Waiting Sorrow

Waiting Sorrow

Race

Kodan

Profession

Elementalist

Level

80

Rank

Legendary

Locations

• Strangers among Lands
  (Postern Ward, Harvest Den, Harvest Shore)
  
• Twice Stricken
  (Hearth's Glow, Stricken Plains)
  
• Finding Balance
  (Janthir Syntri, Hearth's Glow, Moon Camp Covert, Harvest Den, Blood Hill)
  
• Against the Wall
  (Hearth's Glow, Sulfurous Springs)
  
• Sorrow in These Halls
  (The Wizard's Tower, Lowland Shore)
  
• Battle's Eve
  (Lowland Shore)
  
• Balrior Peak
  (Lowland Shore, Mount Balrior)
  
• Into the Valley of Shadow
  (Janthir Syntri, Mistburned Barrens)
  
• A Legacy Damned
  (Mistburned Barrens)
  
• Penance for the Past
  (Mistburned Barrens)

Organization

Wizard's Court
Lowland Kodan

Image(s)

Appearance with Sorrow's Claws. Waiting Sorrow with the Arcane Flow aura.

“

For beings that know "all," I don't know enough. Not about myself.

— Waiting Sorrow

Waiting Sorrow is an ancient female kodan wizard. She is a former member of the Wizard's Court, and former leader of the Bastion of the Celestial, having been Dagda's mentor and close friend. She left her fellow wizards relatively recently on somewhat precarious terms. Before leaving, Waiting Sorrow crafted the Heart of the Obscure, a device that channels emotions and can open and seal rifts, and left it behind for another wizard to find. She was the mentor, as well as close friend or even soulmate, of the ancient female jotun Dagda.

Since leaving the Wizard's Court centuries ago, Waiting Sorrow has observed the lives of kodan to protect them from the Elder Dragon Jormag. Adopting the identity of a healer named Fading Aurora, she has settled among the Lowland Kodan of Harvest Den and has earned a place in their council. Because of the rising titan activity emerging from Janthir that threatens not only the Lowland Kodan but Tyria itself, Waiting Sorrow is eventually forced to reveal her true identity and returns to the Wizard's Court, her future uncertain. After the titans are eliminated, Poised Arrow gives her the new name Waiting Dawn.

Biography

Early years

Life in the north

Waiting Sorrow was born to the kodan in the far north millennia ago. She was magically adept from an early age, receiving visions and images, and she would become the youngest Voice of Koda for her community in that era. As she acclimated to her role, she bonded with and eventually became the mate of Southward Claw, the Claw of Koda of that community.

When the Elder Dragon Jormag rose and created a lengthy Dragonstorm which affected the denizens of the north, the various kodan tribes were forced to seek shelter from the raging blizzard in the caves together and grew increasingly hungry over the following years as they had access to fewer and fewer game to feed their people. As the storm picked up, Koda's voice turned angry and began affecting some of the Voices, Waiting Sorrow included. She began losing herself and could no longer trust the visions which she identified as false. She came to believe that she was not necessarily hearing Koda's voice anymore. She hated having a destiny and the burden that came with it, and she worried that she would become a threat to her community, so she fled before she would hurt her loved ones. Waiting Sorrow would have been consumed by the Rage of Koda in her growing madness and grief if not for her meeting with the Seer wizard Isgarren who helped sever her tie to the Mists to remove Koda's burden from her as he helped her ascend and turned her immortal.

However, the ascension ended up affecting Waiting Sorrow's memories too as she distanced herself from her former life and community, while Isgarren let her roam alone for a time. Southward Claw, against the wishes of the Voices of the other tribes, made the tough choice to lead his eventual Lowland Kodan tribe south to Janthir to seek new hunting grounds instead of waiting for his mate's return. Waiting Sorrow eventually met with the Forgotten Vass and began traveling with her near Frostgorge Sound where they observed the highland kodan settling the area as the Elder Dragons fell to slumber. At some point Isgarren, who had been banished from the Seer horde for interfering with mortal lives one time too many, approached the pair and invited them to join him and his mursaat friend Mabon in the Wizard's Court, a fledgling organization of ascended wizards whose task would be to guard Tyria from Mistborn threats. However, Isgarren's offer was both sympathetic and pragmatic: as he had witnessed Waiting Sorrow's growing arcane power, he realized that he could not let her go again.

