Guild Wars 2

Shiren.9532:

They take Saul, but leave his other followers. Hablion, Thommis, Gisinger, Dorian, Bryen, Jaemes and Rebekah were all there. At least three of them around still around leading the White Mantle after Saul is taken.

Why take Saul for seeing what the mursaat did but leave Dorian and the others? Any reasons for taking Saul remain the same for taking Dorian don’t they?

Because Saul repented. The mursaat killed Gisinger, Bryen, Jaemes, and Rebekah in that cutscene- for reasons drax touched on above- and when Saul watched that happen he realized the mursaat weren’t the kindhearted benefactors he’d thought them to be. He would have turned on them if they’d left him be. Not so with Dorian, Hablion, and Thommis. In Prophecies we see that they’re fanatics who’d happily offer up Mantle lives to the Unseen Ones’ service.

If anything, I feel like it’s re-establishing the state of affairs from when Jennah had that conversation with us, progress that was lost in the whole kerfluffle of S1 turning back the clock on all of the Personal Story’s developments… and hopefully it’s a more permanent solution this time. Previously we had Logan deciding he’d better protect his queen from the front lines; now we have him coming to terms with the fact that she doesn’t really need that protection for anything short of another Elder Dragon.

I’m not 100% sold on E being a member of the Whispers, but it does seem like the most likely possibility. It’d also explain how Caudecus knew about him, since we learned that the White Mantle had an infiltrator.

It is curious, though, how invested E is in Divinity’s Reach. By the tone of his letters, he didn’t just sound interested in beating back the Mantle- there was a thread of hostility, even anger, being directed against Caudecus personally for his ‘betrayal’. If he is Whispers, we just might be seeing a departure from the typically impassive spy stereotype, a welcome bit of characterization.

It looked like Pistol Whip with a shadowstep added in to me, followed by a one pistol Unload- and I got a very good luck several times- but they might not be mutually exclusive. (The combat log in this case isn’t much help, but it did give me a good laugh.) It’s actually relatively common for NPCs to use skills from two professions. Caudecus might be both thief and mesmer. Remember that he is also able to portal himself down to his, ah, personal chamber, after Wi turned on him.

Amaimon.7823:

Not really, Janthir was mentioned, but it was only player speculation that led to some people believing Caudecus was there.

It was more than just player speculation. At the end of Crack in the Ice Rox says “Canach says it looks like [Caudecus’] making his way up to the Isles of Janthir.”

draxynnic.3719:

Second, the revelation about Caudecus substituting a piece for Lazarus is an interesting one. Where did the substitute come from? Does Caudecus actually know, or is the piece simply not-Lazarus? If anything, this puts a bigger question mark over not-Lazarus’ motives: not-Lazarus clearly was not Caudecus’ ally, but Caudecus appears to have expected the ritual to fail entirely, not to create an entity that appears very similar to Lazarus but changed in personality. What if the piece he slipped in was of a stone dwarf? Or something that Glint had planted, predicting that he’d use it? Not-Lazarus could still be a genuine ally, depending on what the fifth piece actually is…

Hm. That’s one possibility, and an interesting line of thought (what if the reason he’s so mellow now is that the piece that didn’t get put in was the corrupted one with all the reason to hate humanity?), but the impression I got was that the ritual did fail entirely, and that some mysterious interloper was poised in the wings to swoop in and put on a mursaat disguise. That’d raise it’s own questions- what happened to the bits of Lazarus chief among them, and which third part is powerful enough to pull that kind of deceit off- so I’m looking forward to finding out what they go with. At least we can be reasonably certain this mystery won’t take years to come up again.

Jokubas.4265:

Jennah and Anise continue to openly defy the rule of law and suspend people’s rights whenever they want, which seems to be any time the topic comes up.

Anise was really violent this episode, but at least she got talked down. If Anise had her way, no one would have known where Caudecus went. Then, after having to be talked down again from outright murdering someone who had surrendered, she suspended their right to a trial so she could control their every movement for the foreseeable future.

Laws and rights exist for situations like this. Situations in which people’s immediate reaction is to want some revenge instead of actually judging what the person did and giving them a chance to reform.

Laws and rights exist in the real world for situations like this. Thing is, though, Kryta has no reason to have those rights.

The idea of human rights isn’t just the default behavior of our species, and they didn’t form in a void. We built up to them slowly, over hundreds of years, through a very specific set of political and cultural circumstances. I admit I haven’t studied the subject in detail, but my understanding is that both parliamentary government and bills of rights don’t date any earlier than the 16th century, and that both came about because the kings of the time no longer had the power to resist the demands of the nobles they relied on. (European history being what it is, I suspect that understanding is a vast oversimplification.) That period of transition seems to be, roughly, where modern Kryta is right now, but without forces like the Reformation and the Enlightenment eroding the monarch’s power.

What we’ve been told about the Ministry is that it’s an advisory body, and a means of representation of the populace, that’s gained the weight of tradition and custom. While it managed to informally grant itself quite a bit of power during Jennah’s minority, all the indications I’ve seen is that Kryta is still in theory an absolute monarchy. When the minister spoke out against Jennah, he didn’t use any words like ‘illegal’ or unconstitutional’, which would have been the go-to if such laws or constitutions existed. Instead, he was reduced to appealing to principle, that the voice of the ministers and the people should be heard. Now, where the system goes in the future depends quite a bit on how this conflict plays out going forward, but for the reasons I’ve stated in my previous post I suspect we’ve just seen Jennah bring the Ministry to heel. Even if she does reinstate it down the road, she’s made it clear that she retains the authority and that they serve at her pleasure, and under current conditions I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to mount effective opposition without coming across as a Mantle sympathizer.

