Characters / Elden Ring: Demigods

Elden Ring Main Character Index
Main Characters (The Tarnished | Marika) | Roundtable Hold | Secondary Characters (Renowned Ashes) | Outer Gods | Demigods (Godfrey | Morgott | Mohg | Radahn | Rykard | Ranni the Witch | Malenia) | Enemies and Bosses (Dragons | Liurnia of the Lakes | Recurring Enemies and Bosses | Tarnished Invaders and Targets)

This page details the demigods who rule over the Lands Between.

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In General

• Abusive Parents: To varying degrees, their parentage have been rather poor. Rennala appears to have been a decent parent to Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn but is currently completely mentally checked out and absent from their lives. Godfrey is somewhere in the middle, showing some concern for his son, but otherwise appears to have gone along with Marika, who is undoubtedly the worst, showing little concern over the potential deaths of most of her children in what little dialogue we have from her, with the exception of Miquella, who's disappearance is stated to have greatly upset her. Radagon's relationship to his children is mostly unknown, with the exception of Miquella, who he's stated to have a fair amount of affection towards.
• Alliterative Family: The demigods all have names that denote their heritage:
  • Godfrey's descendants with Marika, known as the Golden Lineage, have names starting with G: Godwyn, Godrick, and Godefroy.
  • Radagon and Rennala's children are Radahn, Ranni, and Rykard.
  • Both pairs of twins born from Marika have M names instead: twin prodigies Miquella & Malenia; the Fell Twins Morgott & Mohg. This naming convention also applies to Marika's so-called half-brother Maliketh, and Malenia's daughters — Millicent in particular.
  • On a meta-level, the gods and demigods all have names starting from the initials of George R. R. Martin, who created a huge amount of the lore.
• Always a Bigger Fish: All the demigods fear their uncle Maliketh, Marika's half-brother, the current holder of Destined Death and the only one with the undisputable power to slay them all.
• The Archmage: More than a few of them are undisputed masters of magic, be it the intelligence-scaling sorceries or the faith-scaling incantations.
  • Those with relations to Queen Rennala, who was the most powerful sorceress in her prime, are all extremely potent sorcerers. Her husband Radagon created at least one incantation in the Golden Order Fundamentalism (which utilizes intelligence in addition to faith), and her children Rykard, Ranni, and Radahn, are all skilled in different categories of sorcery, with Radahn in particular being a Magic Knight on top of being a prodigious sorcerer.
  • Mohg is supremely talented in blood and bloodflame incantation, to the extent that with the sole exception of the two Aberrant sorceries and the Seppuku Ash of War, he is directly responsible for every form of blood magic that can be found in the Lands Between, and uses many in his boss fight.^note These being the Bloodboon, Bloodflame Blade, Bloodflame Talons, and Swarm of Flies incantations and the Blood Blade, Blood Slash, Blood Tax, and Bloodboon Ritual Ashes of War. His affinity for the art comes from the bargain he's made with an Outer God.
  • Miquella, Marika's son through Radagon, also counts. He was a master of Golden Order Fundamentalism even as a child, to the point where he and Radagon would exchange Golden Order incantations as gifts (Miquella creating the Discus of Light and Triple Rings of Light). When the Golden Order proved unable to cure Malenia's Scarlet Rot, he abandoned it to invent Unalloyed Gold, which did succeed to an extent (Malenia's prosthetics are made of the substance), is behind the Bewitching Branches (which Miquella invented as an extension of his naturally charming personality), and his Unalloyed Gold is powerful enough to even affect the game's endings, as his needle can purge the Frenzied Flame. He was also able to create an alternate Erdtree in the Haligtree.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Hoo boy. Considering George R. R. Martin was behind their conception, it shouldn't be surprising, but with winners such as Classical Mythology and Norse Mythology being stated inspirations, it's no surprise the Demigods are a supremely fucked-up family unit. Even before the world went to hell, almost everyone competed with each other for attention and patronage of their parents, with endless infighting and abandonment. And then there's Mohg, who lusted after his half-brother Miquella (who had the body of a child), and Ranni, who conspired to usurp the throne even before Marika vanished. Then the Shattering happened, alongside the disappearance of their mother, which didn't unite them. Instead, most of them claimed shards of the Elden Ring and started openly warring with each other to become the next Elden Lord.
• Cain and Abel: With the exception of Godrick who's implied to be one of Godwyn's children or grandchildren,^note He inherits Godwyn's fief, throne, and title of "the Golden" and is implied to have known him in life, but Enia says he was "a distant relation", whose divine blood was "sorely diluted." they are all full siblings, half-siblings, or step-siblings who have clashed for years in the Shattering ever since their mother's disappearance, and want to kill each other. Particular focus is given to the feud between Radahn and Malenia, who not only clashed personally on the battlefield due to their ambitions but said rivalry unleashed the Scarlet Rot. The only one who stayed out of the conflict was Ranni, but even then she played no small part in the events leading to the Shattering and is merely quietly biding her time until the opportunity comes for her to seize the throne.
  • On the other hand, fractious family dynamics only appears to be between half- and step- siblings. Between the full-blooded siblings, Miquella and Malenia were inseperable, Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn displayed no hostilities towards each other and maintain neutral relations through their subordinates ^note  Ranni and Rykard conspired to steal the Rune of Death, resulting in Ranni bequeathing the Blasphemous Claw to her brother so he could defend himself; Rykard maintains a portrait of his brother and allows him machines to protect his castle, and although Radahn's suppression of the stars paused Ranni's destiny, there's no evidence this was intentional or antagonistic on his part, and Jerren, a former Carian Knight and good friend of both Iji and Radahn, is supportive of Ranni's goals and wishes to see Caria rise again , and Morgott respects Mohg enough not to label him as a traitor and cooperate in preventing anyone from reaching the Three Fingers.
• Color-Coded Armies: Each of the major Demigods and their armies fly signature colors, which are displayed in the colors of their banners, flags and the surcoats worn by knights and foot soldiers.
  • Godrick's army is themed around green.
  • The Raya Lucarian army is themed around blue.
  • Radahn's army is themed around red.
  • Morgott's army is themed around gold/white, likely to signify their proximity to the Erdtree. This is enhanced by the gold-colored incantations many of them use.
  • Rykard's army, when he still had one, was themed around black.
  • Miquella and Malenia's army is themed around either white/gold (Lordsworn) or crimson/gold (Cleanrots), signifying their tie to their own separate Haligtree. Like Morgott's army, they also use gold-colored incantations.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: The Demigods encountered as bosses are comparable to the Lords of Dark Souls, the Bearers of the Great Souls in Dark Souls II, and the Lords of Cinders of Dark Souls III in their role in the story and gameplay; however, none of the Lords and Bearers bar Prince Lothric had any lines of dialogue, leaving their morality, motivations, and sanity open to speculation. Here, only Radahn has no lines, due to having completely lost his mind from the Scarlet Rot, and even he gets his situation spelled out by a third party in a cutscene. Their much clearer motivations makes them much more easily judged, in one way or another.
• Deity of Human Origin: Both Marika and Elden Lords are described along these lines; the mortal bearer of the Elden Ring is considered a full-on god, while her consorts become immortal Lords and demigods via Super-Empowering. To a lesser extent, Radagon's children with Rennala were when he was still human, but Rykard, Ranni, and Radahn were elevated to Demigod status when their father became Elden Lord. Or at least that's the official story. As Radagon is Marika's other half, they might have been demigods all along and the "elevation" was merely ceremonial.
• Divine Parentage: They are all descended to varying degrees from Queen Marika, the Top God of the Lands Between. Unusually, being related by blood seems to be more or less optional, and it's enough to have some familial relationship to the queen. Marika's stepchildren from Radagon's first marriage are also considered demigods. Because technically speaking, Radagon IS Marika.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: The twin prodigies Miquella and Malenia were cursed from birth with horrific afflictions because they are born from the same god using two bodies to conceive them. In spite of this:
  • Malenia managed to become the World's Best Warrior even after the Scarlet Rot rendered her a blind triple amputee while constantly eating away at her mind, and earned the ironclad loyalty of a large army of noble powerful warriors who she led on a semi-successful cross-continental conquest. She managed to inspire such loyalty in spite of the fact that prolonged contact with her literally killed them, something they were fully aware of.
  • Miquella, while never able to reach his true godly power due to being cursed with eternal childhood, built up an entire kingdom of outcasts essentially from scratch, inspired undying loyalty in his subjects, could potentially replace the Erdtree, and figured out how to halt Scarlet Rot progression on someone — which means repelling the influence of an Outer God — and mass-produce the crafts which would allow him to do so on a large scale (Unalloyed Gold series, gifted to all his soldiers).
  • Seeing how close they came to success as-is, if the twins hadn't been so terribly screwed over by the cosmic order, they likely would have had no trouble in solving the plot: Malenia would be even stronger and more magnetic and Miquella's powers might have been fully expressed as a true god.
• Elemental Motifs: Most of them are heavily associated with one or two elements that permeates their respective environments and combat movesets: Godrick has wind, Ranni has ice and moonlight, Radahn has gravity, Rykard has lava, Morgott and Radagon share golden light, Mohg has blood, Godwyn has lightning and later became associated with the deep sea as Prince of Death, Miquella has plant life, and Malenia has the Scarlet Rot.
• Freudian Excuse: Most of them have this to varying degrees, ranging from entirely sympathetic to Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse. Given the implication that Marika only had children because she wanted someone who could kill the Elden Beast as part of her rebellion against the Greater Will, their endless feuding can also in part be blamed on Marika's less-than-stellar parenting.
• Hates Their Parent: Implied with Ranni, Radahn, and Rykard, the biological children of Queen Rennala. Their birth father is Radagon, but their familial relationship with him is next to nil — Ranni loved her birth mother and stepmother more, Radahn idolized someone else (which is Godfrey) over his birth father, and Rykard hated the Golden Order Fundamentalism that Radagon was loyal to. This might stem from how Radagon essentially abandoned Rennala and left her nothing but his wolf and a Great Rune, directly contributing to Rennala's fall into insanity.
• Heroic Build: Radagon, Malenia, and Godwyn all have idealized, athletic, muscular builds. Godfrey is considerably bulkier than them, but otherwise fits the trope. The portraits of Radahn in the intro and in Rykard's manor imply he was also built like this, but by the time he dueled Malenia, his proportions had become too inhuman and unnatural to really qualify. Mohg and Morgott are also very muscular underneath their robes, but their Omen curse gives them almost apelike proportions.
• Immune to Mind Control: Not totally immune, but very highly resistant. Seluvis specializes in making magical droughts which turn people into mindless puppets that must obey his commands, and they're shown to work on superhuman warriors, powerful sorcerers, and the Humanoid Abomination that is the Dung Eater. They do not, however, work on demigods, which is why he asks you to retrieve the Amber Starlight item (which can control a demigod's very fate) so he can make a special one that can, though you never find out if it'll actually work because Ranni already has his number and won't take the potion. Like most bosses, all the demigods are also immune to the Bewitching Branch item which can turn normal enemies non-hostile (even disembodied spirits aren't immune, by contrast).
• Jerkass Gods: On a spectrum. Godwyn and Miquella were the closest to white morality, being beloved by all who knew them and never doing anything questionable we know of. The grayer ones (Morgott, Radahn, Malenia, Ranni, Godfrey, possibly Radagon if he still has free will when trying to prevent the Tarnished from mending the Ring) are Well-Intentioned Extremist types with many noble attributes who nonetheless still cause tons of collateral damage in pursuit of their goals. Finally the morally black ones are purely power-hungry butchers with no higher goal than personal gain, and are completely unapologetic about it (Godrick, Rykard, Mohg).
• Large and in Charge: In Soulsborne tradition, the demigods tend to be huge. The exceptions were Miquella, who was cursed with the body of a child, and Melina, who's full grown but the size of a normal woman. The rest mostly vary from 8 to 14 feet tall. Radagon and Marika are right in◊ the middle of that range◊ at 9'8 and 9'5 respectively. Radahn is a big outlier at 27 feet, but he wasn't always that big and his gigantism is accompanied by several other odd features like grey skin and thoroughly inhuman proportions, so he likely was around his mom and dad's height before his unknown transformation.
• No Name Given: The ones depicted on the page, barring Godefroy and Godrick, are the Queen's own children (however, the ones entombed in the Walking Mausoleums are heavily implied to also be Marika's children); there was said to also be a very large number of lesser Demigods (the children, grandchildren, and descendants of the main grouping), the majority of which were killed in the Night of the Black Knives or in the subsequent Shattering, with their bodies being housed in the Walking Mausoleums the player stumbles across. It's also possible that some of these lesser Demigods fell victim to the Godskin Cultists. The descriptions of the items that drop off of Grafted Scions also imply that they're (very) distant descendants of the Golden Lineage.
• Only One Name: The family doesn't appear to use last names in any fashion, the closest being their epithets (Godrick's former title of "the Golden" seems to be shared with Godwyn for being one of his descendants). Only Godfrey somewhat breaks the pattern (having once been known as Hoarah Loux), and even then he cast the title aside upon becoming Marika's consort.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: The three Empyreans were selected to succeed Marika by the Two Fingers owing to their virtue and potential. However, all of them went on to oppose the Golden Order for ideological reasons during the Shattering: Malenia and Miquella focused their efforts on growing the Haligtree to replace the current Erdtree, while Ranni was involved with the Night of the Black Knives which kickstarted the whole conflict. Ironically, it was the shunned and abused Morgott who ended up as the Golden Order's only true champion.
• Personality Powers: According to the description of Mohg's Great Rune, the demigods' Great Runes reflect their owners, and are influenced by them.
  • Godrick's Great Rune is said to be the anchor rune found in the center of the Elden Ring, with the other runes branching off it. He presumably inherited it from Godwyn, who was The Heart of the Leyndell faction, and whose death was one of the major factors leading to the civil war. In Godrick's hands it's more representative of his hobby of literally grafting other peoples' body parts on to himself; you can even see the points on the sides of the Great Rune where the others would fit. Appropriately it boosts every stat equally.
  • Radahn's Great Rune by the time you find it is rotting and set alight to resist the encroachment of decay, reflecting Radahn's war-hungry Hot-Blooded warrior persona and raw physical might (and, incidentally, the fact that his soldiers' main magical damage element is fire, though Radahn himself only uses fire for one move in-game). It boosts health and FP.
