#There is also Gyala Delve

[dorenarox]

EoD maps are Big Forest, Big City, and Big Lag-

[scourgeblooms]

it's a pepa!!! for ellie @hawkepockets! brought to you by @gw2giftexchange!!

can't believe I got to draw this little 'sura. such a good design such a good story such a good face. I hope I did Pepa justice!

sketch, lines, and some closeups under the cut!!

[where-is-caithe]

figured out a reason for Rhowan to be struggling with this new story bit finally. she just doesn't bring Yden.

[grasping-earth]

I'm echoing other people in the notes when I give my opinion that Icebrood Saga contains some of my favourite writing and character work and plot twists in the game. I think the first half and more is really fantastic, and it nails the moods it's going for (the spookiness of Bjora Marches and early Jormag, the fight to keep people from turning on each other, the camaraderie of the Steel Warband and the subsequent tragic waste of young life in war that older, leveler heads can do nothing to prevent). Yeah, Champions was frustrating as a game format and Dragonstorm is a bit of a let down - but that doesn't overwrite stuff I really loved, for me.

I'll differ from some of the notes here in saying that for me, the original release of Secrets of the Obscure was just ok, but on thin ice. I was sceptical from the start and there were a number of things about both the writing and the gameplay that I was pretty unimpressed by - but they were setting up a lot of new stuff, and I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt and see where they took it. Then, as most people here have found, the follow-through was extremely lacking, the gameplay and map design got worse, and half the things I was saying "let's see where they go with this" about have fully been dropped. It's been super disappointing for me. Not even close to IBS.

Alright, I’ve personally been wondering what other people’s opinions on this would be, so

*I know IBS isn’t a true expansion but it’s got its own mastery line so I’m counting it

[ratasum]

A New Commander Ask Meme

Also can count for commander-adjacent characters!

Does your commander have a unique origin separate from the personal story?

Which order did your commander join? If they didn't choose an order, what path did they take instead?

Is there an NPC your commander is closest to?

Is there an NPC your commander doesn't care for at all?

Did they canonically eat all the weird foods at the hero points?

What did your commander do with Caladbolg, if anything?

What was their relationship to Trahearne?

Is your commander's relationship to Aurene parental, sibling, or something else?

Was your commander ever aligned with any of the "evil" racial groups (Svanir, NMC, Inquest, etc)?

Are there other OCs of yours or someone else's that your commander travels with?

What is your commander's favorite in world holiday?

Did your commander die to Balthazar? If so, was their experience different from canon in any way?

Who did your commander see in their hallucination in Gyala Delve?

Free space! Ask whatever you'd like.

[sylvaridreams]

adventures in gyala delve

and also:

[mabaki]

I kinda like the Gyala Delve map

Cropped

Wip Process

This has been sitting in my folder for like 2 months now... I keep wanting to fix everything but then there's a lot so I decided to settle on a shortcut instead of rendering everything LOL

In the end, I aint too mad about it xD

ALSO I NEEDED A NEW BANNER ART the old one is like 2 years old now... aaaah

[aid-worker-sya]

Secrets of the Quality or the Schedule Release; or, Secrets of the Go Do Random Events; or, Secrets of The Commander's Really Weird Couple Of Months; or, Secrets of Is Peitha Still Hot Or Boring Now (or something like that)

hi i'm not too active in gw2 tumblr (i gotta fix that i just gotta follow more of you on main) but y'know i've been playing gw2 since beta with a few years-long breaks and this is the first time i was playing an expansion on launch so i thought i at least wanted to share my thoughts.

my tl;dr is that there was some good and some bad but i think i'd prefer an entire expansion up front or it in like two updates and then an epilogue like WLB was for Cantha despite my extraordinarily negative feelings feelings on Gyala Delve and that all of this should've been like Part 1 of a new Wizard Saga.

i don't think we'll ever have a very complete consensus, because GW2's fanbase has been historically divided on almost everything since launch. the dragons, Dragon's Watch, BRAHAM, almost everything on this game has been a love-or-hate since that fateful day back in 2012. and from what i've noticed throughout the years, tumblr is usually more positive of GW2's story updates more than other websites, so i'm pretty curious about what went right and also wrong too. so i really wanted to give as a long time player my feelings on all this, bc it was... interesting. both for good and bad.

