the normal looking house in the nowhere

 All this stuff's gone now.

There was a field behind my house with a house in it. Our house looked like it was on a normal street from the front but the back just opened up. Big empty field dry as tinder nest to spider thorn and centipede. Sometimes a horny toad sometimes a snake. And there was a normal house out there, a small one but normal, the stuff around the house wasn't normal unless you lived in nowhere then it was at least understood. There was a kid lived there with his uncle didn't associate with the other kids much. There weren't many of us. We sure weren't normal like the houses looked from the front. Some of us were normal, enough, anyway.

But that kid though. Dark Huckleberry. 

I heard, I ain't trying to look it up, it was some kind of murder suicide thing back in the 00s, long after I'd gone. 

Three of us gone? Some I lost track of. 4 was alive last I heard like ten years ago. 5 is alive, in rehab now, been out of prison for...3 years? 6 dead, gunshot. Same with 7. 9 was still surviving out there, somehow, like 7 years ago. kid from the house would've been 10 if he'd been one of us, 11 and 12 I lost track of.

Those are relative ages. Weird coincidence.

There was a fucking emu ranch out there. Dickheads started importing them for meat which tastes like steak if steak was made out of tire. Maybe they'll inherit. Cursed desert ruled by meth emus. 

Then there was the city kids. The First Band. 2/5 gone. High Shcool! Such as it was, my parents pulled me out of public school in tenth grade and put me in this weird church camp where I sat in literally a cubicle 7 hours a day and read about Noah and how geometry wasn't real because the greeks were permissive of adultery and homosexualism.

The house in the field had a bunch of junk cars all over, that kind of place. Barkin ass dog. I don't recall anyone having any particular politics back then as far as the urban/rural divide.  Or small oilfield town/poorly thought out spec housing project between middle of nowhere and an oil refinery. Everybody was a fucking bigot hoo boy, let's make that clear that place like most places needed and needs a top to bottom overhaul.

Everybody loved Reagan though. He's gonna win us the war. 

And here I am. Counting dead friends like some grizzled old man in his 40s while we fight the same goddamn wars for the same assholes.  Like literally the same usually, they just allow more minorities on the big stage and, like, sometimes the very white lady speaker of the house wears a dashiki and reads Bono. 

That can't have happened, right? 

That can't be right.

Look, I'm not saying we haven't made progress, we can all clearly see that we haven't made progress. Correction. Some of us have eyes. We can all clearly grok that we haven't made progress.

Wait, grok never caught on? Oh, and he was sexist. I mean obviously he was sexist, but like to the degree that it needs to be commented on 50 years later? I mean, yeah, that's what the internet is you get to be psychic whether you want to be or not.

Or you go crazy. 

I don't know why I'm in such a bad mood today. I wanted to watch a three hour Mount & Blade tutorial on Youtube 

I need to fucking make something I'm a goddamn weird artist but I haven't been making anything in a very long time other than this fucking thing and I'm like a fucking vampire that's been surviving on rats in the sewer for decades. Only instead of sucking blood I need to like, cum, but cum art. You know what it feels like to successfully art, right?

Rock and roll is popular again right? I should do that again. I've got this like matte black Charvel on a stand behind me I can feel it glaring at me. 

I'm fine. Don't worry about me and my dead friends, we're fine. I'm sure you got people of your own to worry about. I only do weed now, I didn't like take a break from being incredibly boring to go out deal with drug people after a long week at an incredibly boring office job. Thank you Jimmy K, and I promise just weed and sometimes mushrooms but I'm not on mushrooms now.

As one, comrades.

That's gonna be like my catchprhase, 'as one, comrades.' That'll catch on for sure.

Elden Guess 07 - Blighted

 There are two major minor erdtrees in Altus. The western one in Bower of Bounty, the northern one past the graveyard.

These trees have no avatar, but do have guardians.

The sunflowers in the Bower face the minor tree. The flowers around the northern minor tree face away. The Bower tree is thriving. The Graveyard tree is dying.

