Guild Wars 2

Didn’t Taimi see a vision also?

I think that common courtesy should say that speaking the native language (English in an American server, for example) is the thing to do, if possible. That’s just courtesy. But in NO way should it be mandatory. If you really get so uptight about someone speaking a different language, you’re going to have a really bad time on the internet. There are a lot of upsetting things in this world, and all of it ends up online. Just assume the speaker is not talking to you, because he/she probably isn’t, and move on with your life, and accept that other languages exist in this world.

On another note, if they speak poor English, don’t be a prick to them. They’re trying. And I can almost guarantee they speak your language better than you speak theirs.

I see there was a suggestions forum up at one point. But it’s gone now, and now I don’t know where to suggest making miniature penguins. So I posted it here. The subject is self explanatory. I want mini penguins. If the people at Arena-net were to pursue such a goal, how long would it take, and would it be easily done? I don’t think they have anything in this game that can really be re-skinned easily to a squat waddling adorable bird.

Edit: A friend mentioned using Quaggans as a base for the skin, since they are squat and waddle.

Where do you get implications that the ED’s are answering to something? I’m not doubting your claim. Just legitimately curious. I didn’t see it, so I may have just missed something.

The way it seems to me, is that the dragons don’t really have any sort of agenda. They just are. And maybe they have balancing side effects in their destructive tendencies? Maybe. I mean, a hurricane is just a hurricane. It exists because it does. it’s not sentient, and externally, all it appears to do is wreck stuff. But in reality, hurricanes are a result of warm air moving away from the equator and to the poles by huge amounts, thus the temperature of the world is more stabilized. (Again, none of this process is controlled or thought out. The Earth is not sentient and does not actively seek to move heat around, it’s just the nature of physics for heat and energy to move from areas of high concentration to areas of lower concentration) No one actively seeks to make these hurricanes, but they’re there nonetheless.

We know, if nothing else, she can make a convincing enough replica of an Elder Dragon to fool its minions. Not that they’re exactly the pinnacle of intelligence though, probably. They seem to be pretty much single minded minions. But being able to do a certain trick very well, or being “well versed in Mesmer arts” does not necessarily mean she’s a good fighter. So, if the question is, is she a good mesmer, then probably. Or at least prone to random outbursts of brilliance in the field. But we don’t know how well she’d do using those skills aggressively. If she got attacked, would her spells do any real damage? Or will they just be tricks, like her ED replica. Or will she just shut down completely and cry? So I guess we don’t have much to go on in the way of “can she defend herself”.

Honestly. there can be endless speculations about what goes on in the parts o the world we’ve never seen. There can be a whole city of dragons for all we know (Although, that would be stupid and I’m pretty sure Anet won’t do that.) It’s equally likely they all centered here, like Aaron said. This spot of Tyria attracted the Human Gods, so it’s likely the most interesting spot on the world. But you’ll never know I guess.

Wasn’t it lightly implied in one of the books that our heroes were killed by Glint? I remember her mentioning heroes involved with the Flameseeker deal coming back to kill her later on, and she defeats them.

I always thought the area between the southern Shiverpeak coast and the Crystal desert was weird anyways :/
That, and shouldn’t Kryta practically barren by now?! When Orr sank the first time, it should have drastically changed the current/temperature of the sea (less warm water being caught above the peninsula), then it just pops back up again 250-ish years later? I’m surprised Krytan wildlife can even deal with the constant change. But then, I guess I’m just being nit-picky

As for the Rytlock thing, just be patient. I know realistically, he’s been gone for weeks, since that’s how long ago the living story section has been out, but since he disappeared near the end of the living story, as far as the game timeline is concerned, he’s been gone for like…an hour. I’m sure they’ll get around to it. They MAY use the scrying pool to find him, but honestly, I REALLY doubt it.

