Characters / Dark Souls Races

The page for all of the races in the Dark Souls universe. For a link back to the main characters' page, click here.

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Great Powers (Unmarked Spoilers)

The First Flame

The First Flame at the dawn of time, as seen in the game's introduction cutscene

The origin of disparity; Heat and cold, life and death, and of course, light and dark. The First Flame became the source of power for all living beings and the origin of all souls. From within it, the Gods gained their Lord Souls.

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• Arc Symbol: The First Flame is represented by the bonfires, the spiral sword stuck on the ground and surrounded by bones. Of course, this is because all of those bonfires are in imitation of the First Flame.
• Almighty Idiot: It's one of the most powerful entities in the game, whose energy is used to power the entire world. However, it seems to completely lack a will of its own, instead being used by sentient beings like Gwyn to harness its power.
• Cosmic Keystone: The health of the world is connected to the First Flame; when it begins going out, the world grows darker and colder, and when its life is abnormally prolonged for too long, the world itself start to distort and stagnate.
• Deadly Euphemism: 'Linking the Fire' is euphemism for throwing yourself into the First Flame so that it can consume your souls and extend its life, a process which may not actually kill outright, but is agonizing enough to eventually drive even the strongest-willed completely insane.
• Final Boss: In a very abstract sense, the First Flame is the true final boss of Dark Souls III; the Soul of Cinder represents both itself and everyone who sacrificed themselves to Link it.
• Living on Borrowed Time: Gwyn's method of Linking the Flame does work to extend its life - but it's only delaying the inevitable, the First Flame is doomed to die and its unnatural lifetime may be causing more harm to the world than good.
• Soul Fragment: As the origin of all souls, every being possesses a piece of the First Flame within them; the Lord Souls are simply the biggest and brightest.

The Dark Soul

Humanity Phantoms, fragments of the Dark Soul

A special soul found by the Furtive Pygmy at the dawn of time, the Dark Soul is in truth the most powerful of the Lord Souls, and is counterpart of the First Flame itself. It's also referred to as the Dark Soul of Man.

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• The Anti-God: Of sort with the First Flame, being born from the First Flame but fated to eventually replace it.
• Big Bad: Averted; Gwyn certainly saw it as a threat to the world, and how it's described and represented seems frightening and might lead some to think the Dark Soul is responsible for the conflict of the trilogy - but ultimately, the Dark Soul was never malevolent, and the conflict of the game is mostly the fault of inevitable entropy, the Dark Soul's reaction to said entropy, and Gwyn's paranoia.
• The Corruption: It wasn't originally one, being a calm power that wasn't inherently good or evil; however, millenias of stagnating within the Darksign in itself corrupted the dark, causing the rise of the Abyss and undead and, in Dark Souls III, the Deep, which is like the Abyss but even worse. It's not known if it can ever be restored to what it once was.
• Dark Is Not Evil: At least, not originally: the Dark represented coldness and lack of light, but also gentleness, the ancestors of men could once use it without risk.
• Final Boss: While the First Flame was, very abstractly, the final opponent of base Dark Souls III, the Dark Soul is the final opponent of The Ringed City, and by extension, the franchise as a whole - once Gael finally hollows out, the Dark Soul seems to possess him to do battle personally with the Unkindled.
• Greater-Scope Paragon: A Chosen Undead going for the Dark Lord ending or an Unkindled One becoming the Lord of Hollows is ultimately championing the Dark Soul, and with it humanity itself.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The Dark Soul has become strongly associated with the consumption of other human beings and their essence; whether this is an intrinsic property of the Dark Soul or a side effect of being linked to the Flame, a force that by its very nature consumes, is ambiguous. But those overwhelmed by the Dark usually demonstrate it by consuming other sapient beings with signs of Humanity. It's probably not a coincidence that Gael makes the Dark Soul whole again within himself through an horrific act of cannibalism.
• It Can Think: Unlike the First Flame, the Dark Soul seems to have a will of its own, or at least feels emotions in much the same way a human would - Humanities, the fragments of the Dark Soul, and are described as feeling love, or perhaps hatred.
• Soul Fragment: Fragments of the Dark Soul lies within all humans, and indeed the presence of the Dark Soul is what defines them as human in the first place.

Humanity

Humans in General

The Furtive Pygmy, the first Dark Lord, and progenitor of Humankind.

The most prolific race in the world of Dark Souls, humanity is one of the four primary races in the lore. All playable characters are humans afflicted with the Undead Curse (see The Undead and The Unkindled folders for more information).

Like the Gods, the race of Men varies in size and physical appearance, but are almost consistently amongst the shortest of the races. It seems that size is naturally varied and has been for all time, as the Ringed Knights are towering figures, while the Pygmy Lords are slightly shorter than modern man. They also have a much more consistent anatomy, as opposed to the Gods.

