AI 009 - Profane Use

Alright I'm going to try to update this one. I'm terrified of this because it always effs the formatting all to hell and I like to cut paragraphs I think I don't need and then not notice all the references to the cut material until later. If this all looks like one of those newspaper scrap ransom notes I promise you it may have looked better before.

Cuz storytelling hard. 

2019 to 2023 here go.

I'm miserable. Lonely. Hair under my skin. I hurt and I want to fight and I want to drink and I want to throw a dart at a map and just walk away. From everything. Again.

Except I been where all the darts go and it ain't better and drinking would be a death sentence for me at this point anyway. Fix here. Try. There's no soil I would ever take root in anyway.

My partner really needed comforting and reassurance. I didn't have any to give. I feel so fucking rotten I'm gonna work on this stupid random off the cuff update until they wake up for work and try to have breakfast ready and be passable simulacrum of the person I should've been 3 hours ago.

Everythings good though. or as good as it's ever been for me, hard to imagine better. I don't know where I'm going with this update wish me luck.

Back to the show.

Look at this. It's the Old Dragonslayer. The Old Dragonslayer is Ornstein's hollow. He is hollow because he relinquished his lords soul when he left Anor Londo. He left some time after Gwynevere and seems to be waiting for word from her. Don't worry about that, that's not what's important right now. Look at this:

That's a Dark Lightning attack, right? Those aren't common. 

Now, look at this, same boss, same attack:

What looks to me like's happening is the Dark Lightning is being converted into some kind of blood/stagnation field attack. The visual effect/spell is called something like 'poison swamp.' Whatever it is, I've convinced myself that it is very important.

Right, one of the lead theories about this has it that Gwyndolin or somebody used O's soul to create the puppet Ornstein we find protecting Gwynevere with Smough. This would meant that the 'real' Ornstein - the hollow that had acted as host for the Lords Soul, could have begun a new 'life' as a starting character, only with the fading memories and muscles of a dragonslaying god. This is an echo of the journey that King Nameless took, because they're born from the same Lords Soul, which will always be a variation of the Heroes Journey. I don't think all of the Light characters are based on the Heroe's Journey, only the Lightning Spear/Sacred Oath characters. 

It led Nameless to Forossa, then to Archdragon Peak. It led Patches on a merry old journey that I promise i'll try to outline at some point. 

Ivory, Patches? Really?

It led Ornstein to Olaphis, where we find him serving a foreign religion and not even bothering to hunt a nearby dragon. because he isn't a dragonslayer anymore, he's a Princess Guard. THE Princess Guard, maybe.

Except he's using Smough's buttslam attack. The 'real' Ornstein lands superhero pose.

So...

Maybe we fought the real O in DS1, and that he THEN renounced his post after his defeat to Solaire (canonically for the purposes of this series,) and took up residence in Heide somewhat recently. Hell, given the timeline, it's possible the Old Dragonslayer may have passed Vendrick the Bastard (the canonical Dark Lord from DS1, again for the purpose of this series), on Vendrick's way to Lordran to fight a golem created from Ornstein's Lord's Soul. We'll call that the latest point in time he would have left Lordran.

In the last post I mentioned Gael, and how he's spent so much time playing around with his soapstone that he knows how to exploit a bunch of weird glitches only he knows about, like arriving after a delay when being summoned or summoning himself via soulsign to teleport. 

As an example, he really wants you to to kill Friede and Ariandel, but because of his slavely vows he's unable to raise arms against members of the White. On the other hand, if members of the White are found to be engaging in things like necromancy or igniting a forbiddened fire (both of which appear to happen) he would probably be free to act in his capacity as executioner and do what's best for the larger institution. 

Why bring that up? Because if you're broken the way I am you think EVERYTHING has a lore explanation, and when you believe that you start noticing things like that, which also includes things like ODS's overly-elaborate jump attack.

Fallen Ornstein, who may or may not have absorbed part of Smough the Cannibal, charges up a dark lightning attack, but rather than coming down on the spear, he flops on his ass and blasts out what looks like a kind of Wrath of God dark/blood magic attack. Which is still fucking impressive, just not very majestic looking and over in like 2 frames.

ODS, maybe, hasn't mastered his own Dark Soul yet. If he wasn't human when he started his journey, he is when we find him. It could be as simple as he doesn't have the stats to pull the attack off anymore. 

If it's even blood magic, but if not for insane theories we'd still be hearing the same boring af Vaati explanations.

I mean I love Vaati, but he's certainly not gospel and I personally would be horrified to think someone like him still agrees with parts of his early work at this point.

Lost Legends

So if the red/black thing indicates blood magic are red phantoms related to blood?

Unless I missed something, the first and most noticeable time we find allusions to blood magic in the first game is with all the Jeremiah the Impaler/notched whip stuff in the Ariamis Painting. Since the Ariandel Painting is an attempt to restore Ariamis, you could almost assume that the themse of blood and ice must involve a similarly forbidden fire being intentionally drowned in the first painting. At least until rot sets in, which it kind of looks like it is already, and they I guess all set up a ballot box and voted to burn their world down.

But do they burn it down with the fire in the painting? Because I really am starting to thing that the fire in the second painting is the first first flame.

Because the first flame went out. Extinguished. Doused. Faded, past tense. Not. Lit. There Is No Fire In Lordran At The Time Of This Writing Please Advise, Love Gundyr.

We find someone wearing Jeremiah's set in the Dark Chasm in the second game, but it's pretty clearly not the original King in Yellow. I mean they're called Pretenders aren't they? I don't know if that's the wiki name or in-game name. The thing is is the Dark Chasms are heavily implied, if not outright stated, to be the remains of the Chasm beneath Oolacile. The implication may be that Jeremiah left the Painting and gained some admirers, but Heysel and the Xanthous Scholars seem to be the product of a blending of the histories/sorcery of Jeremiah (and possibly this implied cult of Xanthous Prince Pretenders in the Abyss,) and Princess Dusk (and whatever story Elizabeth told everyone after we came through in the first game). Except the X Scholars aren't light sorcerers or dark/chaos pyromancers. 

No no non o NO IT"S TURNING INTO A JEREMIAH POST YOU HAVE ONE OF THOSE ABORT

-

We find the Bloodshield in Ariamis, which mentions the fact that blood is enchanted, and boosts resistances in the Painting.

Blood. Blood in the game Dark Souls. All of it's enchanted. Not important I guess.

I goeth whence I want, lady

Skeletons and katana users use bleed.

It makes sense for the Dead to rely on Bleeding, since not only are they immune to it, but blood loss seems to be required if an undead/undying is to achieve true death. At least until some kind of saturation point is reached, as we find in the third game around the Cathedral of the Deep where literally the ground is enchanted because of all the blood and the rockworms, remember them, they fucking love the stuff.

Like I said not important or somebody important would've noticed.

Katana users are a bit more perplexing, as they're almost all pyromancers, but there are enough non-pyromancers for me to not think of them as explicitly a weapon from Izalith and the Eastern Land/Jugo.

The Eastern Land is Jugo. Jeremiah's from there. Look, this all checks out you can roll your eyes and say I'm just making random connections and I totally don't blame you for not reading, like, the entire this because holy shit I can't even remember if I've explained the connections at this point in the series.