As for the “what is the significance of the scrying pool” bit, I just don’t know. It’s just one of those things that the GW team never explained. Personally, I feel they’ve been doing a pretty poor job of making anything from GW1 relevant in GW2. I mean, I like the story well enough, and I enjoy the “new” lore GW2 has, but it feels like it may as well be an entirely different universe from GW1, more often than not. We have so many relics of GW1 just lying around that are never mentioned or explained. The scrying pool being one of them.

I think there are quite a few posts (one being very recent, and still on the front page of this forum) that mention the Eye of the North tower and people’s speculation on it. You can try going there for ideas, but really, I don’t think you’ll get any definite answers.

A lot can happen to a place in 250 years. North America looked almost nothing like it does today, in most places. Particularly the east coast. Earth worms (which died out in North America during the last ice age) were re-indroduced along with many crops and plants from Europe and many of the native plants were replaced by European ones. Cypress groves were choked out by voracious European vines and mosses in much the same way Kudzu is choking out many areas in the southern US today. So, it’s possible that large tracts of farming, clear cutting, warming from local volcanoes, and a higher sea level really altered the entire Krytan ecosystem.

I’m not so sure it really has a connection with the human gods. It seems a bit out of place. First of all, it was far from settled human territory. ANY human territory, much less Orr, where the gods seemed to like having things built. Also, considering the point on Orr being the place for all things human god related, the architecture is off. Granted, Orrian architecture probably isn’t as grand as it was before it spent centuries under the ocean, it is vastly different from the style of the eye.

On the subject of how clean and pristine the eye is, it really could have been the result of the Ebon Vanguard cleaning it up. Anyone who has spent any time in the military in real life can attest to their obsession with cleanliness, even if it’s just to keep soldiers busy :p But more realistically, a clean work place is an efficient work place. Cleaning and repairing the damage would be the most logical first step for any forward operating base. The ghosts themselves seem to indicate that they did not die in an attack. I got the impression that they lived a normal life somewhere else after the events of EOTN, probably died of old age, and simply returned as spirits. In fact, one of the ghosts explicitly states that his spirit returned to the tower after his death.
But if that’s not a compelling enough argument, one can also assume that it was just badly damaged when Jormag awoke and chased the Norn and everything else to the south. It is well within the evacuated area.

Now, on to MY personal thoughts, I think it was built by one of the previous races that fought the dragons. I base this on loose evidence at best, and am likely to change my mind on the issue, but for all we know about it, it just seems more likely for a number of vague reasons.
The seers likely occupied the area, as we first encountered one in the northern shiverpeaks. Maybe two (although really, all three seers we find could just be the same one over and over again) and were advanced enough to survive the dragons and ALMOST rival the mursaat afterwards. We have no idea what their buildings would have looked like, but it was hinted many years ago that seer architecture was in GW1, and in plain site, although no one would know it was seer architecture. Not sure if that was ret-conned or not though, as most interview knowledge seems to be these days.
And a skrying pool just seems to be a fitting device for a race called Seers

The Jotun also occupied the area. And in large numbers, even by GW1 times. We also know the Jotun had kind of an affinity for seeing things out of this world, what with advanced telescopes and whatnot. As for why they didn’t claim the thing, well they weren’t exactly on their a game by the time we met them. In all possibility, the whole mountain range could have been covered in high tech Jotun cities and they simply forgot. Thruln, as questionable as his information is, can at least allow us to infer that the Jotun were once very advanced and just became “stupid” in the centuries following the last dragon awakening.

Counter to my “old civilization” theory though, is that the dwarves were also around during the last rise, but seemed to know nothing of the place. But then they never mentioned knowing much of anything that was going on back then. From what we can tell, most of the advanced races, minus the mursaat who were just pricks and bailed, banded together to survive the last dragon attack. The dwarves fail to mention any part of this. You’d think if their perceived destiny was to help life survive beyond Primordus round two, they’d mention how the previous races helped each other out. But they don’t. I really don’t know what to make of that.

The Zephyrites could have moved them for safety. Obviously, Glint can’t protect them anymore, and the place she WAS holding them in was discovered by Destroyers.
But that’s assuming the the light beams were, in fact, eggs.

