Artificially fused dragon corrupted minions. I never said that the corruption couldn’t exist in one body, especially given the new destroyers, just that one template is not written onto another, at least not by the dragons.
Technically speaking the Elder Dragons corrupt “artificially” too. It’s not an innate thing but an active magical use. Whether it’s done by corrupting breath or done via a laser beam holding the same, unchanged, corrupting energies doesn’t matter much.
And with Ember Bay, I don’t think anyone can argue that “dragon minions cannot be corrupted by other Elder Dragons”.
Actually, that’s my exact argument. Perhaps it’s flawed, but I don’t see anyone disproving it to my satisfaction.
We see multiple dragon corruptions inside multiple subjects both done by Inquest and done by Primordus. How does that not disprove “dragon minions cannot have multiple dragon energies in them”?
And once again you missed my point. I’m not claiming the Dream does the purification, but is the remnants of the purification act left on the Tree and her children.
If it were the remnants of a purification act, then Malyck (and his tree) would have the Dream too, while the White Stag and Mordremoth would not.
As I said, my theory isn’t perfect or flawless. It’s still a working theory, and the Hunts are an unexplained detail. It makes more sense to me that the Hunts were initially tied to Mordremoth’s desire, that he’d give them missions for them to go off to do or die trying. When whatever purified the Tree/Deam did what it did, it could’ve flipped the script around and instead sent the sylvari after the dragons instead of flesh-bags.
But the Wyld Hunts come from the Dream. That’s more than just “flipping the script” – and not all Wyld Hunts focus on the Elder Dragons. Some send folks on diplomatic missions, others to aid groups in need of it. The PC’s first Wyld Hunt is to find the White Stag, help Tiachern/Ysvelta, or battle the Green Huntsman. The Knight of Ember’s Dark Hunt is to find Malyck’s secret. These have nothing to do with the Elder Dragons.
And why would Mordremoth need Wyld Hunts/Dark Hunts to send minions that can feel his will and desire on missions?
I never specified that Mordremoth owned, controlled, or created the Dream.
You originally were saying that the Dream is the mordrem/sylvari hive mind, which would mean originating from Mordremoth who’d be the owner of the hive mind.
Moreover you keep mentioning the Blue Orb analogy and evidence, please explain.
Both prevent corruption. Neither reverts corruption. A corrupted individual standing near the Blue Orb has no changes to it – a corrupted individual tied to the Dream has no changes to it.
You are acting as if the Dream is a purifying force, like the spell the Forgotten used on Glint. This is not true. There would be no reason for Mordremoth to not connect his minions to the Dream if he could.
From my current perspective there are no Mordrem connected to the Dream. And only one has been guested in. Guesting is not the same type of connected given that she can send anyone in through portals. It is odd that there are not more Mordrem like the Sylvari.
Exactly my point.
YES that is what I have been trying to say that whole time.
If the Dream allows things to resist the influence of an ED. Why would Mordremoth connect his creatures to it.
The Dream allows non-corrupted things to resist.
That’s what you’re missing.
The Shadow of the Dragon still worked for Mordremoth, unabated, while it was in the Dream just as afterwards. The sole case of a Mordrem tied to the Dream.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Until the Ember Bay destroyers, there was no evidence of any dragon minions contaminating each other.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Subject_Alpha
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudu
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kudu's_Monster
And with Ember Bay, I don’t think anyone can argue that “dragon minions cannot be corrupted by other Elder Dragons”. Doesn’t mean Elder Dragons will do that – Subject Alpha shows that it’s simply put not a good idea since it controls the minions of all corruptions it’s influenced by (mordrem, risen, icebrood, destroyer, and branded) – but it shows that they can.
So if one of the mordrem in Iron Marches were to wander into the Brand, say, and they tried to do whatever Branded do to convert them (encapsulate them in crystal, I presume from what we see), it would be as effective as Zhaitan trying to bring a sylvari back as a risen.
Except that it wouldn’t be, because mordrem are not tied to the Dream as far as we know.
If the mordrem are, then yes it would be. But if a risen were to have wandered into the Dragonbrand, the story would be different.
It may even be a different story if Malyck went into the Dragonbrand and got struct by a corrupting crystal.
My working theory is that Mordremoth and the Dream are linked in some way. Perhaps it was his original communication method with his sylvari-minions before whatever disruption affected the tree and morphed from a “mind collective” to the Dream. It seems really weird that a purifying ritual would create such a protection field yet leave an easily-exploitable back door. When Kralkatorrik came to fight Glint, there was no way for him/it to regain control of her, after all.
The Wyld/Dark Hunts are not the means Mordremoth got to the sylvari, it was the Dream itself. Part of my argument for that is that the Soundless were the first ones to fall to Mordremoth’s call when they came close enough. What the Hunts actually are hasn’t really been explained, but I bet it’s not just because they wanted a way for some sylvari to fall prey to Mordremoth again.
As for the arguments for willpower, it’s true that it does play a factor, but we didn’t really see enough sylvari struggle to know if only those still in the Dream (or fallen to Nightmare) were able to resist, or if a supremely strong-willed Soundless sylvari could fend off Mordremoth’s call. My bet is on no, that the Dream – even if it’s been twisted into Nightmare – offered some means to fend off control.
The major issue about the Dream being linked to Mordremoth – especially as Mordremoth owning, controling, or creating the Dream in some way – is that the Wyld Hunts and Dark Hunts actively send sylvari to fight not just other Elder Dragons, but Mordremoth himself. At the end of The World Summit, sylvari PCs state they have a new Wyld Hunt: to kill Mordremoth.
And no one and nothing says that the Dream purifies anything. In fact, evidence points to that not being the case. Like the Blue Orb – as I mentioned previously – it seems to prevent corruption, not purify it.
About Kralkatorrik corrupting Glint again – fun fact: Glint had dozens of defenses established in Guild Wars 1, defenses she created. Not a one was seen during that battle with Kralkatorrik. And curiously, while Mordremoth was able to take control of sylvari via indirect non-traditional corrupting means, he did no such thing to the Pale Tree. It is entirely possible that the creations of those purified are not (fully) protected from re-corruption while those which are purified are.
As for the final bit – I said it was the combination, not just willpower alone, that seems to be the defining defense against Mordremoth.
It should also be noted that there are very few Soundless overall – they are fewer in number than the Nightmare Courtiers and they make up ~15% of the sylvari population.
Don’t downplay the exceptions.
The problem with “the exceptions” is that the sylvari are unlike mordrem entirely.
They are unique to any dragon minion on multiple fronts – not just intelligence. They are an exception that should be ignored because they are outliers. If you take scientific data you do not look at the outliers and go “there is the proof that this is the norm!” You look at them and go “this can happen, but are not the norm”.
This is a contradiction. The sphere of “influence” is not called a sphere of control. Being in something’s domain does not mean you necessarily control it. Moreover, I did a disservice by using the word Domain for simplicity. In game lore has apparently never used Domain when describing the spheres, and neither should I. Because of the Sphere of Mind Mordremoth and the Pale Tree can access the Dream.
When you’re saying that the Dream is the hive mind for Mordremoth’s dragon minions, it is a matter of control.
But you, still, do not take into the account that beings outside of the sphere of influence (mind), such as the White Stag, can access the Dream.
The one about Primordius is mostly mechanics. Guardians use divine fire, Destroyers are immune to burning caused by Elementalists or Guardians. We don’t see any Destroyers using divine fire. Does this mean the Fire sphere of influence doesn’t extend to divine fire? Possibly. But that would separate fire and divine fire, and not explain the blanket immunity (other than of course its game mechanics)
Zhaitan could resurrect people with their original souls and will intact. There is certainly a precedent in death magic for giving something free will.
