Expansions into regions with little lore

[Fenom.9457]

I’m very interested in going somewhere totally new, and as intriguing as the places with little to no lore are tough to theorize about without making stuff up from my own head. So, what would you expect to see from these regions, from in game lore or any ideas? Some of the ones I can’t come up with much for are woodland cascades, maguuma wastes, janthir, blazeridge, scavengers causeway, and whatever the new regions east are called (side topic, what would you name those regions?)

TLDR: what do you want from places with no lore set up?

[Ayrilana.1396]

There’s lore to Magumma Wastes and part of the Woodland Cascades.

I’d prefer something that doesn’t involve dragons as it’s gotten old.

[Fenom.9457]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:There’s lore to Magumma Wastes and part of the Woodland Cascades.

I’d prefer something that doesn’t involve dragons as it’s gotten old.

But it’s so little there’s almost no lore

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Fenom.9457 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:There’s lore to Magumma Wastes and part of the Woodland Cascades.

I’d prefer something that doesn’t involve dragons as it’s gotten old.

But it’s so little there’s almost no lore

True. I personally prefer they focus where we have never been to with a plot that doesn’t involve the boring dragons.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Well other than Cantha, Kourna, and up north, all that's left is places with little lore to them. So after Season 4 and Expansion 3, we'll likely be going into new lands (or into Eye of the North lands as I cannot see us going to Cantha).

That said, about the regions you ask:

• Woodland Cascades: That's likely where Saul found the mursaat given Bastion of the Penitent and the lack of an alabaster and golden filigree city in Maguuma, and Quetzal were there in GW1 so given their continued Maguuma presence they may still be up there too. Asura had also surfaced there so it'd be unsurprising to find an asura city there (I suspect that Uncategorized Fractal's city is there, personally). And for some unknown reason, the Tamini are no longer able to live there (as all three tribes are pressed for land, hence their reigniting push in the war after GW1).
• Maguuma Wastes is mostly where we were in GW1, as you can see here, just dried out. So there's not a lot of missing lore there. Except for maybe the lands north of GW1's The Wilds and Sage Lands area. But no real reason to go there either now that the White Mantle plot's over with...
• Janthir is unlikely to be visited, given its very heavy ties to the White Mantle and mursaat. All we know is that it was a place where "beings with the Gift of True Sight" lived. Many theorized that means mursaat, but it's not a given; though since the Eye of Janthir was taken from there and it disappeared with the last mursaat's death, the likelihood of that theory skyrocketed. So I guess "expect mursaat ruins" if we ever go there.
• Blazeridge Mountains: Land of the overpopulated ogres.
• Scavenger's Causeway is actually something we got no knowledge of, but I'd be surprised if there weren't Orrian ruins. The risen likely used this region as part of their assault on northern Elona which got mentioned in The Movement of the Wild.
• "new regions in the east" - they're the true Blood Legion Homelands, at least in the immediate east. We know the Blood Citadel lies east of the Blazeridge, and that's unlikely to be anywhere but the heart of Blood Legion territories. Ash Legion likely have their own territories near there too. Given the colors, expect it to be much like the Charr Homelands (now labeled Blood Legion Homelands) from GW1, not too different from Ascalon.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I’d prefer something that doesn’t involve dragons as it’s gotten old.

We might get more breaks from the Elder Dragons, but just like how GW1's overarching plot was the unholy alliance of Dhuum, Menzies, and Abaddon where almost everything evil was somehow related to the three, GW2's overarching plot is the Elder Dragons and we'll always be going back to them until the plot is over and by then, hello GW3.

[Fenom.9457]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Well other than Cantha, Kourna, and up north, all that's left is places with little lore to them. So after Season 4 and Expansion 3, we'll likely be going into new lands (or into Eye of the North lands as I cannot see us going to Cantha).