and perhaps biggest of all: a common criticism countless GW2 players have had since: the idea the Commander is not really the main protagonist because they're always serving as the champion or second-in-command to someone else, something i've historically disagreed even before Traehearne's rewrite but now i'm a bit more "hmm" about. also why the fuck wasn't this like a Wizard Saga of like 2-3 expansions.

it was certainly a mixed bag, i don't agree with people saying it was the worst thing ever, as far as i'm concerned What Lies Beneath was this game's absolute fucking rock bottom in recent memory and SOTO was nowhere near as bad as that and i want to punch something every time any daily or weekly even mentions Gyala Delve (although i'm still going to appreciate WLB as an epilogue and talk about that later). think i'm gonna start with the good immediate thoughts first

i think the initial release was very good. the new maps and metas were fun, as were the maps being larger than most of the previous expansion maps to make up. the new characters were interesting: although there wasn't really enough time to develop them the same way Dragon's Watch had been for years. it was especially great seeing Zojja as a major character which is why i'm so sad she stopped being relevant after the initial release. i think it would've been better if they wanted this expansion to be like... idk, the Wizard Saga to be built up over a period of like three expansions. it would've been nice to see these characters actually build up over a period of time. make Eparch the final confrontation over a period of three years

like, at first, i fully expected this to be like this. they refer to everything before 2023 as the Dragon Saga. i thought this was going to be a shorter saga of like, 2-3 expansions with a much more concrete goal and narrative direction. we fight alongside the Wizards for a few expansions until Eparch's final defeat and then onto the next grand adventure that would take several years to complete

but ultimately, we just kinda accidentally fell into a big adventure bored out of our skulls after our crystal dragon jesus daughter went into hibernation. we stumbled into something, kicked some ass, and now it's over and we're probably getting another expansion in a couple of months. so i guess... that's the future of GW2. after the grand Dragon Saga, the Commander gets into all sorts of weird little shenanigans that determines Tyria's future and then fucks off to do the next thing no more sagas, just these like, weird singular adventures the Commander has.

the end result is that everyone is severely underdeveloped. there are some fun characters, and i've been joking with my gw2 friends "WE FINALLY HAVE AN INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIP AFTER THEY BAILED ON BRAHAM AND ROX!!!" but like. i liked them. they were cool. i actually really like the Wizards. which is why i'm so bummed it's just over and the epilogue of SOTO it seems set up we're not really gonna do anything for it. i love Frode having a very complicated relationship with the Spirits and how Worm appears to be like... borderline actively malicious compared to most Spirits. i fucking love R'tchikk and Gladium's entire interaction and an unconventional relationship between species and really want to see more interactions. Dagda as one of the last Jotun that truly remember their glory days. so it's so sad to me that like, all these really interesting characters just have their story ended with this. i hope i'm wrong and i see them, but fuck. it's like. i started caring about them, then the next three updates came out and now it's over. dammit.

i also agree the demons are like. they're human society. they're just Regular People no different than Kryta specifically. now i love playing humans in games where you can play multiple races: but like, something that i love about gw2 is how each race has it's own feel, y'know? the humans are a traditional european-style monarchy. the asura are literally an entire race of mad scientists that have a Council so they don't just immediately nuke themselves in a science experiment and their society revolves around research. the charr are an outright stratocracy where the military and government is one and the same and this was explored in IBS where this allowed an insane fascist to rally immense power before IBS went to shit. and the sylvari are literally a new race figuring out WHAT their deal is and haven't quite nailed it down yet

i do not mind at all the kryptis are like not just a hive mind or blue and orange mentality. but i do agree that it is... disappointing that they don't have their own... let's say flavor of society. they're basically just humans but they look weird and live in a weird place. Nayos doesn't appear to be a realm literally made of dreams: it's just the name. the plot of this expansion was mostly like LWS3 but this time we're helping the guerilla rebels instead of fighting them.

