Guild Wars 2

If you’re referring to what I said, Lutinz, then yes, I was trying to make it sound like the Elder Dragons check the amount of magic in the world (the same way we’d check how much food is in our fridge before we go grocery shopping, for example). Though perhaps it’s more instinctive than proactive.

In Sorrow’s Embrace, if I read correctly (I was in a pug sadly, which means they wanted to rush), the Inquest gave the dredge’s corrupt leaders some means to control the destroyers. Said leaders were intending to unleash the Destroyer of Worlds upon the surface world. Though according to Koptev, all destroyers under the dredge control were killed – though that wouldn’t keep them from getting more, if they still had the means.

Though outside Sorrow’s Embrace there are events where destroyers are wiping the dredge out (such as in northern Timberline Falls).

If you note, Arah story cinematics have the same background, before Zhaitan’s death. Plus its concept art, not actual scenery. :P

The dredge are already pretty close to the surface – though as seen in Sorrow’s Embrace they do deal with destroyers thanks to the Inquest.

As to the comment on “no dragons” – it was really vague and by Martin. I wouldn’t be surprised if Martin doesn’t know the whole plot and thus was referring to just the prelude, though he said “story arc” which to me would mean the entirety of Flame and Frost. And even then, does “no dragons” mean “just no Elder Dragons,” “just no dragon champions/Elder Dragons,” or “nothing related to dragons (ED, champs, minions)”?

Well, that doesn’t seem to be an added corpse. It’s just where the corpse ends up after the cinematic by what I can tell. That’s all.

“Theres also a mysterious corpse of a merchant who has burns on his body and blood coming from his ears but no other signs of injury on the northern most point of the Wayfarer Foothills.”

o.O Where’s this?

Edit:Okay, I see on the site you linked.

Also, just found some always-active (no event) steam vents at the portal leading into Frostgorge Sound.

Edit2: Blood from the ears and no blunt damage. Meaning he was attacked from the inside-out, but given that only the ears are bleeding and not the other orifices, this implies sonic weaponry (burst eardrums).

Dredge did it.

Or someone stole dredge weapons (they use sonic weaponry).

The shrines that’s in reference is not shrines to the gods, but resurrection shrines. There are no shrines to the gods (or statues to them) in the explorable areas the facets can be found in Eye of the North (all EN statues of the gods are in the Depths of Tyria). And it’s only for that one facet, not all of them.

The quote I pulled is what implies it to me – if they’re manifestations of the Six Gods’ power and influence, then if the Six Gods stop influencing, there would be no (new) manifestations.

The Bloodstone contained all magic that existed on the world at the time of its creation. Since we don’t know the relation of the forgotten’s presence on Tyria when the Bloodstone was created, we cannot say for certain. It’s likely that the mursaat were not there, since they were able to flee the world using their magic.

And I see nothing of Jeff’s lines that imply the Facets imply “appeared” – he outright states they’re ghostly servants, so that implies that they were created or born in some means. To me at least. Now, it may be that the gods simply created something without intention for imagry, or it may be that they’re like the Seven Reapers for Grenth who were formerly mortals turned into avatars – or like the celestials. That is, those six Facets could be former mortals “ascended” into the gods’ servants – which the ties to the forgotten I would say mean that they were formerly forgotten in my opinion.

As for Glint – she has shown to hold abilities no other dragon champion or Elder Dragon has shown to hold (foretelling the future – and partially mindreading which Jormag and his icebrood can do, but not Kralkatorrik). So she’s fairly unique in power. I wouldn’t doubt that facets are just an ether-only form of making branded for her (think of the Shatterer, take his shape and remove the stone and you basically get purple lightning Facets since he’s a hollow construct of stone and ether/lightning).

As for Dwayna bringing the forgotten – I do get there by the claim History of Tyria made from Prophecies that the gods (then called Five Gods, though Six Gods in actuality) brought hte forgotten. In GW2, the Orrian History Scrolls state that Dwayna was the first god on Tyria, followed by Balthazar who swept Orr in flames, and then Melandru who regrew the land. I take the case of Balthazar to be removing the Elder Dragons’ corruption (whether they knew that’s what it was or not – considering they live in places like the Realm of Torment, they might have thought “this place looks aweful! Let’s clean it up!”) and Melandru bringing more natural vegetation to replace it. Combine this then with the dwarves’ faiths – other than the Great Dwarf, you have a cult revering (but not worshiping) Glint – this can be explained by the fact she saved the race. Then you also have parts of the dwarven population worshiping Dwayna and Grenth (mostly evident during Wintersday, but there’s also a GW:EN quest featuring a Dwayna-worshiping dwarf and in Thunderhead Keep, Jalis makes mention of Grenth). No other of the Six Gods are mentioned by the dwarves, let alone revered or worshiped. Now, if the forgotten were brought by the gods, it’d basically be that the gods saved the dwarven race from extinction – if the Brotherhood of the Dragon exist because of Glint’s role in the past, then they may revere the god(dess) who brought the forgotten – in turn, it’d be Dwayna. Worshiping Grenth could then be explained in the fact that he’s Dwayna’s son.

It’s a bit of a connect the dots in an attempt to explain the odd dwarven faith that subsequently makes the correlation to the Six Gods’ role in bringing the forgotten to Tyria.

Of course, this all goes down the drain if it’s ever stated that the forgotten weren’t brought by the Six Gods.

Sarah always spawns at the end of that quest. If she didn’t, then it shouldn’t have been completed.

Though an interesting line I caught: “I embroidered it on her clothes when she was a child.”

That’d mean the thing on her shirt here is likely her family crest that was embroidered. And either Gwen is wrong about it being a family crest, or Sarah means that she designed the what was sketched meaning that what’s on Gwen’s shirt (and thus on the pendant) is a slightly modified version.

