Guild Wars 2

You did get information on the laser – it just wasn’t in the Personal storyline. Though in the second instance of The Source of Orr there’s constant dialogue about the Glory of Tyria from the NPCs.

You learn about the laser in Sparkfly Fen, Mount Maelstrom, and Crucible of Eternity story mode (well that’s more about Elder Dragon research). Zojja mentions how she modified the laser that’s on the Glory of Tyria during the dungeon – said modifications happened because of the Elder Dragon research notes she got from Kudu during CoE story. The cannons too.

So while there were quite a few things never mentioned again, everything we used against Zhaitan was mentioned before.

@Obsidian: I was actually thinking of John Stumme – a fan of GW1 who became QA during Prophecies and designer before Factions iirc, who went to work on GW2 before being put as lead for GW1’s Live Team.

Anyways, this whole argument is pointless. Deal with the fact: You CANNOT pick and chose which situation you want. The new information is the actual case – both lines are canon, but in canon one line is wrong, and that’s human legends (because in GW, legends are seldom right compared to historical research).

@Durzlla: I don’t recall a single mention of gargoyles repairing themselves after death.

As Tuomir said, you line about more powerful elementals is contradictory.

@Ikarushka: Yes, the books have a timeline, but the wikis’ timelines are fan-made from not just the officially given timelines but from dates given to us in-game. The date for gargoyle’s disappearance comes from a single NPC who states that they mysteriously disappeared without a trace (iirc, he also mentions it being in a single day).

I’m not sure what you’re asking about the latter two questions, but the Order is led by a “Steward” – in GW2’s time, it’s Gixx – and we know that their rankings is in two categories: those who study (Scholars being the standard rank) and those who adventure (Explorer being the standard rank).

I was going to say, I don’t recall a Balthazar mural there.

But I can see how you mistake Balthazar for a blindfolded Flame Legion Lava Shaman… kind of…. no, not really… maybe?

CHIPS.6018:

Slightly off topic, but we know Mursaats have females by names in GW1. Although their model is exactly the same as males.

Not really. Although Mercia is feminine in latin, that doesn’t mean it is feminine in mursaat/Tyria.

CHIPS.6018:

The only Seers we saw are females, by voice.

ahem

“Though Evennia refers to the Seer as a female, the Ancient Seers are actually genderless.” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_talk:Bobby_Stein/Temp#Ancient_Seer

CHIPS.6018:

Fleshreavers does have males and females by lore, but their models are all the same.

Source? I figured them to be genderless too, given they’re born as a skeleton.

Lokheit.7943:

I welcome the adition of weird new wild animals unique and rare enough to not be included in the slayer section (though I’ve heard the Colocal contributes to Griffon Slayer but I’m not sure if this is true and it doesn’t seem to have bird face).

It does. And pinipals count the same as the non-bovine four-legged animals (Marmox etc.), iirc.

I’ve been half tempted to look at all these odd, rare, and unique wildlife creatures for a bit, with those two (colocal and pinipal) being the main ones that sparked my interest. I think pinipals are arctic amphibians, since they’re always seen in cold climates and near shallow water.

Lutinz.6915:

Titans would be amazing in the GW2 engine though I guess people could easily mistake the fire ones for Destroyers. Still those guys were kitten before and would be kitten still.

Well we can’t go to the Ring of Fire so unless they pop up near Fireheart Rise or other heavily Flame Legion areas, I doubt that’ll be an issue. :P

Some palm trees/palm tree-like trees can still be seen in Kryta, though they’re mainly used for logging iirc. I think this is more just a redesign of Kryta so that it makes more sense in putting on par to Ascalon’s climate. Though if an in-game reason came, I’d put it less to the Rising of Orr causing a wind current change (as the old Krytan appearance couldn’t be made in just two years!) and more to do either with Jormag’s activities to the north, Ascalonians bringing plants from their home, or the flooding causing by the Rising of Orr tampering with the climate.

For Krytans’ skin, keep in mind that there was a lot of refugees from Ascalon coming in, and even then there were some whiter Krytans in GW1.

For the “less clothing” bit, I point to the Prophecies manuals: “There are two types of humans in Kryta: those who worship the mysterious Unseen Ones and those who do not. […] Those inside the organization receive special privileges (more food, better clothing, access to books)” In other words, the “lesser clothing” is because those people were forced into poverty. It has little to do with their cultural choice and would be no different than pointing to homeless people in a city and saying “that’s what this city’s culture is really like!”

I don’t think that the Ring of Fire is related to Primordus. While he may be moving around, there’s no ties between the two and I think it’s an improper assumption to just presume the Elder Fire Dragon caused two new volcanos on the same island which was already highly volcanic (the two southern ones cover the Hell’s Precipice mission area of GW1, while the northern most would be Abaddon’s Mouth). It’s likely just due to pressure plate changes more than anything.

One change you didn’t mention would be the Steamspur Mountains – the eruption of Mount Maelstrom (I suspect Primordus caused this) melted the southern Shiverpeaks.

There’s also the regrowth of Ascalon and the drying of the northern Maguuma Jungle (in-lore speculation tying that to the Elder Dragons activity, while I’ve seen players also attributing it to possibly the bloodstone in Bloodstone Fen (possibly the Preservation bloodstone) being tampered with and/or the magical waters of the Maguuma Jungle being drained somehow).

Yup, that is LA’s motto – as repeatedly stated during The Lost Shores.

