Guild Wars 2

One more issue with the kodan: while they are capable of making magnificent structures, much of the body of their engineering knowledge pertains to working with ice. Ditto for their magic and weapons, and that’s already causing them problems as they come further south- even in Frostgorge, their Sanctuaries are already starting to deteriorate. If they end up farther south, which at this point seems likely, much of the tangible bits of their civilization will become useless to them, and they’ll be left with what we see in Song of Final Exile or Haymal Gore.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BrunoBRS.5178:

yeah, i saw her during the mirror mission, she made it out alive (that i recall), then i went with piloting an immortal megazord because honestly, why would you pick any of the other options? that’s one of the best missions in the game :P

so i’ll just pretend she lived through it :P

No, the best mission is the one following it with the Cauldron. Because using that thing against the Risen . . .

. . . mmmm, that was so satisfying

i fail to see how anything can be better than a golem-suit with a spammable instagib megalaser.

A golem-suit with a spammable instagib megalaser using the Cauldron against the Risen, perhaps?

Meanwhile, I’m stuck on the path that involves wading up a cliff through every rotting spider in Orr to get one-shot by a dozen locust swarms : /

Zomaarwat.3912:

Isnt the reason we call the Jungle dragon Mordremoth because its the name of one of the CoE bosses’ attacks?

Pretty much.

A recap for those who don’t know (we do have an unfortunate habit of treating old theories like common knowledge here); each of Subject Alpha’s AoEs (may they be meowed to a torment even greater than that to which they’ve subjected me) are named after an Elder Dragon. The ice attack is Teeth of Jormag, the fire attack is Teeth of Primordus, and the earth spike attack that only hits in front of him is the Teeth of Mordremoth. That’s where the name comes from.

After that, it’s a matter of finding a dragon to match with the name. From the Durmand Priory, we know that there have been six Elder Dragons historically active on continental Tyria, which matches the number of labs in the Infinity Coil above CoE, four of which openly study the four dragons we know. Inference: the other two labs are for the other two dragons. One has an aquatic theme and one has a vegetation theme. The aquatic theme doesn’t make any sense for an earth-based attack, so the vegetation wins out.

Furthermore, down in the Crucible itself, the Inquest had areas that were doing in-depth research on three groups in particular, which consist of the dungeon’s penultimate bosses. Destroyers, minions of Primordus, icebrood, minions of Jormag, and the nightmare hounds and summoned husks employed by the Nightmare Court. The first two are dragon minions, associated with one of the dragons named in the Teeth attacks used by Subject Alpha. Inference: the hounds and husks are also dragon minions, associated with this Mordremoth. That also correlates with the Infinity Coil zone I mentioned earlier. Also extending from this is the possibility that the Nightmare is Mordremoth’s corruption.

That’s the gist of everything we know about Mordremoth thus far, and how we know it. ArenaNet has not publicly named him, in either interviews or in-game NPC speech, but Colin did once mention a “jungle dragon” which again fits the theme of all our other evidence.

I’d say a djinn would care for the goings-on in Tyria, and because of that it’d be out of character for one to be behind Scarlet. All the djinn we’ve seen that aren’t bound by humans to certain artifacts or sites (like Zomorros) have been caretakers and defenders of nature. In other words, exactly the sort to want to destroy the kitten that made a toxic waste of the prettiest zone in the game.

Hopelessalchemist.4816:

Out of all the homosexual relationships listed before, I’m surprised that no one has even bothered to remember Tegwen and Carys. And then to add to the number of characters I liked that Anet has written out, Tegwen was killed off as well.

Not sure if that should be considered a spoiler or not…

Why all the character deaths? I sobbed when Tybalt died and then the deaths kept coming. Is killing any of the LS characters really necessary?

I don’t think Carys and Tegwen were a couple. It could be, of course, but it felt to me just like mentor and student.

BrunoBRS.5178:

actually if it enables bigger, better hunting, then i’m sure they’re all for guns.

i think you’re mistaking their aesthetics with their interests.

also, shamans. spirits of the wild. how much more magical can you get than a culture that reveres magical beings and uses magic to transform?

