The whole instance felt rushed, with Anise and Demmi constantly running ahead, while I wanted to stay a moment and take in the scenery.
Anise and Demmi just run to the end of the current room (something I like over the “NPCs just follow you around” because that just results in them skipping should you take a step on a platform an inch lower/higher) You can take your time to look at the scenery and explore. And when you reach the manor itself they (Anise, Canach, and Demmi) follow you around so you can even backtrack with the trio if you want.
It’s essentially the GW2 version of a Quick Time Event (QTE). I’m not really familiar with anyone that likes QTEs, and I’m not a huge fan of it here…but it doesn’t actually make the instance difficult. I just wish they had you doing more interesting things with the special action key like we see them doing in raids with it.
I like QTEs when done properly, but I would hardly call Counter Magic a quick time event.
But hopefully we’ll get more uses of the special action key, since they had the sensor with Seis use it, and we have Counter Magic, and the Taimi search in Meeting of Ministers.
I haven’t tried it after they nerfed it a bit, but it was much worse if you didn’t hit it. Basically he had you stunlocked while he pinballed you all over the room. If you hit and don’t quickly dodge you take damage only.
The only change they did to it was extend the reaction time (previously half-second, now full second or something like that).
It never stunlocked you, but he does have other stunning skills which could – in rare occasions – result in stun locking when used back to back. But that’s rather rare TBH.
The only stunlocking that might have really happened commonly would be from the frequently spawning Volatile Bloodstone Elementals combined with the Veteran Jade Armor and Caudecus using his not-in-the-bubble stun skills. Which would be why they switched the Veteran Jade Armor spawn with a Veteran Carnival Strongman (fewer stuns but still a heavy hitter melee).
I wouldn’t really say any one is better than the others in regards to the racial sympathy storylines. If any, hylek gives the most lore on that race that isn’t seen elsewhere, I’d think.
The dragons are represented in the cinematic by orbs. There is no literal dragon in the cinematic, and that’s pretty point blank obvious. So ergo, the “dragon” that “came at” the PC would have been an orb, and the one that went to the PC was Zhaitan’s, not Mordremoth’s.
The description of What Scarlet Saw was certainly showing more than what we saw. And that’s ignoring the part where “she went beyond” the vision (not just zoomed in, she “plunged through and went beyond”).
Racial skills are not really generic but cultural, half of them aren’t even magic.
No, The All (or Antikytheria) is only a map of Tyria, the six bodies of power, and how they work together. The cosmos is far bigger than the magical equivalent to a single planet’s magnetic and atmospheric states of being.
And the dragon that plunged into Tyria’s orb was 100% Zhaitan’s orb. If you compare placement to the Priory’s map of the All it lines with the orb marked Z, and it was the fourth to glow and move, rather than the last. The growl was probably Mordremoth’s (wasn’t as high pitched as Zhaitan’s), but the orb that got closest to the camera was definitely the one that crashed into Tyria and was definitely Zhaitan’s.
On main topic:
It should be noted that what we saw when entering the machine is what Scarlet saw but we were in there for a few scant seconds, Scarlet was in the machine for much, much longer and as the short story says:
She saw Tyria as a life-sized globe, fixed in place among cosmic storms and massive clouds of potentiality. She wondered if she would see herself in Omadd’s lab when Rata Sum rotated into view, but then impatiently went on, plunging deeper into the churning void.
[snip convo with Pale Tree]
She soon saw a vague, glowing shape ahead. A tree, she thought…the Pale Tree. Its great off-white trunk connected a broad network of branches and leaves to a root system below. Instead of nuts or berries beneath its leaves, there were sylvari. Thousands of her people hung from the tree’s boughs like ripe fruit ready to fall. Their bodies did not move, but their eyes shifted and rolled, eagerly taking in their surroundings.
[snip further description of PT + sylvari + red vine]
With the Pale Tree’s desperate words and her own raucous laughter growing echoing across the void, Ceara plunged through the vision of the great tree and beyond.
Scarlet began with a vision of The All (what we ended with), then saw the Pale Tree (our second vision), then pushed beyond it.
And when she went beyond… “She had been thrashing violently in the isolation module for days now”
What we saw != what Scarlet saw; she saw much more (whether more subjects, or the same subject in greater detail, is not entirely clear)
I’d say it certainly is a given, given that the sylvari are not the only ones tied to it. I mean, Mordremoth and the White Stag would add to the Dream. Even if Wynne’s Wyld Hunt and A Light in the Darkness (and, for that matter, Hearts and Minds) are not proof enough, Mordremoth’s connection should be.
And, again, I don’t see how having something that drives to insanity (partial or fully) is beneficial….
What about the Vinewrath? Faolain? The Pale Tree?
Maybe the Vinewrath. He didn’t really feel threatening, though, as he never left the cave.
Faolain was converted late in the story, so she had little time to be a lieutenant. However, I suppose she’d fit the role if she’d been more present.
The Pale Tree counts as much as Glint does, as neither one was on the Dragon’s side when we met them. We don’t fight the Pale Tree, while we do fight the Shadow of the Dragon.and his three big guys? Axemaster, Stavemaster and that third one (yea I know of ’em is femme fatale)
They felt more like personal guards than lieutenants as they weren’t leading the charge into Tyria.
They’re all dragon champions, technically, as is the Vinetooth Prime in Auric Basin (the big daddy of Vinetooths), and the Octovine.
Dragon champions come in a multitude of “levels”, some weaker while others far more powerful.
The Shadow of the Dragon was the only one of dragon shape, and likely the strongest, but far from the only one.
And Faolain was converted halfway through HoT, a little before even… She was definitely a dragon champion (or lieutenant if you prefer) given that she ordered about a bunch of mordrem – which is the #1 role of a dragon champion, ordering lesser minions about. Because of that, more powerful champions have a tendency to order lesser champions – like the Vinewrath ordering the 4 legendaries during the main part of SW meta, the 5 Breach champions, and the 3 VW champions – all, I would argue, to be lesser dragon champions; similarly, Blightghast ordered around the lesser champions Thaddeus Ghostrite, Vizier Ironghoul, Admiral Feiste Bakkir, and Lord Zhim Alarjann during the assaults on Claw Island, Lion’s Arch, and the Order HQs.
Side note about Vinewrath “never leaving the cave” – it did… we never even kill the Vinewrath, it retreats when we kill the champions beneath its command. Plus, I suspect that those giant vines throughout Silverwastes are the Vinewrath’s roots. And they directly attack Camp Resolve in the story. We then fight those roots more directly in Verdant Brink.
This said, while Primordus has not had any dragon-shaped champions about in GW2, he has had dragon champions thus far. Five of them, actually. – two of them being open world bosses (Megadestroyer and Molten Dominator). Sadly, they are far cries from being worthy of the rankings of Shatterer, Tequatl, and Claw of Jormag and the other open world dragon champions (of which there are many, especially for Zhaitan).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Except that the dragon which “came at [the Pact Commander]” was… Zhaitan’s orb (well, they all kind of did, but Zhaitan’s was the closest and was right up to the camera before crashing into Tyria’s orb; Mordremoth’s was second closest).
Which is actually rather interesting, given Zhaitan was dead at the time that it would be the dragon which “came at [the Pact Commander]”.
Not to mention the PC claimed to have seen their own role in The All (which is also rather interesting and not yet answered, unless the role is slaying the orbs and throwing The All out of balance… WE ARE THE HARBINGER OF DESTRUCTION! ALL SHALL BOW BEFORE US AND DIE! FIRE AND CHAOS FOLLOWS IN OUR WAKE AND NONE CAN STOP US IN OUR CRUSADE OF ANNIHILATION!)
There is NPC dialogue just outside the grove that indicate that people naturally veer towards certain professions. And there was an old must-controversial interview, where one of the less-controversial questions/answers mentioned that children tend to veer towards the profession of their parents. But as we know that people can learn the ways of multiple professions (though this is hard to be adept in both, compared with going after two different doctorates degrees) we know that this is not a set-in-stone thing.
While Demmi and Caudecus both seemed to be the same class (as evidenced by the skills they used in Confessor’s End), Logan does not use the magic of either of his ancient ancestors, Gwen and Kieran Thackery.
Slight caveat: Kieran became a paragon, and paragons merged with monks to become guardians, which Logan is. ;D
Still your point is sound.
