Guild Wars 2

Norn can work in groups.

Just small groups. And they’d be followers of Wolf.

It isn’t like all norn would be so individualistic that they couldn’t even work with another individual for the same goal.

So… Not really sure what constitutes as a “characters” question but here goes:

1. This was asked, I saw, but I fee it needs to be emphasized. There is a personality system and there is a very miniscule usage of it in place for some very rare and often hard to spot dialogue options. Is there plans on utilizing this system some more?
2. Also asked already: Who, or what, is Bahltek? What is his story?
3. A lot of people don’t really like having their mute character. Having 10 voices per language is a lot of money and scheduling though, so it’s understandable why the player character doesn’t speak much. However, would it be possible to go into the route of having an interactive dialogue cinematic (e.g., Dragon Age: Origins)?
4. A relationships question: The story between Malchor and Dwayna is interest; especially with Grenth being Dwayna’s son. Is Malchor the father of Grenth? If so, how did he carve a statue of his son?
5. I recall before release, there were some brief mentions of a romance system to be implemented in GW2. Obviously, such never cultivated for release. Is this fully scrapped, or is it just placed on the bottom of your to-do list? Any way you can expand on how you’d do this, if it were possible?
6. A lot of the villains in GW2 are very… under developed. Not just Scarlet, who has become well developed but poorly portrayed, but many of the “racial enemy factions’ leaders” such as Gaheron Baelfire. Of the dungeon bosses, only Faolain, Caudecus, and Kudu could be considered interesting – simply because we saw the most of them, and thus the most development of them (and sans Kudu, they’re still alive and kicking). I suppose my question in this is: have you taken notes on how the playerbase reacted to these “enemies” (and Scarlet) to help improve the presentation and personality of future villains?
7. Back to Gaheron for a second – we see his spirit in the Citadel of Flame explorable mode… perhaps there’s a chance of his return? He was built up a lot and is still seemingly worshiped by Flame Legion (the Molten Alliance making reference to a “Baelfire ritual”), it seems rather poor to let him die so simply, especially since his fight was rather sub-par.
8. Tequatl. Tequatl, Teakettle, Tequilla. This monstrosity had recently received a power boost – even in the world’s story, though next to nothing was developed for this. Will we return to him and expand upon him?
9. Zhaitan was rather disappointing – obviously in the fight, but also in how he’s always a behind-the-curtains figure that ends up having a spotlight of five minutes. I recall hearing that there’s wantings to return to this fight and improve it. If this is so, is there any intention to improve upon his character and presentation?
10. Last question. There are subtle hints that the Elder Dragons have personality – the personal story says Zhaitan’s intelligent; we go into Kralkatorrik’s mind during Edge of Destiny; and a lot of the various dragon minions give unique insights of the mentality enforced upon them after being corrupted. Do the Elder Dragons have unique personalities that make them more than “rawr, destroy, consume, destroy!” creatures of the apocalypse? If so, can they be reasoned with?

But it is real.

It just isn’t in Tyria.

The Mists is a combination of many things; the building blocks of reality, the afterlives, holder of pocket dimensions, a thing that connects all times and all places together. The Mists is all of that, and it is certainly real in the GWverse. No dream or the like. What happen in the Mists, truly does happen.

The thing I was saying about “not canon” is the mechanics. ArenaNet goes out of their way to ensure mechanics and lore don’t clash, sometimes ridiculously so, but there are many times – primarily in PvP formats (including WvW) – where the mechanics and the lore don’t match up. In these cases, what’s created by these mechanics is not canon lore.

The Mist War is real, and by all indication it is NOT an “echo from an old war” but a very modern war – otherwise it wouldn’t be called the Mist War (but rather whatever war it’s duplicating), and it wouldn’t be a threat to Tyria (as duplicated pocket dimensions or whatever you wish to call them are isolated to themselves, seemingly unable to leave if you’re from there – see Dessa during Fractured!).

Zhaitan’s actually pretty large himself. Size comparison to his dragon-shaped champions. And we know how huge those things are – we are barely the size of their fingers! And they’re barely the size of its second biggest arm.

Keep in mind that 1) we only see him from a distance, unlike the fang (and who knows, maybe Jormag’s just bucktoothed ) and Kralkatorrik’s back, and we see him while on a ship that’s easily twice the size of all other airships if not far more, and thanks to how the cinematic pans, his size is more compared to the largest airship than to anything else; 2) Kralkatorrik’s back may be huge, but GW1 and GW2’s scaling is different, plus that’s likely the entirety of his back and probably part of the tail and neck as well; 3) Zhaitan’s bigger than the Primordus model

Rikimaru.7890:

Yet no one seemed to take me seriously when I said that 2 months ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/lwd/I-think-I-know-what-Scarlet-is-after/first#post3301355

I guess “no one” includes the hundreds of people on the lore forum, reddit, and I’m sure the living world forums, let alone the other GW2 forums. Just because you didn’t see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Because it did.

Also, bragging rights? Don’t exist on the internet.

@Zaxares: That’s exactly why I jokingly said Saladtosser. Scarletslayer would be far more likely, if it gets changed.

Who knows, maybe for once it will be the PC taking recognition for a non-negative action than some NPC who stood nearby and “helped.”

Heh, right.

Braham Saladtosser

Obviously. Cuz he’s going to toss Scarlet down her drill. Vadar style.

Syryn.7591:

There is a Sylvari you meet during one of the personal storylines of the Sylvari playable character that goes by the name of Malyk. He is a Sylvari that is from another tree and knows nothing of The Dream or The Nightmare Court, and to put it short, he’s a happy medium between the two, seeming to have an affinity for both good things and greyer things. Most importantly however, he disproves the theory that the Pale Tree was meant to be an elder dragon minion and was “freed” or “purified” by Ventari’s Tablet, because his tree has no tablet and is apparently not breeding dragon minions.

Thank you for pointing that out before I could.

Malyk disproves the whole “the Pale Tree was purified” idea, otherwise he would be a fanatic dragon minion.

Evans.6347:

So I would like to say too. Syryn. However, if, and a surely hope not, but if Mordremoth is behind Scarlet’s actions then we need to look at the warning the Pale Tree gave her in that light too.

That warning being “In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them.”

…please let it not be so.

And what does “us” refer to?

Sylvari? Tyrians? Sentient plants? Plants? All life as we know it? Non-natural (aka magical) entities? Beings tied to the Dream?

It’s a very vague line with no real meaning behind it alone. As far as we know, Scarlet’s after the ley lines – or intends to use the ley lines for her ultimate goal.

The “forces” – note the plural – that shape “us” could mean a lot of things. Magic, evolution, Tyria, the Elder Dragons on a whole, the gods (if the theory that Melandru made the sylvari holds true), the Mists.