I see. Thanks!

My computer is being weird. But here’s a picture of a GW1 skeleton

Sorry if someone has posted on this before. I looked through the forum rather briefly, as there are a LOT of pages and posts, but I didn’t find anything about the topic I am about to post.

When mapping in Malchor’s Leap earlier, I started paying attention to some of the giant skeletons there. They kind of blend in with the map a bit, and as it’s a map full of dull colors and dead things, I guess I’m not surprised I never paid any attention to them before now, but I can’t help but think they look pretty similar to many of the giant skeletons found in GW1 that were previously thought to be skeletons of the Giganticus Lupicus. They look too different from the Tequatl style dragon minions for me to assume it’s probably one of them that just got shot down, and they’re much too old to be victims of the Pact forces, as they’re completely bare and bleached.

It has the facial tusks, albeit smaller, the approximate body size, and spikes (ridges?) that run along the spine, similar to the GL skeletons in GW1.
However, from some angles, it also appears to have had small flipper like arms/hands, and I don’t recall seeing anything like that on the GL skeletons of GW1.

In case anyone asks, as for the bone plates on either side of the skeleton in the following screenshots that look a lot like they might have been wings once, I’m pretty sure they’re not actually part of the skeleton. The example here was obviously placed on a building with several other large rib cages and spines inside and around the structure to make a shrine at Dhuum’s Last Stand. I imagine the building itself is what is making the “wing” structures, and also, thick bone plates inside a critter’s wings would not be conducive to flying. At all.

The question is, what made the skeleton? Is the GL now wholly accepted to be based on the thing we fight in the Orr dungeon? Are there different varieties? Or are these skeletons something entirely different?

Best view I could get of Orrian skeleton:

Possibly. There are probably a few references like that. There’s a reference to the 55 monk farming build around the area where Bergen Hotsprings used to be. There’s a tree with an “55M” carved into the side. At least, it’s most likely a reference, as it is in the right area and everything.

Hypothetically, if she DID die, who would be the most likely next-in-line to rule? If there’s no definite answer, is there any likely candidate that we’d know about?

Then that gets rid of the “can she reproduce as a champion?” question. Apparently, the answer is yes. Because she did it. Still leaves the mystery of the method of her reproduction though. Did she reproduce naturally? Did she make a special form of construct? It may help if we could see the infant because, as Aaron pointed out, it may have been retconned to look completely different from its GW1 variant. If it’s still organic, it was likely (but not definitely) an organic birth. If it is all crystaline or crystal/energy like The Shatterer, it’s likely (but not definitely) a construct. We know, from what what Konig pointed out, that she CAN make constructs. Even without Kralk’s influence. And an organic birth probably wouldn’t require one to store magic energy as it was described above. If Glint was described as “getting fat, lazy and moodily aggressive” I’d be more into the organic birth theory.

But if the Arah mission said she was only free’d but still in Crystal form, does that mean that the Glint we saw in GW1 may as well be completely ignored as far as appearance? (Due to retcon) Or that she, for no discernible reason, became fleshy in time for our GW1 heroes to find her, and then turn crystalline again before her death, as the zephyrites described her?

Also, as for the zhaitan minions being as big as Tequatl; that’s pretty neat! I always assumed they were smaller because I guess size/distance ratio is a little harder for me to discern in games.

There certainly is a lot of space for the dragons to live in, but they can move around. I’m not saying you’re wrong in that they don’t interact. As they seem to be happy enough ignoring each other now, but a few points make me curious.

Kralkatorrik occupies the desert. As he tends to deal with crystal like things, and the Crystal Desert actually being formed of tiny crystals, I’d be willing to bet that was always his little haunt. But why did he go to sleep so close to where Primordus was? Did his proximity to Primordus even matter? For all I know, he could have slept directly above Primordus, and Primordus might not have cared as long as Kralkatorrik didn’t bother anything in his underground domains.
And what about Mordremoth? He’s spreading his influence pretty far too. Pretty soon his minions might be seen running around next to the destroyers. It might just be out of curiosity of the fast travel network, but you’d think he’d be a LITTLE worried about encroaching on another dragon’s area. Especially since Mordremoth is newly awaken and not nearly as established as Primordus probably is.