He could just let Mazdak be as in control as the Kurzick Juggernauts get to be. But he didn’t because that would be stupid.
As you said:
-snip quote-
Why would Mordremoth use his influence to protect his minions from himself?
You’re misunderstanding what I was saying. To bulletpoint it:
The Dream does not purify, it merely resists corruption. Therefore, already traditionally corrupted mordrem would not be disconnected from Mordremoth, but instead would have a different avenue of connection and could not be corrupted by other Elder Dragons.
Basically, the Dream in regards to dragon corruption is akin to the Blue Orb – the Blue Orb didn’t harm, destroy, or purify the risen that went near it, it merely prevented the creation of risen around itself.
Neither of those statements contradict each other. Explain what you mean.
If you had kept on reading…
A subconsciousness is less than what we see it described as. And a mere subconscious cannot show the future.
You are right I am getting ahead of myself. Not all Mordrem are more intelligent but some clearly are.
But most show to be no more intelligent than your average destroyer.
Those that are more intelligent are like drax mentioned with the risen wizards, or that I mentioned: the more magic they have, the smarter they are. This is the same for all dragon minions. Mordrem are no exception – the only exception is sylvari, and in turn the Mordrem Guard.
Yes the dream is in Mordremoth sphere of influence, (his domain) and we see him influencing Wyld Hunts.
Nothing actually indicates that the Dream is part of his domain, let alone his creation or under his control. The fact that the Dream sends Wyld Hunts to kill Mordremoth in fact indicates that the Dream is neither his creation nor under his control.
He is capable of hijacking the Dream, but this may be more caused by him having a connection to it just as the Pale Tree and White Stag (which is noticeably not related to Mordremoth) do.
Unfortunately, we still do not know what the nature of the Dream is, or why those three individuals have a tie to the Dream while Malyck and, it seems, his tree does not.
Just because you have influence over something doesn’t mean you will use it. Reanimation that returns the original soul (and will) are part of Death Magic yet we don’t see Zhaitan doing that. Primordius doesn’t use divine fire but makes his minions immune to it.
I have no idea what your point here is, and there is nothing in game that relates Primordus to divine fire let alone his minions being immune to it.
Similarly Mordremoth could attach the dream to his minions and weaken his influence over them. But he doesn’t.
Why would it weaken his influence over them? The Dream doesn’t really do anything and if anything is the sole reason why Mordremoth has influence over the Mordrem Guard – which certainly do not have a weakened influence from Mordremoth because of it (all indication is that, as I said, the Dream is the only reason why Mordremoth has any influence at all).
As for unconsciousness the pale tree clearly says:
“The Dream is the sylvari unconscious, the wellspring from which we flow. It holds our memories, as well as our hopes and fears. I am its keeper.”
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Light_in_the_Darkness
I’m pretty sure she’s meaning that metaphorically since in the very same instance Trahearne states:
The Dream is not reality, <Character name>. It is made of memory, aether, and powerful magic. Even I do not understand it.
And in Hearts and Minds, Rytlock calls it a mindscape (defined as: A mental or psychological scene or area of the imagination); though what’s interesting is that specifically he says he’s had enough of being in mindscapes (an oft overlooked hint at what happened to him in the Mists).
A subconsciousness is less than what we see it described as. And a mere subconscious cannot show the future.
There are enough starting conditions to consider it control.
If it truly was control, then there’d be no rebelling against it in either the form of the Soundless or falling to Nightmare.
Sylvari are fully capable of ignoring Wyld Hunts, even.
The only thing that the Dream has absolute over is receiving memories which actually isn’t all that absolute because of the Soundless.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
at which point the sylvari had already, in the absence of the dragon’s influence, developed Dream/Nightmare to shield their minds.
Here’s your first fallacy:
The Dream and Nightmare are actually Mordremoth’s point of entry. While it is only heavily implied to be the source of protection for sylvari’s immunity against dragon corruption, it is explicitly stated (during the HoT promotions) to be how Mordremoth spreads the Call (via the same channels that the Dream sends Wyld Hunts and Nightmare sends Dark Hunts).
It’s true that, through the vines, the Call could have been transmitted farther than the Heart of Maguuma, but we don’t really canonically know much about what happened with Sylvari in Tyria after the Pact Invasion.
We actually do.
The Mordrem Invasion weekend had a Priory scholar explicitly mention no change in sylvari, and Canach during the prologue for Heart of Thorns mentions those very mordrem invasion events.
The entire lack of anyone saying “sylvari everywhere went crazy” also heavily implies that they did no such thing – not proof, no, but a good indication until we get something stronger than a Priory agent post-Call saying no change in a far-off sylvari community.
Presumably it also attacked the Pale Tree to weaken the protective effect of Dream/Nightmare in preparation for this mental assault.
Not presumably, definitely. The written lines from Aerin rather implies this with the whole “attack the leader and the rest will fall”.
As an aside, the mordrem trolls are one of the rare cases (one of two known, the other being wolves) where the bodies were corrupted rather than being copies. Scott McGough confirmed this in a forum post.
Mordrem are more intelligent than Risen of the same level. Not because of better cloning, there is no better clone than direct reanimation, but because they can exercise mind magic. So a Mordrem troll can seemingly coordinate a swarm of insects, while his Risen counterpart just runs around vomiting and the swarm follows him.
There is in fact no indication that mordrem are more intelligent than risen.
Mordremoth can transfer consciousness directly. What is the dream other than a consciousness sylvari experience before awaking, and their unconsciousness afterwards?
The Dream is not a consciousness. It is a mindscape, as Rytlock puts it. It is not their unconsciousness after awake in any form at all, either. It would be closer to a server with sylvari being computers that download from the server when first turning on, but only upload to the server afterwards.
This isn’t a consciousness or a hive mind. Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon (page 120) even explicitly states that it isn’t a hive mind, despite constant arguments by players otherwise – and I think a sylvari would have a good idea of what their mind is attached to. Good enough, at least, to know it isn’t a hive mind (though Trahearne does state that no sylvari know what the Dream really is – would be curious to know if this has changed).
Furthermore, a mere shared consciousness would not be capable of foreseeing the future, such as we experience during A Light in the Darkness.
The Pale Tree did what no other ED can, and what Mordremoth wouldn’t. She gave something else control of her minions. She knew she couldn’t protect them without the dream. But now she can’t control them either. The best she can do is modulate the transfer process so that all sylvari get basic skills. Now the dream is their hivemimd.
Per above, the Dream is not a hive mind.
Furthermore, the Dream doesn’t have control over anything.
You’re also going back and forth. Be clear: is the Dream part of Mordremoth’s domain of mind, in your argument, or is it not? One line you’re acting like it is, the next you’re acting like it isn’t.
@konig the dream is in the mist because everything is in the mist.
That’s one hell of a massive misnomer.
The Mists is origin of all things and surrounds all things, but the mortal world is not “within the Mists” by any NPC’s standard. The Mists, or the Spirit Realm, does overlap with Tyria but is distinctly not Tyria. Just look at any demon lore and that’s all about how they want to escape the Mists by entering worlds such as Tyria.
The Mists is akin to outer space in regards to location – Earth is surrounded by outer space… does that mean we, being on Earth, are in outer space?
No. And the same fundamental value goes for the Mists and Tyria.
Whether the Dream is within the Mists or elsewhere is yet to be seen.
