Guild Wars 2

He never left the warband. He’s just been on extended missions that kept him distanced from them – because, iirc from EoD, he didn’t get along with them well.

I believe you’re under the assumption that the dwarves seem to have a mental connection – sharing each others’ thoughts more or less – but we don’t really have any reason to believe this. They just hold a shared mentality – a mental process, rather than the same thoughts. We’re told that the Great Dwarf is a collective consciousness, but how we see this “collective consciousness” is just that they’re all focused on the same goal with the same line of thought, not the same thoughts.

I’m not aware of any statement confirming that Tyria was born from the Mists – beyond the “all things can trace themselves to the Mists” lore.

Also, who’s to say Tyria has a solar system? Remember the sky of the Realm of Torment? Of the Mad Realm? They’re both night skies – while The Underworld, Fissure of Woe, and the Rift are daylight. Furthermore, there’s at least one mention of calling Tyria a “realm.”

If you click the links, you’ll clearly see the stone dwarves I refer to. Consular Brand Oakencask and Consular Rahburt, the dwarves who inform you about Glint’s Challenge are stone.

Actually, despite the common misconception, the charr were not the original inhabitants of Ascalon – they came from east of the Blazeridge, and effectively made a n shape around the Blazeridge Mountains, annihilating all threats along the way.

The only ones we know were in Ascalon originally would be the grawl – though there’s (minor) indication that the dwarves were there before the charr. Which would explain how the jotun ruled the Shiverpeaks in the distant past but the dwarves were around and not subjugated at the time.

And I wouldn’t say the mursaat are “pure evil” even though they are pretty close.

It’s not exactly clear if the Mists also act as “outer space” but I find it unlikely. It’s basically three things in one: the origin of all things (protomatter that creates both things and people, and supposedly souls), the afterlife (where souls go), and the boundary between worlds/realms/universes.

Whether the third is “also” outerspace or meant to be only a metaphysical boundary isn’t very clear (and probably won’t be until we get rocket ships), but it certainly is the latter nonetheless.

I don’t think it’s ever said whether Ogden remained due to being sent to the surface or of his own violition. What is known is that he remained on the surface to “tell the tale” as he puts it (during norn lvl 28 Vigil storyline – I think it’s the 28 one, whichever one has you defending Ogden, Vigil option!).

He doesn’t make mention of any resistence to the mind mentality change, so I thought there wasn’t one – and that his single-mindedness for hunting dragons it geared towards “get those lazy bums off their butts to fight the dragons too!” It still fits their mentality, it’s just a different direction – and take note that in GW1 there were stone dwarves who were focused on protecting Glint’s baby and another collecting destroyer bits for armor – neither are a direct kill the dragon! mentality. Oddly enough, only Jalis had a “come here dragons and I shall spank ye buttocks!” mentality that everyone attributes to all stone dwarves.

Based on the dialogue of the GW1 Dredge Slaves in Sorrow’s Furnace, they don’t seem to hold that kind of colony – at least while enslaved.

Tengu we know how they genderdize from the Factions manual – though the GW1 models showed no difference, the feathers differ. At least for Canthan tengu.

The dwarves’ mentality is more of “destroy the dragons” rather than just “destroy Primordus” – it’s probably that Primordus was the first and most personal with the dwarves that they just focused on him, and because everyone else abandoned the dwarves they’ve been fighting alone for 200 years.

That sounds more like The Mists than Tyria, since Tyria holds no sign or mention of such things.

Well, the asura already have made “kom-pew”ters – all those terminals and the like. They’re just not called computers… I think.

However, I don’t think the Flame and dredge will disband in part 4. Not without it being due to us kicking their rears. I have a feeling that something’s forcing them together – specifically, this “personal nemesis” mentioned before. They’re going to remain a united threat as long as needed (be the ones needing be whatever causes their uniting in the first place, or ArenaNet). Furthermore, I doubt we’ll just see these events disappear in smoke. They wouldn’t have made homesteads and ranches just for 2-3 months, I dare say, so while not everything will be available in the long run I’m sure a good number of the content will be.

Forgot one other point. Hah.

From the high level bags that these dredge and Flame Legion drop, one of the possible drops is a Destroyer Core.

@Bunny: Yeah, there is tension (there’s three or so dead drops hinting/outright stating this) and there are some shamans who don’t want to give the magic (said shaman got burned alive), though that wasn’t really the focus of my post. My focus was two-fold:

1. Destroyers may still yet be related somehow.
2. The “Frost” reference in the title may not yet have reared its ugly head (hopefully it won’t be as ugly as the dredge – as I’m sure Braham would say. He’s got a thing for insulting people’s looks doesn’t he?).

@Tobias: Yes, and if you read my post in full, you’ll see that I mention that dead drop. But just because destroyers didn’t make the alliance to occur doesn’t mean they’re not related in some means.

As it stands, I think there’s too many nods to destroyers to say they’re unrelated completely.

The Unending Ocean isn’t likely literal, and it’s just the body of water between Tyria/Elona and Cantha. It likely came about for the same reason folks thought the world was flat long ago.