All human beings are made Human by a fragment of the Dark Soul, known as their Humanity, which looks like a black sprite with blank white eyes. Humans are also capable of withstanding the Abyss, provided that they have not become untuned to it, and even find a sort of comfort in it.

Nowadays, humanity exists in the shadow of the Gods of Anor Londo, and are the race beset by the Undead Curse that grants their kind death without end. Those who haven't succumbed to the Undead Curse are few in numbers, trying to survive the world brought on by the Vicious Cycle of Fire and Dark.

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• Almighty Janitor: Humanity as a whole manages to be consistently underestimated and underrepresented in the scheme of things compared to the Gods, dragons and demons, but by the end of the series, they are the last species standing, and are poised to inherit the world in the Age of Dark. This terrified Gwyn, who proceeded to to curse humanity with the Darksign and be indirectly responsible for the Gods' fall themselves.
• Awaken the Sleeping Giant: Despite physically being the weakest race on the wholesale, humanity is revealed to not only be set to inherit the world in the Age of Dark, but have the most natural affinity with the Dark Soul itself. Gwyn, desperate to prevent this trope from happening, only helped prolong the inevitable and resulted in their annihilation. In fact, the last enemy we fight in the series is a human who had awakened the power of the Dark Soul itself; given that very enemy can and will inflict a Curb-Stomp Battle if pitted against the Soul of Cinder or Nameless King, this sentiment was very justified.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Humans are inherently with Darkness in their souls, and their true forms is the form of the Undead, the same form the Pygmies had. However, Darkness is explicitly noted to be the essence of Humanity in this universe, meaning that just as hate or ambition comes from it, love, compassion and determination comes from it as well.]]
• Determinator: Humanity is noted for their determination and refusal to give up. Indeed, it's this trait that leads to each of the player characters to march through the game and single-handedly fights beings far stronger than them and persevere even against all odds.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Most hail from kingdoms akin to Medieval Europe, but there are other, unseen Human kingdoms that are more akin to Arabic or Asian cultures.
• Fantastic Racism: Most non-Undead humans regularly discriminate and fear those afflicted by the Undead curse, which explains the constant confinement and burning of Undead in the Undead Asylum or other such prisons.
• Humans Are Average: Well, below-average compared to literal Gods, demons and dragons. But humanity is the epitome of Weak, but Skilled in this universe; they are very squishy compared to many of the enemies you end up fighting, but their Determinator natures always help them persevere in the end.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: Humanity is seen as this by all the other races, especially the Gods. Their natural state of existence is in the Dark, as the Pygmies - they only take the shape that is recognizably human to us through the blessing of Fire, which is what helps separate the Unkindled from the Undead as of Dark Souls 3.
• Our Humans Are Different: Humanity is descended from the Furtive Pygmy, undead, static beings of the Dark who were given the shape recognizable by us as humans through the First Flame. When Gwyn cast the Darksign on humanity, a ring of Fire around humanity's Darkness, it began the Undead Curse and doomed humanity to a Vicious Cycle of death and rebirth, all in an attempt to preserve the Age of Fire.
• Humans Are Good: Surprisingly enough for this world, the vast majority of humans you meet in the trilogy are all outright Nice Guys or Girls at best, or sympathetic Tragic Villains/Monsters at the absolute worst. To that end, the amount of actually, irredeemably evil humans in the series you meet can be counted on one hand, and most just want to be left in peace.
• Humans Are Special: Humanity is the one race in the setting set to inherit the world in the Age of Dark, and ultimately at the end of time itself becomes the last race standing. They are also the only race in the setting who can possess both the Dark Soul and the First Flame at once, something no other race in existence can do, helping end the cycle and lord over the new world just as Gwyn did.
• Humans Are Warriors: They've survived in this Death World seeming despite everything trying to kill them, so it's a given that they are natural warriors.
• Weak, but Skilled: In comparison to every other race in the setting. They are the smallest race by far, and wielding some of the Ultra Greatswords is described as a feat that involves absolute peak human strength, with a weapon that can be wielded easily with one hand by any other race. Despite this, their sheer refusal to say "die" helps them triumph over these Gods, dragons and demons, despite their significant weakness.

The Undead

A common Hollow, an Undead who succumbed to insanity.

In the world of Dark Souls, to be Undead means that the victim has died, but has been reanimated. Most Undead were sent to the Undead Asylum and imprisoned to await the end of the world. Undeath is seen as a curse or a disease by the living, but is seen by a handful as a blessing of the Darkness.

Unlike the living, the Undead do not perish with death; instead, they are resurrected at bonfires. However, in time they gradually lose their sanity and intelligence - called Hollowing - unless they can procure humanity. Humanity can be used at bonfires to reverse hollowing, but not undeath. An Undead that has fully lost their sanity is known as a Hollow.

