Guild Wars 2

Both statements are incorrect. It was Balthazar who explicitly urged the humans to go to war with all the other races and rise to power through conquering. He wanted the humans to defeat the Charr (amongst others). And he was fairly successfull in driving the humans towards that, since they spread to every region in Tyria and raised great Kingdoms from the dust. However, we can see the consequences of this in present day.

Melandru urged for peace with the other races from the beginning, while Dwayna was the one to achieve it (well, at least for a time). Thus, it’s not possible to say that ‘the gods’ chased the Charr off or wanted to kill them. They are quite divided when it comes to how to establishing a new home for humanity.

Also, getting back to topic: The avatars of the gods have already been implemented in some part in the human racial skills. The remaining magical abilities of the Dervish are in some way found within the Elementalist, being more melee-focussed in GW2. The only thing that we haven’t got is the scythe.

I’d also like to see Dervishes back, however it’s fairly unlikely to happen. They just don’t fit in for a number of reasons that were already named, and I don’t see much use in twisting the original profession into something that barely resembles what they once were. Though one could say lore-wise that they can still exist.

Mages of all sorts are rather uncommon in Charr society, not counting the Flame Legion.

But we do actually see Charr mesmers in the Personal Story. Vallus Smokemane for example, the PCs father if you pick the gladium story, no matter the Legion. Eventhough he uses mace/shield and wears medium armor, he is a mesmer and makes active use of magic.

Hey everybody,

as an RP player, I just recently stumbled into a discussion about how the Charr deal with remaining human artifacts in Ascalon. Some people seem to think that they are into absolutely destroying all remnants of Ascalonian might they can find, while others (including me) tend to think that they just don’t care much about most of it, for as long that there is no threat to their control over Ascalon.

This is how I see it: The High Legions destroy many Ascalonian ruins in order to make room for their own architecture and use them for demolition testing. They also keep shattered relics like Stormcaller as a demonstration of their own triumph, but they are – mostly – no longer afraid of ancient human powers.

This is, imho, portrayed pretty well by letting the Durmand Priory dig for artifacts in Ascalon Catacombs and in Serenity Temple (without any known restriction by the High Legions).
We also know that Rytlock – eventhough he might not be the best argument, being far from a stereotypical Charr – gave the idol of Balthazar (which is incredibly powerful) to the Priory, as well as left Magdaer to the hands of Eir Stegalkin (which is actually pretty stupid to give away, due to the fact that it caused the Foefire).

How do you guys think about it?

I absolutely agree with that. The word ‘destruction’ is a pretty bad term for it. Finiteness or mortality would describe it better, I guess.

Dwayna ist not the ‘primary’ patron of guardians. She wasn’t even the patron god of all monks back in GW1, where simiting monks were mostly followers of Balthazar. I believe that guardians walk a fine line between both deities.

Also, although the wiki states it, I have never seen the actual source for Grenth being associated with destruction. Grenth and Balth both share an association with vengeance, but destruction is an aspect of Menzies and the more brutal sides of Balth.

Also, what makes you think that gods are not ageless? There are no clues for that.

Well of course belief in divinty is weaker these days than it was back in the 1070s when the gods still dabbled in the matters of mortals. There was no way to even doubt their existence back then.
250 years of silence are enough to weaken the populace in their faith, but imho not enough for such a step. Caudecus would have to use a LOT of his influence to achieve this, and currently, he is in no situation to do so.

As for Nobles who can trace their ancestry back to ancient kings, this part is just a contradiction in GW lore. Some sources state this, while others say that Jennah and Samuelsson are the last heirs of Dorics blood.

Putting aside all the Logan discussion – I don’t think that Queen Jennah has many known relatives within the Krytan nobility. Acutually, I don’t think she has any at all, due to the fact that we never hear of a Krytan (thus not counting Samuelsson) duke of any kind.

