Kossage.9072

The thing is that we don't really need Jormag's help to defeat Primordus and vice versa, and thanks to Glint and Mist Wardens, we may already have the solution to our lack of Omadd's machine dilemma. Given that Glint was somehow able to find both Eir and Snaff's ghosts and recruit them to Gwen's Mist Wardens and send them to Tyria to warn us, it means Glint has been able to visit norn and asura afterlives (Eir was at peace with her death, so she shouldn't have entered the limbo of the Domain of the Lost where only those who died violent, sudden deaths while having unfinished business end up in until they're guided to their proper afterlives). Assuming that Dhuum hasn't devoured their souls, it means Omadd and Scarlet/Ceara should still exist as ghosts in whatever afterlives they're currently in. It should be easy enough for Glint and/or Gwen to delegate Mist Wardens to search for these ghosts and bring them to Tyria where they could be joined by Snaff's ghost and Taimi to rebuild Omadd's machine as Taimi's Machine 2.0. We can then ask an audience with Jormag via Bangar and once Jormag speaks and sees through Bangar, we present them with the rebuilt Omadd's machine and threaten to press the button. This time, of course, Taimi's Machine 2.0 wouldn't have the fatal flaw the first machine had and it wouldn't lead to either Primordus or Jormag's deaths but instead keep them in hibernation indefinitely. That threat should give Jormag enough pause to realize they shouldn't mess with us; and even if we lost that machine, we could just have Taimi, Snaff, Omadd and Ceara build a bunch of new ones as they combine their scientific minds together. So, when is my Commander going to remember these details from prior seasons, talk to Aurene and ask her to contact Glint and/or Gwen so they can bring back Omadd and Ceara's ghosts to aid us? While the Mists are still open and ghosts are manifesting here and there, this should be child's play. If they could already bring Snaff back as a ghost, finding those two spectral rogues shouldn't be much of a challenge for the Mist Wardens either. :) We also know from past Elder Dragon encounters that Elder Dragons do in fact seem to have multiple weaknesses despite what the Rata Novan records implied: 1) Zhaitan was defeated in part by using its own Death magic against it during the final battle (see e.g. the cannons and the MEGA-LIT that used Gorr's vacuumagic polarizer tech that polarized and shot back Zhaitan's magic). 2) Mordremoth was defeated with a combination of Mind magic and Plant magic. The former via entering the Dream to battle Mordy's mind and turning the mind's evil manifestations of our friends into our allies to deprive the avatar of their protective power. The latter via plunging Caladbolg (a thorn of the Pale Tree who has deep ties to Mordy and thus access to some purified form of Plant magic as seen via the Artesian Waters in the Zhaitan campaign) into Mordy's last physical host to finish the last seed of the Jungle Dragon's mind off for good. 3) Kralkatorrik was defeated with Crystal magic due to the resonance of the Branded, Aurene, and the Dragonsblood Spears. I could write off the deaths of two dragons via their greatest strength as a mere happy coincidence, but three deaths involving such seems to suggest a pattern. If we follow this line of reasoning, Jormag's great Ice magic could thus be potentially used against it as well. Presently the story has revealed multiple weaknesses for dragons: 1) Turning the dragons' own magic spectrum aka their greatest strength against them (see the examples with the three dragons above). 2) Their opposite dragon's magic in the All (Primordus vs. Jormag confirmed, Zhaitan vs. Mordremoth heavily implied via the way we damaged the Unstable Abomination by exposing it to both Death and Plant magic during S3Ep3, and thus Kralkatorrik/Aurene should theoretically be the direct opponent of the deep sea dragon if this pattern holds). 3) "Poisoning" magic and force-feeding a weakened dragon with it as seen with the battle against Zhaitan and how Gorr's experiments on Risen worked. Granted, this could simply be a part of example 1 given how we used Death magic there. 4) Gods' divine magic (aka magic foreign to Tyria) as seen with the Divine Fire scaring off Mordrem and finishing off the Shadow of the Dragon in Season 2, or how djinn gained immunity to Branding via using Abaddon's remnant magic in the sands (until Kralk consumed Balthazar and managed to circumvent this protection) and how Kormir's fire protected Sun's Refuge from Branded until they figured out a loophole via Mist rifts. 5) Native Tyrian (spirit?) magic. See e.g. the three Lost Spirits using their power to help Braham defeat Drakkar for good, or how the kodan use the Spirit of Fire's remnant power in Koda's Flame to ward off Icebrood and protect themselves from the blizzard in Bitterfrost Frontier. This could potentially be classified under the "divine" magic listed in Example 4 (as devs have referred to the Spirits as norn "deities" in a very general sense a couple of times) except this magic is native to Tyria rather than originating from elsewhere in the Mists. It's unknown if the Blue and Golden Orbs (presently warding Fort Trinity and the Pyrite Peninsula, respectively) are related to this kind of magic or something else entirely, but they do oppose dragon corruption to some degree as well. As such, I'd argue that the Rata Novans' research, while impressive, was left incomplete due to the sudden chak invasion, so they only figured out that each dragon had seemingly one distinctive weakness when we see from the above examples that several general weaknesses do in fact exist and are shared by at least some of the dragons in the All. While there's no definite proof that all dragons share all of the above weaknesses (even less so now that there's a chance that all the remaining dragons may have gained some of Balthazar's magic and can thus circumvent the protection of divine magic), it's certainly a possibility given the aforementioned evidence. And thus the Sanguinary Blade (created from Jormag's frozen blood and currently held in the Priory) could in fact tie into the story somehow if Jormag finds a way to destroy any weapon(s) enchanted by jotun scrolls' fire (although curiously Ryland held on to Braham's fire bow rather than destroying it) and if it finds a way to counter Koda's Flame (should that S3 story ever be referenced in the saga) and we need to start figuring out alternative ways to face Jormag. Given how three dragons have already fallen to their greatest strength, perhaps Jormag will follow this pattern in some way too. I'd prefer the Sanguinary Blade ending in the hands of Ryland for a symbolic clash between Flame (Sohothin, representing the divine fire of a god) and Frost (Sanguinary Blade, representing the icy power of an Elder Dragon) should Rytlock have to face Ryland in battle as the announcement trailer and related concept art implies. We also have this fascinating tidbit from Mattul Krigheset's proposed idea of using the Fang of the Serpent as a ballista projectile against Jormag: If one of Jormag's weaknesses was in fact its own icy power as suggested above, then using the fang as such a weapon against the Ice Dragon would be a lovely, devious move: turning Jormag's token of manipulating Asgeir and the norn into an actual weapon against the dragon in an ironic twist that would fit the epic narratives in Norse sagas! :) Ryland chats with the Commander early on and is seen fighting destroyers with his trusty blade (too bad he hasn't stolen the Sanguinary Blade from the Priory yet; that weapon forged from Jormag's frozen blood would be so overpowered as a single nick from it instantly turns any victim into an icebrood as seen in the Magister Sieran storyline, so it'd be mighty effective against destroyers!). Bangar is only shown at the very end speaking to us from the cage. Aside from the different horns, here's how to tell Ryland and Bangar apart: Ryland has corrupted eyes, a scar crossing his eye (courtesy of Braham), and looks like a frosty Rytlock; Bangar has golden eyes and looks like Scar (ironically without any facial scar) from The Lion King. :) It was nice seeing the lovely Zudo there (College of Dynamics represent!). Going to be interesting to find out if all of the Arcane Council (including the ever-scheming Councillor Haia and High Councillor Flax) show up eventually too and get some development. When is Flax going to start his asuran supremacy campaign and enslave his own Elder Dragon? Maybe the Inquest can help him realize his dreams. :) Indeed. I see plenty of problems and division in the future, which may be part of Jormag's scheme to weaken our allied front with squabbles. I also worry what this chapter approach means for Knut Whitebear's story. I just can't see him and his sons, let alone his heroic wife Gaerta Whitebear, or the Spirits of the Wild, getting as much development as prior episodes would've offered. Vanilla GW2 was seemingly building up this notable storyline for the Whitebear family and the havrouns, but so far we've only touched a little on Jhavi's and Havroun Weibe's stories while not getting to speak with Snow Leopard and Bear yet. At least Jhavi showed up in the Truce trailer, so hopefully she'll receive some development and if we learn whether Laranthir will truly return in the post-Almorra political climate to take over as general or if he lets Jhavi take over instead while remaining as a Grand Warmaster. I can't see Knut Whitebear or his sons Sigfast and Skarti taking this "truce" with Jormag well, especially once they learn about Asgeir's journal and the truth about grandpa Asgeir's confrontation with the dragon. Realistically the news should've spread far and wide now (unless the Commander selfishly kept the journal to themself) and norn should be viewing the Whitebears' legend as tarnished due to Asgeir's betrayal. This is essentially all but a death sentence to the Whitebears who may never recover from their tarnished legacy unless they double their efforts to bring Jormag down, which means they shouldn't ever accept this truce. I imagine Sigfast, at least, would be furious about this and call the Commander out on selling out to the enemy. Perhaps this rage and jealousy towards the Commander's success (as hinted with Sigfast's dialogue) could be an avenue through which Jormag can start manipulating Sigfast for its own ends to fulfill the ominous prophecy surrounding Knut Whitebear ("...and the muttering voices will call for his blood.")? I'd also love to hear what Garm thinks about this truce with Jormag. So far Garm has been one of the few mortals who resisted Jormag's seductive whispers and survived as per his heroic moment in the Edge of Destiny novel where his loyalty to Eir overcame Jormag and the Dragonspawn's temptations. I'd love it if Jormag tried a different seduction and whispered about the fate of Garm's dire wolf pack. Years ago Angel McCoy teased that we may one day learn what happened to the rest of the dire wolves, how Eir and Garm met, and why Garm chose Eir as his alpha. I'd love to see this story be told one day and how it may be tied to Jormag's machinations. I even had a fun idea how it might tie the curious lore of Fenrir and the enigmatic two-headed kveldulves into it in case the dire wolves and kvelvulves had ancient pack rivalries that Jormag could've manipulated for its own ends, which could've led to a near annihilation of the more stout dire wolves and Garm's separation from the pack while the kveldulf pack might've embraced Jormag's gifts to overcome their direwolf rivals. Then we have the case of keeping Bangar imprisoned with Crecia's blessing. Will the Iron Legion and the Vigil tolerate this judgement for long? Ember said the Vigil joined in the charr civil war to kill Bangar after his murder of General Almorra. Similarly, Iron Legion loyalists wanted Bangar and Ryland gone for Smodur's assassination. Now, imagine both of these factions learning that not only is the Commander keeping Bangar in a comfy cell for questionable intel but will also ally with the known assassin Ryland? Even if Mia Kindleshot won over the more aggressive Fume Brighteye and ascended as Iron Imperator, she would still have to find a means to avenge Smodur's death. The only way Iron would ever be satisfied as a whole is getting at least Ryland's head on a spike. How is the Commander going to juggle Iron and Vigil's howls for justice without angering either party due to this pact with Jormag? What prevents Ember Doomforge from sneaking into the Eye of the North and demanding Bangar to be released for a trial? If the Commander, Aurene and especially Crecia deny her by stating that Bangar and Ryland will be judged later (perhaps in the chapter titled Judgment), things will no doubt get spicy even if we had more moderate supporters from both factions stalling for time within their own ranks. Before long, both Iron and Vigil would no doubt send mobs to attack the Crystal Blooms or even send hunting squads after Ryland to bring back his head while also accusing the Commander for being a sellout. Interestingly enough "End of Dragons" can refer to more things than just the end of Elder Dragons and such. Shortly before the EoD teaser trailer, I posted my speculation about a potential name for the expansion, mentioning two possible titles: "Age of the Dragon", and "End of Dragons", with some lore reasons how these plots might fit into the previous villain-themed names of past expansions (Heart of Thorns, and Path of Fire). Afterwards, we had the EoD teaser, and I was happy to see that one of my title proposals had actually ended up as a name. Had the devs read my post and come to the same conclusion, or was it a happy coincidence, I doubt I'll never know, but it was a happy surprise nonetheless. :) Basically to me the titles I were proposing for the expansion would work for these reasons: 1) Age of the Dragon is an actual age described in the Canthan calendar. It was initially named so because astrologers, emboldened by the empire's diplomatic successes and growing wealth at the time, joyously predicted a would-be prosperous future for the empire until Shiro and the Jade Wind messed things up. 2) Among the Celestials, the Dragon is said to be a reminder of atrocity, pain, and anguish and linked to an empress named Tahmu. There are some intriguing parallels between this description and the Elder Dragons' cycle, and Elder Dragons' rises are even said to lead to changes in the constellation and new stars being born as shown by jotun discoveries. 3) The ruling nation in Cantha is called the Empire of the Dragon which will likely, in part, play a somewhat antagonistic role at least in some parts of the expansion while also being a descriptive name for the setting the story takes place in based on the Shing Jea hints in the first teaser image and its filename. The Empire may attempt to pursue the Age of the Dragon where Cantha will reign supreme, involving the intelligent and speaking saltspray dragons who have great powers (e.g. Albax having the magical ability to grant mortals good or bad luck) and whom the Emperor, Empress and/or the Ministry of Purity may try to enslave to gain their magic. 4) The expansion will involve one of the Elder Dragons in some manner. Age of the Dragon could thus have another meaning: not only would it describe the setting and the potentially antagonistic empire that we'll be facing, but it could also point to the overarching menace of the Elder Dragon in this plot even if said dragon was more in the background like Kralkatorrik was during PoF before becoming the main villain who replaces or overwhelms the more humanoid villains in case it attempts a genuine takeover of the continent. 5) If we end up pursuing Glint and the Forgotten's suggestion to find multiple benevolent replacements for the Elder Dragons to keep the All's Antikytheria mechanism in balance as per the Glint's Legacy plan, the title could also refer to a hunt for these replacements, possibly tying in the fate of the saltspray dragons such as Albax, Kuunavang and Shiny and if they are worthy or capable enough to become such replacements. This way the title would both describe the setting and name the antagonist(s) (dragon and mortal alike) and their ambitions while also teasing a more hopeful outcome depending on what roles Aurene and the saltspray dragons play in the narrative as we move to a new age in the Canthan calendar. :) To be fair, Primordus and Destroyers could be developed more than Kralkatorrik and Branded were. It was a shame the devs didn't expand Chief Kronon's role into a recurring antagonist in PoF and/or Season 4 given how his pre-Branded self hated Destiny's Edge, so it would've possibly added more motivation for him to kill Rytlock and company even if those feelings would be mixed with his servitude to Kralkatorrik. As for Primordus, he mostly forges his minions rather than corrupts living beings. However, there have been some cases (such as the Stone Summit) who ended up being corrupted via invoking his power. As the dragons know what their minions know, Primordus would've forcibly been made aware of the dwarves' language, society etc. via this absorption. As such, Primordus should be able to speak now if he didn't speak before beyond images (assuming that he even bothers communicating with anyone) and possibly learn to adapt to mortals' strategies by reading these corrupted mortals' minds. It could lead to some interesting drama via the creation of more intelligent destroyers who may be capable of speech and rationalizing beyond pure killing instinct, and how Primordus himself may be affected by these unwanted changes. I hope that Primordus won't just become a more single-minded version of Kralkatorrik and that we actually get to hear him speak (I wonder which VA they'd give him). While the plots so far have shown him as rather animalistic and destructive, I'd be up for a twist where he's revealed to be far more intelligent and eloquent than meets the eye and that there's a reason why he mostly prefers not to corrupt living beings and why he may seem to want to end all life. :)

That is the question indeed. They could feasibly put the four Great Spirits on a bus and simply state that they'll be recovering from being drained by Bangar and Jormag although it'd be sad if we didn't get to hear Snow Leopard and Bear make a proper appearance and speak. I'd be happy if we saw all the Spirits assemble for the clash against Jormag assuming that the announcement trailer's climactic scene of Jormag's icebrood army invading a location defended by an army led by Rytlock, Braham and Jhavi becomes real in the finale unless that final trailer scene is meant to be a twist and it actually shows Jormag bringing their army to our aid in an upcoming battle against Primordus. Regardless of how the majority of the Spirits are handled in the finale, I'd expect at least Owl to be addressed after Ep4 Owl quest left us on a curious note with Garon: We also got this curious bit when interacting with Owl's shrine back in vanilla: Given what the three Lost Spirits have said, they are seemingly corrupted forever although this might simply be what Jormag makes them believe in their despair. But if the corruption is permanent, Owl reminding people of hope amidst all the darkness and coldness is most curious. Does that mean that Spirits can be reborn? Is there another way to redeem Owl and the other Lost Spirits that Owl is hinting at? Owl was one of the wisest Spirits, perhaps even eclipsing Raven himself, so if anyone knows something we don't, it'd be her. Perhaps this is all part of Owl's greater scheme, a necessary sacrifice to ensure victory over Jormag in time. It ultimately depends on what the writers have in mind for the Spirits and how big a role they'll play in the finale if any. I for one would love to see a darkest hour moment where Jormag and their multiracial and spiritual Frost Legion are about to prevail against Tyrian forces if we come to blows...until all the Spirits join forces and bring in reinforcements from the entire animal kingdom to even the odds in a massive charge. Just imagine Hare bringing in jackalopes to kick icebrood to kingdom come, Wurm bringing in a massive Triple Trouble type of wurm to devour an entire battalion of Frost Legion in one gulp, Griffon enraging the local wildlife (if she has her "son" Windshear's enrage ability) to fight in a berserk state with more damage etc as her griffons swoop down from the sky alongside Raven's murder of ravens etc. The scene could be as glorious as Scrooge McDuck witnessing nature's revenge where the summoned wood animals go destroy his polluting factory in Don Rosa's "War of the Wendigo". And yeah, it does seem that the initial plans for the saga have undergone a notable transformation once the third expansion was brought in with a hasty schedule. It's a bit unfortunate as the saga could've easily encompassed 12 or more episodes with the already existing wealth of charr, norn, Spirit, northern races etc. lore not to mention resolving Garm's story by revealing what had happened to his dire wolf pack etc. We'll have to wait and see what subplots get addressed and what are cast aside for the time being. If the story keeps on exploring the spiritual side of Tyria in the future, perhaps we'll return to the northern Spirits' storyline one day if their narrative fits into the "golden path". :)

