#Exalted gw2

[shiverpeakstraveler]

Artificer Galene

Head Engineer and Caretaker of Tarir's defenses

She/They pronouns for Galene

[viewsoftyria]

Views of Tyria - Auric Basin - Exalted structures

[enkinaru]

GW2 Artober: 2 - Strange Company

Yorath, pestering a random Exalted somewhere at the Auric Basin. He may be fascinated by them a bit *too much* and probably embarasses himself on occasion just by acting like a skritt whenever the Exalted are around.

[konig-varorson]

been a while since I made a tumblr post, huh

Progress on recreating my GW1 characters in GW2. Seven down, four to go... And I've run out of character slots and have become unable to delete these characters after getting ample screenshots...

First the four I had done before:

My Assassin (Thief in GW2), Azazel the Accursed:

My mesmer, Anahita the Exalted:

My original necromancer, created, deleted, created under new name again, Aralia Amad:

My main Necromancer, and now namesake, Konig Des Todes:

My elementalist, Nergal Haroth:

My paragon, and constantly deleted and recreated og survivor attemptor before they changed how the title worked, Cypher of the Light:

And my perma-pre warrior, Alila Hastur:

I still have my ranger, monk, ritualist, and dervish to recreate...

[entering--hyperspace]

Theres smthn about Leo who was a grunt for 30 years of his life bc he developed beliefs and ideologies that do not work in the current age of charr culture, who was called weak and too soft for them, suddenly being able to finally rise to a prominent position despite of and because of these things. And being chosen for something greater after living a life where he was just a number and the ghosts that roamed the land were a reminder of the carelessness of soldiers in a war and of what he considered to be an inevitable fate for himelf. Some tiny dragon reaches out across space and goes "this one."

[mystery-salad]

[system-architect]

i understand stuff like 3d model and performance and design constraints but can you imagine how sheerly baller this game would look if everything looked like the carlyn lim concept art for it

those are, in order: forged, the exalted, branded, and mordremoth

btw-- for those unaware, carlyn lim's concept art has had EXTENSIVE influence on the game's aesthetic. there's numerous artists that work together to create the final designs of course, but lim solidified or came up with the initial concepts for a lot of things that end up being some of the best looking things ingame. for example, lim is responsible for a lot of the art direction of the pof mounts, forged, branded, mordrem, they did a lot of concepts for vinetooth faolain (which i suggest looking up because they're so much cooler than what we got), the pof version of joko and his awakened including the initial concept for awakened abominations, balthazar's wartank, the exalted, and then a NUMBER of armor sets including the carapace armor, ceremonial plated outfit, the warbeast armor, the crystal savant outfit, and the sunspear/spearmarshal armor. they also elaborated on some of matthew barret's building concepts for gw1's utopia, which anet then seemingly had carlyn lim elaborate upon for gw2 to create the aesthetic the asura have now!

they seem to have not done any concepts for gw2 since 2019 (at least none that aren't under heavy NDA right now maybe). i really hope anet considers hiring them again for future projects because wow

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

@nyoka-gorefell

I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about Logan! Yeehaw!

I mained human so I kinda liked Logan. I've always been biased toward him. I didn't necessarily think he'd made the right decision, but I supported his right to make it. Like he said in the Dream-vision of him: you would have made the same choice, any of you, if the one you loved was in danger!

Basically, it was a bad spot all around. Lose-lose situation. He made the most of it. That was my view.

I'm planning a rewrite of Edge of Destiny (someday lol) to make it better + clearer what was going on with Logan + etc.

And I found something: the narrative in the book does not condemn or exalt either decision. Either decision would have been bad, no way around it.

One problem: that's not how books work.

The way the climactic decision-point works is that you make a personal sacrifice for the good, moral quality being extolled by the narrative. If the thing you sacrificed was, itself, considered good by the narrative, there would come a surprise twist that would mean the thing wasn't actually sacrificed, as a "reward" for making the selfless decision to uphold good and moral purity or whatever.

The problem with Logan's story is that neither option was presented as the 'moral, good' option. As Logan was leaving, Eir said "you have to do what is right," but beyond this, no indication is given to Logan which option is morally superior. You can? sorta? infer that of course the main conflict with the dragon is the preferred one. Rytlock and Eir's dialogue after Logan leaves also clarifies this.

But Logan himself was never presented with a clear moral dichotomy; he was merely given the trolley problem, which is bad however you slice it.