Also, I don’t think that the ‘divine right to rule’ can be as ‘easily’ put aside as it was in reality. Please remember that we do play in a high fantasy setting in which the existence of several gods is a proven fact. They remain silent since 250 years, yes, but I don’t think that is enough to make that tradition unimportant in ‘high society’. Caudecus would face a TON of contest, and I don’t think it is even in his specific interest to ascend to the throne. He wants power – how he achieves it isn’t important to him.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I don’t think he would try and marry her at all… He’d be more likely to encourage the citizens to overthrow their monarch and put him, as head of a governmental system, in place.

I highly doubt that. It is human tradition in Tyria that only a descendant of King Doric can rule as a monarch. Overthrowing that would be a religious scandal (since Doric was chosen by the gods) and in theory put Caudecus in the same spot as the White Mantle. And since it is a pretty bad thing for a ruler zu be questioned and spurned by his people from the very beginning, that is rather not an option. At least not atm – the people of Kryta are still rather faithful, eventhough the gods are silent.

Queen Jennah is relatively safe for as long as she is the only descendant of Doric in Kryta (Samuelson would never be accepted by the Krytans imho, and I doubt he’d even be interested to leave Ascalon for that), so Caudecus’ beste hope for absolute power would indeed be marrying Jennah and producing an heir.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Considering the lack of a proper romance between Logan and Jennah I don’t think we’re going to see a wedding any time soon.

We don’t exactly know how intimate Logan and Jennah have been so far. Of course they would keep that a secret.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

The security of the kingdom is probably a little more important to the Ministry than the security of the royal blood line.

The Ministry also knows that it is dependent upon the royal bloodline. A lot of things would need to happen before they could really do anything against that.
In the personal storyline, we can see that many ministers care more for their personal power than for the safety of Kryta. We also know that some corrupt ministers provided weapons for the centaurs just make the queen’s Seraph look pretty bad at doing their job.

One thing that’s strange about Sohothin is that Logan knew on sight that it was Sohothin when he saw Rytlock wielding it. Yes, it’s a legendary sword, but on the other hand we know, as Konig said, that there are many copies of both Sohothin and Magdaer around.

Also – burn, heretic! Burn in the fires of Balthazar!

I just noticed that the personality mechanic is not included in the hero panel anymore. Is this a bug or has it been removed from the game completely?

It was never said that the Zaishen petioned Balthazar. As for the discussion concerning the portal, take a look at this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/The-Mists-broken-lore/first#post3688399

Back to the Zaishen – I’d just love to see them come back in some way. They did help with the Karka Invasion after all, and we know that they have close connections to the Mist war. Some more lore on that would be awesome, especially with the upcoming PvP changes.

Hey guys,

one thing I noticed with the Attack on Lion’s Arch release is that the remaining Zaishen NPCs and large parts of the Mist Warriors have completely diappeared from the game engine.

I wonder what happened to the Zaishen Order and whether we will see them reappear at some point. Any thoughts?

@Koning:
Yes, we do not have a portal on a hill. That means, currently we have nothing, but looking at pre-Scarlet Lion’s Arch: Of course there are several portals there, because engine-wise we simply need an entrance to every single map. Still though, NPCs mostly state that where you end up in the Mists is normally pretty random, however this can of course not be included into regular gameplay.

It’s not that clear that there was anything retconned, imo. The whole part from the Movement of the World doesn’t contradict the current state of affairs, eventhough no NPC mentions it ingame. And Siriam’s dialogue was, in the end, put into the game the same way Vonbrig’s diaolgue was, and his was also proven to be questionable during the Edge of the Mists patch, where Canach still stated that most prisoners are billeted in the arena, which is impossible if – according to Vonbrig – there is no arena anymore.

mtpelion.4562:

The gates transport you to a location. The new gate could simply transport you directly into the portal (i.e. it is a two stage process in which you are transported from Vigil Keep into the portal in Lion’s Arch, which then transports you into the Mists).

See, lore intact!

I’m not sure if it works that way. Actually, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. An asura gate can only transport you to a different place when there is another asura gate at that spot. Currently, the gates in Fort Marriner are destroyed, which makes that impossible.

Thus, no matter how you interpret the origin of the portal, it is still located in Lion’s Arch and currently unaccessible.

