#grenth

𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬

Appeared then the god, and with bony hands outstretched, welcomed the girl into His fold. Saith he, "I am your god. Follow where I lead, come whence I call, and the rotted corpses of the dead will be yours to control."

- 🍄

OHH GREAT QUESTION! Nobody has actually asked me this (although even if they did I am Always more than happy to retell lore.)

Leo tends to care about death in all aspects, which includes gods/deities/forces that arent necessarily his "own" seeing as Charr have no such masters, he just doesn't view them as "Gods" per say? Just extremely powerful forces. He Greatly respects rather than reveres them. (The closest thing he would have ever considered true gods are the Elder Dragons.) He was never as prejudice against humans as a general, he was 20 by the time the treaty was signed, even then his only experience with w conscious human (Bria) was actually positive, although they never actually spoke too much about the Charr-Human conflict (for reasons thats A Whole Other Thing.) I guess maybe in terms of Grenth Himself there would only be skepticism due to the fact Leo Is Specifically a Charr, but after his whole thing at the Cathedral of Silence thats a bit washed away. Its not until Grenth leaves with the other human gods that leaves a particularly bitter taste in Leo's mouth.

ANYWAYS. What does he think of Dhuum? I don't want to give a generic "he'd hate him bc x" answer so I actually want to elaborate on things ive been musing about thats semi-related to the topics of discussion Dhuum poses:

All-Consuming, Eternal Death:

Leo actually has no problems with the idea that a soul, after entering the mists, will inevitably have its essence completely dispersed. If you asked him he would probably say something that souls should definitely exist and enjoy a time in the after-life, but that all things should inevitably end in one way or another. (More on this later.)

Preventing Resurrection and Undeath:

Dhuum seems to be of the same mind that death should never be transgressed in any means -> resurrection or any types of undeath at all. Leo does not disagree with this either, he does not like anything or anyone that willingly will escape death because he believes that straying from the natural cycle of life is.....unnatural. The times where he is kind of in a gray area on this is with Zhaitan's minions, bc if Zhaitan is death itself then what right does he have to inflict his own morality on it? But Generally Speaking this is not something he would actually Disagree with Dhuum on. But hes also a hypocrite and literally teaches Aurene about self revival through necromancy when she is a child because he couldn't stand the thought of losing her. Will this ever come up? Who knows!

Other gray areas:

Necromancy and Particular Moral Dilemmass regarding immortality and undeath are not something Leo had encountered yet but I am keeping forever in my head the idea of Leo encountering an immortal being who is the last of their kind. Because then it becomes a question of is he truly ready to confront himself over how harsh he would be towards a being that is the last person carrying the memories of millions or an entire culture alive through their undeath/immortality? Where would that put him? How would his "I do deeply hate that this is occurring" clash with "Okay so do you think I should just die then? Lol." I don't know! If it comes up then Ill have a fun field day with it. But maybe im a chud and that already exists im just forgetting it. Leo isnt the commander so maybe its possible I just forgot that lore. Oops if so.

People who are revived/made immortal out of no will of their own? (We will get into this literally rn)

Where he disagrees with Dhumm:

Leo does not think it appropriate for Dhuum to Consume Souls Himself as a way to give them an Actual True Death. Probably because Dhuum is just a very strong aspect of human death vs a god. He also doesn't agree with the idea of mercilessly hunting All types of undeath, no matter how much he also hates said ideas.

