In Three Days - rK

 One of the things From keeps coming back to is the idea of r/K selection theory. This is the idea that, when presented with reproduction, life generally adopts one of two strategies: high rates of low-investment offspring or low rates of high-investment offspring. We could think of bacteria or insects as more r-type and whales and humans as K-type. It's kind of an obsolete theory as the whole thing is more like several overlapping spectrums of this-and-that in the real world BUT it makes for a great worldbuilding and gameplay concept.

Bloodborne, if you were fortunate enough, really drilled down into the idea with the different eldritch gods being so unique and advanced that they couldn't reproduce at all, however comma their parasites and bacteria and bodily remains could be used by us humans to evolve over a single generation, thereby becoming something more like Them to the point where a kind of elaborate cross-pollination fertility ritual can be undertaken [d mcredgrave the paleblood hunt searchitup]

It's also been a concept in Elden Ring that we see elaborated on with Marias, a very bloodbornian boss, even before the variant fight.

Normally Mary starts fairly aquatic and becomes more so during her second phase, adding a veil and long jellyfish tentacles. She also hatches ten thousand babies to help her and it breaks her heart a little bit every single time you kill one, you monsters. 

During her variant fight she acts less like a bonobo and more like a chimp YES I UNDERSTAND THIS ANALOGY IS OBSOLETE AS WELL NERDS IT IS USEFUL NARRATIVE SHORTHAND IRREGARDLESS [insert a picture of a wrestler doing the D-X "suck it" thing here {fuckadahoakhoagansheiki4everbaby}) - FM]

Ahem. By that I mean she doesn't try to make allies in her variant form, she tries to solo us, the players. She acts individualistically rather than communally. She doesn't approach the nightfarers as a problem to be solved, but a threat to be destroyed. This is reinforced by her first phase being her bubble invader form rather than her regular ethereal cloaked alien form.

I think marias was maybe supposed to be the next Elden Beast the Dynasty Claymen were/are heralding. I further thunk her regular form second phase summons are related to the Elden Ring base game jellyfish, and the spirit worms of the expansion. Especially the spirit worms. Their lack of direction and order seems to be about the only thing to say about them, which lines up with marias description as a sentient entity that didn't know enough to know that it was sentient until it and the Night noticed each other. For the jellyfish, they seem to be aware of and in communication with each other, and we see with Aurelia's sidequest that at least some of them can retain or reclaim memories and personality traits of their former existence, even if only as some kind of ghost echo. Or like a parrot if it was a ghost echo fuck idk they're like powered by a ghost echo, unfinished business in life, searching for a long lost home, etc.

Both spirits seem to spawn in areas associated with unclaimed dead bodies, which could imply that had the claymen's prophecy come to pass, the nameless, forgotten bodies spawning these things would have otherwise been warriors and champions and visionaries of a The Lands Between where Marias had become god.