@mercury:
Not quite. The asura gates themselves only serve to make the portal accessible, but the portal itself doesn’t come from the asura. Moving the gates does not move the portal. And I don’t see what the old area beneath Lion’s Arch has to do with it, that gate didn’t have anything to do with the Mists.

@Koning:
Where’s the proof that it was changed? Neither Siriam nor Vonbrig contradict the Movement of the World, and there has been no other explanation given except Balthazar.

Hi everybody!

There’s one thing I noticed since the recent patch. As we have seen, all the Asura gates including those to the Mists have been temporarily moved to Vigil Keep. Engine-wise, this makes sense, since they have to keep some sort of entrance to the Mist War, or WvW would have to be shut down.

But we know for sure that lore-wise, the only currently accessible, permanent portal to the Mists is in Lion’s Arch. According to the Movement of the World scriptures, it was opened by Balthazar over two hundred years ago as one of the last gifts to the mortal world.
And according to Sheriff Siriam in pre-Scarlet Lion’s Arch, the portal was only discovered after the waters receded from Lion’s Arch after the rise of Orr. She also states that it took the asura colleges many years only in order to find out that it was a connection to the Mists.

So what’s this now? Is there any explanation how such a thing could be simply moved in such a short amount of time?

I don’t really see that as a contradiction, actually. We only know the portal was created by Balthazar – its functionality has never been explained by that.

In my opinion this doesn’t mean that it has been retconned out. It’s propably just a another bunch of loose ends that haven’t been perfectly fitted to each other. There’s room left for interpretation, of course. A bit too much, perhaps, but I don’t see a plain contradiction.

My theory is that Balth was only responsible for opening the raw connection to the Mists in that spot, but left the population of LA with the task of how to control/form it on their own, which is supported by what Siriam says.

BrunoBRS.5178:

it can. it was a minor thing, like a christmas altar. the “church” (aka the actual shrine) was left untouched, and the tiny altar was probably moved elsewhere (it was small enough to be put indoors anyway)

The ‘minor thing’ you’re talking about was actually much larger than the actual shrine on the High Road. It was a solid structure and had apparantly been there for years.

Thus, the comparison to a christmas altar is just plain wrong.

Just bumping this thread since I recently found some interesting ingame dialogue about it.

I do not think that what was written about the Mist portal in the Movement of the World has been removed from lore.
Sherriff Siriam in Fort Marriner states that the portal was first discovered after Lion’s Arch had been resettled, and that it took the Asuran colleges years to even figure out what it was, where it led and how to find a way to use it in order to get to the Mists.

Since the portal wasn’t there in the original GW1 Lion’s Arch, it can only be there due to Balthazar opening it, as the Asura are apparently only responsible for controlling it.
However, as the gods themselves remain silent, it is clear that mortals had to find their own way how to actually make use of it.

In my opinion, this intervention of Balthazar opening the portal can be compared with the Reaper of Grenth that is summoned in Orr – proof of the gods actually still existing and indirectly intervening when things get really messy as far as their personal domains are concerned, eventhough they do not actively commune with humanity any longer.

Which we already talked about.

This doesn’t change the fact that this cannot be compared to a temorary christmas altar in any way.

BrunoBRS.5178:

1- that was a minor shrine to balthazar in a greater structure, not a place dedicated to him. in case you haven’t noticed yet, divinity’s reach has 6 “arms”, each with its own god, and those are still there, balthazar included. removing that small shrine is akin to you removing a christmas altar from the table after holiday season is over.

What you say here does not make sense. At all.

A shrine is by definition a place dedicated to a god or a religion as such. It does not matter if the shrine is minor or not.
Comparing a huge, established structure of both religious and practical meaning to temporay christmas altars is just… no. Seriously.

Everybody here knows about the six-armed structure of Divinity’s Reach. But what does matter, is that every god except for Dwayna did have secondary consecrated places next to the High Roads before. Now, there is a significant change in that pattern.

BrunoBRS.5178:

2- i’m pretty sure the god of war would be quite pleased with having a huge kitten arena built in the middle of the capital of humanity, especially since his previous arena (the battle isles) was wiped from the map by an uncaring, oversized lizard.

One could also say that the god of war would be enraged because there’s not even any dedication to him and that the money hasn’t been spent on promoting the real war outside the city gates.