Regrouping with the Queen: Short, but with a lot packed in. It made me a little sad to see Jennah back in Queen mode… although I can’t help but notice it corresponded with Anise coming back to hover over her. Combined with the first time we’ve ever seen the two of them disagree, I’m thinking that it’s not just Logan’s protection that chafes. Demmi’s return was a surprise, but a pleasure, and Logan taking on the role of Marshal… that was an interesting choice, but maybe a good one. Putting a character who the community is already split over into a role that invites Kormir Syndrome at least avoids the risk of a more widely popular character wearing out their welcome, and he is certainly better qualified than Trahearne (or our own characters, for that matter). It’ll be interesting to watch how it plays out.

Confessor’s End: This one was amazing. Being given an opportunity to solo clear the Manor and wander around at my leisure was pandering to me already, but the amount of story content in those letters, and the variety, blew me away. Everything from covering what we already knew from the PS, to things we could’ve guessed with what we know now (Zamon being Mantle, Caudecus being responsible for tipping the Blade off about the former Confessor), to things that came as honest surprises (killing Ulgoth’s family with the implication that it’s not just responsible for the attack on Shaemoor but the entire hyper-aggressive state of the war throughout the base game, or Caudecus having fought as a general is Ascalon); I can’t think of a better way to tie things together at the end of the original game’s most intricate plot. Some people won’t be happy that Caudecus turned out to be behind even more than we originally knew, but it fits him in a way it never did Scarlet, and was handled better to boot. Seeing the secret rooms used also made me grin, and the boss fight was the first one I’ve enjoyed all season. The mechanics were intuitive, and playing around them felt like it gave me a leg up as a reward, instead of just being a mandatory pain in the kitten. The countermagic could’ve used a larger window, but I adjusted.

The experience was very positive on the whole, but there were two disappointments. The squabbling between Anise and Demmi was as unenjoyable as any dialogue I’ve ever had to sit through, and I was beginning to daydream about putting an arrow into our Master Exemplar before Canach showed up and pulled things back on course. The other is that our encounter with Caudecus came when he was entirely off his game. The letters made up for a large part of that, and maybe that was the best way to turn him into a boss level encounter, but seeing him as a rambling creep, and then a raging behemoth, wasn’t as satisfying as facing him on his own terms would’ve been.

One last note: what happened to the bit from last patch about Caudecus heading to Janthir? Maybe I missed something, but I didn’t even see it mentioned.

Well… I enjoyed this one, and I feel like there’s some nuance being missed in this discussion, so what the heck. I’ll chime in.

A Meeting of Ministers: Talk about starting on a strong note. Jennah was incredible, although the energy barrier encompassing the entire Upper City (and, once we’re out of the instance, apparently the rest of DR too) was a bit much even with the fig leaf of it being something prepared beforehand. Plot convenience to keep from having to deal with the city being bombarded, I assume, which freed them up to focus on the new map and then the story they wanted to tell. But what I liked more than the reminder that the Queen can handle herself in a fight (and that point finally getting through to Logan!) was that we saw more personality from Jennah in that one instance than in every previous appearance put together. The joking about how our job must be easier, the quip about how she might be cut out for our line of work… the politician’s mask slipped a bit, and it felt like we finally saw a person under it. The joy at being able to strike directly at foes who’ve been trying to undo everything you’ve worked to build after years of having to sit on your hands for the sake of justice and kindness and all the other high-minded ideals that’ve let them run rings around you… I thought it was a very relatable, very human reaction, not just cruelty or glee in bloodshed.

The one thing that made me raise an eyebrow was how she went about suspending the Ministry. When the one guy started talking over her, my reaction was ‘what did you expect their reaction would be?’ If the attack hadn’t come when it did… but afterwards, I believe that was the whole point. It wasn’t that Jennah’s a tyrant, it’s that she had clear and justified reasons for doing what she did, and the timing of the attack was ANet’s way of getting that point across to us players (and the loyal ministers). What we saw was a minister make good, reasonable objections on strictly moral grounds (more on that in a bit), that quickly faded into insignificance in the face of what was actually happening. I think the fact that Jennah only did this now, not five years ago when clear evidence was provided that somebody in the Ministry was plotting with Kryta’s enemies to overthrow her, goes a long way towards showing her to be a restrained ruler who was largely dedicated to the Ministry model.

Lake Doric: The map itself I enjoy. However, this was the fourth time straight that we’ve had an interruption requiring us to go grind the new content for a bit before we come back to the story, and it felt particularly egregious. Maybe it’s that I’d taken my time during the scouting mission, and completed most of the hearts in the process, then got told to turn around and go do the same thing over again. Maybe it’s that none of the story instances took place in Lake Doric. Maybe it’s just that it’s the fourth forced tour that doesn’t contribute anything. Either way, that sequence felt like an interruption, not a continuation, of the story, and it was bad enough to prompt me to walk away last night. It had echoes of S1, where the release’s content goal (in this case, their commitment to a new map every time) and plot goal didn’t seem integrated.

Rawr.9467:

I’m assuming that when they die outside of actual cutscenes it’s more of a pokemon style fainting than actual death.

Pretty much this. Technically, when our screen greys over we are ‘defeated’, not dead. Same goes for any of the NPCs we can pick up. The ones that die are the ones that don’t give us an option to revive.

Resurrection did used to be part of the setting, but by GW2 it’s a lost art, and possibly impossible, a decision the devs made for the reasons you listed above. It was odd to be able to bring the slain back to life, but not when the corpse was someone important who we’d most want to resurrect.

