This page details the Covenants of Dark Souls III. Head back through here for other character pages. Unmarked spoilers ahead.
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General
- Lighter and Softer: In previous Dark Souls games joining a covenant was somewhat binding, forcing you to seek the help of certain NPCs in order to honorably leave a covenant without sinning, plus the second game in particular required a great deal of online play in order to get specific rank-based items. This time around all covenants require a mere thirty items to get max rewards - you receive the first rank reward at ten donations - and you can earn the covenant donation items by grinding certain enemies, meaning those who play offline and/or refuse to use Embers can still rank up in covenants. Finally, you can freely swap between covenants, though donating at least one Pale Tongue after joining Rosaria’s Fingers (not including the “rebirth” options like changing your appearance) will make Sirris hostile to you and end her quest line prematurely.
- Video Game Caring Potential: Some covenants reward you for helping other players either through good old jolly cooperation during online play (Warriors of Sunlight via being summoned by White Soapstone) or annihilating harmful phantoms (Blue Sentinels and Blades of the Darkmoon).
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Other covenants sport members who are hostile to other players (Rosaria’s Fingers, Aldrich Faithful, Watchdogs of Farron and Spears of the Church), seeking to murder them in order to obtain special items. Rosaria’s Fingers in general are known to be the most hostile covenant, capable of invading you almost everywhere, whereas the others will only invade you if you step on their turf. Even the Warriors of Sunlight can get into the mix, choosing to invade which can turn their “jolly cooperation” into “jolly invasion” if the host used their Dried Finger item beforehand (their invasion will prioritize a world that already has a dark spirit running amok). Then there’s the Mound Makers who are insanity incarnate, killing and murdering everything in their path to get to you; murdering the host or one of their co-op phantoms; murdering a random hostile spirit who happened to be there; or assisting the host who summoned them via White Soapstone by killing monsters and/or a hostile spirit who appears (which doesn’t guarantee they won’t turn on the host later, but still it could be worse).
Aldrich Faithful
The Aldrich faithful ensure that Aldrich, Devourer of Gods, remains undisturbed, by taking the form of loyal spirits and hunting down those who would trespass the ruined cathedral.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Faithful are blue with a reddish tint when invading.
- Face–Heel Turn: Serving Aldrich and protecting him from intruders means you are abandoning your duty to the Fire Keeper, choosing instead to honor one of the few beings in the series who is unquestionably evil and vile. That being said, the Ashen One has to kill Aldrich themselves in order to advance, though this doesn’t stop you from hindering other players whose worlds you invade when they step unto your covenant’s turf, even after you defeated Aldrich in your own world.
- Home Field Advantage: Enemies of Anor Londo will not harm you, nor can you harm them, allowing you to use PVE elements as additional help against the people you invade.
- Religion of Evil: This is an order within the Cathedral of the Deep, one dedicated to hunt down intruders who would seek to harm Aldrich - a being who murdered countless people by eating them.
- The Rival: To the Blades of the Darkmoon. The Darkmoon covenant once protected Anor Londo and its inhabitants, but now the Faithful run the show.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of the Bell Ringers Covenant in Dark Souls II.
- You Shall Not Pass!: The stated in-game reason why they do is to prevent people from getting anywhere near Aldrich, whom they worship.
Way of Blue
The beneficiaries of an ancient accord. Should they be faced with a dark spirit, a blue spirit — either a member of the Blades of the Darkmoon or the Blue Sentinals — will intervene to assist.
- Dirty Coward: Some people will accuse Way of Blue members being players who are meek and unwilling to face an adversary head on, choosing to summon other players who will do the dirty work for them instead. This is subjective, considering many invaders are looking to screw over their victims either to satisfy their lust for bloodshed or because they think its fun. Also, players who may in fact have decent PVP skills might choose this covenant because they don’t care about “honor” and want to deal with intruders as quick as possible, plus the guardian spirits do not summon immediately thus dark spirits have some leeway before having to deal with a new adversary.
- That being said, some members truly are meek and looking for help since they do not like facing invading dark spirits on their own. This covenant was intended to convince more players to take a chance with using Embers during online play who otherwise wouldn’t.