Even if Mordremoth is the influencing entity, that doesn’t mean it is one of the forces that “shape us” – it just means that Mordremoth is somehow using the same thing that Scarlet looked into. If the theory that the Nightmare is caused by the Elder Dragon(s) holds true, then all it really definitively points out is that Mordremoth (or another Elder Dragon, such as Zhaitan given the origins of Faolain falling to Nightmare) holds some tie to the Dream of Dreams like the Pale Tree does – something unique to the Pale Tree compared to other sylvari (see: Malyck) by all indications but not something unique to the Pale Tree on a whole (see: White Stag).

The line is too vague to pull anything definitive until we know 1) what it was that Scarlet saw, and 2) what the entity is. Until we know both we don’t have a strong argument for anything because, even if we know just one, the possibilities are too great.

And even if we do learn both, the possibilities will still be great for what the Pale Tree meant.

Terry Bogard.6950:

I think it’s interesting that the Maguuma Jungle in GW1 had several dead giant trees. Some of which are surrounded by giant thorny dead brambles. Ventari made his refuge under one of them.

They weren’t dead. They’re called Stonewood trees, and though they lack leaves, the lore of the Maguuma Jungle would put them as having their roots burrow into the Maguuma’s water table.

Darkbattlemage.9612:

Is it possible that one was at Cantha and became petrified? I remember the cinematic for Factions showing some of the trees to be exceptionally large, some were carved into housing. Could it be they were once Sylvari Trees that had yet grown to the state of their cycle they produced Sylvari?

Exceptionally large trees are NOT a unique thing in the GWverse. The Echovald Forest was full of them – practically every aged tree was roughly the size of the Pale Tree, if not bigger. There’s also the aforementioned Stonewood trees of the Maguuma, and then there’s some large trees known to centaurs as “Ancestor Trees” in Kourna.

Even then, the petrification was only 200 years prior to Factions, but the Echovald Forest was around for well over a thousand years long.

Sylvari may be a plant, but not all plants are sylvari.

No one’s argued that plants cannot be corrupted. However, it is a stated known fact that sylvari cannot be corrupted by Elder Dragons – or at least the four most active ones.

Though I don’t get your point with the second post, aside from a rather un-funny joke.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

.
(@Aaron, they actually met in 1319 (the year Destiny’s Edge was formed), not 1320 AE)

I said 1319 or 1320- I didn’t have the book on me- but either way you’d still have to account for pregnancy taking most of a year.

Hah. Seems I overlooked the “1319 or” – happens to me… increasingly frequently I think…

Kasmeer is from a low ranking nobility. Although we don’t know who her mother is, we know the rest of her family (indirectly) – her father and her brother. All of her family’s wealth was taken. Do you really think that Jennah – age issues aside – would let something slide to her “daughter”?

Keep in mind that Jennah’s likely in her mid or late 20s – early 30s at the oldest. And Kasmeer sounds to be late teens or early twenties. Jennah would have had to have had Kasmeer when she was very young.

Cue “Pregnant at 16, Tyria edition”…

Anyways, the connection is that Logan knows Kasmeer’s family – as shown indirectly when Marjory was introduced, in the cinematic for Dragon Bash. A later interview expanded on this since it was asked, explaining Logan’s shock at seeing Kasmeer – a noble – in the Dead End – which is poor and dangerous area (ironic that the heaviest they serve is… milk!).

And another reason the “Kasmeer is the love child of Logan and Jennah” fails – aside that such a situation would require Kasmeer to be no older than 8 at most (@Aaron, they actually met in 1319 (the year Destiny’s Edge was formed), not 1320 AE) which makes Marjory a pedophile – would be that it’s a stated fact that Logan and Jennah, though they love each other, are unable to be with each other due to the scrupilous eyes of the Ministry and how they’d use Jennah dating a “commoner” (even a hero and captain of the Seraph) against her. They cannot even hold hands in public.

“Jennah took the throne as a very young woman. When her father died, she was the only heir. For the few years it took her to settle in, the Ministry had control. It was difficult to convince them to give it up again.”

Logan sayeth this during Liberation (Dead Sister storyline).

She took the throne when her father died, but could not control the kingdom fully due to inexperience – the Ministry took over what she was unable to do. She could have been put on the throne at 12 for all we know, though I think 14-16 is more likely, putting her in her mid twenties.

Any “coming of age” is irrelevant in the matter of Jennah being crowned (though it should be noted that with how much historical references Anet does, having a more historical coming of age rather than modern times’ age for such is more likely, which would put it closer to 14 I believe).

Childhood can easily count until the coming of age in a culture, however, and having a cat “since [she] was a child” could easily mean she got that cat when she was 12 or something.

They call them “Cannon Fodder 1” “Cannon Fodder 2” “Cannon Fodder 3” etc. All on Scarlet’s orders, because they know and she knows that’s what they are – cannon fodder for the players.

To be serious though, no indication that they’re named. They may be, given that even if built to the same specifications (I’m looking at you Aaron) they’d still be given different names if for no other reason than ranking and division of which ship each person goes to work on.

If they are named, we may not see such because the Aetherblades never talk about, well, much at all honestly. I think Mai and Horrik were the only talking Aetherblades – aside from those in Twilight Arbor.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Well the Risen have the Ash Horizon… but did they actually call their ship that, or did we? Do any of the Risen refer to their ship by name in any of the dialogues? I can’t remember.

Most of the Risen ships seem to be using their pre-Risen names. See Sea of Sorrows (Indomitable, The Harbinger, etc). Others seem to be named by others as Aaron pointed out with The Blight.

FlamingFoxx, during the livestream recap of the Living World, Angel McCoy first let the nickname “biconics” slip. After that, she explained the internal nickname we were never meant to hear – and how they came to be, stating that the voice actors used for Destiny’s Edge are hard to schedule.

Tis not a money issue, but a time and availability issue.

webtoehobbit.4201:

I wish that ANet would just come out and say, “Hey, we can’t really get these top notch voice actors that we got to voice Destiny’s Edge back to do voice acting for every Living World update.”

That would be the best answer they can give, instead of these, as Aaron said, mixed messages.

That or ANet needs to release an official timeline, like what they did for what happened in between GW1 and GW2.

Uh, they actually have said that they can’t get the voice actors regularly – especially Felicia Day – and that is why they created the “biconics” in the first place. But that’s irrelevant to the timeline.

What ArenaNet’s “official stance” is about the Living World ever since Flame and Frost is that it happens “when players experience it” which is a real clusterkitten explanation as it basically means, for person A, Zhaitan lives; for person B, Zhaitan’s defeated – at the same time.

And the fact of the matter is that they’re doing it this way to avoid spoilers – another moot point, honestly, given the fact that since Dragon Bash, the existence of the Pact was more or less mandatory because the behind-the-scenes lore on the Aetherblade’s airships is that they were (originally) stolen from the Pact and modified by the Inquest (after the first few, though, they’ve been making their own in places like Twilight Arbor). Tequatl Rising outright mentions the Pact to everyone even if they didn’t reach Retribution or Forging the Pact yet.

