#zephyrites

[fireskarr]

GW2 Unused dialogue: Flirty lines?

So here's a fun one ;)

During my deep dive into the Living World S1 related dialogue lines in the game, I stumbled across a flirty line from Jory that I hadn't heard before. I didn't think much of it at the time, since several of her regular lines are rather flirty. But then I found one for Braham. And then Rox. And then I started to pay attention.

For most characters, there are blocks of what I like to call 'generic' lines. These blocks tend to be separate from the story-specific lines and ambient conversations, and include things like event-related chatter (let's go, follow me, go on ahead, etc), greetings, yes/no, calls for help, battle cries, etc. And I noticed some of the "thank you"/gratitude lines were almost always preceded by some kind of flirty line (and a few aren't, it's kinda messy haha). So I ran through all the other characters and pulled what I could find.

Not all named characters seem to have these though, and I might have missed one or two that weren't obviously flirty. There's also a chance that some of these are part of ambient conversations I'm not aware of, but most ambient conversations tend to be separate, so I dunno. Like I said; kinda messy.

I've separated them into two groups: Named NPCs and un-named NPCs

Marjory Delaqua: "Mmm, mm, mmm. You can walk into my bar any old time." Braham: "You'd look great in a bear skin." Rox: "I like you almost as much as meat!" Magnus the Bloody Handed: "You look like a kindred spirit. You like winter sports?" Evon Gnashblade: "You like gold? Jewels? I bet you do." Vorpp: "Hello beautiful. Are there anymore at home like you?" Scarlet Briar: "Hello, you're pretty cute. For a drone." Captain Mai Trin: "Do you have what it takes to be my First Mate?" Magister Tassi: "What do you say? You, me, a little romantic stroll through the library, hmm?" Mad King Thorn: "Heey! How would you like to be queen for a day?" Bloody Prince Thorn: "Mmm, you're as luscious as blood in the moonlight."

Lionguard 1: "Hey, good lookin'." Lionguard 2: "My shift's about to end, how about a drink?" Aetherblade 1: "Hey baby, wanna ride on an airship?" Aetherblade 2: "I'm all business. But I'm all pleasure too." Aetherblade 3: "Hey there, hot stuff." Zephyrite 1: "I feel a spark between us." Zephyrite 2: "You outshine the sun." Zephyrite 3: "Did I see a glint in your eye?" Zephyrite 4: "I feel balanced, now that you're here."

[mistfallengw2]

The Festival of Four Winds is coming soon and I've come to the realization that the Zephyrites are all potheads.

Why? In Italian, "venti" means both "winds" and "twenty", so the Festival of Four Winds is actually a cover up for the Festival of Four-Twenty.

Which, I mean, makes sense, as they do live a literally high life, up in their flying houses and with their kites...

[slagharrow]

A secret santa piece for an RP guildmate! The character adores airships and is one of the sweetest characters in the guild. <333

[moonlit-grove]

Sometimes I remember how I was raised. Back when I was Reflection. I was raised pacifist. I was raised not to fight. I guess that's part of why my magic lets me trap people in that mirror world. Mesmers have signatures, I've learned. Mine is the mirror world. Glaust and her crystals. I still think it's her. Not Lyssa, like everyone else is suggesting. Mirrors, yeah? So it must be Lyssa.

Reflection was a zephyrite. I still am, I suppose. At my heart. At heart, even though I've changed my name, become an assassin, a criminal... I'm still a zephyrite. I still sing our songs. I still revere Glaust. And Vlast, and Aurene.

It's hard to believe Aurene's already finished her mother's legacy. I didn't even have much to do with it. Dragging the team out to Thunderhead Peaks to join the battle. Seeing her die was... Cazzo, I don't think I'll ever get that image out of my head. Her Champion, shaking as they tried to keep themselves together.

My childhood friends didn't care that I was an assassin. They asked me- Illuso, not Reflection- to join them. To join them in singing to Aurene one last time. It hurt to know. I'm not sure the team really understood. And then she came back. And Scion and Champion rode into battle again.

