Elden Ring's Most Mysterious Enemy (and Its Lore)
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- An enemy which the game doesn't even deem fit to name. In this video, I explore Elden Ring's most mysterious enemy, what Fextralife calls Abnormal Stone Clusters. We will find out though, that they have an actual name, and that isn't it. Come join me on the search!
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The Tarnished Archaeologist: • Found in Farum Azula |...
Rocketlucco's Reddit Post: / some_realizations_abou...
Music:
Christopher Larkin - Resting Grounds (Emphase Remix)
Megaman & Bass OST [SNES] - Ground Man's Stage
Super Metorid OST - Lower Maridia (Swampy Caverns)
Elden Ring OST - Limgrave
Stray OST - Trash Zone
#eldenring #lore #eldenringlore - Ігри
Glad to see more people checkin this video out! And plenty of small catches I missed in the comments, nice. If you really like the content, considering supporting me on Patreon! As it really helps me dedicate more time and resources to the channel. Thanks again! www.patreon.com/madluigi
Sentry Stone has a better ring to it :)
"runes, scripts or etching" looks like the Coded Sword or those Hand things you find in the Roundtable Hold , though those are Faith based soooo i don't know how that would fit in. just off the cuff, where I've seen similar markings , cant think of anything else right now.
Is it possible to spawn the prisoners aboveground?
Maybe you could compare the runes on the entrance to evergaols to the ones found on the coffins that transport you to other areas. When they go up in the cutscene, they glow orange and show a lot of different runes on them.
Loved the video. There's another "special" Ever Gaol without sentinels this time : the one that gives access to Malenia's Haligtree, populated by Black Knife Assassins and Albunoric Rangers in West Mountaintops.
I also wondered, the rune patterns on Ever Gaols kinda looks like Ghiza's Wheel, although i don't think there's a connection.
My theory is that they're maintaining the evergaol at an ethereal level, as inn they are constantly replenishing the jail by absorbing cosmic/gravity energy from the eather or absorbing it from the stars like solar panels and feeding it to gaol to keep it's pocket dimension going.
Thats a pretty interesting theory, and would somewhat explain their lack of doing much in general
Considering what radahn was capable of with gravity magic this seems likely but it does make it weird why they are watching the well
@@TheNova258 Comparing it with Radahn, perhaps what he did was the same technique that makes an Evergaol. Using the power of gravity magic to sustain a prison.
I mean you can enter the gaol even after you kill them, and we've got to remember that although they don't react to you or in general, they do have an eye and therefore a purpose for that eye. They're also seemingly living beings which doesn't make much sense if all they do is "absorb gravity". There must be a reason why they're alive and not literal rocks.
Any clue as to why they migrate? You can find one close to warmaster shack worming it's way presumably to the stormhill evergaol. From west to east. As if it were making a pilgrimage from summonwater village to said mentioned evergaol.
I like the theory that they're basically security cameras, and the guy who's supposed to be watching them to raise the alarm is just not there anymore, it's a nice and straightforward theory that makes sense
I feel like this is most likely what they are.
I like that theory. Simple and believable.
In a game full of complex theories, this one is nice and simple
Makes more sense that they're maintaining the evergoal. They emit the same purple glow that the evergoal does
No one broke out so what makes everyone assume the guy is no longer there? For all we know he is doing his job and its just no one escaped
Might not actually be meant to be defenders. Them being "Lookouts" might just mean they are bascially security cameras. Meant to alert someone who probably isn't even around anymore if one of the inmates somehow got out. Like a silent alarm system that doesn't actually reach anyone.
my thoughts as well, that's why theyre just a big eye :D if they were meant to guard or defend the jails then surely they wouldve been designed in a way that gave them some form of attack beyond just exploding
@@SpydersByte yeah they could have just glued some spikes on them and turned em into big living flails if they wanted them to fight lol.
Exactly, seems pretty obvious since we know they have actually usefull guards like the stone golems who can destroy anyone who isn't a demigod slayer
It is a jail.
16:32
It doesn't give much hint to the origins but I just love that Miquella mastered a bit of every type of magic to the point that he stuck a whole copy of a town in an evergaol.
miquella is mr.worldwide
I swear we are getting a time traveling to the past map with Miquella as our "melina"
i feel thats coming as well with a dream working as a kind of time travel like with the ringed city in ds3@@cullysloy2705
There are also some of the clustered 'guard' variant in the Sealed Tunnel in Altus Plateau, a dungeon which happens to end in a boss fight with an Onyx Lord!
Thats a great catch! Ill have to go check that out. I missed an exception!
I was totally coming down here to say the same thing haha.
The Sealed Tunnel also leads to a divine tower
That is more learned along the lines what I was thinking less fleshed out on how but definite same use
It's also worth pointing out that one of those pale, upside-down Astel-looking enemies that hurls rocks at you with gravity magic also makes an appearance in the Sealed Tunnel.
i love that now that we’ve had Elden Ring for awhile now we get to see all these cool videos about the obscure characters, loved the video !
Glad you enjoyed so and thanks for the kind words!
Imagine the blacknife assassin escaping her evergoal, and these things spinning around and pummeling her back into the evergoal. They're like living billy clubs made of sanctuary stones.
A quick observation, when you come out of Siofra in Caelid the path littered with these enemies leads to the Arsenal Charm, a talisman which effects how gravity exerts it's influence on the player, or reduces weight, either way this is a gravity magic effect.
