Elden Ring / Tropes F to N

Tropes for Elden Ring
Tropes A to E | Tropes F To N | Tropes O to Z

F

• Falling Damage: As present as it has been in prior FromSoft games. Notably, Torrent's Double Jump will not protect you from it, meaning you can't use him to skip finding a proper way down a cliff unless there's a Spirit Spring where you're landing, which negates the damage. It has, however, been reduced compared to previous titles; while hurling yourself off a cliff will still kill you, you no longer lose half your health bar from falling down a short distance.
• Family Theme Naming: The various demigods' names start with the same letter depending on who their parents were. The sons of Marika and Godfrey and their descendants start with the letter G (Godwyn, Godefroy, Godrick) except for the two Omen sons, whose names start with M (Mohg, Morgott). Radagon and Rennala's children and descendants all start with the letter R (Rykard, Radahn, Ranni, Rya). Marika and Radagon's children start with the letter M (Miquella, Malenia). And so does Melina's, who, if the theories are correct, is also Marika's daughter.
• Fantastic Drug:
  • Seluvis's potions are essentially fantasy date rape drugs on steroids. They turn the drinker into a mindless puppet; the normal version works on any human (the potion you're given can be fed to Nepheli Loux or the Dung Eater), and the Amber Draught he creates at the end of his questline is supposed to be effective on demigods. He wants to use it on Ranni, but she has his number and won't take it if you offer, instead calling you out, killing you, and refusing to meet you again. After Ranni is given either the Amber Draught or the Fingerslayer Blade, she'll have Seluvis killed for what he's done.
  • Perfuming is the art of crafting various substances that have chemical/medical effects; normal perfumers use them to heal, while depraved perfumers take them themselves to increase their own strength. Perfumers use explosive Spark Aromatics to attack and Uplifting Aromatics to buff their allies, while Depraved Perfumers also use the Bloodboil Aromatic to increase damage taken and dealt.
• Fantastic Fallout: Caelid is covered in the Scarlet Rot, a twisted, deformed hellscape of rot and flesh unleashed when Malenia released the Scarlet Rot within her during her duel with Radahn, making it essentially the fallout of chemical warfare.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The Tarnished are looked down upon by many characters due to them having lost the grace blessed upon them by the Erdtree. Some were even cast out of the Lands Between to serve as soldiers sent to die. In present time, the Tarnished are still discriminated against despite the Two Fingers backing them in the hopes they might reforge the Elden Ring and bring peace back to the Lands Between.
  • Omens such as Margit are viewed as being "cursed children" due to their deformities and thrown into the sewers, literally called the "Subterranean Shunning-Grounds", so they would remain forever out of sight. Morgott, the Omen King, may or may not be an exception — though his Remembrance says he was never loved, his father, at least, seems to have some affection for him.
  • The Misbegotten, such as Hewg, receive similar treatment — "treated as slaves, or worse," from birth.
  • Living things who didn't originate from the Golden Order and the Erdtree are shunned and considered heretical.
  • The vulgar militiamen were made outcasts purely on the grounds of their stunted size. They're forced to make a living as watchmen of some of The Land Between's most remote and inhospitable regions.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The various races, nations, and cultures of Elden Ring are inspired by real world history, though with a heavy layer of originality and High Fantasy trappings to make them stand out all the more. Considering who laid the foundation for the lore and world, this shouldn't be too surprising.
  • The Empire of Marika is a massive Culture Chop Suey of different cultures and peoples throughout history, but they take the most from The Roman Empire, specifically its stint as the Byzantine Empire (the specifics will be detailed below).
    • Marika's Empire's greatly resembles the Byzantine Empire in many ways; many of their soldiers (most notably their Penal Legionaries) wear equipment styled after Byzantine equipment, they make heavy use of Fire-Breathing Weapon to conquer and crush their foes, fueled by a secret chemical ingredient whose recipe is a closely-guarded state-secret (aka Greek-Fire), and are famous for hiring Norse Mercenaries in abundance (The Varangian Guard in the Byzantines' case, and the Kaiden in the Empire's). The Geopolitical situation of the Shattering greatly resembles the Nicaean-Latin wars, in which the Byzantine Empire split into many smaller kingdoms and Empires due to unrest, and began to quarrel among themselves too, just like how the Shattering split Marika's Empire into many smaller kingdoms run by her demigod children, all fighting for her throne.
    • They also have a few things in common with Ancient Rome. They are a continent-spanning Empire which has conquered and subjected barbarian tribes (inhuman though in Elden Ring), use them as Slave Mooks and Battle Thralls, and exert control through heavily fortified Forts scattered through their territory. The very center of the Empire, Leyndell the Royal Capital, has very Roman-Greco architecture and analogous for Rome itself.
    • Ironically, the Empire takes many visual cues from the Celtic Kingdoms, most notably the Gaelic. Their civilian clothing is very similar, their nobles dress in long flowing green cloaks, clasped by Celtic-styled broaches, and wear simple crowns of bronze (most notably Godrick and his twisted scions), and the weapons and shields of the aforementioned Scions are direct copies of Celtic weaponry dug up. Their biggest similarity, however, is their jewelry, with countless Celtic symbols (like the famed knot) and designs being on display.
    • Their use of chivalric Knightly Orders, thunderous heavy knightly cavalry bearing radiant, noble, banners and heraldry, arsenal of weapons, and Medieval styled Castles bring to mind the High Middle Ages, though it has a heavy Arthurian Legend vibe to go along with the High Fantasy. In the map notes (invisible to the player but can be viewed with DSMapStudio), Stormveil is actually called Edinburgh (a real castle in Scotland) and Raya Lucaria is called something close to Mont-Saint Michel (a real castle-town in northern France). Both places resemble their real-world inspirations quite closely in architecture and geography. The tunnel connecting Caelid and Limgrave is also named Gael Tunnel, and there's a fortress called Fort Gael right on the Caelid-Limgrave border, which combined with Stormveil being modeled on Edinburgh and some of the names of the people there (most notably Commander O'Neil) could imply a more Gaelic influence to Limgrave.
  • While not sharing much architectonically, the kingdom of Caria is named after the real life region in western Anatolia. The Carian people are credited with originating the worship of Hecate, Greek goddess of the the night, the Moon, knowledge, magic and sorcery, all things the Caria and the Carian royal family of the Lands Between are known for.
  • The Kaiden are very reminiscent of the peoples of Scandinavia, being a group of sea-faring raiders with an infamous reputation as savage mercenaries and berserkers, who live far up in the Northern mountain peaks, though with the added bonus of having giant's blood within them. In terms of equipment, they wear huskarl armor taken straight from the Anglo-Saxons instead of Horny Vikings.
  • The Land of Reeds is a super clear cut for Japan, specifically Japan during the infamously bloody and brutal Sengoku Period, in which perpetual civil war for a century caused the land to erupt in bloodshed. The Land of Reeds is filled with Ax-Crazy Samurai, armed with katana, naginata, and odachi, and wearing their armor with their decorative reeds. Though in Elden Ring's case, this period has lasted several centuries instead of one, and is said to be filled mostly with madmen and prowling demons.
  • The many tribes of beastmen, such as the Demi-Humans and Misbegotten, are all stock Barbarian Tribe, but they resemble the many hordes pouring through the Western Roman Empire during its fall in the Late-Antiquity. As they are currently the ones most clearly running through the Lands Between, now that the Shattering has essentially wrecked the Imperial Army, the Misbegotten resemble the Germanic tribes who sacked Rome itself.
  • The Albinaurics are analogous to Jews, as a group disapproved of by the dominant religious authority and subjected to enslavement and pogroms, have vaguely Jewish features like their trademark beards and who are looking for a distant "Promised Land", and have gone to great lengths to reach it in large groups of caravans.
  • The Ancestor Followers, with their In Harmony with Nature lifestyle complete with warpaint and head-dresses, primitive but deadly warrior-culture which emphasizes stealthy, deadly archers (whose warriors wield simple, but well-crafted bows and bone hatchets), and religion based on animalism, paganism, and shamanism, alongside the fact they are the peoples who dwelled in the Lands Between before all others are extremely invocative of the Indigenous Tribes of North America.
  • The Nomadic peoples, which most of the merchants belong too, are quite similar to the Romani; a nomadic group travelling in trade caravan as merchants, have a unique culture of music and special clothing, and are despised and mistrusted by the locals, resulting in immense racial persecution.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Even though gunpowder clearly exists in the Lands Between and has been weaponized (miners use blasting charges both for mining and as weapons and a lot of areas have Exploding Barrels stockpiled; said barrels are shown to be filled with black powder if broken), guns and cannons are almost entirely absent. The dominant projectile weapons of all armies are still bows and crossbows, and the primary artillery are still ballistae and catapults. Apparently someone did have the idea since there is a small (but man-portable) cannon in the game, but it's referred to as "experimental" and its description emphasizes how unusual it is (apparently, no one in the army carrying it knew how to use it). It seems to be based on a miniaturized version of the pot-de-fer, an early cannon first used in 1320s Western Europe, and uses bolts for ammunition instead of proper cannon balls. It's not that Guns Are Useless either; despite not having any attribute damage scaling and using subpar ammo, said small cannon deals enormous damage, something even noted by its description. The Tarnished knowing how to use it near-instinctively regardless of backstory could imply such weapons are more common outside of the Lands Between.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Seedbed Curse of the Dung Eater condemns those afflicted by it to be unable to reincarnate. Their exact fate isn't fully explained but it's hinted to be flat out eternal torment as they are Barred from the Afterlife. In one of the game's endings, this happens to everyone in the entire world. The ending where the Frenzied Flame sentences everyone to eternal madness is similar, and also more than qualifies. Thankfully, these endings require the player to actively seek them out.
  • Seluvis' potion causes the victim to become a soulless puppet under Seluvis' control for the rest of their life. He plots to do it to Ranni, though thankfully the attempt fails and backfires on him. Ironically enough, the Dung Eater mentioned above is one of the potential victims of Seluvis' potion.
• Fingore: The majority of multiplayer items in the game are severed fingers, including the items for leaving co-op and PVP summon signs, the consumable invasion item, and even the tool that lets you write messages. To get one of the two reusable invasion items, Varré injects some of Mohg's cursed blood underneath your fingernail, turning your own finger into the "item". It's still attached to you, but the flesh has turned deathly pale and can no longer feel anything, save for constantly stinging with a sweet pain.
• Fighting a Shadow: NPC summons, invaders, and some bosses are projections of their real selves, which is why certain invaders will fight you more than once, how you can have summons die without messing up their questlines if they have any, and how bosses can be in two places at once. The following bosses are projections:
  • Margit the Fell Omen is actually Morgott the Omen King, trying to be proactive against Tarnished while being stuck in Leyendell.
  • Royal Knight Loretta is a projection of a knight who left Liurnia long ago to find a promised land for Albinaurics. She is found in Miquella's Haligtree as Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree.
  • Golden Shade Godfrey is a projection of the original Elden Lord who has long left the Lands Between, left in Leyendell to protect his family. The real deal fights you as the penultimate boss (or third-to-last if you consider Radagon and Elden Beast to be separate bosses) after you've burned the Erdtree.
  • Mohg, the Omen, is a projection of Mohg left to guard the way to the Frenzied Flame Proscription. The real deal is hidden under Caelid in the underground Mohgwyn Palace, and can be fought as Mohg, Lord of Blood.
• Final Dungeon Preview: An early game teleporter trap dumps you in an isolated section of the Royal Capital Leyndell, with a (likely far beyond your level) golem as the sole enemy. Similarly, one of the Four Belfries warps you to an isolated section of the penultimate dungeon Crumbling Farum Azula.
• Fireball Eyeballs: A common trait of those gripped by the Flame of Frenzy, who can also weaponize it by shooting the flame from their eyes.
• Fisher King: The state of the realms of the Lands Between mirror those of their lords.
  • Limgrave is generally calm, but dotted with a much higher than normal number of ruins, owing to it lacking a proper lord.
  • Liurnia is covered in cool, blue water and populated mostly by the artificial Albinaurics, mimicking the colors and unnatural pursuits of the ruling House Caria.
  • Caelid is infected to the core with Scarlet Rot, to the point that even the sky is a pallid red. Likewise, Lord Radahn has been reduced to a slavering beast by the very same disease.
  • Altus looks like Limgrave, but all the foliage has turned golden. This reflects both the Golden motif of Marika and her disciples and the fact that the capital has fallen from the height of its power, as the leaves change in advance of winter. Its ruler is no different.
  • Mount Gelmir consists of a lowland plagued by endemic madness and cannibalism, with a peak crowned in roiling magma. Its resident demigod is Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, whose great blasphemy is aligning with serpents and using fire against the Erdtree. His followers hunt other Tarnished, as the lowland soldiers feast on their dead kin.