And I think Belinda used guardian skills but do not quote me on this. I could have been seeing Braham’s skills when doing the mission, rather than Belinda’s.
Lazarus does not “need a physical body” because by rejoining his aspects, he makes his own physical body. See back to GW1, where just one aspect was physical.
Makes me wonder… could there be five (weak) Lazaruses about at one time?
But as Ider says: this (and most Lazarus theories) “makes no logical sence, no buildup and no story cohesion but is “surprising”.”
Honestly with everyone reaching for all these theories, it would be more surprising to the populous for Lazarus to not be a fake at all.
For shadow: There’s a lot of darkness themes throughout Orr and risen related stuff, but it never held a direct role in the story. The closest would be the greatest fear arc where Zhaitan directly or indirectly makes you confront your greatest fear.
For mind: All Elder Dragons have some form of hive mind with their minions, but this isn’t telepathy by all indication. The most the minions get is a sense of the dragon’s will, from what we’re told (though without direct examples hard to say) – Glint’s telepathy is made to sound unique, after all.
Meanwhile, Mordremoth not only has massive, individualized, simultaneous telepathy but he’s shown capability to transferring his mind across his corruption (as he did with Trahearne). I’d chalk both of those up to his domain of mind.
Konig, I’d love to here your thoughts on my earlier comment (as seen below)
But before the attack on the Stronghold of the Faithful, Modremoth dieing kicked off something big for the White Mantle/Bandits in the area right?
Mordremoth’s death did affect the area (separated some spirits, resulting in Gorseval and the river of souls in Spirit Vale; also fed more magic in the area, resulting in Slothasor/slubling mutations), but it didn’t kick anything off for the White Mantle’s activities.
Also, the death of Modremoth poured more magic into the Bloodstone right? And was that around the time when the White Mantle managed to crack it to take pieces? of it or was that earlier? I’m uninformed about how the timelines line up.
But if my suspicions are correct then there is more plausibility that an aspect of Modremoth is in Mr Mursaat.
Timeline of events can be found via the journals in Bloodstone Fen
So the cracks began well before the personal story completed even.
Something I had forgotten about, which becomes a bit more relevant with the Lazarus discussion, is a line from Bauer written on 2 Zephyr, 1329 AE: “Our supreme leader arrived today.”
He can’t be talking about Caudecus, who arrived after the explosion which occurred on 17 Zephyr. So is he talking about Lazarus? Therefore confirming the ritual did work? Or is he talking about someone else, while still praising the Unseen Ones?
I stopped to trust Caudecus long long ago, because even in the Personal Story he used people for his goals to kill Jennah.
In the letters scattered across the mission, one of them mentions that Caudecus got the “fifth piece” from Justiciar Bauer and it was Bauer who told Caudecus that the ritual would fail without all five aspects.
But as we see from journal pages in Bloodstone Fen, Bauer is a fanatic of the Unseen Ones – unlike how he presents himself to Caudecus.
Implying that it isn’t Caudecus who lied, but Bauer. Caudecus was fooled just as the PC has been. That is, if there was a lie.
The question is: What is Bauer’s true goal?
Did he lie to Caudecus, giving him a fake? Did he betray Xera, giving Caudecus a real piece? Did he betray both, aiming for personal glorification (thus bringing Lazarus back himself, rather than letting Xera do it)?
If Lazarus is a fake, my money is on “Lazarus” being Bauer – as Bauer is the one who orchestrated the ritual to absorb the bloodstone’s magic (and secretly, at that). But if Lazarus is not a fake, then I’d bet he’s a 4/5th Lazarus, the fifth aspect being what got corrupted by Naveed in GW1.
And either way, his “good guy” act is just that: an act.
Ahh, so the Qeen of Divinitys reach has some sort of power bestowed upon her by Lyssa? Because what happend there, with the dome seemed powerful beyond the reasonable level of a single human.. (unless that human absorbs some sort of Bloodstone that is)
Nothing says she was blessed or anything, but she had always been presented as an exceptionally powerful mesmer.
My theory is that she has the Scepter of Orr – after all, we know that Livia retrieved it, but did not keep it. It would make sense that it was kept in the hands of the royal family. Of course, she’s not carrying around the Scepter of Orr – and didn’t have it on her when she did an equally magnificent feat in Ebonhawke during Edge of Destiny (mass paralyzing all seraph, ebon vanguard, and charr, while disguising them as branded, and tricking the hivemind branded there not only to believe the humans and charr got corrupted, but that the illusion of Kralkatorrik in the sky was the real Elder Dragon) – so unless it got shifted into a different form it seems unlikely.
Or she could just be a naturally stupidly powerful mesmer. It’s not really mary sueness for there to be a one-in-a-million super-talented individual (I mean, the Pact Commander exists too! And we’re 100% natural human/asura/norn/charr/sylvari!)
On the other hand, in the “regrouping with the queen” story instance one of the Ladys-in-Waiting mentions that Jenna and Logan apparently are not as close as they used to be. A possible explanation for that is, that Logan subconciously realized that Queen Jenna is not the real one. If there is anyone she cannot fool its propably Logan I guess..
Rather than “as they used to be” the entire Regrouping with the Queen instance indicates that Jennah never had feelings for Logan in the first place – a direct contradiction with Jennah’s own words in the human personal story.
I had no problem with it, even on my super-squishy thief, so really I’m not understanding all these complaints.
After they nerfed it, it’s practically a cakewalk so long as you keep strafing from bloodstone shard to bloodstone shard.
Dreier Dane
(kudos if you get the reference)
Regarding the shrine, I think this was more of a nod to GW1, and probably wouldn’t have been thought of without knowing about Bergen Hot Springs…
That said, I have one complaint about this: the green star. Since a star was used, I rather wished they used the gold star from Season 1 – I feel this would have differentiated it enough that it wouldn’t be confusing for those with their story active.
And as others said: I wish this was how the precursor collections were done. This was done oh so right for recovering/remaking a legendary weapon (lorewise in this use, but could be in mechanical use too :P).
All ghosts are:
- Foefire
- killed by bloodstone ritual
- having a destiny or duty of higher level, having something that bound them to stay (very few examples, but look at Turai Ossa)
I can’t think of, or remember any other source of ghosts
How about every other Crystal Desert ghost in GW1. Every Desolation ghost in GW1. Every Ascalonian ghost in GW1 (this being before Foefire).
The ghosts in Godlost Swamp in Queensdale. The ghosts at Fort Salma (during S2). The ghosts around Hidden Lake or Aurora’s Remains in Brisban Wildlands. Or the dolyak cave and pirate cave in Harathi Hinterlands. Or Fort Cadence in Sparkfly Fen. Or the small inlet of lost souls in Mount Maelstrom. Or Romke and his crew in Cursed Shore. Or Malchor in Malchor’s Leap.
I could go on and on. There are thousands of ghosts that are naturally occurring. No spell causing them to remain, nor them being sealed then let loose, or having a higher purpose.
In fact, the ghosts that you listed are the minority of the ghosts we see in GW lore.
all of them had a catalyst, the didn’t become ghosts just because they didn’t want to die.
Most ghosts we see become ghosts because they were killed in a way that they do not comprehend that they’ve yet died, thus have not moved on to the Mists. Or they’re tied by unfinished business (aka super-generic ghost-existence reasons).
As said, Foefire and Bloodstone ghosts are the minority when it comes to ghosts… even in GW2 (and not a single ghost in GW1 – of which there are very many indeed).
I can’t point any time where Scarlet’s goal was “to be recognized as one of the greatest in her field” – her goal as shown in the short story of her background was 100% “to learn more at any means”. And this included treachery and domination, such as tricking her mentors (while being gleefully uncaring of consequences which, somehow, did not affect her – thus the first case of mary sueness came into place), and joining the Inquest.
Mordremoth did not implant treachery and deception or domination onto Scarlet, she had that even while being Ceara. It’s true that Mordremoth got into Scarlet’s mind ever since entering the machine, but his machinations seemed to just be implanting plans into her – mainly, I’d argue, revolving around the Tower of Nightmares (a ton of obvious and in-hindsight-even-more-obvious Mordremoth references in that content) and waking Mordremoth.
That said, going into the machine and witnessing The All seemed to merely draw Mordremoth’s attention to Scarlet. Similarly, when the PC goes into the machine, they respond with saying “[the dragon] came at me.” So in turn, Taimi going into the machine and witnessing The All will potentially draw her to the other dragons’ attention.
