R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I really liked the instance too, with only one technical complaint (I mean, seriously? Well over a year since the personal story had issues with text-dumps speeding out of the instance, and it’s still a problem? Jeesh.), and I thought it was a really good way to get back into each individual character arc after the break to have them all interacting with each other. In the future I do hope that they get spread back out though- most of the complaints I’ve heard about Kasmeer have been either that it doesn’t fit with what’s going on around her, or that it just seems to big a coincidence that her father’s birthday happens to fall on this day with so much else going on, and I think if that scene had just been her and Marjory back at their bar it would’ve solved both. Despite that, though, the instance easily scores 9/10 in my books. I especially appreciated that Taimi’s comic relief was set perfectly to offset Braham’s renewed mopiness while still allowing said mopiness to have repercussions in his relationship with Rox, and also that Marjory was able to bring E back to the front of our thoughts in a way that didn’t feel forced.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
To the texture on the projection, I assume you mean the darker swathes? If so, that just line up with Tyria’s major bodies of water. And it makes sense- the map is apparently some statement of intent in regard to the probes, and sonic-based probing technology calibrated for terrestrial use would be useless in finding results underwater, since sound waves behave differently in those conditions.
On the map on Scarlet’s table, that darker bit in the Shiverpeaks is actually present in every in-game map of modern Tyria, and has been since launch.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Wow, where to start… ok. There are still loads of people playing, all the NA servers spend most of the day in “very high” population and hardly ever drop below “high”. Other people will have to talk about the gameplay improvements, as I haven’t kept track, but there have been loads. This is the official summation of the story since last January, up to just before this most recent patch. I’d be happy to answer any more specific questions you have after reading through.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I don’t know what you mean… if you talk to her away from Rytlock, Rox is quite honest that a “small army” did all the work and she just nabbed a piece of the tail. And Marjory remembered my character just fine.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I don’t think destroyer spawns will tell you a lot. We know that Primordius has a vast network of caverns underneath Tyria and it’s probable that he can create more, so realistically the Destroyers can pop up anywhere. Also not really sure why you have circles over Divinity’s Reach? The only situation I can think of there being destroyers was when the Watchknights were transforming into enemies that we had fought previously?
Maybe so, but there is one thing that strikes me- Primordus awoke beneath the eastern edge of the Shiverpeaks, and yet east of the Shiverpeaks is the only region we don’t see destroyers in GW2.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
That’s what Foxx meant. None of the enemies in the Crown Pavillion were real- they were just watchknights covered over with illusions.
What’s the circle in Fireheart? And one you missed- in Dredgehaunt, one of the tombs you need to use a key on has destroyers in it.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I think Zojja is often out, depending on your character and how far they are with the personal story. I know my sylvari has always found Rytlock away from his office.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I like the precedent that the giant instance set, and it does feel right to check on everyone after a month and a half off… though I was really disappointed to see that they still have textdump NPCs that run out of the instance with no warning whatsoever.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
abbadon confirmed !? ^^
Careful what you wish for. If Abaddon possesses Scarlet, it sets a precedent for Kormir to possess Trahearne.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Hopefully this line of speculation can be resolved soon, since Scarlet’s journal features in this patch.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
By the wires in them, I’d guess circuitry, not clockwork, but iirc the Priory has dissected them (which is how we know about the organic bits). I would imagine they would have mentioned if they found coal, or any other recognizable power source.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
That superiority, though, was by GW1’s time, and likely for quite a long while beforehand, entirely based in humanity’s magic and technology. The gods didn’t make a decisive difference in any conflicts after they left, save only the one with Rotscale.
You mean Abaddon…? Because they certainly didn’t involve themselves with Rotscale, unless you know something I don’t.
Nah, all they did with Abaddon was offer some words of encouragement, and possibly help with the containment of the aftermath. I was making a joke about how there just happened to be a blessings-granting statue right next to the hardest boss in the non-elite areas of the game.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
That’s only because the gods haven’t been helping the humans out for the past couple hundred years (at least). Before that, when the gods were more actively involved, the humans dominated the other races a whole lot more. So it’s pretty clear the gods would be a huge help to any race they side with.
