Despite their names, the Eyes and Mouths of Zhaitan are not a piece of Zhaitan’s body – unlike the blood and tooth of Jormag which are not dragon minions but body parts. The Eyes and Mouths of Zhaitan are dragon champions – like Tequatl the Sunless, Glint, The Shatterer, The Great Destroyer, Claw of Jormag, Dragonspawn, and so forth – but with specialized tasks: to act as mobile eyes and mouths for Zhaitan respectively.
With the exception of that specialized task, they are no different than any other dragon champion, which in turn is just a very powerful and self-intelligent dragon minion. Again, the Fang of the Serpent (the name given to Jormag’s knocked-out tooh) is not a dragon minion – it is no more such than a Shard of Zhaitan dungeon trophy is.
The Heart of the Shiverpeaks is no where near the Central Transfer Chamber. The Heart of the Shiverpeaks would be beneath what is now northern Dredgehaunt Cliffs I believe; on the flip side, the Central Transfer Chamber would be beneath modern Fireheart Rise.
Change the face of Tyria forever they say…………..
Are they implementing my suggestion to permanently send Tyria into Nightfall(Kryta kingdom of Pain, Maguuma Jungle of Fear, Bloodpeaks of Madness, Ascalon land of Secrets)?
If they are(even if they plan to have Scarlet be behind it) that will make me really happy!
That would not only be far too large of a project to give for “free” but too big for the Living World teams. I mean, just look at the past updates. The biggest one given to us would be the Tower of Nightmares stuff and that was outright stated to be pushing the Living World teams’ budget with constant outsourcing to other teams in ArenaNet.
Changing the entire continent? Every single zone out there? Unless this is like a 2-year arc with 1-2 zones per month, I cannot see it happening. Unless it’s done more poorly than even Secret of Southsun.
Don’t forget that ArenaNet LOVES to overhype their stuff. I mean, going through all the past videos and then comparing to what we saw in-game – all the way back to the Manifesto trailer – how much of what’s in-game is actually comparable to what they said there’d be? Answer: very little.
Chances are, it’ll just be one or two popular zones being changed like Kessex Hills was.
There’s also the Coriolis plaza with the inactive Gates, isn’t there?
The angles and positions of the portals in the video don’t seem to match with the asura gates of LA (main hub + Coriolis) and Rata Sum (central city + outskirts), I went and checked. There are no place in these cities where two portals are placed that way.
Coriolis’ gates are backed to a cliff wall, so it cannot be them. The image shows the back of the broken asura gate, so getting the angle would be hard if not impossible for players due to how the GW2 camera works. And even then, with broken gate and red sky it’s likely the place would be under attack thus the pillars the gates are on at Gate Hub Plaza – if that is what’s depicted – could easily be cracked and tilted.
My guess that Scarlet wants to wake up the jungle dragon. It is speculated that Sylvari are the minions of the jungle dragon, but something went wrong and they become independent.
Sylvari immunity to dragon corruption debunks this wild-fetched theory.
So what if the pale tree knows this, and it did not want Scarlet to know. When Scarlet looked into the eternal alchemy she realized this, or made contact with the jungle dragon, or become corrupted by the jungle dragon.
The issue here is that Scott McGough outright stated that Scarlet did not see what she thought she saw.
They are searching for the resting place of the jungle dragon.
Mordremoth’s influence – if we’ve seen it at all – is strongest to the west. Why have them all the way in Fields of Ruin or even in Orr given that dragon territories never cross (sans Primordus)?
And Scarlet can be the jungle dragon’s champion.
Again, sylvari are immune to dragon corruption – they literally die when touched with dragon corruption. Unlike dragon minions which can be corrupted by multiple dragons (see Crucible of Eternity).
Another issue with linking Scarlet to any dragon is that in an interview – I think this one – Scott pretty much stated that Scarlet’s plot is a filler arc to separate two ED-focused storylines. The chances of scarlet being tied to a dragon is immensely slim because of this.
I am of the lines of thought that they are generators of sorts, but I don’t think they’re tied to the ley lines – if they are then there’s just SO many ley lines in Tyria one has to scratch their heads and go “why the kitten did Thaumanova’s disaster not happen sooner?!?” if it was caused by experimenting with magic on top of an intersection of ley lines – I mean, it’s not like the asura are the first to mess with magic (Lords Odran, Kree, and Sybitha say hello).
If they are tied to ley lines, they’re a means to find them, not utilize them.
Doesn’t it all come down to the ratio of new players to old players? Maybe they where testing the waters in that direction what do we the player prefer. What do people prefer temporary content or permanent content? In long run everyone know they voted wrong and there denial of it is hilarious.
Uh… nothing Evon promised showed to be any more permanent than Kiel though.
They literally promised the exact same thing except temp WP cost reduction vs. temp BLC key cost reduction and Abaddon vs. Thaumanova.
Ultimately these alliances are a means to an end: the Toxic Hybrid, the first (or one of the first) iteration of this new Primordus minion. One that is produced through incubation and is born extremely powerful. The only thing missing is Primordus’ corruption. I think this will be part of the next update, and we’ll probably see some form of Destroyer Hybrid or something like that. And Scarlet will now be mass producing these creatures in her factory somewhere (the ‘islands’?) and finally unleashing them on Tyria.
How do you get Primordus’ minions out of the Toxic Hybrid? If you observe the body of the Toxic Hybrid you will note that it holds all the same designs as the sylvari body. It is literally a krait-shaped sylvari. It has the little “sprouting from” central area in the lower back (you’ll note that sylvari underwear comes from here as well as most sylvari cultural armor flowing from this spot).
The Toxic Hybrid is literally no more than a fast-evolving giant krait-shaped sylvari. The “incubation” process is no different than a sylvari in the “golden fruit” of the Pale Tree.
