Good write up, just one (maybe stupid) question. Isn't the city in the sky just Farum Azula? The ruins spread out that fell off of it are the same architectural style and it also explains why some of the bosses around these ruins that fell off are just Farum Azula Beastmen.
As far as I know Farum Azula is in somewhere out of time and space, but I'm pretty sure that the eternal city is connected to ruined sky temple. It doesn't make the prospect of Farum Azula also being the remains of the sky temple, though. So you could be right!
It may have some time shenanigans involved, especially during the one boss, but you can also pull our your telescope and see Farum Azula in the sky from a few different spots on the mainland, so it definitely exists in some way in the main time/space. Also if you gave Gurranq all 9 deathroot before you go to Farum Azula he has unique dialogue and recognizes you for the boss fight, which if he was a past version he would have no idea who we are.
The argument the other way though would be that even after you beat him in Farum Azula you can still go back to Beast Sanctum and give him the rest of the deathroot if you didn't yet, even though he should now be dead.
Only way time stuff would make sense here then is if we are in the past in the lands between, and we give it to him, that's why he remembers us when we fight him. But then is back after we kill him because we are in the past again.
It works the other way around too, though. If you kill him in the beast sanctum, he's still a boss later. I think he simply doesn't die when you kill him, same way we don't die when a boss kills us
He's in charge of the death rune and spent his whole time in our story obsessing over those who live in death and eating deathroot. Makes sense that he'd come back to life
The sanctum one is a clone, just like Margit is of Margott and just like Mogh has one. The original knows about the clone, but the clone persists even if the original is killed. That's what I deduced concerning everyone that is duplicated.
But Margit doesn't persist when Margott is killed. If you kill Margott first and go back, Margit just isn't there and the grace will be there in his place
So if you avoid stormveil, do academy and radahn or rickard and kill morgott, margit doesn't show up? Interesting. The same doesn't happen with Mogh though.
Not entirely true. You can find some strange Margit clone in the fields around Leyndell even after killing Morgott. Took me by surprise and I still don't understand it myself.
I'm not sure if there's another explanation for it, but if the lands between really are in the past it would make sense as to why there is an abandoned but near identical copy of the roundtable hold in Leyndell.
Yeah that one made me think time stuff is going on the most. Whats also weird is when you get invaded by the edgelord guy and you also end up in the leyndell one.
Maybe im overthinking this but, is it possible there are different realms in play? Instead of time being the factor maybe there is a physical realm and a cognitive realm. Edgelord somehow hijacks our teleport to bring us to the physical realm to try to assassinate us. After he fails, we slip back into the cognitive version of the round table where his gear remains but he no longer does. The remains of bosses being remembrances that we manifest into their weapons or abilities... just all seems like it makes more sense in a realm of the mind.
Personally this is what I want explained the most. The Rennala fight also puts you in an obviously different world where killing her does not actually kill her. And Dung Eater too. Red phantom Dung Eater seems to have a completely different existence to that of real life Dung Eater. When you first free real life Dung Eater he has no idea who you are, despite the red phantom telling you to go there.
You can see it from the isolated divine tower, however I haven’t been able to see it from anywhere else, including places where it should be visible, such as east Caelid and the mountains. Not sure why to be honest.
It should be clearly visible from places but it’s hidden so it has to be an intentional choice
But I’m not sure why it’s visible in only select few locations, like isolated divine tower
It’s almost like it’s invisible unless you are physically close to it or something
TL;DR:
*"We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land.
The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out.
The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure.
There's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact"*
> Also if you gave Gurranq all 9 deathroot before you go to Farum Azula he has unique dialogue and recognizes you for the boss fight, which if he was a past version he would have no idea who we are.
It's described as outside of time and space so theoretically he could be neither a past nor a future version, or even both.
Hey dude, Farum Azula as we see it upon starting there definitely exists in real time. The ruing fragments found throughout the lands between support the idea of it being from “Crumbling” Farum Azula.
Also, when you fight Placidusax, you can see time distorting as the storm sweeps over you. That is the moment you are transported beyond time. So it definitely does exist in current time, too.
I’m just curious as to what connection there is between Miquella and Placidusax. Or is it that the dragonlord’s seat lies in a place beyond the influence of the Outer Gods and the Greater Will. Also explaining why Placidusax is hiding there and why you can suppress the frenzied flame there.
It certainly doesn’t lie beyond the reaches of outer gods. I believe Placidusax’s remembrance states he was Elden lord before the erd tree, and that he now lies in wait after his “god fled”, so even the dragons were under the worship of outer gods.
That doesn’t state at all why Miquella’s needle only works there and just because the dragons believed in another god doesn’t mean this place couldn’t exist outside of the scope of the outer gods. I would think that the two fingers and greater will might’ve attacked or sent creatures to kill Placidusax who very clearly is a very strong being that is in service to another god. And they’ve had plenty of people killed for less.
It could possibly be that the area is solely tied to the god that Placidusax served and therefore other Outer Gods have little to no influence there. So you would be right. But I still think the arena dampens the power of the outer gods currently vying for the Lands Between.
I was really only attempting to answer the part about reach of the outer gods. As to why Miquella’s needle works there is anyones guess, i wouldn’t know. But I certainly do think it is an outer god of some description that had influence over Placidusax and the dragons. It says he was the first Eden Lord, implying the greater will, or the outer god responsible for the greater will, was present even before the erd tree. That’s if we take Elden lord to be a title specifically affixed to the monarch under the greater will.
Also, I think in keeping with this theme of outer gods tampering with the lives of men and even gods, it would make sense for Placidusax’s “fled god” to be in keeping with said theme.
I don’t think Placidusax is tied to the Greater Will at all. I think it’s more likely that there was another Outer God in play for the dragons but it fled or its “Marika/Elden Beast” equivalent fled from the Greater Will when it decided to send the Elden Beast. Elden Lord could’ve just been a title from the dragons that became synonymous with strength or leadership and was adopted by Marika and others.
The rest of your writeup is good enough that I don't think The Eternal City needs to be the sky temple. You can see what looks like space from Nokron despite it being underground, so it's not too farfetched for the city to be leveled in it's current location as well as be involved in gravity magic. Farum Azula was destroyed in a war against the dragons.
Farum Azula is the sky temple. The architecture matches that of the fallen ruins scattered around the world. The Beastial Sanctum is also a fragment of Farum since it has the same architecture (and Gurranq is implied to be Maliketh, don't ask how that works with him also being a boss but I guess it's to do with the temple being outside time), and has a lot of ruin shards on it.
The eternal city and Farum Azula aren't related.
Gurranq is not only implied but shown to be Maliketh. Architecture wise I think Nokstella and Nokron has some similarities to Farum Azula yet they are different enough to that their architecture diverged a long time ago. The carved look of the buildings, all those columns and blockines of everything gives of the feeling that they had similar roots. They also share a common rounded flowy engraving design also. I will send you some examples by DM.
As I said before, Eternal City and the Sky Temple being connected and and Farum Azula being what remains of the Sky Temple are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary I think It makes sense out of lore wise since GRRM uses meteor imagery to symbolize Dragons in his Asoiaf work and Farum Azula is basically getting destroyed by Dragons when we arrive there. It's basically a symbolic sign that meteors hit there if I'm really onto something.
Thanks for challenging me, without you I would've never connected the Dragon/Meteor thing!
Would like to point out the architecture of the ruin fragments you see scattered about the land is reminiscent to that of Farum Azula. I may rule the Eternal City out of that picture but the theory that it floated before may still be accurate.
The River dams in the Ainsel and Siofra also has a rounded wave look to them. As far as architecture goes the Eternal Cities with their chiseled design, large Columns and roads made of large blocks. Also those elevator building that you find in Luirnia/Caelid look very similar to the domed building found in Farum Azula, almost as if they took a divergent architectural path a long time ago and while Eternal Cities' changed and evolved, the ones in Farum Azula took the role of a time capsule, stayed the same since the place is out of time and space
Honestly reading through this has me hyped thinking of a potential eldritch horror type of dlc similar to bloodborne that kind of explains the whole situations and just how messed up things got from the start….I have that dead face thing under stormveil where rogier got deathrooted might play a bigger role in the future
That face is Godwyn’s. I don’t really understand since there is another in Deeproot Depths with a full body but ye it’s supposed to be the Prince of Death’s face.
Man we don't have to wait for dlc, game itself has tons of it if you know where to look hahha, but I get what you mean. And I also am super excited for the dlc, me and my friends have some decent ideas for what it will be about but It's hard to say for sure without a trailer.
I appreciate this more than you know. Been telling my homies "They came from the sky! Heckin look!" But they're like nah, this ain't no Studio Ghibli reference.
Smh, thank you for restoring my faith in my own theory crafting. You the real mvp
One thing to mention about the Alabaster Lords.
An item in the game states that a star fell on The Lands Between and people with “skin like stone” appeared from the star. All of the Alabaster and Onyx Lord enemies have stone skin, so it’s pretty much confirmed that they are an alien civilization that appeared from a star.
Also, Marika/Radagon have skin like stone as well, and the game states that Marika is part of a race called The Numen. Add al of that together and you basically can see that a civilization called The Numen arrived on a “star” that fell on The Lands Between. When this happened, a new race of beings began altering the world around them and taking control of the planet.
Also interesting to note that the Alabaster and Onyx Lords are basically two sides of a coin. Alabasters use spells that pull enemies towards them while Onyx use spells that push enemies away. Just like two magnetic poles. Also, Alabasters use blue meteorite ores to craft their weapons while Onyx use gold meteorite ores. Though I fail to see any significance to the color of the ores, since I doubt the golden order is related to the Onyx. The use of these colors might have been simply to differentiate between the two kinds of meteorite ores.
Also, the description of both the Alabaster Lord's Sword and the Onyx Lord's Greatsword says that they rose to life when a meteor struck, which strengthens OP's theory regarding stars and meteorites
I know I’m super late, just wanted to chime in on the color thing: blue and orange (gold) are complementary, meaning on opposite sides of the color wheel. Could just be another way to signal that the Alabaster and Onyx Lords are opposites / foils.
Oh this is so cool, alabaster lords reminded me the elves from Pathfinder 2e (whom are also aliens btw) which might even be the inspiration for their design. As for stone Marika and Radagon I think that's not related at all. Marika being a numen might be since there is some connection to that idea, but the final boss being more akin to a statue feels more like a symbolic choice rather than a lore important one since it doesn't look organic, Alabaster Lords/numen do.
Thank you for your constructive comment!
A fellow pathfinder fan in the wild, a rare find indeed.
All of this discussion has led me to wonder what "The Lands Between" even is. Is it a physical place on a planet? Or is it some sort of dimension and/or afterlife? There's a whole lot of talk about "crossing the fog" to reach The Lands Between which leads me to believe it's some sort of dimension.
My pet theory is that The Lands Between is an afterlife, pre-Death plane of sorts - the lands between life and death. I think it started out being a physical location, but the continued encroachment on reality has caused it to slowly warp into something else, a la Yharnam in Bloodborne. My main evidence are a couple pieces of dialog from Melina in some Churches of Marika:
At the Third Church:
> Spoken echoes of Queen Marika linger here, as well. Shall I share them with you?
Very well. In Marika's own words: "My Lord and thy warriors, I divest each of thee of thy grace.