idk how to feel about Peitha. it was really fun in the initial release when she was this weird voice in our head we weren't sure if we could trust her or not but she was the enemy of our enemy so she was our friend (for now). but like the demons, she wasn't... complex. she was a very normal stock character for this kind of story. maybe not as heroic or nice as most, but the true good ruler that things will be better if we put on the throne. she' snot bad, but like. she's a dime in a dozen character ultimately. she's the generic good guy we gotta put on the throne and eparch is the generic bad guy we gotta dethrone.

also it was really dicky of them to intentional try to sell the idea of expanded weapon proficiencies and the elite skill weapon unlock for all as like. being part of the base game. you know they worded it like it was part of the base game but you can't do it without SOTO. it's a little bit of a moot point, but it's frustrating.

and i don't know what to ultimately feel now that it's over. because it's over when it feels like it should be beginning. i feel like this episode should have ended with Eparch like... consuming the entirety of Nayos before fleeing deeper into the Mists and the beginning of the journey to find him and defeat him. the kingdom that Peitha wanted to save completely annihilated and the looming concern that much like Kralkatorrik he might become a multiverse destroying threat. i feel like The Midnight King shouldn't have ben the end of the conflict: it should have been the ending of Part 1 of the conflict. like...........

idk. if it was just meant to be this singular adventure: i think i would've liked the entire expansion up front and then an epilogue of WLB to put the final nails on the coffins, and also give time to flesh out everyone else in epilogue stuff and side stories too. but as much as i would've preferred that over this release schedule i feel like. this should have been Part 1. all of this should have been Part 1 of a Saga with this being our first battle against the Midnight King before we after a series of Wizard adventures, tracking him down, and growing stronger finally confront him.

you know there's always been, since GW2's launch, this complaint a lot of people have had with GW2. a lot of people feel like they're never really "the main character" like in GW1. i think at least part of this was rooted in how deeply unpopular Traehearne was in the initial release before they revoiced and rewrote like all of his dialogue. people felt like after the Order Arc that the Commander was kind of relegated to being the support for the actual protagonist. while i feel this opinion has died down since release, i've seen it a lot throughout the years too. a lot of people felt this way when we learned Aurene was basically crystal dragon jesus christ and we were her champion to set the world right. IBS was pretty clear from early on that this conflict would ultimately be resolved by Braham, the norn of prophecy: and it was. the Commander has a tendency to help other people reach their prophesized destinies while they themselves are a person born without particular grand destiny, just someone who was in the right place in the right time and went on to do truly spectacular things (there is a single dialogue in the Hall of Monuments that implies it might be possible the GW1 protagonist was reincarnated as the Commander, but this has never been touched on) and i've... actually come to like it. but this time.

i feel like this time was the only time i've felt it. like. we didn't need to be here. this could have even been Zojja's sidestory. Zojja's big chance to be the hero. we didn't really do that much beyond more of the heavy lifting. we barely did anything substantial beyond hitting things. hell, during the very last battle, we don't even get to speak to Eparch at all. Peitha does 100% of the talking. why was i here? i would've preferred watching like... a netflix cartoon special series about Zojja doing this. why was i here other than the fact i just sorta fell into it??? speaking of which, disappointed Zojja lost all relevance after the initial release. i really wish she was like, fighting by our side the entire time. maybe she doesn't become a Wizard until the very end after doubting it the whole time... like, she's an asura. she's an inventor and innovator. imagine her helping weaken Eparch using a groundbreaking new development in the Wizard's unchanging magic using asuran technology that destroys Eparch's seemingly invincible shield or something and opening the way for the Commander to finish him off.

idk.

i really felt like a side character this time. i didn't see a good reason the Commander is the one saving the day other than awkwardly falling into the plot, and i feel like it could've been resolved by others. and i feel like this could've been resolved by this being just the first part of a grand new adventure, and just like that fateful day over 12 years ago in-universe the Commander was just in the right place at the right time which lead to them saving the world once more. this time... idk. we didn't even get a chance to talk to Eparch. we're just called Wayfinder and Peitha's Champ and do some musclework. hell, we're not even really the Wizard's champion, they basically treat us as a glorified initiate.

idk... it's just. weird, y'know?

i had a lot of fun in the first release, not so much the rest. now i'm thinking of just... what could've been. anyone else feel the same?

