The Crystal Desert · Crystal Desert
The fallen God of War burns the Crystal Desert
Stripped of divinity and escaped from the Mists, Balthazar raises a Forged army across the Crystal Desert and Elona to gather power to slay the Elder Dragons, until Dragon’s Watch and the dragon Aurene destroy him.
After Balthazar declared his intent to wage war on the Elder Dragons regardless of the ruin it would bring Tyria, the rest of the Six Human Gods stripped him of his divinity and imprisoned him in the Mists. He escaped with Rytlock Brimstone’s unwitting help and set out to make himself strong enough to kill a dragon. This is the war Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire dramatizes.
Balthazar’s Forged — constructs of living metal and fire imbued with the souls of the dead — scour the Crystal Desert and Elona, harvesting souls to feed his power. Dragon’s Watch pursues him across the desert and the realms of the dead. He is ultimately slain by the Pact Commander and the young dragon Aurene at the Battle of Kodash Bazaar; Aurene and the Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik consume much of the former god’s unleashed magic, an act that draws Kralkatorrik fully into the story to come.