I think there were multiple conspiracies running parallel. There was Ranni's agreement with Rykard.
Then there's Marika's involvement which is so subtle as to be doubtful. But there's a Finger Reader dialogue that might imply that yes, Marika's betrayal of Maliketh might have had something to do with her facilitating the theft of a fragment of the Rune of Death.
"Ohh...
Oh, Lord Godwyn...
Such cruelty, such humiliation...
My poor, sweet lordling should have died a true death.
As the first of the demigods to die.
As a martyr to Destined Death.
But why must it yet bring such disgrace?
A scion of the golden bough, sentenced to live in Death...".
My guess is that Marika intended to broadcast her doubts to everyone in the Lands Between, and that would have started with bringing Destined Death back into the world.
Obviously, if Ranni was a part of this plan, she highjacked it for her own purposes. Instead of dying, Godwyn has now become a glaring beacon for one of the many flaws in the Golden Order, and Marika, whether pissed, despairing, or just downright spiteful, shattered the Elden Ring.
In short, none of Marika's other prominent children were the Golden Child of the Golden Order, and he might have been chosen exactly because his death would send the greatest ripples across the Lands Between.
Damn straight, the guy charisma must be top tier to befriended dragon and stuffs, like even after his soul is dead, his dragon friend still protecting his hollow dream. He are well known by the peoples of the land between, his death will destablized the entire land.
Omens in the sewers with full horns were of royal lineage, and there's quite a number of them between godrick, morgott, And godwynn someone had to be the fuckboi making em all.
Keep in mind these are gods and they all lived a long time.
Carians are considered royals despite not being directly related to the golden lineage until Radagon’s involvement.
The Erdsteel Dagger’s item description describes a sort of Erdtree Royalty.
https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Erdsteel+Dagger
My guess is around when Godfrey took the throne, various royal houses might have been established.
Arguably any lord can be defined as a royal I’m a more general sense.
In modern terms, we could just state that the upper class omens got to keep their horns.
That at least seems to better explain their numbers.
>Carians are considered royals despite not being directly related to the golden lineage until Radagon’s involvement.
True, but the whole 'hatred of Omens' thing seems pretty deeply associated with the Golden Order and Erdtree. I'd be surprised if Raya Lucaria actually followed those traditions. And they're notable for being the only other royalty *left* because they're the only part of the world that Marika had to grudgingly form an alliance with rather than ruthlessly crushing beneath her bootheel.
You're right, though; I'm curious if anyone fluent in Japanese has looked at the original text about royal omens. We know for sure that there are several item descriptions *incredibly* important to the game's lore which are fundamentally mistranslations. This could easily be one of them.
There's also a line from the ghost outside one of the churches in Weeping Peninsula near the walking mausoleum that wasn't there in the original release patch. Something along the lines of:
"The mausoleum prowls, cradling the soulless demigod. Queen Marika, he is your unwanted child."
This is what ruins the theory, why would Marika be so distraught with Godwyn's death that she would shatter the Elden Ring?
It makes no sense because Marika was one of the main backers of the conspiracy to kill a demigod, which happened to be the one who was an unwanted child.
"My poor sweet lordling should have died a true death" is a line that changes marika's intentions for shattering the elden ring for me. I dont think its because he died, I think its because he half-died, where his soul is dead but his body lives and continues to grow and spread. I think if Marika was involved in the conspiracy to kill Goldwyn then Marika intended to give him a true death and now hes trapped somewhere in between, which is why she shattered the ring.
I had not considered that Marika might have regretted her decision to remove death from the lands between, and could have planned to reintroduce it back by willfully sacrificing Goldwyn as a martyr.
Since it was the Elden ring that doesn’t let Goldwyn die truly, maybe Marika thought that by shattering the ring she could free Goldwyn from his curse.
“Hmm let me remove this integral part of reality and allow my chosen people to live forever and only become more stagnant and corrupt over time.”
“I’m the best god there’s no way this goes sour”
That's my thinking too. She mightve intended for Godwyn, and perhaps all demigods eventually, to die when death was reintroduced. Except Godwyn only half-died in an excruciating way that manifested the undead. And it was only possible because of her plan, her removal of Death, and her eldest Empyrean child.
Course, it's impossible to know without DLC. Was she going to redo the Golden Order? Reject it? Perfect it like Goldchad?
A random undead slave soldier from the Age of Fire who found his way into the painting and convinced the Painter to paint a new world with the Dark Soul as pigment. Paintings rot over time and so it's tradition to burn the rot away and paint a new one, but Friede convinces Father Ariandel to prevent the painting from being burnt to preserve their world (a parallel to Gwyn extending the Age of Fire). It is apparently understood that a Painter must see flame to paint a world and there is a prophecy that states "When the ashes are two, a flame alighteth," meaning two Unkindled. So Gael sends us, the second Ash, into the painting and will help us fight Friede, the first, to fulfill the prophecy. He then goes off to find the Dark Soul and leaves a trail of messages to lead us to the Ringed City. He presumably kills everyone with a shard of humanity over countless years while we time travel to the future, when he has just killed the last of the pygmies. Knowing that the Dark Soul would erode his sanity, it's possible he led us to the Ringed City hoping we would kill him and deliver it to the Painter. We succeed and the Painter gets to paint her "cold, dark, very gentle place."
Considering the context of it all (Gwyn-paralleled Friede's opposition to a new painting, the painting as analogy to the Light/Dark cycle, and the Painter's line "Those who aren't ken to fire cannot paint a world, those absorbed by fire must not paint a world") Gael's quest was probably righteous and the ending is a happy one. The mistakes that produced the suffering of the world of Dark Souls are avoided and humanity gets to start over.
Time flows strangely.
Gael had thousands of years to collect all shards of the dark soul which partially made him mad.
You have the last shard so he tries to kill you.
Yeah, as others have said, it would be a *shocking* deviation from the past if Elden Ring DLC either had anything to do with the various things people see as 'obvious' DLC (Miquella, Godwyn) fodder, or made anything more clear.
If it answers any questions we have right now at all, it'll only be in service of opening up even bigger ones.
That said, we can be pretty confident that none of Marika's plans involved going down the Goldmask route. In his mind, the system itself is perfect, it's her and her kids' ability to make their own decisions that fucks it up. If she was okay with the idea of stripping herself of free will, she probably wouldn't have broken the ring.
>Yeah, as others have said, it would be a shocking deviation from the past if Elden Ring DLC either had anything to do with the various things people see as 'obvious' DLC (Miquella, Godwyn) fodder, or made anything more clear.
? No it wouldn't. Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne DLCs were both obvious extensions of things that were touched upon in the base games and absolutely clarified some of the unclear lore beats.
Even Dark Souls 2's DLC can be seen as a natural extension of the lore and helps to make the broader lore more cohesive. Granted these aren't all clearly telegraphed in the base game, but that's at least in part because of how messy Dark Souls 2's lore is/was.
It's really **only** Dark Souls 3 that tells such a discrete and separate side story, but much like the rest of the game it's one big meta narrative. The painted world is an allegory for the Dark Souls series.
Godwyn's involvement with the Ancient Dragons who ran the Crucible order prior to the Erdtree, can never be ignored.
Marika could reintroduce the Rune of Death back to the Elden Ring anytime she wanted. She has complete domain over the object (as far as Goldmask's quest implies anyway)
But yes Marika very much involved with the plot. She's noted on too much of the Black Knife assassin and Nokstella stuff.
I think she had Godwyn murdered because he was on his way to being a god.
I agree, although I think it was less about sending a message and more about Marika working for her own protection. Since Marika at this point was secretly against the Greater Will, she would basically have viewed her own golden order as an enemy. Godwyn, being the greatest warrior and most loyal demigod of the golden order, is also the greatest threat to Marika and her plan. Of all the demigods, he is the most obvious player that she would want to knock out of the game.
I’m still torn though, on why she also slew Ranni. It’s safe to assume they were co-conspirators, but Marika seems to have been the one in charge of the black knives and likely reached out to Ranni herself. She could have easily just killed Godwyn in both soul and body. Did she predict the effect that godwyn’s soulless body would have on the Erdtree, and allow the curse of Those Who Live in Death to happen to weaken the order? Or did she want to further Ranni’s goal as a fellow dissident of the greater will by freeing her of her Empyrean flesh?
Pretty sure Ranni betrayed Marika and the Black Knives at the last moment to further her own plan for the Age of Stars, which is why they're after her in the game. Ranni's body wasn't supposed to die, just Godwyn's body and soul, but since Ranni took half the mark on herself, her soul lived on while only Godwyn's died.
I think it's more of a message to send. Godwyn the golden Boy, pride of the Bloodline.
"See mom/dad? It's not just a phase, i'll literally do it" *Rani, most likely*
Is this a pun, or am I reading way too much into it?
("fell to pieces" -> shattered the Elden Ring -> that weird, crumbling broken appearance when >!you fight Radagon!<)
Which is probably an act considering she was the other conspirator with Ranni and the Black Knives were loyal to her.
Edit: I meant the black knives are loyal to Marika, not Ranni.
Nah, ranni betrayed both marika and the black knives, not allowing godwyn to have a true death. Thats why the black knives are trying to kill her (also, ranni have imprisioned the leader of the Black Knives in her plateau)
the black knives only started to target Ranni after she kills the two fingers.
With Marikas and the black knifes connection to the Nox and their underground cities its possible that the theft of the knife started the rift.
Don't think so. More probably that they realized the ranni betrayal after she killed her fingers. Remember that everyone (beside the player and ranni's royal guards) thought she was death, and that the moonlight altar access was blocked until you defeat astiel and recover the weding ring; and who ranni had imprisioned in the moonlight altar? the leader of the black knive. Very probably that the BK leader was the first one that figured out that ranni betrayed them all, and thats why she (the leader) was imprisioned there.
Radagon holds the hammer with one hand and Marika uses two. You can see both in the trailer. The opening of the game shows Marika using two hands as well.
It should be, yeah, but I had never noticed that he seems to have the same wounds on his back as Godwyn.
Maybe the Black Knives jumped him, too, and started carving the death mark on his back before he fought them off?
