Lore friendly Revenant explinations!

[Sol Morningstar.3290]

I'm going to preface this with, this is purely the result of me grinding my own brain over and over because I wanted a lore friendly headcannon for my Revenant's various activities, such as being a Revenant somehow in the past at the beginning of the PC personal story, even though Revenants should not have existed yet (seeing as Rytlock is the 'first').

Q - How did we learn to be Revenants if ol-scruffy has only been back for roughly 2 years (at the start of PoF)?

A - Rytlock in the few times he's been away (albeit for short amounts of time) has been working with someone behind the scenes to create a fractal in the mists, to represent /some of/ but not all of the things he experienced while there in order to re-create his training. This both explains the comment from the dev team that "one does not have to enter the mists..."because a fractal is yes /part/ of the mists, but is not directly /in/ the mists, and how he can somehow train us being the only Rev. whilst also being rarely absent from the main story; And because time flows differently in the mists and potentially in the fractals that would also allow for us to be come proficient at being a Revenant in such a short amount of time.

Q - Okay, so how are we somehow Revenants in the past, at the beginning of our own personal story, waaaayyyyyyyyyy before Rytlock ever comes back to create said training?

A - Well, we already know from a few different experiences and lore bits that entering the mists in any ways (fractals included), alive or dead; /can/ cause memory loss up to the point that you completely forget your own name etc. So my thought process is that when entering the Rev training fractal, whether you experience any memory loss or not, part of the training is to relive the major events in your life up until that point.(almost like reliving an ancestor's memories in Assassin's Creed), this would allow us to project our current selves (that being Revenants in training) into our own memories and while we perceive ourselves as using Rev abilities the fragments of the memory only react as if we were using abilities from (insert your own personal past profession etc).This would explain why NO ONE reacts to these crazy abilities you have etc. because you aren't actually there, you're just reliving your own memories with a bit of current stuff getting mixed in.

Thus we have my headcannon for HOW I'm a Revenant, in such a short amount of time, and why I'm somehow that in the past.I realize there are still some holes, likeWell if that's the case then at what point have we exited our own memory and started reality, past the initial training?(I think you can choose that point for yourself since there isn't an in-game representation of the 'Revenant training fractal', provided it's /after/ Rytlock returns.)There are some others, but I think that's one of the most sound ideas I've heard relating to those subjects, considering all the other stuff I've seen is either people being salty and not contributing to the headcannon-and/or-RP community, or people who are just kind of at a loss/don't care.

I'd love to hear opinions on my headcannon, and if you've developed something different yourself I'd love to hear that as well!! annnndddd IF you've been wracking your brain over those two VERY important plot holes lol, well I hope this helps in someway.

P.S. ANET if you don't have secret cannon for these things...you should uhh, totally borrow my idea XD

[Sol Morningstar.3290]

Thought I fixed all of my grammatical errors, realized too late that I hadn't and now I can't edit it =.= lol...

[Westenev.5289]

Personally, I don't think my character is anything special - I remember one of the Devlopers saying durring HoT that Revenant was a profession like any other, and didn't require a special feild trip to the mists. Therefore, my head-cannon is that my character has always been able to hear voices in their head, and can channel weird magiks because of this. Our character has always been somewhat unique until we re-meet Rytlock in HoT, who mysteriously charges out of the mists weilding our powers. The problem with this theory, however, is that you kind of induce a plot-hole if you're a Charr Revenant working for the Citidel before it was cool.

Another popular theory (that I disagree with) is that all Revenants "swapped" professions at one point - but I'm not fond of this explaination. For one, my Revenant doesn't cast fireballs or illusions, nor do they thrust about greatswords or hide in the shadows. This isn't to say NPC's can't change or duel weild professions - but I think it's more lore friendly for our characters to JUST be a Revenant.

I don't think our viewpoints are mutually exclusive, and I do think it would be cool to learn how different professions learn their stuff!

[draxynnic.3719]

I believe the canon explanation is that the revenant PC was something else beforehand, and swapped over. Probably something relatively mundane like a warrior (as Rytlock was) rather than something that already had a lot of magic.

How and when is left open to interpretation. There is, however, a long gap between HoT and the start of Season 3: Season 3 doesn't start until mid-1329, while HoT arguably happened in early 1328 (being pretty much immediately after the final Season 2 chapter in Tyria's chronology). So that gives about a year in which to retrain.

Regarding the OP's suggestion: The idea of some kind of "revenant training fractal" is an interesting one, and it would nicely tie a lot of loose ends together: essentially, the PC is reliving the events of their life up until they entered revenant training, except as a revenant. Personally, I wouldn't make the claim that fractals aren't part of the Mists: however, ArenaNet said it wasn't necessary to enter the Mists to become a revenant, not that it isn't possible that the PC went into the Mists to learn there. For instance, we meet a charr student of Rytlock in PoF - it's likely that Rytlock's students from the Black Citadel were taught using more conventional techniques, while the PC might have entered the Mists for their own training.