And did you not consider that there are globes in-game?

I wasn’t sure whether to make a new thread or just bump an old one but eh.

So anyways, I’m postulating upon the relations between the Molten Alliance (dredge/Flame Legion alliance) to the Destroyers, and to the title of the storyline “Flame and Frost.”

Where Destroyers Come In
Since the beginning, it was speculated that Primordus/Destroyers may be involved. I hold three points of influence towards that notion.

Fused Weapons
This is perhaps the most obvious of the settings. The Fused weapons have the appearance very similar to Destroyer weapons except for two things: they have animations (both the “lava” within moves as well as having a fiery effect to them) and they have dredge design metallic parts. This is quite interesting given how we have two cases of Flame Legion weaponry – Molten weapons and Flame weapons – neither of which resemble the Fused weapons, despite the former (Molten) coming from Citadel of Flames.

Not to mention – and this is a bit minor – that the Vigil show interest in the weapons according to Braham after saving Cragstead.

“Godforged” Dredge
In one of the dead drops, you learn that the Flame Legion shamans are practicing “Baelfire rituals” and, furthermore, that they’re putting moletariate-chosen dredge under rituals that turn them like their own Godforged and Shamans.

For those unknowing – the Godforged are/were selected shamans who served Gaheron and underwent self-mutilating rituals to turn their bodies into the fiery abominations we see them as, with claws, gut, and/or eyes on fire.

With The Razing, we can witness these dredge as well – they may appear at the end of invasion events as veterans, and there’s one in the North Nolan Hatchery. One of the random lines said when you may encounter them is “Burn! Burn! Buuuuuuurn!” (number of u’s may vary from actual number).

It has long been suspected by myself and others that these rituals may be tied to Primordus. These dredges’ reactions are, in my opinion, further proof of this as the mentality presented by these dredge are rather what one would expect from a speaking minion of Primordus.

Destroyer Cores
From the bags of the high level enemies, one of the possible drops is a Destroyer Core – myself, a guildie, and said guildie’s friend each got one when doing the North Nolan Hatchery instance.

Not Behind the Alliance
It should be noted, however, that there is a dead drop which contemplates on the alliance’s origins and mentions that it is not due to desperation or minions of Primordus. Which means any influence with destroyers is them proactively interacting with, and not the destroyers bringing reason to cause an alliance.

“Flame” and “Frost”
On initial view, one may believe that Flame refers to the Flame Legion and Frost refer to the dredge, the latter more due to their placement in the Shiverpeaks more than anything else. However, I believe that the “Flame” represents not the Flame Legion, but the Molten Alliance on the whole. There’s very little that’s ice-themed about the dredge, and the alliance has nothing but fire-based materials going about – be it the aforementioned Fused weapons, or, well, anything else!

However, and most importantly there’s a very interesting line brought up by Eir in this third installment (when Braham goes to see Knut Whitebear – Eir leaves the instance so its hard to catch; I only did due to screenshotting everything and reading after).

“Hoelbrak hasn’t seen an influx of refugees like this since the dragon’s last flight. We’re overwhelmed just trying to heal, feed, and shelter them. Many have now moved into lodges. The extra road traffic has stirred up the Svanir.”

On top of this, there are Molten Alliance listening devices near Svanir’s Dome (if not other Svanir settlements), so they’re antagonizing the Molten Alliance just as much as the other charr and norn.

I suspect we’ll see a “reaction” from the Sons of Svanir later on either in this installment, or next. Either way, here’s hoping.

There could have been disownments and/or deaths in the family. With the White Mantle constantly waging shadow warfare, assassinations aren’t unlikely.

Wasn’t Jennah’s father said to be assassinated?

An update on the dredge part of this – a Priory scholar introduced during Flame and Frost: The Razing states that the dredge are, like the Flame Legion, xenohpbic and sexist. So we probably don’t see female dredge for similar reasons of no female Flame Legion.

(Though physically, based on GW1, females don’t look much different than males).

If Eir was a child when Hoelbrak was under construction… well, I doubt that it was being built 50 years ago by old man Knut’s grandfather. And Eir is always called an old woman.

And I wouldn’t take looks honestly for age in Tyria. There are grandmother NPCs which look like they’re late 20s/early 30s – sometimes with graying hair.

Also, we don’t know how old norn can live to be if they don’t go die in adventures – and we know that Eir spent most of her time making sculptures rather than adventuring.

It should also be mentioned that she’s said to be childhood friends with Krennak – who is also said to have been one of the first settlers around Hoelbrak (and iirc, there’s mention of Eir being a child when Hoelbrak was being built). So Eir’s rather old (probably around 120), so having a young adult son (so for norn that’d be, what, 30?) isn’t really odd. Norn are said to still be well fit at the age of 130, so it’s not surprising.

Almorra seems to give permission to outstanding individuals to go outside dress code – according to Dougal Keane who joined the Vigil after the events of Ghosts of Ascalon.

The Order of Whispers I’d imagine to be very lax overall, given their spy network and secret society persona.

Priory is hard to tell.

