#elden ring thoughts

[burningtrashwizard]

Thiollier and Varré babbling to each other in French.

[spicysoulsa]

The other day I was playing coop with a friend and then of course it got late so we ended the session. I had to take care of a few things but didn't fully close?? The game??

Anyway, being at the Roundtable, I started to hear what I thought was chatter or something. So I turned off music and increase sound volume.

I should probably record something when I have the time. But I heard very faint chatters. The sounds of glass moving and twinkling (I can't think of a better word, but it does have the essence of it shattering).

Is this the hint that the Roundtable is not the original*? Is this a hint of what's happened, what came before now? Because that's really cool sound design and it made me very nostalgic.

*original roundtable is empty and in Leyndel

[fantomette22]

Also mini hot takes about elden ring dlc lore :

- The black hair of Rellana is actually not her real hair but a part of the helmet (yes like the white hair of the raging wolf helm or like the cainhurst knight helm in bloodborne. That mean Rennala made it 🥺)

-Lansseax & ancient dragons in « human » / priests form actually looked like the dragon priestess of the dlc (or at least similar to the ancient dragon man)

[frozendarkmoon]

I'm sure others have asked the same question / noticed the same thing but

I wonder if this is a direct reference to the cycles of ng+ and such or if this is something more diagetic; something in lore. Elden Ring draws heavily from Celtic mythology, and an element of at the very least Irish mythology is the idea of mythic cycles.

Whether it's a time loop our character is in or it's a cycle of history for these sorts of cataclysms to happen (which is backed up by lore IMHO), it's interesting to frame it this way from word go. This is literally the item the Player Tarnished starts with no matter what, after all.

[izar-tarazed]

Thoughts: Ensha was actually a better fighter than we see in the game

I went back to my Ensha run to keep exploring Stormveil Castle. And it’s interesting how the area feels much easier with this build than it did forever ago when I went there with Izar with her focus on sorceries. Of course, I now have several hundred hours of Elden Ring experience under my belt and am more familiar with the world and the enemies, but it also kind of reinforces my headcanon about Ensha actually being way more capable than our ingame experience gives him credit for.

When he ambushes us at the Roundtable Hold, it comes as a shock but isn’t too challenging in terms of gameplay, and often even described as a rather laughable experience. Like, how could Gideon seriously think Ensha would stand a chance against us? How could Ensha believe he would?

I think one reason for the Ensha fight being quite manageable might be that it being so was a mechanical necessity: We can’t return to the Roundtable Hold proper until we defeat him—our hub for interacting with several NPCs that act as merchants, teachers and questgivers, and considering the Ensha ambush can be triggered fairly early in the game, it stands to reason that it couldn’t be that extreme of a challenge because it would lock us out of accessing the Hold.

Also, it isn’t meant to be a big challenge (we merely get a fistful of runes upon our victory), but seems to serve a more narrative function; a storybeat (albeit an obscure one, as is the case with most in the game) to emphasize the importance of the Haligtree Medallion and prompt Gideon to give us more information.

I also think that the fight being not too hard serves to highlight our Tarnished's own prowess; we are more powerful than Gideon could have anticipated, and we prove it by dispatching someone he seems to have trusted: Ensha was tasked with guarding the door to his study (Nepheli explicitly tells us that) and even with the Hold being a supposedly safe space, I don’t think Gideon would have trusted just anybody with that, and that Ensha was a lot more skilled than we actually experience in game.

Regardless of the aesthetics and meaning of both his armor and weapon (and the fact that the design seems to be a nod to the Dark Souls’ series darkwraiths and their Dark Hand), this equipment provides extremely good survivability at least in early game. The clinging bone allows for swift attacks and the Lifesteal Fist skill saves a lot of sips from the Crimson Tear flask (in the right area), plus the slight healing properties of the armor.

Ensha was designed (narratively) as someone who’s hard to kill—who literally clings to life. (There’s also his use of gravity magic, in particular the Collapsing Stars sorcery that pulls enemies closer. It might not be perfectly executed in game but in a way, it does serve a narrative purpose as well—there’s no running from the creepy skeleton assassin.)

So. Ensha had probably done a lot of dirty work for Gideon, and reliably so, returning successful every time until being sent after our Tarnished. But thinking that he could overcome us wasn’t a foolish assumption on his end, he actually had been deadly and powerful enough up to that point.

[senualothbrok]

I would love Elden Ring without the combat.

I'm low key obsessed with the world and the lore, to the extent that while my husband is playing, I'm reading a lore primer about all the characters and history (though it's so obscure and hidden in the actual game, I have no idea how people figured it all out)

But I just can't do the combat. I'm a through and through combat noob. I can't even beat the adds, and it's not enjoyable for me to try and Get Good

I would love to just ride around exploring the world and talking to NPCs and uncovering the mysteries though

Is there a Elden Ring mod for people like me lol

(NB. Dear Souls game enthusiasts, I know that the punishing nature of combat is a key element of the game, I know this is shit posting 🙏)

[pyramid-knight]

Marika really did commit mitosis just to start a red-haired revolution, and become a genderfluid gaslight gatekeep girlbossing hoe didn't she

[good-intentions-paving-co]

i started to think maybe Miquella, Malenia and Melina could all be triplets and Marika just did a Marika and lied about it. But, honestly the more i thought about it the more questions were raised.

It seems possible and non contradictory, but out of all of Marika’s children Melina was the only child given a different and/or multiple purposes.

I use “purpose” because Melina uses that word a lot even though, all of Marika’s children seemed to be given a goal,

“Make of thyselves that which ye desire... But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices.” (which is why Godwyn was probably a dissapointment in Marika’s eyes).

But in Melina’s case she seemed to have a much more planned out destiny, ending with her acting as kindling.

VaatiVidya pointing out the similarities between the butterflies as well as the names all starting with M make me think triplets and then the Kindling Purpose of Melina makes me think that’s the reason for the lieing.

But the similarities between Melina and Ranni kinda make me question everything else!