Dragon elements

What exactly is each elder dragon's area of magic?

Zhaitan - death (grey)Mordremoth - earth (green)Primordus - fire (orange)Jormag - ice (white)Kralkatorrik - ? (purple)"bubbles" - ? (blue)

Are their magics in pairs?

death/earth(life)fire/icepurple/blue

In Omadd's machine they appear in two pairs of three, which confirms the above.

Bubbles, Mordremoth, PrimordusKralkatorrik, Zhaitan, Jormag

In that sense, destroying Zhaitan and Mordremoth would have taken out two dragons on opposing magics, thereby returning the Alchemy to relative stability.

However that doesn't explain as well why destroying both Primordus and Jormag could cause the destruction of Tyria rather than simply canceling each other out.

Perhaps, because the remaining dragons would absorb all the magic, they would become too potent...

However, I find it interesting that Kralkatorrik is purple, and purple is usually associated with illusory magic. If so, this means the opposite is reality. So if that pair absorbs all the dragon energy... reality and illusion would begin to clash, destroying Tyria in the process.

From what we know:

Zhaitan: Death and ShadowMordremoth: Plant/Life and MindPrimordus: Fire and ??? (theorized: Earth)Jormag: Ice and ??? (theorized: Soul/Spirit)Kralkatorrik: Crystal and ??? (nearly confirmed: Sky/Air)Deep sea dragon: ??? and ??? (theorized: Water)

Their magic may or may not be in pairs. We know Jormag and Primordus' domains are each others' opposites and it's hinted for Zhaitan and Mordremoth, but at the same time we're told every Elder Dragon has "one unique weakness" and that weakness for Jormag/Primordus is said to be each other while Mordremoth's weakness is "his mind" meaning that it cannot be paired with Zhaitan's energies otherwise Mordremoth would have two unique weaknesses. So we have conflicting lines about that.

As to the balance thing - if you take a plate, balance it on a pole placed in the center, and put six equally weighted objects on equidistant ends of that plate then remove two opposites, it remains somewhat stable; remove the next two and it becomes less so because it can tilt to the left or right of those two remaining weights. Now imagine those weights are containers holding liquids, rather than removing the weights you're poking holes in them so that they drain out onto the plate. Eventually the plate will flood, even if the weights remain balanced to their opposites, and that liquid can shift densities at the slighted movement, throwing off balance even further.

Another thing to consider is that in the visions of the All, the six orbs - which it should be noted are not the Elder Dragons, but rather the Elder Dragons are directly tied to - are in constant motion around Tyria's orb. So the points of balance, if we're to apply literal gravitation to the concept, would be constantly shifting. In the simulation, Mordremoth's and Zhaitan's orbs were not still but slowly moving, meaning that their shifts in balance was moving at a different rate than the other four.

On the last point: Kralkatorrik may be purple, but there's been zero relation to mesmerism or illusion to Kralkatorrik. Illusions were most heavily employed by Zhaitan's risen, while telepathy was most commonly seen among Jormag's champions and Mordremoth itself. Though Glint is also telepathic and a seer, she is outright stated to be a fully unique case among dragons (though we know this is not correct as we learn with Mordremoth but even then, Mordremoth's telepathy seemed limited to his own creations making it similar to the other Elder Dragons' hive minds with minions but with a lot more complexity and precision).

The closest mesmer-like case to Kralkatorrik is the one branded plant that gives off a Chaos Storms appearance when it attacks those nearby.

thank God, for not being another topic about the 6 dragons equating the 6 gods.

I think its basically like this:

Zhaitan = Death & DarknessMordremoth = Nature & Mind/MentalityJormag = Ice & Aggression/Corruption (see its Minions, the Corrupted, Corrupted Weapons ect.)Primordus = Fire & Destruction (see its Minions, the Destroyers)Kralkatorrik = Sky (Lightning) & Earth (Crystal)S***** = Water & Secrets/Wisdom/Truth (which is why i think Anet makes also about this one sicne 5 years such a huge secret about and I strongly believe this has also somethign to do with Abaddon

I think the Gods had in their abscence kind of a huge arguement with each other, which made now Balthazar so angry, that he plans now to become the only God that he stealed Lyssas Mirror for the Illusion of turning into Fake Lazarus to try to trick us, so that he could gain the powers of the elder dragons and that bloodstone was on the way just a nice bonus, after we woudl have killed Primordus and Jormag, which we successfully stopped him, by seinding both dragons for now first back into sleep mode through letting their elemental energies neutralize each other with the help of Taimis machine..

But I guess Balthazar is already planning in Elona something to reverse at least this last act for Primordus to force him to reawaken, so that he could kill him and absorb its powers, cause as the elder dragon of fire and most likely destruction he is the most important elder dragon for Balthazar as God of Fire & War = Destruction to absorb.Withot absorbing its powers, its most likely impossible for balthazar to overcome the combined powers of the other Gods to end not up as like Abaddons 250 years ago getting imprisoned...So I kind of guess, that Balthazar will make eventually a pact with Abaddon, that he will help him becoming the only god, therefore that Balthazar gifts him the chance to get revenge on the other Gods and stealing his powers (Kormir), lettign Abaddon gettinbalowed to defeat and absorb the elder sea dragons powers to regain his powers, so that he can help Balthazar with his plans and get on the way his revenge.

If the story turns out really this way, that would be kind of epic, if we get into the clash of the gods for power, where I think Balthazar wants to rule over Tyrias Overworld as the only god, leaving the underworld open for Abadddon to rule over that maybe.. but i could also think of Bathalzar betraying Abaddon in the end to rule truly over absolutely everythign as only god, cause with all the absorbed powers, would stand a weakened Abaddon no chance anyways against Balthazar, as he'd be anyway for him just a means for the purpose as long hes helpful for his plans, but once the dragons and other gods would be no more, I also see no reason why balthazar should any longer cooperate with Abaddon and not betray him, cause then he has no need for him anymore, at least thats what I would expect from a true Rogue God as a Villain to do in the end, to make sure, that Abaddon eventually could not come onto stupid ideas, like makign a revolt agaisnt him with the help of the players... after seeing in, what a big mistake has has made

Howev,er I think there are also two Elder Dragons missing in the whole concept, that the scheme we see from the eternal alchemy just shows us the known Dragons and elements of the Eternal Alchemy based on Tyria/Elona as Continents...I'm pretty sure that there could be existing still at least 2 more Elder Dragons for Cantha, which still havent awakened yet at all, cause we miss literally Elder Dragosn for some Elements.

We have a seperate Elder Dragon basically for Water and Ice, but no seperate Elder Dragon for WindWe have an Elder Dragon for Death and Darkness, but not for Life and Light (I dont see Mordremoths aspect for beign Life, hes clearly Nature/Earth in regard of Plants, but not Life)It would be also kind of wrong, if Cantha, as the Land of Dragons wouldnt have somewhere some sleeping elder dragons that are just waiting to awake, because there is otherwise not really much essentialyl left for lore to provide for a story for an expansion that could lead us there. the only thign we know about what has happened within the last 250 years in Cantha is, that the current Emperor in charge there has turned Cantha practically into a racist nation of Humans, exiling every other race out of the land, which is why the Tengus fled as refugees over to Tyria and are hiding themself since 250 years behind their big wall isolated from the rest of the world to protect that way themself.

I can see Cantha having the Elder Dragon of Wind & Denial and the other being of Light & Life/PreservationCan't think about it, that only in the land mass of Tyria's Continent are Elder Dragons sleeping, I'm pretty sure there must also be some in Cantha, but naturally not same as much, cause Cantha is alot smaller than Tyria/Elona, so theres not so much space for Elder Dragons to be placed there.

I could see also Aurene potentially growing in the end into an Elder Dragon later to ensure, that all the lost magic in the world of Tyria after the clash of the gods stays in balance by having Aurene as a counterweight, turning her into the Elder Dragon of Balance & Eternity - as last Protector of Tyria which ensures that all the magic on the planet stays for all eternity in balance.

Origin of Elite Specializations a.k.a Sub Classes through the CDI lead by Chris Whiteside

The way I understood it, they have an element and a domain.