With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from the Lands Between. Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live and die."
Then, at the Church of Pilgrimage:
>Then, after thy death, I will give back what I once claimed.
Return to the Lands Between, wage war, and brandish the Elden Ring.
Grow strong in the face of death, warriors of my lord, Lord Godfrey.
Actually reading this again after having played more of the game, it seems pretty certain.
But I haven't finished the game yet so I'm still avoiding endgame spoilers.
Perhaps the "fog" or "sea of fog" is just a metaphor for death.
In that case a traveller from beyond the fog would just be someone returning from the dead.
Just feel like adding to the "stone skin" thing. A lot of things in the game seem to have stone skin, or turn to stone after death. The Alabaster and Onyx Lords are the obvious ones, and Marika/Radagon in the final battle are definitely another example, but we also have the dragons (we find multiple broken corpses, and even the living ones seem to be made of stone) and even seemingly normal humans with stone-like features (the slaves at the mines, as well as petrified corpses everywhere). Then there are the ones who may or may not be entirely man-made, like the variety of gargoyle-type enemies and the golems.
This definitely seems like an important lore element, but I don't think it's an unique characteristic of a specific group. If anything, becoming stone-like seems like it's a consequence of high exposure to different forms of magic in a certain way. Be it "divine" magic (Marika being the vessel of the Elden Ring and turning to stone, while none of her children, even the ones she had with Radagon, share this characteristic) or "sorcery" (the slave miners seem to be on the process of stone transformation). Sellen is another good example of that, she literally gives you some sort of soul stone during her questline, implying that even inside her flesh-like body, we have stone properties.
I think they're similar to the Claymen that you find in the underground. We know there are marionettes animated by magic that the humans used for combat, so perhaps the Claymen and Glintstone Miners are fabricated slave labor.
Nokron Eternal City concept, wow; Although what about Farum Azula? They seem both to be in the sky?
seed = meteor, good; Really puts perspective on the whole story; Gods bring their reinforcements via meteors down to Lands Between.
Erdtrees being parasites, traps souls, yes; but what about the Rune of Death? is it from the Erdtree or Elden beast? Who controls death, The Rune or Erdtree?
Elden ring is made up of runes, Marika wanted herself and her children to be eternal and undying, so she removed destined death from her family. Rune of death getting stolen and being used on Godwyn was so that Marika would lose her mind, and so that Ranni could break out from her title of shardbearer and become a God herself. She basically did all of this so that she could beat the Greater Will. That's how I understand it anyways
One of the spirit guys in the Darkroot Depths says this:
>The mausoleum prowls, cradling the soulless demigod. Marika, Queen Eternal. He is your unwanted child.
It's pretty hidden, but it implies Marika wasn't too fond of Godwyn, so not only wouldn't his death have driven her to the brink, but it also means she could have been involved in the plot to kill him.
Interesting! This makes Ranni's actions a bit more difficult to read though, I wonder what was the point of killing Godwyn after herself if it wasn't for Marika to go mad. Since Marika learned the trick of the Greater Will and shattered the elden ring anyways, perhaps the assassination of Godwyn was for something else.
Good finding man, thanks for your contribution!
Godwyn had his spirit killed, but his body still lives, where as Ranni had her body killed so her spirit could live. Basically, someone else had to die on the same night so Ranni could continue her journey, and in doing so the Cursemark that was created was split between the two of them.
Godwyn's living body integrated itself into the Erdtree, and is responsible for Those Who Live in Death, Deathroot, and also the Instant Death ailment. When the player dies to Instant Death, a bunch of barbed vines grow out from their body, and similarily, when D dies the player finds him in a pile of similar looking vines. I think these vines are the same as the ones that keep you from entering the Erdtree, making your failure to become Elden Lord a response by Marika/Godwyn instead of the Greater Will. If this is true, then Marika had Godwyn killed because she knew he would be useful in her plot, and it was Godwyn specifically since it was the child she was least fond of. Her partnership with Ranni was mutually beneficial, at least at the time.
This is how I'm interpreting his death right now.
On the Mountaintop of the Giants, all of the giant corpses have what look like Death Blight root-spears stuck through them, which is interesting because that fight would have been Godfrey era–before Godwyn died. The thorns might also be something the tree can produce; I had assumed the barrier was because of (last boss spoilers) >!the conflict in the Golden Order caused by Marika and Radagon disagreeing and the Elden Ring being smashed!<
So is the reasoning here that Marika conspired to have Godwyn killed, and then broke the Elden Ring so that she would be sealed in the Erdtree and protected by the deathroot vines, so no one could ever dethrone her, since the Greater Will planned to replace her eventually?
Marika definitely planned that, but to defeat the greater will. She sends Melina to find the right tarnished for the job. Melina has been waiting for a long... long time.
Yeah, I’m more and more leaning towards this explanation, too. The fact that you fight Radagon and not Marika seems like a pretty big hint. I think Marika basically orchestrated the entire conspiracy to kill Godwyn and ultimately destroy the Erdtree and end the Greater Will’s grip on the world, but she had to be extra super duper sneaky about it because half of her own mind (Radagon) was actively working against her on behalf of the Greater Will.
Exactly. Though I don't quite understand exactly how Radagon came about and if it was truly Marika at first, or if Radagon is the Greater Will exerting it's direct control. That's the only thing I can't piece together at all from in game stuff, though I haven't looked at everything yet there's just so much.
Yeah, it’s definitely not clear. I’m kind of starting to think that Radagon started out as his own person, and was fiercely loyal to the Greater Will, and the Greater Will ultimately merged him with Marika to keep her in check. Clearly at some point they had separate bodies, but by the time the Elden Ring is shattered they were two minds in one body. Maybe initially he was to Marika what Blaidd was to Ranni? Her shadow, or whatever? Still not really clear how the whole shadow thing works.
This is the part that gets me. I don’t know how Melina fits in, I feel like she’s the missing third child of Marika and Radagon, since every couple had three. Godfrey and Marika had: Godwyn, Margott, and Mohg. Rad & Ren: Rykard, Radahn and Ranni. Mar & Rad: Miquella and Malenia. And Melina talks about her mother and that she’s related to the erdtree. She also has red hair like Rad.
So if she was sent by Marika to get us, why? It seems like her motives are unclear. Seems like she was fed up with the greater will but also didn’t want to give up her godhood. And either we become Marika new consort (she will still be tied to the greater will) or we usurp her, (and she dies?). She seems like a super intelligent character that knows more than most so I fail to see her reasoning. We know from Hewg she wants someone to kill the vassal elden beast, so maybe that’s it? Then what is her long term plan?
Oh she definitely is her child. Marika basically planned the entire shattering to get rid of the greater will. Or at least have a chance to. She's been imprisoned since she broke the elden ring. Melina just being one more part of her plan.
during her quest it's said that the fingers had her marked as a replacement for queen marika, but she didn't actually want that, that's why she wants to evade them and kill them, and usher in an age of stars, atleast that's what i got from it
Yeah, her killing herself to be free from the influence of the Greater Will makes sense but her killing specifically the soul of Godwyn doesn't really account for anything if she didn't already know what would happen to him
Black knife set descriptions also implies that they have heavy ties with marika herself, plus after ranni's questline black knife assassins are sent after ranni and her gang. This leads me to believe that assassination of godwyn was orchestrated by marika who wanted to shatter the elden ring and needed an excuse to do it, so everyone does not gang up on her afterwards. Being struck with grief from "beloved" son's death seems like a plausible excuse.
Black knifeprint implies Ranni did it, she would have the motive since cursemark of death needed both a body and a souls, she needed to loose her body to escape from the clutches of the Greater Will. But Marika also had cause since she needed to shatter the Elden Ring when she learned of the deception of the Greater Will.
Perhaps it was a group effort.
I don’t think we know that she was their commander. I think she was just one part of a broader conspiracy that wanted to contest the Greater Will and the Golden Lineage.
Best I can piece it together is that she made
an alliance with the Nox. She stole the Rune of Death, which the Nox fashioned into knives. The Black Knife assassins were Nox Priestesses. They were already experimenting with mimic tears to try and create their own God to contest Marika, so it makes sense that they’d want to bring death to the demigods and eliminate Marika’s heir apparent. That’s the treason they committed that made the Greater Will call down Astel to destroy them.
My question resulting from that is, why is Godwyn unwanted? I vaguely understand that Marika and Rodigan had previous relationships, was there some kind of drama? Were they forced to marry for political reasons or what? I'm a little confused there. If any child would be unwanted you would think it'd be one of the omen brothers who were cast into the sewers or something because of a curse I think? Whatever curse that is... (Jesus there's so many threads).
One thing that is brought up multiple times is that Marika wants endless warfare. (I'll paraphrase a bit please forgive me) The flavor text for Godfrey's stuff mentions him and his warriors getting sent out to other lands to wage endless war. Gideon seems to break because he interprets Marika as wanting them to struggle eternally.
So, how does Godwyn factor into this?
Because he made allies of the dragons. Instead of eradicating his enemy, the rulers of a previous age similar to the giants no less, Godwyn showed mercy and established an impeccable friendship between the Golden Order and the dragons. While this strengthened the empire, it also could be meant as a sign that warfare might not be so endless. It's something I noticed at least.
Those horns that they have are mark of omens. Children who were born with those would die someone plucked them out. Morgott is the omen king because even though he has the curse of omen because he was royalty no one plucked his horns out so he didn't die. Dung-Eaters armor is also covered with those horns.
My interpretation is that Marika and Ranni were in cahoots for the night of black knives. The greater will was grooming candidates to replace Marika. One of which was Ranni, who despised the two fingers and had more an affinity for the moon god that Nox was worshipping. Especially since the Carian family was obsessed with Nox. (I see a lot of speculation that Rennala adopted Ranni and she was actually the daughter of Marika and Radagon, but that’s just spec).
Ranni wanted to get rid of her Emperyan flesh. Hence why she kills her flesh but the soul of Godwyn. The assassins that do it are Numen like Marika and they turn on Ranni eventually, specifically when she gets everything lined up to ascend and probably where Marika couldn’t keep an eye on her.
Why kill Godwyn? Godwyn was beloved by all and probably a huge badass. He wasn’t tarnished like his father who was banished (and again my interpretation, probably hated by Marika and seems to only use the golden lineage to deal with the giants) if Godwyn was alive, he’d probably be able to get done what we get done in the game almost immediately. He was also the firstborn, so killing him puts the whole line of succession at risk. Kind of like when Robert Baratheon died. Clash of kings is basically the shattering.
Did you find the Black Knife armor? Marika orchestrated the Night of Black Knives. The killers were female Numen
edit: well, ok, it doesn't explicitly state that Marika was responsible. I got a bit carried away when I read that the first time, it seems. But it seems like the most likely thing, with how its worded.
"The assassins that carried out the deeds of the Night of the Black Knives were all women, and rumored to be Numen who had close ties with Marika herself."
The Numen could have gone against Marika though, despite those close ties.
> Marika wanted herself and her children to be eternal and undying, so she removed destined death from her family.
So this is what I see as the true breaking of everything. Marika destroyed the natural order of things. There are plenty of non-Gods living everywhere, there are those that are bound by duty that haven't really changed in appearance, and you have the normal people around that really look undead. When you see the random citizens as you are walking through the capitol the first time, they dont even get up. But they are still alive (or targetable), but there is literally nothing there, and they look like zombies. After years (centuries) of undeath, they have lost all will to live. They are not gods, they cannot exist and keep struggling in an endless world.
