#gw2 theorycrafting

[mistswalker]

Some thoughts on the Void and the Mists

End of Dragons has been on my mind a lot. I found the Void fundamentally and thematically intriguing beyond its clear reception of the real-world emotions contemporary with the EoD release.

It raised many questions— About the difference between the Void and Mists. The differences and reasons for the differences between the apocalypses of Kralkatorrik's rampage and Soo-Won's void corruption. About the nature of the Void and its role in the Eternal Alchemy.

What I hadn't expected was the way those questions were answered, or the greater implications they seem to have. I felt like many things about the larger metaphysical lore clicked into place with this new understanding— The deeper nature of the Mists. The "madness" of the Elder Dragons. The role of the Forgotten, and the lasting and unintended impacts of the Six on Tyria. While I'm sure I'm extrapolating and reading a bit much into certain things, as I always have with this series, I'm definitely glad to have this understanding of these concepts for moving forward with my own fanworks, and I haven't quite been able to shake the high of cracking this metaphorical Da Vinci code.

Now, this all gets a big disclaimer that some of this includes extrapolations and headcanons I've previously built for my stories, but that aside, let me just rehash some of the basics of the Mists. As we know, the Mists are potential incarnate. The Mists, "the All", and the "Void" are all facets of this same concept, and each of these facets are interconnected. Each culture in Tyria seems to interpret what it knows of the Mists in different ways. The way most of Tyria seems to best understand the Mists' nature of infinite potential is when it's represented as a physical space. Areas of manifested potential all chaotically swirling, building, deconstructing, and rebuilding. The God realms. The afterlife. The Fractals. The Mists War.

This facet of the concept is what's most observable. But that aspect of the Mists is only the answer to the question "where?" "The Void", on the other hand, is raw coalesced magic. The clay of reality. The raw potential that could be shaped into anything and that manifests reality as its observed to its inhabitants. In this sense, the Void could be considered the Mists' answer to "what?"

"The All", also known as the Eternal Alchemy, is what ties these two pieces together. It is the fractal-pattern of how that reality manifests. The "blueprint" for what the clay is built into. Each new reality's blueprint is slightly off from the last, creating the infinity of the butterfly effect, and the in-world nod to the multiverse of commander timelines. The Mists' answer to "how?"

I speculate that the overlap of The All is an important factor in the distinction between the two potential apocalypses of Kralkatorrik and Soo-Won.

This is what the people of Tyria have decided is the most genuine representation of "the Eternal Alchemy" at work: Six magical aspects that balance and sustain a world. We see this with the elder dragons, obviously. But where's the other notable place in which six magical aspects tried to balance and sustain a world, only to strangely leave theirs and seemingly planehop to the setting of our story?

The Human Gods.

They aren't perfect matches for each of the Elder Dragons— but they didn't have to be. They were what was created with the clay of their universe, following the larger scale "pattern" in their own unique way. They also exhibit a parallel ascension to that of Aurene taking the mantle of Elder Dragon, and we witness this with the birth of the goddess Kormir from the spearmarshal Kormir.

Another noteworthy parallel between the Gods and the Dragons is something only observable over time in their lore and history— we notice the Gods beginning to go mad, and manifesting in darker and more twisted aspects of themselves as time goes on during their ultimately brief stint in Tyria.

We see it clearly with Abbadon. We see implications of it with Dhuum. And finally, we see further hints of it with Balthazar (including some very creepy deep-lore and environmental storytelling in his realm, but I'll get to that some other time...) But to get into the Gods and the God Realms further, I need to explain what leads me to believe that the Human gods are the reason for the distinction between the Kralk apocalypse (where all of the Mists began coming undone), and the Soo-Won apocalypse (where this facet of reality began dissolving into Void). And to do that I need to talk about inter-planar travel. So we know that many finite universes within the Mists share many aspects with each other, just altered in small ways that stack up over time. We also know that the people of the world experience the Mists to be a sort of afterlife in addition to being a source of all history and potential. We have also seen and visited different "domains" within the mists. The part of the Mists that is the physical living realm, influenced by these forces is the globe in the center. The gray and colored areas outside of it are pieces of reality concretely formed enough to influence that globe very strongly. Tyrians perceive those things as "real", and those include the "domains" in the Mists.

Everything else out here? That's what Tyria thinks of as "the Mists" in a small-scale sense. The parts of reality that don't have strong shape. The place where potential fragments. This is where the Fractals are. This is where Rytlock was trapped. This is where Kralkatorrik rampaged.

When Kralkatorrik fell back out of the Mists on this rampage, he pulled parts of the God Realms with him. Aurene noted he was being drawn to familiar magics— Melandru's realm and that of Grenth were included alongside the Fissure of Woe this despite Kralkatorrik having only tasted the specific magic of one of those three gods. We could take that a number of ways, but, to me, that speaks to not only a continued parallel between the Gods and the Elder Dragons, but also as a hint to how the Six gods stepped over the border between their original shard of reality and ours.

The Six were magically fluent inherently. They were gods—the Elder Dragons of their homeworld. They used the aspects as a tether between their own domains and the matching magic here in Tyria. They were able to find stasis in the magic aspects themselves.

If we accept the Gods as parallel Elder Dragons, then we can further extrapolate that the Elder Dragons potentially have their own connected pseudo-realms within the less firm parts of reality. Personally, I've long believed this made a great deal of sense as to the nature of their hiveminds, and have talked about that in other non-tumblr babbles about the nature of the Dream and Nightmare to Sylvari.

That aside, since the Elder Dragons were asleep and any "domain" aspect of the Mists connected to them was only utilized for their hiveminds, the Gods would be free to shape some of these mirrored domains to match their own preferences. This borrowing of the Elder Dragons place in our world, ultimately, is what I believe utterly destabilized things when Balthazar was killed.