I bet Logan would have haters even if he'd stayed; Kryta would have fallen into disarray. The Ministry would have taken power. We'd have Caudecus in charge. Human/charr relations would heat up. We'd have the return of the White Mantle like snap, or else all-out anarchy. Humanity would be toast. Logan would get all the blame from the playerbase.

So in my rewrite of Edge of Destiny, I'm fixing the problem. I'm going to assign a clear moral status to each option, and make it clear where Logan stood on that moral issue when deciding. How did I pick which option was favored?

Easy. I look at the rest of ArenaNet's storytelling. Their centuries of lore and worldbuilding. The lessons of the other story arcs. Anet's message is consistently unity. Stand together. Stand strong. The races stand unified. The Orders stand unified. With unity, many impossible things [slaying an Elder Dragon] may be achieved.

So the preferred option, the morally good option according to the storytellers, was that Logan stay. Stand with his allies. Represent human/charr unity. Defeat an Elder Dragon.

And, somehow, Queen Jennah would survive, because love and protecting people is not morally bad. If Logan sacrificed the queen for the sake of the moral truth of the narrative, proving his selflessness and commitment to the ideal of the narrative, then the queen would survive to "reward" him for his virtuousness.

It doesn't seem in-character for Anet to write Jennah as a typical damsel-in-distress, hero-gets-the-girl type of story, BUT: he didn't. Logan DIDN'T choose the morally-good option.

Typical Corruption arc: hero begins with the ideal of the story (unity is good), then over time, some negative trait overtakes him. Greed, selfishness, over-protectiveness, whatever - and leads him to destroy everything he holds dear (Destiny's Edge; his broship with Rytlock; Snaff dying; Glint, hero of humanity, dying; Kralkatorrik surviving).

I think if the book had actually written Logan like this (with the base game of GW2 being his redemption arc), he would have a lot less hate. I think a lot of the hate comes from the fact that the Edge of Destiny narrative DIDN'T outright condemn Logan's actions. And even the base game is a bit vague.

Logan didn't get his comeuppance for his bad choices (beyond the queen ditching him a few years down the line, I suppose). That's where the hate comes from.

Because nuanced, flawed characters exist, and those are the best kind. I really like Logan's character. He's one of the most human characters in the game. I like that for him.

(Also, perhaps, some of the hate stems from the assumption that Logan was simping the whole time. I'd be fed up with him too, actually, if that were true. But the queen for sure returned his feelings. Logan was acting within the bounds of an established relationship.)

This has been

Character Study: Logan Thackeray (part II)

thank you for reading!

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Wait- I'm super intrigued by your bio. "Story theory." What is this referencing? Is there a particular story theory??

ahh, my bio!

"Main fandoms: GW2, Middle-Earth, and reality. Fiction enthusiast and student of story theory. What is reality but the story of the Creator, the Author, the Word - Jesus Christ?"

Needs some updating, clearly - I've moved GW2 activity to a sideblog and I need to add Miraculous Ladybug. But your question is abt story theory! Thanks for asking! Let's dive in!

By story theory I primarily mean 'what is the art of storytelling, and telling stories well.' I mean the big things such as the study of character arcs, narrative themes (a quite extensive field on its own), plot structure, symbolism, truths and lies, the role of backstory and character motivation, major, side and background characters, narratively condemning or exalting various traits, qualities, actions, etc. etc. as well as, perhaps, the more basic concepts such as show-dont-tell, scene-and-sequel, narrative foils, etc.

What story theory is NOT is things like grammar, how to use punctuation, paragraphs, or quote marks, formatting chapters, and the like.

As far as I know there is no 'one particular' story theory, although I suppose different people have different answers to some of the questions (such as how many acts are in one story or how many basic types of stories there are).

I have learned most of my story theory from K.M. Weiland's blog, Helping Writers Become Authors, as well as the book Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain.

As a side note, I particularly love seeing how fiction mirrors reality and I do greatly believe we are all living stories, that the world has its story, that History is God's Story, and so on. That's what makes fiction compelling - because we've lived it or seen it lived. God is the author(ity) of the universe and I think that's beautiful.

And I love analyzing it lol.

I can answer more specific questions as well if you like! I llve this subject! Thanks for asking!

