The Priory theory could still be true actually because the 10,000 years have passed, which started the process of the Dragons awakening. Are we sure she re-directed Ley Line energy to Mordremoth? I thought that she converged the strongest points to send surge through an existing path. Since the process of the Dragons awakening had already started, she didn't wake Mothy out of turn or out of sync with the presumed 10k year timer but instead startled him awake about 40 years early (it's said once one Dragon starts to waken, the others wake up one at a time, about 50 years apart from each other).
The "every 10,000 years" theory is based on the Jotun's observation of the stars (as explained Arah path 1). The idea is that the ancient Jotun tracked the passage of time and recorded what stars were present when the Elder Dragons appear. From that, the Priory NPC in Arah assumes that the dragon awakenings are natural and cyclical. The weird thing is, we
know the cycle can be both spend up and delayed. Primordus was supposed to awaken during the events of Eye of the North, but the players were able to delay it by 42 years. Likewise, Scarlet was able to wake Mordremoth early by about 40 years. If no one had interfered with Primordus and the number of years between each awakening remained the same, the timeline would have theoretically been;
1078 - Primordus (actually awakened in 1120)
1123 - Jormag (1165)
1177 - Zhaitan (1219)
1228 - Deep Sea Dragon (wiki gives the approximate date as 1270)
1278 - Kralkatorik (1320)
That means that if things had been allowed to proceed as nature intended, Mordremoth should have awoken around 1328, which is actually the present day in Guild Wars 2... and there would be stars in the sky indicating that the Elder Dragons have returned. And surprise;
players have discovered this has just happened).
For Primordus to be delayed and Mordremoth awakened early in such a way as to sync up implies either a greater force at work guiding things along, crazy dumb luck, or the stars aren't naturally occurring but instead are tied specifically to the state of the elder dragons (hey, it's a fantasy game, anything can happen).
Also, if the dragons were on a naturally occurring cycle, Jormag should have awoken ~50 years after EotN. Instead, he woke up
87 years later; if they were on a 50 year cycle, then Jormag would have awoken about 10 years after Primordus instead of 45 years after. So Primordus is either the trigger for the other dragons to awaken or the 50 year cycle is just sort of a coincidence.
Neither of those really poke holes in the theory, but it does raise some interesting questions.
It's definitely supported that the Dragons are only storing magic but what is the purpose of that? Assuming the Dragons are a construct of either Nature or a Greater Force, the cycle of eating and releasing should serve some purpose or other. It can't be to keep Intelligent Races from using magic, otherwise they wouldn't leak it back into the world.
Not a clue. It could just be what keeps the world spinning or nature in harmony, like the spinning molten core of the earth or deep sea currents. Why the Elder Dragons exist at all is a deeper, older question than even "What were the Human Gods" and that's still a big question mark.
You make a good point here. I'm going to have to mull this over for awhile I think. My only question at the moment would then be.. why did it take so long for the Dragons to awaken after the Human Gods gifted Magic to the Intelligent races again? The magic was used so much at one point that the Gods took the Bloodstone back and split it. But I'd have to look into specific dates to warrant the question really.
If magic was as "wild" and rampant as it's described by the Jotun, then the amount of magic the Human Gods were dumping back into the ecosystem probably wasn't as huge as it seems.
I still think Anise is up to something, but maybe that's just me.
Anise = Livia. The hints all point in that direction.
