A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? An astute student of history will note that the downfall of the mursaat came about from their own actions, taken in an attempt to prevent the Flameseeker Prophecies from coming to pass. Were it not for the sacrifices of the Chosen, the Ascalonian refugees and the people of Kryta may have accepted the White Mantle as Kryta’s new noble class, and the Shining Blade rebellion may never have happened. So, did the Flameseeker Prophecies only come to pass because people, including the mursaat, knew about them? Or would something similar have happened anyway? From investigation of the ruins of the Vizier’s tower outside of the Lasciate Gateway in Orr, it appears that Khilbron had a preexisting grudge against the mursaat, and a connection to Abaddon that may have pushed him to open the Door regardless. Therefore, it may be that the unleashing of the titans against the mursaat was going to happen anyway. The mursaat defences, however, meant that the Vizier had to recruit powerful allies to penetrate them, allies who were in a position to take him down when his true intentions were revealed.
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Lazarus the Dire, one of the mursaat leaders that had been present at Saul’s disappearance, had found a way to hide from the titans by dividing his essence among his followers, to be reclaimed at a later time. Unfortunately for his followers, the procedure by which Lazarus reclaimed the divided parts of his being were fatal to the bearers. Deciding that his wish to live was greater than his loyalty to the Unseen, the Justiciar sought a way to remove the aspect so that Lazarus would no longer be able to track him. Even with an asura’s aid to analyse the aspect, however, Naveed was unable to remove it, though his attempts did have the effect of somehow poisoning it. When Lazarus came to reclaim the aspect, doing so caused his own power to turn on himself, leaving him in a crippled state from which he would take centuries to recover. Fleeing the scene, Lazarus swore that “countless generations” would suffer for the injury that had been done to him. A year later, as the Krytan Civil War reached its height, seven more mursaat emerged. It’s not clear whether these mursaat had survived using the same method as Lazarus or whether they simply happened to be embedded in Kryta at the time the titans were unleashed, and therefore the failure of the titan assaults on Kryta also meant their failure to destroy these particular mursaat.
Regardless of how they survived, when Salma was proclaimed Queen by the Lionguard, these remaining mursaat threw their power behind the White Mantle, reinforcing the Mantle’s defenses with their magicdraining ether seals and augmenting their armies with jade constructs. In response, the Shining Blade issued bounties on those mursaat they were able to locate, and on three who were hunted down and slain before the surviving four struck back at Lion’s Arch. This first Battle of Lion’s Arch was the last effort of the mursaat and the White Mantle to regain control of Kryta. Refusing to allow the battle to become a drawnout siege, Queen Salma opened the gates and invited the White Mantle and the mursaat into a killing zone, where the Lionguard and
The first Battle of Lion’s Arch was the last effort of the mursaat and the White Mantle to regain control of Kryta
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the Shining Blade were reinforced by powerful heroes from Ascalon and abroad, and protected against Spectral Agony by a device designed by the rogue asura Zinn and Blimm. The last known healthy mursaat in the world charged blindly into the jaws of this trap and were slain.
GUILDMAG ANNUAL 2016 | LORE - The Commander’s Guide to Mursaat History