Guild Wars 2

Rather ironic that I had a dream about episode 5 being suddenly released today and it held a massive reveal, then we get a forum post about it being delayed.

Jennah, however, is always under observation and the Shining Blade would never let her be put in such life-threatening situations as being alone in the heart of enemy territory, no matter how strong of a mesmer she may be.

And by our knowledge, no normal human – no matter how strong – can absorb a bloodstone’s magic. She was also always very powerful, as shown in Edge of Destiny novel, so her new display of power is nothing new (it’s just the first time shown in the game itself, unless you count the “impenetrable by all means” shield during CM story a show of power).

And I think the fact she has this power yet has not done much with it to directly counter Caudecus (or Kellach, or Scarlet), despite knowing him an enemy, even during the attempts on her life, is proof that she’s not an overtly darker persona than she’s portraying.

You’re stuck on being unable to separate “same path” from “same vision”. It’s the same path, but not at the same time – so things have changed, but we’re going along the same “route” to witnessing The All at the end that Scarlet had taken. It’s just that, because time has progressed (by 7 years!), the appearance of that route has changed.

If you walk down a street one day, which has children playing in sprinklers, then come back 7 years later, you’re not going to see those same children playing in those same sprinklers. That may not even happen if you walk down that same street the very next day.

Omadd’s Machine is not a replay button for video footage recorded by Scarlet. It’s more akin to a ride on a track – same start, same end – which Scarlet had laid down when she first entered the machine. The start is not The All but a barrier to cross before one can witness The All, which we cross during the vision itself.

And the thing is that the vision we saw does “exactly resemble Scarlet’s” – but it’s not a duplicate. Resemblance is not “exactly the same” but “similar to”, and that’s what we see – the general placement of things are more or less the same, but the events are not the same.

Mursaat are flesh and blood creatures, so no they are not constructs powered and controlled by souls like the Exalted. The Exalted are effectively just enchanted armors that are controlled and houses the souls of humans chosen by the Forgotten for the role they’re performing.

Not to mention that tengu and mursaat are so drastically different in culture and history that there’s clearly no relation. And they’re so drastically different in physiology as well that shows there’s no biological relation either.

MrAtlantis.2740:

I realize this thread was discussed 4 years ago, but I’m rather surprised no one mentioned Eir Stegalkin’s relationship with Borje the Sunchaser (unless that relationship was written into GW2 after this discussion took place ( I only recently started playing GW2)),

Pretty much the relationship was written later than the thread. This discussion seemed to have been prior to the game’s official release (when we only had access via open betas), or shortly after, since a lot of families are seen, yet not noticed yet while the discussion took place. And Eir and Borje weren’t known until 6 months after release.

TL;DR of norn relations:

Equals marry, and either side (or neither) will take care of children. Sometimes they leave their children in the care of trusted individuals (like the “daycare” we see in Hoelbrak and Wayfarer) or one spouse goes hunting, etc. while the other stays home (and this can go either way, though ArenaNet seems to have favored female norn being the ones who go out to hunt apparently…); on occasion, we have couples who remain active in building legends, like Eir and Borje or Knut and Gerta, and are separate for extended periods of time.

Though any TL;DR of norn culture is insignificant. It’s one of the cultures with good depth and variety in the game.

Amaimon.7823:

There’s indeed no reason why they couldn’t, but also no reason why they would. There are no ingame examples, or in the books, of undeads becoming dragon minions.

That’s because we don’t see any undead in game or in the books. Closest thing we get are necromancer minions.

Amaimon.7823:

The only undeads besides ghosts I’ve seen so far are all already Zhaitan’s. And we have never fully established whether or not dragon minions can corrupt one another’s minions.

Aside from the fact that risen are not, technically, undead but merely resemble them in both appearance and the common method of risen being made, we have rather established the situation with multiple dragon corruption.

Sylvari immunity is implied (to the point where it’s all but explicitly stated) to be what prevents corruption, while we have situations like Subject Alpha, Kudu’s Monster, and most importantly: the plant/death destroyers and unstable icebrood abomination, all of which are cases of multiple corruptions in a single minion.

While folks argue that the former two are “not natural”, all the Inquest did was expose individuals to dragon energy – in other words, they did nothing an Elder Dragon couldn’t do.

But all the same, Joko’s undead are not dragon minions, so this isn’t even on topic.

Amaimon.7823:

So there’s really no way of knowing whether undead can be branded or not. And whether it’s easy to brand a creature who fights back. If kralkatorrik was fighting personally, or a champion, they’d propably brand them by the dozens, but I honestly doubt a lowly branded can brand another if it fights back.

We actually see fighters being corrupted by the very environment in Iron Marches, and we’re told that the lightning strikes of the Brandstorm can corrupt, IIRC.

And there’s no reason to believe that undead cannot be corrupted – after all, the branded are all physical things corrupted in the end, and we see some corpses corrupted by icebrood and branded; and in the end, what is an undead but a moving corpse…

Aaron Ansari.1604:

There’s mention in Sea of Sorrows (pg 238) of the Dead Ships wiping out hylek villages. You could argue that the attacks stopped after the Indomitable and Whiting were destroyed, but ultimately, there’s no evidence either way.

The hylek personal story heavily indicates that the risen are only recent there, for sure.

And I recall dialogue saying that it was only in “recent generations” that the hylek were under such heavy assault by the risen in Sparkly Fen (I want to say by the NPCs in/around Zintl Holy Grounds), and hylek generations are shorter than almost every other race.

This would point to it stopping for a time.

The order of events on the invasion is:

• West beach side feint; Mira is questioning.
• Dead Ship arrives, bombards Abominations, killing Brakk.
• Mira’s unit is overrun, when we revive her she says “I’m injured… bad. Get me to Talon. I don’t think we can hold out this time.”
• Conversation with Talon: And let Lion’s Arch think we’ve lost? No, Mira, not yet. Claw Island’s withstood much worse.
• Sinking the ship and more arrive, talking to Talon then:

Deputy Mira: Talon, this is no normal attack! The Lionguard cannot hold! We’re overwhelmed!
Watch Commander Talon: Claw Island has stood for nearly a hundred years. It cannot fall!
Watch Commander Talon: We’ll fight them to the last soldier! To the last sword! We’ll never surr-

Mira definitely sees this as a major assault the moment that first dead ship arrives and overwhelms the fort defenses and patrol units. Talon is definitely being stubborn throughout the whole thing, in your cliche’d “I won’t let my name go down in history as the first to lose” military officer persona. Even his final request was, effectively, meant to worsen the blow to his name.

Talon was clearly an individual who cared more for how he was remembered than for seeing the situations as they truly were.

On top of that – and more as bonus points to Talon – for the sake of moral, he had to claim that Claw Island’s withstood worse – say otherwise, and moral breaks down, and it becomes harder to keep troops in line.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I disqualify Jormag because we know there’s another front he’s engaged on and don’t know anything about his behavior there. We have adequate reason to believe Zhaitan sat around in Orr the entire century it was awake, but from what scraps we know about Jormag, we couldn’t say whether he’s been sitting still in the Sea of Desperation or roving around clearing everything between Frostgorge and the arctic circle. At the very least, the fact that he sent his Claws out to harass his enemies and spread his corruption- something Zhaitan didn’t do until the PS, and even then only with Blightghast and Tequatl- speaks to a more aggressive posture during his ‘pressure’ phase.

Ehhh, three things here.

Firstly, we know that Zhaitan had a second front we know nothing about (against Elona).

Secondly, there’s actually no indication that, beyond his awakening, Jormag’s been spreading his forces in any direction but south – while certainly possible and no reason to believe he doesn’t, nothing to point to it either.

Thirdly, in Episode 3, we’re told that Jormag is (believed to be) sitting just north of Bitterfrost Frontier, near a frozen tundra just beyond that zone. By the sounds of it, Bitterfrost Frontier is unto Jormag what eastern Straits of Devastation (across the straits from Orr) was for Zhaitan, or Silverwastes for Jormag.

Given this, I’d say we know as much about Jormag as we do of Zhaitan, in regards to their expansion rates and methods.

Amaimon.7823:

I feel like this is only a halftruth. yes, a part of joko’s army are living creatures. but joko wasn’t born yesterday, he’d stop sending living creatures if they became branded. But they would only brand if kralkatorrik or a champion was there. And the undead fall apart rather easily, what are you basing that on? I don’t think we’ve encountered any elonian undead in GW2 or the books, and in gw1 they were pretty sturdy (or capable of good self-repairs)

On the first part:

Non-champions can spread corruption as well, it’s simply that dragon champions spread corruption faster. And undead should be capable of becoming branded as well (there’s no reason why they couldn’t).

