#primeval scion rambles

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

Commander Week, Day 1: Origins

Where does your Commander come from? How did they grow up? Who influenced them when they were young and impressionable? What were their goals and aspirations? If they are Sylvari, what was it like waking up from the Dream?

Adayra (Main Commander)-

Adayra grew up under the care of her older sister Rayanna on the streets of Divinity’s Reach after their parents died from a Centaur attack. While her sister joined the Seraph, Adayra went in the opposite direction and became a petty thief. At first, she only stole food or a few coins now and then to get by, but after her sister went missing, she resorted to becoming a full-time criminal. One day when out stealing food, she ran into another thief by the name of Kaiden. At first they fought, but after both being spotted by some nearby Seraph Guards, they worked together to escape and have been close friends ever since. 

It wasn’t until the attack on Shaemoor that Adayra turned away from a life of crime. While knocked out after the elemental exploded, she dreamt of a mysterious woman with a phoenix, both of whom looked to be made of light. While she couldn’t remember what the woman said, she could feel that this woman was a messenger of Kormir and that she had blessed her, giving her an opportunity to turn away from a life of deceit and instead walk a new path of honesty. Adayra had never cared much for the Gods, but after the strange dream, she had to admit she was a little intrigued now. Plus, with people now calling her “The Hero of Shaemoor”, she was loving the respect and admiration she was getting and wanted more, and, y’know, it just felt good helping people for once. So, with the help of Captain Logan, she turned her back on her life of crime and set out to help those in need, later on joining the Vigil and then the Pact.

Vesuvia (AU Commander)- (tw: abuse)

Vesuvia was born in the Flame Legion and lived there for the first couple years of her life. Her time in there was tough. It was filled with strict rules and abuse, especially from her father. Vesuvia was unsatisfied with the roles the Flame Legion tried to push on her, so at night she would sneak out with her sister Etna and some other female cubs to learn various fighting and survival techniques. One day, however, her father found out. Furious, her father interrupted one of the secret lessons and killed their mentor before dragging his cubs back home by their tails to punish them (as well as their mother for “allowing” them to sneak out at night). It was that night that Vesuvia would receive the burn scar on the side of her face and that Etna would be blinded.

Life got better for Vesuvia when she escaped her cruel father and his legion by escaping to the Black Citadel during the night with her mother and sister. However, many charr didn’t trust them and still thought of her as an enemy. Because of this, she was forced to work harder to prove to them that she was trustworthy and would never go back to the Flame Legion. Eventually, Vesuvia would gain the trust of most of her warband, particularly Clawspur who would become her closest friend and sparring partner. Unfortunately, years later she would lose everyone but Clawspur and their irritating Legionnaire Urvan Steelbane in the battle against Duke Barradin. After the battle, Vesuvia grew bitter and blamed Steelbane for their warband’s death because he split everyone up. She would eventually turn against him and battle him in the Bane to take over as Legionnaire. After winning the fight and becoming legionnaire, she would begin traveling through Ascalon more and helping anyone she could with her rebuilt warband. Later on she would be promoted to Centurion and join the Vigil, then the Pact.

Manawydan (AU Commander for my EU account)-

Manawydan’s time in the Dream was a peaceful one. He had a thirst for knowledge and spent much of his time learning as much as he could while he waited to awaken. When not out learning, he would sit by the ocean and ponder about who he is and what he was meant to do. Everything changed, however, when the Nightmare began to infect the Dream and he was called to defend it. After defeating the Shadow of The Dragon, Manawydan awoke abruptly at the edge of the Grove within the village of Astorea. It was time for him to explore the world, but the encounter with the Nightmare had shaken him so he stuck close to the Grove for the first few months of his life. It wasn’t until he met Caithe again that he would begin to be braver as she became both his friend and mentor. He then started wandering farther from the Grove and helping anyone he came across. Later on, he would join the Priory and then the Pact.

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

🖊 🖊 🖊 for Medraut? I'd love to know more about them!!

Sure thing, thanks for the ask! I’m glad to hear you’re interested in him :D

Fact #1: Medraut is one of 5 other major scions. In my gw2 canon, Glint isn’t the only scion that was freed from her parent’s grasp. There’s one for each Elder Dragon. Though the ritual worked on the other scions, none of them became interested in the races like Glint did and instead went into hiding.

