So we all know Elder Dragons are basically the
main antagonists of GW2 but what do we really know about them? What’s their
nature? Are they just wild beasts or is there logic behind their madness?
What’s the importance of their generals or champions? What’s the connection
between the Elder Dragons and the Pale Tree? And finally, what’s the place of
the Elder Dragons in the Eternal Alchemy?
What follows tries to
adress all these questions. FULL CREDITS go to SpeedFiend.4521, who’s the
author of the article below.
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So yeah.
Elder Dragons. What makes them so elder and so dragon-y though? Let’s look
for/at some common traits:
- - They’ve
been around for a while and their awakenings have a cyclical nature
- - Each
has a cavalcade of servants, created or otherwise subverted by it. These
servants actively work to impose their master’s will and advance his agenda. These
servants are not created equal, ranging from expendable foot soldiers to
commanders and generals with a lot more agency and free will.
- - They
reshape their environment in their own image.
- - The
EDs can impose their will on their minions across vast distances, compelling
them to carry out their orders.
-
Having said
that, let’s see what we already do know for a fact, and try to make some
presumptions based on the notion that at the end of the day, having all these
traits in common it’s not unlikely they have more in common.
The Dragons’ Generals
In the case of Primordus, his
greatest general was the Great Destroyer. His demise at the hands of the GW1
PCs set back his awakening, but did not prevent it.
For Kralkatorrik, it’s Glint. She
was freed of her master’s influence, and began actively working against him.
She herself claimed that his awakening could not be stopped, whether by her or
anyone else.
For Jormag,
this is quite possibly Drakkar. While not exactly awake in the conventional
sense, he’s the closest and (so far as we know) only source of corruption that
could have affected Svanir. Taking a look at Svanir, it’s quite obvious he’s
corrupted in much the same way that all the other Icebrood are. How’d he get
himself into this with no awake dragon to corrupt him, you say? It’s not
entirely unreasonable to assume that an Elder Dragon stirs long before he
awakes, and can reach out to and command his minions, though with greater
difficulty. Essentially, the ED sounds the party alarm, causing all the party
people-minion-dragons to come calling. With fresh ED-strength coffee and
magical crumpets, no less.
This seems to imply that an Elder
Dragon’s greatest champion, while important to his awakening, is ultimately not
needed. They accelerate the process by getting the ball rolling, so to speak,
but even without their intervention the ED’s wake up later, rather than sooner,
and get to work.
Given that we’re already 3 for 6
here, it’s a decent assumption to presume that the rest of the gang operate in
a similar manner. In the cases of Zhaitan and Bubbles, we may never know who
was meant to be the catalyst for their awakening (they’d opted to take a nap in
places inconvenient for our observation).
On to
Mordremoth. We’ve quite clearly seen that his minion portfolio so far includes
creatures curiously reminescent of sylvan hounds, and the all too familiar
husks. Where else have we seen these, you ask? Well, the Pale Tree grows sylvan
hounds, in much the same way she does the Sylvari. The Nightmare Court (who
are, wait for it, sylvari) seem rather fond of husks themselves. Inquest
experimentation into ED magic seems to have also picked a Husk and some
Nightmare creatures as the basis for their exerimentation into Mordremoth’s
energies.
Right
around here is where I’ll pull the tried and tested “THE PALE TREE IS A KITTEN
DRAGON MINION, EVERYBODY RUN” card. But not quite. What do we know about the
Pale Tree, really? We know it was grown from a seed, and there were many more
like it in a cave. We know the cave was guarded by “powerful plant creatures”.
Sound familiar? We also know the Pale Tree is pretty big on the whole Ventari’s
Teachings thing. Conveniently, the latest patch has a book in the ley line hub
containing the theory that souls are like magic (and lightning, because
lightning is cool), and can be grounded. Not related, right? Wrong.
Abaddon was
pretty banged up after his fall and he diverted a whole river of the kitten
things. He is conveniently regenerating while this is happening.
The Risen
Priest of Grenth encountered in the story mission in the Cathedral of Silence
is said, by the 7th reaper, to have been “stolen”. Furthermore, grenth wishes
his soul returned to the mists. Well then.
