespread, and that they didn’t share any information with others about their past.

I don’t think the tengu were in Tyria during the previous dragon rise, and that’s why the jotun don’t have records of their survival (or there were some in Tyria, but they were wiped out).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Darkbattlemage.9612: The Elder Dragons actually have shown just about no capability of accessing the Mists. Jormag can access the Mists, by all indications, solely through the Sons of Svanir. Zhaitan was capable of pulling a soul (or many) from the Mists, but this may not be Zhaitan himself doing it, but one of his minions much like Jormag.

Oh they not actually accessing the mists, I was under the impression from my time playing a Norn in the last beta before release that Jormag was directly accessing the mists to send in his Sons of Svanir minions to prevent the rescue of that shaman. Thanks for clearing that up.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I took your mention of “monuments” as the citadels since those are usually the “jotun monuments”. But I digress. There were also the jotun runestones (which we deal with in a Wayfarer heart).

As for the forgotten – I wasn’t suggesting they had forgotten (ba dum tsh), but rather that, well, we don’t have any of their records (even though the Durmand Priory has been to the Crystal Desert), they’re gone, they were widespread, and that they didn’t share any information with others about their past.

I don’t think the tengu were in Tyria during the previous dragon rise, and that’s why the jotun don’t have records of their survival (or there were some in Tyria, but they were wiped out).

They must have some sort of Forgotten records- the Warden in Arah exp could recognize and read Forgotten runes.

Are Sylvari a possibility? Not because they are dragon minons, but because they seem to be a type of “immune” response to the dragons. I haven’t seen much in game to suggest that they are a cyclical race that awakens every time an elder dragon rises then dies off after their job is complete, but we do know that the Pale Tree seeds have existed for sometime prior to the dragon’s awakening. However, you’d think they’d get a much better mention in the historical record due to their immunity, if they existed during the prior awakening.

SirMoogie.9263:

Are Sylvari a possibility? Not because they are dragon minons, but because they seem to be a type of “immune” response to the dragons. I haven’t seen much in game to suggest that they are a cyclical race that awakens every time an elder dragon rises then dies off after their job is complete, but we do know that the Pale Tree seeds have existed for sometime prior to the dragon’s awakening. However, you’d think they’d get a much better mention in the historical record due to their immunity, if they existed during the prior awakening.

While not outside the realm of possibility, it does raise a few questions. Why is there no historical mention of them? Why is there no memory of this previous set of sylvari in the Dream? Where did they go, and what became of them there?

Aaron Ansari.1604:

SirMoogie.9263:

Are Sylvari a possibility? Not because they are dragon minons, but because they seem to be a type of “immune” response to the dragons. I haven’t seen much in game to suggest that they are a cyclical race that awakens every time an elder dragon rises then dies off after their job is complete, but we do know that the Pale Tree seeds have existed for sometime prior to the dragon’s awakening. However, you’d think they’d get a much better mention in the historical record due to their immunity, if they existed during the prior awakening.

While not outside the realm of possibility, it does raise a few questions. Why is there no historical mention of them? Why is there no memory of this previous set of sylvari in the Dream? Where did they go, and what became of them there?

This is what has always bothered me about the sylvari and what I think is a strong point for the dragon minion speculation. There is just no historical mention of them. The seed that the pale tree grew from had to be left behind by something. Because the seeds were guarded, that would mean the seeds had value to someone or something. I would have to think that if the sylvari fought against the dragons, then tales of intelligent plant creatures would most likely exist. But there are none.

However, if the sylvari were dragon minions, then it is quite possible that there would be no mention of them in the historical records, as the historical records do not seem to discuss the details of the dragon minions. I think the lack of records from the past give some creedence to the dragon minion speculation.

DarcShriek.5829:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

SirMoogie.9263:

Are Sylvari a possibility? Not because they are dragon minons, but because they seem to be a type of “immune” response to the dragons. I haven’t seen much in game to suggest that they are a cyclical race that awakens every time an elder dragon rises then dies off after their job is complete, but we do know that the Pale Tree seeds have existed for sometime prior to the dragon’s awakening. However, you’d think they’d get a much better mention in the historical record due to their immunity, if they existed during the prior awakening.

While not outside the realm of possibility, it does raise a few questions. Why is there no historical mention of them? Why is there no memory of this previous set of sylvari in the Dream? Where did they go, and what became of them there?

