Guild Wars 2

Hmmm, good point.

Of course, it could be that since it was so briefly seen and so far away, it was just the basic shape of a very large Elder Dragon. I don’t think it’d take much to fool Branded creatures with a few second flyby of a large dragon, given they didn’t tell by the mere fact there was no mental connection (as all Elder Dragons seem to hold with their minions) coming from the illusion.

But I suppose that’s still evidence to show Jennah at least knows the general look of Kralkatorrik (just it being a dragon doesn’t mean it looks like Kralky, given how un-dragon like Zhaitan is).

I think you misunderstood me but whatever.

I stand by “having multiple heads != being multiple dragons” – perhaps I just need a better look at Zhaitan, but he still looks like a single entity no matter how much I studied him while the rest of my group hammered him down during my last two runs through. An eldritch abomination of a single entity, but a single one nonetheless.

Or rather half of a single eldritch abomination. The thing just cuts off halfway into tails, looking rather incomplete. There’s bound to be a Hind Legs of Zhaitan roaming around somewhere, I bet.

Actually, I think it’s Hare which would represent hope more (iirc, a little norn girl she saved from a blizzard mentions some such). Owl is just family and hearth. :P

I think gold meant the land east of the Dragonbrand, and west of the Blazeridge. The Blazeridge Mountains is currently ogre homeland, and east of that is more charr lands.

I wonder if Owl truly is dead. I mean, Jormag assaults minds right? And though Owl pretty much went kamakazi by dizing into Jormag’s mouth to claw at him from inside to distract him from norn underneath their aerial battle, who’s to say that he didn’t just imprison Owl and corrupted her?

True, her havroun confirmed her death, but I wouldn’t put it past someone to hide a truth of “a Spirit of the Wild has become corrupted and is now our enemy” – or for that his havroun simply misunderstood.

A possible interesting concept, fighting Owl as a champion of Jormag.

Mystic Starfish.2586:

Aren’t there also corrupted earth elementals?
So that’s a bit weird too

What’s weird isn’t the existence of Branded Earth Elementals, but the fact that these “Branded” Earth Elementals are 100% the same as standard Earth Elementals.

At least Pyrite Elementals in Orr are golden versions of Earth Elementals. >.>

Humans believe they serve Melandru, however we know Raven holds power of some degree over the Underworld (Grenth’s domain), and norn disagree with the belief that the Spirits of the Wild are beneath the human gods, but instead put them on par – calling the Six Gods “Spirits of Action” (and as such referring to their action – e.g., War instead of Balthazar, Knowledge instead of Kormir, probably Growth, Beauty, Death, and Life for the others).

It’s fairly up in the air though, what the real situation is.

Even if it was flat (thus avoiding the issue of polygon counts), they still could have drawn dragon “motifs” (as that’s what it’d be drawn as, more or less) on his skin.

Kralkatorrik seems to corrupt physical, especially solid, things. Only exception seems to be the sparks, though they may not be corrupted air elementals but air elements created by the corruption (since there’s a lot of lightning present). Even the water is (mostly?) untouched.

Ghosts are not physical, and thus it’s only to be expected they’re not corrupted.

Cowrex.9564:

Are there any other continents present in the world of Tyria?

None of which the name is known, but a map found in the GW dat presents 2 other continents and two large island chains (with about 3 smaller island chains) other than the Tyria/Elona supercontinent (which is huge) and the Canthan continent.

Map can be found here.

(Edit: I see the image got linked already)

BuddhaKeks.4857:

I also think mosts of the animal spirits went into the Mists after owl’s death, only 4 stayed to guide the Norn, minimizing the risk of the EDs getting even stronger by consuming them.
Just my personal theory though.

Edit: Forgot to mention, not all spirits are lost, besides the big 4, minotaur is also still running around and maybe wurm too.

Hare is also running around. Only Wolverine, Eagle, and Ox have unknown states, and these three fought Jormag with Owl. The other eight known Spirits of the Wild are known in their states – Wurm still blesses those who call upon it, Hare is mostly believed to not exist by norn but does help out now and then, Minotaur had been missing for a while but recently reappeared, of course Owl is dead, and then you got the big four who are constantly guiding norn.

Or it’s possible said polearm is just a remnant of when spears were not aquatic and were called “polearm” – but I digress.

Please see:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Mordramoth/first#content

and

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/On-the-Sixth-Elder-Dragon-and-its-corruption/first

Though summarized to the finest points by Grezko.

Each set of limbs are equal in size to me. Of course, each side has limbs of different sizes.

And skin matters because you can see the texture of his muscles as well.

Son of Elias.5420:

They seek eternal glory through being remembered. Courage has nothing to do with it.

And how best to get remembered?

By doing something new, or doing something others would never do. The later almost always requires courage. So I wouldn’t say “nothing.”

But I’m just nitpicking.

Oglaf.1074:

Take a look at Eir’s home in Hoelbrak – there is a statute of the Norn who invented Norn beer. Now there’s a Norn who will be remembered through-out the ages!