And, well, the last time an asura caught the attention of an Elder Dragon’s mind… Kralkatorrik went fullblown “kill the kitten pest in my brain!” and sent its small army of branded after the asura’s body, as well as attacked personally.
Source? The first piece of lore on sylvari is the source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dream_and_Nightmare
Only a few memories reach the Pale Tree: the most important or those that have the greatest emotional impact or meaning. They can include entire scenes from a sylvari’s life, such as their first battle or their first time cooking an apple pie. They can also be a single poignant moment such as pain, fear, or the face of an enemy.
In order to achieve this goal, the Nightmare Court commit acts of evil both upon sylvari and non-sylvari alike. When their own emotions become too jaded to be likely gathered into the tree, they rely on harming and tormenting other sylvari and giving them memories, horrible emotions, and other traumas in the hope that those memories will be sharp enough to be gathered.
As for the PC being traumatized, well being a plot-armor character that trauma didn’t last long but you should pay attention to the dialogue right after leaving the machine:
Boss? Are you okay? Take deep breaths.
→ It was incredible.
What was? What are you talking about?
→ I had a vision. I saw it. The Eternal Alchemy.
You what? You’re going to have to explain. I don’t understand.
→ I’ll try. I saw how Tyria is woven, and…I’m tied up in it. Somehow.
Okay, I think you need to rest awhile. Do you hurt anywhere?
→ Listen. Vast energies flow through and around Tyria, and I saw a dragon. It…um…
It what? What did you see?
→ It was part of the workings of the world. It came at me.
That sounds like a terrible nightmare.
→ I also saw the Pale Tree at the heart of a vast moving puzzle, as Scarlet did.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Machine#Dialogue
That reaction is very similar to Scarlet’s:
Motionless, Omadd stared wide-eyed at his former student.
“It worked,” Scarlet said. “I suppose I should thank you for that, though I bet I would have figured it out on my own eventually. Still, no reason to begrudge a genius his due, right?”
Omadd did not reply.
Scarlet giggled as she raised her hand to her face and watched the red thorn vine chase itself between her fingers. “So much makes sense now. The Pale Tree, the Nightmare Court, Caithe and Faolain…it’s all part of a grand design.
“But I see the flaws in that design. My people don’t have to take what we’re given, or be what we were “born to be.” No people do. We can change the rules…well, I can. And I’m going to.”
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Short_Story:_What_Scarlet_Saw
Scarlet Briar: I saw it all. I saw the Eternal Alchemy.
Scarlet Briar: (breathes) I killed Omadd, my mentor. I am no one’s lab rat.
(voice emphasizes the awed reaction)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prosperity's_Mystery#Additional_interactive_objects
Both had similar reactions, one full of awe and slight trauma. Scarlet’s negative reaction came later, much later, as shown in her journal. It began nearly a full year later.
Mordremoth’s call didn’t come right away.
What is not in our part of the Dream or the Nightmare is irrelevant. The Sylvari are the only active race with ties to the Dream. And so far they have only accessed their own race’s memory.
I just explicitly said that the sylvari are not the only race with ties to the Dream.
And I’d say the presence of the Nightmare proves that they have more than just access to their own race’s memory. Not to mention that the Pale Tree definitely has more access than that, as proven by A Light in the Darkness. And, not to mention, the Wyld Hunts which tell certain sylvari more than what the race knows (like Wynne’s telling her that the sylvari come from Mordremoth).
I don’t see it being Glint (who was both female and not humanoid at all, unlike Lazarus). Why would she hide her identity from the PC? Lazarus came by himself, so if the figure isn’t really Lazarus, he’d have reason to hide his identity from the PC.
It being Mordremoth is an interesting idea, truth be told, and fully plausible since we know he planted a seed in Trahearne’s mind – he could easily have done such to another minion. The main problem is appearance, but if he knows some mesmer illusion-making, that’d be solved. On an side: Mordremoth died about a year before the attack on Stronghold of the Faithful.
Well if your spirit is reborn in a new body, your voice isn’t going to stay the same, is it? And as Glint is a seer, it’s quite possible that she would hide her identity for #Reasons.
But before the attack on the Stronghold of the Faithful, Modremoth dieing kicked off something big for the White Mantle/Bandits in the area right?
Glint is a dragon.
A dead dragon.
On what basis do you make the claim that the spirit of Glint lives on?, even in this fantasy world nothing just continues existing as a ghost without a catalyst? And do you even know what a Seer is? it’s a race, not a class, Glint is not a Seer, Glint is a dragon. If she survived (which is like the opposite of a propability) she wouldn’t be hiding out as a mursaat. thats not her MO.
ergo, Glint is less than a possible option.Does Glint look this? I need to update my glasses, it’s been 2 years, but I don’t think my eyesight is that off
Dunno where you get the whole “ghost needs a catalyst” as that’s kind of disproved by, well, every single ghost there is.
And you know what a Seer is, but do you know what a seer is?
I don’t see it being Glint (who was both female and not humanoid at all, unlike Lazarus). Why would she hide her identity from the PC? Lazarus came by himself, so if the figure isn’t really Lazarus, he’d have reason to hide his identity from the PC.
It being Mordremoth is an interesting idea, truth be told, and fully plausible since we know he planted a seed in Trahearne’s mind – he could easily have done such to another minion. The main problem is appearance, but if he knows some mesmer illusion-making, that’d be solved. On an side: Mordremoth died about a year before the attack on Stronghold of the Faithful.
What are the main problems of underwater content in your opinion and how would you fix these?
Problem: Number of underwater skills
Solution: Create an alternative for each skill locked out of underwater usage. New skills do not need same icon, name, nor similar function as current locked out skills – just same number of healing, utility, elite, and racial skills between above and below surface.
Problem: Balance issue. Some professions have clearly better skill choices.
Solution: Ultimately, same as above. For professions that are very clearly inferior or more frustrating to use underwater currently, they need better skills. A general balance pass will also be needed after adding skills, naturally, as well as after below.
Problem: Lack of useful traits. Some traits are either partially or outright fully useless underwater.
Solution: Either extend or replace said traits so that they have an underwater-only quality to them. Same as above, a balance pass will be needed with this.
Problem: Traits do not switch between land / underwater like skills and weapons do.
Solution: Make them switch, bro.
Problem: Limited customization in weapons, both skins (because Anet said ‘lolunderwatercombat’) and weapon types.
Solution: First, create more spear, harpoon, and trident skins.
Secondly, more importantly: Amphibious weapons. Make certain weapons (suggested: spear, sword, pistol, dagger, wand, focus) to be usable both above and underwater. Thus underwater weapon slots get 2 per set (main-/two-handed and off-hand); when no underwater weapon equipped, use equipped amphibious weapon when possible (akin to when using the same weapon in main or offhand with both weapon sets when second does not have two weapons). This would be the hardest to do, due to both coding and UI art changes.
Problem: Cannot look completely up or down – players are limited to a 90 degree (roughly) camera span from -45 to 45 degree (if straight forward is 0 degree).
Solution: Expand camera span to 180 degree from straight down to straight up. This helps with mobility and enemy targeting -if an enemy is directly below you, you either need to swim away and re-angle yourself, or use the no-default-key sink button; similarly for if an enemy is directly above you, but enemy NPCs can always attack, with easy, form directly above or below you (no camera problems for AI).
Fixing underwater combat (but not underwater content – with exception of camera angle-based movement, underwater content is perfectly fine and enjoyable) would indeed be intensive but I feel that it would be worth it to at least fix the problems with skill and trait usability, as that’s really the core problem.
I do not agree with the “just abandon it” since it’s a perfectly viable and mostly-there aspect of the game, and abandoning it only limits the devs in both mechanics and story in the long run. I mean, for the recent release, they had to make some arbitrary (and not terribly well done) excuse for why Lake Doric has no underwater combat. Why waste time thinking of how to avoid the lakes and rivers of the game’s lore?
The only benefit it has in abandoning it, ultimately, is three less skins per weapon set and immediate time being spent on other things (but not long-term time, imo, as shown with Lake Doric).
Raids are little different from the elite missions of GW1 which had plenty of side stories and closing loose threads. Domain of Anguish being a big one for the latter.
It makes sense that they’d do similar for raids in GW2, which are basically the GW2 version of elite missions.
