Guild Wars 2

Everyone seems to forget:

The main key to the design was developing an obvious anatomy that clearly described the race as plant rather than an offshoot of human. However, because the race tightly relates to the essence of human due to the Pale Tree’s influences from Ronan, the overall form has a human silhouette. But if you look more closely, you’ll see the forms are really quite alien. They are a collection of abstract notions the Pale Tree had about what made up the human, as she really only saw the surface. They are a tree’s interpretation of humans.

http://www.talktyria.net/2011/08/11/sylvari-lore-interview-with-ree-soesbee-kristen-perry/

The mystery of their appearance was answered, long ago.

• It isn’t. The Pale Tree was the block to seeing The All. Hidden Arcana (E5 final instance) explains that the central orb is the world of Tyria (referred to as Thyria in ancient Krytan).
• Idiot Ball, a common theme amongst the good guys as of Living World.
• Yes and no. Those corrupted appear to hold no issue with proximity. However, those not corrupted obviously do. Mordremoth was sleeping until roughly now, so Scarlet and Aerin got corrupted by proximity and Mordy’s attention to them – most likely at least. The same will likely hold true for the other sylvari – because they’re “un-corrupted” (they’ve been purified via Pale Tree etc.) so they need to be “re-corrupted” which requires attention towards them (and likely proximity).
• Unknown, but my theory is that the Dream is a part of the world’s magic – it seems to be locational based, and those with powerful magic innate to them (Pale Tree, White Stag, Mordremoth) can affect it – even access it. It holds many similarities to the Mists as well, and it is not unique to all of Mordremoth’s minions (see Malyck, and no indication of mordrem being tied to the Dream).
• Idiot Ball, Mach II.

• Any of the above. Champions are defined by power and intelligence, which in turn are determined, according to Gorr and Trahearne, by how much corruption is put into a would-be minion.
• No, but having more intelligence does allow for more potential actions. They serve their dragon without question due to lack of free will nonetheless.
• They do hold different specializations at times, but this is only seen for risen. Nothing says other dragon champions have unique specializations. Though Vinewrath may in regards to being a minion factory. Overall, their purpose is to lead the dragon’s armies.
• Both. It is even possible for a champion to make another champion (see Drakkar and Svanir). But ultimately, the Elder Dragon is the source of the corruption – champions merely spread it further better than lesser minions.
• Unknown. Those giant vine arches in Silverwastes are Vinewrath’s doing though.
• Changes from Dragon to Dragon. Zhaitan was fairly distant, sitting on his throne while minions did everything (supposedly). Taimi speculated that the large vines going after the waypoint network and destroying forts across Tyria was Mordremoth himself. Jormag personally fought waves of norn and the Spirits of the Wild in the past. Kralkatorrik personally slew his traitorous champion, Glint but has otherwise been unheard.

Really? My post got deleted for stating that the question of the thread – if Scarlet Briar was a Dragon champion – wasn’t answered got deleted when the post two above me that outright insults the respondents of this thread wasn’t?

The responses are not insulting, despite the claim; I read through them and they don’t come off as such to me. And while sylvari are Dragon minions, that doesn’t make Scarlet a champion – just a minion.

Jeez, everyone who made thus “profound revelation” is going into egotistical mode, and ANet apparently supports them when they’re insulting those who disagreed with them. Wtf?

Squee.7829:

There are 7 similarities between humans and raccoons! We have mammary glands, we have forward facing eyes, we are warm blooded, we have opposable thumbs, we have a range of emotional expressions, a sense of possession, and the ability to grow hair. Logic follows that we are raccoons!

It’s not a strong argument. We have never been given a set of rules saying that minions MUST follow x criteria.

You’re right, that’s not a strong argument.

But that’s not my argument in regards to sylvari.

And besides, you’re strawman’ing. If you want to even get closer to my argument, then it’d be “both are mammals”.

My argument is:

Dragon Minion Type A can do xyz.
Dragon Minion Type B can also do xyz.
Dragon Minion Type C can do xyz as well.
Dragon Minion Type D can do xyz.
Dragon Minion Type E can do xyz too.
Dragon Minion Type F cannot do xyz.
Dragon Minion Type G is unknown if they can do xyz or not, for we have not seen Dragon Minion Type G.

~One of these things don’t work like the others~

This alone wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but then you hit a wall:

The aforementioned “Dragon Minion Type E”? Those would be mordrem. “Dragon Minion Type F”? Those are sylvari.

We have things that mordrem have in common with all other dragon minions (branded, destroyer, icebrood, and risen) on a general scope. But the sylvari – supposedly also mordrem – lack.

What I am, in the end, trying to say is that there is something amiss. Something doesn’t fit with this revelation.

Currently, with all the effort ArenaNet has apparently put to make sylvari so unlike dragon minions, the sylvari have as much in common with mordrem that the Flame Legion has with destroyers.

DorDor.8617:

And if you comb through enough of the obscure dialogue, exposition, and years-old interviews with the authors, you’ll always find things that don’t match up. It’s a fact of writing.

Here’s the thing. I haven’t dug all that deep. Half of what I present is downright stated fact, the other half just takes looking at a wide scale of things.

And the fact of the matter is that all common ground that dragons and their minions hold, the sylvari lack.

Even outright stated things – like the consumption of magic – is lacking by sylvari.

There is something wrong. Perhaps, it is as you said: things just don’t match up. But this is not an obscure thing here – these inconsistencies between sylvari and mordrem are skin deep in how deep into lore you must go.

And the funny thing about your statement and GW lore? Until the Living World, digging “too deep” actually made the lore make more sense. This is why the GWW is so much more coherent with lore than the games of Factions etc. Because I “dug too deep” and put it all together. And it made sense. But the Living World? Season 2 especially? You go deeper than the skin, and it begins making less and less sense.

DaShi.1368:

DorDor.8617:

On the Forgotten: There are only two instances that we know of in which a dragon minion gained/regained free will. One is Glint. The other is Twitchy the Chicken, when we recreated the Forgotten ritual. Before you mention Mawdrey, remember that it isn’t the same plant as the Mysterious Vine, only an ancestor (and before you mention the fact that minions can’t reproduce, remember that there are caveats to that rule).

All the theories that were created to try to debunk the Sylvari aren’t minions are based on “rules” created only by players. How can you argue against their “rules” when they say that the exceptions don’t contradict their “rules” but instead errors in the lore? It’s like a scientist holding on to a theory that has been thoroughly disproven, only far less significant.

The so called “rules created only by players” are in fact taken from observations from the game. While never stated outright, they become apparent if you look at all the lore.

Most people don’t. This is why most people think the lore of GW1 and GW2 are completely incoherent. While the lore has become such with the Living World here and there, beforehand it wasn’t. You just need to look very wide and very deep.

I have not made up a single thing about the shared traits of dragon minions. The only potential “rule made by players only” that you can throw at me is the lieutenant bit. Certainly not what you quoted from Dordor. And certainly not my seven points I presented before.

Re-Wyld Hunts:
When I was talking about dragon-related, I was referring to your first two sentences: “Yeah, they’ve [the dwarves] all been very single-minded about killing the Elder Dragons. But in a way, so are the sylvari.” I was responding to that in saying that not all sylvari are focused on the Elder Dragons – and in fact, they’re nowhere near as close to the dwarves in that single-mindedness. And while Valiants do focus on their Wyld Hunt, they’re hardly single-minded about it.

Take Trahearne, an example you used. Yes, he devoted most of his life to studying Orr for 23 years. But he never actually took action to fulfill his Wyld Hunt. He intentionally delayed his Wyld Hunt as much as he could because he thought it impossible, while still working towards it. This wasn’t single-mindedness so much as avoiding it. He mentions this himself during the Personal Story.

I disagree about the Nightmare Court; they have Dark Hunts, after all. Valiants work to complete it – but they’re hardly single-minded about it.

Re-Stone Summit: while this is true at first, eventually they rejoined Deldrimor and ALL dwarves underwent the ritual and went underground to fight the Primordus. Told at Granite Citadel and Norn PS C3’s end.

Re-Dream:
The “isn’t reality” and ‘I don’t know" line actually comes from Trahearne, not the Pale Tree – the Pale Tree mentions the portal. And I fail to see how “isn’t reality” rules out the afterlife, the building blocks of reality, and the collection of memories of past, present, and future. I don’t think the afterlife or “all that is, was, and will be” constitutes as “reality” tbh.

Take that last one in. And re-read the quote. The one said by the Pale Tree, not Trahearne.

DorDor.8617:

-snip-

Re-Forgotten:
A few things:

• The key was a Forgotten Seal; Divine Fire was the “work around” – a magical lockpick if you will.
• Technically, we don’t know where Ronan found the seed cave, I don’t think it’s even actually said to be in the jungle – people presume because that was the largest Shining Blade presence at the time, but it wasn’t the only location of SB presence. And we don’t even know when he got the seed either, which would affect SB presence concentration. He could have gotten it in the Shiverpeaks, for all we are told.
• The Forgotten had a known presence in the Tarnished Coast, Kryta, Blazeridge Mountains, and even Cantha. This cave is the only Forgotten ruins shown to players in the game outside the Crystal Desert. Prophecies manual and An Empire Divided tell us a grasp of their spread pre-retreat to the desert.

Now, I don’t doubt the cave to be Forgotten, but there are hundreds of caves – both in GW1 and GW2 – that the seeds could have been in.

Re-lieutenants:
I disagree on “only two differences”. I, in fact, listed three:

• Capable of controlling and ordering around grunts.
• Capable of conversation (no grunt is capable of such that we have seen).
• Is more powerful than the typical grunt (you’ll seldom see regular ranked, mechanically speaking, “lieutenants”).
• One I didn’t mention: mostly, if not solely, are involved with events and story instances – I haven’t encountered any minion I’d consider a “lieutenant” as a persistent open world creature not tied to an event.
• Aren’t one-in-a-million – usually they’re uniquely named mechanically.

And you state those two risen are “clear grunts” in Sea of Sorrows – here’s the thing, all risen that speak in SoS are near the obvious dragon champion Captain Whiting; Champions leading armies will often have lieutenant-looking figures with them, when separated they’d lead smaller groups around (like the veterans that held key positions on Claw Island during Retribution; like how Whiting sends lieutenant-looking individuals to assault specific targets, such as Cobiah). You say they’re “clear grunts” but to me they can easily classify as “lieutenants” – now this may end up result in your original claim posing you to go “aha! See, I told you’d just do that!” But let me throw it back around to you:

Why are they clearly grunts?

I see nothing that indicates that. What they were in the previous life does not dictate what they are as risen. Nor does how long ago they were corrupted (it’s known that champions can create champions on the spot – see Drakkar and Svanir – so why can’t a champion create a lieutenant on the spot?).

And why would it be mandatory for a dragon minion capable of leading a small group, to actually lead a small group? I never said that every lieutenant does lead a group, but that they can. Because those I’d consider such often do – but again, not always.

Re-Mordrem wolves:
Mordrem wolves flanking is fine. I did not deny this. But I do not know a single wolf – non-corrupted – that flanks.

As for the “pups” – in the story instance that happens there, there are dozens of “Immature” Mordrem Wolves. The “pups” appearance in the open world only creates a continuity of the scouting mission searching for the source of Mordrem. But nowhere do I see that they’re being “protected” but larger mordrem wolves. Why don’t they join in the attack? Perhaps because they’re growing still and thus not ready for an assault. There’s a champion nearby (the Vinewrath), so tactics are being used. Those “pups” are just part of the minion-creation-process.

Every human nation in Tyria is both a nation and the landmass.

Arah was part of the kingdom of Orr, either way, even before the Exodus. I don’t know where you’re getting this claim that it wasn’t. Because every source I’ve ever read states otherwise, even an interview which compared it to the Forbidden City – it had its human-allowed portion, but the rest was forbidden to humans. So part of Arah was accessible to humans prior to the Exodus – but not all of it.

Nothing ever claimed they had human origins. Simply Orrian origins.

Arah was part of Orr even before the Exodus. It was just a Forbidden City-esque situation (per an old interview).

DorDor.8617:

Yeah, it’s been stated that Destroyers are a complete, literal hive-mind. But that actually supports the theory a bit, because not all dragon minions are on that level. As noted above, Risen, Mordrem, and Icebrood have been seen wielding weapons, doing things independently, and even talking. Destroyers can’t do any of that. Either they’re killing or they’re looking for something to kill. There’s a sliding scale here, and the sylvari are just much closer to ‘autonomous’ than the others.

Well with the talking bit, we never see any form of construct dragon minion talk – likely because they literally and physically can’t. But we do see destroyers wielding weapons (harpies in GW2, the vast majority of them in GW1), and we do see them acting alone at times – but like icebrood, branded, and mordrem, their “acting alone” is literally just wandering about until they see something not of their kind – which they slaughter remorselessly.

DorDor.8617:

I’ve never seen evidence that the Dream is physical. In fact, there’s quite a bit against it. For example: new sylvari players are both killing the Shadow and growing in our pods at the same time, implying a vision instead of an actual fight. If the Dream is a physical place, where is it? The Mists? Another plane of existence? How do you know Light in the Darkness wasn’t just a vision inside of a mindscape instead of being physically teleported into a facsimile of Orr? And then there’s the memory seeds. We’re going into the Dream during Seeds of Truth (The memory seeds are tapping into the collective knowledge the sylvari passively store in the Dream, and there’s a palette swap during the flashbacks that all Dream-related missions have), and yet Marjory mentioned guarding us, implying an out-of-body experience. Maybe it’s not necessarily in the players’ heads, but it’s not a physical place either.

How do I know A Light in the Darkness wasn’t a vision?

The portal before you is a passage into the Dream. There, you will see glimpses of the past, the present, and the future. From A LIght in the Darkness.

You don’t have portals into something that’s just what you’re seeing or thinking. But it is not like Tyria – it is not a part of Tyria. Also from A Light in the Darkness:

The Dream is not reality, <Character name>. It is made of memory, aether, and powerful magic. Even I do not understand it.

What is it? We don’t know. But it’s more than simply the sylvari consciousness. We physically enter there, but is not reality. This is one of many reasons why I suspect it to be part of the Mists.

DorDor.8617:

Well, to my knowledge, dwarves don’t have a sixth sense regarding their proximity to other dwarves, either (and dwarves seem to be the best comparison here). And the Icebrood hive-mind used in Edge of Destiny didn’t seem to involve a sixth sense either; it was just a standing order from Jormag/the Dragonspawn not to attack Icebrood or their allies (the Sons of Svanir). When the Dragonspawn’s hold over them was broken, there was nothing compelling them to remain civil. And even if they did have a sixth sense to detect sylvari cut off from the Dream, it wouldn’t work on the Nightmare Court (who are still technically a part of the Dream, just the run-down, nasty part of it). But it would work on Soundless.

Read the link I provided please. It outright states they had such.

DorDor.8617:

I’m not quite sure what to make of the White Stag, to be honest. There is a little theory I’m working on now, though. Basically: If the Pale Tree functions like a freed dragon champion, she might be capable of spreading her own special brand of corruption. That corruption tagged the White Stag, bringing it into the collective consciousness. I still don’t know how it’s able to enter the Dream at will, though.

Unfortunately, the dialogue for talking to the Pale Tree at the end of the White Stag arc isn’t on the wiki, but if memory serves me right she states she isn’t related to the White Stag.

DorDor.8617:

These were seeds with a clear connection to the Forgotten.

You’ll have to explain this one to me, for I see nothing to hint to this.

DorDor.8617:

I’ve always been taught that the rule of thumb is to linger only on stuff that will be relevant later.

This is so for books, but not typically so for RPGs – especially MMOs expected to last a long time. So long as you can keep continuity, you should flesh out as much as you can when you can, so that the players feel more immersion into the game – immersion is, traditionally, one of the most important aspects of a roleplaying game.

DorDor.8617:

I’ve never seen anything in-game to support the idea of rank between grunt and champion. How do you know that the ‘lieutenants’ aren’t just grunts, and that grunts have more autonomy than you previously thought? I mean, many icebrood and branded don’t even have mouths (they’re iced/crystaled over), so they can’t exactly communicate with us like the Risen can.

Those I classify as “lieutenants” are capable of commanding other minions – and sometimes killing them for their own gain (Kitah Conjurer – an oft bugged event – is the perfect example in this, as he sacrifices, if you let him, his assistants from life to heal him and make him more powerful; but while strong, and outright stated to be stronger than most risen, he is not a dragon champion). Grunts we never see capable of holding conversations – the most we see are risen grunts shouting things like “kitten your eyes” and “everyone, come!” – while lieutenants often do.

DorDor.8617:

Zhaitan’s not the only dragon to do that. Icebrood quaggan, for example, still use spears (even though they have perfectly capable clawas and fangs) and are capable of speaking (they have aggro and death barks similar to Risen thralls), and Mordrem wolves use the tactics of an actual wolf (attacking in packs, attacking flanks [as the game tells us, they do more damage when attacking from the side], and even protecting corrupted cubs [go to Desperate Passage; there’s a regular-sized Mordrem wolf walking around with a group of noticeably smaller Mordrem wolves, it’s actually kind of cute in a really creepy way]) instead of just mindlessly murdering everything they encounter. It’s just more noticeable with Zhaitan, because Zhaitan deals almost exclusively in undeath and of all the Elder Dragons, we’ve interacted with him the most.

The icebrood quaggans are an interesting case for the aggro lines, however they are not the only icebrood with weapons – in fact, almost every icebrood has a weapon. Also, mechanically, wolves don’t attack from the flank. And that example isn’t really protecting corrupted cubs, as I see it – and all mordrem wolves do mindlessly murder everything they encounter (I’ve seen many times where a mordrem wolf, or icebrood colossus, will venture halfway across the area they’re in just to kill an ambient rabbit or such).

DorDor.8617:

Yeah, they’ve all been very single-minded about killing the Elder Dragons. But in a way, so are the sylvari. Many of them (I don’t think it’s all, but I’m not sure) are given a Wyld Hunt, a goal that they spend their entire lives trying to complete. Talking to the Wyld Hunt Valiants in Brisban, they all seem extremely driven. Their lust for Destroyer blood (magma?) seems like it works along the same lines—compelling them, but not outright forcing them. Also, if dwarves are all ‘lieutenants’, why can’t the sylvari be the same?

Firstly, no not all sylvari are given Wyld Hunts – and not all Wyld Hunts relate to the dragons. Sylvari goals as a race are very wide-spread, and the Wyld Hunts we see? Some are after protecting nature, some are trying to create diplomacy with the races, some are trying to improve housing. Hardly single-minded.

And the example for dwarves was just a comparison example. Dwarves aren’t dragon minions – so naturally they’d function differently. They don’t (as far as we know) consume magic, for example.

Squee.7829:

To say they’re acting outside of x parameters is pointless. No one ever said they all had to make things the exact same way.

This isn’t true either. In the aforementioned twitch tv video (kitten you Anet for deleting it), Jeff cut off Ree when she was talking about Glint and Rotscale saying that they’re very different. Jeff cut her off saying that “no that’s not right” and to paraphrase: they are different, but yet they are the same.

Jeff actually said this a few times – both about dragon champions and the Elder Dragons themselves.

“They are similar, yet they are different.” “They are different, yet they are similar.”

Interpret it how you will, but to me this means “there will be aspects shared across all dragons and their minions, and aspects seen only by one – maybe two – but never most.” And this is what I’ve been talking about. We actually see these similarities and differences between them all INCLUDING MORDREM. But the sylvari don’t have these similarities – any of them!

Despite how enigmatic the dragons are, we still see clear similarities and differences.

Primordus prefers corruption stone, but yet he is capable of corrupting living beings. This goes for all other elder dragons we’ve seen heavy evidence of – Jormag prefers having his prospective minions come to him willingly before corruption, but is capable of forcibly corrupting, he can and does corrupt corpses, and he can and does corrupt the land and elementals. Zhaitan prefers corrupting corpses, but he can corrupt the living, he corrupts plants, and he corrupts the land (Orr).

Squee.7829:

I’d also go into say we know the reason the Sylvari are so different is because of factors we already know, i.e. the Ventari tablets and being buried on dead people, but I have issues with that too. One being the aforementioned minion freeing ritual that SHOULD take lots of time, energy, and knowledge. A stone tablet is simply not enough. Also, why is Malyck also human shaped? Who else is going around planting those seeds on dead people?

Does your religion affect the fact you eat plants and animals?
Does your religion affect the fact your white/black/asian/other?
Does your religion affect the fact that you don’t have telepathy?

Why should it for sylvari, when dragon minions are known to only be cleansed via powerful rituals (as stated by Ange McCoy herself) – which I’ve pointed out with a source already.

Sorry, but the ventari tablet idea does not float.

If you intend to keep this up, please actually read my posts and the sources I cite.

DorDor.8617:

You stated in your previous posts that you didn’t believe this was the writers’ plan for the sylvari from conception.

What I’ve been trying to say is that it doesn’t appear to be the plan from conception – there’s too much evidence against and too few for. The clues only appear as such in hindsight, and that’s an easy thing to manipulate – as a writer myself, I know.

DorDor.8617:

Remember that in the same instance, we’d just played through a vision of a potential future. The Pale Tree (also like Glint, funnily enough) has some degree of foresight. It wasn’t a sixth sense, it was a prophecy that unfolded just a few seconds later. But when Mordremoth awoke, her exact words were “I’ve known since the moment we’ve heard the roar”. Implying that before the roar, she didn’t know, ruling out prophecy.

All her line really says is “I was able to tell that the roar did not come from one of the other four Elder Dragons”. And that vision of the future was 1) a possible future and 2) only about Orr.

Shinzan.2908:

No offense meant but the above rebuttals could be summed up as “Sylvari/Pale Tree are not like other dragon minions”. Like you are going through every random note or statement looking for contradictions while missing the bigger picture.

I don’t think you understood my argument, so I’ll put it in the shortest means possible here – if you care for more, then there’s above. This is a simple logical 101 argument: “If A + B then C”. We have:

A. There are 7 similarities across destroyers, icebrood, branded, risen, and non-sylvari mordrem.
B. The sylvari do not share these similarities.

Therefore, logic follows that:
C. The sylvari are not dragon minions.

My point, here, is that the reveal that sylvari are dragon minions is illogical given our evidence. While appearance, intelligence, and the hive mind can be argued to be flimsy in both directions, that’s still 4 pieces of evidence that makes the outcome illogical.

The most critical, however, is the diet. The very nature of the Elder Dragons – and in turn their dragon minions – and this includes mordrem (see Episode 2 attacks on Fort Salma and Concordia) – is to consume magic. Sylvari do not consume magic.

This in turn goes to my final point: If sylvari were intended from the beginning to be dragon minions, then ArenaNet FAR out of their way provide evidence that this isn’t the case. So far that it becomes a lore inconsistency.

Squee.7829:

The mordrem and Sylvari look as similar to me as the Destroyer harpies vs Destroyer trolls in a sense that they look absolutely nothing alike aside from the material they’re made of. Both destroyers appear to be made of lava and stone, whereas the mordrem seem to be primarily made of bark and leaves (and maybe a calcium based skull here and there http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Mordrem.jpg). The Sylvari also appear to be made of bark and leaves: http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/media/uploads/2011/08/WhintSeries.jpg

By your argument, treants and all GW1 plant enemies are mordrem, embers are destroyers, ice elementals are icebrood, and Palawa Joko is a risen. It just doesn’t work that way.

And destroyer harpies and destroyer trolls are the most similar – they have the same oval chest, they have similar legs and arms – it’s the tail/wings and the head that differs mainly. But I do not speak of shape, I speak of the materials. Every single destroyer is made out of obsidian stone (per EotN manual) and basalt (per EoD) that is smooth and polished looking – you will never find a rough, rigid , grainier destroyer (excluding the exceedingly unusual disc destroyers in GW1). When destroyers die all of them become cooled instantly (very unlike lava) where their lava becomes this pinkish-gray flesh-like appearance.

All risen are gray-skinned and rotten. This is in fact a heavy point of the novels that describe risen conversion – that their skin grays from whatever color (pale, tanned, black, furred) it was before. The only exceptions are the risen wraiths, abominations, and knights.

You will never see an emerald branded. You will never see a ruby branded. You will never see a clear branded. All branded are gray skinned, black stoned (basalt per EoD – just like destroyers, but a bit rougher, not as smooth or polished looking), and purple shimmering crystal (that looks more like a transparent container holding purple liquid tbh).

