Honestly, when I first saw it, I thought that Tequatl the Sunless definitely looked more “pieced together” than an ancient being. Although you gotta wonder where he got bones that big to work with.
Bones is the easy part – though if you wanna get technical, Tequatl and the other Zhaitan dragon champions don’t show any bone sans teeth.
But seeing how the risen were on the borders of Elona, they could easily conscript those giant kitten bones that could be found across continental Tyria and Elona.
@Excelliate: “the other dragons have massive dragon champions that look like they were part of the same species before corruption”
The Shatterer was, by far, never a living being. It is hollow – completely so. It’s just animated stone, lightning, and ether. The Claw of Jormag by looks is just a skeleton encased in ice (very similar to the Dragonspawn, in fact).
Thus the only fleshy dragon champion that actually looks like a dragon other than Zhaitan’s champions would be Glint. And given how an ogre can be changed by Kralkatorrik to look like this I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to change, say, a drake into looking like Glint.
The only evidence of a draconic race in ancient continental Tyria lies in Bone Dragons, which lack of back body.
“No longer clamoring over the same territories, the unified Charr spread throughout the northern reaches of their homeland, and down into the lands east of the Shiverpeak Mountains.”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ecology_of_the_Charr
This line implies that they came from east of the Blazeridge, expanded north, then went west past the Blazeridge and back south into Ascalon (making an n shape in movement).
Given the rest of the Ecology of the Charr’s beginning about how primitive they were originally, I doubt they’re from space unless they’re space kittens who mutated thanks to magic. They are most likely just a naturally evolved race (perhaps with some magical aid).
@Narcemus: Given that the forgotten were around during the last ED rise, the claim that they were brought to the world by the Six is in large question, given that all indications point to the Six Gods coming after the Elder Dragons’ last rise.
The Kree Foothills might have been renamed into Borlis Pass – in the Factions manual, that’s where it says Aidan was born in.
Your very true it’s not necessarily canon, though its the only explanation we have about the River of Souls. The gw.dat provided many interesting explanations about locations we hadn’t heard about in the game itself, despite the locations very clearly still being there (e.g., Marga Coast is called such because it was where Margonites first settled on the shore in Elona; Heart of Abaddon is called such not just cuz Abaddon’s there but because its the deepest part of the Realm of Torment (think Dante’s inferno – lowest level basically, just no ice) and those waterfalls in the area? According to the gw.dat they’re liquid torment that’s been pouring on Abaddon for 1,000 years).
Obviously karka and their barrel rolling is too epic to be killed by some mere risen. /endsarcasm
Indications lead to the Southsun Cove’s creation and karka being fairly recent, so as Excelliate said they might have surfaced after Zhaitan’s death.
@Kerithlan: The High Priestess of Dwayna/Statue of Dwayna (NPC one that is) model was actually originally a risen female largos.
True, but why didn’t Zhaitan just send out all his champions at once? With no prior warning, it seems like he could’ve taken over all of Tyria in one move (and created plenty of minions in doing so). It seems like the champions must’ve been sleeping under Orr like he was, as there aren’t very many dragon corpses to raise in modern Tyria.
Of course, if Zhaitan was merely preparing or not fully awakened, it would make sense to keep his main force close for defense. Maybe the dragons hold back because they are being cautious of the other dragons, not because they’re worried about us.
I’d argue the cautious of other dragons point, personally.
Also, just because there’s no dragon corpses doesn’t mean that those champs were around during the last ED rise – firstly, there’s Bone Dragons so there’s draconic creatures that once lived in Tyria (said Bone Dragons origin is… Orr!). Secondly, Risen Abominations are created not from a single corpse but multiple corpses sewn together – the dragon champions of Zhaitan can be similar. So it’d take time to gether enough “materials” to make the dragon champions.
The same thing happened to someone over on Guru2 – it’s a graphics “bug” of sorts. Basically where some folks see them active while others do not.
Pfft, we all know that Isgarren’s true name is Grand Wizard Garren – the man who designed Central Plaza. And we all know Isgarren aka Garren’s other title is High Confessor of the White Mantle. He’s clearly brain washing those villagers and sending them to fight in the White Mantle-backed seemingly-unnaturally huge army of dissented citizens known as “bandits”.
They’re not being sacrificed or anything! Just brainwashed and put on the battlefield shouting “Queen Jennah’s going to destroy the nation!”
(note: no I am not serious)
I can believe the “chaotic thinking” while being intelligent. But also realize that these beings have lived through multiple cycles of waking and sleeping. They probably don’t consider us a threat. One of the tengu outright state that they’ve yet to make their move.
So I consider everything they’ve done to be in “preparation” and not “elimination.” Zhaitan’s just forced to do them both at once due to his minions coming from corpses – thus he eliminates in small doses to prepare before sending out larger waves like that which attacked Claw Island and the order HQs – the biggest threats and those attacks nearly succeeded.