The only other way they can do such would be open world events (meh) or Current Events achievement chains like Burden of Choice and Knight of the Thorn storylines (nice, but not ideal for everything).
Plus, raids have to have something in them – ArenaNet has never made content that was utterly lacking in story before (not even Super Adventure Box was… and that was an April Fool’s joke content!), so it’d be out of character for ArenaNet to begin doing such with raids.
I disagree with Bobby Stein that raids are the only place that “darker or more mature topics” can go though. While it certainly goes on par with the much tougher content, other things can have a darker and more mature theme to them. And the Current Events are proper enough to tie up loose ends without putting all such behind raids (which would be not too dissimilar from the Titan quests in GW1).
Yet all dragons have a very specific elements that belongs (in a way) to them.
This doesn’t make them elementals, however, nor elemental-like. Elementals by definition are elements animated by magic (either naturally or by a spellcaster). Dragons, however, are turning Material A into Material B. In other words, elementals are just adding minor sentience to naturally formed objects, while dragon minions are transforming things into some form of element.
In the same way that risen are not technically undead, branded are technically not earth elementals and icebrood are not technically ice elementals, despite being moving things of limited sentience of those elements.
I believe consciousness and soul is the same thing. One word shows what it is, other shows where it is while none of them have any real proof.
Real life philosophies aside, Guild Wars has a very real appearance of souls, and we know that not all things animated will have such. At the same time, we never see anything resembling a soul coming from sylvari or any other dragon minion, with the sole exception of risen having souls entrapped within them. There are many minions, in fact, that are created from bodies in which the souls are separated and we even interact with those souls – Aliyana and Romke (and his crew) being main examples of the later, while King Reza is a prime example of the former.
Given that we’ve seen soulless things with consciousness (of varying degrees), we can also say that soul and consciousness are not the same in the setting of Guild Wars.
Doesnt supposed to be.
Normaly “enemy of my enemy” motto might have work but this is a planet.
It might turn out to be that dragons are our true friends.
You know good old bubbles and kralkatorrik who have learned asura-hood from snaff?
Here is one of the few lines implying Tyria has a consciousness:
Avatar of the Tree: The soul of Tyria mourned as her children were cut down by the beast. The land wept, and the world shuddered.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Light_in_the_Darkness#In_the_Omphalos_Chamber
If the “soul of Tyria” was controlling the elementals to kill the races, well, it wouldn’t mourn for “her children” (aka the races) killed at Claw Island.
And the Elder Dragons are most definitely not friendly. If they were, they wouldn’t actively destroy countless civilizations with proclamations of ruling, enslaving, controlling, consuming, or possessing all things.
In my knowledge there isnt any other “green” elementals anywhere else but at Wizard’s Tower/Fief.
It may be just that “orange” ones are away from “drone controling signals”? so there are on auto-pilot, while red ones are close to touch of tyria’s core?
Think it as “Leyline” if you must.
There are the ley line elementals that are green. But I was mainly referring to the neutral (or “orange” – I’d call that yellow though) elementals across the world.
Incidentally, those who would be “closest to the touch of Tyria’s core” would be those at ley lines, and those are the friendliest elementals (both the ley line coalescences and the earth and air elementals in the ley lines area of Bloodstone Fen).
Scarlet didn’t rely on Mordremoth. Mordremoth was forcibly taking over control of Scarlet’s plans. Her goal – initially – was to confront Mordremoth in a “I will win my freedom” way, but she lost herself by the end and he manipulated her into waking him up.
But it was all done via technology. Only indication of Mordremoth’s influence was the Toxic Alliance.
By “not all memories” I’m referring to the fact that only the more emotional memories are put into the Dream and as people get used to those emotions the less those events are put into the Dream. This is why the Nightmare Court stop having their memories put into the Dream – because they become more and more used to the pain and suffering they receive/inflict that it’s no longer an emotional moment.
And in all honesty, it isn’t that “50% of the sylvari who entered Omadd’s machine have not had traumatic experiences” – the Pact Commander acted rather traumatized by the event, even non-sylvari.
And even then, the Pact Commander is hardly a good example of status quo since we’re obviously above and beyond even the heroes of Tyria. Normal sylvari being forced into the machine against their will, will no doubt bite one in the kitten tenfold.
And you’re acting like the sylvari are the sole ties to the sylvari when they’re not. The Dream existed before them, and hold ties to beings not related to Mordremoth or the sylvari (such as the White Stag). Who’s to say that the Dream doesn’t already incorporate a large portion of The All – just that sylvari cannot (perhaps properly so) access it.
If you think about dragons and their minions then yes, elementals can possess sentient and non sentient creatures.
Dragons are not elementals so I’m not sure where you’re getting the connection. While they do turn creatures into elemental-like beings, dragon minions are not elementals.
In kessex hills there are elementals who shows very small sings of sentience but they are thought to be villagers who were “chosen” to live in wizards tower but instead turned into immortal mindless slaves.
Its still open to discussion, who knows.
That’s a player theory with no real solid support to it. We just know that the “Tamed Elementals” behave very oddly.
With djinns, mordremoth and sylvaris having no brain yet still having consciousness and in a way soul, we can make the claim that non living objects can have it.
Nothing actually says sylvari or other dragon minions have souls, technically speaking.
But what is realy weird is why all elementalst that we see until this day is always in humanoid form and not like cats,dogs,spiders,snakes ?
Uh… air elementals? Rather insectoid.
Or how about the greater elementals (excluding earth) being cyclones.
My guess/fantasy is like dragons have their own minions, all elementals are minions of tyria.
For a very long time there werent any strong elementals but now we have started to kill of dragons and tyria is regaining magic and uses it to kill us, races who are feeding on it like viruses.
Interesting concept but unlikely. Little suggests Tyria is alive and if it were to be, then what little we have to suggest such implies that it’s in favor of the races of Tyria, and against the Elder Dragons.
Further, not all elementals are hostile – some are only hostile when threatened.
Sylvari do have brains, just not ‘meat’ brains. They are patterned after humans and have all the same organs, just plant based instead of ‘meat’ based.
They’ve been officially stated to not have the same organs as humans. A specific example was that they do not have a heart to pump their sap-for-blood, and while they have a digestive track it does not consist of a stomach, bladder, intestines, etc. but organs that perform similar (digesting food) functions.
There’s technically nothing saying that they have a brain as we would understand it. They may not have a single organ that functions as a brain, for example, but the entire nervous system sharing the function of a brain.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Ritualists called upon spirits from the Mists – in this respect, it’s less “spirit magic” and more “Mists magic” like revenants. It doesn’t really seem all that tied to necromancy beyond similar themes. Necromancers, after all, can only summon spirits after extensive rituals – but in the same light, we see non-necromancers do the same (and I don’t mean rangers).
Mordremoth was not “nature” – he was “plant” and there’s a difference in that it isn’t as encompassing as nature is (which includes not just plants, but animals, weather/seasons, and landscapes). He was mind, but there was nothing of his mind domain (which we saw as nothing more than telepathy, possession, and mind transference) that involved illusions or chaos magic.
Zhaitan had more dealings with illusions than any other dragon, but that’s just via his mesmer minions – little different from Jormag’s champions’ common use of telepathy (which made people wonder why Mordremoth was the “dragon of mind” and not Jormag).
Yes, it is possible and that’s my current theory. As explained here (and following posts).
That was a theory presented but it literally has no support, and we know that the Elder Dragons release magic into Tyria (have known since Season 1). So yes, it is demonstrably false – the theory I saw that presented “magic is added from the Mists” also stated that it is partially destroyed by the Elder Dragons as well.
And about the Elder Dragons ‘representing magic’ – we don’t really know that’s for certain. Taimi does speculate that “all magic is dragon magic” but that goes against a lot of old sources and haven’t really been proven. Further, there’s a lot more magic than the elements, which the Elder Dragons focus on (sans Zhaitan and Mordremoth so far), and for mortals there’s no real division between fire, ice, and air (Primordus, Jormag, and speculatively Kralkatorrik).
