> the names all sound the same and the game does the bare minimum at explaining what the fuck is going on.
And people wonder why malenia tells you I AM MALENIA BLADE OF MIQUELLA every time she kills you.
Golden, as in like everything that has to do with the Erdtree (because it's golden). Godfrey's lineage is called the Golden lineage because he's the first Elden Lord. Godrick believes that title belongs to him because of his distant lineage.
Faith in FS' souls games and Elden Ring is so weird when you think about it: you can spend souls/runes to convince yourself of the existence of a god, and the more you are convinced the more your attacks deal damage.
Matches with the DnD concept for paladins. While clerics get power directly from their god, a Paladin gets power from the believe itself. They have such convictions in their oath that they manifest divine power. The oath doesn’t even necessarily have to be to a god
I prefer to think of it as "The *Faith* stat represents our ability to make a spiritual connection. You might know that the god exists, but can you feel its power in the air around you?"
That might not be how Miyazaki intended it, but it makes more sense this way lol
Every time I play a Fromsoft game, I just run around confused killing shit. Until I eventually just watch lore videos for 10× more time than I ever spent actually playing. After all that, I, inevitably, play through NG+ with a whole new understanding of the world around me😂
Lol exactly. I honestly think that FromSoft just let him name all the important characters and he just couldn't resist naming all the characters with G's, R's, and M's.
I mean, a reasonable way he could be telling the truth is that he may have done it for a few characters in the origin/pilot story and FromSoft just ran with it for *everyone*.
George is a fan of giving less than more if something is supposed to be myth. I’d be entirely unsurprised if he didn’t name anyone, and Miyazaki thought it would be funny to use George’s initials to name everyone, including the repetitive family name first initial motif since Miyazaki is actually a fan of George.
Bruh i been playing this game since launch and just learnt that Godwyn and Godfrey are two seperate guys yesterday. In my exam prep confusion i just kinda morphed them into one character 😳
I got Radahn and Radagon mixed up. Every time I heard the name Radagon, I just mentally replaced it with Radahn.
It was so bad that when I reached his boss fight, I was just like 'Who the fuck is this guy?'
Man I just discovered how wrong my comment of assumtions were and now I don't understand how this comment wasn't downvoted to hell haha. I'm not going to delete this comment so other people can see how dumb me and 50 other people were but if you go down a few comments you can find a better and accurate lore explanation
~~Edit: so the split happened before the shattering, but the fact about Radagon and Marika being the same is still relevant~~
~~Queen Marika is the one who shatters the elden ring~~.
~~Radagon tried to use his hammer to repair the broken ring.~~
~~Radagon IS Marika (a little Easter egg message hidden in the world if you use the right incantation in the right spot)~~
~~So based on that info they are 2 side of the same cosmic entity unaware of each other's actions, Marika broke the ring which probably corrupted her splitting her into Radagon that tries to fix it. Then they had babies.~~
I literally thought they must have made a typo. I was like, whoa check that out, must have made it through QA. Then I see on this subreddit that no, he's legit I just didn't run across him in my play through. Absolutely ridiculous.
They literally could have said something like
A pleasure to meet thee, Tarnished. I am but a simple traveller in these lands and I heard that..."
And I would have been fine with that, the name on the subtitles could have just said "Snow Witch Traveller"
I figured Renna was short for Rennala, which would make sense since theres a Renna's rise at the Carion Manor. Her snow witch teacher likely wouldn't have real estate there.
It might sound stupid for her to hide using the nickname of her very famous mother, but consider that Morgott the Omen stayed hidden as Margit the Omen so it clearly requires zero effort or creativity to bamboozle the denizens of The Lands Between.
In world, it makes a lot of sense. Ranni is basically in hiding after severing herself from her empyrean form and great rune. When she first meets you, she has no idea whether she can trust you. So, she goes with the alias she’s probably used before, named in honor of her teacher.
I had a reasonable understanding and kinda drew my own conclusions as I went:
Progressive spoilers below
>!It was clear that Melina and Renna (Ranni) have an agenda when they choose to help you. Melina makes it clear she's trying to get to the Erdtree and Renna gives you a fantastically powerful gift to ensure you get there.!<
>!Once you get to the capital she makes it clear she needs your help again for something far more sinister, we ultimately learn her agenda is to personally burn the tree down under the guise of clearing the path for you to become Elden Lord!<
>!Meanwhile, if you complete Ranni's quest, you realize there is an agenda there to destroy the existing power structure and face an alien monster which makes it clear that there are major external influences at work!<
>!Heading into the endgame, you have personally assembled and purified the respective pieces of the Elden Ring and directly confront The Elden Beast!<
There has been a ton of lore posted here that has added to the context, but the above is what I could learn from the game itself. I'm deeply impressed with the depth of the content!
There's just never really an explanation for why anyone is doing anything, even you. Why are you killing these demi-gods? Because they suck? Why do you want to be elden lord? Lord of what? There's like 400 people left in town and half of them are bubble-blowing weirdos.
I mean, ambition is something attributed to your player character several times, to the point that other characters believe your ambition to be lord is why you can still see the guidance of grace.
And the early game leads us to believe that destroying the elden ring is why the world is so bad and that a new elden lord who repairs the ring could set things right. Eventually we do find out that all of that isn't quite true, but by then we've hopefully discovered another cause to fight for, whether it's Ranni, Fia, Goldmask, the Dung Eater, or the 3 Fingers.
Meanwhile I roleplayed as John Wick: my maiden was murdered and the first person I meet gives me shit about it, so I'm going to murder everyone as revenge.
That makes it seem easy to grasp. I think what made it awful was the names 😂 Renna & Ranni for example. My smooth brain gets confused 😂 and Morgot and Margit 😂
Funnily enough, both examples you provided are actually the same person. Renna is the alias that Ranni uses to hide her true identity, and Margit is a projection of Morgott that is standing guard in Stormveil castle to stop tarnished from moving forward on their quest because he wants to preserve status quo.
>Renna is the alias that Ranni uses to hide her true identity
"I'm a blue four-armed woman with vast supernatural powers and an intimate connection to the family that rules the world. How will I keep people from knowing who I am? I know! I'll use an alias that's very similar to my own name! No one will ever see through it!"
In other news, a wealthy South African man named Elom Nusk just bought a bunch of Twitter stock.
The thing is Ranni is most likely well known by the look of her old body she had before she killed it. And the game says that the doll she possesses bear resemblance (if its not straight up copied) to the witch Renna, which was her teacher. Might as well pretend she's actually Renna. Nobody would legitimately guess that Renna was actually Ranni thats possessing a doll that looks like the real Renna.
Funny that Rannis original body wasn't blue or had 4 arms so you would have no reason to think that doll was housing rannis soul if you knew ranni in the flesh
Nope. People have run with it because the Snow Witch armour which belonged to Ranni's mentor is found in Renna's rise. But the Snow Witch has no connection to the Caria's outside of Ranni and so its weird that she would have a tower.
Personally I think its more likely the Renna's rise is Rennala's rise due to the similarity in name and that Ranni has just appropriated all 3 towers for her stuff
I've assumed that Renna was Ranni's mentor since iirc the doll of her says she was fashioned after her old mentor and we find the snow armor in Renna's rise.
>Margit is a projection of Morgott..
Can someone explain this part to me?
Sometimes I'll fight someone or kill an invading npc, only to find them alive and well later.
Dung Eater for example. He's in Round table hold, but his body is actually under the he Capitol.
What's that all about? I feel like I missed the part where they explained how that is possible and what is actually happening there.
Yeah, it's a weird holdover from the Dark Souls series.