That said, about the regions you ask:

• Woodland Cascades: That's likely where Saul found the mursaat given Bastion of the Penitent and the lack of an alabaster and golden filigree city in Maguuma, and Quetzal were there in GW1 so given their continued Maguuma presence they may still be up there too. Asura had also surfaced there so it'd be unsurprising to find an asura city there (I suspect that Uncategorized Fractal's city is there, personally). And for some unknown reason, the Tamini are no longer able to live there (as all three tribes are pressed for land, hence their reigniting push in the war after GW1).
• Maguuma Wastes is mostly where we were in GW1, as you can see here, just dried out. So there's not a lot of missing lore there. Except for maybe the lands north of GW1's The Wilds and Sage Lands area. But no real reason to go there either now that the White Mantle plot's over with...
• Janthir is unlikely to be visited, given its very heavy ties to the White Mantle and mursaat. All we know is that it was a place where "beings with the Gift of True Sight" lived. Many theorized that means mursaat, but it's not a given; though since the Eye of Janthir was taken from there and it disappeared with the last mursaat's death, the likelihood of that theory skyrocketed. So I guess "expect mursaat ruins" if we ever go there.
• Blazeridge Mountains: Land of the overpopulated ogres.
• Scavenger's Causeway is actually something we got no knowledge of, but I'd be surprised if there weren't Orrian ruins. The risen likely used this region as part of their assault on northern Elona which got mentioned in The Movement of the Wild.
• "new regions in the east" - they're the true Blood Legion Homelands, at least in the immediate east. We know the Blood Citadel lies east of the Blazeridge, and that's unlikely to be anywhere but the heart of Blood Legion territories. Ash Legion likely have their own territories near there too. Given the colors, expect it to be much like the Charr Homelands (now labeled Blood Legion Homelands) from GW1, not too different from Ascalon.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I’d prefer something that doesn’t involve dragons as it’s gotten old.

We might get more breaks from the Elder Dragons, but just like how GW1's overarching plot was the unholy alliance of Dhuum, Menzies, and Abaddon where almost everything evil was somehow related to the three, GW2's overarching plot is the Elder Dragons and we'll always be going back to them until the plot is over and by then, hello GW3.

Thanks for the summary, I had forgotten a lot of that. I do have a few questions -

• about janthir and the wastes, I’d imagine there are other things there, so I wouldn’t say we won’t go there. It’ll be a while though for sure.• isn’t blazeridge also home to giants? Speaking of which, why are ogres and giants in the crystal desert when they’re supposed to be in blazeridge (exclusively as far as we’d heard right?)• ok, one region in the east is more Charr lands. If you look at all that space though, and compare is with the density of regional labels on the rest of the map, there are several regions there IMO.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Fenom.9457" said:• about janthir and the wastes, I’d imagine there are other things there, so I wouldn’t say we won’t go there. It’ll be a while though for sure.

If other things are there, then there's never any hint of such really. Granted there's bound to be more of something in the Wastes. Janthir's small enough that there might not be, especially given how major of a force the mursaat were. Either way it ends up being a case of "no reason to go there unless Anet makes up something new".

• isn’t blazeridge also home to giants? Speaking of which, why are ogres and giants in the crystal desert when they’re supposed to be in blazeridge (exclusively as far as we’d heard right?)

Never any mention of giants in the Blazeridge. In GW1, giants lived in Kryta, Southern Shiverpeaks, and Crystal Desert (which includes the Desolation, for clarity's sake), though one of the two types of giants in the desert are more aesthetically similar to the Ascalonian ogres IMO. As for why ogres are in the desert now, same reason they've been going into Ascalon - "need more land" which implies overpopulation or otherwise lack of resources in the Blazeridge.

Ogres were exclusive to the Blazeridge best we knew - the retroactively added lore being that Ascalonians (and then charr) had kept them from expanding over the past few centuries. They've only managed to make headway thanks to the Dragonbrand and later the peace talks between charr and humans creating enough of a distraction in the charr military to allow them to spread. But that same Dragonbrand has focused their expansion southward after their disastrous encounter with attempting to tame branded resulting in them going into the desert.

Though I wouldn't be at all surprised if Anet goes and says "those sand giants from GW1 that were in the Crystal Desert and northwestern Vabbi? Yeah. Ogres." Especially since the latter had tamed pets (minotaurs to be specific).

• ok, one region in the east is more Charr lands. If you look at all that space though, and compare is with the density of regional labels on the rest of the map, there are several regions there IMO.