So there are exceptions, but they’re the unusual ones – whereas sylvari are the most usual.

Black/green thrashers, menders, and teragriffs hold similar appearance; wolves (the flower part, nto the corpse part) and the yellow thrashers hold a common appearance. Husks may be the odd-man out, as we don’t even know how the Nightmare Court make them, and troll is… tough to say.

Squee.7829:

And we really don’t know enough about how dragons work. We have enough precedents to say what they have in common, but nothing about most of them personally, but each one is unique, and more importantly, very distant. The only ones we’ve actually seen firsthand were Kralkatorric and Zhaitan, and only one of them had any time to actually DO anything before anyone saw it.

I think my long post in response to Rius rather proves that we do know plenty about how dragons work. And that wasn’t even everything – just the similarities between the minions.

• This is all part of a misconception that goes all the way back to the Rite of the Great Dwarf in Eye of the North, when all of the dwarves turned themselves to stone. In Eye of the North, there were multiple mentions of the new dwarf ‘collective consciousness’, and it was specifically pointed out that the ‘collective consciousness’ mirrors the one that the Destroyers share with the Great Destroyer (making it a valid comparison to both the sylvari and the Elder Dragons). It would be a misconception if it weren’t true. But “Gwen was right” – sayeth Ogden. And Jeff states there’s such a connection amongst icebrood; this is how the Dragonspawn was defeated in Edge of Destiny. That gray powerstone dust managed to block that hivemind (long enough to) result(ing) in the icebrood turning on it, no longer seeing it as an icebrood for there was no mental connection.
• But each dwarf still retained their independence and free will, despite supposedly being bound to the will of the Great Dwarf. For example, Ogden Stonehealer chose to remain on the surface, and still answers to the name ‘Ogden Stonehealer’, not ‘Dwarf Monk #4723’. Not really “each” dwarf, but it’s certainly more independence than what the dragon minions have – per my ranking above, they’d all be lieutenant at least in terms of intelligence; but there’s a clear alteration of personality. Most evident was Jalis. But they all have been fully about killing dragons – particularly destroyers – or protecting Glint/Glint’s children (hmmm, makes me wonder if she’s related to the ritual’s origin). Everything they did post-transformation has been to fight the dragons.
• Arenanet’s definition of ‘hive-mind’ is a very wonky one. You’re interpreting it to mean ‘one mind controlling multiple bodies’. In actuality, it’s more like ‘multiple minds with a telepathic connection to one mind’. Actually, the later is exactly what I was referring to. Except that 90% of the dragon minions are mindless (outright stated for destroyers, I believe). Those mindless, or near mindless, dragon minions are literally functioning off of “kill everything not in my head” (okay, not that literal, but the general jist is that); risen are, again, a bit unique because they have enough mentality – even grunts – to retain small parts of their past life, and the more corruption, the more intelligence and power, thus the more parts of their past life (just like any other dragon minion we’ve seen). The sylvari do not have any of this – as a sylvari herself states (again, see above posts), the Dream of Dreams is no hive mind.
• What the Forgotten ritual does is sever the connection between the multiple minds and the one. Technically, what we’re told it does is instill free will. Which wouldn’t necessarily mean separation from the hive mind. Though that’s not unlikely.
• For the Pale Tree, those minions are the sylvari and that consciousness is the Dream of Dreams. From the perspective of Killeen and other sylvari, they aren’t in a ‘mass mind’ because they can control everything they do… even though the Pale Tree could totally change that if she wanted to. But the Dream of Dreams is a physical location (see A Light in the Darkness), where beings other than sylvari can access (see White Stag and A Light in the Darkness). And it really isn’t a mass mind because they don’t have much of a connection to the Dream after waking – it’s a one-way street and they can’t tell who is or isn’t connected to the Dream or how. A Nightmare Courtier can be hidden amongst Dreamers at times:
  [quote]Question Three: Can Courtiers have their corruption detected by menders or other members of the community by either physical or empathic means?
  Scott McGough: Nightmare Courtiers often do register differently to other sylvari through their shared empathic connection, but it’s not always an obvious “take one look and you’ll know who’s Nightmare” situation. As stated above, they use many methods of persuasion to convince other sylvari to join their cause, and so they have developed common methods of masking their intentions in order to make inroads with potential new recruits without frightening those new recruits off.[/quote]http://www.guildwars2roleplayers.com/forum/m/2737230/viewthread/9902543-2rps-lore-interview-arenanet
• What are the implications of this? It means that the Forgotten ritual isn’t permanent or impenetrable, because Mordremoth was able to infiltrate the Dream. Well, implied by that twitch video that I mentioned, which was deleted (frowns at you Anet), Glint remained immune… but not necessarily her children. So if the same ritual was indeed used on mere seeds, then it only makes the seeds immune.

• On appearance: Fair point. However, I suggest looking at mender and teragriff bodies too. They’re the closest to sylvari, but even then, very different. The Husks can easily be simply corrupted Summoned Husks – given the Nightmare Court connection, apparently, it’s not too unlikely. The yellow Thrasher and Wolves hold similarities too. But there’s a very clear sinisterism to these appearances; much like differentiating sylvan hounds from thorn wolves. And even the Nightmare Court, twisted by Mordremoth(?) lack this.
• On Sylvari looking humanoid: That was presented as an in-game theory. But the truth was revealed – though oh so quickly forgotten. The in-game theory is only part-right. ”However, because the race tightly relates to the essence of human due to the Pale Tree’s influences from Ronan, the overall form has a human silhouette. But if you look more closely, you’ll see the forms are really quite alien. They are a collection of abstract notions the Pale Tree had about what made up the human, as she really only saw the surface. They are a tree’s interpretation of humans.” http://www.talktyria.net/2011/08/11/sylvari-lore-interview-with-ree-soesbee-kristen-perry/
  Even so: teragriffs seem to be Mordremoth’s interpretation of colocals; and menders to be Mordremoth’s interpretation of trolls. This is very similar to Primordus with the destroyers, stated here by Jeff Grubb to be made in mockery of living beings.
• You act like dragon minions can’t form independent thoughts or do things that their masters didn’t tell them to do. But they can, and they have. I neither said nor meant this. However, I should note that while champions – and to a lesser degree what I dub “lieutenants” (see above posts) – do have a degree of freedom of choice, their will is that of their dragons, and their choices in the end cannot harm the dragon. Even the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan’s decision to let Trahearne and the Commander (aka PC) approach him beyond 4 powerful risen knights that if you get too close too soon utterly wtf slaughter you, he still spouted Zhaitan’s influence and belief of the dragon being right (“Defilers! Poisoners! We see you. We know your foul intent. These waters must remain as they are — and you must die!”).
  Risen tending to non-existent farms or mining landscapes with no ore is unique to dragon minions, but this isn’t really individual thought so much as something that seems to be unique to Zhaitan’s interests in corruption – he uses his minion’s past life abilities a lot. Were a sea captain before corruption? You’re a sea captain now! etc. etc. This is why you’d see a lot of risen where you’d expect them to be based on their former life.
• There are even examples of a minion’s independent agency hurting the cause. In Edge of Destiny, it was mentioned that corrupted Icebrood women are always killed by the other Icebrood, even though they’re willing servants of the dragon. -wrong buzzer noise- Not icebrood killing icebrood. Sons of Svanir kill the female icebrood. And this knowledge doesn’t come from EoD (EoD simply mention “men return as icebrood, women don’t come back at all”). This knowledge was finally confirmed for real in this interview And I should note, Sons of Svanir are not corrupted (yet).

DorDor.8617:

If anyone’s interested, I just finished a very long article on my blog defending the ‘sylvari are dragon minions’ reveal. I mostly focused on rebutting Konig’s points, because I thought his were the most well-argued (even if I disagree). Anyway, if you wanna read it, just head to…

http://wanderingstoryteller.tumblr.com/post/108218954415/rebuttal-why-the-sylvari-are-dragon-minions

…and enjoy. And now I’m going to go take a nap, because I spent an embarrassing amount of time on that post and I’m mentally exhausted. Ciao.

I felt it only fair to respond to this. You make some good points, but I don’t really agree with many. Mostly, it’s a base of interpretation.

• On the drawing/vision; the vision was incredibly vague and it really only makes sense in hindsight thakittens to this. As I mentioned, the lines could be interpreted in many ways due to that vagueness.
• What makes Mordy so special? Connection to Dream and Nightmare was the general thought at the time, as there was already evidence to the Nightmare being tied to Mordy (see CoE). Where that connection came from was unknown, but it is known that the Dream is not unique to sylvari – it’s unique to at least the Pale Tree’s sylvari and the White Stag. I’d stress the importance of both, but now that this hypothesis got confirmed as canon, that’s irrelevant I suppose. Though the White Stag – and the ability to physical enter the Dream even by non-sylvari (see: A Light in the Darkness) proves, to me, that the Dream is not originally Mordremoth’s.
• We were told by the Pale Tree that she knew Mordremoth was awake the instant it happened, implying a connection between the Tree and the dragon. Such an implication was made even between the Pale Tree and Zhaitan – how did she know that the Orders’ HQs would be attacked, for example? And in fact, this connection can extend to all Elder Dragons – why is she so bent on seeing all of them killed? Zhaitan was just the most imminent due to proximity; Mordremoth is now due to the threat level and reach of influence, but even so, she sends of sylvari to fight all dragons. The parallel to Glint is interesting – but there’s not much to say she didn’t/wouldn’t know when the other dragons would rise either; after all, they were all continent-shifting events.
• On Malyck and the vague lines by Amaranda: nothing really hints the cave was the forgotten cave, even now; Ronan found the seeds in a cave, to me this line – even now – simply refers to this: Malyck came from a different seed in that same cave. The question, for both interpretations, is “where does the distant shore come in?”
• If anyone knew the true origin of the Pale Tree’s seed, it would probably be the guy that found them in the first place. Hmmm, unlikely. It’s mentioned in Sea of Sorrows that until Zhaitan, Jormag was thought to be the only Elder Dragon (don’t know where though, but it was not in Act 1 or 2, I’m sure). This is the lore continuity error of Hidden Arcana, where Vekk and Gadd had books on the dragons – and their ability to consume magic. Ronan would be even less likely to know about Elder Dragons in his life, so how could he know that they’re mordrem?
• Arah. In one of the paths, the writers went into great detail about the Forgotten ritual and its capabilities. Writing 101: you don’t spend lots of time talking about a specific subject unless it’s something the audience needs to know. This was always on their to-do list. While that isn’t always true (sometimes you write on details just to flesh out the world, to make immersion better), before release on a now-removed Twitch video (ty Anet, for removing another source from us), Jeff and Ree talked about Glint’s children and how they may/will come back to that topic eventually – and more importantly, they intentionally made it vague on whether or not Glint’s freedom from Kralkatorrik affects the children.
  But there’s an important missing aspect you lack here; as pointed out above, the forgotten requires heavy resources and specific geological locations. Why would the Forgotten spend such time and effort on seeds?
• The skeleton of the theory was always there—that’s why people kept bringing it up on the Lore forum. As mentioned, most folks jump from CoE’s tying of Nightmare to Mordy, or just random thoughts, to make the hypothesis – or so they themselves stated. And most of what you mention is in the Living World – not there from the start – and is incredibly vague; barely a skeleton, more like just the brittle marrow.

Until Mawdrey, there really was no solid evidence to support the theory – now? Of course there is, in hindsight, but most of the things were presented differently (CoE tied solely to the Nightmare, never to non-Nightmare; Shadow of the Dragon was told to us multiple times to be a shadow of Zhaitan, we got hints that the Nightmare was first encountered by Caithe/Faolain in Orr – I should find that source – and the Shadow actually is very similar in shape to Zhaitan’s dragon champions, whereas the other dragon champions are fully different in appearance – shape of the head, mainly). Most of those who came to the hypothesis literally presented it as being a random thought they had they partially researched, or by taking CoE’s tie to Nightmare-related things as “related to all sylvari”.

If this outcome truly was as Angel says – and while I cannot prove her being false to us, nor do I care to challenge such, I will say that she and Bobby Stein has been on damage control duty for each episode of Season 2, and that says a lot about the quality of the story – then there should have been hints. This seems more like something they realized post-release and thought “we can make this work!” But that’s my opinion on the matter and I’ll drop that there.

