Guild Wars 2

Note: responding in order of posts, so if I’m responding to something later commented on apologies for such :P

Arleii.5304:

since I don’t know about any trees that would be that big in that area and/or in the lore.

The Maguuma Jungle has a unique tree known as stonewood trees. They can grow to be, oh, roughly the size of the Pale Tree. Though they tend to lack any kind of leaves – at least as what was seen in GW1, where we saw them in the more arid parts of the Maguuma Jungle (they survived in those areas because their roots burrowed deep enough to find water sources).

Arleii.5304:

I wonder if it’s all connected. It probably is, since there is Wychmire Swamp and strange dark energies, and we have Twilight Arbor here.
Any information on any of these?

Doubt it’s connected. The “dark energies” is heavily hinted to be either Mordremoth or just simply whatever is behind the Nightmare that twists sylvari mentality.

No information is known.

Psynch.4087:

I’ve been extremely interested in that area for a while, as well. I recently did some searching in the Nahuatl language (the basis for Hylek naming) and found a few things:

Tlaocol = sadness (and variants thereof)
I- as a prefix refers to the a third person (his/hers/theirs)

So, Tears of Itlaocol means “Tears of her sadness”

I say ‘her’ because there is only one being that I can think of that would fit here: Melandru. Sandwiched in among all of the giant carved faces is a statue of Melandru. It’s technically placed above Twilight Arbor, and it’s not visible anymore. But it was there in GW1.

So then it makes sense to think of Tears of Itlaocol as “Tears of Melandru” or “Tears of Melandru’s sadness.” This also makes sense given that these tears share the exact model as Dwayna’s Tears in the Arah explorable dungeon.

Even though Melandru is a human god, the same ‘spirit’ of the god may be worshiped by other races. The Quaggan also worship a Melandru-like god, as we’ve seen at the Gendarran Fields sunken Melandru statue.

I think the giant faces are likely carvings by Hylek out of worship for their Melandru-like god.

The Melandru connection’s an interesting line of thought. Issue is that the Melandru statue would be more likely to be in Nemeton Grove – Wychmire Swamp is too far south for the statue in Twin Serpent Lake in GW1, and is more on par to where the bottom lakes were (*with the upper lakes turning into Lychcroft Mere).

However, I wouldn’t take the model comparison to Tears of Dwayna with much merit. There’s actually a lot of duplicated model usage for such items. Reflection Crystals within Arah use Searing Crystal models from the Searing Effigy, for example.

I doubt that the hylek worship Melandru either – they all together worship the same sun deity, translated in their tongue as Zintl.

Psynch.4087:

Yeah. I’m trying to think about when these were made. In the last 300 years, I think. I didn’t play GW1, but I don’t think these were visible in that era. After the giant tidal wave 100 years ago, there likely haven’t been any settlers other than the Hylek. The area is just too inhospitable. So if these aren’t Hylek creations from the last 100 years, then they were likely created 100-300 years ago. Again, that is granted they weren’t already there in GW1.

Unfortunately, I just don’t think there’s much known about that time interval.

I wouldn’t put too much merit into the idea behind “not in GW1” – those hylek in Kessex Hills say they’ve been there for generations, and by the sound of it before GW1’s time, but we see no such hylek presence in GW1 in that area.

ThiBash.5634:

There’s a Jotun in Hoelbrak (Thruln the Lost or something) that states humans came ‘from over the sea’. The gods favored the Jotun at that time, and ignored the humans until they developed. That story, although obviously prone to generations of hearsay, does put some doubt in the whole ‘gods brought humans to Tyria from another dimension’ idea.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Origins-of-the-Humans/first#content Recently discussed and you should note that Thruln is outright wrong in quite a bit of places and you should note that while humans did come to continental Tyria from across the sea at one point this thread is talking about before that – about the world they came from through the portal Dwayna opened which happened long (centuries) before what Thruln is talking about.

One of the things Thruln is outright wrong about is the gods’ view of humanity seeing how it was explicitly stated multiple times by developers that the Six Gods brought humanity from another world. Here is one such interview with a developer stating such. “[…] dating back long before the Gods brought the humans to the world […]”

Bellyboomer.3048:

I know there are multiple explanations of how the humans came to tyria: some say they came from the south, others say they first came to orr… And the same goes for the gods as well: they first came to orr from the mists, yet they we’re also around when the Jotun were a great race. It doesn’t really add up.

I can’t seem to find any statement that the gods came from the same world as the humans, yet should there be such evidence, there are other historical theories that would counter it.
I’d say the gods were inhabitants of the mists, made contact with the Jotun from the mists and when they came to Tyria, they brought along the humans from another world connected to the mists. .

The explanations of human history actually are not as contradictory as you think. Humans arrived via boats on continental Tyria and Elona in 205 BE, but in 786 BE they first arrived in Cantha – these are facts. The claim of humans arriving via portal is a separate, older, event stated by the Orrian History Scrolls and an “Avatar of Grenth.”: There are no dates or order of events tied to this event, just that it happened. On top of that, Jeff Grubb said in an interview that “It seems, from their previous appearances, that they have come up from the south, so the “human homeland” may be further south than Elona and Cantha.” Though it seems contradictory at first, it actually isn’t – kitten long as Jeff wasn’t giving us a red herring (go south enough and you end up north of where you were and vice versa) – but instead it means that humanity was not on Orr long enough to leave an impact, thus it cannot be called their “homeland.”

If one looks at this image of Tyria taken from the globe in the Chantry of Secrets, one can see that there is a continent east of Cantha (still south of Elona), and a large island south of Cantha. Either can be the homeland – though if one adds in the An Empire Divided claims of human arrival on Cantha, one notes they likely came from the east (first settling Cantha on Shing Jea and northeast shores). This would place that continent east of Cantha as the homeland.

And there’s nothing contradictory about the gods either – if Thruln’s claim of an Age of Giants was post-last ED rise like it’s heavily implied then there’s no issue at all, as the gods’ arrival is never said elsewhere to be after the jotun’s fall (nor do we know when said fall took place). Though if the Age of Giants was pre-last ED rise, then there’s a contradiction and Thruln is simply wrong (otherwise a dozen+ other sources would be wrong instead).

As to humans and gods coming from the same world:

“She chose Tyria and brought with her those who would make this world a paradise. As she had promised, Dwayna led her people to peace.”

From Orrian History Scrolls. Dwayna brought with her humanity – from where she came, humanity came. Like a bag of luggage. :P

On the bit of forgetting the past… we’ll just have to disagree there. But one does not simply “forget” their technology and past – it’d have to be actively wiped out (and we know how good the gods are at that, given how much of Abaddon was left about in the world).

That’s just ArenaNet’s habit of interrupting celebrations. The theme goes much further back on top of that. Remember Dragon Festival 2006? And it’s not isolated to humanity either (Lion’s Arch is hardly human-centric anyways so neither would Dragon Bash be) – they’re just the most common to get hit because, well, humanity are the biggest celebrators (kind of captain obvious there given the year-round festivities in Eastern Commons).

I don’t disagree with you that it could use some changing up, but it’s hardly anything unique that would get people to stop their celebrations. After all, think about how many celebrations were not interrupted.