  • The Mountaintops of the Giants are cold, harsh and desolate. Its rulers are long dead, slain by Marika's empire at the height of its power.
  • The Haligtree, as depicted on the Haligtree Crest Greatshield, was supposed to be a rich world tree that split into two main branches. From the very first shot when you enter the location, you can see◊ that one failed to grow◊ and the other became afflicted with Scarlet Rot and began to die, both due to Mohg's kidnapping of Miquella. These two branches respectively reflect the state of Miquella and Malenia, the two demigods who ruled the Haligtree.
• Floating Continent: Farum Azula is a large castle/temple hidden above the clouds which can be accessed only after setting the Erdtree on fire. It is notably the home of the dragons and it is particularly dangerous to navigate as storms have laid ruins to it, forcing the Tarnished to sometimes jump on floating platforms and come very close to the edge of the buildings.
• Flying Seafood Special: One of the species native to the Lands Between are horse-sized jellyfish that float in the air. You can even find one's Ashes and summon it against bosses.
• Formerly Friendly Family: If you expected some Thicker Than Water tropes in this game, be prepared for disappointment. Most characters actively hate their family members, and are far closer to their current group of followers and friends than their close siblings.
  • While Ranni loves her birth mother Rennala to death (and seemingly gets along with Marika well enough), she considers Blaidd and Iji to be her real family, instead of her brothers Rykard whose territory is directly north of Liurnia, or Radahn who's off campaigning in Caelid in the southeast. You can be the newest addition to her 'family', too, if you complete her questline.
  • Rykard's group, the Volcano Manor, is unique in the game in how tight-knit and caring each member, all strangers from various occupations and backgrounds, is towards each other. He clearly loves Tanith (whose foreign blood and origin is looked down upon under Marika's reign) and Zorayas (whose mixed ancestry caused her to be ostracized), enough to set up several Chekhovs Guns to make sure they're well-cared for after his 'union' with the God-Devouring Serpent. Similarly, Patches and Bernahl both are very loyal to the Volcano Manor (though Patches is only "loyal" insofar as he has an extremely blatant crush on Tanith, but that's probably the best anyone can hope for with him), and quite friendly to those who've proven themselves and are formally accepted, while also assuming pseudo-big brother figures to Zorayas.
  • Malenia never hesitates to fight and duel her siblings to the death (apart from Miquella, obviously), but is extremely close to her army, the Cleanrot Knights, who in turn is fiercely loyal to her (especially Finlay). More so than her 'daughters' who share her blood, even — she quickly washes her hands of them once she finds out they're being used as catalysts of worship by Gowry's ilk.
  • Morgott and Mohg both pursue their own beliefs, far from what's expected or demanded of them. The former is unnervingly loyal to the Erdtree and Golden Order, whom even his mother has betrayed, and outright denounces the rest of his still-living siblings instead of reaching out to them. Mohg, meanwhile... Well, the less said about him, the better.
  • Similar to Malenia, Radahn is far closer to his army than anyone in the family. Heck, his idol is even his non-blood-related stepfather who's long-banished from the Lands Between, and not his own father. He also immediately checkmates his own little sister, Ranni, the moment the Shattering occurs, even though it's long decided that she, as an Empyrean, has more right to the throne than he does, and battles Malenia, the other Empyrean, to very grave consequences. However, his men, Commanders, and Jerren all speak highly of him regardless of his shortcomings — ditto a lot of characters who admire his combat ability.
  • Nepheli Loux, when you first met her, admits to a Happily Adopted situation where she admired her adoptive father, Sir Gideon Ofnir. However, as you continue on her quest, you both discover he's not at all what he portrays on the surface, resulting in them breaking their ties. However, in one of the (very) few happy NPC endings in the game, both parted rather amicably once Nepheli's crowned as Limgrave's ruler by Kenneth. True to this list, Gideon trusts the extremely-shady Ensha (and eventually you, once he fully recognizes your potential as Elden Lord late in the game) more than the then-loyal Nepheli.
  • In a heartbreaking example, Diallos left the noble Hoslow family out of his inferiority complex towards his older brother, Juno, with the lore implying they parted on unfriendly terms. The former will eventually find comfort and better treatment in the Roundtable Hold, Volcano Manor, and finally Jarburg, surrounded by people whom he thinks are his new-and-improved family, not knowing his older brother loves him all along and was working hard to set up a situation where Diallos can live in comfort... at least, until you killed Juno as your final mission for Volcano Manor.
• Friendlessness Insult: One of the first NPCs you encounter in the game, Varre, refers to your character as "maidenless", which in-universe means essentially "unable to level up"^note all Tarnished like the Player Character collect runes by slaying enemies and have to trade them to a so-called "Finger Maiden" for character levels; since our Tarnished has not met a Finger Maiden at that point, they are "maidenless". However, a lot of internet denizens find it funnier to misinterpret Varre's words as an insult aimed at the video game players' supposed inability to find romantic partners.
• Functional Magic: There are many types of magic in the Lands Between, divided into sorcery, incantations, and Ashes of War. Generally the difference is that sorcery draws power from the "residual life" of celestial objects like meteors, stars, and moons, while incantations draw power from various abstract deities (they can sometimes overlap). Ashes of War spells can be either incantations or sorceries (when they're not just straight physical skills), and are distinguished by being simpler to use than either, at the cost of being attached to a single weapon (though it can be changed out) that can only cast a very limited number of spells (always one for the player, usually two or three for everyone else). Magic is also stored in talismans (give slight stat boosts), spirit summons (summons spirit soldiers of various ability to assist), and other items, which can be used by people without any skill or association with a particular branch of magic. Categories of magic include:
  • Holy. Gold-colored magic derived from the Greater Will and its manifestations such as the Elden Ring and Erdtree, and the most common magic category in the game by a huge margin, with over sixty spells in both the incantation and Ashes of War classes (with Fundamentalism bordering on sorcery due to the equal FAI and INT requirements).^note 9 Fundamentalism, 13 Erdtree, and 15 Two Fingers incantations, plus 25 Ashes of War from all three including Sacred Blade, Prayerful Strike, Sacred Ring of Light, Sacred Order, Shared Order, Golden Land, Golden Slam, Golden Vow, Indomitable Vow, Holy Ground, Golden Parry, Blade of Gold, Last Rites, Golden Retaliation, Erdtree Slam, Gold Breaker, Establish Order, Wave of Gold, Ordovis's Vortex, Siluria's Woe, Miquella's Ring of Light, Unblockable Blade, Golden Tempering, Knowledge Above All, and Sacred Phalanx. It's further subdivided into the Erdtree, Two Fingers, and Fundamentalism categories. It's very versatile and can be used for anything from direct damage light spells to smiting specific types of enemies, but its main strength comes in support: being the magic of the setting's de facto Fertility God, most of its incantations are associated with lifegiving, healing, curing ailments, defense, and buffs. Used by many factions, but most notably by the bulk of the soldiers fighting for the Leyndell and Haligtree factions.
  • Glintstone. Light blue-colored spells that draw upon the power of glintstone, said by Sellen to be "the vitality of the stars." Divided into the pure Glintstone and Primeval categories, with a large focus on spamming projectiles. Used by the sorcerers and knights of both Raya Lucaria and Sellia. With all its variants, it's the second most common magic form after Holy. The Staff of the Guilty item description says that red glintstone is made of crystallized human blood, which along with Sellen's line heavily indicates that the standard blue/purple glintstone is powered by the blood of the star-spawn.
    • Gravity. Purple-colored spells that are technically a sub-category of glintstone sorceries, as they also draw their power from glintstone and thus the stars; but instead of launching blue projectiles, they use electromagnetism to manipulate, well, gravity. Include the Collapsing Stars, Gravity Well, Meteorite, Astel Meteorite, and Gravity Well sorceries and the Starcaller Cry, Gravitas, Waves of Darkness, Rain of Arrows, and Cragblade Ashes of War. Mainly used by the starspawn creatures, who seem to have natural affinity for it (for obvious reasons), but can also be taught to humans like Radahn and his elite knights.
  • Dark Moon. Darker blue-colored spells that draw upon the power of the Dark Moon much like Holy draws upon the Greater Will. While practitioners use a lot of projectile spam like glintstone sorceries, they also have a lot more Magic Knight applications, using magic energy to conjure swords, daggers, bows, spears, and parry shields. Divided into the pure Carian, Full Moon, and Loretta categories. Used by elite former or current followers of the Carian royal family or people taught by them, including the Cuckoo mercenary knights and Haligtree knights.
    • Snow. While also drawing upon the power of the Dark Moon, snow spells are more specifically used for, well, freezing things, and especially inflicting the deadly Frostbite status effect. Used by an assortment of ice-affiliated moon worshippers like the Zamor and Ranni's followers. Include the Adula's Moonblade, Freezing Mist, Frozen Armament, Glinstone Icecrag, and Zamor Ice Storm sorceries and the Ice Spear, Chilling Mist, and Hoarfrost Stomp Ashes of War.
  • Storm. White-colored wind spells that draw upon the power of the Stormveil's storm winds (occasionally boosted with lightning) to both launch deadly Razor Wind projectiles and allow casters to launch themselves and their enemies through the air. Include the Storm Blade, Storm Assault, Stormcaller, Storm Wall, Storm Stomp, Storm Kick, and Thunderstorm Ashes of War. Used by the elite soldiers of Stormveil and those connected to it. Unique for possessing neither dedicated sorceries nor incantations, perhaps because its users are all warriors first and foremost.
  • Blood. Crimson-colored spells derived from the outer god only known as the Formless Mother, focused on inflicting the hemorrhage status effect either by poisoning enemies with cursed blood projectiles or blasting them with bloodflame drawn from the Mother's body. Used solely (and universally) by followers of Mohg, Lord of Blood, inventor of the entire school. Includes the Bloodboon, Bloodflame Blade, Bloodflame Talons, and Swarm of Flies incantations and the Bloody Slash, Blood Tax, Blood Blade, and Bloodboon Ritual Ashes of War.
  • Rot. Pinkish or green-colored spells derived from the nameless outer god behind the Scarlet Rot, which mainly focus on poisoning enemies with toxins to inflict the Rot and Poison status effects. Used by followers of and victims of Rot. Include the Pest Threads, Poison Armament, Poison Mist, and Scarlet Aeonia incantations and the Poison Mist and Poison Moth Flight Ashes of War.
  • Frenzied Flame. Yellow-colored spells derived from the outer god of the Frenzied Flame, shooting projectiles that both burn enemies and inflict the Madness status effect. Used by followers and victims of the Frenzied Flame. Includes the Frenzied Burst, Inescapable Frenzy, Flame of Frenzy, Unendurable Frenzy, and Howl of Shabriri incantations and the Frenzyflame Thrust Ashes of War.
  • Black Flame. Black and grey-colored spells derived from the outer god known only as Death, which send out blasts of blackflame that both burn enemies and cause them to permanently lose a percentage of their health bars. Used by the Godskin cultists. Include the Black Flame, Black Flame Blade, Black Flame Ritual, Black Flame's Protection, Noble Presence, and Scouring Black Flame incantations and the Queen's Black Flame and Blackflame Tornado Ashes of War.
  • Death. While having the same source of power as the Godskin spells, Death spells instead either use ghostflame (which deals magic damage and can potentially cause Frostbite of all things), inflict the Death Blight status effect, or summon the undead to attack. Notably the ghostflames seem to be made of literal ghosts, as some spells have damned souls visible in them and a spark of ghostflame will emanate and respawn destroyed skeleton enemies unless stomped out. Used by followers and victims of Death like the Deathbirds and Those Who Live in Death. Include the Death of Rancor, Explosive Ghostflame, Fia's Mist, Rancorcall, and Tibia's Summons sorceries and the Death Flare, Ghostflame Ignition, Ruinous Ghostflame, and Rosus's Summons Ashes of War.
  • Fire. Spells that inflict, well, fire damage, in various projectile forms. Solid choice for direct damage. Divided into the Fire Giant incantations and Fire Monk incantations (plus the Flame Dance, Tongues of Fire, Surge of Faith, Prelate's Charge, Flame Spit, and Flame Dance Ashes of War) but both draw upon the same source of power: the "fell god" represented in the Flame of Ruin. Predictably used by Fire Giants and their descendants plus the Fire Monks and their followers. There are also two Ashes of War, Flaming Strike and Flame of the Redmanes, which work similarly, but it's not known if they're linked to the fell god.
  • Magma. Magma-based spells originating from the ancient hexes of Mount Gelmir brought back by Rykard with the help of the God-Devouring Serpent, used solely by him and his followers. Include the Gelmir's Fury, Magma Shot, Rolling Magma, and Rykard's Rancor incantations and the Magma Shower, Sea of Magma, Taker's Flames, Eruption, and Devourer of Worlds Ashes of War.
• The Fundamentalist: In an unusual play on the trope, because the laws of the world are artificial and bound to religious cornerstones, the so-called Fundamentalists of the Golden Order are the scientists of the Lands Between. Their equipment requires an investment in Intelligence to use, the Order has created a multitude of incantations and Hard Light weapons and tools through study of religious scripts. The Ever-Brilliant Goldmask, a prominent Golden Order Fundementalist, is actually something of a Nay Thiest who comes to believe that the true flaw of the Golden Order is that it does not hold gods like Marika and her family properly accountable, and at the end of his questline he creates a mending rune that will alter the Golden Order so that gods and mortals are both bound by it.

