intriguing species in Elona

PoF Spoilers ahead....

Now we have more giants, especially in Elon Riverlands. They were considered rare on the "northern continent".Theses Djins they are strange, sometimes hostile, sometimes allied. There does not seem to be a cohesive race, in their dialogues they usually mention individual motivation things like "you should not be here", "you are not valiant", they seem collectors of magical or rare objects. And why are they helping us in the Serpents Ire meta?And lastly, the branded Forgotten, the Forgotten had not disappeared from Tyria? What do you think of the Forgotten we face in the Serpents Ire meta?

Giants are most likely added to help people with giant eyes and the giant slayer archievment.

Djins were always weird in their behaviour. often used as guardians.

Kralkatorik did get some of Zaithans magic, thus he is able to reanimate even dead beeings for his army. We fight a named forgotten we killed in GW1 in one of the metas for example.The ending of PoF should emphasize that change in power.

I do find it interesting that there are roaming giants in the deserts, often (but not always) with herds around them. Sadly, giants are one of the races that have always been hostile, so we don't know much more about them.

Djinn are an interesting species, as they always serve their own interests. They are a bit like elementals, in that they embody one element and don't swap around like an elementalist would, but they are sentient. Much like the myths of djinn (or genies, as you might be more familiar) from Earth, they have their own agendas, sometimes helpful and sometimes harmful. I think the main reason why they are helpful in Vabbi, where the Brand is the strongest, is because they are fighting to protect their home city, and thus are against Kralkatorrik. Perhaps we will enlist their help in the upcoming Living World season.

What's more interesting about the Branded Forgotten in the desert isn't that they exist, but the ones who are named are the same ones fought back during the trials of Ascension. It's been made clear that outside of magical manipulation, as Livia and the dwarves have, the races don't live for 200 or more years, meaning these are clearly Forgotten who died long ago. Whether we'll actually see any Forgotten outside of the Brand, that's unlikely but remotely possible.

@Rognik.2579 said:I do find it interesting that there are roaming giants in the deserts, often (but not always) with herds around them. Sadly, giants are one of the races that have always been hostile, so we don't know much more about them.

Djinn are an interesting species, as they always serve their own interests. They are a bit like elementals, in that they embody one element and don't swap around like an elementalist would, but they are sentient. Much like the myths of djinn (or genies, as you might be more familiar) from Earth, they have their own agendas, sometimes helpful and sometimes harmful. I think the main reason why they are helpful in Vabbi, where the Brand is the strongest, is because they are fighting to protect their home city, and thus are against Kralkatorrik. Perhaps we will enlist their help in the upcoming Living World season.

What's more interesting about the Branded Forgotten in the desert isn't that they exist, but the ones who are named are the same ones fought back during the trials of Ascension. It's been made clear that outside of magical manipulation, as Livia and the dwarves have, the races don't live for 200 or more years, meaning these are clearly Forgotten who died long ago. Whether we'll actually see any Forgotten outside of the Brand, that's unlikely but remotely possible.

Is Zommoros not a particularly powerful Djinn? As for OP, complementing on what was already said, Djinn are sentient elementals of sorts, it is in their nature to protect from* the corruption of said elements.

As for Giants, they are very rare and so far have only been aggressive, but it could be fun to know whether or not they are offshoot species from the Giganticus Lupus (referred in lore as True Giants). It is also possible they are one of the races that populate the eastern lands like the Ogres, and the few we seem have merely migrated outside of dragon corruption.

As for the Forgotten, they were brought to the world by the gods, and we have no idea if they ever had some kind of global communication, i.e did the Elonian Forgotten ever heard back from the ones that went to the Maguuma? There might even be Forgotten elsewhere, as they also had an active presence in the Realm of Torment when it was taken by Abaddon. I don't think Anet will ever bring back the race though, they have already erased the Mursaat, Seers were already extinct, and they don't seem to care much about even expanding on the Jotun.