I’ve never seen a (non-Vigil) norn use a gun. Have you? And while the shamans are spellcasters, they’re also the only spellcasters. That’s the most niche the magical community gets across all five races. I concede on the totem transformations, but that’s primal spiritualism that requires nothing more than following a spirit, not a sign of magical expertise.

I think you’re ignoring that the aesthetics were designed to reflect the culture.

moomooo.9357:

What if it’s just a lair? With some small minor things brought into it to experiment, but not really the true source of her experiments(I mean, it’s a pretty kitten small cave). What if she saw it as a place to “get away”? I see that as more likely, a place she didn’t frequent that often. Maybe like a thought palace.

That’s what it felt like to me- a place to go when she wanted to be alone, a place to sit in her armchair, stare out at Tyria, and make a mental note to invent a clockwork cat to stroke.

I didn’t mean it like that. My point was that they are hunters- the vast majority of their population figures that the axe and the bow do their job just fine, and don’t bother with needlessly complicated guns or turrets or spells. It was indeed my point that they are capable with such things despite the low levels of interest displayed towards them. Compare with actual glorified cavemen- grawl, who can barely handles axes and bows and wield only primitive elemental magic, and jotun and ettins, which are even worse off than the grawl in both regards.

To expand upon what Konig said, although the wiki never got to recording his dialogue (the greatest tragedy- losing an NPC before their contribution can be documented) he did say that the only reason he remained in Auld Red was because his only remaining family had been there. That precludes any familial association with living characters.

The defining characteristics of the “major” races seems to be A). advanced technological and magical capacity (even the norn, who have the least of both, are still ages ahead of all the “lesser” races in at least one of those categories, probably because of) B.) a fostered spirit of cooperation with the other four that leads to the developments and innovations of one spreading and helping the others (points in case: the engineer profession taking root outside the charr, the ubiquity of asura gates in major cities) C.) large enough populations to settle entire regions, and a sense of community binding it all together (contrast the tribes of the lesser races, who even in the most harmless of circumstances tend to be out of contact with each other, and in many cases actively war when happening upon another) and D.) an ‘evil’ faction standing apart from and opposed to the whole (which arguably is game mechanics, but I choose to interpret it as a trend among these societies to reject and expunge the violently unstable aspects of their culture from the whole). It takes some doing to find a “lesser” race meeting any one of these criterion, and I don’t believe any come close to meeting all four, so I am satisfied with them.

It’s worth noting, though, that the stuff that breaks out of the Underworld is largely aatxes- which are native to that place- and shades- which are of unknown origin, but appear to be similar creatures to aatxe. None of those are ghosts. The only place we see former humans leave the Underworld is Godslost Swamp, and like with the risen, it doesn’t seem to be by their own choice, given that they dissipate as soon as the shade tormenting them has been dealt with.

I remember there being two possible explanations, and I’m digging the evidence back up for the first (will update this post) but for the second- Sea of Sorrows is rife with minor inconsistencies, including numerical ones. Point in case, in the fight that ended Act 1, the charr crew loses more sailors than they had to begin with, and still have enough left over to form the core of Cobiah’s pirate crew. So something like the years not adding up may well be a mistake.

If Scarlet had access to Mistlock Observatory, then yes, she could meet with a recreation of Abaddon- but that recreation would have no reason to be cooperative, and as an imperfect copy even if it was helpful Scarlet could never be 100% sure that any information that he gave her was correct.

But yes, she could meet a version of him.

In theory, yes, but it would require unbelievably exceptional circumstances. The only example that I can think of is Mad King Thorn, and even he is limited to a single day out of every year, and at only partial power to boot. Also worth noting, even though it isn’t exactly a spirit breaking out under its own power- under certain (mostly unknown) conditions, Zhaitan corrupting a corpse will cause the spirit once belonging to that body to be “stolen” back into this world and trapped within the new minion, unable to control or affect what the body does.

The afterlife, for humans, almost always equals the Underworld, or is at the very least routed through the Underworld. We know from GW1 that if a mortal (human) is killed in the Underworld, his spirit is pulled to a certain part of the Underworld, and the afterlife theoretically proceeds as normal from there. After that… the evidence for this is even more lacking then the evidence for all these other topics, but from a couple of references, it seems like a spirit being destroyed while in the Underworld (or, in theory, any other part of the Mists) is gone forever. Poof. That’s it. No third chances. There seems to be a limited number of entities with the power and will to do such a thing, though.