Second they don’t return to the Dream when they die, because the Dream is the conscious part they remember.
Says nothing ever.
But they know that their mind goes there when they die, and they know there are other parts of the Dream they haven’t seen yet.
Except the singular NPC that ever talks about the Dream in relation to a sylvari’s death explicitly states that she doesn’t know.
The exact lines are:
Warden: It’s a good day to return to the dream.
Warden (2): What do you mean?
Warden: When a warrior says, “It’s a good day to return to the Dream,” it means it’s a good day to die.
Warden (2): I see. How do you know we return to the Dream when we die.
Warden: I don’t. It’s just wishful thinking.
Warden (2): Oh. Then, I won’t wish you a good day.
@Drax: I never stated – nor meant to imply – that all non-dragon champion minions are of equal intelligence (I even said that those which are corrupted bodies not completely mindless – this goes even for risen thrall, with their ability to think).
I was merely stating that sylvari are all much more intelligent than even your average risen wizard, which is in turn smarter than your average mordrem.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
The recent update notes state:
Bold for emphasis is mine.
However, the daily rewards were unchanged. Only the addition/fix of the first-time rewards went through.
The daily reward (first successful completion of clock tower per day) before patch is the same as now: 20 emphyreal fragments on top of what’s always gained (5 Trick-or-Treat Bags and one of the three Halloween utilities).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Sylvari aren’t like you, or like Malyck. They remember things from pre-awakening.
Sylvari awaken when they are fully grown. Irl humans awaken when they are 2 years old.
Malyck is brain damaged. He is a disabled Sylvari who can’t access Grandma’s Scrapbook (the dream) to see all the videos of him learning how to crawl.
Here’s your problem:
You have nothing to make that claim about Malyck being “brain damaged”. The “fact” of amnesia is a false assumption from the beginning, built by the PC and proven wrong by how Malyck shows he knows everything that happened to him after he woke from his pod.
There’s no more amnesia in that then a human not remembering what the womb is like.
And to say he has amnesia because he doesn’t remember his version of being in a womb is a silly argument, and entirely unrelated to the topic at hand.
As for you other claims. The theory of dracono-enchantment has only been tested on non-mordremoth minions. That is major experimental error. Why would the Mind Dragon have to express intelligence the same way as the other dragons?
You’re mistaking “mind” with “knowledge”. Mordremoth’s powers of the domain of mind have been shown to be the abilities of telepathy, mind transference (both his own and his champions’), and mind control. Not intelligence.
The Dream – which you so aptly tie to Mordremoth – is not tied to Mordremoth or his domain of mind. He is connected to it, but does not control it, just like the Pale Tree. How do we know this?
Just as in Tyria, in the Dream Mordremoth is little more than an invasive plant who makes its home in a land that is not his.
It would make sense that no other ED has made intelligent minions with the Dream. The other ED don’t have the ability, and the one that does can’t without losing control of them.
Every Elder Dragons’ minions have a hive mind connected directly towards the Elder Dragon. Knowledge is a one-way street in this hive mind (all the minions know, the Elder Dragon knows) but will and desire is a one-way street the other way (all minions feel the will of the Elder Dragon, which suppresses their own free will).
Icebrood, branded, and risen aren’t entirely mindless – presumably because unlike mordrem and destroyers they are corrupted living beings – but among all five lieutenants and champions are smarter than the rest.
The testing was done on risen, but we see the very same attributes shown by icebrood, branded, destroyers, and non-Mordrem Guard mordrem.
Regular mordrem have shown to be as mindless as destroyers when not directed by a dragon champion such as the Shadow of the Dragon or the Vinewrath. Or, later in HoT, by any Mordrem Guard.
The very purpose of the Dream was to protect their psyche from Mordremoth. Why would he put it in his minions? And why should one of his strongest champions be unable to?
Whoever said that Mordremoth put the Dream in his minions?
Nothing shows that Mordremoth controls the Dream any more than the Pale Tree does. He is able to communicate with sylvari through hijacking the channels of the Wyld Hunts and Dark Hunts, but that’s all we see him able to do within the Dream.
Plus, you’re admitting that the Dream isn’t be tied to Mordremoth’s domain of mind since its very purpose is to protect them from the Elder Dragons (not just Mordremoth, all of them – it’s heavily implied to be the source of their “immunity” to dragon corruption). You’re beginning to contradict yourself now.
Sylvari have said of dead sylvari that they “return to the Dream”, but whether this is actually an afterlife or whether it’s just that their memories linger in the Dream is unclear.
Those same sylvari, however, also claim that they have no proof of such and that is simply what they choose to believe (it’s a dialogue in The Grove, with a warden, I think in southern Upper Commons).
In the Personal Story, Carys talks about Tegwen going to the Mists – rather than the Dream.
Which proves that the sylvari have no clue what may happen to them upon death.
We know distance isn’t a factor- we fought Mordrem in the Iron Marches, remember?
The Mordrem in the Iron Marches and at Fort Salma and Fort Concordia weren’t actually distant from Mordremoth, though. Think about it.
By that argument, neither were sylvari and the Pale Tree at any point in time, since what the NPCs (Taimi, Canach, Trahearne) are calling “Mordremoth” is just his corruption and not his actual body.
And if never purified, then the sylvari and Pale Tree are part of “his corruption”.
Further, that distance argument would become completely nil by the time Mordremoth’s corruption of vines reach Fort Salma, as the vines traveled underground and were far closer to the Pale Tree (and other sylvari settlements) than the Pact Fleet were to any corruption (let alone the one Mordrem Guard in Buried Insights).
I did find this. I couldn’t find the original source I had on the sailors. I’m like 138% sure I read that somewhere, but it might’ve been in my sleep, now, it seems.
Same document, under Cantha:
Sporadic sailors have washed ashore on the southern coast of the Maguuma jungles, but that is the only evidence that Cantha even exists past the cataclysmic event that cut it off from Tyria. It can only be assumed that Usoku’s successors continued his dictatorial, isolationist rule, and that Cantha continues beneath the iron fist of the emperor, as ever.
This does not reflect the deep sea dragon. We don’t really know why they’re washed ashore rather than sailed in. Best guess would be the risen fleet that had control over the sea south of that area.
Where is the evidence that such a purification took place?
The very fact that there are not one but two dragon champions with free will – something dragon corruption removes – proves that purification of some design took place at some point in the past.
Or to assume as all the in-game evidence suggests, that each dragon’s corruption works somewhat differently, that mordremoth’s Call is affected by distance or heavy material barriers like a magical wifi signal, and that a sufficiently powerful Mordrem, if left to grow outside of the Dragon’s influence, could develop the awareness and willpower (bearing in mind that they likely inherently share the Dragon’s “mind” affinity) to resist the Dragon’s domination?
Aside from the mordrem in Iron Marches, you have destroyers across Tyria, icebrood over in Metrica (thanks to teleportation), and risen in Fireheart Rise. Distance holds no sway over the lack of free will that dragon minions have.
Mordremoth’s Call is not corruption, per se, as Mordrem Guard still function like sylvari rather than mordrem – with the sole exception of being reborn in Blighting Trees (which is only for those which were dead in the first place, so were likely corrupted more traditionally like Faolain rather than succumbed to the Call). It is, repeatedly, described as Mordremoth’s voice whispering thoughts in such a way as for many to believe the thoughts to be their own and the Mordrem Guard are those who don’t recognize this (some, like Occam the kitten, recognize the difference in thoughts without even know that it’s an Elder Dragon buzzing around their mind and pay no heed).
