“ I don't know what the world will be when I'm through, but I will very much enjoy finding out. Empires will fall, continents will burn, and when the conflagration is over, I'll be there to put my stamp on whatever new world this one becomes. — Scarlet Briar

Scarlet Briar, born Ceara, was a Secondborn sylvari and leader of Scarlet's Alliance. She was responsible for the destruction of Lion's Arch, and the subsequent awakening of the Elder Dragon Mordremoth in 1327 AE .

Biography [ edit ]

Timeline [ edit ]

Early years [ edit ]

Early life and study [ edit ]

In 1304 AE , Ceara emerged from the Dream of Dreams. After her awakening, she was met by Mender Serimon, but was immediately dismissive of his teachings and the Pale Tree. From an early age she demonstrated an extreme lack of empathy for others that, in humans, would be associated with antisocial personality disorder.[2]

Ceara spent her first eight years at the Grove with an innate fascination with the interlocking systems of nature, and a determination to forge her own path independent of the Pale Tree. When the rules of the world prescribed her one destiny, she would simply change the rules rather than struggle against them.

In 1312 AE , after eight years studying in the Grove, Ceara set out into the world to learn the engineering secrets of the other races and incorporate their knowledge into her own. She first spent a long winter in Hoelbrak with Beigarth the Smith as his pupil, apprentice and forge-tender, learning metallurgy. By spring 1313 AE , she announced her intentions to move on, and spent the next two years studying firearms and artillery with the Iron Legion gladium Asagai, an expert sniper and demolitionist.

The Colleges of Rata Sum [ edit ]

In 1315 AE , after learning all the lonesome charr soldier's secrets, Ceara knew there was only one place that could expand her knowledge as broadly and as quickly as she required. She set out for Rata Sum, and the asura's three great colleges. She found that convincing the three great colleges to let her in was the hardest part. However, the Arcane Council begrudgingly granted her provisional status as a Dynamics student. She completed the Dynamics coursework in under a year as the highest-ranked student in her class.

In 1316 AE , the councilors gave her the same opportunity in Statics, where she achieved similar results in a similar time frame. It is likely during her time at Statics that she discovered holomagic and asuran holographic devices, with which she started using to record her life, failures, and successes.[3] According to Ley Line Theory #671 written by Verzatt, a member of Dynamics, Ceara also found proof of the existence of ley lines sometime during this year.

In 1317 AE , the Arcane Council were intrigued enough to see if Ceara could do the same with Synergetics as she had with Dynamics and Statics. Around this time, she simultanously started looking into the potential of golems by combining Dynamics design with Statics versatility, and using contacts within the dredge black market to aquire scrap iron, she started to build steam minotaurs.

Ceara found Synergetics endlessly fascinating. She landed a lab assistant position with Headmaster Omadd, and first began to grapple with the Eternal Alchemy, a field of study she finally found to be as boundless as her interest. She became convinced it was a key that allowed one to access the basic fabric of reality itself. Though backed by Omadd, her thesis on the Eternal Alchemy was not well received by the colleges or the Arcane Council. As a consequence, she began to separate herself in the hopes of finding a research organization that would be more receptive to her ideas. She found it in the Inquest.

Around 1320/1321 AE , Ceara began working with the Inquest and krewed up with a asura named Teyo. She advanced her theories more quickly and stated herself that she found nobody better at achieving quick results than the Inquest. She began testing steam portals with her steam minotaurs, and gradually created more and more sentient steam brains, which mimicked her building techniques and being able to design their own version of the steam portal. She finally "moved beyond steam to aether," and made her first leap through a portal.[3]

Mid 1321 AE , things ended suddenly and badly, when Ceara and her krewemate Teyo broke into Rata Sum's archives and tampered with several of the designs they found there. She also left her mark on a few unrelated projects she found. When authorities caught up to them, Teyo teleported herself to safety and left Ceara to face the consequences. Ceara was stripped of her academic credentials and ejected from Rata Sum, and left the city without any of her research notes or belongings.

After wandering for several months, she settled with the Michotl hylek just outside Rata Sum. Here she learned about hylek alchemy, but found it to be a "cul-de-sac" (dead end) on the road she had chosen. She found the hylek to lack the degree and quantity of engineering she personally preferred.

The Origins of Madness [ edit ]

By the end of 1321 AE , Omadd tracked Ceara down, and offered the chance to explore the Eternal Alchemy again. Ceara agreed. Together with Omadd she began working on an experimental "isolation module", later referred to as Omadd's Machine. She entered the machine, remaining in there for days, where she confronted the Pale Tree and delved into witnessing the All while ignoring the Pale Tree's warnings not to go deeper.

