Kossage.9072

I wish we had had Jory, Kas, Rox and Frostbite fighting alongside us in the "Dragonstorm" instance and appearing for those final chats in "Champion's End" to give us that proper Dragon's Watch reunion; we haven't seen them all together in one instance for quite some time now. I found it weird that Rox in particular wasn't around for that final battle given her strong bond with Braham and when she'd already been acting as the Olmakhan ambassador to the High Legions. I would've loved a scene in the aftermath of Ryland's death where Rox would comment on Rytlock's family (perhaps even readd the hints from the cut S1 ending that Rox is Rytlock's half-sister via a shared dam whom they lost while they were still young if that's still deemed canonical in the dev team) and witness Braham finally apologizing to her and Garm for treating them poorly in Season 3 (whether he was actually under Jormag's subtle influence during that S3 time or not) and giving us a proper voiced farewell scene between Braham and Rox that we didn't get in S4 finale because it had happened off screen there. I also would've liked to give Braham some physical scars from his insides being liquified by lava (based on previous destroyer creation lore even if he was partly protected by the Spirits of the Wild). He could've either returned to his senses but retained his new corrupted look as a permanent reminder of his choice, or had his corrupted rocky arms fall off with the rest of the corruption and thus leading him to become an amputee (he could either get golem arms or Canthan dragonjade teach arms, see e.g. Yao's concept art for EoD, as prosthetics in the future while his injuries from "Dragonstorm" would justify a lengthy recovery as he also struggles from the already established guilt of killing hundreds if not more innocents as an influenced champion off screen). Maybe we could've even had a bittersweet GoT type of conclusion for his story (for now with a plot hook for his eventual return) where he used his lingering destroyer connection to guide the remaining destroyers far into the remote north away from civilization as an "alpha" and battling some of the surviving destroyer champions to make sure that they won't try to retaliate or create more destroyers to resume attacks in the future. I would've also liked an explanation for his destroyer senses as it's currently unclear if those were the result of him invoking the unknown fire magic source of the jotun scroll (as we never learned if that scroll contain magic from the Fire Spirit, Primordus or some other source) or if gaining Wolf's full blessing from Drakkar fight onward allowed him to gain enchanced spirit senses to track down powerful dragon champions. With that said, part of the reason for Braham's survival was the narrative team's interest in subverting expectations as they wanted to explore the idea of a chosen hero not dying despite two prophecies expecting him to but being rewarded for his selfless deed instead (while the selfish Ryland got punished). Now that there are "clear skies ahead of him" as the narrative director Tom Abernathy explained in the interesting 3-hour video chat with deeg (well worth a watch for any GW2 enthusiast as the chat goes quite in depth into story, gameplay and other stuff), they can explore what happens to a hero who vanquished his people's ancient enemy and finished his mother Eir's vow to her father Einar. There's another lingering mystery from Braham's backstory that the game has yet to address if the writers ever decide to explore Braham more: the origins of his black norn dad Borje the Sun Chaser who was a legendary hero in his own right. We don't know much about black norn or how Borje and Eir met and fell in love, or what feats Borje had done in life to earn the reputation of a legendary hero. Perhaps Borje could be a member of a seafaring norn tribe hailing from a remote region for all we know, and Braham could learn more about the family from his father's side and what they might be like as Braham figures out the legacy of not only his mother but his father too and how they're both a part of him. 🙂 In any case, Tom also pointed out that the team's plan is to flesh out and develop key characters via focusing on specific characters at a time. The charr and norn focus of the Icebrood Saga naturally led them to continue Braham and Rytlock's development, particularly to redeem Braham in players' eyes as a follow-up to what we already saw in Season 4. Now that the duo's immediate arcs have mostly concluded for now, the writers can turn their attention on Kasmeer, Marjory, Taimi and Gorrik to develop their respective relationships while also showing their growth as individuals in End of Dragons. As such, I doubt we'll see as big a focus on Braham and Rytlock in the expansion although I would like them, Rox and Frostbite to make a token appearance at some point as a last hurrah of sorts for Dragon's Watch once the story of the last original generation Elder Dragon concludes and Tyria embraces a new dawn with the original mission of Dragon's Watch having concluded.

I do recall some old theories about that throne potentially being the fifth bloodstone, also known as the keystone, that has the power to unite the other four bloodstones into one whole Bloodstone. While the throne doesn't look at all like bloodstones that we've seen so far, perhaps the keystone could be different in looks due to magic hijinks (even though such seems unlikely as all the five stones come from the original stone and should share its looks). The somewhat unreliable narrative of Thadeus Lamont's History of Tyria book does claim that the gods charged Doric's bloodline to guard the bloodstones. Jennah is the only known descendant of Doric (aside from the hidden heir that the Krytan royal locket and the Order of Whispers seem to know about), so her or the hidden heir's story could yet be tied to the mystery of the keystone that holds the power to return the sundered bloodstones (aside from the destroyed Maguuma Bloodstone) to their original form. 🙂

There's never been any "good" alliance (that we know of at least) with any atoning krait. The oratuss priest caste (would be fun if they were led by a high priestess, but so far the highest-ranking krait we've seen have been oratuss) keeps a tight leash on the krait population, indoctrinating them to believe they're the superior race who will inherit Tyria and wash away the lesser, unworthy races once the abyssal prophets return and flood the world. Scarlet was able to lure some krait to her side and work alongside a Nightmare Court splinter faction in the Toxic Alliance by dangling obelisk shards in front of their snouts and making them believe that the Toxic Hybrid was one of their prophets but beyond that... Interestingly young Cadeyrn (to-be Nightmare Court founder) and Niamh (founder of the Wardens) had an interesting philosophical debate about whether to spare the krait young they found after killing the adult krait who had been hunting and hurting sylvari, and their different opinions would be one of the key moments that led Cadeyrn down his dark, rebellious path into Nightmare's waiting arms. Their debate essentially boiled down to nature vs. nurture. Are krait inherently evil (as even the ANet blog post about krait suggested by calling them a "black hat" race with no redeemable qualities), or are they only that way because they've been indoctrinated by the oratuss to the faith of the prophets since hatching? I'd side with Niamh's side in the argument. No matter how awful things the krait have done, they should be allowed a chance to redeem themselves and prove that they can coexist with other races. If atonement was always denied, Efram's Flame Legion would never have survived to the present day, nor would Valette Wi have ever earned her redemption. However, actually meeting krait not indoctrinated by the ever-dominant oratuss would be a difficult task indeed, or even finding an oratuss who starts to question the ever-altered religious texts that the oratuss have been memorizing and changing Vedic-style without writing it down. Even the young krait whom Niamh spared would likely be taught to view her act of mercy as a weakness to be exploited by the master race if they ever questioned why a sylvari would spare their kind. I could see us playing future content where we meet a rebellious krait splinter faction who have been declared as heretics for trying to see the world with eyes unclouded by religious hate. I never really subscribed to the "black hat" theory of an inherently evil race as each race and individual should have a chance to be good, evil or various shades in between. I'd argue that even demons, who are born from actual malignant energies in the Mists and are thus pure evil, could be redeemed if written well enough with a compelling narrative, so I don't see why krait couldn't benefit from such treatment as well. It's not like ANet hasn't expanded existing content like how we finally met female dredge in Thunderhead Peaks. 🙂

I hope we get some updates on the dwarves eventually beyond that brief dialogue tease we got in Hoelbrak during Dragon Bash. While the above dialogue suggests that most dwarves have died out during their battles against destroyers, we've yet to learn if heroic figures like King Jalis Ironhammer or High Priest Alkar still exist down in the Depths of Tyria. As seen with the failure of the Destroyer of Hope to slay Aurene in Season 3, the existence of champions like Destroyer of the Last King or Destroyer of the Ironhammer Line does not necessarily mean that these destroyers succeeded in their grim tasks. It would be fun to visit the wise dwarven king and see how he's faring now that his singular drive post-rite to slay destroyers will soon be rendered meaningless as few destroyers remain in the aftermath of Dragonstorm. Exploring the future of the dwarves would be an interesting story beat and how they'll get adjusted to a world which no longer has to worry about Primordus and other Elder Dragons. 🙂

Speaking of norn and spirituality, I wonder if something Warming Hearth and I discussed in wiki some time ago could also be brought to the editors' attention. Could it be possible to rename Raven, Wolf, Bear, and Snow Leopard NPCs in Braham's "Wildfire" instance to Raven Spirit, Wolf Spirit etc. for consistency's sake? For example, in previous story instances of the Icebrood Saga such as the "Still Waters Speaking" (and in earlier personal story instances such as "Romke's Final Voyage") story step, Wolf was named Wolf Spirit as an NPC. We also had the spirit monicker being used for several other spirits such as norn personal story's Minotaur Spirit, or the saga's Corrupted Eagle Spirit etc. rather than calling them Minotaur or Corrupted Eagle or something along those lines. Granted, "Wildfire" is the first time we truly see the Great Spirits of the Wild "in the flesh" while previous instances, even "Romke's Final Voyage" and "Still Waters Speaking", could be argued to just be the Spirits' projected avatars (since Wolf Spirit only appears near his statue in Bjora), so maybe that was the developer idea behind deciding to just call them Wolf, Raven etc. in "Wildfire". Either way, I'm glad to see some discussion around the norn subject and developer responses. Keep up the good work, Bobby, and hopefully we'll see more folks from the Narrative Team etc. chime in on the forums every now and then if their busy schedule allows them to do so. 🙂

While the Sons seem to be done for, I would like the idea that some of them reconsidered their views about women's flaws and came to believe that Aurene, despite being a "girly" dragon, was the greatest predator on Tyria and thus the true Dragon worth revering since Aurene's actions had led to the downfall of three Elder Dragons, a lich king, and a Spirit of Action called Balthazar. Imagine if the Sons remained misguided and violent but now they'd actually congregate to Aurene and shout "Praise Dragon!" while killing people in her name. It could lead to interesting story possibilities as we now have to weigh the consequences of Aurene's growing influence over Tyria that attracts violent fanatics to her and whether she continues with her noninterference policy with mortals or if she'll stomp her foot down and tell the fanatics to stop acting violently and act more like the protective Crystal Blooms. I wish the saga had lasted longer so we could've seen the all-female norn cult for Jormag, whether named Daughters of Dragon or something like that, as such a possibility was teased during a conversation between a Son of Svanir and a female norn who had claimed to have heard Jormag's call and wanted to join the dragon cult during Dragon Bash. Perhaps we could see these power-craving violent female norn establish their own cult regardless to "serve" Aurene as the Sons would potentially do and thus cause just as much trouble as their male counterparts. 🙂