Katanas, as well as the Claw weapon, with the maybe exception of the Chaos Blade, come from the Eastern Land. It's not at all clear (No, it is clear there are lots of connections there is more proof that Jugo is the Eastern Land than there is proof that Big Hat Logan is called Big Hat Logan because he wears a Big Hat - Updater9000), but it could be that this Eastern land is actually Jugo, as the two ronin-archetype characters we meet in-universe, Alonne and Shiva, both have unusual relationships with pyromancy, look like Samurai, and have an animal charge on their pauldron: a lion for Shiva, an ant for Alonne.

Ants are really important to the story too. But not this story.

My personal best explanation is that Jugo probably borders the Great Swamp, and that a princess of Izalith (or possibly a prince or even a group of refugees,) fled Lordran shortly after the advent of Chaos, passed through the Swamp, and settled in Jugo. The Swamp pass-through planted the, ahem, seeds that would eventually give rise to Salaman and Quelana's school, while Jugo would eventually align with Mytha and Agdayne's neo-Alken/Carthus following the collapse of Drangleic. Jesus this must sound crazy if you haven't read the rest of this but people click on this post for some fucking reason go read from the beginning weirdo.

The problem, of course, is that Jugo is described as being east of Drangleic, and the Eastern Land is described as such from Lordran's perspective and, like, is the place literally called "Eastern Land" in Lordran even though?

Look, Jugo must also be south of Mirrah, which would put it southeast of the Dragon Shrine, on the other side of the southern mountains. If Mirrah is Balder, which I'm only slightly less certain of than EL being Jugo, then there's probably more we could work out.

Blood magic I'm supposed to be talking about blood magic.

Another, much more iffy example of blood magic in the first game is the Gravelord Sword Dance. If you watch close you can see your PC's hands light up red and blue as you go into the cast animation and you know how I feel about blues and reds. The spell literally has you pull the taijitu of a soul apart and use the energy to cause a Firestorm but Swords.

It says "Many eyes were offered" in order to create the miracle, which makes it seem like you gotta go full Event Horizon to even gain access to this technique, at least normally.

The Bleeding

 I don't have anything new to say about the Brotherhood, but I did notice - and think it's weird - that they don't seem to have access to blood magic. In fact, I don't think there are any characters from Alken, save for arguably Vendrick (he was half Anor-olaph-venn descended, which may be the X factor,) with access to blood magic (Vendrick has a blood magic attack). 

I mean, that doesn't mean Alken didn't have access to blood magic, it's pretty rare stuff, but it's also pretty common. Well, not in DS3. 

Elana, on the other side, seemingly does have access to blood magic, and can use it (and other stuff) to do things like create 'living ghost' soldiers.

They emit a 'bloodstain' style Soul effect when you break them. I bet it smells like 7-Up.

Alonne's sword's 'spirit' functions off of blood magic, but is associated with the pink aura of flame sorcery (Rapport, Demon Firesage's spells,) rather than the black and red (non-fire) effect we see with blood magic. 

Alsanna has access to the same flame-to-frost magic as Priscilla, which I'm gonna go ahead and classify as 'lifehunt' until I decide otherwise. I mention it because ice, blood, and Chaos seem to show up together a lot, and Alsanna is linked to a Champion of Chaos devoted to dampening a flame, just like Priscilla and Jeremiah, and El/Friede and Ariandel.

Because it's the same stories over and over.

Since Ivory was likely of Anor stock, if not a Heavenly Child of Gwynevere, it makes sense that we wouldn't find, like, obvious blood worship all over the place the way we do in the Paintings. The reason for this may be because a Chaos Flame has a different relationship with blood than the Flame of the bonfire, which doesn't seem to interact with blood at all, unless it's applied directly, in which case the blood will squelch the fire, while Chaos would render the blood to ash.

[HEY FUTURE FUTURE ME, PUT A PIN IN THAT RE GUNDYR'S MISSION - JUST FUTURE ME; will did, old future me, you're welcome and you've been so unhappy lately because you don't have a real creative outlet, old future me and also me from last night - Updater 9000]

Vendrick has an in extremis plasma orb attack he'll chuck at you once about every three thousand years. I think it might technically be a pyromancy, as it's palm cast, but that doesn't necessarily mean much, as it seems like the majority of caster bosses in DS2 are implied pyromancers/palm casters.

In case 'palm caster' maybe isn't self-explanatory: a lot of bosses (and other characters,) in the second game shoot spells directly out of their hands, particularly Soul Stream-style spells, rather than with a catalyst. I think the reason people use catalysts might be something like 'casting a soul arrow feels like having a soul arrow rip through your palm' or something. Second game palm casters include the Iron King, Nashandra, the Giant Pyromancers in the Giants' Memories, and Navlaan. [and Aava Lud & Zallen, poser - FM]

Can't forget about these guys and their blood obsession, either

Plasma Orb and Dark Lightning

So I'm calling the blood orb attacks, like what Vendrick or the Pilgrim Butterfly shoot at you, plasma orbs, and there's a reason for this despite blood plasma being, literally, xanthous in color. This could be misleading because plasma, apart from referring to refined blood, can also relate to matter in an ionized, superconductive state. Plasma is, well, fascinating and complicated, but involved with a lot of electricity-related stuff, like lightning, which is the end result of a channel of plasma being created from a storm cloud to the ground.

Also, I'm explicitly not talking about blue lightning or Deep/Maggot-based blood magic.

Plasma orbs fall into a couple of broad categories, and I am absolutely not certain what technically does and does not belong on this list. I try to be liberal w/r/t inclusion but supply explainers for why some things might not qualify. Plus I'm probably forgetting stuff. The two categories are body-based and earth-based.

Body-Based

• Vendrick's Spell
• Dragonslayer Armor's Keepers (includes a kind of blood-based Soul Stream attack)
• Ariandel, at least to some degree
• Ghru Leapers
• Gael (the skull orbs seem to erupt from inside him and then get absorbed by the earth. Or you)
• DS1 Catacomb exploding heads (these create a pink WoG style explosion I associate with the Flame Sorcery of Izalith. The non-respawning Mass of Dead enemies in lower New Londo also spit them out. I include them because they're clearly the inspiration for the Elder Ghru and Gael's blood attack).

Earth-Based

• Elder Ghru
• Gravelord Sword Dance (This may be one of those things where the color scheme was changed slightly between games, or it may be completely unrelated)
• Fallen Ornstein (inverting the plasma attracts lightning mechanic)
• Gael (demonstrating the plasma attracts lightning mechanic)

So, what about Black Lightning?

Apart from Ornstein and Agdayne (if I'm remembering correctly,) it mostly shows up in the Lost Crowns areas. Specifically the Fume Sorcerers and the Imperfect [I had a thing about the EL reindeer thing here, but I can't tell if they're shooting dark lightning or not HAIL SNOWFIELD]. 

I doubt that the Fume Sorcerers have much in the way of personal identities left, having been subjugated by Nadalia, and we know nothing about them except that they arrived after Nadalia [I think they may be related to the missing Eleum Loyce Priestesses]. Their use of the lightning, prayer circle, and Emitted Force schools miracles would tie them to...well, this is interesting, isn't?

df

Emit Force is described as a foreign derivative of the Wrath of the Gods tale in the first game. The foreign country being Catarina (from Catherine, one of Miyazaki's Favorite Names). 