We were told in an interview a while back that ether was basically the core fundamental energies that make up magic, not fully known to even the most scholarly individuals, and was compared to, IIRC, dark matter.
With mind magic you don’t need a soul. You just need psychic plants that can capture/store information from the dream.
While I agree that sylvari don’t have souls – we’ve seen none, and honestly there’s no indication that they do; same goes for any dragon minion, in fact, except those that imprison another being’s soul (such as certain high level risen) as far as we know – I disagree with this.
Malyck being why. He explicitly states, multiple times even after his apparently amnesia being discovered to not have been amnesia at all (he remembers all since awakening), that he has no ties to the Dream or Nightmare. So he is sapient without “information from the Dream”.
Furthermore, mordrem are mindless – if this was an attribute given to all minions of Mordremoth, then the mordrem would not be so.
But not all mordrem are mindless. In the mission Buried Insight in HoT story part 3, there’s a mordrem guard near the ley line flux outside Rata Novus that you can find. He makes several statements about not being able to hear Modremoth. If he was truly mindless, without Mordremoth’s overriding influence he simply wouldn’t be active. It shows that Mordremoth is an influencer and overrider rather than controlling mindless puppets.
You need to separate mordrem from Mordrem Guard because they are two completely different things. A mordrem is a straight up standard dragon minion. A Mordrem Guard is a sylvari who serves Mordremoth.
Mordrem Guard aren’t traditionally corrupted at all. So no, they’re not mindless, because they’re not mordrem. They are as unlike mordrem as the sylvari are (with the sole exception of being generic in looks).
First off remember what they told us about Djinn. “Djinn are to other elementals as humans are to other animals.” The same can be said about Sylvari vs mordrem. Sylvari are more advanced.
Here’s the thing. Elementals and dragon minions might not work the same. What we do know about dragon minions is for sylvari to be intelligent they’d have to all be dragon champion level creatures. Because of dragon minions, only champions and those close to are smart. And to create such, this means pumping more magic into the minions.
By claiming that they are “more advanced”, this is no different than claiming that the Pale Tree is capable of creating hundreds of thousands of near-champion level minions. Something that no other Elder Dragon has done.
You’re thus making the claim that the Pale Tree, a mere dragon champion at best, is capable of doing more than what Elder Dragons do. That seems rather fallicious.
Second you are confused on how amnesia works.
Forgetting things before a certain date (retrograde amnesia) does not mean everything is lost.
The specific form Malyck has is common to all races.
-snip-
Except he doesn’t have amnesia.
Look it up. The ones who claim Malyck has forgotten is the PC. And this claim of amnesia is only presented by and presumed by the PC because Malcyk has no memory of the Pale Tree or Dream.
The reason why he has no such memory is because he’s never been to the Pale Tree – which is what he said. The PC was simply wrong about Malyck. A conclusion driven by a false precluding belief.
The PC’s line of thought was basically:
The only explanation for why Malyck didn’t remember the Grove under such circumstances would be because he’s forgotten (amnesia). After hearing about how he was found, the PC presumes, precludes, and proclaims that some event just before he was found caused the amnesia. It is then taken as fact by Trahearne and Caithe because why would they believe something different? Only Caithe had the knowledge that could lead to a different conclusion… and once she saw the pod she did (honesty that was a pretty big hint to the Season 2 reveal).
But if you go with Caithe, he traces his tracks back to his pod without stutter or hesitation, no moment of eureka of remembrance or pause of forgetfulness. He remembered it all. From the moment he awoke, he remembered everything.
Of course, he may have remembered even before awakening – this wasn’t covered because the Knight of Embers interrupted us.
Don’t believe me? Go read the dialogue on the wiki. Malyck never claims he cannot remember something – like where he came from. He merely states he’s never been to the Grove and doesn’t know what the Dream or Nightmare is.
Hell, how would he know where his tree was, if he didn’t remember where he came from?
Aaron said everything I would have said, so I got nothing to add to the main point.
I didn’t comment about Lyssa’s words because it is clearly a subjective matter of opinion. I do not see that as writing out the gods – after all, the gods haven’t been involved in the world of Tyria for over 1,000 years prior. All that phrase says to me is the exact same thing as the Prophecies manual does:
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/History_of_Tyria
Then the stones were dropped, one by one, into the volcano off the southern shore of the Kingdom of Kryta, and the gods left this world forever, confident that they had balanced out their gift and circumvented greed.
The world was already belonging to mortals. The gods were done with their manipulations and alterations of the world. It was not theirs to play around with. Add in what we learn in Nightfall and you get the addendum: Because when they don’t agree, they kitten kitten up royally (wiped out civilization, turned a sea into a desert and a verdant coast into a toxic wasteland).
And in regards to “what came from Utopia”:
That’s remnants of Utopia that was repurposed for Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2. I specifically talked about THE PLOT of Utopia, none of what you said refer to. So I didn’t respond because what you said had absolutely nothing to do with what I said. In order:
These are not the plot and story of Utopia. These are aesthetical elements that were rehashed and redesigned entirely. They hold zero bearing to the current form. And again what little we knew of the story and plot of Utopia, rather than aesthetical designs of animetronic constructs and structures… points to gods.
What about making the Clocktower rewards desirable again?
IIRC, originally the small chests gave 3 ToT bags and the end gave 15-10-5 in diminishing returns for first, second and following daily completions, with the first of the year also giving an exotic (originally boots, then gloves for three years, iirc).
Now it’s a consistent 1 for small chest each, and 5 for big chest, with 20 emphyreal fragments on first daily completion (only 20 for something that’s so common?).
What about DR with Ascent to Madness?
Which happens to be the one place to get Tattered Bat Wings needed for Nightfury and all the endless tonics.
Can we know why Inquisition was removed last year?
I’m pretty sure we were never told, and it was enjoyed. Same with the Bloody Prince fight from 2013/14. (I do think we were told why Reaper’s Rumble, the backpack scavenger, and the three open world metas didn’t return but it would be awesome to have those back too). More content = more things to do = less static feeling to the content.
His “Diablo-esque mind avatar” actually has the same head as the Mouth of Mordremoth (which is as said the same as the silhouette), and the silhouette also shows up during that avatar fight (in the sky overlooking the platform) so there’s that as well.
Sylvari are a terrible choice of example for dragon minions with regard to anything as they are drastically different from any dragon minion – even mordrem – especially in regards to intelligence and the fact they have free will (which dragon minions, even champions, all lack). There are (still) so many contradictions between them and mordrem (let alone other dragon minions) that it remains strange to me that they decided to go with that story direction (even if they claim that was their decision from the get go, it’s still weird as they created all those contradictions).
The risen in Arah don’t act any different from the risen elsewhere prior to Zhaitan’s death is what I was getting at, though. They act and function 100% the same as the risen you fight throughout Orr.
And the sylvari not feeling Mordremoth’s whispers in their mind is actually a pro to my argument that the Elder Dragons are not their corruption – because if that were so, then you’d need to destroy all of Mordremoth’s corruption to ultimately destroy him.
And you’re 100% false about the Mouth of Mordremoth. It is explicitly called an Elder Dragon in the fight several times (as well as being called such by developers). The Mouth of Mordremoth also talks in Mordremoth’s voice, with Mordremoth’s perspective. The Mouth of Zhaitan – in fact, there is not a single dragon champion that does this.
