Guild Wars 2

Animism.9803:

Randulf.7614:

The Wiki says this;

“Instead of corrupting living beings, Primordus and its champions seem to prefer to create minions solely of earth and fire, usually spawning them in pools of lava, and they are created in mockery of living creatures”

“However, it turns out that the Great Destroyer is merely a general and champion of the Elder Dragon Primordus.”

So both create Destroyers and The GD could command independetly, but Dragons are always the over arching “intelligence” if you like. There are likely more Champions/Lieutenants though.

Exactly. It must imply that there is a new general / Great Destroyer. The hive species of the destroyers can’t function without a controller, which was the GD, and did not continue on its death.

Either that, or the ‘rules’ of the destroyers needing a controller has changed, i.e direct from Primordus, although that seems a little arbitrary given the end of them in EOTN.

They can, and did, continue to function after the Great Destroyer’s death. They just lost their direction. To quote from the end of EOTN: “With the death of their master, the Destroyers lost their coordination. Jalis and his Dwarves pursued them into the depths of the earth.” They didn’t stop functioning, and they didn’t even stop fighting, but they did stop fighting smart. Most of the destroyers we see in GW2 are like that, I think: milling around without direction or specific purpose.

And yes, Primordus has replaced the Great Destroyer a few times, although mostly with lesser leaders who aren’t as powerful and who seem to control smaller areas. The Destroyer of Life in the novels, the Destroyer Queen in the PS, and the Destroyer of Hope in the latest patch all seem to be examples of this.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

As for charr using Dwayna’s Kiss – this is purely mechanical. They’d be using magic that mirrors that spell, not a spell that they know named as Dwayna’s Kiss. They’d be perturbed by any charr using a spell named after their enemies.

I think it depends on whether they were aware at the time that monk magic wasn’t solely from the gods, which in turn boils down to an individual’s interpretation of monks and dervishes using ‘prayers’ instead of magic. If they had a sound grasp on the fact that the praying is just their specific way of tapping into the magic and not necessarily the only way to do so, it’d be as you say.

But it’s equally valid to say that if they did believe that Dwayna’s Kiss was literally the goddess intervening to heal the target, and they saw charr magic doing the exact same thing, they’d be upset and confused. Either they’d believe their own goddess was aiding the enemy, which undermines their faith in being the gods’ chosen race, or that the charr’s deities were providing magic on par with their own, which could undermine their faith in the pantheon.

Speculative’s all we’ve got.

Randulf.7614:

Therefore it would be seem to be possible that the corruptions would “in the natural state” being immune to each other without the Inquest forcing things with unusual methods.

The stressed part is the assumption that’s causing your confusion. The disagreement just boils down to whether you think what the Inquest did and what the dragons do are different, and if so, whether you think the Inquest were doing something the dragons aren’t capable of. We have very little details on how dragons corrupt, and no details on how the Inquest corrupted, so it’s a pretty vague spot right now without much evidence that can be laid out into the form of an argument.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Rognik.2579:

I don’t know if we were caught that off-guard for Mordremoth’s attack. His initial attack, where he destroyed some waypoints and spread his vines across Tyria? Yes, that was a surprise attack, but we couldn’t have done anything to stop that. The assault into the jungle? Knowing sylvari with dragon minions wouldn’t have stopped the vines knocking the airships out of the sky. At best, it would’ve minimized the damage suffered after the initial attack.

Plus, we weren’t going in completely blind. The Durmand Priory had a scroll with the names of all the Elder Dragons (except the sea dragon’s part got very (and conveniently) damaged) and a bit of details about them. While it might not be a list of all the weaknesses of the dragon, it did prepare us for what was to come. Sadly, I’m pretty sure Trahearne’s sacrifice at the end of the main story was an inevitability. Without a sylvari bound to him, one who was strong-willed yet too entangled to resist, it was either him or Caithe, and Caithe is far too loved (by ArenaNet) to die just yet. Plus there was the whole killing Faolain thing and you know what I’m just rambling now I’ll be going OK bye.

Knowing it could attack the ships would not let the Pact try to assault it with just air force.

Maybe, maybe not. Land assault would’ve likely had even more problems.

More likely, I think knowing about AA vines ahead of time would’ve meant that the fleet flew out of its range. I doubt the vines could reach as high as the airships could fly, and sacrificing accuracy isn’t a big deal when you’re only trying to hit a terrain type.

Obsidian.1328:

Excellent! Then only humans could have erected and cared for the statues? You would agree to that then? I’ll come back to that bit later.

You didn’t respond to my Lyssa or Utopia argument, no comment on those?

If only humans worshiped the gods, then why was the dwarf Ural Highstone a follower of Dwayna in that link you provided? Maybe he thought she was hot like Malchor or something. I guess since you used the adjective “mainly” you can squeak by it huh. Speaking of, why did Dwayna kill him and take his soul?? Odd thing to do for a goddess of life and mercy… At any rate, my point was that all sentient races used divine magic equally. “Mainly” every single creature in GW1 used the exact same spells that humans did, even the Mursaat. So it’s either one of three things:
1)it’s a simple game-play mechanic and not “lore”
2)every race really did use divine magic equally, or
3)chalk it up to that oh so favorite GW2 plot device: human bias.

Which one is it?

Mate, Konig said dwarves were known to worship the Five. You can’t just pick out part of his statement to attack him on and pretend you didn’t see the rest. And Dwayna didn’t kill Ural- that was Marln. Dwayna’s Avatar only showed up to claim the dead dwarf’s soul.

But, yes, I’d chalk the use of skills like Dwayna’s Kiss by a charr (sorry, Rognik, but there were a few) up to mechanics. The same way we don’t need to believe that margonites worshipped Grenth, or that trolls carried invisible axes. Or, for that matter, that every charr prophet had the exact same set of spells, and looked identical to one another, down to precise height and the length of their horns. I find it pretty simple to wrap my head around the fact that not everything we see in gameplay is founded in lore.