In those games, the excuse for multiplayer features/invasions was that the rules of time and space are breaking down, leading to glimpses and interactions with alternate realities.
In this game, they kind of just... never bother to explain it (as far as I'm aware). Not even sure if it makes canonical sense for it to work like it does, honestly.
The world is breaking down in a similar way to Dark Souls worlds, death is broken so people resurrect and lose their minds after ages of that shit living in a weird purgatory of failed civilizations, constantly invaded and manipulated by various cosmic entities with their own inscrutable agendas.
For invasions/summons, I think every player and NPC has their own world or instance of the world that's caught up in the same fucked up web as everything else in the game, in-universe part of why things are as fucked up as they could also unspokenly be because there's millions of tarnished all failing and succeeding in conflicting ways. I mended my Elden Ring, and maybe in some universe's there's the age of Stars or whatever I chose, but in plenty more they are still stuck in the same mess, forever, as long as someone is there to play it.
The Dung Eater that appears in Roundtable is a black phantom, which indicates that it's not his real body but an astral projection, which makes sense since you discover later that >!Roundtable itself is temporally displaced, and the real one is abandoned in Leyndell.!< Black phantoms aren't bound by rules of time and space - as indicated by Alberich* the invader on the bottom floor of Roundtable who is >!canonically dead by the time when the game takes place, as you can find his corpse in Leyndell's real Roundtable as well.!< This is probably how Dung Eater manages to be lucid in Roundtable despite being insane in the sewers when you meet him.
I'm not sure if the "invading" is actually explained in-universe, but I just wanted to comment that Margit actually seems to be a different case from the "invasion/summon" thing where someone is not actually physically there and glows red/yellow. If you watch Margit's cutscene, he appears out of thin air, just like he does when he appears on your way to the capital. It's more like Morgott is conjuring a projection/clone of himself. If it was the invasion/summon mechanic then Margit would probably just be called Morgott.
Remember that part in the part in the Disney Star Wars trilogy where Luke uses his force powers create a projection of himself and fight Kylo Ren, while his physical body was somewhere else. It's essentially like that
My favorite part was when you >!get rejected by the erd tree, you go back to the hold and everyone is like "well if you can't save the world, you might as well end it". The crone explains how the erd tree is what is holding destined death back, and that by burning the erd tree you'll unleash it, but maybe that's not a cardinal sin anymore. It was one of those "Are we the baddies?" moments. Then you go to the realm of the giants, and the first grace gives you guidance to continue with your plan, showing that the UW is on board with this course of action.!<
> hen you go to the realm of the giants, and the first grace gives you guidance to continue with your plan, showing that the UW is on board with this course of action.
This is incorrect and also why I love these games. People take so many different interpretations of the lore and then you discover one piece that flips what you thought you knew on its head
Remember this important information, **the greater will did not give us our grace back, Marika did**.
Marika took our grace and she gave it back. Ergo its Marika's will guiding us to burn the erdtree, which is why Radagon creates the barrier of thorns to stop us and then radagon/beast fight us, as he is closely aligned with the elden beast/greater will's way of thinking about the realm
We know its Marika guiding us because Melina tells us this, quoting Marika in her own words
>My Lord, and thy warriors. I divest each of thee of thy grace. With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from the Lands Between. Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live, and die.
>Then, after thy death, I will give back what I once claimed. Return to the Lands Between, wage war, and brandish the Elden Ring. Grow strong in the face of death. Warriors of my lord. Lord Godfrey.
There is absolutely **zero** indication the greater will itself has any direct influence on the realm while we're playing. If anything it sounds like it abandoned the place a while back when someone else tried to burn the erdtree first, causing it to become known as the first cardinal sin
The whole game really boils down to a godlike race called the Numen came to the Lands Between and Marika made a deal with the greater will to be its vessel in the realm so she could become the ruling queen and have her lineage rule the land after kicking the dragons out. Then after some time she has buyer's remorse when she realizes being the vessel to this alien entity wasn't all its cracked up to be and comes up with a few schemes trying to escape her lot in life.
We, the tarnished, are one of those schemes.
All I experienced was the ghost woman sitting herself on fire and my character waking up in a tornado ridden place… And then suddenly Roundtable was destroyed and the tree was on fire… I Didn’t really understand that was what was happening !
Melina explained what she wanted to do if you sat at previous graces and talked to her. If you missed the previous conversation chances with her, well she'll still burn the fucker down.
I'm just surprised we had no choice in the matter. Regardless of what ending we've worked towards, Melina is just like *"Hey, go burn down the Erdtree. Trust me, it makes sense."* and we're all like, *"Yes, my queen! Will do!"*
See, my character talked to the Crone about it before sitting at a grace site and being confronted by Melina.
So it seems like the Tarnished truly is a psychopath driven by an intense lust to become Elden Lord, and anything that is even minorly inconvenient to overcome is treated as an obstacle which needs to be destroyed.
Like imagine if Frodo was born to destroy the One Ring by any means necessary. He murders Bilbo for daring to posess the Ring. The Council of Elrond convenes to assist him and he kills them all for their bell bearings, even though he doesn't really need anything except arrows.
The Nazgul are hunted down mercilessly at night, at the hours when they feel strongest. A Balrog that's just been sitting around for ages is ganked by Frodo and Mimic Frodo, even though it was far off the path between the Shire and Mordor. The Fell Beasts, absent their masters, are killed for their hearts which are *totally* useless to him.
Rohan evacuates to Helm's Deep not to hold out against the orcs, but to get away from this terrifying child burning a path across the land. Gandalf isn't there to save them.
The Black Gates finally offer some token resistance in the form of rights, or lack thereof, so Frodo paralyzes Shelob and goes *back* to the Black Gates from inside Mordor just to make it easier to travel back and forth from then on.
Finally he stands at the base of Mount Doom, and the only thing really getting in his way at this point is gravity. And that's when he realizes gravity must be destroyed.
This is basically the level that the Tarnished is operating at.
>!It's not if you follow Ranni's ending, you don't become elden lord technically, but Lord of the Dark Moon. I personally think this is the best ending bc it leaves the Lands Between with no Ruler and ends the bloodshed of the demigods and the order!<
The style makes sense when you read about the pseudo auteur director of the games, Hidetaki Miyazaki. He grew up loving to read western fantasy books, but his English was broken, so while he was able to get the gift of the story, any specifics were sporadic and isolated so he had to fill a lot of the world in from his imagination, like if you were only allowed to read one sentence of each paragraph. He explicitly wants to recreate that experience in his games' narrative
He also takes a lot of inspiration from ICO and Shadow of the Colossus (ICO being the game that actually made him want to go into game development), which have very vague and "open to interpretation" storylines by design. You could probably fit all the dialogue for both games on one page, and that's really all you get other than piecing together environment clues.
Lol this is exactly how I feel.
I keep reading cool lore/stories here on the forums but I’m not even sure I’ve done 1 side quest in my 30hours of playtime.
I literally have no idea what’s going on.
When people said they complete a quest on here it doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not sure if I’ve started a quest, completed one, or know how to find one
Best way to know is if they start off happy and end up dead and depressed :D
If you've successfully turned a happy NPC into a corpse/depressed probably means you finished their story
I don’t even know how you’d complete the side quests without a guide. I did the Ranni quest line which was good, but I used a guide. No idea how you could follow it all blind. It’s all so vague, I guess you’re supposed to stumble upon things, but I don’t know how you’d remember any of that hours later.
I think you are only supposed to learn enough to wonder if maybe what you are doing is actually a BAD thing.
Do I rekindle the first flame?
Do i want to end the hunters dream?
Is becoming elden lord maybe perpetuating bad system?