But on that, we can only speculate after all.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m not contradicting myself – you just seem to be not listening, or not understanding, me.

One place is used as a location for religious advice, the other was not. This is what differentiates a shrine from a mere statue. This is what I was saying. This is not contradictory. At all.

I had not once seen any ambient dialogue of someone going to the priest of Balthazar on the lower end. And I remained in the area for a long time in the past to see all the ambient dialogue and actions. The upper statue is where the travelers went to, not the training yard. There would be periodical NPCs going up and asking for a blessing before heading out on the battlefield. The other one just had training seraph turn to the priest and salute before taking a break from their sparring.

Besides, a developer just went and proved me right that it’s the upper Plaza that was the main shrine. Though also proved me wrong in that the other place was also a shrine – but a lesser one, unlike what you and everyone else has been claiming.

Please do refrain from turning your RP into canon, as it seems to me that’s what you’re doing.

I am listening to you, and I see your point better now, but I simply disagree with it.

The fact that the training yard had no dialogue does, in my opinion, not support the theory that it was not a place where religious advice was sought. Otherwise some of the Seraph would not make their way down there only in order to salute to a priestess (which, by the way, they do the same way in the big Shrine of the Six).
By official statement, it was a secondary shrine, and as such we cannot discredit it completely as a place of religious advice. And it can definitely be regarded as a political faux-pax of Queen Jennah to remove it, in some way.

I do, however, not disagree that the main shrines are the ones atop the High Roads, since that’s what Anthony’s statement basically says.

Also, I’m not turning my RP into canon, since I’m a lore lover myself and have a certain dislike for players who are stretching it too much in order to get what they want. But I simply disagree with the argument that a secondary shrine is not a place of religious advice because of the lack of dialogues.

I couldn’t agree more, zerorogue.

The Royal Terrace just destroys the whole symetry of shrines / consecrated places in Divinity’s Reach.

If the official statement is really pointing towards the statues on the High Roads being the ‘true shrines’, we have to accept that, but still, this is not at all a reason to say that the secondary shrines were unnecessary.

Most of them have a practical use, the Balthazar one definitely had, and at the moment the Crown Pavillon doesn’t really replace it at all – there’s no military practice yard there, not even a single statue paying respect to Balthazar.

I think that it wouldn’t be much of a problem to implement something like that for the sake of consequent lore, if the Royal Terrace is really gonna stay.

I absolutely agree that there could have been more Balthazar-themed surroundings in the arena. Perhaps it is possible to implement something like that after the celebrations are over?

Danikat.8537:

There’s an area on the other side of the shrine that just has a bare wooden stage. I’m not sure if it’s used by RPers or NPCs but if not that could be a good site to put the statue.

I doubt that this is a good choice since it’s right next to a big tavern.

That’s the point. It wouldn’t have been THAT bad if there had at least been a thought about Balthazar when designing the arena.

How can there be such a huge arena right in Divinity’s Reach, the human capital, without even the slightest tribute to the god of war and arenas being implemented?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I’m not contradicting myself. The difference is that the Plaza of Balthazar is where the priests give out blessings, and where people go to seek advice from Balthazar’s priesthood.

To say a training yard is a shrine just because it has a statue of Balthazar there is to say a library’s a shrine because there’s a statue of Kormir there. Or to say that a classroom of a Catholic school is a shrine because there’s a statue of Jesus or Mary in there.

A shrine by definition is a place where people go to pray or seek religious guidance.

But most importantly neither of them are a temple like Cardon and Illi claimed which is what I was originally disputing.

Oh, you are contradicting yourself, but I think you missed to what I was pointing in this regard.
It is because you are reducing one thing to a yard with a statue, while pointing towards another statue with even less surrounding as ‘the real deal’. That is kind of funny, because there is no real argument behind it, no real evidence that makes it more ‘true’.

‘Cause yes, you’re right – a shrine is where people go to seek religious guidance. True. And as we could see in the engine, both shrines of Balthazar were used for just that (the lower one with the yard actually more than the one on Balthazar High Road, to be correct).