So both halves of his army are vulnerable to corruption, and at any point in time. Furthermore, if he was actively fighting a dragon army there would be multiple dragon champions present. Especially if Kralkatorrik is present in the area.

On the second part: I’m basing that on the fact that they have no natural healing state, will continue to rot unless preserved by magic, and most importantly: they’re not hard to kill in GW1. They, in fact, had a hard time of things against most other forces. The main reason Joko had such an advantage both times he launched an invasion (if not only reason for the first assault) is because he constantly replenished his forces with the fallen enemies.

Amaimon.7823:

And that there are no undead or branded near there was my argument for the case they were much more south. if they were fighting closer to Ebonhawke the scouts would’ve seen them.

Might want to fix your wording then, because you wrote that they do see fighting between undead and branded.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

If this topic had come up before Sea of Sorrows was published, we might be arguing that Zhaitan’s ‘active’ phase was limited to attacking Port Noble and Port Stalwart… and conversely, according to Watch Commander Talon, there’d been six ‘major’ attacks on Claw Island in the four years he’d been stationed there, with an implication that there’d been more even further back.

Not sure there’s any difference now compared to before Sea of Sorrows – the only thing Sea of Sorrows added on this matter was a date for two large assaults and confirmation Zhaitan has had periods of “rest” (something we actually knew).

That said, I would not consider Talon’s comment of “six major attacks” to be of much value because he clearly underestimated Blightghast’s assault, which is on par to the assault that Whiting led against the Krytan navy in Sea of Sorrows (the assault in Port Stalwart was smaller but still significant). Talon Mira were both treating that single Dead Ship as a standard major attack, from the sound of the dialogue, which implies that the “six major attacks” Talon had seen was likely just one or two dead ships, not a fleet of them like what attacked Stalwart, Noble, and the Krytan Navy.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Meanwhile, between surges, there’s no sign that the pressure elsewhere ever let up. (Our sample size is also problematic here- a lot of our conclusions are drawn from generalizing Zhaitan’s behavior across all the other dragons.[…])

Just a note: rather than 1, it’s 2 dragons we have a reasonable sample size for: both Jormag and Zhaitan had steadily expanded territory through minions slowly marching outside of “old” territory boundaries, without leadership of powerful champions or armies for them.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

To build a bit on what Konig said regarding activity- it’s also worth noting that those phases seem to be in regard to the view point of the playable races. During that century or more of “inactivity”, as Taimi would put it, Primordus was clearing out vast tracts of subterranean area and warring against the dwarves- it was only “inactive” because the races we play as didn’t see the damage. That goes for most of the dragons here. Jormag’s “inactive” phase after it drove the norn south included the part where it all but destroyed kodan civilization, leaving a scant handful of sanctuaries intact enough to limp south. That decade after Zhaitan woke, while not a trouble to the big Krytan ports, saw hylek villages wiped out, a process that by GW2 may have killed as much as 94% of the population of what had once been their most populous region.

I would argue that those are active phases as well, but since they’re of the past people do not mention them. They never say “Zhaitan was active in the past but inactive now” – they simply say “Zhaitan is now active”.

This would be the unreliable narrator at work, where rather than being false they’re simply misleading in the wording.

On an aside: while we know some kodan sanctuaries were destroyed we don’t have a figure or even estimate, and we know some sanctuaries were scattered in other directions besides south (or at least, besides to the Far Shiverpeaks/northern Shiverpeaks). Like draxynnic, I would say this is part of Jormag’s active phases (and, it is implied, part of his four-year first active phase).

Also, the assaults on hyleks seem relatively more recent, and seem to be a precursor to the Blightghast active phase (much like the personal story for norn/Priory/grawl/quaggan, Honor of the Waves, and the short S2 bit is a precursor for Jormag’s activity in S3). With every dragon, they have this “ramping up” period preceding being “active” in which they’re more forcibly consolidating forces for the upcoming assault.

I’m not sure Zhaitan’s forces assaulting the hyleks is considerable to be an active phase in of itself, because it seems by dialogue that such is just a slow war of attrition where the risen are just slowly expanding and overwhelming the hyleks over years, rather than an actual force assaulting the hylek and taking them out in hours/days.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The vexing part is that while we players know this, our exposition dump plot device doesn’t. Taimi announced two of the most basic facts about Primordus- it’s awake, and it moves- like it was some great revelation. Knowing where it moved to was a big deal, yes- that gives us a target we can work with, or would if we had more than three characters working with us now. The rest, though…

There’s an additional conundrum with that: Seis’ studies in the Current Events. That implies that Primordus had remained in the same position until just very recently, despite all other lore saying otherwise.

Whether this means Primordus had retained the Central Transfer Chamber area as his “home base” until recently moving to the Ring of Fire permanently, or if they’re retconning the situation has been left unclear.

Regarding the “active status” thing, it is desperately important to note that there is a difference between “being awake” and “being active”.

The Elder Dragons have shown to have an ebb and flow with their activity. Their periods of activity are relatively short, and come to an end when the dragon’s army took a big blow (such as leading champion’s death) or when they’ve completed their objective. For example, Zhaitan was active only during these periods:

• 1219 AE, when waking, ended shortly after, likely due to having resources (magic and corpses) available.
• 1229 AE, attack on Port Stalwart, ended with sinking of a few dead ships including Harbinger.
• 1256 AE, attack on Krytan navy, ended with death of Whiting and Maw
• 1325 AE, attack on Claw Island, ended with death of Blightghast/Zhaitan

Between 1219 and 1229, Zhaitan’s very existence was outright questioned – few were certain it existed because it was inactive still, gathering its forces for a major assault (on Port Stalward), and it had remained inactive for so long between 1229 and 1256 that people largely questioned whether it was ever going to be a threat at all.

Primordus has even longer periods of inactivty, as proven by a line in Sea of Sorrows in which Jormag was mentioned as the only other Elder Dragon besides Zhaitan – Primordus had remained awake for nearly 100 years with its very existence unknown to standard Tyrians… because it was inactive (if not for the whole time, then for most of the time).

Unlike those two, Jormag had 4 years of activity (if not more) before becoming inactive for some time (his activity ending – to our knowledge – with the battle against Owl forcing him to retreat). But he became active again with the Dragonspawn’s activity which ended in 1319 AE (beginning date of activity unknown, but it was quite a while), becoming inactive until now, 1329 AE.

TL;DR

When an Elder Dragon is called “active”, this is not referring to whether or not the dragon is asleep (despite Taimi’s confusing wording), but rather refers to whether or not the Elder Dragon is actively sending minions to attack civilizations.

Every Elder Dragon is active for a short time after it wakes – Zhaitan’s was the shortest due to having a nation of dead at his feet (no need to go out and gather an army unlike the rest) – but then goes inactive for no less than a decade (so far) before becoming active again.
—————————————————————————————————————————————-
Regarding the Seers/Bloodstone question and starvation: On top of what Aaron said, the Elder Dragons go to hibernation when they are lacking food to eat, so they would not have remained awake long enough to actually starve to death.

In theory, it could have resulted in multiple potential scenarios had the Bloodstone plan worked (“thank you” Six Gods):

• Shorter hibernation period (less magic to give off, having to wake up before starving to death in sleep) but in turn a shorter awakening cycle as there’d be less magic to eat next time as well – this may result in the Elder Dragons actively going after each other because they’re backed into a corner of death in combat or death by starvation, or surviving by killing someone after the same food source.
• Longer hibernation period (takes longer for the “right amount of magic” to rise in the world), which would only be possible if they could control how much magic they release, or if they actually cannot die by starvation from magic.
• Indefinite magic because:

It should be noted that the Elder Dragons actually needed magic this time around to wake up – it’s unclear if this is always true, but most of the Elder Dragons had a “herald” champion to feed them magic (Great Destroyer, Drakkar, risen Giganticus Lupicus, Scarlet – except for Scarlet, all of these were champions that survived the previous dragonrise and hibernation period), and those that lost such took longer to wake up (Primordus, Kralkatorrik).

In theory, it may be that had the Six Gods never re-released magic in the world, and those heralds not be able to fulfill their role, it could have meant the Elder Dragons would never awaken, or at least have taken much longer to wake up.

Randulf.7614:

As others have stated, he only recently woke up and got into a near fatal fight with Destiny’s Edge shortly after waking. I believe he flew off south/SE ish and current whereabouts are unknown (to us anyway).

