Guild Wars 2

The Order of Whispers openly shows their existence now, and it’s even outright lampshaded in the Grove that their camp in the Grove is the most open there is anywhere else. It’s just that they don’t openly show what they do specifically let alone all of their bases.

Even though its obvious to players, the Lion’s Arch base is hidden, for example, and they deny it being a spy hideout.

Rather than “Dhuum is death” like he likes to claim, I believe that the Six Gods are all-powerful within their domain alone (human religion says they are each all-powerful, but more powerful than the other in their own domain – a paradox for Kerrsh). Which would lead the god(s) of death to be able to full control death – and thus their own (in a similar light, Dwayna would be able to control all life, thus be unable to be killed as well unless she doesn’t mind dying – the other gods, though, are subject to death).

Actually, not all his videos are like that. It seems he’s being more careful now, but in the past he mixed fact and speculation/theory (most theories not even his own which really annoyed some) together fairly often.

draxynnic.3719:

and, for the record Konig, the post you indicated has a link doesn’t – it had plenty of other links, but not one to the map. Probably a case of you having planned to make a link and forgotten to do so, but thought you did – I have cases of ‘planned to do X’ turning into ‘thinking I’ve already done X’ a few times

Ahem…

Myself

And given the globe we have, what’s south of Cantha? A small peninsula, a few Shing Jea-sized islands, and… the highest reaches (aka arctic area) of the Tyria/Elona super-continent. (Personal speculation – I think humans were taken from Orr, due to the Elder Dragons’ corruption/last influences that is why Balthazar burned the land of Orr completely (despite it supposedly happening after humans were brought to Orr) to the continent east of Cantha – which would be somewhat south of where they first appeared on Cantha and certainly south of Elona).

In this post – TYVM. I even linked it again in this post later.

I’m starting to get annoyed by folks not paying attention to what I say. Or type in this case.

draxynnic.3719:

I haven’t rigorously lined them up, but I could see that wraparound happening. What we might have to do is look closely at the globe in the Chantry and see if that can reveal just what precisely is going on with Tyria’s continents. One possibility, for instance, could be that the map got cut off at the wrong point, and there actually shouldn’t be an ‘Antarctica’ at all.

It was already done, in a thread I linked twice now – the first time being when I relinked the globe texture.

Myself

@Drax: I linked it two posts of mine above this one – it’s the one we all know and love And when I said that the top and bottom match while the left and right match – it was actually studied on this very forum before and the map was edited to this just by copy/pasting the four quadrants to the opposite sides.

Now now, mercury, don’t be an kitten

Allow me to translate mercury into “not a kitten” speech:

To WP: Please stop mixing your speculation into the facts in your videos.

To others: WP mixes facts with speculation very often, and does it in such a way that his speculation sounds like fact.

Yay, yet another WP video thought to be ground-breaking…

This has been known. For a long, long while. The only thing new that I saw in the video would be the concept art at 0:35 – I wonder where that was obtained from…

Regarding the Melandru-Melaggan connection; Colin did seem to make a blunder, but it is believed in game by humans that the two are one and the same (while quaggans disagree). It’s possible that Colin didn’t blunder, but the lore changed between his statement and the quaggan blog post.

Edit: On the topic of concept art, I found that Kekai uploaded a kitten ton of old GW2 concepts. Three dragon ones spark me interesting:

Possible Mordremoth champ concepts:
http://www.kekaiart.com/uploads/5/4/7/6/5476798/4979515_orig.jpg
http://www.kekaiart.com/uploads/5/4/7/6/5476798/8677717_orig.jpg

Possible DSD champ concepts:
http://www.kekaiart.com/uploads/5/4/7/6/5476798/5092037_orig.jpg

Even more interesting (as just pointed out to me):
http://24.media.tumblr.com/9120e71a96c3037413ae861a93ba6b4a/tumblr_mjz2101Bne1qhttpto1_1280.jpg

Is grouped with Nightmare Court concepts on his tumblr:
http://kekai-k.tumblr.com/post/45877321475/theartofanimation-kekai-kotaki While grouped with other GW2 dragons on his actual website here.

That’s the norn in-game theory (it’s kind of funny that the kodan and norn hold the same theory for the other race – kodan thinking norn got stuck in a lesser form and only able to temporarily take on the better bear form, while norn thinking kodan got stuck in bear form).

If you read the thread I linked, you’d see that your global analogy isn’t quite right.

Furthermore, the texture holds no warping due to it being a flattened square version of a sphere – because dimensions change when doing such, you either end up with distorted lengths (usually vertically longer near the poles – such as this map where Greenland is depicted to be nearly as large as South America (it’s not)), or you don’t have a quadrilateral map – be it having curves on the edges and the top and bottom looking warped (in a not-flat imagery sense), or a shape like this map. And in either case, a landmass that’d be at the pole itself should be stretched the full length of the map – just as Antarctica always is.

The thread I linked above explains it in much more detail, but it is fully accurate on that – the texture we’re given has the top and bottom matching just as it has the left and right sides; and furthermore, it doesn’t work for putting it onto a sphere without alterations, mainly due to both the shape and how the landmasses near the supposed “poles” don’t function as landmasses on globe maps at poles should.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Which is what I’m saying. As long as magic is involved and the mists, anything could be true.

Funny, since you were saying the complete opposite earlier, and antagonizing me and exaggerating what I said for saying that before.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I said, Norn evolving from humans is only possible through magical evolution, otherwise it would simply be too fast.

Norn evolving from ANYTHING would require some degree of magic or extreme evolutionary rates. So bringing this up is pointless.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The easy explanation is magic which we can do, but then the debate stops, because now we are talking about something we don’t fully understand. We don’t know it’s boundaries, it’s capabilities. Continuing to argue about something we can not understand, for the reason that it does not exist to be studied in the real world, is pointless.

That’s rather simple minded. No, we don’t know its boundaries, but we know that it has boundaries. And we know many of its capabilities, even if not all. So with proper observation, the necessary capabilities – and whether said capabilities exceed the boundaries – can be descerned. Just saying “it’s magic” is not the end of the debate. Saying “a wizard did it” and ending discussion is for those who are either lazy, simple minded, or just don’t care. Once you get to that point, you then ask this: How did magic cause it? How did a wizard do it with magic?

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Jotun/Giant/Dwarf to Norn evolution is possible in the given time frame, with or without magic and even likely since life tends to explode after mass extinctions (like the ED cycles).