So if you look at their actions/strategies as “they’re trying to kill us all” of course they’ll look like morons. But if you look at it as their just conscripting forces (which is what Jormag and Zhaitan seems to have been doing), then that’s less so.
I posted over on Guru2 about the distance between cycles. Given the line from Sieran and the knowledge of the Forgotten, I’d postulate that the previous rise was in 2,000 BE and a former one in 10,000 BE. This incidentally doesn’t contradict old lore and new statements regarding the Giganticus Lupicus – as pointed out over on Guru2, the timelines from the manuals and novels never said the G-Lupe (as some DP NPCs call them) went extinct around 10,000 BE but that they “disappeared” or “last walked” among continental Tyria at that time.
With this, I’d postulate that the Elder Dragons rising occur every 4,000 years (estimatedly of course) and take the span of 300 years for all six to awake (assuming there’s only six and they always take approximately 50 years to wake between each other). Combine this with Thruln the Lost’s dialogue in attempts to weed out the lies from the truth and I get this timeline:
Approx. 10,000 BE Timeframe – oldest known ED rise, Giganticus Lupicus forced out of continental Tyria but still alive – before, during, and/or after is the Age of Giants, where Jotun, G-Lupe, and possibly Ogres and Giants rule the world.
Approx. 6,000 BE Timeframe- second oldest known RD rise; Age of Giants comes to an end, only the jotun civilization remains keeping their own Age of Giants – other known AoG possibilities still live, but their civilizations (mostly) collapsed
Approx. 2,000 BE Timeframe – last ED rise before current; G-Lupe brought to extinction, seers mostly destroyed by mursaat, forgotten come to the world, dwarven civilization begins, mursaat flee the world, kodan suffer through the Great Storm.
Then from there the rest of the timeline. This is of course all poorly supported but does give, imo, likely answers to the course of events. Only question I have is whether the belief that the Six Gods brought the forgotten are true or not. If not true, then the Six Gods and humanity came to the world of Tyria somewhere between 1769 BE and 786 BE. If so, based off of the Orrian History Scrolls I’d imagine the situation was this:
In 1768 BE, Dwayna comes to Tyria looking for a new land for humanity and the Six; she sees the Elder Dragons and brings the forgotten to help combat them – the forgotten bring anti-corruption magic which frees Glint from the ED but there’s too much damage to fight back and win at that point (mursaat having already fled and magic entrapped into the Bloodstone) so they go into hiding. After the Elder Dragons go to sleep, Dwayna brings humanity to the southern continent(s) while the Six purge the Elder Dragon corruption – Balthazar “swept Orr with a cleansing flame” (and likely other lands) to burn the corruption away, then Melandru “made of Orr a green and flowering expanse”. Due to saving them, the dwarves recognized the gods and revered them – though the dwarves limited their reverence to Dwayna and, of course, the Great Dwarf – but added Grenth, the son of Dwayna, after he was born and made a god (oddly, the dwarves have a high population of worshipping Grenth and Dwayna, moreso Dwayna though the Reaper’s Gate temple of Grenth appears to be Dwarven in GW2’s remodeling, as well as that Brotherhood of the Dragon – this possibility explains where those, as well as Thruln’s lines of worshiping the Six, came from).
Though again, there’s very little to support this.
According to the gw.dat, the river of souls leads into an abyss – its purpose is, quite literally, to send souls into nothingness. I doubt it leading through the Realm of Torment is a design flaw of that if this held into release but simply didn’t get mentioned.
(Yup, the popular belief that came from no where about the River of Souls transporting souls is wrong according to the gw.dat).
Khilbron did not send the Titans to any Mursaat settlements that we know of through his portals.
And I would like to note that we don’t know where mursaat settlements are outside of the Ring of Fire. So that point is saying just about nothing.
My point on Pyre is that he would have had to live long enough to have had a kid for Kalla to be his decendent. Kind of the same as Jora had to have had a kid to have a decendent in the Vigil.
Unless Pyre had already had one and we didnt know about it which is perfectly possible.
Unless Pyre’s child had a kid at the age of 1, Pyre already had a child (Kalla’s parent) by the time of Eye of the North – this was my point about Pyre. Kalla was born in 1079 AE – one year after Eye of the North.
As such, Pyre could have died in late 1078 AE for all we know – though I doubt this.