But, if you prefer to hold on to your invisible axes, then yes, the argument would pretty clearly be that the gods didn’t have control over ‘divine’ magic. We knew from the beginning that the charr worshiped the titans, after all, says so right in the manual, but they had monks using spells with the healing prayers attribute- are you arguing that the original GW1 writers meant for them to pray to the Five as well? What about the White Mantle? Or do you mean to say that worshiping the titans and the mursaat could access ‘divine’ magic as well, and that it wasn’t linked solely to the gods?

perilisk.1874:

Or to assume as all the in-game evidence suggests, that each dragon’s corruption works somewhat differently, that mordremoth’s Call is affected by distance or heavy material barriers like a magical wifi signal, and that a sufficiently powerful Mordrem, if left to grow outside of the Dragon’s influence, could develop the awareness and willpower (bearing in mind that they likely inherently share the Dragon’s “mind” affinity) to resist the Dragon’s domination?

We know distance isn’t a factor- we fought Mordrem in the Iron Marches, remember? And there isn’t any physical barrier between the Pale Tree and Mordremoth. Therefore, yes, assuming the mechanism we know can grant dragon minions free will was employed is less of a jump than to assume that there’s some other way to become independent, and that the game’s just never hinted at such an important plot point.

To be clear, it’s not confirmed, or even suggested, that dragons naturally corrupt. That analogy is a bit misleading. Instead, it seems that the corruption is a conscious, deliberate choice, one they have a fair measure of control over.

It’d probably be more apt to compare them to the water cycle. Rain falls and gets locked up in the ground, then evaporates off and reforms into clouds, all according to the natural rhythm, but while it’s on the ground a thinking being and tap it and redirect it to achieve something that wouldn’t happen naturally. Substitute water for magic and dragons for the ground, and you’re set.

There’s also that line in the Zephyrite journal, that says " Dragons consume magic, but they do not destroy it. They hold it within themselves like a sponge holds water." That sounds to me like a general trait of the entire creature type. (It’s also worth noting that the Zephyrites are the only characters we’ve met who’ve been to Cantha, so that statement probably takes the Saltsprays and Rockhides into account.)

Rognik.2579:

I also wouldn’t mind hearing more about the jotun as well. They aren’t nearly as sparse, but why does them giving up magic altogether make them so aggressive to outsiders? I think only that one group in Wayfarer Foothills as part of a heart quest is even the least bit friendly to other races. Maybe as we go to fight Jormag, they’ll be more inclined to aid us.

We actually have a good chunk on jotun" (although I would kill for some more giant info). For your question- they came to believe their bloodlines were the next best thing to divine, which led to them attempting to wipe out any jotun not related to them. Centuries of that kind of warfare normalized instinctive violence as a way of life, and now that’s just what jotun do.

Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of necromancer (or any profession) lore out there- what you see in-game is what you get. I can say, though, that they don’t have any one ideology, no more than engineers all have an ideology or street sweepers all have an ideology. They do tend towards the morbid, and the Spite trait line does suggest their powers can at least be associated with negative emotions, but when it comes down to what they believe and what they consider important, what matters is who the character is, not that they happen to be a necromancer.

Their willingness to heed the titans could also, potentially, have to do with how humans started out on Tyria. It sounds like the charr getting driven back and the tribes uniting behind Doric happened around the same time, so at, or within a couple generations of, the humiliating defeat that was still driving them crazy a thousand years later, the humans in Kryta and Orr were part of the kingdom that inflicted it. The Orrians and Krytans of GW1’s time were as much the descendants of their oldest foes as the Ascalonians, and presumably were given a full share of the original hatred- the charr just hadn’t been able to act out against them until after the Searing.

My two cents? Yes, it was a retcon. No, I’m not upset.

Well, I’m a bit upset that you started a post just to ask people to be upset.

The thing about the bloodstone retcon- it was, A.) a fairly well-thought-out change with a plausible in-universe explanation, B.) entirely necessary for their new plot and the way they wanted to expand the world (imagine how well any of our current main plot threads would run if they were bound to magic not existing before 1 BE), and C.) revealed to us more than four years ago. Even if I was upset back then, I’m not going to nurse a grudge about a video game’s background lore for *four years*.

The simple fact is, a retcon isn’t automatically a bad thing. Very, very easy to do wrong, but not inherently bad. In this case, I consider it an acceptable loss in exchange for the storytelling, and worldbuilding, it has allowed. That’s not ‘changing on a whim’. ArenaNet has never retconned on a whim. They’ve made mistakes, but that’s an entirely different can of worms, and not what you’re suggesting here.

If you’re upset about the mursaat thing, fair enough. I’m not, but I understand why you might be. Your other two points read to me as ‘I saw this as an opportune moment to stir up some forum toxicity’, and that does get under my skin.

On timelines: the problem with treating it as a in-universe document is the Giganticus Lupicus bit. That originally appeared at a time when all lore pointed to the Gods creating Tyria, and to the Forgotten being the first civilization. You could argue that it simply took the gods upwards of eight thousand years to create the world, and that entire species came to be and went extinct in that time, but I’m still dubious about calling it in-universe when every other such history at the time didn’t go past 1769 BE.

And speaking of the Forgotten- it’s not that black-and-white, alas, given that as recently as Season 2 we’re seeing them dated to 1769, and said to have come from the Mists. It’s one of the reasons that Konig thinks that Durmand Priory has the date of the last dragonrise wrong, but I’ll let him elaborate if he shows up.

On interviews- it’s an exaggeration to say that they’re prone to being overridden. It’s only happened a couple of times. The frustration you might have picked up on is because it can be overridden, that the ‘new’ writers don’t have to honor what the ‘old’ writers established. Prickly issue, but I think that’s all the more reason to avoid hyperbole.

I mostly agree with 5 and 6, with the caveat that the devs have told us, point blank, that humans don’t come from Tyria. We’re definitely missing points there.

