Next door to ft height (or however it's spelled) a little west of the merchant. Nice woods nearby, the ocean, a cool castle. Plus it's the starting area so nothing bad is going to happen.
Have you guys noticed the accents? I’m sure you have but no one seems to be talking about it. At first I thought almost everyone in the game had Welsh accents. But after putting an embarrassing amount of time into the game I think it’s specifically the people of Liurnia that have Welsh accents. Which further suggests they are supposed to be a distinct and separate culture from the rest of the lands between. So Ranni, her mother, Blaidd, Iji, Thops, Selen etc. all have Welsh accents. But peoples from other places have a variety of accents. Also - during Godfrey’s fight, his accent changes after he becomes Hoarah Loux again, from a more RP accent (as Godfrey, trying to be all posh) to a sort of West Country burr. The attention to details like this is just amazing.
Finally someone who gets that the city Astel destroyed is the nameless one! It seems so obvious, it's the only truly "ruined" one of them. One thing you didn't touch on and i so wish you'll cover is the completely different civilization that is underground besides the Eternal cities. The ancestral grounds and their hunting fields. The Uhl palace ruins which are both above and beneath.
Th followers are a true relic, they shunned the Erdtree and moved as far away from it as they could, worshipping horn sprouts and resilience, possibly as aspects of the Crucible worship that would form the basis of the earlier Orders of the 'modern' Erdtree Era. They are like a time capsule of pre-erdtree culture, which preserved itself despite their apparently partial banishing. They seem to have resettled their aboveground ruins too, which would have been unlikely during the age of the Erdtree. The age of Tarnished, where we come in, would be perfect for resettlement of pre-Erdtree areas. Being Ancestor worshippers, they'd have a keen want to return to their roots, which is a running theme in this game, both metaphorically and literally.
To be honest, at the time of exploration I just didn't equate the ruins you see in that area to be that of an eternal city due to to it lacking the night sky above (yeah kinda silly in retrospect....).
@@zaleost to me it was the overshadowing of the tree. I "memorized" the area as "erdtree roots" I didn't even think much of the ruins. I feel just as silly in retrospect with it being so evident, lulz.
What is interesting about the Mountain tops of the giants, is the fact that the FIRST church of Marika can be found there. That in of itself has interesting lore implications. Like why would her first church be there instead of in the capital?
She says it herself through Melina. This is where her armies gave their final push against the giants and sealed the flame of ruin away, beginning the age of the Erdtree. It’s not “first” in the sense that it’s most important, it’s “first” in the sense that it was the first to be built, as a memorial of the final battle that began her reign as goddess of the Lands Between.
@@henrywedekind5754 I don't think that's true. Placidusax is said to be his last great enemy. The war started when Godwyn was alive. Godfrey also established the Roundtable and, you know, ruled the Lands Between beside Marika for a while, since their reign is said to have not begun until the Fire Giants were killed
@@jackreacher7495 Common misconception, but Placidusax isn't the storm lord. He was long dead by the time Godfrey came around. You can actually find his corpse in Farum Azula. After traveling to the site of grace called "beside the great bridge", walk up the stairs and the doorway will frame the body stuck in the wall directly across from the platform.
Pretty sure the burning walls that block the road into Caelid were erected by the Redmane faction still operating and fighting against the Rot in Caelid. You see more of the same kinds of ramshackle construction near their forts and they clearly fight with fire with moderate success against the rot engorged beasts.
Yeah, the wall is actually one continuous line that stretches from Fort Gael to Fort Faroth. The Redmanes are keeping it ablaze to help contain the rot within Caelid. It's ramshackle because they're a dying army with no leader, but you have to respect them for doing their best to protect the rest of the lands between from the rot even though it seems hopeless, and no one recognizes their effort. I was disappointed that the video missed that because it's a really cool bit of lore that gives a lot of character to the Redmanes. Edit: Also if you need any more proof that the Redmanes are cool, try using the Redmane Solider Ashes against Malenia and watch them knock her the fuck over repeatedly.
Praise Marika for the chest high wall! "No one can get over a chest high wall. No one!" "I picture a man trying to scale our chest high wall and I think: 'No, it couldn't be done!'" "There is no way!!"
Personally I think that the chest high walls being imbued with fire so as to repel scarlet rot was totally and utterly unnecessary as it’s not as like anything could get over them anyway.
The top layer of “The Lands Between” that we start seems very artificial in places. Particularly at the edges of Limgrave, you can see blocks of overhanging stone, covered with dirt and grass. It reminds me of Halo a bit. There’s a phenomenon in regions like the eastern Mediterranean where civilizations end up layered on top of one another. The Phoenicians conquered the natives of the region and built cities over the ruins, then the Greeks came through and did the same, followed by the Romans, etc… up until the present day. I think that’s what we see in Elden Ring. As the various outer gods have come to the Lands Between, their followers have conquered and built over the people before them. As the Greater Will is the most recent, their civilization is on top.
That's not so much a regional phenomenon and more like a fundamental of archaeology as a whole, as well as an organizing principle of the souls games (and KF, AC before them to various degrees) at every level. 'Civilizational Sedimentation' you might say, thoroughly explored from numerous angles in a beautifully constructed and readily intelligible allegorical microcosm of an extremely long and complex social-material historical reality composed of a practically infinite array of 'moving parts', a self-sufficient accomplishment that further affords and supports the rest of the games's manifold ideas, endeavors and accomplishments.
Is the water white? Or is it silver? Consider the liquid blood looks like red water and it's more believable. They tried hard with the liquids but there's something off about the blood, it's too transparent. That wouldn't surprise me if the white water was meant to be silver. Hence Silver Fireflies being found only near silvertouched waters? I guess I'm a Perfumer now. Everything seems so very hardwired to alchemy in this game.
There's clearly something about that silver water, considering the various silver tear creatures and the fact the entire Eternal City was built around channeling it. Maybe the Erdtree grew so powerful here because it was fed by this water? It seems the Erdtree is positioned right above the only source of it we know of. Like it was a nail in a coffin.
The white water in Deeproot Depths is actually caused by the Prince of Death's curse, it's mentioned many times that still water causes stagnation. It's seen with the Death Blight lake and Scarlet Rot lake, and once the water starts moving again down the waterfalls, it eventually becomes clean again. It's also very common in mythologies around the world, including Japan, because still water often causes sickness due to bacteria and viruses
Just when you thought they were out of the game, FromSoft pulls them RIGHT BACK IN AGAIN! Glad to see you guys excited to make more stuff. Can't wait to see what you find. 👍
Placidusax is said to have been the elden lord of a previous age, so maybe farum azula (or a similar long-gone city) was his leyndell and inspired ancient architecture throughout the lands between
@@sanguineregis5354 Given its ever-crumbling state, and the fact that the architecture of the fallen pieces of Faram Azula is different, its possible that what remains of the floating city that we visit is part of the mausoleum. Like if Leyndell were in such a state of decay that we are only able to visit the Shunning Grounds below.
The many stone pillars drive me crazy. Aside from the divine towers, they dont seem to be from any structure. Theyre just support beams almost buried into the walls. And who the hell is building these? The scale of the pillars suggests a Giant civilization but the divine towers have elevators for humans. Its almosg as if the lands between arent a natural landscape, but a superstructure that was buried over time. It would explain why the geography is so bizarre and why there are such massive caverns below it.
The pillars are associated with the gravestones and script-covered slabs you can notice embedded into cliffsides and sometimes even making up the whole face. We're looking at truly ancient stonework, for it to be like it is 'in the present day'. The race to decipher that "Cubeiform" writing is on. It's like Cuneiform but Cuneiform means 'wedge shaped' - so the ancients of ER wrote in Cube-iform instead.
@@tubeguy4066 i disgagree. Many of those pillars are perfectly against cliffs, while others are underground. They're either built into the landscape, or buried
That being said, the main doors and elevators for the Divine Towers are huge, but then the arches are the top don't support tall creatures moving through
Giants came in different sizes, so they may have had different tasks and uses for the towers. Also, the Forge of the Giants rests upon these pillars, and it looks like they long ago formed a circular structure around it. This makes me wonder if all these pillars were built with the Forge in mind.
I have a theory: the lands between are not natural, but artificial. The earth was built by these giant skeletons, and these big pillars are a kind of inner supporting structure. I also think that the lands between used to be a giant ring, with a huge hole in the middle, which means that the lands between could have been the crucible itself!
The Isolated Divine Tower in the ocean certainly seems to suggest it used to be circular, the missing land could be part of Farum Azula or some other landmass that is now missing or underwater. I lean towards Farum Azula in large part due to the Bestial Sanctum. It would make sense that the body of water between it and Crumbling Farum Azula used to be land
@@stevebuhrt3504 would also line up with the idea that Faram Azula represents elements (beast men, dragons, rune of death) which have been eschewed from the Golden Order. The only hitch to that is, the Isolated Divine Tower is activated with Malenia's great rune. I don't know of any connection between her and Farum Azula in the lore. Though there could be an alternate explanation there too.
@@stevebuhrt3504 So, as I understand it, the Golden Order is a lot more Marika's doing than the Greater Will's. A big part of Miquella's storyline is that he was looking for a cure for the Rot to save Malenia - the Golden Order was actually unable to provide an answer for this, possibly implying the Rot somehow complies with the rules of the Golden Older. Hence why Miquella strives to create his own order of Unalloyed Gold. Perhaps the "Unalloyed" bit refers to a purification from the meddling of outer gods within the current order.
The conclusion that I came to regarding the eternal cities is that their “banishment” underground by the greater will is most likely a bit of retroactive adjusting of the history on the part of Marika. I find it more probable that the Nox and Numen of the eternal cities were directed to live underground, by the greater will, until they rebelled. Then, later, when Marika, a Numen herself, became an evangelist of the greater will on the surface, she said that they were banished below ground, so as to dissuade others from seeking them out and discovering that they successfully rebelled against the greater will. My evidence? 1) The giant skeleton chair crypts in Nokstella and Nokron. They wear robes with gold embroidery, Gold being heavily associated with the followers and agents of the greater will, and are notably dead, with the one in Nokron not only being guarded by Silver tears (which seem to be the primary defense force of the Eternal Cities) but also containing the finger slayer blade below it which is: A- Said to be born of a corpse. B- proof of high treason committed by the eternal city. And C- is said to be able to harm the Greater will and it’s Vassals. 2) I can’t find the exact description but there is an item that discusses how the eternal city rejected the Golden Order, meaning that they had to have been introduced to it at some point. 3) The eternal cities are, as noted in the video, mostly in good condition and seem well adapted to their surroundings, with unique and beautiful architecture that is, while not impossible, certainly not what one would expect from a bunch of exiles banished underground.
@@MarionetteDuAuguste The Nox are the Scions of the eternal city. The Numen are the race of Queen Marika the Eternal, said to come from a land outside the Lands Between.
Can't overstate how hyped I am for this. Having been with the series for so long and thinking I knew everything about Dark Souls lore and how to interpret it, I found your channel and it completely blew the gates wide open. It was like rediscovering it all again, absolutely astounding. I'll go get my coffee and just sit back and relax to this video, so hyped.
Its worth noting that originally there should’ve been a broken minor erdtree in radahns arena which was removed. Probably to not cheese the boss. So there would be one more dead tree inside of a big former battlefield.
Fantastic can’t wait to see it, also why did you guys remove the Game of Thrones to Elden similarities video? Thanks so much for your content also. So in depth, I imagine the effort is unbearable sometimes but it comes through. Keep it up :)
I have 2 main thoughts on the Eternal City. My first is that the Nox might have lived underground already, but that they were Forbidden from going above ground and perhaps sealed away. Secondly, with the Nameless Eternal City having the same architecture as the other 2 and located between Nokron and Nokstella, there is the possibility that the Nameless City was the midpoint of one, massive city until Astel crash landed and essentially bisected the city. That's my thought at least
I could see only the nameless city being above ground before but not that they always lived underground fully. The Comet of Astel and Remembrance of the Naturalborn are pretty clear that they banished the eternal city underground with his gravitational power. Not just prohibited them from coming out. I am a fan of the theory that the eternal city refered to is the nameless eternal city and the other two were underground already, but what you are suggesting makes little sense considering the lore we have.
Im with you on the bisection idea because using the word leveled could be interpenetration and could be argued, but I think the cities were connected and maybe even on a more level plane, the Siofra and Ansel portions could have sunk. Astel Leveled the Eternal City the same way Morgott slew countless tarnished, I mean, no one was counting but I get it just means he killed a lot. Astel caused a lot of damage sure, but she didnt knock down every building.
