#dlc speculation

[velvet-apricots]

Im cooking on twitter right now.

[eros-sinclair]

I wanted to finally give a go at my personal headcanon for Miquella once he emerges from his cocoon.

The cocoon looks rather silkie so I went with a silk moth aesthetic, and kept with some of the paler tones for his base. And then because he’s been seeping in all those blood offerings that Mohg had given to him, I have him the Carrie treatment and drenched him in blood. I wanted to give him a weapon of some kind but couldn’t really think of anything so I just gave him a pair of bloodied versions of the Miquella’s needle item you can get.

I imagine that if he had his own dlc you would have to defeat Mohg first, and then you could go up and touch the cocoon and then be transported into Miquella’s Dream, where you have to go around trying to wake up an npc version of him, fighting off creatures born of his nightmares. And at the end Miquella wakes up. You get transported back to the mausoleum where you now have to fight him. In the end I think you would get the choice to finish him off or not. If you do of course you get his remembrance and can get his weapons/spells. But what would happen if you spare him? Well it could be that YOU do what Mohg wanted all along and ask to become his consort. And boom new ending!

Yeah just a concept :3

Tell me what you think, I like the idea of you just giving Mohg a big ol middle finger by taking the place of Miquella’s consort. I think that’s just funny

Also tiny Mohg and Malenia pog

[yournextflame]

Sword of the Deepest Lore

Helphen’s Steeple recently caught my attention, this is the only item in the Elden Ring that suggests existance of the realm of dead, which is big, considering that all known beliefs about the afterlife in the Lands Between usually related to the rebirth: be it Erdtree’s Burial tradition, distant resurrection from Deathbirds or Ancestral Worship, in which life sprouts from death. But this sword introduces an actual world of death.

Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world. The lamplight is similar to grace in appearance, only it is said that it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle.

霊界において死者の道標となる灯火の樹 ヘルフェンの黒い尖塔を模した大剣

その灯火は祝福に似て 英霊だけが、それを見ることができるという

What EN called “lampwood” 灯火の樹 can be also roughtly interpreted as “Tree of Lamplights”, but it’s very confusing and this convoluted wording translates through the sword’s design as it resembles both a pine tree and a tower. But what if Helphen is a lighthouse, considering that the sword in question drops from Tibia Mariner and death imagery in the Elden Ring is strongly water themed (Godwyn’s corpses, crabs, jellyfishes)? Another neat detail is red jewel decoration, red is a color of life and death in the Elden Ring, it’s a color of primordial gold of Crucible, but also is a color of Rune of Death and a blood star. I wonder if this one jewel is a red glinestone related to the thorn sorceries. Tibia Mariner doesn’t use thorn sorsery, but the color of his spells is red, the skeletons he summons are appearing the red light too.

(extra tinfoil alert: if the spirit world is a realm of the outer god of Deathbirds, could it be that all outer gods are inhabiting alternate dimensions, following Norse myth about original nine worlds of the universe? The Shattering broke the borders between dimensions, this is why we see Rot and envoys of Death along with ghost pine trees manifesting in the Lands Between)

Long story short, there is a spirit world of dead warriors with a giant tree-tower that guides ghosts of the fallen with lamplight similar to the grace of the Erdtree.

I think this is very interesting detail; Tarnished as a group are completely dependant on Marika’s grace, which is a pivotal part of her plan, it allows her to resurrect Tarnished, but also to guide them through the Lands Between. But let me speculate about possible DLC with new territories, which means that Tarnished once again will encounter the guidance of grace ... or not. Marika’s plan is fulfilled in main story, how could you incorporate the grace mechanics without hijacking the main plot? By introduction of the alternative.

Now I want to talk about ethymology of the word Helphen, it’s similar to German “helpen”, to help; assist, while the first syllaby “Hel” might be a reference for the underground world Hel from Norse mythology, likewise “it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle” is a nod to Valhalla. Does it mean potential rematch with some bosses from the base game?

Personally, I’d like to imagine spirit world as a mirror image of the Lands Between, but with less terrain; it’s a sea of a ghostflame with Helphen on the place of the Erdtree. From a development perspective I can also see that releasing DLC in the size of legacy dungeon might be a little bit awkward, considering enormous size of the base game, but cheating the system with an archipelago of islands, while covering the map in ocean, is a neat way to keep it big, yet don’t waste years of work on downloadable content. Of course, everything I wrote is a really wild speculation.

