About the splinter group in Ep. 2 [SPOILERS]

So, we discovered something cool in the latest episode.Apparently there was a disagreement among the Flame Legion and a splinter group, the Ohmakan, moved to Elona. They tend to use air magic rather than fire magic and practice human traditions like raising families and having a loose military structure. They also revere nature, which is quite unlike the charr. And the flame legion especially, since they kind of destroyed all the flora and fauna in Ascalon. Maybe that's what caused the breakup.I'm also really curious about their human like qualities. What's the relationship between the Elonians and Ohmakan?And how will the Black Citadel react to this? Rox didn't seem to have any idea they existed, and I doubt the charr leaders do either. Will they live and let live or will there be conflict?I really want to find out more about them, they just seem so interesting. They're like charr druids. Maybe we'll get some more backstory later and they'll become a bigger part of the story.

I'm curious if the Zephyrites helped them in anyway cos their architecture is to similar to each others.Ewyn talks about him and another charr traveling to Elona but they never said to anyone where are they from because they want to keep their village a secret. I hope we will keep their secret safe so the Black Citadal won't find out about them.

Much how Braham is basically a Dragonhunter now, I feel Rox's obsession with the Ohmakan will lead her to become a Druid. Kind of interesting, like they're giving a story to how the elite specs came to be, even though it is really late for the HoT ones.

@"Chorne.8195" said:

Apparently there was a disagreement among the Flame Legion and a splinter group, the Ohmakan, moved to Elona. They tend to use air magic rather than fire magic and practice human traditions like raising families and having a loose military structure. They also revere nature, which is quite unlike the charr. And the flame legion especially, since they kind of destroyed all the flora and fauna in Ascalon. Maybe that's what caused the breakup.

There's a few scrolls in the northwest corner of the village that go over the whole story, but to summarize, since I don't think they're on the wiki yet: during the charr invasion there were a few anti-war charr who didn't feel comfortable speaking up at a time when the mainstream race was eating humans. When Kalla rose up to defy the Flame Legion's traditions, though, they seized the opportunity to say "Yeah! Let's throw out the entire culture! No more sexism, yeah, but also no more war! No more warbands! Freely practice magic! Live in harmony with nature!" And, since they rejected war, they didn't join the rebellion. Instead they fled southward, until, after five years, they hit the sea and decided it was a good place to stop.

Essentially, they're the hippie commune to the charr's military-industrial complex.

I'm also really curious about their human like qualities. What's the relationship between the Elonians and Ohmakan?

None, actually. Like Underdark said, there's a guy living alone up in the hills behind the village with the graves of his companions, and he spells out that A.) It's very unusual for a charr, Olmakhan or not, to make peaceful contact with an Elonian, and B.) Even when they do and they become close friends, said Olmakhan takes pains to not let them know where their village is.

And how will the Black Citadel react to this? Rox didn't seem to have any idea they existed, and I doubt the charr leaders do either. Will they live and let live or will there be conflict?I imagine the worst-case scenario here is that the Olmakhan become the same as any non-charr community. Someone to be conquered when the Legions get around to it, but they'll have to go through the desert and possibly Elona first, so that's far down the road, if ever.

I really want to find out more about them, they just seem so interesting. They're like charr druids. Maybe we'll get some more backstory later and they'll become a bigger part of the story.

Go check out the Lorekeeper's hut! There's also a good chunk of dialogue back in the hills, although most of it seems to be tied to the meta.

@Underdark.3726 said:I'm curious if the Zephyrites helped them in anyway cos their architecture is to similar to each others.

I was wondering that, too. The timeline would be pretty close- the Olmakhan would've arrived at their destination in Dajkah no later that 1121, while what we know of the Zephyrites suggests they were founded sometime before 1125. That said, though, Zephyrite culture wouldn't have sprung into being fully formed, so I don't know if their architecture would've been developed enough to copy at that point.

Regarding "human-like qualities":

We may be looking at that from our own humanicentric viewpoint. Raising families and having a loose military structure are also norn traits - more so than human traits, even (humans aren't as militaristic as charr, but do have a formal military) and Braham himself comments at one point about the Olmakhan reverence for nature being like the norn. Since the norn had... if not friendly, than not exactly entirely hostile either... relations with the charr before the Searing, it would make sense for the Olmakhan to have used them as the model to build a society that isn't built as a military organisation from the ground up.