And there I was. A zephyrite assassin. I really need to reconnect with my people. Maybe it'll be good for me. Embracing who I was and who I am now.

Maybe then I won't feel like I'm betraying myself when I carry out jobs.

[awakenedsylvari]

the number of transmutation charges alone that Ddrysien has cost me as i attempt to find a look i like for her...

[girlbob-boypants]

Honestly with Hau's background, his magic would be the exact opposite of how elementalist tends to work in gw2

[hawkepockets]

hi hi, dropping in your inbox to ask for more details on prem's relationship with dwayna? you might have shared some before but i cannot find much and i am Curious, if you'd like to talk about it :) @kerra-and-company

!!! omg of course 🫰 this is like a core issue for prem so strap in there’s a lot to say.

prem’s relationship to dwayna is the earliest iteration of a repeating pattern in his life: he gets a taste of attention, power-sharing, and passing fondness from someone higher than him (in the echelons of the city, like anise, in heroism, like the commander and vlast, or in the workings of the world, like dwayna) and devotes his whole self to them, often taking years to realize there’s no reward coming and the love is one-sided or wrong somehow.

when prem was about a year old, the zephyr airship his mothers sailed on, the ikaros, was part of a strike mission to the east of the blood legion homelands, where kralkatorrik was dormant. the zephyrites were supposed to harvest his crystallized blood for glint’s weapons, but before they could poke the sleeping dragon, the ships were strafed by a shatterer. the ikaros pulled up and evaded a direct hit from the monster, but was caught in the minor brandstorm coming off its wings. the ikaros was and is a ramshackle luxon antique. it was all the crew could do to keep the hull from shaking to pieces, long enough to power up a big sun aspect crystal and jump the ship forward out of the brandstorm. in mortal terror, the all-human crew couldn’t syncronize a song of praise for glint, and resorted to an older, simpler hymn to dwayna, using the harmonies to charge the crystal while crying out to the air goddess to keep their ship aloft.

it worked, barely. the sails were cut to ribbons by branded shrapnel, the cargo blasted clean off by the winds and the momentum of the aspect jump, and whole chunks of less-aerodynamic storage and living space were just gone when the ikaros made its “controlled” emergency ground landing, as if kralkatorrik had woken up to take bites out… including the transom storage locker where baby prem had been stashed for safekeeping. the crew was sure that their gambit with the sun aspect crystal had killed their smallest member—until prem heard his mother phaibun scream and started crying in answer from where he was safely tangled in the rigging, high above anyone’s heads. as phaibun scrambled to retrieve him, she felt a brush of warm air and presence pass by her, and felt sure dwayna had saved her son in answer to the zephyrites’ prayer.

and she was right ! prem seemed to be uniquely blessed by dwayna. his attunement to the wind aspect was instinctive, he loved to be in the air, he was obsessed with the story of malchor from the first time he heard it, and when he hurt himself and called dwayna’s name the wounds would close themselves (in game human cultural heal skill 😉)—which was unheard of this many years into the silence of the six gods.

he was four when his mothers moved with him to divinity’s reach, and growing up there he refused to walk past dwayna’s shrine in the palace garden unless he had a coin to donate. he built a tiny shrine to her at home where he could pray and make daily offerings of songs, food scraps, little kid artwork, breath from his lungs. he kept building and rebuilding that shrine every place he slept, from his screened-in sleeping corner in his mothers’ single room above their glider shop, to the shining blade headquarters, to campsites in maguuma and elona.

he had a childhood habit of conflating dwayna with glint and mixing up which prayers and melodies were written for whom, which got him in some hot water around teachers and priests, who considered reverence for glint heretical. he became very meticulous about praying “right” in front of krytan humans. just 1 of many ways he enforced assimilation on himself.

his whole life, he pulled comfort and inspiration from dwayna’s image. he identified powerfully with malchor’s love for her, using it half-consciously as a blueprint for his own blinding (wink) devotion to anise. he thought dwayna had blessed him with good luck, which made him more likely to accept without question things that others would call “too good to be true” (like anise’s offer to groom mentor him). he thought he was dwayna’s favorite!