The revelations in the All affected Ceara greatly. She realized the truth about sylvari but rejected the great forces influencing her people, instead resolving to forge her own path and set these forces against one another to the detriment of both. Upon exiting, she took on the monicker "Scarlet Briar" and killed Omadd. She then took his gold and began working on a new set of experiments to realize her vision of Tyria that would bear her mark.[4]

For the following years, until Season of the Scion 1323, Scarlet was increasingly haunted by increasingly worse nightmares. Despite not having been in the Grove for years, she had met with menders due to these nightmares during this time though their help proved useless. She recognized "an entity" that called to her in her nightmares. By autumn, she had become too scared to even sleep, and spoke of whispers coming from the forest, taunting and possessing her.[5] Guided by the entity, she found a ley line hub in Dry Top, and with Omadd's gold she purchased a room in the nearby town of Prosperity to study it further.

During her time in Prosperity, Scarlet discovered that her steam brains were showing ingenuity. When threatened, they built steam minotaurs from whatever materials they could find. However, she deemed the steam creatures no longer necessary, and sent them through portals into Lornar's Pass and Brisban Wildlands, setting the stage for the steam creature invasion in the former destination.

While in Dry Top, Scarlet researched ways to redirect ley lines. Her primary challenge, however, was that most metals and woods used in constructing magic conductors could not withstand the flow of ley lines and broke apart before being useful until she discovered that dredge metals tempered in Flame Legion pyres provided her with what she needed. This discovery, along with records about the Kournan Warmarshal Varesh Ossa manipulating "lesser creatures" to work toward her goals, led to Scarlet deciding to pair up different Tyrian races for her various alliances to gain the benefit of these races' respective strengths that would help her realize her vision.[6]

Around 1324 AE , Scarlet acted as a special consultant to the Inquest at the Thaumanova Reactor, which had been built on an intersection of ley lines, and witnessed chaos magic and dragon energy being combined. The magic experiment caused the reactor to self-destruct, littering much of Metrica Province with the fallout, and gave Scarlet crucial data on identifying the global ley line network.[7]

In early 1326 AE , Scarlet Briar convinced the Flame Legion and dredge to join forces to form the Molten Alliance. Through them, she developed hybrid sonic and magic weaponry and technology, and a means of probing the ley lines that ran deep beneath Tyria. She brought the Inquest and a group of pirates together to form the Aetherblades, a crew of sky pirates fitted with a fleet of stolen Pact airships, and had them attack the Dragon Bash in Lion's Arch, |killing Captain Theo Ashford in the process. Scarlet attempted to put one of her own, Mai Trin, on the Captain's Council, but Trin was discovered and apprehended before this was possible.[8] Mai Trin slipped up Scarlet's name, leading investigators to realize that someone may have been behind these sudden destructive alliances all along.

Later that year, the Aetherblades attacked the Queen's Jubilee and hijacked Queen Jennah's new Watchknights, which were partially based on the steam creatures. Scarlet announced her presence while attempting to kidnap Jennah only to fail when the queen turned out to be a mesmer illusion conjured up by Jennah and Countess Anise. Taking prisoners, Scarlet intended to continue her rampage only to be confronted by the Pact Commander, Braham Eirsson, and Rox. The group ultimately bested her although she managed to slip away using an Aetherblade airship before they could catch her. However, Scarlet revealed that the Commander had now jumped to the top of her list of people to be eventually dealt with and promised to make their lives miserable.[9]

Between the Watchknights, Aetherblades, and remains of the Molten Alliance, Scarlet was beginning to build a respectable army of her own, and had demonstrated her power and cunning through her assaults on both Lion's Arch and Divinity's Reach. Using her remote portal technology, she sent her forces to assault various locations through Tyria, often appearing in person to fight the defenders before vanishing again to appear elsewhere with another invasion force. These invasions were a series of tactical plays, each leading toward the ultimate goal which Scarlet was after, while allowing her to test her armies and devices, confiscate materials, and build fear in the hearts of Tyrians.[10]

During this time Scarlet sent word about knowing the sylvari Firstborn Caithe's secret, making Caithe enter the Aetherblades' secret base in Twilight Arbor to track Scarlet down. However, Scarlet was not present in person and had instead planned a trap for Caithe although the scheme was foiled by the Pact Commander who rescued Caithe and dismantled the Aetherblades' operations there. However, the Aetherblades had already finished preliminary work on their expanded fleet of airships, and many of them had successfully retreated into the Mists.

Scarlet's schemes hit new levels of audacity towards the end of the year, where she unified the krait and a splinter faction of the Nightmare Court to form the Toxic Alliance, to whom she promised an audience with a krait prophet. Utilizing a seed that Scarlet had given the krait to plant in the center of Viathan Lake, the Toxic Alliance built a living Tower of Nightmares to rival the Pale Tree herself in Kessex Hills. The Tower of Nightmares which stood for over a month against a siege by the Vigil, before an antitoxin for the tower's poison could be developed.

Scarlet confronted the strike team led by the Pact Commander in the Tower of Nightmares, revealing how she had been behind the actions of all the alliances the Commander had fought over the year. Before leaving the Commander to battle the emerging "krait prophet", she promised they would meet again. Following the creature's demise and the successful development of the antitoxin, the Commander returned with Kasmeer Meade and Marjory Delaqua to inject the antitoxin into the heart of the Tower, which led to the Tower collapsing. However, samples of the toxin were found that were resistant to any antidote, revealing that Scarlet had stolen some of the developed antitoxin samples to strengthen her poison to even more lethal levels to be used later.