That tends to be how reality is as well. After all, if only good things followed good things then there’d be no bad things. Good is followed by bad, but conversely, bad is followed by good. It’s an aspect of life, not just Tyria nor just stories in general.

It would still be in AD, which is hardly an “ancient era” – even if you ignore the whole “missing five days a year” thing (which even in-universe has only been recently “fixed”) it’d still be around the time of Jesus’ life that humans showed up – there’d already have been Greece’s high point and Rome’s high points having taken place, certainly no era of lost knowledge. Plus I don’t think even in ancient history did we ever have upright snakes (cannot even think of such mythological beasts beyond naga).

Sure it’s something that could be done, but not without a LOT of head-scratching at this point in time. Only way for that to work would be if it was an alternate reality Earth – where things from our mythology were true and then it’d turn out that centaurs, naga, and other races also came from Earth via the gods. But that’s far from all that original, which is what ArenaNet at least tries to become (sans their over-use of rl references).

People have mentioned it, but keep in mind that where this world that humans came from, the Six Gods also came from, and possibly the Forgotten as well.

There are no Six Gods nor Forgotten on this world.

Nor is there really a need or explanation for saying “humans came from Earth” because… there really is no point in it.

Plus, how did humanity lose so much of their technology and knowledge in the move from Earth and Tyria?

In the case of Icebrood, they slowly turn into ice from the outside in – earliest forms of Icebrood are just coated in ice, but older Icebrood have their blood frozen. It’s not a case of “lesser vs more powerful” but “younger vs older.” Any living being corrupted by Primordus and his destroyers – as extremely rare as it is – would be a similar case, early stages being just encased in rock to eventually having the body “melted down” into lava.

Branded however are made differently – their entire bodies turn to crystal. On the models themselves, you see they have gray skin (much like Risen) but beneath that skin instead of muscle and the like you have crystal – with their concept art (easiest to notice is with this one ) the only thing not crystalized beneath the ruptured skin is the bone (which goes in line with Victurus the Shattered’s dialogue about breaking his bones).

The novels actually go into detail about the destruction of dragon minions (Edge of Destiny covering the most but Ghosts of Ascalon has a more interesting account for Branded).

While blood is not specifically mentioned, the destruction of Branded is all about shattering – no splatter or the like, never mention of blood upon their death, and Ghosts of Ascalon was quite graphic what with heads flying about.

And @ Illi: Only Zhaitan is known to solely first-kill-then-corrupt. Icebrood and Branded can be corrupted as living beings, and the former can also be corpses (I presume the same for Branded and Destroyers but that’s unclear). Even Zhaitan’s corruption can corrupt living being – see Kellach and Necromancer Rissa from the human and charr personal storylines – though Zhaitan doesn’t seem to do that directly, just as Primordus doesn’t corrupt living beings directly or Jormag only corrupts after getting the to-be-corrupted to want it. All Elder Dragons can corrupt the same subjects – and in regards beings, they can be living or dead – but they hold a “preference” for what they twist; why the preference, we don’t know other than just to keep them separate kinds of forces to us players from a design standpoint.

It’s just a common fantasy term for magical energy basically. In some old beliefs, it’s what was believed the heavens (or Heaven) was made of (more or less).

@Obsidian: On tht last bit, simply stating that Ascalon is recovering from the charr conflict does not state that Ascalon is actually doing well – the act of recovering is not “doing better” but “working to survive.” It’d be different if it was recovered, rather than recovering. Semantics in tense, I know, but important in interpretation nonetheless. Besides, I think it’s pretty clear that the new treaties with Krytans was in reference to Prince Rurik’s actions – and no such treaties ever came about with either nation beyond a settlement for those who fled Ascalon. Even with Nightfall there was a total lack of such treaties being mentioned.

Doesn’t help that Ermenred wasn’t exactly in Ascalon at the time of An Empire Divided’s writing from an in-universe perspective (as he was retouring Cantha and then remained in Lion’s Arch after). :P

@Dustfinger: I don’t think anyone has ever stated that “humanity has always been strong and developed” but rather that they have while on Tyria. Personally, I suspect they were likely on par to the Bronze Age when they were brought onto the world – keep in mind that the History of Tyria’s claims make it sound like humans were made rather than brought, which is what other priests claim in Prophecies (that Tyria was the first planet, the gods made humans and placed them on the world, etc.). If they’re newborn race then of course they’d be undeveloped – but if they’re not? Then it’d be odd if they were!

That’s… not what I was saying at all.

I’m saying that the belief that Zhaitan himself is undead – which is how you opened your post – is an unproven notion. And on top of that, he is as much of an Elder Dragon of undeath as Jormag is. The chances of self-reanimation is rather slim; as possible as it would be for a necromancer to turn his own corpse into a zombie.

You’re twisting my words. I didn’t say that Ermenred saying humanity couldn’t recall their origins means a lot of things we’ve been led to believe about it is wrong. I said that because a learned scholar states that it is forgotten that the claims of knowing the origin may not be accurate. There’s a difference in that you claimed I spoke in absolutes, when I did and meant no such thing.

Not once have I stated any source is absolutely false – not without supporting evidence that counter-acts the source’s claims. Thruln, even though he contradicts developer statements and thus is known to be false, I still said may hold some truth between his “lies” (so to speak).

And I fail to see where your “free hand with the narrative” is at all even relevant here. You’re once more trying to derail a thread into your bitter anti-GW2-writing arguments. Stop.

Oh, and to your final statement: I did answer it. But since you clearly didn’t see the answer I’ll try to be more clear cut for you: Other in-game knowledge as well as the writing style of History of Tyria indicates that it is as much of an interpretation of unknowns as any creation myth in our own history. Overall however, it is impossible to fully know without delving into the author’s own mind (thus any claim to say that it wasn’t or that the writers have been changing narrative is absolutely unfounded because you have no clue what their intention was from the get go), but given the writing style, the History of Tyria work can be taken either way – just as one can very easily take the Bible literally or fictionally.

For that particular line? Here’s ONE instance, perhaps the most clear-cut of them all:

“Even in Tyria, we humans have forgotten where we came from…literally. All that is known of the origin of the Tyrian human race is that our species appeared more than 1,200 years ago on the northern continent. Humans settled Cantha even earlier, however, and appear to have done so on multiple occasions during what Canthans call the Late Pre-Imperial Era. Even less is known about the origin of the Luxon and Kurzick peoples, who arrived on the continent after the tribes that would become modern Canthans settled the northwest coast and Shing Jea Island. The humans of Cantha may have actually originated on Shing Jea, though this has never been proven.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/An_Empire_Divided

This is the opening paragraph for discussing the human historical timeline in Cantha. The VERY FIRST statement was “humans have forgotten where we came from.”

If that doesn’t say ‘hey, any claims for knowing how we came about isn’t necessarily truth’ I don’t know what would. And this is pre-Factions so it certainly hits your “pre-EotN” requirements.

Historial discrepancies had existed no later than Factions itself, and extrapolated greatly with Nightfall. Some of such discrepancies existed in Prophecies alone even. And I do believe we’ve had this very discussion about ten times with me explaining and citing the very same sources each and every time. I highly suggest you read up on An Empire Divided if you haven’t yet, since I tend to just cite that to counter you and your claims.