G

• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • In his boss fight, Radahn is extremely susceptible to attacks which inflict Scarlet Rot, which makes sense given he has succumbed to it in the lore.
  • Also in the Radahn fight, Blaidd the half wolf lasts the longest out of all your summoned allies. This makes perfect sense because he's easily the most powerful fighter there, aside from the player, given his position as a divine Shadow Beast assigned to protect an Empyrean.
  • Likewise, Gideon is very susceptible to Frenzy, as he's on the brink of despair and insanity by the time you fight him.
  • Merchants drop Bell-Bearings upon death, allowing you to retain access to their inventory. This makes Bell-Bearings quite useful. The Tarnished is not the only person who's noticed this, and the Recurring Boss Bell-Bearing Hunter will show up near 4 merchants throughout the game to fight you for their treasure.
  • Enemies becoming stronger the further north and east you travel isn't just difficulty scaling. The Erdtree grants healing, vitality, and strength to those who live close to it, so the closer you get to it the stronger they become. Going further north and east to the Mountaintops of the Giants and the Consecrated Snowfield not only keeps one within the area of the Erdtree's strength, but also in the influence of Miquella's Haligtree, a demigod associated with life and abundance, making everyone even more powerful. The enemies within the Haligtree are some of the toughest in the game as well.
  • All of the Godskins' cult's weapons and attack spells have a Percent Damage Attack component. This makes them an excellent choice against gods and demigods, who get huge boss healthbars. This extends to the Elden Beast - which as a spiritual and divine being is completely immune to all status effects - after all it has no blood that can be bled out or infected with poison nor a biological body to suffer the cold of frostbite, and is way too divine to be susceptible to the Scarlet Rot's corruption - however, its' STILL susceptible to the damage over time effect of black flames.
  • Fundamentalism is described as a philosophical current dedicated to studying and understanding the Golden Order beyond the dogma instated by the gods. As such, their trademark Golden Order incantations require as much investment in Intelligence as Faith to be used at all. In fact, the Law of Regression and Law of Causality incantations are said to represent concepts so fundamental that they have no Faith requirements, only Intelligence. The faith-less Law of Regression is also key to finding out the truth behind Radagon and Marika's relationship, a secret that leads Goldmask straight onto the path of heresy once he learns of it.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • The game uses the standard "Bloody Finger Defeated" message even for invaders who are not Bloody Fingers, like Castellan Jerren.
  • In the lore, the Scarlet Rot is very infectious and incurable even to the Demigods as Radahn and Malenia can certainly attest to. In-game, it's the Elden Ring equivalent of Toxic for the Tarnished; it can be cured easily enough (though methods of doing so aside from resting at a Site of Grace are rare) and it doesn't persist after death. You can even casually hang out near its victims or in environments tainted by it and not catch it.
  • Related to the above, there are a significant number of things in the lore which can put down the Tarnished permanently (and many Tarnished before you have fallen to these things), most prominently being Godrick's method of grafting them into his Body of Bodies alive (which prevents them from simply dying and coming back), the Scarlet Rot above (which can infect the mind and reduce it to nothing), or the Rune of Death (which can kill nearly anything in the setting). However, even when you are killed by enemies who have these means in gameplay, you still revive just like when you are killed by anything else. This is handwaved in some cases, with Godrick in particular sneering at the Tarnished player character, "Thou art unworthy even to graft..." after slaying them.
    • The game also heavily indicates that there's a hard limit to the Tarnisheds' Resurrective Immortality, as just about every Tarnished in the game can be Killed Off for Real, even Godfrey, consort of Marika, who granted the Tarnished their powers in the first place. This of course never applies to the player, who can revive as many times as they want with no consequences.
  • Under normal circumstances, the player's first Great Rune will come from defeating Godrick, something the Two Fingers will commend you on. Should you get your first Great Rune from Rennala, Radahn, or Rykard, the Two Fingers will still act as if you had killed Godrick.
  • After defeating Starscourge Radahn, you can find Iron Fist Alexander on the battlefield, lamenting how he was defeated with "a single blow" and afterward "hid like a coward," except anyone who summons him for the boss battle can see this is not even remotely true: while Alexander doesn't last long against Radahn (then again, neither does anyone except Blaidd), he puts in a decent effort, takes more than a single hit to down, and jumps right back into the fray when resummoned. He says the same thing if you just walk in over-leveled and curb-stomp Radahn on your own (which is not at all hard to do), even though you would have never summoned him.
  • Enemies always remain mindlessly hostile, even when the context really doesn't fit. An early example is Kenneth Haight's fort, which he mans with friendly demi-humans after you kick out the Blood Lord knight who had occupied it. The demi-humans will still attack you on sight, and Haight won't reference that you're killing his subjects or even respond in any way if they chase you up to his tower and start shanking you within a few feet of him. The same applies when you and Haight install Nepheli Loux as the Lord of Limgrave: the garrison of her castle will still throw themselves to their deaths trying to hack you down, even though you're good friends with their new lord.
    • Another noticeable example comes in Varre's quest. His second location at the Rose Church has him standing right in front of the church's entrance. If you walk in, a Sanguine Noble will jump out and attack you within eyesight of Varre, even if you're an anointed knight of the Mohgwyn dynasty that they both serve. This is a respawn location so you can kill a new Noble every time you walk in to the church. Despite Varre and the Sanguine Nobles being soldiers of the same faction, he'll never tell the Nobles to stand down from attacking you nor will he reference you hacking them to death, even if you talk to him covered in their blood.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The Lands Between is populated by massive, highly-aggressive crabs and lobsters that litter bodies of water. Some will remain hidden under the sand until the player steps into their aggro range, causing them to pop out and start wailing on you.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The Elden Beast is somewhat of a non-sequitur of a final boss, appearing out of the ground to fight you after you kill Radagon with next to zero foreshadowing. A little bit subverted, as it's justified in-universe as the Greater Will sometimes sends powerful monsters down from above to violently quell things that need violently quelling, but you'd still have to do a lot of digging to discover that naturally.
• Gigantic Moon: The moon of the Lands Between is notably oversized, especially when compared to the ingame sun.
• Godhood Seeker: The Tarnished's main motivation is to reach the Erdtree so they can become a God-Emperor. Ultimately, this trope is Reconstructed, as the Tarnished is still a heroic figure and ends up doing far more good than their enemies who are still trying to follow the Erdtree's commands, even after it's clear that the refusal to accept an Elden Lord is tearing the land to pieces.
• Godzilla Threshold: One of the many people chosen to gain a chance to become Elden Lord is the Dung Eater, which shows just how desperate the situation has become that even he is summoned to help. This trope is Deconstructed, though, as the Dung Eater is even more evil than the squabbling Demigods who have ruined the land. If he succeeds in twisting the player to follow his evil ideology, he inflicts a Fate Worse than Death on everyone in the world, condemning everyone alive and everyone born for the rest of the age to suffer forever in the afterlife. He does this purely For the Evulz. In this ending, even the narrator is horrified.
• Great Offscreen War:
  • The Shattering, the civil war between Demigods that occurred after the Elden Ring was shattered. While shown in the opening cutscene and in the Story Trailer, has long petered out with all involved armies wearing themselves down to nubs against each other. Details and events that transpired during the war can be found either by talking with NPCs or reading certain item descriptions. It still continues in a lower intensity in the present (e.g. Godrick's army constantly fighting the Misbegotten and Demi-Human raiders, the fights between Morgott and Rykard's men on the Altus-Gelmir border, the Carian royals' puppet soldiers fighting the Cuckoo company troops throughout Liurnia, fire cultists setting up outposts in Altus that occasionally skirmish with Morgott's patrols), but the greatest battles have long since passed.
  • The Genocidal War with the Fire Giants was particuarly great due to the players involved. Godfrey, Radagon and Marika herself led the Golden Order armies north and joined forces with a tribe or race of warrior women in an area call Zamor who were the mortal enemies of the Giants. From what we hear, Godfrey and Radagon went buckwild until the Giants were wiped out almost to the last and hostilities finally ceased when Marika killed The Fell God of the Giants in single combat (most likely some kind of avatar or representative like her). In the aftermath, a single Giant was taken prisoner and made to tend their inextinguishable flame. The mountains were ultimately quarantined by Golden Order soldiers and Fire Monks to keep travelers far away from the relic.
• Green Hill Zone: Limgrave, the starter zone, is this by Elden Ring's standards, although a few tough enemies do roam around. It is a relatively beautiful land full of greenery and with few tough enemies where it is easy and safe to navigate, at least as long as the Tarnished sticks to the roads.
• Grim Up North: The Mountaintops of the Giants and the Consecrated Snowfield are at the northernmost part of the Lands Between and fittingly enough, they're a frozen wasteland.