As far as the dying in the Mists thing goes, it really depends. There doesn’t seem to be any uniform process by which souls reach their afterlife, even coming from Tyria. In GW1, for instance, we saw people who went from their lives to the Underworld so fast they didn’t even notice the transition, but we also saw souls that had to be found and guided to the afterlife by Envoys (which was basically a cosmic community service sentence for the worst kind of killers). And, of course, there are those who never move on. Even that span of variations only takes into account humans- we know nothing about the afterlife of other races for a fact, except that charr could be sucked into the Realm of Torment just the same as humans, and that a variety of other races are also capable of remaining behind as ghosts.

Iirc, Doern was actually the spokesman because he was the only Preceptor who wasn’t needed to help clean up the mess after the Risen attack- the Chantry of Secrets took a lot more damage than Vigil Keep or the Durmand Priory. So he was there because at that moment, he was the least important.

EDIT: Found it! “I need Halvora and Valenze to rebuild the Chantry’s defenses and intelligence files. Doern and I will pick agents for this new union.” That’s from the Master of Whispers, whom I shall leave nameless for your sake.

Yes, but they aren’t staggered like that, nor on their own separate stoneworks. If it was Rata Sum you’d see the edges of the cube extending from the bottom of the gate.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And the Order of Whispers does not employ sylvari in highly sensitive jobs because they suck at keeping secrets . . . secret.

This is off topic, but what? There’s no sign of any such discrimination. Heck, the sylvari Preceptor is in charge of handling the entirety of the Order’s information and analysis departments. It doesn’t get more sensitive than that.

To be fair, my involvement in the Living Story these past few months can basically be summed up as “running around with a zerg, and dying anyways”. Unlike in GW1, having bad luck isn’t considered worthy of titles.

Also, there really haven’t been any big decisions to make. Scarlet has always been the one to dictate the terms of the fight. Rox and company are just reacting to that, no different then us players.

Bit of a spoiler, since I think that there’s no good from high expectations- there is no cameo. After you hit Lion’s Arch your surviving warband member becomes a permanently silent part of the scenery of your home instance. (Although, there’s a one in six chance of your krewe coming back at a later point.)

I do agree with you 100% though- the greatest weakness of the personal story, imo, is that there’s no attempt to maintain character continuity throughout the whole. All non-mentor characters last four or five quests at best, and while a good amount do return, their peppersprayed throughout in such a way that unless you have the foreknowledge and will to bend the story towards a certain quest, you’ll most likely never see anyone you know again. That’s why I touched on Trahearne- he’s the only character from the sylvari portions of my personal story that stuck around. I don’t think it’s a problem that he overshadows others- I think the others should have been brought up to his standard.

You know, Elysian, I’d never even thought of it like that. And you’re right. To add one more to your list, that secret society thing? He knows the identity of the leader, something very few even in that organization know, because he just so happened to be there to take down the old leader when he was corrupted, and she just so happened to trust this strange outsider to help with that.

I may have to rethink my position.

Since no one else has taken you up on this yet, I guess I’ll factcheck to the best of my ability.

It does all seem plausible to me- not necessarily always the most likely, but still well within the realm of possibility. For the most part your facts are good, only misrepresentations were about Scarlet wanting to free the entire sylvari race (only evidence for that are the ambiguous lines you only partially quoted- my own reading was that she was affected by those problems because she was a sylvari, but considered the rest of her people too stupid to enact her solution).

And since you asked for things that could be relevant… first, it has been observed that the thing the marionette is lowered down out of matches the top half the Scarlet’s planned drill. If so, it’s probably be too big to dig for the Pale Tree’s roots, which are in any case exposed and readily accessible if she can get back into the Grove. Also, it’s a pretty popular theory by now that the Nightmare Court are also sylvari under Mordremoth’s sway. That’d play into your theory well- there’s a good synergy between spreading Nightmare within the Dream and wracking the Dream with the Pale Tree’s own fevered hallucinations.

As far as Trahearne’s skills go, it’s because of the sword. The sylvari are made to wield it during a personal story quest, and it replaces a class’ standard weapon skills with a hodge-podge of other skills- the guardian spin, the mesmer knockback, the warrior hammer knockdown, the air ele staff bouncing projectile… it’s a mess. So Trahearne himself isn’t changing professions or secondary professioning, the sword just sucks.

