New Response mission didn't unlocked

deatine.2498 · December 4, 2020

In charr society, killing or simply defeating your superior in battle is a valid way to dispose of a leader, so the situation around Bangar is valid. He got defeated. He is not Imperator of the blood legion any longer.

Crecia technically has no business being blood legion imperator, especially since she is originally flame legion of all things.But we have seen a few things so far that have not been done in any traditional way. Ruinbringer's name, for example, should've been something with "blood" in it.

A lot of charr traditions are outdated by now, or have always been a ruse. The legion imperators claim to be descendants of the Khan-Ur, but it's not like they ever needed proof.

Pifil.5193 · December 4, 2020

@"deatine.2498" said:In charr society, killing or simply defeating your superior in battle is a valid way to dispose of a leader, so the situation around Bangar is valid. He got defeated. He is not Imperator of the blood legion any longer.
Crecia technically has no business being blood legion imperator, especially since she is originally flame legion of all things.But we have seen a few things so far that have not been done in any traditional way. Ruinbringer's name, for example, should've been something with "blood" in it.
A lot of charr traditions are outdated by now, or have always been a ruse. The legion imperators claim to be descendants of the Khan-Ur, but it's not like they ever needed proof.

Yeah, that is true, during the scuffle in Bangar's office Rytlock knocks him down and he says:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bad_Blood_(Bound_by_Blood)

Bangar Ruinbringer: Go ahead. Be imperator. All you have to do is rip out my throat.Rytlock Brimstone: Don't want it. Don't want anything from you.

Implies that's enough to become Imperator now, if you can take out the incumbent. Unless Rytlock also has Khan-Ur blood in him, maybe the fact that he had the ability to kill Bangar would be taken as sufficient proof that he has the blood of the Khan-Ur in him. I mean, I don't know what kind of records they keep.

Zok.4956 · December 4, 2020

@Fueki.4753 said:
@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:The way this is released, it doesn't make sense for the Ebon Vanguard to be here without the story and dragon response to be available.

There is a number things in this episode that don't make sense.The new Destroyers being able to take damage from Burning.

I hoped to kill them with water fields. ^^

Perihen the Thawk.9527 · December 5, 2020

@borgs.6103 said:He's not replaced though... Only those with the bloodline of the first 4 of the Khan-Ur's children can be Imperators.

Yeah, that's why every country on Earth is still a monarchy under the original bloodline of rulers.

Oh wait.

Things change, she just led the Legion through a civil war, this isn't that weird. Some Charr are surely grumbling about it, others aren't. The traditionalists were disproportionately already marching under Bangar anyway, so they're going to get less of a say now.

SoftFootpaws.9134 · December 5, 2020

Regarding the Destroyers, Jormag and Primordus had their magic completely drained and went to sleep. This means while sleeping they likely naturalised the magic from the other spectrums rather than it conflicting with their own, like Aurene.

One of the NPCs even comments about this; so likely Jormag and Primodus don't suffer from torment, and the powers wielded by their minions are integrated into their base design rather than being tacked on after the fact, which is why the Destroyers are notably stronger than before. (They can be burned because it was unfair Core mobs are resistant to certain types of DPS.)

As shown when fighting Jormag's Unstable Abomination, using those powers is a double-edged blade. The Destroyers in Ember Bay were also vulnerable to being Chilled, which would've made them instantly vaporised by most of Jormag's minions.

It seems better to just naturalise it to their own form of magic and "do what they do best" instead.

borgs.6103 · December 5, 2020

@Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:
@borgs.6103 said:He's not replaced though... Only those with the bloodline of the first 4 of the Khan-Ur's children can be Imperators.

Yeah, that's why every country on Earth is still a monarchy under the original bloodline of rulers.

Oh wait.

Things change, she just led the Legion through a civil war, this isn't that weird. Some Charr are surely grumbling about it, others aren't. The traditionalists were disproportionately already marching under Bangar anyway, so they're going to get less of a say now.

Sad. You don't get it. This isn't about real world. This is about lore. I'm all for whatever they do, heck, I wouldn't care if they put a human Imperator, but at least explain or show why because ever since the Charr has an established lore, it has been that way. And now suddenly it isn't, with no one even acknowledging this lore-breaking shenanigans.

