Guild Wars 2

Andulias.9516:

That makes no sense, since when is LS3 related to the raids at all? Do we have any official word on this?

What we have are some statements (or clues, take your pick), so I’ll present a few (the ones I could find, anyway; I may have missed a few since it’s been a while the devs discussed this stuff at length).

Colin Johanson’s blog post about the state of the game gave us some foreshadowing for Season 3 which also revealed that the Pact Commander will be dealing with the raid’s events first before tackling with S3 plot stuff. The relevant passage:

With the recent death of Mordremoth, the Pact and its armies are in disarray with the vast majority of its troops dead or missing. Survivors have begun to regroup or gone home to mourn the dead while the heroes of the great invasion into the jungle investigate a strange disturbance to the north. [emphasis mine]

The raid story is thus connected to post-HoT storyline but how deeply its events will affect the actual S3 plot remains to be seen because we don’t know yet what the conclusion of raid wing 3 will be and how S3 begins. My guess is that if the first raid map in its entirety (all 3 wings of Forsaken Thicket—Spirit Vale, the upcoming Salvation Pass, and the as of yet unnamed third wing) contains plot-critical information for S3, the season will find a way to convey that information to players via NPCs, journals and such during its run so players who haven’t done the 3 wings of the first raid aren’t locked out of the story.

We know from Crystal Reid and Mike Zadorojny’s comments from last year’s Twitchcon stream about raids (important lore stuff goes from 14:26 to 17:44 in that video), from Bobby Stein’s comments on this forum, as well as from the Spirit Vale wing itself (the wiki page is still incomplete though) which kind of ends with foreshadowing stuff to come, that the 3 wings of Forsaken Thicket are basically chapters of the same plot that follow one another with wing 2 having a mega reveal and the end of wing 3 having the ultimate payoff while revealing the “next threat in the shadows” which may be connected to S3’s events in some tangential way aside from the fallout of the released magic from Mordremoth’s demise at the end of HoT.

One way to possibly connect the overall raid story with S3 is if the as of yet unnamed Pact squad leader, who has been referenced as being "worthy" to be taken beyond the wall, whom many allies and enemies have mentioned, and whom we'll likely be trying to save from the kidnappers in Salvation Pass, plays a part in Pact politics in S3 or in some other capacity, unless said leader dies at the end of the raid.

We’ll know more once we experience the overall plot and ending of the Salvation Pass wing and what cliffhanger it leaves for wing 3 to finally resolve. My guess is that, apart from the above spoiler’s possible involvement in the future, S3 and Forsaken Thicket will be thematically connected by generally exploring the aftereffects of Mordremoth’s demise: how the release of the magic the dragon had stored in its body will affect several beings and locations.

The problem with introducing a new playable race (tengu, kodan, largos etc.) is not only what has been mentioned in this thread already but their implementation into the story itself. Not only would Anet need to cast two actors for the English version (one for male, other for female) but also have additional pairs of actors for the dubbed versions for other localized versions of the game, which is quite costly when you count in fees for voice actors, recording, as well as translating the text not to mention the time needed to make sure that the dialogue is written in such a way that it fits into the UI (as something said in English may have to be conveyed in a different manner in, say, German due to its different grammar).

Then count in the fact how much written and spoken dialogue they’d need for these races that would include not only the race-specific early Personal Story branches (which they’d have to create from scratch) but also the later Personal Story, various Living World seasons and expansions and all the race-specific dialogue options therein.

They’d also have to find an excuse for these new PCs to attend the infamous Destiny’s Edge reunion in LA and get invested in it because, as per lore, the new playable races’ mentor figures can’t be any of the five DE members who already represent the original five races. So there would have to be some other motivation for the new PCs to even care for any of the five DE members to have the final payoff in the Zhaitan campaign to make sense (unlike currently where according to the story we at least care for our race’s mentor figure who also happens to be a DE member).

Not only that, but to keep things consistent with the way the story has been presented in the Personal Story with the existing playable races, Anet would also have to create those animated close-up dialogue scenes between the new race PCs and the NPCs, which would be additional work for content Anet has wanted to move away from.

All of this would require a lot of work from Anet, particularly the writers considering how much text they’d have to write for the story instances and open world to accomodate these new PCs. Even if only a few from the team spent time on it, it’d still eat away time from other ongoing projects like the future expansion and Living World seasons where they’d have to pull that manpower (writers, animators, coders, artists, level designers etc.) from and thus slow down.

So, even though I’d like to see a new playable race appear, I find it far more likely that for the time being Anet will be looking forward instead of backward considering all the trouble they’d have to go through as mentioned above. If we’ll eventually delve deeper into tengu/kodan/largos etc. lore, I expect us to see it from their NPCs’ point of view in their respective home cities rather than through their eyes as playable characters.

Based on what Colin wrote, I’d expect to see the following and get at least a few lingering plot points addressed in some manner if not fully:

Black Citadel’s reaction to Rytlock’s shiny new revenant powers, as well as the apparently recent resurgence of revenants all over the place (as Pact NPCs discuss the phenomenon briefly in Tarir), will likely cause friction among the Legions who could potentially view charr becoming revenants as Flame Legion 2.0 with all that siphoning power from legends that reminds them of the incident with Titans etc. It’s interesting how the NPCs discussing it in Tarir don’t include any charr NPCs; perhaps that was Anet’s way of leaving the question open to be resolved in S3.

Iron Imperator Smodur might be facing a political dilemma here. On the one hand Rytlock is a notable, trusted hero who has helped defeat two Elder Dragons as well as the Flame Imperator, but on the other hand Blood Imperator Bangar and Rytlock’s fellow tribunes in the Blood Legion might want to question Rytlock about these new powers and if the ever-increasing number of revenants may pose a threat to charr interests. This could neatly tie into a future Blood Legion storyline where Bangar decides to take action now that the threat of the Ascalonian ghosts has somewhat diminished and the Flame Legion is fractured in a power struggle within its ranks, so he no longer has to worry about a war on two fronts if he wants to make his ambitions known. This could also be a good opportunity to have Ash Imperator Malice have her operatives take an even greater interest in what’s happening in Ascalon although my guess is that neither the Ash nor Blood storylines will receive much development for the time being as we focus on the fallout of Mordremoth’s demise.

Another notable conflict involves Rox and “Monti Scythescrape” if that is his real name. We saw tension between the two in Camp Resolve during S2, and Rox also let it slip that the reason she was in the Pact camp was to spy on someone. Rox was rather adamant on not elaborating further (even coming up with lies on the spot when she realized she’d given away too much) whenever the Pact Commander talked to her, and Monti likewise acted rather shady even in the presence of the charr PC. Perhaps we’ll see more development with this subplot once our focus shifts back to the Black Citadel.

I would expect some sort of sendoff for Eir and Trahearne with maybe the Pact Commander giving a memorial speech similar to how the PC and Trahearne held one for Apatia in Hoelbrak in the Personal Story. A sort of tribute to them with a funeral pyre in Tarir or some other notable place/city with Pact officers and Destiny’s Edge members attending it and mourning all who fell in the war against Mordremoth would be a nice heroes’ farewell. On that note, I hope that we’ll also check up on the Pale Tree and deliver the good (and bad) news to her.

Speaking of sylvari, I would expect some acknowledgement of the change within the Mordrem Guard. As we learned in Rata Novus during HoT, the MG weren’t fully corrupted but were in fact aware of what they were doing yet unable to stop the dragon from manipulating their minds to make them carry out its will. With the dragon now gone and its siren song ended, it should mean that the MG can return to normal as they no longer hear the dragon’s orders (whether that means they’re stuck in their monstrous forms or can turn back into beautiful sylvari should be interesting to see). Or do they? Will some MG have gone crazy that even with the dragon’s demise they refuse to surrender and face judgement, will some in the Pact automatically slaughter any MG despite some of them having returned to the light? Will any of Mordremoth’s champions, who may have siphoned the magic released from the dragon’s body and grown in power, continue their master’s work and force the weaker MG to stay loyal to the dragon’s cause? I’d like to see loose ends like Blademaster Cellona (whom we can’t fight in southern Auric Basin) to be dealt with one way or another since to me she seems like content that ended up on the cutting floor. Why else would you introduce such a character and even have named minions around her instead of generic mobs?

There’s also the lingering issue of Duchess Chrysanthea and the future of the Nightmare Court. With Faolain gone and the Court already fractured into multiple splinter factions, does this mean Chrysanthea will lead a more morally grey splinter faction closer to Cadeyrn’s original vision? I’d like to see the story address the sylvari’s reaction to Nightmare Court having assisted the Dreamers against the dragon and whether this leads to tension in the Grove. With the world now aware of the sylvari’s origins, perhaps both the Court and the Dreamers will have to form an uneasy alliance to survive against the racists that will emerge. It would also be nice to learn more about Chrysanthea as she was so abruptly introduced in Dragon’s Stand with no setup whatsoever. The fact that she was voiced by Debi Derryberry, had a unique model and had intriguing dialogue with the PC indicates that she’ll play a part in the plot in the future.

This leads us to Canach, Anise and Divinity’s Reach. We might see part of the HoT teaser cinematic actually happening in the game now: Canach being attacked in DR. Although Mordremoth is gone, its legacy will continue as many in the Pact became downright racist towards sylvari and will have spread that knowledge across Tyria by now. Caudecus and the Ministers will likely pressure Jennah and Anise to take action against the sylvari for their perceived betrayal and rouse the citizens and nobles against them. With Logan still recovering from his injuries, who knows if Caudecus can use proxies to somehow manipulate a patsy to be placed as Commander of the Seraphs until Logan’s well again, thus strengthening his power base and leading to a sylvari witch hunt. Perhaps they could also dwell on the topic of the Krytan locket introduced in S2 and who the supposed true heir is meant to be, not to mention give us more hints of E’s identity (who I still believe to be Ela Makkay for several reasons) while we’re at it, but that might also be a plot they want to save until later.

I also expect us to return to Tarir to check up on the egg, perhaps flesh out the Exalted a bit more and hopefully talk with the notable ones like Ruka and the Luminate again. Ogden, if we get to meet him in this season at all, should hopefully give the PC more information now that the PC has proven his or her loyalty to the cause beyond any doubt after the PC passed the tests in Tarir and because the egg chose the PC as its champion. If Ogden still acts evasive and says we’re still not supposed to know stuff yet, I guess even my diplomatic Dawnbloom sylvari will have to resort to “aggressive negotiations” with that stubborn old dwarf so he’ll finally spill the beans.

Depending on how widely spread the knowledge of the egg’s existence is, this could also lead to a very interesting plot point. If Tyria as a whole learns that there’s a dragon out there with potential to become an Elder Dragon ready to hatch, how many will cheer and how many will dread that it’ll become just like the others? This growing hostility could put the PC’s loyalties into question, having to go against the Tyrian population to safeguard the egg/hatchling from them while trying to convince Tyria that the PC has not been corrupted by a dragon and that the baby will play a crucial role in the salvation of the world.

And speaking of the Commander, I’d expect the Forsaken Thicket’s raid wings to tie into the plot in the following manner: the plot so far has set up the squad leader who apparently was deemed worthy to be taken beyond the wall. I’d assume the PC succeeds in saving this leader who may play a part in future storylines, perhaps becoming Trahearne’s replacement as a new Marshal. In the meantime, though, the story should show us the problems the PC will face as the temporary Marshal if only to make it absolutely clear to all glory hounds among the playerbase how difficult a role being a Marshal actually is and how much it ties us down when we have to balance it with being the new leader of Destiny’s Edge. Heck, the story could even further elaborate on the dilemma by showing the Pact not being pleased by its current Marshal, the PC, running off to save the world instead of managing the Pact like he or she should, thus leading to the need to have a new Marshal so the PC can continue being the wandering hero. We’ve already seen hints of this in Verdant Brink where the Pact members lament how the Commander is rarely around.

I’ll address some of the comments I’ve seen in this thread about the story, and I hope my answers will clear a few things up regarding what actually happened. The following will have unmarked HoT spoilers, so stop reading now if you haven’t finished the story yet.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

If he died then why didn’t it end with one big explosion, instead of 3 quite directed energy waves? Dead dragon can’t control his energy, right?

In the cinematic we see four waves, actually, and those eventually split into even smaller ones as they move on if you look closely. Basically what happened was this: Mordremoth’s mind was destroyed with Trahearne’s demise, which simultaneously caused a fatal seizure with the Mouth of Mordremoth (the dragon’s physical manifestation) which in turn caused the Mouth to impale its head at the tree while it was fleeing at the end of the Dragon Stand meta. The explosion we see in the story’s ending cinematic as well as the cinematic of Dragon’s Stand are essentially the same event taking place from different perspectives (to an extent, anyway). The explosion was all the magic Mordy had consumed being released back into the wild with the dragon’s death, and the magic naturally split along the four main leyline routes in the area, thus leading to what we see in the ending cinematic.

Why did one of these waves headed at full speed to glint’s egg? Doesn’t look like coincidence to me.

One of the main leyline routes passed over Tarir, the city which the Forgotten had commissioned to be built on that location for that specific reason and which the Exalted had finished. The egg, safely in the inner chamber, absorbed much of the magic traversing through the leyline, and the rest of that route’s magic later went to the Spirit Vale in the Forsaken Thicket and stirred up the ghosts there (as per raid lore). We don’t yet know which other beings may have received a power boost as the three remaining routes have not been elaborated on in story…at least not yet. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of Mordy’s champions received a power boost since we know that dragon champions can absorb magic to grow more powerful similar to their masters and that they can still function and command lesser minions even after their dragon master’s death.

Glint’s egg absorbed much of the magic because the being within the egg is a dragon, and dragons naturally consume magic to boost their own power. The very reason it was important for us to safeguard the egg (as we learned in LW Season 2) was to not let it fall into the wrong hands and to allow the baby to absorb Mordy’s power, thus hopefully becoming a ‘good’ Elder Dragon over time (a feat Glint never managed to do due to her untimely death in battle against Kralkatorrik). And as Colin’s blog post indicated, this is one of the plot threads LW Season 3 will be focusing on as we try to determine if the eventual hatchling will be good or bad now that it has received the power boost.

We didn’t kill Traeharne. Our character wavered just a second too long, as a result what we killed was resurrected mordremoth – no longer held in check by former pact leader. Who knows what he did in the crucial few seconds spent bellowing about his greatness. Some last ditch effort to save himself and setup and escape route for his mind would be most likely scenario.

Unless Mordy is an incredible con artist, I somehow doubt its last words to us in HoT would’ve been “What have you done?” as we kill Trahearne. Considering how blatant it was about how great it was as it took over Trahearne (and thus forced our hand), it should’ve mocked us for what we did instead of being genuinely angry/frightened by what happened. The way I saw it, Mordy expected us to be overcome by fear of it being unstoppable and genuinely didn’t expect us to actually kill one of our best friends and mentors so bluntly like that to get rid of it. However, the Commander proved the dragon wrong one more time.

And who says caladbolg would kill him? It’s sylvari “tech”. So basically dragon minion’s tech. So basically his own. Why would he allow developing of weapon that could kill him this easy?

Mordy never counted on the sylvari breaking from its fold. The Shadow of the Dragon and its minions attacked the Grove for a specific purpose as seen in LW Season 2: to weaken the Pale Tree enough so it could not safeguard the sylvari enough via the Dream, which would then allow Mordy to begin seducing sylvari into becoming Mordrem Guard. Creating Caladbold was the Pale Tree’s idea, not Mordy’s, and she was pretty adamant about fighting dragons, going so far as to keep the origin of sylvari secret from most sylvari so as not to demoralize them (or worse).

We see in the Hearts and Minds story instance in HoT that Caladbolg lies abused near Trahearne. Had it really been a weapon commissioned by Mordy, surely it would’ve still been in tip top shape. Yet, for reasons not explained, Mordy wanted to break it and only partially succeeded, and this effort indicates that it was an object of interest to Mordy and that it had potential it was maybe curious and wary of, which turned out to be true after we used Caladbolg in the way we did in that instance.

amplitudelol.1409:

I didnt even get too fight or EVEN SEE the actual dragon, just entered its mind and for some reason i overpowered it in its own realm.