  • Rykard's Great Rune looks like a non-rotted version of his brother Radahn's, except the lefthand part is coiled like a snake and partly blue, representing his rebellion against the Erdtree (the same part of Golden Order loyalist Radahn's rune is straight and gold), his scheming, ruthless, deceptive, serpentine demeanor, and the fact that he's literally a snake by the time you get it. It lets you replenish health after every kill, in reference to Rykard's own plan to grow stronger by literally devouring other people, both enemies and allies. His sword has the same effect.
  • Morgott's Great Rune is said to be another anchor rune (and glows bright gold unlike the other ones), except at the base of the Elden Ring instead of the center; it's also said to prove irrefutably that Morgott is both King of Leyndell and a member of the Golden Lineage. Morgott is defined by stasis, wanting to keep everything in place and trying in vain to hold the Golden Order together as its era comes to an end. To this end he zealously defended the capital, the base of the Erdtree, from all contenders. His rune boosts health alone.
  • Malenia's Great Rune is half-rotted with what looks like mold growing on it, but the description says that without the rot, it actually would've been the most sacred rune of them all. The parallel here is pretty obvious. Effects-wise it's unique in that the flavor text actually says that the rune itself grants no power, rather it's a nerf that degrades healing ability (the only Great Rune in the entire game with a negative effect); the positive effect it grants is instead said to be due to "the infusion of Malenia's spirit of resistance." It lets you regain health by landing hits on enemies in specific time increments.
  • Mohg's Great Rune resembles his brother Morgott's in shape, but his corruptive influence has made it appear like a ring of cursed blood instead of a golden anchor (it actually resembles the Eye of Sauron, the symbol of another setting's Satanic Archetype). Uniquely it doesn't boost the player themselves, but rather grants Phantom Great Runes to boost enemies during invasions. Mohg himself is heavily associated with ghosts, teleportation, and spectres both literally (spawning an apparition in Leyndell's sewers, giving his Pureblood Knights a teleporting medal, teleporting in from a pool of blood in his opening cutscene, his Sanguine Nobles doing the same whenever they enter combat) and thematically (as a mysterious hidden figure whose name Gideon doesn't even know), and differs from his Warrior Prince siblings and parents by mostly sitting out the Shattering and just sending minions in his stead. Plus, he's either the one who invented the invasion mechanic, or at very least the one who makes the most use out of it (the Recusants have their own invasion item, but they may have copied the idea from Mohg, and unrelated invaders might just be using Festering Bloody Fingers).
• Physical God: All of them are worshiped as gods and possess powers varying from straightforward to esoteric, and don't seem to be affected by things like hunger, non-supernatural disease or natural causes of death, but it's made clear they are still flesh and blood and can be killed.
• Plant People: They're mostly (extremely tall and powerful) humans, but some also display plant-like attributes to emphasize their connections to the Erdtree. Godrick, Godefroy, and presumably the others are capable of grafting body parts on themselves like plants, and in cut dialogue Godrick even explicitly compares it to grafting branches to a tree. Godwyn turns into a Botanical Abomination upon death that has branches growing out of it. Miquella embeds himself in the Haligtree to grow it, and in the process seems to grow a new body within it made of its wood. Malenia turns into a flower after she "dies" while awaiting resurrection at the end of her boss fight, and she can spawn clone-children from buds that can do the same (Millicent even speculates that she's an "offshoot" of Malenia; aside from the obvious meaning that she was part of Malenia and now separate, it could also be a reference to offshoots of a plant). After Marika shatters the Elden Ring, Radagon's body seems to transform from human-like flesh to petrified wood, with golden amber visible in his body in the place of blood (he also takes extra damage from fire).
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: As living, breathing gods, it should come as no shock that the demigods are all the most capable fighters in the factions they head.
• Semi-Divine: As they're demigods, they all have at least one mortal parent, and are related to Marika in some way. This ranges from being her direct offspring to distant descendants, to even stepchildren. However, the direct sons and daughters of Marika are all technically fully divine as the Elden Lord is a Deity of Human Origin (as was Marika herself), just one who used to be mortal. As in many Japanese works, godhood is more of a job and status than something inherent.
• Shared Family Quirks:
  • All of them except Malenia, Mohg, Rykard, and Radahn speak in Flowery Elizabethan English.
  • Malenia and Radahn and Ranni, before she killed herself and discarded her original body inherited Radagon's red hair and fighting skills. Meanwhile, Godwyn and Miquella share their hair color with their mother, while Morgott shares his hair color with his father, Godfrey.
• Skippable Boss: In order to access the city of Leyndell, you need two Great Runes, meaning you have to defeat any two of Godrick, Renalla, Radahn, Rykard, or Mohg (if you happen to feel like torturing yourself by going up against a Superboss in early to mid game). That said, Rennala provides access to the respec mechanic, while Radahn is important to unlocking Nokron, the Eternal City, which is mandatory for the "Age of the Stars" route.
• Summon Bigger Fish: A few of them deal with esoteric forces such as Outer Gods to achieve their goals without the Greater Will's backing, as their demi divinity is not enough to oppose the Erdtree.
  • Ranni was taught by the Snow Witch and chose the Dark Moon as a hands off sponsor as she disagrees with the Greater Will and the Two Fingers' dogma. She's one of only two characters in the game that has a Full Moon spell associated with her (the other being her mom).
  • Malenia was chosen by the Scarlet Rot and her blooming in Caelid helped its followers into finding a new messiah. She is not happy about that turn of events.
  • Mohg is an Unwitting Pawn to the Formless Mother and introduced Blood Magic in the Lands Between to bolster his Bloody Fingers and acolytes into dangerous maniacs.
  • Rykard got himself swallowed by a Great Serpent that dreams of devouring the world.
  • Radahn learned gravity magic from Alabaster Lords, an alien race, for his war against the stars. Gravity magic itself draws its power entirely from glintstone (being a subset of glintstone sorcery), which Sellen calls "the vitality of the stars".
  • Malenia has a downplayed variant; her association with the Scarlet Rot is entirely unwilling on her part and she has abandoned her position as Goddess of Rot, but she'll still draw on it to power her second phase once you've backed her into a corner.
• Super-Empowering: All of the Demigods who participated in the Shattering claimed a fragment of the Elden Ring itself as Great Runes at one point or another, adding to their abilities. If the Runes' (far lesser) effect on the Tarnished is accurate, some of them gave the demigods special abilities but otherwise kept them physically normal (Rykard gaining strength from eating people, Mohg calling upon and empowering phantoms, Rennala's Perfect Rebirth), while others simply provided big all-around boosts to physical ability (Godrick's moderate boosts to every stat, Morgott's percent-based increase to Vigor, and Radahn's percent-based increase to Vigor and Endurance).
• Superpower Lottery: All of them have Super-Strength and Super-Toughness rivaling the strongest beings in the setting (even Morgott, in his held-back form as Margit, can shatter stone structures with his blows and leap hundreds of feet into the air despite probably massing more than a ton) at minimum, plus an assortment of magical powers and more esoteric abilities, including:
  • Godrick and Godefroy can make themselves stronger by grafting other beings' parts to their bodies, somehow letting those appendages act as if they were still attached to their original owners. They also use the wind-based magic abilities common to the knights of Stormveil, with which they can launch themselves through the air, generate small cyclones around their bodies, and throw powerful air-based projectiles.
  • Ranni can recreate a simile of her mother Rennala's magic prowess, including powerful moon lasers, homing glinstone missile spam, and brief spirit summons of a dragon and an oath bound giant. Beyond that, she supposedly has a vast array of frost magic spells at her disposal, but she never manifests any of it, and, save when she is acting in Rennala's stead, the only magic Ranni is shown using is instantly killing the player if they attempt to betray her on Seluvis's behalf.
  • Radahn's gravity magic mostly manifests as powerful telekinesis and effective flight which he uses to augment his physical strength.
  • Rykard can channel lava, magma, and other fire-based spells to great effect. After merging with the God-Devouring Serpent, he's also got all of its abilities, including poison, and some degree of immortality.
  • Morgott can generate Hard Light weapons and energy blasts, throw up large barriers via seal spells, and project himself through a host body to exert a certain percentage of his original power in projection form, even from the other side of the Lands Between. Unleashing his cursed blood also gives him bloodflame-based moves like his brother.
  • Mohg can spawn and manipulate bloodflames, fly, drain life force of others to himself via a curse, take the form of blood, corrupt and mutate people into his minions, and create lifelike physical projections of himself from great distances away, though they are considerably weaker than himself.
  • Malenia, on top of generally being extremely strong and fast even by godly standards, is a Walking Wasteland as she was chosen by the Scarlet Rot, a permanent toxin that can rapidly kill most anything infected by it and mutate anything that survives, turning them into twisted, crazed beasts. She also has some measure of Resurrective Immortality, judging by how she was able to recuperate after 'blooming' against Radahn and enters a similar state during and after her boss battle.
  • Miquella can compel the affection of others (though he doesn't always have to do so to keep the loyalty of his subjects), has the ability to influence the growth of plants (or at least his own Haligtree), and possesses a prodigious affinity for holy magic.
• Systematic Villain Takedown: Though not all are strictly required to be defeated, at least two demigods must be defeated to restore the Elden Ring, as you need two Great Runes to get into Leyndell (one can be claimed from Renalla, who isn't a demigod), and in Leyndell you have to defeat Morgott to progress to the Mountaintops of the Giants.
  • On a meta level, the demigods and their parents all seem to have initials of either G, R, or M. Organize at least four of them in a certain way, and you get GRRM... which is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek meta reason for why everything is messed up. This pattern is better observed with their parents, however (Godfrey, Radagon, Rennala, Marika). That said, Martin himself finally mentioned it was purely coincidental.
  • Those with the letter M tend to have something gone wrong for them, whether it is Morgott and his brother Mohg, who were born Omens and were thus scorned for it, or Malenia and Miquella, where the former suffered from a highly debilitating disease and having been chosen to be an avatar for the Scarlet Rot, the manifestation of an outer god, from birth, the latter suffered from permanent youth. The two pairs are also twins of each other. Mohg, however, is the only one who is an utter monster in both appearance and personality: Morgott is actually a genuinely noble-hearted and loyal, if very bitter man, Miquella is explicitly a messiah for the downtrodden, and Malenia is a noble warrior who understands the value of mercy and commands loyalty from her allies and whose most acutely destructive act, the blighting of Caelid, was unintentional.
  • Those with the letter R tend to be associated with the supernatural, magic, and transformation. Owing to their heritage as children of Radagon (a god and the male half of Marika) and Queen Rennala, Rykard, Radahn, and Ranni are all powerful magic users, with Radahn being a supreme fighter and general on top of it. Of the three, however, Rykard and Radahn became Fallen Heroes who were corrupted into monsters, whereas Ranni lost her original body and ended up in a puppet created in the likeliness of her mentor, Renna. Rennala underwent a transformation on a mental scale after undergoing a Trauma Conga Line, turning her from a regal Queen and the mightiest sorceress she was in her prime to an addled woman barely aware of her surroundings. As for Radagon, it's implied either he and Marika were once the same being but split apart or had undergone some kind of Fusion Dance ritual.
  • While this is an open-world game, you are almost certain to kill the demigods in a certain order due to their strength level and ease of reach. The first will be the incredibly weak Godrick, then you will fight, Ranni(pretending to be Rennala), then Radahn and finally Rykard. Then you will head for the capital and take on Morgott, afterwhich the easiest to reach and kill is Mohg. Finally you will fight Malenia, who is by far the strongest of the demigods. GRRM, indeed.
• Thicker Than Water: Despite their constrasting goals, schemes, and military maneuvers, the members of the Godly family universally make exceptions to their aggression when dealing with their full-blooded siblings. This is probably due to their shared upbringing and adversities: Mohg and Morgott were effectively isolated and abused from the rest of their family and had to rely on each other surviving in the sewers, the children of Radagon and Rennala went through their father's messy departure and their mother's subsequent despair, and Miquella and Malenia were both cursed in such a way that Miquella's genius was Malenia's main source of support against the Rot, and Malenia's unmatched combat prowess made up for Miquella's childish frame and physical weakness.
• Tiny-Headed Behemoth: While it's by far the most noticeable in the case of Radahn, close inspection reveals that all of the demigods have small heads in proportion to the rest of their bodies.
• Truly Single Parent: Seemingly a common ability of the Empyreans. The Gloam-Eyed Queen was implied to have birthed all of the Godskins alone (at least, no father is ever mentioned or alluded to). Malenia spawned at least five daughters after "blooming" in Caelid. Miquella is said by Mohg to be able to sire a dynasty with him despite both being male, meaning Miquella would have to do it alone. And Marika created Malenia, Miquella, and likely Melina through unknown means with Radagon, who is actually an aspect of herself that shares the same body. Though as the children of Godfrey and Rennala show, Empyreans are also capable of reproducing the normal way with humans. This might be a godly ability in general too, as the God-Devouring Serpent that Rykard fused with (referred to as a deity in some item descriptions) also spawned Man-Serpents alone, and the Elden Beast (called a god in its defeat message) is basically the consciousness of the Elden Ring, and thus the origin of life in the setting.
• Unknown Character: There are, or were, more demigods than the ones the story explores, with at least 9 and most likely more known to exist:
  • There are 7 Wandering Mausoleums, each housing a soul-killed demigod. One of these, in the Weeping Peninsula, might be Messmer, but this is unconfirmed.
  • Enia says that she's seen two Great Runes together once before you, meaning that a Tarnished killed two demigods. Since she doesn't say this after your first Great Rune, this implies that multiple Tarnished were able to get one Great Rune, but only you and one other Tarnished have actually claimed two.
  • Vyke, Bernahl, and Gideon are implied, with varying levels of strength, to have killed at least one demigod; Enia's comment about two great runes together compares you to Gideon (who also notably won't respect the player until they've earned their first Great Rune, implying that doing so puts you on the same level as him), Vyke was said to be the closest Tarnished to obtaining Lordship (and can be found in the Mountaintops of the Giants, which require getting two Great Runes and going through Leyndell for the player to reach), and Bernahl got close enough to lordship to see his maiden try to sacrifice herself to the Forge of the Giants. Any one of these three could be the other Tarnished with two Great Runes that Enia mentions.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: Unusually, the player can never get access to any of the Holy incantations that Morgott (weapon conjuring) and Radagon (holy spears) use. Radagon's 'Elden Shattering' attack (the one where he combos three hammer hits into an AOE that looks like the Elden Ring) is also unavailable; the Ash of War on his hammer is Gold Breaker.
• Warrior Prince: With the exception of Miquella, the demigods are all both royalty and potent combatants who led armies during wars.