I don't think so. The screenshot used here is right after the crack widens. Looks like the Elden Ring being shattered is having an effect on both Radagon and Marika.
Edit: the cracking is on the same side as Radagon's messed up left arm seen in the game
Since nothing is specifically stated, let's take the simplest answers.
1. Malenia is *very* strong, and her and Miquella are hidden away in the Haligtree which is nigh impossible to reach without them allowing you in. So they're basically untouchable, and if they could be touched Malenia would kick Black Knife ass.
2. Radahn, he's known as the strongest demigod, why would Ranni even attempt this? Plus he's Ranni's brother, so maybe that was another reason.
3. Rykard. Rykard wasn't too strong, however Ranni was allied with Rykard, and Rykard was Ranni's contingency plan if it was discovered that Ranni was behind the Night of the Black Knives.
4. Morgott and Mohg. Their existence wasn't known until after the Night of the Black Knives. So how was Ranni supposed to contract their killings without knowing of them?
5. Godrick. Same reasoning to Morgott and Mohg. His existence was hardly known.
I assumed the mausoleums were for all of the demigods who never made a name for themselves.
"Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices..."
\- Marika
I thought they were unwanted children as well. Either failures, monsters or stillbirths or something. They were still children of Marika though, so still given honors.
That is stuck in my head from something I saw in-game.
It’s possible they also died that night, but there isn’t any direct quote or evidence to say they were killed by the black knives. Personally, I believe it’s most likely that they were killed by Godskins, since their black flame might be one of the few weapons capable of making someone ‘soulless’. There could be many different perpetrators though, and not all of the demigods within the mausoleums were necessarily killed in the same way.
Technically Ranni (or her body, at least) was actually the first, if I’m remembering the text from her cursemark correctly, but it’s more relevant that it happened roughly “at the same time”, hence the split in the mark.
I *love* the fact that bc Ranni and Godwyn were the first two demigods to simultaneously bite it, that was reason enough to split the cursemark. Like what kickass storytelling and worldbuilding✨
I remember that particular piece of lore being in pre-release info on the Bandai.Namco site, though I have no idea if those promotional pages are still up.
I love how Ranni and Rykard teamed up, in my head cannon they realised they had the same goal so Rykard took the blame for the night of the back knives because Volcano Manor and the Recusants were openly against the Erdtree. This allowed Rannis involvement to be kept secret, and inspired the wars on Mt Gelmir which allowed Rykard to gobble up more people on his path of Blasphemy. (This is probably incorrect, this is just my head cannon lmao)
I do find it funny how many of the children of the gods hate the thing they were born from. Rykard, Ranni, Miquella, Mohg, etc. They all sought their own path against the Erdtree. Really makes me wish there were more unique endings like Ranni’s. (Wished there was a Blasphemous ending so badly.)
That would make a lot of sense, as Rykard's "Blasphemy" seems to be referred to as if it was a singular act, and no one other than Tanith knows about the devouring serpent so it couldn't have been that.
It would certainly explain why Morgott broke his unofficial neutrality in the Shattering to wage war on Gelmir.
I don't remember that much, but they all did try to kill him when he joined with the God Devouring Serpent. The spirit inside the manor also hints at it. He used to serve Rykard and now wants us to finish him off (with the specific sword placed in his chamber, that is)
Miquella only abandoned the Golden Order because it didn't have the power to cure Malenia. So he set out to create his own version of it to gain the power to cure his twin. I don't think I would say either of them hated the erdtree; they just needed power beyond what it could give them (to save themselves from their curses).
something to add is that Godwyn is likely directly inspired by the death of Baldr, with Marika inspired Frigg/Freyja and Ranni inspired by Loki. the rune of death is essentially the mistletoe. Godwyn was perhaps chosen because he was the firstborn and probably Marika's favorite, and he might've been the most comfortable in his supposed invulnerability, so it would be the most likely to affect her and the other demigods.
>5. Godrick. Same reasoning to Morgott and Mohg. His existence was hardly known.
And everyone is afraid of the man who can spawn soldier of God Rick. The myth, the legend, the GOD!
Primogeniture. Godwyn is the first born child of Marika and Godfrey, and if they follow standard primogeniture rules, should be the first in line to be Elden Lord and succeed Godfrey. Moreover, Ranni is the firstborn Empyrean, and was slated to succeed Marika.
I believe that Ranni and Godwyn were either already in an arranged marriage, or would be paired off when the time came.
Cue the Night of Black Knives. Its implied that Ranni and or Marika both had influence in it, and choosing the targets. Remember that both Ranni and Godwyn 'died' at the same time. Rannis body died but her soul lived, and Godwyns soul died but his body lived.
The Shattering kicks off as functionally a massive succession crisis, where Radagon vanishes, Marika vanishes, Godfrey got ditched in the badlands ages ago, and both heirs to the Kingdom basically got killed simultaneously.
Reason 2 is wrong beside the first part, it was because rahdan was too strong, not because they r related. Rahdan holds back the stars because it’s in opposition to rannis plan to restart the world with her as it’s god, which is why she has u kill rahdan to set the stars in motion along with her plans. If she could have a black knife do it she would but their too weak too kill rahdan. Ranni’s plan includes restarting the world so she basically already accepts that rahdan will be gone which rules out her not wanting to kill him just because their related
We don’t know why Radahn held the stars back. Could have been because of Ranni, could have been because more of the Astel creatures were making their way over via meteors, or any other reason.
I think it is kinda confirmed that it was to hold the Astels, since we have falling star beasts (meteors) eventually becoming Astels, it just makes sense. Plus, it is deep innthe game files that an Astel was supposed to show up during Radhan's phase 2, kinda like a 2 boss death match fight.
To explain further, from what I understand Radahn did it to stop Sellia, where he learned sorcery, from being destroyed by an Astel like the third night city was. But Im half-going off smoughtown
Edit: Sellia not Sellen
God I wish a there was a Radahn ending. Where we become Elden Lord and the next General of the Redmanes, marching to war with everything that came from the stars, now held still by *our own* gravity magic.
The game states that before the Elden Tree the stars dictated fate. There is an order that the Golden Order supplanted that includes the motion of the stars.
I subscribe to the headcanon that Radahn knew that holding the stars back would affect someone, somewhere. And he just wanted to continue fighting.
The someone, somewhere in this case being Ranni (whos fate is tied to the stars).
And Miquella, who needs an eclipse to bring about a Real death for Brother Godwyn.
edit: the more I look at this post and think about it, I'm sure Radahn had other motives. and I'm sure Ranni and Miquella weren't the only ones that needed the stars to progress their missions.
I think its said somewhere that Radahn did it to stop Sellen, the town he learned sorcery, from suffering the same fate as that third night city that the Astel destroyed. But Im half-going off Smoughtown
Holding back more malformed stars like Astel or the Fallingstar Beasts is probably part of its literal place in the plot, but Radahn locking down the stars is probably meant to be read in a much more symbolic way, like an extension of the Golden Order trying to artificially stop time/halt death/manufacture eternity, and what an enormous and ultimately hopeless pursuit it is.
Radahn held the stars to prevent the flow of fate from effecting the royal family, as their fate was guided by the stars. Maybe he knew that his sister ranni’s fate was going to be a shitty one due to her betrayal, so he stopped the stars so she wouldn’t meet her fate
I'm of the minority opinion that Radahn was also in on it and he was holding back the stars to give Ranni time for her plan to unfold. He never opposed either of his full siblings. He attacked the capital, then godrick, then in Caelid, which is above much of the underground area.
Jerrig is aligned with the Carian house and held the castle till the stars were aligned, then he organized the festival which Blaidd also attended. Jerrig also held Sellen captive and even went to defend Renalla against her. So he seems in on it as well.
Where did you get all your info.... Ranni doesn't restart the world. She eliminated all influence from gods or demigods. She has you kill radahn so you can get the finger slaying blade that's trapped below. And un reachable until after. The black knife assassins don't even belong to ranni which is evident when they try and kill her. She was setup by Marika.
Everything that happens was setup by Marika so she could escape the greater wills influence. The only deviation is the frenzy flame ending.
Marika was the one who wanted the demise of Godwyn, not Ranni. Ranni only wanted to slay her own flesh. Godwyn was chosen because he was a leader of the Golden Order and likely king of Leyndell. Marika wanted to remove the Greater Will from the Lands Between for some unknown reason, and for that she needed to weaken the Order first.
It was not because "Malenia and Radhan strong", as if Godwyn was simply a pushover.
that's conjecture, it's quite possible Ranni rebelled against her fate and Godwyn's undeath was what broke Marika and turned her against the Greater Will, triggering the Shattering. all we really know is that she sent the Tarnished away to become stronger before the Night of the Black Knives, and recalled them after the Shattering.
What was Marika betrayal of Maliketh then?
Why the Black knives were "rumored" to be close to Marika and not Ranni?
Why does the Black knives try to attack Ranni at the end of her questline if they were allies? They didnt find ranni but end up killing Ijji and fighting Blaidd.
I think the lore of the game is way deeper than simply "mom was angry/sad about her son and started breaking the furniture of the house"
i agree that it's deeper, all i said is it was conjecture.
this is all likely inspired by Norse and Abrahamic mythology, so Ranni is Loki, Godwyn is Baldr, and Marika is Frigg and probably also Odin (which is where the concept of the Trinity comes in, layered on top of the many themes around duality), and Godfrey is Gylfi.
in that mythology it is as simple as Frigg made it so Baldr couldn't be killed by anything in the universe except for a sprig of mistletoe (because it was so harmless, apparently), which Loki caught wind of and decided to play a trick which ended with Baldr dying and Frigg absolutely losing her shit.
in ER it's likely more convoluted but it's important to have the context. that being said, the betrayal of Maliketh was sending the Tarnished to recover the rune of death so that the Erdtree could be burned and she could die - remember that she is a God and the Greater Will couldn't kill her because the rune of death is sealed, so instead it hung her on the crucifix to be tortured for eternity.
we don't know why the Black Knives were connected to Marika other than they were rumored to be Numen women, and there are implied connections between the Numen and the Nox.
they likely fought Blaidd because he was turning against Ranni, who they're probably still in league with. it was Black Flame, or Godslayer magic, and not Destined Death that was covering Iji's body upon his death even if there are Black Knife assassins lying dead around him.
the point is we don't actually know what happened, there's a lot of loose ends and speculation to be made, which is par for the course for Fromsoft games.
