There is nothing here. Nothing at all.
I'm gonna outline a bunch of stuff briefly and then start trying to tie it together into something like a story. Big picture: Ivory is red-tendency Gwyndolin, the cats and golems are Gael-level geniuses when it comes to creatively misinterpreting orders, and Eleum Loyce is under the beginnings of what will eventually become a siege (or possible attempt at resettlement, if there's a difference,) by forces broadly aligned with the Neo-Olaphis/proto-Lothric faction.
Which all sounds great but everyone including us seems dead set on not understanding that no one must ever find that which is sheltered in Eleum Loyce.
Right off the bat, here is Sir Fist's video with all of Alsanna's dialogue + cut dialogue + the soundtrack what has Latin in it which maybe means something if any native Latin speakers want to take a crack at it.
Alsanna's cut dialogue makes it clear that her and Aava are friendly towards each other, although they both seem to resent the task set to Aava. Alsanna doesn't resent hers. Aava is tasked with guarding Alsanna - not the Old Chaos, not Queen Venn, not Eleum Loyce: Alsanna, Beloved of Ivory, Queen of Venn.
Variants of 'Eve' turn up all over EL. Aava appears as a variant of Eve, as the Irish Aoife (beauty or radiance). O'hara the Confusingly Dressed is wearing a Pharis hat, which would be known as an Evlana hat locally. Evlana is an Eve-derived name closely related to Evelyn, such as the pair carried by the exiled Lion Knight we find out in the snowfield.
Alright so explain this Dan Carlin.
From the looks of things, exiles haven't been mercy killed lately. The only two items of note out on the snowfield are the Ring of the Living (retain human appearance when hollow) and the Mirrah Hat, which there's a lot of Mirran shit around, especially if you include Aurheim.
The Ring of the Living is strange, because there's no reason it should be there. I mean, it seems like that ring should tie into the Embedded Sentinel/Milfanito/Demon of Song stuff.
Which, now that I think about it, we find that ring among what are clearly supplies coming into the outskirts, next to that big scary hole in the middle of the world with the incredibly-breakable-looking ice bridge just before the boss fight which I'm slowly getting to. There are two NPC enemies out there, as well as three summons: Head of Vengarl (Venn Guard/Vanguard,) Abbess Feeva (Fever,) and the enigmatic O'Hara.
Right, I also need to talk about arms and armor in Forossa. Golems too, but that's mostly gonna be talked about later, so: REMEMBER GOLEMS.
Ivory left her blacksmith in the Bastille. Maybe her father had him locked up in the old days and she lost access to the place during the war, but McDuff sure would have helped them figure out a way to make some less terrible armor.
Let's assume, shall we, that the Northwarders and the sorcerers that ended up as Fume Sorcerers are examples of late-Forossan armor-making capabilities, with Vengarl being an example of a tankier get-up cobbled together from hide and antique high-Forossan stuff. Most of the weapons we see around Eleum Loyce are enchanted with what seems like 'pure' Light sorcery. This is credited to ivory native to the region, and Fabian's sword seems to be made from Zallen's tusk. These enchantments give their arms an edge in battle, which is good because the enchantments don't scale and the weapons looooooove breaking.
Lud and Zallen
Lud's name, for whatever reason, is Rad in the Japanese script. I think the translation for it is probably meant to be a variant of 'Lad,' as in 'Laddie,' but 'lud-' could also connect to other stuff. Zallen could be something like 'fallen' or the Greek 'solon' (wise lawgiver) or a variant of 'Tsar/Ceaser'.
Loyce Knight Fabian has a sabre made from a tooth and Zallen is a sabretooth carrying a Loyce Knight sword. Does that represent a pact or a conflict between the two? That Fabian presumably made it inside Eleum Loyce would indicate a pact. That Aava might have struck him down would indicate conflict.
Alright, so let's say Ceaser (Zallen) voluntarily allowed her tusk to be severed by an unknown agent in order to make the sword Sir Fabian wielded in an attempt on the Old Chaos, maybe the same attempt that claimed Ivory, maybe a later incursion. For some reason Aava is associated with the actual tusk/sword in question, while the exiled(?) twins are associated with the Loyce Knightesses's arms.