Around this time, Scarlet scattered Energy Probes across the continent, attempting to hone in on some sort of magical location: an intersection of ley lines. While she was testing her most powerful weapon yet, the aethercannon, the probe in Old Lion's Arch lit up—Scarlet had found her target. Around this time Scarlet's voice changed from playful into more serious and sinister, indicating that she was losing her struggle with the voice of the entity within her mind.[1] Holo-recordings discovered from Scarlet's secret lair further revealed how she had manipulated the factions in her alliance as well as her debate with the voices in her head about who should take credit for her ideas.

Only a couple of weeks later, all of Scarlet's forces converged on Lion's Arch. Her alliances razed the city and deployed a deadly miasma while her massive airship-drill, The Breachmaker, descended on the ruins and bore into the earth toward the intersection of ley lines beneath the city. After a few weeks of confusion, the Lionguard as well as the Orders' forces were able to formulate a response and stormed the city in an attempt to take it back.

After defeating several of Scarlet's champions, the Pact Commander managed to get aboard The Breachmaker where Scarlet, weakened by fighting the Commander and allies, continued gloating and offered to explain the reason for her actions and how Tyria would bow before a new master. The Commander's companions Braham and Marjory, however, believed the sylvari's speech was a ruse to catch them off guard or her attempt to stall them before escaping, and they tried to stop her for good. Scarlet managed to injure both of them severely, leaving Rox to tend to the wounded pair while Kasmeer became enraged by Marjory getting hurt and attacked the sylvari. Kasmeer's mesmer magic and calling Scarlet "Ceara" distracted the sylvari long enough for the Commander to close in and finish Scarlet off.

However, Scarlet remained defiant to the very end with her last words being "too late". With the sylvari's dying breath, The Breachmaker hit its mark and disrupted a ley line beneath the city, sending a spike of magic from Lion's Arch through the Thaumanova Reactor deeper into the Heart of Maguuma. The surge of redirected magic awakened the Elder Dragon Mordremoth who turned out to be the entity influencing Scarlet's actions all along.

Legacy [ edit ]

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Reason: Expand biography with discoveries about Scarlet and her work in Season 2.

Scarlet's legacy was felt on Tyria for years to come. The miasma she had unleashed left behind a lung condition dubbed Scarlet's Rattle which affected many survivors of the destruction of Lion's Arch.

The awakening of Mordremoth led to a subsequent Mordrem invasion. Sylvari eventually discovered more about their past and intended destiny as Mordremoth's minions, leading to the destruction of the Pact Fleet and the rise of the Mordrem Guard during the assault on the Heart of Maguuma. The Pact Commander and their companions went on a journey to learn more about what had been influencing Scarlet's actions, and got involved in the war against Mordremoth until the Elder Dragon's demise in 1328 AE .

After dying in the rogue god Balthazar's ambush in 1330 AE , the Pact Commander's soul appeared in the Domain of the Lost where all spirits which experience sudden, violent deaths end up in. While recovering their name and remembering their purpose to be properly judged, the Commander was subjected to fragmented visions of past deeds, including the Battle for Lion's Arch during which the slain Scarlet Briar's memory was briefly visible.

Locations [ edit ]

Historical locations [ edit ]

Mount Maelstrom (during Defeat Scarlet event)

Timberline Falls (during Defeat Scarlet event)

Story involvement [ edit ]

Act III The Departing (as a memory)



Event involvement [ edit ]

Historical events [ edit ]

Combat abilities [ edit ]

Opening Ceremony [ edit ]

Effects

Scarlet's Playhouse [ edit ]

Effects

Some kind of shield effect

Scarlet's Minions Invade! [ edit ]

Effects

The Nightmare Incarnate [ edit ]

Effects

Lion's Arch (Enemy Controlled) [ edit ]

Abilities

Fires Reflective Shields

Shadowsteps

Effects

Skills

Push Field - Untargeted projectiles fired four at a time. When they hit a wall or a floor, they form a projectile reflecting AoE that deals heavy damage and Knockback to players entering it.

- Untargeted projectiles fired four at a time. When they hit a wall or a floor, they form a projectile reflecting AoE that deals heavy damage and Knockback to players entering it. Lightning Escape - Scarlet turns into 4 untargeted projectiles, teleporting to a random one when they impact. Each impact is a small AoE that Stuns players.

- Scarlet turns into 4 untargeted projectiles, teleporting to a random one when they impact. Each impact is a small AoE that Stuns players. Unnamed skill that lays a bomb on top of a player's head. If they dodge, it falls to the ground as an AoE. Rarely used.

Scarlet's End [ edit ]

Abilities

Throws Grenades

Effects

Quotes [ edit ]

When using her bomb attack Bomb's away! Or rather, bomb's in your face! There goes the fuuuuuuse, and you're going to looooooose...

Gallery [ edit ]

Concept art

Notes [ edit ]

Trivia [ edit ]

Related achievements [ edit ]

See also [ edit ]

Associated items