From the Cocoon 05 - Consortium

Well, we have a pretty good idea of why Malenia was so pissed off at radahn now.

Spoilers, go away....

One God, one consort. Sorry, sis.

I'm glad they didn't paint radahn as just another arrogant bully. More than strength, more than gravity, radahn found the strength of a lord through his kindness.

I'm glad they didn't paint malenia as just a dutiful sister trying to take care of her younger brother. On reflection, now, it could be that she was keeping miquella safe as a Watcher, rather than Defender. She either didn't want him to ascend or didn't want him to ascend without her.

If anyone in the world was immune to miquella's cupid powers it would be her, so im still operati g under the notion that everything malenia has done has been of her own volition in that regard.

I really want to talk about the hornsent, but I also think that's an incredibly deep topic I've only scratched the surface of.

The omen, in the base game, have a proficiency with shadow magic that I don't think any other factions share until we start running into hornsent, who I would wager are just omen, and any differences can be put down to the same kind of environmental changes we find between ds1 slave and ds2 warrior giants.

Miquella needed this shadow magic to travel to the shadowlands, hence Mogh getting involved. And then he needed radahns gravity magic because, like, astrology is real here, its the best power to have, probably, after mind control.

Mogh's aim is to resurrect the dynasty, the prehistoric "Elden John" culture that seems to have been better preserved in places like belurat than anywhere in the base game.

Marika seems to have engaged in a bit of a genocide wrt to hornsent via messmer. It seems pretty apparent that messmer was the one to initially burn the erdtree by using melina as kindling. I don't know when this happened. If they burned it before Marika shattered the Ring how did Marika get inside to shatter it? If they burned it after she entered the tree who orchestrated the fire?

It could be that what messmer and melina burned was the Greatree, and thereby created the crucible. This would imply that the erdtree always had thorns, as it was born from the same sin, which was an aspect of the crucible. 

I'm glad we got such winged serpent/world devourer stuff. I knew rykard couldn't possibly have been that important. 

I still haven't found any connections to godskinners or the GEQueen. At least nothing obvious like miquella repeatedly saying "Radahn Redmane I choose you!"  Loooot of Ghostflame and duskborn stuff I haven't really looked at yet.

I know theres probably a dozen videos answering this but how tf do you pronounce Rauh. In my mind the name is pronounced by roaring like a lion but I'd like to be able to talk about it without sounding crazy. Like "now cow how rauh?" Or like "nah boo ra-uh"?

As a personal...thing...on my very first playthrough of Demons Souls way back in the day I played a shield turtle with like a moonlight infused spear even though i was a strength build because i didnt know how anything worked. 

Slow and safe, one inch, one millimeter at a time. Finished radahn the same way, with a blood infused spear even though i had respecced into strength for the stupid shield and a competent co-op rando.

Thank you, Patches.

From the Cocoon 04 - Endure

 I feel like

Go away spoilers

I feel like I'm approaching the End of The Expansion. I was in the zone this morning and beat the sunflower, boar, and snake boss at the end of shadows keep in like an hour after falling at all three daily for like a week. I also got our hotheaded friend in the forest and the very pointed high priest quest stuff. I sided with ansbach and kept hornsent alive for the messmer fight, if that matters, and got freyjas shield.

I haven't beat bayle, and my understanding is the final bosses can be some real doozies.

There's a lot of stuff I'm gonna want to compare to the base game. My thinking was I'll try to organize it by elder god. The problem there is how do you separate any of the others from the Greater Will. Now I'm thinking togo by faction. Any area in the game will have around ten recurring factions with nebulous goals and interactions; demihumans, misbegotten, bats, various demigod forces, and so on. 

In the shadow lands we get the bizzaro, divergent iterations of these. Where the purebloods were elegant and regal, the blood fiends are brutish and primitive. Where Rot was buried, here we find it exalted. 

But then we find, in the shadows of the shadows, vestiges of godwyns forces working to bring about the age of the duskborn. We find that here, too, rennala has been betrayed.

I thought we would get more snake stuff and less omen stuff.

I don't know what's going on with death in the expansion, but it's clearly not working there either, although it's described as being suppressed. If anything, death seems even more unobtainable in the shadow lands. 

