Guild Wars 2

I wasn’t talking about the actual dragons, though I would count those, but those that become more heavily twisted – some of them turn to having more draconic features.

Primary samples would be Risen Knights (the champion risen knights are the worst enemies in the game hands down – they hit hard and take a huge beating) and Mordrem Dark Wings (while the three bosses with that model aren’t the toughest, they’re all powerful and apparently higher ranked minions both mechanically and in lore). There’s less obvious ones – I’d count the Eyes and Mouths of Zhaitan and Dragonspawn among them – as well.

As an aside, Shatterer and Claws of Jormag don’t reform. They’re replaced. Tequatl survived the fights, and just recovered before striking again – and Tequatl was only significantly stronger after Zhaitan’s death. Before hand, it probably would have fallen to an airship equipped with anti-risen canons just like the others (and if you note, only one airship took down multiple dragons – the one with the Pact Commander and Destiny’s Edge; those across Orr are actually destroyed by dragons, and the others in Arah are with no clear indication of losses on either side).

And while oddly shaped, Primordus had a dragon – or rather several, though only one survived to GW1’s time, which was its greatest champion(s).

They said Beyond was canceled indefinitely shortly after GW2’s release. Sadly. The original post was removed when they super-simplified guildwars.com, but here’s a wayback machine archive of it

Maybe we can get it as a novel? -nudgenudgeScott-

PerfectThrill.8652:

Is there any way you could tell us if we will ever get to see Cantha or Elona again? I wish to sail the Jade Sea….#sadface

He outright stated he cannot confirm nor deny any possible future plots.

PerfectThrill.8652:

This here doesn’t have to reflect your answer, but I have been speculating that we might get to see our fellow Canthans after the defeat of Primorus, as the Asura Gates connecting them go through his territory. It would be awesome to find and fight alongside the remaining of the stone dwarves in their battle against the Great Destroyer and other minions of Primordus.

There is no asura gate leading to Cantha in his territory. If you refer to the EotN starter quest, that asura gate is under Lion’s Arch – there’s no real canonical evidence to suggest there’s one under Kamadan or Kaineng City. Those two quests were there more to let players with only the one campaign to go to EotN content than as a canon lore, much like the quests to go from Cantha to Tyria, or from Elona to Tyria/Cantha, since the previous plots were done in lore already.

TealDeer.4217:

I can answer this.

-snip-

We see risen in northern Ascalon, the northern Shiverpeaks, etc. We see mordrem in Ascalon. We see icebrood near Mount Maelstrom and Metrica. None of them act any different than other risen, mordrem, and icebrood.

Distance is irrelevant, and the sylvari are far closer to Mordremoth than the Iron Marches or Diessa Plateau mordrem assaults were – let alone those in Kessex or Timberline.

One thing you’ve seem to mistake is that you’re confusing Mordrem Guard for regular dragon minions. but this isn’t so – and that very achievement you sited is the proof for it. No other case of dragon minions beyond Mordrem Guard are capable of resisting their dragon’s call and will. They don’t even want to. Corruption is not just brainwashing, it’s an overwriting of will. And distance does not affect the core of one’s desires.

Furthermore, Ventari had no special magic of his own, certainly nothing that would even come close to mimicking what the Forgotten did to Glint without sheer folly, and there’s no mention of him working magic on the seed – and even if he did, there’s nothing to explain Malyck and his tree.

And I fail to see why you even bother linking the Henge of Denravi and the Maguuma bloodstone when they’re nowhere close to the Pale Tree. (And no, Bloodstones don’t cut things off from magic, they store magic).

And Ventari’s Tablet is just a chiseled stone. I don’t know why folks are convinced its magical – it’s not. It’s nothing more than the tablets the tale of Gilgamesh was found on. It’s chiseled stone. It was carved and placed at the Pale Tree, never leaving that area. Certainly was never taken to a ley-line hub or a magical springs (come on, think logically – why the hell would Ventari take a stone tablet and dip it in water? And how could he think to take it to a ley-line hub when ley lines weren’t even discovered yet?).

Malyck’s existence is downright proof that whatever freed the Pale Tree also freed the rest of the seeds. Because you can’t just free dragon minions with the power of love and friendship. Grimm Svaard tried to do that when his brother Bronn was turned into a risen, and got a chunk of flesh torn out in turn.

TealDeer.4217:

… Except Sylvari DO have a hive mind.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dream_of_Dreams

No, the Dream of Dreams is NOT a hive mind. Ghosts of Ascalon, page 120. “It isn’t mind-reading,” said Killeen, “and we aren’t all connected into one big mass mind.”

I think a sylvari knows what she’s talking about, and she outright states it isn’t a hive mind.

Furthermore, it isn’t even a connection between all mordrem/sylvari, despite your claim! Malyck has no tie to the Dream of Dreams. Yet the White Stag – clearly not a mordrem/sylvari – does have a connection to the Dream of Dreams. Only three individuals has direct ties to the Dream of Dreams – Mordremoth, the White Stag, and the Pale Tree. However, the Dream of Dream can be extended to the Pale Tree’s sylvari, as well as others the Pale Tree and Mordremoth (per Hearts and Minds, though this was hijacked by Trahearne here) chooses – we do not know why or how though.

Malyck’s lack of a Dream outright proves it is not the typical dragon minion hive mind.

By all accounts, the Dream is nothing like the hive mind of dragon minions. The dragon minion hive mind is not something you can just cut off by sheer willpower like the Soundless do – if that was, then we’d be able to talk risen into not being bad. But we see how that works in Sea of Sorrrows (spoilers: it doesn’t).

So as I said, it’s a lore contradiction.

So please, don’t insult me by claiming stuff when you’ve not done your research properly. I’ve done mine – I wouldn’t have asked without looking into it all myself first. And what you claimed are very common false conclusions that I’ve been told, and countered, time and time again ever since the sylvari=dragon minion theory began. I’ve always found that theory silly because of the continuous contradictions and lack of explanations which still exist.

The Dream isn’t a hive mind, we know this because the sylvari tell us it isn’t a hive mind. And they, out of anyone, would know.

Sylvari aren’t freed from dragon corruption because of the tablet or distance because we see dragon minions who remain unchanged despite distance from their dragons or individuals trying to reason with them with morals or friendship.

Sylvari are a dragon minion anomaly, and this has yet to be answered. Heart of Thorns was the time to answer it. That time has come and gone. So it’s time to get it answered.

Tai Kratos.3247:

So early descriptions of the Elder Dragon’s depicted them as ‘forces of nature.’ The Wiki says that their consumption of magic “isn’t their goal or intention” and is simply a side effect of how they function.

I’ll just start by saying this:

The whole “forces of nature” has almost always been told to us to be “the Tyrian’s perspective” when talked about in interviews pre-release. This was a pretty heavy indication right off the bat that they quite simple aren’t forces of nature, but to the ignorant of their true nature, they seem to be.

We’ve learned quite a bit since the release of the game and when all those ‘forces of nature’ comments were abound, and while we’ve seen such comments even after Zhaitan’s death these were from common (or not-so-common) civilians – never those who study or combat the Elder Dragons (in)directly.

One such example of what we’ve learned that proves they’re not a force of nature is that originally we were given the impression that their corruption was a mere side-effect of their presence – the creation of the Dragonbrand, for example, was originally stated to have just “happened” to the land that passed under Kralkatorrik’s shadow – as if Kralkatorrik wasn’t intentionally corrupting the land, but that merely all it touches became twisted. Kind of like the story of Midas, who turned anything he touched to gold whether he wanted it to or not. But then in Edge of Destiny we learned that he proactively breathed on that land with golden fire, and it was that breath that twisted it – and that he turned this corruption mechanism on and off during the fight with Destiny’s Edge/Glint, and fled that bottom end of the Dragonbrand without making more of it.

Another of the things we’ve learned is that as they consume magic, they’re proactively doing other things via their minions. If their only goal was to balance magic, then there would be no need to do it from extremes or with hostile actions.

Tai Kratos.3247:

I really think this ought to change in the future. Having the dragon’s spitefully interested in the destruction of the world already goes against the lore that was established for them. But it’s too late to fix that.

This is where the term “subjective knowledge” comes into play.

Your claim of pre-established lore was an intentional false establishment. Like when you’re introduced to a character who seems to be a villain, acts villainously, but we later find is just a spy.

The Elder Dragons were never meant to be non-malicious, and we’ve known this before release – with the release of Edge of Destiny. That novel explicitly calls Kralkatorrik and Jormag out, directly, as being malicious. As well as every dragon champion introduced there.

Tai Kratos.3247:

Zhaitan and Mordremoth were basically the same person, just with different powers. Variety would be nice.

Going to have to WAY disagree here.

Each Elder Dragon shows to have its own unique personality – either directly like Jormag, Kralkatorrik, and Mordremoth – or through their minions – like Zhaitan, Primordus, Jormag, and Mordremoth.

