Guild Wars 2

Regarding the location of the “Gates of Heaven,” the Priest of Abaddon presents a theory that the other gods may have defeated and captured Abaddon at Abaddon’s Reliquary in Siren’s Landing. If this theory holds merit, perhaps the “Gates of Heaven” were gates to Arah, a city where the gods lived for a time and which could be poetically viewed as “heaven”. It wouldn’t be a big stretch that after a failed assault, Abaddon continued fighting further away from the gates, withdrawing towards his reliquary and had his last stand there before being beaten and captured.

Relevant dialogue:

Player character: Do you know why there are so many statues of Abaddon here?
Priest of Abaddon: We believe this was where he made his last stand before they captured him, and he put protective spells upon them all. He did not want to be forgotten. He has not been.

However, given how biased views the priest presents in various conversations with him, there’s a possibility that he’s wrong, but the theory itself is fascinating nevertheless.

(continued)

As for the White Mantle plot, it’s still lingering on, actually. Whether it’ll be referenced in Episode 6 or expansion 2 remains to be seen, though.

It was revealed in the letters of Eps 1 and 4 (and the gossip of the ladies-in-waiting) that there are White Mantle spies within various orders: at least two spies in the Priory (who had Seer artifacts and tomes delivered to Bloodstone Fen; the former action implies that at least one spy had a high enough rank to gain access to the artifacts, which might imply Chef Robertus and Historian Tranton being said spies), “No Names” in the Order of Whispers (who kept tabs on Demmi and the elder Lady Wi and led several Order operatives to their deaths), and possibly one spy in the Shining Blade (depending on if the lady-in-waiting referred to the Shining Blade or one of the orders in her sentence: “But did you know—and you didn’t hear this from me—that Anise thinks there might even be a spy within their ranks?”). It’s interesting that the writers brought attention to this fact not only in letters but also by an NPC in a story instance, so I imagine this plot will go somewhere; why else go to the effort of referring to the spy stuff?

The real Lazarus’s fate was also left uncertain and even drawn attention to given Marjory’s ominous wording (“It seems, at long last, that the White Mantle are done. Unless the real Lazarus is still out there.”). It’s possible that Xera may have succeeded in the ritual with Lazarus (assuming the being powered up in Stronghold of the Faithful was the real deal and not Balthazar) as Lazarus didn’t need his aspects to operate in GW1. Even if he was so severely weakened by what had been done to him in GW1 that, unlike before, he did need untainted aspects and even Bloodstone shards to recover enough, Xera still would’ve had at least 4/5 of the aspects (possibly even all five depending on if the scheming Justiciar Bauer was lying about switching the aspects to Caudecus) to work with.

Either way, Lazarus could very well return at some point whether as a surprise reveal in Episode 6 to further pave way for the expansion (I’d be sad to see him show up and be killed immediately within the same episode but I doubt such a rushed outcome would happen for narrative reasons after all the buildup). Depending on how into revenge he still is and how complex his plans are, the surviving White Mantle spies might play a part, especially if the writers decided to tie the Krytan locket, Shadowstone and Aurene subplots into it. If Lazarus learns of the existence of Aurene, the daughter of Glint whose Flameseeker Prophecies and aiding of the heroes in part led to the mursaat’s downfall, and how integral Aurene is to the overarching plan known as Glint’s Legacy, he might very well try to sabotage that plan and try to kidnap/attack Aurene out of spite to have his long overdue revenge. Given how the ancient races used to share some knowledge and technology back in the day, Lazarus just might be able to bypass the Exalted defenses based on Forgotten knowledge to do what he needs to do, maybe prompting us to go after him to save her…although personally I hope Aurene won’t become a damsel in distress again as we’ve already seen enough of that with her as both an egg (S2 and HoT) and a hatchling (S3).

Justiciar Bauer’s fate was also left ambiguous in Ep1 letters. While it’s possible (and very likely) that he perished along with the rest, if he did know somehow what was coming (he was at least scheming with the “supreme leader” behind Caudecus and several White Mantle’s backs and got rid of both Kasandra and Valis), he might’ve managed to get far enough from the ritual site to not end up in the explosion’s radius. It would be cool to see him return as the right-hand man of Lazarus and reveal his grand deception of playing both Caudecus and Xera like a fiddle for his own ambitions.

As far as the Balthazar plotline goes, the Pact Commander states the following in the “Heart of the Volcano” story instance: “I’ll try to find out what happened to our divine friend. With any luck he’s been scattered to the Mists.”

The PC also refers to Taimi’s discovery about the Elder Dragons and killing one potentially leading to the destruction of the world: “Confirm that theory as soon as you can. I’m sure we’ll have a lot of convincing to do when word of this gets out.” As if that wasn’t enough, in an optional dialogue the PC keeps urging Taimi to triple-check the theory just in case to further emphasize the importance of this bit.

Balthazar was only a threat due to not caring what happens to Tyria as long as he gets that juicy magic boost from the Elder Dragons. Now that he’s got what he was after and vanished into the Mists, his threat should’ve ended. If this is the case, however, what will prompt the PC to spend precious time traveling all the way to Orr to learn more about the gods especially when the PC (currently) has more pressing matters of dealing with Braham and trying to convince the rest of the world that killing the Elder Dragons is now a bad thing for Tyria?

Perhaps it will all tie into Rytlock’s tribunal if that scene in the Black Citadel ends up being the first story instance of Episode 6. Rytlock might finally be forced to spill the beans and explain his adventures in the Mists which may have some tie-ins with whatever the gods are up to, giving Rytlock a reason to remain tight-lipped for so long. Depending on the nature of information he divulges, it might prompt us to hurry to Orr, perhaps culminating in a final story instance within Arah itself.

Regarding Braham, the timeline seems a bit wonky to me after checking both Episode 4 and 5.

In episode 4 we’re told: “[Braham] formed an… exploratory committee, let’s say. They’re making their way up to Jormag as we speak, to see what kind of damage they can do before mobilizing a larger force.”

In episode 5, however, we’re told: “I’ve tried to get in touch with him, but he’s avoiding me. Rox told me he broke one of Jormag’s teeth, and the norn in Hoelbrak have been celebrating ever since. They won’t give him any peace. […] In light of what I discovered, considering how…wrong I was, going after Jormag isn’t a good idea. I haven’t told him that yet. It’s going to be hard to be heard through the norn cheers.”

The way these sentences are structured and the verb tenses they use, to me Ep4 stated Braham and “Destiny’s Edge” were already on their way north (“making their way up to Jormag as we speak”) whereas in Ep5 it appears that Braham was still being celebrated in Hoelbrak. Why would the norn be pestering him if he was already far up north with his group, away from civilization? Unless I’m misinterpreting the sentence structures and what they imply, this seems like a discrepancy in the timeline unless Taimi’s statement in Ep4 was meant to be a suggestion for a future course of action instead of stating it as a fact in the present time.

(continued)

Regarding the map assets themselves, ANet actually has a lore reason to not change that much of it, really. Based on the listings of years of events in the Story Journal, it’s now been three years since the Dry Top incident so the Zephyrites have had ample time to return to the Labyrinthine Cliffs (which acted as a trading area long before the Zephyrites showed up there) to rebuild their ships. Besides, not all of the Zephyrite fleet crashed back then; only the Zephyr Sanctum and the two or so ships it hit while going down so most of the fleet is still intact.

The only changes ANet would really need to make lorewise: add a few NPCs repairing stuff here and there as well as remove the NPCs Aerin and whatever other named NPC casualties were seen or referenced in Dry Top, have new Master of Peace and Master of Sun NPCs to replace their predecessors, and possibly take out some dialogue and add new, relevant dialogue referencing the passage of time and them moving on from the tragedy they experienced.

Hopefully the Labyrinthine Cliffs will return someday in some form. It’s a fun, beautiful map to explore, and it would be a shame if newer players never get to experience it and all the rich lore it offered.

Regarding the dagger model, we’ve seen such before in Scarlet’s Secret Lair. It may simply be a case of reusing an asset unless this is supposed to be some subtle nudge at Scarlet’s speculated involvement in the Abaddon fractal which we would’ve experienced had Evon won the election back in Season 1. What exactly would she have learned about studying Abaddon and the gods that would’ve aided her in her overarching plot?

Another interesting tidbit in the Bastion is the pile of clothes which the PC comments on having scales and speculating whether it belonged to a krait or something else. It could be foreshadowing of Samarog’s involvement given the comment about not fitting a bipedal individual, or maybe it could refer to a Forgotten. Either way, none of the corpses seen in the Bastion are scaly, so if the clothes didn’t belong to Samarog, their owner is conspicuously missing.

In the open world the other players are simply seen as adventurers or Pact soldiers while you and you alone are THE FIRST Pact Commander. Since the PC’s forming of the Pact with Trahearne, there have been other, subsequent Pact Commanders but we’re recognized as the original. In Season 2 chapter “Reunion with the Pact” Trahearne calls for a strategy meeting with a certain Commander Frostgullet who may or may not be one of the newer Commanders who have been operating in the PC’s absence.

As for raids, the other players are seen as mercenaries and explorers (as said in Glenna’s Field Journal) but whether the Commander was involved or not depends on your personal progress as a raider as Squad Leader Bennett has dialogue variants in Bloodstone Fen for raiders and non-raiders when referring to his rescue from Salvation Pass.

Regarding the timing of the Dragon’s Stand meta, it actually occurs more than once lorewise although the actual cinematic of the Mouth of Mordremoth’s death may or may not occur the same way. Aside from Canach’s statement in “Hearts and Minds” about Mordremoth being distracted by a battle outside (which confirms that at least one DS meta event occurs simultaneously with the story mission), we also have the quote from Mike Zadorojny as provided by Ayrilana but also statements from in-game NPCs of the three event lanes such as Laranthir of the Wild whose dialogues differ based on whether you’ve completed the final story instance or not.

There’s thus reason to believe that the Mouth of Mordremoth, which is Mordremoth’s physical body while Mordremoth has already transcended it as an entity of Mind, is fought either twice of thrice depending on one’s interpretation and if the Commander’s involvement in the pre-story instance battle (due to NPCs referring to us as Commander there) is indeed meant to be canonical and happening before “Bitter Harvest” or if it was just added there for the sake of keeping the player who hasn’t completed the final mission in the loop.

Here’s how I see the Dragon’s Stand meta happening given all the clues:

The Pact Commander arrives in the Pact’s camp in Dragon’s Stand and witnesses the Pact already pushing deeper into Dragon’s Domain. The PC decides to help them in order to boost morale and support them, realizing the stakes and believing it’s a sure to make the way to Trahearne and Destiny’s Edge easier before meeting up with the rest of the party. The Pact fights its way to the Mouth of Mordremoth. At this point it’s unclear whether the army prevails or not, but ultimately the Mouth will either remain or renegerate and blast them all out, forcing the surviving Pact members into a hasty retreat to their initial staging point. Thus we get Laranthir and the two other commanders’ statements about Mordremoth being an entity of mind and Dream and that the PC has to venture inside to truly defeat him.

Realizing first-hand that Mordremoth can’t be beaten physically as the dragon can just regrow the corruption and replenish its fallen forces with new clones, the PC attempts a more covert approach by meeting up with the Biconics party in Bitter Harvest, sneaking behind enemy lines, saving Destiny’s Edge and defeating Faolain. After that, the PC’s party continues into the heart of the dragon’s territory while the Pact stages another assault against the dragon, thus seemingly distracting Mordremoth somewhat and prompting Canach’s observation.

The Pact prevails against Mouth of Mordremoth only to see it attempt another lethal attack. However, the Mouth dies seemingly of a stroke and impales itself as a result of the PC’s actions in the Dream against the dragon’s Mind as well as the death of the dragon-possessed Trahearne.

However, as stated by Laranthir and the other commanders if you fight the Mouth after the final story mission, the Mouth regenerates one more time, now as a ravenous being with no Mind of Mordremoth to control it anymore, and needs to be fought a third time to put it down for good. Whether this is caused by the very nature of the Mouth’s abilities or if the released, uncontrollable magic from Mordremoth’s demise (as seen in the HoT finale cinematic) caused a mutation in the Mouth to regenerate it as a braindead being mindlessly repeating Mordremoth’s last DS taunts is unclear. Either way, the Pact defeats the Mouth for good this time, and the Maguuma campaign comes to an end.

While watching the recent episode of Guild Chat about LW S3 Episode 5: Flashpoint, at one point the discussion turned to the “Heart of the Volcano” instance and the fight against Balthazar’s hounds there. During that discussion Link Hughes, who had worked on said story instance, suddenly mentioned something very intriguing about the human gods in what could have been a “blink and miss” moment for many. I’ll provide the statement and the context around the sentence below:

Link Hughes

So the fight is about trying to figure out how do you circumvent the immortality of a god. The only thing gods, that we’ve established, are afraid of at least in Guild Wars 2 are Elder Dragons, right? And you’ve got this machine that’s basically hoovering up Elder Dragon energy and then feeding it to the other dragon, so if we can just fool the machine into thinking that they [the hounds] are part of the Elder Dragons, then it will vacuum them up and deliver them into the maw of destruction. (Source, timestamp 29:01) [emphasis mine]

Needless to say, that casual remark-turned-lore-bomb about the Six being afraid of the Elder Dragons left me quite stunned. Another intriguing statement from Link was discussing the art shift of Primordus in GW2 and whether the Primordus seen in GW1 was actually Primordus or just its champion given the apparent ambiguity(?) of the model. The guild chat is definitely worth a watch for the lore discussion alone and Link Hughes’s and Aaron Roxby’s insightful comments in it for those interested.

Link’s been a Game Designer at ArenaNet since 2013, so he’s no newbie when it comes to the game’s setting and story and would know quite a bit about the ins and outs of the overall GW2 narrative that we as players aren’t privy to. His rather casual, off-hand and confident mention of the whole god stuff doesn’t seem like a mistake; maybe it hints at what direction we might go for expansion 2 etc. if the gods are to play a part in it one way or another along with an Elder Dragon or two. Yet I don’t recall ever seeing any hint (or any established fact) in core game about the gods being afraid of the Elder Dragons given the lore answers we’ve received earlier in Dolyak Express and elsewhere unless I’ve missed something during my years exploring Tyria.

So, what do you think of these intriguing dev statements from the recent Guild Chat? Does this reveal mean that the reason for the gods’ departure from Tyria, or their silence since, may have actually been far more complex than Jeff Grubb’s reply from a while back initially led us to believe? Will this be a plot point to be explored more in expansion 2 or in Living World Season 4 now that the gods’ influence is felt in the Guild Wars narrative again?

Stitch.1794:

I’d been struggling to find a clear way to fit Tranton into this – I really like the idea that Burden of Choice is a secret poll where the character the most players gave the shadow stone to would be involved, but I’m not sure that the timing events works out for that to make sense.

It would also make the title Burden of Choice rather ironic in hindsight, as trusting in the Consortium might’ve been the lesser evil if Tranton turned out to be a White Mantle mole.

Stitch.1794:

Tranton being a White Mantle mole is interesting, but if so, why would he give the Commander a shadowstone (albeit in need of repair) and help cure them? Having the Commander going mad would surely have been a major distraction that the White Mantle could have take advantage of.

That’s the one thing I’ve been pondering about as well, but it could’ve been a means for him to use the Commander as a guinea pig to test how stable the effect of the Shadowstone is on an individual as the present day Tyria has more magic in it than during the Seers’ time, apparently:

“Even when they [Seers] created the Bloodstone, I don’t think it is very likely that they ever dealt with ley-line energy on the levels we are seeing today.”

Tranton also states that the Shadowstone was a sort of precursor leading to the culmination of Seer artifacts which was the Bloodstone, so there might be some kinks to be ironed out and figure out any potential flaws in the Shadowstone if it’s going to play a later role.

Stitch.1794:

Something else to consider with Tranton – I’m still inclined to believe his fluctuating appearance is a bug, but could also be a clue that he can appear as different people…

I feel like I’ve seen a dev comment about it somewhere on Reddit, but I may be misremembering. Either way, to me it seems more likely Tranton simply has a fluctuating model than it holding any lore significance to us shifting into alternate Tyrias (which, canonically, are limited in number, aka the other servers of WvW) as some wild theories have suggested.

About the spies, what’s interesting to me is that the Priory’s other spy could be Chef Robertus because not only does he know the access to the hidden archives as seen in Season 2 (and likely can access it himself given his subtle comments to the Commander), but it would also make his comment to Sous-Chef Seymour about there being no culinary applications for bloodstone dust more hilarious and foreshadow-y in hindsight given how people who consumed too much of pure bloodstone ended up in the raid and Season 3. As a White Mantle spy he would be very aware of the dangers of that.

Episode 4 also revealed that there’s at least one spy, “No Names”, in the Order of Whispers who had been active for a while before Demmi joined the Order. Then there’s one of the ladies-in-waiting in “Regrouping with the Queen” who mentions in passing that Anise suspects there’s a White Mantle spy in the Shining Blade, but whether that’s just exaggerated courtly gossip or has actual merit to it remains to be seen.

Ausfer.1853:

A minor character like Bauer has all the motives, but doesn’t fit simply because Kasmeer wouldn’t recognize him. Nor do I think it’s Anet’s M.O. to have such a inconsequential character (that doesn’t even have an in-game character model) to secretly be revealed as a major villain.

The thing is, though, that we don’t know the full context in which Kasmeer says the line and what she’s actually reacting to. The trailer implies it could be about the identity, but this could be a deliberate bait and switch tactic.

For all we know, she might use her mesmer magic to dispel “Lazarus’s” illusion and reveal his true form. If “Lazarus” were Bauer who’s a known megalomaniac based on his letters from Episodes 1 and 4, once exposed, he could gloat how his master Lazarus is already active and enacting some dastardly plan and there’s nothing the heroes can do to stop him anymore (to mirror Xera’s taunts to the raiders in Stronghold of the Faithful).

If Kasmeer is as ignorant about Lazarus’s history from GW1 as the PC and Canach appear to be (Canach isn’t even aware that real mursaat can appear and disappear at will, so that wouldn’t count out “Lazarus” being the real deal even when we saw him), then a reveal that the real Lazarus is also out there while the “Lazarus” we’ve interacted with has been a distraction all along could be a big enough shock to merit Kasmeer’s “It can’t be!”

(continued)

“Lazarus” tries to earn the PC’s trust only to backstab them later unless discovered first. The real Lazarus, meanwhile, could try absorbing the Bloodstones and energies from fallen Elder Dragons to essentially become a true god-like figure in Tyria, then make humans pay for their crimes against him. Given how the mursaat tablets in Ember Bay showed how angry mursaat were for the perceived betrayal of other elder races not joining them and Forgotten in the fight against Zhaitan long ago, the mursaat aren’t ones to let go of old grudges that easily, tying into Marjory’s foreshadowing comment from Episode 1 whether people can really change. By becoming a god and doing something bad to Aurene to have a last laugh at Glint would give Lazarus his long overdue revenge.

As for Kasmeer’s reaction in the trailer, if it’s not cut in a way to be deliberately misleading, she could be reacting not to the identity of “Lazarus” but possibly what “Lazarus” reveals. Bauer, when revealed, could gloat that the real Lazarus is already active and out there, which would catch the heroes by surprise and be enough of a shock when they thought the real Lazarus couldn’t have been resurrected.

For all we know, we could be facing a scenario where we deal with “Lazarus” (Bauer) in Season 3 only to face the real Lazarus in expansion 2 to stop him from achieving his “virtuous” goals to really drum up the expansion story.

Of course there’s always a possibility that “Lazarus”, if he’s a fake, is someone else. But then the question becomes who could pull off deceiving equally deceptive White Mantle for several weeks (as per the journal entries) by masquerading as Lazarus long before the Bloodstone’s explosion and how they would know to reveal themselves to Xera who was searching for the lost mursaat. The way I see it, though, all the clues mentioned above make more sense if we’re dealing with a Lazarus and “Lazarus” (Bauer) with a plot leading directly to an expansion as we learn the details of the villains’ grand plan.

(continued)

The evidence above, including the mentions of a grand plan and vengeance, as well as various lore books found within the Stronghold of the Faithful make me believe the following:

Lazarus, remembering the injustice that was done to him in GW1, had sworn to make countless generations pay for their insolence. He learned of what had happened in the world in his absence and would eventually hear about Aurene, the child of Glint (the dragon whose Flameseeker Prophecies had led to his race’s downfall). To enact his revenge on humanity and Glint by denying them the salvation of Glint’s legacy, he would pull off an elaborate deception with his most ruthless and deceptive disciple, Bauer.

The Bloodstone explosion was a deliberate act, allowing Bauer to power himself up (whether with all its power or just a fraction while Lazarus would absorb the rest) and then masquerade as “Lazarus”. The fake Laz would be aware of the Pact Commander’s reputation and would want to earn their trust as well as foil Caudecus; absorbing the Bloodstone would be seen as a “selfless” act to save Tyria in an effort for the “mursaat” to redeem himself, a convincing enough argument.

Whether the convenient malfunctioning of Tarir’s defenses and “Lazarus” appearing to save Aurene was all the schemers’ doing or Laz just using the opportunity is unclear but it wouldn’t surprise me if Lazarus could instruct “Lazarus” how to disable the shields to allow Destroyers in to appear as a savior to the PC. We were also told by devs in one of the Guild Chats that “Lazarus” didn’t kill Caudecus in Bloodstone Fen for a reason, and that reason may have been to keep the Commander and the rest of Kryta busy.

How could a human like Bauer absorb so much Bloodstone juice without going crazy or unstable, then, especially compared to how Matthias, Xera and Caudecus ended up? Apprentice Kasandra’s journal entry from Bloodstone Fen gives us a clue:

Apprentice Kasandra

The artifacts we liberated from the Durmand Priory were, in fact, the key required to draw the magic out of the bloodstone shards. The Seers must have anticipated our need to tap the magic within the bloodstone, and this device may be what they used to do so.

We also learn in the episodes that the White Mantle had at least two spies in the Durmand Priory as well as in the Order of Whispers and Shining Blade. The Priory spies had “liberated” Seer artifacts, and as it happened, one of the Current Events named Burden of Choice had the choice where PC could use the help of Historian Tranton and the Shadowstone to seal excessive magic within themselves to prevent symptoms of madness etc.

What if Historian Tranton, who succeeded his predecessor who had disappeared in the Seer path of Arah Explorable, was actually a White Mantle infiltrator whose access to Seer artifacts would give Bauer and company the tools they needed to power up while staying sane to pull off the deception?

How does it all tie together, then?

(continued)

I’ve been speculating that we might be dealing with two Lazaruses here with the real Lazarus hiding in the shadows preparing for his grand plan unseen while “Lazarus” is his masquerading disciple out in the open to keep the Pact Commander occupied. I wrote a lengthy post on the subject in GW2 Reddit, but I’ll explain the theory below:

The journal entries found in Episode 1 and Episode 4 tell us that a certain Justiciar Bauer had been playing both sides in the Caudecus-Xera rivalry to some extent given the conflicting content in his journal and his correspondence with Caudecus. In the former Bauer came across as a believer in the Unseen Ones (but not as fanatic as Inquisitor Matthias Gabrel who annoyed him and whose downfall he engineered) while in the latter he openly badmouthed Xera, Matthias (and even Confessor Esthel long before her death) while supporting Caudecus.

We also learn from the Caudecus letters that it was Bauer who ostensibly swapped the artifact which houses Lazarus’s last aspect with a fake so Caudecus would get his hands on the real one and Xera’s ritual would fail. But did the switch really happen, or did Bauer lie to Caudecus all along?

What makes Bauer look suspicious in all of this is not only conflicting information but also two reveals from the Bloodstone Fen journals that shed a new light on the plot of Forsaken Thicket raid and the events leading up to the Bloodstone’s explosion.

Justiciar Bauer

Our supreme leader arrived today. We have been ordered to tell no one for fear that interlopers will interrupt his grand plan. The moment of our vengeance is at hand. Nothing will stand in the way of the White Mantle. We shall claim our birthright—first in Kryta and then the world. Glory to the Unseen Ones!

This entry is dated two weeks before the assault on Salvation Pass, the second raid wing, which means it precedes the events of Stronghold of the Faithful which supposedly had Xera distracting the raiders long enough for Lazarus to be repowered. It also mentions a supreme leader as a he, yet it can’t be Caudecus who only showed up in the Mantle controlled area after the Bloodstone’s explosion (as we learned in Episode 1).

Given Bauer praising the Unseen Ones, then, would indicate that the supreme leader is actually Lazarus, and we know from GW1 that Lazarus can survive without his aspects which he came to claim from the White Mantle he had planted the aspects in (but apparently the Pact Commander is unaware of this considering their comment at the end of Episode 4).

To keep things secret, Bauer executed Apprentice Kasandra who was getting too close to what was actually happening, and he even led Grand Savant Valis to his doom in a ritual that led to the Bloodstone’s explosion. In the entries Bauer is shown to be ambitious, angry, cunning and deceptive. Not only that, but to top it all off his other entry mentions this:

Justiciar Bauer

Once the ritual is complete, we can proceed with our leader’s virtuous pursuits!

This is very similar to the rhetoric “Lazarus” used in Episode 1: “We are destined to face more virtuous pursuits.”