Mordremoth (I think opponent of Zhaitan)Plant and Life/Mind

ZhaitanShadow and (un-)Death

Primordius (I think opponent of Kralkatorrik)Fire/Lava and Destruction

Jormag (I think opponent of DSD)Ice and Corruption

KralkatorrikCrystal and (Re-)Creation

DeepSeaDragonWater and (i theorize) Fear/Terror

Thanks to Taimi's research we know that magic isn't as simple as people thought. Magic appears to go in a spectrum, and some of the magic domains, spheres or attunements we know could actually be a mix of others. Like how we think of yellow as a separate color but you also can get it mixing red and green light.

I guess one way to see it could be like how you can use spectroscopy to determine the composition of an object or substance.

But we do not have a way to know which of these magics are more 'pure' or 'distilled' than others. We only know what they seem to be, what NPCs say, and how they seem to use them.

Dragon minions may also present forms of magic completely different to the main spheres of their masters. Usually because they had those powers before being corrupted. Like how there was powerful risen mesmers, and fiery mordrem. When their masters get lots of magic of a specific type this may affect their minions, as seen on destroyers and one icebrood after Mordremoth's death.

• Zhaitan was said to have the spheres of Death and Darkness. There's not much more we can say about it as he's killed fairly quickly and we studied its behavior more than the nature of its magic. We knew how it ate, how it saw, and how he maintained the natural flow of magic of Orr corrupted for his benefit.
• For Mordremoth it is said that its domains were "Plantiness" and "Mind". But he had acquired quite a lot of "death" when Scarlet redirected a large amount of ley magic towards him. He then used that death magic to make mordrem out of corpses and maguuma wildlife. Sylvari and Mordrem seem to be something like "plant elementals" in a way. But that 'plantiness' is sometimes mentioned as "Growth" or "Nature". If one looks at how Mordremoth behaved, isn't it actually more like a parasite than a plant, taking over plants and plant-like creatures and forcing them to grow and change? What if mordremoth wasn't the vines we saw all over the place, but the purple magic glow making them grow and spread? Then again, when Primordus gets some of this "plantiness" destroyers grow vines. Well, now he's dead and we'll never know for sure. But here's something weird: mushrooms in hot maps never fight with mordrem, and mordrem guard sometimes get enraged when one is killed near them.
• Primordus is clearly fire, and the second sphere appears to be "earth", "rock" or "stone". While he is inactive he appears to be no different than any other rock. Asura who studied him while inactive only saw a large rock statue leaking lots of magic, which they used to power their asura gate network. When Primordus and Jormag went inert they sank underground, but Braham seemed to be unable to fight Jormag anymore. Fighting Primordus would be clearly troublesome because of the lava, but why didn't Braham just dig after Jormag? Was he so fast digging?
• Jormag's main element is obviously "ice", frost, cold. But the second one is trickier. The Kodan say that when someone is corrupted by Jormag nothing is left, not even a soul. While Zhaitan could corrupt ghosts into Wraiths, there was also many spirits who were trapped in risen bodies or pushed out of their bodies and who could resist the corruption. And while Jormag's corruption is very slow, if someone is not freed from it, it will corrupt even the spirit without exception, and there will be nothing left of the original. So "Soul" or "Spirit" seems to be Jormag's second domain.
• Kralkatorrik's main sphere is said to be "crystal". His second could be "lightning" considering the many lightning visuals seen in the brand and branded, which is often included as part of "air". Chaos-themed skills are often ethereal fields and those can cause random discharges of energy that look like lightning too. So his spheres could actually be "Crystal" and "Ether". If these two are the case, it would fit with how the brand forms crystals and gets twisted in seemingly chaotic ways as if reality itself was bending.
• We know practically nothing of "S". We think it's deep in the deepest parts of the ocean, that it pushed krait and quaggan from there to shallow waters and shores, and that it can make minions out of water into some sort of tentacled creatures. Maybe a homage to lovecraftian creatures? So one of its spheres could be "Water", but what about the second one? Deeps? Illusions? Nightmares? Lies? Secrets?

Some people think Mordremoth's second sphere was "Life". But I think that's the main sphere of the Soul of Tyria the Pale Tree mentions sometimes. All the living things in the world of Tyria, the magic that flows in and out of them, their lives and their experiences flowing through history. Essentially what the Pale Tree taps into to connect to The Dream.