By “the human noble” do you mean the PC who chose the noble story path? If so, probably not. I think the line of ascension is probably very particular and already has a back-up monarch and a back-up back-up monarch and about 15 replacements in sequence, none of them having been a relatively unknown noble who just happened to grow up to be awesome. On a less story-driven note, I doubt they’d make all this cool story content and expansive gameplay just to give your character the tedious job of sitting on a throne and delegating tasks to government officials. It’d make an awfully boring RPG.

The saltspray dragons and Glint are entirely different species, each one being similar to a dragon in style, but can probably be classified as “drake” like the various “drakes” of Guild Wars Prophecies. Drakes and Dragons may not be that close of a classification, or maybe they’re all dragons and only a handful of them are special (or near god like in this case).

As for things reproducing, I don’t know if the how of it is all that important. Can Glint do it naturally as a champion of a dragon? Irrelevant. She’s not a champion. She hasn’t been since she was freed from its influence. That may have made some physiological changes overtime to make her less of a mindless killing machine and more of a living organic possibly child bearing creature. Or maybe not.
But then there’s the fact that even if Glint DID learn the ability to reproduce somehow after gaining a normal style of living she doesn’t seem to have anything that she can mate with sexually. We’d probably know if there was another Glint like creature running around. So that probably leaves the means of reproduction to asexual.
Are her “eggs” even organic? Did they come from Glint genetically? Under the “she had to be pregnant beforehand” theory, either she has an INCREDIBLE gestation period, or those eggs have been just lying around for a very long time. Or did she somehow materialize them from something? Like crystal? There’s certainly plenty of it around her, and her eggs are awfully crystaline in appearance. Kralk and his champion spawn all kinds of crystal minions, maybe Glint just put a lot of effort into just a handful that she can raise from birth without the Kralk style mind control.

As for questions I’d like answered, Was Glint even a around before she was a champion? Did Kralkatorrik, corrupt a member of a now extinct Glint-like species? Or did he create her from nothing? Something to note on that is that, with the exception of the shatterer, who looks to be made entirely of energy and rocks, the dragon champions look organic. We don’t have any living examples of ANYTHING that looks like the champions in size shape or ability, but Zhaitan certainly has a lot of smaller Tequatl looking dragons flying around the final missions in Orr. I figure in Zhaitan’s case, it’s possible that he can merge organic matter into looking like all kinds of things. He turned a human king of Orr into a floating eye, essentially. So that just leaves the question of wtfook is the claw of Jormag and Glint?
If Glint WAS an organic creature before corruption and not entirely fabricated by Kralkatorrik, why did he pick her? Was it random? Was she special among her breed? If she alone could read minds, that could be one reason he chose her.

There’s a lot we don’t know about champions, current or modern. In all likelihood, champions could be made with entirely different methods from the previous awakenings, as dragons are likely to learn from mistakes (i.e. a minion that can turn against its master) There are certainly a lot of differences just between Glint and the Shatterer.
(sorry if my post seems kind of all over the place. I’m at work)

I don’t see how they’d be much different, especially considering the magic they use is largely based on the tradition of ancestor worship. Also consider the real life parallels. In the United States alone we have a wide variety of dealing with dead people. Even among Christians, who by tradition bury their dead, will cremate, send bodies out to sea, or even space for the wealthy eccentric. Their bible dictates that burial is the Christian thing to do, but they’ve come to adopt so many different cultural practices that it’s not surprising to see them do…pretty much whatever you want with a corpse. Except eating. Usually. Most people frown on that sort of thing.