Besides, if Primordus or any other Elder Dragon tried to corrupt Scarlet – or any other sylvari – said sylvari will literally drop dead. That’s their “immunity” to dragon corruption. And if the Toxic Hybrid is anything like that, then it too would just drop dead once touched by Primordus’ corruption. Even the Mordremoth-corrupting-the-Nightmare-Court theory that I have is hindered by this fact.
So Scarlet cannot be a minion of any Elder Dragon.
- Completely off topic but I am desperate for a response on this for some reason. The Lion Statue in LA is facing another way I noticed today. I dont know for how long now. It was facing towards the Mount Maelstrom area and now it is more facing towards the Grove. Please tell me I havent gone insane and tell me your thoughts on it :P I thought it was weird because you dont simply turn a statue, unless it is some special type, but then it is weird that I only notice it now.
It was always facing the Grove’s general direction. It was never facing Mount Maelstrom’s general direction.
In the personal story (The Hatchery), we see that Primordus is actually experimenting with alternative forms of corruption; that is, corruption from birth and through incubation (hatching eggs). This is a revelation that we may not have paid much attention to (with our focus on Zhaitan) but all of the Orders agents agree that this is a uniquely new form of corruption. However, this technique proves to be insufficient as the minions that are hatched are too weak to do anything of value and we vanquish them fairly easily. So, Primordus has the corruption-from-birth angle right, but he needs a way to birth minions that are actually powerful.
Well, I’m glad you’re not saying that that storyline shows Primordus corrupting a living being… cuz I’d have to point our you’d be wrong there and I’ve done that so many times. Thank you for saving me the trouble.
Anyways, you’re wrong about those destroyers hatched from the eggs to be too weak – as there are standard destroyers hatching from some of the eggs too. The chances with the crablings are that we disturbed them before they could fully “mature” (so to speak) while within those “eggs” – only the crabs have a “weak” form among the destroyer minions so instead of making new minions they likely went with just mainly featuring crablings.
Given Rata Sum’s history (and present day problems) with Primordus and Destroyers, it’s very possible that the area in general sits atop a draconic leyline (as the Thaumanova Reactor did). And in this case, Primordus’ leyline.
I don’t see why you think that the Elder Dragons get their own leylines. Leylines by nature are the ways in which magic flows through the world itself – living beings may tap into them, but they do not get designated leylines all to themselves. I don’t see why Elder Dragons would be any different, as they would likely be consuming the leylines.
So when Omadd fires up the machine, mixing the chaos magic powering the machine with the dragon magic in the area, Ceara doesn’t completely plunge into the eternal alchemy; instead she becomes saturated in Primordus’ magic. But why didn’t she access the eternal alchemy? Honestly, I think it was a power supply issue.
And why are you saying Omadd’s machine was powered by dragon and chaos magic? The Thaumanova Reactor and Omadd’s machines are two different things. There is nothing to link Omadd to the Inquest anyways. Why didn’t Scarlet access the Eternal Alchemy? Because the machine was merely a sensory deprivation machine – in other words all the thing did was make her blind, deaf, mute, unable to smell, and unable to feel (touch sensation, not emotions though she doesn’t feel that way either :P).
You can slap the lack of Eternal Alchemy (if that’s what Scott meant by “not seeing what she thought she saw”) to flawed asuran theory. However, I would like to point out the Pale Tree’s recent dialogue about Scarlet. She confirms warning Scarlet – possibly referring to that ‘vision’ of Scarlet’s; though that wouldn’t be too odd, doesn’t mean she saw Eternal Alchemy but instead the connection between sylvari, Dream, and Pale Tree (possibly Nightmare too).
We actually experience something like this ourselves in the Asura Infinity Ball personal story. When we supercharge our infinity ball, it produces steam creatures – creatures from an alternative world. THIS is the power that Omadd and Ceara were trying to harness; the power to traverse space and time. But what happens when the infinity ball is NOT supercharged? Well, when we activate it, a bunch of Destroyers come out! Dragon minions, and Primordus’ minions, no less. It may be the case that, when mixing chaos and dragon magic, there is a spectrum of energy input that either taps you into the draconic magic in the area, but if you are able to provide enough energy to the device, that can take you into the eternal alchemy (I know, that sounds awkward).
That makes no sense. You’d note that the first time the Infinity Ball was powered up – with the least amount of power of all three attempts – Steam Creatures came out.
Each time the Infinity Ball showed different possible futures – a total of two or three possible futures (or even one, really). The need for ever-greater power sources in the storyline was just to keep the Infinity Ball “portal” open longer so that actual results rather than random creatures pouring out could be obtained.
The amount of power did not affect what the Infinity Ball did, just how long it was open and how viable to results were. Similarly, the amount of power wouldn’t have effected Omadd’s machine in that kind of way you claim because it was simply depriving Ceara of her five senses; he mentions previous patients dying – this is likely due to shock of losing said senses.
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Those tattoos made from powdered grey powerstones only prevented mental magic – which is what the Dragonspawn used to corrupt and only the Dragonspawn. It held no effect on other dragons’ corruption like that of Kralkatorriks given that they had to get out of the way of the dragon breath each time.
The only places where such an angle is possible with a group of asura gates that I can think of would be Gate Hub Plaza in LA, or one of the three corners in Rata Sum.
Edit: Scratch Rata Sum, those are all blocked by trees and structures.
All other gates I can think of which has at least 2 near each other in the game would be in Fort Trinity, but that has a blocked off sight, and Ulta Metamagicals in Brisban, which is also blocked off sight. There are the WvW gates, but those are of a different design.
No other place I can think of has multiple gates next to each other.
Looks like Scarlet’s going to attack Lion’s Arch. Or we get a brand new area/heavily altered area.
Elysian Eternity, I’m not seeing this “broken Asura Gate and an unactivated one” or a “red night sky and the moon at the end” in the line you provide.
