Elden Ring (DLC hype room)

[vivid spire]

No…

||Thiollier I’m sorry!||

[left willow]

Try fingers
But hole

[vivid spire]

Fuck.

The future is not hopeful.

[frozen olive]

||Well considering all the actual bits of Miquella we find scattered around the place? Iunno, doesn't seem like a fantastic time for anyone really||

[vivid spire]

God I feel terrible.

[mellow silo]

||he's still alive if you reload the area||

[frail sky]

||I have no idea what you’ve done, but from the sounds of it you’ve done the sote equivalent of incinerating all that divides and distinguishes||

[junior spade]

Its all gucci

[vivid spire]

;-;

[left willow]

Out of curiosity, cause I've found 2 ways so far: how many different ways can the base game end?
I know that ||you can go frenzied flame to burn the thorns yourself|| or you ||can have Mildred burn them for you||. I'm not 100% what the difference between the two methods is, but I know those two exist

[junior spade]

Theres.... 6 endings? 5? I think

[mellow silo]

Many ways, depending on what mending runes you have

Also, Mildred lmao

[vivid spire]

The dlc didn’t add one right

[junior spade]

6 endings

[vivid spire]

So it’s just at 6 endings

[mellow silo]

Tag
Your
Spoilers
Please

That is ridiculously major

[left willow]

My brain could get her name for a sec and I thought it was funny

[junior spade]

Mildred and the horse, Tornt

[vivid spire]

Ohh you mean like context tags

Ah shit my apologies

[mellow silo]

Yep

[vivid spire]

Ohh

Damn I’m stupid

I didn’t get what you meant

[left willow]

I'd like to get and empower(?) all of the great runes before trying to fire the ending, but idk where to go for some of them

[junior spade]

Now thats a fun quest!

Mostly you just complete npc storylines; but they can be pretty involved

[real shadow]

Alright okay ||boar riding dude got hands|| but fortunately for me he seems to love hugging the outer wall and miss his big boi attacks.

[atomic plinth]

Okay, getting back into the rhythm of things finally

[kind garden]

Alright

[atomic plinth]

Now THAT'S a look I can rock, goddamn

[kind garden]

Final boss: defeated

[atomic jetty]

dlc post end boss spoilers
checkout my diverse weapon loadout

[junior spade]

|| Jump Attacks are his bane ||

[kind garden]

Whew.

[kind garden]

Cooking

I took the spell instead

[real shadow]

Got'em on my second try, feels like his generous hitbox is balanced with the aforementioned wall-humping.

[junior spade]

Yee

[proven horizon]

Abyssal Woods final boss ||Was really cool that they added in the nomad music as a leitmotif to Midra's fight||

[mellow silo]

Not diverse enough, you don't have the ||Butchering Knife and Bonny Butchering Knife||

[kind garden]

No entrance huh

Damn

[atomic jetty]

youre so right, here, improved

[junior spade]

|| I loved that entire area and buildup and music, never outstayed its welcome ||

[kind garden]

Can’t get into the ||gate||

What a shame

[proven horizon]

I honestly wish there was a sekiro style refight the remembrance bosses feature because every single one has been phenomenal

Barring that I'll just have to go in with another character once I've finished the final boss

[junior spade]

Give us the boss rush mode

[mellow silo]

Embrace the Jolly Cooperation

[proven horizon]

Oh duh

actual moment

[mellow silo]

Just stay at below 176 and you'll have infinite jolly cooperation

That way 150s can still summon you in

[proven horizon]

Nice, I actually stopped levelling at 175

[vivid spire]

Hmmm

I tried ||Messmer|| again, without a summon or help he’s a lot

I can’t get his patterns down just yet but I am remembering them

[atomic jetty]

me: i want boss weapons
mom: we got boss weapons at home
boss weapons at home:

not spoilered cause its all base game equipment (excluding one piece that looks exactly like the base game equipment)

[vivid spire]

Tiny Radhan

[frozen olive]

Based behaviour

I respect it

||carrying around six different greatswords just to flex on em||

[atomic jetty]

|| the funny part is if you equip two of them, one in each hand, you end up with 2 on your back also, so you have 4 swords out at once||

[vivid spire]

God this reminded me of a friend who I thought finished Baldurs Gate 3, so I told her about how I hadn’t ||Rescued all the companions in time so one died|| and she just loudly noted that her experience had been ruined (in a room full of people)

The way she was talking about it made me think she had finished

But nope

[atomic jetty]

anyway, i think im done with the dlc ~w~

[vivid spire]

Good job!

And I am so damn sorry if I ruined anyone’s time today I got excited and didn’t tag properly

I know this dlc is really important to a lot of people (me included) so ruining it is fucking awful

[paper badge]

did you get the five that ||Commander Gaius|| is guarding?

[vivid spire]

Who?

Ah fuck it I’ll hunt for him

[frozen olive]

Powerful

[vivid spire]

Also very sorry for the spoilers yall

I feel like I ruined someone’s night

[paper badge]

he is behind the Shadow Keep

[vivid spire]

Thanks so I gotta beat ||Messmer||?

[paper badge]

no, actually

[atomic jetty]

whats done is done, try and do better from now on

[mellow silo]

Messmer isn't actually guarding much through his arena

[vivid spire]

Yeah will do

Wait what

[paper badge]

yeah nah Messmer's arena is like

not in the way of anything

besides a key item he drops needed for story progress

[mellow silo]

||instead hes guarding something in the form of an item he drops||

[vivid spire]

Wait idk how to get around it though

[mellow silo]

Around what?

[paper badge]

to the back of shadow keep

where ||Gaius|| is

[tropic stream]

Dryleaf Knight of Miquella

An excuse to use a weapon I've wanted to use for absolutely forever, the Miquellan Knight Sword

[mellow silo]

Hell yeah

[vivid spire]

Yeah idk how

[mellow silo]

Tbh I haven't figured it out either

[paper badge]

you have to find the side entrance to the shadow keep church district

and progress through that sub-zone

[vivid spire]

Oh

[paper badge]

it's on the same path you'd take to get to count ymir

[vivid spire]

I have the church and the back of ||specimen storehouse||

[vivid spire]

Oh ok that makes sense

[mellow silo]

Wait that doesn't lead to Gaius though

[paper badge]

it's through that area somewhere yeah

[mellow silo]

That leads to the ||sunflower of nightmares||

[paper badge]

yes it does. shadow keep back gate

[vivid spire]

palovian response ||SUNFLOWWERRRR||

[paper badge]

it leads to both lol

both are connected to that area

[vivid spire]

Oh

So start at church district

[mellow silo]

Damn

[vivid spire]

And just.. go?

There’s no path to the back of the fort

[mellow silo]

Will have to check that out later

But for now it is time to eep

[paper badge]

prolly better if you start in the back section of the specimen storehouse

you gotta get to the loft

[vivid spire]

Oh

[paper badge]

go far up and then find some ladders/elevators back down

[vivid spire]

I haven’t gotten there yet

Today was satisfying

[paper badge]

well you get there through the church district

[vivid spire]

Three bosses in one day

[vivid spire]

Oh no I meant I have the district

Just not loft

[paper badge]

anyhow

Gaius was pretty tough for me but if you beat him you get 5 scadutree fragments

[vivid spire]

That’s a lot

[paper badge]

or, well, you can walk to the area where you can pick up 5 fragments off the ground

[vivid spire]

Also any tips for ||Midra||

[paper badge]

enough for like 2 levels

[mellow silo]

Clarify Horn +2

[paper badge]

boluses and clarifying horn +2

[vivid spire]

Also lore speculation: ||Midra seemed to be a close confidant of Moquellas faction but something happened||

[vivid spire]

Thanks I’ll try that

He seems very resistant to all sorts of things

[paper badge]

nah ||I think he well predates Miquella. I think his whole thing is just some side shit.||

[vivid spire]

Ohh

But how do we explain the ||hornsent warriors||

[mellow silo]

Honestly found ||Midra|| very easy

[left willow]

I wish that you could recolor some of the hoods in the game

[paper badge]

||there's item lore describing how the hornsent prohibited the use of the frenzied flame, which midra dabbled in||

[mellow silo]

He's quite frail

[vivid spire]

Oh

He seems stupid ngl

[paper badge]

I love the attack where he ||holds out his arms and just swaggers forward with surging frenzyflame||

[tropic stream]

my gf said this is edgy lmao

[mellow silo]

That first phase is real tough though right?