No, it doesn’t, because we’d still have the same amount of time given for norn coming from jotun/giants/dwarves just as it would be for norn coming from humans. It doesn’t work one way here.

That seems to be your primary issue in comprehending – other than the geological situation of Tyria as we know it.

By Guild Wars’ definition, a “demon” simply refers to a creature born directly by the Mists’ protomatter. 99% of the time they are rather anarchistic and chaos-loving creatures of darkness and malice.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

They are magical fantasy creatures, let’s ignore them!

That is in no way what I meant by what I said.

Rather, what I meant was that by a design standpoint, they are humanoid because they were taken from typical fantasy settings which in turn derive from norse mythology (which like how Greek mythology has a thing for half-man half-beast creatures, norse mythology has a thing for “they look very close to humans”). Furthermore, from a development standpoint, at the time of the dwarves’ introduction (Prophecies), humans had no indication of not being from another world but made by the gods while they were on the world, so modern lore may have changed since then.

Honestly, we can speculate all day and night long for why there are humanoid creatures in Tyria when humans weren’t of Tyria. And we’d get no answer. In the case of the norn, it could be anything from “they just happened to evolve to look human-like” to “they came from the Mists too” to even “the humans were creations of the Mists that copied, imperfectly, the norn” or hell even “the Six Gods made them after they arrived on the world” (honestly speaking, that last one is stronger than any other possibility when you consider everything).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Tyria is no planet it’s a magical place of wonder, like Disney Land! Wohooo!

Again, not what I was saying. Aside from the map I linked above, there’s at least one other indication that Tyria may not be a globe:

"_"In Abaddon’s name this realm will fall._

Why does a Margonite call the world a realm? Realms are only used to refer to places like The Underworld (aka Realm of the Dead), Mad Realm, Realm of Torment (aka Nightmare Realm), and Fissure of Woe (aka Realm of War) thus far – aka the very big places of existence within the Mists.

When you mix the two into each other, the world likely isn’t a globe but some other shape that would allow one to return to the original point if they head in one direction long enough. Alzager theorized (I’ll link again despite having done so already) that it’s a :torus":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torus shape. And it very well be.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

And yes you must be presuming magical evolution since, even 10.000BE would be pretty fast to evolve so far away that they are almost twice as tall and can’t have any offspring.

I wonder how much of a biological background you have to make such a claim.

And here, how about this: if 10,000 BE isn’t enough time for norn to evolve from humans into a different species, then how the hell does life completely regrow in such a timeframe? Clearly it is possible in Tyria, whether it’d be possible in reality, simply because we know that the only survivors of the last Elder Dragon rise was five races, but there are well over 50 races in Tyria. Skritt, hylek, heket, harpy, tengu, ogre, giant, skale, skelk, raptors, wind riders, grawl, charr, centaur, asura, norn, krait, naga, leviathan (both Canthan and Tyrian versions which are clearly different), wurms, hydras, behemoths (both Tyrian and Elonian which lore wise are different), the various kinds of insects and plants, griffins, devourers, kodan, incubi, blood drinkers, gaki, krakens, etc. etc. etc.

So if 10,000 BE isn’t enough time to evolve, how did these creatures come to be from – if magic held no advancement in evolution – single-celled organisms or other minor creatures that managed to survive the same way mammals survived what killed the dinosaurs?

Except that I didn’t. Which weakpoint did I fix by magic? Because the only such possible weakpoint would be the rate of evolution, which is only weak when we take your presumption of the timeline that humans first arrived on continental Tyria in 205 BE – which itself isn’t right – or the presumption that the proto-norn came from that group of humans.

Nor have I ever once said “a wizard did it” or “it’s that was only because of magic” – besides, there’s a difference between “magic had influence” and “magic did it” let alone those two to explaining how magic had an influence.

This is actually a problem in ALL (almost) instances. The situation is that it’s the process of having a Personal Story step active which allows you to leave any non-dungeon instance. If you enter any instance – not just living story ones – after completing Victory or Death, unless there’s an interactive door like there is in Knut Whitebear’s Loft or an out-of-bounds boundary, you have to log out to exit.

I reported this months ago, and it still hasn’t been fixed. Now that ArenaNet is making heavier usage of these instances, it’s becoming a larger problem.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

If Cantha was actually part of the Tyrian-Elonian-supercontinent than Tyria (planet) would be so small that it possibly couldn’t even support an atmosphere.

Congratulations, you once more open with a COMPLETE misunderstanding of my point. Do you even bother reading my posts or are you just spouting nonsense because I don’t even see how you can get “Cantha is part of the Tyria/Elona supercontinent” out of “the first (major) landmass south of Cantha is the Tyria/Elona supercontinent.”

At this point, I’m not even going to bother with the rest of your post since it seems like you’re not even bothering to even try to understand me.

Oh, and fun fact: you’re presuming the world of Tyria functions the same way planets in reality do. Despite Tyria also being called a realm.

You’re still not understanding me it seems. Continuing this is as is would be pointless. Look at the links I gave, maybe that’ll help you. If it hasn’t, then there’s nothing I could do. I’ll try one more thing, and if that fails to get you to understand my stance – I don’t care about convincing you but you’re not even understanding what I’m saying by all indications – then I give up completely in trying to portray my theory to you:

According to the map we have – which we shouldn’t assume is wrong until we have other information – the continent south of Cantha is Tyria/Elona’s supercontinent. There is no antarctic region. There was no “crazy long journey.” In fact, the trip I’m proposing is shorter than the one from Cantha to Orr.

You also misunderstand my stance on Eir’s age – because women in GW2 never look old except for one single female human model. There’s no wrinkly old norn women in the entire game (even though there are wrinkly old men of all playable races).

You’re presuming far too much on humanoid appearances, btw.

Culture is based on more than environment – it’s based on your civilization. And if a civilization schismed from another, larger, one, there will be cultural similarities. For a real life example, take the culture of the Abrahamic faiths – though not ethnicities, they share that same situation. If the norn descend from humans, their original culture would be human-like. In time, it would have changed, differing here and there, but still retain some similarities. There’s far far more ties to the Luxons than just being nomadic – the cultures are nearly identical if you remove the seafaring-ness and Six Gods reverence of the Luxons and replace it with the Spirits of the Wild and enjoyment of ale.