The one hole there is that I sincerely doubt that Rytlock could create a specific training fractal. However, the Mists do echo events in Tyria, and the Dragonslayer had been a pretty impactful figure - given the nature of the Mists, it really wouldn't surprise me if there's a fractal out there that will basically be a "this is your life!" for the Dragonslayer. So it's possible that Rytlock was aware of this fractal, and for Dragonslayers that wished to become Revenants, he figured that the Pact Commander reliving the significant moments of their career as a Revenant would be a suitable training tool.

[Dana.4713]

As to how and when, a well-known hero such as Rytlock strolling around with his newfound powers might have created a sort of fashion for the art that has been forgotten/neglected for ages. Part of the knowledge might come directly from him, but there are also old Canthan communities that probably know a thing or twenty about how generous exactly was Tsungrai, and there are also all sorts of seers/mediums who might find teaching new revenants to connect with the Mists a welcome source of income.

[Jinroh.4251]

I prefer to think my Revenant came half way through HOT. Everything with the personal story I sort of disregard or just have it as a 'memory'. OBVIOUSLY it makes no sense for Revenant to be doing Zaithan stuff but ANET is not going to change their personal story for one new profession, hence why we probably haven't gotten any new races either.

It's kinda like how Death Knights were introduced in Wrath of the Lich King. They started at level 58 but had to do previous expansion stuff but all the quests givers in the previous expansion acted as if things were still relevant. Kinda like how things are in GW 2 with events and NPCs. They are all time locked.

[Rognik.2579]

@"Sol Morningstar.3290" said:Q - How did we learn to be Revenants if ol-scruffy has only been back for roughly 2 years (at the start of PoF)?

A - Rytlock in the few times he's been away (albeit for short amounts of time) has been working with someone behind the scenes to create a fractal in the mists, to represent /some of/ but not all of the things he experienced while there in order to re-create his training. This both explains the comment from the dev team that "one does not have to enter the mists..."because a fractal is yes /part/ of the mists, but is not directly /in/ the mists, and how he can somehow train us being the only Rev. whilst also being rarely absent from the main story; And because time flows differently in the mists and potentially in the fractals that would also allow for us to be come proficient at being a Revenant in such a short amount of time.First off, Scruffy is Taimi's golem, not Rytlock's nickname. (Which is officially Cuddles. ;) )

Second, I don't think this is the way Rytlock would teach revenant combat. He was pretty secretive about everything that happened to him after Plan of Attack right up until he learned that he had met Balthazar before and returned to Glint's Lair. He would more likely teach a bunch of charr trainees back in the Citadel, or a bunch of Pact soldiers who felt they needed a change.

Third, there's a big danger in creating a fractal to revisit how Rytlock learned his power, as it means that Dessa and her krewe could analyse the fractal once completed. Whatever is going on with her, or what magic allows her to unlock new fractals while not remembering any new changes, it's still too dangerous for them to learn something they shouldn't (especially something Rytlock wouldn't want them learning) and thus he'd use more traditional methods.

Q - Okay, so how are we somehow Revenants in the past, at the beginning of our own personal story, waaaayyyyyyyyyy before Rytlock ever comes back to create said training?

A - Well, we already know from a few different experiences and lore bits that entering the mists in any ways (fractals included), alive or dead; /can/ cause memory loss up to the point that you completely forget your own name etc. So my thought process is that when entering the Rev training fractal, whether you experience any memory loss or not, part of the training is to relive the major events in your life up until that point.(almost like reliving an ancestor's memories in Assassin's Creed), this would allow us to project our current selves (that being Revenants in training) into our own memories and while we perceive ourselves as using Rev abilities the fragments of the memory only react as if we were using abilities from (insert your own personal past profession etc).This would explain why NO ONE reacts to these crazy abilities you have etc. because you aren't actually there, you're just reliving your own memories with a bit of current stuff getting mixed in.The initial personal story could possibly be the Pact Commander (PC) revisiting their memories and overwriting what actually happened with revenant powers. It could be seen as a sacrifice made for the power, considering it's the only profession that doesn't get their racial skills automatically unlocked. No one comments because you were something else before, but in the jungle, you learned from Rytlock how to be a revenant. Apparently they comment on it there, but I haven't taken my rev PC through HoT yet. (Still leveling him, in fact.)Well if that's the case then at what point have we exited our own memory and started reality, past the initial training?(I think you can choose that point for yourself since there isn't an in-game representation of the 'Revenant training fractal', provided it's /after/ Rytlock returns.)I could use some help here since my rev isn't even level 80 yet: at what point in the jungle do characters start noticing that the PC has revenant powers? I don't know if any of the instances comment on it, but I'm sure some of the Open World content has a different conversation tree if you're a rev, so I'd be curious to know which ones.