Like I said in response to KeyLimPi, I was responding as I went through the thread. :P

But to the response to your response:

That line from the History of Tyria is akin to the Before History sonnets – poetical interpretation of historical events. It is no more believable – even during Prophecies, let alone during Factions – as the story of Adam and Eve. You are true that the entire document is not discredited, but your original statement of taking it as more truthful than Thruln is downright foolhardy if serious – which I doubt it was, given you.

Xukavi.4320:

Well going by that info, what he says of the humans first coming from the sea is true since they did come from Cantha (that much I knew before hand).

They didn’t come to Tyria/Elona from Cantha. There was too many showing for it to have been Canthans when Canthans hold no knowledge or historical records of this. The Tyrian/Elonian humans came from somewhere else across the Clashing Seas, likely the same place that Canthans came from.

Xukavi.4320:

That just totally doesn’t make sense unless by gods he means the seers but I highly doubt that. Also he states that the Norn and the Jotun were both there in the Age of Giants but he could possibly be referring that after the Giganticus Lupicus were extinct to still be the Age of Giants.

That is – as stated – the inaccuracy on Thruln part. When – and if – the Age of Giants happened is unknown fully. I theorize that it ended with the last ED rise, personally,and the potential fall of ogres, giants, and extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus. That is, that the Age of Giants refers to a time before even the Bloodstone’s making.

But that’s purely theoretical.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

That second line seems to be mostly true- Tyrian humans are said to have lived in tribes before being united under King Doric- but the idea that the gods only noticed the humans after the formation of Ascalon is also likely false, as both charr and human histories say that such was only accomplished with the aid of those gods.

Just to play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, but the first of the three Tyrian kingdoms was, in fact, Orr. King Doric was crowned in Ascalon, but all indications point to humans living in Orr before then – perhaps not as a “kingdom” but nonetheless. It seems that Doric moved his seat of power from Orr to Ascalon at some point – turning settlement into ruling kingdom.

Dustfinger.9510:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

As to the rest of what he says in there, the idea that they were similar to grawl upon arrival is patently false. As Konig has pointed out in the past, Thruln himself admits humans sailed to Tyria, and shipbuilding is a fairly advanced art, well beyond the capabilities of the grawl.

“They arrived naked and defenseless, except for one thing: their desire for control.”

“We discovered fire”

“Soon humans had everything we required, and it was then that we began to prey upon the other creatures.”

From the Guild Wars 1 manual, History of Tyria

It’s human nature to assume the best version of everything. But humanity didn’t even have fire at first. So “sailing” may have been little more than rafts/canoes. They may have been ships built by the gods. Or even divine building instruction, Noah style.

Nearly everything stated in the History of Tyria has been proven to be human fabrication or misunderstanding. I fail to see why the poetic justice that refers to humanity arriving on the world and not humanity arriving on the continent of Tyria could be no more false than anything else there (especially given that we’ve known humanity arrived on continental Tyria via boats since Factions).

You’re still taking the claims of one time, and pointing it as being the claims of another. You’re saying those events refer to their arrival in 205 BE but it infacts refers to the very same thing this line from the Orrian History Scrolls refers to:

“The first of the gods to step forth from the mists was Dwayna, goddess of air and life. She placed her pale foot on the stones of Arah, opened the gates, and brought humanity to the world.”

Which was centuries before 205 BE – and likely centuries before 786 BE even (when humanity arrived on Cantha). Either way though, that bit of information is perhaps among the first lines of the History of Tyria to be called into question as accurate. And with more of that document turning into lies or false knowledge, we have even less reason to believe that – let alone over Thruln the Lost’s claims.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Exodus of the Gods was the War that happened between the 4 gods and the 5th true god Abaddon. Abaddon was the god of secrets and water, which caused a huge following within the human sea-traveller populations. He transformed humans into Margonites, which were humans corrupted with pure magical power. Abaddon and his army were so powerful the remaining gods needed to team up in order to seal him within the realm of torment. When this happened the Crystal Sea was turned into the Crystal Desert.

Margonites was the name of the human sea-farring nation even before they were transformed. Abaddon did not transform humans into Margonites, but rather he transformed the Margonites from being human to being demonic etheric beings.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Due to the sudden revert of magical energy the Jotun societies fought among each other. In GW1 (which I’m playing through atm again) in the EOTN campaign there’s a Jotun inside one of the Norn Lodges that comments he’s glad to see the Norn re-forming their society and regain their influence with the gods. In this case being the Spirits of the Wild. A side note about Norn, they were the greatest power of Tyria (continent) until the magics were reverted.

This again presumes Thruln the Lost is accurate, which we have no indication that this is true. ALL other history on the jotun downfall instead claims that the jotun began infighting because they had concurred the Shiverpeaks and had no new enemies to fight but were too prideful to leave it at that. The Giant-Kings (leaders of the ancient jotun kingdoms/tribes) couldn’t stop their greed to rule more lands, and thus turned on the other Giant-Kings.

And… what jotun in GW1 is this? Because there was no such jotun in the past. Which lodge? Based on that dialogue if true (GWW holds no mention of such a jotun), then that would mean that the Age of Giants was rather recent, and somewhat truthful.

KeyLimPi.9031:

As for magic (forgive me it’s been a while)

There is… a lot wrong with your post KeyLimPi. I’ll just have to go and respond paragraph by paragraph…

KeyLimPi.9031:

I believe Jotun, Norn, and a few other races were gifted the first “Human god/True God” magics. I need to enforce however, that they were not the first MAGICS. There were gods before the True Gods, and there were magics before the True Gods bestowed magic.

There is only two (possibly t hree) types of magic known: Tyrian magic, Divine magic, and possibly “Mists magic” (but that last one is theoretical and another topic). The Six Gods did not gift any new magic, though they are the sole inhibitors of “divine magic” (which in essence is just indestructible magic which makes one a god). Tyrian magic is part of the world’s nature itself and is consumed periodically by the Elder Dragons; the Six Gods did not “gift” magic per se but “released sealed Tyrian magic” – the magic they introduced to the world was not new by any means. They just released what was stored within the Bloodstone.

The norn’s history is fully unknown and all we have for their history prior to Eye of the North is Thruln the Lost’s take, but we have no timeframe for when this “Age of Giants” occurred – if it ever did.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Mursaat and Seers are a prime example of this existing, before the “True Gods” intervened in Tyria and brought the humans with them. These two rival races existed WELL before the Human Gods. Over 1,000 years difference! There is also Arachnia “God of Insectoids”. Though Arachnia doesn’t make an appearance, she was datamined and could be arguably considered canon. You can also argue the Elder Dragons are also caretakers of original magic.

The mursaat and Seers existed together during the last ED rise – along with Giganticus Lupicus, jotun, dwarves, and Forgotten by our knowledge. This was 9,5000 years prior to humanity’s arrival on Cantha. Though there’s indication to argue that the last ED rise was not the one where th Giganticus Lupicus went extinct but was closer to around 2,000 BE (only a mere 1,500 years prior to humanity on Cantha). The time difference between the Six Gods’ arrival on the world and humanity’s arrival on Cantha is fully unknown either way.

Arachnia is, as you said, unconfirmed canon. And it is not “God of Insectoids” but “one of the insectoid gods” – meaning that per the gw.dat there were more gods like Arachnia whom were insectoid in appearance.