Edge of Destiny shows that Kralkatorrik thinks (though one can argue it’s not a high intelligence, but it is independent thought for sure), and from Claw Island on there’s quite a bit about Zhaitan having strategies and emotions that were previously unknown. But it still seems to be fairly basic things sans how his knowledge is gained from those he corrupts (he knows everything his minions knew before corruption – and possibly learned since, on that I’m not 100% sure of). Given how selective Jormag is in how he makes (stronger) icebrood (he doesn’t just corrupt everything that he can unlike the others), I’d say he’s fairly intelligent too if not the most intelligent (given that his minions show to be the most intelligent overall too).
on the note of the empire of the dragon, I always just thought that it was probably established in the Year of the Dragon. And with this idea, we could have had the Empire of the Rabbit, which would have been pretty funny, imo.
Well, I dunno about year, but it was established in the Age of the Marmoset. Though I’d like to believe that the first CNY we had in GW1 occured the first spring after Shiro – e.g., 1073 (making 1073 the Year of the Pig); which would mean that the empire wasn’t founded during the Year of the Dragon (and that it was founded on Year of the Pig, no less).
Furthermore, the Celestial Dragon which is venerated during the Year of the Dragon was originally an empress (Tahmu) so I’d doubt she existed before the Empire of the Dragon.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
And yet most of the nations have sat there and done nothing towards ending the Elder Dragon threat until Guild Wars 2 begins. In fact, none of the nations actively contribute anything to the fight, it’s all the Orders.
That’s not entirely true nor their fault.
The humans have been too busy with the centaurs after the initial flood of Risen; the High Legions are preoccupied with ghosts, Flame Legion, formerly Ebonhawke and now the Dragonbrand; sylvari are new and have been proactive against the Elder Dragons for a while; norn are more or less in a civil war of Sons of Svanir vs. those just trying to live a legend and are not very united in the first place to really be a nation to fight an Elder Dragon. Only the asura have really had the chance to strike at an Elder Dragon but haven’t done so – probably partially due to themselves not being entirely united even if moreso than the norn (and also because they’re more intending to rule the world).
You should visit the Durmand Priory (the location) as a member and talk to the named NPCs there. Two of them mention how there are six Elder Dragons according to jotun stalea.
Stefan, died in the foefire and saddly his ghost now haunts Ascalon. He appears as an ememy in one of the Charr personal stories.
I wouldn’t be certain on this. Foefire ghosts are all blue, however at least during the BWE Stefan’s ghost was white(ish) – non-Foefire ghosts are white(ish), indicating that Stefan did not die in the Foefire.
Pyre is celebrated by the Charr for his rebellion against the Flame Legion. He lived at least long enough to have a kid though we dont know how he died.
Kalla was born in 1079 AE, so Pyre’s child (be it son or daughter that was Kalla’s parent) was already an adult by the time of Eye of the North.
Let me restate: There is no evidence or indications of a Titan living in the world of Tyria without being eons old or coming from the Realm of Torment.
That is to say, there’s no indications of “Some titans were not sealed away, and persisted hidden in Tyria.”
I was not disputing the possibility that some time in the ancient past they were never ever in Tyria, but rather that they did not remain there after some supposed past living on Tyria.
And I’d argue that given the Fury is a minion of Dhuum, that their origin comes from Dhuum – Dhuum was known to being a cruel and unjust god, so I think him twisting and tormenting souls in order to create titans is very befitting. That is assuming that they’re not able to be naturally formed, which I wouldn’t be surprised if they could.
Right – protecting Kralkatorrik is not the same as protecting him while he slept.
I would expect such too. However, how many volcanic citadels would one expect the Flame Legion to have? With the almost complete (if not complete) lack of Flame Legion on the east side of the Dragonbrand I’m inclined to say that Hrangmer is west of it (I would doubt they’d want to cross the Dragonbrand should Hrangmer remain their main fortress which one would suspect to be so given its historical significance).
The only reason why the Citadel of Flame wouldn’t be Hrangmer would be, besides the lack of denoting where the Plains of Golghein are, that its so far south – though this can be countered by the fact we don’t know how far north Ascalon went in ~870 AE. 200 years is more than enough time for humanity to push the charr far enough north to have an estate a few miles north of the Citadel of Flame (their reach didn’t go that much further north of it, iirc, based on The Flight North from GW1).
Actually, no. She says that she heard Kralkatorrik’s thoughts, and she says that she feared his awakening, but she also says that she lived in a dragon dominated world and was around before they went to sleep. Its never specified if she was created to defend him while he slept, if that was a task given when he went to sleep, or if she betrayed him before so.
Given the fact she hid the surviving races from the Elder Dragons, its most likely to me that she betrayed Kralkatorrik before he went to sleep. And besides, if she betrayed Kralk while he was asleep, how would he possibly know she did such right as he woke up? It could be that Glint evaded Kralkatorrik long enough to outlast him until his point of slumber, but since she stood and fought when he woke…
My point, however, remains firm with Kralk’s spine spear and blood, if not a little altered.