And Zhaitan and Mordremoth’s personalities, methods of attack, etc. are very different. Yes, many risen (especially the more proactive champions like the Eyes and Mouths) all had deep resonating voices and so did Mordremoth, but not most of the mordrem (in fact, the champions either didn’t talk or had a variety of voices – the three commanders + Faolain specifically).

To summarize what I believe the two Elder Dragon’s personalities and goals are:

Zhaitan

Some lines that I feel are indicative of Zhaitan’s persoanlity:

Captain Whiting during Sea of Sorrows states: “The rule of the living has ended. This is the time of the Elder Dragons. Thus begins the time of Zhaitan and of Orr. The day of their ultimate victory is close.”

Bronn Svaard in Sea of Sorrows states: “You’ll join me in the service of the dragon, and we will again fight as one. We will serve Zhaitan forever.” and later " You cannot fight the inevitable. I feel it in my bones-in my blood. Zhaitan’s will is my will. His strength is my strength. The world will be reborn by the dragon. Death is only the beginning."

Morgus Lethe in Edge of Destiny states: “I’m your destiny, you know. I’m the destiny of all living things.”

Risen Keeper of the Shrine from Cathedral of Silence story states “The Mists are filled with lies. Zhaitan is our only chance at immortality. Serve him!”

Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan during The Source of Orr states “Defilers! Poisoners! We see you. We know your foul intent. These waters must remain as they are—and you must die!” and “All the death around you. All those who have gone before you. Come to Zhaitan, and find everything you have lost. You can be with them again.”

These lines, combined with how Zhaitan structures his minions – having a clear ranking heirarchy that matches the minions’ past life – indicates two things:

First, Zhaitan offers/seeks immortality through undeath, and in turn reunion and not losing loved ones, for all things, wanted or not by the individual. Second, Zhaitan places himself at the seat of power like a king would – he sees himself as a ruler of an eternal undead nation.

In a way, Zhaitan can kind of fit that “I’m doing good for others” ideal, as what could be kinder than offering someone to never lose anyone they love? The only price is dying first and living under his rule.

The interesting bit is that one line by the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan, calling the player and Trahearne “defilers”/“poisoners”. This shows that Zhaitan – and in turn his minions – does, indeed, believe he is in the right.

Mordremoth
Throughout HoT and the trailers, Mordremoth makes multiple direct mentions to him being the world and him being “home”. He also mentions that killing him will send all into oblivion. This indicates to me that he sees himself as the world and the sustainer of all life.

However, there’s an interesting twist to this:

Master of Wind (on Aerin): It didn’t occur to me until after the crash as I tried to understand what had just happened. There were signs, bursts of anger. He said odd things about believing the world must be destroyed.

This one line about Aerin’s rantings – and we know that Aerin’s rantings were, for some reason, tied to Mordremoth now – gives an interesting twist to Mordremoth because it shows that he doesn’t see himself as the current world but rather as the rightful and important world.

Similar to the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan’s line about defiling Zhaitan’s corruption, Mordremoth seems to view that which he’s not corrupted to be something that “must be destroyed”.

As I said, these two are very different. One is ‘giving’ what it views as “immortality” and “reunion with loved ones” while the other sees itself as a required aspect of living.

Scott McGough.6897:

Questions about marriage and languages and calendars require more time, thought, and fact-checking, and I’m already pushing the envelope of how many hours per day I can devote to the forums.

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised to see any form of answer. Usually when mass Q&A’s start, the dev goes silent. :P

And someone made a reddit thread, so now we’ve gotten a ton of questions which will scare Scott off. :I

Well, whatever, I’ll ask my last round. If I get answers, awesome, if not, predictable.

Scott McGough.6897:

Shiren: Elite Specs lore and Revenant legend interaction

-snip words-

I think that people would be happy to have the lore, even if it isn’t tied to learning it as you learn the elite specialization/profession.

The trainers, before they were removed, would have been perfect NPCs to slap profession lore on. A different race telling that race’s origins of the profession, or way of teaching it (e.g., charr mesmer trainers talking about how fahrars teach mesmers to use their spells when working with the warband, while human mesmer trainers talk about past accomplished human mesmers, such as Kitah from Cantha). Such NPCs could still exist, just without a mechanical purpose. And they could exist for the elite specializations too.

Scott McGough.6897:

Revenant legends do have personalities and opinions and we do catch glimpses of them, but each legend also represents a snapshot of the character, a Mist-echo of the actual person and not the person themselves. As such, the revenant legend doesn’t necessarily have the full range of memories & thoughts as the original.

This is something that was suspected but never answered. Thanks.

Scott McGough.6897:

Draxynnic: Sylvari are jungle dragon minions reveal

On this matter, I must ask…

Is there any plans to address the lore continuity errors between sylvari function and other dragon minion (both mordrem and not) function?

Example 1: Dragon minions consume magic, this is a largely established fact. However, sylvari never show any indication of being capable of doing this, let alone actually doing it.

Example 2: Why are they all having free will? Only method to give dragon minions/champions free will is via a ritual like seen in Arah explorable – the Altar of Glaust ritual – however, Angel McCoy once stated that such rituals are geographically limited and resource consuming so it isn’t something that could be easily used. So why is the Pale Tree, Malyck, and the Pale Tree’s “children” of free will?

Example 3: Hive mentality. All dragon minions show signs of this, but not sylvari. Why?

And not tied to that question but to your answer: “As such, we put clues in the game to hint at that conclusion, and people took the hints and figured it out.”

Honestly, even after Heart of Thorns there seem to be more contradictions than hints. In fact, any potential hint that people caught onto ended up being debunked – be it by Glint, other dragon minions, the story itself, or developer comments.

List of Questions
I do have some hopefully less-time/thought consuming and fact-checking requiring questions:

• Is there any plans to address the lore continuity errors between sylvari function and other dragon minion (both mordrem and not) function? (restating from above so you have a nice single spot to look)
• Were the Mordrem Guard corrupted in the traditional dragon corruption sense? Plenty of hints, but no real confirmation, that this isn’t so.
• What’s the backstory behind the mordrem commanders? We kind of know Diarmid’s, but not an inkling for the other two. And for that matter, what’s the deal with Blademaster Cellona?
• Can we get a concise timeline of the previous dragonrise(s)? We have several events – Glint’s freedom (supposedly 3,000 years ago), mursaat/seer war, seer creation of the Bloodstone, Forgotten arriving in the world (supposedly 1769 AE), the oldest dwarven ruins (“over 2,000 years old”), the extinction of the Giganticus Lupicus (~10,000 BE), fall of the jotun civilization, etc. – with no clear order to them.
  • ADDENDUM: When, roughly, was the last dragonrise? There’s lore telling us it was ~10,000 BE, but other lore stating it was ~2,000 BE. Did it last 8,000 years or were these two separate dragonrises as the Priory are muddling them together?

Here’s some questions from GW1 that never got answered. Hopefully they can be now:

• What’s the significance of Bahltek and the things he talked about?
• Can you answer the riddle that was given at the end of The Path to Revelations?
• The seer on the table in Zinn’s lab during War in Kryta – was it dead? Was it the one met during the Prophecies campaign?
• What is the origin of Kanaxai?

katubug.6378:

Oooh ooh ooh okay okay:

Sylvari seem to have teeth: are they made of bone? If so, do sylvari have a skeletal structure of some kind?

How long does it take cultural armor to grow? When it’s removed, can they put it back on or do they have to regrow it?

There are NPCs in the Grove that answer these questions.

Sylvari do have an endoskeleton – they are made of wood. As for growing armor and weapons, take a vigil sylvari to the bottom level of the Grove, there is an NPC there that talks about it IIRC, but I don’t recall what the dialogue is. I think it was about the toughness and effectiveness of such gear, as well as who grows it and how.

wouw.5837:

Endless Soul.5178:

My only question at this time, and I realize that it probably falls under the can’t-answer-because-it’s-a-possible-spoiler section but….

…what’s east of Blazeridge Steppes? There’s a large land mass in that direction, what could be there? The Adventurer/Explorer in me is really itching to go there.

The Ash legion homelands, this is the complete world map btw:
http://i.cubeupload.com/zD9ud9.png

That’s false. Blood Legion owns the lands east of the Blazeridge Mountains.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Legions_of_the_Charr

“East, across the Blazeridge Mountains, Imperator Bangar Ruinbringer controls the lands of the Blood Legion.”

We, simply put, do not know where the Ash Legion makes their territory.

Narcemus.1348:

I do not recall where, but I could swear I read a dev state that the forgotten knowing about Glint’s death was a mistake and that should be corrected, but sadly I do not have a link.

It was either Scott or Bobby who said that, but IIRC this was in reference to an Exalted’s dialogue, not A Study in Gold, who mentioned Glint’s death happening before they went into hibernation.

It was fixed.

Yeah, it kind of sounds like Bloodstones (multiple, not just the one the Seers made) were meant to keep magic regulated so that the Elder Dragons wouldn’t have enough to wake up again. But it was still built in the previous dragonrise.

