An Empire Divided 3: The Professions of Cantha

[@lordmawkish1286]

I actually went through some of your PoF Q+A stuff from two years ago where you repeatedly mentioned that you wanted to revisit your abandoned lore series format upon a return to Cantha, in case that ever happened. Well, here we are and it's a thing! While you also gave us some lore videos for PoF, this new series seems totally in line with that original endeavor, and although the new expac is still a looong way away, I find that kind of consistency to be awesome.

[@edidaemon]

Loving the Cantha stuff. Looking forward to the LP!

[@regendo]

ArenaNet: "Their fates are unknown, but they vanish from the record weeks after Yian Zho took the mantle of emperor" Me: "Oh, so the new emperor acted quickly in securing his legitimacy and removing potential rivals" WP: "I like this last sentence, they leave and go to one of these unexplored places" 😆

[@jaybird8899]

I know, I love the guy, but man can he be a little naive at times.

[@KROOF]

I doubt Ritualists will be a fully fledged Elite spec, but one can dream ; -;

[@Justin9740]

I'm surprised more people aren't commenting on this video as the EoD specs are currently being released. As such, I would love to hear your updated thoughts on this video (especially the Rituatlist and potential dragon magics around 7:40) up to and after the release of EoD. Fantastic lore and more speculation to be had.

[@the_purple_mage]

Absolutely loving this series, WP. Factions was easily my favorite part of GW1 and the expectation of going back has me eating up all this lore! Thank you!

[@_Banjo_]

That scene where Nika runs along the walls makes me wonder, what if Anet add wall running to the game . Possibly use a guage similar to the Skyscales flight juice mechanic - note the skyscale also has clinging to wall functionality. Im picturing something like in the game Gunz which was a weird online shooting game that was free. Points if you ever played this when you were younger. It would be cool to see hidden gaps in walls that you have to run along and hop in and the right timing. Could even lead to really creative jumping puzzles. Maybe even leaping off walls and clinging onto another. Be quite hilarious as they originally planned some form of climbing in the game

[@orrthehunter]

Imagine if that Mastery was a Profession based mastery thus each profession has a different animation and means to get to the other side of things once they unlock that Mastery.

[@davidgustavsson4000]

I feel like the idea of unionized assassins is a reference to Terry Pratchett (rest his soul).

[@Earendilgrey]

I like to think the Deep Sea Dragon spawned the Dragons of Cantha. It would link to the magics there and the dragons there being known as Salt Spray dragons.

[@Wyrser]

I don't think the idea of "proto" Ritualists is that they don't use magic, but that they may be using non-Tyrian magic, mist magic. In S4E6, it was said that if Kralk dies in the Mists, all the magic is scattered in the Mists and thus removed from Tyria,, which would be disastrous. Well, if magic can escape from Tyria to the Mists, surely it can also be drawn from the Mists. So, when Tyrian magic was either trapped in bloodstones or absorbed by the Elder Dragons, maybe Canthans found a way to draw magic from the Mists using the spirit of the dead as a medium?

[@wir7740]

I think you might be on to something. This is why I think it's a must that they explore the connection between Ritualists and Revenants.

[@DoneJinzzz]

Completed another playthrough of Cantha? (:: Looking forward to it!

[@Kyosika]

Exactly what I was thinking!

[@yyangcn]

"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide."

[@labdG]

Maybe Cantha will get it's first empress in the next expansion.

[@RobertRegojo]

Love this! I'm a casual GW player who hasn't picked it up in years... I'm actually going through the full story of GW2 and expansions now. Does anyone know a good WP video series that goes over original GW lore, I've forgotten a lot of the references to the original story line.

[@Ashi8No8Yubi]

I'm surprised they didn't use the same description they used in the manual that said the Assassin was the same as the ranger in a way. While the rangers oversee the balance of nature, the assassins job is to oversee balance in society.

[@wayne4427]

Yes! Really enjoying these!

[@AdrasAdraki]

Wp, cantha is happening so we need a little lore series to conclude ya know ;)

[@jaybird8899]

Yes, yes yes yes. Please!

[@lordmawkish1286]

It would indeed be cool if the Lord Emperor Kaineng Tah actually united the clans against an Elder Dragon threat, and that is why Kaineng then went on to call it the Dragon Empire. Because he was proud to have defeated (killed?) the dragon. (Maybe it was not even killed, but somehow imprisoned!) I mean, this goes perfectly in line with what the gods were written like in Path of Fire: Leaving it up to mortals and their armies. So it would make sense that they would order Kaineng to deal with it. (Although, if we are to be nitpicky, the gods seemingly only learned this lesson after defeating Abaddon... so who knows.) Of course, this would have been way before the Tome of the Five True Gods was actually written. But given how damaged that document is, several explanations are still possible: The gods did not care as much about the Elder Dragons back when they only knew of the active one in Cantha, but once they realized five more were sleeping in different areas of the world, they actually realized how important they were to the workings of Tyria, and then subsequently wrote this document. The deep sea dragon may or may not be that Canthan dragon, just as well as it may or may not be the "mother" that Kralkatorrik mentioned. Fingers crossed we will be getting a lot of interesting answers about all this.

