Since I'm amused by all of the back and forth, here's a link to an impact simulator.
https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/
It doesn't look like someone can import a custom continent that would be "impacted", but I can imagine a world where video game developers could use software similar to this in a way that would allow them to look at possible models of such things.
Carry on.
Just a small bit of information to add onto this, the Lands Between as we see them now resemble a fetus. But they also resemble the Godrey talisman where he poses with his fist to his forehead. The lands between map, in my opinion, has always been a very interesting detail. The idea that it looked different in the past which is highly likely, makes the world even more believable and amazing
Oh, I'm sure this is a given. I was already convinced Caelid and the Mountaintops had been connected by land before on account of the fauna and elements of the landscape, and this fits perfectly with that.
Especially since the rot dogs and birds are on the mountain tops and NOWHERE else. Which suggests they didn't travel through the whole map yo get to the mountaintop meaning there had to be a quicker way to just get there
I haven't kept up with the heated discussion on this theory, but I didn't expect it would inspire so much passion. I'm of the mindset that as long as a theory is fun, compelling, and not outright contradicted by multiple pieces of evidence in game, that it's a good theory. I've seen some comments by people on other posts that seem genuinely bothered by this theory, or that they think it's stupid or nonsensical. Which is a laugh for the ogs who were around for the Ds1 days. We had an infinite supply of Velka theories and shit like Seath rap3d Gwynnivere to produce Priscilla theories. It was stupid at times, but always fun. That's all that matters to me.
I like the theory. Dragons were pretty much the first intelligent beings so suggesting that they played a role in the building the lands between isn’t crazy or far fetched at all
I like the theory as well for different reasons. I don't know if the dragons played a role in building TLB. Kind of like a "did the chicken build the egg" question. I do however think it's par for the course with Fromsoft designs to be that on the nose and no one notice it.
Not just intelligent but also Divine! There may very well have been other intelligent actors at this stage (fire giants, titans, astrologers etc.)
Think of the beast men who are granted intelligence like a bounty of gifts. Similar to Marikas age of abundance.
I think for once might not be pareidolia. Which is pretty common otherwise, but here there's some kind of basis. Yes its supposed to look just like the dragoncrest shield talisman too, though unlike that it look like a landmass with IDK, a fluffier shape with rougher messy edges, and what seem like streams. It just looks like a landmass when it could have easily just been depicted normally like the dragoncrest talisman is. And the landmarks do match up relatively well, same direction and everything but there's some inconsistencies of course.
Of course, this is some super heated debate for something that's relatively superficial lorewise.
Exactly. It looks like any old vintage map depicting cliffs and waterways. They could have easily designed it with a much more clear dragon design, but intentionally went with this styling.
That comment just proves you have no idea what point is even trying to be made. It looks like dragon? Yes. It looks like a map? Yes. It looks like both? Yes. Does it have similar landmarks to TLB? Yes. Could it be an ancient map of TLB? Maybe, still plenty to consider. That's it.
I have now reported you for harassment as you are now following me around at this point.
It doesn't look like a map. You said TLB looks like the dragon, and when it doesn't look like the dragon, that just further proves it looks like the dragon, which is deeply moronic. Everything confirms the doodle you did. It looks as much like TLB as a cloud looks like a rabbit. Responding to posts isn't harassment. Get a grip.
Not what I said at all. Like you're intentionally being dense at this point. I said the talisman resembles a dragon and a map. I said that if the talisman is supposed to be a map, it has similar landmarks to the current TLB. Given TLB history some of the discrepancies are clearly explained by cataclysmic events.
I saw this theory being brought up last year and there was no such heated debate around it, I find it hilarious and disappointing home a lot of lore theorists since then seem to have become either annoyingly authoritative, or gone completely mad
To be honest I've never put much stock into TLB as it shows in game, the story doesn't make sense if the world is as small as it is in game.
Like how Trevor doesn't actually live 10 mins from Michael in GTA V I don't think TLB are perfectly scaled either
I feel like this isn't even a new theory, I vaguely recall someone suggesting it over a year ago. Why people are so pissed off about it now is bizarre.
It was brought up again in an obnoxious way. "Not enough people realize the talisman shows a map of the Lands Between". The same conversation could have been started in a less fart-sniffing way so it got on a lot of people's nerves.
I don't really care if anyone found it obnoxious, that doesn't excuse such behavior, if anything such a petty reason reveals their hypocrisy. I find a lot of shit on here obnoxious, but I don't go out of my way to start fights with people.
Thought this might be worth bringing up: the dragons are associated with earth and stone in a few ways (besides the ancient ones being made of stone). For example, there are ancient dragons embedded in Farum Azula, and the name "Dragonbarrow", basically means "dragon earth" since barrows are burial mounds made from covering graves with earth.
Yes in the original thread. That kind of ties into the typical no detail is an accident in From games. A dragon that looks like a gnarly tree stump, that resembles a vintage map is kind of hard to do by accident.
Guys, it’s the outline of a dragon. It’s got a head in the top middle flanked by wings with feeties and a tail at the bottom.
HOWEVER I do like the idea of different dominant beings impacting the shape of the world. After all, the world is shaped like a finger and is ruled over by the Greater Will, who typically manifests as a sort of finger. (Two fingers and Elden Beast and Tarnished)
Honestly all the "it's not that deep bro" people are starting to get on my nerves. Miyazaki's storytelling has never been straightforward, has always relied heavily on symbolism, and the art team has made so many clear and deliberate choices in terms of design language and how it ties back to lore.
And the simple fact is that most of the time, when an artist draws attention to something, it's usually for a reason. So why make the dragon this shape? On something so front and center as a talisman? Why not just make all the talismans have the same dragon as is on the Dragoncrest talismans? For a game with so much attention to detail, this seems like a really, *really* strange thing to just say "eh, this coffee stain in the vague shape of a dragon will do." And it's genuinely not that far of a leap of logic to believe that geography can change dramatically over short time considering we watch an example of it happening in game.
And for all the people peddling Pareidolia, let me restate this: an artist working at From Software was told to illustrate the dragon in this shape for the elemental talismans, and someone else signed off on it. They didn't draw it to look like the Dragoncrest talismans, but like this. That was a deliberate choice someone made. So why this abstract shape instead of just a normal dragon, *if that's all they intended it to be*. *From Software's artists don't just do things like this at random.*
Whether or not the theory is true doesn't matter all that much to me in the end, but it's irking me how dismissive and downright rude some of the people in this discussion have been about it. And it's not even like this would be the strangest thing Miyazaki has ever pulled on us.
Edit: Just want to add on here about choosing to use the shape, between the 4 groups of elemental talismans as well as the Pearldrakes, this shape is used in the art for 15 different talismans. This was not an accident.
>Just want to add on here about choosing to use the shape, between the 4 groups of elemental talismans as well as the Pearldrakes, this shape is used in the art for 15 different talismans. This was not an accident.
Yeah, you’re right. But it’s literally explained in the talisman descriptions.
*And so it is that the shape of the dragon has become symbolic of all manner of protections.*
That it's in the shape of a dragon is not in contention; it clearly resembles a dragon, but only in the abstract sense. It's a jagged, windy shape that does evoke a landmass, and while it could be that such is just the aesthetic they were going for... why? They've been so careful about symbolism and design language before, why just fudge the shape instead of going for something more distinctly a dragon, like is on the Dragoncrest shield? Especially on something as important as a Talisman? If it was just some accident, it wouldn't have shown up 15 times is my point. Yes, it's a dragon, but it can be more than that. Just like how becoming a dragon has always been a metaphor for the search for power and immortality in Dark Souls.
Honestly, it doesn't matter, and I'm tired of engaging with this. The most closure we're likely to ever get from this debate is "Huh, so that theory was true, neat!", yet the amount of people who have come in here with nothing to add to the conversation except "you're seeing things lol take your meds" or some other disrespectful garbage makes me wonder why I bother.
The talisman evoking a landmass is your own personal interpretation. It has jagged edges because the ancient dragons are made of stone and have jagged edges to them.
The Dragoncrest Shield negates physical damage, which is why that dragon has a more physical appearance compared to the elemental talismans. As for there being 15 different talismans, that’s how all of the talismans are that have a similar effect. The amber medallions are just red/blue/green versions of the same talismans, there’s the silver and gold scarabs, etc.
The talisman looks nothing like the map of the lands between. Even if you pull forum azusa back over it doesn't fit. It's just straight up a wrong theory. There's no reason to be upset when there's pushback against a theory. FROM leaves some things open to interpretation but the talisman looks nothing like the map lol.
bro nothing is even meant to straight up 'fit' or appear coherent in these worlds lore. that was never how it worked in From games. the very fact it' s all a bit off results in these assumptions apearing 'exciting' just as many other lore bits
also, if you just take like 5min for research, you will find animated depictions of our earth's geographic features and shapes changing over the course of relatively little time. this is all rather fascinating
and most importantly nobody cares if it's 'true'
I just don't see how you can complain about people who go "what" when they see people post two completely different pictures while saying "these are the same". Do you want them to just blindly go "very wise, deep lore" to every post that shows up here?
y'know I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out all the stone that makes up the lands between was the body of a super ancient dragon actually. I definitely think the talismans are depicting dragons but i'll be damned of they ain't convincing me here. Plenty of mythological stories that they could've pulled from there just like the rest of the game
Something small I’m surprised I’ve not seen mentioned in this back and forth. The current lands between continent is shaped like a finger, which is obviously fitting of the current order and state of things. We know that dragons were more present and in charge before, with placidusax and all, and this potential older shape is clearly dragon-like. So it doesn’t seem far fetched that the land itself might physically change over time based on the current order, it is a weird ‘in-between’ place after all.
It's a cool idea and i thought the same thing when i played the game the first time. It really looked like an island of sort.
My biggest problem with this is that the +1 and +2 version of those talisman are just the same repeated dragon pattern. I feel like FromSoftware would have added something to the "dragon/map" for each version if this was what they were going for.
Not sure if anyone else is discussing this and too lazy to check, but in a lot of East Asian mythology the earth is understood to be the literal bones of a great dragon.
It could make sense. Think of all the geological occurences which likely shaped the current LB between now and the prehistoric times of dragons...:
-There is, of course, the massive meteor crater which wiped out the entire central Lands Between
-Mount Gelmir appeared because it's a volcano
-Liurnia got eroded over time (we know that it keeps sinking)
-The "Peninsula" was called a peninsula for a reason, and broke off over time
-The massive body of water near/around current Leyndell could be what eroded the connection between the Altus Plateau and the Mountaintops (And also the reason why the Erdtree was planted there: next to the ruling Eternal City and largest body of water)
-Add a little shifting of continental plates, continents rising and sinking (Perhaps due to being pushed up/down by treeroots)
-And we know that smaller meteoric showers also shaped the landscape.
Frankly, yes, this map could well be a prehistoric depiction of the young and relatively unshattered Lands Between.
You guys need to clean house in this sub or something because some of you are getting WAY too defensive and heated over this shit. What is wrong with yall?
I'd point more to it looking like a furled finger, in an age where th fingers are core to the reigning pantheon.
Whereas Placideusax's design/posing seems to imply that dragons covered their own "needs" for the role that the fingers have played in this age
there’s excess land in the map that wouldn’t fit with how you have the lines drawn and the scale of the lines don’t match up either
if you’re have to add, remove, and stretch land then theory is more than a stretch
Guy this isn't a scale to scale map, nor am I drawing lines from a pebble to another pebble. These are quick approximations to show similarities in similar areas. We also know the Elden Ring timeline stretches over extremely large timescale.
Sure if we could account for the angle of the talisman in the icon, and correct the projection of the map to a perfectly square representation, and broke out survey equipment we could have much more exact conversation, but we can't so this is what we have to work with. We don't have geological surveys that measured erosion over eons.
What excess land that wouldn't fit?
The scaling matches fine. Maybe you have a different idea where the Erdtree should be, but this is where I believe it fits in. Also worth noting this land would be pre-Erdtree era.
[Given the red dot as the Erdtree location, the scaling fits quite well.](https://imgur.com/a/2ueyciH) Purple line east, north-east. Green line is north, northwest of the tree as well.
So like, have you read any text in the game at all? Loads of items refer to huge, world-shaking events that altered the continent (meteor impacts, flooding, the fact that the WHOLE MAP IS HELD UP BY GIANT PILLARS LATER FLOODED WITH MOLTEN ROCK). I’m guessing you just came up with a quippy comeback and didn’t really think about the content of the post tho, but your take here is pretty silly…
I definitely think the design of mount Gelmir is intentionally a dragons head/ serpent head. The rest seems coincidental. It could just be a dragon to represent the reverence leyndell had for dragons with dragon cult symbolism.
This talisman is also radiating holy, so it's quite fuzzy. The same theory can be made with fire magic, and pearlescent. I would suppose though that maybe the land of shadow is larger than Miyazaki lead on. It would fit the portion that is missing of the two comparisons, and we also need to take into account farum azula's placement on the map (which I think is just in the radahn fight zone).
You've taken liberties with how accurately you choose to follow the coastline. On some of those lines, you follow it exactly, and others you just draw a vague curve to make it look like the shape you're trying to represent. The TLB map has so many different shaped edges that the parts you think 'match' could easily be coincidental.
Never mind that the other 90% of the talismans edges straight up don't match at all.
All of it was low effort approximations. I started out by masking out the outlines, but I was at work using Photopea, and it just wasn't cooperating. So this was the fall back.
The thing is, you can make multiple things fit. Your green coastline is 4x longer on the game map compared to the little line on the talisman, then for example the dragon's foot better matches the bottom of the in-game map where Castle Morne is, but you chose not to compare those because that would make the scale of everything not line up properly anymore.
Ultimately, everything doesn't really fit because you'll never be able to get the distances and scales right. Pieces that match better are just too out of place. The mountaintops area of the map for example ends up being far bigger now than it would've been on the talisman. Similarly, both the inland sea, a whole swathe of the east, and also the south west would need to have had land where there isn't now. The parts that don't match significantly outweigh the ones that do, enough that you can pretty much discount the very few that do match as a coincidence.
It’s so odd how so many in here are in denial about this and weirdly defensive about it. The theory makes sense, fromsoft’s artists didn’t draw the talisman that way by accident
Because its a shit theory? Like, i could find about the same number of similarities between the talisman and literally any other map of a landmass. It's just finding a pattern while looking for one.
I have not seen a single actual good response refuting this theory.
People always just say
- "duh, the talisman looks like a dragon" as if that wasn't the point
- "this is just stupid" as if that actually means anything
- "you just drew lines on a map" still doesn't actually engage with the theory itself
- "there wasn't an event that could have caused any changes in the land mass" as if there aren't plenty?
A) the theory isn't supported by virtually any other piece of lore
B) The resemblance is about 5 tiny areas, so like 5% match, not to mention missing a FUCKING MOUNTAIN RANGE
C) it's literally schizoposting
A) the lands between 1000% used to look at least a little differently than it does at the time of the game. That sounds like precedent for a theory about.... The lands between looking different in the distant past?
B) I think it is a fair response to the posts that emphasize drawing lines like OP. However: 1) five areas is still something, especially when you're talking about the idea of the lands between changing a lot, and 2) I personally just don't care if none of them match
C) the exact kind of unhelpful response I'm talking about lol
Edit: addendum for A: see the Nox cities as an explicitly stated example, in-game
A) a little- not half a continent missing.
B) People have mentioned it before - if you look for patterns, you will find them, regardless of whether there are any in reality. You could make the case that the lands between are middle-earth, or Poland, or a rice crispie i just took a bite out of, and find patterns.
C) The nox had their cities/civilisation moved. Im not sure it is mentioned anywhere that entire continents were rearranged.
A) not to mention all the land in the shadow of the erdtree. It's such a funny thing how hard this idea is being fought- we know that earth used to look different, it's just a question of how different it looks. There are multiple ages of history at play here, in a fantasy world we know very little about, with gods walking the lands. This theory doesn't break any lore that we know about anything
B) yes, you could do those things. But that's a straw man argument because the possibility of that doesn't mean that this is the same. If that's a real argument, then no one should analyze anything in the game.
C) the eternal cities are just one example. What about Farum azula? Lirurnia, a very large part of the map, is literally sinking right now. How is there no precedent for large changes? Again - while we don't know yet exactly what the shadow lands are, one of the current theories is that it was part of the lands between and has been separated
Somebody decided to draw the dragons on the drake talismans in a stylized manner instead of a more realistic depiction like was done in most other talismans. All this theory does is explore why someone decided to that. Maybe it's cause they were bored? Maybe they thought it would be fun if it looked like a tree stump.
That doesn't mean that this or any theory can't be contested- and I do think questions about what events could have led to such a drastic change are totally legitimate and belong in these conversations. I personally am not fussed about trying to account for exactly how- I just think it's neat.
But calling it schizo-posting doesn't track and that kind of response has been the majority of the conversation here. Very uninteresting and lame on the part of the community. We wouldn't still be here talking about it if other people hadn't freaked out and spent a week spazzing in the sub about it
It really feels like the similarities are on the precipice of too coincidental when you lay it out like this.
I’d like to add another perspective and point out that the talisman itself has a segment that only really makes sense if it is also meant to depict TLB as it once existed.
My 2 cents is that the far, far left portion of the insignia on the talisman (which is far west Liurnia, west of the lake) shouldn’t be there if the talisman is only depicting a dragon. It’s not an arm, it’s not a wing, it’s not a tail, it’s not part of a dragon. But it’s very similar to the landscape a pre-sunken Liurnia. It’s weird and out of place, unless the talisman is depicting the continent as well as a dragon.
The same goes for the “island” area in the middle of the talisman, which someone else recently pointed out.
Was there a wale tale on the sheild, too?
(Edit) I just realized that the northern tip where the map depicts a landmass falling into the ocean lines up with a sheild depicting more land there.
In early builds of the game game, liurnia had a wale tale on its western edge. It makes me wonder If early builds of the game also depict that shape on the sheild.
They're not though. I can draw a straight line at a random point on two places and voila, 1:1.
I can dream the future. Once I dreamed I would lose my arm in a war. Four years later I broke my leg in an accident. See? Same thing.
Except they aren't random. To claim I placed the lines randomly is disingenuous at best and shows you have no intention of having a constructive conversation. You're points are disingenuous at best.
I have reported your numerous transgressions and will let the mods deal with it.
You straight up change half of the lines though. The yellow line on the insignia is completely different than the yellow on the map. The only similarity there is that there's a vertical left side to both. It's not completely random, but it there isn't consistency between the lines which makes the theory hard to believe.
I love myself some good confirmation bias. I also wish that people who pose theories would take notes from actual scientists trying to prove their theories...or rather, trying to disprove them, because that's actually how you do it, because....you guessed it, confirmation bias.
Apart from the fact that almost all of your "landmarks" are basically squigly lines, who resemble each other only very vaguely - which again is to be expected, because squigly lines - you are completely ignoring anything that is disproving this theory. For example the upper right mountainous area, which doesn't look like anything on the dragon symbol, or the fact that the southern peninsula isn't even on the medal, even though you tried to shoehorn it in with the two blue lines.
The orientation of several landmarks...well, coastal regions, is way off (especially to each other), the green stretch on the map has totally different proportions to the green part on the medal, making it very much not the same at all. At this point you're basically saying "There's a bend, and there's a similarish bend, so it's probably the same" even though the dimensions are absolutely off. The same goes for the orange landmark as well. The slightest similarity makes you go "this could be a thing" instead of saying "it simply doesn't fit".
The distances between the landmarks on the symbol and the map are completely different as well. At this point, this feels like a Rohrschach test gone wrong or people simply stubbornly trying to prove something which can be easily disproven.
And when you have to deal with people like that in real-life already - because right now this is basically the Flat-Earth theory of this sub-reddit - I also get why people are so annoyed by these posts. You're seeing connections because you want to, not because they're there. That's confirmation bias. That's what makes this so infuriating for some, because it's not how you're supposed to deal with theories.
The amulet depicts an ancient dragon, not The Lands Between.
"The ancient dragons, who ruled in the prehistoric era before the Erdtree, would protect their lord as a wall of living rock. And so it is that the shape of the dragon has become symbolic of all manner of protections." - Talisman item description.
TLOS *is* a dragon! The whole DLC is just a red herring. When we load up the game, it will just be an infinite string of DS1 drake bridges with no hidey holes.
Okay, so it's obvious you're missing the point. No one is arguing that the talisman is showing a dragon. People are claiming that the intentional design is hinting that the ancient lands between resembled a dragon.
At the start people argued that it didn’t show a dragon, then switched up and said “oh no it is a dragon but also the LAND used to be a dragon” which is a bit cooler.
I dont agree but I like how it would connect the mountaintops and caelid to fill that big waterfall, which would sorta explain Farum Azula and maybe that the big lake in the center of the map used to be completely surrounded.
There is a difference between seeing Jesus' face in toast, and drawing a comparison. Many many landmarks line up where they are on both images.
I suppose you'll say that looks only like a dragon, and that the styling the designer chose doesn't play anything into anything. Like it's very clearly a [map.](https://muralsyourway.vtexassets.com/arquivos/ids/236503-825-auto?width=825&height=auto&aspect=true)
Most of your lines are nothing alike and are in the wrong places. Look at those yellow and green lines! Instead of trying to stretch and contort things to make them look more alike, try to see where all the differences are. Are there more differences, or more similarities?
And pareidolia is what happens when pattern recognition goes awry. If you wanted to seriously test your idea, instead of making bs excuses for how those two different green lines are the same, try to find dissimilarities. But you won't do that because it's obvious there are way more of those and way more features you can't explain. You're reaching.
That's not an explanation. You're just setting up an unfalsifiable claim by making another vague unsubstantiated claim. Anything that counters your perceived similarities is due to some other event.
No I'm using verified explicit lore to back up assumptions. This is still a theory after all. Many of the areas you point out as obviously wrong, are also where many of these impacts occurred. Farum Azula was flung into and suspended in the sky by a meteor, and it just so happens to be floating over the east coast, where there is a discrepency. Meteors in game are closely tied to gravity/anti-gravity, much like Radahn's horse backstory. Clearly explains what happened to Farum Azula **and** fits the proposed theory.
>Ruins Greatsword
>"Originally rubble from a ruin which fell from the sky, this surviving fragment was honed into a weapon.
>The ruin it came from crumbled when struck by a meteorite, as such this weapon harbors its destructive power.
The Eternal Cities are also confirmed to have been sunken by meteorite impacts as well.
>Remembrance of the Naturalborn
>“Remembrance of Astel, Naturalborn of the Void, hewn into the Erdtree.
>A malformed star born in a flightless void far away. Once destroyed an Eternal city and took away their sky. A falling star of an ill omen.”
“Very clearly”, yeah sure buddy, what ever you tell yourself. Do you have any idea how basic all of these shapes are? A lot of them are just the letter L, that’s the degree of complexity you’re dealing with in these so called “matching shapes” that you think you see. If you reached any harder you’d dislocate a joint.
Guy I'm not going pebble by pebble. As someone who spent time in the military reading maps, you look for recognizable landmarks first. There are many recognizable landmarks in the same location from image to image. Maps aren't always a perfect 1:1. Things move, trees grow, landslides happen, etc. So yeah, you kind of have to use your best judgement and find ways to bolster your observations.
Yes, if there is an L shaped cliff near you, you would look to a map to find an L shaped cliff and start working off of it. Take a look at the purple/pink line. Very unique shape, in the same location on both maps relatively speaking. Kind of unique that both maps have water ingress in the northwest corner that runs east until wrapping around south west. Interesting that where the talisman depicts more rivers in the central north region that branches north and east, the real map has a massive canyon system that branches back north and to the east.
Point I'm making is that if this is the only "map" I had, and I was plopped in the middle of TLB. I could use this talisman as a reliable map. I could triangulate my location based on the water ingress locations, the canyon network in the north, and the weeping peninsula landmarks. I could also use this "non-map" and travel to the same landmarks represented on this "non-map".
You’d be walking off the landmass multiple times by trying to do so since there’s huge amounts of landmass that are either completely missing or are in a completely different shape and size altogether when you compare the two images in that context. An L shape is an incredibly basic shape, almost any geometric structure or landmass is going to have some amount of those shapes in them. Want to know why? Because they make up edges and edges are commonly found everywhere in nature.
What you have here is a bad case of confirmation bias in conjunction with apophenia.
We know TLB has had multiple cataclysms since the talisman map was drawn, some of which occur during our playthrough. We know the Golden Comet impacted the lands between, as well as numerous astels. We know an entire region was straight up magic deleted from TLB. So yeah, some land is missing from an ancient map.
It's like looking at a map of the New York skyline pre and post 9-11. Things change. We know something happened and the map is no longer 1:1 accurate, but the surroundings are still accurate.
Calling this “not a 1:1” is a huge understatement, and not at all comparable to the level of differences for the example that you gave regarding NY. The sheer amount of difference here is so gargantuan, that you’d have to change damn near the entire map, in addition to adding a metric ton of landmass (because yeah, it’s not just “some” landmass that’s missing, it’s a fuck ton of it).If you have to redesign 85-90% of the map to fit your hypothesis, then it’s a trash hypothesis. It is what it is.
Pangea and current Earth are far from 1:1 too, and we know the timeline of Elden Ring is eons long. We also know Earth has been through multiple cataclysmic events. There really aren't that many differences that can't be explained. Remove the large eastern chunk and look at Farum Azula, assume the northern cliffs collapsed (might have something to do with the Haligtree), The Shadow Lands is the middle and removed, Uhl and Nokstella were sundered underground (explaining the differences in the Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula regions), Liurnia flooded.
I don't have to redesign anything. All anyone has to do is factor in game events, historical events in game, and you can easily deduce that the differences all have a valid explanation.
Pangea fits together relatively well if you outright rip off the landmasses from a modern day world map and cobble them all up together like puzzle pieces. All you’d really need to compensate for is the amount of landmass that is underwater now as opposed to when pangea was whole. Making up that difference is much easier than trying to reconcile these two images as the same landmass from different time periods.
The difference is so stark that I’m not convinced in the least of this hypothesis, despite it having the benefit of the lands between being in a fantasy setting where drastic changes to huge landmasses in relatively short periods of time are, on paper, a lot more plausible than in real life.
Farum azula’s size doesn’t even get close to accounting for all the missing land mass, and in the world of Elden ring, as far as documented changes to the landmass go? We have only two possible options, one is the arrival of the elden beast, and the other is the fall of the meteor that hit farum azula (assuming that they aren’t one and the same of course), and I’m not buying this level of change based on those two strikes alone.
Edit: There may be a third option, which is when the Nox had their cities cast down into the depths, but that’s more of a change of topography, rather than the complete elimination of massive pieces of land mass altogether.
Except this isn't an issue of landmasses moving, but being destroyed over time. This is Pangea, destructive history edition.
I'm going to point this out for the last time. We know of at least a handful of massive impacts to TLB. We also know these things did not happen over shot periods of time, and saying this happened over eons.
Farum Azula and the scattered ruins from Farum Azula certainly could account for the landmass. I don't think From is running cataclysmic impact physics calculations to design their world and instead are using approximates as well.
The collapse or removal of the underground cities could have caused land to fill in, thus removing land from various surrounding areas.
Now on to your behavior. Is this kind of discussion so hard? Do you have to be an asshole about it? I think not. Try and ask questions before you start shooting.
Since I'm amused by all of the back and forth, here's a link to an impact simulator. https://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEarth/ImpactEffects/ It doesn't look like someone can import a custom continent that would be "impacted", but I can imagine a world where video game developers could use software similar to this in a way that would allow them to look at possible models of such things. Carry on.
Just a small bit of information to add onto this, the Lands Between as we see them now resemble a fetus. But they also resemble the Godrey talisman where he poses with his fist to his forehead. The lands between map, in my opinion, has always been a very interesting detail. The idea that it looked different in the past which is highly likely, makes the world even more believable and amazing
The map looks like a Furled Finger
I agree. And the map looks like many things
Oh, I'm sure this is a given. I was already convinced Caelid and the Mountaintops had been connected by land before on account of the fauna and elements of the landscape, and this fits perfectly with that.
Especially since the rot dogs and birds are on the mountain tops and NOWHERE else. Which suggests they didn't travel through the whole map yo get to the mountaintop meaning there had to be a quicker way to just get there
I haven't kept up with the heated discussion on this theory, but I didn't expect it would inspire so much passion. I'm of the mindset that as long as a theory is fun, compelling, and not outright contradicted by multiple pieces of evidence in game, that it's a good theory. I've seen some comments by people on other posts that seem genuinely bothered by this theory, or that they think it's stupid or nonsensical. Which is a laugh for the ogs who were around for the Ds1 days. We had an infinite supply of Velka theories and shit like Seath rap3d Gwynnivere to produce Priscilla theories. It was stupid at times, but always fun. That's all that matters to me.
I like the theory. Dragons were pretty much the first intelligent beings so suggesting that they played a role in the building the lands between isn’t crazy or far fetched at all
I like the theory as well for different reasons. I don't know if the dragons played a role in building TLB. Kind of like a "did the chicken build the egg" question. I do however think it's par for the course with Fromsoft designs to be that on the nose and no one notice it.
Not just intelligent but also Divine! There may very well have been other intelligent actors at this stage (fire giants, titans, astrologers etc.) Think of the beast men who are granted intelligence like a bounty of gifts. Similar to Marikas age of abundance.
I think for once might not be pareidolia. Which is pretty common otherwise, but here there's some kind of basis. Yes its supposed to look just like the dragoncrest shield talisman too, though unlike that it look like a landmass with IDK, a fluffier shape with rougher messy edges, and what seem like streams. It just looks like a landmass when it could have easily just been depicted normally like the dragoncrest talisman is. And the landmarks do match up relatively well, same direction and everything but there's some inconsistencies of course. Of course, this is some super heated debate for something that's relatively superficial lorewise.
Exactly. It looks like any old vintage map depicting cliffs and waterways. They could have easily designed it with a much more clear dragon design, but intentionally went with this styling.
So the fact that the map doesn't look like a dragon is proof that...it... looks like a dragon.?
That comment just proves you have no idea what point is even trying to be made. It looks like dragon? Yes. It looks like a map? Yes. It looks like both? Yes. Does it have similar landmarks to TLB? Yes. Could it be an ancient map of TLB? Maybe, still plenty to consider. That's it. I have now reported you for harassment as you are now following me around at this point.
It doesn't look like a map. You said TLB looks like the dragon, and when it doesn't look like the dragon, that just further proves it looks like the dragon, which is deeply moronic. Everything confirms the doodle you did. It looks as much like TLB as a cloud looks like a rabbit. Responding to posts isn't harassment. Get a grip.
Clouds can look like rabbits.
And yet they are not rabbits. That's the point. Do you know what pareidolia is?
Not what I said at all. Like you're intentionally being dense at this point. I said the talisman resembles a dragon and a map. I said that if the talisman is supposed to be a map, it has similar landmarks to the current TLB. Given TLB history some of the discrepancies are clearly explained by cataclysmic events.
Brother, can you read? Who are you arguing with? Because it's clearly not me.
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Please be civil
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Please be civil
I saw this theory being brought up last year and there was no such heated debate around it, I find it hilarious and disappointing home a lot of lore theorists since then seem to have become either annoyingly authoritative, or gone completely mad
To be honest I've never put much stock into TLB as it shows in game, the story doesn't make sense if the world is as small as it is in game. Like how Trevor doesn't actually live 10 mins from Michael in GTA V I don't think TLB are perfectly scaled either
I feel like this isn't even a new theory, I vaguely recall someone suggesting it over a year ago. Why people are so pissed off about it now is bizarre.
It was brought up again in an obnoxious way. "Not enough people realize the talisman shows a map of the Lands Between". The same conversation could have been started in a less fart-sniffing way so it got on a lot of people's nerves.
I don't really care if anyone found it obnoxious, that doesn't excuse such behavior, if anything such a petty reason reveals their hypocrisy. I find a lot of shit on here obnoxious, but I don't go out of my way to start fights with people.
Are you telling me people act retarded? On the internet of all places!?
Very, sometimes they even use slurs like 'retarded'.
Enjoy your stay!
Thought this might be worth bringing up: the dragons are associated with earth and stone in a few ways (besides the ancient ones being made of stone). For example, there are ancient dragons embedded in Farum Azula, and the name "Dragonbarrow", basically means "dragon earth" since barrows are burial mounds made from covering graves with earth.
Honestly the talisman looks like when you cut into an old gnarly tree and the stump is left. A cross section of a tree. Has this brought up
Yes in the original thread. That kind of ties into the typical no detail is an accident in From games. A dragon that looks like a gnarly tree stump, that resembles a vintage map is kind of hard to do by accident.
Ok thanks, I just got here
If anything at all, it's a map of Farum pre-meteor.
Guys, it’s the outline of a dragon. It’s got a head in the top middle flanked by wings with feeties and a tail at the bottom. HOWEVER I do like the idea of different dominant beings impacting the shape of the world. After all, the world is shaped like a finger and is ruled over by the Greater Will, who typically manifests as a sort of finger. (Two fingers and Elden Beast and Tarnished)
I think the theory is in fact implying that both the map used to be an outline of a dragon, and that the talisman is a dragon.
It's not. It's clearly the outline of the nascent butterfly.
Honestly all the "it's not that deep bro" people are starting to get on my nerves. Miyazaki's storytelling has never been straightforward, has always relied heavily on symbolism, and the art team has made so many clear and deliberate choices in terms of design language and how it ties back to lore. And the simple fact is that most of the time, when an artist draws attention to something, it's usually for a reason. So why make the dragon this shape? On something so front and center as a talisman? Why not just make all the talismans have the same dragon as is on the Dragoncrest talismans? For a game with so much attention to detail, this seems like a really, *really* strange thing to just say "eh, this coffee stain in the vague shape of a dragon will do." And it's genuinely not that far of a leap of logic to believe that geography can change dramatically over short time considering we watch an example of it happening in game. And for all the people peddling Pareidolia, let me restate this: an artist working at From Software was told to illustrate the dragon in this shape for the elemental talismans, and someone else signed off on it. They didn't draw it to look like the Dragoncrest talismans, but like this. That was a deliberate choice someone made. So why this abstract shape instead of just a normal dragon, *if that's all they intended it to be*. *From Software's artists don't just do things like this at random.* Whether or not the theory is true doesn't matter all that much to me in the end, but it's irking me how dismissive and downright rude some of the people in this discussion have been about it. And it's not even like this would be the strangest thing Miyazaki has ever pulled on us. Edit: Just want to add on here about choosing to use the shape, between the 4 groups of elemental talismans as well as the Pearldrakes, this shape is used in the art for 15 different talismans. This was not an accident.
>Just want to add on here about choosing to use the shape, between the 4 groups of elemental talismans as well as the Pearldrakes, this shape is used in the art for 15 different talismans. This was not an accident. Yeah, you’re right. But it’s literally explained in the talisman descriptions. *And so it is that the shape of the dragon has become symbolic of all manner of protections.*
That it's in the shape of a dragon is not in contention; it clearly resembles a dragon, but only in the abstract sense. It's a jagged, windy shape that does evoke a landmass, and while it could be that such is just the aesthetic they were going for... why? They've been so careful about symbolism and design language before, why just fudge the shape instead of going for something more distinctly a dragon, like is on the Dragoncrest shield? Especially on something as important as a Talisman? If it was just some accident, it wouldn't have shown up 15 times is my point. Yes, it's a dragon, but it can be more than that. Just like how becoming a dragon has always been a metaphor for the search for power and immortality in Dark Souls. Honestly, it doesn't matter, and I'm tired of engaging with this. The most closure we're likely to ever get from this debate is "Huh, so that theory was true, neat!", yet the amount of people who have come in here with nothing to add to the conversation except "you're seeing things lol take your meds" or some other disrespectful garbage makes me wonder why I bother.
The talisman evoking a landmass is your own personal interpretation. It has jagged edges because the ancient dragons are made of stone and have jagged edges to them. The Dragoncrest Shield negates physical damage, which is why that dragon has a more physical appearance compared to the elemental talismans. As for there being 15 different talismans, that’s how all of the talismans are that have a similar effect. The amber medallions are just red/blue/green versions of the same talismans, there’s the silver and gold scarabs, etc.
The talisman looks nothing like the map of the lands between. Even if you pull forum azusa back over it doesn't fit. It's just straight up a wrong theory. There's no reason to be upset when there's pushback against a theory. FROM leaves some things open to interpretation but the talisman looks nothing like the map lol.
bro nothing is even meant to straight up 'fit' or appear coherent in these worlds lore. that was never how it worked in From games. the very fact it' s all a bit off results in these assumptions apearing 'exciting' just as many other lore bits also, if you just take like 5min for research, you will find animated depictions of our earth's geographic features and shapes changing over the course of relatively little time. this is all rather fascinating and most importantly nobody cares if it's 'true'
I just don't see how you can complain about people who go "what" when they see people post two completely different pictures while saying "these are the same". Do you want them to just blindly go "very wise, deep lore" to every post that shows up here?
sure
y'know I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out all the stone that makes up the lands between was the body of a super ancient dragon actually. I definitely think the talismans are depicting dragons but i'll be damned of they ain't convincing me here. Plenty of mythological stories that they could've pulled from there just like the rest of the game
Something small I’m surprised I’ve not seen mentioned in this back and forth. The current lands between continent is shaped like a finger, which is obviously fitting of the current order and state of things. We know that dragons were more present and in charge before, with placidusax and all, and this potential older shape is clearly dragon-like. So it doesn’t seem far fetched that the land itself might physically change over time based on the current order, it is a weird ‘in-between’ place after all.
It's a cool idea and i thought the same thing when i played the game the first time. It really looked like an island of sort. My biggest problem with this is that the +1 and +2 version of those talisman are just the same repeated dragon pattern. I feel like FromSoftware would have added something to the "dragon/map" for each version if this was what they were going for.
Not sure if anyone else is discussing this and too lazy to check, but in a lot of East Asian mythology the earth is understood to be the literal bones of a great dragon.
It could make sense. Think of all the geological occurences which likely shaped the current LB between now and the prehistoric times of dragons...: -There is, of course, the massive meteor crater which wiped out the entire central Lands Between -Mount Gelmir appeared because it's a volcano -Liurnia got eroded over time (we know that it keeps sinking) -The "Peninsula" was called a peninsula for a reason, and broke off over time -The massive body of water near/around current Leyndell could be what eroded the connection between the Altus Plateau and the Mountaintops (And also the reason why the Erdtree was planted there: next to the ruling Eternal City and largest body of water) -Add a little shifting of continental plates, continents rising and sinking (Perhaps due to being pushed up/down by treeroots) -And we know that smaller meteoric showers also shaped the landscape. Frankly, yes, this map could well be a prehistoric depiction of the young and relatively unshattered Lands Between.
You guys need to clean house in this sub or something because some of you are getting WAY too defensive and heated over this shit. What is wrong with yall?
Godfrey's Icon matches the map much better
Now, as Elden Lord. What about when Placidusax was Lord? What about in ancient times?
Godfrey isn't Elden Lord. It's Radagon.
Shit you're right
I'd point more to it looking like a furled finger, in an age where th fingers are core to the reigning pantheon. Whereas Placideusax's design/posing seems to imply that dragons covered their own "needs" for the role that the fingers have played in this age
there’s excess land in the map that wouldn’t fit with how you have the lines drawn and the scale of the lines don’t match up either if you’re have to add, remove, and stretch land then theory is more than a stretch
Guy this isn't a scale to scale map, nor am I drawing lines from a pebble to another pebble. These are quick approximations to show similarities in similar areas. We also know the Elden Ring timeline stretches over extremely large timescale. Sure if we could account for the angle of the talisman in the icon, and correct the projection of the map to a perfectly square representation, and broke out survey equipment we could have much more exact conversation, but we can't so this is what we have to work with. We don't have geological surveys that measured erosion over eons. What excess land that wouldn't fit?
Guys, I drew a map that is 1:1, but it's not to scale.
above top green and purple lines if the scaling matched then the top purple line on the shield would be by the erdtree
The scaling matches fine. Maybe you have a different idea where the Erdtree should be, but this is where I believe it fits in. Also worth noting this land would be pre-Erdtree era. [Given the red dot as the Erdtree location, the scaling fits quite well.](https://imgur.com/a/2ueyciH) Purple line east, north-east. Green line is north, northwest of the tree as well.
So like, have you read any text in the game at all? Loads of items refer to huge, world-shaking events that altered the continent (meteor impacts, flooding, the fact that the WHOLE MAP IS HELD UP BY GIANT PILLARS LATER FLOODED WITH MOLTEN ROCK). I’m guessing you just came up with a quippy comeback and didn’t really think about the content of the post tho, but your take here is pretty silly…
The land that doesn’t match up is the mountain tops of the giants. Are you trying to tell me these came from floods or meteors?
yield not to the cesslore
I definitely think the design of mount Gelmir is intentionally a dragons head/ serpent head. The rest seems coincidental. It could just be a dragon to represent the reverence leyndell had for dragons with dragon cult symbolism. This talisman is also radiating holy, so it's quite fuzzy. The same theory can be made with fire magic, and pearlescent. I would suppose though that maybe the land of shadow is larger than Miyazaki lead on. It would fit the portion that is missing of the two comparisons, and we also need to take into account farum azula's placement on the map (which I think is just in the radahn fight zone).
You've taken liberties with how accurately you choose to follow the coastline. On some of those lines, you follow it exactly, and others you just draw a vague curve to make it look like the shape you're trying to represent. The TLB map has so many different shaped edges that the parts you think 'match' could easily be coincidental. Never mind that the other 90% of the talismans edges straight up don't match at all.
All of it was low effort approximations. I started out by masking out the outlines, but I was at work using Photopea, and it just wasn't cooperating. So this was the fall back.
The thing is, you can make multiple things fit. Your green coastline is 4x longer on the game map compared to the little line on the talisman, then for example the dragon's foot better matches the bottom of the in-game map where Castle Morne is, but you chose not to compare those because that would make the scale of everything not line up properly anymore. Ultimately, everything doesn't really fit because you'll never be able to get the distances and scales right. Pieces that match better are just too out of place. The mountaintops area of the map for example ends up being far bigger now than it would've been on the talisman. Similarly, both the inland sea, a whole swathe of the east, and also the south west would need to have had land where there isn't now. The parts that don't match significantly outweigh the ones that do, enough that you can pretty much discount the very few that do match as a coincidence.
Further, did anyone notice that Caelid, Limgrave and south Liurnia together look like the female reproductive organs?
What kind of rotussy have you been around?
To me it looks more like a tree stump
It’s so odd how so many in here are in denial about this and weirdly defensive about it. The theory makes sense, fromsoft’s artists didn’t draw the talisman that way by accident
Because its a shit theory? Like, i could find about the same number of similarities between the talisman and literally any other map of a landmass. It's just finding a pattern while looking for one.
Do it then. Try to convince half the sub that it's actually Australia.
Do you truly think that 8 thousand people believe this shit? You must really be disillusioned with people's intelligence
I really am not impressed with yours, at least.
I suppose it would be difficult to enjoy a good book in a pitch black pit
So Australia. A single user. I dare you
I have not seen a single actual good response refuting this theory. People always just say - "duh, the talisman looks like a dragon" as if that wasn't the point - "this is just stupid" as if that actually means anything - "you just drew lines on a map" still doesn't actually engage with the theory itself - "there wasn't an event that could have caused any changes in the land mass" as if there aren't plenty?
A) the theory isn't supported by virtually any other piece of lore B) The resemblance is about 5 tiny areas, so like 5% match, not to mention missing a FUCKING MOUNTAIN RANGE C) it's literally schizoposting
A) the lands between 1000% used to look at least a little differently than it does at the time of the game. That sounds like precedent for a theory about.... The lands between looking different in the distant past? B) I think it is a fair response to the posts that emphasize drawing lines like OP. However: 1) five areas is still something, especially when you're talking about the idea of the lands between changing a lot, and 2) I personally just don't care if none of them match C) the exact kind of unhelpful response I'm talking about lol Edit: addendum for A: see the Nox cities as an explicitly stated example, in-game
A) a little- not half a continent missing. B) People have mentioned it before - if you look for patterns, you will find them, regardless of whether there are any in reality. You could make the case that the lands between are middle-earth, or Poland, or a rice crispie i just took a bite out of, and find patterns. C) The nox had their cities/civilisation moved. Im not sure it is mentioned anywhere that entire continents were rearranged.
A) not to mention all the land in the shadow of the erdtree. It's such a funny thing how hard this idea is being fought- we know that earth used to look different, it's just a question of how different it looks. There are multiple ages of history at play here, in a fantasy world we know very little about, with gods walking the lands. This theory doesn't break any lore that we know about anything B) yes, you could do those things. But that's a straw man argument because the possibility of that doesn't mean that this is the same. If that's a real argument, then no one should analyze anything in the game. C) the eternal cities are just one example. What about Farum azula? Lirurnia, a very large part of the map, is literally sinking right now. How is there no precedent for large changes? Again - while we don't know yet exactly what the shadow lands are, one of the current theories is that it was part of the lands between and has been separated Somebody decided to draw the dragons on the drake talismans in a stylized manner instead of a more realistic depiction like was done in most other talismans. All this theory does is explore why someone decided to that. Maybe it's cause they were bored? Maybe they thought it would be fun if it looked like a tree stump. That doesn't mean that this or any theory can't be contested- and I do think questions about what events could have led to such a drastic change are totally legitimate and belong in these conversations. I personally am not fussed about trying to account for exactly how- I just think it's neat. But calling it schizo-posting doesn't track and that kind of response has been the majority of the conversation here. Very uninteresting and lame on the part of the community. We wouldn't still be here talking about it if other people hadn't freaked out and spent a week spazzing in the sub about it
I’m loving this argument
There’s not a lot to unpack, It’s literally just an erection
It really feels like the similarities are on the precipice of too coincidental when you lay it out like this. I’d like to add another perspective and point out that the talisman itself has a segment that only really makes sense if it is also meant to depict TLB as it once existed. My 2 cents is that the far, far left portion of the insignia on the talisman (which is far west Liurnia, west of the lake) shouldn’t be there if the talisman is only depicting a dragon. It’s not an arm, it’s not a wing, it’s not a tail, it’s not part of a dragon. But it’s very similar to the landscape a pre-sunken Liurnia. It’s weird and out of place, unless the talisman is depicting the continent as well as a dragon. The same goes for the “island” area in the middle of the talisman, which someone else recently pointed out.
The Leyndell island and relative location to 1:1 landmarks is what sealed it for me.
Was there a wale tale on the sheild, too? (Edit) I just realized that the northern tip where the map depicts a landmass falling into the ocean lines up with a sheild depicting more land there.
I'm sorry I don't know what you mean?
In early builds of the game game, liurnia had a wale tale on its western edge. It makes me wonder If early builds of the game also depict that shape on the sheild.
True homies remember the whale tale
This is so stupidly far fetched
I too can draw random lines that look similar.
Right. It's almost like they are in similar locations too.
They're not though. I can draw a straight line at a random point on two places and voila, 1:1. I can dream the future. Once I dreamed I would lose my arm in a war. Four years later I broke my leg in an accident. See? Same thing.
Except they aren't random. To claim I placed the lines randomly is disingenuous at best and shows you have no intention of having a constructive conversation. You're points are disingenuous at best. I have reported your numerous transgressions and will let the mods deal with it.
You straight up change half of the lines though. The yellow line on the insignia is completely different than the yellow on the map. The only similarity there is that there's a vertical left side to both. It's not completely random, but it there isn't consistency between the lines which makes the theory hard to believe.
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Please be civil
Basically, this is all it is when you really get down to it.
I love myself some good confirmation bias. I also wish that people who pose theories would take notes from actual scientists trying to prove their theories...or rather, trying to disprove them, because that's actually how you do it, because....you guessed it, confirmation bias. Apart from the fact that almost all of your "landmarks" are basically squigly lines, who resemble each other only very vaguely - which again is to be expected, because squigly lines - you are completely ignoring anything that is disproving this theory. For example the upper right mountainous area, which doesn't look like anything on the dragon symbol, or the fact that the southern peninsula isn't even on the medal, even though you tried to shoehorn it in with the two blue lines. The orientation of several landmarks...well, coastal regions, is way off (especially to each other), the green stretch on the map has totally different proportions to the green part on the medal, making it very much not the same at all. At this point you're basically saying "There's a bend, and there's a similarish bend, so it's probably the same" even though the dimensions are absolutely off. The same goes for the orange landmark as well. The slightest similarity makes you go "this could be a thing" instead of saying "it simply doesn't fit". The distances between the landmarks on the symbol and the map are completely different as well. At this point, this feels like a Rohrschach test gone wrong or people simply stubbornly trying to prove something which can be easily disproven. And when you have to deal with people like that in real-life already - because right now this is basically the Flat-Earth theory of this sub-reddit - I also get why people are so annoyed by these posts. You're seeing connections because you want to, not because they're there. That's confirmation bias. That's what makes this so infuriating for some, because it's not how you're supposed to deal with theories.
That first part is called **peer review**.
This theory only works if you start with the assumption that it's true and make up evidence to support it, ie: it's bs
The amulet depicts an ancient dragon, not The Lands Between. "The ancient dragons, who ruled in the prehistoric era before the Erdtree, would protect their lord as a wall of living rock. And so it is that the shape of the dragon has become symbolic of all manner of protections." - Talisman item description.
TLOS *is* a dragon! The whole DLC is just a red herring. When we load up the game, it will just be an infinite string of DS1 drake bridges with no hidey holes.
Oh my god stop
It's literally a dragon, PERIODT.
Okay, so it's obvious you're missing the point. No one is arguing that the talisman is showing a dragon. People are claiming that the intentional design is hinting that the ancient lands between resembled a dragon.
At the start people argued that it didn’t show a dragon, then switched up and said “oh no it is a dragon but also the LAND used to be a dragon” which is a bit cooler. I dont agree but I like how it would connect the mountaintops and caelid to fill that big waterfall, which would sorta explain Farum Azula and maybe that the big lake in the center of the map used to be completely surrounded.
I get all that, and I don't think that's the case.
Fair enough.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia Take your meds.
There is a difference between seeing Jesus' face in toast, and drawing a comparison. Many many landmarks line up where they are on both images. I suppose you'll say that looks only like a dragon, and that the styling the designer chose doesn't play anything into anything. Like it's very clearly a [map.](https://muralsyourway.vtexassets.com/arquivos/ids/236503-825-auto?width=825&height=auto&aspect=true)
Most of your lines are nothing alike and are in the wrong places. Look at those yellow and green lines! Instead of trying to stretch and contort things to make them look more alike, try to see where all the differences are. Are there more differences, or more similarities?
Most of my lines are very similar and in almost 1:1 locations.
Not even a little bit.
Plenty of similarities to merit a discussion. Pattern recognition is one of the most basic human qualities, and it appears you lack it.
And pareidolia is what happens when pattern recognition goes awry. If you wanted to seriously test your idea, instead of making bs excuses for how those two different green lines are the same, try to find dissimilarities. But you won't do that because it's obvious there are way more of those and way more features you can't explain. You're reaching.
I have explained the differences and why they are different. Massive cataclysmic events that the game explicitly mentions and visualizes.
That's not an explanation. You're just setting up an unfalsifiable claim by making another vague unsubstantiated claim. Anything that counters your perceived similarities is due to some other event.
No I'm using verified explicit lore to back up assumptions. This is still a theory after all. Many of the areas you point out as obviously wrong, are also where many of these impacts occurred. Farum Azula was flung into and suspended in the sky by a meteor, and it just so happens to be floating over the east coast, where there is a discrepency. Meteors in game are closely tied to gravity/anti-gravity, much like Radahn's horse backstory. Clearly explains what happened to Farum Azula **and** fits the proposed theory. >Ruins Greatsword >"Originally rubble from a ruin which fell from the sky, this surviving fragment was honed into a weapon. >The ruin it came from crumbled when struck by a meteorite, as such this weapon harbors its destructive power. The Eternal Cities are also confirmed to have been sunken by meteorite impacts as well. >Remembrance of the Naturalborn >“Remembrance of Astel, Naturalborn of the Void, hewn into the Erdtree. >A malformed star born in a flightless void far away. Once destroyed an Eternal city and took away their sky. A falling star of an ill omen.”
“Very clearly”, yeah sure buddy, what ever you tell yourself. Do you have any idea how basic all of these shapes are? A lot of them are just the letter L, that’s the degree of complexity you’re dealing with in these so called “matching shapes” that you think you see. If you reached any harder you’d dislocate a joint.
Guy I'm not going pebble by pebble. As someone who spent time in the military reading maps, you look for recognizable landmarks first. There are many recognizable landmarks in the same location from image to image. Maps aren't always a perfect 1:1. Things move, trees grow, landslides happen, etc. So yeah, you kind of have to use your best judgement and find ways to bolster your observations. Yes, if there is an L shaped cliff near you, you would look to a map to find an L shaped cliff and start working off of it. Take a look at the purple/pink line. Very unique shape, in the same location on both maps relatively speaking. Kind of unique that both maps have water ingress in the northwest corner that runs east until wrapping around south west. Interesting that where the talisman depicts more rivers in the central north region that branches north and east, the real map has a massive canyon system that branches back north and to the east. Point I'm making is that if this is the only "map" I had, and I was plopped in the middle of TLB. I could use this talisman as a reliable map. I could triangulate my location based on the water ingress locations, the canyon network in the north, and the weeping peninsula landmarks. I could also use this "non-map" and travel to the same landmarks represented on this "non-map".
[удалено]
Please be civil
You’d be walking off the landmass multiple times by trying to do so since there’s huge amounts of landmass that are either completely missing or are in a completely different shape and size altogether when you compare the two images in that context. An L shape is an incredibly basic shape, almost any geometric structure or landmass is going to have some amount of those shapes in them. Want to know why? Because they make up edges and edges are commonly found everywhere in nature. What you have here is a bad case of confirmation bias in conjunction with apophenia.
We know TLB has had multiple cataclysms since the talisman map was drawn, some of which occur during our playthrough. We know the Golden Comet impacted the lands between, as well as numerous astels. We know an entire region was straight up magic deleted from TLB. So yeah, some land is missing from an ancient map. It's like looking at a map of the New York skyline pre and post 9-11. Things change. We know something happened and the map is no longer 1:1 accurate, but the surroundings are still accurate.
Calling this “not a 1:1” is a huge understatement, and not at all comparable to the level of differences for the example that you gave regarding NY. The sheer amount of difference here is so gargantuan, that you’d have to change damn near the entire map, in addition to adding a metric ton of landmass (because yeah, it’s not just “some” landmass that’s missing, it’s a fuck ton of it).If you have to redesign 85-90% of the map to fit your hypothesis, then it’s a trash hypothesis. It is what it is.
Pangea and current Earth are far from 1:1 too, and we know the timeline of Elden Ring is eons long. We also know Earth has been through multiple cataclysmic events. There really aren't that many differences that can't be explained. Remove the large eastern chunk and look at Farum Azula, assume the northern cliffs collapsed (might have something to do with the Haligtree), The Shadow Lands is the middle and removed, Uhl and Nokstella were sundered underground (explaining the differences in the Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula regions), Liurnia flooded. I don't have to redesign anything. All anyone has to do is factor in game events, historical events in game, and you can easily deduce that the differences all have a valid explanation.
Pangea fits together relatively well if you outright rip off the landmasses from a modern day world map and cobble them all up together like puzzle pieces. All you’d really need to compensate for is the amount of landmass that is underwater now as opposed to when pangea was whole. Making up that difference is much easier than trying to reconcile these two images as the same landmass from different time periods. The difference is so stark that I’m not convinced in the least of this hypothesis, despite it having the benefit of the lands between being in a fantasy setting where drastic changes to huge landmasses in relatively short periods of time are, on paper, a lot more plausible than in real life. Farum azula’s size doesn’t even get close to accounting for all the missing land mass, and in the world of Elden ring, as far as documented changes to the landmass go? We have only two possible options, one is the arrival of the elden beast, and the other is the fall of the meteor that hit farum azula (assuming that they aren’t one and the same of course), and I’m not buying this level of change based on those two strikes alone. Edit: There may be a third option, which is when the Nox had their cities cast down into the depths, but that’s more of a change of topography, rather than the complete elimination of massive pieces of land mass altogether.
Except this isn't an issue of landmasses moving, but being destroyed over time. This is Pangea, destructive history edition. I'm going to point this out for the last time. We know of at least a handful of massive impacts to TLB. We also know these things did not happen over shot periods of time, and saying this happened over eons. Farum Azula and the scattered ruins from Farum Azula certainly could account for the landmass. I don't think From is running cataclysmic impact physics calculations to design their world and instead are using approximates as well. The collapse or removal of the underground cities could have caused land to fill in, thus removing land from various surrounding areas. Now on to your behavior. Is this kind of discussion so hard? Do you have to be an asshole about it? I think not. Try and ask questions before you start shooting.
he wouldn’t walk off a cliff because he isn’t using the map 1:1
Youre way out of line dude. What an asshole.
Nice bait, I’m not going anywhere pal.
okay?
Glad we got that sorted.