- Divine Assistance: They made a pact for divine protection against dark spirits and recieved it in the form of the Blue Sentinels and Blades of the Darkmoon.
- Protectorate: Members of the Way of Blue are this, summoning protectors when a malicious player uses a red eye orb (broken or not) to invade their world and try to murder them.
Blades of the Darkmoon
When a member of the Way of Blue faces a dark spirit, the Blades of the Darkmoon, by an ancient accord, help to root out the invader.
- A Friend in Need: Thanks to Company Captain Yorshka’s pure ideals, the Blades of the Darkmoon in this game aren’t seekers of vengeance against sinners and instead protectors of the Way of Blue members, like the Blue Sentinels. However, whereas the Sentinels have beef with dark spirits from Rosaria’s Fingers, Darkmoon members hate members of the Aldrich Faithful since Pontiff Sulyvahn destroyed the Darkmoon company until the Ashen One arrived to Yorshka’s tower.
- Big Damn Heroes: They are automatically summoned into Way of Blue members' games when said player is invaded by a dark spirit of Rosaria’s fingers, to help the victim drive off their attacker.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Darkmoon phantoms are dark blue, which is opposed to Sentinel phantoms who are light blue.
- Last of His Kind: Once you join the Blades of the Darkmoon you are the only one; Pontiff Sulyvahn and his Aldrich Faithful murdered the rest and had Aldrich eat Gwyndolin, the original leader. Technically you can fight alongside other Blades, but they’re the last of their kind in their own worlds too.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to the first two games, Darkmoon members no longer invade the worlds of sinners by force to execute them, instead acting as additional protectors to the Way Of Blue members like the Blue Sentinels. Also, the leader in this game, Yorshka, is kind and sweet to the Ashen One if somewhat naive of the world around her, a stark contrast to the original leader Gwyndolin who was harsh; manipulative; and demanded vengeance against sinners.
- The Rival: To the Aldrich Faithful. At one point the Darkmoon covenant protected Anor Londo and its inhabitants, but now the Faithful run the show.
Blue Sentinels
When a member of the Way of Blue is threatened by a dark spirit, the Blue Sentinels, in compliance with an ancient accord bearing the sigil of the Blades of the Darkmoon, assume the form of blue spirits, and help to root out the leader.
- Big Damn Heroes: They are automatically summoned into Way of Blue members' games when said player is invaded by a dark spirit (or two if the host used the Dried Finger item), helping the victim drive off their attacker.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Sentinel phantoms are light blue, as opposed to Blades of Darkmoon who are dark blue.
- I Got You Covered: Just like in Dark Souls II, Blue Sentinels are summoned to protect members of the Way of Blue whenever a dark spirit invades them. This time around, however, they’re not alone since the Blades of the Darkmoon have reformed to performing the same duties.
- Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: Story-wise the Blue Sentinels formed in a different land, a noble group protecting the Way of Blue and fighting against the Brotherhood of Blood who murdered the innocent. Due to the convoluted way time works in the world, the Blue Sentinels appear to have lost their original leader Targray and are now a leaderless group who share a simple goal of protecting innocent people from dark spirits. As it turns out, their practice of cutting off an ear of the guilty happens to be the same practice the Blades of the Darkmoon used on slain invaders as well, which is why Yorshka accepts the ears you earned as a Blue Sentinel once she knights you - and will continue to accept even if you fight under the banner of the Blue Sentinels instead of the Blades of the Darkmoon afterwards.
Mound-Makers
The Mound-Makers wish only to add to their mounds, becoming mad spirits whether summoned as co-operators or invaders.
- Ax-Crazy: An unfortunate fate for others who have pledged themselves; Holy Knight Hodrick is described as having become a, "crazed ghoul," attacking friend and foe alike, and Hodrick even warns of the possibility of falling into madness beforehand to. It's up to you whether or not the Ashen One is an exception.
- In addition to this, they're known to harbor a disdain for the Gods so great that they believe that EVERYONE who bears a Vertebra Shackle is related to them in some way.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Mound-Maker phantoms are always purple regardless of being invaders or being summoned as phantoms.
- Nay-Theist: They believe that the Vertebra Shackles they collect are, "shackles of the Gods," due to the bone possessing a perplexing symbol on it. Again, it's up to you whether the Ashen One feels the same way or not.