The Loyce Shield/Sword we get from L&Z were carried by the knights (presumably) led by or associated with Fabian, who may have therefore been something like Knight Captain Fabian. I'm starting to suspect that some of the Loyce Knights, 'led' by Fabian, may have initially fled EL rather than follow their lord or wait hopelessly.
As near as I can tell the word Fabian means something like 'belonging to the bean farmer/s,' which maaaaaaaybe has something to do with the black spots we find everywhere but probably is just me chasing down a wrong answer.
Right, we need to clear up some timeline confusion. Let me rephrase: we need to establish some timeline confusion.
Eleum Loyce seems to have existed for quite a while, and there seem to be several distinct time periods associated with the citadel. Before the Ivory King's arrival it's possible that the area was warm and verdant, maybe even a swamp or jungle, given the nature of Chaos. What happens from there gets confusing.
This is all hypothetical-ass ass-pulling, but let's just assume there was already a town there in the squat 'big squares with small windows' style before it became known as Eleum Loyce, and that Queen King built the Cathedral. This would probably have made the settlement into a walled-town, at which point the Anor-inspired architecture would have flourished briefly as the town graduated to walled city.
Something bad happens, the king sacrifices herself, everything goes into failsafe, Alsanna inverts the Chaos' heat, somehow, and 'kills' the city. Things calm down, although everything still remains frozen. Rumors spread, possibly carried by deserters and refugees, and Forossa sends reinforcements to build the big ass wall that greets us when we enter the DLC, although the wall could have been erected by some unexplained soul art. My point is the architectural discrepencies represent different periods in the city's history.
During the period when Chaos grew more pronounced, but before their majesties profaned the flame, the people fled or were turned into demons, although who can say what 'demon' means in this context. We do find a Covetous Demon, but those don't seem to relate to Chaos. We find horses with horns that can cast fucking tons of lightning, as well as a bunch of Sonic the Hedgehogs, but we don't know if those are the result of post-Alsanna Chaos or based on native life or how long they've been there or anything really.
Apart from these, most of the enemies we find in EL fall into the category of either golem or spellsword, with the T-1000 snowmen being debatably either. The common spellsword have a couple of noteworthy things about their design. First, they're wearing masks. Second, the ice that covers them looks like it might be crystalized Dark. This could indicate that Alsanna's ritual affects the Dark Soul in a way similar to how Seath's curse affects the Light Soul.
At some point the 'Ivory Gates were flung open and the land grew cold and lifeless.' This was/is the result of the ritual Alsanna is devoting herself to; using some unspecified art of the Abyss to profane the chaos, causing it to draw heat to its center, rather than have it radiate out like normal fire. Additionally, the place isn't normally lifeless. There are a bunch of relatively healthy-looking trees around the base of the Cathedral, and it's clear that the place is relatively habitable provided no one goes poking around too much.
I don't think the Ivory Gates are the gates on the gatehouse that are 'flung open' as we approach, although I do think this is a similar event. The gates on the gatehouse are black. I suspect the gates were originally attached to either the Grand Cathedral or the (far more ornate but martially non-functional) gatehouse leading to the Aava fight. Alternately, the rose-lined portals we find leading to and inside of the Chaos could be the Ivory Gates.
The 'flinging open' was, we assume, the Chaos lashing out and breaking its bonds, and the city growing 'cold and lifeless' was actually Alsanna slamming the entrance to the Chaos shut by turning the volume up on her ritual.
Alsanna 'turning the volume up' might even be an involuntary response on her part, as it seems like the Chaos reaches out for us - a champion - when we approach. So it seems like periodically the Chaos makes an attempt to break its fetters and Alsanna redoubles her prayer in response. She can consciously alter the ritual to halt the snowstorm and remove the frozen roots, but so long as her ritual is active the appearance of these hazards might be credited to the Chaos. In other words, christ, the Dark aspect of Chaos reacts tot he presence of a powerful Light Soul, and the Light aspects of Alsanna's ritual causes the heat/fire aspect of Chaos to invert to cold/frost.
So when were those gates first flung open?
Nil
They use light sorcery in Eleum Loyce. Mechanically it seems quite similar to the magic of Oolacile. The one sorcery we find in the area describes an initially purely-defensive art being brought into battle. Light sorcery doesn't scale with Intelligence, and this is true both for the Oolacile catalysts in the first game and the Ivory Straight Sword in the second game.