The thing is that The Map of the All book suggests via the Apostate, who knew some of Abaddon's deepest secrets and would thus be privy to some of the cosmological answers, that the amount of ambient magic in the world isn't quite as important (even if it is significant as per Ogden's speculation in "Hidden Arcana") as the number of balancers in the system. According to the Apostate, the balancers (called large bodies in th work due to the balancers' ties to these "realms" of magic) are in constant magnetic push/pull motion, essentially keeping Tyria's The All (aka the Antikytheria mechanism) spinning. Removing too many of these magnetic forces and the resulting imbalance will lead to destruction. Aurene's full title is the Elder Dragon of Crystal and Light according to Jormag. As such, she only ever inherited Kralkatorrik's position in the All rather than taking Zhaitan and Mordremoth's as well. While Glint may not have foreseen any of her scions taking any magic from more than one Elder Dragon, we also know from Primordus's example (via Phlunt's hypothesis) and the lack of hybrid destroyers in Champions that eventually dragons that absorb other dragons' magic will process that magic so it becomes theirs. As such, the same should happen to Aurene regarding lich magic and whatever magic she's gained from other Elder Dragons (and Balthazar) as she converts all of that into her own domain of magic. What I find curious is how Taimi and Gorrik's recent dialogues suggest that Glint only ever planned her scions to become replacements. And yet in GW1 there were dozens of eggs around; their fates are presently unknown although her speech in Edge of Destiny seemingly canonized the idea that some of the Chosen returned to battle her in her lair, which may have led to several eggs being collateral damage in the clash. Yet Sadizi, in "The Way Forward" story mission, uses the terms scion and entities separately in his speech, using the first to refer to Glint's offspring while the second he uses more ambiguously as he reveals part of the purpose of the Legacy: I find it unlikely that Sadizi, who was quite pedantic in the instance as a scholar, would use both scion and entity to refer to Glint's offspring. By the time Vlast matured as the first scion while Exalted would call Aurene the second scion, we've had no indication that any other scions survived up to GW2 time (although it's possible there might be a third Exalted nursery for yet another scion in southern Cantha given how some Exalted origins are from Cantha via the Zephyrites, but that remains to be seen). As such, Glint's plan (which she apparently had prophesied based on the dialogue we had with the envoy Dulann in Eye of the North regarding what Glint was planning for Jormag and Primordus all along) would've taken such a shortcoming into account, especially as Sadizi's vision in the cinematic specifically showed us six balancers changing the shape of the All to become more balanced. We also have this intriguing text from Tarir that first teased the greater implications of the Legacy: The last Maguuma Forgotten's speech above references pieces and elements in plural and that the Legacy is far more than just about the scions themselves. With the use of the specific word "entity", Sadizi's speech seems to suggest to me that Glint was not only intending her 2 (or 3 if we find the third scion in Cantha) as the sole balancers in the All. She must've known about powerful dragons such as Kuunavang, Albax, and Shiny, and may have learned that Shiny had bonded with and was raised by a mortal; depending on how well equipped saltsprays are to handle the burden of magic (depending on if they're scions of an Elder Dragon or not), Glint may have intended other powerful magical entities to likewise take their place in the All as long as these entities learned to bond with and sympathize with mortals. Kralkatorrik also notably called Aurene the first of her kind, and he had prophetic visions just like Glint, so he may have seen something that leads to the rise of other balancers to take their place in the new "pantheon" alongside Aurene, with their own bonded champions and quasi-religious cults such as the Crystal Blooms to help balance the burden of magic in the world. The anniversary art book called the Pale Tree a sapling of Mordremoth, and the context in that phrase made me wonder if the book teased the possibility of the Pale Tree, and other Blighting Trees like Malyck's Tree, actually being Mordremoth's biological offspring in tree form. If so, the Pale Tree should be added as a candidate for Glint's plan. Even though the Pale Tree only shared the vision of the egg privately with the Commander during Season 2, Ogden was oddly already aware of the vision while claiming that there were those who had taken an interest in the Commander and had Tyria's best intentions in mind. This benevolent cabal could've included Ogden, Pale Tree, and potentially E, Livia and Glint herself; it would be interesting to learn if Glint and the Pale Tree ever conversed telepathically, especially if Pale Tree's access to the Mists via the Dream could've led her to Glint's ghost who was influencing events even after her mortal shell's demise. As such, I'm curious to see if the new writers ultimately reveal the Legacy to only be about Glint's offspring despite the hints from previous writers (as seen above) that this might not be the case, and how the Commander may have misinterpreted the clues all along. Depending on the true origins of the saltsprays (especially after Joon's enigmatic lines to the mystery voice in the EoD trailer) and what purpose Joon's seemingly sinister six tubes full of jade/dragon energy serve regarding the whole "the cycle is reborn" tagline, I could see Kralkatorrik's vision coming true and we witness the rise of new balancers whom Aurene may or may not be able to guide on their path towards enlightenment. I still hope the story will address the lingering question of if the Pale Tree (with or without the assistance of Malyck's Tree) would be able to withstand the magic and become a new Elder Plant Entity as a Mordremoth replacement and if not, why. 🙂

Regarding the Sons of Svanir, some of the updated ambient dialogue from this year's Dragon Bash seems to suggest that their cult is done for. Local: Jormag, and the Sons, are gone, and that's a good thing. (Source) Whether this means the Sons disbanded or were wiped out during the excursions of the Frost Legion remains unknown. I'd like this local's claim to be a bit of hyberbole and some of the cultists surviving out there while having an existential crisis in the aftermath of the Dragonstorm, but it's more likely that they won't be referenced again anytime soon unless the story returns to norn focused stuff in the far future. As recently as the events of the Ghosts of Ascalon set in 1324 AE, Almorra mentioned the ogre expansion being a notable threat to the charr as the ogres kept pouring down to Ascalon from the Blazeridge Mountains. While several ogres fell victims to the invading Branded, the charr wiped out hostile tribes in core Iron Legion zones, and some ogres like Lagula's tribe joined the Pact for some time, ogres are tenacious so they'd no doubt continue being a threat--perhaps not as great as the Branded or the Foefire ghosts were, but still more significant than the grawl. With what's happened since with the gradual extermination of the Branded and purification of the Dragonbrand, perhaps there can be tentative armistice between charr and ogres in the future to find a solution that benefits both parties and ceases hostilities between them. While the charr Renegade threat has been mostly dealt with in The Icebrood Saga, Malice's intel did reveal something troubling during "Prologue: Bound by Blood": the human Separatists have had a resurgence lately despite the fall of their White Mantle backers and the loss of their treasury funding their campaign. Malice Swordshadow: We have noticed a resurgence of Renegade and Separatist activity, though. They're getting...bolder. I don't like it. (Source) Even if Crecia's later actions at Ebonhawke warmed the minds of some Ebonhawke people to the charr, the treacherous actions of the Dominion no doubt fueled Separatists' fire and benefited their propaganda. The fact that the Separatists are still a threat after everything that happened in Kryta during the war there suggests to me that 1) there are still powerful enough human individuals or cliques who are willing to support the Separatist cause, and 2) the Separatists have gained a new, charismatic leader who knows which strings to pull to gain more recruits. And the Seps' paranoia has some justification as we've learned from Drizzlewood Coast ambient dialogue that several allied charr there view the truce with humanity a temporary one and they even openly threatened their human allies. Smodur was right that poison runs deep within the charr and rooting out such beliefs will be the hardest struggle the charr ever face. It would be nice if the issue of this lingering distrust will be addressed someday in the future via the rise of Mia Kindleshot's popular but so far unseen political rival, the human-hating Iron Tribune Fume Brighteye, who would hopefully separate her ideology from the Dominion's crusade by only being anti-human while accepting every other race as charr allies. I imagine/hope that the Separatist resurgence issue and Fume's ascendancy in charr politics could be tied to the revenge of King Adelbern and the Foefire ghosts who might've been empowered by all the released magic from latest events. If Adelbern has used his recent seclusion to finally figure out how to operate the Golem's Eye from Ghosts of Ascalon and created an evolved version of the nigh indestructible Tomb Guardian, he and his empowered ghosts could finally launch a true invasion of the surface which dwarfs even the charr prologue's Battle of Smokestead. The plot could tie in the need to end the curse for good, the necessity of locating the Krytan royal locket and using its diminished magic (thanks, Mordremoth!) to figure out the identity of the heir, whether Jennah can be involved in it too or not, and a potential redemption story for Adelbern and Barradin if the cleansing ritual removes their madness and if we can find a means (Rurik's ghost?) to convince Adelbern to have a change of heart to face a bigger threat in his last, heroic act to save both humans and charr from destruction. An intriguing twist could be to reveal the new charismatic Separatist leader as the prophesied heir, and thus forcing the Commander to realize that this is the one enemy they can't just beat to submission or kill but they need to win over so the heir can fulfill the prophecy, save both races, and offer salvation to the ghosts before all is lost. Interestingly an event in Plains of Ashford also revealed that the Iron Legion's Jenk Cutspecter has devised a kind of Ghostbusters type of ghost containment unit where they can imprison the ghosts in to prevent them from reforming. While that device is far from perfect as it can be damaged to release the ghosts within, the charr might be able to use the minds of Priory, asura, and other Pact individuals to finetune that device to make it more durable, thus helping with containing the ghost threat until the prophesied heir uses King Adelbern's crown (and hopefully both Sohothin and the repaired Magdaer) to end the ghost threat for good. As for the Nightmare Court, we did meet Duchess Chrysanthea who was willing to work alongside the Pact against a mutual enemy. While Chrysanthea's morality is in question given her evil laugh and teasing the Commander, I could see her as the Nightmare Court's more morally grey version of Efram, leading a splinter group vying for the position of power against other competing dukes/duchesses. It could lead to an interesting subplot where the Commander has to decide which courtier candidate to back up in order to help determine what path the court as a whole takes. The events in the Heart of Maguuma would've no doubt shaken the court to the core, but we could see a potential redemption story for them if this narrative also explored the origins of Dream and Nightmare and why Nightmare twists (seemingly irreversibly...at least for now) the personalities of the sylvari it enthralls and why both Dream and Nightmare are opposed to the Elder Dragons via their Wyld and Dark Hunts. This plot could also add in Malyck to reveal why he and his people (if they survived) where absent during the Maguuma campaign, and possibly introduce us to one of the two still missing, as of yet unnamed Firstborn in case this Firstborn has met with Malyck rather than visiting the Grove in the following years. 🙂