._.

Weindrasi.3805:

the Modnir rangers are in fact women. When you hit them, they make female charr sounds of pain. Also, they have VERY subtle, small breasts.

Ventari in the Dream of Dream uses the modniir ranger model….

Ventari’s a transvestite?

Weindrasi.3805:

-Ogres have both males and females. Female voices are slightly less deep, and horns are slightly smaller. The easiest way to tell an ogre’s gender is to look at the clothes—the ones with covered chests are female, the ones with exposed chests are male.

Same goes for kodan, with the clothes bit.

Weindrasi.3805:

-Harpies are all female. They reproduce by forcing their way with males of other species.

Just wanting to clarify that this is speculation still. They are seen seducing a male grawl chieftain, but it’s completely possible that harpies have asexual reproduction (that is, don’t need a mate).

I’d say elementals are/can be stronger than gargoyles, tbh.

Well, keep in mind that this is a texture, and not a printed world map unlike the standard real-world maps you get.

In other words, that “world map” has to stretch over the entire globe, and isn’t a flattened representation of it. So you shouldn’t look at the texture like a “real world map” – the poles can be literally anywhere on the map, especially since we don’t know where on the globe the texture’s ends go (and a square cannot properly cover a sphere).

“Some parts of the globe look like they are not on this texture.”

That’s because there isn’t – I’m sure you noticed how there’s a full continent connected to Cantha via Shing Jea – making Shing Jea Island a landbridge to a non-existent continent. The in-game model of the globe is very poor and overlaps its own texture.

So yeah, I agree there are issues with it – it seems like Anet were making a flat texture to go atop a globe and messed up by making it a square.

The globe is, imo, useless, but the map may not be so.

Except that Orr wasn’t a part of Utopia, so that’s unlikely. It was likely just a random enemy model which got “refit” for GW2 but didn’t make it.

I doubt it’s a simple case of “learning new tricks” (or rather, changing his MO), given – as I said – some of those eggs spawn destroyer trolls.

As to Primordus being related to the Molten Alliance – I’m increasingly doubting it, simply due to how Anet describes that “personal nemesis” (which I’m beginning to believe is the cause behind said alliance). I don’t think an Elder Dragon would be such.

I’ve presumed it deals with how they’re made. Take the Afflicted, for example – they resemble undead in that they’re reanimated corpses (albeit bloated and not considered undead by many) – most are mindless but some still have a semblance of cognition. Many of Joko’s undead seem rather low-minded or mindless too, akin to the Orrian undead from Prophecies (by all appearances, at least) though the officers (be they generals or lesser) seem to be the main ones with cognition.

I have figured that the cognition comes from binding a soul to the corpse, while mindlessness is caused by the lack of such – where the necromancer instead uses his or her own energy to animate the corpse rather than a such soul (if you take note, most mindless undead stop being able to differentiate between friend and foe when their master(s) are gone – though GW2’s minions are different for unknown reasons in this regard, they still lack their own free will and obviously are not animated via a soul).

And some Icebrood are corpses – Edge of Destiny shows a norn turned into an Icebrood who had half of his face caved in. There’s no way he’d be living with that. Furthermore, Edge of Destiny says that their flesh and blood slowly turns into ice the longer they live from being corrupted – initial stages of icebrood are just some ice coating on the skin and hair, but further down you get like the oakheart-like Icebrood Norn or the Icebrood Colossus. Side note: said icebrood norn seem to have their flesh rotted off half of their face, and the colossi appear as skeletons in blocks of ice. There’s another model, used twice in the game as far as I’m aware (once in Durmand Priory storyline, and another time in CoE explorable) which has a second “ice knocked off” form which shows a skull (little to no flesh on it) – the model was akin to this concept art.

In other words, most icebrood are corrupted as living beings, but their body degenerate and rot like any recently deceased would – and Jormag is willing, seemingly, to corrupt corpses as well.

Joko’s and the PC’s necromancy is more or less the same – it’s just that Joko’s more potent. In Ghosts of Ascalon, Killeen (a standard necromancer) makes an undead out of a full corpse – no shambling horror created. It seems that standard necromancers prefer making shambling horrors from corpses for minions, which are less stable, than using a full corpse as it was. Joko, btw, is known to trap souls – as are some standard necromancers and ritualists (in both GW1 and GW2).

Zhaitan’s necromancy isn’t really necromancy from my observation. No matter how fresh the corpse, Risen are ALWAYS rotten. And if it were necromancy, Zhaitan would be an odd-man-out of the other Elder Dragons. It’s a particular reason why I hate it when Risen are called undead. Yeah, they’re reanimated corpses, but there are Icebrood which are the same yet they’re never called undead. Risen are dragon minions, not undead, pure and simple.

Also, it seems only the more powerful minions of Zhaitan (those given more corrupted magic) trap the soul – there’s a few cases where souls are wondering free while their corpse is a Risen.

Tuomir.1830:

A note to Konig, Primordus does corrupt, see the dialog for the personal story part “The Hatchery” (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Hatchery).

Wrong. Note that the mentor makes two conjectors: either its a being that was pregnant when corrupted, or its a new kind of minion.

In the next steps, you’d note that the eggs hatch full grown crabs and yes, even trolls. Last time I checked, a crab cannot give birth to a fully grown crab or even to trolls. Destroyer or not.