What we can learn about spirit world, knowing how heavily Elden Ring is inspired by Norse mythology and this realm is most likely based on Hel/Niflheim?

Niflheim is one of the Nine Worlds of Norse mythology and the homeland of primordial darkness, cold, mist, and ice.

Seems fitting as the ghostflame of Deathbirds is always called cold and even bitterly cold. There is also an intriguing connection between cold and death sorceries without background sigils that I’m planning to investigate properly one day.

Another typical account is the journey of Hermod to Hel to attempt to retrieve Baldur, who had been killed by Loki. Hermod is a minor figure in Norse mythology. The meaning and etymology of his name aren’t entirely clear, but it seems likely that his name is either a variant of hermaðr, “warrior”

I’d like to say that we are going to save our own “Baldur “, but we already kind of revived Godwyn in Fia’s ending. 

The common elements in Snorri’s and Saxo’s accounts seem to be the following: Hel was located underground – down and to the north, the realm of cold and general lifelessness, down the trunk of Yggdrasil, the great tree that forms the central axis of the cosmos. It was reached by descending from a higher point with the help of a guide – an unnamed (dead) woman in Hadding’s case, and Sleipnir in the Prose Edda and the poem Baldrs Draumar (Baldur’s Dreams) in the Poetic Edda. After traveling through darkness and mist, the traveler would come to a river, perhaps a torrential river of water, but more commonly a river of clanging weapons.

Realistically speaking, it reminds me of Deeproot Depth, we already visited the base of the world tree, dream of a dead demigod and were guided by a deathbed companion. This my main concern about DLC predictions about Godwyn, his part of the plot is already more or less covered in the story. 

And before finishing my fanfic I want to go full on CSI on the Helphen’s design.

There is a skull or a golden skeleton figure near the base of the sword, similiar to the T-posing skeleton of the Golden Epitaph, Miquella’s sword:

A sword made to commemorate the death of Godwyn the Golden, first of the demigods to die. Infused with the humble prayer of a young boy; "O brother, lord brother, please die a true death."

Cross-hatch pattern under “the entrance” reminds me of Radagon’s rune (not only his rune is the massive ??? already, considering consequences of its placements, but it’s also entangled with thorns).

The recembalance is far-fetched, for sure, but this post is from realm of pure fanfiction anyways.

P.S. I think I finally figured out something that was bothering me for a long time, I never understood how soulless demigods in mausoleums are duplicating remembrances from lore perspective. But if there is a spirit world of fallen champions with its own version of the Erdtree, which is implied by Helphen Steeple, we are probably using Helphen to create another remembrance for us with a help of soulless demigods.

P.P.S. Where is Radagon’s remembrance?

[thingsmysplattershotjrtoldme]

I noticed something in Marina's art in Side Order

She's glitching. Pearl's picture notably isn't glitching and I don't think any other pictures that popped up were glitched.

We all know when a Sanitized Octarian is splatted, they don't have a soul float up like every other Octarian, they just glitch out of existence.

Does...

Does this mean Marina might be at least somewhat Sanitized? Obviously not completely, she's not green and her sclera are still white and not black, but...

I hope I'm wrong about this....

[the-glow-in-the-dark-star]

The teaser for security breach DLC has me thinking. Well, specifically the Chica part.

Her face seems melted. Many believe that means this takes place after one of the endings involving fire. Personally i believe it's the burntrap ending, because the megaplex is still standing (more or less) but that's not what i wanted to suggest.

What I want to suppose involves the Balloon World glitch.

Is it possible that this is a nod towards a melted daycare attendant? Maybe that's why both Sun and Moon seem to meld together as the mini game goes on. Maybe their hardware melted together (to a degree) and that's what creates this strange mix between the two of them.

I mean... looking at this image, one could make the argument that it looks odd. Kind of melted? Of course it's 32 bit, so it could be interpreted a few different ways, but still.

It would be an interesting way to bring about 'Eclipse' (as they've been dubbed). Instead of a standard glitch it's due to heat damage.

Just a thought anyway. Could be completely wrong! After all, they weren't down in the old pizzeria when the fire happened, so they could have escaped the fire completely.