(continued)

I found the episode to be enjoyable with nice worldbuilding particularly for the kodan, including Koda’s Flame. It was surprising to see no reference to a Voice or Claw in the sanctuary despite us talking to a kodan leader, as it was surprising to see a quaggan village being referred to as a Deeps akin to krait settlements. Perhaps Deeps isn’t a uniquely krait term and can refer to other aquatic races’ settlements too.

The consistent misspelling of Asgeir as Aesgir baffled me. Talon Bladedancer originally had the norn’s name misspelled (until it was fixed), so I wonder if this misspelling found its way into the devs’ “Lore Bible”, it was a mistake on the writer’s part, or they actually referenced GW2 wiki and just copy&pasted the misspelling from there.

I liked seeing the Jotun Scroll return to the story. It would be interesting if it was indeed a different scroll than Asgeir’s and if the narrative ended up pointing out later how Knut might’ve kept the original scroll hidden on purpose to not encourage the norn to take the fight to Jormag just yet, which could lead to further friction between the reasonable norn elders and the impulsive youths following Braham. Then again, this plot might be too similar to Smodur and the Claw of the Khan-Ur, so perhaps the writers don’t want to go that route.

I enjoyed the subtle hints of jotun lore sprinkled throughout the map: the stelae, the runes etc. which point to Bitterfrost having been of some significance to the ancient jotun. Perhaps the ancient thawing laser devices that we use to get through the ice in the story (and to get to that one hidden chest behind the waterfall) might be of ancient jotun origin as well, and if so, I wonder what other secrets of the jotun still await those brave enough to discover them and their meaning. Hopefully this is something that will be expanded upon in potential future maps in the Far Shiverpeaks as jotun lore is quite intriguing and could benefit from being expanded.

Braham’s outburst left me conflicted as I can sympathize with both his opponents and defenders. It’s a bit weird to me how he’s acting against the tenets of Raven and Wolf, how he didn’t seem to care for Rox nearly getting killed, and how he’s still grieving in such an aggressive manner after so many months since Eir’s death. At least the latter was set up all the way in Season 1 where he buried his pain of being dumped by Ottilia by going to bash some heads in the Queen’s Gauntlet. The events of this episode also explain why we were given such a heavy focus on Eir’s funeral in Episode 1; it was all about setting up Braham’s conflict in a very sly way, and I appreciate such thematic subtleness.

Although some of Braham’s accusations were erroneous, the Commander walked into the situation without realizing just how much pain Braham was still in, and the back and forth between them set up the growing rift between the two with the Commander coming to the realization of approaching the matter in the wrong way all too late. I sincerely hope that Braham will at least apologize to Rox if nothing else later on as she’s the person he’s spent time with the most.

Another interesting tidbit was seeing the Svanir who appear to be Sons of Svanir transitioning into Icebrood. Although I enjoyed the little dialogue we had with the leading Svanir and how our actions had consequences later on in the story, I felt bad seeing these Svanir baddies being relegated to essentially dumb comic relief (“Even the grawl are smarter than the Svanir”). I hope that one day we get to see an intelligent Svanir or Icebrood villain to prevent this flanderization of the villain faction. It was also odd that the Svanir didn’t recognize the Commander in the disguise but maybe it’s because they haven’t fully transitioned into Icebrood yet and thus don’t have the hivemind ability to recognize someone not belonging to them yet.

The revelation about plant and death magic being detrimental to one another in the case of the Icebrood abomination was quite curious. Although it makes sense in the overall Season 2 lore of the push and pull of the orbs seen around Thyria in the Omadd’s machine cinematic, it makes me retroactively wonder why Mordremoth would absorb Zhaitan’s death magic and thus potentially weaken itself and its minions as a result. Did it have a choice in the matter? Can dragons filter out detrimental aspects of their opposing dragon’s magic if given time to keep only the juicy bits of it for their own use, or is something else going on here? Hopefully the topic will be explored more in the future once Taimi has other breakthroughs in her research.

Overall, the episode is yet another solid release with some weird hiccups in the narrative as in the previous releases. It’ll be interesting to see what’s in store for our adventuring party in the next episode and how all these story elements will be woven together.

I view Scarlet vs. Xera as a battle akin to Batman vs. Superman where the former is weaker but, if given enough time to prepare for the confrontation, might be resourceful enough to be able to win in the end against all the odds.

Scarlet was a master engineer who had studied various advanced subjects under many acclaimed teachers and also had the added bonus of Mordremoth giving her suggestions at times. By the time of the Battle on the Breackmaker she had already succumbed under Mordremoth’s influence which made her more dangerous than before as she no longer had to fight a battle inside her mind against the dragon and could focus fully on destroying anyone that opposed her.

Xera, on the other hand, was a master mesmer whose powers were increased tenfold after having absorbed enough Bloodstone magic (boosted by Mordremoth’s released magic which also included some of Zhaitan’s magic juice).

Although Scarlet had the know-how to create terrifying machines of destruction which culminated in the Twisted Marionette, the Breachmaker and the Ultraviolet Hologram, Xera was able to rewrite reality and not succumb to madness at the height of her power.

Let’s look at the heroes’ accomplishments for comparison’s sake. It took an army of adventurers to fight through a besieged LA and Scarlet’s minions to reach the Breachmaker, defeat the Ultraviolet Hologram and weaken Scarlet enough so a handful of people could go after her and finish her off. Meanwhile only ten raiders were needed to go through the cultists and monsters of Forsaken Thicket, with some time to rest in between missions to each raid wing, before navigating the maze-like Twisted Castle and facing the empowered Xera on her turf and prevail. The Pact Commander, who is a powerhouse on their own as admitted by Destiny’s Edge, was responsible for the downfall of Scarlet and may or may not have participated in the raid to bring down Xera.

Scarlet fought with all she got so the Breachmaker could finish drilling into the ley line under LA for the benefit of Mordremoth. Xera fought to buy time for Lazarus to awaken, realizing that even with her power she might not be able to defeat the ten raiders after all they’d already gone through.

With all that said, let’s say that for this match both Scarlet and Xera were allowed to retain their full power as witnessed in their respective boss battles, so Scarlet would have Mordremoth guiding her and all her gadgets while Xera would be boosted by the released magic from both Mordremoth and Zhaitan for the confrontation.

The outcome of the battle between the two ladies would depend on whether Scarlet was aware of what she was up against and if she’d been given enough time to prepare for battle to devise counters for this mesmer. Even then, the battle would lean heavily in Xera’s favor if only because at the height of her power she was able to pretty much instantly transform the Stronghold of the Faithful into the Twisted Castle, thus proving that her Bloodstone-boosted mesmer powers could shape reality itself at that point. Unlike Matthias, she was able to remain sane and not succumb to the power, so she’d have not only the power but her intelligence as well to assist her. And if that wasn’t enough, she was able to fool with her enemies’ senses and create a powerful mesmer avatar of herself.

Xera’s only weakness appeared to be the very Bloodstone shards she was drawing power from, so Scarlet would have to figure out the connection between Xera and the shards, which shouldn’t be hard for the sylvari genius, but also somehow reach them to disrupt them, and survive Xera’s illusions and actual reality manipulation. Even with Mordremoth, the Dragon of Plant AND Mind, guiding her and using every dirty trick she could think of, Scarlet would still have a hard time overcoming Xera if neither lady was aware of the full extent of the other’s power.

So, considering all of what was said above, I’d bet on Xera winning the duel.

Griffon is mentioned in the Out of the Skies mission in one of the norn story branches in the “Defeat Our Ancient Foes” storyline where the PC can choose to go hunt for the griffon Windshear. After defeating Windshear, the following dialogue takes place:

Eir Stegalkin: Claim your prize Slayer. Plunge this steel into Windshear’s heart.
<Character name>: Hear me, spirit of Griffon! Your son, Windshear, was worthy prey. His heart’s blood honors my steel.

It’s a shame that some of these minor spirits like Griffon, Mink etc. don’t get that much time in the story as it would be interesting to explore their respective stories. Perhaps we’ll learn more once/if we get more norn and Spirits of the Wild lore in future stories (whether Living World seasons or expansions) as there’s lot of interesting stuff there waiting to be explored given the Spirits’ role in the norn fleeing from Jormag.

Yeah, technically Jennah used a prettier term for it while politically checkmating Caudecus for a while. However, Canach pretty much bluntly refers to Caudecus’s situation as him being “on house arrest for minor treachery” in Research in Rata Novus.

Statements from Canach and a Shining Blade officer in the Queen’s Throne Room (whose dialogue was changed for S3) indicate that Caudecus was confined to the palace since Caudecus’s Manor:

Canach: Slipped his cushy detention recently.
Shining Blade: He’s been staying in the palace under protective custody. […] He and the guard assigned to him vanished overnight.

The Shining Blade’s statement could be taken two ways since the body of the guard was never found. Either the White Mantle came to Caudecus’s rescue and disposed of the guard’s body to leave no trace before fleeing with Caudecus, or the guard was actually a Caudecus loyalist/White Mantle spy all along who deliberately helped him escape once the time was right for Caudecus to make his move. It would be fun if said guard was the armored White Mantle soldier we see fleeing with Caudecus and Valette in the “Confessor’s Stronghold” cinematic, assuming the guard had time to change armor between leaving the palace and showing up in Bloodstone Fen since Caudecus had time to put on his Confessor robes. :P

What’s curious is that Caudecus has been confined to the palace for years based on how much time has passed between Caudecus’s Manor and Out of the Shadows. Jennah must’ve spun quite a story to keep him in there indefinitely “for his own protection”. Canach referring to Caudecus having committed minor treachery is likewise interesting as there was no definite proof of Caudecus’s involvement at the manor (despite Logan’s claims) even when taking the explorable paths’ stories into question. I wonder if Anise did find enough condemning evidence of sorts later to keep Caudecus in the palace until further notice despite his potential (and legally sound) appeals to be allowed to leave after the bandit threat at the manor had already been dealt with years ago.

Although it would be fun if Valette was a double agent or Kas in disguise, I expect Valette to be a true Mantle member. Maybe recruiting Valette was Caudecus’s way of getting back at Lady Wi who helped Demmi flee from him. It’d be “Since you’ve taken my daughter from me, I’ve taken your daughter as compensation” depending on how long Valette has been in the Mantle. She already seems to have a high rank or at least is trusted by Caudecus as he was specifically relying on her abilities when fleeing and she was standing by his side at the coliseum.

If Valette was a double agent for Lady Wi, however, I could see a reason for Valette sparing Caudecus in Bloodstone Fen for now. Caudecus took over as Confessor after Confessor Esthel’s death in the human Personal Story, so letting Caudecus die then and there might be a temporary blow to the Mantle, but eventually a new Confessor would rise to take his place and continue the Mantle’s schemes if they hadn’t joined Lazarus by then. As the Mantle has spies in scholarly organizations and in all levels of Krytan society, Valette’s plan might be to gather intel on how far-reaching the conspiracy is, gain a high enough rank within the organization to learn the identities of the spies so they can all be taken down at once in simultaneous raids, and to discover the full extent of the Mantle’s plans and how they intend to carry them out.

Anything less, and the Mantle would have survivors who would go into hiding to regroup and build their organization anew only to resurface hundreds of years later to continue where they left off, and I imagine both the Shining Blade and the Order of Whispers would prefer putting an end to the Mantle once and for all this time around so the Crown and Tyria have one less threat to worry about.

As for Kas and whatever role she might play, I wonder if her brother Kyle might make an appearance at some point in some capacity to resolve the Meades’ little family drama. There’s a lot of story Kyle could be used for, especially if his gambling leads him to the White Mantle’s clutches with the Mantle using him as leverage against Kas once/if the Mantle figure out the potential threat Kas could pose to them as Anise’s agent should the story go in that direction.

Either way, I’d love to see a proper mesmer vs. mesmer battle (maybe between Valette and Kas) in the story given all the hints and outright statements how White Mantle are “creepy magickers” and there’s more magic available now.

I’d expect to see Kasmeer working for Anise in some capacity given their interactions in LW Season 2. With the White Mantle coming out of the shadows, and the fact that Caudecus escaped from DR somehow (maybe with the help of a certain mesmer called Valette) while being watched by the Shining Blade, it would be in Anise’s best interests to root out potential spies and WM sympathizers, in which Kasmeer’s special lie-detecting skills should come in handy.

Kas has an excuse to hang around Anise and Jennah without it causing alarm among White Mantle agents: to many it would appear that a fallen noble has wormed her way into the Queen’s good graces and is doing what she can to get reinstated as a noble and attend the fancy noble parties again. However, unlike an airhead socialite and/or social climber she might be viewed as by some people in DR, Kas would be spying for the Shining Blade in ways that wouldn’t attract attention unlike a known Shining Blade officer might, especially if WM has infiltrated the Shining Blade somehow given Caudecus’s easy escape while under house arrest.

Although Caudecus himself wouldn’t show his face in Divinity’s Reach—at least in public—he can still send his agents to do his dirty work for him to ensure that messages are delivered to key WM agents/sympathizers for the eventual coup. Lady Valette Wi could be one such lieutenant who, depending on if she’s really the daughter of Minister and Lady Wi and if her parents are unaware of her alignment, would have the perfect excuse as a daughter of a noble family to mingle with other WM agents/sympathizers among the nobles and deliver Caudecus’s orders to them while still acting out the role of the famed violinist daughter. This of course depends on whether any of the heroes (especially the human noble PC who has interacted with the Wis and should have some knowledge of their daughter) recognized her before she fled with Caudecus from Bloodstone Fen. Given Canach not going “Gasp! I just saw the daughter of the Wis with Caudecus!”, it’s possible that he didn’t recognize her either or didn’t get a good enough look while focusing on bringing down Caudecus.

If Valette is the daughter or some other relative of the Wis as her name and title implies and hasn’t been outed as a member of WM by our observant heroes or her parents yet, I could easily see the following scene happening:

Kas is attending the Wis’ party in Divinity’s Reach on behalf of gathering intel for Anise, and the PC and maybe even Canach would show up there too for plot reasons (Canach’s appearance could even give us some glimpses of certain nobles’ racism towards sylvari as they show their dislike of him, especially if some of the naysayers were also secretly WM sympathizers with a pro-human stance). As we catch up with Kas to deliver the news about Marjory’s latest stunt, learn a bit about what has kept Kas busy lately and discuss the threat the WM poses, we see Minister and Lady Wi introduce their famed violinist daughter, Lady Valette (if she’s truly related to them), to the audience.

The PC and Valette’s eyes meet: if the PC took note of her back in Bloodstone Fen and recognized her now, it would be a scene full of spy thriller tension in a “I know you know I was in Bloodstone Fen that day” way. Valette, if she’s a skilled enough agent, would keep her cool and carry on like nothing, and the PC should do the same while subtly letting Kas know that Valette is more than meets the eye. For added irony we could even have a scene of the Wis, being the graceful hosts that they are, introduce their sweet little daughter to the legendary Pact Commander. The PC and Valette would exchange pleasantries while keeping up the act to not cause a scene that would benefit neither of them despite knowing full well that sooner or later they’ll have to come to blows.

For added drama, Kas might also be familiar with Valette…maybe not just from noble circles but from Valette likely also being a member of the semi-secretive Mesmer Collective. Perhaps the two of them could’ve been rivals back in those days; not that Valette necessarily needs any more drama like that as she would already be Demmi Beetlestone’s second cousin (as Lady Wi and Lady Beetlestone, their respective moms, were first cousins), and Demmi should hopefully make an appearance now that her dad has become prominent in the story again.

Whether something like this ends up happening or not, I look forward to us returning to DR shenanigans at some point. The “Party Politics” mission from LW Season 2 had some juicy information on the nobles, and a future Season 3 story instance involving Kas and the Wis could lead to some interesting developments if Valette is to play a role in the story going forward.

I enjoyed this episode for the most part. Taimi’s Game was fun with the lovely Moto reveal. It was interesting hearing about the dragons and their minions absorbing slain dragons’ magic and creating these new types of infused minions. Some hints at the ongoing Black Citadel subplot were welcome, and I liked Vikon’s banter. Seeing Windall briefly was also a nice touch.

I was quite surprised to see another dwarf, and exploring Ember Bay and meeting its various denizens was fun. It’s a shame we didn’t bother to mention Ogden to him, though. Given the appearance of the Unbound Guardian and the Sloth Queen from previous and this episode, I wonder if in Episode 3 we’ll encounter a Keep Construct of some sort or some other throwback to Stronghold of the Faithful.

I was glad to see my prediction come true and have Lazarus and the Luminate with the PC in the Inner Chamber although I didn’t expect Lazarus fighting alongside us. It was unfortunate that the writers basically shot down my fun little theory about the Luminate’s potential true identity now that the Luminate expressed not having seen mursaat before; it does make me wonder who exactly the Luminate was in life to become the venerated leader of the Exalted over the GW1 PC or other notable heroes from the day. It was nice seeing Marjory hint at the Belinda angle a bit, and it should be interesting finding out where this plot will go. Aurene was downright adorable; I didn’t expect her to look like that, but I liked her feisty nature from the get go with the way how she inspected her wings and growled at the Destroyers.

Reading about history from the mursaat’s perspective gave them some shades of grey, and it would be interesting if there were any other mursaat existing in some manner who could return and try to atone for their crimes, which would be a nice contrast to Lazarus should he still be consumed by hate and try to betray us. It would basically continue the thematic discussion from Episode 1 about whether people can really change. Unless the twist is that Lazarus has truly turned a new leaf and would actually turn against his kin (if they returned with vengeance in mind) to aid us. I do expect a sudden but inevitable betrayal from Lazarus, though, given how sinister a vibe he and his music have given so far, but we’ll see…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We don’t really know how early a tree can create minions, though the Auric Basin South watchpost meta does imply they can very early on, and also that the trees use bodies as nourishment to grow (but not to make minions – in other words, like any carnivorous plant).

Given dialogue from the event “Destroy the feeder to prevent the blighted sapling from producing Mordrem” in Auric Basin, it appears the blighted saplings, young blighting trees, do produce Mordrem from corpses.

Relevant dialogue:

Sage Manssir: Mordrem corpse takers. Vile things. They feed the blighted saplings that turn corpses into Mordrem.
Sage Manssir: The feeder distributes nourishment to the blighted sapling. If we destroy it, we starve the sapling.
Mordrem Guard Punisher: You’ll see. Each corpse delivered sprouts a new Mordrem that will consume this world.

I wonder if Rytlock’s return to the Black Citadel will also address a lingering subplot from Season 2 about Rox and a certain mysterious charr calling himself Monti Scythescrape (if that’s truly his real name). In “Reunion with the Pact” we witnessed Rox and Monti (who shows up as a generic charr soldier and whose name only the charr PC learns after a bit of “persuasion”) talking and not being exactly on the best of terms. Interestingly both of them were quite tight-lipped about how they knew each other and what they were doing, and Rox only ever hinted at some spy stuff in “The Pact Assaulted” before quickly moving on to other topics. We catch Rox lying straight to our face a few times, actually.

Some relevant bits of dialogue from the story instances:

Soldier: Looks like your friend’s coming to rescue you.
Rox: Don’t you have somewhere to be? Move off.

PC: Who was that you were talking to?
Rox: Who? Oh, him? Just an old friend, someone I knew from my mining days.
PC: Did he know your old warband?
Rox: Some of them. We all worked the same mine.
[…]
PC: Would it be okay if I met him? A friend of yours is a friend of mine.
Rox: He’s not really anyone. I said "friend, but I meant “acquaintance.” Not worth your time.

PC: (if human) Just wanted to say hello. I’m a friend of Rox’s.
Soldier/Monti: Oh, you’re going to talk to me too. (sigh) I’ll only say this once. Even if I had a reason to talk to a stinking gladium like Rox, it wouldn’t be anyone else’s business. Especially not a human’s.
PC: Call her that again and I’ll put you in the ground.
Monti: Oh yeah? Your friend Rox is a f—

PC: (if charr) You’re not wearing order or legion gear. Name, rank, and warband, soldier.
Monti: I don’t report to you.
PC: (growl) You do now.
Monti: Sorry. Sorry. Scythe warband…soldier….Monti Scythescrape. I’m going. I don’t want any trouble.

PC: By the way, I spoke to that charr you were with earlier.
Rox: He’s not the brightest, I know. I doubt I’ll ever see him again. It was a fluke. Old acquaintances crossing paths. You know.
PC: If he gives you any trouble, you let me know, okay?
Rox: I will. You don’t have to worry about him. I can handle myself.

Rox: I don’t think I can go with you, Boss. I have to go back to the Citadel. I’m due for my annual weapons testing.
PC: (if charr) Annual weapons tests? You’re a free agent now. You don’t have to—
Rox: Did I say weapons tests? I meant I have to answer more questions about Rytlock’s disappearance.

PC: Where’ve you been lately?
Rox: Oh, um, charr business—you know. Now that I’m a free agent, I need to do tasks for the legion. Deliver a message here, spy on a… You know. The usual.
PC: Has there been any word from Rytlock?
Rox: Not that I’ve heard. I check with the Imperator’s office every time I return to the Citadel, but so far, no one’s seen or heard from him.

It’s been bugging me since I witnessed these dialogues in Season 2. Rox regularly checks with the Imperator’s aka Smodur’s office, likely to report about whoever she’s been spying on? Why would Smodur be using a gladium like Rox for a delicate mission like this instead of one of his trusted legionnaires or even Ash Legion’s brightest, and how does Monti figure into it all? Does this mean the target is someone Rox has easier access to and the target wouldn’t suspect Rox spying on them? Why does Rox need to lie about what she’s up to when talking to the PC whom she should trust to keep a secret at this point? What’s with all the secrecy, and what target would require such a hush-hush approach from her, anyway?

I really hope this subplot won’t be dropped. If there ever came a time to resolve it, it should come by the time we team up with Rox and get involved in Black Citadel politics. It would be the perfect setup not only for checking up with Rytlock but also encountering Monti again.

This mystery reminds me of another unresolved mystery which was about the weird Mysterious Stranger hobo dude we witnessed observing us from a ledge when we were chasing the Aspect Masters and what his significance might’ve been.

We’ve been given hints and some statements of what Scarlet was after. While some of it only showed up in-game via her journal entries etc, a more in-depth look is offered in the short story What Scarlet Saw:

Disappointment soured Ceara’s fascination. Was this it, then? Were the lives of all sylvari so easily encapsulated? Birth, travel, experience, death, all played out under the dictates and philosophies of the godlike entity that created them?

She refused to accept that. Everything she had learned said that no system, no matter how complex, can perpetuate itself indefinitely. Those that did not evolve inevitably failed.

[…]

“So much makes sense now. The Pale Tree, the Nightmare Court, Caithe and Faolain…it’s all part of a grand design.

“But I see the flaws in that design. My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what we were “born to be.” No people do. We can change the rules…well, I can. And I’m going to.”

[…]

“Now I have to put that knowledge to use. An insurmountable challenge is rising, and my people have been called to meet it. We are compelled by our creator to do so.

“But I reject that call. I reject the notion that that I must choose the Dream or be lost to Nightmare. The forces that push us this way or that can be redirected. They can be set against one another to the detriment of both, and now I know how.”

“I have a great deal of work ahead of me. I don’t know what the world will be when I’m through, but I will very much enjoy finding out. Empires will fall, continents will burn, and when the conflagration is over, I’ll be there to put my stamp on whatever new world this one becomes.” [my emphases]

We were told during Season 1 that Scarlet’s tone change by the time of the Twisted Marionette release had story significance. Given the information we learned later on, what happened was that Scarlet initially intended to set Mordremoth and the Pale Tree against one another to free herself from both of their yoke as well as shape the world to her liking, hence all the alliances to combine techs and magic and inventing/stealing/building all those different things to achieve this goal.

However, Mordremoth was subtly manipulating Scarlet to awaken it. Although Scarlet fought against Mordy’s whispers at first with varying levels of success, she ultimately succumbed to its siren song shortly after the Tower of Nightmares (we hear her tonal change in the cinematic that played there) which helped spread Mordy’s influence. Her more sinister tone in later chapters was her having succumbed to the dragon, hence her final lines aboard the Breachmaker about Tyria bowing to a new master.

That doesn’t mean Scarlet’s story was fully resolved, however:

1) We’ve yet to learn what happened to her Brisban batch of steam creatures (as the only steam creatures we ever meet in Brisban come from an asura gate linked to the Shiverpeaks during a dynamic event and from a fractal version of an “alternate” Tyria where the asura PC had become evil and tried to invade the real Tyria with his/her steam creature army in one of the asura Personal Story missions).

2) We don’t truly know the full extent of Mai Trin’s mission to the Mists at the behest of Scarlet, and Mai has yet to make an appearance since we last saw her in Edge of the Mists.

3) Scarlet left an enigmatic message to Caithe on the back of the Spinal Blade Back Blueprint: “Caithe, someday you’ll see, Tyria needs me.” Was this her roundabout, twisted way of referring to Mordremoth who did view itself as the ideal world of harmony (as we learned in HoT), or was this message written before Scarlet fully fell to Mordremoth and might have referenced her original plan to rid Tyria of both Mordy and the Pale Tree for the sylvari race’s supposed benefit?