It wasn't an immediate destruction because of the other Five's foresight. They'd had the good sense to drain most of his magic when they detained him, but they couldn't drain all of it without destroying his essence itself.

So despite their best efforts to mitigate the risk— taking their personal exodus of not just Tyria but the Tyrian Mists as a whole, and draining Balthazar of as much of his magic as they could safely take with them as only 5, upon Balthazar's death there was still excess otherworldly magic lingering in the Tyrian Mists. And the Mists had already become very volatile due to the destruction of two of their own six structural guardians. Magics were mixing in ways they hadn't since the formation of structure in the realm. Things were already heading toward Void and unmaking of this reality, but what tipped the scales into an unmaking of all reality was that lingering excess magic from another realm. One that's very nature tied two realms together.

Kralkatorrik, with Balthazar's ability to walk between planes, began rampaging in multiple facets of reality, ripping bigger and bigger holes and mixing the contents inside like containers of different liquid.

And because of the fractal-like way the Mists infinitely follow the same larger-scale patterns, this was happening not just in several planes, but several iterations of those connected planes. (which you can visualize with the different commander-timelines. Each different commander who reaches season 4? Is another "iteration" of that fractal.)

Aurene, when she ascends to Kralkatorrik's place as an Elder Dragon, spends a huge chunk of time repairing the Mists after this. And the most important part of that would have been isolating Balthazar's magic and putting it back in the realm it belongs in. Limiting any future fallout to their plane. Now that each plane has the same amount of clay it started with, things are more stable in that sense.

Glint gives Aurene advice on Ascension posthumously prior to this. That same Ascension that was tied to the Forgotten, and "True Sight", and the equivalent of the Canthan concept of "Weh no Su" ("Closer to the Stars") and described by humans as being a "state of communion with the Gods". Which leads me to the next piece of this larger puzzle: The Forgotten.

We know the Forgotten appeared in Tyria during the last Dragon Cycle. We also know they reappeared and made their presence known in association with the human gods— but we also know that the Forgotten originate from the Mists. They are yet more planeswalkers.

I've mentioned before believing that the Forgotten worked with the human gods to minimize the fallout from their arrival in Tyria. We see Forgotten philosophies echoed in Glint, the Exalted, as well as in Ventari and his peaceful centaur clan. They were very dedicated to Balance. I hypothesize that they were some of the first planeswalkers. They likely learned about the impacts of mists-travel firsthand and resolved to dedicate their existence to preserving stability as a result. (Which may be why even they call themselves "the forgotten". They've existed for so long on the fringes of reality that they may not remember where they came from, only why they're still there. But I digress.)

Ascension and the Forgotten were something integral to fighting the Mursaat (yet again, even more planeswalkers in Tyria) because of how it granted the subject "True Sight" and the ability to see between the realms where the Mursaat liked to slip away and hide.

The Forgotten also had found a way to cleanse individuals from the elder dragon hiveminds as we see in Path 3 of the Arah dungeon, allowing them to preserve free will. I think these two concepts are related in a way.

if Ascension is what taught Aurene how to re-stabilize multiple planes of reality from such a catastrophic mixing of magic, and was also what turned her from a being of crystal into a being of prism? Something that filters light into its base components and sorts it all out? Ascension must be something gives one a sense of their place in the All, their role in the broader workings of the Mists, while helping them reshape themselves to fill that role.

(As a brief tangent, that may also play into Scarlet's fall in Omadd's machine— Omadd's machine was intended to "see and understand the Eternal Alchemy". An artificial ascension. And she certainly embraced her larger role.) Now back to Soo-Won, the origins of Tyria and the Elder Dragons, and the Void-based apocalypse...

Soo-Won talks about being the mother of the other elder dragons. The first one. How she eased her own pain of loneliness by creating children to share the magic with. We see a similar narrative in some senses with the human gods-- Dwayna is looked at as the "first" and the "leader". she's the literal mother of Grenth.

We also see Soo-Won hold off the madness of the Void the longest. Her elemental representation is water-- the foundation of life as we know it. I think that her account of history as being the mother of the other elder dragons and raising them as hatchlings is in some ways true and in some ways metaphorical, as it likely predates Tyria as a concrete reality.

It makes sense to me that Soo-Won was the first consciousness to manifest in the Void as reality began to shape itself. The first sense of will to help the blueprint unfold. the other elder dragons are, in that sense, her "children", but also nearly peers in terms of age in concrete reality. They were created by her will, her loneliness, but reality only solidified into what we know as "Tyria" when all of the aspects found a natural balance.

It makes sense that the Elder Dragons lived lives of isolation— if their distinction had created structure from chaos— something that clearly frightens even Soo-Won, the most familiar with it — of course the answer to that would be separation. Isolation. Loneliness even when no longer alone.

Of course this forced isolation would slowly erode loneliness and despair into selfishness and resentment in many of them. And so of course, then, their own madness and corruption stems from that internal agony. And what is it's drive? How does it take from the world? Consumption. Forced assimilation under their own domain.

"Become part of me. Not the void. Me."

What is the Forgotten's answer to this? The way to preserve balance? To replace the cycle of consumption with a cycle of distribution. willful sharing. Social sharing. A bond between dragons and mortals.

The answer to the fear of being alone isn't to force others into your realm. It's to learn to coexist with them. That's how you fight the instinctual call of the Void.

This is what finally made sense as the answer to Aurene's question. "Why do they all go mad?" The "madness" of the dragons is that— the instinctive call of the Void as they become overwhelmed by pain and suffering and can no longer stand their isolation. They consume and consume more and more to try to sate that emptiness. They grow imbalanced in their identities as they struggle to process all that they consume that doesn't fit.

They don't want to give it back. They don't want to be alone again. Eventually though, it seeps out of them and they awaken more pained and ravenous than before.

[rata-novus]

you are using the weapon beta event to test the new weapons, i am using the weapon beta event to test run future characters and fashion wars, we are not the same

[smokinsid]

this is nothing but i had a dream that the next elite spec-style update to GW2 was called like, "ADVANCED CORE" and it went absolutely crazy in the weirdest way

like "advanced core" necromancer lost their weapon swap AND their shroud- because shroud was always on, and you could use it with utilities

instead of running out of life force, the meter just filled up and down during combat as you generated it, and it would like, automatically empower your weapon attacks when it peaked and do some holosmith shit like turning your auto into a big splashy ranged attacks that explode

the skills for any weapon you wielded got overridden from regular mode to "shroud mode" when life force peaked, and the idea was that you actually weren't in an elite spec, so you could take three core traitlines instead, but by doing so with the "advanced" feature toggled on, you became like... some freakazoid platonic ideal of that class

in my dream i was specifically fighting with a staff but when this "shroud mode" kicked on, all the wells flipped over into the usual shroud skills automatically, and the auto-attack started flinging big green coils of dhuumfire behind the hand projectile that hit like 5 targets

i do a lot of sitting around on gw2skills just theorycrafting weird shit and i got wizard high on thc/cbg oil last night so it stands to reason that what i saw was at least a little chemically induced

but still

i'd play it

[noivern]

Is GW2 easy for new people to get into? The only mmo I've played and committed to was FF14, but I've been looking to play others.

mixed i think? you can get the base game for free, so you can certainly dip your toes in, though to be honest, the 2012 era content largely feels a little dated now, tho i still have a lot of nostalgia for it.

gw2 uses a hybrid tab targeting system, so you can tab like a ffxiv/wow but also aim stuff and dodge and it feels a lot faster and more fluid to me, i found ffxiv slow and clunky after a 160 ish hour try gw2 does a much worse job of teaching itself than ffxiv tho, and where ffxiv very nicely onboards people into duty finder and group instanced content and such, gw2 can be frustratingly opaque at times. thankfully it has a really incredible wiki and the ability to type /wiki (name of thing) in game to open a page explaining what the hell you're doing. working out what to do after base game with the expansions and living world seasons can be annoying too. i also really love gw2's lack of subscription, so i dont feel pressured to be doing a certain amount to justify the upkeep. ive certainly bought way too many cosmetic things, but ive also had over 3000 hours of fun.

the pve, wvw (world vs world vs world), and pvp (5v5) modes are all healthy and can be dabbled with after relatively little input. gw2 uses a megaserver to mush people together outside of the server v server mass pvp (wvw) mode, so your choice doesnt matter much.

reading up on builds and theorycrafting and pushing mechanical performance can get very high level and hard or you can google engineer build and whack a recommendation on and go kil stuff, whatev

theres a lot of complexity and layers of bullshit and currencies and learning where everything is that comes with a 10 year old mmo and additions and new blahblahs and i found that a bit dazing when i returned a year ago but just do whatever seems good (i rec running through the story bc i love a story, but you can do whatever) and along the way the various 800 shiny goblin pebbles youve accumulated will make sense and maybe you can swap them for a cool ring idk

[dex-starr]

god it baffles me how hard some people just go for genshin, like I get theorycrafting bc I did some light theorycrafting in a lot of my statics (or more involved stuff)

but like the people that aren’t actively doing the theorycrafting and just regurgitating it? like dude for one this is game isn’t that complicated for you to be trying to bust someone’s balls over their choice of line-up or artifact choices esp if they’re just playing casually.

like fuck even when I was in the top 5% of clear times in GW2 or TERA did I speak any shit compared to what I see some genshin ppl doing like

just enjoy the fucking game bro lmfao it ain’t that serious

[gossamer-scraps]

Am I the only one absolutely unsurprised that they're doing raids? Here's why:

I agree with the assertions everyone's making that only a small portion of the userbase, by percentage of accounts, raids. But I don't know if that splits quite so dramatically if you scale by ingame hour count and—crucially—what that ingame hour count correction does to revenue split.

I know a toooon of gw2 enthusiasts on this website who have a deep love of the game and its lore and also log in like three times a year. I guess, ruining my point somewhat, I do think a fair number of those players I'm thinking of will buy the expansion eventually.

But it makes sense to me that there's a fair bit of revenue tied up in players like me. You know, the Snow Crows discord members (okay in my case I actually have a colored name on SC discord, which is fun). And there are a loooooot of people like me who would have a decent chance of straight up not spending that $25 USD if you cut out the instanced PvE part of that announcement. And by $25 I mean $50, because like a lot of this demographic I have 2 active raid accounts, and by $50 I mean $50 + $25 * however many marginal users stay engaged with the game because of the theorycrafting that gets done in this part of the community, the speedrun videos, and in my case the gear optimizer existing.

Yeah, yeah, jokes, nobody raids. But the "nobody" who raids, I have to assume, are worth a decent chunk of money to anet, not to mention recurring weekly users and gameplay hours (I assume NCSOFT cares about those).

[bluebudgie]

Should you fight my characters: Asura Edition

Tvekks Battle BGM: Tentacle Battle | Starbound

Should you fight Tvekks? If you're a decent person, no. Sure, he used to be Inquest, but that's long in the past and he really doesn't mean any harm. He's more scared of you than anything else. You'd really just feel like a school bully shoving someone into a locker.