No. There’s no connection – any kind of connection has been debunked in game, though most choose to ignore it for their own personal “theories.”

As Narcemus said, she’s been there since the beginning and it’s been well known for a long time. The Priory knows of six Elder Dragons thanks to jotun records, with creation myths referring to the world living in cycles featuring a sextant of “swallowers” (aka six Elder Dragons), among other references to them.

But the Priory, Inquest, Whispers, and later the Pact, seems to be the only ones knowing about the six Elder Dragons – though it seems that the Order of Whispers, at least as of Zhaitan’s defeat, does not think there are five remaining to face (the Master of Whispers makes mention of one fifth of the overarching goal being complete). Even Destiny’s Edge doesn’t know about the fifth or sixth, based on Eir’s words after Zhaitan (“who’s next – Primordus, Jormag, or Kralkatorrik?” paraphrased).

But as said, it’s not been a theory of a sixth Elder Dragon for a much longer time than we discovered the name Mordremoth.

I heard it’s Braham Eirsson; just as Eir’s father is Einar Cliffstrider.

Norn don’t have family names like us humans. I mean, in Hoelbrak you can find a married couple who’s last names are similar but very different, and another where the father and son’s last names differ.

gattsuru.4712:

Another possibility re: Claws is that Charr, unlike real-world felines, normally operate with their claws out (if only partially), but retain the muscles to retract those claws (presumably only doing so to protect the claws from damage, or as part of surrender). This would explain why in-game Charr show their claws regularly.

That gives me a funny thought of a scenario where you put a large amount of fear into a charr – even if they say they’re not scared, you can tell they are because they’re retracting their claws.

I do like the idea of them normally operated with claws extended.

Leo G.4501:

If someone wants to RP that they retract their claws, then likely the claws aren’t as long as they actually look in-game…

Or, how I RP them, their claws are more closely akin to hooves in that the claws are a major formation of the bone structure of their hands and literally work as the tips of their fingers. It’s not too far-fetched considering they also have bovine horns.

Thing is that they’re canonically said to have retractable claws in Ghosts of Ascalon, so it wouldn’t be a case of them functioning like a claw-shaped hoof (aka non-retractable claw).

I wasn’t disagreeing with the insurgency possibility (hell, they managed to do that in Ascalon despite the Great Northern Wall). Rather, I was simply stating that the strait of land between the two Giant’s Basin seems to have been where the front line was – and somehow, I don’t think that they were going around/through the Giant’s Basins.

@Thomas: We’re told by Priestess Rhie that the gods can’t be found within the Mists – hence why we don’t know where they are. They seem to be on another world, beyond the Mists (if not just simply gone).

Also, Elder Dragons do NOT radiate magic. They consume magic. The magic they “produce” is corrupted and thus unusable without side-effects of minion-ification by sentient life. And fun fact: the civilizations built around Elder Dragons tend to be less hostile – Orr, for example, was the most peaceful of all human civilizations to date, and the asura have no known sentient rivalries beyond the skritt.

Ryuujin.8236:

The problem is less to do with the mechanism and more to do with the sheer length of the charr “sabres”, the hand just isn’t big enough to retract the entire length of that blade

Who said they had to be retracting all the way?

But their shape and length I just chock up to “lazy design that stops at ‘good enough.’”

Jenosavel.1756:

Also, thanks Konig for pointing out the leg thing!

No problem. It kind of bugs me when folks don’t realize that.

Question 1) No. Other than the mention that we know there’s an arctic sea north of Tyria that the kodan, northern quaggan, and northern largos come from and that the charr’s domain (and origin) is east of the Blazeridge (off the map), we don’t know what lies elsewhere. Though the Maguuma Jungle does extend to the western coast, it seems.

Question 2) I presume it deals with the events of the previous rise. That is, it seems that continental Tyria was the last bastion of living races during the last rise, and furthermore the Seers contained all uncorrupted magic (aka the Elder Dragons’ food source) into the Bloodstone – this would draw them to the continent, as it is the last place of food. Even if there were surviving races elsewhere, the creation of the Bloodstone would draw them to Tyria. And it seems that Zhaitan took over Orr while the other races were hiding (as the Six Gods didn’t know Zhaitan was in Orr, and the Forgotten had freed Glint in what became Arah, so it would seem that the Forgotten didn’t know Zhaitan went to sleep there). I presume that only Kralkatorrik and possibly Jormag was in continental Tyria at first – maybe Mordremoth depending on where he is now – given that those two are the only one who had pre-hibernation influence in the area – the former being crystallized blood in the Crystal Desert and Glint’s location, the former being influence with the dwarves in the past (though they could have traveled north to combat him and given his location upon awakening I’m thinking he wasn’t in continental Tyria the previous rise).

Also, just to note: Jormag awoke north of Tyria, not within northern Tyria.

This makes me suspect that they’re after the magical concentrations which is throughout continental Tyria – the Bloodstones; Orrian and asuran magical artifacts; and portals to the Mists which are in large numbers in continental Tyria compared to elsewhere (Door of Komalie, Tombs of Drascir, Lion’s Arch, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, Varajar Fells’ stone circle said to be close to the Mists, Godslost Swamp…).