SPOILERS Indeed, until Path of Fire showed sylvari ghost NPCs (you can chat with one of them in the cave) in the Domain of the Lost (not to mention the sylvari player), we didn't really know if sylvari, who are essentially plant elementals given their origin, even had souls per se. I understand they had to go with this reveal because otherwise the sylvari experience of "The Departing" would've needed another reason to follow the other four playable races' experiences in the Domain of the Lost and afterlife shenanigans in general. However, it does raise the intriguing lore question whether other elemental dragon minions such as destroyers, certain constructed Branded such as the Shatterer, or the "regular" mordrem like mordrem wolves, mordrem husks etc. have souls too. That would then lead us to investigate if your typical elementals and oozes also have souls; djinn are a type of intelligent elemental, so perhaps they have souls and elementals having souls of some kind wouldn't be that far fetched, but it would certainly lead to major dicoveries in worldbuilding. If this isn't the case, sylvari souls would have to come from another source than just being random plant elemental beings. Perhaps the souls could be tied to the Dream somehow, as the Dream somehow gives sylvari Gaelic-inspired names (e.g. Cadeyrn, Faolain) or names relating to plants and flowers like Rose. While sylvari may say stuff like "I will be remembered in the Dream", we learn in the novel Ghosts of Ascalon and in the personal story that the Dream may be a Mists-connected "realm", or rather a mindscape, of sorts, it is not an afterlife per se. Avatar of the Pale Tree: The Dream is the sylvari unconscious, the wellspring from which we flow. It holds our memories, as well as our hopes and fears. I am its keeper. [...] <Character name: What do you mean? Trahearne: The Dream is not reality, <Character name>. It is made of memory, aether, and powerful magic. Even I do not understand it. (Source) As seen with the Knight of the Thorn side quest about fixing Caladbolg, we meet with Trahearne. However, this Trahearne is not the real Trahearne but "merely" the memory of him from Caladbolg's Dream according to Ridhais's dialogue. Similarly, the visions we see of Ventari etc. in the sylvari tutorial Dream instance are not the souls of Ventari etc. but just how they're remembered in the Dream. In a way, you could liken the Dream versions of Trahearne, Riannoc, Ventari etc. to revenant legends: they, just like the legends, are echoes of a real person and can react independently to new stimuli (as seen with how Caladbolg's Trahearne reacts to news of his death in the way Caladbolg believes he would have reacted, or how the rev legend Kalla reacts to seeing her statue which was constructed decades/centuries after her original self's death, while the real Kalla's ghost may or may not be even be aware of all the tributes made in her honor in Tyria). In fact, the Blighted Pale Tree, Eir, Canach, the three order mentors etc. in HoT's final battle also follow a similar idea: they, too, are echoes of real persons (albeit twisted by Mordremoth because of Dream/Nightmare and Mind magic shenanigans somehow) who can be swayed with our words and actions. In Ghosts of Ascalon, Killeen further clarifies on the nature of the Dream and how these memories that are fed to it affect future sylvari generations still quickening within the Dream. She also makes a point that the Dream is not a hivemind: "It isn't mind-reading," said Killeen, "and we aren't all connected to one big mass mind. However, before we come into the world, the sylvari are united in the Dream of Dreams." [...] "We were not there when all this happened, but we know it because of the Dream of Dreams. While we were quickening within the golden fruit of the Pale Tree, the tree spoke to us of the world outside. She taught us, if you will, of the nature of the waking world. "We are not all-knowing," she continued. "The Dream of Dreams is not like a tome of all knowledge. But it does give us a life before our life, in which we learn much of the world we are coming into. Fire is hot. Wild animals can be dangerous, but many can be tamed. Here is a proper way to use a sword. This is how you cast a spell, if you are so disposed. We come into the world with knowledge of the world, but not necessarily the experience." Riona shook her head. "Is there a difference? Experience gives you knowledge." "For humans, most likely," said Killeen, "but not for us." She picked up an oversized drumstick. "This is a leg of a young moa. I know that it was a moa from the Dream, and further that it is well cooked but not overcooked. I know what it tastes like but have never tasted it myself." As seen with how strongly the Dream reacted to the death of the first sylvari, Riannoc (based on Pale Tree's poetic description of the effect), but didn't have as major an impact on subsequent firstborn deaths like Wynne's which was just as traumatic if not more so than Riannoc, it shows that the Dream becomes desensitized to stimuli of that nature over time. So the first death (Riannoc), the first torture (Malomedies), the first act of making love, the first time eating a specific food etc. has the most impact, but subsequent stuff becomes more diluted. This seems to be the reason why the Nightmare Courtiers take more and more hardcore methods of inflicting pain, anger etc. so they can continue influencing the Dream via Nightmare and why they kept thinking of new ways of mental and physical torture to reach that end, partially explaining why a splinter group of them decided to work on the Tower of Nightmares to this end. As such, the memories in the Dream are incomplete and are based on an emotional reaction of a sort from what we've seen. So yeah, from what we can see so far based on the evidence presented in game and the novels, the sylvari do not go to the Dream when they die but some of the memories of their experiences do (if those experiences were strong enough to register to the increasingly desensitized Dream--see the Nightmare Court discussion above) and thus we can say that some sylvari's deeds will indeed live on to influence future generations of sylvari during their quickening. Based on the clues in "The Departing" with sylvari souls, sylvari (and possibly other mordrem unless sylvari are a special case of constructed dragon minion because of their curious connection to the Dream which opposes Elder Dragons) have their own afterlife out there in the Mists just like we learned from the human ghost Nicholas and norn ghost Yngvild in the same instance that humans and norn apparently have separate afterlives too. A lot still remains unclear about the nature of the Dream and Nightmare. Both exist in a sort of mindscape (presumably in the Mists?), both are opposed to dragons (based on Edge of Destiny and HoT depiction of Nightmare Courtiers opposing dragons), both send Wyld/Dark Hunts that can be mundane but can also involve a grand story about opposing the dragons (even going so far as to kill them based on sylvari player's continuous Wyld Hunt to end the dragons), and the Dream somehow grants sylvari names often of Gaelic origin for some reason. The Dream involves not only sylvari (and presumably some if not all mordrem too as we learn from Malyck's story that there may actually be multiple Dreams out there) but also curious non-mordrem like the White Stag which is a sort of physical manifestation of the Dream on Tyria and acts as a gateway of sorts to directly influence the Dream. Nightmare somehow acts a bit like dragon corruption that neither it nor dragon corruption's effects can presumably be reversed (if not counting the curious corruption reversals during Champions) and the Nightmare somehow alters the affected sylvari's mind to turn darker (although some, like Gavin, still had some honor left). The Dream seems to be quite wise (given its deliberate and prophetic Wyld Hunts and its ability to show visions of potential futures as we witnessed during the Orr vision in personal story) but also naïve at the same time as it doesn't know everything about Tyria. As such, we'll have to wait for more sylvari story content to hopefully explore the true origins of the Dream and Nightmare, why they're both opposed to dragons but approach it in different ways, how Mordremoth originally became a parasite leeching on the Dream (was its Mind magic somehow a direct link to the Dream which actively shielded sylvari from its influence, or are the Dreams just manifestations of the Mind sphere of influence in the All?), and why there appear to be multiple Dreams or at least some sylvari like Malyck seemingly lacking a Dream (assuming the connection is cut off). There's a lot of cool things the Narrative Team can explore with this stuff as they flesh out the greater cosmological questions of Tyria, maybe even teasing some Koda stuff a bit while they're at it, as well as what the afterlives of non-human races are like in the Mists (e.g. the dragon afterlife and if Elder Dragons end up in the dragon afterlife after dying or if something else happened to their souls due to their ties to the All). 🙂

We've had some conflicting answers from the Narrative Team regarding religion over time. Here are a few replies I could find on short notice from a time before PoF: As for the hierarchy of the clergy, we did get some clues during Season 3's Episode 6 One Path Ends where Taimi mentions that the highest ranked priests (high priests) are found at the DR Royal Palace's Shrine of the Six. Sadly we don't know the high priests' names, but their genders might be known to us assuming that the six priests/priestesses (who give us speed boons) found at the Shrine of the Six are in fact the high priests of their respective churches of this Krytan branch. So in that case we'd have (or had depending on if any of them have been succeeded since the Elona crisis) High Priests of Dwayna, Grenth, and Balthazar; and High Priestesses of Kormir, Lyssa, and Melandru. 🙂 Taimi: But! The highest ranked priests are in the palace temple. And those Reachers owe you big-time! You saved the city! (Source) Sadly many of the wiki's lore articles are still works in progress, but players are slowly expand them as time allows. It just requires diving deep for lore in obscure dev interviews from now archived sites, devs' reddit/forum comments, and mentions by various NPCs in ambient dialogues and in mission texts, so finding all that info and writing it down on the wiki can be a time-consuming process. But it's also fun seeking these "lost" snippets of lore and bringing them to the forefront.🙂 As for the Ministry's state since the White Mantle crisis, we do learn a few things during Season 3 and PoF. BELOW THERE BE SPOILERS! Countess Anise: Well, the Ministry Guard is dousing them. Talk to Legate Minister Wi about their bail. (Source) Lord Faren: Heading for the desert, Commander? Swordmaster Faren, Lord of Beetletun, is ready! Let chaos-bringers and quaggan-kickers alike beware! (Source) Based on these little snippets, Minister Wi succeeded Caudecus as Legate Minister. Likewise, Faren became the new Lord of Beetletun since Caudecus's bloodline died with Demmi Beetlestone and because Minister Wi's wife Lady Wi (who was cousin to Demmi's mom, Lady Beetlestone) apparently didn't want to stake a claim at the manor for whatever reason (maybe as a cousin she'd be too distant a relative. Alternatively, getting the mansion when her husband had already become the highest ranked minister in the realm might've been viewed as the queen's favoritism by the rest of the Ministry after their daughter Valette's treacherous actions, so Jennah and Lady Wi wanted to play it safe politically speaking. Based on these promotions, it seems Jennah was ensuring that at least some people loyal to her would be granted prominent seats in her reformed Ministry even if she couldn't or wouldn't change the roster entirely after rooting out White Mantle moles and sympathizers. With folks like Lord Faren and Legate Minister Wi continuing the work of the late, loyal Minister Arton, Jennah is securing her power base via leveraging Caudecus's fall. Obviously she hasn't held on to her "emergency law" of suspending the Ministry in Season 3 as that was a mere ploy to lure the White Mantle to reveal themselves, but based on the lore interview in this thread it appears many of the scheming ministers (who either weren't White Mantle stooges or at least were clever enough to conceal their allegiances) still remain at large for potential future plots. 🙂 In fact, depending on whether the Narrative Team decides to revisit Marjory's origin story, there might still be at least one clearly evil minister (who is involved in blood sacrifices and murders of children via corrupt Ministry Guard to silence the truth) out there ploting with their sinister cabal. Back in the day narrative dev Scott McGough stated that the mystery surrounding Mendel's murder would be resolved so Jory could finally finish her first case and bring the responsible minister to justice. The culprits might've originally been intended to be White Mantle, but even if that were the case, the current devs could easily tweak the idea a bit and involve this mysterious minister in the workings of some other sinister faction instead. It could possibly involve the returned Cult of Verata if they want to explore that rogue necromancer's fate (and how that mystery could even tie to Riot Alice's conspiracy and whatever she's up to these days after vanishing from the town of Prosperity, the odd timing of the Great Collapse and how Shining Blade knew to be present before the quakes happened, and how the collapsed section was built atop a cavernous area containing ancient human tombs from long before DR's founding, plus those weird noises coming from the sewers).

I don't really mind Aurene resurrecting as they happened to have a good enough reason for it; however, the execution of it wasn't to my liking as we really needed an episode in between 5 and 6 where the Commander could've been made aware of the lich powers and that we needed to enact a specific ritual to help her with her first resurrection, so the Commander would've played a more active role via a journey to the Mists/Domain of the Lost/dragon afterlife to find Aurene's soul or some relevant information and lead it back to her body. Having an episode to mull over Aurene's demise would've also left us in a desperate "darkest hour" moment before we set out to defy fate and actually end up fulfilling the prophecy and why the bond between dragon and champion was crucial for Glint's plan to succeed to begin with. It would've been a nice way to also explore how liches are made in Tyrian verse (some seemed to have ties to Abaddon's forbidden writings in Joko, Khilbron and arguably Fendi Nin's case, but we've never been told much beyond that) as well as wrap up the still lingering GW1 plot point of the immortal Hunter still hunting for the GW1 Hero in the Mists, and the fate and redemption of surviving Forged in Elona if we had to travel to the Great Margonite Temple in the Desolation to seek Joko's hidden Abaddon scriptures there to learn more about how lich resurrections work for first-time liches. I could've seen us exploring a plot where we seek out the Abaddon scriptures in the Great Margonite Temple where the Branded are invading in search of magic. We run into the surviving Forged, led by the still unseen General of the Burning Forest, and maybe we can win them over with Zafirah and the Zaishen's help. The journey could've ultimately led us to the Mists if we found out that something is keeping Aurene's soul in a kind of limbo so she can't resurrect unless we free her soul. Perhaps we could've gotten this information from Zhaitan's ghost, thus finally giving the now Torment-less Elder Dragon of Death and Shadow a voice and character in the afterlife even if our encounter with Zhaitan could be as dangerous as Aang seeking spiritual knowledge from the nefarious Koh the Face-Stealer in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thus we'd run into the Hunter, who may be the one blocking Aurene's return via sensing the Commander's scent on her soul and mistakes it for GW1 hero's. The Hunter could then sense the approaching Commander and the GW1 hero's aura around them (as certain NPCs comment on how there's an odd similarity between the Hero and Commander in GW2, so the devs could play around with the nature of this connection between the two heroes of different eras). Ultimately we'd find a way to either defeat or further confuse the Hunter (who wishes to finish the hunt it began back in Nightfall) and leading Aurene's soul back to her body. This episode 5.5 plot could then lead to the current Episode 6 beginning with our hope being crushed when Aurene doesn't resurrect anyway despite all our efforts. Events continue as we've already seen with us thinking that the end is truly nigh and Zhaitan and Abaddon's instructions were false hope. And then we come to the realization of the resonance of the Zephyrite choir and how the brand in Aurene's heart must first be removed so she can truly resurrect as we saw in the Ep6 instance. That way the transition from Ep5 and Ep6 would be more weigthy and make the Commander a more active participant while also closing some loose plot threads along the way (how Joko became a lich, what the origin of liches may be and if it's tied to Abaddon or not, potentially having a harrowing encounter with Zhaitan's ghost, and resolving the Hunter's last hunt) and giving a satisfactory resurrection for Aurene which has been properly set up instead of it coming out of nowhere (as the narrative director admitted they only came up with linking her resurrection to Joko's power after Episode 3 had already shipped). As for the rest of the argument regarding Aurene's resurrection, I was of two minds back in the day regarding her returning to life or remaining as a ghost. On the one hand we only had one more episode to resolve the Kralk arc so with Aurene gone we would've had to find some deus ex machina solution to end him without endangering the All's balance, and on the other hand the prophet Glint could never see her death so Aurene seeing her final death via a vision would've been an odd anomaly in the crystal dragon family. Even Kralkatorrik didn't necessarily foresee how he would die, only that there would be a world without him, which is ambiguous enough and could be interpreted in many ways. If Glint couldn't see her own death coming, clearly Aurene's vision was never meant to depict her final death or else she wouldn't have seen it coming. If, however, Aurene could somehow see her true death (and not just a temporary death) via a prophetic vision, her powers would surpass Glint and Kralkatorrik's, and thus we'd need an explanation for why her visions are more accurate than any other crystal dragon's visions so far. So, Aurene resurrecting makes sense and it was set up well enough even if it was only a happy accident in the writing room as it wasn't pre-planned from the beginning. Of course it does beg the question why the master of death like Zhaitan, who could literally pull souls from the Mists, couldn't simply resurrect after being shot with Professor Gorr's enhanced vacuumagic cannons, so the plot should have explored why Aurene eating a lich grants her special powers whereas other dragons seemingly never had the same power (suggesting that no other dragon ever ate a lich...unless they went with Plunt's explanation about Primordus's lack of hybrid minions in the saga that dragons eventually assimilate foreign magic into their own domain of magic so any lich magic gained by Elder Dragons would fade over time as it's assimilated into their system). 🙂