• Guide Dang It!: It wouldn't be a FromSoft game without it.
  • The new jumping mechanic is very particular, but the game never hints at how it works, nor is the animation intuitive in telling you. There are three main non-blocking ways of avoiding damage: rolling/quickstepping, running/backstepping, and jumping. A roll or quickstep is straightforwardly "you're invincible during it, and vulnerable when recovering from it", which you could probably surmise on your own. A backstep or run is "you're never invincible at all" and have to actually be out of the move's hitbox to avoid damage", establishing the precedent that not all avoidance moves give invincibility frames. Then there's jumping. The jump does gives you iframes... but only on part of your body. You might see a quick enemy blade phase through your waist without damage and another strike your upper chest and leave you a crumpled heap, with no clear indication as to where the invincibility box stops. As it turns out, dataminers have determined that the invincibility box extends to your lower chest, and no farther. What's more, the jump actually gives you a lot more iframes than the roll or quickstep on those specific bodyparts: a jump is 0.83 seconds of iframes with 0.17 seconds of recovery, and a medium roll is 0.43 seconds of iframes with 0.27 seconds of recovery. So the jump can be really useful for horizontal attack combos that are too fast or long-lasting to be iframed with the roll or quickstep or avoided entirely with running or backstepping, but which also don't strike above a certain height so they won't hit your hew head/chest/shoulder hitbox (a lot of Radagon, Malenia, and Godfrey's attacks fit the bill here). Again, none of this is intuitively obvious, which is unfortunate because the animations of the enemy attacks are easier to parse by visuals and it'd be easier to make effective use of the jump were you told this. This is also a big reason why jump attacks are so powerful in this game: you're invincible on most of your body for the duration of the animation (and duck afterwards), meaning you often avoid attacks you didn't mean to.
  • Generally speaking, spells are extremely vague in their descriptions, often only listing what a spell will do and its FP cost. No hard stats like casting time and base damage are described.
  • The traits shared by all items of a type are listed in great detail (damage resistances for armor, damage types for weapons, and a plethora of stats for spell focuses and shields, including when you bash with them). Any other effects are very vague, saying things like, "a minor increase in Dexterity," rather than spelling it out. This gets especially grating for Remembrance items that often carry unique abilities.
  • Passive effects, temporary or otherwise, which appear under your character's health/mana/stamina bars remain unexplained and are hard to check. You can work out most of them by guesswork, especially since most of them come from your amulets, but a few others go largely unexplained unless you dig into description texts. There are stories of people playing the whole game with the -5% health debuff from hugging Fia active, simply because they had no idea they even had such a debuff, or even if they noticed the icon, didn't know what it meant.
  • Want to make use of the Summoning Ashes you collect throughout the game before reaching Roundtable Hold? You'll have to backtrack to the Church of Elleh in Limgrave after getting Torrent, than talk to the new NPC who appears only at night.
  • In good FromSoftware tradition, quests are as frustratingly easy to miss or get stuck on as ever. As in previous games, Elden Ring initially provided nothing for finding characters. Add to this the open-world nature of the game, it becomes even easier to miss key characters and events required to progress questlines. Finally, certain characters' questlines interconnect with, and in some cases, completely cut off the questlines of other characters. Fortunately, a band-aid solution to part of this was added with one patch, which started showing merchants and friendly characters on the world map, but only if you have talked to them or passed very close to them, so it is still easy to miss them entirely.
  • The steps required to start up the lore-heavy Black Knife quest are incredibly obscure. To get on the trail of this questline, the Tarnished must enter a very well-hidden section in Stormveil Castle, where after defeating a miniboss, they must then interact with a bloodstain. The bloodstain points to the next character they must talk to. After talking to several characters, the Tarnished must then travel to a certain catacombs indicated by a map hint from one of those characters, and defeat a boss there for its drop. The catch is there's two bosses in the area, and the one to look for is in a secret area. To put mildly, this is a very Guide Dang It! heavy quest, though its relevance boils down to altered dialogue for another questline.
  • The Superboss Mohg, Lord of Blood will apply a curse to you in the first half of the fight they activate during their transition to the second phase of the fight. Upon activating, the curse will inflict heavy damage on you 3 times in pretty rapid succession, requiring you to heal yourself a few times if you do not wish to die. This is completely unavoidable and is rough considering the boss can be a pain as is. That is, unless you complete a specific questline, specifically Bloody Finger Hunter Yura's questline. At the end, you'll receive a special tear for your Flask of Wonderous Physick whose sole use is to remove said curse. While there is a connection between Mohg and that questline, it's never outright stated and one could easily overlook it, especially if they never found the easy to miss second step of said questline.
  • Some loot drops are rare but sensical for where they come from. One example where this isn't the case is the Haligtree Crest Greatshield. While it would seem it would drop from any Haligtree Knight as they all have shields, it only drops from one non-bow, non-partisan wielding Knight who is tucked away around the church leading to Malenia's boss arena. And there is no indication as to why this is the case.
  • If you thought about using multiple buffs, the game doesn't tell you that some buffs stack with others while others can cancel out or override each other. It will take extensive testing to determine their behavior on your own. Given the long cast time and short duration of most buff incantations, it's usually more convenient to run off a single buff.
  • Patch 1.07 added an Anti-Frustration Feature in the form of Magnus the Beast Claw, a NPC Tarnished who can be invaded to further Varre's questline for offline players. However, the game doesn't add anything to indicate his presence, such as new lines for Varre; you just have to stumble onto him on your own or look him up in the wiki.
  • Many concepts were inherited more or less unchanged from Dark Souls and work in ways that will not be intuitive to those who didn't play those games. This includes the rather complicated process of using consumables for multiplayer, and that summoning a cooperator (even an NPC!) increases the health of enemies, including bosses, even if they disconnect. Adding to the confusion, Spirit Ashes work very similarly but don't affect enemy stats, meaning a fair number of bosses will be considerably easier alone with a high tier Spirit Ash than with two friends helping!
  • Getting to the Volcano Manor itself is not exceptionally difficult, but accessing the Volcano Manor legacy dungeon is much more obscure. You have to dispel a specific wall to reveal it is an illusion, with no indication that there even is an invisible wall or that there's a massive area behind it beyond the map showing a big built-up area outside of the Manor itself. The invisible wall is in an area where attacking is disabled, requiring the player to roll into it (something players might not even realise is possible, considering they were able to dispel every other wall thus far by attacking it.) At no point in the Volcano Manor questline is there any indication that this area exists, and completing the questline lets you skip it entirely. The only indication that there's anything odd about the illusory wall is that there's a slightly crooked painting hanging on it, but this asset is reused in other places in the manor, so the wall isn't even unique in this regard.
  • The other way to access Volcano Manor without going to Mount Gelmir and doing Tanith's questline is to let yourself be killed by a random Abductor Virgin's grab attack in the depths of Raya Lucaria. Not only is there nothing about this particular Abductor Virgin that suggests that it teleports you somewhere if it kills you, but unless you actually recall in the lore who Abductor Virgins serve and what they actually do, then you might initially assume that the game glitched out and wrong-warped you there, as it's not like there's any notifier that you've been teleported(like the cutscene that plays when traveling to the Nightmare Frontier in Bloodborne, for example). On top of all this, the obvious path forward counterintuitively leads you out of Mount Gelmir and back into the Altus Plateau; if you want to continue the dungeon, you have to jump off of the nearby cliff into the lava, which looks too high to survive a drop from and can actually kill you in certain places.
  • Speaking of Volcano Manor's questline, the last target, Juno Hoslow, is located in the Mountaintops of the Giants, which can't be accessed until you defeat Morgott. The game doesn't tell you this beyond some hints that the lands north of Leyndell are forbidden. If you're trying to finish Volcano Manor's questline, there's no indication you need to clear an entirely separate legacy dungeon first just to reach your final target.
  • The painting sidequest is, for the most part, easy to figure out, and the location represented in each painting relatively simple to find as they all feature recognizable landmarks. With the notable exception of the "Redmane" painting, that is. While the architecture is easy to pinpoint (the arches to the side of Radahn's arena), finding where the painting was drawn is hilariously convoluted, as it requires jumping down from the Minor Erdtree above onto a root that does not look like a proper path (as even if you know where to go it's very, very easy to miss the landing altogether, and you'll be taking fall damage without mitigation), and from there performing a platforming puzzle to land on a cliff below. Really brings to mind the question of how and why the artist got there in the first place.