Whether any of these three points will be explored in the future is anyone’s guess; if anything, I’d expect Mai Trin to be the most likely of the bunch if even that. Other than those points, it seems Scarlet’s story is finished now that Mordremoth’s threat is gone unless Mai’s mission to the Mists will come into play later and reveal whether Scarlet had some bigger contingency plan than we’ve been aware of and if that plan might help us in our battle against the remaining Elder Dragons. I’d love it if we encountered a “good/neutral” steam creature colony north of Brisban led by a Steam Brain which has some of Scarlet’s hidden knowledge stored in its databanks, and we could convince these steam creatures to fight with us against the dragons (as they, due to the way they’ve been built, would be resistant to dragon corruption and are also quite intelligent due to their evolving programming), thus fulfilling Scarlet’s prophetic words to Caithe in a roundabout way.

Although I was sad to see Trahearne go, he did go out like a champ: he not only resisted Mordremoth as long as he did (while being linked to the dragon more intimately than any other prisoner, which shows tremendous willpower on his part to not succumb to the dragon sooner at the very heart of its domain) and thus surpassed even the sylvari Pact Commander who was close to succumbing in the final mission, but he also used that access point to let us enter the Dream to confront the dragon and, ultimately, have a clear enough mind to ask us to end him so Mordremoth could be defeated once and for all.

I do hope we get a proper memorial for him at some point in future storyline(s) as he deserves a proper sendoff in the minds of Tyrians for the roles he played in campaigns against two Elder Dragons as well as being the first sylvari Firstborn, which puts him on a pedestal as far as sylvari as a whole are concerned.

I don’t expect Trahearne to return in any way because sylvari don’t even leave souls behind after they die from what we’ve witnessed; the closest we might get are either flashbacks or possibly a representation of Trahearne in the Dream similar to how we saw Ventari in the sylvari tutorial. While Glint’s egg showed us a vision of Mordremoth planning to use Trahearne as one of the prime templates for the cloned mordrem army to unleash on Tyria, we never saw any of the Trahearne mordrems unlike some other heroes’, so it seems the dragon hadn’t had enough time to start producing them by the time we confronted it.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

I was disgusted by that scene.That scene implied, more than any other, that Scruffy was a sentient being. When he paused, he demonstrated that he wasn’t just a robot she controlled. He exhibited independent thought, he exhibited caring. And he was killed to open a door. That was the most callous scene I’ve seen in the game. I felt more humanity from Scruffy than Treh or Eir.

EDIT: I’m assuming he exhibited caring, because that’s what the scene wants us to think. For all I know, he could have been thinking, “What the kitten?!? I don’t want to die! Curse you Taimi.” Still a sentient being either way.

According to Matthew Medina on Reddit, Scruffy isn’t sentient, and things playing out the way they did in the cinematic happened for different reasons:

Matthew Medina

Scruffy’s death is dramatic not to give Scruffy the spotlight, but to give Taimi a satisfying emotional arc which started in the previous Living World season. To be clear, he is not in fact displaying sentience when he stops in the cinematic – the pause was meant to represent him processing conflicting orders; does he follow the orders Taimi’s just given, or does he follow his standing orders to safeguard her life? But just because he’s not sentient doesn’t mean Taimi hasn’t formed an emotional bond with him; many of us become attached to inanimate objects that are useful to us (cars, boats, favorite chairs, etc.) and because of Taimi’s disability and Scruffy’s ability to not only protect her but to give her mobility, she cares about him enough to have an emotional moment of “letting go”. I don’t know if the fact that I was in a car accident last year which totaled my Saturn (I’d had it for 10+ years to that point) played a role in my feedback in meetings where we were discussing this moment, but it probably influenced the process a bit. (Source)

Basically Scruffy perished for the same reasons Eir perished: to develop another character (Taimi and Braham, respectively).

AriaFiresong.7023:

If we’re gonna be sad about the golems, let’s not forget Mr. Sparkles. Nobody mentions him much.

Yeah, I was somewhat surprised by the rather low-key reveal of Mr. Sparkles’s remains in Verdant Brink; I would’ve thought that maybe Rytlock could’ve said a word or two about him if nothing else. Mr. Sparkles’s demise further showed the higher stakes of this campaign where anyone and anything, even long established heroes, could be brought down by mordrem.

I agree with you, OP. “The Source of Orr” is one of the highlights of the Personal Story for me because of all the emotion it has in it. Sure, it has its flaws (the fickle actions of the Sovereign Eye never made much sense to me unless it was Zhaitan suddenly realizing what an error the Sovereign Eye had made with its arrogance and forced it to revert its decision but writers have never clarified what exactly happened there) but overall the experience is very nice. Hearing Trahearne’s speech while listening to the music that really heightens the moment is quite memorable, leading to what I consider one of Trahearne’s most touching lines that truly highlights the friendship he and the PC share on this uncertain and dangerous mission:

Trahearne: Here, at the end, I am glad that it’s just you and me. We will cleanse Orr together—as we were meant to do.

And that, of course, leads to the ultimate payoff which pays tribute to all the choices you’ve made throughout the Personal Story with all those character references, which is like a cherry on top of a cake.

Danikat.8537:

MAJOR story spoiler.

hide spoiler

We now know that the cleansing ritual consisted of a minion of Mordremoth (Trahearne) using a thorn from a champion of Mordremoth (The Pale Tree), in a ritual created by those two to create something that looks a lot like Mordremoth’s vines and/or the plant structures the sylvari create, which we now know is a modified version of dragon corruption. So did it actually cleanse Orr, or did it just replace one form of corruption with a prettier one?

The way interspecies breeding has been explained to us by devs in a couple of interviews in the past and how they stated it won’t happen, I wouldn’t expect to see any hybrids between, say, humans and norn or any other race anytime soon if ever. I doubt the devs would change their minds about this unless they could think of a suitably good plot to go with it to add to the lore, and the chances of that are quite slim for the unforeseeable future for reasons that have been stated.

But while we’re on the subject, I could imagine that various hyleks (Central Tyrian hyleks, and the Itzel and Nuhoch of the Heart of Maguuma) might be able to breed with one another depending on how compatible they are by this point in time. Whether that then means that these hylek (frogmen) in general could breed with heket (toadmen from GW1 who appear to be distant cousins of the various hylek and who have yet to show up in GW2) is anyone’s guess. It’s also been stated that Canthan and Krytan tengu as well as the different centaurs from around the world also differ significantly yet each are respectively viewed as ‘cousin races’, so it might be possible for different tengu tribes to breed, and for different centaur tribes to breed given this information. Whether, say, the naga and krait could breed despite their similarities is murky, but my gut instinct would say no until we receive more information about each serpentine race’s origins and if they come from the same ancient source or not as well as how much time has passed since their races going their separate ways (assuming they do share a common origin).

Regarding hybrids themselves, we’ve actually had one notable case presented to us during Living World Season 1’s Tower of Nightmares arc: the Toxic Hybrid which had both krait and sylvari characteristics and which devs told us was a krait in an interview from that period in time. However, given the way the hybrid came out of a pod, quickly developed a sentience and capability of speech as it evolved over the course of the fight from an infant state to adult through its pose, attack and speech patterns, how the tower was said to understand what we were attempting to do, the effects of the poison and attempts at mind control as seen how the Toxic Alliance were affected, as well as hearing Mordremoth’s Theme playing in the soundtrack for the first time, my theory is that this hybrid was less of a modified krait as it was actually a mordrem clone and the Tower of Nightmares was a Blighting Tree (either a fully corrupted minion or one of the seeds where the Pale Tree originated from who was guided to evil by the Toxic Alliance due to ambiguity in the storytelling).

What we learn of the Blighting Trees during HoT’s story and open world events is that the mordrem (to which sylvari belong as per Wynne’s wording in Season 2 although how tied the Blighting Trees are to Mordremoth is ambiguous at best because the Dream and Nightmare shielded sylvari from Mordremoth and thus didn’t originate from the dragon, so the Blighting Trees may simply be beings that Mordremoth corrupted rather than being ‘created’ by it from scratch) take genetic templates of corpses (and in a later HoT story instance from living victims as seen with Logan and Zojja once Mordremoth cracked the code of how to get it done as implied by the vision from Glint’s Egg in Tarir) and use the corpses as fertilizers to grow mordrem which are hive-minded clones of the original.

The sylvari from Pale Tree and Malyck’s Tree differ from this norm, however, which indicates that the two Trees (and other seeds that Ronan discovered in the guarded cave) may have been purified in the past, possibly by the Forgotten, to wait for a later time. This does explain, though, why sylvari are infertile and why only their Trees can produce “offspring”: as purified dragon champions, they’re capable of creating lesser minions but these minions are infertile as is every dragon minion encountered in game so far.

The one curious lore tidbit is why mordrem require a corpse per mordrem born (as per Mordrem Guard dialogue in Auric Basin) while the Pale Tree and likely Malyck’s Tree can produce more and more sylvari without needing corpses to nourish their fertilizing supply. One could theorize that the reason for this is that the Blighting Trees encountered in HoT maps (as well as the Tower of Nightmares) were still juvenile unlike Pale Tree and Malyck’s Tree who were already old enough to not need constant fertilizing to produce minions, but this is likely a mystery that might be explored once/if we return to the Malyck plot and the origins of the Trees and the mystery of the cave in some future storyline.

So, based on this evidence, even the mordrem aren’t exactly “plant hybrids” of existing creatures per se but simply copies and they, too, cannot breed with other creatures just like we’ve learned that all dragon minions are infertile due to the dragon corruption affecting them.

I’m probably the only fan of HoT soundtrack who wasn’t all that fond of how the “Battle in Tarir” track was used in HoT (first when we flee from Faolain and later in the Octovine battle). To me the tune sounds a bit too jaunty and lighthearted for such dramatic moments, and I would’ve wanted to hear something a bit darker (in the style of “Mouth of Mordremoth”) to signify the dread of those moments in Auric Basin as we’re fighting for not only the safety of Glint’s egg but for Tarir and the Exalted as carriers of Glint’s legacy. With that said, however, I do like the style of Lena Chappelle’s track and how the instruments are used throughout it; the ending of the track when the battle concludes in particular is quite pretty.

Compared to that, though, Chappelle’s actual track for Tarir, the Forgotten City with its mysterious beginning which leads to a jubilant latter half is stunning in its beauty. It reminds me of the equally pretty Evergreen track from Terranigma and also has a bit of a Chrono Trigger vibe to it in its underlying melody and chords, so Chappelle was influenced by quality music from the time of the 16-bit RPGs.

Randulf.7614:

My only criticism was a lack of new music for Bloodstone Fen. It just reused Verdant Brink which isn’t the most exciting.

In that case you needn’t worry. Although Bloodstone Fen featured music from Verdant Brink, it also introduced two new pieces specific to the map: Bloodstone Fen and Bloodstone Maw (which may or may not end up being the actual titles for the tracks, but we’ll have to wait for Maclaine Diemer to upload the Season 3 tracks to ANet’s Soundcloud with official titles before we know for sure). My only criticism is that we hear the “Mordrem” track occasionally in Bloodstone Fen, which feels weird thematically because we don’t encounter any mordrem enemies there unlike in the four HoT maps.

What’s particularly interesting is that Diemer continues musical storytelling and development of leitmotifs (music themes) even in this season similar to how Mordremoth’s Theme and Scarlet’s Theme were developed back in Season 1 and how Mordy’s theme carried over to S2 and HoT which also introduced us to the evolved four-note Tyrian motif that played a prominent role in HoT tracks. What we have now is Diemer solidifying what appears to be a leitmotif for the White Mantle which was first introduced in various tracks in the Forsaken Thicket raid (you can hear the White Mantle theme clearly e.g. at 0:38 in Keep Siege) and how it’s reprised in Season 3 e.g. at 0:36 in Bloodstone Fen albeit as a shadow of its former self due to the Mantle suffering a blow from the catastrophe that befell the Fen.

All in all Season 3’s off to a good start music-wise: we’ve got not only the two aforementioned tracks for Bloodstone Fen but also a lovely, quirky piece that plays in the revived Rata Novus in the story instance about the research, the reused “Matthias Gabrel” fight theme from Salvation Pass for the final boss of Episode 1, as well as an intriguing new track for the Chaos Isles Fractal. I look forward to finding out what other musical goodies Diemer and Stan LePard (now that Lena Chappelle is no longer working at ANet) will conjure for the upcoming episodes.

Jorvych.3064:

if I’m not mistaken, Lena Chappelle composed all of AB’s music (and a WHOLE BUNCH of other stuff in GW2). sadly though, she left back on August 13th.

Chappelle’s output for HoT was definitely her biggest compared to past releases she was involved in, and she was responsible for most (but not all) of the Auric Basin tracks as well as the final battle tracks for the “Hearts and Minds” story instance. You can find the rundown of which composer composed which tracks at GW2Wiki’s Soundtrack page under the Heart of Thorns section. I was actually surprised how the “Glint’s Legacy” track from Auric Basin was composed by Diemer because it’s stylistically very similar to Chappelle’s mannerisms.

The NPC being talked about is Seis Burntheart, a charr studying these recent tremors and shifts in magic. I added a wiki page for her so people can start editing it once new information (dialogue, new NPC locations) is revealed.

Kinda late to give my impressions, but better late than never. I’ll divide my commentary into segments for easier browsing.

1) Eir’s Memorial in Hoelbrak

Although it was unfortunate to not see any kind of vigil for Trahearne, it was at least nice to get a norn-centric event for Eir. Angel McCoy’s comments on Reddit left me somewhat baffled about the PC supposedly having more of an emotional connection to Eir than Trahearne, however, because in the Personal Story the PC actually spends more missions with Trahearne than with Eir even if we counted the dungeon stories Eir appears in and if the PC was norn (and would’ve thus spent the early PS missions with her). I think that a nice solution to appease both side would’ve been to have a general vigil for the fallen where we would’ve honoured not only Eir and Trahearne but also everyone else who fell in the war against Mordremoth. With that said, however, we could perhaps see some sort of moment of remembrance for Trahearne once we visit the Grove as that’d be the perfect moment for it and maybe handwave the lack of an open memorial due to racism towards sylvari still existing after what happened in the jungle invasion. Trahearne’s story may have ended, but at least he should have some sendoff for having played such a major role in the wars against two Elder Dragons before we can truly close the chapter on him for good.

Eir’s memorial did give us nice moments, and I enjoyed the norn focus on it. Not only do we have some resolution for Garm (and tending to the poor wolf was bittersweet; the writing hit the mark there) but also get to witness the naming of Dragon’s Watch as well as learn a bit about Braham and why he’s absent as well as hints towards increased Icebrood activity which could have payoff in a future chapter despite the namedropping of Primordus at the end of the episode. Rytlock had great lines throughout this instance and others, providing some well-timed comic relief without jeopardizing his integrity; his way of remembering Eir, and making him cry if the PC uses the cry emote, were nice touches. It’s a shame that Logan and Zojja are still bedridden, but hopefully we’ll see more involvement from them at some point in S3.

There’s one NPC comment that kind of left me intrigued, however. When talking with the shaman who recaps the story at Eir’s memorial, she mentions us carrying Glint’s egg. I suppose this statement is meant to be canonical instead of just for players’ benefit, but does this mean the Commander’s affiliation with the egg is now widely known? Considering that in HoT story only very few outside of our companions and the Exalted knew of the egg and that the PC would later carry it, I wonder if the information spread because Braham or someone babbled about it unless the PC somehow shared this news between HoT and S3. The only instance from what I recall where the egg was brought up in public was when the PC confronted Ruka at the Pact outpost, but the wording was simply “the egg” so it would be odd if the Pact members witnessing the confrontation could deduce anything useful from that phrasing, especially when at other times the PC was always shown tight-lipped about it except when talking with a select few people that could be trusted.

This, then, opens an interesting discussion if people around Tyria now know of Glint’s egg and its placement in Tarir somehow. How likely are the common people to trust in the egg and the eventual hatchling instead of viewing it as a potential threat to Tyria given the threat other dragons have posed? Given how big a reaction the sylvari betrayal got from Tyrians so much so that even months after the Mordremoth campaign asura are still viewing sylvari like Canach as crazy monsters as Rata Novus showed us, surely the Commander’s affiliation with a dragon who, in many ignorant Tyrians’ mind, could potentially grow into another vicious Elder Dragon, would raise some concerns. Imagine the outroar: not only does the Commander effectively resign from the Pact in its time of need to pursue the new guild’s interests but the Commander also shares some connection to a dragon whose allegiance remains unknown for now. Some doomsayers could start spreading rumors that the PC is “influenced” by the dragon and not trustworthy anymore, and this could lead to drama down the line. I wonder if this is something the narrative will address in the future as it could be an interesting tool for the White Mantle to start a propaganda campaign against the PC and maybe have some people fall for it, for example.

2) Research in Rata Novus

The Rata Novus bits had many nice moments such as Almorra playing a rather critical role (loved her interaction and emotes with Rytlock) as well as little reveals about Windall being more than the clumsy asura he appeared to be and Rytlock avoiding summons to the Black Citadel, all of which appear to set up later story arcs, which is nice. Is Windall working for the Arcane Council, the Inquest, Consortium or some other faction? Why is he, out of all the asura, the most interested in recent events surrounding Taimi? This makes me suspect that him bumping into Taimi wasn’t accidental at all and he’s playing the spy game, so to speak, and it’ll be interesting to see just what role he’ll play in the coming episodes.

Rytlock’s reaction makes me wonder why Ryt still hasn’t opened up about his experiences in the Mists and whether the summons he’s ignoring are from Smodur or if Blood Imperator Bangar, Ryt’s direct superior, could finally be referenced. After all, the ghost problem has lessened somewhat after the botched ritual, and the Flame Legion’s power has diminished after Gaheron’s demise, so Bangar could see this as an opportunity for the Blood Legion to make a move now that there’s less worry about fighting a war on multiple fronts, especially if he learns of the humans’ recent troubles with the White Mantle. Not that I expect us to delve deep into charr politics anytime soon, but this would be the perfect opportunity for Blood to have more of a presence and perhaps make Bangar’s ambitions known as he was never quite a fan of the ceasefire with the humans, and Rytlock’s story (as well as Rox’s unresolved story with the mysterious charr Monti Scythescrape from Season 2) could tie into it.

A couple of things left me a bit confused in the Rata Novus story bit, though.

First, the PC decides to resign from the Pact and become a freelance operative. This feels like a spit in the face of the Pact even if the PC had good intentions and promised to assist the Pact when needed. Now, when a new Marshal has yet to be elected and the Pact could desperately use some moral support, the former Marshal’s right-hand person decides to quit, especially after already hearing criticisms in HoT from NPCs that the Commander should’ve been around more to lead them (even if the PC did delegate officers to lead the campaign in the jungle). Doing something like this in the army at a time of conflict in our world would be akin to treason and the culprit would be taken to a military tribunal for attempted desertion. I can see that the Pact is a more loose organization than that with likely not as severe punishments; we’ve yet to hear how the Pact deserters (as seen in “Torn in the Sky” if we went after the Pale Reavers as a sylvari PC) and the mobs going after sylvari as seen in Verdant Brink events were punished for their transgressions since the events of HoT, if they were punished at all.

I hope both the subplot about the dissidents in the Pact as well as the PC’s rather hasty decision will be addressed down the line with maybe some in the Pact starting to view the PC with disgust for abandoning them at a time of need instead of taking over from Trahearne. Who will the new Marshal be, and if the title is given to a member of one of the orders, will the other two orders be okay with that or go back into bickering (I hope it’s the former)? To avoid all of the political drama that will certainly ensue from the PC’s decision, the PC should’ve simply stayed in the Pact but reassigned themselves into a vanguard of sorts which consists of Dragon’s Watch while explaining that they’re better on the field and that someone more worthy deserves to lead the Pact. That way the PC wouldn’t be seen as deserting the Pact (and thus keeping the soldiers’ morale high) while still going about their own business with the authority they have as the Commander.

Second, I was surprised that humans hardly had any extra dialogue with Canach in this instance. It was somewhat immersion-breaking for me that a human PC had to ask Canach who Caudecus was. This is especially confusing if you play a human noble PC with unknown parents storyline who joined Order of Whispers to help Demmi flee from Caudecus’s goons as that’s a triple whammy of information the PC should know ( 1) the PC would’ve interacted with Caudecus during the trial of Zamon, 2) the PC would know of the White Mantle because the Mantle killed the PC’s parents and nearly the PC too if not for help from Logan and the Shining Blade, and 3) the PC would be aware of Caudecus’s dirty side through the Demmi storyline). I understand that branching dialogue is tricky to implement, but because we did see some nice branching during “Blood and Stone” with race-specific comments while wandering around Bloodstone Fen later on, it shouldn’t have been that difficult to just modify a line or two of our dialogue to make the information dump a bit more graceful so that it wouldn’t make the human PC seem like they hit their head after the Personal Story to forget something as major as who Caudecus, the Legate Minister who’s the second most important person in Kryta, is. Overall I did like how the spoken and written dialogue helped get players who might’ve forgotten about Caudecus and not known about White Mantle up to speed with the political situation and the key players in it.

Other than those two somewhat nitpicky things I had issues with, I did enjoy the character interactions. Taimi and Canach were wonderful as usual, and the revelations about chak organs provided some things for us to think about. It should be interesting to see how Taimi’s research will come into play later on, and I’d be surprised if Taimi essentially being able to monitor Tarir won’t come in handy at some point should, say, something bad happen in the city later on that requires us to travel there. I also wonder if the mystery of the shut door we witnessed back in HoT will come into play later as well and if we’ll learn more about the Rata Novans, many of whom were implied to have successfully evacuated Rata Novus before its fall. Given that Primordus is on the rise, their assistance would be welcomed, and their storyline still has many mysteries to be solved.

I’ll post my impressions of the rest of the chapters of this release later as this post is already long enough as it is and I’m running out of time on my end. There are still quite a few things I’m going to talk and speculate about as this release has been quite rich in lore in many ways I couldn’t have foreseen. Kudos to all the storytellers of ANet (from all sides of the spectrum such as narrative designers, artists, coders, and audio team) for making it a solid release and a fine starting point for things to come for the rest of Season 3.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

To be fair, though, she was only minor because we stamped her out so fast. She was apparently ‘out in the open’ because she was personally overseeing the assassination of a boatload of the Queen’s faction, including Anise and Logan, who probably rank as the third and fourth most influential humans in Tyria. If she had actually gotten to attempt to pull in off, it would have been at least as big a deal as what went down in Caudecus’ Manor. It was just her bad luck that she didn’t know her first target had plot armor.

Indeed, which is why the comments about Esthel in the Guild Chat episode are quite intriguing if there are plans for her story to be expanded down the line, whatever that may entail, considering that her role was far less impactful than Caudecus who at least was referenced in each human personal story branch in some manner. Esthel suffered from the same syndrome many other antagonists with great potential in the lore did in the Personal Story; they would show up for one mission or so before they were unceremoniously stamped out, and we moved on to new threats.

It’s interesting that in said story branch the Inquisitor who came after the human PC later actually was presented as much more of a threat than the Confessor herself, but then again Esthel probably was more of a mastermind than actual combat specialist similar to the current Confessor. Makes me wonder how much knowledge the Mantle lost due to her demise although I guess the Mantle would’ve had contingency plans for the sudden death of their Confessor to keep the operations going in Kryta despite such setbacks before selecting a successor from their ranks.

I for one welcome any extra lore which future reveals might have (I adored the reveal of the initially heroic Vorpp having shady history with sylvari in Season 2, after all, which was just as surprising as namedropping Esthel was in the Guild Chat or seeing Valette Wi make an appearance). It’d be nice if we get to read the new Confessor’s journals or some other information source to learn how Esthel’s successor was chosen over other candidates and if there might’ve been any, uh, relationship between the two to show why other capable candidates were bypassed in the selection process and especially if that ties into that lovely easter egg of a mirror in the ceiling above the bed in the manor since I imagine Esthel would’ve visited various Krytan locations in the Mantle’s many disguises and could’ve feasibly had some secret candle-lit meetings with the charming Legate Minister. Then again, I don’t think the writers would actually go that far even if Caudecus is the most interesting man in Tyria at the moment like a few redditors so eloquently put it.

draxynnic.3719:

One is that none of the quotations you reference actually indicate that Lazarus is active. “Our supreme leader arrived today” could be “Our comatose supreme leader arrived today.” The third quotation could simply be making the (quite reasonable) assumption that Lazarus would have something he wants to do after his rebirth. “I pray the Dire survived their dastardly attack” could be representing a very real fear that Lazarus was still in a helpless state and could very easily have been finished off if the raiders had come across him.

Another is to note that right after Lazarus’ essence was corrupted in the first place, he was still conscious and able to act (if only to retreat). It’s entirely possible that his condition had worsened since, but despite the mythological reference it’s possible that Lazarus was only ever ‘very, very sick’ but not in a state where he’s unable to communicate with his followers at all. I think that’s less likely, though:

Since Caudecus was able to get away with deprioritising Operation Rebirth, and given how hostile Lazarus was to Caudecus, it doesn’t seem that Lazarus would have put up with Caudecus being the confessor if Lazarus had any influence. It’s possible, though, that Lazarus recognised that Caudecus’ resources were needed for Operation Rebirth to occur in the first place and that he figured he’d deal with Caudecus after his rebirth.

Yeah, the interesting thing about it is that we have different and somewhat differing points of view from the authors of the journals with Justiciar Bauer’s notes being the most reliable in this case due to him being in the know the most as he was part of the inner circle led by High Inquisitor Xera.