Edit: Oh, that’s because you linked the wrong link. You were referring to the end of this video, right? The link you provided didn’t have that one.
Those asura gates aren’t old models, however. There’s typically 3 models for asura gates used: the “normal” seen everywhere outside of main city gate ones; the Mists gates, only seen in WvW/LA/Heart of the Mists, and then those – which are used in LA as the gates leading to other cities and in the Coriolis Plaza, if not elsewhere too.
Speaking of which, the Gate Hub Plaza in LA would give perfect view of the sky at such an angle… And it’s not like a sky changing colors is at all unique (happens every holiday, happened with Tower of Nightmares, and happened during the Searing – also happens within any ED territory like Orr and the Dragonbrand).
All locations I can think of with 2 or more asura gates near each other have the area behind or above them blocked off or utilize a different asura gate model.
These are either in LA while it’s under attack (again), or in a new area/heavily modified old area.
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She intends to kidnap Trahearne and hold him ransom. But when none of Tyria will pay the ransom, she gets upset and throws him into Abaddon’s Mouth (which is the name of a volcano). But then the volcano erupts and hurls Trahearne all across Tyria, revealing that he had absorbed the essence of the Door of Komalie and the bloodstone in Ring of Fire, allowing himself to clone himself infinitely. And then ALL NPCs in the game gets replaced by Trahearnes, because by absorbing the essence of the Door of Komalie he also took in the essence of the Mists allowing him to replace the genetic makeup of others with his own template. And it shall no longer be sylvari, human, norn, grawl, charr, or dragon. THERE SHALL ONLY BE THE TRAHEARNE RACE!
The area believed to be the Spider’s Heart was just a spot of brighter land and was blue, not red. The red spot looked more like a mouth of sorts and was the entryway into the Gate of Secrets atop the upsidedown spider like plateau which was believed to be Arachnia Plateau.
The Realm of Torment was originally Abaddon’s realm – like the Underworld was Dhuum’s then Grenth’s. It became Abaddon’s prison and afterwards, presumably, became Kormir’s realm.
As to the supposed Arachnia and the “gods of insectoid beings” being akin to the Elder Dragons in function – there’s no reason to believe such. Elder Dragons and gods are vastly different things, as “god” in definition of the GWverse in terms of the known physical gods hold indestructible magic – whether this is true for any god outside the Six Gods is unknown, but then again it is unknown if there even are gods outside of the Six Gods. Besides this, Arachnia and these other gods of insectoid beings are said to be long-dead, their corpses being within the Realm of Torment.
Besides, the Mists does not seem to hold magic. Or rather, it may but the Mists themselves are just protomatter and holds chunks of reality made from said protomatter; magic would be made from said protomatter too. There would be no need to regulate magic because it would be constantly made and, since magic is not infinite, used. Unlike on Tyria where we have no knowledge of it being renewable or being used fast enough.
Perhaps the underuse of magic in the Mists is what causes those chunks of reality to form, thus a regulation of magic would in fact make the Mists less of what they are. But it is pure theorycrafting and you might as well say that Balthazar was wearing a tutu while he decapitated his father – you have equal chances of being right in either case.
As to Fyonna – I see no relation, honestly. And I don’t think she simply transformed into a spider. I think the point was that a spider ate her or burst forth from within her (as it is said she stored her spider “babies” within her body). Sadly I never got a fight with her which wasn’t “pull her into the tunnel and stack on her!” so I could never see animations for it well.
To Fyonna trying to “wake” deities – again, I’d point to the fact that everything about these gods of insectoid beings is that they are dead. Not sleeping like the Elder Dragons nor imprisoned like Abaddon, but dead. And that pretty much says “no” to your theory like a giant brick wall.
And that’s even asuming Arachnia and the insectoid beings’ gods (nothing really says the gods are insectoid themselves, btw – or that the spider goddess Arachnia and the gods of insectoid beings are related) are canon.
When I read the OP, I read:
“QQ There isn’t enough people spread out and about, there isn’t enough to do.”
To which, I concur. But that’s not lore.
And to your last post, siralius: you’re not wrong. But you’re not entirely right. There are some points, but sadly it requires you to chose the right personal storyline combinations and be at the right places at the right time elsewhere. There is outreaching lore that can interest folks, but indeed a lot of it is very kitten. And I would say that about the game in general, truth be told, not just the telling of the lore. It was obvious since the get go, but now a year later the novelty of the game has ended and the constant LS releases have slowed so people are now starting to see it.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
A few things:
Norn who do not have their own feats to talk about, like Braham when we meet him, are named after the more famous of their parents – be it mother or father. When they come to have a legend (of any noteworthy stature) of their own, they adopt a new name at their own discretion. They may even take titles instead of surnames.
In a similar manner, married couples do not necessarily share surnames – though some, such as Knut and Gaerta Whitebear, do.
Suggests but not proves. If it is Scarlet, I shall shake my head because one is placed outside the Chantry of Secrets and you’d think some sort of reaction from them about such a thing.
Even if it weren’t Scarlet you’d expect a reaction… Unless it’s good for them and they know it.
I’m not sure how the two would connect. Three bloodstone locations are known anyways – she’d have better luck looking through human records than using randomly-placed thumpers for tracking such down, since humanity spent nearly a thousand years fighting over them.
I doubt Scarlet will be using Toxic Spores again. At least anytime soon. After all, do we see her using Fused tech (from the MA)? Not herself, no. Only when her minions show up during invasions.
And if she intended to use it in the future, one would expect it to be used in conjunction with her other creations-through-alliances. Which would include two heat-producing magitechs (MA and Aetherblade tech).
Then again, you have to realize that the heat isn’t used to destroy – it’s used to pollinate. We just cracked the shell to get at the pollen inside the spore.