There’s mentions of heat from underground causing steam vents which are messing with the environment. These environmental effects are the unstable Ice and Earth Elementals as well as the Ice Tornadoes and Dust Storms. This hints at Primordus or the dredge (Primordus more likely), and what we’re seeing now is merely side-effects of something happening underground.

And I just want to note: the ice tornadoes that can’t be targetted at The Heart of Corruption is tied to the meta event there, not to the living story.

@SantusVeritas: I don’t think we’ve seen any sky effect thus far. Outside these tornadoes and dust storms, which is caused due to drastic temperature changes (rising heat), there’s no “sky if falling” effect that the preview has shown us. This means we seem to only have the Flame part of Flame and Frost going on.

People can come back to the game after ragequitting, ya know. But w/e. It ain’t worth arguing over. Nor do I even give half of a kitten in care (I’ll let you guess if I was censored or not :P).

Omaris Mortuus Est.2738:

I am almost entirely a WvW, having Fractals or any other dungeon requirement for the Monthly means I cannot get the monthly!

I think this is unfair for us WvW players and should be altered!!!!!

And I think it’s unfair for those PvE’ers who never play WvW because they don’t like it to be forced to do WvW for monthly. Having unique-to-WvW and sPvP armor is bad enough, but legendaries, world completion, and Monthlies all need WvW’ing. Those who don’t enjoy WvW are outright forced to do something they don’t want for too many things.

Every single Monthly has required WvW kills. Something new is needed there.

uhohhotdog.3598:

Eridani.8317:

Agree personally but then what about the people in the opposite situation; liking dungeons but hating WvW?

WvW doesn’t require a team

Maybe, but I hate WvW with a passion. Especially that kitten monthly. Why? If you’re not in a zerg, you get zerg’d is the mentality I always see in WvW. And I hate zergs because it makes my computer lag up the kitten

I agree that Fractals could be removed from Monthly – more variation is good – but so too does WvW kills need to be.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

He didn’t ragequit.
He just finds the GW2 lore to be less immersive and not as well written and thought out as the GW1 lore.

And then he stopped making videos because of that (so I heard). Sounds like ragequitting. :P

If you guys are finding this by glitching, that’s not a lore confirmation sadly. :/

That’s new to me, so I dug. And I couldn’t find any reference to such. I noted that said line was there since the article’s creation though worded differently:

“However, by definition there are more Facets then have been observed and it is currently unknown is they all take the same form.”

In other words, the entire sentence was written on the premise of speculation based on the definition for “facet” – which may or may not (more likely in the “not” part) actually reflect what the Facets are.

I also found this: Think of these “facets” as one of any number of possible manifestations of those gods.

This implies that they would disappear when the Six Gods went silent.

And I never said the facets were created at that time or from Zhaitan’s power. I said that Jeff Grubb stated that the facets’ appearance is due to the power the Six Gods harnessed (exact wording: “the facets reflect the nature of the power that the human gods have harnessed.”), and theorized that the act of harnessing being referenced is when they strengthened the bloodstone. Not that they were made from Zhaitan’s power or made at that time. Rather, I was mentioning that they were made because of that action. That for some unknown-to-us reason, when the Six Gods made facets they became draconic because they once harnessed Zhaitan’s power in the past.

Also, Jeff Grubb mentions that it’s reflecting power the Six Gods harnessed, not the Six Gods’ magic source. So no, it doesn’t make no sense if my statement is correct – you simply misunderstood both myself and the article/Jeff Grubb.

Also, the Facets seen in The Dragon’s Lair are NOT the same as the Facets seen in Eye of the North. Jeff Grubb makes a point to differenciate the two. We don’t know what those who guard glint are, however the Dragon’s Lair lore implies that they were made by Glint: Her defenses are not to protect her. They are to test those who wish to gain her audience. […] Defeat the six facets of the great dragon prophet, and you shall be granted an audience. This dialogue seems to say that the facets in The Dragon’s Laire are manifestations of Glint’s power that she created to test those seeking her audience.

Also: If you want to get technical, nothing says that the forgotten’s magic was put into the Bloodstone. The Bloodstone contained all magic at the time – the forgotten are said to have come to Tyria in 1769 BE, and this statement from GW1 has not yet been stated to be wrong (we’re told the forgotten were around during the last ED rise, but never that they weren’t brought to the world by the Six Gods – and there’s an implication from one of Sieran’s lines that the ED last rose around 2,000-1,000 BE as she mentions that dwarven civilization began “over two thousand years ago” which implies by the lack of stating “three thousand” that it began 2-3 thousand years prior to GW2, and they were around for the last ED rise).

Given all the timeframe references we have for events – which are all fairly basic – it can be argued that the events followed this format:

Elder Dragons rise -> Mursaat betrayed the other races, mursaat/seer war, the mursaat flee Tyria -> Seers create Bloodstone -> Dwayna arrives on Tyria, and brings the forgotten to battle the Elder Dragons -> Forgotten free Glint, she hides the races -> Dwayna brings humanity and the other gods to Tyria (it’s also possible that she brought humanity shortly after arriving with the forgotten or shortly after the forgotten, then moved them south out of harm’s way).

With no magic they can consume (forgotten magic is somehow immune to and able to reverse the Elder Dragons’ corruption – or at least Zhaitan’s and Kralkatorrik’s), the Elder Dragons would have starved into hibernation rather than truly wipe out the world like they’re used to doing.

This is all theoretical though, but point remains that you misinterpreted me and are making assumptions elsewhere.

It could be that they come from nobility, that their family fell in prosperity for one reason or another. What matters is, whatever the reason, Gwen did have a family crest before marrying Keiran.

We killed the Facets in GW1. Why would they return?