The Tree Guardians don't get talked about enough. It seems to me like they have a shared heritage with the Flame Guardians, based on the elder Flame Guards in Whiteridge. They seem to have split into the tree and flame factions as a result of Marika's takeover. 

I saw a theory, I don't remember where, that the Wormfaces are Guardians under the effect of Deathblight. 

I think this is because they're eating the deathblight. 

Normal deathblight infections (Rogier, the marginally less gross D, probably Yura) is signaled by an infestation of worms, which probably infect the host's bloodstream directly (via injuries and possibly intercourse), rather than by being inhaled or injested. 

I think if one were to eat the larval worms they wouldn't be able to travel around the body and would get stuck in the soft tissue around the eater's mouth.

This is why the Bower tree is healthy, why F Azula hasn't completely succumbed to Deathblight (although the Azula Wormfaces may be concerned with stopping the spread to the world below, as they seem primarily concerned with the lake near the cliff.

One thing Wormfaces will do that makes sense if they're Tree Guardians: they'll randombly beat the fuck out of a gold tree while patrolling.

The Guardians seem to believe that if they're good boys and say their prayers and eat their vitamins they'll be reincarnated as trees, possibly even erdtree avatars, and possibly they're correct to believe this. This is why they have trees strapped to their back. The trees take root in the Guardian to avoid absorbing any impurities from the soil around the parent tree. 

The Guardians hanging out around the Erdtree are hosting what are clearly Aeonia saplings. This tells us that, unless something drastic happens, the Leyndell Guardians - those who continue to support the Golden Order - are falling under the influence of Rot and will eventually find their way to the Haligtree. Alternately, it could be an indication that the Erdtree is beginning to succumb to Rot.

There's one spot in the Bower, near the souther ruined bridge, where Leyndell soldiers ambush a patrolling Wormface. 

I think this may be a very, very important event, lorewise.

The Golden Order fundamentalists - people like D - think that killing the people keeping the Bower tree healthy is a good thing. 

The Shadow of the Erdtree screenshot, that big field the torrent and miquella lookalikes are in? That's gotta be the central lake before the landmass sank. They make the crucible out like it's a big felled tree that survived and threw up a bunch of shoots. Around the edge. In kind of a circle. 

I'll update the pic above when I cut back the juniper that was hiding it

Hey, update

AI 024 - Antipodal

I noticed that even the good posts are at around 100 views so I suppose. Look I got this weird religion there's two different, like, gods but they're ghosts? They're clamoring and all I can really do is try to channel it into a creative stream. 

Streaming's fun but damn near impossible to find time for in the best of times. 

Mirrah is Balder, let's say. Astora is Volgen. And so on.

It's become somewhat obvious, as much as anything is obvious with this story, that Jugo is the Eastern Land. If you've been following along - thank you and also omg have you seen Tarnished Archeologist and also Quelaag not the spider one is back - you'll know what I'm talking about. The Jugo thing I mean. 

Look, Sharp Eyes uses an outland pyromancy and shiva and alonne both have animal head pauldrons there was an ant-or-scorpion version of Quelaag, it's in the comics look it up

Gael looks like a Balder Knight and carries a Mirran shield or rather Podrick the MM guy, does and that makes Sirris, like, part Balderian or part Mirran. Mirrah, as fleetingly few people know, is a place associated with holy waters and fucking so many types of knights. And Havel. Gael is sworn to the White, Balder Knights are sworn to the White. Lucatiel has a ring from Balder. I could continue but look you're either on board with this kind of thing or not.

Balder is Mirrah. 

If this is true then this means that Creighton is from Balder. As is Saulden, Cale and oh shit Llewellyn.

Here's my hypotenuse, 

I'm not sure I got around to spelling it out in the Llew post, but starting from Hawkshaw's Occult Rebellion theory the surviving Anor occultists probably relocated to Balder-Mirrah. As the Occultists included Havel and/or some of his knights and The or A Great Smith and maybe even Giant Smith this help explains where Llew got his gifts from and how the GMB found its way into the kingdom.