As someone who went through the sylvari storyline first, I’d like to go on the record as saying that he’s not at all that bad coming from that perspective. He comes into your story rather naturally at the start of the second chapter, plays as big a part as Caithe in the second and third chapters (which is a nice contrast to how the other races use their member of DE as a crutch), and when he shows up on Claw Island it’s a pleasant fulfillment of the promise made when you part ways at the end of the third chapter. As a sylvari, I actually thought at the end that I wish more NPCs had had the consistent involvement that Trahearne had.

I think the problem most people have with him is threefold: A.) coming from any other race, and so seen bereft of the proper perspective, Trahearne feels like an unwelcome usurper, butting in during the very mission the order mentor (and all three are popularly held to be the best characters of the PS) dies and stepping straightaway into their shoes, and holding the position longer than either of the preceding characters; B.) no matter how much credit Trahearne tries to give your character, it feels like nothing more than lipservice, since the story consistently gives him all the tangible rewards, and even the player character is written to constantly build Trahearne up; and C.) as mentioned already, among the plethora of voiced lines that don’t quite fit right, Trahearne’s consistently stand out as being the most off.

All in all, I think the character is enjoyable, and one of the PS’ best, but the story itself constantly maneuvers him to step on the player’s toes.

Officially, the living story takes place after Zhaitan’s defeat, but in practice the devs do their best to keep them separate, so we can only piece that together by a post-Lost shores dev post and the allusion to the Pact’s efforts in Orr in Tequatl Rising.

As to the actual pacing, it is safe to infer that the Tyrian year changes at Wintersday, which conveniently corresponds with our own New Year. There is very little beyond that to pace the game by. All we have to go by is that the entire personal story, start to finish, takes place within the span of the year 1325, and the exceedingly rare comment in-game, such as a scout in the Cursed Shore saying that the invasion of Orr had at that point been ongoing for weeks. Flame and Frost through Tower of Nightmares was 1326, and this Marionette business kicks off the action of 1327.

But neither of them are manageable in groups, and neither of them have any capacity for technological or magical innovation that Scarlet would find useful.

I think the scribbles are the partnerships she decided against. I mean, quaggans and centaurs? Skritt and ettins? Why would she possibly try for those?

A lot of people are like that in interviews, especially those who don’t practice public speaking in their work, and those who are toeing the line on what they can or cannot talk about or allude to. I think Scott was feeling both of those factors in this one.

facepalms Can’t believe I forgot about the kodan.

And I deduced that it should be a pirate, but that head shape is exceedingly strange. Only thing I can think of is a human in the pirate armor hat, and I am not at all sure of that.

I’m also less than sure that that’s a grawl. The posture and proportions on the others are all accurate- only way I could identify the ogre- but that figure is wrong in both if it’s a grawl.

It wasn’t quite as run-on as I made it look. He just started a lot of sentences with “and”, and my inner grammar kitten wouldn’t let me leave that be.

I still can’t figure out what the second to bottom figures on both sides of the matchup chart are supposed to be. Or what that thing the asura/Inquest is linked to should be.

What he said was (and curse the inability to speed forward on these things!) “she engages in an experiment with an advanced asuran thinker, Omadd, and during the course of this experiment, which I would describe as sort of a thought experiment in the Greek sense, the traditional Greek sense, and also an isolation, um… an isolation chamber. She’s, she’s put in this, removed from all physical external stimuli, and allowed, her mind was allowed to run free. And during the course of this experiment, she feels, and the way she describes it, she saw the Eternal Alchemy, she caught a glimpse of the Eternal Alchemy, the great asuran unifying ( audio issue here) energy to get this transcendent (another audio issue) ‘size and shape of the universe, I know how the drive of the universe works, and now that I understand that I can transcend them.’ So she’s had this moment, it’s a sanity-breaking moment, she feels like she has seen things sane people can’t understand or articulate, and in seeing it, and in understanding it, it has given her a new perspective, a point of view, that most people would describe as insane. She’s not thinking clearly by standard, uh, definitions, but she is able to achieve, um, leaps and progress that traditional thinkers can’t, and that’s one of the reasons she’s able to do such miraculous things, how she’s able to basically take on an entire city with just a handful of her own minions. Uh, Scarlet’s technical abilities give her (stutters) make opportunities for her, and they create power for her, and that’s been her path to power, that’s been her path to individuality. Um, she, the more she learns the more she can do, the more she can do, the more she can learn, and she’s on this perpetual loop of ’I’m trying to expand and increase my knowledge so that I can do pretty much whatever I want.’ Um, we’re going to get deeper into the character, we’re going to find out exactly what Scarlet wants and what she’s building towards in the coming months of the Living World story, but for now we were interested in presenting her as ‘here is her introduction’. It’s big, it’s flashy, like she is herself, uh, she draws a lot of attention to herself and it’s basically her wake-up call, you know, ‘Hello world, I’m here and now you have to deal with me.’”