As I said before, Canach and Trahearne’s lines are misnomer – Mordremoth is not the jungle, nor is he technically his corruption (Taimi was more correct in her theory back in Season 2, but she got the why for “he is the giant vines” bit wrong – she thought they were growing out of him, as did Ogden, and this is somewhat true but they are controlled by him because of his domain of mind). He is capable of transferring his mind across his corruption (this is how he was able to plant a copy in Trahearne’s mind, and was able to whisper in the minds of all mordrem guard and sylvari – this is his domain of mind’s power), which effectively makes it as if the corruption were his body because he is seeing out of it and controlling it. Whether you’d consider that to mean the corruption “is Mordremoth” is a bit philosophical thus subjective, ultimately. But the Mouth of Mordremoth is Mordremoth’s draconic body – his “true body” if you were.
The incident with Snaff is revealed to the player in Edge of Destiny novel or the dungeon story missions (which story chronology happen after Setting the Stage), specifically Sorrow’s Embrace which has a recap of the climax of the novel. The character knows about it because it’s a famous event that happened to a famous group of people.
There are other mentions of this event throughout the game, such as at least one norn skaald, as well as many hints mostly throughout the Personal Story (both before and after Setting the Stage, but primarily in the final story step of chapter 3 when talking to your DE mentor, Setting the Stage, and A Vision of Darkness which is later on).
As an aside, the story modes for the dungeons are all the continuation of that event in Setting the Stage (which has a hint/lead in to the first dungeon story mode, Ascalonian Catacombs), and rejoins the personal story for the finale (Victory or Death) so be sure to do them in order from hereon before you fight Zhaitan for the full story.
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One tiny line in a side quest in EotN? Really? Riddle me this then: if ANet had no intentions of “downgrading” the gods for GW2 in EotN, where are all of the statues that are all over the map in every preceding campaign? Did they get torn down? Merged with resurrection shrines? Church of Dwayna forget to pay their utility bill?
Where are all the statues across any of continental Tyria? They were keeping with the theme of Prophecies in not having a statue of a god at every resurrection shrine, but rather having them in various spots throughout. In all of Prophecies, there are only six statues of Melandru and Dwayna, five to Balthazar and Lyssa, and four to Grenth – as opposed to the dozens to each in Factions and Nightfall (Note: this discounts the Hall of Ascension and Hall of Heroes which have numerous statues of each god). And Prophecies is the largest game by far.
Furthermore, Eye of the North mostly dealt in places where humanity was not, so it makes perfect sense for there to be few to no statues of the gods. In the places where humanity were not common such as the Ring of Fire and Crystal Desert, you’ll find a whopping zero statues to the gods. Most Prophecies statues are in Ascalon and Kryta (7 out of 26 are not in Kryta or Ascalon – and four of those seven are in former Druid territory so even that is still decently human territory, the other three are in dwarven territory which had an alliance with humans at the time and for centuries prior).
So this isn’t odd in the least. And they are not all over in every preceding campaign.
The only possible scenario I could think of for why that is, is that somehow only the humans worshiped the gods and paid homage to them. Fat chance proving that since every sentient being on the planet supposedly used “divine” magic equally.
Yes, it was mainly only the humans who worshipped the gods, even in GW1. Even in Prophecies. Because the other sapient races we knew all had their own faiths and gods – dwarves had the Great Dwarf and Great Forge, tengu had the Sky Above the Sky, centaurs had their trees and earth stuff, charr are pretty obvious. Only some dwarves, potentially naga, Forgotten, and if Elonian legends are right, harpies are really hinted to have followed the Five Gods prior to Eye of the North.
We outright saw and were told that various other sapient races had completely different faiths. So the “fat chance” was indeed the situation from day one.
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It’s not really a “realm of his own”. The Mad Realm (often called Mad King’s Realm) is just a subsection of the Underworld. He rules it due to his power over the other spirits (majorly part of the Lunatic Court), but said rulership is currently being contested by Edrick.
I wouldn’t consider the fully active and strategizing risen in Arah explorable or Tequatl to be “brain dead” nor dependent on Zhaitan – though they act like Zhaitan lives. Prime example aside from Tequatl is the High Priestess of Lyssa, who pretends to be a Whispers agent fighting risen, fight risen with us, then lure us into a trap where she reveals herself. That’s not the actions of a brain-dead organism. As such, saying that Zhaitan’s corruption is part of it would be… questionable at best. Especially since Tequatl seemed to be taking Zhaitan’s place as a new Elder Death Dragon.
Mordremoth’s case wasn’t that Mordremoth was his corruption but that he could transfer his mind into his corruption. Mordremoth’s body (dubbed Mouth of Mordremoth in-game) was still his physical body, but he could basically do a mind transplant on the fly with any of his corruption.
Elder Dragons don’t seem to leak magic while awake, so it wouldn’t really be inefficient digestion. Rather, it’s more like retaining magic is an active choice, just as exuding corrupted magic is.
With mind magic you don’t need a soul. You just need psychic plants that can capture/store information from the dream.
While I agree that sylvari don’t have souls – we’ve seen none, and honestly there’s no indication that they do; same goes for any dragon minion, in fact, except those that imprison another being’s soul (such as certain high level risen) as far as we know – I disagree with this.
Malyck being why. He explicitly states, multiple times even after his apparently amnesia being discovered to not have been amnesia at all (he remembers all since awakening), that he has no ties to the Dream or Nightmare. So he is sapient without “information from the Dream”.
Furthermore, mordrem are mindless – if this was an attribute given to all minions of Mordremoth, then the mordrem would not be so.
Also, do you want to take a stab at why mesmer magic changed from being more mind-altering to spectral summoning? Or why the mantras changed from things that empowered the user to something they could shout in battle, either to heal or harm? Or are these aspects completely separate from your dervish theory?
This was explained in an old interview as being part of the Mesmer Collective’s ‘fault’. Mesmers have always been able to manipulate both minds and reality, but in GW1 they were focused on the former. We do see the latter in GW1 – such as in Chaos Storm, the manual description, and Reiko’s fight (where she summons clones) – but it’s more prominent in GW2. We also see the former in GW1, during the circus storyline.
The interview’s explanation for the change in direction is because the Mesmer Collective fears a public outlash if they find out that mesmers can manipulate what only one individual can see, and as such as banned use – and learning of – powerful mind manipulating spells that we saw so commonly in GW1 and allowing only their highest and trusted members to learn the spells.
Of course… We don’t know who those highest members are.
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Races were introduced with Factions (Wardens, Naga, Kappa, Saltspray Dragons) and in Nightfall (harpies, torment demons, Margonites). This did not downgrade the Six Gods at all.
That dialogue with Lyssa’s Muse was to show that only a mortal could take a god’s place as a new god. This was the “choice only a mortal could make” – to sacrifice their being to create a new god out of the old god and old mortal.
It’s got nothing to do with writing the gods out. I mean, just look at Kormir’s final words:
If you have need of me, come to the Chantry of Secrets and kneel before my statue. I will always listen.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Avatar_of_Kormir
That’s not a line of writing out the gods forever. If that was their plan, they wouldn’t have involved them in Eye of the North.
Furthermore, what little we know of Utopia seemed to continue the plot of Menzies and Dhuum (particularly this concept art which seems to be the shadow army marching), before they went the direction of GW2.