On the one hand we have Valis referring to the goal “to awaken our wounded god” and to Lazarus’s “resurrection” (which in this context can mean many things) and then we have Bauer commenting on the supreme leader’s grand plan. While Valis’s quotes suggest Lazarus would’ve been in asleep/comatose/what have you, the wording of Bauer’s entry from later on in the timeline is quite interesting and ambiguous in that it uses the passive voice to inform the reader of what’s going on: “We have been ordered to tell no one for fear that interlopers will interrupt his grand plan.”

Would this mean they were ordered by Xera who would be the second highest ranking member of the Mantle behind the Confessor, or were these orders directly from Lazarus who might’ve regained consciousness later on before being moved to Bloodstone Fen? Either way, what’s also interesting about it is that the entry refers to “his grand plan”, which indicates that Lazarus must’ve been conscious at some point to let the inner circle in on his plans, while Caudecus either remained unaware of Lazarus’s goals or simply ignored them from whatever books the goals might or might not have been written into due to Caudecus’s desire to focus on the Krytan throne instead.

As I’ve read the notes again a couple more times trying to piece the contents together (in which the wiki page for Conspiracy of Dunces has been helpful), I wonder if maybe the following had happened in the timeline canonically to reconcile the different versions and keep them in line with Bobby’s statements (despite many of the entries being somewhat ambiguous on purpose):

In 1325 AE, Bauer receives green light from Caudecus to direct more resources and manpower to Bloodstone research, which Bauer, Xera and others in the inner circle also use for the dual goal of working on “resurrecting/awakening” Lazarus behind Caudecus’s back while keeping Valis etc. thinking they’re all doing it for Caudecus. Materials and manpower move from Fort Vandal to both Bloodstone Fen for Bloodstone research and to the Stronghold of the Faithful to fortify the keep and prepare it for Lazarus etc. Valis’s research bears fruit over the following years, and the inner circle decide to move forward with their plan despite the Bloodstone shard injections not providing stable enough results yet in test subjects.

By 1329 AE, Bauer receives Lazarus (whether comatose, half-awake, or in some other state) from an unknown area to the Stronghold of the Faithful while Valis remains in Bloodstone Fen continuing the Bloodstone research. Depending on whether it was Xera or Lazarus issuing orders not to let anyone know what was really going on due to ambiguous wording in Bauer’s entry, Lazarus is injected with some Bloodstone shards, which allows him to possibly regain consciousness (unless he was already awake enough to issue orders if the order giver wasn’t Xera) albeit not return him to full power yet.

Raiders reach the Stronghold of the Faithful, forcing Xera to intervene to stall them at the cost of her life while Lazarus is moved (or moves if he’s strong enough to do so) south to Bloodstone Fen in secret so the final ritual can take place there. The raiders miss Lazarus being transported out just by a few minutes or whatnot. Lazarus reaches Bloodstone Fen safely while the raiders and the majority of the White Mantle are none the wiser about him surviving the raid. Bauer, having prepared the ritual site, kills Kasandra and has Valis sacrificed in the ritual, likely dying there himself as well due to the blast he didn’t take into account as Lazarus absorbs the magic and is fully rejuvenated.

The fact that the stronghold had many books about various subjects regarding Tyrian history, Lazarus must’ve learned of it either from his followers reading the books to him while he was recovering, or he learned it sometime during his trip or chilling out period in Bloodstone Fen. Unless Lazarus's line about the inconsequential Krytan politics simply show that he merely listened to Caudecus's speech at the colosseum and commented on it without knowing any better (or even caring for what had happened between GW1 and GW2), but that's difficult to say for sure without us being given more information about the matter.

It makes me wonder which area the White Mantle were hiding Lazarus in before his arrival at the stronghold after all this time and if this information will ever be revealed in game or via a dev comment. Could lead to some juicy details or hints at such.

As for the stuff you put behind spoiler tags:

I know I’m kinda late to the discussion, but I felt it’d be better to posting this feedback in this thread since I’ll reference Bobby’s posts from this thread, stuff from raids and Living World season 3, and it does tie into the whole Lazarus and Xera stuff as well as things we’ve learned from the journals found in Bloodstone Fen.

First of all, I’d like to thank Bobby for his insightful replies in this thread and the Raid Narrative and Lore thread, including his reply to my post in the latter thread; it’s always great to have back and forth between the developers and the community, something I hope we’ll see more of especially in the Lore section (or at least Reddit) from the narrative designers although I understand it’s not always possible due to the designers’ schedules and whatnot. Perhaps bringing back the Dolyak Express concept from previous years would be an option?

Regarding the continuity and lore between the raid and Season 3, I think the team has done a good job getting people who haven’t raided up to speed and summarizing most of the crucial stuff that took place in raids. I particularly liked posthumous character development given to Matthias, showing just how big of a kitten Justiciar Bauer really was (I did like Bauer’s aggressive, no nonsense stance, and how all the three journal entries intertwined and complimented one another).

Bennett’s dialogue, and him taking into account whether the PC had rescued him or not, had nice touches and helped develop him as a character; I liked the light comedy between him and an asura Vigil soldier whether he’s lucky or not to have survived near-death experiences just as I liked Bennett recalling the horrific experiences he went through in the Forsaken Thicket which helped fuel him to aid the Pact bring down the White Mantle.

1) Identifying Sabetha

There’s one nitpicky thing I have to mention as I’ve noticed it occurring in both Forsaken Thicket and Bloodstone Fen: the way Sabetha is identified. To me it’s somewhat jarring that Falgeir and Bennett immediately refer to her as merely Sabetha as if the PC would recognize her as the bandit leader before even knowing any better (start of Spirit Vale for a raider, or Bloodstone Fen for a non-raider who would have no idea who all these antagonists from the raid would be). I think a better approach would’ve been adding a small line before mentioning her name for the first time in the raid and S3 such as:

’’’Falgeir:‘’’ We fought hard but we were outnumbered. The bandit in charge ordered her crew to take prisoners, and then left. (This leader would then be identified as Sabetha in another branch of Falgeir’s dialogue as it already exists in Spirit Vale under “Tell me more about the bandits.” where we get the nice introduction: “They were led by a nasty one they called Sabetha. She burned a soldier nearly to ash right before my eyes.”)

’’’Bennett:‘’’ Saw one of my men lit up like a Wintersday bonfire, and the gloating bandit leader who had caused it. Sabetha and her lackeys torched everything, laughing as they went. (Here we’d first reference the leader of the bandits, then follow it with her name, thus linking the two in the PC’s mind)

It’s like if a character first referenced Jennah, then later added that she’s the Queen of Kryta. Granted, maybe the idea was to emulate how IRL we may first reference a notable individual by name and then, when we realize that our friend doesn’t realize what we’re talking about, we give more context to the name? Maybe I’m alone with this, but the way Sabetha was referred to without much context did seem a bit odd given what little the PC knew about her at the time of talking to either Falgeirr or Bennett at that point in the story.

2) Timeline of Lazarus’s revival, and Xera’s motivation

As I was editing the wiki page for Xera, I noticed something curious about the timeline that I’d like to ask Bobby (or Ross if he can post here as I understand he was responsible for writing the journals in Bloodstone Fen) about.

Bobby brought up the point that Xera used the twisted castle to slow the raiders down; this seems to imply it was Xera’s last ditch effort to make the raiders not reach the revival chamber until Lazarus had awakened safely. However, some journal entries seem to hint at Lazarus having awakened earlier based on what events they reference. Here are the important quotes (emphases mine):

Justiciar Bauer

2 Zephyr, 1329 AE
Our supreme leader arrived today. We have been ordered to tell no one for fear that interlopers will interrupt his grand plan. The moment of our vengeance is at hand. Nothing will stand in the way of the White Mantle. We shall claim our birthright—first in Kryta and then the world. Glory to the Unseen Ones!

Grand Savant Valis the Learned

13 Zephyr, 1329 AE
[…] A recent raid on our nearby keep resulted in Matthias’s death and the halt of continued bloodstone infusions into humans. Despite this, Justiciar Bauer demands more results, both to have something to show the confessor and to help strengthen our fortifications around the bloodstone.

Justiciar Bauer

14 Zephyr, 1329 AE
The girl who usually brings me my mail barged into my office today, rambling about a crack in the bloodstone and throwing notes and diagrams at me. Somehow, she knew about the ritual. I don’t know what else she knew, but she was pretty annoying, so I took her head just to be sure. Once the ritual is complete, we can proceed with our leader’s virtuous pursuits!

Grand Savant Valis the Learned

17 Zephyr, 1329 AE
Justiciar Bauer has been especially cryptic recently and refuses to answer my inquiries into the status of our unseen god’s resurrection. This is despite the fact that he sent many of our resources and the majority of our harvested bloodstone shards up north to our keep prior to it being raided by filthy nonbelievers. I fear the worst, but pray the Dire survived the dastardly attack. Justiciar Bauer is ordering me down into a rickety mine shaft that he had dug for a reason he won’t tell me, to oversee a ritual he won’t explain to me, and to accomplish a goal he won’t state.

Although one could surmise that the supreme leader being referenced would be Caudecus due to him being the Confessor of the White Mantle, Bauer’s entries overall, if looked at in context, would actually suggest he’s referencing Lazarus here. Bauer, Xera and a few other conspirators were working behind Caudecus’s back to bring Lazarus back, and we’ve seen Bauer referring to Caudecus as the confessor in other entries rather than as a supreme leader who Lazarus would be. To those wondering why Bauer wouldn’t refer to Lazarus as a god, other entries suggest Bauer isn’t quite that religious (as seen with how he viewed the more religious fanatics like Matthias) but sees the Mantle’s campaign from a more layman perspective while still supporting the idea of returning Lazarus via Operation Rebirth rather than simply focusing on the bloodstone weaponization plan like Caudecus is. To Bauer, the last mursaat appears to be less of a god in a religious sense and more of a powerful general who will lead the Mantle to victory on the battlefield.

So, with all of that out of the way, we get to the actual timeline issue here. Xera’s desperate actions and boasting dialogue would suggest that the revival of Lazarus was still going on by the time the raiders reached Stronghold of the Faithful, which is why she was trying to stall them from reaching the revival chamber. Yet, as seen from Bauer and Valis’s entries, there’s a gap of over a week between Bauer mentioning the supreme leader’s (who, as evidence from the journal entries seems to suggest, would imply Lazarus and not Caudecus as surely the Shining Blade would’ve noticed if Caudecus had fled from the palace weeks ago) arrival and Valis referencing Matthias’s death at Salvation Pass. Even more time passes until the siege on the stronghold (and the subsequent death of Xera) is referenced in Valis’s entry.

If Lazarus had already been revived by that point and he would be preparing for the bloodstone magic absorbing ritual (as was hinted at in the journal entries as well as that little cinematic we saw when we witnessed the ritual flashback with Caithe in the Episode 1 story), wouldn’t Xera’s boasting be contradictory? After all, she’d have no reason to stall the raiders from reaching the revival chamber when Lazarus would’ve already been taken safely to Bloodstone Fen for the final ritual.

I’m simply asking for clarification so we’ll know what the timeline actually is and how these reveals fit into Xera’s stalling motivations during Stronghold of the Faithful. If there’s more story to be revealed about this later on in Season 3, however, I understand if this question can’t be answered, but it would be nice to have at least some inkling of what’s going on here if possible.

Here’s a video clip I found with the male charr’s dialogue from the beginning of the Stronghold of the Faithful raid wing for those who are curious. You can also hear it for yourself if you make a squad with you as a sole member and then enter Stronghold of the Faithful through the raid portal in LA Aerodrome (or the one in Verdant Brink if you so desire).

flog.3485:

As for the lore, it has been pointed out a gazillion time that it consists of notes that people read on the ground easily accessible with a cleared instance.

Actually that’s not quite the case. As I’ve pointed out in the Raid Narrative and Lore thread before and which Bobby Stein himself has acknowledged in a comment, the ‘lore’ in raids as far as narrative goes consists of far more than just “notes that people read on the ground” so it would be erroneous to claim that the notes are all the lore there is to gain from the raid experience. However, as was also pointed out in the aforementioned thread, it would be difficult to replicate some of the storytelling bits for a soloable raid instance because certain elements like chatter between squad members (some of which reveals important bits of information about the story, which supports playing through the wings over and over again with different race/class combinations to witness all the dialogue variations as was the developers’ intention) would be difficult to have play out if you’re the only player character present in the instance. I hope this clears up the confusion among some players as to what can be considered ‘raid lore and narrative’.

With that said, however, I agree with Stein in that the lore you gain from raids overall is optional and supplementary to the larger GW2 narrative. Sure, you will be missing out on some interesting stuff (which is even more so the case with many explorable dungeon paths, particularly Arah and Crucible of Eternity which revealed overarching plot points that were further explored in LW season 2, HoT and very likely in LW Season 3 as well), but overall the raid is like a prelude whose plot points we’re already seeing replicated in the Current Events in PvE (magic going rampant, mutations within beings who have come in contact with magic and whether they can control it, White Mantle on the rise with a shadowy plan).

The only thing you won’t really get in the Current Events is the reveal at the end of raid wing 3, but like the linked comment from Stein in Inculpatus cedo’s post states, all the relevant information from raids will be made accessible in Season 3 if any of it plays a role and if that information is crucial for players to understand what’s going on. I’m curious to see if Season 3 will address the issue by saying that the Pact Commander was part of the raid lorewise (even if the player didn’t play through it) or if the PC learns this information some other way as Glenna’s journal actually gives conflicting accounts regarding which individuals were responsible for the raiders’ successes in raid wings 1 and 2 (especially when compared with the dialogue from other friendly NPCs in the raid who do acknowledge the PC as THE Commander who’s participating in the raid).

The way I see it, Forsaken Thicket raid as a whole is akin to how Darth Vader discovered the name of Luke Skywalker as the pilot who blew up the Death Star between Star Wars Episodes 4 and 5 or how Leia gained the bounty hunter Boushh’s outfit between Episodes 5 and 6 to infiltrate Jabba’s palace; both reveals had consequences like the reveals in the raid, but they weren’t something that we had to see on screen in the overall Star Wars saga to understand the overarching storyline just like we don’t need to see the events in the Forsaken Thicket unfold to understand what’s happening to the rest of Tyria in Season 3 (especially when said raid lore information, if relevant, will be revealed via other means to the non-raiding playerbase as stated by Stein).

This doesn’t mean I would be against a soloable mode for raids and dungeon story modes (the latter even more so because dungeon stories offer far more important lore to the core GW2 narrative than raids and dungeon explorable paths as the story modes chronicle the reconciliation of Destiny’s Edge which is very important for Personal Story narrative) so people could get to experience their narrative at their leisure. I find such an outcome unlikely, however, because tweaking either the raid or dungeon story modes to allow a solo option would require time, resources and manpower from ArenaNet who are already struggling enough with delivering content that they had to disband the Legendary team to aid the S3 team and even had to borrow one or two people from S3 team for a while to add environmental objects and whatnot to the three raid wings when the raid team was already so overworked with finetuning etc.

Thanks for posting this topic, Mo. The way I see things, I do think the team should reconsider the “boob-plate” option at least for female charr, the reason being that it goes against the original artistic vision for the race as explained by the artist Kristen Perry who was responsible for the female charr look among other things in the game. I’ll provide the full quote from an old interview for context with the notable part (which some posters have already paraphrased in this thread) in bold:

Kristen Perry on the Artistic Origin of the Charr

Kristen Perry was the character artist who volunteered to craft a viable design for the female charr in Guild Wars 2. The female of the race had not been seen in the original game, so creating a concept that was both recognizably female and recognizably charr was a challenge.

Q: Kristen, can you talk a little about the different approaches you tried out for the female charr before settling on the final design?

Kristen: As a team, we had many discussions regarding the direction of the female charr, and a lot of that back-and-forth was in the form of thumbnail sketches and theoretical debate. These discussions centered around the tension between making the female charr attractive to the playerbase while still making it look like part of the same race as the male charr.

Much of the problem was in making the female charr more universally attractive, which leans towards a more human appearance. Those initial designs explored the tension between an acceptable human notion of beauty and an animalistic design that is cool, but just too “creature” for the average player to find engaging. This exploratory process brought about one model design that was indeed more humanoid and catgirl in appearance. It had the back leg joint articulation of the charr, but stood much more upright, had a human neck, slender arms and almost hand-like paws—and, yes, breasts. The problem with this design, though, was we were trying to find a solution between both goals, which meant we didn’t really satisfy either. The human part of our charr catgirl wasn’t human enough to be cute, and the charr part of her wasn’t charr enough to be fierce, let alone look like a female of the same race. So while this experiment was very important for visualization, in the end it didn’t give us the result we wanted.

By this point we knew we didn’t want a catgirl, but there was still another conundrum to solve. The males of the charr race are large, overly muscular, brutish, and monstrous. We couldn’t give the female of the race the same hulking masculine proportions, because then there’d be no real way to see any gender difference. But how do you make a smaller, less muscular, less imposing member of the race feel just as powerful as their male counterparts?

Q: So how did you strike that balance and create something that was both feminine and charr-like?

Kristen: Well, when I started designing the female charr, I definitely wanted her to feel just as fierce as the male of the race. She had to feel sleek and agile while at the same time have an appearance of strength and power. By thinking in terms of movement, it became clear the answer was in optimizing nuances. Yes, she had to be large and robust like the male, but we could tone down the testosterone by really extending her body lines to gracefully flow from the top of her head to tail tip.

I didn’t see any reason whatsoever to give her less clawing power, so I rebuilt the sabers on her hands and feet and brought out the padding design. The face and horns were designed with style and movement in mind, but also incorporated markedly more feminine cat-like features instead of the more monstrous male features, though there will be those options too. The horns don’t have a particular direction to denote gender; they just have to look cool. The female’s tail, however, has long hair. This was a very specific thing I wanted to include, as I love the sweeping feel to the long hair, and it’s an easy detail to note from behind in telling whether the charr is male or female.

Finally, there was the matter of the chest. It really didn’t make any sense to have boobs on a charr female, particularly with all the effort we took to make her sleek and fierce. We thought they should have no breasts at all or at least hide them under some fluffy fur. Above all else, we needed to be true to the race, of course! There was still some debate, however, so I gave them a choice: either be subtle and downplay the breasts (it wasn’t a point of the race, anyway) or go full-on realistic. Yes, that’s right—none or six!!

But really, the armor augmentation required for six boobs would be just as ridiculous, so none it was!
(Source)

I understand that Kristen is no longer working for Anet according to her LinkedIn profile, and we don’t really know who has stepped into her shoes regarding future charr and sylvari aesthetics (among other things) and if her vision still counts now that it’ll be in someone else’s hands. Still, I feel that Kristen brought up some notable points for why the “boob-plate” for charr females wouldn’t work due to the race’s biology and overall design aesthetics which Guild Wars 2 wanted to convey at launch and that it would be better for the lore of the game to continue on the path she and other artists set back then unless there’s a really compelling reason to go against it now.

Just my two cents.

I’d like to ask people discussing the difficulty and accessibility of raids to start a new topic on the subject so we can keep this thread on track. This thread is about raid narrative and lore, after all.

With that said, thanks for coming to us with this information, Bobby. I appreciate your communication on the subject and clarifying things for people who may have been confused about how the raids fit into the overall lore of Guild Wars 2. I’m glad that my prediction of any potentially crucial lore info from raids being (re)introduced elsewhere now has dev confirmation, as this opens up a lot of possibilities should the events in any future raid(s) also affect events in the open world.

TheLilith.2849:

Oh I want dungeons to be more accessible so I can learn story of explorable paths but nobody wants me in party in my Nommad’s gear and got kicked because I don’t know where to stack or skip in Arah. I don’t have time to learn from youtube because I have 4 children and work 12h/day…

/sarcasm mode off

Even if your statement was sarcastic, ironically enough there’s actually a pretty salient argument buried deep within about dungeons being accessible. Ín my opinion dungeon story modes should be soloable because out of all the instanced group content they’ve provided the most crucial lore to GW2 experience about the adventures and eventually re-bonding of Destiny’s Edge (which includes some huge chunks of character development for each DE member; see for example Caithe finally stepping out of the shadow cast by Faolain, or Logan and Rytlock finally forgiving one another) as well as us confronting (and in a select few cases finishing off) key villains from Personal Story such as Caudecus, Kudu, Faolain and Gaheron who would’ve otherwise remained loose ends in lore.

Thankfully at least Arah story mode is soloable now so people don’t have to team up with others to finish their Personal Story if they don’t want to (as dungeon story modes in general seem to attract less people to them nowadays than explorable paths based on what I’ve seen on LFG over the past few years and even in these past few months after the most recent dungeon rewards revamp).

Because fewer players went to experience the dungeon stories, they missed not only important moments with said villains but also failed to bond with Destiny’s Edge during their trials and tribulations, which hurt the narrative on their side especially for that big payoff later in the Personal Story. Luckily the same is not the case with raid lore thanks to Bobby’s statement that any crucial information learned from raids will be delivered to players via other means in Living World season(s) and whatnot if needed, so the developers have learned their lesson about what lore to gate behind group content and what to keep more accessible to players.

TheLilith.2849:

How raid and non-raid lore will link eachother? We will see in LS3 as raid lore is brand new and there are no back-references (apart ref to GW1).

Actually there are quite a few references to Heart of Thorns, most notably its ending, in the two raid wings that we’ve seen so far. For example, a bandit journal and Squad Leader Bennett reference the fallout of Mordremoth's defeat in Dragon's Stand which agitated the spirits, and players encounter Mordremoth's lifeless vine which further solidifies the fact that Mordremoth is dead and not just faking it. This proves that the events in the raid take place after HoT story and are thus deeply linked to what happened before in the GW2 narrative.

Izithel.6853:

Yup, the only ‘lore’ you might miss by not fighting the actual bosses is some meaningless boss banter to give them some personality and vague hints at what the notes and environment proceed to explain in a crystal clear manner.

I’ve seen quite a few comments like this both here and on Reddit, and I feel I must chime in on this subject which is very dear to my heart as a player interested in Guild Wars 2 lore. I’d argue that people, who don’t play through raid content and only appear after the instance has already been cleared, do miss out on lore. There’s more lore in the raid than just the spoken exposition at the end of Salvation Pass or the written contents of the scattered journals.

The raid team delivers the narrative in many other ways as well as per Guild Wars tradition and have even invented a new, exciting way to do so which is currently exclusive to raids (I hope we’ll see them expand that great narrative concept to other group content like fractals etc. if possible). Allow me to list a few of these:

1) Interaction between raid squad members

This is arguably the most innovative thing in raids narrative-wise and of which Bobby and team should be rightfully proud as it continues from what we’ve seen with HoT when our player characters first spoke in the open world.

Basically player characters in the raid squad comment on what they’re seeing in the raid based on their race. It’s likely even affected by gender and profession as well; it was stated in a guild chat episode about raid narrative, I believe, that the team had taken into consideration making distinctions between players if a raid squad consists of, say, ten female humans as opposed to members from each race.

Sadly we’ve yet to see any recorded ambient dialogue from such “unique” party compositions; I for one would be very curious to see what the banter between, say, a squad of ten male sylvari would be like and if we’d hear the same male voice or slight alterations to tell them apart, and if Bobby and co have truly been crazy awesome enough to actually add all those variables into the dialogue triggers and how many variables actually exist in the data. Maybe that’s a job for that_shaman or other data miners to dig up all those dialogue variables unless Bobby’s kind enough to expand on the ambient dialogue concept here in this thread as I think such a great concept is worth talking about…

Having the player characters banter and make comments based on their race deepens the immersion and makes the characters, well, actual characters who are part of the world and lore of Tyria instead of being mere pixel puppets that we direct to the next objective. Not only that, but there are little touches here and there in the dialogue that further make the characters feel more alive and which people won’t get to experience if they join a cleared instance. Hearing how an asura PC reacts to, say, Slothasor compared to other races, or hearing the PC being embarrassed about being turned into a slubling during battle and telling other squad members never to mention it in discussions again provides some lighthearted moments in what is otherwise a rather dark narrative.

Unfortunately this is the one narrative thing in my list that players would miss out on even if raids were given an easier “solo mode” as I don’t think there’s any feasible way in-game to replicate the banter between player characters or all the race variables therein (e.g. ten female humans) for a single player experience.

2) Storytelling via music

Raid wings have presented us with unique tracks for the bosses which we’ve yet to encounter elsewhere in GW2. Players won’t get to hear these tracks in-game unless they go to raids. As these tracks only play during boss battles, any music lover entering a cleared raid instance will miss out on some pretty interesting musical narrative. Thankfully fans have uploaded these tracks to Youtube (I still wait for Maclaine Diemer to upload the raid tracks with official titles to Anet’s Soundcloud once/if he has the time). However, i’s not quite the same as if you hear the tracks in-game similar to how “Mordremoth” is a lot more exciting while fighting against Mordremoth than hearing it on the soundtrack out of context.

Not only that, but some of the raid tracks may even provide some musical clues similar to how Mordremoth’s Theme was teased in the “Tower of Nightmares” track all the way back in Living World Season 1. For example, the theme accompanying Vale Guardian appears to slyly reference a variation of what I’ve nicknamed the “Tyria Ascendant” motif (we hear the motif e.g. in Auric Basin in the track “Glint’s Legacy”, in sonic battle against Mordremoth’s Theme in the “Mouth of Mordremoth” where we fight for Tyria’s future, and more curiously at the end of the final cinematic of HoT story where we hear both the Tyrian motif and Mordremoth’s Theme playing side by side when something significant happens, which I believe foreshadows events to come in Season 3). The use of a variation of this motif, unless this is Diemer dropping us a musical red herring, could hint towards the Vale Guardians’ original purpose being more benevolent as we only ever hear variations of the “Tyria Ascendant” motif when it’s in relation to Glint’s (a good person) overall plan for the salvation of Tyria (Exalted, the egg, defeating Mordremoth etc.).