This is what has always bothered me about the sylvari and what I think is a strong point for the dragon minion speculation. There is just no historical mention of them. The seed that the pale tree grew from had to be left behind by something. Because the seeds were guarded, that would mean the seeds had value to someone or something. I would have to think that if the sylvari fought against the dragons, then tales of intelligent plant creatures would most likely exist. But there are none.

However, if the sylvari were dragon minions, then it is quite possible that there would be no mention of them in the historical records, as the historical records do not seem to discuss the details of the dragon minions. I think the lack of records from the past give some creedence to the dragon minion speculation.

But it doesn’t change the fact that they share no common attributes with dragon minions, and in fact seem designed to counter the dragons. I’m leaning more towards the theory that they had ties to the Forgotten, and that they didn’t come to fruition (heh) in time to participate in the last rise… but even that is just unfounded speculation resting on the tenuous connection of immunity to corruption.

DarcShriek.5829:

This is what has always bothered me about the sylvari and what I think is a strong point for the dragon minion speculation. There is just no historical mention of them. The seed that the pale tree grew from had to be left behind by something. Because the seeds were guarded, that would mean the seeds had value to someone or something. I would have to think that if the sylvari fought against the dragons, then tales of intelligent plant creatures would most likely exist. But there are none.

However, if the sylvari were dragon minions, then it is quite possible that there would be no mention of them in the historical records, as the historical records do not seem to discuss the details of the dragon minions. I think the lack of records from the past give some creedence to the dragon minion speculation.

There were dozens of mobile plants in GW1, and in fact when the sylvari were first seen they were thought to be a new breed of such mobile non-sapient plants. Naturally, this was proven wrong after Malomedies was experimented on.

There’s nothing to prevent the sylvari from being a new evolutionary pattern, advanced by magic, of these mobile non-sapient plants from old (that happen to be completely gone in GW2 for unknown reasons).

@Konig: Yes, these were just some ideas anyway. Though I’d argue it could still be possible that they evolved from dragons. We do have precedent for mortals ascending to godlike beings in Kormir and possibly Baelfire, depending on how successful he would have been without us stopping him.
The Elder Dragons would have been mortal dragons once, but they absorbed so much magic that they are more magical presence than physical body now and the only thing that ties them back to the dragons of old is their draconic appearance whenever they do need a body.
It’s just a crackpot though and pretty much impossible to verify. I just find it more likely for the EDs to originate on Tyria since they fell into a natural cycle of devouring the world and sleeping without completely eradicating the world in the process.

If they were created by the Mists like you said, another possibility would be that they are some kind of cosmic antibody that keeps the magic on Tyria in check. Although I don’t remember if it was said somewhere in game how the cycle works, whether Tyria builds up new magic by itself while the dragons sleep or it seeps back into the world from the sleeping dragons.

I had to shorten what you said, konig, but I have largely responded to one set of replies of yours at a time.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I interpreted it differently. I interpret “that time” not referring to the dark “dragon-dominated world”, but rather from the “a bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts” time.

[Had to cut a lot here, up until the part where you wonder whether we actually know when exactly Glaust was freed.]

Hmm, if that dragon-dominated world had first existed and then been twisted into one of darkness by the Elder Dragons as you said just now, wouldn’t she have made more of a distinction to make sure that “they” who consumed are different from the dragons that dominated the world?
Because, as it sounds right now, the world was dominated by dragons, and said dragons feasted on all flesh until nothing was left.

I don’t have Edge of Destiny with me though, she might say something beforehand which might indicate such a distinction (although, with the way she said it, I think any such indication would still be pretty weak).

In regards to your interpretation of “that time”, consider this:

What followed after the world twisted into darkness was a new dawn, a “bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts”.
Following your line of thought, there was at least another Dragon Rise after that new dawn (resulting in the Dragon Rise we actually know about, with the Mursaat, Forgotten, Jotun and other ancient races. Probably several Rises actually, when taking the Jotun legends you pointed out into account).
Would she call it a bright world that did not remember those Horrors when there had been several other Dragon Rises afterwards? (The others might not have ended in as much of a total annihilation as the one you are proposing here did, but they should still be anything but a bright world.)

Also, it was ever since “that time” that she feared her master. Had there been another Rise (or several), and she was already fearing him, why didn’t he seek her out straight away as he did in EoD? Which I take as an indicator that she was freed during the last Rise, or shortly before (so that Kralkatorrik didn’t yet know of her breaking free).
Which, in this setup, would mean that “that time” would actually refer to two different moments in time – the time in which the world recovered for the first time, and the time from when she was freed. Which I guess wouldn’t make sense.