So dragons consume Magic and create Corrupted Magic
During their sleep, the Corrupted Magic seeps back into the earth and is slowly returned to normal Magic. When the Dragon wakes up from its hibernation, its hungry again and starts consuming that Magic again.There is no written lore on how exactly this magical exchange is performed, though, I always just assumed that the ‘earth’ or ‘eternal alchemy’ purifies the corrupted magic
Actually, when Elder Dragons hibernate the magic they leak is not corrupted. The Six Gods pulled magic from Zhaitan to empower the Bloodstone, and the asura used magic leaked from Primordus. If that magic was corrupted, there’d be no asura or human race – there’d be destroyer asura and risen humans only.
Dragon corruption is shown to be an active act and not an innate one like breathing out carbon dioxide.
In this setting, “giants” is a species, not a descriptor or superspecies. The “Great Giants” or more commonly called Giganticus Lupicus are nothing akin to the giants, which are basically very very big cyclopian humans.
Though this wasn’t so in GW1, but those giants (especially sand giants) are more akin to jotun and ogres.
We know dragon minions, including champions, can consume magic. But we don’t outright know that other dragons, such as Saltspray Dragons in Cantha, consume magic. Or wyverns, or whatever species the Bone Dragons were before apparent extinction.
Glint’s dialogue in Edge of Destiny could be taken to mean that in the past the world was ruled by non-ED dragons and that they all ate magic. But it isn’t certain.
Mordremoth would have gotten access to that southern ley line running northwards too, however, and the chak filtering out death while eating ley line, to me, implies that death magic would be higher concentration in what ley line magic is left because they’re not consuming and converting it.
Kormir isn’t in the Mists. No god is:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Speaker_of_the_Dead
Priestess Rhie: Once, the Six Gods of the humans were very influential. As time passed, they pulled away—but they have not abandoned us.
PC: Where have they gone?
Priestess Rhie: No one knows. Not into the Mists, that’s for certain. Perhaps they simply want to allow us to decide our own fates.
Unless, of course, Rhie is wrong and they are in a part of the Mists unknown to humans of Tyria.
The Six Gods were still in communication when Kormir ascended. They likely would have told her where they were.
As I mentioned in the other thread, the Elder Dragons didn’t get their powers from the Six Gods. The Elder Dragons predate the Six Gods by several millennia on Tyria.
Primordus didn’t wake up because the asura were using the magic he naturally leaked out while hibernating. He woke up for the same reason all Elder Dragons woke up – magic in the world rose to a certain point. He was going to wake up earlier, via his herald The Great Destroyer giving him magic just as Drakkar did to Jormag, but we killed The Great Destroyer thus setting Primordus back 50 years (to wake up about the same time as the DSD); a similar thing happened to Kralkatorrik but rather than being killed Glint was purified (or Kralkatorrik overall lacked a herald, or said herald was killed as part of Glint’s preparations – we’re not really sure as there’s conflicting implication of whether Kralkatorrik was asleep or awake when Glint was purified).
Nothing needs to convince each Elder Dragon has two domains – we’re outright told this by the Durmand Priory in Season 2.
None of the Six Gods could have created any of the Elder Dragons, let alone Balthazar and Melandru creating Primordus. The Six Gods didn’t step foot onto the world of Tyria until after the previous dragonrise – Primordus and the other Elder Dragons are at least 9,000 years older than the time the Six Gods first walked on Tyria.
If the Elder Dragons and Six Gods have any direct connection, it is via the general purpose they hold (balancers of magic) or a connection between the Elder Dragons (or past Elder Dragons) and entire previous generation(s) of Six Gods.
In theory, Primordus would have the easiest time, since ley lines are naturally underground – closer to Primordus than any other Elder Dragon.
Also, please press enter sometime in the middle of your theorizing. Makes it hard to read and follow when it’s just a block of text.
You seem to be mixing up the giants and jotun. They are not the same.
Also, Thrulnn doesn’t speak the truth. It was not the Six Gods who took the jotun’s magic, nor were they rivals (nor does anything ever put the gods as rivals to any giant group).
Jotun aren’t giants either – though they are big.
I’m gonna have to dispute the whole “human soveriegnty” as a racial feature.
Humans did spread and conquer, yes, and Cantha certainly went full isolationist xenophobia, but not really the other nations. Elona especially had decent terms with other races (the centaurs) for a while (until Varesh by proxy Abaddon took over).
There’s a bit of hostility between humans and non-humans but this isn’t so much a trait of humanity or their desire for “sovereignty” but rather them, under Balthazar’s guide, conquering other races’ lands and those races (tengu, centaurs, and charr) striking back (well, charr is dubious).
Humans had a long standing alliance with the dwarves, for example, and never invaded their lands (best we know), despite having nations on either side of Deldrimor.
Humans “work well” with asura and norn not because they were “no threat to human sovereignty” but because it wasn’t a case of nation versus nation.
Humans are really ‘arguing’ with grawl, skritt, and ogres… except not really for grawl and skritt… because they are a threat. Ogres, particularly, are invading human and charr lands to take more territory. They are invaders. Skritt and grawl are simply hostile – despite charr and humans trying to put out a metaphorical olive branch.
You are going to end up fighting groups that incite violence on you – you cannot blame humans for attacking tribal races that attack them first.
Whatever desires to be “master of the world” humanity had were driven primarily by Balthazar’s drive, and that’s been long gone. It’s not paused by the rise of the Elder Dragons. And even then, humans have had long standing attempts at peace – such as Canthan tengu, Tyrian dwarves, and Elonian centaurs – which are often undone by later leaders.
Cami’s journal more felt like Lazarus was there for his own needs, and this may be why he knew to show up at Tarir – where Tarir was, what was there, why to be there at that moment, etc. – he saw the Commander and followed.
The location of the fourth journal is suspect, though, and makes no real sense.
As to the fortress moving mostly in tact, I disagree. Look at GW1 mursaat structures and you’ll find that they are much better looking. A lot more level, a lot more spikes along the walls, and a much smoother rather than rough surface. This fortress has seen plenty of wear and tear. Furthermore, the fortress in GW2 has a lot of naturally formed walls and stones, which were rare and non-existent respectively in GW1.
Seems more like someone’s been maintaining that fortress with the little materials available rather than it being in good condition. Maybe that’s part of the Jade Constructs’ duties.
Also, the only fortress in GW1 tied to a volcano was the one adjacent to Abaddon’s Mouth and the Chalice of Tears is no Abaddon’s Mouth. So I wouldn’t be so fast to say that it was built into the side of a volcano – maybe, initially, it was just a large hull/small mountain(aka dormant volcano) that became active.
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What was the source for sailing to Orr and Elona? It makes sense, but I did not find that reference anywhere yet.
No direct statement, but:
I have another issue. Based on the mursaat tablets, I’d assume that they were written before the mursaat were largely wiped out by the titans. However, they are scattered around a fortress on an island that didn’t exist in GW1. That point seems to be confirmed by the recent Guild Chat. So how was a new mursaat fortress built on a new volcanic island by a nearly eradicated race, and why did they bring old library books with them?
Honestly, I’m gonna label this as “devs never bothered thinking about it and the designers were not in loop with each other about the island being new or not”.
However, I’ll give them a bail for their sinking ship if this is the case:
Volcanic islands, especially still active ones, are notoriously unstable. Islands can form and crumble over the years, and reform again. It’s also possible for them to shift if they’re at big teutonic plate movements, which the Ring of Fire could easily be at. So it’s plausible that we’re looking at part of an old volcano shifted southward with edges crumbled and expanded.
Such a concept would actually be supported by the change in the world map (it was a bigger island that reached to Abaddon’s Mouth, now it isn’t) and the Fractured Caldera and Crumbling Path to the northwest.
What I’d like to know is why the ruins look nothing like the structures seen in GW1. They didn’t use natural stairs or walls back then.