As for why they appear draconic – Jeff said that they reflect the nature of power the gods harnessed. I believe this is in reference to when the Six Gods tapped Zhaitan (without knowing they were tapping an Elder Dragon) to strengthen the bloodstones – according to Randall Greyston.

mercury ranique.2170:

The source of magic are bloodstones. Altough the source of information on the wiki is unknown I like this phrase: ‘The original Bloodstone was a powerful and large stone that the seers created to contain magic that was not corrupted by the Elder Dragons during their last rise.’

The Bloodstone isn’t a source – never was thought to be one. It was first thought to be a sort of filter, but now we know that it was a container (learned from Arah explorable mode – that’s where the sentence you quote comes from).

Magic came from somewhere else before the Bloodstone was made and, furthermore, magic existed in the world via natural means sometime after – as it’s said what drew the Six Gods from the Mists was the magic at The Artesian Waters (where they first arrived on the world).

There is a skill point in Bloodtide Coast, Krait Place of Power, (though sadly the wiki does not have the text) mentions something along the lines of a powerful source of magic coming from deep within the earth. I suspect that magic originates from Tyria itself, that the world is somehow making the magic. Though it may also be that the theory that magic comes from the Mists is true, and it seeps into Tyria through some weakened veil and steadily overtime increases. And when the magic increases to a certain amount, the Elder Dragons awake to the smell of freshly baked pork beef (well, magic, but to them it’d be like fine smelling dinner).

It seems that Adelbern and those he chooses are not limited to that reliving their last day bit – as there are leaders (often lieutenants or prominent GW1 figures) that lead attacking armies out of their norm (such as the charr tutorial). And I’ve always suspected that the four main ghosts in AC story were dead prior to the Foefire – I mean, Vassar and Ralena have coffins, and Kasha hardly sounds hostile (she only fights because Rytlock goes “grr, all ghosts must die!”). Or at least three of them.

And there is at least one case of a ghost breaking the curse of the Foefire’s mental change on her own – a powerful necromancer in life, Bria (Kasha may end up being the same situation as Bria, just nicer).

The player won’t ever become the leader of the Pact. You can pretty much guarantee it. For the same reason we didn’t replace Abaddon in GW1. A nameless hero (how it’ll be told in the overarching non-personal lore of the game) cannot take a lead role.

And why would they take Z’s body to Fort Trinity? Futhermore, that’d mess with current lore (the Blue Orb prevents risen activity in Fort Trinity so long as its active) and it really breaks the suspension of disbelief that an Elder Dragon from time immemorial can not only talk without lungs, but knows modern language.

The Elder Dragon’s aren’t really meant to have character, so that scenario would also break that.

That concept art is Kralkatorrik – the in-game version is far smaller than that. http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/f/fe/Kralkatorrik.jpg

Wulfghast.7685:

I’m 100% positive it’s Zhaitan as this was inside Arah immediately after we killed him. I waypointed to leave and ended up falling through the map. http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x344/Wulfghast/gw316.jpg

Some say Cursed Shore, some say Arah… Which is it? Arah’s more believable. But if you have to fall through the map to see it, it can’t be taken as canon as that’s a bug/glitch.

And yet I heard that he ragequitted because of the lore. And even then, he often gets his facts wrong.

Loving a product doesn’t get you a job with the makers of the product anyways. You got to be able to improve it.

Her family had a crest before she became a leader among the Ebon Vanguard. Source. I had always figured that her family fell from nobility for one reason or another. It’s also possible, given how neat her clothes were in pre-Searing, that Gwen’s mother simply helped commoners a lot.

We don’t know the situation for the solar system, it does have a sun though (whether it’s Tyria circling the sun or the sun circling Tyria is the question), and at least 1 moon (various depictions imply Tyria has 2 moons, but there’s never been a second moon seen in the sky at the same time as far as I know, so they may be on opposing sides of the planet if there are two).

We don’t know if it has poles, but it does have North, South, East and West directions as well as an arctic sea to the north (thus an arctic area, implying a northern pole).

The globe itself was brought up as a question once, but no images were attached so few could say. Looking at that, and comparing to this, I don’t see much similarity, but I’d need to see more than one angle to be certain.

@Rolin: Given the odd shape, I wouldn’t take that structure to be very accurate as a solar system model. The orrery in Divinity’s Reach is more likely to be accurate than that.

Errant Venture.9371:

No it’s an unused dragon model way out in the ocean in Cursed Shore. iirc. Not sure if it’s actually Zhaitan or an unused model for a planned Dragon Champion event.

Where in Cursed Shore? I looked all across that abominable current border (abominable because the kitten thing wasn’t straight so it kept pushing me back when I was almost on land) and couldn’t find it.

I don’t think that Ascalon has a typical feudal relation compared to our history. They seem to be more gender-neutral overall, as is Kryta, and given this and the notion we have no knowledge of Keiran having a family crest, the Thackeray line could have taken Gwen’s (though we never did find out what Gwen’s maiden name was…).

Though the Thackeray line making a family crest after marriage is also possible, given how there are differences – it seems like it takes the Gwen’s Necklace emblem and puts it within a shield. So that’d be different enough to be a “new” family crest, made with Gwen’s in mind.

I wouldn’t call it “arguing” – I’d call it “debating” and it’s rather a side-effect of this forum. Because we’re posting our theories, hypotheses, and speculations. And other people will disagree and will try to poke holes in the argument. It’s impossible to make something near everyone would agree with unless you make it full-proof, and this, you provide minimal strong evidence.

And I don’t think we can’t understand the gods or magic. I think what the gods are is fairly clear, as is what’s magic. The origins of both, however, is another story, same with their limitations.

And I’m sure we’ll get more history on the norn when we get to Jormag – we’ll be going into norn ancestral lands, just like we went into Orr which was full of ancient human/god lore. So I’m betting it’ll be full of norn/Spirits of the Wild lore.