Anyway, this discussion is kind of pointless, because Anthony Ordon already pointed out in another thread that ArenaNet saw it as a ‘secondary shrine’ that could be taken away.
Which is kind of ironic, because it had an awful lot more to offer than the one we’re now left with.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Noooot really. Fighting is not so much “sacred” as that’s what the god personifies. Otherwise you’d say that dying was sacred in the faith of Grenth – but it’s not. It’s acknowledging death. For Balthazar, it’s not exactly clear (hence the elongated “not”) but if the Zaishen and Priests of Balthazar in GW1 are of any decent example, the situation is that honorable combat that is performed and shown is what’s closest to “sacred” in the followers of Balthazar.

You’re messing up two things here.

First of all, Grenth is absolutely not about glorifying death, while Balthazar is very much about glorifying combat. These two core mentalities cannot be compared face to face.
Also, while Grenth is the god of death and Balthazar the god of war, neither is personified death/war. They are personified mentalities forming up around these things. They guide humans how to deal with these aspects.

Secondly, Balthazar embraces many forms of combat and conflict.
One the one side, for example, he is the god of glory and the arena. This is where the whole ‘honourable combat’ thing that the Zaishen used to teach on the Battle Isles is applying.
But on the other side he also stands for warfare und victory. Soldiers pray to him, and soldiers need to fight hard and with every option they have to win a battle. The Zaishen are not stupid either. In the old times, they were daemonhunters as well, and among the finest warriors in Tyria. They knew they had to be effective to do the job.
Honor guides them, and reminds them of being dutiful.. And a true warrior’s duty also implies that you have to do what battle asks of you to be victorious.
Because a battlefield and an arena have not much in common except for the fighting itself.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It doesn’t really have to be PvP for it to be honorable to Balthazar, let alone sentient being versus sentient being. Combating the Watchknights whom can take on a variety of opponents and abilities would certainly constitute for being Balthazar-esque.

The only thing that prevents the Crown Pavilion from being Balthazar-esque is the lack of mention of him or the priests of Balthazar, really.

I never said in any way that PvP is the only thing that honors Balthazar about an arena.
I also don’t say that combating the watchknights is against Balthazar.

But I say that the arena in no way properly replaces what was taken away and doesn’t add much either, from a religious point of view.. It comes at the cost of pure decandency. The money that the Krytan crown spent on the Pavillon could have been used better, in a way much more honorable to the gods and/or helpful to the people and the war that is fought outside Divinity’s Reach.
This is why the arena, while embracing Balthazar in some way, makes up for it with a ton of philosophical downsides that are not really honoring him. And that’s all I meant.

Narcemus.1348:

I do not see how the practice of combat which is the pavilion is not honoring to Balthazar. I mean I could see it being just as honoring as WvW, PvP, or any other sort of combat related scenarios. I mean you have large areas built to be largely challenging to people in order to force them to re-think the way in which they fight. You have large one on one arenas where players can work their way up through the toughest of the tough foes in order to prove their worth. I mean there is just a lot of combat related stuff going on, i would think Balthazar would be proud that he got the entire district devoted to the canthans PAVED OVER in order to provide combat related opportunities.

Only that there is no devotion to Balthazar. Not a single word anywhere.

It would honor Balthazar if it were true PvP, a place where soldiers are gathered to practise and contest, to spread their knowledge and prepare people to go to war.
There’s nothing like that about the new arena in any way.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

A Priest of Balthazar overseeing training is not all that odd to think about, really. But that wouldn’t make it a shrine in the least. The shrine is a level above the training grounds – at the Plaza of Balthazar itself.

I don’t recall a single Seraph in that spot “coming to pay respects” – and a salute to a priest or statue? So? How does that signify a shrine. In a way, yes, it is a shrine – in that it’s a statue of a god. But it’s no temple.

You’re contradicting yourself.

You are denying that it is a shrine and say that it’s “just a training yard with a statue”, but then you call the Plaza of Balthazar (which is just that – a plaza) the true shrine, where there’s basically even less about it honoring Balthazar.