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I’m not arguing that manifesting physically in corruption is all the first domain can do, I’m saying that the first domain manifests physically every time without question – even in the only really confirmed case of an Elder Dragon taking on another’s first domain (or rather, two first domains manifests physically when an Elder Dragon takes on two other first domains).
And we don’t see it happen once with Mordremoth with him supposedly taking on Zhaitan’s first domain.
Oh come now Konig, you know that’s not true. The Titans gave them the power to invade humanity, not the purpose. The Charr had a thousand-year score to settle with humanity ever since they took over the area that would become Ascalon. They sought out the Titans because humanity apparently had the Six on their side and they wanted their own advantage. They also didn’t distinguish between human kingdoms, so a beef with Ascalons was a beef with all of humanity.
They did seek out the titans because humans had the Six, but the rest isn’t at all true. Until the Searing, the charr never showed any intention of crossing the Shiverpeaks – whether it was to fight Krytans or norn or dwarves (and they fought with all three races at some point in time).
For all we know, they didn’t know Kryta and Orr existed until the titans came around.
Closest thing we’ve seen to gorillas outside of Orr were the simians in Tarnished Coast, which are oddly absent in GW2, and the Tusked Howlers in Kourna.
Orrian gorillas no doubt are extinct. Gorillas in general, however, can still exist elsewhere.
If Spirits of the Wild thrive where their species thrive, then there are likely gorillas far away, as the Gorilla Spirit that Randulf mentions is called a “far flung” Spirit of the Wild, and I wouldn’t consider Orr to be ‘far flung’ enough.
Also, I don’t see why gorillas would be in the super harsh environment of the Ring of Fire.
The problem with that conclusion, however, is that other Elder Dragons are fully capable of corrupting corpses. Jormag’s seen doing such once in Edge of Destiny, and IIRC, does so again during Enraged and Unashamed.
Further, we know that the Pale Tree was able to create a close approximation of humans just by witnessing them – if not because of the corpses among her roots (something that Primordus’ minions do actively – create close approximations of creatures they see).
It would seem weird that Mordremoth is incapable of the same, and it seems downright weird that he’d be able to clone living beings that are in stasis but unable to clone dead beings that are being preserved. Both situations result in the body being the same, more or less.
With every Elder Dragon, the first domain – plant, death, fire, ice, crystal – has always been resulting in how the corruption looks. This remains true when Primordus takes the first domain of Zhaitan and Mordremoth – his destroyers look like plant and fire mixed, or death and fire.
Yet with Mordremoth, the only mordrem that ever looked like it might have been a result of death mixing with plant was the mordrem wyvern. Mordrem Wolves and Mordrem Trolls were just corpses being turned into plants (and it seems to me that the end result for the trolls are Mordrem Grunts, which have veteran versions called Mordrem Trolls, or Mordrem Menders/Vinetenders which utilize the same general appearance as grunts but with minor alterations).
….Right. I’m not quite understanding the tone adopted here; I’m not disagreeing with anything written above, and nor have I done so before in this thread.
Tried to edit it to not sound rude. I had been dealing with annoying folks shortly before writing it. But I would say it certainly does sound like you’re disagreeing, since what I’m ultimately saying is that the mordrem showed zero evidence of being influenced by death magic.
Further, I’m saying that death magic in Elder Dragon corruption in two out of three “supposed” cases was shown in the exact same manner – a change to physical appearance – regardless of the subject matter that was corrupted. Which the third, Mordremoth’s minions, never show – with one arguable exception that was not what Taimi claimed was the connection to death magic.
He could affect them because they were of him. The subject mattered.
My point is that Material A isn’t “sylvari” but whatever the sylvari ultimately came from – likely local vegetation and dirt, if not the corpses buried where the Pale Tree was planted.
What Mordremoth did to sylvari wasn’t traditional “Material A turns into Material B” corruption, since they were already of his corruption – the whole “Material A turns into Material B” was already done. What happened to the sylvari who became mordrem guard was largely psychological rather than both that and physical (as is normal corruption).
Especially when we look at the Corrupted Sylvari in Verdant Brink which has zero physical change.
In this case, we do not see a subject change, which you implied we do earlier by saying “The subject in this case is the Sylvari, not whatever material went into making them.”
Material A is not “sylvari” in the situation of the Mordrem Guard. It’s whatever the sylvari were made from.
The living retain memories; a corpse does not. Bringing a corpse back, abilities and memories with it, is far more than simply using the corpse itself as raw material. That screams death magic to me.
I would disagree that “a corpse does not”.
All icebrood we see, regardless of their supposed or known origins, have shown to retain their capabilities. Most icebrood norn (read: all generic ones) are exact duplicates of the generic Sons of Svanir in mechanics. If Jormag’s known to corrupt _some_corpses, then it would seem odd that all simpler icebrood would be only of living norn corrupted.
In fact, if memory serves me right, during Enraged and Unashamed we kill the quaggans… and then they become icebrood (almost as if them living and resisting Jormag’s corruption is the one thing that kept them from becoming corrupted), and they function no different than any quaggan.
Zhaitan in general kept individuals doing their past things and in turn retaining a kingdom which he ruled. I would place this more as a personal attribute of the dragon – all Elder Dragons have shown to have personality quirks, and Zhaitan’s is shown as “ruling his own kingdom” and “offering/granting the promises of eternal life and reunion with lost loved ones through undeath and enslavement” – rather than an attribute of death magic. After all, we never see this coming from the mordrem created by copying corpses or the living.
Well, there was a reason and they saw it as “good enough” – their ‘gods’ told them to. Without the titans (aka Abaddon’s forces) telling them to, they probably wouldn’t have – but at the same time they wouldn’t have had the Searing Cauldrons either.
And what I’ve been saying is that when utilized by an Elder Dragon and it’s minions, the domain of death has always resulted, undeniably and without question, the decay and rot of the subject corrupted.
Whether that subject was a fresh corpse, and ancient corpse that by all reason should be brittle bone, or living being – it resulted in a semi-rotting shambling corpse. Every. Single. Time. And it isn’t like Zhaitan only corrupts corpses in mass; we see him corrupt the living and landscape in mass, and when he does it results in diseases and decay of the living.
And when we see it in Primordus, what’s the result? Rotting stone, and poisoned flames.
The only thing that Mordremoth had in relation to this was the mordrem wyverns’s poison flames, but that could just be his plant’s poison mixing with the flames rather than deaths’ rot mixing with the flames. Beyond that, just the appearance of the adult mordrem wyverns.
Ultimately, there’s little to nothing among the mordrem where the result is showing off death magic. And that’s how every other situation – even the new destroyers – show their domain: the result of the corruption.
Sylvari were not under its control before the call. Afterwards, some were, and some were further corrupted and twisted into the Mordrem Guard. The subject in this case is the Sylvari, not whatever material went into making them.
The Pale Tree comes from Mordremoth, just as Glint comes from Kralkatorrik, just as Tequatl comes from Zhaitan. So the domains are shared. Doesn’t matter if the sylvari “were under its control” or not.
The sylvari were already part of the domain. They had to come from something. That something would be “Material A”.
Well, that’s simplified. Mordremoth was not simply reconstituting the matter: the outcomes were copies, hosting the abilities too. We see something similar with Risen, hosting the abilities of their former selves, hunting their former comrades, and sometimes even having the shadow of their former awareness, like the Eyes.
Icebrood and branded do the same… They retain their original capabilities, original knowledge, and tend to retain the same old hatreds and goals (prime, but far from sole, example: Chief Kronon ) All long before Zhaitan’s death.