We do fight Mordremoth’s physical manifestation in the Dragon’s Stand meta event. For reasons, the manifestation is called the Mouth of Mordremoth which many players mistake for being a minion even though we have both the Mouth’s spoken dialogue and Laranthir’s conversation box dialogue (which changes depending on if you’ve completed HoT story or not) confirming that the Mouth is, in fact, Mordremoth and not just a mere minion.

Canonically (if we go by Laranthir’s dialogue boxes pre and post HoT story) the Pact fights the Mouth at least twice. First time this is implied to happen during Hearts and Minds where Mordy says “Armies cannot stop me” (if you’re a sylvari) and Canach comments how the battle raging outside is distracting Mordy from our little sneak mission. The second battle occurs after the demise of Mordy’s mind and when we question how the Mouth can be still alive when the Mind was slain, Laranthir comments that the Mouth is now the manifestation of the dragon’s mindless hunger and needs to be put down again (which implies the Mouth is now braindead although we still hear Mordy’s lines as it reacts to us during the fight, so the canonical state of Laranthir’s post HoT comment remains dubious).

We overpower Mordy in its own realm because our mind turns out to be far more resilient and powerful than Mordy had assumed. We not only managed to take a stand but slowly but surely turned the dragon’s attempts at demoralizing us (the blighted friends and mentors) against it as we made the blighted avatars our allies to help us in our fight. Mordy expected us to break down in fear and sorrow after seeing our dead mentor emerge, but instead that sight fueled our anger and determination to overcome the dragon, hence turning the tide in the battle in our favour. However, the Commander also relied on the help of Rytlock and Braham/Caithe/Canach, so the Commander wasn’t fighting the dragon by him/herself. Friendship prevailed over fear, basically, and kept our minds strong against the Dragon of Mind who thrived on using fear to weaken its enemies.

Tanith.5264:

Garm. What happened to him?

Unknown for now; at least I couldn’t find any reference to his fate in game. Likely a lead-in for S3 development if the writers feel like addressing the issue similar to how we never got to see Malyck and his Tree.

Caithe never explains what she was doing with the egg.

She did, but in a somewhat roundabout way. She said it was her new Wyld Hunt to take care of the egg, from which we can assume she was trying to deliver it to Tarir herself (like we ultimately did) and simply couldn’t trust us to accompany her back when she first stole it from us in Season 2. Whether this was actually a genuine Wyld Hunt or possibly Mordy trying to subtly manipulate her to bring the egg closer to it while she believed the idea was hers in a manner that happened to Scarlet and the Mordrem Guard as well (which would make more sense to me) remains unknown, but in this case I’d just go with the more straightforward answer (it was simply her new Wyld Hunt) since that seems to be the more likely story path the writers would take.

We left Taimi, without even her golem, in a dead city swarming with Mordrem and crazed insects. And we were completely all right with this.

To be fair, she did have all those machines she could tinker with and activate the automated defenses to keep her safe. Also, the open world events in Tangled Depths show us that Agent Zidl and the Order of Whispers arrive in the city later, activate the defenses by some hacking, establish a secure perimeter around Rata Novus and successfully defend the city (as us beating the chak gerents is canon in lore, and to reach the gerents Rata Novus must stay defended). This means that by the time we return to Taimi in S3 (as stated in Colin’s blog post that hints at future story), Rata Novus should be shown as a well defended place in a story instance, assuming the writers want to connect the story’s happenings to what took place in Tangled Depths Rata Novus meta.

Well, to be fair, the tengu were involved during Scarlet’s invasion of LA back in LW Season 1…albeit not in a good way. The tengu archers shot at anyone (yes, even the Pact Commander!) who approached their precious wall, and they were shooting to kill. I can only imagine how many terrified citizens, families and soldiers fell to those aggravated avians’ arrows while desperately seeking sanctuary from the fiery inferno and horrors that Scarlet had unleashed. I don’t exactly see the the survivors looking favourably on the tengu because of that, and the tengu have no intention of opening up their little dominion to outsiders anytime soon anyway, especially if we look at Izu Steelshrike’s rather direct commentary about tengu policy during the smith-saving run of the “Prisoners of the Dragon” story mission in HoT.

Whether we get to explore the Dominion of the Winds in any future content remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon because the story is currently focusing on other, more pressing subject matters, not to mention all those loose ends the plots of HoT and the two Living World seasons left us with which should be resolved sooner or later.

Thanks for taking the time to post the info here, Scott! Much appreciated; I too was wondering who was voicing Ruka.

It sounds to me that some of the male Mordrem Guard enemies are actually voiced by DiMaggio, so Canach isn’t his only role; his deep voice suits them well even if the voice has been edited a bit. As for other VAs playing multiple roles, you can also hear e.g. Braham’s voice actor voicing Evon Gnashblade and some of the male nuhoch NPCs, and Taimi’s VA Debi Derryberry voicing Belinda Delacqua and Duchess Chrysanthea among others.

Spoilers for Heart of Thorns story and content below!

It’s actually confirmed in game (via Laranthir who has somewhat different dialogue in Dragon’s Stand depending on if you’ve completed HoT’s final story mission “Hearts and Minds” or not) that the Mouth of Mordremoth, the final boss of the Dragon’s Stand meta event chain, is the physical manifestation of Mordremoth. The Pact’s assault on the Mouth is distracting Mordremoth (as stated by Canach in the story mission and even implied with Mordremoth’s sylvari-only line “Armies cannot stop me”), which gives us a chance to enter Mordremoth’s mind to fight him simultaneously there. There are also other clues such as the Mouth’s shadowy visage being seen when we enter the Dream in the story (and during the battle against Mordremoth’s avatar) and the explosion in the story’s end cinematic being repeated at the end of the DS boss encounter when the Mouth suddenly suffers what looks like a stroke and dies.

For those curious about how the Mouth fight fits into lore if you’ve already completed “Hearts and Minds”, Laranthir’s dialogue changes after completing the story. As the Commander questions him about how the Mouth can still exist even though Mordremoth has already been slain, Laranthir explains that although Mordremoth’s mind is gone thanks to what the Commander did in the story, the Mouth still exists as a physical manifestation of the dragon’s hunger (this “mindless” nature is somewhat contradicted by the Mouth still talking to us as Mordremoth during the meta event battle, but this is likely story and gameplay segregation or else the Mouth is simply repeating those phrases on autopilot). The likely way the events unfolded could’ve thus been like this: the Pact fights against the Mouth and thus distracts the dragon while the Commander’s party fights the dragon’s avatar in the Dream. After destroying both the dragon’s Mind and Mouth more or less simultaneously (resulting in the explosion seen in the cinematics), the Mouth revives some time later and attacks once more, and the Pact defeats this manifestation of the dragon’s hunger again with the Commander’s help.

The Mouth of Mordremoth, being the physical manifestation of Mordremoth, does thus look like a dragon although it shares more features with dragons of eastern mythology than western mythology due to it being more worm-like and slender rather than the bulkier dragons western audiences are used to seeing.

This post contains SPOILERS for Heart of Thorns, so read at your own risk.

There are several hints, and I’d say outright statements, according to which the Mouth of Mordremoth in Dragon’s Stand is the physical representation of Mordremoth itself. Whether this means the Mouth is Mordremoth’s original form or simply a vine from its body made in its likeness to act as a feeder is debatable, though, thanks to Laranthir’s dialogue box during the battle which muddies the waters. Either way, the Mouth is still more directly connected to Mordremoth than anything we’ve ever seen before for multiple reasons:

1) The great battle outside distracting Mordremoth during the final story mission

During the Hearts and Minds mission as we infiltrate Mordremoth’s lair, we hear the dragon’s roar (which is translated as “Armies cannot stop me” if you play as sylvari). Canach comments the following: “The dragon is focused on the battle outside. We’ll never get a better chance.”

This, to me, heavily implies if not outright states that the Dragon Stand meta (or at least partly; see point 5) is taking place simultaneously with Hearts and Minds, and as it does, it means the Mouth of Mordremoth is, for all intents and purposes, Mordremoth. What other battle of great enough scope would Mordremoth be fighting outside against “armies” if not the Dragon’s Stand meta? The battle near the Heart of Thorns tree forces Mordremoth to divide its attention between dealing with our guild and the Pact’s forces, at least initially (see point 5 for more discussion on this topic).

2) Similarity between the shadowy visage in the Dream and the appearance of the Mouth

If you look closely in the background during the fight against the avatar of Mordremoth (and during the cinematic of entering the Dream in which you and Mordremoth taunt one another, e.g. “Bold words, but empty ones.”), you see a shadowy visage which looks exactly like the Mouth of Mordremoth. This further gives us reason to believe that the Mouth is Mordremoth itself; after all, why would an arrogant Elder Dragon project the likeness of a mere champion into its mind instead of showing itself, or an extension of itself while taunting the Pact Commander?

3) Lines of the Mouth of Mordremoth during the DS meta

During the fight with the Mouth of Mordremoth in Dragon’s Stand, you hear several lines, each angrier than before the closer you get to beating it. Unlike the dragon champions/minions that we’ve seen in game so far, the Mouth actually uses “me/my” instead of “My master/the Jungle Dragon/Mordremoth.”

Based on all the evidence we’ve seen in core game, living world seasons and the expansion so far, no dragon minion, no matter how arrogant or how high in the hierarchy of minions, would ever dare to place itself above the Elder Dragon it serves. All dragon minions fanatically follow and downright worship their dragon master to sickening levels, so why would the Mouth, if it were a mere champion, suddenly deviate from this pattern and want the people it’s fighting to serve it rather than its master?

Some of the notable lines which show the Mouth’s uniqueness in this regard (and thus pointing towards it being Mordremoth himself) are the following lines, taken during the DS meta:

Mouth of Mordremoth: Who dares defy my eternal will?
Mouth of Mordremoth: You are nothing. Submit to me, and serve!

Not exactly the lines an obedient and fanatical dragon champion would say, especially so close to its master’s lair, right?

4) The ending cinematic of the DS meta

The Mouth of Mordremoth, although weakened after the battle in Dragon’s Stand, is still very much alive and is retreating to the Heart of Thorns tree. All of a sudden, in the ending cinematic of that battle, it has what looks like a stroke, releases magic from its body and falls on a spike which impales its head, after which players can access Mordremoth’s Vantage POI and collect loot.

The way the explosion and the “stroke” are set up is because the Commander struck the finishing blow in Mordremoth’s mind at that moment (which resulted in a similar explosion that released magic from its body in four directions), thus crippling the dragon’s physical manifestation at a crucial moment. We know from every other dragon champion that they continue to function even after their dragon master is dead (e.g. see Risen in Arah explorable who still preach the glory of Zhaitan, and Tequatl growing in power and continuing to attack more furiously after Zhaitan’s demise as the events of Tequatl Rising from LW Season 1 were confirmed to take place after Zhaitan’s defeat). So, if the Mouth were a mere minion, it wouldn’t have had the stroke and died like that; we would’ve simply continued the fight and hacked it to pieces instead of seeing it happen in a cinematic.

The reason why the explosive release of magic looks greater in the story ending cinematic than in the actual DS meta finale could have several reasons: 1) the game engine would not be able to depict it accurately and thus shows a more limited view of it, and 2) the explosion’s scope is made ambiguous enough so both interpretations for when the battle takes place are valid due to the way it’s been written (see point 5).

5) Laranthir’s lines during the DS meta

If you talk to Laranthir during the Dragon’s Stand meta (on one of the floating islands), he expressly says some interesting stuff about the Mouth of Mordremoth, and his dialogue changes depending on if you’ve already completed the final story mission or not. The relevant snippets:

Laranthir: (before completing story) Our scouts believe the creature before us is feeding on ley-line energy for its master, but Mordremoth is an entity of mind and dream. That’s where you’ll have to go to defeat it.
Laranthir: (after completing story) Though you killed Mordremoth within its realm of mind, the physical manifestation of its hunger still remains in our world, still feeding on this hub of ley-line energy.

Note the use of the word “believe”, which indicates the scouts only assume things without knowing the full truth, and the phrase “the physical manifestation of [Mordremoth’s] hunger” when referring to the Mouth later on. One could try to argue based on these lines of dialogue that the Mouth is a mere minion, but the evidence we’ve seen above (in points 1-4) shows otherwise.

At most we can say regarding the minion “theory” is that Mordremoth grew the Mouth out of itself (hence the long, vine-like body for the Mouth), the Mouth is connected directly to Mordremoth and allows the dragon to possess it to taunt enemies when needed. But for all intents and purposes the Mouth is, as evidence seen in game suggests, the physical form of Mordremoth we fight regardless of semantics, so we did get to fight an epic battle against an Elder Dragon both physically in the open world and in the centre of its mind.

Sources for Laranthir’s dialogue:
Before completing story
After completing story

There’s one major thing that heavily points at Mordremoth’s growing influence as far as the Tower of Nightmares and the Toxic Alliance are concerned in Season 1: it was during this release that we heard the menacing three-note motif that became known as Mordremoth’s Theme for the very first time. The link provides an analysis of some of the moments this music theme has been used in S1 and S2 (I will add the theme’s uses in Heart of Thorns later once the full HoT soundtrack is released via Anet’s official channels), and the references section even has the source where the composer’s comments about the theme have been taken from. I’d say it’s no coincidence that it was during the Tower of Nightmares release when we first heard Scarlet’s tone change from cheerful into menacing at the end of a cutscene which was even shown to us visually, and this change in tone was implied to be Mordremoth getting a stronger grip of her cracking mind as well as influencing the change among the members of the Toxic Alliance.

As explained by the composer Maclaine Diemer, the three-note Mordremoth motif was retrofitted into representing Mordremoth musically but the fact that said theme was chosen to represent the Jungle Dragon to begin with speaks volumes of the importance of the Mordremoth connection to the Toxic corruption and the hallucinations produced by the Tower of Nightmares. I’ve even speculated that the Toxic Hybrid boss that we faced during Tower of Nightmares release may have been an experimental Mordremized Krait. However, there are only hints at such and no outright developer confirmation similar to how the Tower of Nightmares itself (which appeared to be sentient) may have been a corrupted sister of the Pale Tree.

We know by now that the composers Maclaine Diemer and Lena Chappelle are very meticulous about providing thematic continuity in their tracks where they use themes they have established earlier to weave a musical narrative. For instance, how the sylvari’s connection to the Jungle Dragon were teased in the “Newly Awakened” track (which played during Season 2’s flashback episode about Caithe’s past in the Grove when the Secondborn had awakened) and how the latter half of said track actually shared the underlying rolling motif of The Mordrem track that had been established earlier albeit in a “cuter” form than in the latter, more menacing track. Thus I’d argue that, based on the composers’ insistence to pay attention to little musical details like foreshadowing the sylvari/Mordrem connection, the Tower of Nightmares using what became the Mordremoth theme does hold quite a bit of significance storywise even though the connection and what implications it has have been left vague in the story itself.

It was a shame we didn’t get more lore on the Blighting Trees encountered in the Magus Falls maps in Heart of Thorns apart from few tidbits or saw any other crazy “hybrids” like the Toxic Hybrid of S1. It would’ve been interesting to explore that bit of lore more, especially after we were given some answers about the creation process of the Mordrem in HoT’s story.

mpif.8504:

Ayrilana.1396:

Here’s a twist: quaggans are the water dragon’s minions.

That would be funny, however the dragons minions cannot be corrupted by other dragons (that is why there are no risen Sylvari), however there are risen Quaggans.

Actually, Kudu’s Monster and Subject Alpha from Crucible of Eternity’s story and explorable modes would like to have a word with you about that. They are, or were, living proof that beings can be corrupted by multiple dragons; in Subject Alpha’s case this gave it the ability to control various dragon minions to do its bidding.

