Wild Mass Guessing for Elden Ring.
- Sort of confirmed. A sacrifice is involved, but it's to burn the Erdtree rather than to restore the Elden Ring directly.
- Sadly Jossed.
- Jossed. No such spell exists in the game.
- Confirmed, at least the latter part. Her official name is Malenia, The Severed, and the Great Rune she drops confirms that she is the daughter of Queen Marika and Radagon.
- Jossed. The Moonlight Greatsword isn't really in the game; instead, an obvious substitute, the Dark Moon Greatsword (which has an Ash of War named Moonlight Greatsword) is, and is received by fully completing Ranni's questline.
- Confirmed. In most locations, the ants won't attack you unless you attack one of them first.
- The odds for sci-fi twist is certainly high. General Radahn's epithet is "The Conqueror of the Stars" and his swords bear the symbol of planetary magnetic field, Godrick's eye having the pattern of Jupiter's North Pole, or the fact that gravity spell is common in-game. Though considering how liberal these hints were sprinkled throughout the trailers and the open network test, maybe we'll have another twist too?
- Partially confirmed. The description of one of the Incantations notes that the beast that would become the Elden Ring and which the Erdtree grew from came from beyond the stars, crashing into the Lands Between. Ancient aliens seems to be a contributor to why the Lands Between are the way they are. However, these aliens are extremely magical and abnormal, and the Stars they originate from are more like crystalline comets rather than something akin to stars in our world, so it's still (extremely eldritch) fantasy at the core.
- Partially confirmed. There are multiple factions, each with different designs on what should be done about the Elden Ring.
- Confirmed. You get to "meet" the Two Fingers after some point, and it's Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Sort of Confirmed. Fingers are Eldritch Abomination that have closest resemblance to giant fingers.
- Alternatively, a Third-Option Love Interest for all the straight women and gay men.
- Confirmed in all but name - the Key Art of the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion shows what is 99% Miquella aboard Torrent, altough his role in the story is a big ???
- Jossed. Shadow of the Erdtree takes place in the present, and there's no plans for further content.
The Age of Fire was ended with the Ashen One and the firekeeper Ending the Flame, and the tiny fragment of the First Flame was used to forge the Elden Ring, with which the Ashen One and the Firekeeper ascended to Godhood to become the Greater Will, leaving the Elden Ring with their daughter Marika, who they left behind to rule the newly created world. But the Elden Ring being derivative of the First Flame means a lot of the same rules apply, and though the flame no longer needs to be linked, the Curse of the Undead lives on in the form of the Tarnished. This could also explain why Marika shattered the Elden Ring. She figured out that the old cycle was beginning again, and so sought to bring it to a permanent end.
- Jossed. The Elden Ring came to the Lands Between with the Elden Beast in the form of a crashing star, while the Tarnished isn't a curse — it's a scheme by Marika and Godfrey to ensure that, for whatever reason, those she exiled would return with an army to grow strong through death, as explained by her spoken echoes. Likewise, the Greater Will is only one of many, many Outer Gods, including two directly embodying flame — and embodying it only as destruction and oblivion, making it diametrically opposed to what "fire" even means in the Dark Souls series.
Both Hyetta and Irina look the same, have the same voice actress and both remark on their "poor eyesight since birth". Hyetta's sidequest only starts after the Tarnished completes Edgar and Irina's sidequest and obtain a Shabriri grape from Edgar. The game also demonstrates later after Yura's death that Shabriri can either possess or resurrect people to speak through.
- Honestly, this sounds so plausible that I'm willing to bet it was going to be explicitly stated but was cut from the game. For one thing, it explains how an innocent, pious maiden like Hyetta just so happens to be guiding you to the Three Fingers and leading you to places where you can gain Madness Incantations. Or her complete nonreaction to the Eldritch horror underneath the Erdtree.
Although it's unclear when and why D started working with Gurranq/how much he knows about Gurranq likely being Maliketh and therefore having a connection to Destined Death), as well as which one of them stole the hallowbrand (D seems to have the hallowbrand in his possession given that Fia gets it back when she murders him, with this apparently being her motivation for being at the Roundtable Hold to begin with, but his brother is the one mentioned as having 'stood before the Prince of Death'), he was the one collecting Deathroot for Gurranq before the player takes his place, and Gurranq's appetite for Deathroot is possibly related to wanting to reclaim parts of the Rune of Death, some of which have sprouted in the form of Deathroot.
It's possible that they were just trying to put a stop to Fia's plans to create the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince, or attempting to study it to develop further counters to Those Who Live in Death, but D's link to Gurranq does make you wonder (... although it's equally possible that D's job hunting the undead meant that he came across Deathroot as a matter of course, and he just happened to hear that Gurranq had an interest in it). It would also raise the question of why D didn't take the hallowbrand to Gurranq upon acquiring it.
Similar to Zero's sisters from Drakengard 3. They were created when Malenia unleashed the scarlet rot on Caelid.
While she was already in a precarious state due to her husband leaving her, the Shattering made her worse on account of her sons, Radahn and Rykard, fighting each other; even moreso considering what became of them. Ranni casting away her physical form via the Rune of Death was the straw that broke the camel's back, hence why she's obsessed with resurrection and why Ranni's name is heard upon completing her boss fight.