I would have gone with “a brittle concept” but your words are better.

sigh

MatthewMedina.5419:

Canonically, yes the Lost Shores weekend and lead-up was set after the events of the Guild Wars 2 personal story and the defeat of Zhaitan, so this is partially what made it possible for the karka to establish a clawhold on Southsun Cove.

As to whether there can be risen karka: while it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility (although pitting dragon corruption vs. karka impenetrable shell would be an experiment I would be interested to watch), the karka are recent arrivals to the surface from their original home deep in the ocean. The ocean is a big enough place that the karka managed to settle on Southsun without encountering many risen, and they avoided Orr for the same reasons they fled their home. The karka are an old, old species so they have encountered Elder Dragons and their minions before…and they’re certainly smart enough to understand the threat they represent.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/No-Risen-Karkas/first#post1156321

We have outright confirmation that The Lost Shores occurs post-Zhaitan.

During The Lost Shores, the Lionguard first learn about karka and Southsun Cove.

During The Gathering Storm, there are both Lionguard and Consortium that talk about Southsun Cove.

It is undeniable fact that The Gathering Storm – and in turn The Razing – occur after The Lost Shores. It is in turn undeniable fact that these two parts of Flame and Frost take place after Zhaitan’s defeat.

What Angel McCoy was talking about was that they have to make the storyline in a specific way so that new players who haven’t gotten through the personal story don’t get spoiled, and that they cannot use NPCs which have something happen to them in the personal story since it has already occurred both in the canon timeline and for players who have gotten far enough. She is NOT talking about how the Living Story will be taking place before the Pact is formed, while the Pact is going after Zhaitan and, all at the same time, after the Pact went after Zhaitan.

In other words: The Consortium couldn’t take refugees to Southsun Cove before the events of The Lost Shores, which is canonically after Zhaitan’s defeat. Regardless of what players experience and the order in which they experience everything has a set place in the canonical timeline. Even the events you don’t do in your personal story on that character still occur – it’s just that you/your character didn’t experience those events (or in the canonical timeline’s order).

In short:
The player’s experience of event order != the canonical order of events. And this is what Angel was talking about having to be careful about.

@Drax: I linked it two posts of mine above this one – it’s the one we all know and love And when I said that the top and bottom match while the left and right match – it was actually studied on this very forum before and the map was edited to this just by copy/pasting the four quadrants to the opposite sides.

Interesting take on the hostile spirits, but I personally thought that line refers to those who act like Nulfastu

@BuddhaKeks: Sounds like you were to me, but I digress on that.

I’m not saying Cantha is Tyria’s antarctic region. You clearly didn’t understand a single thing I said about that. Go look at the links I just provided to drax in this post, maybe a visual will help you. I’m not assuming nearly as much as you think I am. If humans moved north to Cantha, then the proto-norn moved south to the first landmass they found – and my comment about the wasteland bit was that if that map is wrong, then based on elsewhere of the map it could be wasteland where nothing grows and thus cannot sustain life so settling in a cold but sustainable location doesn’t seem so improbable. But again, that’s making the huge assumption of presuming the information we have is wrong.

As to norn looking more like dwarves – aside from the love of beards and ale, I don’t see it. Dwarves have very disproportioned limbs even for their height, and their facial dimensions are different than both norn and human (being more on par to jotun but still not so much). However, except for female norn having back-breaking larger breasts and male norn being wider built on average (to be more gorilla like), they have the same proportions as humans.

We can’t say that the norn live twice as much as humans – who we see to live around 80-100 years – as the only have the age of “130 being old for norn.” I’d say there’s less similarity between norn and dwarf than human (especially Luxon) and norn.

And you never said anything about culture – which is my point exactly in bringing them up. Human culture (especially Luxon) is vastly more similar to the norn’s than dwarf. Jotun are closer, but still fairly different.

@Narcemus: Yes, I am saying that they split off prior to the second arrival – possibly at the first arrival but equally just simply before the second arrival. Given the lack of date for the first arrival at Orr, we can’t really give a timeframe beyond “from 10,000 BE to 700 BE” for when that happened.

But I still see so minimal relation to dwarves it’s just as foolhardy to suspect a relation between norn and dwarves as BuddhaKeks claims for between human and norn. If they’re related to any other race, and it’s not human, it’d be jotun long before dwarves. Norn are, after all, called half-giants – not half-midgets (honestly, dwarves and norn hold next to nothing physically similar, and so little cultural similarities).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

However Konigs theories don’t make much sense, why would a single human group cut themself off, pass through all that fertile land, just so they could settle in the isolation of the Far Shiverpeaks? If they found the spirits there okay, a reason to stay, but why did they even move there to beginn with?

It only doesn’t make sense because you’re constantly misunderstanding me. I hope this post clarifies some things.

Narcemus.1348:

Well there is always the possibility that the land may not have been fertile.

Which is EXACTLY what I was saying when I talked about wastelands. That most of the world, if the red on the only world map we have is to be taken as the world itself being red, is unable to sustain life (hence why life seems to congregate around continental Tyria, including the Elder Dragons).

Narcemus.1348:

I do not know why a human group would cut themselves off. Perhaps they got lost in the wilderness, or had a falling out with the gods.

Or that when the Exodus occurred, the proto-norn saw that as being abandoned by the gods and eventually turned to the Spirits of the Wild.

“From a player perspective” is the key phrase here. She’s talking about the Living Story and the Personal Story unfolding “simultaneously” simply because the player can go to one and then the other in either order. It’s no different than doing the Arah story dungeon then going back to finish the Temple of the Forgotten God storyline where Zhaitan is still clearly alive and well.

We have outright confirmation from Matthew Medina in this very forum section that The Lost Shores takes place after Zhaitan’s defeat. We see the Consortium and Lionguard talk about Southsun Cove – the Lionguard didn’t know of Southsun Cove until The Lost Shores. Ergo, Flame and Frost takes place after Zhaitan’s defeat.

However, despite the order of events being as they are, players can still experience them in any order – no different than how in GW1, players can go through Nightfall and then Prophecies and Factions (creating a paradox where they first meet Shiro Tagachi and Vizier Khilbron when they’re in the Realm of Torment as spirits, and then meeting them when they’re “alive”).

Well my rebuttle to your paragraph was to show that it holds an even less connection than you were saying is the best possible connection. :P

The Unending Ocean – as far as we know – is only the body of water between Tyria/Elona and Cantha. So despite its name, it probably does end.