Well, whatever. This game has more pressing issues that its bastardization of lore and this is not the first time they retconned themselves anyways.

Tyson.5160 · December 5, 2020

@borgs.6103 said:
@Perihen the Thawk.9527 said:
@borgs.6103 said:He's not replaced though... Only those with the bloodline of the first 4 of the Khan-Ur's children can be Imperators.

Yeah, that's why every country on Earth is still a monarchy under the original bloodline of rulers.

Oh wait.

Things change, she just led the Legion through a civil war, this isn't that weird. Some Charr are surely grumbling about it, others aren't. The traditionalists were disproportionately already marching under Bangar anyway, so they're going to get less of a say now.

Sad. You don't get it. This isn't about real world. This is about lore. I'm all for whatever they do, heck, I wouldn't care if they put a human Imperator, but at least explain or show why because ever since the Charr has an established lore, it has been that way. And now suddenly it isn't, with no one even acknowledging this lore-breaking shenanigans.

Well, whatever. This game has more pressing issues that its bastardization of lore and this is not the first time they retconned themselves anyways.

Maybe at this point, after a major Charr civil war, Crecia might become Khan Ur and allow Rytlock to become Blood Imperator. Crecia may have Khan Ur blood from flame’s side. Given how she led the United Legions and wants to unite the Charr and forget old hatreds, I suspect she will be a likely contender for the title.

Kossage.9072 · December 6, 2020

Interestingly if we select Crecia once she appears as an NPC around the EotN war table after "Primordus Rising" story step, she has the title Acting Blood Legion Imperator. I could've sworn she was just called Blood Imperator when "Champions" first released and the title was subtly changed since, but I didn't have any screenshots of her title from that time. What I've seen is that her title's been changing between Blood Legion Imperator, Imperator of Blood Legion, and Acting Blood Legion Imperator. I hope the devs have chosen a title that sticks for now rather than moving between these variants depending on what instance she appears in.

As for the legitimacy as imperator, it's hard to say for sure if that old blog post's lore about imperators needing to be direct Khan-Ur descendants and having Blood, Ash etc. in their name was ever considered to be canonical even though it was written from an authoritative standpoint. Ever since the narrative team comment "All lore is malleable" from Season1/2 days on the old forums, players have had to reevaluate dev statements during blog posts, interviews, videos, guild chats etc. During Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee's tenure lore consistency ruled but as they gradually distanced themselves and let others take the lead during Season 1 time and beyond, the rules of what should and shouldn't be considered canon became more flexible. Basically since those days, the golden rule by devs has been that what's in the game overrules any other statements made elsewhere if there are contradictions, so in-game canon overrules interview/guild chat canon as the devs might be misremembering lore during such segments etc. This is fair, though, considering how vast Tyrian lore, so I wouldn't be surprised if the charr blog post's suggested ideas underwent changes over the years.

With that said, I do like that Crecia is now listed as Acting Blood Legion Imperator, which means her title isn't final and there's still the issue of who succeeds Bangar. While Crecia was the primus inter pares among the tribunes due to essentially being Bangar's right paw, her Flame Legion heritage may be a hindrance to her ascension. As we've seen with there being human haters in the allied Iron Legion, there's no doubt that the surviving Blood Legion members would have to consider their stance about Crecia's ascendancy and if they'd want someone with Flame heritage ruling Blood, especially if Cre can't prove being a descendant of the Khan-Ur (assuming that this rule was ever valid to begin with).

However, looking at charr politics and how they operate, Julia Nardin did specifically state the charr legions being like the four Mongol hordes during the Toluid Civil War period and beyond: the sons of the Khan divided their father's empire into four autonomous khanates, each with a different ruler descended from the Khan. In Tyria, the culture and ideologies of the four charr legions are fundamentally different to this day, and each imperator is said to have their own city-stronghold from which they rule even though we've only visited two of them so far (Black Citadel, and Citadel of Flame...Frost Citadel is kind of an outlier due to circumstance). Another example for this charr nations' collaboration could be like the Iroquois League in its early decades: not quite a confederation yet but still the different factions/tribes are tied together enough to work together for a common goal while retaining their respective hierarchies. The legions and the imperators are collaborating and have even signed treaties to ensure cooperation, but that doesn't mean Iron has any say in Blood matters or vice versa regardless of what their imperators think (although there still is that unresolved mystery of whether Bangar or Smodur was the true mastermind behind Rytlock's demotion, arrest and tribunal in Season 3; if Smodur had had the authority to do such a thing to a Blood officer, Bangar could've declared war against him, and in Season 2 there was never any indication that Smodur and Rytlock had bad blood so that forced demotion and arrest, and Rytlock's reluctance to return to the Black Citadel, felt off unless he was aware that Bangar was behind it all somehow).