I was elated by your last point! I've been thinking a lot about the size of the Lands Between, and as you say, the lore seems to imply a land as large and as populous as a real-life continent. I think an important clue to take into account here is what you see at the borders of some regions: tectonic plates smashed together. Some geological event shrunk the world down to an extreme degree. I'm not sure how to connect it to the rest of the lore yet, but it may have implications with gravitational sorcery.
@TheOldDrzewid Of course it's ultimately a result of development limitations (I don't expect Fromsoft to literally model a map the size of Europe lmao), but I like the idea of solving ludonarrative dissonance with in-universe solutions over the alternative. Moreover, the concept of a world converging on a central area to become smaller isn't new to Fromsoft games (it's a *huge* theme in DS3), and in Elden Ring it can be directly linked with the theme of Regression.
@TheOldDrzewid There's no need for condescension. Obviously, Dark Souls and Elden Ring are separate universes with separate mythos. The reason I brought up DS3 was to suggest there may be a continuation of a previous idea from the developers.
Look to the past. In DS3 the lands were converging because the lord's of cinder neglected their duties and the land quite literally congregates them together, whether they like it or not. One could argue the Erdtree (and even the Greater Will, we got God's in Firmaments now boys and germs), and whatever forces that be are also doing the same as the demigods neglect their duty for selfish reasons. The only difference I see is one land was called Lothric, the other The Lands Between. The latter's name also has very less than subtle implications.
Dude what an awesome video. I’ve watched so many lore videos on this game and no one has dove into the the environmental storytelling. Please keep making these
On the overall size - I feel the game is just kind of a truncated version of it so you stay busy. If expanded to proper scale it would be a mile or two between each camp to the next ruin or graveyard, making it huge. It’s just so you don’t waste time going from place to place in game.
True cause it take Over a. Hundred hours on your first ever playthrough let alone if the map was bigger plus considering all the underground shit they've made I feel like at a certain point the rendering could create way more lag issues if it was even bigger
I love the last bit about the scale of the map. In a video game context, Elden Ring's map is massive and would probably easily take half an hour to get from the weeping peninsula to the mountaintops of the giants by torrent. But once you take away the suspense of disbelief, it becomes much smaller in a "real world" scale. This had always bothered me even though I know nothing can be done about it, since vast fields of grass would make up 80% of a scaled Lands Between, but it feels extremely gratifying hearing someone else ackowledge it.
It is honestly not all that big. My point of comparison for big videogame maps tends to be ArmA and its numerous locales, because they are essentially real world locations digitised, and put the videogame maps in a real world context, and in regards to the number of unique locations ERs map seems to me roughly comperable to Altis island from the above series, though in absolute physical size it is definitely smaller, reinforcing the fact that it is compressed for the sake of a denser play area.
@@OneNationUnderPug Thought this myself. Even if they could technologically make a map dozens or hundreds of miles across to be truly believable, it would be mostly empty and boring to traverse. Open world games will ALWAYS feel small for that reason if you overanalyze it. It is still a game, and needs to play by the rules that "playing a game" requires, this being one
@@buddhapunch2486 it like questioning where all the stuff your character is carrying it. In movie or show it be weird if some one could pull a giant sword out of nowhere but in a video game it’s fine.
Exactly. The map size is probably just video game thing, but if we just entertain ourselves a bit and focus on lore, it just seems waaayy too small. I mean, taking into consideration those giant ass architectures and buildings as well as the giant skeletons and a massive war with thousands of people, the world just seems too small to be able to fit all of that. Makes me think the map of Elden ring is simply a small fragment of a bigger world that was once whole, but for some reason got shattered into many pieces. When fighting the Elden beast, we see multiple erdtrees, and the lore suggesting the greater will going into other worlds as well. Maybe the Greater Will is trying to collect all the fragmented pieces and trying to make it whole again?
Ainsel means "My own self" and Siofra means "Fairy." Considering the Blue Swordsmen and the Blue Dancer Charm referencing a Fairy, it's quite interesting.
@@Rakshael The blue swordsman is also likened to running, flowing water. Also, it seems Ainsel river leads to the lake of rot which where it seems the rot outer god is sealed
@@blobbything2986 Precisely. Someone on r/EldenRingLoreTalk suggested the swordsman who trained Malenia was not actually this ancient Blue hero, but Gowry, imitating him, influencing Malenia in her youth. I'm undecided but it's a significant thought.
@@rightousnesspursuer6523 Didnt he call Farum a mausoleum of sorts in the video? Or was it just in reference to the beast skeletons decorating the structures... Anyways, one theory I have is that farum azula was once a gigantic tower city carried by the tornado from beneath and the Dragonlords arena is the top of that tower. Then over time the tower was destroyed and the remaining pieces now surround the tornado that once carried the tower.
@@unuseableb Yes, but that's just how it currently is. Alternatively, it appears they used corpses in their building. Considering this, it would be a mausoleum because of the walls, and not because everyone inside is dead.
I’m of the belief that farum azula was once upon a time not floating in the sky. There’s evidence all across the world that the city may have been literally ripped out from where it once was and thrust into a different dimension/time/whatever. The beastial sanctum says to me that this place used to once be a part of the lands between. Maybe when the meteor containing the elden beast crashed into the lands between, it just blew the whole civilization apart.
I maintain the Souls games are exercises in archaeology with hostile unburied bodies to deal with. I've been stuck into the Alchemical aspects lately, so thank you so very much for the trowel and spade you've brought along!
I like the point you make at 29:30. I always thought of the world in Fromsoftware games as Theater Sets compared to Movie Sets. Movies try to get as close to the real world as possible, whereas Theater Sets just show you whats important to understand the scene and story.
Even for a game, they couldve implied an expansive world just by designing it in the map even if we couldnt access those locations. The idea of theatre sets works well for the souls games but it doesnt work for an open world like elden ring that literally shows us a map of every distinct areas.
Tbh the topography of the lands between as a whole seems indicative of recent extreme geological activity, at first I thought the shattering would have involved the kind of fighting that could have that effect on the land and maybe it still did, but I wonder if the shattering itself maybe caused a period of sort of apocolyptic earthquakes and weather conditions and that's why there's so much in the way of mad cliffs, and how Mt Gelmir started erupting - since presumably the manor was originally built on more solid foundations - also why Sellia is sinking - is this maybe also why there are chains between the cliffs in MOTG? Maybe they're literally holding the cliffs together. Problem with this theory though is there's literally no notes on it beyond acknowledgements of things sinking.
Consider the concept of the Diminishing Erdtree. It is dying. It used to rain blessings, and likely covered the whole of the continent with it's power. The Limgrave ruins could be from during the time of bounty. The College's spell Terra Magika description echoes a similar tale of a blessing reducing in scale over time.
Thank you SO MUCH in referencing the metaphor of size! I think a lot of people lose that kind of practice when thinking/talking about lore. Obviously, the mountaintops of the giants weren't just some tiny plateaus and a bowl, furthermore, the academy probably wasn't just a hop, skip and a jump from the main gates of the city - these things have been condensed for the sake of gameplay which is unfortunate. but sometimes necessary - really, it's the same thing that happens in all the dark souls games (one of the most egregious examples being the elevator between the poison windmills and magma keep in DS2) I think it would be really cool if you had a resized version of the map in your later videos in order to better help people with the scope of the stories told in the world!
Logical conclusion: overgrown seafood. Look at those damn lobsters, I could eat a week at one of those legs, did you know that lobsters can partially regrow limbs? I see an unending supply of seafood incoming! Jokes aside tho, I've no clue. Do the people in the lands between even need to eat? Marika litterly disabled dying, so I don't think disabling survival mode would be much harder.
@@ITBEurgava Hawkshaw has good research, quality, and sources. In fact, I used some of their timeline videos as a basis for a world I made for a DND campaign over on a West marches discord server
Interesting video. I look forward to future installments. As for scale, it's an issue almost every game has to deal with. Who wants to spend several hours of real time just to get to the next town? Who wants to cross the miles of farmland necessary to keep a city fed? Though I do wish we saw *some* farmland, and more variety of animals in Elden Ring. How big would the Lands Between actually be? That is difficult to say. Perhaps something that really doesn't have an answer, just suffice to say "big enough."
Thing is with scale it's not like with DS3 where parts of other civilizations being brought into an area but the scale is what it is. It's just after the shattering probably around 90 percent of the population had to have died. Bringing rise to only the strongest humans and other species. You can tell because of how its said in the video with the amount of crypts in Limgrave there used to be a lot of people living there. As far as the lack of farms either they used to exist when a peasantry existed and now are just gone as it be a key resources for an enemy to want to destroy or food was grown or created with magic. This is just my speculation but it would have to be one or the other or both
I haven't seen any clarification on how necessary bodily functions like eating are after destined death has been removed from the world. Do people need to eat? Food exists, but it only seems to serve specific purposes. Is this just gameplay flavor? I wonder if only tarnished need to eat - or are the only ones with the sense remaining to be able to prepare food for themselves. Otherwise, I don't know how much evidence there is of non-tarnished eating, beyond NPCs like the soldiers that we see feasting on corpses. Is it possible the people of the lands between that have been there since the shattering have grown so long and spindly from continuing to age without requiring sustenance? Whatever the answer is, my guess is that the farmland was destroyed during the upheavals that have affected the world or fell out of use if the removal of destined death reduces or eliminates the need to eat. (Or it's like how some video games don't include accessible bathrooms. It wasn't relevant to gameplay, and time wasn't wasted on including them versus more important features.)
This video is amazing. Following the main highway from the capitol was actually really fascinating. I had a few thoughts on Liurnia. If extra water was the issue in Liurnia we wouldn't see building sinking into the ground the water level would be higher on them. I think the improvised path restricted the water in the region and that the levels were actually originally higher. So Liurnia is actually drained at this point, down to being a marsh, which wouldn't cause things to sink into the ground not until they started mining the lake bed. Raya Lucaria itself is a giant mining scoop they have caves that are being mined around the lake. If you combine that with a soft mushy marsh that would cause the buildings and even some islands/land formations to crumble. Also, talk about disrespect, even after forming an alliance with the Carian Royals they didn't bother to make a bridge or anything connecting them to the main highway. They can see it from their ramparts but it is very out of the way. Or maybe they demanded such a path not be built. I believe the northern highlands of Caelid were neglected due to it being dragon territory. Can't wait for the next video!!!
Limgrave is the site of multiple devastating events. The sealing of the Eternal City, the destruction of Farum Azula (there's too much evidence saying it was there to really argue against this), whatever the war against Stormveil was (probably related to one or both of the former mentions) and it's the place where the Tarnished both left on their exile and where they seem to have returned (it's never a good thing to have an army march through your lands, especially not twice). I think the "lakes" part is worth considering more when it come to Liurnia. Raya Lucaria is built on a massive precipice. But what if it wasn't always like that? What if there was once a barrier around it that formed a lake? What if it was built out on that lake. Perhaps at some point this barrier was destroyed and this is why the whole region is now flooded and damaged while the school appears to have been built on a mountain? The large, very tall in one case and fallen down in the other bridge ruins around the school suggest to me that there could have been much deeper water around the school at one point. It's also possible that water was being held there by magic and that the magic barrier is what collapsed. That might explain where there don't appear to be any good candidates for structures suggesting a natural barrier? The milky water in Deeproot depths suggests a heavy concentration of silt. Silt doesn't tend to collect that densely in flowing water though. Personally, I think that this silt is the spirit ash collected by the Erdtree. Or at least, excess spirit ash. There are signs that whatever the Erdtree's purpose is, its function is breaking down. Perhaps the Erdtree's enormous size gives us a hint at this malfunction? Perhaps it is absorbing too much spirit ash, more than it can even process, so it is purging the ash out through the roots of the Great Tree to which it was grafted? Hard to say for sure. Anyway, great video, Been meaning to spend some time looking at the lay of the Lands Between and just haven't really gotten around to it. It's so cool to see Miyazaki's environmental story telling blown up to such large proportions. We're going to be picking at these threads for years.
Another detail about Liurnia... Underneath it is another and far more sinister lake... The lake of Rot. Combined elements of lore seems to tell the story of a blind warrior, who mastered the art of the Sword and fought against the incarnation of Rot, an outer God. Victorious, he burried / locked the remains within the lake. . . . Now... Could it be possible that, like the Abyss back in Dark souls... Rot's influence keep devouering the upper grounds, and slowly make it fall to dust ? ( Besides, that warrior was wearing blue... It could be a detail, but I do remember a certain champion who faced such struggle in DS... Wearing the sale color. ) Anyway, this lake, as well as the crucible and the true nature of the ruins scattered across Liurnia and Limgrave are the biggest mistery that I wish to see explored in the future. In my book, two things are certain. The blind warrior was right : stagnation leads to decay, as we can see with the Golden Order and all livings across the Land... The second thing, The Outer God of Rot is to Elden Ring what Papa Nurgle is to Warhammer... Kind of.