And honestly (again), nowadays only those who either don’t feel like doing the personal story or are new players who don’t even know wtf is going on with the living story have not beaten Zhaitan (or those who cannot get four other places to beat him once reaching Victory or Death).

Back during The Lost Shores, however, Matthew Medina has stated that it happened post-Zhaitan’s defeat. Flame and Frost as well as Tequatl Rising (and obviously Secret of Southsun/Last Stand at Southsun and the follow ups of Dragon Bash, Sky Pirates, Bazaar of the Four Winds, Cutthroat Politics, and now Edge of the Mists) are all stated to be post-Southsun’s discovery. Which would mean that, at least before Flame and Frost, it was intended for the updates to be post-Zhaitan. Why they changed it, I don’t know. Likely, again, for spoiler reasons which just makes a nice big ol’ clusterkitten of the timeline. Especially with Twilight Assault which should, outside of ArenaNet’s “it happens when the players experience it” line, happen after the original Twilight Arbor explorable.

draxynnic.3719:

and so on until there were no loving krait left.

I don’t think that’d take very long.

Krait aren’t really known for being loving.

Funny typo considering the upcoming holiday, btw.

cheshirefox.7026:

where the k i t t e n has the pact been through scarlet’s impending apocalypse

To quote Smodur the Unflinching during Flame and Frost:

“What’s a commander of the Pact doing here? I thought you had dragons to fight.”

The Pact seems primarily – if not solely – designed to combat the Elder Dragons. All other threats are to be done by non-Pact groups. Such as the Priory, Vigil, Order of Whispers, Seraph, Lionguard, High Legions, Wolfborn, Wardens, Peacemakers, and your standard adventurer.

The Pact having no matter in this actually makes sense. Except for Tequatl Rising. But that’s likely done due to spoiler reasons.

As for what they’re doing? There was an interview with Scott and Angel about Scarlet, and the Pact got brought up. They’ve been recovering their losses, continuing the fight against remnant risen, and preparing their next Elder Dragon assault (including deciding whom to go after).

Everything of the Mists is cannon.

The issue is where you split mechanics from lore. Most of WvW and sPvP are poorly explained in lore because it’s made to be a “go in and fight people.” Anet gives lore for it, but they don’t give much. And from this you have the mechanics of not-dying and how each server is basically the same.

Lore-wise, we don’t know what the enemies in World versus World are. Just that Tyrians consider them evil and ruthless. In lore, people don’t always come back from the Mist War.

The land of World Versus World is basically a huge Fractal. A Fractal by definition is a land of reality within the Mists – a “chunk of reality” to use Jeff Grubbs words on what forms in the Mists, which copies off of other things. The three borderlands are the copies of the same place(s); while Eternal Battleground and Edge of the Mists are something else. The sPvP maps (and Fractals of the Mists maps) are the same – copies of historical, present, or future locations.

Fractals are known to “reset” periodically – this is why Dessa needs the ones she studies to be restabilized; said stabilization is the act of killing hostile creatures in the fractals. One can thus explain how PvP/WvW maps reset to be the same thing.

There’s a good bit of lore behind each map, sans the original WvW maps. Though even then you can pick out some interesting aesthetics.

I think all those risen krait count as a “horde”. I don’t think the waters brought them back “instantly” and one can argue that Nimfassa became a champion given her intelligence level (the higher ranked the minion, the smarter it is – Nimfassa could more or less be on par to those directly under champions – comparing to Sea of Sorrows SPOILERS, she’d be on par to the first mate and norn brother who’s names I don’t recall atm).

I don’t think that this specific corruption threatened the krait. Rather, I think it’s more of a general “the Blue Orb prevented any kind of (Zhaitan’s) corruption and made existing risen a bit weaker.” The removal just allowed the risen and by extension corruption to invade.

ElysianEternity.6215:

Maybe I’m forgetting something completely obvious because it’s late, but atm I can’t recall any other Risen who created more Risen passively by just existing and being a source of dragon corruption.

Read Edge of Destiny and Sea of Sorrows. Or re-read them. People who fall in battle amongst a horde of risen – or near a champion – are turned into risen almost instantly. Said instant change goes away with the champion’s death.

There’s also the vases infused with Zhaitan’s power in Ossuary of the Unquiet Dead, but I’d classify that as something different.

Morrigan.2809:

Lord Faren is a Warrior :p

I’m 90% sure I saw him using mesmer skills – no illusions though – during the duel in the Trial of Zamon.

Certainly wields his sword like a mesmer.

Unless they changed it between BWE and release. Because looking at the PS story step on the wiki… Minister Guard Reth I’m pretty sure had a staff with guardian skills. You had choices of two mesmers and two guardians as your seconds initially. I’m pretty sure…

perilisk.1874:

It isn’t something that is shown in-game, but they seem to be fairly Protean in nature, mainly reflecting whatever bits of thought and emotion they were born from (since we’ve mostly encountered torment demons so far, aside from the oni, they’ve all been quite nasty). It’s not too much of a stretch to think that if their personalities were somehow changed, their forms might change to reflect it, as the very end of this passage suggests:

There’s a very big difference between “made reflecting what thought/emotion/somesuch they were born from” and “their appearance changes, after their birth, based on their psychological mentality.”

You forgot two demon types well encountered: Imps and dryders.

Torment demons appear to be incomplete copies of animals in which their insides and outsides are more or less switched. If you observe torment demons well enough, you’ll see that they appear to lack skin – bones and muscle are on the outside, exposed. Most torment demons anyways. You also see that those met in GW1 are born from the Stygian Veil – which is part of the land of the Realm of Torment itself, thus they are born from the flesh-like lands within the Mists.

Imps are rather draconian in appearance (at least in GW2) and are attuned to a specific element (thus seen: fire, shadow, and ice) – this attunement is determined by the magic they consume rather than the element they live in.

Dryders are spider-like and their appearance does seem somewhat reflected by their environment (though this may be more of a design choice than lore one).

perilisk.1874:

Well, strictly speaking, Razah isn’t a demon (but the distinction seems to be more about whether they’re evil than a difference in kind), he’s a… whatever the superclass is of things born from the mists. Is there an actual lore term, or do we stick with mistborn?

Technically, he is a demon. Demons in GWverse is defined as – how you put it earlier – “mistborn” or simply “born from the Mists.” What Razah isn’t, is demonic – which is to be like a demon. That is to say, he isn’t so hellbent on causing anarchy and chaos or consuming life (which is what most demons are about).

perilisk.1874:

But regardless, remove the Pale Tree and the pods from the equation, and that passage could easily describe a newborn Sylvari (including their capability to become twisted to the cause of Nightmare). And a key part of Sylvari lore is Ventari and Ronan, and the template they provided for the Pale Tree and her children, suggesting that the Sylvari might have turned out very differently were it not for their influence. Some people have taken that to mean they were intended to be dragon minions, but dragon minions don’t have free will, and couldn’t change even if they wanted without the use of powerful magic such as the ritual used on Glint. A positive influence would, however, mean a great deal if they were mistborn.