Ive talked about this before with the Mordrem or things like The Commander dying and coming back, or maybe some of the awakened too. But He finds it unfair to force his beliefs onto things where they did simply not choose to be revived. He doesnt Agree with them, per say, he does view it as a tragedy in All Regards (like being the only one not happy with the commander coming back bc he knows the implications of a soul doing such things which is Not Good) but I think Id describe it more as...pity. lol. Famously he has a mordrem wolf mount and also has the view that it simply did not ask to be made the way it was so it shouldn't be treated as this inherently evil thing bc at some point post mordremoth death they are now just...Living Things w/o the influence of a dragon. Tldr: Leo only hates when people consciously make an effort to defy death by any means, or meddling with corpses for non ritualistic purposes, this includes necromancer minions. He does not fw minions. But he feels pity rather than staunch hayred for those of which who are affected by no fault of their own. For the commander he doesnt fault them bc they were given a choice by The Judge (and therefore Allowed to) (Leo lowk doesnt like the judge for this one)

Dhuum also consumed souls for His Own Benefit which is a hugeeeeeee strike against him in Leo's eyes. If a soul ever should be dispersed or given a true death it should be naturally occuring and not something forced upon them.

More on Grenth:

Unknown if Dhuum had interacted on the same level as Grenth did in terms of appearing before people, but Grenth generally seems more benevolent in that way (Leo points 🧍‍♂️++)

But he seemed to also allow wayyyyyy more freedom when it came to undeath seeing as Necromancers/followers of grenth have no problem using minions or the fact he didn't seem to hunt down those who defied it as strictly as Dhuum did (Leo points 🧍‍♂️- )

Grenth was also benevolent enough to respect Leo's dedication to his version of necromancy and the amount of love/reverence he had both for the natural cycle /death itself and respecting the dead/ helping lost souls/spirits. Which is why Leo was able to form that initial pact between himself and Grenth which granted him his reaper shroud, even if such things did come at a Hugeee cost. (This is why you can see Grenth's symbol pop up in various parts of Leo's shroud.)

All in All he disagrees and agrees with both of them for various different reasonings. If pressed he would probably say that yes the humans were much better off with Grenth but doesnt wholly agree with all the freedoms grenth allowed compared to Dhuum.

Preface

Last year, I began a project to dig through the Guild Wars 1 websites of all the languages, mostly hoping to recover trailers that were lost to time (mostly successfully too). I also found some lore articles that weren't available to western audiences. Such articles were known to exist - mainly lore on Abaddon for Nightfall - and those were later (mostly) canonized by ArenaNet in Guild Wars 2.

So I decided to gather and begin slowly translate them. Previous posts on reddit:

Lyssa

Abaddon

Dwayna

Balthazar

Disclaimer: While there is overlap  with canon lore, there is no guarantee this is all canon as well. China is known to have alterations to the story to account for regulations in that nation, so it is unclear how much of this is expanded canon or simply reworked for China and thus non-canon.

For those who would like to see the original text and do their own translation: http://news.17173.com/content/2007-04-11/20070411113342700,1.shtml

Translated Text

The God of Death and Ice - Grenth

About Grenth

Among the five main gods of the Guild Wars (GW) world, Grenth is undoubtedly the most mysterious. He oversees the death of all creatures and all ice in nature, and as such is the patron god followed by necromancers and ice magic elementalists. The statue of Grenth is carved with a demon head and body, with two magic claws clasped together; its shape is enough to make people's skin shiver. Even so, at his feet, there are still many devotees worshipping and thirsting for his great power. Grenth never shows his true face, a black cloak covers most of his face, and even without the cloak you can only see his terrible mask. His eyes emit a terrible green light, it is said that looking directly into his eyes will take away your soul.

Grenth is keen to find and cultivate his followers in all parts of the world, which he considers a great pleasure. There are many people who claim to have seen Grenth with their own eyes and signed a death contract with him, but not many of these claims are true because Grenth is extraordinarily demanding of his followers and not everyone will be appreciated by him. As for what his criteria for identification are, I'm afraid only he himself knows.

Grenth has the power to manipulate all things of death. The necromancer, with close association with death, has long ago understood that to obtain the power of sincerity, we must absolutely submit to Grenth. The god taught them the language of communication with spirits, and could even show them the way to the Underworld. Therefore, all great master necromancers are characters with power beyond life and death. This also makes a lot of people willing to give up their original beliefs and defect to the Grenth who can give them great power.