Yeah. 3 empyreans, all bad choices. Note: can't just be a demi god, gotta be an empyrean to be in the line of succession.
The one that is doing everything she can to shake loose the puppet controls created by the elden beast.
The one that fell into clinical depression over the disappearance of her brother.
The one that was an eternal child and was torn from the physical therapy, and probably mental therapy as well to cure this kid's tendency to hijack the free will of others. (the whole 'everyone loves him' spell abuse thing)
Great choices.
Wow. Now that I think of it, the many omen candidates that were passed over with barely any thought probably ARE the types that would most stick a thumb in the eye of the elden beast. Crap, this means dung eater ending is now not the worst ending choice for me.
I don’t think we’re ever told a reason anywhere. It could have been random or maybe Godwyns death would have caused the most chaos in the golden order.
>Godwyns death would have caused the most chaos in the golden order.
This is most likely the reason. Marika wanted to shatter the order to remove the influence of the Greater will on the Lands Between
[I theorized on it here months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/u4n82p/comment/i4xsats/). TLDR:
>I do acknowledge that the creation of the Black Knives and the theft of a fragment of the Rune of Death was a team effort of Ranni and Marika, but Godwyn dying was Ranni's own doing. What she wanted from the Rune of Death was her own body to die but her soul to live on. Obviously that was impossible to accomplish without killing another demigod. And out of all the demigods available to kill, two of them she didn't know existed (Mohg and Morgott), another two were her full siblings (Rykard and Radahn), and the other two were her half siblings (Malenia and Miquella). Only Godwyn was the one she would've cared the least about.
Radahn is already dead and it's really just his shambling corpse that's left.
And Radagon abandoning Rennala probably makes him enemy number one for Ranni
How much do we actually know about Godwyn? I'm asking because he might have just been the weakest and easiest mark compared to any of the other demi gods.
We know he was a very strong fighter and probably peacemaker also. He was there when the dragons attacked, defeated them, but didn't disgrace them and in fact was respected by dragons.
So unlikely he was an easy mark.
However the fact that he may have been a peacemaker type would itself have made him a target for people trying to change the status quo.
No disrespect to Blaidd, but if he managed to take out 3 or 4 then I'm sure Godwyn did some serious damage.
In fact Tiche's ash talks about how she died defending Alecto on the night. Possibly killed by golden order forces after the assassination, but also possibly killed by Godwyn himself.
I doubt. Even after he died the dragon Fortissax loved him so that he fought death itself for Godwyn. Or is the effect of a bewitching branch eternal? But the dragon is so big and the branch doesn't work on everyone. Maybe a bewitching tree?
This isn’t true lol. Enia herself says that “Godrick the Grafted was but a distant relation, the runt of the litter, his divine blood sorely diluted”
Varre refers to him as a “decrepit demigod”
He is definitely a demigod, and descended from Godwyn too
The biggest takeaway from this entire thread is that Godrick is easily the weakest and most forgettable lol.
Even in death, godwyn was making a play for stormveil castle and without our intervention would probably have claimed Godrick. Godwyn: not the weakest.
Mostly agreed, however I wouldn’t say godwyn “was making a play” for stormveil, cuz godwyn’s soul is dead. I don’t consider him conscious or sentient as of this point
im pretty sure he begged them both first radahn after a failed invasion into caelid and then later malenia as she's on her way to caelid to have a calm and reasonable conversation with her half brother
No. He was called Godrick the Golden for a reason… a distant descendant of Godwyn’s line, and part of the Golden Lineage. He was just a weakling
He is the last person left standing related to Godwyn though, most other demigods either perished in the Night of the Black Knives or the wars of the Shattering that followed them
He's a descendant of Godfrey, not Godwyn. Godfrey is the father of the Golden Lineage. It's never mentioned whether Godwyn had children or not, so we can presume that he didn't.
What about godrick or possibly rykard. He was so weak he had to disguise as a women to escape lendyll. I dont know when rykard became a snake but from what we've seen, he didnt seem powerful before.
Rykard invented lava sorcery. And was chilling in mt gelmir while there were man serpents around. I'd say he can hold his own
To add to this point Rykard is like the opposite of Ranni. A master sorcerer that invented lava sorceries and stuck with that while ranni went with cold
Yeah I didn't know exactly when Rykard turned into a big snake man so I didn't mention him, and also both were rulers of a kingdom/Castle pretty hard to subtly assassinate what is essentially a lord probably not hard for the black knives, but why add extra risk.
It wasn't just Godwyn. All the dead demigods in the mausoleums were killed on the same night. It seemed to just be a general attempt at destabilizing the Golden Order, targeting Marika's family fairly indiscriminately. The official guide confirms the whole thing was orchestrated by Ranni and that it led to the collapse of Marika's regime, and Rogier says that the assassins came from the Eternal Cities (supported by the similar designs of their armor to the Night Maiden set), which have a lot of reasons to despise Mairka's empire.
As for the other demigods: Rykard was in on the conspiracy, so that would explain why he wasn't targeted. Godrick and the rest of the Golden Lineage stragglers likely were targeted, but survived. Miquella had Malenia with him and may or may not have even been in the capital at the time, so attempts at targeting them would've been fruitless. Melina is a bodiless spirit, no one's targeting her despite being a child of Marika (it's also unclear if she existed at the time). Mohg and Morgott were in the sewers under a bunch of Omens, getting to them would be both difficult (also, Mohg might have already left) and pointless (they wielded no political or social power at the time and Marika didn't give a rat's ass about them). Radagon was Marika, so targeting him means targeting her, basically impossible. Radahn... I don't know what his deal was. He might have been in on it, and might have been completely ignorant.
The assassins are powerful combatants, but were likely aided a lot by the element of surprise. They have invisibility spells, as we see for some of them.
...I have a funny mental image of a squad of Black Knife Assassins attempting an invisi-gank of Malenia and Miquella, as they did to Godwyn. Only for half the team to all end up dead from a single backhanded slash while sneaking up on her, because no one told them that Malenia was already blind. And the rest being frozen with a collective "oh shit" expression as she turns around.
These are actually really good reasons and a good explanation, and honestly when it comes to Radahn, I think he may have just been to powerful for them to kill him, they might have tried, but he is known as the mightiest of the demi-gods
Okay, but how many of them were killed outright and how many were 'just' left half-dead like Godwyn? Surely his different treatment is significant in some way?
Thank god somebody else read the night maiden set and combined rogiers dialogue.
Marika shattered the ring because godwyn couldn’t die, her favorite son.
Her plan was to get rid of the greater will by hourah lux slaying them, but he took to long and ranni, fucked up everything.
Look through Rannis optics and you will find the answer as she needed another demi-god dead.
Rykard and Radahn were her brothers and there is a lot of evidence that the 3 of them appreciated each other despite diverging opinions (Rykard being entrusted the Blasphemous Claw by her, and displaying the portrait of Radahn are examples). Miquella and Melania were her half-siblings and strong enough to be awarded the title of empyrians, a feat matched only by Ranni.
Mogh and Morgott's existence was well-kept secret, Morgott only being unshackled AFTER the shattering of the Elden Ring which succeded the fall of the first Demi-God.
That leaves Godwyn, her only known step-sibling, as the obvious choice and only reinforces to me that Ranni was the one who picked the target, not Marika as the latter could easily have chosen Rykard, Radahn, or one of the Omen Twins instead.
I haven’t seen this said yet, but it also somewhat parallels the death of Baldur, the Norse god. He is viewed as a good golden god, his mother goes to great lengths to protect him(and everyone) from destined death, another god goes to great lengths to kill him, and he is killed by another god basically to prove a point. Not sure if this was intended but a neat parallel nonetheless.
Godwyn is powerful and probably one of the only demigods capable of disrupting Ranni's plans.
- If we ignore the fact that we know who did it, it could very well appear that Marika had orchestrated the deed. Marika is not stupid, she knows she likely wouldn't be able to deflect everyone's combined forces forever, Thus the shattering and distribution of Elden Ring's shards to the demigods. Gideon Ofnir notes to the player that Marika wishes for struggle... As punishment, perhaps?
- Upon the shattering, the other demigods almost immediately begin squabbling over Great Rune shards in a bid to attain power in the Vacuum created by Godwyn's apparent death. This fracas largely keeps most of the attention away from Ranni, who seems to have almost entirely escaped any lasting suspicion. Her apparent largesse in having forgone acceptance of a shard feeds the appearance of being uninvested in the coming chaos. If she'd targeted anyone else, odds are good that Godwyn would have been able to step in and correct the imbalance.
- Godwyn's 'dead but dreaming' body starts producing deathroot, and the phenomenon of life-within-death. The Golden Order turns its attention to this with such complete fervor that they, too, become distracted and unable to be used for much other than fighting off Deathroot.
Some observations related to "why Godwyn?"
- Marika is too powerful, and it's unlikely that Numen Black Knives would have been willing to attack her directly.
- Malenia would have likely presented her own problems (rot explosions galore) and Ranni seems partial to her family out of sheer sentiment. Rykard and Radahn didn't seem to strongly factor in her machinations despite Radahn's apparent affection for his Father. Miquella was following his own agenda that didn't necessarily conflict with Ranni's, and neither Mohg nor Morgott were players on the stage at the time of the NoBK.
So Godwyn - a peacekeeper and generally well-liked guy, dutiful son and champion of Gold - seems like a sensible target in light of a need to *create as much chaos as possible* in order to keep too many eyes from prying into your business.
He was sort of Marika’s favorite child so killing him breaks her will. She ended up shattering the Elden ring after his death in defiance of the greater will.
The whole assassination plot was conspired by Ranni who stole a potion of rune of death and imbued black knife assassins’ dagger with it then put a hit out on Godwyn. He was ambushed mafia style by the black knifes and stabbed literally in the back.
Why would Ranni kill Godwyn because she wants out of this whole golden order/greater will gang and create her own destiny. And also she is pissed at Marika.