While Bangar should've been bound by the treaty of non-aggression, he was still a legitimate imperator when he and his loyalist followers went rogue and when he deceived the rest of the legions (even though he claims he always spoke the truth despite funding Renegades behind everyone's back all along). The only "traitors" in this instance would be defectors from the other legions who joined his Dominion, while Crecia and her followers were the rebels who decided to rise up against their rightful imperator.

The question thus becomes what happens to imprisoned imperators in charr society. Historically charr have been shown to slay anyone who's shown weakness (see e.g. Pyre Fierceshot executing a Flame shaman who was begging for his life), so there probably weren't many high-profile prisoners of war...at least not for long. Bangar being kept alive raises the question if he should still be considered the de facto imperator despite being beaten (technically he only lost the battle in the Frost Citadel because Jormag "subverted" his expectations when he had already incapacitated the Commander's team), or if there's some unknown charr law that allows him to be stripped from his title and claim now. We still don't know what the rest of the Stone Warband, and whatever other tribunes that remain besides Rytlock and Fierhan Sparwind think about these developments. Fierhan was suggested to be an old school charr loyal to Blood but presumably he's still alive in the Citadel; is he going to support Crecia or deny her right to ascend while referring to her Flame roots? It's possible that the rest of the Blood tribunes died during the civil war, leaving their primus centurions to ascend as new tribunes, but sadly we have little to no information about what's going on with the charr beyond a few teases in dialogue here and there.

Regarding other would-be imperators, the game seems to suggest that Efram and Mia Kindleshot may be ascending as the new Flame and Iron Imperators. If the Khan-Ur descendant rule still applies, however, both of them would have to prove their legitimacy. Maybe Efram could be a descendant from a lesser bloodline (possibly even being related to Gaheron himself) while Mia might be revealed as Smodur's daughter. Still, there would be other claimants contesting them for their thrones. We still don't know if Crecia's evil shaman sire lives and if he leads some Flame faction not affiliated with Dominion, but there would be shamans or tribunes who would never accept Efram as the de facto imperator, especially when Efram only leads a splinter group of peace seekers that was significantly weakened by mass defections to Dominion.

Lorewise Mia would be opposed by the popular Iron tribune Fume Brighteye who despises humans. Fume would no doubt have significant support as she's among the three most popular Iron tribunes, and we've seen in Drizzlewood ambient dialogue that several allied Iron charr openly mock and threaten their human allies, so the poison Smodur mentioned still runs deep in the legions. Maybe Fume could champion the idea that future imperators no longer need to be related to Khan-Ur and should rise at their own merits so Fume could use that clause to her benefit in case she has no way of proving her Khan-Ur bloodline. She could be using the likely popular state funerals (by pyre if charr still burn their dead) of Almorra and Smodur as a public political stage to rally mourning and vengeful charr (and maybe even some Vigil?) behind her with populist speech about bringing the murderer Ryland to justice for the two charr heroes' deaths and demanding Bangar to be released from Aurene's custody or else. Fume might also separate her politics from Bangar's Dominion by claiming that she only has beef with humans while being ok with having peaceful relations with asura, norn and sylvari so she wouldn't be alienating everyone with her hatemongering.

As for the Khan-Ur candidates if there ever will be some, we know from Ghosts of Ascalon novel that the candidate has to earn support from all the legions, wield the Claw, potentially be related to Khan-Ur, and succeed at a specific military type of feat. The Flame Legion attempted this with finally taking over Ascalon City before the Foefire ruined the imperator's plans. Currently the only charr who has achieved truly great things (besides Smodur and Malice working for the peace treaty) would be Rytlock who's helped bring down three Elder Dragons, a deposed god, and a lich king. No matter what the other imperators do, they would never match Rytlock's feats. However, Rytlock isn't considered a typical charr anymore as he's fallen from his glory days by interacting too much with the other races, and he wouldn't want the position anyway even if he got unanimous support.