They glow with gravity magic, drop the same ruin stones found in pieces from farum azula, and seem to be drawn to the evergaols if they are not directly connected to them?
Evergaols do seem to work on some form of spatial magic and have very similar stonework to the dragon ruins, so they could easily be directly connected.
So my question is were they built there along with the evergaols or are they extraterrestrial/dimensional in nature and simply drawn to the evergaols energy?
They also seem to be made of space rock like the alabaster lords, but they seem man made and can fold into a tiny pyramid that looks like a canonball pile.
Can't wait for this to go live, I must know more about the squiggly rock bois.
That's one insightful comment! Hope you'll be able to find some satisfying answers in the video
@@MadLuigi i will keep calling them squiggly rock bois tho
@@BaalFridge if i could get fextra to change what they call it, ill happily join the community in calling them squiggly rock bois
What if they are larval fallingstar beasts?
Well If Faruum Azula is in a Pocket out of Time, maybe that is the connection to the Ever Gaols. Instead of Gravity magic, it's Subspace magic.
I bet that during early testing devs noticed that evergoals were easy to miss, because they don't stick out from afar, so they added these things as an indication that there's a point of interest nearby.
Then why are they at other places if it was only for the everjails to be more visible
@@summonersriftgarbage4426outside of evergoals they are fairly rare.
@@n0vitski but they are still at other places.. so your theory can't be true if they JUST wanted them to be landmarks, its obvious theres something deeper than just "its hard to see so i'll create those things"
@@summonersriftgarbage4426 They definitely wanted to use them as landmarks. Once that has been taken care of, there's nothing stopping devs from dropping a couple here and there just because, knowing full well that people are going to start theory crafting. Just because they create intrigue with tiny details like this, knowing full well that they absolutely don't have to explain it, doesn't mean there's deep lore behind it. This is extremely common in fantasy, even outside of something deliberately cryptic, like souls games.
@@summonersriftgarbage4426if you want a grounded answer, it's probably because they make good filler. They probably realised that they are simple enough enemies to fit as general filler in some areas so scattered them about. The Japanese name is something along the lines of guard stones, so maybe someone thought of some cool lore for them, but it wasn't integral to the overall story and instead acts as a mystery for players to theorise about.
They also appear around the colosseum in Limgrave, as well as mixes of the proximity mine and regular variants around several of the graveyards of stone coffins that are filled with Golden Rune items!
I wanted to make this very comment! They are found in quite a few places around the world beyond gaols and divine towers.
And the canyon in caelid where a graven school is found
Some skeletons in the tombs have a chance to drop a Rune Shield, a medium wooden shield with runes etched in around the circumference. Wonder if there’s something to do with death. Or destined death.
They are also in the mine with the star beast on the other side of a chasm
Literally just made came here to comment about this because I randomly stumbled across them while doing the first volcano manor quest.
these guys are also found in the altus plateau, specifically in the tunnel leading to the west altus divine tower, whose boss is an onyx lord
Also in northern Limgrave north of the Warmaster's Shack site of grace once you pass under the bridge. Doesn't seem like there's anything they're watching there either.
@@stimulanttree theres a lot of places where we can find them actually, if i remember theres the crack leading to caelid's coliseum, also liurnia i found some in some dark crevasse with like a living ball head i still don't see any link between those places
I found one in the middle of the woods in Limgrave. You could argue it was near the hound evergaol, but it was pretty far away compared to the rest and I don’t think it was close enough to count. It was right next to some random ruins though.
Important note about Farum Azula's "anti-gravity": Dragonlord Placidusax (among other dragons) rest there and in his boss fight cutscene it seems more like Farum Azula is held together in some kind of timeless stasis, which he controls (and reverts in the cutscene). That might also explains while some rocks travels around the tornado, they never spin around their own axis, same with all the ruins/buildings/platforms, they stay in perfect stasis.
It's also worth noting that the eye on this enemy is pretty visually similar to the eye in the skulls of Astel and the Fallingstar Beasts. The description of the Ruins Greatsword is probably also topical here, as it mentions a meteor striking Farum Azula and infusing the rubble with gravity magic.
Considering astel/the fallingstar beast/the big astel looking things you find in underground river are all dedcribed as bug like (have mandabulls and such) it could be that argue its an evolution where the lookout stones are the tiny baby grubs. And eventually grow into fallingstar beasts (as the one on mount gelimir is called "full grown" i think. Then astel might be like a queen Bee situation (which would explain the 2nd one in the snowfeilds u can fight, its just evolution
What if that meteor was Radahn?
@@padraigconordenisbrazilcar4973 I should have scrolled down before posting. I theorised that a meteor hit Farum Azula or another sky temple, and that this caused both to rain down in small pieces. The Ruins Greatsword confirms that.
I don't think they're directly related to the star beings, but rather that they're the meteor and the sky temple and the ground they rained on fused. They're in their final form with a little bit of lifeforce and basically no intelligence. They're given the task to look over these evergoals and they just kept doing that, never questioning it.
The Onyx were parts of the meteor that took after the beings of the land it rained on. Astels are exclusively found underground and far from civilisation so they're big parts that buried themselves deep and never had contact with the beings on the land.
Fallingstar beasts are its larval stage, and the hanging from the ceiling is the end of their crysalid stage. The underground cities and mines where these are found are likely built during its true crysalid stage when they just looked like a piece of stone.