That said, despite Braham's observation, the Olmakhan religion does seem to be distinct from the norn religion. It's possible that they've managed to retain some memory of what the shamans followed before they turned to the Titans and they've tried to rebuild that original charr religion.

I haven't played a lot on the new map, at least in the open world segment, but I could've sworn there was one NPC who talked about how it's been a long time since they had contact with the Elonian traders. That at least implies they were once in contact, but no longer are. If I do find that conversation again, I will make certain to cite my sources.

The lorekeeper has the answer to how the Olmakhan became so different to current mainstream charr society.The first two scrolls tell the story of why the tribe decided to leave Ascalon and how they made it to their destination.

The flight from Flame

Southward Progress

Of Maelstorms

As you can see, the warband structure deteriorated during the journey, as it was no longer sufficient. Without larger charr society, the warband was no longer capable of operating as the smallest part of society.New charr were born along the way. They had to be taken care of, but without the Fahrar this responsibility fell to the parents.Old charr were no longer capable hunters, but still very capable healers and generally experienced in matters of life, history, magic, etc. The other charr came to them with questions when they needed advice, guidance, hope, needed to be taught how to use their magic, or simply asked the elders to arbitrate in a conflict with another member of their tribe.The decisions they made along their journey solidified into the customs and society we see on the Sandswept Isles.

As for the timeline:The great cataclysm is, of course, the rising of Orr, which happened in 1219 AE.Kalla Scorchrazor's rebellion happened in 1116 AE, which gives us a span of 103 years. The Olmakhan spent five years traveling to the Sandswept Isles and 98 years cultivating their new homeland.The cataclysm did kill a good amount of everything connected to the Sea of Sorrows.An Airship crashed on their shore, but the scroll doesn't say when that happened. Can anyone determine the origin of that airship?Very recently the Inquest showed up. The Olmakhan were suspicious, but avoided open hostility.Sometime in 1330 AE, the Hero of Tyria arrives leading to the destruction of Rata Primus.

@Castigator.3470 said:An Airship crashed on their shore, but the scroll doesn't say when that happened. Can anyone determine the origin of that airship?

It's a basic airship frame on a larger than usual scale... but without any colors or identifying markers, or knowing exactly how long it's been there, I don't think there's any way to tell where it came from. I might be missing a minor feature or line of dialogue, though.

@"Castigator.3470" said:An Airship crashed on their shore, but the scroll doesn't say when that happened. Can anyone determine the origin of that airship?Very recently the Inquest showed up. The Olmakhan were suspicious, but avoided open hostility.Sometime in 1330 AE, the Hero of Tyria arrives leading to the destruction of Rata Primus.

Well airships didn't exist prior to 1325, and Rata Primus seems to be a post-Crucible of Eternity laboratory. So both events seem to be post-Personal Story, giving us a 5-6 year span for the Inquest to show up then the airship to crash (according to the scroll, Inquest were first).

There doesn't seem to be techno-plating which suggest not Aetherblade/Inquest modified thus suggesting Pact or Pact-sold. Whichever of the two, the most likely scenario I see is an airship that was waylaid by post-Zhaitan remnant risen dragons/wyverns and fell quite a distance before crashing (during the PS would seem too soon for the crash given Inquest presence, unless Rata Primus didn't start out as a successor to Crucible of Eternity).

Would be humorous if it turned out to be The Humble though, which would admittedly explain the lack of crew. And iirc, the airship did begin to crash on the southern side of the mission area. Quite a distance to fall but entirely plausible if left on a setting that would keep it afloat a while during the evac.

What strikes me as interesting is the note that female Flame Legion charr apparently have/had an affinity for sky magic. Which carries quite a few implications:

1) Among Flame Legion charr at least, certain magic types are gendered. Male elementalists have a stronger affinity for fire magic, while females have a stronger affinity for air magic.

2) By disallowing their females from fighting or learning magic, the Flame Legion were not just losing a good proportion of their potential fighting force, but also cutting off some of the diversity of their magical capabilities, as they were losing their air magic specialists.

3) The Olmakhan talent for air magic predates their split from the Flame Legion, and may even predate the influence of the titans on the Flame Legion.

4) Male Olmakhan might retain a talent for fire magic. Alternatively, the fire obsession might have come from Titan influence, and the 'natural' affinity for male charr elementalists might instead be earth - which we do see a lot of among the Olmakhan. Might be worth investigating to see if Olmakhan using earth magic have a tendency to be male charr rather than female.

5) If it is a case of the males having a talent for fire magic while the females have a talent for air magic, then the gendering of elements matches the genders of the human gods matching those elements (Balthazar for fire and Dwayna for air). Is this coincidence? Or could it be the result of some ancient interaction between the charr and the gods before the relationship between them soured?

If you go near the statue of Olma north of the village, the adult charr will tell the cub there that Olma discovered the ability to create the sand monsters. I don't think the affinities are gendered, just that the Flame Legion has always specialized in fire magic and stuck to that after they were essentially kicked out. I think there's also equal number of males and females of all the magic types. It's just that the Olmakhan are more closely tied to nature, and thus use water, air and earth more than fire. I mean, do you consider the stormcallers air magic or water magic?

That says that the sand constructs come from Olma's findings, but the lorekeeper scrolls say that "the mothers and daughters could control the sky itself", even while they were still being oppressed by the Flame Legion. This is where the thought of a gendered split in elemental affinity comes from - the GW1 charr are notably lacking in air magic use, while the scrolls indicate that if the females weren't being oppressed, they would supply sky-related magic.

Given the amount of lightning flying around, I'd say that air magic is at least part of what the Olmakhan have available. Earth and water magic I'm inclined to think are non-gendered: smoke shamans are at least mixing in some Earth, I'd say, and one of the EOTN charr elementalist types was a water specialist.

@"draxynnic.3719" said:That says that the sand constructs come from Olma's findings, but the lorekeeper scrolls say that "the mothers and daughters could control the sky itself", even while they were still being oppressed by the Flame Legion. This is where the thought of a gendered split in elemental affinity comes from - the GW1 charr are notably lacking in air magic use, while the scrolls indicate that if the females weren't being oppressed, they would supply sky-related magic.

Given the amount of lightning flying around, I'd say that air magic is at least part of what the Olmakhan have available. Earth and water magic I'm inclined to think are non-gendered: smoke shamans are at least mixing in some Earth, I'd say, and one of the EOTN charr elementalist types was a water specialist.

Specifically, the Charr Wardkeepers, who don't seem to count as Shaman Caste - considering that Pyre Firceshot had Cowl Fiercetongue in his warband. They used a mix of water debuff/attack spells, Ward Against Harm (Water magic elite skill), and a couple of the Earth magic wards. The Olmakhan Lifebinders seem to be following a similar tradition with their big glowy ward bubbles, don't they?

@"draxynnic.3719" said:That says that the sand constructs come from Olma's findings, but the lorekeeper scrolls say that "the mothers and daughters could control the sky itself", even while they were still being oppressed by the Flame Legion. This is where the thought of a gendered split in elemental affinity comes from - the GW1 charr are notably lacking in air magic use, while the scrolls indicate that if the females weren't being oppressed, they would supply sky-related magic.

Given the amount of lightning flying around, I'd say that air magic is at least part of what the Olmakhan have available. Earth and water magic I'm inclined to think are non-gendered: smoke shamans are at least mixing in some Earth, I'd say, and one of the EOTN charr elementalist types was a water specialist.

This is an interesting theory, but how then would you account for player professions? You can have a female charr fire elementalist, and a male charr air elementalist. However, you are right, that quote from the Lorekeeper's books is interesting, "the mothers and daughters could control the sky itself." I really hope we get more insight into that.Another thing I noticed.... pay attention to how this is phrased:"Even though these mothers and daughters could control the sky itself, they were shunned by the Flame Legion as inferior to the fathers and sons on the battlefield. Bathea Havocbringer, martyr to all sensible charr, was the first to see through their lies."This seems to suggest that the Flame Legion was sexist BEFORE Bathea Havocbringer. Traditionally, we know that the Flame oppressed women after Bathea's failed rebellion--but unless the Flame already had sexist ideas, it wouldn't make sense for them to enslave all females because of one rebel who happened to be a woman.If Flame already had sexist ideas, then as they rose to power they would start spreading those cultural ideas, or "lies," amongst the other--presumably more egalitarian--legions. Bathea, who was Blood Legion, may have been the first who dared to openly resist Flame sexism--and thus she was used as a scapegoat for Flame to institutionalize sexism--whereas before, the other legions had retained female equality in spite of Flame gaining power.

@Weindrasi.3805 said:This is an interesting theory, but how then would you account for player professions? You can have a female charr fire elementalist, and a male charr air elementalist.