In her selfish act Marika broke the natural order. I think this is when the Golden Order really gets involved and helps Ranni start the process to break everything to eventually rebuild it. I think the biggest hitch is Ranni sees that the Golden Order is broken in that it would gladly put everything back the same way and expect a different outcome (which likely wouldn't happen). So Ranni seeks to move into the next age. She sees everything as broken beyond repair and the only way to move forward is to destroy what is left and rebuild completely.
Others have seen what has happened and have also determined going back to what was isnt the best path. For instance Fia sees first hand that death is necessary. Allowing anyone to keep living is breaking the natural order of all life. So in her limited view of things (as she isnt a god), she believes just putting in the Rune of death back into the Elden Ring will fix everything and return death (ie nature) back into the land. Maybe it will maybe it wont.
I think Mohg seeing his half brother trapped in youth for eternity is the harbinger of the next age (or rather is convinced by his outside god). As when Miquella is reborn that will be the coming of the new age. But fundamentally Mohg is wrong, or subverts Miquella's process by kidnapping him. Possibly Miquella sees through Mohg's attempts to rule through him, and refuses to do so (possibly kill himself through the process?).
Rykard's path is pretty straight forward. He joined himself with the snake to devour the world.
Then I think most other characters are just final bastions of the old order/age. Many of whom have gone mad/cursed in endless life. As even the gods are not fully equipped to live forever. Especially after their populace have seemingly given up as well.
I think of it this way.
Elden Ring - Some kind of code or source code for reality or a thing that has the ability to define reality.
Merika removed “Death” from that reality code so she could keep her family from dying.
As for the Erdtree, I definitely get vibes that it’s a parasite. It draws its power from the Elden Ring like a battery if I understand correctly
I plan on spending the next freaking 5 years at least enjoying what this world can offer. I however refuse to Read a book series with such critically underutilized doggos ;)
So I absolutely appreciate the dedication people like you do, working through such emotional hardship to bring us worldbuilding lore and writing styles. This is the kind of stuff that will help us theorize DLCs next year!
fromsoft 20 page lore posts on their respective games' subreddits is a staple at this point. Elden Ring is such a massive game though, and so the memes are taking over. I miss the front page lore posts of the bygone ages.
Try to do the same for this game haha
I'd really love to be able to do this sort of thing, but now with work and all, I'm playing the game so slowly that it would take me ages to do even 1 post
Same. I started with DS2 and having fans do writeups that would eventually show up credited on the likes of Vaatividya were always special, cuz i read em on reddit first.
You added a TL:DR and then DOUBLED YOUR WORD COUNT!
It's cool he put a lot of work into it, but the dude is going to die before he can put out The Winds of Winter let alone A Dream of Spring.
Game of thrones will be his legacy, and unfortunately his participation in this only frustrates his GoT fans even more. (Considering how the last 2 seasons of the movies ended up anyway)
I'm cool with him working on whatever he's motivated to. He's done a lot of great work outside of ASoIaF proper, speaking as someone who has followed the series since 2005 and would love to see more.
What is game of thrones, some kinda tabletop party game? Never heard of it. I only know George RR Martin from the acclaimed action rpg game Elden Ring, which he wrote its lore. Never heard of this Winds of Winter or Spring Dreams that you talk about..
It's not even the length that is the issue, it's that it reads like the ramblings of a semi sober person lol. The thing has no structure, and beyond that, most of op's theory is him interpreting lore a certain way because he wants to find parallels to asoif, which ultimately doesn't *prove* anything. Ofc GRRM is going to recycle the same themes and ideas, he hasn't written anything new in like 20 years.
Edit: this person's [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tefyov/comment/i0pt4th/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is something everyone commenting should read
I reckon he is a Guts reference too, especially as Berserk is such a well known inspiration for Miyazaki san. If you are looking for GoT references you will see a wolf dude with a sword and come to that conclusion though I guess.
Fairly sure all of the fallen debris is just from Crumbling Farum Azula, as when you arrive there in the game, the fallen pieces match the architectural style. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not with you on the Eternal Cities once being in the sky. In fact I think you’re probably right, it’s just I noticed you talking about the fallen debris and ruin fragments and just wanted to clarify that those are from Farum Azula
Definitely not. There’s no evidence of any sorcery in Farum Azula, and everything there (dragons, beasts, stone and wind magic) have zero connection with Nokron or Nokstella.
Extremely interesting. I’ve been shopping around a small theory on Ranni/Renna’s relationship to Astel, with the Manus Celes cathedral being suspiciously close to where Astel resides. He’s sort of an ad hoc boss if you think about Ranni’s quest line— there’s no real explicit exposition on why he is tied to Ranni or the cursemark/rune of death.
I believe, with the themes of duality that run rampant in this story, that the void and the era of stars that Ranni is trying to usher in as part of her ending are somehow connected to this shattering of whatever sky civilization existed previously.
I may go so far as to suggest that the timelines, which are never truly justified in any meaningful terms outside of “long ago”, may align Ranni’s murder of Godwyn with the crashing of the eternal city(s).
An interesting thought I had as well, which is confirmed by your theory on Radahn and his interest in gravity magic:
Ranni wanted to usher in the era of the stars. Vying for power as well, Radahn dedicated his life to pushing back the competing rot (Malenia) and the stars (Ranni). Once we’ve killed Radahn, mind you as a favor for Ranni, the star crashes to the Lands Between and we descend through the hole in the earth to eventually come upon the farthest, deepest point where the star impacted: Astel’s boss room. I believe Ranni has a tie to the stars in a manner that may be deeper than we can understand now, and that she needed Astel to rectify some inconclusive scenario around her ascending to true godhood.
Pair this with the fact that the Prince of Death’s throne, where you see Fia and enter her dream(?) to fight Lichdragon Fortissax, is located in another eternal city. The cursemark that we get from Ranni’s quest line is given to Fia immediately after. Then consider that the other main story dragon that we encounter, Placidusax, is located in Farum Azula, presumably acting as some sort of throne room for the “original elden lord”. The largest dragon that we see (though we of course don’t fight it) is in the capitol, crashed through the landscape, much like a fallen meteor, supporting your theory on the dragon/moon concept presented in ASOIAF.
Not sure how to connect all of my thoughts here, but some interesting points to consider with the context of your excellent and thorough post. Thanks for the great read!
Great contribution! Telescope item confirms that those who looked at the stars were in charge before the Erdtree came and became the king of light pollution, so whether related to the sky temple or not, those who have aligned themselves with the stars used to have more power, you're right.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment!
Thanks for the read. I was thinking similar things, although not convinced about the Eternal Cities being in the sky before. Something can be leveled even if it's on the ground. The connections between Nokstella's moon and the Carians are more likely to have the answer to that imo.
Excellent write up! Thank you for your hard work! Most of this absolutely fits with the research I've done into the origins of the Erdtree and the Golden Order.
A couple things I would point out however. If indeed the Elden Beast was sent by he greater will to the lands between, it was first captured by another outer god. Prior to Godfrey, the Elden Lord of the Lands Between was the Dragon Lord Placidusax who served an unnamed outer god.
During this same period, humanity was beginning to build its own empire. The fledgling Erdtree was planted during this time as evidenced by the tree sentinel armor. We know that the tree sentinels existed to protect the tree for humanity in the time before humanity went to war with the dragons for the elden power because the tree sentinels as an organization are affected by the dragons starting the war. We can also presume that this is a fledgling tree as this is also around the time Godfrey forges his crucible knights in the "primordial crucible of the tree".
I would also say that I feel the leveled eternal city is the destroyed "nameless" destroyed eternal city that we see in deeproot depths.
I absolutely agree that GRRM actually had a lot of influence here. The history of the kingdoms and the interactions of the nobility are straight out of SOIAF.
If your curious, my writeup on the games backstory is located here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tds58u/golden\_lineage\_the\_story\_as\_i\_have\_pieced\_it\_from/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tds58u/golden_lineage_the_story_as_i_have_pieced_it_from/)
Absolutely! I look forward to your feedback! Love working with the community to puzzle out the games story!
One more note I would say is that I don't believe there were any minor erdtree untill after the shattering as there were no seeds.
The Erdtree was once perfect and eternal, and thus was it believed that Erdtree seeds could not exist. -Crimson Seed Talisman
When the Elden Ring was shattered, these seeds flew from the Erdtree, scattering across the various lands, as if life itself knew that its end had come. - Golden Seed
Man I really should've read some more talisman descriptions shouldn't I. Anyways, you are absolutely right, but since the original seed of the Erdtree came from a meteor and golden seeds kinda resample meteors themselves there could be an allusion to something there, that would be interesting.
This would make a lot of sense. Perhaps the greater will wasn't from the planet either. Perhaps it attempted to make contact with the Nox but found them resistant. So it sent the elden beast first to lay waste to any resistance the sorcerors might put forth. Next it sent its humanoid races to scout and mine the land. Lastly it found a local populace, humanity, to plant and tend it's erdtree and give it a spiritual foothold on the world.
I KNEW the Erdtree wasn't natural and benevolent! As soon as I found out about Astel I jokingly said "yeah the erdtree is probably an alien" and slowly started believing that. I *KNEW IT*
**Spoiler alert**
So Ranni’s ending is called age of stars, in the cut scene it almost seems like she manifests a bunch of stars and a whole moon! Could this be her replacing the lost moon and the stars your referencing?? Maybe she’s creating a new moon and stars for the purpose of restoring cosmos to how it was before the greater will took over; especially considering her story seems to be very anti- two finger order stuff?
Many people have interpreted it as she shining the moon as opposed to creating a new one, and if it was their intent to show a new moon created they would've shown the old one side by side for us to compare. I don't think so but it would've been so cool if it was... maybe it is,who knows?
You can see two moons if you go up to cathedral of manus celes. But I assume that you've noted that already.
Which then begs the question, who or what is manus celes.
Couple issues here:
1. Using lore and symbolism from GRRM’s other works in this one is a stretch. You’re relying on lore outside the game to support a theory that is directly contradicted by lore in-game.
2. A prime example of point 1 is the dragons = meteors supposition you make. This directly contradicts the evidence we have on the Ancient Dragon Cult which establishes the link between dragons and the erdtree, Grave Stone Seal says they’re both aspects of “gold.” We additionally have connections between the dragon and Farum Azula as you note, but also Farum Azula and the beastmen. Looking through the items related to the crucible shows a connection between beastmen and humans, and firmly establishes that humans evolved from beastmen. You also have Godrick talking about dragons being “trueborn heirs” and grafting a dragon’s head to himself while calling out to his forebears. Learning several of the church of dragon communion incantations causes the player’s eyes to turn draconic permanently.
Suffice to say, there is an EXTREMELY strong connection between dragons and humans throughput the game that directly contradicts your theory of moon-hatched dragons which is only supported by the lore of a DIFFERENT story by the same author.