Ergo, it’s a new kind of minion – one that creates mobile one-being incubated spawning pools (we know from Edge of Destiny that destroyers are formed over time in vats of lava).

Plus, we were told a while back that Primordus creates mimicries of other races. So he’s either inexplicably changed his MO – and this “Destroyer Queen”‘s physiology to the point where it can lay eggs that spawn a different species, or it’s just a new kind of minion.

I’m considering an Occram’s razor, until other evidence is presented.

Tuomir.1830:

The dredge live underground, deep underground. They dig, and they dig. Now, the moletariat is losing it’s yoke over the dredge, so they’re going to grasp every bit of power they can, who knows, maybe that power might just come from a dragon.

In Frostgorge Sound there’s a kodan who, after an event, mentions how the dredge are “pulling an asura” – that is, they’re trying to live on the surface and that’s why they’re trying to take so much land. It seems Primordus is pushing them out, so I don’t think that they’d be wanting to deal with Primordus if they’re fleeing from him. I’m beginning to think the Destroyer of Worlds controlled by the moletariate was a bit of a one-time thing – it did cause one moletariate member (at least) to rebel, after all.

Caledore.6271:

Well, in Sieran’s case, she states that the Priory has documented such corrupted creatures:

Priory records have documented such creatures. They were pregnant when they were corrupted. Or it might be something new.

Though she doesn’t state outright that these other cases were corrupted by Primordus, so it’s possible these past cases were corrupted by a different ED, and as you said, in the specific case of the Hatchery, it is still just a theory, even if it is based on prior documented cases.

There are a lot of risen which lay eggs – risen, being undead, shouldn’t be capable of reproducing. There’s also a Branded Devourer Queen in Iron Marches (the meta event) which spawns Branded Devourer Hatchlings, iirc.

So she’s likely referring to other dragon minions.

Though this isn’t to say that Primordus can’t corrupt living beings. It just seems he doesn’t – and this is the closest possibility to Primordus ever having done so. If you’re part of the Vigil, Fergal says that this is something unheard of and it may be that Primordus is “learning new tricks” – so unless the Priory kept this vital information from the Vigil (something I both doubt and wouldn’t be surprised about), I’m betting Seiran meant a different Elder Dragon. Especially since, once again, in the following story mission (if you go to rescue the skritt), there are eggs which hatch full grown crabs and trolls (possibly harpies, though idk if they came from eggs or were always-present mobs).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

One could argue that the Modniir have females ingame as well.

I believe they do – but they’re a lot more covered and rarer models so its hard to point it out. I think they’re only in Harathi Hinterlands, in the Modniir camp behind where Ulgoth spawns.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

The grawl, dredge, and ettins are the only races without a reasonable explanation existing for the absence.

I think there’s a mention of a female ettin NPC – but it has a masculine voice, iirc. So female ettins may be indistinguishable from male ettins.

AFAIK, it’s only grawl, dredge, and tengu which lack a female counterpart at the moment. Other than jotun, which is explained via lore the same way the lack of kodan young are explained (they’re hidden away for protection).

But regarding dredge… they all have high pitched whiny voices… how can one tell if one’s a male or female that way?

Both groups both go bear and wear clothing. It’s just that more southern ones go bare while more northern ones wear clothing.

Quaggans are comfortable naked but wear clothing as a sign of individuality and pride. Normal quaggan clothing consists of scale-sequined head-pieces with long, beaded harnesses around the upper chest and arms. They often adorn themselves as well with water-resistant feathers of colorful shorebirds, making a gathering of quaggans a festive occasion.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Mostly_Harmless_Quaggan#Clothing_and_Equipment

And you apparently didn’t observe many southern quaggans. Every village (without fail as far as I’ve seen) has a varanos – they’re the village mayors – and there’s at least one pastkeeper for each (the northern one met during the personal storyline if you went with quaggan racial sympathy, the other is seen in Gendarran Fields). Pastkeepers are akin to the quaggan’s priests and historians. Both also have guards, as you’ll see many guards in the quaggan villages near Orr.

The young of both northern and southern quaggans have spots, so I don’t get what you are going at with the age bit.

There’s only two noticable differences other than adult skin color I’ve seen among the northern and southern quaggans:
1) Quaggan hatchling females from the south are pink, those from the north don’t seem to have pink hatchlings.
2) Northern quaggan cannot stand warm temperatures, and southern quaggans cannot stand cold temperatures. It’s an evolutionary trait.

Sylvari are unique in that they’re immune to ALL Elder Dragon corruptions – not just Zhaitan. Though there may be a possible exception to Mordremoth, should the nightmare that “corrupted” the Nightmare Court truly come from Mordremoth like implied.

Thus far, sylvari are the one and only race immune to any dragon’s corruption. The lack of any particular race as a dragon minion is likely due to one, or both, of two things:

1) Proximity to the dragons(’ minions).
2) ArenaNet not wanting to make so many models (my explanation for why we don’t see icebrood grawl/jotun/wurms or branded grawl/harpies/wurms, and the like).

Like Calcifire said, for your examples most of them aren’t near Zhaitan’s forces. The closest are dredge and skritt, but it’s only one colony each that are near, and as Calcifire said, the Vigil (or Pact) are proactively burning all corpses they find to prevent them from rising.