If we're going to see Primordus again, it'll likely be in a flashback/vision of the past etc. with his more sane self (hopefully along with the other Elder Dragons so we finally hear both Primordus and Zhaitan speak, assuming that we don't get to speak with Zhaitan's ghost in the present if its ghost exists and hasn't merged into the ley lines by now) to explore Jormag's cryptic statement from Episode 2 on how the dragonrise cycle may not have always been so "broken" eons ago: The Whisper of Jormag: I understand why you want to silence me, but you must listen. For Tyria's sake. The Whisper of Jormag: For thousands of years, I've watched this broken system consume entire civilizations. The Whisper of Jormag: But it was not always this way. You, Aurene, and I—we can save this world. Preserve it. (Source) Interestingly Jormag also mentioned something curious during "Dragonstorm": Jormag: I've stayed my hand before, brother. No more. Today I obliterate the balance that chains us together. So there may be more to Primordus and Jormag's backstory and relationship than meets the eye if Primordus was willing to attack Jormag (based on the shards in Drizzlewood Coast) whereas Jormag chose to stay its hand in the past. I also wouldn't mind an eventual vision of the past (if such can be justified in story) where we got to play as an asura (maybe tied to the founder of the Inquest?) to show the fall of Quora Sum and the other great asuran cities during Primordus's grand invasion of the Depths of Tyria so we witness this massive historical event (alluded to in dialogue, books, and blog posts) firsthand. 🙂

To be fair, despite what Taimi claims in Season 4, dragon minions could always be crosscorrupted by other dragons as seen with the existence of Subjects Alpha and Beta, Kudu's Monster, and arguably Kudu himself; we just didn't see this in the wild for unknown reasons. All the Inquest did in Crucible of Eternity was to shoot pure dragon energy at test subjects without any modifications, so this power was inherent in all Elder Dragons all along. Devs have stated that the reason why sylvari were immune to dragon corruption before bonded champions became a thing has been their connection to the Dream of Dreams and Nightmare via the Pale Tree. Why does the Dream/Nightmare have this intriguing ability to kill sylvari rather than let them become corrupted (unless they willingly open their minds to a dragon) has yet to be explored, but it could be a plot hook for later once/if we explore the story of Nightmare Court, Malyck's grove, and the fate of the two still missing Firstborn. My guess as to why dragons don't generally corrupt each other's minions may be two-fold: 1) they may need to use more magic to corrupt an already corrupted being, so it negates the gain of adding that minion's magic into their own (why waste the effort when there are many non-corrupted beings out there to corrupt and leech magic from instead), and 2) crosscorrupted minions can become unstable with unforeseen abilities like Subject Alpha who was able to attune to the hiveminds of each dragon it had been corrupted by and thus take control of rival minions and "persuade" them all to work as a united pack with it as the alpha. Depending on which, if any, dragon Alpha was ultimately loyal to, dragons might see such a hybrid minion's existence as a threat as there's no guarantee which dragon Alpha would ultimately serve (or if its allegiances kept shifting whenever it attuned to different hiveminds) or if it decided to become a sort of seventh Elder Dragon type entity by stealing minions from dragons for itself. Crucible of Eternity's explorable mode left Alpha's fate open as we saw its last invulnerable essence fleeing right as the facility was about to be shut down. Perhaps it managed to escape and reformed its body (hopefully in a slimmer, more muscular body to signify its evolution from its bloated form), and it has been gaining power and knowledge since then by assimilating beings into itself while questioning its existence and trying to find its purpose in the world. I'd love it if Alpha sought out unchained Risen, Mordrem, Branded (and now icebrood and destroyer) champions and used both persuasion and mind control (depending on the type of champion as it's unlikely that the aggressive destroyers can be persuaded with words alone) to form its own pack with such "equals", each with their own strength. Perhaps Alpha could offer them all a way to find another purpose for their lives than carrying the last commands of their respective slain dragon masters, and we could thus explore the post-dragon fates of surviving dragon minions after the intriguing tease with the veteran Unchained kingpin and why it continued serving Zhaitan and killing people (and even having a diplomatic conversation with the Commander) in Siren's Landing. 🙂

There is a plausible way to see the full models for these Elder Dragons, even if reduced in size somewhat, in the future if the writers decide to incorporate them into the story and the team gets enough resources to finish modeling the full bodies. Two of my proposals: 1) An extended vision of the past We delve deeper into the origins of Elder Dragons and the dragonrise cycle via Jormag's cryptic line from "A Voice in the Deep" when it tried to persuade the Commander: The Whisper of Jormag: I understand why you want to silence me, but you must listen. For Tyria's sake. The Whisper of Jormag: For thousands of years, I've watched this broken system consume entire civilizations. The Whisper of Jormag: But it was not always this way. You, Aurene, and I—we can save this world. Preserve it. The important line to take from this is "But it was not always this way." So the system wasn't always broken, and the Elder Dragons may not have always had rivalries or at least not to the extent as they have nowadays. So what was the world like when the Elder Dragons were younger and not as hostile necessarily? We know Kralkatorrik never desired a peace between mortals and dragons after witnessing a prophetic vision of his future (we know he wasn't afraid of his death, so his actions seemed to have been motivated solely by his distate of mortals and dragons living in peace), but perhaps his stance was different until Torment (which was confirmed to long predate him getting the magics of Balthazar and other dragons) began influencing him or if he witnessed some travesty caused by the mortals of hundreds of thousands of years ago? Imagine us entering this vision and actually getting to see the full bodies of all the six Elder Dragons, maybe even Mother depending on if she's the Spirit of the Wild called Dragon or some physical mother to several if not all Elder Dragons, and we could get the Season 2 sylvari flashback's Firstborn council except between Elder Dragons similar to how we witnessed various Eldwyrm dragons arguing and discussing threats in their "dragon council" in DOTA: Dragon's Blood animated series: Based on tweets, a few of the members of the current Narrative Team are fans of the lovely Dragon Prince animated series. Perhaps we could get a scene of hostility growing between mortals of ancient times and dragons similar to the Ziard vs. the dragon king Sol Regem scene in the Dragon Prince. I could imagine all the wonderful drama the writers could mine from such a conflict while only providing us of teasing snippets of the truth of those ancient times... 2) Meeting Elder Dragon ghosts in the Mists or in the dragon afterlife The lore has yet to reveal what happens to Elder Dragon souls upon their demise if the soul isn't devoured at ground zero by another magic-eating entity (as happened with Aurene consuming Kralkatorrik). There was no one at ground zero to consume Zhaitan and Mordremoth, and it's possible that Aurene may not have been able to consume Jormag and Primordus's souls per se due to the magical hijinks and most of the magic going through her in the Dragonstorm instance. We don't know if the souls of Elder Dragons, due to their intimate ties to the All, actually enter the Mists and their racial afterlife (we know that mortal races like humans and norn have separate afterlives, so I see no reason why dragons can't have their own afterlife realm in the Mists as well), or if their souls merge with their magic and are consumed by the ley lines to return to the world so there can be no afterlife for any Elder Dragon. Assuming that the writers actually explored the idea of dragons' souls actually entering the Mists, however, it would open a lot of interesting possibilities. Imagine us meeting the ghosts of Torment-less Zhaitan and Mordremoth, maybe even Jormag and Primordus (so we'd finally get their fully modeled if shrunk bodies for a ghostly encounter) in the Mists or in whatever dragon afterlife that awaits them. We know Grenth and his servants judge human souls and sends them to various god-related afterlives while Raven (and presumably Wolf based on Braham's origin story) take norn to the norn afterlife, but we don't know who or what (if any) judges the souls of asura, norn, or dragons and if there exist a Realm of Torment like of "hell" for other races' (and dragons') respective afterlives and a "paradise" for these races' more virtuous souls. I imagine that if the Elder Dragons were judged for their millennia of crimes, they'd end up in their racial hell if such a place exists in lore. If not, and all dragons regardless of virtue and vice ended up in the same dragon afterlife realm in the Mists, it wouldn't change the fact that we'd still get to encounter and chat with them. Just like presented in the vision of the past option above, we'd get a glimpse of what these dragons' personalities are like when not twisted by Torment and madness. They might still be jerks (due to their non-human values after all), but they should at least be wiser and more reasonable to some extent. Given how Mordremoth was in the process of taking over Trahearne completely before both were slain by Caladbolg, the writers could even nod at the HoT finale by having us encounter the merged soul of "Mordyherne", aka Trahearne's soul appearing in the dragon afterlife as a sylvari ghost body sharing both his and Mordy's consciousnesses. We could get our long awaited reunion with our dear marshal at long last (while the Knight of the Thorn storyline showed us Trahearne, that one was sadly only the memory in Caladbolg's Dream and not the real Trahearne's soul) and perhaps Trahearne could act as our "liaison" in our discussions with the Elder Dragons' ghosts due to his intimate soul connection with Mordy. It would be chilling if they used the combined Bangar/Jormag or Fraenir/Jormag vocal effect for brief moments in Mordyherne's speech by splicing Matthew Brenher (Trahearne) and Nolal North's (Mordy) voices together at key points in the discussion to show that these two are one now. While Raven, and seemingly the rest of "Champions", seems to suggest that Primordus was not the brightest of individuals, we do know that he was specifically targeting the recently hatched Vlast and Aurene via vast distances which no other Elder Dragon has done. Even the Mordrem only went after Aurene when she was an egg but they never targeted Vlast, nor did any other Elder Dragon like Zhaitan (who was closer to Vlast than Primordus!). Why was Primordus so interested in Glint's scions while asleep while most Elder Dragons ignored them entirely? If Jormag's statement about the system not always being broken is true (and there's no reason to doubt Jormag as Tom Abernathy has stated that Jormag doesn't lie), it suggests that Jormag and Primordus's hostility may not have always been so intense. More importantly, we know from personal story's Risen/Zhaitan connection that the Elder Dragons learn what their minions know via the hivemind; when Zhaitan corrupted order agents, it learned the locations of the orders' headquarters and the weaknesses, using it as part of its strategy. While Primordus may have corrupted the least intelligent beings due to its preference corrupting rocks (at least until we learn if deep sea dragon also prefers corrupting water over mortals), the devs didn't outright deny Primordus being able to corrupt, or even having corrupted in the distant past, mortals even if that was not his preference. The Stone Summit splinter group accidentally gave themselves to Primordus via the ritual, so their knowledge would've been forced into Primordus whether he wanted it or not. As such, even if Primordus hadn't corrupted any living being before (despite Volcanic fractal implying that he may have corrupted other living beings at some point), the dwarves' knowledge of culture, language etc. would become his. And since we already saw how destroyers were using feint attacks in Gendarran DRM to draw attention away from their true target, Primordus clearly knows basic tactics. As such, I do believe that Primordus would've learned Tyrian from the Stone Summit minds at the latest, and his past with Jormag may have been more benevolent once upon a time. If this is true, then we can count Raven as a biased narrator regarding Primordus's seeming stupidity. Just like Raven states how Braham is supposedly too "dumb" to deceive the Spirits, we know from Season 1 that Braham is actually quite intelligent in a grounded layman sort of way as he actually understands Taimi's complex theories (which confused Marjory) by relating them to the echolocation of bats. So he understands things and applies them in a way that makes sense to his nature-focused norn brain. As such, I call bull on Raven's statements and that it's just Raven's superiority talking when he belittles Braham and Primordus as dumb. After all, Raven even mocks Snow Leopard during the instance, so it's not like his superiority complex only applies to non-Spirits. But yeah, the story could still have us use complete Primordus and Jormag models and witness a dragon council in a vision of the past, or allowing us to meet the spirits of non-consumed dragons (i.e. everyone but Kralkatorrik who now exists within Aurene) in the dragon afterlife in the present. I would like both to become true to explore the origins of dragons and what role "Mother" played in it in the ancient/mythic past (and if Mother is indeed the Spirit of the Wild called Dragon who may have been the progenitor of the first generation of all the high and lesser dragon species in Tyria if norn and kodan beliefs are true). 🙂