It would be crazy if the giant bridge at the start of the mountaintops was actually a giant wall, one of many the giants build and got destroyed/sunken down. Because It looks too stupid for being a bridge, the giants wouldnt need It. It could be a structure from older civilizations O.O
Farum Azula does have tiny statues of humans embedded in certain walls, implying that they were around during Placidusax's rule and may have had some standing in the order of the time
Considering Maliketh is the half-brother of Marika, it seems that Marika and Maliketh's parents married and unified their kingdoms at the time, likely to oppose the Gloam-Eyed Queen, take her Rune of Death, and ensure Marika was the Empyrean that would be chosen as the next god (since Placidusax's fled)
@@omeletteman3451 Sure, that doesn't mean he was born at the moment he was made a Shadow. Nor for Serosh. Maliketh has a family, explicitly, and he's a royal of Farum Azula, implicitly.
The beastmen who live in death drop human bone shards, so I think we're missing information concerning the world. It's possible there was some Outer God influence that brought beasts and the beast-blood into the world. Elden Ring being a weird mash-up of previous games' themes I can imagine there being more depth to BB's contribution than just a beast clergyman and some equipment references, hidden in the past.
The white water reminds me of melt from glaciers. They often have a large amount of very small suspended particles (silt). Could be implying it's melt run off from the mountains?
Water is often seen as the seed of life so I was thinking of Albinauric since they seem to bleed white or maybe the lost race Nightfolk who is said to bleed silver, in relation to mimic tear who is present a lot in the underground. Another note of Albinauric is that they are created, not naturally born I read in some description. So maybe the Albinauric are the creation of these Nightfolk.
@@GoldenLeafsMovies I think the Albinaurics are a Carian creation, as they are found most often in Liurnia, their village is in western Liurnia which is associated with Caria, and they are associated with silver, who else is associated with silver? Why the Royal House of the Moon!
@@semi-useful5178 Loretta helps that theory. But they could've found that silver on the river and seen how it transforms into multiple things (nightfolk, silver tears, etc) and decided to create them.
Another interesting thing of note to the layout of the Lands Between is the sun. Rather than simply east to west, it actually travels from northeast (beyond castle Sol) to southwest (past the Lunar Ruins) Love the video! A very unique way of looking at the story being told. Keep it up! Also, a good theory for the sinking of Liurnia might be overmining of those crystals beneath the academy, causing instability and shifts in the landscape. At this rate, perhaps eventually, the whole thing might someday fall through into the lake of rot And my personal guess for the carts above the ruin-strewn precipice is that some people were fleeing one of the many wars that took place on the Altus Plateau, but finding the Lift of Dectus inoperable, fled here to find the hidden path down
@@tinminator8905 They're references to Redcaps, I believe Old battlefields and abandoned places are their haunt - all except for the red hat, they line up. A source even describes them as wielding polearms.
I believe all landscapes were damaged to varying degrees in a whiplash of reality's breaking. A sonic-boom caused by the actual shattering of the Elden Ring, as opposed to the Shattering Wars. Castle Sol's Sun is an Eclipsed Sun, I think a ghost mentioned it. We find that symbol elsewhere too.
An eclipsed sun may represent when Ranni planned the Night of Black Knives where Godwyn and her were slain, resulting in Godwyn dying of soul and a new form of death being born from his corpse, while Ranni dies of body so she can reach godhood later on, where only the moon and stars take the place of the sun, with this event represented by an eclipse, where the sun "dies" and a dark moon takes its place, where in the shadow of such an event, a dark sun is born of shaded sunlight, a golden shade blackened with death, like how the Death Blight looks in game.
One interesting thing about the consecrated snowfield is that it migth have been a similar place to the underground parts of the Lands Between. It has the same stone pillars as Siofra/Nokron and have the lightning spheres that are only can be found in Siofra river. On top of these there is that spectral/ghost dragonkin soldier, who are heavily tied to the ECs. Plus Astel is also right there in a dungeon.
The Snowfield is a huge clue, and it's almost intentionally forgettable, despite massive links to the ancient cities, early generation Albinaurics, and even Unalloyed Gold, all within plain sight. Astel's mine dungeon is also sprinkled with buried versions of the same architecture of the other cities, specifically the parts surrounding the lake of rot and the temple city filled with Kindred of Rot. From a single ancient pillar protruding from the wall, I knew I was in for more alien related things. The question is whether the Alabaster Lord in the mine is related to the Astel/Fallingstar species somehow? Same location of origin? Are they hostile to each other? Did the Lord kill the miners? Did Astel, before the few survivors boarded up the entrance to Astel's cave?
this is actually groundbreaking, never had i though of the roots in Caelid to have been revealed by the rot, i assumed that all of them were what bloomed in the wake of Malenia
Great video and analysis! I especially like the last part. We must also not forget that our tarnished is forever loaded with crack and adderall to be able to run/sprint/ride endlessly through the open world that it almost makes it comically smaller than it actually is.
I love FromSoft's use of and the community's ability to interpret the world itself, the geometry, the layout, and the architecture, as part of the history of the world. When I first realized the significance of flowing water to the world (from the lore around the fairy, the swordsman, and the god of rot) and followed the flow of water up through the eternal cities and to the base of the roots beneath the Erdtree I was amazed. And that's just what I noticed on my own. So many cool revelations in this video, I can't wait for more!
29:20 I believe the white-coloured water is linked to Deathblight and Godwyn. You can find one instance of the pale water above ground at Liurnia of the Lakes. A bunch of skeletons and a skeletal mariner arise from it and inside the lake there's a big ol' pustule of deathroot which grows from Godwyn.
The first I've seen to attempt the mystery of Farum Azula's previous location! I believe this is also related to Hoorah Loux's sweeping the old away with the storm. I believe this to be deeper lore having to do with the Greater Will severing ties with the first dominant organisms on this planet it chose to manifest its order. Interesting to me on top of this is what this entails for Nephali Loux and her promise to sweep everything away in the storm. Tarnished will embody the beast and nephali will be lord consort? 🙏 Fav elden ring lore vid of all time so far! 👍🔥 *Regarding the Minor Erd Trees* i noticed an interesting correlation. There are 5 healthy saplings and exactly 5 Lord Runes. I think the Greater Will was/is on the cusp of propagating its order when marika/ranni won a most decisive battle at a critical moment in the grand scheme. It seems to me the game takes place after all the juicy parts of the story. The Tarnished cosmic role is equivalent to a bed-side rag. Oh no i dnt 🤭 (Lastly, minor note i'd love to see an extension of this video focusing strictly on architecture. I believe the cities underground still have extant buildings above ground for example)
You're right, they still have aboveground structures. Uhl palace and the Consecrated Snowfields are the two biggest locations, but my favourite is the absolution statue in Tortoise-pope's church. It's of a Nox stood in water with conventional face coverings. (Tying back into the absolution rite being a star-fate religion thing) Said church itself is also a source of contemporary to Nox-era architecture. It is a temporal Rosetta stone thanks to it's focus on unification and peace. It marks out some things as older than we thought, and other things as younger than they'd seem. (the Nox statue for example, would not be there unless the Nox were accepted during the church's building) There's also the areas miners are uncovering under the Snowfield and Liurnia, and the gravestone-looking tablets(and tablet looking tablets) that are old enough to have formed parts of cliffsides, or possibly even been displaced there during upheaval of various forms. Could that have been the storm's doing?
Something to note is that farum in Gaelic, where a lot of elden ring borrows language from, means "Tower." So Farum Azula, just means The Tower of Azula, and Farum Greatbridge is the Tower Greatbrisge. Bigger qustion is how did Farum Greatbridge get its name? Either it's referring to the Bestial Sanctum as a tower, or possibly, considering how quickly or Beast Clergyman can get between the Sanctum and Farum Azula, the Beatial Sanctum might house a way to teleport between the two, and the Beast Clergyman may be protecting it.
Probably the Nameless Eternal City was the one on the surface that got banished underground and erased from records by advocates of the Greater Will (therefor became nameless as nobody remembers or knows its name anymore), then the survivors (the Nox and maybe some Numen as well) went on to build Nokstella and Nokron using the same architecture of their original city, but taking into account they are underground cities as well as taking the rivers into account. It's very clear from the good condition of the two cities and the water gates that they weren't banished underground, they were BUILT underground, IMO that's the most plausaible scenario.
But if the nameless eternal city was built on the surface how was its sky stolen by astel, as it seems the starry and nebula like sky is only present underground
Important to note, the word farum derrives from the dativ casus of pharus(latin) meaning lighthouse, forming crumbling lighthouse of azula. Which would suggest that there is either a city/ landmass called azula or it simply points at the name of the lighthouse being azula. Also this suggests that it was once connected to caelid as lighthouses are tipically on the shore.
Also many props to this video not making mistakes many of the other youtubers are making. It didnt occur to me that so much lore can be derrived from the map design! I am stoked for more content
@@trolzor01 I'm hoping for timetravel DLC where we can visit other parts of Azula, or even just a regular Farum Azula, before it crumbled. I have a hunch that the timescales involved in the world we're seeing in game are much greater than we imagined. Like for example we think we're in DS3 when we're actually in the equivalent of the DS3's Ringed City DLC at the end of time, with all that came before piled beneath us.
I would be interested in possible video about Liurnia/Caria and its internal strife and politics. And most of all, the unassuming nameless woman Governess that is portrayed in painting at the Debate Parlour. In debate parlour, we see chronological portraits of former Academy headmasters/governors. And there is single woman that comes after Rennala here, bearing striking resemblance with Sellen and most of all, Witch's Glintstone Crown. Sellen's mask is called Witch's Glintstone Crown. And all Glintstone masks are named in honour of the worthe scholars who became Academy Governors/Conspectus founders. This mysterious Witch governess is not referred anywhere else, as far as I know. And only Raya Lucarian with nickname "Witch" is Sellen herself. Furthermore, Sellen wrily refers herself as an apostate. Word comes from Ancient Greek ἀποστάτης (apostátēs, “rebel"). So Sellen is rebel towards whom? My guess is towards Carian Royal Family. Neither Miriel nor Thops mention Sellen by name. Miriel has vested interest as Caria loyalist, Thops is thrown out of the loop. Therefore, perhaps this mysterious Witch Woman was governess only very briefly, only so long that a new painting was commissioned and made? Or at least, this governor was very unpopular/embarrassing to the ruling elite at the current moment. So much so that even Turtle does not mention her. If chronology is to be maintained, then this nameless Witch of the Primeval Current block came to be governor after Rennala was supplanted due to her mental breakdown. Which coincides with Raya Lucaria seeking independence from Caria royals at that time, taking advantage of Ranni becoming known traitor to the Golden Order. My belief is this. Sellen, a rising prodigy, becomes next headmistress/governess hailing from the block dissatisfied with Carian "pedantry". They are interested in furthering the study of the primeval current. Cuckoo forces are defeated and enslaved at Caria Manor. Ranni's striketeam of Moongrum, WoR, royal pages and dragons retaliate and teleport/flie to Raya Lucaria to safeguard Rennala and cut off the serpent's head. Other two members of the block, Sellen's former masters, Lusat and Azur, escape Ranni's wrath to secure locations. Seluvis, two-faced opportunist as he is, either procures a new body for the governess or helps her escape in her true body. Former is more likely, considering Sellen is supposedly expert in body swapping. Sellen, true governess of Raya Lucaria, is then relentlessly pursued by Carian Witchunters and finally hauled to "black-ops" site, furthest nook of the Lands Between, Weeping Peninsula. I also doubt claims that Sellen hunted sorcerers. Mainly because there is evidence only that Carian loyals hunted sorcerers and practitioners of Primeval Current. I very much feel Sellen was slandered to discredit her claim as a governess. However, Sellen manages to astral project illusion outside while her body is shackled, setting up a shop in Limgrave proper. Her being this missing governess would also explain why Sellen so readily travels back to the Academy with such entitled bravado. Simply because she is no ordinary sorceress, but the lawful, Academy chosen successor to Rennala as the governess in the first place. At any case, Carian/Raya Lucarian conflict, the all parties involved and this mystery Witch would make an interesting video.
@@abrahamvilliers4847 Indeed, the Followers have even resettled the ruins, as you find real living Followers instead of spirit ones. During the reign of the Golden Order they would likely have been forced away, but everything returns to the roots in time, as they say in the lands. The Ancestral Followers are a useful time-capsule of pre-Erdtree worship, their worship of horns, compared to the Erdtree's vilification of them (the omen in particular) is telling. Horns as part of the crucible might have even been stable, whereas forced outside of order, horns have festered and sprouted, forming a corrupted seedbed and giving rise to the Omen, which has even infested the royal blood of the Capital of the Erdtree's age.