Motherhood seems to be the overall theme here. 

Time to finish this up.

-

week later. Beat everything but the last boss. Not everything. Everything in the story and big side quests. Threw sticks at bayle WOOOOOOO. 

The spear we get from the Frenzied forest makes me realize that, even though we often find it among gem collections in the real world, amber is not a stone. The reason I bring that up is the glintstone crowns have hogh vitality, death resistance. Sellen calls it the vitality of the stars or something. Chaos is rendering the amber back down into sap. Rannalas egg may be the mew Nadalia level mystery. Must investigate. 

From the Cocoon 3 - A Dream Shared

 Spoilers go away.

Leave, seriously, there's so much other better stuff to read, even on here.

...

My favorite part of the expansion, storywise, is the theme of people with very little held in common, and a large degree of animosity towards each other, banding together for a common purpose.

It's a theme that has been explored before in these games, but it's often the cooperater is framed as being a lone, naive (but incredibly strong) simpleton like solaire or targray or sirris, and as often framed against someone like patches or gren or leonard.

So it's nice to have it portrayed with more depth and nuance here. Miyazaki has talked in interviews about how, although he's an atheist, his deep love and respect for religion and religious people is a big inspiration of his games. The respect, part of it, is born out in Faith's ability to bring disparate groups together. Given a dragon and a path forward, lautrec and solaire WILL coop together. Sirris and the handmaid were aligned on the need for cordial intrusion at one point in the past.

I like how some characters, leda and hornsent, have a harder time working together, and I like how some, moore and ansbach, get along great. I like that they have "useless" characters - thollier and his plants - and "misused" characters, freyja and her tablets.

When we run into a lone, an alone, character in this expansion they're generally not having a good time. Our beloved grandam sure isn't happy, nor is our fearless and daring and not very good drsgon hunter igon. But our presence, in alleviating their loneliness, helps to reignite their joy of purpose, their reason for being. 

Messmer, I've gotten to his second stage but haven't beaten him, he seems like one of the lonliest of all. His entire ENTIRE reason seems to be for Marika; the faith that the Accord is being upheld on her and Radagon's end. As twisted and warped and deranged as he is, he still has that one thread holding him together, probably holding him back from a true rampage, which would probably mean apocalypse for both worlds. 

Also, I think midra is torrents old partner, only explanation. Haven't seen midra yet, have seen the forest 

From the Cocoon 2 - Issue of the Wantons Trumpet

 I don't know if this is a bug or a feature but

Wait spoilers go away until like October

I hope it's a feature, but there's an obviously trapped bridge in a gaol where one of the, uh, innards, bursts through the wall like Kool-aid man, but only they didn't see me because obvious trap. So the...fellow? walked to the edge of the bridge and idled for a few seconds and then stepped off. 

I pray to any gods that can hear me that From put a suicidal Kool-aid Man in their game.

Also, like, Mogh, if youre gonna start talking about how you've been morally vindicated by the cancel culturing woke moralists you should really, first of all, listen to your bodyguard when he warns you about the mind control demigod and second don't hire a mind controllable bodyguard. That's on the level of "whoops my shirt fell off" as far as plausibility.

I think npc hornsent is grandam the wonderful's son. And she's dressed like one of the base game chaircrypt giants, who dress like the windmill village npcs who had a village on mount gelmir that was taken over by demihumans. 

And Yet I can't get the image out of my head of Kool-aid man bursting through a wall, going OH YEAAAAHHH, realizing no one is around, and immediately becoming so despondent they throw themselves off a cliff. 

But wait, what if that's how Kool-aid man works? He oofs in one world and is reborn through a random wall? Like a Forlorn, eternally drifting between worlds searching for children's parties to destroy.

I know I'm just randomly talking about hornsent and warrior unjars and they're in no way related, I just like these two puzzle pieces. The red and black thorns are probably bizzaro twins the way everything else is. 

From the Cocoon 1 - LIES A BLOODY RUIN

 Don't read this for like a couple months. You, yes. I'm talking about voice actors/npcs and general themes from the expansion. I'm nowhere near done. I think I have two more map fragments to unlock? 