Just a type of beer, if you wanna get technical.

For Eir’s skepticalness, it’s a mixture of both. She doubts it exists, and says that if it does it hasn’t been seen in a long time:

If such a spirit exists, it hasn’t been seen in generations. Why would it show up now?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wild_Spirits#Dialogues

Anyways, being back at my desktop rather than laptop, I found the screenshot. Sadly, it wasn’t what I remembered – the screenshot I took is just Eir saying “Destroying a Spirit harms the very soul of the wilderness.” And that’s up to big interpretation.

We do know from Protecting the Spirits storyline that the Spirits of the Wild knows the wellbeing of their species, but beyond that we don’t know much of what they are. Though Ferfhen calls Minotaur the “guardian spirit” of the minotaurs. So that’s likely what they are, more than anything – protectors of a specific race.

I don’t act like my word is law or any kitten like that.

BlueprintLFE.2358:

The official wiki says

And whatever the official wiki says has to be true, because, you know, it’s not written by the community at all!

My point being is: look at him – the line about him being made of multiple dragons is referring to the concept art and was put on the wiki before the game’s release – and the body of Zhaitan itself is different enough to show that it’s not the same idea. Yes, he has several dozen heads, even has heads coming from no where out of the palm of his hand/claw. But if you look at his skin, he’s very clearly a single entity. He just has multiple heads – much like a hydra, though in a different manner.

If people were to use their eyes and think, it becomes pretty clear.

BTW, those heads have a name given to them: Tendril of Zhaitan

Nike.2631:

Research on the one polearm in the game’s database suggests it’s a 2-handed weapon if that makes a difference to people’s thinking.

I think there was intended to be a spear instead of longbow originally – based on early concept art of weapon sets where there’s only one bow and a spear as well – but it got scrapped (concept art sets began not including them) and then brought back as an underwater weapon (a lot of harpoonguns, tridents, and spears were drawn separate of the weapon set concept arts, indicating they were brought in separate than the others).

This said, I would love to see the spear made an above and underwater skill, and obviously I’d say those which can use it underwater should use it above water too.

@Dreamwalker: Personally, the only way I see an Elder Dragon in old zones would be in the form of a new dungeon, and even then you’ll get Gaudrath’s complaint made 10 fold – that once you leave the dungeon, everything’s peachy.

It’s one thing to leave Arah after killing Zhaitan to see the Pact fighting hordes of undead to keep access to Arah, and another thing to leave a dungeon in Divinity’s Reach where Jormag’s sitting in the Upper City, just to see a perfectly dandy place. And you certainly can’t have the standard beginning zones becoming the new big bad’s playground.

@Gaudrath: While Trahearne claims such, I’m sure Anet will work something given the massive player hate (although, imo, greatly over-exaggerated). He’ll likely promote a local to Commander status to lead the attack on the dragon (I bet Sigfast or Skarti for Jormag – though I wouldn’t know who for Kralkatorrik or Primordus).

Nike.2631:

Wow, that’s the first time I’ve watched some go and write a wiki article to back their argument in real time.

Have any in-game references? charater dialogue? Interactive objects?

If you ake note, I didn’t make any articles (relevant to this discussion). I just edit them to be more complete.

Wurm was first mentioned in GW1: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Egil_Fireteller

And second mentioned in an interview, which I won’t bother digging through hundreds of interviews just to find the one which mentions that a norn racial skill calls upon the Wurm Spirit to summon a wurm to fight with you.

Zaxares.5419:

At the risk of derailing this thread, I wonder if there’s some kind of pre-requisite needed for a race to have its own Spirit. We never see Spirits of humans, norn, asura, skritt etc. so it seems likely that if a race is sapient, they do not have a Spirit. Perhaps a Spirit embodies the “sapient awareness” of a race concentrated in a single being, as opposed to spread out among all members of the race like humans?

If that is the criteria, then wouldn’t that mean that just about any non-sapient creature you meet in the wild has a Spirit? Drake Spirit, Skelk Spirit, Moa Spirit, Griffon Spirit, Spider Spirit (you think Gargantula was bad??) etc.

Eir explains what the Spirits of the Wild are, something about wildife, so I don’t think there’s any race which isn’t considered “wildlife” to have a spirit.

Though in Orr there are “Spirit of Valor” (iirc) which are tengu (mostly near the Cathedral of Tempests).

And I think Garm would be insulted if you said he wasn’t sapient! Just because they don’t talk doesn’t mean they’re not sapient.

Gaudrath.6725:

As for sentient races, no, there are no Spirits of Human, Asura, Charr, Jotun and so on.

Mighty big assumption there. Though nothing hints to it, if there are spirits of humans, asura, charr, etc. Well, who’s to say Spirits of the Wild aren’t simply a powerful Minotaur and so forth’s soul?

Not like Owl’s death caused harm to the owl race.

If only I can remember what Eir says about the Spirits of the Wild (I have it screenshotted – she mentions it during the Protect the Spirits storyline – it’s just on my other computer).