The massive open area in the center of the map seems like some oddly wasted space. Combined with the fact that the massive chunks of ruins found scattered all over The Lands Between clearly came from Farum Azula, this seems to imply that what is left of Crumbling Farum Azula was once much, much larger than what we visit in-game (it's also crumbling, lending credence to this idea). Another point in favor of this idea are the strange crumbled colosseums found in several places in-game as well as the rather peculiar point that all of the divine towers and the Bestial Sanctum (another Farum Azula structure) form a near perfect circle on the map. The placement of the Isolated Divine Tower must also be called into question; why is it there? How did it get there? This troper theorizes that we will get another time-travel experience, much like the Artorias DLC of Dark Souls.
- Seemingly Jossed - Shadows of the Erdtree has been confirmed to not take place in the past or the future and to be happening concurrently with the events of the main game, and Word of God has stated that they don't have plans for additional expansions.
- Proabably untrue; why would she include the "bound tight, by mother's amber" lyric when she didn't have the amber egg yet?
- The main evidence against this is that their actions — and Ranni's reaction to meeting the player "as Ranni" — don't quite seem to line up. Ranni already has one false identity, as she pretends to be the witch Renna if she meets the Tarnished at the Church of Elleh; not only that, but she seems surprised to see them with Torrent, and gives them a summoning bell that Melina could theoretically have given them directly. Additionally, Melina doesn't direct the player to Caria Manor, or to take care of anything that Ranni wants done (e.g. going after Radahn specifically), which effectively means she's actively ignoring her own pawn. Most importantly, though, Melina sacrifices herself to kindle the flames that burn the Erdtree, and it's all but stated outright that doing so kills her. How would Ranni still be around at that point?
- Godrick is explicitly of the Golden Lineage, which descends from Godwyn.
It's clones all the way down. I've come to believe that the game is full of characters who were created by the demigods to carry on their will or were accidentally spawned after a big event. Millicient is the most obvious, as she's clearly a clone of Malenia that she left behind after the battle with Radahn. Melina is the "daughter" of Marika, but she also doesn't really exist because she's a ghost that needs to latch herself onto the Tarnished to get anywhere. Zorayas is an aspect of Rykard, because as we know she was mysteriously spawned by the Snake Men in Volcano Manor but unlike any of them is a nice young female with a heart and love for Lady Tanith. Assuming that the God-Devouring Serpent is the mother/father of all the snakes in the manor, then Rya came from some positive aspect of Praetor Rykard, such as his compassion. Ranni is already known to have been working behind the scenes with Queen Marika, more than any of her "actual" children since Ranni is from Radagon. And they have similar goals of wanting to free the Lands Between from the interference of the Outer gods. Or alternatively, Ranni could be Rennala's warrior spirit since she somehow possessed her body and used it to fight us, which is something the old Rennala would do in her days before Radagon.
It's one of the less malevolent Outer Gods, and Goldenmask claims it was made unstable by the behavior of Marika and her line. This may be because it had connected itself to the Elden Ring and through it to its champions so it could gain access to their perspectives and be a better deity, which backfired horribly when they started acting like Jerkass Gods/a Big, Screwed-Up Family. Fortunately for it (and no one else), the Shattering killed off most of the demigods, or close enough that it wasn't influenced by them as much, so it regained control of itself, and promptly decided to quit (being unstable was not fun for it). It was benevolent enough to keep maintaining most of the necessary Order of the universe, but wants nothing more to do with ruling mortals. Unfortunately, it couldn't totally disentangle itself from the Elden Ring, so it commanded the Erdtree to reject all potential Elden Lords. When you choose the Age of Stars, it's happy because it can stay retired and let the new Elden Lord and their god do all the work. When you choose Age of Order, you influence it enough that it comes out of retirement and gets back involved.
It adds up. The Old Chaos, by the game's own admission, was something not of that world that was bleeding in, and its effects are essentially the same as the Frenzied Flame — it corrupts all those it taints into mindless, murderous butchers wearing their old skin, consuming whatever they used to be and leaving a hollow shell filled with rage and bloodthirst behind. On top of that, being consumed by the Old Chaos seems to also remove those affected by it from the cycle of undeath caused by the Darksign/Seal of Fire, and instead sticks them in its own deathless state, presumably because it overpowered the Seal of Fire with its own Chaos Flame, in much the same way the Frenzied Flame removes those affected from the Erdtree's cycle.
Granted, the Frenzied Flame seems to be much stronger than the Old Chaos in that last regard, although it could be because it is manifesting more intensely in Elden Ring — remember, Alsanna is holding the Old Chaos back, greatly weakening it, and she's no mere helpless waif. There's no Alsanna doing that in Elden Ring.
- Except the Frenzied Flame doesn't spread like a contagion. It's summoned into people when they succumb to the worst despair, and in general it appears to be an embodiment of despair and nihilism when faced with the pain of life — hoping to destroy everything that divides and distinguishes, returning all that is into one quiet whole.
Melina's "I am no maiden" and "I can play the role of a maiden" get a whole new meaning.
- That said, Miquella's second identity is "St. Trina" according to cut content, whether it remains true or not is unknown.
The Formless Mother is an Outer God, and it says right in the name that she is the mother of something, and a formless being. This could be interpreted several ways, one of which being she has no identifiable or constant features. This would be a trait she'd share with crucible-bound life. She's also associated with primal things inherent to all animals featured in the game, like blood, love, and pain. Putting all this together leads one to the conclusion that, while the Greater Will did not create life, it was an Outer God that did, and that Outer God was the Formless Mother.