So then; Berenike is Forossa. Right?

I just realized I don't know what happens if you don't kill the Parish Berenike Knight before saving Reah. Look into that, me.

The Berenike Knights do not serve an identical function as the Balder knights. Balder is serving the White, the Berenikes each seem to have an individual mission they're about, guarding a Keeper, guarding Priscilla, watching the Belfry, selling rings and firebombs and so on. The Mirran Knights work together in groups and are all pretty clearly about the same mission: visitors are to be turned away.

The Foross Knights do not serve an identical function as the Mirran knights. Balder is serving the White and enforce the will of the Blades up to Flying Dragon Bridge. the big, solitary Foross guys each seem to have an individual mission they're about: guarding a Keeper, guarding Priscilla, watching the Belfry, selling overpriced rings and firebombs and so on. The Mirran Knights work together in groups and are all pretty clearly about the same mission: visitors are to be turned away.

And if we aren't turned away and we dispel the illusions we find:

A Foross and a Mir knight working together to enact the will of Gwyndolin.

From the Crestfallen Merchant's dialogue we gather that both factions 'tried and failed' to gain access to Anor Londo and eventually ended up on Anor Londo's side. Or Anor Londo-adjacent, possibly, in Berenike's case.

We find a Steel Set in the Fort of Fallen Giants, another being worn by a guy called Baldyr in Shulva. I think they might be hints.

Vendrick, when he forged Drangleic, had three things going for him. He had the souls of Four Great Old Beings whoever those could be hmmm. He...Four things, Vendrick had four things going for him. A  complete set of Bequeathed Lords Souls. A rich and powerful genius older half-brother who was probably legally the rightful king. He, Vendrick, is fuck near invincible even completely hollowed. And finally, Vendrick picked up lots and lots of mercenaries on the cheap after Balder and Berenike's leadership collapsed. 

So if all that holds up we can probably infer some stuff.

If Balder and Berenike hadn't collapsed by the time Solaire linked the Fire they would have by the time Vendrick stole the Lords Souls. The cause of the collapse was the 'perpetual' way between Balder, Berenike, and Jugo, with Jugo being the apparent victor in the outside world. If you're familiar with Conan the Barbarian: Jugo is Conan the Barbarian. Aurous of the Badlands. The Faraam Set and the Steel Set and Vengarl's Set and Ivory's Set and probably the Northwarders Set and the Black Iron Set all come from the same place. The Balder Set, Slave Knight Set, possibly Hodrick's Set, Benhart's Set (but not Benhart,) and the Shadow Set all come from the same place.  

 So, currently, what I need to do is play through the first two games again and reread the first one with with the idea that Balder, Berenike, TELands, and Astora end up becoming Mirrah, Forossa, Jugo, and Volgen one or two Souls generations later, between Soliare first linking and Vendrick eventually stealing the Fire in DS1 terms and during the rise and fall of the Iron Kingdom in DS 2 terms. 

Getting close. Not crazy. Or not about this at any rate. 

Look she wants me to tell you that Gremlins is the only holy movie. Like, not a movie about holy things or with holy ideal, like a...idk, living artifact imbued with holiness? Like a prophet but made of art? 

Elden Guess 5: Tooth Wing & Tail

"Every time Earth starts to settle, God throws a rock at it."
- Ultron

We usually first encounter misbegotten on the eastern side of the Weeping Peninsula, where they are in the middle of taking over. 

Can we allow that the Crucible Knights are Misbegotten? That the Misbegotten Crusaders are the descendants/cousins of Godfrey's Crusaders?

The C Knights objectives line up closely with the Golden Orders objectives. But not quite.

We find them loyal to Tanith, but not Rykard. To Stormveil but not Godrick to the Dynasty but not Mogh to Farum but not the beasts.

Quelaag's recent video makes the case that the 'monk tending a flower' statue we find all over Golden Order territories represents the golden Erdtree being cultivated from the base of something like a multi-stem tree. Historically (I realize this isn't exactly marxist analysis) the root of this multi-stem plant could represent the crucible. 

