whitewolfburrow
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[Comic] From Howl to Silence
🕑 Added 2022-10-18 15:56:44 +0000 UTC"Scald this, we need to wait for backup! Come back, soldier! Howl! That's a bloody order!"
Fall so far sure is a busy time of year, but I'm glad I was finally able to squeeze in finishing of this thing, and this time it's actually on time for the Tyrian Halloween!
The concept of this story is fairly old, dating to some 2018 or so. It ended up shelved as an early storyboard for a long while, because the original script only had random shouts from the risen in the latter part; Zhaitan is the only dragon (except for perpetually confirmed-dumb-in-more-ways-than-one Primordus) you never hear speaking directly, only through his Mouth minions. Then it hit me. You can't hear him. You're alive. And once I landed on the concept of Zhaitan's voice only being audible to the dead, where it goes from whisper to such a deafening shout that it drowns out all a person was in life, the latter half of the text neatly clicked together once more.
Howl does not get nearly as much love from the community as the other bandmates do, seeing as he's the only one you are guaranteed to not meet past the tutorial area and he has whopping two entire spoken lines in the game (... not counting the zombie phase, where he adds about four words to that stellar vocabulary). Yet his story does play a major role in any charr Commander's.
And he makes for a very neat Halloween decor. Even if it's a mite slimey.
Thank you so much for your patience, have fun with halloween-themed gaming events, don't overdose on candy corn and, as always, stay safe.
Full list of characters:
Howl the Brazen, Reeva, Euryale, Clawspur, Ragenar, Rytlock Brimstone
Zhaitan, cursed statue of count Barradin, angry Ascalonian Fighter
three (3) worms
Context for non-Guild-Wars people:
Howl the Brazen is a character in early charr personal story, who is guaranteed to die during the tutorial section. However, at some point prior to his death, he'd obtained an amulet from the asuran necromancer Rissa that tainted Howl with the magic of the elder dragon of death, Zhaitan. Said dragon, who serves as the main antagonist of the vanilla campaign, commands the legions of the undead and has a very lovely habit of throwing your fallen friends at you.
Later on, you get to investigate the report of his grave being disturbed and grant your reanimated comrade a final death once his fate is made clear.
![[Comic] From Howl to Silence](https://img5.patrefans.com/storage/7/sb/dg/563145-019e8530-059b-7adc-a1dd-f394587fbb36.jpg)
![[Comic] From Howl to Silence](https://img10.patrefans.com/storage/6/ef/ts/563145-019e8530-059f-7301-ab5a-b0865322cadf.jpg)
![[Comic] From Howl to Silence](https://img10.patrefans.com/storage/11/wq/jy/563145-019e8530-05a6-73f6-b2d7-6cd1f58dcfde.jpg)
![[Comic] From Howl to Silence](https://img10.patrefans.com/storage/2/rl/bk/563145-019e8530-05b1-70e0-9397-8e03be4327a9.jpg)
![[Comic] From Howl to Silence](https://img5.patrefans.com/storage/3/bc/ey/563145-019e8530-05c2-72c1-8932-fb715befde1d.jpg)
Comments
WhiteWolfBurrow Illustration
I have to admit I hadn't given it much thought before I started writing this. Up until Kralkatorrik and LS4, I considered the Elder Dragons to be more of a force of nature rather than a sapient creature you can sit and have a little chat with. (Mordremoth being the exception due to his domain; if he could make a simulacrum of a human with the sylvari, he could very well simulate a mind as well.) But going back, Zhaitan certainly doesn't feel like Primordus, even if he never speaks to us. All of his minions are quite chatty (even those who should not by any means have any vocal chords left to speak with) and more importantly, his more prominent lieutenants' dialogue implies they're more in the business of passing a message rather than having much of an independent decision drive.
Cassidy Adlof
That's an interesting point about not hearing him since we are alive. If he was still around after Balthazar kills us, I wonder if we would be able to hear him then.
