923 replies to this topic

[draxynnic]

It's a side discussion, but my gut feeling was that the Jade Cloaks were essentially a response to changed circumstances after Prophecies. It could be that however the jades are produced, during Prophecies the mursaat assumed that they'd be providing spellcaster support, so warrior and archer Jades were prioritised. Or it might be that the Cloaks require some resource that they didn't have (or weren't willing to use) until after Prophecies - perhaps the surviving mursaat managed to harness the souls of dead mursaat to infuse into the Cloaks, or maybe there were White Mantle spellcasters fanatical enough to willingly become infused into a Jade to better serve their religion (similar to Kurzicks that become Juggernaughts) and a volunteer's soul provides more power than a conscript.

Another possibility comes from noting that the sacrifices continued until the War in Kryta, but the souls from those sacrifices were, presumably, no longer going to powering the Door of Komalie - thus, the surviving mursaat were free to put that energy into powering more (and more powerful) Jades.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

That analysis makes sense. Thank you.

On another note: raiding the "Durman Priory" have revealed a few interesting tidbits. In particular, one of the posters cite that the human gods (that is, the Six, including Abaddon. There appears to be an argument suggesting at least three were involved while the others state all Six) helped humanity to drive out the Charr.

In addition, there are multiple references to some sort of proto-kingdom that seemed to even predate Orr. That is to say, Doric was the ruler of all of humanity at one point, where he went up north and founded Ascalon. The Guild Wars manuscripts do mention that during his time there was a kingdom that stretched out from Lion's Arch all the way up north to Ascalon. Doric had to trek all the way back to Orr to seek an audience, so presumably he couldn't have been living in Orr at the time.

I guess I'm having trouble parsing the information, and it sheds some doubts on how accurate the Orrian scrolls are in GW2, considering their Orr-centric view. When did Orr become an independent nation? Or are we essentially retconning all of that with Doric?

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 28 November 2012 - 04:11 AM.

[draxynnic]

That information is actually general knowledge. Humans pushing the charr out of Ascalon with the help of the gods is cited in the Ecology of the Charr (along with the charr having been fighting with the Forgotten along the Blazeridge Mountains previously, which gives a possible motive for the attack).

The human Tyrian empire under Doric seems to be accurate - Orr is only mentioned as having gained its independance in the timeline after the Exodus (and, thus, after Doric's death). What's really new here are the tidbits we're getting that Kryta was settled under Doric, since other information we have indicates that it was an Elonian colony from 300AE-ish. Possible resolutions are that Kryta was ceded to the Primeval Kings for one reason or another, or that sometime between then and when Doric settled Kryta humans were forced out again.

In fact, given that Ascalon and Orr came out of the chaos that developed from the granting of magic fairly intact, it's possible that the trigger for Doric requesting limitations on magic was humans being routed from Kryta by newly-magically-empowered foes.

[Konig Des Todes]

Actually, Kryta being settled under Doric isn't new - Lion's Arch has been said to have been King Doric's summer estate since Prophecies, after all. It's just that we're getting implications that Kryta was a larger settlement than originally implied (which originally was just Lion's Arch).

I'm betting that Kryta was conquered or given over for one reason or another, such as a international marriage arrangement, to Elona. Though the idea that humans were forced out of Kryta is also possible (though given what we're told of Doric, I doubt he'd be so self-centered to seek magic reduced just because his summer estate was lost ).

[draxynnic]

Just because his summer estate was lost, sure, but if the citizens of what would later become Kryta had just been messacred in a magical battle...

We're told that the magical wars caused massive devastation, but there's no evidence of that happening in Ascalon, and if it happened in Orr than surely the gods would have stepped in. Nor is there evidence of such in Elona (the war with Abaddon had creater consequences), or in Cantha. Meanwhile, we have Kryta, which was colonised in Doric's time and then, apparently, recolonised three centuries later and not by either of the successor nations to Doric's empire as one would expect, but by a distant power that proved unable to maintain control for more than a couple of generations. Even fear of the Scarab Plague didn't leave Istan uninhabited for a single century, let alone three.