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

• Jormag's main element is obviously "ice", frost, cold. But the second one is trickier. The Kodan say that when someone is corrupted by Jormag nothing is left, not even a soul. While Zhaitan could corrupt ghosts into Wraiths, there was also many spirits who were trapped in risen bodies or pushed out of their bodies and who could resist the corruption. And while Jormag's corruption is very slow, if someone is not freed from it, it will corrupt even the spirit without exception, and there will be nothing left of the original. So "Soul" or "Spirit" seems to be Jormag's second domain.Not just kodan, but norn as well. Eir mentions that the Svanir lose their souls to Jormag in one of the PS missions (I want to say Minotaur Spirit storyline?), and in The Last of the Giant-Kings, the PC says Korag sold his soul (though this may be metaphorical) and his people for power. And we have the corrupted vigil who say things like "Damn your soul..." (everything else is about Jormag).

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:

• Kralkatorrik's main sphere is said to be "crystal". His second could be "lightning" considering the many lightning visuals seen in the brand and branded, which is often included as part of "air". Chaos-themed skills are often ethereal fields and those can cause random discharges of energy that look like lightning too. So his spheres could actually be "Crystal" and "Ether". If these two are the case, it would fit with how the brand forms crystals and gets twisted in seemingly chaotic ways as if reality itself was bending.

Kralkatorrik shows more than just lightning when it coems to air, but turns into sandstorm (a mixture of crystal and wind), creates a perpetual thunderstorm (the Brandstorm), has a "golden gale" of a breath (not too dissimilar to the Zephyrite sun crystal stuff), and Glint's body was used to create the Zephyrite crystals which utilize wind, sun, and lightning.

Wind, Sun, Sky are prevailant in Glint and Kralkatorrik. There's only one chaos-themed looking skill among all branded/Glint/Kralkatorrik stuff - which is this thing.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:From what we know:

Zhaitan: Death and ShadowMordremoth: Plant/Life and MindPrimordus: Fire and ??? (theorized: Earth)Jormag: Ice and ??? (theorized: Soul/Spirit)Kralkatorrik: Crystal and ??? (nearly confirmed: Sky/Air)Deep sea dragon: ??? and ??? (theorized: Water)

Their magic may or may not be in pairs. We know Jormag and Primordus' domains are each others' opposites and it's hinted for Zhaitan and Mordremoth, but at the same time we're told every Elder Dragon has "one unique weakness" and that weakness for Jormag/Primordus is said to be each other while Mordremoth's weakness is "his mind" meaning that it cannot be paired with Zhaitan's energies otherwise Mordremoth would have two unique weaknesses. So we have conflicting lines about that.

I always had a problem with this theory, if each dragon as two domain wouldn't it make sense that they would have a weakness per domain?Zhatian being death and shadow would probably be countered by both life and light based magics.I would imagined that when Trahearne purged the Artesian well with caladbolg. (Giving both life and light) that it weakened zhaitan power for Orr.

"But what about rata novus?"

Would it be possible that they were wrong? Maybe their extensive research wasn't extensive enough.

Or maybe the opposite elements only counters each other fire/ice and unique weakness is for the 2nd domain.

Why would or should every domain have a weakness to that domain? Would every strength require a respective weakness? That seems weird.

Besides that if Trahearne's ritual was the weakness then Taimi's claim that Mordremoth ate Zhaitan's magic would mean Mordy added his own weakness to himself.

Mordremoth's weakness wasn't even a single domain related, technically. It was that his combined domains of plant and mind meant he could continuously grow bodies from his corruption and transfer his mind to those bodies should his be killed.

Which leaves why Primordus and Jormag's weaknesses being each other is odd since it completely ignored the second domain.

Even odder is the notion we can only kill Elder Dragons with their "unique weaknesses" since with Zhaitan, we didn't even utilize a unique weakness. We did to him what Balthazar ended up doing to Jormag and Primordus but to a lesser extreme (drained him of magic to weaken) and then just bombarded him with magical cannons. Maybe that last bit was his weakness but that's like saying my unique weakness is being starved and then bludgeoned with a hammer...

Zhaitan's weakness was death,Mordremoth's his mindPrimordus' iceJormag's fireKralkatorrik's his own bodySteve's no-water areas. :)

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:There's only one chaos-themed looking skill among all branded/Glint/Kralkatorrik stuff - which is this thing.