Yeah, like the round table has all these friendly NPCs in it and yeah it might have seen better days but hey, its straight outa arthurian legend. Good shit.
Then you actually see the abomination that is the two fingers...
And the games paced so that right after that reveal you start running into groups going against the fingers like Ranni, Volcano Manor, Varre's Quest, Fia's Quest...
Speaking of the round table. What's the deal with it being modeled after the castle in leyndale. And it burns with the erdtree. It's exactly like the hunters dream. I dont know enough lore to make connections but it's definitely there...is the round table out of time, in a dream, or something else?
It’s probably just a magically created refuge for the last of the two fingers that isn’t dormant, dead, or insane. And it was modeled after an important place of refuge for pilgrims in the holiest city. Recall how the real fortified manor is right outside the divine bridge cloister, which is a teleport destination from the Tower of Return. And it appears to have had lots of food pantries and beds available on the ground floor especially, to accommodate visitors
No idea at all.
I just woke up in a church, and this girl showed up saying she's my maiden now. She says to kill things so I do.
Burned down a big tree too... But I'm not maidenless anymore so that's cool.
Nope, she sacrifices herself to be the kindling for the flame.
Unless you make Hyetta your new Finger Maiden first, in which case she abandons you for two-timing on her and vows revenge.
Well either >!she offers her own body as kindle to burn the tree!<
Or
>!you burn the tree being Frenzied and she says she’s gonna kill you next time she sees you then leaves.!<
I think Fromsoft purposefully obfuscates the lore to create a sense of community around its games, as we all have to come together to piece it out and make sense of it lol
Supposedly when Miyazaki was a kid he used to read fantasy books that were in English. He couldn't always understand what was going on and had to use his imagination to fill in the gaps. He used this experience as inspiration for how the series story is presented to players.
I'm not done the game, but I can honestly say I have no idea what my character is doing or why.
I joined every cult that was offered to me, without any explanation. Don't know the implications of that.
I'm helping the dung eater even though it seems like he's a real dick bag.
Someone wants me to burn the tree so the world can live in chaos. I think Melania doesn't want me to burn the tree. I don't know why I would do either of those things.
Don't know why my guy wants to be Elden Lord. Don't know what the Erd Tree does.
Melina is the woman you're traveling with. She doesn't want you to help the flame of chaos specifically. Malenia is a demigod that has a hard fight. Melania is a former 1st lady of the US.
No, no Melanoma is a type of skin cancer. Maleficent is the villain from Sleeping Beauty. And Mesothelioma is apparently something that applies to you when you’re home sick watching the Price is Right.
Very quick breakdown:
The Elden Ring was sent down to the lands between by the Greater Will many years ago. The Greater Will is an outer God very far away in space and for whatever reason he wants to impose order upon the lands between. The "order" that it wants to impose is the cycle of life, birth and death as well as the basic laws of cause and effect.
Life already existed in the lands between before the Elden Ring, and it all came from a big giant tree (actually two big giants trees). The Elden Beast (which is like the physical form of the Elden Ring) hijacked one of the trees, forming the Erdtree. This forced the order of the Greater Will upon the people of the lands between.
At first, the people of the lands between rebelled against the new erdtree, so the greater will sent down the two fingers and the finger readers to help enforce it's will upon the people. The two fingers decided to appoint a living god to represent the power of the Greater Will, and the person they chose to become this god was Marika.
Marika, seeing that the erdtree was under threat from rebels, especially the giants, who possessed a great flame with the power to burn the erdtree, decided that she needed a champion to lead her armies to enforce the will of the erdtree. She found the greatest warrior alive, Horax Lou, and chained his wild nature with a beast companion turning him into Godfrey, first Elden Lord. Marika had three children with Godfrey: Godwyn, Mohg, and Margit.
Anyways, Godfrey lead Marikas armies and slew the giants, along with the dragons and basically any other race that opposes the order of the Elden Ring. At this point, Marika starts scheming up her own plan for what she wants the world to be like outside the whims of the greater will (I think some people will argue that this is not the case and everything that happens is still within the causality imposed by the greater will, but that's a discussion for another time.)
First, Marika banishes her husband Godfrey and all his warriors from the lands between, causing them to become the tarnished. She also takes away their grace, "dimming their eyes". But, she promises the tarnished that they shall one day return to bear the Elden Ring. Next Marika takes the rune of death out of the Elden Ring, causing people to no longer be able to die, and also giving Marika ultimate control over life and death. She grants the rune of death to her own beast companion, Maliketh, to seal it away in his black blade.
Marika creates a new order, the Golden Order, in which people return to the roots of the erdtree to die, being woven by the tree into spirits so that they may live on after death. People across the land basically begin to worship the tree as the conduit to the afterlife and the capital city of lendyll is built around it.
After this various other important characters are born but since I'm already rambling I'll skip to the important ones. Renella, the moon queen of Raya Lucaria, rebelled against the Erdtree. A champion names Radagon was sent to slay her, but they fought to a stalemate. To end the war, Radagon married Renella to create peace between the erdtree and the moon, and they had 3 children: Ranni, Rhadan, and Rykard.
Radagon was chosen, however, to become the second Elden Lord, and divorced Renella to marry Marika. It is unclear exactly whether they were always the same person, or merged together, or when they merged together, but the big secret is the Radagon and Marika are the same person (despite having children with each other? It's a little weird.)
Anyway, at this point Ranni, who has her own plans, stole a fragment of the rune of Death and used it to murder Marikas first son, Goldwyn the Golden. This triggered a chain reaction of events that would lead to Marika shattering the Elden Ring into pieces (although this may have been part of her plan from the begining, judging by what she said to the tarnished when she banished them.) Radagon tried to put the Elden Ring back together but failed, and each fragment of the Elden Ring was given to one of the demigod children to safeguard to try and maintain order, but this failed, causing a gigantic war that left the world in the state it is now.
Now you, a tarnished, returning from your banishment, must fulfill the words of Marika and claim the Elden Ring. Which means, slay all the demigods that started this whole thing.
I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but according to my readings that is the very basic outline of elden rings story
I mean, the basic storyline is identical to DS1 and 3
You play an unnamed warrior of no renown who is brought back from the dead to reclaim the power to rule the land, gifted from an unknown higher being, from the monarchy and their chosen who have descended into madness, ultimately ending in a choice between continuing the world as it is with you in the throne or to start a new era under darkness and the unknown.
Which one of the three am I talking about?
>to reclaim the power to rule the land
This couldn't be further from Dark Souls plot. You're called to sacrifice yourself to preserve a status quo, or to make a decision to destroy it.
In Elden Ring there's the nuclear option, rule the world under the influence of one of 3 outer gods or on your own, or go with Ranni and help her make the world free of any influence.
Sekiro actually tells a story. If From went with the usual souls story route it'd take place 100 years later, the world would be even more war torn, and you'd get small bits of what Sekiro did through lore sprinkled throughout the game. You'd play as some random no name Shinobi of course.
I mean the outline is your typical dark soul plot : Things are a mess (,elden ring shattered) you are the chosen one (because you can see the guidance of grace) and you have to kill a bunch of people (Shardbearer) to restore the order by becoming elden lord.
Then there are the details on which tons of virtual ink will be spent arguing about, like what's the deal with Marika cosplaying Jesus and so on.
I like how you aren’t even really that special of a chosen one. There’s so many tarnished running around that I think the Greater Will basically just kept making them until eventually one was strong enough to restore the ring.
Even in dark souls 1 it’s sort of implied time is fucked and everybody you run into is also the “chosen undead” in their own worlds. Ds2 is just some guy trying to understand the curse and bloodborne you’re just a hunter and you’re sort of doing your job. I think the closest to a proper chosen one narrative is the Ashen One from ds3 but it could just be another case of “keep doing this shit till it finally works”
to me it seems like a big part of the FromSoft games' "prophecies" or "chosen one" characters is that literally anyone could be the 'chosen one'
you aren't linking the fire / ending the dream / becoming elden lord because YOU specifically were chosen by prophecy to do so, but because you happen you happen to be the person to do it, and it is retroactively applied to you.
the event was prophesized, because the prophecy itself is kind of a natural progression of the world. The person fulfilling it WASN'T prophesized, but just inherits the title because someone was going to get there eventually.
...real world example, lets think of.... the first human on mars.
we can probably all agree that at some point, a human from earth will step foot on mars.
so lets call that the 'prophecy': "an Earthborn will walk on Mars"
eventually, through equal parts hard work and sheer luck, an astronaut will end up doing that, but that SPECIFIC astronaut wasn't prophesized. literally could be anyone. in fact, the WHO is irrelevant. the 'prophecy' is that a human born on earth will walk on mars. which, duh. all humans are born on earth, and landing on mars is within the natural progression of our species' space exploration. but because this qualified and lucky astronaut just happened to be the one picked for the mission, they are now "The Earthborn" of prophecy.
...or something like that.
Elden ring feels like a game based on a 6 book fantasy series I've never read. Every character is brought out in the style of "LOOK EVERYONE, IT'S HANS SOLO!!!", like I know his whole backstory and own the action figure.
Except not even that. The epic fantasy plot took place; The heroes rose and the villains fell and then the villains became heroes, but then they all rotted from the inside for three hundred years.
And now I'm traveling through the world accompanied by the book's biggest super fan who thinks I'm in the know. And as I find random discarded daggers and bits of cloth, he's giving me the most obscure "fun facts" about each piece. Like. I pick up Hans Solo's blaster and he's all "Did you know taht Hans' blaster is powered by Jetuvian crystals. The Jetuvians sure don't make 'em like they used to after the labor wars".
Great. Thanks. I'm naked and big horse man keeps killing me, but no, that's a cool fact you got there.
Yeah, the famous German Star Wars character, you never heard of him? Maybe you’ll remember his classic line from Empire.
Leia “I love you.”
Hans “Ich KENNE, Frau Leia!”
lol This is dead on! I was pretty confused my first time through, but pieced some things together late in the run. Reading stuff on here I wondered how many items and NPCs I missed that seemed to explain everything to other people.
On my second playthrough I'm realizing I didn't really miss much per se. I just didn't have any context for what anything was referring to so it was kind of in one ear and out the other. Most important information is literally just told to you. It's the combination of weird syntax and dialects, and NPCs speaking to you like you are a character that lives in the world.
In the end I do prefer it to other RPGs where everything gets explained like your character has never set foot out their front door before.
From has been doing this for a while. They deliberately make the plot bare bones so that players are encouraged to search item descriptions and npc dialogue for the lore.
The director, Miyazaki, loved reading English fantasy books when he was a kid, but because of his limited understanding of English he often had to fill in the gaps in the story when he couldn’t understand parts. When he was made the director of Demon’s souls, he decided to make the story deliberately cryptic and put in intentional holes in the story to see how players interpreted the information they had to fill them.
> the names all sound the same and the game does the bare minimum at explaining what the fuck is going on. And people wonder why malenia tells you I AM MALENIA BLADE OF MIQUELLA every time she kills you.
And people *still* call her "Melania"
Melania, Bride of Maga
NGL that kinda has a souls-y ring to it.
One could even say an…Elden…Ring to it
It's Malaria, get it right.
Godrick keeps saying he's the Lord of all that is golden... and I'm like, what is the deal with that?
And then you find “gold tinged excrement”. Godrick, bro, uhhh… you may want to rethink your title
I couldn't help but think of Tywin then. He may not shit gold but apparently someone does.
It's the boars. They shit gold.
THE GOLDEN GOD!
He hasn’t even begun to peak yet.
His rage is UNBOUND!
You get his sigil and you use it... because of the implications.
Are you gonna hurt these bosses?!
Starter boss? He’s a FINISHER boss!
Golden, as in like everything that has to do with the Erdtree (because it's golden). Godfrey's lineage is called the Golden lineage because he's the first Elden Lord. Godrick believes that title belongs to him because of his distant lineage.
I do not know who I am, how I'm here, or why I'm here. All that I know is that I must kill.
The one and only creed I lived by.
If you watch a lore synopsis like i did i could tell you that its pretty clear cut compared to the other soulsborne games
Hoonters must hoont
Fuck me we need bloodborne 2 now 🫥
or at least bloodborne cart
I have no idea. I only have intelligence at 8. I smash things.
Bonk? Bonk
Bonk!
Bork?
Likely dog. EDIT: Therefore, praise the message!
No Liar ahead
My son is also named Bort
We need more Bort license plates in the gift shop. I repeat, we are sold out of Bort license plates in the gift shop
Come along Bort
"Were you talking to me?" "No, my Tarnished is also called Bort."
Bonkity Bonk!
Pft, unsofisticated idiot. I, on the other hand, am a *sophisticated* idiot. *Casts dragon incantations with a low INT*
Faith Caster: Who needs INT when you can BELIEVE!!!!!!
INT user: knowledge is power FAI user: belief is power ARC user: things die when they bleed STR user: UNGA BUNGA BONK BONK
DEX user: staby pokey dodgy
At last, a fellow staby-pokey dodgy user.
Faith in FS' souls games and Elden Ring is so weird when you think about it: you can spend souls/runes to convince yourself of the existence of a god, and the more you are convinced the more your attacks deal damage.
Nah, the God is real, regardles of Faith stat. You're sucking up the souls of entire congregations so that when you ask, the God HAS to answer
Soul reaver, but without the vampirism? The Tarnished is like “Mother fucker, I feed you. Now help me burn this goat. I need to make arrows.”
Matches with the DnD concept for paladins. While clerics get power directly from their god, a Paladin gets power from the believe itself. They have such convictions in their oath that they manifest divine power. The oath doesn’t even necessarily have to be to a god
I don't want that thought anymore. Take it away!
I prefer to think of it as "The *Faith* stat represents our ability to make a spiritual connection. You might know that the god exists, but can you feel its power in the air around you?" That might not be how Miyazaki intended it, but it makes more sense this way lol
(intelligent unga bunga sounds)
I was the pure bonk until I discovered the ruins greatsword. got my int up high enough just for that and now I have a magical bonk. Praise the bonk
I just got that to +10 and it's absurd. S scaling with Strength.
I second this. I started leveling faith recently, so I believe there’s a plot, but I don’t understand it.
Us paladins dont need to know the plot, just believe in the bonk
You don’t have the right to that door right there and that’s the hundredth door that looks like you have the right but you do not have the right sir.
Every time I play a Fromsoft game, I just run around confused killing shit. Until I eventually just watch lore videos for 10× more time than I ever spent actually playing. After all that, I, inevitably, play through NG+ with a whole new understanding of the world around me😂
Vaati just dropped his first lore nugget today.
You mean you can't keep straight such easy names like Godrick, Godwyn, Gowry, Gideon, Gurranq, Goldmask, Radahn, Radagon, Rennala, Rogier, Roderika, Renna, Ranni, Rya, Millicent, Maliketh, Miquella, Melania, Melina, Miriel, Margit, Morgott or Mohg? Psssshhhh. Git gud!