- Jossed: For one, there it no Greattree, that's a mistranslation, and for another, the Primordial Crucible is explicitly just the early form of the Erdtree (as per the Crucible Knight item and incantation descriptions along with the Godskins), and the Greater Will is explicitly credited by the Frenzied Flame itself as the creator of all life.
Astel's arena is 'instanced', reachable only through a coffin, and is completely unaffected by the Scarlet Rot despite being directly underneath the Lake. This leads me to believe that Astel's area, originally, wasn't meant to be underneath the Lake of Rot and was meant to be in another zone of the underground entirely, and was 'pasted' onto the Lake of Rot late in development. Astel's association with the Dark Moon also tonally clashes with the whole feel of the Lake of Rot up until its enconter.
It's possible that the Lake of Rot was meant to have an entirely different boss, potentially a scorpion-like creature and/or 'Rot Itself', but at some point in the development, the idea was scrapped and Astel glued so that the zone would have a boss.
- Alternatively, Astel was probably meant to be the Rot god really early on in development. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Rot entity is described as a scorpion-thing and Astel is most similar to a flying, eldritch scorpion.
- As this video
by Zullie The Witch shows, Astel has an unused animation where it falls from the sky and crashes into the ground, so it's possible that it was originally meant to be a field boss that would spawn when you traveled to certain areas after killing Radahn. - A later Zuille the Witch video has her speculate that the original boss was the Regal Ancestor Spirit, as Rotten Ancestral Followers were the original inhabitants of the lake before being patched out and replaced with Kindred of Rot.
Despite Dung Eater's deplorable methods, no indication is given that his victims' existence after death is painful, just "cursed", and unable to rejoin the Erdtree to be reincarnated. This is comparable to how death (ostensibly) operates in real life. This, and the fact that the Seedbed Curses are covered in Omen horns which indicate a connection to the primordial tree aka the crucible of life, lead this troper to suspect the seedbed curse might somehow be the Crucible's revenge against the Erdtree and the return of true natural death.
- Jossed, by virtue of the fact that the Crucible is explicitly just the early form of the Erdtree as per the Crucible Knight and Godskin item descriptions.
- Adding to this, it's possible that the point of no return is when the outer god of rot takes hold of you and you begin to lose your sanity; the status effect version we see (and can inflict) is merely a disease, if a particularly deadly one, but once it enters its more supernatural state, it starts to mutate your body and you begin to generate your own rot, which is why all the infected enemies in game spread it.
For example, there are numerous indicators that there are guides to the afterlife fully capable of guiding the souls of the dead to their resting place. If the Erdtree was truly the place for souls to reside, why doesn't it have those? Why are souls required to wait with their body, rather than venturing to the Erdtree directly? Why completely replace an entire existing and fully functioning afterlife?
Simple: Nutrition. The Elden Beast and/or Erdtree require nourishment. Trees consume nutrients through their roots. While the physical remains of the dead can sustain the physical component of the tree, the soul would be what sustains the "divine" part of the tree, the power that it holds. The Erdtree and/or Elden Beast is a parasite that consumes the souls of the dead by tricking them into thinking that there's a divine paradise awaiting those who are taken in, instead of a ravenous beast hungry for souls.
- The Badlands: Open-world zone with one or more Legacy Dungeons. Accessed mid-to-late game. Lore would be focused on the Loux tribe and the mysterious enemy they fought during the Long March.
- The Moon: Accessed very late game. Large Legacy Dungeon focused on Dark Moon lore.
- The Past Lands Between: Accessed through Farum Azula late-game. A Legacy Dungeon that shows the world during or before the Shattering.
- The Dream-World: A dreamworld accessed through Miquella's Cocoon after completing Mohgwyn Palace. Legacy Dungeon.
- Turns out, it's the Land of Shadow, hidden away by the Erdtree. It's an open-world area with multiple Legacy Dungeons, apparently being the size of Limgrave. It is, however, accessed through Miquella's Cocoon.
Godwyn's corpse having a fish-like tail was not due to the corruption of his body after his soul-death: he always just looked like that. Of note is the fact that the cutscenes all avoided showing his body from the waist down, with the player discovering his corpse in the Erdtree's roots being the big reveal.The reason he's so hated is because he caused the Merchants to be buried alive for a crime they didn't commit and caused the Frenzied Flame to be beckoned back into the Lands Between.
So, way back during the time of the Golden Order, Shabriri exists and decides to cause problems on purpose; his motives don't matter at this point. The Great Caravan of merchants isn't liked because they're strangers to wherever they go, but they're tolerated. Shabriri decides that since nobody really trusts them, they make great targets to subvert to the goals of the Frenzied Flame.
So, he goes around, hinting that the merchants are committing heresy and worshipping the Frenzied Flame. They aren't, at this point, so nothing is directly done about it, but relationships between the Golden Order and the Merchants deteriorate and there's a lot more ill-will. Shabriri then goes to the merchants and plays Bad Samaritan; he offers to teach them magic for self-defense purposes, but what the merchants don't know is that they're Frenzied Flame incantations and that Shabriri wants them to use the incantations to unknowingly incriminate themselves.