The reason sylvari weren’t corrupted by Zhaitan was because of their link to the Dream thanks to Pale Tree acting as the conduit, which protected them from dragon energy. The whole point of the Shadow of the Dragon’s attack on the Grove in LW Season 2 was to kill the Pale Tree to stop her from acting as said conduit and thus make sylvari more susceptible to Mordremoth’s influence. However, this plan worked only partially as we did manage to drive the Shadow away before it could finish its mission but not before its and its minions’ attack had already severely weakened the Pale Tree, which made the sylvari on the Pact fleet able to be taken by Mordremoth once they crossed into his domain as seen in the episode 8 ending cinematic.

One of the achievements for the “Buried Insight” mission in HoT story (when we first visit Rata Novus) includes finding and talking to an injured Mordrem Guard. Thanks to us being so deep underground, Mordremoth’s call is weaker (as stated by Canach and the sylvari PC), and this also affects the MG who briefly manages to regain his senses and chats with us, expressing horror at what he’s done…until Mordremoth’s call takes over again and we’re forced to put him out of his misery.

The mission proves that Mordremoth couldn’t fully corrupt sylvari; he only managed to invade their minds by using their link to the Dream and Wyld/Dark Hunts (which the Dream/Nightmare gives Dreamers/Nightmare Courtiers) and manipulated them via his siren song to fight for him. His grip on them lessened if they got out of his area of influence (as seen briefly in Rata Novus). This seems to heavily imply that with Mordremoth gone, the Mordrem Guard should return back to their senses now that the Jungle Dragon is no longer sending its call to influence their actions.

The sylvari’s connection to the Dream via the Pale Tree might not be the only reason why Zhaitan or Mordremoth couldn’t corrupt them fully. There’s a high likelihood that the seeds of various Pale Trees (which Ronan found in the cave) may have been purified by the Forgotten, which partly explained why the Pale Tree, while being tied to Mordremoth, didn’t become a Blighting Tree. We also know from Glint’s story that once a dragon minion is freed from dragon corruption via a purification ritual, it cannot be recorrupted again (part of the reason why Kralkatorrik wanted to kill Glint instead of just re-enslaving her under his will again). Perhaps this means that the offspring of freed dragon minions (Glint’s children and the sylvari) can’t be corrupted either, which would mean that Glint’s other children could still plausibly be on the heroes’ side if we ever found them and/or if they hadn’t been killed off by now.

We likely won’t learn the full truth about this matter until we learn what happened with Malyck, his tree and his people (as they seem to not have a connection to the Dream) as well as just what exactly the Dream and the Nightmare are supposed to be since HoT dodged the bullet on both of those dangling plot threads.

jeezlaweez.6810:

1) We just used the same weapon Mordremoth used against the Dream in the retconed Sylvari Personal Story. (we all know it was retconed. It was a Zaithan minion. The Pale Tree states that)

I’m not entirely sure if this was meant to be a retcon. We’ve seen hints ever since launch that there’s more to the sylvari lore than meets the eye, not to mention Caithe’s somewhat cryptic lines throughout and the barest of hints at Mordremoth (via some of Subject Alpha’s attacks in Crucible of Eternity). It’s entirely possible, however, that the circumstances of Caithe and Faolain’s separation and the death of Wynne may not have been fully thought out at launch and were later retrofitted into existing lore.

Lorewise the Shadow of the Dragon thing makes sense, though. The only people from whom we really learn about it are Caithe and the Pale Tree, both of whom, as per Living World season 2, have an agenda to keep the sylvari in the dark about their true origins, so they could’ve plausibly made the Shadow represent Zhaitan who was the more immediate threat due to Risen activity throughout Tyria. We’ve also later been told by devs that Ree Soesbee, who was mainly responsible for sylvari lore at launch, rewrote the sylvari missions over and over again to make them more ambiguous in order not to give away the reveal about sylvari origins.

Algol.9635:

Are you sure that Mordremoth is really dead ? I’ve see him falling but I’ve never find any corpse :p

Actually, we see his corpse at Mordremoth’s Vantage POI (the top of the big tree where his head is impaled by a wooden spike) at the end of the Dragon Stand meta event where we slay the Mouth of Mordremoth, confirmed by his own dialogue and Laranthir’s dialogue to be a physical manifestation of Mordremoth himself. However, based on Laranthir’s subsequent lines in that event, it appears that the Mouth functions somewhat autonomously from the Mind (which we slew in HoT story) as it keeps regrowing and attacking, but this seems somewhat contradictory to the events of the story instance, so we may need to wait for writers’ clarification on the matter.

However, what would support the assumption that Mordremoth is dead is the huge amount of magic released from his body after we slay his Mind. If Mordremoth wasn’t getting closer to the death’s door, why would he want to let go of so much magic which he had spent all this time absorbing into himself? Surely he’d want to keep it all for himself instead of giving it to his competitors (the egg, his champions, other dragons)?

Assuming that the information we’ve been given earlier is still correct and plans haven’t changed since then, devs have stated that the Forsaken Thicket raid as a whole will give us hints about the plot of Living World Season 3, foreshadowing stuff to come about a threat lurking in the shadows. We’ve also been told that there will be three raid wings for the Forsaken Thicket raid which are tied together lore and chronology-wise (Wing 1 leading to W2 which finally leads to W3 where the supposed lore mega reveal will take place). Now that the first wing called Spirit Vale has been released, there are still two more wings left for Forsaken Thicket before we can jump into the story of Season 3 if the devs follow these original plans.

I haven’t heard of any estimates of when the remaining raid wings will be released, but I’d expect at least one of them to show up by Q1 of 2016, depending on how complex mechanics the wings, particularly W3’s final boss and thus the final boss of the entire Forsaken Thicket raid, will have. Wintersday is coming soon, so that’s going to keep the non-raiders occupied for a time while people will also be leveling their Core Tyria and Maguuma Jungle masteries, going on the legendary journey, as well as unlocking their alts’ elite specializations in the meantime. There might even be a WvW event coming in the interim for all we know.

With that said, I’d expect Season 3 to show up by late Q1 or early Q2 with the current schedule. The lines for it have likely already been recorded during the production of Heart of Thorns (although some actors might need to rerecord some lines if the dialogue is tweaked when story edits are made), and based on twitter comments at least the lead composer Maclaine Diemer is also working hectically to compose new music (whether this music will be used for, say, raid wing 3’s events or for S3 remains to be seen, but my guess is for the latter).

It’s going to be interesting to see if S3 will offer (part of) a new map similar to S2 in the beginning of its story or if we’ll visit the existing jungle/core Tyria maps for a while similar to S1 before revelations will lead us to explore new, uncharted territory. The story of HoT left a lot of loose ends, after all, so I expect the narrative to resolve some of those dangling plot threads first by giving us a proper denouement and then launch us into the next adventure proper when the new threat rears its head.

For a brief answer, OP, the music you hear in Heart of Thorns actually includes both sampled and orchestral tracks. Some tracks are newly composed/recorded while others are reused from past content releases (Living World seasons 1 and 2).

For a more detailed answer, the following contains some story spoilers for Heart of Thorns in relation to its music, so read below at your own risk:

Based on the tracks that fans have uploaded on Youtube so far, there seems to be about an hour’s worth of newly recorded orchestral music for the expansion when all the short combat cue variants are included, give or take. Some tracks still haven’t been uploaded online, though, so we’ll have to wait a bit longer for all of them to be uploaded by fans or for Anet to release the full, HD soundtrack on SoundCloud or via other means to have a full analysis.

The OST also has some new but sampled themes in addition to the orchestral ones. For example, the themes for the Mouth of Mordremoth and Avatar of Mordremoth boss battles (for the Dragon Stand meta event and the final story mission for Act 4, respectively) use sampled instruments (the choir in the latter sounds sampled to me too but not 100% sure on that without the composers’ confirmation) instead of a live orchestra. This may be because of budget and/or scheduling issues as pieces were still being written, finetuned and orchestrated by the time recording sessions were already taking place abroad from what I remember from the composers’ earlier comments.

The rest of the soundtrack consists of recycled orchestral and sampled pieces from Living World seasons 1 and 2 (e.g. the “Twisted Marionette Part 1” from S1 used in some larger boss encounters at times, the “Tower of Nightmares” from S1 played as one of the cycled cues in Dragon’s Stand, “Crystal Oasis Redux” from S2 played as one of the cycled cues in Tarir’s Inner Chamber, and “Shadow of the Dragon” from S2 played during the Vinetooth battle in the final mission for Act 1).

I hope this helps with answering your question or at least sating your curiosity for now. I’d suggest keeping an eye on Anet’s SoundCloud page for future music updates, but if you’re impatient, a few people have already uploaded quite a few HoT tracks on Youtube too for our listening pleasure.

I totally agree. Out of all the dialogue in Heart of Thorns (that I’ve managed to hear so far), the skritt dialogue and their suitably over the top voice acting is among the most charming and very well executed. Kudos to the voice actors for bringing these characters to life in such an exciting and cute way and for the voice director(s) who managed to instill the actors with a sense of adventure, curiosity and excitement fitting of skritt!

I love Speelunkk and Dawkkurra’s reactions to their respective Exalted friends, the events associated with their adventures, and how they get enamored with the Exalted due to the Exalted’s alluring golden looks (skritt love their shinies!), not to mention the awkwardness that ensues from the Exalted’s side when they try to be polite to their new, furry friends.

It was such a nice surprise to see Dawkkurra return in Dragon’s Stand and hear more of her cute voice acting. I hope we get to see more skritt and Exalted interactions in the future too as there’s still lots of potential (comic and otherwise) there.

The way I see it, based on what happened in the open world stories and the story instance itself, plus the final cinematic, Mordremoth is pretty much dead. The explosion of magic, which went in four different directions (and only one of those was absorbed by Glint’s Egg in Tarir), shows that Mordremoth was struck a fatal blow as Elder Dragons don’t let magic out in such vast quantities unless something bad happened to them. Where the three other lines of magic went remains unknown for now, but at least one may have gone to Bubbles the Deep Sea Dragon.

The writers could always try to retcon it by stating later that Mordremoth hid his seed in someone else than just Trahearne, but this seems unlikely to me, considering how big a deal the story made about the Trahearne revelation as well as Mordremoth’s angry/shocked gasp of “What have you done?” when you strike the final blow and kill his vessel Trahearne which was, according to the story, meant to be the dragon’s last hiding place after both his physical manifestation (the Mouth) and his mind (in the Dream) were dealt severe blows.

What we could potentially see regarding the mordrem is to have one or more of Mordremoth’s champions absorb the released magic from their dragon master just like Glint’s egg absorbed one fourth of it already. It would be similar to Tequatl who also grew stronger after his dragon master’s demise by leeching on the magic released from Zhaitan’s demise. That way Mordremoth’s legacy would continue as one or more mordrem champions would begin competing with Glint’s Egg over who gets to ascend to become the new Jungle Dragon, assuming that’s the story direction Anet wanted to go for. That in turn would lead us as the Commander to slay these would-be candidates to ensure that the magic wasn’t abused and Glint’s baby would have no serious competition for the title of Elder Dragon.

Whether any of the raids or Living World season 3 touches on this type of story development remains to be seen, however, or if they choose to go a different route. At least based on what we’ve learned of the upcoming Spirit Vale raid so far, the focus seems to be more on the bandits (with a potential link to White Mantle) as well as whatever soul stuff Gorseval (the Tongue Boss Guy) is linked to and if the Bloodstones will play any part in it.

AESOkami.1072:

I wouldn’t really call the Mouth of Mordremoth being the physical version of Mordremoth himself. Consider: If Zhaitan could have multiple mouths, then what’s stopping Mordy from doing the same?

What differentiates the Mouths of Zhaitan from the Mouth of Mordremoth is that the Mouths of Zhaitan were risen minions specialized in feeding the magic to their master by absorbing artifacts and whatnot, which explains why multiple Mouths existed at the same time in the Zhaitan campaign. In contrast there is only one Mouth of Mordremoth which is, essentially, directly grown and linked to Mordremoth in a gigantic vine body, which effectively makes it Mordremoth’s physical manifestation in Dragon’s Stand.

During the final battle in Dragon’s Stand, you hear the Mouth of Mordremoth speak multiple times and react to damage done to his mouth, and in the chat window it’s always named Mordremoth. Not only that, but several Pact NPCs refer to the Mouth as either Mordremoth or the Elder/Jungle Dragon, which further proves that the Mouth of Mordremoth is not simply a specialized mordrem but an extension of the Elder Dragon himself.

Artaz.3819:

1. Mord is dead. You need to accept it; Trahearne and the other party Sylvari confirmed it.

2. If Mord’s power (significant portion) has been absorbed by the egg , what we really need to understand is where did Zhaitan’s power go? That’s the BIG HUGE GAPING plot hole in the several smaller plot lines/questions (who is ‘E"?, how did we make the leap of faith that Dream was the weakness?, what’s the reason for the vision of Zhaitan/Mord orbs colliding in LS@?, etc.) story continuity issues.

It’s implied, but not outright stated, that Tequatl the Sunless absorbed at least some of the magic that was leaking out of Zhaitan’s fallen body, which explains why Tequatl got stronger during Living World season 1 when that boss fight was revamped. The devs did state back then that the power boost wasn’t random and that there was a lore reason for it but never elaborated on it afterwards, so us fans had to piece the clues together from scraps of information given to us during LW S1 and S2. What happened to the rest of the magic that must’ve come out of Zhaitan’s body after his death, however, is a mystery, although it’s possible that some of it may have gone to some of the other Elder Dragons (e.g. Kralkatorrik, Bubbles).

I still believe that Mr. E could be Magister Ela Makkay for reasons I’ve stated some time ago. It would make sense for her to be the one, especially if the writers’ tease that we may have met E before is in fact truthful and not misdirecting, and her being a scholar with access to Ogden (who seems to be a member of a mysterious order wanting to preserve Glint’s legacy) would provide her with additional opportunities to learn information most would not necessarily be privy to, not including the field work she’d done chronicling events of Scarlet’s actions (among other things) beforehand.

Added to the stuff I’ve written earlier, I’ve also been wondering if Ela and Marjory may have once been lovers once during their time in the Priory, considering the reference to an “intimate” touch in Marjory’s short story where she first met E who seized her briefly. In the instances they meet there hasn’t been any hint to something like that between the two of them, though, and their interactions have been rather formal; however, it’s possible they simply want to keep things strictly to business when in the presence of others and not let others know of their past and whatever drama the relationship may have had. But if E and Marjory were lovers, it makes me wonder what ended up driving them apart. Was this perhaps one of the reasons why Marjory eventually left the Priory and focused on working in the Ministry Guard in DR than focusing on becoming a scholar?

If E is Ela Makkay, it also presents another question. Why has E stayed so secretive and not let the Commander, who should’ve proven their dedication to defending Tyria, to know her identity by now? There appears to be worry or even fear of something and for one reason or another E wants to remain in the shadows. Perhaps now that the Commander has proven themself with preserving Glint’s legacy as seen in Heart of Thorns, they finally get to learn more about E and maybe even be let into this secret order of defenders who should finally shed some light on their far-reaching goals for Tyria in the fight against the Elder Dragons.

The recent Guild Chat episode had something rather interesting in a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment, essentially. When they showed the concept art for Stavemaster Adryn, one of the three Mordrem Guard Commanders, the concept art was titled Nightmare Seer in the lower right corner. This made me think back on how Colin Johanson once called these minions the Mordrem Court instead of Mordrem Guard, which may have been an alpha name for the group before they settled on the finalized version. Was Adryn originally a Nightmare Courtier before being turned (it was originally implied in an earlier vid that the three Commanders all came from the Pact fleet, but maybe some Courtiers sneaked aboard?), or does “Nightmare Seer” hold deeper significance and a connection between the Nightmare and Mordremoth? Or maybe it’s just a cool placeholder name…

It would be a shame if the writers explained the Nightmare away as just being somehow tied to Mordremoth attempting to influence the Dream as it would make more sense to me, and make the narrative more interesting, to have the more reasonable Courtiers actually be right about the Nightmare simply being the Darkness to the Dream’s Light, which is why Malyck’s Tree being tied to neither, being Twilight or something along those lines, makes it so intriguing to both Dreamers and Courtiers alike. It would be intriguing to see both the Dream and the Nightmare generally fight for the same cause but simply use different methods to achieve the goal of opposing the dragons with the Nightmare being more ruthless and pragmatically “evil” than the more benign Dream. It would also tie into Celtic mythology, which the sylvari draw inspiration from, where Darkness wasn’t necessarily ‘evil’ per se but just a different, even if somewhat scary, way of looking at the world from a different perspective.