Angel: “And if I could add to that as well, I think the moment Scarlet had her, had her… communion with the universe, uh, and came to understand how it all works in her own mind, that’s how she sees it, um, I think that’s the moment when she turned her sights outward. Before that, she was entirely focused on learning, which is why we, we didn’t see her for so long. Uh, from the moment she was born to, uh, later, you know, she has been learning, she’s been studying with these masters, she’s been… roaming around from place to place to place, looking for knowledge. She gets that knowledge, and now she’s turned her sights outward and she is, uh, actively looking at the world and how she can interact with it and how she can poke it. One of my favorite expressions for her is that ‘she loves to poke the bear.’ Uh, that, that’s her thing, she, she likes to poke the sleeping bear.”

alElisande: “Yeah… so her breaking moment was actually when she was outside… outside the normal world. As you said Scott, when she saw the, um…”

Scott: “(indistinct) sort of meditative state, we don’t know if she actually traveled to another place, or if she just thought she did, or if her mind did, but yes, uh, she was in a very unusual, um, almost dreamlike place where she was, and she felt she caught this understanding of the world, and reality. So it wasn’t anywhere in Tyria, it was, it was in her own head, and it remains to be seen how, how much of that is actually accurate and how much of that is just her broken psyche.”

TL;DR: He never said “she didn’t see what she thought she saw.” Nothing plus one equals one. If my word isn’t enough, feel free to burn 40 minutes too. http://wartower.tumblr.com/post/60458277036/this-lorespecial-is-about-scarlet-briar-the-evil

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Nah, gotta dismember her into six boxes – one per arm, leg, head, and abdomen – then cremate each box, then with the ashes still in the boxes, submerge them into six different impossible-to-get-to places such as the Great Imperator Smelter or w/e it’s called in Black Citadel.

And then she returns to the world of the living every April 1st, right? :p

Konig Des Todes.2086:

6) She didn’t see the Eternal Alchemy. Though never brought up in-game because it wouldn’t make sense and Scarlet does believe she saw the Eternal Alchemy, it was stated in an interview that she “didn’t see what she thought she saw” – so she didn’t see the Eternal Alchemy. As for what the voice was… we just learned there was a voice. Who it is will likely be answered later (maybe not even before Scarlet’s death).

Not exactly. This is the TowerTalk one, right? McGough cast doubt on rather she saw the Eternal Alchemy, but he didn’t say she didn’t.

1. Malafide already covered most of this. The influx of adventurers using the Temple of the Ages to travel to and from the Underworld wore the barrier between them thin, and now things can leak through from the other side, although why they are doing such is unknown. It happens in Reaper’s Gate too, which was another point of entry to the Underworld.

2. The only question we know the answer to for sure is your second- the Queen is sending the Seraph in to investigate reports of surviving White Mantle. That may or may not relate to your other questions- it’s known that the Mantle have a relationship with the bandits, though of what nature and to what extent is a mystery- but we just don’t know for sure, about the Sinister Triad or the ghosts.

3. No idea. ANet left that deliberately vague, but hinted that the Living Story may return to it.

4. We don’t know that she did. We don’t know how Faren and the others survived the fall, and by extension rather Scarlet planned on their survival. If she did, though, from what we saw in her playhouse, she just wanted new toys to ‘play’ with.

5. We don’t know that that’s the case- I personally don’t believe it- but if so it may be because corruption would make it obvious that she’s doing dragonwork. This way would preserve anonymity and avoid the attention of the Pact.