Fact #2: For many, many years Medraut lived alone and paid no attention to any of the other races. Eventually, though, he would grow lonely and so he began to experiment in making his own blighting trees. The first few results he wasn’t particularly satisfied with. The mordrem made from the tree were mindless and that frustrated Medraut, so he left his home to go study various races to see what his mordrem were missing. Eventually he would return to his home with new knowledge and inspiration for his new race of mordrem. He made another blighting tree and made sure it was well cared for. When the tree was finally fully grown and produced the first mordrem, he was pleased to see they were now sapient. These would be the first sylvari, though these ones were a little more monstrous in appearance and certainly acted much different than the sylvari of the Pale Tree. In modern days, his Grove has become massive (much larger than the Pale Tree’s and the largest of the handful of sylvari trees that exist in my gw2 canon) and has been hidden by magic since it’s creation so nobody knows of its existence except Medraut. He doesn’t want his sylvari falling into the talons of Mordremoth or any evil race, so he takes hiding them very, very seriously and isn’t afraid to fully wipe the memories of any of his sylvari who get captured in order to keep them from leaking information.

Fact #3: When the HoT storyline happened, Medraut received reports of his sylvari finding other strange sylvari in Maguuma that weren’t from his Grove. Curious, Medraut went out to find these strangers and that’s when he learned of the Pale Tree and her sylvari. Sometime after Mordremoth’s death, Medraut would go to the Caledon Forest disguised as a normal sylvari to investigate these new sylvari in person. He would later return to his Grove disappointed, though, because he found these sylvari to be either “too nice” or “too cruel” and far too different from his own. Nonetheless, he was still interested in them and would keep an eye on them from afar, sending a few of his own sylvari to spy on them.

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

🖊🖊🖊 for whoever you want!

Thank you so much for the ask! Not sure if the three pens is just for fun or actually means three questions, so I’m gonna take it as three questions because I’m always looking for an excuse to ramble about my OCs hehe. This ended up being longer than I meant it to be but I hope you all enjoy! I certainly enjoyed writing it :D

Fact #1: In light of my sylvari headcanon post, I’ll talk about Noire’s thorns! In my headcanon post I mentioned thorns as something an angry sylvari can get, but that’s not quite the case for Noire. Noire’s thorns are more of a defensive thing. He was “raised” in the Nightmare Court, so he learned that he always has to be on the defensive to survive. His body translated this need to always feel like he’s prepared for danger into protective thorns. While he’s no longer in the Court and is much happier, he still has thorns since traumatic lessons like those don’t go away easily. His lifestyle doesn’t exactly help either since he often gets into danger.

Fact #2: For this one, I’ll talk about Arianr and Arawn’s color change! Originally, Arianr was more of a blue color and Arawn was red. That changed however after they died and came back (still working on the details of that, but basically it’s gotta do with the White Mantle, Margonites, and Dragon Scions). While in the Mists, Arianr encountered a mysterious dragon scion who referred to themselves simply as “The Voice of The Mists”. The Voice told Arianr her story does not end here and that they wish to help her on her Wyld Hunt (which is to stop a powerful evil sylvari, aka corrupted!Arawn but at this point she doesn’t know that’s who that is). It takes a bit of convincing until Arianr accepts since she believes her dearheart Arawn is dead and doesn’t want to live without him, but she finally does when she realizes it is her duty to see her Wyld Hunt through. The Voice then guides Arianr through the trials to resurrection. At the end when they finally reach the portal back to Tyria, the Voice blesses Arianr with their powers and forms a connection with her. It... wasn’t a fun process though. The Voice engulfed Arianr in a wave of magical water. Boiling magical water. This process is what stripped Arianr of most of her color as the water “boiled away her impurities”, as the Voice put it. When it was all over and the Voice’s power flowed through her, her glow color became a bright light blue and so did her eyes.

As for Arawn, his color comes from the corruption of the bloodstone and his own resurrection. When he died, he met a margonite named Azaroth who desired to become his Patron(what I call the legendary figures that the revenants summon). Like Arianr, Arawn refused since he didn’t want to live without his dearheart. Unfortunately, Azaroth wasn’t giving him a say in the matter. In the physical realm, the margonite’s White Mantle minions were busy imbuing Arawn’s body with bloodstone and readying a resurrection ritual. The combination of the bloodstone and the ritual turned his color to a dark purplish red akin to a rotting apple and changed his glow and eye colors to a bright red as the bloodstone’s power flowed through him.