3) Bosses

Although the journals do provide some insight into the nature of the bosses encountered in the raid, facing the bosses themselves and keeping an eye out for visual/audio cues also provides further clues which the journals might’ve only hinted at (if at all). Here are some examples:

a) Vale Guardian

Not only the look of this boss but also the music track, as discussed above, provide hints at its origin, shedding light to the mystery of this particular bit of lore.

b) Gorseval

It’s one thing hearing about this abomination and another thing facing it and seeing just what happens when spirits merge together to protect themselves. Gorseval’s lines further give insight into this construct’s psyche and what its goals are, which are only ever hinted at in a roundabout way in the journals.

c) Sabetha and her cronies

During this fight we learn that there’s conflict between Sabetha and some of her minions, and we learn a bit more about Knuckles than the little tidbits some of the journal entries reveal elsewhere in the raid wings.

d) Slothasor

Here we get first hints at the overall connection between the raid and the current open world events. We learn that uncontrolled magic can mutate an ordinary being and turn it into an unstable hybrid monstrosity as seen with how Slothasor was an ordinary sloth which began mutating into a sort of wurm due to proximity to ley energy as seen by its offspring, the "slublings". This ties into what we see in the current ley line events if you let the event fail by allowing the dragon minions to absorb the rampant ley magic and what happens to the champion which emerges as a being called an aberration and which, if not killed within a time limit, ends up collapsing as the magic within it consumes it, which proves that beings unable to hold magic within them will not only undergo drastic physical and psychological changes but eventually perish from the burden of magic.

e) Matthias Gabrel

With Matthias we learn a few things during the fight. We learn that he's a true fanatic as he actually quotes lines spoken by a high-ranking White Mantle member from GW1 as an added bonus to GW1 veteran players, he reveals that our sacrifice will bring "Him" aka his master life, which further gives credibility to the hints we've already found in journals about the existence of this "Him" character who may or may not be Lazarus the Dire. We also see how unstable Matthias's psychology becomes as he's consumed by the magic within the Bloodstone and turns into a hulking abomination for the second phase of the fight just like we've seen happen with Slothasor in the raid and the affected dragon champions in the recent ley line events. This further links him with what happened with Randall Greyston in Arah explorable path 4 where we likewise witnessed an individual being consumed and transformed by the Bloodstone's magic.

All of the above show that a player not encountering/fighting the bosses will miss out not only on cool boss mechanics but also on some lore, some of which may play a key role in future storylines (notably the effect of rampant magic on beings unable to contain it as we’ve seen with the ley line events in the open world recently).

4) Environmental storytelling

As Daniel Dociu, Studio Art Director for Arenanet, has told us time and time again ever since the game’s launch, Guild Wars 2 thrives on what he calls environmental storytelling, i.e. using the environment to enhance the narrative and provide clues which help tie lore stuff into a larger whole. As an example of this, in the open world we have areas in Auric Basin turning more and more golden the more pylons we activate, which gives players actual visual clues of how much they’ve overcome Mordremoth’s corruption and how strong the Exalted have become.

Raids continue this trend by using the environment as a storytelling tool as the locations’ look may change significantly depending on at what point in the raid story you are. For instance, in Salvation Pass players witness strange weather phenomena and only learn gradually that it's all caused by Matthias losing control of Bloodstone magic and that the weird weather only calms down after Matthias has been slain. This kind of information isn’t available in post-battle instances when the environment appears calm, and thus players joining cleared instances miss out on this key reveal that the power of magic not only affects living beings via mutation and strengthening them to absurd levels but also changes and shapes the very environment and weather, which further gives credence to what we learned in Season 2 that too much magic being unleashed into the world without great beings like dragons balancing it will lead to Tyria's destruction, which will be one of the overarching storylines in Season 3 and beyond due to our emphasis going to Glint's child and the fallout of two Elder Dragons' deaths if we don't replace the dragons we've slain.

All of the above points (squad interaction, music, revelations during boss fights, environmental storytelling) thus contribute significantly to the raid narrative and shouldn’t be overlooked as they’re all part of a larger whole that is the raids. To get the most out of the experience lorewise and see all the narrative hints Bobby and company have seeded throughout the raid wings, players need to play through the raids or else they’ll only get a fraction of the overall experience (the stuff that people have posted about before which are journals, lore stuff at the beginning of instances, and the cinematic/NPC exposition at the end of Salvation Pass).

Based on what we’ve seen so far, the centaurs suffered a major setback when we pushed into their main war camp and slew their War King, Ulgoth, at the end of the Harathi Hinterlands meta event chain.

As the maps are stuck in a certain point in time and more or less follow a specific chronological order (notice the growing team-ups of the three orders as you progress into higher level maps in Central Tyria as well as increasing references to the Pact in later maps, which shows that certain maps take place after others in the timeline) except for some tweaks introduced to certain portions of the maps in Living World seasons (e.g. the marionette wreck in Lornar’s Pass, the remnants of the Tower of Nightmares and the overgrown Fort Salma in Kessex Hills, the recent bandit/ley line events in various maps), the meta event in Harathi Hinterlands would’ve taken place in 1325 AE before the Pact’s invasion of Orr.

Since Ulgoth’s death, years have passed as we’ve been through two Living World seasons as well as the events in Heart of Thorns and the Forsaken Thicket raid. There’s sadly been no detailed information (that I know of) about what’s happened with Central Tyria’s centaurs since then. All we really know is that the centaurs are still a considerable threat to humans as per Queen Jennah’s comments during the World Summit (“Centaurs run right up to our doorstep. Every week, I send letters of condolence to families who have lost loved ones.”). We also know from lore that Ulgoth and his Modniir bullied the Harathi and the Tamini into fighting alongside them in the war against humans, but with the War King now gone thanks to our campaign, perhaps the Harathi and Tamini will eventually rebel against the abusive Modniir while the Modniir commanders are both busy selecting a new War King and trying to keep the shaky alliance with the more reluctant tribes from falling apart.

Hopefully a future storyline in some LW season (or even expansion!) will address the centaur issue and perhaps have us push beyond Harathi Hinterlands into more centaur lands (new map(s)) where we’d actually get to visit centaur civilian camps with children (foals?) and perhaps have us help some Harathi and Tamini rebel cells overthrow the Modniir overlords in exchange for our centaur allies signing a peace treaty with humanity and centaurs being granted rights to settle into Krytan lands similar to how we’ve witnessed the (mostly) peaceful coexistence of charr and humans in present day Ascalon such as the Ebonhawke situation. This could lead to interesting politics as there would no doubt be many ministers (Caudecus and his cronies) and Krytans in general who’d be opposed to “giving in” to the demands of yet another enemy race for the sake of peace, putting even more blame on Jennah and how this act “proves” she’s a weak queen unfit to rule Kryta. Not to mention the Modniir overlords not wanting to give up their power or their glorious war without a fight, so we could see a would-be War King successor rising from their ranks to oppose us and the centaur rebels in the centaur “civil war” and give us a named antagonist to fight against.

I for one would love to get to interact with more peaceful Harathi, Tamini and even Modniir and help make a change while getting to know their centaur culture in depth apart from what little we’ve seen in Personal Story, Central Tyria maps as well as from the more peaceful Maguuma centaurs in Dry Top. Imagine how charr and human PCs could have race-related dialogue changes with the Tyrian centaurs to reflect their race’s stance on the centaur conflict and comparing it to the ongoing Ascalon treaty talks etc. A charr PC’s point of view about ending the conflict and bringing about a peaceful-ish coexistence between two races could be particularly juicy given what’s happened between humans and charr in the past.

As far as I remember, we still haven’t received a proper explanation for Scarlet’s cryptic line “Caithe, someday you’ll see, Tyria needs me”. One way of resolving that, and somewhat salvaging the legacy Scarlet left behind, would be to address the one plot hook that was never properly tied up: the fate of the batch of steam creatures which Scarlet sent to Brisban Wildlands. As I discussed in depth in another thread, this could lead to us discovering a potentially benevolent/morally grey steam creature faction which have evolved more peacefully unlike their more aggressive Lornar brethren. They could have some useful information Scarlet, their maker, stored in their Steam Brain’s databanks that could help us in our struggle against the Elder Dragons, thus making Scarlet’s prophetic line to Caithe come true in a roundabout way. Plus it would give us a chance to see a mecha-Scarlet of sorts (a steam creature avatar voiced by Tara Strong since the devs loved working with her) if this other steam creature community’s leader modeled itself after their “machine mother”.

It would be incredibly cool fighting alongside steam creature allies against the dragons and their minions as they can’t be corrupted by dragons due to the way they’re built, can withstand quite a beating thanks to their armor, and are known to be quite strategic as they become more intelligent and adapt over time (as we learn e.g. in Scarlet’s holo diary).

The Unbroken doesn’t really work for me right now. Too many biconics are still somewhat conflicted over various issues (some issues introduced in Season 2, others in HoT) before they can be truly called that. Their resolve may be getting better, but they still have stuff they need to sort out. Although it’s possible that we won’t see the guild’s name appear until later episodes of Season 3 so they’ll “earn” the name rather than choose one right away, it still seems a bit far off after everything we’ve witnessed.

Dragon’s Watch, while interesting as it ties into the fact that the Pact Commander is now essentially the chosen “dragon champion” of Glint’s child as per events in Tarir, would be confusing because we already have an area called Dragonwatch in Blazeridge Steppes. Although I guess it would be fun trying to explain to new adventurers passing by how the area and the heroic guild aren’t related per se (as in, the area wasn’t named after the guild nor was the guild inspired by the name of the area)… :P

For me, Eternity’s Guard works the best out of the three. The overall plot’s been about the All and the need to replace the egotistic Elder Dragons with more benevolent balancers of magic to keep Tyria from facing a catastrophe that would occur from both extremes (too much magic, too little magic), and how Glint’s child plays into this as part of Glint’s legacy. We, as members of the new guild, are not only fighting Elder Dragons as Destiny’s Edge before us have done; we’re also going to protect Tyria and its races by keeping magic in balance so it won’t run rampant while keeping other nefarious forces not related to dragons (Inquest, White Mantle etc.) who might try to abuse it in check. We’re the Guardians of Eternity, ensuring that Tyria will exist for millennia to come.

James Quall.6029:

An off brand Destiny’s Edge with a much cheaper VA budget?

“Destiny’s Ehh”

I believe the devs stated a year or two ago that voice actor costs are less of an issue (they could afford quite a few top tier on-demand VAs for this game, after all) but it’s more about the actors’ availability. The reason we began seeing the Biconics replace Destiny’s Edge in importance in Season 1 was because Anet couldn’t get hold of the Destiny’s Edge VAs at regular intervals due to the actors’ busy schedules (most notable with Zojja/Felicia Day) whereas the actors of the Biconics were available more often, thus leading to more exposure for the latter.

Thanks for posting this thread, Gaile! When a bunch of us first participated in the event involving ley line magic and dragon minions, many of us did indeed notice the strange and admittedly scary sounds accompanying the ley line breach. It helped create this ominous mood even if some of that might have been diminished a bit by people gliding on the ley lines in various silly forms (trees, nuhoch, quaggans etc.).

Gaile Gray.6029:

Anyway, I told Drew I was going to post, hoping someone on the Sound Team could share a bit about how those sounds were made, or maybe they could speak about them on the next “Bells and Missiles” segment of Guild Chat.

I really like that in-game event and the sounds are terrific! Anyone else notice those?

Oh, hearing behind the scenes information would be great indeed either in here or maybe in a future “Bells” segment hosted by Rubi. Based on Twitch chat reactions, the Audio Team certainly gained many new fans and more appreciation from players who may not have realized all the work that goes into creating a world with believable sounds. It always amazes me whenever people working on audio manage to conjure up cool sounds from ordinary everyday objects whether for TV, films or games. One of the things that will always give me nightmares is what the people working for the sound effects of Lord of the Rings used as a source for the Mumakil’s rather, umm, distinctive sound, which is very NSFW.

I always like whenever the Audio and Music teams are given the spotlight as those two are often the areas in game development that may be overlooked despite them being just as integral to the gaming experience as visuals and gameplay are. I’ve been wondering how the team managed to create the creepy-sounding ambience on top of the echoing effect, so learning more about the “making of” process would be welcome.

And maybe, just maybe, if we manage to get a future Guild Chat segment dedicated for sound effects, we could also get a tease for Season 3, maybe both ambience and music (say, a synth demo track from Maclaine or Lena) like we had the Slothasor sound tease from the Audio Team in an earlier GC episode?

The following list is a kind of “dream list” as I know there’s no feasibly way all of these issues can be addressed in Season 3 and that some will likely remain unanswered as per Bobby Stein’s response in Reddit some time ago about some mysteries remaining unresolved indefinitely due to story focus etc.

What I’d like to see if we lived in a perfect world where devs had enough time and resources to address each of these:

1) Sylvari plots

• Malyck and his Tree. One of THE unresolved stories which was left at the cutting room floor in early HoT development due to it not fitting into the narrower scope of the story. Was the mordrem migration in Tangled Depths headed towards his Tree? Why don’t Malyck and his people have a Dream similar to Dreamers? Why didn’t Malyck return to us to help us fight against the dragons like he promised, especially because ol’ Mordy was causing trouble in the general area Malyck’s people were supposed to be in? Is his Tree good or more of a neutral entity or even with a darker shade of grey morality? Why is Malyck’s look (the antennae) so different compared to Pale Tree’s sylvari, and how does Amaranda’s reference to a distant shore tie into it? How will the Nightmare Court, including the more antivillain members like Chrysanthea, react to the existence of the other Tree if they find out?

• The nature of the Dream and the Nightmare, their relation to the All, and why they’re so vehemently opposed to the Elder Dragons. Why does the Nightmare show signs of dragon corruption (e.g. the forced conversion of sylvari into Nightmare which twists their personality while still retaining their free will and dislike for dragons) despite still being opposed to the dragons? Why some beings like the sylvari, Mordremoth and White Stag appear to be innately connected to the Dream while other races aren’t?

• What had Faolain been up to between her departure from Twilight Arbor (in the story mode) and her reappearance as a prisoner in HoT story? Why did she let the Nightmare Court splinter into multiple factions and why didn’t she try to reclaim the Court over the past few years she was AWOL? How did she end up in Magus Falls to begin with: was she following after Caithe, sneaking aboard the Pact fleet to see what their strategy against Mordremoth would be, or what? It would be nice to have some closure to all of this now that Faolain is gone either in game or at the very least through dev answers on forums/Reddit.

• Nightmare Court and its future. Will it remain splintered with Duchess Chrysanthea simply leading an antivillain-ish splinter faction, or will Chrysanthea attempt to reunite the Court under her and turn it more morally grey? How will the Dreamers and the Soundless, let alone other races, react to Chrysanthea and her faction assisting the Pact in taking down Mordremoth?

• The sylvari racism plot. We might see some of this if the vision depicting Canach being ambushed in Divinity’s Reach becomes true (unless it’s tied to another story), but will we see distrust towards sylvari on a larger scale in the world now that some disgruntled Pact survivors have spread the tale about the sylvari betrayal which led to the downfall of the Pact fleet as well as the fact that sylvari belong to Mordremoth? How will this affect us if we happen to be playing a sylvari PC: will we see more hostility from NPC dialogues, vendors raising prices etc.?

• Anise’s plans for Canach. What exactly does she have in mind for him, and how will Canach react to it? Will the ambush scene still happen, and will it involve White Mantle sympathizers and potentially have Caudecus scheming in the background too as he’s still far from being beaten thanks to his connections?

• The future of the Mordrem Guard. With the revelation in Tangled Depths storyline’s extra achievements that the Mordrem Guard weren’t corrupted per se but only manipulated by Mordremoth through Wyld/Dark Hunts implanted into their minds, will any of them remain loyal to Mordy now that the dragon is gone and its siren song has ended (which means they should be returning to their older selves)? How will the “reformed/atoning” ex-Mordrem Guard be treated by their fellow sylvari and other races; could this be yet another side explored in a potential sylvari racism plot? Will some higher-ranking Mordrem Guard who are still out there like Cellona try to continue Mordremoth’s work, truly believing that carrying out the dragon’s will (despite Mordy being gone) is the sylvari’s destiny no matter what?

2) Plots from Season 1 and before

• The fate of Magdaer. Eir intended it to be given to Logan eventually but with her gone now, will we ever see the sword again in the hands of the one she wanted to wield it? Why is Sohothin of importance but not Magdaer in present storyline?

• The identity of E and why they preferred to stay in the shadows instead of revealing themselves. Although I believe E may be Ela Makkay, I still wonder why she’d prefer to stay anonymous instead of revealing her identity to us by now that we’ve proven our worth protecting Glint’s legacy. With the recent rise of White Mantle activity, will E’s story be tied to them and whatever plots may happen in Divinity’s Reach?

• The Consortium and its plans for the debris (seeds etc.) of the Tower of Nightmares. What exactly is the Consortium planning to do with them, and what else do they have in mind? How will Deputy Turma be involved in any of it as we’ve seen in Southsun that she isn’t exactly fond of the captain’s council after what they did to her and warmed up to the Consortium’s offer of a mutually beneficial working relationship?

3) Plots from Season 2

• Anise’s plans for Kasmeer. There appears to be more going on behind the scenes here as Anise always plays the long game, but what could it be? Will the Mesmer Collective play a role in a future story?

• The heir to the throne in the mysterious Krytan locket. Whose image will be shown within if not Jenna? Does this foreshadow something happening to Jenna, will Wade Samuelsson of Ebonhawke somehow play a role, or some other as of yet unknown individual with ties to the royal bloodline?

• The identities of the protectors of Kryta. We know Ogden is part of a secret fellowship who have Tyria’s best interests at heart, implied to be involved in the shenanigans regarding Glint’s egg as he’s aware of its importance and history. Assuming that E might be one member of this fellowship, who else is involved that we could count as an ally, and is their endgame the same as the Exalted’s regarding Glint’s plan for the future of Tyria? Will we finally get much needed answers from the good ol’ stubborn dwarf now that we’ve passed the Forgotten trials and proven our worth to the cause?

• Who gave Glint’s egg to the Master of Peace? Was it Gleam or someone else? What has happened to Gleam and Glint’s other children these past few centuries because they’re nowhere to be found, and why were the Zephyrites chosen to keep the egg secure instead of Gleam or the other children taking care of them instead? Is this somehow related to Kralkatorrik’s threat?

• The identity of the mysterious stranger (the bearded hobo dude we saw observing our progress from the sidelines when we tracked down the Aspect Masters in the cave in Season 2). Who is he and what is his appearance foreshadowing?

• Rox’s little subplot regarding spying as seen during Season 2. Why was there tension between her and the aggressive charr (who calls himself Monti Scythescrape) in Camp Resolve? If either of them were spying for the Black Citadel, who exactly were they observing, and why was Rox evading the question when we asked her about it? Does this mean Smodur or some other charr higher-up has some sort of plan in mind in which Rox and Monti play a part?

• Evon Gnashblade’s plans. With Hero-Tron as his spy in the captain’s council and planning to hire private military contractors as a force loyal to him, is he planning the long game? Why was he so interested in exploring the fall of Abaddon, a human god, via a fractal despite charr not generally being interested in religious matters except killing gods?

• The increased presence of smugglers in Lion’s Arch and the quaggan’s concerns over them. With Peter Fries hinting a few months ago that something bad may happen to quaggan (as Peneelopee and Bloomanoo tend to be heralds of disaster), where will these growing tensions lead the story, and how will Ellen Kiel deal with this?

4) Plots from HoT and aftermath

• Garm’s fate. Why was the lovable direwolf missing and not on Eir’s side? What was he doing during HoT story?

• The implications of Rytlock’s return as a revenant/herald. Will some of the charr in Black Citadel shun him because of his revenant magic which might remind them of Flame Legion’s worship of otherworldly beings? Will we see involvement from Rytlock’s superior, Blood Imperator Bangar, who might be playing his own political game and maybe using Rytlock as a means to achieve his goals now that both Flame Legion and ghost threats have diminished as we know he isn’t fond of the peace treaty between charr and humans? Why exactly is Rytlock’s relationship with the rest of his warband so strained?

• A vigil held for Eir, Trahearne and other fallen heroes from Pact and allies. It would be great to see a symbolic funeral pyre of sorts in, say, Tarir, to honour all of our fallen and give them a proper sendoff. Maybe have the Luminate and the PC speak a few words on their behalf to honour their sacrifice? The fallen deserve that much, especially after the rather abrupt ending of HoT story which hardly gave us any chance to mourn Trahearne’s demise.

• The future of the egg. With the curious use of both the ascending Tyrian theme and Mordremoth’s theme in the final cinematic where the egg absorbs some of the magic released from Mordremoth, what does this mean for the eventual hatchling? Does this imply a duality of good and evil within it and that it needs us to groom it to become the benevolent Elder Dragon instead of another tyrant?

• The role of the Exalted. We should be seeing more of them after Mordremoth’s demise, not only as caretakers of the egg and Tarir but also as champions of Kryta against the Elder Dragons and other potential threats out there.

• The role of Logan and Zojja. With the hints from Colin’s blog post from a while ago, what kind of plots will the two recovering Destiny’s Edge members be involved in and how being captives of the dragon affect them going forward?

• The secrets of Rata Novus. We’ll likely learn more about Taimi’s findings, but will we also learn whether someone actually orchestrated the fall of the city (as discussed in WoodenPotatoes’ recent lore video about Rata Novus’s fall) and if that did happen, to what end? Where did the survivors end up in and could we meet their descendants who might have continued the Rata Novans’ work on Elder Dragons? Will this plot draw in the Inquest and will we learn more about Zinn and his importance as a few of the Pact people did hint in open world that once Mordremoth is gone, they’ll study the golems in more depth?

• With the recent reveal of heavier White Mantle involvement in raids, will we see some of that spill over to Divinity’s Reach as we know they have support there and elsewhere?
  This would be a nice way to tie Caudecus in as well.

I’m sure there are quite a few unresolved plots I’ve missed, but these were the ones that immediately came to mind. It’ll be interesting to see how many of these we’ll see explored in Season 3 and beyond.

ProtoGunner.4953:

So, after more than 6 months there is still nothing. No, additional living story, no additional map, no new fractals. The only substantial we got was the raid. So what the heck are you doing? This is really bad marketing. HOT was small and I had hope we get constant new content and now not even that. 4 maps with meta events (which are great imo but too few). I am pretty disappointed.

We do have the aerodrome area added to Lion’s Arch with some juicy in-jokes in there for those who look for them (regarding certain unhappy tour guide as well as tongue-in-cheek references to dev raid team being represented by raider NPCs hanging around in the lobby among other things). We also have new events recently popping up regarding the Branded, Destroyers and Icebrood trying to absorb surging ley-line magic in various areas in three maps, which result in us fighting either a powered up dragon champion (curiously called an aberration) if we fail the event, or a magical coalescence if we successfully defend the area. We’ve also seen changes to a few areas with notable concentrations of ley lines such as the Breachmaker drill under water in Lion’s Arch, the ley line cave in Dry Top as well as the ley-line confluence cavern in Tangled Depths, all of which hint at Season 3 content similar to how the Mordrem invasion event was a prelude to Heart of Thorns.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more such changes the closer we get to the release of Season 3 as it’s Anet’s means of subtly hyping us up by rewarding people who explore the maps and share their findings with the rest of the community.

If you go to the Ley-Line Confluence cavern in Tangled Depths and glide up, you see the magic in that area is going crazy as well with the ceiling and the magic pulsing more violently than before while the sound of the ley line surges is louder.

I do like these little touches that foreshadow events to come similar to what we experienced in Kessex Hills before the reveal of the Tower of Nightmares among other such scenes in Seasons 1 and 2.

We should keep in mind that story instances and open world events go hand in hand as the instanced missions precede the meta events chronologically: in other words, one needs to play through both to understand all of the story. By this point in the narrative, Taimi is no longer alone in the Rata Novus area (although she’s deeper in than others) as the Rata Novus lane events in Tangled Depths show how Agent Zildi and the Order of Whispers reactivate the city’s defenses and keep the chak at bay. We should hopefully hear an offhand reference to this once we revisit Rata Novus in Season 3 (or even better, see Zildi herself or her brother in a story instance). Not to mention the chak gerents and crowns have been beaten by the Pact in canon, so the chak should be in disarray and less of a threat to our reconnaissance forces for the time being.

I don’t mind Taimi coming along with us in her golem as we have enough technobabble explaining/alluding to how the golem can keep up with us in the jungle. The golem keeps Taimi safe, and her smarts allow her to aid us in our mission, so it’s natural for the Pact Commander to weigh the two options and choose to take her along despite the dangers they may face. Granted, the PC could’ve considered other asura over her, but the story wants us to care for Taimi, and the PC has come to trust her as part of the team, so it’s not too difficult to imagine that under the circumstances the PC chose the one he/she has been working along over others, especially when time was growing short and those other experienced asura were needed to handle Pact operations while the PC went deeper into the jungle.