On the theory- I think that’s pretty sound, as far as guesswork goes, and I suspect many on these forums would be inclined to agree. I’d even point out that you might not need to go through the mental gymnastics where the spread of early humans are concerned. The date we have (205 BE) is for humans arriving on Tyria-the-continent, but with the way the Orrian Peninsula links up to the landmass, and especially given that the Crystal Desert was then the Crystal Sea, it’s arguably not part of Tyria. In fact, it’s occasionally even called a continent in its own right by NPCs. Thus, it is possible (although the likelihood is up to your judgement) that humans were in Orr long before Ascalon or Kryta, or even Cantha, thus reconciling the two different origin stories we’ve been presented.

Just a thought. Feel free to point out any weaknesses yourself.

Points 1, 2, and 3 are from the official timelines, packaged in the GW1 manuals (still accessible here) and the GW2 novels. Point 5 is only from the Orrian History Scrolls- some GW2 lore has, unfortunately, gotten mixed into the GW1 wiki. Point 6 is from a variety of dev interviews- I know GuildMag had one of them, but alas, the site seems to be down just now.

Point 4 is… complicated, and never phrased exactly that way. It’s derived from two lines, one in the novel Edge of Destiny from Glint herself- “Three thousand years ago, I was set here as a guardian of the world.”(pg. 338)- and one in-game from Eir, presumably refrencing the first one- “She had the gift of prophecy and the burden of three thousand years of memories.” Combine that with some debunked GW1 lore that Glint was “the first of all creatures on Tyria, created by the gods to be the caretaker” and you get that wiki claim.

How accurate any of that is boils down to how reliable you consider the source to be. Point 6 is straight from the devs, so it’s considered canon until something in-game proves it otherwise. Point 5 is an in-game source, and as accurate as whichever Orrian wrote- we consider it canon for now, since nothing contradicts it, but that might change when more information comes to light. Points 1, 2, and 3 are in a bit of a weird place, since the timelines have some third-person omniscience going on and aren’t, as far as we know, in-universe documents. I tend to consider them as dev statements, but your assessment may vary. Point 4 is a tangled mess of contradictory claims, some of which have been disproved. Almost all of the relevant GW1 lore has been shown to be false. Glint’s own testimony has proven to be misleading, or at the very least, incomplete, and Eir’s own statement could only have been pulled from Glint or the GW1 human legends. We don’t have any specific evidence against the 3000 year figure, but we have plenty of reason to doubt it, and at this point it seems unlikely the Gods actually had anything to do with Glint at the start.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Actually, we were explicitly told that was the case, after we got told a couple in-universe theories about the reason for the situation.

But that was in an interview with Ree Soesbee, so it seems like many of her other interviews they’ve retconned it.

Do you mean the TalkTyria interview you linked in the other thread? Just gave it a look through, but what it says is “because the race tightly relates to the essence of human due to the Pale Tree’s influences from Ronan, the overall form has a human silhouette… They are a collection of abstract notions the Pale Tree had about what made up the human, as she really only saw the surface. They are a tree’s interpretation of humans.” Nothing there about using corpses as a template, and arguably it’s evidence of the opposite, with the bits about ‘abstract notions’ and ‘only saw the surface’.

What’s more, in response to an earlier question, Soesbee said “I can’t tell you anything [the sylvari] don’t know!” She’s open about the fact that not everything they were telling us is the full, objective truth.

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

also they all went to glints lair together to get her dead body not for the egg. meaning no one in the brotherhood of the dragons knows there is an egg.

That’s what the Zephyrite who wrote the journal knew, but remember that the egg was a guarded secret- only the Masters knew about it even when it was with the fleet. I’d guess that the leaders did know about the egg, and did make the trip in part to find it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(Edit: Okay, I see what you mean.

Mysterious Voice: You must promise to protect it with your life. Will you?
Marjory Delaqua: What…was…that?
Kasmeer Meade: It couldn’t be…

Which does indicate that Kasmeer – maybe, maybe not Marjory – might recognize the voice… which makes me want to say the voice is E’s.)

I saw that line as being in awe of the massive revelation that one of Glint’s eggs had survived and was in the Master’s keeping. That certainly would have been enough of a surprise to explain some confusion and slowly dawning shock as the pieces fell into place.

I know how long we’ve dealt with egg this and egg that has made that reveal rather humdrum to look back on, but at the time it was a big deal.

Shiren.9532:

The first is that Mordremoth creates copies of a dead body long before Zhaitan dies. The sylvari are supposedly shaped after the physiology of Rhonin’s family.

Emphasis here on supposedly. Not irrate at you specifically, but this has come up several times recently.

Before launch we were given a couple possible explanations for why sylvari look like humans, and using Ronan’s village as a template was only one of them. Yes, after HoT launched, we saw the blighting trees and decided they were proof for that particular theory, but now the game is telling us that they’re not. There’s no sense in us hanging on to this ‘fact’ when the support for it has been removed.

The second is the Destiny’s Edge clones in the second to last story mission from HoT. We fight clones of Zojja that were created by the blighting pods, but Zojja is clearly not dead, yet Mordremoth was able to create clones of her. If this is the case, how exactly is absorbing Zhaitan’s magic supposed to change Mordremoth’s powers? I thought the cloning process was supposed to somehow represent Mordremoth’s mind power (is that still a thing – are we going to see Primordus use plant, death, shadow and mind powers now?). If the other dragons absorb the mind magic of Mordremoth, can’t we just replicate the same methods to kill them?

If Mordremoth can clone dead bodies, why does he keep Eir, Faolain, Logan, Zojja and Trahearne alive (keeping them alive inside the pods would actually require some effort seeing as they would need nutrition etc)? Why not simply kill them and pump out a bunch of Mordrem Champions with their skills and abilities?

This is more speculative, but I think there are a couple possibilities here. Maybe he kept them alive to serve as bait- part of the reason we ended up in the heart of Mordremoth’s domain was pursuing reports that our friends were still alive. On a similar note, maybe it’s part of Mordremoth’s thing for psychological warfare, spreading false hope among the rest of the Pact that their friends might be rescued or horror at the imagined consequences of being taken alive.