Hell, even pre-S3 destroyers are (imperfect) copies of other creatures. It’s why we now call them Destroyer Crab/Troll/Harpy instead of “Destroyer of Sinew” and the like. Sadly, I prefer the old naming system.
Edit: Shortened for concision and lack of repetition.
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It would seem extremely silly if the Elder Dragons cannot control which ‘spectrums’ of magic they consume. If they couldn’t, what stopped them from proverbially stepping on each others’ toes in the first place?
It wouldn’t surprise me if mind went to Jormag – his minions already had a pretty strong telepathy aspect to them (which always made it seem weird that it was Mordremoth who was the dragon of mind).
That’s not true, Amaimon, as folks saw the anomalies without doing episode 1. And similarly, folks have not seen any anomaly without doing such.
What I’ve seen is that you need to complete either the achievement “Anomaly Sighted” or “Anomalies of the World.”
Honestly, we don’t really know what the anomalies are.
Part of why they’re called anomalies…
The “sad anomalies” begin appearing when you complete the Ley Anomaly achievements (not sure which one, but one in particular it seems), and stop when you complete Burden of Choice. Depending on your choice you could turn into a new-appearance anomaly yourself, leaving your body behind (though this was temporarily disabled by ArenaNet because it allowed other players to attack you). This being done at the new rift Current Events stuff.
What they are, where they come from – all unknown.
My theory is that they’re the beginnings of air djinn – they always had that appearance to me that is similar to the ones in GW1, and the first anomaly we fought (Thaumanova Anomaly) used a spear, just as the air djinn of GW1 did. Furthermore, djinn are basically sapient elementals, and elementals form in areas of heavy magical concentration – if the rules of what makes dragon minions stronger and smarter carry over to elementals (it seems to work the same for imps), then a lot of magical concentration could result in sapient, powerful elementals… or djinn.
The different looks of coalescences (appearing like air elementals) from the anomalies (appearing like air djinn), and the anomaly being the more powerful version, is another thing that leads to my theory.
Another theory I’ve seen and liked is that the anomalies are the remnants of mursaat phased out of the world.
And a third theory that gained small traction I saw was that they’re the formings of souls, born out of “all elements of magic that is the ley lines”. This one was formed out of the whole ‘we can turn into one’ situation.
A fourth theory I saw, came about when Ley Anomalies began, was that they were the Priory and Consortium researchers at the ley line overflows (Inquest or dragon minion defenses in Snowden, Blazeridge, and Maelstrom) – apparently some of the Priory researchers (sylvari and human, iirc) disappeared in a cloud of smoke (basically exploding) when the events began, while Consortium NPCs ran. This could tie a bit into the third theory, connecting the two. Heck, even the second.
As to where Lazarus was this whole time – he was at Bloodstone Fen and the Twisted Castle until his revival. Cami’s Journals in Ember Bay imply that Lazarus may have returned there and watched the asura (Cami’s final journal says she felt like something was watching her). Which gives credence to the theory that Lazarus’ timely appearance in Tarir is because he saw the Commander in Ember Bay, invisible, and followed them to Tarir after overhearing about the ‘urgent vision’.
And they didn’t even attack the dwarves out of revenge. They did it because the dwarves were hiding/assisting the Chosen who were foretold to wipe out the mursaat race.
Here’s the problem with that argument:
New lore tends to be more accurate than old lore when ArenaNet writes. Only exception is when the new lore has some sort of indicator that it’s not accurate. And these have no such thing.
We actually aren’t so sure Khilbron was willing. He was, after all, tricked by Razakel.
And Varesh was effectively brainwashed like any religiously radical, having been taught to Abaddon’s cult by General Kahyet.
Furthermore, they weren’t Abaddon’s only attempts. There was also the assault on the Tomb of the Primeval Kings, led by the Darknesses, and the assault on Dragon Festival led by The Fury – who was also leading the titan threat through the Door of Komalie. No human villains in either of those cases.
Khilbron, Shiro, and Varesh all had their roles, but those roles wouldn’t exist without The Fury, Razakel, the Fortune Teller, and whoever had re-spread the knowledge of Abaddon in Elona (most likely yet another demon).
And yes, dragon minions do not have free will. But my point is that you cannot always blame a subordinate for the leader’s plans and actions, especially when the subordinate is unknowing of the plot or manipulated into the plot (such as Shiro and Khilbron respectively) or brainwashed (either traditionally, like Varesh, or magically, like dragon minions).
You especially cannot say that humanity was the one at fault, when there was only fewer than a dozen humans actually aware and able to make the choice. That would be like blaming all of humanity for Adolf kitten.
And with Abaddon being a manipulator via agents, who knows the circumstances that led to Kahyet becoming a devout follower of Abaddon. Maybe even she was tricked – Anet never went into that.
The gods making the Bloodstone is all from GW1. And that was the only origin story for the Bloodstone. Nothing ever related the Bloodstone to the Seers.
This is the original lore on the Bloodstone, before Abaddon was added into the lore even.
When Nightfall came, they changed it from: “the gods gave magic and when the races turned to bloodshed retracted their gift by creating the Bloodstone which was then shattered”
To: “Abaddon gave magic too freely and the other five gods retracted it by creating the Bloodstone which was then shattered.”
Then with GW2 changed it to “Abaddon gave magic from the Bloodstone made in ancient times by the Seers too freely and the other five gods retracted it back into the Bloodstone and empowered the Bloodstone with magic from Zhaitan and shattered the Bloodstone.”
Then with Season 1&2 changed it to: “over centuries, the six gods gave magic from the Bloodstone made in ancient times by the Seers, with Abaddon giving last and too freely, and the other five gods retracted it back into the Bloodstone and empowered the Bloodstone with magic from Zhaitan and shattered the Bloodstone.”
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
The next expansion date has no base in lore either.
People here are obviously thinking of 4th wall breaking explanations.
Sartharina, a “people with a self-interest in their own survival with little regard for the lives of races they consider lesser” is what they were since Prophecies. They were self-preservers who were willing to commit genocide, slaughter thousands, and leave worlds to die to survive.
With Rising Flames, there’s now the presentation of “they were the ones betrayed and didn’t leave the other races, the other races left them” instead of “they were the betrayers who left the other races to die”.
Your entire post is exactly what mursaat were depicted as, not are.
But your last sentence makes no sense. Mursaat were not the abused, but the abusers, and that’s why they’re called ‘evil’. Because they openly slaughtered thousands of innocents and committed genocide as the solution for their lives being on the line (something that none of the other races do – even charr and krait, the two ‘most evil’ races, do not move to genocide when threatened – charr moved for parley, while krait try to take means of survival the only way they know how, with force, but not to the extreme of wiping another race (after all, how can they rule the dead?)).
Only works if he changes the number on a daily basis
The fractal number doesn’t change so I’m not sure what you’re referring to here… Only time they’ve changed is when they added Chaos Isles Fractal.
Thing is it’ll change again when they add the next fractal, and so forth, unless they make an intentional move to never change fractal 97.
What if all anomalies that we have seen are actually us? Future/past line broken. We teleporting all over the places. Our visions were actually about future. Will we die? and envoy will ressurect us or maybe sb we know. I would like too see us in next episode us that huge anomaly that run across whole map and struggle to survive.
Interesting concept, but there’s a fatal flaw:
All anomalies, except the new appearance for when we become one, are humanoid. And even humanoids that become anomalies have a new appearance.
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