Guild Wars 2

Mix of both. Some of the risen (Reza) have souls bound within their rotting corpses, while others (Romke) exist as ghosts asking us to put their bodies to rest. It’s been theorized that it might relate to power- Reza was the most powerful of one of Zhaitan’s most valued kinds of risen- but nothing conclusive is known for sure.

Speaking of Nicholas references, there’s also this kid in Fireheart Rise.

We know she went to the northern edge of the desert at the point where Destiny’s Edge broke, but there’s no particular reason to think she’d been there before.

draxynnic.3719:

Wasn’t this a retcon that had already been made, though? I haven’t been able to find the source on a quick check, but I’m pretty sure there was an in-game source putting the date at later than 1135AE, and ArenaNet acknowledged that they changed their mind on the exact date.

The tour guide in the Ossan Quarter implied that the date got moved back to 1275, but there’s more than enough wiggle room in her phrasing to argue whether she actually meant the point Joko took over.

It’s hard to say, and we don’t have any solid answers. The dervishes were faith-based, even more than monks, so it’s likely the silence of the gods had the same effect of largely breaking the profession’s identity. The monks went on to remake themselves as guardians. We don’t know if the dervishes were able to accomplish something similar.

Either way, I expect we’ll hear at least something about them in PoF.

IIRC, it was left up in the air- An Empire Divided notes that the Canthans may have come from somewhere else or may have originated on Shing Jea, and the Luxons claim to have come from somewhere else across the sea. Technically, though, it was never stated as fact anywhere.

EDIT: There was also a statement by Grubb in an interview, but he made it clear that what he was telling us was what they wanted us to know at the time, not the whole story.

Athrenn.9468:

It really is an odd series of events if you consider how far apart Orr is from Cantha (See Map). The only way I could wrap my head around it is if the gods leading humanity at the time met with some of the representatives from other elder races (mursaat, forgotten, dwarves, seers, jotun, etc.) and they told the gods that all of the lands to the north were occupied, then pointed at Cantha to the far south and said, “There’s some good land over there, go settle that.” Not wanting to risk open war immediately, the gods and their human followers complied, opening a portal straight to Cantha.

It depends on how god-travel works. We believe they started the the Artesian Waters because they were drawn by the concentration of magic, but that could mean they had no idea what the area there was like. If it was still corrupted from Zhaitan, and possibly Kralkatorrik, instead of walking around Tyria the mortal way it might have made more sense to hop from magic hotspot to magic hotspot until they found one that wasn’t lethally corrupted.

I suppose we could work around this inconsistency by saying that in the year 0 BE, some of the Forgotten begin working as Abaddon’s jailers as part of their alliance with the gods but it isn’t until 174 AE that they “leave the world of men” en masse and settle in the Crystal Desert to join the ones who were already there guarding Abaddon’s prison.

I don’t think we need to jump through that many hoops. The ones that were guarding Abaddon’s prison were the ones we found in the Realm of Torment with him- of course it makes sense that they’d have left at 0 A.E. As for the ones in the desert, some of them may well have been guarding the Mouth of Torment, but there are at least two other reasons for them being there- to serve Glint, and because they already were living on the Crystal Sea before the whole god kerfuffle- so they wouldn’t be included by this entry.

so I think that it’s a gross oversimplication of Elonian history to lump them all together in that way.

To be fair, this entire article, almost every single entry, is oversimplification. It’s supposed to be readable by the casual player, and throwing a bunch of names at them that’ll have no bearing on the expansion isn’t the way to do that.

I’m still grumpy that they messed up the math on the Primeval Kings, though. 200 B.E. to 450s A.E. is 650-odd years, not 250. They subtracted instead of adding.

Two possible reasons:

*The gods, in the past, have tried to help humanity, and it’s made things catastrophically worse. Balthazar’s ‘go forth and conquer’ decree? That ended with the charr wiping Ascalon and Orr from the face of Tyria. That bloodstone debacle? From what we’ve heard, it started off wars that drove humans to the brink of extinction, and then set off another war between the gods that turned a sea into a desert, wiped out a human civilization, and set the stage for what nearly became the end of the world.