Or, possibly, it ties into a different tidbit we’ve had from the devs, that different magical domains can conflict- maybe Mordremoth’s traditional corruption clashes with death-based corruption. Maybe using a corpse can only result in a ‘colonized’ minion, and it takes a live one to make multiple copies. Maybe keeping, or copying, a mind requires a living subject (remember that Faolain was conveniently tossed offscreen and not confirmed dead).

Point is, we just don’t know enough to say it doesn’t make sense.

Torolan.5816:

Thinking about your argument for the ministry guard:
In urban combat, you may have a point that the Ministry guards are equal oreven superior to the Seraph, but I also think that the common people would come to the aid of the Seraph in Divinity´s reach.
The Seraph are the fighting people that protect the homeland from Centaurs and Bandits, the Ministry Guard is a bunch of snobist guards of the rich.

Depends on how the conflict is cast. Seraph vs. Ministry Guard? Probably. But if they see it as Caudecus vs. Jennah, or even as the Ministry vs. the Crown, you’re going to have a much more divided reaction. Caudecus’ time playing at populism (though he never seemed truly good at it) has built him a sizable support base among the common class, and years of indirect influence seem to have put almost all of the underclass in his pocket. If the cards don’t come down right, Jennah’s going to look like the tyrant in all this- it’s the whole reason we didn’t move against Caudecus back in the PS.

The wiki’s still pretty patchy when it comes to Orr events, but the NPC involved is Scholar Breandan, and his off-event is recorded. The thing is, what the fish he talks about ‘spawn’ are the coral-encrusted human risen, and they’re called replicators. There’s also the generators in Caledon that the event outright states are creating the massive plague bearers over a period of time.

The minion reformer angle is an intriguing interpretation, but I’m not certain I buy it just yet. The main issue is that these simply have the fish putting out a greater output than they could possibly carry, rather it be whole minions or liquidized components.

ZacHank.1358:

1: Is Aurene an elder dragon? My understanding is that when we talk of dragons we exclusively mean elder dragons. Since we’ve called Aurene a dragon, we are calling her an elder dragon.

It’s… more complicated than that. There have been plenty of dragon in GW who aren’t called Elder Dragons, and their relation to each other is still entirely vague. Generally speaking, though, ‘Elder Dragon’ seems to be more of a life phase or transformation than a separate species. The theory is that a dragon like Glint or Aurene could become an Elder Dragon under certain conditions- at this point, it’s assumed we just need to feed them enough of the magic that’s currently hoarded by the Elders.

2: Granted Glint turned against Kralkatorrik to help Destiny’s Edge, but my understanding was Glint was Kralkatorrik’s champion, not a dragon herself. Am I understanding this correctly?

Glint, like the Shatterer or Tequatl, was an Elder Dragon’s champion who was herself a dragon. In Glint’s case in particular we’re told she was once independent creature before being corrupted by Kralkatorrik, making her essentially the same as any Branded charr or human until the Forgotten freed her.

3: Given 1 and 2 are true, Aurene will need to consume magic and as a result will become very powerful. Is she just using us for that end? How do we know her motives are good? Why haven’t we asked that yet? Can we really trust an elder dragon even if we were able to trust Glint? And if so, what does that mean for when Aurene grows up? Does this change how elder dragons will operate in the future?

Breaking this down:
-We have no way of knowing.
-We don’t… necessarily. She seems to communicate through some kind of telepathy, so I suppose it could be possible our characters can sense her intentions, but we don’t have much indication of that yet.
-Because we’re apparently treating her like a human infant, although I don’t know why. This ‘baby’ was warning us about important happenings when she was still an egg. Or it might just be that she can’t talk yet in the conventional sense, and our Commander isn’t sure how to initiate mental contact or if Aurene can understand what they’re saying.
-Presumably. We’ll see. The current theory is that the current Elders are just kitteny kittens, and that the attitude isn’t necessary to the position, but on the other hand we saw in Bloodstone Fen that being pumped full of too much magic has a way of shifting priorities. We’ll just have to wait and see.
-See above
-That’s the idea. We’re aiming to create our own Elder Dragon who preforms the necessary task of regulating environmental magic levels without the (we hope) unnecessary task of wiping out all civilization.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

With every other type of dragon minion, only dragon champions can “create” (via corruption) minions in decent-to-large quantities. Without a dragon champion nearby to create the minions, there cannot be a “minion factory”.

That’s an interesting line of thought. Things like the “risen replicators” seem capable of churning minions out, and the mordrem had independent blighting blisters, yet it’d be hard to argue that either of those are even sentient.

I think the bigger factor, shallow as it is (and pun absolutely intended) is size. Not all dragon champions are large, but every dragon champion past a certain size has thus far been treated as a champion- and the Pale Tree dwarfs every one of them. Size is also the main factor for the ‘minion factory’ types, the ones who do more than just corrupt what they kill.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The Ministry Guard are explicitly stated by Logan during Accusation (finale of the Dead Sister storyline) to be independent bodyguards hired directly by the ministers.

The line is “But as the centaur attacks increased, Jennah’s father moved the Seraph out of the city. The ministers hired personal guards to protect them. Before we knew it, they were entrenched.” To me, anyway, that always read as ‘they started as personal guards, and that’s what we thought of them, so we weren’t prepared for them to become a full institution.’

Anyway, on the bigger discussion of Lazarus, I’m seeing two interpretations here- Lazarus the character and Lazarus the plot device.

The one has actions driven by his own goals, motivations, and desires, which after a couple hundred years are a blank slate for us- could still be villainous, could be sincere in turning over a new leaf, and either way would have a lot more to do with what happened to him in the interim than with his brush with our GW1 characters. More to the point, this is also the Lazarus that could change as the plot progresses- maybe he intends to cross us now, but over the course of working with us will slowly see the value in our approach. Maybe he is sincere, but our unrelenting suspicion will force him to give up on redemption and embrace the sinister role, and finally teach our PC a valuable lesson about being an kitten at the drop of a hat. It also means, like any number of GW2 characters, there might not be any final resolution to his plot arc.

