Talk:Mordrem

Edit request

Re-add gallery of dragon minions, which used to be on the Mordremoth page. –Santax (talk · contribs) 14:46, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. And added. Now that we know with reasonable certainty that they are related to Mordremoth I left out some that I could not determine that with reasonable certainty that they were indeed tied..Anzenketh (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

How are the "original concept art for Nightmare Court" at all tied to Mordremoth, exactly? If anything, I only see File:Evil plant enemy concept art.jpg and File:Evil plant enemy concept art 2.jpg being _potentially_ tied. They're different enough, imo, to be unrelated and the minions based off of new unseen-to-players works. Konig 20:11, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I thought that they looked like some of the enemies of Mordrem. If you disagree that is fine. Remove the files. Comparing concept art against what is actually in game a lot of times is pure guesswork. Anzenketh (talk) 20:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

This piece is pretty clearly the basis for the Mordrem Husks. And nothing says that these concepts were originally intended to be for the NC; according to Kekai Kotaki they are simply "Very early concepts of Evil Sylvari and various evil plant-based enemies". –Santax (talk · contribs) 22:01, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree strongly on that association - I'd say it's clearly a standard Summoned Husk, the glow is the exact same color. Besides, a Mordrem Husk is just a Summoned Husk with a pinkish glow and some extra glowing lines on the rest of the body. —Dr Ishmael 22:18, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

None of the concept art seems relevant to the Mordrem design.--Relyk ~ talk < 01:43, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

@Santax: In the Art of Guild Wars 2 book, page 70, there is a description about making the Maguuma feel dangerous, specifically the art around the Nightmare Court making them clearly sylvari but still evil - the only sylvari concept art near it is File:Evil sylvari concept art 5.jpg (page before) and File:Evil sylvari concept art 4.jpg (page after). Other art on that page or the one preceding or succeeding were treant and environment artwork. Furthermore, unless one counts Aerin and Scarlet - which have no model changes - then there is not a single sylvari amongst the Mordrem. And even their connections are unproven. The Summoned artwork is clearly of Summoned Husks and not Mordrem Husks - as Ish points out. Something tells me that they didn't even create artwork for Mordrem until working on Season 2. Konig 03:04, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

So do we have majority agreement to remove the images? I added them due to the Mordrem Husks but was unaware of the Summoned Husk. Anzenketh (talk) 18:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Well, it is my belief that the Summoned Husks are Mordrem, although they may not be recognised as such in the game files since they have been present since launch and the Mordrem are new. As an old revision of Mordremoth argues, "The Crucible of Eternity is the interior of the Infinite Coil Reactor, and is where the experimentations on Elder Dragon minions are performed. Three labs are able to be visited - Experimental Lab Red, Experimental Lab White, and Experimental Lab Green. Again, Lab Red is related to Primordus, and Lab White related to Jormag. Lab Green contains a multitude of plant creatures, including Nightmare Husks and Nightmare Hounds. Each zone also houses a powerful minion, respectively the Evolved Destroyer, Bjarl the Rampager, and the Evolved Husk, implying a connection between the jungle dragon and the Summoned Husks in Wychmire Swamp and the Twilight Arbor. Indeed, Gamarien, whose Wyld Hunt calls him to protect the swamp, fears that a "much darker force" than the Nightmare Court is at work there", and furthermore Summoned Jungle Tendrils feature in Clear Prosperity of jungle tendrils and Mordrem. –Santax (talk · contribs) 20:14, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and while Aerin and Scarlet's models had no changes to put them as one of the Mordrem, Scarlet was masked for the entirety of the Battle for Lion's Arch and we know that her corpse displayed visible signs of some sort of corruption. Plus, the glowing on Scarlet's skin is the same glow we see in the husks (whose heads resemble early concepts for the druids, so may be corrupted druid husks), the Shadow of the Dragon, these guys Subject Alpha, and to a lesser extent 1 2 3. Although this concept is dissimilar to the rest, it resembles (imo) the Mordrem Thrashers and is pretty clearly an early concept for those. The colour palette is the same one that we see for the Great Jungle Wurm. Sure, they're from a long time ago, but hints at the existence, name, and nature of Mordremoth have been in-game since launch, so these concepts were only "unused" in the sense that no Mordrem appeared in-game at the time. –Santax (talk · contribs) 20:28, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

"it is my belief that the Summoned Husks are Mordrem" - Need I say more, really? This is all just your deductions, which I disagree with. But I hold no intention of getting into a disagreement. I voiced my opinion, and left it at that. You can logic your way to the moon for all I really care, doesn't make it proven fact. And why you even bothered bringing up the Shadow of the Dragon and Subject Alpha, I don't know nor care. The topic was on the concept art, and in all honesty, the old "evil sylvari" concept art which is used when talking about the Nightmare Court, seems like unused even now. But like I said, I don't want a huge argument over something insignificant and full of your opinion. I can't change your opinion, and that's fine - I don't care to. I merely stated that I don't think the "evil sylvari" concept art or the Summoned concept art are relevant to Mordrem and I feel they would be better off being placed on Nightmare Court, because that's what they've been used when talking about the Nightmare Court. And thus far, the Nightmare Court are the only "evil sylvari" faction in the game (even now) - and go figure, the generic ones are dark in appearance just like the concept art. In all honesty, calling Mordrem sylvari "evil sylvari" is no different than describing this as "evil charr". Konig 21:07, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Since this discussion is going nowhere, I've removed the gallery from this page. It's pretty clear that there is very little visual resemblance in most of the images to any creatures actually called "Mordrem" in-game. (Speculation and retconning about creatures not named "Mordrem" doesn't count.) For the 2 or 3 images that do resemble a Mordrem, it makes more sense to place them on that creature's page instead of here, anyway. —Dr Ishmael 21:21, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