*There’s some cosmic ‘do not interfere’ imperative that we are unaware of. Maybe there’s something about the gods that makes interference turn into disaster. Maybe they have bigger problems out in the Mists somewhere. Maybe it’s not safe for them while the dragons are around. Maybe they think humanity is handicapped as long as they can’t get by without the gods doing the heavy lifting for them. Maybe they’ve given up on humanity. Maybe Kormir would like to get involved, but the other gods are holding her back. Maybe Balthazar has promised to put their head on a stick if any other god comes down to Tyria while he’s around.

Ehecatl.9172:

In one of the books there’s a scene of a norn physically overpowering three charr at once using a bar bench.

To be fair, that particular norn was renowned for being absurdly strong even for her race, and those particular charr were Ash Legion. It’s definitely canon that the average norn is stronger than the average charr, but pinning three at once is not a normal occurrence.

Leo G.4501:

The real question is, why haven’t the people built infrastructure so you wouldn’t need to leap over chasms, up cliffs or over large bodies of quicksand/water?

I imagine the desert just isn’t densely populated enough to maintain it. Even if those trees around the oases are enough to build bridges and stairs after you account for Amnoon’s building needs, and any firewood to keep out the night chill… you’ve got a vast span of nothing to haul the materials through, in some places who knows how much sand to clear away to find a solid foundation for the supports, and at any time after you leave a hydra might happen along and smash the thing into kindling with a meteor.

Athrenn.9468:

In summary, I would suggest to the Amnoon city council that the tactical advantage of riding a large reptile with a spiky club tail is actually not worth it. Being able to field larger numbers of cavalry units is, and they would be able to equip more of their army with mounts if they were using well-tempered herbivores that are willing to eat food scraps, hay, and other unwanted fodder instead of meat, which is the most expensive food type.

I would certainly agree… but is any such beast available?

As far as I can recall, in the area surrounding Amnoon (bloody kitten filter) we only see two other creatures large enough to bear a human rider (discounting sand sharks and hydras, for what I hope are obvious reasons). Desert dolyaks appear to be fine beasts of burden, but any WvW players can tell you they don’t move very quickly, which makes them poor battle steeds. That just leaves the shadovar. Now, granted, I didn’t get a very good luck at them, but the fact that were only three or so in the area we were able to explore does not speak to a large enough population to carry a military force, let alone also being available for casual civilian transport.

If faced with a choice between a problematic mount and no mount at all… provided it is possible to feed the raptors- which, clearly, it is, or else they wouldn’t be around- I think they’re worth the trouble.

Athrenn.9468:

Woulkitten oon’s city council be able to convince the population that their tax dollars are being put to good use feeding the city guard’s raptors, or would each cavalier be responsible for keeping their raptors fed by constantly hunting? Either way, it’s a lot more work than keeping mounts that are willing to eat whatever scraps are already being thrown away by Amnoon’s farms.

If I’m not mistaken, Seeker’s Village, the one we save in the first story instance, is entirely set aside for cultivating raptor food (and probably housing miners).

And considering we’re paying around a hundred million dollars for our military’s mounts, without an expansionist dictator parked on our borders with a much larger army? Sinking tax dollars into military equipment is a very rational thing to do.

Why do you feel they don’t belong? Springers are the one mount that basically is a real-world desert creature. (Well, okay, there are jackals too, but ours aren’t made out of sand.)

As for creature design, I like it, and so do several of my guild mates. Not everyone’s aesthetic, sure, but on the other hand, I don’t care much for the raptors. It seems to me like ANet was trying to make as diverse a set as possible for just that reason.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

(and I would welcome an update on just where the Flame Legion stands now- they’re the only hostile faction that has lost not just their leader, but arguably their driving ideology),

Wouldn’t this also apply to the White Mantle (and their Bandit Proxies)? Every major leader is dead, and now so is the last Mursaat. What have they got left?

I think it’s a bit different. We’ve been told flat-out that the Mantle has been effectively killed off, with just the odd pocketlingering here or there, whereas the Flame Legion was left leaderless and godless but still a substantial force. The bulk of the bandits were never ideologically Mantle, and so in theory life should continue as normal for them, just without the top-level organization and support they used to enjoy. There’s also a question of time- the Mantle lost their leader less than a year ago, while the Flame Legion has been sitting for five.