Fact #3: Last fact! This time I’ll talk a bit about Morag’s past! People often think she will one day fall to the Nightmare because of her personality, but another big part of that is because she use to be very close with a couple of sylvari who ended up joining the Court. These sylvari were Eimear, Aoife, and Scathach. They were essentially a group of bullies who roamed around the Grove harassing people. At this time, Morag was still a sapling and Aoife(the ringleader) had been around longer than she had(not by much though) so she looked up to her and eagerly copied what she did to get her and her little gang’s approval. Over time, Morag ended up growing closer to Scathach rather than Aoife and began thinking of her as an older sister. One night, the two were hanging out when Scathach mentioned she had signed up to join the Order of Whispers and said she wanted Morag to join too. Scathach then confessed she hates Aoife and Eimear and only follows them around because Aoife is her twin and that she wishes better for Morag. At first Morag is hesitant to agree to join because she’s afraid of what Aoife and Eimear will do to her, but eventually she agrees and together the two become Order of Whispers initiates. Things go well until one day Aoife and Eimear show up and declare they’re going to join the Nightmare Court and they want Morag and Scathach to join too. To Morag’s horror, Scathach agrees and joins them. Outnumbered 3 to 1, Morag is about to give in when Scathach gives her a small shake of her head, silently telling her “don’t give in.” It’s around that same time when two other Whispers initiates come over to offer help, having noticed the distressed look on Morag’s face. Aoife tells them to buzz off, but they don’t and stand beside Morag, ready to defend her if necessary. Feeling braver, Morag declares she will not join them. Aoife is furious and is about ready to knock some “sense” into her, but Eimear cuts in and says not to waste her time on Morag, making Aoife reluctantly back off. The three courtiers-to-be leave, and as they do so, Scathach subtly looks back at Morag and gives her an apologetic look. When they’re gone, the two Initiates who stood up for Morag introduce themselves as Sila and Lorraine and invite her to hang out with them. Morag hesitates at first before accepting and the three become friends.

(For those curious about Scathach, it’s later revealed she joined the Nightmare Court to serve as an undercover agent for the Order of Whispers to help take down one of their larger camps)

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

🖊🖊🖊!

Thanks for the ask! I’ll talk a bit about a couple of my charr for this one!

Fact #1: While Osmundr loved growing up with the Norn, he often felt like he didn’t belong because he was a charr. During his late teens, Os decided to travel to the Black Citadel in an attempt to connect with his charr roots. Iorunn, of course, came with to make sure her “little brother” got there safely. Unfortunately for Os, when he got there, he was very disappointed. The air was filled with smoke that scorched his lungs, the loud clanging of metal hurt his ears, and everyone was horribly rude. He felt more like an outsider there than he did with the Norn. He spent a few days in the Black Citadel thinking maybe he’d get use to it or it’d get better, but neither happened so he sadly packed up his things and headed back to the Shiverpeaks with Iorunn. When he arrived at his home, he was shocked to see everyone in the village was celebrating his return. They had heard ahead of time via messenger crow that his time in the Black Citadel didn’t go so well, so they wanted to cheer him up by making him know he’s always welcome here. Later that night, he was sitting alone on a hilltop when he encountered Wolf. They talked and Wolf gave him valuable advice that made him realize it doesn’t matter that he’s a charr. This village is his home and the Norn are his family, even if they don’t share the same blood.

Fact #2: When she’s not traveling, Kali spends her days on a little farm just outside Althoma. Here she tends to her garden which is made up of various flowers, herbs, berry bushes, fruit trees, and vegetables. Though she loves seeing the world, so feels most at peace in her garden and often misses it when she’s out on her adventures.

Fact #3: Keres and her half-sister Moirai often butt heads, sometimes quite literally. While they both care for each other, neither of them particularly likes what the other is doing. Moirai dislikes how Keres is working with a dangerous margonite and Keres dislikes how Moirai refuses to let anyone help her with her branded situation. They’re both horribly stubborn, so any attempt to convince the other to do something often ends in a big fight.

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No sorry I wrote the wrong thing. I meant Sila! 🖊

That’s alright haha. Sure, I can talk about Sila!