With Taimi’s claims of the Elder Dragons’ magic countering each other, if it was also normal magic then an Elementalist would be countering him/herself 24/7 (and as shown in Episode 3, such countering results in explosions – which makes Taimi’s claim that Mordremoth ate some Zhaitan magic unrealistic, especially since Jormag putting both magic forms into a minion resulted in an unstable minion that died pretty easily when its minions were killed). So if Taimi were 100% right, then not only should Mordremoth have been unstable and getting harmed whenever a mordrem was killed, but elementalists should exhibit spontaneously combustion when they switch attunements (especially between fire and ice), sylvari shouldn’t be capable of becoming necromancers without tons of self-mutilations going on whenever casting a spell, and necromancers fighting rangers should result in explosive deaths.
I’d like to note, further, that there is no Elder Dragon of Light for which to share magic with Guardians/Monks/Paragons. Which call into suspect the notion that all magic is dragon magic even more, as there seems to be magic which the Elder Dragons do not utilize.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
@Amaimon: You took the situation to a completely different level while entirely ignoring my previous post. I think that means we’re done here.
So let me summarize:
you make a claim
I counter that claim
you counter that claim not by an argument but saying “you didn’t the read the topic, and I put the claim in quotation marks, so I can retract the claim when I see fit”
I copy your claim to show just how weird your argument sounded
you don’t like it and insult me for it.okay, I was just making sure on what level you operate in a discussion, now I know, so I can just focus on OP instead of you
The thing is that I never made the claim you claim I made (that elementals can possess someone, or that Matthias/Caudecus were being possessed by the bloodstone shards).
I never said I can retract the claim I made. I said I used quotation marks because it’s similar but not exactly correct (the bloodstone shards in questions are highly magical stones, like what comprise elementals, but are not actually elementals). Your political strawman comparison was a drastic extreme that is neither correct nor similar.
I made this pointblank clear three times, and you continue to say I said something I didn’t, and go into politics which I outright want to avoid because I’m bombarded with that idiocracy every day.
If you wish, you can carry on, but if you keep on this twisting of words, I shall not respond.
1. Yes, all sources says there are but six Elder Dragons. It should be noted that races of dragons existed at some point, though many have become extinct, and some of the Elder Dragons resemble some of these races to small extents – so it’s plausible that there could be more, just that there haven’t been in recorded history.
It should also be noted that Omadd’s Machine wasn’t showing the Elder Dragons, but rather six “bodies of power” which the Elder Dragons are tied to (which, combined with Tyria, comprises The All – which is a depiction of the inner workings of the world). The exact nature of these bodies of power are unknown – some (Priory norn guy in Hidden Arcana) speculate they’re spirit realms, others (jotun) speculate they’re stars, and others say they are the Elder Dragons themselves.
2. We don’t know what all the spheres of influence are. All we know is that every Elder Dragon has two spheres of influence.
3. First off, they weren’t – only four of six Elder Dragons fell asleep in continental Tyria (Jormag fell asleep far north of it, while the DSD awoke even further away; Jormag, however, immediately marched south upon awakening and did have some champions/influence in continental Tyria before hibernating). Speculation has it that continental Tyria was the “last bastion of magic” so to speak, which drew the Elder Dragons there. The Seers supposedly took all magic in the world and put them into the Bloodstone – though the Bloodstone seems to be “invincible” to the Elder Dragons (given that none of them have interacted with any directly, despite surrounding them), they likely sensed where magic was heading.
4. It should be noted that on top of Jormag and the DSD not falling asleep in continental Tyria, Mordremoth and Zhaitan has no known interaction with the continent prior to hibernation. Orr was seemingly part of Kralkatorrik’s territory, and the only other Elder Dragon with much interaction with the races of continental Tyria was Primordus. And what influence Jormag had, is very minimal at that. There was the battle between mursaat/Forgotten and Zhaitan, but we know neither where nor when that happened, but given that said battle apparently happened before the Forgotten freed Glaust and they did so in Arah, it’s unlikely the battle was in Orr (though what’s weird is that the source of said lore says the Forgotten went to the Crystal Desert – which didn’t exist at the time, and was part of Kralkatorrik’s territory).
So while we have no direct evidence of the Elder Dragons off in other lands (beyond Jormag and the DSD), we do have indirect evidence implying Zhaitan and Mordremoth were once in other lands beyond continental Tyria.
5. They were made by the Seers. GW1’s lore is basically “false history” – think of the phrase “history is written by the victors”; well GW2 presents previously unknown history that proves what was “known history” to be false. The Six Gods did not make the Bloodstone, they merely shattered it into five imperfect pieces and sealed it again with King Doric’s blood.
6. Ley line magic is just ambient magic in the world traveling through channels. The channels themselves (‘ley lines’) are circulatory, so there’s no beginning or end. But the “blood” for them (magic), ultimately, is “any magic in the world not held by a creature or object”. Elder Dragons do contribute to it largely, but they’re not the sole source – the Bloodstones were also said to be leaking magic, for example, and becoming weaker over the centuries (this being why secondary professions were possible in GW1), so they would also contribute to the ley lines.
7. Elder Dragons are basically sponges for magic. They eat it, and it stays within them. They can exude it in corruptive form to create minions and warp landscapes, or they can merely hold it in – while they sleep (or upon death), the magic leaks out however, like a sponge sitting or being squeezed (respectively).
8. Some can, such as demons, imps, and chak, but it’s unclear if anyone can feasibly do such. Best that we know (aka in the case of chak), it requires and unusual biology to consume (and safely store) magic.
1. Yes, all sources says there are but six Elder Dragons. It should be noted that races of dragons existed at some point, though many have become extinct, and some of the Elder Dragons resemble some of these races to small extents – so it’s plausible that there could be more, just that there haven’t been in recorded history.
It should also be noted that Omadd’s Machine wasn’t showing the Elder Dragons, but rather six “bodies of power” which the Elder Dragons are tied to (which, combined with Tyria, comprises The All – which is a depiction of the inner workings of the world). The exact nature of these bodies of power are unknown – some (Priory norn guy in Hidden Arcana) speculate they’re spirit realms, others (jotun) speculate they’re stars, and others say they are the Elder Dragons themselves.
2. We don’t know what all the spheres of influence are. All we know is that every Elder Dragon has two spheres of influence.
3. First off, they weren’t – only four of six Elder Dragons fell asleep in continental Tyria (Jormag fell asleep far north of it, while the DSD awoke even further away; Jormag, however, immediately marched south upon awakening and did have some champions/influence in continental Tyria before hibernating). Speculation has it that continental Tyria was the “last bastion of magic” so to speak, which drew the Elder Dragons there. The Seers supposedly took all magic in the world and put them into the Bloodstone – though the Bloodstone seems to be “invincible” to the Elder Dragons (given that none of them have interacted with any directly, despite surrounding them), they likely sensed where magic was heading.
4. It should be noted that on top of Jormag and the DSD not falling asleep in continental Tyria, Mordremoth and Zhaitan has no known interaction with the continent prior to hibernation. Orr was seemingly part of Kralkatorrik’s territory, and the only other Elder Dragon with much interaction with the races of continental Tyria was Primordus. And what influence Jormag had, is very minimal at that. There was the battle between mursaat/Forgotten and Zhaitan, but we know neither where nor when that happened, but given that said battle apparently happened before the Forgotten freed Glaust and they did so in Arah, it’s unlikely the battle was in Orr (though what’s weird is that the source of said lore says the Forgotten went to the Crystal Desert – which didn’t exist at the time, and was part of Kralkatorrik’s territory).
So while we have no direct evidence of the Elder Dragons off in other lands (beyond Jormag and the DSD), we do have indirect evidence implying Zhaitan and Mordremoth were once in other lands beyond continental Tyria.
5. They were made by the Seers. GW1’s lore is basically “false history” – think of the phrase “history is written by the victors”; well GW2 presents previously unknown history that proves what was “known history” to be false. The Six Gods did not make the Bloodstone, they merely shattered it into five imperfect pieces and sealed it again with King Doric’s blood.
6. Ley line magic is just ambient magic in the world traveling through channels. Ultimately, it is “any magic in the world not held by a creature or object”. Elder Dragons do contribute to it largely, but they’re not the sole source – the Bloodstones were also said to be leaking magic, for example, and becoming weaker over the centuries (this being why secondary professions were possible in GW1), so they would also contribute to the ley lines.
7. Elder Dragons are basically sponges for magic. They eat it, and it stays within them. They can exude it in corruptive form to create minions and warp landscapes, or they can merely hold it in – while they sleep (or upon death), the magic leaks out however, like a sponge sitting or being squeezed (respectively).
