49 replies to this topic

[Gremlin]

Snarvid, on 30 November 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

Thanks for all the responses.  Very cool.

Is the assumption that all professions are using magic on some level?  Thieves can do magic-y things (shadowstep, shadow refuge), Engineer's elixirs are alchemical, and even Warriors use signets, and also absorb abuse that is physically impossible for mortal flesh.

Abbadon gave the gift of magic to the races but I don't think it says anywhere he is the source of magic.
Abbadon was one of the six gods and he like Grenth had a predesessor that he overthrew.
I think the magic is naturally occuring and the six gods used it to create the world.

I go right back to the original explanation of mesmers in GW1.

All the other classes used magic in different forms and it was the gods that determined the form, so Necros used death magic and it was under the control of Grenth.
The other classes follow similar patterns.

Mesmers used the raw magic itself and shaped it according to their needs, from that I take the view that there is a pure magic force that the gods use.
I guess this is why Mesmers are so smug we don't need an intermediary deity to be able to use our skills.

[Konig Des Todes]

Snarvid, on 30 November 2012 - 01:56 PM, said:

Thanks for all the responses.  Very cool.

Is the assumption that all professions are using magic on some level?  Thieves can do magic-y things (shadowstep, shadow refuge), Engineer's elixirs are alchemical, and even Warriors use signets, and also absorb abuse that is physically impossible for mortal flesh.

Engineers don't use magic at all (at least not directly), and it's implied that warriors don't use magic (again - directly).

Signets are items embued with magic that even non-magic users can use; they're more or less a cheat system. Engineer elixers have similar effects to mimic or create magic, but the engineers themselves don't use magic.

@Gremlin: Magic does predate the Six Gods, but they didn't really determine their shaping, at least not beyond the four schools of magic (Destruction, Preservation, Aggression, and Denial). The Six's influence on the professions is a human cultural affection - charr necromancers are fully independent of the Six Gods, for instance, and since magic predates the Six Gods, it's likely so to does certain professions (like necromancers, elementalists, and mesmers particularly, since among others they are the most widespread magical professions).

Mesmers in human culture do have a god, by the way. Lyssa.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

Konig, I'm not getting what you're saying. How much dominion does the Six have over their respective portfolios? When a charr necromancer uses magic to raise the dead, is that magic from Grenth (despite Grenth not necessarily being worshipped), permitted by Grenth, or coming from some other source (e.g. Dhuum) that Grenth can't do anything about, even if he wanted to? Or, when a charr monk uses healing prayers, is that source of healing from Dwayna still? Would the Six be aware of these other sources? If so, why are they not actively trying to stop their rivals?

Something that made me think, taking the human vs. Charr battle: did they not have magic (in the sense of no spellcasters trained, no knowledge, whatever), or (if the Six had substantial control of their portfolios) could it be that the Six block them from using those types of magic?

If the latter is possible, then it may be that after the Six's disappearance, so were their restrictions. Plus, while the Six's primary worshippers and favorites are humans, I think there are certain actions that would please them irregardless of race. If the Charr could get past their whole CHARR SMASH PUNY GOD thing and switched over, I think at least Badazar'll be grinning from ear to ear.

[Mockingjay74]

Steadfast Gao Shun, on 30 November 2012 - 08:11 PM, said:

Konig, I'm not getting what you're saying. How much dominion does the Six have over their respective portfolios? When a charr necromancer uses magic to raise the dead, is that magic from Grenth (despite Grenth not necessarily being worshipped), permitted by Grenth, or coming from some other source (e.g. Dhuum) that Grenth can't do anything about, even if he wanted to? Or, when a charr monk uses healing prayers, is that source of healing from Dwayna still? Would the Six be aware of these other sources? If so, why are they not actively trying to stop their rivals?

Something that made me think, taking the human vs. Charr battle: did they not have magic (in the sense of no spellcasters trained, no knowledge, whatever), or (if the Six had substantial control of their portfolios) could it be that the Six block them from using those types of magic?