Nope. That was the Mortis Verge (spelling variable), a recent charr invention that confuses undead and draws life force. No relation to the Scepter, as far as we know.

Sykper.6583:

White Mantle capturing Livia, imprisoning and torturing her for centuries in secret since she was former Shining Blade?

Doesn’t change your point, but it couldn’t have been longer than 74 years, since we saw her free and active in SoS.

I think, from the snippet we’ve got, that a White Mantle-run prison is at least no more likely than the other possibilities. “The destruction of the Maguuma Bloodstone has opened a mysterious portal” sounds like it’s a form of one of the rifts that’s already been opening and pulling Tyrian creatures through at random, not a portal that the Mantle had established for themselves, and it describes the place as “ancient”. ANet plays fast and loose with that term, but it at least rarely refers to something that’s been continuously occupied since it was built, or that was built in the last one or two hundred years, which is the window for anything made by the modern Mantle.

That said, with the horned preview image, and Gorseval already hinting at them in GW2, if it is linked to the Mantle plot my bet is that we’re going to get an old mursaat prison built to hold one or more titans. The Penitent could refer either to a titan that decided not to be a force of destruction, since we’ve clearly seen since Nightfall that they’re intelligent entities, or to mursaat who gave up on the whole rule-Kryta-through-blood-sacrifice gig to focus on the one arguably noble pursuit of their race.

That was Minister Zamon. Caudecus just sat on the sidelines and looked grumpy for that fight.

Other good spots are the incomplete lore series done by WoodenPotatoes, probably the most high-profile YouTuber on the topic (although many on this forum are quick to point out inaccuracies in his videos, I haven’t seen a better summary of the broad picture of GW2, as well as the Prophecies campaign of GW1), and while I haven’t watched them myself, Ragucci seems to have videos on some of the more important parts of GW2’s story. If you have the money to spare, the three official novels are excellent choices, especially Ghosts of Ascalon, which was written as an introduction to the universe. Like azureai said, we’re happy to help with individual questions here, although the threads can derail pretty easily.

This is an old theory, but laying out the known facts:

The Scepter of Orr was credited with the ability to control beings from the Underworld. Whether that’s true or not is unknown. Regardless, it was never said to be able to control living minds. We also aren’t ever told that it alters its wielder.

At some point after EotN Livia came into possession of the Scepter of Orr. She also stated her intent to visit Arah. Whether she found the Scepter of Orr in Arah, or ever visited Arah at all, is unknown.

In WiK, we do not see her using the Scepter of Orr. We don’t know if she’d found it yet. We also don’t know if she’d traveled to Arah at that point. However, we do know that the events of WiK are what ended the civil war, with the last known mursaat slain and the White Mantle broken and chased into exile. No mind control came into it. At the end of WiK, Livia is made the leader of the Shining Blade.

We know from a dev comment that Livia held on to the Scepter of Orr for a time, but not indefinitely.

In Sea of Sorrows, 177 years after we’d last seen her in WiK, Livia makes another appearance. She did not appear to be old, except possibly for a streak of white in her hair. She was a figure of local legend in human Lion’s Arch, known as the ‘self-appointed protector of the ruler of Kryta’ for generations, and rumored to have become a lich, or to use blood sacrifice to maintain eternal youth. She acts as the leader of the Shining Blade contingent guarding Prince Edair, the uncrowned heir to the throne, but she bore the title Exemplar, which by the GW2 ranking would mean she no longer commanded the Shining Blade as a whole. The precise truth is unknown. She references the Scepter of Orr, and implies that she still has it, but the words she used are ambiguous and the truth is unknown. We don’t see her use the Scepter in the fight against the risen fleet.

In GW2, 69 years afterwards, there’s no mention of Livia. She doesn’t appear, and we don’t hear any local legends like there’d been in Lion’s Arch. We don’t know whether she’s alive or dead, and while the dev comment suggests that if she’s alive she would no longer have the Scepter, we don’t know for sure.

Anise, on the other hand, is Master Exemplar of the Shining Blade. There are rumors that she uses illusions to appear beautiful… rumors from the same group that believe that Jennah is training a secret army of quaggans and that there are poisonous butterflies on the loose in the countryside. She becomes very defensive when Canach mentions the rumor and wonders how old she is. At one point, Anise also demonstrates an obscure knowledge of ancient Krytan law, and at a couple points she casts illusions that make people look entirely different (as do several other mesmers in the game).

The trouble is, all the evidence that Anise is Livia is circumstantial. It might be that she’s using illusions to hide her age… or she really might be using them to look prettier, or to hide a deformity, or she might just be vain enough that she doesn’t like the rumors that she isn’t naturally beautiful. Any leader of the Shining Blade would have an interest in the quirks of Krytan law, however obscure, just as any member of the organization would have a special interest in stopping a traitor from beginning a civil war.

On the other hand, parts of the argument have holes: why would Livia openly protect the royals for generations only to begin to do so secretly? Why would she apparently step down as leader of the Shining Blade, only to take the position back under another identity? There are possible explanations, certainly, but at that point we’re guessing wildly. In the end, that’s what the theory is: possible, but we don’t currently have any evidence to convince us that’s the case, just some curious parallels between two similar characters.

Amaimon.7823:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m not sure about paralysis- Tiachren made it all the way to the Grove before he collapsed from what he calls wounds, and I took him staying behind once he woke up to still being too sick/badly injured to be of any use.

Still, though, the fact that the trolls felt a need to develop and stockpile an antidote for it indicates it is dangerous to non-sylvari life.