H

• Handicapped Badass: Several. Latenna the Albinauric is an archer who has the same ruined legs as all first generation Albinaurics. Finding Millicent a prosthetic and treatment for Scarlet Rot turns her from a dying Mysterious Waif to a formidable swordswoman who can even be summoned for help with several bosses. Radahn's battle with Scarlet Rot ruined his feet and mind and grew him to giant size; it takes an entire squad of seasoned warriors to bring him down. But Malenia is the queen of this trope. After fighting the Scarlet Rot since birth, three of her limbs are prosthetics, yet she is the most feared warrior both in and out of game.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses:
  • Certain dungeons in the Lands Between tend to possess much easier bosses than the path it takes to get to them in the first place. Since there's only one site of grace that's located at the entrance of all of them, with maybe a Stake of Marika in-between or near the boss arena, dying will force you to start all the way back at the beginning. Consequently, the dungeon bosses, while not all of them are necessarily easy, tend to be much simpler to deal with when properly equipped.
  • Raya Lucaria Academy has a lot of Sorcerers that will spam glintsone pebbles and other sorceries that will make it a massive pain to deal with. On the other hand, the last boss of this dungeon, Rennala, has a much simpler gimmick that doesn't involve spamming said pebbles.
  • Volcano Manor features Abductor Virgins and Man-Serpents that block that path, including one mid-boss encounter with a Godskin Noble. Rykard, while not necessarily an easy boss, is a Puzzle Boss that can be defeated more easily by using the Serpent Hunter at the entrance of the arena.
• Healing Boss:
  • Some bosses (such as Sir Gideon Ofnir) are actually just NPC invaders with Boss Subtitles, and as such are able to use a Flask of Crimson Tears, just like the Player Character. Nevertheless, almost all of them are limited to just one healing charge, as opposed to the PC's maximum of 14.
  • The Superboss Malenia, Blade of Miquella, heals herself for 300-400 health upon hit, regardless of dealing damage, which is described as her being such a determinator that she wills herself better whenever she connects a hit. It's not as much of a game-breaker as you'd think given the amount of damage Malenia dishes out vs heals, but it does render shield tactics pretty much useless.
• Heal It With Fire: The "Flame, Cleanse Me" incantation cleanses poison and scarlet rot by setting yourself on fire for a split second. While it does deal minor damage, it's a negligible cost for what is being cured in return.
• Hellfire: The Lands Between have a couple varieties of this, as the Greater Will seems to treat any source of flame as a threat to itself. Given that its primary manifestation in the Lands Between is in the form of a World Tree, this isn't without precedent.
  • Destined Death tends to manifest as fire, with a couple of different varieties dependent on its interpretation. The Ghostflame of the Deathbirds is generally considered to be neutral, as its original purpose was to cremate the deceased and have their spirits empower the Outer God of Destined Death. Blackflame is far more malevolent, as it is wielded by the Godskin Cult and their Gloam-Eyed Queen to hunt down and flay the gods of the setting. The ultimate manifestations of Destined Death as wielded by those who have access to a piece of the Rune of Death like the Black Knife Assassins and Maliketh, the Black Blade are similar to Blackflame but with red highlights instead of white, and was so powerful in its destructive capacity that the Rune of Death was removed from the Elden Ring in its entirety.
  • The Primordial Flame of the Fire Giants, often known as Giantsflame, was a purely destructive manifestation of the Giants' One-Eyed God that is apparently the one thing that could truly threaten the Erdtree and the Greater Will, hence why the Golden Order slaughtered the Fire Giants to the last to deprive the One-Eyed God of its power via the faith of its followers. Although the Giantsflame is apparently so powerful that not even the combined might of the Greater Will can permanently snuff it out, and thus Marika left a sole Fire Giant alive to tend to the flame and ensure that it never ran rampant again. It is also apparently empowered by Human Sacrifice and can cause the One-Eyed God to physically manifest within its followers, as the Fire Giant sacrifices its own leg to the One-Eyed God in his phase transition and opens the third flaming eye in its torso before throwing much more powerful and potent fire magic at you than before. Giantsflame, along with the Frenzied Flame, is one of two forces known that are able to ignite and burn down the Erdtree, and in every ending except for the Lord of Frenzied Flame it is necessary to commit this cardinal sin against the Golden Order to enter the Erdtree and beat the game.
  • The Frenzied Flame, possibly also known as Yelough, is probably the closest to this trope in the Lands Between, it being a vivid and erratic yellow fire that drives people insane with extended proximity and mostly manifests by erupting from people’s eye sockets. It is also wholly committed to the omnicidal destruction of all life, as the Three Fingers that house its power believe that all life is born from the mistaken fragmenting of the "One Great", and that to restore the One Great all life must be burned and melted down by the Frenzied Flame. It, along with the Giantsflame described above, is one of two forces known that are able to ignite and burn down the Erdtree, and The Lord of Frenzied Flame ending sees this happen; the end result has the Erdtree split in half from the titanic gout of yellow flame issuing out of it, which has now paradoxically darkened the sky with a vortex of Frenzied Flame as the rest of the world burns down beneath it.
  • The Volcano Manor is one of the most explicitly evil factions in the game, as their whole schtick is committing uncounted blasphemies against the Golden Order and siccing Tarnished against each other, and as the name would imply it is both based within a volcano's caldera and uses lava in many of its unique weapons and sorceries.
• High Fantasy: While FromSoft has toyed with this aesthetic in the past (see Dark Souls II), Elden Ring sees them fully embrace it. The world is significantly larger and filled with all manner of creatures, and massive vistas of impossible size and scope are common to see. One of the first things the player sees is the gargantuan Erdtree stretching out into the skyline, bathing the entire world in a ray of golden light, and things only get grander from there. In an interesting twist, the Lands Between has just been through a particularly nasty war, thus scarring the once beautiful landscape in a heaping pile of Scenery Gorn. This, combined with other dark elements, makes the Lands Between an interesting blend between High Fantasy and Dark Fantasy. One could describe it as "the apocalypse of a High Fantasy setting".
• Highly Visible Landmark: The Erdtree is a gigantic, glowing, golden tree that can be easily seen from anywhere on the map.
• Holy Hand Grenade: Among the various elemental damage types is 'Holy' damage, which is highly effective against undead enemies. It's also possible to craft Holy firebombs, meaning you can even throw literal holy hand grenades if you want.
• Home of the Gods: The Lands Between is the mythological home of Queen Marika and her brood.
• Hopeless War: The Shattering, which the intro calls "a war from which no Lord arose". In this massive, divine Mêlée à Trois, nobody managed to claim another demigod's Great Rune, and apart from Morgott (who focused almost exclusively on defending Leyndell from the other belligerents), nobody managed to eke out anything more than a Pyrrhic Victory. Almost every known engagement ended in a stalemate that left their belligerents significantly worse off than they were before, with Radahn and Malenia in particular fighting each other to a draw that annihilated the majority of their armies and left both of them incapacitated. Even the aforementioned Morgott, during the one offensive campaign he's known to have undertaken, succeeded only in destroying Rykard's army through sheer attrition while failing to eliminate the traitorous demigod himself or his Recusants; Leyndell itself is clearly reeling from previous sieges despite being the only remotely functional urban area left, with ruins and dead bodies everywhere despite the worst fighting having occurred centuries ago. It's for this reason that the Tarnished were recalled to the Lands Between; without them to fix things, the demigods would end up fruitlessly warring with each other forever.
• Horse of a Different Color: In a twisted usage of this trope, the various traveling caravans of the Lands Between use Trolls to drag their wagons like they're horses or oxen, and are connected with said wagon by being impaled through the chest with a huge pike.
• Hotter and Sexier: Subverted. Perhaps because of Martin's influence, Elden Ring has far more sexual references than any of FromSoftware's previous games, even if none of it is shown. Far from being titillating, they're usually to establish some characters as absolutely disgusting, with the Dung Eater's storyline in particular having strong implications of sexual horror.
  • This trope is played straight in regards to character designs. In the past, FromSoft would design most of their characters (their bosses especially) as being impossibly emaciated and corpse-like. While there are some characters like that in Elden Ring, many of them have very attractive faces and have athletic Heroic Builds.
• Human Subspecies: Much like divinity, humanity seems to have a wider definition in Elden Ring than in other fantasy settings. There are a lot of people in the Lands Between who are obviously not ordinary human beings yet are incorporated into the society of the empire anyway, though in what appears to be a caste system of sorts. The Commoners and Finger Readers are two such examples, with the former being unusually tall, emaciated men who are all employed in menial labor, and the latter small, shriveled old women who serve as oracles. There's no indication that either of them are considered to be not human, and they're fully integrated into the functions of regular society. The demihumans are also implied by their name to be closely related to humanity, but they're considered a separate species entirely and used mostly as slave labor. The Numens and Vulgar Militia are also possibly examples.

I

• Iconic Outfit: Of the myriad outfits players can find and take for themselves, two armor sets are regarded as the face of the Tarnished. The Fingerprint armor set is the one used on the game's cover art, though by far the most popular and often seen is the Raging Wolf set, which was featured prominently in the game's promotional materials and briefly served as a starting class in the Network Test.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Lands Between are chock full of miserable, grim and sinister sounding places. The Lake of Rot doesn't sound like a prime tourist attraction, nor do locales like the Weeping Peninsula or the Wailing Dunes. The Subterranean Shunning Grounds, already a desolate place to begin with, houses the Cathedral of the Forsaken near the bottom, a name serving as one of many, many hints that you're encountering something horrid in the area if you continue.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: Not as bad as a lot of RPGs, but far more noticeable than in the Soulsborne games due to the game's length meaning damage scales higher and enemies get repeated more often. For example, the Lordsworn soldiers in the Haligtree have almost literally ten times the hit points as the ones in Limgrave, despite both groups being Muggles with identical animations, lore, and models (bar the surcoats designating them as Malenia and Miquella's troops instead of Godrick's), solely because the Haligtree is an end-game area and Limgrave is the starting one.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The game features a dynamic day/night cycle, with the Tarnished also being able to switch between these while resting at graces at their convenience. Some enemies, like the Giant Bats, become more aggressive during the night, and a few night-exclusive field bosses start roaming around the map.
  • It takes the Tarnished a few hours to recover from death; each death advances the clock to the next stage of the day. This is really only relevant when the player wants to take another go at a night-exclusive Field Boss, though it does make retrieving one's Runes quite a bit easier.
• Incest Subtext: Depending on whether you take to the idea that Marika and Radagon are two aspects of the same being or they were two different people who shared a body later in life, the idea that they wound up siring two children (Miquella and Melania) has a lot of unfortunate implications. One could even view their afflictions — Miquella's unnaturally slow rate of aging and Melania's physical degeneration via being the unwilling chosen vessel for The Scarlet Rot — as sort of mythical symptoms of inbred genetics.
• Inevitable Waterfall: The final section of the Lake of Rot requires the tarnished to climb into a stone coffin and go over a waterfall of infected blood.
• Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: The stonesword keys are magical stone keys that can be placed in certain statues throughout the world. Placing a key will open the adjacent magical barrier, but will also use up the key. Justified in that the key remains visibly stuck in the statue after you use it.
• Interface Screw: The frozen lake in east Mountaintops of the Giants engulfs you in a heavy blizzard which impedes vision as a dragon makes its presence known. The southern half of the Consecrated Snowfields is also cloaked in a dense snowstorm, with the only clear way forward being marked by lights dotting the area.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • NPC invaders can't be fought on horseback. If the Tarnished suddenly dismounts in an open area without input from the player, it's a surefire sign that they're about to be invaded.
  • Enemies will sometimes hide among the dead to ambush you. This works poorly for a number of reasons.
    • The game's engine grants different physics properties to the environment and characters in it. Dead bodies will typically ragdoll as if they were made out of water balloons. Which means that any "bodies" that the Tarnished can walk over or climb up are level geometry, not actual characters.
    • Enemies can always be targeted by tapping the Target Lock button, even if they're hiding. The lone exception are the Claymen in the underworld, who can hide as a piece of rock that quickly forms into an enemy.
  • Awesome, we've made it to Leyndell Capital and are at the foot of the Erdtree! Wait, what's this other region on the map we haven't been to yet that leads us away from the Erdtree?
• Irony:
  • A meta example. For a game with a heavy finger motif (the being the Tarnished works for is called the Two Fingers, there are dismembered fingers which are means to the game's multiplayer, and all the multiplayer role titles all have "finger" in them), it's interesting that rings were removed as an accessory (outside of two which are meant for anti-invader purposes, but they work differently than old rings). Instead, these are replaced with the functionally similar talismans.
  • Another meta example is, in Dark Souls, lightning served as Gwyn's greatest weapon against the dragon horde, being one of their few weaknesses. Elden Ring has Lightning be the domain of dragons, with all of the lightning spells learned coming either from draconic scripture or from powerful dragon bosses.
• Ironic Name: The rotted hellscape East of Limgrave is called Caelid, which means "The Heavens" in Latin.
• I Will Find You: Melina says this to you in the "Lord of Frenzied Flame" ending, vowing to hunt you down and kill you with Destined Death, implying she will take up Maliketh's mantle.