As for Rytlock's other legitimacy concerns, it's curious how there's been lengthy history between him, Crecia and Bangar ever since the fahrar. Why would Bangar care for a random future tribune like Rytlock as to watch his progress from cubhood, so much so that Rytlock's speech post-confrontation in "Bad Blood" even implied that his relationship with Bangar may have not always been so sour at least in the early fahrar years. I wouldn't be surprised if Rytlock was revealed as Bangar's son, which would explain Bangar's abnormal obsession over him living up to the charr ideals and even being willing to let Rytlock kill him to prove a point. We've seen how obsessed Bangar is about his son Ajax after all these years, so it'd make sense for Bangar to harbor similar feelings for his "black sheep" son Rytlock if that's the case.

The only true heir of the Khan-Ur left at this stage (if not counting the imprisoned Bangar) would be Malice. She has already played her cards right by making the three would-be imperators indebted to her: she helped Crecia with imperator business and showed her support for Cre, she accepted Efram's Flame into the United Legions and encouraged him with half-hearted comments, and she would no doubt be able to manipulate Mia from Iron too by revealing that she was the true force behind the Ebonhawke Treaty and not Smodur. With all her imperator rivals either dead or imprisoned with the other legions' leaders being indebted to her for her leadership, Malice just needs to acquire the Claw from Black Citadel, win the other legions over to accept her leadership, and perform a great enough feat to prove her worth. Perhaps slaying Jormag and/or Primordus would give her that authority if she actually desires the position of Khan-Ur. I could easily see Malice preferring to play the role of grey eminence as a shadowy power behind the throne while acting out the ostensible role of advisor/vizier, however, and install some gullible fool as a puppet Khan-Ur.

It's been interesting that the Commander's lines in the aftermath of "A Simple Negotiation" had them question Malice not mourning Smodur's death. The dialogue was eerily similar to when the Commander began worrying about Smodur's ambitions in "A Race to Arms," so I wonder if this is one last red herring to make players distrust Malice until she proves yet again that she's no threat to us, or if this is actual foreshadowing that Malice can finally set her plans in motion now that all her rivals are gone. It was said to be rather suspicious how quickly Ryland located the camp to assassinate Smodur although Malice quickly brushed accusations aside by pointing out that finding the cave would've been inevitable. If the writers ever revealed Jormag having been behind Smodur's surprisingly disrespectful actions (him dissing the Commander and Rytlock, and executing a helpless prisoner during negotiations), it wouldn't be impossible for Jormag to also manipulate Malice's ambitions as well without Malice initially realizing it. So far Malice, apart from holding information from us and sending double agents without telling anyone, has shown herself to be worth her reputation as a seemingly honorable leader, but I can't help but wonder if we'll also see bits of a broken pedestal in her after the other three imperators have been dealt with.

While the story of the charr seems to suggest, as per Crecia's dialogue, that the charr need a strong leader to unite them right now and that we may see a new Khan-Ur rise eventually, I wonder if the whole Khan-Ur stuff might be subverted and actually have the charr abolish it, and possibly the imperator titles, in the end if Malice's ambitions for the throne turn out to be just as dangerous as the other imperators'. Maybe the charr could smelt the Claw to destroy this priceless artifact and then declare that the charr should no longer follow the whims of bloodlines but build their own reputation with their strength and cunning. Maybe we could see the charr embracing the Roman Republic that preceded the Roman Empire: the charr senate could consist of tribunes and/or elected representatives from all charr social circles, including social pariahs like scrappers, gladia, and plebeians so every voice in the republic (from the downtrodden to the highly respected) can be heard in a mostly democratic fashion. Make these terms as senators temporary so there's a balance of power in check while each legion has more than one representative in this senate-council (to prevent another imperator wannabe from rising), and the charr might finally be able to move the legion rivalry behind and focus on using their respective strengths to their advantage to truly advance their society. :)