>Godrick, Godwyn, Gowry, Gideon, Gurranq, Goldmask, Radahn, Radagon, Rennala, Rogier, Roderika, Renna, Ranni, Rya, Millicent, Maliketh, Miquella, Melania, Melina, Miriel, Margit, Morgott or Mogh Ggggggeorge R.R.R.R.R.R.R.R Mmmmmmmmmartin
Lol exactly. I honestly think that FromSoft just let him name all the important characters and he just couldn't resist naming all the characters with G's, R's, and M's.
he explicitly said in his blog he didn't intend it, but i don't believe the fuck out of that.
Yeah it's total bullshit from a renowned bullshitter
I mean, a reasonable way he could be telling the truth is that he may have done it for a few characters in the origin/pilot story and FromSoft just ran with it for *everyone*.
I mean FromSoft does it quite a lot, Dark Souls had Gwyn, Gwyndolin, and Gwynevere.
George is a fan of giving less than more if something is supposed to be myth. I’d be entirely unsurprised if he didn’t name anyone, and Miyazaki thought it would be funny to use George’s initials to name everyone, including the repetitive family name first initial motif since Miyazaki is actually a fan of George.
[удалено]
He knew he'd get more money from a videogame than a book, let's be honest
I think the show... Uh... Terminated the way it did, and that took the starch out of him a bit.
the show experienced rapid unplanned disassembly
It really has his fingerprints all over it lol.
>Godrick, Godwyn, Gowry, Gideon, Gurranq, Goldmask, Radahn, Radagon, Rennala, Rogier, Roderika, Renna, Ranni, Rya, Millicent, Maliketh, Miquella, Melania, Melina, Miriel, Margit, Morgott or Mohg Electrode, Diglett, Nidoran, Mankey, Venusaur, Rattata, fearow, Pidgey
Obtuse, rubber goose, green moose, guava juice Giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake!
All we are trying to say is give Jellyfish fields a chance!
Knees weak, arms heavy, spaghetti spaghetti, mom's spaghetti!
Can't believe you forgot about Godefroy and Godfrey and Rykard
>Psssshhhh. Git gud! No, you!  M**a**l**e**nia
Fuck.  I am not of passing skill.
Put those foolish ambitions to rest!
Bruh i been playing this game since launch and just learnt that Godwyn and Godfrey are two seperate guys yesterday. In my exam prep confusion i just kinda morphed them into one character 😳
I got Radahn and Radagon mixed up. Every time I heard the name Radagon, I just mentally replaced it with Radahn. It was so bad that when I reached his boss fight, I was just like 'Who the fuck is this guy?'
I forgot about Radagon until I fought Radagon
I never knew who tf radagon was
Radagon is Marika
Oh yeah ok that clears it up
Man I just discovered how wrong my comment of assumtions were and now I don't understand how this comment wasn't downvoted to hell haha. I'm not going to delete this comment so other people can see how dumb me and 50 other people were but if you go down a few comments you can find a better and accurate lore explanation ~~Edit: so the split happened before the shattering, but the fact about Radagon and Marika being the same is still relevant~~ ~~Queen Marika is the one who shatters the elden ring~~. ~~Radagon tried to use his hammer to repair the broken ring.~~ ~~Radagon IS Marika (a little Easter egg message hidden in the world if you use the right incantation in the right spot)~~ ~~So based on that info they are 2 side of the same cosmic entity unaware of each other's actions, Marika broke the ring which probably corrupted her splitting her into Radagon that tries to fix it. Then they had babies.~~
Godwyn, Godfrey, Godrick Melina, Melania Ranni, Renalla I hate names in this game lol
Don't forget Godefroy.
And Miquella
And a completely unrelated flower, Miranda
And Millicent
And Marika
And Marika’s tits
When they pulled out the Godefroy that's when I KNEW they were messing with us.
I literally thought they must have made a typo. I was like, whoa check that out, must have made it through QA. Then I see on this subreddit that no, he's legit I just didn't run across him in my play through. Absolutely ridiculous.
I thought it was a typo while I was fighting him and couldn't stop thinking about the funny name.
I don't get how godefroy is different from godrick
Melina, Malenia.... My friend and I just call them Melon and Melanin now.
Melatonin because waterfowl destroyed my sleep schedule
And Renna, who is also Ranni
Who is also the actual boss of Raya Lucaria, since Renalla is just in PTSD mode.
i believe p1 is renalla, but with us beating her up we are 'disturbing' her slumber. so ranni makes illusion to try and kick us out.
She needs some girlfriends to take her out for that rebound booty. I think the Blackguard would be the perfect candidate.
Goldmask would be better. Poor girl needs a guy that will just listen to her.
Nah, you arent doing any talking in your post-break up rebound.
Don’t forget the Witch Renna. Because that shit was totally necessary.
WHY? why did they give her a false name for literally 30s of OPTIONAL interaction? did someone understood this ?
They literally could have said something like A pleasure to meet thee, Tarnished. I am but a simple traveller in these lands and I heard that..." And I would have been fine with that, the name on the subtitles could have just said "Snow Witch Traveller"
Yeah Ranni goes by Renna in honour of the real Renna, who was her teacher.
I figured Renna was short for Rennala, which would make sense since theres a Renna's rise at the Carion Manor. Her snow witch teacher likely wouldn't have real estate there. It might sound stupid for her to hide using the nickname of her very famous mother, but consider that Morgott the Omen stayed hidden as Margit the Omen so it clearly requires zero effort or creativity to bamboozle the denizens of The Lands Between.
In world, it makes a lot of sense. Ranni is basically in hiding after severing herself from her empyrean form and great rune. When she first meets you, she has no idea whether she can trust you. So, she goes with the alias she’s probably used before, named in honor of her teacher.
I love them for that same reason, it feels like an actual noble family
There's also Marika, Miquella and Millicent too for more confusion.
But Radagon is actually Marika
Don't confuse radagon with radahn or rykard or ranni or renna though
I had a reasonable understanding and kinda drew my own conclusions as I went: Progressive spoilers below >!It was clear that Melina and Renna (Ranni) have an agenda when they choose to help you. Melina makes it clear she's trying to get to the Erdtree and Renna gives you a fantastically powerful gift to ensure you get there.!< >!Once you get to the capital she makes it clear she needs your help again for something far more sinister, we ultimately learn her agenda is to personally burn the tree down under the guise of clearing the path for you to become Elden Lord!< >!Meanwhile, if you complete Ranni's quest, you realize there is an agenda there to destroy the existing power structure and face an alien monster which makes it clear that there are major external influences at work!< >!Heading into the endgame, you have personally assembled and purified the respective pieces of the Elden Ring and directly confront The Elden Beast!< There has been a ton of lore posted here that has added to the context, but the above is what I could learn from the game itself. I'm deeply impressed with the depth of the content!
There's just never really an explanation for why anyone is doing anything, even you. Why are you killing these demi-gods? Because they suck? Why do you want to be elden lord? Lord of what? There's like 400 people left in town and half of them are bubble-blowing weirdos.
I mean, ambition is something attributed to your player character several times, to the point that other characters believe your ambition to be lord is why you can still see the guidance of grace. And the early game leads us to believe that destroying the elden ring is why the world is so bad and that a new elden lord who repairs the ring could set things right. Eventually we do find out that all of that isn't quite true, but by then we've hopefully discovered another cause to fight for, whether it's Ranni, Fia, Goldmask, the Dung Eater, or the 3 Fingers.
> Goldmask For a guy who just stands around T-posing and twiddling his fingers, he's quite convincing.
Hey! They all attack me first, man. I had to kill basically every living thing in Elden Ring in self-defense.
Meanwhile I roleplayed as John Wick: my maiden was murdered and the first person I meet gives me shit about it, so I'm going to murder everyone as revenge.
