The fallen leaves tell a story... just a bit differently than you might remember.
Elden Ring: The Road to the Erdtree is a comedy manga adaptation of the video game Elden Ring by FromSoftware with art done by Nikiichi Tobita. It generally follows the main story beats of its source material, but takes a bit more of an irreverent and metatextual tone compared to the game. The manga is published into English by Yen Press.The main character, like in the game, is a Tarnished of no renown who shows up in the Lands Between without his memory or any inkling of what he's supposed to be doing, armed with naught but a club and his underwear. After spending a bit of time getting chased around the opening areas of Limgrave and helping out some of the locals with odd jobs he eventually meets the Mysterious Waif Melina who, after a bit of back and forth, agrees to make our hero, now christened Aseo as he had forgotten his own name, stronger if he will help escort Melina to the foot of the Erdtree. With a quest, a horse, and a general direction to follow, Aseo begins his journey on the long road to the Erdtree.
Note: Tropes described here should only be for the manga adaptation of Elden Ring and its specific characterization of the game's characters as they relate to the manga. Any tropes about characters or events from the game itself should go on the main Elden Ring page.
The manga provides the following examples:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: In-game, the right side of Millicent's face is slightly disfigured due to her scarlet rot affliction leaving its mark. In the manga her face is spotless, and she looks absolutely gorgeous.
- Adaptational Comic Relief:
- Aseo is generally far sillier, more sarcastic, and more obviously in over his head than any player Tarnished in the game. This is simply by dint of the fact that he can converse with the other characters and comment on the ridiculousness of the story's main premise and the daily nightmare that existing in the Lands Between has become since the Shattering.
- Melina, while still about as sedate and serious as she is in-game, has been given the role of The Comically Serious to be the Straight Man to Aseo's shenanigans as well as that of several other characters. She's also picked up a fondness for Land Octopus meat and often snacks on it, it was her idea to suction-cup the Flasks to Aseo's ass since he didn't have a bag or pockets to put them in, and finding out the utter banality of Blaidd and Dariwill's feud causes her to put an end to it by staving Dariwill's head in with Aseo's club just because she can't handle the idea of the two wolf-knights arguing over a doll's clothes anymore.
- Ranni really plays up her subtle Tsundere characterization from the game, especially when dealing with Aseo not properly respecting her station when they first meet because he didn't initially know that she was a demigod. She even gets so pissed at his tomfoolery at one point that when leaving the Spirit-Calling Bell for him she slams it down so hard on the brick of the Church of Elleh's walls that she dented it.
- On top of the below Adaptational Nice Guy, Godrick the Grafted is characterized much more like a petulant teenager chasing fashion trends with his graftings, and he speaks with a Valley Girl accent just to top it off.
- Blaidd is much less intelligent, much more prone to behaving like a dog than a man, and is so hopeless with directions the he can't even figure out which side of a map is north. He also started up a fanclub for Ranni, along with Bloodhound Knight Dariwill, and locked Dariwill in an Evergaol because the Bloodhound Knight dared to change his commemorative Raani figurine's clothes and pose, an unforgivable sin that eventually leads to Dariwill's death via a pissed-off Melina with a club.
- Bernhal in-game is a stoic, serious soldier who teaches various Weapon Arts and eventually joins the blasphemous Recusants of the Volcano Manor who regularly engage in murder against their fellow Tarnished. Here, he's an absolute Cloudcuckoolander Blood Knight who, while still a very capable warrior, is utterly obsessed with Weapon Arts to the exclusion of just about everything else and has a character more in line with Might Guy during his training sequence with Aseo. Aseo and Rodericka think he might just be going through his mid-life crisis.
- Adaptational Dumbass:
- Blaidd acts a lot more like an easily distractible dog in the manga, often running off to investigate something or chase around Teardrop Scarabs because they're ball shaped, and that's not getting into just how hopeless with directions he is.
- Nepheli Loux is much more of a meat-head than in game, with her being able to dumbfound Aseo with just how thick she can be during Godrick's grafting contest. She's a Kindhearted Simpleton, but dense enough that Aseo genuinely takes back his complaint about Melina buffing his Intelligence over his Strength after having to deal with Nepheli.
- Adaptational Intelligence:
- There's nothing in the game to suggest that Bloodhound Knights are capable of speech or higher reasoning, but Dariwill was apparently smart enough to speak, join Blaidd's Ranni fanclub, and stitch a new costume for his commemorative Ranni doll.
- The Red Wolf of Radagon was never shown to more any more intelligent than an animal in-game (ability to use sorceries notwithstanding), but Aseo is able to get past it peacefully by touching its heart with a dance routine. It very eloquently explains that seeing such tricks reminds it of the good old days when Radagon and Rennala were still married before apologizing and leaving.