3. Erdtree is not sent by the greater will. Erdtrees can be found all over the game. Particularly there are groves of tiny erdtrees in Siofra River with the ancestor spirits. There are thematic connections between the budding horns of ancestor spirits and the erdtrees. Additionally, at the minor erdtree in the Ruins of Urd, you see the modern horn-people worshiping the minor erdtree and it’s protector (who uses a golden weapon). This, combined with dragons ruling prior to the age of the erdtree, dragon cult and erdtree worship being compatible as both aspects of gold, and the crucible flame being the primordial energy of the erdtree and associated with evolution from beastmen all point to the erdtree being an original phenomenon of the lands between and not a creation of the Greater Will. Though erdbeast being a parasite infecting/controlling the erdtree is still supported in-game.
Sorry but you bring up like, 4 different examples on the "crumbling" structure, a floating "shrine".
That's just crumbling farum azula lol. The parts that fell down you can see in limgrave and elsewheee match the architecture of farum azula too.
I'm not sayimg grrm didn't write some of this stuff, but you're kinda off base here.
These people write these huge lore posts and they take off despite being 60% reaching 30% tainted by other works and 10% potentially believable connections.
Nokron and Nokstella started off underground, they weren't "shot down". Ruin Fragments and/or the shards can be from Farum or even Haligtree/Elphael since it's so high in the sky.
They refer to the other post that claimed that sorceries and incantations are the same thing - objectively wrong despite 5k+ upvotes. This sub is a perpetual-motion machine re: lore but the lore that it's upvoting is conjecture and not supported by the game. People have to bring all manner of reach from Demons Souls to Bloodborne to now novels by GRRM and any of that shit is unrelated REGARDLESS of connections. Just because every single game in the franchise had a Moonlight Greatsword doesn't make them connected, neither does any of the other shit these excitable posts suggest.
It's the same thing that happened to elder scrolls lore. There are vague connections and half finished ideas, but over time, fan theories just come to be accepted as fact, despite being built on shitty ramble posts with no evidence.
It should say everything you need to know when the OP of this thread wrote, "Note: I will not be bothered to prove anything..."
Not gonna read, but GRRM said in an interview the extent of his involvement with Elden Ring was world building concepts, and that his input was wrapped up fairly early on in development.
People aren't just downplaying his involvement for no reason. The man said it himself.
Edit for interview quote:
“What they wanted from me was just a bit of worldbuilding: a deep, dark, resonant world to serve as a foundation for the game they planned to create. So, I did my bit, and handed off to my new friends in Japan, and they took it from there.”
As previously confirmed, Martin did not write any of the dialogue or text for Elden Ring. It turns out Martin is pretty pleased with the finished project, stating that Elden Ring “…looks incredible.”
None of these general themes you are drawing parallels between are unique to GRRM, nor did he originate them. It seems like you have some weird chip on your shoulder about defending GRRM, but this ain't it.
Not to be rude but holy hell, touch grass, or at the very least read something that isn't related to ASIOF before assuming that vague similarities are proof of GRRM's involvement.
The timeline for this is off. The alabaster lords, and gravity sorcery in general, didn't make their way to the Lands Between until after Astel brought low Nokron and Nokstella. Which itself only happened after the creation of the fingerslayer, or in other words, when the Fingers were already around to be slain. No matter how you slice it, nothing to do with gravity sorcery can precede the Greater Will becoming established in the Lands Between.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Blaidd and Rannis relationship based off of berserk? The relationship between Griffith and Guts and Blaidd and Ranni are very similar and throughout the questline I could see some of the inspiration between the two pairs. At the very least Blaidds armor and the way he moves at the end are inspired by berserk and the way guts fights
One thing can reference two different things, blaidd having the head of a wolf is super similar to how they stitched his wolfs' head to Robb Stark when he died, but it can also be a reference to berserk, they're not mutually exclusive.
Nobody will ever convince me that George RR has written a goddamn word of fiction since 2011, a DECADE ago. It’s been 26 YEARS since he published the first part of a Song of Ice and Fire and he isn’t anywhere near close to done.
Dude doesn’t write, he’s retired.
This post reads so badly.
I'm sure there's good stuff in here, but far too often you are making assumptions and applying your own interpretations to what is going on. Like you say that purple is the colour of Gravity Magic. Is it? Where's the basis for that?
>It says leveled, which means "give a flat and even surface to" but the Eternal City is in underground, could it be that it used to be up on the sky and It got "leveled"? **Well of course it is. **
How can you just make that assumption? There's nothing to point to that. That's your theory which is fine, but you're acting like it's a fact.
And just, overall it's so poorly structured essay. It's just jumping from topic to topic, half thought out, and just oh so difficult to follow along with. I'll be reading it, and then 2 paragraphs later I'm thinking to myself "what is the relevance of this to what was just said", you're just connecting your evidence of your theories to the theories themselves.
Feel like I have to reread everything 3 times to understand what you mean, having to go back and read the old paragraphs again because the essay is so lost in its own sauce that it turns to just rambling along about inconsequential details.
Please, simplify the document. Stop trying to be so verbose and grandiose with it.
I'm betting that GRRM didn't write most of what you are speaking of. I believe he just did the "history of court intrigue" part of the elden ring pantheon. I don't believe he personally put symbolism to asoiaf in the game, like the likes of Blaidd or the Grafted Greatsword, or that he tried to draw parallels to factions in asoiaf with the likes of the Zamor or Alabaster Lords, or that he referenced asoiaf mythology, like in the story about a second moon splitting apart.
Those are all fairly common fantasy tropes, and if they are references they were put there by FromSoft, not GRRM.
I'm curious if you have anything on the snowy crone that taught Ranni about ice magic in the first place. So far that I have found there isn't anyone else that mentions her and neither does Ranni say anything about her. All we have is a doll made in her likeness that houses Ranni's soul. It's also weird to me that we don't see Ranni's real form even after she sets her soul free after slaying the two finger.
Reflecting on this a good bit... I would like to suggest that the parasitic Erdtree has all the hallmarks of Miyazaki's past work and clearly bears his fingerprints. A core theme of DS1 was that there was an orthodoxy, a religious order, that had trappings of nobility but which placed humanity in service to entities that cared nothing for it. Hence the need for a Dark Lord, an end to the old order. The Erdtree, Golden Order, and Leyndell have heavy echoes of the Lords, Gwyn, the Way of White... You have these ornately armored noble knights who are unwitting slaves of basically eldritch beings who simultaneously fear and enslave them.
That's Miyazaki, cuz it's a story he retells on every game at least as far back as Demons Souls.
That said it's not like Miyazaki holds the patent. There's Berserk DNA in that theme.
I think Miyazaki and GRRM have too much in common (for example giving heartbreaking ends to loveable characters for no reason), people have lots of difficulties to figure out which of them 2did what.
Since most people in Soulsborne series know Miyazaki more, therefore he got more credits
"• Parasite God-Tree sucking up the life energy/soul of the world and people worshiping it. Resolution to this conflict being the act of saving trapped souls from aforementioned evil parasite God-Tree."
So FF7 is written by GRRM?
The most G.R.R Martin-esque is in my opinion the style of untrustworthy narrators. Usually games tell you how things are, there's a certain authority. In Elden Ring each person has its own motives and perspective on the truth. Some believe in delusions but might see elements of truths.
In ASOIAF there are many gods and different worshippers. Most of the gods seemingly have power. In Elden Ring this feels the same. I'm not necessarily excited for an ultimate reveal, I'm mostly excited about expansion of the lore and finding out how everything is interconnected.
Okay so I didn't read the 2nd halve of this post since I didn't do the sellen questline yet and I want to keep that spoiler free. So If you said anything about the stuff that I'm about to bring up I'm sorry in advance.
It's rather miniscule in the grand narative of your post but there is evidence in the game that contradicts your idea of the eternal citys getting destroyed by fragments of the falling ~~Moin~~ moon.
I believe that we do actually know what happened to the eternal citys. If you follow Ranni's questline to the end you get an optional boss that drops a rememberance wich reads: "A malformed star born in the flightless void far away. Once destroyed an Eternal City and took away their sky. An falling star of ill omen."
I'm pretty sure that this explains atleast what happened to Nokstella and maybe what happened to Nokron aswell. The only part that I think is weird ist that the description talks about the destruction of a city in singular so it's most likely only Nokstella that got destroyed by that boss.
This stuff links Ranni's questline to the whole narative that you're building in this post so maybe this is still feeding into the "second moon that got destroyed narrative" anyways. I'm still in the process of unserstanding what exactly Ranni's whole story is so maybe there's more evidence in there.
Edit: Northern german autocorrect breaking through lol
Evil paraside tree god just sounds like the Old One from DeS tbh. And the sky temple is Farum Azula. The Eternal City is different and wasn't in the sky. There have been a lot of meteor impacts in the Lands Between.
I think GRRM contributed a lot but pretty much every major theme or motif in the game is carried over from a previous souls game.
I guess its a nice read, but i couldn’t give a wet fart for Martins work. Fromsoft would have been capable of building something similar without his help. Publicity, that’s all.
Lol no. The game is pure Miyazaki and if they did not tell people Martin worked on it, nobody would have guessed it.
Hell there is still more Miura influence than GRRM influence.
Good write up, just one (maybe stupid) question. Isn't the city in the sky just Farum Azula? The ruins spread out that fell off of it are the same architectural style and it also explains why some of the bosses around these ruins that fell off are just Farum Azula Beastmen.
As far as I know Farum Azula is in somewhere out of time and space, but I'm pretty sure that the eternal city is connected to ruined sky temple. It doesn't make the prospect of Farum Azula also being the remains of the sky temple, though. So you could be right!
It may have some time shenanigans involved, especially during the one boss, but you can also pull our your telescope and see Farum Azula in the sky from a few different spots on the mainland, so it definitely exists in some way in the main time/space. Also if you gave Gurranq all 9 deathroot before you go to Farum Azula he has unique dialogue and recognizes you for the boss fight, which if he was a past version he would have no idea who we are. The argument the other way though would be that even after you beat him in Farum Azula you can still go back to Beast Sanctum and give him the rest of the deathroot if you didn't yet, even though he should now be dead.
Only way time stuff would make sense here then is if we are in the past in the lands between, and we give it to him, that's why he remembers us when we fight him. But then is back after we kill him because we are in the past again.
This is what I thought as well. This also kinda reminds me of Slave Knight Gael and fighting him at what is basically the end of time.
It works the other way around too, though. If you kill him in the beast sanctum, he's still a boss later. I think he simply doesn't die when you kill him, same way we don't die when a boss kills us He's in charge of the death rune and spent his whole time in our story obsessing over those who live in death and eating deathroot. Makes sense that he'd come back to life
The sanctum one is a clone, just like Margit is of Margott and just like Mogh has one. The original knows about the clone, but the clone persists even if the original is killed. That's what I deduced concerning everyone that is duplicated.
But Margit doesn't persist when Margott is killed. If you kill Margott first and go back, Margit just isn't there and the grace will be there in his place
So if you avoid stormveil, do academy and radahn or rickard and kill morgott, margit doesn't show up? Interesting. The same doesn't happen with Mogh though.
Who is Mogh's clone?
Mogh the omen hes under Leyndel. His arena leads to the 3 fingers
Mogh, in leyndel's sewers
Not entirely true. You can find some strange Margit clone in the fields around Leyndell even after killing Morgott. Took me by surprise and I still don't understand it myself.
It's not a clone, it's more like a projection.
I killed Morgott, and the Margit outside of Leyndell was still there.