The curse of undeath was created when Gwyn, Lord of Cinder refused to relinquish the Age of Fire to make way for the Age of Dark. How undeath is transmitted is unknown, but it almost always occurs regardless of the victim's intentions. However, some individuals like Solaire of Astora willingly embraced undeath. All those that become Undead are burdened with the Darksign.

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• Ax-Crazy: The end state of Hollowing; you lose all remnants of your humanity and become a genre-standard mindless zombie who attacks everything in sight. Unfortunately, this end result is practically unavoidable for most Undead.
• Blessed with Suck: They are the natural state of the Dark in humanity, being granted Resurrective Immortality and age without end. They are also in constant need of souls and Humanity to avoid Hollowing, which is the gradual state of losing one's sanity and ability to reason until becoming an Ax-Crazy ravenous monster indistinguishable from the mindless variants of the Undead. This is the fate all Undead are effectively doomed towards, and only after you go Hollow can you actually die - assuming you're even lucky enough to have that fate.
  • Hell, even Darkstalker Kaathe and Yuria of Londor considers the Undead Curse a blessing of the dark, and it's even described as "awakening their true potential". Regardless of if they're right or not, it's hard to exactly deny the effects of being an Undead is very unpleasant.
• Dark Is Evil: 'Evil' is a loose term for most Undead, but most of the hostile Undead are very much a threat to most people's life expectancy, and being Undead is intrinsically tied to the titular Dark Soul. And then there's the Hollow Undead, who basically attack everything and anything on sight.
• Dark Is Not Evil: However, most high-functioning Undead are still just trying to stay alive in a setting that mostly operates on Humans Are Good, so worst-case the hostile Undead you meet are always a case of a Tragic Monster.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Not necessarily whatever individual objectives the Undead in question may have, but the goal to keep one's humanity as an Undead is very much a battle they will lose, and can only stave off the inevitable end over. Even if the Undead in question lasts thousands of years like Undead such as Slave Knight Gael have, even they still went hollow - again, it's not a matter of if, but when for the question of Hollowing.
• It Can Think: Non-hollow Undead can and often do exhibit all their functions they had as a living human, and with Humanity they become practically indistinguishable. Even Hollow Undead, though effectively mindless by that point, can still wield and use weapons, sometimes to great effect.
• Resurrective Immortality: All Undead resurrect at the nearest Bonfire after death, often at the cost of their currently Humanity and whatever souls they have on them. If they end up losing all their humanity through the repeat deaths or lose sight of their purpose, they effectively Hollow.
• Sanity Slippage: Effectively what happens to all Undead progressively as they hollow after dying. They slowly lose their sense of self as they become more mindless and aggressive, until losing their humanity and effectively becoming Ax-Crazy.
• Was Once a Man: Happens on two levels; becoming Undead effectively removes your mortality at the gradual cost of your sanity, and hollowing out effectively destroys any traces of your humanity that you might have once had.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The Undead Curse is the natural state of humanity and a curse brought by the Gods trying to suppress humanity's dark, in tandem causing the inability to die and eventually losing all rational thought and humanity, becoming mindless hollow. Most high-functioning Undead are basically sentient zombies, while Hollows are basically the typical mindless zombies common in most media. And even in that state, all Undead exhibit at least some degree of higher functions even after Hollowing is occurring.
• Zombie Apocalypse: The Undead Curse coming to town is a sign of all hell breaking loose. Every ruined civilization you end up stumbling through suffered this fate, usually with you wandering through the remains of a catastrophic Corpse Land battlefield with only a handful of alive or sane people (most of the time not both) left by the end of it. And as Dark Souls 2 reveals, this Vicious Cycle of the rise of a great civilization, it's contact with the Undead Curse and subsequent collapse has happened countless times already, and by Dark Souls 3, the cycle has worn on for so long from the endless Age of Fire that the world was starting to actually die out.

The Unkindled

The Ashen One, protagonist of Dark Souls 3.

Unkindled are past individuals who tried to link the First Flame and become Lords of Cinder, but were too weak to do so and were burnt to ashes. Like the Undead, they are cursed with undeath, and branded with the darksign. With Lothric having refused to link the Flame, the Lords of Cinder are resurrected to fuel it; but with the Lords having left their thrones and abandoned their duty, Unkindled are resurrected to seek them out and bring the Lords back to their thrones.

Those who are Unkindled appear to be a sort of opposite to the Undead seen in other games: whereas the Undead seek Humanities or Human Effigies, objects comprised of some form of darkness, Unkindled seek Embers, small remnants of flame. Additionally, Unkindled are normally incapable of hollowing without the aid of Dark Sigils.