This doesn’t change the fact that they are not “mistborn.” They are not born from nor within the Mists.

And “take out the Pale Tree and pods from the equation”? Alright. Take out mothers and pregnancy from the equation of human reproduction. If you still get something being born, then it’d be getting made by the Mists by GWverse standards, more likely than not, thus be like Razah just infantile.

To just exclude cold hard facts to make your argument is something akin to what Fox News does. Produce biased results, sometimes outright lies. It is a very poor argument against anyone with a brain – and rather insulting to do, truth be told, since there’s a heavily implied “I think you’re too stupid to catch this” clause.

perilisk.1874:

Anyway, we don’t really know the relationship of Sylari minds and bodies.

Nor do we even know if sylvari have souls – given that we’ve never seen such. Nor do we know that the Dream is truly part of the Mists, which your entire argument hinges upon.

I’d go with what Aaron says. If we ever get Cantha or Elona – something that looks eternally more distant as we go on, to me – then we can expect a lot more items from those places.

I’m not seeing her trying to improve existing races either.

What I see is her exploiting groups and races that can provide things she can use, to obtain the things she can use.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Problem with your explanation:

Marjory “met” E before she met Kasmeer.

Kasmeer and Marjory met after Marjory had become a PI, which was after she quite the Ministry, which was just after the short story’s events.

That would still contradict the character of Kasmeer, and it would contradict the player’s interactions with Kasmeer and Marjory later on, would it not?

It wouldn’t contradict the character of Kasmeer. The timeline would thus be:

1. Kasmeer puts knife to Marjory
2. Kasmeer “meets” Marjory for the “first time” and is hired.
3. Kasmeer and Marjory fall for each other.

You said it couldn’t be Kasmeer because Kasmeer wouldn’t put a knife to the throat of someone she loved. But the argument fails because the knife act was before Kasmeer could fall for Marjory. IF Kasmeer truly loves Marjory. Remember, she’s a mesmer. She knows how to fake. So she is not ruled out just yet. Though I doubt it, but it is possible.

My guesses in most likely to least likely:

• Faren (he’s a mesmer, he’s interested in DR politics, is a general good-doer and is actually quite suave despite acting the fool 95% of the time; though the interest in LA is what downs him)
• Edair (he knew Livia, him extending his life is not out of the question, and his utter failure of a destroyed naval fleet would probably kick him from being crowned truth be told; he always had an interest in Lion’s Arch and Kryta in general, and his promise to Cobiah may make him, if at all honorable, wanting to keep LA safe on top of DR/Kryta).
• Herald (because it’d be an awesome way for Anet to tie the guy into our story, and they introduce themselves the exact same way – anyone notice that? First sentences in first letters: We have not met, but I have long been a follower of your exploits. – Herald; You may not know me, but I know you. – E)
• Someone new (because if those three don’t fit, I don’t really seeing much of anyone we know somewhat about fitting)

DarcShriek.5829:

This is what has always bothered me about the sylvari and what I think is a strong point for the dragon minion speculation. There is just no historical mention of them. The seed that the pale tree grew from had to be left behind by something. Because the seeds were guarded, that would mean the seeds had value to someone or something. I would have to think that if the sylvari fought against the dragons, then tales of intelligent plant creatures would most likely exist. But there are none.

However, if the sylvari were dragon minions, then it is quite possible that there would be no mention of them in the historical records, as the historical records do not seem to discuss the details of the dragon minions. I think the lack of records from the past give some creedence to the dragon minion speculation.

There were dozens of mobile plants in GW1, and in fact when the sylvari were first seen they were thought to be a new breed of such mobile non-sapient plants. Naturally, this was proven wrong after Malomedies was experimented on.

There’s nothing to prevent the sylvari from being a new evolutionary pattern, advanced by magic, of these mobile non-sapient plants from old (that happen to be completely gone in GW2 for unknown reasons).

Wasn’t disagreeing on that part, just the “no reason for Asagai to be dead now” which Aaron said earlier.

They used it for more than Canach – they had it show with Scarlet too in the short story.

But they state that it’s a long-lasting or drastic psychological change. Still, their bodies don’t change to torture or going insane itself, though it certainly could (my mind slipped on remembering that). Still wasn’t corruption though, like it was claimed.

I took your mention of “monuments” as the citadels since those are usually the “jotun monuments”. But I digress. There were also the jotun runestones (which we deal with in a Wayfarer heart).

As for the forgotten – I wasn’t suggesting they had forgotten (ba dum tsh), but rather that, well, we don’t have any of their records (even though the Durmand Priory has been to the Crystal Desert), they’re gone, they were widespread, and that they didn’t share any information with others about their past.

I don’t think the tengu were in Tyria during the previous dragon rise, and that’s why the jotun don’t have records of their survival (or there were some in Tyria, but they were wiped out).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It can’t be Kasmeer, because you don’t hold a knife against the throat of the woman you love, just to keep up appearances. Plus, she’d be recognized instantly. Even though she is a mesmer, and could masquerade her appearance, holding a knife at Marjory’s throat just isn’t something she would do.

Problem with your explanation:

Marjory “met” E before she met Kasmeer.

Kasmeer and Marjory met after Marjory had become a PI, which was after she quite the Ministry, which was just after the short story’s events.

@AsgarZigel.4530: I wasn’t trying to say that the Elder Dragons are of this supposed ancient draconic race, actually. Though I’ve seen such a theory before, I do not agree with it. Zhaitan appears too non-draconic, like he’s just trying to mimic a dragon. I think that the “Elder Dragons” are merely draconic, not dragons – that is, they look like dragons, but aren’t.

My main hypothesis (I say so because I have yet to delve fully into the possibility) would be that they’re demons. The Mists is known for creating imperfect creatures that relish destruction (“demons” are beings made from the Mists; many demons are rather destructive, and seek out living; some demons are known for devouring souls, while others like imps are known for consuming magic). Demons made by the Mists, in imperfect copying of dragons.

@Darkbattlemage.9612: The Elder Dragons actually have shown just about no capability of accessing the Mists. Jormag can access the Mists, by all indications, solely through the Sons of Svanir. Zhaitan was capable of pulling a soul (or many) from the Mists, but this may not be Zhaitan himself doing it, but one of his minions much like Jormag.