What I found problematic with Taimi (and Braham to an extent too although at least he got properly chewed out for his rash actions) in the context of the story, however, was how she and Braham undermined the Pact Commander’s authority by doing things on their own without being ordered to. As any drill instructor would tell you, in war it’s imperative to follow the orders of your commanding officer and not head out solo as the latter action may jeopardize the entire team during the mission (e.g. letting enemy scouts see you and alert the main enemy force to your or your allies’ location, or even have said enemies separate you from the rest of the team and thus hindering the team as they either lose you to the enemy or have to spend valuable time searching for/rescuing you, which could get you all killed). The fact that Taimi doesn’t seem to understand this fact (and yes, she’s a teenager with little experience in the army, but she should still be smart enough to understand the danger she’s put everyone and most importantly herself in especially after her dangerous encounter with the Inquest in Season 2) and that the PC doesn’t seem to reprimand her that much for such an action paint the PC as being too lenient, IMHO.

I can only hope that Taimi will become more responsible and more mature from this point onward and that neither she nor Braham (both of whom suffered losses in this campaign, which should make them grow as characters based on the hints we’ve seen) will undermine the PC’s authority with such stunts again as long as they’re part of this new Destiny’s Edge. Likewise the PC needs to man (or woman) up and understand that as nice as being all chummy with your pals can be, there’s a reason why commanding officers have to be harsh to their subordinates while on a mission. Orders have to be followed as ignoring such could spell doom to the entire team and have the team potentially fail the mission even if the PC might provide over 70% of the firepower of the entire team.

With that said, I do look forward to seeing more of Taimi (and potentially the new version of the golem) in Season 3 and find out what information she’s discovered during her stay in Rata Novus. Hopefully the writers will use this opportunity to give us at least off-hand remarks to how the Rata Novans discovered that the dragons had unique weaknesses to soften the blows the narrative took in HoT prime.

I for one am glad that Anet included Sya in the game and made it in such a manner that has her fit into the lore without feeling superfluous or bringing the topic “in your face”. It was nice following Symon’s journey from previous releases into becoming Sya and how it all tied into the overarching plotline with war in Tyria and its effect on her and other Tyrians.

Whether that means we ever get a transgender character in our close circle of friends seems unlikely since we haven’t even had a black character in the main recurring cast yet; the closest we have of black characters who have stuck around longer than a mission or two has been Ela Makkay who may be E for various lore reasons and hints we’ve received throughout the game (and if so, that will elevate her importance higher from what it’s been in the story so far), but at least we have Marjory with her Canthan ancestry instead of having only whites in the reformed Destiny’s Edge. It would’ve been interesting if Kasmeer had been black or at least a darker skinned Krytan (like the ones seen in GW1) instead of white since ultimately her skin colour didn’t play a part in the story and the devs could’ve diversified the cast a bit from the usual Caucasian fare with such a subtle addition without calling attention to her skin colour, but maybe their decision was dictated by metrics or they just didn’t think of such a possibility of inclusion. Even Anet’s inclusion of mostly women in the recurring cast (which I find a nice take on mostly male-focused fantasy games) is less about diversity and more about IRL limitations of recurring male voice actor availability because originally both Marjory and Ellen Kiel were intended to be men.

As unfortunate as it is, the topic of gender and what it’s perceived to be is still controversial among many people around the world, so Anet likely won’t draw that much focus on any transgendered character to avoid potential controversy among players. Granted, they already have tackled gay stuff with sylvari and our recent female couple, but all of such moments were met with quite vocal backlash on the forums and elsewhere (from the comments I’ve read back in the day), which might discourage the writers from trying such a tactic again. I’d love to be proven wrong but only time will tell how the writers will approach the matter.

All that ultimately matters, however, is how the characters in question are written into the story as the story shouldn’t need to delve deep into gender or sexual orientation issues if Tyria is as free-spirited regarding such as it is hinted to be just like we’re not drawing attention to straight people’s orientations in Tyria. So if, say, the Squad Leader from the raids ends up playing a big role in a raid wing and off-handedly mentions having a loved one of the same sex waiting back home without making the sexual orientation some grand announcement, that’s fine as it’s not hitting you in the head with a hammer about it but still allows some diversity in Tyria while keeping the character awesome all at the same time.

Also, a couple of points I’d like to comment on:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I think the hatred comes from the fact that Trahearne took credit for all of our hard work.

That’s actually not the case as the lore community has corrected people about it time and time again. In the Personal Story Trahearne only ever takes credit from us for one thing and one thing only: the naming of Fort Trinity, which I suspect was a lore oversight from the writers because they needed to cram all the different race/order storylines into a single, Orr-focused storyline for the finale and try to have it all make sense no matter which storylines you took (see, for example, how Almorra is totally open to talks with Order representatives in the finale of the Vigil storyline only for her to change her attitude in the very next mission where all the Order leaders are seen bickering, which is rather immersion-breaking, IMHO).

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Honestly, what I dont like is seeing “real” world issues being put into a virtual reality. It kind of eliminates the point of escapism, fantasy is an escape from reality, its designed to avoid these things in the first place. People dont play a fantasy game to see their specific gender/disability/trope being covered, they play it for the very reason that they escape the boundries of any of these things being mentioned or judged, because in the end, a virtual, fantasy world, should in no way or form, represent, the real one.

The thing is, though, that even “escapist fantasy”, no matter how crudely or well written, still tends to involve elements from the real world in some way because the art, writing, voice acting etc. is used to convey that sort of verisimilitude for various reasons, whether it happens accidentally or is in the devs’ interest (e.g. using Roman and Mongol stuff for charr culture, giving specific accents for specific races to convey a certain feel for them derived from our world, see e.g. largos having a Russian accent which makes them sound exotic to the English speaking audience; I’d be really interested in hearing how the localized versions for other languages have tackled the unique accents different GW2 races have and if they follow the English pattern of conveying “otherness” via their own stereotypes).

The world of Tyria is full of symbolism, metaphors and downright references to IRL history and its problematic and celebratory aspects. Take note of, for example, the female charr and their history in the present day and how their rebellion and rise to respect came about from troubled beginnings under the hegemony of the chauvinistic Flame Legion. Heck, there’s even dialogue in the game today which references breeding camps for female charr held in Flame territory (which paints Flame Legion as bad guys we shouldn’t feel guilty taking down), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg regarding topics which the game discusses (some more subtly than others) and which are based on historical stuff from our world.

Whether you look at Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Carl Barks’s Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics, the Secret of NIMH (whether the novel or the animated film version) or Richard Adams’s Watership Down among countless other examples, you see each and every one of them having rather subtle references to their authors’ experiences and views of world, regarding politics, gender issues etc.

Simply put, there’s no escaping the real world in “escapist” stuff because as long as people keep creating art, no matter how fluffy said art might be on the outside, that art always reflects the society it’s been created in and the makers’/audience’s values in one way or another, which is what makes fields of study such as film theory, art and comics studies, and comparative literature so fascinating. Games, especially ones created today when the makers have more advanced tools at their disposal and more complex stories to tell and depict via gameplay/art/writing/etc (see e.g. the depiction of PSTD and war crimes in Spec Ops: The Line which is one of the more discussed games out there), are no different. I for one am glad Anet is tackling various issues in their game and how most of the time they’ve done so in a subtle enough manner that integrates such issues into the world and its lore without making them look anvilicious,..at least most of the time.

BrotherBelial.3094:

You know what? There are no transhumans! I demand representation! We need a NPC that has technology implanted in them to make them more than what they where born to be! I want my Cyborg Charr!

It’s easily solved as we already have the tools for that. Grab a transformation tonic that turns you into an Exalted, and you can RP a transcended human/charr etc. After all, in lore the Exalted went through the Forgotten’s trials and a ritual to leave behind their human bodies in order to become the magical, nigh-immortal beings we now know them as. Which makes me have an inkling of which GW1 character their Luminate originally was before being appointed as the leader of the Exalted, but that’s a lore discussion for another day…

(cont’d)

eNeRgOo.5463:

After killing Scarlet you get cutscene and trailer of what she managed to do, that’s first. In Dry Top story you get to know why she went mad – She got into Ley-Line machine, got to know how world works and either ended as Mordremoth’s Intelligent marionette, which is unlikely, because dragon was asleep then and she just woke him up.

We actually know for a fact, as stated in out of game lore (interviews, short story), game and provided via clues during Season 1, that Scarlet was being influenced by Mordremoth. The only thing that remains somewhat unclear, due to conflicting sources (mainly some of the diaries/holo recordings), is whether Mordy had already targeted her before she entered Omadd’s machine which then opened her mind to his influence fully, or if the first contact actually happened in the machine. A few people on lore forums like Konig have tried to piece all the information together, but it hasn’t exactly been easy or consistent because there are a few inconsistencies here and there regarding the messy timeline of events in Scarlet’s life.

One of the moments in S1 when we had definite proof of Mordremoth’s involvement with Scarlet (although we only know it now thanks to knowledge provided by S2 and HoT) was during the Tower of Nightmares release where the titular track for the Tower contained both Scarlet’s and Mordremoth’s music themes while another hint was the physically altered state of the Toxic Alliance. With new knowledge we’ve gained from HoT regarding Blighting Trees as well as the hints we learned in Tower of Nightmares story, it appears that the Tower may have been a juvenile sister of Malyck’s Tree and the Pale Tree, twisted and grown by the Toxic Alliance to become “evil”, which would explain its sinister look. This would then mean that the Toxic Hybrid, which devs claimed was an altered krait in an old lore interview, may have instead been a Trahearne of his Tree, a kind of attempt at creating a Mordrem from a slain krait’s genetic template (similar to how the production of Mordrem, Mordrem Guard Commanders and the Logan/Zojja Mordrem clones operate in Magus Falls maps); the hybrid is even born from a pod which somewhat resembles Mordrem birthing pods in looks.

One thing we can say about this, however, is that Scarlet may have been switching between “obey Mordremoth” and “resist Mordremoth by devising a plan to set him and Pale Tree on a collision course” phases until she finally succumbed to the dragon’s siren song by the time of the Twisted Marionette release when her voice turned far more sinister and which devs stated at the time was meant to be “significant”. We also know from the previous S1 ending datamined by that_shaman and others that in the now scrapped S1 finale Scarlet was going to namedrop Mordremoth before dying while she made her “Soon Tyria will bow to a new master” speech, which also helps explain our characters suddenly knowing Mordy’s name in S2 (although this was later “retconned” into our character having learned this information from the Priory off screen).

Sindex.9520:

I think the whole Malyck thing is going to happen, but not in the way you hope it will turn out. If they follow the pattern they have been doing lately then it might turn out that we already have unknowingly came across that “other pale tree” during HoT. Malyck will either be found dead. Or barley alive enough to tell you what happened. The writers then try to convey that your pale tree is unique now as it’s the only one left standing.

I find this outcome unlikely because devs did point out on Reddit that Malyck’s story was scrapped in early development, which means that none of the locations we’ve visited in Magus Falls could’ve had his Tree even though some players speculated Morwood Wilds in Auric Basin to have been a potential location for his Grove. We also know that there are multiple Tree seeds out there as with the information we now have, there’s a very likely chance that both the Tower of Nightmares and the Blighting Trees were of the same species as the Pale Tree. What this means for the seeds in the cave Ronan found remains unknown, though, and I would honestly be surprised if we ever got to meet another good or neutral Pale Tree out there in the world aside from Malyck’s Tree, so the rest of the seeds may just as well become a dropped plot point for now.

eNeRgOo.5463:

Maps in Maguuma are not even fully showed out. I once broke out of Dragon Stand, because I glide into wrong cave and jumped couple stones too much and there was area that for me it looked like it’s waiting for its grand opening and maybe there… there’s a little hope…

Back during the expansion’s launch, areas known as Deserted Coast and Thorn Hollow were listed in the Dragon’s Stand Explorer achievement, and a dev later posted on Reddit about them. My guess is that during S3 both of those areas will be opened up in Dragon’s Stand and we get to explore them.

What’s interesting to me about these locations is whether they might be related to Malyck’s story. After all, we learned this piece of interesting information during the mission A Different Dream in Amaranda’s vision about Malyck:

Amaranda the Lonesome: A distant shore—and darkness. A root, a cave…you. You are the seed. What Ronan knew and never told still lingers in the Dream.

Could this be the distant shore Amaranda was talking about by any chance, with ‘darkness’ being a reference to Mordremoth’s presence in the area? Granted, it doesn’t exactly match the areas the river that delivered Malyck’s pod to Caledon Forest ran through, but who knows what secrets Thorn Hollow and Deserted Coast might have in store for us. Just imagine if we discovered the shore (on Deserted Coast) and the cave (in Thorn Hollow) where Ronan had found the seeds in and that Mordremoth had originally gone asleep near it during the last dragonrise?

Ehecatl.9172:

4th. Status of the Nightmare Court now that Faolain is dead and they apparently aided us in bringing down Modremoth. (There was a SINGLE Nightmare Courtier at the final battle in Dragon’s Stand. We need more of an explanation for what happened. Are the Nightmare Court allies now?)

Since Faolain’s departure from Twilight Arbor, Nightmare Court appears to have pretty much split into multiple splinter factions, each with their own leader and different ideologies. We saw the competing Count and Countesses in TA explorable, the Toxic Baron and Baroness during Tower of Nightmares release, and now Duchess Chrysanthea in Dragon’s Stand who appears to have outranked them all in the original Court based on her title.

One story beat HoT missed was not explaining what Faolain had been doing during those 2-3 years she’d been in exile after the PC drove her out of TA and how/why she ended up in Verdant Brink to be captured to begin with. Had she been spying on Caithe from the shadows, waiting for her opportunity? Did she even care what the rest of the Court was doing in the meantime? She certainly didn’t regain control over the Court or otherwise we’d never have seen the rise of the splinter factions because she would’ve squashed them for trying to take her place as head honcho. I hope that we’ll either get some in-game reference to Faolain’s story during those “missing” years or a lore Q&A like the Dolyak Express of old to get an answer.

As far as Chrysanthea goes, I’d say she simply represents one notable splinter faction but not the Court as a whole unless Anet decides to go with the idea that since Season 1, Chrysanthea picked up the pieces and united the Court again under her leadership (with the exception of the Toxic Courtiers who were beyond saving and who are still unaccounted for after they fled in the aftermath of the Battle for Lion’s Arch).

Thanks for opening this up for discussion. Malyck was indeed one of the plot lines I was hoping Anet to explore in HoT after all the cool foreshadowing of various plot lines in Maclaine Diemer and Lena Chappelle’s music. It would’ve been interesting if the theme that became known as “Rata Novus” would’ve played in Malyck’s Grove as I originally suspected due to its stylistic similarities with Jeremy Soule’s music for our beloved Grove, but if Diemer was capable of creating something so beautiful for a fallen asura city, I can’t wait to hear what musical goodness he and Chappelle will cook up for the other Grove should we ever get to explore it and/or learn its fate.

The fact that Malyck was intent on returning with an army to help us in our struggle against the Nightmare Court and dragons was about as big a plot hook as you could get. There’s no way the writers won’t resolve that plot thread at some point, even if it only means a throwaway line like “the Mordrem found another Grove in the jungle and burned it to the ground” although I believe Malyck’s involvement will be greater than that for various reasons.

Anet even made other players than those who had chosen that specific sylvari story path to realize Malyck’s importance when the Nightmare Harbinger book during Season 2’s “Hidden Arcana” mission went into detail about that particular plot and its ramifications. Considering that many of the books in that story instance ended up playing a role in later S2, HoT and raid developments (e.g. the channeled revenant legends were foreshadowed in the books’ subject matters if you take a closer look at them), it would be odd for the writers to bring up Malyck in one random book and leave it at that, especially because we now know from dev comments on Reddit that Malyck was originally planned to be included in HoT content before his and the Nightmare Court’s plot stuff was cut for time and pacing reasons.

The reason why Malyck’s story is important to sylvari lore as a whole is because it would answer a lot of questions about the origins of the Pale Trees and the reasons for sylvari’s immunity to dragon corruption as well as the nature of Dream and Nightmare. Why do the Pale Tree and her sylvari have connection to the Dream and Nightmare while Malyck (and presumably his people and Tree) don’t? Was Pale Tree sylvari’s immunity to dragon corruption the combination of a Forgotten purification ritual, their connection to the Dream, and the moral tenets provided by Ventari, or is there something else to this mystery? Did the Forgotten or someone else hide the seeds of the Trees in the cave where Ronan found them in? How are the Dream and Nightmare tied to the All, why are they both so opposed to the Elder Dragons albeit approaching the problem differently? Has Nightmare taken a darker influence from Mordremoth’s presence in the Dream (which would explain the radical dragon minion kind of mental altering Nightmare Courtiers undergo, as seen in the Personal Story and Twilight Arbor, while still choosing to defy the jungle dragon)? What influenced the look of Malyck (and presumably his people if they look like him with those weird antennae if they didn’t just use human corpses (potentially) as genetic templates?

The above are just some of the questions in need of answering, and we’ve only received the barest of hints to some of those so far. The reason we’re likely not seeing Malyck’s story unfold yet, however, is because once Anet decides to tackle that particular plot, they know they’ll also have to figure out how to tackle the Dream/Nightmare’s connection to certain sylvari and why Malyck’s Tree ended up wherever it did to bloom. This all ties into the overarching plot of the All and the dragons as well as Glint’s child.

Not only that, but the Nightmare Court’s (or its splinter factions’) reaction to the discovery of Malyck’s Tree would likewise have to be addressed. Thanks to the inclusion of Duchess Chrysanthea (who appears out of nowhere in Dragon’s Stand, has a unique model and Taimi’s voice actress, which implies a larger role in the future) and the Toxic Court being out there and Nightmare Tower remnants taken by the Consortium still being a thing, who knows what drama we’ll still witness from the Court before all is said and done.

At this point I don’t mind even if Anet rushed through the Court and Malyck story. Like some people have said over on Reddit, it’s better to deliver an average story and have some closure rather than postponing said story in an effort to improve it (which could take years if ever at all at this pace if said plot wasn’t just outright dropped, never to be resolved).

With that said, I’ve seen a few things in this thread I’d like to comment on:

eNeRgOo.5463:

Even Mordremoth wasn’t a dragon but big fat lizard hippie pokemon.

That “big fat lizard” we fight in the Dream is not really Mordremoth’s physical form but more of a mental avatar of his mind that he uses to get up close and personal with us.

The “true” Mordremoth is actually the shadowy visage we see when we enter the Dream in the cutscene and which we also see floating in the background during the final battle with the Mind’s avatar in the “arena”. That visage, along with several other clues from both “Hearts and Minds” story mission and Dragon’s Stand dialogues prove that the Mouth of Mordremoth is actually Mordremoth’s physical form. The Mouth may not look like a traditional western dragon, but it does share more than a few features with Eastern dragons if you look up depictions of, say, Chinese dragons.

And the new Tree! Is it going to be Pale? Is it going to be male?

Based on the biology of certain IRL trees, it would make more sense for the avatar of Malyck’s Tree (if it has a tangible one) to be “female”. It would also add to the symbolic view of the Trees being nurturing mothers to their children while Mordremoth was more of the aggressive father figure. Might be a stereotypic view, but tropes aren’t bad.

Gerrand.3085:

The mordrem Canach talks to seems to suggest that mordrem behave in a mordrem manner because they actively being compelled by the jungle dragon. So what of the mordrem now without the jungle dragon?

This is one of the plots I hope the writers will tackle at some point. That moment in “Buried Insight” proved that the Mordrem Guard weren’t corrupted per se; they remained aware of their horrific actions but were unable to stop themselves because the dragon’s call was simply too strong for their minds to resist for long. Basically Mordremoth cheated and found a way to bypass the sylvari’s immunity to dragon corruption by hacking their connection to the Dream/Nightmare and using Wyld/Dark Hunts to impose his will on them and making them believe those were their own thoughts, basically.

With Mordremoth now gone, what will happen to the Mordrem Guard, indeed? I’d imagine that most would return to normal, horrified at what they’ve done. A future plot (if they continue the sylvari racism storyline) could involve a mob hunting for these “traitors” if they ever showed their face in Tyria again, and the sylvari having to decide whether to grant asylum for their fallen brothers and sisters or joining the pitchfork crowd. This would also be a good time to bring Malyck in to provide these redeemed Mordrem Guards a safe haven although I find this unlikely to happen when Anet has so many other plots they’re going to handle in Season 3.

In Zhaitan’s case his remaining champions like Tequatl began taking over after his death and continuing their dragon master’s mission. Does this mean that the remaining undefeated Mordrem Guard champions like Cellona in Auric Basin would not return to “normal” and instead decide to continue Mordremoth’s mission, especially if the same magical power boost from Mordy’s death that affected Glint’s child and some of the raid bosses could’ve also affected these champions as well and make them more dangerous than ever? Glint’s child shouldn’t be the only pretender to Mordy’s throne, so he or she should have some competition from Mordy’s most dangerous champions if Anet play their cards right with this storyline. I would imagine at least some Mordrem Guards to have gone crazy and continue terrorizing people, refusing redemption at this point now that they’ve seen the intended “destiny” of the sylvari race as the dragon’s servants.

Gerrand.3085:

@eNeRgOo: Regardless of how stronk Malyck was, most Sylvari were shielded from the dragon by the dream (which Malyck wasn’t connected to). At most I’d have expected a fairly apologetic mordrem trying to kill you if you encountered him during the story arc.

Ironically it appears that all the affected sylvari who became Mordrem Guard in HoT were actually Dreamers and Nightmare Courtiers because Mordy used, as I said above, a loophole in his connection to the Dream/Nightmare to implant his own “version” of Wyld/Dark Hunt on them to manipulate them to work for him. This likely wouldn’t have worked for the Soundless as easily who actively block their connection to the Dream via meditation. Malyck’s people lack to the Dream but there’s reason to believe that there may be other forces at work for the sylvari’s dragon corruption immunity than just the Dream (namely, a potential Forgotten purification ritual on the Pale Tree seeds in the cave although we won’t know for sure until we discover Malyck’s Tree and learn its history).

Sindex.9520:

This even started when they completely murdered the founder of the nightmare court within the story mode of Twilight Arbor. Both Cadeyrn and Faolain had cheap deaths. They deserved better.

I agree. I was bummed by what happened to those two, especially Faolain who could’ve played a very interesting role in the HoT story as an “enemy mine” situation where we’re forced to work with her to track down Caithe as she would’ve known how Caithe thinks better than anyone else. I can only imagine how our discovery of Malyck’s Grove could’ve had an impact on Faolain too and how Malyck wanting her dead and us trying to convince him that this time around we need Nightmare Court’s help to win the war against Mordy could’ve led to a lot of nice drama for our characters, especially if they kept the fact that Faolain helped cause Eir’s death, which would’ve wanted Braham to kill her and us forcing to keep our norn friend in line for the “greater good”.

In Anet’s defense about Cadeyrn, though, the Season 2 flashbacks helped establish (or retcon, depending on how one looks at things) that Cadeyrn ultimately wasn’t quite as important to the Court as we were initially led to believe, so his unfortunate end at Twilight Arbor at least was “justified” in a roundabout way. He got Faolain’s support for the ideas he expressed in their secret meetings as we learn in “The Newly Awakened” story instance, and it appears that Faolain used him as a patsy to an extent, which also explains why Cadeyrn was so willing to hand over the reins to Faolain after Faolain joined the Court full-time.

Sindex.9520:

As for Caithe and the egg. I knew the writers were writing themselves into a corner for that one. That made little to no sense whatsoever. It still doesn’t after playing through HoT. Why? Well because it was Caithe’s “New Wild Hunt” that even the Pale Tree had no clue about it. Like I said shoddy writing. We don’t tell Arena Net to make this stuff up. They do it all by themselves.

Had Caithe’s new “Wyld Hunt” about the egg, which the Pale Tree never acknowledged, been Mordremoth’s manipulations all along, it would’ve made the perfect sense to me. As we know from the Mordrem Guard who were never corrupted but manipulated via their connection to Wyld/Dark Hunts, Mordremoth was pretty good at implanting his thoughts into his victims and in Caithe’s case he could’ve used a more subtle tactic to get the egg closer to him instead of letting it fall into the hands of the Pact Commander. Caithe would believe these thoughts to be hers and that it was her new mission from the Dream, unaware of the ugly truth and Mordremoth using her as a pawn. This would help explain why she didn’t ask for help from the Commander, especially if said Commander was a sylvari who she shared the previous Wyld Hunt with, and give us some context for her behaviour during Seasons 1 and 2 which had nearly negated her character development from the dungeon story modes she had been involved in. Maybe Anet will address this issue and play on Caithe’s guilt for withholding the truth from Trahearne which led to the sylvari mass betrayal and the fleet crash once Season 3 rolls in, but we’ll see.

That interview was short but sweet and did address some interesting topics. Anatoli, Regina and Stephane had already revealed that this interview was coming in an earlier twitch stream chat, so it’s nice that we finally got to read the translation from the French source and hear from Ree again.

It’s good to hear that the Pact won’t be swept aside that easily narratively speaking as that would be selling that fighting force short. Hopefully LW Season 3 or beyond explore the aftermath of events of HoT, the PC’s role in the Pact hierarchy as well as the problems of funding, racism, rebuilding etc. considering everything that happened to the Pact in the jungle.