There's actually a few potential answers to this:

One is that magic has changed. In GW1's time, most elementalists had to choose one or two elements to focus on, while in GW2, attunement-switching is the norm. Rules that applied during a time when the Flame Legion allowed female shamans may not apply currently.

A second is that the Flame Legion uses elemental magic somewhat differently. This ties somewhat into the previous: what few elementalists we see among the other Legions appear to have picked up the knowledge of other races, while the Flame Legion has gone in its own direction which continues to be highly specialised into a specific element. So the Flame Legion - and possibly the Olmakhan - may be continuing to follow rules of magic that PC elementalists consider obsolete.

A third possibility comes from the observation that ArenaNet acknowledged a long time ago that some races are more suitable to certain professions than others, but that they chose not to reflect this in mechanics in order to avoid punishing players for choosing unusual combinations: the assumption is that the PC is a sufficiently impressive individual that they can overcome the normal weaknesses of their race if they so chose, and instead racial tendencies are shown through NPCs. A similar principle could apply to the gender of charr PC elementalists - normally charr females are better at using air magic, but a charr PC elementalist of either gender is an exceptional enough individual to overcome their gender and use all forms of magic equally (subject to trait distribution, skill choice, and other build decisions).

Mind you, it's entirely possible that we're not seeing an innate distinction, but rather an expression of pre-Bathea Flame Legion beliefs. It's possible that the Flame Legion simply believed that some magic types were better suited to females and some to males. This could have been a relatively benign form of sexism (males and females are equal, but certain roles are seen as feminine and some as masculine) or patriarchal (we consider fire magic to be a strong magic only suitable for strong males, while air magic is a weak magic suitable for weak females to use).

That wrecked airship worries me. Given the size, shape, and the fact that nobody ever came for it, I can only think of three possible sources.

The first is Tixx. This could be an early model of the Infinirarium, mostly empty as it was a test model. I could see him abandoning it, especially if he noted that the remains were being put to good use.

The second is, of course, Scarlet Briar. She made quite a few amazing things, and then simply discarded them when her plans moved past them and onto something else. This could have been an early work of hers, tossed aside when she no longer cared about it. If so, it's only luck that it landed next to the village, and not on it.

The last and least likely source I can think of is the gods. They brought humans to Tyria, but it's never said how. Was this it? A mist traveling airship, left parked somewhere until the departure of the gods caused it to finally fall to ground? It would be kind of funny if the most important artifact in human history had been unknowingly torn apart by the one group of charr that had no fight against humans.

@"Palador.2170" said:That wrecked airship worries me. Given the size, shape, and the fact that nobody ever came for it, I can only think of three possible sources.

The first is Tixx. This could be an early model of the Infinirarium, mostly empty as it was a test model. I could see him abandoning it, especially if he noted that the remains were being put to good use.

The second is, of course, Scarlet Briar. She made quite a few amazing things, and then simply discarded them when her plans moved past them and onto something else. This could have been an early work of hers, tossed aside when she no longer cared about it. If so, it's only luck that it landed next to the village, and not on it.

The last and least likely source I can think of is the gods. They brought humans to Tyria, but it's never said how. Was this it? A mist traveling airship, left parked somewhere until the departure of the gods caused it to finally fall to ground? It would be kind of funny if the most important artifact in human history had been unknowingly torn apart by the one group of charr that had no fight against humans.

Yeah, but it crash-landed AFTER the "Great Flood" and the arrival of the Inquest, so it could just be an airship belonging to a Tyrian nation or the Pact that went missing. Orrian airspace is passable now - and there's bound to be a lot of traffic around there post Zhaitan. The wreckage looks a LOT like a Pact Airship wreck similar to those up in the Heart of Maguuma.

The Commander is not exactly plugged into the air-shipping industry to know about every missing airship (Just the ones that explode underneath us). The lack of bodies, survivors or Olmakhan talk about either kind of implies that it's crew bailed out (Or worse) before it crashed.

Here's a fun theory: Maybe the Iron Whale is connected to the little story you hear in Istan where the Alehound Corsairs stole an Aetherblade airship while blackout drunk.

If it was a Pact or Tyrian Airship, maybe it was in hot pursuit of that Aetherblade ship from up near Orr and ran into the Rata Primus defense grid, and we'll run into remains of it's crew washed up on a different LS4 map.