#Wyld Hunt

[guild-wharfs-2]

Okay Ive been thinking about this so much and I need to just put it somewhere. Do you ever think about how if you are a sylvari commander you were basically made to destroy the world. Like your wyld hunt is your purpose your reasoning for being and its destroying the world, point blank period. You were made for doing this. Do you ever think about how fucked up that must make yall commanders? Because I think about it very often. 

Like your wyld hunt doesnt rest til you complete it and I feel like that takes such a toll on my commander. That he was made to destroy

[skaald-of-the-hearth-fires]

This one time the power had gone out at our house because of a storm, and our Granny had scared the little ones with a story.

So as I put them to bed, they were afraid, and I, being a writer, asked if they wanted to hear a happy story instead?

They said yes! But not too happy or excitable, because it was bedtime.

So then I, being a fanfiction writer, sat and racked my brain searching for a GW2 narrative that could be described as 'happy.' I was stumped. GW2 does not specialize in happy stories; at best bittersweet victories; and I'm even worse, going by my fic and headcanons.

So I racked my brain until I found one, a bright spot picked out amid the chaos, a victory that has never been compromised - the cleansing of Orr.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

He's not visiting revenge upon those who rejected him, exactly, but...

Here's a little ficlet I found in my drafts. This is the second half and I don't know where the first half is, but I think it's understandable.

~oOoOo~

He's not visiting revenge upon those who rejected him, exactly, but he isn't going to worry if he hurts them in his quest. Through the Dream, he radiates resentfulness, and everyone learns to fear it. It seems directed everywhere. All these Dreamers, especially the Valiants, who had had nothing but scorn for him and his Wyld Hunt. He has no reason to care for them.

And everybody just sees him as a villain. Sylvari feel him through the Dream but have been pre-influenced by the fact he's a villain, and only see the anger, not the kindness behind it. They can tell he's lonely and say 'look, he's so evil he doesn't have any friends' instead of realizing it's the other way around.

He used to be afraid of his power because he didn't want to be like Zhaitan, but now that he's embraced it, he sort of… usurps Zhaitan's place, magically, so that now he rules the Risen, and turned against and killed Zhaitan. He never became corrupted himself; sylvari cannot be. But he could control the corruption.

He never cleansed Orr. He couldn't; his magic didn't work that way. Zhaitan's power was death, and even a new master didn't change that. Trahearne spent most of his time in on the continent, commanding undead, trying to build a safe space for those who weren't safe elsewhere.

And the whole time he's just lonely. He has only his necromancer minions and the Risen (and the line between them is incredibly blurry; are they his or were they once Zhaitan's? doesn't matter) for company, and even Caithe has turned against him.

Then the Commander comes along, a sylvari; they sees Trahearne in their Dream and everybody interprets it to mean that this young Valiant will kill him and end his menace forever.

The Pale Tree says it must be done, while weeping over the loss of her Firstborn, but Caithe's face is stony and she says she'd never known him, and that Trahearne is not her brother.

The Valiant believes it, but there's always something telling them something isn't right. They ignores it, but after first seeing him (and feeling him through the Dream) it grows stronger.

There is no hate in him, no cruelty, not even rage as many would explain it. Just anger. And pain.

The Valiant still trusts Caithe and the Pale Tree and everyone else.

The Valiant first sees Trahearne surrounded by Risen, directing them with gestures, in a pitched battle with the Wardens.

There is a confrontation between Caithe and Trahearne; she shows her emotions, for once, and screams at him. "You were supposed to cleanse Orr, not take the side of corruption!"

It's a long and slow process, the Valiant learning about everything. The fact he'd spent two decades in Orr already, trying, without success. The fact that most people didn't care even before he turned evil. Only Caithe had ever been genuinely happy to see him when he came home. How much home stopped feeling like home for him.

But… that is just his past. Everyone has a reason for going evil, but they must be stopped.