Now the Golden Order knows that the Merchants are involved with the Frenzied Flame, but not that Shabriri was Running Both Sides. They absolutely freak out over the possibility of the Frenzied Flame's return and seal all the merchants into the Frenzied Flame Proscription so they couldn't spread the flame. This was, of course, all according to Shabriri's plan; a few merchants eye-torching people they didn't like wouldn't really do anything for the Frenzied Flame, but the collective despair of an entire culture wrongfully condemned to a Fate Worse than Death was enough to reach the Frenzied Flame and summon the Three Fingers.
Eventually the Golden Order figures out what happened and that Shabriri was behind it all, and in retaliation they rip his eyes out and curse his name. He's probably executed too, but since Shabriri can body-hop it didn't take. Unfortunately, the damage was done and Shabriri had started a whole new church of the Frenzied Flame.
Alright, so this isn't mine, I'm reposting it (with a few alterations) from the Tarnished Archaeologist. The full theory goes something like this:
- Vyke is tempted by Shabriri and decides to inherit the flame.
- This fails as he's still wearing his armor and it protects him. The only part of him touched is his left eye, where you can see his helmet was melted inwards.
- Vyke's maiden dies (perhaps committing suicide, as there's no sign of violent struggle), invalidating his whole reason to take the flame.
- This event shocks him into a Heel Realization, but it's too late and he's thrown into an Evergaol for his crime of embracing the flame.
- Stuck alone in an Evergaol with nothing else to do, he devotes himself to fighting the frenzy inside him.
- This he does by inventing the Frenzied Burst incantation, which is unique to him (you get your copy from a nearby Teardrop Scarab) and is called an indication of a "meager victory." Noticeably, Frenzied Burst is a pinpoint long-range spell, so casting it tosses the Frenzied Flame far away from you.
- Vyke's 'meager victory' in this case was to expel his tainted eye and his frenzy powers from himself entirely, turning his corruption into the Festering Fingerprint Vyke invader, which drops a Fingerprint Grape; i.e. the eye touched by the Three Fingers. It's a victory because Vyke has managed to do the impossible and is no longer frenzied, but his maiden is still dead, and his heroic self is still contained in an evergaol while his frenzied phantom is not and still goes around attacking people at the Church of Inhibition.
Specifically, she's a finger maiden who failed to kindle the flame and went mad. As her page notes, she has prominent holy theme (her Butchering Knife has a holy affinity, and she knows Prayerful Strike), and looking at her model shows that she has golden eyes (usually emblematic of Grace) and serious facial burns. Putting the environmental storytelling together, Anastacia was once a Finger Maiden whose Tarnished managed to somehow make it to the Forge of the Giants (she may be the final game version of the cut Bernahl's Finger Maiden character, though the two don't really share anything other than being burnt maidens) and she tried to do her holy duty but failed.
Some combination of the pain, her failure, and rage at the Golden Order for forcing her to become a sacrifice and tossing her out to dry when she lived drove her mad, and now she takes it out on the Tarnished for seeking to complete the task where she failed. She eats their corpses for the same reason as Edgar the Revenger eats Raw Meat Dumplings; to express her vengeance by defiling their corpses.
Gideon is implied to have recovered at least one Great Rune for himself (Enia's speech after you acquire two Great Runes compares you to Gideon), but he doesn't actually go out and fight himself, instead choosing to gather information in the Roundtable Hold. Ranni says that she's hidden her Great Rune away where no one can reach it... but she's not omniscient and if there's anyone who could find and retrieve a Great Rune hidden by a demigod, it's definitely Gideon.
Ranni's Great Rune functions similarly to the Moon of Nokstella talisman, giving the user extra memory slots... which is why Gideon is able to use so many multi-slot spells in his boss fight.
One of the most controversial matters surrounding Ranni is her indirect murder of Godwyn, one of the few good Demigods in the setting, in order to discard her flesh. In particular note is the question of why Godwyn? Some say it is because of Ranni's hatred of Marika or even the now Prince of Death, and while certainly possible there is another way to see it. The first and foremost goal of the ritual was for Ranni to discard her flesh and make everyone believe she was dead which naturally turns us back to the question of Godwyn, as the most beloved Demigod his death would be noticed either way, so why target him?
To answer this we need to look at the setting's writters, especifically George RR Martin, who has a well known style for medieval writting. One particular aspect that stands out is kinslaying, which is often portrayed in his books as one of the most vile things a character could ever do and is treated as said character's Moral Event Horizon, which is especially weird because while the game treats Ranni as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, it doesn't treat her as an outright villain...Because in the strictest of senses she didn't commit kinslaying and that is important.
It's implied that for the ritual to work Ranni needed to sacrifice a fellow Demigod and that left her with a very short list, most of which were her direct or half family, but the only one who, to her apparent knowledge, didn't fit this criteria was Godwyn who was her step-brother. It is thus possible that, if Ranni had known about Morgott and Mogh, who were a pretty well-kept secret before the Shattering, then she would have targetted them to ensure that nobody knew of her plot. Not out of any virtue mind you but simple practicality, because it's implied that the only reason everybody realized that she was alive to begin with was because of how infamous the Night fo Black Knives had been and the Shattering that followed and frankly speaking who in the Lands Between would have known or cared that an Omen died in the sewers oddly?Â
Rather, it seeped down from above. Mohgwyn Palace is directly beneath Aeonia, where the final battle between the Cleanrots and the Redmanes took place; I'd imagine a lot of blood was spilled there. And Mohg is definitely dramatic enough to make his home in a cavern where it literally rained blood.