While Kralkatorrik was mere seconds from dying to the spear Rytlock held, Destiny’s Edge plan was more or less a “one shot kill” plan. The only physical damage that Kralkatorrik actually took during the battle was some small arrow scratches, some damage from Glint – neither of which slowed him down at all I might add – and the impact with sandy ground.

The biggest damage to Kralkatorrik, in the end, was Snaff’s invasion of his mind. But with Snaff’s death, that damage becomes nullified. Except, possibly, in long-term psychological trauma. Which would feel very, very weird.

Amaimon.7823:

On a serious note, though, I don’t know exactly how they are stalemate, but I can consider that Joko’s immortal army just keeps getting back up until the bodies are damages to a point of no repair, and kralkatorrik has an infinite supply of literally every living creature.. so they just pump out minions until one is exhausted

Kralkatorrik’s minions are far from infinite. You’re thinking of Primordus and Mordremoth, who created their own minions from the landscape itself. While The Shatterer and the branded elementals are created from the landscape, the majority of Kralkatorrik’s minions are corrupted creatures, like the risen and icebrood, which require a 1:1 conversion rate.

That said, undead would be corrupted into branded, and are far from immortal (undead fall apart rather easily), and half of Joko’s army are living humans (and probably centaurs).

Since folks already clarified on the waking status…

Amaimon.7823:

Hereafter Kralkatorrik flew further south to Elona for whatever reason, where he is now in stalemate war with the No Life King Palawa Joko. Where he is exactly is just speculation, but propably between the Desolation and Fort Ebon. The guards of the walls of Fort Ebon see now activity of branded or undead within close proximety, so he’s propably closer to the Desolation.

This is largely false.

Simply put, we don’t know where Kralkatorrik went, we only know that he went somewhere. Now, he did not fly north, west, or northwest. But he could have flown south, southeast, east, or even northeast. We simply do not know.

Second: there is no “Fort Ebon” – you’re thinking of Ebonhawke, which is indeed a fortified city, but isn’t a fortress by title.

And there’s not really any branded and definitely zero percent of undead near Ebonhawke.

That said, there has been zero indication that Joko and Kralkatorrik’s forces are battling. While plausible, the only dragon minions that Joko’s forces are known to have come into conflict with was Zhaitan’s forces.

Amaimon.7823:

The elder dragons are not about destroying Tyria, they just move to wherever is a lot of magic to consume, and they will wage war or destroy anything in their path. Essentially, to them, we’re the leeches or parasites in the way of “their” magic, and what we consider destruction to them is just digging for food. They’re at the top of the food chain.. well. 2 of them were, and they’re acting like it

Ehhhh, you’re both right and wrong here.

Yes, the Elder Dragons are not directly about “destroying Tyria”, but at the same time they are not directly about “consuming a lot of magic”, nor are they necessarily a “will wage war or destroy anything in their path to magic”.

Similarly, they do not see us as leeches or parasites – instead, to them, we’re just an alternative food source or a source for building an army. To the Elder Dragons, people are not enemies: they’re a resource to take control of.

Magic – like corrupting creatures – is merely a means to an end for them. And that end is different for each dragon. And also rather subtly presented to players. In Kralkatorrik’s case, his end goal seems to be “obtain everything, and destroy what he cannot obtain” based on the novel.

Kralkatorrik and Primordus appear to be the most destructive based dragons, while the others seem to be more about taking leadership. To summarize:

• As mentioned, Kralkatorrik is presented with the goal of “obtain everything and destroy what cannot be obtained”
• Primordus is presented with the goal of “global genocide” (the purpose of the Great Destroyer was to “destroy all surface life” in preparation for Primordus’ rise)
• Zhaitan was presented with the goal of wanting to lead an eternal kingdom
• Jormag is presented with the goal of wanting to be top dog in a world where “survival of the fittest” is rule
• Mordremoth was presented as wanting to replace the role of the world as the sustainer of life and have all life dependent on himself
  The DSD remains unknown, and can fall on either side (or neither side) of being a “enslaving dragon” or a “destructive dragon”.

How many bees can fit in a jar?

Depends on the size of the jar.

Edit:
Let’s say you are using a standard 16 fl. oz mason jar – seems fairly likely – if you’re going to want the bees alive, then you’ll need to place some combs in there for them to inhabit, that takes quite a bit of space, probably about 1/3rd of the space. Given this, the size of bee hives and number of bees per hive, you’re probably looking at – I’d guestimate – ~400 bees tops per jar (from what I’ve found you can apparently get an average of 1,000 bees on a 14×12 frame?).

So 30,000 jars would be approximately 12,000,000 bees, not a real dent in a bee population across continental Tyria (or, I’d imagine, Kryta alone) (that’d be about 150 hives, as a single hive can have up to 70,000 bees, from what I’ve looked up?).

Edit 2:

Not sure why you’d think a jar of bees is a good adventuring tool though. I mean, they’re not going to make honey without going to flowers and coming back, a jar-sized hive is far too small to produce much honey. And if you’re intending to throw the jar at foes, well, bees only sting once… get jars of wasps for that stuff!

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

If a being is not worthy of worship, is it still a god?

Not all “gods” are deemed worthy of worship even by those who practice the religion that holds the god(s) in their pantheon.

Some gods, rather than worshiped and revered, are feared or hated. These are often “evil gods”. In fiction, there will almost always be a cult worshiping the god, but the standard individual would never consider such – the closest they’d do is try to appease the god so as to not be smited.

The Lovecraftian mythos is a pretty good description of gods that are “not worthy of worship” because except by tribal individuals and crazed cultists, etc. they’re not worshiped even by those who know and fear them and their power – and even then, those who do worship the Elder Gods tend to do so out of fear more than reverence.

In most fictional settings, just like with our own historical western polytheistic religions, what applies a being as a “god” is not whether or not they’re deemd “worthy of worship” by certain individuals, but instead by the power they wield.

In the case of GW, there is a very real power that the gods hold – something that causes blindness in mortals looking upon them, which cannot be destroyed and if left uncontained (by killing the god and not having a replacement) that power threatens to destroy worlds.

But that isn’t to say that there are individuals who would argue Grenth, Kormir, etc. simply ‘do not exist’ in Tyria despite the very real historical texts. After all, we have people on Earth who still claim the world is flat, and go to extraneous lengths to “disprove” the notion that it is round.

That could also just be Marus’ own wording on the matter, and not the actual verbatim argument, since nothing else in the dialogue is about whether or not gods exist, but the act of worshiping a god.

TBH they wouldn’t need to make it single individual dampening. The towers in GW1 didn’t affect the mursaat, and similarly when we have our disguise on during Episode 2 we’re unaffected by the Ether Seals.

Mordrem Maws, Spitfires, and Breachers are all potentially mordrem versions of wurms.

That said, the Jungle Wurms are hinted pretty heavily at also being mordrem:

• Wychmire Swamp is a source of Summoned Husks not tied to the Nightmare Court, and the “source of darkness” there was the Great Jungle Wurm.
• The jungle wurms trained by Nightmare Court are called “Nightmare Vines” for some unstated reason.
• The Triple-headed Great Jungle Wurm’s heads drops the same kind of loot bag as Season 2 mordrem.
• There were no wurms in GW1 in the Maguuma; the only non-Jungle Wurms in the Maguuma in GW2 were brought by the ogres in their crashed airship or are solely in Unswept Uplands of Dry Top (possibly brought by Zephyrites?). The Jungle Wurms also mysteriously disappear (none in Wastes or Heart of Maguuma) once Mordremoth wakes up.

My theory is that they’re the wurm variant of sylvari, perhaps born from another one of the seeds of the cave like Malyck.

Regarding Destroyers: Like Mordrem and unlike Branded, Icebrood, and Risen, Destroyers are not corrupted creatures but copies of creatures, so the lack of Destroyer Wurms is because Primordus decided they weren’t worth copying.

Regarding Icebrood Wurms (or Branded/Risen Wurms):

Why don’t we see risen skritt, dredge, largos and centaurs despite there being very obviously close to risen territory? Why no icebrood grawl or jotun?

The simple answer is that ArenaNet didn’t make the models. The reason could be due to time, or it could be due to worth versus effort. In the end, they decided not to.

Wurms do not “gain elemental power” through the Elder Dragons’ territory either – they simply are highly adaptable and will match their environment. For those in icy areas, this means that their skin gains an ice-like (but very much not ice) appearance while they become fatter for insulating blubber; for hot environments, they change the most and we see them with burning insides (perhaps due to the fact that they’re tunneling through magma), but they don’t show any elemental tendencies beyond being able to survive in the most extreme of environments and adapting their appearance to blend in.