The Valiant doesn't try reasoning with him for a long time. Just fighting. Caithe had described Zhaitan, and corruption, and how sylvari could not be corrupted. This path had been deliberately chosen. The Valiant knew there was no compromise with corruption.

They found his camp one day, full of Risen under Trahearne's control. The Valiant and Caithe tried to sneak in and kill him. He was alone in his tent, and through the Dream the Valiant could feel… loneliness, sharp and bitter and painful. There was also fear. Those emotions made sense.

But it was the disappointment that gave the Valiant pause. They stood still and let themself feel. It was like a deep chasm, a pit of despair. Active. He was feeling these right now, alone in his tent. The disappointment and despair was an emotion that enclosed all the others. There was the anger and the resentment that everyone feared so much. Deeper, there was the loneliness and pain and fear that the Valiant had felt. Even more deeply, desperation, failure, and… self-loathing?

The Valiant wanted to pry more, but then Caithe revealed herself to Trahearne, and it was all washed away in the familiar anger, more strongly than the Valiant had ever felt before, nearly white-hot rage. Alongside it was the furiously boiling resentment, and a - strange sense of betrayal.

The Valiant quickly hurried to join the fight, and disdain appeared in the mix of Trahearne's emotions. Disdain and scorn. Was it directed at themself? The Valiant wasn't sure. Betrayal or no betrayal, nobody took dragon minions and went around raiding villages. People were betrayed all the time and handled it and moved on. There was no excuse for this. At least he seemed to feel shame for it, if that self-loathing was any indicator.

Trahearne snarled at Caithe; no, asked; he asked her how old the Valiant was, how long they'd conspired against him.

---

Trahearne had seen the Valiant before, of course. He knew who they were. Another Valiant. The Valiants, he knew, had mocked his Wyld Hunt, his failure, his dedication. They had spoken to him, never even trying to conceal their contempt.

Not as bad as Caithe, the one sylvari he thought would understand, but… it was still painful. The loneliess, the rejection, the scorn. How could they be sylvari, with the Dream, and have no sympathy? Now they feared him. Now they saw his power.

No. He was not here for them. He was here for the non-sylvari who had to work to feel sympathy, who valued it more highly.

So he disregarded them. All these Valiants, especially this one who had drawn Caithe's interest. That one must be even worse than the others.

But… a friend of Caithe's. The hollow pit of loneliness never left him. A friend who might have been his friend, if he'd just… lain down and taken it for another year or two. No. No, he could not have done that. He wouldn't debase himself that far.

~oOoOo~

Feel free to expand on this if you want! (Just tell me about it XD)

[cloudbatcave]

@contrastparadoxx

Mutuals do this

[cable-salamdr]

Smiling Friends Co visit local lego show and find out that the main character in fact has main character levels of trauma. (+IPad children content and possibly the shittiest edit I have ever made but idc)

[mirage-of-the-virtuoso]

Y'know what? Maybe I'm crazy for this, but I am curious if others had similar things with their characters.

[probably-unreliable]

First Wyld Hunt: Establishing rivalry, testing PC powers, planting future plot hooks,…etc

Fourth Wyld Hunt: You people again.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Okay but I GOTTA talk about the presupposition that First/Secondborn sylvari didn't get much benefit from the Dream, because I have SO MANY thoughts and this is the second time I've seen this post on my dash.

This is a perfectly logical solution to where the first sylvari got their Dreams from, since the Dream gets its knowledge from the sylvari, so, before there were sylvari, of course the first ones just didn't have much of a Dream at all.

BUT: two things. The Firstborn were not awakened with zero knowledge. They had some, even if only a little. Trahearne Dreamed of Orr green; Caithe Dreamed of Zhaitan. There were no sylvari memories to draw from - so how did they Dream of anything at all, much less anything geographically removed from the Pale Tree? Even Ventari never went to Orr.

The Dream seems to know about things beyond the knowledge of the sylvari. It prophesies. It knows possible futures. The Pale Tree speaks of the soul of Tyria weeping at the destruction on Claw Island. I believe that the Dream is a separate entity entirely from the Pale Tree and the sylvari.