nopinopa.4861 · December 6, 2020

@Fueki.4753 said:
@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:The Destroyers reverting back to being fire-only, rather than making use of the dead Elder Dragons' magic.There is a small dialog about that in EotN

borgs.6103 · December 6, 2020

@"Kossage.9072" said:Interestingly if we select Crecia once she appears as an NPC around the EotN war table after "Primordus Rising" story step, she has the title Acting Blood Legion Imperator. I could've sworn she was just called Blood Imperator when "Champions" first released and the title was subtly changed since, but I didn't have any screenshots of her title from that time. What I've seen is that her title's been changing between Blood Legion Imperator, Imperator of Blood Legion, and Acting Blood Legion Imperator. I hope the devs have chosen a title that sticks for now rather than moving between these variants depending on what instance she appears in.
As for the legitimacy as imperator, it's hard to say for sure if that old blog post's lore about imperators needing to be direct Khan-Ur descendants and having Blood, Ash etc. in their name was ever considered to be canonical even though it was written from an authoritative standpoint. Ever since the narrative team comment "All lore is malleable" from Season1/2 days on the old forums, players have had to reevaluate dev statements during blog posts, interviews, videos, guild chats etc. During Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee's tenure lore consistency ruled but as they gradually distanced themselves and let others take the lead during Season 1 time and beyond, the rules of what should and shouldn't be considered canon became more flexible. Basically since those days, the golden rule by devs has been that what's in the game overrules any other statements made elsewhere if there are contradictions, so in-game canon overrules interview/guild chat canon as the devs might be misremembering lore during such segments etc. This is fair, though, considering how vast Tyrian lore, so I wouldn't be surprised if the charr blog post's suggested ideas underwent changes over the years.
With that said, I do like that Crecia is now listed as Acting Blood Legion Imperator, which means her title isn't final and there's still the issue of who succeeds Bangar. While Crecia was the primus inter pares among the tribunes due to essentially being Bangar's right paw, her Flame Legion heritage may be a hindrance to her ascension. As we've seen with there being human haters in the allied Iron Legion, there's no doubt that the surviving Blood Legion members would have to consider their stance about Crecia's ascendancy and if they'd want someone with Flame heritage ruling Blood, especially if Cre can't prove being a descendant of the Khan-Ur (assuming that this rule was ever valid to begin with).
However, looking at charr politics and how they operate, Julia Nardin did specifically state the charr legions being like the four Mongol hordes during the Toluid Civil War period and beyond: the sons of the Khan divided their father's empire into for autonomous khanates, each with a different ruler descended from the Khan. The culture and ideologies of the four legions are fundamentally different to this day, and each imperator is said to have their own city-stronghold from which they rule even though we've only visited two of them so far (Black Citadel, and Citadel of Flame...Frost Citadel is kind of an outlier due to circumstance). Another example for this charr nations' collaboration could be like the Iroquois League in its early decades: not quite a confederation yet but still the different factions/tribes are tied together enough to work together for a common goal while retaining their respective hierarchies. The legions and the imperators are collaborating and have even signed treaties to ensure cooperation, but that doesn't mean Iron has any say in Blood matters or vice versa regardless of what their imperators think (although there still is that unresolved mystery of whether Bangar or Smodur was the true mastermind behind Rytlock's demotion, arrest and tribunal in Season 3; if Smodur had had the authority to do such a thing to a Blood officer, Bangar could've declared war against him, and in Season 2 there was never any indication that Smodur and Rytlock had bad blood so that forced demotion and arrest, and Rytlock's reluctance to return to the citadel, felt off unless he was aware that Bangar was behind it all somehow).
While Bangar should've been bound by the treaty of non-aggression, he was still a legitimate imperator when he and his loyalist followers went rogue and when he deceived the rest of the legions (even though he claims he always spoke the truth despite funding Renegades behind everyone's back all along). The only "traitors" in this instance would be defectors from the other legions who joined his Dominion, while Crecia and her followers were the rebels who decided to rise up against their rightful imperator.
The question thus becomes what happens to imprisoned imperators in charr society. Historically charr have been shown to slay anyone who's shown weakness (see e.g. Pyre Fierceshot executing a Flame shaman who was begging for his life), so there probably weren't many high-profile prisoners of war...at least not for long. Bangar being kept alive raises the question if he should still be considered the de facto imperator despite being beaten (technically he only lost the battle in the Frost Citadel because Jormag "subverted" his expectations when he had already incapacitated the Commander's team), or if there's some unknown charr law that allows him to be stripped from his title and claim now. We still don't know what the rest of the Stone Warband, and whatever other tribunes that remain besides Rytlock and Fierhan Sparwind think about these developments. Fierhan was suggested to be an old school charr loyal to Blood but presumably he's still alive in the Citadel; is he going to support Crecia or deny her right to ascend while referring to her Flame roots? It's possible that the rest of the Blood tribunes died during the civil war, leaving their primus centurions to ascend as new tribunes, but sadly we have little to no information about what's going on with the charr beyond a few teases in dialogue here and there.
Regarding other would-be imperators, the game seems to suggest that Efram and Mia Kindleshot may be ascending as the new Flame and Iron Imperators. If the Khan-Ur descendant rule still applies, however, both of them would have to prove their legitimacy. Maybe Efram could be a descendant from a lesser bloodline (possibly even being related to Gaheron himself) while Mia might be revealed as Smodur's daughter. Still, there would be other claimants contesting them for their thrones. We still don't know if Crecia's evil shaman sire lives and if he leads some Flame faction not affiliated with Dominion, but there would be shamans or tribunes who would never accept Efram as the de facto imperator, especially when Efram only leads a splinter group of peace seekers that was significantly weakened by mass defections to Dominion.