As to the globe having been circumnavigated – I don’t think there’s any mention of such, but the Order of Whispers has a full globe of the world so it’s possible. Though how much of that (if any) is just them theorycrafting on the world’s look or using other races/groups’ maps of places they themselves haven’t been to yet is unknown.

Anet will certainly avoid paradoxes by using shared NPCs as minimal as possible – according to them at least – however at the moment the full living story takes place after The Lost Shores, which we got developer confirmation saying it takes place after Zhaitan’s defeat.

@BuddhaKeks: You apparently greatly misunderstood my post to epic proportions.

I’m assuming nothing. I’m merely stating a possibility of how the norn can be descended from humanity, to counteract your claim of absolutely no possibility.

I never once said that there was a human civilization of Orr in Orr prior to 205 BE. I simply stated that current records tell us that the humans, as a race, were brought to the world at Orr. Thruln’s comments of humans arriving on boats is most definitely in reference to 205 BE’s arrival, given how the former wouldn’t be via boat but portal and by the gods and not potentially independently (though that was prior to the Age of Giants’ end according to him).

Also, by the map, Tyria only has one cold region – the arctic zone. There’d be no antarctic, as the bottom border of the map matches the northern border of it (and similarly, the left and right match – it’s an odd map, probably not meant to go directly onto a globe without alteration). In other words, south of Cantha=Tyria’s arctic region. And even if that map’s incomplete or just outright wrong – who said they only settled there? I mean, if you got three separate cultures (minimal) of humans who settled in the same area (Cantha), and then 5 more who settled in another area (Elona/Orr), why would one group go their own way without others? Another answer would be to just look at the map – 70% of it looks reddish. Probably barren wasteland and not settling worthy.

Dwarves I personally chock up to “because they were taken from standard fantasy” and I’d have to shrug it away. However, even ignore that part, you do have to admit that they look much less human than norn – about as inhuman as jotun do (and modern jotun are considered to have gotten uglier than their past selves). Tyrian humans are a beautified version of humans, but the dwarves and jotun are greatly disproportioned in comparison to not just humans but also to the norn – there’s a far greater physical similarity between norn and human than norn and dwarves or norn and jotun.

Besides, I fail to see how my theory of norn being of human descent because of their culture (especially religion – both faiths hold high reverence for the Underworld, as well as the Hall of Heroes; however no other race has yet to mention either aside from the Forgotten) and looks rather than just one ignores the dwarves and jotun. Just because some humanoids look… human-like doesn’t mean that all human-like humanoids have to hold similar or shared pasts despite one or two clearly not being related to humans.

@Narcemus: Priestess Rhie suspects that it was the Reaper of the Ice Wastes, iirc, calling him the most loyal one. But it’s never outright said.

@WonderfulCT: The gw.dat for Nightfall says that Abaddon was actually re-creating his body ever since Varesh began her rituals (each of the three rituals were said to unlock some of the gates in the Realm of Torment, allowing Abaddon to draw power from them – again, according to the gw.dat). This implies that Abaddon was actually killed before – and may be what actually caused the creation of the Crystal Desert/The Desolation. But that’s conjecture.

Nonetheless, I agree that “unwilling to kill” is not the same as “unable to kill.”

The Living Story is post The Lost Shores (at least part 2 is), and that in turn is post-Zhaitan’s defeat.

Rytlock has a rather rude attitude to all non-charr non-Pact Commander PCs, afaik, not just humans.

Not necessarily, Beetle. We don’t know what it is that makes sylvari immune. I somehow doubt it’s that they’re from the Pale Tree.

Under that kind of argument, all Elder Dragons are are war. Moreso with Jormag and Zhaitan.

The hounds and mosshearts twisted by the Nightmare Court do indeed change drastically – becoming darker and overall more decrepit – but the sylvari do not (this I actually use as part of my Nightmare=Mordremoth’s influence theory; since sylvari are immune to dragon corruption, they don’t change physically but due to the Dream/Nightmare, they’re changed mentally – while the things they spread the influence to (hounds, mosshearts, husks) do change physically).

I would probably consider Lyssa (and any predecessor she may or may not have) Beauty, since Illusion feels rather “elemental” to me.

Or maybe we should start calling them the Seven Gods and consider Lyss and Ilya separate… Since we don’t know of any predecessor for Lyssa, it’s hard to tell for her what’s the case.

I’d hardly say that Primordues uses war. He’s just outright slaughter and massacre. There’s hardly anything “war” like about the destroyers’ actions.

No, the avatars are not the gods. Grenth has only seven (klnown) avatars – the Seven Reapers who were the mortals that helped him overthrow Dhuum and elevated to immortality as a reward (and yes, the one we talk to is one of those Reapers, dubbed “The Seventh Reaper” in fact).

You’ve made a huge blunder, BuddhaKeks.

Humanity first arrived on the world at Orr, at least according to current human history, brought by Dwayna. It seems that they all got kicked out by the gods or some such and only returned in 205 BE – it’s not very clear; what’s clear is that they were on Orr, for however short of a time, long before 205 BE (whenever it was that they were brought to the world). Unless human history is wrong yet again – however, to make such a presumption is foolhardy.

However, you also make the presumption that the norn – if descended from humans – didn’t reach there by traveling south and eventually reaching the arctic seas to the north. We’re told by Jeff Grubb that the human homelands may be south of Cantha and Elona – and even long before that we knew that 1) humans settled on the coastline of Cantha – implying arrival via ship and 2) Luxons hold legends of a homeland across the sea.

And given the globe we have, what’s south of Cantha? A small peninsula, a few Shing Jea-sized islands, and… the highest reaches (aka arctic area) of the Tyria/Elona super-continent. (Personal speculation – I think humans were taken from Orr, due to the Elder Dragons’ corruption/last influences that is why Balthazar burned the land of Orr completely (despite it supposedly happening after humans were brought to Orr) to the continent east of Cantha – which would be somewhat south of where they first appeared on Cantha and certainly south of Elona).

So we cannot be absolutely certain that the norn, if descended from humans, had to come from the Orrians who arrived in 205 BE. We’re still left with a huge gap in the timeline and human history with plenty of confusing aspects which make sense in very few ways.

Acidicore.3264:

Premise- Developing a rational relationship between the six Human Gods and six Elder Dragons based on both subjective and objective information ascertained from Tyrian lore and personal opinion.

There is no relationship. People seriously need to stop trying to make something out of nothing.