Given the state of the Unchained Risen and the hinted state of the Unhinged Mordrem when cut off from their dragon masters, and given how dragon minions are usually produced, I don't think its likely that the sylvari would ever have awakened without Mordremoth commanding them to. But it did take a couple centuries, and minions do start acting strangely when separated from their masters, so I'm willing to let that go.

If the sylvari were born in their natural, dragon-minion state, I don't think it's canonically possible that they would be anything but Unhinged Mordrem. (And therefore there would be no problem with the asura experimenting on Malomedies.) They might be autonomous, but they would not have anything like sentience, personality, philosophy, wisdom, culture, or anything else. Knowledge? Sure. Wyld Hunts? Sure. But not sentience. I don't think it's possible for the sylvari to be as they are if the Dream did not also grant the sylvari sentience.

Which means, of course, that the Dream itself is also sentient, a separate, personal entity that we know nothing about, but that does seem to be, not just benign, but allied, friendly, and on our side, as it gives us Wyld Hunts to protect people from the dragons, help defeat the corrupted dragons driven mad by Torment, and aid the ones that aren't (like Aurene).

The Dream is clearly its own separate entity, and therefore, it has its own memories. To get back to the OP, I think the Dreams of the Firstborn, at least, are the memories of the Dream itself. Trahearne Dreamed of Orr as it was, green and growing; this must have been a memory of the Dream.

I think the Dream has been around a lot longer than the sylvari and only relatively recently came to dwell within the Pale Tree (whom we have canonical confirmation was 'purified' by something at some point before the sylvari), grant HER sentience, and aid in the production of sylvari.

Alternatively, since the Dream does know the future, the Firstborn and Secondborn Dreamed solely of the future, with memories from future sylvari. But that's a lot less interesting, and since the Dream is its own entity either way, with its own memories, I see no reason for at least some of the Firstborn, Secondborn, and while we're at it, any sylvari the Dream so chooses to have the Dream's own memories.

What IS the Dream? Well, it could be anything. Trahearne says it is unknown, made of aether, memory, and magic. It could be the only one of its kind, one of the strange quirks of Tyria with all its strange creatures. It could be a random disembodied spirit or ghost (perhaps an Orrian one). Maybe it's the mind of a peaceful, allied Elder Dragon that got killed by its fiercer counterparts. It could be the soul of Tyria itself (if not, it's at least on friendly terms with the soul of Tyria). Maybe it's one of the Great Spirits of the norn or kodan.

...But no matter what, OP's idea about a sylvari raising a feral cat remains untouched. Sylvari do not Dream of everything (a bucket of memories drawn out of a river of them). Maybe yours just didn't Dream of charr much. The feral cat being checked into a preschool is cute and hilarious, especially for a First or Secondborn who supposedly has the Dream's own memories.

First/secondborn sylvari guy who didn't get much of the benefit of the dream so he has no idea what a cat is and thinks he's raising an orphaned baby charr. Signing a feral cat he found in the back yard up for preschool

[praise-joko]

Love imagining an exchange between characters play out in my head and then desperately trying to get it in writing afterwords. Sometimes I can capture it properly but a lot of the time I lose it.

[icebrooding]

I know its just an inconsistency but Gavin calling Sariel 'young' when she's a secondborn is like... what, is he meant to be a secondborn too? Cause damn, if that was the case then Aileana was waiting in the Dream for Kaushue for a VERY, VERY long time...

My boy didn't just sleep in past his own cycle awakening but took like abt 20 or so years to even show in up the Dream, wheezes. Ai's life is suffering indeed

[wylde-lore--deactivated]

*radio transmision*hey cedric you there i have seen a shuttle with evelyn land on copper 5 and she doesnt look good

Respond soon

I already know about that, and that's not her. It's someone who merely looks like her.

