So, Deepstone

Since the new Fractal coming up in a couple days looks to be Dwarven, I thought it'd be neat to start a discussion about it!What details do you hope will come up on display here? Would you rather it be a settlement we've seen in GW1, or not?I'm excited to hear what the lore-keepers of the forums have to offer!

I wouldn't mind if it showed the fate of the dwarves.

Or, better yet, how about the dwarves' war with Primordus' forces during the previous dragonrise...

“We cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep."

"They are coming". .

If not taking into account the usual stuff like fate of the dwarves, Destroyer invasion, and the teeth-clenched teamwork of the once rival Stone Summit and Deldrimor who became one after going through the transformation into stone dwarves, I'd also like to see the story explore the mystery of the enigmatic astral creatures which we saw in the very depths of Derelict Delve (the dwarf keep in Desert Highlands). It was one of the biggest surprises for me in PoF and made me think about such an intriguing inclusion.

Is the existence of astral creatures a kind of nod to Moria where the dwarves dug so deep until they unleashed something dangerous from the depths, what's the idea of the depths having areas where the barrier between the physical realm and the Mists become weaker, and are beings seen in Fractals like Viirastra and potentially the Harbinger of Woe really astral creatures due to their astral skin or what? Bastion of the Penitent raid already discussed the weak barrier stuff a bit when it came to the demon Deimos manifesting in the physical realm, so are ANet setting up some lengthy arc they may return to later?

I'm not sure if Deepstone would really discuss such complex topics, especially as it's a newer narrative designer's first foray into writing a bigger plot for a release as per his twitter, but then again, we've seen some pretty amazing callbacks from as recent events as "Defeat the invading Awakened" which had cameos from not only S3 characters but also personal story characters like the Gear warband and Knut's sons.

Whatever mysteries lie in wait in the darkened halls of Deepstone, I look forward to finding out. There can never be enough dwarven lore in Tyria, and I like how fractals give devs freedom to explore pretty much any lore topic from all over the timeline. :)

I hope it's about revealing the race that built the Depth of Tyria rather than the dwarves, just as Cliffside revealed that was a race as Colossus at some point in the early history of Tyria but no longer exists in GW1 and GW2's Tyria.

The Depths of Tyria, sometimes simply called the Depths, are large networks of underground caverns and tunnels underneath the Tyrian surface, filled with a variety of different structures of unknown origin, ranging from structures similar to Ascalonian buildings to statues akin to those found in the Echovald Forest and unique crystalline structures.

Many of the races found in the Depths of Tyria are pale compared to their surface counterparts and are, on occasion, larger as well. The Depths are home to Arachnids, Skelks, Fleshreavers, Oozes, and is the origin of the Asura.

given the glint scale looking thing in the trailer my guess is that it's about the brotherhood of the dragon

During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

@"Athrenn.9468" said:During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

I think the context given for this fractal is very frail so I'm not sure I should even use a spoiler tag here. What I got from it is that both sub bosses were being somewhat controlled by the Voice and, whatever it was, it was the thing locked inside by the dwarves. Its trope was more or less already touched on by Mordremoth ("I am all", "I will encompass everything", "We will all be one", etc.). Whoever can get something out of the little we were given is surely doing a Dark Souls worth job of lore hunting, because in my first playthrough it was just as vague as Swampland is.

EDIT: I really think this fractal is lacking some aftermath talking options. I was heavily bummed out that there was no option to talk about what just happened.

@maxwelgm.4315 said:

@"Athrenn.9468" said:During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

Wonder if this has any references in Gw1.

@Tyson.5160 said:

@maxwelgm.4315 said:

@"Athrenn.9468" said:During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

It peripherally has some referencing (the dwarves were already all stone when that fractal happened from the dialogue, as well as you are able to use the Light of Deldrimor which was a skill from GW1 that pretty much did the same thing it does here), but the boss itself, no idea.

@"Athrenn.9468" said:During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

I could be wrong, but at a glance, my mind goes back to the GW1 quest with Kerrsh and the Varajar Fells Notebook in the Durmand Priory. But I don't think the substitution cipher lines up properly.

@"maxwelgm.4315" said:I think the context given for this fractal is very frail so I'm not sure I should even use a spoiler tag here. What I got from it is that both sub bosses were being somewhat controlled by the Voice and, whatever it was, it was the thing locked inside by the dwarves. Its trope was more or less already touched on by Mordremoth ("I am all", "I will encompass everything", "We will all be one", etc.). Whoever can get something out of the little we were given is surely doing a Dark Souls worth job of lore hunting, because in my first playthrough it was just as vague as Swampland is.

EDIT: I really think this fractal is lacking some aftermath talking options. I was heavily bummed out that there was no option to talk about what just happened.

Talking options would've been nice, I'd also hoped that the Hidden Chest achievement might've given some hints about the situation, but no luck.

Possibly the famous Arachnia or whatever spider god that didn't actually make it into the game? It seems very Lovecraftian to me, which I liked.

yeah the new fractal is very lore weak.

! the "protagonists" are treasure hunters, they have found the place abandoned.! there is a certain emphasis on the light of deldrimor. it may be that this will be used in a future plot.!

@Musaroxy.2874 said:

@"Athrenn.9468" said:During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

Good catch! It is the same cipher. The untranslated line Athrenn mentioned is 'Intruders? Why in place?'