The biggest worry I have right now is that the norn, the Spirits and Garm won't have enough screentime with the four remaining chapters of this finale. While I've enjoyed seeing the charr's actions being portrayed as an extended version of the "Fall of Svanir/Nornbear" arc from GW: Eye of the North, the norn do need some spotlight as well beyond what we've seen of Braham's guild and Jhavi. Realistically we should be getting some focus on at least Bear, Snow Leopard (to balance the involvement of the other two Great Spirits in the saga although I'd love to see masteries for Bear, Snow Leopard and Wolf now that Raven already has his own mastery line) as well as Owl (given the way the side quest with the shaman ended and how he intends to guide Braham on the spiritual path). We should also be dealing with the prophecy regarding Knut Whitebear and his family that seems to have an ominous tone to it that could mean either death or Jormag tempting these descendants of Asgeir: "...and the muttering voices will call for his blood." There's also the curious tale of a skaald which was written down during a moot celebrating Knut Whitebear's birth, and I can't help but wonder if that poetic tale (about a norn who was meant to follow in Bear's footsteps but chose to embrace Wolf after finding a dead wolf mother and two weakened pups whom he nurtured back to health) is supposed to be a metaphor for a plot about the Whitebear family yet to come or if it's just some vague worldbuilding given that the Spirits often work in mysterious way via such visions. We've already seen some shakeups among the sylvari (Pale Tree being injured, certain Firstborn being either killed like Trahearne and Faolain, or transformed like Caithe), among the humans (Jennah barely winning the war against the White Mantle and purging disloyal ministers while planting her own loyalists in key government positions after Caudecus's fall) and among the charr (the dethroning of Bangar and the deaths of Smodur and Gaheron Baelfire). So, it'd make sense to see some shakeups among norn "leadership" eventually as we might witness how Knut, his sons Skarti and Sigfast, and potentially Knut's mate Gaerta Whitebear (if she makes an appearance in this saga as the legendary enchantress the tales mention her to be) react to the horrific reveal of Asgeir's deal with Jormag and how that reveal may taint his Whitebear descendants' bloodline and tarnish their legend. If Jormag has plans in mind for the Whitebears after it successfully swayed Asgeir (and seemingly led to Asgeir's death somehow over time if Elder Ulf's mentions are to be believed), perhaps we'll see the Whitebears' legend and prominence lessen and see new norn leadership figures rising up as they view themselves better than the tarnished Whitebears whose ancestor Asgeir had fallen to the dragon's whispers. We could also see a redemption story for the Whitebears as they own Asgeir's guilt and rise above his weakness to forge an even greater legend than Asgeir himself ever did so they can cleanse the bloodline from Jormag's taint according to Bear's desires. We already know from dialogue that Skarti is torn between supporting Knut and Sigfast regarding how to handle the dragon problem, while Sigfast is jealous about the norn Commander getting to fight abroad to grow their legend while he's stuck in Hoelbrak looking after the wounded etc. So, Jormag could easily reach out to Knut's sons and use their fears and desires against them, perhaps in an attempt to create this norn generation's version of the Nornbear (Svanir)--the Nornwolf--to further tarnish Asgeir's bloodline as revenge for how Asgeir had dared to harm the great ice dragon in the past. The Icebrood Saga announcement trailer did show a norn marching besides a charr and kodan champion who were leading the icebrood horde as a trio, so I wonder if that was just a symbolic setup showing the three races affected by Jormag's corruption, or if it foreshadows two other champions rising to become members of Ryland's new "warband" with the trio acting as generals under Jormag. Perhaps Skarti or Sigfast could become that icebrood champion; I'd certainly welcome some juicy brother vs. brother drama regarding the Whitebear sons and how both of them still care for one another but try to win the other over to their respective sides similar to how we saw the interactions between the two norn brothers Grymm and Bronn Svaard after Bronn was turned into a Risen by Zhaitan and tried to win over Grymm to join the dragon's side in the Sea of Sorrows novel. I wonder if, before the finale, we finally see development for the all-female norn cult for Jormag after the idea was teased in Dragon Bash dialogue where a female norn said that the Svanir can't keep women out forever and that one day the Svanir will answer to women. Perhaps these female "Svanir" could be called "Daughters of Dragon" or some such as Jormag personally doesn't care who sides with it and even if the icebrood battle against themselves as long as the strongest survive to carry on Jormag's mission. I'd love to see some prominent female "Svanir" rise up even though seeing yet another recurring villain this late in the saga seems unlikely as unfortunate as it is. If the devs didn't go with the "Nornwolf" idea for a corrupted Sigfast or Skarti, however, they could instead use either Gaerta for this female Svanir champion idea as one of Jormag's generals (as much as I'd grieve to see Gaerta the Bane of Lies succumb to Jormag's warped truths) or some new female norn after Jormag failed to sway Jhavi to its side. It also remains to be seen how in depth we'll get to charr politics given how Crecia, Efram and Mia (if she's truly intended to become the next Iron Imperator, especially if she's revealed as Smodur's daughter) should realistically be facing some competition for the mantle of imperator. Lorewise we know that Iron Tribune Fume Brighteye is bucking to be the next imperator, and I could see her using Smodur's state funeral for her populist propaganda to sway the Iron masses behind her during their time of vengeful mourning while promising to hunt down Smodur's assassin Ryland, especially when we've seen in Drizzlewood how a surprisingly large number of our Iron allies are actually antagonistic towards the Seraph and how Fume vehemently opposes the treaty with humans due to her tragic backstory. Likewise, Efram should be contested by several Flame tribunes (and a potential hierophant if a new one has risen since Hierophant Improaster's demise), one of whom might even be Crecia's evil shaman sire. Crecia herself seems to have already claimed the Blood Imperator position seemingly without issue (unless more is revealed about the specifics in the upcoming chapters) despite her Flame heritage and how some Blood Legion charr might view her opposing Bangar as an act of treason even if they'd acknowledge that she did so for a good reason. As for Malice and Ash, it's curious that the Commander and Malice had a somewhat tense conversation shortly after Smodur's death; to me the tone was eerily similar to the Commander's conversation with Smodur back in "A Race to Arms" story step in the Bound by Blood prologue, so I wonder if this foreshadows Malice's ambitions just like that earlier conversation with Smodur foreshadowed his ambitions. Now that Malice is the only imperator with legitimate claim left (unless the other future imperators are also revealed to be related to the Khan-Ur assuming that old rule from "The Ecology of the Charr" still applies), we might be seeing some sort of subtle power grab in this vacuum that Bangar's dethroning and Smodur's death have left. If the charr ever truly have discussions about Khan-Ur in the near future, Malice could sneakily try to promote someone else to the position while acting as the "grey eminence" who would be the true power behind this puppet ruler's throne in true Ash fashion. It would also be nice to see Evon (who started out as an Ash Legion agent and might still be bound to Malice) interact with Malice if Malice decides to extend her reach and sees the Black Lion Trading Company as one more step to secure her dominion. With luck, we could even see the return of some lovely personal story characters like the fantastic Iron Legion duo Ballista Geargrind and Mangonel Gearstrip, and the ever-sneaky Ash agent Sicaea the Shrouded who wanted to work with us on the field again someday. :) It's going to be interesting to see which factions we end up meeting and building a reputation with. Given the statement of "unlikely" allies, I imagine some of these are villain factions we have to make a truce with, hence the title of the chapter being called "Truce" (apart from some potential meddling from Jormag). Given how the announcement trailer showed centaurs whipping human slaves, and what looked like krait sinking into the depths with norn in the aftermath of a naval battle, I wonder just how evil villain factions we might be dealing with if this is what the writers are going for. If krait were to make an appearance, for example, how would they justify them seeking our help when the only time they've ever truly "collaborated" with other races was when Scarlet offered them obelisk shards that they wanted so badly that some of the oratuss priests worked for her for a while in the Toxic Alliance? I'd love to see some "good" krait allies, but the writers would have to be careful how to present such given how indoctrinated the krait are to the oratuss' religion since hatching. It would be fascinating to see this debate between future Nightmare Court founder Cadeyrn and Firstborn Niamh about sparing krait youths lead to a revelation that the krait aren't born evil but are raised evil, and thus all krait should be given a chance to atone and seek a less villainous path if they choose to embrace it: Likewise, it'll be interesting if we learn about the post-Ulgoth and post-Lake Doric centaur politics and if the Modniir still command the Centaur Alliance or if we're seeing growing unrest among their Harathi and Tamini allies who are none too pleased being forced to fight the Modniir's crusade. Maybe Queen Jennah could try to reach out to the centaurs and reveal Caudecus's letters which prove that Caudecus was behind the deaths of Ulgoth's family and was using the centaurs for his own ends; if Jennah paired this information with a proposal to return certain lands to centaurs so they don't feel pressured to fight for their existence anymore, we might see some centaur leaders reconsidering Jennah's terms. The queen could use charr, sylvari and Lion's Arch representatives as diplomats given how each of the three races had something to sway the centaurs with: the charr could explain how the Ebonhawke Treaty with their former human enemies has benefited their society, some of the spiritual centaurs might still view the sylvari as kind and wise nature spirits and be willing to hear them out during negotiations, and we know from Kessex Hills dialogue that centaurs and LA have had a rather amicable truce so LA might help sway some centaurs to consider Jennah's proposal. Of course we could see Ryland and the Frost Legion hamper these attempts by instead trying to sway the centaurs to join forces with Jormag instead so the dragon can grant the struggling centaurs enough magical power so they'll finally start succeeding in the Centaur War. We might even see people like a more benign Nightmare Court splinter group (possibly led by our old "ally" Duchess Chrysanthea from HoT?) and some Inquest cell seeking our aid. I'd also love to see some White Mantle and Forged remnants depending on how wide the dragon minion attacks are, as unlikely as it seems that those two factions will come into play after they were suggested to be exterminated in Seasons 3 and 4, respectively. I also wouldn't be opposed to working together with evil Flame Legion remnants, even if this evil Flame Legion splinter group was led by Crecia's evil shaman sire; however it happens, we definitely need to see the still evil, non-Dominion Flame Legion who oppose Efram's peace-seeking Flame splinter group. :) I'm not sure if the Branded are fully gone yet. The statements about the "last" Branded that Ryland and his warband fought during the rally was just a ritualistic phrase so the charr could feel catharsis in their war against the dragon minions while celebrating Kralkatorrik's death. Given that more Branded devourers erupted from the ground during the battle, it suggests several Branded might still be lurking about. We even got this dialogue from Vetia Foerazer which seems to suggest something similar: While we were able to fix the problem in Grothmar for now, it seems several Branded would still exist out there and erupt above ground if the stompers ever stopped working again. Also, given the fact how numerous the Branded horde was as we saw throughout Elona and Dragonfall, even Aurene's active interference wouldn't have cleared them all out in just a few months' time. While Aurene, the Crystal Blooms, and other allies certainly would've diminished the Branded numbers greatly in the months following Kralkatorrik's demise, I'd imagine that the Branded continue being a nuisance to the far future just like the diminishing numbers of Risen and Mordrem are as long as there are enough champions for each of these three masterless hordes to continue leading the remnants and spreading the corruption. After all, Aurene's attention would be divided between the physical Tyrian realm and the Mists as she tries to repair the damage in both realms. Speaking of Vetia's conversation above, we still haven't learned the identity of the person who sabotaged the stompers and if the purpose of the sabotage was to deliberately lure the Branded to disrupt the ceremony, which in turn would force Aurene to intervene (assuming that the saboteur was aware of Aurene's mission to purify the Brand) and thus agitate the charr with her flyover. Given how Bangar seemed genuinely shocked by Aurene's interference (as opposed to him trying to act innocent during the confrontation with Almorra in his office), it seems that someone unrelated to Bangar was likely behind the sabotage. The question then becomes if it could've been Ryland if he does have engineer background (although his potential saboteur skills would then make us question if his knowledge about Elder Dragons was in fact greater than he led Bangar to believe in Darkrime Delves), if the suggested asura involvement points towards potential Inquest interference with the stompers to further manipulate Bangar into action, or if there's some as of yet unknown party behind it all. It would be nice to meet the Pale Tree again to discuss her keeping information from the Commander and even her Firstborn Trahearne about Mordremoth, and what a conversation between Aurene and the Pale Tree would be like as Pale Tree herself seemed to be aware (whether via Dream or otherwise, as Ogden had somehow learned about our private chat with the Pale Tree and what we had seen in the visions) of Aurene's importance when she sent the Commander after the egg. I agree that the only feasible way (to me, anyway) to reintroduce Malyck into the golden path of narrative at this stage would be tying him and his Tree to the hunt for Elder Dragon replacements, especially if the Blighting Trees are in fact scions of Mordremoth and if Mordremoth's Plant and Mind domains can potentially be shared between two Trees so one Tree could take the Plant and the other could take the Mind domain (which would no doubt "evolve" just like Kralkatorrik's "Crystal" turned into Aurene's "Light"). Granted, the art book was written by an enthusiastic intern who had begun as a fan of GW2, and the book did contain some lore misunderstandings (e.g. regarding the reason for Kralkatorrik's awakening where it was attributed to Aurene's actions when in fact it should've been her mom Glint), so apparently some of the written lore bits slipped past QA during production (same thing with some of the concept art being repeated on different pages) and some of the canonicity of the writing in the art book could thus be put into question depending on what other sources (besides the narrative team and their lore bible) the author may have pooled information from. We'll have to wait and see what ideas the narrative team have in mind for the Blighting Trees, and if the Dream and Nightmare are explored more in depth. :)

I find this development interesting as the writers mentioned in guild chat that we'd be exploring Crecia's struggles to become imperator in the future. Apparently promotion to imperator wouldn't be as straightforward as becoming tribune (unless one counts Bangar's suggestion to Rytlock to kill him, but we've yet to learn if Rytlock is in fact Bangar's son and thus his direct descendant if that's what they've been hinting at since Bound by Blood). Sadly we haven't seen any other Blood tribunes beyond Crecia, Rytlock, and Fierhan Sparwind. We don't know if Fierhan either stayed in the Black Citadel or traveled to the Blood Legion Homelands, and if he, as a Blood loyalist, would side with Bangar's Dominion or actually sided with Crecia's rebellion. If he chose Crecia over Bangar, however, I'd like to hear his thoughts on the matter and why he, as old school charr, decided to go against the wishes of his imperator. It's possible that the other Blood tribunes (there should at least be three more as per lore, but there could even be more of them out there) sided with Bangar and died during the civil war, leaving a power vacuum depending on if a primus centurion is automatically promoted to tribune or if there's competition among centurions who gets to take over for any of the tribunes who have fallen. In any case, Crecia would likely have at least Rytlock's support to become imperator, and if Fierhan, for whatever reason, decided to also support Crecia, that'd mean three tribunes siding with her. We've yet to see other members of the Stone Warband who are said to also have high positions in Blood Legion, so I wonder how much they contributed to Crecia's ascendancy and if we'll finally meet them in game. Perhaps the upcoming "Truce" chapter will also touch a bit on Crecia's, Mia Kindleshot's (or Fume Brighteye's) and Efram's struggles for becoming imperators as each candidate should realistically be contested by their fellow tribunes (several for Crecia unless she somehow wins them over without a struggle; at least Fume Brighteye who wouldn't let Mia take the Iron throne without a fight as per lore; and potential surviving Flame tribunes and hierophant, such as Crecia's evil shaman sire if he still lives, for Efram) regardless of if the old semicanonical rule of imperators being descendants of the Khan-Ur still applies. We know from those old blog posts that descendants from lesser Khan-Ur lineages have occasionally risen but few have ever been taken seriously enough. Maybe we'll be in for a surprise if Crecia's dam or sire actually has more lore relevance than we've been led to believe. I for one would love to see Crecia and Efram unite forces and learn from one another to face a common enemy, Crecia's sire, together. I also hope we get a proper state burial for Almorra and Smodur in the Black Citadel. It could be a symbolic pyre as it's been months since the end of the Drizzlewood war (as revealed in the recent Eye of the North dialogues), and we could see a charismatic populist Fume Brighteye use the opportunity provided by the funeral/vigil to rally Iron masses behind her with an inspirational speech to honor Smodur and bolstering her claim for the Iron throne while the pro-treaty Mia would have to figure out how to politically combat her skilled opponent. Maybe the devs could even decide to flesh out both female charr and then let the playerbase vote on whether Mia or Fume takes the throne, and how that choice will have impact in the future in regard to which path Iron embraces? We also know from Drizzlewood dialogues that a surprising number of allied charr, even Iron, actually don't care that much about the treaty with humanity as they actively threaten or mock the Seraph aiding them, telling them that the two races are only allies for the time being. This is why Smodur even mentioned in his correspondence how the real war only begins after Bangar has been dealt with, how traitors need to be rooted out and executed, and any extremist belief in Ascalon needs to be dealt with before it continues poisoning charr. The battle for the soul of the charr won't end with the defeat of the Dominion as the charr are now more divided than ever before in their beliefs. As Fume is also vehemently anti-treaty because of what the humans did to her sire and how she's among the three most popular Iron tribunes along with Mia and Bhuer Goreblade as per lore, she should realistically be rallying these anti-treaty Iron charr behind her while doing her best to separate her politics from Bangar's Dominion. Launch lore set up such an interesting political dilemma with Mia and Fume's opposing stances and how Fume could be a sympathetic antagonist with the way her backstory has been presented, so if she does make an appearance, hopefully she doesn't become a vile villain but remains a relatable antagonist with good qualities despite her anti-human stance. Another curious thing in Drizzlewood ambient dialogue is that a bunch of Blood and even non-Blood charr actually fear Crecia's wrath so a few of them don't dare oppose her should her ambitions become apparent. I wonder if this little plot will be developed further and we see a more ruthless side of Crecia as she tries to assert control to dominate her opposition. How far is she willing to go to secure victory after already losing so much in the civil war? It's going to be interesting to see how much time the devs will give to any of these potential political charr subplots as so much is already going on in the narrative (I'm still waiting for involvement of Knut Whitebear's family who have an ominous prophecy tied to them as per Finn's discoveries, and potential on-screen vocal appearances of Bear and Snow Leopard to round up the four Great Spirits' involvement), but I hope we get at least some crumbs here and there as they could have quite a few cool storytelling moments by exploring these ideas from launch lore and the stuff set up in the saga's prologue. Perhaps we'll even have a chance of meeting Smodur and Cinder again (if they return as Mist Wardens) and their respective disagreements with Bangar and Ryland. :)