So there you have it, my cool-headed explanation for why sylvari=dragon minions doesn’t make sense. I don’t think I even went into this many topics when the hypothesis threads were presented – probably because I had gotten so tired of the hypothesis by the time I’ve noticed half of them.

Rius.7453:

Then there is the huge problem: we have no real idea how the dragons work. Mordremoth is clearly capable of CREATING life, while the other dragons simply corrupt existing things. The fact is we don’t know enough about them to judge how they, as a group, function. Let alone how Mordremoth himself does his thing. It’s stupid to say it’s stupid, simply because that assumes we know all about the dragons.

You are wrong on two accounts. First, about the “clearly capable of creating life” I point to another interview:

GuildMag: Starting in Episode 2, we see attacks from Mordremoth starting with vines erupting at a waypoint (having travelled there down a ley line) after which as well as mobile vine enemies, free-moving mordrem such as the wolves, husks, and Thrashers/Leechers appear. How do the latter group of Mordrem appear at the attack site? Are they carried by the vines, carried as seeds that rapidly germinate on-site, or are they corrupted from local flora and fauna? Or do they appear by some other means?

ArenaNet: There’s still a good deal of research happening to try to figure this out. However, what observation has revealed is that Mordrem do seem to emerge from the ground.

http://www.guildmag.com/lore-interview-september-2014/

Naturally, this is prior to the sylvari=dragon minion reveal, so this may no longer be true. However, it still points to it no longer being “clearly capable”.

The second is your statement that we have no real idea how the dragons work. We actually are capable to figure out a lot if you read through the lines. This is a huge topic in of itself, but as I’ve stated in this thread before, everything we know of the dragons can be split into two very general categories: things that are similar across all 4/5 dragons that we have examples of (excluding sylvari, the biggest odd man out ever), and things that are unique to one and only one dragon.

Their methodology of corruption, their personality instilled upon their minions, their actions over the centuries, the method of assault via minions, and Kralkatorrik’s own thoughts are all known to us. You can learn a lot through this.

Rius.7453:

Ol’ Zhaitty was blown to kitten before his nature was fully understood. The other dragons have only indirectly been observed through their minions.

Kralkatorrik in Edge of Destiny actually reveals quite a bit about the dragon directly – what he’s capable of, how he corrupts, how he thinks, etc. And you learn a lot through one’s subordinates, especially when they lack their own will, because they’re molded to the superior’s desires and needs.

And the fifth is “immunity” (I use the term loosely because what happens is that sylvari simply die rather than become corrupted). Despite popular claim, Subject Alpha and Kudu’s Monster are credible sources for dragon minions not being immune to other dragons’ corruptions. While it is possible that the Inquest did something that is necessary for such to occur, and that this “something” would never, ever happen in the wild – the chances of such happening is rather slim, as despite the moral ambiguity of the Inquest, they have shown no signs of being capable of doing things not naturally possible. The sylvari immunity is implied to come from the Dream, however, so this may end up being a moot point in the end.

The sixth is intelligence. Dragon minions are easily categorized into four groups:

1. Grunts – self-term, not a canon one – the most populous; they are mindless and sans the risen, not even capable of speech
2. “Lieutenants” – self-term, not a canon one – very rare outside heavy corruption areas; these are often shown in-game as veteran ranked, they are capable of holding conversation (sans destroyer/mordrem), are decently tough (hence the veteran rank) even in lore, are in highest numbers when around a champion running an army, and can control small(er) groups (example: Kitah Conjurer in Malchor’s Leap)
3. Champions – these are the dragons’ ‘generals’, they lead the armies during invasions, are highly intelligent capable of advance strategies, and sans destroyers/mordrem capable of holding conversation while withholding assault even, and are very powerful (in-game, often seem to be represented as champion and legendary ranked).
4. Dragons – the most powerful, intelligence questionable but Glint implies common high intelligence, rarely seen outside realms of corruptions.

Sylvari don’t fit this at all, and this ranking system can be seen across all five seen minion examples (only exception is that those not once-living beings do not talk regardless of ranking; sans possibly Glint – and now the Pale Tree and every single sylvari out there).

And last but not least, number seven: What they consume. Dragon minions all consume magic. Proven during the Personal Storyline – not just the Elder Dragons and their champions (specialized or otherwise), but their minions consume magic. Sylvari, however, consume food and sunlight. Not magic. Their entire biological function differs from dragon minions.

Q: We know from the novels that they can eat food like the other races, but do they need to? Can they get energy by other means, like from the sun?

Ree: They need to eat and drink. Sylvari biology is very different from humans (and they can rest in the sun to feel rejuvenated), but they do have the same functional needs as most mammalian species.

So there’s seven aspects that are common across all dragon minions – all aspects, I’m fairly certain – that sylvari don’t fit.

And the sylvari were meant to be dragon minions from the start? Anet sure did go out of their way to make sure the sylvari are nothing like dragon minions. The one and only similarity they hold, apparently, is their time of showing up in the world.

And about the cave full of monstrous plant creatures? Yeah, like they didn’t exist in GW1, right?

The fact of the matter is that, until Season 2, the best argument for the hypothesis came from “Scarlet’s vision”:http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Short_Story:_What_Scarlet_Saw – the Pale Tree stating: “Please: go no further. In seeking to comprehend the forces that shape us, you will unleash them. Society cannot withstand that.” But this line was very ambiguous, and for all we know, “the forces” could be anything from the world, the Mists, magic, the dragons, the gods, or whoever created the sylvari race (we had no clue then); and “us” could refer to “sylvari” “living beings” “Tyrians” “existence”. It was too ambiguous. Arguably, Vorpp’s dialogue in A Study in Scarlet when observing the piece of Omadd’s machine, where he states: " Ceara encountered something that literally broke her mind, but the only things in there were things she brought. I surmise she was directly exposed to a part of her own psyche that had been carefully walled off. Perhaps for her own protection? We’d need to do far more extensive study of the sylvari Dream before I could draw any more-detailed conclusions." – but again, how does this relate to the entity (who’s identity we did not know then). However even this line doesn’t necessarily mean sylvari in specific with the blocked pscyhe – for before that it is stated “But our minds are protected for a reason.” by Vorpp, an asura. So all minds are protected for a reason.

Rius.7453:

So… uh… where is all the evidence that debunked this theory?

I’ve already presented some which you apparently didn’t read.

Rius.7453:

who has ragequit the forums, apparently

I did not.

I’ve decided to slip away slowly – only responding to responses to my recent posts. Helps destroys old habits to not stop them abruptly and suddenly.

Rius.7453:

It seems to me that the Tree was “freed” by means of many converging factors.

1) Being planted and growing before Mordremoth woke up
2) Being imprinted early with “good” teachings
3) Being planted out of reach of the dragons influence
4) Being (possibly) influenced by the human gods and the influence they had on Tyria’s magic
5) Being influenced by both Ronin and Ventari’s essence, as they both died practically on top of it

Drakkar, The Great Destroyer, Svanir – these were all dragon champions awake while the Elder Dragon slept; and none of them freed; Svanir’s personality outright changes in obvious manners, despite what little examples we had – like all who are corrupted.

Also, to quote an interview:

“The magic Elder Dragons use to corrupt things is ancient, powerful, and barely understood by the greatest magical minds on Tyria. There have been spells that could successfully cleanse a living thing of dragon corruption (see the Ruined City of Arah dungeon’s Forgotten path, or the climax of the Pact’s campaign in Orr) but they are not well understood, require significant resources to cast, and must be cast in a particular geographic location, so they are not universally available.”
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/New-lore-interview-to-Anet-lore-team/first#content

So it should be impossible to free a dragon champion – or any dragon minion – simply out of being good to them. This is one of the contradictions. If freeing dragon minions can be done by the power of love and friendship, then not only do we truly have a Saturday Morning Cartoon plot on our hands, but then it wouldn’t be so kitten hard for the scholars of the world to find a countering agent.

So since the sylvari are dragon minions, then they had to undergo some cleansing ritual.

As shown by Mazdak and other far-flung minions, distance doesn’t affect one’s lack of free will that all dragon minions have. Which brings us to the second contradtion: free will. Dragon minions – at least for risen, icebrood, branded, destroyer, and the non-sylvari mordrem – do not have such.

The third is appearance. All icebrood look the same; all destroyers look the same; all branded look the same; all risen look the same. Now, obviously not “the same” as in clones, but the same general appearance – risen have gray skin, are rotten and decayed, some (those submerged under water) have coral growing on them; branded are gray skinned, lacking hair, and have crystallized innards (concept art shows bones); icebrood appearance depends on amount of time spent corrupted, but over time their skin and hair then later muscle and sinew turn to ice, leaving just ice and bone; destroyers are all stone and lava. And amongst the “materials” they are made out of, the general shapes of the materials remains overall the same (for example, all destroyers have smooth, mostly rounded, stone on their bodies, with the exception of the disc-shaped destroyers in GW1). And purification by all our knowledge does not change one’s appearance: “Glint remained in crystalline form, but she regained her free will and identity.” http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruined_City_of_Arah_%28explorable%29#Forgotten (this is referring to the ritual in the interview quote above). Sylvari look nothing like mordrem.

Fourth, we have the hive mind. We have outright confirmation of destroyers, of risen, of icebrood, and of branded (EoD battle with Kralkatorrik – implied by how he decides when to, and when to not, use his minions) having hive minds. To quote Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon page 120 (as I have already in this thread): “It isn’t mind reading,” said Killeen, “and we aren’t all connected into one big mass mind. However, before we come into the world, the sylvari are united in the Dream of Dreams.” Now, this hive mind is an important aspect, because it is one of the many things in which people have noted that the dwarves – by undergoing the Rite of the Great Dwarf – have become practically mirror images of dragon minions (their mentality is altered – like dragon minions – their consciousness is linked – like dragon minions – they are no longer flesh and blood – like (most) dragon minions).

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Hi, everyone. Just wanted to pass on some comments from Angel herself:

Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer

-snip-
> The Seers created the first Bloodstone to set some magic aside during the last rise of the Elder Dragons. They didn’t want to see it all consumed.

> Magic existed long before the first Bloodstone. It has always been a force in the Eternal Alchemy. It was not created by the humans’ gods, no matter what priest or priestess preaches that it was. How you choose to roleplay your character’s beliefs is entirely up to you.

> Humans (including Canthan humans) were brought to Tyria (from…no spoilers!). They are not native to Tyria and did not come with much magic of their own. From a human perspective and oral tradition (that can get warped over time), they say the gods were giving them magic, but the reality was that the dragons had gone back to sleep, and the gods felt it was safe to begin returning magic stored in the Bloodstone to Tyria. The gods (not only Abaddon) “unsealed” the Bloodstone and magic flowed back into the world. Humans and other sentient races of the time began using it.

> Over the course of hundreds of years, wars broke out. King Doric begged the gods to slow the flow of magic back into Tyria and the gods granted his wish by shattering the Bloodstone into pieces and limiting their use. Abaddon was annoyed by this.

-snip-

That and the full dialogue would probably clear stuff up for you Obsidian. Magic existed prior to 1 BE in actuality, just in a lot smaller amount than the major gift of magic in 1 BE (which has been retconned down to just Abaddon passing the Bloodstone around and the wars down to wanting control of it – aka exact same thing as the later Guild Wars).

To “who” is the king – likely Doric.

As to the purpose of the spell, who knows. That’s as of yet unrevealed.

ArenaNet at launch: We don’t want to split players so there won’t be factions like alliancev horde.

ArenaNet last year: we’re going to put players together in megasevers

ANet now: split playerbase

Wanna know what this has that last year didnt?

Heart of Thorns.

Since people don’t seem to remember… On ghostfire:

Mangonel Gearstrip: I have just what you need. Ghostfire shells: highly experimental, highly combustible.
Mangonel Gearstrip: Something we picked up from the Ascalonians. Someone simply needs to mark the target and signal me, and it’ll burn.
Mangonel Gearstrip: Make sure you woody types get clear, though. This stuff devours everything in its path until nothing’s left.