That superiority, though, was by GW1’s time, and likely for quite a long while beforehand, entirely based in humanity’s magic and technology. The gods didn’t make a decisive difference in any conflicts after they left, save only the one with Rotscale.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Went to look for myself, and I’m not entirely convinced that it is damage, seeing as every specimen of that kind of tree has it, and they still seem green and healthy enough. Tyria is bursting at the seams with bizarre plantlife, so I personally would chalk this up as a quirk of a certain species of tree. Or, perhaps, it’s a non-fatal infestation by a certain kind of insect. Whatever it is, the pattern isn’t consistent with damage inflicted by sapient lifeforms.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
I’ll add Kudu to the list, but the thing is, it’s just hard to see anyone willingly being corrupted by a dragon. There’s no reason to be, as there is nothing in it for someone to become a slave. By it’s very nature dragon corruption would erase any kind of motive they might have had. Even looking at the Sons and Kudu, they never set out to become corrupted- all of them were/are convinced that they’re the one exception that will be able to master the power before it masters them.
There is the possibility of the Nightmare Court, but even if they are corrupted all indications are that they don’t know it themselves.
The only other thing I can think of is the Risen’s propensity to use dead friends as leverage to try to break their enemies’ wills, but while in theory it may have succeeded at some point or another in the course of a century, there are no known examples.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I don’t really buy that the offshoots were just mechanics either, seeing as they changed up the event specifically for WvW by adding Scarlet’s towering holographic presence.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
EDIT: Never mind, I lied before. There is one more line. “But three hundred years ago, the dragons’ bellies were empty, and their minds were awakening. Three hundred years ago, the sons of men fought me before they understood that I was their ally.” Put the two together, and it seems our GW1 heroes attacked Glint in a similar misunderstanding that she was with the Elder Dragons, and she afterwards helped them. The whole thing stinks of a Guild Wars: Beyond story arc that will now never materialize.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
Went ahead and played back through the TowerTalk podcast, since no one here seems to have reported those details. Here’s what I turned up.
1. First, and most importantly, the devs haven’t given much thought to the specifics of the system. They say they haven’t made out what the precise hierarchy of titles actually is, beyond that the queen/king is at the top and the plain lords and ladies are at the bottom.
2. They say they pull pretty directly from typical European feudal systems, so while they haven’t cemented anything it is likely safe to assume for the moment that any standard feudal titles (duke, marquis, earl, count, viscount, baron, et al.) either exist or had existed.
3. The ranking system is now only an anarchism of past times and no longer has practical significance. It was based on land held and administrated, but between the abandonment of vast swathes of country and high society’s present preference for and removal to Divinity’s Reach, there’s now nothing to set a duke or baron above a mere lord but the prominence of their long-dead ancestors.
4. Comparative power among the modern nobility is based on the age and wealth of the families, which would not always be reflected by titles.
5. This is a comparatively small thing, but, in my opinion reflecting the broad strokes approach to the nobility, there are inconsistencies between what Angel and Scott say and what character say in-game; for example, their assertion that the Ministry only takes nobility rubs wrong against the testimony of Minister Rachel.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
@Brother I don’t see that it would be an advantage to follow the human gods. Humanity certainly hasn’t derived any benefit for the last two centuries, and for a millennia before that the gain was only in the form of answered prayers and blessings, which, being more or less on par to results obtainable through other magic, would simply be an alternative for things the races can already do for themselves.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Actually, from Sea of Sorrows it seems that there isn’t any fast rule for who inherits, but that the ruler can name any of their kids that they want heir.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I know you’re referring to the golem event, but I normally chalk that up to miasma, just toxic magical waste. Lots of stuff was going on at thaumanova, just like in CoE, but the creatures (chaos beasts) that appear still stick to the blk/purple scheme same as in the chaos crystal caverns.
Not just the golem event itself, but also the chaotic material that spawns chaos beasts as part of the pre-event and the hearts in Thaumanova and the Anthill.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
The chaotic material/energy spewing out of Thaumanova is green or greenish black.
Personally, I think a distinction ought to be made between the Thaumanova chaos energy and mesmer chaos energy. The only thing they have in common is that they create unpredictable effects, but even there each has distinct portfolios of random effects. The visuals are completely different, and mesmer magic has been used for hundreds of years like any other, whereas the Thaumanova stuff is supposedly thoroughly unsafe to even make contact with.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Would we bear with their mistakes while they improve this feat? – Yes.