It could be any number of things I think. A lot of the art for Guild Wars 2 (in my opinion) looks as if it wasn’t actually made specifically FOR Guild Wars 2 and was just used because it was “close enough”. Artists like Kekai Kotaki (Who’m I THINK made that picture?) do art for a lot of different things. Or maybe it was a concept of something that never made it in game. I don’t know the details of why the artists used what art for what purpose, but that monster could just be something that isn’t in Guild Wars 2 or an early concept of something that is.

I still think weapon enchantments might be fun. A utility skill that adds effects like splinter weapon or life steal to weapon skills or something. But I suppose it won’t really be much different from standard buff based utility skills. Only, like in GW1, you wouldn’t be able to forcefully remove an enemy’s weapon buff. And as for the urn cultural thing, it can easily have been adopted. There was quite a large influx of Canthans into Kryta, and if someone were to pick up enough of their culture to make Guardians (who are supposed to have been influenced a bit by ritualists) who’s to say they didn’t adopt the ancestor worship aspect of their religion also? And thus the “carrying my great grandfather’s corpse in a jar because it makes me invincible” tradition.

I’m sure there are plenty of mesmer Tengu around for them not to be distrustful of EVERY mesmer. Definitely would be distrustful of humans, but considering they’re getting along well enough at the moment says they’ve come a LONG way in human-Tengu relations in Kryta. There were no friendly Tengu at all in Kryta in the time of Guld Wars 1. That’s not to say it can’t be better. Isolation isn’t exactly a strong friendly bond, but it’s still leagues better than open hostility. I think if the Tengu were given the right incentive they’d be more help than harm (Unless the next dragon happens to control birds and bird-like people or something)

I’d love to see humans be the ones with the knowledge, since they were the most wide-spread of the races before the events of GW2, but it turns out we were just making stuff up. That’s pretty unfortunate. But at least we still have the “underdog” story going for us. We lost more than any other race in the past 250 years, but still have the greatest city. It was mentioned that the Black Citadel might be bigger, but it doesn’t look like a place I’d want to actually live in. It’s all practical, cold, and structured whereas Divinity’s Reach, despite the constant surrounding dangers (bandits, centaurs, and zombies) is a city where people don’t even seem to notice anything is wrong with their world half of the time. We don’t have the Charr’s military, but we still hold our own against all fronts. We don’t have the Asura’s technology, but we live comfortably and even lavishly in the constant festival that is Divinity’s Reach and the outlying farms. Anet can really play on the “Humans are tenacious and supremely adaptable” angle if they wanted to. There’s a lot of potential in our current “humans are useless” situation. Even in real life history people tend to really excel when our backs are against the wall (Even if it’s our own fault we were against that wall in the first place.)

I guess it’s never to late to start a “public Service” guild for anyone bored enough to stand around towns and walk people around :p

Maybe we can write in some of the blanks left behind. At least until someone at anet say’s “You’re wrong and this is what really happened” At best, we give people something neat to read and a good reference for people getting into lore. At worst, we mess it up so badly, someone on the dev team HAS to fix it!

So I finally cleared the cave. Aside from an odd green pulsing glow in the center of the room, there really isn’t much to it

Jenna is a mesmer Tengu. We’ve all been fooled.
But what if Jenna did die? What effect would that have on Human-Charr relations? From what I understand, most of the people next in line for Krytan power are shady people who tend to side with seperatists and would antagonize the Charr, despite being under constant threat of dragons. Logan certainly wouldn’t take it well, so the Destiny’s Edge would probably disband again. The Seraph under him may or may not break away from their normal duties (but that’s pure speculation on my part. I base that on absolutely nothing really.) I always got the implication that Jenna does a lot, but we’re just soldiers, essentially, and she’s a politician. We don’t see the vast amount of resources being moved around or the peace talks or the policy making. We just hit things when she asks us to. We each do our job, but in totally different worlds.