Still, nothing seems to show any natural tie between dragon and god – direct or indirect. There is the tie that the Six Gods, unknowingly, pulled magic from Zhaitan; and there’s the tie of the Six Gods knowing and working with the Forgotten (and supposedly Glint). But that’s not a natural tie – not one of shared origins or the like.

zamalek.2154:

A less interesting answer would be the Gods kept reseeding life and the records of their actions never survived to recent history.

Seems unlikely, since we have developer statements that the Six Gods are only “a little bit” older than the Six Gods (at least on Tyria).

zamalek.2154:

My poor, but interesting, attempt to answer that would be: dragon minions. I’m too tired to try and determine if none of the native sentient races fit the bill; but, isn’t it strange how most of the sentient races (especially the more primitive ones) tend to a specific element (if not magical, the element itself). I’ll list off a few strong candidates:

-snip race lists-

I’m really taking liberty with some of those, so this is likely a bad theory – but still worth sharing.

Some races may be mixes of the dragon elements. I’m going to ruin a thread with mentioning a certain name – maybe Scarlet’s experiments were centered around mixing these primal elements? Given her involvement with the Inquest – maybe a more dilute (but therefore more controllable) version of Subject Alpha?

That seems… extremely unlikely if I’m understanding you correctly. Dragon minions are fanatic in their very nature. You’re suggesting that, at the core, all native life on Tyria are dragon minions? The issue is that dragon minions 1) cannot reproduce and 2) are made of elements. There’d be no flesh and blood (except rotting flesh and putrid blood) in dragon minions.

@Stooperdale.3560: Well the lore of the Elder Dragons claim that they have “always been there” (on Tyria). It would be reason to believe that like their minions, Elder Dragons cannot reproduce – otherwise, why would Glint be a corrupted other-creature, and the other dragon-shaped Elder Dragons be considered minions? Alternatively, why wouldn’t we see these youngling Elder Dragons?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cathedral_of_Silence_%28story%29

Any race can see it.

The Seventh Reaper: The keeper of this shrine has fallen to Zhaitan. Grenth wishes him returned, but I am too weak to perform the task. Destroy the keeper, and I will aswer your questions.
[…]
Avatar of Grenth: Destroy the corruption. Return the soul of the keeper. Go.

There’s nothing to suggest the Elder Dragons’ origins are in any way shape or form related to any deity – Six Gods or otherwise.

That is nowhere near the direction I was trying to go.

Besides, we know that Grenth and Zhaitan are enemies from the personal story. And we know that the Six Gods aren’t even related to Tyria’s distant past. They first walked the world after the last dragon rise (or arguably, during, depending on if you believe the Priory or the other evidence).

Kralkatorrik and Jormag don’t fit either, unless you’re of the party that takes Jormag from Jörmungandr. And I Haven’t seen anything for Mordremoth.

Only Tequatl and Zhaitan really come from somewhere – and as mentioned, arguably Jormag and Primordus as alterations of.

On the notion of Zhaitan’s champions being named from Orrians… Blightghast may work, given all the undead names in both GW1 and GW2 for Orrians. Though that may just be more of a modern renaming, however silly it may be, as it’s hard to see a “Vizier Ghil Ironghoul” or “Thadeus Ghostrite” (the latter supposedly being the same person as Thadeus Lamount) as an actual Orrian name.

SunRoamer.5103:

While I think that dragon theory is really interesting, the bolded part contradicts that idea (IMO of course).

That dark, dragon dominated world she mentions, was “that time”. And forever after, she feared that her old master would awaken.
We know that she was freed by the Forgotten during the last dragon rise. Before that, she would not have feared, but rather welcomed Kralkatorrik’s awakening.

Which I think strongly suggests that “that time” she talks about was in fact the last dragon rise.

I interpreted it differently. I interpret “that time” not referring to the dark “dragon-dominated world”, but rather from the “a bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts” time.

That would thus fit into the theory: at first there were dragons, then the Elder Dragons came and twisted the dragon-dominated world into one of darkness and consumed everything there was, then fell to sleep sated. In time, new races came and dominated the world, unknowing of the Elder Dragons, who eventually rose again to consume. And it was from that latter time that Glint protected Kralkatorrik as he slept, until the Forgotten freed her and, in time, she grew to fear him.

And on a side thought: do we know that the Forgotten performed the ritual during the last dragon rise… and not before Kralkatorrik rose back then?

SunRoamer.5103:

Your main argument is that she said that nothing was left, and that we know that this is not true. But I mean, had the dragons truly consumed “EVERYTHING” during that first, primordial rise, Tyria couldn’t possibly have a biodiversity as rich as it is now (unless all living beings have, at some point or another, come from an alien world; or evolution from microorganism to proper species is pretty pretty fast in Tyria; or the Elder Dragons have been rising for billions of years which would have allowed new creatures to evolve after that initial tabula rasa).

“Before there were humans or dwarves, before there were even worlds or the stars that light the night sky, there was but one thing in the universe—the Mists. The Mists touch all things. They are what binds the universe together, past, present, and future. They are the source of all good and evil, of all matter and knowledge. It is said that all forms of life, no matter how simple or complex, can trace their origins back to this one place.”

Prophecies manual. All things eventually come from the Mists. With the Mists overlapping the world itself in various places (be it things like as seen in the Protect the Mists norn storyline, where we enter the Mists from Snow Leopard’s Wayfarer Foothills shrine and again in the Great Lodge, resulting in just a spiritual copy of both places; or things like Godslost Swamp, the stone circle in Varajar Fells (in GW1), or Reaper’s Gate), is it so hard to believe that the Mists couldn’t create brand new life on a desolate world?

Furthermore, the jotun place the cyclic nature of the Elder Dragons in their creation myths with known mentions of multiple risings (see Scholar Caterin ), an odd place to put them if the world wasn’t fully or near fully ravaged at least during one rise.

SunRoamer.5103:

Eating everything doesn’t mean that only nothing can be left.

And that’s not really what I meant. But it certainly would mean that almost everything that’s edible would be. But the Bloodstone was made with almost all of the world’s magic – specifically everything that was not corrupted by the Elder Dragons already. That’s like eating a meal of a salad and steak, leaving the steak alone and saying you ate everything.

SunRoamer.5103:

I mean seriously, how would this sound otherwise?
Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat – apart from these races that I hid, and that other race that hid themselves, and then there were some guys who simply managed to avoid them and yeah well anyway, ahem, gotta get back in my dragon voice – , and then fell, sated.

Arguably, they are writers, so they should be able to make it work where I can’t be bothered, but still… It just doesn’t seem necessary.

Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until they saw nothing left to eat, and then fell, waiting for life to begin anew so they may rise once more.

Not very hard to do. And certainly not so obviously biased and silly as your example.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Another interesting bit- Genzhou also says “My people remember things that too many others have forgotten.” That implies that not only were the tengu around for the last dragon rise, but were in contact with multiple other races that had lost that portion of their history. I suspect dwarves may have been one of them, but I’m curious what my fellow forum-goers think may be the others.