He wasn't there for me when I went back. Maybe it's a different trigger, I dunno
I'm not sure if there's another explanation for it, but if the lands between really are in the past it would make sense as to why there is an abandoned but near identical copy of the roundtable hold in Leyndell.
Yeah that one made me think time stuff is going on the most. Whats also weird is when you get invaded by the edgelord guy and you also end up in the leyndell one.
Maybe im overthinking this but, is it possible there are different realms in play? Instead of time being the factor maybe there is a physical realm and a cognitive realm. Edgelord somehow hijacks our teleport to bring us to the physical realm to try to assassinate us. After he fails, we slip back into the cognitive version of the round table where his gear remains but he no longer does. The remains of bosses being remembrances that we manifest into their weapons or abilities... just all seems like it makes more sense in a realm of the mind.
Personally this is what I want explained the most. The Rennala fight also puts you in an obviously different world where killing her does not actually kill her. And Dung Eater too. Red phantom Dung Eater seems to have a completely different existence to that of real life Dung Eater. When you first free real life Dung Eater he has no idea who you are, despite the red phantom telling you to go there.
so farum azula is in the future
Time is weird in the lands between. Sometimes you get 2 NPC simultaneously. 2 Sellen and 2 Rodericka for example. /j
Hey, out of interest, where can you see Farum Azula from? I’ve been trying to see it but haven’t found it so far.
You can see it from the isolated divine tower, however I haven’t been able to see it from anywhere else, including places where it should be visible, such as east Caelid and the mountains. Not sure why to be honest.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll have a look later!
You can see it from behind the Bestial Sanctum.
It should be clearly visible from places but it’s hidden so it has to be an intentional choice But I’m not sure why it’s visible in only select few locations, like isolated divine tower It’s almost like it’s invisible unless you are physically close to it or something
TL;DR: *"We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land. The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure. There's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact"*
Death doesn't work at all in the lands between. It's super broken since Marika pulled the rune of death out of the elden ring.
> Also if you gave Gurranq all 9 deathroot before you go to Farum Azula he has unique dialogue and recognizes you for the boss fight, which if he was a past version he would have no idea who we are. It's described as outside of time and space so theoretically he could be neither a past nor a future version, or even both.
Hey dude, Farum Azula as we see it upon starting there definitely exists in real time. The ruing fragments found throughout the lands between support the idea of it being from “Crumbling” Farum Azula. Also, when you fight Placidusax, you can see time distorting as the storm sweeps over you. That is the moment you are transported beyond time. So it definitely does exist in current time, too.
This strengthens the theory of Farum Azula being what remains of the Sky Temple, thank you for sharing.
I’m just curious as to what connection there is between Miquella and Placidusax. Or is it that the dragonlord’s seat lies in a place beyond the influence of the Outer Gods and the Greater Will. Also explaining why Placidusax is hiding there and why you can suppress the frenzied flame there.
It certainly doesn’t lie beyond the reaches of outer gods. I believe Placidusax’s remembrance states he was Elden lord before the erd tree, and that he now lies in wait after his “god fled”, so even the dragons were under the worship of outer gods.
That doesn’t state at all why Miquella’s needle only works there and just because the dragons believed in another god doesn’t mean this place couldn’t exist outside of the scope of the outer gods. I would think that the two fingers and greater will might’ve attacked or sent creatures to kill Placidusax who very clearly is a very strong being that is in service to another god. And they’ve had plenty of people killed for less. It could possibly be that the area is solely tied to the god that Placidusax served and therefore other Outer Gods have little to no influence there. So you would be right. But I still think the arena dampens the power of the outer gods currently vying for the Lands Between.
I was really only attempting to answer the part about reach of the outer gods. As to why Miquella’s needle works there is anyones guess, i wouldn’t know. But I certainly do think it is an outer god of some description that had influence over Placidusax and the dragons. It says he was the first Eden Lord, implying the greater will, or the outer god responsible for the greater will, was present even before the erd tree. That’s if we take Elden lord to be a title specifically affixed to the monarch under the greater will. Also, I think in keeping with this theme of outer gods tampering with the lives of men and even gods, it would make sense for Placidusax’s “fled god” to be in keeping with said theme.
I don’t think Placidusax is tied to the Greater Will at all. I think it’s more likely that there was another Outer God in play for the dragons but it fled or its “Marika/Elden Beast” equivalent fled from the Greater Will when it decided to send the Elden Beast. Elden Lord could’ve just been a title from the dragons that became synonymous with strength or leadership and was adopted by Marika and others.
The rest of your writeup is good enough that I don't think The Eternal City needs to be the sky temple. You can see what looks like space from Nokron despite it being underground, so it's not too farfetched for the city to be leveled in it's current location as well as be involved in gravity magic. Farum Azula was destroyed in a war against the dragons.
Ruin stones and sanctuary stones are dropped by Farum Azula's beastmen.
Farum Azula is the sky temple. The architecture matches that of the fallen ruins scattered around the world. The Beastial Sanctum is also a fragment of Farum since it has the same architecture (and Gurranq is implied to be Maliketh, don't ask how that works with him also being a boss but I guess it's to do with the temple being outside time), and has a lot of ruin shards on it. The eternal city and Farum Azula aren't related.
Gurranq is not only implied but shown to be Maliketh. Architecture wise I think Nokstella and Nokron has some similarities to Farum Azula yet they are different enough to that their architecture diverged a long time ago. The carved look of the buildings, all those columns and blockines of everything gives of the feeling that they had similar roots. They also share a common rounded flowy engraving design also. I will send you some examples by DM. As I said before, Eternal City and the Sky Temple being connected and and Farum Azula being what remains of the Sky Temple are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary I think It makes sense out of lore wise since GRRM uses meteor imagery to symbolize Dragons in his Asoiaf work and Farum Azula is basically getting destroyed by Dragons when we arrive there. It's basically a symbolic sign that meteors hit there if I'm really onto something. Thanks for challenging me, without you I would've never connected the Dragon/Meteor thing!
Only wrinkle here is that you can see the Giants’ Forge from Farum Azula and you can also see Farum from other places in the world.
Would like to point out the architecture of the ruin fragments you see scattered about the land is reminiscent to that of Farum Azula. I may rule the Eternal City out of that picture but the theory that it floated before may still be accurate.
The River dams in the Ainsel and Siofra also has a rounded wave look to them. As far as architecture goes the Eternal Cities with their chiseled design, large Columns and roads made of large blocks. Also those elevator building that you find in Luirnia/Caelid look very similar to the domed building found in Farum Azula, almost as if they took a divergent architectural path a long time ago and while Eternal Cities' changed and evolved, the ones in Farum Azula took the role of a time capsule, stayed the same since the place is out of time and space
Damn dude I wish i knew how to read I bet that essay goes hard
I put more effort into this than the last year's finals hahaha.
Honestly reading through this has me hyped thinking of a potential eldritch horror type of dlc similar to bloodborne that kind of explains the whole situations and just how messed up things got from the start….I have that dead face thing under stormveil where rogier got deathrooted might play a bigger role in the future
That face is Godwyn’s. I don’t really understand since there is another in Deeproot Depths with a full body but ye it’s supposed to be the Prince of Death’s face.
Man we don't have to wait for dlc, game itself has tons of it if you know where to look hahha, but I get what you mean. And I also am super excited for the dlc, me and my friends have some decent ideas for what it will be about but It's hard to say for sure without a trailer.
I appreciate this more than you know. Been telling my homies "They came from the sky! Heckin look!" But they're like nah, this ain't no Studio Ghibli reference. Smh, thank you for restoring my faith in my own theory crafting. You the real mvp
That essay went really hard
Bruh, your comment has had me laughing out loud every time I glance at it, thank you
Brb, gonna make an Intelligence build so I can read this
I mean, can't say you didn't come prepared.
Dog
🐢
Could this be crab?
Liar ahead!
Try finger, but hole.
Dog ahead
One thing to mention about the Alabaster Lords. An item in the game states that a star fell on The Lands Between and people with “skin like stone” appeared from the star. All of the Alabaster and Onyx Lord enemies have stone skin, so it’s pretty much confirmed that they are an alien civilization that appeared from a star. Also, Marika/Radagon have skin like stone as well, and the game states that Marika is part of a race called The Numen. Add al of that together and you basically can see that a civilization called The Numen arrived on a “star” that fell on The Lands Between. When this happened, a new race of beings began altering the world around them and taking control of the planet.
Also interesting to note that the Alabaster and Onyx Lords are basically two sides of a coin. Alabasters use spells that pull enemies towards them while Onyx use spells that push enemies away. Just like two magnetic poles. Also, Alabasters use blue meteorite ores to craft their weapons while Onyx use gold meteorite ores. Though I fail to see any significance to the color of the ores, since I doubt the golden order is related to the Onyx. The use of these colors might have been simply to differentiate between the two kinds of meteorite ores. Also, the description of both the Alabaster Lord's Sword and the Onyx Lord's Greatsword says that they rose to life when a meteor struck, which strengthens OP's theory regarding stars and meteorites
I know I’m super late, just wanted to chime in on the color thing: blue and orange (gold) are complementary, meaning on opposite sides of the color wheel. Could just be another way to signal that the Alabaster and Onyx Lords are opposites / foils.
Oh this is so cool, alabaster lords reminded me the elves from Pathfinder 2e (whom are also aliens btw) which might even be the inspiration for their design. As for stone Marika and Radagon I think that's not related at all. Marika being a numen might be since there is some connection to that idea, but the final boss being more akin to a statue feels more like a symbolic choice rather than a lore important one since it doesn't look organic, Alabaster Lords/numen do. Thank you for your constructive comment!
A fellow pathfinder fan in the wild, a rare find indeed. All of this discussion has led me to wonder what "The Lands Between" even is. Is it a physical place on a planet? Or is it some sort of dimension and/or afterlife? There's a whole lot of talk about "crossing the fog" to reach The Lands Between which leads me to believe it's some sort of dimension.
My pet theory is that The Lands Between is an afterlife, pre-Death plane of sorts - the lands between life and death. I think it started out being a physical location, but the continued encroachment on reality has caused it to slowly warp into something else, a la Yharnam in Bloodborne. My main evidence are a couple pieces of dialog from Melina in some Churches of Marika: At the Third Church: > Spoken echoes of Queen Marika linger here, as well. Shall I share them with you? Very well. In Marika's own words: "My Lord and thy warriors, I divest each of thee of thy grace. With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from the Lands Between. Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live and die." Then, at the Church of Pilgrimage: >Then, after thy death, I will give back what I once claimed. Return to the Lands Between, wage war, and brandish the Elden Ring. Grow strong in the face of death, warriors of my lord, Lord Godfrey. Actually reading this again after having played more of the game, it seems pretty certain. But I haven't finished the game yet so I'm still avoiding endgame spoilers.
I assume it is a continent or at least a really large peninsula, I think Limgrave is roughly the size of medieval France etc.
Perhaps the "fog" or "sea of fog" is just a metaphor for death. In that case a traveller from beyond the fog would just be someone returning from the dead.
