Why do the Elder Dragons need Champions?

[Legendary Grenth.3561]

Does it explain somewhere why a dragon needs a champion? Having the commander fight Ryland and Braham be the decisive fight between the two is a far cry from taking the fight directly to Mordremoth or Zhaitan. Seems like a bit of a stretch that these elder dragons rely on Champions to do anything.

Kralk had a champion? is he the exception? If that's the case, than why? I have a theory that Kralk was created by Lyssa, to fullfil the duty that was passed down to Aurene and Glint; to become a prism, but for whatever reason the magic wasn't pure enough of he didn't have a champion to help with the burden. so could be a reason 

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

Elder Dragons have champions because they can't be everywhere, commanding everything, themselves directly.

Champions like Tequatl, The Claw of Jormag, The Shatterer, the Megadestroyer, the Vinewrath, etc. help manage the dragon's armies over long distances and such.

The Commander, Caithe, Ryland, and Braham are a bit different then normal dragons champions. They retain free will, and aren't truly "corrupted" by the Elder Dragon, but "connected" to them. Jormag copied the Commander/Caithe because that seemed to be giving Aurene an edge, and Braham did the same with Primordus in order to even out the odds between the two dragons.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Sajuuk Khar.1509

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

2 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

Elder Dragons have champions because they can't be everywhere, commanding everything, themselves directly.

Champions like Tequatl, The Claw of Jormag, The Shatterer, the Megadestroyer, the Vinewrath, etc. help manage the dragon's armies over long distances and such.

The Commander, Caithe, Ryland, and Braham are a bit different then normal dragons champions. They retain free will, and aren't truly "corrupted" by the Elder Dragon, but "connected" to them. Jormag copied the Commander/Caithe because that seemed to be giving Aurene an edge, and Braham did the same with Primordus in order to even out the odds between the two dragons.

I'd also like to note that Modremoth was actually the first to do this with Scarlet Briar aka Ceera, and going by her journal his influence on her was very similar to Jormag's. In IceBrood Saga, the Sylvari later even directly compare Jormag's effect on the Norn to that of Mordremoth on their minds.

 

The whole point of LWS1 was more or less to establish how dangerous a fully sentient Dragon Champion is. Whether she was willing or not is debatable--she was never quite right to begin with, afterall.

 

Whether she was truly corrupted or not is also debatable as she never became a Mordrem Guard.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

6 hours ago, Legendary Grenth.3561 said:

Does it explain somewhere why a dragon needs a champion? Having the commander fight Ryland and Braham be the decisive fight between the two is a far cry from taking the fight directly to Mordremoth or Zhaitan. Seems like a bit of a stretch that these elder dragons rely on Champions to do anything.

Kralk had a champion? is he the exception? If that's the case, than why? I have a theory that Kralk was created by Lyssa, to fullfil the duty that was passed down to Aurene and Glint; to become a prism, but for whatever reason the magic wasn't pure enough of he didn't have a champion to help with the burden. so could be a reason 

The (previous) elder dragons predate The Six. This is stated in the lore and dialogue a number of times.

Edited December 31, 2021 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Ashantara.8731]

8 hours ago, Legendary Grenth.3561 said:

Does it explain somewhere why a dragon needs a champion? Having the commander fight Ryland and Braham be the decisive fight between the two is a far cry from taking the fight directly to Mordremoth or Zhaitan. Seems like a bit of a stretch that these elder dragons rely on Champions to do anything.

Because ANet could not render full Elder Dragon models in Dragonstorm without it becoming a slide show, so they had to have Champions to do the main fighting while the Dragons were reduced to hilarious heads and claws (the final sequence reminded me very much of this 🤣).

Of course, the more logical solution from the start would have been to keep their size at a more realistic scale, but I guess after the Mordremoth and Kralkatorrik model size extravaganza that was no longer an option. 😄

Edited December 31, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

16 hours ago, Legendary Grenth.3561 said:

Does it explain somewhere why a dragon needs a champion? Having the commander fight Ryland and Braham be the decisive fight between the two is a far cry from taking the fight directly to Mordremoth or Zhaitan. Seems like a bit of a stretch that these elder dragons rely on Champions to do anything.