Just because the spirits led the norn there doesn’t mean that they remained there. And it’s not like we have never seen Bear in her “physical” form (though this was in GW1). And I’m not saying their animal forms aren’t tied to their calling on the spirits’ aid – I’m just saying that’s not how the aid is limited to. Though the norn and Spirits of the Wild hold a more indirect-aid relationship than compared to, say, the humans and Six Gods; where humanity would ask for the Six to solve their problems, the norn just ask for advice or empowerment to help them solve their own problems.
As to a spirit dying – you really never looked into this topic, have you? The entire story around Owl is that she is DEAD. As gone and dead as one can be. Spirits can be destroyed – killed depends on your definition but that’s just semantics. We as players have done so all the time – moreso in GW1 but nonetheless.
And I don’t think there’d be any norn who’d say “Aesgir fought Jormag in 1v1” – they all say “Aesgir fought Jormag and knocked out its tooth and survived to later lead the norn south as guided by the four main Spirits of the Wild” (obviously not word for word).
And a single norn fighting toe to toe with a charr legion? That’s a full quarter of the charr population there – millions of charr. I doubt it.
And a norn fighting a dragon champion 1v1 is vastly different than a norn fighting an Elder Dragon which can shatter mountains and supposedly kill thousands of norn with a single sweep of its wing (according to one of the skaalds though I feel that’s exaggerated personally), or fighting 1 norn vs 1 charr legion. Though excluding the personal story it is supposedly impossible, given how Eir couldn’t take out the Dragonspawn (a dragon champion) even with Snaff and Zojja (and their two piloted golems and Garm); though add in Rytlock, Logan, and Caithe they were able to do such (barely).
And there’s FAR more sources for Aesgir’s story than just one source – I can think of three norn skaalds, the statue in Eir’s homestead, a Priory Scholar in Hoelbrak, and some ambient dialogue in Hoelbrak off the top of my head – just regarding his fight with Jormag, at that. Mind you most sources were interviews pre-release which is where we get that the Spirits of the Wild had personally backed him far more than they would any other norn.
@ElysianEternity: I actually have a different view on the heat-sensitivity. Given the fact that the krait actively increased the heat of the area while building the tower (see the dialogue between Marjory and Kasmeer during the Halloween update before the veil was removed), it seems that the toxic spoors need heat to pollinate – but too much (e.g., a fire) would kill it. This just being a natural (or possibly artificial) effect of the pollen itself.
After all, if she made it so that nothing could effect it… what if the plan backfires and she needs some means to destroy it? Or what if doing so prevents pollination? The unable-to-be-physically-harmed-normally seems like an after-effect from observing folks destroying the various spores (the events that would be undoubtably completed in the first release). She would need to keep that heat sensitivity in order to spread the spores, so she just focuses on making it counter everything but heat – which also provides her an emergency giant red self-destruct button.
Whatever island is referred to must have a direct way to enter (or at least peek into) them.
Islands*
And why couldn’t “the islands” refer to the Mists themselves? They hold several “islands of existences” after all (such as the Fractals, WvW, and sPvP currently).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
The Spear made from Kralkatorrik’s spine used in the novel Edge of Destiny, as well as Kralkatorrik’s crystallized blood in said novel, did not corrupt. So it would seem that remains in of themselves do not corrupt. Similarly, the Shards of Zhaitan that act as Arah dungeon tokens don’t seem to corrupt either.
Dragon corruption seems to be an active… act, given how during hibernation the Elder Dragons release the magic they had consumed while awake, but it does not corrupt (hence why the asura were able to siphon off of Primordus to power their original gate network). So I would believe that the Sanguinary Blade was made in a unique fashion that these other known remnants of Elder Dragon bodyparts were not.
I imagined the “ley-lines” as continuous lines that circled the entire planet —not as segmented lines that stop and changed direction. We know both the Thaumanova reactor and Orr are built on top of crisscrossing ley-lines.
If you want all the lines not just where they criss cross then go to the order of whispers base
There’s nothing which claims Orr is built atop a crisscrossing of leylines. Don’t mistake the Artesian Waters for leylines, it’s just a highly magical location – we don’t know why exactly. Leylines is the most likely explanation, but not the only. Especially given how water seems to channel magic well.
And the OoW base globe – as Psynch said – does not even cross over the Thaumanova Reactor, nor Orr, so it is unlikely to be mapping magical locations let alone leylines. Not to mention that until the fractal, Scarlet (and possibly the Inquest by extension) were the only ones who knew about the existence of leylines.
So the idea here, it’s that the do not touch tower are probe to study those magical channel intersection.
Sound plausible?
The issue is that nothing thus far links the do not touch towers with Scarlet.
But the spores aren’t heat resistant… they’re sensitive to heat. The one during the tower finale was only able to be opened because you used a torch and it was even reacting to the heat of your palm. What she did was made a spore that was invulnerable except to heat (unlike all the others in the open world where standard harvesting tools could open them up). This kind of debunks the Ring of Fire islands idea to me.
Side note: it’s not “isles” but “islands” – though this only makes the Ring of Fire Islands (the most common name for them, not Fire Isles) to be more likely.
However, I found it unlikely that she’s after the Realm of Torment. What would she gain, exactly? That place has been taken over by Kormir and furthermore, the sylvari are agnostic when it comes to the Six Gods – they aren’t sure the Six even exist, so why go after the realm of such a being?
There’s also other possibilities for what’s meant by “the islands” – Orr, for example, is called an island throughout the latter personal storyline, and now we finally have these DO NOT TOUCH thumpers in Orr, the first of the Living World story to affect Orr in some way.
And on Scarlet obtaining an Obelisk Shards – since she obtained shards and not an actual obelisk, it’s possible that they washed ashore, otherwise she’d have had to go into the DSD’s territory. So I wouldn’t be so certain that she’s been so far south – though such does lead precedence to “the islands” referring to the Battle Isles, though they’re supposedly sunken now.