While I could see a Khan-Ur rising for multiple reasons, even supported by Smodur's correspondence suggesting such given the current political climate, it would be a truly difficult undertaking while most legions are shaken by defections from their ranks and being torn about their alliances with other races and the superior position Bangar's propaganda had offered to the charr who had seen themselves as weakened in their current "peaceful" coexistence with other races. If a Khan-Ur is to ever truly rise and if the candidate(s) stick to the old rules rather than abolishing them, that individual needs to be able to prove being a direct descendant of the Khan-Ur, be a charismatic enough individual to win all four legions behind them, perform a great military feat to prove their worth as a cunning leader, and also be ferocious enough to defend their throne from would-be usurpers (that last bit in particular has led to the downfall of many would-be Khan-Urs as all post-Khan-Ur ascendants were ultimately overthrown within a few years of their rule). Smodur has this to say about the future of the charr, and he is right as we have seen human-hating views being spread among United Legions charr if we listen to the ambient dialogue in Drizzlewood Coast. While Smodur erroneously thought he didn't need Malice's permission to become Khan-Ur, Scott McGough said in the TowerTalk charr interview that the Khan-Ur ascendant will need to be supported by all the legions and their leadership. If even one legion (or imperator) disapproves, a Khan-Ur won't rise. While Crecia is gaining praise from each legion for her leadership qualities, charisma, strategic mind and ferociousness based on the ambient dialogue in Drizzlewood Coast, she shouldn't become Khan-Ur for a few reasons. She's of Flame Legion heritage despite viewing herself as Blood, and the traitor Ryland (who killed Smodur, contributed to the death of Almorra, betrayed Bangar, and aligned with Jormag) is her cub. Iron Legion, who want revenge for Smodur's death, would never fully approve of Crecia's leadership because of these issues even if she could somehow prove (assuming that the old rule still holds) that she's a direct descendant of the Khan-Ur via her sire (who is, or was, a high-ranking shaman in the Flame Legion) or dam. That is, of course, unless Mia Kindleshot or whoever ascends to the Iron throne is willing to set aside these issues and view Crecia as competent enough to ignore the rest of the baggage that comes with her. But there would be several disagreements being raised among some Iron tribunes (I could think of Fume Brighteye, although she would no doubt challenge Mia for the Iron throne as lore states that Fume desires to become the Iron Imperator) and soldiers who would view Crecia with suspicion especially because she didn't stop Ryland when she had the chance in Ep3 and thus indirectly contributed to Smodur's assassination by allowing his assassin to live to plot his revenge. Aside from the charr Pact Commander, Rytlock has performed the most notable military feats out of any would-be Khan-Ur with the way he contributed to the demises of three Elder Dragons, a lich king, a Flame Imperator, and even a disgraced human god. If he's revealed to be Bangar's son in the end (as there has been some potential teasing in that direction given Bangar's abnormal interest in Rytlock's development since cubhood) and thus a direct descendant of the Khan-Ur, he basically can check two conditions to becoming Khan-Ur from the list. However, Rytlock is seen as less of a charr now because he's spent so much time with the other races and has adopted their mannerisms, which both Bangar and Smodur point out. Add to that the still unknown conditions of his tribunal and why his rank was reinstated afterwards, plus Ryland being his son, that he may have trouble earning the respect of all the legions, especially after he acted in such an aggressive way towards Smodur in Episodes 3 and 4. As such, something major would need to happen for all the legions to view Rytlock as the best candidate despite his accomplishments on the field, and I don't see it happening anytime soon unless we're in for some major revelations later on. Efram is viewed as being too soft and is even gently mocked for his attempts to be ferocious (even by allies like Malice) even though we know he does have a dangerous trigger point if you dare threaten the safety of his people and particularly his daughter. While the legions could grow to sympathize with Efram over time, handing the reins of Khan-Ur to an atoning Flame splinter group would be too soon after Gaheron and his predecessors' reign of terror. Besides, Efram's Flame Imperator position is far from secure as there should still be at least four tribunes and potentially a new hierophant representing evil Flame splinter groups that contest his claim for the throne. Perhaps one of these splinter groups could be led by Crecia's evil shaman sire, so the conflict for Flame throne would be personal for both Efram and Crecia while Efram would help Crecia come to terms with her troubled Flame past. From Iron side, we've yet to see whether Mia Kindleshot automatically ascends to the Iron throne (especially if she's revealed to be Smodur's daughter; if she isn't, we'd have to ask if Smodur has any surviving cubs out there who might want the throne by blood right) or is contested by Bhuer Goreblade, Kyranith Steelgrip, or Fume Brighteye. Regardless of who ascends to the Iron throne, they wouldn't necessarily have what it takes to become Khan-Ur so soon to their reign as the new Iron Imperator even though Fume would certainly have the ambition and some cult of following on Iron side to back herself up even though her anti-human stance might sour her towards Crecia and Malice and thus prevent her from getting those legions' support. Out of all the imperators, Malice actually has the best chance of becoming Khan-Ur as of this writing. She should be a direct descendant of the Khan-Ur, contributed to the capture of a rogue Blood Imperator, and ended the Renegade threat for now. She's already earned respect from Crecia, Efram and potentially Rytlock (she and Rytlock did dine together in Ghosts of Ascalon so apparently they had good diplomatic relations as they exchanged intel). If she's able to contribute to Jormag's downfall too, she has a chance to grab the mantle. The problem is that several grunts and officers among the legions view Malice as too secretive with all her double agents and moles everyone plus the surveillance devices. While Scott McGough's TowerTalk suggested that each legion wants the mantle of Khan-Ur and thus Malice should desire it too despite being the youngest imperator, she may not be the type to paint a target on her back by becoming a public Khan-Ur. I could see her preferring to promote someone else to the position as a puppet Khan-Ur whom she could control as a grey eminence (a la Cardinal Richelieu in France) who is the true power behind the throne. As Malice has already gained the favor of several legion leaders (and I imagine she'd win over Mia Kindleshot too as Mia is also pro-Ebonhawke Treaty, assuming that Mia ascends in Iron), it should be easy enough for her to manipulate any of the imperators who are newbies to the role compared to her. I do wonder if Malice's very name (well, Malice) is foreshadowing, though, unless it's supposed to be a subversion and how someone with such a nasty name is actually the most virtuous charr out there. For some reason she's let Smodur believe that he alone made the Ebonhawke Treaty happen when we know from Dougal and Ember's dialogue in Ghosts of Ascalon that actually Malice was the true driving force behind the treaty who used Almorra as the middlewoman to reach out to Jennah to set the stage for the retrieval of the Claw of the Khan-Ur while also keeping a low profile so even Ember wasn't sure if Malice was truly on the pro-treaty side. I wonder why Malice downplays her role in making the treaty happen unless she wants to cover both bases to keep support from both the anti-treaty and pro-treaty parties among all the legions. We also have troubling sayings about her too, such as the infamous "When Swordshadow comes for you, may she leave you alive." In post-Smodur death scene in Ep4, the Commander even outright questions Malice about her seemingly uncaring attitude about Smodur's death, which is oddly reminiscent to the Commander being worried about Smodur's ambitions in post-Bangar departure conversation in the prologue. It makes me wonder if all of this is setting up Malice for some grey morality stuff later down the line. She clearly wasn't willing to divulge that she had double agents in the Dominion until confronted about it in Ep3, and she's following the Commander's progress with a close eye (as we learn in the prologue where her dialogue changes depending on which imperator we've visited first before coming to her). While I adore Malice and her being among the most moral charr, I wouldn't mind to find some skeletons in her closet and see that more ruthless side where she ends up manipulating the Commander for the "good cause" and hopefully not devolve into moustache-twirling villainy. We've already seen three imperators' fall from grace, so it'd be odd if Malice, despite being the youngest imperator (and likely close to Rytlock and Crecia's age) not repeat their mistakes but in the Ash way to show us that perhaps the whole imperator system is rotten and the charr need to really drop reliance on blood relation to Khan-Ur and the whole quest for becoming Khan-Ur entirely. Smodur may be right about poison running deep throughout the legions, and it also supports Scott McGough's statements where the greatest threat to the charr are themselves and their constant struggle for power. No legion would willingly hand over Khan-Ur leadership to another legion (the original Khan-Ur may have only managed it because he only had to unite smaller warbands at the time rather than win over support from four powerful legions which didn't really exist until his sons became his generals and formed the High Legions). That is the tragedy of the charr: as long as the temptation of Khan-Ur exists, the charr will eventually tear themselves apart. As long as the Claw of the Khan-Ur exists as a symbol for a would-be ascendant, someone will always want that position no matter what, no matter how many generations pass. The only way to end the cycle of revenge, in my opinion, is to destroy the legacy of the Khan-Ur via destroying the Claw, and possibly even abolish the rank of imperator and reliance on Khan-Ur bloodline altogether so all charr officers will be equal. What might work is the charr legions ironically moving backwards from Roman times. The charr started as tribes who united under the first empire and then fell into autonomous states ruled by equal imperators as seen reminiscent of the division into Eastern and Western Rome, or the rule of the Tetrarchy (the Four Emperors), or even the Mongol squabbling between the Khan's sons as Julia Nardin referenced in the past. The charr need to complete the process of evolution and move towards the time that preceded the Roman Empire: the Roman Republic. Instead of being ruled by a single Khan-Ur (who could be overthrown anyways) or four squabbling warlord-imperators, perhaps the charr should be ruled by tribunes who could be elected to the position every four years or so. If each legion had approximately six tribunes, we could see the charr Republic's senate consisting of at least 24 equal tribunes with maybe a chairman elected for one year after which the chair has to step down and hand in the reins to the other voted chair. I'd love to see the imperialistic charr become a democracy where each social class had the chance to be heard via their elected tribune representative in the senate, so even scrappers, gladia and potentially even the non-charr plebeians had a voice in this new republic. Dividing the absolute power among 24 or more senators representing each legion equally (as we know there are differences in opinion even within one legion, see e.g. Fume vs. Mia on the issue of the Ebonhawke Treaty, or Makk the Silent vs. Torga Desergrave on how to handle missions) would also prevent temptation for any one senator to take over, and each viewpoint would have to be considered on equal footing rather than an imperator dictating their rule with absolute authority. We've already seen that the current United Legions don't really trust one another as revealed by various dialogues throughout Drizzlewood Coast: There's no feasible way to instantly make all these charr get along afterwards when suspicions, hatred and fears still run deep throughout the legions. As such, if a Khan-Ur did somehow rise in the future, it'd be on a shaky foundation as we've seen lots of charr not being okay with the United Legions stuff beyond this necessary step to temporarily unite to take down Bangar. Realistically we should also start to see charr being pressured by external threats in the post-Smodur death political climate, which will only make this contest for Khan-Ur position (or the charr eventually embracing an actual republic as suggested above) more difficult in the long run. As revealed by Malice in the prologue, the Separatists are rising in power again (which means they must have found more funding and a new charismatic leader since their White Mantle backers' fall). The Seps should have a wonderful time pointing out to Bangar's Dominion, the human population massacre at Drizzlewood Coast, and all those charr eagerly defecting from the legions to side with Jormag as "proof" that there should be no peace with beasts and the charr will betray humanity if given the chance. News of the Drizzlewood events should've reached Ebonhawke and Divinity's Reach by now, so we should start seeing severe anti-charr views rising in prominence. How will the tengu of the Dominion of Winds react to the massacre of the Quetzal in Drizzlewood Coast? The norn, at least, should pardon most charr for the crimes as they only judge individuals rather than entire groups (let alone legions), but I imagine they'd still be a bit wary about Jormag's growing influence among the charr especially as more and more male norn have already been falling for Jormag's temptations. How will the surviving United Legions charr leadership view norn who can no longer be fully trusted and whose defections to the cause partly contributed to the celebrated charr hero Almorra's death? Will the Vigil, and Ember Doomforge who wanted to kill Bangar, allow Bangar to be kept alive as a prisoner despite the crimes he committed against Almorra and the Vigil? Or will they demand him to be released to face justice in court despite the Commander and Aurene wanting to keep him alive to communicate with Jormag? We could have such juicy political drama with this and the Commander, especially if they were a Vigil member, having to make tough choices especially if their friends Laranthir and Jhavi demand Bangar's head. This might be exactly what Jormag is after: turning allies against one another as Jormag would know by now how hated Bangar is among the Vigil who cry for justice. We should also start to see Adelbern and his Ascalonian ghost army (empowered by Kralkatorrik and presumably Balthazar's magic leaking into the environment as it already affected Jormag and Drakkar) becoming more of a threat to the charr again with their new powers. If Adelbern is any strategist (and he should be based on his reputation), he and Duke Barradin should be leading a massive invasion of Ascalon with these empowered troops while taking advantage of the legions' current weakened state. All of this would force the charr to make tough choices: will they elect a temporary Khan-Ur (or abolish the old system and embrace a republic) to keep their fracturing legions together to face Adelbern and the Separatists' threats while preparing for the next moves of Ryland and the Frost Legion? Will they continue to squabble and risk annihilation? What about the growing anti-human stance among the charr as revealed by allied dialogue in Drizzlewood Coast where charr were already threatening their human allies? Will the peace hold while anti-charr sentiment grows in Ebonhawke and Divinity's Reach due to Bangar's crimes against Drizzlewood Coast humans and Vigil? I have to say I worry for the charr's future as they're more divided now than ever before as the legions are splitting apart even on the allied legions' side as many secretly harbor the old hatreds. To paraphrase Ellen Kiel's statement about Balthazar from PoF prologue: "It's a powder keg over there, and that maniac [in this case, Bangar] has already lit the fuse." Thanks to Bangar, the charr have come to realize the status quo has to change as they risk getting "declawed". Given the impressive number of Iron Legion defections and the above dialogue about them not respecting Seraph (despite being THE legion who had the most positive experiences working with humans in Ascalon and beyond), it seems a growing number of charr disliked the treaty but didn't defect to the Renegades out of respect for Iron leadership at the time. Things changed with Bangar's speech, and maybe with a bit of Jormag's growing influence (as there's lots of dialogue referencing charr seeing things, hearing voices, or having nightmares, and Luccia's journal confirming that she defected from our warband partly because of the whispers), however, and now there's growing unrest among the legions. Can a future Khan-Ur, the current imperator setup, or the potential charr republic truly go with Smodur's approach and execute the hatemongerers among the legions even though it'd mean executing a significant number of charr? If that hatred is left to fester, however, it will just lead to another catastrophe down the line, especially when external, powerful manipulators like Jormag (and potentially Balthazar's half-brother Menzies the Mad should he ever make an appearance) can use these growing hatreds for their own ends? How can there ever be hope for peace now that each legion has been betrayed in a worse way than they ever have been (due to defectors from each side), and how brother and sister literally fought against one another and grew to hate the other for being traitors to the charr cause? What will happen with all the imprisoned Dominion whose loyalties and potential atonement should be in question? What if the Commander and Aurene deny Bangar from both the charr and the Vigil despite the cries for his trial to answer for his crimes? These and many more questions the charr leaders will have to ask themselves while trying to prevent things from getting even worse while the threats of Jormag, Adelbern, and Separatists loom over them. While I worry for the charr, I also love the fact that the writers have such a goldmine with this present setting if they choose to embrace the complex political landscape we now see ahead of us...either in this saga or in a potential future storyline (or storylines). :)

What I'd like to see is to complete the Unholy Trinity that currently just has Mad King Thorn and Bloody Prince Thorn. We need a Mad Queen to complete the picture! Even though our fair community organizer Mad Queen Malafide wouldn't necessarily be happy about suddenly seeing competition for her beloved Thorn's heart at this point, it'd be lovely to see the fifth of Thorn's infamous wives, the Istani Princess Zola, make a return as a vengeful ghost who has as many grievances with Thorn as the Bloody Prince does. During GW1 Zola was involved in a quest aptly named "Till Death Do Us Part..." that ended on an ominous note when the GW1 Hero tried to convince her to return to Thorn so Thorn could have a proper queen by his side upon his prophesied return to the mortal realm: Unlike the more comedic banter between Thorn and his son, his fifth wife could actually prove to be a serious challenge. While the Mad King would no doubt try to rekindle the fires of passion in Zola's heart after all this time with a few jests, Zola would have none of it and make Thorn suffer in ways that would even make the Bloody Prince blush. And let's not forget if someone ever slipped in information about Joko's latest fate and how Thorn would react to the news about the Pact Commander's involvement in such shenanigans... I'd love to explore the rest of the Isle of Istan as we've only visited the northeastern corner of it in GW2 (including a brief visit to Fahranur in the west) while most of the island is still unexplored. Perhaps Zola's plot could foreshadow our eventual return to Istan if we ever visit new zones in Elona as there are so many juicy locations left to explore in that region of the world. :) Another fun thing I'd like to see is Thorn seeking a new punny rival while he's deprived of teasing his favorite rival Joko (I would've loved to see those two challenge one another on screen, though! Just imagine all the puns and necromancy!). In the quest "The Killing Joke" we learned how Thorn had a dangerously witty pun competitor in the form of an eldritch being called Qwytzylkak. Although that pun master was slain for daring to challenge Thorn's pun championship, it'd be nice to see another punny rival (eldritch or otherwise) rise to give our Mad King some serious concern about whether he'll still be the reigning punmeister or has to relinquish the title. If there's something Thorn is dead serious about, it's the quality of jokes and using jokes to make a point (which the Bloody Prince has yet to fathom). Another interesting thing would be if Thorn had actually sired more children whose existence he was unaware of. We've only heard of Bloody Prince Edrick Thorn, but what if Thorn came face to face with his wayward daughter one day and learn about the family connection? What if Thorn's daughter understood him better than anyone else, and we'd actually see some truly heartwarming scene involving the Mad King (as much as such a moment doesn't involve setting unfortunate mortals on fire!) once he realizes he has a legacy beyond himself to protect. :)

To be fair, I wouldn't necessarily call these narrative points as lore discrepancies as we have evidence to the contrary from a historical basis. 1) Krytan "whitewashing" While it is a bit unfortunate that the more Mediterranean-like Krytans were mostly replaced by the Caucasian-like Ascalonians, lorewise this kind of change makes sense if we consider the 250 years between games and the Ascalonians' mindset during a time of crisis for their people. The Ascalonians had been displaced from their homes because of the aggressive charr invasion, and those who stuck with Rurik followed him on his dangerous trek west to seek sanctuary in Kryta. The besieged Ebonhawke, and the Foefire which had culled most of the Ascalonians who had decided to stay in their homeland, certainly didn't help matters a few decades later as far as Ascalonian population went. It thus makes sense that the Ascalonians, while considering themselves to be on the brink of extinction, would breed like rabbits in Kryta. While some of them would settle into what became known as the Ascalonian Settlement in Gendarran Fields, many more integrated into Krytan society once Divinity's Reach had been built in the aftermath of Zhaitan's rise flooding the coastline. So, under this historical lens it is understandable why so many present-day denizens of the Kingdom of Kryta appear to be descended from Ascalon based on skin color while a few other ethnicities would be native Krytan as well as of Canthan, Elonian and Orrian descent. At least Queen Jennah is decidedly Krytan in ethnicity as we can see in her skin color. :) 2) Charr Zephyrites before the Ebonhawke Treaty As for charr working alongside the Zephyrites, the charr were a more recent addition to their roster. The Zephyrites began as a group of Canthan and Elonian humans who dedicated themselves to Glint. As it happens, Glint also promoted views of a harmonious future and collaboration between the races (her line in "Crystalline Memories" even outright states: "Tyria's last hope rests on the unity of the races. The pooling of their strength. It is the only way."), so it'd make sense that the Canthan and Elonian-descended Zephyrites (who didn't have the same war baggage that Ascalonians, Krytans and Orrians had against the charr) would be welcoming of charr initiates into their ranks. In the Sea of Sorrows novel, taking place around Zhaitan's awakening in the 13th century AE (i.e. circa 100 years before the signing of the Ebonhawke Treaty), we already saw Iron Imperator Singe Seigemourn attempting a peace treaty with Kryta by delivering valuable human artifacts to Kryta until that attempt was foiled by Cobiah Marriner's pirate crew raiding the vessel before she reached her destination. During this time we also saw charr like Sykox Steamshroud being the charr confidante of Cobiah and an acting member of the first Captain's Council of Lion's Arch. So even beyond the Gwen and Pyre alliance from GW1 times, it wasn't uncommon for charr and humans to form friendships or even consider peaceful coexistence even if it'd take more than a century from Sea of Sorrows before the stage was truly set for a widespread armistice. As such, it isn't out of the question to see charr here and there among the Zephyrites, especially as they aren't that numerous among the Zephyrites when compared to the overwhelming human majority in the order. 3) Moving on from core NPCs for Living World Season 1 etc. This is a bit of a trickier topic; I'm still hunting for the exact dev sources from long defunct websites and from some of the pulled down videos, but basically the thought process for moving on from many core NPCs like Destiny's Edge went something like this during Season 1: Season 1 was an ambitious project intended to take place in real time (hence the controversial change of adding five days to the Mouvelian calendar to correspond with our Earth's calendar to sync the two times with IRL game patches) with permanent changes and evolution for Tyria as a whole with little replay possibility. This living world approach also meant that the timeline would have to adapt to whatever point in the narrative each player had access to at the time. So, for all intents and purposes, Season 1 was stuck in the year 1325 AE of the Zhaitan campaign. Depending on your progress, the characters would refer to you as being orderless, having joined an order, having formed the Pact, or having slain Zhaitan. All these variables made it a nightmare to work in a coherent story while keeping all these timeline points in mind. That's why they often tried to write things as ambiguously as possible as each variable line would also need to be localized to supported langages and go through QA, which added to the overall cost of the episodes. Such an approach forced the devs to figure out how to tell the story. As some players wouldn't have finished the Zhaitan campaign let alone formed the Pact or joined the orders, it essentially meant "reseting" the storyline so Season 1 would take place simultaneously with personal story. That's why Rytlock and Logan are still hostile towards one another in S1 despite them forgiving one another by the end of the personal storyline, and why the Pact wasn't referenced at all until towards the end of S1 when the devs realized such a narrative approach wasn't feasible in the long run. Because narratively Destiny's Edge couldn't have come together due to both S1 and PS taking place simultaneously (and because DE only truly reunited at the end of the PS) and how DE were still stuck at their respective racial capitals at the start of PS, it meant keeping them out of the main narrative except for brief appearances like Caithe trying to catch Scarlet in Twilight Arbor or Rytlock checking out Scarlet's probes at Bloodtide Coast. Another, just as major reason for sidelining DE and much of the core Tyria cast was simply because of voiceactor (VA) availability. Because S1 was updated biweekly and kept devs in a constant crunch (which burned out quite a few of them over the following months with the amount of content they had to pump out), that kind of hectic schedule didn't necessarily allow for detailed long-term narrative planning beyond major story beats like what Scarlet's overarching goal was etc. Several A-list VAs who ANet had used for core Tyria simply didn't have the time to record lines every two weeks as they had other VA commitments too. This was particularly noticeable with Felicia Day, Zojja's VA, whose popularity was surging at the time and kept her busy for a long time and thus out of S1 entirely. The access to male VAs in particular ended up being so bad at the time that new characters like Marjory Delaqua and Ellen Kiel, who were originally intended to be male (we know from Peter Fries that Ellen's original name was Elam Kiel), had to be rewritten as female just to get female VAs for them. As such, using Destiny's Edge (or the Iconics as the devs called them) in prominent positions in S1 narrative was simply not feasible. As such, while keeping both the narrative chronology (PS and S1 taking place in the same year initially as per the devs' "Living Story" idea while players would be in different chronological spots in the PS) and VA accessibility in mind, the devs had to come up with new recurring heroes who the players could bond with in the meantime. These new heroes became internally referred to as the B-Iconics, or Biconics for short. I suppose that in order to ease the transition from DE to what eventually became Dragon's Watch, some of the Biconics ended up being related to the Iconics in some manner (Taimi = Zojja's ward; Braham = Eir's son; Rox = Rytlock's half-sister in original cut S1 ending although we don't know if that idea is still canon among the writers; and both Kas and Jory had some past history with Logan). This also applied to pretty much every other core Tyria NPC too depending on how their character arcs had progressed in the PS, so we couldn't have any notable development simply because players were, at the time, still in different stages of completing the PS and adding any post-PS character development for racial and order leaders and the like would've been a big spoiler. Because PS was focusing on Zhaitan, that also meant that, at least in initial stages, the devs distanced themselves from the dragon threat and focused on more local threats that would "seamlessly" integrate with the core Zhaitan experience in S1. Thankfully the devs reconsidered the "Living Story" approach for the latter half of S1 and began slowly integrating S1 as a whole into the main storyline as a sequel to PS by the time they decided to start using multiple seasons to tell the story rather than just being on a constant "Living Story" phase. Part of me wonders, though, what might've been if the devs had decided to stick with their original S1 vision rather than changing it for Season 2 and the expansion approach. Would that have meant that we would've chronologically handled all the subsequent expansion and living world villains (Mordremoth, Kralkatorrik, Jormag etc.) in the same year as Zhaitan because of the concept of the ever-changing world? How many non-core maps would we have gotten for Tyria rather than mostly focusing on heavily altering already existing core Tyria maps, and would most of the new zones simply have been temporary locations never to be accessed once a few weeks' playtime had passed? How long would they have kept the spoiler-free approach of initial S1 narrative (because many people still hadn't finished the personal story) before realizing they just had to bite it and start adding spoilery character development for prominent characters to advance the story, or would they have tried to use dialogue variables (despite the costs) as long as possible as a sort of proto-phasing? It's fun to think about the possibilities even though realistically handling all of this while developing the game would've been a nightmare as the years went by despite the ambitious ideas.