8. Some can, such as demons, imps, and chak, but it’s unclear if anyone can feasibly do such. Best that we know (aka in the case of chak), it requires and unusual biology to consume (and safely store) magic.
Now that I have time for the full post…
1. He is outright stated to be dead by ArenaNet. You cannot get greater confirmation that Abaddon is dead than that. Therefore, Abaddon is surely dead (until ArenaNet decides to change what they said out of the game). As per “nobody can kill a God” – see my previous post. You’re stuck on the monotheistic concept of God (you even capitalized it), rather than the polytheistic concept of gods. We’ve seen/heard of gods die in GW’s setting more than once. Kormir never said that Abaddon was “absorbed” – you literally pulled that out of someone’s kitten (or rather, either you pulled it out of your own, or someone pulled it out of theirs and handed it to you). Gods can be measured in strength – after all, Abaddon is stated to have been capable of defeating two gods in a one-on-two fight, but incapable of beating all five. This means there is a limit to the strength of each god, ergo it is measurable.
2. Abaddon wanted to rule the world. This means that, in turn, he wanted to rule every nation within the world. So he would, indeed, be interested in “a small country” (also, I’d note that nothing says the Six – let alone Abaddon – was known in the whole world, and his worshipers are most definitely limited). Further, he’d have to start somewhere – Kryta, the last human nation of continental Tyria, would be a fine place to start. He was indeed sealed, and his escape attempt was Nightfall; if Lazarus were to be Abaddon, then he had escaped so I don’t see what that has to do with his interest in Kryta.
3. You quoted the GW1 PC’s journal, rather than going after the actual mission that we witness. If you “look at the actual mission”: you’ll see that Kormir very much changed. It isn’t that “she became a guardian” nor so much that “she became a god” but rather it is a case of “she merged with a god”. Two became one. And again, your “definition of a God” is monotheistic, not polytheistic.
4. You may have doubts, but it is 100% canon lore that the original Bloodstone was created thousands of years before the Six even stepped foot on Tyria (world); it’s also 100% canon that all Abaddon did to it was release magic. None of his magic was put in – instead, the other gods took some of Zhaitan’s magic into the Bloodstones. You are also taking GW1 lore that’s been proven false – that the Six Gods created Tyria – as if it were still true. Tyria existed thousands of years before the Six Gods ever knew about it let alone walked upon it.
5 (you had 6 but no 5?). You’re mixing speculation as fact, first off. We don’t know why Marjory followed “Lazarus” beyond the fact she felt a strong tie of necromancy in him. As a necromancer, it’s only natural she’d be interested in powerful necromancy. There is absolutely nothing that truly hints to Marjory wanting to resurrect her sister. I also think you give Marjory too little credit – she’s a detective and a long hater of conspiracies. If Lazarus truly is fake like Caudecus believed (note: we have enough knowledge to believe Caudecus was lied to and therefore wrong about the inability to revive), then “Lazarus” would be full out a conspiracy, something Marjory hates. And she’d be smart enough to figure it out in time.
Rather than Marjory following Lazarus, if he is a fake I think it is more likely that we’ll find that she has been imprisoned (they wouldn’t kill a major character off-screen) and replaced with a fake herself.
The problem with this, Cristalyan, is that you’re assigning an Earth meaning to a Tyrian creature. The humans may worship the Six like gods, but they aren’t necessarily gods in the sense that we know them to be.
They actually do match “an Earth meaning” of god… specifically a polytheistic god.
Why is it that people always assume the monotheistic god is the only type of god for there to be? Even in modern societies, there are even major religions that are polytheistic still being practiced (mostly eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Shinto). And that’s not to mention non-major religions out there.
In fact most religions in all of history have been polytheistic – there may have been a few others, but in large the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and their many divisions are the only monotheistic faiths in the world.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Well what we saw was The All (not the Eternal Alchemy – they’re two separate things).
But yeah, why would this be a good idea, exactly? It should be noted that not all memories go to the Dream, and traumatic experiences (such as going in that machine… especially forced into it) can lead sylvari towards the Nightmare.
Well, for me, a God is an entity existing for all the time without a point of starting (born / created / invested). If a God has a starting point (he was born / created / invested) that means he will inevitably have an ending point. And this contradicts the idea of God. A God is not mortal. So, to be a real God one of the requirements is to be eternal (no starting point / no ending).
Don’t got time to respond to full post but on this I want to say this:
You are taking the concept of a monotheistic god and utilizing it for a polytheistic setting. In almost every (if not every) polytheistic mythology, every single god has a birth, ages, and dies. Immortality is not divinity, except in the case of Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam).
We know outright that how you define a “god” is not how the game defines them. Grenth, Kormir, and yes even Abaddon all have defined beginnings. Grenth was born half-god from Dwayna; Abaddon is outright stated to have had a predecessor just as Kormir and Grenth did. To quote:
You may have wondered why I was being chased so vehemently by Abaddon’s hunters, and I believe it is as simple as this: I do not believe Abaddon to be an eternal god. There were other gods before him, before he was imprisoned here. And I believe that while the power he uses cannot be destroyed, he may be supplanted, as he supplanted his predecessor.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Apostate
So the very canon lore we have means that Abaddon is not a god by your definition – but he is very much a god in the setting of Guild Wars. But rather, they fall under similar categories of godhood as your typical polytheistic gods, which took gods to be either a mantle of power (akin to kingship but with literal universal-altering abilities added on) or as a race (with capabilities beyond mortal abilities). In Guild Wars’ case, it’s more of the former.
Will respond to your other points later.
@Amaimon: You took the situation to a completely different level while entirely ignoring my previous post. I think that means we’re done here.
@Daniel: Roaring Ethers were largely made out of stone, despite their names. Carven Effigies were basically animated sarcophagi – though they were labeled elementals by mechanic, they are in lore closer to constructs. Same with the stone guardians in Factions – mechanically elementals, but in lore they’re man-made animated constructs through and through.
I wouldn’t call those weird.
Plus, nothing ever really restricted elementals to being the four main elements of fire, earth, air, and water. After all, we had crystal, sand, and ice elementals in Prophecies. To quote the infamous Redcloak “It’s not my fault everyone else limits themselves to four elements. Some of us got passing grades in Chem.”
Well, it seems logic (at last for me) that absorbing the magic released by the Bloodstone explosion is not something a mortal can do. Even if that mortal is a Mursat. So only an entity having even greater powers than the Mursats remain. A god.
If a mortal can absorb the divine magic of a god, why couldn’t a mortal absorb the material magic of a bloodstone?
Although Menzies is a good candidate, the way the “resurrected Lazarus” appeared is not a Menzies like way of acting. He is the brother of Balthazar, and he is more involved in the war / chaos / destruction aspects. He had no involvement in the act of sealing the magic in the Bloodstones. Why to choose a resurrection way involving forces you cannot master?
To be honest, we do not know “Menzies’ way of acting”. We never saw him. Menzies might be Balthazar’s brother, but Menzies was more about dishonorable combat – treachery, tricks, and indiscriminate destruction, which rather fits the deceptive Lazarus.
A lot of details in the resurrection story points to an entity having deep knowledge about Secrets. And able to deceive everyone in order to make them to follow his plans. A very good Abaddon description.
Not really seeing that “deep knowlege about Secrets” nor do I see this as being very Abaddon-esque machinations, which are about having layers of plans on top of layers of plans, leading one failure to lead into a victory. Xanatos gambits, in other words.
And that’s not what “Lazarus” is doing.
Maybe he saw the danger the elder dragons posed and he wanted to challenge them, but the other Five were afraid of “losing their divinity” in the eyes of their worshippers if it turned out they were not, in fact, almighty deities?
But it is Abaddon who had done things which could have led to the Elder Dragons waking early (higher magic in the world).
Furthermore, evidence points to divine magic being immune to dragon corruption and consumption, so the Six Gods would have no reason to fear except for the possibility of getting beaten down with pure strength…. which is exactly what happened when they fought Abaddon. So… To prevent a situation they feared happening they made that situation a reality?
Doesn’t make much sense there. o.o
What if, after his body was destroyed in his realm of inasnity, his spirit somehow survived, but imprisoned (guess where)?
His spirit would have survived… inside of and merged with Kormir.
But I guess that’s to say his soul didn’t survive in canon lore. In the same sense, neither did Kormir’s.