J

• Joke Item: The Longtail Cat Talisman sounds pretty useful on paper^*It reduces falling damage, but does not save you from fatal falls, but in practice it's more like a prank the developers are playing on you. As the amount of fall damage taken is vastly reduced from Dark Souls, but the distance at which a fall kills you is not, you're essentially spending a valuable talisman slot to avoid trivial amounts of damage while still being completely vulnerable to all the countless bottomless pits in the game. What gives the joke away is that you find the ring on the corpse of someone who fell to their death trying to jump down the huge elevator shaft in Raya Lucaria.
• Jump Scare: In the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending, first when the player approaches Marika, the only option is "Become the Lord of Frenzied Flame", then the Tarnished collapses screaming in pain and the ending cutscene begins. The Tarnished can be seen from behind getting up while surrounded in Flame. Then they turn around and their entire head has been replaced by a mass of Frenzied Flame which looks somewhat like an eye. They promptly destroy the world, killing all but (potentially) one person.

K

• Kamehame Hadoken: One of the Sorceries charges and fires a massive beam of blue energy, reminiscent of the Soul Stream spell from Dark Souls III.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Katanas were always a fairly popular weapon type in the Dark Souls series thanks to their decent balance of speed, reach, weight and power (especially thanks to their native Bleed buildup, which gave huge bursts of bonus damage every few swings against susceptible enemies). Elden Ring makes them better than they've ever been, thanks to restoring the dedicated Dual Wielding movesets of Dark Souls II (katanas had/have a particularly good one that significantly improved all aspects of their performance including that devastating Bleed buildup) while removing the durability mechanic that was the chief bane of the delicate, fragile blades. Dual katanas are one of the most popular loadouts in this game for a reason, and their excellence is even acknowledged in-game thanks to the resident Master Swordswoman Superboss, Malenia, wielding a katana-type blade (which is also one of the most powerful weapons in the game for a Dexterity build, especially if you can get your hands on a pair of them).
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Gatekeeper Gostoc, who you meet near the entrance to Stormveil Castle, is seen stomping on Godrick's dead body after you defeat him, cursing at him and talking about how it feels good to be free. He also secretly does this to you, stealing a percentage of the runes you drop every time you die.
• Kill the God: The main storyline follows the Tarnished as they make their way up Queen Marika's family tree, killing her demi-god descendants in order to reforge the Elden Ring. They start out with Godrick, one of her distant relatives, and eventually make their way all the way up to Radagon, her second husband, and then finally squaring off and besting the Elden Beast. The game's final victory message isn't the usual "Greater Enemy Felled", but "God Slain".

L

• Laser Blade:
  • The Coded Sword is a sword with a blade purely made of holy runes, with the only physical part being the handle and guard. It fittingly only deals Holy damage and requires no physical stats to wield, just a really high amount of Faith.
  • For those who would like to be able to create a Laser Blade as an extension around another weapon.
  • There's also the Carian Grandeur Art of War, the default art of the Carian Knight's Sword, which creates a large magical aura around the weapon it's on, which gets even bigger if you charge it.
  • Of course, this being a Spiritual Successor to Dark Souls, a particularly determined Tarnished will have access to the Sword of Moonlight; only now it's called the Dark Moon Greatsword.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: Played With; after defeating Radagon and the Elden Beast, you are sent back to the interior of the Erdtree, where Marika's shattered body is waiting for you to decide her fate. If you've completed Ranni's questline, you can summon her for the Age of the Stars ending, or you can interact with Marika's body to activate the Elden Lord ending or any of its variants based on what Mending Runes you have acquired up to this point. However, there is a Site of Grace within the Erdtree that you can activate, allowing you to leave, gather up a new Mending Rune or complete Ranni's questline, and then come back and get the ending you want. However, if the Frenzied Flame is inherited and wasn't neutralized with Miquella's Needle, this will bar the Elden Lord endings for a Lord of Frenzied Flame ending, with the Age of the Stars ending as the only other option.
• Late to the Tragedy: By the time the Tarnished awakens and enters Limgrave, the Shattering has already happened. The land was ravaged by the war, the devastation evident everywhere, with the Caelid even subsumed in a horrid scarlet rot. The actual timeframe since the Shattering is ambiguous, but it could've been from a few decades to even a century or more.
• Lava Magic Is Fire: The high level fire sorceries and signature skill, Eruption, of the Volcano Manor utilize powerful magma attacks. As no other fire spells other than the Magma Wyrm breath attacks utilize lava, this makes the sorceries used by them particularly unique and heretical to the Erdtree worshipping Golden Order.
• Legendary Weapon: There are nine "Legendary Armaments", weapons that are unique and distinct from boss remembrance weapons, that count towards an achievement.
  • The Grafted Blade Greatsword is made of smaller blades bound together. It's a heirloom of Castle Morne and was forged when a lone survivor of a vanished country was so determined to keep fighting that he collected the swords of an entire clan of warriors for himself and forged them together.
  • The Sword of Night and Flame, found in Caria Manor, is capable of throwing an arc of flame or casting a Kamehame Hadoken. Its lore says that it was created by the astrologers who preceded the sorcerers of the present day, combining their knowledge of stars with knowledge gained from their neighbors, the Fire Giants.
  • The Eclipse Shotel, found in Castle Sol, is enchanted with the Prince of Death's Flames, which inflict Deathblight- though this only works on other players.
  • The Marais Executioner's Sword is a heirloom of House Marais, a noble family of executioners. It was stolen by Elemer of the Briar when he was about to be executed with it, and he infused it with the Eochaid's Dancing Blade skill and used it to take over the Shaded Castle.
  • The Ruins Greatsword isn't so much a sword as a giant chunk of building that fell from the sky (presumably from Farum Azula) after being struck by a meteor, fitted with a handle.
  • The Bolt of Gransax is the weapon once wielded by the Ancient Dragon Gransax when he stormed Leyendell. His corpse draped over the city is still clutching it, and the Tarnished can hop on and chisel off a bit for themselves. The weapon itself acts as a spear that can be infused with lightning and thrown at enemies before returning to the wielder.
  • The Devourer's Scepter is the symbol of Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, fashioned after a vision he had in which he as the God-Devouring Serpent devoured the world itself. It is wielded by Recusant Bernhal in his Crumbling Farum Azula invasion. The weapon allows the wielder to steal health from nearby enemies.
  • The Dark Moon Greatsword is Elden Ring's incarnation of the Moonlight Greatsword. It's the reward from completing Ranni's quest, being her wedding present to the Tarnished. Apparently, giving consorts giant swords is a Carian tradition.
  • The Golden Order Greatsword was originally the Full Moon Greatsword that Rennala gave to Radagon upon their marriage, but when Radagon left her for Marika he reforged it into the Golden Order Greatsword.
• Lethal Joke Weapon:
  • The Envoy's Horn and its upgrades, the Envoy's Long Horn and Envoy's Greathorn, all fire slow-moving bubble projectiles as part of their unique skills. Weaponizing your music for projectiles is funny but the bubbles are often too slow to use in a high-intensity fight. Bubble Shower from the Long Horn, however, is very effective at destroying enemies with large hitboxes.
  • The Noble's Slender Sword is basically the game's version of the Broken Straight Sword from Dark Souls, being a drop from the weakest enemy type in the game. The game's own item descriptions recommend selling it instead of using it. Unlike the Broken Straight Sword, however, it's not wrecked yet and also has the longest range of any Straight Sword, and has surprisingly good Dex scaling as well, making it a recommended weapon for Dex users.
• Lethal Lava Land: The area around the aptly named Volcano Manor is covered in lava and is particularly tricky to navigate. The town behind Volcano Manor is a ruin seemingly destroyed by an eruption and the streets have become rivers of flowing lava, forcing the Tarnished to find a way to walk on the roofs or find the few patches of solid rock, which are invariably occupied by burning slugs.
• Lighter and Softer: Played With. Compared to Dark Souls or Bloodborne, while civilization in the Lands Between has mostly collapsed and monsters run rampant, several areas, especially Limgrave and Liurnia, are green and flourishing. The Corruption is safely confined to a single area, and even with the Elden Ring shattered, the world does not seem to be in any danger of ending unless the Tarnished does it themselves, with references to other lands which seem to be doing perfectly fine. And some of the endings of Elden Ring can be considered decidedly happy and triumphant. On the other hand, at an interpersonal level the game can be considered very much Darker and Edgier, inspiring alarming levels of worries. Dark and very real issues like incest, rape, the cost of war, ethnic and religious intolerance, genocide, and torture are on full display, not just in lore and item descriptions, but in the world and quests itself, and the far more detailed backstories and personalities of NPCs lead to layers of tragedy that have never been broached.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Godrick the Grafted is not only immensely large, he's also very agile, able to jump and spin his axe midair with ease.
  • The Beastman of Farum Azula wields a rather large weapon reminiscent of Breath of the Wild's rock smashers, but is surprisingly quick and agile, making fast combos which can move him long distances.
  • Runebears. One of the toughest enemies in the game, they're also able to move even faster than your horse, making it hard to escape their massive blows.
  • Malenia moves fast, hits extremely hard, and has one of the highest health pools in the game, augmented by healing herself slightly when she hits you as well as having two phases.
  • Maliketh isn't just blindingly quick and able to kill a high level player in one or two hits, he's also acrobatic enough that he spends a good deal of the fight airborne.
  • Royal Revenants are infamous for their erratic, lightning quick lunges and ability to phase through the ground to get away from you.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards:
  • Basic melee is about of the same level of strength and usefulness from start to finish while magic, sorcery in particular, starts out as a bit weak, but then shoots up in power around mid to late game, particularly once more powerful sorceries and staffs are found and become useable. Gaining the Meteor Staff and Rock Sling spells in particular serve as a midgame boost in power (unless you know where they are already, in which case you can pick them up rather early for a Disc-One Nuke).
  • The best staff for damage, the Carian Regal Scepter, not only needs the player to have invested a hefty 60 Intelligence to even use, but also gets an incredible increase in Sorcery Scaling (which determines spell damage) from 70 to 80 Intelligence. Effectively, mages get the potential to be incredible ranged combatants, but this comes at the cost of needing to pour a significant amount of their stat points into their primary spellcasting stat, only realizing their full potential near the end of the game.
• Literal Metaphor: A recurring theme.
  • The debut trailer described the Elden Ring as "that which commanded the stars". Turns out that wasn't just flowery language; the Elden Ring's power was so great it could literally dictate the position of the stars.
  • By the way they're described, you'd assume the Two Fingers and the Three Fingers would just be a pair of Omniscient Councils of Vagueness. The truth is far stranger; these are literally giant fingers, attached to giant disembodied hands.
• Loophole Abuse: As a form of Anti-Rage Quitting, in PvP you get rewards if your invaders leave, either of their own volition or from their deaths. Cue players finding hard-to-reach hiding spots, calling for both invaders and hunters, and then sitting back to farm invaders as the hunters they've summoned do the work, or wait for the invaders to leave out of boredom. You'd also see stories of invaders who discover what their target is doing and devise their own tactics to punish these players, sometimes even collaborating with the hunters to punish the host.
  • In-universe: The Roundtable Hold has an enchantment that prevents its visitors from harming each other, and not even the Dung Eater can bypass it. Judging by your halved flasks, Ensha attempts an assassination by duelling you, as duels happen in an isolated copy of the location.
• Lovecraft Lite: Nowhere near the extent of Dark Souls, or Bloodborne, but in this world, falling stars tend to contain Eldritch Abominations like Alabaster and Onyx Lords, Fallingstar Beasts, Malformed Stars and Naturalborns, all connected to mysterious "outer gods". It falls under "lite" as it's made clear the stars and their influence are not considered inherently threatening by the locals, as Alabaster and Onyx Lords once had a place in Marika's society. The demigods also show they can handle most threats from space, as Radahn alone prevented shooting stars from falling to Lands Between while feral and crazed by Scarlet Rot, to say nothing of what an Elden Lord backed up by the Elden Ring would be able to do. That being said, this trope becomes downplayed, if not outright subverted, when one learns the Greater Will who bestowed the Elden Ring itself is heavily implied to be an outer god who has shaped history ever since prior to Age of the Erdtree. There are also other similar entities who are trying to influence this world to their whims, such as the dark moon guiding a number of sorcerers including Ranni and was once in alliance with the Greater Will; one who uses the Three Fingers as its mouthpiece and blessed it with the Frenzied Flame; one who had part of its divine essence sealed in the Lake of Rot, who's seemingly also responsible for cursing Malenia since birth with the Scarlet Rot; and the Formless Mother, which Mohg contacted in the hopes of fulfilling his own ambitions over the land. The Tarnished could even choose to champion at least one of them as they become the Elden Lord, and depending on which greater power they choose the impact on the world could range from a shift in the cosmic order governing the lands to downright cataclysmic.