There are still quite a few mysteries about the Dream and Nightmare that should be explored, and I feel delving deeper into Malyck’s unresolved story could help us shed some light on that, the mystery of the cave the seeds were found in, as well as maybe show a race between Dreamers and Courtiers to try to make Malyck’s Grove side with either of their factions, and this other Grove being cautious/curious of either path their cousins offer them (Malyck notwithstanding as his positive experiences with Dreamers and bad experiences with the Knight of Embers would have him oppose all Nightmare Courtiers, likely including even the more moderate ones like Duchess Crysanthea who fought alongside us in Dragon’s Stand, on principle). That way we could not only explore the whole Dream/Nightmare stuff, the cave and the seeds stuff, but also discuss the Nightmare Court on a deeper level. But maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part.

Diovid.9506:

This is not entirely true. First of all, the goal is not liberating Sylvari from the Pale Tree, but liberating Sylvari from all oppressors (which means the firstborn, the tablet, but also, as Faolain points out, Mordemoth). Secondly, they do not want to get rid of the pale tree, they need the pale tree. They just want to change the pale tree.

There’s actually a chance that the Nightmare Court could’ve rejected the Pale Tree rather violently if the Knight of Embers had delivered what she had learned about Malyck to Faolain. The sylvari PC states the following in the early Personal Story mission Snuffing Out Embers:

<Character name>: If Faolain finds out, she won’t need the Grove. The court will burn the Pale Tree to the ground and find one they can more easily twist to nightmare.

Granted, this is only the PC’s assumption, which is supported by Trahearne or Caithe (depending on which one you chose to go with in an earlier mission), but it is nevertheless a potential course of action the NC could take if they learned the truth.

We still haven’t learned what Faolain was doing so far in Magus Falls and what she’d been up to in the past 2-3 years since her rather quick departure from Twilight Arbor. Did she have a chat with Scarlet (depending on the timeline of when the Aetherblades began building their base in TA) who may have known Malyck’s secret and told her, after which she left to find Malyck’s Grove to gather new followers once her subordinates began their power struggle for leadership over the NC back in Caledon Forest and beyond? Did Faolain spy on Caithe and sneak aboard the Pact fleet when she lost sight of her, did she work alongside Duchess Crysanthea before being imprisoned by mordrem, or did she act all by herself while Crysanthea had her own goals? Too many unanswered questions there, and I feel we’ll likely never find out the truth after Faolain was quickly shoved aside in the story of Heart of Thorns without giving her any room to develop as a character.

The Nightmare Court initially began as a somewhat harsh but still a bit sympathetic sect of sylvari who felt they were being shackled by the tenets of Ventari which the Pale Tree and the Dreamers had already embraced. The Courtiers wanted the Nightmare to grow stronger in the Dream via “the end justifies the means”, so that sylvari as a race would break free and forge their own path through their own will instead of becoming ‘slaves’ to someone else’s ideology. Cadeyrn’s very reason for founding the Court was to make the Pale Tree listen to him and not make a distinction between the Firstborn and the Secondborn…although in Season 2 we learned that he was also heavily influenced/manipulated by Faolain who showed support to his ideas (and would later end up replacing him as leader of the Court).

One Courtier in particular called Gavin was actually quite reasonable and even friendly and honourable to an extent even if he served the role of an antagonist in one of the early sylvari storylines, but most Courtiers in game were indeed depicted as less sympathetic such as Sariel and Bercilak. The Knight of Embers fell somewhere in between the noble and sadistic Courtiers. All of this shows that there were, at least initially, many personalities within the Court although in the open world we really only meet the puppy-kicking jerks, which does paint Nightmare Court as needlessly black when it could’ve been depicted as a more morally grey faction. I think the reason for showing pretty much all of the open world Courtiers as irredeemable baddies in game is to simply not make players feel bad for killing hundreds of them in cold blood. I would personally love to see the NC be painted in shades of grey rather than black as they can provide lots of fascinating stories if the writers allowed them to.

Anyway, the Toxic Courtiers of the Toxic Alliance don’t represent Nightmare Court as a whole. This was clarified in a couple of interviews with devs (one of which you can read here) where they explained that the Toxic Courtiers and their Baron/Baroness were one of the power-hungry splinter factions of NC which had been formed after Faolain’s departure from Twilight Arbor (seen in said dungeon’s story mode) which had left a power vacuum in NC. Unlike the other splinter factions, however, the Toxic Courtiers chose to form an uneasy alliance with the krait and Scarlet and slowly fell under Mordremoth’s influence; this was never explicitly stated during the Tower of Nightmares release, but there are enough clues in the narrative, visuals and music (it was during this release we were first introduced to Mordremoth’s Theme, after all) to support this argument.

If anything, the Courtiers aiding the Pact against Mordremoth likely don’t represent NC as a whole but are one of the many splinter factions just like the Toxic Courtiers and the Twilight Arbor explorable’s competing Count/Countesses were. In this case the new Duchess, or whoever leads this splinter group, appears to be more reasonable than her fellow nobles or Grand Duchess Faolain were. Hopefully this means that we’ll be seeing more Courtiers like Gavin in the story again: not necessarily good people but still antagonists with virtues such as honour, some of whom might even become “friendly” enemies should the writers ever want to explore a more complex hero/villain relationship.

So in short: the once unified NC has splintered into multiple competing factions vying for power since Faolain’s departure from Twilight Arbor. Some Courtiers appear to be more reasonable than others, which explains these splinter factions’ seemingly contradictory actions in the narrative.

If you check out Evillix’s channel on Youtube, he has uploaded some rips of the Heart of Thorns tracks there. However, he’s stated that the process of doing so takes time so the channel won’t likely have any more music updates anytime soon, but at least the tracks currently in there should act as an appetizer until we get to the main course which is the complete HoT soundtrack. A few of the rips even had likes from lead composer Maclaine Diemer himself as well as got some comments from a few Anet devs who likewise shared their love for the fine work Diemer, Lena Chappelle and Stan LePard had done for the soundtrack!

Speaking of Diemer, he tweeted recently that he can’t wait for us to hear the HoT tracks in proper high fidelity form as SoundCloud has somewhat subpar audio quality which he’s not happy with. Whether this means that more tracks will be uploaded to SoundCloud and made available as high fidelity downloads or if some other type of release (like a physical/digital soundtrack) is in the works remains to be seen, though.

Based on Diemer’s comments from earlier, Heart of Thorns has about 2 hours of new orchestral music in addition to previous orchestral and sampled tracks from Living World seasons 1 and 2 and likely even some new, sampled HoT tracks. I look forward to eventually hearing the HoT soundtrack in its entirety and hopefully in high fidelity (although I’d be happy with 320kbps mp3 files too for convenience’s sake).

I’m glad to hear others here feel the same way; the composers truly poured their hearts into these tracks and use many interwoven themes in them to establish musical continuity for Tyria, and they deserve all the praise they can get for it.

Obsidian.1328:

Grubb’s response was that purple is the color of evil in Tyria.

…

He actually said that??

Yes, he did. I’ll quote the particular bit where he says that as well as put in bold another notable statement in the same answer. Also, I left the misspelling of Abaddon in as that’s how it is in the original written source:

Jeff Grubb:

Q: A little controversial discussion since Nightfall: Is Abbadon still alive in some form? And while on the topic of Abbadon, a lot of people have been comparing the Branded of Kralkatorrik to the Margonites of Abbadon. Is there a connection between them outside of the color purple?

A: Basically the gods have stepped back. They’ve let humanity go forward on their own. They are still part of the world in the way that there’s still worship but they aren’t interfering as much as they were back in those days. The fact that Abbadon’s minions had that purplish glow and what we’re seeing in the crystal is, as far as I know, coincidental because purple is of course the color of evil. The fact that there is some similarity—dragon’s contain a lot of power. And the nature of that power comes to the surface. Not all dragon minions are purple in nature. So there’s no definitive link between Abbadon and Kralkatorrik. (Source)

However, something to keep in mind while reading these interviews: there have been later mentions by the GW2 narrative team on the GW2 forums that if any interview ever conflicts with what’s actually presented in game lore-wise, always go with the game’s version. This was back when there was some controversy over the year gap between Firstborn and Secondborn among sylvari in which an old interview from before the game’s launch conflicted with the information presented to us during Living World season 2.

As mesmers also share the colour purple in their magic, my guess is that what Grubb meant in the interview is the colour of dark purple rather than purple in general. Elder Dragons’ corruption tends to have darker, more intense colours than the magic of purified dragon minions or good professions like mesmers which appears lighter in colour.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You have one hell of an ear for music, you know that? I listened to both and tried to see if I found similarities but I did not. And I love the Pale Tree Elevator music track.

Thanks. Admittedly some of these references are a bit tricky to jot down as not all are necessarily melodic in nature; sometimes there might simply be similarities in the way certain instruments are used to set a certain mood rather than the themes themselves. In the case of this preview piece I took note of the distinctive, echoing piano effect often heard in the Grove, and things began unraveling from there, fueled by Diemer’s curious comments.

Certain musical revelations from the most recent BWE actually further fuel my theory that this track is in fact related to Malyck and his Grove as I’ll explain below…except now there may be additional hints to what role Malyck might play in the expansion (assuming this musical hint is anything to go by, so take what I say with a grain of salt).

EdwinLi.1284:

I hope Malyck doesn’t turn in evil in HoT because for some reason I feel like we may see Malyck in the new Harbinger of Mordremoth outfit.

It appears Malyck may actually keep his promise and rally an army to help us fight against an Elder Dragon after all. Although the preview piece mentioned in the first post of this thread does sound sad and mysterious to me rather than heroic as stated earlier, I’ve noticed something very interesting and exciting in the revised Main Theme for Heart of Thorns that played in the menu screen during BWE3.

Pay close attention to the string ostinato (a repeating musical phrase) starting from 0:07 in that track and which plays in many places throughout that track. Does it sound familiar? It should; Diemer is blatantly referencing his HoT preview piece, the very topic of this thread, which began with the exact same ostinato (just played by a different instrument)!

What’s interesting about this revised HoT main theme compared to its previous iteration (which we heard in BWE2) is that it’s no longer just a main theme with a single, cohesive idea; instead it now acts as an overture, giving us several snippets of different themes (including, among other things, Mordremoth’s theme at 0:59) and thus foreshadows the story that we’re about to experience. I finally understand why Diemer hinted during the TwitchCon music stream that he wanted to include a revised main theme for HoT (which at the time sounded curious to me since the version of the HoT main theme we had heard sounded quite good already); perhaps he wanted to foreshadow several story elements and people/races we will come across in the expansion, hence the need for revision.

The ostinato of Diemer’s preview piece plays prominently throughout this revised main theme/overture. Because an overture in an opera/concerto/musical traditionally only references the main ideas/themes of the entire work as an appetizer for the “main course” that follows it, I dare say that the preview piece, and what it’s associated with (which I speculate to be Malyck and his Grove as stated in my opening post) will play a big part in the narrative of the expansion, perhaps even bigger than any of us had initially imagined. Why else would Diemer, who is known for subtly seeding several musical clues that have hinted at future elements of GW2 narrative before (see the usage of Mordremoth’s theme in LW Season 1 before the dragon’s actual reveal) reference that exact ostinato pattern so prominently throughout what is the main theme/overture of the expansion? The melody in the strings even turns into a major key by the end of the track, which sounds downright heroic and victorious.

Other things that I find very interesting about this overture are its overall feel compared to the previous version of the HoT main theme (that version was more of a “prepare for war” march, but the revised overture sounds more like a big battle sequence with the prominent use of drums and determined string ostinato to propel the melody forward) and the fact that many of the themes converge at the end, leading to a rousing finale as the main theme takes over. It sounds to me like the Pact Commander will be accompanied by the inhabitants of the jungle based on the themes hinted in it: Malyck’s people, Exalted and Nuhoch/Itzel who will assist the remnants of the Pact fleet in its desperate struggle. Does this possibly foreshadow that when all hope seems lost, we receive aid from all those we have helped in the jungle as the Heart of Maguuma rises against the Jungle Dragon who has attempted to enslave it?

Whether this is the effect Diemer intends his revised main theme to evoke or not should be fascinating to see once the expansion launches. At least these new developments give me hope that, if the preview piece and its recent references in the main theme/overture are in fact related to Malyck’s storyline, Malyck’s Tree might not fall into darkness and we might see Malyck and his people rise to meet the challenge and help redeem the sylvari race from their nefarious dragon ‘father’.

Thanks for the cooking show! It was hilarious and charming, and Jennifer Hale nailed it with her very enthusiastic and suitably cheesy performance. Much fun was had by all of us in chat too from what I could see. I wonder who got to eat those delicious cookies…

Is there any chance we could learn who the writer(s) behind this segment was and where it was filmed? I liked how there were little asides here and there referencing in which Tyrian locations you could find this or that ingredient, not to mention various lore in-jokes sprinkled throughout.

Also, a future suggestion assuming you ever feel like doing a similar segment in future streams and if budget allows it and voice actors are available for (or willing to do) it: it would be great to see a cooking or any other show with on-screen appearances of both Kari Wahlgren (Caithe) and Julianne Buescher (Faolain). I could imagine some truly juicy and funny dialogue between the two of them, and I’m sure they’d have a blast doing something like that and going in character.

We know from vanilla Guild Wars 2 and the Edge of Destiny novel that the Elder Dragons do have personalities and desires and that they happen to be incredibly selfish from what we can see; it’s just that in game this hasn’t been directly stated per se until Mordremoth and is a “read between the lines and how the minions reflect their dragon master” kind of thing. The “force of nature” reference is simply the common races of Tyria trying to comprehend the vast powers of the Elder Dragons and likening them to natural catastrophes, but the dragons aren’t mindless beasts and they act for a reason in a very malevolent manner. For a more detailed analysis with some examples to support this statement, see my post on the subject here (the first half of the post is relevant to this Elder Dragon discussion).

Also, based on the dev comments during Twitchcon, it appears that the “Mordremoth” we saw in the launch trailer may not in fact be the Elder Dragon per se but an avatar of sorts. This would fit with Mordy’s earlier depiction in the ending cinematic of Living World Season 1 where we see part of his snout and he appears more reptilian there. It’s possible, though, that this Mordy was merely an early concept and the real deal will indeed be more plant-y, but time will tell what his finalized look will end up being. After all, Zhaitan went through a few concepts until Anet settled on his current eldritch look.

To me it seems unlikely at this point that another GW2 soundtrack will be released in a physical form now that Anet has shifted to using Soundcloud with downloadable tracks. According to Maclaine Diemer in the RPGfan Audio Team interview from a while back, there were discussions on what format the new music should be released in the future although back then negotiations were still underway.

Originally the new orchestral tracks couldn’t be downloaded on Soundcloud (unlike the sampled tracks) while Living World Season 2 was ongoing, but they were finally made downloadable not too long ago. This change implies that whatever negotiations there initially were for a physical release likely fell through, and the composers focused on releasing the tracks digitally in a downloadable format (and, much to my delight, free of charge) on Soundcloud. There are two likely strategies for the release of future soundtracks: either they follow the LW S2 approach and release the tracks on Soundcloud with the orchestral tracks initially being undownloadable, or they change gears and let all tracks be downloadable from the get go. Releasing tracks digitally is less of a hassle for Anet than making physical copies with artwork and such, so I expect them to continue with this approach.

