922 replies to this topic

[BobTheTank]

Konig Des Todes said:

A popular topic which has been discussed elsewhere. If I can find the thread, I'll move the posts on this topic into that thread.

One thought (which I share) is that the prayer skills are not literal prayers, but magic done in the form of prayers. This counts for both GW2 and GW1 - the gods' activity in GW1 would thus be statue blessings and access to the UW/FoW, perhaps the avatars of Grenth and Dwayna appearing during Wintersday.

Or it could be that the player character is 'special', and the gods will grant you some flaming hounds, but they wouldn't for an everyday Joe.

By the way, are the player characters in GW2 still 'chosen'?

[Konig Des Todes]

It is unknown if the GW2 characters are chosen.

[draxynnic]

Wouldn't surprise me if human PCs are Chosen, and that's why THEY get to pray to the gods and be heard. ;)

I doubt mambers of other races are, though - the concept is probably meaningless to them, although they may have equivalents.

Like Konig said, though, we don't know.

[Versidia]

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Chosen

Quote

The truth, however, is that the Chosen are part of the Flameseeker Prophecies, destined to cause the downfall of the Mursaat.

Since the flameseeker prophecies have been already fulfilled there are no more chosens, I think. However, there might be people able to ascend and get the true sight gift, humans since it's related to the gods.

[draxynnic]

It's dangerous to rely on the wikis for information, unless it's directly quoted from the game, since sometimes it has speculation and outright misinformation listed as fact.

From what Khilbron said, the Chosen are those that are capable of Ascension. Now, that means they do have an important role to play in the Prophecies in that Ascended heroes are needed to bring about the fall of the Mursaat, however the existence of Chosen is independant of the Flameseeker Prophecies.

[Konig Des Todes]

The chosen are part of the Flameseeker Prophecies. But is it limited to the Flameseeker Prophecies? Wiki - and anything else - do not say that.

[Versidia]

Then, being chosen means that you are able to ascend? ascension is no longer related to the gods? a charr can be flameseeker or chosen? Isn't the lich the flameseeker? should we add something about this to the lore questions, or am I the only one who doesn't have enough? :p

[Konig Des Todes]

Those titles are not lore. They're mechanics. All titles are mechanics. People are not "Legendary Spearmarshals" (i.e., legendary leaders of the Sunspear - the PCs are merely officers, or foreign recruits).

[BrettM]

Versidia said:

Then, being chosen means that you are able to ascend? ascension is no longer related to the gods?

Being Chosen means you have a gift of "true sight" that enables you to see things that others cannot. However, the gift must be "unlocked" before you can use it. In Tyria, the unlocking is done through ascension, which draws the attention of the gods, who then apparently unlock the gift within you. So it is related to the gods.

I don't believe that we have any evidence either way that one must be Chosen to ascend.

In Cantha, the unlocking is done through Weh no Su. This does provide some kind of true sight, since you had to do it before you could see Shiro to fight him, according to the Oracle's speech. Note that the emperors who have gone through this process are known as ascended emperors, so it seems clear that this is related to the ascension at Augury Rock.

Edited by BrettM, 01 November 2010 - 02:05 AM.

[draxynnic]

Konig Des Todes said:

Those titles are not lore. They're mechanics. All titles are mechanics. People are not "Legendary Spearmarshals" (i.e., legendary leaders of the Sunspear - the PCs are merely officers, or foreign recruits).

Actually...

According to the And A Hero Shall Lead Them quest, it is technically the PC who leads (what's left of) the Sunspears after Consulate Docks, so the PC is certainly a leader of the Sunspears for a short period. And since, however temporary and in an acting capacity they might be, they were technically in charge when Abaddon fell, which means they probably should be legendary...

...even if, when GW2 rolls around, the name will probably be forgotten.

[Theobold]

As much as we (our character) helps Gwen, I'm really surprised she just doesn't marry us. Keiran is a QQ for the most part.

[Mordakai]

Theobold said:

As much as we (our character) helps Gwen, I'm really surprised she just doesn't marry us. Keiran is a QQ for the most part.