You don’t seem to get it. An “immensely powerful being” IS what a god is. The powers of a god and why its a god varies from mythos to mythos, or story to story, but when you break it all down, that’s what a god is.

In most cases, they don’t age, and they can create races out of inanimate material (e.g., clay). They tend to hold domain of some aspect of life (elements of nature (fire, earth, ice, life, death, etc.), aspects of personality or action (war, love, craftsmanship).

This is what every polytheistic pantheon is when you boil it down.

And in GW2, the Six Gods are gods because they have an indestructible power within them – one that causes their divinity to blind those who look upon them for too long, and they seem to be unaging. This is why Kormir had to replace Abaddon – if that power isn’t contained, it goes cataclysmic. The Elder Dragons are not gods because they lack this.

It doesn’t matter if the charr don’t view the Six Gods as actual gods to worship (note: they’re not atheists – if they were, they’d argue the Six don’t exist, but they accept that they exist, and they accept that others call them gods, what they don’t accept is the act of them worshiping the Six – or anything else).

And I would argue, yes, if aliens were to have arrived when our level of technology was very low, people would have seen them as gods or god-like beings. In fact, this is a semi-common scientific thought to what angels and deities of ancient mythos actually were. It’s also a trope that advanced enough technology would look like magic to primitive people. But that’s a case of us calling them gods, not them being gods; and more of them having high technology, not being immensely powerful themselves.

You should also learn to detatch your personal beliefs and wants from the stories you read. Because no matter how much you want someone else’s story to be a certain way, it’ll be how that someone else wants it to be. So I’m sorry, but Guild Wars has literal gods.

No, I have not read all the lore for Guild Wars yet. No one has. Guild Wars 2 still has a lot of undiscovered or unshared/documented lore behind it still. I’m sure almost all of it has been seen, though it hasn’t been documented nor is there one person who has seen it all – except maybe Jeff Grubb or some other developer of ArenaNet.

However, I know full well the story of humanity’s origins. And nothing makes it “obviously” earth that humanity came from. Nothing – and I mean nothing – needs the story of Guild Wars to be based in the real universe. It’s a fantasy story, Earth likely doesn’t even exist in the story of Guild Wars. All we have is humanity came from another world, which may or may not have faced some sort of devastation.

Kormir having been a human is irrelevant to this matter – what makes a god is the power they absorb, not their race. If a charr were to kill Kormir and absorb the power, that charr would be a god. No ifs ands or buts.

And how am I wrong in the monotheist/polytheist bit? I said, did I not “almost never” – meaning that monotheistic gods can exist in fantasy settings. They’re just very rare. And Guild Wars does not have a monotheistic setting. It’s polytheistic.

And gods can’t be killed? Go look up Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Greek, Japanese, Aztec, Babylonian, and who knows how ever many other mythologies – the origin of the concept for gods. They all host gods who kill and were killed. They all host imperfect gods, gods who are not omni-whatever. These gods predate the Abrahamic and original monotheistic god in terms of worship in the human race. So don’t go saying gods can’t be killed, because the first gods known to human history are based upon stories of them killing their predecessors.

You are too focused on making the term “god” mean the individual “God” – and that is a grossly wrong assumption to make.

Well, clearly, Gwen and Kieran were third cousins twice removed. That’s why their family crests are so similar.

:P

A more likely explanation – other than “Anet be lazy” – would be that the Thackeray Family Crest is the same as Gwen’s family crest – since she did marry into the Thackeray family, if they didn’t have a family crest (nothing says they did), I think they’d have taken Gwen’s family’s crest.

Uh… the Barradin crest is a stag head. The Thackeray crest looks like a shield of some sort (compare the Ascended amulet to the ring – it looks like the amulet is what’s on the ring). They’re not the same.

The Ascended amulet for the Barradin crest is, oddly, different than the other family crest one though… How nice of Anet to provide two items of the same name. But given this, I’m going to say that it’s Anet being lazy.

Maybe the Ebon Vanguard had refurbished while they were there. I mean, they were there for roughly 6 or so years before we showed up.

@Narcemus: THen that’s be going against all set up lore ever since Ghosts of Ascalon and even into the game itself. An alternative and, imo, more likely situation is that Calhaan didn’t die in the Foefire but sooner – especially given that spot isn’t at all near where the mission was.

Or it’s a massive slip on Anet’s part.

@FlamingFoxx: I think it’s far more likely that there were humans in those areas and the Foefire was wider than you’re suspecting. It has always been said that all of Ascalon was covered by the Foefire’s wave.

I certainly can’t imagine that all these ghosts were inside Ascalon City, when it’s been explicitly mentioned time and time again that the Foefire reached far beyond that. It just didn’t reach Fields of Ruin is all. Maybe the blast simply wasn’t a perfect circle – that is far more realistic to believe than “ghosts who relive the day of the Foefire (so all lore statements say – even those from the developers themselves) patrol out to the furthest reaches of Ascalon.”

Guild Warrior.9540:

In a slightly different topic I would like to point out Humans probably came from our Earth. My theroy on this is that Guild Wars takes place in some far future point of our own history. Humans had to escape Earth probably because it was being destroyed by something.

A theory requires something to back it up. What you have is wild speculation which is just as likely as saying humanity came from Dhuum’s rear end.

Guild Warrior.9540:

Also dont forget Bears are Earth animals.I mean its possible something bear like could evolve on another planet but its more likely all the Earth animals you see in Guild Wars were brought along with humans from Earth to Tyria.

I think it’s more likely that Anet went the route of “familiar creatures mixed in with unfamiliar creatures” rather than going to say “they come from Earth!” I mean, you’ll be hard pressed to find a fantasy setting that doesn’t have at least 10 animals we can find in reality – ignoring humans. These are added either for familiarity of the audience, or because the makers don’t have imagination (or don’t want to put too much effort into them). Same with why there are so many races which are so humanoid. Aside from how most of said races tend to come from mythology, and you know humans of the past – putting everything in their image.