[shiverpeakstraveler]

Character Roster 3/3

Dragons/Other Affiliations (in order of appearance)

Thanatos | He/Him | Skeletal Dragon | Scion of Zhaitan, Ally of Glint and Aurene | ???? | Reaper | Gay

Guenhwyvar | She/Her | Plant Dragon | Scion of Mordremoth, Ally of Glint and Aurene | ???? | Druid | Bisexual

Freyja | They/Them (Nonbinary) | Ice Dragon | Scion of Jormag, Ally of Glint and Aurene | ???? | Herald | Demisexual | ❤️ Crecia Stoneglow

Ignatius | He/They (Genderfluid) | Fire Dragon | Scion of Primordus, Ally of Glint and Aurene | ???? | Berserker | Pansexual

Ye-Rin | She/Her | Water Dragon | Scion of Soo-Won, Ally of Glint and Aurene | Around 250 | Weaver | Bisexual

Champion Kixi | They/Them (Nonbinary) Asura (Quora Sum) | Champion of Primordus | Lost track of age | Renegade | Bisexual

Lorelei | She/Her | Maguuma Sylvari (Firstborn) | Firstborn of the Auric Basin Tree, Champion of Guenhwyvar | 35 | Herald | Demisexual

Artificer Galene | She/They ( Nonbinary) | Exalted | Engineer/Artificer of Tarir | Age lost to time | Scrapper | Bisexual

Duke Gareth | He/Him | Pale Tree Sylvari (Nightmare) Duke of Misery, Duke of the Nightmare Court | 14 (Sylvari years) | Firebrand | Pansexual | Obsessed with Síobhan

Courtier Éadaoin | She/Her | Pale Tree Sylvari (Nightmare) | Gareth's Right Hand, Nightmare Assassin | 12 (Sylvari years) | Specter | Pansexual

Aurelia Shadowrazer | She/Her | Charr (possibly Flame) | Vampire Matriarch, "The Blood Dam" | 500s? | Specter | Bisexual

Firstborn Síofra | She/Her | Pale Tree Sylvari (Dreamer, Firstborn) | Ranger of the Dream Wardens | 35 (Sylvari years) | Untamed | Lesbian | ❤️ Wynne

Elysaria Davenport | She/Her | Human (Ascalonian descent) | Vampire, Soldier of the Astral Ward | Over 200 | Renegade | Bisexual | ❤️ Mabon

[i-had-bucky]

GW2 Commander Week

Day 7: Aurene

Commander Keres Mistcleaver

I was going to add Aurene's leaving to this one (I still might when I post it on ao3) but I thought it long enough for now.

The egg was hatching.

The stench of ash and sulfur was still clinging to her fur as she sped her way towards Tarir on griffonback, bent low against Talon’s feathers. She hated the jungle, kept well above the canopy as long as she could before letting Tal dive and weave at speed through the trees and into the city. She didn’t stop to speak, simply directed Tal down through the hole, coming to a stop at the door of the portal room. Ruka waited with Jory and…Caithe. Her ears flicked back, but she patted Tal gently, trusting him not to wander far. 

“Ruka,” she called, loping in on all fours. 

“Champion,” Ruka sighed, relieved. “Finally. The egg—”

“Is hatching, yes. I had a vision.”

“We were hoping you would get here. We sent messages to your companions.”

“And Caithe?” She glanced at her. 

“I was in the area and wanted to check in.”

Convenient, but she didn’t smell a lie. 

“Can we all go in, Ruka?” She turned back to the Exalted. 

“The wards are only keyed to you, unfortunately. We must wait out here.” 

“Alright.” She leaned into Jory’s hand squeezing her shoulder and headed for the door. Passing through the wards made her fur feel strange, like electricity running over her. It left an odd, sour taste on her tongue. She shook herself once she was through and leapt, eschewing the steps down into the water. The wings the egg had granted her spread wide, their gentle crystal tinkle loud in her ears.

Then, the egg. Shimmering, shattering, resonating—she could feel it in her bones. 

As soon as she stood before it, there was a flash as pieces of the egg fell to the ground below, suddenly dark and devoid of magic. And before her—

Aurene. 

She didn’t know how she knew. She just knew. 

She was small and blue; her eyes were big and yellow. Purple crystal erupted along her head and back and tail. She chirped, head tilted, and there was a moment—

Her heart beat doubled, then stuttered. She grabbed her chest, sucking in a breath. It hurt; the baby chirred, stamping her feet. She was staring so deeply, as though she could see through Keres. She was nearly on her knees before her heart shuddered and restarted, beating much slower than it ever had. She could feel an odd echo, a shadow-beat, and she looked up at Aurene and realized—

Their heartbeats matched. 

“Welcome to the world, little one,” she whispered, reaching out a paw to rest it against Aurene’s face. Her scales were rough, but not hard. She leaned her head into Keres’s paw and chirred gently. Kere’s throat closed off, too full of feeling; it was overwhelming, the love she felt for this little hatchling. Her hatchling. 

