On the (de)composition of Palawa Joko's Awakened

[Tamias.7059]

The earliest we players can meet Palawa Joko and his armies is in the Bonus Mission Pack mini-mission The Battle of Jahai mini-mission. In that mission we attack Joko's rear vanguard of Awakened and corsairs, although from a distance it seems that corsairs didn't take part in the main battle. So who did?

862 AE

Awakened Blademasters

Mummy warriors, who share their appearance with both the Awakened Troopers (Joko's rank-and-file) and Joko's Elite Bodyguard. They look humanoid and probably are (were) human, but it's impossible to tell with the masks. Even if they are, I'm not sure what creature the masks are supposed to depict. Any ideas?

Awakened Gray Giants

This is probably the one I find the most interesting (probably because I find giants one of the more enigmatic races in the GW universe). The semi-canon description for the Gray Oasis of Giyah landmark in the gw.dat says that it was once the home of a race of giants enslaved and made undead by Palawa Joko. Mahk's son says that his father told him that the giants of the Gray Oasis used to collect tribute and slaves from other tribes in the Desolation. He also says that most of them were killed by Palawa Joko, but we know that at least some survived - in the quest Last of the Breed Mirza Veldrunner says that the gray giants in Kourna have been over-hunted and they can now only be found in the Desolation. Credit for the quest is gained from killing Nomad Giant rangers and Sadistic Giant necromancers; I wonder if the tuskless Giant Hunters and Giant Brawlers we meet in the Desert Highlands (north of the Crystal Desert) in ''Path of Fire'' are related to the gray giants of old - if not, we might have seen the last of Elona's gray giants. The gray giants we see in GW1 actually more closely resemble giants in Central Tyria, which have grey rather than brown skin and have similar tribal paint. They don't have tusks, however, and they are cyclopean - this doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't the same, just that they had a redesign between GW1 and GW2 (trolls gained an eye and tusks, ettins gained an extra ''head''), and the jotun also got a revamp. I digress.

Awakened Acolyte

Smiting and protection monks. These strongly resemble centaurs, but their skulls don't resemble horse skulls. They have an extended jaw like a horse, but they have very human-like eyes and nose, and their mouth is completely round. They also have pointed feet, which doesn't fit with either the Veldrunner or the Losaru centaurs. We do know that Palawa Joko enslaved centaurs as part of his armies in this era, as in the Gate of Desolation mission he tells Zhed Shadowhoof that Zhed's dead ancestors served as his cavalry. He also calls Zhed a "plough horse" and the centaurs "beasts of burden", but unless centaurs were very physiologically different in the past, I don't think this is what we're seeing. I think the Awakened Acolytes might be a combination of various different species, including centaurs. Joko's dialogue in the cinematic for A Deal's a Deal indicates that bones, flesh, and mummy wrappings are used for a purpose in his kingdom - maybe this is how he makes his minions.

Awakened Defilers

Maybe these are the most interesting, because these necromancers are clearly charr, right? We know that the charr attempted to expand south sometime before 100 AE and warred with the Forgotten, but that was probably in the Blazeridge Mountains rather than in the Crystal Desert. We know that the charr once spread out through the northern reaches of their homelands and down into the lands east of the Shiverpeak Mountains (Ascalon and the Blood Legion Homelands), but we've never seen any indication of them being this far south. They certainly have charr feet, but they have a different number of claws on their hands, and their skulls are different. So this looks like another composite creature - but made of what?

Awakened Thought Leeches

Mesmers that also resemble centaurs, but in a different way to the necromancers. They have centaur hooves, but their heads are very small (it's impossible to tell what their skulls are like because their heads are inside an elaborate casing). They also have large "boob plate" chest pieces. The size of the head and the breasts are actually consistent with this concept art of a female GW2 centaur - I don't think we ever actually meet a female centaur in GW1.

Carven Effigies

Elementalist elementals. They appear to just be constructs, although they do also have the same pointy feet as the Awakened Acolytes, as well as the capacity for sentience.

Awakened Dune Carvers

Dervishes. Again, they're humanoid, although their feet are rather large and their toenails look almost more like claws. The casing on their heads is quite long - possibly long enough to hold a centaur's head. If the Acolytes have non-centaur (although I'm hesitant to say human) heads, then maybe this is what happened to the centaur ones.