I think rotsap might be a poison popular in the area which would indicate why other races have a cure for it. Like Nettle, people knew very long time ago the touch of that plant burns. So the people who knew there was a lot of nettle sround started growing plantago because it soothes nettleburns. In such a case, wherever rotsap comes from, its not a NC invention, just a tool from nature they use. Hence thee trolls encountered it, too

Maybe, but the quest specifically states the trolls get poisoned with it fighting the Nightmare Court, and certainly implies that’s why they have an antidote. I don’t think an alternative explanation is really needed.

I’m not sure about paralysis- Tiachren made it all the way to the Grove before he collapsed from what he calls wounds, and I took him staying behind once he woke up to still being too sick/badly injured to be of any use.

Still, though, the fact that the trolls felt a need to develop and stockpile an antidote for it indicates it is dangerous to non-sylvari life.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Or an elementalist using fire and ice magic adjacent/at the same time resulting in their magic going kaboom in a very literal sense, for that matter.

Come to think of it, this is probably worth stressing. Best I remember, what we saw in that fight wasn’t powers getting negated or canceled out. When the minion acting as a vessel for one kind of magic died, we saw the energy leave its body and cause a violent reaction with vessels imbued with the other kind of magic, creating a very conspicuous explosion. One would imagine somebody would’ve taken note if Trahearne had given off gouts of sap every time he cast a spell.

draxynnic.3719:

( …and off the top of my head I can’t think of any elementalist or ranger royalty among humans.)

King Baede had both an elementalist and a ranger among his children, although in the event it was seemingly another warrior who got the crown.

Did they say it was Anise? I know it was something the two of them planned out together, but I thought Jennah had to control the illusion in order to make the speech through it.

Amaimon.7823:

So where her guards fail, her mesmer magic saves her

This. Besides S1, we also have Caudecus’ Manor, where the queen is kidnapped and only survives thanks to her own magic, and the novel Edge of Destiny, where she uses her power to trick away the enemies besieging the fortress she was trapped in. Without her mesmer training, she’d be dead three times over (and Ebonhawke would’ve been wiped out by the Branded). In a world where a monarch faces those kinds of risks, it absolutely makes sense that they should be able to defend themselves.

Ancestor to Logan, not Jennah, but I do agree that it’d be nice to see some nod to him beyond the books scattered across Ebonhawke.

I wouldn’t say it was the same as bringing in brand new characters. After all, every paid account comes with five slots, and while I’d hazard the majority of the community didn’t have five 80’s that first February, once they did they’d likely have met most if not all of the above.

Even if they hadn’t, other players had, and that could have encouraged story discussion and speculation and an interest in playing through unseen branches of the personal story. At worst, it’d be no more jarring than Rox and Braham; at best, it would’ve been much preferable.

The timeline shenanigans would have been a pain to play around, but it wouldn’t rule things out. Like I said, excepting Carys (whose connection to Tegwen would realistically disqualify her in the no-spoiler limbo) and Jeyne (who could’ve been replaced with Tenstrikes), my list are all members of their individual orders, and could’ve been sent into Flame and Frost in that capacity. It would’ve worked the same way that we ended up getting anyway- give the Pact and your position as Commander a nod if you’d gotten that far in the story, and ignore it if you hadn’t.

EDIT: As for overly specific characters, Faren proves they at least toyed with the idea in the past. I think the issue was less that they were worried that the player base wouldn’t recognize them, and more that, given how disconnected S1 was in general to everything they’d done before, with new story elements, factions, and characters at every turn, they couldn’t find places where it made sense for their original cast to tie in.

They didn’t have to be new characters, though. The last chapters of the Personal Story had already established a set of highly skilled Pact operatives that we worked well with. I don’t mind the biconics, but I do think that Zrii, Afanen, Carys, Octavian, and Jeyne would’ve made a better fit, and I would’ve been more interested in fleshing out existing characters than having new ones pitched at me. As members of the individual orders (Carys excepted), they could have had as much reason as Braham or Rox to be involved in Flame and Frost, and just giving a little more hint that there was a power behind the Molten Alliance could’ve provided a thread for them to pursue all the way through S1 and into S2. Their preexisting working relationship with other characters also could’ve brought some of the other favorites from the personal story into the plot as appropriate- Snarl, Galina, Elli, Laranthir. Vivian could’ve filled the scholar role.

Most of the biconics are enjoyable, nuanced characters, but playing through S2 again, it struck me that all the work put into them still hasn’t gotten past the problem of the terminal disconnect from the preceding story, exactly what you’re saying doesn’t make sense narratively. I don’t agree with most of triangle’s points, but where that group is concerned, I do think ArenaNet missed a better opportunity.

My assumption is that he’s inside one of those tombs that line the wall behind Gwen’s marker. ANet just doesn’t mark those the way they do gravestones.

Dougal (and Ember) have actually already been recast in the game- I believe they were founding members of the Guild Initiative. That ties them into the plotline that so far has only included claiming your guild’s hall. If ANet ever decides to move forward on that route, either by expanding on the crystal we’ve got sitting in the middle or by adding new halls with new quests to claim them, I could see room for Dougal and Ember to come back in to things.

Remember that the whole thing Abaddon was disagreeing with the gods over was the limiting of magic- all of the conflict happened after the bloodstone was split, meaning that magic was already in a very similar state to what we had in GW1 (although the separate spellcasting professions may not have developed yet.) The Margonites very much had magic, as did the Forgotten, and the other humans, and the rest of the world.