I theorize that the plan was to make one to force the Elder Dragons into an early starvation-enforced-hibernation, and to make a second one after centuries of magical build up from the Elder Dragons’ sleeping bodies, which would force them to be unable to wake and consume magic – or at least leave them significantly weaker than they would be.

But for xyz reason (most likely the mursaat), the Seers were incapable of building a second bloodstone – and the Forgotten not having the, quote, “divine resources” to build one themselves.

By the sounds of it, it seems that the Elder Dragons were significantly stronger in the previous dragonrises, and are weaker this time thanks to the Bloodstone’s creation in holding back most magic. But even then, if the jotun could survive multiple dragonrises, why wouldn’t others?

I’m not so sure the Elder Dragons have wiped out all civilized life on the world before, just that they could if they had enough personal magic (seems to me that six is too many Elder Dragons, and now that there’s four, who’s to say that they won’t be able to accomplish their goals now?).

That’s really just speculative due to all his golemancy dealing with the mind, however he is never shown to use magic himself – he uses powerstones to utilize mental connections between pilot and golem. His color scheme being purple also leads to the theory, but in the end it’s just that: a theory.

One I support – whether he was a mesmer or not he did use mental magic indirectly – but still ultimately unproveable.

Aidan Savage.2078:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Primordus_01_concept_art.jpg
and
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/6/66/Dragon_01_concept_art_%28Destroyer_Dragon%29.jpg

Primo definitely has the euro “archetype” look to him, though the fine details are definitely not the same.

That first one is part of an early (read: 2006) group of concept arts that were long ago scrapped. The other such images are:

Early Zhaitan

Early Mordremoth

Early Jormag

Obviously, they didn’t turn out like their earliest – stated to be scrapped – concept arts.

The second one, just like his GW1 model, doesn’t show past his shoulders, nor does it show limbs of any kind. So for all we know he has no limbs and is akin to Mordremoth in being snake-like. Or he has tendrils for limbs, which we see in a way in both that second concept art and his GW1 model.

Jaken.6801:

Which begs the question if only dragons are able to wield ED power?

If that isn’t the case, is it the ED-Energy that forces said form upon it’s host?
So far the known forms are very “traditional”.

What would happen if we are able to pump a non dragon with ED-Energy? Similiar to what happened in CoE, but only one type of energy.

Would it start to shapeshift, if it is able to contain the energy?

I mean, we allready know about the fact/idea of the ED-Energy being able to be transfered and we have the theory that it is seeking something akin to a host. Or at least the being that has the most of it’s energy is governing it’s distibution, towards his minions.

Dragon minions seem capable, regardless of their actual form, though the most powerful ones tend to have draconic features.

And we have the Six Gods, who were humanoid and had a lot of magic themselves.

draxynnic.3719:

Eir, now… that was ridiculously telegraphed. She basically ticked off every ’I’m going to die tragically’ trope short of showing off a picture of her sweetheart back home.)

Now mentally picturing:

Eir: “After this fight with Mordremoth, I’m going to return home and settle with this sweet young lass. Going to ask to marry her.”

Braham: “What!?!?”

draxynnic.3719:

Scott McGough.6897:

Likewise, the engineer’s pistol produces a lot of different effects—poison, burning, bouncy lighting blasts, glue—and it’s pretty hard to say there’s no magic involved in a pistol that serves as a dart gun, flamethrower, arc thrower, and glue bomb (and never needs reloading).

I’ve generally thought that the engineer pistol was actually relatively easy to explain by non-magical means. Not needing to reload seems to be a game mechanical abstraction in general. Having the variety of ammunition types could be a matter of the engineer having several types of ammunition loaded at once and being able to switch between them, or having modular attachments that they slap on when they need it (so they might have a canister designed to interact with the pistol to fire a volley of poison darts, for instance).

The game RAGE from id software has a pistol that can load various types of bullets for different effects, from standard bullets to exploding ones.

I kind of pictured the engineer pistol to be of the same line of thought.

Berserkers, I think, are an interesting case, since all the fire they throw around is hard to explain without magic. Whether the magic is coming from the warrior themselves or from a magic item that is powered by the berserker’s rage does make for an interesting question… and probably one that can be left to the player. A berserker throwing fire from their sword could, for instance, be the spiritual heir of the GW1 W/E flame warrior… or perhaps it’s simply a property of their magic flaming sword.

“The torch is the berserker’s weapon of choice, and it embodies the powerful flames of war. While the guardian uses magical flames for protection and purging, berserkers use the torch as a reckless weapon of destruction, slamming it into the ground and even lighting themselves ablaze to become mobile fire fields.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-berserker-warriors-elite-specialization/

That line to me always made it sound like the warrior wasn’t using magic at all, but was able to pull off kitten mundane feats with a standard torch just out of expert skills. Maybe surviving the burning is magic, but not the use of fire itself, by the sounds of that post.

Jaken.6801:

Sylvari were adapting from common since their “birth”. Humans brought the Charr, Norn and Asura together in EotN, which might have ended up in something that deepened their relationship over the years.

Charr, norn, and asura all knew the same language in EotN well before humans commonly interacted with them. It was a common language for them during EotN, and at best the interaction was less than a decade old (human-norn) if not first seen in EotN (human-asura, human-charr – friendly at least).

It would make more sense if they learned it from the dwarves, but why would the Ecology of the Charr call the language human if they got it from dwarves (or norn)? And would the humans have gotten it from the dwarves, or the dwarves from humans?

You say that we’re past the point of relevance but honestly, we’re not. Else we might as well say we’re past that point for anything pre-GW2 lore.

It’s not a major thing, but it’s one of those things folks who go into the lore – be it for the lore itself, to write fan-fiction, or to roleplay – end up stumbling upon and wondering. These small aspects of how cultural roles play out, that are never touched even in hinting by lore.

Either every 3,000 years or 11,000 years from what we’ve been able to gather – depending on whether the Priory is right, or all our lore on ancient races proves the Priory wrong.

But if the jotun are any indication, the Elder Dragons are pretty crappy at wiping all life every cycle – after all, they have knowledge of multiple dragonrises prior to the current one. And from Hidden Arcana, it seems that the tengu and charr survived the last dragonrise without Glint’s aid.

Mordremoth’s true mental avatar was just a shadow of the Mouth of Mordremoth’s face. The bipedal thing that fought us was basically a giant armored sylvari/mordrem with the Mouth of Mordremoth’s face on it. I wouldn’t call the bipedal avatar Mordremoth’s “true form” in the least, especially since the Mouth of Mordremoth was its body and the shadow face replicated the Mouth of Mordremoth’s head perfectly (or as perfectly as one could).

The Mouth of Mordremoth itself is very much a copy of the Mystic Dragon/Flurry Dragon miniatures, just planty instead. Meanwhile, Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik seem to take on the more traditional European dragon look, which seems typical for dragons found in Tyria (Glint, Bone Dragons if they kept their hind legs, and of course the dragon champions). Primordus we only saw to the shoulders so we can’t quite say but I’d bet he’s more of a wyvern-like appearance.

I believe there was a statement putting us in 1329 in January somewhere.

All of HoT Act 1 takes at least a week, by indication, implying that all of HoT could take a couple months. I believe the raids took place with real time conversion between the relevant releases, putting Spirit Vale as happening a few weeks after HoT, and Salvation Pass a few months after. Still, all of that wouldn’t have really been a year’s worth though. And is weird pacing.

Their attempt to keep the calendars synced has really gotten increasingly wacky. :/

There’s not much lore on the actions of WvW, but there is some.

It takes place in the Mists – as Dlarnkk is talking about – just like the Fractals of the Mists, PvP, and in GW1 most PvP and the Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Tomb of the Primeval Kings (sans the outpost) and Realm of Torment.

WvW itself is the “Mist War” where, to summarize, three different alternate Tyrias are fighting a war, seeing the other two as “pure evil forces” that must be defeated. The main drive of the Mist War is two-fold: first, to gain resources for the fights against the Elder Dragons and other threats; as Tyria is effectively blockaded from most of the world, they have to go into the Mists to get external resources. Second, to defend their world and the territories they gained in the Mists from threats across the Mists (namely, the other two alternate Tyrias).

There is no repeating cycle like Dlarnkk is saying – I don’t know where he gets that. The only cyclic thing in the Mists is in Fractals – but that’s because of the nature of Fractals, not the nature of the Mists. WvW doesn’t occur on fractals.

The Mist War was not designed by Balthazar either – that’s scrapped pre-beta lore.

The Mists have more than McWolfy’s stated three entrances (I presume he refers to Lord Odran’s portals at Drascir, Tomb of the Primeval Kings, and the Battle Isles) but those three entrances were to the Hall of Heroes – somewhere we don’t go near in GW2. The asura are the ones who made the asura gates to the Mist War locations, sans Edge of the Mists which was made by the Aetherblades.

