The Dragon of Light.

So, this is a theory that i'v been tossing back and forth in my head for a few weeks now, ever since we learned more about Aurene's nature as an Elder Dragon, specifically the Elder Dragon of Fury and Light, or a 'Prismatic' Dragon as Gorrik put it. This is by taking the individual parts of the different kinds of magic and combining them in a way that acts like a Prism, Prisms themselves typically associated with the channeling of light into the environment around them. However merely changing and recombining magic in different and interesting ways would not be enough to do the sort of things she is like 'purifying' the Brand, what about her magic allows her to alter the Brand in such extreme ways? Surely it can't be as simple as just taking the base elements of the Brand and forcing them to do something completely different. This purification process seems to be both stop corruption, and at least on a casual glance actively enhance the plant life around it, it's quite mysterious.

This got me to thinking of an equally mysterious kind of magic, one that shares many thematic similarities, has a lot of lore to it, and yet very little about it's actual nature is explained: Guardian Magic.

The magic of guardians has a long and storied history that for the most part draws into humanity. A combination of Monks meditations, Ritualist ancestor magic, and Paragon command training it only relatively recently spread to the other races as it all coalesced into the modern day Guardians. What we have been able to discern is that this magic draws from something called the 'Light' which appears to be a reflection of a set group of virtues focused on self improvement. In many ways Guardians are the anti-Mesmer, where Mesmers focus on the manipulation of those around them to do what they want them to do, the Guardian focuses on refining the self into a paragon who has absolute control of themselves. Philosophically speaking it shares a lot in common with Greek Stoicism, especially when it comes to Firebrand. The Cardinal Virtues of the Stoics are almost the exact same as those of the Guardians if you take 'Fortitude' to mean 'Resolve', with a lot of emphasis on the power of wisdom and behaving in a righteous morally upright fashion.

For the magic itself while we don't know it's exact origins we can guess based on some things. It's chiefly fueled by faith to the point it has skills themed after holiness and consecration, whether that be faith in the gods or faith in ones friends, and that imbues the person with a righteous fervor that constantly drives them to purging corrupting influence both from oneself and from the world around them. Preservation and protection is a big theme in guardians as their abilities often revolve not only around purging the wicked but ensuring their allies are sheltered from injury. Self sacrifice is a common thread with all the virtues,a good guardian knows when to sacrifice their own beneficial magics in order to defend their allies, mend their wounds, or empower their weapons to strike their enemies. Life as an abstract concept is also very important, of all the classes these are the closest to a dedicated support and healer, ensuring that the wounds of their allies are always on the mend.

Now I have been fascinated with Guardians for the better part of a year, don't let the Mirage avatar fool you(I happen to also really like Mesmers and Lyssa.) because it matches a lot of paladin-esque virtues. Not that long ago I got really into playing my Firebrand and went through the Living World, I started to notice certain things. The biggest of these is that thematically speaking, my Guardian more then any other character I had best complimented Aurene thematically. Aurene as a character is very much about bringing hope to the hopeless in the same way that Guardians inspire those around her, she also draws people to her from all orientations and walks of life in many ways that Guardians are often thought of as battlefield commanders. At the same time she is protective and empathetic of her charges, largely acting in a benevolent fashion to ensure their safety and healing. Looking over the Brand in Grothmar valley she is definitely driven by some invisible need to purge corruption and even convert it into something beneficial in the same way Guardians convert conditions into boons, as well as bring life to the world around her in a way that isn't strictly nature magic but more tied to life itself as abstract concept.

As superficial as this sounds the color palettes when it comes to magic in guild wars are also important. Dwayna the Goddess of life is typically tied to the color blue or white, as well as concepts of light, lightning, and air. She's also depicted as the leader of the gods curiously enough despite neither being the oldest nor perhaps even the mightiest. Guardians also have blue and white as their primary colors with a lot of that magic focused on the elements of air(Breaths.) and water as life giving energies, as well as purging flames to wipe away corruption that often take on blue coloration. Aurene as a dragon typically is tied to the colors blue and white, with many of brands looking like they have taken on a pastel hue, being a dragon she's of course fond of fire as well but also has a lot of ties to lightning just due to to the Brands originally being charged by lightning bolts and using that same lightning to direct Branded minions from place to place, thematically all these things are really close to one another. If that's not enough for you also consider the Skyscales we've recently hatched, over the course of them we've learned about several different types of magic, among them courage and life, both of these magics share a similar color palette as well.

My theory is that much as the Bloodstones were split into different types of magic like preservation and destruction, the Dragons too have specific realms that were originally important to naturally balancing the world in a similar way. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Guardian magic may of been the Keystone that linked the other Bloodstones together, an abstract form of magic born of our primal virtues and inner selves that could just be defined as 'Creation' in general. Much like that Kralk was this Dragon of 'Creation' or preservation, or just 'Light' if you want to call it that and he served as the keystone that kept the other magics together, a natural balanacer of sorts. But all this magic flowing through him over time inevitably drove him insane, and perhaps even triggered the corruption of himself and the other Dragons. Now Aurene as a new 'Prismatic Dragon' has a chance to, with the aid of native Tyrians, help the planet in a way her forebears could not.