Personally my major point of confusion at this point revolves around whether or not the Greatree and the Crucible/Greater Will coexisted for some time or if the Founding Rain involved the Crucible destroying, and eventually replacing, the Greattree. Or some third thing. I'll talk about Meteo attacks later, but I need to talk about the Greattree.

As we travel back in time the world becomes more polytheistic/multicultural until, at some point, we find another convergence centered on the Dynasty/Elden John. Personally, I suspect that Elden John, as he's depicted in-game, represents a similar deistic culling that ushered in the Dynasty/Age of the Greattree, which appears to have ended with Rot nearly taking over which, in turn, was sealed away by the Blue Fairy and the Dancing Swordsman.

If the Greattree wasn't destroyed by the Greater Will/Crucible Meteor, then it could have been burned down by the Fire Giants and/or dragons, who may have been motivated by the fact that the Greattree could have been succumbing to Rot.  This could have created the opening the Greater Will needed to launch the Crucible Meteor.  I'm almost certain both things happened, the burning of the Greattree and an attempted burning of the Erdtree.

The problem there is that we can also say that the Greater Will fucked off back when Placidussax was Elden Lord of what I assume was the Age of the Crucible and hasn't been heard from since. Since then the Elden Beast has been in charge, assisted by the Two Fingerses, the Golden Ghost parasites and Marika, at least until she plumbed the depths of Order, at which point she seems to have begun secretly working against the Will. What I can't figure is who Psax's god was. I mean it's clearly a creature of Gold, but was it Marika's first first husband or was it married to a different godqueen that Marika usurped?

Regardless.

At some point during Marika's ascent/early reign the misbegotten were viewed as holy and at some point they were deemed heretical and impure and enslaved. 

We usually first encounter them on the weeping peninsula, where they're finishing up with a successful slave rebellion. The humans we meet ascribe this to the misbegotten being inherently evil and treacherous but a casual look behind the castle indicates the revolt probably had more to do with all the torture and child trafficking (I suspect Edgar was probably the first face Roderika saw when arriving in TLB). I don't know how much it ties in but Roderika ends up BFF with obvious misbegotten Hewg.

And it could be no more than a slave rebellion. Or they may have been tipped off that Godfrey is returning.

When the tarnished were exiled one ship was left behind. We find it's anchor being kept by misbegotten. I'm betting it was a ship full of tarnished misbegotten.

Hewg was imprisoned in the Roundtable by Marika. His original crime, we can infer, was attempting, and possibly succeeding, at creating a weapon capable of killing a god, since he's been sentenced to serve as smith for the Tarnished until he forges a weapon capable of killing a god.

And hey what do you know, back at dragons. Smithing stones come from dragons, and ancient smithing stones, like greater dragons, have the ability to warp time, which can allow a mortal weapon to kill a god.

The misbegotten were created by the crucible. As the crucible aged, possibly around the time the Erdtree was cultivated, instead of producing misbegotten it began producing Omen. Morgott and Mohg, who have both misbegotten and omen features, may help fill in that timeline. Given that the omen horns bear such a resemblance to deathblight, Godwyn's death may have marked the transition from misbegotten to omen. Either way, contact with the crucible was outlawed, as was anything associated with it.

I'm almost certain Godfrey opposed this. I don't know how closely it connects, but the big, grey lion enemies we find around, at least some of them, have omen horns. As near as I can tell, they're the only beasts affected by the omen and, the one of the only beasts resembling Serosh, and seem to mostly keep company with the banished/exiled factions. The other beast that resembles Serosh are the leonine misbegotten. 

As near as I can tell there aren't any 'canine' or 'ursine' type beasts afflicted with misbegotten/omen mutations, and although they did undergo a similar genetic rewrite when they were given intelligence it isn't stated whether this was caused by the Crucible/GW or some other god/artifact.

So maybe that helps explain why the second crucible knight in Farum Azula is murdering beastmen: Hoarah Loux, obviously, is a cat person.

Elden Guess 4: monster magnet

 Finally happened. Computer died. Blue screen and everything. Proud of myself.

