Malyck

Malyck

Race

Sylvari

Rank

Veteran

Location

Where Life Goes
(Dreamer's Terrace, Wychmire Swamp)
An Unknown Soul
(The Grove, Zinder Slope)
A Different Dream
(Zinder Slope)
Source of the Issue
(Venlin Vale)
Snuffing Out Embers
(Nemeton Grove)

Image(s)

Malyck disguised as a Nightmare Courtier. Malyck's pod.

“

A distant shore—and darkness. A root, a cave...you. You are the seed. What Ronan knew and never told still lingers in the Dream.

— Amaranda the Lonesome in A Different Dream

Malyck, known to the Nightmare Court as the Harbinger, is a strange sylvari hunted down by the Nightmare Court. He claims to have no knowledge of the Dream of Dreams, and his first memory is waking up on the banks of a river two weeks prior to being hunted. Capturing him is the objective of the Knight of Embers's Dark Hunt. Personality-wise, Malyck possesses virtues such as loyalty and courage. He is less trusting than most sylvari, however, lacking the inherent connection sylvari have to one another, and shows to have a bit of a penchant for revenge.

Biography

A company of Wardens led by Captain Banya found Malyck wandering in the forest, injured, in 1325 AE. They befriended Malyck and took him to Falias Thorp where he began learning about the world around him. Banya treated Malyck kindly, gave him weapons and taught him how to defend himself.

Two weeks later, the Nightmare Court learned about Malyck's existence. The Knight of Embers—believing Malyck to be the Harbinger, an object of her Dark Hunt—sent her minions to target the three outposts where she suspected Malyck to be at in order to capture him and bring him to Grand Duchess Faolain as her prize.

After one of the scouting parties had located Malyck at Falias Thorp, they threatened to hurt the villagers if Malyck did not come with them. Malyck was about to agree when Captain Banya stepped in and explained it was the Wardens' duty to protect civilians such as Malyck from harm. The decision angered the Nightmare Court who besieged Falias Thorp in revenge, leading to them ambushing and kidnapping several Wardens, including Banya. Witnessing the brutal acts of the Nightmare Court made Malyck despise all courtiers, and he wanted to see them die for hurting his friends. Although Malyck had learned that the courtiers were taking their prisoners to Joy's End, he could not go after them because he was the only sylvari left who was healthy enough to defend the outpost from further attacks.

When news about the Nightmare Court's raids and their search for the mysterious Harbinger reached the Grove, Caithe, Trahearne and the Valiant volunteered to travel to each outpost in order to both aid in the outposts' defense and thwart the courtiers' plans. Upon arriving at Falias Thorp, the Valiant encountered Malyck who initially suspected the Valiant of being yet another courtier. Upon clearing the misunderstanding, the pair joined forces to drive back the Nightmare Court, put out fires in the outpost and tended to the wounds of the injured Wardens.

After repelling the assault, Malyck revealed that the courtiers had been after him although he did not know why. He proposed that the Valiant accompany him to Joy's End to free the Wardens. As the pair continued the conversation, the Valiant realized that Malyck did not know anything about the Grove, the Pale Tree, or the Dream of Dreams. Malyck in turn was shocked to discover that the Dreamers such as the Wardens and the Valiant were related to the Nightmare Courtiers as they were all sylvari, and he could not fathom the significance of the conflict between the Dream and the Nightmare.

The pair disguised themselves as courtiers to infiltrate Joy's End and encountered the Knight of Embers who was torturing captive Wardens for information on Malyck. Frustrated with her fellow courtiers' incompetence and the Wardens' resilience, the Knight tasked the disguised Valiant to interrogate the captives. Using the orders to their advantage, the disguised Valiant and Malyck helped the Wardens escape before their ruse was discovered. Despite being pursued by the guards, they managed to flee to safety. In the conversation that followed the escape, Malyck admitted not having any deeper connection to the Wardens except his friendship with them; all he could feel was a great sense of distance and loss. Believing Malyck to suffer from amnesia, the Valiant invited him to the Grove so they could figure out how to help him and connect him to the Dream.

Upon meeting Caithe and Trahearne, Malyck was initially wary of them and their motives but was willing to hear them out due to his respect for the Valiant. Upon learning only fragmentary memories from Malyck's recent past, Caithe and Trahearne had different solutions to solve the mystery. Caithe suggested that they follow the river in order to find a specific bridge which Malyck had mentioned and discover more clues there. Meanwhile, Trahearne suggested that they visit a sylvari seer named Amaranda the Lonesome who could help them find answers from the Dream.