They could actually add siren-related stuff into a future Icebrood Saga episode if we had a mesmeric icebrood dragon champion like the Dragonspawn singing a hypnotic lullaby or some such to take over the minds of attacking Pact soldiers. We already had references to Jormag's hypnotic whispers in the Jora's Keep ambient dialogue, which even referenced a lullaby: With that said, sirens have existed on Tyria lorewise except the sirens were actually Orrian bard-sorcerers who the S3Ep6 musical mastery, the Siren of Orr, is named after as they sang dirges in honor of the Six Gods. In fact, what is currently known as the Sea of Sorrows (between Orr and Lion's Arch) was once called the Bay of Sirens, likely named after these lovely musical wizards. There is also the mesmer underwater trident attack called Siren's Call, but that seems to be unrelated to the Sirens of Orr. If the developers wanted to go with the more Greek-inspired sirens, however, they could draw inspiration from the old Greek texts where sirens were believed to look like a combination of women and birds in various different forms. In early Greek art, they were represented as birds with large women's heads, bird feathers and scaly feet (a more modern depiction of this look shown here in the famous 1891 painting). Guess who kind of fit the description of the classic sirens on Tyria? That's right: the lovely harpies (who are admittedly based on harpies, humanoid avians from Greek mythology unrelated to sirens). The devs could combine Greek harpy and siren lore and have some Tyrian harpy clans actually sing to entangle and enthrall their prey. If we ever get any naval content for sea travel in End of Dragons or beyond, I'd love to experience an event of us sailing past some islands or reefs (like the beautiful island depicted in Siren's Reef fractal) only to see the crew of our ship be hypnotized by strange singing coming from one of the islands, prompting us to investigate its rocky and tropical terrain. We could then discover the source of this siren song being a particularly powerful harpy matriarch (perhaps they could even name her Circe to honor the tempting sorceress from the Odyssey?), and we'd end up fighting against her to liberate the crew before they're doomed to be transformed into pigs (like Circe did to Odysseus's crew) or worse. For added fun for Greek mythology fans, this "Circe" could even employ some enthralled one-eyed Tyrian giants as her bodyguards, thus drawing in parallels from Odysseus's encounter with the terrifying cyclops and the clever way Odysseus tricked these cyclops to flee from the cursed island. :)

As far as gameplay goes, the best way of doing this would be creating a scalable vision of the past/strike similar to Forging Steel which can currently be completed solo or with various numbers of players (while the enemies' toughness and numbers scale with the number of players present in the instance), with the addition of optional challenge motes. The vision could depict Asgeir and his hunting party's battle against Frostfang back when Volsung's Stead still stood at the area now known as Asgeir's Legacy. Granted, lorewise it's been stated that Asgeir seemingly slew Frostfang with but a single blow after he had been empowered by the Spirits of the Wild while wielding a weapon enchanted with one of the jotun scrolls. However, devs could work around this by revealing that the tales of Asgeir's victory were falsified and that he required multiple empowered blows to fell Jormag's seemingly greatest champion at the time. Alternatively, the gameplay could revolve around Asgeir as an NPC preparing a complex ritual to be empowered by the Spirits or him finding the jotun scroll somewhere in the area so his previously futile attacks could finally crack the beast's armor (depending on when exactly Asgeir got hold of the jotun scroll that he used to enchant his weapon with) while the rest of the hunting party (players) acted as a distraction to Frostfang and its minions in the battle. That way you'd get the best of both worlds: Give Asgeir his time to shine while revealing more about those fateful moments with Frostfang and Jormag that eventually led to the demise (or corruption?) of the rest of the hunting party. Meanwhile players have the excuse of battling Frostfang in a desperate boss battle as Asgeir prepared for the final blow. We still don't know key details about the whole battle against Frostfang and Jormag. Asgeir returned alone as a changed man with the fang and never revealed what had befallen the rest of the hunting party (did they die to Jormag or Frostfang, were they corrupted by the dragon, or did Asgeir kill them himself if they resisted Jormag's temptations and wanted to continue the fight against his wishes?). Elder Ulf claims that Asgeir was killed by the dragon even though Asgeir had led the norn safely to Hoelbrak and lived there for some years like when he ordered his friend Hrothbeir to smash an iceberg to create Lake Mourn. So, did Asgeir die of a broken heart for failing his people, was he infected with sickness after his encounter with Jormag, did he receive serious enough internal injuries that he'd succumb months later, or did he return north to finish the fight with Jormag and fell to the dragon there? We still don't know the exact timeframe of Owl's demise in relation to Asgeir's conversation with Jormag. Most norn sources claim that Asgeir received the vision from the "Spirits" after witnessing Owl sacrificing herself to protect the norn from Jormag's wrath. This would suggest that Jormag broke its promise to Asgeir to spare the norn unless the idea is that some norn continued fighting Jormag after Asgeir's return and thus "forced" Jormag to retaliate, which in turn made Asgeir--who was nearly driven to despair after witnessing Owl's "demise"--decide to heed Jormag's advice and claim that the Spirits wanted all the norn to flee south to the lowlands. Given the way the battle is depicted in these somewhat misled norn narratives, however, it's also possible that the timeline goes so that Jormag assaults the norn, Owl sacrifices herself to spare the norn and manages to distract/wound Jormag enough by flying into the dragon's maw that Jormag crashes on the ground. This would then allow Asgeir and his hunting party to make the risky move of leaving the main battle and go behind enemy lines to defeat the temporarily incapacitated Jormag. They would then find Frostfang protecting its recovering dragon master, leading to the clash between the champion and the hunting party and Asgeir successfully severing the downed dragon's fang before the persuasive talks take place. So, there are various ways the Narrative Team could address these ideas and figure out what the canonical order of events was. I'd love Frostfang to either be a giant icebrood mammoth or a giant icebrood sabertooth tiger based on the huge ribcage of Frostfang's remains which we can find in Asgeir's Legacy. Oddly there's a mini called Mini Frost Fang which depicts a regular drake, but I assume this mini has no relation to the champion Frostfang. Besides, seeing Ice Age era megafauna as an icebrood boss would be thrilling. If I had to decide between mammoth and sabertooth tiger, I'd prefer the latter because the devs could then add all those fun pounce attacks and maybe have Frostfang use the NPC jump tech to periodically jump on the cliffs above to stalk us from there and circle our hunting party while sending its minions after us before jumping down to continue the fight. As for more lore revelations, the post-battle confrontation between Asgeir and Jormag could subtly reveal a bit more about the threat Jormag mentioned if it used similar persuasive arguments to lure Asgeir to its side. While Asgeir did document his feelings somewhat thoroughly in his journal, for some reason he left that journal behind so there's a chance that he left out some key details of his conversation with Jormag that the vision/strike could reveal to us. :)

The mystery voice definitely sounds female to me but whether they'll be referred as such or "them" or even "he" remains to be seen. It seems like the VA might be Sumalee Montano (VA for Marjory and Ember) who often uses a deeper register in certain roles. Kuunavang's voice is harder to pinpoint, but one thing is interesting: Kuunavang seems to use a somewhat stereotypic Chinese accent with those slurring consonants while the mystery entity speaks with an American accent. This suggests that the either the mystery entity lived abroad before coming in contact with Kuunie (assuming the mystery entity was tied to Shiny who theoretically could fit given Shiny's care for its mortal caretaker Goren before Goren passed away), or it could be some non-dragon entity. I'd take one more step and actually have us enter the Mists to chat with Zhaitan's (and potentially Mordremoth's) ghosts to seek their counsel despite the dangers associated with such a venture (think about Aang meeting the antagonistic Koh the Face Stealer to get crucial knowledge about spirits in Avatar the Last Airbender). This, however, requires the devs to have thought of a few cosmological things: 1) What happens to the souls of Elder Dragons who don't have anyone at ground zero consuming their energy like Aurene did with Kralkatorrik? As Zhaitan and Mordremoth were able to "explode" without hindrance, did their souls merge into the ley lines due to their ties to the All, or did their spirits enter the Mists while their physical shells perished? If they did enter the Mists, did they consider their deaths traumatic or were they at peace with it (Kralkatorrik claims that Elder Dragons fear nothing, not even death, but does this apply to all Elder Dragons?) as only those who die sudden and traumatic deaths end up in the Domain of the Lost where they're judged and sent onward whereas those who die any other deaths automatically go to their designated afterlives (for example, norn are confirmed to have a different afterlife than humans in "The Departing" given the dialogue between Nicholas and Yngvild, so theoretically dragons should have their own afterlife as well)? 2) Are Elder Dragons released from Torment after they die (and if their souls do enter the Mists rather than being absorbed into the ley lines or whatever)? If so, we could theoretically be chatting with Torment-less Zhaity and Mordy, and maybe they'd actually be somewhat reasonable (if still arrogant) chat partners now that there's no Torment-based megalomania and madness partly driving their actions (depending on in what form their Torment manifested as; Tom Abernathy has suggested that each dragon may have its own unique form of Torment, but we've yet to learn anything beyond what little was shown about Kralkatorrik's Torment). Just imagine having a calm chat with Mordy as a sylvari! Heck, if they want to go wild, they could even have Trahearne and Mordy's souls merge due to the ending of HoT and have Trahearne be Mordy's Voice in the Mists where his voice is still his own but Mordy can also speak through him at times. It would be a bittersweet but fascinating reunion and give Trahearne more to do (beyond potentially becoming one of Glint's generals alongside Gwen in the Mist Wardens...but this depends on if his soul entered the Mists or if it was absorbed into the ley line depending on what happens to Elder Dragon souls). I'd love this spiritual meeting in the Mists or in whatever afterlife dragons have for its narrative potential. We would get to hear Nolan North ham it up as Mordy one last time in a role he enjoyed almost as much as Joko, while we'd finally hear Zhaity's voice for the first time (beyond the roars from the personal story) and reveal if it would have a female voice actor or not. And it just makes sense that out of all the dragons, the one Elder Dragon we confront in the afterlife would be the shadowy soul of the Elder Dragon of Death and Shadow. It might even lead to a potential Zhaitan fight redux if we're lucky. There already are quite a few Zhaitan fight elements in Frost Citadel Claw of Jormag fight: we destroy the pillar it clings to and shoot it down with cannons, then jump down to finish the wounded Claw; very similar to what the initially planned Zhaitan fight likely would've been given the clues. Given the budget for episodes, they could easily reuse the Frost Citadel Claw rigging and mechanics and implement those to the Zhaitan 2.0 fight in the Mists just like they reused raid boss rigging for Kralkatorrik's Torment, and players would be happy to beat Zhaitan's fractured face at long last rather than relying on cannons alone. Maybe we could take both bites at once: not only would we get the fight, but we also get a potential "enemy mine" scenario where we get information from Zhaity before or after the battle. :)

I find it curious that Bangar's statements are either contradictory or hypocritical with the way they're presented. Bangar has the gall to say that he has never broken his word when his actions with the Dominion, and his behind the scenes collaboration with the Renegades, proves he never honored the word he had given when signing the Ebonhawke Treaty to end hostilities between charr and humans. Instead of honoring the terms, he allowed Renegades to kill countless humans, possibly even funded them all along, and made charr desert to the Renegade cause. His journals reveal he explicitly ordered the Drizzlewood Coast human genocide (along with the norn and the tengu) as payback for what those races' ancestors had done to the charr (not sure how tengu had ever wronged the charr, but I guess the charr may have had skirmishes with the Caromi and the Avicara in the past during the conquest phase?). So no, Bangar, you have never told everyone exactly what you wanted: if you had, you would have made your point clear when being forced to sign the treaty rather than appearing as an ally while scheming behind everyone else's backs and even managing to fool Malice long enough despite her growing suspicions. Here we have the classic Bangar tactic of changing the subject by accusing the accuser when said person hits too close home. Just like he did during the meeting in Grothmar where he shifted the topic of controlling charr violence to Rytlock's long absence from the homelands. Rytlock has a point, though. Whether it was partly Jormag's influence or there all along, Bangar had Caudecus and High Councillor Flax-like megalomania during our confrontation with him in the Frost Citadel: It wasn't just about unifying the charr into a charr empire and crushing those he deemed a threat to the charr. He fully intended to pretty much take over the world with Jormag as his weapon. Sure, that is a future for the charr, or rather the One Charr who other charr would be subservient to. It is curious that Bangar never bothered to steal the Claw of the Khan-Ur and use it as another symbolic weapon to signify his dominant position as a Khan-Ur ascendant. Wielding the Claw, being blood-related to the Khan-Ur, and subjugating Jormag would've given him enough influence to declare himself Khan-Ur and actually have some credit to that claim. It is also pretty funny how Bangar says how charr don't have "sons", yet he grew angry at Almorra for mentioning Ajax's name: Clearly Bangar cared for his son, perhaps more than he wants to admit to Rytlock. ;) As for Bangar valuing a Flame female (Crecia) over a Blood male (Rytlock), I don't necessarily see any sinister views on it as far as gender roles go. Bangar has always antagonized Rytlock (although the dialogue in the prologue suggests that maybe Bangar wasn't like this when Rytlock was a cub, but sadly Rytlock cuts himself off before he reveals more about his childhood in the fahrar), so it makes sense he'd elevate even Crecia (who he once trusted until he decided to leave her out of his Dominion) over Rytlock at this point just to hurt Rytlock more. That's why Bangar refers to sons than sons and daughters; to him, Rytlock was a kind of son (possibly even his own son depending on if the writers reveal who Rytlock's parents were; it is rather odd how obsessed and personal Bangar gets with a "mere" tribune like Rytlock so that oddness could be explained if Bangar sired Rytlock and wanted him to become more like him in a twisted fatherly way), and they both have a relationship with the treacherous Ryland, so of course Bangar wants to twist the knife as he only has his words to use as a weapon while he's caged. With that said, I do hope someone actually walks up to Bangar and brings up two names in his presence: the female Blood martyrs Bathea Havocbringer and Kalla Scorchrazor who died in their struggle for freedom against god-worshipping tyranny. It is rather ironic that Blood, who are now set in the old ways of the charr, were once the most progressive of the four legions: only Blood backed Kalla's rebellion at first whereas Iron and (funnily enough) Ash opposed females joining the rebellion against the shaman caste until Kalla convinced them otherwise. And now Bangar has spit on Bathea and Kalla's legacy by serving the charr up to yet another would-be deity, Jormag, in exchange for power. The two female charr must be seething with rage right now assuming that Dhuum didn't devour their spirits when he redirected the River of Souls to feed him. Then again, if Gwen is still out there, it stands to reason that the two charr heroines might've survived Dhuum's invasion too. If there's any justice in the world, we'd either see some living NPCs mention this historical irony to Bangar to shame his Blood heritage, or Kalla and Bathea actually appear from the Mists as Glint's Mist Wardens to chew him out. I wonder if Bangar might react to the famous Blood heroines' words and start to genuinely atone or if he's too thick-headed to even care about betraying Blood Legion's legacy with his selfish and short-sighted actions. As for Funky's argument, Almorra never validated females; that was what Kalla did centuries ago. What Almorra did do was validate outcasts, taking in people who were mocked by others or who had nowhere else to go. As a gladium, Almorra understood what loneliness means, and she turned the Vigil into the world's largest warband, an extended family of soldiers who may banter and play rough but ultimately care for one another. In Jora's Keep there's even a sylvari who mentions that when she was shunned by others after the sylvari origin as dragon minions was revealed, Almorra still accepted her in with no questions asked, and she was so impressed by this act that she'd die for Almorra while also being one of the few people in the Vigil to show sympathy towards norn Vigil members despite the keep massacre as she wants to give the norn a chance to show they don't succumb to Jormag's whispers just like Almorra gave her a chance to prove herself. We also have to remember that there aren't just male charr villains. There are female charr antagonist extremists out there too such as the so far unseen but popular (lorewise) Iron tribune Fume Brighteye, a hero antagonist who hopefully stayed loyal to Smodur rather than joining the Dominion in the civil war. She would be the perfect candidate to contest Mia Kindleshot for the Iron throne as core Tyria lore states that Fume has long been bucking to be the next Iron Imperator. Now that the spot is vacant, she should fight tooth and nail for it while promoting the anti-human stance of the charr (which we've already seen among our allied Iron charr in Drizzlewood Coast who curiously antagonize their Seraph allies by saying that the two races are only on the same side for the time being) which of course puts her in opposition to Mia's pro-treaty stance. Given how lorewise only bloodlines descended from the Khan-Ur can become imperators, I wonder if this rule has been abolished or if Efram, Crecia and Mia can potentially claim to be descended from that bloodline to justify their claims for imperator. Fume might actually be in favor of abolishing this tradition if she's not blood related to the Khan-Ur so she can strengthen her position as a candidate while also appearing to be "progressive" to the naysayers. Likewise, I wonder if anyone from Blood will contest Crecia's claim for the Blood throne due to her Flame heritage; we've yet to see some of the Blood tribunes unless they all died in the civil war with the newly promoted officers, and we don't yet know how the old school Blood Tribune Fierhan Sparwind feels about Bangar's imprisonment and Crecia's impending ascension. Then there's Efram who, by any rights, doesn't hold a valid claim for the Flame throne. There must still be several Flame tribunes (and maybe even a new hierophant) out there to contest him and his "soft" ways. One of these factions could be led by Crecia's evil shaman sire just to bring Efram and Crecia on the same side due to facing a shared antagonistic figure from their past. I just hope we get to meet some evil, not Dominion-affiliated Flame Legion splinter groups before long; if Efram intends to become the new Flame Imperator, he has to earn it by facing his competitors and proving himself as the progressive elementalist that he is. As for Asp's statement, I wouldn't say the fahrar system itself is bad for charr society per se as such a way helps cubs bond into a new family and helps hone their skills where each one's strengths are valued as part of a greater whole as they grow up. That's part of the army training as well IRL as you get to know and bond with your fellow recruits, potentially becoming friends for life if those bonds grow strong enough. The one mistake the charr society has done is seemingly making most parents distant from their cubs when basically the parents should also be part of the cub's family unit as a strengthening force rather than distant observers (with a few notable exceptions as seen in story and open world NPC chatter). If the charr can figure this out and learn to show their softer side rather than hiding it most of the time, it'll lead to a healthier society overall while still allowing the fahrar system to blossom. Basically the optimal scenario would be the relationship Argus Foolkiller, one of our potential sires, had with the player's warband where each warbandmate had precious memories about him and he clearly enjoyed his time with the player and the warbandmates as revealed in their recollections of Argus in An Unusual Inheritance. Multiply that with both parents for each cub, and you get quite a nice, extended family with hijinks and lovely memories to share, strengthening the unity of the group. :)