The Margonites were turned into demons by Abaddon’s ‘blessings’ during the course of the war, later on when things had fully escalated. It’s implied that all the ones we see in the Realm of Torment were transformed before their imprisonment, although we don’t know for sure. Either way, though, it was a deliberate action on Abaddon’s part- being locked in just drives souls insane and turns them purple, it doesn’t make them into demons.

Speaking for the lore in general, I think there’s two compelling reasons that you see more hostile human NPCs than charr:

*The state of the war. Ascalon is the contested territory at stake here, with both sides defining victory as complete control (currently- historically the charr have also pushed for wiping humans out across the continent). While it’s gone back and forth a couple times, and while the charr have been generous in granting Ebonhawke quite a bit of land beyond their walls, as of this point in time the charr clearly control Ascalon. They’re being asked to accept a mostly complete victory; Ebonhawke is being asked to accept a mostly complete defeat.

*The structure of the societies. You’ll actually find nearly as many charr unhappy with the truce as the humans, but the difference is that those charr were raised to follow orders. They’re being told to stop fighting, and the discipline and loyalty that holds their society together demands they comply. The humans have no such obligation, and even the Ebon Vanguard doesn’t have the same extent of strict discipline going. They’re free to pursue their self-destructive grudges.

Speaking for my characters, both of the relevant ones are fine with moving forward. My human grew up in Kryta, and what’s more, the transplanted Ascalonian community largely rejected her. The way she sees it, the charr are someone else’s problem, and they’re welcome to it. My charr wants to see her race exercise cultural as well as military dominance, and she sees the peace treaty as the first step in that direction, the first proof that her people can force submission even without a sword.

I’m not going to try to speak for other players. People get really, really fired up about the races they choose to main, and I’ve found I’m happiest staying far away from the crossfire.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Do we ever see them use spells that self corrupt?

Also plant and death cancel, so neither receives advantages.

To my knowledge, we haven’t seen NPCs of any race use the ‘Corruption’ subset of necro abilities- but sylvari PCs certainly have no greater difficulty using them.

As for what we do see, sylvari seem, if anything, to be the race that leans most heavily towards necromancy. The Nightmare Court is second only to the Ash Legion for prevalence of necromancers, and the sylvari can claim the two strongest (living) ones that we see in-game, Trahearne and Brangoire.

While (mostly) not contradicted by any official sources, you did use quite a lot of inference to paint a worst-case picture, so for contrast’s sake here’s the optimistic interpretation:

The earliest lore we have on the Ministry says that it started off as representatives of the refugee community. King Baede’s ministers, particularly the ones who held the distinction in Lion’s Arch, may have been no more than an informal recognition of advisers and deputies. Over time, when it was seen that having communities pick the person who handled their affairs was a good thing, the title may have gotten some weight, and through that weight amassed into the formal body we know as the Ministry today. In the process, they incorporated the existing structure of the nobility, with the title Minister extending to the noble who owned the land when the citizens decided they were best suited to handle taxes, militias, and the like.

Since they were popular and effective, it also made a certain kind of sense to defer to them when the monarch was indisposed- the two instances we’ve had mention of were King Baede’s waning years, when he was ill and bedridden, and Queen Jennah’s childhood, when her father died while she was still young. During these times, Krytans became used to their authority, and by the power of status quo they amassed a degree of informal power- for instance, since they were already drafting laws for the monarch to consider, it made sense for them to keep doing that, even though there’s no evidence that a monarch isn’t allowed to make their own laws.

Now, Jennah is a devoted egalitarian. She wants the people to have a say in their government, and she wants to be a kind and compassionate queen. She’s also a savvy political mind, and knows that the average citizen, uninformed about the particulars of law and suckered in by decades of Caudecus’ propaganda, doesn’t understand that the Ministry has no more authority than she gives it. They’d be upset if she did away with them, and that would lead to unrest that isn’t (yet) worth the trouble.

But where does that leave the Ministry? They only have whatever authority the Queen decides to let them have, and we see in several cases that any disputes between a minister and the Queen automatically go in the Queen’s favor. That’s the entire reason Caudecus has had to be so sneaky. They also are made up mostly (depending on who you ask, perhaps entirely) of nobility. If they attack the Queen’s right to rule, they undermine their own. The only thing protecting them right now, the only ‘power’ they have, is their popularity… and now their leader has come out as a traitor, a member of an evil cult that Krytan children are scared into good behavior with. That popularity may run out very quickly if they don’t distance themselves and make it clear they’re on the Queen’s side… which means submitting even more firmly to her authority.

Yep. Fourth dialogue down on this page is the first example I can think of. Last one too, for that matter.

Well, originally, the airship visited each of the cities, with a different toy for every race. The toy soldiers were for charr cubs, who presumably handle more dangerous objects than toy guns on a regular basis.

Although the banshees- er, princess dolls- that were meant for human children seem even worse to me.

My two cents on charr enemies:

*The ghosts are a contained, manageable problem right now- but that’s with the resources the charr currently have devoted to them. Furthermore, the attack on Smokestead happened even with those assets in place. Divert them, and the problem escalates. I don’t think the charr would be foolish enough to do that, so that leaves a force which won’t interfere with the war but will tie up a fraction of the Legions’ manpower.

*The Sentinels take staggering casualties just slowing the spread of the Brand. Containing it is beyond the Legions’ ability. Unlike the ghosts, that’s a problem they have to constantly devote additional manpower to, and on the slim chance a powerful enough lieutenant decides to take advantage- say, a Shatterer- the charr could be defeated at a stroke, however well the war against the humans/asura/etc is going.

*The ogres are a little more than a nuisance. We see that they’re able to overrun entire charr fortifications. Most of them, though, are east of the Brand, in land that’s no longer important to hold. Withdrawing the troops on that front would be relatively safe.