Edge of the Mists is slightly different from other WvW maps in that it was discovered by the Aetherblades as a place of retreat. Any Mist War occurrences there only followed that, and likely because it was just more resources to obtain.

It’s actually been stated a few times that elementals naturally appear where ambient magic is strong, though these tend to be mindless. It’s not much of a stretch to say that ambient magic being strong is where ley lines are close – especially since when ley lines were talked about, I believe it was Scott McGough, stated that they were ‘being hinted at’ (or some variation thereof) via the comments of ambient magic.

Djinn were said to be effectively “sapient elementals” I believe – by Jeff Grubb.

I’d be hesitant to point at beings of flesh and blood and say “this is their origin too” – it’s more likely to me that the Mists is a closer origin since we know that the Mists can create even fleshy landscapes (Realm of Torment).

Scott McGough.6897:

Sorry, I’m a little unclear on the specific storylines you mean. I’m not playing dumb or trying to assert that there are no open-ended plotlines from GW1/GW2 that need resolution—it’s just that I’d have to guess which plots you mean.

I can’t speak for Jaken, but I don’t think he was asking you to confirm or deny the continuation of certain plots, but rather asking if the sheer amount of loose ends – both large and small – will be reduced rather than expanded.

Season 1, Season 2, and Heart of Thorns pretty much only opened more loose ends, and tied very very few. Even the Personsl Story did this. At this rate, we’re just going to have more and more storylines set up years prior to them getting closed, with an ever increasing number of storylines opening up.

I think Jaken’s just wanting to know if you’ll ever reverse this tactic to storytelling, or if we’re just going to be left going time and time again “well there’s another plot that won’t be touched upon again for years to come, why bother being interested.”

Though I might be more critical than Jaken.

Scott McGough.6897:

As Konig stated, warriors and engineers absolutely can use magic. Most of their skills are presented as nonmagical, but they do wield magical or magic-infused weaponry, so the lines get blurred (and the debate you’re describing occurs). Take the warrior’s torch skill Flames of War, for example. It creates a mobile flame field that follows the player around and explodes when it expires. There may be a non-magical weapon that can do those things, but a simple knotty branch with a burning oily rag tied to the end isn’t one of them. Likewise, the engineer’s pistol produces a lot of different effects—poison, burning, bouncy lighting blasts, glue—and it’s pretty hard to say there’s no magic involved in a pistol that serves as a dart gun, flamethrower, arc thrower, and glue bomb (and never needs reloading).

So there is no absolute in this case—i.e., you can’t say “warriors never use magic” any more than you can say “warriors always use magic.” Most warrior and engineer skills generally don’t use magic, but there are some with a clear magical component, be it in the weapon itself or in the skill’s effects.

So the TL;DR version is basically “it could be magic, it could be magical items, or it could just be being a kitten – it’s for the individual to decide, there’s no absolute”.

So you could have a warrior not using magic directly but capable of doing the things shown in the skills, or having a warrior that does use magic.

Sounds like a good explanation.

I do have some questions on lore, small ones that won’t factor into any major plot (or so I’d imagine). Basically, aspects of culture across races. The game very rarely delves into these things, for example:

• What’s a wedding for different races like? We know about Ascalonian marriages and have a glimpse into norn and asura weddings from Hearts of the North in GW1, but do Krytans, charr, or even sylvari do things differently?
• What about schooling? We really only have basics for charr and asura schooling – and the latter only due to piecing a ton of small tidbits from Taimi and Metrica Province.
• How about calendars – surely the asura and charr didn’t use the same calendars back in GW1 time. What kind of calendars did they have? Why/when did they conform to Mouvelian calendar?
• Similarly, written and spoken languages – norn are said to have a different language, but we never see nor hear it; charr used ideograms, but did they always speak “common” – and for that matter, is there a name for the language spoke? Some lines in GW1 called it “Tyrian” while in the Ecology of the Charr it is called “human” – and why do so many minor races (grawl, jotun, ogre, harpy, hylek, etc.) know how to speak it?

I got more but need to go. It’s just one thing I’ve noticed. We learn base amounts of culture – like what each group worships – but never more specifics – like how do they practice their worship (do humans go to church on Sundays?), or the like.

Kalavier.1097:

Can you please give me a source for the Engineer line? I brought that up once (I didn’t have a source), and got it flung back into my face about it not being said by Anet.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

What’s your source for “engineers don’t use magic” ? The wiki articles on magic and engineer don’t mention this, nor does the official description of the engineer .

Seems like something that the wiki would have documented.

This was said somewhere shortly after the engineer’s reveal back in 2011 or so. Before the wiki was really spot on documenting lore from interviews.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the site it was said on, just that it was an interview with Ree Soesbee, and in that same interview it was talked about how sylvari being engineers isn’t that uncommon and that sylvari were not as flammable as dry wood so seeing one with a flame thrower wouldn’t be suicidal – and that different races could have different mixtures for their engineer tools, like charr engineers having gasoline like substance for flamethrowers while sylvari engineers would have biodegradeable fuel.

It was something talked about though, by Ree unless my memory fails me there too which I don’t think it does.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Can we name specific NPCs that are known to have never used magic?

Dozens, even ignoring the major ones that Kalavier mentioned (and of major characters, let’s add some more: Riona from GoA, Eir (beyond the norn forms which isn’t profession based), Taimi and Canach from DE 2.0, Gullik’s cousin (forgot her name) from GoA (beyond the norn form, which isn’t profession based)).

Of course this isn’t stating they can’t use magic, just that they don’t – whether this is a choice of “I don’t want to use magic” or a more likely one of “I never learned how to use magic, though if I took the time I could use magic.”

Actually, nothing indicates warriors use magic in their skills. ArenaNet outright stated they wanted flashy skills so they’re noticeable. I wouldn’t automatically put this as “magic”.

Now, that doesn’t mean warriors can’t use magic – they can. There’s no debating that. It’s been explicitly stated that everyone can use magic.

But not everyone does use magic.

Engineers, for example, were explicitly stated to have no magic in their kitten nal. Just, at best, magically-enchanted/infused tools. This doesn’t mean they can’t use magic – just that they don’t.

Warriors, by all indication, are the same.

Hence Kalavier’s statement of an old debate :P

Queskimo.9580:

Ok thank you very much that helps clear things up. I have one last question. How did the Mussrat leave Tyria with "their magic?’

In technicality, they didn’t. They kept their knowledge of it – which could be argued to be “leaving with their magic” – but they supposedly left before the Bloodstone’s creation (as drax mentions, the timeline is unclear, but how could they use magic if all magic is gone? – it is possible that their form of magic escapes that of Tyria’s, like the ritualist’s and in turn revenant’s, all seem to deal with spirits and the Mists after all, but I’d be hesitant to make that claim all the same). They betrayed the other races – presumably because they didn’t want to lose magic – and fled the world. They came back when the world had free magic once again.

On top of that, they didn’t share their spells with other races – which is the critical thing mentioned – because they found spells that were highly effective against dragon minions (making them effectively invulnerable to them as we personally experience).

Queskimo.9580:

oh and do we have any idea what kind of limitation was put in place by the 6 human gods? Did they simply make it very hard to use more than one type of spell or did they make it impossible. Im quite sure that their are npc’s and charterers especial Asuras who have multiple kinds of magic spells. Sorry for all the questions. Thank you very much

The original lore was that magic from Bloodstone A couldn’t be used by a single person tapping into Bloodstone B.

This rule has rather fallen to pieces because so much magic has leaked into the world, however, blurring the line between the forms of magic. The schools of magic are still a thing, but they’ve fallen from “hard restrictions” to “archaic teachings”. Even in GW1, as evident through secondary professions, casters were able to ignore the rule a bit.

Dlarnkk.1068:

The magic is a kind of force originated from the Dragons themselves for constant era, after era.

Dlarnkk.1068:

Magic originated from the dragons themselves. The reason of such origin was that dragon constantly releases magic contained within their bodies as they slumber throughout the centuries.

Common misconception. While the Elder Dragons do radiate magic when they hibernate, this magic was first consumed by them.

Ultimately, we’re looking at a chicken and the egg scenario until we learn more, so it could technically go either way, but consider that Glint was close to becoming an Elder Dragon and there are many implications of dragon races (yes, race*s* – multiple kinds) existing in Tyria in the distant past, it’s likely that Elder Dragons were not always around, and that instead in ancient days magic was a food source for thousands of beings.

Until six got greedy.

Dlarnkk.1068:

Therfore, the magic is usually referred as Dragon’s energy.

Actually, dragon energy or draconic energy specifically refers to corruptive magic. The stuff that turns people and things into branded, risen, icebrood, destroyers, mordrem, and whatever the DSD’s minions are.

Dlarnkk.1068:

However magic can fade from Tyria.

Actually, all argument states that magic doesn’t fade – though it does take a long (hundreds or thousands of years long) time to disperse.

Magic levels in the world decrease only because dragons consume it. But it’ll eventually increase as the dragons release that very magic they consumed back.