The other has actions driven by his role in the story- he was cast by a villain, therefore, he must be villainous. He delivered what certainly sounded like foreshadowing, therefore, that must pay off. This school of thought essentially has Lazarus in a kind of stasis since GW1- after all, off-screen plot developments we never hear about is bad storytelling. That doesn’t mean he can’t become dynamic and mutable now that he’s back on the screen, but it does mean he’ll stay within certain boundaries- ultimately, it’s him against us, and after the sudden but inevitable betrayal we’ll get the satisfaction of beating him down and the validation that we players were right about that treacherous mursaat all along.

Honestly, it just comes down to A.) what kind of a story you prefer, and B.) what kind of a story you think ANet is telling. Both have their place (although you might be able to tell I personally prefer the former). As for ANet’s aims… well, historically, they’ve always treated their villains as nothing but villains. Maybe the underlings and little guys (Morgan, Canach) can defect, but every time an ominous and unsettling fellow claims to be alright, they turn out to have been working against us all along (Khilbron, Varesh). I don’t think there’s much chance that Lazarus will be on our team by the end of the season.

Samuli.7852:

Do we have any information on whether the asura gates were completely broken before this, that is, so no one could travel through them?

It’s heavily implied that by 1320 it was as good as non-functional- like drax said, though, since your story will be years before that it could be in a period of malfunction before the failure.

In lore, have the asura gates ever malfunctioned in a way that a person going through them was taken to a location without an asura gate? I’m thinking sort of in a way the Orrian mirror functions in Through the Looking Glass. In my story the location wouldn’t be completely random, but just outside Ebonhawke.

It hardly ever happens, but yes. In Edge of Destiny, a heavily damaged gate was brought back online for a brief time, and it hopped wildly between destinations, most of which probably didn’t have a receiving gate. It’s mentioned in-game, too- there’s a rumor in Rata Sum about a human going to the Reach coming out of the gate in the Black Citadel instead, and a pair of asura outside Thaumanova (with no receiving gate in sight) apparently ended up there by ducking through a random gate.

Given the rarity, it’d take a little suspension of disbelief- it’s like writing that your character was struck by lightning- but there’s nothing inherently impossible about it.

Erukk.1408:

As for the hostility, the Exalted were alive during the time, or at least during the following aftermath, of the Mursaat’s last foray into Kryta. If anyone is more than allowed to be openly hostile to the Mursaat it’s them.

Yes, but not in the same place. We know they came from the same batch as the initial Zephyrites, and we’ve been told that the Zephyrites pulled almost exclusively from Elona and (for some reason) Cantha. The odds that any of the Exalted had come into contact with the mursaat, or even heard a first-hand account of them, are pretty low.

Diovid.9506:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Rognik.2579:

I daresay that the Pale Tree is indeed stronger, because she is better, and I forget who said it, but I believe new sylvari are being “born” once more. So in that sense, she’s stronger. However, after being so heavily damaged, it’s hard to say if that means anything at all.

As far as I’m aware, there’s no evidence that sylvari ever stopped being born.

Rognik might be refering to this line from one of Taimi’s blogs:

When Caithe was here, she said the call was gone, and she had even heard of new sylvari being born after Mordremoth’s death!

But I didn’t take that as meaning that sylvari stopped being born. Instead I take it to mean there were doubts if sylvari would continue to be born after Modremoth’s death and that those doubts turned out to be unfounded.

I figured that was it (couldn’t remember the source, though- thanks for the quote!), but I concur with your interpretation- the Pale Tree’s health isn’t mentioned as a factor there at all.

Rognik.2579:

I daresay that the Pale Tree is indeed stronger, because she is better, and I forget who said it, but I believe new sylvari are being “born” once more. So in that sense, she’s stronger. However, after being so heavily damaged, it’s hard to say if that means anything at all.

As far as I’m aware, there’s no evidence that sylvari ever stopped being born.

I’m not sure that they weakened- it might be that the seeping is the stones behaving as intended. In the new tablets it’s mentioned that the Seers started the process of returning magic, presumably before the gods started meddling in it, and the White Mantle journals mention that all they could get the shards to do is slowly diffuse their power, which is why they turned to the extreme measures they did. In that case, it’s not that the stones or their protection is weakening- but when their faucet’s been dripping for 1000+ years, it’s made a bit of a puddle.

My issue is that Abaddon’s Mouth (the volcano that had the Onyx Gate, the bloodstone, and so on) actually has been on the GW2 map art since launch- and Ember Bay is nowhere near it.

We don’t have any certain date for college graduation, but we do have some early interview sources on maximum ages: the natural norn lifespan is 120, give or take, asura live 5-10% longer than humans, with 120 about the upper limit, and charr… well, they mature at the same rate as humans, but that’s not quite the same as aging, so grain of salt and all.

EDIT: As for humans, we have an interesting source in all the graveyards laying around. Using the largest three (Shaemoor, Ebonhawke, Ascalon Settlement), it seems the average life expectancy for a Tyrian human is only about 43, due to their propensity for being besieged, but many live into their 80s, and a handful (about 2%) make it to their 90s, with the oldest out of those three graveyards dying at about 95.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If so, that would be a bigger disappointment than them moving Primordus to the Ring of Fire and ignoring the epic Depths of Tyria.

Say, why aren’t the asura, skritt, and other forced-from-underground races returning now that Primordus is no longer there?

Oh, and does this mean that Primordus never moved in 200 years thus retconing Jeff Grubb and previous in-game lore about Primordus moving about to spread destroyers across Central Tyria?

While I am equally miffed about implying- twice!- that Primordus not only wasn’t active, but was actually still sleeping, I don’t think the ship has sailed for fighting him in the Depths. Yes, he’s not under the Shiverpeaks anymore, and yes, our stony faced friend seems convinced he’s moving towards the surface, but under the Ring of Fire moving up is still within the Depths. And, as a metagame consideration- there’s only room for one more map in the Ring of Fire, mayyyybe two. Unless we’re going to take down an Elder Dragon in two Living World episodes, there just isn’t enough room around those volcanoes for that plot.