Given what was teased in the Icebrood Saga announcement trailer, we saw a specific progression of the following scenes as a kind of Dream-like vision of things to come in a poetic way: 1) Grothmar Valley in flames with the charr dam and her cub turning to ash, which was confirmed by Julia Nardin to be part of Jormag's tactic to sway Bangar: "Some people have correctly surmised that Jormag is addressing Bangar (not the player) in the trailer. And it isn't a coincidence that one of the first images we see is a charr and her cub reduced to ash while Grothmar Valley burns around them." Basically this foreshadows the charr civil war although it acts more like an ominous preview of the prologue's zone Grothmar Valley. 2) Kodan mass burial at sea. While we haven't seen this scene in game yet, it might refer to Bjora Marches and Drakkar Lake in particular given the great involvement of kodan in Episode 2's West Bjora Marches. Shining Grove has this to say when we talk to her: "The waters here are long frozen, and my people can't join Koda when we're summoned. So we built these shrines." Whether this implies that the kodan usually had these burials at sea to send their spirits into the Mists and were unable to carry out these rituals by the time their sanctuary was stranded in ice is unknown, but I could see a slight thematic connection here with the Ep1-2 zone. 3) Centaurs leading enslaved humans on a march in some forest, potentially Woodland Cascades given what the recent art book revealed about the region on page 123: "[Centaurs] lived on the plains of Kryta long before any other, and they have never forgotten when the humans stole away their lands. While war rages between the two races, it is said that they are gathering somewhere in the Woodland Cascades—preparing an attack to reclaim their home." While we haven't seen centaurs in the saga yet, there has been core Tyria dialogue from Whispers agent Fural Rageseeker who mentioned Gaheron's Flame Legion and Ulgoth's Centaur Alliance having clandestine meetings to potentially set up an alliance: "We sent out some agents to keep an eye on the centaurs to the west. There are reports that centaurs have been seen meeting with the Flame Legion. If that's true, it's quite concerning." This bit in the trailer seems to suggest Ep3-4 zone Drizzlewood Coast although we've yet to see any evil Flame Legion remnant (with one such remnant potentially led by Crecia's evil Flame Legion shaman sire who's yet to make an appearance unless he's died off since Crecia was adopted into the Blood Legion) + Centaur Alliance partnership manifest, let alone a scene of centaurs enslaving humans. I could see Jormag trying to sway the centaurs, who have lost lots of their troops during Ulgoth's demise in Harathi Hinterlands and in the failed Siege of Divinity's Reach at Lake Doric, to embrace the Ice Dragon's gifts so they can be empowered enough to join forces with the Frost Legion and take on humanity. I could also see a rebellion forming among the centaurs as there's lore that many in the Harathi and Tamini don't like the Modniir threatening them to cooperate in the alliance. 4) An aftermath of a naval battle at sea with norn and what look like krait sinking into the depths. We've had some old, fascinating concept art about racial flagships such as the asuran stingray and dragon carracks with what look like charr and norn inspired designs (including a shared dragon flag, curiously enough), but will we ever see an actual naval battle realized with the in-game engine? The devs have certainly dabbled with some quasi-naval combat such as the corsair raid during the Palawadan meta in Istan, or the Whispers naval route during the Orrian campaign's story instances, but it would be lovely to use the current, improved airship and ship physics to actually deliver a full-fledged swashbuckling adventure on the high seas! If the images in the trailer follow a chronological progression, perhaps the next zone covering episodes 5-6 could be the Sea of Desperation, which Eernst has said is "A sea locked on all sides by ice. I could assemble an expedition and sledge the boats across. I doubt anyone's ever done that. We'd be first!" Given Eernst's suggestion that the sea is in the Shiverpeaks and is surrounded by ice, the only real candidate would be the sea Jormag's original rising (between GW1 and GW2) created as it flooded what was once known as Varajar Fells, so the ruined Olafstead might be the one notable landmark on an island in a vast sea that could be half-frozen by now while the sea itself would be located between Drizzlewood Coast and Eye of the North. How the krait will feature into the saga is as curious as centaur involvement at this stage unless Jormag decides to go after the krait obelisks for the magic they contain. The question then becomes if the deep sea dragon has already seized most of the obelisks in the centuries it's been awake (with Scarlet only acquiring what seems to have been one obelisk chopped into parts during Season 1, potentially with Mordremoth's subtle guidance to convince the krait splinter group to join the Toxic Alliance) or if more available potent obelisks exist out there in remote locations where the krait had taken them in the ancient past... 5) A party of weary, injured norn and their canine companion trekking through the Shiverpeaks to a distant lodge while some of them succumb to their injuries. Just a nifty transition, or possibly teasing Norrhart Domains or the southern half of Ice Cliff Chasm as an episode 7-8 zone? Norrhart would be a nice area to visit as it has the remains of Gunnar's Hold which Jormag tore apart with a massive glacier. This shot may or may not tie to the final shot of the trailer which shows Jormag and the icebrood horde (with three potential champions: a kodan, a charr, and a norn) emerging from the blizzard to face Rytlock, Braham and Jhavi leading the defense of what may be Eye of the North. As both Norrhart Domains and Ice Cliff Chasms can be designed to connect to the area surrounding the Eye of the North, we might see the vast landscapes depicted in the norn trek and the stormy lowlands invaded by Jormag should this be the grand finale zone unless there will be episodes 9-10. Given that we've approximately had to wait 2 months between saga releases, how Visions of the Past: Steel and Fire had a colon as a punctuation mark, and how the End of Dragons teaser suggests the 2021 date for the expansion, it means we should get at least one more Visions of the Past release at some point as well as however many episodes remain. Depending on how the fractal release and the upcoming story release are placed in the schedule, we could see some plot progression by November at the latest, followed by bimonthly releases for January, March, May, June and possibly September if the expansion stuff is supposed to come around November (I would see anything before September as being too early as the devs couldn't have been working for the expansion that long based on the expansion's narrative lead Kwan Perng still working as the narrative lead for Visions of the Past: Steel and Fire during Icebrood Saga development before transitioning to the expansion team, but Rubi Bayer's and Clayton Kisko's off-hand, somewhat vague comments during streams have suggested a pretty hectic time at the studio with expansion development in retrospect). This would then potentially mean one Visions of the Past release, Episodes 5-6, Episodes 7-8, and an Epilogue (or Episodes 9-10 if they stretch the expansion release window to November) release. Out of the four Great Spirits, we've only gotten Raven-related masteries so far. I wonder if we'll get anything for Wolf, Snow Leopard and Bear to balance it out, let alone the other Spirits such as Griffon, Hare, and Owl who all deserve some recognition now that Ox, Eagle and Wolverine received the essence masteries. But if they intend to use these masteries and whatever other non-Spirit related masteries there may be (like the charr waystation), they'll be in a hurry to fit them into the related episodes by the time End of Dragons arrives. It could be that the saga was initially intended to be a larger scale narrative before the powers that be pushed for the hectic schedule for the next expansion release (possibly around Mike Z's departure; if the expansion was already in development during the Icebrood Saga announcement stream where Z was still present, surely NCSoft would've allowed the slightest of concept art teases, like the blog post's image of Shing Jea, to hype the audience that even more was to come after the saga). While I look forward to the expansion, the suggested 2021 date feels too soon for me; I worry that we'll get yet another rushed expansion like HoT and PoF (to an extent due to all the late rewrites) ended up being. Cantha deserves a longer story with more fleshed out locations and more developed characters and preferably villains who aren't just three-scene wonders (as Joko and many of his lieutenants ended up being). The Emperor, the potential Empress who might have greater narrative impact should she be ambitious, any imperial heirs they might've produced, the Prime Minister of Purity, the Emperor's three elite servants (the Emperor's Blade, the Emperor's Hand, and the Emperor's Voice) etc...they could go wild with it depending on how antagonistic the empire and the various Ministries of Cantha (not just Purity but Flame, Earth, Water and Wind) end up being. Not to mention other regional threats like the oni, naga, potential krait involvement, remants of Kanaxai's nightmare horde etc. What troubles me is that the rushed expansion release will nip the promising saga in the bud. I'm surprised that the threads about the saga story being lackluster have received so many upvotes when I, as a lore focused person, have enjoyed the saga episodes for the most part so far. While we've had some weird moments like Smodur's odd change of character (not talking about his violent handling of traitors with the exception of that one execution scene, but his antagonistic, short-tempered role against the Commander and Rytlock who he had been friends with and underestimating Malice who he should know is his greatest threat to Khan-Ur after Bangar) and some plot-crucial stuff happening off screen (the Svanir and Bangar alliance and how he figured out the importance of the Spirits of the Wild and the totems related to them, which is only ever hinted at in the story journal for the final Ep4 instance), we've also had lots of lovely scenes involving a few of the Spirits, and some development for a few of the heroes and antagonists. Will they try to cram krait, centaurs and humans (potentially even the Separatists who Malice mentioned were growing stronger and who should thus realistically be making the move against charr in the post-Drizzlewood political landscape where the charr have lost some of their leaders and must now recover while trying to select new imperators with all the trials and tribulations that come with it) into the remaining episodes? Will there be hints of Adelbern, Barradin and Foefire ghosts growing in power as realistically they should've received a power boost from the same ley line that also fed Kralkatorrik's (and presumably Balthazar's) magic to Jormag and Drakkar? Will they (hopefully) involve Asgeir's grandson Knut Whitebear and his family (his sons Skarti and Sigfast, and his so far unseen adventuring wife Gaerta Whitebear) into the saga as well given the prophecy surrounding Knut which some say predicts his death but which actually says "...and the muttering voices will call for his blood" which might refer to his bloodline aka his sons? Are we going to meet Tribune Fume Brighteye who might be competing with Tribune Mia Kindleshot due to their different political views on the charr's future and what Iron Legion should become? Are we going to meet any evil, not-Jormag-related shamans of the Spirits such as Vilnia Shadowsong in any capacity? What about the havrouns of the other Spirits, or the four Speakers of Hoelbrak, to mention a few? Will we have the time to delve into jotun lore (both the ancient jotun-kings as well as the current jotun such as Bergris whose tribe and "king" Korag were tempted by Jormag) given how they were the elder race closest to Jormag's location in the previous dragonrise and were involved with the fire magic of the jotun scroll that Asgeir and Braham used to damage Jormag? What about the grawl (Gara) and quaggans (Shashoo and Baroosh) who also have a bone to pick with Jormag after what the dragon's lieutenants did to their respective homes in the personal story? What about the Sanguinary Blade with its crazy powerful corruptive properties (one nick from that blade made from Jormag's frozen blood, and the victim instantly turns into an icebrood, while the sword's wielder is corrupted over time)? What about Bangar's sleeper agents within the orders? Will they be dealt with off-screen like the White Mantle moles were in Season 3? These and many more related questions remain unanswered. While I imagine at least some of these points get addressed, it's unfortunate that this saga could've easily encompassed at least 20 episodes without losing steam given the richness of charr and norn lore, let alone the lore surrounding the mystical elements (Spirits of the Wild, and we might even learn about the Dragon Spirit who theoretically should've existed as the embodiment of all Tyrian dragons as per Skuld's suggested dialogue) and other races who have a bone to pick with Jormag. I could see the devs saving the empowered Adelbern's revenge plot for later, though, if they decide to tackle the Krytan royal locket and prophesied Heir of Ascalon storyline (maybe even tying it into the Separatist resurgence plot if, via an ironic twist, the current leader of the Separatists was revealed to be the destined Heir, so we need to figure out a way to sway them from their "evil" ways to become the hero they're meant to be and save the charr and the ghosts before all is lost while hopefully involving Dougal Keane and Duke Wade Samuelsson, maybe even Riot Alice, in the shenanigans too). It would likewise be nice to see Rox, Boticca and the Olmakhan return and make amends with Efram's Flame faction while we (hopefully) met with Crecia's evil shaman sire leading an evil Flame remnant as a contender for the vacant Flame throne. The big problem with the saga's narrative has ultimately been the allocated budget and some curious story decisions (e.g. using Tom Abernathy's suggestion to make Bangar use very vulgar human cursing which seems weird for a charr who has tended to use more traditional and lore-specific insults, or turning Smodur antagonistic to progress Ryland's story arc; I still hope we get to meet Smodur and Cinder as Mist Wardens, and maybe meet Pyre, Jora, Svanir, Glint and Vlast too should they appear on Tyria due to Jormag's schemes in the Mists). As the devs have a specific budget for how much dialogue and text there can be per episode (including localization costs), it requires cutting corners where they can whether it's with text related stuff or models (thus Drakkar was remodeled to fit Aurene's frame as the guild chat suggested there simply wasn't enough budget for Episode 2 to give both Aurene and Drakkar their own rigging). That may also be one of the reasons why we didn't get additional lore in Drizzlewood about the lich Zoldark the Unholy who once infested Vloxen Mine with his very Jormag-like persuasive powers, or why there hasn't been any talks about Efram's past in the Flame Legion and in the post-Gaheron Baelfire political landscape beyond his opposition to the Molten Alliance, let alone an actual on-screen confrontation between the old rivals Bangar and Smodur, just to mention a few. Despite the fiscal limitiations, the Narrative Team and the devs as a whole have done a valiant job with what they have during this saga, and I've found their efforts quite enjoyable for the most part even though those rather curious decisions make me scratch my head at times. I just wish there was enough budget for there to be more of this stuff as it feels like we're missing out on what could have been. The potential is certainly there as the narrative is both intimate and grand with some intriguing character development whenever it's allowed to flourish. I look forward to the remaining episodes and seeing where it all leads beyond the teases we've had, but I do lament how short the saga will end up being out of necessity to fit into the expansion release schedule. Perhaps we'll see a continuation of some of these story threads in later living world seasons, perhaps not; for now, I'll enjoy what the devs have to offer and what wonderful moments they'll let us experience as the saga moves closer towards its conclusion. :)

Correction: Logan says "you should speak with my grandm—uh, Gwen." - Rytlock lists the greats, in which he says: "It's your great-great-whatever-grandmother here". Logan specifically states the following in the dynamic event that precedes the idle ambient dialogue between the trio in the camp:

That may have been the Elder Dragons' (or if they had any predecessors in the mythic past, the original balancers') purpose to keep the Antikytheria mechanism stable for the All, but they've become too greedy, selfish and destructive since then as they crave for more and more magic. We already have proof that the dragons weren't just content with their own domains as Jormag and Primordus are confirmed, via the Shards of Jormag achievement text, to have clashed at some point in the past which led to at least Jormag being injured (hence the shards found in Drizzlewood Coast). The problem with the dragons' corruption is that in their desire for magic they sense magic inherent within all Tyrian creatures (as souls seem to be created from magic), so they naturally collect this magic via killing and/or converting other Tyrian beings. The corruption transforms the unfortunate victims into elemental minions of the dragon, and any converted being becomes a fanatic zealot praising their dragon master's name. The corruption overcomes the mind so that your former loved one or family member will instantly turn on you and regard the dragon as the superior force, and these minions go so far as to use propaganda to demoralize the opposition (like the Risen High Priest of Lyssa claiming that Zhaitan had devoured the gods and that the afterlife was a lie, and how only Zhaitan's undeath can save Tyrians from eternal oblivion). Ultimately we've seen that magic messes up anyone toying with it if enough time has passed. The ley bounties and Bloodstone abominations show that excess magic warps beings and seems to turn the beings into "vessels" for the magic that they can no longer fully control. While Elder Dragons, do to their nature, seem to be able to handle excess magic better for a time, even they ultimately seem to succumb to Torment and Temptation and can be reduced to destructive monstrosities like Kralkatorrik...although curiously Torment manifests in different ways for each dragon as per Tom Abernathy's suggestion, so Jormag's Torment would differ from Kralkatorrik's Torment. Even Aurene, despite being more resistant to Torment, may ultimately succumb to Temptation if she keeps using more and more magic, because magic is inherently addictive the more you consume it. There's even a potential hint in Linsey Murdock and Scott McGough's comments about there being more to Balthazar's fall than we've seen that suggests that perhaps gods themselves also end up suffering from Torment or Temptation as the magic domains they wield end up dominating their thoughts as centuries or millennia pass (such as Balthazar being "forced" to crave for more War regardless of the cost because that was one of his primary domains). Ultimately magic may be the overarching antagonistic force that caused all the destruction in Guild Wars verse from the mythic past to the currently shrouded present. But magic may not be actively malicious as life is also created from it; magic simply is, and the only danger with it is using/abusing too much of it due to the addictive qualities of the many magical domains. Once the Elder Dragons have been replaced as per the Legacy plan, some kind of gates need to be built to make sure that the balancers don't repeat their predecessors' mistakes. Glint suggested that one way of combating Torment and Temptation is for the dragon replacement to have at least one champion to share the burden with while empathizing with the champion and thus with the rest of mortals, as well as learning not to hoard magic but keep it in balance so neither the greedy mortals or tempted balancers end up taking too much of it into themselves. This was what humanity believed in GW1, but GW2 proved this to be a biased claim. What actually happened was that during the previous dragonrise (somewhere circa 10,000 BE to circa 3,000 BE) the Seers decided to seal all the world's remaining magic into the original Bloodstone to hide the magic from dragons and force them back into slumber. The plan worked, but the elder races' power also diminished as a result as they had relied on the magic so much. This partly contributed to the jotun's eventual regression into savage brutes. The Forgotten, stewards of the gods, had been assisting the other elder races at this time and likely acted as forward scouts for the Six Gods. After some time had passed, the gods brought humanity with them to Tyria in Orr before transporting them elsewhere. By 786 BE, humanity appeared in Cantha, although Luxon and Kurzick stories and origin suggests that the human tribes had lived elsewhere (possibly Sunrise Crest?) before some ethnicities traveled to Cantha and some would eventually settle Elona, Orr etc. The gods wandered around the world and discovered artifacts of the elder races, including the jotun's Mystic Telescope and the Seer Bloodstone, and brought them to what would be known as Arah for safekeeping and study. Abaddon and the gods likely had discussions about these artifacts' purpose, and Abaddon discovered (possibly via the Forgotten) what the Bloodstone was for. Wanting to spread knowledge and magic to the races to help them survive in the world, he gifted various mortal tribes with magic, which unfortunately led to devastating wars and forced King Doric to travel to Arah to ask the gods to end the bloodshed. Most of the gods agreed and seemingly used Doric's blood to seal magic back into the Bloodstone, which angered Abaddon and would, in part, eventually lead to his doomed war against the other gods and his sealing. The gods sundered the original Bloodstone into five lesser Bloodstones (and some notable shards like the final boss found in Arah's Seer path) to divide the magic within, and tossed all of the stones into the volcano of Abaddon's Mouth in Ring of Fire to keep them from falling into the wrong hands, before the gods departed from the world to prevent any more calamities like the war against Abaddon. They entrusted Doric's bloodline to watch over the Bloodstones. Curiously the gods did seem to create the fifth Bloodstone, also known as the Keystone, which would allow the stones to be united as one again, but why they decided to create such a stone if they intended magic to be separated remains unknown. The volcano would eventually erupt and scatter the five Bloodstones around the world, however, and lead to humans discovering some of these Bloodstones. Because the four schools of magic were separated into the stones, no individual was capable of fully utilizing all forms of magic, and humanity came to believe that magic had been created by the gods just like Tyria was although they would learn the truth later. So in short: magic has always existed in Thyria as the dragonrises have occurred "countless" times. Magic has apparently always been balanced by the All which requires at least four balancers to exist in an eternal push/pull motion within the cosmic Antikytheria system (we could kill Zhaitan and Mordremoth while leading to some magical catastrophes but nothing world-ending, whereas killing one more dragon without a replacement would've doomed us all and thus we needed to stop Balthazar), or else all of Thyria will fall into oblivion. Like all races, humanity has used magic for both good and evil as there will always be heroes and villains in every generation. So while humanity was driven by Balthazar to subjugate the other races and conquer Tyria, there were also peaceful relations with other races like how Luxon stories claim that a Luxon captain made a pact with a Dragon King in Cantha: in exchange for wind and guidance while the crew was lost at sea, the Luxons promised to never hurt any saltspray dragon. Likewise, there were some peaceful relations with tengu, naga and dwarves among others although humanity's drive for conquest did sour some relationships like causing the Tengu Wars until diplomats from both human and tengu sides tried to reach peace. Abaddon may have had good intentions in promoting enlightenment and wanting at least some races to wield magic for the betterment of their societies, but we also knew that Abaddon had become corrupt over time and may have already been plotting to overthrow the gods even before the wars for magic began. It was just that the second sealing of magic into the Bloodstone, as well as the Forgotten massacring Abaddon's zealous Margonite followers in revenge for defamed the statues of the gods and killing the priests of other gods at the Temple of the Six, eventually prompted Abaddon to make his move then rather than biding his time longer. Sadly we don't know when Abaddon's "descent" happened, but he was said to have been princely among the gods and someone whose wisdom the other gods sought, so he must not have always been evil and scheming. Interestingly the Mad Souls in the Realm of Torment claim the following after Kormir had succeeded Abaddon as a god: If there's even a shred of truth to these mad ramblings, it suggests that Abaddon may have inherited his madness from the god he had overthrown in the past, and Kormir will in turn inherit that same madness from replacing Abaddon. If true, the cycle of destruction will continue, and Kormir may become the downfall of the gods. If magic truly is both a benevolent and malignant force as it corrupts over time, it might explain why Balthazar descended from an honorable if quick tempered god into a murderous villain. Balthazar carried the severed head of his father when he emerged on Tyria (we don't know if he did this to present the head as a trophy, or if he carried it in lament for having lost his father) and had an intense rivalry with his mad half-brother Menzies, so this suggests that either one of Balthazar's parents was a god or he was born fully mortal before taking over the previous war deity's place). If Abaddon (and maybe Kormir in the future) would fall from grace, the same could happen with Balthazar as well if whatever tormented his predecessor passed on to him and would infect him over time. Perhaps the souls' ramblings suggest that all gods are destined to fall and be replaced once their magic domain starts controlling their actions than vice versa. We might see Lyssa become more chaotic and murderous, Kormir might become more secretive with an "ends justify the means" mentality (she never bothered to alert humanity to the Elder Dragons' threat for some reason, she never revealed Balthazar's imprisonment, and didn't even outright reveal to our heroes that Sohothin was key to defeating Balthazar while she instead led us on a wild chase through the desert in hopes that we'd figure things out ourselves), Dwayna's mercy might end up having darker shades (she did have her avatar kidnap a dwarf devoted to her during GW1 much to the confusion of the dwarf's lamenting brother), Melandru might take the hardcore stance of her druidic followers and promote Nature's growth at the expense of Tyrian races, and Grenth might just descend to become almost as bad as Dhuum over time as he inflicts punishment on those he deems unworthy while, unlike Dhuum, he might have the undead take over the world for all we know. It would be a tragic fate and somewhat "justify" Abaddon and Balthazar's fall from grace from the once virtuous beings they had been while painting magic as inherently dangerous even though it can be wielded for good or evil purposes due to its corrupting nature. :( The Six Gods are gods. Some of them are ascended humans or demigods (Kormir and Grenth, possibly Balthazar too), but they all wield awesome divine magic that can change reality and the world around them while being a counter to dragon energy (Divine Fire, Kormir's Fire in Sun's Refuge, Foefire, djinn using Abaddon's magic to initially protect themselves from Branding until Kralkatorrik found a loophole via consuming Balthazar, Exalting ritual making the Exalted immune to corruption etc.). Tyria may not necessarily have an Abrahamic all-powerful God to reign over it (although Koda, as Tyria's supposed primal spirit who made the kodan guide the other spirits if tales are to be believed, might be the closest one to such if he truly created Tyria), the Six Gods are more akin to Greek, Egyptian, Finnish etc. gods that can be killed despite them wielding great powers. You just need to look at the Six from the lense of fantasy and mythology although it's also understandable if one decides to follow asuran and charr views that no being should be seen as a god no matter what power they wield and how such beings are simply more powerful creatures than typical mortals. Devs have also debunked any connection between Elder Dragons and gods multiple times both in game and on forums, stating that the gods had no connection to Tyria before and that the dragons were native to Tyria. They even lampshaded this player speculation with the Priory book where some scholars tried to connect the gods and dragons but had found no definite proof for it. The closest we can say about dragons and the Six being connected is that maybe the gods served the same purpose on their homeworld that the dragons presently serve on Tyria: they may have been balancers of magic of their own version of the All there before the human homeworld was implied to have been destroyed and forcing the gods, humanity and likely Forgotten into exile on Tyria. Although Aurene seems to be particularly resistant to Torment, she can't take over all the Elder Dragons even if she could wield all the magic somehow for one simple reason: the Antikytheria mechanism requires the minimum of four balancers in a constant magnetic push/pull movement or the system collapses. In other words, Tyria needs at least three more replacements although five besides Aurene would be beneficial. If Tyrians wanted to get even more ambitious, they could even go for 12 replacements with each one wielding only one domain per balancer total. That way we'd lessen the burden of magic on future replacements as they no longer have to worry about handling two domains at once. Kralkatorrik also uttered prophetic words to his Torment about Aurene: "She is the FIRST of her kind." So in his final moments Kralkatorrik may have seen a new dawn of civilization which Glint herself was after: Aurene being the first replacement who may potentially guide the future replacements to their destined roles. We also know that the replacements will need champion(s) per balancer to lessen the burden of magic and establish a bond between the balancer and mortals. So not only will we need to find replacements, we'll also need champions we can entrust with forming a bond with the replacements and hope that none of these candidates go power hungry. It's unlikely that we can find more babies or hatchlings to fulfill the role, so some of the future replacements may need to already be adults. It's unknown if ghosts can be recruited for this purpose: if it's possible, we should be asking Glint and Vlast's ghosts to emerge in Tyria and take over for some of the fallen Elder Dragons. The lesser dragons themselves aren't necessarily good or bad. The one problem they've had is that very few of them ever bothered to sympathize or empathize with mortals because they, as long-lived beings, don't necessarily view mortality the same way others do. We've seen both Albax and Kuunavang openly threaten mortals (Kuunavang warned mortals that they should never refuse a gift from someone who can swallow mortals whole, while Albax cursed people with bad luck if they acted disrespectfully towards him), and that's not the kind of action truly "good" beings would ever do. They'd be more like Vlast in that they never truly bonded with mortals even if they interacted with them as opposed to Aurene and the saltspray Shiny (who should be around Vlast's age by now) who established a bond with their mortal "parent" since hatching. We know there are multiple dragon subspecies out there like saltsprays, rockhides, dragon mosses, drakes, wyverns, hydras and the recently emerged skyscales to mention a few, and yet saltsprays are the only known "lesser" dragon race to be able to speak since hatching, which might actually elevate them into "high" dragons depending on how the devs intend to classify them. Most dragons seem rather beastly although I'd love to hear a hydra communicate with us as unlikely as that seems. While Tom Abernathy has said that Jormag doesn't lie per se as truth is a much more useful manipulation tool, Jormag can in fact lie via omission and using specific bits from the truth for their own uses. Given how Jormag broke their promise to Asgeir by attacking Owl and destroying hundreds of norn after telling Asgeir that they wanted to spare the norn, either the skaalds' stories have been warped in the telling, or Jormag always intended to subdue the Spirits of the Wild and persuade the norn to their side. I would not trust Jormag with anything given their track record and manipulation tactics although part of this stems from Jormag not truly understanding the mortal races due to lacking a bond with them since infancy. Jormag may intend to change things up a bit with their new champion, and Jormag's actions may even be "justified" if it turns out that the real Jormag does desire some peaceful things while Jormag's Torment is the more deceptive parasite wanting to freeze everything over, but listening to the Ice Dragon's whispers and lessons will nevertheless carry a heavy price as Owl warned the norn about in the distant past. There's a bunch of interesting lore we've yet to explore in the Icebrood Saga like the asura Finn mentioning a prophecy supposedly predicting Knut Whitebear's death ("...and the muttering voices will call for his blood."), which I've interpreted as actually meaning Jormag trying to tempt Knut's sons Sigfast and Skarti (descendants of Asgeir Dragonrender) who both have been implied to be torn about whether to stay at home or go fight Jormag while having their own rivalries and dark ambitions. There's also the interesting idea of a potential Dragon Spirit existing among the Spirits of the Wild as hinted at by Skuld who claims that each animal on Tyria has its own associated spirit. Dragon would thus be the natural embodiment of all Tyrian dragons, including the Elder Dragons, and could potentially be the Mother whom Kralkatorrik mentioned. Either Dragon could've been slain in the distant past, or she went into hiding and cut herself off from the Mists like Owl did, but either way Dragon's absence would've weakened all dragons just like Owl's "demise" weakened and confused all owls, so these spirits are intrisically tied to the species they represent via the Mists somehow. I'm glad you find the lore of GW franchise fascinating! There truly is some depth to Tyrian lore, and I hope we get to flesh out the charr and norn, as well as various other races related to Jormag such as jotun, grawl, kodan, quaggan, maybe even trolls and the dire wolves (if devs ever intend to deliver on Garm's backstory, what happened to his dire wolf pack, how he met Eir and chose her as his alpha) as time goes on. The Icebrood Saga announcement trailer also showed centaurs and krait, so I assume they'll feature in some way too. Perhaps we'll see some development for the Separatists who should be making their move now while charr leadership has been weakened by various deaths all the while the power struggles begin within legion hierarchy as new imperator candidates try to make their bid for their respective legion thrones. :)