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• Attractive Zombie: In stark contrast to the average Undead, the presence of the First Flame in Unkindled effectively keeps up the illusion of humanity in the Unkindled, coming off indistinguishable from the average human as a result.
• Came Back Strong: Downplayed. Depending on if you don't see being an Unkindled as a total malus, their lack of downsides compared to Undead makes them a case of this, as they don't Hollow like Undead do and can consume Embers to gain their full power back.
• Cursed with Awesome: Unkindled are frequently regarded in-story as a cursed, pitiful existence for the unlucky few Undead who were too weak to even link the First Flame, and we're only brought back by the beginning of Dark Souls 3 because those remaining to keep the First Flame lit were desperate enough to be willing to send literally anyone who could do so, regardless of their odds of success. Despite this, being an Unkindled is generally a massive improvement over being an Undead (as listed in the Undead section's Blessed with Suck entry); not only is the cinders of the First Flame in themselves make them immune to Hollowing, it even helps preserve the illusion of their humanity while the overwhelming majority of Undead you meet are often in advanced states of decomposition. Compared to the fate of doom that awaits all Undead, not having that hanging over your head is pretty explicitly an upgrade.
• Failure Hero: They are effectively Undead who were so weak that when they attempted to link to the First Flame, they didn't even link successfully; they burned to ash. The only reason they were effectively brought back by the time of 3 is because those remaining to try to preserve the Age of Fire were getting that desperate.
• Godzilla Threshold: The big reason - and only reason - why the Unkindled were even considered to have been brought back. With the overwhelming majority of all normal Undead by this point having hollowed and a whopping four of the five the Lords of Cinder refusing to link the First Flame when called, the Unkindled were brought back as a Plan C - and literally the last hope people have of keeping the Age of Fire going. Hawkwood the Deserter outright lampshades how desperate things have gotten that they were called to link the Fire, noting that they weren't "fit to lick the boots [of literal legends]".
• The Immune: Zig Zagged. Make no mistake, they are still Undead, but they are effectively Undead who are immune to the risk of Hollowing or needing humanity or souls to stave off Hollowing.
• Violation of Common Sense: Unkindled are born without the risk of Hollowing compared to Undead. This would normally be reason enough to keep the perks, but Dark Souls 3 offers as an option the ability to accept the true power of the Darksign and become an honorary Undead, complete with the risk of insanity from Hollowing and the need for humanity. This ends up being required for one of the three different endings, with the Unkindled both combining the First Flame and the Dark Soul into one and breaking the cycle that way.
• Our Wights Are Different: Surprisingly, they are actually closer to the classical definition of wights than most wights today; being originally defined as a 'living person,' Wights only later were used to define a form of undead akin to the mythological draugr of Norse Mythology. In this case, Unkindled are Wights for being undead indistinguishable from the living, with the exception of needing blessings from the First Flame to reach their full power.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Originally Undead who tried to link to the First Flame but were burnt to ashes, they were brought Back from the Dead as undead who were in essence high-functioning Undead who were immune to Hollowing and looked indistinguishable from normal humans.

Other Races

The Lords

Gwynevere, the Princess of Sunlight.

Also called the Gods. After the manifestation of the First Flame, a race of towering humanoids was born. They came from the Dark, much like Humans, and four powerful individuals were changed, for they found the Souls of Lords near the flame. Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight, the Witch of Izalith, The Furtive Pygmy, and Nito, the First of the Dead: these four beings thus became the first and most powerful out of the other beings that lived in the world, known from that time as the Lords.

Gwyn led the Lords in a war against the Dragons. With their powerful magic and the aid of the Dragon traitor, Seath the Scaleless, the Gods slew most of the Dragons and claimed the world for their own. Gwyn and his family founded the mighty city of Anor Londo, from whence they ruled over a new race, the Humans who had been created by the Pygmy for his own reasons.