(Anet needs to make post sizes larger)

Temihal.8651:

I can’t say this is impossible, but the main problem in this theory it’s that 2’000 years are not nearly enough to produce an evolution that big.
An evolution like that takes million years (it’s not just getting taller, it’s becoming 2-3 times what you were as human, changing proportions of the body etc).
As a side note, if real world humans got much taller in the last 2’000 years it’s also because of the different life style (from “what is agricolture?” to industry, so we all have much more food and can grow taller).
Tyra didn’t have that kind of a change (and there would be no reason to see people get smaller anyway).

You’re making gross presumumptions. 2,000 years ago people very much had agriculture and the like. The Roman Empire was around for centuries already, and before that the Greek city states were well developed for just as long if not longer, and then there’s what comes before the Greeks. There’s not as huge of a leap in culture as you’re proclaiming. Also, as I said above, it’d be roughly 3,000 years. And it’s not that much evolutionary change – especially considering they’re in extreme climates, which call for faster evolution or else extinction.

Temihal.8651:

To put it in a simplificated way, I said that it’s a more plausibile theory that kodans are norn blessed with eternal shapeshift in Koda form.

Except that this doesn’t really work with known lore. It is possible that the kodan’s faith is wrong, but the current theories is that the norn come from the kodan, not the other way around.

Oglaf.1074:

Koda could be an aspect of Bear. Or more likely, Bear is a more animalistic and simpler aspect of Koda.

Personally, I think Koda is a persona that combines Dwayna and Melandru. Just look at the titles given to him, and then look at the Forgotten’s names for the Six Gods as a whole, and the domain of Dwayna and Melandru. Or possibly just Melandru

Koda is “the Ancient One, Founder of the Earth, Keeper of the Sky,” (from blog post), the Forgotten call the Six Gods the “Ancient Ones” and “Ancient Gods” – Abaddon is called the Keeper of Secrets, and the sky would be Dwayna’s domain thus she could likely have the title of “Keeper of the Sky.” Similarly, Melandru’s credited with creating the world, though we know this is false and in reality she terraformed parts of the world, thus “Founder of the Earth” could be accurate for her – alternatively, Dwayna’s the one who first stepped on Tyria, thus to the Six she “found” the world.

Guild Warrior.9540:

Well Tyria does have magic and I doubt it was Abaddon or the human gods who created it as the Jotun definitely had it.Its more likely that Abaddon showed the races how to use it. Magic may make evolution faster and cause several weird mutations.The Ettins might be an example of that.With their 2 heads.

Nothing to my knowledge says that ettins evolved that way due to magic. As for the lore behind magic – yes, it did exist before the Six Gods arrived on Tyria. but Abaddon didn’t teach the races how to use it, rather he used the Bloodstone which contained all the magic (the Bloodstone was made by the seers, containing all non-corrupted magic, including the jotun’s, to keep it from the Elder Dragons) and released it back into the world.

Guild Warrior.9540:

The deal about the human gods is that I believe them to not be actual gods but rather super evolved humans. Think of the Ancients from Stargate. Didnt a human in fact become one of the gods? To me a god must be omniscient omnipotent omnipresent and have no need for other gods. Yeah I know it sounds like the christian god but it doesnt have to be exactly that. Because if they are real gods then zhaitan should be considered a god as he seems to be just as powerful.

Firstly, you’re describing a monotheistic god. Polytheistic gods are nothing like that. Secondly, the power that the Six Gods have cannot be destroyed – it is the power that is immortal. It may change containers like how the power Kormir absorbed came from Abaddon, and previously had another container that was Abaddon’s predecessor, but that power is immortal. It is that power which makes them gods. And nothing says the Six Gods are humans.

Monotheistic gods almost never exist in fantasy. Because they are paradoxical to the nth degree.

(more in next post)

Temihal.8651:

I think it’s easier that a colder clima makes people shorter to consverve the heat, not taller. There are exceptions though.

Actually, in most cases it’s thicker fur or blubber. Norn naturally emanate heat though, and larger typically produce more heat too.

Temihal.8651:

Humans come from another dimension, they are not from this world.
Two similar races in two different dimensions (we can guess the other dimension it’s actually similar to ours if humans have this shape) it’s not something that strange.

In my mind Kodan being norns always shapeshifted in the “Spirit of the Wild” Koda form (then a group of them disagree/lose the Koda blessing and go back to their norn form) have more chances that norn coming from humans.

I don’t see how humans being non-native prevent norn from deriving from humanity. It would just mean that norn are non-native too. As for coming from kodan, technically it’d be that the norn are kodan who learned to shapeshift – for how kodan would view it.

Thalador.4218:

Given the fact that the first known record of humanity on the world of Tyria is from 786 BE, it’s likely that their arrival on that southern continent happened even earlier, say, 1,000 BE, giving both parties circa 2,000 years to evolve into their current physiology. The average height of us real world humans increased a lot in the same time, and then there’s the Scandinavian people who tend to be also a lot taller. Add a little magic to improve and quicken acclimatization, and you get the norn.

My personal theory is that the Dwayna came to Tyria while the Elder Dragons were still active, brought the forgotten to help combat them, and then humanity away from the conflict (south of Cantha) – all roughly at the same time. Which would place it during or around 1769 BE. This theory based on how Sieran notes the oldest dwarven ruins (Windy Caves) being from the beginning of dwarven civilization “over two thousand years ago,” and stemming from there in more or less irrelevancies to this particular topic.