Kralk had a champion? is he the exception? If that's the case, than why? I have a theory that Kralk was created by Lyssa, to fullfil the duty that was passed down to Aurene and Glint; to become a prism, but for whatever reason the magic wasn't pure enough of he didn't have a champion to help with the burden. so could be a reason 

Champions are typically just leaders of the army. Every Elder Dragon has had dozens to hundreds of champions. A full list of confirmed-to-be-champions can be found on the wiki.

Icebrood Saga has an over-emphasis on the term "champion" without specifying why there's this sudden over-emphasis or special need of such - specifically when IBS refers to the importance of champions, they're referring to a new kind of champion that are bonded rather than corrupted. A champion in of itself is not necessary and killing them won't provide a huge detriment to the Elder Dragon beyond putting the army they lead in disarray (without a champion or the ED's direct supervision, dragon minions aren't very smart nor capable of forming organized assaults) or slowing down the spread of corruption (champions are better at spreading corruption and making new minions than other minions are). However, there are "special champions" which killing does result in a detriment.

The first type are 'heralds' (which is what the revenant elite specialization for Glint is named after), which refers to a dragon champion left with the task of waking up the Elder Dragon. We only have three confirmed heralds in the lore: the Great Destroyer, Glint, and Drakkar. As the Giganticus Lupicus is a powerful minion from the previous dragonrise, it's likely that it was Zhaitan's herald. In a way, Scarlet was turned into a non-corrupted herald as she was influenced, but not corrupted by, Mordremoth into helping him rise sooner. As noted, with Primordus and Kralkatorrik, when a herald is killed or freed+betrays the ED, the ED takes longer to rise by about 50 years.

Another type of "special champion" are bonded champions, such as the Commander, Caithe, Ryland, and Bangar. Braham... sort of enters this field, but mostly because of his connection to the Spirits of the Wild. Unlike Aurene and Jormag, Primordus had no notable intention of making Braham bonded - but his connection to the Spirits gave him enough protection to retain enough of his intelligence and free will at first to make him "akin to bonded", so to speak. It's unclear ultimately whether the Frost Legion on a whole are bonded (with free will) or corrupted (without free will). Again, this is the type of champion that IBS focuses on when talking about champions; one may even say that the Commander, Ryland, and Braham become bonded heralds at that - which makes their importance, their role over other bonded champions of Caithe and Bangar, all the heavier. IBS narrative would have been improved if the three were called heralds (or something new) instead of merely "champion" which are a dime a hundred.

There are some other "specialized champions" such as Zhaitan's Eyes and Mouths which are part of his unique weakness - killing them made Zhaitan directly vulnerable and weakened, allowing for a more conventional death. But for the most part, other Elder Dragons don't have such champions - the closest we get are "champions given specialized tasks" like the Shatterer defending the northern Dragonbrand, or hunting down Aurene when they're revived as Death-Branded Shatterers in Season 4.

 

As for why we fight Ryland and Braham instead of Jormag and Primordus in champions. Well, it's mostly because Champions was cut down a lot in funding for EoD development. I imagine they couldn't "budget" the creation of two full ED models, and the narrative focus under Tom Abernathy was "about characters over story and lore" so all the emphasis was on the character arcs for Ryland and Braham.

As to your theory, the Elder Dragons predate the Six Gods' presence on Tyria by at least 18,000 years. So Kralkatorrik was most definitely not created by Lyssa. There is zero connection between the Elder Dragons' and the Six Gods' - beyond the gods occasionally draining power from some (Zhaitan being the only one confirmed, Kralkatorrik implied as a possibility) to enhance, create, or spread magic and magical objects while the ED slept. And as mentioned, Kralkatorrik did have champions - Glint being his oldest known champion; the main difference between Kralkatorrik and Aurene is that Kralkatorrik was greedy and hoarded magic for himself, whereas Aurene bonded and shared her magic with the Commander and Caithe.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

6 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

like the Shatterer defending the northern Dragonbrand, or hunting down Aurene when they're revived as Death-Branded Shatterers in Season 4.

There is only one Shatterer at a given time, and the ones chasing Aurene and getting killed by Almorra's forces are one and the same. 

 

6 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

There are some other "specialized champions" such as Zhaitan's Eyes and Mouths which are part of his unique weakness - killing them made Zhaitan directly vulnerable and weakened, allowing for a more conventional death.

Just speculation, but the collective "cloud" of undead dragons in Orr's skies are "Zhaitan" as a whole. In the actual encounter, we already see Zhaitan consists of numerous smaller dragons, per say, and Tequatl gains a power boost after his demise. 