I’d like to see the ritualist again also, but that’s mostly just warm fuzzy nostalgia talking. I think if they did bring back the ritualist, they’d probably have to make some major changes to the class just to keep it from being a little redundant. Healing spirits would be all but useless, as healing roles are next to useless as things are now (It’s mostly self heal or no heal), damage spirits have been replaced with turrets and protective/buff spirits are completely in the realm of the Guardian. I guess having those traits rolled into one pretty, wiggle dance-y package would be neat, but not worth making into the game. Maybe they can do something cool with the spirit weapon system? Not the floaty doom hammer like the guardians have, but the weapon enchantments like splinter weapon and stuff. That’d be neat. I’m no game designer, so I’ll leave that kind of creativity to the people who make the game, but I guess if one were to make the ritualist viable in GW2, that’d be a good place to start.

Yeah, I forgot to mention my second time in it opened only after I killed a few things. Not sure exactly WHICH ones are required, but I know the two husks and at least one large tendril died before the door opened.

I’m not the protector Dry Top deserves. But I’m the one it needs right now >.>

Apparently the cave opens near the end of the sandstorm (or I think that’s its trigger. It opened as soon as the Skritt Queen notification appeared) but all I saw inside was thorny death and sadness. All in all, me and the person I was playing with lasted about 5 seconds flailing about the entrance. Did anyone manage to get farther inside?

Update: I got to the back of it. And promptly died again. Still saw nothing but death and sadness, but this time a chest was involved. I looked around the room post mortem, but found nothing interesting. Just a writhing mass of vines coming from the ceiling. I took screenshots, but they’re probably not interesting enough to post

I completely forgot about that. But I’m sure something will continue. Seems pointless to make all those references just to end them in a tangled mess of thorny death.

The lore forums are all abuzz about the new plant dragon lately, and understandably so. But while everyone is focused on tentacles and dragons (Don’t google search that, by the way), has anyone stopped to discuss the shady things going on in Prosperity? Particularly the little Asura “Resident” NPC that walks back and forth from the bar to another shady “Resident”, this one human, and saying various lines of dialogue. It usually pertains to birds, carrion, and a bakery. Using context clues, I assume birds means Seraph. I’d assume it they were referring to Zephyrites as birds, since they did fall from the sky, but he mentioned carrion as being the things that fell, and the “birds” being busy with them. I guess the bakery would be the town, and particularly the town’s involvement with the shady copper deal they have going on.

Aside from all that, I wonder about the secrecy and what it will eventually lead to. Anyone else have any speculations? Any new sinister group of enemies to contend with? Obviously the centaur on the hill is a concern, and the always remote possibility of White Mantle and/or Mursaat, but I’d honestly be pretty surprised if they showed up any time really soon.

I was going to respond to something earlier, but the thread evolved too far for me to be relevant anymore :o So I’ll just bring myself back to the original point of the article and say, I probably wouldn’t suggest trying to re-take Ascalon. It would just distract all the soldiers from protecting me from being nibbled on by dragons. Plus, people seem to be doing well enough in Kryta. And the Charr would probably be a lot harder to push out than last time.

The way it seems to me is that humans may not particularly excel at any one thing, but are exceptionally versatile and unimaginably tenacious. If there’s one thing humanity would be known for if they were to ever go extinct, it would probably be that no matter what they were given, they held on to it far longer than any other race could or would care to. Ascalon was dirt and tar, but it still held out over a hundred years after it became that way. I’ve never got the feeling that the asura were known for their military prowess. I wasn’t even sure the Asura had an official military at all. I assumed so, but was one ever mentioned? The only factions I see are the colleges, various krewes, and Inquest, who I assume might just kind of loosely band together if needed. Except maybe the inquest. No one likes to play with those guys. The Sylvari I don’t see bringing much to the table, honestly, except a fresh perspective. They can adapt technology into plant hybrids, apparently, also. The norn, also, except replace fresh perspective with the occasional strong armed mercenary.

I was actually referring to the ACTUAL taking of Ascalon. They may have severely wrecked Ascalon with their false gods, but they never actually held it until afterwards (with the events that caused the foefire, the Iron Legion setting up a permanent stronghold, etc.). I feel like something should be said by the fact that with their gods they couldn’t take over a country they had already destroyed (with power that wasn’t really even theirs). Without their gods, they were able to not only develop rapidly in the way of technology, they were also able to reclaim Ascalon, magical ghosts and all.