On Grubb’s interview: we’ve known ever since the end of the Scarlet arc and the Secondborn dating fiasco that they don’t feel beholden to the old lore interviews. We don’t have to like it, but they were frank with us back then, so it isn’t fair to keep acting like it’s an outrageous breach of etiquette when it happens.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Squee: On second look, I suppose you’re right that the line could be twisted to be indicating that it’s talking about the world’s societies. However, the key thing to look at is that it’s a singular society that devolved and divided into violent tribes.

Most of this discussion is still a bit toxic for my tastes, but on this one point, I’d like to point out that tablet VII also refers to the world as a singular civilization. Our anonymous mursaat author didn’t seem to break society down into monoracial chunks.

Ranael.6423:

There is one thing that puzzles me with the tablets though (outside of the Crystal desert ofc) which is the last one “We mursaat… we returned and built a base among the Fire Islands, as strong as ever.”. Which means that when they came back their main stronghold was on the fire islands…. but Saul couldn’t have met them here, because it does not seem only a 4 days walk (and I am not counting the fact of crossing the sea). They must have migrated after the writing of these tablets. Interestingly In Gw1 their fortress on the fire islands was said to have been built to watch the door of Komalie.

The simple answer to the Saul dilemma would presumably be that, over thousands of years, they outgrew the desire to have only a single settlement. I agree that the Door makes for an interesting question, though- assuming that Khilbron wasn’t just mistaken or misleading us, it raises the possibility of the connection to the realm of a god extending quite a ways farther back than we’d supposed.

draxynnic.3719:

Your range contention has already been addressed:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Ranael.6423:

Maybe when we encounter him he is to far from the jungle to hear the Call.

That’s not how the call worked. It didn’t exist at all until sometime after he woke, and we have a dev tweet figuring that it didn’t have a range as such once it went public. The specific question was if a sylvari could hear/feel it in the Shiverpeaks, and her inclination was ‘yes’.

Now, I haven’t seen what Aaron is referring to there, but in-game, we see that Mordremoth’s reach (and Mordremoth himself, because as Taimi says, the permanent vines are part of his body) extends as far as the Iron Marches.

Source!

Now, a lot can be read into a tweet, and we have an unfortunate habit here of thinking the worst when it comes to Angel in particular, but for this conversation it suffices to say that the writers weren’t suggesting that Mordremoth’s call had a range limit.

I’m with Drax here- the ‘scope’ of HoT is causing trouble again. Imagine sylvari did go Mordrem Guard outside of the jungle. Not only would we not have heard about it then- the same way we didn’t hear about anything in the rest of Tyria- but the several months that have passed between HoT and S3 also means that it’d be old news by now, and not something NPCs would casually bring up in conversation. This is definitely a case where absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It is something that needs to be addressed, but I’m pretty dejected where these sylvari loose ends are concerned, and given that a vocal part of the playerbase would be just as happy if we never touch on them again…

draxynnic.3719:

(Although I would note that when you say that Ventari laid down the first code of ethics of Tyria, you’re forgetting the scriptures of the gods: “Lay down thy weapons, and as I have done unto ye, so ye must do for your brethren. Offer protection to the weak. Give solace and shelter to those who need it. Be ye a salve to the wounded.”)

Not forgetting, just downplaying. The humans had teachings, but as far as we know, no formalized code like Ventari’s Tablet, and their teachings often only concerned a given god’s area of interest and conflicted with the others- that Dwayna bit, for instance, is in opposition to Grenth’s “Where is the god to whom I may beg revenge against those who scorn me?” and especially Balthazar’s “Lift up thy weapons.” That kind of muddled climate makes clear, cut-and-dry morality difficult, and I’d guess fostered an environment where each gods’ rules only applied to their own followers, with the rest of the population left to figure out right and wrong as best they could on a case-by-case basis. Ventari, on the other hand, for all his flowery metaphors makes a pretty clear and consistent set of rules that can be applied to a broad variety of situations.

… but this is probably derailing the thread, so I’ma quiet down now.

Ranael.6423:

As for the " power of love ", it is a bit of a caricature because only Konig an Aaron used these words to say it is not working. I was only saying that Ventari could have done more than he thought when he carved the tablet. And I genuinely think Ventari was more into the magical things than presented in GW1. I know gameplay and lore sometimes conflict but why choose him as a Legend of the Past if he was just a mere centaur with stone carving skills…. a stone that revenants can summon in combat (well not the real one but a magical copy of it having healing power).

For the record, I do want to say that Ranael is right here. I was responding to the version of the theory that I’ve seen in the past, that Ventari ‘raising’ the Pale Tree to be a good kid was what broke her link to Mordremoth. While the idea that he somehow magicked away the corruption does still raise many questions, not least of which being where he got the magic to do it, and why Malyck was basically decent too, I’m not 100% against the idea.

That said, my own take on Ventari’s legend is that it reflected the impact he had on the world, rather than copying any specific powers he used to have. This is a guy who set the moral foundation for an entire race, and in the process, formulated the first coherent code of ethics that we’ve ever heard of in the world of Tyria. That’s pretty earth-shattering in it’s own right, and I feel it’s enough to cause the kind of Mist echoes that revenants draw power from. And when that work towards peace and pacifism is converted into a magical effect, it makes sense that it’d come out as healing.

Ranael.6423:

Maybe when we encounter him he is to far from the jungle to hear the Call.

That’s not how the call worked. It didn’t exist at all until sometime after he woke, and we have a dev tweet figuring that it didn’t have a range as such once it went public. The specific question was if a sylvari could hear/feel it in the Shiverpeaks, and her inclination was ‘yes’.

As for the theory that Ventari/Ronan somehow purified the Pale Tree- the issue I, and many folks around here, have with that idea is that it essentially says they defeated dragon corruption through the power of good intentions and fuzzy feelings, and besides begging the question of whether they were puking rainbows while they were at it, that’s undermining everything we’ve been told dragon corruption is. It’s disturbing, it’s scary, and one of the main reasons it’s disturbing and scary is that it is all but irresistible and incurable. Every actual example we have had to the contrary involved ancient rituals, designed by beings much stronger than us, that had to be carried out at specific sites for reasons we struggle to comprehend. And here come this random centaur and human, wiping that all away through the power of friendsh- er, pacifism? Nothing against those kinds of stories, but it doesn’t sit well in Tyria.