M

• MacGuffin:
  • The Elden Ring itself. It is a creation of the Greater Will with powers that aren't explained in-depth, but the power it did gift still spurred the demigods to take the fragments for themselves. The reforging of the ring drives most of the game's plot.
  • A major subplot of the story revolves around the Haligtree Medallion, a special token needed to open the way to Miquella's Manor where Malenia lairs. Gideon in particular is obsessed with the thing, to the point he orders the destruction of an entire village in order to obtain the half of the Medallion hidden there.
• Mage Tower: A number of them can be found throughout the Lands Between, most commonly in secluded spots where they're protected by magical seals the player needs to unlock before getting the goodies inside. The Three Sisters area outside the Carian Manor has three of them, with Ranni and Seluvis based out of the main ones.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Almost paradoxically considering what a high investment it requires to even use, but the Carian Regal Scepter is initially weaker than the Academy Glintstone staff at 60 Intelligence. It takes another 9 Intelligence before it outpaces the Academy Glintstone Staff to become the strongest "standard" staff (Lusat's staff is the strongest staff in the game, but it comes at the cost of spells costing 50% more FP to cast) in the game which at 69 Intelligence is a pretty large stat investment.
  • When you first get the Potion of Wondrous Physick, all it does is function as a slightly better or worse Flask of Crimson Tears, and the first few Crystal Tears you collect aren't that much more useful. However, the more your collection of Tears grows, the more effects you have access to, and several Tears can be mercilessly exploited, such as one that removes all FP costs for a time, which is a game-changer for spellcasting builds. In time, the Potion of Wondrous Physick goes from something you will probably ignore for most of Limgrave to an essential tool regardless of build.
• Mana Meter: Ported almost unchanged from Dark Souls III, the blue Focus Meter powers your spells and most skills. Most also cost Stamina. The only change between here and the previous game is Elden Ring's Mind stat only increases the Tarnished's Focus pool, while Attunement also determined how many spells slots the Unkindled had access to.
• Marathon Level:
  • The Subterranean Shunning Grounds is easily the longest dungeon in the game that isn't a full fledged Legacy Dungeon. Starting from a well tucked away in an obscure corner of Leyndell (itself a sprawling level), the dungeon is essentially a vastly scaled up version of the Depths from Dark Souls, with all the mazelike design that implies. Even if you manage to avoid getting lost in the winding mazes of identical looking sewer pipes you'll be crawling through, the main part of the dungeon is easily as large as any of the game's Legacy Dungeons and can take multiple sessions for most players to complete. It also features a hidden side area that leads to an entire separate dungeon called Leyndell Catacombs, which itself is the largest and most confusing example of that type of dungeon in the game, while the area after defeating Mohg the Omen is a vertical jumping puzzle called the Frenzied Flame Proscription that has probably claimed more player lives than many of the toughest bosses. Taken together, Leyndell, the Shunning Grounds, Leyndell Catacombs, and the Frenzied Flame Proscription arguably form a single Mega Dungeon.
  • Leyndell itself is easily the largest Legacy Dungeon in the game, fittingly as it's the center of the game world and extremely critical to the plot. On top of being very long and stuffed to the gills with elite mooks and minibosses, Leyndell is also highly nonlinear, with multiple paths to traverse that intricately diverge from and intersect with each other in a way that makes Anor Londo look like a straight line. Several parts of it are entirely optional, including the ruined lower district of the city that eventually leads to the aforementioned Shunning Grounds, while even the most obvious path forward leads you on a circuitous route around the city's central highway that forces you to fight your way through different houses, side streets, tunnels, and at one point, the petrified corpse of a colossal dragon. Almost every step of the way there are diverging paths, including some light parkour sections over the city's rooftops that give you the option of bypassing large parts of the city's formidable defenses. Add to this the dungeon's two mandatory boss fights, as well as the large number of quests that converge here, and it can easily take you multiple playthroughs to see everything Leyndell has to offer.
• Mêlée à Trois: The game world has a very large focus on this; enemies will freely and happily fight each other to the death, one of the best methods of thinning out large hordes is to lure enemies against the other. Generally speaking, mobs will be hostile to each other if they belong to a different faction, and some infighting can ensue if you get enemies caught in each others' line of fire. There's even a ton of scripted encounters where two large groups of enemies square off each other in open fields, or against fortifications. In particular, Caelid is currently just one giant free for all between pockets of Radahn's army against the mutating wildlife.
• Mini-Dungeon: The few castles sprinkling the world can be considered this. Sometimes tied to a quest, sometimes the lair of a particularly powerful enemy, they are nonetheless usually cleared in minutes.
• Mix-and-Match Critters:
  • A non-aggressive animal which can be found roaming Limgrave and Stormhill is the Rabbitgaroo. Its front half is rabbit-like and the back half is kangaroo-like, which essentially makes it look like the real life springhare.
  • Your Spirit Steed, Torrent, which mostly resembles a horse except for having an ox-like head and horns.
• Money Is Experience Points: Runes can be used for leveling up in addition to buying items and other things.
• Monster Allies: Spirit ashes allow you to summon certain mobs (including some Elite Mooks) to your aid for a boss fight or large battle. While generally weaker than regular NPC or player summons, and needing to be upgraded to stay relevant as you progress through the game, it can be satisfying to see a gimmick you struggled with turned against your enemies.
• Mordor:
  • Caelid is one of the most wretched, hellish, godforsaken areas ever seen in a From game, and that's saying a whole lot. A poisoned wasteland under a malevolent red sky filled with giant mutated dogs which have the proportions of a Tyrannosaurus, similarly mutated giant crows with teeth, and disgusting, poison spewing insect men, the entire region has been defiled by the Scarlet Rot, which spreads Alien Kudzu all over the ruins of what was once a proud center of civilization. Attempts to fight this scourge consist mostly of trying to Kill It with Fire, leading to huge swaths of the landscape being nothing but charred cinders, and the lower regions are completely flooded with polluted water which inflicts Scarlet Rot (the game's equivalent to Toxic) on the Tarnished if they walk through it on foot. Even the ambient soundtrack is evil, consisting of atonal "Psycho" Strings which sounds like some monster screaming in the distance. It makes the Valley of Defilement look like a Green Hill Zone.
  • The Lake of Rot may be even worse, if only for the fact you don't have access to Torrent to help you avoid the Scarlet Rot this time around. The area is exactly what it sounds like, a huge underground lake of toxic sludge bathed in a perpetual dim red light. Parts of it actually do look like classical depictions of Hell.
  • Mount Gelmir is very close to being a straight up expy of the Trope Namer. A huge volcano made of jagged black onyx flanked by populated valleys, it was the site of the single most horrific battle of the entire Shattering, a long, grinding war of attrition that only ended when both armies had suffered so many casualties they effectively ceased to exist. Every inch of the mountain is covered in piles of corpses, ruined fortifications, and abandoned war machines, with the few survivors of the royal army having been reduced to feral insanity by the horrors they've witnessed, prey to the Abductor Virgins that still patrol the wastelands. The interior of the mountain isn't any better, with literal mountains of corpses strewn about the lava-soaked ruins being all that remains of what was apparently a once-thriving city, with the only survivors being demonic snakemen and a handful of emaciated civilians stuck to torture machines. To further the Tolkien comparison, it houses the fortress of an Evil Overlord who seeks out human sacrifices to increase his power to the point where he can devour the entire world.
• Mook Chivalry: If you draw the attention of a group of enemies, you may notice that no more than two to three would attack at a time while the rest hang back on the defensive so that you don't get overwhelmed too quickly. Some enemy varieties may not be as courteous, though.
• Multiple Endings: There are six endings, which can all be triggered after defeating the Final Boss.
  • Elden Lord: The Tarnished reforges the Elden Ring. But how is where the endings diverge.
    • Age of Fracture: The Tarnished succeeds in reforging the Elden Ring and becomes Queen Marika's newest consort, becoming the Elden Lord as Melina hoped. As the Tarnished has defied the Erdtree and Golden Order to achieve this, this marks the fracture of the old world order — that of Marika's — in favor of the Tarnished's own. The skyline still glows a golden hue, while the Erdtree glows silver.
    • Age of Duskborn: This ending plays out similarly to the original version, but the Elden Ring is reforged with the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince, obtained through Fia's associated quest line. The Tarnished becomes the new Elden Lord, while the Rune instills a new Order in which "Life within Death" becomes part of the natural order, so the prosecution of "Those Who Live in Death" will cease in the new age. The skyline still glows a golden hue, but is obscured by a "rain" of ash.
    • Age of Order: The Elden Ring is reforged with the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, obtained by completing Brother Corhyn and Goldmask's associated quest line. With it, the Tarnished becomes Elden Lord, while the Rune will attempt to perfect the Golden Order; to create a new Order which can't be influenced by the whims of gods who manage it. The skyline still has its golden hue, but the Erdtree itself is also glowing gold.
    • Blessing of Despair: The Elden Ring is reforged with the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse, obtained by completing the Dung Eater's associated quest line. The Erdtree still glows silver, but skyline is obscured by vile, fallstreak hole riddled brown clouds and a brown fog falls across the land. The Rune of the Fell Curse ensures all born in this age will be forever afflicted by the Seedbed Curse, from their children to their grandchildren and so on for eternity.
  • Age of the Stars: Ranni succeeds Queen Marika as God-Emperor thanks to the Tarnished's assistance. She declares she will start a thousand-year journey into "fear, doubt, and loneliness" with the Tarnished as her eternal consort, thereby removing the Golden Order (or rather, her new Order) out into the void and stars, leaving the Lands Between. This entails getting rid of "all those which came before" or in other words, removal of all the powers of the Age of the Erdtree, its gods, and the Greater Will; and the possibility that all other Outer Gods and their powers could be removed as well.
  • Lord of Frenzied Flame: After inheriting the Frenzied Flame and reaching Marika, the Tarnished becomes the "Lord of Chaos" and proceeds to set the Lands Between ablaze, destroying what remains of Queen Marika and scorching the Erdtree irreparably. Melina returns to the area after the Lord of Chaos has gone and picks up Torrent's summoning ring, vowing to find the Tarnished and deliver unto them a 'Destined Death'. There's also a minor variant where if Melina was already sacrificed, her scene won't occur.
• Mundane Utility:
  • One of the early crafting recipes you'll get are Rainbow Stones, a consumable that drops a colored light on a spot. They're normally used for marking spots that you've already explored or to test for invisible paths and platforms, but they can also help test if a drop is deadly before you jump. Drop one over a ledge, and if the fall doesn't kill you, the stone will land intact. If it's a lethal fall, the stone will shatter.
  • The Hoarfrost Stomp is a pretty useful Ash of War for establishing Frostbite, but outside combat it can help check for invisible paths. The particle effects will continue to travel onto invisible paths, only stopping at thin air.
• My Skull Runneth Over: The Inescapable Frenzy incantation is a weaponized example. The user briefly overfills their mind with the secrets of the Frenzied Flame, then dumps it all into someone else's skull to make it their problem instead to do a large amount of damage and potentially even kill them outright.
• Mythical Motifs: The setting and characters draw extensively from Norse mythology, with both the Erdtree and the Haligtree being comparable to Yggdrasil, Marika and Gideon Ofnir having comparisons to Odin or Loki (in Marika's case), and the Frenzied Flame plus the player Tarnished if they take that route comparable to the world-ending fire giant Surtr. Praetor Rykard and the God-Devouring Serpent are clear stand-ins for the world-eating snake Jormungandr. The Shattering itself draws heavily from Ragnarok, complete with symbolism of the death of the gods and either the rebirth of the world without them or the creation of a better world that fixes the old world's faults.
• * Mythology Gag:
  • Several gameplay systems could be considered as full-on mythology gags of previous FromSoft games, making a "best of" the previous games' mechanics, such as the ability to level up in any checkpoint from Dark Souls, Twinblades and Power Stances from Dark Souls II, Weapon Arts from Dark Souls III, and the Mana Meter from both III and Demon's Souls. From Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice it takes the ability to vertically jump and to do mid-air attacks, stealth mechanics, and a simpler 'posture' system in which charged attacks, heavy jump attacks, and attacks done right after blocking can leave the enemy open to Critical Hits.
  • Remember the Capra Demon from Dark Souls? Well, a little aways from the Site of Grace located at the Village of the Albinaurics, across a bridge, you can find a boss named Omenkiller, who brandishes two cleavers (i.e. axe type weapons), and is accompanied by two dogs. Except this guy breathes fire. At least you're in an open space this time.
  • One particular colossal weapon is the Ghiza's Wheel. With the design and Weapon Art, it's basically the Whirligig Saw from Bloodborne. On a related note, there's a weapon called the Jar Cannon which is a dead ringer to the Cannon from that game.
  • Just like in Bloodborne, your Player Headquarters catches on fire as you close in on the Final Boss.
  • Malenia's Great Rune essentially transforms the way you play into a style similar to that of Bloodborne, reducing the amount you heal from your Flask of Crimson Tears in exchange for allowing you to recover a portion of your lost health by damaging enemies, similar to that game's Rally mechanic.
  • The Bloody Slash Art of War is nearly identical to Sekiro's Mortal Draw Combat Art.
  • The Meteoric Ore Blade katana's heavy attack is identical to the Ichimonji: Double Combat Art from Sekiro.
  • In Caelid, you may encounter a fort named Fort Gael. In another fort (from the same army), is castellan Jerren, whose hooded helmet greatly resembles the slave knight.
  • Sorcerer Rogier quotes the Souls trilogy's famous line from their openings, "Yes, indeed."
  • The game doesn't only have the usual equivalent of the Moonlight Greatword (this time called the Dark Moon Greatsword) which scales off Intelligence to do Magic damage, it also has a copy of it (the Golden Order Greatsword) that's been modified to scale of Faith and deal Holy damage. This is a reference to how the weapon in Demon's Souls scaled off Faith, where it was an Intelligence weapon in all three Dark Souls games.
  • Like the Mortal Blade in Sekiro, the game features a legendary weapon capable of slaying immortal beings, in the form of Maliketh's Black Blade. The two even have very similar ink-like, red-and-black Sword Lines effects upon deploying their respective weapon arts.
  • The in-universe version of Sengoku Japan, where several characters and items (including some starting player archetypes) originate from, is called the Land of Reeds. "Reed" in Japanese is ashi (葦) — as in Ashina (葦名), the fictional Japanese province that Sekiro takes place in.
  • A massive, deific tree granting life being essential to the plot is a direct reference to both Demon's Souls (where, instead, it was a demon tree granting death) and Shadow Tower Abyss, where the titular Shadow Tower was a massive life-giving spaceship tree.