(i was gonna go on a larger tangent but i'm tired so "do x events to advance the plot" fuck you fuck you fuck you i HATE this so much)

[i-mybrunettelady]

Gimme 5 and 13 for the commander asks! /dab @ratasum

ren again for the gyala delve situation that's off-canon <3

5. Did they canonically eat all the weird foods at the hero points?

nope. she just looked the other way like a normal person. she wasn't even tempted - though she did remember a time in her life where she was starving on the streets and any food would've done it, but she also likes to think she is above it sometimes.

13. Who did your commander see in their hallucination in Gyala Delve?

since in my canon, sieran and tybalt aren't dead, and she doesn't have a relationship with destiny's edge or trahearne, she actually saw her old self! aka the person she was before she became renira sulver - the little girl, vera belenne-svetovid, that she was before she became renira at 16 years old. what's kinda creepy here is that the order, before all the cosmetic surgeries to change the way she looks, actually did their best to make her forget how she (vera) looked like. so in ren's head, vera is.. faceless.

and she kept hallucinating this faceless entity that was her but also isn't her, with a noose around her neck (bc she'd been sentenced to hang and rescued night before the execution.) she also kept radiating a huge fucking quantity of abaddon energy - you know, the dead human god abaddon - that she'd been blessed by at birth, one of the last few humans alive to be so. she found this out during a trip to siren's landing with nyra in season 3, but none of them told anyone about this and now everyone knows bc abaddon energy is fighting the demon energy to protect the secrets...

gyala was a fun time for her for sure lmao

[brax-was-here]

I've been doing some thinking recently about the SotO story and characters. Something just seemed missing and felt off. And I think I've figured out what it is, at least for me.

We needed a story in between Gyala Delves and SotO that had some of Dragons Watch in it, but also gave us hints that the Astral Ward existed and glimpses of the new characters.

Instead we got "dragons over, old characters go away" and "new characters shoved in our face". It feels kinda jarring now that I think about it.

[scourgeblooms]

wanted to do a physical timeline for my commander and highlight how he’s changed through the years. this is mostly for my own entertainment BUT I do enjoy seeing the same thing from other folks so I’m posting it here in the hopes that other people share my sentiment. 

(I was ALSO totally inspired by @/manasurge’s hair timeline. it kicks ass. go look at it.) 

elaboration/rambling below the cut!

Personal Story, LW1-2: Popped out of the pod blunt, solicitous, and already maybe a little too paranoid for someone who was born yesterday, but all those traits made him uniquely qualified for a position in military leadership.  Healthy and floral, soft aspen-bark-like skin, delicate petals. black anthers produce pollen. undergoes more fashion changes than physical transformations during this time. gets a little banged up here and there (and maybe has some lasting respiratory effects from the toxic alliance era) but overall feelin a-okay. 

Heart of Thorns: it’s all gone to shit. took a spectacular headdive in both a physical and mental sense with breakneck speed. never “officially” answered mordremoth’s call, but anyone who spent time around him would notice a distinct lack of self control and logical thinking. took on a more sickly pallor, stress caused leaves to shrivel, rot, and decay. lost his lil flower top notch and ability to produce pollen. pupils narrowed to take on a more animalistic look, and enamel growth resulted in sharper, larger teeth. fingers also elongated into claws. never fully physically and mentally recovered from the hell jungle. 

LW3: chopped off most of his leaves to encourage fresh growth. lots of physical healing during this time, though it takes quite a while for his complexion to fully recover. takes on the role of aurene’s champion with gusto. relatively unaffected by bloodstone, but feels the effects of mordremoth’s loose/uncontrolled magic deeply. continues to hear mordremoth’s “voice” and is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. 

Path of Fire: still healing from HoT. continues to grow out his leaves. glow returns, as well as some of his eye color. likes the crystal desert, but finds the harsh, dry climate to be particularly challenging; he’s definitely more of a ‘temperate’ sylvari. does not handle dying well. death only adds to his paranoia and psychosis. has an increasingly hard time picking apart what is real and what is…. not. 