Who initiates the battle? You. Tvekks would not fight unless there is absolutely no way to escape. And he would try really, really hard to escape. He's more likely to die trying to escape than to actually fight.

Who would win? Very likely you. It's a stamina battle, you against a chronomancer manipulating time. If you can handle all the little rifts in time, there really isn't much that would physically hurt you.

Neljje Battle BGM: Shambhala | Fire Emblem: Three Houses I want to formally apologize to this little man for assigning him the awful fire emblem dubstep song but it's just the right amount of unhinged

Should you fight Neljje? Maybe. Man's definitely a safety hazard to people, but the thing is that most of the time he doesn't have people around him. Probably rather to be left alone, but if you get an advantageous opportunity, fight him. Wouldn't hurt anyone to get rid of that one.

Who initiates the battle? That depends on the day. Might stay passive until provoked on some days, might attack on sight on other days. You'd be smarter to start the fight, since you're obviously better off not getting ambushed.

Who would win? How well do you handle an army of oversized zombie alien bugs shooting potent magic at range and then stabbing you with their sharp carapace legs in melee? If you can get past those, you may have a chance. If not, say your last prayer.

Phlish Battle BGM: One Who Bares Fangs At God | Xenogears

Should you fight Phlish? Yes, you should. The little pest absolutely deserves an ass whooping.

Who initiates the battle? Could go either way. Likely you'll both mutually want to go at each other's throat.

Who would win? It depends on where you face him. A battle on land? You will likely win, even though he does put up a fight. A battle in the water? Hope you got your underwater combat figured out, because that's his element. Oh, also... you're not actually fighting the brat himself. You're fighting his (underwater specialized!) mech. Get past that, and the most hurtful thing you'll face is condescending talk.

Qissh Battle BGM: Guard Droid Battle | Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Should you fight Qissh? No. There is really no reason why you should fight him. He wants peace. Leave him be.

Who initiates the battle? Under normal circumstances he would not; if you're part of a group of paparazzi he will start the fight.

Who would win? 50:50. His fighting style is self-defense more than anything else (he did mention he wanted to be left in peace), but he can definitely pack a punch. In the most likely scenario you would win because he decides to forfeit and leave.

Khivvi Battle BGM: The Fell God's Tempest | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

Should you fight Khivvi? Yes. From a moral standpoint there is absolutely nothing that should hold you back.

Who initiates the battle? Likely her. While she's not particularly interested in picking fights, she'll definitely attack first if she feels in any way provoked or threatened.

Who would win? It won't be easy, but you might emerge victorious. She's a fairly competent but not particularly passionate fighter. She's got some venomous pet help though, so be cautious about the toxins... they might become a problem well after you're done fighting.

Lahpp Battle BGM: Alexius | Dragon Age: Inquisition

Should you fight Lahpp? Difficult. He may be dedicated to a morally questionable corporate environment, but he's not the worst of the bunch. You'd probably find some arguments to justify a fight, but ask yourself... where's your own morality if you decide to beat up a man in such fragile physical condition he'd drop dead without proper medical care even if people didn't beat him up. Actually you know what, don't fight him. Please.

Who initiates the battle? You. He's not stupid, he knows that he wouldn't last in a 1 on 1 battle that he can't end within the first few moments.

Who would win? While the odds are definitely in your favour, don't underestimate the range of a sniper rifle. Start off in a bad spot, and you're done for in a single shot. If the bullets don't get you (and you don't succumb to potential poisoning), you're definitely going to win this.

Hvitti Battle BGM: Autumnal Sky | Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen

Should you fight Hvitti? Yes, but only if it's a mock-up battle. In that case, he'll gladly join you. Otherwise, no. He's literally done nothing wrong in his life ever.

Who initiates the battle? You both mutually agree to fight each other, mock-up battle or not. This is an honourful duel.

Who would win? He may not look imposing, but he's got a few years of experience as a soldier. That element of surprise might just be what he needs to win. Otherwise, in a fair battle everyone could potentially emerge victorious. Hopefully you both had fun regardless of the outcome.

Petthri Battle BGM: The Synapse - Combat | Deus Ex

Should you fight Petthri? No. Morals completely aside, for your own safety's sake please don't pick a fight.

Who initiates the battle? He's generally peaceful, but if he has to he'll start the fight. Again, please don't start this.

Who would win? Picture this: an elementalist. Scary, I know. Now picture that: An elementalist who does not properly control any of the elements, not for a lack of skill, but for a lack of desire to be able to do so. This is chaos. Pure and utter chaos. You can't strategize around this, the only way you can win is by pure chance. You probably won't.

Luqqah Battle BGM: The Destroyer | Shovel Knight

Should you fight Luqqah? Are you a fan of "the end justifies the means"? If you think murdering people for medical progress isn't the right way to proceed then fight her. You probably should.

Who initiates the battle? Depends entirely on the situation. You might want to start this fight yourself, but if she feels provoked enough she may just deliver the first blow.

Who would win? Luqqah isn't necessarily a trained fighter, but don't underestimate how lethal contact with the wrong kind of liquid can be. If you get through her ranged attacks you'll likely have a chance in close combat. Beware of any surprise needles though.

[gw2-rambles]

Sylvari: Children of the Pale Tree

                                                            2

     Following the second Awakening event, a dangerous flaw in Sylvari governing structure came to light. The Firstborn received highest honor in Sylvari culture, responsible for most decisions as their bond to the Pale Mother seemed closest, while every Sylvari to awaken in later years felt lesser in worth. Although this was never the intention of the Firstborn who believed their authority protected Sylvari as a community, it was enough disparity to cause dissent. A Secondborn by the name of Cadeyrn clashed with the Firstborn on several occasions, including their refusal to kill youngling Krait before they could grow into savage enemies, as well as the lack of outrage and retaliation against the asura after their treatment of Malomedies and droves of captured Secondborn, and he finally voiced his dissent in action, leading away of group of equally disgruntled Sylvari to form the Nightmare Court. Nightmare itself referred to the unsavory truths in life, such as death and suffering, and embraced these realities. Its name mocked what the Sylvari refer to as the Dream, through which experiences are passed on from generation to generation. 