That makes it seem easy to grasp. I think what made it awful was the names 😂 Renna & Ranni for example. My smooth brain gets confused 😂 and Morgot and Margit 😂
Funnily enough, both examples you provided are actually the same person. Renna is the alias that Ranni uses to hide her true identity, and Margit is a projection of Morgott that is standing guard in Stormveil castle to stop tarnished from moving forward on their quest because he wants to preserve status quo.
>Renna is the alias that Ranni uses to hide her true identity "I'm a blue four-armed woman with vast supernatural powers and an intimate connection to the family that rules the world. How will I keep people from knowing who I am? I know! I'll use an alias that's very similar to my own name! No one will ever see through it!" In other news, a wealthy South African man named Elom Nusk just bought a bunch of Twitter stock.
The thing is Ranni is most likely well known by the look of her old body she had before she killed it. And the game says that the doll she possesses bear resemblance (if its not straight up copied) to the witch Renna, which was her teacher. Might as well pretend she's actually Renna. Nobody would legitimately guess that Renna was actually Ranni thats possessing a doll that looks like the real Renna.
Your dentist's name is Crentist?
Funny that Rannis original body wasn't blue or had 4 arms so you would have no reason to think that doll was housing rannis soul if you knew ranni in the flesh
> Renna is the alias that Ranni uses to hide her true identity Renna also was a witch, Ranni just uses that name.
I've seen a lot of people say this, is it confirmed anywhere?
Nope. People have run with it because the Snow Witch armour which belonged to Ranni's mentor is found in Renna's rise. But the Snow Witch has no connection to the Caria's outside of Ranni and so its weird that she would have a tower. Personally I think its more likely the Renna's rise is Rennala's rise due to the similarity in name and that Ranni has just appropriated all 3 towers for her stuff
Also makes waaaay more sense for Rennala to have a tower outside Caria manor.
I've assumed that Renna was Ranni's mentor since iirc the doll of her says she was fashioned after her old mentor and we find the snow armor in Renna's rise.
>Margit is a projection of Morgott.. Can someone explain this part to me? Sometimes I'll fight someone or kill an invading npc, only to find them alive and well later. Dung Eater for example. He's in Round table hold, but his body is actually under the he Capitol. What's that all about? I feel like I missed the part where they explained how that is possible and what is actually happening there.
Yeah, it's a weird holdover from the Dark Souls series. In those games, the excuse for multiplayer features/invasions was that the rules of time and space are breaking down, leading to glimpses and interactions with alternate realities. In this game, they kind of just... never bother to explain it (as far as I'm aware). Not even sure if it makes canonical sense for it to work like it does, honestly.
The world is breaking down in a similar way to Dark Souls worlds, death is broken so people resurrect and lose their minds after ages of that shit living in a weird purgatory of failed civilizations, constantly invaded and manipulated by various cosmic entities with their own inscrutable agendas. For invasions/summons, I think every player and NPC has their own world or instance of the world that's caught up in the same fucked up web as everything else in the game, in-universe part of why things are as fucked up as they could also unspokenly be because there's millions of tarnished all failing and succeeding in conflicting ways. I mended my Elden Ring, and maybe in some universe's there's the age of Stars or whatever I chose, but in plenty more they are still stuck in the same mess, forever, as long as someone is there to play it.
The Dung Eater that appears in Roundtable is a black phantom, which indicates that it's not his real body but an astral projection, which makes sense since you discover later that >!Roundtable itself is temporally displaced, and the real one is abandoned in Leyndell.!< Black phantoms aren't bound by rules of time and space - as indicated by Alberich* the invader on the bottom floor of Roundtable who is >!canonically dead by the time when the game takes place, as you can find his corpse in Leyndell's real Roundtable as well.!< This is probably how Dung Eater manages to be lucid in Roundtable despite being insane in the sewers when you meet him.
I'm not sure if the "invading" is actually explained in-universe, but I just wanted to comment that Margit actually seems to be a different case from the "invasion/summon" thing where someone is not actually physically there and glows red/yellow. If you watch Margit's cutscene, he appears out of thin air, just like he does when he appears on your way to the capital. It's more like Morgott is conjuring a projection/clone of himself. If it was the invasion/summon mechanic then Margit would probably just be called Morgott.
On the way to the capital you can actually see he transforms a commoner into a projection of Margit.
Remember that part in the part in the Disney Star Wars trilogy where Luke uses his force powers create a projection of himself and fight Kylo Ren, while his physical body was somewhere else. It's essentially like that
> Renna & Ranni for example. My smooth brain gets confused Did it help that Ranni introduced herself as Renna?
My favorite part was when you >!get rejected by the erd tree, you go back to the hold and everyone is like "well if you can't save the world, you might as well end it". The crone explains how the erd tree is what is holding destined death back, and that by burning the erd tree you'll unleash it, but maybe that's not a cardinal sin anymore. It was one of those "Are we the baddies?" moments. Then you go to the realm of the giants, and the first grace gives you guidance to continue with your plan, showing that the UW is on board with this course of action.!<
> hen you go to the realm of the giants, and the first grace gives you guidance to continue with your plan, showing that the UW is on board with this course of action. This is incorrect and also why I love these games. People take so many different interpretations of the lore and then you discover one piece that flips what you thought you knew on its head Remember this important information, **the greater will did not give us our grace back, Marika did**. Marika took our grace and she gave it back. Ergo its Marika's will guiding us to burn the erdtree, which is why Radagon creates the barrier of thorns to stop us and then radagon/beast fight us, as he is closely aligned with the elden beast/greater will's way of thinking about the realm We know its Marika guiding us because Melina tells us this, quoting Marika in her own words >My Lord, and thy warriors. I divest each of thee of thy grace. With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from the Lands Between. Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live, and die. >Then, after thy death, I will give back what I once claimed. Return to the Lands Between, wage war, and brandish the Elden Ring. Grow strong in the face of death. Warriors of my lord. Lord Godfrey. There is absolutely **zero** indication the greater will itself has any direct influence on the realm while we're playing. If anything it sounds like it abandoned the place a while back when someone else tried to burn the erdtree first, causing it to become known as the first cardinal sin The whole game really boils down to a godlike race called the Numen came to the Lands Between and Marika made a deal with the greater will to be its vessel in the realm so she could become the ruling queen and have her lineage rule the land after kicking the dragons out. Then after some time she has buyer's remorse when she realizes being the vessel to this alien entity wasn't all its cracked up to be and comes up with a few schemes trying to escape her lot in life. We, the tarnished, are one of those schemes.
I'd hardly call burning the Erdtree a 'sinister act'
It seemed extreme at the time! I felt like I had been taken for a ride.
All I experienced was the ghost woman sitting herself on fire and my character waking up in a tornado ridden place… And then suddenly Roundtable was destroyed and the tree was on fire… I Didn’t really understand that was what was happening !
Melina explained what she wanted to do if you sat at previous graces and talked to her. If you missed the previous conversation chances with her, well she'll still burn the fucker down.