Ventari, in
his old age, lay down next to the pale tree as he died.
At least
one other pale tree seed has sprouted somewhere, though it has a decidedly more
“blank” persona and no Dream to speak of.
You know
that Mouth of Zhaitan dude? Big, ugly, burps a lot? He eats magical artefacts,
thus strengthening his master.
All this
seemingly unrelated insanity, what if I told you that the pale tree is such a
massive hippy because it absorbed, partially or fully, the soul of Ventari upon
his passing, imprinting it with his personality and beliefs.
But what
about Malyck’s tree? Since clearly sentient beings don’t wind up taking their
dying breath under big fancy magical dragon champion seedlings, Malyck’s tree
had nobody to imprint anything from and grew to be a regular old plant.
Persumably when Mordremoth begins to stir (something we’re somewhat past at
this point) he will reach out to his currently purposeless general and set it
to work.
But
Mordremoth used Scarlet, you say? Given that he’s the only ED to wake up
outside the (usual) 50 or so year interval between ED risings, presumably he
was a lot less “stirry” than would have been required to take control of a
giant whoppin sentient tree with free will such as Malyck’s tree. The Pale Tree
was even more so out of the question, imparted with the strong and somewhat
disagreeable with the whole ED spiel beliefs of Ventari.
Scarlet,
much like the Soundless (who a certain trader-turned-saboteur was a member of)
was disconnected from the Dream. An entity reached out to her (are you gettin
the Svanir vibes yet?). It tried to take credit for her ideas, or so she
claims, and we all know how her ideas turned out. You see, a single sylvari
with a big kitten in her psyche’s armor would be relatively easy to take hold
of compared to Malyck’s tree. Sure, she’d be a lot less capable of fully
awakening Mordremoth as opposed to the champion(or champions) intended to do
so, but hey, if you have to get to the next town and the train has derailed
then a bike is still better than walking.
Where are
the Nightmare Court in all this? What gives with that whole Nightmare thing
anywho? The Nightmare is, for all intents and purposes, a sharp disagreement
with the teachings of Ventari. Though it’s source may be Mordremoth, only time
will tell if their activities to were what he intended, or simply an acceptable
byproduct of him attempting to subvert Ventari’s influence. Surely with each
sylvari/hound/husk turned to Nightmare, the Pale Tree’s positions weakens,
regardless of whether this directly strengthens Mordremoth or not. Think of it
this way – by turning away from the Dream, sylvari leave themselves vulnerable
to being drawn into the fold of their master. While his grasp was still weak,
Scarlet’s dabbling with Omadd’s machine left her uniquely vulnerable, and we
all saw how that turned out. As Mordremoth grows in power (something happening
quite quickly by the looks of things) we can expect that he’ll fully subvert
the nightmare court as they are the next most susceptible batch of his minions,
right along with the dreamless sylvari born of the other pale tree(s?).
On the Eternal Alchemy and why things seem to
happen in the wrong order.
The vision
of the Eternal Alchemy seen in Omadd’s machine does not represent the ED’s true
awakening as would be observable by us, but rather their stirring. As we’ve seen,
their rise is inevitable, but delay is a possibility. Primordus, followed by
the DSD, followed by Jormag stirred and awoke in the order we see with the aid
of their respective minions and champions. Mordremoth stirred next, with no
champion and minions, he did not fully awaken. Kralkatorrik stirred next, but
as he is also without a champion, his full awakening is delayed. Finally
Zhaitan stirred. As he happened to be sleeping on top of exactly what he needed
to gain power (and possibly further aided by his own champion), leading to him
awakening fully before Kralkatorrik and Mordremoth. After this Kralkatorrik
becomes observably active (perhaps somewhat more empowered than Mordremoth by
that whole Searing thing slathering the nearby area in magic), creating the
Dragonbrand and hunting down his errant alarm clock. Finally Mordremoth awakens
fully with the aid of Scarlet’s ley line tap in a rather spectacular case of
better late than never.
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