I don't think the fallingstar beasts we see are from this same massive meteorite. I think they're later impacts. The ground where you find them is pretty fresh after the impact, and it explains the age difference if fallingstar beasts are indeed previous stages of Astels.
There's also a cave on the outskirts of Leyndell, which has an Onyx Lord in a fancy boss room, and these little stone creatures are used as self-destructing traps in that dungeon.
Glad to see I didn't imagine that cave lol
@@lordjim7920 yeah its the one that leads to a divine tower, first time i ever saw it i was summoned to help, i guess i activated the statue without even clearing it
You guessed that the lookouts might be broken or malfunctioning based on the fact that they don't appear to respond to meddling with the evergaol, but consider that a 'lookout' typically isn't expected to personally take action against what they're looking out for. Rather, they are supposed to raise an alarm so that others can respond. Maybe whatever alarm or security system was in place that they were meant to activate isn't working anymore. they're sending a signal just fine, but nobody's listening. this would also potentially explain the lack of response to the crystal darts, unlike the other construct enemies, they weren't built for combat, so scrambling their targeting doesn't really affect them since they were only ever supposed to respond when attacked.
As for why the security measures are missing for every single evergaol, one possible explanation is that they were destroyed or dismantled by later civilizations. In particular, the erdtree forces seem to have been able to 'reprogram' them, hence the presence of giant golems guarding various places important to them. the burial watchdogs are possibly the result of reverse-engineering, since the name implies that the erdtree forces made them.
Is agree with your assessment. I think because we kill them while in the gaol, they essentially never break out, thus an alarm was never sounded to whoever originally sealed the inhabitants. Or... Like mentioned, the alarm system is now broken and has faulted. Would be cool to know what the actual purpose of these gaols were, who crested them etc!
One could say that if it's not a glitch, then it at least shows that there was something missing to them which led people to feel like "they should do something else when I deal with the evergaol".
Probably a DLC boss who gets alerted and decides to eventually invade the tarnished after finally being notified
Would have been amazing to have a giant one as a meme boss. Maybe at Vista points just looking out at the landscape for trouble .
You'd see it to the spinning attack towards you from a distance only to realize how huge it is.
No
I spent a couple weeks back in March trying to decipher the runic scripts found throughout the game. Those look most similar to the ones found on the St. Trina torch and graves found throughout the game (best example o can think of is the grave pile by the red dog and albanuric rise puzzle in the mountaintop of giants).
From my research, all the runic scripts in the game seem to be based off two base scripts found in the real world: some variant of Futhark and the Carian runic alphabet. The interesting thing about Carian (aside from the obvious lol) is that it has multiple regional variations. My current working theory is that they made their own version for the game, but that’s just conjecture.
One thing that gave me a lot of trouble was that it seems they took the time to uniquely stylize each instance of runic script to match the material it was carved or etched into. Script on stone is rounded and less defined (also sometimes appearing heavily weathered) while script on metal (eg St Trinas sword) appears to have flourishes.
My best guess is that it’s all either the same runic script stylized and adjusted based on the in game time period the item came from or it’s two separate runic scripts (the variants of Futhark and Carian).
It’s also been a few months since I let myself think about this out of fear of falling back down this rabbit hole, but I’m pretty sure I still have my notes somewhere. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around looking at walls and weapon textures while doing my research. If want to chat about it some time let me know and I’ll see if I can dig them up. Hope this helps!
(PS. Has anyone made a connection with the giant stone man being a creator deity yet? His depiction across the game, especially in the Haligtree city, really peaked my interest. Especially the fact that it seems to be him modeled on the tombs outside Malenia and those appear to be identical to the headless ones in the walking mausoleums. I had to stop digging back in April because it was taking up too much of my time lol. If anyone has a video or post talking about it I’d love to know!)
This is cap they used yi an ancient Chinese language
your last paragraph is something i never even heard of my guy, but isnt malenia the goddess of rot/incarnation/vessel ? is it the rot god?
afaik the mausoleum is associated with the death birds, maybe its the outer god that the death birds are the envoys to?
I also did the same. But theres no consistancy. Some stuff seems to be in Eldar Futhark. Some in Younger. Some looks Anglo-Saxon. Etc. I think that plays into the themes of religious and cultural evolution.
Im gonna point this out to you, because I feel a connection, you being the only other person who said they tried to work out the Runic language of Elden Ring.
But at some point the Carians were the most powerful faction in the Lands Between. The Nobility, they practice Glintstone Sorcery, not Erdtree incantations. Which indicates the Carians were the source of Political Power in the lands between.
A few things about the Runic language connections. "Ulcer" as in tree spirirts, is a base Rune. Also Marikas crucified symbol means "Man"
@@darkhobo 3rd paragraph, can you elaborate, you didn't provide enough information
@@alighieri99g81 yeah. Basiclly im saying the various mobs. The nobles roaming around the lands between. Scavenging ruins and whatnot. They practice glintstone sorcery.
This is a feudal system right? So the monarch, a queen in this case, bestows land and titles on nobles in return for a promise of military service. Thats feudalism. Well we got Queens and Nobles. So thats likely the political system in place.
Well the majority of the nobility we see are using Glintstone sorcery.
Meaning they practiced at raya lucaria and therefore were more likely made noble by Rennala than by Marika.
If the nobility was all going around using Erdtree, Two Finger, or Golden Order incantations it would indicate that political power was flowing through Marika.