I imagine that Magdaer may return alongside King Adelbern's crown and the Krytan royal locket once/if we continue the idea of ending the Foefire curse with Rytlock's Sohothin, Magdaer (preferably wielded by Logan as he's long overdue the sword), and the Heir of Ascalon wearing the crown. Time will tell whether the Heir ends up being someone from Krytan royalty such as Jennah as Logan speculated in "Return to Camp Resolve" or even from King Jadon's lost legitimate family (as devs stated that the fate of Jadon and his family, apart from his daughter born out of wedlock Salma who founded the Salmaic dynasty, has not yet been explored); possibly the other unnamed heir to the Krytan throne that Agent Ihan hints at in "The Sad Tale of the 'Ravenous'"; some Ascalonian descended from kings like Duke Wade Samuelsson of Ebonhawke who was sadly not referenced as the commander of the Ebon Vanguard during "Champions" and did not send us mail during "Champions", having some new unseen captain named Thaddeus Soren contact us instead; or even some secret heir of Barradin or Adelbern (as the GW1 manual mentions that Rurik was Adelbern's firstborn son, which might suggest other children even though Logan thinks that the Ascalon line is dead in the Camp Resolve instance). There are still some unresolved issues on the charr story that GW2 might explore in the future, and that way the writers could bring back Adelbern and the Heir of Ascalon subplot. After all, we witnessed various United Legions charr throughout Drizzlewood Coast (note that these were charr who didn't defect to the Dominion) treating Seraph badly and even with some barely veiled hostility in ambient dialogue in claimed camps while stating that the alliance between humans and charr is only temporary. If even some of our allied charr who didn't join Bangar's supremacist faction think so badly of humans, it wouldn't surprise me if the story explored the dealings of the popular Iron Tribune Fume Brighteye who is said to despise humans (but not necessarily other races) due to her sad backstory involving her sire and who might eventually challenge current Imperator Mia Kindleshot's politics in some manner while promoting the idea that Fume should become imperator instead. We also got Malice stating in "Revels & Rivals" that the Separatists are having a resurgence, and it should've only gotten worse once news broke out about Bangar's treaty-violating insurrection and how several charr warbands from all legions joined his supremacist faction and slaughtered the human population on Drizzlewood Coast. Even if Logan, Jennah and Kasmeer did their best to keep the more volatile human political factions in line in Divinity's Reach and Ebonhawke and even if Crecia's actions during the destroyer invasion of Ebonhawke warmed up some Ascalonians to the current Blood Legion regime, I wouldn't be surprised if the Separatists continue gaining support and funding (sadly we don't yet know who is funding them after Caudecus and White Mantle's demise to enable their resurgence) and how they could become a notable threat in the future with legitimate grievances (if Bangar violated a treaty he signed, who knows if Crecia will do the same if she decides, in humans' minds, to try to become Khan-Ur; especially with Smodur dead and Mia assuming the Iron throne, humans can't know for certain what Mia's stances on Smodur's treaty are either even if we as players know that Mia is fully pro-treaty). We still don't know why the charr easily accepted Efram, Crecia and Mia as imperators if the charr are supposed to follow the rule from charr blog posts such as "The Legions of the Charr" and "The Ecology of the Charr" that only confirmed descendants of the Khan-Ur can become imperators. Perhaps the implication is that Crecia and Efram are related to some high-ranking charr bloodline (we never got to meet Crecia's evil Flame shaman sire after all) that allows them to lead their respective legions undisputed, while Mia could be revealed as Smodur's daughter for all we know, unless the charr have abolished this ancient ascendancy rule due to their recent political upheavals. Fume could be using this argument against Mia, though, by either claiming Mia is not a legitimate descendant and thus unfit to wield the Iron crown, or alternatively Fume might belittle Mia's supposed legitimacy (as either Smodur's daughter or as a descendant of Khan-Ur) by stating that relying on old bloodlines didn't work so well for charr (look at Bangar and Smodur) and, just like the seemingly unrelated Efram and Crecia ascended to the throne, Iron should also embrace new leadership with a new, fresh bloodline that Fume represents. I'm sure Fume would be a clever enough populist politician (she's confirmed to be among the top three most popular Iron tribunes alongside Mia and Bhuer Goreblade) to twist such clauses to promote her agenda and sway charr masses behind her while being popular enough that Mia can't simply remove Fume from tribune office without causing more upheavals in the already weakened and divided Iron Legion. Finally, the deaths of Kralkatorrik and Jormag/Primordus sent a lot of ambient magic into the environment. Even if most of the magic from "Dragonstorm" just went south rather than dispersing through the ley lines somehow (as opposed to how magic spread out after Kralk and Mordremoth's deaths), Adelbern and his Foefire ghosts were directly on the ley line going through Ascalon, so they should've received a magical power boost from the deaths of Zhaitan, Mordy and Kralk at minimum (including some of Balthazar's latent magic which might allow Adelbern some Mists traversal powers just like Aurene, Kralk, Jormag and presumably Primordus and deep sea dragon also got Mists traveling powers from Balthy's demise). We've seen ghosts become empowered and leycrazed as seen with Elonian bounties, so the Foefire ghosts should likewise become enraged and far more dangerous than before. Adelbern's madness and fury might only increase, and this time he'd finally have enough power to make his threat real and begin a truly massive invasion of the surface world and add all the living to his undead army. Perhaps the Sorcerer-King could even utilize the Golem's Eye, a "self-replicating ambient thaumaturgic construct" which uses any available material (stones, bones etc.) to create a "golem" body for itself and assaults anything its wielder deems a threat, as his doomsday weapon as that thing is nigh indestructible, as he did swear in Ghosts of Ascalon to wield the Eye's power one day. It could make for a great major world boss in Plains of Ashford or even a harrowing story instance/DRM/strike encounter. All of these plots (empowered Adelbern's revenge, potential return of ghost Rurik and Althea to talk some sense into Adelbern and Barradin, Separatist resurgence and growing human unease about the changing charr regime, Mia vs. Fume charr politics and the potential charr ambitions for Khan-Ur, and the Heir of Ascalon and Forefire ending plot with Magdaer, Sohothin and the crown) could be tied together for a truly intriguing storyline in Ascalon and perhaps settle the dispute between humans and charr once and for all while maybe even ending the Khan-Ur ambitions and abolishing the imperator rank for an Ascalon that might become a joint human/charr Republic of Ascalon with senate representatives from all charr and human social ranks (so not just tribunes and human nobility, but plebeians and gladiums get representation too!) for a truly united and democratic coexistence (as a reverse historical development of Roman Republic becoming the Roman Empire). 🙂