The tigers have two spells I want to talk about. The first is their homing crystal soulmass, the second their firestorm variant.
They cast the soulmass by roaring. So no catalyst right? Hypothetically this might be because the tiger is using her own tusks - the same 'ivory ore' that powers the Ivory Straight Sword - as a kind of catalysts. Right? So that's that sorted out.
They cast Firestorm the same way a pyromancer would. This doesn't necessarily mean that they're pyromancers, but it's worth pointing out. It could be just all of their bones can channel magic. The spell itself is actually quite similar to the Divine Pillars of Light miracle from the third game, only crystalized to the degree that it's more like a crystal stalactitestorm spell.
Why not pure light then?
Alsanna. Her magic seems to crystalize anything associated with light sorcery in a way similar to, but not the same as, Seath's magic.
Otherwise Aava would cast Divine Pillars and Homing Lightmass. Lightnotmass. Lighttimephotondelayarrows. Please somebody help me. The light pillars are 'cursed' (maybe more accurately de- or re-cursed) into the less-impressive-but-still-impressive icestorm spell.
On the other paw, if Aava is a demon or pyromancer of some variety, and Alsanna is actually converting their Chaos Storm spells into Stalactite Storm spells then this would mean something else, right? Except that Aldia does definitely cast a stalactite storm spell, and it looks nothing like Aava's icestorm spell which more closely resembles, if anything, some of the crystals around Shulva.
Right, so, the tigers' spells were originally light sorceries that are auto-converting to a crystalized variant, right? But spells cast directly from the tigers' bones don't. This could be that the profaning ritual is designed to exclude Ivory loyalists. I mean, even that doesn't even apply, as one of the Loyce Knights will even idiotically cast Cast Light when heading into Chaos, and if the ritual excludes the caster (Ivory Straight Sword) but not the cast spell (HSM crystalizes, Cast Light does not, although it would be hilarious if it turned into one of those spherical fancypants drink icecube balls and boinged off her helmet.
The thing about the ISS, and Ivory's own sword, for that matter, is that they're pretty much useless for more than a few swings, but they sure are impressive swings. Presumably this might be because, ignoring that it's a general rule with boss weapons, in order to channel the uncursed light sorcery and be free of Alsanna's influence, her curse/ritual is actually being channeled, still as a kind of frost/antiheat effect, into the bone/sword/catalyst itself, enbrittling it. It's a word. Maybe.
So, Ivory's sword sure doesn't look like it's made from a bone or whatever relatively-useless ore they used for their otherwise sweet-ass rapiers, which may even have come from somewhere like Mirrah or Melfia. Presumably they're an heir, in some sense, of the Olaphian Blue Flame straight sword, one of which Loyce Knight Castlight is carrying.
No, Ivory's sword looks like a straight version of the Nil Curved Greatsword. Interesting enough, however, the Nil sword gains power over time - across multiple playthroughs, in fact - while the Ivory Greatsword exhausts its brilliance almost immediately.
The Nil sword was forged from titanite, archstone, and the remains of a 'peculiar' soul. Presumably something similar is true about Ivory's blade. The main difference, I suspect, is that the Nil sword has a Dark tendency.
My best guess, currently, is that after the Grand Cathedral was constructed Eleum Loyce grew cold, but not supernaturally cold. During this, let's call it Lesser Winter period, EL may have been relatively peaceful and prosperous. Judging by some of the other middle-period structures in the distance it certainly seems like they had time to study architecture.
This prosperity, of course, was coming at the expense of Ivory, whose Vigor was being drained by either/both the Chaos and Alsanna, who initially only desired Ivory for selfish reasons.
It really is a testament to Ivory's character that she was able to resolve her curse while under assault from both sides like that.
This was the period of the Eye Priestesses. We don't know much about them save that they all died or left at some point, leaving behind their retainers. The loss of the priestesses, I suspect, may tie in to the re-resurrection of Brume Tower.