Main counter against that is that Trahearne himself says he intends to continue leading the Pact despite his Wyld Hunt ending, and he intends to lead them through killing five Elder Dragons (including Zhaitan).

The question will be: how up close to the battles will he be?

Veron Faust.8405:

What I don’t understand is how a dead God can still inspire followers, as seen in his sunken temple in Orr when we go there during the PS with Sayeh. His religion seems to be very much alive, and the enemies that we battle within that temple definitely seem to have some kind of power related to Abaddon.

Those are just millennia old magical defenses. It’s not new or continued followers. They’re just apparitions. Not even Margonites.

Veron Faust.8405:

so is it possible that Abaddon could be dead, yet his power is not?

Yes.

<Party leader>: “Kormir?”
Kormir: “No. Yes. Kormir. And much more.”
<Party leader>: “Abaddon?”
Kormir: “No. His power. His knowledge. But not him. His will is broken. There is a new god of secrets. There is a new day.”

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Abaddon%27s_Gate_%28cinematic%29

That’s actually the entire idea behind gods – the Apostate put it best:

“And I believe that while the power he uses cannot be destroyed, he may be supplanted, as he supplanted his predecessor.”

A gods’ power cannot be destroyed, only change hands – so to say.

Veron Faust.8405:

If that’s true, what about the Margonites? Are they still rolling around somewhere? I considered that maybe, since Abaddon’s power was the source of the Margonites’, maybe when Kormir took over the Realm of Torment all of the Margonites instantly changed to something else because their “Source” also changed. What would a Margonite still loyal to Abaddon even still be doing today?

They lived after Abaddon’s death. There may be a few pockets. They didn’t change. Possible.

Either way, Domain of Anguish saw the extermination or re-imprisonment of all Margonites still loyal to Abaddon, or alternatively loyal to Mallyx, if I remember correctly.

Those who still live are a dwindling race, just like the risen. They don’t seem to age, but they cannot reproduce and there’s no god to make more of them anymore.

Son of Elias.5420:

Is it still called the Realm of Torment? I mean, it was mainly for tormenting Abaddon, wasn’t it? Doesn’t Kormir hang out there now? She might have redecorated.

The charr don’t think it got renamed. Rytlock and Smodur both make mention of the Realm of Torment, but more as a replacement of the word “hell.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tomb_of_Stoneskin

Doesn’t really mean Kilroy’s tomb, could be his family’s tomb, and it’s obviously mispelled.

Gaudrath.6725:

The initial question of this thread was “How does Arah exploration make sense” and my answer is a short and sweet “it doesn’t, roll with it.”

Gaudrath.6725:

Arah explorable makes sense and is explained.

That’s how.

Oglaf.1074:

I guess it all narrows down to your interpretation of resisted.

In order to resist, one must be proactive. Otherwise it’s just resilience, immunity, etc.

Nike.2631:

There is a very strong indicator in-game that Jormag has to be viewed as at least semi-valid as a sprit: Norn Racial skills.

One for Snow Lepard,
One for Wolf,
One for Bear,
On for Raven,
One for Owl,
And… a Worm. An Ice Worm – for Dragon.

Uh…. Now come on, I know he’s not all that popular, but give Wurm some credit will you?

It’s like if there was an eagle-related skill and you go relating it to Owl or Raven, rather than Eagle. There’s a lot of Spirits of the Wild, not just the nine focused on in GW2 (those nine being the four big ones, Owl, Wolverine, Ox (aka Dolyak), and Minotaur – there’s also Eagle, Hare, and Wurm, of those known)

Nike.2631:

The whole family of wyrms/wurms/worms words are related to dragons, and that thing, the enormous, godawful THING I killed to start my legend? Yeah. One of those.

If you think 5 out of six things in a set created by Devs are related to an obvious theme, and one isn’t…
Well, we have very different means of speculating .

Wyrms are not the same as Wurms. Wurm is Germanic for worm. Wyrm is a type of draconic creature (typically a fire drake).

In Guild Wars, Wurms are basically just very very big worms.

And Summon Wurm is pretty kitten obvious itself. Especially if you know your norn lore, go to the GW2W or GWW’s article on Spirits of the Wild, or been following interviews on GW2 long before release (there was a few where when discussing racial skills, they said you can call upon the Wurm Spirit to summon one of its children).

Edit: okay, apparently GW2W’s article doesn’t list Wurm for some reason, and because that nav bar removed all the minor Spirits of the Wild there’s no easy way to know of the Wurm Spirit…

Edit2: Fixed! GW2W’s article now lists all Spirits of the Wild, as does that nav. So now the two least mentioned in-game should be more known about. >.>

Kalas.6743:

Last time the dragons woke it took all the power of 5 ancient races to put them asleep. While they didn’t have the kind of tech back then that they had today, I’m guessing that they had superior magical powers.

Actually, the five elder races didn’t put them to sleep – they hid. And precisely – they were magical races.

Fighting the Elder Dragons with magic is like tossing pies at the embodiment of gluttony hoping to kill it.