[@alphaxneo]

- So Assassins are basically Ninjas - me likey :D I vividly remember visiting an old town in Japan known for one family of Ninjas (there were several, of course) and reading about all the rules they had to whom they should respond to and so on and so forth. Quite interesting, if you ever end up in Japan :p - You say that not having Assassins around would be a failure. I think, if they write it well, they could make an intriguing story about why they suddenly got ostracized 250 years later as opposed to being revered as a tool to either have enemies killed or oneself protected. Especially if what used to be considered nobility had somehow gotten disorganized or overruled by some other system so they may now just be faced with actually working from the shadows rather than an official thing that is accepted throughout society. But I do hope they will be featured somehow somewhere in the Canthan expac, that much I absolutely agree with!< - Horsies!!! (I do hope there won't be any horses tho, I want the meme to continue lol - oh there u go saying the same two second after I wrote this!) - You hint at so many assassinations but the women, yeah, they just "leave to explore the world"? I'm not sure I share your optimism on their fate :'D Them having been exiled and getting to places and build their own stuff there or something would also be interesting, I'll give you that! - Ah, nice, I might actually watch the Let's Play! I do miss writing the walls of texts I've thrown around the gw2 Let's Play but quarantine has been a bit weird with new workloads and so on. I'm looking forward to it!!

[@kaldo2113]

Ritualist definitely sounds like a revenant elite spec though.

[@gewreid5946]

Yeah sure does sound like the Renegade. Invoking legends of the past and summoning spirits.

[@bradnjaa8578]

Man i feel like it would be sweet to have ritualists come back-do some spirit spam farming again.

[@sameekarriker4003]

Yay more cantha lore!

[@23bcx]

On the season 2 Priory floor map that had crazy names for everything far off wasn't there a land to the far south called man haters or something like that. Perhaps that is were the daughters of the first emperor went.

[@jaybird8899]

Dude, I'm pretty sure they were killed so as not to be, nor produce rivals to the throne. WP was just being naive when he said that man. You see this all the time in real life history, royal siblings just disappearing from the records mysteriously, which always means they got killed off. This would be interesting, but it would also be too stupid for Arena Net.

[@BloodshedRomance]

white elite imperial armor on assassins is just the best.

[@wir7740]

They have to at least touch on the connection between Revenant and Ritualist if they don't decide to give it as an specialization to Rev. Could their connection to the Mists and spirits/legends be that ancient type of magic?

[@Myurridthaekish]

Assassination: Safe, legal, and rare.

[@simbap1435]

So much questions and continuity in more Cantha brings. So The God's didn't bring the first humans to Tyria? Humans were always on Tyria in Cantha.

[@barva1120]

For a second there I have imagined the world with a new Tengu race and a new profession and half of the population in GW2 would be a tengu-ritualist :))) would be fun :))

[@Fearghus]

Huh. I never knew how much they related Kaineng Tah to Chinggis Khan. Even down to the belief that it was wounds from falling off his horse that finally killed him while hunting. I knew there was a lot of influence, but I never read this guide, so I didn't realize how much :) That's cool. I mean I guess I should have realized with the whole Kaing/Khan similarity, but I never put the two together before now, haha. I guess I always thought there was more of a China influence to Cantha rather than Mongolian. (Again I should have caught on to it as its style is an amalgamation of a lot of asian concepts, why not Mongolian too.)

[@mishking9547]

Be nice if in gw 2 the cantha expansion gives each elite spec atleast a new chest armor and or leg armor, for each class so we get a 'new outfit' matching the elite specs core class

[@basinox]

I think Assassin could come back as a shinobi/ninja elite spec for thiefs. Ritualist thou will probabbly go the way of the paragon

[@lifewhatsoever]

I think it’ll be cool if we go to Cantha to save it from Steve but they don’t trust us and want us to leave.

[@AdrasAdraki]

*Looks at the thumbnail* THERES A FUCKING BARD PROFESSION IN CANTHA? BARD MESMER SPEC CONFIRMED HYPUUUUUUUUY

[@musicfanatic23]

is that a full melee comp I'm seeing WP? interesting

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Well spotted! It didn't go that well sadly, but I still like the idea.

[@UnwarrierChicken]

Interesting, I remember how 14 Y.O me was fascinated by the Chinese (Canthian) Mythology, political, crude world.

[@valkerysangel]

What would be crazy for canta would be to be able to active 2 elite specialisation. One from tiria and one from canta.

[@Dezerado]

I love the GW2 Videos of course ... but i gotta say .. i'm kinda missing the Arena videos anyways .. hope gw2 announcing a Expac Gets your income back on Track and you stay healthy and all

[@megalodonny]

hi

[@bre_me]

Assassin is Thief in GW2 100%...