Godfrey's Lineage

Marika's first husband Godfrey, as well as their children and descendants. Also known as the Golden Lineage.

Godfrey, First Elden Lord (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

See his page for more info

Godwyn the Golden (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

The Prince of Death (formerly Godwyn the Golden)

Godwyn's final moments during the Shattering

^{Click here to see the Prince of Death}:

"O brother, lord brother, please die a true death."

— Miquella the Unalloyed

Also known as the first of the demigods. Once the most beloved of Marika's children, famous for having convinced his mother to show mercy on the Ancient Dragons, Godwyn would tragically become the first demigod to die on the Night of the Black Knives, kicking off the Shattering... except it didn't take all the way.

When the Black Knive Assassins took his life, they in truth only succeeded in killing his soul. And after his hero’s burial in the roots of the Erdtree, this unnatural state of half-death gradually transfigured Godwyn’s corpse into a monstrous cancer polluting the great tree’s roots with Deathblight, causing other dead to return to life and begin worshiping him as their Prince of Death.

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• The Ace: At the very least, he was not the most beloved of Marika's children just for his virtue and strength of character — during the ancient war between Queen Marika's empire and the ancient dragons, Godwyn played a pivotal role in their eventual victory by facing down Fortissax, said to be one of the greatest dragons at the time, and not only defeating him in combat but sparing his life and negotiating the dragons' honorable surrender and incorporation into the Golden Order.
• Ambiguous Situation: Is the Prince of Death truly the mindless cancer it appears to be, or is there actually something left of Godwyn’s mind left? If Fia (one of its worshipers) is attacked by its throne in the Deeproot Depths, a gaggle of spirits will emerge to attack the Tarnished, which she attributes to Godwyn trying to defend her, something of an unlikely willful action for an Almighty Idiot to take.
• Almighty Idiot: As the Prince of Death. Even locked in a state of half-death, Godwyn is still terrifyingly powerful, with his influence spreading all along the root network of the Erdtree and creating replicas of his eyes and face in unlikely spots across the Lands Between. But being killed in soul left Godwyn effectively braindead, with said influence being an inadvertent side effect of his half-death and Erdtree burial having a bad reaction. The Prince of Death functions essentially as a metastatic tumor that alters the Erdtree's behavior; it's only a god in the same sense that Chernobyl Reactor #4 is a grim reaper.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The Prince of Death resembles the Ningyo, a mermaid-like Youkai that is said to bring ill fortune to its captors, which aligns with Godwyn's murder leading to the Shattering.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: An absolutely catastrophic aversion. In life he was renowned for his beauty, but in death his body has transformed into something so grotesque and bizarre that it's hard to capture in words what it even is anymore.
• Big Brother Instinct: The statues in the Haligtree depict Godwyn embracing/protecting Malenia and Miquella, despite them being "only" half-siblings and the Haligtree being an affront to the Golden Order he represented.
• Body Horror: Look closely at his corpse in the story trailer. Something is rippling under his skin, probably the Rune of Death itself. Then there's what happened to his body postmortem. His skin is blackened and rotting, his limbs have become stretched and merged with the roots of the Erdtree so it's hard to tell where he ends and it begins, his face has become flattened as if it has melted, and his head seems to have twisted itself 180° (compared to its position in the story trailer). Furthermore, his legs have been replaced by a giant fish tail, giving him the appearance of a grotesque merman, and the roots radiating out from his body have enormous eyes growing on them like pustules.
• Body Motifs: His face, and more specifically his eyes, are a recurring symbol throughout the game. Due to some nature of his death, copies of his face are appearing everywhere that's been tainted by Deathroot, to the point where even living creatures like crabs in the Altus Plateau have copies of his abominable visage growing on their backs. Meanwhile, roots bearing his lifeless eyes can be found growing in places as far flung as Farum Azula.
• Botanical Abomination: Although the Prince of Death stretches the limits of the word botanical — being a gigantic part-corpse, part-tumor, part-squid, part-fish... thing — it acts much like a parasitic plant does. From Godwyn's corpse, the Deathroot spreads along the roots of the Erdtree all across the Lands Between, causing Those Who Live in Death to rise from their graves and all other sorts of nasty business.
• The Corruption: Whatever he's become is metastasizing all throughout the Lands Between. The roots radiating from his body can be seen all throughout the land, and you know they are coming from him as they tend to appear around the undead and if you look carefully, you can see his eyes growing on the roots. And the roots aren't even restricted by physical reality; you can find the roots growing in Farum Azula, which is floating off the coast with tornadoes circling around it, so there is no physical way the roots could reach it. The place is also teeming with undead. Aside from the undead, his presence also affects the living; the basilisks' appearance have been modified from previous games to have "eyes" that look like his, and certain crabs can be seen with his face on their backs.
• Death of Personality: Going through Fia's questline would eventually reveal Godwyn is still technically alive... having his soul ravaged by the curse mark of one-half of the Rune of Death, then having his body left to bloat and rot in the Deeproot Depths. Due to this, his corpse was eventually given the epitaph "Prince of Death" by Those Who Live in Death.
• Defeat Means Friendship: He essentially managed to apply this trope to the entire dragon race. Once he defeated Fortissax in combat, he spared the dragon's life and went on to convince his mother it's much better to have the dragons be on their side than as enemies. This act earned Godwyn Fortissax's friendship, and the rest of the dragons would follow to become part of Marika's empire.
• Dies Wide Open: His "face" in his resting place in the Deeproot Depths has its eyes completely opened.
• Facial Horror: His face is the most heavily mutated part of him, having deformed into a bizarre clam shape and twisted around 180 degrees so that it's upside down on his neck. To make things worse, replicas of it are starting to appear throughout the Lands Between, almost like a tumor metastasizing, to the point where it can even be found on living beings like some of the crabs. You can also find a talisman called the Prince of Death's Pustule, which is quite literally a pustule that was ripped from his face by one of his followers and turned into a sacred object.
• Fantasy Counterpart Myth: He's described as being the most beloved demigod, and his death causes what is essentially the setting's equivalent of the Götterdämmerung, making him the setting's version of Baldr. Given the setting's use of Norse themes and imagery, this was almost certainly intended. To make it even more explicit; an old finger reader can be found in a secret area weeping about Godwyn's fate as "one who lives amongst the dead" (essentially in a state of not being truly dead, but not alive either) and the tragedy of him being denied a proper warrior's death, which is very reminiscent of the tragedy of Baldr and the Norse Pantheon's reaction to his fate, and is almost taken straight out of the Poetic Edda. After death, he becomes a deeply disturbing one of Hel/Hela. God of the dead (for a very loose definition of "god") with a half-human-half-corpse body (the living bits are mixed at random with the dead bits). Like Hela, Godwyn's current status is not something any sane person would envy; unlike Hela, who was merely a prisoner in Niflheim, Godwyn's situation is a bit more extreme. The Tibia Mariners also mildly invoke Naglfar.
• Generation Xerox: To both of his parents in different ways
  • Physically Godwyn looked like a gender-swapped version of his mother, with long golden hair and a lean, muscular physique along with seemingly only wearing a long grey skirt and his arm bands for clothing much like Marika's halter-top dress. The similarity in his build and dress to Radagon's own could be some Foreshadowing about Marika's unique relationship with her second husband.
  • In personality he shared quite a lot with his father, both of them being renowned warriors who waged long and bloody wars against older powers in the Lands Between and were honored and praised for their exploits. Where Godwyn differs from Godfrey is that he ended the war with the Ancient Dragons through diplomacy and folding them into the Golden Order, whereas Godfrey settled for nothing less than the utter extermination of both the Stormlord's forces as well as the Fire Giants.
• God of the Dead: Fits the Undead varient as The Prince of Death, with his corpse's infection of the Erdtree being responsible for the undead in the Lands Between while being worshipped by them.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Godwyn shared his mother's blonde hair and was said to be a compassionate person before his death. Even though the rest of his body became warped and bloated to the point of being unrecognizable after becoming the Prince of Death, his golden locks remain as the only things indicating the abomination he became was once Godwyn.
• Hunk: Judging from the story trailer and the statue of him, Miquella and Malenia, it is evident that prior to his death, Godwyn had model good looks and an attractive athletic physique, as befitting of his prowess as a warrior. After his death left his body rotted and emaciated, arm cuffs he was wearing around the time of his murder now look more like loose bracelets, as he no longer has muscular biceps to hold them in place correctly.
• The Heart: He was implied to have been this for his family while alive. Statues in the Haligtree seem to depict him as a kind older brother to his younger half-sibilings, Miquella and Malenia, and tensions between the siblings (and Godrick) only escalated to direct war after and because of his death during the Night of the Black Knives. He also ended the Ancient Dragon threat through befriending them, bringing about an age when mortal enemies separated by the Golden Order could thrive together. Sadly, even his corpse possesses a fragment of his charisma and uniting aura, as Those Who Live in Death are pacified and given an ounce of peace near the presence of the Prince of Death.
• Hellfire: The Eclipse Shotel's Ash of War suggests he is somehow capable of imparting certain weaponry with the yellow-and-black flames of Death, which blight anything they touch with the curse of Death. Considering his current state, it remains unknown whether or not he can use these flames in a more direct manner.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: In his former life, he was one of the most powerful and most beloved demigod scions of Queen Marika. Then he was murdered in such a way that his soul was destroyed, but his body was not, denying him a true death. After he was buried underneath the Erdtree, his corpse transformed into a grotesque squid... merman... thing that seemed to have merged itself with the Erdtree, corrupting it and giving rise to Those Who Live In Death, while mindlessly spreading Death-based corruption in the form of eyes and/or his decaying visage.
• Irony: One of the Golden Order's most famous and beloved champions (as well as the only one of Godfrey's sons to have not been born a cursed Omen) has in death become the source of a blight the Order reviles even more than Omenhood.
• Light Is Good: Famous for his golden locks, angelic good looks, and his ability to summon golden lighting; Godwyn the Golden was known for his association with light, and was said to be an upstanding protector of humanity.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: His descendant Godrick is his polar opposite — an arrogant, cruel, bigoted coward.
  • Godwyn himself seemed to have quite a different temperament from his father, Godfrey. While he no doubt inherited the first Elden Lord's might and combat prowess, Godwyn was famed for his merciful and friendly behavior towards outcasts and enemies; Godfrey, meanwhile, gave no quarter, and slaughtered every opposing force to the last. Godfrey was also so hungry for battle he was initially inadequate for statesmanship, while his son only occupied himself with war when his kingdom was put on the defensive.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: As seen in illustrations and the CG trailers, Godwyn was quite handsome, with a soft, clean-shaven face topped by golden locks that streched down to his waist—evidently, he took after his mother more than his brawny father. He still has his long blond hair in-game, but the last word you would use to describe his present appearence is 'handsome'.
• Meaningful Name: Godwyn's title is "The Golden" and he is the only child of Marika who was not born cursed. Morgott and Mohg were born Omens, Malenia was cursed by the Scarlet Rot in the womb, and Miquella was cursed with eternal childhood.
• Nice Guy: Godwyn was terribly kind, best illustrated by his mercy and friendship towards the defeated Dragons.
• Oxymoronic Being: Godwyn's mind is dead, but his body is technically alive despite being the host of the power of death. From the reaction of characters who knew him in life, his body can no longer be killed in the traditional sense, making him a dead immortal.
• Plot-Triggering Death: His death kicked off the civil war known as the Shattering, causing the other demigods to feud amongst each other for runes. Most of the game's plot is the direct aftermath of the Shattering.
• Posthumous Character: Godwyn dies before the main story.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Oh yes - as The Paragon, an All-Loving Hero, and the Ace even among the Demigods, Godwyn had managed to stop a genocidal war against the dragons in the past through the Power of Friendship alone. This, sadly, is also probably why he was killed - if the goal of the Shattering was a Forever War and/or to permanently end the Golden Order through civil war, an incorruptible peacemaker would be a serious obstacle alive and far more useful as a martyr.
• Recurring Element: He seems to be Elden Ring's equivalent of Kos/Kosm, as characters whose actions and ultimate fates reveal disturbing lore about the general setting of their worlds. Kos was a Great One who was the benevolent patron goddess of the Fishing Hamlet, and was a beloved figure despite her worshippers transforming into Fish People from the eldritch parasites living on her. Godwyn was the widely beloved demigod Prince of his mother's empire, his notable achievement being the forging of an alliance with the Dragons by earning Fortissax's friendship. In Bloodborne, the cruelty visited upon Kos, her worshippers, and her newborn child is the darkest secret of the Healing Church and the original sin of both it and the Hunters, and the discovery of her corpse confirms that the horrors that have descended on Yharnam aren't due to the Great Ones themselves, but are the collateral damage of greedy, short sighted humans trying to use the Great Ones' power for selfish reasons. In Elden Ring, Godwyn's murder provides information on what caused the Shattering between his half-siblings and their descendants, and his ultimate fate is a sign of otherworldly influence on the Lands Between. While they're both The Unfought (due to being dead and spiritually braindead, respectively), it's their companions who can be interacted with — for Kos, it's her abandoned offspring, the violent and feral Orphan of Kos who lashes out in grief, while for Godwyn, it's his Deathbed Companion, Fia, a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to help Those Who Live In Death who can be friendly to the player.
  • He also shares many similarities with the Nameless King from Dark Souls III. They're both the (implied in Godwyn's case) firstborn of the setting's Top God, who were renowned for their martial prowess and were adored by those they ruled over. They both loved the dragons whom their empires fought a devastating war against; however, while the Nameless King betrayed his family to ally with the dragons, which led to the dragons being wiped out and the Nameless King being erased from history, Godwyn fought and subdued the dragons and brought them into the empire, ensuring their survival. Godwyn was the first Demigod to die, while the Nameless King outlasted all of the Gods of Anor Lando. Godwyn had his soul but not his body ravaged by the Rune of Death, becoming the Prince of Death, while the Nameless King was eventually affected by the Undead Curse. They are both associated with dragons and lightning, and have a particular dragon with whom they are very close (Fortissax/King of the Storm). Fortissax fought against Godwyn in battle and later sacrificed himself by entering Godwyn's dream to try and save his soul but failed and was killed by the Tarnished, while the King of the Storm fought alongside the Nameless King in battle but was killed by him instead of the Unkindled.
• Shock and Awe: He's associated with golden lightning, and several incantations of his can be found, showing his mastery of the element. After becoming the Prince of Death, his lightning became what is now called death lightning — sickly yellow and black lightning which releases clouds of Death-inducing miasma upon impact. His friend Fortissax is capable of using said lightning as well, due to having spent an unknowably long amount of time within the half-dead Godwyn's dreams.
• Strong Family Resemblance: From what little we see of him prior to his death, Godwyn looks a great deal like a male version of his mother, having her golden hair and sculpted physique, but not to the beefcake-levels of his father.
• Stuffed in the Fridge: A Rare Male Example; the player learns far more about the consequences of his death than they ever do about the circumstances of his life. Subverted in that while he's dead, he's far from gone.
• Surreal Horror: The Prince of Death stands out as one of the most bizarre and disturbing things in the whole game. Many players have reported not even being able to tell what they're looking at the first time they lay eyes on him, as he's such a mismatched pile of different body parts that it's somewhat difficult to process that you're even seeing a single being. The fact that replicas of his dead, deformed face appear in other places in the Lands Between as a result of his curse spreading through the Erdtree's roots only adds to the horror.
• Technically-Living Zombie: Despite being twisted into a rotting abomination, Godwyn's body is still considered alive. Albeit it in a way that strains the definition of the word to its limits.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: He was described as the most beloved demigod, was a kind older brother to his half-siblings, and was responsible for integrating the Dragons into his mother's empire. Sadly, he was dead before the game even starts.
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: As a reversal of Godwyn's Light Is Good symbolism in life, the Prince of Death became associated with the solar eclipse.
• Undead Abomination: The Night of Black Knives resulted in the destruction of his soul instead of his body using a fragment of the Rune of Death, his spiritually braindead body branded with half of the Cursemark of Death. This permanently altered the cycle of life and death Marika had carefully established with the Elden Ring and the Erdtree, becoming a tumor within the Erdtree and spawning an entire race of undead that now plague the Lands Between. By the time the player finds Godwyn, his body has been mutated beyond recognition, its likeness finding its way all over the Lands Between and the only way to make it stop is to unleash Destined Death completely, undoing the Golden Order's concept of immortality in its entirety.
• The Unfought: Even after discovering it, the Prince of Death can't be fought or destroyed. It's not even known if it can be destroyed, and the possibility of this is never brought up in-game. Hitting its tail gives the same visual effect as when your sword bounces off a stone wall, so it's a good bet it can't even be damaged through ordinary means.
• Walking Spoiler: While he was introduced in the cinematic intro, he can be actually encountered in-game — his grotesquely mutated corpse can be found in the Deeproot Depths, while a huge replica of his flattened, rotting face can be found underneath Stormveil. He is not only the reason why Those Who Live In Death exist in the Lands Between, but his death also provides information on why the Shattering happened, and his ultimate fate is a disturbing sign of various otherworldly influences at work.