I got this fucking herniated disc like right where my spine and hip meet and fucking everything is miserable now but especially sitting. Last few updates were via phone. Partner picked out a new computer. It has a green light I like green. Still using my phone because I'm lazy.

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The expansions gonna be about beasts and stars and mogh, bet. They dropped a nonsense ass beast person carrying nonsense ass star weapons, bloody ones, in a blood church, surrounded by beasts, along the secret way to Blood Town. Or else that guy's gonna be the key to understanding the moghwyn faction better and it'll be the last we hear of the creepy fucking weirdos ever. 

You know albanuirics, the skinny ones, legs don't just fail they turn into ghost legs, like the mpuntaintop wildlife, they got some of the poor guys strung up in a cave somewhere.

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Part, a big part, of what made Malenias aeonia so apocalyptic was the fact that she was fighting her half brother. In her eyes radahn, and who knows who else, betrayed her, forced her to stoop to a level she swore she never would. 

This is then repeated, ritualistically, by Gowrey and the kindred with millicent and her sisters, the future champions of Malenias age.

Farum azula was getting wrecked by meteors at some point before the second bloom. Radahn stopped it. Radahn saw himself as more of an heir to godwyns legacy than even mogh. 

But Radahn was born of the stargazer and the stars had their course and that course

Would have put caria on top. Radahn didn't side with any of the three known empyreans from what I can tell. He doesn't seem to have any real connection to rykard, who ties into the nobknives. Rykard was tasked with killing malekith if things went too far sideways, but radahn seems to be broadly aligned with gurrang. Or as least geographically aligned. So maybe radahns beef goes back to godwyns murder, since he doesn't have any clear ambitions beyond fucking up the plans of empyreans. 

1000 years of night with Caria leadung the way. Because the future of caria is written in the stars and stars, the silver ones, want that I guess. 

Why the fuck was malenia so pissed off at him

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There's some kind of god slumber empyreans have to go through to transcend to full godhood. Ranni does and talks about it. Melina and miquella do it - miq as Trina being the demigod of sleep. 

So does rennala. Rennala does it while keeping her body in some kind of sleepwalking/blackout state while she, Queen Caria, holds court with her outer God/s among the stars.

Ifanyone disturbs her slumber she just... deals with it. Yanks them to outer space and either lasers them to death or offers them the egg or, of they're a person like sellen, well.

Rennala, remember, is smart as fuck. Her Moon spell is is 60+int, rivaled only by ranni. Ranni, presumably, is who rennala is dreamwalking on behalf of.

The whole "sad about radagon" thing is a cover.

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Radahn learns gravity magic to save farum azula, let's say. Radahn worships the idea of godwyn, of a Lion worthy of serosh. 

It seems like the onyx/ivory lords were one of the few factions that scared the carians andaybe even the Order. 

I can't remember their names, azur and....fuckin the green one. Anyway, they were exposed to the primeval current and that crystallizes them.

So it's interesting that the space lords motha motha, being presumably immune to or born of this process by virtue of their stone skin never use glintstone.

I'm betting the lords were the equivalent of the miner mages of a previous age. My thinking is that the miners are crystallizes as well, theyre just experiencing the process at a slow incline via their work and are thereby usually more stable than orbhead and spiky, who seem to have taken a deep breath, zero precautions, and jammed their entire body into, like, a current of whatever happens to miners and dragons over decades. 

Alternately, it may be that gravity magic is a safer current than glinstone and the lords are just better at magic than caria.

Which leads to the next question. Did the lords destroy farum azula?

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.




-

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. 👍

Elden Guess 02 - Senescence

It seems like miquella, when he was young, cured Radagon of something. Radagon was grateful for this. Miquella's unalloyed gold blocks the influence of outer gods. In-game this mostly relates to the Rot God, but historically may have related to the Chaos Flame god. Connect back to the mimic tear mask and radagon being a w physicked mimic tear of Marika.