As far as how many generations have passed since GW1, we have a few specific mentions in game. :) Jora is said to be Jhavi's great grandmother. She looked relatively young during Eye of the North in 1078 AE, and might have been close to the age Jhavi currently seems to be in 1333 AE. We know Jhavi and Marjory trained together as necromancers although we haven't been told where and when. Assuming that Jhavi wasn't a late bloomer when it comes to studies, she and Jory were probably close to the same age as students. Knut Whitebear, who is already old by norn standards, is Asgeir Dragonrender's (who severed Jormag's fang circa 1169 AE) grandson, while we've seen a glimpse of Asgeir in a vision that revealed that Asgeir himself was probably somewhere in his 30s or older in looks at the time. During the event to estabish the Mist Warden camp in Dragonfall, the 30-something Logan refers to Gwen (who was in her twenties by the time she married Keiran) as his great-great-great-grandmother. He is cut off before he can finish the sentence, however, so he may have intended to add one or more "greats" to the sentence as well.

What is interesting about tengu lore in GW2 is that we seem to have contradictory accounts from the various tengu. On the one hand some tengu seem to heavily imply that all the tengu currently living in the Dominion originated from Cantha whereas other tengu say that the tengu clans from all over Central Tyria and Elona also joined some of the Canthan tengu immigrants to found the Dominion. We even have evidence of the Caromi tribe (historically from Kryta) living in the Dominion and using Canthan-esque names while trading with the outside world via their outposts, so the Caromi definitely do not come from Cantha despite what some tengu guards might say. I subscribe to the latter lore, in which case only 2 tribes (the friendly Angchu and the xenophobic Sensali, assuming that both of them migrated to the Dominion) out of all the tengu living in the Dominion would potentially call Cantha their country of origin. The various international tengu tribes and clans set their differences aside and founded the Four Houses (named after the four winds, e.g. North, South) once they settled into the Dominion in the aftermath of the Rising of Orr (known as the Great Tsunami). Each house not only upholds tengu ideals of honor, family, and history, but also keeps their respective cultures different from the other houses...at least to an extent, since apparently all tengu in the Dominion are required to speak some archaic language which some interpret as Canthan regardless of if your tengu tribe originates from Cantha or not. Other potential tribes besides the aforementioned two, and the Caromi, would likely be the Avicara of the Shiverpeaks, and unknown tengu tribe(s) from Elona based on Hayato's explanation. I've often wondered if during game development the Dominion was originally omeant to contain just Canthan tengu, but this was later adapted to include most of the known (and even unknown) tengu tribes from around the world. We at least know that their main city seems to be called the aerie after the name given to the tengu village in GW1. Interestingly the tengu also appear to have an emperor (no word on whether the emperor has concubines or an empress, or if he's single, though), so that's yet another tie to a Canthan type of hierarchy that the Dominion seems to have adopted for some reason. I can't help but wonder which tengu line dominates the others; could it be that the emperor is directly descended from Talon Silverwing (and thus from the Angchu) given how it was Silverwing's descendant who led the charge through Zhaitan's Risen horde back in the day? It's unknown if any of the Quetzal tengu live in the Dominion; so far we've only met the merchant Goro Cleverclaws whose friendly clan lived in Drizzlewood Coast before the charr war reached the shores there, and the more hostile and territorial Quetzal in Auric Basin with only the written clue from the Quetzal Crest giving potential hints about the Quetzal's reasons for not joining their brethren within the walls: "We are not so easily fooled." The tengu are suffering from their own dragon problem as Primordus's Destroyers have been appearing in the Dominion since at least personal story times of 1325 AE. Apparently the tengu even hold knowledge about the previous dragonrise, knowledge that most races have forgotten. Perhaps they hold some valuable information that we require in the future if the Scroll of the Five True Gods doesn't give good enough answers? Some individual tengu wander the world as kind of ronin to help other races and reach out to form alliances, and we saw some individual tengu joining the Vigil and Pact Izu Steelshrike and Fuji Shadowbane, respectively) for various reasons. As the tengu experience budding friendships with other races (like Izu Steelshrike did with younger Trahearne in a story yet to be told beyond hints), more and more of them are reaching out to their high masters to argue the case of opening their borders. Based on Ree Soesbee's lore interview from a few years ago, this was a hotly debated political topic in the Dominion in the aftermath of HoT events. If the borders are to ever open up, I could see a few reasons for it: 1) The tengu face such inner turmoil within (whether from Destroyers or ambitions of one of the houses) that they have no choice but to call for outside help. This may or may not involve Destroyers simply blowing a hole into the Tengu Wall and thus exposing the Dominion of Winds to any foolhardy adventurer trying to sneak inside despite the great risks involved. Unless the deep sea dragon's minions get to it first and try to flood the tengu lands, or if Jormag has plans for the tengu and sends the icebrood to infiltrate the region to gain whatever powerful artifacts may lie there. 2) Regardless of what the state of the Dominion of Winds is at the time, the tengu emperor may be cunning enough to realize the benefits of working together with other races despite some houses opposing such a thought. As long as the emperor is convinced, he can likely overrule objections from the high masters and dictate opening the borders. Given how cleverly the emperor has sent the Caromi to trade weapons with Vigil and various Tyrian races, I imagine the funds from such trade are being poured to some unknown project and making the lives of the emperor's subjects better. Either way, assuming that the lore of the Dominion consisting of international tengu clans is still valid, I doubt many tengu (who have never even been a member of either of the Canthan clans) would want anything to do with Cantha unless the emperor personally forced all houses to consider the Canthan matter. I'd expect tengu politics to rival even the asuran debates, but whether any of the four houses represents a villainous tengu faction or if the only tengu villain faction we find are somethin akin to bandits or renegades, I look forward to learning more about the tengu society as a whole. There is even a prophecy about a star revealing the destined tengu lands and how peace with other races will only come after that. While most scholars and tengu believe that this prophecy referred to Zhaitan's awakening and the Rising of Orr, perhaps the writers could introduce a twist where Aurene's final star moment in S4Ep6 would actually be the true sign of the prophecy about to be fulfilled and that the real tengu sanctuary lies elsewhere than the Dominion of Winds. :)

I'd love the twist of Alpha possessing Kudu's corpse if it ever returns to the story as an evolved version of itself. It wouldn't even require that many new assets; they could just slap some Awakened skin texture on Kudu and add some infusions to make his body have a shadowy aura with glowy eyes etc. Just hearing Mark Allan Stewart reprising his sexy Kudu voice but with the audio team's creepy filter effects placed on top of it to signify that Alpha is in control would be an unnerving experience for sure. :) As for the Frost Citadel meta, the dialogue from the Frost shamans during it seems to suggest no Inquest repurposing of assets. So far I haven't spotted any meta dialogue or peaceful ambient dialogue about the machine and its origin and how Bangar figured out the blood conversion progress. But the release is still young, so maybe there's as of yet undiscovered dialogue out there that clarifies it...

I would hardly call Smodur a "great character". In both the personal story and Season 2, he had very little interaction and screentime, and what little interaction there was, was ultimately a 1-dimensional stereotypical military officer personality. And more in the whole story than Eir, really? I would call Smodur a nuanced enough character. While much of his story is explained by NPCs, ambient dialogue (with even some hints in Ghosts of Ascalon novel albeit never involved directly), and out of game dev interviews like Scott McGough's illuminated TowerTalk podcast episode (where the whole concept of Smodur playing a more complex political game than it initially seems comes from), we do also get some glimpses of his personality in personal story and Season 2 dialogues. Some examples: What's notable about the above quote is that Smodur is seen praising our potential sire Clement Forktail who had originally defected to the Flame Legion with his warband until he had become an atoner and defected back to the High Legions to warn them about Shaman Mergath Flarekin's impending attack. While Smodur initially considered Clement a traitor (and based on "No Quarter", should've executed this Flame Legion joiner without issue), the imperator actually acknowledged Clement's contribution to the Legions' victory at the Black Citadel because Clement's intel had made Smodur aware of the impending attack and allowed him to prepare for it rather than let the Flame shaman's forces overrun the tribunes. This shows that Smodur, while despising traitors, wasn't above pardoning them if they proved their worth to him. The above quotes show that Smodur openly appreciated the Commander and Rytlock's help and never called them in demeaning ways unlike in "No Quarter" where Smodur made off-hand comments about their intelligence and keeping them in the dark about certain developments. Even when he was skeptical about the outcome of the World Summit, Smodur nevertheless honored Rytlock's commitment by attending the summit in the Grove as he's a charr who always keeps his word and respects others' diligence (at least until he decided to act against other leaders' wishes with the sudden execution during a parley in "No Quarter" and thus ruining getting valuable intel and making his ambitions for Khan-Ur more difficult to realize upon angering the other leaders). The above quotes show more proof about Smodur respecting his allies rather than demeaning them later, and it also revealed that out of all the leaders participating in the summit, he alone was willing to stay around a while longer to help out the sylvari suffering from the aftermath of the Mordrem assault. As such, he showed himself to be thoughtful and considerate towards his allies even when he could've just hightailed it out of there to report the events to the tribunes ASAP. That shows moral integrity and backbone, further cementing Smodur as an honorable leader. As such, it pains me when Rytlock said that Smodur had no honor after Cinder's sudden execution in "Turnabout". It would've been interesting if Smodur had partly been influenced by Jormag's whispers (as NPCs throughout Drizzlewood Coast have ambient dialogue mentioning voices) but oddly the voices didn't seem to play any part in any of the events either in the south or north as far as I've seen beyond influencing the charr Commander's former warband recruit Luccia Wildeye who joined the Dominion in the past. As for story, if we look at Eir and Smodur's respective story appearances for non-norn AND non-charr Commanders, it's almost a tie. If not counting dungeons, Eir appears in 10 story steps for non-norn Commanders (Personal Story: 2 steps, as I leave out "A Light in the Darkness" which is only a vision of Eir in the Dream; Season 1: 2 steps; Season 2: 4 steps; HoT: 1 step; Season 3: 0 steps, as I don't count the recap cinematic of Eir's deeds as anything more than a memory; PoF: 0 steps, as I leave out "The Departing" which is just the Commander's memory of Eir; Season 4: 1 step). Meanwhile, Smodur appears in 12 story steps for non-charr Commanders (Personal Story: 0 steps; Season 1: 1 step; Season 2: 2 steps; HoT: 0 steps; Season 3: 0 steps; PoF: 0 steps; The Icebrood Saga: 9 steps). If we count dungeons, we can add 3 story mode paths for Eir into the list, which makes Eir barely win out with 13 story steps. As for their respective story impact, Eir does win out due to her more developed backstory (including the entire Edge of Destiny novel) and being deeply tied to one of the protagonists Braham. However, for non-norn Commanders her story is less impactful than Trahearne, and yet the Commander chooses to attend Eir's vigil and give a tearful speech in her honor (even non-norn Commanders who didn't know Eir as well as the norn Commander) while ignoring Trahearne, who had been all Commanders' companion in later personal story, completely (unless there was some off-screen Pact vigil for Trahearne in Fort Trinity, but we never heard of such and only got NPCs complaining how Trahearne's recklessness in Maguuma had gotten so many people killed). If Braham had not been Eir's son and brought all the juicy drama with it, I've no doubt that Eir would've played a significantly lesser role than Smodur in the story as we transitioned from Destiny's Edge to Dragon's Watch. We get a lot of her backstory and development in Edge of Destiny (including her friendship with the other members, and the guilt she feels over being overconfident and losing Snaff and Glint in the process), and our norn characters get to enjoy her company in norn-specific personal story chapters. After that, though, we witness the first failed reunion of Destiny's Edge; we venture into dungeons to help her retrieve Magdaer for repairing, see her attempt to help out in Sorrow's Embrace before being driven off by Zojja, and finally go for her suicide mission in Honor of the Waves until we convince her that she still has worth as a hero; and we see her reunite with Destiny's Edge again to take down Zhaitan together. Since then, we learn about Braham being Eir's son while she doesn't aid him in assaulting the Molten Alliance (which, in part, sours their relationship for a time). Braham is forced to approach her so she can help him convince Knut Whitebear to attend the summit in the face of the Mordrem threat, and the two end up fighting some Svanir and start bonding in the process. Eir then joins the Pact as they make preparations to face Mordremoth and reveals some juicy details about Glint and her eggs, including teases of Vlast. Next thing we know, she accompanies the Pact to Maguuma, witnesses the sylvari betrayal, is captured and starved while she's being carted off to be cloned, is freed and tries to help the villain Faolain who stabs her and leaves her for dead. Eir's last heroic act in life is returning the favor to Faolain who is then captured by Mordrem, while the exhausted and weakened Eir then faces her death in the claws of the Vinetooth calmly. She gets a vigil worthy of a hero (unlike poor Trahearne), and later meets with Glint in the Mists and joins her Mist Wardens before she is sent to Tyria to deliver a message to Aurene in order to force her to accept her destiny in the prophecy, while she also tells Braham to finally move on with his life and not worry about her approval. Smodur, meanwhile, gets some backstory in blog posts and lore interviews by Ree Soesbee and Scott McGough and in some NPC dialogues although it's not that much beyond a few cool tidbits here and there. For charr characters he's a respected if a bit distant figure as is fitting of his position (it's not like we interact with various racial leaders that much compared to the more prominent heroes). However, while he seems a bit threatening and blunt at first, he shows his true colors upon "Tribunes in Effigy" where he acknowledges that the traitor Clement Forktail has redeemed himself. Smodur later witnesses the beginning of Rox's mission against the Molten Alliance and then focuses on dealing with other threats until he's convinced to witness Rytlock's attempted Foefire cleansing ritual and even helps him out with it by battling ghosts in Barradin's crypt. He attends the World Summit where he voices his concerns while belittling the Mordrem threat until the Commander makes him realize the threat is real, which is further punctuated by the sudden Mordrem invasion of the Grove. Out of all the leaders he decides to stay behind to help the sylvari clear the Mordrem stragglers and tend to the wounded, and he keeps his word by providing the Pact with more supplies, soldiers, engineers and tech. What happens afterwards is a bit murky. We know Smodur wanted Rytlock to tell him about the Mists trip after the return, but Rytlock ignored the summons to the Black Citadel. Rytlock was eventually demoted, arrested and brought back to the Citadel for a tribunal that we've yet to hear more about. Whatever happened during the tribunal, it convinced the brass to not only let Rytlock go free but restore his rank as tribune. Given legion hierarchy and Smodur and Rytlock's budding friendship, I find it unlikely that Rytlock would've deliberately avoided Smodur, and Smodur certainly didn't have the authority to demote a Blood tribune like Rytlock without seriously angering the paranoid Bangar who'd take it as a personal insult and declare war on Iron. Perhaps the tribunal soured Rytlock and Smodur's friendship, thus explaining their animosity towards each other in "No Quarter", and it emphasizes the issue that the subplot of Rytlock's Mists adventure is still somewhat unresolved since Season 2. Given what we know of Rytlock's adventure so far, nothing in it (meeting Glint, mastering legends, learning the ways of the revenant, and freeing a seemingly random spirit who helped reignite Sohohin) is dangerous knowledge that Rytlock wanted to keep from the charr leadership and risk his entire career over it. Unless Glint told him something that was not meant for anyone else's ears, or he experienced something else that was way more troubling than the other events in the Mists, so he wanted to keep that info from Bangar, potentially Smodur and everyone else (and thus he says to the Commander that the information is classified upon our arrival in Amnoon). If the story ever explored what happened during that closed-doors tribunal, what secrets Rytlock had to share, and if Bangar forced Smodur's hand to retrieve Rytlock, it might explain Smodur and Rytlock's changing relationship between Season 2 and the Icebrood Saga a bit. Either way, since those events, Smodur sends Mia to Thunderhead Peaks as Iron representative to take down Kralkatorrik, and later travels to Bangar's land to the rally where he voices his concerns about the Commander's role as champion and Aurene's role in it all although he still graciously accepts the Commander's help. By the time Bangar's treachery is revealed, Smodur goes into high gear and wants to deal with his rival the way he's dealt with the Renegades before. The Commander already starts suspecting that Smodur's reasons are more politically motivated thanks in part due to their earlier conversation and Malice's suggestions, and Smodur proves that these concerns were not unfounded when he starts losing masses of Iron to the Dominion as he adopts strict battlefield justice to deal with the enemy. At this point Smodur seems to snap and views the position of Khan-Ur as already his; while it's understandable that he'd view Crecia and Efram as his lessers, Malice is a bonafide imperator he should not dismiss so easily despite their differences. As the war progresses, we see Smodur's descent and his gradual change in personality as he tricks the Commander and Rytlock while berating them, and how he jeopardizes his allies' operations by ruining the stealth surprise and by killing a hostage during negotiations just to make a point. He does save the Commander's party from the Frost Legion ambush and continues being confident in his success upon the victories against the Steel Warband until Ryland assassinates him. All in all, Smodur's story does have nice twists and turns, but some of these make less sense than others unless more is revealed later. He's a crafty imperator and even if he was ruthless, he should be cunning enough to realize that angering Malice and sabotaging his relationship with his allies is not a wise move at least until Bangar has been eliminated and Jormag's threat has been neutralized. It would've made more sense for him to at least wait until the negotiations were over and then decide to take Ryland captive if he feared that Crecia would submit to Ryland's demands due to their family relationship. Even if the other leaders might berate him for such an action, at least Ryland and Cinder would theoretically be alive in legion custody and could be tortured/questioned for information like Smodur had Seneca the Relentless do to the Molten Alliance prisoners in Season 1. Tricking Efram, Commander and Rytlock was also a questionable move; while Smodur might be okay using a Searing bomb, he should've been forthcoming about his plans. Instead his trickery cost him Efram's support and further soured Commander and Rytlock towards him. It would all make more sense to me if Jormag had been subtly influencing Smodur for some time now by fueling his paranoia, ambitions and fears to turn him into a more reactive and less meticulous version of himself (just like we saw Jormag manipulating Braham's insecurities and Crecia and Rytlock's troubled family relationships in Bjora Marches). While I look forward to a potential competition for the Iron throne (while Smodur might have viewn Mia Kindleshot as a potential candidate, lorewise the so far unseen Fume Brighteye is known to be ambitious and bucking to be the next Iron Imperator, so there's no way she's going to let Mia take the throne without a fight especially when many Iron charr loyal to the legions seem to still support Fume's anti-treaty views as Fume's one of the three most respected Iron tribunes based on ambient dialogue which puts her on par with Mia and Bhuer Goreblade). I sincerely hope that this isn't the end of Smodur's story. Based on the lore of "The Departing", charr who experience violent, traumatic and sudden deaths (like the charr ghost we meet) end up in the limbo of Domain of the Lost where they'll have to find their name and purpose before they're judged and sent to their assigned afterlife: I'd view Smodur (who died traumatically with a sudden headshot while he had unfinished business with Bangar) reacting to his death in a similar manner to the above charr ghost in the Domain of the Lost and fighting tooth and claw to return from the Underworld back to the land of the living to finish off Bangar if nothing else. Depending on if the Judge still lives in the aftermath of Dhuum's sealing in Hall of Chains or if Desmina rules all of the Underworld (or what remains of it after the formation of Dragonfall), I could see Smodur eager to join Glint's Mist Wardens to have another chance at fighting Jormag (as the Mist rifts are still a thing despite Aurene and potentially Glint trying to repair them) even if he has to be content at being a ghost and letting Iron assume new leadership by Mia or Fume. This would, in turn, allow the Commander to chat with ghost Smodur and clarify if Smodur was in fact influenced by Jormag's whispers at all. I'd find it odd if the whispers didn't play at least some part; why else would the devs go to the effort of adding subtle ambient dialogue (and even written as per Luccia's journal) clues that some charr were affected by strange voices in Drizzlewood? Perhaps we could see Smodur and Cinder's ghosts being forced to work together to fight a common enemy and if they can even learn to forgive one another; it could be such an emotional storyline where the cycle of hatred is broken and the charr can truly embrace a more harmonious future despite the troubling undertones we've seen in Drizzlewood where even our charr allies keep threatening the Seraph and telling them that humans and charr are only allies for the time being. Besides, the saga missed a great opportunity of not only showing Bangar's triumphant return to charr lands to announe his victory over Drakkar (and the true announcement of the Dominion) but also his banter and rivalry with Smodur. The two charr never exchanged words while on screen together, and we never heard much about Bangar's views on Smodur beyond him stealing Iron cannons to aim them back at the Black Citadel. I'd love to see Bangar the Voice of Jormag have a conversation with Mist Warden Smodur and maybe have those two have the duel they've been waiting for. I do appreciate that Alex Kain wrote the illuminating Imperator Correspondences which detail Smodur's views on Mia, Malice, and his response to anonymous charr who questioned his extreme methods (a kind of jab from the devs at some of the players reacting to Smodur's actions in Ep3). But I wouldn't mind more development for Smodur, both in game and via lore books. So, in short: Justice for Smodur! There could be a redemption arc for him (and maybe even Bangar) yet! :)