In Drangleic Emit Force is told by Targray, as are Wrath and Force. This would seem to imply that, from the Way of Blue's perspective, Emit Force is gospel, so to speak.

Anyway, this kind of reunification of the High Anor diaspora is only ever seen in glimpses and mostly only in the second game, where the White are outlawed. And maybe most notably with the Fume Sorcerers.

And they're loyal to Nadalia, inasmuch as there's a they there.

On the other hand, they cast their miracles as a sorcery, and without a real catalyst apart from their daggers which, like all post-McDuff Olaph/Venn arms, are garbage at being actual weapons.

The Imperfect spit black lightning orbs as a kind of breath attack. Given their location and that they look like dragon/serpent/pus of man hybrids it might be an early example of some kind of Deep magic. It might just be the area they're in, but their orbs seem 'wetter' than the others, somehow.

I think Agdayne uses a dark lightning attack during the bossfight with Velstadt, but I don't know if Agdayne's ever actually finished casting it, for anyone, ever, before V clobbers him. Remind me to go back and try to see it, because it's probably important. I'm pretty sure he has a casting speed of 1 or something though. I should just have him beat up some hollows or something duh IM BRILLIANT.

So, from all of this we can then start making even shakier conjectures and say that blood magic and 'non-standard' lightning (blue and black variants) seem to have some kind of implied magnetic relation, possibly similar to that of plasma and lightning irl; a kind of inversion of the usual 'Dark pursues Light' truism caused by manipulating Dark in a liquid state.

So I'm sure there's more to this story, but I'm going to move on to the third game, as briefly as possible, before doubling back.

Luckily I'm limiting myself to Dark Lightning, so I ain't gotta explain this.

March of Droplets

The third game is loaded with blood magic. It's first on clear display in lower Farron. The Ghru Elders - the giant dog-faced guys using tree stumps as club/catalysts - can cause clusters of homing plasma skulls to spawn from the ground and pursue the player. These are probably related to the spirits of the fallen that the Watchdogs are charged with, uh, watching.

The Leaper Ghru also use blood magic. If they successfully grab the player they can be seen tearing at the Ashen One's face and throat with their beak, and when the player is released the Ghru gains an apparently blood-based Power Within style buff, minus the HP drain effect caused by overheating your actual blood.

The Ghru are a species reminiscent of donkeys and/or mules, in that they're both hybrids and have a hard time reproducing. It seems like Ghru with forehooves, rather than forearms, are crucified, while hand-having Ghru are allowed to live in some kind of Dr. Moreau of the Flies society. I say that because the 'acceptable' Ghru run a fairly wide gamut of 'civilized' behavior, with some behaving like hounds and others casting a combination of pyromancies and miracles.

The Leapers, if I had to describe them in a word, are rigid. They stand Straight Up. They Are Upright, Buddy. If you've seen the first season of Daredevil, and minor spoilers if you haven't, they remind of the dichotomy between the raging, violent, narcissist fail son Inner Child behind Wilson Fisk's facade of meticulousness, faux austerity, and seemingly bottomless calm.

The Elder Ghru and the Common Ghru look like different species. The commoners seem like a mix of Capra and Crow heritage, while the Elders look like a mixture of giants and wolves. The nearest connection I can make, and it's pretty iffy, is between them and the Millwood Knights, who are not only abnormally large but are associated with wolves and use earth-based magic attacks. Alternately, they may be descended from the Stone Knights of Darkroot, as they drop those guys's gear.

I think blood is probably one of the main components in the soil around both lower Farron and the Cathedral of the Deep. And probably the Painting as well.

In fact, we find the legendary Notched Whip as soon as we enter the area, in the gatehouse chapel as soon as we arrive. We also find Gael, who, at least in the distant future and in desperation and during an apocalypse, has access to a sort of reverse and Full Badass version of Fallen Ornstein's goofy clutch attack.

The third game WoW, at least around the Cathedral of the Deep, are obsessed with blood. I'm pretty sure this is what has led to the maggot infestation. Honestly, this part of the game is why I abandoned Prisoner of Ash.

Low blood pressure

Then we come to Carthus.

Carthus, near as I recall, doesn't have any blood sorcerers, but does have an obsession with blood. We learn in the Cathedral that dying from blood loss slows reanimation, likely due to the nature of reincarnation. since the blood would be in a different area than your body it might take longer to return to 'home' than if you died from something like internal bleeding. Probably that's what causes long loading screens amirite.

Hypothetically, if all your blood dried up and couldn't return with your body you wouldn't be able to return home upon death, which may be the common characteristic common to all third game forlorn: when killed they eventually just respawn where they were killed.

When you consider how Elfriede and the Painting Girl talk about the bonfire it's almost like bonfires are invisible to them. This could have some kind of relationship with the process of becoming forlorn. If you don't know what I'm talking about exactly, look up the descriptions of Homeward, both the miracle and the bone. I'm saying if a corvian or Farron Follower tried to use a homeward bone they'd probably just rematerialize right where they were standing, which may explain how Gael's self-summoning 'glitch' works.

Now, if you read the other series you know I think that, following the events in DS2, the Age of Dark ushered in by the True King of Drangleic eventually evolved into the empire that preceded Lothric. The empire was composed of elements of Volgen-Lindelt, Way of/Blue Sentinel, Shulva, Carim, Foross, Olaph, and maybe even Mirran descent. This empire can be thought of as Neo-Olaphis, in that it was broadly a blue, Anor loyalist faction, although Elana was probably viewed as something like the first queen or founding deity.

Much like how Olaphis was originally founded, a large group of colonists, in response to a mounting threat, set off for Lordran and the legendary First First Flame.

The nature of this threat can be thought of as Neo-Alken: the large, red, Drang loyalist faction. This kingdom would become known as Carthus as it went on to become the new empire when it conquered Neo-Olaphis. Neo-Alken was composed of factions loyal to Alken (Unclear if this includes Nadalia,) Jugo, The Undead Crypt,

And, like the legendary Drang hero Sir Yorgh, they literally and figuratively drowned the old empire in blood.

Unlike Farron, who follows a path toward blood magic, Carthus followed a path towards pyromancy based on the Black Flame of Humanity. I don't even know what that means, really, still.

We find blood magic again in Upper Lothric. During the Dragonslayer Armor fight, the Pilgrim Butterfly unleash probably the most impressive display of the stuff in the entire series, including Plasma Orb barrages and something like a giant blood-based Soulstream laser.

In the Painting DLC we find, of course, Ariandel using a mixture of Dark Blood and bonfire fire to resurrect Friede - an act of necromancy that I suspect allows Gael to exploit a workaround in his enslavement and attack members of the church.

I ain't even gonna with the Ringed City right now.

Conclusions

It seems like there's something like an evolution of blood across the games. In the first we have Priscilla and Jeremiah, possibly guarding an unlinked Flame and keeping it dormant with the blood of humans and chaos pyromancers.