But why didn't radagon succumb sooner? Miquella didn't even exist until after radagon returned from liurnia. We know that radahn is old enough to have served Godfrey directly and ranni old enough to plot the Night of Black Knives, and that whooooole time Radagon is sitting there with the mark of chaos branded onto his pre-formed Silver Tear essence, and then not being consumed by it for centuries until Marika recalled him, made some even weirder kids, waited til the perpetually youngest worked out a cure, and then millicented Radagon just in time to "die" smash-fixing the Elden ring?

The butterflies relate to marika and radagons children; nascent, aeonian, smoldering = miquella, malenia, Melina

Malenias second bloom, the aeonian lake, looks like a butterfly

The even ring was already fucked up when the golden order was founded. They excised the death rune, hid it in malekith and maybe gurrang if that's a different person, and then established the Order to, at least in part, cover up this crime. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out godwyns throne feeds directly to the dead portion of the erdtree.

I got real confused about the death rune. Malekith still has it, or what's left of it. The hallowbrand/cursemark Mending Rune fia makes w godwyn and rannis runes is a replacement, a new rune made from the "corpse" of the old.

So who killed ranni?

Godwyn is known as the first demigod to die, but ranni is described as having died at the same time.

Ranni has maybe the most unique ability in the game: she can instakill you. And will if you help seluvis too much. And when I mean instakill I mean she just turns your and his asses off with a thought. I don't even know how she smells things, but it was probably the dung eater puppet she was picking up, not my breath, I want that on record.

Can Mohg access the 3 Fingers and chooses not to, or is he trying to gain access but can't?

He carries a trident, which, yknow, ina game about 2s. His agents are being hunted/hunting yura, who becomes host to Shabiri.

Unalloyed Gold, as a concept, may revolve around the idea of trying to "breed" the erdtree with itself. The tree is a single-celled entity, and breeding it with Godfrey worked great, once, and then started producing omen, like it couldn't figure out how to advance the idea beyond blind evolution using the "genetic code" for stuff the tree god already had in its satchel - claws, horns, scorpion tails, monkey limbs, etc - but is unable to arrange logically. Or what we would think of as logically.

In this sense goldmasks ending is the only "good" ending for the tree god. Mask's rune is of an internal cell wall. Old goldibeast still won't be splitting any time soon but she'll at least make the jump from prokaryotic to eukaryotic life and, yknow, organelles and really big mitochondria and who knows, give it a billion years, maybe more for scale, and it may start to see some real progress.

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If we try to work out what Guidance is telling us it seems to have a meta-narrative take on directions. As if it's looking at the Lands Between from outer space, which it probably is, and is able to predict the actions of those loyal to the Golden Order.

First it wants us to get to RTH (the final Storm Plateau guidance points out to the ocean where the Roundtable icon is), which involves making it to Stormveil to trigger Melinas "I guess Torrent was right" dialogue. Guidance, near as I can tell, really wants us to fuck up edgar twice, investigate Caria Manor, Radahn, Fort Faroth, and Volcano Manor, then beeline AROUND Leyndell to the Giants' Forge. If you make it to Castle Sol it would like you to collect the Haligtree Medallion. It makes a point of pointing around Leyndell to the Forbidden Lands site and then a straight line until the frozen lake, cross the lake to the First Church of Marika, then around and up to the Forge.

Guidance wants to burn the erdtree.

Guidance seems to be unable or unwilling to offer guidance in southwest Liurnia, the Dragonbarrow, Farum Azula, or anywhere underground. I don't have a character with the full Haligtree grace map unlocked and too stubborn to open a tab and look one up online. Will update.

FUck I said I'd update.

Rennala had a plan for Radagon. If you compare the statues of Radagon in Rennala's chamber and the Gardening Monk on Bellum Highway it seems like Rennala reckoned Radagon's Mesh - the replacement for the Roots in the actual Elden Ring - could be used to, basically, rebuild something like the original Greattree that became the crucible that produced the Erdtree.

The Twins took this idea and, lacking the Mesh for support, used each other's trees for support.

And it would've worked to if it wasn't for