13:12 - 13:18 Actually makes sense since the Fight Between Radahn and Melania started in the Swamp of Aeonia. The nearby finger crone also calls this a flower of the scarlet rot indicating the swamp or where you fight the boss for the Golden Needle as Ground Zero. The Ghost near the swamp also mentions wanting to see Malenia again. Lastly Aeonia is also the Name of "Scarlet Aeonia" Melanias special move that creates a gigantic flower. Another note worth thing is the design choice of the swamp of aeonia "Tree" is similar looking to the Haligtree.
This is hands down one of the best lore videos I have ever seen. The lore of the world itself, and to think Miyazaki and the bois at FromSoft put this much thought into the world building, and its literal topography/geography is incredible. Fantastic stuff man!
Most likely not the case but maybe the map is scaled down like in Genshin to fit gameplay but in lore everything is much bigger In Genshin, Monstadt is said to be a bustling city and stuff but in game it's like what, 12 buildings?
Gotta say, love the selection of background music in this vid :D And thank you so much for listing it all in the description! Keep up the great work :)
I think the color of the water in the Deeproot Depths couls be related to the Prince of Death and Deathbligh as a whole, since Summonwater Village and Wyndham Ruins (both overworld areas with water bodies with a very similar tone) house Tibia Mariners and Deathroot.
Thinking about the giant skeletons in the eternal cities, could it be possible that the Nox are connected to the stone arch ruins mentioned several times throughout this video? It feels like the scale fits. Maybe the Nox previously also had overground settlements but were then banished to their underground cities. Also when talking about Caelid you forgot Sellia, which is the endpoint of the road winding through the region. It's probably safe to assume that it was some sort of regional capital in times of peace (Radahn went there to study magic after all).
Seems to me Sellia was the Place to go to learn Gravity magic and Invisible sorceries, whereas Raya Lucaria was the Seat of the Sorceries of Glintstone.
This is easy, I'll explain all the characters in the roundable, 1, D, wants to give fia the D, but fia learned self defense in death to tarnished. Fia, offers hugs, to poor tarnished, and offers snuggle tax. Corwyn, marika simp, he fears the T pose. Dung eater, or the fearsome feces feaster, tyranical too-too taster, maniacal mud muncher, serious scat slurper, callous crap craver, he just wants everyone to become an omen. Not the worst ending, everyone gets to become stronk so you know not that bad, becomes closer to the eternal crucible. Then there is sir gideon ofnir, the smartest of all the reddits, pores over the lore forums and makes snide comments. Spellblade rogier, the man with D R I P, not much is known besides that however. Ensha, all hearing, rumored to be named by gideon ofnir, after an old lord of edge. Finger reader crone, has the great skill of jumping on top of tables, with out breaking them, not a toe touches the side. Roderika, helps upgrade the true elden lord, tiche, servant of the spirit calling snail. Hewg, wants to make a godslaying weapon, he's pretty chill. No sad backstory, nothing to do with the crucible. Now the people you wanted to hear about the most, spirit calling snail, and soldier of god, rick. the snail works with him to control the elden beast! Meanwhile he deters our path to the erdtree. Random runebears? Random death birds in caelid? Random lobsters? They were sent by the soldier of god, rick. it was the snail who brought in the age of the Erdtree, the god of gods. Created it with his very tail, yet soldier of god, rick brought the caller to the great crucible, forged a path of death through the lands between, so that spirit caller could finally set itself upon its very heart, to feast of it and plant its own erdtree. He planted it. Oversaw its growth and kept it safe. He enforces the spirit callers will throughout the lands between, Soldier of god, rick. Fear the second phase, the rest of the game. To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Snail. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics and gravity magic most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick & snail truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existential catchphrase "..." which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Myizaki's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂 And yes, by the way, i DO have a Rick & Snail tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎
@@classica1fungus why do so many people say I'm on drugs, its honestly hurting a lil now. I do not have hormone blocker, I am not high, I have not ODed
The brickwork of the large broken bridge north of Raya Lucaria reaches all the way down to the lake, implying that liurnia was in that state when it was build The Siofra river is probably pronounced Sheefra, meaning fairy, which opens a big connection to the Blue Dancer of Malenia fame
That has always been the case in Fromsofts games. It is most likely a tool for gameplay perspecitve. Showing you that you are not meant to be this amazing hero that accomplishes everything but just a lowly Tarnished/Undead like any other. All these great opponents are meant to feel much more powerful than us.
One thing that I really cant grasp in particular that the humongous giant corpses and well, even the smaller thorned giants within the mountaintops for example seem too large to have inhabited what we explore within the area. The lands between also is so incredibly miniature in comparison to these creatures (the huge skeletons and cut content flaming heads). Did the lands between at one point be much more gargantuan? Some structures in Limgrave do appear quite large. What would've caused a shrinkage? I doubt it was mere erosion considering the sheer size and preserved nature of the skeletons, Or did the developers just put in these giant corpses for aesthetic? its typically not the last option for Fromsoft so im rather quite stumped. Perhaps Im looking too far into it though. I'm also really glad you mentioned how the lands between simply dont make sense considering the depth of the lore, it really took away from the immersion during my first playthrough. Either fromsoft ran out of time or theres an explanation, who knows.
It's just the matter of time and development really. They need to make game playable first and foremost. That's why the map is just a right size for the amount of content. If they made it too small, them it would kill the sense of being in open world. If they made it too big, game would become a horse riding simulator, and amount of content would be too small leading to same repeating encounters over and over. Coming up with more content would take too much time and money, even if we put Fromsoft's vast library of models and animations into consideration. Usually any RPG world is considered much bigger in lore, and what players see is different from what npcs are supposed to experience. Like empires and kingdoms in The Elder Scrolls with populations of small town at most. Or how Geralt in Witcher 3 travels between cities in the matter of minutes, when it takes several days in books.
It's meant to be awesome and mysterious like the fanged skull in Ash Lake in DS1, or the Amygdala hanging off buildings in BB. The latter has some explanation, but you don't know or think about it at first, you go, "wow, look at that! what is _that_ ?!"
@@NK-fp9zs At least Elder Scrolls has small towns though and the witcher example is fine in my book as long as the cities actually exist. Like Elden Ring has no farms, no villages, the same copy pasted ruins literally everywhere, underdeveloped lore significant areas such as carian manor for example (which is just a really terrible garden inside some generic stone walls), etc. It really obliterates immersion in that respect. I dont particularly think the world shouldve been as vast as it is in the lore, but considering how crammed it feels as it is I think less random enemies couldve been placed, dungeons couldve used more fleshed out development and instead of the same old ruins we couldve gotten more stuff like the windmill village. Even with the military people we see in the game what do they just not eat? Stormveil has plenty of food in it but no farmland in sight. I konw its a minor point but still it wouldve helped with worldbuilding. Also regarding the mountaintops, I think we shouldve had vast mountains to traverse with literally 0 enemies. It wouldve been atmospheric rather than the mess it is now.
Don't forget: in Limgrave, we see just one golem, heavily damaged and lying near some of the fallen ruins, along with other more decayed golems. Whatever that city in the sky was, it had golems that fell to earth with it.
In Limgrave there are many Golems. All of them on the great bridge or fallen down from it. Sad how people believe a small theory Vaati had when he first played the game till this day.
The divine towers predate the civilization of the Erdtree. There is a painting depicting the Stormhill where Stormveil Castle would be built on, and in the painting, The bridge to the divine tower stands in identical state of disrepair as it does on present day. Let that sink in. Since the shattering, the divine towers have suffered no additional wear and tear compared to how they were an age ago. They are truly ancient.
The first time I got where you get Cinquedea, It looked like a Pier, where a boat or another vehicle would transport. And the Beast Sanctum being a church it makes sense for it to have a back exit for transport.
the fire walls were very definitely constructed by the redmanes to restrict the spread of rot, and all the current manserpents were made by rykards expirements with the help of the godskins so the time dating of the manserpents in that description could likely be a reference to the crucible instead or just a mistranslation, as its not even clear if thats what it means in the english version
To your last point about the size of the world, I think there's some interpretation that needs to be made, and some creative allowances. This isn't really a lore answer, but I think what's happening here is we're butting up against some real world development realities of just how large and detailed they can make the game space while also making it a fun game to play and keeping things within budget. That's maybe not a satisfying answer, but I think when we dive THIS deeply in to the makeup of the game world, at some point you're going to hit the bedrock that is the world's true existence as an abstraction inside a video game. That is to say, there may not be a lore reason for why the world isn't practicably as large as it should be.
Your intepretation of the Man Serpent Ashes is very strange. It's almost as if you read "long ago" and just ignored everything that comes after that. The Man Serpent's were born after Rykard got devoured. The likelyhood of that being before the volcano manor was built is close to none. The Shattering also was long ago. Almost all big event were long ago already.
If you had to buy a flat in the Lands Between, where would you choose?
Caelid
Next door to ft height (or however it's spelled) a little west of the merchant. Nice woods nearby, the ocean, a cool castle. Plus it's the starting area so nothing bad is going to happen.
Stormveil, take a chance on the next Lord there!
Probably the artists shack in Liurnia. I can stare at Godwins beautiful divine tower and that purple sky every morning. :)
@@russian_knight based
Have you guys noticed the accents? I’m sure you have but no one seems to be talking about it. At first I thought almost everyone in the game had Welsh accents. But after putting an embarrassing amount of time into the game I think it’s specifically the people of Liurnia that have Welsh accents. Which further suggests they are supposed to be a distinct and separate culture from the rest of the lands between. So Ranni, her mother, Blaidd, Iji, Thops, Selen etc. all have Welsh accents. But peoples from other places have a variety of accents. Also - during Godfrey’s fight, his accent changes after he becomes Hoarah Loux again, from a more RP accent (as Godfrey, trying to be all posh) to a sort of West Country burr. The attention to details like this is just amazing.
“i’ve given thee courtesy enough” was chilling. his voice actor did amazing, 10/10
Blaidd is wolf in Welsh
I wonder if there’s some similar accent differentiation in the Japanese version of the game.
My gf is Welsh and from day one I said they all sounded Welsh , I thought this was common knowledge ahahah
@@lofeofsope2542 “togethaaaaaaaa”
Finally someone who gets that the city Astel destroyed is the nameless one! It seems so obvious, it's the only truly "ruined" one of them. One thing you didn't touch on and i so wish you'll cover is the completely different civilization that is underground besides the Eternal cities. The ancestral grounds and their hunting fields. The Uhl palace ruins which are both above and beneath.
Th followers are a true relic, they shunned the Erdtree and moved as far away from it as they could, worshipping horn sprouts and resilience, possibly as aspects of the Crucible worship that would form the basis of the earlier Orders of the 'modern' Erdtree Era.
They are like a time capsule of pre-erdtree culture, which preserved itself despite their apparently partial banishing.
They seem to have resettled their aboveground ruins too, which would have been unlikely during the age of the Erdtree. The age of Tarnished, where we come in, would be perfect for resettlement of pre-Erdtree areas. Being Ancestor worshippers, they'd have a keen want to return to their roots, which is a running theme in this game, both metaphorically and literally.
The nameless eternal city is also the only one whose sky appears to have been stolen! I don't know why so many miss these details.
True
To be honest, at the time of exploration I just didn't equate the ruins you see in that area to be that of an eternal city due to to it lacking the night sky above (yeah kinda silly in retrospect....).
@@zaleost to me it was the overshadowing of the tree. I "memorized" the area as "erdtree roots" I didn't even think much of the ruins. I feel just as silly in retrospect with it being so evident, lulz.
What is interesting about the Mountain tops of the giants, is the fact that the FIRST church of Marika can be found there. That in of itself has interesting lore implications. Like why would her first church be there instead of in the capital?
She says it herself through Melina. This is where her armies gave their final push against the giants and sealed the flame of ruin away, beginning the age of the Erdtree.
It’s not “first” in the sense that it’s most important, it’s “first” in the sense that it was the first to be built, as a memorial of the final battle that began her reign as goddess of the Lands Between.
But the Victory over the Giants was the Last Victory. Right After His victory over the Giants Godfreys lost His lordship and He was banned
@@henrywedekind5754 So? I didn’t say the Erdtree grew after that victory, just that its age started.
@@henrywedekind5754 I don't think that's true. Placidusax is said to be his last great enemy. The war started when Godwyn was alive. Godfrey also established the Roundtable and, you know, ruled the Lands Between beside Marika for a while, since their reign is said to have not begun until the Fire Giants were killed
@@jackreacher7495
Common misconception, but Placidusax isn't the storm lord. He was long dead by the time Godfrey came around. You can actually find his corpse in Farum Azula. After traveling to the site of grace called "beside the great bridge", walk up the stairs and the doorway will frame the body stuck in the wall directly across from the platform.