Orr was already weakened because of their involvement with the Guild Wars at the last minute, but nearly taking Arah was probably still a pretty remarkable feat for the Charr, before things went crazy and Orr sank, so that’s a pretty solid point for the charr. Kryta had no excuse other than weak leadership (The king, if I remember correctly, heard that Orr and Ascalon exploded and pretty much ran as soon as he heard the word Charr float over the shiverpeaks) but fortunately some zealots and a small group of mursaat were there to fill the void left by the sudden lack of an organized country.

The Charr used “gods” against humans, who were backed by Gods. You’re not wrong, but The Searing still doesn’t change Macha’s point :p. The Charr under the influence of their “gods” had one hugely successful campaign, but were then pushed out of Kryta by only handful of humans and more “gods” and kept out of a ruined Ascalon by a broken assortment of exhausted soldiers. Overall, after The Searing and the sinking of Orr, the charr were not very successful under the guidance of their gods. It wasn’t until after Pyre’s revolution and their declaration that there are no gods for the charr that they began to rely on their own power and their real campaign really started to get off the ground. It was after their abolition of religion that they were able to officially take Ascalon (albeit with added ghosts) and become a technological superpower on par with the rest of the races.

I suppose you’re right. The change really could be nothing more than “This looks a little prettier, lets use these skins instead” Or just that GW1 really couldn’t capture the look they wanted like GW2 graphics can. And I was thinking maybe Malchor died while Grenth was in gestation or maybe Dwayna simply never told him for whatever reason. The guy seemed to have enough trouble as it was with his impending blindness and insanity. But being insane with love, maybe he knew Grenth was his child and simply didn’t care. All that mattered to him was Dwayna, and that’s the only thing on his mind.

Maybe the fact that the luxons seemed to mine exclusively from the Jade Sea would indicate that it is, in fact, a different jade. Not only was it readily available (even with aforementioned defensive issues by Sirius. Good points to consider, by the way, especially given that Luxons are nomadic, and personally I wouldn’t expect them to be particularly expert at holding or defending positions.) but something about it was obviously appealing. It was mentioned to be of varying quality in certain areas, so maybe there is a standard rock jade that nobody cares to bother with, because it’s simple plane ordinary, albeit pretty rock, and why bother mining it when there is magic/malleable/prettier/whatever jade to be mined and used and is literally right under their feet? I’m still leaning into the idea that the jade statue is of simple variety, and not sea variety. Either that, or the sea is thawing VERY slowly (Very likely that it is) and one day a surprised Zephyrite will wake up to a smaller fish statue standing in a puddle of sea water.
And of course there is the idea that it’s not thawing at all, but why bother mentioning it so often if it wasn’t? I mean, I know it’s possible that the speculations were written in the game, and not actually fact, but I feel like people (NPC’s) were actually noticing change in the Echovald and Jade sea areas. Even if it is a very slow change.

Well this thread went much farther than I expected! It’s a good thing though. The fact that Desmina was written on the inscription rather than Malchor clears things up for me a lot, I think. Now there are tons of other things to consider though, apparently. One of them being the difference between GW1 and GW2 Grenth statues. They do look awfully different. I’m not saying that one is in fact Dhuum, just that the change is something interesting. So now I’m leaning towards the timeline of: Gods (Dwayna) commissioned Malchor to craft statues (Whether or not he made Dhuum statues is an issue) He crafts them, slowly goes blind, diligently tries to perfect the “unworthy” face of the Dwayna statue, does the deed with Dwayna? Kills himself in despair, Grenth is born (order on those two could be interchanged I guess? If Dwayna never told him he had a half-God son) Grenth raises to Godhood, (replaces Dhuum statues or builds new ones of himself?) Abaddon rebellion business, Abaddon statues sunk or destroyed (or pulled into the Realm of Torment in one case) Gods leave. At least that’s the likely timeline I picture. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, or throw in other important bits I missed. It’s been fun reading this thread, I think.