Lucky.9421:

If so, why and how did they zero in on and kilI the elusive Mursaat? Why did they wipe out the Mursaat as opposed to the Grawl or Jotun or something?

Undead Lich: “The Mursaat are being quickly swept away as will all those who stand before my legions.”

Khilbron sent the titans after the mursaat specifically – as well as the major cities and towns of continental Tyria (he lists Lion’s Arch, Thunderhead Keep, Rin, Hakewood, Henge of Denravi, and Ascalon City – Hakewood is the oddball here, since all the others are capitals or major trading outposts while Hakewood is a relatively small town).

Plus, the titans only did a “clean up job” – according to the story journal of Prophecies it was the player character who put the mursaat “in shambles”.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Amaimon.7823:

Sister Saxifrage.7361:

If you’re interested in this, you might like the Pyre Fierceshot storyline in Eye of the North in GW1. It concludes with a whole company of Charr chanting, “There are no gods! There are no gods!” I was pleased to see this theme carried forward into GW2, where staunch atheism is a cornerstone of current Charr culture.

yea, but don’t forget that was a time when the charr were having a split because of the so called fiery gods. so whatever one charr said isn’t a universal truth. I think he was more focussed on the titans at that time

Maybe not universal, but this fella in GW2 at least shows us that the Legions have an official stance on it- that gods don’t exist.

The charr stance, isn’t that “gods don’t exist” but that gods are not worth worshiping, and that to the Legions, a charr worshiping something makes them no different than the Flame Legion which enslaved the other Legions through religion and that, in regards to standard charr mentality, that the views of worshiping a god “is poisonous”.

How I’ve been interpreting it is that we follow the same “path” in the vision, but the vision is “up to date with current events” – so, in theory, when Scarlet witnessed the vision, Mordremoth’s sphere wouldn’t have activated and Zhaitan’s wouldn’t have crashed. But it’s ultimately unclear.

Dev input required, or maybe we’ll get to see The All again thanks to Taimi’s tomfoolery.

Vesuvius.9874:

Atheism by definition means belief that there is no god. By that definition, all races that do not believe in a god or gods are atheists. Norn would be included since they don’t believe in gods but spirits.

Atheism is, more accurately, the belief of no divine being – we tend to relate the term “divine being” with “god” because that’s what almost every modern popular religion follows when they speak of divine beings (at least, God/gods are always “at the top”) – or rather, the lack of a religious system entirely. While the norn do not call the Spirits of the Wild “gods”, they do believe them to be divine beings, so they are not atheists.

The only confirmed atheists in Tyria are jotun and ogres – the former “revere the self” rather than anything “divine”, while the latter simply don’t give af about religion.

Even the charr are not atheists, because they believe that the gods exist, and believe them to be gods, but they see them as beings that can be killed (they’re not wrong) and, ultimately, rivals of their species that should be killed. I guess one can dub them “anti-deist” – believes in but openly opposes god(s) (as opposed to the aforementioned in this thread antitheism).

Since the asura have a religious system, though they treat it more scientifically than other cultures treat their religions, they also are not atheists. They also fully accept the existence of gods and other divine beings like the Six Gods and Spirits of the Wild, they merely revere something they believe is above them.

Similarly, while not a “formal religion”, the sylvari do revere the Pale Tree as both parent and guardian, and see the Dream with reverence. While it is a more “down to earth”, their reverence of the Pale Tree and Dream can be considered a religion, thus making them non-atheist too. Though how this has changed (if at all) since the situation of Heart of Thorns is unclear. Similar to asura, the sylvari do not truly question the existence of divine beings, though they do not consider the notion of revering such because they have not met such – they treat the notion of gods and divine beings with a “I believe you believe, but I’ll hold my doubts” kind of notion.

TL;DR

Yes, it is possible to be an atheist and even antitheist in Tyria, and we even know a handful of minor races that are such. However, due to the fact that divine beings (be they called gods or otherwise) do definitively exist, such a thing is rare and often limited to secluded, uncaring, or highly egotistical groups.

Yes, he left ArenaNet a while ago. Shortly after GW2 released, before the Living World officially started.

We spent time in Hoelbrak in both episode 1 (Eir’s memorial) and episode 3 (tracking Braham). How is that not getting any “air time”?

Besides that, Black Citadel and Hoelbrak were also the focus at the beginning of Season 1, while Rata Sum was completely ignored and The Grove only had minimal attention.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

As to the Charr, and their city, they have a dragon too, so even if we don’t short term face it, it’s going to happen eventually. They are not forgotten, they are in the enviable position of being relatively safe right now from the direct attention of dragons.

Unless K- wakes up…

Kralkatorrik is awake. He woke up 5 years prior to GW2. Mordremoth was the last of the six dragons to wake up. The waking order was Primordus (~200 years prior to GW2), DSD (~200 years prior to GW2), Jormag (~150 years prior to GW2), Zhaitan (~100 years prior to GW2), Kralkatorrik (5 years prior to GW2), then Mordremoth (during GW2).

It’s just that Kralkatorrik is not active. “Not active” is not the same as “asleep”, as the term of an Elder Dragon being “inactive” just means that they’re not sending dragon champions to actively assault cities – such as when Blightghast attacked Claw Island, or the Shadow of the Dragon attacked The Grove. The Elder Dragons have shown to have an on-and-off set up of attacking civilizations, spending decades at a time to gather forces for a full out assault.

Primordus and Jormag were both active during Edge of Destiny, but became inactive (stopped assaulting cities) with the death of their champions leading the charge; similarly, we see two periods when Zhaitan was active in Sea of Sorrows novel. Jormag would have become active again sooner, but the actions during the personal story (norn, Durmand Priory, quaggan, and grawl storylines) and Honor of the Waves stifled Jormag’s efforts enough to keep him from being active until now.

And the charr are under more scrutiny than any other race but the norn when it comes to dragons, given the Dragonbrand – a present from Kralkatorrik.

It is curious that Trahearne was originally going for Kralkatorrik before the events of Mordy, I wonder what was his reasoning. I guess it was the next active dragon?

Kralkatorrik is presumed to be the weakest (of the four remaining dragon) dragon(s) as it was awake the least amount of time and didn’t get a champion feeding it magic like Jormag, Zhaitan, and Mordremoth did.

Just as Trahearne wanted to strike Mordremoth down before Mordremoth could garner an army and begin a true invasion (the beginning of which we see in the Tangled Depths migration to the southeast corner of the map, which we stop during the SCAR outpost meta), he likely wanted to strike Kralkatorrik down before it could get power from magic in the world and become a true threat.

LouWolfskin.3492:

Seeing that Glint was one of his lieutenants and had the gift of future sight i’d say he is the most threatening dragon at the moment.
I mean, killing of the others, in theory, could factor in in his plans, what if all this is a scheme he made up to be victorious in the end?
We don’t know how far his powers go, does he know the future as well?
Then again, we still don’t know anything about Bubbles.

Glint’s ability of telepathy with non-dragon minions and foresight is stated in Hidden Arcana to be unique to her. So Kralkatorrik cannot see the future.

Depends on if you consider “vanilla” to be “everything before the expansion” or “everything at release”. If the former, in the story journal the sections with green are HoT/post-HoT, and in terms of zones only consist of Heart of Maguuma and the Season 3 zones you need to do the story to access. If the later, then the prior as well as the Magma Wastes and Southsun for open world are not vanilla, and just the “My Story” (or Personal Story) section of the Story Journal is vanilla.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The core game includes all of the original personal story (defeating Zhaitan) and a few of the originally added zones (Southsun, Dry Top, & Silverwastes). You might need to unlock Living World Season 2 (the rise & fall of Scarlet Briar) to play that story, which takes place across the core zones. You don’t have to play the entire personal story to play LS2 or vice versa.

HoT’s story is the awakening and defeat of Mordremoth and takes place across the four HoT zones. Season 3 (which you probably have access to if you’ve played regularly since you started) takes place in the core areas & four new zones (Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, Bitterfrost Frontier, and Lake Doric. You don’t need to have finished HoT story to play S3 or vice versa. However, access to some current events (and to the new maps) is gated by starting each chapter.

Small nitpicking:

Scarlet Briar was Season 1, not Season 2, and Season 2 dealt with the awakening of Mordremoth while Heart of Thorns dealt with the main campaign against (and defeat of) Mordremoth.

While not necessary, it’s highly suggested to do the story in order, and I would argue against (vehemently) playing HoT without Season 2. The two are very literally the same plot sold in two halves.

