#theorycraft

That said.

Tell me why Varric didn't get his name flashed across the screen when Lace Harding did.

Is there anybody that could get merc'd in the prologue that would piss all of us off more than Varric?

“As a Harpy, Link has two normal attack strings; one on the ground, and one in the air.” 

“He switches between these two states with his unique action: his wings appear in a flash of light magic as he bends down on one knee, and he rises to the sky in a blur, doing a quick forward roll before hovering midair.”

“This movement is quick and simple except for a short moment when the wings appear, but overall a good getaway button if you have no special ready or just want to rain death upon land-locked foes. Likewise, in getting down, his wings fade into a flash of light and Link drops to the ground, giving you a small window to fit in a heavy or normal aerial attack before landing on the ground.”

“In the skies Link switches from whatever weapon you had equipped to his Magic Rod, this time with an enhanced and improved range of attacks.”

“He will blast the ground in front of him with a single magic bolt, blast the areas right and left of him with two bolts, send three magic bolts in a fan formation that travel a short distance along the ground before exploding massively, spin his rod to create a large ring of fire and throwing it to the ground, and transforming the rod into a giant battleaxe and carving a large horizontal swing.”

“Compared to the base magic rod this is massively improved and tuned into crowd coverage, with his first normal attack for single target and weak point damage, and each bolt of magic being very large.”

“His base heavy attack has him building up a massive ball of fire as he spins around, and launching it a short ways in front of him, where it transforms into a fire tornado and sucks up trash enemies and damages everything in range-usually in a keep-shaped square. While the fireball does amazing crowd coverage and decent single target damage, this attack’s windup is really quite slow. The purpose of this slow windup is to interact with his unique action: Link drops into a dive to the ground, wreathing himself in flames as he crashes headlong into a target, dealing truly absurd amounts of damage to a single target.”

“This is your go-to attack if you're in the air when a weak point gauge pops up, as you might not have time to land and attack before the gauge disappears.”

“His second strong attack has him summoning a horizontal column of fire and throwing it to the ground, where it explodes. Relatively quick and nice for activating bomb flowers, but that’s it.”

“Link’s third and final aerial strong attack has him spinning in a circle, burning the ground below him, and then crashing to the ground as his weapon transforms into a battleaxe and spinning forward for a short time. Quick, nice for clearing out crowds if a bit long, and landing if you want to land but not stop your damage-dealing.”

“Just a quick note: while in the air, Link’s forward speed is truly ridiculous, while his right and left movement suffers, plus taking additional damage from attacks. Choose wisely your movement while fighting airborne foes like Agorok.”

“On the ground Link uses whatever weapon you picked, and there is no difference except that you can jump for the skies at any time.”

“And now for the additional complications: after capturing a keep, Link gains a buff that remains for around thirty seconds. During that time Link can be ordered to any captured keep and he will basically teleport there; making this useful should you have keeps under attack and no warriors nearby. This buff renews after clearing the keep of monsters, meaning Link can jump all over the map and single handedly rescue any keep under attack.”

“On exactly two story maps, an extra event is squished into them: if a very specific ally is about to flee, Link enters a Frenzy state, forgoing his weapon in favor of his claws and refusing to remain in the air. This state remains until the ally is brought to an allied keep, acting as either a hindrance or a help.”

“Link only has normal attacks in this state, and they mimic the normal attack string of his Hylian Sword; he will jab forward, slash right, left, spin attack, jab twice, slash right and left again, and finish off by slashing with both hands in an X. Each and every attack comes out ridiculously fast-fast enough that it can be hard to tell sometimes if an attack is it’s own button press or not, and each slash is wide enough to deal handily with crowds along with single targets. Link himself moves very fast throughout, meaning that he can get in around four attacks before the enemy starts guarding, and simply slide behind them to continue completely destroying them and then moving on.”

“That’s it, besides the dark elemental damage that Link’s claws do on every strike.”

In the Kingsmourne cinematic we see Anduin, possessed by the Jailer, attack the Archon and absorb the sigil of the Kyrian into Shalamourne. Once returned to Torghast, the Jailer takes the sigil and claims he only needs three more keys before he can show that death was never meant to be chained.

It is probably safe to assume at least four of the keys that the Jailer needs are the sigils of the covenants—of those who jailed him.  Denathrius had allied with the Jailer, and the Jailer expressed having no further need of the Sire; if Denathrius bore a sigil, it may have already been surrendered to the Jailer.

If the Runecarver is the Primus that means the Sigil of the Necrolords is compromised if not already in the Jailer’s grasp. 

We do not know whether or not the Sigil can be taken from its bearer without killing them — we also do not know if the Sigils are truly bound to their bearer, or if the Archon merely elected to carry the Kyrian Sigil as part of her out of duty.

It is possible the Venthyr and/or the Necrolord Sigil were not directly carried by their respective leaders, but hidden somewhere in their realms. The Primus’ love of games and tests would certainly fit in with that.

Many will, of course, remember Il’gynoth’s prophecies related to keys in the Emerald Nightmare raid:

“Five keys to open our way. Five torches to light our path.” “The lord of ravens will turn the key.”

As N’Zoth (and, by extension, his scion Il’gynoth) have no known connection to the Pantheon of Death (though Yogg-Saron might, and there is a small implication in Revendreth from Tremen Winefang that, at some point, the Venthyr obtained wine from the Black Empire...) it is safe to say that the first prophecy is distinct from the Jailer’s quest for keys.

The second is vague and does not seem to have come to fruition yet.

Later on the prophecies of N’Zoth in the Crucible of Storms raid show an acute awareness of the things to come in the Shadowlands:

“The veil wanes. His crown will open the way.” “Six seats at the high table. Six mouths that hunger. One will consume all others.” — N’Zoth, the Crucible of Storms

There are also these lines datamined for Il’gynoth in 8.3; I have never personally seen them in-game during Ny’alotha, nor has anyone I’ve spoken to, but given how glitchy and erratic some of the whisper triggers in Ny’alotha are I cannot completely rule out that they are simply triggered in bizarre locations.