Calcifire.1864:

the reason that people point at sylvari as uncorruptible is that they actively fight and die in orr… and because tegwen TOLD us that sylvari don’t get corruptted

We knew sylvari couldn’t be corrupted since the redesign on sylvari was revealed – during “sylvari week” for the blog posts. In one of the interviews, we were told that instead of being corrupted, sylvari simply die. No minion is made.

Obviously, that’d mean that Zhaitan could have been an exception, since he corrupts corpses primarily (or solely when directly) – as something that’s dead cannot die, ergo the line couldn’t be referring to being immune solely to Zhaitan – but that got debunked in game.

ArenaNet are the makers – even if the employees change, it’s still ArenaNet’s IP, and those who work at ArenaNet can write as they wish. And there are still employees from Prophecies working on the series, ya know – while there’s been quite a lot of change of hands there’s still a number of the old people around.

I never said a retcon is a good thing. I’m saying that’s what happened – from an internal development position as from an external reader’s position it’s just “new truths revealed the old truth was subjective and wrong” which isn’t so much retcon.

You make it sound like they’re just now showing that human history and, in turn, the manuals are wrong. But it’s been so since Prophecies, actually – in Prophecies, humans are shown to be liars or wrong quite a few times (White Mantle being the obvious, but there’s the Ascalonian view of the charr (easily missed would be how after Fort Ranik there’s side comments of “the charr don’t seem to be primitive mindless beasts as we once thought”), their belief of what happened with the Cataclysm and Khilbron’s relation (reporting it blowing up in a pillar of light with one survivor, when we knew even then that it didn’t blow up and that Khilbron was no survivor), and lets not forget how the manuals and all other tales except one line gives indication or outright states that the White Mantle were formed after the beginning of the Charr Invasion (occurred during 1070 to 1071), but in fact were around since 1067 AE)).

And even if you find those moments debatable, it’s undeniable its been such since Nightfall with Abaddon – but even then, there were hints in Prophecies about Abaddon’s existence (now, whether this was intended or not when making Prophecies…).

So it’s not just a “wave of the hand” since its been like this for years and it’s just that it’s becoming that more of human legends are not objective truth. Besides, this is no different than Thurln the Lost and the jotun legends being wrong, or charr legends being wrong. Guild Wars, unlike most games, has a knack of going against the fantasy game archtype of “all legends are truth,” and this has been around since Prophecies itself.

No, I don’t think they wrote up Prophecies intending to turn most of those human legends to be false. But what we do know is that from the get go Anet intended the games to be released in sets of three – thus up to Nightfall was planned since the get go, even if in minor bits (like how the lore behind Palawa Joko was, prior to Nightfall, literally a single line of dialogue). We also know that there were two plots intended and argued for using during Prophecies development, which is why Prophecies’ plot is so back-and-forth between threats. So it’s not impossible that their little internal lore bible had “this is the truth” written in it which was not available to us, the audience, in which case it wouldn’t have been a retcon when it was revealed.

Either way, all of this is pointless debating as it is a undeniable fact that you can’t just “pick and chose” between a subjective truth and objective truth for what’s really true.

If that were so, then why would Isgarren use elementals for the village below?

That event’s in the lake south of the one with the quaggan village (and that vet is actually easy).

The soul batteries and bloodstones are two separate things. The bloodstones (and the inscriptions on them) acted more of conduits – something for the souls to pass through. Killing atop the bloodstone was needed for the soul to be sent into the soul battery, given the bloodstone was used as the conduit.

Regarding the chosen’s magical talents:
1) It’s what the White Mantle claims. “Every year, at the turn of each season, the Mantle take the Divine Eye of Janthir to all the villages in Kryta to test the locals for magical aptitude.” “The Eye can identify those individuals who have within themselves the potential to become powerful magic users.” http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mantle_Knight_Franklin

However, as we know, the White Mantle are privy to lying. But beyond this, all we know about what the Chosen are would be those who can fulfill the Flameseeker Prophecies. We can’t even be certain that the Test of the Chosen actually pointed out people who were Chosen.
2) Powerful mages != mages; don’t confuse the two. A powerful mage would be someone like Shiro Tagachi, the player characters, Khilbron, Lord Odran etc. Those who do otherwise impossible feats. Just because you could use magic doesn’t mean that you’re a “powerful mage” – it just means you’re a mage.

This belongs in the suggestion forum, not lore one.

Don’t go expecting Cthulhu – though the deep sea dragon’s name may be a reference to the Cthulhu mythos, it’s highly unlikely we’ll be getting an octopus+bat wing’d man from the ocean depths. Then there’s also Abaddon as Spectre mentioned – too similar to Cthulhu in of itself.

Your wyrm riders sounds like an attempt to turn the dragon champions (Claw of Jormag, Shatterer, etc.) into mounts for enemies. The lore behind the Elder Dragons’ minions is that the more powerful they are, the more draconic or serpentine they appear.

Like Mara and Spectre, I’d rather see a return of some of the old enemies before brand new enemies. And of new enemies, I’d rather it be more original and not too god or Elder Dragon focused. I wouldn’t mind a larger variety of pre-existing groups though, like getting more than three types of Destroyers to fight.

Enemies from GW1 I’d like to see a return of (from least to most): Titans, dryders, hydras, behemoths, and naga.

No, Obsidian, you’re wrong. It’s called retcon. That’s doing exactly what you said: established lore (aka canon) being redacted sometime later (be it 5 years or 5 months or 5 decades) because the makers wanted to take the lore in a new direction. And they bypassed the “it’s a retcon” proclamation by not redacting it, but giving the coating of subjective truths – that people can be wrong in what they say. In this case, the History of Tyria is just a false document in the world.