Later we find a split between magical and mechanical factions. On the one hand we have Shulvan priestesses - descended from Olaphis in their methodology, if not intent - using blood magic to create phantoms and, I suspect, Imperfects, living ghosts, Elana's 'mire,' and they may even be using it to sort of reverse engineer things like Chaos Pyromancy (Thomas, Elana,) and Black Lightning (Imperfects, Fallen Ornstein).

Bear in mind: they also have quite a lot of (septic) dragon blood to play around with, as did Mytha.

Mytha is not only more red/aggressive than Elana in her tactics, she's also incredibly blue in the sense that she's smart enough to be incredibly utilitarian, subversive, and cunning. She may have gained access to black lightning from Agdayne, who would probably be a dope paladin if he wasn't so terrible. Although she doesn't seem to have access to plasma based magic, she does have access to an apparently pure line of Izalith pyromancy, possibly in the form of a lost Chaos Sister in Jugo.

This diverging path of pyromancy would eventually lead Wolnir and his pyromancers down a path towards the Abyss, at which point Wolnir, and by extension Carthus, surrendered and the war that Lordran-Lothric-Farron were losing badly abruptly came to an end, with Farron and the Way of White victorious and they all lived happily ever after hooray.

The Way of White, under Carim, would inherit the mantle of the 'blue' Notched Whip/Shulva school of blood magic, but rather than using Bleed for-or-directly-against Flame, they used it to turn the stagnant mire of Elana into Aldrich's vision of Deep Waters. Ariandel the Totally Not a Big Crow is involved in this, I suspect.

The Watchdogs, then, become heir to the plasma orb/Sword Dance 'red' school of blood magic, save for the Pilgrim Butterfly's relationship, which I don't understand yet, but suspect involves Elana managing to stay just ahead of Mytha from the time of in-game DS2 through to the Fall of Carthus/Thorolund-Carim Merger.

I think I'm gonna cut it here, because I honestly can't go any further without talking about Blue Lightning and a bunch of other sort of unrelated stuff. The next post will probably be about Archtrees and the Age of Ancients, which I've been bumping that post for a while now because stuff keeps overtaking it.

AI 007 - Cordial Intrusion

Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.

- Original ditties for the nursery. I guess British people think rattle and quarrel rhyme.

Yes, they had cinderblock in Anor Londo. No, I don't know if it's lore relevant.

This one is going to be about cops. Specifically I'll be outlining the Darkmoon Blade, Blue Sentinel, Way of Blue, and Brotherhood of Blood covenants and how they seem to interrelate. I try to avoid talking about third game stuff in this series because deep waters are still. I do, however, go into stuff around Lothric Kingdom a little bit just to point out how the story really does connect across the games and From really did intentionally design the games the way they did intentionally when they designed them.

Blades of the Darkmoon

The Blades of the Darkmoon are Lordran's secret police. So secret that even a lot of Darkmoon Blades (DmBs) don't realize they're the secret police. The covenant is overseen by Knight Captain/Prince/ess/King/Queen/Pontiff Gwyndolin, last of his name. In what seems like an unusual division of power, the covenant's guidelines and judgements are overseen by Velka, a rogue, seemingly omnipresent (in the mundane spy network sense) deity mostly associated with Carim. It could be that Velka & Gwyndolin share or at one point shared a close bond, as both would seem to be the central authority figures for the Blades.

The most notable mechanical aspect of the covenant is the namesake miracle, which traditionally uses faith to channel sorcery. This is at odds with the traditions of both Velka's church (pardoners use intelligence to channel faith,) the Way of White (faith is faith and excessive thoughtfulness should be distrusted,) pretty much any jutsu-class school of magic, which either prefer INT or a even-ish mix of the two.

In other words, Gwyndolin is a faith-based sorcerer and Velka is an intelligence-based cleric. Both are implied dexterity builds, between Velka's association with rapiers and Gwyndolin's use of the bow.

We don't know much about 'Darkmoon,' either. It's associated with the feminine, of course, and appears purple in color, making it appear closer to a hex (Dark Blade,) than a sorcery (Great Magic Weapon). Astrologically it's represented by what I assume is a waning crescent moon.

Gwyndolin herself uses what appear to be the more common 'sky blue' Moonlight/Ruin-based sorceries, which I can't make sense of beyond something like the DmB miracle actually being a blessing of Velka that Gwyndolin hadn't had the chance to earn. I mean, ten ears would mean ten people found and attacked her since she took up residence in the crypt. I think that, like Princess Venn, it wasn't a case of Gwyndolin lacking the martial skill or talent, but having been born to a station very rarely threatened by violence in a way survivable.

The reason for the Darkmoon being associated with a kind of light-ish purple might indicate the nature of the covenant itself: a union of the light and dark aspects of the Anor and Carimite faiths.

DmBs, like sorcerers, tend to be Dex builds when not casting. Gwyndolin has a magical bow, Oswald [I know he's not a DMB, but he does function as a priest for the Blades, plus Cromwell is gonna tie into all this in the sequel post, whenever that happens] carries Velka's Rapier, and Sirris an Estoc.

Sin falls into two broad categories, PvE and PvP. PvE sins include making an NPC hostile, angering a god (Gwyndolin, Alvina, Priscilla,) or destroying the illusion of Gwynevere. All of these sins can be absolved by Oswald, but the sin of destroying False Gwynevere will immediately be re-incurred after paying for its removal.

Destroying Gwynevere also counts as a PvP sin, and opens the player up to Blue Eye Darkmoon invasions in Anor Londo. Other PvP sins include being indicted by another player (Oswald sells indictments,) being kicked out of a covenant for breaking the rules (abandoning the covenant doesn't count,) or answering Alvina's questions for some reason, regardless of response. PvP sin cannot be absolved, but will be removed point by point by dying to a DmB. Players with PvP sin will appear in the Book of the Guilty.

Finally, we can farm the covenant ranking item, Souvenirs of Reprisal, from the Ariamis Crow People. Presumably this means the Crows could be considered DmBs, but I suspect they respresent some kind of precursor or off-shoot sect, possibly relating more directly to Velka.

Of course, the Blades have been discussed to death elsewhere, so let's move on. In the next few sections I'll be discussing the WoB, Blue Sentinels, and Brotherhood of Blood covenants from the second game.

Oh yay I left my HUD on oh boy

The Way of Blue

The Way of Blue is, I think, the first covenant the player is able to join. Crestfallen Saulden serves as the covenant captain. Saulden is also, as near as I can tell, the first Crestfallen we find in a From game whose condition improves over time, which makes sense. If you've already lost everything and given up you have nothing left but to find something new and get started, right?

Saul's dialogue has a few interesting insights. When he tells us about Heide, and he can see Heide from his perch, he makes the Sentinel covenant sound more lively than it is, and suggests the Venn/Alken gate contraption is locked in the Alken position in his world. He's one of the very few, maybe the only, character to directly mention Firekeepers, and does so in a way that makes it clear that the actual Firekeepers are long gone.

Saulden gives us the 'time is convoluted' spiel, and a part of this involves 'fissures between worlds' that allow things like soapstone messages to cross over. 'Saulden's Fissures,' therefore, is what I call the principle by which items and entities are able to cross over. I don't know if it covers everything from Crystal Lizard despawns to auto-summoning to paintings and mirrors, but I've been operating under the assumption that they're all related to this same 'school' of 'magic.'