The comment that sparked this bit was:
My hunch is that the seeds Ronan found (which were guarded by “powerful plant creatures”) were drops of Mordy’s blood. Allowed to grow without his influence, the result was free from his corruption. While the Pale Tree has dreams, Mordy feeds on Nightmare. The Nightmare Court are his minions, even if they are unaware of it.
However, for this to be the case, the seeds that would be the blood would require to be corruptive in order to create minions. Even if one Elder Dragons’ blood is corruptive, another’s is not. And even then, neithers’ blood grows into a dragon champion on its own (though one does create minions it does not become minions) – let alone without the Elder Dragon’s influence.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Nothing says Glint’s purpose was to protect Kralkatorrik while he slept.
Drax, I believe we were told the Plains of Golghein are northwest of Rin. It’s at the very least definitely on the northern side of it (regardless of how east or west one must go first).
With the exception of the tentacles, the thing always looked like those large Leviathans to me.
Rytlock held onto the spear made of Kralk’s spine for a fairly long time – long enough for Kralkatorrik to fly south and the whole battle to go through. But even then, Destiny’s Edge also used Kralkatorrik’s blood to amplify their power (particularly Snaff’s) and Caithe’s been collecting some in the Dragonbrand afterwards too.
I really cannot agree with the tooth corrupting norn in Hoelbrak. That would mean that our own characters who are norn are corrupted, even if minorly. And one would think that considering the tooth is huge, that it’d corrupt faster than the sword.
Titans are formed by tormented souls. The seers don’t really seem to be tied to this concept – however, the mursaat are, as is Dhuum. I’d imagine the titans, if not naturally formed from horrid afterlives, originates with the mursaat or Dhuum rather than the seers. In modern times of GW1, they were made by the Fury, a powerful minion of Dhuum.
The Foundry of Failed Creations, despite common belief, is not directly related to titans being made. There is no “production facility” – they’re just made by tormenting souls, and the Foundry of Failed Creations was the Fury’s staging place to invade Tyria (via the Door of Komalie). Fun fact: The Foundry of Failed Creations is not named such because of the titans, but because of the Fury – it is literally “what the world would be like if demons stitched together a number of failed realities to create a home for themselves.”
Two links on the Foundry of Failed Creation’s lore:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Relkyss_the_Broken
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aurus_Trevess
There is no indication of a titan living in Tyria prior to when the charr encountered them.
The Scepter of Orr controls ether and in turn spirits, this is how it controls titans. The Staff of the Mists wouldn’t affect titans in the same means considering it affects the physical world.
Khilbron’s role was to sink Orr and later open the Door of Komalie so that the titans could invade Tyria.
The Margonite’s search for the Staff of the Mists holds no known relation to the titans. It’s a powerful artifact that could have turned the tide of the war, of course they’d search for it.
She never said anything about families. She just said “their loss, their agony” – which “their” likely refers to those she killed and their brothers-in-arms.
It could be the same place, but it’s not really certain. Both are (in) a volcanic mountain (ergo, volcano), and both are/have a citadel within/built into said volcano. But we don’t know where the Plains of Golghein are and Hrangmer is northeast of those plains which in turn should be northeast of Rin. Given that Fireheart Rise is north of Rin, not northeast, Hrangmer may be east of the Citadel of Flame.
@Mercury: I would like your sources for the following claims:
1) That Hrangmer isn’t on the map.
2) That Ash Legion took Flame Legion lands.
Because we were never told the exact location of Hrangmer, so how can you be so certain that it shouldn’t be on the map? And furthermore, we don’t know what was officially “Flame Legion lands” nor do we know where Ash Legion lands are. Iron Legion took over Ascalon, and Blood Legion holds lands to the north (formerly “Charr Homelands” in GW1) and to the east of the Blazeridge Mountains.
We were however told that the Flame Legion fled to Hrangmer’s citadel after their loss in the Plains of Golghein, and we were similarly told they then retreated into the Blazeridge Mountains when they lost power – the two can be in the same location. So it’s likely that Hrangmer is along the border of the Blazeridge, which would imply east of the Flame Citadel, but it’s not entirely certain where the Blazeridge Mountains’ edges are either (and seeing how they seem to make an effective backwards C shape…).
Element compounds can naturally exist in the ground, so it wouldn’t be so far fetched to believe a copper-gold alloy can naturally form (though I now wonder what kind of combination of Cu and Au would make Oricalchum – Cu2Au? CuAu? CuAu2?).
Another peculiarity to me comes from Historian Angelina of the Priory:
“Early pre-imperial era? What? That can’t…oh, I’m sorry. Did you need something?”