Godefroy the Grafted

A minor demigod of the Golden Lineage who, like many others of his line, took to Grafting in a desperate attempt to reclaim his ancestral power. During the First Defense of Leyndell, the Leyndell Knight Kristoff captured him. Following this, he was imprisoned in an Evergaol in the Altus Plateau.

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• Ambiguously Related: He's related to Godrick, but we don't know how. Given that they have literally the same character model, he's possibly a father or twin brother.
• Body Horror: Just like his descendants, he's a giant ball of stolen limbs.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: In the same way as Godrick. Godefroy is implied to have gotten the idea for grafting from Godfrey's grafting of Serosh, but failed to realize that Serosh wasn't there to enhance his strength- Godfrey was already as strong as he'd ever need- but to restrain it so that he could rule properly.
• Hero-Worshipper: Implied to be one to Godfrey due to his name and dropping the Godfrey Icon talisman. He presumably started Grafting so he could be like his hero... not realizing that this was basically the exact opposite of what Godfrey did.
• Named After Somebody Famous: In-Universe example. Godefroy is the French version of the name Godfrey.
• Optional Boss: Like all Evergaol bosses.
• Riddle for the Ages: Who exactly was Godefroy? What is his relationship with Godrick? How did he discover grafting? Was he apart of the Shattering, and if so, what role did he play? None of these questions are answered, as he was apparently so vile, that records of him were erased after his imprisonment.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: After his defeat by Dragon Knight Kristoff, he was imprisoned in the Golden Lineage Evergaol with all records of him being erased. As indicated by his title, "the Grafted", he likely did some pretty nasty things to warrant his imprisonment. His crimes were so bad Kristoff was given the honor of an Erdtree burial for capturing him, which is pretty much the highest honor the Golden Order can bestow barring consortship.
• Super Prototype: He presumably started grafting before Godrick and is much stronger than Godrick due to being an Atlus Plateau fight.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Inexplicably looks more or less identical to his relative, Godrick.
• Unperson: Almost no records exist of him, presumably due to whatever landed him inside an Evergaol. It likely had to do with the Grafting. The most we have to go on is that Kristoff’s ashes refer to Godefroy being captured after the First Defense of Leyndell (when it seems Godrick besieged the capital and was crushingly defeated), but his exact role in that is unknown.

Godrick the Grafted

"Forefathers, one and all! BEAR WITNESS!"

Voiced by: Ramon Tikaram

"Well... A lowly Tarnished... playing as a lord? I command thee, KNEEL! I am the lord of all that is golden!"

Formerly known as Godrick the Golden. The cruel ruler of Stormveil Castle and one of Marika's descendants through Godfrey. During the Shattering Godrick was humiliated countless times, and in the current era, has found himself trapped in Limgrave.