Like, why would Marika be making people who practice glintstone sorcery and therefore likely loyal to Rennala, her Nobles? She wouldnt.
Plus there just, tons or archeological clues. Churches im Liurnia that were converted to worship Marika. Churches where Marika is not the central figure (shes off to the left or right of the central alter) of worship. Mainly in Liurnia.
Yeah. Basiclly the Carians spent a good deal of time as powerful if not MORE powerful than Marika was.
I hope that made sense. Its hard to communicate what you gather from environmental storytelling lol.
I do want to point out that I’ve found many that arent around evergaols, they just dont do the stare thing. Usually around some graveyards but theres also some randomly scattered in a few forests and even a cave I think
There is an Alabaster Lord in Raya Lucaria, found just past the first evidence of a rudimentary elevator system (the giant cog wheels). This suggests that they may have been brought in to the Academy to perfect the system by sharing their gravity magic. And as for the runes found on the ever gaol, I will scour the Academy for any similar writing to see if this has weight.
The big stone guys that have the bows were definitely made by people from Farum Azula, you can see in different places that the big stone guys fell from the sky along with some architecture from Farum Azula
I've been fascinated by the lookout stones since the beginning. They always seemed... alien to the Lands Between. And we have so little information on them. And by focusing on their strangeness, and with an unhealthy dose of confirmation bias, I've cooked up a hypothesis.
There's a space city.
Or at least quite high in the sky. And this city houses a civilization that built the lookout stones, the everjails, but also the golems and the lifts inside the divine towers or leading to the underground. First of all, I think that Farum Azula is not connected to this civilization. Yes, Farum Azula floats in the sky, but thanks to something else since, As MadLuigi put it, there's a noticeable lack of purple glow, there. However, I do believe that the fallen ruins we see here and there come from this space city. Their architecture isn't quite like Farum Azula's.
Now, why do I think that there's a space city? The spot at the intersection of the divine towers. Some say it's the crater left by the Elden Beast, but I find it way too large for that, and the Erdtree's position seem odd, at the edge of the crater. And talking about the crater, that's another clue to me. When we look at the map, we can see that the edges look a bit cut out. And I think this is what it is: cut out. The entire civilization, a civilization that mastered gravity, took out the entire kingdom and lifted it into the sky, maybe even to space. And from it, rained down the Alabaster lords and golems.
It's my understanding that golems fell from a VERY high spot and crashed hard into the ground. For example, in Limgrave, you can see plenty of destroyed (and one severly damaged) golems under the big broken bridge. At first, I tought they were guardians of the bridge and fell when the bridge broke. But why did it brake? I think it didn't. I think golems fell from very high and some of them pulverized the bridge in their fall.
So that's my take on it. We don't know much about the lookout stones, and even the golems, to be honest, because they come from a long gone civilization. Not gone in the sense that it died, but gone in the sense that they left the Lands Between. And I have another hypothesis. We don't know much about them, because there'll be plenty of that in the DLC. I've got a hinch that this kingdom will be the DLC's destination, and there we'll learn more about those constructs, and maybe possibly more about the Lands Between.
hmm interesting, I too have always looked at the map and thought it seems like something used to be in the middle, either a chunk of land or an island or something underground/underwater. ive always found it odd that that sweeping line waterfall we can see on the map, the one stretches from roughly the bestial sanctum straight north to the mountaintops of the giants is one of those few map doodles that actually matches what we can see in the worlds sea.
even the water level in the middle is at a higher level than it is on any of the outer sides, murkwaters 'terminus' is at a level that is higher than the water levels we see on the other sides of limgrave, weeping peninsula, caelid, etc.. idk it might be a red herring, or something they cut out, who knows.
Ruins Greatsword would also come from this space city (as it’s architectural style and gravity magic doesn’t match Farum Azula)
@@jooot_6850 Good catch, I'm not used to that sword!
DLC confirmed
I really like that theory. Elden Ring is inspired by Studi Ghibli films. From Miyazaki to Miyazaki. Also Castle in the Sky is one of the more populare ones, including a castle in the sky, floating through a big anti gravity stone, with no humans but ancient roboters on it, one falls down and kinda starts the story. Also there is a big ass tree on the space city, la puta, which would also fit since we see basically different tree factions in Elden Ring.
What’s most interesting is that the tip of these things have an almost uncanny appearance to something in the game called “The Beast Eye”, which is given to us by Gurranq, aka Maliketh.
It’s hard to make a connection but the color purple in the game is heavily associated with Sleep. I’ve always theorized that the Ever-goals are “dream jails” and the purpose of these things are meant to ward off intruders who wish to meddle with whatever prisoner that Ever-goal holds.
Another connection is the “Gloam-eye” that Melina reveals in the flame of frenzy ending. It may just be a cinematic trick, but it’s interesting that the screen fades to black right after she reveals the eye, possibly hinting sleep. I believe she does this to us many times in the game also. Most notably the Fire Giant Cauldron cutscene, and maybe before she teleports us to the Roundtable Hold.
I now 100% believe Melina is St. trina
I’m sorry, but purple is not at all associated with sleep, purple is gravity. Silvery-blue is most associated with sleep in Elden Ring.
I always assumed they were a magic created entity that's really just used like a camera.
Basically whoever was in charge of the evergaols or other important areas would be able to scry and see through their eye.