Dwarves and Forgotten is my thought.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Not necessarily. If the five races even come from a jotun source, and I can’t recall any NPC ever saying that, those would still just be the five that could be gleaned from studying decaying and long-abandoned jotun monoliths. It could well be that the jotun knew of more survivors and simply didn’t feel they warranted inclusion on their monuments, or that they were included and that particular bit of stonework crumbled in the thousands of intervening years. A small point, but it means we can’t rule out other races that potentially came into contact with the jotun.

The information the Priory has all comes from two sources in regard to the previous dragon awakening: dwarven texts which got heavily altered and rewritten thus are unreliable (such as the Tome of Rubicon), and jotun stelae (not their monuments) which is where most of their information seems to come from – and would likely be more accurate, given the fact of the jotun fall thus they wouldn’t know to alter the writings. With the large number of jotun stelae they have and the multitude references of five surviving races, it seems unlikely that in all the mentions, the jotun did not include others.

Tamias.7059:

It could be that she’s referring to magic, maybe? The dragons aren’t motivated to consume flesh, but rather the magic that is imbued within every individual. Maybe she’s saying that the dragons consumed until there was nothing left from their point of view, i.e. everything that wasn’t hidden by Glint or sealed within the Bloodstone. Admittedly this doesn’t line up exactly with the wording of her dialogue, but it could have been written before the writers had the nature of the Elder Dragons nailed down, or it could be that two writers had slightly different ideas of how they worked. It’s annoying to have to try to account for this, I know, but it just seems doubtful to me that they’d be dropping hints about the rise before the last, given that we have so little information from the last rise.

That seems unlikely because J. King had access to the constantly updated “internal wiki” of ArenaNet, and the case of Elder Dragons consuming in non-traditional senses was presented around or before the time of the novel’s release, though the magic bit was unknown still.

And it seems unlikely that Glint would speak as if they consumed the entire world, rather than the world as they saw it and happened to miss this huge buffet for them.

Tamias.7059:

The only trouble then is explaining why the Elder Dragons are draconic as well, and for an answer to that I suspect we’d have to be looking back to the earliest days of Tyria, to the time of the Colossus. But as you say, maybe that’s for another thread.

I was going to go into this but I figured it would take the topic too off track so I left it with “This may even give a hint to the nature of the Elder Dragons themselves, but that is a theory for another time.” I also want to research a bit more before entering this realm after so long, which I’ll do after I return home tomorrow and be able to actually handle GW2 for longer than 30-ish minutes.

But the short of it: I think the Elder Dragons’ appearance is based from this ancient race of dragons. It could go multiple ways, really, for why this is so but that’s the end outcome of the theory: that the Elder Dragons’ own bodies are copies of this ‘first race of Tyria’ that were dragons.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

As an aside, Konig, I went out and found that norn you mentioned- Thyrie Bylund, a Durmand Priory scholar down at Might and Main. It was four years, not five, but curiously she only mentions that part to non-Priory, which may account for your trouble finding her.

Much appreciated. Though I looked through Might and Main the other day seeking this fella out, on my Vigil norn, with no luck. Odd.

Silavor.6257:

The Destroyer of Deeds kind of reminds me of a wood louse. Maybe there were once other crustacean-like relatives of the karka, and not all of them were durable enough to survive?

This reminded me of the Leviathan Claw from the Jade Sea. Same general shape.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Darkbattlemage.9612:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I hope it was just some sort of large insect native to the Depths, but then I just really want an insectoid race.

Well from the original game’s gw.dat there were mention of Arachnia who was one of the gods of an insectoid race, perhaps they will build upon that hook and develop a full race of insectoid creatures.

Which has always amused me, seeing as arachnids are not insectoid. Are they saying spiders are superior to insects? That would explain a lot…

I’d like to see something along the lines of Apocrita, but alas, ANet’s stance is “it’s been done”.

Arachnia was a “spider-god” and not directly linked to the “gods of insectoid beings” that is talked about via the Harvestman’s Lair. The two may not necessarily be the same.

Because The Shatterer, Claw of Jormag, Dragonspawn, Glint/Glaust, and Blightghast are names taken from old languages.

Makes perfect sense.

perilisk.1874:

I think I was unclear. They don’t go insane from corruption, but they can go insane (e.g. from torture). And when they do, it is reflected physically. This sort of mind-body connection seems similar to demons.

That’s not corruption, and their bodies don’t change when tortured or going insane.

Nor do demons’ bodies seem to change.

perilisk.1874:

The Dream is almost certainly within the Mists. It isn’t a purely psychological phenomenon, since a non-Sylvari can go there through a portal. What/where else would it be?

We already know from Nightfall that a realm within the mists can be shaped by a powerful enough mind or minds, and that demons can be born and shaped there. We know that Titans, in particular, can animate plant material along with fire, ice, etc.

And being something like a demon or titan (that is, a mistborn creature made incarnate in plant matter) would explain why they’re destroyed (technically, consumed) instead of corrupted.

While I myself have theorized that the Dream is tied somehow to the Mists (part of it, perhaps), nothing really makes it “almost certain.”

However, when the sylvari are before birth, their body is within a pod – their mind is within the Dream, which takes the shape of places like Ogham Wilds. Pre-born sylvari certainly aren’t running about in Ogham Wilds, nor physically in some other place. The pods are not some sort of portal. Their pre-born experience is akin to the afterlife, in my opinion, or akin to the havrouns or Voices of Koda where their bodies remain in Tyria but their minds are in the Mists (for havrouns, this is called spirit walking).

And no, being a mistborn creature wouldn’t explain it, since we have no indication that demons are immune to Elder Dragon corruption. And besides, as explained, the sylvari are not mistborn. Their bodies remain in the pods until awakening – their mind, and mind alone, is within the Dream. Don’t believe me? Make a sylvari character and watch the intro cinematic. There will be scenes which show your character in her/his pod and then we get the tutorial which takes place within the Dream.

Tamias.7059:

It’s an assumption. If we know that there were, then it means that the information’s out there, and it’s exactly the sort of thing a Priory scholar should know.

An assumption you presented as a cold hard fact.

Tamias.7059:

Not directly relevant, but I was reviewing the Lost Shores dialogue and something Zommoros said jumped out at me. He says,

You must ask the aquatics, those that swim and have swum since ancient times.

This, to me, suggests that the quaggan, hylek and largos are all at least as old as Zommoros and thus date back to before the last rise of the dragons. Sadly nothing these races say when you go and talk to them about the karka gives us any more information – most of their knowledge of the karka comes from recent experience.