If the latter is possible, then it may be that after the Six's disappearance, so were their restrictions. Plus, while the Six's primary worshippers and favorites are humans, I think there are certain actions that would please them irregardless of race. If the Charr could get past their whole CHARR SMASH PUNY GOD thing and switched over, I think at least Badazar'll be grinning from ear to ear.

Or an Asura, a Sylvari or a Norn. Sylvari and Asura are especially distanced from the Six, they wouldn't be relying on the magic of a god they don't believe in.

I think this is where the religion aspect cannot explain things, but contrasting it to the real world's religions does. For example, different religions each have claims to different ways the world was created. Here, in the case of Guild Wars 2, we have a fictional version of the same general concept, but with quite a few tweaks. What I'm getting at is that I have a feeling that the Six are not as all-powerful as everyone imagines. There was a thread going on a couple months ago where it was discussed that the Six may just be extremely powerful humans (or other beings) that started a religion based off inferiors of their own race, or another race (if they aren't wholly human).

Plus, the current Six did not create magic, as far as I know. Abbadon passed it around, but I don't think he created it. The fact that beings that do not adhere to worshiping the Six (or specifically Abbadon) are still able to use magic shows that the Six may not be strictly religious beings. I.e. If Abbadon was the only source of magic in all of Tyria (which I have a hard time believing), he did not distribute it on accord of religion, but as a separate individual with their own thoughts.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

Er... how do we interpret this passage from the History of Tyria, then? Pass it off as human propaganda? Because I totally agree with the analysis made (and I think it makes more sense to think of magic as being ambient (already analyzed it previously).

Quote

Despite the serpents’ retreat, the gods never halted their work creating the world, and with the benevolence of indulgent parents, they decided to create magic. It was to be a gift to all the intelligent creatures—meant to ease a life of toil and make survival a less arduous task. When they had finished creating their gift, they presented it to the humans and the Charr, the Tengu and the dwarves, the minotaurs and the imps, and all the races of the land.

[Konig Des Todes]

Steadfast Gao Shun, on 30 November 2012 - 08:11 PM, said:

How much dominion does the Six have over their respective portfolios?

By what we know, it seems to be only indirect control - they manipulate it. But they're not the origin nor do they hold absolute control. One does not require worshiping a god to follow a profession; just as a charr necromancer doesn't rely on Grenth, nor must a human necromancer. Similarly, a monk or guardian isn't necessarily calling from Dwayna, though it's possible to do so.

I'd imagine that if the Six wanted to, they probably could intervene with a school of magic - to a degree. After all, they separated them when they split the Bloodstone. But how much of a degree is fairly unknown. And similarly, we only know that they can enhance one's ability with magic - but so too can the Spirits of the Wild, or even regular spirits; and this in of itself is little different than one spellcaster enchanting another, but on a larger scale.

Point being, one does not need to follow Grenth to be a necromancer, or follow Lyssa to be a mesmer. Human or otherwise.


So to the charr having magic - by the sounds of it, they always had access to it, but they simply didn't use it (in large numbers or with good efficiency?) until the titans came about.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

Something doesn't make sense here.

Assuming the Six are the source of all known magic (wrong, since we know there are other sources), then the bloodstone explains why not a single thing can use all four schools of magic at the same time. In game, and as far as we know, spellcasters are only mentioned trained in one school (I could be wrong, since I don't know anything other than our PCs that can cross class, but that's sort of due to game mechanics rather than lore - for instance, the Margonite elementalists are still elementalists and not, and cross-class enemies are only introduced much later, mostly to make things more challenging for the player).

If we assume that the Six only "manipulate" magic, and there are other sources of power out there, why don't they use those sources of power and pick up additional disciplines? If the bloodstones are regulating these sources of power as well, doesn't that mean that the Six are capable of manipulating all known magic through these constructs?

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 30 November 2012 - 10:37 PM.

[Konig Des Todes]

If you know the Six are not the source of magic, then why would you assume it is for argument sake?