You’re just feeding the kitten thing, nothing else.

Oreoz.2573:

The genie thing was a joke. Didn’t expect you to take it seriously.

The concept art you provided and the in-game screen can’t be looked at because it’s two different angles. We can’t see his chest, mainly. It’s common knowledge that he’s made up of other dragons anyway. Just because of that, doesn’t mean he utilized the legs and such. Parts, is the key word here. It’s pretty obvious. Context clues in the book tells us that it’s the model they went with, thus why it was so hard to create.

He’s made up of parts of other dragons, hence the multiple heads, wings and tails and the strange positioning of his arms on his body. It doesn’t have to be whole dragons. That’d be stupid and impractical to an elder dragon who would only take what he needs.
Wings for flight, tails for mobility and heads for power and intimidation.
Apparently he doesn’t need legs. lol

Just look at this photo. Does that look like the result of something natural to you? lol

Better to absorb what he needs: Wings for flight, tails for mobility, and heads……well for power and intimidation. lol

And yes I did realize it was you that disproved my joko theory and I didn’t ignore it. I won’t always see things in the order they get posted on multiple threads so if I formulated the theory just after you disproved it in another thread, it’s because I didn’t read what you said yet. Ignoring it would’ve been not correcting myself at all….which I did. Soon as I saw it.

1) “Parts” is never used to describe Zhaitan – just “composed of dragons” and again this is about the concept art.

2) Common knowledge is often false. Just like the “common kowledge” that Joko is warring with Kralkatorrik not Zhaitan – like seemingly just about everyone believes, despite no mention of such ever being even implied, and the opposite is very much truth.

Besides, your “common knowledge” comes from the description of the concept art. And concept art doesn’t always make it in game as is (seldom does, in fact).

3) So what happens to those parts he wouldn’t use? That’s what’s more impractical. If Zhaitan was to be made of other dragons, said dragons would be able to separate and go their separate ways when need be – because under such a situation, that’s what Zhaitan would truly be: a swarm, not a single entity.

4) Whoever said Elder Dragons were natural? I didn’t. I cannot see how they could be, their looks being completely irrelevant (I cannot see natural creatures consuming and exuding magic with no need for eating physical food). I merely stated he’s not made of other dragons (parts or otherwise). It just looks like he is.

5) That photo only proves my point more – look at its chest. See any dragon heads in the skin? Nope. Just looks a bit sinewy.

6) I meant you ignored it in this thread, as your initial response to the post in which I pointed such out never mentioned it – you made a new post after, seemingly, reading my alternative post in said other thread. But this is irrelevant.

You’re still not understanding the concept. I’ve attempted several times to explain it, and you’ve brought this discussion into multiple threads.

I should bring repeatable events into it, because guess what? “Ice Raking and Silent Snowfall don’t resurrect if they’re killed by a largos,”http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Kodan_Claw given resurrection isn’t accessible (except by Flame Legion) in GW2. Nor are you killing Taidha Covington multiples times. Similarly you don’t kill Chief Otyugh several times either

Most events are designed to appear as different situations, but there’s still a good number where named individuals are killed and gasp they’re suddenly back! Makes no sense! It’s inconsistent! It’s contradictory! It’s paradoxical!

Actually, it’s not. It’s mechanics. Repeating events so that everyone can enjoy them and so that people can re-experience them.

This situation, that is that zones are progressive in the timeline, is little different.

Gaudrath.6725:

Your explanation requires more suspension of disbelief than if players just friggin’ shrugged at why everything is the same after Zhaitan and simply played on.

But… that is… suspension of disbelief…

Okay, at this point, I’m pretty much doing this at your posts.

Also: not really. It’s just putting more thought into the mechanics behind it.

Congratulations, you just contradicted yourself.

Jora wasn’t corrupted because she resisted (see: Jormag corrupts those who seek his power). This fact led the norn who went seeking his power to hate women. But given that Jormag – or rather, Drakkar – tried to corrupt a woman, I doubt the Elder Dragon is sexist or incapable of doing such (read: Jora resisted).

Gaudrath.6725:

I am not arguing if people find it agreeable. The initial question of this thread was “How does Arah exploration make sense” and my answer is a short and sweet “it doesn’t, roll with it.”

However, it does.

By your argument, what doesn’t make sense is the interaction between Arah story and everything preceeding such.

Arah explorable does make sense – Zhaitan is treated as dead, and the Risen are in limited supply although still numerous, even if the risen say otherwise (they’re known for lying, you know).

I didn’t know bullying was peaceful. ^^

And by bullying, I mean killing and destroying equipment.

Oreoz.2573:

At any rate Zhaitan IS made up of other dragons. The official wiki says so in the notes and it’s also mentioned in the book that comes with the collector’s edition. It’s the reason he was so hard to model for them. Plus, look at his mouth. lol

1) Don’t trust wiki’s wording exactly. Unless it’s a verbatim copy, it’s fan-made paraphrasing of actual lore, in which there can be misconceptions made.