- Wild Card: Mad phantoms just need to kill someone, be it the host or other phantoms. Some will gladly intervene on a host's behalf to catch other invaders by surprise and thus be "Purpals", others will prioritize killing the host since the number of phantoms you have to kill for a shackle increases based on how many others are present, and others will just try to kill whatever is low on health.
Rosaria's Fingers
A group centered around Red Phantom invasions, Rosaria's Fingers collect severed tongues of their victims in her name.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Red, the color of invaders.
- Evil Versus Evil: Not even being a Finger yourself will prevent you from being invaded. And just like in previous games, you can choose to kill the other invader/summoned dark spirit should you both be in the same hosts world instead.
- Mythology Gag: The four NPC members encountered in the game each refer back to a previous Soulsborne title, Heysal for Demon's Souls (obviously being an Expy of the Old Monk), Longfinger Kirk for Dark Souls (either being the real Kirk or just someone cosplaying as him), Creighton having come straight from Dark Souls II, and Leonhard's clothing and moon-themed weapon being references to Bloodborne.
- Noble Demon: Members who exclusively use the red soapstone item to fights others can be considered this. Many are leery of gaining pale tongues using this method because gank squads (groups of people formed specifically to kill invaders) have been known to summon red soapstone users for easy kills, but summoned players also remain in embered form (if they were before they were summoned) and thus have the 40% health bonus to help compensate for this.
- Religion of Evil: They live for bloodshed, glorying in the death of others. Some justify it because they hope to be "reborn" in some manner through their worship of Rosaria, others do so because they want to spill as much blood as possible.
- The Rival: Killing a Blue Sentinel or a Darkmoon phantom nets the Red Phantom twice as many tongues as killing the host. Could be an Unknown Rival to the Darkmoons since they're more concerned with the Aldrich Faithful story-wise.
Warriors of Sunlight
Praise the Sun! \[T]/
Warriors of Sunlight are brilliantly beaming co-operators who place their golden signatures to help those in need through jolly cooperation, whether summoned by a white soapstone to help other hosts or assist other invaders to fight a gank squad.
- Affectionate Nickname: Members of this covenant have been nicknamed the “Sunbros” by the community, hailing all the way back to the original member Solaire of Astora from Dark Souls.
- Anti-Villain: While invading Warriors of Sunlight are still trying to murder their target host, their true purpose is making sure their invader brethren aren’t hopelessly outmatched against gank squads formed by a host using the dried finger item. In the end run, jolly cooperation is still in full play.
- Big Damn Heroes: A rare Anti-Villain example. Invading as a Warrior of Sunlight prioritizes summoning you into a world where there is already an invader present, effectively making them co-op invaders. As Dark Souls III puts dark spirits in a more disadvantageous spot than other games in the series, the sudden arrival of a Warrior of Sunlight invader can turn the tables in the favour of the dark spirit.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Warriors of Sunlight are Orange/Gold when summoned as allies and Orange/Red when invading.
- Color Motifs: Gold, Yellow, and Orange to go with their sunlight theme.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: Getting thirty Sunlight Medals gives Sunlight Warriors a powerful miracle called Great Lightning Spear.
- Face–Heel Turn: Downplayed. There wasn't anything stopping you from invading as a Warrior of Sunlight before, but now you can benefit from it by earning Sunlight Medals like a co-op summon.
- Legacy Character: The Warriors of Sunlight are the only covenant to exist in all three games with next to no changes between games (they were called the Heirs of the Sun in Dark Souls II, but that's just splitting hairs). Even the prototypical Red Eye Invader covenant has changed between games, and it would seem that the Warriors lasted until the end because they always had their purpose of engaging in jolly co-operation to keep them from Hollowing.
- Light Is Not Good: Unlike in the previous games, you can get Sunlight Medals for invasions, with fellow invaders even receiving a medal of their own upon the target host’s defeat like players who fought alongside a Sunbro in co-op play.
- Taking Up the Mantle: In order to join this covenant you find the initiation item in a torture room, located in an obscure house within the Undead Settlement. While the scenery of the room leaves interpretation that the original owner of the item met a grisly end, you can pick said item up and continue where they left off with the spirit of jolly cooperation on your side.