The Lords derived their power from the First Flame, but in time the Flame began to die out. To prevent the end of the Age of Fire, Gwyn sacrificed himself by entering the Kiln of the First Flame, where the fuel of his strength would keep the Flame alive. Ever since, the Gods themselves have been a very distant memory, eventually coming to have much of their power dwindle with the artificial extension of the Age of Fire, and eventually their unavoidable decline as the world's rulers.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Are the Gods mentioned in lore and item descriptions of the same tribe as Gwyn's family? Or are they some kind of other species? Do they exist at all? Most of them exhibit the standard mythological trait of being the god of something specific and having followers but in a fantasy setting such as Dark Souls it's unclear how many of these were real and how many were just tall tales or misremembered history. The last question is if the myriad gods of the many lands outside Lordran did exist did they live in Anor Londo, which is widely considered the home of the Gods?
• Arch-Enemy: Long ago, the Dragons were this. Gwyn and the other Gods challenged the Dragons for rule of the world, and they slew most of the Dragons through their actions. Even today, the Dragons never forgot or forgave the Gods for stealing their rule of the world.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: If much of the affairs between Gods and other races were any indication as well as Gwyn's treatment of Gwyndolin, the Gods were roughly as screwed-up as your average ruling Medieval family and/or mythological pantheon.
• Fantasy Counterpart Myth: They are very comparable to the Aesir of Norse Mythology; both are races of immortal but uniquely-human gods who foresaw their own destruction and the death of the world. Unlike the original Aesir, but like many modern interpretations, rather than accept their fates and prepare for that final death with dignity, the Lords tried to prevent this final end and in the process made things much worse.
• Fantasy Pantheon: Some seem to have served this purpose, although what differentiates them from lesser members of Gwyn's species who aren't worshipped (such as Gwyn's knights) is vague, and the gods introduced in Dark Souls 2 might not actually be gods in the same sense as those of Anor Londo and Lothric; at least one, the hunter goddess Evlana, was explicitly a Badass Normal who was eventually considered a god after the knowledge of her humanity had faded from collective memory.
  • Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight. Progenitor of gods as a race and bearer of their Lord Soul. Master of the various Black and Silver Knights that will ruin your shit throughout the series.
  • Allfather Lloyd, Gwyn's uncle, god of law, and patron of the Way of White. Fell out of favor by the time of 3.
  • The Nameless King. Gwyn's oldest child and a War God of some sort. Founded the Warriors of Sunlight and battled against the Dragons alongside several Dragonslayers before deciding to side with the Dragons for reasons never fully made clear and getting erased from history.
  • Gwynevere, Princess of Sunlight. Gwyn's oldest daughter, and heir to his power over the sun. Married to the god of fire, Flann.
  • Gwyndolin, god of the moon, who was raised as a goddess due to the moon's feminine associations. Has powerful illusion magic and leads the Blades of the Darkmoon covenant.
  • Velka, goddess of sin. She defines sins and metes out punishment, but Dark Is Not Evil and she will also absolve the sins of those who petition her or her followers. In gameplay, this means resetting NPC aggression and removing the Sin Points that cause the Blades of the Darkmoon to invade you.
  • Flann, the God of Fire. Nothing is known about him aside from being Gywnevere's husband.
  • Fina, a goddess possessing "fateful beauty" whose favor is said to be as fickle as the weather, and who seems to be a goddess of love, luck, and/or protection. She seems to have empowered the Ring of Favor and Protection, which provides great buffs but breaks when you take it off. Lautrec worships her, and a ring bearing her image can be found in Lothric.
  • An unnamed blacksmithing deity whose death spawned Titanite Demons.
  • McLoyf, god of medicine and alcohol.
  • Priscilla's exact nature is very ambiguous, but evidence strongly suggests that she is half-god, half-dragon, and that she is directly related to Gwyndolin and therefore to Gwyn.
  • Seath is sometimes included as a honorary god associated with magic, but his worship is considered heretical and tends to drive people nuts.
  • Caitha, Goddess of Tears, is a God of Good introduced in II who is associated with compassion and is said to remain with people in times of tragedy. However, since Caitha's Chime casts hexes and not miracles, she's sometimes suspected to be a demoness. By the time of III, she's become associated with the Way of White. She's also associated with the Red and Blue Tearstone Rings; she mourns the undeserving dead with red tears, and those who have lost loved ones with blue tears.