The giants we see in PoF are clearly very closely related to the cyclopean giants we met in Central Tyria in vanilla GW2, but there are some striking physiological differences. PoF giants - the Brawler and Hunter - are probably descendants of the grey giants - the Nomad Giants and Sadistic Giants of GW1.

Speculation time: the Bull Trainer Giants we meet in GW1 are probably actually GW2's ogres, I think.

@ugrakarma.9416 said:Theses Djins they are strange, sometimes hostile, sometimes allied. There does not seem to be a cohesive race, in their dialogues they usually mention individual motivation things like "you should not be here", "you are not valiant", they seem collectors of magical or rare objects. And why are they helping us in the Serpents Ire meta?

Djinn are sapient elementals, kind of like differentiating humans and chimpanzees, but many tend to be bound by powerful magic users - especially in Vabbi - in order to protect places. If you talk to the djinn in the Gardens of Seborhin or in the dragonbrand there, some will talk about how they made promises / were bound to protect the lands of Vabbi. So they fight the Elder Dragons' corruption to honor such bonds and promises.

@ugrakarma.9416 said:And lastly, the branded Forgotten, the Forgotten had not disappeared from Tyria? What do you think of the Forgotten we face in the Serpents Ire meta?

The whole "Forgotten disappearing from Tyria" was explained, a bit, in the AMA. "The Last Forgotten" in the speech recorded at Tarir was the last Forgotten of the group that went to the Maguuma Jungle in preparation for Glint's legacy, and they did not know of the fate of other Forgotten. The Forgotten in the Crystal Desert largely kept to themselves at Kesho and Augury Rock, with their corruption when Kralkatorrik came through (after they attempted to cleanse Kralkatorrik and failed).

@Jaken.6801 said:Kralkatorik did get some of Zaithans magic, thus he is able to reanimate even dead beeings for his army. We fight a named forgotten we killed in GW1 in one of the metas for example.The ending of PoF should emphasize that change in power.

Those Forgotten were not reanimated. Yes, multiple named branded Forgotten (if not all) were bosses from GW1. But as we see with Kesho instance in the story, Josso Essher was alive and well after the events of Prophecies. Since Kesho didn't exist during the time of Prophecies, nor did the Exalted, but Essher was in Kesho and interacted with Exalted.

This isn't too surprising, though. Forgotten live a very long time, and during GW1 resurrection magic still existed (and many there is the Thirsty River trial of the Forgotten, which focused on us stopping them from immediate resurrection). It's always been suspected that the Forgotten who performed the trials were resurrected after we left.

@Rognik.2579 said:Djinn are an interesting species, as they always serve their own interests. They are a bit like elementals, in that they embody one element and don't swap around like an elementalist would, but they are sentient. Much like the myths of djinn (or genies, as you might be more familiar) from Earth, they have their own agendas, sometimes helpful and sometimes harmful. I think the main reason why they are helpful in Vabbi, where the Brand is the strongest, is because they are fighting to protect their home city, and thus are against Kralkatorrik. Perhaps we will enlist their help in the upcoming Living World season.

Djinn are called sapient, evolved elementals for a reason. However, I want to clarify one point. At least one djinn swaps elements. She goes from fire to air to water, iirc.

@Rognik.2579 said:What's more interesting about the Branded Forgotten in the desert isn't that they exist, but the ones who are named are the same ones fought back during the trials of Ascension. It's been made clear that outside of magical manipulation, as Livia and the dwarves have, the races don't live for 200 or more years, meaning these are clearly Forgotten who died long ago. Whether we'll actually see any Forgotten outside of the Brand, that's unlikely but remotely possible.

Forgotten live for over a thousand years, actually. This is made a point in Nightfall, where we met a Forgotten who personally witnessed Abaddon's defeat before the Exodus. Vissh died between GW1 and GW2 though. There are other ancient Forgotten we met in GW1, but they're in the Mists now, and though we know them to be old for Forgotten, we do not know just how old they are. Namely this guy and this guy.