Which for the record, summer quarterly update will be in July – most likely late July given when the winter and spring quarterly ones went during the months.

The PvP seasons are unrelated to the PvE releases – we’ve had Wintersday and SAB happen at the same time as the PvP seasons, for example. The PvP seasons work on a strict cycle of 8 weeks active, 4 weeks inactive. Any lining up with stuff beyond that is coincidental.

Stitch.1794:

After you beat the dragon, there’s an NPC you can talk to that puts you back to the start of the fight.

^^^

This

No need to replay any cinematic but the one that shows the Shadow of the Dragon’s new attacks per phase.

Underdark.3726:

-snip-

First off, Primordus has only been awake for ~200 years. It’s been ~250 years since GW1, but Primordus awoke 50 years after GW1 (thanks to the events of GW1) – presumably around the same time the DSD woke up.

As to why Mordremoth released so much magic, you can thank Scarlet for this. She redirected the ley lines causing a HUGE magical breakfast in bed for Mordremoth – bigger than any other Elder Dragon got – and he was tapping straight into the ley lines across Central Tyria thanks to his vines. He had a far larger reach than any other Elder Dragon, and got a larger boost than Jormag getting magic from norn (Sons of Svanir), or the like. Both Primordus and Kralkatorrik seemed to have awoken on their own – no aid from a dragon minion like Drakkar or Scarlet Briar – and thus would have woken far weaker (and 50 years later) than those who did wake up on time (DSD, Jormag, Zhaitan) let alone Mordremoth (who got that power boost the others didn’t).

Also keep in mind that Zhaitan recently died, and he’s been absorbing magic from Orr for 100 years. Alongside the Artesian Waters which may be a ley line nexus, he had all the powerful and ancient artifacts the Six Gods were hoarding from the ancient races like the jotun and mursaat, as well as bloodstone fragments, and all the other magical artifacts Orrians had – which was, quite frankly, a lot.

Primordus and the DSD also had magic sources for themselves, of course, which are probably on par to what Zhaitan got (minus the army of ready minions – the corpses of Orr).

We saw how much magic Mordremoth released, and it was quite a lot. We even see some effects of it in the raid and the “windstorm” caused by Mordremoth’s released magic.

Furthermore, unlike Glint and seemingly Zhaitan, Mordremoth’s magic was released in a powerful burst (while Glint and Zhaitan’s magic was seepd out like when hibernating), resulting in a power spike rather than a gradual power increase.

You’re probably right that they didn’t absorb it instantaneously and become more powerful, but as we see in recent events in the game, ley lines are now overflowing, giving the Elder Dragons more magic to consume. Instantly? No. Quickly? Why not.

Underdark.3726:

If that was so Primordus would had just took all the magic when he woke. Do we know if dragons have a maximum capacity?

This is probably your main confusion right here. To answer the second question: no we do not know.

As to Primordus absorbing magic when he woke. Keep in mind two things:

1) Minions absorb magic too, and Primordus had very few when he woke thanks to our actions in GW1.

2) Primordus couldn’t get all the magic in the world because he couldn’t travel across the world before the other Elder Dragons awoke. The DSD awoke around when he did, by all indication. Mordremoth got so much because he could cover more ground far faster than the other Elder Dragons – for this reason he was repeatedly called the greatest threat among Elder Dragons (though the Mordrem Guard made him a second reason to be the greatest threat) and is probably why we have three active dragons now – to top off the apparent “singular strongest Elder Dragon”.

Underdark.3726:

To get back on the bandits: is there any hint or theory why the creates and the bosses are on those spots and maps?

They’re picking up supplies, is really all that seems to be there. Those spots are out of the way or near bandit camps.

Dlarnkk.1068:

Fjaeldmark.9043:

Also the Pale Tree might be able to help control magic, she is a dragon minion after all. So we have two potential replacement elder dragons. Later stories might add more.

Dragon minions don’t absorb magic, unlike the Elder dragons. She is incapable of consuming magic, and keeping it at relative level. If she was actually capable, then Modrem wouldn’t had this much influence over the land.

Untrue:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Field_Test

Professor Gorr: This is fantastic! The larger the minion presence, the less ambient magic! Finally, irrefutable proof of my theory. The dragons do consume magic.

We also see icebrood, destroyers, and branded absorbing magic in the most recently added ley line events:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_the_dragon_minions_before_they_absorb_too_much_ley-line_magic

As well as Mordremoth’s vines in S2 (too many sources – Aaron linked one). Absorbing magic is even why the asura at the Megadestroyer asked “did we just make it bigger?”

Furthermore, Glint was absorbing magic, yet not an Elder Dragon:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Short_Story:_The_Trek_of_the_Zephyrites

We’re coming here to retrieve whatever remains of her magical corpus, so that her sacred bones won’t fall into the wrong hands. Dragons consume magic, but they do not destroy it. They hold it within themselves like a sponge holds water. I only hope we’re faster than the scavengers and power-mongers who would use her body to advance their own evil or selfish plots.

However, the Brotherhood of the Dragon believed she could have become an Elder Dragon:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Arcana#At_the_Durmand_Priory

Ogden Stonehealer: The brotherhood believed that she would one day become an Elder Dragon. She was old and wise, well on her way.

It also seems that Tequatl is absorbing magic, and that’s why it became more powerful:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/lore-interview-with-ree-soesbee/

A: When an Elder Dragon dies, its magic isn’t just snuffed out. It doesn’t vanish. The creature itself is dead, but the magic that it put into the world through its creations is still there. Tequatl’s evolution is an aftereffect of the death of Zhaitan. The magic used to create Tequatl is no longer being controlled by Zhaitan, but it still exists within Tequatl. Therefore, like many uncontrolled magics, it is experiencing an evolution and it is shaping itself.

TL;DR

Yes, every dragon minion can absorb magic. And the more magic they absorb, the more powerful they become, and the closer – theoretically – to becoming a new Elder Dragon they are.

So yes, the Pale Tree could absorb magic – chances are she has been for some time. In technicality, so could every sylvari out there, though we’ve not seen a single case of this (one of the many discrepancies between sylvari and all other dragon minions that made the revelation dumbfounded). The question is “how much can she absorb” and “is she in a state to absorb magic”.

Given that the ley lines are acting up, she’s not able to do so at the rate the world needs ATM.

draxynnic.3719:

If you view the Scarlet’s War cinematic, the Pact Commander is shown as a female norn (I think) wearing scanty armour – I think it might be heavy, but I haven’t identified the specific pieces – it could also be light.

Could be indicative, could just be that it wasn’t practical to show the PC there for some reason and that’s just what they happened to pick at random.

That was pulled from a video put on the site to recap Season 1 in preparations for Season 2.

ArenaNet also posted a version of The Machine’s cinematic featuring The All, which has a male human as the PC, wearing IIRC T2 heavy cultural armor.

(EDIT: Found the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQGGytoNXk8 Wearing Vigil armor, not cultural, but still heavy)

BuddhaKeks.4857:

draxynnic.3719:

If you view the Scarlet’s War cinematic, the Pact Commander is shown as a female norn (I think) wearing scanty armour – I think it might be heavy, but I haven’t identified the specific pieces – it could also be light.

Could be indicative, could just be that it wasn’t practical to show the PC there for some reason and that’s just what they happened to pick at random.

I was about to post that, but then I couldn’t remember in which exact video I saw that female norn. And then I forgot to look it up later. But I think the same character is also in the release trailer, you know that weird artsy one which barely contained any game footage. She is one of the player characters rising from the sea at the end.

EDIT: Took wrong trailer.

I wouldn’t consider that one to be close to canon, since it has a bunch of characters that never show, and does show Zhaitan over LA.

It’s likely that this female norn is an Anet dev’s character.

EDIT2: HAHAHAHAH

Seems ArenaNet made that trailer private! Guess all the negative feedback from it made them try to bury it (like all other things that get negative feedback like underwater combat and charr clothing >.>).

Nero.8047:

Konig I believe Deleena referenced to the following dialogue:

You’re enitrely right though both are hilarious. I misread Deleena as saying the stage play Nightfall :P

More than that, really. There was a bit of a dive into her background on one of the Guild Chats/Points of Interest episodes (whatever it was called then) not long after LA got redesigned. Basically, you’ll hear her talking about a “genius architect” or the like who’s plans for the remodeled LA weren’t accepted – she’s talking about herself.

It wasn’t just the lobster, but all of LA that she designed and her designs were ignored for the sake of what is essentially a theme park. She’s out of work and couldn’t get a job other than that of a tour guide showing off the city she could have designed. Suffice it to say, she’s bitter.

IIRC, this – as well as the Consortium HQ and the skritt meeting (both at LA and in Silverwastes) – is a bit of an easter egg to dev’s past work experiences prior to working at ArenaNet. Little jabs at old jobs.

People loved Captain Suicide-I mean, Prince Rurik. Players and NPCs alike.