If it turned out that Kryta was lost to humanity through some massive magic-backed offensive that left such an impact on the refugees that it was viewed as bad luck to go there for centuries, however, this would tie all the pieces together. It would give Doric a reason to plead for magic to be lessened. It would give a reason for Kryta to have been abandoned for centuries, and then finally recolonised centuries afterwards. It would explain why it was not Orr or even Ascalon that did the recolonisation, but people from distant Elona... who didn't have the stories of what happened in Kryta baked into their culture. And it would explain the ruins we see in Kryta in GW1 - constructed during the initial settlement and then trashed, or perhaps by the Elonians who heard enough of the tales to at least be cautious enough to build defenses such as the watchtowers on the northern coast (which I was disappointed to note seem to have disappeared in GW2, although they could be just off the northern edge of the Queensdale map) before finding that the threat was no longer there and abandoning those towers to neglect.

Elona then losing control could then have been related to the more local nations realising that Kryta was safe after all and that they didn't want to leave it to the foreigners - whether as a deliberate foreign policy decision by monarchs of Ascalon or (more likely) Orr to seperate Kryta from Elona, or because an influx of migrants from Ascalon and Orr after Kryta was proven safe simply swamped the original colonists and made it untenable for Elona to maintain control.

(Thinking on it, in fact, one could even imagine Kryta having been hit by something akin to the Searing in destruction - Ascalon is at least inhabitable now, although still ecologically diminished from presearing, so Kryta may have been hit by something that simply left it uninhabitable... and possibly arid enough even by 300AE to explain why it was more attractive to the Elonians than Ascalonians or Orrians.)

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

I was questioning the integrity of the History of Tyria, as that "magical" assault lasted a single year before Doric went to Arah and whined for the bloodstones to be made, but drax, your analysis made a lot of sense.

... It really begs the question of what could be bad enough to beat up humanity in such a large way to put them on the edge of extinction. The Charr had magic, but it wasn't until ~800 years later where they dug up Abaddon's old cooking gear and decided to have a go at Ascalon again. And the Charr are what, probably one of the best races to be conquering things?

Whatever this strange opponent might have been, the forging of the bloodstones would be devastating to the point where humans would be able to regain much of their former territory to found King's Watch a year later. So, somehow limiting their powers to one school of magic at a time was sufficient for humanity to regain its footing?

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 29 November 2012 - 01:08 AM.

[draxynnic]

In the case of Ascalon, I'm inclined to think humans still had the upper hand - up until the charr dug up Abaddon's cookery, as you put it, it was magic that kept humans having the upper hand. It's possible that the intensity of the fighting was increased during that period, with the charr deciding to have another go with their newfound magic, and an increase in the amount of collateral damage due to more powerful magic being used on both sides, but I don't think the charr had any victories from that time, temporary or otherwise (after all, the more experienced human magic-users would have been throwing the same magic right back).

In fact, from the Ecology of the Charr, I'd guess that the charr didn't have magic beyond the most primitive level until after the titans made contact. However, my point is that it doesn't really seem as if it was Ascalon that was being beat up (although there are plenty of other things in Ascalon that might have been causing problems - for instance, even with the front lines remained static, if grawl and skale behind the front lines suddenly had much more power to play with, that could easily have caused problems) - however, the possible abandonment of Kryta very well could be an indication of where humans were being beat up, and whoever did that may have been threatening to keep going.

Another possibility, of course, is that it might not have been wars between races/nations that caused the problem, but the power it potentially puts into a single individual's hand. If some superpowered sorceror with access to all branches of magic decided they were going to make a bid for political power or to engage in a duel with a rival... win or lose, there's probably going to be a lot of damage when it ends. It's telling that the intent of breaking apart the Bloodstones was less to remove magic but to ensure that people had to cooperate to be able to do everything. That's a scenario that might have stabilised given enough time, but in that first year while you have ambitious people who are convinced their newfound power makes them the most powerful in the land (even if their neighbours have been similarly pumped up) and that that gives them the right to rule, I could see it being quite anarchic.