Sidenote #1: Kormir absorbed the magic of Abaddon from his destroyed body. We do not, in fact know, if she absorbed Abaddon in his entirety.
Sidenote #2: Abaddon literally lacked a personality in GW: Nightfall. When we faced him, he had no voice, no personality. It would be a cop out, yeah, but Anet could actually say his soul wasn’t there.
Sidenote #3: The Forgotten are already gone for good.
On 1. We do, after all “his power, his knowledge, and his will” are all within Kormir now. His will being the key part.
If Abaddon could survive independently, then he would be a kittened (no knowledge) slave (no free will).
On 2. Abaddon’s personality was presented similarly to the Elder Dragons – through the background lore rather than upfront and personal. He did have personality, but it was kept awesome by him not opening his mouth (unlike the cool, silent video game characters who are put into shows and movies – Legend of Zelda show and Mortal Kombat movies anyone?).
However, on the cop-out part: Canon lore is that his soul was there and his body wasn’t – until Nightfall, where he began rebuilding his body from the Realm of Torment’s landscape itself (this is why he’s just a head and two arms which look nightmarish – he was literally turning the landscape into a new body).
On 3. Technically, it’s just the Forgotten in the world of Tyria that are gone. The Forgotten we saw in the Realm of Torment could still be there – or moved on to other areas of the Mists.
Though there is chance that some Forgotten remain in the world, just not in the known world.
It was a topic several days ago with trying to figure who “Lazarus” is in fact, and I quoted from it:
Konig Des Todes.2086The ritual which destroyed the bloodstone is an entirely SEPARATE event from the ritual to revive Lazarus!
This is my opinion too. And only one experiment succeeded. From Xera’s reaction: “He is almost complete. Even if I die, He will live.”, we can understand that Lazarus was not resurrected. And even if he is alive, he was too weak to absorb such an amount of magic released by the explosion.
As I was quoted, I’d like to stress that even though the rituals were separate events that doesn’t mean that Lazarus wasn’t revived, nor would it mean Lazarus was too weak to absorb the bloodstone’s magic.
So, only the entity emerged after the explosion remains. Who it is? Let’s see the facts:
1. In the first second of life he absorbed an enormous quantity of magic. He was this strong from the very beginning.
2. He states than Kryta is not interesting him and he has other higher plans. HM? Lazarus swore that Kryta will feel his revenge even after hundred of years. And now he claim he is not interested? Not very Lazarish :-)).
3. The mursats were powerful creatures, but even a full healthy Mursat is not able (in my opinion) to absorb the energy released by an exploding Bloodstone. Lazarus included.
-snip reasons why not Lazarus-
In my humble opinion this can be only Abaddon.
-snip reasons for Abaddon-
On top of what Drax said, I’d like to add that it was Jeff Grubb who stated that Abaddon is dead and never to return, but it was also Jeff Grubb who wanted Abaddon to be redeemed instead of killed. Which means even retcon is unlikely, since Jeff was – by all knowledge – the party that wanted Abaddon to remain.
As to your points about Abadodn more directly, in order:
I want to stress the bit about Kormir. At the end of Nightfall, Kormir states this about herself and Abaddon:
<Party leader>: “Kormir?”Sap is sylvari equivalent to blood (outright canon here; similarly, vines make up the muscle, leaves/vines/bark make up the skin and hair, and wood make up the skeleton). Plants do have water in them, so it would make sense that their tears are also water.
The question is more whether they’re salty or not. I’d like to imagine they’re sweet instead, since water in plants do tend to take a sweeter taste to it.
Writers can make mistakes, but so can readers. This is not a chronological error, this a eureka moment you disregarded because it seems to defy previous lore. You need proof, otherwise your dismissal is just as much an assumption as anything in this thread.
First, never claimed readers can’t make mistakes, but that writers can and that you shouldn’t accept every line as correct or a change of things just because it was written. Second, and this carries from the first, just because it’s new lore doesn’t mean it is correct. ArenaNet LOVES to play with subjective truths on top of their objective truths, which means that they’ll seed in lies or false conclusions in with the actual situations – this is not only a narrative device to create a more believable world, but gives them leeway for retcons fitting in the world itself (such as how they covered Glint’s and the Bloodstone’s origin retcons).
Daniel Handler.4816It may be unlikely that Taimi is correct, but saying Snaff was smart is not evidence.
If it were Snaff alone, I’d say it’s subject to debate, even though Snaff was the leading expert in the field being overshadowed by a teenager who, while a genius in her own right, has only began dabbling in the field. But when you add on years of study from multiple others, it becomes far more dubious. I am not saying “Snaff was smart” is evidence, I’m saying “half a dozen people who spent years studying the topic counter an inexperienced newbie” is evidence for disbelief. Ultimately, we’ll no doubt find out whether Taimi is truthful or not by the end of the Season.
—————————————-
Gonna bullet point the rest because quoting gets too long:
I think it’s a bit too farfetched to assume that matthias and caudecus were possesed by bloodstone elementals.
I never once claimed such, nor was I ever using the bloodstones in reference to the OP’s original question. I suggest you read an entire thread next time, before responding to posts.
I stated that the only case of utilizing crystals of any magical value to alter someone (and using elementals to do such – without possession – was the second question posed by the OP) would be the situations involving Matthias and Caudecus. I further stated that bloodstones have shown the capability of becoming elementals, even in singular shards. Please read my posts properly.
What this ultimately means is that the answer to OP’s second question (again: can one alter an individual by implanting an elemental inside them) would be “we only have reason to believe such would work if it’s bloodstone elementals”.
Again, I never talked about bloodstones in relation to possession.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
3 Permanence:
- according to Snaff, magic and ether are the foundations of reality, including the composition of form
- assuming the Mesmer interaction with ether is the archetype, players can sustain changes with mental concentration and magic. When either lapses reality reverts, and the only thing that remains (except kinda in time magic) are the consequences of the alteration.
- permanence is if the altered reality becomes the active reality after magic and mind are no longer being applied.
I think you’re taking the notes from Snaff greatly out of proportion and context.
Let’s look at what’s actually said:
“A Treatise on the Mental Puppeteering of Golems” by Snaff. Some scholars theorize that magic flows through all things, that we swim in magic as fish swim in water, or as we ourselves live in air. This magic is said to ebb and flow via currents called ley lines. Magic infuses everything in the world. The building blocks of reality are held together by magic. With the right connectors, manipulating magical elements with the mind becomes possible. The mind is a powerful and fragile quantity in the world equation and the Eternal Alchemy. It can move mountains, or it can be shattered like glass. My research has found a thread between magic and the mind. The two are linked. Where there is one, there must also be other. The igniter is belief.
Now, first I want to stress that Snaff is talking in the context of controlling golems via mental puppeteering.
Secondly, and more important to this topic, is that there is absolutely nothing that talks about ether being the foundation of reality. So your entire line of argument stems from nothing.
4 trapped forms
- The Rite of the Great Dwarf is temporary for Revenants, and seemingly permanent for Dwarves
- if we assume both are the same spell, then the difference between temporary and permanent is again mind and magic.
- perhaps the same can be said for corruption.
It’s not the same spell, just as Shiro legend users never use the actual Jade Wind spell. The entire theme of the Revenant is to utilize Mists energy to mimic the original hero / villain, but doesn’t produce the same exact effect. It’s aesthetically mimicking, but not fundamentally mimicking, in other words.
5 Corruption
- with the possible exception of the sanguinary blade, all the direct influencers are Elder Dragons or a member of their hive mind.
- in our reality the concentration of radiation is important
- in tyria it is the mental concentration of magic
- though the products of fission are still volatile they are not inherently corruptive
- what Kudu extracted would not have worked if he took it from corrupted land, or a Sylvari.
- the Margonites don’t convert people, Abaddon does.
- the hive mind is required for spreading corruption, but not for being corrupted.
Sanguinary Blade is not the only object that causes corruption. At the end of Ossuary of the Unquiet Dead we see urns that are spreading corruption into corpses; similarly, there’s the amulets that Necromancer Rissa created from the Dragon Crystal (crystallized corruption) which killed then corrupted the wearer, and there was the Orrian sword that Kellach had found which corrupted him as he still lived.
This shows that the Elder Dragons can create corruption that continues to spread corruption, but the things they corrupt do not necessarily corrupt other things.