[left willow]

Cause I love the look of the (DLC armor) ||Gravebird|| set, but my +mind hood is really good

[vivid spire]

I was kinda feeling sad for him despite not knowing why, my only experience with frenzy was the ||mercuants||

[vivid spire]

Lmao yeah

But he seems like an idiot now

[paper badge]

yeah nah he was a fool

[vivid spire]

You don’t just fucking dabble in ||Frenzy||

You get drenched like a lemon kool aid

[mellow silo]

I still feel bad for him tbh

[paper badge]

I mean ||he seemed to be holding on in spite of everything until you start hitting him lmao||

[vivid spire]

Oh yeah true

[mellow silo]

He didn't deserve ||that yellow spike thing||

[vivid spire]

The sfx for the ||bone rib staff thing||

That made me wince

I have a feeling that the staff is an ||living organism||

Given how it twists and things

[mellow silo]

||the neck stretch shudders||

[paper badge]

that ||spikey thing|| is clearly ||a weapon of the hornsent inquisitors, similar to what the inquisitor you have to beat to even enter the woods in the first place drops||

[vivid spire]

And it looks like a skinnier Elden Beast almost

[vivid spire]

Yeah

[paper badge]

the hornsent have some incantations with flavor text that expands on it somewhat

[vivid spire]

Idk for all intents and purposes

I’m kinda biased to the hornsent

But.. that’s my bias as an outsider

[paper badge]

Sorcery of the inquisitors of the tower, wielded as an incantation of the spiral. A swing of the arm releases a procession of golden arcs. Charging enhances potency. The arcs resemble barbs, a known symbol of coercive questioning.

Sorcery of the inquisitors of the tower, wielded as an incantation of the spiral. A swing of the arm releases a giant golden arc. Charging enhances potency. The arc resembles the barb, a known symbol of coercive questioning.

Superior sorcery of the tower priests, wielded as an incantation of the spiral. Wrap one's arms together and hold them up to the heavens to summon a spiral of light that erupts at the enemy's feet. Column of light persists for as long as the button is pressed. The spiral is a normalized Crucible current that, one day, will form a column that stretches to the gods.

so yeah those might be weird abstract living things, given the hornsents' reverence for the crucible

[vivid spire]

Yeah

[frozen olive]

(Boss spoilers)||Midra is a failed Lord of Frenzy actually, it's not really stated how he is a failure, but he is||

[atomic plinth]

Does this do anything that a regular one doesn't...?

[twilit path]

late game dragony spoilers ||holy shit the two drakes fighting was sick.||

[paper badge]

nah

[atomic plinth]

So it's just a weird lookin one with funny text?

[paper badge]

||didn't burn the world down, that's how he failed||

[atomic plinth]

Shame

[paper badge]

||the fact anyone is still here is proof he failed lmao||

[frozen olive]

||Something about you trying to kill Midra causes him to actually succeed and become a Lord of Frenzy to some extent||

||He gains the burning orb that signifies the power of a lord of frenzy to replace his head, which is removed from his body||

||Not sure how he fights you without a spine though, probably magic||

[frail ferry]

if you havent found the ||minor erdtree|| incantation, dont

||https://fxtwitter.com/elden_things/status/1805777315441332227||

[frozen olive]

||Behold, Despair!||

[frail ferry]

and then ||miracle||

[vivid spire]

Also uh

I think I shouldn’t have told ||Thioller|| about the truth about ||Miquella||

[frail ferry]

eh, he'll get over it

walk it off

[vivid spire]

I keep forgetting that I didn’t ||kill him|| lmao

It feels like I did

[vivid spire]

Is this sarcasm

[frail ferry]

something like that

not serious for sure

[vivid spire]

Oh ok

But yeah

I will now take a well deserved break

The lure of five whole fragments though..

I wonder what Ranni will think of me. I hope she’ll still love me.

God I’m excited as fuck

Through victory I am rejuvenated

[frail ferry]

jagged peak boss

||https://fxtwitter.com/Woalnir/status/1805769513457091003||

the artists have gotten to the cool parts now

[vivid spire]

||BAYLE! I AM YOUR DOOOM!!||

Love Elden Ring Ahab

When he’s not buggy

[frail ferry]

when i can actually reach the sign in one piece

[vivid spire]

Hey wait

From never releases DLC soundtracks right

[twilit path]

oh damn that npc summon ruled.

late game boss: ||Bayle also was a sick fuckin fight. One shot it, but the mirroring of him and Igon was amazing||

[vivid spire]

(NPC DIALOGUE) ||A STORM OF HARPOOONS!!!||

[twilit path]

mad props to my guy

Alright, time to go finish this thing

[frail ferry]

Worth the price of admission

[tropic stream]

new faith spellsword build

[vivid spire]

God I’m just gonna hope and pray for a official ost release

[glossy stag]

certain plant spoilers ||avatar is finally down at 11 blessings, who would have thought that burning it with dragon breath would be effective. Plants? Burning? Madness.||

[vivid spire]

The dark souls 3 ost isn’t on Spotify due to licensing

[frail ferry]

Give the YouTube people a while and the klep the mp3

[vivid spire]

Yeah

[vivid spire]

What’s your gear? This is an interesting mix

Also everyone is using rings of light lol

[tropic stream]

Uuuuhhh, Miquellan Knight Sword, Dryleaf Arts, Erdtree Seal, Traveler's Hat, Dryleaf Robes, Warrior Gauntlets & Greaves

[tropic stream]

It's good!

[vivid spire]

Ooh!!

[glossy stag]

Could someone spoil for me if there's any good arcane incantations, or at all in the dlc?

[proven horizon]

||I really liked the design of this bossfight. It's moves and the timing on them was evocative of erdtree avatars despite it having a wildly different bodyplan||

[glossy stag]

Aside from ||CURSE YOU BAYLE ones||

[vivid spire]

It kinda was i see the vibe

It feels more.. wild and bestial

[glossy stag]

||only minor complaint is that the ranged thorn atack timing felt inconsistent, probably because of 3(?) projectiles?||

[vivid spire]

And judging when to dodge felt ||harder than it needed to be||

[twilit path]

final boss spoilers ||damn, starting phase2... we're not the good guys are we D: ||

[tropic stream]

I rly have been looking for an opportunity to use Miquellan Knight Sword and using it with Dryleaf felt right

[vivid spire]

It’s in theme and a very pretty sword

[twilit path]

yeah probably my favorit fight in the whole DLC?? Really good stuff

[vivid spire]

I’m gonna use the ||Putrescent Knight Theme|| for my mecha rpg

It seems good for my players next boss fight

[spark pine]

Knocked out the ||Dancing Lion|| on my first attempt let’s goooo

[vivid spire]

NICE

[proven horizon]

My favourite fight is a split between the Abyssal Woods final boss and the Jagged Peak final boss

The atmosphere and build-up for both of them is phenomenal

[tropic stream]

Yeah I copied my save file and now I've gone from a Ranni simp to a Miquella simp

Oh btw I have a crack theory about fingers

[paper badge]

oh shit

another lore tidbit from Gaius's remembrance

||Messmer and Gaius were both 'as elder brothers to the Lion'||

[tropic stream]

You guys remember the description of the beasts in the beast incantations, how they gained intelligence? And how in other lore a signifier of that intelligence was the fact they developed opposable thumbs?

[twilit path]

Jagged Peak boss ruled. I think I mighta cleared the Woods boss too fast to really enjoy it lol

[paper badge]

oh yeah I fully now think that ||fingers/thumbs were a mutation caused by proximity to fucking Metyr||

[tropic stream]

Well, I think the Three Fingers, at least the ones we see, were the fingers that got the thumb out of the hand split

[paper badge]

actually

[tropic stream]

Look at the two sets of two fingers we see

[paper badge]

have you uh

have you fought that boss

[tropic stream]

both are oriented the exact same way

||Metyr?||

Yes

[paper badge]

I think now ||the three fingers were never split off from a whole hand, I think they're just some malformed fucked up fingers Metyr birthed||

[tropic stream]

So I actually think the opposite

[paper badge]

I meant I always thought ||the three fingers weren't ever part of a full hand||

||but Metyr strengthens my thoughts on that||

[tropic stream]

I think there was a full hand at one point

[paper badge]

I do not lol

[tropic stream]

And the Three Fingers, representing Chaos, change, and evolution

Got the thumb

Are maybe even led by the fact they have the thumb in some way

Now you could counter by saying 'don't the three fingers want to annihilate everything and make everything equal, while the whole point of thumbs was gaining intelligence?'