“That can’t” … what? For reference (and avoiding the wiki page), she’s researching the Elder Dragons too – obviously in relation to Cantha. The only thing I can think of from “that can’t” is “that can’t be right” given the wording. The interesting bit about this is “Early pre-imperial era” – the only year we have in correlation to this era is 10,000 BE. If that can’t be right, why not? And if it’s not “right” that should finish her interrupted thoughts, what is? The rest of her dialogue, when talking to characters of the Priory, is about the Elder Dragons going through cycles – so as this stands, I can only assume she’s stumbling upon a second previous cycle of the Elder Dragons. That, or a Canthan Elder Dragon.
As things stand given the above lines, I’m inclined to believe the following:
This situation also explains how we can find so many records of the Elder Dragons. Sure, they’re hard to find, but what’s being discovered are engraved stones and parchment that’s all still legible – that stuff I find unlikely to last and be readable after 11,000 years (particularly the later) without some sort of protection.
(P.S., why does the message limit have to be so small?)
Since 2007, thanks to The Movement of the World, most folks interested in lore have been more or less believing the Elder Dragons’ last time being awake was around 10,000 BE – the date given to the approximate extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus. This assumption is because ever since said article, the Durmand Priory (note: The Movement of the World was, from a lore standpoint, written by a member of the Durmand Priory) has been leading us all to believe that their last rise was during the Giganticus Lupicus’ extinction.
In going through my alt characters earlier today… well, yesterday now seeing its nearly 2 am, I came across an interesting line in the Durmand Priory personal storyline Bad Blood:
<Character name>: Look at this place! It must be tremendously old. Centuries, even.
Magister Sieran: Older than that. The dwarven civilization lasted for more than two thousand years, and this might be one of their first structures.
As many, if not all, lore delvers know by now, the dwarves were among the five sentient races to face and survive the Elder Dragons during their last rise. If this last rise truly did occur in 10,000 BE, then Sieran’s statement feels grossly out of place. Sieran’s a bit exccentric, but she’s no idiot, so she’d know how old dwarven civilization lasted – and seeing how it ended in 1078 AE, 2,000 years prior would be 922 BE. That’s nearly 9,000 years off from what we’ve been told to be the case by the Priory. So why “two thousand years” and not “ten thousand years” – two letter difference ends up making a huge gap in dates.
Given that the dwarves had tools, organization, and writing back during the last Elder Dragon rise it’s unlikely they didn’t have civilization then. This leads to four likely possibilities in my opinion:
Right off the bat, I suspect 3 or 4 to be correct. I have other lines of interest to bring up. From the timeline we’re given a very interesting date that’s similarly peculiar with regards to the Elder Dragons’ last rise:
1769 BE The Forgotten arrive in Tyria.
Originally, we were told that the forgotten were brought to the world by the Six Gods. And we were given this date, supposedly in relation to this notion. However, in GW2 we learn that the forgotten were among the five races that fought the Elder Dragons during their last rise. This placed a shadow of doubt on that original claim (and I myself began wondering if it were the other way around given the forgotten’s devoutness to the Six Gods) – but nothing ever stated that the forgotten weren’t brought to Tyria by the Six Gods either.
Given that we’re told dwarven civilization lasted “over 2,000 years” but not “over 3,000 years” and this date so nicely fits within that very same timeframe that the dwarven civilization would have begun, perhaps there’s still truth to the old claim and timeline date.
Of course, this would imply the Six Gods and even humanity were around during the Elder Dragons’ last rise. This both does and does not make sense. If one were to assume the Elder Dragons are limited to and around continental Tyria – that there truly were only six Elder Dragons and they all remained mostly around the main continent, the Six Gods could have came to the world and brought the forgotten and humans there and while the humans were away from the conflict, the forgotten (and possibly the Six Gods though I find it unlikely) were in conflict with the Elder Dragons. If this is so, then it may explain why there’s a Giganticus Lupicus acting as a Temple Guard in Arah if their extinction wasn’t in 10,000 BE but rather closer to ~1,600 BE and the gods were present during this time.
(more next post)
I’d imagine that the Inquest would want to use magic-conductive metals in their weapons – which we know includes copper and gold at the very least (though copper less so – I would imagine oricalchum would as well, as an inbetween of the two metals, both in conductivity and in strength).
I would also imagine that they’d use a multitude of materials, in order to properly direct said magic (don’t want to go zapping your own hand do you).
Gold […] could be made into copper-gold alloy […] and orichalcum could be great conductors for energy for all we know.
You should probably wiki what Orichalcum is.
Hint: It is (or rather, can be interpreted as – it’s never really clear in the ancient folklore and texts apparently) a copper-gold alloy.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
That’s not entirely true. Norn necromancers, ritualists, and mesmers call upon Raven, who also governs souls of the dead.
Grenth is the god of death and ruler of the Underworld, true, but he’s not the end-all-be-all of magic. Just of judging souls. And even then, we’re not sure if he judges all souls.