To me, it just means that Zommoros knows of other aquatic races in the area, some possibly being old as well, which have met with the karka even in modern times. “Ancient times” can mean a multitude of things, and certainly doesn’t mean “as old as Zommoros” nor “as old as the last rise”. And the line means “at least one is an old race” not all three, and certainly not as old as the last rise – though certainly possible. It’s worth considering. But the hylek seems to only know of them by word of mouth, not racial history, so I think we can cut them out, leaving the quaggan and largos as being “ancient”.

But again: “Ancient times” doesn’t mean the last dragon rise. Humans are called ancient too by many races, such as the dredge.

Tamias.7059:

They had a prophecy where a star would appear and their lands would rise, and they interpreted Zhaitan’s awakening as fulfilling this prophecy. Sure, lots of races have prophecies, some of them involving the stars, but the only race we know of that links stars with Elder Dragons awakening is the jotun.

Uh, they did not interpret Zhaitan’s rise as this prophecy. At least, nothing says this. They took that as a sign to head to Tyria. When Sandgo says “Then the Great Tsunami of Orr’s rising heralded our journey home, to our city.” he could easily mean their current home not their prophesied home.

So thus far, nothing really claims that the tengu linked stars with Elder Dragons.

Tamias.7059:

Why can’t it be both? If the dragons awake cyclically, then the corresponding stars will also appear cyclically. Then they can be used to measure the passing of time.

Because who’s to say that the dragons awake in the same amount of time, each time? Varra speaks – as I interpret it at least – as if the stars form with set timespans from each other. The Elder Dragons would wake when the world has enough magic to stir them. The time between the previous and this dragon rise would be shorter than previous ones thanks to the Seers and Six Gods.

There is reason for Asagai being dead.

During The Origins of Madness: A Moment’s Peace Rox states that Asagai went on her “final patrol” – an act that old charr do when they’re about to die, so they go out fighting. And she hasn’t been heard from since, and it’s said it was “some time” ago.

That’s plenty of reason. And something tells me ArenaNet wouldn’t havep ut that in unless they a) wanted to write Asagai out of the story, or b) wanted to make players think she’s dead, then bring her in. B makes little sense because of the Living Story’s format – players coming in after Feb 4th wouldn’t know it unless they go onto the wiki or are told about it.

No, we get the fact quite clearly. And at least some of us – myself included – knows that was an intentional pun by ArenaNet (derp), especially given that Marjory doesn’t even know E’s gender (though the short story does mention male voice iirc).

And I don’t think Edair because of the E, but rather his personality at the end of the novel. Particularly the fact that E pays attention to both DR and LA events.

Someone who’s interested in both the safety of Divinity’s Reach and Lion’s Arch are rather few, or so I would believe.

This means we had a large, tusked, herbivore race that lived in the previous rise. In regards to skeleton placement, the non-tusked skulls are more spread than tusked skulls, the tusked ones only being in the Crystal Desert, Desolation, and Ascalon (if memory serves me right), while the non-tusked skulls being in the same places, as well Kourna, the Southern Shiverpeaks, and interestingly: the Underworld.

Regardless, we here have two races that lived primarily around the Crystal Sea (hinted to be, by Glint, part of Kralkatorrik’s domain during the previous rise).

On a side, in the topic of skeletons:

Scholar Fryxx (at the end of The Long Way Around achievement) hints that the Leviathan bones he’s found may be tied to the previous Elder Dragon rising.

Number Two: Hinted Races
“This is not the first time the dragons have risen, though it may—or may not—be the last. That remains to be seen. " – Genzhou Talonrend, Tengu

“Now all things grow and all things die; even the glacier is not unchanging. And there came to be a great storm that did not end though month after month and season after season passed. " – Kodan (Jormag is known to have made a five year long blizzard when he descended south on the norn; sadly, I have not been since able to locate the skaald NPC which mentions this)

“We wanted to make the ogres an old race and follow that with the jotun, since the two species are interlinked.” – Ogres

These minor lines hint to us that the tengu, kodan, and ogres may have also found means to survive without the jotun’s knowledge.

Number Three: Glint’s words and being

In Edge of Destiny, Glint mentions some interesting choice words:

“Long ago, I lived in a dragon-dominated world. I saw how they feasted on all flesh, on all minds, on all life. I saw how they ate until there was nothing left to eat, and then fell, sated.The darkness of those days slowly gave way to a new dawn—a bright world that did not remember the rapacious beasts. From that time to this, I have feared one of those sleeping dragons. My master, Kralkatorrik.”

But yet we know this isn’t true – they did not consume until there was nothing left during the previous rise. Aside from a writer’s perspective of not spoiling the Durmand Priory NPC dialogues, why would she not mention that some races survived the last dragon rising?

The answer could be quite simple: She’s speaking of two different dragon rises here. Or more, even. She could even be speaking of the first dragon rise. Just simply speaking of an awakening cycle in which all life was destroyed, leaving no remnant of knowledge of the Elder Dragons.

This hints not to a race of the previous dragon rise, but before that: Dragons. Not just the Elder Dragons, but a race of them.

The existence of the Claw of Jormag (which is ice coating bones by appearances), Glint (originally named Glaust that was a corrupted living being), and Zhaitan’s minions (fleshy dragon-shaped beings with names), and even Bone Dragons from Guild Wars 1 all hint to such.

This may even give a hint to the nature of the Elder Dragons themselves, but that is a theory for another time.

A little continuation of my Guess that Last Gen Destroyer thread, and inspired by BrotherBelial’s Is the Shatterer one of Glints Baby’s thread and Tamias’ Crazy theory corner: tengu and Orr thread – I’d like to postulate the potential races not mimicked by Primordus.

Now, there’s the obvious eight races already confirmed:

• Jotun (survived)
• Dwarves (survived)
• Seers (barely survived)
• Forgotten (survived)
• Mursaat (fled into the Mists)
• Giganticus Lupicus (extinct)
• Karka (survived)
• Djinn (survived)

But there’s a bit more to it, and this takes three forms.

1. There are more than one kind of Giganticus Lupicus. It is a term akin to Dinosaur, not for a singular specific species but many giant ones.
2. There are races that are hinted, or hint themselves, at having been around during the previous dragon rise.
3. Glint’s dialogue in Edge of Destiny.

Number One: Giganticus Lupicus
[spoiler]GuildMag (Draxynnic): Back in Guild Wars 1, we had that mention of the last appearance of the Giganticus Lupicus ten thousand years ago. And then the first people to get to the explorable dungeons in Arah were probably rather surprised to find the Giganticus Lupicus corpse sitting there waiting for them. Is there a story behind how one got to be there?