Gwen is a lesbian?


Didn't see that coming... and it would be hard to me to have ancestors.

[Meister]

Mordakai said:

Gwen is a lesbian?


Didn't see that coming... and it would be hard to me to have ancestors.

Adoption!
Then 5 million players have a relationship with Gwen...

[foozlesprite]

As a bisexual female, I have to admit I wouldn't mind marrying Gwen.  And of course Gwen is a closet lesbian!  I think the female Charr are all back in the camps at this point, being oppressed; females would be the only thing she doesn't associate with misery!

[BuddhaKeks]

Theobold said:

As much as we (our character) helps Gwen, I'm really surprised she just doesn't marry us.

If that happens, I would probably delete my GW account. <_<

Burn the witch! :devil:

[Daelin Dwin]

No idea if this has been mentioned before but here goes:

Are the Seraph not as nice as we think? As the Sorrow's Embrace dungeon involves the Seraph purcahsing dredge slaves, which is generally not a very nice thing to do.

[Konig Des Todes]

The interview that was found in mentioned, I believe, that the slaves were being sold to corrupt Seraph.

No organization is free of corruption.

Could also be that the Seraph were going undercover... We'll have to see.

[Daelin Dwin]

Konig Des Todes said:

The interview that was found in mentioned, I believe, that the slaves were being sold to corrupt Seraph.

Thought that might be the case.

[Gmr Leon]

It just occurred to me that the usual argument for why we were able to defeat Abaddon may no longer be viable (i.e. we had the blessing of the Gods, he was in chains) considering our battle with Dhuum. Yes, we had assistance from the Reapers, but was Dhuum still weakened? After all, the reason we had to fight him was because he grew powerful enough to break free of his imprisonment, so it seems more likely that we were facing him at moderate power and unbound.

I doubt he was at his full potential, as he had only very recently broken free when we come on to the scene, but it seems likely that he was almost certainly at a more powerful state than Abaddon. And again, he was unchained.

So, without the blessing of the Gods, we and the Reapers were able to reimprison a god. Does that indicate the difference between having a blessing and not having it is an inability to destroy a god? I don't think this situation is good material for indicating yea or nay on that, considering our intent was not to destroy Dhuum, only to contain him again. However, we were able to weaken a god to the point of imprisonment, that was one of our main roles in that fight when you review it, which was the very same point the gods themselves were able to bring Abaddon down to.

The real question must be, how much of a role did the Reapers play in our fight, and if we had weakened Dhuum alone, would we have been able to figure out how to imprison him? And we must also ask, did the gods imprison Abaddon alone, did Grenth imprison Dhuum alone? A few of the descriptions in the Realm of Torment suggest the gods created the Gates as locks on Abaddon, as well as creating the Shadow Nexus, but there's yet to be anything we've discovered in-game that they've actually created on their own. Fashioned or shaped from something else into what they want, yes, but that's essentially the same process as any mortal goes through when making a device or tool.

TL;DR:
Does our fight with Dhuum prove or disprove the validity of the claim that the blessing of the Gods assisted us in our battle with Abaddon, by permitting us to destroy him instead of reimprisoning him?

Could we have imprisoned Dhuum on our own, and how much of a role did the Reapers really play in that fight?

Did the Gods have assistance in imprisoning Abaddon?

Did Grenth have assistance in imprisoning Dhuum?

[razor39999]

Gmr Leon said:

TL;DR:
Does our fight with Dhuum prove or disprove the validity of the claim that the blessing of the Gods assisted us in our battle with Abaddon, by permitting us to destroy him instead of reimprisoning him?

Could we have imprisoned Dhuum on our own, and how much of a role did the Reapers really play in that fight?

Did the Gods have assistance in imprisoning Abaddon?

Did Grenth have assistance in imprisoning Dhuum?

The only question I think I know the answer to would be the first - Abaddon and Dhuum are different cases, since they're gods with different powers and domains. From all that we've learned from the reapers and from Halloween quests it seems that Dhuum is death itself, so can't be killed, blessing or not. The rest of the questions I don't know.