The gods do not control magic, but they do hold influence over it (what with the blessings as seen in GW1). Dwayna doesn’t power guardians only because the Six Gods are silent – thus their blessings no longer reach Tyria (well, except human racial skills), but the roots of Guardians (Monks and Paragons) were able to be blessed by Dwayna.
And it’s got nothing about “now” for necromancy being “just another type of magic” – rather, the types are Preservation, Aggression, Denial, and Destruction – as it has been since 1 BE (on the world of Tyria that is). Its the same in GW2 as in GW1.
Bottom line: the gods were never the “ultimate source” of magic or professions – they’re just tied to the professions. The Six Gods do, however, rule over some of the afterlives in the Mists – the Underworld where souls seem to go by default included.
I don’t know where you get that “anywhere on Tyria” bit – she only states “I can hear the thoughts of creatures. I am an oracle. I heard their plots against my master, stopped them before they reached him, killed them in their tracks. But I also felt their loss, their agony. It grieved me.”
Hardly “anywhere on Tyria” – probably has quite some distance to it, but I doubt it’s too far.
And Glint doesn’t control or direct the titans – that’s the whole point of the Titan Quests in GW1. They presented a larger threat than she anticipated/foresaw, and to prevent them from destroying civilizations had the PCs go after them.
And the only lying Glint’s done is in her origin, not in her powers.
I see no need for retcon, and I don’t see why he’s the “single most important” element either. Please explain why you believe this, otherwise there’s not much more to discuss.
There’s a couple possibilities for why the mursaat were wiped out.
Firstly, just because the Flameseeker Prophecies foretold it. Do take note that the players took out most of the known mursaat, the titans under Khilbron just cleaned up the mess. Khilbron was very much into the prophecies and becoming the Flameseeker to obtain an army to take over Tyria – because of this he may simply felt it best to follow the Prophecies to the t and wipe out the mursaat as foretold.
Secondly, Khilbron may have had a personal vendetta against them – in The Vizier’s Tower poi/jumping puzzle in Straits of Devastation, one can find a Broken Mursaat Statue – the text of which indicates Khilbron struck it with a sword in anger.
Thirdly, in Hell’s Precipice the Ancient Seer tells us “Over the eons, much has changed in Tyria. But not these Titans.” and are unchanged; in the Realm of Torment several Forgotten Wardens which give a bounty on killing titans tell us “Titans, ancient creatures dating back nearly as far as my own kind […]” – given that we know the forgotten and seers were both around during the last Elder Dragon rise, this may imply that the titans too were around Tyria at the time. Given this, there might have been a past rivalry between titans and the other races (particularly mursaat, forgotten, and seer).
As I was told in-game earlier, yes; and I’m going through that storyline now in fact. But the point remains that Kralkatorrik’s blood (or the spear made from his spine) does not corrupt, nor does Jormag’s tooth. I suspect the Sanguigary Blade is slightly unique in its corruptive abilities – that or Jormag’s blood is.
-snip-
A few issues with your hypothesis:
Firstly, dragon minions become mindless without an intelligent enough being to guide them. The level of dragon minion intelligence depends solely/primarily on the amount of magic given into said minion when corrupted. All champions – the most intelligent of dragon minions – are said to be hand-picked by Elder Dragons (and this in fact makes sense given an Elder Dragon has to proactively give champions more corruption and in turn magic and intelligence).
The reason why the destroyers in EotN were able to continue creating new ones was because Primordus was still seeping energies and the Great Destroyer was present to direct those energies and the smaller minions – with the Great Destroyer gone, the minions became mindless killing machines (little different than how risen act without being guided by a champion – mindless zerging).
Assuming the hypothesis that the Pale Tree is an Elder Dragon minion holds water, if that Elder Dragon is dead then the Pale Tree had to exist since it was alive – it could not be made prior to the Elder Dragon’s death. Furthermore, it would have a limited supply of creating new minions, as the corruptive magic of the Elder Dragon would similarly be no longer produced and thus finite.
Herein lies the issue: the Pale Tree is not old enough to have been around during the last Elder Dragon lies – therefore, for your hypothesis to hold water the sixth Elder Dragon had to have been killed since the seed was made. Furthermore, in order for so many sylvari to exist there has to have been a huge amount of pre-existing dragon magic from the sixth, which would mean that the dragons’ minions would have been creating much longer than before or otherwise be influencing the area (just as Drakkar influenced his environment).
The only dragon minions who are not mindless have shown to be either powerful (ergo given more magic) or Sons of Svanir (and even then, it’s always the more powerful ones). And as we all know, regardless of strength no sylvari is mindless.