  • Faraam is a War God worshipped by the Lion Warriors of Forossa. His Faraam Set is the Iconic Outfit of the Bearer of the Curse.
  • Galib, the god of disease, was worshipped by the Leydia Witches who took up residence in the Undead Crypt.
  • Kremmel, god of struggle who rewards perseverance. He's the one behind the Ring of Thorns,
  • Quella, god of dreams and guardian of the dreamworld. Associated with a spirit tree, and behind the creation of the White Ring and the Spirit Tree Shield.
  • Nahr Alma, god of blood and violence. Worshipped by the Brotherhood of Blood, II's pvp covenant.
  • Caffrey, god of fortune.
  • Zinder, god of desire. Heavily associated with snakes and the Covetous Gold Serpent Ring.
  • Zandroe, god of greed who's also associated with snakes, and in his case, the Covetous Silver Serpent Ring.
  • Hanleth, goddess of bliss.
  • Nehma, Love Goddess.
  • The gods of Lothric are explicitly of Gwyn's tribe (assuming Gwynevere is the Queen of Lothric, several of them are his children or grandchildren) but aren't usually associated with domains like in the previous two games. The major exceptions are Gertrude (prophet and founder of the Angelic Faith) and Rosaria, Mother of Rebirth.
  • Shira is apparently half-god, half-dragon.
  • Filianore is explicitly the last true god in the world, kept safe in her slumber in the Ringed City.
• Our Gods Are Different: They are immortal, giant humanoids of incredible strength and sorcerous power, towering over most life of the Earth and the definitive rulers of the world. In truth, they are of the same kind as pygmies that spawned humans and demons, what makes them different is that they share Gwyn's Light Soul that he plucked from the First Flame. Some members of Gwyn's species appear to be true gods who are worshipped as part of a pantheon and wield unique magic, while others like Ornstein, Smough, and the Silver Knights don't have this distinction. They are The Ageless but just because they're immortal does not mean they're invincible; not unlike the Norse gods, they can die if you throw enough damage at them. Indeed, by the time of The Ringed City only Filianore remains.
• God-Emperor: The royal family of Anor Londo superseded in authority over even the human kingdoms, and all the world worshipped them.
• God Is Dead: By the time even the first game rolls around, a proportional number of the Gods have died out or are in hiding, with those still alive fled from Anor Londo. By the third game, it's pretty explicit almost all of the Gods are dead, with Filianore in the Ringed City explicitly being the last God alive - and even then, not for long.
• God Is Flawed: The gods generally ran the gamut of moral standings and weren't omniscient or omnipotent; indeed, Gwyn may have caused most of the problems in the entire series with his fear of the Dark. Aside from Gwyn, we don't get to see much of the others, but while some such as Gwyndolin and Yorshka are generally benevolent, abandoning Anor Londo when the First Flame started to fade isn't a good look on most of them.
• Have You Seen My God?: Many of the Gods mentioned in the first game are nowhere to be seen by 2 or 3, either due to being missing or dead. By the Ringed City, it's pretty clear all of the Gods are dead.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: The Gods went down in history as noble and loving deities and protectors of humanity. The truth remains much more complicated than that.
• Jerkass Gods: Downplayed. They weren't by any definition bad, but they were a Big, Screwed-Up Family and promptly abandoned humanity when Anor Londo was beseiged. To say nothing of how Gwyn helped may have indirectly fostered the end of the world through his fear of the Dark.
• Light Is Not Good: Downplayed. Despite ostensibly being divine and noble gods (and indeed, it's Metaphorically True), many ultimately cared little for humanity, and were more than content with standing at the top of the world for all of eternity - even after letting the Age of Fire run its course. This ultimately led to their extinction by the end of the trilogy. Gwyn's Knights were known to resent his protectiveness towards humans, whom they viewed as lesser beings than themselves.
• Large and in Charge: They were the deities of this world, and they absolutely towered over humanity.
• Last of Their Kind: By the time of Dark Souls 3, there's only three Gods left that are explicitly still alive - a measly two if only only counts pure-blooded Gods. They're all dead by the end of the Ringed City DLC.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: A lot of the Gods mentioned in flavor text are never shown in-game, from Flame God Flann, to Zinder, God of Desire, to Kremmel, God of Struggle, to Galib, God of Disease. It can be assumed however that they are all dead by Dark Souls 3, given Filianore is pretty explicitly the last God left alive at the end of the trilogy.

