Guild Wars 2: What Are The Kryptis?

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• What Are The Kryptis?

• Are All Demons Kryptis?

• Who Is The Leader Of The Kryptis?

• Why Haven’t The Kryptis Invaded Before?

Each faction in Guild Wars 2 comes with a lot of rich lore for you to digest, making the world feel alive and expansive. Yet some of them have their stories more hidden than others, and if you’re not paying attention you might miss important details.

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Introduced in Secrets of the Obscure, the Kryptis are one of these mysterious factions. Even though they serve as the main antagonists, much is left to interpretation, since these otherworldly beings don’t share many details of their origins or motives. The story is there if you look for it though, with plenty of answers to be had.

Spoiler Warning!

What Are The Kryptis?

In short, the Kryptis are Demons from the Mists. Like all Demons, they feed on the fears and overall negative feelings of mortal souls. They can manifest physically outside their realm, but it involves great effort; they prefer possessing mortals and feeding off of them, slowly.

The Mists are home to all kinds of magical beings, working as the afterlife of Guild Wars 2 and home to many dimensions. All Demons are native to the Mists, no matter their origin.

Demons come in many shapes and forms, and they can originate from many sources. Some are formed when a mortal soul is corrupted enough, as shown when the fallen god Abaddon created his army. This means that Demons can be made without the influence of other Demons.

The Kryptis, however, don’t seem to have ever been mortal. There’s evidence that they can reproduce biologically: They can form families, and they look physically alike, something not common among other kinds of Demons.

Are All Demons Kryptis?

While the answer is no, most Demons seen in Guild Wars 2 were actually Kryptis. As mentioned before, the demonic followers of Abaddon were Demons outside the Kryptis, but that event happened in the original Guild Wars. Secrets of the Obscure makes nearly all previous encounters with Demons in Guild Wars 2 part of the Kryptis group.

The biggest encounter with a Demon before Secrets of the Obscure was Deimos, the final boss of the Bastion of the Penitent raid. While little was known of him then, the expansion shows that he was the head of his noble Kryptis house, and was trapped in the Bastion much like all other prisoners. He was just feeding off their despair as he waited for a chance to escape.

Who Is The Leader Of The Kryptis?

As a general rule, Demons don’t have leaders. They are selfish, arrogant creatures that make deals with mortals to gain power. This makes them more prone to work alone, since no one is more likely to betray them than other Demons.

The Kryptis are different because not only do they have a leader, they have a hierarchy. They have many noble houses that rule above the lower-ranking Demons, and above them all is Eparch, the Midnight King. This self-proclaimed monarch is the ruler and seemingly creator of all Kryptis.

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Eparch’s origins are unclear, but he’s known to be hundreds of years old, if not more. As a powerful magical being, he learned of the Wizard’s Tower and decided to learn its secrets. While he was able to reside in the Tower for a while, he was denied his request to be a part of the Wizard’s Court.

Enraged, Eparch saw this as a personal offense, and vowed to return. He saw the potential of his kind, being creatures of great individual might, if they could work together they’d accomplish anything, including claiming the Wizard’s Tower.

Eparch claimed a realm within the Mists called Nayos, and started to grow his Kryptis. He’ll rule over them with an iron fist, consuming those who showed weakness to augment his own might, keeping his people strong and staying the strongest in the process.

Why Haven’t The Kryptis Invaded Before?

This is due to protective wards set up by Isgarren, the leader of the Wizard’s Tower. He was the one who denied Eparch from being part of the WIzard’s Court, and he knew how much of a threat this Demon could be.

While the wards weren’t perfect, they did prevent a full-scale invasion. Few demons could slip through the cracks, but there was no way for them to make these cracks bigger. Whenever a powerful entity did manage to get across, the Wizards kept it in check, as was the case with Deimos.

What broke the wards were the events of End of Dragons; too much magic ended up flowing all at once, overpowering and breaking the wards in place. While it’s still not an easy feat for Demons to manifest in the physical world, Eparch’s immense power allows him to open rifts for the invasion, in both Amnytas and the Tyrian continent.

NEXT: Guild Wars 2: Secrets Of The Obscure - Rift Hunting Guide