It's explicitly stated that the Magma Wyrms in the game were once humans or other sapient species, so here's some guesses as to which people they were:
- Magma Wyrm (Gael Tunnel): This Wyrm, who I'll call Gael, was a swordsman born in Sellia. Being Sellian, Gael was a Magic Knight, and a particular interest of his was different kinds of magic and how they might be combined. One of the things he studied were Carian sword sorceries (knowledge he put to good use in having Moonveil forged), and another was Dragon Communion; after all, Sellia is in Caelid and so is Dragonbarrow. Unfortunately, in his desire to better understand Dragon Communion he was overwhelmed by it and transformed into a Magma Wyrm. And, as a side note, Jerren's mask and hood was designed after him.
- Magma Wyrm Makar: He was either a Drake Knight or a Draconic Tree Sentinel who failed to master the power he sought and mutated into a Magma Wyrm.
- The Magma Wyrm in Volcano Manor (and probably the one in Mt. Gelmir too) was a Recusant who took after Rykard by using Dragon Communion to become strong but couldn't control himself and transformed into a Magma Wyrm.
- Magma Wyrm Theodorix was, as is mentioned in-game, a troll hero of the War of the Giants. He probably took to Dragon Communion in a desperate attempt to match the Fire Giants in strength. Initially it worked, allowing him to challenge the Fire Giants on equal footing and be hailed as a hero, but eventually consequences caught up to him and he turned into a Magma Wyrm.
"Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world.The lamplight is similar to grace in appearance, only it is said that it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle."
- As a corollary, the Helphen is the titular "shadow of the Erdtree", being a death-related World Tree that exists only in the spirit world, and may be how the Erdtree manifests there or Death's imitation of the Erdtree.
- And perhaps if you don't anger him, Miquella will accept you as Elden Lord and simply give you his Great Rune.
- Seemingly both Jossed. The trailer has the Tarnished encounter Miquella's Great Rune in the Land of Shadow; apparently Miquella divested himself of it much like Ranni.
Dataminers have discovered evidence that St. Trina was once a much more important character, with several related NPC quests that involved using the Sleep status on enemies (the probable reason why there's so many unique animations for enemies being put to sleep) and collecting "dream mist". One of these quest-givers, Rhico, had cut lines where he states that Miquella's body in Mohgwyn Palace is an empty shell and Miquella's soul is off somewhere in the dream-world. And notably, Rhico was outright removed from the game's files, while other removed quests (like Kale's Frenzied Flame quest) simply remained Dummied Out but still accessible with hacking.
My guess is that they removed Rhico in order to return him with the DLC. He'll be the "access point" for the main DLC area, as he allows you to enter the dream world to go find Miquella and help him out.
- As an alternative - the St. Trina Quests won't be added by the DLC, but as a free update coinciding with the expansion's release.
... if, and only if, the player gave her the Unalloyed Gold Needle. When that happens, the player will unlock content where Malenia revives, reunites with Miquella, and becomes an NPC, and maybe heads off to Farum Azula to purge the Scarlet Rot; basically, everything that the base game implied might happen after Malenia gets the needle.
Whatever Miquella tried to revive him will initially go wrong, and you'll have to beat the corruption out of the Prince of Death before he can return to proper life, or to grant him a proper death.
For evidence, consider that Godwyn was established as one of the most powerful Demigods prior to his half-death; he managed to defeat Fortissax, an Ancient Dragon, in single combat, and after sparing him probably grew even stronger after learning the Ancient Dragons' lightning powers. And much like fellow Superbosses Malenia and Mohg, he now has the power of an Outer God (Destined Death in his case) to call on for a second phase. The Prince of Death is also indicated to have grown stronger through its infection of the Erdtree (Those Who Live In Death can be found all over the continent and even in Crumbling Farum Azula), and while it is an Almighty Idiot who can't really do anything other than passively cause undeath, Miquella is looking to change that. Godwyn has been set up as a boss potentially more powerful than Malenia all this time, and the DLC seems like a perfect place to set him.
- Miyazaki's comment that the player has to defeat Radahn to access the DLC gives credence to this theory, as this makes it look like the plot thread of Malenia fighting Radahn to unleash the stars and allow the eclipse to happen is going to be followed up on in the DLC; to even get to the point where we could fight Godwyn, we'd first have to make the eclipse possible.
- Adding fuel to this is the fact that when we find Malenia she is asleep, a hand pressed against the roots of the tree where Miquella's cocooon originally was. What's her first line upon awakening? "I have dreamt for so long". This might be more literal than it seems - she has dreamt for so long because she was searching for Miquella inside the dream world.
- If this theory is true, then the black Erdtree-like thing seen in the key art would not be literally the Erdtree or any known tree - it would be a symbolic representation of the Erdtree strangled by Godwyn's deathroot within Miquella's dream.
- Jossed; his soul is currently out exploring the Land of Shadow. It does have some thematic connections to dreams, like the veil in the sky that resembles the one on Marika's bed, but that's all.
- The only problem with this idea is that the area you find Mohg in is fairly out of the way of the main campaign. FromSoftware DLC entrances have fluctuated in complexity, but they're always in a place close to the main path you are supposed to take. They wouldn't want to make such a massive expansion like this so hidden.