Danikat.8537:

At the time it was unclear how much of that was due to the bloodstone itself and how much was because the mursaat had them hooked up to soul batteries, which absorbed the souls of people killed on the stones. But as we now know their souls remained bound to the bloodstone long after the soul batteries were destroyed I think it’s safe to assume it is an effect of the stone itself.

We can do that one better- it doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of attention, maybe because it was a missable bit of dialogue in the raid, but we now even know that the soul batteries were made out of bloodstone.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

A thing to note: this idea that one of an Elder Dragon’s minions can rise to become the next one? Pure, 100% player speculation- one that’s been around long enough that a lot of us take it for granted, but still. The only actual lore we have on this matter, as far as I can remember, is this interview with Ree Soesbee.

Actually, it’s an in-game theory:

Ogden Stonehealer: The brotherhood believed that she would one day become an Elder Dragon. She was old and wise, well on her way.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Arcana#At_the_Durmand_Priory

The point of it not being in one place, however, is true, as shown with Bloodstone Fen’s journals and the ending of HoT, and the ley line events that are born because of said ending of HoT.

That was sloppy writing on my part. My bad.

What I meant is the idea that the Dragon’s current most powerful lieutenant would naturally not just replace but succeed its master- that Tequatl would specifically become the next Elder Dragon of undeath and shadow, with Zhaitan’s risen answering to it. It’s not a bad theory, per se, but a lot of it does rest on reading more into the Tequatl patch than was explicitly stated, as well as the unproven parallel to the way Kormir replaced Abaddon, and the disproved idea that a Dragon’s energy would seek for a new host.

Purecura.1795:

Diovid.9506:

Purecura.1795:

I think Mesmers/Chronomancers are the most powerful. I mean lets face it… Altering time, space, and reality itself is extremely powerful versus summoning the dead or using Elemental magic.

They’re not actually as powerful as some people are saying. Most mesmers only affect the perception of space and time, not space and time itself, at least according to a few off-hand remarks by devs.

Oooooooooooo! So are you saying they make it seem like they are removing themselves from the time line when casting [Continuum Split]? How do you justify the boon quickness? Are you saying mesmers create the illusion of Quickness and alacrity?

The actual dev quote, if you were wondering:

Scott McGough.6897:

For both story and gameplay, actual time travel is a quagmire that has to be handled carefully.

I see the chronomancer as much more a case of manipulating the local perception of time rather than manipulating time itself. The Continuum Split skill text specifically mentions a rift in time and space continuum, but I’m like you in that I take that to mean “continuum” as a perceived possibility that the chronomancer is working with rather than an actual time jump. It visually appears to let the chronomancer rewind time, but functionally it’s a highly advanced, specialized mesmer clone that players directly control for a short duration while their real body is phased out—thus any damage, etc. happens to the Continuum Split clone (who disappears when the skill expires), and the PC resumes control of their real body unchanged from the moment they activated the skill (although they do retain any XP, etc. they garnered while in Continuum Split).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

It’s more than just the Door of Komalie- the Ring of Fire also had a bloodstone. Even if Primordus can’t get into the rock as it currently is, Lazarus and his minions have already proven that they can. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s where the story is going: Lazarus is looking to drain the power of another for his ‘virtuous pursuits’. It allows ArenaNet to let us be involved in meddling with his plan, and gives them the chance to seed hints of what’s to come, while still drawing out the suspense and not tipping their hand where Lazarus’ ultimate goals are concerned.

But that doesn’t explain why we have massive magic disturbances underground traveling towards the RoF.

That is true, but consider also that in the latest phase of Seis’ achievement, she openly scoffs at our character jumping to the conclusion that it’s Primordus, then makes a pretty blatant hint that it could easily be something we’ve never seen before. It might well be nothing more than a red herring, but it does remind me of another time ANet gently rebuked us for jumping to conclusions too quickly.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Instead of saying everything we know about the Eye, and half of what we know about the Chosen, is false, I’d prefer to think that the Canthan emperors and all the rest closer to the stars are Chosen in the second sense, and that the term isn’t used for the simple and sufficient reason that the Flameseeker Prophecies don’t touch on Cantha, and that they had a cultural context for Ascension before they existed, while the Tyrians didn’t.

By making such a claim, you’re basically degrading the importance of the Chosen – they’re presented as this “uncommon” thing among people, after all. If hundreds or thousands of people in Cantha are Chosen… That’s not all that uncommon.

Considering that there were apparently thousands in Kryta alone? The least densely populated of the Tyrian kingdoms, unable to even hold a candle to the kind of population Cantha boasted? It doesn’t seem like such a stretch to me.

A thing to note: this idea that one of an Elder Dragon’s minions can rise to become the next one? Pure, 100% player speculation- one that’s been around long enough that a lot of us take it for granted, but still. The only actual lore we have on this matter, as far as I can remember, is this interview with Ree Soesbee.

From that, it doesn’t sound like a dragon’s power ‘ends up’ in a place, like it’s all one big energy packet the same way that Abaddon’s power was. It doesn’t even sound like Tequatl necessarily got any of Zhaitan’s energy after he died. All she says is that the power that was already in Tequatl is no longer being controlled and so is evolving and shaping itself. In theory, that should’ve been simultaneously occurring with all remaining risen. Tequatl just happened to be the biggest and baddest left, and so the easiest to spot the difference in.