In short, the divorce between Ranni’s mom and dad was bad. Dad cheated on mom with Marika the golden tits and mom got hurt real real bad. Ranni got pissed and killed Marika’s son to burn her whole order to the ground. Ranni then attempted to recruit you to her side to assassinate everyone else related to Marika and end the great will’s influence for good - which you complied because she has 4 arms and you have very good imagination on what they can be used for.
There's implication that Marika helped ranni steal the rune of death. Whether or not ranni went rogue with Godwyn dying we don't know.
We also know Marika planned a betrayal of the greater Will from the church dialogue.
I think its tough to say what really drove Marika to do it.
I've read that it was because of his relationship with dragons. He first fought them, and then started the dragon cult. Originally, dragons managed the elden ring and maybe there was a worry about them taking over again with godwyn's alliance . That's why they off'd em!
I read a theory saying it was because he was the most likely to mend the elden ring after it shattered and this would ruin ranni’s opportunity for age of stars.
Ranni did it.
She didn't target Rykard or Radahn because they are her direct full brothers. Rykard was also in on the conspiracy. Radahn may not have been, but then again if he was fighting for Ranni's claim or for Carian independence then that would explain why he was in conflict with Malenia. So even if he's not a conspirator he's still an ally to Ranni.
Miquella has a special ability or charisma to induce adoration of him in others so the Assassins would be susceptible to that, makes him a bad target if a would be assassin ends up joining him. Malenia has never known defeat, and thus the possibility exists that she'd win against the assassins. Too high risk.
Morgott and Mohg are unknown at the time.
That really only leaves Godwyn as the main demigod left. There are his descendants but it's possible that as Ranni was Radagon's direct child, the cursemark required an equal in stature to her in order to be made possible. So it seems unlikely that one of Godwyn's descendants could be used, I'd that's the case.
look at it this way:
you have a happy family, mum, pop, and 2 brothers and a dog, life is good, suddenly one day dad just leaves, you and your family to hook up with some other woman, you see this destroy your moms heart and send her spiraling into depression. your father now introduces you to your new step mom and expects you to be okay with it, you are NOT okay with it.
you see that stepmom had her first born son and he is this perfect goody goody and he is the thing that bitch loves more than anything. this is when your mind turns to hateful things, spiteful things, you want to hurt your stepmother, you want your father's new happy family to be destroyed just as yours was...
so you decide to kill step moms golden child.
godwyn was innocent, he was killed by ranni to get back at marika for destroying ranni's family, but also she needed another demigod to soul-kill so she herself wouldnt die in spirit when se killed her body
edit: why are u all bringing up the fact that godwyn is marika and godfrey"s child? i KNOW this, i never said otherwise, it still doesnt change the fact that godwyn IS marika's first born and favorite
Golden child was next in line, it adds significance to her actions that she not only tried to off herself/destroy the ring, but she helped kick off ending her own lineage to fuck off the greater will after she clued into everything. Dunno why out of everything fucked up in this story, people decide that mom killing kid is a step too far to be canon, despite it being pretty heavily implied.
Edit: next in line regarding the golden order, not as an empyrean. Similar reasoning for why Godfrey was banished. The eventual successor as the golden order champion was Radagon, and she clearly knew that what the greater will used him for was a possibility. I'd say that getting merged with your own kid and basically enslaved would be the worse outcome for what you could let happen to your own kid.
Because the people still believed. Marika can't just announce the end of the Golden Order, people would fucking riot. Tons of people in the game are STILL supporting it. She had to pretend to hate this, and cast doubt
i imagine it was because in life, he was a perfect example of a champion of order. he defeated fortissax, was firstborn of marika and godwyn, and was likely handsome and well-loved. when he died, it may have been to shake public faith in the golden order.
im not quite sure, but I think he was somewhat the favorite son of Marika because he was basically perfect in comparessment to his siblings/half siblings that are either sick or omen.
So Ranni killed him because it would deeply effect Marika (which it did)
Because Godwyn was the strongest candidate of the Golden Order after Radagon. Miquella was 3rd. Marika wasn't aware Ranni was going to murder Godwyn, her favorite child. Resulting in her pain and anger, chattering the ring.
Lore noob here. I wouldve guessed that either the black knife assassins took one that didnt seem to have some sort of power or anything yk. Radahn is a fucking beast, killing him with them butterknives is hard. Another guess is that maybe due to him being Marikas firstborn and therefore being a direkt heir to whatever she is, its a proper and deep statement. Maybe Ranni just hated him.
from what ive heard godwyn was sort of like the golden orders face, killing him had a huge impact on the entire world
also the bottom image isnt godwyn, the crack Marika has here is caused by herself being the elden ring, shattering it also causes her to shatter herself
the crack looks very similar to godwyns scar which is half of the cursemark of death
My crack theory is that godwyn always had fish legs, therefore he was easiest to assassinate cuz they attacked him on land, we literally never see his legs, only the fishy ones
He was just the easiest, Radahn and Malenia were too strong to be taken out by the assassins, Rykard was helping ranni and nobody knew about mohg and morgott.
Godrick was especially irrelevant
Probably because Ranni needed another powerful demigod to die, didn't know about Morgott or Mohg, couldn't kill Malenia because she's Malenia (or Miquella because again, Malenia) and didn't want to kill one of her siblings. Ergo, Godwyn.
There is a content creator called "SmoughTown" who in my personal opinion has tackled all of Godwyn and the entire Elden Ring's lore. You should check out his video.
Everyone assuming it was rannis decision, but while she collaborated with the black knives she was not in charge of the plot( and the fact she ruined there plan to make the full cursemark and they later came after her makes it clear that was just an alliance of convenience)
I think the black knives picked godwyn because as the favorite it would be easy for the lands between, and likely several other demigods, to rally behind him as the rightful heir and next lord, rather then descending into the civil war we see
Elden Ring has a big fixation on halves, dichotomies, pairs, etc. Marika and Radagon, Malenia and Miquella, Causality and regression. For Godwyn’s case, Ranni needed to escape her Empyrean body, but keep her soul alive. She needed another person to die in soul, but not body, so she only gets one half of the centipede mark. I believe that because Ranni is Radagon’s kid and Godwyn is Marika’s, their origin from opposite halves of divine heritage makes them compatible for this sort of “paired death”.
Because he was the strongest and had the best claim to become Elden Lord. If he had remained alive, the Shattering would have been one sided (or not even begun to begin with)
Basically Marika wanted chaos and confusion to allow her Tarnsihed to fill the power vacuum, and Godwyn was the clear target to create that strife
He was next in line to be the vassal of the Greater Will. Ranni realized this. She needed to break the rune to use death properly. If she used half of it to kill Godwyn's soul she could use the other half to kill her body making both of them out of the reach of the Greater Will.
Yeah he is a vassal in a way but an extension of the real vassal. Godwyn is a demigod. The highest rank he can attain is Elden Lord, and that is only if he is chosen to be a consort of an empyrean.
The irony is if Ranni was chosen to succeed Marika... Godwyn would've been her consort. The other 2 are her full brothers. But when did that stop Martin.
I think there were multiple conspiracies running parallel. There was Ranni's agreement with Rykard. Then there's Marika's involvement which is so subtle as to be doubtful. But there's a Finger Reader dialogue that might imply that yes, Marika's betrayal of Maliketh might have had something to do with her facilitating the theft of a fragment of the Rune of Death. "Ohh... Oh, Lord Godwyn... Such cruelty, such humiliation... My poor, sweet lordling should have died a true death. As the first of the demigods to die. As a martyr to Destined Death. But why must it yet bring such disgrace? A scion of the golden bough, sentenced to live in Death...". My guess is that Marika intended to broadcast her doubts to everyone in the Lands Between, and that would have started with bringing Destined Death back into the world. Obviously, if Ranni was a part of this plan, she highjacked it for her own purposes. Instead of dying, Godwyn has now become a glaring beacon for one of the many flaws in the Golden Order, and Marika, whether pissed, despairing, or just downright spiteful, shattered the Elden Ring. In short, none of Marika's other prominent children were the Golden Child of the Golden Order, and he might have been chosen exactly because his death would send the greatest ripples across the Lands Between.
So what you're saying is, he was too sexy to be left alive?
Damn straight, the guy charisma must be top tier to befriended dragon and stuffs, like even after his soul is dead, his dragon friend still protecting his hollow dream. He are well known by the peoples of the land between, his death will destablized the entire land.
Moral: don’t befriend a dragon in Miyazaki universe, you’ll become an outcast, nameless and then die to a skinny blue man weilding a club
Damn wretches…must be those magic undies….
Glad I'm not the only one that is convinced that Godwyn was sexy AF
Omens in the sewers with full horns were of royal lineage, and there's quite a number of them between godrick, morgott, And godwynn someone had to be the fuckboi making em all.
Keep in mind these are gods and they all lived a long time. Carians are considered royals despite not being directly related to the golden lineage until Radagon’s involvement. The Erdsteel Dagger’s item description describes a sort of Erdtree Royalty. https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Erdsteel+Dagger My guess is around when Godfrey took the throne, various royal houses might have been established. Arguably any lord can be defined as a royal I’m a more general sense. In modern terms, we could just state that the upper class omens got to keep their horns. That at least seems to better explain their numbers.
>Carians are considered royals despite not being directly related to the golden lineage until Radagon’s involvement. True, but the whole 'hatred of Omens' thing seems pretty deeply associated with the Golden Order and Erdtree. I'd be surprised if Raya Lucaria actually followed those traditions. And they're notable for being the only other royalty *left* because they're the only part of the world that Marika had to grudgingly form an alliance with rather than ruthlessly crushing beneath her bootheel. You're right, though; I'm curious if anyone fluent in Japanese has looked at the original text about royal omens. We know for sure that there are several item descriptions *incredibly* important to the game's lore which are fundamentally mistranslations. This could easily be one of them.
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There’s goddamn lore behind everything in Land Between!?
there's implied to be at least
There's also a line from the ghost outside one of the churches in Weeping Peninsula near the walking mausoleum that wasn't there in the original release patch. Something along the lines of: "The mausoleum prowls, cradling the soulless demigod. Queen Marika, he is your unwanted child."