Acidicore.3264:

Six Gods- Each of the six gods correspond to a specific element(s) within their domain of power. However, given the fact that Abaddon, Dhuum and Menzies were also gods at one point, the power of a god is static and can be obtained by defeating or stealing from a previous god. Also, the power of a specific god can be parsed between gods, filling in a void as seen with the fall of Abaddon and is unknown whether or not one god could obtain all of the powers, if there is a limit to what they can control or if specific governing powers work best within relation to each other, allowing one god to control it while another cannot.

You got a few things wrong.

1. Menzies was never said to have been a god.
2. The “element(s)” part of the Six Gods don’t seem to be tied to their power, as that part is what’s “switched around” – Kormir is not the goddess of water despite Abaddon was, but instead with Abaddon’s death, Lyssa is the goddess of water; similarly, Dhuum was not the god of ice despite Grenth being such (before Grenth, there was no known god of ice).

Acidicore.3264:

Connection- Six gods and six elder dragons, while it could be all coincidence, it’s also possible there’s a deeper connection. Similar to how the asura fed off the slumbering Primordius, the gods could also abuse the power of a slumbering elder dragon as a source for powerful energy as well as draining them may also have cause them to awaken. If a relationship exists, it seems purely parasitic, and would explain the diversity of the gods and elder dragons, as well as similarities in power.

Speculation of Connection
Balthazar to Primordius
Grenth to Zhaitan
Dwyana to Jormag
Lyssa to Kralkatorrik
Melandru to Mordremoth
Kormir to Deep Sea Dragon

It is just coincidence, folks.

1. The Six Gods only tapped into Zhaitan’s power once – and it was to strengthen the Bloodstones.
2. Kormir has absolutely nothing to do with water and thus has absolutely no ties to the deep sea dragon.
3. Dwayna has absolutely nothing to do with ice and thus has absolutely no ties to Jormag.
4. None of the Elder Dragons have anything to do with non-element aspects, and Kormir lacks an element – this proves that the Six Gods don’t need elements in their domain but they choose to have elements in their domain. Furthermore, if Lyssa is considered for water, Kralkatorrik is left without a god, and Dwayna – no matter what – is left without a dragon while Grenth would have two unless you give Zhaitan to Dwayna and Jormag to Grenth; however, if we’re talking about the power of gods, we shouldn’t consider Grenth and Kormir but Dhuum and Abaddon’s unknown predecessor – and again, Dhuum held no ties to ice and thus has nothing in common with Jormag (while Abaddon’s predecessor is unknown fully).

Acidicore.3264:

The awakening of the elder dragons also would explain the quiet abandonment of the gods, with their source of power no longer in stasis, they might fear retaliation from their host if the dragons discovered something was draining them. However given that Primordius has shown no signs of specifically targetting asura of leeching, it’s also possible they have no recollection of events prior to awakening. Also, the gods may fear themselves becoming targets, having bathed in the specific elder dragons power for over a millennium, would be beacons to the elder dragons, whose hunger knows no bounds.

Except that…

1. Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru were gods when they came to Tyria – before they ever interacted with Zhaitan.
2. Again, *the Six Gods only drained power from Zhaitan to power the Bloodstone. They did not siphon from him “for over a millennium.”
3. The Six Gods only interacted with Zhaitan – and unknowingly at that!
4. The Six Gods went silent after Abaddon’s defeat three years before Primordus began to stir, and over 50 years before any Elder Dragon woke up.

You’re making up facts, sir, to create a false precedence for “your” theory (and by “your” I mean yours and every third person’s because it’s THAT common of a misconception).

1. He’s not the strongest of the gods – hell, when he was full-powered he got overthrown by a half-god and 7 mortals. Abaddon, when full-powered, as capable of beating two other gods and had at least 9 mortals beat him while chained down (and while chained down, he started twisting the world into a nightmarish hell). Dhuum isn’t better than Abaddon – he’s just tougher to kill (this does not mean he’s tougher to beat – see Joko, who’s impossible to kill but can get his kitten wooped by a spirit called Ewan Thorn). And that is likely just because he’s the former god of death (or, alternatively, Grenth wanted to make Dhuum suffer in eternal isolation rather give him a quick merciful death).
2. Who said he isn’t causing havoc in the Underworld? Godslost Swamp and Reaper’s Gate are both areas tied to the Underworld, and it’s got nothing but creatures of darkness spewing forth. Plus, and this holds next to no backing tbh, I think the lore behind the Mist Wars (that there’s “evil” killing mercilessly trying to invade Tyria) may be about Menzies and Dhuum – or just simply alternate dimensions which would be sadder.
3. Nothing says that Grenth is weaker – only his avatar.

@OP: There’s pretty much three major theories/hypotheses for the norn’s origin: the in-game one by kodan Voices that proclaim norn are descended from that lost tribe; 2) that they hold shared origins with the jotun; 3) that they are a sub-species of humans that evolved enough (due to magic and extreme environment) to be called a different species (aside from their default form being called “human form” and having a lot of similarities to Luxon culture, there are statues to Grenth in the Far Shiverpeaks with no other known civilization ever having been there besides jotun – and they’re near the Raven Shrine up there).

Which one of these is the case – if any – is unknown and not hinted at.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Possible, it’s unlikly though. Yes the Norn can turn into bears, but that’s just one of many forms for them, their default is a giant humanoid. This indicates that they were humanoids who learned to transfrom into animals.

I personally think the Norn are either related to the dwarves or the Jotun or maybe even both. The only thing we know for certain is that they are not related to the humans, since those came from a different world than Tyria.

We don’t know how old norn as a race are so you cannot deny human ancestry outright – since we also don’t know when humanity arrived on the world.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Now you could argue that the Norn evolved from the humans after they came to Tyria, but that’s just a few thousand years ago, you could only explain it with fastened magical evolution, which is a possibility, but I don’t think we have any indication for that.

A few thousand years? Exactly how many thousands of years? When were the norn first called norn? When where they considered their own race.

We know NOTHING about the norn’s history. And little on the human’s history. Humanity could have came to the world as early as 10,000 BE – that’s 11,000 years. The earliest possible recording of norn known would be when charr took Ascalon – which we have next to no timeframe for other than “before 100 BE.” Add in extreme environemtns which can cause changes within a few generations for survival, and magic and you get a good amount of evolution. Hell, in even the latest possible date for the ED’s last rise (1,768 BE) there’d still be enough time for humans evolving into the norn. And we know magic’s involved – specifically the magic of the Spirits of the Wild – with the norn given their transformation abilities.