Demons

A Fire Demon from Dark Souls 3.

A race of malignant creatures born of fire near the end of the Age of Fire.

When the First Flame finally started showing signs of burning out, the Gods of Anor Londo moved to keep it alight. In particular, the Witch of Izalith tried to use her Pyromancy to recreate a substitute for the First Flame, the primordial source of life and diversity.

Needless to say, it didn't end well. She only sparked an uncontrollable surge of corrupted energy known as the Flame of Chaos. As a twisted imitation of the First Flame, the Flame of Chaos could not create anything but only warp existing beings, thus perverting all life in its wake: starting from the Witch of Izalith and her children, the Flame of Chaos transformed its victims into monsters that exhibited various traits of different creatures (like the Capra Demon, almost humanoid aside from its caprine skull and its four burning eyes) or unrelated species (the Witch of Izalith herself became the Bed of Chaos, an entity composed by a skeletal headless torso and an insectoid "core" and both were made of desiccated branches) and even imparting a semblance of life to inanimate matter (the Titanite Demons).

Ever since, demons have proven to be an endless source of misery for the world of Dark Souls, congregating in their near-constant threat to civilization both before and after whatever collapse had occured.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: Even with as evil as they often are, it's often hard not to pity them to some extent, especially as of Dark Souls 3. They were born effectively as a mistake that wasn't meant to be, and in swift order quickly had their only source of reproduction destroyed and were effectively left a Dying Race as a result. By the time of 3, the number of demon types you encounter in the base game are numbered in one hand, and the only demon boss you fight is pitifully old and weak by the time you get to them. By the time of the Ringed City, they have effectively gone extinct.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Ultimately not a single demon in the setting doesn't want to destroy or defile everything it sets eyes on. A threat to every bastion of civilization, they are rather rightfully feared and hated for the carnage they bring in their wake.
• Angelic Abomination: In a weird way, they're actually closer to being the equivalent of angelic beings than the actual angels you encounter in the Ringed City. While angels were born from the parasites of Londor pilgrims (which almost assuredly came from the Abyss, the source of Darkness in the universe), demons were born in an attempt by the divine to recreate the equivalent of light in this universe, only to be born as a mistake and effectively cause destruction everywhere they go.
• Animalistic Abomination: Many of the demons we fight are mutations or perversions of existing life created by the First Flame, coming to be in goat-like demons, minotaurs, and even centipede demons.
• Big Red Devil: While lacking the 'red' part, Capra Demons are basically the stereotypical cloven hoof demons popularized by the Bible.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Some demons in particular are fashioned after rather abhorrent insects, such as centipedes. The Bed of Chaos in particular is a rather disgusting hybrid of a giant insect, a skeletal torso and and branch-like appendages.
• Our Demons Are Different: They aren't tied to the Darkness like most demons usually are in fantasy media, but rather the setting's equivalent of light, Fire. Likewise, they were born in an attempt to recreate the First Flame that went completely wrong and turned into the Flame of Chaos, which spawned the Bed of Chaos and thus all resulting demons. After the Bed of Chaos was destroyed in Dark Souls, the demons effectively became a Dying Race that eventually goes extinct by the Ringed City DLC of Dark Souls 3.
• The Dreaded: Their emergence and the death of the Witch of Izalith and her daughters were summarily met with panic by the rest of the world, and it's hard not to see why.
• Dying Race: The destruction of the Bed of Chaos effectively destroyed any chance of reproduction, as demons cannot reproduce without it. They slowly dwindle in numbers in between the trilogy until they completely go nearly extinct in Dark Souls 3 before completely biting it in the Ringed City DLC.
• Chaos Is Evil: Most Demons are born of and intrinsically linked to the Flame of Chaos; an Evil Knockoff of the First Flame accidentally sparked by the Witch of Izalith that distorts life instead of sustaining it. As offshoots of this chaotic force, Demons instinctively revile and seek to destroy any form of order, like civilzation.
• Evil Is Burning Hot: Demons are unilaterally associated with fire, and as such tend to dwell where there is the most volcanic activity.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: Downplayed. We seemingly never visit or really get to see The Dark Souls Universe's equivalent to The Afterlife (Unless you were to count The Abyss as being some form of Hell), but as demons are most comfortable in molten-hot climates like their native Lost Izalith, they frequently set up shop in Lethal Lava Land areas.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Effectively the entire reason they exist can be chalked down to a mistake on part of the Witch of Izalith. In essence, she attempted to recreate the First Flame in the tail end of the Age of Fire, but ended up horrifically mutating her and her daughters into bearers of the Flame of Chaos, in turn spawning the demons themselves and thus making the Crapsack World of Dark Souls even worse.
• Irony: Despite being demons, they are actually closer to being divine than the angels are from the Ringed City; this is due to them being born of Fire, the setting's equivalent to light, while angels were humans born from parasites infected from Londor pilgrims, in tandem making angels closer to the Dark than the demons are.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Regardless of your thoughts on the demons, they fell from grace even quicker than the Gods did, with the only demon boss you fight by Dark Souls 3 being a shell of its former self. Somewhat subverted by the Ringed City, as the actual last demon boss fight of the series is very much The Last Dance for their species.
• The Last Dance: The battle against the Demon in Pain and Demon From Below, and they fusion into the Demon Prince, served as a last, desperate attempt to save the demon race from extinction in a blaze of glory. It doesn't work, and that marked the end of their species for good.
• Last of Their Kind: By the time of Dark Souls 3, there is only a grand total of six demons left in the entire world. You kill every single last one of them.
• The Legions of Hell: A given, since they're demons.
• Light Is Not Good: They are born of the setting's closest equivalent of light, Fire, in an attempt to recreate the First Flame to horrific results.
• Maou the Demon King: Subverted; the demons never really congregated under a single rulership, usually just as prone to fight amongst themselves as they are against everyone else. The only reason why the Old Demon King is even a "King" is because literally every other demon who could've contested his rule in the area is dead.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: The Taurus Demon is effectively a demonic minotaur, encountered early on in Dark Souls.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Flame of Chaos doesn't create new life like the First Flame did; it instead takes what exists and warps it into rather horrifying abominations. Some demons can truly be absolutely out there in how they look, such as the Centipede Demon being a intertwined, in-joined duo of centipedes sticking out from each other.
• Playing with Fire: Generally they're main method of attacking. They're distinct from the normal pyromancies by virtue of being tied to the Flame of Chaos than the First Flame.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Their rampage against the Gods came almost as soon as their creation, long before any attempt by the player to do so.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: While the 'rape' part of the equation is mercifully averted, everyone and everything the demons come into contact with they kill, destroy and utterly raze to the ground. There's a reason why their emergence shortly before Dark Souls was ultimately the tipping point of everything going to hell.
• Villain Decay: Back in Dark Souls 1, their mere presence was enough to have a major part of the Chosen Undead's quest be dedicated to destroying them. They succeeded, and as such, they eventually grew to become so irrelevant that by Dark Souls 3 there is only a total of six demons left in the world.
• Was Once a Man: They were once a tribe of humanoids not dissimilar to Lord Gwyn's family and knights, but the Witch of Izalith's experiments with the Life Soul led to mass mutation with every living thing connected to her.