In canon, it’s a fact that human legends proclaim that the Six Gods made the Bloodstone. It’s just that human legends are wrong, and the truth of the matter in the canon is that the seers made it. It isn’t “pick and choose what you like!” but “this is what we thought was the case, but this is how it really is.”

That’s a fact, if you don’t like it tough. Because despite your apparent beliefs, you cannot dictate what is canon or not – only the makers can. Trying to do so just results in making fanon.

Its both – they came to the world from another location (realm, planet, it’s never specified), but while they arrived on continental Tyria via boats from across the Unending Ocean.

Where is the mother ship? There was none. Humanity came to Tyria via a portal from the Mists (or some such):

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

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six

What continent was first isn’t really said – Jeff Grubb hinted in an interview years ago that humanity may have traveled north from a continent further south than Cantha. We do know that of the three known continents, Cantha has the oldest recorded history. On the flip side though, per the quote above, there’s indication that humanity first appeared on the world at Orr – despite them not having recorded history of being on continental Tyria until 205 BE, when they first arrived on Elona and continental Tyria via said boats, and are known to to have been on Cantha since 786 BE.

Most likely scenario as it stands would be that humanity was brought to Orr first, but quickly sent to south of Cantha, where they progressed on their own accord towards the north.

THere are, indeed, other continents unseen to us – the best glimpse of the full world map can be seen here, taken from the .dat file: [img]http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/47/Tyria.jpg[/img]

Also: why we’re in the middle ages/steam punk era/etc? Past calamities. The world kept resetting due to the Elder Dragons’ rises, and there’s heavy indication (see Orrian History Scrolls link above for part of the indications) that the Six Gods and humans were fleeing some sort of past calamity – that they were refugees. So they may not have had the technology to bring with them. To highlight some lines:

She chose Tyria and brought with her those who would make this world a paradise.

The two who are one, Issa and Lys,[sic] brought with her the hope and beauty of humanity. While the other gods focused on building Arah and beginning a new future, Lyssa gave them joy and helped them forget the past.

Among them was Abaddon—once secret-keeper, now betrayer. How you have fallen from the glorious days of old. What passed beyond in the Mists, only you remember.

On first line: There’d be no need to make a paradise if they came from one – so the place the Six came from had faults.
On the second line: Why did she need to bring hope and joy? Implies sadness befelled them before. What was Lyssa helping others forget? Probably what caused said sadness.
On the third line: Something happened in the Mists, forgotten to all but himself. Perhaps what Lyssa was helping others forget?

Other lines from there give lesser implications – like Balthazar carrying his father’s head when he came from the Mists (why? a conflict? was it in victory or sorrow?), Melandru preparing for what was to come by helping bring peace (implying she had known the then current events would lead to bad outcomes, and most common means of knowing such outcomes is via empirical evidence (the whole “learn from our past mistakes” concept is purely that), giving a minor indication that something bad happened due to similar actions). And there’s other sources, iirc, which imply similar things.

This may be relevant.

A remnant of presumed-extinct gargoyles.

Keep in mind that Salma was an illegitimate child herself. It’s not too uncommon for royalty to have illegitimate children. The question is whether one can prove the heritage or not. I think that’s what Ihen’s was talking about – not that there is another heir to the Krytan throne, but that there could be more, given the royal line’s… promiscuity (and not just Krytan at that – those Canthan emperors really knew how to get it on).

Lutinz.6915:

The big question for me is why the line of Doric is actually that important? We know that it wasnt his blood that made the Bloodstones. We also dont know if there was infact any particular reason the gods favored him as King of Humans. He seems to have been favored by Dwayna. However his bloodline doesnt seem to have any known special quality that Im aware off apart from producing some very powerful figures.

Erm, you seem to be mistaken. It was never said that King Doric’s blood made the original Bloodstone, but rather that his blood sealed the separated ones.

So his blood is still important as that fact hasn’t yet been proven wrong. Though given the History of Tyria’s accuracy of “truth” as of late, that being wrong wouldn’t be too surprising. We do know that the Six Gods tampered with the original Bloodstone – both before and after splitting – and we’re told two different cases of tampering: harnessing Zhaitan’s power to strengthen the Bloodstone, and using Doric’s blood to help seal magic.

It’s possible that when the Seers made the Bloodstone, they also had to use a sacrifice to seal magic – and the Six Gods just redid the act in order to re-seal it since Abaddon went and unleashed magic.

Besides this, King Doric was the first king of the united Tyrian continent (Ascalon, Orr, and yes even Kryta was under his domain). So I think other than the Bloodstone fact, his bloodline would be important for its symbolic nature more than anything else.

And to Lutinz, yes, Samuelson does claim to be a descendent of Ascalonian kings.

CHIPS.6018:

And it has never been confirmed that Prince Rurik was Ascalon’s only prince.

There’s conflicting sources about whether Rurik was the only son of Adelbern, or just the eldest. Since he’s called the eldest child on a couple of occasions, but only son on others.

What’s not disputed is that he was Adelbern’s last heir to live. Adelbern’s bloodline died with himself and Rurik.

CHIPS.6018:

And pretty much every chosen that was found by the White Mantle were descendants of King Doric. Their blood gave the bloodstone powers. There were a lot. Probably similar numbers in Ascalon.