But most importantly, we’ve had that follow-up for the Mantle. The instance last episode, plus the journals, and the achievement text indicating we’re to take this to be a representative sample, show an organization that’s fast disintegrating. We never got that look for the Flame Legion. CoF explorable left them as a still-substantial force tottering on the edge of recovery, if only they could find a leader to unite them. Smodur’s comments in S2 claim that they’ve pulled back enough to constitute a serious risk of invasion again, and it’s been another two years since then. Who leads them now, and how great a threat is he really? How has this religiously oriented society coped with the loss of yet another god? Have the events of the LW opened them to the idea of foreign aide, or are they still the same insular xenophobes? Those are questions we’ve had answered for the Mantle, but Flame is still out in the cold.

If we do get story relating to the charr, I can see the Separatists or the Flame Legion serving as a launching-off points (and I would welcome an update on just where the Flame Legion stands now- they’re the only hostile faction that has lost not just their leader, but arguably their driving ideology), but I doubt they’d keep the focus for anything longer than a single episode. With the commitment to a new map with each episode, they’d quickly expand beyond those two groups’ reach. The Blood Legion makes for a much more enticing antagonist, with or without a connection to the existing Renegades… and really, it’s past time Bangar started kicking up a public fuss.

More to the point, I don’t think there was any reason at the time to think that Braham’s plan could work. His proposal- march a single guild up north, alongside whatever unorganized followers might tag along- was… frankly, ludicrous, from the perspective of someone who saw the herculean effort behind the deaths of Zhaitan and Mordremoth.

Even now, I’m dubious of his claims that he ‘had Jormag surrounded’. Even if his new Destiny’s Edge is substantially larger than the first one, even if we’re looking at as many as a few dozen norn, how could they manage that? And recall that Taimi has had more time to study things now, and is convinced that the only way to slay Jormag is through Primordus. As far as we know, Braham’s plan was still doomed to failure, but Balthazar happened to intervene just in time to spare him from finding that out.

Rognik.2579:

I’m not sure what comment you mean from the PS, though.

“Trial by combat? Who’d have thought it? I’m surprised Zamon even knows it’s an option. There hasn’t been one in over fifty years…or, at least, that’s what I’ve been told.” I never found the line too suspicious, to be honest. An interest in archaic laws is exactly the kind of hobby you’d expect a Master Exemplar to have, and there are any number of reasons she might want to downplay her expertise on the matter. It could also have been explained as her being much older than she seems, but by itself, it’s never been very convincing.

I’d be surprised if he doesn’t somehow make it to Elona… Of course, Taimi is probably going to stay behind so we’d need another asura somehow anyway…

Canach does put in an appearance in the promotional materials, so it’s a safe bet he’ll be there, and we’ve already seen Taimi keeping in communicator contact (possibly as a response to the outspoken criticism the last time we physically took her through a warzone). Given that the devs have specifically said they’re only going to include characters that have something to add to the story, I’m betting those four are going to be the only members of Dragon’s Watch involved, unless Marjory shows up later in.

All four of the big ones also appear at the end of the PS, during Romke’s Final Voyage. (Although it doesn’t seem to be listed on the wiki…)

Danikat.8537:

But are there any cases of sylvari attempting a Hunt which, at least for now, appears to be literally impossible? For example seeking a person or place which does not exist.

None at the moment. The dialogue you mentioned above also marks Trahearne out as odd, and besides for him and Caithe, all the other Valiants we see who talk to us about their Hunts seem to have a pretty good idea of what they’re doing. Plenty of them will fail and die, and they know that, but in theory none of them seem to think they’re chasing the impossible.

If a sylvari has never experienced a true Wyld Hunt is it possible they could mistake other feelings, like a normal desire to visit a place you’ve heard about (or saw in the Dream), or feelings for an individual (love, hate, protectiveness etc.) for their Hunt?