Yes, going back to old locations is fun. But what lore and character development in the name of the Five? :o We must have played different content. ;) Quite a few, actually. Let's go in chronological order. :) SPOILERS Metrica Province DRM: The destroyer champion shows more intelligence than previously assumed with the way it relocates to certain areas against expectations even though Taimi tries to shrug the evidence off by relying on old asuran theses. Taimi has sided with Jormag, an action unthinkable in previous seasons, although she still shows herself to be sensible enough to understand that Jormag has to be taken care of eventually even though she argues that Primordus is the more pressing threat. We see a rift forming between the previously close Braham and Taimi. In this instance Taimi first foreshadows a reveal that plays a key point in Chapter 2: that Primordus's conflagration domain empowers the destroyers that burn stuff which in turn empowers Primordus, thus making it a perpetually growing and destructive loop that will give Primordus an edge over time. Brisban Wildlands DRM: The dialogue confirms that the Commander is in fact a dragon champion (albeit without physical corruption due to fashion wars). Caithe and Ryland try to analyze one another and discuss their respective dragons' strengths and weaknesses in a philosophical debate, and we learn that Ryland is actually trying to deliberately provoke the Commander with his asides by undermining the Commander at every turn (whether because of jealousy or some other reason remains to be seen). Ryland actually reveals some key details about himself that previously were merely implied like his growing ambition and how he seeks validation and power and why he abandoned Bangar's cause. I'd like to see more of this kind of "friendly" banter between heroes and antagonists because GW2 mostly chooses not to go that route; it reminded me of our interactions with the antivillain Nightmare Courtier Gavin in the White Stag storyline, one of the few truly complex antagonists in the entire GW franchise. Gendarran Fields DRM: We get the major reveal that the destroyers used a clever feint maneuver to draw defenders away from their true target, the Ascalon Settlement, by seemingly targeting LA gates and Applenook at first with their vanguard force. While both Marjory and Jhavi dismiss it as destroyers simply being chaotic, this is actually a continuation of the foreshadowing from Metrica DRM that there's more going on with these destroyers that are starting to strategize. Jhavi and Marjory have a moral debate about how much can be sacrificed to secure victory, driving a wedge between them. Marjory also reveals that there's drama between her and Kasmeer yet again (a development I'm not particularly fond of as I thought they'd settled things during their Kralk observations in Season 4 but apparently they have some unresolved issues still). Fields of Ruin DRM: We see the growing tension in Ebonhawke as Crecia brings the Blood Legion in as reinforcements. She manages to win Ebonhawke over by protecting the city and also reveals she's done with paperwork and prefers to let actions speak louder than words, taking a different stance on the treaty than Smodur did. We see some Separatist sympathizers abandoning their cause and joining forces with the charr, proving that there may still be hope to redeem at least some of the Separatists. Post-clear dialogue reveals that Mia Kindleshot has become the new Iron imperator seemingly without objection (even though lorewise Iron tribune Fume Brighteye would've opposed her ascension; I suppose Fume is biding her time for now and waiting to discredit Mia later, assuming that the writers ever return to that foreshadowed plot since vanilla GW2) and that she's not going after the mantle of Khan-Ur as eagerly as Smodur was even though she shares many of his ideals. Crecia has apparently been handling the remnants of the Dominion and Renegades off screen with the intel she and Malice acquired from Bangar's secret files, so the Renegade threat is pretty much done with (aside from what may happen with Fume's faction if the story ever decides to explore the hints from Drizzlewood Coast in the future). Crecia's dialogue also suggests that the United Legions is a temporary thing, and sooner or later animosity between imperators will continue unless the charr change the way their society works. Thunderhead Peaks DRM: Braham receives sound advise about the role of norn of prophecy (and how it somehow seems to tie to the seemingly contradictory take of Primordus's role in ending Jormag instead) from the non-binary Myrun Skialkin who reminds Braham that, just like Myrun themself, a person can be two things at once or something altogether new. This likely ends up foreshadowing what we're about to witness in the upcoming vision with Braham and the Spirits. We see the Deldrimor dwarves return at long last and learn a bit about why they've surfaced now and not before (it's because destroyers were amassing on the surface in greater numbers, so the dwarves followed suit to cull the horde). Braham's connection to the destroyers intensifies, allowing him to distract the destroyers during the boss battle so the Commander can defeat the champion. The Commander is also revealed to have an ability to use Aurene's gift to alter the vibration of the Dragonsblood spears to react to destroyers rather than Branded, which may come into play later. Lake Doric: The icebrood reveal their true colors when they begin attacking people and turning them into the Frozen when the defenders thought they had arrived as reinforcements. The Frozen are apparently impervious to destroyers' fire and somehow empower Jormag in their solid state. The Frozen may potentially be a callback to when Rox got frozen in Season 3; if so, it seems Jormag has learned a few new tricks to make these new Frozen even sturdier than before. Ryland further explores his teased ambitions from Brisban DRM by revealing that he intends to rule the world in Jormag's name hundred(s?) of years from now once the Frozen thaw to witness the new world Jormag has created. Crecia is finally coming to terms with her son's fall upon witnessing the atrocities he's now committed and how he's set on his path. Snowden Drifts: Braham starts realizing the weight of the prophecy on his shoulders and laments the role he's thrust himself into. Kas comforts him by stating that fate did not choose his role as his actions themselves made him who he is today. Kas also refers back to her crisis of faith with Balthazar and Kormir back in PoF during the escort, a nice touch of continuity as it gives her some weight as a spiritual advisor to Braham. The Kodan Voice notes similarities between Braham and the kodan Voices although we sadly only get a few hints for now. Unlike the three other Lost Spirits, Owl apparently hasn't been corrupted yet; it's revealed that she tricked Jormag by promising herself to it before reneging on the deal and going into hiding, and Ryland intends to force her to honor her oath to Jormag. Ryland's power is revealed to be so great that even our heroes are unable to kill him in his empowered state, so the best we can do is mess up his plans for now. Owl persuades Braham to cause a chain of events that leads to her death, and her last words set him on a mystical path: to let the other Spirits know that he is the harness and that the pantheon as a whole can "direct the fall" with him. Ryland shows himself to be a surprisingly graceful loser, and he reveals that Jormag will simply leech magic from the three remaining corrupted Spirits for the time being in preparation for Primordus's rise. There are of course more plot details which happen in between the DRMs to help explore the concepts above, but I only included the relevant details from the DRMs themselves. A lot is happening in these DRMs, and in some ways we're rushing through too quickly through a checklist of plot points like Owl's return and demise, and the resurgence of the dwarves, or Crecia's lack of struggle for becoming the next Blood imperator. But it is quite impressive how we see each character develop either by coming to realizations during the missions or letting local NPCs reveal some key information that makes them reconsider stuff. :) Ah, all the splendid dialogue that made me cringe, because it was so badly written that I felt a 13-year old must have composed it? :s While I understand that art can be subjective, how is the aforementioned dialogue written by a 13-year-old in your opinion and what elements in it make you cringe in particular? I've yet to encounter anything in these DRMs that would be the dialogue equivalent of Season 1's infamous (IMHO) "Later, tater!" or "Like a norn fart at a moot." Given the tight VA and line budget per episode, the dialogues in Champions may have been quite concise but they got the job done while staying true to the characters' established personalities and pushing the characters forward in their story arcs. I'm always interested in learning more about people's preferences and what they consider to be good or bad dialogue or storytelling as there tend to be as many opinions as there are players given everyone's respective tastes. :)

Wolf doesn't quote the entire prophecy word for word, but he does use specific wording which is interesting: The verb 'fall' can have multiple meanings in this context, but Braham chooses to interpret it as dying to Jormag, which may not necessarily be the case. After all, Jormag chose to spare Braham despite being aware of his role in the prophecy (sadly we've yet to learn what the source of this prophecy is and how both the Spirits and Jormag became aware of it and why that prophecy's power is so great that it even compels corrupted Spirits like Eagle to give Braham an audience). I imagine this may be related to Jormag being aware of Braham's connection to the spirits and how it may attempt to abuse this fact down the line, whether to involve Primordus in it somehow or not. :) The thing is that, according to Kralkatorrik having a "Mother", other Elder Dragons likely have mothers too. I always liked the idea that "Mother" may in fact refer to the hinted Dragon Spirit. After all, both "A Spirit of Legend" and "The Power and Wisdom of the Kodan" blog posts suggest that there are spirits for multiple flora and fauna as well as elemental forces like Fire, or even inanimate stuff like Mountain, or natural concepts like Seasons and Darkness. Likewise, the norn Skuld suggests that Spirits of the Wild exist for each associated animal, or at least a superspecies from which associated species may have diverged (so Melandru's stalkers and snow leopards would both call Snow Leopard their patron spirit, I imagine; Mink and Otter may in fact be the same spirit with different names given how closely related IRL minks and otters are). Dragons, having so many species under the monicker, likely would have a "granddaddy" or "grandma" Spirit they have all descended from, and this would be the Dragon Spirit. Whether the Dragon Spirit exists, has died, or cut herself off from the Mists like Owl did, is the question if this theory is proven later. It would be interesting to explore any relation between the Fire Spirit and Primordus as both pool from fire magic. But if the kodan and norn stories are true and if each Elder Dragon is potentially descended, along with other dragons, from physical mothers or ultimately from the Dragon Spirit somehow, at most the Elder Dragons like Primordus would be nephews and nieces to the Fire Spirit as the Fire Spirit was a contemporary of the Dragon Spirit (the progenitor of dragons) by all indication. The Stone Summit invoking Primordus's power gradually turned them into minions, and Inquest directly subjecting victims to Primordus's unfiltered energy instantly turned them into destroyers. Meanwhile, the Fire Spirit is said (if the kodan story is true) to have begot the last flame before departing that became the basis for Koda's Flame. Given how kodan and quaggan wield the flame and haven't been corrupted yet, any connection between Primordus and the Fire Spirit would be elsewhere. Curiously the Flame Spirit's magic at least protects from Jormag's blizzards, proving that Primordus isn't Jormag's sole weakness...or the Rata Novans misinterpreted the data due to the chak invasion and, as I suspect, Jormag has multiple weaknesses (like its own Ice magic, the Vacuumagic polarizer approach used on Zhaitan, Spirits of the Wild magic etc.). Similarly, the jotun scroll's fire magic hasn't corrupted Braham yet and it hasn't affected Ryland negatively since his corruption as far as we know. While we've had cases that certain dragon corruption can be wielded without harm (the Dragonsblood weapons made from Kralkatorrik's blood), we have other cases where it's the opposite (Zhaitan-infused artifacts corrupting Kellach, Rissa, and Howl; and the Jormag blood-infused Sanguinary Blade corrupting its wielder over time while instantly corrupting any victim it slashes). It could of course be that the jotun discovered the dwarf/Glint method of somehow safely containing corruption into a weapon without causing risk to the weapon's wielder, but that remains to be seen as currently we have more nefarious artifacts tied to dragons than positive ones. Either way, it would certainly be interesting to explore more of the spirit lore and how much of the kodan tale is based on truth and how much of it has warped over the millennia. I imagine the third faction is the skritt as we saw them in one of the earlier trailers fighting in Caledon as an allied faction. The fourth faction may be the kodan because they'd be the only "natives" of the affected zones who don't have representation in the war council so far. Well, aside from the sadly neglected Lionguard despite Gendarran and Bloodtide being targeted by dragon minions, but at least we got them as ambient NPCs in the former and hopefully in the latter given the locations the Bloodtide DRM is taking place in. :) While I can understand depicting Primordus as a chaotic, almost mindless force of nature (although we've been shown glimpses of strategic thinking with the way the destroyers specifically targeted infant Vlast and Aurene across vast distances, how the destroyers abused the asura gate network in GW1 to invade far locations, or how they used feint attacks to draw Lionguard and Vigil attention away from the true target in Ascalon Settlement), I would like Primordus to not just be an even more angry version of Kralkatorrik and that we'd actually get a bit of twist by showing hidden depths of some kind. I was also entertaining a theory similar to yours. Perhaps in the distant past Jormag may have manipulated mortals to kill Primordus's scion for whatever reason. Primordus could be the anti-Kralkatorrik in that he had not viewed his scion as a traitor to be slain but genuinely loved it as much as Kralk loved Glint, and seeing his scion be brutally murdered could've driven him off the edge and made him see all mortals as despicable allies of Jormag and thus an enemy to be purged from the face of the earth to avenge his beloved scion. The Icebrood Saga has already shown us the overarching theme of family, grieving parents, and legacy (via Asgeir's reveal; Bangar and Almorra arguing about their lost son Ajax; Ember wanting to avenge Almorra's death; Rytlock potentially being Bangar's son if the clues end up leading somewhere; the whole Brimstone family drama with Rytlock, Crecia and Ryland; Ryland wanting to avenge his warband's deaths, Braham's guildies believing he abandoned them and Jormag using that grief and hate to sway them to join the Svanir, Braham trying to honor Eir's legacy and finish her mission etc.), so it wouldn't surprise me if Primordus was actually revealed as a genuinely grieving father driven to madness of conflagration because of his Torment to make him a tragic villain while not downplaying his own villainy in trying to succeed in his genocide plans. As for Primordus, assuming that the rules of Elder Dragon knowledge acquisition are somewhat similar to Zhaitan (and potentially Mordremoth given how he switched from communicating with visions of death, destruction and destiny to actual manipulative banter with Scarlet later in their "bonding", or Kralkatorrik who also knew to speak in Tyrian to the Commander), Primordus should know everything his minions know. And as we've seen the Stone Summit unwittingly subjecting themselves to Primordus's corruption, their knowledge would've been forcibly added to Primordus's pool of knowledge. Even if Primordus had not corrupted mortals before, this sudden surge of new converts would've forced the idea of the Tyrian language and dwarven culture and the memories of the converted into Primordus via the hivemind, making him capable of communicating with speech rather than just visions by now depending on how quickly dragons learn grammar and language in general (as it took quite a while for Aurene to get a grasp of Tyrian language until her resurrection somehow enabled her to speak without a Voice like Caithe). Still, the Stone Summit remnants were corrupted decades ago, so it would've been ample time for Primordus to have mastered Tyrian by now. In fact, this revelation of Primordus's linguistic abilities would make us look at this banter about destroyers from Gendarran Fields DRM in a new light: I'd just love the chilling moment of actually encountering a destroyer who talks back to us. We've already seen some destroyers wielding weapons, and the Destroyer of Life used his bow quite efficiently in Edge of Destiny (and in this battle it was shown that its primordial fire could be used against it, suggesting that Primordus's fire magic, or the magic of the Fire Spirit's Kodan flame or the jotun scroll could likewise be effective weapons against Primordus), so I'd love to see more intelligent destroyer champions showing up to rattle us. In fact, I'd also love to see the return of the scary and tough obsidian destroyers we briefly met in an obscure event in Calx's lab forcing us to evacuate the overrun area or risk getting killed. The saga's story could finally reveal how these obsidian destroyers might be Primordus's elite vanguard whose abilities surpass even those encountered in DRMs so far. Would be fun if we encountered them during Braham and the Spirits' mission in the vision as a nice callback to core Tyria lore. :)