Holy shit Igon goes hard.

Like I barely know what the thing he's shrieking about is, but I made him inform me about it repeatedly before I advanced his dialogue. That's the gyoubo guy right? Gotta be. MY NAME IS

The omen finger reader lady in the tower settlement I love with all of my heart. Team whatever Team she's on. Team go away, issue of the wanton harlot.

There are parts where we who have been here for a while can really see how far this has come. To see echoes of ideas like New Londo and Tseldora recontextualized and scaled up like this is wonderful. 

As expected, everything is bizarro everything we knew. Mostly. Dead guy controls a lion king, omen are skinny, dragons are evil. 

Boy I'm sure excited and not sleeping enough.

Elden Guess 08 - Slugfest

 I think if you added up the run time of all the trailer analysis videos that came out just today,  Story Trailer Day, you'd have like a week solid of ideas to sort through. 

I generally try to avoid lore channels and deep dive theories until I've gone through the game a couple times and kind of got my head around what I think is going on. Like I figured the zamorans and ebonivory lords would connect somehow. Gut instinct, KNEW IT IN MY HEART, fucking no, nothing. They're just the around the same height and use magic is all. 

I think rykard, and to a lesser degree marias, in the base game, are essentially the heirs of mesmers operation. 

When we arrive on Altus by the main elevator we don't find any guards. Even the golems I'm pretty sure won't attack if you have the medallion. 

But then off to the left you see damn near every able-bodied bonker in the kingdom facing the same direction, from behind a barricade, with a weapon out. Omen are there, misbegotten. I'm sure once the honorable and upstanding Kenneth Haight works his magic the nearby demihumans will join in the fun. 

By fun I mean staring at the path to Gelmir, terrified.

But what's to be afraid of? One political genius and half a dozen not-at-all-to-kinda strong Ayn Randian fascists? Like, sure, the serpent and the lava and all is pretty impressive but have you heard Fia's offer? She gives hugs, Tanith. Most people would take a hug over some dork-ass non-erotic dancing and being burned on a stake for being insufficiently murderous. 

Just to point out, leyndell isnt or shouldn't be worried about Marias, he ain't gonna do nothing, he fell in love with Malenia.

It doesn't really make sense that Leyndell would have that many arrows pointed at Gelmir if all that could really happen is Bernhal and like three other guys charge at them.

It kinda also doesn't make sense Rykard being that big of a player in the Shattering that he would have that big an army. The descriptions of the Gelmir front and the sheer horror of the opening cinematic make it clear that that whole stretch was a literal meat grinder that made what happened in Caelid look humane and reasonable by comparison.

I don't think Rykard could ever inspire that kind of devotion, even under threat of being fed to snakes while on fire. I also don't think Rykard would be the one to face Maliketh if Rykard was the top dog of Caria's offensive.

If Radahn had sided with Rennala then whoever was leading the assault wins.

So, from this I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the army from the opening cinematic was originally under Mesmer's command, and that Mesmer was originally gonna be the World Devouring Immortal Serpent from Gelmir. And from this new trailer we can infer that he did break the walls but this breech, unlike Gransax's, wasn't recorded. There was a theory I heard in a Ziostorm video that, when you think about it, the opening cinematic battle HAD TO have happened before half of Leyndell was blasted down into Nameless Eternal, because that gate doesn't have anything but a lake behind it in the present. 

So, judging from the burning of Leyndell in this new trailer it becomes clear that the walls weren't just breeched: it would be seemingly impossible to stop the assault without giving Mesmer anything he wanted.

Except they did. 

I think maybe Radahn did. Not directly, but he had access to Ivory and Ebony Lords and those guys are only called lords because everyone's scared of what they can do. 

Astel means "Star". And someone called them. And they answered. Not that penny-ante bullshit Radahn's doing; these things treat up and down and now and then like a child's flipbook.

But Mesmer ain't here no more, so problem fixed. Plus Morgott gets to justifiably send Radahn packing back to Caelid.

Couple of notes on Mesmer:

He and his spears are dressed closely to Drakebloods, and seem to be a 'shadow' faction of dragon cultists, and it's pretty likely they were in direct opposition to Godwyn's faction. Maybe not even a shadow faction: the Magma Worm faction.