Sila is one of the rare sylvari who has very strong empathetic abilities, strong enough that she’s often accused of being a mind reader. She can even sense of the feelings of non-sylvari, though not quite as well. Typically, she uses these powers to act as a lookout on spy missions. She can feel if someone is wary of them or hostile which allows her to quickly warn her friends if they’re about to be found out or attacked. These powers of hers can often be very taxing, though, so it isn’t unusual for her to take days off just to be alone.

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

🖊 🖊 for anybody!

Thanks for the ask bruh ❤️👀

Noire is the only character I can really think of facts for rn so I’ll talk a bit more about him!

Fact #1: Scathach is the one who saved him from the Nightmare Court. During Scathach’s time in the Court, she had met Noire a couple times and noticed he was just a misguided sapling, so she made it her duty to guide him out of the darkness he was wrapped in. When the Order of Whispers and Wardens launched an attack on the camp Scathach was tasked with infiltrating, she helped many imprisoned sylvari escape and also convinced Noire to escape with them. He was reluctant at first since the Court was all he’s ever known, but there was a longing in his heart to see the world that Scathach had told him of so he soon agreed and fled with them. In his first few days of freedom, he stayed at the Grove with the other rescued sylvari as they went through therapy for what they’ve been through. He didn’t particularly like it though and was uncomfortable being around Dreamers, so Scathach took him to a Soundless camp instead. He was much more comfortable there and met Llyr, who would soon become his best friend.

Fact #2: Noire met Morag when he got caught by Seraph Guards while absolutely sloshed. This took place not too long after Llyr left his crew, so he was pretty upset and was expressing it in not so good ways. When Morag heard the infamous Captain Noire was in jail, she jumped at the chance to meet him. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t quite what she expected. Still, Morag had come all this way for him so she offered to save him from rotting in jail in return for him occasionally working as her informant and doing her some favors. The disgraced pirate captain reluctantly accepted her offer and together (with the help of Morag’s friends) they escaped the prison.

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

🖊🖊🖊

Thanks for the ask!

Fact #1: I imagine Arawn’s voice sounds similar to Shayfer James’s singing voice. Here’s one of his songs as an example, which is actually also one of the songs in Arawn’s playlist! It fits him really well. The song is For The Departed by Shayfer James

Fact #2: Keres’s patron is a troublesome margonite named Akora. She is... a handful, to say the least. Keres gets many, many headaches from her but puts up with it since Akora is very knowledgable and powerful. The two met when Keres was exploring the Mists one day and Akora tried to kill her but failed. When Keres was about to strike the finishing blow on the margonite, Akora quickly said she would be of more use alive and that she would become Keres’s patron if she allowed her to live. Keres thought a bit before agreeing and the two have been bound together ever since.

Fact #3: Kian first met my EU commander Manawydan during the sylvari personal storyline “Deeply Tangled Roots”. Kian was wary of the supposed new recruit and he was proved right to be wary when Manawydan turned on the court with Tiachren and Caithe. Kian helped fight the three but as they began to wipe out the court, including the powerful Renvari, he realized he wasn’t going to win this fight so he snuck out during the chaos and fled to the nearest Nightmare Court camp. He would later meet Manawydan again when he is tasked with hunting down Malyck.

[primeval-scion-of-the-mists]

🖊 for anyone!

Thanks for the ask! I’ll talk a bit about the Jackal Prince for this one!

Jackal is a prince of an Elonian kingdom dedicated to Grenth that was lost to the desert many centuries ago. Pretty much all historical documents of this kingdom have been lost, so it’s often thought to just be a myth, a legendary “El Dorado” sort of place. During the destruction of his kingdom from a massive earthquake, he was trapped in the palace as the earth began to swallow it and sand poured in. With him was his mother, Queen as well as a Priestess of Grenth, who used the last of her magic to grant Jackal immortality to save him from death. Jackal begged her not to, but she did it anyways, unable to let her son die such a horrible death. After the destruction stopped, Jackal dug his way out and fled the desert with the few remaining citizens who had avoided being buried. Unfortunately, the people traveling with him soon began to die off one by one from lack of food and water until Jackal was the last one remaining. He was very distraught by their deaths and he vowed to never let it happen again, dedicating himself to a life of helping those in need whenever he can while also keeping a low profile. Being the lone survivor made Jackal feel ashamed of himself, so he tries to avoid attention when possible. This is also one of the reasons why he wears a mask and never tells anyone his real name.