Technically, lore-wise, Razah would be considered a demon. He’s just unlike most demons in many aspects.

You probably view them that way because it more or less began exactly like that. Though they seem to be steadily going away from “ignore the Ventari Tablet” to “go the opposite of the Ventari Tablet” in their proclamations as well as actions. (btw, it’s not the Pale Tree they oppose but the Ventari Tablet).

I can kind of see what the OP means.

It’s one thing to have constantly new content for players to enjoy without spreading them so thin like GW1 did up until after Eye of the North (with the BMP and then Beyond fixing that), however it’s something completely different when you remove all of that “new” content after some time.

I can see the desire and want for a living story, but if you think about it…

1. It’s not very cost effective, as everything you make won’t be available for new players to go through in the future – thus to them it’s as if it was never made.
2. There’s no real need to remove them except to give the implication of a “continuously changing story” – however you still retain everything from release. That makes sense… how?

If Anet really wants a “living, breathing, world” then they need to also work on eventually replacing the stuff that’s been around since release. HOWEVER, I don’t want this. I think having a “living, breathing, world” is the wrong direction – albeit perfectly reasonable, viable, and understandable – to take for an MMO. For two main reasons: 1) New players won’t experience the game as it was made to be originally. For example, say you go and replace some bits of Orr to start showing how it got cleansed – New Player A goes through the personal storyline. Zhaitan’s a big threat, Orr’s fully corrupted… but only in the personal storyline. When they exit that, you start getting “Zhaitan is dead!” in either looks, feel, or words. 2) New players will miss exciting things that are “one time events” (even if that “one time” is “for a full month”) – for example, take the Ancient Karka. New players will see the corpse and just go “so there was an epic battle in the game’s background?” never knowing – or being able to experience – the plight the Lionguard had against the karka invasion, being unable to experience it, since Anet removed all that content.

HiddenNick.7206:

You really would want new Hearts? And… That would also mean all previous hearts disappear… That’s not fun at all – why would you destroy something to never come back? And what about my map completion achievement? Would it reset? That would be bad. Would it stayed as it was? Also bad… Why to bother with more hearts that does not count to map completion?

The OP never mentioned removing hearts.

I personally wouldn’t want new hearts unless the area is devoid of them – though it would give folks new things to do. I’d rather have new events, skill challenges, open-world mini-dungeons, vistas, and jumping puzzles.

ATM, the only place I’d like some hearts added would be Southsun Cove – cuz that places need anything to make it more interesting than the, what, 4 events?

HiddenNick.7206:

That’s just not fair! They’ve a bunch of stuff that have stayed in the game.

The living story started in Janruary – we’ve been told that all of the early Flame and Frost content will be removed. Meaning those streams of refugees, the camps, the Lost and Found achievement – possibly even this month’s content will never be available in the future.

The Lost Shores – which gave the content you kept using as an example (Fractals), is not part of the Living Story. So you saying the OP’s statements are unfair is wrong because your claims for the things that stayed are not of the Living Story.

Though they did remove a lot of The Lost Shore’s content – from the LA invasions, even on Garrenhoff and Morgan’s Spiral (did they really need to do that?) and the scavenger hunts, and the meta event which held half of the islands’ events, and finally the Ancient Karka fight. And that’s so much that new players will never experience and many will never even know about.

In short: if they’re going to do a living story (which I’ll disagree with but go along with), they need to do it fully – not half kitten it with “it only counts to new content!” like they are now. Though the personal story kind of screws the ability to do that over a tad bit.

The “end of the world” – meaning the mechanical boundaries allowed to go through – going downwards always ends in water. Every single map has a “huge underground sea” as you put it – every map, every dungeon, all of it.

I don’t know why you put this in the lore forum, nor do I know why you made it a question thread. It’d be a different matter if all six sides were covered by textures, but in most cases of your images, it’s not even covered by one.

Either “all magic users” equally – as outside Tyria, magic wouldn’t be bound to the four schools like player professions, and in turn all professions – including ranger though maybe not engineer or warrior – utilize magic to manipulate things in some manner – or it would be “none of them” because, truth be told, the Mists are protomatter and that’s not manipulated by any single profession.

Kalona.9508:

Additionally, the purpose of the quest itself is pretty bad as a deus ex machina. Trahearne, out of nowhere, tells you that he can randomly cleanse the corruption of an entire continent, by himself, against the power of an Elder Dragon. There’s absolutely zero evidence that this is something that could ever happen in the game world.

1) Orr is not a continent. 2) It’s not out of nowhere. Trahearne spent 25 years trying to figure out how to fight off Zhaitan’s corruption. And he could only do so with the Pale Tree’s help via Caladbolg as a catalyst. 3) The Forgotten had anti-ED magic too, you know, and then there’s the Blue Orb, the Pyrite Peninsula golden orb, and sylvari on a whole that are anti-ED. So “absolutely zero evidence” my kitten Pay more attention to the game’s story and you’d realize your wrong.

Kalona.9508:

In general, the way that you so easily fight through Orr and kill Zhaitan is ridiculous. Zhaitan raised an entire CONTINENT from underwater, the entire population of which is now under his control, and there’s plenty of evidence that Zhaitan can, and will, corrupt people or raise the newly dead into his armies. This means that every Pact soldier that dies, is a potential recruit for Zhaitan, which means that the Pact would have to kill two risen for every death of their own, something nearly impossible to do given factors such as morale and supply lines that the Pact has to worry about and the risen don’t. Thinking about the story in these terms just highlights how ridiculously easy the victory is.

Again, ORR IS NOT A CONTINENT Tyria is the continent, Orr is a nation – a peninsula. Also, we see Zhaitan turning the Pact’s fallen into soldiers in both the personal story and in the persistent world. So I don’t know what you’re complaining about. But if you paid attention, you’d also see that the Pact burns their dead before they can be turned into Risen – or they bring the dead back to Fort Trinity which has the Blue Orb which prevents Risen creation.

Milennin.4825:

Re-play story
Finally, I’d like to see an option to re-play story missions. I really did like some of the missions, and I’d love to play them once more some time. Unfortunately that’s not possible on the same character…

Not really something in the future story, but a mechanic I do want to see – for both future and old personal (and living) story.

Slayer Lord.5023:

I also think that story should be more solo friendly.