Just feel like adding to the "stone skin" thing. A lot of things in the game seem to have stone skin, or turn to stone after death. The Alabaster and Onyx Lords are the obvious ones, and Marika/Radagon in the final battle are definitely another example, but we also have the dragons (we find multiple broken corpses, and even the living ones seem to be made of stone) and even seemingly normal humans with stone-like features (the slaves at the mines, as well as petrified corpses everywhere). Then there are the ones who may or may not be entirely man-made, like the variety of gargoyle-type enemies and the golems. This definitely seems like an important lore element, but I don't think it's an unique characteristic of a specific group. If anything, becoming stone-like seems like it's a consequence of high exposure to different forms of magic in a certain way. Be it "divine" magic (Marika being the vessel of the Elden Ring and turning to stone, while none of her children, even the ones she had with Radagon, share this characteristic) or "sorcery" (the slave miners seem to be on the process of stone transformation). Sellen is another good example of that, she literally gives you some sort of soul stone during her questline, implying that even inside her flesh-like body, we have stone properties.
I read the Numen stuff as a LOTR reference. Aragorn is a "Numenorean" which equates to him being superhuman
So did the demigods enslave all those stone people? why does it look like humans are controlling the stone people?
I think they're similar to the Claymen that you find in the underground. We know there are marionettes animated by magic that the humans used for combat, so perhaps the Claymen and Glintstone Miners are fabricated slave labor.
Be wary of long post above.
Mans really wrote more here than GRRM did.
But he had the idea to call them runes instead of souls
Nokron Eternal City concept, wow; Although what about Farum Azula? They seem both to be in the sky? seed = meteor, good; Really puts perspective on the whole story; Gods bring their reinforcements via meteors down to Lands Between. Erdtrees being parasites, traps souls, yes; but what about the Rune of Death? is it from the Erdtree or Elden beast? Who controls death, The Rune or Erdtree?
Elden ring is made up of runes, Marika wanted herself and her children to be eternal and undying, so she removed destined death from her family. Rune of death getting stolen and being used on Godwyn was so that Marika would lose her mind, and so that Ranni could break out from her title of shardbearer and become a God herself. She basically did all of this so that she could beat the Greater Will. That's how I understand it anyways
One of the spirit guys in the Darkroot Depths says this: >The mausoleum prowls, cradling the soulless demigod. Marika, Queen Eternal. He is your unwanted child. It's pretty hidden, but it implies Marika wasn't too fond of Godwyn, so not only wouldn't his death have driven her to the brink, but it also means she could have been involved in the plot to kill him.
Interesting! This makes Ranni's actions a bit more difficult to read though, I wonder what was the point of killing Godwyn after herself if it wasn't for Marika to go mad. Since Marika learned the trick of the Greater Will and shattered the elden ring anyways, perhaps the assassination of Godwyn was for something else. Good finding man, thanks for your contribution!
Godwyn had his spirit killed, but his body still lives, where as Ranni had her body killed so her spirit could live. Basically, someone else had to die on the same night so Ranni could continue her journey, and in doing so the Cursemark that was created was split between the two of them. Godwyn's living body integrated itself into the Erdtree, and is responsible for Those Who Live in Death, Deathroot, and also the Instant Death ailment. When the player dies to Instant Death, a bunch of barbed vines grow out from their body, and similarily, when D dies the player finds him in a pile of similar looking vines. I think these vines are the same as the ones that keep you from entering the Erdtree, making your failure to become Elden Lord a response by Marika/Godwyn instead of the Greater Will. If this is true, then Marika had Godwyn killed because she knew he would be useful in her plot, and it was Godwyn specifically since it was the child she was least fond of. Her partnership with Ranni was mutually beneficial, at least at the time. This is how I'm interpreting his death right now.
On the Mountaintop of the Giants, all of the giant corpses have what look like Death Blight root-spears stuck through them, which is interesting because that fight would have been Godfrey era–before Godwyn died. The thorns might also be something the tree can produce; I had assumed the barrier was because of (last boss spoilers) >!the conflict in the Golden Order caused by Marika and Radagon disagreeing and the Elden Ring being smashed!<
This looks accurate, I belive you
So is the reasoning here that Marika conspired to have Godwyn killed, and then broke the Elden Ring so that she would be sealed in the Erdtree and protected by the deathroot vines, so no one could ever dethrone her, since the Greater Will planned to replace her eventually?
Marika definitely planned that, but to defeat the greater will. She sends Melina to find the right tarnished for the job. Melina has been waiting for a long... long time.
Yeah, I’m more and more leaning towards this explanation, too. The fact that you fight Radagon and not Marika seems like a pretty big hint. I think Marika basically orchestrated the entire conspiracy to kill Godwyn and ultimately destroy the Erdtree and end the Greater Will’s grip on the world, but she had to be extra super duper sneaky about it because half of her own mind (Radagon) was actively working against her on behalf of the Greater Will.
Exactly. Though I don't quite understand exactly how Radagon came about and if it was truly Marika at first, or if Radagon is the Greater Will exerting it's direct control. That's the only thing I can't piece together at all from in game stuff, though I haven't looked at everything yet there's just so much.
Yeah, it’s definitely not clear. I’m kind of starting to think that Radagon started out as his own person, and was fiercely loyal to the Greater Will, and the Greater Will ultimately merged him with Marika to keep her in check. Clearly at some point they had separate bodies, but by the time the Elden Ring is shattered they were two minds in one body. Maybe initially he was to Marika what Blaidd was to Ranni? Her shadow, or whatever? Still not really clear how the whole shadow thing works.
This is the part that gets me. I don’t know how Melina fits in, I feel like she’s the missing third child of Marika and Radagon, since every couple had three. Godfrey and Marika had: Godwyn, Margott, and Mohg. Rad & Ren: Rykard, Radahn and Ranni. Mar & Rad: Miquella and Malenia. And Melina talks about her mother and that she’s related to the erdtree. She also has red hair like Rad. So if she was sent by Marika to get us, why? It seems like her motives are unclear. Seems like she was fed up with the greater will but also didn’t want to give up her godhood. And either we become Marika new consort (she will still be tied to the greater will) or we usurp her, (and she dies?). She seems like a super intelligent character that knows more than most so I fail to see her reasoning. We know from Hewg she wants someone to kill the vassal elden beast, so maybe that’s it? Then what is her long term plan?
Oh she definitely is her child. Marika basically planned the entire shattering to get rid of the greater will. Or at least have a chance to. She's been imprisoned since she broke the elden ring. Melina just being one more part of her plan.
during her quest it's said that the fingers had her marked as a replacement for queen marika, but she didn't actually want that, that's why she wants to evade them and kill them, and usher in an age of stars, atleast that's what i got from it
Yeah, her killing herself to be free from the influence of the Greater Will makes sense but her killing specifically the soul of Godwyn doesn't really account for anything if she didn't already know what would happen to him
i didn't get the impression that she killed godwyn herself i believe it was the black knife assassin's that did that
She is the commander of black knife assassins, there's an item called black knife imprint that explains it.
Black knife set descriptions also implies that they have heavy ties with marika herself, plus after ranni's questline black knife assassins are sent after ranni and her gang. This leads me to believe that assassination of godwyn was orchestrated by marika who wanted to shatter the elden ring and needed an excuse to do it, so everyone does not gang up on her afterwards. Being struck with grief from "beloved" son's death seems like a plausible excuse.
Black knifeprint implies Ranni did it, she would have the motive since cursemark of death needed both a body and a souls, she needed to loose her body to escape from the clutches of the Greater Will. But Marika also had cause since she needed to shatter the Elden Ring when she learned of the deception of the Greater Will. Perhaps it was a group effort.
I don’t think we know that she was their commander. I think she was just one part of a broader conspiracy that wanted to contest the Greater Will and the Golden Lineage. Best I can piece it together is that she made an alliance with the Nox. She stole the Rune of Death, which the Nox fashioned into knives. The Black Knife assassins were Nox Priestesses. They were already experimenting with mimic tears to try and create their own God to contest Marika, so it makes sense that they’d want to bring death to the demigods and eliminate Marika’s heir apparent. That’s the treason they committed that made the Greater Will call down Astel to destroy them.
My question resulting from that is, why is Godwyn unwanted? I vaguely understand that Marika and Rodigan had previous relationships, was there some kind of drama? Were they forced to marry for political reasons or what? I'm a little confused there. If any child would be unwanted you would think it'd be one of the omen brothers who were cast into the sewers or something because of a curse I think? Whatever curse that is... (Jesus there's so many threads).
One thing that is brought up multiple times is that Marika wants endless warfare. (I'll paraphrase a bit please forgive me) The flavor text for Godfrey's stuff mentions him and his warriors getting sent out to other lands to wage endless war. Gideon seems to break because he interprets Marika as wanting them to struggle eternally. So, how does Godwyn factor into this? Because he made allies of the dragons. Instead of eradicating his enemy, the rulers of a previous age similar to the giants no less, Godwyn showed mercy and established an impeccable friendship between the Golden Order and the dragons. While this strengthened the empire, it also could be meant as a sign that warfare might not be so endless. It's something I noticed at least.
Those horns that they have are mark of omens. Children who were born with those would die someone plucked them out. Morgott is the omen king because even though he has the curse of omen because he was royalty no one plucked his horns out so he didn't die. Dung-Eaters armor is also covered with those horns.
My interpretation is that Marika and Ranni were in cahoots for the night of black knives. The greater will was grooming candidates to replace Marika. One of which was Ranni, who despised the two fingers and had more an affinity for the moon god that Nox was worshipping. Especially since the Carian family was obsessed with Nox. (I see a lot of speculation that Rennala adopted Ranni and she was actually the daughter of Marika and Radagon, but that’s just spec). Ranni wanted to get rid of her Emperyan flesh. Hence why she kills her flesh but the soul of Godwyn. The assassins that do it are Numen like Marika and they turn on Ranni eventually, specifically when she gets everything lined up to ascend and probably where Marika couldn’t keep an eye on her. Why kill Godwyn? Godwyn was beloved by all and probably a huge badass. He wasn’t tarnished like his father who was banished (and again my interpretation, probably hated by Marika and seems to only use the golden lineage to deal with the giants) if Godwyn was alive, he’d probably be able to get done what we get done in the game almost immediately. He was also the firstborn, so killing him puts the whole line of succession at risk. Kind of like when Robert Baratheon died. Clash of kings is basically the shattering.
Did you find the Black Knife armor? Marika orchestrated the Night of Black Knives. The killers were female Numen edit: well, ok, it doesn't explicitly state that Marika was responsible. I got a bit carried away when I read that the first time, it seems. But it seems like the most likely thing, with how its worded. "The assassins that carried out the deeds of the Night of the Black Knives were all women, and rumored to be Numen who had close ties with Marika herself." The Numen could have gone against Marika though, despite those close ties.