I think there is a bit more than just that. Branded humans, for instance, have attacks that are reminiscent of mesmer enemies. It does seem to all be from the 'chaos' side of things than from the 'illusion' or 'mind manipulation' sides of the mesmer, however.

I wouldn't call a purple hued beam of light to be "chaos-related". Especially with how heavily prominent purple is across everything Branded.

It is kind of like calling a white-blue beam of light used by the icebrood guardian related.

Why would it be odd that each domain would have it own weakness. You take each domain separate, and you can kinda guess what you would need to counter it.

I think what primordus absorb was the death and plant domains from the other dragons, not shadow or mind. That how we got death and vine touch destroyers but not shadow or mindful(?) ones. they would have absorbed there weakness as well, I'm pretty sure caladbolg would be pretty effective against the death touch onesWhere the other domain went, who knows?.

To counter mordremoth's mind, the PCs had to have a stronger willpower to over come it. I don't think willpower is a magic domain on its own, but I'm sure it would help counter some of the Mesmer magic.If the PC couldn't figure out the mind domain, the only other option would have been to destroy every living plant in tyria. (including every Sylvari and the pale tree) While that idea would not have been feasible, fire in general was pretty effective in holding Mordy's minion at bay.

I don't think fire and ice were the unique weakness of jormag and primordus respectfully. Yeah they both wouldn't like them, but I wouldn't call them unique.

And we never really killed a dragon with its weakness, for mordy the commander over powered his mind, but that only weakened him, we still had to go up to him press f to finish him.Same with my theory with zhaitan and the artesian well.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:I wouldn't call a purple hued beam of light to be "chaos-related". Especially with how heavily prominent purple is across everything Branded.

It is kind of like calling a white-blue beam of light used by the icebrood guardian related.

There are attacks used by mesmer enemies that have the graphics of a purple hued beam of light, however. Not saying that it absolutely can't be something else, but it's there.

I think there's also a Branded which fires off a stream of orbs similar to the Risen Ravagers as well.

Either way, we should get a closer look at Branded abilities over the next fortnight.

@BobbyT.7192 said:"But what about rata novus?"

Would it be possible that they were wrong? Maybe their extensive research wasn't extensive enough.

Or maybe the opposite elements only counters each other fire/ice and unique weakness is for the 2nd domain.

Taimi mentioned at some point (I want to say at the start of Season 3, but it could've been when we initially found the Dragon Lab) that most of the Rata Novan research focused on Primordus and how to defeat him, mainly because they want to reclaim their subterranean homeland. Asura are extremely narrow-minded when it comes to their research, despite all their scientific bluster. It's part of the reason why so much of asura tech backfires, because somebody didn't take all possible outcomes into account.

I'd be willing to bet my last gold piece that while the plan of using Primordus and Jormag (or at least their energies) fight each other would work, I also bet it's not the only solution. There might've been a more elegant way to slay Zhaitan, but we were desperate to stop that dragon, so we did some research and hit ti really hard a bunch of times after weakening it. And it worked. With Mordremoth, I feel we more got lucky there, in part thanks to Trahearne's knowledge that we could go through him into the dream world and fight him off. I'd really like to know what the second domain of all the dragons are, though. Ela Makkay knows, because she only mentioned that the part of the scroll referencing the Water Dragon was damaged, so I'm hoping this all gets revealed as we go into the jungle and have to deal with Kralkatorrik, Balthazar and anything that happens to get in between them.

I'm not sure why people are expecting to see shadow and mind show up in minions, when neither had a real role even for the dragons that originally held the domain. The only Risen that you can argue are shadowy are the wraiths, and none of Mordremoth's minions show any particular mental abilities. (The materials released before HoT claimed that it showed through in the Mordrem Guard's intelligence, but we've always had intelligent minions of other types, and as touched on in another thread, the Guard aren't typical Mordrem.) If Zhaitan and Mordremoth were able to hold those domains without them showing, I don't see any reason that Primordus, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik couldn't do the same.

@BobbyT.7192 said:Why would it be odd that each domain would have it own weakness. You take each domain separate, and you can kinda guess what you would need to counter it.

Because this isn't Pokemon where every element is strong against one thing and weak against another. The domains are more than elements. They are "spheres of influence" which only means that is where the Elder Dragon is strongest.