N

• Non-Action Guy: Compared to the rest of the demigods, Miquella is this. From what is revealed of his story throughout the game, he was a Lover, Not a Fighter who attempted to create an alternative to the Erdtree, the Haligtree, and invited all the downtrodden lesser races such as the Misbegotten to come live there. Ultimately, though, the Haligtree didn't pan out. He, like his sister, also bore a curse, but in his case it was a curse to stay a child forever. When we finally encounter him in person, he's little more than a gangly bag of bones (if he's even still alive), although that may be just from what Mohg did to him. There is a very good reason that he's protected by his sister Malenia.
• Non-Indicative Name: The Comet Azur spell is one of the most powerful sorceries in the game. It also in no way summons a meteor of any kind as it is actually a giant laser beam.
  • Greatswords are a category of large swords one step larger than Straight Swords. The Greatsword is not a Greatsword, instead belonging to the category of even larger swords, Colossal Swords.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Zig-zagged. Many questions in the game allow you to shack up with "bad guy" factions or with evil characters, but they almost never allow you to fully see these parties' ultimate goals achieved:
  • You can become a member of the Erdtree-defiant Volcano Manor and hunt down Tarnished, but even after doing so you must kill Rykard; there is no option to deepen your covenant with him, as he is always immediately hostile when you meet him. As such, there's no way to make any kind of Mending Rune which would allow Rykard to destroy the Golden Order.
  • You can become a Bloody Finger and a noble of the Mohgwyn Dynasty, but you can't actually help Mohg create said desired dynasty and the Bloody Finger questline always ends with you killing both Varré and Mohg^note Although given that Mohg's plan to foster a dynasty involves something to do with his perpetually-a-child consort Miquella, most players probably wouldn't take such a path even if it existed.
  • The questline where you try to team up with Seluvis and turn Ranni into a puppet by giving her the Amber Draught is a massive Red Herring which only results in a What the Hell, Hero? moment and you having to get back into Ranni's good graces by absolving yourself of sin at the Church of Vows.
  • The two parties that avert this are the Frenzied Flame and the Dung Eater; make your way to the Frenzied Flame Proscription and you unlock the 'burn everything and dance on the ashes' ending, and defeat Dung Eater's invasion and go on a scavenger hunt for Seedbed Curses and you unlock the 'everybody gets a Fate Worse than Death' ending.
• Noob Bridge: One of the first bosses you encounter, Margit the Fell Omen, is this in a lot of ways. There's knowing how to fight in a Souls game and there's knowing how to fight in a Souls game, and Margit kicks the ass of anyone who hasn't learned yet. Important optimal strategies (like rolling into attacks rather than away from them) common to FromSoft gameplay are implicitly taught by his fighting style, and he's also quite a difficulty jump, which will quickly beat into any new player expecting to just be able to blindly follow the path right through the mainline quests that this is an open world game, and there's more you can and probably should do first.
• Noob Cave: Shortly after the start of the game, the player is dropped at the entrance to the Cave of Knowledge, a dungeon with tutorial messages, few enemies, and a common mook as a boss (though the cave can be skipped). The area also includes the gated entry to the Fringefolk Hero's Grave, a much more advanced dungeon.
• Not Completely Useless: The Daedicar's Woe Talisman greatly increases damage taken with no benefits or other effects. This would seem to only exist for the sake of a Self-Imposed Challenge, but it can also be used to make the Mimic Tear fight in Nokron much easier as it copies your equipment at the start of the fight, but not if you change your equipment afterwards, so you can unequip the Talisman as soon as it finishes copying you to make for a much easier fight.
• Not the Intended Use: NPCs who sell items, such as Nomadic Merchants, will drop a bell bearing if they die. The bell bearing can be turned in to the Twin Maiden Husks at the Roundtable Hold to give you access to their store, so you're never unable to purchase items because of a dead NPC. With that said though, the Nomadic Merchants are scattered across the map and can be difficult to locate at times. Apart from one merchant being tied to a side quest, it's typically easier and consequence-free to just kill any merchant you come across and turn their bells over at the Roundtable Hold, giving you a one-stop shop for all available merchant inventories.
  • Margit's and Mohg's Shackles intended purpose is to briefly stun the respective bosses (not unlike how the Tiny Music Box stunned Father Gascoigne in Bloodborne, but the Shackles don't punish overuse). However, since they still have sizeable area of effect shockwaves outside of their arena that count as a hit to many things such as hidden walls and a variety of traps and contraptions in Graves and Catacombs, a player is more likely to buy them as an alternative to getting close and personal with those.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: The game uses the rather verbose term Those Who Live in Death instead of the more conventional Undead, most likely to avoid the associations of the word from the developer's previous franchise.
  • It also clarifies the difference between these undead and the Tarnished, described as "ye dead who yet live" during the opening. The opening cinematic also depicts several dead Tarnished (including the player) coming back to life as Grace is returned to them. On top of that, the destruction of the Elden Ring has left most people as staggering, nearly-mindless husks. These nobles and commoners endlessly wander around, capable of only communicating in wordless groans (or constant mumbled magic chants). Even the Lordsworn armies have been reduced to endless patrols and battles, seemingly barely cognizant of anything but combat.
• Notice This:
  • Sites of Grace always illuminate their surroundings and radiate faint traces of gold light, a sign of reprieve for many a player.
  • In unmapped regions, the location where you'd retrieve the map piece is much brighter than the background, and the main roads are even marked to show the general route.
  • On maps themselves, unvisited mines are indicated with orange rings. They hold a lot of smithing stones which become vital for early weapon upgrade progress.
  • When you kill an enemy, it may occasionally radiate a few white wisps of light. This shows that the enemy has dropped something, and is a cue to stop and check its corpse for loot.
  • Sources of crafting materials found in the field have a glow to them, which is more noticeable at night, when they're able to be harvested.