Life as a wizard

As a wizard, Waiting Sorrow helped design the defenses of the Wizard's Tower which Isgarren had acquired. According to her, the sentient tower always liked her best out of all the wizards. She founded the Bastion of the Celestial in Amnytas, a floating chain of islands acting as the base for the wizards as well as their eventual Astral Ward disciples. She became a mentor and dear friend to Dagda, a female jotun with magical abilities who was saved during the jotun civil war and who underwent ascension to become a wizard herself. Waiting Sorrow and Dagda used the Cosmic Observatory fractal as a research facility to study the artificial fractals created by the wizards. Waiting Sorrow also created the Primal Maguuma fractal at some point but did not reveal what purpose it was for.

Some time after the Astral Ward's founding in 604 AE, the demonic Kryptis of Nayos possessed the first Warden of the Wizard's Court, Taryn. This ultimately led Eparch, the Midnight King of the Kryptis who had once been Isgarren's ward before his banishment, to usher the first major Kryptis invasion attempt into Tyria circa 635 AE so he could have his revenge on Isgarren for denying him a seat in the Wizard's Court. The Kryptis horde targeted the Wizard's Tower with Eparch himself leading the incursion alongside his powerful lieutenants Cerus and Deimos. The assault led to the deaths of the wizards Akeem and Vass and culminated in Isgarren and Eparch's second confrontation. Waiting Sorrow was so traumatized by the Kryptis' actions and the deaths of her fellow wizards that she could neither speak nor move, leaving the rest of the wizards to carry on the fight without her. Isgarren and his allies were ultimately able to force the Midnight King and the Kryptis back into Nayos despite the tower sustaining heavy damage in the ensuing clash.

When interviewed for the multi-volume History of the Wizard's Court and asked to tell the interviewer about Akeem and Vass in 716 AE, painful memories of her friends' demise surfaced in Waiting Sorrow's mind, and she left the interviewer's company after uttering how it would have been nice to have known the two late wizards better. As time passed, Waiting Sorrow began to harbour reservations against the wizards, as a desire to know more about herself and her past grew and haunted her. Upon voicing her reservations to Isgarren, the Seer asked the kodan if she would like to put an end to her immortal life, to which Waiting Sorrow declined, refusing to believe that there was not a path forward that did not involve moving to the next wave of existence. This conversation would only further the kodan's desire to depart from the order.

Waiting Sorrow crafted the Heart of the Obscure, a mysterious device capable of opening and sealing rifts in the Mists by channelling emotions, as well as pointing the user to the nearest rift, deciphering mursaat language, neutralizing bloodstone shards, exorcising ghosts, and channeling touchstones into souls among other things. She left this device on her desk in The Wizard's Tower.

Waiting Sorrow, still a wizard, finally abandoned the order in secrecy some time around the Searing of Ascalon. She left behind a letter for her close friend and apprentice, Dagda, to find. The kodan wizard left in a hurry, fearing that Isgarren would stop her if he knew, as the immortal wizards are forbidden from leaving the order with their powers intact. Later on some Astral Ward members would find the exact date of Sorrow's departure vague, referencing that it had happened "over a century ago" in the present day.

Interim years

In 1165 AE, Jormag rose once somewhere beyond the Far Shiverpeaks in the latest dragonrise, creating a years-long Dragonstorm as they began creating icebrood and pushing south. Waiting Sorrow, plagued by fragmented visions of her past life and guilt for abandoning her bearkin, decided to aid them while also masking her magic so Isgarren or her fellow wizards could not locate her.

Janthir Wilds

Act 1

Primary article: Fading Aurora

Act 2

After Poised Arrow was injured during the initial fight with the titan Decima, he called Waiting Sorrow for help. She created a portal to bring the party to the Commander's homestead, and used her healing magic to repair the damage to Poised Arrow's leg. While there was still some tension between mentor and student, the two were able to talk things out.

