Why does The Great Bridge exist in lore?

I was leveling my archer the other day, and when I finally had to go to Troms, I found it strange that there was just a random extremely dangerous bridge serving as one of the only entrance points to the Tromsian jungle. Is there a reason why this bridge exists? The discovery lore is only "Run."

 

Very good question,

unfortunately the great bridge has never gotten an explanation for its existence.

Hopefully it’ll be explained when they make jungle discoveries

 

that bridge is going to get even more dangerous in the next update btw,
They are adding a super fun boss to it.

 

There is some lore behind it

 

its also always had this mysterious gate at the bottom of it. why can you go down there in the first place? idk, prolly just scrapped content

 

That was the Crypt of 100 years, a graveyard for fallen soldiers iirc.

Also that was removed at least 6 updates ago.

 

shhhhh my knowledge is up to date always what are you talking about

________________________________

ignore my saya 4.0 signature

 

Since there’s little to none in-game lore about the Great Bridge, I’ll just make something up but in-line with the rest if the lore to fill the void. It will practically be as real as any lore that will be given anyway (if it’s ever given):

Hundreds of years before the portal opened, Wynn’s city states began expanding into uncharted areas for more land and resources. At this point, most of the Wynn province had been long settled except for the Dernel Jungle. After explorers climbed the mountains separating the Dernel Jungle from the rest of the province, they were in awe of the jungle’s natural beauty and plentiful resources. One of these explorers, James Troms, set up an outpost in his name.

As the outpost grew over the decades, the mountain journey became too arduous to handle the ever-growing flow of resources and wealth between Troms and the rest of the province. So Troms struck a deal with Deltas to finance the construction of a tunnel through the mountains instead. This would be no simple tunnel though. The king of Troms at the time, King Rafael II, wanted to build a grand and imposing monument never seen before to show off the progress and wealth his city had made to the world. It took over 11 years to complete the bridge, with delays and worker deaths plaguing the project. And to top it off, the King Rafael II died 2 years before its completion. But once it was done, the Great Bridge lived up to Rafael II’s dream and then some, despite him never being able to see it. He and the fallen workers were buried at its base. Trade soon after exploded between Troms and the rest of the province. It seemed that there was nothing left that could stifle the city.

Unfortunately, this was not to last. The opening of the Portal decimated trade and left Troms fending for itself as its forces defending the Great Bridge retreated to Troms. The forces of corruption soon made the Great Bridge their new home. It seemed all was lost until Rickeo Twain answered Trom’s pleas for help to retake the Great Bridge. Rickeo fought valiantly with all his might, but without his brothers, he was ultimately no match for the corrupt and was killed.

Shaken by the defeat, but still standing, Troms decided to construct a new passage through the mountains to Ragni, albeit this time with less grandiosity. Eventually as the cities of Wynn recovered and fought back against the Corruption, trade recovered as well, but not nearly to what it was before. To this day, Troms has never been able to completely take back the Great Bridge, as Rickeo’s corrupted corpse can still be seen wandering the bridge.

 

JAMES TROMS JAMES TROMS JAMES TROMS

 

At least he has a full name unlike 99% of the characters okay!

 

It's pretty obviously Olm work, and (rather successfully) acts as a barrier/entrance to the jungle from the rest of the Wynn province. It's not completely blocked off, but at the same time isn't easy to pass (unless you're keyed into the system? but you're not keyed in).

Throwing out random theory, I'd guess that it was the strategic chokepoint gate to the Jungle, as built by the Olm fleeing from Dern's grasp. This makes it one of the oldest structures in Wynn - newer than Time Valley or SE's Ruined Olmic City, but older than pretty much everything else. The bridge is thus at the absolute youngest 2000+ years old, with no known maximum limit for its age.

There are a few weird questions that this raises, though. The biggest one is "why is the Great Bridge in such good physical condition?" p much everything else 1000+ years old in Wynncraft is either 1) a degraded ruin 2) alive or 3) in SE. But even the crystals on the Great Bridge still work! That leaves us with a few options.

• Whoever built this bridge did not believe in things wearing out over time. They looked into the eyes of entropy and said "no." they read Ozymandias and said "L king. this is how you truly make an immortal structure."
• Somebody has been maintaining the bridge over the ages. Or the bridge has been maintaining itself, ig. The Olm themselves?
  
• The bridge isn't Olm work at all, despite looking like Olm work, and being an ancient inexplicable megastructure present in a chunk of wynn known as a hotspot of ancient inexplicable megastructure civilization activity. It's newer.

One thing to note is that the Olm definitely aren't dead. There are sane and normal people with Olmic ancestry hovering around the wynn province to this day, like that merchant in Tempo Town. Bob had clear and present Olmic ancestry himself. Garoth was literally just chilling until we ruined his day for like. No reason.

That there's a small group of Olm maintaining the great bridge, or a group of humans taught by the Olm doing the same, is an entirely plausible explanation. Hell, Troms itself could be maintaining the bridge as an anti-army-of-undead measure.

We just don't know for sure. (Until the jungle discoveries come out).

 

My guess is there was a big hole and people wanted to get across it

 

I kinda doubt the Olm built the great bridge or are involved with it since they’re supposed to be associated with Time Valley and the Silent Expanse. We don’t really see them anywhere else in the Wynn province.

 

They are in the jungle, in WynnEx Site D.
You can find them in the ancient city and find their notes after escaping Dern.

 

Yeah, there are mobs in WynnEx Site D called Insane Olm or something. The dialogue in that quest also talks about the Olm, the Crystals, and the Meteors.

This is what I think too, I'm just not qualified enough in the lore department for this.

Look upon this entropy-less bridge and DESPAIR

 

When did they update WynnEx Site D to include the Olm?

 

if they ever make jungle secret discoveries, it seems like fruma is their main goal for now

 

I am hoping that we get reworks of preexisting content with fruma as fruma is all endgame and they typically try to mix in midgame stuff as well...

 

I don't really know, it's been that way since at least 1.20 (when I first did the quest). I was under the impression that it always mentioned Olm along with the War of the Realms and other stuff, but that could be newer.

 

Wynn Excavation Site D came out in 1.13.1 and the Olm were only introduced in 1.19, so there was at least a 5 year gap inbetween. Originally, Site D referred to ancients and they were depicted as Endermen.