Aurene startled, and ducked, hiding behind her as she whirled to face both Ruka and a familiar floating figure. 

“Lazarus,” she growled. She pulled her sword and crouched in front of Aurene protectively. “You should leave. Now.”

***

She stumbled her way through the rubble, barely feeling the cuts and scrapes, the way her entire body ached. There was a more pressing pain just at the edges of her awareness. A missing shadow in her stuttering heartbeat. Braham paced beside her, misery in every line and scent. But she didn’t ask him. She didn’t need to. 

She stopped short when found them. Her body simply wouldn’t go any further. 

There was a distant sob; she didn’t realize it was her own until her body gave out on her. Braham caught her, eased her down. She couldn’t look away from where Aurene stood. 

Crystal pierced her in so many places. Her mouth was open as though she were calling out. 

She’d done that for her. For Keres. She still slipped sometimes and called her Mother instead of Champion. She’d been so afraid, and this was why. She’d known. She’d seen it. 

Keres buried her face in her paws and sobbed. 

Had she returned from death for this? 

“I should have stayed,” she mumbled, shaking. “I shouldn’t have come back.” 

“Keres?” Braham. But he sounded distant and she didn’t look at him. 

“Oh,” Caithe, her voice shattered. “The flowers.” They weren’t glowing anymore when Keres peeked through her fingers. But she hadn’t needed to see Aurene’s magic fading; she couldn’t feel her anymore. Her heart still beat too slowly, but it was alone. It squeezed painfully and she listed forward into Braham. He caught her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her gently. 

She shouldn’t have come back. 

***

“I don’t know what’s about to happen, Mother,” Aurene whispered, her eyes closed as she allowed Keres to hold her face. “But I want you to be here, to see it.” 

The feel of her heart beating alongside Keres’ own was all she needed. Aurene hummed and pulled back before pressing her nose to Keres’ forehead. Her magic washed over her, tingling and resonating. It was a bittersweet moment—this was what Aurene had been born for, what Keres had raised her for, but she didn’t know if she was ready for it. Her little hatchling, ascending. She smiled. 

“Go on,” she shooed her gently. Aurene laughed and stepped back. 

She began to glow. She grew brighter and brighter until it was like staring into the heart of the sun. Keres refused to look away or close her eyes. She could feel them burning, her vision blurring and darkening, but she refused to miss this. 

The light faded and Aurene spread her wings wide. She was beautiful—crystal and light; opal; prismatic. 

“Aurene,” she breathed. There was a sense of sheer joy that wasn’t her own. She felt so much more, so much closer. 

Mother. Aurene roared her delight. Her welcome. Her breath washed over Keres. Then she shot across the sky in a blaze of light, laughter bubbling up through their connection. 

She stood at the edge of the cliff long after Aurene had disappeared in that trail of blazing light. She could still feel her, the transcendent, radiant joy. All that power. An Elder Dragon. But still the baby Keres had brought fish and taught to hunt.

“Uh, Ker?”

Braham’s voice sounded strange, some undercurrent she couldn’t decipher. She turned to him, tilting her head. It felt…Oddly heavy in a familiar way. She blinked.

“Yeah,” he stepped up to her, reaching out. Because it was Braham, she didn’t flinch away. She froze when she felt his touch on horns she had lost to flame and wrath.

“What.” She barely breathed the word.

Keres reached up with her own paws, feeling crystal curling in the same familiar shape her horns had. It hummed with the same resonant hum as Aurene’s brand and was cool to the touch.

“They’re beautiful,” Braham whispered. “Not blue, like her old brand. But…Light.”

“Prismatic,” Taimi added, slipping up to them, her eyes wide. “Like Aurene herself.”

Kere’s eyes filled with tears despite herself, her throat closing. Aurene, she thought, all of her feelings welling up. There was a soothing rumble somewhere deep inside of her.A gift, Aurene said from that same place, the feeling of a smile and so much love Keres barely knew what to do with it.

[brightwingedbat]

I understand the pain of needing to do events for story but it's not exactly similar to making HoT like that. The timed metas are not required, just the fastest way to do those steps. You can just fill progress by doing any event on the maps.

It's actually a good example of comparing to HoT cause your first time through you needed to level glider and mushroom mastery to continue through Verdant Brink story. Then in Auric Basin you needed to level Exalted Markings mastery directly after being told "Get to Tarir as fast as you can." As well as updraft usage. Tangled Depths needed you to level Nuhoch mastery as well right after.