Waiting Sorrow and Poky stayed at the homestead while the Commander worked with researchers in Janthir Syntri. But once Malice and Caithe learned that bloodstone might be linked to the titans somehow, Sorrow recruited some other kodan to stay with Poky and joined the group at the Bloodstone Research Camp. She believed the Heart of the Obscure should be able to neutralize bloodstone shards, which would keep the titans from drawing power.

The neutralization worked, though not exactly safely. Sorrow needed to shield the party each time a shard was neutralized. The team returned to the homestead for final planning, but not before the Commander told Sorrow they had deduced the wizard's true identity as the Voice of legend. Sorrow begged them to keep that information secret.

When Stoic Alder arrived at the homestead to join in the battle, Sorrow confessed in part to him -- not that she was the ancient Voice, but that she was a wizard. He agreed to postpone further discussion until after the titans were dealt with.

Greer and Decima would have fallen had Ura not interfered at the last minute. Sorrow was one of the team members who voted to pull back until more could be learned of Ura and her powers.

After a short discussion in Harvest Den, Waiting Sorrow asked the Commander to back her up for another discussion Sorrow wasn't looking forward to -- a discussion with Isgarren. The two portaled back to the Wizard's Tower, easily bypassing the Tower's wards since Sorrow was the one who set them up centuries before.

Sorrow sent the Commander in first to report on the titan battle, then walked in during that report, revealing that she still lived.

Story involvement

Janthir Wilds story

See also: Fading Aurora

• Act 1
  • Strangers among Lands
• Act 2
  • Twice Stricken
  • Finding Balance
  • Against the Wall
  • Sorrow in These Halls
• Godspawn
  • Battle's Eve
  • Balrior Peak
• Repentance
  • Into the Valley of Shadow
  • A Legacy Damned
  • Penance for the Past
• Absolution
  • Forced Entry
  • A Titanic Undertaking
  • Salvation's Cost

Combat abilities

Abilities

• Wizard of the Astral Ward

Effects

• One of the following:
  •  Air Attunement - Attuned to air.
  •  Fire Attunement - Attuned to fire.
  •  Earth Attunement - Attuned to earth.
  •  Water Attunement - Attuned to water.

Gallery

• 

  Godspawn key art of Waiting Sorrow and allies battling titans.

• 

  Absolution key art of Waiting Sorrow and members of the Tyrian Alliance at the Mists Gate.

Related achievements

• Sorrow's Lost: III: The Mother Sovereign — Empathy, compassion, and nurturing nature; one must know sorrow to heal sorrow. One can almost picture an entire sea of lamentation out there... Somewhere.
• Janthir Wilds: Act 2: Forgiveness — Witness an exchange of apology and acceptance. (1)
• Janthir Wilds: Act 2: Teaching Trust — Witness a teacher and pupil rebuild trust. (1)
• Godspawn: A Moment of Quiet — Check in with all of your allies following the meeting. (1)
• Godspawn: Life of the Party — Speak with the other guests at the battle's eve feast. (1)
• Repentance: Field Updates — Receive optional updates from your allies while at camp. (1)
• Absolution: Diplomatic Relations — Check in with all your allies after the heated confrontation in Bava Nisos. (3)
• Absolution: Master Mingler — Speak with all of the partygoers during the Tyrian Alliance's celebration. (1)

Trivia

• Waiting Sorrow is voiced by Tina Huang.
• As a millennia-old kodan, Waiting Sorrow was born during a time when most kodan had two names, a tradition still in use by the kodan of Still Waters Speaking. Their first name, referred to as "Koda's Promise" is based on a characteristic wished by the family or tribe of the newborn kodan cub, such as "humble", "stoic", "aiding", or "noble". The second name, referred to as "Koda's Gift", is one of nature, such as "mountain", "thunder", "cloud", or "cove". A handful of sanctuaries, however, used pliable names which changed based on circumstance and mood, describing singular things and lacking a first or last name. These sanctuaries would eventually become established in the Shiverpeaks possibly following Jormag's awakening. Waiting Sorrow, based on her name, might have belonged to one such sanctuary.

See also

Associated items

• Mini Waiting Sorrow
• Sorrow's Claw