Only if they fixed it so using a moving waypoint has no chance of you falling out of the back of the ship.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Well, just ducked into WvW for the first time in ages… and there are probes there too. Thoughts? ‘Cause these can’t have anything to do with Primordus or ley lines.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
And another note on the Orders- they only collaborate in the Pact for strictly dragon-related business. Any agenda they may pursue that does not contribute to the defeat of the dragons (see: everything to do with the Living Story save Teq) is considered to be solely the problem of that given order. If the Priory doesn’t believe that the Wurm is related to Mordremoth (and there’s no reason why they should) then the Pact would not get involved.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I could be wrong, but I believe I remember reading somewhere that the reason they don’t is the difficulty of making moving terrain, especially in any remotely smooth manner. With my own personal experiences of a myriad of problems with the airship portions of Arah, I can believe it.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
As far as the wurm goes, I would like to chime in on just a couple things: first, Konig was slightly off when he said the Great Jungle Wurm when he said it looks like any other jungle wurm. It recently underwent a stealth update that changed its coloration, and this Great Wurm Mark II? Same coloration. Furthermore, the trailer shows husks around the wurm, and combined with the Massively article, they clearly aren’t from Scarlet’s pet Nightmare Court. Small things, maybe, but I think they go a long way towards furthering the Mordremoth connection. Though that does raise questions about what it’s doing beneath Bloodtide Coast… and where else more might be as well.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Gonna emulate captaincrash and draw inspiration from Kulvar:
Is there anything you can tell us about fleshreavers? How intelligent they are, how they ended up in their current locations, or at least why they appear out of portals to the Underworld?
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Gonna chime in, in the interest of winnowing out known answers:
Asura are mammals, as stated in a forum post in GW2Guru, I believe, where a dev expressed shock at coming across fanfic of asura laying eggs. Not that I would mind any tidbits about asura (or any other race’s) biology!
Humans aren’t native to Tyria, the planet. They appeared on Tyria the continent and Elona in 205 A.E., and Cantha much earlier in 786 B.E. Where they were before then is a mystery, but human history claims that their gods brought them to this world from somewhere across the Mists. It’s also interesting to note that the timeline says in all three cases that humans “appear” on the given continent, not arrive. An unconventional, maybe magical, means of translocation perhaps?
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
@Tobias Last one on the page.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
If it makes you feel any better, Nicholas, there is acknowledgement on Jennah’s part- it’s just buried in the personal story.
For my own part, I really don’t believe in this whole ‘bias’ crap. Two occurences is a coincidence, not a trend. Caithe and Faolain are no more a blatant relationship than Logan and Jennah- they’re exes, after all, and in both cases only one partner is overly clingy. The Marjory-Kasmeer relationship was great at the start- I honestly didn’t see it coming when the first dialogue started up at Thunder Ridge- but I have unfortunately been soured to it, solely because of how tastelessly heavy-handed the nudity twist was. Still, the fault there wasn’t integral to their relationship. Quite the opposite, I’d say it was something that smells suspiciously of fanservice butting in on the relationship.
Now, I’m fine with fanservice, but it has a time and a place, and I like it to stay well out of my character arcs.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
On a side note, you can find some melandru’s stalker in Ascalon, somewhere in the east of the Fields of Ruin map.
O.o Really? Sounds like I’ll need to make an expedition out there… I really don’t spend enough time in that zone, if something like this has escaped me.
EDIT: And just south of a waypoint, too…
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
Alright, as requested I’ll get deeper into it.
Zhaitan: In Sea of Sorrows, sailors who were killed by the Great Tsunami refer to Zhaitan as Zhaitan after being reanimated, and in-game we see Orrians who were killed in the Cataclysm, before any Elder Dragon so much as stirred, do the same. It’s safe to say that the name therefore comes to the minions in the course of the corruption, and is at the very least how the dragon wishes to be called by its minions.
Kralkatorrik: Named by Glint in Edge of Destiny, and in the same chapter, springs into the thought process of a freshly-corrupted charr. Like Zhaitan, is the name its minions know it by without any outside influence.
Jormag: This one, Simplicity, I can only cite the precedent of the other two for. The only icebrood I know of that name Jormag are former norn, and thus likely Sons of Svanir. There is, however, the weak evidence that most uncorrupted Sons call it Dragon, while most icebrood Sons use Jormag. And again, we know that two dragons have at the very least taken the names they were given for their own, if not picked them out themselves, and have no reason to believe Jormag’s case is any different.
Primordus: As mentioned in my last post, none of the destroyers talk. The only real candidate of the four, imo, for having a name other than the one we use for him- though where Primordus comes from is still up in the air. I lean towards the theory that it was the “true name” of the Great Destroyer that was never to be spoken, and is known to modern Tyrians through the Tome of Rubicon, but only because there’s no other possibilities that spring to mind.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Actually, there are icebrood and branded that do talk, though admittingly hardly any of the later. So in the cases of Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik, and Jormag, I believe the name does come to us from the dragon’s minions. Primordus is harder to explain, but it’s possible that in his case, Primordus is simply the dwarvern name, and not his own name for himself.