Fighting is the sacred thing about faith in Balthazar, practising the arts of combat, and thus, the true shrine for me was the one that has just been wiped away for no real reason, lorewise.

There’s no real way to end this discussion, because we didn’t have an NPC saying “this is the shrine, not that thing over there”, but for me, the true evidence comes from the place that is truly focussed on honoring the specific god, not from the generic plazas which are the same for every god and only exist to give the city it’s symetry.

@Aaron:
Could you link me some evidence of the Royal Terrace itself being part of the temporary content? I’d appreaciate that.

Alleluia.1320:

Its not a temple. Its more of a statue with a training circle in front of it and then ramps leading up to a platform with more training area behind the statue.

Not quite.

It was a shrine, which makes it a clerical place that is being looked after by priests. It’s not as huge a temple as the shrine of the Six in the centre of the city, but a shrine nevertheless.

There was an NPC priestess of Balthazar watching over the practising just as in the old times of the Zaishen, and there were Seraph coming to pay their respect und salutes to the glowing statue und the priests, just as they do in the big temple at the side of the palace.

And there’s just no logic in tearing such a thing down and not even replacing it – the new arena has barely got any connection to Balthazar’s mentality.

As a roleplayer from the same community who RPs a priest of Balthazar in this spot since ages, I am of the same opinion as Cardon.

I’ve also opened a thread about it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/jubilee/What-happened-to-the-shrine-of-Balthazar

@Fanfnir:
The new arena does not honor Balthazar in any way. It is in fact a large playground, a symbol of Queen Jennah’s decadency and waste of money (we’re playing in a world with a weak humanity that has real wars to fight), as well as no real contest at all, due to the lack of true competitors who fight against each other. Also there is not a single connection to the gods implemented.

@Konig:
You’re wrong in one point.

It was in fact a shrine. You can’t just call it a training yard with a statue if there are priests watching over the practising soldiers, Seraph who come to pay respect and their salute to the statue of Balthazar and the warrior priests in just the same manner as they do in the larger temple of the Six, and so on.

It was an obvious clerical area, and lore-wise, there is no reason for the priests of Balthazar as well as all practising soldiers and pious people in the city not to object when Queen Jennah basically wants to drive them out of their domain in a city that’s explicitly called Divinity’s Reach. It’s actually pretty blasphemic if there’s no reason given. Also due to the fact that it’s being replaced by an area of extreme decadency.

When I logged into the game today, I was horrified to find out that the shrine of Balthazar had just been deleted from the engine to be replaced with the Royal Terrace.

As an RP player, I am just shocked by the complete lack of explanation for this, lore-wise. The shrine has been an important hot-spot for roleplay on Drakkar Lake, and I think on the other inofficial RP-servers as well.

I know that RPers only form a very minor part of the community and that we are not lucrative. But I just don’t understand the reasons for this change, and I hope that some devs can explain the following things to me:

- why has the Royal Terrace been put in this place and not on the other side of the former Great Collapse? There’s literally nothing there, except for a vista at the side.
- what is the explanation for a queen wiping a sacred place from a city called Divinity’s Reach? That could be considered blasphemy.
- what do the priests of Balthazar and the practising soldiers say to this, lore-wise? The Crown Pavillon is an arena, and Balthazar is the god of fighting, but there is not a single connection to him in this new patch, so it’s no replacement for the shrine.
- will the shrine come back or will it be permanently gone?

I hope that there are answers for this, thanks in advance.

Hi everybody,

I’ve recently seen that the dungeon vendor for the Honor of Waves actually sells the Ursan Tonic, which transforms the player into a Kodan, in two different versions. One costs 10 tokens, the other costs 400. Other than that, there seems to be no apparent difference between them, the description and all that stuff are 100% identical.

I’ve also noticed that no other dungeon than the Honor of Waves seems to have a second version of it’s specific tonic, the other dungeons have all only got the 10 token version.

Now, my question is: Is this a bug or is it intended? Does that mean that the 400 token version is an everlasting one, or how do I have to understand this? I’ve been searching for an answer to this all over the internet but was unable to find anything.
I’d very much like to possess an everlasting tonic that transforms into a Kodan, that’s why I’m asking.