[Konig Des Todes]

Given how far north Ascalon actually reached before the Charr Invasion (as seen in Gwen's Story, they reached up to where the Searing had its northernmost effects, at least), I would definitely say that Ascalon had the constant upper hand in the wars, even during the Guild Wars occurring. Also, we're told in GW2 that the Flame Legion shamans didn't have much control over the cauldrons during the Searing, implying that they were relatively new to magic. So I'd imagine that while they likely had access to magic for a long time, it wasn't a common practice until the titans, and even then they weren't used to powerful spells until sometime after the Searing..

[draxynnic]

That's pretty much my thinking.

I'd also say that even now the Flame Legion has an issue with subtlety. From what I've seen, their magical traditions now are basically consisting exclusively of fire elementalists of different flavours, and their magical strategy generally seems to be one of collecting a bucketload of magic and then attempting to bruteforce their opposition. It makes me wonder if the spellcasters of other legions are actually more technically competent than the Flame shamans (possibly through having access to the research of other races, or of having conducted their own research on scientific rather than religious principles) while the only advantage Flame has is in identifying and harnessing sources of magical power.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

In terms of magical diversity - you have to consider it from the primal Charr's perspective. They're mostly concerned with ways to make things go splat, being that is the primary reason why these pesky little humans are winning (sometimes) in the first place. Ergo, Flame Legion mage is best mage because fire makes the largest boom.

Another consideration could be that the legions didn't have other spellcasters at the time, and magic was exclusively the domain of Flame Legion. If you look at the socialcultural shift of the Charr from their religious state to their currently (dogmatic) atheism, it mirrors somewhat the enlightenment in real life. In other words, I would interpret magic diversity to be a recent thing, after they've broken down the shackles of the flame legion. Charr innovation will likely lead to more powerful war spells, but their creativity is fundamentally stemmed in a reactionary sort of "practicality", which means that the Asura will always be more innovative in that regard.

In real life, we can use the mirroring comparison of basic research versus translational research in medicine. Whereas the Asura are interested in discovering principles (and to make their egos bigger), the Charr are very more translational minded, and would be more innovative in using principles in which is already known.

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 29 November 2012 - 07:53 PM.

[Konig Des Todes]

There were magic users in Blood Legion (at the very least) during GW1. Thing to note about charr society is that in the past (read:before Flame Legion were overthrown) there were effectively two main groups of spellcasters - Flame Legion and the Shaman caste. The latter was a cross-legion group, though in GW2 they are only part of the Flame Legion.

[draxynnic]

I'm pretty sure now that the necromancers were predominantly Ash. In GW1, the generic charr necromancers had Ash in their title, and in GW2 one of the varieties of generic Ash Legion NPC (the Ash Legion Spy, I think) are necromancers.

Comparing to GW1, though, even taking into account that many shamans would have come from other legions, the Flame Legion seems to have dropped in overall proficiency and moved to fire and nothing but fire. I'd propose that the Titans were careful to ensure that the shamans had a reasonable range of magic - once that influence was gone, however, the Flame's obsession with everything fire and practice of promoting fire elementalists over other spellcasters could have lead to future Flame Legion spellcasters having little incentive to learn anything but fire magic. Over time, this leads to the Flame collectively losing proficiency with everything that isn't fire.

Which might partially explain why they're willing to take the risk of recruiting defectors - because those defectors have already chosen a branch of magic that the Flame needs, but no native-born Flame is willing to learn when they could jump on the fast track to promotion that is fire elementalism.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

(D'oh. I think I've camped the GW2 dragons too much I had forgotten how to fight Charr in GW1. Completely forgot that they have Mesmers, too. Scrap my above idea about pre-Gold Legion magical diversity.)