The Elder Dragons are not caretakers of magic. They are the herbivore to magic’s plants. They consume magic, not take care of it.

KeyLimPi.9031:

Jotun had their magic removed because Abaddon handed out magical knowledge without the other gods permission. This allowed UNLIMITED use of magics. King Doric begged the gods to revert the decision and remove magic. They instead, created the bloodstone which split the magics into their respective schools. This assured that no one would wield power over all magics ever again. This act also started the “Exodus of the Gods”.

This statement presumes Thruln the Lost is telling the truth, but we simply do not know this.

We IS known is that the Seers had taken all magic in the world not corrupted by the Elder Dragons – and this included that of the jotun. Thruln’s statement may be mixing various histories together, and their loss of magic he refers to could be this time.

Abaddon had permission to gift magic to the world from the Bloodstone – he just did so too freely and the races abused the large amount of magic he gifted. And it wasn’t unlimited exactly, as all magic is finite.

The Six Gods did not create the Bloodstone – the Seers did during the last Elder Dragon rise. The gods’ gift of magic was in fact the release of magic from the Bloodstone, and their reducing magic was sealing magic back into it (or reducing the flow of magic from the Bloodstone – it isn’t clear) and then shattering it.

Xukavi.4320:

Well guys I know the short answer would be simply this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he’s lying for attention by the norn. Worst case its misinformation on his side. But we should also consider that (in some other dialogue on the wiki I found) he claims to be one of the very last story tellers of his people (possibly the Jotun as he noted their storytellers have been dwindling till one per generation) and claims to have knowledge he wanted to share with the Norn (specifically Knut).

Oh, I for one never said to just dismiss his claims outright – but rather that half of his claims outright contradict not only old lore (in which I would normally call said old lore into question instead), but lore found out after his appearance (read: later in the game) as well as developer comments both prior to and post-Thruln’s knowledge being known. With so many contradictions, his un-contradicted/ing knowledge is called into question.

I hold no doubt that he is indeed (among) the last storyteller(s), as our other lore on the jotun’s fall says that their magic users and lore-keepers (historians, teachers, etc.), the latter of which Thruln the Lost is of, were the first to be targetted and thus most went extinct in the earliest days of the jotun infighting.

The reason to call Thruln the Lost into question isn’t because he contradicted old lore nor because it’s just the “easy answer” but because he contradicts new lore too on top of outright facts (lore from the horse’s mouth, so to speak).

Xukavi.4320:

I know the humans come from the south and then settled Tyria, what just really confused me was the part saying that the gods hadn’t noticed the humans til later one in the timeline when they got more developed when it was stated before that the gods were the ones that brought the humans to Tyria in the first place. Also GW1 wiki at least says that the gods created the bloodstone or was that inaccurate ( I remember you brought that up before Konig I just don’t remember the citing).

Does anyone know how long he’s been in game?

As Aaron said, GWW typically describes the lore from the perspective of the first game – only a few places show it as known from GW2 as well. This was a decision (which I disagree with personally) made by the GW1W admins and regular editors.

But as I explained quite fully in my post, Thruln’s statement of the gods not noticing humanity is one of the things that contradicts older, newer, and dev-stated lore. That, if nothing else said by Thruln, is outright confirmed fabrication. Whether he believes it to be truth or not is another tale, so he may not be “lying” per se (semantic argument there) but it isn’t the objective truth of the world.

He’s been in GW2 since release (well, since the beta weekend events).

Nothing we know really says that Zhaitan himself was undead (or a “zombie”). He is the Elder Undeath Dragon because he controls undead and the like. Similarly, Kralkatorrik isn’t made of crystal but rather can control such (and turn himself into a sandstorm).

Though if you think about it fully, Zhaitan’s minions are not undead per se. They certainly are reanimated corpses, but so are some of the Icebrood. Zhaitan’s corruption focuses on reanimating corpses but it isn’t limited to such, and elsewhere we see his effects taking:

• immediate decay in newly made minions – even corpses just made turn gray in skin and rotten
• disease spreading amongst plants and living animals that consume Risen corpses or diseased plants (or diseased animals)
• and living beings affected by his corruption become mentally degraded – as if their mental abilities are decaying

One can just as easily call Zhaitan the “Elder Disease Dragon” or “Elder Decay Dragon” as much as he’s called, interchangably, the “Elder Death Dragon” and “Elder Undeath Dragon.”

On a side, we actually do know that they are hostile to each other – though not brought up in-game (yet), their minions under normal circumstances are stated via an interview to be hostile to each other and we’ve known via another interview for a long time that they are no allies to each other. At the moment, at least, they just don’t seem to be actively fighting – the best we get is skirmishes between minions who cross each others’ paths.

And a clarification (or another, rather): The Elder Dragons were not unknown in the past, as the jotun have knowledge of multiple awakenings of the Elder Dragons – which indicate at least two prior to our current awakening cycle.

Humans coming from boats to continental Tyria is 100% truth. However, it is not the first time they stepped foot on continental Tyria, nor did the Six Gods ignore the humans until they built kingdoms (remember that humanity built the Primeval Dynasty within five years of landing on Elona, which was at the same time they landed on continental Tyria in 205 BE), we know this for a fact because of Canthan history which has knowledge and recollection of the Six Gods (well, Five Gods since all historical records removed Abaddon) since Kaineng Tah’s time which is well over 500 years prior to humanity’s establishment of their four Tyrian and Elonian kingdoms (in order of establishment (best guess – no known dates for Orr’s establishment): Primeval Dynasty (200 BE), Orr (?? BE), Margonites (175 BE (first knowledge of)), Ascalon (100 BE), Kryta (?? BE by King Mazdak, former prince of Orr – re-established in 300 AE)).

Humanity first appeared on continental Tyria at the same time they appeared on the world – brought to the world by Dwayna from another planet through a portal that led them through the Mists. This portal was opened on Arah. For unknown reasons, humanity was removed from Orr and settled in a land suspected to be either south or east of Cantha – where they on “their own” developed and colonized new lands (first known records place human settlers on Shing Jea Island and northeastern Canthan shores what is now Kaineng City; Tyrian scholars such as Ermenred speculated that humanity came from Shing Jea, though we know this to be where Tengu had lived for a long time and they see humans as trespassers so the certainty of this is highly unclear); second showing is in the Echovald Forest (Kurzicks) and Jade Sea (Luxons) – then centuries later in Tyria and Elona as mentioned above.

What homeworld they came from is unknown, however we have moderate to heavy indication that it was a world with little to no magic, and had suffered some sort of calamity which forced them to move to another world. What knowledge we have on this mainly comes from the Orrian History Scrolls in Malchor’s Leap and a response from Angel McCoy.

And as for that hypothetical “homeland continent” – the only indication of what life was like there would be Cliffside Fractal, which is a representation of the earliest times of Tyria (world) as humans know it. Its speculated location comes from An Empire Divided (where we get the settlement history of humanity on Cantha I mentioned above – take note while reading that, it is written from a pre-Nightfall in-game perspective, so knowledge of Margonites is treated as myth by human historians at that point, and Abaddon is unknown to 99.99% of the human population) and an interview with Jeff Grubb in which he says humans could have come north from “somewhere south of Elona or Cantha” (and southeast of Elona, or east of Cantha, is still “somewhere south of Elona (or Cantha)”).