Saulden carries the Ring of Steel Protection, associated with Knight King Rendal, Balder in the first game, and Mirrah in the second (Lucatiel and the Looking Glass Knight carry the +1 and +2 versions, LGK is potentially related to Mirrah via Llewellyn,) meaning that Saulden is likely from Mirrah.

Ruin Sentinel, Castle Drangleic

A discussion of stuff specifically related to the covenant follows.

Joining gets the player the Blue Seal ring.Increases HP 3%. "The Way of Blue is not a developed religion. It is a humble prayer that spread naturally amongst those seeking help...When apostles of Blue are invaded by dark spirits, they can receive assistance from masters of other worlds." The ring shows what looks to be an almond-shaped leaf.

Rank 1 nets us the Bloodbite Ring. The bite rings aren't tied directly to Carim in the second game, but do state that all of the bite rings likely come from a common source: a master craftsman who 'clearly knew his trade.' The ring can also be bought from Cromwell (Carim connection) and the +1 version can be found in the Shulva DLC.

Rank 2 yields (running out of synonyms here,) the Hush sorcery, known as Spook in the other games. The Hush variant is linked to the Shadow Knights of Mirrah, who are contrasted with the Official Order that gave us Lucatiel. The Shadow order are described as assassins who 'quietly carry out unspeakable tasks.' The spell can also be found in the Ruin Sentinel arena in the Bastille. Given the name change, I suspect we're meant to assume that Hush is an example of convergent evolution with the Vinheim school, rather than a divergence from it. The Shadow Knights themselves have a crest on their face-masks that matches the crest on the Manikins' shoulder, despite at least some of them having been mercenaries under the employ of Vendrick.

Rank 3 gets us the Blue Tearstone Ring. Besides being thematically appropriate, it also connects to Carim/Caitha. Well, if we want to be logic lords about it was associated with Catarina in the first game, but like I still don't really have a clue with the Profaned Capitol or the Seigward/meyer stuff and how you end up with a Sunbro with weird connections to Caitha, but on the other hand that's basically what we find in Lothric so who fucking knows. The ring features a tear of mourning shed by the goddess for 'those who have lost loved ones.' This ring is also found in Belfry Luna. The red variant is found along the path towards Aldia's Keep, in that gross puddle with the inexplicable white birch tree. It's possible the ring's location has something to do with the schism between Vendrick (heir of Venn) and Aldia (heir of Alken). The red ring has a tear shed for 'the undeserving dead.'

So the first five thousand times I looked at that list it made zero sense to me, but a pattern is finally starting to emerge here: Carim, Mirrah, Olaphis-Venn, with Elana ruling in place of Ivory of Venn.

Blue Sentinels

Joining the covenant gives us the Guardian's Seal, which autosummons to a Blue Apostle's world to protect them from invaders. "The ring is engraved with the crest of the WoB, symbolizing the dignified oath to protect each world's master from dark spirits.' The crest shows an elaborate clover or flower variant of the Blue Seal leaf.

Rank 1 gives the Spirit Tree Shield. This is the version that appears in the third game, and the one carried by the Drakebloods, not the variant carried by Targray. It has terrible stats but allows for spell deflection but seriously has terrible really terrible stats. It weighs 5 units which is 5 units for an unbelievably terrible shield that has like ~58% average reduction because it's terrible. The shield mentions the allegory of Quella. This and other Sentinel rewards are sold by Wellager in NG++ but don't buy it because it's 10,000 souls for a terrible shield. You can get the version Targray has in the Iron Keep at the end of Belfry Sol. It's comparably useless but easy to get.

Rank 2 is Wrath of the Gods, the enigmatic root miracle of Force.

Rank 3 is Bountiful Sunlight, one of Gwynevere's miracles. Passed down through the ages, 'this miracle, once kept by the Lindelt Monastery, was stolen and never recovered.' This is the same description Licia's Soothing Sunlight miracle carries. While I'm glad they dropped the mechanic, it's weird that they went from these being Gwnevere-covenant-exclusive miracles to only being carried by people that stole them. Well, and Wellager, but fuck Wellager he's the Spirit Tree Shield of ghosts he probably stole them himself anyway. It heals 840 HP over 2 minutes according to wikidot which is not impressive but maybe it's a case of stacking it with a mushroom  and a root and a lifegem and the Evil and Wicked Eye effects or something super useful like that. So either get halfway through NG++ or be summoned into and successfully dispatch the invader of another player's world FIVE HUNDRED TIMES and the miracle's yours.

These guys are Blue Sentinels. Or the ones in Heide are, at least. It's implied in the Design Works interview that the Throne Defender was maybe related to them.

Cracked Blue Eye Orb - Sentinel exclusive item. Invade and punish the guilty. They cost 10,000 souls each, but unlike the Spirit Tree Shield are useful. They're dropped by the Old Knights of Heide and the Wicked Eye red phantom Sentinels on NG+.

Token of Fidelity - Shows the depths of the holder's fidelity. Can be used to heal the host during cordial intrusion or used to compete in the Sentinel arena.

Wicked Eye Greatshield - Weird, right? It was originally called the Guardian Shield. It's located in the Gutter. I haven't come to any conclusions about the Gutter yet, but I do know that anything down there is very, very old. The connection with the Sentinels is via the two NG+ red phantom Sentinels (weird, right?). And they carry Blue Eyes, so they're definitely Sentinels.

Finally, and this is a much less solid connection, but the Ruin Sentinels could possibly have represented a precursor line of Sentinels during High Olaphis. These in turn may have been inspired by the Giant Sentinels of Anor Londo, who seem to function as Princess Guards. Even further back we have the painting in the (I think) Red Room of Anor Londo, which shows an extra giant Giant Sentinel against a background of either the Dragon or Chaos War. I'll be discussing them more in a post about golems.

Brotherhood of Blood

I'll probably be discussing these guys in the Targray post, as well as others because they're incredibly important to the plot of the third game, but I wanted to outline some of the relevant stuff.

Cracked Red Eye Orb - 'The residual sins of those who have succumbed to dark temptations are contained in the form of the Cracked Red Eye Orb.' Farmed from BoB Torturers around the arena, as well as the Majula pigs and Fallen Giant salamanders. 

Bloodied Whip - "A tool made for a purpose forbidden by the gods." Gosh I wonder why. Torturer drop. I'm sure there will be an in-depth discussion of blood magic eventually.

Nahr Alma set - 'Those who profess faith in Nahr Alma have rejected all that is this world, and now vow to travel a path stained with blood.'

Curved Twinblade - Rank 1 reward. Weapon from a 'foreign land' that causes bleeding. The blades are more reminiscent of scimitars than katanas, in case anyone's wondering if it was Alonne's. 

Crescent Sickle - Rank 2 reward. Enchanted by magic, but not intended as a weapon, rather it was used as a ceremonial instrument. It looks like a spear stabbing a Darkmoon crescent. Mytha seems to be the source of magic in the kingdom, so I assume this is her doing. The Grave Wardens and flesh golems, also aligned with Mytha, carry similar weapons. I don't get why there's so much Darkmoon symbolism around, unless it's being done in mockery, like 'oh, don't go doing blood magic sez the person that thinks /she's/ the secret and forbidden and magic snake queen of the gods? I'm gonna  make a bunch of razor sharp sickle weapons in honor our proud proletarian heritage and let the waters of Alken flow eternally in the name of the light of the eternally waning moon, how bow dah?'