That’s completely wrong. The Chosen have nothing to do with Doric’s heritage. They’re just magically talented (according to the White Mantle) – any soul would act the same way as the sacrifices, and its possible that none of them were Chosen either, since the only purpose or context the term has is being the fulfillers of the Flameseeker Prophecies. And besides, the chosen being sacrificed didn’t give the bloodstone powers.

mercury ranique.2170:

Excelliate.7914:

Well, according to legend, if a descendant of Doric gets Magdaer or Sohothin, he can release the curse on Ascalon and make the ghosts go away for good.

I was actually thinking of that. How would that work?? We know Sohothin is in the hands of Rytlock. And Rytlock would want to get rid of those ghosts. Now the treaty is there, he could lend it to Queen Jennah (don’t think Samuellson would do it) and ask her kindly to Ascalon to get rid of the ghosts there???

So why don’t they do that?? or even made that part of the treaty??

Keep in mind that Magdaer was retrieved too, and is being reforged. I predict it’ll be given to Samuelson as part of the treaty negotiations by Logan (and extension, Jennah) since Magdaer’s being reforged for Logan.

The treaty negotiations are on going, so it could end up being part of the treaty. But don’t expect Rytlock to give up his sword – even temporarily – unless on Imperators’ orders.

@Narcemus: Interviews pre-release said they work on clockwork technology (springs and gears and such), but there’s a charr in the Black Citadel talking about an alternate energy source besides steam powered.

@Rehashed: A good number of the crash, but that’s because they’re shot down.

There’s only one canon – ever. In this case, human history is proven wrong – again. It’s called “retcon” by a writer’s view, but they coated over this by saying that what we were told in the History of Tyria was wrong because human history was altered (as first shown by Abaddon and how knowledge of him was removed – albeit poorly).

The “truth” (or “canon”) of the Bloodstone’s history is what we’re told in the Arah dungeon – the original was made by the Seers, and found, tampered with, and split by the Six Gods.

Also, the Seers are NOT credited with introducing magic. When they made the Bloodstone, they sealed magic in the Bloodstone. The Six Gods still bestowed magic upon the intelligent races of Tyria, specifically it was Abaddon, but they didn’t invent magic – they just took the container that’s the Bloodstone and let it release magic.

Afaik, that’s just Thorn’s magic altering how we see the moon.

If it were only the presence of wings, I’d agree with you. I’m not saying it’s so or its likely, but it’s possible and imo, increasingly likely. (Side note: how can we be so certain Malchor sculpted Grenth’s statue? It’s heavily implied that Malchor was Grenth’s father so that makes a bit of a paradox unless Grenth is a time traveler – though it should be noted that Grenth’s only half-god, so him thus being half-largos could explain why he’s not always shown with wings).

As to largos socialness – I kind of disagree. The other races don’t show much knowledge of largos, but they show knowledge of other races. They know full well of the kodan’s Claw being among the strongest, Sayeh even knows Orrian, and no largos speaks with unfamiliarity about other races (even about sylvari). It’s always them who are unknown, never the other way around.

There’s at least one depiction of Grenth with wings – which is seen in both games. And who says Largos are of Tyria? Fun fact: we don’t know whether 90% of the races are of Tyrian origin or not.

Faded Memory weren’t from living sources, but souls of Orrians – those not under anyone’s control. And there they say that the forbidden scrolls were found in his tower.

And, I’m sorry, but Khilbron was a worshiper of Abaddon before he caused the Cataclysm and nothing says the same tactic was used. The only trickery is that Razakiel was the one who told Khilbron about the spell that could save Orr – but this wasn’t an attempt to corrupt/convert Khilbron. That had already happened. It was just Abaddon’s plot to destroy Orr by tricking his follower.

Shiro, on the other hand, wasn’t a follower of Abaddon until post-death (at least, as far as we know – An Empire Divided tells us that he used dark rituals of a forbidden source, and its hinted upon in a Nightfall quest to be truth though not clearly implied or confirmed).

So no, it’s not all conjecture.

Tachenon.5270:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Because we’ve only gotten the preludes. You don’t reveal much in mere preludes.

This is the third installment of a four part series. If we’ve only gotten the preludes, that means the entire first half of this Living Story was all prelude. So… I don’t know about ‘plot’, but there sure is a lot of ‘hole’ in this story. :-o

Well, if you want to get technical, January was the prelude. February was the beginning, and usually in the beginnings not much is revealed in any story – you just have the surface face of the threat and the damage done. The second part usually deals with beginning to fight back, and the third usually deals with the source of the issue.

In other words, in any other story the point of the plot where we are at with Flame and Frost would usually only introduce the threat, protagonist, and victims. Which is what we have with Flame and Frost.

So rather than half of the story, it’s more of a third of it.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I haven’t even tried to participate in this new content because the karka one was so buggy I just gave up on new stuff.

The karka stuff was buggy because it was over the course of a week, and you had hundreds of folks per server spamming through the stuff, causing them to break.

With content spread over a month per phase, you get less folks rushing (be they like me and like to take their time, or like you and back off due to bad past experiences despite Anet having learned (somewhat) from those said.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore – and the links at the bottom
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lore – especially the links at the bottom
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls

He found them from beneath Arah, but cast them from his tower. I don’t think it was said he went to the king.