Citation Needed. Ask, and ye shall receive. We Dawn bloom sylvari are always happy to lend a hand and help curious souls find knowledge throughout Tyria. :) Fascinating tweets from Tom Abernathy, Studio Narrative Director, himself: One should always raise an eyebrow whenever Tom replies with "Interesting," whether on Twitter or Reddit (hopefully we'll see more of his comments on these forums too in the future when/if the occasion calls for it). He's also used similar phrasing when players brought up the idea of whether other Elder Dragons suffer from their own forms of Torment as well as whether Aurene was able to absorb all of Kralkatorrik's magic upon her ascension or if some of that magic reached other Elder Dragons (and the latter was proven true via the Bjora Marches journals that revealed that Drakkar and Jormag have received at least some magic from Kralkatorrik's demise; it wouldn't surprise me if they got some of Balthazar's magic too in which case they can circumvent some of the divine magic protection and possibly enter the Mists like Kralkatorrik and Aurene did). :) As for the subject of dragon energy corrupting a subject, we've seen how the Risen-infused artifacts worn by Howl and Kellach turned them into Risen. In Kellach's case the transformation was gradual with the effects of attracting Risen to him until he insta-turned into Risen in Jennah's throne room. As such, dragon energy itself will passively corrupt its target into this or that dragon's minion without the dragon or its minions needing to be around to force it to in these circumstances. As seen with Kudu's Monster, Subjects Alpha and Beta (and potentially Kudu himself), targets can in fact be crosscorrupted by just letting them get exposed to dragon energy unless there's some specific protection like divine magic and related Exalting etc. rituals (at least until Kralkatorrik and Aurene consumed Balthazar, which allows them to bypass some of the divine protection as seen with corrupting djinn, and there are suggestions in game now that other dragons may have received this power too), Dream of Dreams, or the Blue and Golden Orbs. Why the Elder Dragons haven't tried to crosscorrupt other dragons' minions in the wild, then? There could be plenty of reasons. Maybe the dragon needs to concentrate more magic to corrupt an already corrupted minion, which is not economical when dragons prefer to hoard most of the magic for themselves (thus the number of mindless grunts is greater than the more intelligent lieutenants and champions). Another reason could be more sinister: as seen with Subject Alpha, it became an unpredictable "wild card" whose loyalties remain unknown. It was able to attune to different dragon hiveminds' frequencies and somehow wrestle control of rival dragons' minions for itself while turning the various minions into a pack that viewed it as their pack alpha. Perhaps the dragons are aware of this outcome and how these wild card champions could threaten their rule if left unchecked, which is why we haven't seen any crosscorrupted minions in the wild and why different dragons' minions seem to avoid one another's territory (e.g. Mordrem and Branded never interacting in Ascalon, Icebrood ceasing their relentless assault on the Stone Summit fortress in Far Shiverpeaks once the Summit remnants had been infused with Primordus's power as revealed in Arngirn's journal and why Icebrood and Destroyers never got close to one another in Darkrime Delves). Given how Crucible of Eternity's explorable mode showed one of Alpha's essences slithering away unharmed, I'd love to find out that Alpha managed to escape the facility before it was shut down and has continued consuming beings into itself to become more powerful and more intelligent over the following years. Imagine if Alpha became our somewhat morally grey antagonist/ally who seeks out perfection while becoming a potential threat as a "seventh" Elder Dragon by leeching on each dragon's power to take over their minions one by one. In this scenario it would be intriguing for Alpha to come across Overseer Kuda and its "sibling", Subject Beta, and how it might view Kuda's ambitions to continue her father's work to create synchonized, crosscorrupted minions under the Inquest's control (possibly with the dominating devices the Inquest used on Risen in Arah's mursaat path). How might Alpha view the Unchained Risen, Mordrem and Branded and the related champions? Would it try to negotiate with these Unchained champions so they form a new multi-minion army so they can forge their own path, or would Alpha simply take over these confused ex-minions and turn them into a potent force where the strengths of each related minion empower the whole horde. And what would Alpha feel about Aurene's existence and her relationship with her mortal followers, and vice versa? Would Aurene view Alpha with pity, curiosity, or worry depending on what sort of a path Alpha forged as the true wild card? :) I'm really curious about the machine that infuses the Frost Legion with dragon energy. It's essentially a more advanced version of Kudu's machine in that it doesn't turn subjects into full corrupted minions but gives them only some frosting akin to Svanir who are in early stages of corruption. Is Jormag willingly granting their power via the machine, is it making the charr think they're in charge as they leech some dragon energy for their uses, or has Bangar genuinely figured out a way to perfect Kudu's research? These Frost Legion retain their personality and intelligence (it'll be fascinating to listen to their taunts and chatter based on that_shaman's teases, and I hope we actually get to hear proper idle conversations between Frost Legion members when we sadly didn't get the same luxury with the mostly mute Dominion outside of events). I also look forward to finding out if the Frost Citadel is newly built or if parts of it may have originated as an Inquest or Pact outpost before it was frozen over and before the charr repurposed it for their uses. It'll be fun to find out how prepared Bangar really is when he so far seems to be severely underestimating Jormag's power and if he actually has any trump card whatsoever, especially if there's some Inquest collaboration based on the curious Brand stomper sabotage that attracted the Branded to the ceremony, which forced Aurene to intervene and soured many of the attending charr to her presence as the saboteur may have planned all along to speed things up and force Bangar into action sooner than expected. Unless that's all a misdirection and some charr has actually been responsible for the sabotage behind Bangar's back; either way, Bangar seemed genuinely surprised by Aurene's flyover in the prologue, so I doubt even he could fake his surprise that well when his previous fakings have been pretty obvious (e.g. his snarky responses to Almorra in the office). There was even ambient dialogue where Researcher Dwidd, clad in Inquest clothes, discussed potentially weaponizing Aurene's magic and how Gorrik might be able to help with that; it would be fun if Gorrik's Inquest past caught up with him and if Kuda has taken notice of his and Taimi's research on Aurene and wants that data so she can perfect her own dragon minion project. :)

Looking back at the previous expansion names, we have Heart of Thorns, and Path of Fire. Both titles refer to the main antagonist and are also tied to lore (HoT = the giant tree where Mordremoth's physical body/avatar can be found in as well as metaphorically the darkness that infects the Dream and Nightmare to sway sylvari, PoF = Balthazar's campaign to reach his goals while leaving misery in his wake as well as the Dragonbrand left behind by Kralkatorrik breathing fire to corrupt land throughout the desert). As such, one potentially interesting title for expansion 3 could be "Age of the Dragon" even if it sounds a bit similar to the Dragon Age game series. My reasoning for this title is as follows: 1) Age of the Dragon is an actual age described in the Canthan calendar. It was initially named so because astrologers, emboldened by the empire's diplomatic successes and growing wealth at the time, joyously predicted a would-be prosperous future for the empire until Shiro and the Jade Wind messed things up. 2) Among the Celestials, the Dragon is said to be a reminder of atrocity, pain, and anguish and linked to an empress named Tahmu. There are some intriguing parallels between this description and the Elder Dragons' cycle, and Elder Dragons' rises are even said to lead to changes in the constellation and new stars being born as shown by jotun discoveries. 3) The ruling nation in Cantha is called the Empire of the Dragon which will likely, in part, play a somewhat antagonistic role at least in some parts of the expansion while also being a descriptive name for the setting the story takes place in based on the Shing Jea hints in the first teaser image and its filename. The Empire may attempt to pursue the Age of the Dragon where Cantha will reign supreme, maybe even involving the intelligent and speaking saltspray dragons who have great powers (e.g. Albax having the magical ability to grant mortals good or bad luck) and whom the Emperor, Empress and/or the Ministry of Purity may try to enslave to gain their magic. 4) The expansion will likely involve one of the Elder Dragons. Age of the Dragon could thus have another meaning: not only would it describe the setting and the potentially antagonistic empire that we'll be facing, but it could also point to the overarching menace of the Elder Dragon in this plot even if said dragon was more in the background like Kralkatorrik was during PoF before becoming the main villain who replaces or overwhelms the more humanoid villains in case it attempts a genuine takeover of the continent. 5) If we end up pursuing Glint and the Forgotten's suggestion to find multiple benevolent replacements for the Elder Dragons to keep the All's Antikytheria mechanism in balance as per the Glint's Legacy plan, the title could also refer to a hunt for these replacements, possibly tying in the fate of the saltspray dragons such as Albax, Kuunavang and Shiny and if they are worthy or capable enough to become such replacements. This way the title would both describe the setting and name the antagonist(s) (dragon and mortal alike) and their ambitions while also teasing a more hopeful outcome depending on what roles Aurene and the saltspray dragons play in the narrative. They could even go with something like "End of Dragons" if they wanted to emphasize the end of an era with the replacements, Empire of the Dragon, and the dragon antagonist in mind as discussed above. As for the potential release date, ANet has shown that their development cycle for both HoT and PoF was too fast as both could've been expanded significantly with more content and some more polish. For some reason PoF even went through extensive rewrites based on dev comments (e.g. Kormir already had some alternate recorded lines, one of which is heard in S4Ep1 Daybreak trailer, that ended up on the cutting room floor in the final game), which may have contributed to some of the rushed aspects of the story like us speeding through the Desolation in the narrative. As such, I hope they'll use at least 2-3 years for developing the expansion so they can truly deliver a content-rich expansion with a longer story and a healthy balance of meta-driven and exploration-oriented zones with replayability. Taking their time with polishing the expansion would also allow the Icebrood Saga some room to breathe and extend its somewhat rushed narrative as they'd get more episodes to play with until the expansion is getting ready to launch. Whether the developers are extended such courtesy from NCSoft will be interesting to find out, but I feel that the company should take their time with developing the expansion while learning what worked and didn't work with the approaches taken with the previous expansions. :)

To be fair, in Season 3 he had Rytlock arrested for questioning, and then deemed Rytlock's experiences in the Mists 'classified' so there was no opportunity to make the link between a figure in the Mists that could reignite Sohothin and Balthazar until Balthazar had already caught us by surprise. But yeah, there does seem to be a shift in his characterisation. That actually brings up an interesting point about charr politics: how much power do the imperators hold over other legions' officers? We don't know if it was Smodur who was the sole person behind the arrest per se other than the appearance of the Adamant Guard which at least suggests his involvement as other imperators couldn't order the Adamant Guard around like that. But it opens another can of worms: Back in Season 2 Rytlock and Smodur seemed to get along fine, and Smodur was certain Rytlock would survive the Mists trip. He did ask the Commander to deliver news to him once Rytlock returned so he could learn what Rytlock had experienced, but other than that he didn't seem to press the issue. Upon his return from the Mists, Rytlock never had a conversation about Smodur with the Commander, on screen at least, so we don't know if the Commander ever relayed Smodur's wish to Rytlock. By the time Rytlock's return became widely known, he did receive summons to return to the Black Citadel, but he oddly rejected these summons despite the fact how at the time nothing he had done in the Mists (to our knowledge) would be dangerous per se: all we really learned over time was that he met Glint who taught him the ways of the revenant, he might have struggled mastering the powers of various legends a bit, and he freed a seemingly random spirit who had somehow reignited Sohothin. And yet Rytlock was willing to disobey orders even though a quick trip to the Citadel to report the aforementioned info would've been enough to satisfy Smodur's curiosity. Second, Smodur shouldn't really have such an authority over Rytlock, at least not while Rytlock wasn't at the Black Citadel, and thus Iron grounds, at the time. Oddly enough Rytlock was even demoted, an act that Smodur as Iron Imperator shouldn't be able to do to my understanding. This, to me, suggests that perhaps Bangar was behind wanting a report from Rytlock and had the authority to demote Rytlock if he resisted, and somehow coerced Smodur to go along with the idea to bring Rytlock back to a tribunal (maybe threatening opening hostilities with Smodur if Blood's demands were not met). This would also explain Rytlock's reluctance to hand in a report as he wanted nothing to do with Bangar and tried to avoid responsibility as long as possible until no other choice was left for him (compare him e.g. reluctantly following us to Grothmar during the prologue episode). If Iron Imperator Smodur somehow had the authority to demote a Blood Tribune like Rytlock, that would no doubt cause an incident between him and Bangar; even if Smodur enjoyed humiliating Bangar with such a show of power, he'd be dealing with the same Blood Imperator who had confiscated Iron artillery and had at one point intended to aim them at the Black Citadel just because of paranoia. Who knows how Bangar would've acted if he learned what Smodur had done to a Blood officer, so Smodur as a strategist should've hopefully known better than to take that chance. Still, it begs the question why Rytlock was so tight-lipped about the Mists adventure at all. It couldn't have been freeing a random spirit or being taught by Glint as those, by themselves, aren't really that big a deal beyond introducing a new profession to Tyria. Given how the info was deemed classified so only tribunes and above had clearance for it while Rytlock's rank was somehow reinstated after his tribunal, there must've been something else to the story that convinced the charr brass of such secrecy and why Rytlock wasn't ordered to scrapper duty for the rest of his life. I wonder if just freeing a random spirit really was that big a deal to the charr brass or if Rytlock is still hiding something from us. Perhaps he learned something and swore to Glint to never reveal it under any circumstance, hence his reluctance to elaborate on matters until he was forced to. Or maybe he discovered something that he personally wanted to keep a secret so whatever knowledge he learned wouldn't be abused by Bangar or anyone else. It does make one think what Smodur's thought process was during the whole tribunal, and if this incident somehow soured his and Rytlock's budding friendship and respect to some degree. It would be nice if the writers explored what exactly happened during the closed doors meeting, why Rytlock was reluctant about turning in a report, and why his rank was reinstated despite his disobedience. It seems like we're still missing a key piece of Rytlock's Mists puzzle that has been ongoing since the subplot began in Season 2. Curiously Season 2 also introduced the idea of Rox working as a free agent and reporting on some activities to someone in Smodur's office. I've written at length about "Rox's Secret", why she was acting as a spy, who exactly was she was spying on, what her relationship was with the enigmatic and hostile Monti Scythescrape, and why Rox even lied to the Pact Commander (with only the charr Commander realizing something was amiss in her explanations) during "Reunion with the Pact" and "Return to Camp Resolve" instances. Was Rox working for Smodur as she was interested in Rytlock's Mists adventure as well as the egg based on her dialogue in S2 and HoT, or was she potentially working for Bangar if she was offered another chance to join the Stone Warband by delivering him intel on Core Tyrian activities? I wouldn't put it past Bangar to use Rox as a pawn in his game as he knows what buttons to push and what rewards to offer to make people dance to his tune. However, it still leaves the mystery of Monti whose armor our charr Commander didn't recognize, though, but Monti could've been Bangar's liaison for all we know unless there's something else to him as he and Rox seem to know each other from somewhere and don't seem to like one another that much. Whatever the reason, it seems strange that Smodur would change his tune about Rytlock since "Plan of Attack" and start insulting him despite respecting him before. It's likewise strange why Rytlock would hesitate telling Smodur anything in S3 if Smodur was for the most part responsible for the arrest and tribunal as opposed to Bangar, as nothing that we know of Rytlock's Mists adventure is dangerous knowledge per se. Rytlock would be risking his entire career for nothing. It seems to me like there's more to this story yet to be told, but whether we ever explore it now that both Angel McCoy and Scott McGough (who seem to have been the main architects of this idea and may have taken their plans with them) are gone remains to be seen. It would be a neat tie-in to Bangar and Smodur's storyline, especially if we ran into Monti again and learned just what exactly his relationship with Rox was, and if the story ever canonizes the cut Season 1 ending where Rox was suggested to be Rytlock's half-sister via sharing the same dam who had made Rytlock promise to watch over Rox while on her deathbed.