It should also be noted that there may be more than six Elder Dragons – the number of six comes from jotun stelae, so there may be some they didn’t know about. Trahearne, after completing Victory or Death, states that the dragons are waking around the world – the line may be based off of the jotun path of Arah explorable, the purpose of which is to learn how to determine the Elder Dragons’ awakening.

There’s already minor indication of a single Elder Dragon being around Cantha in the past, and I’m not talking about the deep sea dragon.

mercury ranique.2170:

b: We only know the location of one dragon and that is Zhaitan. The location of two is suspected (Kalkatorix in the crytsal desert and Jormag in the far shiverpeaks). Of bubbles, , primordus and mordremoth the location is totally unknown. (Yes Bubbles is somewhere in the unending ocean, but like the name is pointing out allready that area is too big to pinpoint her on the map.

He was pointing to where they woke up – in which Primordus woke up underneath central continental Tyria, Jormag awoke in/near the arctic sea, Zhaitan in Orr, Kralkatorrik in the Blood Legion Homelands, and the DSD was in the deepest parts of the Unending Ocean somewhere south of continental Tyria.

That mission is made to look like it is the front lines. Hence the attack and defense on Demetra. At least it did to me.

In the beginning, the spirits of the world were wild and untamed. In time, many took physical form: spirits of stone, spirits of water, spirits of wind, spirits of soil, spirits of plants and birds and creeping things. All things with form have spirits… as do many formless things.

But one day the bear stood up and looked around him and saw that the spirits of the world were restless and chaotic. He could not understand the endless cycles of creation and destruction.

There’s nothing to say there were competing or rivalry. The closest you get is “cycles of creation and destruction” – but they were wild, untamed, and chaotic.

(stupid character limit)

Want my points? Very well. In order of bringing them up:

1. Nothing points to the Six Gods’ mantle existing on the world prior to Dwayna’s arrival. Let alone the Six Gods being around during the Bloodstone’s creation (closest would be at the end of the ED reign, which would still likely be after the Bloodstone’s creation – this depends on the true origin of the Forgotten).
2. Nothing points to Melandru being on the world longer than Dwayna – and in fact, everything points against such. Little points to Melandru being on the world longer than humanity, and next to nothing for “much longer.”
3. There is no indication of the charr race’s age or the legend’s age. Similarly, neither of these two things give any point of reference for time frames or orderings of events.

Dustfinger.9510:

Got it. In lengthy conversation it is often necesary to reaffirm the points of that conversation. especially when one of the members tends to make “Hundreds of millions of tangents”. I’ve read them. I saw nothing to indicate you ever tried to “show me the other options”. The fact that you can’t even make a simple list of redressing your primary points in the midst of your “hundreds of millions of tangents” is very telling.

I think I’ve only made one tangent in this whole discussion.

Here’s a summary of the discussion as I see it:

1. You make the postulation that Melandru could have been on the world long before Dwayna and humans, thus being seen by charr for the legend to come to pass – you argue this due to the postulation that godhood was around in Tyria much longer than the Six Gods were (exempting Melandru due to said legend).
2. I disagree and bring up the Orrian History Scrolls which point to Dwayna coming to the world first, bringing humanity directly and that indications give that humans came before or at the same time Melandru did.
3. You then said the legend is likely older than humanity on the world.
4. I question why you make this speculation, given how there’s no need nor indication of a false legend predating humanity.
5. You claim me saying the legend is false was arbitrary, and ask why doubt the charr’s legend and not the human’s legend.
6. I state that we know the legend’s false and it’s not me acting arbitrarily.
7. You backtrack in agreement with me saying we know Melandru didn’t create the world, but that we don’t know if Melandru was on Tyria before the other Six.
8. I explain that we know the Six Gods’ time on Tyria does not predate humanity by much, and all knowledge points to only Dwayna being certain to predate humanity on Tyria. I then tried to backtrack to the original point you made – that Melandru was around during the Bloodstone’s creation, an argument you were holding for Thruln the Lost’s tale to be somewhat truthful with the jotun viewing the gods as having taken away magic, and I immediately point to why that’s extremely unlikely (even though it’s not quite impossible).
9. You called my argument arbitrary again, giving little explanation besides two fragment sentences of why they would have left if they were around during the Bloodstone’s creation.
10. I give sources for how we know that the gods weren’t on Tyria during the Elder Dragons’ rise – or at least not until the very end of it.
11. You then twist my argument with a silly claim that I think it’s more reasonable that the charr, who ruled Tyria, made a legend about their enemies’ goddess.
12. I explain that’s not what I argued and present a different possibility. As well as attempted to dispell some misconceptions you had about the charr.
13. You disagree with my alternative, twisting it to the negative extreme while bringing up wording from The Ecology of the Charr.
14. I talked about the meaning behind those wordings, including how recorded history only goes so far back especially for primitive people, and explained why the charr would start legends about their rivals’ gods.
15. You bring in other wordings in an attempt to disprove me, saying that at the time the charr were no longer primitive.
16. I point out another line from the Ecology which said they were still primitive even later, and brought up GW1 examples for how they could still be viewed such by GW1’s time.
17. You said you read the line I brought up and told me to re-read your previous post because “They were still primitive and they had a recorded history that refered to the gods as “ancient”.” – though that held no relevance in the matter at all of my post you were responding to.