I’d say yes. For starters, we know that Mordremoth’s tampering worked that way with Caithe, and possibly others. In more mundane circumstances… well, nothing says that sylvari are immune to misunderstandings. I think they’d figure it out pretty quick if an actual Hunt came along, and I think that any sylvari who had experienced a Hunt and sat down to talk to them about it could set them straight, but even then, if they’re stubborn enough or have ample reason to go into denial…

It’s not unusual for lesser spirits to drop out of contact for a few generations, which is why the norn are so unsure. Most people I’ve talked to leave their survival as a question mark for the time being.

However… if we’re going to be reading into dialogue, my guess is that Wolverine is dead, and Ox/Dolyak is alive.

Oh, and fun fact- there are actually four lost spirits. Eagle also stayed behind to fight, although the poor fella didn’t get a shrine for their sacrifice.

draxynnic.3719:

As another consideration:

It’s possible that Turai just didn’t have enough of an impact to become a revenant legend.

I don’t know. I’d argue that Turai was at the very least on par with Ventari, and while his claim to fame was largely a temporary victory, at least it was a victory, unlike a certain melodramatic demon I could name. Even his time in the desert left a mark; no, he didn’t Ascend in the end, but he did build a temple that personally drew the attention of the gods. How many mortals can boast of that?

EDIT:

I dunno, by that logic wouldn’t Kalla be tied to Pyre’s legend?

I’d put it the other way round. Pyre started things off, but he ducked out as quickly as he was able to. Kalla was the one, decades later, who did the heavy lifting of actually defeating the shamans, not to mention the whole equality of the sexes thing. She’s certainly the one better remembered today.

I get where you’re coming from, but Kalla does have more than just a statue. There have to be at least half a dozen NPCs in Ascalon that tell her story, and the cultural impact she’s responsible for is both much closer and much more relevant to the modern day races. I’d be confident in saying that she’s the most talked about character that we don’t actually see.

As for daggers… I think those would be a singularly inappropriate choice, considering Kalla was killed by one. Bonus points for it being during a betrayal.

It’s also worth noting that Kalla was born in a time when picking up a secondary profession wasn’t two unusual.

Regardless, though. Glint didn’t wear a shield. Mallyx didn’t carry around a mace and axe. There’s nothing in GW1 that indicates that Ventari ever touched a staff. And revenants were pretty desperately in need of a second ranged weapon. I don’t mind seeing Kalla use a bow.

As for lore… honestly, this makes more sense to me than Turai. Elona shouldn’t have any revenants yet, and it makes sense that Tyrian revenants would focus on legends from their own past. (Not to mention that Turai used a sword and shield, both of which the revenant already has.)

jheryn.8390:

I really see no reason anyone else from the first game should still be alive.

I wouldn’t mind Zhed. Ventari was accounted an old centaur when we met him in GW1, and he went on to live another 108 years. Zhed was only 18, IIRC. That leaves plenty of room for him to still be around and kicking, and it would be interesting to see if age mellowed him or just entrenched his hostility.

It’s the old and young miners south of the quarry. I didn’t take screenshots, but the gist is that there’s a story of a peaceful choya village on top of a mesa somewhere out in the desert, but that they remain peaceful by tossing troublemakers off the cliff. The unspoken implication being that all of the hostile choya we have to deal with come from those outcasts.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There’s not really many ways for the Order of Whispers to move, when we’re told “although crossing the Crystal Desert is currently impossible due to Palawa’s stranglehold over the southern reaches and the desert dragon’s presence in the northern desert” in the same paragraph. If direct route is impossible, indirect route is needed. This means either naval or teleport travel.

If they’re physically traveling there, yes.

One of the NPCs in Amnoon says that most defectors are escaping the farms Joko set up along the Elon, which are north of the Bone Wall. Though some do get through the wall “somehow”, those numbers are much lower than those who are first sent to the farms which are, apparently, much easier to escape despite being one of Elona’s main food sources (one would think they’d be more protected).

There’s a character in the southern cavalier checkpoint who I believe says that the farms are forced labor camps, which Joko would want somewhere remote if he’s trying to come across as benevolent to most of his subjects. Still, it stands to reason that guards and small walls would be easier to avoid than guards and a big wall, and one would imagine that it wouldn’t be too great a challenge for the Whispers to get some of their spies consigned to those camps.