 

6 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

As the Giganticus Lupicus is a powerful minion from the previous dragonrise, it's likely that it was Zhaitan's herald.

Lupicus were a collective species that were wiped out during the previous dragonrise. There is nothing to suggest that the singular specimen stranded in Orr is related to Zhaitan in any way other than being reanimated by them. Plus, it is on the smaller side compared to the Lupicus bones found over the world, suggesting it hadn't reached full maturity - every other "herald" is ancient by comparison.

Edited January 1, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

45 minutes ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

There is only one Shatterer at a given time, and the ones chasing Aurene and getting killed by Almorra's forces are one and the same. 

Yes, I didn't bother going into specifics since I didn't feel it was necessary for my post, but that was what I was referring to.

One Shatterer defending the Ascalonian Dragonbrand at a time. When one dies, another is made.

Kralkatorrik later revived one, which Almorra's airship chased south as it went to hunt Aurene before they crashed from the airship(s) being damaged; eventually that one they chased was lured and killed in the world boss meta. But we see many Death-Branded Shatterers in the off-skirts of Dragonfall fighting Pact Airships (akin to the risen dragons over Orrian skies), so we know several Shatterers were revived.

Quote

Just speculation, but the collective "cloud" of undead dragons in Orr's skies are "Zhaitan" as a whole. In the actual encounter, we already see Zhaitan consists of numerous smaller dragons, per say, and Tequatl gains a power boost after his demise. 

There's two issues with that theory.

The first is that those same dragons are still around when Zhaitan shows up (and can still be seen in the distance after killing Zhaitan). Additionally, if they were collectively Zhaitan, then we'd need to kill them all in order to kill Zhaitan and that wasn't the case.

Second issue I have with that theory is the visual appearance of Zhaitan. While he certainly does have a "made out of dragons" design, on close inspection, it is less of "several dragons merged together to form a large dragon" and more "several dragons were grafted onto Zhaitan". Zhaitan's limbs and tails are all too large to be from individual dragons, nor are they individual dragons themselves being Voltron-styled combinations. And his skin is very flat (through this could simply be a game engine limitation like Zhaitan's size), but also a much different design from his champion dragons like Tequatl.

 

Quote

Lupicus were a collective species that were wiped out during the previous dragonrise. There is nothing to suggest that the singular specimen stranded in Orr is related to Zhaitan in any way other than being reanimated by them. Plus, it is on the smaller side compared to the Lupicus bones found over the world, suggesting it hadn't reached full maturity - every other "herald" is ancient by comparison.

Undead don't exactly grow, and the size was confirmed to be game limiations by devs. Add the fact that Zhaitan rose "on time" like Jormag and Mordremoth indicates that it had a herald, but no minion was ever confirmed to be its herald unlike those two (side note: DSD should have one too, unless it woke up only a few years before Jormag - all we know is, based on Omadd's Machine and Tarir trials, it was second to wake up). While there are other possibilities, none have really presented itself strongly, and the Giganticus Lupicus having been corrupted and in hibernation like Drakkar and the Great Destroyer since the previous dragonrise makes the most sense, especially since it still has some natural-formed flesh, indicating it wasn't just recently made undead (otherwise it'd be pure bones or a surgical monstrosity like abominations).

As mentioned, it was just a possibility.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Scavarius.6059]

23 hours ago, Legendary Grenth.3561 said:

 I have a theory that Kralk was created by Lyssa 

 

why does everyone thinks the 6 and the elder dragons are connected in any way beyond beeing imortal entitys governing over some aspect of magic.

and champions where always used by the elder dragons, anet just muddied the lore a "bit" over the years.

[Randulf.7614]

The Edge ofDestiny book will clear some things up for you. Such as who Kralks main champion was (it’s stated in game a lot though) alongside later champs like Shatterer and the creatures in the north Thunderhead meta. It’s not a well written book, but it’s good for the early lore and has all the background for Kralk you need.

To reiterate, there is no connection to Lyssa. The Dragons are thousands upon thousands of years old and their previous awakening predates the Human Gods arriving on Tyria from The Mists. Any thematic ties are simply down to a generic use of magic spheres and Anet using six as a neat number for these Elder groups. The Gods learnt about the Dragons, but did not actively interfere with them due to knowing the destruction that would result in such conflict. They did not create or ally with them.