- Half-Confirmed - Miquella's cocoon is confirmed to be the warp location to the Land of Shadows, but it's not yet known if they'll add an alternative way to reach the DLC without having to beat Mohg just yet.
- According to the trailer, apparently we'll be following him around.
My proof of this is Ranni's doll and real body. Ranni seems to have a little Height Angst over her doll body, always seeking to appear taller than she actually is by sitting on high debris in the church where she first meet the player, and later on by sitting over a pile of books while inside her tower.note And her real body's corpse reveals that her empyrean form was way taller, maybe the size of Malenia. So while her doll's body has the size of a regular human, since Seluvis is implied to be the one to construct it for her, to Ranni's demigod sensibilities it's like being stuck in a child's body.
This would be the developers' way to avoid the Squicky implications if the DLC actually has a new ending where the Tarnished ushers a new age under Miquella's vision, just like Ranni's Age of the Stars, and let's remember that includes the Tarnished becoming Miquella's Lord by marrying him.
Because the straight women and gay men need some love too. Miquella is also set up as a parallel to Ranni in that both are Empyreans who seek to forsake the Golden Order in favor of their own (Ranni and the Age of Stars, Miquella and the Haligtree), and both lead factions (albeit a really small one in Ranni's case) that the player can, or could in cut content, join. In Ranni's case, this is shown to make her the next God in Truth after Marika, and the player weds her as her Elden Lord; it seems reasonable that Miquella would be the same.
Miquella also doesn't seem like he's being set up to be a boss. All lore around him is that he was primarily a Non-Action Guy while his sister Malenia did the fighting, the items associated with him involve non-violently subduing enemies (Bewitching Branch turns them into temporary allies, the Sleep status stuns most enemies until you attack them), and his cut lines seem to indicate that he originally acted as an Assist Character in Malenia's boss fight, giving her his "last drop of dew" for some purpose, probably to trigger her second phase, instead of fighting himself. Thus, he's probably going to be a friendly NPC, opening up the way for the Tarnished to aid him in his vision for the Lands Between.
The DLC appears to be introducing a new antagonist known as Messmer the Impaler. But how does he fit into the existing pantheon of demigods? Some possibilities:
- Messmer is Miquella, or the part of him that's been corrupted by the Formless Mother and Mohg's influence. The flames he wields appear to resemble bloodflame, and his red cloak with gold heraldry does bear some resemblence to Malenia's armor.
- Messmer is the child of Rykard - he does seem to have a bit of a serpent motif going on.
- Messmer is a hitherto-unknown child of Marika and Radagon (given his red hair, which is explicitly associated with Radagon in lore) - stricken from history due to rebelling against the Golden Order in a similar fashion to Godefroy.
- This seems to be the most likely one so far due to his red hair, Grace-blessed golden eyes, and the fact that the throne in the cover is identical to the demigod's thrones in Leyndell.
- Messmer isn't part of Marika's lineage at all - instead being the child of the Gloam-Eyed Queen. Though if the GEQ was Marika's sister as some speculate, there could be some relation.
- This could be supported by the fact that the Gloam-Eyed Queen herself is very likely to have had children of her own; Maliketh's name is stated to have originally meant "death of the demigods", a term which- given that Godwyn was the first demigod of the Golden Order ever to die- can't be referring to demigods of Marika's line, with the Queen being the only other known Empyrean not born of the Golden Order. Messmer and his domain being connected to Marika's ancient rival could also explain why the Land of Shadow has been sealed away and forgotten. It's also worth nothing that the Gloam-Eyed Queen has a strong connection with death via the Godskins, making it all the more interesting that the black Erdtree in the Land of Shadow might be the Helphen.
- However, Messmer has a line where he wonders why his mother would allow someone "so bereft of light" to become lord, which seems to be referring to Marika and the Tarnished becoming Elden Lord.
Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here, so here goes:
- The entry point is pretty much confirmed to be Miquella's body in the Mohgwyn Dynasty Masoleum.
- Another boss is a sort of Omen/Cleric Beast mashup that can use lightning attacks; probably Godwyn or something closely related considering its long blonde hair.
- Some boss or other looks like a collection of thorns set on fire and vaguely twisted into humanoid shape.
- A Great Rune, probably Miquella's, is present but separated from its shardbearer.
- Miquella confirmed as an NPC (and there doesn't seem to be any boss that's clearly him), and he's involved in a cutscene where he restores the Haligtree.
- We're finally getting at least the Crucible Wings incantation (or at least Ash of War), as a player can be seen using it against Messmer.
- There's an NPC who wears a Cool Hat and a dark robe with an impressive neck frill who sits on a throne, who might be another demigod.
- One shot is a painting of two new characters, who will probably be important in some way: an old man in a cloak and a young woman with a shawl over her hair.
- One enemy is a human/leech with some horrible grab attack.
- The player in the Noble Set is casting what looks like an AOE Sleep spell, so presumably there'll be actual Sleep incantations.
- There's a Duo Boss of hunched-over humanoids wielding candelabras, perhaps connected with Rosus.
- The inevitable flower field boss appears to be a woman wearing a red hood and dress, dual wielding scimitars.
- The trailer and descriptions state that the Land of Shadow is either where Marika is from or a place she was the first to explore, and it's hidden by the Erdtree. It was the location of an "unsung battle" and subject to "Messmer's Flame". My guess is that this Messmer character caused trouble there and fought a war against the Golden Order, and the place was sealed away.