Ivory knew she didn't have long, and set about foolproofing her succession in a way that would have made her (possibly great-)grandfather proud. She had the seven beasts, of course, and we can account for two of them (three if the L&Z stuff is just bad writing, rather than them being some kind of Lothric & Lorian-type split single entity). It's possible Ivory herself sent for help from Forossa and/or Mirrah, and this could account for some of the missing beasts, Fabian's mission, and, eventually, the influx of what appear to be settlers in the area.
When the time came, Ivory took her most loyal knights and made a final suicidal attempt on the Chaos. Possibly this is the event that caused the Greater Winter, but I don't know. If anything I would think Ivory's sacrifice would serve to stabilize the flame. I mean, if Light = Time, then the reason the Chaos Flame burns too fast to create sustainable life could be the absence of time. Ergo, if a big ole Gwyn-descended Light Soul chucked itself into the Chaos, the Chaos might slow down some.
We should also consider that Greater Winter - Alsanna's response to the Chaos responding to the presence of a 'wondrous' or 'magnificent' soul, could have been caused by something like an invasion or mutiny, post-Ivory, led or aided by Fabian and possibly Azal, and quelled by Aava and the Ivory/Priestess loyalists. Unless those were the different factions and I'm just out here pretending I'm not grasping at straws.
Gotta be extra careful not to paint myself into too many corners again here.
So, let's say that when Ivory cast herself into the flames some of her knights and most of the citizens were killed or fled, and Eleum Loyce entered a period of rapid decline as Alsanna, the beasts, and the golems took over for Ivory. The killing storm eventually subsided, but the Profaning principle remains in low-level effect, hence the mortal defenders slowly having their, I assume, humanity or soul converted to crystal. These remaining defenses fall into three broad categories: spellswords, who may be more recent arrivals from Forossa or Mirrah; various golems, immune to corruption, distraction, or the influence of Chaos; and the retainers, who seem to have similar but different interests than the spellswords and golems.
The spellswords, maybe, came from Mirrah. They carry Iron Parma, you can see the design under the frost. The shield is sold by Maughlin and the 'foreign' design doesn't look that different from the designs on the Llewellyn Shield, which is like a slightly improved Iron Parma.
So, Maughlin's from Volgen, Llewellyn's from Mir. So where are the spellswords from? To further confound matters: the Divine Blessing and Sorcerer's Twinblade items, both of which make mention of Melfia, are found next to each other guarded by one of those T-1000 golems.
So they could be from anywhere. I imagine that, wherever they're from, they've had their humanity frozen off in order to keep them bound to their purpose.
This is interesting, because it plays into the 'twin sister' dynamic Alsanna has with Nadalia. Whereas Nadalia 'controls' people by burning away their consciousness and replacing it with herself-as-Dark-fog, Alsanna 'controls' people by removing their Darkness which would otherwise be in danger of fueling Chaos.
Just as a final connection to Nadalia: Nadalia's arts are based on dancing, and we find the Dark Dance miracle in an area with a lot of Retainers, near where we find the Ring of the Embedded.
To get back to the story: things remain more-or-less in stasis with these three factions in the wall/fort/cathedral parts of the citadel, but in the undercity some kind of new society slowly emerges. We don't get much of a glimpse of it, but it would seem to include witchtrees, a covetous demon, and characters like Maldron, Nicholai, and possibly Donna and Aurheim.
Maldron is obviously an assassin that tries to assassinate us in Brume, but whose human form we stumble across in Eleum Loyce. His equipment ties him mostly to Shulva-Heide (and therefore Elana's Neo-Olaphis,) but he's wearing one of the breastplates Llewellyn crafted in Drangleic. Of course if this is meant to indicate an earlier incarnation of Llew's work it could tie Maldron to Mirrah, rather than Drangleic. He carries Raime's shield, which idkwtf unless it's some kind of claimed trophy or meant to help tie Nadalia or Raime to the priestess or jesus why. His name might mean something like 'evil hornet,' as 'mal' generally means bad or evil, and 'dron' could easily be 'drone,' a reference not only to the golems around the area but a type of bee or hornet that exists more or less only to serve their queen. If you're wondering about possible connections to Ciaran: he does seem to be guarding Artorias' sword in Alken.