And from there, I think it’s recent enough to not bother summarizing.

Your argument (and yes, you are holding a stance thus you are arguing – or debating if you want to use a “kinder” term) literally went from “the jotun viewed Melandru and other gods, predecessors of the current ones, as their gods and those gods took magic from them during the time of the Bloodstone’s original making. We know this because Melandru’s in a charr legend.” to … you know what, I’m not even sure what you’re arguing anymore. That we know a rough point of reference between events of unknown dates for when the Six Gods arrived on Tyria? That wasn’t even relevant at the beginning of this discussion and was never questioned!

Lately, you’ve just been calling me as having tangents, telling me you’re stating both sides of the argument, and refusing to respond to me with anything more than comments that beat around the bush (so to speak).

You’re just arguing about my means of talking now and how I debate, not your actual point itself – let alone original one – anymore.

As Dustfinger said, it deals with both affecting reality and just the mind.

Most of GW1’s spells focused on the latter – which created the misconception that mesmers only dealt with illusions of the mind – while GW2’s spells focus on the former of bending reality.

Go read my previous posts, as I’m tired of repeating myself.

I feel that you’re changing your stance with each post now.

@Frosch: " Survive Charr retribution. You have triumphed against [0..4] of 4 warbands."

That mission actually claims there were only five warbands (one per camp; the one where Rox wasn’t in the objective that I quoted) despite the numbers showing this was obviously not true. A Centurion leads a company – that’s 80-250 soldiers usually, which would be an average of 4 to 50 warbands (depending on the size of the warbands – warbands can range from 5 to 20 soldiers on average).

So a single Centurion – or even a Primus Centurion (a centurion given order to lead a handful of other centurions) – seems highly plausible. I wouldn’t doubt that Rox Ashreign was a primus centurion leading War Ashenskull and Anrak Tindershot who were centurions. However, given the number of leaders we fight there, it seems to me that Rox was a centurion and the others simply legionnaires.

The word “army” simply refers to land military units. Numbers in an army doesn’t really matter, so even a single century can be considered an army.

While the charr did see humans as an infestation, it’s more that they saw them as such due to humans taking Ascalon. Ascalon was the charr’s main purpose, and given how Abaddon had human followers still, I doubt that he wanted to wipe them all out. In both the charr’s and Titan’s view, Kryta was most likely just a tritary target. With Orr and Ascalon being primary and secondary for each (Ascalon being primary for the charr, but secondary for the Titans, and vice versa).

@Lutinz: That line doesn’t really show that a majority of the charr’s military might (which would, in fact, be most of the charr’s population given their culture) went to Orr. Also, the fact that the charr was an excuse for Khilbron to use the spell (or rather, a threat to pressure him into using it) would show that Abaddon wouldn’t care to force the majority of the charr population to Arah – he’d just need enough.

There’s really no indication for how many charr went to Orr, however given the fact that the charr were going to cause a Searing in Orr, I doubt they’d send most of their people on a suicide mission. What was in Orr was likely just a small blitzkreig assault akin to what’s seen in pre-Searing Ascalon.

As to why Abaddon wanted to sink Orr – probably for the same reason Shiro Tagachi caused that plague. A mass of souls causes imbalance between the worlds – and likely the Mists, which would make Nightfall all the more easier. Furthermore, it’d be a step in causing the Flameseeker Prophecies to occur, thus unleashing the Door of Komalie and the Titans – and The Fury was sitting in preparation for such a thing to occur, so we know they knew it would happen.

@Narcemus: I don’t think it was ever mentioned why Abaddon wanted Arah destroyed – only that the Titans sent the charr there, and that Terrick tricked Khilbron, a follower of Abaddon already, into using the Lost Scrolls.

I wouldn’t really say that the other spirits were “rival” – and it seemed to be more that the original kodan, in their belief, was to begin bringing order when there was none and that’s where the order in balance comes from – if it’s not sought after, there will be none, basically. In other words, the kodan might view it as unnecessary to bring in elements of chaos, since that’s the state things go to without maintenance.

You took two sides (or as you said “both sides”) – thing is that there were more than two sides, as I thought I’ve shown already. There’s always at least three sides to a coin (heads, tails, and side – to explain the metaphor: one side’s truth, the other side’s truth, and the real truth).

Timetable != timeframes

What it seems that you’re wanting to say is that we have an order of events – albeit a very loose one – but what you’re actually saying is that we have a time frame for a specific event. What you’re saying is that we have a set number of years which an event occurred between – this is what we don’t have. As I’ve said, and it’s got nothing to do with my preference or what I value, nor is it about me not thinking abstractly (though TBH, timetables are not abstract). What we have is – as I’ve said – a loose order of events.