“We discovered that the Vizier had been corrupted by the God of Secrets! We found the forbidden books in his quarters!”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Faded_Memory

“In panic, Vizier Khilbron searched forbidden texts and discovered a scroll that had been hidden away by the Six Gods. He stole it from Arah, taking it to his tower, and there, unleashed its might upon the land.”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls

And your final sentence is my exact point behind it – though initially brought to me by Thalador (who also says it makes no sense for how he got there or that the charr would leave Khilbron alone in his tower – he teleports, nuff said on that).

WonderfulCT.6278:

Now I haven’t read destiny’s edge (or edge of destiny either) but I find it inconceiveable that a group of six (and a wolf) could almost take down a dragon and would likely have if not for some guy dying, yeah I’m blaming Snaff.

A group of six, a wolf, two golems, a dragon champion – all powered by crystallized dragon blood with a weapon made out of Kralkatorrik’s spine.

They were fully utilizing the concept of “they make the biggest threat to themselves” – which can again be seen through some NPCs in the Dragonbrand (“I believe when Kralkatorrik made the Dragonbrand, he gave us the weapons to kill him.” or something like that)

WonderfulCT.6278:

Furthermore one norn punched out Jormags tooth by himself which also shows that the dragons are not these invulnerable killing machines.

Aesgir had the aid of the Spirits of the Wild and an ancient jotun scroll of unknown properties. The jotun are known to have survived one Elder Dragon rise, and is implied to have survived others as well.

WonderfulCT.6278:

Zhaitan was one of the weaker dragons, in combat anyways.

I’m betting this. I mean, compare rotting flesh to fire and stone, thick ice, crystal, or water. Which is going to go down first?

WonderfulCT.6278:

something I forgot to mention although I was thinking of it at the time is that I have heard that the dragons may have been holding back or something along those lines, however I don’t think that it works in a dbz fashion where they simply hold back their full strength in combat until they feel like going all out.

There’s a tengu which mentions – prior to the attack on Claw Island mind you – that the Elder Dragons haven’t made their move yet. I suspect that they need at least 150 years to gather their strength before launching an assault. Besides the Dragonbrand, Kralkatorrik hasn’t been heard of – and other than pushing the krait out since they were living on top of him, and the karka, quaggan, and largos in turn, the DSD hasn’t been heard of either.

Zhaitan’s said to have gotten full of himself, because he awoke in a kingdom that was littered with corpses and full of magical items. Orr was basically Zhaitan’s heaven – all the resources he could need. And I suspect through this he got “ready” sooner than the others, or rather, he got ahead of himself and paid the price. Though he may not have had a choice, what with being so close to everyone else and was unable to force folks to flee in large numbers. And then when he was brought down, he’s been starving for some time (time unknown), so he was weakened by the time we got to him.

Jormag and Primordus have had plenty of time to gather magical artifacts (norn, quaggan, and kodan have lost such to Jormag, and Primordus is probably swimming in ancient asuran magitech), as well as build an army – and Jormag’s got worshipers to boot. I bet they’ll not only be the next ED, but far tougher than Zhaitan.

On Southsun Cove, they were just surveying the land to see if it’d be a good vacational spot – to make them money. And despite the karka presence, they believe it is. What they wanted on the island was just that – and what they’re not looking for is remnants of the expedition’s search (Pearl Inlet event).

I don’t doubt there’s something that pushed the Flame Legion and dredge to work together, but the Consortium isn’t some villainous secret organization – they’re just a group out there to get money. Yeah, they don’t have morals, but they’re not evil.

Also, Southsun Cove isn’t ancient – it’s brand new on the map (both GW1 and GW2) and the western island is highly volcanic. Only Pearl Inlet may be ancient, given those ruins and the jumping puzzle’s name: Under New Management.

But would a pastkeeper lie about the death of their goddess? The quaggan seem mighty convinced Mellaggan is dead. And according to Colin, Mellaggan=Melandru (and not just a case of mistaken identity).

But like I said, it’s only a chance – and a fairly small one at that.

You can get to the quaggan one, but it’s empty (obviously), and probably a bug tbh.

(stupid site erased my post…)

You make it sound like it’s a malicious act. I wouldn’t really think that it’s beyond creative license and personal depiction to give a goddess of air feathered wings instead of however-you’d-describe-largos-wings.

Besides, it’s obvious as all hell that this very same thing happened to the other gods’ statues. Main offenders being Melandru and Grenth. GW1 versions: Grenth is an old man with a long beard and robe; Melandru is sprouting from a tree and has feathered wings. GW2 versions: Grenth is a (seemingly young) muscular man with a warhelmet; Melandru is not coming from a tree but sitting on one, and lacks wings on a whole.

@Ratphink: True on the mursaat bit. On the titan bit: The Foundry of Failed Creations wasn’t their sole place of making. Based on their description, that they’re formed from tortured spirits, they could be made anywhere. It’s just that the Fury focused on making them in the Foundry of Failed Creations – reason being is that they knew that the Door of Komalie would open up, and the Fury was intending to send an army through there. Thankfully it closed quickly, reason unknown to them (but not us).

@FateOmega: Those portals are of Flame Legion design. They were always in the game – the way into the Font of Rand mini-dungeon is via one such portal, in fact.

Also, there are Flame Legion with dredge equipment coming through those portals. Its not obvious, since its currently only armor, but there are some there. I’m sure in phase 3 we’ll be seeing more obviousness of shared tech and magic – who’s wanting to see a dredge that went through the Flame Shaman rituals thus becoming a fiery dredge?