Personal Story Armor Guard

On the sword origins:
Rytlock: I’ve researched the ritual, and I learned a lot about Ascalonian history. This story began a thousand years ago, when this ritual was first formulated by the humans’ gods—the Six.
-> Please, go on.
The Six gave them magic. At the same time, they also gave one of them a magical crown and two magical swords to protect the kingdom.

Season 2 Foefire Cleansing

Ghostfire burns risen (and sylvari?) faster than anything else seen. Divine Fire can kill a supposedly immortal Dragon champion. Ghostfire comes from Foefire ghosts. Foefire ghosts unaffected by Kralkatorrik’s corruption. Foefire comes from swords. Swords come from gods. Divine Fire comes from gods.

I check to see if folks responded to me, and I see people wandering in circles as if in complete darkness.

Ghosts affected by the Foefire were untouched by Kralkatorrik’s corruption.

Just saying.

Trahearne didn’t say to reinforce other gates to me. It was to fall back to <location>, fall back to <location> after his gate (the northern gate) was broken.

They’re unlikely to go away.

Why?

1. People complained about not having enough permanent content during Season 1. This was the result. Not bad, I say!
2. This is the one and only source of new Pristine Toxic Spores. Aside from I think one or two batches that can be harvested for 1 spore out of 3-4 harvesting nodes.

Curious to see if they change the old open world zones for this.

Would seem a bit weird, though, for a new player to make a character, go out into Caledon, and see “sylvari are dragon minions! Kill them all!”

Tamias.7059:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Malomedies states that he “awakened on the first night of the sylvari race.”
On the wiki at Beneath a Cold Moon but is stated in the first and last instance of Chapter 1 for sylvari Night players.

Each luminary claims something similar – e.g, first to see the sun rise on our race, first to see the sun set on our race, first to awake to the first day of our race (paraphrasing) – the luminary that shows depends on your bio choice. There’s a little bit of flexibility with the dusk/dawn meanings, but not the other two, and that includes Malomedies.

All four lines are on the wiki, though hardly ever on the same page. Again, first and last instance of the first chapter for sylvari PS, and the luminary that shows depends on your bio choice.

If we’re being really pernickety (and I guess we’ll have to be if we want to avoid this here inconsistency), Malomedies saying that he “awakened on the first night of the sylvari race” doesn’t specifically exclude the possibility that Wynne also awoke that night, before him.

It’s been established somewhere in-game (not sure where, I think it was A Light in the Darkness?) as well as in interviews that there were four Firstborn born a day, over three days – one per cycle per day.

So Malomedies, Wynne, and Caithe were born on different days. And it sounds like Caithe’s the youngest of the night Firstborn.

Similarly, it’s stated that the luminaries are the oldest of the cycles. Malomedies wasn’t the oldest of the cycle – though one could argue this away by saying that he stepped into the role because he became the oldest with Wynne’s death.

saventis.1485:

id also say the fact that it was a giant secret was part of the reason it is said that Riannoc was the first

wayne for all the sylvari knew had gone off somewhere and perhaps her dream beconed her to somewhere else(tho we know the truth now) this could have been an easy assumption to make for the other sylvari

But the secret doesn’t seem to be Wynne’s death – Faolain knew that Wynne was killed by Caithe’s hands. Caithe said that very act made Faolain think Caithe was like her and was why she continues trying to draw Caithe to the Nightmare.

Faolain would not be quiet about that. Especially not to her Courtiers, who in turn would not be quiet to non-Courtiers they taunt. Especially if it wasn’t common knowledge amongst sylvari. How better to demoralize your enemy than to say one of their figureheads is just as evil as the leader of the Nightmare Court?

I suspect Wynne’s murder by Caithe is simply an “unspoken truth” amongst sylvari. Not known by everyone, but those who do know, don’t think it’s important to dwell upon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

If you’re willing to discuss matters, I can start threading through things. I’m kind of with you about how there wasn’t much concrete evidence but there’s a fair amount of “hmmm” which stands out after the revelation which seems to make it plausible enough.

Feel free to send me a PM. This goes to anyone. Though I can’t guarantee a speedy response.

Decided to stick to check to responses to my latest posts. Beyond that, I won’t venture out – in the lore forum at least.

And something I forgot to mention:

Who knows, maybe the Jan 24th announcement and Hearts of Thorn will change my mind. My love for GW is still great despite what I think of the advancement of the plot. If it turns out that they pull what I think is a miracle and makes this revelation drive the plot in a grand way, then I may just return. But I don’t expect such.

To those calling me a “bully”
Well, I’m sorry if you saw me that way. Any hostility I had was never directed – intentionally – to the theory makers. Except, maybe, when they made a new thread on it when 2 or 3 other threads existed on the front page of the forum (yes, this did happen… a lot), though that was more annoyance over having to repeat myself in such short order, and perhaps when they refused to accept the counter-arguments as actually hindering their hypothesis. Such as the arguments of “Subject Alpha is like stemcell splitting; can’t happen in nature” – well, do you have proof for that? Do you have proof that asura in general, let alone the Inquest, are capable of doing things not possible in nature? CoE certainly never showed or hinted at such! Their creations were a result of directly infusing dragon energy into “test subjects”.

But really, what I was doing? I never attacked or flamed the theory-maker. I never insulted or attacked any forumer except maybe two or three people, and one of them is because they continuously claimed I was presenting “headcanon” when I was linking sources – people like that, who refuse concrete, undeniable, evidence, annoy me to no end (and for the record, that person never talked about sylvari, let alone the sylvari are dragon minion theories – at least never when I interacted with him/her).

So if I was a bully, then it was via passive aggression. And while that’s no excuse – and I do humbly apologize if I ever did that to you, even to Tamias because despite how much he infuriates me I do respect his gumption – that’s the best I can offer.

To those who rarely post on the lore forums but are now insulting me for my “hurt ego”

That’s nice. I really don’t care, because like above, you clearly don’t know me – and unlike above, you never attempted to know me. So you have no right to talk about me in either positive or negative light. Because it is just as fair as me saying you’re a self-rightious pompous kitten who deserves suffering the worst tortures that man could imagine.

To end it all
My reaction here really has nothing to do with the theories – people just claim it is in their bashing of me. And fine, believe whatever you want. I’ll just take all your bashing of me as jealousy, and use that to make myself feel better. Because I won’t fall back into depression just because some faceless pixels insult me.

And hey, I enjoy slaughtering faceless pixels.

So long folks. I will not be back except out of pure boredom or in request from those who know means of contacting me. You may still see me in-game, either game, though not as frequently as I have been.

I will admit I am curious about Heart of Thorns, but I am unlikely to play it unless I hear it is really good. But given Seasons 1 and 2, I doubt it. As it stands, the continuity is going the direction of WoW and Star Wars – contradicted with every passing release.

I think it’s time to catch up on my singleplayer games.

To those claiming I’m kitten etc. over the theory
I really am not. The fact you think I am proves that you don’t know me, and that you don’t care to know me either. And that’s fine with me. But I’ve explained why I’m upset – there were a lot of different paths they could have taken with the sylvari. And this is obviously my opinion, but I think the path they took hinders them more than benefits the possibilities.

But you shall see whether I’m right or not – those who agree and those who disagree with me. If it’s free like S2, then I will unlock it – maybe or maybe not play it. Who knows.

And to those who mentioned Angel stated that was the plan from the beginning:

Of course she said that. She’s been pulling damage control (alongside Bobby Stein) the entire Season 2 and even for the end of S1. After every update, Angel McCoy makes a comment – and if not her, like with E7, then Bobby Stein does. And all of their comments are attempts to dowse the flames of disappointment and players pointing out continuity errors on the forums.

But in saying this, am I saying she’s lying? No. Because I can’t prove it. Similarly, she can’t prove she’s telling the truth. We have to take her word for it, and the only thing that would discredit what she said is another employee (current or past) claiming this isn’t so.

But I ask you this:

If this was planned from the beginning, why was the only hint to all sylvari being dragon minions the existence of Mawdrey (and the predecessor backpacks) from Season 2? In all of the initial release, the closest anyone can support to that outcome was “Nightmare is Mordremoth’s influence/corruption”.

This reveal was completely out of left field in terms of actual evidence presented in-game, and even had apparent red herrings – something Anet’s not really known for doing, ever, except in making them red herrings via retcon.

Sylvari and the Pale Tree don’t even look like Mordrem. Yet they were intended to be dragon minions from the beginning? If this was so, wouldn’t Mordrem have looked like sylvari? Wouldn’t the Pale Tree look like a Mordrem tree? Remember: the one and only means of removing corruption does not change the physical appearance – it just gives free will.

Even Mawdrey looks like a Mordrem.

So why don’t sylvari and the Pale Tree?

@Tamias and the others that stated “if people thought about it, maybe the theory did have support”:

In all honesty, no it didn’t. People got to that theory in two ways:

1. Random ‘wild’ thought – and they presented it as such – where they then dug into lore to try to back the wild thought up. The thing is, their digging was incomplete, and their attempted support was shot down – either with absoluteness, or with unliklihood.
2. Seeing the hints that Nightmare=Mordy’s corruption (such as CoE) and suddenly jumping to “all sylvari are Mordy’s minions”. This is where you fell in, Tamias aka Santax. You saw CoE and took from that – which only linked Nightmare to Mordremoth, not the entire race.

Just because people thought it up, doesn’t mean it had support. As already said: you don’t need evidence to support a thought. (You do for a theory, however, as that’s the very definition of a theory – a thought of what may be/could happen, supported by evidence to suggest such an outcome; what everyone had was a hypothesis).

To those saying “Elder Dragons function differently, maybe Mordremoth minions aren’t like others!”
Or other variations.

The fact of the matter is that, if you actually pay in-depth attention to the details, all attributes and knowledge about both the Elder Dragons and their minions can fall into two categories:

1. Things that are common across all dragons
2. Things that are unique unto a specific dragon

And when I said that the sylvari are nothing like dragon minions, I speak of the first category. This includes things like hive mind mentality (despite common misbelieve, sylvari do not have a hive mind; to quote Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon, page 120 (first line of chapter 10): “It isn’t mind reading,” said Killeen, “and we aren’t all connected into one big mass mind. However, before we come into the world, the sylvari are united in the Dream of Dreams.”). Another case is the lack of free will. And how about consuming magic? Sylvari eat food not magic – dragon minions do not eat food, they drain the ambient magic in the world (see Field Test ).

So yes, there are differences between all of the dragon minions. But there are also similarities. And it is these similarities that sylvari lack – completely. Even, as mentioned, appearance (but not Mawdrey!).

I ran through episode 8 last night while waiting for someone. Had time to spare, figured why not subject myself to potential torture before having fun, right? So here’s my thoughts:

Arcana Obscura

• To be perfectly honest, the instance felt like yet another “we’re throwing in GW1 references for the sake of GW1 references.” For example:
  • Unless I misremember, the tome we get Ogden states was made by the Forgotten, and he calls it ancient (okay), but… 1) why does it have echoes of GW1 events? 2) if it has echoes of GW1 events, why does Ogden call these ancient (he is older than the events and while old people tend to mockingly call themselves old, they hardly call things younger than them old)? 3) Why was the Thirsty River comparison turned into a basic “slaughter the ghosts” rather than what it was? You had the enclaves of the library to perfectly separate boss and priest, a wasted chance.
• I did like the note about modern Vision Crystals being nothing compared to the GW1 ones. Better than them being part of lore and the same as ever before, but now oh-so-common (like bloodstone dust).
• Not lore-related, but this felt imbalanced for solo’ing. Maybe it was because I was on my thief, however.
• Does Ogden mention that divine fire may kill the PC on non-sylvari? He did on my sylvari, which is interesting consider the “big” revelation.

Pact Assaulted
* Aside from the spoiler in the title and the predictable nature of the assault – because it’s basically Battle of Fort Trinity 2.0 (even the losing-until-the-very-end bit) – it was okay. I didn’t like the sudden “call in air support to fire on the mordrem while we’re in the middle of them” bit but what can you do, nothing really big or cringing – just a little immersion breaking.

• I still don’t like how easily Braham makes up with Eir, but that’s personal preference. Feels like the side-plot was made and tossed aside – like a lot of things that feel resolved too quickly (all of them minor).