Right, not all of it. But basically everything in the in-game world map that is due east of Ascalon and "Blood Legion Homelands" is reportedly charr territories. With no (known) threat to keep them from spreading eastward though, for the past 1,400 years, they could have spread pretty darn far eastward, and southward for that matter. Someone did mention hearing spoken dialogue about ash territories being near Ebonhawke suggesting that Ash lies south of Blood on the eastern side of Blazeridge though, so it's plausible that charr territories goes far enough south to border Dzalana. I have not been able to find this dialogue though, so take it with a grain of salt (seems reasonable though).

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Though I wouldn't be at all surprised if Anet goes and says "those sand giants from GW1 that were in the Crystal Desert and northwestern Vabbi? Yeah. Ogres." Especially since the latter had tamed pets (minotaurs to be specific).

Personally, I think the simpler answer is that sand giants are meant to be the same as the giants we see in the modern desert. There's even a link through beast mastery, although these ones have wargs, not minotaurs.

Granted, they're bigger than GW1 sand giants and lack the horns, but ANet's already established that giant redesigns require no continuity save for the coloration.

[Kossage.9072]

A couple of things I'd like to see if we ever get to explore Woodland Cascades in depth:

1) Centaur homelands

It's been suggested that centaurs reached Harathi Hinterlands, where they set up their command post, from Woodland Cascades. We could finally meet centaur civilians with the mothers looking after their foals, perhaps even making some injured/weak/etc. males look after them too due to the war effort diminishing the number of females who are called to the frontline to assist the Centaur Alliance's battles.

The homelands would allow us to see the potential political turmoil within the Centaur Alliance after War King Ulgoth's demise. As we only saw some Harathi showing up in Lake Doric with no Modniir or Tamini in sight, it makes me wonder if those bloodstone-crazed Harathi led by Immelhoof were a splinter faction of Harathi or if it suggested that the Harathi have begun to dominate the once Modniir-led alliance.

We could perhaps be reunited with Outcast Qindova whose absence from LA since the rebuilding could be explained to him returning to his people after learning of Ulgoth's death to try to convince his brethren to stop the tragic war despite the risk to his life.

Events in the map could involve us helping centaur rebels attempt to topple either a new War King or the Modniir War Council that rules(?) in the interregnum. We could receive help from Seraph and possibly other organizations who understand that a peace with centaurs by toppling their hateful government is necessary (and thus potentially recruiting the less aggressive centaurs as allies in the war against the dragons in exchange for granting them land on Krytan soil in a coexistence with humans). That way we'd also get to see how centaur civilian life works (outside of what little we saw in Dry Top) and come to understand their point of view (and why they have to wage war for the survival of their race after being driven into a corner) better.

"A Tangle of Weeds" showed us that some centaurs at least believe(d) sylvari to be spirits of the land, so having some sylvari involved in the diplomatic mission to explain Tyria's plight and to mend relations between humans and centaurs would be nice. Perhaps the centaur Ancestor Tree lore could be expanded with sylvari gaining new insight into the magical workings of nature and compare such trees to Pale Tree in a way, especially if the Ancestor Trees have more relevance than just their revered status in centaur society, and centaurs could learn a bit about sylvari and, subsequently, Ventari's teachings for a nice two-way learning experience for both races as they come to some understanding of one another.

This could also be a cool opportunity to introduce one or both of the two still unnamed and missing Firstborn. After all, we did already receive first hints of these mysterious Firstborn when we saw a cool glimpse of a female and a male Firstborn, as well as what I think is the original handsome form of Malomedies before his torture by asura, during the battle against the Blighted Pale Tree and her summoned Blighted Firstborn that Mordremoth siced on us in the Dream.