The Pale Tree is not the Dream of Dreams’ maker nor controller. She’s merely a caretaker for it. She doesn’t even know the full origins or nature of the Dream of Dreams.

Dragon champions don’t asplode in power.

Angsiyan had no physical abnormalities, and had done the ritual for years – as has every other emperor for as long as this ceremony existed (we don’t know how long it’s been going on, but it didn’t stop with Angsiyan).

Beyond it being a poorly done retcon for a rather silly and not-making-sense scenario (again, nothing relates Mordremoth to stone), it just doesn’t make sense. It’s worse than saying humanity first appeared on the world in Orr, but they existed in Cantha before humanity knew of or traveled to continental Tyria on their boats. Or how the charr managed to sweep through the kingdom of Orr with little resistance despite the entire kingdom being full of potent magic users. Or how the Cataclysm, casted from Khilbron’s Tower which is on the eastern edge of Orr sunk all of Orr but had no effect on the Shiverpeaks.

Also, making Kanaxai or Urgoz into dragon champions don’t make sense. Kanaxai is a demon – albeit of unknown origins – while Urgoz is a forest spirit. Urgoz is more related to the Spirits of the Wild than to Elder Dragons. And it was the Jade Wind which turned Urgoz hostile – not because it effected him, but because he became so enraged at the forest turning to stone that he went mad (similar to how the Minotaur Spirit was going berserk when the Sons of Svanir were hunting down minotaurs in large numbers during the Protect the Spirits storyline).

Only Kuunavang has a chance of being related to the Elder Dragons – though like Narcemus, I’d prefer they didn’t go that route, but based on a past interview, I think they’re intending to.

If there’s any tree related to the Pale Tree from GW1, I’m betting the Ancestor Trees – their fruits were magical and passed down wisdom of the centaur tribes’ chieftans, but themselves were immobile (like the Pale Tree, and unlike Urgoz even if he were rooted in place (pun intended)).

Also keep in mind that Urgoz is called one of the “forest spirits” (just as Zhu Hunaku is called a sea spirit) – that, to me, gives them both a stronger relation to the Spirits of the Wild. After all, naming dieties is a “quant human thing” so the norn would likely refer to them as Tree and Kraken. And we know from Egil in GW1 that there are sometimes hostile spirits of the mountains, fire, seasons, and darkness – who’s to say there wouldn’t be one of trees? Similarly, through Ascended items we know now of the existence of two distant Spirits of the Wild (distant meaning “not in the Shiverpeaks” – Otter and Gorilla).

“The mysterious and ancient Wardens guard the areas of Cantha hit hardest by Shiro’s legacy. Protectors of the Echovald that was, they now guard the petrified forest it has become. They may once have been human, perhaps powerful druids or holy men, but they long ago merged with the spirit they served to become something altogether different. "

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Warden

Honestly, they’re more likely to be akin to the Druids or Juggernauts, rather than sylvari. There’s a huge distance between Cantha and Tyria as well.

Conncept.7638:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Flame Legion aren’t xenophobic. They’re oppressors and conquerors.

That is not true, the Flame Legion believe themselves to be chosen, set above the remainder of the legions, and all other peoples, by the Gods. This can even be seen within the flame legion, where the Shaman caste is considered the closest to the gods, and females are considered to be the furthest away, and as a result the Shamans rule and the females are fit for nothing but breeding and slavery. I suppose xenophobic isn’t correct as they believe themselves superior because of their religion more than their race, but either way they would never consider the Dredge to be their equals.

You got something backwards. To the Flame Legion, gods are merely a tool – a means to help them conquer and oppress others. When the humans beat the charr back with the help of the Six Gods, the Flame Legion thought that they needed a god or gods of their own to fight back and stand a chance. At first they sought to find one, then they sought to make one.

Females were outcasted because Balthea Havokbringer went and formed an underground revolt against the Shaman Caste, and they banned females to prevent such happening again.

I never said they’d consider dredge their equals, btw. But the Flame Legion don’t consider themselves the top dog – which xenophobic races would – instead they want to become the top dog. Or cat in this case.

Conncept.7638:

I’m hoping it will be explained, but as of yet nothing has really indicates that it will be.

Because we’ve only gotten the preludes. You don’t reveal much in mere preludes.

BCPrhys.7230:

There is more than killing which makes a good game. Unfortunately, Anet game designers seem to have forgotten that.

Anet does have a habit of not killing off foes, don’t they?

I think the only enemy they ever permanently killed off was the Stone Summit and Abaddon.

CHIPS.6018:

By that argument all winged humanoid creature can share a common ancestor. Imps, Largos, Harpies, Murassats, etc.

Hardly. Imps look nothing like the others (and we know for a fact they’re elemental demons), and mursaat wings are vastly different.

Besides, my argument isn’t that they’re of same origins, but that the depictions of Dwayna were altered to go from “looks like a largos” to “looks like an angel” over the course of Malchor’s blindness.

@Drax: You do realize those “Unfinished Dwayna Statues” were made when Malchor went blind?

As to the original statue – I’m not saying it did look like that, because clearly no one but a mother could love that face. However, artistic creativity clearly played a role in the statues – otherwise there’s no explanation for Melandru’s wing’s sudden appearances and disappearances. Or Grenth’s – or how he goes from old cloaked goat-skull wearing man to young muscular man in a helmet.