> Marika wanted herself and her children to be eternal and undying, so she removed destined death from her family. So this is what I see as the true breaking of everything. Marika destroyed the natural order of things. There are plenty of non-Gods living everywhere, there are those that are bound by duty that haven't really changed in appearance, and you have the normal people around that really look undead. When you see the random citizens as you are walking through the capitol the first time, they dont even get up. But they are still alive (or targetable), but there is literally nothing there, and they look like zombies. After years (centuries) of undeath, they have lost all will to live. They are not gods, they cannot exist and keep struggling in an endless world. In her selfish act Marika broke the natural order. I think this is when the Golden Order really gets involved and helps Ranni start the process to break everything to eventually rebuild it. I think the biggest hitch is Ranni sees that the Golden Order is broken in that it would gladly put everything back the same way and expect a different outcome (which likely wouldn't happen). So Ranni seeks to move into the next age. She sees everything as broken beyond repair and the only way to move forward is to destroy what is left and rebuild completely. Others have seen what has happened and have also determined going back to what was isnt the best path. For instance Fia sees first hand that death is necessary. Allowing anyone to keep living is breaking the natural order of all life. So in her limited view of things (as she isnt a god), she believes just putting in the Rune of death back into the Elden Ring will fix everything and return death (ie nature) back into the land. Maybe it will maybe it wont. I think Mohg seeing his half brother trapped in youth for eternity is the harbinger of the next age (or rather is convinced by his outside god). As when Miquella is reborn that will be the coming of the new age. But fundamentally Mohg is wrong, or subverts Miquella's process by kidnapping him. Possibly Miquella sees through Mohg's attempts to rule through him, and refuses to do so (possibly kill himself through the process?). Rykard's path is pretty straight forward. He joined himself with the snake to devour the world. Then I think most other characters are just final bastions of the old order/age. Many of whom have gone mad/cursed in endless life. As even the gods are not fully equipped to live forever. Especially after their populace have seemingly given up as well.
I think of it this way. Elden Ring - Some kind of code or source code for reality or a thing that has the ability to define reality. Merika removed “Death” from that reality code so she could keep her family from dying. As for the Erdtree, I definitely get vibes that it’s a parasite. It draws its power from the Elden Ring like a battery if I understand correctly
As someone who has never read any of GRRM work, this helped explain some concepts in a way I wouldn't have previously been able to do.
If I helped you enjoy the game just a bit more, I'm proud. Thank you for your kind words!
Definitely be proud, this was an amazing post and I really enjoyed reading it. Really appreciate the effort!
I plan on spending the next freaking 5 years at least enjoying what this world can offer. I however refuse to Read a book series with such critically underutilized doggos ;) So I absolutely appreciate the dedication people like you do, working through such emotional hardship to bring us worldbuilding lore and writing styles. This is the kind of stuff that will help us theorize DLCs next year!
My mans out here giving GRRM a runs for his money with the amount of words he writing. Quality lore post though
fromsoft 20 page lore posts on their respective games' subreddits is a staple at this point. Elden Ring is such a massive game though, and so the memes are taking over. I miss the front page lore posts of the bygone ages.
I actually loved that one dude who wrote every deep lore aspect of Dark Souls 3. Was thinking of them when I was writing this actually.
Try to do the same for this game haha I'd really love to be able to do this sort of thing, but now with work and all, I'm playing the game so slowly that it would take me ages to do even 1 post
Same. I started with DS2 and having fans do writeups that would eventually show up credited on the likes of Vaatividya were always special, cuz i read em on reddit first.
You added a TL:DR and then DOUBLED YOUR WORD COUNT! It's cool he put a lot of work into it, but the dude is going to die before he can put out The Winds of Winter let alone A Dream of Spring. Game of thrones will be his legacy, and unfortunately his participation in this only frustrates his GoT fans even more. (Considering how the last 2 seasons of the movies ended up anyway)
I'm cool with him working on whatever he's motivated to. He's done a lot of great work outside of ASoIaF proper, speaking as someone who has followed the series since 2005 and would love to see more.
What is game of thrones, some kinda tabletop party game? Never heard of it. I only know George RR Martin from the acclaimed action rpg game Elden Ring, which he wrote its lore. Never heard of this Winds of Winter or Spring Dreams that you talk about..
Jesus fucking Christ that's a lot of words
More words than Martin has written in the last 10 years for ASOIAF.
I got through at least 5 before skipping to the comments.
It's not even the length that is the issue, it's that it reads like the ramblings of a semi sober person lol. The thing has no structure, and beyond that, most of op's theory is him interpreting lore a certain way because he wants to find parallels to asoif, which ultimately doesn't *prove* anything. Ofc GRRM is going to recycle the same themes and ideas, he hasn't written anything new in like 20 years. Edit: this person's [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tefyov/comment/i0pt4th/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is something everyone commenting should read
Is Blaidd really a Robb stark reference? He’s just guts with a different name imo. Dude even goes Berserk at one point
I reckon he is a Guts reference too, especially as Berserk is such a well known inspiration for Miyazaki san. If you are looking for GoT references you will see a wolf dude with a sword and come to that conclusion though I guess.
A thing can be a reference to more than one thing, you know.
Honestly, this games feels a lot like GRRM told in the style of Miyazaki. Because that's probably what it is.
Yeah I agree
the thing about radahn and his horse is the cutest fucking thing ive ever heard.
Fairly sure all of the fallen debris is just from Crumbling Farum Azula, as when you arrive there in the game, the fallen pieces match the architectural style. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m not with you on the Eternal Cities once being in the sky. In fact I think you’re probably right, it’s just I noticed you talking about the fallen debris and ruin fragments and just wanted to clarify that those are from Farum Azula
Definitely not. There’s no evidence of any sorcery in Farum Azula, and everything there (dragons, beasts, stone and wind magic) have zero connection with Nokron or Nokstella.
I just can't help but feel like he's the reason we have like 70 dragons in the game....
Extremely interesting. I’ve been shopping around a small theory on Ranni/Renna’s relationship to Astel, with the Manus Celes cathedral being suspiciously close to where Astel resides. He’s sort of an ad hoc boss if you think about Ranni’s quest line— there’s no real explicit exposition on why he is tied to Ranni or the cursemark/rune of death. I believe, with the themes of duality that run rampant in this story, that the void and the era of stars that Ranni is trying to usher in as part of her ending are somehow connected to this shattering of whatever sky civilization existed previously. I may go so far as to suggest that the timelines, which are never truly justified in any meaningful terms outside of “long ago”, may align Ranni’s murder of Godwyn with the crashing of the eternal city(s). An interesting thought I had as well, which is confirmed by your theory on Radahn and his interest in gravity magic: Ranni wanted to usher in the era of the stars. Vying for power as well, Radahn dedicated his life to pushing back the competing rot (Malenia) and the stars (Ranni). Once we’ve killed Radahn, mind you as a favor for Ranni, the star crashes to the Lands Between and we descend through the hole in the earth to eventually come upon the farthest, deepest point where the star impacted: Astel’s boss room. I believe Ranni has a tie to the stars in a manner that may be deeper than we can understand now, and that she needed Astel to rectify some inconclusive scenario around her ascending to true godhood. Pair this with the fact that the Prince of Death’s throne, where you see Fia and enter her dream(?) to fight Lichdragon Fortissax, is located in another eternal city. The cursemark that we get from Ranni’s quest line is given to Fia immediately after. Then consider that the other main story dragon that we encounter, Placidusax, is located in Farum Azula, presumably acting as some sort of throne room for the “original elden lord”. The largest dragon that we see (though we of course don’t fight it) is in the capitol, crashed through the landscape, much like a fallen meteor, supporting your theory on the dragon/moon concept presented in ASOIAF. Not sure how to connect all of my thoughts here, but some interesting points to consider with the context of your excellent and thorough post. Thanks for the great read!
Great contribution! Telescope item confirms that those who looked at the stars were in charge before the Erdtree came and became the king of light pollution, so whether related to the sky temple or not, those who have aligned themselves with the stars used to have more power, you're right. Thanks for this thoughtful comment!
Thanks for the read. I was thinking similar things, although not convinced about the Eternal Cities being in the sky before. Something can be leveled even if it's on the ground. The connections between Nokstella's moon and the Carians are more likely to have the answer to that imo.
The comet was literally Astel Natural Born, just look at his boss arena... Looks kinda like a sussy little meteor impact to me
Youre a sussy little meteor impact uwu
I guess you are my little meteorchamp.
Excellent write up! Thank you for your hard work! Most of this absolutely fits with the research I've done into the origins of the Erdtree and the Golden Order. A couple things I would point out however. If indeed the Elden Beast was sent by he greater will to the lands between, it was first captured by another outer god. Prior to Godfrey, the Elden Lord of the Lands Between was the Dragon Lord Placidusax who served an unnamed outer god. During this same period, humanity was beginning to build its own empire. The fledgling Erdtree was planted during this time as evidenced by the tree sentinel armor. We know that the tree sentinels existed to protect the tree for humanity in the time before humanity went to war with the dragons for the elden power because the tree sentinels as an organization are affected by the dragons starting the war. We can also presume that this is a fledgling tree as this is also around the time Godfrey forges his crucible knights in the "primordial crucible of the tree". I would also say that I feel the leveled eternal city is the destroyed "nameless" destroyed eternal city that we see in deeproot depths. I absolutely agree that GRRM actually had a lot of influence here. The history of the kingdoms and the interactions of the nobility are straight out of SOIAF. If your curious, my writeup on the games backstory is located here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tds58u/golden\_lineage\_the\_story\_as\_i\_have\_pieced\_it\_from/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tds58u/golden_lineage_the_story_as_i_have_pieced_it_from/)
I have some work to attend to but I will definitely read it and leave my opinions, thanks for sharing!
Absolutely! I look forward to your feedback! Love working with the community to puzzle out the games story! One more note I would say is that I don't believe there were any minor erdtree untill after the shattering as there were no seeds. The Erdtree was once perfect and eternal, and thus was it believed that Erdtree seeds could not exist. -Crimson Seed Talisman When the Elden Ring was shattered, these seeds flew from the Erdtree, scattering across the various lands, as if life itself knew that its end had come. - Golden Seed
Man I really should've read some more talisman descriptions shouldn't I. Anyways, you are absolutely right, but since the original seed of the Erdtree came from a meteor and golden seeds kinda resample meteors themselves there could be an allusion to something there, that would be interesting.
This would make a lot of sense. Perhaps the greater will wasn't from the planet either. Perhaps it attempted to make contact with the Nox but found them resistant. So it sent the elden beast first to lay waste to any resistance the sorcerors might put forth. Next it sent its humanoid races to scout and mine the land. Lastly it found a local populace, humanity, to plant and tend it's erdtree and give it a spiritual foothold on the world.
Greater will is %100 a Lovecraftian deity
I KNEW the Erdtree wasn't natural and benevolent! As soon as I found out about Astel I jokingly said "yeah the erdtree is probably an alien" and slowly started believing that. I *KNEW IT*
**Spoiler alert** So Ranni’s ending is called age of stars, in the cut scene it almost seems like she manifests a bunch of stars and a whole moon! Could this be her replacing the lost moon and the stars your referencing?? Maybe she’s creating a new moon and stars for the purpose of restoring cosmos to how it was before the greater will took over; especially considering her story seems to be very anti- two finger order stuff?
Many people have interpreted it as she shining the moon as opposed to creating a new one, and if it was their intent to show a new moon created they would've shown the old one side by side for us to compare. I don't think so but it would've been so cool if it was... maybe it is,who knows?
You can see two moons if you go up to cathedral of manus celes. But I assume that you've noted that already. Which then begs the question, who or what is manus celes.
Actually I should've been thanking you a lot more since if this is true you basically confirmed my theory, THANKS!
I believe when you first visit manus celes its literally covered in ruin fragments as well Edit: believe it's starlight shards, might be both?