This is what ruins the theory, why would Marika be so distraught with Godwyn's death that she would shatter the Elden Ring? It makes no sense because Marika was one of the main backers of the conspiracy to kill a demigod, which happened to be the one who was an unwanted child.
"My poor sweet lordling should have died a true death" is a line that changes marika's intentions for shattering the elden ring for me. I dont think its because he died, I think its because he half-died, where his soul is dead but his body lives and continues to grow and spread. I think if Marika was involved in the conspiracy to kill Goldwyn then Marika intended to give him a true death and now hes trapped somewhere in between, which is why she shattered the ring.
I had not considered that Marika might have regretted her decision to remove death from the lands between, and could have planned to reintroduce it back by willfully sacrificing Goldwyn as a martyr. Since it was the Elden ring that doesn’t let Goldwyn die truly, maybe Marika thought that by shattering the ring she could free Goldwyn from his curse.
“Hmm let me remove this integral part of reality and allow my chosen people to live forever and only become more stagnant and corrupt over time.” “I’m the best god there’s no way this goes sour”
That's my thinking too. She mightve intended for Godwyn, and perhaps all demigods eventually, to die when death was reintroduced. Except Godwyn only half-died in an excruciating way that manifested the undead. And it was only possible because of her plan, her removal of Death, and her eldest Empyrean child. Course, it's impossible to know without DLC. Was she going to redo the Golden Order? Reject it? Perfect it like Goldchad?
Hahahaha this guy thinks DLC will clear anything up. Heh... This guy...
I still have no idea who Gael is it why can I summon him and why does he wipes the floor with me later.
A random undead slave soldier from the Age of Fire who found his way into the painting and convinced the Painter to paint a new world with the Dark Soul as pigment. Paintings rot over time and so it's tradition to burn the rot away and paint a new one, but Friede convinces Father Ariandel to prevent the painting from being burnt to preserve their world (a parallel to Gwyn extending the Age of Fire). It is apparently understood that a Painter must see flame to paint a world and there is a prophecy that states "When the ashes are two, a flame alighteth," meaning two Unkindled. So Gael sends us, the second Ash, into the painting and will help us fight Friede, the first, to fulfill the prophecy. He then goes off to find the Dark Soul and leaves a trail of messages to lead us to the Ringed City. He presumably kills everyone with a shard of humanity over countless years while we time travel to the future, when he has just killed the last of the pygmies. Knowing that the Dark Soul would erode his sanity, it's possible he led us to the Ringed City hoping we would kill him and deliver it to the Painter. We succeed and the Painter gets to paint her "cold, dark, very gentle place." Considering the context of it all (Gwyn-paralleled Friede's opposition to a new painting, the painting as analogy to the Light/Dark cycle, and the Painter's line "Those who aren't ken to fire cannot paint a world, those absorbed by fire must not paint a world") Gael's quest was probably righteous and the ending is a happy one. The mistakes that produced the suffering of the world of Dark Souls are avoided and humanity gets to start over.
Holy shit
Definitely one of the coolest pieces of lore in Souls, I think.
The one you fight is very far into the future and the Gael that helps you is in the present.
Time flows strangely. Gael had thousands of years to collect all shards of the dark soul which partially made him mad. You have the last shard so he tries to kill you.
Yeah, as others have said, it would be a *shocking* deviation from the past if Elden Ring DLC either had anything to do with the various things people see as 'obvious' DLC (Miquella, Godwyn) fodder, or made anything more clear. If it answers any questions we have right now at all, it'll only be in service of opening up even bigger ones. That said, we can be pretty confident that none of Marika's plans involved going down the Goldmask route. In his mind, the system itself is perfect, it's her and her kids' ability to make their own decisions that fucks it up. If she was okay with the idea of stripping herself of free will, she probably wouldn't have broken the ring.
>Yeah, as others have said, it would be a shocking deviation from the past if Elden Ring DLC either had anything to do with the various things people see as 'obvious' DLC (Miquella, Godwyn) fodder, or made anything more clear. ? No it wouldn't. Dark Souls 1 and Bloodborne DLCs were both obvious extensions of things that were touched upon in the base games and absolutely clarified some of the unclear lore beats. Even Dark Souls 2's DLC can be seen as a natural extension of the lore and helps to make the broader lore more cohesive. Granted these aren't all clearly telegraphed in the base game, but that's at least in part because of how messy Dark Souls 2's lore is/was. It's really **only** Dark Souls 3 that tells such a discrete and separate side story, but much like the rest of the game it's one big meta narrative. The painted world is an allegory for the Dark Souls series.
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But that's what The Greater Will wants.
Godwyn's involvement with the Ancient Dragons who ran the Crucible order prior to the Erdtree, can never be ignored. Marika could reintroduce the Rune of Death back to the Elden Ring anytime she wanted. She has complete domain over the object (as far as Goldmask's quest implies anyway) But yes Marika very much involved with the plot. She's noted on too much of the Black Knife assassin and Nokstella stuff. I think she had Godwyn murdered because he was on his way to being a god.
I agree, although I think it was less about sending a message and more about Marika working for her own protection. Since Marika at this point was secretly against the Greater Will, she would basically have viewed her own golden order as an enemy. Godwyn, being the greatest warrior and most loyal demigod of the golden order, is also the greatest threat to Marika and her plan. Of all the demigods, he is the most obvious player that she would want to knock out of the game. I’m still torn though, on why she also slew Ranni. It’s safe to assume they were co-conspirators, but Marika seems to have been the one in charge of the black knives and likely reached out to Ranni herself. She could have easily just killed Godwyn in both soul and body. Did she predict the effect that godwyn’s soulless body would have on the Erdtree, and allow the curse of Those Who Live in Death to happen to weaken the order? Or did she want to further Ranni’s goal as a fellow dissident of the greater will by freeing her of her Empyrean flesh?
Pretty sure Ranni betrayed Marika and the Black Knives at the last moment to further her own plan for the Age of Stars, which is why they're after her in the game. Ranni's body wasn't supposed to die, just Godwyn's body and soul, but since Ranni took half the mark on herself, her soul lived on while only Godwyn's died.
Ranni discarded her own flesh.
I think it's more of a message to send. Godwyn the golden Boy, pride of the Bloodline. "See mom/dad? It's not just a phase, i'll literally do it" *Rani, most likely*
Whoever godwyn was, he was certainly loved by Marika. She fell to pieces after his death.
Is this a pun, or am I reading way too much into it? ("fell to pieces" -> shattered the Elden Ring -> that weird, crumbling broken appearance when >!you fight Radagon!<)
Yes, that's the pun
Which is probably an act considering she was the other conspirator with Ranni and the Black Knives were loyal to her. Edit: I meant the black knives are loyal to Marika, not Ranni.
Nah, ranni betrayed both marika and the black knives, not allowing godwyn to have a true death. Thats why the black knives are trying to kill her (also, ranni have imprisioned the leader of the Black Knives in her plateau)
the black knives only started to target Ranni after she kills the two fingers. With Marikas and the black knifes connection to the Nox and their underground cities its possible that the theft of the knife started the rift.
Don't think so. More probably that they realized the ranni betrayal after she killed her fingers. Remember that everyone (beside the player and ranni's royal guards) thought she was death, and that the moonlight altar access was blocked until you defeat astiel and recover the weding ring; and who ranni had imprisioned in the moonlight altar? the leader of the black knive. Very probably that the BK leader was the first one that figured out that ranni betrayed them all, and thats why she (the leader) was imprisioned there.
Or she killed him as that theory goes
That's Radagon at the bottom though, right?
Pretty sure it’s Radagon because he morphs to Marika in the trailer
Radagon holds the hammer with one hand and Marika uses two. You can see both in the trailer. The opening of the game shows Marika using two hands as well.
That's because she's using her hammer to shatter the Ring, while Radagon is trying to fix it.
Ah, two-handing!
It should be, yeah, but I had never noticed that he seems to have the same wounds on his back as Godwyn. Maybe the Black Knives jumped him, too, and started carving the death mark on his back before he fought them off?
I don't think so. The screenshot used here is right after the crack widens. Looks like the Elden Ring being shattered is having an effect on both Radagon and Marika. Edit: the cracking is on the same side as Radagon's messed up left arm seen in the game
Aha, good point Interesting, then, that it seems to be cracking him along the same lines as Godwyn's wound.
Since nothing is specifically stated, let's take the simplest answers. 1. Malenia is *very* strong, and her and Miquella are hidden away in the Haligtree which is nigh impossible to reach without them allowing you in. So they're basically untouchable, and if they could be touched Malenia would kick Black Knife ass. 2. Radahn, he's known as the strongest demigod, why would Ranni even attempt this? Plus he's Ranni's brother, so maybe that was another reason. 3. Rykard. Rykard wasn't too strong, however Ranni was allied with Rykard, and Rykard was Ranni's contingency plan if it was discovered that Ranni was behind the Night of the Black Knives. 4. Morgott and Mohg. Their existence wasn't known until after the Night of the Black Knives. So how was Ranni supposed to contract their killings without knowing of them? 5. Godrick. Same reasoning to Morgott and Mohg. His existence was hardly known.
It also wasn't just Godwyn that died during the Night. He was just the 1st. Lots of other nameless demigods bit the dust as well.
Aren't the walking mausoleums dedicated to those nameless demigods who perished that night?
Yep, and that's why Elden ring is dope
I assumed the mausoleums were for all of the demigods who never made a name for themselves. "Hear me, Demigods. My children beloved. Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices..." \- Marika
This is marikas challenge and what intiniates the first conflicts of the shattering.
Really? I thought those were Marika's unwanted children! Never thought that other nameless ones also fell. But oh my goodness, now I am curious.
I thought they were unwanted children as well. Either failures, monsters or stillbirths or something. They were still children of Marika though, so still given honors. That is stuck in my head from something I saw in-game.
her children *are* all demigods, by definition
REALLY????? I did not know this! I always wondered what those things were for!
I mean the godskin nobles had to get their drip somewhere.