But this line is actually a reference to the Prophecies’ background lore. Adelbern took a defensive stance against the continuous charr assaults – before and after the Searing – while after the Searing Rurik took a proactive offensive stance. Thanks to Rurik, directly and indirectly, Ascalonians were able to push back beyond enemy lines – such as Duke Barradin’s push to Piken Square, or the Surmia mission.

From the Prophecies manual:

Firstborn son of King Adelbern and heir to the throne of Ascalon, Prince Rurik is a brave, bold man who often takes action on the spur of the moment. He leads by example, never cowering or shirking a challenge. Some say he has no fear. Others claim his brash bravery is merely reckless. Regardless, the prince is liked by almost everyone in Ascalon, and he spends much of his time among the citizens, preferring the company of commoners to that of Ascalon’s rich upper crust.

Deleena.3406:

Moonyeti.3296:

When danger reared it’s ugly head,
Sir Ruruk turned his tail and fled.
Brave, brave, brave, brave sir Rurik!

That reminded me of that Rurik stage play in Nightfall! xD

For the uninitiated: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Norgu's_Nightfall

Norgu: "My fellows! I present for your consideration, a life’s work… my ultimate performance… “Norgu’s Nightfall!”
Narrator: “Elona. Land of the Golden Sun. A land of heroes. Our story begins in peril and danger. A dark god descends, bringing with him… the Nightfall.”
“Kormir”: “Oh no. Nightfall is at hand. Please, heroes of the world, help Elona in its time of need.”
“Kormir”: “We will help fight the Nightfall! But, first we must find a hero even more brave and heroic than we are!”
“Kormir”: “Where will we find such a hero?”
“Norgu”: “There is no need to search! A true hero knows where trouble reigns!”
“Norgu”: “I am Norgu! The hero you need to stop Abaddon and the Nightfall!”
“Hero”: “What should we do, Norgu?”
“Norgu”: “We must attack Varesh or she will end the world!”
Narrator: “Our brave heroes journey to Kourna. But their plans are foiled when Varesh summons demons that scatter their fellowship across Kourna….”
“Varesh”: “Ha ha ha. I will kill those Sunspears… as soon as I can find them.”
“Norgu”: “Luckily I have found this sanctuary for us! Varesh will never find us now!”
“Hero”: “Norgu, you are so brave.”
“Kormir”: “We should go north to Vabbi.”
Narrator: “But their way to Vabbi was blocked!”
“Kormir”: “Our way to Vabbi is blocked!”
“Norgu”: “Aha! My corsair friends shall help us through! They have a smuggler’s passage to the north… to my homeland of Vabbi… where I am a famous actor! We can seek the help of the three princes!”
Narrator: “But the princes ignore their council. Varesh sends her troops north under the guise of hunting Sunspears. But she is really preparing a dark ritual to consume the land. The brave, brave, brave…”
Norgu: "…Brave… that’s four “braves.” You aren’t reading it right."
Narrator: “Sigh. The brave, brave, brave… BRAAAAVE Norgu slays the evil demon and chases Varesh through the Desolation and into the mouth of torment.”
“Hero”: “Oh no. We are in the Realm of Torment, Abaddon’s dark realm of secrets and torment. Where do we go? What do we do?”
“Abaddon”: “Bwa ha ha ha! You cannot defeat me! I am an EVIL GOD!”
“Norgu”: “Stand strong, friends! We few, we happy few! We band of heroes! For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be forever remembered a hero on Nightfall Day!”
Narrator: “Norgu and his brave, brave, brave, brave band of heroes fight Abaddon.”
“Abaddon”: “AHHHHH! I am forslain!”
Narrator: “Yet, after every Nightfall comes the dawn of a new day.”
Narrator: “In Elona, land of the Golden Sun.”
Norgu: “Let us dance!”

Mem no Fushia.7604:

I think about undeground content. All those maps can serve as roof for new undeground mazes: of destroyers from Primodous or leyline with chaks. If chaks are where leylines are then maybe we could see them to be introduced in central tyria.

Honestly, when GW2 was still in development I was hoping for/expecting some vast underground network of tunnels underneath every map.

However, now I know that this isn’t possible for one simple reason: the water table. In GW2, every map has a singular level for water to be at across the whole map, without fail. Any attempt to create an underground network of tunnels in pre-existing core maps would quickly put every single tunnel underwater, much like seen in Tangled Depths.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Flame Legion from 250y ago, they tapped into Primodous (even mostly cuz of his attempt to awake) having fully dormant Kralka ;x

They never tapped into Primordus. You’re probably mistaking the fact that after the titans fell the Shaman caste proclaimed the destroyers their gods. But the destroyers were never compliant – in fact, the Flame Legion captured and held them prisoner for the most part, unleashing them when the PCs came to rescue the Ebon Vanguard.

There is implication that the Flame Legion shamans tapped into Kralkatorrik, but this is all just implication still.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Nextly about leylines that sprout accross Tyria, they sprout probably in places where we can’t defend, so who is defend them? Other races, organizations or these are places of free meal for dragon minions.

I don’t think that, lore-wise, their location is a proactive thought. They’re ley lines that are overflowing with energy – and they seem to be at intersections (minor ones, mind you). Their location is chosen by devs most likely on a basis of activity there (fewer events for clashing to occur, for example), but in lore no one is deciding – as far as we know – where these overflows happen.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Nextly why dragon minions consume it? It was Mordy who was consumed it, he didn’t allow so much to his minions to tap into it (that on in dry top thrasher). Other dragons have their own politics about it?

You’re rather wrong here.

In the Personal Story for asura, working with Gorr shows that risen presence alone ends up absorbing ambient magic – indicating that any dragon minion consumes magic. Furthermore, in S2 we have the Leyleecher as you mentioned, but in HoT all of the Blighting Trees (equivalents of the Pale Tree) are seen sapping in ley energy too.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

Bandits, so yes, dame. I always will look forwrad to see attempt to destroy that dame. Waterfall in sw of quennsdale. River that cross whole Kryta from north to south – nw of kessex hills, west of fort salma. Bridge in north of Brisban Wildlands. That stuff in centre west of Brisban where much bandits camps and inquest researches.

Uh… what?

That is actually more of Kryta. Been confirmed long ago that it was a scrapped zone, I believe.

Except that, as I said, they’re coming from those trajectories rather than going to – if it were pointing to Elder Dragons, you’d think they’d be pulling magic towards them rather than pushing it away.

And it seems the Snowden ones have four directions (often over mountains though).

No, they don’t seem unintentional, since they seem to twist in just a way as to point to the same direction (roughly) from point to point on the maps. They seem to point to each other and two other locations per – currently.

I wouldn’t say they point to the Elder Dragons at all. None point to the Far Shiverpeaks, and while one does point towards Glint’s Lair, Kralkatorrik isn’t there anymore. And we got one pointing to The Artesian Waters/Arah.

Nothing necessarily mandates that the Elder Dragons sit on ley line nexus’s either – especially if they’re mobile like Jormag, Primordus, and Kralkatorrik are (or were last we knew).

As for Primordus’ location – if Mount Maelstrom is any indication, we might fight him in Deldrimor Front (which could serve as an accessway into the Depths), or if the Great Collapse theory proves true, we might be fighting him in Woodland Cascades. If we fight him.

I’m rather doubtful we’d fight him in the Ring of Fire. Simply because while yes it is fire, that’s just too boring to me. I’d rather fight him in an area transformed into his domain, rather than him seeking out his domain. After all, lore puts him as clearing out tracks of underground in the past 200 years.

In order:

• Probably, we’ll find out when we get to Taimi.
• Unlikely because it’s in a starter zone. Especially that Fire Elemental upgrade. Those world bosses are intentionally easy. It might get a mention in dialogue but I doubt we’ll see much in the game itself.
• Nothing actually says it was built on a ley line.
• Chak already drop Unidentified Lodestones, dialogue state they drop from dragon minions. 1+1
• Where do you get that they knew about ley lines for a much longer time than they said? All we know is that ley lines were theorized before Scarlet proved them – only Rata Novus, which was isolated and secretive – knew of ley lines among the asura, as far as we know. Any asuran devices prior to S2 that use ley energy was purely coincidental (another case of asura dabbling in crap they don’t understand).
• I wouldn’t call it easily accessible given that a caved in drill is in the way – remember that the drill was going on for a long time (couple weeks even in lore), so it must have gone deep before hitting that ley line.

As for the ‘wrench in the White Mantle’s plan’ idea – possibly, or alternatively it could have given them a boost hastening their plan. Especially under my theory that the mursaat were wanting the Elder Dragons to die to power their stuff (now inherited by the White Mantle).

1) This is the most likely scenario, in sorts. In Hidden Arcana, Ogden states that too much magic will cause the world to fall into chaos.

2) This is highly unlikely. By indication, the only reason why the Six Gods arrived on Tyria is because they were seeking a new home. They left voluntarily long before the Elder Dragons were a threat, so them returning unless they’re needed is highly unlikely.