Then again, considering that HoT will have from 1 to 2 hours of orchestral music (which is quite costly to record) with the rest being sampled according to Diemer, perhaps the amount of music and the costs of recording may in fact convince the powers that be of a potentially purchaseable soundtrack in a digital (and physical?) form. I don’t expect this to happen after how the tracks were delivered to us in S2, though.

According to Jeff Grubb, purple is the color of evil in GW lore. In this case the color signifies Mordremoth’s reach and the extent of his corruption, which is why we see the creation of the Mordrem Guard include that specific color in the trailer.

Mordremoth will definitely want the egg, though. We also know from interviews that he attempts to subtly influence sylvari’s Wyld and Dark Hunts not to mention the fact that a sylvari may misinterpret their Hunt, which may foreshadow future events that likely include the egg in some capacity.

Yeah, it was great listening to this nice jam session, so thanks to Maclaine Diemer et al for that. Hopefully we’ll see (and hear) more of this kind of stuff in the future too, considering Diemer’s band background from his younger years. He was clearly enjoying himself, and so were his minstrels.

For anyone interested, the tracks that “Maklain & The Minstrels” played sounded like the following to me (can’t remember the exact order they were played in, so the list may not be fully chronological, and there may be errors with identifying the SAB track names): Overture (GW2 Main Theme), Saga of the Norn, Charr Triumphant, Fear Not This Night, Halloween in Tyria, Bash the Dragon, Super Adventure Box’s Sub Hub and River Rapids, The Silverwastes, The Golden Cave, Crystal Oasis, and the revised Main Theme for Heart of Thorns.

I’m really curious about why the HoT Main Theme was revised and rerecorded for orchestra because the orchestral version we heard during the beta sounded quite good already. In any case I look forward to hearing what changes have been made to the revised track’s orchestral version once it’s released, and at least this jam track did give us some glimpses of some of the revised bits already.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And if it is a case of civilians in danger, why only mention sylvari and not mention the others nearby (skritt, asura, and humans)? Why don’t the other researchers have dialogue that talk about potential civilian casualties – they don’t mention anything like Eullo, perhaps because they’re not surrounded by dozens of sylvari (There are some near the Kessex researcher, mind you, but not nearly as many as Eullo’s place).

As ErickDntn stated above, it’s the PC who references the sylvari in particular, and Watchful Source is mostly populated by sylvari, hence the emphasis on their race over others. Granted, it probably could’ve been worded better unless the writers deliberately wanted to add some ambiguity and “wink wink nudge nudge” references there.

Perhaps the other camps’ researchers didn’t mention potential civilian casualties due to the writers wanting to add different dialogues for the researchers that each reveal something interesting about the situation at hand (such as the researcher at Kessex mentioning a theory regarding the connection between Mordrem and Scarlet’s activities)? There’s also the fact that Brisban is closer to the Heart of Maguuma than Kessex Hills and Diessa Plateau are, so Brisban may be deemed to be at a greater risk than other locations.

I suppose we won’t find the truth about this matter unless a writer comes in and clarifies what the intention was; it also depends on if these invasions are supposed to be canonical or not as either way would work given the context. Some of the written lines are arguably ambiguous, hence many of us posters’ differences in opinion.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We also have the preparations for the LA reconstruction, the LA reconstruction itself, and then the invasions. Potentially one may argue in the Lunar New Year too, since Wintersday was pushed into the storyline as well.

Most importantly to my point is one of the dialogues from the short-term LA reconstruction. Brokka had this to say to OoW members:

[…]

Indicating that not only has the Pact’s fleet destruction happened, but survivors had made it back to the Chantry of Secrets.

This does NOT happen in 24 hours when it takes 3+ days to travel from Ebonhawke to Ascalon City (per Ghosts of Ascalon).

So either everything that’s happened thus far is meant to be during the events of Heart of Thorns, or ArenaNet realized that they were too optimistic for how soon to get HoT out and that 24 hour thing is no longer the case.

Yeah, back when those lines were uttered, I wondered if that dialogue was actually meant to be canonical or just a kind of an aside and an easter egg of sorts for players who like to chat with NPCs. After all, how could news travel all the way to the Order about the crash from such a distance away, especially when Mordrem keep destroying the transports trying to flee from the crash site, and distrust between sylvari and other Pact races grows (based on what we saw in BWE when we first enter Verdant Brink) until the PC comes to take charge of the situation? Unless this means that some Pact ships actually survived the initial vines/sylvari attack and fled from the scene in panic back to Pact Tyria…

Based on all the evidence, it would seem the most logical route for the narrative if the news of the Pact fleet’s crash will take some time to reach Pact Tyria, but that would also diminish the rescue narrative we have at the beginning of the expansion’s story. If OoW members have already been evacuated from the site and recalled to base, then the danger, while great, is not as great as it’s made to seem in Verdant Brink regarding the nighttime Mordrem appearances there. Granted, we only see parts of the beginning as there was no explanation of when Canach joined the party and why everyone was okay with it, so there has to be a prelude of some sort taking place in the Silverwastes or maybe in Pact Tyria that then leads us to Verdant Brink.

Depending on how the story is handled in that very beginning of HoT’s story, it should give us the answers we need regarding the currently rather confusing timing of events.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

For me it’s the opposite. It makes no sense how a dragon minion could reproduce, asexually, yet create sterile creatures.

Why are Blighting Trees capable of being minion factories via more ‘natural’ (albeit twisted) methods, when no other dragon minion – mordrem or otherwise – is?

Perhaps the key to solving this mystery is the Forgotten “cleansing ritual” which may have something to do with it? So far the only knowledge we have of the offspring of a dragon minion are from Glint and the Pale Tree/Malyck’s Tree, one of whom was confirmed to have been cleansed and was likely pregnant during corruption and the others who may also have been cleansed based on the hints we’ve seen in game so far.

The seeds in the cave that Ronan found may have been cleansed by the Forgotten, especially considering the hints we’ve had of their involvement in both the Golden Cave and the expansion’s Golden City (both of which share similar music themes as confirmed by Lena Chappelle in a recent POI as well as in her preview track which I heavily suspect plays in the Golden City due to thematic similarities with the Golden Cave theme). Perhaps the “byproduct” of this cleansing from dragon corruption could’ve allowed the Trees the ability to create sterile children somehow? Considering how rare the ritual appears to be and how difficult it is to perform due to needing specific locations and whatnot (mentioned by devs in an interview), this could explain why the Trees appear to differ so much from the “common” Mordrem and other dragon minions we’ve encountered so far.

Perhaps the Blighting Tree in Verdant Brink (and its potential sister trees as implied by the existence of two other Mordrem Commanders deeper in the jungle who would need the Trees to create clones of themselves to transfer their consciousness into if they perish) was originally one of the many cleansed seeds from the cave Ronan found as was the Tower of Nightmares before Mordremoth’s minions found them and planted/corrupted them (in the case of Scarlet and the Toxic Alliance, cultivated the ToN possibly as an experiment as seen with the Toxic Hybrid and the spread of the toxins and stalks), thus resulting in the horrors that came after? We know that at least the Pale Tree and Malyck’s Tree bore sylvari who were unaffected by Mordremoth’s corruption for a time, but the Blighting Tree(s) appears to have fallen under Mordy’s power at some point if it wasn’t already planted in a corrupted state.

What I’m really curious about is the role of Malyck’s Tree in particular in the context of HoT’s story. Considering it took not only the Forgotten cleansing ritual but also Glint’s own decision after a while to turn good instead of continuing to serve her dragon master and that both Ventari’s Tablet and Ronan’s nurture may have likewise steered the Pale Tree into the benevolent mother she later became, does this mean Malyck’s Tree had likewise good influences/chose to become good (for one reason or another) or actually stayed on Mordremoth’s side despite being freed from the corruption via the ritual? What if Malyck was an anomaly (due to being “disconnected” from the Tree and ending up away from his Grove), and the rest of his brothers and sisters became willing servants of Mordremoth due to never receiving good influences prior to being born? If the HoT preview track I speculate to play at Malyck’s Grove will indeed play at Malyck’s Grove and isn’t meant to be scary but mysterious in atmosphere, perhaps we’ll see a Tree connected to neither the Dream nor to Mordremoth and wanting to forge her own path: not the Path of Day or Night but the Path of Twilight. Whatever the answer ends up being, I look forward to finding out what the writers have in store for us once I have my sylvari venture deeper into the jungle.

Yeah, Caithe fleeing twice without even bothering to give a proper explanation for her actions to my sylvari despite everything we’d been through together seemed way off to me. She probably has a good reason for what she’s doing and not letting Trahearne know the truth about the sylvari, but we won’t find out until later, sadly.

There are also two plot points that Anet may pursue in HoT. We’ve learned from devs that sylvari can misinterpret their Wyld Hunts, and Mordremoth can influence sylvari subtly via the Hunts through which he tries to bypass the sylvari’s mental protection. It wouldn’t surprise me if one or the other plays a part in Caithe’s sudden actions with the egg; perhaps she’s come to realize the full extent of her Wyld Hunt, and Mordremoth will try to trick her in some way later down the line.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

This works for the Mordrem Wolf and Mordrem Troll, but not the Mordrem Guard which are grown from the Blighting Trees – or, in turn, sylvari grown from the Pale Trees.

I wasn’t able to play the BWE event with the Blighting Tree, so I’m curious if those pods actually contained Mordrem Guard and not the more beastly Mordrem instead (in which case those would be corrupted clones sampled from the captured template specimen)? If the pods did indeed contain the Mordrem Guard, was it stated whether these were truly “purebred” Mordrem Guard per se and not captured sylvari undergoing a transformation (similar to how the Dreamers underwent a transformation of sorts in the conversion pods in Twilight Arbor courtesy of the Nightmare Court)?

Leah Hoyer stated in the POI that the Mordrem Guard we encounter in Verdant Brink are turned Pact sylvari and that the commanders appear to be the only Mordrem Guard who are cloned (but only if the commander’s previous body is destroyed and their consciousness has to be transferred so the knowledge isn’t lost). This would make me think that there can be no “purebred” Mordrem Guard, and all the MG we see (apart from the three commanders’ clones) are the originals who were never born from the Blighting Tree (unless they underwent a transformation as stated above).

It could be that while some Mordrem Guard undergo the transformation without a hitch, they might also speed up the process of the more resisting sylvari whom they’ve captured by using the methods the Nightmare Court used at TA. It would also explain why in the earlier BWE story instance the freed Pale Reaver explained how some captured sylvari were taken deeper into the jungle to “join the jungle dragon’s army,” which to me implies that the Mordrem Guard planned to use a more forceful conversion method to those more strong-willed captives.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If they’re like Glint, then like Glint they should still consume magic. No?

Wouldn’t a more appropriate comparison be Gleam rather than Glint, though, considering Gleam is Glint’s child just like the sylvari are the children of the Pale Tree? Or compare Glint and the Pale Tree as the mothers of their respective children?

From what we can see, it appears the Pale Tree must have some sort of connection to magic, being able to grant people passage into the Dream (which I would assume happens magically). If she can use magic to access the Dream and mentions how difficult it is to maintain the portal into the Dream (as she explains in A Light in the Darkness), it means she must be channeling magic, which in turn means she should be able to consume it as well. That would then make her rather similar to Glint, a similarly freed dragon minion.

Interestingly Glint appeared to have the gift of prophecy, and the Dream also appears to provide glimpses of potential future events which the Pale Tree witnesses. Perhaps there’s a connection there waiting to be explored in a future storyline, or maybe it’s just an eerie coincidence.

So, this leads us to the following: if Glint and the Pale Tree can consume magic as theorized above, what about their children (aka the “offspring/creations” of these purified dragon minions) then? If Gleam was shown to do nothing in GW1 but let itself be guarded and the sylvari aren’t shown to consume magic either (even though they may or may not be capable of such), it leaves too big a question mark to answer definitely until we get further information (hopefully from HoT).

It’s possible that neither Gleam nor sylvari can consume magic unless they are corrupted into dragon minions (which may or may not unlock “untapped” potential), or maybe they have an innate ability for that due to being offspring of corrupted mothers, but we aren’t shown how they can access that magic…yet. Then again, we see one of the three Nightmare Counts/Countesses fuse (from what I understand) with the Nightmare Tree in the NC-centric TA Explorable paths, so the sylvari appear to have some mystical abilities to pull something like that off.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

By that argument, the Pale Tree is losing a lot of magic by creating constant smart sylvari.

Who’s to say the Pale Tree can’t nourish herself with magic to sustain the constant creation of ever increasing numbers of sylvari? We also know that the Pale Tree can open pathways into the Dream although it’s difficult for her. All that nourishment to keep up something like that must be coming from somewhere, so why not magic or a leyline underneath, perhaps?

We know that the Tower of Nightmares fed on the magic of krait and Nightmare Court who nurtured it as well as whatever magic was in the krait obelisk that Scarlet brought to the Toxic Alliance to speed up the growing of the tower. If the Tower of Nightmares was indeed the Pale Tree’s corrupted sister as has been subtly implied via music and otherwise, then perhaps there’s a connection with the two Trees’ magic feeding?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s already been shown in-game that sylvari are dragon minions and that this is known to at least the sylvari. During the Mordrem Invasions, the Mordrem Researcher in Brisban, Eullo, had dialogue talking about being near the sylvari there to study Mordremoth and his affects on his minions – but note that no change has affected them.

So it’s already out there. It’s already known.

But why?

Is it actually known, though? Let’s look at two points that might argue otherwise:

1) Eullo mentions having come to Watchful Source, the sylvari encampment, to collect samples from the invading mordrem despite the dangers she would be facing there. When asked about the sylvari, she doesn’t care to “state the obvious”, and that’s where the ambiguity and the need for context, in my opinion, comes in. The settlement is full of sylvari, and Eullo’s answer to the player seems to imply more that the sylvari, as civilians/soldiers in the area, are in as much a danger of being overrun by Mordrem as she is. She seems more concerned about whether Mordremoth’s corruption will affect the area than whether it would affect certain individuals…or at least that’s the way she comes across to me. She actually expresses regret that, for research purposes, the area is still unaffected by the dragon’s corruption so she has to keep waiting for something “interesting” to happen.

Perhaps this is a language issue as I’m not a native English speaker, but what Eullo says doesn’t outright make it seem to me that she’s aware that sylvari can be turned by Mordremoth; instead she’s aware that her research could get her, and the sylvari in the area, in danger due to the invading Mordrem and that her concern is what effects the corruption will have on the area specifically.

2) If the devs still intend HoT’s story to begin immediately/within 24 hours from the end of LW Season 2, are we to believe that this mordrem invasion happened in between us reaching Camp Resolve and whatever the beginning of HoT’s very first story instance will be? So the Commander ran from Silverwastes to aid against this invasion in three different maps, and somehow during this time period of 24 hours (give or take) news of the Pact fleet decimation (and sylvari turning AND being revealed as belonging to the dragon) would’ve reached the ears of not only the Pact soldiers in Silverwastes but also Brisban Wildlands for Eullo to somehow come to that conclusion and mentioning it very casually like it was common knowledge (if that’s the way her sentence is to be interpreted)?

To me the mordrem invasion is either a noncanonical event made only for the “cool factor” like the mass Branded invasion from the GW2 beta (or has it ever been made canon?), or then there must’ve been more than 24 hours in between S2 ending and HoT beginning for the mordrem attack to take place and for information about sylvari treachery to feasibly spread that far. I suppose one could argue that the invasion happened simultaneously with the Pact Fleet crash via Mordremoth’s flexing its muscles, but even so I seriously doubt news of sylvari being minions would’ve spread to Brisban that quickly as the survivors of the fleet wouldn’t have been able to even process information like that yet, not to mention even be aware of the dragon connection.