     Initially, the Nightmare Court’s goal centered around freedom from Ventari’s Teachings, which they perceived as limiting Sylvari to another being’s ethical code, as well as the Firstborn’s control. The Court established locations throughout Caledon Forest, and developed a hierarchical structure of governance where members could rise in rank and influence, rather than be born into status, and over time, different locations became independent from each other. Cadeyrn remained the leader of all Nightmare Courts, and they shared ideology, but they could function and expand independently. Despite their rejection of Ventari’s pacifism, the original Nightmare Courtiers were no more destructive than other inhabitants of Maguuma, interested in growing their influence at whatever expense, and unafraid of violence as a tool. Most Dreamers, followers of Ventari’s Tablet, distrusted Courtiers, and the Firstborn viewed them as a threat, but war did not break out among the opposing Sylvari groups until Faolain uspured Cadeyrn’s position as Grand Duchess of the Nightmare Court.

     Faolain awoke as one of the twelve Firstborn. In her youth, she became infatuated with fellow Firstborn, Caithe, with whom she shared many adventures, including the rescue of Secondborn captives from an asuran testing facility. Her methods were uncharacteristically harsh for a Dreamer, and eventually others began to suspect her of Nightmare, just as she suspected the Pale Mother from withholding secrets from her children. Faolain’s suspicions led her to chase after Wynne, another Firstborn tasked by the Pale Tree with keeping the forbidden knowledge of Sylvari nature a secret, into the Maguuma Wastes, where Wynne had fled to reside among Ventari’s people. There, in the Wastes, Faolain and Caithe both encountered a dark entity. While Caithe rejected the power it offered, Faolain embraced it. This entity, unbeknownst to any but Wynne, whom Faolain killed once her motives were corrupted, turned out to be the slumbering Mordremoth.

     With Mordremoth’s corruption, Faolain returned to Caledon Forest to begin a new era for the Nightmare Court, and for all of Sylvari. Nightmare no longer stood for defiance; instead, it was corruptive, unleashing the truth of Sylvari as creatures predisposed to violence. Faolain murdered Cadeyrn and his original Court which would not submit to her, converting them to her form of Nightmare. They lived again, reborn from a recreation of Blighting Pods, and served as champions to her growing army of Courtiers. Under Faolain’s leadership, Nightmare grew, and Courtiers attempted to spread its influence into the Dream by committing heinous, depraved acts, sometimes performed during an event called a Dark Vigil, intended to teach newborn Sylvari before they awoke that this was their purpose in life. The Nightmare Courts which joined Scarlet’s Toxic Alliance were all indirectly following Mordremoth’s will.

     The Nightmare Court changed once again after Scarlet’s Ley-Line Machine woke Mordremoth, who had been instructing her after her mind became susceptible to greater madness, for although the Court was predominantly populated by those touched with Mordremoth’s corruption, some resisted its call, and Mordremoth became a common enemy to Nightmare Courtiers and Dreamers alike. Even Faolain, with her morals warped more by ambition and pride than any Dragon could completely corrupt, feared to join Mordremoth until her dying moments, when her body was taken and changed into a deadly Vinetooth. In Faolain’s stead, Duchess Chrysanthea led the remnants of the Nightmare Court who had not turned to Mordrem against Mordremoth’s forces, joining with the Pact to aid the final assault into Dragon’s Stand. Chrysanthea reestablished the original Court’s value of freedom over all else, and to protect that freedom, Mordremoth needed to die. Her Court, referred to by some as the Free Nightmare Court, would never be able to see entirely eye-to-eye with Dreamers, but following Mordremoth’s death, she was able to form a fragile coalition with Wardens of the Grove, and her Court would be allowed some land in Maguuma. 

     However, although Chrysanthea leads the organized Free Nightmare Court, renamed to the Zephyr Court after the season's connotation of rebirth, there remain followers of Nightmare that do not bend to her, and prefer to wage war and manipulate new recruits as they historically have. Nightmare Courtiers, when identified, face hostility in public spaces, such as the Grove, as well as other human and Sylvari cities, but gradually, handfuls of Guilds have been permitted registry under Courtier leadership due to Chysanthea’s actions resurrecting a good name for the Court.

     Many believe that Nightmare corruption is inescapable, a theory supported by its draconic properties, but over time, that belief wanes in validity. Sylvari as a race prove that through strong, restorative magic, draconic corruption can be overcome, and so scholars now theorize that all remaining Mordrem and Nightmare individuals could be purified as the Pale Tree once was. A more difficult, but far more realistic, approach to overcoming corruption is by sheer force of will. This is how the jungle-dwelling Sylvari relatives freed themselves from Mordrem corruption, how Sylvari across Tyria resisted Mordremoth’s call, and how a Courtier could theoretically recover from the madness. Most who practice this approach struggle to rid themselves of Nightmare’s influence, but find that Soundless incantations that quell the Dream can also sate the beckon of Nightmare. Its difficulty arises in the fact that corruption corrodes will, and so these individuals find themselves in an exhausting battle for peace. 

[magisterlys]

Oh man, I really really hope that this means a renewed conflict between Ebonhawke and certain charr elements. Lys is from Ebonhawke and spent years in the Vanguard, I'd looooove the chance to explore that background.