The second issue is the Pale Tree’s mentality. All dragon minions are devout to their respective dragon, even with that dragon’s death as shown by the risen in Arah explorable mode, the minions’ actions do not change. They still believe Zhaitan is alive and active. So either we didn’t kill Zhaitan (unlikely, imo), or the champions do not change at all. Ergo, the Pale Tree would not be “lacking purpose” and thus would not “latch onto” the Ventari Tablet.
The third issue is your presumption of the Dream of Dreams. You make the relation to Zhaitan’s – and in fact all dragons’ – connection to the minions. Issue is we don’t know how that connection functions other than minds being directly and immediately linked – which based on this (such a description given to us in an interview explaining why the icebrood turned on the Dragonspawn in Edge of Destiny), the connection between Elder Dragon and minions is not the same as the Dream of Dreams, which is an aetheric location rather than solely a mental tie (e.g., ED and their minions are hive minds). But that’s not the only issue, you forget that this connection between dragon and minions is one-way and only between dragon and minion. The Dream of Dreams is accessible to all through aid, and without aid, to at least the White Stag which is very much not plant and therefore is not the same as the Pale Tree.
Another issue with the Dream of Dreams lies in Malyck, a sylvari not from the Pale Tree and without a Dream of Dreams experience. If the Dream of Dreams was the tie between minions and Elder Dragon, then even if from a different champion Malyck should be tied to that same connection. Yet he is not.
-snip-
His indications to me imply his tree is in the Magus Falls – in what was previously (read: in GW1) The Falls or western Tangle Root (or the space in-between). He says that his tree is on the western bank of the river – this river referring to the one his pod is found near in Brisban Wildlands, though that river itself doesn’t head far west as it but the map does show the continuation of the river, with some portions seeming to go underground, leading south into Metrica Province and then west into the unexplored areas ending in what should be the above mentioned The Falls or Tangle Root.
I for one greatly disagree; I concur with the notion the Nightmare Court may be related to the sixth Elder Dragon (who’s name I believe is Mordremoth – see the last link above), however I cannot see the Pale Tree and the sylvari race as a whole tied to it. Furthermore, all indications we have is that the sixth Elder Dragon is, like the other five, hostile and bent on destruction not rejuvenating Tyria.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
@Riselight: Given the nature of the attack, and the relation of Alpha’s attacks to the second-to-last legendary in each path, I cannot see the skill Teeth of Mordremoth which is made of rock, be related to the deep sea dragon, whom we know twists water into tentacles. There’s no correlation, and Mordremoth’s name can have many origins – as brought up in this thread already, it meaning “bite” in one language and being similar to Morde (murders in German).
The binary code translates into “End Transmission Sequence.”
“Your theory” on Mordremoth’s relation to the sylvari is exactly what I’m hoping to disprove. If the sylvari were minions of Mordremoth, then we’d have historical records of them just as we do destroyers. Or at the very least, their unaffected nature should be “mindless and destructive” – but that’s not the case, even for sylvari not from the Pale Tree (Malyck).
Another flaw in your post is that dragon minions are always connected in mind to their respective Elder Dragon there’d be no need for “someone had to learn the Pale Tree how to treat its minions”.
The concept that the Pale Tree is a dragon champion is all too common and, just like the attempts to relate the six Elder Dragons to the Six Gods one to one, is extremely flawed and only works when you ignore or fix information to fit the hypothesis.
@Fildydarie: Issue is, while dragon blood is highly potent in magic conductivity, all evidence (which mind you is just Kralkatorrik’s and Jormag’s blood) shows that they cannot corrupt (well, this is supposedly – I actually haven’t done the DP storyline dealing with the Sanguigary Blade in full yet) nor cause the creation of minions.
Eh, people often take my writing as offensive, arrogant, or otherwise egotistical when I don’t tend to be so if he took it like that no biggie.
If I “argue about any little thing” then it’s not just to argue (though I admit I love debates, something like this is not the kind of debate I enjoy – rather, I prefer theorycrafting debates), but rather to make sure information that’s spread is as truthful as possible. If I’ve changed, then it’s because I’ve seen how easily in lore communities an assumption or misremembrance gets told as fact and how that “fact” get spread around like wild-fire. For example, take the skill challenge from Zone Green – because WoodenPotatoes made a video mentioning that the binary code translates into “Pale Tree” the whole “Pale Tree is an Elder Dragon” hypothesis spread like wildfire – but WP was wrong in that regard, yet there are still folks, afaik, who believes he was correct there.
And for the record, I’m making this post not to have the last word, but in defense of self.
(Side note: yes, I’m in err of making statements of misremembrance when debating too)
I don’t recall any mention from Trahearne about his minions coming from the Mists…
Anyways, all lore shows that necromancy still creates typical undead. All NPC necromancer sans Trahearne during one personal story step (actually, perhaps not even sans that as there were bodies there too) that I’ve seen only create minions when recent deaths or corpses are, in script, nearby – take Aria in Kessex Hills, who creates a small army of Flesh Golems from the bodies of Daithor’s experiments.