Pretty sure the burning walls that block the road into Caelid were erected by the Redmane faction still operating and fighting against the Rot in Caelid. You see more of the same kinds of ramshackle construction near their forts and they clearly fight with fire with moderate success against the rot engorged beasts.
Yeah, the wall is actually one continuous line that stretches from Fort Gael to Fort Faroth. The Redmanes are keeping it ablaze to help contain the rot within Caelid. It's ramshackle because they're a dying army with no leader, but you have to respect them for doing their best to protect the rest of the lands between from the rot even though it seems hopeless, and no one recognizes their effort. I was disappointed that the video missed that because it's a really cool bit of lore that gives a lot of character to the Redmanes.
Edit: Also if you need any more proof that the Redmanes are cool, try using the Redmane Solider Ashes against Malenia and watch them knock her the fuck over repeatedly.
@@denniscarr9234 lmfao they hate her
yeah radahn's great rune actually says it's on fire to prevent the rot from completely consuming him so fire is certainly effective against rot
@@denniscarr9234 Redmanes are definitely the coolest soldier/knight faction in the game. Not only that but their armor looks the best too.
@@denniscarr9234 I also heard Redmane fire pots are exceptionally effective against her.
Praise Marika for the chest high wall!
"No one can get over a chest high wall. No one!"
"I picture a man trying to scale our chest high wall and I think: 'No, it couldn't be done!'"
"There is no way!!"
we will build a chest high wall and limgrave will pay for it
Sometimes the Caelid dogs even jump over the wall accidentally during combat.
Ah Joel haver, a man of true culture
Personally I think that the chest high walls being imbued with fire so as to repel scarlet rot was totally and utterly unnecessary as it’s not as like anything could get over them anyway.
Ankle height wall, you could hop that perhaps, but a chest high wall? Not happening!
The top layer of “The Lands Between” that we start seems very artificial in places. Particularly at the edges of Limgrave, you can see blocks of overhanging stone, covered with dirt and grass. It reminds me of Halo a bit.
There’s a phenomenon in regions like the eastern Mediterranean where civilizations end up layered on top of one another. The Phoenicians conquered the natives of the region and built cities over the ruins, then the Greeks came through and did the same, followed by the Romans, etc… up until the present day.
I think that’s what we see in Elden Ring. As the various outer gods have come to the Lands Between, their followers have conquered and built over the people before them. As the Greater Will is the most recent, their civilization is on top.
I keep thinking what is buried beneath our civilizations
Jacob Geller has great video on the topic of civilizations built on top of each other
Very cool observation
That's not so much a regional phenomenon and more like a fundamental of archaeology as a whole, as well as an organizing principle of the souls games (and KF, AC before them to various degrees) at every level. 'Civilizational Sedimentation' you might say, thoroughly explored from numerous angles in a beautifully constructed and readily intelligible allegorical microcosm of an extremely long and complex social-material historical reality composed of a practically infinite array of 'moving parts', a self-sufficient accomplishment that further affords and supports the rest of the games's manifold ideas, endeavors and accomplishments.
Is the water white? Or is it silver? Consider the liquid blood looks like red water and it's more believable. They tried hard with the liquids but there's something off about the blood, it's too transparent. That wouldn't surprise me if the white water was meant to be silver. Hence Silver Fireflies being found only near silvertouched waters?
I guess I'm a Perfumer now. Everything seems so very hardwired to alchemy in this game.
There's clearly something about that silver water, considering the various silver tear creatures and the fact the entire Eternal City was built around channeling it. Maybe the Erdtree grew so powerful here because it was fed by this water? It seems the Erdtree is positioned right above the only source of it we know of. Like it was a nail in a coffin.
The white water in Deeproot Depths is actually caused by the Prince of Death's curse, it's mentioned many times that still water causes stagnation. It's seen with the Death Blight lake and Scarlet Rot lake, and once the water starts moving again down the waterfalls, it eventually becomes clean again. It's also very common in mythologies around the world, including Japan, because still water often causes sickness due to bacteria and viruses
Brilliant connection.
If you're a perfumer, please leave jarburg alone
Just when you thought they were out of the game, FromSoft pulls them RIGHT BACK IN AGAIN! Glad to see you guys excited to make more stuff. Can't wait to see what you find. 👍
I mean if you didn't think elden ring was sure to be meaningful you might not have played ds1 and 3 and Bloodborne and sekiro
yeah okay silvio dante
@@softbabymonkey OHH!
@@teeg7078 lmao the passive agressive stab at DS 2
@@Bladieblah It’s really not aggressive
Placidusax is said to have been the elden lord of a previous age, so maybe farum azula (or a similar long-gone city) was his leyndell and inspired ancient architecture throughout the lands between
But then why would faram azula be described as a mausoleum?
I doubt it was both capital and crypt.
@@sanguineregis5354 Given its ever-crumbling state, and the fact that the architecture of the fallen pieces of Faram Azula is different, its possible that what remains of the floating city that we visit is part of the mausoleum. Like if Leyndell were in such a state of decay that we are only able to visit the Shunning Grounds below.
@@sanguineregis5354 A great Capital, that came to serve as a crypt after a disaster struck down its citizens seems quite plausible.
Wasn't Godfrey the FIRST Elden Lord?
There was no ELDEN anything before Marika
@@sanguineregis5354it’s got bodies in da walls
The many stone pillars drive me crazy. Aside from the divine towers, they dont seem to be from any structure. Theyre just support beams almost buried into the walls. And who the hell is building these? The scale of the pillars suggests a Giant civilization but the divine towers have elevators for humans.
Its almosg as if the lands between arent a natural landscape, but a superstructure that was buried over time. It would explain why the geography is so bizarre and why there are such massive caverns below it.
It looked more like there was a huge explosion that launched the pillars all around the world
The pillars are associated with the gravestones and script-covered slabs you can notice embedded into cliffsides and sometimes even making up the whole face.
We're looking at truly ancient stonework, for it to be like it is 'in the present day'.
The race to decipher that "Cubeiform" writing is on.
It's like Cuneiform but Cuneiform means 'wedge shaped' - so the ancients of ER wrote in Cube-iform instead.
@@tubeguy4066 i disgagree. Many of those pillars are perfectly against cliffs, while others are underground. They're either built into the landscape, or buried
That being said, the main doors and elevators for the Divine Towers are huge, but then the arches are the top don't support tall creatures moving through
Giants came in different sizes, so they may have had different tasks and uses for the towers. Also, the Forge of the Giants rests upon these pillars, and it looks like they long ago formed a circular structure around it. This makes me wonder if all these pillars were built with the Forge in mind.
The King is back
I have a theory: the lands between are not natural, but artificial. The earth was built by these giant skeletons, and these big pillars are a kind of inner supporting structure. I also think that the lands between used to be a giant ring, with a huge hole in the middle, which means that the lands between could have been the crucible itself!
The Isolated Divine Tower in the ocean certainly seems to suggest it used to be circular, the missing land could be part of Farum Azula or some other landmass that is now missing or underwater. I lean towards Farum Azula in large part due to the Bestial Sanctum. It would make sense that the body of water between it and Crumbling Farum Azula used to be land
@@stevebuhrt3504 would also line up with the idea that Faram Azula represents elements (beast men, dragons, rune of death) which have been eschewed from the Golden Order.
The only hitch to that is, the Isolated Divine Tower is activated with Malenia's great rune. I don't know of any connection between her and Farum Azula in the lore. Though there could be an alternate explanation there too.
Well, Malenia was cursed by the Rot God, and the influence of another Outer God certainly wouldn’t please the Greater Will
@@stevebuhrt3504 So, as I understand it, the Golden Order is a lot more Marika's doing than the Greater Will's. A big part of Miquella's storyline is that he was looking for a cure for the Rot to save Malenia - the Golden Order was actually unable to provide an answer for this, possibly implying the Rot somehow complies with the rules of the Golden Older. Hence why Miquella strives to create his own order of Unalloyed Gold. Perhaps the "Unalloyed" bit refers to a purification from the meddling of outer gods within the current order.
It begs the question, was the Greater Will simply unwilling, or was it unable?
The conclusion that I came to regarding the eternal cities is that their “banishment” underground by the greater will is most likely a bit of retroactive adjusting of the history on the part of Marika. I find it more probable that the Nox and Numen of the eternal cities were directed to live underground, by the greater will, until they rebelled. Then, later, when Marika, a Numen herself, became an evangelist of the greater will on the surface, she said that they were banished below ground, so as to dissuade others from seeking them out and discovering that they successfully rebelled against the greater will.
My evidence?
1) The giant skeleton chair crypts in Nokstella and Nokron. They wear robes with gold embroidery, Gold being heavily associated with the followers and agents of the greater will, and are notably dead, with the one in Nokron not only being guarded by Silver tears (which seem to be the primary defense force of the Eternal Cities) but also containing the finger slayer blade below it which is: A- Said to be born of a corpse. B- proof of high treason committed by the eternal city. And C- is said to be able to harm the Greater will and it’s Vassals.
2) I can’t find the exact description but there is an item that discusses how the eternal city rejected the Golden Order, meaning that they had to have been introduced to it at some point.
3) The eternal cities are, as noted in the video, mostly in good condition and seem well adapted to their surroundings, with unique and beautiful architecture that is, while not impossible, certainly not what one would expect from a bunch of exiles banished underground.
Keep in mind the they didn’t really succeed in rebelling for long as the greater will yeeted Astal at them.
…but the numen don’t come from the eternal cities.
@@dodiswatchbobobo yes they do. The Numen are the Scions of the eternal City
@@wilburforce8046 if that’s the case, then why are two of them still inhabited and in good working order without a hint of gold in sight?
@@MarionetteDuAuguste The Nox are the Scions of the eternal city. The Numen are the race of Queen Marika the Eternal, said to come from a land outside the Lands Between.
Can't overstate how hyped I am for this. Having been with the series for so long and thinking I knew everything about Dark Souls lore and how to interpret it, I found your channel and it completely blew the gates wide open. It was like rediscovering it all again, absolutely astounding. I'll go get my coffee and just sit back and relax to this video, so hyped.
I think you meant overstate lol
@@AsapRockyOG LMFAO
@@Umiedo 😂😂 other than that, I 100% agree with you!! Amazing game, already over 300 hours in lol
The true Lore Master is here. Hawkshaw is the most credible historian in the Souls community.
Indeed
I don't know about most credible, but I do find him to be the most entertaining.
I dunno about all that, but he's pretty good 👍
Yeah he's the best for Dark Souls 1 at least
@@chaoticstarfish3401 not a challenge or anything but who would you suggest?
Its worth noting that originally there should’ve been a broken minor erdtree in radahns arena which was removed. Probably to not cheese the boss. So there would be one more dead tree inside of a big former battlefield.
I've been waiting to watch lore for you :) any Idea when some more might come out? If it'll be a while thats still okay.
Very soon. And lots of it
Fantastic can’t wait to see it, also why did you guys remove the Game of Thrones to Elden similarities video? Thanks so much for your content also. So in depth, I imagine the effort is unbearable sometimes but it comes through. Keep it up :)
@@Hawkshaw yess
I have 2 main thoughts on the Eternal City. My first is that the Nox might have lived underground already, but that they were Forbidden from going above ground and perhaps sealed away. Secondly, with the Nameless Eternal City having the same architecture as the other 2 and located between Nokron and Nokstella, there is the possibility that the Nameless City was the midpoint of one, massive city until Astel crash landed and essentially bisected the city. That's my thought at least
I could see only the nameless city being above ground before but not that they always lived underground fully. The Comet of Astel and Remembrance of the Naturalborn are pretty clear that they banished the eternal city underground with his gravitational power. Not just prohibited them from coming out. I am a fan of the theory that the eternal city refered to is the nameless eternal city and the other two were underground already, but what you are suggesting makes little sense considering the lore we have.
Im with you on the bisection idea because using the word leveled could be interpenetration and could be argued, but I think the cities were connected and maybe even on a more level plane, the Siofra and Ansel portions could have sunk. Astel Leveled the Eternal City the same way Morgott slew countless tarnished, I mean, no one was counting but I get it just means he killed a lot. Astel caused a lot of damage sure, but she didnt knock down every building.
I was elated by your last point! I've been thinking a lot about the size of the Lands Between, and as you say, the lore seems to imply a land as large and as populous as a real-life continent. I think an important clue to take into account here is what you see at the borders of some regions: tectonic plates smashed together. Some geological event shrunk the world down to an extreme degree. I'm not sure how to connect it to the rest of the lore yet, but it may have implications with gravitational sorcery.
@TheOldDrzewid Of course it's ultimately a result of development limitations (I don't expect Fromsoft to literally model a map the size of Europe lmao), but I like the idea of solving ludonarrative dissonance with in-universe solutions over the alternative. Moreover, the concept of a world converging on a central area to become smaller isn't new to Fromsoft games (it's a *huge* theme in DS3), and in Elden Ring it can be directly linked with the theme of Regression.