The Secret Cave

• Not lore, but I rather hated how the NPCs went on ahead without the PC in the cave. Ended up having to find my way in complete darkness… thank you Rox “I’ll light the way” Heartpick. :/
• That golden location instantly reminded me of the Metal Forest – and both locations are capable of keeping dragon minions at bay. Likely a relation.
• The cinematic for the final seed was well done, even the revelation (it was better revealed than I expected, but then again, I had supremely low expectations so that’s not saying much).
• So no egg. Again. No true conclusion. Again. Cliffhanger, leads to cliffhanger, leads to cliffhanger. The Shadow of the Dragon fight was awesome, however, except for the finisher end which was a gust of wind to blow out his lights…
• The ending cinematics were, as always, supremely well done. The teaser for Hearts of Thorn was interesting. Nice to see that Faolain would be making a proper return. Shame her personality was ruined in E7 though.

Overall
It was “eh” overall. Rather disappointed in the lack of conclusions, and felt disjointed like E5 – though not as much by far. I haven’t done open world stuff yet. This was obviously a lead in, even without the Hearts of Thorn trailer. I have to wonder if they’re killing off Zojja, despite finally being able to get her voice actor for the LW – anyone else notice that? This is the FIRST and ONLY time Zojja had voice acting in all of the Living World. Wonder if they’re actually going to kill Trahearne as well. If they do, it’ll just feel like another pandering to the vocal audience.

We haven’t even learned why the egg is important yet. But we’re spending all this time going after it. Apparently every NPC knows, but not the players. That is poor storytelling.

It would be like if we got that vision in Mass Effect, and Shepard understood it asap, but it was never explained to the players until ME3.

It’s also disappointing that the two biggest “ooo ahhh” moments (sylvari=dragon minions; Pact fleet destruction) was completely and fully predicted. About the entire episode – this entire grand reveal – was figured out from the beginning. People figured the Pact would fail since at least the World Summit; people figured the sylvari were minions from around release (I’m not sure about the comments of “pre-beta” as I do not recall the theories until folks hit CoE, and they all really started with Wooden Potatoes false translation of the binary skill point at Zone Green as “Pale Tree”).

ElysianEternity.6215:

What does seem to be a retcon however is Wynne being the first nightborn.

We’ve got Trahearne who was the first Sylvari ever and is a Nightborn and Malomedies who is the luminary of the night cycle and thus often disputed to be either the second night bloom or the first since there’s been some confusion about Trahearne and him being the first.

And now we’ve got Caithe claiming that Wynne was the first one and that the secret was revealed to her because nightblooms and secrets and her being the first.

Anet, untangle me this mess plz.

Trahearne was never called Nightborn. His cycle is unknown. But yes, two luminaries are liars – Malomedies and another (whomever shares the cycle with Trahearne – most likely dawn or dusk luminary). Aka lore inconsistencies. Again. Just one of a few I noticed in this update.

ProTech.8402:

One explanation could be that Wynne was the Luminary of the Night until she died, then the title passed on to Malomedies who is the oldest living Sylvari born in the Night cycle. The wiki does not specify in which cycle Trahearne was born. I don’t know if there is any mention of ingame.

Malomedies states that he “awakened on the first night of the sylvari race.”
On the wiki at Beneath a Cold Moon but is stated in the first and last instance of Chapter 1 for sylvari Night players.

Each luminary claims something similar – e.g, first to see the sun rise on our race, first to see the sun set on our race, first to awake to the first day of our race (paraphrasing) – the luminary that shows depends on your bio choice. There’s a little bit of flexibility with the dusk/dawn meanings, but not the other two, and that includes Malomedies.

All four lines are on the wiki, though hardly ever on the same page. Again, first and last instance of the first chapter for sylvari PS, and the luminary that shows depends on your bio choice.

I think this will be my last post for tonight. I hope I’ve answered everyone’s queries about my reaction with this.

Titus.4285:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I haven’t even played Episode 8, but this single spoiler makes me not want to.

Makes me very sad to see your reaction Konig. I don’t think anyone has the same amount of knowledge about the universe as you do.
Please play the episode. I am very much interested in seeing your full review. I’ve always had immense respect for you and your input.

I’ll consider it, especially if others highly suggest it to me. But for now, I need a break. I may log in later today/tomorrow just to unlock E8, so who knows, I may take time to actually go through it.

lordkrall.7241:

So, the whole thing that points against the (clearly true) theory was that it didn’t work the same way as everything else? There is nothing in any of those points that PROVE anything at all.

Sylvari are clearly completely different from Glint, so assuming they would need to be freed in the same way as Glint is a bit far-fetched and so on.

The Dragons clearly are different, with different methods and such, so why assume that freeing minions from their influence works the exact same way?

All it comes down to people disagreeing with things, nothing about any actual proof.

I think you misunderstood. I was trying to present two points:

1. The theory’s support was debunked. Thus, while the theory was not debunked, it had no support – ergo, it was the “unsupported theory” that you asked “why is it unsupported”
2. Everything we knew about dragon minions clashed with everything we knew about sylvari. This included the things that function the same and/or similarly across multiple minion types (e.g., the hive mind – we see it/are told of it with risen, icebrood, and destroyers).

In other words: sylvari don’t look, think, act, or in any way, shape, or form function like dragon minions (prior to this at least), while everything used to support the theory of “sylvari=dragon minions” was debunked, even if the fine print of the theory was not.

Mental Paradox.3845:

Oh, I am LOVING the kittenhurt caused by this revelation! Especially the uptight loremeisters who’s precious ego got hurt by being proven wrong =D

I hope you don’t mean me, because – as I said already – “being proven wrong” isn’t the issue.

The issue is the continuity, the meaning, the story, the delivery.

Telling me my theories are wrong, or the theories I think are wrong, in of itself is like spitting on the ground in front of me. It doesn’t do jack squat to me.

But this thing, I dislike because of the explanation in my post. It, in my opinion, ruins the sylvari as a race. Even if the theory never existed, my opinion would be the same.

Rednik.3809:

I have no idea how someone can protect literally “innocent mary sue” state of sylvari when Anet finally gave them a depth.

This is a gross misstatement. The sylvery were never a mary sue race – even if it had mary sue-esque characters (-coughscarletcough-).

Please know what a mary sue is. A mary sue is a character that has no flaws, is central to the plot, and is always right. This is what Scarlet Briar was upon introduction- she was brilliant, liked by everyone, had no care in the world, and even if her plans failed, she still got what she wanted. ArenaNet attempted a Xanatos Gamkittenaracter, but went too far in her perfection. Alternatively, this is what Trahearne was not – he had flaws, it just wasn’t focused on (like a lot of things, the Personal Story felt rushed to get so many plots in those 80 levels); he was not always right – just often right on his field of expertise (he go the location of the source of Orr wrong, remember?). And similarly, the sylvari race has many flaws, are not always right, and are very varied in personalities.

As for how this “depth” was bad… read above.

Mushroomz.4280:

But there are other details that are far more interesting, like the Divine Fire being a weakness to the Mordrem, and the gods have something to do with it.

Hmmm, this actually piqued my interest a bit…

lordkrall.7241:

Where are all these evidence against the theory? As far as I have seen in all the threads there have been quite a few assumptions and such, but never any actual facts that prove one side or the other.

Claiming that it wasn’t the fate of the Sylvari upon their creation is a very bold statement. Do you have anything to back it up with or are you just raging because you don’t like the way the story evolves?

Every time the theory has popped up, it uses Glint or nurture v. nature as examples, and both examples fail in comparison with the Pale Tree because of the nature of the ritual and the fact that dragon minions are generally mindless (sans champions) and are part of a hive mind, lacking free will. Sylvari have no similarities to any dragon minion group – they do not have hive minds, despite the claims that the Dream is such, Kalleen in GoA outright states it’s not a hive mind. As such, nurture has nothing to do with the (once potential_ purification of the Pale Tree. The ritual of the Forgotten requires specific geographical locations, so while theoretically possible, is unlikely for the seeds to have been put under that process – and because it requires a lot of resources, as said in the same interview as the mention of specific geographical locations – why do such on a group of seeds (or a single seed)?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and I really don’t feel like going into it.

On the latter portion, it was in how they were revealed, really. Although the cave full of seeds were full of terrible plant creatures, everything else really pointed to them being new and never existed before. The very lack of documents on them, despite knowledge of Mordremoth and his corruption, should point to this in fact.

And hell, the sylvari look nothing like the mordrem – nor does the Pale Tree look anything like Mordrem (unless there’s something in the new update that shows that some do look sylvari/pale tree-like). It’s not just me raging, but really nothing in the original reveal even hinted to “sylvari=dragon minions”. Not even in the initial release were there such things – the fact that a sylvari was in the center of the Forgotten ritual and had no change, the fact that there was continuously no evidence of sylvari in the past, despite (albeit damaged) records and myths of every dragons’ influence and minions? There would have been hints – more than just “the Nightmare may be tied” hints that we got – if this was planned from the beginning.

kylwilson.9137:

We’ve watched you flame down (and often rudely) anyone presenting the Sylvari Mordremoth Minion theory, fanatically defending your stance and now you’re throwing a tantrum because it’s you who’ve been debunked. It would be priceless if it weren’t so sad.

You really think I care about being proven wrong?

I’ve had my favorite theories debunked quite a few times. I never minded. Often, I found the true outcome to be more interesting because I didn’t think of it.

This, however, I feel is very unimaginative and boring in the sense of storytelling.

My “flaming” of the sylvari=minions ‘theory’ is only caused by the repetitious amount of it being brought up despite the support for it having been debunked, leaving it unsupported. If there was support for it, I wouldn’t have minded the theories; if the thing didn’t pop up 50 thousand times as “hey guys I have a wild theory but what if the sylvari are dragon minions!?!?” in the 2 years since pre-release, I wouldn’t have minded the theories.

But I am raging over this story decision not for the theories themselves, but because it is, in my opinion of course, a terrible direction for the story of the sylvari. There were dozens – if not hundreds or even thousands – of better explanations for “who are the sylvari and why were they born now” than “purified dragon minions”. And I feel that, going off of what we’ve seen in the past few months primarily, ArenaNet has turned into pushing stories in the directions of the most vocal theory – regardless of how illogical it is – and pushing for removal of things players joke about or dislike.

That’s a design decision on a far wider scale than simply this lore reveal.

lordkrall.7241:

Unfounded?
The fact that people have been discussing it since beta would suggest that there were indeed things pointing towards it, ergo not unfounded.

The supporters have been arguing it despite continuous evidence against the theory. All evidential support they had was debunked upon release.

But ArenaNet goes and make the most illogical, asinine, and ridiculous but “common” theory canon lore.

It’s pretty kitten clear this wasn’t the fate of the sylvari upon their creation or during release.

What’s next? The gods are the Elder Dragons after all?

CureForLiving.5360:

I don’t know, just because player were able to guess it doesn’t mean its bad. Remember the series Lost? You know where the writers were so determined to be smarter than the audience that they purposefully took the series into the most stupidest directs? Yeah, I’d rather ANet not do that.

Too late, they’re going in the most stupidest directions.

It’s just that they’re giving the vocal fans what they think they want.

The NPE was this as well.

It’s become clear to me: ArenaNet has someone or someones who’s too kitten sensative to their feelings over their work that they intentionally kitten it up in a way to make it into what the players claim to want.

What’s next, Anet? Kormir no longer is a god, it is the PC from GW1?

I think this “revelation” is utterly bullkitten because 1) the “theory” has been debunked time and time again by the game itself and 2) sylvari being dragon minions (purified or otherwise) has always come off to me as a terrible story decision to try and take, as not only are they nothing like the pre-established dragon minions, but I feel that this would destroy the uniqueness and the entire concept of the sylvari being “a brand new race born in a time of turmoil”. We have many stories that feature races, nations, and other groups struggling to survive a time of great turmoil in various degrees, but just about every single one of these races/nations/groups are well established, or are a rebirth, but never – or very, very rarely – the beginning of the race who do not know why they were born into a world on the brink of the end. To reveal that “why” as “you are descendants of the world-enders!” is just plain silly and unimaginative to me.

Malkavian.4516:

How exactly was that theory unfounded. When it all came down to it, it does justify how Sylvari can be consumed by nightmare and how it’s virtually impossible to bring them back to the light as they are originally made to be Mordremoth’s minions and that all Ventari did was to show them the path to the light.