I personally don’t think HoT will lead to the “sylvari = dragon minions!” reveal to the general Tyrian population immediately. If there are witch hunts, it’ll likely have to do with a select sylvari suddenly going crazy in various locations like DR and the public panicking and thinking all of them could be affected although they wouldn’t immediately know it’s because of the sylvari’s origins and might rather think it’s some strange Mordremoth toxin affecting the sylvari’s minds instead. Perhaps at some pivotal moment we’ll hear Rytlock’s “You can’t trust sylvari; they belong to the dragon now” speech after which the race’s dragon connection becomes widely known to the rest of Tyria, but I expect the narrative to take its time before making it happen if such news will even spread among the public at all. The trailer could be misleading as it’s showing separate scenes without much context, after all.

Coulter.2315:

The lack of conservation of mass is shared by all dragons though (what did the Mouth of Zhaitan used to be or how do you get the skeleton of a Royal Orrian to turn into a giant eye while conserving mass? Primordus’ spawners don’t shrink as they pump out rock eggs.) Clearly some magic is being used to ignore those naughty physics.

If you take a closer look at the Eyes of Zhaitan, you see that the creature actually consists of a skeletal being carrying the Eye. However, the skeleton has warped considerably by having those “ridges” attached to it which make it look more monstrous.

Lyrael.5803:

Ok, Glint used to be a dragon champion so how does lore explain the fact that she has eggs? Or is this why Glint’s egg is so important because it explains how the pale tree is also able to spawn Sylvari? I hope we get answers in HoT.

The likely reason is that Glint was pregnant when she was corrupted by Kralkatorrik. It’s a logical assumption from a lore standpoint, considering that based on dialogue from Personal Story the dragon minions we’ve met so far haven’t been capable of reproducing due to lacking the needed parts for impregnation to happen. The closest they can do is creating minions (as seen with the Branded Destroyer Queen in the Order story missions dealing with the skritt) but those aren’t exactly offspring per se.

I expect we learn more about the Trees and their history in HoT after all the things that have been hinted at in past BWEs. Perhaps Malyck’s Tree, should we encounter her in a good enough shape, might shed some light on this mystery.

It’s intended. Those instances take place in the past, which is why many of them still have members of Destiny’s Edge in them even though they should be in the Heart of Maguuma by now.

Shiren.9532:

I’m still unclear on what Mordrem Guard are. Are they the same physical body of a regular sylvari, warped by Mordremoth to become something more powerful? Or are they replicas of a sylvari corpse, given their knowledge and memories with the sole purpose to serve Mordremoth?

Diarmad still confuses me. We fight and kill her three times. If we killed her real body, why did she come back two more times? If Mordrem aren’t born as whole, complete creatures independant of sylvari as I had assumed based off what I saw in BWE2, what is in the green pods at the Corpse Grove?

According to Leah Hoyer in the POI, the Mordrem Guard are kind of both…to an extent. Here’s how the process goes as far as I understand it:

Mordremoth whispers into the sylvari’s mind, trying to make them accept their destiny as his minions. Weak-willed sylvari succumb to this siren song faster, strong-willed sylvari fight back longer. However, Mordremoth keeps calling again and again and again until the sylvari’s mind finally cracks, and then it’s ‘good night’ to that individual.

Once the targeted sylvari accepts Mordremoth’s call, they become corrupted and turn into Mordrem Guard. They undergo a physical transformation which gives them a harder, bark-like exterior, makes them grow taller and more monstrous, and also warps their minds to make them fanatics who see Mordremoth as their one true path while they believe that the Pale Tree kept them from their true selves, and think that the Wyld and Dark Hunts were but mere annoying distractions from their true mission which is to serve the dragon. They still retain their memories and personality to an extent, but it’s now twisted to look favourably on Mordremoth while they use their knowledge against their former allies. They are essentially the elites of Mordremoth’s army who help bring bodies (alive or dead) of other races/creatures to the Blighting Trees to be used as templates for the creation of Mordrem who are twisted clones of the original bodies.

There are three Mordrem Guard Commanders, and we know that at least one of them, Legendary Blademaster Diarmid, is a turned Pact sylvari. The commanders are more powerful than the “normal” Mordrem Guard (if the Mordrem Guard are elites of the army, the commanders are champions), they command the Mordrem Guard and Mordrem, and are apparently capable of creating minions. It seems that only the commanders will be reborn in clone bodies with their minds transferred to the new body after their defeat to continue their reign of terror. The common Mordrem, however, are born as “mindless”, corrupted clones based on the templates of the original captured bodies, and the normal Mordrem Guard are simply turned sylvari with new looks and are not cloned at all.

It’s possible that the process of transferring a minion’s consciousness to an equally powerful clone body is a costly process magically, so Mordremoth doesn’t want to mass-produce such high-level champions more than necessary, which is why they’re limited to three at any given time and why the normal Mordrem Guard don’t receive such luxurious treatment.

So basically Diarmid was originally a turned sylvari who became a powerful Mordrem Guard Commander. When she was killed for the first time, her consciousness was transferred into a clone body which was grown to host said consciousness. Soon after she returned to the battlefield as the same individual as before but this time in an exact replica of her slain body, which explains why she keeps coming back to face us. The same applies to the other two as of yet unnamed commanders too.

Interesting topic. Here’s how I see things:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Mordrem, however, appear to “grow” from the treess. There is no uncorrupted state. Corpses and living creatures are merely used as templates (not too dissimilar from destroyers which also mimic living beings in shape). But effectively, the mordrem don’t seem to be coming from some uncorrupted state (unlike destroyers).

The mass used for the bodies of the Mordrem clones must be coming from somewhere. Because we see the Mordrem have some plant-like characteristics (e.g. the flowers that grow out of Mordrem wolves), it would seem that this plant-like matter is what Mordremoth has corrupted and has twisted to create these monstrosities. He just happens to take the “easy” way out by modelling his plant monsters on the bodies (templates) of existing races/creatures and making his creations into mockeries of them, which seems in line with other Elder Dragons to me.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Aside from the above point of “not corrupted from anything”, there’s the lack of a hive mind (people say the Dream – but as talked about, the Dream actually acts as a barrier and Killeen in Ghosts of Ascalon outright denies it being a hive mind or group consciousness – and I think the sylvari know what they’re about), there’s how they don’t consume magic – at all – despite mordrem doing such as well as standard risen – and we even see icebrood collecting magical artifacts. And that’s not to touch the more ambiguous aspects of dragon minions like nigh mindlessness sans champions (is every sylvari and mordrem guard a champion? I doubt it!).

I feel a question should be asked here. Have we ever seen how the offspring of freed dragon champions have behaved psychologically before sylvari?

It appears that the Pale Tree, and likely the other seeds, had been purged from dragon corruption, so they essentially were like Glint: freed dragon minions. The Pale Tree’s “children” were born without dragon minion mentality but could be “recorrupted” as seen by sylvari transformation into Mordrem Guard. Perhaps the lack of “hive mind” and the lack of needing to feed on magic are the results of the sylvari not being corrupted dragon minions per se and hence not needing to fit the criteria?

The Mordrem Guard certainly have an established mental connection with Mordremoth as seen in BWE when the Overseer in the story instance asks Ol’ Mordy for help and receives an answer, so it wouldn’t surprise me if the Mordrem Guard also fit other criteria of dragon minions as far as consuming magic goes. It’s possible that the sylvari, not having truly “awakened” as their true selves yet, were simply walled off from these traits that were within them all along thanks to the Pale Tree’s meddling which kept them from their dragon source’s direct influence until recently.

As for the “nigh mindlessness” of other dragon minion grunts, perhaps Mordremoth’s modus operandi is different? He is the Dragon of Plants AND Mind after all, so it would make sense for him to not only try to break the barriers of the mind but also keep more intelligent minions than other EDs do. He still has the more beastly Mordrem as the grunts of his army, but the Mordrem Guard are elites, and the Mordrem Guard Commanders are the generals. It’s possible that he might be willing to sacrifice a bit of the magic he’d nommed to keep such intelligent minions around since the pros of the upkeep outweigh the cons, considering how cunning and deadly the Mordrem Guard can be.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Okay, so they’re dragon minions… but still. How would people find out? The only people who know this are 1) Caithe, the PC, and the Biconics, 2) Supposedly Scarlet, but she’s dead and not talking, 3) Mordrem.

That’s something I look forward to finding out too. I’d imagine the writers have thought of something that will make sense lore-wise once we experience the story. So far all we’ve seen have been snippets in which the Pact are distrustful of sylvari after seeing so many sylvari turning against them out of the blue, but I haven’t noticed any indication that they’ve learned that the sylvari are actually supposed to be Mordremoth’s minions.

Not that the other races even need to know the dragon minion connection to act against the sylvari, however. If they learn that any sylvari anywhere can snap at any time and turn against their allies, that should be enough reason for people to think it will be best to lock the sylvari up until they can figure out what is going on. There’s enough distrust for the sylvari already thanks to Scarlet who brought the concept of “evil” sylvari to the general public consciousness better than any pirate sylvari or Nightmare Courtier ever did and who left behind enough destruction to make people start looking at this young race in a different light now that they know what the bad apples are capable of.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Or will everyone know sylvari were born dragon minions because of the same reason everyone suddenly knew the name Mordremoth and the term mordrem? Aka, no explanation at all – it just bloody happened. And Anet was shamed, admitting it was a bad move.

Yeah, this is what confused me about LW Season 2 too. A simple fix would be adding a page about Mordremoth to the Elder Dragons book in DR if it was meant to be common knowledge, and maybe give an off-hand explanation within the same book why this dragon’s minions are called Mordrem and not, say, Blighted. At least that way there would be a good enough handwave for this information existing beforehand outside of an attack name in Crucible of Eternity.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

So why is this such an experience of horror? Only the greenhorns of the Pact would really see such as an ‘experience of horror.’ Yet it seems even Orrian veterans do.

I’d imagine the difference here is that unlike all other dragon minions, you can generally see symptoms of corruption beforehand. For example, the Risen are “born” before the corpse even hits the ground, so people know what to expect.

But with sylvari it’s different. Let’s say you see a sylvari next to you with an agonized look on their face, maybe even mumbling to themselves. Perhaps this sylvari is just stressed by the horrors they have witnessed in war (a reasonable deduction)…or maybe they’re slowly succumbing to an Elder Dragon’s mental siren song and can stab you in the back when you least expect it?

This uncertainty element is what the horror comment by Leah likely meant. Because Mordremoth can keep calling a sylvari again and again until even a strong-willed sylvari’s mind cracks, there’s really no telling when the sylvari loses control of themselves and turns, and the change isn’t even physical at first so there are no outward symptoms to look out for. Essentially every scared/confused/stoic/overly emotional sylvari will now be viewed as a potential threat after the Pact sees more and more of them turning, so paranoia will run rampant. Fear is the mind killer, and minds that are afraid are that much easier to influence…

ninja.3407:

Every player that is Sylavari (don’t recall how to spell it) is from the dream which the pale tree protected from corruption. All the evil slyavari are from the other tree.

Slight spoilers ahead:

Narrative Director Leah Hoyer revealed in the Points of Interest episode about the Mordrem Guard that the Mordrem Guard we encounter in Verdant Brink (the first new map in Heart of Thorns) are in fact Pact sylvari who have answered Mordremoth’s call (during and after the Pact Fleet’s crash) and underwent a physical transormation into their “true form” after accepting their destiny as dragon minions. Their purpose is to persuade/force the still non-corrupted sylvari to join the dragon’s army, as well as capture other races and creatures and bring those races, alive or dead, to the Blighting Tree(s) to create more beastly Mordrem.

Although the Mordrem Guard in Verdant Brink are turned Pact sylvari, it’s possible that the Mordrem Guard we encounter in other maps deeper in the jungle might originate from other Tree(s) (as we only meet one of the three confirmed Mordrem Guard Commanders, Legendary Blademaster Diarmid, who was originally a Pact sylvari, in Verdant Brink, so two commanders are still unaccounted for), but we don’t know that for certain yet.

What we do know thanks to Leah Hoyer is that Soundless, Dreamers and Nightmare Courtiers can all fall to the dragon, the Soundless being most susceptible to corruption due to actively trying to distance themselves from the Dream. Mordremoth’s “call” is not a one-time occurrence either; he keeps sending these “calls” every now and then, and even Dreamer/Nightmare sylvari who initially have enough willpower (and the protection of the Dream) to resist the first few calls may succumb to the call later. Mordremoth is basically a hacker constantly trying to find a way past the firewall and keeps targeting weak spots until he finally gets through. With the Pale Tree weakened, he just has to make the sylvari he’s targeting feel weak enough emotionally to finally lure them in, and apparently one of the storylines in Heart of Thorns will show us how this is done.

Also, what excites me is that according to Leah Hoyer the story will dive into the ideological schism between Mordrem Guard and Nightmare Court and how the latter view the former and their supposed destiny as dragon minions.

Yeah, in Heart of Thorns we can expect to hear anywhere from 1 to 2 hours of orchestral music Living World season 2 style (and the rest of the new music will be sampled like in GW2 core game) as confirmed by composer Maclaine Diemer in the Audio Team interview a while ago. Seems like the composers have lots of musical goodies waiting for us in the jungle.

The Heart of Thorns Main Theme is quite heroic and catchy (love the little references to the GW2 Main Theme throughout it). The other tracks from the Beta Weekend Events, while sampled, also have some nice things going for them, including references to Itzel and Mordremoth themes.

The two recent orchestral preview pieces by Lena Chappelle and Maclaine Diemer from one of the Points of Interest episodes also sound very promising. Chappelle’s preview piece (all those Chrono Trigger vibes I get from it are nice!) has some majestic joy to it and brings back memories of the equally sweet Golden Cave theme from LW Season 2 with which it’s thematically linked. Diemer’s preview piece is mysterious and sad, and if it plays in a location where I think it’s going to play, then it’ll be a very emotional experience for various lore reasons.

I hope we witness the return of Fear Not This Night in some form in HoT because the expansion’s story will be quite personal for sylvari for whom the song holds extra significance. This would be a good opportunity to musically link HoT to vanilla GW2 and to the overarching sylvari storyline.

Considering how Living World Season 2 referenced gods and their followers rather heavily during the Durmand Priory chapters, including the Apostate’s statements about the connection between the balance of the world and the Elder Dragons, it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point, perhaps towards the finale of GW2’s overarching story, we might hear from the gods again. Was the destruction of their and humanity’s homeworld related to a similar catastrophe that might befall Tyria if the Elder Dragons were slain without hasty replacements?

The forum has seen many discussions about a potential connection between the Gods and the Elder Dragons: whether the Six Human Gods might have acted in a similar role of balancers in their homeworld as the Six Elder Dragons presently do in Tyria. Although there’s no conclusive proof to truly support this theory (yet), enough hints have been seeded in the lore books in S2 that show that something must be going on behind the scenes. Whatever the truth ends up being, it’s going to be interesting to find out more about the gods should the writers choose to include references to them (or even have them briefly appear) sometime far in the future.

endersluck.4708:

zombie jesus does not count

If you look at the Biblical text, Jesus actually fits the historical/mythological concept of a revenant more than a zombie. He even left to the “Mists” after saying last goodbyes to his followers on the earth like the Six Gods did. He shares traits with Grenth (a being born of a union of a mortal and a divine parent although depending on which of the Christian faiths you look at, Jesus’s role in the Trinity is subject to some seriously intense scholarly interpretation/debate from the Council of Nicea onwards).

What I find interesting about Grenth is why he, despite being a demigod, wasn’t able to absorb all of Dhuum’s divinity after overthrowing him with help from his Reapers to become the new God of Death. What did he lack that Kormir and Abaddon (who was said to have a predecessor whom he must’ve usurped at some point) didn’t lack as far as transferring all divine power into himself goes? It also makes one wonder if Abaddon started out as a demigod, was the child of two gods, or began life as a mortal who ascended to his divine position. So many mysteries still linger, and lots of interesting stories can still be told about the gods…

Delwar.4201:

Kormir is a glory hog…… just like Trahearne

Except there are multiple threads in this forum alone where it’s been proven with in-game sources that Trahearne is anything but a glory hog. In fact, through the story he acknowledges the Commander’s help time and time again, as do several other NPCs. Perhaps you need to play through the story again and look more carefully next time?