[maxwelgm.4315]

Complementing everything already mentioned, Jormag specifically wanted to bond rather than corrupt to a being not only because they learned how valuable this could be from Aurene, but also because they absolutely couldn't face Primordus directly - the entire season before Champions was directed at very clearly laying down the fact that Jormag would avoid direct conflict at all costs, as the risk of both dragons destroying each other or even Primordus getting the lead was too much.

 

Champions ruin this setup and I think the atrocious execution of the episode is a big reason for all the doubts people get about what came before. Ryland being a willing champion to Jormag was a strategy the dragon has learned from Aurene (and, not unlikely, from Mordremoth as well), and doesn't seem to be something ancient that is required by their nature - this point is definitely not conveyed properly during any of the DRMs, and seems to have a lot to do with the overly placed emphasis on Ryland and Braham's character arcs in detriment of lore snippets (both should have coexisted IMO).

 

Finally, the Dragonstorm instance was definitely not supposed to be a sole fight in between the champions if they had proper resources, and the "we found a big leyline and will force Jormag to come or he loses to Primordus" excuse was so convoluted to the point of breaking the pace of the entire episode, within an episode that already didn't have good pacing. If they had proper time and developers to do it, it would probably be better for it to be Dragon's Stand type of map, where we would go after Jormag, pinning them down somewhere using Aurene's prism capabilities. The map could have several sub-stages with us chasing after Jormag and periodically Primordus coming out to chase after them as well. There would be plenty of room for Ryland and Braham fights and to individually smack each dragon as well. It could even end with the final Dragonstorm instance completely unchanged (where a now cornered Jormag has a well justified reason to face Primordus head-on). Alas, it's too late for that now and let's hope they can pull off a satisfying conclusion to the Deep Sea Dragon.

[Gibson.4036]

Dragons need champions because mountain sized forces of nature make for unrelatable villains.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 1/3/2022 at 3:56 AM, maxwelgm.4315 said:

Complementing everything already mentioned, Jormag specifically wanted to bond rather than corrupt to a being not only because they learned how valuable this could be from Aurene, but also because they absolutely couldn't face Primordus directly - the entire season before Champions was directed at very clearly laying down the fact that Jormag would avoid direct conflict at all costs, as the risk of both dragons destroying each other or even Primordus getting the lead was too much.

 

Champions ruin this setup and I think the atrocious execution of the episode is a big reason for all the doubts people get about what came before. Ryland being a willing champion to Jormag was a strategy the dragon has learned from Aurene (and, not unlikely, from Mordremoth as well), and doesn't seem to be something ancient that is required by their nature - this point is definitely not conveyed properly during any of the DRMs, and seems to have a lot to do with the overly placed emphasis on Ryland and Braham's character arcs in detriment of lore snippets (both should have coexisted IMO).

 

Finally, the Dragonstorm instance was definitely not supposed to be a sole fight in between the champions if they had proper resources, and the "we found a big leyline and will force Jormag to come or he loses to Primordus" excuse was so convoluted to the point of breaking the pace of the entire episode, within an episode that already didn't have good pacing. If they had proper time and developers to do it, it would probably be better for it to be Dragon's Stand type of map, where we would go after Jormag, pinning them down somewhere using Aurene's prism capabilities. The map could have several sub-stages with us chasing after Jormag and periodically Primordus coming out to chase after them as well. There would be plenty of room for Ryland and Braham fights and to individually smack each dragon as well. It could even end with the final Dragonstorm instance completely unchanged (where a now cornered Jormag has a well justified reason to face Primordus head-on). Alas, it's too late for that now and let's hope they can pull off a satisfying conclusion to the Deep Sea Dragon.

While I agree that the ending was bad, they did lay out proper reasons for it:

1 - Dragons are drawn to ley lines like magnets, and physically can't avoid them.

2 - Jormag wasn't Jormag at this point anymore. Initially they were using pure magic after their awakening but started using corrupted magic to tip the scales after Lake Doric. Aurene warned Jormag of the risks at the time.

 

Jormag went mad just as predicted, and destroyed theirself as a result.

 

It wasn't contrived, they did explain everything. It was just rushed and many players seem to've missed the point entirely. The entire plot point since Kralkatorrik's torment was what this magic does to EDs and why the cycle continued for so long.

 

Its even heavily hinted at that even Modremoth was half insane by the time we got to him, as he's represented as "Root & Madness" instead of "Plant & Mind" in War Eternal.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Hannelore.8153