The Reliquary - The Princes Shell of Madness
[Updated]
The above button will lead you to a wonderful page of the wiki that is essentially a short story of the event.
It explains just how the Prince went mad, and why his father was determined to put an end to him.
The above button will lead you to a wonderful page of the wiki that is essentially a short story of the event.
It explains just how the Prince went mad, and why his father was determined to put an end to him.
Long story short, this area served as the 'prequel' of sorts to Prince Thorns imprisonment. As it is not available anymore, all the information we have of this event will be obtained from other areas (at least for anything showing what happened during. For obvious reasons we cannot recreate those!).
This area was a story instance that was located within the Nolani Academy Ruins, within the Black Citadel. This area was designed to be an introduction to the Blood and Madness Halloween story lines.
Blood and Madness was released on October 15th. 2013 and included:
This area was a story instance that was located within the Nolani Academy Ruins, within the Black Citadel. This area was designed to be an introduction to the Blood and Madness Halloween story lines.
Blood and Madness was released on October 15th. 2013 and included:
- The Mad King's Clock Tower: an absolutely infuriating Jumping Puzzle that is really only annoying the first time you try it. Any other time you tend to have either figured out the tricks to it, or given up, smashed your mouse and sworn off it entirely.
- The Mad King's Labyrinth: You go around a large part of the Mad Kings domain, murdering things that the Bloody Prince let run around, such as massive skeletons with chainsaws, animated Candy Corn and Lichs. There's also now a mount race that goes around the entire Labyrinth.
- The Haunted Door: Trick or Treating á la Tyria. Remember 'Ding Dong Dash' ? I hope you were good at it.
- The Lunatic Inquisition: This is a PVP style (AWESOME) activity where one person goes around 'converting' the other players to their side. Kind of like British Bulldog but better. The Wiki describes it as: "The game starts with one player selected as the sole member of the Courtier team and all of the other players as villagers. The Courtier starts in the center of the labyrinth and the villagers spawn randomly around the edges of the labyrinth. When a courtier kills a villager, the villager is respawned at the center of the labyrinth as a courtier. The game ends when all villagers have been killed/converted (Courtier Victory) or the time limit runs out with at least one villager remaining (Villager Victory)."
The room itself is filled with extraordinary designs, none more so than the statue with the box in the center of the room.
Dear Breakers, it has taken me far too long to find the story behind this box, and I am sorry.
This box is called the Shell of Insanity, and it is the box in which Prince Edrick Thorn was sealed in, as punishment for a failed coup. It is said that anyone locked within this box, will go insane, with one story reporting of a subject who ate his own face. The box itself was stolen multiple times over the years, before being placed within the Nolani Academy of the Arcane Arts, where it was studied until the third Guild War. |
After this, the box remained hidden in the ruins until the above mentioned living world story, Blood and Madness. During this time, the reliquary remained unopened, despite the war and the eventual building of the Black Citadel, right until it was discovered by Magister Tassi, during her quest to study the Thorn Family history.
It was believed that the occupant of the Shell of Insanity was the Mad King himself, however once opened by Tassi, it was revealed to be the Prince, not his father. The seal on the Shell would knock back any player who approached - possibly even downing them by dealing 50% damaged from max health - and was believed to have disintegrated a Charr who touched it.
Eventually Tassi managed to reseal it by using an alchemical candy glaze made from Candy Corn. Even she mentioned that she could see the seal slowly disintegrating, and could not be sure how long it would last.
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Come and join us for a short flap around what still exists of the area! The gorgeous style and crafting seen in this area is unmatched and cannot be seen anywhere else in game - outside of the Halloween clock tower event of course, which was created at the same time as this one. |
The official Guild Wars trailer for this event grabbed the attention of a large portion of their player base. Sadly it was only available for one year, for fairly obvious (and bullish) reasons. The Bloody Prince gets imprisoned by his father the King Thorn, for attempting to kill him. This can still be seen in the current Halloween events, when you enter the Mad Kings domain and can see the Prince chained up in part of the area, yelling at his father. |
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After returning to this area again, (largly delayed as Anet have been doing their best to prevent map breaking by raising most of the map, and so it is getting increasingly more difficult, although not impossible, to visit these areas) it seems very likely that this even will indeed never return.
I have gotten this idea, mainly due to the fact that whilst the outside of the room changes with the map updates, the interiour remains the same, large holes in the upper segments and mounts still enabled, meaning if anyone was to come back to this with the event, any number of players would soon find themselves below the city or even in the sub ocean itself. It is a shame, as the entire area is crafted with such care and attention, it deserves to be seen. Indeed, it makes little sense that this area is even locked away outside of the event, as all that blocks us is a small window. |
It truly is a shame that such beautiful areas are left to rot in pixel-hell, whilst understandable to a degree that Anet do not want to repeat the events, I cannot think of a reason why they prevent people coming here, when nothing is interactable, and the reliquary is sealed. Other areas are still able to be visited after large events in other maps, so why not this one? |