I do like how Ree’s answer subtly equates Tequatl’s “evolution” post Zhaitan death to the evolution of Slothasor in Salvation Pass post HoT storyline as far as haywire magic goes as both beings have gone through a transformation of sorts albeit in Slothasor’s case it’s been a lot more disturbing. It’s interesting that magic, when released, appears to mutate either already magically powerful beings or the more mundane creatures who happen to be near great places of power. This allows for potential future subplots where we’ll face not only pretenders to the throne of a slain Elder Dragon (e.g. if Glint’s baby has to face competitors from the most powerful of Mordremoth’s surviving champions who should’ve also received as big a magical power boost from what happened at the end of HoT story) but also other beings (not necessarily related to Elder Dragons or their minions at all) who have been affected by magic being released into the world in a metaphorical tidal wave. Even the players have had their share of this development as the arrival of elite specializations shows how the released magic and communing with/channeling places of power has made our professions more powerful.

I’m glad to see the tengu issue being brought up; although it appears that the adorable avians are now a lot more open minded to wider interaction with the other races, they still have a few hurdles to go through before the higher-ranked tengu will become more open to forming deeper alliances. This will likely become an ongoing subplot in the background similar to Evon Gnashblade’s and the Consortium’s shenanigans with the Captain’s Council in LA among other things.

Most of the HoT soundtrack was indeed recorded by a live orchestra. The orchestrations were mainly done by Stan LePard while the orchestras that were used had ties to the Dynamedion company which has been behind the orchestral soundtrack of German computer games (Anno and Spellforce series etc.) among others.

However, some tracks on the OST mix live instruments and synth/sampled instruments/voices (e.g. the “Mouth of Mordremoth” track by Maclaine Diemer has live percussion bits but the strings and brass sound very sampled to me, and the “Mordremoth” track by Lena Chappelle appears to be mostly if not entirely sampled as the instruments and the Bulgarian women type choir lack the “organic” feel of live performers).

The Forsaken Thicket boss tracks we hear in the raid wings (which don’t show up on the OST) appear to be sampled, and this also goes for the recycled tracks we hear in game which were taken from Living World season 1 which was entirely sampled (e.g. “Tower of Nightmares” which we hear in Dragon’s Stand and the “Twisted Marionette” battle tracks which show up in a couple of bigger HoT boss fights in the open world).

Actually, general question: How are we able to resist the dragon?

It’s because we have very strong willpower. As Canach states during story, only weak-willed sylvari succumb to Mordremoth while the strong ones still struggle to resist the dragon’s siren song.

HOWEVER, as we learn in the later story missions in Tangled Depths and Dragon’s Stand (if you play a sylvari), Mordremoth does eventually manage to crack even strong sylvari’s mental defenses as seen with Caithe and Canach who nearly succumbed to the power of the Blighted opponents in the Dream, Trahearne whom Mordy takes over as a last ditch effort by bruteforcing itself into his mind, and last but not least, the sylvari PC.

There are three instances in HoT story where the sylvari PC really feels Mordy’s power: “Roots of Terror” where the PC gets dazed briefly before having to choose from one of the tree paths while assuring Braham that he or she is okay; “Bitter Harvest” where the PC gets left behind and temporarily sees a Mordrem Guard as an ally and is greeted as a friend by said guard until the PC overcomes the effect and fights off the guard; and finally in “Hearts and Minds” when the PC gets the closest to succumbing to Mordy’s siren song when facing the avatar of Mordremoth’s Mind in the very heart of the dragon’s power. In fact, despite being so strong willed, the PC would’ve definitely succumbed then and there if his or her sylvari allies (Caithe or Canach) hadn’t helped the PC fight off the dragon’s influence to repay the favour of the PC helping them face their Blighted manifestations of their subconscious fears earlier.

Where did the Chak come from? How did they get so numerous?

They came from underground and were eventually lured to the asura, but much of them and their origin is left mysterious, so there’s not much we can say about them at the moment except what little snippets of info we learn in Rata Novus.

Is it possible to reverse Mordremization? One guy seemed to be coming back to his mind.

Yes, it is possible. The thing is that the Mordrem Guard aren’t “fully” corrupted at all unlike your typical dragon minions; this is because the Grove sylvari are still protected by their connection to the Dream via the Pale Tree and because they are the offspring of what appears to be a purified dragon champion, so the dragon can’t simply recorrupt them again as it’s been implied in lore that a purified dragon minion can’t be recorrupted again (at least by the dragon that originally corrupted them; see Kralkatorrik vs. Glint and Kralky choosing to kill her instead of trying to recorrupt her).

However, Mordy is the dragon of plants and mind and found a loophole in this defense. While it couldn’t corrupt the sylvari directly, it could abuse their connection to the Dream/Nightmare’s Wyld/Dark Hunt imperatives and implanted its thoughts into the sylvari’s minds, making the sylvari genuinely believe that it’s totally okay switching over to the dragon and embracing their true heritage. Essentially the affected sylvari think these are their own thoughts while they’re actually Mordy’s imperatives for them to serve it. It’s possibly Mordy never could’ve pulled this off if the Pale Tree had been at full health protecting her children, but the Shadow of the Dragon’s attack on the Grove left her just weak enough for Mordy to begin slipping through the cracks of the defense. Hence we had Aerin’s initially cryptic note “…leader will die. The rest will fall in line” introduced in Episode 1 of Season 2, which now makes full sense given what we’ve learned of Mordy’s sinister master plan.

The sylvari who succumbed to Mordy’s siren song underwent an intense physical transformation. We know from lore that sylvari who express heightened emotions (e.g. a traumatic experience) can change drastically in appearance: that’s why we see Caithe adopting Wynne’s hairstyle out of guilt and as a way to remind herself of the burden she now has after Wynne’s death at her hands, and why Canach turned from a handsome sylvari into the more rough, barky and world-weary look he currently has because of the intense Consortium manhunt for him after the karka invasion fiasco at Southsun when the Consortium placed the blame on him and wanted to eliminate him as a witness.

With Mordy now gone and its call having ended, many if not all Mordrem Guard should now return to their senses unless there’s some backdoor thing preventing them from doing so.

What’s up with Taimi? Her mentor Zojja is captured, why doesn’t she mention this at all? Does Taimi just not care or…?

This drew my attention as well, but we’ve got to remember she’s a teen who geeks out very easily and was more into discovering new stuff in Magus Falls and trying to find a way to stop the dragons. I would’ve expected some reference to Zojja from her, but this was likely one of the characterization moments scrapped from the story to keep it tight and focused.

What is even more curious to me, however, is why Zojja keeps specifically mentioning Taimi more than once after being released and not even asking anything about Eir. Perhaps this was the writers’ effort in making us sympathize with Zojja by showing that she’s really come to care for Taimi (as we gradually learned over the course of S1 and especially S2).

Why do we HAVE to go to Rata Novus? {this one is more of a gripe- if I think about it, I see that there were no Novans sighted for at least a few decades, if not much longer, according to that one Exalted where the ley line map is. No Novans came to shoot at me or talk to me either, despite hundreds on thousands of trespassers in the area and a dragon at the doorstep.}

We go there initially, believing that we might find survivors who would ally with us. By the time we speak with Tizlak who reveals what the nuhoch know about the place, we learn that the asura there are long gone (some of them escaped through the asura gates, others were left behind to be killed by the invading chak and taken to chak nests to feed the brood as we see asura bones in certain chak hives).

By then our focus shifts from meeting new allies to discovering if these asura left any useful info on dragons behind. We do find information except that info turned out to be mostly useless (all dragons have a specific weakness unique to each one of them, but not what these weaknesses are) although the PC encourages others by saying that now they have hope because they weren’t sure before if Mordy could be defeated and now they just need to figure out what its specific weakness is.

The Rata Novus excursion basically served the plot by foreshadowing the somewhat sudden moment in “Hearts and Minds” where the PC miraculously declares that Mordremoth can be defeated in its domain of the mind, hence us travelling to the Dream to confront the avatar of the mind.

Yes, that whole plot thread could’ve been established and handled better, but it appears it was trimmed down for length like so many plot elements in HoT were as Anet wanted to streamline the story to keep it focused and tight for the expansion.

If Trahearne did in fact die, what the heck ANet, why no acknowledgement?

From what we can gather, that was indeed the real Trahearne. Had he been a mordrem clone, I doubt he would’ve been so kind with us and let us into Mordy’s domain since the dragon wasn’t happy about the idea. None of the mordrem clones we’ve seen (except the three reborn Mordrem Guard Commanders) have ever shown much sentience to begin with except being mostly mindless thralls to their dragon master. Had Trahearne been a clone, he would’ve been Mordy’s true masterpiece, way beyond even the already impressive Logan/Zojja clones.

Then again, one could argue that Mordy’s master plan was in fact to lure the PC into its domain and corrupt him/her there, but the dragon didn’t count on our group’s unity, friendship and resolve being so great that we overcame the fear it tried to instill on us.

Also, the vision the egg showed us was a potential bad future that would come to pass unless we stopped Mordy. That’s what prompts us to leave the egg which we’d been after and focus on stopping Mordy 100% from then on. Thankfully we managed to stop the clone production in time by slaying the few Logan/Zojja clones that had already been born in their weakened state and removed both heroes from Mordy’s touch in the process as well as slew Trahearne before Mordy could fully reincarnate in him and unleash Trahearne clones.

How is the PC not affected either physically or mentally by this? The PC thinks they just offed someone that they’ve been working with/might have been friends with for an extended period.

This left me scratching my head. Maybe Anet decided that since such a vocal minority hated Trahearne’s guts, they didn’t want to spend any time mourning this apparently hated character? Or maybe, due to the cliffhanger ending of HoT, they intend to save the in memoriam scene for Trahearne and/or Eir at the beginning of S3. I’d really want to see the latter happen to give us some closure as well as say a farewell to two great heroes, but we’ll see what they’ve planned for the beginning of the next season.

Also, that ley energy blast had to have been at least 3-5 hubs’ worth. How the heck are we not dead? We basically got nuked with Tyrian World magic! And never mind the magic, the blast was big enough to be seen from the upper atmosphere and strong enough to blast us right out of the instance. How aren’t we injured from shrapnel or something?

It’s magic; don’t question it.

On a more serious note, it’s unclear if blasting us out of the instance is supposed to be canon or just a game mechanic with no lore tied to it as we know the devs will sometimes add stuff with little lore basis (see Gorseval’s look which came to be because of the rule of cool more than anything else). However, we find Rytlock and company unharmed above after “Hearts and Minds” so one canon way of looking at it is that if the Pact force was pushed back by the explosion, we survived said explosion because of being deep in the Heart of Thorns tree which the explosion didn’t affect as much.

Egg said there were clones. I don’t think we saw all of them. Where are they? Do we ever see them again?

From my understanding those were all the clones Mordy could create after getting hold of the captives; if there were more, why wouldn’t the rest have come to attack us as well? The dragon simply didn’t have enough time to mass-produce them considering how Logan, Zojja and Trahearne were still on their way to Mordy at least during early stages of HoT story.

Actually is Mordy even out of the picture? How do we know he’s not lurking in a plant or a Mordrem somewhere, severely weakened but still there?

Seems unlikely to me as Colin’s blog post (which mentioned the story setup for Season 3) mentioned that two Elder Dragons are dead and the other Elder Dragons will react in some way to their brethrens’ fall. Unless this is supposed to be misdirection and Mordy is secretly alive, but I highly doubt it. If Mordy did survive, it would diminish what we accomplished in Magus Falls and the Dream, and I don’t think Anet would go in that direction, especially because they didn’t revisit the Zhaitan plot and let that dragon perish too.

Nightmare Court: In the meta event, we fight alongside them. What exactly is their deal now? Do we get more definite development from them?

It was stated by Matthew Medina and Bobby Stein on Reddit that they did initially have plans for Nightmare Court for the expansion (as also hinted by Leah Hoyer in the promo pieces) but they had to reorganize the story later on, which meant leaving certain less important subplots on the cutting room floor to fit the narrower, more straightforward story scope of the expansion (and likely because they had rush the release out and wouldn’t have had time to implement all this story in time, but this is just my speculation).

However, the fact that Duchess Chrysanthea did show up as the lone Nightmare Courtier in Dragon’s Stand with Taimi’s voice actress and a unique model and with no explanation whatsoever (likely a remnant of the former plot before it was cut), I’d be very surprised if we don’t see her (and likely the splinter faction of NC she leads) in the story at some point again, whether that means Season 3 or some future season/expansion.

Major Question: What exactly is the Dream? It was said Mordy could use Wyld Hunts as an access point, how does that work exactly?

All we know about the Dream has been pretty much mentioned in the sylvari personal story and via some specific sylvari open world NPCs as well as Ogden in Season 2 (all of which are detailed on the wiki). We know that aside from Dreamer and Nightmare sylvari, other entities like Mordremoth and the White Stag are also somehow connected to the Dream. Malyck’s people, for whatever reason, don’t appear to have a connection to the Dream via their Tree.

The Dream and Nightmare appear to have some sort of modus operandi as the Wyld and Dark Hunts which the Dream/Nightmare gives imperatives to Dreamers and Nightmare Courtiers are both opposed to the Elder Dragons but achieve those goals in different ways (the Nightmare definitely being more ruthless about it than the more benevolent Dream). Nightmare Courtiers believe that by doing horrific enough things in the world and subjecting sylvari to it will allow Nightmare to grow stronger than the Dream and thus tip the scale in its favour; whether this is actually true or not remains unknown, but it would fit into the dualistic, Celtic mythology-inspired view of Light and Darkness being both needed forces in the world and being in constant flux.

Mordremoth basically used the sylvari’s Wyld and Dark Hunts as a means to bypass the Dream/Nightmare’s protection and implanted its own thoughts in the form of subtle hunts into the minds of sylvari, making that hunt about serving the dragon by any means necessary. We hear some hints of how this works via Faolain-beast’s and the Mordrem Guard’s dialogue in the story and in some of the dynamic events.

Beyond that, the Dream and Nightmare still largely remain a mystery but they do appear to be connected to the All (Antikytheria) in some way if Scarlet’s vision of the Pale Tree is anything to go by. Hopefully the writers will expand on this plot as it’s one of the more intriguing plot threads that could receive lots of fascinating development.

Cobalt Raven.3986:

Caithe knew what Trahearne was up to. She also said that “soon the world will know” regarding to the origin of Sylvari. Why didn’t she tell Trahearne? Why did she just stay silent and let scores of Sylvari turn or die?

That’s an issue that will hopefully get addressed in a future storyline, assuming that the writers deem it important enough to address. But basically I’d imagine Caithe was being the ever secretive Caithe, not thinking too far ahead and instead not wanting to spread panic among the Pact by revealing something that could threaten the races’ campaign against the Elder Dragons. If she deemed that the PC didn’t initially have to know her reasons for stealing the egg (even after everything the PC had done for her in the dungeon stories, especially if your PC was a sylvari with whom she shared the initial Wyld Hunt), then she must’ve viewed Trahearne the same way: as someone not needing to know the specifics. It would be a shame if this remains unaddressed, especially because Caithe’s choice to keep the info led to the fall of many sylvari.

What’s far more interesting to me is why the Pale Tree never felt like informing Trahearne of the threat Mordremoth posed. The Trahearne post-Orr is a much stronger and confident individual than the one we see in the flashbacks and in the early Personal Story, so he should’ve been deemed stable enough to handle the truth. As the first of the Firstborn he should’ve been told about Mordremoth and its sylvari connection ASAP so he’d be aware of the risk of bringing sylvari to Magus Falls while the dragon was stirring. However, it’s possible that the Pale Tree actually intended to let Trahearne know about it in private after the summit but the Shadow of the Dragon’s attack prevented that from happening.

Why did Trahearne fly the entire fleet into the jungle without sending scouts to explore first? If someone says “to stop the dragon before it fully awakens”- how does it count as being half awake when it’s been around for at least 2 years, and has extended its reach as far as the Iron Marches? (This is also partially a gripe, as comparing Trahearne’s behavior during vanilla PS to this- he should not be this careless.)

Two reasons:

1) Trahearne realized the threat Mordremoth posed and wanted to end its threat quickly before the dragon would actually rise and become stronger. That meant they were already racing against the clock so scouting could’ve taken too much valuable time while an all-out assault would defeat the threat in one go or at least severely weaken it. As the fleet had already been very effective against Zhaitan and its risen in Orr, and the only flying mordrem we’d seen had been the Shadow of the Dragon, Trahearne likely assumed the fleet would face little resistance and would be safe high in the air while the dragon was still weak from awakening and that they could just carpetbomb the entire jungle to stop a potential land-based mordrem assault.

2) In some of the story instances in S2, Trahearne admitted to the PC that he was angry about Mordremoth daring to attack the Pale Tree, which was a far more personal attack to him than what Zhaitan did. It’s basically comparable to Mazdak slaying Riannoc, a deed that had to be avenged, and many sylvari felt the same way. Trahearne also apologized for his outburst to the PC. Basically what this means is that Trahearne was also acting out of worry and a need to avenge the Pale Tree by making Mordremoth pay for hurting her, so while his plan to carpetbomb the jungle with the fleet was solid, he still wasn’t acting as logically due to being overcome by emotion as he would’ve under different circumstances.

The sad thing is that even with the surprise assault from Mordremoth’s vines, the fleet could’ve still dealt a major blow to the mordrem as many of the ships were actually unharmed in the initial assault. However, it turned out that this vine attack was not only meant as an attack but also as a distraction in Mordremoth’s master plan. The true blow came when several sylvari suddenly snapped and turned against their allies and began sabotaging the ships from within, and this was what really turned the tide and led to the fleet’s demise as they couldn’t handle both the vines and the turned sylvari (one fifth of the Pact’s forces) at the same time.

Where the bloody heck is the Commander for 2+ years and why was there no report or some indication of correspondence with Trahearne? In such an organization, one cannot go AWOL for that long and still have a position.

We went on an extended leave after the Orr campaign. While on our time off, we got involved in the plot with Scarlet’s alliances that began popping up and then focused on ending her threat. The Pact’s sole purpose was fighting the dragons and at the time they were only in the planning stage for the assault on Kralkatorrik, so Scarlet wasn’t deemed a big enough threat at first for them to get involved with.

Trahearne likely reasoned that the PC didn’t have to sit around coordinating logistics and whatnot for the next assault on an Elder Dragon, so we were allowed to have our adventure. The PC is always at his or her best leading a vanguard into battle and is a force of nature on his/her own, so the PC did more good dealing with Scarlet than being stuck in the Pact’s main base. While we were gone, Trahearne had divided our duties to other Commanders who dealt with the more mundane planning stuff; sadly this kind of backfired as the Aetherblades managed to steal a few airships right under the Pact’s noses…

What happened to those Pact Vigilantes you ran off?

Unclear. Either they rejoined the Pact and were put on trial for their crimes (and likely pardoned due to Pact being low on manpower and given a second chance to prove themselves), or they abandoned their allies and traversed back home like some of the Pact soldiers did in the “Torn from the Sky” story mission.

They should be tried in court for what they did, however, as their behaviour (while understandable given what had happened with the sylvari) was still unacceptable for a military unit which was supposed to follow orders.

What exactly is the Coztic Itzel’s deal?

We learn during story (from one of the Itzel scouts if I recall) that the Coztic Itzel turned hostile against everyone after they felt they were being threatened by outside influences (namely the mordrem invasion and the Zintl hylek fanatics). As for why they’d turn on the Jaka Itzel, they likely viewed these more tolerant Itzel as traitors for aiding the outsiders. The same reasoning can be applied to the equally xenophobic Xolotl nuhoch who joined forces with the Coztic.

Do the Itzel know the bandits?

Would be surprising if they hadn’t noticed bandits every now and then as even lax Itzel scouts like Acan took notice of anyone passing by their watch post. It seems unlikely they would know any crucial information about the bandits and their plans, however, just that the bandits are out there. For all we know, the bandits could’ve even used Itzel hospitality to their advantage at first to survive in the jungle.

More info on the Blighting Tree? Could it be that that tree IS Malyck’s tree and he was one of the, if not the only “minion” to escape Mordremization and instead became “Sylvari”?

Where’s Malyck, anyways?

We now know for certain thanks to Bobby Stein’s comment about Malyck on Reddit that none of the Blighting Trees seen in Magus Falls is Malyck’s Tree for the simple reason that no content about Malyck or his Tree ever appeared in HoT beyond early planning stages. I’ll let the man speak for himself:

Bobby Stein on Reddit

Bear in mind that my involvement with HoT was minimal, but I did partake in many discussions about scoping and such in the early phases of the project. There simply wasn’t the time or resources to do that story justice. And while it’s hard for a team to make that call, it’s a very real part of game development. You can’t do everything all the time because it’s just impossible. (Source)

This was in response to a redditor bringing up the subject of Malyck in a lengthier discussion about whether the GW2 writing team is neglecting long-standing mysteries of GW verse and why the story content of HoT was limited in scope.

What this means is Malyck and his Tree are still unaccounted for in one of the areas in the world map not yet revealed to us. Whether we ever get to see his story concluded one way or another remains to be seen but seems unlikely at this stage as we’re now moving on towards new adventures.

Why did Rytlock tell Eir and Faolain to run to the overpass first, despite knowing that Faolain can’t be trusted (novel inference), and knowing that Eir is weakened and unarmed?

Faolain was unarmed and weakened (likely drained from magic as she never cast any mesmer spells) as well, so Rytlock may have believed she’d be no real threat to Eir who was, after all, a strong norn. He would also expect Faolain to worry more about saving her hide from the threat than stop and try to do something to Eir. Granted, he couldn’t have foreseen Faolain noticing the Vinetooth in the canopy above her and Eir when the Eir stopped to help her and then deciding to turn the odds in her favour by injuring Eir for the Vinetooth to snatch.

Also, Eir is a Norn. Why did she just stand there and take the shot despite still being able to move, and knowing that there is a small group of very armed warriors near her, at least one of whom could do first aid?

Matthew Medina responded on this forum when people questioned the writing team about this issue. Basically Faolain’s thorn cut in deep and was meant to be a lot more gory and more severe than it ended up looking like in the cinematic. The moment Eir pulled the thorn out of her midsection, she knew she’d be done for as the injuries and bloodloss were too severe for her in her already weakened state, and that’s why she couldn’t put up a fight against the Vinetooth. However, she was a norn and had enough strength to stand tall and face the threat defiantly head on when any other lesser person would’ve collapsed then and there had they been in her condition.

Why are the human nobility here, what exactly do they bring now that they’re stuck in the jungle thanks to Faren’s harebrained idea that it was a good time to go over Magus Falls on a joyride?

Talking to the nobles in Verdant Brink and listening to their chatter reveals that Faren organized the nobles to participate in the Pact’s supposedly glorious assault on the mordrem as spectators. The battle was basically an exciting show to them, and they couldn’t even fathom the victorious Pact being defeated, let alone the nobles themselves getting in danger in the process. It’s similar to how in the American Civil War era certain wealthy southerner families gathered on a nearby hill on a picnic to witness the clash between Union and Confederate troops as a spectacle. Not exactly a wise decision, but the rich tend to do weird stuff like that to alleviate their boredom and to have something “cool” to talk about in fancy parties later on.

Why are the Exalted there, exactly? Who else lived in the Golden City? What happened to the Forgotten? Do they have a connection to the Zephyrites? How are they keeping the Mordrem at bay? How are they keeping Mordremoth’s influence out?

The Exalted are in Auric Basin because that site was deemed useful for the Forgotten’s plans of carrying out Glint’s legacy (after the Forgotten moved on from Lost Precipice and Gilded Hollow which were early attempts at finding a suitably strategic location to protect the egg), and they built the city to safeguard the last of Glint’s eggs once it would be delivered there at a specific moment. The area was shielded by powerful magic (which reactivated as the Exalted reawakened and Glint’s egg was brought to one of the watchposts) which repels dragon minions. It likely has similar properties to the divine fire which likewise acted as a repellant against dragon minions like the Shadow of the Dragon.

The Forgotten are said to have left Tyria based on the speech of the last Forgotten to the Exalted (seen in the tablets throughout Tarir) as well as comments from some of the Exalted NPCs. Although some interpret this as the Forgotten dying off, to me the context implies that the remaining Forgotten instead moved on to the Mists like the gods had done prior to them and left the Exalted to finish the job to lead Tyria to a brighter and safer future as per Glint’s plan.

If you’re a Sylvari, how come you aren’t hearing Mordy’s voice/feeling its presence at the surface?

We do hear Mordy on the surface. When we play through the story as a sylvari, there are several moments when the dragon’s voice is audible and understandable, and it grows more and more frequent the closer we get to Dragon’s Stand. I’ve also heard occasional creepy albeit unintelligible voices/whispers in my sylvari’s head while wandering in Central Tyria, but these ceased after I completed the final HoT story mission.

I also recall from one of the BWEs that when I created a beta sylvari character, I actually heard creepy voices in the background of the character creation screen, which must’ve been a reference to Mordy whispering to the sylvari even when they were still in the Dream. I haven’t tested if this is still the case in actual shipped HoT as I haven’t created another sylvari character, but I’d be surprised if this “feature” isn’t present as it was a very cool effect.

Funnily enough, there’s actually a possible way for the writing team at Anet to involve Tara Strong as Ceara/Scarlet Briar (or rather, as a kind of “resurrected” version of her) in a future story due to a certain line in Prosperity’s Mystery mission which was likely a lore oversight but which could indeed be expanded on. The notable line goes as thus:

Scarlet Briar: I’ve used a portal to send most of my steam creature prototypes into Lornar’s Pass and Brisban Wildlands. I no longer need them.