2) “Kekai Kotaki drew an incredible dragon concept for Zhaitan where the dragon itself was composed of dragons. Where its mouth would be, there’s just more dragons.” – key thing to note: concept art This is the concept art in question, and this is his final model. While very similar, take note of the skin – in the concept art, you have hundreds of dragons meshed together. In the final version, you don’t. Yes, there are several dozen dragon heads, but that doesn’t make much. It’s like saying the creatures from the Alien movie series are multiple aliens because it has a “head” within its mouth (the tongue thing).

While entirely possible to be made out of multiple dragons, and that’s what the concept art was, the final version doesn’t look as such – just a dragon with several dozen heads, and eight or so wings (as opposed to 2), and three tails. If Zhaitan was actually several dragons meshed together, then where are all the other legs?. Hell, Zhaitan himself doesn’t have legs (or any kind of lower body except for the tail, for that matter).

While the concept of a dragon made out of dragons is cool, it doesn’t seem that’s what Zhaitan really is, and he just looks like such.

If he really was made out of many dragons, the laser wouldn’t have been so effective – it would have just separated several dragons from him.

3) How the hell do you get genie, especially from that interview?

Oreoz.2573:

yeah someone in another thread disproved my Joko theory when i brought it up. Zhaitan’s forces actually waged war along the Northern Elonian border which, aside from his navy, kept everyone out of Elona.

That someone was me, and I disproved it in this thread to – you just ignored it completely in my earlier post.

Killul.9685:

Guys remember one thing if Zhaitan appears again then we have Trahearne accompaning us while we fight him.

Trahearne mentions how he intends to lead the Pact into fighting five impossible victories (this is before Zhaitan’s defeat).

So he’ll be back for Jormag and the others.

The reason why he wasn’t there for the fight with Zhaitan was because the ritual to cleanse Orr took a lot out of him and he was still busy cleansing Orr afterwards.

And apparently the attack on Zhaitan was the Commander’s plan. lol

Son of Elias.5420:

Well, not necessarily. Norn don’t seem to see their brawls as ‘violence’. They have a good brawl, then everyone laughs about it afterwards and has a pint. Or a quart, I suppose.

I’d compare it to the difference between an argument (shouting, name-calling, etc) and a debate (reasons, consideration, etc). In either case, you are – technically – arguing, but only one is violent.

Using your argument, charr don’t see themselves has violent. They see their military livelihood as the only way to live. Fahrars aren’t training military, it’s creating strong bonds between cubs! Bonds stronger than blood! Nothing violent in training little kids in how to kill ogres. None at all.

You’re being too subjective. This comparison requires objectiveness.

skullfaerie.7203:

It’s not as if Dredge, Grawl and Jotun just stand around and get assaulted by malicious Norn xD

Actually, some do.

There’s a norn in Wayfarer Foothills who holds a vendetta against dredge for no reason and actively goes to give them pain and suffering. He has an event chain around him, where he creates nauseous gas by burning smelly flowers in a dredge mine, all to provoke them into fighting him.

I didn’t know that’s peaceful!

Oglaf.1074:

Only a few select Norn (like our player characters) choose the adventuring life.

I didn’t know that most of the norn population was “few.”

It’s actually the minority that enjoy more peaceful professions than going out and adventuring and making a legend by killing great foes. Yes, such norn do exist, but the more peaceful norn are far fewer than the fighting norn.

Gaudrath.6725:

There is no time travel in GW2.

You’re really stuck up on the example for comparison I made.

As I have said before to correct your misconception, it is not literal time travel.

For example, in Guild Wars 1, Prophecies takes place before Nightfall, however you can play Nightfall and then go play Prophecies, or you can play Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, and return to Prophecies.

It’s the same situation here – Queensdale takes place before Cursed Shore, but you can go back to play old content. And that’s all you’re doing – replaying old content, no different than if you were to do Arah story mode multiple times. Zhaitan isn’t coming back to life, you’re just replaying old content.

It’s not time travel. It’s not inconsistency. It’s not paradoxes. And it’s not storytelling.

It’s a game mechanic that allows you to replay events. No different than events that repeat, or how in Guild Wars 1 every year you can do the same old festival quests – unless you want to say that Hapless Chong dies every single year, or that Hai Len gets robbed by the same woman he just fell for every year, learning each and every year that he made a mistake.

Same concept, the only difference is that it’s an instanced world versus persistenced world.

No meeting your past self. No time travel. This isn’t Annihilator, it’s just a mechanic that allows you to replay old content. No different than how Assassin’s Creed has open play at the end of each game, allowing you to replay earlier parts of the game via the animus.

Son of Elias.5420:

I also don’t think Norn had a well developed writing system either. One of the discussions in Hoelbrak is about recording legends into books, and whether or not that’d be disrespectful.

The sole example of norn written alphabet

Writing legends rather than telling them is a rather different subject than having a written alphabet.

Curuniel.4830:

although I guess we have to assume there’s a common tongue

There is – to humans, it’s called Tyrian, to everyone else (or at least the Ecology of the Charr) it’s called human.