(I already have this whole event planned out. She won't be back until tomorrow.)

[commanderfloppy]

[@forsaken-constellation] 2, 6, 9, and 11 for Damia? <3

Ooo stuff for my thorny girl!

2. What class would your character just absolutely blow at?

She can be pretty good at most things she puts her mind to, but probably an engineer. She doesn’t know how fucking explosives work, let alone all this other gadget bullshit. Also while she’s stronger than she looks, I think if she tried to fire a big rifle or mortar the knockback would send her to space, (the price of being 5ft nothing and weighing about as much as a small branch) 

6. They're now a heart NPC/part of a string of quests. What does that involve?

She’d definitely be a heart NPC somewhere in Orr (after Zhaitan’s death), probably with a title like “Help Lieutenant Damia cleanse Orr”. There would be the usual objectives of ‘kill unchained risen’ and ‘contain dragon corruption’, but there would also be one of those really special objectives. 

In the area you’ll find little trinkets and artifacts that belonged to Orrians, and when you bring them to her she’ll tell you where the ghost it belongs to wants you to put it (to help them move on). Some ghosts are ok with their artifacts being studied so you put them over at a small priory research area (you have to put it in the right artifact box though the ghost wants accuracy). Some ghosts want it to be buried in a grave for them, and you have to go put it in the correctly named grave at a small graveyard area. And then there’s also some ghosts who want you to just toss that shit in the sea. 

9. What's an au for them you think could be fun to explore?

Honestly I haven’t really thought of any Damia AU’s before, but if I think about it she has a bit of potential. 

The first thing that comes to mind is her getting captured by Asura like other secondborn, they see how much insane medium, ghost pulling energy she has, and take her somewhere else for use in research. She’d probably have her necrotic powers enhanced to max, the asura try to convert her power into a device but it doesn’t work. So she becomes the device. Eventually some rowdy ghost they let possess her runs off with her body, and at some point the switch they added to essentially turn ‘on and off’ her powers gets flipped.  She’s now in the middle of somewhere, full of trauma but finally conscious.

11. How accurate is their reputation/image compared to how they really are?

Honestly she’s incredibly accurate to how she seems, but that’s also because she has only ever really let herself be what she’s ‘supposed to be’. Like yep that’s the somewhat strange and serious secondborn who helps Trahearne. Maybe she’s a little different in certain moment’s, like when she burst into laughter seeing Canach after his changed appearance. 

Basically she’s exact to her image because her image is who she makes herself, maybe she’s different than it, or maybe it still fits her to a T, but she’s comfortable living like this.

[dumb-dumb-mander]

Recently I read back my (old) lemon/smut about all the Largos and Mikhail─

And huh oh, I forgot I played with heat to have an excuse and

I don't know if I like that idea that much anymore fjkez

Which means I'll never finish the part 2 though

[kerra-and-company]

14 for Kerra !!

(@dumb-dumb-mander)

Oooh, gladly!!

14. If they were an elder dragon, what would their domains be?

At this point, Kerra is so connected to Aurene that I almost just said that she'd have Aurene's domains, but honestly, I think she'd have some version of Mordremoth's. It'd be some combination / variation of plant and mind/persuasion--because Kerra absolutely would have a domain connected to mind, but it'd be somewhere between Mordremoth's domination and Jormag's whispers. Maybe emotion instead, for her empathy ability, or something along those lines.

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

Bleh, username checks out.. clearly this charr main thought Trahearne was too much of a dweeb for his Commander-centric ego-stroking MMO quest line with a hero/savior complex... despite being in an RPG narrative exploring themes of UNITY and FRIENDSHIP and helping each other and looking after even the small farmers and tavern keepers and accepting little to no reward in return amidst the despair and depression of an unwinnable war and learning to find the hope in life while it lasts and fighting tooth and nail for it to last longer... smh...

[plantb0t]

Guild wars 2 is so stressful how dare you keep asking me to make decisions in this video game I can't handle this responsibility