- Rennala in-game is barely more cogent that a toddler, utterly obsessed with the Amber Egg that Radagon left behind when he divorced her and seemingly unaware of her surroundings even as the Tarnished is killing her students and beating her senseless, and it's only through her daughter's illusion that Rennala doesn't die at the Tarnished's hands. Here, Rennala is communicative, cognizant of her surroundings and Aseo, and retains enough emotional awareness to both try her hand at mothering all of her cloned students as best she can and retain a seething hatred for Radagon for divorcing her and for all of the secrets he kept from her even when they were together. Overall, Rennala is much more of a character in this adaptation than the sentient gameplay mechanic she is in the game.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Melina and Raani particularly get this, being much more sarcastic and snippy with Aseo's shenanigans. Given that Aseo is something of a Cloudcuckoolander, their exasperation is quite understandable.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Godrick the Grafted is presented as far less of a megalomaniac and pompous ass compared to the game, being more along the lines of a Bad Boss who overworks his castle staff with flippant and odd requests for new graftings like he's a trend-chasing teenager rather than the monstrous cannibal and flesh-grafted nightmare that he is. He even gives up his Great Rune to Aseo at the end of their grafting competition without a fight, being true to his word while resolving to stop chasing trends and to treat his staff and soldiers better. Of course he sends them back out for more grafting components like usual, but at the least he's nicer about it.
- Margit initially seems like he's going to be the same as his game counterpart, but when Aseo resolves to just lay down and die since he doesn't believe that he can beat Margit with just his club, Margit gives him a combo "Reason You Suck" Speech and Rousing Speech about having at least some ambition so that he can live up to the legacy that his Tarnished warrior blood gives him instead of forcing Margit to murder a coward who's resolved to die. Margit then tells Aseo to go get stronger, cuts off a swatch of his cloak so that Aseo has something to wear, forks over the Talisman Pouch that he'd normally drop after being defeated, and gives Aseo a map of the area so he won't get lost as easily.
- Art-Style Dissonance: The manga's mostly serious, well-detailed and realistic artwork often contrasts with its silly story and the comedic situations that our protagonist finds himself in.
- Ascended Extra: The lone Tree Sentinel found at the beginning of Limgrave, after performing the traditional role of kicking every new Tarnished's ass, shows up again as a speaking character as one of the judges on Godrick's grafting competition, and then again as a commentator on Aseo's Trial by Combat against Moongrum.
- Ass Shove: A variant; since Aseo doesn't initially have pants with pockets or a bag to carry them around, Melina resorts to suction sealing the Crimson and Cerulean Flasks to his butt cheeks so that he doesn't lose them, leaving a pair of circular indents on his ass after he pulls them off. When she eventually gives him the Flask of Wondrous Physick, she remarks that it took so long to hand it over because she never found the right moment to stick it to his ass.
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: The champions at the Radahn Festival are all valiantly charging towards the demigod... until Radahn launches his first attack, at which point they all turn around and hightail it out of there. Aseo is left behind, of course.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Given Aseo's utter befuddlement at the amount of proper nouns getting thrown at him when Melina is trying to strike her accord with him, she resorts to couching what she can do for him in the gameplay terms of Elden Ring; instead of "channeling runes to grant [him] strength" she instead says that she can "use experience points to level [him] up". Aseo even points out that, despite this being a gag manga, Melina should take more care with the fourth wall.
- Damned by Faint Praise: Varre admits that Aseo might just be the strongest Tarnished he's ever met. This happens right after Aseo walks up to the Tree Sentinel in Limgrave to ask him for directions, gets whacked into the sky, and lands on the crossbeam of a crucifix without dying from either the hit or the fall.
- Denser and Wackier: Compared to the massive open world Souls-like RPG that Elden Ring is, The Road to the Erdtree takes its time to focus on the characters, their relationships with each other, and the general insanity of life in the Lands Between and how a total newcomer would be completely blindsided from the tropes and cliches of the genre of game that he's in.
- Failure Hero: The manga takes Diallos' characterization in the original game and extrapolates it to total incompetence. He has the distinction of being the only character Aseo has no trouble "defeating", mainly because he's so bad at fighting he ends up defeating himself.
- Flanderization: As a gag manga, many characters have their defining personality trait exaggerated ludicrously for comic effect.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Kind of; when Melina first makes her accord with Aseo she opts to dump all of his runes into his Intelligence since he strikes her as something of a dimwit, despite Aseo's protestations that she should be improving his Strength so he can kill things better. Melina explains later that she keeps upping his Intelligence so that he can actually think tactically instead of rushing off and getting himself killed because he's all brawn and no brains, and this shows as the story goes on; as Aseo's Intelligence increases he starts to actually think through his actions, utilizes skills and weapon arts more effectively, and generally loses some of his initial Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, even becoming the Only Sane Man to Nepheli Loux when he's in Stormveil Castle.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Melina certainly thinks Torrent is one, as he only chose Aseo because he has a great butt, which for horses is a very desirable trait.