The theory that Nightmare was Mordremoth’s corruption was an entirely different – and actually supported – theory that made some semblance of sense, unlike the “sylvari are dragon minions” ‘theory’ (and I use that word very loosely).
————————————————————————————————-
Dear ArenaNet, I don’t kittening care about your story anymore. Congratulations. You just managed to ruin one of your biggest fans since 2006, one of the biggest contributors to the wikis until last year, and someone who was eager to be part of your company until that same point last year. You had a chance to bring me back. I’ve been patient with you, hoping that despite the constant continuity errors that the Living World (especially Season 2) adds in, that you’d fix your path. Well, it’s obvious you didn’t. You decide, once more, to go with the “rule of cool” and ignore this fascinating thing called logic and continuity.

Congratulations, ArenaNet, and goodbye.

If you see me in-game, it isn’t for the story anymore. It’s for the mindless acts of killing pixels. Though Quake does a better job at that.

I haven’t even played Episode 8, but this single spoiler makes me not want to. To think I was actually looking forward to the update today. But no more. If I do play it, it’ll be to complete the Carapace and Luminescent armor, or to satiate a potentially inevitable curiosity about how, exactly, they decided the kitten up.

It’s been good knowing you lore community, but this is my last straw. If you see me on this forum again, it’d be habit and no more.

Edit: Oh, and it’s been said in an interview/by Caithe in TA story (I can never recall which and wiki doesn’t have all TA story dialogue up) that Faolain was, indeed, the first to encounter Nightmare – however, she didn’t fully fall into it until much alter, when Cadeyrn, already fallen to Nightmare, pulled her into it, where she then replaced him as leader of the Nightmare Court.

Wanderer.3248:

Aside from any lore reasons, hybrid minions, like Mordem destroyers and branded undead would be cringe-inducing bad fiction, and should never be given serious consideration.

There’s nothing all that cringe-inducing about Kudu’s Monster, Subject Alpha, or the Crucible of Eternity dungeon since that is what the facility is all about – making a multi-corruption dragon champion the Inquest can control (spoiler alert: they couldn’t control it).

And in all honesty, branded corpses probably look no different than branded living beings. The living’s skin becomes gray, their hair falls out, and sans the bone their insides turn to crystal – would this differ so much from the decayed gray-skinned risen?

The same goes for icebrood, who’s hair, skin, and muscle slowly change into ice. And for living being corrupted by Primordus – explained as the creature being encased in stone, and slowly liquified from within.

Post-corruption, all minions that were once living beings are nothing but elemental corpses – be that element be ice, fire, crystal, or decay.

But Subject Alpha isn’t quite this, is it? It’s a body that seems overflowing with energy – the vein-like glow is not too dissimilar to the pulsating vein-like growth on Kellach’s neck and chin, or the still-living plants corrupted by Zhaitan’s magic in Sparkfly and Bloodtide. But rather than grayish purple, it’s a bright light – as if what’s in the veins is lava; we see tree branches jutting out of its shoulders, though no obvious signs of ice or crystal or decay.

Is Subject Alpha truly cringe-inducing to you? Because it exists, and I’ve yet to see any cringing from Alpha beyond the frustration of fighting the beast.

DarcShriek.5829:

Actually, loyalty is a question. Konig, you have mentioned several times that corrupted beings have no free will and must follow the will of their masters. Who is subject alpha’s master?

I think the earlier reference that the subjects were not truly corrupted and only injected with corruption is the best explanation of the test subjects.

The question is whether or not multiple corruption is possible. The OP never asked “which dragon would it follow” and indeed, that is an interesting point to ask, but like I said, it was not asked by the OP.

Regardless of loyalty outcome, this is irrelevant to the ultimate question of “can a being be corrupted by multiple Elder Dragons?”

And I fail to see how your conclusion came out of your initial statement. And it leads me to ask this: “How does one simply become injected with corruption… without encountering corruption?” What you said is a bit of a paradox – to be injected with something, but not have that something. It is illogical to have both statements be true.

As to Alpha’s loyalty, I like to entertain the fact that he follows all dragons – finding loopholes in the orders so that one can be fulfilled, and then made moot via following another dragons’ order if it came to it. Alternatively, it’d be as Erukk said: a minion to all, but listened to none. Perhaps a cacophony of different hive minds would drive it insane – as insane as a dragon minion can be considered such at least – resulting it in blocking all of them out in the form of them being a continuous monotonous and indecipherable buzzing sound.

It’s stated by a Mender NPC in or around The Grove that their “bones” are made out of wood.

So yes, sylvari have bones… made out of wood, not that white, brittle stuff.

It’s like when sounds get muffled because your character is standing around a corner or on the other side of a plank of wood (I’m looking at you, Dragon Age: Origins).

It’s a rather odd thing designers decide to make, for some reason.

Mushroomz.4280:

Subject Alpha does show one can be corrupted multiple times, but there’s nothing shown in regards to it’s loyalty, like all dragon minions, it seeks to kill uncorrupted life.

Loyalty isn’t the question – multiple corruptions is. And Alpha is capable of controlling all minions in CoE – even getting them to be nice to each other.

Mushroomz.4280:

Last thing I want to address, is this gets into the nature of magic, which is basically the Eternal Alchemy, and Ogden describes it as the more you try to define it, the less you actually understand. There’s also “The All” which seems to be a slightly different version of the Eternal Alchemy, but both ultimately try to explain the nature of magic and the universe and what not. The important thing to draw from these is they suggest different regions of power, Omadd’s Machine’s vision depicts six regions of power, which may conclude that these are all different types of magic that fight for a central “neutral” magic, ultimately they simply may not be able to convert from type to type, but only for whatever type to or from the neutral type. Of course, this isn’t fully explained yet.

The six orbs are the Elder Dragons (stated in journal for that story step); the central orb is Tyria (proven in Hidden Arcana if you talk to a certain Priory Historian). The orb that crashed into Tyria was Zhaitan (according to the Priory’s labelling). Priory scholars believe that the orbs also represent realms of magic, but that’s in-game speculation still. There’s no actual evidence of more than four types of magic energy (those four being light, dark, chaos, and a fourth unnamed one that deals with elements/nature) beyond dragon corruption/dragon energy (which itself may have six forms – one per dragon).

Mushroomz.4280:

the Elder Dragons don’t seem to have a global influence, which gets confusing, because if they’re so important to the Eternal Alchemy, how do they only effect the continent of Tyria? There’s plenty of magic elsewhere in the world.

There’s several theories and potential answers.

First thing to keep in mind is that we don’t know where the DSD is or awoke. Similarly, Kralkatorrik and Primordus may no longer be near continental Tyria (or rather, sub-continental Tyria). Thirdly, Jormag actually awoke far north of (sub)continental Tyria – he awoke near the arctic seas, where the kodan lived – and while he’s pushing south, he’s not actually in (sub)continental Tyria.

And speaking of the last cycle: except for where Zhaitan fell asleep and his name being in ancient legends/documents, there’s nothing to point to Zhaitan having been around (sub)continental Tyria during hte last dragonrise – in fact, we have evidence to claim he wasn’t there (or at least, wasn’t at Orr): Arah is where Glint was freed of control, so that couldn’t have been Zhaitan’s seat of power then (no way would the Forgotten free Kralkatorrik’s champion underneath Zhaitan’s nose). Similarly, Jormag has little – albeit more – influence from the previous rise than Zhaitan (his being Sanguinary Blade and Drakkar – beyond that, just mention in ancient legends/documents); Mordremoth, like Zhaitan, had zero known influence in Tyria during the last dragonrise.

Primordus and Kralkatorrik, however – especially Kralkatorrik – did have more direct influence in (sub)continental Tyria during the last dragonrise. Dwarves fought many Great Destroyers in the depths, and Kralkatorrik had battled in the Crystal Sea/Crystal Desert, with his champion in Orr, and hibernating in the now-called Blood Legion Homelands.

So why did they all end up falling asleep around (sub)continental Tyria when they were apparently awake elsewhere? The common thought: Bloodstone. It was the one last source of magic in the world, and supposedly hidden in (sub)continental Tyria.

Mushroomz.4280:

But to the original question, I’d say assume no, until it happens.

Thing is, it did happen. Twice.

And I’ve yet to see any evidence to support the notion that the Inquest are capable of doing things not naturally possible (like the common gene-splicing example people throw for “things made in a lab don’t represent things made in nature!”).

Mushroomz.4280:

With the current state of Tyria, the elder dragons don’t need to fight each other for more minions anyways, they do seem to avoid each others presence, otherwise, they could, theoretically, team up and easily kill everyone with ease, which, if they can’t corrupt it’s others minions, it may make sense not to waste minions on each other unless necessary.

This is a good explanation for why it isn’t (commonly) seen in the open world. But it doesn’t really point to “it can’t happen.” Just “it doesn’t (commonly) happen.”

Aaron Ansari.1604:

In the novel, it’s definitely corrupting corpses- one of the icebrood was described as having had his face smashed in.

Exactly what I was referring to.

So unless a norn can survive his face being smashed in, Jormag corrupted a corpse.

Mushroomz.4280:

I was aware Zhaitan can corrupt the living, but it only seemed to occur in minor ways, most fights detailed in the game usually go along the lines of a bunch of Risen kill a group of people, Zhaitan raises them from the dead, and so on. But you are right to point out that his alternative methods of corruption do exist, they’re just less commonly used.

The most obvious case of living corruption is Kellach and Necromancer Rissa, but there’s also a heart in Bloodtide Coast with sickened quaggan caused by Zhaitan’s spreading corruption, and another heart in Sparkfly Fen where wildlife has consumed risen bodies which in turn corrupts them and the plantlife near the corpses. The corrupt plants hold a similar effect to Kellach’s skin – some sort of underneath-the-skin/bark pulsating growth appearance. Almost like the body’s rotting from the inside out. The hearts themselves seem to be typical illnesses that’s hard to cure – likely the first stages of living-corrupted-by-Zhaitan.

Mushroomz.4280:

I think though dragon minions cannot be corrupted by another dragon still though, there is an exception I will get to. If you recall of Zhaitan’s minions, it seemed as if he could see and talk through some, or possibly all of them, it is right to describe it as a Hive Mind, I’d think once you’re assimilated to a hive, you cannot join another. However this leads to an interesting question, when the hive master, such as Zhaitan is no longer present, what happens?

Dragon minions do have hive minds – this is true for icebrood just as much as Zhaitan. But there’s no evidence of Zhaitan speaking through his minions – and he could only see through the Eyes, no others. More intelligent minions exist – the dragons’ champions – whom are capable of speaking of their own accord. However, since dragon minions lack free will (this is what the Forgotten ritual returns to the corrupted – a free will), all of their words will be of their dragons’ perspective and viewpoint, but from a lower rank in the hierarchy.

We actually see what happens to minions when they lose their “hive master” as you put it – Arah explorable is exactly this. And the change is: none. They still think and act as if Zhaitan is alive (or “undead” if you go with that theory).

Mushroomz.4280:

Another thing is, recorruption has yet to be seen, according to Glint’s case, it can’t really be fully reversed with living organisms either.

You have to keep in mind that the only creature ever uncorrupted is Glint (and a risen chicken); her children do not seem to be corrupted (per Gleam in GW1, though Gleam’s fate is unknown), and Kralkatorrik clearly opted to kill rather than recorrupt. The question is: is this because he couldn’t, or because he wouldn’t?

Keep in mind that the Forgotten ritual doesn’t actually cleanse corruption, but instills free will on the subject. So those who have free will are unaffected by the ritual (including the sylvari who was standing with the risen chicken in hand). So technically, no creature has ever been truly uncorrupted.

Mushroomz.4280:

This is further backed up with Zhaitan’s death, so they say, the corruption of Orr is reversing, though it’s not been shown yet. It seems unlike, that these risen humans, for the most part, would ever go back to being ordinary Orrian people, they’d probably just die again. But even then, we haven’t actually SEEN any corruption get fully reversed.

The risen chicken remained risen in appearance. The reversal of corruption by Trahearne was not so much a “reversal” but more of an “overriding”. He brought life to a land of death – the “land of death” was the corruption. We do see the beginning of this “reversal” at the end of The Source of Orr, where we see trees grow over the corruption.

Mushroomz.4280:

Then there’s Tequatl, whom was empowered by Zhaitan’s death.