Honestly, the Orr concept sounds more likely to me, since she’s shown disdain for the Pale Tree, the Firstborn, and the Dream – reversing Trahearne’s little ritual to cleanse Orr would be a massive slap in the face to them.
To be aided by the spirts of the wild is simply to change your form. Quotes from norn changing form. And the scroll is the equivalent of a weapon so how was the fight not 1v1.
Hardly. Their aid comes in many forms, and though the animal forms are viewed as blessings from the main Spirits of the Wild, it is not the only such blessing.
During the flight south, for example, four of the Spirits of the Wild fought Jormag directly – all four having been lost, one of which known dead the other three with situation unknown (these four being Owl, Ox, Wolverine, and Eagle – though Eagle doesn’t get mentioned in-game). And at the same time, four other Spirits of the Wild directly led Aesgir south to where he founded Hoelbrak (these four being Bear, Raven, Wolf, and Snow Leopard).
According to the norn, that actually wasn’t a 1v1 fight (otherwise why the hell would a small group of norn be unable to kill an Elder Dragon?). Aesgir was aided by the Spirits of the Wild and by an ancient jotun scroll – and the norn skaalds claim that Jormag killed thousands of norn in battle.
Besides, to use Aesgir’s situation would be to compare the feats of Adelbern or Khilbron to that of all humans and say because they did such all humans should be able to – or for Rytlock with charr, or for Snaff with asura (by your argument, then every asura should be capable of resisting mental ED corruption and wrestling an ED’s mind). Aesgir, just like Destiny’s Edge and the PC, are special cases.
And to your last point: not at all. Thanks to mechanics and balance, allied NPCs of any race must be weaker than the PC to make the game actually challenging for the player and not just a case of “afk while letting the NPCs do all the work” and PC norn must be equal in power to a PC human/asura/sylvari/charr without exception for equal balance.
Lore wise, norn are still just as strong – if not stronger – than their ancestors. It varies, of course, based on individual though.
But later the MotW does compares a warband to a lone hunter.
“the two races allowed one another passage and trade, while keeping their borders secure. Occasionally, a warband (or a Norn hunter) might cross the line into the other’s land, only to be cut down without prejudice…”
But that’s not a comparison of strength, rather a comparison of how one side would “trespass” into the others’ territory – you wouldn’t find a lone charr going into the Far Shiverpeaks, but instead it’d be no less than a charr warband. At least in regards to something threatening the peace (as a lone charr wouldn’t really be viewed as a soldier of the charrpire since in most cases it’d be a Gladium or deserter).
On the warband/norn thing: Not to say that your understanding of the text is wrong at all Konig. a-net definitly means what you said. But extrapolating that text, if we consider that the norn are individualistic and that they did drive the norn charr back then I can see no other option besides those two that would fit with what we know of the norn and charr. So the charr being driven back means some of the individual norn would have had to have beaten some warbands or it means the norn were working as cohesive units to rival the cohesive units of the charr warbands.
I can think of one – which is how I interpret the line from the get go:
Individualistic society of norn with hunting parties killing off the charr raiding warbands.
Certain strong Norns may have beaten 3 or 4 Charrs in a fight.
If a pair of norn can hurl burly charr 20-ish feet into the air, and a group of four can handle a threat that takes a few dozen stone dwarves, then I think a single norn can beat more than 3 or 4 charr solo.
A single norn I hold no doubt could defeat a small warband (remember warbands can be as small kitten , though they tend to range more around 15 iirc). A larger warband though would probably take 2 or 3, maybe 4, norn.
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They did. When they mentioned the reduced waypoint/BLC key costs. It happened during Cutthroat Politics if you talked to them after the instance with the master.
They mentioned four things, two of which were the same to the other: investigating the Molten Alliance and Aetherblade attacks (i.e., make the four fractals from the dungeons) and adding in those mini-game rotations (which were the same for both even). The other two being the new unique fractal (investigating the Thaumanova Reactor explosion/researching the Fall of Abaddon) and the reduced cost (Kiel using her new captain powers to negotiate with the Arcane Council on her part, Evon just ordering his company to be cheap for a bit).
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I don’t think it was ever said that a single norn can take out an entire warband – warbands range from 5 to 20 highly tactical soldiers. Your friend was possibly mis-remembering the line from The Movement of the World which states: “Although it is certain the Charr could have destroyed the Norn resistance if they but turned their entire army—or even one full legion—to the cause, warbands and smaller raiding parties could not overcome the individual strength of the Norn.”
This doesn’t mean a single norn took out warbands and smaller raiding parties of charr, but that warbands and smaller raiding parties of charr could not beat the individualistic and strong norn.
Similarly, your friend is likely misremembering on that “armies of 100 and they sent 10 norn because of imbalance” – this likely comes from Eye of the North where the dwarves and Ebon Vanguard are using a good deal of their forces to combat the Destroyers, and Jora comes in with 4 norn in tow saying “I thought three would be enough but Olrun insisted” or some such. This is again credit not to being overpowered but because the norn are individualistic hunters – they are indeed strong, but before that they do not have armies, and they do not have armies not due to strength but due to culture – they’re too individualistic to form an army. As Jeff Grubb once said back in 2009, a room of norn cannot even agree on what to get for lunch, let alone form an army with discipline.
This isn’t to say the norn aren’t strong – they are, most definitely so. Though they aren’t quite as out of proportion as your friend seems to claim. He/she seems to be mistaking norn individualism for norn compensating for their strength compared to the weaker races.
And corrections on Dustfinger’s part:
Eir was straining at the end of their trip so it wasn’t “as if it was nothing” – though said trip is from her homestead through the asura gate in Hoelbrak to Rata Sum (direct path no LA stop) and from the Rata Sum gate to Snaff’s Lab (though the book describes Rata Sum in its original form before a redesign – same with Hoelbrak – which puts Snaff’s Lab in the bottom of the floating cube which with the redesign is now being mined out by golems still).