EdwinLi.1284:

Elonian Refugees appeared to be very common before events of the Edge of Destiny books from what NPC said and they either settled within the Crystal Desert, Ebon hawk, or Divinity Reach.

Not exactly. From what we’re told, the last wave of refugees made it through ~65 years ago. As far as we know, they were the last ones to make it to Core Tyria.

I’ve already put down my reasons for thinking that holosmiths were at least beginning five years ago.

As for the Whispers… the asura gate is speculation. We’ve had this argument in the past, so suffice it to say that I’m not convinced the Order has been able to physically travel to Elona. What we do know, though, is that the Whispers have stayed in touch with the resistance against Joko. We also know from the demo that said resistance has been able to help a great number of refugees to flee Joko’s domain, reportedly even including the odd Sunspear. Wall or no, Elona hasn’t been able to stop the escapees, and I don’t believe for a second that an organization like the Order would keep tabs on the far side of the wall and completely fail to check in with the near side. If they do maintain a physical presence, that’s all the more reason- surely if average citizens are able to succeed, the Whispers can too?

And then there’s the Order of Shadows. Both the name and the dress are strikingly similar. While we don’t have any lore on them as yet (that I’ve seen), even their mechanical role is similar to what the Order did in Elona. It was their task to defend the nation against magical and supernatural threats, and here we have a group who is named like them, dressed like them, and arranging the deaths of menaces unbalanced by the surge in magic.

As for the maps, I don’t believe for a minute that the Whispers would tip their hands by keeping Lion’s Arch cartographers in the loop.

There’s also Cai, in Trouble At the Roots: “With a little help, she could utilize those holograms very effectively. For more than just tournament announcing.”

Granted, that help could have just been the idea… but if the Whispers had been in contact with Elona, they’d surely know about Amnoon’s holosmiths. Even if they didn’t take a direct hand, by providing the idea, that would mean Elli, Lion’s Arch, and Scarlet were indirectly imitating Amnoon, not the other way around.

(That’s assuming Amnoon had holosmiths by then, but I think that’s a safe guess. Talking to the lore dump NPC, it sounds like they’re well established. For that to be the case, I would imagine that they’d at the very least have started started experiments by five years ago.)

I agree with Kalavier. Yes, asura widely use light for displays and even platforms, but we’ve only seen two of them weaponise it the same way holosmiths do: Elli and Moto. It’s also worth bearing in mind that both of them were originally scorned for their research. That doesn’t mark holomancy out as one of the asura’s ‘foremost specialties’.

More importantly, Elli only made a weapon out of her hologram with the help of the Order of Whispers… who we know have been in contact with Elona. Even Moto’s Box may or may not entirely be his own work.

The Ebonhawke gates were closed on Jennah’s orders, which means it couldn’t have been earlier than 1316… and more likely, it was done after Kralkatorrik awoke in 1320, since Snaff had been gathering materials from the desert not long before that. That’s 18 years after the sylvari awoke. And closed gates wouldn’t have kept the Zephyrites out anyway.

He says that holosmithing originated in Amnoon… and since holosmiths are defined by that photon forge thingy, that’s true. We certainly haven’t seen any of those in Tyria.

Fenom.9457:

What if weavers come from djinn magic?

Funny you should say that…

There’s also the Zephyrites to consider. The achievements say that they’ll have a village on that first map, and if the Sanctum stopped in between trips, the folk of Amnoon might know a good deal more about us than we do about them.

Correct. Because A.) no one else was available, with Abaddon struck from the records, and B.) water magic in GW1 was overwhelming ice-based. You see that in other attributes as well- Dwayna empowers Balthazar’s Aura, Grenth empowers Restoration Magic… the patronage is of the broad strokes, but that doesn’t mean that every individual skill (or attribute, for the profession-wide patronages) is going to fit their domains.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Aaron: Braham also had a magical insta-kill-any-icebrood scroll, which Aesgir supposedly used. Aesgir is also known for having killed Jormag’s mightiest champion, Frostfang, in a single punch. So it’s likely that Braham’s bow (and any other proverbial weapon that may be enchanted by that scroll, if any) could effectively one-shot even the strongest dragon champions.