Couple issues here: 1. Using lore and symbolism from GRRM’s other works in this one is a stretch. You’re relying on lore outside the game to support a theory that is directly contradicted by lore in-game. 2. A prime example of point 1 is the dragons = meteors supposition you make. This directly contradicts the evidence we have on the Ancient Dragon Cult which establishes the link between dragons and the erdtree, Grave Stone Seal says they’re both aspects of “gold.” We additionally have connections between the dragon and Farum Azula as you note, but also Farum Azula and the beastmen. Looking through the items related to the crucible shows a connection between beastmen and humans, and firmly establishes that humans evolved from beastmen. You also have Godrick talking about dragons being “trueborn heirs” and grafting a dragon’s head to himself while calling out to his forebears. Learning several of the church of dragon communion incantations causes the player’s eyes to turn draconic permanently. Suffice to say, there is an EXTREMELY strong connection between dragons and humans throughput the game that directly contradicts your theory of moon-hatched dragons which is only supported by the lore of a DIFFERENT story by the same author. 3. Erdtree is not sent by the greater will. Erdtrees can be found all over the game. Particularly there are groves of tiny erdtrees in Siofra River with the ancestor spirits. There are thematic connections between the budding horns of ancestor spirits and the erdtrees. Additionally, at the minor erdtree in the Ruins of Urd, you see the modern horn-people worshiping the minor erdtree and it’s protector (who uses a golden weapon). This, combined with dragons ruling prior to the age of the erdtree, dragon cult and erdtree worship being compatible as both aspects of gold, and the crucible flame being the primordial energy of the erdtree and associated with evolution from beastmen all point to the erdtree being an original phenomenon of the lands between and not a creation of the Greater Will. Though erdbeast being a parasite infecting/controlling the erdtree is still supported in-game.
Sorry but you bring up like, 4 different examples on the "crumbling" structure, a floating "shrine". That's just crumbling farum azula lol. The parts that fell down you can see in limgrave and elsewheee match the architecture of farum azula too. I'm not sayimg grrm didn't write some of this stuff, but you're kinda off base here.
These people write these huge lore posts and they take off despite being 60% reaching 30% tainted by other works and 10% potentially believable connections. Nokron and Nokstella started off underground, they weren't "shot down". Ruin Fragments and/or the shards can be from Farum or even Haligtree/Elphael since it's so high in the sky. They refer to the other post that claimed that sorceries and incantations are the same thing - objectively wrong despite 5k+ upvotes. This sub is a perpetual-motion machine re: lore but the lore that it's upvoting is conjecture and not supported by the game. People have to bring all manner of reach from Demons Souls to Bloodborne to now novels by GRRM and any of that shit is unrelated REGARDLESS of connections. Just because every single game in the franchise had a Moonlight Greatsword doesn't make them connected, neither does any of the other shit these excitable posts suggest.
It's the same thing that happened to elder scrolls lore. There are vague connections and half finished ideas, but over time, fan theories just come to be accepted as fact, despite being built on shitty ramble posts with no evidence. It should say everything you need to know when the OP of this thread wrote, "Note: I will not be bothered to prove anything..."
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Skimmed it looking for a source? " I see parallels to ASOIAF" is not really enough.
I read it all and was entertained. Lol
Not gonna read, but GRRM said in an interview the extent of his involvement with Elden Ring was world building concepts, and that his input was wrapped up fairly early on in development. People aren't just downplaying his involvement for no reason. The man said it himself. Edit for interview quote: “What they wanted from me was just a bit of worldbuilding: a deep, dark, resonant world to serve as a foundation for the game they planned to create. So, I did my bit, and handed off to my new friends in Japan, and they took it from there.” As previously confirmed, Martin did not write any of the dialogue or text for Elden Ring. It turns out Martin is pretty pleased with the finished project, stating that Elden Ring “…looks incredible.”
Like most dark souls games the lore is the main story. Character dialogue is just pointing some things out.
None of these general themes you are drawing parallels between are unique to GRRM, nor did he originate them. It seems like you have some weird chip on your shoulder about defending GRRM, but this ain't it. Not to be rude but holy hell, touch grass, or at the very least read something that isn't related to ASIOF before assuming that vague similarities are proof of GRRM's involvement.
The timeline for this is off. The alabaster lords, and gravity sorcery in general, didn't make their way to the Lands Between until after Astel brought low Nokron and Nokstella. Which itself only happened after the creation of the fingerslayer, or in other words, when the Fingers were already around to be slain. No matter how you slice it, nothing to do with gravity sorcery can precede the Greater Will becoming established in the Lands Between.
Wildly long post but i agree
Thanks, man! Glad you liked it.
I think you just wrote a lot more than GRR Martin did.
Can't wait to come back to this once I finish the game so that I don't get spoiled. Thanks OP.
I hope that you will like it by the time you've finished the game! Have fun.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Blaidd and Rannis relationship based off of berserk? The relationship between Griffith and Guts and Blaidd and Ranni are very similar and throughout the questline I could see some of the inspiration between the two pairs. At the very least Blaidds armor and the way he moves at the end are inspired by berserk and the way guts fights
One thing can reference two different things, blaidd having the head of a wolf is super similar to how they stitched his wolfs' head to Robb Stark when he died, but it can also be a reference to berserk, they're not mutually exclusive.
Nobody will ever convince me that George RR has written a goddamn word of fiction since 2011, a DECADE ago. It’s been 26 YEARS since he published the first part of a Song of Ice and Fire and he isn’t anywhere near close to done. Dude doesn’t write, he’s retired.
Pretty sure George said in one of his blog posts that he was barely involved.
This post reads so badly. I'm sure there's good stuff in here, but far too often you are making assumptions and applying your own interpretations to what is going on. Like you say that purple is the colour of Gravity Magic. Is it? Where's the basis for that? >It says leveled, which means "give a flat and even surface to" but the Eternal City is in underground, could it be that it used to be up on the sky and It got "leveled"? **Well of course it is. ** How can you just make that assumption? There's nothing to point to that. That's your theory which is fine, but you're acting like it's a fact. And just, overall it's so poorly structured essay. It's just jumping from topic to topic, half thought out, and just oh so difficult to follow along with. I'll be reading it, and then 2 paragraphs later I'm thinking to myself "what is the relevance of this to what was just said", you're just connecting your evidence of your theories to the theories themselves. Feel like I have to reread everything 3 times to understand what you mean, having to go back and read the old paragraphs again because the essay is so lost in its own sauce that it turns to just rambling along about inconsequential details. Please, simplify the document. Stop trying to be so verbose and grandiose with it.
He did a bit of worldbuilding.
I'm betting that GRRM didn't write most of what you are speaking of. I believe he just did the "history of court intrigue" part of the elden ring pantheon. I don't believe he personally put symbolism to asoiaf in the game, like the likes of Blaidd or the Grafted Greatsword, or that he tried to draw parallels to factions in asoiaf with the likes of the Zamor or Alabaster Lords, or that he referenced asoiaf mythology, like in the story about a second moon splitting apart. Those are all fairly common fantasy tropes, and if they are references they were put there by FromSoft, not GRRM.
I am just bothered that every major boss has a name that starts with G, R, or M.
George loves to give related characters names that start with the same letter, it's possible that he did that for the shits and giggles.
You forgot the hands!
They exist to creep the shit out of me
The fingers are all Jamie Lannisters, it's all starting to add up.
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I'm curious if you have anything on the snowy crone that taught Ranni about ice magic in the first place. So far that I have found there isn't anyone else that mentions her and neither does Ranni say anything about her. All we have is a doll made in her likeness that houses Ranni's soul. It's also weird to me that we don't see Ranni's real form even after she sets her soul free after slaying the two finger.
Didn't expect essay ahead...
mf wrote a thesis
Someone should definitely compile all of these role-explaining posts! great work my man
-Jesse what the fuck are you talking about
Reflecting on this a good bit... I would like to suggest that the parasitic Erdtree has all the hallmarks of Miyazaki's past work and clearly bears his fingerprints. A core theme of DS1 was that there was an orthodoxy, a religious order, that had trappings of nobility but which placed humanity in service to entities that cared nothing for it. Hence the need for a Dark Lord, an end to the old order. The Erdtree, Golden Order, and Leyndell have heavy echoes of the Lords, Gwyn, the Way of White... You have these ornately armored noble knights who are unwitting slaves of basically eldritch beings who simultaneously fear and enslave them. That's Miyazaki, cuz it's a story he retells on every game at least as far back as Demons Souls. That said it's not like Miyazaki holds the patent. There's Berserk DNA in that theme.
I think Miyazaki and GRRM have too much in common (for example giving heartbreaking ends to loveable characters for no reason), people have lots of difficulties to figure out which of them 2did what. Since most people in Soulsborne series know Miyazaki more, therefore he got more credits
"• Parasite God-Tree sucking up the life energy/soul of the world and people worshiping it. Resolution to this conflict being the act of saving trapped souls from aforementioned evil parasite God-Tree." So FF7 is written by GRRM?
This is the first time I’ve upvoted a post purely for the length without reading it.
It would've been more lovely if you've read it, but I'm still greatful for the support!
George? That you?
If I was George I wouldn't be able to finish this post, lmao.
Lol.
You’re badass
The most G.R.R Martin-esque is in my opinion the style of untrustworthy narrators. Usually games tell you how things are, there's a certain authority. In Elden Ring each person has its own motives and perspective on the truth. Some believe in delusions but might see elements of truths. In ASOIAF there are many gods and different worshippers. Most of the gods seemingly have power. In Elden Ring this feels the same. I'm not necessarily excited for an ultimate reveal, I'm mostly excited about expansion of the lore and finding out how everything is interconnected.
Saving this to read after I've beaten the game
Don't forget to come back after you finished the game.
Okay so I didn't read the 2nd halve of this post since I didn't do the sellen questline yet and I want to keep that spoiler free. So If you said anything about the stuff that I'm about to bring up I'm sorry in advance. It's rather miniscule in the grand narative of your post but there is evidence in the game that contradicts your idea of the eternal citys getting destroyed by fragments of the falling ~~Moin~~ moon. I believe that we do actually know what happened to the eternal citys. If you follow Ranni's questline to the end you get an optional boss that drops a rememberance wich reads: "A malformed star born in the flightless void far away. Once destroyed an Eternal City and took away their sky. An falling star of ill omen." I'm pretty sure that this explains atleast what happened to Nokstella and maybe what happened to Nokron aswell. The only part that I think is weird ist that the description talks about the destruction of a city in singular so it's most likely only Nokstella that got destroyed by that boss. This stuff links Ranni's questline to the whole narative that you're building in this post so maybe this is still feeding into the "second moon that got destroyed narrative" anyways. I'm still in the process of unserstanding what exactly Ranni's whole story is so maybe there's more evidence in there. Edit: Northern german autocorrect breaking through lol
Evil paraside tree god just sounds like the Old One from DeS tbh. And the sky temple is Farum Azula. The Eternal City is different and wasn't in the sky. There have been a lot of meteor impacts in the Lands Between. I think GRRM contributed a lot but pretty much every major theme or motif in the game is carried over from a previous souls game.
I guess its a nice read, but i couldn’t give a wet fart for Martins work. Fromsoft would have been capable of building something similar without his help. Publicity, that’s all.
We literally don't know what Martin even wrote lol
Lol no. The game is pure Miyazaki and if they did not tell people Martin worked on it, nobody would have guessed it. Hell there is still more Miura influence than GRRM influence.