Unfortunately, as mentioned by others, Season 1 is not available as it was temporary content and ArenaNet has not retroactively made it part of the Story Journal. All we have is the poor official summary and a multitude of fan summaries. I heard this one is a good video summary.

Sephas.8793:

I believe that you can’t unlock them in the gem store per se, but in the Story Journal.

A season pack exist in the gem store for Season 2. Most likely Season 3 will get such too once it’s finished.

Originally the schools were not simply cultural views, but were very strict aspects of magic. But over the years, there grew more ambient magic (from the Elder Dragons’ hibernation) that the strictness of the schools loosened to the point where it is considered “outdated practices” – we saw the beginning of this (retroactively in canon) by the dual profession system in GW1.

Because of this, while you can attribute GW1 professions to one school (and just one, because with the dual professions if there were two professions that used two schools that didn’t overlap, then you’re breaking lore by being both that in primary and secondary sense as you’d now be using all four), you cannot attribute any GW2 profession to any school (you can try, but now aspects of professions can rather fit all four).

What the schools represented isn’t very clear, but we were told that elementalists were of the Destruction school and it’s heavily believed that each of the four core spellcasters of GW1 were of a different school and only one school (necromancers=aggression, monk=preservation, mesmer=denial being the standard belief but no confirmation). It should be noted that schools are not “purely defensive” or “purely offensive” either. Which seems to be the major cause of confusion by the OP. Further, in GW1, rangers and warriors did not utilize magic in any (school-based) form.

If we extend to the added professions, by observation of the core four spellcasters and lore, ritualists=preservation (+spirit/Mists magic – all/most magic not directly tied to spirits by ritualists had some healing/defense aesthetic); assassins=denial (shared patronage with Lyssa for spell boosts and had similar aspects to mesmer spells); dervish=destruction (elemental based); paragons=preservation (healing/defense and smiting based).

Of course, beyond “old school teachings”, in GW2 the schools don’t matter. Especially now that the Bloodstones have absorbed magic from two Elder Dragons, so not even the four Bloodstones have magic divided solely into those schools anymore.

Daniel Handler.4816:

As I have been saying again and again, I believe the entire vision is The All. The part with the orbs is just an outer layer. The Pale Tree stands out during the examination of a deeper layer.

But the Pale Tree is before the outer layer, and we’re heading inward. Which means that the part with the Pale Tree is further out than The All.

It would be another matter if after going through the tunnel the camera turns around to witness the all, but the camera remains the same direction. We approach the Pale Tree, go through a tunnel, and beyond the tunnel lies The All.

The vision isn’t a case of leaving orbit and looking back down, but of heading to orbit from somewhere else (in this case, the Dream is most likely, given the Pale Tree saying what we saw was remnants of Scarlet’s vision and we broke beyond the Pale Tree, caretaker of the Dream, to witness what lied beyond).

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not going to discuss whether the Pale Tree is prominent in the vision. She clearly stands out from the blue void we float in. You are free to debate whether the whole vision is the All. But don’t add the idea of separate mechanisms affecting the vision without elaborating.

The matter had already been elaborated upon. Not my fault you overlook/ignore such.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hell's%20Precipice
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Forgotten_Warden

It’s a rather indirect implication, which only directly shows that the Seers (and Forgotten) have known about the hostilities of titans for “eons”, which would be either as old or older than the mursaat. I suppose rather than saying “titans and mursaat are old enemies” it’d be more accurate to say that “titans are old enemies to the ancient races of Tyria” (namely, mursaat, seers, and Forgotten if not more).

They were following Khilbron’s orders at the time, rather than Abaddon’s (they weren’t exactly the same).

However, dialogue with the Seer and a Forgotten in Nightfall implies that the titans and mursaat are much older enemies than during the time of Prophecies. It isn’t entirely clear though – it’s one of the unsolved mysteries of GW1.

Amaimon.7823:

Destroyer of
-Bones: Look like cave trolls
-Flesh: Look like half beetle, half troll
-Sinew: Propably mostly beetle
-Deeds: This is a tough one. but it looks like one of those ants that gets on it’s hind legs
-Hordes: Looks like a flytrap fungus or plant
-Lifes: one of those antspiders that digs kitten and waits for others to walk into it
-Hope: CLEARLY ARACHNOPHOBIA
-Thoughts: something humanoid with high intelligence.. mursaat propably
-Souls: See Thoughts
-Compassion: Again troll-ish I think.

Destroyer of Earth is something special. It’s just a set of discs

For me it’s:

- Bones/Compassion: Jotun (tall, wide; maybe like GW1 trolls though)
- Flesh: Charr (mostly same posture as charr, and that tail)
- Sinew: Troll (they look almost identical to modern Destroyer Trolls); alternatively, possibly charr due to tail (only difference between Destroyers of Sinew and Destroyer Trolls)
- Deeds/Hordes: Both look like they may be mockeries of some kind of insects
- Lifes: Uses same shape as the stationary fungi in Eye of the North.
- Hope: Spider
- Thoughts/Souls: Mursaat, given the “wings” in the back, and the floating humanoid shape (mursaat are also well known to be tied to souls and mental mishaps).
- Earth/Chaos Discs: Just animated mounds of land.

Weli.4568:

zealex.9410:

Sneakily points to dis and hopes anet didn’t make it just to have something cool for the episode. Also why didnt mordy in hot had any dragon luitenant like he did in lw 2? (A plea for more actual dragon luitenants)

The upper pic looks like something the Charr would make as a weapon and lower more like the dragon I’d want to fight. Like you described later on half above and half underground. Preventing it from rising up and scorching every living thing.

The second picture is actually 100% not tied to GW2 at all. Both are done by Kekai Kotaki, but the top one is freelance work which, apparently ended up in GW2 while the other, while freelance work, has never been tied to GW2. You can see both of the pieces on Kekai Kotaki’s art site at the bottom of his freelance page.

But because Kekai had been the “art face” of GW since Factions, and his freelance and personal art have the same style as his art for GW series, people take his free lance art and have thought “it’s for GW!” Wrongly. Not the first time it’s happened, won’t be the last.

To me looks more like a lump of armor protecting where they meet the back (the wings go underneath that piece of armor).

We see the orbs moving around, though they begin in a 2d position they end in a 3d position. The All is also meant to represent the world’s placement in the cosmos – basically the magic version of looking at Earth’s orbit around the sun, the moon’s orb around the Earth, and the wind currents and magnetic field around Earth.

Except that we can see with our very own eyes that the Pale Tree is not “physically projecting” or “being particularly noticeable” in The All.

Neither definition of the word prominent works. The Pale Tree simply isn’t prominent in The All – she doesn’t stand out within nor is she important to The All.

Amaimon.7823:

are they though, they do seem fully functional on us as backpacks.

To be fair, that’s because of how they did the model for GW2. They seemed to just take an upscaled human male and made the outfit and backpiece so that they can sell it in the gemstore later.

The fact we never see mursaat without the ‘wings’, and how they were animated in gw1, and even the analogous mentions of mursaat as “angels” all indicate that they’re part of the mursaat’s body.

The only real evidence for them not to be would be their lack of use (not a strong argument), and the Mursaat Overseer lacking the wings. But that could easily be seen as them having fallen off after 250 years of neglect (it is just stone, magical or not, and doesn’t even seem capable of animating beyond able to shift its placement), or alternatively if one follows the belief that mursaat are very narcissistic (there is some but not entirely solid evidence for such), they could see the mere stone structure as unworthy of showing their full appearance.

Or it could be an overlook. But when we’re able to find armor of mursaat and wear it, but no ‘wings’ comes with, seems like the wings are not part of the armor.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Jormag, I’ll cede- I’d missed that bit of lore in the legendary collections- but on the other hand, as you yourself pointed out, that was at a point where he’d been warring with the norn for years, and we’ve also been told that he directly took on hundreds of norn at a time at some point- presumably, if Frostfang’s purpose was going out in front like you seem to suggest, that means there was a point in those years where it wasn’t on hand to do so. Your interpretation may vary, but that sounds to me like Jormag was at the forefront in the beginning, and Frostfang only caught up, or possibly was created, later.

We actually don’t know how long Jormag was part of the fight itself – or how long the fight was before the norn fled south.

The line mentioning four years is here – looking at it again, it is a bit unclear where Jormag’s presence was involved here, but the presence of minions is implied to be concurrent with the four year snowstorm it created upon awakening.

The only clear thing is that the time from Jormag’s awakening and the time of the norn fleeing south was 4 years. We know neither when Aesgir slew Frostfang, or when the norn began battling Jormag directly in relation to this.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The prominence of the Pale Tree in the vision is not in relation to the All, but in relation to our experience.