[paper badge]

I mean

I would not describe the flame of frenzy as change in an evolutionary sense

it literally desires a regression to primordial meaningless chaos

the crucible is more about change and evolution

[vivid spire]

Ranni is so trans as is Miquella

I have an entire trans telling of Elden Ring

[vivid spire]

And the crucible is more unknowable than a hand

So.. it’s like humans trying to put divine power in a category

[tropic stream]

I'm not done with my point, but I think that the Three Fingers' connection to intelligence via the thumb is exemplified by 'knowing' the sheer pointlessness and falsity of the golden order and of life. Given their origin as ||Metyr's|| children and the Greater Will's grandspawn, they know that, ultimately, what they are is not special

[vivid spire]

Even if you can get pretty smart with it (the scholastics of the Golden Order) it’s still a god

[paper badge]

anyway the Flame of Frenzy is too blackpilled to be about 'evolution'

[vivid spire]

Yeah

I stay far away from people who say frenzy is the best ending

[atomic plinth]

God this is so fucking edgy lmao, I love it

[vivid spire]

Almost always they turn out to be nuts

[tropic stream]

The Three Fingers have been driven to blackpilled nihilism by their greater knowledge of how pointless it all is

[vivid spire]

I will say

[tropic stream]

Oh the frenzied flame is fucking horrible

[vivid spire]

As much as I wanted a new ending I’m happy this is a side thing that still has unique consequences

[tropic stream]

I just think it's due to the thumbed part of the split hand developing nihilism

[vivid spire]

It makes spoilers easier and contained

And also means my romantic interpretation of age of stars is safe from any awful shit

[atomic plinth]

...romantic interpretation? Isn't it just romantic to begin with?

[vivid spire]

Well

[tropic stream]

I think they mean romantic in like

[vivid spire]

More romantic than it already is

[tropic stream]

the storytelling conventions sense

[atomic plinth]

True

[vivid spire]

Because I am a hopeful simp to a fault

[tropic stream]

Alongside the literal aspect of

[vivid spire]

And the power of love is rad as helll

[tropic stream]

Marrying Ice-Pop Witch

[vivid spire]

(I was called cringe for that)

I said the power of love is based as hell

And was called cringe

Imagine

[atomic plinth]

I personally doubt Ranni gives a flying fuck about the Tarnished but I'm not about to say you're wrong for it, if anything I wish I shared that view

[atomic plinth]

Cringe is dead and I stand triumphant over its corpse

[vivid spire]

That’s interesting!

[tropic stream]

I think Ranni's marriage to you is, for lack of a better word for it

[vivid spire]

BLACK KNIFE PLUS 10

[tropic stream]

Religio-political

[atomic plinth]

...well, okay, not that she doesn't care at all, but she only views you as like, a tool

[tropic stream]

Not unpleasant, and certainly not malicious

But like you both know why you got into it and it wasn't (necessarily) for love

[vivid spire]

Yeah it kinda is but a huge part of her character is her cold personality tempered by centuries of planning and trauma, which changes with her new body changing which leads to a sense of euphoria

It’s also a trans metaphor

[atomic plinth]

...then again she did express love for Blaidd and Iji, so maybe I'm just being pessimistic

[vivid spire]

Because ofc it is

[tropic stream]

Now I will admit my interpretation is fueled by the fact that in my headcanon, you are somehow able to save Blaidd

[vivid spire]

Exact dialogue: “Perhaps I should add thee to the list, like I love Blaidd and Iji.. ah, thou hast heard too much.”

[tropic stream]

Who I am infinitely more interested in than Ranni

[twilit path]

gah. Pulled up a map and I am pretty sure I have been all of these places... but still one fragment short of level 20

BOOO

[vivid spire]

I saved Blaidd by not returning to the Towers

[paper badge]

I still don't think the three fingers split from a full hand

[tropic stream]

I mean that's fair Eso

[atomic plinth]

Yeah, yeah

[vivid spire]

In my heart we come back centuries later and fix things

[tropic stream]

S'a fuckin crack theory lol

[paper badge]

my reasoning being

[vivid spire]

I may be crack pilled

[atomic plinth]

Not the most crack theory I've ever heard related to Souls games lmfao

[paper badge]

||Metyr never seemed to birth five-fingered hands. Two Fingers and Fingercreepers. And, at some point, a malformed and flawed and maddened Three Fingers||

[proven horizon]

I think what's quite interesting is she clearly had a lot of trust in Rykard of all people. Probably not after the shattering, but before it, certainly

[atomic plinth]

He was the only other demigod that was anti-Erdtree

She didn't have much choice

[tropic stream]

I think Rykard pre-Shattering was probably much more reasonable yeah lol

But the Shattering itself probably made him make rash decisions

[vivid spire]

I had to give up because I got Reddit hate mail for saying ranni is really not that bad of a person

[proven horizon]

Even so, giving him the blasphemous claw rather than keeping it for herself indicates a good deal of trust

[tropic stream]

Jeeeeeeeez

[vivid spire]

I got literally Reddit hate for a game theory lmao

I know I’m right

It’s nicer to be lovely than hateful

But yeah

Bi for Blaidd and Ranni

[atomic plinth]

Redditors are largely joyless fuckheads

[vivid spire]

Win

[tropic stream]

I headcanon that they're a throuple

[vivid spire]

Now that I realized I’m bi

[tropic stream]

No, this isn't fueled by the fact I'm in one shhhhhh

[atomic plinth]

I would know, I used to use reddit

[atomic plinth]

Bi gang bi gang bi gang

[vivid spire]

I am so aware what I missed out on

Blaidd is so..

god

[tropic stream]

Blaidd do be

Yeah

XD

[glossy stag]

people really like their theory how ranni is behind all evil, don't they?

[tropic stream]

https://tenor.com/view/blaidd-elden-ring-petting-wow-furry-gif-25768164

[atomic plinth]

I would be into him, but I'm not into really anthro type characters

[tropic stream]

Pet the hot wolfboi with the Welsh accent

[vivid spire]

like the game literally gives you a cute and smart witch wife

And you have the AUDACITY

to say she’s evil

[kind garden]

I mean, Ranni did kill her older brother

[vivid spire]

No wonder redditors have no maidens

[kind garden]

that's morally dubious at best

[vivid spire]

I’m getting into it slowly but yeah

[tropic stream]

Yeah Godwyn didn't rly deserve the shanking

[vivid spire]

I’m still mostly preferred to women and non anthro

[glossy stag]

ranni - having a moment and asking you to tell blaidd and iji that she loves them
people - she obviously murdered them to, checks notes cover tracks?

[atomic plinth]

Dunno why he was assassinated

[kind garden]

Oh, to break the Cursemark of Death

[vivid spire]

Now I need to finish my Ranni x tarnished fic

I started it years ago and never finished

[atomic plinth]

Dewit

[kind garden]

She considered him an acceptable casualty of her plan to shed her Empyrean flesh

[vivid spire]

It was supposed to be about fighting the different and new Gods that arrived at the Lands Between

[atomic plinth]

...god, it's fucking funny that Elden Ring is the SECOND time I accidentally made a Badass Warrior Lesbian character lmfao

[tropic stream]

Now, was there a better target?

[glossy stag]

Godwyn sure. But I feel people tend to ascribe to Ranni a lot more than that.

[vivid spire]

Yeah

I had someone say “You do know Ranni is just as bad as Marika right you simp”

[atomic plinth]

Went in blind and didn't realize my character would straight up marry Ranni, and in Kingdoms of Amalur they didn't bother changing the romance options to dudes if you play a woman

[paper badge]

I feel like the Black Knives coming after Blaidd and Iji is easy to headcanon as like

[vivid spire]

Them realizing the throuple is beyond their control

[tropic stream]

I think she also partly picked him because she knew that a war would start

[paper badge]

Ranni jilted them on some bargain she offered to get them to cooperate in the first place

[vivid spire]

And wanting to kill them

[tropic stream]

And Godwyn did not at all fuck around

[paper badge]

so when she ascended without holding up what they expected of her

they kill her subordinates in retaliation

[vivid spire]

Also I have another fic I never wrote

[tropic stream]

Yeah also key point, the Black Knives are not Ranni's servants

They serve Marika lol

[vivid spire]

It about saving Melina but not doing the Frenzied Flame

[kind garden]

The Black Knives coming after Blaidd and Iji, imo, is probably because Ranni said she'd help them kill God and then afterwards they realized she was gunning to replace god

[vivid spire]

Because another tarnished already got the Age of Stars and burned the tree using an unknown artifact

Which got rid of most of the other gods but drew in new and stranger minor entities, so Melina and the Tarnished just have to live in a world that’s mostly reclaimed by nature

[glossy stag]

Overall I feel like I miss a lot of black knives' motivations or goals

[tropic stream]

As far as I remember, the Black Knives are Numen women assassins who are suggested to be servants of Marika

[vivid spire]

I had ideas for more Fallen Star entities and different deities like a frozen planetoid one or a creature of darkness

[vivid spire]

Yeah

[paper badge]

yeah Godwyn probably would've gone straight up super-saiyan and won the shattering. Morgott might have even sided with him as a subordinate.