Another interesting racial story would involve charr being among these peace negotiators, using their experiences with handling the Ebonhawke Treaty with humans as a means to approach the delicate topic and perhaps act as middlemen between humans and centaurs. It would also be quite cathartic to witness this warlike race actually helping with bringing peace between humanity and humans' other great enemy. It would be interesting seeing charr and centaurs discussing the matter and how they've historically dealt with their (once) common enemy. Perhaps that would bring the two races closer and to a deeper understanding of their respective cultures. :)

On the darker side of this we could get glimpses at sympathetic antagonists who can't let go of old hatreds similar to Separatists and Renegades in Ascalon. For example, we could see the famed centaur killer Broil Cane make a return as a vigilante hunting centaurs in the woodlands to avenge the (supposed) deaths of his family, and we'd have to stop his rampage even though we'd sympathize with his pain of losing loved ones clouding his judgement. Broil was one of the coolest and most fascinating open world NPCs in Central Tyria, so I'd love to see his story continue in one way or the other.

2) Legacy of the mursaat

Assuming that Saul D'Alessio found the mursaat city deep within Woodland Cascades in his exile (and given the fact that the mursaat correctional facility of Bastion of the Penitent is also within the woodlands might be a nudge in that direction), one woodlands map could involve us actually finding and exploring the ruins of this mursaat city/capital and learn more lore about them.

Perhaps the story could also drop a big lore bomb that not all the mursaat are extinct after all: maybe some mursaat phased into the Mists during the genocide, and Lazarus was merely the last mursaat on Tyria, thus retroactively explaining that the Eye of Janthir did not disintegrate per se but simply phased into the Mists to seek out the remaining mursaat there now that its mission on Tyria was over. It would be interesting if any of these surviving mursaat from the Mists returned but, instead of being hateful and arrogant, they might've thought hard on their and their leaders' actions and realize the error of their ways, trying to make amends for their crimes of the past (even if those crimes would be "justified" from their point of view given the explanation in the mursaat tablets) while Tyrians would not trust them (kind of mirroring what the sylvari during and post HoT would've been if the sylvari racism plot had been developed more).

Admittedly this plot would've been cooler if Lazarus had not been killed off as we could've contrasted him (the one last vengeful mursaat set in his old ways and unable to let go of old hatreds) with the actually repenting mursaat who could herald a new dawn for Tyria (even if they'd end up sacrificing themselves in a tearjerking scene to stop Lazarus's plans to atone for their crimes and cleanse their race's name somewhat).

Exploring the city could also be a cool continuation of the hints sprinkled throughout Bastion of the Penitent which suggested that the mursaat had held a Forgotten prisoner who had escaped while Samarog slaughtered other prison rioters (as we don't see any snakelike bodies among the warden's impaled victims or in the torture devices):

After interacting with the Clothes Pile:
Player: (if asura) These clothes wouldn't fit a bipedal individual. And whoever wore the garments left scales behind on the fabric.
Player: (if not asura) Whoever wore the garment left scales behind on the fabric.
Player: It's almost as if...they fit a serpentine creature. Did a krait wear this? Or some other being?
[...]
Scholar Glenna: It's starting to make sense that we've found human, jotun, and possibly Forgotten remnants here.

Byron Miller even mentioned back in one of the the written guild chats during a stream in Twitch that there may or may not be more to the story about this mysterious scaled prisoner, and while he's a known tease (no offense, Byron, we still love you and like you adding fuel to the fires of speculation! ;D), there's an admittedly slight chance that this idea may be explored more someday. Perhaps this last Forgotten on Tyria (if he/she survived to the present day) could become a potential ally or a maddened antagonist who'd be after the mursaat city's secrets for reasons that might or might not be all that benevolent, and we end up confronting this Forgotten out of necessity (or by accident) during our quest into the woodlands.

3) Horses...maybe?

Granted, the region is called Woodland Cascades and Edge if Destiny mentioned Logan, Rytlock and Caithe witnessing a grassy plain where wild horses ran when they gazed through the asura gate. However, it's not necessarily impossible to include one plains map where we'd finally get to encounter these so far unseen but heavily hinted at equines. We could maybe even take part in meta events where we'd get to ride these horses and corral them similar to the Branded Hydra event in Crystal Oasis, and perhaps the narrative team could sprinkle some hints at the lore of horses aside from the few tidbits we know of these equines. :)

[Fenom.9457]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Fenom.9457" said:• about janthir and the wastes, I’d imagine there are other things there, so I wouldn’t say we won’t go there. It’ll be a while though for sure.