We actually do not know why, what, who, or how Tequatl was empowered. “Zhaitan’s death” is just the most common theory, but a theory all the same.

Mushroomz.4280:

But to sum it up, since it hasn’t been shown, it’s more likely not possible, or perhaps an oversight that hasn’t been important enough to show.

This is a very poor argument. Just because we don’t see it in-game doesn’t mean it isn’t possible or doesn’t exist. With your argument, you may as well say Cantha doesn’t exist, for we do not see it in-game.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

I see a lot of people in this thread are about to be disappointed . . . badly.

And they’ll be disappointed when they don’t get any gems from the highly disappointed folks.

Galen Grey.4709:

nGumball.1283:

Tom Gore.4035:

Analysts can throw off their speculation just as we can. No one is going to call them for not being right.

Some analysts have predictions as their job and therefore they usually based their speculation upon different indicators. ‘’none is going to call them out for not being right’’ is totally inaccurate because many will and these sources will lose credibility.

People invest money based upon simliar sources.
It is more than ‘’omg, I am a fanboi and I want an expansion’’ or the opposite.

Well precluding some insider information which I imagine isnt that likely considering that technically thats pretty illegal. They’d probably have the same things we have. This community seems to be pretty good at uncovering everything there is to know

The only difference they probably dont have any bias unlike us.

So when they hear the NCSoft CFO say not once but twice that there is an expansion in the works they dont discount that as a mistake.

When they hear that Living story team is 20 people and arenanet is 350+ people they dont let the fact we only got living story so far to mean somehow Anet arent capable of doing anything else or in parallel.

As for the timing and why they got it wrong before… well they have no way of knowing how long it will take to develop an expansion so release is probably purely an educated guess. Educated as it may be they have an issue where no body really toyed with a model of LS updates every 2 weeks + expansion before.

Well all this provided they’re right. Tom Gore is right in that none of this really guarantees that they’re not wrong.

I wrote something out, but Galen Grey said it better so I’ll just replace what I said with: ^THIS^

Whatever they’re showing, it is new and supposedly innovating. The question is: will we want it and will it work?

Moldur.6275:

As the thread where I first published the “OCT31ST LIVE CONTENTS” discovery, feel free to specify a legit date to which that text is referring to that has not already happened in the game. (No they would not have a “hint” about the halloween festival in this ep8 trailer as someone mentioned above, as that would “hint” to already discovered content, even if that text was forgotten left-over from the echoes of the past release which would be a sad). I think you understand that my point is that even if this is not the possible expansion date, it is a date in the future that anet thinks has such a significant value that it is hinted in the last trailer of the season.
Also the translation of KRALKATORRIK on another box doesn’t really lower the odds of large content related to the topic.

There are a dozen boxes in the Durmand Priory Basement – where those crates in the trailer are – which have a multitude of seemingly arbitrary dates. Some are also November, iirc.

I don’t think those link to releases, but the lore contents of the boxes (when they were boxed up, etc.). Though the fact they use standard months rather than the given lore months makes the lore nerd in me cry.

I also second saventis’ answer and will say that it is known for high ranking courtiers to battle each other rather openly (TA exportable) and we know of multiple splinter factions existing within the Nightmare Court that don’t get along and may even ignore or be openly hostile to each other.

So yeah, “only if they have something to gain from it” sounds good.

Another thing (aka A.2):

Over the next hundred years, the human kingdoms prospered. Powerful groups grew up within each nation. These were known as guilds. It was these groups, these guilds, that held the real power in Tyria. Though there were kings and organizations that made the laws and regulated the land, it was the guilds that enforced these laws—or didn’t—as they saw fit. As these guilds grew, their influence began to overlap.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/History_of_Tyria

Centuries after Year 0, the Bloodstones – broken in Year 0 – were shot out of the volcano, and sometime after that, the first Guild War began.

So the first Guild War began sometime after 200 AE.

I will note on the notion of Mazdak and the Krytan kingdom history per the timeline: Kryta did exist since Doric’s reign (Doric has always – since day one – been credited with being ruler of all three Tyrian human nations; that includes Kryta; Lion’s Arch, in fact, housed his royal palace); and from what we know, 300 AE is both the time of Elonian colonial expansion in the land as well as the beginning of the centaur war (began due to human expansion into centaur lands). So the situation seems that Orrians – via Mazdak – founded Kryta sometime between 100 BE and 1 BE, hostile to Orr as we’ve been told, and later it was colonized (perhaps conquered, perhaps sold, perhaps abandoned for a time) by Elona and then later rebelled and broke off from Elona. It’s not very clear, but hardly a clusterkitten – the only real clusterkitten of timeline lore is Scarlet’s timeline.

AVM.5746:

Ah yes… Reapers. V(-_-)V

This wins the thread.

As I’m tiring of this topic, I’ll just respond to:

Leo G.4501:

Curious, where do “demons” fit in the grande scheme of Tyria?

In lore, demons are direct creations of the Mists, often imperfect copies of other pre-existing creatures. They’re anarchistic by nature, and hate mortal world inhabitants.

Knighthonor.4061:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Margonite_Reaper
No learn your lore. They were demons in Gw1 and functioned as equivalents of the Dervish playable class.
Reapers were Dark themed Dervish. Greth’s reapers were Necromancers ghost. Which is why I said my idea for Reaper class deals with both Demonic and Undead in transformation.
As to your other statement about transforming into Undead, I am sorry but Necromancers also can change into creatures of undeath. So I don’t see how that is a reach lore wise for a living to turn into an avatar of undead.

The Reapers were the avatars of Grenth.

Margonite Reapers were completely different thing. And were just an arbitrary name for a dervish Margonite and they’re not unique in lore AT ALL.

So yeah, you need to learn your lore, or at the very least be clear in what you say and not think that one tiny insignificant name is an actual piece of lore.

All you linked to is a human-turned-demon-permanently that is named reaper.

Might as well call them Executioner and hey, you have the same argument of tied to demons and undead etc.

Knighthonor.4061:

By the way, the Margonite humans background lore are the model for the demonic theme of the the Reaper class in the OP. Abaddon was able to transform those humans into Demons to use his power. That’s the theme of the Shapeshifting element of Reapers.

Yes, A GOD PERMANENTLY transformed a group of humans into ethereal demons.

This is not something a human can do.

This is not something that’s reversable.

This made Margonites sterile.

This makes zero sense from a lore standpoint. But it’s obvious that you’re among the group that give the middle finger to lore for the rule of cool.

Knighthonor.4061:

The Bloodstones are sources of great power but they were shattered and scattered across the world. Abaddon is locked away, and it’s not a reach for Abaddon to exchange powers of Bloodstones to mortals, since he did it once before, before he was locked away by the other gods.

No, Abaddon is dead.

He can’t do anything.

Knighthonor.4061:

I had Rytlock lead that cause since he is a powerful warrior that was lost in the Mist which is where he could come Into contact with Greth and Abaddon which are connected to the land of the Crystal Desert.

Nope. 1) Abaddon is dead. 2) They’re not tied to the Crystal Desert, and in all honesty, despite people’s outcry, neither is anything we’ve seen beyond three runes. 3) The gods are not in the Mists – we were told this by Priestess Rhie during The Cathedral of Silence.

Knighthonor.4061:

Nothing I said was a reach Lorewise. If it was, I asked that you explain. Nothing here you said make my lore a far reach to happen.

More like everything, per above.

Knighthonor.4061:

I am better at creating skills/spells than drawing and designing models and creating names for creatures.

Maybe for Blizzard games.

Mushroomz.4280:

I did not cover a topic as well as I intended, and that was how the Sylvari and Mordremoth are related. The Pale Tree claims she shields her Sylvari from the influence of Elder Dragons, Mordremoth in particular. This seems to be true, however, it also seems that Mordremoth calls out to these Sylvari, Scarlet mentioned a dark entity, which turns out is Mordremoth, it tries to hijack her mind or something along those lines.

You have it backwards. Mordremoth is the one the Pale Tree can’t shield against. The reason isn’t clear yet, but there’s heavy hints that the Nightmare is related (there are many heavy ties between the Nightmare and Mordrem – from the Shadow of the Dragon in the sylvari tutorial being the cause of spreading Nightmare, to the earliest Mordrem, called Overgrown, using Nightmare plant models, to a Thorn Wolf being amongst Mordrem in Dry Top to the most recent: Nightmare Pods in Silverwastes) – perhaps even Caithe’s secret is tied to this reason.

If the Nightmare is indeed Mordremoth’s doing – directly or indirectly – then that is likely how Mordremoth is bypassing the protection. Reason I say this is because it’s heavily implied by Ogden that the connection to the Dream is the cause of the protection; Vorpp, in turn, suggested back in Season 1 that the then-unknown “entity” entered Scarlet via the Dream; and lastly, when we speak to the Pale Tree after the attack (or was it some other sylvari/NPC?) it’s stated that she managed to prevent the damage going to the Dream – she was protecting the Dream more than her own mind… why? It’s clear the Dream is vitally important in the Pale Tree’s eyes.

Mushroomz.4280:

What this indicates to me is that while the Pale Tree, like Glint, may now be totally immune to her master’s corruption and influence, their creations, such as the Sylvari and Glint’s egg, are still vulnerable to these.

Ah, but the Pale Tree isn’t immune to Mordremoth’s influence! The attack on the Pale Tree during the World Summit was explicitly stated – during Echoes of the Past when talking to Trahearne and again in Episode 7 during the first instance – to have affected her mind greatly.

Mordremoth’s powers and influence reach to both plants and mind.

Mushroomz.4280:

In any case, I bet this will be answered next Tuesday!

You sure are optimistic, given the number of cliffhangers we’ve been having one after another, and how many unanswered questions there still are from Season 1.

Mushroomz.4280:

I think Mawdrey is parallel to the Sylvari, as Glint’s Egg may be as well. Mawdrey has taught us that creations of an elder dragon can be cultured in an isolated environment and be effected by the influence of… the playable races? In any case, I suspect a similar relation of the Sylvari to the Pale Tree, even Scarlet seems to ponder the influence the Pale Tree has over the Sylvari. It’s been suggested to that the influences that culture Glint’s Egg could be very significant in defeating, or being defeated by the elder dragons. The point is that all of these things have pretty clear relationships, and influence seems to play a powerful role in these creations which descend from the elder dragons.

As I pointed out in the other thread you brought Mawdrey up, we put a LOT of different strange magical artifacts with Mawdrey: Bloodstone pieces, ley line infused stones, Foefire magic, Destroyer magic, etc.

Any one of those could have altered Mawdrey in a way similar to the Forgottne ritual.

Then there’s a chance that the description is a red herring:

After spending so much time cultivating this powerful vine through the generations, it’s hard to not feel an attachment to it. Your beloved pet almost cuddles you in its tendrils. Clearly it feels a similar attachment.

Mordrem are very well known for strangulation and otherwise crushing their victims within vines. Is Mawdrey really cuddling you? Or is it just too weak to hurt you as it tries to crush your lungs and throat?

Another thing you miss is that dragon minions don’t have free will. Sylvari do. So raising sylvari is fundamentally different than raising a dragon minion unaffected by a ritual. Regardless of the sylvari’s origins.

And finally, what is meant by the culturing of the baby dragon is a case of nature vs. nurture – basically, the child already has free will (due to being Glint’s offspring) as proven by Gleam (Glint’s older child seen in Eye of the North), so if you can raise a child to be an evil kitten that does your bidding and that egg happens to have that child: congratulations, you have an evil dragon that will do your bidding! It’s not a case of “winning against or losing to the Elder Dragons” when that raising argument is brought up, but simply that the baby dragon will be a threat if not raised properly.

Mushroomz.4280:

Another key thing to point out, the Pale Tree, like Glint, is very knowledgeable about the elder dragons, the Sylvari are very new, they don’t have any knowledge of the human gods for example, and yet they’re well informed of the elder dragons, Glint shares this unique feature, as the other races had no clue until it was too late.

The Pale Tree knows via the Dream. Sylvari go and learn things about the dragons – that knowledge gets sent to the Dream – the Pale Tree learns it via the Dream.

Glint knew of the Elder Dragons because she was part of the hive mind with an Elder Dragon. The Pale Tree was raised within the past 250 years – she never had this opportunity. Their knowledge comes from different sources outright.