And it was a single warband (a larger one at that though) that forced out Jora and her family (and others who remained there) out of her family’s homestead. After the mission of reclaiming it in Eye of the North, you can see about a dozen generic norn in the homestead.
And a scene of norn strength missed: In Sea of Sorrows, two norn brothers together hurl charr one after another – including a really large one – high into the air to land on (and attack) a nearby ship.
-Why has Magnus put the best men in Caledon?
This is a reference to Twilight Assault.
-Why did Gnashblade want to research the Abaddon fractal? He fears Scarlett, so what did he want to learn of Abaddon’s defeat to stop Scarlett?
A developer stated that Evon’s interest in the Fall of Abaddon might be religious (specific wordings were along the lines of “I doubt that Evon’s interest wasn’t entirely religious” implying that it is religious). I doubt that it had to do with Scarlet, since at the time of the election no one knew of Scarlet (as a threat) except an off-hand comment by Mai Trin.
If he knew of Scarlet, then he was working with her.
-Kiel playing in the mists is probaply about her and her fractal?
Yes, this is a reference to the Fractured! update.
My idea: Evon wants to find a weapon to stop Scarlett, Kie wants to learn about Scarlett’s past
Doesn’t work for the reason I stated above: when the election happened and the two stated which event they were going to research via Fractals, Scarlet was unknown to both – openly at least.
Kiel was interested in investigating the Inquest – as she said during Aetherblade Retreat, though she never met many Inquest she always hated them. Evon didn’t give any reason or hint to his reasons for researching the Fall of Abaddon, but a developer did as I said above.
The Lionguard in Twilight Arbour have taken out many airships and that’s got to be a good use of soldiers. Not sure what complaint Evon has there.
It leaves Lion’s Arch (more) vulnerable to attack, which he fears from Scarlet given that LA has received her ire.
Honestly, it sounds like he isn’t suspecting an attack will come, but he knows an attack will come.
Except that it isn’t soterios. Rox is present and the Warmaster Narru mentions Southsun Cove. The karka invasion of Lion’s Arch – and thus the discovery of Southsun Cove – was explicitly stated to be post-Zhaitan’s defeat; this in turn means that Flame and Frost happens after Zhaitan’s defeat because it deals with Southsun Cove at the end (at the very least, the third month of F&F is post-Zhaitan), and Rox talked about F&F events at Tequatl Rising so we know that Tequatl Rising is post-Flame and Frost, which we know by logical deduction based from a developer comment is post-Zhaitan, ergo Tequatl Rising is post-Zhaitan.
If the world truly is “out of balance” because of Zhaitan’s death, that is – something for which we have zero reason to believe (just because they happen to balance magic by consuming then releasing it does not mean that magic is imbalanced without that constant consuming and releasing, it would at the least mean it is stable and stagnant).
And furthermore, if Scarlet’s goal was to “rebalance the world” – something of which all her actions point to the opposite of, primarily that of her claims after coming out of the Omadd machine which was to fix the concept of predetermination of the sylvari people (aka remove Wyld Hunts/Dark Hunts – though I should note that Scott, I believe, said that her goals have yet to be truly revealed to us) – and to fix this imbalance she would need a new Elder Dragon, then she would not be trying to call an already awake Elder Dragon but instead creating a new Elder Dragon (not even wake a slumbering one) since doing anything but creating a brand new Elder Dragon would remain resulting in 5 Elder Dragons, not the original 6.
Now, it would be curious if she does intend to fulfill her plans via raising an Elder Dragon. If so, then this could tie into Tequatl’s power boost – via Scarlet trying to turn a once-champion into a newborn Elder Dragon to replace Zhaitan’s place. It can fit a bit with the Toxic Alliance, as both the Risen and the TA deal with poisons/decaying and hallucinations (Zhaitan/Risen via the form of a lot of mesmerism for the latter).
Of course, if such was the case I’d be saddened because that means that ArenaNet sadly tied yet another thing into Scarlet, and she’s harmed enough of the lore. I’d like to think that the Elder Dragons can replace themselves without outside influence, and it is done because the magic in the corpse of the previous Elder Dragon is not properly disposed of thus seeps into its champions until one of them become the new Elder Dragon (I suppose kind of like what happens to the Archdemon in Dragon Age should it not be a Grey Warden that kills it – its soul would find a nearby Darkspawn and take over that soulless body, becoming a new Archdemon over time).
Yeah, the thing is out of bounds so you gotta observe from a distance – at least it is in the first of the two instances, I’m not sure about Retribution but the bounds may be smaller there. Wish I still had the screenshot I took a while back. :/
Too small of a picture (yes, I clicked it for a new tab :P) to be sure but the Pride and Maw POI is around there. I don’t think that’s it though, as it was a typical Leviathan skeleton with metal wreckage nearby.
Facebook games have a tendency to take work of others. I’ve seen stuff from GW1 (such as the main EotN art cover of Jora and a bear form norn, or the skill icons) obviously taken and used as part of such games – as well as non-profit games in small-time game-making-hobby communities.
So that doesn’t really mean much.
For the merit of it, I got the later half was a joke, but I wasn’t sure on the first bit. :P
I really hate when people use that argument. He is the Elder Undeath Dragon, not the undead Elder Dragon. And even then, he has no more unique influence over undeath than Jormag does, who is known to corrupt corpses as well. Zhaitan is called the Elder Undeath/Death Dragon not because he is undead himself but because he primarily corrupts the dead and 99% of his minions are animated corpses. If one were to title him properly to the theme of his corruption, it would be “Elder Decay Dragon” given how his minions are instantly rotten and decayed, and even the living or landscape that’s influenced by his corruption is rotten or decayed.
Zhaitan is no more undead than Jormag is ice or Kralkatorrik crystal or Primordus fire.