Scythe of Nahr Alma - Another ceremonial scythe sold by Gren. This one is enchanted with dark, but this is no place for talk of such things. The statue of Nahr Alma is carrying a measure, implying that s/he is a god seeking balance rather than sheer mindless carnage.

Great Scythe - The description makes it seem that the reason the scythe is so revered as a weapon, despite being a terrible weapon when you think about it, is because scythes leech power from the 'fears of those hunted by this fearsome thing.' The hunted being, yknow, those people who generally have cause to be afraid when the scythes and pitchforks come out. Like colonizers or kings. The idea seems to be that certain barely-weapons get sort of mythologized via folk tales that should be more about the people carrying the arms than the arms themselves. The Great Club is another example. In other words, the BoB functions more as a folk religion than the 'official' folk religion of the WoB, even if it is a death cult loyal to an undying mad forbidden waterbearing poisonous snake witch queen enchantress of the dead. with horns.

Great Chaos Fireball - Rank 3 reward. Mentions the Chaos Flame devouring the mother of pyromancy. Mytha has some kind of pyromancy grow operation happening, and Jugo seems to have aligned with her. Aldia, of course, seems to have been an expert on the Chaos Flame himself, although I don't think that's related beyond Al being Mytha's son. It's possible all the pyromancy stuff ties in with the Lost Sinner in some way more than it does the Iron King, himself a likely pyromancer.

A lot of the BoB-related stuff relates to rituals, more than even the much more overtly religious Blue covenants. The only kind of underlying philosophy talks about 'the bitterness of the grudges the holder has accumulated,' and a knowing commitment to forsake 'all that is this world' in pursuit of the Brotherhood's insane objective. Clearly it lines up with with Mytha-era Alken's grudge against...well, everyone, eventually. 

If the Blue Sentinels are the Darkmoon Blades of the second game, it could be that the Brotherhood of Blood are the heirs of the old Warrior of Sunlight faith, which seems to have been buried/abandoned/forgotten by Alken at some point during the rise of the Iron King, maybe as a result of the rise of pyromancy in an echo of the downfall of Sunlight Maggot Solaire. It could even be that as the Venn-aligned Sentinels began to infiltrate the Way of Blue there was a schism, resulting in one faction turning into a kind of 'evil Sunbro' red faction.

Discussion

I'm trying really hard to not talk about the third game. I do need to point out that the WoB seems to be the state religion of Lothric via the Priestess, and that Lothric Priestesses look like DS2 Fire Keepers. Emma, of course, gives us access to the covenant, but the Shrine Handmaiden (via her interactions with Sirris,) seems to think all this 'soppy gossip' about 'cordial intrusion' is a fool's errand, probably because of the loss of Gwyndolin. Carim seems to have switched sides from Blue to White at some point, and the remaining Sentinels would seem to be more or less beseiged by both Sulyvahn and the White, as well as whatever Gertrude/Angelic/Londor/Pilgrim/Kaathe civil war is transpiring.

So that's all a mess, but we at least know where we need to land. As outlined in Prisoner, Carim was allied with Drangleic/Lothric early on, but switched sides to Lordran/Thorolund when the two factions came into conflict. By my reasoning, Carim is in charge of Thorolund, rather than the reverse, but it's unclear if Carim accepts/approves of either Sulyvahn or post-Firelink Aldrich. Probably I could work out an answer but I've already talked about the third game more than I meant to MOVING ON.

Shulva looks to be aligned with Lindelt looks to be aligned with Carim looks to be aligned with Mirrah looks to be aligned with Balder (Mirrah is already fallen in the Cursebearer's time, and Balder had fallen by the Chosen Undead's timeline,) with Lothric coming out the other side, with early Lothric at least partially beholden to Carim (never underestimate Carim). So there you go.

Discussion for real though

Right, so let's start with the Way of Blue. It was a folk religion that probably arose during and as a result of the Iron King's rule. Since then the faith has split into the Brotherhood and Sentinel factions, with the Sentinel faction ultimately loyal to Anor Londo and Olaphis but functionally loyal to 'Light' Mirrah, Shulva, and probably Lindelt-Volgen. These people are going places.

The Brotherhood faction can be thought of as Alken loyalists. With Aldia and Vendrick gone the throne is uncontested, and Mytha has filled the vacuum with what can broadly be thought of as Drang loyalists, as well as Jugo, the Undead Crypt, probably the Rat King, 'Dark' Mirrah, and probably Vendrick in his time. 

Currently my best working theory as to what happens is the Elana-Sentinel-Carim-Lindelt faction seizes power after the Cursebearer takes the throne, and consolidates power in what would eventually be known as Lothric.

Mytha continues to win support to her totally not insane vision of unleashing an invincible army of flaming skeletons to drown Venn in the blood of its own defenders, eventually giving rise to Wolnir as the 'Reject the Throne' Champion who would chase Olaphis/Carim out of Drangleic for good.

In other words, the Sentinels win out in the short term.

The Way of Blue gives the player rewards that specifically help cowards stand against the Brotherhood's onslaught: bleed resistance, defense bonuses, and a spell to help them sneak around. The Sentinels and Brothers, however, receive rewards that clearly mark them for who they are: a red and a blue faction fighting a civil war that's been repeating since Gwyn first linked the Fire. The main difference is that the war has happened so many times that everything is beginning to 'twist,' yes as in 'twisted souls,' with each side coming up with different red and blue components, like Vendrick the Red's capacity for scholarship and reflection, or the Sentinels' allegiance to Elana because of her title (of Olaphis,) rather than who she actually is (a child of Manus).

I feel a lot safer making the connection between the Pus of Man/Lothric Wyverns and the 'clandestine rituals' of Shulva, specifically the Imperfect and those pain in the ass immune-to-weapons ghost soldiers.

Also, if you're wondering, yes the reason there are no pictures of the DmB miracle is because I didn't want to farm ears.

AI 004 - Translation Notes/The Stone Garden

Boyd - from Celtic boidhe, or yellow. This form of yellow has more of an association with gold or sunlight than a word like 'xanthous,' which invokes something like rot or illness. Boyd can also mean 'lucky' or 'grateful.' A modern English variant could be something like Blondie. In modern Gaelic (this is from the Beltane Wikipedia page,) the festival of Beltane is called La Buidhe Bealltain, or The Yellow Day of Belenus (the Fair Shining One). This is generally translated to the outside world as Bright May Day and marks the advent of summer. Ashen Knight Boyd, therefore, might be retranslated as something like Shining Unkindled Knight or Beaming Knight of Ash.

Boyd is an Ashen Knight (we assume,) which in the context of DS2 Ashen Knights are related to Nadalia and her champion, the Fume Knight. Given that the Irithyllian nobles obviously knew the importance of the Smelter Throne it means that there's a possible story there. 

Boyd, possibly, slays a 'dragon' in what may have been his homeland with the Freja/Tseldora/Duke Aldia stuff. Possibly he fights a stand-in for Lugh, another Celtic sun god, when facing the Mirror Knight: the thing that shows you what you are, really. 