SPOILERS I enjoy the DRMs for what they are: bite-sized chunks with some lore and character development set in older regions of the world. This is something many people had been asking for back in the day, and in that regard ArenaNet delivered. In fact, these would be great content for side stories between episodes as a kind of grand continuation of the well-received Knight of the Thorn side story although I can see the ambition of the devs as the four chapters are released and we get all these DRMs, the Braham vision and other surprises (based on what they may have in store for Chapter 4: Judgment) as the full Champions package, the lengthiest instanced living world story content yet with the added bonus of having an incentive to replay them daily/weekly alone or with others. While the formula of DRMs is repetitive with the timed pre-events leading to another event and then the boss (and some pre-event timers being weird for soloing like Metrica and Thunderhead often running out even when you rush the goals), I like the various factions that come to our aid and how some dialogue changes depending on our choice. The allies provide unique buffs, some of which are more useful than others (gotta love Alkar's potion against destroyers if picking Deldrimor, or the neat buffs provided by the Crystal Bloom's crystals), and fit into the themes of the respective factions. In some cases, like the Brisban DRM, we even have randomized alternate routes to the boss during the escort. The pre-events make sense in the locations they are in with the potential exception of sparring with traumatized Priory members when Thunderhead Keep is being invaded (although I justify with the Priory being in so much shock that they aren't thinking clearly during that moment and need the Commander to calm them down so they can properly defend the entrance to the keep and thus ensure that our way back is secure while we face the boss). As we become more and more powerful with each Dragon Slayer mastery, I imagine the NPC assistance in DRMs will become more useful towards the end of Champions, and a below average skilled player character boosted with both frost and flame essence should hopefully be able to solo all DRMs with three CMs enabled (including the tricky Snowden Drifts DRM) once all the episodes have been released...although that remains to be seen. Musicwise it's been a bit of a hit and miss for me. I adore how many alternate versions and arrangements of tracks we get (it's pretty clever how we hear an eerie version of the Spirits of the Wild theme when our ally factions come to our aid, suggesting that the Spirits themselves are watching as Tyria slowly becomes united against the common dragon menace) and how these are randomized and can even change within an instance such as how in e.g. Brisban DRM the track changes each time you die and respawn. While it adds a replayability factor as you'll always have a chance of getting a new combination from a pool of tracks, sometimes old tracks are added into the mix too with, well, mixed results. It's incredibly jarring to me to hear the White Mantle Xera theme being used in the battle against Ryland as he has nothing to do with White Mantle thematically, but that's just the flaw in the randomization of the tracks. I wish there had been a fixed theme for Ryland that we can identify with (his current suggested motif, if it's truly his, is very vague so it's not as hummable a theme as Jormag and Bangar have, maybe because Ryland himself is a drifting character who is still coming to terms with his purpose) just like we had the harrowing jouhikko-torturing Primordus theme for the destroyer champions to signify Primordus's looming presence as the mastermind of these invasions that herald his rise. Lorewise it's been fun getting to see how older regions have changed since we last visited them in story, and how we get some interesting NPC pairings during the DRMs. Hearing Jhavi and Marjory argue about the cost of war and how much we should be willing to sacrifice to win, Ryland and Caithe comparing their respective dragons' strengths and goals while trying to pry information from one another, Braham and Taimi trying to convince the other about which race's dragon is the more imminent threat, Kasmeer and Crecia working hand in hand to rally Ebonhawke (which has mistrusted both Kryta and the legions) behind them, even the return of the dwarves, the fate of Owl, or the horrific reveal of the Frozen and how they tie into Jormag's plans for Tyria...it's all compelling stuff to me. If only the limited budget wasn't in the way, I would've wanted each DRM to have optional dialogue with our allies how we get optional dialogue in Gendarran Fields and Fields of Ruin DRMs. Imagine optional dialogue with Locke Stonehealer about what the Deldrimor have been up to, the Voice of Koda's views on Braham's growing spiritual powers, Crecia's opinion on Rytlock having made Logan an honorary member of her and Rytlock's Stone Warband back in the day, or Caithe's views on Ryland to mention a few. Granted, some of these lore reveals could've used some more meat over the bones. It was a missed opportunity not bringing Logan and Rytlock along to Ebonhawke given how both of them have history there as per Edge of Destiny novel (after all, Logan's actions with allowing the charr prisoners to fight alongside humans at Ebonhawke during the branded Ogre Revolt set the stage for the treaty to even happen, so his banter with Crecia would've been nice to hear while he could've further elaborated to Rytlock on how defending Jennah at Ebonhawke during the first Kralkatorrik battle was necessary for the future treaty even if Logan had to abandon Destiny's Edge to make it happen back then). Likewise, it would've been awesome to actually see Wade Samuelsson (the duke of Ebonhawke and commander of the Ebon Vanguard) actually appear in the flesh to represent Ebonhawke and the Vanguard (as currently Ebonhawke has no spokesperson in the DRM) and show his reaction to Crecia following Bangar's rebellion instead of us being contacted by an entirely new, unseen NPC (Thaddeus Soren) via a letter which leaves Samuelsson's current status unknown (has he retired, is he still working with the Vanguard to face the destroyer threat, or what?). The dwarven introduction was very sudden and could've used a bit of a cutscene given the huge lore importance of their long awaited return, but I guess we might get a proper introduction to Deldrimor once/if we ever meet with King Jalis Ironhammer (assuming he hasn't been slain by destroyers by now). Would've also been nice to hear both Ogden and Rhoban's reaction to the Deldrimor's return but Rhoban was sadly unvoiced in the instance due to the limited VA budget per episode. Likewise, Owl's story arc was resolved surprisingly quickly although it's understandable given how the devs had to cut out some story bits from the saga. I would've loved for the corruption to actually be successful and us fighting against a Corrupted Owl who is lorewise said to be a terrifying opponent. Actually getting to see Owl's ghostly model with corruption effects would've no doubt been a chilling moment (no pun intended) even if the end result would've still been the same as the ending of Snowden Drifts DRM. The DRMs may be rough around the edges due to devs moving most of their workforce to finish the expansion, but they show promise as repeatable content that thankfully scales so you can just do it solo or with a buddy or two and tweak the difficulty to suit your tastes to have some quick fun if you want. I hope the devs won't abandon the concept entirely after the saga has concluded as revisiting old locations with twists is a great storytelling tool (without needing to release a new zone or half of a few zone every episode), and we get content like this in more polished form (with some of the player feedback taken into account) in some future releases, whether as part of a living world story (even if not being the bulk of an episode) or as side stories. I've found the content decent enough to play through multiple times although I'll reserve judgement until Chapter 4: Judgment has been released and we'll see if we get some zone expansions or other curious stuff (as there's been no indication that we get any DRMs in Chapter 4 now that the last known batch ships with Chapter 3). :)

My problem with Braham's Season 3 arc does not come from his canonical age and the attitudes that come with it but from him making a near 180 in personality from the HoT epilogue dialogue at the Heart of Thorns tree (Mordremoth's base of operations). In that HoT dialogue Braham had come to terms with Eir's fate and was thankful that he had contributed to Mordremoth's demise and thus avenged his mom. He thanked the Commander for being a good friend and leading a good guild. While he was willing to take the fight to Jormag, he wasn't being antsy about it and was willing to let the party rest before we planned our next move. All in all, Braham and the Commander parted ways on good terms at the end of HoT, and Braham certainly didn't blame the Commander for indirectly causing Eir's death back then. As we entered Season 3, one year had canonically passed since HoT ending (as partly revealed in the raid journals that bridge the gap between HoT and S3). While this big timejump happened and we had to wait for living world content longer than usual because of ANet having to plot out PoF plot from scratch as they hadn't even plotted out S3 due to rushing HoT out, as revealed in with PoF story developers, it still made it weird to me that it took an entire year to have a vigil for Eir and for the Commander to do anything noteworthy. Why weren't there any clues that Braham might have called the Commander to figure out whether to tackle Jormag or some other dragon next, why did Braham instead choose to act on his own over the year between HoT and S3 and disregard the teachings of his totem spirit Wolf (who promotes working as a pack rather than as a lone wolf)?During that time Braham suddenly began mourning Eir again and vented his frustrations on icebrood in the north. While he arranged a vigil for Eir as revealed in the "Eir's Memorial at Hoelbrak" instance, he didn't even bother attending it, instead believing that he was wasting precious time by not finding a means to find a way to damage the fang and thus end Jormag. He decided to rather study old scrolls and chat with scholars about Asgeir and the jotun scrolls than honor the legend of his mom, basically spitting on Eir's memory. For norn, their legend is everything, and Braham should've at least stopped by during the vigil to pay his respects for his mom and keep her legend alive via a speech to Eir's assembled friends before leaving for the north again. His absence was rather jarring given the way norn tend to honor their dead. What's even worse is that Braham had been so focused on finding a means to end Jormag that he had left Garm wandering in the jungle for that entire year without ever bothering to find his mom's wolf companion and bring him home. It was Rox who had to brave the unhinged Mordrem and other dangers of the jungle to finally find the severely weakened Garm and return with him to Hoelbrak. In the ice cave, Braham coldly ordered Garm to follow him after defeating the icebrood beast, not even seeming to care that much about Rox having been the one to rescue the wolf to begin with. Poor Garm was so confused that he followed Braham's orders, likely out of respect for him being his alpha Eir's son. In the ice cave, Braham's recklessness to rush in got Rox frozen (which may in fact be a weaker form of the Frozen effect on Lake Doric and Snowden Drifts DRM victims), which nearly spelled her doom. Once the icebrood had been defeated and Rox thawed, Braham didn't even bother apologizing to her for putting her in danger. What makes this even more annoying to me is that Rox, in contrast, had sacrificed a promising career in the Stone Warband by choosing to tend to Braham (whose recklessness had injured him when he had charged at Scarlet Briar) rather than carrying out Rytlock's order to finish off Scarlet during Season 1 despite knowing that she'd have to live with the shame of not fulfilling her mission and continuing to live as the social pariah status of gladium. Rox had risked everything a charr holds dear for her friend Braham, and she didn't even get an apology when his recklessness led her to even more perils in the ice cave. Out of all of this, what does make sense to me is Braham's tantrum towards the Commander about forming a new guild, and him abandoning the norn guild in the Far Shiverpeaks in shame after Jormag had seemingly become unreachable and he had thus failed to fulfill his promise at the end of S3. While his reasoning for the Commander causing Eir's death was erroneous as he himself had previously come to terms with Eir's death and had thanked the Commander for allowing him to avenge her (which he seemed to have conveniently forgotten by S3 time), he did have a point about the Commander dishonoring Eir's legacy by starting a new guild. While I understand the OOC reason for replacing Destiny's Edge with Dragon's Watch due to player complaints about DE at the time, lorewise this shift didn't need to happen. In Tyria, guilds are known to add new recruits to their roster, and the Commander was DE's latest member as of the end of personal story. It made no sense for Rytlock to just disband the guild when he could've just suggested that the Commander invite "Dragon's Watch" over to boost DE ranks instead. Braham calling out the Commander on supporting Rytlock's weird decision was thus justified even though it's odd that Braham never chewed out Rytlock, the true mastermind, about it. While I understand that the OOC reason for Braham's tantrum was for the story devs to leave the Commander by themself before they would leave for Elona to confront Balthazar seemingly alone in the "darkest moment" in the narrative, it was unfortunate that it came with disregarding HoT epilogue dialogue with Braham. Not only did he disrespect Eir by not attending her vigil to honor and pass on her legend, he mistreated both Garm and Rox with an unapologetic attitude, and disrespected Wolf by abandoning the spirit's teachings of loyalty and working as a pact. Now that the Icebrood Saga revealed that Braham's norn guild friends weren't a toxic influence on him either to justify his odd change in character, the one way the devs could still reconcile HoT and S3 Braham with one another (why he dishonored Wolf, Eir, Garm, Rox and Commander) was if Jormag had become aware of Braham's presence during Season 3 (perhaps since the cracking of the fang if Jormag could sense it; at least the Spirits became aware of Braham being the norn of prophecy at that moment so it wouldn't surprise me if the same happened to Jormag who is also aware of the prophecy) and began manipulating him by bringing out his worse side with subtle manipulations. Once Jormag had been forced back to pre-awakening levels at the end of S3, Braham could begin mending his relationship with the Commander as the dragon was no longer subtly influencing him as shown in Season 4. Perhaps Jormag sensed Braham potentially being the norn of prophecy since the cracking of the fang and wanted him to rush to the dragon so Jormag could corrupt Braham via the persuasive powers (as they seem to be setting something up for the two in the saga given Braham's speculations on why Jormag decided to spare him despite being aware of the prophecy linking the two of them) as well as remove the scroll-enchanted bow from the equation that way. It would explain Braham suddenly getting more aggressive over the year despite previously being at peace with his mom's fate, why he disrespected Eir and disregarded both his totem spirit's teachings and his friends, and it would also flesh out Jormag's chessmaster qualities and that the dragon has been eyeing Braham for quite some time now ever since Season 3, which might see development in later Icebrood Saga episodes. After all, Jormag chose to spare Braham in "Voice in the Deep" despite being aware of the prophecy, so I'm guessing Jormag may need Braham due to his connection to the spirits and how it may tie to Primordus if hints in Champions Chapter 3: Balance trailer are anything to go by. Still, I hope we get to hear Braham apologize to Rox about his mistreatment of her in S3 one day unless that apology happened off screen during "War Eternal". A great moment for such a reconciliation (which we weren't allowed to see due to War Eternal's limited budget) is now at hand as we saw Rox and the Olmakhan returning to the fray in Chapter 3. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and I hope we get to learn that Jormag may have been manipulating Braham longer than we realize. :)