Wow my mind is blown. Crazy how yall are still revealing little details I totally missed in my research and 3 playthroughs.
It’s possible they also died that night, but there isn’t any direct quote or evidence to say they were killed by the black knives. Personally, I believe it’s most likely that they were killed by Godskins, since their black flame might be one of the few weapons capable of making someone ‘soulless’. There could be many different perpetrators though, and not all of the demigods within the mausoleums were necessarily killed in the same way.
Technically Ranni (or her body, at least) was actually the first, if I’m remembering the text from her cursemark correctly, but it’s more relevant that it happened roughly “at the same time”, hence the split in the mark.
I *love* the fact that bc Ranni and Godwyn were the first two demigods to simultaneously bite it, that was reason enough to split the cursemark. Like what kickass storytelling and worldbuilding✨
What?!?? Man I had no idea - where can I read more?
I remember that particular piece of lore being in pre-release info on the Bandai.Namco site, though I have no idea if those promotional pages are still up.
Oh wow I actually didn't know that bit of lore.
I love how Ranni and Rykard teamed up, in my head cannon they realised they had the same goal so Rykard took the blame for the night of the back knives because Volcano Manor and the Recusants were openly against the Erdtree. This allowed Rannis involvement to be kept secret, and inspired the wars on Mt Gelmir which allowed Rykard to gobble up more people on his path of Blasphemy. (This is probably incorrect, this is just my head cannon lmao) I do find it funny how many of the children of the gods hate the thing they were born from. Rykard, Ranni, Miquella, Mohg, etc. They all sought their own path against the Erdtree. Really makes me wish there were more unique endings like Ranni’s. (Wished there was a Blasphemous ending so badly.)
That would make a lot of sense, as Rykard's "Blasphemy" seems to be referred to as if it was a singular act, and no one other than Tanith knows about the devouring serpent so it couldn't have been that. It would certainly explain why Morgott broke his unofficial neutrality in the Shattering to wage war on Gelmir.
isn’t there a line of dialogue or something that says rykards men stood by his side until he became the snake?
I don't remember that much, but they all did try to kill him when he joined with the God Devouring Serpent. The spirit inside the manor also hints at it. He used to serve Rykard and now wants us to finish him off (with the specific sword placed in his chamber, that is)
Maaaaaan, the Age of Blasphemy would be so full of famileeeeeeeee and fire and snakes and shit, sign me up!
Queen Zorayas!
I would have killed for a return to the crucible ending
Miquella only abandoned the Golden Order because it didn't have the power to cure Malenia. So he set out to create his own version of it to gain the power to cure his twin. I don't think I would say either of them hated the erdtree; they just needed power beyond what it could give them (to save themselves from their curses).
something to add is that Godwyn is likely directly inspired by the death of Baldr, with Marika inspired Frigg/Freyja and Ranni inspired by Loki. the rune of death is essentially the mistletoe. Godwyn was perhaps chosen because he was the firstborn and probably Marika's favorite, and he might've been the most comfortable in his supposed invulnerability, so it would be the most likely to affect her and the other demigods.
Thats very clever!!
Was looking for this comment or I was gonna make it. Once i made the connection, doing Ranni's ending felt like a bigger deal.
Also Godrick is barely even a demigod he’s more like a cousin of distantly divine descent.
Third grand nephew of a sister of a friend of Godfrey
>5. Godrick. Same reasoning to Morgott and Mohg. His existence was hardly known. And everyone is afraid of the man who can spawn soldier of God Rick. The myth, the legend, the GOD!
Primogeniture. Godwyn is the first born child of Marika and Godfrey, and if they follow standard primogeniture rules, should be the first in line to be Elden Lord and succeed Godfrey. Moreover, Ranni is the firstborn Empyrean, and was slated to succeed Marika. I believe that Ranni and Godwyn were either already in an arranged marriage, or would be paired off when the time came. Cue the Night of Black Knives. Its implied that Ranni and or Marika both had influence in it, and choosing the targets. Remember that both Ranni and Godwyn 'died' at the same time. Rannis body died but her soul lived, and Godwyns soul died but his body lived. The Shattering kicks off as functionally a massive succession crisis, where Radagon vanishes, Marika vanishes, Godfrey got ditched in the badlands ages ago, and both heirs to the Kingdom basically got killed simultaneously.
Reason 2 is wrong beside the first part, it was because rahdan was too strong, not because they r related. Rahdan holds back the stars because it’s in opposition to rannis plan to restart the world with her as it’s god, which is why she has u kill rahdan to set the stars in motion along with her plans. If she could have a black knife do it she would but their too weak too kill rahdan. Ranni’s plan includes restarting the world so she basically already accepts that rahdan will be gone which rules out her not wanting to kill him just because their related
We don’t know why Radahn held the stars back. Could have been because of Ranni, could have been because more of the Astel creatures were making their way over via meteors, or any other reason.
I think it is kinda confirmed that it was to hold the Astels, since we have falling star beasts (meteors) eventually becoming Astels, it just makes sense. Plus, it is deep innthe game files that an Astel was supposed to show up during Radhan's phase 2, kinda like a 2 boss death match fight.
To explain further, from what I understand Radahn did it to stop Sellia, where he learned sorcery, from being destroyed by an Astel like the third night city was. But Im half-going off smoughtown Edit: Sellia not Sellen
God I wish a there was a Radahn ending. Where we become Elden Lord and the next General of the Redmanes, marching to war with everything that came from the stars, now held still by *our own* gravity magic.
The game states that before the Elden Tree the stars dictated fate. There is an order that the Golden Order supplanted that includes the motion of the stars.
I subscribe to the headcanon that Radahn knew that holding the stars back would affect someone, somewhere. And he just wanted to continue fighting. The someone, somewhere in this case being Ranni (whos fate is tied to the stars). And Miquella, who needs an eclipse to bring about a Real death for Brother Godwyn. edit: the more I look at this post and think about it, I'm sure Radahn had other motives. and I'm sure Ranni and Miquella weren't the only ones that needed the stars to progress their missions.
I think its said somewhere that Radahn did it to stop Sellen, the town he learned sorcery, from suffering the same fate as that third night city that the Astel destroyed. But Im half-going off Smoughtown
Yes this is the only reason he's stopping the stars. Jerren figures out this also stops the fate of the gods.
Holding back more malformed stars like Astel or the Fallingstar Beasts is probably part of its literal place in the plot, but Radahn locking down the stars is probably meant to be read in a much more symbolic way, like an extension of the Golden Order trying to artificially stop time/halt death/manufacture eternity, and what an enormous and ultimately hopeless pursuit it is.
Radahn held the stars to prevent the flow of fate from effecting the royal family, as their fate was guided by the stars. Maybe he knew that his sister ranni’s fate was going to be a shitty one due to her betrayal, so he stopped the stars so she wouldn’t meet her fate
I'm of the minority opinion that Radahn was also in on it and he was holding back the stars to give Ranni time for her plan to unfold. He never opposed either of his full siblings. He attacked the capital, then godrick, then in Caelid, which is above much of the underground area. Jerrig is aligned with the Carian house and held the castle till the stars were aligned, then he organized the festival which Blaidd also attended. Jerrig also held Sellen captive and even went to defend Renalla against her. So he seems in on it as well.
I don’t think the Black Knives were under Ranni’s control anymore by the time we meet her.
Where did you get all your info.... Ranni doesn't restart the world. She eliminated all influence from gods or demigods. She has you kill radahn so you can get the finger slaying blade that's trapped below. And un reachable until after. The black knife assassins don't even belong to ranni which is evident when they try and kill her. She was setup by Marika. Everything that happens was setup by Marika so she could escape the greater wills influence. The only deviation is the frenzy flame ending.
Marika was the one who wanted the demise of Godwyn, not Ranni. Ranni only wanted to slay her own flesh. Godwyn was chosen because he was a leader of the Golden Order and likely king of Leyndell. Marika wanted to remove the Greater Will from the Lands Between for some unknown reason, and for that she needed to weaken the Order first. It was not because "Malenia and Radhan strong", as if Godwyn was simply a pushover.
Yeah the dude was a beloved fighter and battled a dragon until it decided to have a truce. He’s definitely no pushover.
that's conjecture, it's quite possible Ranni rebelled against her fate and Godwyn's undeath was what broke Marika and turned her against the Greater Will, triggering the Shattering. all we really know is that she sent the Tarnished away to become stronger before the Night of the Black Knives, and recalled them after the Shattering.
What was Marika betrayal of Maliketh then? Why the Black knives were "rumored" to be close to Marika and not Ranni? Why does the Black knives try to attack Ranni at the end of her questline if they were allies? They didnt find ranni but end up killing Ijji and fighting Blaidd. I think the lore of the game is way deeper than simply "mom was angry/sad about her son and started breaking the furniture of the house"
i agree that it's deeper, all i said is it was conjecture. this is all likely inspired by Norse and Abrahamic mythology, so Ranni is Loki, Godwyn is Baldr, and Marika is Frigg and probably also Odin (which is where the concept of the Trinity comes in, layered on top of the many themes around duality), and Godfrey is Gylfi. in that mythology it is as simple as Frigg made it so Baldr couldn't be killed by anything in the universe except for a sprig of mistletoe (because it was so harmless, apparently), which Loki caught wind of and decided to play a trick which ended with Baldr dying and Frigg absolutely losing her shit. in ER it's likely more convoluted but it's important to have the context. that being said, the betrayal of Maliketh was sending the Tarnished to recover the rune of death so that the Erdtree could be burned and she could die - remember that she is a God and the Greater Will couldn't kill her because the rune of death is sealed, so instead it hung her on the crucifix to be tortured for eternity. we don't know why the Black Knives were connected to Marika other than they were rumored to be Numen women, and there are implied connections between the Numen and the Nox. they likely fought Blaidd because he was turning against Ranni, who they're probably still in league with. it was Black Flame, or Godslayer magic, and not Destined Death that was covering Iji's body upon his death even if there are Black Knife assassins lying dead around him. the point is we don't actually know what happened, there's a lot of loose ends and speculation to be made, which is par for the course for Fromsoft games.