That route from charr are my enemies > I will struggle to put history behind me > my uncle is a charr his name is Rytlock > shit we're fighting again?! is fascinating.

[curuniel]

Keeping the Icebrood Saga spoilers to a minimum here and I don’t have too much to say about the Champions episodes so far, but I did want to note a few things that have stood out to me knowing that we’re going eventually into End of Dragons:

Jormag is trying very hard to lean on they and Aurene having a kinship stronger than any Aurene could have with mortals; I don’t think she’s buying into it for a second, but it does just remind her of her difference in a way I think will be relevant nonetheless.

Repeated insistence from Aurene that she can’t and shouldn’t take the field in these fights, her power could unbalance things dangerously and anyway the people don’t trust her; this could have just been covering bases so the Commander had to do things but it has been stated more times than that would require.

There’s going to need to be a new world order soon one way or another, and Jormag wants to eliminate Primordus but with those two I suspect it’s going to have to be both or neither for the world to be stable...

Calling it now, my money’s on End of Dragons having not necessarily Aurene as an antagonist - I don’t think that’s right - but certainly Aurene taking some serious moves to define the world going forward as she considers necessary. Whether we agree with her chosen course or not. I suspect the end of Icebrood Saga will push her over the edge on something and this is all building while she tells herself she has to stay out of it.

[kutscene-kestin]

How many times has this happened before?

Finishing the quest for my griffon mount inspired me to do some reading. I poked around in the lore on the gods, and a picture formed for me. I’d be very surprised if I’m the first to notice it, but I want to comment anyway so shh.

The gods brought a selection of humans to Tyria from a place where things were Not Good in some way. They left because things here are so fucked up that they can only do more harm than good by staying. In Kormir’s journal, she writes that Tyria’s destruction is inevitable. She gave a vision to a priest, telling him that the gods are now looking for a new world to bring “their faithful” to.

So they’re planning to bring a selection of humans to someplace new from Tyria because things here are Not Good.

If they’re willing to do the whole Wind Waker thing twice, then they’re most likely willing to do it more than twice. How can we assume this is only the second time it’s happening? It could easily be the third, or the fifth, or the tenth. Is there a trail of destroyed worlds out there that humans have been led to, led from, and made to forget? How old is humanity? How old are the gods?

(And how do we know that the Guild Wars games don’t take place thousands or perhaps millions of years into our own future, asks my brain as I write this post?)

[mono-red-menace]

i think a lot of people confuse "things they enjoy in games" with "things that have to be included for a game to be good"

like, for me, the most enjoyment I find in games is having customisable builds, where i can choose what items to buy and what skill trees to invest into (especially when you can change it on the fly without cost (like in gw2), or at least without prohibitive cost) so i can just mix and match things i find fun and like, theorycraft builds and try them out, like maybe play a character/class full tank, maybe build entirely for a single niche ability that No One Picks, maybe find a niche scaling on an ability and invest all my stats into that just for the fun of making the ability unexpectedly strong. doing math to determine dps calculations, health regen, combos, sitting here making spreadsheets to calculate how to make my niche weird builds not only fun but also strong enough that when i'm in pvp it's not a stomp for them.

that's what I find fun. but most people i know who play the same games are like "what do i buy?" "what do i build?" "what do i pick in my skill tree?" and get immediately turned off to the idea of just having fun with it, and even after they've spent a few months in the game and understand the system, still don't find what i do fun.

and i mean even besides that, my favourite game ever is Hyper Light Drifter.

which has customisation of uh.

what guns to use (i use the pistol for combat because i like the reliability and i use the rail gun to initiate (because i like the sound) and for exploration), and what minor effect to get from cloak/sprite/sword (i like blue/fuchsia/purple)

and that's it. the build customisation is incredibly minor in my Favourite Game Ever and build customisation is my Favourite Thing a game can have lmao

anyways uh yeah whatever is your favourite thing in games doesn't mean every game has to have it to be good because if i had it my way every game would have entirely customisable armour, abilities, weapons, like 30 perk trees, have like 20 stats, and just be utterly incomprehensible to like anyone who doesn't spend hours reading all the ability interactions and calculating dps.

[gw2-rambles]

Sylvari: Children of the Pale Tree

                                                            1

  Nestled in the sheltered, forested reaches of Maguuma Jungle’s southwestern tip, in a region referred to as Arbor Bay, Ventari nurtured a young Pale Tree with the help of the human Ronan, who regaled stories of heroes to the centaur in hope that this new race, the Sylvari, would be born inspired by greatness. Little is known of the Pale Tree beside this tale, but there are several agreements on her origins. First, to the word of Ronan, her seed was found in a cavern of many others. Second, the Sylvari worship Ventari’s teachings as recorded on Ventari’s Tablet, which they hold in high regard. Third, the Sylvari are, by nature, servants of Mordremoth. Sylvari history is, unfortunately, and like all other Tyrian races, not so simple;  it’s a tale of the inner struggle for purpose, identity, and morality. 

HISTORY

     To understand how Sylvari differ from the expected dragon minion– brutal, and without conscience– scholars must look long past their emergence, before Ventari ascribed his code of ethics, and before the Pale Tree’s seed resided within the dirt. Truthfully, the Pale Tree was not the first of an Elder Dragon’s champion creations to be purified of its ill intent. During Tyria’s first century, the ancient race of Forgotten purified Glint, then known as Glaust, from Kralkatorrik’s corruption. A similar ritual was practiced by the Zephyrites, which Ronan had joined seeking peace after a life of war among the Shining Blade, on a seed gathered from the cavernous roots of a gargantuan jungle tree populated by feral, plant-like hominids, which the centaur Ventari led him to. 