- So essentially, Messmer is the Lady Maria of DLC marketing; he's the recipient of most of the character focus, he plays a large backstory role, and he's going to be a very tough boss, but someone else is going to play Orphan of Kos and be the actual final boss fight.
It's a notable trend for demigods to be associated with a certain school of magic- Radahn is gravity magic, Ranni is Carian/glintstone sorcery, Rykard is magma, Mohg is Blood Oath, Malenia is Servants of Rot, Miquella is Fundamentalism, and Godwyn is currently Death (and was likely Dragon Cult in life), etc. Dragon Communion notably doesn't have an associated demigod, and it definitely predates the Shattering.
Messmer, meanwhile, has armor that resembles the Drake Knights, he has what look to be Wyrm eyes (though they might just be regular golden demigod eyes), his magic is red-colored like Dragon Communion (and Blood Oath, but that's a different WMG), and if you look closely, you can see that his snake has dragon wings.
My guess was that at the very least, Messmer was an enthusiastic participant in Dragon Communion, and it's likely that he invented it by being the first person to get the idea to consume dragon hearts to become stronger. Dragon Communion is reviled in the Lands Between, so when Messmer started doing it and other people imitated him, he was very quickly booted out and deleted from history; if this happened before the Dragon War, his act might have even been the impetus for Gransax to attack Leyndell, and if it happened after, then he was attacking beings (or at least relatives of them) the Golden Order revered and so was smote into the Shadow Realm.
- As a corollary, Messmer is the founder of the order of Drake Knights.
The place has a connection to both Marika and Destined Death, and we know Miquella was planning on reviving soulless demigods. So my guess was that he didn't just go there because Mohg wouldn't be able to follow, he did it because it was part of his revival plan. At least one of the bosses looks like it might have some Godwyn connection, and some of the other people shown in the trailer might be other demigods.
- Or it might be another Doll origin situation (we know that developmentally, she was based on an early Annalise, with Lady Maria invented to fill the role of the Doll's inspiration for the DLC) where originally the Smouldering Butterfly was supposed to be associated with Melina, then they decided to keep her origins more mysterious, and later decided to more explicitly give the role Melina was originally meant to play (third child of Marika and Radagon with fire association) with Messmer.
It's outside the Lands Between, and it's where Marika "first set foot." Maybe that's because it's the Numen homeland.
Notably, the spirit is located near the Impaler's catacombs. And for all the other things Marika did to her main game kids, she didn't exile any of them to whatever the Land of Shadow is.
This WMG is based entirely on the fact that he seems to have the same closed-eye-with-marking as Melina and Ranni, both of whom are confirmed to be bodiless spirits. He also might be the true identity of the body in the Weeping Peninsula's Wandering Masoleum, seeing as it's near the Impaler's Catacombs.
One prominent image in the trailer shows a painting of two people: an old man and a young woman. These two will probably be important in some way, so here goes guessing about how:
- The painting reveal is synced to the line "the Erdtree faithful", so these people probably have some Holy association.
- The Painting Man resembles the probable-boss that looks like an old man with something impaled through his body. Interestingly enough, this whatever is gold in color but resembles the design of the Helphen Steeple, implying he might be from a time when the Rune of Death was part of the Elden Ring. Him being impaled might mean he was a victim of Messmer; dude had to get that 'impaler' epithet somehow.
- The Painting Girl is more ambiguous, since she wears a veil and it's implied her braids are also part of it. She's either a part of the Painting Man's backstory, or we just haven't seen her boss/npc form in the trailer.
- Messmer the Impaler- He's going to be a major storyline boss, obviously.
- The Wicker Man- that giant brazier monster seen in the trailer. It might be a sort of twisted Erdtree avatar (perhaps corrupted by Messmer's Flame), or the result of human sacrifice, taking after the Gallic wicker man ritual. Probably a field boss.
- Mostly jossed by Miyazaki interview; apparently it was a giant war machine and bodies were burnt inside. No indication about whether they were dead before being shoved in, but that does lend some connection to human sacrifice.
- The Ancestral Rhinoceros- Torrent seems to be associated with this realm, so I'm guessing the giant creatures are similar to the Ancestral Spirits. Almost certainly field bosses.
- The Omen Lion Dancers- Associated somehow with Godwyn (long blonde hair), beasts (look like one, plus their breath weapon looks like a bestial incantation), and/or the Dragon Cult (given how much lightning they drop on you).
- The Impaled- The old man who seems to be pulling something out through his head. Probably fights with deathblight or cursed Omen fire (like the stuff the Omen Bairns produce and Morgott uses in his second phase).
- St. Trina's Fervent- The one we see lying down in the flower field. This guy was probably similar to the writer of the Fervor's Cookbook (heck, they might even be the same guy), and I'll bet they were a follower of St. Trina whose dream search led them to the Land of Shadow.
- Little Red Dual Wielding Hood- The woman in red who fights with dual curved swords. She's probably either a soulless demigod or a noble who wound up in the Land of Shadow similarly to you.
- The Candle Men- Duo fight. Seem to be connected to Rosus and so probably wield Death, as well as fire magic due to their candles.
- Black Sentinel- This guy resembles a combination Tree Sentinel/Night's Cavalry, although he seems to be fought on foot, and probably fights like a combination of those two bosses. There's a lesser chance he's Crucible related.