Dragons

An Everlasting Dragon during the Age of Ancients.

During the Age of Ancients, the Dragons were the everlasting rulers of the world until the Lords rose and challenged them. In the end, the Dragons were nearly - but not fully - driven to extinction, beginning a new era known as the Age of Fire.

With the birth of the First Flame - the Advent of Fire - the Lords challenged the Dragons for dominion of the world. During the war, Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight used his powerful bolts, peeling their stone scales; the Witch of Izalith and her Daughters of Chaos wove great firestorms; Nito, the First of the Dead unleashed a miasma of death and disease; and Seath the Scaleless, who sought the immortal scales of the dragons, betrayed his own kind.

In the aftermath of the war, The Age of Fire came about, bringing an age of sunlight and prosperity. While the Everlasting Dragons appear to be all but extinct, the race has many descendants throughout the world, some greater and some lesser, with varying degrees of similarity to their progenitors.

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• Achilles' Heel: Lightning. The Dragons' scaled hides were nearly impenetrable to everything, but Gwyn and the other Gods soon found out their tried and true weakness was Lightning Miracles thanks to Seath the Scaleless. This proved crucial to the slaying of the Dragons, and the rise of the Gods' domain over the world.
  • A lesser Achilles' Heel comes in the form of the Greatbow and Greatarrows, which - being the archery equivalent of a BFG - was the only thing that could come near to actually piercing the hides of the Dragons before lightning was discovered. There's a very good reason why Hawkeye Gough is practically required for bringing Black Dragon Kalameet to the ground just to fight.
• Ambiguously Evil: It's ultimately unclear who struck first, the Dragons or the Gods. The backstory doesn't mention any particular hostility between the two prior to the war but the pecking order seemed to go Dragons —-> Archtrees —-> Miscellaneous monsters in those trees —-> Pygmies
• Arch-Enemy: With the Gods. The Dragons are mad that the Gods nearly hunted them to extinction and took over what they saw as their domain of the world. Even now, the Dragons haven't forgotten or forgiven the Gods for that.
• Breath Weapon: All Dragons could use their breath to fire flames or even laser beams to devastating effect to anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire.
• Draconic Abomination: Timeless, ageless dragons who existed even before the Gods, they are extremely powerful and feared in every capacity.
• Elemental Embodiment: Dragons were born out of the elements of the natural world, not fully alive as modern lifeforms understand life. Since fire and heat didn't exist when they reigned over the world, they were beings of stone, wood, and water, although their degenerated descendants are sometimes associated with acid, lightning, and even fire.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Everlasting Dragons existed at the beginning of the world, before all other life, and were overthrown by the Lords to establish the Age of Fire. They were all The Ageless, intelligent, had 4 wings and Word of God describes them as half living creature half Elemental Embodiment. Drakes are stated to be distant relatives of theirs, but only have a pair of wings and legs and seem to be like any other monster (no apparent intelligence and they probably age). While drakes have consistent appearances, few of the actual Dragons look alike at all.
• Dying Race: Even moreso than the other examples on this page, as they were already dying out by Dark Souls. By the time of Dark Souls 3, the amount of pure-blooded Dragons left in the world has numbered down to two.
• Fantasy Counterpart Religion: Despite being, well, dragons, they are actually directly comparable to the Titans of Classical Mythology. They were originally the rightful rulers of the primordial world, before the Gods waged war with them and won, exiling those that they haven't killed.
• Theme Naming: The four named Everlasting Dragons are all puns on English words that overlap with Names To Run Away From Very Fast:
  • Seath - Seethe
  • Kalameet - Calamity
  • Sinh - Sin
  • Midir - Murder
• Time Abyss: Even by the game's standards, the Everlasting Dragons are old. Most of them have existed long before even the Gods have, and by the time of Dark Souls 3, the Dragons that are still alive are possibly the single oldest beings in the entire world.
• Our Titans Are Different: Despite being Dragons, they are actually directly comparable to the Primordial Titan myths of Classical Mythology, by being the old rulers of the Age of Ancients before being defeated by the Gods.