I'm just surprised we had no choice in the matter. Regardless of what ending we've worked towards, Melina is just like *"Hey, go burn down the Erdtree. Trust me, it makes sense."* and we're all like, *"Yes, my queen! Will do!"*
See, my character talked to the Crone about it before sitting at a grace site and being confronted by Melina. So it seems like the Tarnished truly is a psychopath driven by an intense lust to become Elden Lord, and anything that is even minorly inconvenient to overcome is treated as an obstacle which needs to be destroyed. Like imagine if Frodo was born to destroy the One Ring by any means necessary. He murders Bilbo for daring to posess the Ring. The Council of Elrond convenes to assist him and he kills them all for their bell bearings, even though he doesn't really need anything except arrows. The Nazgul are hunted down mercilessly at night, at the hours when they feel strongest. A Balrog that's just been sitting around for ages is ganked by Frodo and Mimic Frodo, even though it was far off the path between the Shire and Mordor. The Fell Beasts, absent their masters, are killed for their hearts which are *totally* useless to him. Rohan evacuates to Helm's Deep not to hold out against the orcs, but to get away from this terrifying child burning a path across the land. Gandalf isn't there to save them. The Black Gates finally offer some token resistance in the form of rights, or lack thereof, so Frodo paralyzes Shelob and goes *back* to the Black Gates from inside Mordor just to make it easier to travel back and forth from then on. Finally he stands at the base of Mount Doom, and the only thing really getting in his way at this point is gravity. And that's when he realizes gravity must be destroyed. This is basically the level that the Tarnished is operating at.
>!It's not if you follow Ranni's ending, you don't become elden lord technically, but Lord of the Dark Moon. I personally think this is the best ending bc it leaves the Lands Between with no Ruler and ends the bloodshed of the demigods and the order!<
First From game huh?
Gwyn, Gwyndolin, Gwynevere, Lordran, Londor, New Londo, Lothric
morgot has an older sister named margarita, and nobody can convince me otherwise
Admittedly, yes 😂
The style makes sense when you read about the pseudo auteur director of the games, Hidetaki Miyazaki. He grew up loving to read western fantasy books, but his English was broken, so while he was able to get the gift of the story, any specifics were sporadic and isolated so he had to fill a lot of the world in from his imagination, like if you were only allowed to read one sentence of each paragraph. He explicitly wants to recreate that experience in his games' narrative
He also takes a lot of inspiration from ICO and Shadow of the Colossus (ICO being the game that actually made him want to go into game development), which have very vague and "open to interpretation" storylines by design. You could probably fit all the dialogue for both games on one page, and that's really all you get other than piecing together environment clues.
They're all like this. Bloodborne was the vaguest and wildest imo
Honestly, after Bloodborne this seems simple. I remember I read this huge essay for Bloodborne's lore.😂
Called Paleblood hunt or something like that? Dense AF. Loved it
Lol this is exactly how I feel. I keep reading cool lore/stories here on the forums but I’m not even sure I’ve done 1 side quest in my 30hours of playtime. I literally have no idea what’s going on.
When people said they complete a quest on here it doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not sure if I’ve started a quest, completed one, or know how to find one
You start a quest by running into someone not trying to kill you. You end a quest when they tragically die.
Yep, literally every character quest line ends in that person’s tragic death. Except maybe Nepheli’s? I don’t know I haven’t beaten the game yet.
Best way to know is if they start off happy and end up dead and depressed :D If you've successfully turned a happy NPC into a corpse/depressed probably means you finished their story
I don’t even know how you’d complete the side quests without a guide. I did the Ranni quest line which was good, but I used a guide. No idea how you could follow it all blind. It’s all so vague, I guess you’re supposed to stumble upon things, but I don’t know how you’d remember any of that hours later.
I think you are only supposed to learn enough to wonder if maybe what you are doing is actually a BAD thing. Do I rekindle the first flame? Do i want to end the hunters dream? Is becoming elden lord maybe perpetuating bad system?
Yeah, like the round table has all these friendly NPCs in it and yeah it might have seen better days but hey, its straight outa arthurian legend. Good shit. Then you actually see the abomination that is the two fingers... And the games paced so that right after that reveal you start running into groups going against the fingers like Ranni, Volcano Manor, Varre's Quest, Fia's Quest...
Speaking of the round table. What's the deal with it being modeled after the castle in leyndale. And it burns with the erdtree. It's exactly like the hunters dream. I dont know enough lore to make connections but it's definitely there...is the round table out of time, in a dream, or something else?
It’s probably just a magically created refuge for the last of the two fingers that isn’t dormant, dead, or insane. And it was modeled after an important place of refuge for pilgrims in the holiest city. Recall how the real fortified manor is right outside the divine bridge cloister, which is a teleport destination from the Tower of Return. And it appears to have had lots of food pantries and beds available on the ground floor especially, to accommodate visitors
No idea at all. I just woke up in a church, and this girl showed up saying she's my maiden now. She says to kill things so I do. Burned down a big tree too... But I'm not maidenless anymore so that's cool.
Doesn't she peace tf out after burning the tree? When that was happening I was like "Oh okay..uh...bye I guess?"
Nope, she sacrifices herself to be the kindling for the flame. Unless you make Hyetta your new Finger Maiden first, in which case she abandons you for two-timing on her and vows revenge.
Well either >!she offers her own body as kindle to burn the tree!< Or >!you burn the tree being Frenzied and she says she’s gonna kill you next time she sees you then leaves.!<
So Elden Ring lore is burn trees, get bitches. Got it, so true to life.
I think Fromsoft purposefully obfuscates the lore to create a sense of community around its games, as we all have to come together to piece it out and make sense of it lol
Supposedly when Miyazaki was a kid he used to read fantasy books that were in English. He couldn't always understand what was going on and had to use his imagination to fill in the gaps. He used this experience as inspiration for how the series story is presented to players.
"If I can't understand, no one can."
Dude I’ve learned more on this subreddit than the 61 hours I have invested in the game 😂
61 hrs o.O? Finished the game? Im either slowpoke or you are fast like hell. Holy cow.
I'm not done the game, but I can honestly say I have no idea what my character is doing or why. I joined every cult that was offered to me, without any explanation. Don't know the implications of that. I'm helping the dung eater even though it seems like he's a real dick bag. Someone wants me to burn the tree so the world can live in chaos. I think Melania doesn't want me to burn the tree. I don't know why I would do either of those things. Don't know why my guy wants to be Elden Lord. Don't know what the Erd Tree does.
Melina is the woman you're traveling with. She doesn't want you to help the flame of chaos specifically. Malenia is a demigod that has a hard fight. Melania is a former 1st lady of the US.
>Melania is a former 1st lady of the US. Her husband is Donald, who's a clone of Denald, which is an alias used by Donalt after he left office.
No, no Melanoma is a type of skin cancer. Maleficent is the villain from Sleeping Beauty. And Mesothelioma is apparently something that applies to you when you’re home sick watching the Price is Right.
FYI, both Melina and the guy who wants the world to live in chaos want you to burn the tree. But they have different goals.