LW4: let’s get ready to kill an undead lich!!!! absorbs even more magic after the death of joko and kralkatorrik, and it starts to show in a there-and-gone shimmery aura that takes on a similar appearance to ley lines. starts to suffer from migraine auras. flower top notch grows back, but stays closed and dormant. picks up a few nifty necromancy tricks from the elonians, and the tips of his fingers start to show signs of necrotic decay; all that death magic can’t be good for the complexion, can it? 

Icebrood Saga: having another dragon in his head does not help his mental health in the slightest. braided leaves (courtesy of braham <3) to protect against frostbite. his ley “aura” gets more intense, hard to miss, and is a near constant. flower topnotch remains closed due to the cold weather conditions. after being shot by bangar, his wound is covered/healed by aurene’s brand. migraines increase in frequency, makes it difficult for him to focus. a bone deep exhaustion starts to set in, and more often than not, he catches himself thinking that a nice long nap underneath a blanket of snow doesn’t sound so terrible….

End of Dragons: back in a more agreeable climate, his topnotch finally blooms, but does not grow anthers or produce pollen. easily physically corrupted by void magic, and he feels soo-won’s pain and struggle deeply. the void corruption eventually shows up in the form of darkening leaves, and seeping out of his eyes/tearducts (it’s fine. don’t worry about it.). starts to incorporate chaos magic into his own necromancy practices. has a fucking terrible time in gyala delve. has a fucking terrible time saying goodbye to aurene. 

Secrets of the Obscure: nothing feels entirely real to him anymore. still willing to help, to fight, but it’s done on autopilot at this point. this magical, floating palace in the sky looks and feels like a dream, with the kryptis acting as the encroaching, inevitable turn to a real, living nightmare. still uses a bit of leftover void in his magical practices, but most of the corruption has left his system. that respiratory illness he picked up back in kessex hills comes back to bite him in nayos. finally grows back his anthers, but instead of producing pollen, it's an outlet for void/magic energy.

[abazigal]

fuck it I wanna play

About him under the cut!

Gabriel was once the son of an Ascalonian nobleman, whose family retained its titles and position following the Searing. His mother died when he was young, leading him at the mercies of his violent, Charr hating father in a near empty manor in Divinity's Reach. His father was a cultist obsessed with overcoming death itself - and subjected him to various rituals attempting to turn him into a bridge between life and death.

Gabriel would be rescued from one such ritual by members of the Astral Ward, a group led by Morgana Black star, a necromancer of ill repute in Tyria but a hero among the Ward, but not before he'd have a permanent binding to Grenth's realm burned onto him. As a result, Morgana decided to take him in and raise him as her own, the young boy eventually growing to become a skilled necromancer in his own right and spy for the Ward. He'd go on to take the surname 'Fellstar', marking himself as part of her warband, continuing her legacy after her death at the hands of the Kryptis.

As part of his spy work, Gabriel would go on to found a mercenary unit, giving him the excuse to be places the Pact was operating without joing with them. He'd lose them all assisting a charr warband he was friendly with in the Bjora Marches, and would go on to form a new guild with the fomer Legionnaire of that Warband.

It would be in this guild that Gabriel would eventually lose his arm fighting against demons in Gyala Delve.

Gabe's a fucking asshole who keeps accidentally caring about people enough to do the right thing and ends up helping the commander along the way. He's prickly, but he's also the most sheltered dweeb alive. Man who manages to be catholic in a universe without catholicism.

[bluebudgie]

Aw shoot i know what i forgot to mention.

The german voice acting and localization. First of all there actually WAS voice acting this time (shoutout to soto and gyala delve when half of the characters randomly didn't have voiced dialogue, including peitha for a large chunk of the story lol). But not only that. It's actually really good??

The german localization and VA of gw2 is uhm... let's say the quality is inconsistent. It's usually somewhere between "pretty good" and "it gets the job done". SotO was a disaster. So many contextually mistranslated words; so many voice lines that sounded like they were recorded entirely without direction or context so tone/emotions didn't match the situation. It was genuinely.. not good. (Sorry to everyone who worked on it, I'm sure there were valid circumstances that led to that result).

I haven't noticed anything of that kind this time. The acting felt natural and the localization (got the text language in english so I can compare them on the fly) actually felt like a proper localization, and not a word by word google translation.