Djinn look Undead for some reason... The only Djinn that I've seen that didn't look Undead were the Fire Djinn and Diamond Djinn in Guild Wars Nightfall and that's only because their model was taken from Prophecies where they appeared in Sorrow's Furnace(when we visit it in GW2 there are no Djinn so we can't tell if the Shiverpeaks Djinn look like Undead or not).

The redesign for djinn is rather curious. I wouldn't say they look undead but I can certainly see the impression of such with the facial bandages and white eyes. To me they just look a bit decrepit (aka old af).

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:This isn't too surprising, though. Forgotten live a very long time, and during GW1 resurrection magic still existed (and many there is the Thirsty River trial of the Forgotten, which focused on us stopping them from immediate resurrection). It's always been suspected that the Forgotten who performed the trials were resurrected after we left.

If I recall correctly, the resurrection mechanics were not to be considered part of lore. However, given that the mission instructions tell us to "defeat" him, perhaps we can assume we did not actually kill him during the mission.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The redesign for djinn is rather curious. I wouldn't say they look undead but I can certainly see the impression of such with the facial bandages and white eyes. To me they just look a bit decrepit (aka old af).

If you look closely at the water djinn from GW1, you can see a scarf or some other cloth covering the face. The GW1 fire djinn looks very similar to the GW2 ember, so I imagine they decided to redesign it to make it more visually distinct.

@Blazing Liger.1236 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:This isn't too surprising, though. Forgotten live a very long time, and during GW1 resurrection magic still existed (and many there is the Thirsty River trial of the Forgotten, which focused on us stopping them from immediate resurrection). It's always been suspected that the Forgotten who performed the trials were resurrected after we left.

Resurrection, and the shrines, were 100% part of lore. Resurrection is mentioned a few times, in fact, one of which being by Glint just after the Forgotten trials.

Which was part of the issue with wondering why Rurik's, Togo's, Saidra's, etc. deaths were all so tragic. It was mired by the question of "why couldn't we resurrect them?" which led to the devs writing in "resurrection no longer exists by GW2's time".

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Resurrection, and the shrines, were 100% part of lore. Resurrection is mentioned a few times, in fact, one of which being by Glint just after the Forgotten trials.

It's times like these I really wish the old GWOnline Lore Forum had been properly archived somewhere (I know Guru is, but the bulk of the community didn't move there until later). I remember some of the discussion, as "Why didn't we just rez Rurik?" got asked a fair bit. It may not have been a definitive statement, but rather the philosophical approach to lore, namely, that game mechanics as such were not to be considered lore unless we were given explicit evidence to the contrary.

I could be misremembering; it's been ten years after all.

Rurik was claimed by the Stone Summit and was Undead when we next found him. Resurrecting him after killing his Undead form would have taken a long time considering we were pressed for time what with the Titan invasion of Tyria going on. After we were teleported out of Ring of Fire Isles by Glint doing a proper resurrection was out of the question(Rurik was buried under molten lava).

Saidra's corpse was claimed by the Mursaat and likely dismembered or shoved into a Soul Battery and as for Togo... He personally decided that he be ensconced into Tahnnakai Temple so no resurrecting him after he made that decision.

@Mickey Frogeater.1470 said:Rurik was claimed by the Stone Summit and was Undead when we next found him. Resurrecting him after killing his Undead form would have taken a long time considering we were pressed for time what with the Titan invasion of Tyria going on. After we were teleported out of Ring of Fire Isles by Glint doing a proper resurrection was out of the question(Rurik was buried under molten lava).

Saidra's corpse was claimed by the Mursaat and likely dismembered or shoved into a Soul Battery and as for Togo... He personally decided that he be ensconced into Tahnnakai Temple so no resurrecting him after he made that decision.

It's also possible that whatever ritual Shiro used to claim Togo's life for his own resurrection prevented Togo from being resurrected, at least by conventional means.