So PC minions are likely just a mechanical thing for coming out of the ground/that black hole thingie. Most likely because, well, you can really make minion mastery a reliable skill build if you have to summon minions after a death, and it would break the whole “the PCs never die” if its allowed to from revivable NPCs or PCs. But mechanically, the PCs/NPCs do die in the same sense as an actual death of other NPCs.
@WoA: Kurzicks aren’t so much as pale as “wearing face paint” – unless you’re going to call "these"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisha pale asians.
@rocky: I wouldn’t associate the chains with him, as those seem to me to be made by the cultists, not the colossus.
But thinking on it, the Season of the Colossus does indicate to us that there are colossi in Tyria. This may be what they look like. If so, I would predict this is southern Cantha should the comment from Jeff Grubb about how humanity “may” come from further south than Cantha may be true – it would be most likely where the season names’ origins are from (scion is mentioned by largos, so it is likely tied to the Unending Ocean; we see phoenixes in Cantha; and Zephyrs are just weak winds by definition; colossus has to come from somewhere).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
All of those come from an original concept art which is layered, said layers are animated individually by those who make the cinematics. I suggest watching this video before talking about it like you know it.
This is the original concept art in its standard state: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/1/10/Eir_06_concept_art.jpeg
They didn’t take the image from the cinematic, they made the cinematic from the image by moving those layers about. You have the process reversed.
That’s what I said. However, he names himself as Turai Ossa and the defeater of Joko in Amnoon Oasis, and that dialogue was present from release.
Misread your post as saying that it was Ghostly Hero but is now Turai Ossa.
I never quite understood why the “pale tree is an elder dragon” theory was popular, since it sounded so ridiculous… To me it was like saying Queen Jennah is Zhaitan’s undead mesmer agent.
Pfft, Jennah is clearly corrupted by Kralkatorrik, the corruption happened when she tried looking in his mind.
The few mursaat in EotN were a fanserving retcon as they were actually implied to be extinct after the Titan quests.
[…]
You also don’t seem to understand how adding Elona was a retcon to existing content, not a forward hint starting from Prophecies. […] The Ghostly Hero was never implied to be Turai Ossa until he was affirmed so in the Nightfall booklets.
[…]
The Great Destroyer in EotN, again, was a retcon and a very bad one to boot.
[…]
Most of the things you mention are retcons, and were never red herrings.
Again, those aren’t retcons. Retcons is when old content is changed. Turai always referred to himself as Turai Ossa; while it was implied the mursaat were extinct, it was never explicitly stated either – just that Khilbron had the titans hunting down the remaining mursaat. Continuations and elaborations of old lines is not retcons.
A.net is pretty good at retconning these open doors, but there’s plenty that were never addressed and will never be addressed. […] I surely wouldn’t directly link it to an implied dead 6th dragon, but that’s just because there’s a hundred other open plotlines.
Firstly, see my above reasonings for why these are not retcons. Stop misusing the word please.
Secondly, nothing implies the sixth Elder Dragon is dead and in fact given the Inquest its implied its still alive, but not yet awake. There’s a big difference between “dead” and “sleeping.”
Maybe Mordremoth is simply the real name of the Deep Sea Dragon…
There’s nothing related to water or the DSD in the dungeon, however. So there’s nothing relating the skill name of Mordremoth to the DSD.
I don’t think Mordremoth is tied to the Echovald. My deduction for this comes from jotun history and Inquest research – both giving our six Elder Dragons. The jotun to our knowledge never left continental Tyria and, for that matter, the Shiverpeak Mountains – in turn, this means that their knowledge of Elder Dragons is limited to their surroundings (and potentially those of the four other races). Similarly, the Inquest have no known means to leave continental Tyria, and their only recently gotten their hands on a DSD minion and Zone Blue is under construction, thus showing/implying it is the Elder Dragon or minion they know the least of. From this I would argue that the DSD is the furthest away from continental Tyria of the six (and that there may be more unknown to the ancient jotun or modern Inquest outside contact with continental Tyria).
Combine this with Mordremoth’s (potential, given this is all theoretical) influence over the sylvari and other places in Caledon Forest, I’m inclined to argue Mordremoth is somewhere in the Maguuma Jungle – be it the Maguuma Wastes, Tarnished Coast, or Magus Falls.
On the whole “different earth” thing – destroyers are said in EN to have “skin as black and as hard as obsidian”, and crystal is also a form of earth, so it wouldn’t be surprise me if there’s metal (Primordus), gem (Kralkatorrik), and soil (Mordremoth) in regards to Elder Dragons being tied to earth – but with the exception of Kralkatorrik, they’re not solely tied to earth, but rather it’s an addendum to their element.
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