he rarely got treatment for injuries, relying on prayers to stop the bleeding and glamours to cover the marks. but every time he invoked her name, the delay would be a little longer, the healing a little less perfect. he took this as a sign he was losing her favor, and got only more devout and more zealous as a shining blade exemplar.

then he met kormir, and she told him the gods were leaving—had been leaving, for a long time. dwayna had been gone from tyria since prem was very young. he had been one of the last humans, maybe the last human she’d ever blessed, as a goodbye.

so he’d just been imagining her closeness and favor all this time, and the small well of her power she’d left in him had been diminishing with each use ever since. soon it would dry up, and he’d have nothing left from her. she wasn’t coming back to him. she’d never been with him at all for more than a second. forget caring about one human, she’d left humanity to the dragons. the version of her in his head wasn’t real. it broke his heart.

he renounced all the gods, kicked his shrine apart, and true to his word to kas, hasn’t stepped foot in a temple ever since. he knows it seems like a spoiled reaction to other humans who never had their prayers answered in the first place, but he can’t help it. one of the presences he counted on most for almost 30 years, and it turned out to be just a trick of his mind and the wind.

he spent his last healing prayer in cantha, for a faint swell of warmth and fresh air after soo-won almost drowned him in a cold whirlpool. he felt the blessing disappear from him, without fanfare, leaving no residue. he feels totally stripped down after that. no delusions about divine guidance, no illusions about kryta, no one left to swear oaths to, nothing but his own thoughts to navigate by. truly Just Some Guy.

[pyreo]

That's a great question @tyrian-wanderlust!

It was the Zephyrites who returned in All or Nothing to sing Aurene's song! You could call their 'Alas, Alas' song for Glint and 'Aurene, Dragon Full of Light' two halves of their musical identity, one about their past and one for their future.

Thunderhead Peak, and the whole crescendo of the Kralkatorrik arc, has crystals as the central theme, so of course this is where the Zephyrites and their crystal magic was always meant to come to the forefront. Introducing the Zephyrites early as a festival, having them get into an early game mishap before Heart of Thorns, that was just foreshadowing for their real purpose.

Zephyrites (and Exalted) are the ones who've kept the Dragonsblood Forge all this time. A choir of them sings Aurene's new theme to you as soon as you enter the map. Because it's about resonance - Aurene and Kralkatorrik resonate as crystal dragons, weak to each other, and the Zephyrites know how to sing to resonate and shape crystal, to amplify or shield you with song. That's why the ancient Forge of Thunderhead Peak is next to the Auditorium - so the Zephyrite choir can use their power over music.

That's why the Zephyrites in Labyrinthine Cliffs were always humming about Glint. Music is as much part of their identity as crystals and airships.

And multiple motifs from the past and present are woven into it! At 2:04 they sing Glint's Legacy, a theme from all the way back in Heart of Thorns! At 2:00 they sing a tiny snippet of The Ascension, foreshadowing Aurene's fate at the end of the season, like a musical partner to Aurene's power to see visions of the future.

One other thing I just discovered - in Four Winds in 2018, half a year before All or Nothing's release... the Zephyrites in Labyrinthine Cliffs also started humming Aurene, Dragon Full of Light. Half a year before Thunderhead, before we heard the actual piece, they were rehearsing it. Thank you @fivebrights for recording this!

Since we're in the Festival of the Four Winds again I wanted to mention one of the collest things (to me) about it. Because I think it exemplifies how gw2 is crammed full of interesting lore but for the most parts, waits for you to put in a bit of effort to find it.

This festival is the only time you can visit Labyrinthine Cliffs, where the Zephyrites - a solitary group of humans who live on airships - come to moor once a year and trade with mainlanders, one of the few stops around the world they ever make.

They play into the history of the plot a large degree. They stewarded the last of Glint's eggs after her death, ensuring its safety while it was in stasis. They were the first direct victims of Mordremoth. They're staunch pacifists who accept all converts, revere their own Glint-specific type of magic, and have a specific naming convention.