Where Rykard and his serpent are represented as gluttony incarnate, Mesmer and his snakes are The Machinist thin. 

So what are the snakes?

I think they're slugs. Like you'll be riding through a green field on a rainy day and there's be a gathering of like five slugs, on fire, crawling around setting a fire, with a bunch of butterflies, also on fire, hovering around them. It's the kind of thing your partner will see and say something like 'I thought everything in this game made sense" and you're like "it does" they're like "that slug is on fire" "it's a fire slug" "it doesn't make sense" "it does we just don't understand how it makes sense" "that's literally what 'it doesn't make sense' means".

The slugs like to find shells and they can take on a variety of different pokemon evolutions. Skeleton snails, classic. Those things all over Rykard's sword are like baby ones. "Those aren't snakes" the snails in Gelmir are snakes. The not on fire ones I mean. There aren't fire snails, there are snail snakes. "so three unrelated animals with zero things common between them?" Yeah, they're all the same thing. Like Eevee. "Also none of them have wings like on the statues" that's probably because the Mesmer evolution went extinct in the base game.

Creating new post

I've got that weird artist thing that makes me impossible to be around when I don't have an outlet and only tolerable when I do so here we are and I can't find anyone to make music, greenbelts, or fight choreography with, so here we are.

There's a lot of posts I want to write but will probably never get around to. The lore in these games really is the gift that keeps giving.

So open poll, what should I do next in order?

 It's not like a real poll, unlikely reader, I'm just trying to make myself write.

Patches. I've even got a draft for a patches post.

In Elden Ring patches was a ravenmount assassin. He may extra secretly be working for mogh. 

Nadalia. This will never happen. Needs to. Won't. I'm just straight up not smart enough to figure the shit all the way out and all the people who are ain't interested. 

Marriage and twin dragons. Almost equally unlikely. 

Pharos contraptions, illusory walls, hidden walls. This one just needs time its not like trying to work out the plot of the illiad with only references from 1990s saturday morning cartoon shows to work with.

Slashy Souls HAHA IT'S NOT THERE ANYMORE IS IT FOOLS

Lorethrough of the Titan comics. I've got the comics I just feel like I've talked about the important stuff elsewhere except did I talk about the ant lady and the samurai? Plus I figured out why solaire showed up when he did. I have Problems with Age of Fire.

Straid and Ornifex. Gavlaan stretch goal.

Dorohedoro. I could probably do an entire other blog about this one. That or conan but fucking fascists like conan too much so fuck that. If you're into intricate world building and lorehunting and horror mixed with humor and the seemingly but secretly not unhinged: it has a really good anime adaption of the first kinda arc on Netflix. Lizard headed guy. Potstickers. Not for kids. Leave kids go away. But remember don't take any shit from old people, especially if they call you or other young people lazy or dumb or criminal or naive or whatever. They're the naive criminal ones trust me. "Hey let's make it so only millionaires can sleep in a house and spend all our money on cops and proxy wars". Fucking geniuses right? Go be irresponsible. No felonies.

Another oolacile post NO NO NO But cat-centric NO NO NO

Project for a New Anorian Century. Gwyndolin and/or Gwynevere was working with Carim in the first game. I think I can draw a straight line from that, aaaaalllll the way through the second game, and arrive in lothric with no major plot holes or inconsistencies and account for like 90% of everything. I mean I know I can write that, but funding the time and also making it legible and less than 100k words and not go off on a weird tangent most of the time. 

Prisoner of Prisoner of Ash. The problem with the third game is it has as much lore as the first two games combined plus the first two game, and has like half of the item descriptions. It's playing DOOM on the one hit permadeath difficulty of fictional conspiracy theories. 

Ninja turtles. People don't understand this because it's framed as a for kids thing - still leave kids - but it's the kind of kids show where one episode out of five a major character will be killed on camera or like John carpenter's The Thing happens but The Thing is your Mom and You're Part The Thing Too and The Thing Has Your Face.

But then it's like Michelangelo makes a joke about liking candy bar and mushroom pizza or whatever and it's back to a toy commercial. It's magical.