[tropic stream]

Marika wanted out of being the Greater Will's demigod emissary, and Ranni wanted out of becoming said emissary

[paper badge]

never says servants, but says they have close ties to her

[tropic stream]

That's why I said suggested

[kind garden]

Knowing what we know about Marika’s origin now that is actually very much in question no?

Who are the Numen?

[tropic stream]

So Ranni's and Marika's purposes aligned

[tropic stream]

humans from another world, now we just know said world is the Realm of Shadow

[paper badge]

I hate to seem specifically contrarian against Rhi but I don't think the Realm of Shadow is another world

[glossy stag]

Who are apparently a really good stock to be ||made into gods?||

idk still playing throuh the dlc

[tropic stream]

I

How?

[vivid spire]

It’s like how the Eternal Cities were transplanted from their place in the Snowfield to underground

[tropic stream]

To be clear

[paper badge]

I think it used to be part of the lands between but was like. excised.

[vivid spire]

It’s a transportation not an alternate world

[tropic stream]

This reaction isn't cuz you're disagreeing with me

intriguing, however

What evidence do you have lol

[paper badge]

excised and sealed/vaeiled away

[kind garden]

It’s clear to us that it’s part of the same world

But not to in-universe characters no?

[stone cove]

People are very dumb about this stuff

[paper badge]

it's not a perfect slotting-in, geographically, but when you layer the two maps together with the realm of shadow in the lands between's central sea there's interesting connections

[stone cove]

For instance, Greyroll's dragonbarrow is on the sides of where the giant dragon mountain is

[vivid spire]

||https://www.gamesradar.com/games/action-rpg/i-spent-an-evening-stuck-in-elden-rings-fog-rift-catacombs-and-experienced-the-purest-despair-ive-ever-felt-in-a-fromsoftware-game/||

Fog Rift spoilers

It's an article and rather funny

[paper badge]

like the Jagged Peaks are right up in Dragonbarrow, Scadu Altus becomes part of the Altus Plateau, and the most perfectly-fitting place is the Ruins of Rauh slotting into that scooped-out looking bit between Altus Plateau and Liurnia

[glossy stag]

every single person I've seen using word tourist in tha way was just an incredibly toxic asshole

[kind garden]

“Tourist” is a 4chan-ism

[glossy stag]

that does explain it I suppose

[kind garden]

It initially referred to people who didn’t have a specific board’s culture

So like

Ofc it’s used toxically as a gate keeping phrase

[glossy stag]

"Scadu Altus becomes part of the Altus Plateau" does it?

[paper badge]

the only part of the Realm of Shadow that overlaps really awkwardly and conflictingly with its Lands Between counterpart is the southern areas, Cerulean Coast and Charo's Hidden Grave, which would overlap with Limgrave in weird ways, but even still, those areas are very grave-focused. and they're over by Limgrave @tropic stream

[paper badge]

yup!

hang on lemme grab a thing again

[tropic stream]

While interesting, not enough for me to believe it

[stone cove]

Also, notably, you can find a place in the dlc that's literally labebled as being "The center of hte lands between"

so

[tropic stream]

Oh, interesting

[golden pond]

||https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1dmm27d/so_i_overlaid_the_dlcs_map_with_the_base_games/#lightbox||

[kind garden]

Yeah it’s 100% the middle of the world, torn out and shunted to a hiding-place

[paper badge]

oh yeah that's the most literal thing lmao

the ||Suppressing Pillar||

seemingly unimportant little tower with a little lore tablet that fuckin

people could, and will, spend months deciphering

[paper badge]

also ty

[kind garden]

I never found those fucking larval tears huh

Should go back and do that

[paper badge]

also

fun factoid

with that overlaying of maps, the Ruins of Rauh are actually really close to the Ruin-Strewn Precipice

and they have like. what looks like the same architecture style

for those gigantic pillars you see there and in certain other places in the lands between

[stone cove]

They only spawn at night

the dlc ones, at least

[kind garden]

guess I'll do a nightwalk through the Lands of Shadow

[stone cove]

Also, thematically, the enitre dlc is about "What do you cut away from yourself"

whatp arts of your past do you cut away etc to become a god?

[kind garden]

hmm yeah that's a good point

[stone cove]

||The lands of s hadow are everything that Marika cut away.||

[kind garden]

the maingame was all about, like, the cost of power

and this is about what you pay the cost with

[stone cove]

There's other stuff like the cycle of revenge

[glossy stag]

the fancier architecture is of ||hornsent people, right? Who got pretty much eradicated in the name of the erdtree?||

[stone cove]

which is hwy we're ||stopping Miquella, because by cutting everything away, he wont be Kindly Miq, he'll just be Marika, Mind Control edition||

[kind garden]

more complicated than that, but yes, the fancy spiral stuff is the Hornsent's architectural style

[paper badge]

thoughts on what could be pieced together about ||Marika's origins and motives||?

[vivid spire]

Oh my god

It’s a literal trans metaphor

[glossy stag]

in very basic terms, aye

[vivid spire]

I THOUGHT I WAS INSANE

[kind garden]

||I mean, she 100% genocided the Hornsent in revenge for what they did to her people||

[vivid spire]

all my friends said I can’t possibly trans metaphor Elden Ring

I can trans metaphor Elden Ring

[glossy stag]

Poor ||St. Trina||
obligatory haven't fished yet so maybe not

[paper badge]

as Luna said the spiral-y stuff is hornsent architecture and the Rauh stuff seems to be older. there's offhand mentions of hornsent who are like. studying shit in the ruins.

[paper badge]

||yeah, cycles of vengeance||

[vivid spire]

Oh yeah that’s true

Wait

The Rauh stuff seems connected to.. Farum Azusa

[stone cove]

She was a ||Shaman. The hornsent genocided her people to explouit their sainthood/grafting/melding abilites. She ran from this, gained power to take godhood someway, somehow - note the finger ruins next to her home village, and then returned to wreak bloody vegnence on the hornsent||

[paper badge]

ah fuck I hadn't even considered the throughline with ||greatjar innards melding together and grafting||

and yes I did also note ||the fingie ruins near the village||

[stone cove]

Another interesting thing: Guidance of Grace is at this point all but explcilty from ||Marika herself, guiding our Tarnished.|| Which leads to the idea: This dlc is about ||her|| showing our tarnished ||Her past, her mistakes, her sins - and stopping her son from repeating them too||

[kind garden]

||The Fingers guided her, but the Two Fingers were flawed, though how I don't know||

[stone cove]

Like the dlc does not paint ||her|| in a good light. It adds a lot of context, b ut it makes it clear ||she's still a monster. Which makes her shwoing us all of this very, very itneresting.||

[kind garden]

I mean, Leda is of a different opinion

[stone cove]

Almost c ertainly, ||Shaman blood is why Godrick can graft so easily||

Leda is also a psycopath with paranoia issues.

[kind garden]

||She suggests that the Greater Will is the one directing us via Grace, and wishes to see a clash between the two strongest contenders for Lord (and God), to see who comes out on top||

[paper badge]

now imagining a scene where ||Marika flees the razing of her village and collapses, crying and possibly cradling an infant Messmer and Melina, before her Two Fingers||

[kind garden]

Hey, just putting it out there

[frozen olive]

||CURSE YOU BAYLE!||

[stone cove]

Fair! I'm more doing a comedy bit/explaining why i would never trust Leda. Because ayyiyiyi lady, you gotta talk to folks not leap to conclusions

Leda: NO TALK ONLY CONCLUSIONS. CHAAAAAAAAARRRRGE

[frozen olive]

||Of course we are||

[kind garden]

She's hitting that Daytona Super Stretch

[stone cove]

Genuinely ||I think we're in the right. Whatever Miquella is left, his age of kindness would be anything but. It'd be a false, comeplled age. Miquella the Kind is gone by the time we fight him, it's just MIquella the god||

[kind garden]

world record standing long jump to conclusions

[glossy stag]

Leda ||the moment magic is broken - it's killing time||

[paper badge]

I mean, I liked her delivery of that line

where she's like

[glossy stag]

Me - wait but why tho

[stone cove]

Leda: Aint killed someone in five minutes. I'm getting rusty.