*The conflict with the Flame Legion has gone on long enough, and both sides have wrapped up so much of their identity in their opposition to each other, that I can’t see any cooperation between the two without a clear victor subjugating their foes. By contrast, on the human side, the Separatists would be getting precisely what they wanted in this hypothetical war, and the Mantle would have to at least make a show of banding together with the Seraph in the face of charr aggression or else lose all the credibility Caudecus is desperately scrambling for. That makes the Flame a dangerous wild card to the charr. The only question, to my mind, is whether they have enough organization left to take advantage. I would presume so- Baelfire can’t have been the first Imperator lost in battle, so some sort of contingency is presumably in place to decide on a successor- but they might be too busy trying to replace yet another fallen deity for conquest to be as tempting as it used to be.

On sylvari weakness- I’d still put their odds at a pretty solid 4th, but it bears pointing out that a lot of what could weaken them is still just speculation. We’ve never gotten a solid answer on whether sylvari were turning outside of the jungle, and if they weren’t, the sylvari as a whole wouldn’t have taken any more of a beating than the other races. We don’t know if the Pale Tree’s coma affects the rate new sylvari get churned out, or what those saplings experience in the Dream. Without answers, it’d be equally valid to argue that the race is more or less unharmed as it would be to say they’re in a bad position.

I’ve not always been a fan of how ANet handles their writing, but in this case I think we’re looking at a deliberate stylistic choice, not a blunder.

MMOs need a line of unwaveringly hostile foes for you to carve through. That’s what their progression system is predicated on. That, in turn, requires factions that are straight ‘bad guys’, that you’re at least semi-justified for killing on sight. When dealing with intelligent races, especially ones where other members are meant to be interacted with on friendly terms, that takes giving them some reprehensible trait, and whatever it is, it needs to be displayed prominently, not subtly. The alternative is representing the player character as a serial killer, with the law in the world curiously uncaring, or else giving up on intelligent enemies as anything but the main villains. There’s a time and a place for nuance, and the goons out and about in the world just can’t be it. It’s not good storytelling, but it is good game-making.

Black Iris Flowers.3418:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Primordus never uses seismic activity though. There was the Great Destroyer causing some earthquakes, but that was all there was. No more earthquake causing than Kralkatorrik’s, Zhaitan’s, Jormag’s, or even Mordremoth’s awakening.

Volcanic activity is seismic by definition. It may be different in Tyria. Also are the other dragons tunneling as well?

Happy holidays everyone.

‘Seismic: of or relating to earthquakes or other vibrations of the earth and its crust.’

Earthquakes can cause volcanoes but not all volcanoes are caused by earth quakes. We’ve no idea if others are tunneling, we haven’t actually SEEN Jormag, just have a vague sense of where he is, but he hasn’t seem to have moved much given the norn’s history with him. Kralk hasn’t been seen since Glint’s death (which is really weird now that I think about it, did he wake up to do that then go back to sleep..?) and no one knows kitten about Bubbles

The little bit of Tyria our map covers isn’t all there is to the world. Kralk was last seen flying out into the Crystal Desert. There’s the remains of the Forgotten’s civilization out there, and a whole Elona beyond that, and who knows what else out east.

It’s not so strange that it wouldn’t just turn around and head back the way it came.

It’s an easy way to make bad guys bad at first blush. With the Sons, they needed that something to push the cult from ‘greyish alternative viewpoint’ to ‘black hat villain’. With the Flame Legion, it was a convenient narrative explanation for why we saw no female charr in GW1, and it meant they weren’t the evil charr just for being religious.

BrettM.9062:

Honestly, most of the things Caudecus distorts were pretty well documented at the time by contemporary historians (Durmand in particular). Many of those storys seem to have survived quite well and are widely known, based on conversations such as Marjory talking about pretending to be Chosen and putting on plays for her parents. What a barrel of road apples. Moral of the story: Don’t try making your own propaganda at home, kids! Hire an expert.

I think he’s banking on the fact that these are so well-known. What he says is, technically, correct, at least where the history is concerned. It just differs in interpretation and what they do and don’t leave out. It’s an effort to make people question whether the ‘official’ history is biased, or glossing over unsavory facts. He doesn’t need to win converts right now (at least not from the Krytan populace), just spread doubt.

Whether people will buy it depends on how much ground he’s lost. If there are still communities that think of him as ‘Caudecus the Wise’, the advocate of the common Krytan, or if there are more people like Riot Alice than we know of that are suspicious of the queen and the Shining Blade, he’s got a very good chance. If years of cloistering in the capital, and possibly months of the public linking him to bogeymen out of children’s stories, have been enough to discredit him, it’s probably too late.

The first time, the charr just kind of brushed up against the norn. They didn’t put any effort into the fight, and the same source that talks about it also says “it is certain the Charr could have destroyed the Norn resistance if they but turned their entire army—or even one full legion—to the cause”. Add in that that was before the charr even had guns, and it paints a very bleak picture for our mountain dwelling friends.

There are two problems with saying that the norn would organize to respond to a charr invasion. The first is that even their template, the Wolfborn, aren’t particularly organized. There are enough of them to keep the peace in Hoelbrak, sure, but they have no ranks, no chain of command, no evidence of logistics. They’re just two relatively young norn’s personal project- more like a youth gang than an army, held together by the force of personality of two men.

The other is that we have an example of a previous threat that could have wiped out the norn. Their response was to throw away hundreds of their best in individual skirmishes, without any greater backing or plan, until their Spirits had to force them to retreat before they were annihilated entirely. I’m not saying the charr are as dangerous as an Elder Dragon- but if the norn weren’t able to put aside their individuality to combat the greater threat, why would they do so for a lesser?