I don't know if it's a big deal, but there are 11 of these creatures on the road in Caelid, and they're all made of 11 stones, and LB has a total of 11 evergaols.I wonder if the Stone Clusters in that area control the evergaols in LB.
10:11 the Evergaol gateways have markings similar to those found on the marais exececutioner greatsword. The Evergaol gateways seem to be related to gravity magic, and the eochlaid markings on the executioner greatsword cause the sword to float, much like the siofra river elevators. Might be worth looking into, but is probably all coincidence.
12:44 there's also "guardstones" at one of those little coffin areas with all the free rune items. Can't remember exactly where, but i think its Weeping Peninsula or Liurnia of the Lakes
14:30 Farum Azula is definately not powered by gravity magic. This distiction is made clear by the Ruins Greatsword description, which states that the gravity magic found in the greatsword is only present because a meteor struck Farum Azula while it was already floating in the air. Therefore, that means Farum is otherwise unassociated with gravity magic.
Great video as always, though
The Giant Stone Golems seem to have a fiery engine or core in their chest that functions like a power source. This reminds me of the Fire Giant as there is a similar fiery aura that comes from the Fire Giant during the fight.
We see several golems in the Mountaintops of the Giants. Perhaps they were used in the war against the giants. One of the first places we see one is guarding Morne Castle. Which was loyal to Godrick who allied with General Radahn.. I don't know if that leads anywhere... It was Godfrey that persecuted the giants and Godrick is of his lineage.
I am quite certain that Blaidd was simply entering the evergaol same as you are, so the lookout stones at no point "let you free Blaidd" since he was never trapped.
If you aren't familiar, he specifically asks that you help kill the person trapped in the evergaol.
later on in Blaidd's questline, he actually gets imprisoned in that same evergaol, and the player character is allowed to break them out.
I recently started another playthrough, and I could swear I was startled once by one of the guard stones exploding when I was looting one of the coffin fields (those stone coffins where every one has a Rune). I can't remember but I'm pretty sure there wasn't an evergaol near that place, and yet I could see both guard stones in pile form and lookout stones crawling on the floor.
You are correct you can find them close to the first coffin fields you find
This was my first encounter with the lookout stones and scared the shit outta me lol
The Meteor cult is also strange.
Only their lords are ever mentioned in the lore, they are completely unique and have they own attacks, and they only spawn in about 3 places (that I know of).
Those being the crater in the weeping peninsula near the rise there, the crater outside of leyndell by the tree sentinel duo and, if I remember correctly, around the edge of the crater leading to nokron.
I always thought they were very mysterious, they don’t look like they belong in the game, or even Bloodborne. There’s something about them that feels off, even though there are other alien enemies.
They're kind of like that strange green, glowing shortcut elevator in Bloodborne's nightmare frontier. Those always felt totally out of place to me, even in a game with plentiful E.T.s.
Something interesting about these things is that in Elden Ring Randomizers they are completely uneffected, they will always remain at the Evergaol sites. The only version of these things that get randomized is the pile that explode when you get close to them.
My guess is that their job is to inform someone or something of a breakout, as for why they don't react to Blaidd, well he isn't the original prisoner.
We and Blaidd kill the prisoner earlier in his questline.
And i doubt Iji can reprogram them to inform him if Blaidd escapes.
Edit: He said all of this, i need to learn not to comment before the end.
I remember my first time seeing one of them on Stormhill...accompanied with a message that read: "Be wary of dung."
I hit one, backed off to see what it would do, it L'd itself and then fucking flew at me, was incredibly startled to see the wormy guy attempting to be a boomerang
That is a pretty wild attack, I love it
"bloons tower defense" mode activated
I also want to point out that you can also find them near crypts too occasionally. iirc there is a spot in limgrave where they have all 3 variants, explosive, moving, and lookout. Also every single time I've seen an explosive one was in an enclosed space where its possible to get damaged by them
The fact that you pronounced Evergaol correctly is impressive on its own.
Once I realized they have eyes, it reminded me of Godwyn’s eyes creeping up through roots and incorporating themselves into living creatures. Maybe this is a similar thing where ‘eyes’ of Astel (or of a long dead-star prime architect of the constructs) make their way up and through rocks and stone, and a weak form of gravity keeps trailing stones attached to it so they appear like segmented worms. I wondered for a while if they were pre-larval creatures but I could also see it as a kind of ‘eye infection’ similar to Godwyn’s but with stone instead of wood.
Interesting you should bring that up, I just realized that the lookout stones are made of rocks that are oddly similar to the boluses that cure deathblight.
I will point out with regards to the lost civilisations that the Clay Men, who you get the bubble sorceries off, are stone-like in apearance, live in areas only accessible by the floating blue elevators and are an ancient society from before the erdtree. All their weapons reference an ancient dynasty and their Spears are made form metiorite shards. It seems that they are a sort of parralell group to the Alabaster lords but they use blue magic like the lifts and golems
The single eye reminds me a bit of the eye in the skulls of the falling star beasts and Astel (and Lusats hat)
Also a connection to gravity magic and Alabaster and Onyx Lords
I have always thought of Farum Azula as kind of a black hole of sorts, in that the tornado is the black hole and the city being a sort of event horizon (I think that's the proper term? Anyway the point in which even light gets trapped in the gravitational pull). It could also explain the weird time travelling that goes on in the area and possibly even its relation to the Alabaster Lords in terms of gravitational magic despite not having the purple colouring.