     Zephyrites made many trips around Tyria in their Sanctum fleet, and it was on one of these voyages to the jungle borderlands that Ronan encountered Ventari, who prophesied the rising of Modremoth when Elder Dragons awoke for their next cycle of destruction. When he learned of the Zephyrites’ ability to cleanse draconic corruption, he traveled to the Heart of Maguuma with Ronan to harvest one of its seeds, desiring to raise a new race of beings that would aid in the battle against the Elder Dragons while ancient races warred for power. Once he secured the seed with Ronan, the two traveled throughout Maguuma in search of a proper sanctuary to support the Pale Tree after a successful cleansing. Ventari’s Tablet served as an arcane focus during the Pale Tree’s development, harboring magic of the ritual to ensure the germinating seed and its descendants would be free of Mordremoth’s innate corruption, and his Tablet remained a central part of the Grove, safe in the Omphalos Chamber where chosen individuals may commune with the Avatar of the Pale Tree, referred to as the Pale Mother.

     From where her roots sprung forth, the Pale Tree grew to incredible size over the two-hundred years before the Firstborn came to life. By then, Ronan’s body rested beneath her, having died from a human’s mortal plight, as did the bodies of travelers who had come seeking sanctuary in Arbor Bay and remained there until their passing. These bodies, as well as Ronan’s stories of other humans, allowed the Sylvari Firstborn, twelve individuals who birthed from pods hanging in the Tree’s lower boughs, to appear as humans did. Additionally, the Firstborn inherited some traits from the bodies used in their development. Trahearne, for instance, the first of the newly emerged Sylvari race, inherited the mind of not only a scholar, but Ronan’s heart of a leader. Riannoc shared Ronan’s bravery. Shortly after the first Awakening, Ventari returned to the Maguuma Wastes, and Sylvari began to populate the Grove. Secondborn, who rose during the second Awakening event, grew Sylvari population exponentially, and soon, they branched out into the surrounding region known as Caledon Forest, and beyond. With exploration, however, came darker truths of life, far different from the peace which nurtured them.

[kutscene-kestin]

Dessa and Arkk and the Convoluted Timeline

Here, I shall attempt to divine both Dessa’s origin point in terms of Tyrian years, as well as when Arkk entered the fractals, and what their relationship may have been like when both lived in reality. I will collect all the evidence I know of about both of them and hopefully figure out a general idea of things.

Dessa does not know what sylvari are. This may mean that she left Tyria before the sylvari arrived (1302 at the latest). Alternatively, she left after the sylvari were born, but before they became common knowledge, so it could have been a few years later. I estimate this happened no later than 1306.

She had previously worked with some of the Thaumanova krewe, which means she existed at the same time as they did and is roughly the same age. Dialogue indicates that she did not work on the Thaumanova krewe, but rather knew them (at least Greeza and Chibb) from an earlier project. She would have had to have been old enough in 1325 to have worked on said previous project despite not being around after the early-mid 1300s. She also comments that Greeza looks “different”, possibly indicating that she’s much older than she was when Dessa knew her. Greeza and Chibb don’t look particularly old, so my guesstimate is that they might have been in their late 40s in 1325, with Dessa disappearing into the Mists in her late 20s.

There are other hints to the timeline of Dessa’s entrance into the fractals, such as a line that might indicate that it had to have been later than GW1, but I think they’re irrelevant because the two clues I’ve covered narrow it down far enough to combine with the data on Arkk. But I’ll mention them anyway.

[Skip past these if you don’t care.]

Dessa refers to the dredge as a “culture”, which is the line that makes me say she probably postdates GW1, because the dredge’s progress from a race of slaves to a civilization of their own happened in the time between the games.

The Consortium existed when Dessa was in Tyria. We don’t know when they were established, so this gives us pretty much nothing. But it’s still timeline-relevant.

The Inquest also existed before Dessa’s departure. (Her confused “Is the Inquest multiracial now?” quite amuses me.) The Inquest, as far as I can gather, was not in Tyria -- or at least not prominent -- in the time of GW1, so that’s just another “yes, we get it, she’s not >250 years old” evidence fragment.

Similarly to the above, in the underwater fractal, Dessa expresses dislike of krait. Once again, the krait only showed up in Tyria in between games, supposedly fleeing the deep sea dragon (though they seem fine working with Risen).

Strangely, Dessa refers to LA as a “pirate haven” from which she would never launch a project. This doesn’t really clear anything up; it’s been a city built on and thriving on piracy for a long time, but the comment might suggest that she knew a less civilized version of LA than we see in 1325, with a lot less law. She does recognize the Lionguard, though, so it could just be that she disdained the city for being host to piratical activity at all, no matter how relatively tame. (I also checked SoS to see if there are any clues as to when the Lionguard were established. It doesn’t mention them at all, so who knows.)

[You can stop skipping now.]

The following contains spoilers for the Shattered Observatory fractal.

Arkk seems to have entered the mists shortly after Mordremoth was killed (1328), judging by his lost journal pages mentioning an unknown surge of power.

We don’t know how long he has been trying to get into the fractals. Maybe he didn’t even know where Dessa was until a few years ago. Perhaps he overheard something during the Lionguard’s investigation in season 1 of the living story? Or was he just not old enough to start working on getting to her?

That leads to the primary question I have: how old was Arkk when Dessa left?

Arkk clearly knows Dessa to some extent; though he seems not to in the Chaos fractal when jamming her comms, he also says “was she always this stubborn?”, hinting that he at least knows who she is. There are two possibilities I see here: either he didn’t know Dessa long enough before 130X to know that she was stubborn, or he did know but time has faded the memory.