Which is exactly what I’ve been saying.

What you were saying, however, is that the Pale Tree is prominent to The All as shown in the vision.

Well, I use the term “wings” because I recall such terms used in-game. I doubt that they can be used as birds or bats or insects can use theirs. But they do seem to be actually part of the physiology of the mursaat rather than just an ornament.

In addition to what Aaron said, it’s implied through combining some dev comments and dialogues that the “betrayal” was the war with the seers, not just fleeing into the Mists, as according to Anet writer Ree Soesbee the war between mursaat and seers happened around when the Tome of Rubicon was written, and according to Randall Greystone in Arah explorable, the mursaat only “returned to be known as the Unseen Ones” indicating that the mursaat had been in the Mists for thousands of years (from the previous dragonrise to shortly before GW1).

The Seer in GW1 also indicates that the mursaat wiped out its kind a very, very long time ago furthering Ree’s comment.

In addition to this, the mursaat’s own account also indicates that the mursaat’s ultimate goal was to rule the world.

TL;DR
The mursaat waged war then left and returned to rule, not left then returned to wage war.

Westenev.5289:

Keep in mind that at this point in time, the leaders hadn’t agreed to commit – they agreed to be there as a personal favour to the commander themselves.

They actually had agreed to commit, just before the Shadow of the Dragon attacked. Through well rounded voiceless speech of super-duper genericness that beseeched the goodwill of humanity in charr, norn, asura, and mankind alike, the Pact Commander did sway the four world leaders (even those who uncharacteristically didn’t want to send aid despite having done so full well in the past when the Pact were untested -coughJennahandSmodercough-).

Westenev.5289:

As it is relatively safe to consider the Pale Tree a minion of Mordremoth, I’d imagine she might have had some idea of his plans and abilities – and only told enough so as to allow her people to make their own decisions and succumb their own failings as creations. This, I feel, is why she never warned us of “the call”, or elaborated on (or even hinted at) the dangers of allowing her children to face the dragon.

Seems rather short-sighted for the Pale Tree, which goes against the notion that she knew of the attack and allowed such for the sake of rallying stronger forces against Mordremoth.

Rather, it seems more likely that she was going to tell of the sylvari origins but the Shadow of the Dragon’s attack incapacitating her prevented this. Either way, she knew her origins as shown in the end of Season 2 so she has answers to give either way, and I hope ArenaNet makes her give them rather than just glancing over because she’s “obviously good guy oracle”.

Daniel Handler.4816:

My criticism is of her place in the story as a whole. She has not always been unconscious. I worry that because she was involved in cleasning Orr, and HoT was so Sylvari centric, they will keep coming up with convenient ways to keep her out of the story.

She has also not been relevant to the plot, or capable of helping more than she did, in the story as a whole – the only time when she became more relevant or capable of helping more than she does in the story, she’s injured and unconscious.

I think her actions with the Orr plot is enough to indicate that they’re not done with her, they just needed to put her on the proverbial bus so that plot can go the way they wanted it (aka not have the Pale Tree reveal and solve everything before it becomes a shock and awe factor – how much more exciting would it have been if the Pale Tree was fine from the attack and at the end said “by the way, Commander, the sylvari are originally minions of Mordremoth, and though they are free Mordremoth may be able to call to them and some may lose against their creator’s will.” compared to the ending of Season 2?

And the entire plot of HoT focusing around “how are we going to kill Mordremoth” would have been solved just by asking the Pale Tree about its weakness, then and there. No build up or anticipation.

The Pale Tree’s act of being put unconscious is very clearly a writing tool done to make the plot that she would be capable of instantly solving not instantly solved.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Now we are discussing the vision again. Scarlet said depth and further. The part of the vision you call the All is 3d. You need to explain why I shouldn’t take it literally

Watch what we experience again. I’ll wait…

Back? Did you notice how we went past the Pale Tree, and through a tunnel before witnessing The All and, how, there was no sign of the Pale Tree in that witnessing of The All?

She’s no more part of The All than the Pact Commander, if that much.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Its good to see the priory are studying it. But given the recent events in the story I would assume curiosity has heightened.

Given recent events, we’ve not seen what the Priory has been doing… so for all we know, they have been. Or they’ve been more preoccupied with their all-time low number of members thanks to the deaths at Zhaitan’s and Mordremoth’s forces, combined with the problems of magic going crazy and are a bit more worried at studying the ley line overflows so as to solve that potentially world-destroying problem.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’m less than sure about that. The only time a dragon’s movements have been described to us in enough detail to know whether it was accompanied by minions- Kralkatorrik in Edge of Destiny- the dragon was traveling solo. That’s a sample size of one, but still…

Technically speaking, Kralkatorrik did take minions with it – but they traveled slower than Kralkatorrik, and were being created mid-flight.

Also, Jormag moved south too, and we’re told that the norn knew of Jormag’s push south for four (iirc) years before Jormag itself came, and we know that Aesgir fought its greatest champion, Frostfang, before battling Jormag itself which happened as Jormag was pushing south.

So 2 for 2 had minions with it – but one moved faster than its minions while the other didn’t.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

On the other hand, if Primordus did have minions that it considered important enough to take with it- maybe whatever is filling the Great Destroyer’s shoes these days- wouldn’t it make more sense for the dragon to keep them near it, beneath the surface?

If you work on the function that it only brought a handful of champions, rather than an army (which would be more useful, generally), then sure.

But in either case, that would mean that the champions need to be capable of creating the new minions, meaning they’d be instilled with the new magic to do so, thus fulfilling exactly what I said anyways. Unless only Primordus is creating new minions, or it created new champions to create the new minions, letting the old champions do literally nothing but being personal guards (a waste of resources).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

draxynnic.3719:

There’s no evidence that the Blighting Trees have any sentience of their own.

On the other hand, if they were like the Pale Tree, I wouldn’t expect them to show their sapience. She needs to manifest an avatar to talk to anyone except her children, and it’s hard to see what a Blighting Tree would gain from doing so. It’s not like it’s going to be able to convince us not to blow it up once we’ve already fought through the army surrounding it.

And on the third hand, the Tower of Nightmares – which created a sylvari-like krait and looks very much like the Vinewrath, and furthermore is part of the first introduction of Mordremoth’s theme in the music – is suggested to have sapience. We’re also told that the krait grew the Tower of Nightmares from a seed that Scarlet – known to be in communication with Mordremoth – gave them.

castlemanic.3198:

@Konig-snip rest-

1. Just as Primordus would alter the old minions, Jormag would alter his, meaning those closest would get altered first, in theory. Plus, yes, the devs don’t want to alter core maps with the Living World anymore it seems – except through Current Events – as per episode 4, the reason for no bubble in DR or Queensdale (even localized by client / character progress rather than omnipresent) is because the maps are “stuck in time” officially now (which causes problems with the Current Events and the tooth shattered in Hoelbrak but… y’know, Anet loves consistency); but altering the core maps’ icebrood/destroyers would also mean spoiling Season 3 to new players so that’s a good thing in that realm (after all, foes cannot be client based and just having a skin change while being mechanically the same would seem a bit boring).

2. The talk was actually the Dream protecting against other dragons, and that the Dream doesn’t protect against Mordremoth. The reason it doesn’t is because of his connection to the Dream – it just changes the manner in which he turns sylvari over to his side, from standard corruption to mental mindkittenery. It was through the Dream (the same channels that the Dream uses to implant Wyld/Dark Hunts in sylvari, so we’re told in HoT promotion articles, in fact) that Mordremoth “corrupted” the sylvari, through the method of implanting thoughts in their head, because the Dream prevents traditional dragon corruption. This is why sylvari can resist his corruption too – because it’s not traditional dragon corruption, so he cannot forcibly enslave (though based on Diarmid and Faolain, he can use traditional dragon corruption on sylvari corpses?).

castlemanic.3198:

Wait, didn’t the elder dragons absorb the magic and then create their minions which now have those other areas of dragon influence? Icebrood are way south of Jormag, yet there’s only one instance of icebrood having any sort of additional dragon corruption beyond frost (conveniently, this lone icebrood was closer to Jormag, providing evidence of such).

Sorry for the nitpick.

No order is specified, but it seems HIGHLY unlikely that Primordus wouldn’t take any of his minions with him when traveling to the Ring of Fire, and if he did and the old minions didn’t change from the new magic then we’d see some old destroyers mixed in with the new death/plant destroyers.