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• Acrofatic: He's more bulky than fat, but despite this, he can move around in a startling show of agility. Some of his combos in particular have him leaping around Slave Knight Gael style.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Fitting with its sillier nature, Road to the Erdtree makes Godrick more likable. While still a villain, he values his subjects and, when defeated in his goofy grafting contest, willingly surrenders his Great Rune to Aseo with no ill will. He's still a mass-murdering lunatic, but he's much more pleasant about it.
• Affably Evil: While Road to the Erdtree still depicts Godrick as a butcher obsessed with assimilating limbs, he's notably a lot nicer and commending in the manga adaptation, acknowledging Aseo as a worthy challenger and treating his subjects with decency and respect.
• Alas, Poor Villain: For such a vile, unpleasant man, his death quote is rather solemn, as in his dying moments he sees the homeland of the Gods again and reassures himself that he truly belongs there.
  Godrick: I am the Lord of all that is golden, and one day, we'll return together, to our home, bathed in rays of gold.
• Ambiguously Related: The term "Demigod" is generally only used by characters who are the direct offspring or stepchildren of Marika. Several characters, however, call Godrick a "distant relation" with "diluted blood", as the last of the Golden Lineage. He might be one of the children or even grandchildren of Godwyn, which would make him several generations removed from Marika, as well as explaining why his official title of "The Golden" is shared with Godwyn.
• Appendage Assimilation: How Godrick's grafting works. By dismembering someone and attaching/grafting their body parts to his own form or one of his creations, they gain the resulting limb's properties. Godrick's rampant grafting especially on himself has turned him into a shambling mass of limbs. This is best seen when Godrick chops off his left arm and replaces it with a deceased dragon head attached at the severed neck, upon which it comes back to "life" and starts roaring and spewing fire like an organic Arm Cannon.
• An Arm and a Leg: Deliberately chops off his oversized left arm in his second phase to replace it with a dragon head.
• Arm Cannon: In his second phase, he replaces his left arm with the head of the nearby dragon corpse, which then functions as a fire-breathing arm cannon. After you kill him, you can even get your own dragon head arm cannon from his memory.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: After losing a majority of his Lordsworn Soldiers and Knights, and seeing many of the remainder desert and turn to banditry, Godrick barely managed to hold onto Limgrave by bolstering his army resulting in this; most of the men in his service are explicitly Kaiden Sellswords (mercenary Northmen who spend their off days raiding), Exile Soldiers (troops press-ganged from penal colonies), and Banished Knights (landless and disgraced knights). Godrick also has explicit civilians (Commoners and Nobles) pressed into direct military roles in his forts, a low we see no other lord sink to.
• Artifact Title: Zig-zagged, in and out of universe: in the earlier promotional material, he was generally called "Godrick the Golden" and, in-universe, still claims to be "the lord of all that is golden" before he fights the Tarnished. In the game as printed, though, he's become more known for grafting body parts onto himself and is generally called "Godrick the Grafted" when a title is given for him at all. Later, when you meet Morgott, he explains the title shift did indeed occur in-universe, and his "Golden" title should be the correct one, but his behavior (which all of his more divine ancestors considered contemptible) doomed him to be known as "the Grafted".
• Advertised Extra: Downplayed, but for a Starter Villain of little plot relevance it's still notable that Godrick was the very first character ever shown for the game, in the June 2019 announcement trailer. Marika, Malenia, Radagon, and Radahn show up in the same trailer in the following seconds.
• Age Without Youth: He clearly inherited Immortality from his divine heritage but he’s the oldest looking demigod despite being the youngest of them all. His more distant heritage is presumably the reason for this.
• Ax-Crazy: Godrick is not afflicted with a supernatural influence or brainwashing, but he is nonetheless completely off his rocker due to a combination of inherent instability/sadism and frustration at all his ambitions failing. He has slaughtered thousands of people and literally grafted their limbs to his horrible, malformed body, has torture chambers full of bags of human remains in his castle, chops off his own arm and sticks the bare bloody nub into a nearby corpse at the start of his second phase, and cackles like a maniac all throughout his fight with the Tarnished. Bonus points for actually wielding an axe, and for his battle taking place in a cemetery.
• Bad Boss: If the Gatekeeper is any indication, Godrick is rather abusive to his subordinates.
  • Especially obvious when contrasted with Radahn. After the player kills Radahn, all the warriors who helped kill him reminisce about the great general and that this death in battle was all they could give him, but less than he deserved. After Godrick is killed, the Gatekeeper kicks his corpse and laughs.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Styles himself as "the Lord of all that is Golden" and the true successor of Godfrey, but nobody else takes him very seriously, least of all the other demigods, and he only rules over a small, mostly destroyed region with an army of marauders and sellswords he had to cobble together after being crushed on the battlefield. He absolutely pales in comparison to the likes of Mohg and Rykard in terms of both power and malevolence, and ultimately comes across as a rather pitiful and contemptible character.
• Blow You Away: Like Nepheli and the Banished Knights, he can "summon the storm winds" to generate powerful gusts of wind around him and even send them flying as projectiles. It gets even more lethal in his second phase when he adds fire to it with his dragon arm.
• Body Horror: Godrick's forte. Through the crude art of grafting (kidnapping and dismembering people before affixing their limbs to himself or one of his creations) Godrick has managed to increase his rather meager power to the point where he's a credible threat to the Tarnished, at the cost of turning himself into a hulking abomination covered in writhing arms and legs. In addition to having at least six fingers on what are presumably his natural arms, Godrick has grafted dozens of arms onto his back and dozens of legs onto his legs. If that wasn't bad enough, in his second phase, he cuts off his own left arm and fuses a dragon's head to it. It's for this reason his epithet was changed from "the Golden" to "the Grafted".
• Body of Bodies: Has increased his strength greatly by literally dismembering thousands of people and grafting their limbs onto himself. After he's killed, his original body can be found in his boss arena being desecrated by Gostoc, and he's revealed to be a small, shriveled thing underneath all the grafting.
• Boring, but Practical: Godrick's Great Rune just gives +5 to all stats upon activation. Very simple compared to some of the other Great Runes, but 40 free levels is nothing to sneeze at, and the extra Vigor, Mind, and Endurance will actually provide a larger boost to HP, FP, and Stamina than Radahn's rune (which boosts them directly) until you start getting close to the softcaps.
• Bullying a Dragon: For some reason, Godrick once made the extremely ill-advised decision to challenge Malenia in combat. The only reason he survived is because he begged her to spare him.
• Butt-Monkey: According to Kenneth Haight, Godrick is something of a laughingstock despite his divine, rune-bearing status, with a reputation for being a coward.
• The Caligula: On top of being utterly useless as a leader and having an Army of Thieves and Whores as his primary military force after getting all of his actual army killed in an ill-thought out attack on Leyndell, he’s completely nuts and spends most of his time kidnapping people, killing them, and harvesting their limbs for himself. Then it’s implied that he and his goons eats what isn’t grafted onto his body.
• Dirty Coward: Sir Kenneth Haight disparages him as one, claiming he escaped an attack on the capital by hiding among the fleeing women (and the Mimic’s Veil item description describes him stealing Leyndell’s treasures as he went), then hid from Radahn in Stormveil Castle, then begged for his life after Malenia beat his ass in combat. Haight is the nominal ruler of the area Godrick is occupying with his army so he's hardly unbiased, but Godrick doesn't seem to command much respect from anyone he doesn't have power over anyway.
• Disguised in Drag: According to Kenneth, he escaped an attack on the capital city by hiding himself among the fleeing women. Presumably this involved disguising himself as one, possibly through the Mimic’s Veil, though that only works with inanimate objects when used by the player.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: An implied example. Godrick idolizes his ancestor Godfrey, who's known for having grafted Serosh to himself, so it seems likely that Godrick grafted himself in an attempt to be like Godfrey. What he didn't realize was that Serosh wasn't there to increase his power, but to hold it back so he could be a better ruler. By neglecting his subjects and using grafting purely to make himself stronger, Godrick has essentially become Godfrey's opposite.
• Dual Wielding: An odd example, since the hands wielding his two great axes branch off the same arm.
• Evil Counterpart: To the Tarnished. Just like them, Godrick is a relative nobody in the eyes of the Demigods who nevertheless refuses to abandon their ambitions of lordship; Even his art of Grafting (which tears out useful attributes of fallen foes and physically integrates them into Godrick's own body) can be seen as a much more grotesque version of the player's ability to claim the equipment of Bosses through their Remembrances. But while the Tarnished constantly braves impossible odds to make their goal a reality, Godrick is too cowardly to face the other Demigods on his own strength, instead futilely searching for a shortcut to power by stealing it from people who can't fight back.
• Evil Is Hammy: Godrick may be a despicable demigod tyrant who is responsible for numerous atrocities, but his stage presence is off the charts, dominating both of his cutscenes with his boisterous, larger-than-life demeanor. Ramon Tikaram wasted no breath doing so.
  Godrick: [after grafting the dragon head to his arm] Forefathers, one and all... BEAR WITNESS!! [sprays the dragon's fire breath into the sky]
• Evil Laugh: He sometimes lets out deranged cackles during his fight, acting as tells for his strongest move.
• Fantastic Racism: Godrick has his followers conduct hunts for the Tarnished so they may be sacrificed and be grafted onto the Grafted Scions.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: Grafts a dragon head on his left arm when he hits his second phase which serves as a living flamethrower.
• Fisher King: His seat of power, Stormveil Castle, is being torn apart by thorny vines. Note that thorns tend to represent sin in the game (for example, criminals like wearers of the Guilty Set, the Thorn Sorcerers, and Elemer of the Briar have thorns as part of their attire), so it's entirely likely (and indeed, the Marred Leather Shield floats this proposition) that the thorns are a physical manifestation of Godrick's cruelty tearing his lands apart.
• Foil:
  • To Morgott. Godrick boasts about being the ruler of all that is golden and rules over decaying ruins with treasures and trash randomly piled around, guarded by an Army of Thieves and Whores who don't even respect him. Morgott rules over Leyndell, an actual City of Gold and one of the last bastions of civilization. Godrick dresses in elaborate robes and jewelry, while Morgott is said to hide all traces of his appearance under a concealing robe. Godrick turned himself into a monstrous abomination in a selfish attempt to get stronger, while Morgott was born one of the deformed Omen, yet is one of the noblest of the Demigods and far outclasses Godrick as a warrior with nothing but pure skill.
  • To Godwyn. Both have/had the official title of "the Golden", and both took on a new title after becoming hideous monstrosities. Godwyn was benevolent and heroic, a powerful warrior, and Loved by All. Godrick by contrast is one of the more outright villainous demigods, a scrawny weakling (underneath all the stolen limbs), and Hated by All. His grafting of the dragon head can be seen as his own twisted version of "befriending" the dragon he defeated (assuming he and/or his soldiers actually did defeat it and it wasn't already dead when he moved in), like Godwyn with Fortissax.
  • To Malenia. They're both among the youngest demigods who both split off from the Golden Order. Other than that, they're complete opposites in almost every way. Godrick is a pathetic wealking who has to steal strength from others through Grafting to pose any semblance of a threat, and even with that, he's still by far the weakest of the Demigods. Malenia is reliant solely on her own innate strength and skill, which is continuously being chipped away by the Scarlet Rot, yet is one of the, if not the, mightiest of the Demigods, to the point of being a contender for World's Strongest Man, along with World's Best Warrior. Godrick's grafting has left him with dozens of additional limbs and appendages that leave him a lumbering, ungainly, brute while Malenia has lost all but one of her original limbs yet still fights with extreme poise and finesse. Where Godrick is shown to be a hideous man even underneath his grafted body parts, Malenia, even after being ravaged by the Scarlet Rot, is still very beautful despite her deformities. Godrick is a General Failure who's military ventures end in abject failure, while Malenia is an extremely successful commander, who led an undefeated campaign against all multitude of foes even while under a number of disadvantages. Godrick is The Caligula and Hatedby All, with even his own followers despising him and lacking any sort of respect for him, as evidenced by Gostoc repeatedly insulting him and stomping on his corpse. Malenia is a Magnetic Hero who commands Undying Loyalty from her followers, to the point they're willing to fight alongside and support her even knowing it will inevitably lead to them to suffer agonizingly painful deaths. Godrick leads an Army of Thieves and Whores who are by far the weakest and most ineffectual of all the major factions in the Shattering, whereas Malenia's troops are among the best of them all, with her Cleanrot Knights in particular, explicitly being described as "the strongest in the Shattering". Lastly, whereas Godrick broke off from the Golden Order purely for the sake of glory, power, and the desire to prove himself "worthy" of his legacy, Malenia does so in order to support her brother Miquella, to the point of explicitly describing herself as his blade, and willingly gives up her chance at attaining the Elden Throne for herself in order to advance her brother's agenda, which is among the most selfless of all the Demigods.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Downplayed. Since the start of the Shattering Godrick has gone from an unimportant noble to a violent, power-hungry Serial Killer who's butchered hundreds and turned himself into a lumbering monstrosity. But even now he pales in comparison to the other Shardbearers and even his own servants hold little respect for him.
• Generation Xerox: Surprisingly, he's not the first to have the title of 'Grafted'. The other holder is Godefroy, who appears to be a relative trapped in the Golden Lineage Evergaol, though the exact relation between the two is unknown.
• General Failure: His attempted Siege of Leyndell (which is shown in detail in the story trailer) ended in complete disaster due to his poor leadership and lack of logistics; he was completely crushed by Morgott's forces, and most of his army was annihilated. And then Malenia showed up and dunked on him even harder at the outer gates of his own castle! This is all pretty clearly feeding into his obsessive desire to "prove himself" to his ancestors by the time the player meets him. By the time the Tarnished awakes his rule of Limgrave is visibly falling apart despite his last major defeat having been decades ago and none of his demigod relatives having taken action against him since then. His troops are barely containing the flood of Demi-Humans and Misbegotten pouring into Limgrave (while also being picked off by the local wildlife), much less taking any sort of offensive action.
• Gonk: Even underneath his grafted body parts, Godrick is a hideous man.
• Hated by All: He's feared and hated in Stormveil, but almost nobody, not even the abused commoners in his own keep, respects him. Gideon Ofnir also finds him very contemptuous and has nothing complimentary to say about him. After he's killed the gatekeeper of Stormveil can be found stomping on what's left of him and insulting him as "a pathetic excuse for a lord" and "craven to the bone". The only person in the entire game who treats Godrick with any respect is Edgar, Castellan of Castle Morne, who takes his lord's appointment as a mark of pride, though Castle Morne is far from Godrick's depravities.
• Have a Nice Death:
  Phase 1: "Lowly Tarnished...thou'rt unfit even to graft..."
  Phase 2: "Great Godfrey, did'st thou witness?"
• Hero-Worshipper: He has a huge painting of his ancestor Godfrey in the main hall of his castle, and should he kill the Tarnished in his second phase, he asks if Godfrey saw him do it. His anger at the Tarnished "playing as a Lord" is also probably because he sees it as an insult to the great Godfrey.
• Hypocritical Humor: In some cut dialogue, Godrick insults "the Omen King" and the "rank, malformed twins" as unworthy successors to Queen Marika's throne compared to himself, implicitly because of their physical deformities. He clearly doesn't own a mirror.
• Hypocrite: He disparages all of the Tarnished as his inferiors, yet what little threat Godrick does pose stems entirely from having stolen their strength for himself through Grafting.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Judging by the contents of the kitchen and dining hall at Stormveil, Godrick and the other Grafted regularly eat the leftovers of their victims once they've taken all the valuable limbs.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Despite being the ruler of his own kingdom, his subjects don't respect him at all (and quite understandably, considering he uses them as fodder for Grafting). Even before the Shattering, he was only distantly related to the godly lineage and thus never commanded as much respect as his more powerful and/or capable relatives, whether they were children of Marika or Radagon. Combined with being a descendant/grandson of Godfrey, the first Elden Lord, and Godwyn, the most well-regarded son of Godfrey and a powerful but noble demigod in his own right, he naturally would develop quite the raging inferiority complex that would drive him to depravity in an attempt to "prove" himself. Fittingly, his boss form is a massive, hulking amalgam of grafted body parts, while his true form is a pathetic, shriveled thing as big as a normal human, unlike some of his larger family members.
• Informed Flaw: He's said to be a Dirty Coward (enough so to grovel for his life after challenging Malenia to a duel) yet he never begs for his life or shows any fear in his actual boss fight, even when he's losing.
• Insult to Rocks: Disparages you as "unfit even to graft" in one of his victory lines.
• Irony:
  • He clearly has a very low opinion of Tarnished, presumably unaware that the ancestor he practically worships and whose legacy he is obsessed with living up to is their Monster Progenitor.
  • Godrick is trying to use Grafting as a shortcut to reach Godfrey's legendary level of strength. While Godfrey's only use of Grafting (fusing Serosh to his back) was actually an attempt to make himself weaker.
• King Mook:
  • Judging by his facial features and skin tone, Godrick seems to be of the same race as the Commoners encountered throughout his castle, though far healthier. This is most noticeable after he is defeated and if Gostoc is still alive, as the similarities between Godrick's severed head and Gostoc are obvious when compared side by side.
  • He's also one to the Grafted Scions; his internal label is GraftKing to their GraftSpider and they are essentially reduced versions of what he is (a very mildly-divine descendant of the Golden Lineage using grafting to reclaim their ancestral strength), though they might not count as 'mooks' given they're essentially minibosses.
• Kneel Before Zod: He demands the Tarnished kneel to him both before and during the battle when he does his five-hit axe combo. Even the weapon skill of his greataxe is named "I Command Thee, Kneel!".
• Leitmotif: Godrick the Grafted.
• Last of His Kind: He's implied to be the only member of the "lesser" Demigods (nobles who can trace their lineage to one of Marika's offspring but are much weaker due to not being her direct children) to have survived the Shattering.
• Lightning Bruiser: The mismatched array of limbs covering his body may be awkward and ungainly, but they give him surprising mobility for such an enormous monstrosity. His dash attacks in particular are fast and far-reaching, with peculiar trajectories that can throw off unprepared players (and give even prepared players limited room to dodge).
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: He speaks in this manner in the Road to the Erdtree manga. Or course, it isn't meant to be taken all that seriously to begin with.
• Living Weapon: The cutscene showing Godrick's transition to his second phase emphasizes the dragon head grafted on his left arm is somehow still alive.
• Loser Deity: He's considered the weakest of the demigods in-universe, and between that and how he's feared and hated by damn near everyone, no one truely respects him, including his minions.
• Lost in Translation:
  • There's a minor but important nuance that gets lost in Kenneth Haight's exposition about him; rather than calling Godrick an "up-jumped country bumpkin", he calls him よそ者 - basically, a foreigner. The former almost makes it sound like Godrick is native to rural Limgrave, while the latter makes it clear this isn't the case and recontextualizes the "bumpkin" localization as just a generalized insult on Haight's part. This adds further context to why Commander O'Neil and his Stormveil Exile Soldiers happily join Malenia after she and her army beat up Godrick and his, and why the Exile Soldiers and Banished Knights use the signature spells of Stormveil but Godrick's regular Lordsworn never do: he and his troops are foreign occupiers. This also contextualizes his death speech: when he's talking about returning "to our home, bathed in rays of gold", he's speaking literally, as Leyndell actually is the home of him and his troops, not Stormveil. Finally, it gives more meaning to why Haight is looking for a lord of "right and proper lineage" to take over Limgrave/Stormveil, and why he settles on Nepheli after she takes on the Stormhawk King's spirit ashes - he wants someone with actual ties to the place rather than another Godrick, and Nepheli being able to interact with the Stormhawk King proves this fact to him, increasing her Foil relationship with Godrick who never belonged there and had the Stormhawk King's ashes locked up after stealing the castle from its native inhabitants.
  • On that note, the Japanese version of the Veteran's Prosthesis says that Niall offered his leg in exchange for the lives of some defeated knights held prisoner, while English makes it sound like he offered the prosthetic itself. Niall's knights are all Banished Knights who use Stormveil spells, Niall himself is a clone of O'Neil, and he currently serves the Haligtree faction. This then explains the otherwise inexplicable detail of Godrick's grafted foot◊ looking a lot like Niall and O'Neil's own missing feet. Note that he always stomps with that foot specifically when performing storm spells.
• The Magnificent: Godrick's proper title, as elucidated by Morgott, is "Godrick the Golden", but due to his habit of splicing the limbs of Tarnished onto himself, he's become known as "Godrick the Grafted" instead.
• Monstrosity Equals Weakness: The most monstrous-looking demigod after Rykard, and by far the weakest.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He has multiple arms grafted to his back as a show of just how power-hungry he's become.
• The Neidermeyer: After squandering most of his troops on a failed siege of Leyndell, he was forced to resort to bolstering his forces with criminals, exiled or disgraced knights, and even commoners. None of them have any respect for him and what modicum of loyalty he can inspire in his subjects comes mainly from fear.
• Noodle Incident: Kenneth notes he once insulted his relative, Malenia, who soundly beat him in combat and had him cravenly beg for his life. In the same breath, Kenneth mentions an incident where Godrick fled to Stormveil to hide from Radahn, which gets even less context.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: He leads his own diverse and dangerous army and is physically strong enough to shatter stone and create shockwaves with his blows as well as leap superhuman distances despite likely massing several tons. All of this makes him a terrifying juggernaut compared to the residents of Limgrave. He slew enough Tarnished and other foes^note Including Banished Knights, as some of their limbs are visible on his model. that their limbs decorate his castle and is easily the strongest enemy you'll encounter in the first fifth or so of the game (Limgrave, Weeping Peninsula, Siofra River, and southern Liurnia), to the point that beating him is enough to get even Gideon to take you seriously. But compared to the rest of the demigods? He's regarded as third-rate competitor and weakling.
• One-Winged Angel: Once you bring his life down to half, he'll deliberately chop off his own left arm, shove the bleeding stump into the nearby dragon corpse, and rip the head off it to use as a fire-breathing Arm Cannon.
• Pummeling the Corpse: After you kill him, the gatekeeper who helped you enter the castle will be found repeatedly stomping on the head of his corpse as payback for all the crap Godrick put him through.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: It's implied that this is at least partially the reason that he rules Limgrave; it's far away from Leyndell and there's nothing really important there, so he could be safely sent there to get him out of Morgott's hair. He and his men show a strong desire to return to their "home, bathed in rays of gold" in several lines, and Kenneth Haight says that Godrick doesn't really belong to Limgrave, unlike Nepheli.
• Recurring Boss: He has a "second fight" in the form of his identical ancestor Godefroy above.
• Scary Teeth: It's hard to see in-game, but on closer examination it's clear Godrick is missing several teeth and what he has are decayed. Likely another show of how wretched he is compared to his other Demigod kin.
• Serial Killer: Of Tarnished, whom he specifically targets and kills in order to dismember them and graft their body parts onto himself. The sheer number of his victims is made eerily clear by Stormeveil's dining hall; hundreds of severed arms hang from the ceiling, and a nearby courtyard is filled with dozens of body bags.
• Shockwave Stomp: He can do this by slamming the ground with the very top of his greataxe (which is flat like a hammer), and if you make his greataxe for yourself, you can do the same thing.
• Signature Move: I Command Thee, Kneel!, where Godrick slams the flat-shaped part of his greataxe on the ground multiple times, creating massive shockwaves. The player can also use it should they obtain his axe.
• Starter Villain: Godrick is the primary villain of the game's first explorable regions (East and West Limgrave, Stormhill, the Weeping Peninsula, and Stormveil Castle), and as such he is likely the first shardbearer you will fight and kill. It makes sense, as the game heavily spells out how much weaker he is than the rest of his family, so it only makes sense to target him first — and he'll still give you a rough time. Enia tells you not to get too cocky for beating him, as in her words he was "the runt of the litter."
• Sketchy Successor: Godrick's lust for power stems primarily from a desperate desire to to live up to Godfrey's monumental legacy as first Elden Lord. Comparing their appearances (a giant warrior wielding a golden greataxe with a beast attached to their body) makes it obvious that Godrick is trying turn himself into a copy of his ancestor through Grafting.
• Tiny-Headed Behemoth: He's practically giant, but his head is comically tiny. it's one of the first hints of how frail and puny all his grafting has left his actual body.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: After you get his health down to 50%, he takes a full minute to cut his arm off and replace it with a dragon's head in a cutscene, during which the Tarnished is off-camera and politely waiting for him to finish, along with any summoned allies.
• Uncommon Time: His first phase's theme is played on a 3/4 scale. It helps emphasize his unbalanced and chaotic nature as well as the desperate need to complete himself by adding on things to himself. His second phase adds on the dragon's signature 4/4 theme showing that it has made him more complete he is still very much off.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Strong enough to shatter thick stone, but all the rampant grafting has left his body so lop-sided and malformed that Godrick can barely keep his balance. He even stumbles in some of his animations. On the other hand, he's at least skilled enough to use various storm spells (Storm Blade, Storm Assault, Stormcaller), and his axe actually has a pretty hefty minimum Dexterity requirement.
• Valley Girl: For whatever reason, he's depicted as having this kind of dialect in the manga, along with constantly trying to follow trends in the capital (part of the reason he has grafted so many arms to himself is that palm reading is totes in right now).
• Younger Than He Looks: He looks decrepit and Gostoc describes him as an 'old fool', and is by far the oldest-looking Demigod excluding Morgott, which makes it all the more surprising that he's actually the youngest of the demigods encountered in-game. While all the others are direct descendants of Marika, Godrick is at the very least three generations separated from Godfrey, if not more. His Age Without Youth could be justified due to his diluted divine blood.