So with this post, you’re now agreeing with my own posts that was disagreeing with your former posts. slow claps

I always saw it kind of interesting how kodans lack users in Denial magic (the school that mesmers and thieves seem to use). It likely would deal with their faith and philosophy. They make a point in saying that not only preserving and giving new life (Preservation), but also destroying and death (Destruction and Aggression) are part of balance. Denial doesn’t really have a place in their belief of balance – regardless of the chaos concept, as I would say that chaos is needed in balance (in order to balance out order), it seems more of the general line of thought behind the school rather than the professions’ abilities.

Though I think there may be a mesmer in Frostgorge Sound, but I’m not 100% certain on this.

It seems that only one centurion went towards Kryta (possibly a Tribune though), and I’d presume the same for Orr – though maybe a bit more since they brought Searing cauldrons (which they didn’t seem to have to Kryta). Those two kingdoms were “secondary targets” for the charr. So there wasn’t really much a split and the charr were constantly pressuring Ascalon after the Searing.

That was just one of my hundreds of millions random tangents I get into – hence why it was in parentheses.

More like you took two sides when there’s more than two, and I’ve been trying to show you the rest.

No, you don’t need to give an exact age. The problem is that there isn’t even any form of basis of an age other than timeless events (that is, events which we don’t know when they took place). If that’s your point, then you bring nothing up at all and you’re saying words with no true purpose behind them as you’re just saying “this legend exists!” – even though originally you were arguing something very different.

You keep on using the word relative. Relatively ancient. Relative timeframes. But there is no timeframe given. Why? Because the “timeframes” you’re using are dateless events – as I said – thus can literally happen at any time. Prior to 205 BE, that is, which you’re saying we have a timeframe that’s prior to such, and if you’re not and saying that 205 is that “minimum age” then you’ve been literally spouting words over nothing at all. And, for the record, originally your posts weren’t talking about such things.

My presumption upon why the Ecology of the Charr doesn’t specify the Khan-Ur’s assassins as humans but rather speculates and states it’s unknown is rather irrelevant to the topic.

If Melandru was on the world before humans, it wasn’t a long time. So there’s really nothing to argue for the legend being older than humanity since we can’t even give a timeframe for how long it was between Dwayna and humanity coming. But indications argue that humanity came before/with Melandru and Balthazar after Dwayna.

Define “relatively ancient” – you know that 100 years can be considered ancient, right? So to can 100,000 years. It gives no proper timeframe at all. “ancient” – and even moreso “relatively ancient” – can literally be meaning 10,000 BE to 205 BE. That’s no minimum age!

What “Bingo” – you’re only agreeing to my point about how there is no minimum age indicated at all by saying “Bingo!”

So you’d believe that he turned Fendi Nin into an undead capable of returning to his body upon death when he was born/not even a year old? :P

I’d say he’d have to be at least 65 – though I cannot see a 9 year old vizier. Maybe vizier apprentice if such existed.

To your second set of questions:

• I was also wondering if there’s any lore or official novels that explain how it’s cast? Certain characters have spells which require them to make specific gestures, while others seem to activate them instantly.

The two novels do give descriptions of casting magic, but not really into the details of it. More of what would be seen watching folks cast magic. Which is really just handweaving and magical lights/whatever the effect of the spell is. But it’s never really elaborated upon.

• How is Necromancy viewed by the general public?

Depends on culture. Sylvari view it as a natural part of life. Charr view it like all other magic – disdainfully. In general though, thanks to Zhaitan, it has been looked down upon in the past century. Even before hand it was looked down and misunderstood as “evil” even though it isn’t – though not as much.

Ghosts of Ascalon shows this better than I could explain it, but basically it just gives a big sense of uneasiness to non-sylvari.

• Is magic unique to the caster? For example .. If one Elementalist shoots fire at another Elementalist, will the opponent be burned or simply catch it?

That’s… a good question. I would presume no to it being unique, but there are likely spells that can’t simply be “caught” (and an Elementalist catching fire would more likely revolve around manipulating the fire into a standstill rather than just gripping it with one’s hand – these are the actual elements here!). Though in that example, I’d say that wouldn’t be possible given that Elementalists utilize the school of Destruction. But I’m merely postulating here.

• Does one have to be trained in order to use magic, or is it second nature?

Answered already. Most folks have to train for years to use magic, some if they’re talented can use it without training, and those who live in magically saturated locations seem to be able to use it second nature – at least that was the case for the Orrians and, seemingly, asura while underground (possibly now).

• Are there any in-game locations (such as academys) that train magic-users?

During GW2? I’m not sure. During GW1 there were a few – though we only knew of three: Drascir Academy, Nolani Academy, and the Temple of the Unseen (though this is questionable given the ties it holds to the whole Chosen situation).

Short answer: We don’t really know. Longer answers:

• Does magic come from the environment? From within the caster?

This isn’t really explained well. It seems to be a case of both, or from the Mists. Or from all three. There are locations which hold more magic than others (for example, The Artesian Waters beneath Arah is a source of magic), while we’re also told in minor cases of individuals having latent magical prowess – and this telling is often used in exploiting others (prime example being the Chosen and the White Mantle), and similarly magical locations tend to be tied to the Mists in some manner.