I solo’d the entire personal story near to release, when some of the story steps were much harder than they are now. I don’t think that the personal story isn’t solo-friendly, except how it ends in a dungeon.

Anyways, what I want to see in the future personal story,

1. First and foremost, I want a return of the biography options mattering. Not just how Orr did things with “the NPCs will recognize if you did xyz story steps/chapters” where you have absolutely no idea beforehand if you’ll even meet those returning NPCs or not, but rather I’d like story chapters which occur if and only if you’re a human noble or some such, where then you’ll see a return of Faren. Or as a charr your warband (in full) will return.
2. Future Elder Dragon fights to be done in mini-dungeons, akin to the Braham and Rox instances now. Returnable instances that work possible as solo but better with others; I don’t like how Arah’s story mode is Zhaitan, then we got the Giganticus Lupicus in explorable being tougher than his master mechanically – when we go to face Jormag and the rest, I want them to be the top dog in fights, I don’t want to return to where we kill them expecting a tougher foe which worked under them. It makes no sense.
3. The dragon fights should be more interactive than “spam 2” – I don’t mind using cannons to end the dragon, but rather than it being 2 stationary objects firing at each other, I’d rather have (using Zhaitan’s fight as an example), dragon champions coming in on the opposite side while the airship circles around Zhaitan, forcing you to not only move away from the cannons, but change the angle of the cannons too – that’s the least which should be done.
4. Fewer deaths of liked characters. If they keep killing the characters we like, we’ll be left with the dull boring folks. Orr already over does the aspect and by the end I only cared about the mentors’ and Tegwen’s deaths because outside them… I just stopped growing attached to even the more likable NPCs.
5. Either improve Trahearne’s voice acting, or have him give command of going after other dragons to other Commanders (we’re called “a” Pact commander by Smodur if you’re of said rank when visiting the defense quorum) – Sigfast or his brother for going after Jormag, for example – who lead due to being knowledgable of the location and the threat (while we, the second-in-command, lead the attacks as equals to these Commanders).
6. Some personal storyline plots that are chosen by our profession, profession biography question, personality, and/or the third racial story option that didn’t get a big focus already (human gods, charr warband member, etc.). For example, charr who chose Maverick will get a plot revolving around a mess Maverick made or about his past.
7. Have Destiny’s Edge part of the personal story as well, and not just dungeons. It felt very silly that Destiny’s Edge are all over Tyria, then all of a sudden they’re united in Arah after the Pact has done all the work. It feels like they just let others do all the hard work for them (I know that’s not the case but still…).

In short, the main things are to make things more personal to the players’ choices and make the biography more important, and keep the good NPCs instead of killing them off.

GuzziHero.2467:

This is supposed to be an EPIC battle, a war perhaps, with tens of thousands of participants. And yet each of my characters has played a pivotal role in the death of Zhaitan, less than a month after stepping out of The Grove/Divinity’s Reach.

Storywise, it’s a lot longer than a month from beginning to Zhaitan’s defeat. The preparation of and invasion of Orr takes over several weeks alone.

Just because you can experience weeks within hours of playing doesn’t mean that it’s a fault of the developers or story.

When in doubt, check. No mention of Usoku, even in the beta version.

However, it turns out that other than Usoku’s Needle and the Lost Seal of Usoku, there is one mention of him, albeit misspelled. Joko, however, has Palawa Joko’s Finger Cuff but Divinity Guide, Book Cart, Miyani, Alain, and Hoanjo Belin. At least as far as the wiki’s documented thus far.

The whole of the Mists is a creator, more or less. But the Dream of Dreams seems more based on the aspects of the Mists related to time rather than creating things – “n the middle of The Mists is a spot where time moves neither forward nor back. It is a tear in the fabric of the cosmos, the point of perfect balance between all forces of the universe. This place is known as the Rift, and there is nothing to which it does not connect, nothing that cannot be reached from inside it. Those who have the know-how to travel across the universe through the Mists must pass through the Rift on their way to all other places. It is the center of all things. "

As for the sylvari looking humanoid – we’re told that the Pale Tree chose that appearance. Probably the same for the sylvan hounds. (Though why Malyck looks humanoid isn’t entirely known… yet).

HiddenNick.7206:

But what about challenge? If your able to complete the event the first time you run it then what you do next is just farming it for the rewords. But what if there is a simpler way to acquire those rewords? People will just abandon the event (that’s why all group events are deserted – no reason to run them) and complain about that they don’t have anything to do.

This is a huge problem I see in the Guild Wars franchise.

It’s always – and I do mean always – a vocal minority shouting “it’s good hard!” or “it’s too easy!” Two minorities that shout opposing things. This results in things like Winds of Change where the content was wtfhard, or things like Arah story where decent-difficulty content is made wtfeasy.

I’ll just say this one sentence in response:

Not all content can be geared to all players.

Meaning that a single event will be hard to some – too hard even – but easy, or too easy, for others, while just right for still others. And this is so for every single bit of content.

The problem in this lies in how everything holds a single difficulty level.

Here’s my suggested solution:

An option in the Options Menu to scale your characters’ stats and the rewards you receive. For example, let’s say there’s four scaling points given: Easy, Medium, Hard, Nightmare. With easy, your stats are buffed and you get less valuable drops; with medium, no change to current system; with hard your stats are nerfed a little and your drop rates improve (think of it as a boost to Magic Find); and with Nightmare your stats are lowered more with even better drops to reward you facing the challenge.

It’d be little different than just wearing basic armor instead of exotic as a level 80 or using level 35 rare gear as a level 80, but it seems those who want a challenge are incapable of nerfing themselves manually.

Edmo.7159:

A bit off-topic, but why we do not have Cutscenes in World Bosses? As we have in the “tutorial” and some dungeons. I think this engine are able to show cutscenes only to ppl that are in event area, when boss spaw and dies, or even in the middle, when you have something in the battle (Laser shooting in Tequatl the Sunless). Cutscenes if some minor events fail (cinematic explosions ^^). All this cutscenes in the world are possible because players become invulnerable.

I’ve always wondered this too.

In the tutorial the cinematic plays only if you’re within a certain range, so it’s very much possible to include, and there are some of those personal story cinematics that play in the open world – as well as the scout ones; and within dungeons – that causes players to be invulnerable, so that could be added to ensure players aren’t killed while watching open world cinematics.