Someone’s been drawing inspiration from real-world happenings. Still, did I spy a sneaky end to Evennia’s story in there?

That’s about right. Last we heard of Magdaer Eir was going to send it off- we don’t even know for sure she was going to give it to Beigarth, just that she knew a blacksmith who could repair it.

Season 2 introduced a new element, though. Rytlock seems convinced that Magdaer caused the curse, so it’s Sohothin’s role to end it. If that’s the case, they might not intend to bring Magdaer back into the story at all. Just one more loose end left behind.

Astragal.7906:

I thought that was the work of Luminari to protect the young seeds from the Nightmare when they come to Tyria.

Right. The Pale Tree protects them within the Dream, and the mentors and Luminaries protect them in Tyria after they wake.

What shocks me the most is about Faolain and her relationship with Nightmare: while Caedwyn has been the creator, it is said on the wiki that Faolain has been chosen since she embrassed the Nightmare itself. And here my questioning: where in the books is it said that the Nightmare is a sensible thing?

It isn’t said in the books. We don’t know enough about the Nightmare to say whether it’s a conscious, thinking thing or not. We also don’t know how Faolain became the leader, although the way Cadeyrn acts in the game makes me think some of Faolain’s mesmer mind tampering was part of it.

Astragal.7906:

I really dislike the fact Nightmares are shown to be cut off from the Dream while I thought they were the darkest places of it.

Sorry. This one’s going to be a little rushed.

This is actually a common misunderstanding. The Nightmare Court is very much connected to the Dream- that connection is how they try to spread Nightmare. Like you said, the Nightmare is supposed to be the dark part of the Dream. It is foreign to most sylvari, like how most people’s darkest fears and desires aren’t something they consciously think of as part of themselves. The Pale Tree tries to keep the sylvari away from it before they awaken, although we aren’t certain how she does it or why. Or, short version- the Nightmare is a part of the Dream that’s also foreign to the sylvari.

I do agree that it’s sad how little we know about how most things sylvari work. I like to think ArenaNet just hasn’t found a good way to tell us yet, but who knows.

1.) There’s no official source on this, but the general phrasing is usually along the lines of ‘once you turn/fall to Nightmare there’s no going back’. Personally, I interpret that to mean that once the sylvari accepts the Nightmare to some extent, stops fighting it in some way, they’re stuck with it from then on, but other people might come to a different conclusion. Short answer- not very.
2.) Not entirely sure what you’re asking there- there is no ‘call of the Pale Tree’ that I can think of. She is said to be able to contact her children, and there’s nothing about the Nightmare I know of that would stop her, but she also hardly ever does it. The only cases we’ve ever heard of involve either the Firstborn or Scarlet. Short answer: they probably could, but she wouldn’t talk to them.
3.) Maybe? Stubbornness and willpower probably help. We don’t know how the Nightmare works, though, and so we also don’t know whether anyone can hold out for ever. It’s possible that the corruption could overcome any amount of willpower, or that the courtiers are just so good at what they do that they can break anyone eventually. Short answer: we don’t know.
4.) A sylvari can feel another sylvari’s emotional pain (and they don’t necessarily need to be in love for it), although they do seem to need to be in at least the same area- that varies depending on how sensitive the individual is, though, and we don’t know much about how it works either. I don’t think they can feel each other’s physical pain, although they might pick up on the shock or fear caused by being injured. Short answer- yes, if they’re nearby.

Don’t worry too much about the English, and I hope that answers your questions! And if it doesn’t, just speak up.

The wiki cites a secondhand source that says “The natural lifetime of a Norn is roughly 120 years. However, Norn rarely, if ever, live that long”. That’s the only reference to 120 that I can recall, although that’s not to say I couldn’t have missed one.

Jaken.6801:

• Red Crytals (bloodstone?) sourounding a statue of Jora. The place seems to be underground, but sports vines and Quaggan lights?

Just watched it again- not quaggan lights, but the glass baubles grawl have around. You can also see the grawl paint scrawled on the statue and the walls. Apparently we have Jora worshipers.

The Jormag totems use a different model- longer snout, more horns, and of course serpentine.

My first thought seeing the Claw, actually, is that we might not be seeing a statue. There’s been some theorizing about (in fairness to the people who may have gotten it right, theories that I’ve been against) that the Claws are entirely made from ice, with no organic component. If that’s the case we may be looking at how it’s done.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

1) The Crystalline Giant in Ghosts of Ascalon is the land itself attacking. So is the Shatterers, technically, both the land and air being corrupted into an assaulting force.

Ehh… I agree with your greater point, but not this bit of evidence. The giant was lazing around and looked like a hill, but nothing says that it had been part of the ground- “What it had been before the passing of Kralkatorrik was unknown”. Similarly, unless you’ve seen a source that I haven’t, the Shatterer thing is a theory, and a decent theory, but not confirmed fact.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

On spectral weapons- the dialogue wasn’t on the wiki last I checked, but an asura in the Cathedral of Silence says they aren’t corrupted at all. He claims they’re just magically animated constructs, like golems, and he builds a device that’s successfully able to neutralize them on that principle.

I believe there is dialogue that says that those are corrupted, but that they’re corrupted Orrian constructs. One of the hero challenges dealing with fighting the things, I believe.

Went down the list, and saw a lot about ancient weapons imbued with power, but nothing about corruption. Funnily, one of them is even described as ‘masterless’.