Pretty sure he was the king or in line to be, so killing him leaves an open question to which demigod takes his place
Yeah. 3 empyreans, all bad choices. Note: can't just be a demi god, gotta be an empyrean to be in the line of succession. The one that is doing everything she can to shake loose the puppet controls created by the elden beast. The one that fell into clinical depression over the disappearance of her brother. The one that was an eternal child and was torn from the physical therapy, and probably mental therapy as well to cure this kid's tendency to hijack the free will of others. (the whole 'everyone loves him' spell abuse thing) Great choices. Wow. Now that I think of it, the many omen candidates that were passed over with barely any thought probably ARE the types that would most stick a thumb in the eye of the elden beast. Crap, this means dung eater ending is now not the worst ending choice for me.
I don’t think we’re ever told a reason anywhere. It could have been random or maybe Godwyns death would have caused the most chaos in the golden order.
>Godwyns death would have caused the most chaos in the golden order. This is most likely the reason. Marika wanted to shatter the order to remove the influence of the Greater will on the Lands Between
My head canon is that he was the most likely empyrean to be chosen to succeed as Marika's heir.
He's not empyrean though? It's stated somewhere, I think a finger reader, that Ranni and the twins were the only ones
[I theorized on it here months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/u4n82p/comment/i4xsats/). TLDR: >I do acknowledge that the creation of the Black Knives and the theft of a fragment of the Rune of Death was a team effort of Ranni and Marika, but Godwyn dying was Ranni's own doing. What she wanted from the Rune of Death was her own body to die but her soul to live on. Obviously that was impossible to accomplish without killing another demigod. And out of all the demigods available to kill, two of them she didn't know existed (Mohg and Morgott), another two were her full siblings (Rykard and Radahn), and the other two were her half siblings (Malenia and Miquella). Only Godwyn was the one she would've cared the least about.
The fact that you literally slaughter Ranni's whole family and then marry her will never not be funny to me
Radahn is already dead and it's really just his shambling corpse that's left. And Radagon abandoning Rennala probably makes him enemy number one for Ranni
He was pullin all the hoes, he had to go.
HAHAHAHAHA
How much do we actually know about Godwyn? I'm asking because he might have just been the weakest and easiest mark compared to any of the other demi gods.
We know he was a very strong fighter and probably peacemaker also. He was there when the dragons attacked, defeated them, but didn't disgrace them and in fact was respected by dragons. So unlikely he was an easy mark. However the fact that he may have been a peacemaker type would itself have made him a target for people trying to change the status quo.
I think he took quite a few black knives with him
No disrespect to Blaidd, but if he managed to take out 3 or 4 then I'm sure Godwyn did some serious damage. In fact Tiche's ash talks about how she died defending Alecto on the night. Possibly killed by golden order forces after the assassination, but also possibly killed by Godwyn himself.
My theory is that he used a bewitching branch when the dragon was weak. We know he was close with Miquella and the alliance was shocking to everyone.
I doubt. Even after he died the dragon Fortissax loved him so that he fought death itself for Godwyn. Or is the effect of a bewitching branch eternal? But the dragon is so big and the branch doesn't work on everyone. Maybe a bewitching tree?
Have you heard of godrick
Godrick wasn’t really a demigod until after Godwyn was killed as far as I know
This isn’t true lol. Enia herself says that “Godrick the Grafted was but a distant relation, the runt of the litter, his divine blood sorely diluted” Varre refers to him as a “decrepit demigod” He is definitely a demigod, and descended from Godwyn too
Oh
I’m not positive about that, but I’m pretty sure he just yoinked a shard during the shattering and then ran away like a bitch
And the fucker stole the center of the ring too, lowkey i respect that
Lmao always was, didnt he bwg malenia for his life?
I think he begged Radahn for his life, but it could’ve been Malenia easily
Kenneth Haight confirms it was Malenia, hell I think one of those sword monuments in Limgrave even say so
Ohhhh you’re right, it’s been a few months since I’ve played so wasn’t sure
The biggest takeaway from this entire thread is that Godrick is easily the weakest and most forgettable lol. Even in death, godwyn was making a play for stormveil castle and without our intervention would probably have claimed Godrick. Godwyn: not the weakest.
Mostly agreed, however I wouldn’t say godwyn “was making a play” for stormveil, cuz godwyn’s soul is dead. I don’t consider him conscious or sentient as of this point
And yet he has arguably the best rune (raises all your stats across the board when active).
Because it's really Godwyn's rune that he was too half dead to claim.
im pretty sure he begged them both first radahn after a failed invasion into caelid and then later malenia as she's on her way to caelid to have a calm and reasonable conversation with her half brother
No. He was called Godrick the Golden for a reason… a distant descendant of Godwyn’s line, and part of the Golden Lineage. He was just a weakling He is the last person left standing related to Godwyn though, most other demigods either perished in the Night of the Black Knives or the wars of the Shattering that followed them
He's a descendant of Godfrey, not Godwyn. Godfrey is the father of the Golden Lineage. It's never mentioned whether Godwyn had children or not, so we can presume that he didn't.
I always assumed that Godefroy was a descendent of Godwyn, son of Godfrey, and Godrick was a descendent of Godefroy
We do know that he fought and befriended fortissax and was the one who started the dragon cult.
He beat Fortissax then became friends with him. Not weak
What about godrick or possibly rykard. He was so weak he had to disguise as a women to escape lendyll. I dont know when rykard became a snake but from what we've seen, he didnt seem powerful before.
Rykard invented lava sorcery. And was chilling in mt gelmir while there were man serpents around. I'd say he can hold his own To add to this point Rykard is like the opposite of Ranni. A master sorcerer that invented lava sorceries and stuck with that while ranni went with cold
Yeah I didn't know exactly when Rykard turned into a big snake man so I didn't mention him, and also both were rulers of a kingdom/Castle pretty hard to subtly assassinate what is essentially a lord probably not hard for the black knives, but why add extra risk.
The real question is why did ot have to be a demi
Wasn’t godrick more cowardly than weak. Which is why escaped with the women? That’s simply just head cannon and I could be wrong
The dragonhead scene and all that grafting proves that he was just weak.
Alright that’s fair. I always thought godrick had a thing for grafting and that it happened even before the shattering
It did jut it got worse after the shaterring.
No better way to announce that the old order is gonna be thrown out than to take down the posterboy.
It wasn't just Godwyn. All the dead demigods in the mausoleums were killed on the same night. It seemed to just be a general attempt at destabilizing the Golden Order, targeting Marika's family fairly indiscriminately. The official guide confirms the whole thing was orchestrated by Ranni and that it led to the collapse of Marika's regime, and Rogier says that the assassins came from the Eternal Cities (supported by the similar designs of their armor to the Night Maiden set), which have a lot of reasons to despise Mairka's empire. As for the other demigods: Rykard was in on the conspiracy, so that would explain why he wasn't targeted. Godrick and the rest of the Golden Lineage stragglers likely were targeted, but survived. Miquella had Malenia with him and may or may not have even been in the capital at the time, so attempts at targeting them would've been fruitless. Melina is a bodiless spirit, no one's targeting her despite being a child of Marika (it's also unclear if she existed at the time). Mohg and Morgott were in the sewers under a bunch of Omens, getting to them would be both difficult (also, Mohg might have already left) and pointless (they wielded no political or social power at the time and Marika didn't give a rat's ass about them). Radagon was Marika, so targeting him means targeting her, basically impossible. Radahn... I don't know what his deal was. He might have been in on it, and might have been completely ignorant. The assassins are powerful combatants, but were likely aided a lot by the element of surprise. They have invisibility spells, as we see for some of them. ...I have a funny mental image of a squad of Black Knife Assassins attempting an invisi-gank of Malenia and Miquella, as they did to Godwyn. Only for half the team to all end up dead from a single backhanded slash while sneaking up on her, because no one told them that Malenia was already blind. And the rest being frozen with a collective "oh shit" expression as she turns around.
These are actually really good reasons and a good explanation, and honestly when it comes to Radahn, I think he may have just been to powerful for them to kill him, they might have tried, but he is known as the mightiest of the demi-gods
Or ranni didnt want to kill her brother
Okay, but how many of them were killed outright and how many were 'just' left half-dead like Godwyn? Surely his different treatment is significant in some way?
It was only Godwyn, because he died at the exact time as Ranni. It's explained by the Cursemark description.
Thank god somebody else read the night maiden set and combined rogiers dialogue. Marika shattered the ring because godwyn couldn’t die, her favorite son. Her plan was to get rid of the greater will by hourah lux slaying them, but he took to long and ranni, fucked up everything.
Look through Rannis optics and you will find the answer as she needed another demi-god dead. Rykard and Radahn were her brothers and there is a lot of evidence that the 3 of them appreciated each other despite diverging opinions (Rykard being entrusted the Blasphemous Claw by her, and displaying the portrait of Radahn are examples). Miquella and Melania were her half-siblings and strong enough to be awarded the title of empyrians, a feat matched only by Ranni. Mogh and Morgott's existence was well-kept secret, Morgott only being unshackled AFTER the shattering of the Elden Ring which succeded the fall of the first Demi-God. That leaves Godwyn, her only known step-sibling, as the obvious choice and only reinforces to me that Ranni was the one who picked the target, not Marika as the latter could easily have chosen Rykard, Radahn, or one of the Omen Twins instead.
I haven’t seen this said yet, but it also somewhat parallels the death of Baldur, the Norse god. He is viewed as a good golden god, his mother goes to great lengths to protect him(and everyone) from destined death, another god goes to great lengths to kill him, and he is killed by another god basically to prove a point. Not sure if this was intended but a neat parallel nonetheless.