If the Luxon legends talk about where humanity was first brought to Tyria (in a thriving location), then it wouldn’t be implausible that the norn were the first humans to return to continental Tyria, long before Orr, on their own – since given the lack of known god interactions with Canthans, they arrived on that continent before 786 BE (that’s when humans arrived on northern Canthans – the Luxons and Kurzicks were in the Echovald and Jade Sea already).

Current indications for the possible last timeframe of the Elder Dragon rise makes all of this possible, especially given the still not-debunked fact that the Six Gods brought the forgotten, who arrived on Tyria in 1769 BE, and humanity was brought shortly after Dwayna arrived on the world by all indications – this puts roughly 3,000 years for norn to evolve into who they are now.

Temihal.8651:

Thalador.4218:

Wrong. Humans have never come from “another dimension.” Both the norn and the humans live in the same dimension, however, humanity originates from a different planet.

Here you are actually wrong.
The Six aren’t (for what we know) some kind of space-travelling aliens, they came from the Mist.
We can argue about what the Mist is, but surely isn’t the equivalent of our space.
If you don’t like the word “dimension” we can call it world, i don’t really care that much.

I don’t think one can appropriately call other worlds as “other dimensions” – dimensions usually refer to an alternate reality, rather than another world. The Mists is much like outer space, but is also more. So I would agree with Thalador in that humans don’t come from another dimension. They do come from another world, and they arrived via portals, but this isn’t the same as another dimension.

(more in next post)

I think it’s less that they’re efficient, and more that the seers screwed em over enough that they starved into hibernation. Seeing how the seers took all magic from the world, the only food left for the ED would be the bloodstone, and if they can’t find the bloodstone…

RedBlood, all of that’s explained already, actually. Zhaitan eats magic, so his minions were seeking magical artifacts – such as those in the sunken temple of Abaddon or the Searing Cauldron – so that they could be devoured and the magic fed to Zhaitan. That’s the entire point behind killing the Mouth of Zhaitan – to starve magic, prevent him from getting magical artifacts and in turn food.

And all paths are taken in the later storyline. It’s just that you weren’t there to do it. And if you note – if you do the Cauldron path, then the tanks get blown up. So some paths do have consequences if you don’t do them. They’re just immediate consequences.

But no, do not bring Zhaitan back. I do not want to face Zhaitan again because then it’ll just bring into question whether he’s truly dead that time, or whether Jormag and the others will be truly dead in the future. That’ll be lame as kitten.

If it must be, have him alive but dormant.

That’s a very odd-ball event. Because it completely removes the GW1 player character, and those two ghosts were not in GW1 as far as I remember.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

True, but the story says that the Kodan were around when the ED were born, which is hiiiighly unlikely. I was refering to this and putting it in relation. As I said, it might be possible that they are as old as the second awakaning, but I don’t think they were around before that.

I wasn’t arguing that, I was arguing your claim that they would have died if they were around during the previous ED rise.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Maybe, but the story states that the gods were around when the EDs came to life (I mean for the first time ever), which is not the case. If or of not they knew of them is debatable, but not the point I was talking about.

Again, not what I was arguing. I was merely arguing your “this is the case” – like with the kodan’s age – rather than your “this is not the case” statement that you always open with.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

If the dragons were able to easily pass into the Mists, without having to kidnap people who are able, then they would probably have gone their to search for food instead of going back into hibernation. As far as I see it, the dragons hold no connection to the Mists, atleast not in a way the gods or spirits of the wild do. I should have said: “can’t go into the Mists on their own” though.
The rest was speculation on my part, as I said before. And death (souls going into the Mists) is interaction between the Mists and Tyria, imo.

I specifically said that they can’t without help. Even havrouns need the help of the Spirits of the Wild, so in this regard, the havrouns – and any norn, charr, or human – are no different than the Elder Dragons.

And as for what weakens the barrier, I was merely stating “you’re correct, but it’s a specific kind of interaction.”

It returns in the asura blog post stories, explaining how the krewe leader escaped from Skrittsburg without the rest.

Though I thought there had to be another gate. Maybe it was just the lore behind the waypoint system – wouldn’t surprise me if those things are less than five years old. Would explain why no NPCs use them (they just set them up in Orr).

I couldn’t open it so I haven’t a clue what you wrote, but the legendaries do seem to hold some degree of lore to them.

Sunrise and Twilight are wielded by the Risen High Wizard (who guards the gates to Arah), so they – and Eternity – are of Orrian origin most likely.

Frostfang’s precursor uses the same model as the Corrupted Axe that can be made (the axe being corrupted by Jormag’s magic); and Frostfang itself looks like said axe, but with the blade “broken” into the shape of a dragon’s maw. Thus Frostfang likely holds origin to Jormag – and the tokens used to make it come from Honor of the Waves, which is icebrood based dungeon.

The Flameseeker Prophecies was clearly created sometime after 1105 AE, given that it verbatim quotes Meerak the Shouter, 1072 AE, in New Krytan (established in 1105 AE). It also holds motifs of the prophecies.

Rodgort was a theme of elementalist skills in GW1, some having dragon depictions. The torch itself holds a dragon/fiery bull/flame legion charr as a head. It may be related to the Elder Dragons too (Primordus), or is just related to some ancient fiery non-ED dragon.

Kraitkin, as the name implies, seems to be related to the krait. The color of the “snakes” as well as their glow reminds me of the Blue Orb seen in the personal storyline (the fear choice of causing an innocent harm). Personally, I think it might be tied to the deep sea dragon too, just as I think the Blue Orb and the krait prophets are.

The Bifrost and the Moot might hold origins to norn, and Kudzu to the sylvari. Though beyond that it’s hard to tell.

