AI 027 - Like a Stone, Like a Rock, For Those About to Rock, and other butt rock bangers

 I keep having this idea and forgetting it. I've been ignoring souls lore mostly pending nightreign, which I will consider canon, same as the comic books and slashy Souls. But consider it an outline and happy Easter. 

Petrification showed up in ds2, and figured pretty heavily in the story. Straid was petrified centuries before we arrive, rosabeth was petrified (possibly) days or months before we show up. 

It's instant death, mechanically, which was caused by the curse in the first game. In the second game the curse functions as the -5% total hp penalty you suffer on death. It's also an example of lore contradicting mechanics as it should be a permadeath for your PC.

I think the lizard guys in Amana are turning into basilisk, and basilisks cause petrification. The layout of the level has these guys tied to the milfanito, and the final tower with the weird statue, milfanito, and great swamp pyromancers is surrounded by basilisks.

Aldia decided petrification was going to be standard opsec for his territories (lion soldiers, ornifex, the gremlins, the giant basilisk in the keep, the eyeless basilisks in tseldora...)

The kingdom of the rat would seem to be the faction most cosely tied to this school of "magic".

As a school of magic it seems to be nestled between stone/earth magic and death magic, it's associated with "vermin" in its natural state (rats, basislisks), but is also associated with some of the smartest royal-court-associated characters. It seems to be opposed/countered by "life" magic, but in particular the light green plant magic we find associated with CHLORANTHY and stamina regen via the fragrant branch, rather than Izaliths various visions of fire and fire's own tendency to lead to petrification (demon ruins, ds3 asylum demon).

Oop times up, update to follow maybe

Fragmentary Scrawl

I think I may be close to starting to understand the actual story of Elden Ring. To paraphrase Sinclair Lore, all of this shit is going to be obsolete in 9 months, so let's proceed with some more final guesses.

• Miquella is ushering in the Mother of Truth. Mogh's goddess is the lesser god they're channeling to draw the attention of the outer twin bird death god they're fishing for.
• The bloodfiends are the highlanders, Hoarah's people.
• Radahn said "No thank you".
• There were 3 trees to start with, post-crucible, but the Bellurat and Leyndell factions turned on the Elphael faction early on. There's a third broken off root you can see on the scadutree from the hinterlands.
• Marika bonded with Eiglay when ascending to godhood, it's how she became 'eternal'. Messmer was a variation of this, Rykard is trying to replicate this.
• Messmer and probably Melina were born from marika and eiglay, possibly in the crucible after the 'original sin' of burning the Erdtree with Eiglay's serpentine fire. 
• The Base and Abyssal serpents, all serpents really, were children of Eiglay, who was probably a queen and either the prior mother goddess during the Dynasty or the death goddess during Marikas ascent (hence Rykard's apparently illegitimate claims of kingship [Tanith doesn't identify as a queen, Morgott is the one on the throne of leyndell, and Rykard {iwouldfuckinghope} isn't married to Renalla, the other current queen he is a prince under]).
• Godwyn may be a pre-godfrey snake baby as well
• the political implications are that Rya is probably the MOST important NPC in the game, being a daughter of one and grandaughter of two other queens. Shame her family are all incel libertarian fascist techbro dorks.
• Ranni is considered an empyrean despite apparently not being born of a single god. I think this is because she's the child of a single other god, possibly the fell/sun god or whatever the god of winter and the moon is. But the what, you say? Radagon has giant blood, rennala is a troll and has giant blood, ranni is a giant, giants are associated with the sun god, or it's feminine reflection the moon, not the tree god. Similar story with dung eater.
• The blood swamp outside Moghs palace is making the gen2 albinaurics turn red, grow omen horns, and periodically generateand expel sin briars.  This seems to be intentional, as the only silver frogs we find seem to be stuck to the upper levels waiting for this to happen before they're allowed in the swamp.
• The line between omen and hornsent is the death of the goddess that became the Mother of Blood
• Briars are associated with both the blood goddess and the burning of the greatree
• Erdtree sap is poison to hornsent and the effect seems to be both ways. Albs exist outside of the grace of the erdtree.
• I think the ripple that created the albinaurics was the death of the old goddess and the destruction of the greatree. I think, in some sense, this was all the same event, possibly also coinciding with the first eclipse, the theft of the rune of death, and maybe even the fingerslaying
• Ranni makes it seem like the theft of death, the creation of the black blades, and the night of black knives all happened in one night. If this was a permanent eclipse then okay, but if it was a normal night then there's no way they could've done all that in like 8 hours
• Between the two headed turtle talisman and the turtle neck meat it seems like the shadowlands are south of the erdtree lands. 
• The Godwyn corpses we find in the shadow catacombs have rootballs made of corpses, but Godwyn's roots seem to be more accepting the corpses, where the erdtree rootballs look like a force feeding.
• The basilisks in the shadow catacombs are growing bright green lichen and have 'mermaid tails' that more closely look like the Prince of Death's lower half.
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