If other things are there, then there's never any hint of such really. Granted there's bound to be more of

something

in the Wastes. Janthir's small enough that there might not be, especially given how major of a force the mursaat were. Either way it ends up being a case of "no reason to go there unless Anet makes up something new".

• isn’t blazeridge also home to giants? Speaking of which, why are ogres and giants in the crystal desert when they’re supposed to be in blazeridge (exclusively as far as we’d heard right?)

Never any mention of giants in the Blazeridge. In GW1, giants lived in Kryta, Southern Shiverpeaks, and Crystal Desert (which includes the Desolation, for clarity's sake), though one of the two types of giants in the desert are more aesthetically similar to the Ascalonian ogres IMO. As for why ogres are in the desert now, same reason they've been going into Ascalon - "need more land" which implies overpopulation or otherwise lack of resources in the Blazeridge.

Ogres

were

exclusive to the Blazeridge best we knew - the retroactively added lore being that Ascalonians (and then charr) had kept them from expanding over the past few centuries. They've only managed to make headway thanks to the Dragonbrand and later the peace talks between charr and humans creating enough of a distraction in the charr military to allow them to spread. But that same Dragonbrand has focused their expansion southward after their disastrous encounter with attempting to tame branded resulting in them going into the desert.

Though I wouldn't be at all surprised if Anet goes and says "those sand giants from GW1 that were in the Crystal Desert and northwestern Vabbi? Yeah. Ogres." Especially since the latter had tamed pets (minotaurs to be specific).

• ok, one region in the east is more Charr lands. If you look at all that space though, and compare is with the density of regional labels on the rest of the map, there are several regions there IMO.

Right, not

all

of it. But basically everything in the in-game world map that is due east of Ascalon and "Blood Legion Homelands" is reportedly charr territories. With no (known) threat to keep them from spreading eastward though, for the past 1,400 years, they could have spread pretty darn far eastward, and southward for that matter. Someone did mention hearing spoken dialogue about ash territories being near Ebonhawke suggesting that Ash lies south of Blood on the eastern side of Blazeridge though, so it's plausible that charr territories goes far enough south to border Dzalana. I have not been able to find this dialogue though, so take it with a grain of salt (seems reasonable though).

I see you’re right about the giants. I had a certain piece of artwork in mind (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Forest_giant_concept_art.jpg)But it was from the giant page, not the blazeridge page. My bad! I think it’d be cool to see giants somewhere east though, and major giants among huge mountains.

[ugrakarma.9416]

I particularly think the map building is Anet's strongest point, and I suspect, it is because of this that we have high expectations and curiosity about how they would give life to regions thats are not yet implemented.

[crepuscular.9047]

Utopia / Andes, the Hub of Time looks like multiple Divinity's Reachhttps://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:Utopia_world_concept_art

[Ardid.7203]

All I want is to visit the Skritt Hivemind's Supertechnological Outer Space City.They have been watching us for the last centuries, it is known...

[Rodzynald.5897]

I'd like to see what the true purpsoe of EoTN is, jotun ancient magics and who or what Koda is. Also Blood Legion homelands is a spice I'd flow with as well.

[Invidia.9074]

Clinging to a hope we'll see Islands of Janthir one day (my dream on fully mapping Ring of Fire in GW 2 are almost complete, waiting just for the last island, where the Door of Komalie is, to make a return).

[Fenom.9457]

@Invidia.9074 said:Clinging to a hope we'll see Islands of Janthir one day (my dream on fully mapping Ring of Fire in GW 2 are almost complete, waiting just for the last island, where the Door of Komalie is, to make a return).

Well we’d also need the outer stretches around Draconis Mons to map it all. I’d like to see both regions

[anyaeversong.2678]

Janthir and Woodland Cascades please.

[Fenom.9457]

@anyaeversong.2678 said:Janthir and Woodland Cascades please.

Yessssss

[Tyson.5160]

@Fenom.9457 said:

@anyaeversong.2678 said:Janthir and Woodland Cascades please.

Yessssss

Wouldn’t be surprised if Samarog’s race are native to Janthir and were used as slaves and work horses for the Mursaat. I just trying to see any reason to go there with the current plot, unless these races start to invade Kryta.