[kind garden]

the fucking moment a deity isn't mind controlling her into playing nice she goes TIME FOR JACK TO LET 'ER RIP

[paper badge]

or wait

her exact lines are

||"I've come to a realisation..."
"There's ample evidence... Without Kindly Miquella's influence..."
"I'm quite mistrustful of others..."||

[stone cove]

I do like Sir Ansbach being ||Entirely chill with us killing Mohg. We were both contenders for the throne, wef triumphed and Mohg fell, and he sees no issues with this. We treated his lord with respect, and met him as equals||

[paper badge]

||he's more upset with the dishonor done to his remains yeah||

||husking him like corn||

[vivid spire]

I wanna give her a hug and tell her I value her opinions

God

Poor Leda..

[kind garden]

no, Leda's a maniac

[vivid spire]

A lot of the stuff these characters go through make me really sad ngl

[frozen olive]

(final boss spoilers)||I wholeheartedly believe we are right to stop Miquella, all of Miquellas actions before and after divesting themselves of everything led simply to suffering, and Miquellas age of Kindness cannot be anything but a charade, hell Miquella even tries to compell YOU and is fully capable of doing it as well||

[vivid spire]

Oh

[kind garden]

listen, there are lots of women's wrongs I support in Elden Ring but not Leda

[stone cove]

Leda is literally the type to Keep the purge going until she purges everyone

[vivid spire]

I thought she was just kinda disturbed and needed support

[glossy stag]

||Enters Mohg's arena and immediately starts chucking boulders at him. Respectfully.||

[stone cove]

no one will ever be trustworthy enough in her eyes

[vivid spire]

Oh dear

Hey that's just like ||Messmer||

Wow

[kind garden]

||Messmer|| honestly is like

more understandable

[paper badge]

||RADIANT AND PURE, HE WIELDS LOVE TO SHRIVE CLEAN THE HEARTS OF MEN... THERE IS NOTHING MORE TERRIFYING.||

[vivid spire]

It's almost like war turns people into animals who prey on their fellows

My dad watches me die to Messmer three times in a row and said I must really like dying lmao

[paper badge]

unrelated to lore debates

I still love how cosmically majestic the ||Mother of Fingers|| boss music is

[stone cove]

Something that's interesting re: MOhg, actually -

Base game stuff here mostly + dlc spoilers - Mohg is ||Not among the ones listed as a traitor by Morgott, and his clone is helping seal the Frenzied Flame under the city. And there's mention of a betrayal during the siege of Leyndell, whcih implies mohg was supporting things early. ||

||So, maybeh e got mindjacked during that siege? It's hard to tell. It's opbvious Mohg is not entirely on the up and up - the Dynsaty of blood is not a great place, but it's hard to tell exactyly where Mogh stops and Miquella's compulsion begins||

[paper badge]

||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yacry9jD6sU||

[frozen olive]

||Pretty much, for all of miquellas supposed kindness, literally every description mentions them as fearsome and scary, and they constantly mind control people to do their bidding without a care in the world||

[stone cove]

Also unrelated to the lOre, talk, i've been depopulating the Abyssal Woods

[kind garden]

haha yeah

[stone cove]

stealth mission? No fuck that. This is a Parrying Mission.

[kind garden]

kill
em
all

[vivid spire]

Abyss scares me

[stone cove]

Bloody timing is so arse though.

[vivid spire]

Like those fucking lanterns

[kind garden]

It's so fucking tight

[vivid spire]

I can't kill them

[paper badge]

you can kill the lantern fuckers

with parrying

[vivid spire]

DESTINED DEATH HAS NO EFFECT

[paper badge]

they lose their invincibility if you parry them

[vivid spire]

Omg that's hilaripusn

[paper badge]

as they try to grab you

[stone cove]

You have to parry them - the timing with a buckler is to hit as they raise their wand up.

[vivid spire]

The game didn't intend that st all

[paper badge]

no it did

they drop a talisman

[kind garden]

it's 100% intentional, there's an animation

[paper badge]

one of 'em does

[kind garden]

and drops yeah

[vivid spire]

Ohh

[stone cove]

No, it's intended, you even fiund a super vague clue telling you

[vivid spire]

Is the talisman good

[kind garden]

ayo

what clue

where

[paper badge]

what's the exact text of the clue??

[stone cove]

Uh, gimme a mo

[paper badge]

it's an Exultation but for Madness

[stone cove]

Attack up on causing mandess

madness*

[paper badge]

including yourself

[kind garden]

The talisman is kinda wack because like

if you Madness your opponent in pvp they're hella dead

[golden pond]

Does it count if I'm already fucked in the head?

[paper badge]

nah u gotta fill up the orange bar

[golden pond]

Aww man

[paper badge]

https://tenor.com/view/madness-elden-ring-frenzy-frenzy-flame-flame-of-frenzy-gif-25870095

like this

[stone cove]

"I touched him, but only once. When he thrust his staff in my face, I brushed it aside. It was then i touched him. THe aging untouchable"

[kind garden]

ahhhhh yeah true

true

[golden pond]

It's enough I'm going mad from lack of E
Now I need to fill a bar

Raaaah

[paper badge]

ahhhhhhhhh

[twilit path]

level 20 blessing acquired. AND NOW FINALLY to go do the final boss

Spirit ashe is only at 8 but... Who knows if I'll even need that

[dusty kraken]

I'm only at blessing 10. Just beat the purticient knight.

[proven horizon]

Scadutree O Scadutree

I wish you could put Scadutree in messages

[dusty kraken]

Got to go to the shadowy keep next

[stone cove]

Honestly, i feel like at about 10 you start hitting the point where the game evens out quite a b it

Though i'm not regretting pushing my blesisng further

[glossy stag]

Knight hits real hard but not that tricky?

[kind garden]

Final boss with anything less than 20 blessing is dire

[stone cove]

I found his phase 1 double-charge combo to be the worst

as the dash timing is harsh

[paper badge]

creature design detail of ||Metyr|| I was only able to notice upon watching someone's stream:

[stone cove]

the fire attacks in phase 2 are annoying, but that's standard elden ring these things have bad hitboxes anoying

[paper badge]

||she really do have a tiny eyeball in that fingerface||

[stone cove]

Now this boss i did not like. Super attack that hides the other aoes, and the worst in the "I am taking forfever to swing my sword"

[proven horizon]

I've got 17 and I've mostly cracked the first phase with my lightrolling double katana setup

[paper badge]

that one doesn't have a sword tho

[stone cove]

which really annoys me because realstically if you take that long to siwng your sword, i'mma jump on you and start gutting you like a fish. a very small sad fish.

[paper badge]

unless you mean

just

attack in general

[stone cove]

...

I got bosses confused

Look, there's several that start with M, okay?

😛

[kind garden]

Oh, you mean lord spins, right?

[stone cove]

Lord fire face mc spins, yes.

[kind garden]

parry

[stone cove]

oh, he's long since dead.

[kind garden]

parrying whoops so much ass in the DLC it's nuts

[stone cove]

I did consider it, but i'm not super great at parrying

[kind garden]

Anything that holds a weapon, you can parry

anything

[stone cove]

and once i got my feet under me, i wing stanced him down reliably

[proven horizon]

I actually love it when bosses do this, if you're really on the ball you can generally get a light attack in between swings

[golden pond]

I'm terrible at parrying so I just throw moons at people

[stone cove]

Since like a lot of things in the dlc, you can jump over a lot of attacks

This also makes the dragon hunt katana very good

[glossy stag]

Jumping certain moons was fun

[frozen olive]

I was surprised at shields

[kind garden]

oh also, I tried doing some Faith Sorcery with the scadutree sorceries and wow

uh

[stone cove]

ontop of the fact it actually ahs the tracking to hit heads.

screw you dragons

[kind garden]

Impenetrable Thorns is ridiculous

[frozen olive]

I never felt like anything should be blockable but damn shit to be blockable

[twilit path]

alright not bad for first attempt

[frozen olive]

I'm just standing here like Sundowner yelling "I'M FUCKING INVINCIBLE"

[stone cove]

@frozen olive You got a dueling shield yet?

Because damn, get you a dueling shield girl.

Then you can block while stabbing people

and the arts of war you can put on them are hilarious

Giant hunt and blood tax!

[kind garden]

OH SHIT

I just realized something!