Nothing says the Six Gods are limited by the bloodstones - and in fact, I would argue that they aren't, given the fact the Bloodstones should only affect Tyria. So I do not see where you get the notion that the bloodstones are regulating other sources of magic. Technically, the bloodstone isn't regulating magic - but seeping magic out. Originally we were told the bloodstones were made to regulate magic, but this isn't true. The original bloodstone was made to contain magic - and Abaddon did something to it to let magic start seeping out of it (or maybe it always was, but Abaddon made it more accessible and widespread). The splitting of the bloodstone created the four schools, and as said the four schools would therefore only exist in Tyria (so while not possible in mechanics, in lore going to the Mists would, theoretically, mean being able to use any kind of magic).

Though its possible that the whole four-schools-made-when-bloodstone-was-split thing is also false. But there's nothing to currently indicate such.

(Also, whoever said the Six Gods don't or can't pick up other disciplines?)

[SpelignErrir]

The question is, why would you want to use magic when hitting things with a greatsword does so much more damage in such a smaller window of time than singing their eyebrows?

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

Because that is the only way I feel that can adequately explain the lack of cross-school spellcasting in modern day. If we rigorously define magic as what is presented in the game's framework - necromancy, mesmerism, elemental forces and however you want to classify healing/protective prayers are (which can be interpretatively connected to the four schools of magic in official lore), then I think it would be correct to state that the Six created magic, with creation here defined as defining the concern ways for those spells, of those specific schools to be cast. Given the source of the History of Tyria being human, and it is entirely probable that Durmand did not know or did not consider the other types of magic in the time of that piece's composition, I think it's a satisfactory reconciliation of known lore so far.

Thus, Abaddon gifted magic. Then the bloodstones were made. Ergo, the bloodstones were used to contain whatever that proto-magic is in the form of the schools. Yadda. We've already reached agreement on this point.

I don't think magic is ever really described in the same sense in Cantha or Elona, as most magic-related lore tends to be pertaining to the class, rather than the school of magical thought. However, we again run into the trouble of gameplay vs. lore, as we know that the introduction of multi-class enemies for both WiK and WoC was to give players greater challenge. I would argue that the Six, in this case, controls all spellcasting of those specific professions, and that the bloodstone's reach is global rather than local for the sake of consistency given the definition above.

....Or. Anet's lore team didn't have much of an idea when they were writing at first, and the lore got really bloated and confusing, leaving fans like us to endlessly conjecture over minute details.

Edited by Steadfast Gao Shun, 30 November 2012 - 11:56 PM.

[draxynnic]

My personal gut feeling is that by harnessing other sources of magic, you can technically cheat the system and employ powers from other schools of magic. In fact, they might well be something that engineers do (in alchemical form) and where professions like rangers and assassins/thieves that have less raw power but seem to have a wider spread of abilities might get their power from.

However, the reason why the primary spellcasters generally don't is that the power available from the bloodstones swamps anything else you can get from a Tyrian source apart from the dragons. Relying on non-bloodstone sources will, in principle, allow you to wield powers from a range of schools, but if you want to wield true magical power you need to attune to a bloodstone and accept the restrictions imposed by doing so.

Another consideration is that the non-Bloodstone sources in the world also don't emit magic across the entire spectrum, and may in fact be more restrictive than a bloodstone depending on which sources are available to you. For instance, while I've speculated that the Flame Legion is exclusively fire in GW2 because they're only interested in fire, it could also be that they're limited to fire because all of they get all their power from volcanoes and other fire magic related places.

[Konig Des Todes]

@Steadfast: Issue is that we don't know if necromancers, mesmers, elementalists, or monks existed only after 1 BE. I would argue this was not so, though the only argument I have is the scriptures of the gods and Thruln the Lost's dialogue. Not sound by far.

Also, the Bloodstone was made about 10,000 years before Abaddon "gifted" magic - the gods didn't make them, as revealed in the Arah explorable dungeon. Rather, they altered it - it was originally meant to contain magic - all magic not corrupted by the Elder Dragons. We know magic existed before 1 BE - and we know that humans had access to a form of magic (ritualists) prior to 1 BE but after the creation of the Bloodstone (~10,000 BE). Ergo, the gods did not make magic; they may have made the four schools, but not all magic is limited to such - then again, the schools of magic outside the bloodstones' division may be purely conceptual in nature.

And why do you say Durmand in regards to the History of Tyria? The History of Tyria was written by Thaddeus La'Mount.