- Nucklavee- The guy who fights with a bone boomerang and looks like a horse with a bony human torso growing out of its back. Probably Death-related and weak to Holy.
Building on the previous WMG, if there's statues of him hugging Miquella and Malenia, he probably had some positive feelings towards them. We also know that he doesn't think highly of Tarnished. So what I'm guessing here is that either Miquella asked him to cover his tracks from anyone in Mohg's faction who might follow him to the Land of Shadow, or Messmer took it upon himself to do so. Since Messmer is already suspicious of Tarnished and we know that Mohg liked to recruit Tarnished as Bloody Fingers, Messmer concludes that you too are a Bloody Finger looking to give Miquella to his very unwanted suitor, and absolutely refuses to let you pass.
It seems Messmer is part of George R. R. Martin's lore work, and we know Martin loves him some historical references. So, this section is guesses on what Messmer might be like, if he's an Expy of the historical Vlad Tepes:
- Impaled people. Obviously. The epithet is probably extremely literal and Messmer likely had a lot of people Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
- Association with dragons. The real guy's father was Vlad Dracul, or 'Vlad the Dragon', and Vlad III was thus 'Dracula', or 'son of the dragon', so Messmer almost certainly has something to do with dragons himself.
- Association with drinking blood. While the real Vlad probably never actually did this, there were a lot of rumors to this effect, and he's been inextricably linked to vampires in pop culture. In Messmer's case, I assume that this will be a reference to him partaking in Dragon Communion (eating hearts isn't the exact same as drinking blood, but close enough).
- Feared and ruthless warrior-prince. The 'warrior' part is a given since Messmer is a boss, but the guess is more that in his life, he was The Dreaded (which may be why no one wants to talk about him) and probably took part in the wars against the Storm Lord, Giants, and/or dragons, and was almost certainly responsible for war crimes.
- Probably didn't have that much political power in comparison to others but made up for it with personal authority and being willing to go the distance. Messmer doesn't have much iconography compared to the other demigods and doesn't seem to have had a fief (though the Weeping Peninsula may have originally been his and later folded into Limgrave), but he seems to have wielded a lot of power before getting sent to the Shadow Realm.
- Responsible for exacting justice and was extremely draconian in doing so.
- Had some loyalty to the Golden Order and terrorized its enemies. The real Vlad was a staunch Christian and spent his life defending his fief against the Muslim Ottoman empire, and from what little we know of Messmer, he appears to have killed people who lost Grace and doesn't like the idea of a Tarnished becoming Elden Lord.
The Lands Between have a noticeable sea in the middle of the map with the center obscured by clouds. Maybe the Land of Shadow was once there, and the sea was formed when Marika hid the Land of Shadow away from the Lands Between.
- As a corollary, the Divine Towers are what's keeping up the Veil hiding the Land of Shadows from the Lands Between.
- As a corollary, at least for some of the elements it's the other way around; in Messmer's time they weren't seen as objectionable, but then he did something horrible, got banished, and things associated with him were reviled because they were reminders of this guy.
- As another corollary, Messmer saw himself as a sort of 'sanctioned heretic' who wielded blasphemous powers in the Erdtree's defense, something like how the Fire Monks are sanctioned users of the Giant's Flame with the holy mission of keeping it contained. From his point of view, it was okay for him specifically to use fire or dragon communion or what-have-you because it was his divine mission, but at some point Marika thought he'd gone too far (like the Fire Monks who started actually worshipping the Giant's Flame) and exiled him.
This WMG is based entirely on the Impaler's Catacombs being full of imps, and imagining all the player frustration on finding that Messmer's palace is also full of imps.
Okay, let's get the obvious one out of the way. Miyazaki has said the Tarnished will be following in Miquella's footsteps as he journeyed through the Land of Shadow for some reason. He didn't want to say what it was for spoiler reasons, but let's consider the evidence. Miquella and Godwyn both share the distinction of being conspicuously Out of Focus despite deep lore importance, and environmental storytelling in Castle Sol heavily implies Miquella was trying to perform a ritual to bring Godwyn back, but this failed because he couldn't beckon the eclipse before Mohg happened.
Miyazaki has also said that the DLC can only be started after killing Radahn. Radahn has nothing to do with Godwyn or Miquella's subplots nor with the Land of Shadow... but he does control the stars, and it's all-but-stated that this is why the Eclipse couldn't happen. The only reason to require the player to kill Radahn would be so that Miquella's plans for the eclipse could finally go forward and Godwyn could be revived.
Miyazaki has said that there will be other people trying to do the same thing you are, much like how you're not the only person seeking to become Elden Lord, and that some will be friendly and others hostile. I'm guessing that at least some of the humans shown in the trailer, like the ones in new armor sets, the hat guy, and the Red Dancer, are these other seekers; the Red Dancer is obviously hostile, but hat guy doesn't seem to be.
- Corollary: If Rhico is returned to the game, he'll be yet another fellow seeker.
We know that the giant 'Wicker Man' boss was once a war machine for some unknown conflict that took place in the Land of Shadow, and the trailer also shows several shots of hanging jars that look a good deal like the Warrior Jars, plus new giant player-usable pots, something that implies we'll learn more about the Living Jars in the DLC. My guess for what we'll learn is that the Living Jars were created as part of the war effort; they would go collect the remains of fallen soldiers and, once powered by their spirits, fight on in their place, thus partially negating losses from the many, many casualties of the war.