I suspect that it’s a combination of the three. There are some communing skill challenges that tell us three things:

1. Water conducts magic.
2. Souls attract magic.
3. Tyria’s center seems to hold magic.

This points to me as saying that magic is naturally formed from the world itself. Those who have innate magical talent are those with powerful souls – using themselves in a similar way that Ritualists would use other souls. Similarly, the Mists is the protomatter of reality, the building blocks of life, and the afterlife all in one – as such, it holds the ability to create and is where souls go to rest, making it likely a magical powerhouse of sorts.

On top of that, there are the Bloodstones, which are basically giant ancient containers for magic. During the previous Elder Dragon rise, the Seers gathered all non-corrupted magic into the original Bloodstone to starve the Elder Dragons (they consume magic). In 1 BE, Abaddon tampered with it to release it, then the other gods tampered with it again to limit the amount of magic it gave off and then split it. Basically for the past 1325 years it’s been slowly exuding magic.

• Are certain races more magically adept than others?

I wouldn’t be sure to call them “adept” so much as “more inclined to use” – it seems, based on the Orrians, that location can affect one’s magical adeptiveness (being closer to magical hotspots seems to allow easier usage of magic for example), but it’s more about culture than race. Asuran culture is focused on magic, while charr culture is the opposite – however, an asuran necromancer and charr necromancer would, theoretically, be on equal ground (all depending on their nuturing and their own magical talents).

• How is magic learned?

Some can call to it naturally – those considered prodigies, like Cynn in GW1 – but most have to train to use it. Some, according to an historic Ascalonian merchant, train for years.

• What are the branches of magic? Are there any actual schools?

There are four named schools of magic – these are from the Bloodstone. When the gods split the Bloodstone, they divided the magic it gave into four schools: Preservation (Monks and Guardians), Destruction (Elementalists and GW2 Rangers – note: Elementalists is the only profession who’s school is confirmed, the rest is speculative), Aggression (Necromancer), and Denial (Mesmer and Assassin/Thief). The schools that Dervishes and Ritualist used is hard to point out. In lore, it is impossible to use all four schools of magic at once – and seen through mechanics in GW1, even three seems to be impossible while two is.

However, I suspect there can be other kinds of magic than those four – magic that doesn’t come from the Bloodstones could then be channeled into these kinds. but that’s all 100% hypothetical speculation and I won’t delve.

Will the mursaat return? Most likely. Lazarus is likely to return, if not others.

Will they be a playable race? No. Their entire story is focused around being selfish jerks who don’t give a kitten if other races go extinct so long as their life is safe. That’s why they betrayed the Seers and nearly wiped them out before fleeing the world when the Elder Dragons last rose despite their magic being the most effective against the dragons and their minions. This is also why the mursaat killed thousands of Krytans within five years just to prevent the Flameseeker Prophecies from fulfilling. This is why Lazarus went and infused his body into faithful follower and killed them to reform.

The mursaat are a pitch black race of selfish evil.

Furthermore, in Prophecies almost all mursaat were wiped out. Lazarus was literally intended to be the last one as of Eye of the North’s development (so said John Stumme) though this changed in War in Kryta – but all added mursaat were then killed off, leaving Lazarus to be the last again (though they may add others, who knows, but a whole race of mursaat? No, not likely to happen, let alone as good guys).

If Anet went and made the mursaat a playable race, they’d be tossing their lore into a ten foot deep ditch and burying it – at that point, I’d almost say Blizzard’s better with their lore than Anet. Almost. It’s already two feet down and slowly, ever so slowly, going down.

WHere’s the big presumption exactly? Because it isn’t that all recorded history of a culture begins with oral tradition – because stories are told when a means of communication is developed, and usually the alphabet comes after the spoken language. And in the charr’s case, they never had an alphabet. Just, as I said, ideograms which simply gave vague concepts rather than words – and these ideograms were used even in GW1’s time.

Furthermore, you seem to be misinterpreting me. Because I’m not arguing that the charr never interacted with the gods prior to meeting humanity. I’m simply stating that there is no evidence to point to the specific legend of Melandru existing before humanity thrived on the world – which was your original argument, and you were using that argument to argue that the legend is truthful (which it isn’t, as I have pointed out multiple times).

Dustfinger.9510:

i wouldn’t say it’d be most likely becasue if them being in orr was the case of their interaction then that interaction would also have included humanity prior to their travel to continental tyria.

You’re using too many pronouns, it makes your sentence ineligible.

If I’m correct, what you’re saying can be read as:

I wouldn’t say it’d be most likely because if the gods being in Orr was the case of the gods’ and charr’s interaction then that interaction would have included humanity prior to the humans’ boat travel to continental Tyria.

In which case: No, it wouldn’t. Because the charr come from east of the Blazeridge originally, which is a far cry from Orr. Even Ascalon is a good distance away, should the charr have conquered that land by the time the Six Gods arrived on the world.

And just to note: recorded history (or even known history) != age of the race

It gives us a minimum age. That minimum age is what i was refering to.