But regardless of what you wrote, as Buddhakeks said, this isn’t lore – this is fan-fiction and should be in the Fan-generated Content forum.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

This however is unlikely, since they would have died during the last dragon onslaught, because unlike the other races, they did not flee Tyria or were hidden by Glint. Now you could say, they were so far north, that no dragon reached them. But due Jormag sleeping there, this is also unlikely. In conclusion: The Kodan are probably younger than the last dragon awakaning.

I disagree. The kodan’s history of the “great blizzard” is perfectly remeniscent of Jormag. And they were in hiding – except for one group of kodan who lost their Voice.

The knowledge of 5 surviving sentient races thanks to Glint (sans Mursaat thanks to fleeing the world) comes directly from the jotun. This means there might have been survivors which the jotun did not know about. We know of one such race – the karka – as well as Zomorros existed during the last ED rise (or well, it’s so highly implied we have nothing else the implications can refer to). And it’s implied that the kodan, largos, and tengu (in order of most to least likely) are among them – the kodan have the great snowstorm, the tengu know something about the Elder Dragons’ previous rise (though how and what remains unknown), and the largos are said to be an ancient race by Zomorros (though how ancient is unknown). The krait may be as well (given how their “prophets” seem increasingly like the DSD and its champions).

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The gods possibly didn’t even know of the dragons when they reached Tyria and only learned of them later, since they came after the last cycle and build their holy city ontop of a sleeping dragon.

This is debatable. While they came after the mursaat/seer war, this was implied to occur prior to the ED going to sleep again. Nothing has yet to say outright that the forgotten were not brought to the world by the Six Gods, so that may still hold to be true. We only know that the Six Gods did not know that Zhaitan was underneath Arah and the source of energy that they used to strengthen the Bloodstone.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Page 8: The dragons can’t go into the Mists, nor can they weaken it’s barrier. We don’t know what can weaken it (I personally think it’s interaction between Tyria and the Mists that leads to a weakend veil, but that is only my speculation), but it’s certainly not the dragons. They just hold no connection to it.

Well, nothing says the dragons can’t go into the Mists. We just don’t see it happen. They certainly don’t have the means to go without anothers’ power, but the same can be said about humans. As to weakening the barrier – we do know, and that’s portals being created time and time again (Godslost Swamp). As well as places where a lot of deaths occur (Speaker of the Dead). I presume the latter is how Odran made portals to the Mists – it was said he made countless sacrifices, after all.

The ghosts relive the last day of their life time and time again. So no matter what, they’d eventually return to where they were during the Foefire, every day at the same time of the day. We don’t see ghosts traveling halfway across Ascalon on a daily basis, so I cannot see that being the case.

It was a device made by Snaff – a portable (size-changing) asura gate. But, iiirc, it still required an asura gate end – there was one just south of Ebonhawke that they went to, both when Destiny’s Edge began looking for Glint, and when Logan went to help Jennah.

Nothing says those dragons are, or were, dead. If they’re even separate individuals.

Venzetti.3901:

Believe it or not, I know it sounds like bullkitten, but it is suggested in the lore that this is actually a lie told by the Jotun to make their culture seem more significant… notice how I said suggested, i’m not say it is a lie, but it’s suggested.

Not to my knowledge – me and drax have suggested such, that Thurln is either wrong due to his knowledge being from oral tradition (which is very easily twisted – ever played the telephone game?) or that he himself twisted it to suit his audience but I don’t recall seeing it in-game anywhere.

Venzetti.3901:

What about their deep reliance on honor and integrity, while the Jotun will famously back stab and destroy each other as shown by the downfall of their civilisation?

Or them both believing deeply in a chosen faith, the Koda having their god, and the Norns having the spirits while the Jotun have no religion or faith at all?

Hell if you want to go really simple similarities (granted they share this with the Jotun as well) their inhabitants of cold places!

If you want to go off of similarity of cultures, the Luxon are where you want to point a finger at.

And note that Luxons hold legends of an ancient lost homeland across a great sea. It’s not unlikely that the Luxons’ homeland had other groups of humans heading out. And evolution would cause norn to grow in size to suit the colder climates, and there are statues of some of the Six seen in the Far Shiverpeaks in GW1, some of Grenth’s right near a shrine to Raven (the two’s domains are very close). I would not be surprised if the norn are descended from humanity, evolved due to the Far Shiverpeaks’ climate, and changed faiths when the Six Gods left the world (and thus became less heard) or due to the Spirits of the Wild being more helpful.

Venzetti.3901:

especially since the GL had no culture or organisation that we know of

The G-Lupe we see in Arah is cyborized. There’s a Durmand Priory scholar researching the G-Lupe’s culture in relation to the Crystal Desert cultures.

While we don’t know anything about it, I think it’s safe to say that they had culture of some degree.

Venzetti.3901:

Also in response to your edit, it’s already set in the lore that the six gods didn’t create any of the races (apart from humans which is hazy) and that the Charr, Forgotten, Seers, Mursaat, Elder Dragons and Jotun were in Tyria before the gods arrived.

Actually, it’s fuzzy on whether or not the Six Gods created any races. As well as the age of the charr (we only know they warred with the forgotten at some point before humanity arrived in Ascalon).

Guild Warrior.9540:

Actually the Forgotten were brought to Tyria first by the gods.Then the humans came after.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Forgotten

Read GW2W’s article, it’s more up to date given how GWW wants minimal GW2 lore on it. But to summarize: The Six Gods are known to have arrived on the world sometime after the writing of the Tome of Rubicon and the mursaat/seer war. The mursaat/seer war occurred, to the best of our knowledge, during the previous Elder Dragon rise. The forgotten were around during the last Elder Dragon rise.

While it’s possible that the order of events was “mursaat/seer war->Dwayna arrives on Tyria, brings the forgotten->Forgotten free Glint, who then hides the races and wait out the ED’s ravaging” it’s more likely to be “mursaat/seer war->Forgotten free Glint and the waiting out occurs->Six Gods arrive while ED are dormant”

All indications we have show that the Six Gods did not know of the Elder Dragons – though we only know for certainty they didn’t know of Zhaitan’s presence under Orr.