I would also like to note that EVERYTHING that Thruln the Lost says about the history of magic is either outright false or unsupported by anything else. For example: we know that the Seers had taken magic from the jotun when making the Bloodstone, though it is not unknown if the Six Gods ever did something at a later time; it is also known that the reason for the jotun civil war and infighting was out of pride after they had conquered all of their enemies, not a case of confusion from magic taken from them (though such could have added to the problems) – it’s also known that jotun forever lost magic not because it was taken, but because their magic-users and lorekeepers were the first to be killed off (killing them was a “sure” way to eliminate a tribe) so very few had survived. The existence of the Age of Giants – or when such a thing would have taken place – is fully unknown whether to have existed or not.

Gade.2760:

Keep in mind that below Tyria lies the continent Cantha. There are theories that says that human race spread from the Canthan continent. But how they got to Cantha is not yet known if im correct.

Do you mean that humans spread to continental Tyria and Elona from Cantha? If so, then you’d be wrong fully as Cantha did not know of Tyria until quite some time after its establishment – and the cultures, except possibly Margonites from Luxons, differ greatly. It is most likely that the two (or three) groups that settled Tyria/Elona came from the unknown continent that humanity supposedly lived on prior to Cantha.

I would argue that while the artifacts are radiating corruption “passively,” they were intentionally imbued with corruptive magic. But also ask yourself this: How can an artifact exude magic “actively”?

With artifacts, the result of the magic is based on the intent of the one who imbued said artifact with its magic as well as the one who’s using the artifact – both cases, in the situation of these ossuary jars, are by Zhaitan and his forces. It is not odd in the least that they would exude corruptive magic.

Actually, Guardians use a mix of Tyrian monk, Elonian Paragon, and Canthan Ritualist magic. It is empowered by faith – not necessarily in religion, so I suppose “willpower” is a better term, but “faith” is what Jeff Grubb said – and probably deals with spiritual power similar to Canthans, and if it pulls from the Bloodstones’ four schools it’d likely be the school of Preservation (what was believed to be the school for monks in GW1). It should note that while it holds practices of Tyrian monks, they don’t believe the power comes from the same source – at least universally. In the case of human monks in GW1, at the very least, that magic was claimed to come straight from the gods (hence “Divine Favor” “Smiting Prayers” “Protection Prayers” and “Healing Prayers” as the attribute lines), which isn’t so in GW2.

Well it seems that the exuding of magic being corruptive has to be an active part of the Elder Dragons’ consciousness – just being within the body doesn’t make it corruptive, otherwise the magic exuded during hibernation would be such. So magic within a dragon corpse – at least an Elder Dragon’s corpse – shouldn’t, theoretically, corrupt.

It was “A piece of Zhaitan, forever dead.” I believe. Which really only states that the Shard of Zhaitan itself is ‘forever dead’.

I was using an old interview with Jeff and Ree as a foundation – they merely stated stronger, smarter, and “leads or bullies lesser minions” into acting (paraphrased of course).

It really isn’t clear how far the dragon champions extend. Typically a “Dragon Champion” is simply defined as “a dragon minion whom is more intelligent and stronger than other minions, capable of leading them into battle.” By such a definition then yes the temple priests could be dragon champions.

And @Vex: Not all dragon champions are dragons in shape. You can take Morgus Lethe and the Destroyer of Life from Edge of Destiny for that, or Svanir from GW1.

That’s Screaming Falcons – also known as the Falcon Company – which was a Seraph company (not Ebon Vanguard).

Blurk.6231:

There can only be one champion though. Lately I have been wondering who was the champion of Zhaitan? Is it the Eye of Zhaitan at the source of Orr? Tequatl is often called a lieutenant of Zhaitan and not a champion as fas as I know. For Kralkatorrik its the Shatterer and for Jormag it is supposedly the Claw of Jormag, although I am not sure about it.

Uhh… one champion? In Eye of the North, Jormag had two champions simultaneously: Drakkar and Svanir. In fact, Drakkar made Svanir a champion. Zhaitan has over a dozen champions at once.

A “dragon champion” is simply more akin to a general or lieutenant (Tequatl is indeed a dragon champion, btw – so is Blightghast in the personal story and the two during the Arah story mode; even if Tequatl is called a lieutenant, which The Shatterer is as well, that doesn’t prevent it from being a dragon champion, given that the titles are pretty much meaning the same thing) of the Elder Dragons’ army of minions. They are the more powerful and more intelligent minions – and not necessarily dragons themselves, despite the title. There are many of them at once.

A list of known dragon champions can be found here.

That’s really unknown. We know that she absorbed his knowledge and his … being, with his will being broken and whatnot. But we don’t know if she absorbed whatever it was that made him capable of defeating two gods by himself.

Alga.6498:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Alga.6498:

I don’t think that’s a dragon!

If you have completed Eye of the North, Primordus will be wake up and he was the first of the Elder Dragons to awaken in Tyria. He’s a destroyer Dragon.
Also… this is so confusing.. I thought Primordus would be in GW2 since the EotN gave us a hint at the ending that the first Elder Dragon awaken up, but yet he’s not in GW2??

You can also see:
Jormag sleeping in the sea in Far Shiverpeaks. – He’s in GW2.
Kralkatorrik can be found sleeping in the Charr Homelands. – But he’s not also in GW2?!
Zhaitan is also a Elder Dragon.

Jormag is not in Guild Wars 2 – not physically. None of the Elder Dragons except Zhaitan have shown themselves and this is because they’re not close enough to be a true threat yet. Supposedly all Elder Dragons will eventually be featured, though honestly I now wonder if GW2 will even last long enough for such…

Mind telling me what this is then? [picture] Jormag is an elder dragon, and he’s physically in GW2. I don’t really understand what you mean about your answer about Jormag.

sigh That’s the Claw of Jormag – as the image name even tells you in the url. It’s a dragon champion, no different than the Eye of Zhaitan or Mouth of Zhaitan (just, y’know, a dragon) or Tequatl the Sunless; it is not Jormag himself. There’s several Claws of Jormag that’s been harrowing the kodan in their flight south – they are whom you fight in that meta event.

Kain Francois.4328:

Ludovicus.7980:

It wasn’t Abaddon just awakening. His armies were preparing for the invasion for centuries.

So were the dragons. Especially Primordus.

Not really. The Great Destroyer – allegedly at least – only recently awoke by Eye of the North and Primordus awoke 50 years later. He’s been kept at bay by the Dwarves. Jormag had a little influence in Eye of the North, also recent, and spent centuries via Drakkar just to wake up. The others had no champions (allied with them, in Glint’s case) to set them up. Zhaitan attacked only because he had a nation of dead waiting for him when he awoke (not his own doing).

Abaddon on the other hand – he and his minions had been in the work since his imprisonment more or less, and had been actively fighting for 200 years before his chains began to break free. Also keep in mind that Abaddon was stronger than any two other gods.

The Elder Dragons are often compared to the gods in power, claimed to be about equal and possibly the Elder Dragons a bit stronger. This means Abaddon would be effectively stronger than two Elder Dragons – and at their peak at that (keep in mind that unlike Abaddon who’s had centuries to recover from his defeat, the Elder Dragons had been hibernating in starvation for 10,000 years, only to recently begin gathering strength the past 2.5 centuries at best).