Son of Elias.5420:

Wait, do we know the Largos culture yet? I thought they were all mysterious still.

We don’t know much, but we do know plenty – especially if you do the Apatia storyline (the “causing others harm” fear) where you meet Sayeh.

Their society is based around hunter-killer, where the better your kills the higher societal status you have. They have apprenticeships (as seen via Master Sdias and his apprentice), and relish challenges much like the norn (Apatia uses this to convince Sayeh to help). They are honorable assassins, and when a debt is owed the two are considered linked until the payment is balanced (if you did Apatia’s storyline, you can tell Sayeh you owe her a debt for her help with Apatia and then the temple of Abaddon, where she says “You offer debt? I will take it. By the Concordat, we will be twined until our balance is made even once more.”).

Sayeh also mentions in the Apatia storyline the creed of the Tethyos Compact: track it, kill it, and bring proof. As well as explaining that the Tethyos Houses are the leading houses of the largos people, and the Concordat is a set agreement of principles the largos follows.

Slayrix.5789:

the concordant (which I am interested in seeing)

I don’t think you can see a set of principles. ^^

Son of Elias.5420:

Let’s have some dishonourable assassin cultures. You never see those anymore. It’s all rules and oaths and assassin guilds, where’s the dirty fighters who just murder people for money?

Lion’s Arch minus the Lionguard is this. More or less.

Even modern time unlike what Nike says.

It’s just pirates instead of assassins. But it’s still the same thing – a bunch of murderers.

Fighting the destroyers for 200 years since Primordus’ awakening, and the Elder Dragon has managed to send his minions up to at least six different places since (Brisban Wildlands, Kessex Hills, Lornar’s Pass, Timberline Falls, Mount Maelstrom, and wherever the Destroyer of Life was in Edge of Destiny – somewhere along the Tarnished Coast near Rata Sum).

Their numbers are sure to have dwindled, so there are likely few left. Especially if Primordus ever gets more attention on the surface.

In the second instance of The Source of Orr, when you return to Fort Trinity, Occam says “In the past few weeks, I’ve seen so much, learned so much.”

In other words, from Forging the Pact to The Source of Orr is a “few weeks.” So probably no more than 10 weeks (otherwise it’d be “few months”), but more likely to be 6-8, if not less.

So you’re wanting to say that the charr and norn were having simple skirmishes for roughly 800 to 1,000 years? I find that unlikely, to be honest.

The Movement of the World says those three things, true, but it also says this:

For nearly two hundred years, the eastern border of the Shiverpeaks has been stable. The Charr are allowed passage through Gunnar’s Hold, and the lower canyons where the Norn had spread.

In fact, during the Searing, the Norn allowed the Charr armies passage through the northern pass from Ascalon into Kryta, setting the stage for the Charr invasion of the central human lands. Although this was not a sign of any alliance, it set the stage for the two races to live within a watchful peace.

This outright states that peace lasted for 200 years after the skirmishes before a certain date, which by reading this would be 200 years prior to the Searing – or alternatively 200 years starting with the Searing (unlikely – to me it sounds like a second period of peace began with the Searing).

So if the norn and charr did meet during or prior to humanity moving into Ascalon, they were in skirmishes for 800-1,000 years if not longer.

If the charr had no other threats, but fought for 200 years prior to the Searing at the earliest, why wouldn’t they send a legion west to squash the (potential) threat and enemy?

The only alternative to this would be if there was nearly 200 years of peace, then skirmishes began again, until peace returned with passage being allowed during the Charr Invasion.

Charr didn’t have a written language – they had a series of ideograms with meanings.

Asuran language is a mixture of structured grammar and mathematics. It’s fairly difficult to understand, apparently, and is seemingly truly shocking when a bookah – I mean, non-asura knows how to read it.

Norn language is… unknown to us, but probably has multiple words for “hunt” (a Priory scholar norn complains that New Krytan can’t be universal because it only has one word for hunt).

Old Krytan used a confusing character set up, and only the most learned knew how to read it.

Ascalonian was easy to learn (its structure being like English) compared to the rest, and common enough that even if folks couldn’t read they could recognize what symbol orders represented. But Ascalonian being used by charr? Not very likely.

So they made a new language: taking the easiest to understand alphabet language (Ascalonian) with Krytan symbols.

Plus, in Tyria at the time, Ascalonian and Old Krytan were the most widely used alphabets, given at the time New Krytan was made, norn were still in the far north, and Asura were still brand new to the surface. New Krytan was established in 1105 AE by the way, only 27 years after the asura surfaced on Tyria.

Explorable zones are mechanics. Time progression via individual zones are mechanics.

Oglaf.1074:

You can’t compare the desire for individual Norns to forge their legend to the organized and large-scale warfare of the Human and Charr civilizations

But comparing the hostility of an individual norn to an individual human or sylvari, the norn wins in hostility.

skullfaerie.7203:

just because they’re a bit rowdy and like to brawl (and drink) doesn’t mean they’re not peaceful, nice guys xD

Actually, it kind of does. If one is violent, one is not peaceful. And norn get into brawls a lot – and brawls are violence.