Yes, she changed legions. No, she’s not a traitor – changing legions is a rare but accepted practice so long as you’re not joining the Flame Legion, though you always need acceptance from your superior Tribune officer – in the these cases, it’d be Rytlock, Torga, and Bhuer.

Charr loyalties typically lie in this order from greatest to least: Warbands→Legion→family/race→others

As said, cross-legion recruitment is very rare, and from my understanding usually frowned upon unless two things: 1) a gladium is wanted by a warband (which is almost always the case in the personal story) and even then it’s unlikely to occur (like said, need permission of a Tribune, and in the PCs’ cases, Rytlock either lets it go or calls in favors in most cases); 2) the individual’s behavior/personality/fighting style does not fit their legion (e.g., an Ash Legion soldier who goes charging head first into battle may get transferred by a Tribune to the Blood Legion, regardless of warband size).

digiowl.9620:

Dunno, Zhaitan showed very little interest in over recruitment of the living and instead reanimates their remains.

Jormag however seems to have this as a theme as seen with the Sons.

Primordius makes his own creatures from fire and magma.

And what we have seen of kralkatorrik is a virtually instant conversion of living beings into crystalline recreations of themselves.

Bubbles and “Jung” we know little about so far, tho if speculations are accurate it may well be that the latter will in essence grow his forces similarly to what the Pale Tree do with Sylvari.

1. If you’ve seen my posts on the matter in the past, you’ll know that I hold the interpretation that the Elder Dragons hold a preference on what they corrupt. Zhaitan prefers corrupting corpses – but as shown by Kellach in the human storyline, Zhaitan’s magic can corrupt living beings.
2. Jormag’s known to corrupt corpses too (see Edge of Destiny novel, chapter 1), but he shows a preference for corrupting individuals who are seeking power of their own accord (as opposed to enforcing slavery via corruption, Pact members in Frostgorge note how he seems to corrupt those who go to him for power first and foremost).

So what I’ve said is not really contradicted by your post – rather, it’s exactly alongside what you said.

@Narcemus: However, Zhaitan does more than simply “able to control his minions” like any standard necromancer or lich lord. Zhaitan makes his minions desire to follow him – this is what I was referring to with Zhaitan and the Elder Dragons having mind manipulation in their actions – whereas standard necromancers and two of the three known liches command either mindless undead that seem to naturally follow the strongest nearby undead (Khilbron), or rule through fear (Joko).

Stooperdale.3560:

Ok I get the Dream, sort of. That’s a shared spirituality/consciousness/empathy between the Sylvari and the Pale Tree. The Dream may have existed before the Pale Tree or come into existence with the Pale Tree. […] As with many oracular powers, there’s little point speculating how the dream has so much knowledge of the past, future, and present.

You got some things right, but not much.

1. The Dream of Dreams is made of memories, aether, and is still very mysterious even to the Pale Tree. (This makes me think that the Dream of Dreams is tied to the Mists, so I disagree on the last sentence quoted ).
2. The Dream predates the Pale Tree and is not unique to the sylvari. The Pale Tree is simply acting as a caretaker.

Stooperdale.3560:

So Nightmare? Is it a separate shared empathy/consciousness to the Dream, simply the abandonment of the Dream, or another part of the Dream? Has Nightmare existed for as long as the Dream or as long as the Nightmare Court? Can Nightmare exist without the Pale Tree or is there another conduit that connects the court to the Nightmare? What happens when Sylvari turn to Nightmare? Why would Sylvari want to turn to Nightmare even if they abandon the Dream?

The Nightmare is equally mysterious as the full nature of the Dream. What we’re told is that:

1. It’s a natural part of the Dream, and is the darker side of it. Some Nightmare Court recruiters in the personal storyline describe the Dream as a representation of the “bright” side of life (happiness, goodness, joy), while the Nightmare is the “dark” side of life (sorrow, anger, fear) while also, falsely, claiming that the NC is aiming for a balance of the two.
2. Some sylvari believe it cannot be beaten – unlike the Nightmare Court.
3. It may have been caused by the Elder Dragon(s)‘s influence (with line comes from ooold interviews or some such from way back when, so I’m not sure where it came from – might have been the Movement of the World?) of thought that’s implied by old sources, it’s possible that it could be tied to Mordremoth, the sixth Elder Dragon).
4. The Nightmare has existed before the Nightmare Court – Faolain was the first to fall into Nightmare, before the court was established by Cadeyrn-or-whatever-his-name-is.
5. Physically, nothing visually happens to sylvari who fall to Nightmare – though Edge of Destiny does show some physical deformity that showed on Caithe as she fought against it. Mentally, they’re a lot more sadistic and overall cruel. Plus, it’s said they can’t return from the nightmare.
6. They’re not abandoning the Dream since the Nightmare is just a part of the Dream. Why those who are touched by the Nightmare seek it isn’t really known at the moment.

Stooperdale.3560:

Perhaps someone could perhaps answer simpler questions such as what do the Nightmare Court want? If they could gain control of the Pale Tree just what would they do with it? What would they do afterwards?

The Nightmare Court was established to make sylvari live without the guidance of other races (the Ventari Tablet); that is, to decide how to live themselves. However, it seems that this has changed and has become just simply wanting to throw the entire sylvari race and the Pale Tree into the Nightmare. If they twist the Pale Tree, it’d simply ensure that all future sylvari are naturally part of the Nightmare – nothing more really.

On 1) It seems to be a bit of an oversight, as there are at least 2 NPCs (the one Narcemus mentioned, and one at the Beergarden) which treat everyone as a norn. There are a few oversights like this throughout the game.

The point behind them knowing your character from before would be because while you the player don’t know them, the character has lived in Hoelbrak all/most of his life and thus know others in Hoelbrak (just as you’ll find that you know everyone in Two-Blade Pete’s gang if you’re a street rat, and you’re told that you were once a gang member but left to live a better life). It’s just meant to give your character some form of background within the game’s personal story.

On 2) All the major shrines have that kind of head in Hoelbrak (and some outside), not just those three. That head isn’t meant to be “ghostly because they’re dead” but rather “ghostly because they’re a Spirit of the Wild” I believe. I’m not really sure how they’re done, but you can probably chock it up to “light manipulating magic (you know, like mesmer illusions) that’s maintained by the shrines’ shamans.”

Thing is – Tybalt’s the second introductor into the OoW. Ihen and the rest met during the level 20-30 storylines are the ones who introduces the order, and each one of them is serious.