Since we see no such destroyers, that means Primordus moved solo (seems weird af given that Elder Dragons never do that), or Primordus altered his pre-existing minions.

castlemanic.3198:

False! Caithe is actually able to see and influence the dream through the aid of the pale tree

Key words: through the aid of the pale tree. Same thing with A Vision of Darkness.

And the Pale Tree states that doing such was very stressful for her and could not be maintained for long. So her doing it was a very rare thing indeed, and honestly told her nothing new so if she wanted people to know more about the Dream she could have just stated what she knew and it’d be what people could find out and then some.

castlemanic.3198:

in the sylvari tutorial zone and also in atleastone of the subsequent story missions (white stag biography choice, Caithe actually mentions seeing the white stag in YOUR dream).

She mentions this in all of them. But this is explained by the fact that the wyld hunt is emblazoned on the waterfall where you start, and where you first meet Caithe.

castlemanic.3198:

and THEN there’s that time that Trahearn deus ex machinas a friggin portal into the dream for you and two allies to walk into and defeat Mordremoth from within the dream. Do we have any lore about how the hell he managed to do that?

He was physically and mentally tied to Mordremoth, who was – like the Pale Tree – partway in the Dream. So he was able to siphon off of Mordremoth, turning himself into a conduit of sorts, to replicate what the Pale Tree does in A Vision of Darkness.

castlemanic.3198:

(though maybe Omadds machine may help with this if it doesn’t traumatize those who walk in too much).

Except the Dream != The All…

Two separate things there.

Daniel Handler.4816:

I am not saying she is the solution for everything. I am saying no one considers her a solution at all.

Because she has – until the very latest situation been completely unconscious.

Let’s say the leader of a nation gets shot, and while miraculously surviving said leader is stuck in a coma. Are you going to expect the leader to solve the nation’s problems while they’re in a coma? Hell no.

Maybe now that she’s waking for longer than brief moments and is actually able to hold a full conversation without seriously stressing herself, we may get some more story with her, but we won’t know this until Episode 5 at least.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Is the term dragon champion that broad in describing power? Did it ever tell us in the story the Glint was on the level of the Great Destroyer and the Pale Tree is no more than an Octovine?

Without comparing Glint and the Pale Tree to other dragon champions, yes, dragon champions have a very wide spectrum. Claw Island was, effectively, assaulted by 5 dragon champions: Blightghast (the top one, who remained in Claw Island), Thadeus Ghostrite (who then attacked LA), Vizier Ironghoul (who then attacked Vigil HQ), Admiral Feiste Bakkir (who then attacked OoW HQ), and Lord Zhim Saliah (who then attacked the Durmand Priory). Or the Vinewrath, which has 12 lesser champions under it (the 4 legendaries attacking forts, the 5 breach champions, and the 3 final defender champions – ignoring NPC rank, they’re called “Mordremoth’s champions” and “Vinewrath’s champions” in both meta-event UI and NPC dialogue).

Dragon champions/lieutenants are more than just the dragons, they have a wide range.

Given other champions, I’d probably say Glint was a top-tier champion like Shadow of the Dragon, Tequatl, etc. while the Pale Tree is a mid-tier champion.

Daniel Handler.4816:

We see the Pale Tree prominently in the All and we assume we know all that signifies in the story.

Not really. The Pale Tree is not part of The All at all in the vision, but something before The All – closer to us than The All.

For Scarlet, she was a barrier. And she could be considered such for the PC too – or it may be that the Pale Tree’s suggestion that we were just witnessing parts of Scarlet’s vision (we do hear the Pale Tree and Scarlet’s voice in the background in the first segment) and that normally the non-sylvari PCs wouldn’t see the Pale Tree at all.

Daniel Handler.4816:

And its the little things as well. Wouldn’t the priory study the Dream and/or the Pale Tree? Have race relations destroyed all Asuran curiosity?

You realize that the asura’s very first reaction to sylvari was “dissect it while it’s still alive, and drill holes into it”. Ask Malomedies about asuran curiosity, his scars that he has in lore (sadly, his model seems to lack) will answer.

And the Priory HAS studied the Dream, they have multiple books on the topic. Including indirect ones.

For jotun, they hold an oral tradition ever since their fall, but before then they carved giant monuments across the Shiverpeaks, some holding actual runes for translating apparently.

The only race said to ever solely use oral tradition instead of writing is the krait. Everyone else has a mix.

We don’t know when Glint was purified and subsequently betrayed Kralkatorrik, but dialogue in Edge of Destiny implies that she turned when Kralkatorrik was already hibernating, implying the “hiding of the races” was involving the other Elder Dragons, and that they did not all go to sleep at once (or Glint’s phrasing is a minor red herring). The “dude in the priory” you refer to is Scholar Trueblood who does specify that it’s the five surviving races we knew of (Forgotten, Seers, mursaat, jotun, and dwarves). Modern Tyrians no longer know the Forgotten’s race’s true name, hence their current moniker, but the name was lost after the Exodus, when the Forgotten retreated in full to the Crystal Desert.

The “five against six” is five races against six Elder Dragons, even Trueblood specifies this. The fifth is definitely the Forgotten (even mursaat records mentions their alliance with the Forgotten and this is, indirectly, explained by Taimi as why mursaat armor looks so similar to the enchanted armor (especially in GW1)).

There is no “6th elder race” – in so far as the alliance was concerned at least. We now know thanks to Bitterfrost dialogue that the kodan were survivors from the last dragonrise, and we know karka and djinn were around then though they’re hardly a civilized and united species, and there’s implication that charr and tengu also survived (though charr were primitive at the time so their survival – if they are survivors – would likely be thanks to location to the east, or luck; and tengu lore implies they simply kept fleeing the Elder Dragons).

@castlemanic.3198:
3. And suddenly i’m remembering those stories where the human gods picked their first disciples, that could be the start of the human gods giving mortals magic in small amounts, right? (although I guess Grenth having the aid of his seven reapers in overthrowing Dhuum could also constitute as such?)[/quote]That’s actually what I was referencing with Grenth, Lyssa, Balthazar, and Dwayna – Grenth outright says to be granting magic over undeath in his conversation with Desmina, and Balthazar is certainly blessing those soldiers with something – whether it was just a short enchantment or their own ability to use magic at will being unclear – Lyssa implies to have granted magic and Dwayna could be interpreted as “protect and heal through mundane means” just as much as “protect and heal with this magic I give you”.

5. I’d just note that we haven’t met many largos, and those we have met are all hunters – we’ve not met any political ambassadors (they have some form of government, so it’s hard to believe that they’re all hunters like norn, who lack a government in large part due to them all/mostly being solitary hunters), so it wouldn’t be unlikely for the largos and Orrians to have met in the past and communicated, even if they’re not communicating with us now (or ever with Krytans/Ascalonians – which could be explained by the existence of the Guild Wars and the distance from the sea).

6. It comes from Orrian History Scrolls Balthazar arrived on the world sweeping the land in fire, and Melandru arrived growing new nature across Orr.

- I wouldn’t count the Crystal Sea -> Crystal Desert as terraforming as, while it certainly is transforming the earth, it was a cataclysmic event not an intentional method to improve the environment.

- There is no indication that they evacuated races (or that they terraformed the entire world at once or in hostile methods). One interpretation of the events is that they were removing dragon corruption and replacing it with new, uncorrupted, wildlife.

- And we know with 100% certainty that the Six Gods did know about the Elder Dragons. There’s the “Scroll of the Five Gods” mentioned, repeatedly, in Season 2 which is actually the biggest source of information the Durmand Priory has on the Elder Dragons (alongside jotun stelae and dwarven tomes). Whether they thought of the Elder Dragons as a problem or not, however, is unanswered.

- We don’t have much knowledge of pre-human arrival because jotun were secretive with their records, dwarven records got rewritten time and time again, Forgotten are gone and so are their records, same with Seers, and mursaat are even more secretive than the jotun. Basically: every race that survived, didn’t leave many surviving records and those that didn’t survive left less than that.

Amaimon.7823:

In a battle of semantics, just because we don’t want to die, was Dhuum an unfair god?

Dialogue, to me, about Dhuum’s unjustness about the living seems to be “if you came close to death, but lived in 100% legit methods, he’ll still hunt you down and kill you just as he would if you died and got resurrected”.

For example, as I’m understanding it: let’s say you cut an artery, normally if left alone you’ll quickly die, but you manage to get to a doctor, get it closed off, and have a blood transfusion so that you are fit as a fiddle…. then Dhuum comes in and stabs you through the gut with the scythe.

Not exactly just actions there. Nor is that exactly fair either.