... I wonder if there's a native component to it, too. If there'd be some sort of genetic component that makes certain races more suitable for certain types of magic. For instance, the large amount of shoryukening Flame Legion shamans can be explained by:

• Powerful hind legs with high muscular concentration, which makes the charr ideal for springing violently from the ground.
  
• Charr have a lower center of gravity, therefore being inanely more resistant to the drawbacks of spinning while punching into the air.
  
• Larger paws (claws) are more conductive to the motion of punching due to greater surface area covered.
  
• Higher local levels of adrenaline as enabled by feline physiology allows for more rapid, sudden movements, enabling more unpredictable (and therefore more devastating) forms of punching.
  
• Greater bodymass of the charr naturally allows for stronger impact, making their punch more painful.
  
• Orange is a fabulous color on lion-kitty-leopard people.

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 29 November 2012 - 11:02 PM.

[Orual Fox]

Didn't think this question and/or thought was big enough to make a thread, so I'll post here.

In Godslost swamp, the NPC Historian Garrod (heart vendor) says that the swamp (former ToA, that I know) was the place that the "last prayer to the Six Gods was answered."

Now, do you suppose this is just a generalization of "this was a temple, and this is where prayers were made" or do you think he was referencing a CERTAIN prayer/request?  Also, I guess Kormir was added here later, after NF but before the awakening?

[Konig Des Todes]

Kormir has a statue in Godslost Swamp so yes she was added after Nightfall (possibly shortly after, but we don't see it given how Prophecies areas more or less go back in time and do not reflect the current campaign - hence why there are White Mantle flags in Lion's Arch.


As to the last prayer bit - I'm sure it's more specific than "its a temple and prayers were made here" but I can't see it being absolutely certain that it's the place of the last answered prayer.

[NuclearDonut]

I'm also interested in what that "last prayer" was, if that really was the last prayer answered.

[timidshadow]

When in doubt the Order of Whispers has the answer or so it seems.

[Orual Fox]

Another one shot question:

I recently got the "Naga Fang" exotic greatsword.

It seems to have writing on both sides of the blade.  One side it looks like the word EIGHT in New Krytan, but in mirror image form, as in all the letters are reversed.

On the other side is a series of 3-4 markings, 2 of them the same, but not much clue. Any ideas on translation?  I've never had luck posting pics here, so I will send a flickr link.



http://www.flickr.co...tream/lightbox/

http://www.flickr.co...tream/lightbox/

Edited by Orual Fox, 19 January 2013 - 12:41 AM.

[Mockingjay74]

Orual Fox, on 19 January 2013 - 12:40 AM, said:

Another one shot question:

I recently got the "Naga Fang" exotic greatsword.

It seems to have writing on both sides of the blade.  One side it looks like the word EIGHT in New Krytan, but in mirror image form, as in all the letters are reversed.

On the other side is a series of 3-4 markings, 2 of them the same, but not much clue. Any ideas on translation?  I've never had luck posting pics here, so I will send a flickr link.



http://www.flickr.co...tream/lightbox/

http://www.flickr.co...tream/lightbox/

Actually, I think the word you think is "ghost" is actually the word "fight." I know the last four letters are "ight," and the first letter is a bit weird but very close to F. As you can see on the wiki, "F" has that sort of backwards C shape with a line above it. The letter "I" has the two 3/4 circles coming together in the circle. "G" is the loop with an arrow on the end - the arrow looks just a bit fuzzier in the screenshot. "H" is very obvious, and T is fairly obvious as well. Although, I think the letters are also backward in organization, not direction.

I'm not sure what the other runes are, though. They reminded me of the Canthan rune for "mesmer," but it isn't actually really close. It's also not swoopy enough to be Elonian or Asuran.

[Orual Fox]

Ghost?  I never said Ghost.  I thought it was Eight.  But that lines up with your "ight" translation.  

I thought 2 of the letters on the reverse side might have been the letter "O".