Nicholai is interesting, because as variants of Nicholas go it's pretty uncommon. So uncommon that a web search mostly returns results relating to a heretical sect of the Church mentioned in the Book of Revelations. The sect, from what I can tell, was never formally denounced or excommunicated, despite engaging in practices hated by, among others, Jesus; such as engaging in prostitution and ritual sex, as well as less sensational stuff like eating food used in sacrificial rituals and following false prophets. Nicholai himself was said to have been ordained by Peter, himself generally viewed as Jesus' first Pontiff. I say all that because Nicholai is dressed like a Drangleic priest. The translation of Nicholas means 'victorious people.'
Donna means something like mistress or 'lady of the estate,' so we can probably assume she was cast away from high society. She's trying to keep us away from one of the Loyce Knights but who knows if she's trying to protect the knight from you or the Chaos from your combined forces.
Other noteworthy 'humans' include Durgo, who ties to both Lanafir and, possibly, Gough or Pharis, as well as the hidden Astoran watchers.
I need to get back to the snowfield HAIL SNOWFIELD
Snowfield
We find an exiled Lion Knight in the snowfield, who seems to be travelling with a Lindelt cleric. We don't even know if they're traveling to or from the city. Or if they're travelling at all, it could be they're overseeing whatever meager emerging settlement we see. These two are patroling the area between the church and the pit.
There are a dozen or so hollows scattered along the path between structures, with the highest concentration, 3, being in the barracks. I mean there's a healing fountain in the barracks why would ever leave?
The reindeer, of which there are 20, form a rough semicircle beginning just past the outpost and surrounding the other two structures, with their numbers growing thicker the closer to the pit you travel. Looks like you could aggro up to 8, maybe 9 at a time if you were really quick.
There's a lot of medicine out there. We find a Wilted Dusk Herb on the body of some guy we ran over, Blackweed Balm in a nearby coffin, "twin" Effigies on a corpse along the path, and a Dried Root near the Mirrah Hat in the Outpost.
The Balms are dropped by Shulvan ants and is described as a 'fragrant oil' that 'affects the mind, granting a fleeting sense of empowerment.' As these enemies may be 'female' or host-less versions of the poisonhorn beetles they may relate, ultimately, to Izalith, but generally seem to be loyal to, or at least aligned with Elana. The Dried Root also connect to Shulva, as they're dropped by the Pagan Tree.
The Amber/Twilight/Dusk Herb class of items describe annual herb that grows on the rocky surfaces of mountains. The plant turns a luminescent amber color when it's ready to bloom, which is at dusk when the moon is visible. After it blooms it 'wilts in the blink of an eye.' The wilted variety is significantly more powerful than the amber variety, but the blooming amber variety (which doesn't exist in-game) is said to be significantly more powerful than the wilted.
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| Lot of creepy blue eyes in this DLC |
There are barrels all over the place in the snowfield. Not all over. All over the sheltered places. The barrels are in good condition, and appear full.
You probably noticed that there isn't anything like a cooperage out there. or stuff to put in barrels, come to that.
Which means these are probably supplies being shipped in somehow.
If you were a foreign interest, the idea would be to, first, scout the area, then set up supply lines and start shuttling food, tools, arms and so on to the Outskirts. You wouldn't start sending soldiers and workers for quite a while, otherwise you're just wasting the food you're bringing while they wait around for more soldiers. Eventually you'll have enough of a foundation to send in the first wave of occupants, mostly guards and workers but probably a few spies/scouts/intelligencers and a state representative. This camp would be tasked with getting the ruins habitable and building basic infrastructure - some kind of wall, guard towers/lookouts, tunnels or trenches between buildings, a defensible route into Eleum Loyce, yknow, latrines a mess hall stables and so on.
When preparations were complete you'd then start sending in the troops for the real occupation.
I think we find Eleum Loyce at some point in either the scouting or early building phase of the mission.
So, who is the interested party?
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| Question: If Aava's Dark was frozen by profanity/lifehunt, does that mean the beasts are naturally Dark? |
We've got three 'important' defenders and three attackers filling similar roles on either side: a lion knight, a Lindelt dickhead, and a Loycian of uncertain alignment (counting L&Z as a single 'person,' which the script seems to).