I’m not saying that humans are peaceful (you’d kind of have to be an idiot to believe that, no offense to anyone) or that they’re worse than charr. Just that they’re not peaceful, per say.

Oreoz.2573:

He’s made up of other dragons

He looks like he’s made of other dragons.

Oreoz.2573:

when the others are whole

Matter of perspective. From what we’re told of Kralkatorrik, he himself is “more magical than physical” (using Glint’s wording) and he is capable of turning into a sandstorm. It may end up being that no Elder Dragon is “whole” but their body is merely a physical representation of their power and as all people know, energy cannot be destroyed (it just changes forms). Even in Guild Wars this seems to be the case.

Oreoz.2573:

Remember they’ve been awake before and for whatever reason the world wasn’t totally destroyed.

That’s like saying their goal is to destroy. But it doesn’t seem to be. Their goal seems to be to consume and twist until there’s nothing left to do so, where they’ll then go back to sleep to let the world regrow. As Glint says in Edge of Destiny, they consumed until the land was barren and there was nothing left to consume and then they went to sleep during the last awakening.

This is why so many Priory scholars believe they’re part of a cycle of destruction and rebirth of the world – that and jotun lore mentions several cycles of the Elder Dragons where life had to be renewed.

Oreoz.2573:

He’s magical to some degree, since it was his power the humans felt on Orr prior to the Cataclysm.

The Artesian Waters are magical in their own right, and they’re what seems to have drawn the Six Gods to Orr. Orr is just itself a magical land, regardless of the Elder Dragon who’s adding onto that magicalness.

It’s impossible to tell at 10:25 if he hits the ground or not and the tower appears to fall perpendicular to his body. As far as being able to see his corpse, I did some research and this thread on Guru was the best I could come up with, as they made those statements about being able to see it prior to release.

Listen. You hear a nice big “thud” sound. That’s Zhaitan’s body hitting the ground. And yeah, I was a bit wrong about the tower landing on him (though at that angle it looks like it should crush his head, personally, unless he twisted oddly just before hitting the ground) though rubble still lands on him. And yes, the seeing ZHaitan’s corpse in the explorable was pre-release info. I did a lot of digging since I didn’t hear about it being found in the explorable and I found old versions of the Arah map with a nice huge dragon drawn on it – modern maps lack said dragon – it seems that it was the original plan, using an older model of Zhaitan which looks just like the “dead dragon” seen in the first GW2 trailer – before he got remodeled to this, given the “dead dragon” looks a lot more like the earlier concept art of Zhaitan (and there’s still a big similarity with Zhaitan’s horns and a few other tidbits).

There’s even still a Point of Interest in Arah explorable possibly named after Zhaitan’s corpse named “Zhaitan’s Rest.”

And honestly, I could see it being obscure from all those who did the dungeon – I know very very very few folks who’re common posters in lore forums who have done Arah explorable. Let alone every path, looking at all the goodies to be seen.

Oreoz.2573:

I’m not sure why Zhaitan and Palawa would be rivals. “Rivals” implies that Joko is a match for Zhaitan and uh…well….one assumes that’s not the case.

Fine. Enemies. Be picky why don’t you!

If you want to get technical, Jennah saw a mass of dark clouds with lightning and felt a mind in it and tried to delve into it only for a backlash and realizing it was an Elder Dragon. So she doesn’t necessarily know what he looks like – only Destiny’s Edge truly does.

Also, what the Desert Gate Guards says is this:

“This gate serves as a barrier against the Crystal Desert. Letting you through would be condemning you to death. Dark events have befallen the desert.”
What dark events?
“Truth be told, we don’t know, exactly. We’ve only heard whispers. We’ve been unable to contact Elona since its last refugees fled the desert to Divinity’s Reach.”

He doesn’t mention a dark presence, but dark events – events that he doesn’t know (though he uses the word “we” he gives no context for what we means – it could just mean him and the other guard at the gate, or it may mean public knowledge or overall knowledge of Tyrians – I doubt the last), and furthers to say that since the last refugees, no one has been able to contact Elona since. Of course, he’s wrong – the Order of Whispers are in contact with Elona.

I went and edited the wiki, since I was the one who made the poor wording before.

The only places I could see seeing Zhaitan before hand making sense are the following:

Battle of Fort Trinity (you know that dragon champion? Why don’t we fight that thing? Always bugged me), overhead in any Orr explorable zone (and only overhead, possibly taking out some airships), or in Claw Island (makes the least sense, but that’s as far as I’d argue).

But in each case, there’s the question of why doesn’t he just wipe everyone out – every case it’s when the Pact are either not fortified, or when Zhaitan hasn’t been weakened yet by being partially blinded, partially starved, lessened in army power, lessened in magical resources, and having his corruption removed.