So, I watched the interview of the composers Maclaine Diemer and Lena Chappelle in the “Bells and Whistles” section of Points of Interest episode 32 and listened to the two preview tracks for Heart of Thorns. For reference: Diemer’s track, and Chappelle’s track. Although Chappelle’s track is just as interesting and beautiful as Diemer’s for various music and lore reasons, for the purpose of this topic I’ll focus on Diemer’s track.

What caught my interest was that these weren’t just any tracks but actually hints at content we’ll experience in the maps that go past Verdant Brink. Diemer’s description of his own track, in particular, gave us some interesting if vague hints. I’ll provide an edited transcription below:

Maclaine Diemer

My track is pretty dark, I would say. It’s not scary; it’s more mysterious. And it’s the theme for an area. It’s very mysterious, it’s kind of expansive. It’s really difficult to say anything without giving it away. It’s that intangible thing when you hear it, you’ll know the feeling that it’s supposed to evoke in the map itself. It’s something I feel the music captures if I can kind of toot my own horn a little bit. (Source)

The comment itself may not reveal that much but when combined with the musical tapestry of the actual track it’s referring to, it made me wonder if Diemer’s actually coyly referring to us encountering Malyck’s Tree aka the Pale Tree’s sister who was hinted at by the existence of the sylvari Malyck in one of the early sylvari story branches in Personal Story. What if the track is the music played at Malyck’s Grove?

Diemer’s preview track has a rolling rhythm reminiscent of the Mordrem track from Living World Season 2 albeit not the exact same motif but still stylistically similar enough to draw attention to it. Unlike a track like the Newly Awakened which foreshadowed the sylvari/mordrem connection to Mordremoth by using a slightly modified variation of the Mordrem theme underneath the track’s main melody in the second half of the tune (from 0:55 onward…yes, that’s some clever writing by Chappelle right there referencing Diemer’s mordrem theme in a more “innocent” way!), Diemer’s preview track for HoT may be thematically referring to the Pale Tree herself.

The echoing piano used in Diemer’s preview track is stylistically quite similar to the use of the same instrument in not only the “unofficial” sylvari theme “Fear Not This Night” but also Diemer’s own piece of music for the Pale Tree Elevator and Jeremy Soule’s music for the Omphalos Chamber in the Grove. There aren’t really that many notable instances where this keyboarded, echoing piano effect is used in GW2 tracks outside sylvari-related stuff, so using a similar effect for Diemer’s HoT preview track is very suspicious to me and does raise questions if this is indeed subtle musical foreshadowing for us encountering Malyck’s Tree just like Diemer and Chappelle thematically connected Mordremoth to certain characters, locations and events in LW Seasons 1 and 2 via various thematic uses of the Mordremoth theme in past music tracks.

If this is indeed musical foreshadowing, it raises some interesting questions about the present state of Malyck’s Tree as well as Malyck and his people. By Diemer’s words, the preview track is meant to be dark and mysterious but not scary (not in a way the Tower of Nightmares was, and I’d argue that ToN was yet another sister of the Pale Tree for various reasons after a recent revelation of a certain tree in Verdant Brink from BWE2, but that’s a discussion probably better suited for another topic). Could this mean, then, that Malyck’s Tree hasn’t yet fallen under Mordremoth’s power but is nevertheless in grave danger due to proximity to the dragon assuming it wasn’t discovered by the Shadow of the Dragon?

There’s a sense of sadness and urgency in the string and piano writing in Diemer’s preview track not to mention the constant rhythmic movement underneath, which give the track a kind of haunting feel as it’s tugging at your heartstrings. To use poetic terms, if the Pale Tree is supposed to musically and visually represent light/day and the Tower of Nightmares represents darkness/night, perhaps Malyck’s Tree represents shadow/twilight with a more grey view of things at the threshold of the two? To quote Fear Not This Night,“Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way”, so there may be a glimmer of hope left for Malyck’s Tree even in these dark times, and Diemer may just have musically hinted at such story development.

Your thoughts?

Snipoukos.4912:

When you face subject aplha for the 1st time and it gets away, Agent Spire says “Well that’s the second ugliest thing I’ve seen today”
What is the first ?? It is driving me crazy and I cant find a solid answer

I’d say that what you quoted is one of the many pop culture in-jokes Anet has filled GW2 with. It wouldn’t surprise me if in this particular case they were referencing the 1960s spy fiction parody TV series called Get Smart where one of the famous catch phrases (and running jokes) was “That’s the second biggest [noun] I’ve ever seen” where people never actually saw/learned what the biggest [noun] would’ve been, hence the joke.

I look forward to the release of Heart of Thorns, and I’m surprised that ArenaNet decided to release it as soon as October, considering it’ll leave them with too little time to address player feedback from the third BWE (with the soon-to-be-revealed ranger and engineer specializations not to mention whatever bugs may occur). But I guess the Christmas market is out of the question because it’s going to be crowded; at least the October release will allow us to get our hands on HoT faster.

I’m somewhat worried with the expansion shipping with only four PvE maps initially (one of which appears to include the Golden City which may or may not take a large chunk of the appropriately named map I assume it’s on). It should, however, be interesting to see how much the three biomes will be used in the expansion apart from Verdant Brink as that’s a concept the devs can play around with a lot and provides interesting opportunities for exploration.

Considering how much time it’s taken to provide us with just four PvE maps (although we shouldn’t forget them adding maps for other game modes, a new class, specializations, raids and masteries among others), I hope these maps will deliver content in interesting and meaningful ways. I also hope that the story will be longer than, say, two Living World seasons because I want it to be a long journey worth telling and experiencing. At least we’ll have a somewhat different narrative experience with a sylvari character compared to the other races. Based on what I’ve experienced in the beta so far, it looks promising especially with the player voice being heard in the open world (and the “instanced” NPC dialogue they’ll likely implement in the open world like they’ve already done with Ela Makkay in LA).

Test.8734:

ArenaNet didn’t move away from the Living World and decided to make an expansion because the Living World failed, of course not.

Except Anet doesn’t seem to view Living World as a failure; to them it appears to be more of a setback based on what was said in the recent PAX video. It was specifically mentioned that Living World will continue after Heart of Thorns. If Anet really viewed LW as a failure as some in the playerbase do, surely they would’ve just buried the concept and never brought it up again. Instead they took the effort to implement a Season 1 recap video in the game recently with a written description of what S1 was about as a concept and also mentioned the continuation of LW as per the aforementioned PAX presentation. They’ve also mentioned potentially adding S1 to gem store in the future so players can experience that content again although I don’t think that’ll happen anytime soon as they’ll have to take care of HoT and the future Season 3 stuff first.

To me it looks like the current business model they’re going with is this: release an expansion to GW2 every few years or so and bridge the gaps between expansions with Living World seasons. It’s not a bad business plan and, if they manage to keep the pace of releasing chapters in a season without too big breaks in between, it could turn out to be quite profitable in the long run. On the one hand they’ll please people crying for meatier content with an expansion and on the other hand they’ll also give active players something to do in the interim with the release of LW seasons.

Also, the end of your post was needlessly rude; the final sentence with the comment about tears added nothing of value to your argument. Feel free to provide criticism of the game but please take the effort to do so in a polite and constructive manner as per the forum’s Code of Conduct.

Composer Maclaine Diemer confirmed in an interview that there’ll be around 1 to 2 hours of orchestral music scored for Heart of Thorns and the rest will be sampled tracks. They’ll likely be released for free on Soundcloud like earlier Living World seasons although you might not be able to download the orchestral tracks initially as was the case with season 2. So if you’re a fan of the orchestral approach for Living World season 2, you’re in luck as more musical goodness awaits us.

If you’re interested in a sneak peek of the kind of music HoT will offer, listen to this Youtube playlist which contains datamined tracks from the previous Beta Weekend. Just be aware that one of the track titles contains a slight spoiler for the HoT story from the BWE and that some of those sampled tracks may have received tweaks since then. Also, one of the tracks, given the fan nickname “Ambience of Maguuma” which the uploader put together from two sources to create a full track, even got a thumbs up from Maclaine Diemer who visited the channel.

CureForLiving.5360:

ElPewPew.6784:

Wanted to ask, since the discussion is about Wyld Hunts and the dream, what is the Dream in itself? Was it something placed by Ventari or Mordremoth? Or is it like, something related to the mists? Why is it something exclusive to the Sylvari?

I was thinking that perhaps it was a mechanism placed by Mordremoth to assign roles to its minions? This way it can keep them in check and with a purpose.

Honestly we don’t know. We know it acts as some sort of repository for the collective experiences of the Sylvari (Pale Tree Sylvari at least), it has prophetic powers (as seen by the Pale Tree giving us a vision of the future… maybe also the Wyld Hunts). But the nature, function, and origin of the dream is unknown.

We know that people who are not sylvari can enter the Dream with the help of the Pale Tree. She has also mentioned that she acts as the Dream’s caretaker. We also know thanks to one of the Points of Interest episodes that Mordremoth will attempt to influence sylvari through the Dream and Nightmare’s Wyld and Dark Hunts, which implies that the Dream and Nightmare don’t come from Mordremoth.

We learn via one of the early sylvari storylines that the White Stag is also connected to the Dream and, like the Pale Tree, exists between the Dream and the real world. Gavin called the stag “a manifestation of hope and faith [in the Dream]. In Nightmare, it will be just the opposite — a creature of despair and hatred.” Caithe called the stag “a manifestation of the faith and joy of our race” and “a creature of pure magic; a conduit between this world and the Dream.” Whether the stag is truly tied to sylvari alone or if the sylvari misinterpret his role is unclear although I’d imagine the latter as we only ever hear subjective views about the stag so there’s enough mystery still left untold.

As for the Dream itself, even if the Nightmare Court uses silky words to lie to other sylvari and seduce them, I imagine that some of the things they said in the aforementioned storyline hold some merit to them as far as the connection between the Dream and the Nightmare as well as their true nature goes:

Nightmare Court Recruiter: The Dream is many things. It is light and dark, love and anger, good and evil. So are we.

Even if the Nightmare is shown as a perversion based on Dreamer and some Nightmare dialogue in the story, I’d like to see its darkness as a necessary balance to the light of the Dream, hence the duality: there can be no light without shadow to compare it to, and vice versa. Why falling into Nightmare appears to cause some changes to a sylvari’s psyche and why Courtiers can’t return to the Dream after having turned remains unknown (from what I’ve seen, anyway). However, some of this info comes from subjective sources (i.e. biased NPCs) so there is likely more to it than we presently know.

I hope that we’ll learn more about the Dream and the Nightmare in Heart of Thorns and how Mordremoth’s influence may have affected one or the other (perhaps in more ways than just making the Shadow of the Dragon manifest in the Dream via Nightmare and him subtly trying to reach the sylvari via the Wyld and Dark Hunts). It would be a shame if the Nightmare will be treated solely as “evil” because having proper duality for the concept would make the story more interesting.

What if we eventually learn that you can actually return from Nightmare under specific circumstances or that Mordremoth corrupted/manipulated part of the Nightmare to become something it was never quite meant to be (just like the Courtiers attempted to do to the Dream during the Personal Story)? There are many intriguing story possibilities if the writers choose to focus on such, but it ultimately depends on just how they’ve envisioned the origins of the Dream of Dreams and what its purpose is.

The problem for me is that apart from Gavin (and Cadeyrn based on his background story), there haven’t been that many “grey” Nightmare Courtiers. Most are simply shown as cruel people with few if any redeeming qualities, likely a necessity to not make us feel bad for killing them. I would be very saddened if all of Nightmare Court falls under Mordremoth’s power, though, especially if this happens to Faolain who we know craves power (and Caithe) above all else, so it would make little sense for her to submit to Mordremoth and lose her free will when she’d rather become the head honcho herself is possible.

It would be much more interesting if only some of the Courtiers end up joining the dragon while the rest refuse him, thus giving us a potential “enemy mine” scenario where we have to work alongside the Courtiers for the common good to break the sylvari race free from their destiny under the dragon’s wing even if our methods for doing so differ.

Donari, the one you’re thinking of is a different NPC.

The OP is referring to this human NPC who you can spot in the background during the LW Season 2 mission “Tracking the Aspect Masters” as he’s watching the player character’s progress from a ledge in the cave. During the release of the episode, there were many speculations on the forum who this person might’ve been, including this thread where the linked screenshot is from.

I still think E might be Magister Ela Makkay for reasons I’ve posted earlier. As for who this Mysterious Stranger might be, we have too little information to really say one thing or another. Whether he’s related to the “New Kryta” (aka bandits working for the White Mantle) hiding deeper in the Heart of Maguuma as hinted by the items scattered in the Silverwastes or if he’s part of something else remains to be seen. Both the identity of E and this Mysterious Stranger are actually some of the plot threads I look forward to experiencing in Heart of Thorns.

As someone whose main character is a sylvari (of the Dawn Cycle, so obviously I want to be a diplomat even when it may result in…aggressive negotiations), I look forward to Heart of Thorns. I enjoyed the glimpses we had at the early years of the sylvari in Living World season 2, and the sylvari-exclusive dialogue options and such should spice up HoT’s narrative quite a bit if NPC’s different reactions in BWE compared to other races were anything to go by.

I do wonder if Vorpp, sympathethic though he became after he learned his lesson, will ever get his comeuppance by Faolain’s hand. That could be interesting to see…

Considering that the charr culture is based on a mix of Roman Empire and the Mongol Khanates, it would make sense that some of their music would also be influenced by the music of their IRL sources. They would likely have at least woodwinds, brass and drums for great Roman-style victory parades and for keeping the Legions marching/charging in the rhythm of drum beats. Their deep voices would be perfect for some Mongol throat singing. Jeremy Soule was definitely mirroring Roman tunes/instruments, albeit in a more modernized, movie music style, in his tracks for the charr such as “March of the Legions” and “Charr Triumphant”. Thus in this case I do think the official soundtrack may hint at the potential “war music” charr have.

We hear quite a few musical charr in-game although their songs sound definitely more modern unlike the ancient IRL sources their race is based on. For example, there’s an Iron Legion charr warband which sings a very American-style military cadence, a charr singing what sounds like an American showtune from the 1940s, the (in)famous charr soldier who’s humming a marching tune while bored on watch duty, and a charr cub humming a sweet tune while working on her strawberry patch. These examples show us that the charr value music and the tunes are often related to war, their work, or hobbies.

In game we also learn hints of what the charr consider to be annoying music. There’s an interesting commentary on the Devourer’s Bane track on Anet’s soundcloud page in which the composer Maclaine Diemer explains the following about the music track which is used for one of the devourer-centric events:

“This piece is made up of instruments that are either downright annoying or can be made that way when played poorly: saxophone, bag pipes, harmonium, and harpsichord. It’s also in an odd time signature, 5/4, which is difficult to tap your foot to. To top it all off, the instruments harmonize around diminished chords.”

So from this we might deduce that the above are the musical aspects the charr find annoying since they’ve come up with this particular instrument, melody/chords and tempo mix to lure the devourers to the phonographs.

(cont’d)

And I don’t think that the krait’s initial acceptance to work with Scarlet was due to Mordy’s influence either – we only have indication that their minds were altered after the alliance was formed (said by Angel as the reason they continued working for her and why they couldn’t go back to the other krait aside from kill-on-sight orders from said other krait leaders).

I’m not proposing that Mordy’s influence was as visible at first as what happened after the Toxic Alliance was exposed to the Nightmare Tower. I’m talking about more subtle mind manipulations, one could say persuasion like the Jedi mind trick in a way, until these factions were in too deep to back out anymore.

Scarlet knew where to get the obelisk shard which she could persuade the krait with, and this information had likely come from Mordy (unless she had other means to discover its location). What if she used some sort of pollen to soften the krait to get to meet their leaders (without getting killed or enslaved by them) and then struck a deal?

This, along with her persuading the Molten Alliance and the Aetherblades, may seem far-fetched, especially because we didn’t really get to see the exact signing of the deal taking place in-game, so there’s no conclusive proof one way or another unless a writer comes in and clarifies the issue. But I do think it’s possible that the writers may have used (or could retcon) a good enough reason for Scarlet to have pulled off these amazing deeds.