[Konig Des Todes]

It's Fight indeed, not eight. On the other side, if it's New Krytan then then it's _oo - I can't see anything which matches the rune that's first though, but L, V, and W seem closest,. but not by much. TBH, that first letter looks like Old Canthan, but nothing we know from GW1 matches it - or the other two, unless we were to remove the boxing edges for 2 (thus making it _22).

[Mockingjay74]

Orual Fox, on 19 January 2013 - 03:16 AM, said:

Ghost?  I never said Ghost.  I thought it was Eight.  But that lines up with your "ight" translation.  

I thought 2 of the letters on the reverse side might have been the letter "O".

Oopsies, not really sure why I typed ghost. Can I say my keyboard's haunted?

ANet wouldn't put a sword ingame that says "fight" on one side and "woo" on the other... would they? (genuine and concerned question).

Edited by Mockingjay74, 21 January 2013 - 07:43 AM.

[Orual Fox]

Who knows.  Even though Konig says there isn't any in Old Cantha that matches, I would like to say it may be closer to that point, as I only remember Nagas in Factions anyways.  (Could be wrong).  

That would probably be one thing I would love for the devs to develop, is that they have so many "special" weapons, I wish some had some lore behind it.  Especially the legendaries.  Ah well.

[Konig Des Todes]

Twilight and Sunrise are the swords of the Risen High Wizard (who defends the Gates of Arah).

The Flameseeker Prophecies contains excerpts of the Flameseeker Prophecies (go figure!).

Rodgort has skills in GW1 named after it, so it must be important (or just an easter egg for old players).

Kraitkin is probably a well known krait weapon.

Frostfang seems to be related to Jormag in some way (the precursor uses the icebrood axe skin, just as the Sanguinary Blade uses the icebrood greatsword skin).

Kamohoali'i Kotaki is named after the fabled artist of legend: Kekai Kotaki

The Minstrel... was done in by a mesmer.

[draxynnic]

I think the Risen High Wizard has Eternity, actually. I've seen it flip from Dawn mode to Twilight mode mid-combat.

Edited by draxynnic, 23 January 2013 - 12:10 AM.

[Orual Fox]

Oh really?  I didn't know that about all the weapons.  Sure the Flameseeker prophecies and Rodgort I had a few ideas on, but not the others.  Thanks for that.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

Is Champion Badazar's Champion (zone event, Charr starter area) Champion Badazar's champion or is he a champion of Badazar?

On a more serious note: I'm not sure if Balthazar did it on a regular basis, but he seemed to send Eternals into the mortal realms to challenge worthy individuals or to accomplish certain deeds. Why do you guys think he hasn't done anything? Or is the Hound of Balthazar basically our "modern" equivalent of Badazar going "hey, I still care!"

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 23 January 2013 - 02:54 AM.

[draxynnic]

It's questionable whether Balthazar is actually taking a direct role in summoning Hounds of Balthazar - it might be a part of humans having "the divinity within you".

It certainly does seem, though, that despite leaving the gods have left a lot of their power lying around. Some of this is invested into humans directly (although this may be 'all of humanity' or human PCs might be Chosen), but some of it appears to be in shrines, idols, and the like. So it's possible that the Champion of Badazar is the result the grawl managing to tap into the power of the statue.

[Konig Des Todes]

draxynnic, on 23 January 2013 - 12:10 AM, said:

I think the Risen High Wizard has Eternity, actually. I've seen it flip from Dawn mode to Twilight mode mid-combat.

It looked like he switched between them - because the time of day did not change, and his attack patterns did. He also went invulnerable for a time while they changed.

Edited by draxynnic, 25 January 2013 - 01:29 AM.
Cleanup

[Saul Spotter]

Wait so, Malchor was Grenth's father?


Edit:

Also, can I make a new thread, asking people what bits of lore they've found about various heroes, gods, and NPC's from Guild Wars?

Edited by Saul Spotter, 05 February 2013 - 08:37 AM.