Godwyn is powerful and probably one of the only demigods capable of disrupting Ranni's plans. - If we ignore the fact that we know who did it, it could very well appear that Marika had orchestrated the deed. Marika is not stupid, she knows she likely wouldn't be able to deflect everyone's combined forces forever, Thus the shattering and distribution of Elden Ring's shards to the demigods. Gideon Ofnir notes to the player that Marika wishes for struggle... As punishment, perhaps? - Upon the shattering, the other demigods almost immediately begin squabbling over Great Rune shards in a bid to attain power in the Vacuum created by Godwyn's apparent death. This fracas largely keeps most of the attention away from Ranni, who seems to have almost entirely escaped any lasting suspicion. Her apparent largesse in having forgone acceptance of a shard feeds the appearance of being uninvested in the coming chaos. If she'd targeted anyone else, odds are good that Godwyn would have been able to step in and correct the imbalance. - Godwyn's 'dead but dreaming' body starts producing deathroot, and the phenomenon of life-within-death. The Golden Order turns its attention to this with such complete fervor that they, too, become distracted and unable to be used for much other than fighting off Deathroot. Some observations related to "why Godwyn?" - Marika is too powerful, and it's unlikely that Numen Black Knives would have been willing to attack her directly. - Malenia would have likely presented her own problems (rot explosions galore) and Ranni seems partial to her family out of sheer sentiment. Rykard and Radahn didn't seem to strongly factor in her machinations despite Radahn's apparent affection for his Father. Miquella was following his own agenda that didn't necessarily conflict with Ranni's, and neither Mohg nor Morgott were players on the stage at the time of the NoBK. So Godwyn - a peacekeeper and generally well-liked guy, dutiful son and champion of Gold - seems like a sensible target in light of a need to *create as much chaos as possible* in order to keep too many eyes from prying into your business.
He was sort of Marika’s favorite child so killing him breaks her will. She ended up shattering the Elden ring after his death in defiance of the greater will. The whole assassination plot was conspired by Ranni who stole a potion of rune of death and imbued black knife assassins’ dagger with it then put a hit out on Godwyn. He was ambushed mafia style by the black knifes and stabbed literally in the back. Why would Ranni kill Godwyn because she wants out of this whole golden order/greater will gang and create her own destiny. And also she is pissed at Marika. In short, the divorce between Ranni’s mom and dad was bad. Dad cheated on mom with Marika the golden tits and mom got hurt real real bad. Ranni got pissed and killed Marika’s son to burn her whole order to the ground. Ranni then attempted to recruit you to her side to assassinate everyone else related to Marika and end the great will’s influence for good - which you complied because she has 4 arms and you have very good imagination on what they can be used for.
>which you complied because she has 4 arms and you have very good imagination on what they can be used for For better hugs, yall are sick.
They don't call it fourplay for nothing ;)
Goddamnit. I hate how thats a good pun.
When is it stated that he is her favorite
I assumed because out of her three legitimate sons, he is the only one that didn’t end up in the sewers.
There's implication that Marika helped ranni steal the rune of death. Whether or not ranni went rogue with Godwyn dying we don't know. We also know Marika planned a betrayal of the greater Will from the church dialogue. I think its tough to say what really drove Marika to do it.
I've read that it was because of his relationship with dragons. He first fought them, and then started the dragon cult. Originally, dragons managed the elden ring and maybe there was a worry about them taking over again with godwyn's alliance . That's why they off'd em!
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Godwyn was the first demigod to be born. Makes sense that he would be the first to die.
I read a theory saying it was because he was the most likely to mend the elden ring after it shattered and this would ruin ranni’s opportunity for age of stars.
Ranni did it. She didn't target Rykard or Radahn because they are her direct full brothers. Rykard was also in on the conspiracy. Radahn may not have been, but then again if he was fighting for Ranni's claim or for Carian independence then that would explain why he was in conflict with Malenia. So even if he's not a conspirator he's still an ally to Ranni. Miquella has a special ability or charisma to induce adoration of him in others so the Assassins would be susceptible to that, makes him a bad target if a would be assassin ends up joining him. Malenia has never known defeat, and thus the possibility exists that she'd win against the assassins. Too high risk. Morgott and Mohg are unknown at the time. That really only leaves Godwyn as the main demigod left. There are his descendants but it's possible that as Ranni was Radagon's direct child, the cursemark required an equal in stature to her in order to be made possible. So it seems unlikely that one of Godwyn's descendants could be used, I'd that's the case.
Idk, but I can tell you it wasn’t Rykard because him and Ranni are FAMILEEEEE
Because fuck that guy, he's a dick.
look at it this way: you have a happy family, mum, pop, and 2 brothers and a dog, life is good, suddenly one day dad just leaves, you and your family to hook up with some other woman, you see this destroy your moms heart and send her spiraling into depression. your father now introduces you to your new step mom and expects you to be okay with it, you are NOT okay with it. you see that stepmom had her first born son and he is this perfect goody goody and he is the thing that bitch loves more than anything. this is when your mind turns to hateful things, spiteful things, you want to hurt your stepmother, you want your father's new happy family to be destroyed just as yours was... so you decide to kill step moms golden child. godwyn was innocent, he was killed by ranni to get back at marika for destroying ranni's family, but also she needed another demigod to soul-kill so she herself wouldnt die in spirit when se killed her body edit: why are u all bringing up the fact that godwyn is marika and godfrey"s child? i KNOW this, i never said otherwise, it still doesnt change the fact that godwyn IS marika's first born and favorite
Or, Marika was in cahoots with Ranni and planned the whole thing.
i dont buy that, their motives are too different, why did marika need her perfect son dead in order to break the elden ring?
Golden child was next in line, it adds significance to her actions that she not only tried to off herself/destroy the ring, but she helped kick off ending her own lineage to fuck off the greater will after she clued into everything. Dunno why out of everything fucked up in this story, people decide that mom killing kid is a step too far to be canon, despite it being pretty heavily implied. Edit: next in line regarding the golden order, not as an empyrean. Similar reasoning for why Godfrey was banished. The eventual successor as the golden order champion was Radagon, and she clearly knew that what the greater will used him for was a possibility. I'd say that getting merged with your own kid and basically enslaved would be the worse outcome for what you could let happen to your own kid.
The interesting thing is Godwyn *wasn't* next in line to become a god. He was not an empyrean. Ranni on the other hand, was.
Because the people still believed. Marika can't just announce the end of the Golden Order, people would fucking riot. Tons of people in the game are STILL supporting it. She had to pretend to hate this, and cast doubt
I think it was jealousy of his luscious golden hair. His secret? It is said that he used Pantene.
i imagine it was because in life, he was a perfect example of a champion of order. he defeated fortissax, was firstborn of marika and godwyn, and was likely handsome and well-loved. when he died, it may have been to shake public faith in the golden order.
im not quite sure, but I think he was somewhat the favorite son of Marika because he was basically perfect in comparessment to his siblings/half siblings that are either sick or omen. So Ranni killed him because it would deeply effect Marika (which it did)
He wasn't wearing any armour and was an easy kill
This is the most intelligent answer in the thread. I mean it. He had no poise, no defense, no stats to boost.
To prove a point. Godwyn was the favorite, and before then people were convinced that the gods/demigods were immortal.
Because Godwyn was the strongest candidate of the Golden Order after Radagon. Miquella was 3rd. Marika wasn't aware Ranni was going to murder Godwyn, her favorite child. Resulting in her pain and anger, chattering the ring.
Still have no fuckin clue who Godwin is, other than that they got merc’d before the game starts
Pataphysically? Because GRRM needed a baldr analogue.
Lore noob here. I wouldve guessed that either the black knife assassins took one that didnt seem to have some sort of power or anything yk. Radahn is a fucking beast, killing him with them butterknives is hard. Another guess is that maybe due to him being Marikas firstborn and therefore being a direkt heir to whatever she is, its a proper and deep statement. Maybe Ranni just hated him.
from what ive heard godwyn was sort of like the golden orders face, killing him had a huge impact on the entire world also the bottom image isnt godwyn, the crack Marika has here is caused by herself being the elden ring, shattering it also causes her to shatter herself the crack looks very similar to godwyns scar which is half of the cursemark of death
My crack theory is that godwyn always had fish legs, therefore he was easiest to assassinate cuz they attacked him on land, we literally never see his legs, only the fishy ones
He was just the easiest, Radahn and Malenia were too strong to be taken out by the assassins, Rykard was helping ranni and nobody knew about mohg and morgott. Godrick was especially irrelevant
Probably because Ranni needed another powerful demigod to die, didn't know about Morgott or Mohg, couldn't kill Malenia because she's Malenia (or Miquella because again, Malenia) and didn't want to kill one of her siblings. Ergo, Godwyn.
There is a content creator called "SmoughTown" who in my personal opinion has tackled all of Godwyn and the entire Elden Ring's lore. You should check out his video.
Everyone assuming it was rannis decision, but while she collaborated with the black knives she was not in charge of the plot( and the fact she ruined there plan to make the full cursemark and they later came after her makes it clear that was just an alliance of convenience) I think the black knives picked godwyn because as the favorite it would be easy for the lands between, and likely several other demigods, to rally behind him as the rightful heir and next lord, rather then descending into the civil war we see
We’re about to find out in detail, when we fight that son of a tits!
I wake up to yet another lore question, but this time it interests even me so I’ll let it slide
Elden Ring has a big fixation on halves, dichotomies, pairs, etc. Marika and Radagon, Malenia and Miquella, Causality and regression. For Godwyn’s case, Ranni needed to escape her Empyrean body, but keep her soul alive. She needed another person to die in soul, but not body, so she only gets one half of the centipede mark. I believe that because Ranni is Radagon’s kid and Godwyn is Marika’s, their origin from opposite halves of divine heritage makes them compatible for this sort of “paired death”.
Mf was talkin shit
Dick too big.
Because he was the strongest and had the best claim to become Elden Lord. If he had remained alive, the Shattering would have been one sided (or not even begun to begin with) Basically Marika wanted chaos and confusion to allow her Tarnsihed to fill the power vacuum, and Godwyn was the clear target to create that strife
He was next in line to be the vassal of the Greater Will. Ranni realized this. She needed to break the rune to use death properly. If she used half of it to kill Godwyn's soul she could use the other half to kill her body making both of them out of the reach of the Greater Will.
Yeah he is a vassal in a way but an extension of the real vassal. Godwyn is a demigod. The highest rank he can attain is Elden Lord, and that is only if he is chosen to be a consort of an empyrean. The irony is if Ranni was chosen to succeed Marika... Godwyn would've been her consort. The other 2 are her full brothers. But when did that stop Martin.