I'm sure all that's not important or more people would've commented on it by now.

that witch only embraces itself...

Dark Souls is smart. This gets commented on a lot.

Language is important, and as Chomsky tells us: 'language isn't real. There's just ways people talk that are more or less like each other.' Or, to put it in Insufferable Stirnerist terms: language is a spook.

It evolves though, just like everything else. Language wends it's way through history twists, a mad uphill flood across brief centuries, a thousand tributaries born from a central river spat from the great ocean of life, crissing and crossing, creating lakes and marshes and valleys of dialects and sub-dialects and 'right' ways of talking and 'wrong' ways of talking.

Why is this important?

Because maybe it's important, maybe it's not.

There's a Celtic holiday called La Boyd Beltane, which means The Golden Day of Belenus. There is a character in-game, possibly even associated with Boyd, that partially shares the name of Belenus: Llewellyn of Mirrah. 

The name Llewellyn means Lugh-Belenus.

My point is, Dark Souls is full of weird linguistic shit like that. Is it lore related? Fucked if I know, but if you allow that it is then it doesn't contradict any of the other weird 'this can't possibly be lore' things that seem an awful lot like they're lore that I've been outlining for however long I've been doing this.

I'm willing to allow that, further, the interplay of these languages, the Gaellic and the Latin, the inscrutable Aramaic stuff, the fleeting but pervasive Old Norse, is all lore-relevant. Now, I'm not saying it's something that can be understood from the outside, but I'm at the point I'm convinced that the miraculous "prayer circles" or those words coming off of Quelaag or the Pinwheel Lantern tracers are all some kind of understandable set of languages, we just need to save all our boxtops and send off for the decoder ring or something. 

I also think that, since my dumb experiment with translating the Crushed Eye yielded pretty surprising results, I'm slightly less crazy for thinking that literally anything that looks like language in Souls really is language, even if we haven't been able to find any reliable cyphers beyond Futhark=Titanite Runes.

Vorgel the Sinner - From proto-Germanic fluglaz, meaning 'bird' or 'that which flies.' Same root we get the word fowl from. Vorgel is apparently another of Raime's soldiers. Where Boyd shared a connection via ashen knighthood, Vorgel shares an association with birds. Additionally, it should be noted that Vorgel is specifically a sinner, in an area associated with the Lost Sinner, and is dressed in armor based on armor based on Paladin Leeroy's.

Ever since I found out what his name means I have been unable to think of him as anything other than Fowl the Foul.

Fowl the Foul his name is Fowl the Foul.

Stachoos

There are a lot of statues in these games. Some of them appear in more than one location. Here are some of the ones that stand out to me. I like to think of them as riddles, as well as some of the many reasons I don't and will never have a six figure income or normal human relationships.

Mother

This is the statue that kicked off my weird obsession. This character is depicted most prominently in the Undead Crypt, where we find three different versions. First is the skull-headed version, shown as being worshiped by various robed figures. The second shows the goddess in her more common, human form. This version appears alone, but is bordered by skull-headed cherubs. The third version of the statue appears like the second, but has a large candle melted onto her head. Upon lighting the candle we're presented with the message ['when the flame is lit shadows are revealed']. Additionally, in the Scholar update, lighting this statue causes the braziers held by the giant Leydia statues to light up and the red phantom cleric knights to appear. Killing the cleric knights will gradually cause the Leydia braziers to extinguish.

The Mother figure also appears in the Fort of Fallen Giants, prominently and obviously and usually completely overlooked, in the overgrown Cardinal Tower. This version is blood-stained, and is found in a room with Melentia, a bonfire, and a Divine Blessing. The vegetation in the room is some of the healthiest in the series, the room is directly above the salamander pit, and the tower is surrounded by crows/ravens and heavily associated with Raime.

The statue, or a version of it, can also be found in the Iron Keep. just before reaching the area where Armorer Dennis and the Shulvan loyalist invades is a kinda-but-not-really gatehouse structure featuring several statues. At the top is the statue, depicted as an angel. The statue is covered in chains that appear to be symbolically tying her down.

Finally, the statue appears in the third game. In the final hallway leading to the Twin Princes boss fight you can turn around and find a version of the Holy Skull Mother mural from the Undead Crypt. This version has two cherubs holding a crown over Skull Mother's head. The goddess's face is obscured, implying that the mural could be either the human or skull form, or might represent an 'ascended' or unseen incarnation of the goddess. Or, of course, be a reference to her buried history.

Maiden

This one is more obscure. In the Cave of the Dead in the Shulva DLC, an area no one in their right mind has any reason to visit, hidden in a nook around a blind corner, is a large statue of a praying woman that spews petrification mist.

It might as well have been a taco truck for as much sense as it made to me for, like, years.

I say she's praying, but she could just as easily be singing or puking or something.

Playing around with Chameleon one day I realized that there are several areas in the game with unique transformations. You can turn into Elizabeth in Amana, for example. Around the Ruined Fork Road bonfire, the area associated with the statue of what I assume is something like Gwynevere/Queen Olaphis/Princess Venn the Bountiful, the player can turn into a small version of the Shulva Maiden. The Shaded Woods deserves its own post, so we'll come back to this then, if it ever happens.

Trying to connect the areas we find her with any kind of 'what I think happened' theory is pretty impossible, but what I think happened is that the Flower Dress belonged to Elana, long before she became the Queen. The Pharros Mask, I think, is meant to inform us that Pharros

• Was Shulva's - maybe even all of Olaphis' - architect.
• Had a big beard like how a Gyrm'd have.
• Gots a big old case of the sads.
• Was strong against fire, but weak against lightning. And maybe fatally weak against Dark.
• Probably died a long time ago, maybe was even killed by the royals under Elana.
• Still in the running for Left Shoulder Guy on The Rotten

But so who was the Maiden?

I haven't found any other copies of her, at least not anything similar enough to say I'm sure about, but her association-by-proximity to both Elana and a Gwynevere stand-in has me convinced that she must have been someone important, like maybe the Cardinal of Shulva or the matriarch of the pre-Elana faith of Olaphis or the first firekeeper of the second bonfire system.

Her robes look somewhat similar to a Way of Way Maiden or, again, the retired firekeepers or, again again, the statues holding vigil along the High Wall of Lothric. Also again: I'm not sure about any of those.

Melentia best waifu. No, I'm right, you're just remembering wrong.

Crone

I'm dumb, okay.

This statue caught my attention early on. It's old, older than the Bastille, I imagine. It's in a room next to a giant, almost-new statue of who I assume is a gloating Aldia approaching the peak of his madness.

Aldia would like you to know how impressive he is.

Around the time Ashes of Ariandel came out I realized the statue was also in the third game.

Around six months ago when I finally played DS:R it finally finally dawned on me.

I had seen this statue before.

Often. A ridiculous number of times. Uncountable times.

I had seen this statue, dozens of them, nothing but them, long corridors of this statue, over and over, for years. The only way FROM could have made this statue more prominent would be throwing to a cutscene showing the statue and just the statue any and every time my genius ass goes chasing after wizards.