[stone cove]

Or cragblade! or divine beast frost stomp!

you have so many options, it's very funny

[kind garden]

Big story spoilers: ||Mohg having his knights assassinate maidens and Tarnished wasn't a fluke, it was a manipulation of Miquella's, to prevent a competitor Lord from being created||

[golden pond]

https://tenor.com/view/metal-gear-rising-mgr-sundowner-sundowner-mgr-mgr-sundowner-gif-11270624629664337957

[frozen olive]

I have, haven't tried it yet

Using the Haligtree Crest Greatshield

[glossy stag]

||Is the lake area south east of shadow keep, and also other below bonny village accessible after shadow keep?||

[paper badge]

I wonder what powerstanced thrusting shields look like

[glossy stag]

Or am I just being a dummy with pathing

[paper badge]

||you can get there before approaching shadow keep||

[glossy stag]

question about some areas below shadow keep on the map

[paper badge]

||moorth ruins hole||

||the lake area south of shadow keep tho you do gotta get into shadow keep to access iirc||

||but you can reach bonny village through the moorth ruins||

[glossy stag]

||I get to bonny village through it, is there a deeper tunnel there?||

[kind garden]

||The path is in Shadow Keep||

[glossy stag]

||aye, I mean below the village||

thanks

[paper badge]

ohhhhh, iirc then ||yeah you gotta go through shadow keep||

[glossy stag]

I kind of just obsessively scraping before the keep

knowing that helps

[paper badge]

it's very hidden though

[frozen olive]

This is my fit with the shield btw(armor and weapon spoilers)

[paper badge]

like as in don't be ashamed if you give up and look up a guide to find out how specifically to get there

[glossy stag]

I can no longer rub my nose against ever wall

until I do that in ||shadow keep||

[vivid spire]

I finally figured out what to use

Blinkbolt for invuln and rapid danage

AND

Rock

Big rock

[proven horizon]

Man I've finally got the 1st phase of the final boss down but phase 2 destroys me

[glossy stag]

big rock good

I approve

[vivid spire]

Miyazaki said in an interview last week he’s aware a lot of people use guides

[glossy stag]

does it deal more damage to it because it's a skelly?

[vivid spire]

And he’s also aware that this dlc has highlighted the obscure nature of their design to a fault

[glossy stag]

sort of kind of skelly

[vivid spire]

It’s a stone creature so physical is highest damage output

[paper badge]

I mean I wouldn't have it any other way

[vivid spire]

Crucible incantation, pest threads, ect

[kind garden]

wait

we're talking about Putrescent Knight?

[twilit path]

final boss q: ||what sort of damage types is he outputting? Lightning? magic? fire? I have no idea||

[kind garden]

||Holy, Magic, a tiny bit of Fire, mostly Standard on sword strikes||

[glossy stag]

It took me a couple of tries with PK ||to notice the summon sign||

[paper badge]

||holy, I think? in phase 2 anyway. physical and maybe magic in phase 1, plus very occasional fire||

[kind garden]

||Holy is the big concern||

[paper badge]

if you want one to focus on, ||focus on holy negation||

[kind garden]

||Holy is by far where the most stray hits are coming from||

||That twink must be OBLITERATED||

[twilit path]

ok, gotcha. I'll stick that good ||holy|| talisman on then

[nova smelt]

chat the lightning bottle with spark with rolling sparks might be the highest dps weapon in the game

[kind garden]

yup

[paper badge]

||marika hair sniffing moments||

[kind garden]

casual 6k on a concentrated hit

[nova smelt]

fr

i just shredded everything in my path

[paper badge]

why lightning over any other perfume tho?

[nova smelt]

least resisted

i think

[kind garden]

massive Dex scaling

[paper badge]

saw some vid where someone pumped it up to 30k damage with aged one's exultation

[nova smelt]

faith and dex scaling

i'm at like 60/40 faith/dex and im hitting for massive numbers

[twilit path]

gah. the amount of splashy bullshit this last boss has.

[glossy delta]

I am crushed
(Weapon spoilers)
||The Carian Sorcery Sword? The thrusting sword that casts spells on its heavies||
||ZERO spell buff, apparently||
||I must assume its a bug, looking forward to the patch, but ack||
||It would be cool to rock Carian Slicer/Greatsword/Piercer in your slots and basically hotswap heavies||

[twilit path]

and still gettin' rekt lol

[kind garden]

Parry

it stops the attack sequence

[paper badge]

one lore thing I certainly wasn't expecting, but am pleasantly surprised by

[kind garden]

parring in general pretty fucking strong in the DLC

[paper badge]

is the ||explanation of the connection between Ancient Dragons and Drakes||

[twilit path]

Hrm. Not having a ton of fun with this boss so far.

[kind garden]

It’s a wee bit grimy

What’s your build like?

[twilit path]

Tried a few things, very light dodge based, medium weight, but mostly had success with heavy build

[kind garden]

No like

Stats

[twilit path]

Quality scaling for Milady

[kind garden]

What are your damage stats

[kind garden]

Holy fuck that’s a lot of Endurance

[twilit path]

Yeah, lets me tank real good for the shield. And he's still breakin thru ... even w/ the greatshield talisman lol

[paper badge]

holoy fuck that's good milady damage

[twilit path]

Yeah! It's carried me all the way thru, I haven't honestly tried anything else except some punchin

[kind garden]

I uh

[twilit path]

and the wing stance dash heavy fucks

[kind garden]

Don’t know how to game this fight on a quality build tbh

[glossy delta]

||That was awesome, yeah||
||The lesser drakes are the descendants of One Specific Ancient Dragon that everyone hates||
||Dragon Judas||
||And Dragon Communion being a tradition the Ancient Dragons started to get humans to do their dirty work is tasty||

[kind garden]

My strat was omega-bleed with Impenetrable Thorns

With Quality it’s like, idk

You don’t really have access to any cheap shit lmao

[glossy delta]

We did Every Status

[twilit path]

Yeah, I have been pretty much just taking things as vanilla as possible

and its been great! Until now

Seven tries and got him down consistently to like.. 20-25%

I can get it done just frustrating heh

which i haven't felt so far!

[kind garden]

Look if you can Honest Andy the final boss, more power to you

[paper badge]

I just pumped out as much lightning damage as I possibly could with the help of fwuffy/luna from in here for tanking and throwing rot pots

[kind garden]

I fell back to the absolute lamest strat I could find

[paper badge]

not luna live from carcosa, fwuffy (luna)

[twilit path]

oh, I can craft a golden vow. Interesting.

I also dont have any of the tears for my physik

I could go grab some of those

[left willow]

Make sure you swing by Chicago for the 15% damage reduction tear.

[twilit path]

yeah, that could definitly help for that second phase

[left willow]

It lasts for 3 minutes, so if you slap another buff on there (Str/Dex Knot or +Magic Attack Tear or Heal-Over-Time), you can just pop it at the start of the fight

[golden pond]

Depends on tears

Some last less

[tropic stream]

I just had a cursed realization about this drip

lady looks like Catholic Sasuke

[glossy stag]

Allow me a moment to reiterate ||CURSE YOU BAYLE||

[kind garden]

||BAAAAAYLE||

[twilit path]

wait tears last that long?!

I basically never used the physik

[glossy stag]

They go for 3 to 5 minutes usually?

[golden pond]

3 minutes for most

[glossy stag]

Dunno about the specific one

[golden pond]

Some last less like infinite fp only 15s

[kind garden]

Depends on the tear

[golden pond]

Or increased poise damage only 30

[kind garden]

some are v short

[golden pond]

But damage resist and attack buff are 3m

[glossy stag]

Where on the difficulty scale do people put ||BAYYYYYLEEE||

[golden pond]

Bloodsucking tear is funny

[twilit path]

dang, I gotta get me some o them then

[golden pond]

20% more damage
23hp/sec drain

[kind garden]

I'd call that boss a 7

The final boss is a solid 10

at least, if we're talking about the difficulties of Elden Ring bosses, the DLC final boss is the maximum

For calibration I'd call Margit a 5/10 or so

[dusty kraken]

Hey, so: Would anyone be willing to trade a Fire Perfume Bottle +0 for a Fire Perfume Bottle +25? I'm trying to get a fire perfume bottle to a lower level character of mine but forgot you can't hand over items leveled beyond what the character recieving the item already has.