There’s also implications that he tortured even innocent souls, punishing souls that didn’t deserve that punishment, though this is more interpretation from the feel of dialogue more than the words themselves.

draxynnic.3719:

One weakness in the argument that the gods never influenced Tyria prior to 1769BE is that I think there are indications that the Forgotten were associated with the gods all along. So while they hadn’t arrived themselves, it seems they had sent at least one race to Tyria beforehand… and may have sent others.

On the other hand, there’s no strong indication that the Forgotten were on Tyria prior to 1769 BE (as that is the year attributed to their arrival on Tyria (presumably world) in GW1, and while the Forgotten are attributed with being around during the last dragonrise, they’re also still attributed to having been brought to the world by the Six Gods just as in GW1).

The overall implication being that either the last dragonrise lasted for nearly 9,000 years and the Six Gods arrived on the world near the end of it (either with the Forgotten, before the Elder Dragons went to sleep, or after the Forgotten, after the Elder Dragons went to sleep), or the claim of the previous dragonrise being at 10,000 BE is false and that was a dragonrise before the previous dragonrise (and apply the same addendum here).

Amaimon.7823:

yea, I don’t really disagree, but as I said, it’s a battle of semantics. Where do you draw the line between surviving, and escaping death. and sometimes it’s not necessarily magic, like some wounds can be healed quite easily without magic, given you have the proper tools to do so. Is that also “escaping death”, or just luck of being in the right place at the right time.

I think the point of Dhuum’s "unjust"ness in this regard is that he held the line too far on one side than the other.

But Grenth seems to have moved the line to the complete opposite side of the spectrum, allowing all resurrection and undead – until, that is, rather recently with the loss of resurrection magic in the past 250 years.

castlemanic.3198:

To be fair, the mursaat predate the human gods coming to tyria to our knowledge, it is, very technically speaking, possible for the human gods to have come to tyria before the earliest written records of history. Not that it’s likely anything the devs have planned (even i’d be shocked if anything i mentioned has any merit to it), but it’s still technically possible just because the lore hasn’t covered it.

Except that the “records”, which are already disproving false lore, are stating that it is when they first came to Tyria.

To say otherwise later on would be a retcon of a retcon… And I hope ArenaNet never gets that bad at consistency.

castlemanic.3198:

For the Dhuum thing, that is a fair point, although i guess the question arises why the human gods would stand for such behaviour (seeing as they both accepted Grenth replacing Dhuum and fought against Abaddon when they tried to take away magic while he tried to let the mortals have it)

We don’t really know that the other gods did. It’s also possible that they tolerated Dhuum for the same reason they kept Abaddon locked up instead of killing him outright – they needed a proper replacement and didn’t have one yet. It could also be that they knew they couldn’t defeat Dhuum (perhaps there is some truth behind his claims that he cannot be killed). Or it may be that while unjust, he never crossed the line that they as a majority saw, until near the end.

Anything is possible, given we know nothing about their views of Dhuum.

castlemanic.3198:

Didn’t know that the Gods were for giving mortals magic (whether, as you said, unanimously or by majority vote), so that’s another point to consider.

They were granting magic in small amounts for a while. The scripture of Grenth – and possibly Dwayna, Lyssa, and Balthazar – show this. It’s just that Abaddon granted the biggest and most widespread amount, which led to wars rather than solving them.

castlemanic.3198:

though a point of contention could be that the number of toes doesn’t really matter, I wouldn’t call the number of toes a big factor, but the seemingly elongated clawed nature of the toes a bigger factor. And the wings are a big difference too.

Unless I’m entirely mistaken (possible since I’m a layman in this realm), given how biology works, the difference in both size and number of toes is enough of a difference to denote them as having relatively large DNA sequence in certain parts that would denote it a different species but the same genus.

Add in the wings and size difference, and it’s definitely a different species.

Moonyeti.3296:

My problem with it is this (as you pointed out) – If you are basing it primarily because of similar appearances, then I would think you have to factor the Norn / Jotun in as well. Norn are just bigger humans and jotun are just slightly deformed big humans going by appearance. It actually bugs me a bit how similar humans and norn are, considering they aren’t really connected in any way. If they make a connection based on similar appearance then a lot of the current races would have to have had a common ancestor race.

Don’t forget: giants, ogres, harpies, and largos.

The only ones that may hold shared ties to humans are harpies and largos – the former due to the old Etonian legend of harpy origins (fallen servants of Dwayna), and the latter due to the heavily shared theme with Orrians (both of Arabic / Middle Eastern thematic design – and add in that largos are fish-winged blue skinned humans, effectively, mirroring the winged blue-skinned goddess of humans…).

castlemanic.3198:

Now, throughout the lore that I know, there’s no evidence of the creation of life by deities (even with the humans and the human gods, they kinda just appeared one day through the mists to my knowledge), which would be another general point of contention for my post (considering the theory states both the mursaat and humans were creations when there’s no evidence of such a thing happening to any race. Even elder dragon minions are merely ‘things being corrupted’ instead of brand new creations).

Human history – as well as charr – do claim that the gods made Tyria, and though this has been disproven we know now that they did at least terraform it. This terraforming could have included the creation of species, which would have led credence to the belief the Six created Tyria.

Well your theory is 100% debunked by one piece of lore: the mursaat predate any time of the Six Gods’ time on or even known knowledge of Tyria. They were around for the previous dragonrise (supposedly 10,000 BE), while the Six Gods arrived much later, after the Elder Dragons went back to sleep (earliest known mention being 1769 BE)

Plus, while mursaat are humanoid, they have some distinguishing features marking them notably not human, their three toes being a big one, as well as their “wings”.

Other notes:

• Dhuum was against resurrection and undead because he was an unfair god. It’s said that he had hunted down anyone who “escaped death” (exact meaning unknown, but could easily mean anyone who received healing magic for a fatal wound and survived just as well as meaning those resurrected/turned undead).
• The gods did not worry about granting magic, but rather the conflict came when they wanted to take back magic – the five gods saw it as a mistake, while Abaddon did not see it as such (reason unknown). But Abaddon releasing magic was entirely agreed upon by the other gods (whether just by majority or unanimously is unknown though, we don’t know how the gods decided things).

If she knew the attack was coming, she could have secretly ensured greater security without notifying the other leaders. However, they had already agreed to help by the time of the attack, so the attack did little to ensure their support (not that it really amounted to much in the fight against Mordremoth in the first place); if she had foreseen the events well enough, she would have foreseen that as well.

So I’d stick with the argument that she didn’t know, because the Dream isn’t as all telling as that. It’s far from that accurate, either, given how different A Light in the Darkness is from actual events.

Which goes along the lines of “as long as ArenaNet decides she will”.

But she isn’t this end-all-be-all powerful figure. She cannot foretell the exact future, especially not at all times (else she would have foreseen the attack on the World Summit), and she doesn’t show any mental capabilities beyond her ties to the Dream which is literally an insignificant portion of the Dream that expands barely beyond the sylvari’s collective memories (the only cases of her knowing more than sylvari know is with A Light in the Darkness and with her ties to Mordremoth).

You’re talking about the Pale Tree as if she’s some plot device fully capable of solving – or giving the solutions for solving – all of GW2’s plots issues, but she isn’t. It’s kind of like asking why Jennah doesn’t go toe to toe against the Elder Dragons because she’s so powerful – she actually tried and got her kitten mentally handed to her, and besides that she has a nation to run and (until now) had to keep it out of a megalomaniac who would kitten the world for his greed of power’s hands.

The destroyers of GW2 are nothing like the GW1 destroyers. One theory is that, seeing how destroyers are made in mockery of living beings, that the GW1 destroyers were in mockery of races living during the previous dragonrise (thus explaining why one, the mesmer, had an almost mursaat-like look); now that Primrodus is up, they’re likely in mockery of modern races only now.

Rognik.2579:

Ookamikun.6472:

Rognik.2579:

Again, going back to the letter in Caudecus’s Manor, it seems that all of the Personal Story options happened at the same time, but if it wasn’t you doing it, it was another hero of Tyria. Tybalt would have still rescued Demmi and taken her into the Whispers operation, and then he died, probably around the same time our other mentor died on Claw Island.

Would it fit if say all three mentors went on Claw Island and they all sacrificed their lives for one of the mentor’s progeny, Trahearne, and Mira?

I’m going to venture no, only your order’s mentor died at Claw Island, but the other two died when Zhaitan’s forces attacked all three orders at the same time.

The game always treats storylines you haven’t personally done as happening, just “without the Pact Commander” but someone else doing the job.

If the mentors died, they would have died either when encountering the Orrian scout in the mission before, or at Claw Island. Whether or not their recruit died too is questioned.