Well yeah and like her, obviously, jesus christ why even have eyeballs

Right, so obviously this is an incredibly important character in all three games, and she's depicted as getting older over a very, very long time. She was probably the master of the Archives before Seathe took them over. The statue of her in the Bastille may have been brought by the colonists, or it may have been a statue of one of the colonists. The statue in the third game is of an obviously older person, but the gesture is unmistakable.

She seems to be associated with Seathe, in that she was probably an object of his obsession in High Anor Londo. This may have carried over to Aldia, who had possibly been poisoned by the Ruin in Tseldora. The Ruin, from what I can tell, doesn't like make Seathe possess you like a demon, but sort of warps one's natural instincts and desires into mad, paradoxical obsessions more in line with Seathe's psychology.

Her statue is in the Lothric Archives in the third game, but mostly in out-of-the-way places, like on top of bookshelves. The copies of her in the Ariandel archives are prominent, but have had their head removed, indicating that the original scholars - either the native crow people or Way of White/Blue painting restorers - saw her as good, while Friede's order saw her as evil.

I think the dynamic here might be something like Inviting Wisdom = Beckoning Ruin.

Her appearance in the third game is evocative of the Priestess Pillar, but her location and history would seem to associate her with the Scholar. She looks, in the third, quite a bit like the Way of Blue Firekeepers (who I'm convinced basically are the Priestess/WoB in Lothric).

By that I mean that, since Lothric was founded by descendants of Drang, Forossa, Mirrah and so on, their understanding of firelinking is informed by the events of the second game, hence the inclusion of concepts like firekeepers appearing somewhat uniform (Saulden's dialogue, Black Firekeeper's Set,) 'Going Beyond Death' (marketing,) or firelinking champions needing to first get kill-married in order become a true king/queen (Nashandra & Vendrick/Cursebearer, Yuria's questline).

Sentinel

This character appears most prominently in the Cathedral of Blue in heide, and is probably Targray's 'Great Sentinel.' We find a copy of the statues head just past the Shrine of Winter. The fact that there's a tree growing over it seems to indicate that, like the other ruins, it probably pre-dates Drangleic. Other 'copies' of him I'm less sure about.

Sentinel in the Sky, I can get twice as high. Take a Look. It's in a book. WHY BRAIN WHY

There are a couple of similar statues that I think may relate to it. It should be pointed out that the 'Aldia' statues have a very similar Balder-esque greatsword, as well as a scroll, which may relate to Aldia being heir of both Yorgh's martial prowess and Mytha's sorcery.

The first is on the Iron Keep bridge support thing I mentioned in the Silent Goddess description. The pillars holding her statue up each have two statues, one of a young scholar - possibly Aldia - and the other a young warrior - possibly Vendrick.

I get the feeling the chains, the warrior, and the angel are meant to symbolize OIK's Cluster B disorder, while the Aldia statue is meant to symbolize him starting off on the wrong foot. Or hand, in this case. Important note: IT PROBABLY DOESN"T EVEN REPRESENT THEM

Finally, there's the Bearded Sentinels watching the ocean at the Fort of Fallen Giants. These statues are of a much older character carrying a greatshield. The head of one of these statues serves not only as the gate leading to the Pursuer boss fight and one of the Watcher Trees, but also acts as the ball in the ball trap leading to the Giant Lord boss fight in the past. Presumably the head is severed by the Giant Lord when he sees us approaching.

These last two statues probably aren't of the Sentinel. Their helmets are different, for one. They may, however, each represent Vendrick, first as a young prince of Alken (although he was probably kept in ignorance of his heritage and just served as captain of the guard or something similar,) and the second as the ascendant king of Drangleic. The war against the Giants spanned generations, with the giants probably attacking in waves with the defenders spending the time between waves making repairs and searching for reinforcements. In the past we arrive at the end of the war, shortly after Vendrick quit the field, and find Capt. Drummond, whose grandfather served as a Captain in the same war. So it could be that the Giant Sentinel is supposed to be the middle-aged Vendrick who started the war with the Giants, with the Giant Lord symbolically ending the war by cutting the statue's head off after the much older Vendrick finally retreats.

So, who is the sentinel?

The Blue Sentinels serve the same function as the Darkmoon Blades. You could almost think of them as a Blue faction's Red faction. In the third game they /are/ Darkmoon Blades, they just don't always know it. If the Iron Keep Statues are meant to represent young Aldia and Vendrick, then this red/blue relationship could, in a sense, be mirrored in their relationship. For example, Aldia was the rightful king under Alken, but as a blue character chose to instead help his very red brother become king so that, as duke, he would be free to pursue his work.

The King of Olaphis was killed by Sir Yorgh, Captain of the Drakeblood knights. We don't know who Yorgh was, really, apart from sharing the twin dragon charge with kings Alken and Vendrick. Vendrick, in the time of Alken, would have been a bastard and probably wasn't welcome in the Iron Court, at least not as a prince. I mentioned above how he may have served as something like Captain of the Guard (Yorgh or the Great Sentinel may once have filled a similar role in Olaphis-Shulva,) before leaving to find his fortune in Lordran.

The Older Sentinel at the Fort of Fallen Giants has an inverted Odal/Othala rune on his helmet. From Sunny Way 

Othala: O: Ancestral property - 

Inherited property or possessions, a house, a home. 

What is truly important to one. 

Group order, group prosperity. 

Land of birth, spiritual heritage, experience and fundamental values. 

Aid in spiritual and physical journeys. 

Source of safety, increase and abundance. 

Othala Reversed or Merkstave - 

Lack of customary order, totalitarianism, slavery, poverty, homelessness. 

Bad karma, prejudice, clannishness, provincialism. 

What a man is bound to.

Odal as inheritance or ancestral lands lines up with Vendrick, as does the merkstave presentation of totalitarian descent and being bound to bad karma. As with a depressingly large amount of Norse imagery, the Odal rune figures heavily in fascist imagery, because nazis love stealing shit.

There's a break in the wall where a giant sword has lodged itself in the fort. I can't tell if it's meant to belong to the statue or the giant lord. It looks like the statue's, but it would be impossible for the statue's sword to have embedded itself there. You can climb up this sword to find a body with a halberd that looks as if it's been specifically arranged in a kind of sky burial. Infantrymen will drop down from above and attack you if you ouch the body. You also find the arms and armor of the Captain of the Fort near here, minus the helmet, which you collect from Drummond in the past.

This would seem to present someone in Drummond/Raulmond's line as a candidate for the First Sentinel of Drangleic, rather than Vendrick. Given the game's tendency to basically invert every story the second time I wouldn't be surprised if my last post was wrong and Drummond is somehow descended from Flann or Gwynevere or something.

Whatever the case, neither of these possibilities sheds much more light on the Great Sentinel of Blue, unless we allow that Yorgh was both the Great Sentinel and Vendrick's ancestor and that Vendrick served as Sentinel for both Alken and Drangleic.

Of course, I may be completely wrong about everything and just spent most of the morning making myself crazy over nothing.

The Mural

One of these things is not like the other.

I have a whole post about Elana and Shulva planned, but it took me a long time to realize that this wasn't just the same asset recycled for Shulva so I don't know how it connects or why it changed. Sure, you could say they had to move the staff wielder because of the door, but then why would you change the wyvern or other supplicants?