That would give a major advantage to Braham and make getting a small group up towards Jormag much easier than a spread out army of norn who don’t like major cooperations.

IIRC, Braham’s bow didn’t even one-hit the ice beast guarding it, just dropped its invulnerability buff so that we could kill it.

I actually prefer the old ogre models, but…

I’m thinking along the same lines as Konig. The posture and proportions of the new models, let alone the size, makes me think sand giants.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Granted, none of that means that the norn can’t give resettlement a try. Every account of when they were driven south makes Jormag out to be the problem, not his icebrood, and Braham’s new guild likely wouldn’t have been able to reach the dragon without cutting through his minions.

They’d still have a fight on their hands, sure, but that’s the way the norn like it.

While true, this was also shortly after Jormag woke up. He didn’t have as vast an army of minions then as he does now.

That’s true, but part of my point is that said vast army didn’t stop Destiny’s Edge 2.0 from ‘surrounding’ Jormag. To be sure, we don’t know how many minions had to be killed to do that, but unless Jormag completely left his force behind it does show that the norn can cut through the icebrood if need be.

Kalavier.1097:

Vesuvius.9874:

Prior to Nightfall, Abaddon was the god of water (and secrets). After the Nightfall storyline, since Abaddon no longer existed, Lyssa took on water.

His domains were taken over by the other gods.

Even then, what sense does to make to split water and ice? Water magic uses both so does a water ele (religious) worship lyssa and grenth equally? Cause those two weren’t exactly fans of each other IIRC :P.

Not at the time of GW1. He kept his domains until Kormir took over.

As for splitting them- setting aside the fact that they were always separate (Grenth brought ice to the pantheon when he became a god, at a time when Abaddon was still free and widely worshiped), they are, conceptually, two very different things… especially during Abaddon’s time, when water was equated with the sea and its depths. Add in that Lyssa had more to do with liquid water than Grenth ever did, and it makes sense that she’d take the domain once it was freed.

A water ele would pick whichever of the gods they cared for. One who used more ice might go for Grenth, and one who used more water might go for Lyssa… or Dwayna, since for an elementalist, water is the healing element. Or they might worship all three equally, beseeching each for favor in turn while using different kinds of water magic, or not worship any at all, seeing their magic as their own business and not the gods. There’s nothing that locks a human to one patron.

Ithilwen.1529:

I think Scarlett was making radical moves to balance out the system of Gods/Dragons. Grenth’s opposite number was killed. Does this mean Grenth is excessively powerful? It would tend to unbalance the system toward entropy.

The trouble with that line of thought is that only a couple of the gods and dragons line up. Grenth and Zhaitan, sure, Melandru and Mordremoth, Balthazar and Primordus… but after that? The only thing we know about the DSD is it makes minions out of water, so in theory it should go to the goddess of water… but doesn’t that mean Jormag should match up with the god of ice? Grenth’s already taken. And how do you begin to pick out a dragon counterpart for Dwayna or Kormir?

Vesuvius.9874:

Dondarrion.2748:

Out of all the Nightfall heroes, my money is on us seeing Razah again.

I’d love to see Razah but my bet is on Jurah, the Master of Whispers. Remember, he was a necromancer which would give him the highest likelihood of being alive to this day.

Not necessarily. Livia’s the only necromancer we know of that’s had an extended lifespan, and maybe Khilbron, and both of those can be attributed to the Scepter of Orr.

Razah, on the other hand, is a creation of the Mists, which as far as we know don’t age, and Zhed was a very young member of a race known to naturally live for hundreds of years.

Granted, none of that means that the norn can’t give resettlement a try. Every account of when they were driven south makes Jormag out to be the problem, not his icebrood, and Braham’s new guild likely wouldn’t have been able to reach the dragon without cutting through his minions.

They’d still have a fight on their hands, sure, but that’s the way the norn like it.

Avariz.8241:

I don’t know whether Omadd’s Machine was really destroyed. If not Balthazar must have made off with it because it just disappeared right after the fight with him. The only way Balthazar can take on Kralkatorrik is with Ormadd’s Machine.