@BobbyT.7192 said:To counter mordremoth's mind, the PCs had to have a stronger willpower to over come it. I don't think willpower is a magic domain on its own, but I'm sure it would help counter some of the Mesmer magic.If the PC couldn't figure out the mind domain, the only other option would have been to destroy every living plant in tyria. (including every Sylvari and the pale tree) While that idea would not have been feasible, fire in general was pretty effective in holding Mordy's minion at bay.

This is false. Willpower was not the way to counter Mordremoth's mind domain, it was just half of how sylvari didn't succumb to Mordremoth's whispering brainwashing thoughts into their minds.

Fighting Mordremoth's mind wasn't the weakness of the mind domain. It was the weakness of the combination of plant and mind. His domain of plant let him grow his body and corruption exceptionally fast. His domain of mind let him use micro-management mass telepathy among his corruption and even transfer and possess his corruption (why he waited until the end instead of pulling a Harbinger with Collectors from ME2 is beyond me though).

The key here is that Mordremoth's unique weakness was the weakness of both domains, not just one. Mind alone had no specific, unique weakness but had many things it was weak to. Same with plant alone.

According to "The Elder Dragons" a tome found in Durmand Hall, Divinity's Reach:

Fire: PimordusIce: JormagDeath: ZhaitanCrystal: Kralkatorick

The book states: "They are ancient and unfathomable.They embody concepts of Nature_Fire, Ice, Crystal even Death but there very presence threatens to destroy the world."

So the dragons represent entropic forces, what would be called in Feng Shui "The destructive cycle." In this connection it's interesting to note that there should be a 6th dragon for balance with The Six Gods. Perhaps that's Aurene's destiny.

@Ithilwen.1529 said:So the dragons represent entropic forces, what would be called in Feng Shui "The destructive cycle." In this connection it's interesting to note that there should be a 6th dragon for balance with The Six Gods. Perhaps that's Aurene's destiny.But we already have 6 dragons (or had, since 2 are dead now): Zhaitan, Jormag, Primordus, Kralkatorrik, Mordremoth and S__ (deep sea dragon). I'm not sure I understand the logic of why you're saying it, though. Are you saying that the six dragons are the opposite to the Six Gods? We've heard that song and dance before, with mixed results. Also, maybe you can elaborate on the Feng Shui concept?

@Ithilwen.1529 said:According to "The Elder Dragons" a tome found in Durmand Hall, Divinity's Reach:

Fire: PimordusIce: JormagDeath: ZhaitanCrystal: Kralkatorick

The book states: "They are ancient and unfathomable.They embody concepts of Nature_Fire, Ice, Crystal even Death but there very presence threatens to destroy the world."

So the dragons represent entropic forces, what would be called in Feng Shui "The destructive cycle." In this connection it's interesting to note that there should be a 6th dragon for balance with The Six Gods. Perhaps that's Aurene's destiny.

There is a 6th dragon - the Deep Sea Dragon that we know really nothing about other than it has water as a domain.

Secondly, the 6 Dragons = 6 Gods theory has been thrown around many times and they don't really line up other than the fact there's six. There's no equal correlation between them and the Devs actually make a reference to this popular theory and that there is no proof to support it in one of the Durmand Priory books (in the Special Collections area from Hidden Arcana, I believe). The only balance there is would be the fact that there's 6 of each.

Warning: speculation ahead!

There is some link between them, as both the EDs and the gods draw from the same pool of magic. It could be that when dividing magic to several portions, 6 would be the optimal/minimal number.

According to Taimi, magic is somewhat comparable to light. When we compare the total range of magic to a color wheel, each ED and each god (perhaps even each profession) can be placed somewhere on that circle. The exact placement of the ED's and the gods might differ, hence the trouble pairing them up.

The largest problem is the lack of knowledge about the true nature of magic. What kinds of magic/which ranges of magic are dominant enough to warrant a name of their own? Which aspects (both of the EDs and the gods) are true and which are made up by the unreliable narrators?

@Maethor.2810 said:

@Ithilwen.1529 said:According to "The Elder Dragons" a tome found in Durmand Hall, Divinity's Reach:

Fire: PimordusIce: JormagDeath: ZhaitanCrystal: Kralkatorick

The book states: "They are ancient and unfathomable.