@TheOldDrzewid There's no need for condescension. Obviously, Dark Souls and Elden Ring are separate universes with separate mythos. The reason I brought up DS3 was to suggest there may be a continuation of a previous idea from the developers.
Look to the past. In DS3 the lands were converging because the lord's of cinder neglected their duties and the land quite literally congregates them together, whether they like it or not.
One could argue the Erdtree (and even the Greater Will, we got God's in Firmaments now boys and germs), and whatever forces that be are also doing the same as the demigods neglect their duty for selfish reasons. The only difference I see is one land was called Lothric, the other The Lands Between. The latter's name also has very less than subtle implications.
@TheOldDrzewid Could you explain precisely how elden ring's mythology is lacking in comparison
Dude what an awesome video. I’ve watched so many lore videos on this game and no one has dove into the the environmental storytelling. Please keep making these
On the overall size - I feel the game is just kind of a truncated version of it so you stay busy. If expanded to proper scale it would be a mile or two between each camp to the next ruin or graveyard, making it huge. It’s just so you don’t waste time going from place to place in game.
True cause it take Over a. Hundred hours on your first ever playthrough let alone if the map was bigger plus considering all the underground shit they've made I feel like at a certain point the rendering could create way more lag issues if it was even bigger
Babe, wake up, new hakshaw vid dropped
I love the last bit about the scale of the map. In a video game context, Elden Ring's map is massive and would probably easily take half an hour to get from the weeping peninsula to the mountaintops of the giants by torrent. But once you take away the suspense of disbelief, it becomes much smaller in a "real world" scale. This had always bothered me even though I know nothing can be done about it, since vast fields of grass would make up 80% of a scaled Lands Between, but it feels extremely gratifying hearing someone else ackowledge it.
It is honestly not all that big. My point of comparison for big videogame maps tends to be ArmA and its numerous locales, because they are essentially real world locations digitised, and put the videogame maps in a real world context, and in regards to the number of unique locations ERs map seems to me roughly comperable to Altis island from the above series, though in absolute physical size it is definitely smaller, reinforcing the fact that it is compressed for the sake of a denser play area.
The size of the world is very much a video game thing that’s serves the gameplay rather then the story.
@@OneNationUnderPug Thought this myself. Even if they could technologically make a map dozens or hundreds of miles across to be truly believable, it would be mostly empty and boring to traverse. Open world games will ALWAYS feel small for that reason if you overanalyze it. It is still a game, and needs to play by the rules that "playing a game" requires, this being one
@@buddhapunch2486 it like questioning where all the stuff your character is carrying it. In movie or show it be weird if some one could
pull a giant sword out of nowhere but in a video game it’s fine.
Exactly. The map size is probably just video game thing, but if we just entertain ourselves a bit and focus on lore, it just seems waaayy too small. I mean, taking into consideration those giant ass architectures and buildings as well as the giant skeletons and a massive war with thousands of people, the world just seems too small to be able to fit all of that.
Makes me think the map of Elden ring is simply a small fragment of a bigger world that was once whole, but for some reason got shattered into many pieces. When fighting the Elden beast, we see multiple erdtrees, and the lore suggesting the greater will going into other worlds as well. Maybe the Greater Will is trying to collect all the fragmented pieces and trying to make it whole again?
The tales of the underground rivers!! Nobody credible has covered them at all really and I find them fascinating
Ainsel means "My own self" and Siofra means "Fairy." Considering the Blue Swordsmen and the Blue Dancer Charm referencing a Fairy, it's quite interesting.
@@Rakshael The blue swordsman is also likened to running, flowing water. Also, it seems Ainsel river leads to the lake of rot which where it seems the rot outer god is sealed
@@blobbything2986 Precisely. Someone on r/EldenRingLoreTalk suggested the swordsman who trained Malenia was not actually this ancient Blue hero, but Gowry, imitating him, influencing Malenia in her youth. I'm undecided but it's a significant thought.
the underground rivers where so neat when I found them, hadnt heard of anyone say anything. big surprise when I found that big ass thing under liurnia
Farum Azula could have once been the size of a continent and actually traversed the sky like an air ship.
Especially considering how gigantic placidusax 's boss area is.
@@rightousnesspursuer6523 Didnt he call Farum a mausoleum of sorts in the video? Or was it just in reference to the beast skeletons decorating the structures... Anyways, one theory I have is that farum azula was once a gigantic tower city carried by the tornado from beneath and the Dragonlords arena is the top of that tower. Then over time the tower was destroyed and the remaining pieces now surround the tornado that once carried the tower.
@@unuseableb
Yes, but that's just how it currently is. Alternatively, it appears they used corpses in their building. Considering this, it would be a mausoleum because of the walls, and not because everyone inside is dead.
@@unuseableb Yea, I think it's stated that faram azula is a mausoleum for placidusax.
I’m of the belief that farum azula was once upon a time not floating in the sky. There’s evidence all across the world that the city may have been literally ripped out from where it once was and thrust into a different dimension/time/whatever. The beastial sanctum says to me that this place used to once be a part of the lands between. Maybe when the meteor containing the elden beast crashed into the lands between, it just blew the whole civilization apart.
I maintain the Souls games are exercises in archaeology with hostile unburied bodies to deal with. I've been stuck into the Alchemical aspects lately, so thank you so very much for the trowel and spade you've brought along!
when dad comes back from buying milk
LET'S GODDAMN GO !!! Hawkshaw you are Amazing
I like the point you make at 29:30. I always thought of the world in Fromsoftware games as Theater Sets compared to Movie Sets.
Movies try to get as close to the real world as possible, whereas Theater Sets just show you whats important to understand the scene and story.
Even for a game, they couldve implied an expansive world just by designing it in the map even if we couldnt access those locations. The idea of theatre sets works well for the souls games but it doesnt work for an open world like elden ring that literally shows us a map of every distinct areas.
I knew it, I just knew you were going to make Elden Ring videos
Tbh the topography of the lands between as a whole seems indicative of recent extreme geological activity, at first I thought the shattering would have involved the kind of fighting that could have that effect on the land and maybe it still did, but I wonder if the shattering itself maybe caused a period of sort of apocolyptic earthquakes and weather conditions and that's why there's so much in the way of mad cliffs, and how Mt Gelmir started erupting - since presumably the manor was originally built on more solid foundations - also why Sellia is sinking - is this maybe also why there are chains between the cliffs in MOTG? Maybe they're literally holding the cliffs together. Problem with this theory though is there's literally no notes on it beyond acknowledgements of things sinking.
Consider the concept of the Diminishing Erdtree. It is dying. It used to rain blessings, and likely covered the whole of the continent with it's power. The Limgrave ruins could be from during the time of bounty.
The College's spell Terra Magika description echoes a similar tale of a blessing reducing in scale over time.
That’s actually a great point I was wondering about that spells description
Everything in the Lands Between is dying and overdue for a new age.
Thank you SO MUCH in referencing the metaphor of size! I think a lot of people lose that kind of practice when thinking/talking about lore. Obviously, the mountaintops of the giants weren't just some tiny plateaus and a bowl, furthermore, the academy probably wasn't just a hop, skip and a jump from the main gates of the city - these things have been condensed for the sake of gameplay which is unfortunate. but sometimes necessary - really, it's the same thing that happens in all the dark souls games (one of the most egregious examples being the elevator between the poison windmills and magma keep in DS2)
I think it would be really cool if you had a resized version of the map in your later videos in order to better help people with the scope of the stories told in the world!
Hawkshaw how the he'll have ya been?
I just wanna know where all the food comes with the zero farms in the lands between.
isn't it obvious, outside of the lands between
@@Blandy8521 Damn imagine having to cross the sea of fog just for some carrots
@@hatefulgaming1800 tbh it was probably Caelid which would explain why we don't see any farms
@@Blandy8521 Damn Malenia really is evil
Logical conclusion: overgrown seafood. Look at those damn lobsters, I could eat a week at one of those legs, did you know that lobsters can partially regrow limbs? I see an unending supply of seafood incoming!
Jokes aside tho, I've no clue. Do the people in the lands between even need to eat? Marika litterly disabled dying, so I don't think disabling survival mode would be much harder.
Finally! Elden Ring's success brought a lot of click bait seekers acting like they can lore craft
Is that a bad thing?
@@ITBEurgava Elden Ring's success is a good thing. People flooding search results with click bait and incorrect lore videos is not.
At least hawkshaw has yet to disappoint us. Dunno about the rest.
@@ITBEurgava Hawkshaw has good research, quality, and sources. In fact, I used some of their timeline videos as a basis for a world I made for a DND campaign over on a West marches discord server
@@ITBEurgava one word: normies.
Interesting video. I look forward to future installments.
As for scale, it's an issue almost every game has to deal with. Who wants to spend several hours of real time just to get to the next town? Who wants to cross the miles of farmland necessary to keep a city fed? Though I do wish we saw *some* farmland, and more variety of animals in Elden Ring. How big would the Lands Between actually be? That is difficult to say. Perhaps something that really doesn't have an answer, just suffice to say "big enough."
Thing is with scale it's not like with DS3 where parts of other civilizations being brought into an area but the scale is what it is. It's just after the shattering probably around 90 percent of the population had to have died. Bringing rise to only the strongest humans and other species. You can tell because of how its said in the video with the amount of crypts in Limgrave there used to be a lot of people living there. As far as the lack of farms either they used to exist when a peasantry existed and now are just gone as it be a key resources for an enemy to want to destroy or food was grown or created with magic. This is just my speculation but it would have to be one or the other or both
I haven't seen any clarification on how necessary bodily functions like eating are after destined death has been removed from the world. Do people need to eat? Food exists, but it only seems to serve specific purposes. Is this just gameplay flavor? I wonder if only tarnished need to eat - or are the only ones with the sense remaining to be able to prepare food for themselves. Otherwise, I don't know how much evidence there is of non-tarnished eating, beyond NPCs like the soldiers that we see feasting on corpses. Is it possible the people of the lands between that have been there since the shattering have grown so long and spindly from continuing to age without requiring sustenance? Whatever the answer is, my guess is that the farmland was destroyed during the upheavals that have affected the world or fell out of use if the removal of destined death reduces or eliminates the need to eat. (Or it's like how some video games don't include accessible bathrooms. It wasn't relevant to gameplay, and time wasn't wasted on including them versus more important features.)
Good to see you covering elden ring my man
Its always a blessing seeing hawkshaw uploads
Liurnia must of flooded because of all that mining for glinstone was taking place
This video is amazing. Following the main highway from the capitol was actually really fascinating. I had a few thoughts on Liurnia. If extra water was the issue in Liurnia we wouldn't see building sinking into the ground the water level would be higher on them. I think the improvised path restricted the water in the region and that the levels were actually originally higher. So Liurnia is actually drained at this point, down to being a marsh, which wouldn't cause things to sink into the ground not until they started mining the lake bed. Raya Lucaria itself is a giant mining scoop they have caves that are being mined around the lake. If you combine that with a soft mushy marsh that would cause the buildings and even some islands/land formations to crumble. Also, talk about disrespect, even after forming an alliance with the Carian Royals they didn't bother to make a bridge or anything connecting them to the main highway. They can see it from their ramparts but it is very out of the way. Or maybe they demanded such a path not be built.
I believe the northern highlands of Caelid were neglected due to it being dragon territory. Can't wait for the next video!!!
BROOOOO OUR BOY HAWKSHAW DOING ELDEN RING VIDS NOW YESSSSS
Let’s gooooo!!!!!
Limgrave is the site of multiple devastating events.
The sealing of the Eternal City, the destruction of Farum Azula (there's too much evidence saying it was there to really argue against this), whatever the war against Stormveil was (probably related to one or both of the former mentions) and it's the place where the Tarnished both left on their exile and where they seem to have returned (it's never a good thing to have an army march through your lands, especially not twice).
I think the "lakes" part is worth considering more when it come to Liurnia.
Raya Lucaria is built on a massive precipice. But what if it wasn't always like that? What if there was once a barrier around it that formed a lake? What if it was built out on that lake. Perhaps at some point this barrier was destroyed and this is why the whole region is now flooded and damaged while the school appears to have been built on a mountain? The large, very tall in one case and fallen down in the other bridge ruins around the school suggest to me that there could have been much deeper water around the school at one point. It's also possible that water was being held there by magic and that the magic barrier is what collapsed. That might explain where there don't appear to be any good candidates for structures suggesting a natural barrier?
The milky water in Deeproot depths suggests a heavy concentration of silt.