It was. It didn’t disappear, it exploded with enough force to launch us a few dozen feet to a completely separate platform.

Even if it hadn’t been destroyed, it looks like the machine wouldn’t work on Kralkatorrik or Selbbub. Taimi’s research was based on the idea that every dragon has a single, unique weakness- Primordus’ and Jormag’s happened to be each other, and she found a way to use the machine, but it wouldn’t have worked with Mordremoth’s weakness, and likely wouldn’t help with the other three either.

On the other hand if Ormadd’s Machine was really destroyed why would Balthazar go to the Crystal Desert and fight Kralkatorrik knowingly he himself would lose and fed more magic to Kralkatorrik?

I don’t think it’s so simple as that. The Pact was fairly successful with fighting Zhaitan and Mordremoth with armies, and according to Braham, he and a group of norn had single-handedly surrounded Jormag before Balthazar’s tampering sent him back to sleep. Fighting the dragons by force of arms clearly works, and who better to do that than the God of War?

There is the Snaff’s Machine. If Balthazar some how known about it and planned to use it on Kralkatorrik then he might stood a chance.

Possibly, but unlikely. To oversimplify, Snaff’s device worked because Snaff was able to embody happiness and contentment. That… doesn’t sound like an approach Balthazar could manage right now.

Either way Balthazar intention is to destroy all the Elder Dragons. Why would he change like that?

From what we saw in Season 3 and the PoF trailer, it looks like he’s out not just to restore his power, but to gain enough to usurp the other gods. We don’t know for sure yet, though, and it wouldn’t be the first time that a snippet of dialogue in a trailer ended up meaning something very different than we’d thought.

I think it is only logical that Elder Dragons can and do transform or corrupt the human gods. If Elder Dragons do, we could speculate whether Abaddon and Balthazar have been similarly transformed or corrupted. Both gods knowing their selves in danger would have used certain artifacts to fight back. Abaddon had tried to use the Bloodstones artifacts of the Seers. Now Balthazar is using asura machines?

Possibly, but I find it unlikely. While we have seen a couple cases where victims fight back in the early stages of dragon corruption, in both of them, the struggle became central to their life. In Balthazar’s case, he hardly seems to care about the dragons at all- as mentioned above, he’s been treating them like mobile batteries.

As a rule, I don’t care for magic artifacts, largely due to how easy they are to handle poorly. They tend to be either overly convenient, being tailored to exactly solve an otherwise insurmountable obstacle, or overly powerful, trivializing many different obstacles. When done well, they are replaceable, only one option among several, which usually runs counter to the goal of painting this sword/ring/cloak/what-have-you as special beyond measure.

That said, while I did groan when they first revealed the Shining Blade, for the most part I could write it off because of how easily it faded into the background. The power to enforce the Oath was something Livia and her inner circle had imbued it with; in theory, they could’ve picked any pebble in the cave and accomplished the same thing. And while it is implied to have some anti-mursaat power, that was never directly addressed, saving us from having it shoved down our throats that we’d found the key to slaying an otherwise implacable foe, and right when we were learning we needed it too, gee golly! They left it sticking out of Lazarus’ chest without comment, giving space for people who were interested to speculate on what it does, and people like me to ignore it while we did the hard work of actually securing the kill.

Shiren.9532:

I’m led to believe it’s possible the Shining Blade itself was Bartholos’ blade, but that kind of diminishes it’s power in my eyes. Bartholos himself was added in EotN and wasn’t around during some of the most important Shining Blade moments (like the Henge) and we have no reason to believe there was anything special about his blade – he never says anything about it nor does it ever display magical properties. The organisation had it’s name long before this artifact supposedly existed and Bartholos himself actually goes on to found the Seraph, presumably taking his sword with him? Why would his weapon have any significance to the organisation, let alone magical properties?

Bartholos has a sword called the Shining Blade in GW1, but it’s not the same one we saw here. This one was given to the Blade by the last Seer, sometime after the War In Kryta. I really don’t like that touch- partially because it’s establishing the sword at the same time we’re using it, as you mentioned, and partially because the idea of the Seers fighting mursaat with a sword seems ludicrous given the frail, floating sorcerer thing both races had going. Maybe the Seers had their own version of jade constructs, but again, that should have been established. It’s been five years, and ArenaNet is still leaving their players to make excuses for the inconsistencies in the game’s setting.