I appreciate your approach of not being biased by pet theories and staying true to what is present in the game. a bit of a pet peeve of mine when lore vids go on wild tangents and huge conjectures.
I won't lie, I did feel that something was off with this enemy as if their AI was broken. I'm usually expecting 90% of the NPCs to be hostile, and I expected them to immediately swarm me upon walking up... but the first one I walked up to kept inch worming itself around.
Idk, there's something about the way they don't attack me to be more unsettling than if they did.
It is kind of weird how NOT displaying hostility somehow makes them feel MORE eldritch, isn't it?
Perhaps they’re looking for someone or something specific? Or they simply keep the gaols working
Ok I didn't know the golems were affected by crystal dart. That suggests several connections such as the imp bleed enemies. Awesome lore
The runic carving pattern on the evergaol seal reminds me of a whirlpool in the ocean, or of the demonstration of gravity with the elastic material and placing spheres of various weights on it. It could be a depiction of a gravity well, a black hole, a singularity. Also, the seal of the evergaol is at the bottom of the structure, which is shaped like a bowl.
I think that 'Guard/Lookout Stone' is not the 'true name' given to them by their creator, but a... descriptive name given to them by the later inhabitants of The Lands Between, since they appear to be standing guard or keeping a lookout around the gaols. (This is probably true for a lot of things, like poor Wormface there.)
I think the internal name "AliveStone" is actually probably more reflective of their 'true nature'.
when you start a coop session with an effigy, your character draws some runes into the air. they look similar to the ones on the evergaol seal.
They are also on certain parts of the map, but look faded. Another UA-camr discovered it's different rune alphabet or stylization.
I was always a little peeved that out of everything it's these innocuous rockworms that don't seem mechanically possible just from the fact that the stones they're made of clip into each other during almost all their animations especially when they inchworm around
If we could manipulate gravity, then we would necessarily be manipulating mass (and perhaps spacetime). Without mass, objects could actually clip through each other, but they might also behave like a photon (as a wave). I think at some point, we just have to accept some magical handwaving.
I like how willing you are to explore their AI just being broken. Doesn’t happen often enough.
i think he meant diegetically broken
Considering the amount of patches so far I'd say their docile temperament is what was intended
Have you ever seen the toy consisting of little magnetic spheres? They link together in chains and sheets quite readily. I always thought these creatures resembled the toy. Also, magnetism in my opinion is called "gravity" by the game for some reason, magnetism makes more sense for some of the effects of gravity magic. Also radahn's swords have a pattern like a magnetic field. Maybe magnetism and gravity are not interchanged, but mixed together in Elden Ring.
Great video, I just want to point out as an Irish person that Siofra is pronounced "She-Fra" rather than "See-Oh-Fra"
But why, exactly, do you think the word siofra has Irish roots?
@@SyntheticShinobi Dude, most of the language in the game is derived from Irish and Welsh. It's really not a hard leap to make (especially if you speak the language)
Also a quick google confirms Siofra is Irish for "Sprite"
Maybe the Irish should spell their words better.
@@Kurogumo bruh
"Mihari Ishi" - translates to "Watching Rock or Look Out Rock" which seems fitting for their in game appearance and where they're located on the outside guarding the Everjail's
Several times you mention that the "only place" we see them outside of Evergaols is in the ravine outside Siofra river but that's not true. If you go into the Sealed Tunnel you can find a number of them in the room full of large roots, and at the bottom of the pit before the boss room. A boss who is an Alabaster Lord.
"What are you watching?"
"A video all about Exploring the mystery of these huge, rock hard, one-eyed worms"
"Uuuh, do you really want to go on record with that explanation?"
"Of course, I don't see how that could possibly be taken out of context.
i figured the lookouts were more like parasites feasting off the magic of the gaols tbh, since they dont rly do much looking out or guarding
When radahn's stars fall, they cause floating rocks above the pit that leads you to nokron. Maybe gravity magic only shows the purpe effect when something is actively being moved, and when there is no color that means that the object is dormant (like the floating city or the rocks above the nokron pit)
It's definitely gravity bases. The worms are individual balls held together. That's as far as I can take it. The jails themselves are interdimensional magic. I only seen that with invasions.
I always thought they acted as both a lock and an alarm type thing. I think they exist outside the evergaols but have the ability to look into it. We usually see them all looking towards the gaol. They also act as a kind of power source that keeps the door to an Evergaol locked for the individual they are focused on. I don’t think they sustain the pocket dimension themselves because we don’t see them outside Ordina. I could be wrong on the last part cause I haven’t been in a while. But I always imagined they kept the individual in the Evergaol through some process of constant observation, and would notify someone/something if the individual imprisoned was freed from the Evergaol.
I like the idea the purple magic users made the purple constructs. As for why the Lookout Stones are out of place in Caelid?
The colloseums were used in the age of the Erdtree, so it makes no sense for that way to have been guarded this entire time, but Caelid was owned by someone during the Shattering. The same person who was taught magic by the Alabaster Lords:
Radhan.
14:40 The idea that Farum Azula is being held up in the sky by gravity magic is supported by the idea that it was imbued with gravity after being struck by one of Astel's meteors, as is told in the Ruins Greatsword item description, "The ruin it came from crumbled when struck by a meteorite, as such this weapon harbors its destructive power." Perhaps Farum Azula also harbors this same destructive power.