Jeff Grubb: How one got to be there… I think brought from its original resting place by Zhaitans minions for that big arena, central cathedral area as a watchdog, as a guardian. The whole… In many ways, the whole tale of the Elder Dragons begins with that one line – that was the first line of the timeline. During the Cantha project I said ‘what does this mean’ – well, we have some big skulls out in the wilderness and we didn’t know what they were so that’s what they are. But when we started telling the story of the Elder Dragons it just fit in so neatly that well, if they’ve come before, when did they come? Hey, we have the Giganticus Lupicus being wiped out in this era! Oh, okay, THAT must have been the last time the Elder Dragons showed up, and the story evolved from there. It’s one thing we’re very good at moving forwards – we leave a lot of hooks so future designers, future storytellers, ourselves in the future have a lot of potential that we can build off.

GM (Thalador): I was personally wondering that in the Crystal Desert back in Guild Wars 1 we saw lots of skeletons lying around and we considered them to be the skeletons of the Giganticus Lupicus.

JGrubb: Some of them are, yes.

GM (Thalador) : When we see him – the recent specimen in the centre of Arah, he’s sort of a jackal-like, Anubis sort of thing, and yet the skeletons back in Guild Wars 1 were sort of draconic or with large tusks or larger…

GM (Draxynnic) : Sea monsters.

JGrubb: I think the look of the Giganticus Lupicus evolved over time – in the fact that we started off with “okay, here’s the skull, build us a creature that looks like this.” Giganticus Lupicus also – Lupicus has a wolf origin to it, so we were thinking in terms of wolves at the time, and from there we basically got to that jackal-headed, Anubis type of figure. So they basically… I could see the older, larger versions of the Giganticus giganticus would be the huge skulls, because of course, with limitations within the game we could only put the figure so large and still have you be able to fight it in any reasonable sense.

Ree Soesbee: And I think that much like the centaurs, you’re gonna have this ancient creature that has some distinction according to territory, according to how it has evolved. So you can have a couple of different skulls that have similarities but aren’t.[/spoiler]http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm

Here we have confirmation that some but not all Crystal Desert giant skeletons were Giganticus Lupicus. They appear unlike our jackal-like friend in Arah because they evolved differently, like different breeds of a species, as well as having been larger.

This hints at a possible two or three ancient gigantic(us) species. Beyond the Great Giant jackals, there’s this tusked creature, and another more serpentine one – I’m guessing that the latter would have been our jackal friends because the tusked ones had more herbivore-like teeth (they were flat and large, appearing to be adapted to chewing rather than tearing) and dogs are carnivores. Though it looks, as mentioned, more serpentine or draconic than canine.

-Continued in next post-

Andele.1306:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

perilisk.1874:

True. But they do go insane. And it changes them, not just mentally, but physically. They’re very mind over matter.

Uh… no. They die from corruption. They don’t go insane. You’re thinking of the one sylvari who was tortured by an Eye of Zhaitan – one who recovers, something impossible from corruption.

Right, because its not like we had 2 champions freed of corruption, one kinda sadly on his deathbed and other being a giant kittening crystal dragon.

Allow me to reiterate:

Something you don’t recover from by merely resting like the sylvari did – and as Aaron mentioned, before the ritual that freed Glint was found (before said ritual it was deemed impossible to cure draconic corruption, though many hoped otherwise such as the asura at the R&D camp in Cursed Shore).

I can’t see the Herald as Caithe, because multiple of the Herald’s messages mention things that Caithe probably wouldn’t (such as “Your mentor was a member of an adventuring group known as Destiny’s Edge. They were legendary heroes, but went their separate ways about five years ago, for reasons I have yet to discover – none have chosen to share that story with me. If you discover the nature of their separation, I would be most appreciative.” from the intro letter). Furthermore, she is fairly direct, abruptly so when it comes to getting Destiny’s Edge back together, so the Herald wouldn’t fit her methodology.

E and the Herald being the same figure would make sense, but I’m in the camp that E is Prince Edair (and his brother was King Roderick, rather than himself being crowned). No real evidence for the theory but I think it fits.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

It’s been a while, so my memory may be foggy, but in the Protect the Mists storyline, wasn’t the spike used to pin the havroun’s spirit said to be a corrupted part of the mists?

Hmm. Yes. I seem to have forgotten that part.

Well, thorns.

My point was that naming fossils is not that strange to do. However, while we don’t call fossils with titles like “The Moondeath” that doesn’t mean other cultures wouldn’t – especially less advanced cultures, which are more prone to the creation of mythological tales from things like fossils because they wouldn’t have known about things called “dinosaurs” (in the same context, Orrians may not have known about dragons being a common occurrence if they were, thus could create folktales around the skeletons, creating a mythological beast they would call “the Moondeath”).

It’s a very specific example thus unlikely, but that was my line of thought and the point I was making is more general: cultures that know less tend to make up things about those which they do not know the scientific side of (hence the very creation of myths and religions).

Jelle.4623:

From the wiki on Elder Dragons:

Trivia
Dragons were not always the main antagonists of Guild Wars 2. According to The Making of Guild Wars 2 book, original drafts for story included demons and angelic beings descending to the world to judge it.

What if they would return to this with the Living Story? Demons are in almost any fantasy capable of possessing.

Demons are already established in GW and aside from the unknown-origins-now-dead Kanaxai, there’s no evidence of demons being capable of possessing. At least no more than mesmers would be capable of. Closest we’d get is the aforelinked case of Dhuum influencing the mind of a Forgotten.

Durzlla.6295:

Just tacking on one thing my friend was telling me the other day, he thinks that Dhuum is very much free and is very much kittened at a certain undead dragon which is why the temple of Grenth was resisting the priest, more of a “he’s not the real god and you won’t be using undead magic” sorta thing.

Idk how much of that has been confirmed or denied since I went and did the whole “blow up Melandrus temple with a searing cauldron” in the PS instead of going to grenths…

That being said I do very much think that Dhuum is involved, and I really hope I’m right =D.

The Cathedral of Silence is said to hold two unique things that the rest of Orr lacks:

• Zhaitan’s magic is akin to Grenth’s – it’s in-game theory that’s the cause of the lesser corruption. One of the statues of Grenth, the one in Drowned Split or w/e it’s called in western Malchor’s Leap, has the same kind of lack of corruption.
• It’s said to be half in the Mists – which I think is the cause, given the ties between the Forgotten and the Mists, as well as the similarities between the Dream and the Mists, and finally the fact that no Elder Dragon has – to our knowledge – corrupted anything in the Mists (Zhaitan has pulled souls from the Mists and then corrupted them; Jormag has access to the Mists via Sons of Svanir, but neither has corrupted something within the Mists – Snowblind Fractal doesn’t really count, I would argue, because it’s the Mists copying corruption, not corruption affecting the Mists).

Dhuum is said to have hunted down those that managed to escape death. I don’t think he could go “no undead!” and thus there were no undead able to be made, but rather that he could tell when such would happen and he’d hunt down all undead and kill them himself (or with his agents/followers).

Also, visiting Grenth’s cathedral was after the split where you go to blow up Melandru’s – it’s the split after, where you can go visit Romke’s ghost or go to the Cathedral of Grenth.