1075 AE

Palawa Joko's been locked up for near enough 200 years and his power has mostly dissipated. What's changed in his armies? Well, as it turns out, not much. We only see one new enemy type, and maybe that isn't surprising. Many of Joko's armies were never killed (or destroyed) - they just fragmented and fell under the control of his Generals. Some of these remained loyal to Joko, some of them rebelled, and some Awakened just became hostile to anything still living. The Awakened we see in Nightfall are probably the same as the ones in the era of the Battle of Jahai, as Joko wouldn't have been able to make any new ones in the time since.

Awakened Cavaliers

Paragons that generally appear to be human. We never see them ride zombie horses (we never see horses in GW at all, despite several references). Undead horse mount in LW Season 4 plz ANet.

1330 AE

Perhaps unsurprisingly, we've seen some big changes. Unfortunately I haven't finished the PoF story yet so there's only so much I can say about these! I'll add my thoughts to this thread when I have them, but in the meantime, I'd like to know from you guys what new things you've learned about the Awakened while playing PoF. How are they created, how are Joko's armies structured, are any of the generals from GW1 still "alive" and kicking? To what extent do the Awakened maintain their free will from life? What happened to the giants, charr, and centaurs, and what are these things...or these things (mini giganticus lupicus, anyone?)?!

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Canids and Abominations are stated to be humans, with Joko having taken to "flesh modeling" to change the human body to be something... different.

There's even a hero challenge in Vabbi where you fight multiple generations of a family, one of the family members is a Canid. It's also stated in some dialogue that he now only turns humans into Awakened - though reasons unexplained, as if it's to be expected.

[Tamias.7059]

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Canids and Abominations are stated to be humans, with Joko having taken to "flesh modeling" to change the human body to be something... different.

There's even a hero challenge in Vabbi where you fight multiple generations of a family, one of the family members is a Canid. It's also stated in some dialogue that he now only turns humans into Awakened - though reasons unexplained, as if it's to be expected.

Is that a recent technique, or could it be that the Awakened Defilers are also examples of this? They don't look too dissimilar to the canids.

I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@Tamias.7059 said:I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.Joko killed all the centaurs and used their bones to expand his Bone Palace. EXTINCTION!

[Fluffball.8307]

Similar to the centaurs, I imagine he just ran out of giants. He can't replenish them easily -- if at all -- and they've probably got targets on their faces when fighting due to their sheer size. (I certainly targeted them due to their choking gas!) Another possibility is that his army is much larger now, so there could be some centaurs and giants somewhere we haven't seen. They may very well have been promoted off the front lines due to seniority.

This was a fun trip down memory lane, I'd somehow completely forgotten the giants were in his army at all.

Re: your last point about how things have changed, he now has an entire nation of humans who want to join his army, so it's not surprising we have less non-human forms. And on that note, Random thought: it would be neat to see some awakened asura, dwarves, norn, dredge, etc. in extremely small numbers during the next living story. Maybe a named sergeant somewhere.

[Rognik.2579]

@Fluffball.8307 said:And on that note, Random thought: it would be neat to see some awakened asura, dwarves, norn, dredge, etc. in extremely small numbers during the next living story. Maybe a named sergeant somewhere.We're not going to see any Awakened dwarves. If Joko found any dwarves before they got turned to stone (at which point they'd be unusable as undead material), we'd probably have seen them already. And as an asura talking to various NPCs, they make a point of letting me know unusual it was for one of my kind to be in the area. That is probably why we don't see many non-humans used in his modern army composition.

[Fluffball.8307]

The rarity of those creatures in his area is why I think it would be interesting. We clearly haven't see all of his forces in the entire continent, so we could indeed see an awakened dwarf or asura or whatever (unless some special magics protect a race, perhaps true of dwarves.)

[Rognik.2579]

Well, perhaps, but I think it'd need to be Joko himself who Awakens them. If any new Awakened are being made, it has to be through his Archons, and I doubt sny of them are skilled enough to deal with a new lifeform. Then again, I'm a horrible necromancer.

[maxwelgm.4315]

If Joko himself had any interest in species that are not already part of his army, they would probably be inside his harem lol. Or maybe he's into living beings only (so kinky)??

[Ayakaru.6583]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Tamias.7059 said:I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.Joko killed all the centaurs and used their bones to expand his Bone Palace. EXTINCTION!

thats actually funny, because if they're centaur bones, palawa joko took of the skulls and replaced them with human heads/skulls

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:thats actually funny, because if they're centaur bones, palawa joko took of the skulls and replaced them with human heads/skullsAwakened centaurs in GW1 had human skulls also. It's canon

[Teofa Tsavo.9863]

Also will point out to OP that Nightfall Centaur are definately not horselike.. so why would they have Horse skulls. They are more Goatlike.. including cloven hooves. Centaur in GW are not horse-hybrids.