Lorewise Mia would be opposed by the popular Iron tribune Fume Brighteye who despises humans. Fume would no doubt have significant support as she's among the three most popular Iron tribunes, and we've seen in Drizzlewood ambient dialogue that several allied Iron charr openly mock and threaten their human allies, so the poison Smodur mentioned still runs deep in the legions. Maybe Fume could champion the idea that future imperators no longer need to be related to Khan-Ur and should rise at their own merits so Fume could use that clause to her benefit in case she has no way of proving her Khan-Ur bloodline. She could be using the likely popular state funerals (by pyre if charr still burn their dead) of Almorra and Smodur as a public political stage to rally mourning and vengeful charr (and maybe even some Vigil?) behind her with populist speech about bringing the murderer Ryland to justice for the two charr heroes' deaths and demanding Bangar to be released from Aurene's custody or else. Fume might also separate her politics from Bangar's Dominion by claiming that she only has beef with humans while being ok with having peaceful relations with asura, norn and sylvari so she wouldn't be alienating everyone with her hatemongering.
As for the Khan-Ur candidates if there ever will be some, we know from Ghosts of Ascalon novel that the candidate has to earn support from all the legions, wield the Claw, potentially be related to Khan-Ur, and succeed at a specific military type of feat. The Flame Legion attempted this with finally taking over Ascalon City before the Foefire ruined the imperator's plans. Currently the only charr who has achieved truly great things (besides Smodur and Malice working for the peace treaty) would be Rytlock who's helped bring down three Elder Dragons, a deposed god, and a lich king. No matter what the other imperators do, they would never match Rytlock's feats. However, Rytlock isn't considered a typical charr anymore as he's fallen from his glory days by interacting too much with the other races, and he wouldn't want the position anyway even if he got unanimous support.
As for Rytlock's other legitimacy concerns, it's curious how there's been lengthy history between him, Crecia and Bangar ever since the fahrar. Why would Bangar care for a random future tribune like Rytlock as to watch his progress from cubhood, so much so that Rytlock's speech post-confrontation in "Bad Blood" even implied that his relationship with Bangar may have not always been so sour at least in the early fahrar years. I wouldn't be surprised if Rytlock was revealed as Bangar's son, which would explain Bangar's abnormal obsession over him living up to the charr ideals and even being willing to let Rytlock kill him to prove a point. We've seen how obsessed Bangar is about his song Ajax after all these years, so it'd make sense for Bangar to harbor similar feelings for his "black sheep" son Rytlock if that's the case.
The only true heir of the Khan-Ur left at this stage (if not counting the imprisoned Bangar) would be Malice. She has already played her cards right by making the three would-be imperators indebted to her: she helped Crecia with imperator business and showed her support for Cre, she accepted Efram's Flame into the United Legions and encouraged him with half-hearted comments, and she would no doubt be able to manipulate Mia from Iron too by revealing that she was the true force behind the Ebonhawke Treaty and not Smodur. With all her imperator rivals either dead or imprisoned with the other legions' leaders being indebted to her for her leadership, Malice just needs to acquire the Claw from Black Citadel, win the other legions over to accept her leadership, and perform a great enough feat to prove her worth. Perhaps slaying Jormag and/or Primordus would give her that authority if she actually desires the position of Khan-Ur. I could easily see Malice preferring to play the role of grey eminence as a shadowy power behind the throne while acting out the ostensible role of advisor/vizier, however, and install some gullible fool as a puppet Khan-Ur.
It's been interesting that the Commander's lines in the aftermath of "A Simple Negotiation" had them question Malice not mourning Smodur's death. The dialogue was eerily similar to when the Commander began worrying about Smodur's ambitions in "A Race to Arms," so I wonder if this is one last red herring to make players distrust Malice until she proves yet again that she's no threat to us, or if this is actual foreshadowing that Malice can finally set her plans in motion now that all her rivals are gone. It was said to be rather suspicious how quickly Ryland located the camp to assassinate Smodur although Malice quickly brushed accusations aside by pointing out that finding the cave would've been inevitable. If the writers ever revealed Jormag having been behind Smodur's surprisingly disrespectful actions (him dissing the Commander and Rytlock, and executing a helpless prisoner during negotiations), it wouldn't be impossible for Jormag to also manipulate Malice's ambitions as well without Malice initially realizing it. So far Malice, apart from holding information from us and sending double agents without telling anyone, has shown herself to be worth her reputation as a seemingly honorable leader, but I can't help but wonder if we'll also see bits of a broken pedestal in her after the other three imperators have been dealt with.
While the story of the charr seems to suggest, as per Crecia's dialogue, that the charr need a strong leader to unite them right now and that we may see a new Khan-Ur rise eventually, I wonder if the whole Khan-Ur stuff might be subverted and actually have the charr abolish it, and possibly the imperator titles, in the end if Malice's ambitions for the throne turn out to be just as dangerous as the other imperators'. Maybe the charr could smelt the Claw to destroy this priceless artifact and then declare that the charr should no longer follow the whims of bloodlines but build their own reputation with their strength and cunning. Maybe we could see the charr embracing the Roman Republic that preceded the Roman Empire: the charr senate could consist of tribunes and/or elected representatives from all charr social circles, including social pariahs like scrappers, gladia, and plebeians so every voice in the republic (from the downtrodden to the highly respected) can be heard in a mostly democratic fashion. Make these terms as senators temporary so there's a balance of power in check while each legion has more than one representative in this senate-council (to prevent another imperator wannabe from rising), and the charr might finally be able to move the legion rivalry behind and focus on using their respective strengths to their advantage to truly advance their society. :)