I do not see where you get “mental concentration of magic” – even the bit from Snaff doesn’t really imply such.
Your line about fission and Kudu have no solid bearing. They seems to draw from Thaumanova, but you presume that Thaumanova is just a case of “add even more dragon magic!” Which isn’t true in the first place, but given the fact that Kudu had utilized Mordremoth’s dragon energy and had no source except sylvari, he very clearly did extract such from sylvari and it worked.
And nothing says the hive mind is required for spreading corruption. Sylvari are capable of “spreading corruption” in that they are utilizing plant magic, but there is no hive mind between them (and no, the Dream is not a hive mind – Killeen states such in Ghosts of Ascalon). Furthermore, we see Glint creating crystalline landscapes and “minions” in GW1, but she had been given free will so not part of the hive mind either…
All magic is dragon magic. All magic can be actively used to corrupt matter.
So you say, but you’ve yet to show any actual support for this.
@ konig
I understand the situation as it is.
- you define dragon corruption as a permanent transformation of matter via the active use of dragon energy.
- and you stress that just because something could be inactive corruption does not mean it is.
The first point is correct.
The second point is not. I am saying that there is no such thing as inactive corruption. We have never once seen any instance of inactive corruption.
If inactive corruption existed, then the magic exuded from Elder Dragons as they slept would corrupt – but we know for a fact that this is not true.
Writers are omnipotent. You can treat lore inconsistencies as crafty storytelling with misunderstood connections, or you can label them retcons. But they are not mistakes until shown otherwise. As the reader of an ongoing story you do not have the literary authority to break the fourth wall. You can say that the characters were misled.
As a writer, I can tell you that this line of argument is complete bullkitten.
Writers forget things as they make stories – the longer the story, the more elements they forget. You need to have excellent memory and a good system of notes to keep track of things for longer stories. And even then, as time goes on and you go through the plot you get more and better ideas which may not always work with old things that you’ve forgotten.
There are mistakes, never think otherwise. We’ve seen plenty of them in Season 2 alone, and some even got fixed (such as the mention of Malomedies being worried about Riannoc’s fate during The Newly Awakened, when he was well known to be dead when Malomedies had been returned by the asura who tortured him, which happened before said story instance’s flashback).
To believe that the writers never make mistakes is a full out folly of epic proportions.
The goal of this thread was not to definitively prove Taimi/Scarlet correct.The purpose was to assume they were right, and treat this like a puzzle of connecting discordant facts. Yes we could just wait for the writers. But the discussion is interesting…to some.
Rule 1 of life: Never assume when you don’t have to.
You shouldn’t just assume Taimi is correct (and it should be noted that Taimi even potentially contradicts Scarlet; at best, the two are inconsequential to each other).
First, you must determine if Taimi was correct in the first place. Else you’re putting the wagon before the horse.
But let’s say she is right, and everyone else – some of them downright geniuses who studied the field longer than Taimi could – is wrong:
2 Scarlet:
- chaos magic is a misnomer for homogenous dragon magic undergoing fusion into ley
- the released energy induces the ether around the area into the illusory equivalent of dragon corruption
- scarlet added so much the it produced a thermonucleur-esque explosion.
- when the reactor blew up the fallout contained the corruptive products of the fission reaction.
- the products had enough energy to corrupt the land but too much to not kill any possible minions
There is a reason why I put quotation marks around elemental.
As shown in the journals in Bloodstone Fen, the process Matthias underwent was basically embedding bloodstone shards in the body. Elementals are effectively highly magical elements that become sentient (but not sapient) and mobile; as seen in Arah explorable, even a shard can show sentience without becoming mobile.
So not only are bloodstone shards fully capable of becoming elementals, they can even act like psuedo-elementals when alone. So long as there is sufficient magic in the shard, (unlike the dust, bricks, and small shards we utilize throughout), they gain some form of nigh-mindless sentience.
We still do not know the full nature of the bloodstones, but they have shown to be anything but mere catalysts for magic.
The only case of an “elemental” being put inside a living being resulted in this and this pretty quickly, and that’s a case for a highly magical crystal (for those reading instead of clicking images first: bloodstone abominations).
I do not believe there is any other case of an elemental being placed inside a living being, but I’d imagine it’d just be a case of moving rocks (or w/e element) inside the body… not very pleasant or beneficial.
I suppose a power crystal of some form could be ‘implanted’ in a being to produce similar but potentially less harmful results of the bloodstone cases.
Further, excluding bloodstone elementals, the only elementals that would honestly provide a good power boost would be the “Greater Elementals” but the only interaction between such and individuals are just casters summoning a Greater Elemental – but while summoned, they’re left unable to fend for themselves (Ulgoth’s elemental hands, Iron March’s Fire Shaman’s fire elemental, Frozen Maw’s shaman’s ice elemental). They are certainly too large to be placed within a being.
It should be noted that djinn have a long history of being used to power golems – both asuran golems as well as other constructs, like the Iron Forgeman from GW1 – as have souls been. Further, souls could in theory be placed in elementals (akin to how Shiro’ken were made); this is one of the leading theories regarding the oddities that are Isgarran’s Tamed Elementals.
Rotscale was raised from the dead by the Stone Summit in the Shiverpeaks (although originally from the E3 alpha, this lore seems to have been kept by the Scribe’s lore of Rotscale saying it originated from the Shiverpeaks). It’s just a very powerful Bone Dragon that went rampant.
No more ties to Zhaitan then the other Bone Dragons.
I actually recorded his skills for the wiki yesterday. He uses thief sword skill 1 (whole chain), sword/pistol dual skill, and pistol skills 2 and 4.
No mesmer weapon skills.
His special action skill (called Filthy Peasant!) is also a mirror of Shadow Shot (dagger/pistol dual skill).
He’s a thief.
I’m not not talking about a shard, I’m talking about a full on bloodstone
A 50 meter radius giant disc with red glowing patterns and giant spires of bloodstone crystal. A grawl’s gotta be enticed by it.I disagree with that. Bloodstones may be 50 meters in diameter, but they’re embedded in the ground. Grawl are attracted to tall objects, such as the crystals in Ascalon or statues like Badazar or Chokocooka, but would look at a rock in the ground, however large intricate, and look down on it – both literally and figuratively. So if one of the bloodstones were found by grawl, I’m pretty sure they’d just move on without desire to worship it.
However, as I type this out, I realize it’d be a very skritt thing to worship a big Shiny in the ground. And I fear very much the next time we find a bloodstone that it’ll be infested by skritt.
The Bloodstones may be “embedded in the ground” but they are hardly flat or even at ground level because of such. They would not necessarily be looking down at it literally.
Besides, literally looking down doesn’t stop them from worshiping a crashed asuran satellite in a crater.
(but then why did the gods call it bloodstone before Doric’s passing)
Nothing says that they did.
They’re called bloodstones because that’s what they’re called in human history. Every case of their names – even a source acknowledging the Seers making the Bloodstone says the name came from Doric’s sacrifice, not before then.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Ghosts of Ascalon was my personal favorite. It has the best characters (nothing exceptional, but still better than the other two) and is chock-full of lore. I know some people don’t like the graceless exposition dumps, but if you think of it as much as a crash course in the GW2 setting as a novel, it holds up alright.
Edge of Destiny… honestly, it felt poorly written to me, and by an author who had a different idea of what Tyria was like than the other official sources. There’s a whole host of little things that seem inconsistent with the setting, and that trips me up even worse than the characters who don’t seem to have any clear motivations or nuances beyond the way they argue with each other. That said, those characters are very important. It’s the only novel that gets into the backstories of major NPCs, and I’ve heard some people say it’s almost required reading for the dungeon story modes.
Sea of Sorrows has the best ‘lore’, in my opinion the best writing style, and it feels the most like a story set seamlessly in Tyria, but on the other hand the main character didn’t interest me much and didn’t undergo any important character growth, and the plot itself seemed weird at points, especially towards the end. It was also less of a direct prologue to the game like the other two were, and more a ‘slice of history’ experience. I enjoyed it, but mostly because I’m already deeply invested in the lore. Your mileage may vary.
This pretty accurately sums up my opinion of the books.
Though I disagree with folks saying Edge of Destiny is “required reading” for the dungeon story modes. Sorrow’s Embrace covers everything of importance from EoD for understanding the dungeon story modes / story of Destiny’s Edge. But reading the book does give more insight into the matter.
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