They embody concepts of Nature_Fire, Ice, Crystal even Death

but there very presence threatens to destroy the world."

So the dragons represent entropic forces, what would be called in Feng Shui "The destructive cycle."

In this connection it's interesting to note that there should be a 6th dragon for balance with The Six Gods. Perhaps that's Aurene's destiny.

Correction: we don't even know if it has water as a domain. Ultimately, we only know it corrupts water, but "what it corrupts" is just a preference in the end since we see from the other Elder Dragons that they all can corrupt just about everything.

@Inc.4753 said:Warning: speculation ahead!

There is some link between them, as both the EDs and the gods draw from the same pool of magic. It could be that when dividing magic to several portions, 6 would be the optimal/minimal number.

They actually do not pull from the same source of magic, unless you list 'The Mists' as the ultimate source in which all things in the multiverse shares that aspect.

The Six Gods came to the world of Tyria as gods already, and the Elder Dragon's magic is restricted to the world of Tyria. The only gods that became gods on Tyria are Grenth and Kormir, possibly Lyssa as well.

Once you accept that their origins differ - something most of not all of the "dragons=gods" bandwagon theorists cannot accept - then it makes no sense for the two to be directly related. At most, the Six Gods fulfilled the same role on the human home world that the Elder Dragons fulfill here, in being tied to the world's The All and bring major containers of the world's magic.

But people tend to forget something else of pretty major importance: there are more gods than those in the pantheon of the Six Gods.

@Inc.4753 said:

The largest problem is the lack of knowledge about the true nature of magic. What kinds of magic/which ranges of magic are dominant enough to warrant a name of their own? Which aspects (both of the EDs and the gods) are true and which are made up by the unreliable narrators?

You could just look at what gets passed on and start there. In which among the Elder Dragons that is the first domain - Death, Plant, Fire, Ice, Crystal, and possibly Water. And among the gods that is what the norm refer to the Spirits of Action by - Life, Death, War, Knowledge, Nature, and possibly Illusion.

In which the only overlap is Death.

I think Inc does have a valid point - there may be something about magic that means that six is the most efficient way to distribute it. The Elder Dragons represent how it was divided on Tyria, while the Six Gods represent how it was divided... wherever it is that the original set of gods started.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:His domain of mind let him use micro-management mass telepathy among his corruption and even transfer and possess his corruption (why he waited until the end instead of pulling a Harbinger with Collectors from ME2 is beyond me though).

My theory there is that he needed a separate mind that he didn't already control to hide behind. Whatever we were doing to his mind, it was spread out all across the hive mind that he'd established across his minions and corruption - in order to hide from it, he needed to implant a portion of his mind into a mind that he had contact with and enough influence that he could control it, but not enough control that it was already part of his hive mind.

It may even have required physical contact, explaining why he couldn't simply download himself into a random Mordrem Guard.

@draxynnic.3719 said:My theory there is that he needed a separate mind that he didn't already control to hide behind. Whatever we were doing to his mind, it was spread out all across the hive mind that he'd established across his minions and corruption - in order to hide from it, he needed to implant a portion of his mind into a mind that he had contact with and enough influence that he could control it, but not enough control that it was already part of his hive mind.

It may even have required physical contact, explaining why he couldn't simply download himself into a random Mordrem Guard.

If that were the case, then simply killing his body would have sufficed. We wouldn't have needed to go into the Dream.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@draxynnic.3719 said:My theory there is that he needed a separate mind that he didn't already control to hide behind. Whatever we were doing to his mind, it was spread out all across the hive mind that he'd established across his minions and corruption - in order to hide from it, he needed to implant a portion of his mind into a mind that he had contact with and enough influence that he could control it, but not enough control that it was already part of his hive mind.

It may even have required physical contact, explaining why he couldn't simply download himself into a random Mordrem Guard.

Except the Mouth of Mordremoth wasn't his whole body, or even a critical part of it. The parts you'd need to kill to physically kill Mordremoth were buried so deep and spread so far they would be basically impossible to reach while Mordremoth was fighting back and able to regrow parts that were destroyed somewhere else. It would have been like fighting a hydra when all the heads were a kilometer down and could be hundreds of kilometers apart.