Phew, okay that is my wild outlandish theory. It pulls on a bunch of different things, but I think it kind of all fits together, what do you think?

Guardian magic stems from other sources though. The profession itself is a merger of classes like monks and paragons which we saw in gw1. There were no guardians until recently so guardian magic in itself has no direct place in the older lore. At least that’s my understanding.

I’m not really sure I see the mystery in Aurenes ability either. Her power is a purified form of Kralkatorriks magic, that seems to be stronger than his and thus either overwrites his corruption or instantly purifies it by nullifying the corrupted elements.The science behind it seems rather irrelevant to a high fantasy story in my opinion, but I can’t see the connection to Guardian magic given guardians use a hybrid of magics and disciplines from older professions to wield in the way they do.

My knowledge is rather basic, so I could be wrong on many aspects, it I think the connections you make aren’t really there ultimately

dont forget also that concept of "filtering magic" was introduced in LS3. this cant be directly related to Aurene, but show that Anet was working on that concept.

_Taimi: Anyway, this thing is some sort of organ I found in one of the larger ones.Taimi: It's part of their digestive system, and as you know, they feed on ley energy, so it got me curious.

: Any valuable findings yet?Taimi: None I can explain right now. I ran some ley energy through it and it came out different on the other side.: Different?Taimi: I'm not really sure how just yet. It was barely measurable with the equipment I have.Taimi: I need to develop some other device to actually observe the phenomenon.: What's that sludge you're keeping it in?Taimi: Blighting pod fluid! Remember that stuff? It has wonderful preservative, and even restorative, properties!: Fluid. From the blighting pods. The things that made horrible Mordrem abominations out of corpses.Taimi: So you do remember it!: Taimi... Do you think, maybe, that might be a bad idea?Taimi: Oh, you worry too much! In research, there's no reward without risk!Taimi: And if I'm going to stay one step ahead of everyone outside this lab, I have to take a lot of risks!Taimi: But one thing I can't risk is staying away from the main lab too long—it arouses suspicio_https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Research_in_Rata_Novus

I'm inclined to think that her purifying ability is a remnant of the magic in the Forgotten ritual used to free Glint (but now backed up with the power of an Elder Dragon).

If draconic corruption is analogous to a virus, with the Elder Dragons as Patient Zero (well, One through Six; I would baselessly speculate that Ma Tyria was Patient Zero), you could think of Glint as someone that gained immunity and shared the antibodies with her scions, and Aurene is now producing those antibodies to cure external corruption.

I like your idea Loesh.4697. Maybe the key to putting this all together is to understand how both Guardians and Aurene are combinations of other forms of magic and so I can see why you would make a connection between them and the bloodstone, which is likely the artifact to which Kormir referred (assuming that she is talking about an artifact, rather than something more abstract) when she instructed us to "Restore what has been broken.

In terms of bloodstones: Guardian magic is mostly derived from monk magic, so if the bloodstones were still important when the guardian tradition was created, they would have been drawing from the same bloodstone as monks: probably Preservation.

It is worth noting that, like the gods, magic among the Elder Dragons does not seem to follow the same lines as mortal magic traditions. Zhaitan had necromancy, elemental magic is spread across multiple Elder Dragons, and mesmerism, likewise, seems to be spread across multiple Elder Dragons. Guardian magic is not clearly represented among the original Elder Dragons, but speculation has been made previously that there might be a connection with Kralkatorrik: Kralkatorrik is often associated with lightning and sometimes even fire, which apart from light are the offensive energy types that are most associated with Preservation, and there was even a speculation that the crystalline transformations, while normally more associated with Earth, could be viewed as an aggressive application of Preservation. So it's possible that Kralkatorrik at least had a substantial chunk of Preservation, but it wasn't outwardly manifested due to his insanity.

Personally, I regard Aurene's "Dragon of Light" status as being similar to Kormir being the "Goddess of Truth" to Abaddon's "God of Secrets" - essentially, showing a different facet of the same core theme. Kralkatorrik was Fury and Crystal because those were the aspects he demonstrated most, while Aurene demonstrates different aspects. She clearly still has a strong association with crystal either way.

When it comes to the most fitting profession: I'd be inclined to say that Herald might be the most fitting profession for a champion of Aurene, but Guardian is probably a close second.

@"draxynnic.3719" said:In terms of bloodstones: Guardian magic is mostly derived from monk magic, so if the bloodstones were still important when the guardian tradition was created, they would have been drawing from the same bloodstone as monks: probably Preservation.

It is worth noting that, like the gods, magic among the Elder Dragons does not seem to follow the same lines as mortal magic traditions. Zhaitan had necromancy, elemental magic is spread across multiple Elder Dragons, and mesmerism, likewise, seems to be spread across multiple Elder Dragons. Guardian magic is not clearly represented among the original Elder Dragons, but speculation has been made previously that there might be a connection with Kralkatorrik: Kralkatorrik is often associated with lightning and sometimes even fire, which apart from light are the offensive energy types that are most associated with Preservation, and there was even a speculation that the crystalline transformations, while normally more associated with Earth, could be viewed as an aggressive application of Preservation. So it's possible that Kralkatorrik at least had a substantial chunk of Preservation, but it wasn't outwardly manifested due to his insanity.