So you’re basically comparing a guy with ghastly and demonic armies and the protomatter of the Mists at his will (at least in part) planning for a millenium before acting, and acting for over 200 years before setting the plan in motion, to beasts whom were sleeping for 10,000 years and only active for no more than 2.5 centuries and are about half his strength (at best comparison).

Also keep in mind that Abaddon is a god with power that is indestructible at his beck and call (the thing that makes him a god). While Elder Dragons may be god-like, they lack this. But on the other hand, keep in mind that Abaddon’s greatest force is his thoughts – that’s how he made folks insane and the Realm of Torment twisted into a mockery of reality because of his very thoughts alone. His physical or magical strength was rather unfounded, being capable of being beaten by a band of heroes (as opposed to Zhaitan, which took an entire army to defeat).

Point is: Abaddon is allegedly twice as strong as any Elder Dragon, but he was only able to do Nightfall because he was a god and interacted with the Mists (as Aaron said, he was actually twisting his own realm into a mockery of reality and then overlaying the two – rather than twisted reality itself – and it should also be noted that the mission with Melonni was not reality but her own dreams, a figment of her imagination we entered with the aid of magic); on the flip side, the Elder Dragons for all we know corrupt as an indirect means rather than directly as Abaddon did.

@Alga: Honestly, I doubt it. I mean, look at how buggy Thaumanova Fractal was. And how epic can a battle between six gods be when you try to cram it all within a ~30 minute instance? Personally, I didn’t vote for Evon (as much as Kiel) so as to not have the fall of Abaddon ruined by kitten work – which is what I consider all of the updates since Shadow of the Mad King to have been. Hell, even part of the original release of GW2 is kitten, and because they “didn’t have enough time” from what I recall (so much for “when it’s ready” eh?). ArenaNet’s developers been biting off far more than those who determine release schedules are allowing them to chew – and this has been so for quite some time now.

@Darc: Hardly, people didn’t vote for Evon for various reasons. Doesn’t mean that they didn’t want the info, let alone everyone didn’t, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean players wouldn’t want to know in retrospect whether Scarlet – who had no indication of being in either yet was in the one that won – would have shown up in the one that lost.

People who didn’t vote for Evon didn’t vote for him because of the characters, or the WP cost reduction (of which I’m thankful for given the massive amounts of waypointing that was done during the invasion events), because they were more interested in the Thaumanova (of which nothing was really known while we know a vast majority of the Fall of Abaddon), or because they were not wanting to see the Fall of Abaddon reduced from an epic imagination to a 30 minute-or-less instance run likely to be full of bugs. Just because they wanted these things does not mean they didn’t want to know about the Fall of Abaddon – they just wanted the other Fractal to be made more instead.

Thalador, for example if I recall correctly, voted for Kiel because of the first and last reason – the characters themselves, and not wanting to see the Fall of Abaddon event’s quality reduced.

Alga.6498:

I don’t think that’s a dragon!

If you have completed Eye of the North, Primordus will be wake up and he was the first of the Elder Dragons to awaken in Tyria. He’s a destroyer Dragon.
Also… this is so confusing.. I thought Primordus would be in GW2 since the EotN gave us a hint at the ending that the first Elder Dragon awaken up, but yet he’s not in GW2??

You can also see:
Jormag sleeping in the sea in Far Shiverpeaks. – He’s in GW2.
Kralkatorrik can be found sleeping in the Charr Homelands. – But he’s not also in GW2?!
Zhaitan is also a Elder Dragon.

Jormag is not in Guild Wars 2 – not physically. None of the Elder Dragons except Zhaitan have shown themselves and this is because they’re not close enough to be a true threat yet. Supposedly all Elder Dragons will eventually be featured, though honestly I now wonder if GW2 will even last long enough for such…

Getefix.9150:

it could be that they saw a feature in a previous game and say ‘hey we can use this in lore for our next game’ so the fact that they didnt exist at the time of design doesnt mean that they wont then come back to it

There are quite literally dozens of those web-covered carapaces. And many of them are opened wide – with nothing but the web-like stuff inside. Like I said, they look like cocoons, not dragon hide.

And keep in mind that the Elder Dragons are elemental-based. What element would those be of? Certainly not the only Elder Dragon hinted to hold an influence in the Maguuma Jungle (Mordremoth, the Elder Vegetation/Jungle Dragon).

Ice of Dragons.1637:

elder dragons are there since gw1 beta. A black dragon was worshiped by eles in the begining instead of gods. Maybe glint not shure. The story is there whit the facets thou.

Uh… No such story exists. You’re likely thinking of Rotscale – there were only ever two dragons of note in GW Prophecies: Glint and Rotscale. Rotscale wasn’t worshiped though, but was an undead bone dragon animated by the Stone Summit in the Northern Shiverpeaks. Hardly black – nor was Glint, whom simultaneously was not worshiped, least of all by elementalists.

Which I thought they took because it was a caravan route (at the time). Maybe I should just look it up, but eh.

I think you mean “border region with the Blazeridge” – wasn’t it to the northeast of Ebonhawke, near ogre lands, that Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe fell down? Besides that’s underground so it wouldn’t need to be near the Shiverpeaks to be recent (which it certainly seemed to be).

As to how caravans were getting there – I thought it was said they were going through northern Ascalon heading south (a very dangerous but no-other-options act)? Or am I remembering a line from Ghosts of Ascalon…

There is 0 evidence to claim that the seers or Forgotten had settled in Ascalon. It’s known that grawl are indigenous to the land though, but the only civilized race (as the grawl would have been even more primitive than they are now well over a thousand years ago) to hold any potential of having had a presence was in fact the dwarves – but only via the Catacombs of Kathandrax in what’s now called the Blood Legion Homelands – a land conquered on the charr’s route to Ascalon originally (they began east of the Blazeridge, went north, then west until the Shiverpeaks into modern Blood Legion Homelands, then back south into modern Ascalon – at least based on the short description in The Ecology of the Charr : “No longer clamoring over the same territories, the unified Charr spread throughout the northern reaches of their homeland, and down into the lands east of the Shiverpeak Mountains.” ). The Catacombs of Kathandrax was a tomb of an ancient dwarven hero, Kathandrax Steelsoul, who had repelled the charr multiple times. This likely refers to the charr’s initial invasions, given how far east the catacombs are. Even if the charr respected Kathandrax as it’s said, I doubt they’d bury him in deep catacombs. Then finally there’s the existence of known charr lands east of the Blazeridge, owned by the Blood Legion as it is where the Blood Citadel resides as told in The Legions of the Charr. (“East, across the Blazeridge Mountains, Imperator Bangar Ruinbringer controls the lands of the Blood Legion.”)

Those honestly appear to be cocoons – there’s a lot of web-like substances between the various “plates”

And the chances are no, not Elder Dragon related because they’ve been about since Prophecies which predates the Elder Dragons’ existence in lore/developer minds by well over 3 years. The concept of the Elder Dragons wasn’t conceived – or at least implemented – until after Nightfall, so anything that’s been around in GW1 since the first three campaigns are only related to the Elder Dragons via retroactive continuity such as the matter with Glint. And they only tied Glint (and the ancient races) to the Elder Dragons because Glint is a dragon and the Elder Dragons are ancient like the ancient races (though moreso).