I don’t know for sure about the last two, but if I have to guess, I’d say Mordremoth will have talking minions (based on the idea that the blighted creatures in Wychmire Swamp are corrupted by him, and the precedent that corrupted beings retain their previous capacity for speech), and some air-head sylvari will introduce Bubbles to the canon.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I hope so. He’s a much more compelling character than Scarlet, even if he leans more towards anti-hero than villain.
“Even if”? You mean “because.”
Villains can be done right, and anti-heroes can be done very, very wrong. If anything, I’m rather more leery of anti-heroes- if it doesn’t start there, the character is all too easy to break when the writers decide to force them onto Team Good Guy.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I hope so. He’s a much more compelling character than Scarlet, even if he leans more towards anti-hero than villain.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Thanks!
Question 1: Can you answer any questions left by the loose ends of Guild Wars Beyond? What happened to Evennia, for instance, or who hired Zinn to assassinate human leaders.
Question 2: Why are the Ascalonian ghosts scattered across the kingdom? Were there humans there when the Foefire went off, or did they move outwards sometime after?
Question 3: What happened to the Forgotten in the Crystal Desert?
Question 4: Are Tequatl and the Claw corrupted dragons or created champions? Are there uncorrupted dragons out there?
Question 5: Do ogres have religious beliefs?
Gonna stop myself there. Sorry if this got to be too long!
EDIT: Ok, two more. Sorry!
Question 6: What were the ruins at Mudbay Digs in Kessex Hills?
Question 7: Why was the statue of Grenth at Reaper’s Gate replaced with the ‘new’ style one?
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
I think it’d be more accurate to say they tried to roll the races into us rather than us into the races, but I agree. There’s really only one post in twenty on those forums that qualifies as “lore discussion”. Still, I don’t think that it’ll do much to discourage traffic. There’s a whole category for us now, and on top of that, we’ve never been the most friendly sub-forum for someone to stumble into anyway.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Oh, geez… there’s so much to get into here. Danicia, are we allowed to ask multiple questions in a single post, or do we have to settle on one?
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
As far as the disparity in appearance, that’s actually true of a lot of things between the games. My fallback example has always been the jungle trolls. It bothers me too, but that’s just the way it is.
The location is weird, but it is not wholly unexplainable. I can think of two possibilities for them getting over there: in GW1, there were a disproportionate amount of rangers with Melandru’s Stalkers as pets, on account of them being the pet you tamed in the tutorial, and there being no reason to switch unless you particularly cared about a certain animal or were kitten about piercing vs slashing damage. If the devs decided to reflect that in the lore, you’d see rangers taking them across the continent, and maybe for some reason or another leaving them behind. In that scenario, there would just chance to be a lot of them left there, where they were particularly successful, and possibly, as you suggested, interbreed with the native krytan big cat (another creature that has drastically changed appearance and habitat between games.) That’s more or less the idea you seem to have settled on, but alternatively, we see in GW1 that there’s a weak association between the stalkers and a shrine of Melandru. There is another such shrine in a mostly uninhabited area, vaguely close to where the current stalkers are (it would’ve been in the southwesternmost corner of what is now Kessex Hills, near as I can figure). It may be that that shrine also had an attendant population of stalkers that wandered south, possibly due to the shrine being largely abandoned. Both possibilities are rather tenuous, but they serve as examples that it isn’t impossible for the stalkers to be there.
What I want to know is what sets these now visually identical creatures apart from every other jungle stalker that can be found across Caledon Forest.
EDIT: As far as in-game information goes, there’s absolutely nothing about them except the little red tags floating above them.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)
I have to wonder at that. Unless I’m mistaken, the only time that’s mentioned is in Forging the Pact, where Trahearne says “Zhaitan knows everything its minions know.” Normally, when we get that kind of point-blank statement in the personal story, we take it is fact, and I have no doubt that the developers intended it to be that way… but how could Trahearne have tested that hypothesis, let alone proven it?