[Blazing Liger.1236]

I continue to hold to the idea that the Defilers are Charr. The skull looks feline. We know that the Charr were marching on Orr, there's no reason to think that they wouldn't have at least sent scouts to Elona as their next potential conquest.

Joko's 180 regarding non-human Awakened may have been part of his transformation of Elonian society. Humans have long been pretty prejudiced to other races. Given that they would be the main source to replenish his army, he may have chosen to stop Awakening non-humans in order to gain the compliance of the living population.

Two possibilities for the Canids: it either signifies higher status, or is done to incomplete corpses (can't just let a body go to waste, after all).

[Tamias.7059]

@"Blazing Liger.1236" said:I continue to hold to the idea that the Defilers are Charr. The skull looks feline. We know that the Charr were marching on Orr, there's no reason to think that they wouldn't have at least sent scouts to Elona as their next potential conquest.

But the charr invasion was several years before Joko was freed - he wouldn't have had the opportunity to reanimate them.

Btw, I finally made it to the Desolation, and one of the first things I came across was one of these, which suggests the notion that there were giants in the Desolation is now all but a distant memory. They went extinct. Still, you might expect to see some in Joko's armies today, given that the Awakened from the Battle of Jahai were (mostly) still kicking at the time that he was freed. I guess the other possibility is that all of his Awakened giants were destroyed in the battles against Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik - maybe he underestimated them and thought he could wipe them out with overwhelming force, wasting some of his more powerful assets in the process.

I also find it interesting that what we see is a tusk. That means that the grey giants didn't get a redesign between GW1 and GW2, and that the tuskless giants we see in the Desert Highlands probably aren't grey giants but something else.

[Felipe.1807]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Tamias.7059 said:I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.Joko killed all the centaurs and used their bones to expand his Bone Palace. EXTINCTION!

He actually did this? I havent played GW1 I dont know much about the lore behind Joko...but on GW2 pretty much everything that is said about him through the NPCs is basically propaganda, "Joko killed Zhaitan", "Joko killed Mordremoth" and etc, would be surprised if in the future they would say that Joko killed Balthazar too...so did he actually bring all the centaurs to extinction or that is just more misinformation of his fanatics followers? I mean, i dont know about the elonian centaurs, but i can see Ulgoth crushing a whole army of awakened with his earth elementals without much trouble.

[Blazing Liger.1236]

@Tamias.7059 said:But the charr invasion was several years before Joko was freed - he wouldn't have had the opportunity to reanimate them.

There is nothing to indicate that the Awakened have to be made from fresh corpses. In fact, in the Elon Riverlands there is an event to defend a graveyard from the Awakened, who can raise the corpses. There's nothing to indicate that these are all fresh graves. At any rate, in the dry desert conditions, it's entirely possible that there may have been enough corpses around for Joko to quickly and opportunistically raise an army, in addition to the Awakened who had been around since Turai Ossa's time.

[Rognik.2579]

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Tamias.7059 said:I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.Joko killed all the centaurs and used their bones to expand his Bone Palace. EXTINCTION!

He actually did this? I havent played GW1 I dont know much about the lore behind Joko...but on GW2 pretty much everything that is said about him through the NPCs is basically propaganda, "Joko killed Zhaitan", "Joko killed Mordremoth" and etc, would be surprised if in the future they would say that Joko killed Balthazar too...so did he actually bring all the centaurs to extinction or that is just more misinformation of his fanatics followers? I mean, i dont know about the elonian centaurs, but i can see Ulgoth crushing a whole army of awakened with his earth elementals without much trouble.We can't tell if all the Elonian centaurs are wiped out, but the propaganda here is the idea that by exterminating the Elonian centaurs, all centaurs are extinct forever, everywhere. It's entirely possible a group of centaurs still survived in Elona and Palawa Joko just hid this fact from everyone, but that will have to be confirmed in a living world episode.

[Tamias.7059]

@Blazing Liger.1236 said:

@Tamias.7059 said:But the charr invasion was several years before Joko was freed - he wouldn't have had the opportunity to reanimate them.

There is nothing to indicate that the Awakened have to be made from fresh corpses. In fact, in the Elon Riverlands there is an event to defend a graveyard from the Awakened, who can raise the corpses. There's nothing to indicate that these are all fresh graves. At any rate, in the dry desert conditions, it's entirely possible that there may have been enough corpses around for Joko to quickly and opportunistically raise an army, in addition to the Awakened who had been around since Turai Ossa's time.