You. I like you. You understand and know your lore. I like the idea of the Charr society and governance change from four independent Legions in a temporary ceasefire agreement to becoming a united Republic. Then maybe they rise to power again and finally conquer the world.

Grand Marshal.4098 · December 6, 2020

Since we are talking about the charr let me just say how utterly dissapointed I am with how Smodur's death was handled. Not even a bit of info about what happens with the Iron Legion after the seemingly unimpactful death of by far the most prominent Imperator in our story! Not to mention that Charr characters live in the Black Citadel the HQ of the Iron Legion and Smodur has always been our Imperator in command (despite Legion loyalty)!!!!

The story team puts effort, but they still screw it up with explaining the actual consequences of our/the characters' actiosn in the story, unless an Elder Dragon who "WilL DesTrOy THe WorLD".

radda.8920 · December 6, 2020

@ugrakarma.9416 said:destroyers are by far the most boring enemies,,it's so sad to read thaton guild wars 1, they were so interesting to fight and they had lots of different designs ..arena really made them look ridiculous with boring fights.

Tyson.5160 · December 6, 2020

@radda.8920 said:
@ugrakarma.9416 said:destroyers are by far the most boring enemies,,it's so sad to read thaton guild wars 1, they were so interesting to fight and they had lots of different designs ..arena really made them look ridiculous with boring fights.