That’s how it is described above. It’s very unlikely he made the statues beforehand. Or were you stressing the long time part?

Can it be squirrels? Can Anet please make a rifle that shoots squirrels?

Hmm. I remember the video differently for some reason. I guess my memory has a tendency to brighten colors :/ That area looks rather shallow and clean, the moss green, there appear to be lush roots or maybe vines in the top right corner, and that single shrub, singular as it may be, looks awfully alive. It looks to me like either somewhere around Aurora Glade or the pre- Pale tree grove, but that all really could just be graphical differences. It’s not like GW1 actually had a map for Orr. Still though, it looks awfully calm for Orr, and was it ever mentioned that she even went to Orr after it arose? She definitely expressed her intent to while it was under water, but I was under the impression that people had only reached Orr through the legions of undead fairly shortly before you and the pact’s second assault team (or whatever) got there. I’m a little less sure it wasn’t Orr in that cutscene, because, like I said, not as green and vibrant as I remember, but I still find it a little hard to believe that’s where she got it.

Does anyone think the whole Scarlet terrorism thing might make a negative impact on Trehearne as leader of the pact? I believe it was mentioned a few times that people are suddenly becoming a little suspicious of the Sylvari because of the whole mess, and that might make people less willing to look to the pact respectfully if it’s lead by a one. Just a thought. It might not happen.

So, I have a few bits of information missing about this whole Malchor/Grenth/Dwayna relationship I was hoping to have explained. From what I know, Malchor is the sculptor of the god statues and the most likely (although not specifically named, he might as well have been) candidate for the sculptor Dwayna did the twisted tango with to bear Grenth. That bieng said, I know Malchor killed himself not too terribly long after being commissioned to sculpt said statues, unless the task took like 60 years and he just ages exceptionally well. (his ghost looks fairly young). So I have a few questions. Did Grenth become a god before Malchor died? Is Malchor REALLY his father? (Even I am leaning VERY heavily towards yes) and/or did Malchor sculpt Grenth’s statues, or did somebody else? I ask because the times just seem to add up strangely. Malchor and Dwayna do…their thing… Malchor is tasked with making statues, Dwayna has a child (somewhere along this order?) the child kills Dhuum, raises to Godhood, Malchor makes statues completely oblivious that his kid became the god who controls death and is the subject of one of his works (Or he’s REALLY good at never mentioning it. Seems like something I’d brag about until the day I died) and Malchor flings himself off a cliff not looking a day over 28. Now the best explanation for an order like this is, as I mentioned, maybe Malchor does just age really well. I mean, King Doric was supposedly very very old when he used his blood to limit the use of magic, so maybe living well beyond 100 was a slightly more common thing then. Especially in the city of the gods. Either that, or Grenth ascended at a very young age. Like 7. Or maybe, being a ghost, he can pick whatever age he feels like to appear before people? I haven’t heard of anything like that happening before, but I thought I’d throw that out there anyways.

Based on scenery alone, I don’t see how Livia could have found the scepter in Orr. The cutscene showed her in an area that I assumed was the maguuma jungle. Granted, it could have been literally anywhere that had greenery, but seeing as how Orr has lacked any kind of greenery for the past 250 years (or more given how completely covered in architecture the island seems to be). and was likely underwater at the time she found the scepter. (she could have gone to Orr post-rise, but she probably wouldn’t have gone alone without being eaten by zombies, and again, Orr is completely barren aside from a few fungi and lichens.) I find it hard to believe that she did, in fact find it there.

A simple idea, but one I think should probably be mentioned, is that maybe jade already existed before the coincidentally named Jade Sea. Just because the sea turned into jade, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the only source of jade in Cantha. They named the sea AFTER jade, even before it ironically became jade, so the name came from something. Perhaps the statue is simply made of plane ordinary jade and not the jade that was formerly a sea.