The thing is, however, that as far as lore goes, none of the steam creatures seen in Brisban Wildlands actually come from Scarlet’s lab, and the timeline for their appearance in said map wouldn’t fit either as the vanilla game’s Personal Story (and open world) events in Brisban take place when Scarlet has already moved on from creating steam creatures to forming her alliances elsewhere.

The two instances where we see stream creatures in Brisban are:

a) The “Split Second” mission in the the asura Infinity Ball storyline where it was later confirmed in a lore interview that those creatures, alongside the Grand High Sovereign version of the asura PC, did not come from the future but simply an alternate fractal version (essentially the GHS and his lieutenant and the steam creatures there are the Mists’s fractal anomalies showing in Tyria, so no time travel was ever involved, and the GHS simply lied about having come from a possible alternate Tyria’s future).

b) The event “Help Tekki fight off creatures swarming through the asura gate” in Duskstruck Moors during which some steam creatures appear from the asura gate, but it’s implied they’re drawn them from the batch of steam creatures in Lornar’s Pass and aren’t native to Brisban. Besides, if these were the other, Brisban-based batch Scarlet mentioned in her recording, we would be seeing invasions similar to the ones the Lornar batch accomplishes in Lornar’s through their own steam portals, yet we never see any steam portals or steam creature colonies in Brisban.

What this means, then, is that the story has actually yet to address what exactly happened to the batch Scarlet sent to Brisban Wildlands years ago since in the present day the steam creatures are nowhere to be seen in that map invading places unlike their brethren in Lornar’s Pass. Based on how Scarlet says her line, it seems the Lornar and Brisban batches couldn’t have differed significantly in number, and we’ve seen how fast the Lornar batch multiplied and became a threat, so a similar thing should’ve happened in Brisban.

So, here’s one wild fan theory that could’ve happened (assuming the writers didn’t simply make a mistake regarding the Brisban batch’s involvement): what if the steam creatures sent to Brisban Wildlands never stayed there for long but continued on into one of the so far unseen maps (like the map beyond the broken bridge in Northern Brisban where we see a portal into a new map that we can’t interact with even if we made the jump to the other side) and formed their colony there? What if this Brisban batch, unlike their savage Lornar brethren, actually “evolved” in programming and became more civilized (or at least more morally grey), instead opting not to conquer the world but study it and form a civilization of their own?

I could imagine this “good” colony of steam creatures being led by an improved Steam Brain (let’s call it Mother Brain) which could, eventually, build a mechanical steam creature avatar model resembling Scarlet, their “machine mother”, out of reverence for granting them “life” and sentience. This “machine Scarlet” could then be voiced by Tara Strong, thus kind of bringing her back.

If we want to continue with this admittedly stretched train of thought, there’s also something else in the lore regarding Scarlet that’s yet to be addressed. One of the items in the game from S1 actually had Scarlet’s message to Caithe which stated that someday Caithe would understand that Tyria needed Scarlet. What did she mean by that? What if these “good” steam creatures played a part in it? After all, the steam creatures are mechanical and thus can’t be corrupted by dragons or recreated as clones (such as mordrem), yet they’re powerful and sentient so they could be a powerful asset against the Elder Dragons. Back in the Twisted Marionette release we had interesting drops in the game, namely Scarlet’s Lockbox Code Fragment which eerily resembles Scarlet’s iconic cone hairdo. What if that acted as a hint that Scarlet may have uploaded her data into code fragments similar to these which could’ve contained crucial knowledge about her dragon research from the time when she was struggling against Mordremoth’s growing influence over her mind?

Just picture this scene: the Pact Commander discovers the hidden, “good” steam creature community and meets with the machine mother avatar of the Mother Brain in the form of mecha-Scarlet. The machine mother has kept all of Scarlet’s crucial research in her databanks and, after some convincing from the PC, shares this knowledge, perhaps even having the good steam creatures join us in our fight against the remaining Elder Dragons due to the creatures being uncorruptable and very intelligent. That way Scarlet’s prophecy to Caithe would come true in a roundabout way as well as solve the plot discrepancy about what happened to the Brisban batch of steam creatures in one big twist.

Not that I expect the writers to actually do something wild like this, but it is one possible way of doing it given what we know of Scarlet and steam creature lore. I for one wouldn’t mind seeing a “good” version of Scarlet, even if that Scarlet was only a steam creature recreation resembling their revered “machine mother”.

That kitten ed egg, a red herring plot that has yet to reveal its true purpose or what exactly it was there for in the first place, more to come later.

What exactly is going on with the Egg and it absorbing Mordremoths magic, is it going to hatch, is it corrupted, what? Will we be some kind of dragonborn chosen creature in a future season?

These are basically about the same thing, so here goes:

We may not know all the details yet, but we do know the egg will play a crucial part in Glint’s legacy which is to ensure a bright, safer future for all of Tyria. Essentially the hatchling is meant to absorb power from Elder Dragon(s) so it can grow in power and be raised as a benevolent Elder Dragon to replace the more selfish and evil dragon overlords. We know that we need to defeat the current Elder Dragons but we also know that if we don’t replace them with other similar beings after their deaths, magic will run rampant and destroy the world, so the best option is to have a good Elder Dragon on our side to keep the balance in check.

Apparently Kasmeer can tell when people are lying, is this a magical gift, or a capacity for body language reading?

Unclear. I wonder if Kasmeer being pricked by the toxic thorn during the Tower of Nightmares adventure in S1 may have affected her in some way since it wasn’t until after that update that we started seeing her develop her lie-detecting powers. The tower was deeply connected to Mordy (and very likely a “corrupted” juvenile sister of the Pale Tree as the Tower was said to be sentient and operated like a Blighting Tree), and we know Mordy is the Dragon of both Plants AND Mind. Would be a cool twist if the dragon’s power would’ve left some subtle mark on Kas although I suppose it’s more likely at this stage that the pricking scene wasn’t meant to have any more significance and the lie-detection stuff is unrelated to it. But who knows…

Also, how is it that too much magic apparently attracts dragons, tied to the same question.

Well, we know the Elder Dragons’ sole purpose is to devour all the magic they can get their claws on and they raise minions that will help them do this faster. They go into hibernation once there’s too little magic left in the world to sustain them, after which the magic leaks out of their bodies over centuries until they awaken again to devour it all over again, hence continuing the cycle. So it makes sense the EDs would be attracted to large pockets of magic, and was likely the reason why Mordy wanted Scarlet to carry out the scheme in LA so it’d have a proper ley line breakfast in bed, so to speak.

What the heck was that kitten trip vision we saw in Omadd’s machine, was it our vision, was it Scarlett’s memories? What was that weird thing, the Eternal Alchemy? What are the orbs? Are they the dragons, or something else?

The vision was a bit of both to my understanding. We hear the Pale Tree’s lines during it which are very reminiscent of what she said to Scarlet in the short story, which implies we recreated the vision.

That weird thing we saw was the Antikytheria, also known as the All, which is discussed more in depth in one of the books found in the Durmand Priory library. The six spheres we see moving around the central body, Thyria, correspond with the six Elder Dragons, and appear to activate in the order of each dragon’s respective awakening. However, those six bodies might not symbolize the Elder Dragons but also spirit realms or maybe something else; it’s left deliberately ambiguous. The lime-green orb we see crashing into Thyria in the vision symbolizes Zhaitan (seen in the order of the spheres’ awakening and in the Priory’s map of The All in the ceiling, also seen in the wiki article), which shows that by killing Zhaitan we created an imbalance between the spheres which led to Mordremoth’s becoming a threat as it no longer had a direct opposite sphere to react to.

The Itzel magically know us, thats convinent, they can also speak our language despite having a trait involving learning their language?

It’s stated by the Pact scout after “Torn in the Sky” that the Pact has made contact with the Itzel before we arrive, so they’re aware of the Pact by then. The Itzel/Nuhoch have their own language (which we learn in masteries to earn their goodwill) but they also speak the common tongue which they use to talk to us. You can see this by how Ibli first uses ‘kaana’ but quickly corrects himself and explains that it means ‘chieftain’ as he knows we don’t know his language.

Who exactly are the Exalted, besides being former humans created by glint to defend Tarir, are they Zephyrites formerly?

The Exalted were actually recruited by the Forgotten who carried out Glint’s mission. The Exalted originally came from the same people who became the Zephyrites but were chosen after a series of trials etc. that proved their worthiness to the cause. There’s more info (and useful links to actual sources) about them in their wiki article. We learn a bunch about them by discussing stuff with Exalted NPCs and doing the “A Study in Gold” achievement which details the last Forgotten’s speech to them.

Did Faolain actually “die” or was she captured after being stabbed and forcefully transformed, is she even dead?

We don’t know if Faolain actually died when the Vinetooth captured her; she was impaled but could’ve survived that. If we go by Leah Hoyer’s promo text for HoT about the Mordrem Guard, however, only the three Mordrem Guard Commanders’ minds are transplanted into new bodies after they die unlike rank and file Mordrem Guard, so this would imply that Faolain was still alive when she was turned into the Vinetooth hybrid.

However, the Faolain-beast itself is definitely gone by now. We killed her at the end of “Bitter Harvest”, and Caithe stayed behind to burn the body to ensure Faolain couldn’t be harvested and “recreated” by the mordrem. Unless Anet decides to resurrect her or find another way to bring her back, but I doubt that will happen even if I’d like to see more of her after how the story treated her so poorly.

“We’ll talk later” this got very tedious, what exactly is Rytlock hiding about his incidents in the Mists, talking about baggage and voices in his head?

The revenant lore blog post from a while ago mentioned that revenants hear the voices of the legends they’re channeling and may even have conversations with them. So in Rytlock’s case he’s hearing the voices of the echoes of Glint, Ventari and other legends in his head, hence the comment about “baggage”. Do note, however, that the legends aren’t the actual spirits of the slain heroes/villains the revenants channel; they’re more like fractal echoes, copies of the originals, which explains why you can have two revenants channeling Shiro simultaneously, for instance.

Why are there ghosts displaced roaming the spirit vale? Are these Ascalonian Ghosts displaced by Rytlocks actions?

Those ghosts seem to be unrelated to Ascalonian ghosts and appear to instead be victims of what seems to be the White Mantle who are angry but also suffer from amnesia and don’t seem to remember what they’re supposed to be angry about. The magic released by Mordremoth’s death stirred them, and some of them apparently broke free from something (as a dev slipped up during a stream before he shut up) and fused together to become Gorseval. Some speculate some of these spirits may have been trapped in soul batteries.

Salvation Pass raid will likely reveal more lore about this, or maybe Bobby Stein will hint at stuff in the upcoming Guild Chat episode which centers on raid lore.

Taimi gets left behind after season 2 where she clearly was in deep trouble being left behind the last time

She argued she could handle herself, and we agreed, so the joke’s on us for allowing it to happen. However, she was in a safe-ish area with the laser and other gizmos protecting her, and we later see the Rata Novus meta during which the Order of Whispers basically activates defense golems, clears out the remaining chak from the area and turn the turrets friendly, so by now Taimi will be even more secure than back when we left her.

How exactly is lobotomising the dragons brain going to stop its wild and rampant vine expanded body from growing into chaotic insanity?

Well…this is basically what happens if Laranthir’s dialogue is taken as canon during the Mouth of Mordremoth fight. xD

His dialogue box’s contents change depending on if you’ve finished the final mission or not. When we talk to him after finishing the final mission, we wonder how the Mouth can still be alive after we killed Mordremoth’s mind, and Laranthir explains that the Mouth, as the physical manifestation of Mordremoth, now represents the dragon’s hunger and has become a mindless beast.

Basically this means that the Mouth regrew/renegerated and attacked us one more time after Mordy’s mind had already been slain, and this time we put it down for good. Either this other battle is non-canonical, or the released explosion of magic from Mordy’s demise (seen both in the story mission and when we slay the Mouth) affected the Mouth who was at ground zero and allowed it to make one last comeback (similar to how the released magic also mutated Slothasor boss in the upcoming Salvation Pass raid).

What exactly “did” Mordremoth plant in Treesus to make him corrupted, some kind of thought? A corruption in his body, what?

Trahearne mentions a terrible seed, and Mordy later took over Trahearne who was connected to it via the vine, so the dragon basically uploaded its mind into Trahearne as a backup plan in case we prevailed and defeated the mind’s avatar in the Dream.

There are a few other things that are just as mysterious:

Based on Peter Fries’s comments on the forum, we know that the devs haven’t forgotten about the subplot of the Consortium being interested in the seeds/debris of the Tower of Nightmares. There was even supposed to be an extra event which would’ve revealed more about the Consortium’s plans but it was dropped due to scheduling issues. With the ever so subtle hints of the Consortium showing up in story releases every now and then, I wouldn’t count out the possibility that we may see the Consortium attempt to do something with ToN stuff in the future if the devs deem it an interesting enough story.

Based on what we learn in the Silverwastes and during the secret skritt meeting at LA, the skritt are up to something, and news of their ship-building and weather wizard is spreading among them. We also see that smugglers are operating a lot more openly in LA and that the pirates are none too pleased about skritt taking over their black market cave. Time will tell if these plot threads will be explored more.

There’s also a charr-specific mystery set up in S2: who was Rox spying on in Camp Resolve and why (an issue she tried to avoid talking about but ended up hinting at accidentally via slip of the tongue when we questioned her), who’s “Monti Scythescrape” (if that is the aggressive charr’s real name since he only reveals his name to a charr PC reluctantly after we pressure him about it), what kind of deal does he have with Rox (after all, Rox became visibly uneasy during and after their tense confrontation in the camp), and what’s his mission? I wonder if this issue will be discussed in S3 after Colin’s blog post mentioned potential charr politics now that news of Rytlock’s return as a revenant have spread to the Black Citadel.

I’ll try to answer some of the questions posted in this thread:

CaptainVanguard.4925:

What ever happened to Braham’s “girlfriend” back in Cragsted?

Ottilia left Cragstead with the merchant Ebbe and hasn’t been seen since. I’d be surprised if we see her ever again; her leaving served the plot point of Braham finally moving on from his old life at Cragstead now that he had nothing left to hold him there and embracing his friendship with Rox and the PC as part of the new adventuring guild.

With Scarlet supposedly being “responsible for everything” How? Is my question, perhaps we should have a segment where we play Scarlet as she formed the three alliances?

It seems unlikely we’ll ever see more of Scarlet’s interactions with the alliances except for the snippets of holorecordings and diary entries unless they rerelease S1 at some point and expand on the story instances (the latter of which I doubt).

It’s possible, but not confirmed (so this is only a theory with a shaky basis), that Mordremoth may have subtly manipulated the minds of the leaders of said alliances to make even the most xenophobic of them to trust/be intimidated by Scarlet. It wouldn’t surprise me if Mordy revealed the location of the obelisk to Scarlet, thus making it easier for her to lure the krait into the Toxic Alliance.

We know from Mordremoth’s Theme’s first use in the Tower of Nightmares that by that point Mordremoth’s power was already growing and its corruption was affecting both factions in the Toxic Alliance, hence their changed, glowing look (and why the Toxic Hybrid may in fact have been a mordrem krait similar to the three reborn Mordrem Guard Commanders and/or the mordrem itzel/saurians etc. instead of the hybrid we were led to believe as its conception via a pod is similar to what we see of the Commanders’ births at the three towers in Dragon’s Stand).

How the hell did “we” know about Mordremoth? Considering it was never mentioned even by name once by any character.

I believe there are two answers for this:

1) Bobby Stein posted on the forum after players asked that exact question back in the day, and he replied that what happened wasn’t conveyed well in the story but basically we learned the dragon’s name “off screen” due to our high rank in the Pact as the Priory would’ve shared its findings with us. This is the official lore answer regarding the matter.

2) The next bit can be taken with a bit of grain of salt, but here goes if you’re curious: some dataminer(s) went against dataminer “netiquette” and leaked the ending of S1 before it was released. In this supposed “original” ending (which may have been scrapped long before the leak as often happens with development while the audio files remained in the data) we would’ve heard, among other things, Scarlet actually namedrop Mordremoth the Jungle Dragon as her master before her demise. This would explain us learning the name (as well as the whole speculation about the dragon’s roar that appeared in the dialogue afterwards making sense plot-wise). The dialogue for early eps of S2 was recorded by then, the text had been written, and for whatever reason the sudden namedropping of Mordremoth remained in S2 without a fix and has since then been explained away as learning “offscreen knowledge” as mentioned by Bobby Stein. Sadly no one to my knowledge has any of the audio files etc. from the earlier S1 ending saved, so we can’t verify any of this and only have to take the more reputable dataminers’ (like that_shaman who didn’t leak the ending as per netiquette but was aware of it) word for it.

Where exactly “did” the Zephyirites “go” to in season 1 and return from in season 2? Was it Cantha? Was it somewhere new?

Based on all the hints in dialogue and what we saw of the decorations during the S2 prologue with the Zephyrites, the destination was implied to have been Cantha, yes. And if it indeed was Cantha, we learned that that nation had been prosperous/peaceful enough to allow foreign visitors to enter its territory and let them trade and leave without a hassle, which has made a lot of lore forumers speculate on the future of that nation.

Who the hell is E how long are you gonna keep us in suspence kitten it?!

It’ll likely take a while for Anet to reveal that although potential political turmoil in DR (if Canach is attacked and if Logan’s time in Mordremoth’s pod ends up playing a role in the plot with Caudecus deciding to make a move) could force E to make an appearance. I still believe E is Ela Makkay for various reasons, but we’ll see. Either way, if E is truly part of Ogden’s little circle of friends who are tied to Glint’s legacy, I’d expect E or Ogden to spill the beans now that we’ve definitely passed the trials of the Forgotten and proven our trustworthiness/dedication (not to mention the fact that the egg specifically chose us as its champion).

In Dry Top, the now Mordrem infested Village was intended to be some kind of mining colony for a group to the north allegedly an entire bandit city is roaming somewhere there, will we ever see it, are they white mantle?

There may be a connection between that smuggler ring and the bandits in Forsaken Thicket raid wings, and the latter are pretty much all but confirmed to be White Mantle thanks to all the hints we’ve seen so far in Spirit Vale (and Salvation Pass will likely reveal even more about them and their actual plans). Whether we ever get to see the alleged “New Kryta” hinted at in Silverwastes remains to be seen but could have potential in future Living World seasons unless that story is concluded in the raid.

The Pale Tree has collapsed after the attack from the Shadow of the Dragon, has she re-awoken yet? Was she corrupted by Mordremoth?

It’d be surprising if she didn’t awake sometime during S3 unless Anet wants to keep us in suspense. The damage she received was extensive, though, so it’ll take some time for her to recover. There should be no way for her to be corrupted by Mordremoth since the Mordrem Guard weren’t corrupted either. The Pale Tree has bigger ties to the Dream than the sylvari, and we know the Dream protects her and the sylvari from Mordy and other dragons’ corruption somehow (hence the Mordrem Guard scene in Rata Novus), so it would make no sense for her to fall, especially now that Mordremoth is dead and its call has ended.

Caithe and Faolain’s backstory was a little too rushed and didnt really explain why Caithe even fell in love with her in the first place, care to explain where their relationship started?

We need to keep in mind that lore-wise the first flashback with Faolain shows the Secondborn after they’re already a few months old, and by that time the Firstborn had existed for two years. By that time Caithe and Faolain had already traveled the world and gone to Orr where they first encountered the Nightmare. I believe that it was only after that encounter when Faolain’s personality began changing into the cruel being she would later become, so we’ve never actually seen THE good Faolain Caithe fell in love with in-game or in the novel. It would be nice to see a flashback of how their relationship started, but sadly it seems that ship has only sunk after what happened with Faolain in HoT.

How “will” the Zephyrites survive as a culture, will they rebuild in Dry-Top? Perhaps form a new human culture there?

Now that the Zephyrites’ secret mission is over (the egg has been delivered to the reactivated Tarir safely), the surviving Aspect Masters (who alone know the truth) could lead the Zephyrites back to the Bazaar of the Four Winds area, thus giving us an excuse to open it up as a permanent map. All Anet would have to do would be to simply remove the Masters of Peace and Sun (who died) and Aerin from that map and maybe tweak some dialogue a bit to reflect the current plot but otherwise it could be left as it was. I guess we’ll see what plans Anet has in store for them.

Kalavier.1097:

Do remember though, the entire “Battle within his mind” takes place at the EXACT same time as the battle with his body is going full swing. The battle is just starting (or in the towers phase) when we first start heading down, according to Canach’s dialogue. I’ve not gotten my Sylvari through to that point so I don’t know if extra lines are spoken there.

So Mordremoth is fighting us inside of his head, and the pact forces assaulting his body.

The thing with the battle against the Mouth of Mordremoth is that it doesn’t just happen once. According to Laranthir’s dialogue box (whose contents change depending on if you’ve completed “Hearts and Minds” or not) the Pact fights against the Mouth at least twice, maybe even thrice (before, during and after final story mission). Here’s what he has to say about it:

Laranthir: (before completing final story mission) Our scouts believe the creature before us is feeding on ley-line energy for its master, but Mordremoth is an entity of mind and dream. That’s where you’ll have to go to defeat it.
Laranthir: (after completing final story mission) Though you killed Mordremoth within its realm of mind, the physical manifestation of its hunger still remains in our world, still feeding on this hub of ley-line energy.

The extra lines of dialogue from sylvari perspective in “Hearts and Minds” show up in the mission’s respective wiki article. Basically the extra stuff regarding the battle is that the sylvari PC understands Mordremoth’s roar as “Armies cannot stop me”, which further proves the timing of one of the battles against the Mouth happening simultaneously with the infiltration mission, and it’s the one battle that has indeed taken place canonically against the Mouth.

There’s always the possibility, however, that either of Laranthir’s statements could only be taken semi-canonically and were simply written in to clarify the context of the battle for players who had or hadn’t done the story yet so as not to spoil the ending.

The first version (lines before completing story) indicates that the PC was present in the battle before sneaking into the dragon’s lair, which contradicts events shown in “Bitter Harvest” and “Hearts and Minds” where we’re helped behind enemy lines while the Pact’s battle is distracting the Mouth. I find it unlikely that the PC, after defeating Faolain, would just leave the Heart of Thorns tree and join the Pact’s battle against the Mouth, then returning back to the tree to finish the infiltration mission. Then again, we know from a dev comment on Facebook that a section of the Mouth battle taking place within the tree was cut, so maybe that missing piece was part of a previous version of the story which would’ve forced players to first defeat the Mouth at the tree before gaining access to “Hearts and Minds” but which was scrapped for timing reasons and because Anet didn’t want to force players to finish the meta successfully just to reach the final story mission.

The second version (lines after completing story) indicates that the Mouth is functioning as the manifestation of the dragon’s hunger even after the dragon’s mind has been annihilated. Yet it’s contradicted by players hearing Mordremoth’s dialogue during the Dragon’s Stand meta (unless Mordremoth, while effectively braindead, would keep uttering its threats on autopilot). I put this discrepancy under “gameplay and story segregation” where the lines appear even after the death of the mind for the sake of epicness of the encounter.

I’d very much like to hear the writers’ statements on the order of events to clarify the matter and if we can count the pre- and post-final mission battles against the Mouth (as per Laranthir’s dialogue changes) as truly canonical or if they were done for the sake of player immersion rather than on the story’s terms.

maxwelgm.4315:

However, it still sounds rather strange that individuals can overcome (even if as a group) the will of a “force of nature” kind of character; it’s like if I wanted to deny gravity simply by focusing on doing so, and should be independent of PC being psychologically absolute. Actually, it should even be independent of whether his body is being challenged somewhere else: one would think a dragon’s presence would be kind of uniform inside his domain.

Anyway, I guess it is a writer’s choice to make a “godly” character that is actually lovecraftian (then he would be arguably unbeatable and it would make no sense) or a “false idol” kind that does have a weakness. Even though I like the first option more from a lore point of view, I suppose the second is what goes better with a game like GW2.

The thing about Elder Dragons being “forces of nature” is a misconception to an extent. Although they do possess amazing powers which makes them appear god-like eldritch abominations to lesser races, we have proof (from both in game and from the Edge of Destiny novel) that many of the EDs we’ve seen definitely are individuals with personalities.

If Kralkatorrik was a force of nature without any coherent thought, it wouldn’t have taken Glint’s betrayal as harshly as it did; after all, why would a force of nature care about its champion’s betrayal and go after said traitor personally to finish her off? If Zhaitan and Mordremoth were forces of nature, why would they turn their corrupted minions into sycophants with sickening levels of devotion who preach the glory of their respective dragon master, going so far as to make certain minions actually lie to demoralize their enemy (see the Risen priest of Lyssa claiming that Zhaitan devoured the gods)? Why would any of the dragons get angry when the Pact starts turning the tide in the war against them (see Zhaitan’s reaction after Caladbolg is used at the Artesian Waters, or Mordremoth’s increasingly frustrated lines during the DS meta and especially “Hearts and Minds”, particularly its final line “What have you done?” when the PC kills the possessed Trahearne)?

True forces of nature wouldn’t care about any of that stuff; they’d simply follow their “nature” to destroy/corrupt for the sake of it. However, the dragons we’ve seen have taken things very personally and have a bloated, selfish view of themselves which shows through the lines uttered by their minions and, in Mordremoth’s case, lines from the dragon itself.