Point being: Magic existed before the Six Gods were on Tyria.
Professions exist outside the Mists, and may have existed prior to the Bloodstone's creation.
Creatures that the Six Gods are against or are against the Six Gods (e.g., demons) use said professions despite rivaling the patron god(dess).
Ergo, the Six Gods do not control, in absolute, the professions - nor made them.
Ergo, they do not control, in absolute, the schools of magic.


@Drax: My thoughts are more or less the same about cheating the system; I would argue that's how Ritualists have a variety of spell abilities too which would place them in using Aggression, Preservation, and Destruction magic, but on a weaker scale than to Necromancers, Monks, and Elementalists respectively - for them, spirits are the alternate source.

[Steadfast Gao Shun]

Not all of us are capable of never mixing up names and always being right about everything lore-related.. Sorry. Lamont is indeed the author.

On the nature of the bloodstones: is that the seer path? I don't recall seeing it off the top of my head. If that's the case, though, that's definitely a better reconciliation with what is already known. Though now we have two contradictory sources that are available  so I guess we're defaulting to assume that Arah's information is more reliable?

[draxynnic]

Konig Des Todes, on 01 December 2012 - 05:31 AM, said:

@Drax: My thoughts are more or less the same about cheating the system; I would argue that's how Ritualists have a variety of spell abilities too which would place them in using Aggression, Preservation, and Destruction magic, but on a weaker scale than to Necromancers, Monks, and Elementalists respectively - for them, spirits are the alternate source.

Exactly. (There's even a little denial mixed in, albeit through offensive spirits that could be viewed as "I summon the spirit of a mesmer!)

When it comes to the professions existing pre-1BE... I suspect they did, kinda, but in a different form. You may have had some people who covered the full spectrum of magic, but you're always going to have some that choose to specialise in a particular area that catches their interest. Some of those are going to be recognisably similar to modern professions - they have the freedom to dabble in magic from the full spectrum, but have focused in largely the same area as a modern mesmer or necromancer or whatever. However, you're also going to have others that definitely do not fall within the four schools as they currently stand - because they've spread between them, or their area of focus was more where the boundaries of the four schools would be placed. It does look as if the gods tried to line things up with the most common likely areas of specialisation for humans, though - most followers of Lyssa would have specialised in Denial, most followers of Grenth would have focused in Aggression, and most followers of Dwayna in Preservation, with Destruction being what was left over.

Theoretically speaking, this would indicate that somebody outside of Tyria would be able to act without the limitations of the bloodstones (unless the gods decided it was a good idea in general and split magic in some or all areas of the Mists as well). However, that we don't become super-mages in the Mists can probably be explained as the characters using what they know - a mesmer, for instance, might theoretically be able to use elemental magic or necromancy while in the Mists, but it won't help much if they don't know the spells.

(This would make for an interesting variant if the game mechanics can handle it - a region in the Mists where you can use utility skills from other professions. Be hard to balance, though, since the professions are balanced around different strengths of utility skills.)

[Tanith]

Here's something I'm wondering about...

If the Elder Dragons are consuming magic---at least according to my mesmer's Durmand Priory storyline---at what rate are they doing so?  Leaving aside the fact that the dragons and their minions are corrupting and destroying large chunks of Tyria, my mesmer might soon have to find another job if the force she relies upon to ply her trade is being "eaten" by an ornery lizard with a god complex.  That lends a certain urgency to the fight, I'd say.

[Dasryn]

Tanith, on 03 December 2012 - 02:38 PM, said:

Here's something I'm wondering about...

If the Elder Dragons are consuming magic---at least according to my mesmer's Durmand Priory storyline---at what rate are they doing so?  Leaving aside the fact that the dragons and their minions are corrupting and destroying large chunks of Tyria, my mesmer might soon have to find another job if the force she relies upon to ply her trade is being "eaten" by an ornery lizard with a god complex.  That lends a certain urgency to the fight, I'd say.

its a threat for sure but how urgent is questionable.  i like to think of it as how a whale feeds.  whales are, as you know, immense creatures and they feed on enormous amounts of their diet, yet there are thousands of whales still around (well maybe hundreds at this point....) and they are all feeding and there is generally enough food to still go around for them.

then there is the question, is magic finite?

if so, then the whale analogy is kinda out but if magic is infinite, then anyone can use it as much as desired, even if its used for consumption purposes.

well then there is the question, are the elder dragons going after the sources of magic?  if so then that poses a larger threat of course. but i dont think you'll be out of a job any time soon

i think the concern is that magic consumption is making the dragons stronger and thus, harder to defeat.

i really think the magic in tyria is infinite.