3) That’s metaphorical at best, a nod to the old “the Earth is flat” beliefs at worse, as Tyria is not flat but a sphere.

4) And thus wipe out all life on the world. Unlikely, ArenaNet doesn’t like giving bad endings.

Prevention number 3 is what Nero mentioned, and that seems to be where the plot is going. “Glint’s legacy” is a plan worked on by Glint and the Forgotten to prevent magical build up and kill off the Elder Dragons. Glint’s egg seems to be a main piece but not the only piece.

Whatever Glint’s legacy is in full is what we’ll be doing to counter the build up of magic while killing off the remaining Elder Dragons.

Could? Yes. So could the Molten Alliance (we never killed their leaders) and the Toxic Alliance (they also remained active, but dwindled).

Honestly I expected the Toxic Alliance to play a role in HoT, but it was so lacking in story content that apparently even more important story hooks got cut.

But yeah, those three could return at any point potentially, but I don’t think they will because of the whiplash that Scarlet got.

Mai is currently in the Edge of the Mists, away from any clear means of communication, and there’s no real reason for the White Mantle and especially Lazarus to contact her.

I think if Mai Trin was related to Marjory, Marjory would have denoted such when they first met and Mai Trin was thought to be a good guy. She wasn’t wearing Aetherblade clothing, but she wasn’t under disguise either.

Sure. Why not.

How you can argue that the Forgotten, who had first-hand experience with this subject, are wrong when a modern human scholar, who has basically third-hand experience, isn’t confuses me though.

But yeah, agree to disagree. Why not.

We’ve kind of known they were alive since release.

It’s literally point blank stated. In the human PS, in Brisban, in the Silverwastes, in the raid, and now here.

How are people only now getting it. o.0

Agemnon.4608:

Can we not have the charr take some after the human prisons are full? I don’t want them forging an alliance with the separatists that would be bad news. The only thing worse in Tyria than criminals are criminals who combine their powers yet even further endangering the citizens.

1) Charr don’t take separatist prisoners as far as we know. They don’t take many prisoners, honestly. Ebonhawke would, however.

2) The events of Caudecus’ Manor story indicate that Separatists are no friend to corrupt ministers (who work for the White Mantle knowingly or not/are White Mantle).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I don’t know that the two are close enough to say they need the same process. By context, the Forgotten is talking about doing what the Seers did last rise, whisking away all the free magic in the world into their rock. What the Mantle are doing are sacrificing captives and draining magic from their- souls? deaths?- one person’s worth at a time. They’re using the same medium, yes, but in radically different ways.

And where the Seer’s bloodstone process seemed to contain the magikittenil the gods played with it, the Mantle’s shards are leaking enough power straight back out to change the weather and invent the Red Templars.

On the part of leaking out – I haven’t fought Matthias but from reading the dialogue on the wiki I took it to be that Matthias was taking in magic actively and losing control of it, not that magic was seeping into the world from the bloodstone shards.

As to the first part – while the amount is on lower levels, that doesn’t mean it isn’t what the Six Gods basically did when they siphoned magic off of Zhaitan to empower the Bloodstones. It’s just a different scale.

However, keep in mind that the “windstorm” talked about appears to be the magical energy from Mordremoth’s death going through the ley lines that pass through the raid area and empowering everything magical there. That “everything” likely includes the Bloodstone. Now, consider what would happen to other Bloodstone-like materials elsewhere placed on ley lines… now remember that when Mordremoth died, his magic went into four directions – north towards Tarir and the raid… and south, towards the Ring of Fire Islands. And what’s there?

Food for thought.

But I doubt it’d come to pass.

Agemnon.4608:

That is why we must put our excess prisoners in Asura lands. The Inquest are always up to no good but don’t want anything to do with dirty humans. They’re lying low however so we know they’re preparing trouble down the road too. But I’ll be there…vigilant…stoic…and be the hero Tyria doesn’t deserve, but the hero it needs.

I’m not so sure about that…

And I wouldn’t call them lying low when they were actively annoying in Season 2’s first half.

Ayrilana.1396:

They created the bloodstone before the six gods appeared. No other gods were mentioned either.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Arah_(explorable)#Seer

Nothing mentions that divine magic was used. Your argument is like me saying that aliens founded the United States. Nothing says that they didn’t after all…

I never said that the Six Gods were around then. As for “nothing mentions that divine magic was used” – I actually gave you a source that says it does. That dungeon is not the only source on the creation of the Bloodstones, even in GW2.

You should know that ArenaNet loves to seed its lore in multiple places even when talking about a single subject. You will never find a solitary source that’s tells the whole story.

Most importantly NOTHING states that the Six Gods are the only source of divine magic.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are several gods mentioned in Tyria that are unrelated to the Six Gods.

Dirame.8521:

And to add to his point, was it not the 6 gods who brought magic back into Tyria after the Dragons went to sleep? And was it not the 6 that split it into how many or so pieces? So does it not stand to reason that they changed how the Bloodstone can be activated?

Technically, while the Six Gods did mess with the Bloodstone, they didn’t bring all magic back into Tyria

Ayrilana.1396:

The forgotten didn’t create the bloodstone as the seers did. Whether or not the forgotten can doesn’t matter in regards to what I was saying.

Read the links I posted. I also don’t recall anything about using the existing Bloodstones. Given that, perhaps his descendants could remove any seal, or whatever. Maybe that’s why they snuck in that artifact during season 2 to open up that possibility.

You’re right that the Forgotten didn’t create the Bloodstone.

However, why couldn’t they create a second one (and yes, this does factor into what you are saying) unless they do not have the resources for it? And if they did not have the resources for it, wouldn’t it stand that they would be able to find out what those resources are and state what those resources are?

Furthermore, the Forgotten were around when the Bloodstone was created, so it stands to reason that they would know by being told by the Seers how to make a Bloodstone.

Furthermore (x2), as for “I don’t recall anything about using the existing Bloodstones” – the entire lore around the Bloodstones – even mentioned in the links you posted – is that the Six Gods tampered with them. So it seems you need to read the links you posted.

But the fact remains: the Forgotten cannot create a Bloodstone, and they state that the reason for this is the lack of divine magic.

It doesn’t matter if Randall doesn’t mention that divine magic was used in the creation of the Bloodstone – why? Because he doesn’t talk about how the Bloodstone was made, and why is that? Because he doesn’t know how the Bloodstone was made. He might be the expert in the field, but he’s still lacking a lot of knowledge in that field. Knowledge that a race who was around for the event would know – namely, the Forgotten.

In other words, there is no reason to believe that the Forgotten’s statement that divine magic is required to create a Bloodstone is a lie.

The White Mantle are ramping up their game as magic overflows in Tyria.

Now here’s my question… it’s stated during the A Study in Gold achievement that the Forgotten had no means to empower a Bloodstone, but we kind of sort of saw the White Mantle/Mursaat do that.

Does this mean that the mursaat have the means – which requires divine magic apparently, according to A Study in Gold – to do this? After all, they seem to be empowering the bloodstone per raid wing 2.

This could mean that not only do the remaining Elder Dragons become more powerful, but the White Mantle – via the Bloodstone – will as well. And in turn, whatever mursaat are still living.

Makes me wonder if the mursaat’s grand master plan after betraying the races during the last dragonrise was to wait for the Elder Dragons to start dying off and using the excess magic to power their own devices. Would explain why the Jade Armors, Ether Seals and the mursaat’s structures on the Ring of Fire appeared similar to the Bloodstones in material (as opposed to jade like the jade armors’ name suggests) – could be they were basically building a force that would be empowered by the excess magic once an Elder Dragon was killed.

(Of course this would be a retcon in technicality since the Elder Dragons didn’t exist in lore during Prophecies’ development, but hey )

Devona and Co. didn’t really do everything. They weren’t present for any of the Beyond Arcs (or Zinn’s Task), and they were only background NPCs for the first three quarters of Prophecies (only appearing as henchmen in the second half of the Southern Shiverpeaks, but being present in side quests in Ascalon, Northern Shiverpeaks, Kryta, and the Crystal Desert).

And even then, Eve didn’t show up at all until they all became henchmen (though in her background lore, she joins them in Ascalon – whether this is before Rurik’s exodus or after the events of Prophecies but before the events of Factions is unknown, though given Mhenlo was found in Kryta I don’t think they returned to Ascalon after Prophecies).

About a “balanced group” or “the hero being something the others aren’t” – unlike in GW2, GW1 professions have a lot more variability even just in Prophecies. Cynn wasn’t just an Elementalist – she was a Fire Elementalist, never dealing in Air, Earth, or Water magic. So it’d still be “something the others aren’t” if the hero were a smiting monk, water ele, death necro, etc. etc.

Either way, there’s really no real way to guess at what the “heroes of GW1”’s professions were. Or that of GW2.

I’m not assuming anything – if anything, you are.

That line comes directly from the game, in the same source we have this other statement:

“In olden times, when the Dragons stirred, it fell to the Seers to set aside a reservoir of magic for the upcoming drought.”