Of course that question still exists, but at least without seeing him you have an explanation: he’s not there to wipe you all out when he’s still powerful.

I wouldn’t say that the Deep Sea Dragon is limited to water – it just prefers living there. I’d say the same for any Elder Dragon – Jormag isn’t limited to the colder climates, he just prefers them (and would probably make warmer climates colder to suit his desires – and similarly, I bet the DSD would flood the world to suit his desires).

And I don’t think there’s a ground-based reactor keeping it in the sky – unless I’m missing something, there is no reactor, in fact.

Sylvari consider other sylvari to be more like distant relatives, rather than brothers and sisters – on average, at least. They don’t bother with surnames since they all have one mother, but how they generally view other sylvari would be similar to how you view a brother, spouse, cousin or third uncle once removed – all depending on who it is and how much you interact with that person. Though they don’t use those terms – only brother/sister, friend, or love®.

Twin sylvari exist when they are born from the same pod. Sylvari who meet in the Dream of Dreams just find themselves very close to each other, often viewing them as family or lovers.

As for death in the Dream of Dreams… hard to say, truth be told. We’re given no indications of such, but the tutorial does present itself as a threat.

Gaudrath.6725:

In fact, with such a ridiculous premise of spatial travel equating temporal travel you should be leaving infinite copies of yourself for every smallest possible section of space-time in your existence, like a really weird mouse trail.

At this point, what’s ridiculous is you and your argument. Too ridiculous to even bother arguing against.

Gaudrath.6725:

Not paradoxical at all. Say you roll a warrior fresh out of warrior school, are you going to immediately rush off to fight the biggest, baddest monster the world has ever seen (and die horribly) or listen to your trainer and go kill them rats for a while?

It is called character progression. You go from weak and inexperienced to strong and experienced, and tackle appropriate challenges along the way.

And that weak and inexperienced warrior exists at the same time as your strong and experienced warrior, using your desired world set up.

I don’t think good and evil is comparable to kindness/niceness and cruelty.

Thing with “good” and “evil” – and in fact, any form of morality, immorality, or amorality is purely societal based. The society decides what is “right” and what is “wrong” and thus how you react and act with those notions of “right” and “wrong” makes you moral (doing “right”), immoral (doing “wrong”), or amoral (not giving a kitten’s asterisk shaped butt).

However, cruelty or niceness is not subjective to this. If you’re hurting an individual, you’re being cruel – regardless of morals. And if you’re helping someone, you’re being nice, regardless of morals.

So are the Elder Dragons evil? Irrelevant. Are they cruel? Yes. Do they believe they’re being cruel or evil? Based off of Risen dialogue, no.

Edit:

I didn’t mean racial hatred (can there be such a thing even?) – but a cultural one.

Same concept, in this case. Given the whole norn race more or less has the same culture – well, the norn we know about.

Gaudrath.6725:

Perhaps hate is not the right word, but they sure do not love him. Nor I would say they are indifferent.

Neither would I, but that doesn’t mean they hate him.

I can want to fight someone without having a grudge against him. Maybe I just like to have a good challenge! Fighting can be a sport – and for all norn, fighting is a sport. One they risk their life on, daily.

And I fail to see how not hating an enemy is too “emotionally distant.”

Gaudrath.6725:

As for forcible corruption, I can present you with the ingame evidence from the personal Priory story arc where you go to help the quaggans in Dredgehaunt Cliffs. During the story arc it is made quite clear that:

1. Quaggans are being abducted
2. They are being either killed or corrupted in captivity
3. That this is performed by one of the more powerful liutentants of Jormag, in other words, Icebrood.

This alone should be proof enough that Jormag corrupts by guile AND force.

I haven’t done that story step, so I cannot argue it, but I want to state this first and foremost: it’s not tied to the order you chose. You can do that storyline with Vigil or Whispers. It’s your race that matters, the order just changes the mentor and some dialogues.

I do question though the origins of this icebrood and the means in which he corrupts. There are Sons of Svanir who turn into icebrood who retain their personality (becoming lieutentants and champions give the minion a degree of free will, though still fanatically following their dragon – for all dragons).

You know what Gaudrath, I’m tired of your relentless “it’s inconsistent! It’s paradoxical!”

If you hate GW2 so much, that’s fine. But do you really have to repeat yourself like a kitten broken record every post? You don’t. It’s not paradoxical nor inconsistent as EVERYONE ELSE has told you.

And as everyone will say: Zhaitan was defeated, but not necessarily killed. Like what ArenaNet does for everything, they left the door for Zhaitan open. They can later say “he’s dead” or they can say “that was only part of Zhaitan!” or they can say “Zhaitan was simply put back to sleep for this cycle of awakening.”

As for impersonal – I disagree, but this is a matter of opinion, just as slashing at a 1,000 foot dragon with a 3-5 foot sword is. This argument won’t end, so why do you keep it going by repeating yourself? This’ll be the second attempt to end it, and if you just repeat yourself, I’m not going to bother responding.

From here on out, I’m calling you Broken Gaudrath Record.