Actually EDIT:
We do know that Grenth had assistance from rebellious reapers when he imprisoned Dhuum.

[Gmr Leon]

I'm not really aiming for answers at the moment, I was putting those out there to incite a bit of speculation. However, thanks for the bit on Grenth having assistance, I couldn't recall whether or not anything was said on that particular case.

As to the two gods having different domains, that may change it a bit, but does not change the significance of the question. It may be that blessing or no, we cannot destroy Dhuum, but I don't quite buy it yet.

[razor39999]

Ye that's why I said "I think I know the answer", because it's not something I'm really sure of, just that from dialogue during Halloween quests it would seem Dhuum is somehow an entity made of death. And killing death is impossible.

Actually if I were to go completely haywire on speculation I'd say that if Dhuum was the original god of death, and all other gods also had their predecessors it would seem that either the shell and part of the energy of the original god (as in Dhuum's case) or the energy that makes it "godly" (as in Abaddon's case) always ends up "alive". The real reason why I think they're different cases is because part of that original energy stayed in the weakened form of its previous user (Dhuum) while at the same time mostly transferring into its next user (Grenth), yet in the case of Abaddon plus his predecessor and Abaddon plus Kormir it always transferred completely (unless his predecessor is also alive somewhere).

[Konig Des Todes]

Leon,  I think there's three significant points to make regarding our fight with Abaddon vs the fight with Dhuum:

• We never killed Dhuum, merely reimprisoned him. Whether this is due to Dhuum being the god of death, or due to the lack of the gods' blessings is unknown.
  
• With Abaddon, we repeatedly rechained him in order to kill him. And we were able to do that by destroying monoliths, thus we were only able to damage Abaddon while he was imprisoned, whereas with Dhuum we could damage him at any time (until we was imprisoned - however, for the last part, whether the lack of damaging him post-imprisonment is lore or mechanics is unknown).
  
• Abaddon is stronger: Or at least, this seems to be the case as Abaddon was able to defeat two gods on his own. Whether this means he was stronger when breaking free of his chains (likely considering the mayhem he caused with Nightfall and all the rituals that went about, whereas Dhuum just got stronger from deaths) or just that he was stronger before imprisonment is unknown.

Then there's one questionable point:

• Abaddon is able to instantly kill us if we do /dance.

Questionable due to it being unknown to be a part of canon lore. If I were a developer, I would personally say that not doing the task at hand, or merely dancing, would remove the blessings allowing Abaddon to kill instantly. But take it as one wish.

[Gmr Leon]

On the second point, I always assumed that we did that so we could get him close enough to actually hit him at a weak point. Let's remember that his hands were in gauntlets, so they may have protected him from our attacks.

Regarding the first point, that's essentially what I inquire about in my own first question. It's phrased a bit oddly towards the end, hence your confusing it with me saying something or other about killing Dhuum.

As to the last point, it's an interesting matter to suggest that Abaddon would be more powerful than a god who controls the domain of death (or appears to, anyway). Who is to say that Dhuum could not alter the very process by which a god or goddess is usurped? Assuming that a god's defeat is still classified as death, and not destruction.

[Konig Des Todes]

I wasn't attempting to answer your questions. Rather, I was merely providing the differences between the two situations, since there's still a good number of uncertainties, in response to your wall of text (I actually skipped the tl;dr portion until after I posted).

As to the defeat: I don't think it necessarily implies killing in any manner. Merely a K.O., so to speak. It could be meaning that Abaddon was able to kill two gods, but I read it merely as "Abaddon is stronger than any two of the other five gods." This may easily mean that not even Abaddon would be able to kill Dhuum, but the former would certainly be able to defeat the later.

Also, it seems to me by what we learned of Dhuum in the two dialogue versions of the Underworld Halloween quests that Dhuum didn't so much control death, but rather governed it - harshly, at that. So harsh that it would seem that he personally hunted down those who went against his rules. In other words, he seems to have no more control over death than Grenth. The question, to me, would be "why are we not allowed to kill him?" - My guess is that Anet wants to do more with him.