6. no idea, though the forum is bursting at the seems with theories.

7. No idea.

8. To my knowledge, no dev specifically stated that it did matter in the greater story arc, and we have had plenty of releases that are irrelevant in that greater scheme (Halloween, Wintersday, SAB) but if there is a tie it’s either because of the leylines or Kiel’s growing animosity towards the Consortium.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Zaxares.5419:

That raises further questions of what happens when an Ogre dies? Do the other Ogres simply leave the body where it fell and speak no more of the dead individual? Or are they morbidly pragmatic and ritually consume the dead/feed them to their pets? (I’m more inclined to believe the latter.)

I think Edge of Destiny features a chief having a funeral for his son.

Just checked. Nothing there about funeral rites, just that ogres don’t burn their dead, and that the chief took taking vengeance for his son so seriously he attempted to storm Ebonhawke… though rather that’s a common cultural response or simply the reaction of a given individual isn’t addressed.

But what is mentioned in the journal is that she actually went to a mender for help. That is not something that Scarlet Briar would have done- only Ceara, before she decided she knew all her people had to teach.

There actually were three types of griffons in GW1, but only the Elonian ones were at all like what we have now.

Lutinz.6915:

I liked the Ogre and Centaur answers too.

By the Six yes! It has always bothered me that they discontinued the old lore blogs before they got to ogres. (Or centaurs, or dredge, or tengu, or harpies… but in retrospect mostly ogres.) That ogre religion question had been eating at me for well nigh a year.

This is more or less what I expected. Remember that the initial Dolyak Express only saw ten questions answered. We’re actually one ahead.

Answers are up!

Omphalos is just Greek for navel, or more broadly the center point of anything. The stone at Delphi was called such because the Greeks believed its position the center of the world, not for any quality of the stone itself. We were told since pre-launch that the Pale Tree could be communed with from its heart or center, so I think Omphalos is just a flavorful word to denote that.

It wouldn’t surprise me, especially given that it doesn’t look to be a random jumble- the same seven lines are just repeated over and over. I’ve never tried this sort of thing before, but best of luck to you ambitious few!

Miroe.2054:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Miroe.2054:

If we assume there is a Plant dragon, it will probably align with the earth element and thus be underground.

No, plants are both above and below ground. A jungle dragon could be both.

Well, actually they have largely vanished in the Maguuma region

Only in the northern half. There is still a huge amount of unexplored jungle west of Metrica.

Blaithnat only shows up if you did that branch, instead of the mirror one, and they share the same portrait. I believe she also thanks you for rescuing her if talked to immediately after the quest, though not later down the line.

He didn’t have the dialogue, or he didn’t run off?

We did ask a whole lotta questions, some of which they probably haven’t thought of themselves, and some of which they’ll have to pass up the ladder to find out what they can share. I’m willing to give them some leeway when it comes to self-inflicted deadlines, so long as the result is worth the wait.

She’s a sylvari genius, who’s mastered engineering disciplines of half a dozen races. She participated in an asuran experiment which was supposed to allow her to see the Eternal Alchemy (aka inner workings of the universe), but it broke her and she came out of it insane and trying to… well, we still don’t know exactly what. She’s attacked the norn, charr, and Lion’s Arch through proxies, and Kryta directly, and she’s been causing widespread chaos across Tyria of a questionably canon nature. There are a load of theories about her, since she’s the main character of the Living Story and ANet’s been kittenrd with information about her. She currently has the Molten Alliance (dredge and Flame Legion), the Aetherblades (sky pirates), Twisted Watchworks (stolen human robots), and Toxic Alliance (krait and Nightmare Court) at her disposal. After the formation of each of these, she came away with some new spectacular engineering innovation that she uses in her future projects. Currently she has forces guarding sonic probes throughout Tyria (the purpose of which is unknown), and is testing out a new superweapon in Lornar’s Pass.

Not if they work like they have up to this point. The events always started with a windblown spore crashing into the ground.

On a serious note, I really don’t think it means anything. Everything in that hideyhole that us players weren’t supposed to recognize were just sheets with scribbles. A few of those scribbles got graffitied over, like this one. I don’t think they’ll go anywhere with it.