Worshipers of Grenth

Belief in Grenth is not the same as belief in other gods, because once you have committed to Grenth, it is a committment you cannot turn back on even after death. Elders would always caution their children with these words, "Never make any agreement with Grenth lightly, for that will be an eternal contract." Despite this, the promises of power still bring many people to join the ranks of Grenth's worshipers. Because their actions are so mysterious and they deal with the souls of the dead all day long, they are regarded as bizarre by most people, who may even become hostile towards and stay away from them. This is all a misunderstanding of the world, because worshipers of Grenth are not directly equated with evil. There are times when their inner devotion even surpasses that of monks, only the beliefs are different.

Towards other part of the Grenth's followers, the ice elementalists, people take a very different attitude. This may be due to how most people do not know that these powers come from the god of death. The size of this group is also still relatively small, so it is less likely to attract attention.

Currently, the followers of Grenth are still a relatively contentious group. They rarely have close contact with other people or groups. They are used to solitude and isolation, but of course the perception that they are "lonely" is basically someone else's perception, because they never feel that way themselves - they are accompanied by a large number of dead souls.

The Story of Grenth

Desmina, who had always been despised by the villagers, could not escape the fate of being exiled by the villagers. Faced with her miserable and unfortunate fate, she cried out to the sky in despair: "O God! If I can take revenge on those who scorned me, I am willing to sacrifice everything I have!" At that moment, there was a horrible sound deep underground, and Desmina looked up in horror. The earth began to tremble, and then a crack opened up in the ground, and countless skeletons began to emerge from the crack. Then, the god of death, Grenth, finally appeared from the pile of skeletons. Grenth stretched out his skeleton-like hands and took Desmina into his arms: "I am your god. As long as you obey me, all the undead will obey you."

Desmina agreed without hesitation. As a price to pay, Desmina received the bizarre ability to dominate the undead and curse her enemies. Resentful of the villagers who had mercilessly expelled her, Desmina began to wait for the day of revenge in her dreams. And the days of waiting did not last long.

When Desmina was strong enough to satisfy the god of death, Desmina left the Kingdom of Ice and began to spread Grenth's teachings around the continent of Tyria. As people had never seen him and could not imagine that people can come back from the dead, no one believed her and even treated her as an ominous existence. Even so, Desmina continued her unpopular journey until she stepped into the area that had cruelly exiled her from her home, Cardone.

Unable to forget the bitterness of her past, Desmina settled down in Cardone and built a temple dedicated to Grenth in a cemetery. The villagers, who were deeply frightened, tried to expel her again but could not pass the boundary set up by Desmina. News began to spread that warlike barbarians were about to invade the village. The barbarians numbered in the thousands, but the village had only a few hundred people. The villagers had no choice but to put aside their prejudices and pride and seek help from Desmina. And Desmina thought that the time for revenge had finally come.

Just when Desmina wanted to give the villagers who begged her the curse of Grenth, which she had honed a thousand times for this moment, the voice of the god of death came: "Desmina, go and help them. In this way they will listen to my teachings." Desmina obeyed the god's instruction and proceeded to summon hundreds of undead souls that then crawled out of the catacombs. She commanded to the undead, "You who have gained the power of my life will never be allowed to return until you have completely defeated the invading barbarians!"

Dwayna smiles as she holds the babe, her granddaughter. Such love swells in her heart as the babe, sleeps gently in her arms. Despite being faceless, Dwayna can't help but see her son in her. The goddess smiles as the babe stirs and grips one of her fingers tightly, as if she was afraid the goddess would put her down.

“What is her name?” Dwayna asked, sparing a glance to her son- now the god of death. Grenth shifts closer to his daughter, barely a week old and already his pride and joy.

“I've decided on Caligo, mother.”

The Goddess Mother quirks up an eyebrow, “You've decided? What of her mother?”

“Desmina had made it clear she hadn't cared, as long as Caligo lives.”

Dwayna frowns at the thought of losing the babe, having to watch little Caligo dying of something makes her heart clench and tears spring to her eyes.