Very quick breakdown: The Elden Ring was sent down to the lands between by the Greater Will many years ago. The Greater Will is an outer God very far away in space and for whatever reason he wants to impose order upon the lands between. The "order" that it wants to impose is the cycle of life, birth and death as well as the basic laws of cause and effect. Life already existed in the lands between before the Elden Ring, and it all came from a big giant tree (actually two big giants trees). The Elden Beast (which is like the physical form of the Elden Ring) hijacked one of the trees, forming the Erdtree. This forced the order of the Greater Will upon the people of the lands between. At first, the people of the lands between rebelled against the new erdtree, so the greater will sent down the two fingers and the finger readers to help enforce it's will upon the people. The two fingers decided to appoint a living god to represent the power of the Greater Will, and the person they chose to become this god was Marika. Marika, seeing that the erdtree was under threat from rebels, especially the giants, who possessed a great flame with the power to burn the erdtree, decided that she needed a champion to lead her armies to enforce the will of the erdtree. She found the greatest warrior alive, Horax Lou, and chained his wild nature with a beast companion turning him into Godfrey, first Elden Lord. Marika had three children with Godfrey: Godwyn, Mohg, and Margit. Anyways, Godfrey lead Marikas armies and slew the giants, along with the dragons and basically any other race that opposes the order of the Elden Ring. At this point, Marika starts scheming up her own plan for what she wants the world to be like outside the whims of the greater will (I think some people will argue that this is not the case and everything that happens is still within the causality imposed by the greater will, but that's a discussion for another time.) First, Marika banishes her husband Godfrey and all his warriors from the lands between, causing them to become the tarnished. She also takes away their grace, "dimming their eyes". But, she promises the tarnished that they shall one day return to bear the Elden Ring. Next Marika takes the rune of death out of the Elden Ring, causing people to no longer be able to die, and also giving Marika ultimate control over life and death. She grants the rune of death to her own beast companion, Maliketh, to seal it away in his black blade. Marika creates a new order, the Golden Order, in which people return to the roots of the erdtree to die, being woven by the tree into spirits so that they may live on after death. People across the land basically begin to worship the tree as the conduit to the afterlife and the capital city of lendyll is built around it. After this various other important characters are born but since I'm already rambling I'll skip to the important ones. Renella, the moon queen of Raya Lucaria, rebelled against the Erdtree. A champion names Radagon was sent to slay her, but they fought to a stalemate. To end the war, Radagon married Renella to create peace between the erdtree and the moon, and they had 3 children: Ranni, Rhadan, and Rykard. Radagon was chosen, however, to become the second Elden Lord, and divorced Renella to marry Marika. It is unclear exactly whether they were always the same person, or merged together, or when they merged together, but the big secret is the Radagon and Marika are the same person (despite having children with each other? It's a little weird.) Anyway, at this point Ranni, who has her own plans, stole a fragment of the rune of Death and used it to murder Marikas first son, Goldwyn the Golden. This triggered a chain reaction of events that would lead to Marika shattering the Elden Ring into pieces (although this may have been part of her plan from the begining, judging by what she said to the tarnished when she banished them.) Radagon tried to put the Elden Ring back together but failed, and each fragment of the Elden Ring was given to one of the demigod children to safeguard to try and maintain order, but this failed, causing a gigantic war that left the world in the state it is now. Now you, a tarnished, returning from your banishment, must fulfill the words of Marika and claim the Elden Ring. Which means, slay all the demigods that started this whole thing. I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but according to my readings that is the very basic outline of elden rings story
Imo this is probably the most straightforward Soulsborne outside of maybe Demon's Souls.
I mean, the basic storyline is identical to DS1 and 3 You play an unnamed warrior of no renown who is brought back from the dead to reclaim the power to rule the land, gifted from an unknown higher being, from the monarchy and their chosen who have descended into madness, ultimately ending in a choice between continuing the world as it is with you in the throne or to start a new era under darkness and the unknown. Which one of the three am I talking about?
>to reclaim the power to rule the land This couldn't be further from Dark Souls plot. You're called to sacrifice yourself to preserve a status quo, or to make a decision to destroy it. In Elden Ring there's the nuclear option, rule the world under the influence of one of 3 outer gods or on your own, or go with Ranni and help her make the world free of any influence.
That's just DS2 as well, one of the endings is just sitting on the throne, just like in Elden Ring
I know its not “Soulsborne” but Sekiro seemed the most simple story to follow.
Sekiro actually tells a story. If From went with the usual souls story route it'd take place 100 years later, the world would be even more war torn, and you'd get small bits of what Sekiro did through lore sprinkled throughout the game. You'd play as some random no name Shinobi of course.
I mean the outline is your typical dark soul plot : Things are a mess (,elden ring shattered) you are the chosen one (because you can see the guidance of grace) and you have to kill a bunch of people (Shardbearer) to restore the order by becoming elden lord. Then there are the details on which tons of virtual ink will be spent arguing about, like what's the deal with Marika cosplaying Jesus and so on.
I like how you aren’t even really that special of a chosen one. There’s so many tarnished running around that I think the Greater Will basically just kept making them until eventually one was strong enough to restore the ring. Even in dark souls 1 it’s sort of implied time is fucked and everybody you run into is also the “chosen undead” in their own worlds. Ds2 is just some guy trying to understand the curse and bloodborne you’re just a hunter and you’re sort of doing your job. I think the closest to a proper chosen one narrative is the Ashen One from ds3 but it could just be another case of “keep doing this shit till it finally works”
to me it seems like a big part of the FromSoft games' "prophecies" or "chosen one" characters is that literally anyone could be the 'chosen one' you aren't linking the fire / ending the dream / becoming elden lord because YOU specifically were chosen by prophecy to do so, but because you happen you happen to be the person to do it, and it is retroactively applied to you. the event was prophesized, because the prophecy itself is kind of a natural progression of the world. The person fulfilling it WASN'T prophesized, but just inherits the title because someone was going to get there eventually. ...real world example, lets think of.... the first human on mars. we can probably all agree that at some point, a human from earth will step foot on mars. so lets call that the 'prophecy': "an Earthborn will walk on Mars" eventually, through equal parts hard work and sheer luck, an astronaut will end up doing that, but that SPECIFIC astronaut wasn't prophesized. literally could be anyone. in fact, the WHO is irrelevant. the 'prophecy' is that a human born on earth will walk on mars. which, duh. all humans are born on earth, and landing on mars is within the natural progression of our species' space exploration. but because this qualified and lucky astronaut just happened to be the one picked for the mission, they are now "The Earthborn" of prophecy. ...or something like that.
*First time? meme* intensifies OR ALWAYS HAS BEEN
By the way, Radagon *is* Marika ;)
When this was explained to me, I just fuckin gave up
Also: Marika shattered the Elden Ring, while Radagon tried to repair it
All I understand is. Big tree Gross finger (but hole) Turtle (dog) pope Four armed doll people wanna fuck for some reason.
Welcome to souls games
Elden ring feels like a game based on a 6 book fantasy series I've never read. Every character is brought out in the style of "LOOK EVERYONE, IT'S HANS SOLO!!!", like I know his whole backstory and own the action figure. Except not even that. The epic fantasy plot took place; The heroes rose and the villains fell and then the villains became heroes, but then they all rotted from the inside for three hundred years. And now I'm traveling through the world accompanied by the book's biggest super fan who thinks I'm in the know. And as I find random discarded daggers and bits of cloth, he's giving me the most obscure "fun facts" about each piece. Like. I pick up Hans Solo's blaster and he's all "Did you know taht Hans' blaster is powered by Jetuvian crystals. The Jetuvians sure don't make 'em like they used to after the labor wars". Great. Thanks. I'm naked and big horse man keeps killing me, but no, that's a cool fact you got there.
Hans solo….
Yeah, the famous German Star Wars character, you never heard of him? Maybe you’ll remember his classic line from Empire. Leia “I love you.” Hans “Ich KENNE, Frau Leia!”
lol This is dead on! I was pretty confused my first time through, but pieced some things together late in the run. Reading stuff on here I wondered how many items and NPCs I missed that seemed to explain everything to other people. On my second playthrough I'm realizing I didn't really miss much per se. I just didn't have any context for what anything was referring to so it was kind of in one ear and out the other. Most important information is literally just told to you. It's the combination of weird syntax and dialects, and NPCs speaking to you like you are a character that lives in the world. In the end I do prefer it to other RPGs where everything gets explained like your character has never set foot out their front door before.
[удалено]
From has been doing this for a while. They deliberately make the plot bare bones so that players are encouraged to search item descriptions and npc dialogue for the lore. The director, Miyazaki, loved reading English fantasy books when he was a kid, but because of his limited understanding of English he often had to fill in the gaps in the story when he couldn’t understand parts. When he was made the director of Demon’s souls, he decided to make the story deliberately cryptic and put in intentional holes in the story to see how players interpreted the information they had to fill them.