So yea. That's cool. Also I'm pretty sure I know one of the main character's voice actors but can't get any confirmation anywhere :^(

[meeeeeeese]

Random Rugan loreposting delivered straight to your dash!

So Rugan recieved an old banged up jade-powered skiff during his unplanned 'trip' to Cantha, but it recieved little use once the void revealed itself and started unmaking Tyria. There were slightly more pressing concerns than taking a serene fishing trip through the streams and lake of Echovald, so into storage it went, with the only thing approximating actual use being the occasional wistful glance Rugan would shoot it's way.

This was the case past the void's defeat and all the way until the end of the demon investigation in Gyala Delve, where Rugan got the first inkling of the idea that self-care is kinda important to staying in top form. So, out came the boat, as a personal project completely removed from his status as the dragon slayer. a project that he could slowly improve and work on, as something for just himself.

So far the boats gotten an improved exterior hull, additional motors for increased maximum speed, enchanted storage containers outfitted with the latest in runes of holding and last, but certainly not least, a set of drink holders. It's... also been sent to the bottom several times through the upgrade process, turns out doing carpentry while drunk is a bad idea actually!

Now that Falx has been born he has less spare hours for his personal boat project, but he still finds time every now and then. Letting the slow currents of the river take you through shaded glades while lazily holding onto your fishing rod is oddly theraputic, especially for Rugan who really needs a good reset from the 'all combat all the time' mentality.

[sylvaridreams]

cat ears looked too silly on him but the other day nyx said something about putting a bell on that thing and I'm always thinking of that bit in PoF where the startled asuran researcher yells at you and the Commander is like I'LL WEAR A BELL NEXT TIME, and also been thinking about the aftermath of Alba's gyala delve meltdown and how recovery would go. so.

[echowilds]

main posting: outfits

this isn't really an outfit timeline, moreso a bit of rambling & putting my transmogs in a rough estimate

so! up until they were five, hanni lived with their biological parents and their krewe. they wore pretty typical asuran clothing, although focused on durability and often patched. they weren't really enrolled in traditional education and the camp wasn't all that fortified, which left a lot of time and space for exploring the environment and playing in the dirt. few pieces of clothing survived past the first week without a tear or stain.

after their parents' death and getting adopted by their dad, the general cleanliness and condition of their clothes didn't change much (although now with the added stains of motor oil & grease), but they mostly wore whatever was available - which rarely included actual asuran outfits, so far from any major settlement. most of the time the pieces were refitted for them by a neighbor.

they entered college with a fresh new batch of asuran robes, which they eventually switched out for clothes in more human-leaning style, once it became clear that fitting in wasn't going to happen and their peers wouldn't stop being assholes about their human dad.

during their adventuring years they continued the trend of 'just wear whatever's available until it needs to be replaced' - just with more armored clothing. they needed to be replaced very, very often.

adding a readmore for the dash's sake

the war on zhaitan saw them equipped with quality armor (heh)(see screenshot nr.1)(ignore the wings i forgor to turn them off), that got another polish once they became the commander.

the second screenshot is their main outfit and the one they probably wear the most. they picked the coat up fighting the aetherblades. they never specified if they looted the quarters or if it's simply taken off of a corpse. (i don't think anyone particularily wants to know anyway). the original coat has since gotten irreparably damaged, but they've commissioned multiple replacements since.

third one is their Official LookTM for the maguuma campaign. technically it still is their 'professional' outfit for pact pr etc but as you can imagine it doesn't hold the best associations for them.

fourth outfits is vaguely somewhere between HoT and dying in PoF, but also far from their favourite. they aren't entirely sure what they were thinking putting this armor suit together but oh well. at least it works, right? right. (the orange colour scheme is what i like to pass off as foreshadowing)

they pick up the fifth transmog after defeating balthazar, mainly to avoid showing their now orange hair and eyes (before that they had dark brown hair and blue eyes (i took some screens of the tmk preview but i'm too lazy to add them rn. maybe tomorrow)). the wings are schroedinger's canon don't ask me i don't know. they're very pretty tho.

last one is roughly EoD going into SotO. air filtration device was from gyala delve obviously. zojja gave them the coat as a 'souvenir'.