We’ve never been given any indication when Scarlet changed her original hairdo (as seen in “Newly Awakened” instance) into the more iconic “cone” one as far as I know. We learn in “Prosperity’s Mystery” instance from an off-hand comment by Rox that Scarlet may have modeled her hairdo after the cone we find in her secret room, and interestingly enough staying close to the “cone” makes Rox sneeze. Not only that, but during the Origins of Madness release in S1 we also saw these interesting objects which bear a striking resemblance to both the cone in Prosperity and Scarlet’s hairdo. We also know that sylvari tend to change their hairdo after an emotional experience (see Caithe adopting Wynne’s hairdo to “bear [her] pain”), so something must’ve prompted Ceara to change her hairdo at some point too.

Are all these instances simply separate and cute continuity nods, or could there possibly be a greater connection there? Why draw our attention to these seemingly insignificant things? In literature anything like this would be called Chekov’s Gun, something in the background which holds significance later.

We know Scarlet travelled around, and it’s possible she may have ventured beyond Prosperity and maybe all the way to Verdant Brink. Maybe she got her hands on one of those cones which may have fallen under Mordremoth’s influence? What if that cone hair she had could, along with her awakening vine powers as seen with Omadd’s death, also produce a kind of pollen (notice Rox’s sneeze in the instance) to allow her to subtly influence the faction leaders to form these alliances? That way Mordremoth’s influence wouldn’t have to become as apparent as it became with the physical changes of the Toxic Alliance, but still allow Scarlet to not get herself killed when she went to meet with the other xenophobic factions.

Sure, this is simply a crazy theory with no conclusive proof so it can be easily dismissed, but that cone scene has bothered me ever since I saw it and especially after we learned Scarlet’s hairdo was once different in S2. Just something to think and speculate about.

(cont’d)

The reasons for the Molten Alliance and Aetherblades working for Scarlet was bad writing through and through – as well as the watchwork being so easily altered by Scarlet (original lore placed steam creatures as being from another world entirely, fully mysterious with no relations to anything known by the Priory to the point that even the type of metal itself is a mystery – but S1/S2 reveals that they were made from metal Scarlet obtained from the dredge… something the Priory knows very well).

I was quite surprised by the steam creature and Scarlet connection as I too thought the original lore painted a different picture of the creatures’ potential origin. But it’s not like it can’t be made to work. What if Scarlet, due to getting in close with the dredge, managed to discover a metal even the Priory didn’t know? It’s not like the Priory or Whispers had undercover agents all the way in every dredge stronghold, so there’s still a potential element of mystery there for this to work lore-wise.

Well, the MA’s reasons weren’t so much bad writing as that Angel kept going back on the reason – first it was one reason, then it was another, when approached on this she came up with reason #3. And we never got the Aetherblades’ reason for joining – but their reason for staying was literally “promises of riches and being killed if disobeying Scarlet”. Quite the motivator there… But what was worse was their reason for continuing to work with Scarlet after their initial failure (especially MA which was: Flame Legion couldn’t go back without facing death penalty for failure (okay, makes sense), and dredge ‘liked the opportunity of ransacking a city’ (uhm… they’re not bandits, y’know?).

Yeah, Angel’s responses may very well indicate that all this overarching narrative wasn’t that thought out to the end (as they were still experimenting with the Living Story stuff before tying things together into a season-spanning story arc), but they could still make it work. Also, depending on if the Mordremoth connection was already there by S1, the writers couldn’t have just waltzed in during S1 and told us “Yeah, the reason the Molten joined and still work for Scarlet is also due to subtle manipulations of the true mastermind, the Jungle Dragon” because that would’ve spoiled the surprise, so they had to come up with roundabout answers. But again, your guess is as good as mine, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m overanalyzing this way too much. :P

The Aetherblades are a curious thing. Was it ever explained why Mai Trin had to be freed from prison? Why couldn’t Scarlet have replaced her with some other underling and promote that goon as a captain instead? Why did she need Trin especially? There’s still an unresolved plotline of what Mai Trin is going to do in the Mists now that her master Scarlet is dead. Will her crew carry out their mission there, become pawns of Mordy, or become a forgotten element? I hope that it won’t be the latter; I want some closure as Mai Trin has potential to become an interesting adversary especially if we learn more about her motivations.

Scarlet downright threatening Aetherblades and keeping them in line with fear seems to indicate to me that Mordremoth was already showcasing his power through her. We also know that the fear connection is heavily linked to Mordremoth due to the psychological horror effect from Scarlet’s backstory as well as the Nightmare Tower: fear is the mind killer, so maybe making people afraid will allow Mordy to affect them more easily? Maybe Scarlet demonstrated her vine powers by gruesomely killing the leader of a mutiny or some such, keeping the pirates in line. Why else would a bunch of high tech pirates not try to gang on her and tear her to shreds with their superior numbers the next time she showed up and then go looting elsewhere? Could be bad writing, or maybe there’s more going on behind the scenes. I do wish we’d seen more interactions between Scarlet and her alliances so this stuff could be cleared out…

(cont’d)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I don’t think that the alliances Scarlet made was (fully) related to Mordremoth directly. The only alliance that has any indication of potential Mordremoth influence is the Toxic Alliance. There’s nothing related to mind alteration or plants in the Molten Alliance, Aetherblades, or even the watchwork stuff.

Yeah, there isn’t any conclusive proof for this, but doesn’t it strike you odd how Scarlet, a female sylvari, was able to gain audience with two powerful and angry factions and convince them to work together without them just choosing to kill her after extracting whatever valuable information she had? If she didn’t have Mordy’s backing in some way by then (and she did appear to possess some powers as seen with the vines coming out of her arms with which she killed Omadd after exiting the machine) to subtly influence the faction members’ thoughts, I wonder how she would’ve gotten as far as their base to even talk to their leaders and convince them to join forces.

Sure, one could argue it’s due to bad writing, but why would the writers, who are knowledgeable about GW2 lore considering they even had a veteran of GW1 writing with them, make such an elementary mistake? Just because the concept of these alliances was cool, they honestly forgot and didn’t have time to double-check due to a busy schedule, or they thought people wouldn’t mind? Or was it maybe all part of a bigger plan? I guess it all depends on how early on the Mordremoth connection was thought of and when they “finalized” where the story would be going. We at least know they had a mastermind behind the scenes pulling strings in mind as early as the end of the Flame and Frost storyline when a Molten prisoner hinted at someone else’s involvement.

Strangest thing about the MA was that the dredge leadership changed during Sorrow’s Embrace, with implications of peace in the future, but then we suddenly get ‘all dredge are evil again and are working with forces they hate the most because it gives them access to magic they want’. Sure, works well enough… sort of… but assaulting Lion’s Arch benefited the dredge in no manner.

Was it actually ever stated anywhere by devs that this was indeed all the dredge siding with Scarlet as it appeared to be with the krait (at least initially until the oratuss backed out when they realized the prophet thing was a sham and only the Toxic krait remained after Nightmare Tower’s destruction)? Or is it possible that this was simply some commissar’s faction who realized they could use the help Scarlet’s Molten Alliance provided to keep their workers in line before their workers rebelled too?

At least we know that the female dredge expressed worry that the moletariate would show signs of misogynism after siding with the Flame Legion as seen in one of those letters we found lying about, so clearly not everyone in dredge-dom was happy about the alliance.

(cont’d)

I agree with you, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there is indeed a connection there.

The lyrics for the song were written by Ree Soesbee herself who was confirmed to have planted seeds of foreshadowing about the Mordremoth/sylvari connection into the early sylvari Personal Story steps (she actually had to work hard to make the hints not too apparent so people wouldn’t catch on the twist too early).

Not only that, but the song is confirmed to be the Pale Tree specifically singing this song to her children, the sylvari, and it plays in the Grove as well as during the pivotal cleansing of Orr with Caladbolg, so that’s yet another dot connecting the lyrics to the sylvari story in particular.

Many players have the misconception that the Elder Dragons are “forces of nature” even though we’ve seen clear evidence in game that they’re actually more than that and do have personalities. A force of nature wouldn’t mind if its champion betrayed it (yet see how Kralkatorrik acted after he realized Glint’s betrayal), it wouldn’t make its minions gloat and lie about having devoured the gods (listen to the Risen priests during events in Orr) or be angry/afraid when we manage to hamper its schemes (see NPCs describing Zhaitan’s reactions, or the Sovereign Eye’s comments in Personal Story, as we proceed deeper into Orr and purify the land with Caladbolg).

The Elder Dragons are very much sinister because they choose to be so. They want their minions to carry out their will (sometimes to sick levels of devotion as seen with the fanatical Risen), and they’re also egotistical gluttons based on what we’ve learned of them so far, which is why we must replace them with more benevolent beings if we can without destroying the world in the process. For example, depending on how canonical Kralkatorrik’s description still is from the Edge of Destiny novel, we know that he wants everything and what he can’t have, he destroys, more or less, and he does not tolerate betrayal such as Glint’s who he went after personally to teach her a lesson. Other Elder Dragons appear to be, with a few variations, somewhat similar but with their own quirks.

The only reason NPCs view Elder Dragons as forces of nature is because these dragons are so beyond their understanding until recently thanks to Gorr’s theory and whatnot, so they try to comprehend their power level and thus equate them with hurricanes, earthquakes and such. Except in this case the hurricane has a mind of its own and is extremely selfish and has malevolent intentions.

Also, for anyone wanting to see the Elder Dragons being more proactive than what the game has shown us and actually hear them speak, well, you’re in luck as we discovered during Heart of Thorns BWE’s story instance that sylvari characters can actually hear Mordremoth answering its minions’ pleas and giving them orders.

Gray.9041:

heck, we could meet a sylvari, get to know them, trust them, only to find out they’re the avatar of mordremoth later.

So kind of like Gavin from the sylvari White Stag storyline, then, who was a villain pretending to be a good guy until the reveal? I do wish we’d see more Nightmare Courtiers like him instead of the puppy-kicking evildoers most of them are presented as. Gavin was as much of an antivillain as GW2 has presented to us so far: working for the bad guys but still being honorable enough to prefer a one-on-one duel over an ambush and honestly wanting the player character to join his side. Even his ending is a very touching one with that memorable final line he utters before perishing.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Remember the last time they tried to write a villain? Yeah, Scarlet Briar. Are you sure you still want a villain?

If they write these new villains like Gavin was written, then yeah, definitely. We already have our share of antiheroes (Canach, Caithe, Anise, potentially Mr. E who may be Ela Makkay) in the narrative, so it’s time we had more antivillains to show up and make us relate to them too.

draxynnic.3719:

A term like “Jungle Dragon” implies that Mordremoth is simply one of a group – which, of course, from our perspective he is, but from the perspective of his minions he should stand out more. Given the earlier lore about the vines actually being part of Mordremoth, possibly a better descriptor that could reasonably easily be chopped in is to refer to Mordremoth as “the jungle”. Mordremoth isn’t simply a dragon that happens to have influence over the jungle – to the Mordrem Guard, Mordremoth is the personification of the jungle itself that will grow to cover the world.

I suppose one explanation for this could be that unlike Jormag who appears to follow the concept of the survival of the fittest or Zhaitan who appears to want his minions to adore him as a saviour or some such, Mordremoth is far more in-your-face with his intentions and ambitions in a “pseudo-intellectual” way. He acknowledges the existence of the other EDs by identifying himself as the Jungle Dragon instead of the Dragon, but he sees himself superior/more dangerous than the others while possibly belittling the other EDs’ achievements. After all, the Anti-Pact was like him mocking the Pact’s victory over Zhaitan and showing how he can twist the nobility of that group with a more nefarious Pact of his own, and he brought the very force that had defeated Zhaitan down with just a few key moves just to rub in how much of a chessmaster he is, being the Dragon of Mind and all that jazz.

Or it could simply be shoddy writing. But I like my theory better similar to my explanation of Scarlet and ol’ Mordy’s influence as seen in my post above.

Shiren.9532:

I completely agree. Scarlet was more accomplished because the plot forced it to happen, it wasn’t a well constructed outcome given how many allies had to hold the idiot ball, or how many factions were written into uncharacteristic alliances for Scarlet’s convenience. Scarlet’s arc was poorly constructed and delivered and in hindsight you can see it’s a framework of “she needs this tech and this tech” that wasn’t fleshed out enough. Colin has even said, the goal all along was the destroy Lion’s Arch, which implies the reason (ley line clusters) was made up to justify the conclusion.

Still, she did succeed and that makes Zhaitan (and other EDs by association) look bad. Zhaitan didn’t accomplish much during its time in the spotlight (in Sea of Sorrows it has more impact getting out of bed than it did during the Personal Story). If a single sylvari can impact Tyria almost as much as an ED, the EDs need to raise the bar.

I believe the reason these factions had these so-called lore-breaking alliances was because Mordremoth was already spreading his influence through Scarlet, her champion. He is the Dragon of Mind, after all, so persuasion/intimidation played a large factor there. Just listen to this older LW Season 1 recap video from Anet where it’s specifically stated that “[Scarlet] seduced the Nightmare Court and deceived the krait into an uneasy alliance.” Also note how she threatened to kill the Aetherblades and replace them with holos in one of the holo-recordings if they didn’t obey her, or how she addressed the krait who questioned her about delivering on her promises. How could a lone sylvari make pirates, who outnumbered her, fear her so much, how did usually misogynististic/xenophobic factions like the Flame Legion and the drege side with her, how did she know where to seek for the artifacts which the krait craved to earn their oratuss’s favour, what could she have said to “seduce” this splinter group of the Nightmare Court who were already masters of the art and who saw Scarlet as not one of their own?

One might say “bad writing”, but I say it’s foreshadowing that it was all Mordremoth all along, and him being the Dragon of Mind, having knowledge of the world’s ancient secrets, and knowing which buttons to push gives us enough of a handwave to justify Scarlet’s successes with forming the Anti-Pact.

As we saw by the end of S1 with the Scarlet’s death cinematic , we have both visual and aural confirmation that Scarlet was little more than a puppet for Mordremoth by the end similar to how the Twisted Marionette was a puppet for her. We see the mad grin on Scarlet’s corpse before the Breachmaker hits the ley line, thus completing her objective for her master at the expense of her life. Note how Scarlet’s leitmotif fades away and is totally overcome by Mordremoth’s leitmotif in that cinematic as we follow the redirected leyline to the Heart of Maguuma into the mouth of the very Elder Dragon who was behind Scarlet’s actions all along.

If anything, Scarlet’s actions proved that Mordremoth is as big if not a bigger threat than Zhaitan was by now if his minions alone can already bring so much destruction in their wake. She brought LA down, disturbed DE, and left Viathan Lake a toxic waste, and she was only a dragon champion. Ditto for Shadow of the Dragon, another champion, who delivered a devastating blow to the Pale Tree, allowing Mordremoth to use the cracks in her defenses to start seducing sylvari to join his army and potentially depriving the Pact of a fifth of its forces while also subsequently bringing the mighty Pact fleet, which had been so effective against Zhaitan’s army, down in an instant. These make the actions of Risen minions like Mazdak the Accursed and Labwan the Deceiver look rather pathetic in comparison and show that Mordremoth is being more active and far more cunning than Zhaitan was.

So no, I don’t think Scarlet makes EDs look bad in comparison. Her and the Shadow of the Dragon’s actions prove by association that Mordremoth, their master who was pulling their strings, is now the biggest threat to the existence of Tyria and the most dangerous Elder Dragon the heroes have faced so far.

I do agree, though, that parts of this story could’ve been told better. I would’ve wanted to see more interactions between Scarlet and her evil faction leaders in some way instead of the snippets we got to witness via holo-recordings. It would’ve helped sell how cunning Mordremoth was in making these factions work for him and his champion. But I understand the writers were in a tricky spot there; if they showed too much, more people would’ve likely figured out who the entity really was, and they wanted to keep it a mystery until the finale.