Trahearne and Destiny’s Edge does say that the fight with Zhaitan is over and members of the Pact in the party during Victory or Death does say the dragon is dead.
I don’t think the collective half of Tyria would be stupid enough to not check for a pulse on Zhaitan.
Anti-climatic end, sure, but an end.
All we know is that ArenaNet said that Tequatl’s power boost will be tied into the Living World storyline somehow.
My guess is a form of your option 2 – though he didn’t take “all” the power, he got a lot from Zhaitan’s corpse which will lead us to having to recover it and utilize the magic seeping from it in a similar manner that the Zephyrites had done to Glint’s corpse.
It is not Primordus. And I removed it from the GW2W Primordus page and tagged it for deletion because it is Kekai’s freelance work.
A link to Kekai Kotaki’s main website’s freelance gallery: http://www.kekaiart.com/freelance.html
A different link to his Guild Wars 2 work on the same site: http://www.kekaiart.com/guild-wars-2.html
That image you refer to is in the freelance gallery, not the GW2 gallery.
It is an awesome artpiece, but this is the only fire dragon concept art by Kekai that is actually for GW2 (and note before going about replacing the current concept art piece on GW2W: it is an old concept art from ’07 as one of the earliest iterations for what an Elder Dragon would look like – it did not make the cut – like all other non-Shatterer non-final-Zhaitan dragon concept art pieces Kekai did).
Kekai has done a lot of freelance or even personal artwork that very closely resembles his design styles for GW2 while he worked at ArenaNet – no doubt his style for one influenced the other greatly. This has led to a lot of his non-GW-related works such as Stormlord or Demon Slayer being mistaken for GW concept art (those two specifically often thought to be Kralkatorrik and Balthazar versus Menzies respectively – but those two specifically are in his personal work gallery, the names having come from his profile at cghub).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
What Razah was, was a generic template created that just so happened to look very human-like. He wasn’t a copy of anything specific, like most demons and things in the Mists.
Razah is more akin to being a clone of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man or some other form of “generic human model” than a clone of an individual like the Fractals are. In the same light, you can probably say the same about the World versus World maps (especially Edge of the Mists, which I doubt is the actual edge of the stuff that surrounds the entire multiverse) or the various afterlives (Mad Realm, the Underworld, Realm of Torment, etc.).
And what do you mean “we know we can do this already” for dislodging Tyria? because as I said, we cannot. Not how I’m understanding what you mean – which by your explanation was “taking a part of Tyria, and separating it from Tyria, moving it into the Mists.” A person traveling into the Mists via portals is vastly different from dislodging a part of the time and space of a location that includes the land and everything.
There is one case where land is taken through a portal – when the Mouth of Torment was being opened up – but it was just chunks of land being sucked in, no time/space distortion of the sort. It’d be no different than grabbing a pebble and chucking it through an open portal. But even this case was empowered by a god.
You would quite literally need a god to do what your wanting to do – if it were even possible for the gods, as the best case we have is a god twisting a realm in the Mists to overlap with Tyria, trying to make the two become one. And the closest next is them opening a portal, which is actually possible by a mortal (Lord Odran for example) but that just results in effects like in Godslost Swamp – portals like doorways opening for travel, no vacuum or time/space distortions.
Players don’t care about the lore?
I think if you looked through the threads in this forum you’d find yourself very wrong and that Malyck, the sylvari you speak of, is discussed quite frequently. Far more than any other sylvari-only storyline element.
And I don’t think it is that none of the NPCs care, but that it’s treated as best to keep the knowledge as secretive as possible because if the Nightmare Court learned of the other tree then they could seek to destroy, rather than corrupt, the Pale Tree and seek to “start anew” with the other tree – the entire point you kill off the Knight of Embers with Malyck. Plus Malyck promised to return himself, so there’s no need to seek out the tree yourself when your Wyld Hunt is to kill Zhaitan – who is an immediate threat, what with his invading Lion’s Arch (for the third or fourth time) and doing far better this time than ever before.
TBH though, it’s not the only storyline utterly forgotten in the later levels.
ar·cane
adjective \är-?k?n\: secret or mysterious : known or understood by only a few people
Sometimes, terms in fiction hold the same meaning as their actual definition.
Ehhhhhh….
Firstly, Fractals would be unrelated to the first half you mentioned. You speak of time travel and moving pockets of time and space, but the Fractals is more akin to… alternate realities, though they’re very much not such – more like small island-like copies of reality floating in a vast expanse of protomatter (which look like mists hence the name: “the Mists”). The key is that they are copies, not the real thing in any way shape or form. They would be best compared to being a clone than anything else – cloned landscape, cloned individuals, and whatnot. And sometimes these clones are made with mutations that make them different from the original.
As to time travel in of itself – there’s many different routes that can be taken for this, as there are just as many different theories for how time travel works and ArenaNet can use any of them (or make up their own). Thus far, we only have one-sided view of time travel from the Infinity Ball storyline, where said individual comes from the future – so time travel is indeed possible, though hard to perform as in said storyline, the connection had to be made on this side before the time travel could occur – but it was still a one-way trip it seems, from future to past. However, we have no idea what happens with that future – it was a “possible future” meaning that it may not happen (much like the ‘foreseeing the future’ that is A Light in the Darkness story step), but does that cease to exist once avoided? If so, does that mean the very act of time traveling erases that time traveler’s homeworld/time from all existence? If not, is it actual time travel, or just traveling between two dimensions on parallel timespans that are just at different places in the timeline? Or, if also not, are you actually altering your own past, or are you just doing what was already done in your world’s past but in your personal future? To quote Doctor Who: Timey Whimy Wibbly Wobbly Stuff.
The only other case we have of time traveler is Corporal Bane, however he was part of a 100% pop culture reference April’s Fools joke, so I wouldn’t consider it canon in the least – or wouldn’t usually, except that there was another such joke of 100% references that was made canon to some’s dismay at the joke that lore is becoming.