[golden pond]

Sure

Ah wait

[paper badge]

@dusty kraken can I DM you a meme I want to post in here for approval? it references a sex act but it screams 'Leda' to me

[kind garden]

DM it to me too if it isn't approved

[golden pond]

Same

[twilit path]

mm, did three more attempts. CLOSE.

good enough for tonight

[kind garden]

nice nice nice

[golden pond]

Nah you got this

One more

[dusty kraken]

Sure

[golden pond]

Don't lose your momentum

[twilit path]

Lol. The classic "oh just one more" post midnight

[kind garden]

tbf that's how I managed to beat Rennala, the 3AM second wind

[golden pond]

||I ran at her with moonlight greatsword and a mimic after a good nap and proceeded to beat her down with her sister's moon||

[golden pond]

😭 bro struggled with rennala

[kind garden]

wait

fuck

Rellana

[golden pond]

[kind garden]

goddamnit

I was destined to make that mistake eventually

[golden pond]

Everyone does

[dusty kraken]

||The Sane Sister, not the Most Divorced Woman.||

Also, this DLC has more or less convinced me that like half the problems The Land Betweens have could be solved if ||People had a fucking Psychologist.||

[twilit path]

yeah ok

[golden pond]

||I can't wait for NG+ where I get to beat her down not only with her own moons but also her niece's moon||

[twilit path]

one more attempt

and I got it

you so right lynn

[glossy delta]

||I would not call Rellana the sane one||
||Instead of pining after her ex-husband she's pining after her skinhead crush||

[twilit path]

except I died as they died so any cutscenes got skipped lmao

[golden pond]

||Quad Moon Beatdown||

[dusty kraken]

||Look, sane is very relative in this family.||

[kind garden]

the mental health of the Carian royal line is in shambles

[golden pond]

||Ranni is pretty sane||

[kind garden]

Ranni is an admitted murderer

and is the most normal of her entire family

[dusty kraken]

||I mean, most people don't see god fuck over their mum and go 'I guess I'm killing god!'||

[golden pond]

||Gave me a banger sword and she's pretty hot, any lesbian knows that's so based||

[glossy delta]

Ranni is like
The ringleader of a terrorist cell basically lmao

[twilit path]

double slay. except now I gotta lookup the ending cutscene on youtube. silly game.

[kind garden]

no

you do not

the ending cutscene is accessed separately

well done

[twilit path]

oooh

[golden pond]

||The amount of times I've seen people curse god because their mom got a bad disease or something, Ranni just has a chance to actually do it||

[twilit path]

then ONWARDS I GO

[kind garden]

anyways so let's break it down

The queen and her sister are both simps down so bad they are functionally useless

Radahn died, RIP my man

[dusty kraken]

||Unironically, for all Ranni talks an impassive and logical game, it's very clear she's very emotional and just keeping it bottled up. She's doing this because the Two Fingers and The Greater Will hurt her family and she clearly cares deeply for the people around her, she's just like everyone else in this setting and going 'My only two emotional states are complete breakdown and stoicism, nothing healthy'.||

[kind garden]

Rykard fed himself to a giant snake

and Ranni is doing terrorism about it all

[golden pond]

Oh but it's OK when a fucking jar does it

[kind garden]

NO

[glossy delta]

We have learned that it is in fact not okay when a jar does it

[kind garden]

honestly, Ranni is so right for deciding to commit deity-level terrorism about her family issues

It is factually all Marika's fault and she deserves less for it

[glossy delta]

(endgame DLC spoilers) ||oh but when Miquella does it 🙄 ||

[twilit path]

ok NOW I really gotta go to bed. Gnight Elden Ring DLC chat (probably for good lmao, uninstalling now that I crushed it)

[kind garden]

peace doc

[kind garden]

||Miquella's plot sucks. He's just replacing his mom with himself, that's some Z-tier political violence.||

[dusty kraken]

||Honestly, even Marika's sorta in a real bad situation. It's sorta why I said this setting desperately needs a shrink because there's a LOT of people who end up doing heinious shit not because they want to but because they're clearly not in a good state or don't see there being any other solution to the situation.||

[kind garden]

oh yeah like, tongue in cheek bullshit aside for a sec

||Marika's completely understandable, and her faults aren't, like, that ridiculously implausible when you understand where she came from and why she did what she did||

[frozen olive]

||Miquella killed two of their brothers and frankensteined them into a consort and plans to mind control the entire world, their plan sucks absolute shit||

[kind garden]

||A lot of what's wrong comes from Marika just... not knowing what to do once she had power||

||there was no plan.||

[frozen olive]

||Marika did a bad revenge plot, all genocide and no ideas for the aftermath||

[stone cove]

Not only that but what kind of Age of ||Compassion requires a Immortal, Unthinking Lord of War for consort?||

[dusty kraken]

||We need to kill the Utilitarian before he Maximizes Happiness (Negative)||

[frozen olive]

||Miquella says they want an age of compassion but the plan to get there involved fratricide, necromancy, mind control slaves and ultra-extreme self mutilation which also had a lot of just fucking collateral mass death involved||

[kind garden]

also, in keeping with the whole thing about how Elden Ring makes the Divine Right of Kings and various other medieval standards/beliefs regarding royalty

[frozen olive]

||Like Caelid getting fucking nuked was just like, a natural consequence of sending Malenia to go kill Radahn so that's an entire region of greater good sacrifices alone||

||Age of compassion through the means of ultraviolence, murder and genocide||

[kind garden]

||It seems to me that the Greater Will and the Two Fingers basically picked Marika for no reason other than that she was willing to send it all the way. They just want an Order, any Order, as long as it encompasses everything it can reach, forever. The Will and its vassals want a regime, they are the embodiments of hierarchy and control.||

[glossy delta]

||Ranni Super Duper Killed one of her (half) brothers in a way that left tons of Death Radiation Fallout, left all the folks working for her holding the bag once she departed on her 'dark path', which resulted in all of their deaths, and what she's planning on doing is at least as vague as Miquella's plan||
||To clarify I am on team anti-Miquella myself, I just find myself a little confused by how it was presented in the DLC||

[frozen olive]

||Ranni's plan did not involve mind control slaves at the very least||

[dusty kraken]

||Well, it did but Blaid was a mind control slave against her. Poor Boy.||

[stone cove]

Re: Ranni - one of the issues is that the translation of her plan is shit in the english version, and the Japanese version is a lot more clear

[kind garden]

||Ranni did a big political assassination and caused an absolute shitstorm in its wake, yeah, but her plan is at least clearly oriented towards the common man and never loses sight of that.||

[stone cove]

||Her plan is to... upsticks and leave. She's basically taking her godhood?, her outer god, her lord and buggering off, leaving the lands between to find it's own path, free of celestial or outer god meddling||

[frozen olive]

||Miquella is interesting cause basically everything they do that we know of directly opposes their so called goal to reach an age of compassion to the point that they don't even fully agree with themself||

[kind garden]

||Ranni's methods are twisted but at least she never loses sight of the point of everything she's doing, whereas Miquella clearly is deeply lost in the sauce when we catch up with them||

[stone cove]

Like her plan still has flaws, i think you can argue it's pretty icky in some respects ||It seems to leave the lands between very oepn to getting re-invaded etc|| but it's an understnable "The gods have failed, so let there be no gods" response

[frozen olive]

||Can you imagine being so fucked up that you cut out a part of yourself and that part asks someone else to kill you cause you're doing some evil nefarious shit||

[kind garden]

||And I hate to say it, but being lost in the sauce when the sauce is authority and Godhood is the worst possible thing for you to be||

[frozen olive]

||Miquella is saying a lot of nice things about compassion while warcrimes maxxing just like Marika did||

[kind garden]

Power without a purpose is the worst fucking thing, Miyazaki has been saying this for a long time now

[dusty kraken]

||My read is that Miquella did genuinely want to help people/were genuinely compassionate but his ability to justify everything with 'end justifies the means' pushed him super damn far. I think he also overestimated his ability to stick to his original goal once he started cutting bits of himself out, hence St Trina wanting to save him by stopping him.||

[jaunty solar]

||https://fxtwitter.com/ign/status/1805692795379667362?s=46||

Post about the horntower boss

I literally said this when the first trailer came out

[frozen olive]

||Once Miquella cut out their ability to love it was kind of over tbh||

[golden pond]

So good

[glossy delta]

||Notably, St. Trina asks you to kill him because she seems to think godhood would be bad for Miquella, not because she's trying to stop him from doing evil shit||
I def do get sus vibes but idk, its not like, spelled out

[kind garden]

||I subscribe to this as well, with the caveat that when you're willing to compromise yourself as deeply as Miquella did, you're already fucked up||

[stone cove]

So...who'syour avatar? because that's a cool design

[dusty kraken]

||The thing at the end would not have been Miquella. You can't cut all of yourself out and still be yourself. But I think Miquella thought they'd still be...themselves despite the losses, while St Trina realizes otherwise.||

[jaunty solar]

It's Rudo from Gachiakuta

Read Gachiakuta

This is not a request

[frozen olive]

||Miquella wanted to make the world better and immediately went about making it worse||

[jaunty solar]

https://tenor.com/view/neon-gun-gif-24585348

[kind garden]

||Like at a certain point you actually can judge people for being willing to cut out the things that make them who they are / a worthy lord or God||

like

[glossy delta]

To be fair, I think like everyone was lmao
Within five mins people were like 'oh its a lion dance'

[kind garden]

that's already a damning step, even before you start on the atrocities (which evidently followed)

[frozen olive]

Tbf it is EXTREMELY obvious

[jaunty solar]