Which is essentially doing the same thing of story progress being held back by doing events to fill a bar. In Soto's case, it's events filling a quest bar. In HoT's case, it's events filling your mastery bar.

It's just a very GW2 style to doing story.

very low stakes (not spoilery really) gripe with SotO is that so many of the story beats are, like, "do this open world group event x many times" (which btw is sometimes on a timer). It doesn't just feel like filler; it also actively makes it harder to catch up to the story, especially when I tend to play at dead hours. it feels like, idk, if HoT made you do every map's meta (or pre-meta prep) to continue the story and each map was released in a different quarter.

[konig-varorson]

I've been recreated my Guild Wars characters in Guild Wars 2

As much as I love Guild Wars, one of the major issues with it is the dated and limited character creation and fashion wars it has. Lately, I've been wondering how they'd look in a better engine with more options, and so I've been recreating them one by one as keyrunners in GW2.

I've kept them fairly close to the originals as I could with GW2's wardrobe, and made changes where limitations in GW1 made it not as enjoyable. I'll be deleting them eventually after a good photoshoot and ninjaripping their models. But with 3 out of 14 done, I wanted to share my progress:

My Assassin (thief in GW2), Azazel the Accursed:

My Mesmer, Anahita the Exhalted:

And my very first character (and necromancer) ever, Opaque Serenity, deleted in 2007 with much regret, recreated in GW2 under the name Aralia Amad and actual character story, re-recreated after HoT as a revenant, re-re-recreated in GW1 under the new name, and then re-re-re-recreated in GW2 as a necromancer again (a duplicate this time, called Aralia Cartwright, her backstory's og surname):

Suffice to say, she has some history for me.

It'll be fun to work out others later, SotO gave me an extra character slot so I can make one more before having to delete to make room. My monk and ritualist from GW1 will be trickiest to remake, I think.

[bluebudgie]

Chill Tangled Depths map completion tour on EU servers!

Featuring the best worst tour guide in your vicinity, yours truly.

I made a kinda messy first post about this earlier to test the waters, but let's get this a bit more organized now. If people are interested, I'd love to do a 100% map completion hike through Tangled Depths with you peeps!

This will NOT be a speedrun of any sort, we'll go slow and relaxed. Regard it as a sort of scenic tour.

The general outline:

No mounts required. We'll tackle this the old-fashioned way.

No waypoints required, we will not be porting between WPs (unless of course we all wipe, which hopefully will not happen). I'm not a fan of loading screens and jumping around places too much in group content.

We will start near the Order of Whispers Camp waypoint [&BA4IAAA=], the waypoint close to the Auric Basin map portal.

I have a commander tag so you will hopefully not lose the tiny rat in the depths of the jungle. The squad will be set to private.

I apologize in advance for being a chaotic mess. I will run in the wrong direction at some point.

What you need to bring:

You will need these two masteries this mastery to get 100% map completion:

Itzel Lore IV: Itzel Poison Lore

Exalted Lore I: Exalted Markings Edit: You do NOT need this one in fact! Thank you @dasozelotvonnebenan!

Not 100% required but definitely helpful (we will be using these, but we can find a work around in case you don't have them):

Gliding II: Updrafts

Gliding III: Lean Techniques

Itzel Lore I: Bouncing Mushrooms

How long will it take?

I can't give you an exact estimate of how much time a full map run will take - the route we go will depend on a few different factors. If we're taking the one I currently have in mind it took me - on my own, without taking any breaks - a bit above an hour. Given we'll be in a group and we'll probably generally move slower, wait in between, chat a bit etc I'd rather plan 1:30 to 2 hours for this. This is a rough guesstimate, I've never done a 100% completion run with several people :D

When will it be?

Good question! That's where I need your help. I prepared a little survey to determine which day and time would be the best for most of us. My schedule's a little ~weird~ so I hope any of the listed times will work for you peeps. If it's not possible at all for anyone, we can discuss and try to find something that works for more people!

>>You can find the survey here!<<

If you are interested in participating I would be grateful if you could fill the survey out. I will observe it over the next few days, I'll probably close it latest on thursday.

I don't often ask this of you but if you could spread this post around a little so as many potentially interested people as possible can see it, that'd be awesome! Thank you! ヾ(＾-＾)ノ

[mystery-salad]

Happy MerMay, with my exalted commander Cora! Decided to do both a pre- and post- exalting version for her✨

[cheddargoblin]

Fellas is it gay to kiss the homies goodbye