just to add. I was handling a question on reddit wether or not mordrems count as plants. My plant slayer is done, so I can't test it. but Ido think that the plant slayer count is a good judge. if all mordrems count as plants, then there is a point. But it seems that mordrems don't count as plants (you gave them a different category). husks still count as plants, so they are not mordrems ;) 82.169.87.197 22:09, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

They don't. Husks don't count either, actually - they count to the Nightmare Court's Bane achievement (same with Nightmare Hounds/Thorn Wolves). The only thing that counts to the plant slayer achievement are Treants and trees that spawn during the fight with Vahid, High Priest of Melandru (I think they're called "Vahid's Tree"?). But since Nightmare Court is an affiliation (or Organization as the infobox calls it), and not a species (or Race as the infobox calls it), we can't really put it under race. Placing "Plant" there is so that it doesn't get placed into Category:NPCs with no race specified, though for all we know they can be mechanically listed as Sylvari. Mordrem likely have an all new army/family (the internal name for affiliation/race) just as each dragon minion group do, and just as the various alliances during Season 1 were given. Konig 04:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Does the fact that we now know that the Shadow of the Dragon (and by extension the Nightmare Hounds and Sinister Nightmare Hounds that it summons) are Mordrem change the outcome of this discussion? The Summoned Husks have exactly the same orange glow as that boss, and appear wherever there is suspected Mordremoth activity. This is the same orange glow that we see in all those concepts, as well as on Scarlet's corpse. And it is made explicit in Rallying Call that Mordremoth can corrupt sylvari, so it seems that those orange-glowing sylvari are also Mordremoth minions.

Ishmael: I'm not sure you're understanding what I'm saying. There's no retconning going on here—enemies like the husks and Nightmare Hounds have always been intended to be Mordremoth minions, and the concept art has always been of Mordremoth minions. It's just that, since Mordremoth hadn't awawkened yet, it went largely unused. Now we've seen enemies that resemble the creatures in the concept art, we know for sure that it's of the Mordrem. Plus, you're saying that if something isn't explicitly called Mordrem in-game, then it can't be Mordrem. What does that mean for the Overgrown Husks or Overgrown Hounds? What evidence do you have that they're Mordrem? –Santax (talk · contribs) 09:01, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

One can easily argue that the Shadow of the Dragon fought in the Dream was altered by the Nightmare and not just Mordremoth's champion then (if that, for all we know Mordremoth could have modeled his champion after that vision). But this is all debatable and pointless still. All we see is that Mordremoth's corruption sometimes doesn't have physical alteration, and that's easily what could be happening with Shadow of the Dragon, Veteran Thorn Wolf and the Overgrown Husk/Overgrown Wolves. If those sylvari concept art are put anywhere, then I'd rather seem them put on Nightmare Court as that's what is talked about when showing those pictures in the Art of Guild Wars 2. The non-"evil sylvari" concept art pieces I never had a qualm though I still think is speculative (may have been Kekai's intention for Ibolga-like enemies - native hostile plant wildlife). Konig 10:42, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem is we don't know. Since most of the modern population of Tyria didn't know about Mordremoth, why would they name anything as a Mordrem? They seem like allies of the Nightmare court, so "Nightmare ___" seems a likely appellation. On the other hand, it's also possible that there are other reasons why there are similarities.

There's a further problem in that artists produce concept art to help realize ideas from the story tellers and allow the animation artists to start rendering NPCs. However, as is often the case in collaborative work (and sometimes even individual efforts), ideas evolve, merge, split, and transform. In other words, perhaps the concept art was meant to denote nothing more than the evil, erm, branch of the sylvari race — without the Nightmare Court or Mordremoth in mind — and that those images were used as the baseline for two completely distinct Genera or even Family of creatures.

Thus the question becomes: what's the best way of documenting the source Art, so that it doesn't require speculation? I propose a compromise with two avenues of approach:

• Categorize the art as "evil sylvari concept art" and add a "see also" to any relevant NPC page.
• Ask Stephane if he can get one of the storytellers to tell us whether it would be misleading to players to include "evil sylvari" concept art on Mordem/Overgrown and Nightmare Court articles. (I doubt it, because there's some serious speculation going on about how much — or how little — connection there is between the Nightmare Court and the Jungle Dragon. Can't hurt to ask.)

This allows the art to be seen/discovered by readers without forcing an interpretation. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 16:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Any chance we can look at this discussion again now? –Santax (talk · contribs) 21:44, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit request (Mark II)

Please re-add ", also rarely referred to as Overgrown," in the first sentence as I had done before, as we now have a new situation of Overgrown enemies alongside Mordrem. The term "Overgrown" appears to be akin to Mordrem in the same way that Orrian and Undead are used for Risen. I presume it was removed due to only two cases of the term being used, but now we see it used more. Konig 20:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC)