#scadu tree

[aylameridiandrawsstuff]

A new Elden Ring Art Deco Travel Poster!! Come visit the Gravesite Plain - follow in the footsteps of Miquella...

You can buy prints of all of these beauties here!

[scrapsofdelirium]

Had a thought; i wonder if the ‘He’ referred to as a dead demigod in regards to the Walking Mausoleums could be a fake out. It’s the spirit near the fourth church of Marika in Weeping Peninsula who uses the masculine address for said dead demigod.

We presume they mean Godwyn, because he’s cited as the first of the dead demigods. What if it was actually Messmer. Because he’s sealed away in the shadow land… what if Marika just lied and told everyone he’d perished in his crusade and she sealed off the Scadu Tree because of that. Its clearly meant to be about Godwyn, but still. Thats prime angst writing material if i’ve ever seen it.

Also i realised while fighting Radagon/Elden Beast in my replay that the shadowy smoke that comes from inside the broken torso of Radagon, and the dark mass of inner shadow in the Elden Beast actually matches the shadow smoke that comes off of the Scadutree in style. Just a neat little thing.

[space-blue]

SOTE rant (1)

One thing that I find very annoying, is the propensity for Lore video makers to completely jump on the DLC and analyse it in a void. Everyone is theory crafting like the base game doesn't exist anymore.

Everyone is taking Miquella's approach as the go to for divinity 101 and acting like only the people name dropped in the DLC matter, except for Radagon, who is very important, despite NEVER being named, ANYWHERE in the SOTE game files.

Oh no, excuse me, he's named ONCE in a delete dialogue (unless he speaks during battle but I was under the impression that he never does?) from Radahn:

Yet everyone is out there saying Marika used the gate to make herself a god and created Radagon in the process. And that he was created that way as her lord, and then immediately fathered Messmer and Melina.

But I... kind of don't see it? Why would SHE need to use a special vessel ritual like everyone is theorizing?

She already has a sworn lord : Godfrey.

Why is everyone making these Marika centric lore videos and never dropping the names of key characters?

Godfrey. Serosh. Maliketh. Why is nobody asking themselves WHEN did Marika get granted her "brother" Maliketh by the three fingers? Why is nobody making speculation on whether she had a pact with Hoarah Loux before becoming a god.

He could very well be the vessel needed. He doesn't need to have his soul separated from a body or any such nonsense. That's what Miquella ended up doing because he had no choice if he wanted to use Radahn.

Here is what we know of Godfrey :

Godfrey was a ferocious warrior. When he vowed to become a lord, he took the Beast Regent Serosh upon on his back to suppress the ceaseless lust for battle that raged within. The first demigods were The Elden Lord Godfrey and his offspring, the golden lineage. Crown of Godfrey, the first Elden Lord. The age of the Erdtree began amongst conflict, when Godfrey was lord of the battlefield. He led the War against the Giants. Faced the Storm Lord, alone. And then, there came a moment. When his last worthy enemy fell. And it was then, as the story is told, that the hue of Lord Godfrey's eyes faded. Helm of the Crucible Knights who served Godfrey, the first Elden Lord. Weapon of Godfrey, Elden Lord. It was broken in a battle fought as leader of the Tarnished during the Long March. This weapon is symbolic of Godfrey's vow to conduct himself as a lord, later becoming an emblem of the golden lineage. In the days of the past, a crown was warranted with strength.

The first demigods were The Elden Lord Godfrey and his offspring, the golden lineage.

This line either means that the voice of the game is lying, wrong, or not knowledgeable enough. Or that Messmer is not a demigod, or that Messmer is the son of Godfrey.

And while he does have red hair, he is cursed with a red flame... And his little sister, Melina, doesn't have the distinctive red hair of Radagon's children. She's also not a demigod as far as we know.

Messmer and Melina are named M like Mohg and Morgott! We have plenty of hints that they could be Godfrey's children, first and foremost being the canon base game text asserting all demigods first descended from him. We simply don't know otherwise.

It's also asserting he was the first Elden Lord, and not second or a later addition.

There's also his vow to conduct himself as a Lord, which seems like something he might have done prior to Marika making him Lord.

The beast depicted is Serosh, aged counselor who guides the golden lineage. The black nails protruding from golden fur are said to represent Serosh, Lord of Beasts, who went to become King Godfrey's Regent.

Serosh is very mysterious, and we just know he's some sort of limiter. I've made plenty of posts arguing for Maliketh and Serosh being the same type of beasts from the same global origins.

Beasts are reverred by the Hornsent! Our first boss is their storm beast guys, and the head looks quite similar to Serosh. Who, BTW, is also a spirit form?? Who turns real on command?

All this to say, it doesn't sound impossible at all, to me, that Marika would have come to the gate of divinity already having a lord lined up -- Godfrey -- and counsellors giving advice on how to execute her plan : Serosh and Metyr mother of fingers.

I assume it would be in Metyr's power to grand Marika her (necessary?) Shadowbound beast.

Isn't it interesting that Maliketh is a Shadowbound Beast? In our Shadow Realm DLC? He's never mentioned in the files, sadly.

But all of these people are key to Marika's ascension. I wish people would think about them more when they do their lore videos and not just roll right into creating Radagon out of thin air.

What bothers me most about the secret rite here, is that it says "the secret rite of the divine gateway", like THE rite, not A rite. It could be THE other one is not secret...

But more importantly, the line "usher in a god's return" just really does not fit EITHER of Miquella OR Marika. Neither of them is returning!! Maybe the God of Placidussax would be returning, but both Marika and Miquella are/try to ascend for the first time.

Miquella is also the only one with anyLord shennanigans we know of for sure.

I think Miquella divests himself of everything in order to comply with this ritual. So he has something to "return to". He sheds everything, so that he can pass through the gateway. But he's returning to an Empyrean's birthright. To a demi-god.

But we don't know that this is something Marika would have needed. We don't know that she used this specific ritual. After all, circumstances are VERY different for her :

The Gate of Divinity is fresh and bloody, implying a recent mass sacrifice. And then she plucks Gold from a corpse or receptacle of some sort.

None of this is depicted in Miquella's return, and he's not trying to emulate his mother, because her way of doing things came with a curse loaded "original sin". So we even have reason to believe Miquella would not actually be replicating the same ritual.

[aylameridiandrawsstuff]

Its kind of nuts to me how many of these I've done now. Just finished off Deeproot Depths!

You can grab prints of all these beauties HERE!

[aylameridiandrawsstuff]

Hey friendos! If you're thinking of picking up one of my Elden Ring travel posters for the holidays, consider grabbing it soon - Inprnt takes a while to ship! Buy them here!!

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Shop gallery quality art prints by Ayla Meridian.

ps I'm working on Lake of Rot right now!!!

[space-blue]

Less theory crafting and more me having an episode of some sort

Everyone is focusing on Marika betraying the hornsent at the gates of Divinity and who/what was going down with that "affair" mentioned, and I'm like... can we please not forget the fingers??

Why is nobody talking about the Fingers?? And who is the Grandmother mentioned in her braid item description?

We're told (by a pretty cookie guy) that the fingers and Marika were "unsound from the start".

We also see the craters in which the Fingers/Metyr first arrived. So like... did that happen during Marika's lifetime? Or was she born to a Shaman numen village that was already communicating/communing with Metyr somehow?

"A braid of golden hair, cut loose. Queen Marika's offering to the Grandmother. What was her prayer? Her wish, her confession? There is no one left to answer, and Marika never returned home again."

You can see the missing braid on this statue BTW.

Is the grandmother perhaps a finger reader? Did Marika harness the Greater Will's powers to take over? Or was the Greater Will already arround and in use by the hornsent? I certainly didn't see any proof of that. There is also no example of a finger reader anywhere while their bodies pepper the ground in some areas of the base game.

From my personal experience riding around and reading what I find, it seems like Marika, part of a people destined for inhuman torture in jars, all for lofty goals of "sainthood", whatever that means, made a secret prayer, wish and confession, to this reverential Grandmother figure.

There was already signs of tree worship, what with the lifelike human shape within the tree you find the gifted braid at. It reminds me of Miquella's own shape in his tree.

We also see people eembedded in trees in the keep on our way to the final boss. Clearly this is something endemic to this land, that Marika implemented in the Lands Between. Maybe the difference between that tree and Miquella's is simply the divinity of the person at its core.

Anyway, she clearly confessed she was about to do something F'ed Up, wished for revenge and prayed for success... Or prayed to the Greater Will, accepting to become a vessel for it if it can give her the tools to destroy her oppressors.

I'd like to also mention that the fingers mushroom has completely whack lore :

You're telling me people want to be fingers so bad that they eat that mushroom to hallucinate that they are? And fingers are basically mushrooms growing off the Erdtree?? Like some sort of alien parasite?

What's the timeline then???

Metyr makes landfall. She's the first shooting star in the Lands between. Some time later, the Elden Beast arrives. It is explicitely a vassal beast and the one that carries the Elden Ring.

The Erdtree sprouts from the Elden Ring, so the tree, whatever it was called at the time, predates all this. We have the hornsent, in their own land, doing their own thing. And in the Lands between we have Placidusax as Elden Lord, with his own god. Meanwhile the hornsent are building spirals to try and reach the gods, and stuffing people into jars to make "saints". Maybe that mentality is what leads them to making the pillars of divinity out of freshly slaughtered people...

The entire time Metyr is (presumably??) making babies that serve as relays to the Greater Will. But allegedly relay to her and her to nothing at all, and they give garbled guidance the entire time?? Was Placidussax using fingers to get his guidance? I don't know.

Then Marika cuts her braid, makes a prayer, and leaves her village. She has an affair (which doesn't have to be sexual) is involved into seduction (her being seduced, or her doing the seducing? Again, doesn't have to be sexual) and betrays the hornsent. This is pretty obvious.

We see her pull gold thread out of something, and I've seen theories it's grace from the eyes of Placidussax's god. Grace from the gloam eyed queen belly, some sort of egg, or even the serpent Messmer is bound to.

I frankly have no idea. The previous age being of the crucible, some have guessed THAT is the crucible, or its physical form. I wonder if that thing is at all related to the jars, which are so prominent in the story. Sainthood is never explained, but was the goal of jar making perhaps related?

It would certainly explain Marika's presence for such a ritual, since she can't have had crazy status as a shaman? Or else she did do some seducing, and was there in some other official capacity.

Does Hoarah come into play already?? Does Serosh??? Were the fingers guiding her, leading her on, explaining how she needs a consort, and the strands of the Elden Ring, so that she can kickstart her own order?

Were the fingers guiding the hornsent towards that tree making goal already, and Marika highjacked that?

You also have to see the way the gate is a fused mass of bodies reaching to the sky, and their culture was obsessed with stuffing people into jars to bring them closer to the divine. The serpent fuses with Messmer and the God devouring serpent is made out of writhing bodies. The erdtree is stuffed with corpses at its root, and the trees in the hornsent settlements are as well.

It seems like ascending to a higher power or to godhood requires an enormous sacrifice.

In that regard, we also see Miquella speedrun the god thing, and he discards his flesh, his emotions and his doubts (not great) and worst of all, his love. Which really saddens a nearby ghost, and prompts his own alter ego to beg us to kill him. Because godhood would be torture/a cage to him.

Then he's at the gate, trying to use the reanimated corpse of one half brother, stuffed with the compliant and silent soul of another... The making of his lord required the killing of two demi gods, which is maybe just as meaningful as killing hundreds of nobodies.

Did Marika strike an alliance with the Abyssal Serpent and a lord of the Badlands and a Beast because that's who she had to ally herself with against the hornsent? Was Maliketh given to her as half brother/shadow as a form of alliance with Serosh's people? And she then gave her firstborn son to the serpent?

Or did she turn parts of her allies into her first children by stuffing them into jars? I've seen that theory, and it certainly would help explain why Messmer is half fused with a serpent and Melina (his little sister) has a gloam eye.

Marika could then promptly have betrayed *everyone*, killing the GEQ, The serpent, and reducing Serosh to a ghostly limiter for her husband, and her new brother into a tool for future plans.

She went on a crusade of violence, conquest, and never stopped fucking with the hornsent back home, hiding their realm from view and making it the recipient of every death.

Then she stops to take a breather and study the Greater Will a little closer, realises how wrong it is. Maybe finally cotoning on to Metyr's abandonment. Maybe she also sees the plans for her own replacement.

So she creates the Tarnished, tasks them to return, enable Ranni and give her shaman (??) numen girlies to go kill her child with. And assuming Godwyn is perfect because Marika divested herself of her love (the same way we know Miquella did) and formed him with it, then it's possible she has little trouble sacrificing him for her plans. Marika has very few qualms about sacrifice, clearly.

Eventually she breaks the Elden Ring, knowing it'll shatter the Greater Will's influence and trap her (Radagon, can't fit him in this easily), but she'll bide her time.

I wonder if she thought her definition of Order was flawed. I wonder if she saw that she'd become the same as the people who made her, sacrificing others. I wonder if any of it was part and parcel with her divinity, and that her only way out was to be slain by the next god chosen by the (broken) fingers.

I wonder WHEN the fingers started rotting.

I wonder if Marika had it in for the hornsent, or had it in for the Outer Will from the get go. With base game I was pretty happy with the theorry that Marika, as a numen, was playing the Long LONG con against the Outer Will, getting to godhood to lay the fundation of her betrayal. There are plenty of signs of premeditation, the Tarnished themselves being the biggest of them all.

The guidance of Grace now can basically only come from Marika herself as well! So it's another big tell.

But now we learn her very ascencion is born of betrayal. In the sin of mass sacrifice (and with the potential guidance of a broken fallen star)

And you gotta wonder... were jars made for the Greater Will? Is the Greater Will, which is THE big creator of life, the god that the hornsent were making saints for? Was it the Greater Will's teachings, or past incarnation of gods, that gave life to shamans only to wip them raw and merge them into other being until they made jars? Whatever that meant? Do baby jars contain shaman children???

Is Alexander related the Marika???????

More seriously, it's fascinating that Jar making culture went from stuffing live people in it, to becoming a funeral practice, with the living jar stuffing corpses inside itself and absorbing their power. That seems... like an evolution? The people Alexander stuffs inside him are not alive. UNLESS the core that makes Alexander is also a fucked up shaman.

WHY IS THERE A BONNY VILLAGE WITH A POTENTATE IN THE LANDS BETWEEN???? Who is perpetuating that tradition, and why? Shouldn't Marika be livid and forbid it? Or does she allow its continuing because the nature of the jars has changed? Is the village made from rescued jars containing people she once knew and loved?

What about the giant massive ass fucking jar outside the arena? How do you explain that one? Surely if anyone is going to reach sainthood, it'll be that jar...

Anyway. Could Marika have started with a deeply ingrained hatred for the Greater Will? Could her becoming its god just be her way to highjack its power and start ruling, even as she planned its very downfall?

This would even mesh well with Ranni's ending, or the three fingers. Any ending that basically ends the Greater Will's influence would be a victory for such a Marika. Where she'd make the ultimate sacrifice of her own self.

Anyway, please scream back at me!!!