I wouldn't necessarily write off a potential connection just yet. Looking back at how three Elder Dragons were defeated, we find something curious: 1) Zhaitan was defeated in part by using its own Death magic against it during the final battle (see e.g. the cannons and the MEGA-LIT that used Gorr's vacuumagic polarizer tech). 2) Mordremoth was defeated with a combination of Mind magic and Plant magic. The former via entering the Dream to battle Mordy's mind and turning the mind's evil manifestations of our friends into our allies to deprive the avatar of their protective power. The latter via plunging Caladbolg (a thorn of the Pale Tree who has deep ties to Mordy and thus access to some purified form of Plant magic as seen via the Artesian Waters in the Zhaitan campaign) into Mordy's last physical host to finish the last seed of the Jungle Dragon's mind off for good. 3) Kralkatorrik was defeated with Crystal magic due to the resonance of the Branded, Aurene, and the Dragonsblood Spears. I could write off the deaths of two dragons via their greatest strength as a mere happy coincidence, but three deaths involving such seems to suggest a pattern. If we follow this line of reasoning, Jormag's great Ice magic could thus be potentially used against it as well. Presently the story has revealed multiple weaknesses for dragons: 1) Turning the dragons' own magic spectrum aka their greatest strength against them (see the examples with the three dragons above). 2) Their opposite dragon's magic in the All (Primordus vs. Jormag confirmed, Zhaitan vs. Mordremoth heavily implied via the way we damaged the Unstable Abomination by exposing it to Death and Plant magic during S3Ep3, and thus Kralkatorrik/Aurene should theoretically be the direct opponent of the deep sea dragon if this pattern holds). 3) "Poisoning" magic and force-feeding a weakened dragon with it as seen with the battle against Zhaitan and how Gorr's experiments on Risen worked. Granted, this could simply be a part of example 1 given how we used Death magic there. 4) Divine magic (aka magic foreign to Tyria) as seen with the Divine Fire scaring off Mordrem and finishing off the Shadow of the Dragon in Season 2, or how djinn gained immunity to Branding via using Abaddon's remnant magic in the sands (until Kralk consumed Balthazar and managed to circumvent this protection) and how Kormir's fire protected Sun's Refuge from Branded until they figured out a loophole via Mist rifts. 5) Native Tyrian (spirit?) magic. See e.g. the three Lost Spirits using their power to help Braham defeat Drakkar for good, or how the kodan use the Spirit of Fire's remnant power in Koda's Flame to ward off Icebrood and protect themselves from the blizzard in Bitterfrost Frontier. This could potentially be classified under the "divine" magic listed in Example 4 (as devs have referred to the Spirits as norn "deities" in a very general sense a couple of times) except this magic is native to Tyria rather than originating from elsewhere in the Mists. It's unknown if the Blue and Golden Orbs (presently warding Fort Trinity and the Pyrite Peninsula, respectively) are related to this kind of magic or something else entirely, but they do oppose dragon corruption to some degree as well. As such, I'd argue that the Rata Novans' research, while impressive, was left incomplete due to the sudden chak invasion, so they only figured out that each dragon had seemingly one distinctive weakness when we see from the above examples that several general weaknesses do in fact exist and are shared by at least some of the dragons in the All. While there's no definite proof that all dragons share all of the above weaknesses (even less so now that there's a chance that all the remaining dragons may have gained some of Balthazar's magic and can thus circumvent the protection of divine magic), it's certainly a possibility given the aforementioned evidence. And thus the Sanguinary Blade could in fact tie into the story somehow if Jormag finds a way to destroy any weapon(s) enchanted by jotun scrolls and if it finds a way to counter Koda's Flame (should that S3 story ever be referenced in the saga) and we need to start figuring out alternative ways to face Jormag. Given how three dragons have already fallen to their greatest strength, perhaps Jormag will follow this pattern in some way too. I'd prefer the blade ending in the hands of one of Jormag's champions (perhaps the charr champion shown in the announcement trailer) for a symbolic clash between Flame (Sohothin, representing the divine fire of a god) and Frost (Sanguinary Blade, representing the icy power of an Elder Dragon) should Rytlock have to face this champion in battle. However, given how Iron Tribune Fume Brighteye has yet to make an in-game appearance despite being set up as wanting to become Smodur's potential successor (while potentially being a Renegade sympathizer as she's opposed to the Ebonhawke Treaty) while the Dominion plot is now chugging on with many defections from the legions, the developers will have to pick and choose which of the seeded plot threads from vanilla game they want to expand on and address given the tight budget per episode. It could very well be that we'll never see further development for the Sanguinary Blade or Mattul Krigheset's proposed idea of using the Fang of the Serpent as a ballista projectile against Jormag, but it would be cool if those ideas were explored more rather than being one-offs: If one of Jormag's weaknesses was in fact its own icy power as suggested above, then using the fang as such a weapon against the Ice Dragon would be a lovely, devious move: turning Jormag's token of manipulating Asgeir and the norn into an actual weapon against the dragon in an ironic twist that would fit the epic narratives in Norse sagas! :) While I understand the trailer depicts general concepts, I would've loved to see an actual kodan burial at sea in some form unless the devs are saving that for later. It certainly made for a beautiful if somber visual in the trailer. Interestingly the announcement trailer does also depict what seems to be an aftermath of a naval battle somewhere (maybe the so far unseen Sea of Desperation if that turns out to be the sea Jormag created that now connects to the shoreline of Woodland Cascades?). What's even more interesting is that at we see what appears to be a krait (to the "southeast" of the foreground norn) sinking into the depths, so this may suggest some krait involvement in a future episode.It will be interesting to find out what roles centaurs and potentially krait play in the saga. I'd love to see us meeting some friendly centaur rebels from the Centaur Alliance and help them dethrone the Modniir High Command (or a new War King if such has risen since Ulgoth's demise) so the Harathi and Tamini can no longer have to fear reprisals from the more dominating Modniir. Maybe we could even use good charr and sylvari as ambassadors to try to broker an armistice between humans and centaurs (as centaurs respect sylvari as nature spirits, and charr have experience detailing the benefits of a treaty with their former human enemies) while Jennah could provide evidence from Caudecus's seized letters in Season 3 to prove that Caudecus was the driving force behind the war on the humans' side while Jennah always preferred a more diplomatic solution to end hostilities without demeaning centaurs or taking over all their lands. Meanwhile Jormag's whispers (which already seem to be influencing some people in Drizzlewood Coast based on ambient dialogue at e.g. Fort Defiance) could become appealing to the ousted warmongerers among centaurs who'd turn to Jormag in their desperation to retake what they lost just like some centaurs consumed Bloodstone dust as a last resort to take on Divinity's Reach with the White Mantle's help back in Season 3. Interestingly there were also suggestions of a Centaur Alliance and Flame Legion collaboration back in vanilla game dialogue for Fural Rageseeker as seen above although so far nothing has (seemingly) come of it. I'd love to see the more evil Flame Legion splinter groups appear in the saga to oppose Efram's ambitions to become Flame Imperator, and how one of these splinter groups could be led by Crecia's high-ranking shaman sire to make the conflict even more personal for some of our heroes. Just like I'd love to see some jotun and possibly grawl and quaggan involvement in the saga too so they can take their revenge on the Ice Dragon, given how much Bergris, Gara, Baroosh and Shashoo suffered due to Jormag's icebrood back in the personal story. We could even learn more about jotun discoveries and inventions from the previous dragonrise, perhaps figuring out more about their findings on the relationships between Elder Dragons and stars, or how they originally came up with the fire magic of the jotun scrolls that are so effective against Jormag and its minions. :)

I do hope we'll see more recurring norn characters besides Braham and Jhavi in the saga as the story progresses. While we've had some intriguing one-offs like Olar, Torrin and the Fraenir in the story (and Weibe in open world meta; I'd love to see the other havrouns as well as Bear's new havroun in the saga too), I'm missing the involvement of our norn friends from the three orders as well as the Whitebear family who now have an even bigger stake than before once/if they learn about the troubling revelations found in the journal of Knut's grandfather Asgeir. At least on the charr side Smodur, Malice and Efram are receiving more development for the time being although I wouldn't mind seeing more charr characters making appearances such as the Blood Legion Tribune Fierhan Sparwind (I assume he rebelled with Crecia against Bangar, or would he have sided with his Imperator's Dominion because of his views on Blood Legion's purpose?) and the so far unseen but seemingly popular Iron Legion Tribune Fume Brighteye who was said to be opposed to the Ebonhawke Treaty due to a tragic backstory involving her sire. It would be fun to see Fume try to steal the Claw of the Khan-Ur from the Black Citadel and either deliver it to Bangar to further his ambition of becoming Khan-Ur, or her trying to seize the artifact for herself in a bid to replace Smodur as the new Iron Imperator given what we learn about Fume's ambitions in NPC dialogue. I'd also love to see more development on Bangar's sleeper agents/moles within the three orders and if the Priory agents may attempt to steal the Sanguinary Blade, forged from Jormag's frozen blood which may end up being effective against Jormag, from the Priory's vaults so Bangar (or whoever becomes Jormag's ultimate champion) can wield that rimeblade against Rytlock's fiery Sohothin in a clash of Flame and Frost. I'd be sad if the charr sleeper agent existence would be brushed over as quickly as the human White Mantle spies in the three orders were during Season 3; there's lots of cool plots of intrigue to be had if we don't know which of our charr allies from the orders is revealed as a Bangar loyalist. Likewise, I'd love to see some interaction between Malice and Evon Gnashblade given Evon's past missions as an Ash Legion agent and his original reason for starting a business at Lion's Arch; would Evon be happy about aiding his Imperator, or will he try to distance himself from his Ash Legion agent days? As for more notable norn involvement, I've written at length about how the "Whitebear Saga" might turn out regarding the foreshadowed prophecy about Knut Whitebear's death (or Jormag at least tempting his bloodline as the wording of the prophecy is intriguingly vague when it mentions "...and the muttering voices will call for his blood."), the destiny of Knut's sons Skarti and the increasingly disillusioned and reckless Sigfast (whose anger, doubt and feelings of self-worth could lead to him becoming a mighty fine pawn for Jormag who would no doubt want to taint Asgeir's bloodline should the shocking truth about Asgeir's deal reach Sigfast's ears and shatter his view about his family's legend), and Knut's so far unseen legendary wife Gaerta Whitebear, the Bane of Lies who is currently adventuring in the north while building her legend. I hope we at least explore the family somewhat by the time we tackle with the masteries of Bear if not before. I wouldn't be opposed seeing more recurring norn than just the Whitebears make an appearance if the pacing of the story allows for it, however. There are lots of friendly norn faces from past storylines that the writers could use, or they could create brand new ones (beyond the potential in-game appearance of Gaerta herself in the flesh) to add more worldbuilding for the norn as a whole. :) Here's the relevant quote from page 158: The wording ''sapling of the Elder Dragon" here almost seems to imply, to me, that the Pale Tree (and thus Malyck's Tree and possibly the Tower of Nightmares if it did turn out to have also originated from the same batch of seeds) may be considered a scion of Mordremoth in a way. It would be interesting to find out if this is the case as that would make Pale Tree and Malyck's Tree candicacy as Mordremoth's dual replacements even more potent in case the connection between them and the Elder Dragon goes deeper than just being minion factories. What's interesting to me about the art book quote is that it doesn't specify how the Pale Tree was purified. The devs could've easily just flat out stated that she was purified by the Forgotten (or some other source) but they chose to leave the idea a mystery for now. Given how Matthew Medina is back at the studio and had a sizable (and well-received) pitch for continuing Malyck's story, maybe the writers could use that story thread to answer some of the unresolved questions from HoT and Season 2, especially if the Trees end up being scions of Mordremoth and thus even greater candidates as replacements (so Pale Tree could take over Mordremoth's Mind domain while Malyck's Tree could take over the Plant domain). This story could not only explore the origins of Dream and Nightmare by tying it to how Malyck's Tree may have a different Dream given Malyck's lack of our Dream, and whether Malyck's people were shielded from Mordremoth during HoT or not. We don't know why Malyck's people appear humanoid; given the implications of Pale Tree choosing a human shape for Grove sylvari, it suggests that Malyck's Tree must've either seen humans passing by or was planted on another human grave site to use these concepts as templates for her sylvari. Given how both Trees were apparently purified while the Pale Tree had Ventari's Tablet and other positive memories to guide her development towards goodness, it should be interesting to find out if Malyck's Tree likewise had some positive influence (based on how Malyck was still being relatively noble even if a bit more bloodthirsty than the average Dreamer) or if the Tree would've become a morally neutral entity as opposed to the good Pale Tree (and the evilly raised Tower of Nightmares if its ties to the Blighting Tree family are ever confirmed beyond hints). We might even learn where Scarlet acquired the Tower of Nightmares seed from as its existence was heavily tied to Mordremoth's influence via music and visuals. Depending on if Malyck's Tree is located in that unexplored patch of land east of Tangled Depths or somewhere else (given the odd way the river led Malyck's pod to Brisban Wildlands), the devs could even tie his absence from HoT to the SCAR meta from Tangled Depths. During that meta we stopped the Mordrem march east to invade Central Tyria, but we nevertheless saw hundreds of Mordrem escaping us unscathed. And yet these Mordrem never appeared in Metrica Province or Rata Sum en masse, so something or someone must've stopped their advance while we lorewise spent over a month fighting Mordremoth and his minions in the jungle. It would be easy enough to explain that these Mordrem entered the territory of Malyck's Tree and fought a fierce battle against Malyck's people, and thus Malyck never returned with an army to aid us while ironically ensuring that his people's actions did in fact save the asura from a massive Mordrem invasion. Besides, I'd just want that ugly gap in the world map between Metrica and TD to be filled by a zone one day. Perhaps this location could be close to the cave Ronan found the seeds in as nice lore fanservice. ;) The story could also explore the fates of the two missing Firstborn whose appearances were teased during the Blighted Pale Tree battle in "Hearts and Minds". During that battle we saw Blighted versions of our known Firstborn as well as one unknown female Firstborn Sniper and two unknown male Firstborn Tormentors. Given how post-torture Malomedies doesn't appear in the instance, it's reasonable to assume that one of those male unknown Firstborn (likely the more scholarly-looking one) portrays what Malomedies looked like before he was tortured by the asura. As we haven't seen the missing male and female Firstborn in the Grove (nor are their names ever revealed to us), it's likely that they're on an adventure out there. We could easily see at least one of them appear in the Malyck storyline, perhaps having discovered Malyck's Grove and learning from him about his adventures with Caithe, Trahearne and the Valiant. I wouldn't be opposed if we saw the other unknown Firstborn appear in the Icebrood Saga as who knows what adventures one of these Firstborn might be having in the frozen north although at times point a new sylvari hero appearing in the saga seems highly unlikely. This plot could explore the fate of the Unchained Mordrem and the rest of the Mordrem Guard since Mordremoth's demise and if some Unchained Mordrem champions have risen to lead these unhinged remnants. So far we've only met the one Solitary Sylvari in Labyrinthe Cliffs who claims he still feels Mordremoth in his head while he's trying to atone, and the teases that one, but the fate of the Mordrem Guard as a whole is unknown. Did any of them choose to embrace Mordremoth even after the dragon's demise? Did most of them return to Central Tyria to seek forgiveness from the rest of the sylvari and other races? Perhaps these Mordrem could still be threatening Malyck's Tree, thus explaining what kinds of enemies we'd face in the new zone. We could likewise learn more about the Nightmare Court splinter groups (Duchess Chrysanthea's faction and otherwise) that formed since Faolain's demise, and we might finally learn why the Nightmare Court were in the Heart of Maguuma to begin with during HoT and what Faolain had been doing in the years between Twilight Arbor ending and HoT. We could have some juicy and flirty dialogue with Chrysanthea while learning about the more "honorable" courtiers who might uphold the late Gavin's ideals while we'd also battle more bloodthirsty courtiers. It could be an uneasy alliance as we'd be unsure if it's wise to install a new and seemingly more benevolent Grand Duchess (Chrysanthea) to sway the court as a whole or if we're being played in a complex game of intrigue as Chrysanthea manipulates us by appearing as kind. It would likewise be fascinating to find out how these court factions reacted to the existence of Malyck's Tree now that we live in the post-Mordremoth-reveal world where the court has to come to terms with their original destiny as intended dragon minions. Could Malyck and Chrysanthea ever learn to set aside their differences and learn to coexist despite the court's troubled history with the Nightmare Harbinger Malyck? Finally, the biggest reason for us to explore the Malyck's Tree storyline would be the potential tie-in to the narrative's golden path which is about dealing with the Elder Dragon threat and fulfilling Glint's Legacy to balance the All. We know that Glint and the Forgotten intended to replace the Elder Dragons with six benevolent entities, but we never learned about any other replacements beyond Vlast, Aurene and likely Glint herself. So if everything had gone according to plan, who did Glint intend the three other balancers to be? The saltsprays Albax, Kuunavang, Shiny, or someone else (this could also be a tie-in to Canthan expansion as the Zephyrites were implied to have visited Cantha during the time they fetched the egg that contained Aurene from someone, likely Vlast...Ogden really needs to tell us the identity of the being that spoke with the Master of Peace back then)? Assuming that we can't just ring up the ghosts of Glint and Vlast to become ED replacements (or could their ghosts actually fulfill the purpose?), Aurene can't handle all the six dragons' twelve domains by herself. We also can't kill any more EDs without destroying Tyria, so Jormag has an advantage over us in the conflict. We thus need replacements for Zhaitan and Mordremoth ASAP. Depending on if the Pale Tree is still too weak to take on all of Mordy's magic, perhaps she could share it with Malyck's Tree, thus the Trees taking one domain each to lessen the burden of magic on themselves. This would then necessitate revisiting Malyck's story to find out if his Tree is a viable candidate for the Legacy project or if the Tree is too bloodthirsty or unpredictable (depending on if she's a neutral entity) to become a replacement. If the story went in this direction, it would also open up juicy lore opportunities to explore how the other races reacted to the idea of the Pale Tree gaining Mordy's power, especially as there are still people out there who view the sylvari with suspicion as revealed in Jora's Keep ambient dialogue. All in all, the story practically writes itself from here with lots of fun exploration of sylvari topics and the greater narrative thread itself while also tying up some loose threads from sylvari personal story and HoT. :)

While the Zhaitan fight definitely could have benefited from an extended and more mechanically complex/involving fight, there's a lore reason why the Battle of Arah turned in our favor and why Zhaitan was so "easily" defeated: 1) We didn't just use any random cannons against Zhaitan but the special MEGA-LIT cannon. It was designed by Zojja using what appears to have been both Kudu's research on dragon energy (as the cannon was finalized after Kudu's demise in Crucible of Eternity and took a page from the Vigil Megalaser used against Tequatl) and Professor Gorr's vacuumagic polarizer tech. Based on the aforementioned info and the foreshadowing from the "Magic Sucks" story instance, the cannon removes magic from the dragon, poisons it, and then transfers it back: Essentially we turned Zhaitan's great strength, its Death magic, against it with this tech during the aerial battle. This also fits in well with the way we've also used other Elder Dragons' respective strengths against them in the battles to come (Plant and Mind against Mordremoth, and Crystal and arguably Fury against Kralkatorrik). 2) Zhaitan was already weakened by the time we faced it in Arah. First, the entire Orr campaign (e.g. destroying Zhaitan's supply line and specialized champions such as the Eyes and the Mouths, purifying the Artesian Waters with Caladbolg) weakened Zhaitan little by little. This allowed the Pact the chance to face the Elder Dragon above its lair which otherwise would've been very difficult (given how Zhaitan had historically defeated a combined army of mursaat and Forgotten who were no slouches when it came to destructive magical inventions and spells). Second, the Seer path of Arah explorable reveals that the gods had (seemingly unknowingly) siphoned magic off of sleeping Zhaitan to sunder the original Bloodstone into five lesser Bloodstones to end the war for magic. I imagine that the magic taken from Zhaitan must've been significant enough to sunder the Bloodstone, thus making Zhaitan the anti-Mordremoth in power levels (while Scarlet empowered Mordremoth with a ley line breakfast in bed, Zhaitan's already leaking magic was further reduced by gods for their own project). Even after Zhaitan woke up and began feeding on the Artesian Waters while sending out minions to gather more artifacts to consume for power, it was quite a bit weakened by the entire ordeal. And then of course we had the Orr campaign detailed above to further reduce the dragon's strength. I hope we'll get to meet Zhaitan in the Mists someday assuming that slain Elder Dragons' souls enter some kind of an afterlife instead of being absorbed into the ley lines if there's no entity nearby to consume their essence. It would be fitting to meet the shadowy ghost of the Elder Dragon of Death and Shadow for a second and more insightful confrontation. If Zhaitan suffered from Torment in "life" and if that Torment has vanished (or lessened?) after the dragon died, we might even have a chance to have a dangerous and unpredictable conversation with the former Elder Dragon and seek its sage counsel despite the risks associated with such a meeting should the story go that route...perhaps similar to the in Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, or the encounter with the unnerving Koh the Face-Stealer in Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'd be interested in finding out what kind of a speaking voice Zhaitan had. :)

I wouldn't be opposed to elves per se because lorewise their existence could make sense if the devs spent enough time to explore them, their society, and their history between the two dragonrises. After all, Glint is said to have shielded the surviving races of the previous dragonrise until all the Elder Dragons fell to sleep and it was safe to emerge again, so who knows how many Tyrian races were included in that bunch over 10,000 years ago before they spread across the world again. The world of Tyria is vast, and devs have confirmed that the current inhabitants haven't even managed to explore every nook and cranny of the planet yet, so lots of surprises could be in store out there in the wilderness of the placeholder names such as Sunrise Crest (which I speculate could be Doern Velazquez's teased human kingdom and possibly the first Tyrian land populated by various human tribes before they began migrating to Cantha, Elona etc.), Not Real, Furious Stretch, Olympus, Forsaken Cliffs etc. With that said, traditional elves would look too human when we already have actual humans, norn and largos to deal with, so that might get too repetitive even if these elves had a fascinating culture and backstory. It'd be more beneficial to instead explore the society of the largos and flesh them and the Tethyos Houses out more as they already seem to be inspired by the drow to some extent. We've only encountered the assassins and their students so far, but who knows what other professions the largos may have that we've yet to learn about such as lorekeepers, ranchers etc. I'd love to explore Sayeh al'Rajihd's backstory and what event caused her to become indebted to Trahearne, and what the largos rulers are like. So far our contact with the largos has been limited, so they seem a bit one-note, but with proper care and worldbuilding they can easily be more fleshed out like the Awakened and Olmakhan were. :) The Canthan expansion could easily explore not only the largos (in case the heart of their domain is conveniently close enough to Cantha) but also the greater krait "empire" (imagine if the krait were led by a charismatic high priestess or empress; it's high time we had a major recurring female villain in the game again!) and the hopefully revitalized naga domain and see the complex relationships between these three great aquatic nations and how they may be handling the deep sea dragon's growing influence in the Unending Ocean. We could also explore whether any of the markissios of the destroyed southern quaggan kingdom survived the krait raids so we could have a proper "return of the king/queen" storyline about the markissios heir returning to unite the various varonos of Southern Tyria into one nation again to take the fight to the krait and the deep sea dragon. As for new races existing out there, Bastion of the Penitent introduced us to one such possibility: Samarog, a prisoner of the mursaat, whose origin Scholar Glenna and the player character speculated on as they had never seen or read about a being like it before. Narrative designer Bobby Stein even wanted to leave it ambiguous whether Samarog is supposed to be a demon or a native creature from the unexplored corners of Tyria. I'd be inclined to bet on the second option because Bastion of the Penitent already had one demon, Deimos, as a boss with a special purpose while Samarog's more mundane backstory and curious enslaving abilities seem to suggests a different kind of origin. Speaking of other new races, I'd love to see from the Guild Wars Prophecies trailer appear in game one day. It always bothered me that the trailer introduced these "proto-charr" beasts that never made it into GW1 although at least Aidan, Cynn and Devona (the heroic trio) did; meanwhile, every other GW1 and GW2 trailer was more rooted in actual lore and worldbuilding with the concepts they introduced in the cinematics. Even that bone dragon towards the end could be argued to be Rotscale or one of the many bone dragons from that time. Perhaps this savage orcish race could exist somewhere in the far east beyond the charr lands and could make an appearance one day as new, unique enemies for a zone or two to finally make that old trailer's idea come to life in game as a tribute to past worldbuilders at ArenaNet. :)