When he finally meets up with Dessa, he nostalgically says she “looks so young”. This could mean she was older and somehow got youthened by the Mists, but it’s more likely that he expected her to look older. Or that it was just a moment of nostalgia from someone who may be older than his own mother.

From all this, I conclude: Arkk was a progeny, maybe somewhere around 7-10 years old, when Dessa disappeared. As he grew older, he focused his studies on trying to find her, but didn’t have much to go on until 1326, when the fractals became linked to LA and people started mentioning her and her separate universe frozen in time. Two years is a reasonable time for him to have built something to enter the fractals himself and destroy them.

Dessa, then, formed her new krewe and went into the fractals in her late 20s, after finishing something with Greeza and Chibb among others. She left behind a child old enough to remember her. She probably did so by accident; when they meet, she does seem to care about him. She didn’t recognize him at first, but this just supports the idea that he was not yet grown when she last saw him. And 25 years in a time loop might make a person forget some things.

Other details that are tangential, but still worth examining for the sake of further understanding the lore behind these two characters:

According to Arkk, he owes a debt to the Inquest. Did he steal materials from them in order to make his DDR and whatever else he needed? He clearly needed a power source for it, as evidenced by his willingness to work with us to get the one from the Nightmare fractal; it could be that he either “borrowed” the original power source from the Inquest, or made a deal with them that he had no intention of honoring. Or maybe he wanted the Nightmare power source desperately enough to make up something about the Inquest to cover the fact that he wanted us to get the hell out, and then he could play nice just long enough for us to help him get what he needed.

Dessa says that her ex-boyfriend work[s/ed] for the Consortium. Is this ex-boyfriend the father, or was there someone else? Either is as likely as the other, imo.

What is up with the uncategorized fractal? She’s clearly upset by seeing the ruined city; was this a former asuran city that existed alongside Rata Sum in the 1200s and then underwent some catastrophe? Did she grow up there? That’s my working theory, anyway. As for the raving asura, he has a letter to Dessa in his possession, and Dessa is sad upon receiving it. So just who is he? Her father? Arkk’s father? The aforementioned ex-boyfriend, assuming the latter two are not one and the same? A brother perhaps? The possibilities here are admittedly endless, and I doubt we’ll ever be able to figure out the answer to this one on our own without ANet telling us.

[kutscene-kestin]

Non-spoilery thoughts on Endgame War Eternal:

Saw that coming.

Didn’t see that coming.

That’s pretty cool.

Wait, this feels familiar.

Man, that’s trippy.

Spoilers below the cut:

They were always going to bring Aurene back. That theory was a popular one. I kind of expected to be angry about it, actually, because of reasons that don’t make sense. But when I played today, I just didn’t feel much of anything at all, really. A flash of resentment, a flash of happiness, enough interest to keep playing, but, well, as anyone who’s been reading this can tell, I’ve not been in a good place since. You know. :/ So you can’t expect me to be all...how I used to be about story updates. It’s still, y’know, good though, something to do.

The map is kind of annoying, but most if not all LS maps are. And there’s more waypoints on this one than others. Sometimes. It’s basically a more purple DS, I guess.

Kralkatorrik...is kind of...? I don’t wanna say “not evil”, but. Actually, fridge brilliance here: the idea behind the dragons is that they’re more like forces of nature than beings that really give a fuck what they do to us. Obviously Mordremoth seemed like a real dick, but mind is one of its domains and I think that explains it being more self-aware and manipulative. The others, though, are ultimately...well, I saw a great analogy one time on the older forums that I’ll share.

It said that to the dragons, other species are like bacteria. They’re mainly aware of us when we’re attacking them; we attack them because they’re killing us and destroying our world, so yeah...but they don’t consider that. They just want to fight off the infection. When Kralk woke up, it made the Brand, created its minions, and killed people...all without even noticing it, much less actively trying to do harm. Going after Glint was like getting an appendectomy, if you think about it. Everyone and everything else has all just been...various bodily processes.

We only “met” Kralkatorrik as a thinking being when we went inside of it -- so it may have been less of a formal communication and more of us being able to perceive its thoughts (I’m not asking questions about how going in physically gets us in mentally, because these are beings literally made of magic, and that’s all the answer I need) -- in a way, maybe, similar to how Snaff did. He didn’t hear words, but he knew its mind, he understood it, it presented itself to him -- I’m going to use another analogy, a personal one this time.

It’s like...when I’m really emotional and I have all this stuff going on in my head, and the stuff is all just a swirling glob of feelings and thoughts that haven’t been put into words and the sheer density of it prevents me from processing it so it stays that way, a mess, and I always wish I could open a door to my mind to communicate with people when I’m stuck with “stuff” too strong to properly refine into something people will understand. That’s what we did: it was clear to us, interpreted as words, because we were in there with it all.

Anyway, where I’m going with this is, Kralk wasn’t actively malicious until more recently. More recently...when it became increasingly unstable with magic that still held the essences of its previous owners, forcing them on it, making it both desperate and angry. Hence the absolute asshole of an enemy we became familiar with.

Hmm. Both Avengers and LS4 have purple villains with no sense of doing anything wrong and a semblance of care for their children that still means less to them than their goals.

...

So yeah that’s my thoughts on that, and the whole Alas Poor Villain thing that happened at the end there.

[gossamer-scraps]

Lots of times I put a bunch of work into GW2 explanatory content/theorycrafting/research/etc, and then post it to only one of the multiple places I post GW2 content (this blog, my private discord full of reference materials, another discord of reference materials I have, SC discord, etc.) I should really decide on one place to put everything, but it’s hard to really feel the obligation because, as far as I know, almost no one actually needs the information in them so it makes fairly little difference where I put them :P 

Anyways, I’ll try to remember to put some stuff here sometimes.