Watchdogs of Farron
One of the units of the Undead Legion, the Watchdogs ensure that the warriors sleep in serenity, by taking the form of loyal spirits and hunting down those who would trespass the woods of Farron.
- Animal Motif: They are associated with wolves, due to the Abyss Watchers' own connection to wolves and the person they emulate - Artorias of the Abyss - having sported a wolf motif as well.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Watchdog Phantoms are blue with a red tint.
- Due to the Dead: Members of this covenant kill trespassers of the Farron Woods to prevent them from disturbing the rest of the Abyss Watchers.
- Home Field Advantage: Enemies of the Farron Woods (both the Crucifixion Woods as well as the poisonous swamp underneath it) will not harm the Watchdog members, nor can they harm the enemies as well. Thus members can use PVE elements to their advantage against the people they invade.
- Home Guard: The sole duty of the Watchdogs is to protect the home territory of the Undead Legion: the Farron Woods. Before the Abyss Watchers linked the First Flame, this was to protect the area while the other units of the Undead Legion were away, acting as an auxillary unit of the Undead Legion. Now the Watchdogs defend Farron Woods to stand vigil over the graves of the Abyss Watchers.
- Immune to Flinching: One of two rewards a Watchdog receives at max rank is the Wolf Ring, which gives a small four point boost to poise. While “Hyper Armor” is more difficult to do in this game compared to previous ones, it has its uses and this ring boosts its potential. Many players who want to do “Fashion Souls” (wearing equipment based on style rather than practicality) sometimes use this ring to strengthen their poise for PVP fights, with an ideal poise being 21.44 in order to at least have Hyper Armor against popular one-handed weapons like a curved sword.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The other reward a Watchdog receives at max rank is the Wolf Greatshield. Due to its ability to use Weapon Arts, it was thematically designed to work with any of the Wolf Swords that are unlocked with reaching the first rank of the covenant as well as transposing the soul of the Abyss Watchers. It also grants a bonus fifty flat points to all resistances, making it versatile for any environment, albeit unlocking the greatshield (and the Wolf Ring) requires skill at PVP and/or farming a lot of Ghru enemies within the Farron Woods.
- Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits: There is no standard equipment or combat style with the objective being simple: kill the trespasser who entered the Crucifixion Woods area. Watchdog members can cooperate with each other and also form temporary alliances with dark/mad spirits in the area (Rosaria’s Fingers and the Mound Makers respectively), assuming said evil spirits don’t turn on them for sport.
- Also, PVP “fight clubs” are common with this covenant, either at low levels or around one hundred through one hundred twenty at higher ones. If you enjoy brutal and chaotic fighting against other players without having to worry about PVE threats, but you don’t enjoy being an evil spirit and wish to remain neutral, this covenant is worth a look.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of the Forest Hunters. Especially when you consider how the Abyss Watchers are related to Artorias and Sif, plus the fact Watchdogs will only invade the upper forest area and ignore the swamp below - meaning they only fight in a forest-like area, similar to the Forest Hunters of old.
- You Shall Not Pass!: They guard the Farron Woods, honoring the Old Wolf of Farron and the Abyss Watchers by hunting down trespassers.
Spears of the Church
Added in The Ringed City, the Spears keep watch over the Church of Filianore to prevent the princess from being awakened. When an enemy trespasses within the sacred ground, the Judicator calls forth a Spear of the Church from another world to slay the interloper.
- Field of Blades: The covenant's unique miracles allow them to summon holy spears from beneath the ground to impale unwary foes.
- Home Field Advantage: Spears of the Church summoned as the boss get a defense buff proportionate to the number of summons the challenger has and FP-free, unlimited uses of Ritual Spear Fragment and Divine Spear Fragment. This is to mitigate the fact they cannot heal themselves (with the exception of healing miracles) and will often be facing groups of enemy players, rather than a more honorable one-on-one.
- Mythology Gag: The entire premise of the covenant (summoning a player to become the boss for another player) is lifted right from the Old Monk in Demon's Souls.
- You Shall Not Pass!: The Spears seek to prevent anyone from entering the Church, lest a trespasser wake Princess Filianore.