He also had the Awakened Defilers in his ranks at the time of the Battle of Jahai. Also, they're among the historical forces that we help him reclaim when he first returns to the Desolation.

@Tamias.7059 said:Btw, I finally made it to the Desolation, and one of the first things I came across was one of these, which suggests the notion that there were giants in the Desolation is now all but a distant memory. They went extinct. Still, you might expect to see some in Joko's armies today, given that the Awakened from the Battle of Jahai were (mostly) still kicking at the time that he was freed. I guess the other possibility is that all of his Awakened giants were destroyed in the battles against Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik - maybe he underestimated them and thought he could wipe them out with overwhelming force, wasting some of his more powerful assets in the process.

I also find it interesting that what we see is a tusk. That means that the grey giants didn't get a redesign between GW1 and GW2, and that the tuskless giants we see in the Desert Highlands probably aren't grey giants but something else.

Update on Desolation giants: I found a veteran giant hunter and a veteran giant brawler at Lone-Tree Hill in the Desolation, so contrary to the flavour text on the ancient tusk some giants, at least, still exist in this part of the world. There's also the ghost of a giant named Uhiwi at the Basaltic Fringe, who interestingly has the appearance of a grey-skinned cyclopean giant of the kind found in Central Tyria. Not sure what conclusions to take from that.

EDIT: Uhiwi was a boss in GW1, so I guess that confirms definitively that these guys are the same as these guys (Central Tyrian variety).

[Felipe.1807]

@Rognik.2579 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Tamias.7059 said:I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.Joko killed all the centaurs and used their bones to expand his Bone Palace. EXTINCTION!

He actually did this? I havent played GW1 I dont know much about the lore behind Joko...but on GW2 pretty much everything that is said about him through the NPCs is basically propaganda, "Joko killed Zhaitan", "Joko killed Mordremoth" and etc, would be surprised if in the future they would say that Joko killed Balthazar too...so did he actually bring all the centaurs to extinction or that is just more misinformation of his fanatics followers? I mean, i dont know about the elonian centaurs, but i can see Ulgoth crushing a whole army of awakened with his earth elementals without much trouble.We can't tell if all the Elonian centaurs are wiped out, but the propaganda here is the idea that by exterminating the Elonian centaurs, all centaurs are extinct forever, everywhere. It's entirely possible a group of centaurs still survived in Elona and Palawa Joko just hid this fact from everyone, but that will have to be confirmed in a living world episode.

We do travel to a lot of places on the desert and we dont see a single centaur, so yeah, they are probably gone...but what I was trying to say is, was Joko the one responsible for this? Like i said, I didnt play GW1, so the only thing that i saw this dude do was get imprisoned by Balthazar...not really impressive of a supposed allmighy necromancer who is responsible of extiction of numerous races on the desert...if the centaurs from Elona are anywhere near as strong as the ones that we see on Kryta, i cant honestly see Palawa Joko and his awakaned been able to wipe then out, if they had a elementalist like Ulgoth, i dont know, i guess Joko would be in trouble

[Blazing Liger.1236]

IIRC, the Centaurs in Elona were already fairly low in number to begin with; they weren't nearly as numerous as Tyrian centuars. If Joko wanted to, he could have wiped them out pretty easily. There was one group more akin to Tyrian centaurs in parts of the Crystal Desert, and then there was Zhed's tribe, which was down in Kourna (further south than we've gotten so far in GW2).

[Tamias.7059]

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Rognik.2579 said:

@Felipe.1807 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Tamias.7059 said:I wonder what happened between then and now to make him stop using giants and centaurs.Joko killed all the centaurs and used their bones to expand his Bone Palace. EXTINCTION!

He actually did this? I havent played GW1 I dont know much about the lore behind Joko...but on GW2 pretty much everything that is said about him through the NPCs is basically propaganda, "Joko killed Zhaitan", "Joko killed Mordremoth" and etc, would be surprised if in the future they would say that Joko killed Balthazar too...so did he actually bring all the centaurs to extinction or that is just more misinformation of his fanatics followers? I mean, i dont know about the elonian centaurs, but i can see Ulgoth crushing a whole army of awakened with his earth elementals without much trouble.We can't tell if all the Elonian centaurs are wiped out, but the propaganda here is the idea that by exterminating the Elonian centaurs, all centaurs are extinct forever, everywhere. It's entirely possible a group of centaurs still survived in Elona and Palawa Joko just hid this fact from everyone, but that will have to be confirmed in a living world episode.