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I’m not going to get involved in the speculation, but for you intrepid souls who are, one more hint: the video in ANet’s story so far news post ends on a teaser shot: two inactive asura gates, one clearly damaged, against a smoky night sky, with a narration saying the worst is yet to come. Can’t make any guarantees, but it looks to me like the LA gate hub.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Ether seems, in GW2, to be used for clones and energy blasts, and in GW1, to add to one’s energy or drain an opponent’s, oftentimes with a corresponding change in health, which is how the modern elementalist still uses it. Arcane is used in both games as a sort of blank slate magic, in GW2 something an elementalist can add their attunement to without altering the basic nature of the spell, and in GW1 something that mesmers could utilize to temporarily use someone else’s spells.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Razah is a different case though. In the Fractals, we see copies/reflections/echoes/(insert any term for distorted duplicate) of things that exist. Razah himself was a being of the Mists that took on human form.
The form was a copy, but the being was not. In the Fractals, both being and form of the inhabitants are derived from something else.
As to the displaced chunk of Tyria, that’s unfeasible for two reasons. First, portals to the Mists are like doors. They can be passed through, in one direction or in both, seemingly freely- but it is all but unheard of for something to be sucked through one, and those instances A.) were powered by the will of a god, and B.) never pulled more than a few people in at a time, even at the apex of the Nightfall event. The only known instance of a power from Tyria casting something into the Mists was when the five gods cast down Abaddon.
Secondly, even if it happened, Dessa would be no help. Her lab condenses the essence of the Mists in a way that allows her portal to access them. It would not have any way of making contact with those cast out, and so the person involved would not be able to reach her to receive her help.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Indeed, but a generation is defined as the average span of years between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring. Among humans that’s about 30 years, less than half of a lifespan if it isn’t cut short, but that number is also too high, as we’ve outgrown most of the natural pressures that in times past have forced us to have children much sooner.
As for the “as much a part of this area as the lake or the sky”, that could be said within a couple generations. It’s drawing a parallel- like the lake and the sky, they cannot remember a time when they were not there. As hylek seemingly make no effort to keep history, that could at least theoretically have been said as soon as the last of the original settlers had died, though more likely it’d be when all those who had known the original settlers died.
I’m not saying you’re wrong- I’m not convinced myself- just that it’s a leap.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I wouldn’t put too much merit into the idea behind “not in GW1” – those hylek in Kessex Hills say they’ve been there for generations, and by the sound of it before GW1’s time, but we see no such hylek presence in GW1 in that area.
I wouldn’t say that. “Many generations” doesn’t means as much when a generation is only 15-20 years.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
Hello this is just a quick question (or two) for all you wonderful people. I am trying to write a character bio and would like to include the fractals in it some how, however after reading the wiki page it doesn’t overly explain what they are, how they work or how they came to be?
Would someone from a fractal be able to extracted into the real present day Tyria or are they illusions, just memory printed magically upon the mist (how are the fractals themselves created)?
Do we see fractals from the future or only the past?
Do people have entering the fractal have any power over the events that occur or are they purely observing?
Any other information on the topic would be brilliant I look forward to reading what is known.
Don’t know much about the origins. The way we were first told it is that Dessa somehow managed to access the Mists and build a lab out there that could take parts of them and make them accessible. The Consortium later attepted to open an asura gate to Southsun- however, since the expedition team never set up a receiving gate, something went wrong and it accidentally accessed Dessa’s lab instead. However, the latest update to them has cast some doubt on that account.
We don’t know rather Fractal creatures can leave, but Dessa may be proof that they cannot. We’ll have to wait for more of her story to be sure.
All the Fractals we see are in the past- word of dev- but it is at least theoretically possible to create a Fractal based off the future. Since Fractals are only imperfect replications, however, any knowledge gleaned in such a fashion could not be trusted.
As observers, we have power to affect what is happening, to the same extent as we have power to affect the happenings in Tyria proper- with spell and sword. Fractals are unsuitable for a prolonged sequence of events, however. They’re just little chunks, in terms of both time and space.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
I’m not sure that the hylek worship them- the face is at the start of the only part of that place that doesn’t have hylek, and besides, worshiping random faces in rocks is more a grawl thing- but they do seem to have named it. I’ve been told hylek names are derived from real world Nahuatl, so if anyone could dig and see what Itlaocol comes out as perhaps it could give us a hint.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.
The short answer: no and no. I know there’ve been a couple theories on the faces floating around, ranging from ancient carvings to petrified giant oakhearts, but it’s never addressed. The stumps I’ve always just written off as being a quirk of the local flora. Presumably they either grew up and were wiped out in the space between games, or were just conveniently offscreen in GW1. In any case, all the NPCs seem to take both the stumps and the faces for granted, as there’s not a one out there that makes mention of them.
R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.