Morgott the Veiled Monarch (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

See his page for more info

Mohg, Lord of Blood

See his page for more info

Radagon's Lineage

Marika's second husband Radagon, as well as their children and stepchildren. Radahn, Rykard and Ranni are the children of Radagon and Queen Rennala who were elevated to demigodhood upon Radagon's ascendancy to the Elden Throne, whereas Malenia and Miquella are Radagon's children with Marika.

Radagon, Second Elden Lord (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

See Marika's page

With Rennala

Starscourge Radahn

See his page for more info

Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy

See his page for more info

Lunar Princess, Ranni the Witch

See her page for more info

With Marika

Malenia, Blade of Miquella

See her page for more info

Miquella of the Haligtree

^{Click here to see his cocoon}

'"The Empyrean Miquella is loved by many people. Indeed, he has learned very well how to compel such affection."

"My brother will keep his promise; he has the wisdom, the allure of a god. He's the most fearsome empyrean of all."

— Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Also known as Miquella the Unalloyed. One of Marika's children through Radagon and twin brother to Malenia. An Empyrean with the potential to replace Marika as God of the Lands Between and vessel of the Elden Ring, Miquella attempted to grow his own Erdtree - the Haligtree - and create a new order for the world - before mysteriously vanishing.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: A completely sympathetic example; Mohg has been trying to force Miquella into becoming the Formless Mother's vassal so he can become his consort. The young Empyrean understandably doesn't return these "affections".
• All-Loving Hero: Implied; part of the reason why he built the Haligtree is so he could provide a place that welcomed all people in the Lands Between, including races that were mistreated by the Golden Order's xenophobic doctrines like the Albinaurics, who were created as a Slave Race. Tragically, he never succeeded as Mohg kidnapped him with intent to turn him into his consort, dooming the Haligtree to rot and denying its residents their salvation.
• Ambiguously Human: Or rather, Ambiguously Demigod, as his father Radagon might have been a full deity as Marika’s other half. If the curse placed on him since birth was also a divine blessing of an unmentioned outer god, he might also have been a full god in body like his sister. Mohg’s machinations of attempting to turn him into a divine extension of the Formless Mother might also mean he is not a demigod anymore by any definition of the word. Biologically, Radagon and Marika being the same person would also make Malenia and Miquella purely Numen, unlike the half-human children of Godfrey and Rennala.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The nature of Miquella's curse of eternal childhood. To be specific, who or what caused it — given it seems to be as incurable as Malenia’s Scarlet Rot, it might also be the curse of an outer god, but there is very little evidence to support or deny the idea. In addition, by the time the Tarnished sees him, they can see his arm hanging limply from his cocoon — and it's clearly an adult's, which raises a number of possibilities regarding whether or not Mohg’s efforts had broken his curse or not.
  • For that matter, there's good reason to believe that Miquella is still alive, albeit in a comatose state. What little you see of him would make him seem to be a withered corpse, and Mohg has explicitly been trying to "resurrect" him, but there's no indication Mohg actually killed Miquella and Gideon expresses the belief that he's still alive, just dreaming. It's entirely possible that Miquella put himself into this state to deny Mohg's plans, or that he was already in it when Mohg found him, as his painting in the intro cutscene shows him seemingly unconscious in Mohg's arms. The fact that his Great Rune is still unaccounted for would lend credence to this theory. The DLC confirms that he is alive, having sent his soul to the Land of Shadow, and the plot will hinge on finding him by following in his footsteps.
• The Archmage: Though not technically a sorcerer like his half-siblings from Queen Rennala's lineage, Miquella is a master in Golden Order Fundamentalism (i.e. holy magic), which utilizes Intelligence in addition to Faith (some Fundamentalist Incantations don't require Faith at all, close to pure Sorcery); so much so in his youth he was able to create new Incantations to gift his father Radagon with. Even after he abandoned Fundamentalism, his knowledge and research of the arcane are such he managed to discover the materials needed to craft Unalloyed Gold, which has the potential to replace Golden Order and ward off the influences of Outer Gods. He went as far as to create the Haligtree, a "tree of abundance" which also has the potential to replace the Erdtree.
• Ascended Extra: Downplayed. While an important character as far as lore is concerned, Miquella himself has little prominence in the main game. Shadow of the Erdtree brings him into the spotlight as a major character, as the goal of the DLC as stated in preview materials is to track him down and trace his footsteps in the Land of Shadow.
• Astral Projection: The "Shadow of the Erdtree" trailer reveals that he separated his soul from his body in order to reach the Land of Shadows.
• Bad Powers, Good People: It's stated multiple times that despite his childish appearance, Miquella was terrifying - and for good reason, he essentially had the power to effortlessly brainwash people into allies, worshippers and servants, a horrible power if it fell in the wrong hands. However, there's very little to indicate that Miquella was anything but a kind soul who wanted to create a better system than the one his mother had created and mantained.
• Barrier Maiden: As stated by Gideon, the Haligtree is sustained by the slumbering Empyrean's blood. Without him present the tree decays rather than coming into maturity as a proper Erdtree, leaving his outcast subjects without a home and the world without an alternative to the main Erdtree which flat-out rejected every attempt to fix things. For pragmatic as well as emotional reasons then, his sister and their followers would do anything to keep him safe. Unfortunately Mohg was (somehow) able to kidnap him and they weren't able to get him back (if they even knew it was Mohg), dooming the whole project. All they can do now is wait for his return.
  Haligtree Soldier Ashes: This was the bitter revelation discovered by the desperate soldiers who awaited the return of their lord to the rotted Haligtree. May the flash of our deaths guide Miquella's return.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Like Godwyn, a ghastly aversion. Miquella was well known for his cherubic beauty before the Shattering, but whatever Mohg did to him left him a lanky, desiccated, pockmarked corpse in the present. It's not quite as bad as the aforementioned Godwyn, but still quite grisly. This may, however, only apply to Miquella's body, as his spirit/consciousness glimpsed in the Shadow of the Erdtree trailer is still as youthful and beatific as he's been depicted in statuary and art scattered across the Lands Between.
• Big Brother Instinct: He created the Haligtree so he could help cure his younger twin Malenia of the Scarlet Rot. His reason for abandoning the Golden Order Fundamentalism after creating several of the fundamentalist incantations is that it was unable to stop her curse. In the Japanese text, Malenia usually refers to him as "older brother" (兄様/nii-sama) rather than by his name. In some cut dialogue he refers to Malenia as 愛する妹よ or literally "beloved younger sister."
• Body Horror: When you actually find him all you see is an unnaturally long, desiccated arm sticking out of a cocoon, which snaps down at an almost 90 degree angle with a Sickening "Crunch!" before issuing a stream of blood from which Mohg arises. Examining him in the model viewer will reveal him to be a tall, shriveled old man now, presumably as a result of whatever Mohg was doing to try and elevate him to godhood.
• Brains and Brawn: Miquella is the brain to his twin Malenia's brawn, being noted as a brilliant mind who mastered Golden Order Fundamentalism and invented the Unalloyed Gold. Since he's stuck in the body of a child, he doesn't engage in combat himself, instead allowing the martially-oriented Malenia to serve as his "Blade".
• Caring Gardener: Grew the Haligtree and allowed it to be used as a safe haven for outcasts across the Lands Between, such as Albinaurics and Misbegotten.
• Charm Person: Prior to his kidnapping, he was one of the most beloved demigods in part due to his natural charisma. He was also heavily implied to be the creator of the Bewitching Branch, a craftable item that can turn normal enemies into temporary allies, to magically compel affection from others in case his charisma failed him.
  "The Empyrean Miquella is loved by many people. Indeed, he has learned very well how to compel such affection."
• Child Prodigy: Implied; Morgott briefly reminisces Miquella and his twin sister Malenia as "the twin prodigies". The Bewitching Branch describes he was very charismatic to the point of being a Charm Person, and was loved by his subjects as a consequence. In his youth, he also invented incantations as gifts to his father Radagon, such as Triple Rings of Light.
• The Chosen One: One of the three Empyreans who can succeed Marika. In the 1.0 version of the game, Loretta's helmet even called him "the recipient of the Vision"; as the game contains lines like "Queen Marika is the vessel of the Elden Ring, carrier of its vision" and "even in shackles, she remains a god, and the vision's vessel", Miquella apparently was meant to be the new bearer of the Elden Ring originally, before Ranni, Marika, Rykard, and possibly others threw the land into war with their plots.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • In addition to his regular subjects and outcast refugees like the Misbegotten and Albinaurics, Miquella's Haligtree also contains a smattering of troops from other factions, most notably some Raya Lucarian Sorcerers (including Battle Mages) next to Loretta's boss room. The implication being that they, like Loretta, decided to leave the Academy for the Haligtree due to disagreeing with the Academy's treatment of the Albinaurics.
  • Despite his priviledged position in the Golden Order as both son of its most loyal member and its most brilliant mind, he abandoned it all when it became clear that Fundamentalism didn't have a way to cure Malenia, which opened up his eyes to a rabbit hole of all the things wrong with the Order as a whole.
• Deity of Human Origin: Invoked. After kidnapping Miquella, Mohg tried turning him into a true god bound to the Formless Mother, much like how Queen Marika was a goddess connected to the Greater Will, so he could take over the Lands Between and receive the power and authority that came with being a divine consort. Mohg seems to have succeeded, as Miquella is no longer physically a child, but whatever his half-brother did left him looking quite ghastly, as players only see an unnaturally long, desiccated arm sticking out of a cocoon.
• Deuteragonist: Of Shadow of the Erdtree. The premise is described as going into the Realm of Shadows in order to follow Miquella's footsteps and discover the reason why he entered the place. In a Famitsu interview, Miyazaki outright described Miquella as the main character of the expansion.
• The Dreaded: Malenia describes Miquella as the most fearsome of the Empyreans. Not for his strength, but for his charisma and his "divinity" — as in, he is a demigod who feels, thinks, and acts the closest to a true god. While he does have personal motives, such as to cure his sister of Scarlet Rot, his Unalloyed Gold crafts and Haligtree speak volumes about how far and all-encompassing Miquella’s goals are.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: His eternal childhood and long hair make him look very feminine to the point where it's hard to tell his gender if you don't know he's a boy.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Although he is very altruistic and offers salvation to many inhabitants of the Lands Between, his creation of the Golden Epitaph shows he dislikes Those Who Live In Death. This is likely due to either their connection with Godwyn. However, the description of the Golden Epitaph makes it sound more like he pities them rather than outright hates them, and that he views granting them true death to be a merciful act, unlike, say, the D twins, who simply view them as abominations to be exterminated.
• A Father to His Men: He blessed even his lowest foot soldiers with crowns of unalloyed gold, showing how much he valued them. His troops are fanatically devoted to him and his sister in turn to the point they pray to statues of him and are willing to suicide-bomb their enemies in the hope that the flash of the explosion will help guide him home.
  Sacred Crown Helm: Flanged iron cap adorned with a crown of unalloyed gold. Increases faith. Worn by foot soldiers sworn to the Haligtree. Who is it that Miquella shall bless, if not the low and the meek?
• Genius Loci: He was in the process of turning himself into one, as he fed the Haligtree with his own vitality and would have eventually become one with it if his plan had succeeded. Unfortunately, Mohg abducted him before it could come to fruition. In Malenia's boss arena at the roots of the tree, an outline of a young person's face can be seen in the roots above her, along with a huge cavity in the roots that looks like it was cut out, implying that Malenia is resting by the spot where Miquella was nestled in the tree before Mohg cut him out.
• Green Thumb: He's implied to have magical control over plants. He created the Bewitching Branch item to compel affection from others in case his natural charisma failed him, and he grew the Haligtree with intention to both replace the Erdtree and create a paradise for marginalized races. His original plan was to merge himself into the Haligtree, as shown with his former cocoon situated within its roots, but Mohg cut him out and kidnapped him for his own wicked plans. Also, for some reason, his blood is anathema to the forces of corruption; buds watered with his blood are the key material in crafting the Preserving Bolus item, the only item that can cure Scarlet Rot build-up.^note The Sacramental Buds required to craft it are said to "originate long ago from a strain of buds cultivated with youthful, sacramental blood", and those same buds are used to craft the Bewitching Branch, said (in the keepsake menu) to originate from Miquella. Indeed, this is why the Haligtree is in the wretched state it's in the present: he watered the Haligtree with his own blood, and since he was removed prematurely from it thanks to Mohg's kidnapping, the Haligtree failed to grow into an Erdtree and later became victim to the Scarlet Rot's corruption.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: The only other demigod to have blonde hair alongside Godwyn, and just as kindhearted and beloved as his eldest half brother. He's implied to had have compassion for the misbegotten and Albinaurics long before leaving Fundamentalism, and he opened his own Haligtree to offers to not only to them but also Crystalians and Raya Lucaria scholars.
• The Heart: Of both his faction and his family. The Haligtree is a band of exiles and outcasts largely bound together by his charisma, and he has the unique distinction of having positive relationships with both sides of his family. He and Malenia love each other and he was at least on good terms with his father Radagon (both gifting each other Fundamentalist incantations), yet he was also implied to be close with his half-brother by Godfrey, Godwyn,^note E.g. in the Golden Epitaph item description, and based on the fact that Godwyn's former general Niall (who carries a Stormveil banner and summons Banished Knights with dragon spells) joined Miquella's faction. and his mother Marika.^note Marika was said by Gideon to have experienced great sorrow when she learned what happened to Miquella, and there are statues of Marika in the Haligtree depicting her as a loving maternal figure to the twins. Also, there are several clues suggesting Miquella was quite possibly informed of Marika's plan as he seems unusually well-prepared for it.
• Identical Twin ID Tag: Averted; he and Malenia are mix-gendered twins, as they have different hair colors. Malenia is also a Scarlet Rot-infested woman who lost entire limbs and her eyes to the disease, while Miquella was cursed to eternally remain a child until Mohg's actions broke the curse, but apparently left him a decrepit old man.
• In the Blood: Of him and Malenia, he inherited Marika's long-term planning and manipulative tendencies. His goals were to build an Erdtree replacement that can house the downtrodden races that were mistreated by the xenophobic Golden Order, and to cure Malenia of the Scarlet Rot. The Unalloyed Needle and the Haligtree were the result of his efforts. He was also not above manipulating his subjects to achieve his goals — the Bewitching Branch's description seems to indicate that his charisma is magical by nature, and he specifically learned it so he could "compel" and keep his subjects' love and loyalty for him. While he is naturally compassionate and treated his subjects well, he still used questionable means to help cure his sister and save the Lands Between.
• Irony: Miquella's goal is to stop the meddling and control of outer gods on the people of the Lands Between and safeguard their free will and self-determination, no matter the fate they had in the eyes of the Golden Order; he himself is just below his parents in the hierarchy of the Golden Order, and has powers that can control and meddle with the free will of those he interacts with.