On the whole, though, while I agree with many of your objections regarding the Blade and Livia, I see this patch as a single, unrepresentative, mishandled blip in what has otherwise impressed me. I’d argue that S3 has, on the whole, been an example of the right way to handle GW1 lore in a sequel product.

(I actually find myself agreeing that Magdaer and Sohothin were examples of artifacts done well, but that was because they initially remained background elements, not usable get-out-of-jail-free-but-not-until-the-plot-demands-it cards . ANet’s first attempt to pay off that set-up in S2 only wound up making the whole plot much more mundane. “Go find a brand-new artifact in a cookie cutter scavenger-hunt-of-multiple-parts. The swords each perform unique functions now that lets us conveniently sidestep the question of what’s happened to Magdaer. The whole rightful heir bit may have just been referring to that aforementioned new artifact and have nothing to do with descent, or then again, maybe not. The ritual itself is actually a gamey combat event followed by a single dramatic declaration.” Needless to say, I’m not looking forward to the prospect of that story thread wrapping up.)

At a guess, I’d say we’re looking at the GW2 version of Salving Cactus.

It’s a pretty radical model change, but no more so than the hydras.

Lydgate’s maxim definitely applies here. “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

If the blindness is a function of the sheer amount of divine power packed into a single being, it stands to reason that reducing the power also reduces the risk.

I’m not so sure that would be contradictory. He never uses terms like usurped or stolen, words that would mean his godhood had been taken from him- he uses ‘dimmed’ and ‘abated’. That sounds to me less like his mantle has passed to someone else the way Abaddon’s went to Kormir, and more like the mantle itself has been directly damaged and/or drained. If that is the case, he could still be divine insofar as no one has replaced him as the god of war… it just means that ‘god of war’ doesn’t count for as much these days.

Ghosts are a little different from other undead, enough that some folks argue they shouldn’t be called undead at all. Zombies and skeletons and mummies are all bodies that have died and then started moving around again. Risen are the same deal, except that sometimes they skip the part where the corpse is inanimate and unconscious. Any of the above may or may not have the body’s soul still bound within the decaying husk. All of the above are dependent on magical intervention* altering the usual course of death in Tyria.

Ghosts, on the other hand, are just disembodied souls. It’s not ‘normal’ for them to remain in Tyria, and when they do it’s often the result of a curse, but it can also simply be that the spirit refuses to move on, or found a way to wander back into the world from the Mists. When magic is involved, it doesn’t also form embodied undead, and conversely, when necromancy creates disembodied undead they come in the form of wraiths or phantoms or shades, all visibly distinct from ghosts.

Undead start out as unconscious, which is why we’re said to ‘create’ them. Ghosts are conscious, so assuming magical control over them would be more like enslavement. Risen span that particular gap- they can either be created/revived as a subservient consciousness, or enslave an existing one.

*There are a few places in GW1, largely confined to Prophecies content, which mention zombies on the like forming without magical intervention, usually when their resting place is disturbed or they died particularly traumatic deaths- in other words, the same circumstances that give rise to ghosts. I suspect this is just a case of a ghost that refuses/can’t leave its body, effectively becoming the necromancer that reanimates the corpse, but we’ve never been told for sure.

Joko fought Zhaitan, and kept the risen away from most of Elona. “…the dragon’s undead army wages war even now along the northern Elonian border, preventing all in Tyria from departing for other lands…for now.”

Arden.7480:

Buuut if he kills a dragon so then Tyria will be destroyed aaaand Balthazar will rule over…. over what?

This is coming up a lot… but, to play devil’s advocate…

Taimi’s model holds that Tyria will be destroyed if another dragon’s worth of magic is released. And she openly admitted in Flashpoint that she has no idea what adding Balthazar to the equation would do. It’s possible that he’d be able to safely contain that energy. (Our character is treating that as another bad thing, and from what we’ve seen in the trailer, they might be right to, but that’s not necessarily the same as the end of the world.)