While you're in Labyrinthine Cliffs, this music plays:

It's got a very slow build, and it's very airy, it's like a folk tune these nomadic people might play to themselves and you overhear it as you investigate the bazaar.

This song actually has lyrics. The only way to find out what they are is to happen to overhear the Zephyrite NPCs singing the words when you're nearby.

I didn't realise this for years of playing. It really is a folk tune that has words being passed around by word of mouth. You're not even very likely to hear any of the words being sung, or even realise it maps onto the background music.

This person did the work of grabbing all the snippets from the Zephyrites on the tethered ship - a ship which doesn't exist any more.

Alas, her magic strewn in sand. Alas, her soul undone. The clouds shed tears upon the land for the loss of our crystal sun. No more to tame the wind and rain, the skies to swallow whole. She flies no more in glinting beam and leaves a hollow hole.

When you piece it together, the whole song is about Glint. The importance she had to them and their grief at her loss. Integrated into the world so you know what it meant to them - intrinsic enough to their society that they idly hum a song in rememberence that every one of them memorised.

[xruiiii-blog]

【unmasked ghouls】 【HP】 don’t play with me cuz this post is about my favorite twins Zephyrit🗣️🗣️

Mount basically robbed Zeph whenever they play it’s not fair but it is what it is and it’s always been this way. (They are roommates ur honor)

Chess is like their gambling game nobody gets it like Ravens do.

[manasurge]

I kinda wish the Sylvari got to have a festival. The four winds is Zephyrite, therefore human (with the Queen’s Jubilee being obviously human and taking place in DR). Halloween is more or less human originated too (mad king Thorn and now Joko, also who used to be human). Wintersday takes place in DR, tho I forgot what was up with the snowmen, but it’s in the main human settlement (with Asura as a secondary bc of the infinarium with Tixx playing a huge part and capitalizing on it lmao). Dragon bash seems to be the most neutral one, but I’m glad the Norn got to inherit this one by having it be in Hoelbrak (would be cool if they got their own unique festival, but I’ll give this half points at least. I’m not sure if the holograms are their doing or maybe collaboration with the Asura?). Lunar new year is in, again, DR, but this one is very understandable at least. And SAB is the the quintessential Asura holiday.

Kinda sad we don’t even get to really host anything either. I know they’re a young race, but it still makes me sad. If I misremembered anything don’t be afraid to remind me >>’ believe me, I want to be wrong about this haha.

So many of these take place in Divinity’s reach o|-<

THE CHARR NEED ONE TOO

[i-mybrunettelady]

commander week day 7 - aurene

goodbye, champion. may you be the commander again. set after eod. commander: alysannyra ainsaph.

The day Aurene goes to sleep, they’re all here on the cliff to watch her go. Not the Zephyrites; not Vlast, and certainly not Glint or Kralkatorrik. Them, the mortals, the people she gathered along the way, and the people she calls family now. Or so Nyra likes to think, and it’s not like she can ask yet again without feeling like a broken record. 

The day Aurene is the last Elder Dragon alive, Alysannyra Ainsaph - the Commander, the Dragonslayer, the Champion of Aurene - sits on the cliff that she’s camped on for a while now, teary eyed as she watches the dragon she raised from hatching disappear into fine mist yet again. 

And she’s been tasked to keep the world safe in Aurene’s absence. And she will, but for the time being, she’s allowed to grieve and she’s allowed to put that part of her life to rest and the people Aurene calls family - Trahearne, her father, and Caithe, her Voice - are by her side. Trahearne helped make her legacy as the slayer of dragons. Caithe helped make her legacy as the mother of an Elder Dragon. 

Nyra buries her face in her hands as the last of the crystalline mist falls by and she cries to the dying light of day. She made Aurene promise to come back while she’s still alive. 

“Maybe not as an Elder Dragon,” Aurene said. “But I will come back to see you all.” 

Nyra holds her to it. It gives her hope. So now, in the face of that, she’s allowed to grieve the part of her life that’s ending. 