• I Was Quite a Looker: As indicated by the few statues of him, his former cocoon within the roots of the Haligtree, and a scene in the opening where he was being carried off by Mohg, he was a youthfully handsome boy with golden locks just like his mother. Thanks to Mohg's actions, however, he was transformed into a decrepit old man with a blackened, severely emaciated body; the arm sticking out of the cocoon in Mohg's bedchamber is his. Assuming this isn't just a case of reused assets that is, as Miquella in the cocoon is just an altered and scaled-up version of Morgott's model and may therefore not be representative of his actual appearance. However, it's also a scaled-up version of the soulless demigod cadavers in all of the mausoleums, which itself has interesting implications.
• King Incognito: He is implied to be the person behind the mysterious St. Trina, an enigmatic religious figure who spread a unique form of magic which granted "the sweet oblivion of sleep".
• Light Is Good: Like his half-brother Godwyn, Miquella is a widely-beloved god who is strongly associated with light via his gold-colored holy magic, blonde hair, and white clothing.
• Light Liege, Dark Defender: This is Miquella's relationship with his younger twin sister, Malenia. Miquella is one of three Empyreans most associated with light, goodness, and purity, and he is the nicest and most altruistic of the demigods. Unfortunately, he was cursed with eternal childhood, leaving him unable to grow into his full potential. Malenia is a stoic, unrelenting warrioress who suffers from the Scarlet Rot, but is fiercely loyal to Miquella and will do anything to see her brother's dream of a better world come true, even opposing her own half- and step-siblings. Fittingly, Miquella is a powerful sorcerer and Science Hero clad in white with flowing golden locks, while Malenia is a crimson-haired woman dressed like an avenging Valkyrie whose combat skills are nigh-unparalleled.
• MacGuffin Super-Person: Miquella is an Empyrean, meaning he is a potential candidate for succeeding Marika as Top God and elevating any prospective consort of his to Elden Lord. Unfortunately this led Mohg to covet him for the power and authority he could grant.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Miquella contrasts quite sharply with his mother. Marika is a brutal conqueror who rules by force and whose first response to opposition to smash the entire offending civilization into the dirt. Miquella's strengths are wisdom and charisma and he prefers a softer hand, welcoming followers into his proto-paradise with open arms and personally blessing even the lowest among them with his holy magic. In the opinion of his sister Malenia, herself a fearsome and powerful warlord, this actually makes him more formidable than any other Empyrean. This ties into the theme of societal advancement in Elden Ring: Marika represents a time where strength alone ruled the day, while her possible successor Miquella seems to take a more "modern" approach where might is instead derived from soft power and intelligence.
• Mature Younger Sibling: Tied with his twin Malenia as the youngest of the main demigods (and looks far younger than he already is), yet is the one with the most enlightened long-term plans.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: A Downplayed, non-romantic example with his sister. Malenia isn't particularly masculine in mannerism, but she's still a War God famed and feared throughout the lands for her skill with the blade. While Miquella is renowned for his kind, nurturing demeanour and has been mistaken for a young girl by some of his most devoted followers.
• Messianic Archetype: He's the closest equivalent to a Christ-figure in the Lands Between, being a radiant, altruistic son of the Top God who blessed the "low and meek" of the Lands Between and created a promised land for them. In a dark twist of this trope he's kidnapped by the setting's Satanic Archetype, denying his followers their salvation.
• Mirror Character: Curiously enough, Miquella shares many parallels to Mogh, of all people. Both are associated with love, blood, the aiding to the oppressed and rejected, and rebelling against the Golden Order; however, it's their differing approaches that really makes the difference:
  • While it's ambiguous if Miquella's usage of love is genuine or manipulative, it's clear he's very proficient in attracting followers by his outward compassion. Mogh also preaches love, but it's more outwardly cult-like and obsessive.
  • Miquella sheds his own blood in order to create items against the rot, and even his own Erdtree. Mogh however sheds the blood of other people in offering to his own outer god patron.
  • Both are cursed yet blessed. Miquella's curse of eternal youth prevents him from reaching his full potential but it's not enough to rid him of his empyrean status. Mogh is an omen, something once seen as a blessing of the Crucible but now it's considered a curse, and it's implied it played a part in his encounter with the Formless Mother.
  • Both of their factions are made of the exact same type of people: Albinaurics, pariahs of society and those that cannot live in the current order, and both accepted them with open arms.
• More than Mind Control: It's hard to tell how much of Miquella's charisma is the natural result of his compassion, and how much is magic like the Bewitching Branch.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Miquella has a lot of similarities to Kuro, a major character in the immediately preceding From Software game. Both are wise, compassionate, mystical child lords cursed with eternal youth who seek to avoid a cycle of rot and stagnation by purging the curses of themselves and their protectors, whom they are very close to. Both are incapable in a fight but have great power within them and are smart enough to create useful crafts, especially ones related to healing. Their potential also leads to both being targeted and kidnapped by The Heavy, who wants to forcefully harvest said power to ensure his victory in a kingdom-rupturing civil war. Miquella's protector being Malenia makes the parallel stronger as she's a very close expy of Sekiro himself. He also continues the motif of benevolent mystical divine children with powers tied to life and a formidable but worn-down warrior protector started by the Painter.
  • His name, eternal youth, association with a sacred tree that wraps around him, and his power over sleep and dreams all seem in reference to Quella, God of Dreams, a minor background character from Dark Souls 2.
• Mythical Motifs:
  • His story is a far darker take on Ganymede's from Classical Mythology lacking in any Values Dissonance to lessen its disturbingness; being a beautiful, golden-haired adolescent who was abducted by a much older god as his Lust Object, intent on making him his lover.
  • Miquella is From's latest version of the puer aeternus mythological archetype: an eternally-young child god who doubles as a god of vegetation and resurrection. He has a lot of aesthetic and thematic ties to the child-god Iacchus, whose domain is usually split into those of Dionysus (wine, vegetation, fertility) and Eros/Cupid (love). He symbolizes newness, potential for growth, and hope for the future, but is currently stunted and thus has to grow into a true hero to succeed in his goals.
  • In keeping with the game's alchemy references, Miquella is gold. In multiple alchemical traditions, gold is associated with eternal life, purity of soul, and perfection of all matter, probably because the material never rusts. Miquella is an eternally youthful god, the kindest and most benevolent of his kind, and seeks to fix his broken world by restoring the Erdtree's abundance and banishing the influence of the malignant outer gods, especially the ones associated with decay. He does this through both faith and scholarship, primarily with "unalloyed gold," which in-universe seems to refer to both a physical material (e.g. what Malenia's gear is made of) and a school of holy magic. This motif closely connects him to the Greater Will, a cosmic force whose influence is synonymous with gold.
• Nice Guy: Aside from using shady, manipulative tactics for his causes, Miquella has been shown to be immensely kindhearted with most of his actions being altruistic in nature. He gifted his father the Discus of Light incantation, crafted the Golden Epithet sword for his fallen half-brother Godwyn, and created the Unalloyed Gold in order to mitigate the effects of the Scarlet Rot and the Frenzied Flame. He also created the Haligtree as a refuge to the peoples of the Lands Between who were discriminated against by the Golden Order, such as Albinaurics and Misbegotten. They came to consider him a messianic figure as a result, with the Albinaurics calling the Haligtree the promised land. He is also shown to deeply love his sister Malenia as he desperately seeks to find a way to cure her Scarlet Rot.
• Non-Action Guy: Justifed. As he's stuck with the fairly unimposing body of a child, Miquella seems to leave any task that requires combat to his sister, who is more than capable of kicking ass for the both of them. Both of the status ailments tied to him, Sleep and Charm, are also meant to subdue enemies non-violently.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Miquella was born with the affliction of eternal childhood, preventing him from reaching his full potential. Mohg's shenanigans apparently "broke" the curse, but he now has the body of a decrepit old man. However, according to some file digging, the model is just a reused asset of Morgott's model, though slightly thinner and lighter in color. With that in mind, it's unknown if this is really intended to be what Miquella should look like with his curse broken, or simply a filler for the boss cutscene.
• The One Guy: Between him, Malenia, Ranni, Marika, and the Gloam-Eyed Queen, Miquella is the sole male Empyrean.
• Parental Favoritism: He appears to be the one child of Radagon whom the second Elden Lord expressed some level of fondness for, given Radagon gifted Miquella with Golden Order incantations and (in 1.0's text) Carian Knights, while he is never hinted to have left anything for his other children besides red hair. In fact, given that Radagon hated his own red hair due to its association with Fire Giants, the fact that Miquella is the only one of his children who we know for sure isn't a redhead might be the entire reason for this favoritism. Miquella, for his part, shared in this affection, as he created Golden Order incantations to honor his father.
• Polar Opposite Twins: To Malenia. She's a voluptuous tall redhead, inherited from her father, while he (or his previous self) has Marika's blonde locks and is stuck in the body of a child. Malenia is a celebrated warrior wielding very destructive innate powers, while Miquella is more renowned as an inventor whose creation (the "Unalloyed Gold" series) can resist the power of Rot ravaging his own sister, as well as serving as her and her trusted generals' prosthetics after they lost their limbs. Similarly, their personal areas are also opposite of one another: Malenia's is full of the deadly Scarlet Rot, while Miquella holds domain of the evergreen and lush tops of the Haligtree.
• Pure Is Not Good: Implied. Miquella is infamous for his cherubic beautiful and eternal youth, and all of his actions are with the goal of doing good to others around him. However, the DLC trailer begins with a phrase that describes him as "pure and radiant, he wields love to shrive clean the hearts" of others, but the voice concludes that "there's nothing more terrifying", as if Miquella's purity somehow brings fear alongside awe to those he encounters by forcing them to expose their hearts to him, leaving them vulnerable. It should be noted that the voice saying this is clearly the same one who later in the same trailer calls him "Kind Miquella" or straight-up "Miquella-sama" in the Japanese subtitles, so they almost certainly meant "terrifying" to be a compliment. From their perspective even being this pure really is good.
• Red Baron: He's called "Prodigy Twin" alongside his sister Malenia, and on his own he's called "Miquella the Unalloyed" and "Miquella of the Haligtree". The trailer for the DLC reveals he's also called "Kind Miquella" (the script capitalized the K, as in a title).
• Saved for the Sequel: Saved For The DLC in his case. Among the Shardbearers, Miquella has the least amount of involvement in the story despite being the object of Mohg's twisted affections and being responsible for the creation of the Haligtree. He has a much more prominent role in the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion as he's featured in the first teaser image and his presence in the Land of Shadow being one of the DLC's biggest mysteries.
• Science Hero: Miquella is a master of Golden Order Fundamentalism, which is scientific scholarship in all but name. It's possible that the reason he can act the most like a god out of all the demigods is because he understands the fundamental properties of the world better than his siblings. Gowry calls him "a true artisan; a meticulous, bold craftsman who grasps the essence of life."
• Shorter Means Smarter: As a demigod who is cursed with eternal childhood, he forever remained a youthful boy and thus was among the shortest of his biological, step-, and half-siblings. Despite his appearance, Malenia described him as "the most fearsome Empyrean" and it's not hard to see why — he grew the Haligtree to serve as a sanctuary for the oppressed and mistreated, was a master of Golden Order Fundamentalism and created a few spells for it, and after abandoning that school of magic, created a series of Unalloyed Gold artifacts that allowed users to resist the power of Outer Gods, like the one behind the Scarlet Rot. His goals and personality were also akin to that of a true god's in how encompassing and enlightened they were.
• Strong Family Resemblance: From the brief glimpses we get from his statues and the introductory slideshow, Miquella resembled his mother Marika if she were a young boy, and was even one of only two of her children (along with Godwyn) to inherit her long blonde hair. He also has a similar skill set to her as a powerful magician and inventor (Marika's soreseal and scarseal boost mind, intelligence, faith, arcane). And he basically ''is'' an opposite-sex clone of her.
• Tainted Veins: On close inspection, his statues spread around Ordina and the Haligtree show that he has a visible, nasty looking long vein in his left arm.
• Tragic Dream: He has two. All Miquella wanted to do in the Shattering was create a place where all beings in the Lands Between were welcomed and allowed to live fulfilling lives free of the Golden Order's prejudice, which led to him creating the Haligtree. On a more personal basis, he very much wanted to cure his beloved twin Malenia of the Scarlet Rot, leading to him creating the Unalloyed Gold Needle. Unfortunately, Mohg's machinations led to the ruin of both. Kidnapping Miquella deprived the Haligtree of its sustaining essence, causing it to start dying, and also prevented him from finishing his work on the Needle, causing Malenia's rot to progress unfettered. By the present day, the Haligtree is a husk infested with the Scarlet Rot, Misbegotten and Albinaurics are still slaves in most places, and Malenia is comatose with the Rot slowly eating away at her while futilely awaiting his return.
• Treetop Town: Miquella's Haligtree is a fiefdom in its own right with many settlements scattered throughout. The most notable, and the one the player visits, is the capital city of Elphael, seemingly to the Haligtree what Leyndell is to the Erdtree.
• Undying Loyalty: To his sister, Malenia. Miquella is a mysterious character with a lot of ongoing plots and implicit care for the world, but through them all he has exactly one explicitly-given motivation in the base game's text: helping his little sister. She's the entire reason he left the Golden Order in the first place to establish the Haligtree and Unalloyed Gold, willing to directly challenge the gods themselves to protect her. The Radagon's Rings of Light item description reveals that he'd choose her over his own father, and Malenia's armor description has her utterly convinced that the only reason Miquella could be absent was if he was trying to find a way to keep his promise to her.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Miquella, like Godwyn, is one of the most beloved demigods in the Lands Between. He was especially popular with the outcasts and those shunned by the Golden Order such as the misbegotten and Albinaurics. When speaking of his siblings, Morgott speaks of him and Malenia fondly in comparison to the contempt he shows the rest, implying that even he has an amount of respect and fondness for his half-brother despite the Haligtree's existence being in opposition of the Golden Order.
• Virtuous Character Copy: He shares similarities with Griffith, being a fair-faced, light-haired, charismatic young man who aspires to godhood and building his own kingdom. However, while Griffith sacrificed others to become a God of Evil and his dream was entirely self-serving, Miquella tried to become a God of Good by sacrificing his blood and body and his dream was entirely selfless. As a bonus point, the person they're most deeply connected to is an inhumanly tough, cursed warrior with a prosthetic arm.
• White and Gold are Divine: Miquella is most closely associated with white and gold; his knights and soldiers wear surcoats with these colors and his golden hair is typically accentuated by white clothing in pictures of him. Fittingly, he is an Empyrean and considered the closest of the demigods to true divinity, aside from potentially his younger sister, Malenia.