@FlamingFoxx: Eir and Rytlock had new voiceacting strings during the third update of Flame and Frost – Rytlock again in the fourth update too (not sure on Eir there).

It’s only Zojja we haven’t seen, and only mention of her we’ve gotten is that she’s in Rata Sum dealing with things there – likely to be dealing with the aftermath of Crucible of Eternity dungeon in which Zojja said she’d present the Arcane Council with her findings on Inquest research to make the latter lose the former’s good graces.

Menders are basically the sylvari form of doctors. There’d be no need to theorize that Mender Serimon’s name is anything but “Serimon” especially since all sylvari names are one word. What a Mender is, is actually clarified in detail by Mender Aviala within Astorea, just north of the Black Lion traders (see first attachment).

Suffice it to say, however, you apparently didn’t look well enough in Village of Astorea, for he is where you awaken as a sylvari (see second attachment). Thus your theorycrafting is rather moot. Mechanically, you could not have that dialogue at the end of the tutorial which is after the loading screen, without the NPC being present in some form. To have the NPC in the cinematic but not present would mean the NPC is within the walls/floor (a trick done in GW1 during the BMP missions and the HotN scrying pool missions).

Nonetheless, as to Ceara being injured… I doubt that is so. There’s no recognition of such in the short story and Serimon overlooks the newly awakened sylvari – saying “you are safe here” is a means of reassurance to the newly awakened, as they are (sometimes, perhaps always) suddenly taken from the Dream of Dreams. They would naturally be disorientated and could even be in shock from the experience – you would approach such people with care, so as to avoid them panicking.

Oh, and as to Malyck coming from another tree – that’s basically outright stated as the case, rather than Malyck coming from the Pale Tree (the river actually does not head towards the Pale Tree but rather away from it, as down south it heads west, rather than east), nor a seed. Amaranda speaks in metaphors the entire time so taking her word literally is immensely shaky ground.

And the cave Malyck mentions is Skrittsburg, as revealed in the personal story going with Caithe – specifically the southeast entrance to Skrittsburg. It is not in reference to the cave Ronan found, given that Malyck awoke near Skrittsburg, and not some cave of always-and-still unknown location.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Gnat.9405:

I also hope that she dies – I’d be very unimpressed if she were “taken in to custody”

I actually hope she IS taken into custody, and then becomes an ally later on. Maybe have a quest where the players must actually liberate her from her jail cell. That would add some excitement to the story.

You never liberate a mentally unstable person bent on world destruction.

I’d rather we do that for Canach. At least he’s an anti-hero figure already.

And he’s just a tons better than Scarlet, who’s wanted dead by the Lionguard (most likely to catch her given their thus-far involvement). Canach was only ever wanted for questioning after all.

As NinjaChris stated, the word “civilized” actually has little to do with a society’s aggression towards others. To be a civlization, though it varies from person to person, expert to expert, typically means having three of the following: structures, written language, religion, art, government, and/or societal structure (castes, nobility/commoner, etc. the thing that separates people based on either deeds, social standing, or monetary gains among others).

In this, humans are perhaps the most civilized, as they have all of the above. And like Aaron said, while humans are one of the more aggressive races (all their wars seem to last for centuries and are easily re-ignighted – be they Guild Wars, Great Corsair Wars, Luxon/Kurzick war, Tengu Wars, kicking centaurs out of Kryta, or Ascalon/Charr war)), they are not the most aggressive either, as they’ve made peace with races far sooner than the charr, whom only make peace with enemies they cannot kill easily (norn and now humans).

Though it is understandable how you’d get terms mixed up – in recent years people have been using “civilized” to mean the same as “non-aggressive” (passive?). In a similar route that “cruel” is seldom used for its actual definition – to let out blood – and instead is used to define something that is mean or hurtful.

saye.9304:

i also should add this non of the races other than humans of course,invaded others and used forbidden magic.

Remember, remember, the year of 1070, the day Ascalon burned. I know of no reason why the Searing should ever be forgot.

(Yeah, I know it rhymes not but hey :P).

@DarcShriek: The “puzzle” was just her laboratory and forge. I doubt she intentionally made it for us to figure something out – more that we figured something out from what she left behind (as Marjory said “she’s getting sloppy” (i.e., we were faster in getting to her than she thought we’d be).

I don’t see why she’d want us to kill the tower. That makes no sense – and I know she’s crazy and insane and all that but nonetheless she wouldn’t intentionally hamper her own plans.

Now, if her plans included the destruction of the alliance she forms… that’s another matter. But if so, why leave such a task to those trying to stop her (even before we knew of her with the Molten Alliance).

@pzyonix: What has she done to “take care it’s hard for us”? Beyond throwing minions at us which is just a stall tactic at best and an idiot’s plot at worst. The only thing she did to make things hard(er) for us specifically in thwarting her plans is the veil. But take in mind what I said: she doesn’t care after she gets what she wants and she stated as she left before we fought the Hybrid that she got what she wanted.

In other words, what she wanted was NOT for us to get into her lab and destroy the tower – she just didn’t care about the tower at that point because she had what she wanted from it.

And players being frustrated by her is hardly due to her actions – it’s due to her delivery, which wouldn’t be any in-character thought process for her (and would be breaking the 4th wall which ArenaNet never does outside of tutorials).

To me it is more of “she doesn’t care” rather than “she wanted us to do that” – her personality is that of not caring, of indifference. Just read through the “What Scarlet Saw” short story and that’s shown plain as day – anytime she was attacked she just left without a care in the world.

http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm

TL;DR The Pact and the three Orders have current and first say on Orr. Interview has more on why humans couldn’t just claim Orr.

Still, what the player makes is not an anti-toxin. Marjory made an anti-toxin and Scarlet did not (to all our knowledge) obtain such.

Scarlet learning about the ley lines is presented as accidental. If her own words are to be believed then she warned the Inquest not to experiment with chaos magic (the original purpose of the Inquest lab at Thaumanova) and dragon energy, but said experiments resulted in the reactor meltdown (which she didn’t bother preventing thus was “her fault/doing”) that led to the discovery of ley lines.

And what antigen to her “chemical brew” are you talking about? The thing we make in her forge which dispells the barrier around the heart? Because that’s no antigen.

A list of relevant links to above post (since character limit was too long):

• Interview where Scott made said mention (IIRC it’s this one at least): http://wartower.tumblr.com/post/60458277036/this-lorespecial-is-about-scarlet-briar-the-evil
• Wiki article on magic’s history (false and truth): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic (note: the “Nature and Practice” may or may not contain fallible information – it was written by someone who often is mistaken or lacking information and I never went around to fact-checking it); also includes the history of the Bloodstone, more or less.
• Wiki article on Elder Dragons’ nature (warning: may be out of date): http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elder_Dragon
• Interview mentioning the origins of the GL we meet in Arah: http://www.guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm
• Interview and response (with another interview included more responses to questions raised by first) about magic’s nature: http://esprits-dorr.fr/node/261 https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Angel-McCoy-Interview/page/3#post2821776 http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/page/1/m/2737230/viewthread/9902543-2rps-lore-interview-arenanet/post/56212770#p56212770
• Relevant dialogues:
  • http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Arah_%28explorable%29#Jotun – mention of the stars’ formation and how they mark passing of ages, and proclaimed last ED rise was 10,000 years prior when previous star was formed (thus previous age occured)
  • http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Arah_%28explorable%29#Seer – true origins of the Bloodstone revealed
  • http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bad_Blood#Dialogues – one of the few lines which imply the proclaimed time of the last ED rise may not be entirely true.