Now I know that one could argue that it could fit if she had been freed shortly after that new dawn. After all we don’t know when she was freed, right? But, as I said, in that case I think Kralkatorrik would have searched her out and killed her as soon as he rose the last time, as he did right away in EoD.
This would also mean that this dragon dominated world had been two Dragon Rises ago.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Prophecies manual. All things eventually come from the Mists. With the Mists overlapping the world itself in various places […], is it so hard to believe that the Mists couldn’t create brand new life on a desolate world?

Furthermore, the jotun place the cyclic nature of the Elder Dragons in their creation myths with known mentions of multiple risings (see Scholar Caterin ), an odd place to put them if the world wasn’t fully or near fully ravaged at least during one rise.

An interesting point, but I think we shouldn’t rely on what’s written in the prophecies manual too much. It’s written from an in-universe human perspective, the texts having been unearthed only recently. Remember how much human knowledge has been brought into question, recently (not that I necessarily agree with the way we have moved away from the anthropocentric GW1).
Do we have any actual word of god on this? (I don’t actually disagree with what you said, I’m more personally curious about finding a source which can’t be as easily discredited)

In regards to the Jotun and their creation myths, I’d argue that there are other ways to not make it seem an “odd place to put them”, besides saying that the world is pretty much being reset with every Rise, and thus a new creation begins (this is what you’re proposing, right? World ravaged, then new life pops up (from the mists etc.), essentially being a new creation, thus a creation myth.)
The mention of the cyclical nature of the Dragon Rises would also make sense as being part of a creation myth when this myth suggests that the world had been “created thus”. Tyria was created, and an inherent part of that creation was that the Six Swallowers return every few millennia to reset the planet.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And that’s not really what I meant. But it certainly would mean that almost everything that’s edible would be. But the Bloodstone was made with almost all of the world’s magic – specifically everything that was not corrupted by the Elder Dragons already. That’s like eating a meal of a salad and steak, leaving the steak alone and saying you ate everything.

I’m curious now: has it ever been said that almost all of the world’s magic was used? You say yourself afterwards that it was all that had remained uncorrupted. This alone could mean that what remained was actually just a tiny fraction of what had originally been there: maybe still more than just some breadcrumbs and gravy, but certainly less than a whole steak. Maybe a single salad leaf or two?
(As in: 95 % of race x’s population had been corrupted, and their magic with them. Now the magic of those who were able to even wield that power among the remaining 5 % was hidden)

As I said I couldn’t find any mention of any “quantity”. Now this feels kind of shameless, but as I mentioned I am usually lurking these forums, so maybe this is why I didn’t know the appropriate source. If there is, I’d be glad if you could point me to it!

Besides, as for the Elder Dragons not taking note of a part of the food just disappearing and assuming that they had consumed everything, there is Six of them, and they don’t seem to try to consume the magic corrupted by/within one another (at least they don’t actively search each other out?). So maybe they assumed that somebody else got to the remaining parts of the cake first, and then fell, sated, knowing (wrongly, though) that there was nothing noteworthy for them left to consume?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until they saw nothing left to eat, and then fell, waiting for life to begin anew so they may rise once more.

Not very hard to do. And certainly not so obviously biased and silly as your example.

Well, it was silly, I agree. I was trying for some light-heartedness though, not bias
Apart from it not being very hard to do though, do you really think that it would have been absolutely necessary to include such a thing? Especially since I don’t think that this alone is what makes or breaks my counter arguments (mostly questions, really).
Had the authors never intended for there to be any reason to deduce a theory such as yours from Glint’s dialogue, they wouldn’t have had a reason to specify that they consumed all until there was “nothing left that they saw”, either.

Oh god this is a long post, sorry about that everyone!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You’re suggesting that, at the core, all native life on Tyria are dragon minions? The issue is that dragon minions 1) cannot reproduce and 2) are made of elements. There’d be no flesh and blood (except rotting flesh and putrid blood) in dragon minions.

Hmmm… I would be really interested to hear if you had conjecture around this. Again, assuming that Glint was being very literal about dragons consuming everything.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

While not outside the realm of possibility, it does raise a few questions. Why is there no historical mention of them? Why is there no memory of this previous set of sylvari in the Dream? Where did they go, and what became of them there?

While the first question is what casts the most doubt on this hypothesis. The answer to the second is that Sylvari from this Pale Tree are unique in that they are connected to the dream, but previous incarnations while still having dragon immunity, were not connected to the dream like Malyck.