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Musaroxy.2874 said:

@"Athrenn.9468" said:During the mini-boss fight with the Brood Queen, you hear her speak in a language that no one except the NPC you're travelling with seems to understand:

Omdebstea? Iph om lyvut? (No translation)Vmaite ba! ("Answer us!")Ejewptim devllts ba. ("The rock-hewn [dwarves] trapped us.")

Is this perhaps the language of an elder race of intelligent spiders imprisoned by the dwarves of Deldrimor? More on that later. I haven't finished the fractal yet but I thought the new language bit was interesting.

There might be additional clues in who the voice is from their attacks. Figuring that the Light of Deldrimor is used, I tried finding any entity in the dungeons from gw1 that would fit this description. Closest was Murakai, however that was in charr lands.

Very nice! Good catch on the Varajar Fells cipher; I really hadn't expected that old nugget to resurface and I'm touched that they remembered it.

For easy cipher solving, I use the website https://quipqiup.com in case anyone wants to play with it. The Varajar Fells substitution cipher uses the following code which you can copy and paste into the "Clues" section on quipqiup to act as the key.A=S E=R I=W M=N Q=F U=C Y=L B=U J=O N=G R=B V=A Z=J C=V O=I S=D W=K D=T H=Y L=P P=H T=E X=M

Using that cipher, I discovered that the verbatim text is actually one letter off if we want to be exact. "Ejewptim devllts ba." should actually be "Ejuwptim devllts ba." which translates to "Rockhewn trapped us." as opposed to "Rorkhewn trapped us." Unless, of course, the Brood Queen was slurring her consonants, which is perfectly understandable when you're a talking spider.

So... think we're gonna get an expansion on this at a later point? Because at present this fractal is.... terrible, storywise. The combat was fun enough, mechanics were neatBut the actual story to it? We're given nothing conclusive, little hints and clues and then a million questions.... and then its over.

Say what you want about Thaumanova, but at least that had some conclusive answers to it. Hell, Cliffside had a more conclusive ending to it.

Aquatic Ruins kind of seems like it has Elonian stuff in it. Cliffside I've always got a Woodlands Cascade vibe, Deepstone seems like it could be dwarven ruins in the Far Shiverpeaks somewhere with the text that's similar to stuff found in Varajar Falls or whatever, and we know Solid Ocean is related to the Jade Sea. I don't know if we get expansion on it, but I'm leaning towards no. I hope so, but I think one thing that's disappointing about fractals aside from how rarely they're added to the game is that they are more often than not just a vague fragment of a past that doesn't tie in to current day and don't really receive any elaboration.

Possibly Arachnia?

@"cptaylor.2670" said:I hope so, but I think one thing that's disappointing about fractals aside from how rarely they're added to the game is that they are more often than not just a vague fragment of a past that doesn't tie in to current day and don't really receive any elaboration.

Sadly true, only place I could imagine them touching on Fractals in a deeper light than what we get is with another update like Fractured, or with a side story. Don't think either are too likely to pop up any time soon though.

@"cptaylor.2670" said:Aquatic Ruins kind of seems like it has Elonian stuff in it. Cliffside I've always got a Woodlands Cascade vibe, Deepstone seems like it could be dwarven ruins in the Far Shiverpeaks somewhere with the text that's similar to stuff found in Varajar Falls or whatever,

Dwarves didn't have structures in the Far Shiverpeaks, only North and Southern. So it's most likely located in Deldrimor Front. As for Aquatic Ruins - we also see some Ascalonian ruins and it was suggested by devs to be a mixture of two time/places merging together (similar to how Chaos Isles Fractal has a multitude of mixtures). And Cliffside is early humanity on the world, which would suggest Canthan (the runes also suggest Canthan-like origins).

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"cptaylor.2670" said:Aquatic Ruins kind of seems like it has Elonian stuff in it. Cliffside I've always got a Woodlands Cascade vibe, Deepstone seems like it could be dwarven ruins in the Far Shiverpeaks somewhere with the text that's similar to stuff found in Varajar Falls or whatever,

@"Rockin Twilight Sparkle.2615" said:So... think we're gonna get an expansion on this at a later point? Because at present this fractal is.... terrible, storywise. The combat was fun enough, mechanics were neatBut the actual story to it? We're given nothing conclusive, little hints and clues and then a million questions.... and then its over.

Say what you want about Thaumanova, but at least that had some conclusive answers to it. Hell, Cliffside had a more conclusive ending to it.

Deldrimor expansion PLEEZ ANET!

@"cptaylor.2670" said:Aquatic Ruins kind of seems like it has Elonian stuff in it. Cliffside I've always got a Woodlands Cascade vibe, Deepstone seems like it could be dwarven ruins in the Far Shiverpeaks somewhere with the text that's similar to stuff found in Varajar Falls or whatever, and we know Solid Ocean is related to the Jade Sea. I don't know if we get expansion on it, but I'm leaning towards no. I hope so, but I think one thing that's disappointing about fractals aside from how rarely they're added to the game is that they are more often than not just a vague fragment of a past that doesn't tie in to current day and don't really receive any elaboration.

Cliffside is a bit open for woodlands (desperately want dense verdant forest!), but it could be the shoreline maybe that leads to bay of janthir

@Musaroxy.2874 said:

Sadly true, only place I could imagine them touching on Fractals in a deeper light than what we get is with another update like Fractured, or with a side story. Don't think either are too likely to pop up any time soon though.

Despite no real evidence, I hope for this frac to be something that happened very recently to kick off events coming in the living story or possibly the next add-on.It might be wishful thinking, but imagining the verticality underground Deldrimor maps could provide, in all their dwarfish glory, makes me exited.