Me personally I’ve always called them “Ruin Watchers”. It rolls off the tongue quite well.
10:15 We have the same letters on the Stone Pillars, that we need to light up in Siofra River for the Ancestor Spirit
I don’t know if it’s just me, but Those creatures were more aggressive when the game first launched. I used to get attacked by them for no real reason all the time. And I’m not talking about the ones that explode when you get near them, the ones that crawled around or stand upright would just aggro on me and shoot lasers in my face whenever I would get near them.
Now, I’ve noticed after the first couple of patches, they are super passive and either die too quickly or don’t even bother to defend themselves when you smack them.
crystal darts affect glintstone related enemies.. this means that golems are most likely made by magic people also most elevators that work by levitation are in magic related spots such as the rises around the map. so the golems and elevators probably didnt come from a "mechanical" type of people
11:56 you also find them in the tunnel that lead to the West(?) Atlus Divine Tower, but them being here supports your point as the boss of this area or an Alabaster/Onix Lord
"Hey what gives, you were supposed to be watching the Gaol." "Yeah, I watched the tarnished absolutely wreck shop, it was wild."
I think the Lookout Stones were given the abilities of the Guard Stones for when they're attacked but aren't meant to fight, just observe which is why they don't seem to do anything unprovoked
Not sure if anyone else has pointed this out, but another link between the alabaster and the Gaols is they might use the same kind of "portals". Like when you use the meteor spell, a portal opens up which the meteors shoot out from, but where do those rocks come from? Maybe gravity magic/alabaster magic has the ability to open portals to these kind of pocket dimensions where they can take things out or put things into, maybe also the same place the Alabaster come from when they appear from thin air in the game being able to freely travel between these dimensions.
I’ve seen them somewhere (relatively early game) without a evergol. They were “guarding” a floating wizard head ball I believe. Which could link them to the head balls, who also are related to gravity magic.
There's one spot where you can find them, a spot I think is the strangest in the game- the woods between war master's shack and the colesseum. It's a decent sized area, but the thing is, there's absolutely nothing in it. No weapons, no upgrade materials, no dungeons. Nothing, except a bunch of these guys and some wolves. It could be that they planned to put an Evergoal there, but, it's the kind that explodes, not the sentries you see normally. Just figured I'd put this out there
My headcanon is that the ever jails are to imprison defeated foes of Radahn that was powerfull enough to garner his respectand earn mercy, or terrible enough to not deserve a clean death...
The lookout stones are to inform Radahn via gravitational ripples (explosion's) and buy time in case one of the prisoners escape (or when someone enters areas of interest), Radahn however got mad after the virus bombing and the stones are now little more then decorations.
I always took those things as simply being a golem variant. I've never found them dangerous except for the ones that explode, & those strike me as fantasy proximity mines.
They are also present in the Yellow annix tunnels (spell check?), where one of the gravity dudes resides. They are just balled up into proximity mines.
I think of them as some sorta magic camera considering they tend to show up where people would want to keep an eye on, people might make or attune to them somehow to see through their eyes
There’s a ruins colossal great sword in game that has a powerful gravity magic spell ash of war. The description says that it’s a fragment of a city in the sky that was stricken by a meteor and that the weapon still harnesses some of the magic of that meteor. I think it’s clear that these things, the sword, the alabaster lords, etc etc are all connected to that singular event/meteor.
There definitely are some guardstones in mines, I cannot remember exactly where. Which makes me think that they, like a lot of gravity magic related things, are deep underground and probably a part of the Lands Between on a cosmic and geographic scale.
Considering the variety of prisoners in the gaol, i think it's possible the groups that utilize the gaols now are not necessarily related to any of the gravity magic users or their god, HOWEVER, the lookout stones could be one of many methods that God associated with gravity magic used to keep an eye on the lands between, in areas that gravity magic is active and strong out of convenience. Much in the way that the three fingers/shabriri possess dead people to enact an influence on the world.
I believe that since they aren't made to be very good guards but are obviously very usefull as lookouts, they were probally created to basically only warn *somebody* in case any of the prisoners somehow escaped. They ARE able to attack in case they are attacked, but that seems to simply be for the sake of it, since they obviously aren't usefull against powerfull enemies, only being able to keep animals or petty thieves away with their explosions. So they were probally meant to tell someone of an escape, throught magic most likely....now the issue is finding out who is that someone? By their purple glow i would guess Raya Lucaria created these things with the help of the Gravity Lords like you mentioned since they are the ones who used purple gravity magic, but the lords probally aren't the ones who wanted to create these (also maybe the Raya Lucaria wizards betrayed the Lords after learning from them, since one of the Lords is imprisoned in one of these magic cells, which is a cruel irony, also we never see any of the Lords working togheter with the wizards anywhere as far as i remember).
Whoever was meant to do something whenever someone escaped is probally dead by now, hence why Blaidd is able to leave and have no one appearing to stop him.
So, basically, they seem to be doing their purpose but have no way to know that they aren't needed anymore, good thing they are probally only constructs so them being eternally doing something pointless isn't sad....unless they actually are sentient and don't get why no one listens to them :c
under the bride next to Stormveil Castle is a message that reads "likely snake" and tbh that is what I accept it as.
I imagine they are just working with Ranni who doesn't actually care since she's always playing both sides. I imagine she jailed Darriwel just so that she could jail Blaidd. Everyone else in jail seems to have been one of her fall guys who she'd gladly let us kill, but once she's safe we're allowed to save her shadow.
