#out of conscience

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

//Hilariously, I've been doing playthroughs of each Souls game as Maldron except DS2.

//Beaten Bloodborne and DS3, and halfway through Demon's Souls, but I worry that Dark Souls 1 is going to be the worst. Don't want to just do Winged Spear + Greatshield again, after all...

[your-best-friend-flowey]

/* I guess today’s the one for nostalgia, huh?

I can’t believe how much a single game took my life, and backhanded the trajectory of it so hard. I was a freshman in college when UNDERTALE came out. I was on my own for the first time of my life, away from parents that, inadvertently, had been pushing toxicity and over-expectation on me for my entire life.

The year that UNDERTALE came out, I was in the middle of a three-years-strong relationship that was built upon the stubborn ideal that, were I not with my partner, that I would die alone.

This game, this character, gave me so much to work with. So much of a platform to make my ideas manifest, and to meet such wonderful, beautiful people. Never have I felt more real as a creator, and never more have I felt that I was making or doing something that I could share with so many.

It’s thanks to this blog that I found peope by chance. I don’t exactly expect you all to know, because this might be the first true ‘out of character’ post I’ve written in a year or so.

@spiderspeaks and I got married at the start of COVID. March 17th. In May, the mun of VioletArana became our roommate. We’ve got a cat now. Five years since UNDERTALE came out. Five years I’ve known the person who would become my spouse.

Five years since I met all of you. I’ve learned so much about myself, writing, creating, and interacting, through the events that we’ve run, to the group chats, to plotting and scheming and drawing, that even now I can only grasp at the gravity of the situation like a stumbling drunk.

I’m rambling now; I know that. The mood’s just hitting me, seeing all the familiar faces on my dashboard, and knowing that it was merely a week ago that Muffet and I were going through our old writings in nostalgia.

Thank you all. Each and every one of you. You taught me so much. You learned so much with me. You are deserving of love. Stay Determined.

- TK

*/

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

//Five years of Bloodborne convinced me to make the boy. //I finally, finally have his story figured out for the setting, too.

//Descendant of a Knight of Cainhurst who fled the Executioners, he returned to Yharnam with @spearofthelake​ with his family heirloom - a weapon thought lost to time.

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

//The Soul of Cinder theme from DSIII never fails to give me goosebumps when I hear it.

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

//Either I forego Velstadt's cape and use the Brass Set with either the Ruin Helm or Sunset Helm...

//Or I make him silver and use the Fire Witch set, which would make for a pretty cool 'Inverted Velstadt' scheme. Either way Morne's hammer is what I'll use.

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

//On the night of August 2nd (so, about two hours or so ago), I have beaten Dark Souls III for the first time, with a cosplay build of Maldron the Assassin. //He stepped on the Firekeeper’s head. Woops.

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

// For some reason, I am un-messagable?

[maldrontheassassin-archive]

Elden Ring Rambling Times

/*So, true to form for me, I enjoy picking up a tiny bit of underutilized lore and then expanding upon it. But in this case I have several things that I’d need to consider for the verse to be Maldron as I’ve characterized him. This got long, so I’m putting it under a Readmore.

First and foremost; he’s a lancer. He has a lance, he uses it, and is a very potent cavalryman. This is the first game in which I can actually display that. Which is super exciting!

Second, he’s eccentric, a touch (just a touch ;D) mad. So we can’t have him just sitting at Roundtable Hold like the other Tarnished ‘champions’ that are there, unless he were to randomly invade you. Except, unlike in other games, it seems as though killing an invader just, actually kills them? Granted, this is a long-standing issue with even the Undead NPCs of other games, so I’ll give it little thought as to whether or not Tarnished actually respawn or if they’re just folks. Haven’t found any lore that clears that up. Also, potential Frenzied Flame usage.

Third, the man has a very poor habit of grabbing animals in the wild and showing his friends. HIlariously this means that the Jellyfish Shield could be canon to this verse.

Fourth... he’s lost sight of everything that he once held in high esteem. He’s without purpose, without guidance, and is left to just pursue his own devices.

All together, I pose the idea as follows: Maldron is, or was, a member of the Night’s Cavalry, riding a funeral steed that beckons to him during and even after the Shattering. Once at the Fell Omen’s behest, but now no longer, after seeing the lot that Margit applied himself to, Maldron was ever-loyal to the Golden Order imposed by Godfrey and Marika. However, upon seeing the warring and senseless death that the demigods partook of, he lost sight of that, and began to harbor a similar dissatisfaction that those above his station developed, and went his separate ways.

Unfortunately, this does mean that Maldron won’t be able to wear the helm of a famous sort to give him that tragic “road to hell paved with good intentions”, but that could instead follow the route of “my shit broke, pick up this wandering knight’s stuff both symbolically and to replace my own” -- in DS2 that was with the Heide Knight’s Greatlance and Gauntlets... but in Elden Ring?

What better to denounce his past and look to a new future than by donning the armor of a fallen Crucible Knight? To show his allegiance to she who shattered the Elden Ring, who was imprisoned for her blasphemy? A knight of Death, donning armaments of those who embodied the Crucible of Life?

I might actually go find the Crucible Knight Spear and make him a full STR/FTH build now... how very tempting... */