[draxynnic]

Alternatively, it might just be intended as a nod to continuity - if Grenth couldn't destroy Dhuum permanently, why should the players be able to?

This may or may not be related to Dhuum's domain. One possibility that just struck me is Dhuum's skeletal appearance and followers: We know from previous experiences that liches are really hard to permanently kill without taking some special means. What if Dhuum's hatred of undeath is really a massive hypocrisy because his natural, "mortal" form after Grenth stripped his divinity away is a lich, and he simply doesn't like competition?

This would certainly explain his unkillability, if it's just a matter of not even Grenth knowing how to finish him off (recall that even killing Khilbron on the bloodstone just sent him through the Door of Komalie to reform in the Realm of Torment... meaning that with the possible exception of Zoldark we have no evidence of any lich being killed permanently, and even he may have simply decided he'd had enough and to lie low for a bit for all we know).

[Gmr Leon]

Konig Des Todes said:

I wasn't attempting to answer your questions. Rather, I was merely providing the differences between the two situations, since there's still a good number of uncertainties, in response to your wall of text (I actually skipped the tl;dr portion until after I posted).

Never suggested you were, actually. I was putting up my own points in response to yours much as I had originally thought you did with mine. :p

On the matter of defeat, you seem to overlook my point to a degree. I wasn't concerned with Abaddon's ability to defeat two of the other gods, only the very general defeat of a god by any other god or any other mortal being. Even if Dhuum merely governs death, whatever that really means, it's suggested he could alter things, prevent resurrection and the raising of the undead, whether that's only by force and not through background tinkering, who knows. Nevertheless, if he could do that, what's to stop him from messing with what happens when you defeat a god, in the sense of our defeat of Abaddon?

I haven't any current propositions as to how he would change it, aside from the obvious immortality or intertwining the soul with the divine essence, but it's a curious idea, if he could do anything with the issue.

[Konig Des Todes]

draxynnic said:

recall that even killing Khilbron on the bloodstone just sent him through the Door of Komalie to reform in the Realm of Torment...

I wouldn't say reform, as that implies that Khilbron is living in the Realm of Torment. Rather, due to the fact we kill Khilbron in the Realm of Torment, it would appear that we face his spirit the second time.

Though with his soul "powering the soul batteries" one would think Khilbron would be stuck in the batteries, not on the other side of the door.

[razor39999]

Konig Des Todes said:

Though with his soul "powering the soul batteries" one would think Khilbron would be stuck in the batteries, not on the other side of the door.

Or "powering the soul batteries" is just another way of saying "you're in the RoT but your soul is also used as a link in the doorway to this other place". Can't see why the soul has to be exactly IN the battery, it could just be an "etheric" (for lack of a better word) connection between that soul in RoT and the battery, that gets severed and pulls the soul back when the battery is destroyed.

[Thalador]

razor39999 said:

Or "powering the soul batteries" is just another way of saying "you're in the RoT but your soul is also used as a link in the doorway to this other place". Can't see why the soul has to be exactly IN the battery, it could just be an "etheric" (for lack of a better word) connection between that soul in RoT and the battery, that gets severed and pulls the soul back when the battery is destroyed.

Interestingly, it could very well be the case - in a little bit of a twisted way. Jacob Salinger says that many of his spirit brethren were changed and maddened by the imprisonment.

Jacob Salinger said:

Yes. Those spirits you fought after destroying the soul batteries were once Chosen, just like you. But time and their imprisonment has changed many of them. But not all of us were transformed into those hideous things. Some of us remained good and pure of heart.

The Realm of Torment is known for its ability to madden spirits. What if this happened to some of the spirits who, because of their proximity to Komalie and thus the RoT, were displaced to the Foundry while the energies of their souls were being sucked away? After all, I can imagine someone become angry and thirsty for vengeance because of a long and unjust imprisonment, but being "transformed into those hideous things" is a little bit much, imo.