Guild Warrior.9540:

There is one thing that could support Norn as being human/Jotun Hybrids

In Thruln the Losts story he says the following.

Read the second post of this thread. Thruln the Lost holds so many inconsistencies (like the very first quote you brought up, which is so direly wrong – the humans were certainly more than grawl and the Six Gods always noticed them) that everything that isn’t proven wrong is dubious at best.

And no, nothing he says implies that norn are descended from jotun. Let alone human/jotun hybrids. He only says the norn and jotun both once ruled the world during the Age of Giants. But again, he’s far from credible as a source.

Guild Warrior.9540:

He never says the Norn were there before the Humans only that other races looked up to Both norn and Jotun.

Because that’s not part of the topic. He’s talking about the Six Gods, not the norn.

Guild Warrior.9540:

Unless the human gods really did create the other races and visited Tyria long before they brought the humans and much much earlier then anyone realizes.

Nope. The Six Gods first arrived on Tyria after the mursaat/seer war. This is explicitly stated by Ree Soesbee in an interview. And as I said, said mursaat/seer war which decimated the seer race is most likely to have occured during the last ED rise – if not then, then after.

(more in following post)

Guild Warrior.9540:

So ive been wondering why the hell the Norn look exactly like humans when the other races dont(except dwarves but their another matter entirely).My theory is that they are either descended or were created by the Jotun to be slaves back when they had technology probably on pare with Asura if not even more advanced.Either the Jotun gave them their shape shifting powers or they learned it by themselves.

Either way they probably looked more like the blue giant jotun in their first forms rather then humans but when the humans came into Tyria they changed their forms to look human so that the humans would accept them more and not freak out at the site of giant ugly blue humanoids.

Also the Jotun in turn could be descended from Giganticus lupus assuming evolution on Tyria works the same way it does on our planet.

What do you think?

Edge of Destiny refers to their “normal” form as “human form” – though this may be for sake of descriptive narrative than what it’s actually referred to by norn.

While the norn and jotun may have a shared history, I do not – nor can see such – that the norn were made by the jotun. I find the kodan theory more plausible. Furthermore, they looked like large humans when they first came in contact with humans, so I cannot see that being the case.

Also, no, if evolution works the same as in reality, the jotun cannot be descended from the Giganticus Lupicus. The G-Lupe are giant DOGS – as their name implies for those who know butchered latin (Lupicus coming from the latin word for wolf, iirc – though I cannot recall the latin word itself atm). We see a Giganticus Lupicus in Arah explorable, and it’s basically a 35 foot bipedal cyborg weredog.

Venzetti.3901:

Personally I doubt this, mainly because it’s suggested heavily that the Norn are evolved (or devolved depending how you see it) Koda. The Koda themselves believe this. Also if I do re call the Giganticus Lupicus went extinct around the same time as the original rise of the Dragons, when the Jotun were already present and in their highly intelligent state.

Kodan* Koda is their god.

But their theory is still rather unlikely, truth be told, given how it’s only certain Voices who believe such and they are rather stuck up.

And it’s previous rise. The G-Lupe went extinct during the last rise of the Elder Dragons – the same cycle that the jotun, seer, mursaat, dwarves, and forgotten survived.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I would like to point out the gaping hole in your theory.
If their appearance had anything to do with humans then humanity would have record of Jotun and Norn from a LOT earlier.

As it stands the first time humans encountered both races was during the events of the GW1 campaign Eye of The North, which is only 250 years ago.

Actually, jotun might have been met sooner. Norn, however, weren’t known about in wide-spread prior to 1078 AE.

Guild Warrior.9540:

And whos to say they dont have a record?It might not just be mentioned in game.

The background of the norn is that humanity only first encountered them during GW1’s timeframe. At least in large enough scale for documentation. There might have been your random wanderer like Kahmu who met them prior, but no records were made. According to what I recall about interviews with the devs.

Guild Warrior.9540:

One other possibility is that the human gods created most of the races of Tyria except as we all know the humans themselves.Which would be ironic.The Norn could be the result of some experiment that the gods did by mixing humans and jotun.

This is actually proving to be more and more unlikely. While old-style humans still believe most races were made by the Six Gods, given how much B.S. these old myths and legends hold, it’s increasingly unlikely. I mean, all indications currently place the forgotten as not being brought to Tyria by the Six Gods (though if they did, that means at least one god was around during the previous ED rise).

Guild Warrior.9540:

I want to here someone come up with better theroy as to why they look so freaking human. It makes no sense lore wise if humans are aliens to Tyria and Norn look identical to humans but taller. They should look completely different.

You are assuming, I believe, that norn are older than humanity. Could it not easily be that norn are descended from a tribe of humans? Their culture is very akin to Luxon culture, if you ask me, from revering tales of battle prowess, to being nomads, to revering wilderness spirits (Zhu Hanuku – formerly), and so on and so forth.

That’s my personal theory.

If that’s not the case, then I’d just say it’s because humans thought them up and in lore it’s just pure bloody coincidence. I mean, go play Darksiders – EVERY race but three (Demons, Charred Council, and Sprites) are mostly humanoid.

(more in following post)

Yet nothing says he was ever living to begin with (or that he’s currently undead – to call Zhaitan an undead is to call Kralkatorrik crystal itself, or Primordus fire) – that which was not once alive cannot be undead.

We can’t reach Zhaitan’s lair (it’s at the tower we kill him at). The corpse was meant to be viewable – I suspect at the point of interest labeled “Zhaitan’s Rest” but because they wanted dragons within their dragons because they love dragons so much, they seem to have removed it.