If Malyck and the Valiant followed Caithe's plan, the three of them traveled to Venlin Vale in Brisban Wildlands where they followed the river north and fought Nightmare Courtiers along the way. The search led them to Malyck's pod which turned out to be different from the pods the sylvari of the Grove awakened from, which made Caithe realize that the pod had not come from the Pale Tree but somewhere else.

If Malyck and the Valiant followed Trahearne's plan, the three of them traveled to Zinder Slope where they found Amaranda being targeted by the Nightmare Court. After defeating the attackers and asking for Amaranda's assistance, the seer looked into Malyck's eyes. She saw strange images about a distant shore, darkness, a root, a cave, and how Malyck appeared to be the seed of what Ronan, the human who had planted the Pale Tree, had known but had never told anyone about but which still lingered on in the Dream. Amaranda's words made Trahearne realize that Malyck did not originate from the Pale Tree but somewhere else.

Regardless of the path chosen, the Knight of Embers managed to track down the trio and realized Malyck's importance not only for her Dark Hunt but to the Nightmare and the entire sylvari race as well. She revealed that it was her mission to draw Malyck into Nightmare so he in turn could help free the sylvari from the laws of Ventari's Tablet. She tried to persuade Malyck to come with her, but Malyck refusal to follow her led to a fight between the trio and the Knight's entourage. Realizing that her forces could not win, the Knight retreated but promised to bring news of the Harbinger to Faolain and hunt Malyck to the ends of the earth if she had to.

The trio tracked the Knight of Embers to Nemeton Grove, and Malyck pondered his options and the gravity of the situation as they prepared for battle. If the Nightmare Court as a whole learned of the existence of Malyck's tree which was not influenced by Ventari's Tablet, the courtiers could burn down the Grove as they no longer needed to convert the Pale Tree to Nightmare due to having another tree to turn their attention to. Malyck resolved to rather die and take his secret with him to the grave than allow the Nightmare Court to abuse the knowledge of his origins.

Malyck had kept the disguises from Joy's End and had the Valiant and their other companion dress up as courtiers who had ostensibly captured him. They managed to infiltrate the Nightmare Court gathering and freed the courtiers' prisoners, using the resulting chaos to their advantage to locate the Knight of Embers who was accompanied by her two squires. Malyck rejected the Knight's final offer to join her side, and the trio defeated the Knight and her squires after a fierce clash.

The trio reunited with Caithe or Trahearne in the aftermath depending on the path chosen, and Malyck realized that the victory over the Knight of Embers was only temporary. He had to leave the sylvari of the Grove behind or the rest of the Nightmare Court, despite still being unaware of his origins, would keep hunting him, hurt others and eventually discover his secret. Malyck determined to head west, into the Heart of Maguuma, to find his people if they still existed, and tell them of the Grove while carrying the virtues of loyalty and honor that he had learned from the Valiant during their adventures together. Before departing, he promised his companions to return with an army with which to fight the Elder Dragons someday.

Inspired by her meeting with Malyck, Amaranda had philosophical discussions about him with other people which were compiled into a book called The Nightmare Harbinger. The book eventually ended up in the vaults of the Durmand Priory.

Story involvement

Personal story

• Chapter 2: The Teachings of Ventari
  • Where Life Goes
  • An Unknown Soul
  • A Different Dream
  • Source of the Issue
  • Snuffing Out Embers

Notes

• Malyck can be seen wearing the Leather Coat, Rawhide Bracers, Ascalonian Sentry Leggings, and the shoulders and boots from the Stalwart armor set.
• During the Nightmare Chambers step of The Nightmares Within in Living World Season 1, Scarlet Briar talked about Malyck to characters who had participated in the parts of the personal story that included him.
• Malyck's tree remains unaccounted for, though it was part of the initial plans for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.

Malyck was intended to appear in an earlier draft of Heart of Thorns, including the The Jungle Provides and Prisoners of the Dragon story steps, but was eventually cut from the story in later drafts. The design documents' accompanying storyboards from this earlier draft show how the player would have first met Malyck towards the end of The Jungle Provides step as Malyck appears and announces his intention to go after Faolain in the aftermath of a Nightmare Court attack. In Prisoners of the Dragon, the player would have been given an option to either choose a stealthy route with Malyck and Canach, or a more action oriented route with Braham and Rytlock Brimstone as the party chases after Faolain. The chase would have led them to a Nightmare Court camp where a Blighting Tree is turning Nightmare Courtiers into the Mordrem Court, an earlier design for what eventually became the cross-faction Mordrem Guard. The party would have fought and killed Faolain who resurrects as a Mordrem Court commander before fleeing, and the party then chases Caithe deeper into the jungle.

Trivia

• Malyck is voiced by Michael Donovan.

See also

• The Nightmare Harbinger