However; I also have a baseless and irrational fan theory that they are just random alien drones with no association with the jail. They're just observing the prisoners and the Jar because they can't keep up with anybody else. They'd abduct us on a spaceship if they could, but if we're already in captivity this is way easier.
Sort of an inversion on characters like The Watcher where they may be super powerful but not over us and not necessarily competent. Whether they're smart enough to feign weakness or incompetent enough to think the prisoners are representative of our planet; you'll act different on camera.
The light shape in the everjails kinda remind me of the portals you use to teleport, even the light inside looks more like it rather than gravity
There's another stony creature with a single eye that uses gravity magic, could they possibly be a phase of development in the falling star beast life cycle?
They do have one eye and are made of stone... and use gravity magic.
My theory is that they are not looking out for people to not get in but they are looking in, after all their eyes have the same purple glow as the filter you get once you enter a gaol, I think, if the gaols are actually just a solitary containment, they are used to look at what the inmates are doing from the exterior, and then probably report to whoever made them.
I also think they were created after Farum Azula started crumbling as their stone balls are already looking cracked, like the gravity magic is stitching many different fragments to them; especially since they can dislocate and move each sphere separately.
My thought is that they are creating the landscape of the pocket dimension.
The gaol doesn't actually look that way because of the place it is in, but the lookout stones are like cameras scanning the land to be represented within the evergaol.
Maybe they also scan the world for the sake of map making.
A few bits you missed, there's some in a tunnel where falling Star beast is a boss and the alabaster lords Zamor ruins in mountaintops of the giants
The purple coloring is obviously reminiscent of the gravity magic in game. And given the nature of the evergaols, gravity may have some time altering properties perhaps like in the movie interstellar where gravity isn’t constrained by time.
The Pokémon cut wit the “Mihari ishi” voiceover had me dying for some reason 💀
Okay, but what if... the people in the Evergaol are the ones who use the lookout stones to let them know when you are entering their cell? I mean think about it... They only come out when you enter, so how did they know that you entered? The security cameras man.
One thing about the golem connection, crystal darts also have the same frenzy effect on stone imps and burial watchdogs, and the dart's item description mentions how a "golem crafter used a similar tool." Because some of the watchdogs use glintstone staffs, its likely that the golem maker was either Carian or a student of Raya Lucaria/Sellia.
Maybe its possible that the golem maker learnt gravity magic in Sellia to create the evergaols and lookout stones? I don't think the alabaster lords created them, as you can find one trapped in an evergaol behind Caria manor, even though they would most likely have a way to escape if they were the inventors.
I think a possible explanation for the blue light is that their is a period between the alabaster lords' waning and the early developments of those who would become the denizens of Nokron and the Carians where things such as the lifts were converted to run on other magic. During that time, this interim culture made the golems and this was possibly around the same time as the dragon civilization with which they could have collaborated. This is why they are not mentioned directly, because these construct builders are not unmentioned in the lore, they're just the blending between different peoples and civilizations.
The material used for these lookouts might be related to farum azula in the opposite direction. When the lookouts fly, they do not glow purple while in the act, only the eye as they charge up a flight, they just fly in a swirl. So perhaps Farum Azula is made out of a stone that is naturally anti-gravity and that whirlwind in the center is a byproduct of the stone's lifting magic. When we get drops from these things, we look at them in the context of Farum Azula because the lore of the drops is written from a standpoint where such things come from a sky temple in the common understanding.
You also burn in the blue/purple flame when you enter. It's hard to see because the screen fades to black. Faraum seems to be affected by time magic instead of gravity given the boss
Really late, but I think I remember seeing these guys in one of the caves in Lendeyll. It's the cave that leads you to one of the Divine Towers. And I believe the boss was an Alabaster Lord.
My guess is that in the early development of the game the stones were the keys or seals of the evergaols and you had to kill them all to open the prison and fight the prisoner. But this was probably cut later because it was too tedious.
possibly those runes from the grave things you go on and theres a certain grave thing that has yellow runes it in it maybe its similar
Idk if I'm the only one but I found a Lookout Stone slinking around Stormveil under the bridge to the Tower of Limgrave. It could've been a glitch however and was removed with later patches, as I haven't been able to see it since my first playthrough.
So I'm not sure if anyone has made this observation regarding the floating of Farum Azula, but I think its being held aloft by the corpses of dragons? Their bodies can be seen littering the unworked stone, Placidusax floats in the same inert way, the corpse of Gransax also does not seem to obey gravity, and the Dragon Towershield says they "...would protect their lord as a wall of living rock."
I could be wildly incorrect, but the runes on the Evergaol Seals always seemed reminiscent of the Coded Sword and Cipher Pata. As such, I had assumed that the Golden Order had built these Evergaols, utilizing the learning Radahn received in the ways of Gravity Magic, hence the purple runes instead of gold.
There's another spot in Caelid that has them, a small box canyon that leads to a large crystal growth and a massive many-faced-orbs that attacks with gravity magic. No golems there.
I call them worm bois, they are so anxious that they literally explode when you get near them
The hole made by the fallen star after we kill Radahn has a similar appearance to Farum Azula. Just floating rocks without purple light
btw shoutout to the super metroid flashback hidden in the background, wich btw might be unintentional a great reference to a "strange" mostly passive enemy found within maridia region in super metroid .... a sub + like :)