Personally, I regard Aurene's "Dragon of Light" status as being similar to Kormir being the "Goddess of Truth" to Abaddon's "God of Secrets" - essentially, showing a different facet of the same core theme. Kralkatorrik was Fury and Crystal because those were the aspects he demonstrated most, while Aurene demonstrates different aspects. She clearly still has a strong association with crystal either way.

When it comes to the most fitting profession: I'd be inclined to say that Herald might be the most fitting profession for a champion of Aurene, but Guardian is probably a close second.

I was actually thinking about Herald and the Facets in part, and while I do think the Heralds are closely tied with Aurene just by virtue of Glint that whole deal with the Facet of Light as an ability and as an entity is interesting. From looking at old Guild Wars 1 stuff we get a little insight into what holy magic is, in that the reason undead take double damaged is regarded as 'Light sensitivity' as a permanent debuff that undead minions and creatures seem to constantly suffer from. When the Guardian came around some of the first questions I remember people were asking is what exactly was the light that was referred to in one of the skills and how did it work?

We didn't really get too much of an answer on that until Dragonhunter, where we could see that through enough concentrated belief that 'light' could be morphed into physical objects like spears, shields, and wings. With Aurene often being attributed to being a source of great hope and faith it makes me wonder if the way Tyrians view her, and how she views herself, has granted some of that light manipulation capability.

My general interpretation is that the effectiveness of light/holy versus undead simply comes from necromancy magic and Preservation being opposites. When you hit an undead with it, you're not just hurting it with the physical effects, but the unbound Preservation energy also destructively interferes with the magic keeping the undead entity animated.

Broadly speaking, each school of magic seems to have something that simply represents attacking the enemy with concentrated magic of that school. Preservation (generally considered to cover monks, guardians, paragons, possibly others) is light/holy. Aggression (necromancers) have dark/shadow energy. Destruction (elementalists) have the various Arcane skills, and Denial (mesmers) have the various Chaos-oriented attacks.

Now, it's entirely likely that Aurene's nature is such that she can employ faith-based magic to a greater degree than Kralkatorrik, but again, I'm not sure if that is something that's actually new to her, or an aspect of Kralkatorrik's domains that Kralkatorrik himself didn't make much use of. It's worth noting that Glint was associated with both mesmer magic and air magic (Zephyrite crystals), and she's also absorbed part of the domains of Balthazar (also associated with monks and therefore guardians), Mordremoth, and Zhaitan, so Aurene's guardian-style magic is probably part of a whole.

It is worth noting that a some of the Nightfall elite specialisations do seem to have a link to crystals in general, if not Glint specifically. Holosmith is powered by Zephyrite crystals. Mirage has various crystal-oriented skills. Some Spellbreaker visual effects, including the Full Counter bubble, are crystalline in appearance. While it could be said that these are linked to the Crystal Desert rather than to Aurene and her forebears specifically, the Crystal Desert itself seems to have gained the "Crystal" part from past actions by Aurene's forebears, making that an indirect link. So at the moment, more than half of the professions have some sort of thematic link with Aurene. Wouldn't surprise me if that number increases with a new round of elite specialisations, now that the PC is starting to be regarded as a Champion of Aurene. (Caithe's conversion, for instance, seems to be begging for an Aurene-themed thief specialisation.)

@"draxynnic.3719" said:While it could be said that these are linked to the Crystal Desert rather than to Aurene and her forebears specifically, the Crystal Desert itself seems to have gained the "Crystal" part from past actions by Aurene's forebears, making that an indirect link.

I believe the Crystal Desert got its name as a result of the war of the Five against Abbadon. He also had used crystals at times, such as the magic embued into the Searing Cauldrons given to the Titans to give to the Charr.

@Gryphon.2875 said:

@"draxynnic.3719" said:While it could be said that these are linked to the Crystal Desert rather than to Aurene and her forebears specifically, the Crystal Desert itself seems to have gained the "Crystal" part from past actions by Aurene's forebears, making that an indirect link.

The war against Abaddon changed it from being the Crystal Sea to the Crystal Desert, but the "Crystal" part always referenced that when you looked closely, each grain of sand was actually a tiny crystal - something that was as true when it was seafloor as when it became desert. It's also heavily implied that what would become the Crystal Desert was Kralkatorrik's main area of operation in a previous Dragonrise (Glint harvested his blood from the area to make the original Dragonblood Spear), so it seems likely that the cause is that Kralkatorrik crystallised the region some time in the past, and then something broke that crystal down into sand.

In short, the War of the Gods made it a desert, but the implication from what we know is that Kralkatorrik gave it the "crystal" part of the name.

Similarly, the Searing Cauldrons were powered by drawing from the sleeping Kralkatorrik. It isn't specified by name, but it is specified that while the Titans taught the Flame Legion how to make them, the power was drawn from an ancient, quiescent being that slumbered within charr territory. It just so happens that Kralkatorrik was an ancient being associated with crystals who was sleeping within charr territory at the time when the Flame Legion made the Searing Cauldrons.