It’s more than just the Door of Komalie- the Ring of Fire also had a bloodstone. Even if Primordus can’t get into the rock as it currently is, Lazarus and his minions have already proven that they can. If I had to guess, I’d say that’s where the story is going: Lazarus is looking to drain the power of another for his ‘virtuous pursuits’. It allows ArenaNet to let us be involved in meddling with his plan, and gives them the chance to seed hints of what’s to come, while still drawing out the suspense and not tipping their hand where Lazarus’ ultimate goals are concerned.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But apparently, for some obscure reason, they’re sending Primordus there. From where he woke. Despite the fact lore states he’s been moving around for 200 years (and is why we see destroyers from Brisban to Maelstrom), and despite the fact that making Primordus surface destroys any reason to go into the Depths of Tyria and explore the ancient lost cities of the asura and other unknown races – and removes, without removing Primordus, all reason for the asura, skritt, and dredge to not return home. And removes all reason to see the fate of the stone dwarves first hand.

Reading through that article? No mention of Primordus showing up there, or even destroyers. Just that Taimi’s wandered off that way to get more readings or something. Most tellingly, the list of things that have changed the region are “Mordremoth, Zhaitan, and hundreds of years”- you’d think if an Elder Dragon had personally popped up in the middle somewhere, it would’ve gotten a nod.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Yes and no. That ‘strong soul’ (never called that- it was only said that they had an innate talent for magic) was called being Chosen, and supposedly, only Chosen could ascend. While it had no role in the trials of ascension themselves, it was a way of picking out those who had a chance at completing said trials.

However, the term “Chosen” is only ever used in relation to the Flameseeker Prophecies, and as Weh no Su is also referred to as being an alternative form of Ascension (outright called “what Canthans call Ascension” by an Ascalonian scholar, and the title of the emperors turning to “Ascendant Emperor” after the tradition for every emperor to become Weh no Su began) and none who fulfills Weh no Su are ever called “Chosen” – let alone every Canthan Emperor since Chang Hai.

Given this, it stands to reason that the Chosen has 0 direct relation to Ascension in of itself, and just refers to the individuals the Flameseeker Prophecies refers to as the ones who will open the Door of Komalie and wipe out the mursaat (which just so happens to also include the individuals Ascending). And in turn, it stands to question what the true purpose of the Eye of Janthir was all about, since the Chosen would, inevitably, only refer to the ones who fulfill the prophecy.

I think the issue here is that ‘Chosen’ can be used, and is used in Prophecies, two separate ways- as the one, or ones, foreseen who will fulfill the Prophecies, and as the ones who have the potential to Ascend and unlock the gift of True Sight, which just borrows the same term used for the first because that’s the context of Ascenion in Tyria.

Which gets back to the weird dissimilarities between Tyrian Ascension and Canthan Weh no Su. It seems that only a single, or single batch of, Chosen ever ascended by way of the trials in the desert- in fact, the way the mesa shatters suggests that it might have been set up so it could only happen once- where as Weh no Su has, at minimum, been attained by a long line of Canthan emperors. Ascension is linked directly to the gods, and overseen by their practically immortal servants; Weh no Su is linked only to the celestials, and overseen by a mortal man (albeit an incredibly powerful one).

Instead of saying everything we know about the Eye, and half of what we know about the Chosen, is false, I’d prefer to think that the Canthan emperors and all the rest closer to the stars are Chosen in the second sense, and that the term isn’t used for the simple and sufficient reason that the Flameseeker Prophecies don’t touch on Cantha, and that they had a cultural context for Ascension before they existed, while the Tyrians didn’t.

Amaimon.7823:

the Eye of Janthir has zero relation to the methods of ascension. All it did was allow the white mantle to see which people have ‘strong souls’ to fuel the bloodstone engine with. The player doesn’t know this and thinks they’re helping the white mantle find saintly people.

Yes and no. That ‘strong soul’ (never called that- it was only said that they had an innate talent for magic) was called being Chosen, and supposedly, only Chosen could ascend. While it had no role in the trials of ascension themselves, it was a way of picking out those who had a chance at completing said trials.

No one says Saul invaded. The sole source we have on Janthir (who is unreliable to boot- he says Janthir is to the south, which is simply false) says only that Saul traveled there and returned with the Eye. He also claims that the people of Janthir are ‘gifted’ with true sight- not much to go off of, but it does mean the only descriptor he uses is a positive one. Not what you’d expect if the Mantle rank-and-file had warred with the place.

And that’s all assuming the story is true- what drax was getting at above is that, even if Saul was trustworthy, that doesn’t mean he actually said or did everything that the Mantle claim. For all we know the Eye might not have come from Janthir at all.

The original has been taken down, but here’s an archived copy.

You’ve gotten pretty good answers already, so I’ll just touch on the ones I can add something new to:

Nokomis.5076:

- why can’t you just travel from one end of Tyria to the other one then?

Another limitation here is that every NPC we see travel through a waypoint has to walk up to one first. The whole ‘open your map and teleport at will’ mechanic seems to be strictly gameplay, not lore. So if you can’t get to a waypoint, or don’t know where one is…
I’ve also heard some folks play it so that waypoints can only connect to a small network of others nearby. It makes a certain amount of sense- no one would be surprised if a mini-gate can’t take you as far as the full deal- and it means that to travel long distances takes multiple hops, with a separate fee for each making it prohibitively expensive to get to the other side of the continent.

- Asura gates function like a wormhole I would say. But how do waypoints work? Like a transporter in Star Trek, where you’re disassembled into your atoms and the transfered through the leyline to another waypoint and there you are reassembled?

An asura describes waypoints as “mini-gates”, so they should work on the same principle as the big ones, which, according to Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon, work by bending reality to bring two separate points together. Instead of travelling you across a distance, they instead remove the distance altogether.

Pregnantman.8259:

TL;DR – If anyone decided to wipe the sylvari out, all they have to do is press 1 targeting Pale Tree.

Not so easy. I know it’s often forgotten, but when we’re talking about the Pale Tree, we aren’t talking about the frail avatar in the chamber. We’re talking about a tree the size of a mountain, that took a mauling from a dragon and a small army of plant monsters attacking her roots and is now on her way to recovery. An assassin would be less than useless, and a single bomb would only tickle her. I suppose poison might be an option, but thinking of just how much of it it’d take to bring down an organism that size… killing the Pale Tree probably would require either an army that’d need to fight through a host of very determined defenders, or a magical nuke of some kind.