???

Messmer the Impaler

A demigod encountered in the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Little is known about him, but the 'Impaler' title does not bode particularly well.

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• Ambiguously Related:
  • It's clear he's related to the royal families of the Lands Between, but where and how he falls into them is currently unclear. In an interview with Miyazaki, he states Messmer is a "child of Marika", and his red hair implies he's from her marriage with Radagon, though given that they're the same person and Radagon's kids with Rennala all have his red hair, it's entirely possible he's a Bastard Bastard.
  • Possibly also to the Cleanrot Knights. As this post points out, his overall posture, the appearance of his helmet, and some of his attacks, bear a striking similarity to them, implying they might share some possible connection.
  • And while we're speculating, the Drake Knights. His armor bears a certain resemblance to the Drake Knight set, and his eye seems to indicate he's partaken in Dragon Communion.
• Ascended Extra: He seems to be the nameless "unwanted child" of Marika mentioned once by a ghost in the Weeping Peninsula.
• Destroyer Deity: Possibly, as he wields flames; in the lore of Elden Ring, fire of any kind is anathema to the Golden Order and universally a force of indiscriminate destruction, and a tweet states that "those stripped of gold will meet death by Messmer's flames", implying that he might've initially had a role within Marika's empire of eliminating threats from those who the Golden Order had spurned.
• Expy: Given George R. R. Martin's love of historical references, it's easy to see him as one to Vlad the Impaler. Aside from the obvious bit that they have the same epithet, both Messmer and Vlad had notable draconic motifs, with 'Dracula' meaning 'son of the dragon', because Vlad's father was called Vlad Dracul. For his own part, Messmer's helm is shaped to look like a dragon head, he has Dragon Communion eyes, his snake has dragon wings, and his armor bears a startling resemblance to the Drake Knight set.
• Facial Markings: It's rather hard to see, but Messmer has the same claw-like symbol over one permanently shut eye as Melina (and Ranni, who has it on the opposite eye).
• Fantastic Racism: A line in the trailer indicates he doesn't have a particularly high opinion of those who don't have the Grace of Gold, Tarnished or otherwise:
  "Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction, in one so bereft of light?"
• Fiery Redhead: Has red hair and an evident reputation for brutality in war.
• Hates Their Parent: Seems to not like Marika all that much, since the trailer shows a (blurry and small, admittedly) picture of a statue of Marika in what seems to be his palace, but it's headless. Of course, given that this is Marika we're talking about and none of her kids have any real bond with her (except maybe Miquella & Godwyn), it's not surprising and it's hard to blame him.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The basis of his epithet.
• Lean and Mean: He has incredibly lanky body proportions, with very long and skinny arms and legs, and what we know of him so far points at him being an ominous and antagonistic figure.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: People generally don't get called 'Impaler' for being kind or merciful. Messmer is also one letter off from "messer", the German word for knife.
• Obviously Evil: His character design is essentially a checklist of everything the player has been warned is evil or at least bad news:
  • He has Radagon's cherry-red hair, which lore says is associated with Fire Giants and gameplay has associated with three very tough boss fights (Radahn, Radagon, Malenia).
  • He has what looks like a two-headed snake coiled around him. The lore of the Duelist armor says that snakes are considered "traitors to the Erdtree", and in-game snakes are associated with Volcano Manor and Rykard.
  • His good eye is bright yellow with a slitted pupil, looking remarkably like the player's eyes if they perform Dragon Communion. Dragon Communion is, in lore, a terrible deed that inevitably (for everyone but the player) results in going mad with power and turning into a Magma Wyrm.
  • He wields Red and Black and Evil All Over fire magic. Fire of any source is considered forbidden at best and downright evil at worst, with its main-game sources being primarily Destined Death, the Fell God, and the Frenzied Flame. That being said, his flames don't particularly resemble any of these (they aren't the black with white/red trim of Blackflame/Destined Death, the natural-looking flames of the Fell God, or the searingly yellow with orange trim of the Frenzied Flame) and instead look a good deal like a combination of the aura around Dragon Communion spells and the "blood star" Aberrant sorceries discovered by the guilty and hated by Raya Lucaria.
  • His epithet is 'the Impaler', which in the real world is famously refers to a certain nobleman known for his terror tactics and extreme bloodthirstiness.
• Playing with Fire: He's shown using black-and-red fire magic, referred to only as "Messmer's Flame", against the Tarnished in the trailer.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His fire spells have a hellish red mixed with deep black color scheme.
• Saved for the Sequel: Saved For The DLC in his case. Messmer is one of the demigods created by George R. R. Martin, but for whom the developers were unable to find a place in the game (aside from a few sneaky references, such as the Impaler's Catacombs). So instead, they put him in the DLC.
• Snakes Are Sinister: Has what appears to be a snake familiar coiled around him. Curious, given that snakes are regarded as "traitors to the Erdtree" and the only other snake-associated character is Rykard.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: The gameplay reveal trailer has him show off a move where he stabs his spear into the ground and a mass of black copies erupt from the ground around him to skewer the player.
• The Unfavorite: Assuming he's Marika's "unwanted child" mentioned by the ghost. Not that this means much when Marika is his mother.
• Unperson: Is never explicitly mentioned in the base game, and the only potential implication of him is his epithet "The Impaler" being the same as the Impaler's Catacombs on the Weeping Peninsula, where a ghost exposits about an unwanted child of Marika. Miyazaki asserts that no new lore was created for the DLC by George Martin or anyone else and it merely reuses left-out aspects of the initial founding mythology they had to leave out of the base game, with a likely in-universe explanation being that Marika has covered up much of Messmer's existence, given that he is mentioned as being involved with a "unsung" battle and is festooned with snake-iconography, a symbol of treason that the people of the Lands Between grew to enjoy seeing subjected to violence.
• Weapon Specialization: Spears; in case his title wasn't enough of a clue, his weapon of choice is an ornate spear that is longer than even his lanky frame is tall, and can summon spectral versions of it as an AOE attack.

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