Now to the point of the whole “dislodging a fraction of Tyrian timespace into the Mist” – I don’t think that’s even possible. It took a god, Abaddon specifically who’s domain was secrets and knowledge, to twist his own realm into a mockery of Tyria and then overlap the two, turning Tyria into said mockery (Nightfall). He couldn’t even dislodge part of Tyria, so I doubt that anything could honestly. The Mists could create a copy of a specific time and space of Tyria – that’s what the Fractals (and sPvP maps) are after all – but I find it extremely impossible for a part of Tyria to be moved into the Mists.
As for a being within a fractal being able to leave with Dessa’s aid. I am doubtful because the inhabitants (at least the hostile ones) are the instabilities – thus the figure you talk about would be said instability – and the instabilities reset after a time, so too one would think would the figure (probably in the same manner that Dessa seemed to have “reset” when trying to leave Mistlock Observatory at the end of the update’s story mode); though it’s impossible to prove or disprove.
The forums you want: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp How you got to the Lore forum instead is a mystery in of itself.
To answer your question: different games, different mechanics, different community.
regarding 1st question – little is known, all we know is that they were introduced along with that weird competition for black lion – the Consortium. I can’t say more about that since i am not completely sure if Consortium wanted to charge people for exploring them, use people to explore them and utilize them in some way to gain money or something else…
The Consortium’s asura gate was meant to go to Southsun Cove and the accident happened as Aaron said – the original function of the Fractals’ asura gate having been replaced by the newly added gate there. The Consortium had no knowledge of where the gate led once it malfunctioned and so they couldn’t have been planning to use the Fractals to make money – not until after the malfunction, that is.
2nd question – I believe that Dessa is somewhat of a semi-failed attempt to bring someone back from fractals. Mists are somewhat “the other side” of the Tyria. Sometimes they are (as in original GW) place where dead go, they are home to some races as well, GW players went there in nightfall. However, mists are as well the fabric of the world. I wouldn’t connect them to past/present/future… They simply are… If someone was able to come from fractals to “present” Tyria i’d say they’d be mad, confused or severly affected in some way. For instance Dessa keeps “restarting” – you could have seen it with fractured living story update. So i personally belive that character brought from fractals would be unplayable.
Not quite true. While yes the Mists serve as the afterlife, it is the protomatter that makes up all life and all time – it is the beginning and the end, where all things can trace their origins, and where all things eventually go back to. The Mists does connect all past, present, and future; it isn’t that the Mists is the past/present/future but connects the three together. One can say quite easily knowing this that there is no true concept of time in the Mists. But the Fractals and everything else made in the Mists are not pieces of the past, just recreations. They are their own entity.
What Dessa is… is fully unknown – whether she’s Mistborn or just a traveler like us who got stuck is just simply unknown.
The wiki articles haven’t been really updated in lore for the past few updates, but if there’s older lore it should be up on the individual fractal articles. Anyways to answer your questions (note I have not read Mereon or Aaron’s post while typing this up):
Their lifespan is twice that length actually, but still he makes it sound like it’s been more than 250 years – that’s how I interpret the chief’s lines at least. His specific line being:
“The Togatl are as a part of this area as the lake or the sky. We have lived here for many generations. I never thought I would see the end of us in my lifetime. The krait have dealt us a blow.”
If the Togatl are not even around for 250 years, how can they be as much part of the area as the lake or sky? Unlike other watery areas of Kryta, Viathan Lake was there even before the Great Tsunami. Though in GW1, its borders was split between Tears of the Fallen (western shore), Talmark Wilderness (northern shore), and Kessex Peak and Viathan Arm was a mere swamp or simply non-watery and disconnected.
(Kind of interesting that 250 years ago, the area that’s now the Red Auld Warf ruins was a beach covered in Mergoyles and a single fisherman).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
@Mereon: Though Zhaitan is called the “Elder Death Dragon” or the “Elder Undeath Dragon” that’s just because of what his focus of corruption is – corpses. However, like all other Elder Dragons he can corrupt living beings, the landscape, and plantlife. This is shown mainly via Kellach and Necromancer Rissa (human and charr storylines), in Orr itself, and Sparkfly Fen respectively.
All Elder Dragons can corrupt all things – it’s just that they directly only corrupt specific things. Though there’s no living beings corrupted by Primordus, there was an interview with GuildMag in which Jeff Grubb, Scott McGough, and Ree Soesbee confirmed that Primordus can indeed corrupt living beings.
Zhaitan prefers corpses. Primordus prefers stone and lava. Kralkatorrik corrupts via direct physical contact (be it crystal or his breath). The DSD, to our knowledge, prefers water. And Jormag prefers convincing others to desire his corruption (though it should be noted that his Sons of Svanir minions do forcefully spread his corruption – something unshared by his non-SoS Icebrood, except via mentally forcing one to want his corruption like the Dragonspawn).
I wouldn’t count them as dead given that they’re still sentient – both Branded and Icebrood show – in the former during Edge of Destiny only – sentience even when not champions, unlike Risen and Destroyers.
Corruption doesn’t kill, not traditionally at least – it changes the composition of the flesh into elements, and effectively brainwashes the victims.
But I suppose it depends on how you define “living” – Branded and Icebrood no longer have pumping hearts and working organs (at least after a time in the latter’s case), but they’re not simple mobile corpses and there’s no state of obvious death – it’s just “living normal being” directly to “dragon minion” (whereas Risen have a couple seconds of being dead before rising again, just long enough to hit the floor before moving to get up again – if in the presence of the dragon’s influence, otherwise it’d be longer). The concept behind dragon minions is basically “living elements” (Destroyers are, though bodies of stone and lava, considered living beings mechanically at least) – this is one of the main things other than ties to the Elder Dragon that separates, for example, an Icebrood Elemental from a simple Ice Elemental.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
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