Tl:dr : Eclipse could be a result of Sun and Moon's hardware melting together as a result of getting too close to the underground fire at the end of Security Breach.

[lopposting]

Adding to your theory and the fact P seamlessly steered a freaking submarine near the beach sequence, i believe it was just Carlo's memories guiding through what I asume it's extremely complicated maneuvering. Now the Pistis/submarine is a nod to tge Dogfish 🤔 where according to book analysis it represents the symbolic "descent to the underworld" in Pinocchios journey. Could it be that it was the place where Carlo died/was murdered before being thrown into the sea? 😢Just a thought

OMG

The "descent to the underworld" is reminding me of something

In an earlier datamine, supposedly there is something from the game files called "Patala Ruins guardian stone", possibly cut content or DLC content!!

I did a quick google and apparently "Patala" is a name for the "underworld"

That is crazy

Big brain ask

PS: I've noticed that the earlier reddit post of the datamine was removed. maybe neowiz asked reddit for it to be removed. If this datamined stuff was just cut content, why would it matter to them for it to be taken down? SO Maybe it is leaked DLC stuff? Does it mean anything? I don't know.

[btw im so sad I should've backed that reddit post up IDK why I didn't, but you can tell what some of it was from the comments, it was a shotgun/canon legion arm!!]

[yournextflame]

How likely do you think "Elden Ring: Scholar of the First Sin" is? Is the Japanese community even talking about that being a possibility? I'd like some cut content added back in and lore holes covered in DLC, especially that Haligtree ending implied by Miquella's cut narration ("Impress my vision upon thine heart. In the new world of thy making, all things will flourish, whether graceful, or malign" etc.) and Malenia's cut alternate intro ("Sweet Tarnished, dearest companion..." etc.).

Every time I scroll trough my pack of hi-res icons I feel incredibly sad over Dreambrews and think that they are an awesome material for story update. Well, I want Softs-style update for Elden Ring, but it’s unlikely going to happen. However, game already recieved few patches with updated questlines for Dallos, Nepheli, Varre, etc, so maybe there is still a small chance. 

But a lot of cut content wouldn’t even fit current state of the game such as Asimi’s journey, Malenia’s original story, which I suppose was repurposed for Milicent’s quest, or Kale’s path to Frenzied Flame.

Miquella’s cut content is an interesting thing because from descriptions and dialogues it’s quite obvious that current popular theories and fandom headcanons - Miquella rebelled against the Greater Will, Miquella was in bad relationships with “Golden Order fanatic” Radagon (if only anyone was bothered to read description of Golden Order Seal to understand what exactly is fundamentalism in Elden Ring), Miquella is Griffith has absolutely nothing to do with developers intentions. Miquella wasn’t a rebel, he was a scion Empyrean and future carrier of the Vision, Haligtree was fully supported by Radagon, who gifted Miquella knights to protect it and Miquella’s ending was called Age of Abudance, which doesn’t sound very sinister? 

But... this is all cut content. Maybe Miyazaki and his team decided to scrap it in favor of different themes in DLC, maybe there are wouldn’t be DLC at all. I don’t see Japanese fans discussing anything like Scholar of the First Sin, they are speculating about DLC. 

Honestly speaking, I feel like a lot of people expect that DLC is going to be fix-it AU where soft boy Miquella is going to save the day. Sure, there are also plenty of Berserk zealots, who believe he is going to be Orphan of Kos 2.0 wearing blonde wig. The thing is that From can pull another the Ringed City, where we will travel/interact with new characters and all big names will be mentioned in descriptions at best.

[thingsmysplattershotjrtoldme]

Sooooo, what do you guys think the DLC is gonna be about? We know for sure Off The Hook is involved, and some people think that Lil' Judd or Marigold might be the big bads

Perhaps what I'm hoping for is ludicrous, but....

I wanna see a literal battle of the bands in the DLC

We got Harmony from Chirpy Chips in game.

Whose to say we can't see literally everyone else?

Like, let's see just how deep Ink Theory's and Bottom Feeders rivalry goes.

Could we maybe fight them?

Don't tell me Warabi or Finn Bottom wouldn't throw hands with a teenager

IDK, just putting my thoughts out there