Silt doesn't tend to collect that densely in flowing water though. Personally, I think that this silt is the spirit ash collected by the Erdtree. Or at least, excess spirit ash. There are signs that whatever the Erdtree's purpose is, its function is breaking down. Perhaps the Erdtree's enormous size gives us a hint at this malfunction? Perhaps it is absorbing too much spirit ash, more than it can even process, so it is purging the ash out through the roots of the Great Tree to which it was grafted?
Hard to say for sure.
Anyway, great video, Been meaning to spend some time looking at the lay of the Lands Between and just haven't really gotten around to it. It's so cool to see Miyazaki's environmental story telling blown up to such large proportions. We're going to be picking at these threads for years.
Another detail about Liurnia... Underneath it is another and far more sinister lake... The lake of Rot. Combined elements of lore seems to tell the story of a blind warrior, who mastered the art of the Sword and fought against the incarnation of Rot, an outer God. Victorious, he burried / locked the remains within the lake. . . . Now... Could it be possible that, like the Abyss back in Dark souls... Rot's influence keep devouering the upper grounds, and slowly make it fall to dust ? ( Besides, that warrior was wearing blue... It could be a detail, but I do remember a certain champion who faced such struggle in DS... Wearing the sale color. )
Anyway, this lake, as well as the crucible and the true nature of the ruins scattered across Liurnia and Limgrave are the biggest mistery that I wish to see explored in the future.
In my book, two things are certain. The blind warrior was right : stagnation leads to decay, as we can see with the Golden Order and all livings across the Land... The second thing, The Outer God of Rot is to Elden Ring what Papa Nurgle is to Warhammer... Kind of.
Hawkshaw on Elden Ring? Let's go!
It would be crazy if the giant bridge at the start of the mountaintops was actually a giant wall, one of many the giants build and got destroyed/sunken down. Because It looks too stupid for being a bridge, the giants wouldnt need It. It could be a structure from older civilizations O.O
It definitely feels more like a wall, especially when viewed from a distance.
Farum Azula does have tiny statues of humans embedded in certain walls, implying that they were around during Placidusax's rule and may have had some standing in the order of the time
Considering Maliketh is the half-brother of Marika, it seems that Marika and Maliketh's parents married and unified their kingdoms at the time, likely to oppose the Gloam-Eyed Queen, take her Rune of Death, and ensure Marika was the Empyrean that would be chosen as the next god (since Placidusax's fled)
@@Rakshael we know that maliketh was explicitly given to marika by the greater will similar to blaidd and serosh
@@omeletteman3451 Sure, that doesn't mean he was born at the moment he was made a Shadow. Nor for Serosh. Maliketh has a family, explicitly, and he's a royal of Farum Azula, implicitly.
The beastmen who live in death drop human bone shards, so I think we're missing information concerning the world. It's possible there was some Outer God influence that brought beasts and the beast-blood into the world. Elden Ring being a weird mash-up of previous games' themes I can imagine there being more depth to BB's contribution than just a beast clergyman and some equipment references, hidden in the past.
the first dungeon you can come across in Limgrave has the boss Beastman of farum azula. I think this connects the ruins from Limgrave to farun azula
The white water reminds me of melt from glaciers. They often have a large amount of very small suspended particles (silt). Could be implying it's melt run off from the mountains?
Water is often seen as the seed of life so I was thinking of Albinauric since they seem to bleed white or maybe the lost race Nightfolk who is said to bleed silver, in relation to mimic tear who is present a lot in the underground. Another note of Albinauric is that they are created, not naturally born I read in some description. So maybe the Albinauric are the creation of these Nightfolk.
@@GoldenLeafsMovies
I think the Albinaurics are a Carian creation, as they are found most often in Liurnia, their village is in western Liurnia which is associated with Caria, and they are associated with silver, who else is associated with silver? Why the Royal House of the Moon!
@@semi-useful5178 Loretta helps that theory. But they could've found that silver on the river and seen how it transforms into multiple things (nightfolk, silver tears, etc) and decided to create them.
@@GoldenLeafsMovies
Very possible
I love these
Another interesting thing of note to the layout of the Lands Between is the sun. Rather than simply east to west, it actually travels from northeast (beyond castle Sol) to southwest (past the Lunar Ruins)
Love the video! A very unique way of looking at the story being told. Keep it up!
Also, a good theory for the sinking of Liurnia might be overmining of those crystals beneath the academy, causing instability and shifts in the landscape. At this rate, perhaps eventually, the whole thing might someday fall through into the lake of rot
And my personal guess for the carts above the ruin-strewn precipice is that some people were fleeing one of the many wars that took place on the Altus Plateau, but finding the Lift of Dectus inoperable, fled here to find the hidden path down
Been waiting for the #1 roadmandem of the lore lands to return
I will never approach a Vulgar militiamen squad without feeling like a coop boss for them lol
Their armor also suggests that they are unsung heros, defending parts of the world that are forbidden/dangerous. I like the little fellas.
@@tinminator8905 They're references to Redcaps, I believe Old battlefields and abandoned places are their haunt - all except for the red hat, they line up. A source even describes them as wielding polearms.
I believe all landscapes were damaged to varying degrees in a whiplash of reality's breaking. A sonic-boom caused by the actual shattering of the Elden Ring, as opposed to the Shattering Wars.
Castle Sol's Sun is an Eclipsed Sun, I think a ghost mentioned it. We find that symbol elsewhere too.
I think Castle Sol is related to Godwyn. A moon (Ranni) eclipsing of covering the Son(Sun) and the brilliance of Godfrey.
An eclipsed sun may represent when Ranni planned the Night of Black Knives where Godwyn and her were slain, resulting in Godwyn dying of soul and a new form of death being born from his corpse, while Ranni dies of body so she can reach godhood later on, where only the moon and stars take the place of the sun, with this event represented by an eclipse, where the sun "dies" and a dark moon takes its place, where in the shadow of such an event, a dark sun is born of shaded sunlight, a golden shade blackened with death, like how the Death Blight looks in game.
Been waiting a while for this
Finaly some Quality
One interesting thing about the consecrated snowfield is that it migth have been a similar place to the underground parts of the Lands Between.
It has the same stone pillars as Siofra/Nokron and have the lightning spheres that are only can be found in Siofra river.
On top of these there is that spectral/ghost dragonkin soldier, who are heavily tied to the ECs. Plus Astel is also right there in a dungeon.
The Snowfield is a huge clue, and it's almost intentionally forgettable, despite massive links to the ancient cities, early generation Albinaurics, and even Unalloyed Gold, all within plain sight.
Astel's mine dungeon is also sprinkled with buried versions of the same architecture of the other cities, specifically the parts surrounding the lake of rot and the temple city filled with Kindred of Rot.
From a single ancient pillar protruding from the wall, I knew I was in for more alien related things. The question is whether the Alabaster Lord in the mine is related to the Astel/Fallingstar species somehow? Same location of origin? Are they hostile to each other? Did the Lord kill the miners? Did Astel, before the few survivors boarded up the entrance to Astel's cave?
So glad you starting posting about elden ring lore. Your DS lore vids are so masterful I was hoping you'd do just this
this is actually groundbreaking, never had i though of the roots in Caelid to have been revealed by the rot, i assumed that all of them were what bloomed in the wake of Malenia
Great video and analysis! I especially like the last part. We must also not forget that our tarnished is forever loaded with crack and adderall to be able to run/sprint/ride endlessly through the open world that it almost makes it comically smaller than it actually is.
😂 Crack and adderall
I've been waiting for this video, Hawkshaw! Praise the lore!!
I love FromSoft's use of and the community's ability to interpret the world itself, the geometry, the layout, and the architecture, as part of the history of the world. When I first realized the significance of flowing water to the world (from the lore around the fairy, the swordsman, and the god of rot) and followed the flow of water up through the eternal cities and to the base of the roots beneath the Erdtree I was amazed. And that's just what I noticed on my own. So many cool revelations in this video, I can't wait for more!
Been waiting for this
29:20
I believe the white-coloured water is linked to Deathblight and Godwyn. You can find one instance of the pale water above ground at Liurnia of the Lakes. A bunch of skeletons and a skeletal mariner arise from it and inside the lake there's a big ol' pustule of deathroot which grows from Godwyn.
I think people in Liurnia were just bad architechts and built on flimsy ground.
The first I've seen to attempt the mystery of Farum Azula's previous location! I believe this is also related to Hoorah Loux's sweeping the old away with the storm. I believe this to be deeper lore having to do with the Greater Will severing ties with the first dominant organisms on this planet it chose to manifest its order. Interesting to me on top of this is what this entails for Nephali Loux and her promise to sweep everything away in the storm. Tarnished will embody the beast and nephali will be lord consort? 🙏
Fav elden ring lore vid of all time so far! 👍🔥
*Regarding the Minor Erd Trees* i noticed an interesting correlation. There are 5 healthy saplings and exactly 5 Lord Runes. I think the Greater Will was/is on the cusp of propagating its order when marika/ranni won a most decisive battle at a critical moment in the grand scheme. It seems to me the game takes place after all the juicy parts of the story. The Tarnished cosmic role is equivalent to a bed-side rag. Oh no i dnt 🤭
(Lastly, minor note i'd love to see an extension of this video focusing strictly on architecture. I believe the cities underground still have extant buildings above ground for example)
You're right, they still have aboveground structures.
Uhl palace and the Consecrated Snowfields are the two biggest locations, but my favourite is the absolution statue in Tortoise-pope's church. It's of a Nox stood in water with conventional face coverings. (Tying back into the absolution rite being a star-fate religion thing) Said church itself is also a source of contemporary to Nox-era architecture. It is a temporal Rosetta stone thanks to it's focus on unification and peace. It marks out some things as older than we thought, and other things as younger than they'd seem. (the Nox statue for example, would not be there unless the Nox were accepted during the church's building)
There's also the areas miners are uncovering under the Snowfield and Liurnia, and the gravestone-looking tablets(and tablet looking tablets) that are old enough to have formed parts of cliffsides, or possibly even been displaced there during upheaval of various forms. Could that have been the storm's doing?
Something to note is that farum in Gaelic, where a lot of elden ring borrows language from, means "Tower." So Farum Azula, just means The Tower of Azula, and Farum Greatbridge is the Tower Greatbrisge. Bigger qustion is how did Farum Greatbridge get its name? Either it's referring to the Bestial Sanctum as a tower, or possibly, considering how quickly or Beast Clergyman can get between the Sanctum and Farum Azula, the Beatial Sanctum might house a way to teleport between the two, and the Beast Clergyman may be protecting it.
It’s about time!
I love that you used the Bonfire of Dreams song in the beginning 👊🏻
Probably the Nameless Eternal City was the one on the surface that got banished underground and erased from records by advocates of the Greater Will (therefor became nameless as nobody remembers or knows its name anymore), then the survivors (the Nox and maybe some Numen as well) went on to build Nokstella and Nokron using the same architecture of their original city, but taking into account they are underground cities as well as taking the rivers into account.
It's very clear from the good condition of the two cities and the water gates that they weren't banished underground, they were BUILT underground, IMO that's the most plausaible scenario.
But if the nameless eternal city was built on the surface how was its sky stolen by astel, as it seems the starry and nebula like sky is only present underground
Important to note, the word farum derrives from the dativ casus of pharus(latin) meaning lighthouse, forming crumbling lighthouse of azula. Which would suggest that there is either a city/ landmass called azula or it simply points at the name of the lighthouse being azula. Also this suggests that it was once connected to caelid as lighthouses are tipically on the shore.
Also many props to this video not making mistakes many of the other youtubers are making. It didnt occur to me that so much lore can be derrived from the map design! I am stoked for more content
@@trolzor01 I'm hoping for timetravel DLC where we can visit other parts of Azula, or even just a regular Farum Azula, before it crumbled. I have a hunch that the timescales involved in the world we're seeing in game are much greater than we imagined. Like for example we think we're in DS3 when we're actually in the equivalent of the DS3's Ringed City DLC at the end of time, with all that came before piled beneath us.
I would be interested in possible video about Liurnia/Caria and its internal strife and politics.
And most of all, the unassuming nameless woman Governess that is portrayed in painting at the Debate Parlour.
In debate parlour, we see chronological portraits of former Academy headmasters/governors. And there is single woman that comes after Rennala here, bearing striking resemblance with Sellen and most of all, Witch's Glintstone Crown.
Sellen's mask is called Witch's Glintstone Crown. And all Glintstone masks are named in honour of the worthe scholars who became Academy Governors/Conspectus founders. This mysterious Witch governess is not referred anywhere else, as far as I know. And only Raya Lucarian with nickname "Witch" is Sellen herself.
Furthermore, Sellen wrily refers herself as an apostate.
Word comes from Ancient Greek ἀποστάτης (apostátēs, “rebel").
So Sellen is rebel towards whom? My guess is towards Carian Royal Family.