Regarding Jormag and lies, interestingly narrative director Tom Abernathy tweeted this a few months ago: So if Jormag has not lied, or at least perceives its persuasive words as not lying, it makes Jormag's past interactions with mortals most interesting as we have to look at its words and actions from a new point of view. Then again, this revelation has not yet appeared in game where several characters still believe Jormag to be a liar, so it remains to be seen when and how it gets addressed. :)

At least we have a general idea of what these two Firstborn looked like and what their professions may have been. While battling the vision of the Blighted Pale Tree in "Hearts and Minds", we see her summoning Firstborn to her side. There are 12 Firstborn with nine of them resembling the Firstborn we know. The unknown ones are a female archer, a scholarly male, and an armored male. Given that the present day Malomedies does not appear among these 12 Firstborn during the battle, I'd say that the scholarly male would be what Malomedies looked like before he was tortured by the asura; we know that sylvari looks can change in response to trauma (see e.g. Caithe's hairstyle change to honor Wynne, Faolain switching between her branchy look in S2 flashbacks and GW2 and Caithe-imitating looks in Edge of Destiny, and Canach becoming more thorny after being hunted by the Consortium). So, it's possible that the missing Firstborn could've experienced traumas during their journeys so their appearances would've changed from those original looks over the years (thus allowing the devs to give them new looks in future content if they so wanted). It's likely that these two missing Firstborn (a female and a male) are traveling abroad. After all, Caithe and Faolain were driven by wanderlust in their early years, and even Aife confessed to having traversed significant distances, even claiming to have visited the "great desert", most likely referencing the Crystal Desert: A fun idea I had was that maybe the female archer could've run into Knut Whitebear's adventuring wife, the enchantress Gaerta Whitebear, in the far north, and they formed a dynamic duo (similar to the more villainous duo of the norn shaman Vilnia Shadowsong and the sylvari Noxia--I'd love to see these two villainesses return as they survived the encounter with traveling heroes!) in case this Firstborn wanted to learn about adventure from one of the renowned adventurers of her time. I could imagine Gaerta, who is also driven by wanderlust, eventually warming up to this curious Firstborn while taking her under her wing as a squire of sorts, and perhaps each woman could teach the other about life and adventure in general while bonding in the process (as a more benevolent version of the Riannoc+Waine partnership). It's possible that we might encounter one of these two missing Firstborn in a potential future storyline revolving around the enigmatic sylvari Malyck and the second Pale Tree. Perhaps the armored male encountered Malyck and stayed with him to learn about Malyck's people (if any of them survived, as Malyck was seemingly disconnected from his grove's Dream) while he in turn could help temper Malyck's anger and feelings of vengeance. As for the cycles these Firstborn would belong to, we can make some educated guesses based on the characteristics of the current Firstborn using the wiki's Firstborn page as a basis. It seems that there'd be an equal number of the four cycles divided between the 12 Firstborn, which means one cycle per three Firstborn. So it'd go: Dawn (Aife, very likely Dagonet due to him being a diplomat, and an unknown), Noon (Niamh, very likely Riannoc due to him being a knight, and an unknown), Dusk (Faolain, Kahedins, Trahearne), and Night (Caithe, Malomedies, Wynne). This would suggest that the missing Firstborn are most likely of the Dawn and Noon cycles. The Dawn Firstborn would be, as per the sylvari biography options, a "natural talker, diplomat, and forward-thinker, intimately connected with their surroundings and markedly empathic toward all, even other races", while the Noon Firstborn would "solve problems by attacking them head-on, be a warrior, hunter, and traveler who experiences life first-hand and enjoys the rush of taking risks in order to feel truly alive". As it happens, both of those personality types would fit easily into my proposed "thrilling northern adventure with Gaerta" (Noon) and a diplomatic mission to Malyck's Grove (Dawn) although those could easily be reversed too: the Dawn sylvari might be the diplomatic, tender hand to temper Gaerta's impulses, while the Noon sylvari would be the adventurous kind assisting Malyck and his people against the threats looming around Malyck's Grove (potentially the remaining Mordrem and whatever other threats emerge). So, there are many ways the story could go, and the missing Firstborn could play such a wide variety of roles. The examples I presented are just two out of many; after all, if Aife truly traveled to Elona and back before Kralkatorrik's rise blocked the land route south, who knows what adventures the unknown female and male Firstborn must have had over these past few decades depending on when they last returned to the Grove (assuming that they are still alive, of course). :)

The latest update about centaurs comes from Champions Chapter 1: Truce. After completing the "Primordus Rising" story step, various NPCs phase into Eye of the North, and the new NPCs located near the asura gate actually have cycling ambient dialogue which we've been recording on this page in the wiki. The relevant conversation about centaurs goes as follows: Given the current destroyer problem that the centaurs face after having already been driven into a corner due to suffering lots of losses both in Ulgoth's war as well as in the failed Siege of Divinity's Reach, this might be a great moment for Jormag and its diplomats to reach out to the weary centaurs with promises of power and protection. While shamanistic tendencies are waning among the centaurs, Jormag could appeal to both the centaurs' spiritual side as well as their earthly desire for survival and revenge by offering to protect them if they accept its icy empowering blessings as well as present itself as a spirit of the land who sees centaurs as worthy inheritors of the earth due to their way of life. The problem with this approach would of course be the centaurs' hatred of humanity while Jormag obviously wants its allies to get along (for now) in the spirit of cooperation without angering any party via needless acts of violence. We've seen Jormag's corruption warp racial supremacists' minds without those mortals necessarily even realizing it (see e.g. the Dominion wanting to exterminate or subjugate what they consider to be "lesser races", while Frost Legion are openly offering humans like Kasmeer a chance to accept Jormag's blessings and join their legion in a twisted way as we learn in the Frost Citadel meta dialogue), so perhaps any "Frost Legion" centaurs would just automatically drop their human-hating ideology and embrace "ice fortifies all races under Jormag's wing" creed. Whether the non-corrupted centaurs would take such a jarring shift in their frosty brethren's opinion well remains to be seen if some of them did take Jormag's offer in their desperation. It's possible that at least some centaurs may see the light in the current crisis and approach the Pact with a truce against a common enemy before the Centaur Alliance itself (and particularly their youths) is wiped out, but that depends on if Jormag has any plans in mind for the centaurs or other races while building its army beyond what we've seen of its collaboration with the asura so far. :)

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. :)

The Ogre Wars meta in Fields of Ruin has considerable Ebon Vanguard presence although the Ebon Vanguard share the spotlight with the charr legions there as they assault the ogres of Foulbear Kraal together. :)

Sadly we've yet to learn if there ever were peaceful krait relations as they've been exclusively written as evil because of their absolute indoctrination into the oratuss's belief system which the oratuss keep rewriting to benefit their agenda (e.g. the whole part about the abyssal prophets who are destined to return to flood the world and raise krait as the rulers of Tyria although I wouldn't be surprised if there's a shred of truth to the oratuss' seemingly fabricated myth). However, the sylvari blog post called "Dream and Nightmare" had the following segment which shows the philosophical differences between Niamh (Firstborn leader of the Wardens) and Cadeyrn (future founder of Nightmare Court) about how to deal with krait children that they find in the aftermath of a battle: Niamh seems to believe that the krait aren't born evil but raised evil (the popular debate of nature vs. nurture), and she wants to believe that some of them can find a better path one day if they're given the chance to prove themselves as per Ventari's teachings. Given how the GW2 storyline has always been about separate peoples, (most of the) opposing politics and factions coming together when facing a bigger threat that requires everyone's contribution to survive the catastrophe (which should ring true in the upcoming Champions chapters which teased that Primordus's threat will make us work alongside "unlikely" allies, some of whom might be villains), it's possible we may one day encounter friendly or at least morally grey krait. The question then becomes if these would-be krait allies will be genuinely trying to change their society for the better once they've come to realize how the oratuss (and if someone like a high priestess exists even above the oratuss as the supreme ruler of the krait theocracy or whatever it'll be called) manipulate their kind, or if these "allies" were only using the Commander and friends to oust the current leadership so these krait would take over instead with such gullible fools' help. While Cadeyrn had the pragmatic if ruthless solution to the problem, I'd stand with Niamh when it comes to the issue of krait morality and if krait children deserve to die. I like to believe that even the worst villains should be given the chance to redeem themselves even if that means they'll have to atone for their sins for the rest of their lives to compensate for past wrongdoings. ANet has specifically been writing the krait as the "black hat" race, though, but they've also mentioned that many of the aspects written about in these blog posts have undergone changes over the years (such as the usually xenophobic krait suddenly allying with non-krait like Scarlet once she dangled an obelisk shard in front of their faces), so it's possible they might look at the krait again and decide to flesh them out a bit more and offer them a tiny chance of redemption just like gave us with Duchess Chrysanthea's Nightmare Court splinter group (who I hope we'll meet again) or Utumishi's Loyalists and the Mordant Crescent. I also hope we'll see the Forged redeemed one day if the writers reveal that some of them survived the Elonian campaign as they're ultimately tragic villains; after all, we still haven't seen the General of the Burning Forest who Devona/Herald of Balthazar referred to in her writings during "Night of Fires", so he might still be out there fighting the good fight while his Forged could be useful allies against the Elder Dragons. :)