We do travel to a lot of places on the desert and we dont see a single centaur, so yeah, they are probably gone...but what I was trying to say is, was Joko the one responsible for this? Like i said, I didnt play GW1, so the only thing that i saw this dude do was get imprisoned by Balthazar...not really impressive of a supposed allmighy necromancer who is responsible of extiction of numerous races on the desert...if the centaurs from Elona are anywhere near as strong as the ones that we see on Kryta, i cant honestly see Palawa Joko and his awakaned been able to wipe then out, if they had a elementalist like Ulgoth, i dont know, i guess Joko would be in trouble

Well, in GW1 the centaurs are endemic to the Crystal Desert (Losaru pride) and Kourna (Veldrunner pride). I guess the Losaru are extinct (or displaced) now, but it's maybe not that surprising that we don't see the Veldrunner centaurs.

On the other hand, Palawa Joko does seem to have a noted dislike of centaurs, so with his conquest of Elona it's possible if not likely that the Veldrunner pride were hunted down. It'd be a shame if they were, imo - now that we're exploring a part of the world with no native charr, asura, norn, or sylvari, it's suddenly all become very human-centric. It'd be a shame if ANet started eliminating additional non-human races from the world.

[Fluffball.8307]

@Felipe.1807 said:

We do travel to a lot of places on the desert and we dont see a single centaur, so yeah, they are probably gone...but what I was trying to say is, was Joko the one responsible for this? Like i said, I didnt play GW1, so the only thing that i saw this dude do was get imprisoned by Balthazar...not really impressive of a supposed allmighy necromancer who is responsible of extiction of numerous races on the desert...if the centaurs from Elona are anywhere near as strong as the ones that we see on Kryta, i cant honestly see Palawa Joko and his awakaned been able to wipe then out, if they had a elementalist like Ulgoth, i dont know, i guess Joko would be in trouble

He got backstabbed by Balthazar, but that's sort of not important. It doesn't matter how personally powerful Joko is, he still rules an entire continent. He could be a 4 year old girl; he's still got a massive army and territory and could commit whatever genocide he wants.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@Fluffball.8307 said:He got backstabbed by Balthazar, but that's sort of not important. It doesn't matter how personally powerful Joko is, he still rules an entire continent. He could be a 4 year old girl; he's still got a massive army and territory and could commit whatever genocide he wants.At this point Joko rules what is probably the single largest nation in the known world, with only maybe Cantha's Empire of the Dragon rivaling it in size(depending on that nation is doing at this point)

[Danikat.8537]

@"Blazing Liger.1236" said:I continue to hold to the idea that the Defilers are Charr. The skull looks feline. We know that the Charr were marching on Orr, there's no reason to think that they wouldn't have at least sent scouts to Elona as their next potential conquest.

Joko's 180 regarding non-human Awakened may have been part of his transformation of Elonian society. Humans have long been pretty prejudiced to other races. Given that they would be the main source to replenish his army, he may have chosen to stop Awakening non-humans in order to gain the compliance of the living population.

That's my thinking too. Throughout Elona, but especially at the Necropolis in Vabbi, we're told about how Joko has managed to persuade his followers that being Awakened is the highest honour they can ever aspire to. Entire families will travel across the country to literally beg his representatives to turn their deceased relative into an Awakened.

I think they would find it very strange if he also gave this great honour to every random thing his forces happened to kill, or even to members of other sentient races who don't live in Elona and don't follow Joko.

I assume he sees their compliance with his rule and the easy access to human corpses as a fair trade-off for not being able to have as much variety in his Awakened. Especially if he can re-work them into things like the Abominations.

[Blazing Liger.1236]

@Tamias.7059 said:Well, in GW1 the centaurs are endemic to the Crystal Desert (Losaru pride) and Kourna (Veldrunner pride). I guess the Losaru are extinct (or displaced) now, but it's maybe not that surprising that we don't see the Veldrunner centaurs.

On the other hand, Palawa Joko does seem to have a noted dislike of centaurs, so with his conquest of Elona it's possible if not likely that the Veldrunner pride were hunted down. It'd be a shame if they were, imo - now that we're exploring a part of the world with no native charr, asura, norn, or sylvari, it's suddenly all become very human-centric. It'd be a shame if ANet started eliminating additional non-human races from the world.

It does seem disappointing, but humans in the Guild Wars world always have been a pretty prejudiced bunch who like to kill first and ask questions never. I only hope that we'll get the chance to go to some maps in lands not in human hands for some balance in the near future.