In the first trailer you can see the feetsies if you look close

[frozen olive]

||The boss is clearly based on Chinese dancing lion puppets and you can literally see the hand controlling the jaw in the trailer||

[dusty kraken]

||Likewise from my reading: Radahn was okay with Miquella becoming the god/the high level scheme but was not okay with/didn't know all the details. Hence holding back the stars at the end of it to stall it.||

[jaunty solar]

I think it's very funny that one of those guys jumps Messmer in the trailer

Especially because ||I think they're about equally matched||

[fleet bronze]

I think most people expected || it to involve some grafting or other typical Souls body horror evoking lion dancers is the thing, not just actually two dudes in a costume which is genuinely hilarious||

[dusty kraken]

||Makes sense. They're taking on the role of a god in the play. By playing the role, they become that role. A shadow of a god and a demigod being equally matched seems plausible to me.||

[kind garden]

They are bonafide divine beings while doing the dance, to be fair

[stone cove]

Also, re: Ranni

[frozen olive]

||It's pretty one to one with how IRL dancing puppets work, except with divine intervention||

[stone cove]

THere's one thing that's very hard to tell etc and that's ||Was she working with Marika?||

[jaunty solar]

||The puppet itself is made in mockery of Godfrey. It's a puppet of his lion Serosh with omen horns coming out of it, Godfrey sired two omen born sons||

[frozen olive]

||Not likely||

[kind garden]

Hard to say. Maybe, maybe not. There aren't enough hard facts to say yes or no.

[stone cove]

because it's entirely possible she did a lot of her acts on/with ||Marika's say so as part of the pla nto break the Golden Order||

[fleet bronze]

How much Marika was actually involved with the black knives and what they did probably never going to be clear

[kind garden]

Nah, that shit is WAY older than Godfrey lmao

[frozen olive]

||Radahn the GOAT fr||

[glossy delta]

||I've heard talk of new lore saying that Radahn holding the stars was actually for Ranni's sake, but I have not found it myself so cannot confirm||

[frozen olive]

Also yes it's not related to Godfrey

[fleet bronze]

If anything, Godfrey is the one mythically mirroring them somehow

[glossy delta]

Horns are good not bad amongst the hornsent
Hence uh
The name

[kind garden]

Godfrey is actually a baller if he knew and wanted to pay homage

[dusty kraken]

||That also makes sense. He knew enough to realize how fucked the sitution was for Marika and I imagine he didn't want that for his Little Sister.||

[jaunty solar]

That's always the assumption I've been functioning under

[frozen olive]

||Honestly somehow the DLC made Radahn more based i think||

[jaunty solar]

||Protecting his sister from the pull of the outer god||

[frozen olive]

||Which is rad cause i already thought he was badass as hell||

||What a fucking powerhouse of a guy too huh..||

[jaunty solar]

Oh so do we have confirmation about whoever Renna is now

[kind garden]

||This statement was fact checked by genuine Miquella followers: true.||

[glossy delta]

Also
Can I just say
I can respect how Fromsoft just fuckin LIES every so often
Never does Miquella ||wind up riding on torrent like the initial images presented||

[jaunty solar]

||Rellana fits the bill pretty well||

But there's also the possibility Renna is Ranni's fated aspect

[kind garden]

I thought Renna was the Snow Witch who taught Ranni?

Isn't that like

[jaunty solar]

Like ||Miquella/St. Trina||

[kind garden]

in the snow hat item description even

Renna's Rise is where you find the Snow Witch gear

[frozen olive]

||Can you imagine how disgustingly powerful Radahn must have been at his peak? Like, Miquella revived pre gravity magic Radahn and he's already that fucking strong? Crazy shit||

[kind garden]

||He was YOLKED, that's what Miquella chose him for||

[steel scroll]

||revived radahn very much has gravity magic though. source: he fucikn flew away and threw an asteroid belt at me||

[frozen olive]

||No fucking WONDER the only thong capable of stopping him was a region leveling nuke to the face||

[jaunty solar]

But there's some debate about who Renna actually is

[glossy delta]

||I do like the new insights that have been presented in the DLC||
||Like how Mohg might actually have been at least tied with the other demigods in contemptibility instead of the leader of the crew before Miquella got to him||

[stone cove]

Mohg is super interesting esp with some of the context from the base game

Morgott never calls hima traitor, for instance

[kind garden]

||Gonna be real, Mohg may well have been a normal-ass dude before Miquella started making it weird.||

[jaunty solar]

Especially because there are characters who seem to be bound by fate

[stone cove]

And Morgott calls a lot of his sibilings traitors

Plus his working to block the frenzied flame

[jaunty solar]

||Gurranq and Malekith, Radagon and Marika, Miquella and St. Trina||

I think Renna is Ranni's connection

[stone cove]

Nah, not entirely. ||He found the FOrmless Mother in the sewers, which, like, understanble||

[jaunty solar]

And Renna may have taught her how to break that fate with the Godwyn thing

[glossy delta]

||I mean, he WAS at the head of a Crazy Blood Cult||
||Ansbach was with Mohg before he got Miquella'd and he was doing blood oath stuff back then||

[kind garden]

||True but the blood oath stuff may not have been, you know, insane and murderous before Miquella started using it as a way to prevent an alternative Lord candidate cropping up by having the Blood Knights murder the Finger Maidens||

[frozen olive]

||It doesn't have the same visuals at all though and at least the swords you can get from him seem to imply he's a version of himself from before he conquered the stars||

[glossy delta]

||I suppose the blood could come from ethically harvested sources, sure||

[frozen olive]

||Greatswords of black steel wielded by Radahn in his youth. A pair of weapons decorated with a lion mane motif. These were in his possession immediately before his triumph over the stars—the swords of a lord who does not rely on physical strength and gravity alone.||

[kind garden]

||I mean, shit, most blood magic uses your blood||

[jaunty solar]

Marika tells Radagon at one point "You are yet to become me" and this isn't simply metaphor about some magic fusion Marika truly turns into Radagon when she dies.

And the deathbird items talk about how there's a spirit world where people would see something like grace

It's possible Marika is from that spirit world

[kind garden]

nah we know where Marika is from and it's very real

[dusty kraken]

||Yeah, she came from Jarland.||

[glossy delta]

||Those sentences are weird, I suspect a translation thing or something??||
||I want to read them as 'a lord who does not rely solely on strength, nor solely on gravity (magic)||
||Because uh||
||They do be doing magic damage||

[jaunty solar]

Okay so, think of how we get the reveal that Marika is Radagon

We cast the Law of Regression onto a statue

[glossy delta]

||Like, Greatsword of Radahn (Lord) and (Light) do magic and phys damage||

[kind garden]

||no yeah the greatsword descriptions imply that he's fucking sick with it and is using his massive strength and complicated sorcery at the same time, the gravity powers came later||

[jaunty solar]

Marika cut destined death from the elden ring, when it's unleashed and she dies, she becomes Radagon

And all these characters have these twinned identities

[frozen olive]

||Also per the weapon art on one of them he's literally able to move at lightspeed which is fucking insane||

[jaunty solar]

Think of destined death not really as death but as becoming another person

[glossy delta]

||OR, its saying that in addition to strength and magic, he is relying on Miquella's light||

[kind garden]

||Pretty sure he can't stunt on you and go a billion miles an hour without a God in his corner||

[jaunty solar]

One person causes the other before regressing into them again

[stone cove]

You know,m i'm sad the dlc doesnt affect the endings/base game at all

[golden pond]

destined to die a buff redhead
not a bad way to go

[jaunty solar]

It's two mirrored arcs that form a ring

[stone cove]

because just imagine rocking up to Gideon and being like "my man! You would not belive the shit i have been up to!"

[jaunty solar]

And this was the order of the world before Marika dismantled it

We see this with the two D characters

[frozen olive]

||Probably not but i really don't think he needs it for basically any other fight, he's so yolked nobody else beats him anyway||

[glossy delta]

'so uh'
'I've got some info on miquella the unalloyed, like you asked'

[jaunty solar]

They're a quirk in that both of their bodies exist at the same time

[golden pond]

||I was gonna ask if gideon has anything new if you tell him about Miquella by going to dlc||

[jaunty solar]

When one dies their soul moves to the other

[glossy delta]

'another mid tier spell please'

[golden pond]

lord's divine fortification is fucking goated for bosses that do a lot of holy, what

[jaunty solar]

And when wearing the armor the second D even holds himself as if he's speaking from the silver head of the armor

[steel scroll]

rocking up to enia with the rememberance of ||the mother of fingers|| and she doesn't bat a fucking eye

[kind garden]

"Damn, that's crazy Tarnished. Anyways, are you gonna do cardinal sins or not?"