There’s more, but mainly just repetitions of the same thing with small tidbits added, or that I cannot think of atm.

Codename Shmo.6958:

Ok, so I have spent almost 2 hours staring at a wall thinking of how Scarlet and everything we know so far fits into a story about defeating the dragons.

I’m going to stop you right there. Thing is, Scott McGough – one of the lead writers for the Living Story – has explicitly stated that Scarlet is to be an intermission between the story about the dragons.

In other words, there is no need – nor likelihood – that Scarlet is (directly) tied to the story of defeating the Elder Dragons. At best, she will lead us into the next dragon plot, at worst (and most likely IMHO though I hold no backing) she will simply be ended and the next update we have “dragon attacks!/attack dragons!” plot going.

I’ll start with provable facts. We’ve known for awhile now that a race of giants called the giganticus lupicus existed before any of the other known races. We are also told that these giants disappeared for some reason. We know that the dragons woke up, give or take, 1000 years after that. We know that the human gods gave magic to all of tyria, and some 1200 years later Primordus awakens.

Minor correction: The Giganticus Lupicus – one of which we see in Arah – went extinct due to the Elder Dragons. The Elder Dragons were awake around 10,000 BE (though whether or not this is the last awakening is called into question by some such as myself due to certain lines about the surviving races’ known and implied history, the Priory at least believe it was). The Giganticus Lupicus found in Arah, in fact, is a Risen from the previous awakening cycle. Since it wasn’t found in the past 1,500 years that humanity has been on continental Tyria, it is likely it was left undisturbed somewhere other than Arah, and traveled there upon Zhaitan’s awakening (or as its harbinger, like Drakkar, Svanir, and the Great Destroyer were).

Secondly, technically speaking the Six Gods did not give magic to the world but returned magic to the world as it was sealed within the Bloodstones – or rather, most of it was. Some was absorbed by the Elder Dragons and released from them over the millenniums.

Say Scarlet knows where these so called “magic leylines” actually are. I’ll assume, like we all have, that the DO NOT TOUCH pillars are a means to mapping them out, and that they point toward the elder dragons. If indeed that is true then we can speculate that the dragons feed off of magic. Now this is where it gets cyclical. If the dragons feed off of magic, then by giving magic to tyria the human gods had indirectly caused the dragons to wake from their slumber. This plays into the assumption that the giants knew how to stop the magic flow to the dragons, and that after they disappeared, for whatever reason, the magic flow was restored.

I won’t touch the DO NOT TOUCH towers (no pun intended) but I’d like to clarify even more here:

We know that the Elder Dragons consume magic. This is a proven fact. And it’s also known that while they hibernate, they release this magic they consume in a non-hostile manner (though while awake, they can release it in a hostile manner that invokes corruption and enslavement).

As to the gods unintentionally wakign the dragons – this is also indirectly proven, as per the above that the dragons do indeed consume dragon and the stated fact that they awaken when magic rises to a certain point. However, it cannot be certain that they if magic was left untouched (by both the gods who released magic, and the Seers who made the Bloodstone) that the Elder Dragons wouldn’t have awakened at this time – according to Varra Skylark, the Elder Dragons’ last awakening was during the last time a star was born – which was 10,000 years ago (though whether or not this is accurate is called into question for reasons mentioned before about when the last dragon rise was, the fact she based this on ancient jotun records, there was the magic alteration mentioned, and finally the fact that no one has had a chance to make the same observations since the fall of the jotun empire which was unknown time ago – plus during GW1, there are constant mentions of star alterations ).

It’s kind of humorous how you are speculating all the right things, but in the wrong direction. I suggest you read up on the wiki’s articles for magic and the Bloodstone. And the Elder Dragons’ history.

Honestly, this talk of what is evil and what is good is moot – such topics are subjective, as everyone has their own lines to draw when it comes to these terms. And the lines are not clear cut even to themselves – feeding one person may be seen as good but feeding another may be seen as bad, simply because of the person being fed, in the first being a hungry child in the latter being a prisoner wanted for murder.

Nonetheless, in Prophecies, the charr were said to be evil, but depicted as primitive beasts that were being underestimated – both by the Ascalonians. That is to say, what we saw was a basic primitive society at war that had a basis of culture (we saw even in Prophecies the use of communication (but not heard beyond grunts and growls and roars), written ideograms, blacksmithing, and religion – not to mention the required knowledge to use magic) and intelligence but we only saw this culture and intelligence through battle. Eye of the North expanded on this culture and intelligence by showing it to us outside of battle, but you’re basically talking two different mindsets as the mentality during writing Prophecies and designing charr then was not the same as when writing Eye of the North.

I see you’re once again trying to bring in modern warfare into a science fantasy setting which is unlike modern warfare. And though you’re joking, I think I shall take it seriously in a jesting manner…

1) Wouldn’t make sense because, until the ceasefire, the charr were right on the walls, even before there were tanks (which are relatively new anyways). The Vanguard wouldn’t ever have had the time to make said trenches. They had parties outside the walls, of course, but such scouts and saboteurs wouldn’t be capable of digging the necessary trenches.

2) Wouldn’t work – nor be reasonable – for the same reason as above (and wouldn’t be reasonable because the charr didn’t send infantry to the city – in fact, there was only one charr who made it inside Ebonhawke until recently – not counting the prisoners).

And as for 3) … I don’t think they have the technology (nor need) for anti-air weaponry. Guns were originated by the charr and are only hand-crafted by other races, originating via reverse engineering or trade with the charr (so for humans, trade only could occur via trading with other races who had traded with the charr).

Now, if you mean these things should be added modernly, well… Again, no reason for the trenches or moat since they’re no longer facing a war – unless peace negotiations fail or the Dragonbrand or Ogres push much further than they are (keep in mind that distance we can travel in-game is unlike travel as it would be in actuality). But the AA guns would make sense, as much for any other place though.

Correction: Livia was part of the Shining Blade 70 years ago (and she’s not 300 years old – being so old would require her being 50 as of GW1 but she was likely not even 30 but that’s just semantics). Nothing says she didn’t leave and then came back later, and nothing says she remained – or even still lives – as of GW2.

Ebon Falcons was always part of the Ebon Vanguard – they were a squad within the military unit. The Ebon Vanguard have grown in the 250 years (as in GW1 they were just a single unit of the Ascalonian Vanguard that stayed with Ascalon rather than joined Rurik who led the Vanguard originally – another unit of the Vanguard that stayed remained under Duke Barradin’s leadership; I believe the Ascalonian Vanguard was effectively split in three as of Rurik’s leaving – led by Rurik (then Greywind), Barradin, and Langmer (then Gwen)). The Ebon Falcons were just a part of the Ebon Vanguard. It’s unknown whether they continued to exist once settled in Ebonhawke, given they lost 2 or 3 members on the trek south (iirc).