And what’s the minimum age? You got nothing because no minimum age is known.

We don’t know how old the charr as a race are. Nor do we know how old the legend is.
We don’t know when the charr and the gods first met. Nor do we know when the charr and Forgotten first met, nor when the charr and humans first met.
We don’t know when the Six Gods came to the world, or when the humans or even Forgotten (if the human legends of them being brought by the gods is true) did.
We don’t know when the Elder Dragons went to sleep.
We don’t know how far back the charr’s “recorded” history goes.

There is no timeline with these things, just an order of events – nothing more. And even then, some order of events is misplaced with the rest.

Actually, you’re slightly off there. There’s (albeit minor) indication that Khilbron was the vizier in 1016 AE (which would put him at the age of over 56 in Prophecies, but doesn’t look like such to me), or alternatively Orr had a line of corrupt necromancer viziers who were capable of making powerful undead. Fendi Nin at the end of the Second Great Corsair War made a deal with the vizier of Orr that made him into a sort of pseudo-lich.

Also just to note: All champions have personality (those which were once a single living being at least), though they still all hold devotion to their dragon (which, as both of us noted, Khilbron lacks fully).

@Alpharius: All mention of the “Redeemed Realm” comes from the gw.dat and, as such, isn’t canon lore. There’s at least two references to the Realm of Torment in GW2’s timeframe (both by charr, mind you – once in Edge of Destiny, another time in the charr Iron Legion storyline by Smodur).

@FIsh: No, but it was made. sigh

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

we won’t really know since the Six Gods kind of stopped talking directly to humans.

Before you say it, they may still communicate but through intermediaries. The Seventh Reaper is not Grenth

Technically, they always talked through intermediaries, even while living on Tyria (the whole “looking at us blinds people” thing). The silence of the Six Gods is that even those stopped. The Seventh Reaper is the first contact with any such intermediary since Nightfall, storyline wise. As said in the mission – no one has been able to summon a reaper in human generations.

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Jormag Skirmish – King of the North

Zhaitan Finisher – He didn’t quite die. Again. Yet.

Bubbles Skirmish – Terror of the Deep

Jormag Finisher – Heartbreaker

Bubbles Finisher – Depths not so Unfathomable

Ugh. No, thank you. I don’t want to be fighting half of the Elder Dragons twice. I want new enemies, so lets just leave the fail that was Zhaitan behind us (maybe improve the fight but eh) and NOT fight him or any other Elder Dragon twice. Please.

And no waypoint maps? Catastrophe.

@Dustfinger.9510: Knowing something doesn’t really mean it’s recorded – though you may simply mean having knowledge of history, written history always comes after oral tradition and the charr being still primitive and even in GW1 their writing system limited to a case of ideograms that mean concepts rather than letters or words, their ancient history is likely only known through oral tales being passed on. Which leads to much alterations (hence, I would presume, why the Ecology of the Charr states the Khan-Ur’s assassins are unknown given other places stating it was humans).

So i suppose it is possible for the gods to have come to tyria (the world) for the first time with humanity. Then travel to the charr without humanity and interact with them in such a way as to be labled enemies from ancient times. This would roughly make human and charr the same age since melandru was known to the charr since the beginning of their own history.

That’d be most likely given how the Six Gods lived on Orr before humanity traveled there by ship (even though that seems to be where humans were brought to the world – I suppose the gods then took them south in whole for xyz reason).

And just to note: recorded history (or even known history) != age of the race

Beetle.2476:

The jotun does talk about humans coming over on boats to Tyria. Maybe they were guided by the gods and were not true aliens.

The timeline is basically this, according to current records:

- Dwayna arrives on the world at The Artesian Waters
- Dwayna brings humanity and the other gods somewhere in/near Arah
- Something happens in which humanity leaves Arah on a whole, indications pointing to them being places somewhere south of Cantha (Luxon legends point to it being a continent across the ocean, Jeff Grubb said that the original human homeland “may” be somewhere south of Elona and Cantha).
- In 786 BE, humans arrive on the northern shorts of Cantha and then into the Echovald Forest and Jade Sea later.
- In 205 BE, humans arrive via boats on Orr, Istan, and Kourna.

Beetle.2476:

However, going back to the main topic, could the gods powers have existed before humans were brought? Melandru was known by charr beforehand supposedly, so maybe they work in a sort of cycle, New gods replacing every few thousand years like Kormir did, while Melandru managed to survive and remain a God. The charr could remember her, and assume the others are gods as well. I did say silent, not disappeared Kong.

They did, but not by much, I repeat for the nth time. This is a fact stated by Jeff Grubb – and I’ll link the source again for you. They didn’t exist for thousands of years on the world before bringing humanity to the world. Nothing gives an indication for the legend’s age – and even then, given how it’s false it could have been made at any time. We don’t even know how old the charr race is.

“The Dragons, as we said, have always been here. The gods predate the humans, but not by much. Much of what we know about Glint comes from Glint herself. The truth of the matter may be very different, and she has her own reasons for saying what she has said.”

http://www.killtenrats.com/2009/09/02/guild-wars-2-interview/