Neither Miriel nor Thops mention Sellen by name. Miriel has vested interest as Caria loyalist, Thops is thrown out of the loop.
Therefore, perhaps this mysterious Witch Woman was governess only very briefly, only so long that a new painting was commissioned and made?
Or at least, this governor was very unpopular/embarrassing to the ruling elite at the current moment. So much so that even Turtle does not mention her.
If chronology is to be maintained, then this nameless Witch of the Primeval Current block came to be governor after Rennala was supplanted due to her mental breakdown. Which coincides with Raya Lucaria seeking independence from Caria royals at that time, taking advantage of Ranni becoming known traitor to the Golden Order.
My belief is this. Sellen, a rising prodigy, becomes next headmistress/governess hailing from the block dissatisfied with Carian "pedantry". They are interested in furthering the study of the primeval current. Cuckoo forces are defeated and enslaved at Caria Manor.
Ranni's striketeam of Moongrum, WoR, royal pages and dragons retaliate and teleport/flie to Raya Lucaria to safeguard Rennala and cut off the serpent's head.
Other two members of the block, Sellen's former masters, Lusat and Azur, escape Ranni's wrath to secure locations.
Seluvis, two-faced opportunist as he is, either procures a new body for the governess or helps her escape in her true body. Former is more likely, considering Sellen is supposedly expert in body swapping.
Sellen, true governess of Raya Lucaria, is then relentlessly pursued by Carian Witchunters and finally hauled to "black-ops" site, furthest nook of the Lands Between, Weeping Peninsula.
I also doubt claims that Sellen hunted sorcerers. Mainly because there is evidence only that Carian loyals hunted sorcerers and practitioners of Primeval Current. I very much feel Sellen was slandered to discredit her claim as a governess.
However, Sellen manages to astral project illusion outside while her body is shackled, setting up a shop in Limgrave proper.
Her being this missing governess would also explain why Sellen so readily travels back to the Academy with such entitled bravado. Simply because she is no ordinary sorceress, but the lawful, Academy chosen successor to Rennala as the governess in the first place.
At any case, Carian/Raya Lucarian conflict, the all parties involved and this mystery Witch would make an interesting video.
The underground cities were built post-banishment. Their societies were scrubbed from the surface, so which are their original ruins? Where are they?
There are the Uhl Palace Ruins above ground in North-Eastern Liurnia, and they seem to have a connection to the Eternal Cities.
@@abrahamvilliers4847 Indeed, the Followers have even resettled the ruins, as you find real living Followers instead of spirit ones. During the reign of the Golden Order they would likely have been forced away, but everything returns to the roots in time, as they say in the lands.
The Ancestral Followers are a useful time-capsule of pre-Erdtree worship, their worship of horns, compared to the Erdtree's vilification of them (the omen in particular) is telling. Horns as part of the crucible might have even been stable, whereas forced outside of order, horns have festered and sprouted, forming a corrupted seedbed and giving rise to the Omen, which has even infested the royal blood of the Capital of the Erdtree's age.
WOOO YEA BABY HAWKSHAW UPLOAD
13:12 - 13:18 Actually makes sense since the Fight Between Radahn and Melania started in the Swamp of Aeonia. The nearby finger crone also calls this a flower of the scarlet rot indicating the swamp or where you fight the boss for the Golden Needle as Ground Zero. The Ghost near the swamp also mentions wanting to see Malenia again. Lastly Aeonia is also the Name of "Scarlet Aeonia" Melanias special move that creates a gigantic flower. Another note worth thing is the design choice of the swamp of aeonia "Tree" is similar looking to the Haligtree.
This is hands down one of the best lore videos I have ever seen. The lore of the world itself, and to think Miyazaki and the bois at FromSoft put this much thought into the world building, and its literal topography/geography is incredible. Fantastic stuff man!
I mean, it’s also George R.R. Martin’s vision, too.
Most likely not the case but maybe the map is scaled down like in Genshin to fit gameplay but in lore everything is much bigger
In Genshin, Monstadt is said to be a bustling city and stuff but in game it's like what, 12 buildings?
this is like a lesson in archaeology ^^
Gotta say, love the selection of background music in this vid :D And thank you so much for listing it all in the description! Keep up the great work :)
I think the color of the water in the Deeproot Depths couls be related to the Prince of Death and Deathbligh as a whole, since Summonwater Village and Wyndham Ruins (both overworld areas with water bodies with a very similar tone) house Tibia Mariners and Deathroot.
Thinking about the giant skeletons in the eternal cities, could it be possible that the Nox are connected to the stone arch ruins mentioned several times throughout this video? It feels like the scale fits. Maybe the Nox previously also had overground settlements but were then banished to their underground cities.
Also when talking about Caelid you forgot Sellia, which is the endpoint of the road winding through the region. It's probably safe to assume that it was some sort of regional capital in times of peace (Radahn went there to study magic after all).
Seems to me Sellia was the Place to go to learn Gravity magic and Invisible sorceries, whereas Raya Lucaria was the Seat of the Sorceries of Glintstone.
Seems hard to prove what destroyed most of the Nameless City and polluted its water, but its proximity to Godwin can’t be helping things
This is easy, I'll explain all the characters in the roundable, 1, D, wants to give fia the D, but fia learned self defense in death to tarnished. Fia, offers hugs, to poor tarnished, and offers snuggle tax. Corwyn, marika simp, he fears the T pose. Dung eater, or the fearsome feces feaster, tyranical too-too taster, maniacal mud muncher, serious scat slurper, callous crap craver, he just wants everyone to become an omen. Not the worst ending, everyone gets to become stronk so you know not that bad, becomes closer to the eternal crucible. Then there is sir gideon ofnir, the smartest of all the reddits, pores over the lore forums and makes snide comments. Spellblade rogier, the man with D R I P, not much is known besides that however. Ensha, all hearing, rumored to be named by gideon ofnir, after an old lord of edge. Finger reader crone, has the great skill of jumping on top of tables, with out breaking them, not a toe touches the side. Roderika, helps upgrade the true elden lord, tiche, servant of the spirit calling snail. Hewg, wants to make a godslaying weapon, he's pretty chill. No sad backstory, nothing to do with the crucible. Now the people you wanted to hear about the most, spirit calling snail, and soldier of god, rick. the snail works with him to control the elden beast! Meanwhile he deters our path to the erdtree. Random runebears? Random death birds in caelid? Random lobsters? They were sent by the soldier of god, rick. it was the snail who brought in the age of the Erdtree, the god of gods. Created it with his very tail, yet soldier of god, rick brought the caller to the great crucible, forged a path of death through the lands between, so that spirit caller could finally set itself upon its very heart, to feast of it and plant its own erdtree. He planted it. Oversaw its growth and kept it safe. He enforces the spirit callers will throughout the lands between, Soldier of god, rick. Fear the second phase, the rest of the game. To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Snail. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics and gravity magic most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick &
snail truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existential catchphrase "..." which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Myizaki's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂
And yes, by the way, i DO have a Rick & Snail tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎
Rick and snail fans are the worst.
Adderall is a hell of a drug
@@classica1fungus why do so many people say I'm on drugs, its honestly hurting a lil now. I do not have hormone blocker, I am not high, I have not ODed
@@skyprior3866 i didn't say you were high technically
@@skyprior3866 rampant autistism?
The brickwork of the large broken bridge north of Raya Lucaria reaches all the way down to the lake, implying that liurnia was in that state when it was build
The Siofra river is probably pronounced Sheefra, meaning fairy, which opens a big connection to the Blue Dancer of Malenia fame
This would make a nice undergraduate dissertation for a geography degree (i.e., Cartography and geographies in video games)
I guess that whole size decrease thing explains why a lot of humanoid bosses are so much bigger than us.
That has always been the case in Fromsofts games. It is most likely a tool for gameplay perspecitve. Showing you that you are not meant to be this amazing hero that accomplishes everything but just a lowly Tarnished/Undead like any other. All these great opponents are meant to feel much more powerful than us.
One thing that I really cant grasp in particular that the humongous giant corpses and well, even the smaller thorned giants within the mountaintops for example seem too large to have inhabited what we explore within the area. The lands between also is so incredibly miniature in comparison to these creatures (the huge skeletons and cut content flaming heads). Did the lands between at one point be much more gargantuan? Some structures in Limgrave do appear quite large. What would've caused a shrinkage? I doubt it was mere erosion considering the sheer size and preserved nature of the skeletons, Or did the developers just put in these giant corpses for aesthetic? its typically not the last option for Fromsoft so im rather quite stumped. Perhaps Im looking too far into it though. I'm also really glad you mentioned how the lands between simply dont make sense considering the depth of the lore, it really took away from the immersion during my first playthrough. Either fromsoft ran out of time or theres an explanation, who knows.
It's just the matter of time and development really. They need to make game playable first and foremost. That's why the map is just a right size for the amount of content. If they made it too small, them it would kill the sense of being in open world. If they made it too big, game would become a horse riding simulator, and amount of content would be too small leading to same repeating encounters over and over. Coming up with more content would take too much time and money, even if we put Fromsoft's vast library of models and animations into consideration.
Usually any RPG world is considered much bigger in lore, and what players see is different from what npcs are supposed to experience. Like empires and kingdoms in The Elder Scrolls with populations of small town at most. Or how Geralt in Witcher 3 travels between cities in the matter of minutes, when it takes several days in books.
It's meant to be awesome and mysterious like the fanged skull in Ash Lake in DS1, or the Amygdala hanging off buildings in BB. The latter has some explanation, but you don't know or think about it at first, you go, "wow, look at that! what is _that_ ?!"
@@NK-fp9zs At least Elder Scrolls has small towns though and the witcher example is fine in my book as long as the cities actually exist. Like Elden Ring has no farms, no villages, the same copy pasted ruins literally everywhere, underdeveloped lore significant areas such as carian manor for example (which is just a really terrible garden inside some generic stone walls), etc. It really obliterates immersion in that respect. I dont particularly think the world shouldve been as vast as it is in the lore, but considering how crammed it feels as it is I think less random enemies couldve been placed, dungeons couldve used more fleshed out development and instead of the same old ruins we couldve gotten more stuff like the windmill village. Even with the military people we see in the game what do they just not eat? Stormveil has plenty of food in it but no farmland in sight. I konw its a minor point but still it wouldve helped with worldbuilding. Also regarding the mountaintops, I think we shouldve had vast mountains to traverse with literally 0 enemies. It wouldve been atmospheric rather than the mess it is now.
A land of reeds video would be cool, though, not sure if there’s a whole lot of substance there
Don't forget: in Limgrave, we see just one golem, heavily damaged and lying near some of the fallen ruins, along with other more decayed golems. Whatever that city in the sky was, it had golems that fell to earth with it.
I think the implication is that they fell off the crumbling divine bridge directly above
In Limgrave there are many Golems. All of them on the great bridge or fallen down from it. Sad how people believe a small theory Vaati had when he first played the game till this day.
@@tinminator8905 They believe him cause he steals all his theories from Reddit.
Love the video, and the age of mythology music that snuck its way in there! Etimos!
I’ve become addicted to this game… I need help…
The divine towers predate the civilization of the Erdtree. There is a painting depicting the Stormhill where Stormveil Castle would be built on, and in the painting, The bridge to the divine tower stands in identical state of disrepair as it does on present day.
Let that sink in. Since the shattering, the divine towers have suffered no additional wear and tear compared to how they were an age ago. They are truly ancient.
The first time I got where you get Cinquedea, It looked like a Pier, where a boat or another vehicle would transport. And the Beast Sanctum being a church it makes sense for it to have a back exit for transport.
I refuse to believe that Hawkshaw is making non-DS1 content
the fire walls were very definitely constructed by the redmanes to restrict the spread of rot, and all the current manserpents were made by rykards expirements with the help of the godskins so the time dating of the manserpents in that description could likely be a reference to the crucible instead or just a mistranslation, as its not even clear if thats what it means in the english version
To your last point about the size of the world, I think there's some interpretation that needs to be made, and some creative allowances. This isn't really a lore answer, but I think what's happening here is we're butting up against some real world development realities of just how large and detailed they can make the game space while also making it a fun game to play and keeping things within budget. That's maybe not a satisfying answer, but I think when we dive THIS deeply in to the makeup of the game world, at some point you're going to hit the bedrock that is the world's true existence as an abstraction inside a video game. That is to say, there may not be a lore reason for why the world isn't practicably as large as it should be.
Thank you for bringing us elden lore \[T]/
Your intepretation of the Man Serpent Ashes is very strange. It's almost as if you read "long ago" and just ignored everything that comes after that. The Man Serpent's were born after Rykard got devoured. The likelyhood of that being before the volcano manor was built is close to none. The Shattering also was long ago. Almost all big event were long ago already.