Elden Guess 03 - Eochaid's Wake

Eochaid is described as a lost Between Land. If you look at the map you can see that it looks like most of limgrave is under the ocean, and you find Eochaids Regalia in an area overlooking this area.

Eochaid, historically, was a fir bolg king. The fir bold, or bag men, were giant war wizards (equivalent to the Norse frost giants,) that ruled the world before Godqueen Danu overthrew them and ushered in the age of the Fey

Eochaid was the last king of the fir bolg. He was viewed, possibly, as a sun god.

Eochaid married Etain. Hypothetical long time readers and lore psychos may recognize etain as the star-crossed lover of Midir.

The story goes that Midir appeared to to long-lost lover Etain, who had married Eochaid, and tried to convince Etain to leave with him. Etain agreed on the condition it be with Eochaids Blessing.

Eochaid challenged Midir to a game of fidchell, something like chess, checkers, or go. Midir, being a brilliant fidchellist, let Eochaid win early on, let the king raise the stakes, and then sharked the king of queen and pride.

Eochaid, obviously, was furious and sent all his best men to kill Midir. They failed. The story continues but, well, this is the part I want to focus on and celtic mythology is even more impenetrable than souls lore and there's no way I'd make it less confusing. Long story short is the whole debacle brought the king and his kingdom to ruin.

Welp time for work hopefully I finish this later

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Elemer and Marias

Elemer kills patches, who dies, apparently, trying to rake the dancer's castanets. The spinny sword attack elemer thing does is described as a dancing blade. In fact, most of Elemer's connections beyond House Marais connect him to Volcano Manor.

Right?

The head of house marais and tanith both wear the zamoran-style death mask helmets associated with arcane-shading-to carian characters. Tanith's is based off of a queen. Tanith, who may have been Daedica at some point before the Long March, was flayed for adultery & hedonism, became a dancer in a foreign land, and went on to become the head of the volcano manor.

the head of house Marais is described as a castellan. A castellan usually refers to one of two things: an appointed governor responsible for overseeing a castle and environs OR

a jailer. Or gaoler. We find Eochaid's Regalia in a Gaol.

Elemer has killed patches and marias, and is implied to have killed or is trying to kill Bernal, Muriel, and at least two nomadic merchants. Elemer's shield, and it's hard to make out so I'm probably wrong, appears to depict a knight clad in red astride a bed of fire or vines, flanked by two skeletons. This could be a reference to the splitting of the Destined Death rune.

Elemer is described as a sinner who has been sentenced to death, and the briars are a symbol of this.

I think tanith may be from house marias. I mean she runs a prison town that is a castle and sends execution orders all day.

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Was wrong about the dragonflies; theyre not baby astels theyre baby rot priests. The worms are baby astels though.

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Bernahl sure is weird huh

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Radahn scourged the stars and his sister ranni because the stars were fucking up f azula. Chunks keep getting knocked off by meteors. The place is closely associated w godwyn, and radahn loooooooved godfreys clan. So he protected their sky castle, and this would have been after godwyn befriended the dragons, and now the sky castle is filling up with godwyns deathblight.

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Crucible knights gear and eochaid gear is made from primordial crucible gold. This material allows it to be manipulated by willpower. C knights use holy gold energy, eochaidians, or elemer at least, seem to use blood magic.




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The copper ore of the dancing blades allows them to be controlled by willpower alone. It always confused me how the valkyrie prosthetics worked, but I think it may be that they're made out of the same ore and utilize the same technique. We find Eochaid's Regalia in the gaol in western Limgrave. House Marias are described as castellans, a word that means both overseer of a castle and jailer. There's a picture of what I assume is Malais' father or grandfather featured in Volcano Manor (same robe, but with a bearded mask). This would probably mean that Marias' authority was derived from Rykard/Volcano Manor. Rykard, as Praetor, would have derived his power from Leyndell as a kind of head administrator for various unsavory activities Marika didn't want tied to the Capitol or Golden Lineage.

As such, Volcano Manor probably oversaw the confessors (the emblems on the confessor and gelmir knight sets are very similar,) and definitely oversaw the inquisitors (Ghiza) before the Shattering. Why is that important? Because the confessors have a closely guarded secret magic they use for maintaining momentum while using twinblades (twinblade talisman) and the inquisitors seem to have access to the same technique (ghiza's wheel). The confessors and inquisitors seem to have been replaced by the Iron Virgins as Rykard descended into gluttony and, eventually, the inside of a giant snake.

So, if the above all holds, we have something like the following.

Rykard was given or pillaged the secret of Eochaidian dancing magic. Rykard, incidentally, seems to have a thing for dancers. This was then passed to the confessors and inquisitors, House Marias and, eventually, the Virgins. The technique is also used to forge Malenia's prosthetics. Malenia would go on to use one of these prosthetics to Destroy Caelid and Rykard's brother Radahn, Radahn being one of like three people Rykard seems to have respected judging from the portraits in the Manor. Eventually, Rykard becomes functionally absent and Tanith becomes the de facto praetor, but house Marias goes on to side with Malenia. This last part is especially interesting since Gelmir doesn't seem interested in killing Malias for what should be considered a betrayal of Rykard (Radahn utilized Virgins and is shown fighting Morgott in the Shattering). Tanith's reasoning may be something like "well, Malenia bested Radahn and our motto /is/ 'The strong take', so I'll allow it."

Getting back to Elemer. Elemer is marked as a sinner (thorns) and seems to wear them as a badge of pride. If it was Marias, under Rykard, that marked Elemer as a sinner and sentenced him to execution then it brings up one of my two big questions about the whole thing: Why doesn't Elemer show up anywhere on Mount Gelmir?

The second question: Did Finlay pass through the Shaded Castle on the way back to the Haligtree with Malenia?

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The world map has some s going on. We all, hopefully, knows its a big curls finger by now and that the finger is decaying.

The boats around the map represent, like, prophecy. If you don't understand prophecy it's like this, following the Weeping knuckle up to the Moonlight knuckle.

A parent and child sail towards the church of pilgrimage. The pair face scylla and chrarybdis coming into the outlet (I ain't looking up the spelling bite me mythology nerds). Yet, the pair, clad in blue, look behind them. The clouds behind them are distant but storming.

A similar pair, save these look ahead, make for Morne castle.

A third pair, poorly equipped and faded of color, sail away from Morne and towards maelstrom.

A large ship, sailors clad in blue flying under red flags, sails for Raya lucaria. The ship is doing well and seems to be making good progress.

A slightly less impressive ship, unflagged, makes for fort haight. The ship seems to be doing poorly, and at least half the crew currently appears to be naked.

Now,

I think these various boats and their crews represent outside influences and/or interests and their relationship with TLB. From what I can tell, theyre the only people on the map.

For example, I think one of the canoes probably represents godreys return, with the child figure representing nephili, as the Tower of Return seems the be where it is specifically to teleport someone powerful directly into leyndell.

I think the barrel of goods represents eochaid or another land lost to the waters, and the waves seem to be pushing the barrel towards either the dragon church or the well-equipped backwards, facing canoe.

Unfortunately, despite being in the navy for almost 6 months in the 1990s, I don't know fucking anything about boats other than to stay off them.

They might represent outer gods, or kingdoms, or individual champions/demigods, or some combination of the above, but I don't have any real ideas beyond the return of godfrey thing. There are a number of other boats/objects. Have fun speculating. 👍