- Lighter and Softer: As part of being Denser and Wackier, the manga is a lot lighter in tone than the original game. Most notably, the major boss fights are heavily revised so that Aseo doesn't need to kill them; Margit, for example, forfeits after seeing how pitiable Aseo is at fighting and gives him a pep talk instead, while Godrick's fight instead takes the form of a grafting competition with his Great Rune as the prize.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter: Assuming that Melina is Marika's daughter, as is all but stated in the game, the manga seems to draw a lot of comparisons to Marika in how it characterizes her; Both are ruthlessly pragmatic and not above using threats to get what they want, both have a warrior companion they send to do their dirty business, and both have a preference for blunt weapons (Marika's signature weapon is a hammer, and Melina beats Darriwil to death with a club and is later shown carrying a great stars).
- Logical Latecomer: Aseo is this for the Lands Between as a whole; having no memory and no idea about what he's supposed to be doing makes Aseo question just about everything around him and all of the arcane terminology that everyone keeps trying to shove down his throat every time he tries to strike up a conversation. We're even introduced to him questioning why the door out of the Fringefolk Hero's Grave needs to be lifted up from the floor as opposed to a sane design like swinging it open on a hinge (before coming to the conclusion that it's meant to be a test of strength as well as a door).
- Nice Guy: Ultimately Aseo is this, even if he can be a Lovable Coward at times. Every time someone asks for his assistance he gives it with minimal complaint and maximal effort. The whole reason he's even decided to travel to the foot of the Erdtree isn't because he's trying to claim the Elden Ring like the player Tarnished in the game, he's just going there because Melina wants to and he agreed to escort her. Aseo's genuine niceness is enough that even perennial scumbag Patches can't help but give him a clean break from the bandit gang when Aseo can't go through with mugging Kalé.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: In contrast to Aseo's other enemies, Radahn remains the rampaging whirlwind of violence he is in the original game, with all the humor coming from the eccentricities of the Radahn Festival's participants rather than Radahn himself. Radahn is also the first Runebearer Aseo actually kills to defeat, and even his death is treated with solemnity.
- Obviously Evil: Discussed; like in-game, Varre is the first person Aseo meets after leaving the Fringefolk Hero's Grave, and Varre immediately goes into his ominous speech about how this new Tarnished is maidenless and how the Lands Between are going to eat him alive and he'll die with no renown. Naturally, Aseo immediately takes a swing at him with his club, and when Varre calls him out on senselessly attacking a stranger he just met Aseo retorts with the very reasonable argument that anyone who launches into a tirade about how someone is going to die the minute they meet them is obviously someone who has ill-intent and Aseo was hedging on the side of not dying by attacking Varre. Conceding the point, Varre apologizes and gives some more reasonable advice before pointing Aseo towards the Church of Elleh in the distance.
- Pet the Dog: Moongrum explains that Renala isn't mentally well, and begs Aseo to leave her be... Which he does, immediately asking Melina if there are other Great Runes they could go after in the Lands Between. Unfortunately for Aseo, this kind act results in Melina sending him to Caelid.
- Sadist: Melina admits that she's been only leveling Aseo up just enough that he survives while still getting his ass kicked. When Aseo asks if she really wants to reach the Erdtree or is just there to watch him suffer, she says it's both.
- Self-Deprecation: When Melina tries to explain the world to Aseo, he starts ranting about the game’s complicated terminology and how it’s only there to “confuse us newbies and give us a hard time.”
- Self-Referential Humor: All over the place, since this is a comedy adaptation, but special note has to go to Aseo's encounter with Margit, The Fell Omen; he's generally regarded as the first Noob Bridge boss in Elden Ring that will brutally kill the unprepared and underleveled to teach them to explore, level up, and get better gear instead of just blitzing down the critical path like in previous Souls games, so Margit literally telling Aseo to go get stronger and giving him some clothes, a Talisman Pouch, and the map for West Limgrave so that he doesn't have to senselessly murder a coward in way over his head seems to be a joke about both Margit's role in the game and the general dread most new players experience when having to face him for the first time.
- Serious Business: Do not try to take away Blaidd's commemorative Ranni doll, and certainly don't suggest putting the doll in a different outfit. This was the root cause of Blaidd and Dariwill's falling out, and apparently the sheer blasphemy of dressing his Ranni doll in a magical girl outfit was enough to get Dariwill locked in an Evergaol. Naturally, Melina thinks both men are idiots for taking something like a commemorative doll's outfit this seriously, on top of thinking they're both creeps for obsessing over their shared mistress to this degree.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Apparently Melina has a penchant for Land Octopus, as she's seen several times munching on a tentacle on a stick when she's speaking with Aseo, even if the seriousness of what she's saying is completely undercut by her snacking while she's saying it.
- Wham Shot: The introduction makes it seem like the manga is going be a serious take on the game, but then it cuts to Aseo lying face down in his underwear in an embarrassing pose, at which point the narrator reveals that it’s actually a comedy.