Maybe it’s not that lonely at the helm of the world. 

[khorren]

Once a bandit and general thievery annoyance of Ebonhawke, Alexis devoted her life to the teachings of Dwayna. A little bit of side activity with the Zephyrites, and later the Crystal Bloom, she always kept a little bit of Dwayna with her.

Of course she's still entilted to smacking things upside the head with a big hammer ^_^

[neopteryxx]

Little doodles of Aedacan :3

Here he is as a sapling / When he was younger!! He was silly and often got into trouble (and still kind of does..) Also, his 'horns' are more like branches, per-se? I might make them smaller, though...

Fun fact: Because of his dream, he used to do a lot of research into magical relics and at some point tried to search for the Zephyrites (and failed...)

Older Aedacan gets easily embarrassed whenever people bring up his past (the glowing thing is a headcanon my friend and I made!!) Not too sure about the characters, but I think if anyone were to say something along the lines of: 'Remember that time when...' without specifying anything, that could be enough to make him light up a dark cave (Pretty useful if you're lost) He'll usually think of something himself too, so all of the embarrassment was in his head... Even if he claims 'you brought it up', you really didn't.

[moonlit-grove]

Gw2-verse illuso being a former zephyrite is really rotating in my brain rn. The fact that he was raised pacifist in a culture that follows a crystalline dragon and his whole thing being about mirrors which arguably crystals can be reflective. Where people assume it's about Lyssa but no. It's still Glint. It's still the Scion.

Being a zephyrite never left him. As much as he thinks it did, as defiant as he is to what they are, it never left him. That's why he's present for the battle at thunderhead peak. In the end, Illuso is still a zephyrite. He still hums their songs and still trusts in the legacy.

[meeeeeeese]

Attention People of New Kaineng!

Many of you know of the kappa pests polluting our waterways, stealing our food and harassing our fair citizens. These kappa are well known to wield hammers in combat, appropriate for their brutish nature.

However.

Have you ever looked at their surprisingly well made hammers and wondered "huh, I wonder where they come from?" After all, kappa are little more than beasts, they can't be the ones making their armaments!

Well wonder no more, as after months of rigorous investigation I have come to an answer, one that will shock you to your very core.

The above image was taken by one of our journalists during a kappa raid on one of Xunlai Jade's maintenance crews. Note the expertly bound bamboo heft and solid metal head, kappa have no metallurgy to speak of, so it must be supplied by a third party. No doubt one that is plotting against Cantha even now, seeking to sow chaos in our city.

Of course at first I suspected the usual suspects. Speaker gangs trying to smash our jade tech, Brotherhood thugs distracting the guards, or even purists trying to undermine the empress. But as I pondered the question, our foreign affairs reporter gave me a crucial insight!

They had seen these weapon designs before.

Some months prior, she had been to Central Tyria to report on the festival held for the traveling traders known as the zephyrites. There, she had seen some familiar looking weapons on sale, an exclusive image of which I can reveal.

That's right.

It's an exact match.

Even worse, interviews with customers can confirm that these weapons are advertised as, and I quote here, '"genuine zephyrite-made weaponry". This can only mean one thing, beneath our noses these tradespeople have been supplying an enemy to the state of Cantha with the weapons to conduct their campaign of chaos!

Are they just in it for the money? Or do they have more sinister motives? While the answers to many of our questions remain unknown, one thing is certain: We should place far more scrutiny on these so called 'peace-loving' merchants.

For more updates tune into the Cantha Report at 5 as our journalists attempt to interview high ranking zephyrites on their illegal arms trades.

[mudora]

Sweet, I can post up to 30 images in one post now! (that is a lot) BEHOLD: The clockwork weapons set, which I believe landed last year during the queens gambit events. As well as the Zephyrite Festival. The prompt was centered around having fancy clockwork surrounded by craftsman like framing. The gears move on the weapons too! Shown with permission. (c) ArenaNet, all rights reserved. Thank you for the opportunity with Volta to make such a fun set.