Between the two NPC enemies. the lion knight and the archdrake king, we find a lot of items connecting to Volgen-Lindelt and Shulva-Olaphis, who, if you've been keeping up, are in a broad alliance that will, in the course of (a lot of) time, become Lothric.
As for the exiles, their presumed alliance might indicate that the Drang and Vol Blue Sentinel (reference Targray and Maughlin) sects are indeed connected both to each other and Shulva, as well as indicate that the Lindelt Sect is indeed using the Sentinels to gain political influence in Volgen, itself a move springboarding into Drangleic in alliance with Carim, probably Lanafir, and various surviving Mir and Foross groups and notables. The inclusion of two Avelyns would further argue that even the crooked market of Fiorenza had been further consolidated to serve proto-Lothric interests.
Right, so, what else does this mean for the larger narrative?
We learned in Scholar that the real story is about the cold war between Elana (proto-Lothric) and Mytha (proto-Carthus).
If the theory I'm outlining in this post holds up, it would mean that control of the Profaned Flame probably fell to Elana's post-True Throne pre-Lothric alliance/empire, which would eventually be overrun by Mytha's neo-Alken pre-Carthus empire of blood, bone, and madness, leaving Elana's team to eventually abandon ship in Drangleic and set off to have Gundyr hijack the First Flame of Lordran. Gundyr, who seems to be based on a misremembered history of Ivory's role in DS2.
Vengarl, who was also a Lion Knight, but appears to have come to some conclusions after his long reflection, but may have been among the soldiers involved in the hypothetical Fabian-led middle-period assault on Eleum Loyce. Vendrick, even, could have been there. If we look at the gatehouse being flung open at our arrival as similar to the ivory gates being flung open due to the arrival of a sufficiently brilliant soul to cause the Chaos to lash out, then it could have been Vendrick's arrival that caused Alsanna's ritual to take on the gravitational heat-inversion property that I just remembered I'm meant to be calling Lifehunt.
Vengarl, I suppose, could currently be out in the snow with the other two trying to put down the Shulvan siege of EL before it begins. Vengarl, when he stopped being a berserker for five minutes, turned out to be a pretty bright penny, and it should be noted that, even after his philosophical awakening or whatever we're calling it, he remains his admiration and concern for Vendrick, the son that may have cost Ivory her kingdom.
As for O'Harrah, type "virtute et claritate" into Google and poke around for a few minutes. Hopefully you see what a weird connection that is.
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| Like, I don' tthink they're naturally frozen, so the fog could be black normally, the stripes could be the same effect as we see with the ivory swords |
So, A group of groups of mercenary interests lead an assault on Eleum Loyce at some point between the fall of Alken and Drangleic's High period, before the appearance of Nashandra and War of the Giants.
Fabian's party, who probably had a story about how Ivory had betrayed Forossa and all the world by siding with demons and the abyss, attack from the snowfield side and come into conflict with Lud and Zallen. Fabian claims a tusk, the twins claimed some traitor Loyce Knights. Fabian makes his way above and is claimed by Aava.
Vendrick's party, largely consisting of former Lion Knights who would have been familiar with the politics, if not the area, would have been secretly motivated (one imagines) by Ivory being Vendrick's mother, enter the city from the mountains and come into conflict with the Priestesses, who may have been aligned with Astoran and Lanifarian interests. I'm completely guessing here, I'm just trying to get some kind of picture together so I can criticize it properly.
My point is, I'm saying two groups of slightly corrupted heirs of Anor Londo come into conflict over a Chaos Flame and the result could be thought of as something like a splintering lightning spear.
Vendrick, High as summer, causes the Chaos to successfully break free and demonize a significant portion of the city. The literally-a-lion knights are either created then, or by Aldia attempting to recreate the effect. Vendrick, of course, eventually figures out what's going on a returns home, but probably some significant events are set into motion, like Raime's betrayal, the arrival of Nashandra, and the future theoretical Lindelt-Mirrah-Shulva alliance we find trying to lay seige to the city.
[scratches head for half an hour]
The bridge across the pit is designed so that either side can collapse it, with probably the golems serving as Decider on either side.
Lud and Zallen are charged with the mercy killing of exiles. So what is mercy?
Mercy is what you offer when you can no longer offer hope.
So,
If mercy isn't on offer out on the snowfield,
Maybe hope is.
