Hey hi hello I want to know about the Londor Sisters and their connection to Drangleic lol
A few Londor-related items are very DS2-aligned and their ideology does feel like an evolution/corruption of what was going on in that game's story with the weight of lordship and talks about "the true shape of man" so I don't think it's too unfounded!!!
(Also wanna know about Carthus conquering what remained of Drangleic, that sounds like a fun idea)
Hi! Tumblr killed itself as i was about to publish my first reply i wanna cry :')
Starting by saying that all of this is heavy headcanon/speculation
The thing that made me go on this whole wild goose chase is the use of "Grave Warden" in the Black Flame description, i guess. Friede (and Vilhelm but thats because he's using Friede's sword) is the only npc which can use it, already drawing a connection between the two of them, since they were the ones to discover it in the first place.
Grave Wardens as a category first appears in Ds2 with Agadyne and the Undead Crypt, so we *know* they are something originated in Drangleic (also Grave Wardens are called some enemies in the Cathedral Of The Deep which certainly has implications in my headcanons that my brain is too afraid to dwell on rn lmao).
Per Grave Warden Tome item description, we know that some of the Carthus Pyromancers, after Wolnir's turboimperialism collapsed unto itself due to him dabbling too much with the Abyss, became Grave Wardens, which does imply a possibility of mobility between the two professions and links them.
Since Wolnir conquered neighboring countries, in my headcanon it was possible that decades if not centuries after Ds2 he decided to conquer Drangleic and either pulled the old imperialist trick of pushing the conquered people out of their old professions to replace them with their own people, or there was a culture fusion between the conquered and the conquerors that came there, thus making the Pyromancers becoming Grave Wardens a possible if not normal thing.
A big thing that gets me is that Drangleic, by Ds3 times, is all but forgotten and reduced to a fairy tale, so the kingdom ending up being destroyed could be something very likely
Wolnir was also obsessed to an unhealthy degree with the Abyss, of which the Black Flame, discovered by Pyromancers-Grave Wardens and Drangleic, from the Daughters of Manus to the Dark Chasm and the Darklurker is *permeated* by it.
Sooo by my headcanon this was kind of a perfect storm to awaken Kaathe's attention. In my backstory for the Londor sisters they were those born during the Carthus occupation of Drangleic Pyromancers-Grave Wardens, and discovered the Black Flame which in turn led them to enter in contact with Kaathe, and found later down the line Londor and the Sable Church.
I do think a lot about what you have said towards the Church sharing a lot w Ds2's overall message, and there is definitively a connection, although i still have to settle on what that connection is.
I am mainly split between either it being part of Drangleic culture that the sisters later on used for Londor, or (per Yuria's dying words) it actually being *Kaathe's* idea, which in turn would also may imply him possibly entering in contact with Aldia but there is zero concrete proof of that in game lmfao (and claiming it could have happened because it can be likely if we take my headcanons as a basis would be disingenuous and hypocritical since i complain about lore theorists who do that every minute lmao).
Either way, Londor's MO is something so different from Kaathe's Ds1 MO its almost jarring, so *something* must have changed (I also like to think he genuinely cared about the sisters in his own way but that is another story lol).
Overall, i find all of this puzzle is very fascinating to speculate about! It was a pleasure to throw this brainvomit tysm for asking me about it!
Oh, good Hollow. Im afraid I must say...
Orbeck of Vinheim is a cause of much consternation.
He proclaimeth himself Lord of Hollows.
If left alone, he may one day imperil thy rule.