Relinking source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Study_in_Gold

You say that the seers didn’t need the influence of divine magic, but the truth is that nothing makes that claim. We know that any divine magic they used wasn’t from the Six Gods, but they’re not the only gods that exist in Tyria – or at least, that’s what other races will say. Zintl, Ameyali, Koda, the Great Dwarf, Mellaggan just to name the more prominently known ones – and that doesn’t count things like the Spirit of the Wilds (note: norn consider the Spirit of the Wilds to be on par to the Spirits of Action aka Six Gods, and we know of many other nature spirits such as Urgoz, Zhu Hanuku, and others who were capable of controlling entire landscapes or return from the dead).

Nothing really says the seers didn’t use divine magic to make the Bloodstone. However, this new lore from HoT indicates that they indeed did.

About the GW1 hero/heroes:

Young Heroes of Tyria indicates that the pre-port missions are done by three separate individuals (one per campaign). ArenaNet is intentionally ambiguous about it, but there are other hints here and there indicating the ‘lore canon ambiguous heroes’ identities’. Strickly speaking:

Prophecies Hero – Prophecies, Eye of the North, War in Kryta, Hearts of the North

• The presence of Devona and co. in all games indicates this hero may have been present for them all.
• Gwen’s side-quests indicates that, at the very least, the Prophecies Hero was present for Eye of the North
• War in Kryta has some dialogue indicating the hero being the Prophecies Hero (same for Hearts of the North).

Factions Hero – Factions, Eye of the North, Winds of Change

• Winds of Change’s very introduction talks about the hero who slew Shiro, indicating that the Factions Hero is also around for WoC
• Later WoC dialogue talks about the hero being no longer viewed as Canthan by the overzealously patriotic Ministry of Purity and Am Fah, indicating the Factions Hero went out of the country for one thing or another – Nightfall or Eye of the North, right?
• Well, not Nightfall. Why? Zenmai has a quest and she says ""You remind me of a certain Sunspear I know." If the Factions Hero was around for Nightfall, they’d have met and thus not really be reminding her.
• There isn’t really much to put the Factions Hero in Eye o the North, War in Kryta, or Hearts of the North but nothing to counter that either. The presence of the EotN intro quest is questionable in canon, but we do have the presence of Talon, Zho, and Lo Sha, so the Factions Hero going for the events of EotN isn’t unlikely – staying for WiK/HotN is rather 50/50.

Nightfall Hero – Nightfall, maybe Eye of the North

• Unfortunately other than the presence of Herta, there’s really no indication that the Nightfall Hero would have gone to Tyria for Eye of the North. The above line by Zenmai kind of pushes the Nightfall Hero from being involved with Winds of Change, though there’s not much to counter involvement with WiK/HotN, but nothing to really push for that either.
• I believe that if Anet had continued the Elona Beyond storyline, we would have gotten a clearer stance on this. Sadly, ArenaNet foolishly cut the tale.

As to their profession, a question for the OP:

Why do they have to be what the Devona and Co. are not? What prevents a doubling up, exactly? And besides, if you add in heroes – which you do with EotN – then Nightfall has every profession and half of them twice as heroes alone, consider all of the henchmen and you have all non-Canthan professions once, half twice. In factions you have all Canthan professions three to five times over.

So looking at the professions of ‘major characters’ doesn’t work because every one gets covered.

As for the GW2 hero:

The events of the personal story indicate that each plot gets fulfilled whether you’re the one to do it or not. So there’s 3 asura, 3 charr, 3 humans, 3 norn, and 3 sylvari – it’s just that they are not the Snaff Savant, Hero of Shaemoor, or Slayer of Issormir. But ultimately, there ends up being just one Dragonslayer/Commander of the Pact.

As to professions… You have:

• two necromancers (Trahearne and Marjory),
• two rangers (Eir and Rox)
• two guardians (Braham and Logan)
• two mesmers (Snaff and Kasmeer – well, Snaff is questionable)
• one elementalist (Zojja)
• one thief (Caithe)
• one engineer (Taimi – she’s all about building stuff and learning from engineers, regardless of her armor which NPCs are not limited by)
• one warrior/thief hybrid turned revenant (Rytlock)
• one warrior/engineer hybrid (Canach)

So you already have doubling up of professions, again. Ultimately, it’s left up in the air for both game what the profession – and gender, and in GW2’s case, race of the Pact Commander – is.

Though yes, sylvari are by far treated as the poster child of GW2.

It’s pretty much blatantly stated that you need divine magic to do that in the A Study in Gold inscriptions. Which the Forgotten – the closest group to divine beings (the Six) in the past thousand years – lacked.

“We do not have the divine resources needed to imbue a new Bloodstone with enough magic to prevent Tyria from declining into a state of primitive adversity.”

So the Forgotten allied with Glint to find an alternative. This alternative seems to be the egg – or at least, the egg is part of the alternative plan. “Glint’s legacy” in full is, supposedly, the plan to remove the Elder Dragons and the excess magic in the world.

I was there two nights ago and it seemed the same as always to me.

Everything in the game is canon. Alpha uses abilities of five different dragon corruption, as well as commanding various dragon minions (risen, destroyer, mordrem, icebrood – not sure on branded). The source is the fight itself, the lore around it coming from the dungeon – dialogue, fight, PoI names. Like a lot of GW lore, you gotta put together the pieces.

What’s not known about Alpha is why it’s unable to be controlled while Kudu’s Monster was (supposedly), and which – if any – dragon(s) it follows.

As to the Nightmare Court – yes, they share the same Dream, and are all still connected to it. And by all indication some did fall to Mordremoth too. Stavemaster Adryn says lines that are commonly used by Nightmare Courtiers (“Gaze into Nightmare!” iirc).

The only way to disconnect from the Dream is by being Soundless, but even that’s not really a full disconnect. The Dream and the Pale Tree can still break through the meditations and whatnot used to silence them, if the call is strong enough. So said Scott McGough in an interview, at least.

But the Dream was how Mordremoth turned the sylvari, so it wouldn’t be what saved the Courtiers.

There is one other case than Subject Alpha – Kudu’s Monster. And we have enough lore for Alpha to know that it was an Inquest experiment on creating a dragon champion of multriple dragon energies that they could control. Alpha was a failure, Kudu’s Monster was a supposed success.

Both are very much canon and not in question. There’s no reason to question its “reliability in lore”. We know it can happen. The question is: why don’t we see it happen without third party influence?

As to your theory, you were only right in how every other bloke who theorized “sylvari=dragon minions!!!1!!1!” did. Nightmare has proven to not be coming from Mordremoth at all (given by the fact that the Nightmare Court fight Mordremoth too), and the Dream is explicitly stated to be what allows Mordremoth to get into sylvari heads. So by all indication, you were wrong on every account but tying their origins to Mordremoth and that the Tower of Nightmares hints at Mordremoth’s domain of mind. Which everyone else for the theory had kind of theorized too.

As to the chak and corruption – keep in mind that the chak aren’t actually always right next to Mordremoth’s corruption – they’re deep underground. It doesn’t show so well in-game due to the casual inclines and scaling, but the chak hives aren’t near the surface (nor is Rata Novus).

In fact, if anything, I think the lack of interaction between chak and mordrem is evidence against the theory of them being dragon minions (I’d take a moment to note that I am in favor of this theory, but I’m willing to denote there is counter-evidence), because risen did not ever avoid confrontation with sylvari – the only case we see where those of dragon minion origins collide. A prime example: Rhiann’s Respite a sylvari-made oasis that is repeatedly attacked by risen.

There are. Each of the three maps has two ley line areas now. Folks are guessing we’ll see another set of events next Tuesday.

Shadow/Darkness was Zhaitan’s second sphere. It makes no sense for two dragons to share spheres of power.

Also, technically speaking nothing really implies that water/ocean is the DSD’s first sphere of power. The first sphere has always been what the Elder Dragons’ corruption takes the form of – fire, plant, death, ice, and crystal. But the DSD’s minions are only hinted to take the form of tentacles. It corrupts water, but that’s not what has shown to determine sphere before.

Mordremoth = Plant and Mind
Zhaitan = Death and Shadow/Darkness
Primordus = Fire and ?
Jormag = Ice and ? (theorized: Soul/Spirit)
Kralkatorrik = Crystal and ? (theorized: Sky/Air)
DSD = ? (theorized: water) and ???

Yeah, seems Anet’s doing another ‘gradual spread of things’ like the vines at waypoints or clearing out Fort Vandal or the Vinewrath’s encroachment during S2.

Each spot seems to be a location of 3 smaller ley line convergences.

Risen aren’t really corpses though, no more than icebrood, branded, mordrem, or destroyers are. Dragon corruption seems to fundamentally change the composition of what’s corrupted. What started out as a corpse, is a corpse no longer in this case.

Not really, though some wiki articles do denote all of the individual NPCs’ movements to the best of our knowledge.