@Sock It seems at this point we’re largely saying the same thing with different words, which makes things even stranger. You say that physical corruption must come before mental, and you acknowledge inanimate things can be changed, and once changed, channel the corruption. So why would Mordremoth not do that to the seeds? In fact, isn’t that what you’re saying blighting trees are, pale trees corrupted before they develop a mind?

Regarding the Terebinth- well, Konig was blunt, but I agree with his point there.

Back at Konig, regarding the Shatterer and the Claw- I believe what we’re seeing there is corruption consuming and eventually doing away with the original biology- like the mordrem troll example you cited earlier. Where icebrood specifically are concerned, we see the flesh replaced by ice, and the farther along the process is, both the more powerful and the older they appear to be. Yes, the colossi still have visible bones, but it doesn’t seem out of the question that an icebrood much more powerful, and possibly much older, would have had the bones replaced as well. In fact, I believe that might be a trend among dragons. We’re told the same happens with Primordus when he bothers to corrupt the living, so that’s three out of four dragons- and Zhaitan exhibits a similar process in reverse, when his corruption turns those trees you mentioned more fleshy, and grows monstrous forms out of flesh- the Mouth- the same way Jormag does of ice with the colossi. I don’t have any specific examples of Kralkatorrik following the same pattern, but no proof against either, and it’d be strange if he was the only exception out of five.

It’s not any more certain than your land/ice animation theory, but I don’t think it’s any less plausible, either.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tell that to the NPCs at Tequatl. Or the freshly made risen in Arah.

Zhaitan died, but his corruption was spread through his champions still.

Maybe new corruption couldn’t be made – we’re not sure – but it still existed, and new minions were still being made.

No, with Zhaitan dead, the corruption of Orr started to reverse.

With Trahearne’s cleansing ritual, the corruption in Orr started to reverse. If it was just a matter of killing the dragon, why not skip the trouble of those last few story steps and jump straight to Arah?

Taking your claims one by one, as best I can interpret them- do let me know if I get anything wrong here.

Are you saying that Jormag and Kralkatorrik’s inanimate creations aren’t corruption? That seems a peculiar stance. We know, for instance, that even if Jormag’s ice formations don’t move, they can still corrupt creatures that come into contact with it. Ditto for things that get trapped in Kralkatorrik’s non-moving crystals, and since we don’t see how things get trapped in them in the first place, it is an unpleasant possibility that the ‘inanimate’ bits of the Brand are able to capture things. Or are you arguing it’s only physically corrupted, not mentally? If that’s the case, and you hold physical and mental corruption to be separate, how are they able to mentally corrupt creatures?

On Zhaitan corrupting inanimate objects- An argument could be made for how much of the damage to Orr is corruption, and how much is a century and a half underwater and (for the statues) perhaps mundane modification by the risen, but either way we are told that the land itself was corrupted. That was the entire point of Trahearne’s arc at the end of the PS, after all.

On spectral weapons- the dialogue wasn’t on the wiki last I checked, but an asura in the Cathedral of Silence says they aren’t corrupted at all. He claims they’re just magically animated constructs, like golems, and he builds a device that’s successfully able to neutralize them on that principle.

As for Elder Dragons using our magic- I’m not entirely sure why you brought that up here, but for now I’ll just say that I’m convinced by your argument that an elementalist controlling elementals works on the same principles as dragon corruption, but don’t have any evidence that would refute it and so am willing to leave it as an unlikely possibility. It’s not an argument I want to get into here, but I’ll discuss it more if it’s relevant to your points in some way that I’m missing.

On trees and coral having minds- this frankly baffles me. Do you have a reason to come to that conclusion? Or are you just saying it because your theory requires it to work?

Now, the central claims, that mental and physical corruption is separate, and that physical corruption precedes mental corruption. Considering that every creature that’s corrupted physically, and can be corrupted mentally, is corrupted mentally, I see no reason to separate them out like that. I’d say dragon corruption is all one ‘disease’, with the ‘physical’ corruption being how it affects physical things and the ‘mental’ corruption being how it affects mental processes. Glint is pretty easily explained by the Forgotten ritual curing the disease, but not being meant to repair the damage it had already done. It’s hard to draw a parallel to a real example, since we don’t have many diseases that overtly affect the mind and appearance, but the closest I can come is that curing a person of leprosy wouldn’t automatically regrow the damaged or missing extremities. Glint still looked crystalline because it was damage caused by the corruption, not the corruption itself.

Furthermore, in the rare cases where dragon corruption isn’t shown to use as a instantaneous process, we see physical and mental corruption advancing more or less at the same time. Kellach was being driven mad and marshaling risen long before he died and became a zombie, and the Sons of Svanir slowly ice over and slowly loose aspects of their personalities, instead of the first happening entirely before the second (although a counterargument might instead be that the Sons simply loose the ability to talk in the late stages). And then of course, there’s the sylvari, who undergo mental changes before physical ones.

Sock.2785:

(but not until planted and grown because, as I said earlier, the seeds are in an embryonal stage and as such haven’t developed a mind yet for the dragon to subjugate).

I think this is the major thing that confuses me about your theory. Your argument seems to be that an Elder Dragon can only corrupt things with minds, but we know that is not the case. Zhaitan corrupted regular non-thinking trees in Orr, and sea urchins, and possibly even coral. Kralkatorrik is best known for corrupting a massive swath of land- dirt, basically. Jormag’s corruption makes plain ice as often as it does minions.

Mordremoth is a bit of an unusual case- depending on your perspective, you can either argue that their didn’t change the environment the way other dragons have or that the entire jungle was of their making- but either way, we at least have the example of “blighting blisters” to show that their corruption can take root in non-sentient forms.