Edited by Rickter, 07 December 2012 - 06:19 AM.

[draxynnic]

I think magic in Tyria is definitely finite. The seers, for instance, collected (most of) the magic the dragons hadn't already consumed into the Bloodstones - such an act would have been pointless if magic was actually infinite.

What's more in question is whether it's a case of there being a hard limit on the amount of magic in the world that may be dwindling as magic is used and consumed by various processes, or whether it's a renewable resource that will recover over time. Given that the dragons have developed a hibernation cycle, I'm inclined to think it's the latter - the dragons wake up, consume all the available magic, and once there is nothing left they return to sleep until the level of magic recovers. This could well mean that it was the fault of the gods, and Abaddon in particular, that the dragons woke up - if their hibernation is broken by detecting sufficient levels of magic rather than being a set timeframe, the flood of amgic released circa 1BE might have been what triggered the dragons to awaken (even if it then took over a thousand years for them to actually reach wakefulness).

[Dasryn]

it could be a good reason as to why the human gods left tyria to do whatever it is they are doing.  

think about it, the dragons woke and so far, according to npcs in the game, havent made their major play yet.  what if the human gods were still present?  it may incite the dragons into all out war upon awakening in which there would be nothing left of Tyria.

and wasnt it the gods that put the magic into separate bloodstones?  

and if a majority of magic is contained in bloodstones, how are people able to use it?  why arent the consumption of the bloodstones the elder dragon's top priority?

[Konig Des Todes]

Abaddon seems to have made it so that magic was released from the original Bloodstone - them being limiters is apparently false, but that they were containers and are now seeping out magic ever since 1 BE (which makes a hell of a lot more sense tbh). The other five then split it to create the four separate schools of magic, making magic usage weaker.

The Elder Dragons are seeming to go after all magical sources, and take note: Zhaitan's undead fleet have control over the Ring of Fire islands which contains a bloodstone; and the Maguuma Wastes formed from the northern Maguuma Jungle, where another bloodstone lies (and it is believed by in-game scholars that an Elder Dragon caused the Maguuma Wastes - which in turn leads players to believe Primordus or the sixth Elder Dragon (supposedly called Mordremoth) is behind it). So they may be going after the bloodstones - though with 2 locations unknown, and Jormag and Kralkatorrik (and possibly the DSD) being far away from the bloodstones, it's not surprising the ED aren't proactively going after the bloodstones.

And besides, if the original Bloodstone was intended to keep magic from the Elder Dragons, the seers probably had something done to it to make it undetectable by the Elder Dragons (at least at long distance) otherwise it'd just be like making an all you can eat buffet for them.

[draxynnic]

This sounds like a spot where we're thanking our lucky stars the elder dragons aren't allied.

Since Zhaitan knows everything his minions knew, it would practically require a miracle for him not to know the locations of the bloodstones we know (and possibly those we don't). However, the two that we know to be closest to him, he probably wasn't able to reach - the Ring of Fire bloodstone was probably made inaccessible to anything that isn't immune to lava after the volcano erupted at the end of Prophecies, and the Risen didn't seem to have penetrated deeply enough into Sparkfly Fen to find the tunnel to the Shiverpeaks bloodstone, if it's still intact. (This would explain, though, why Sparkfly rated the appearance of a dragon champion.)

For Primordus, though, getting to them would probably be simplicity itself... but since Primordus doesn't corrupt living beings (in most cases, anyway) it generally doesn't have the information gathering capabilities of Zhaitan, Jormag or Kralkatorrik. Thus, while its destroyers could probably reach both bloodstones easily, it doesn't know where to look.