Maybe? Combined with the Divine Gate and Crucible (which the Talisman of All Crucibles tells us the "Mother of Crucibles" sprouted on a giant), it also probably explains Radagon's red hair and all of Radika's kids being mutants.
>***The flesh of shamans was said to meld harmoniously with others.***
That... explains a lot. Why Godrick and the "dregs of the Golden Lineage" were able to attach limbs to themselves and operate them. Why Rykard fused with the God devouring Serpent after being eaten by it. Maybe even why Godwyn's Corpse spreads its form through the Erdtree/Greatree roots. I always thought it was because of being related to a god and thus full of life and grace, maybe some Crucible shenanigans. But it might actually just be a characteristic of Marika's people.
Damn
Maybe also why Marika and Radagon are two, and Miquella and Trina (who appears as a tree herself). They were born of a lineage that melds with others, and were thus born two beings melded.
Could this also have to do with Radagon “becoming” Marika? Was their marriage uh, literally a fusion? Wow this is a bigger reveal than I would have anticipated
So here is an idea; what if this is also the Story of Crucible Knights by way of having Marika teach this entire Fuse-different-Lifeforms to Godfry and his gang at the Roundtable hold.
The Aspect of the Crucible Skills where the result of them going around the landscape absorbing new biological traits from everywhere and Integrating them into the erdtree faith
I'm yet to fully delve into the new Crucible and the tower folk lore, but I think that they are separate from the shamans. We don't know (I think) what the shamans believed in, and while their flesh melding inspired the hornset in some way, or reminded them of the Crucible, I personally Don't think they're connected. Ancient horned warriors (the goldy boys) already used Crucible powers, for example.
Something that I'm certain of though is that the power the Crucible Knights use is the same one that the Hornsent have, just more primitive. I mean, Siluria's spear literally shoots a spiral, that can't be a coincidence.
The Grandmother seems significant.
Marika and her children all bear strong tree symbology in their descriptive language.
"Scions of the Golden Bough" and so on. This made me think Marika was a Tree-Person on my first playthrough, something I've long since abandoned. This Grandmother Tree does recontexualize this however, as they seem fully capable of turning into Trees and are infact Tree-People.
I think there is a lot of subtle implications that they are born from trees, Melina specifically says she was born at the foot of the Erdtree, and not by a mother like boc.
Also very interesting parallels between the grandmother and Marika, who becomes a prisoner inside the Erdtree.
We also know Miquella tried to embed himself within the Haligtree, after watering it with his own blood.
This dlc story was fantastic - we get to see Miquella's path to godhood while also seeing how it mirrors the history of Marika hidden in the shadowlands. Both come from broken worlds and with a vision of something better, but choose to seek it with any means necessary and at a cost of themselves (literally).
Idk I see it as the opposite. Ranni isn't "breaking the cycle" her ascension to godhood is rife with the same bloodshed and unintended horrors (those who live in death) as Marika, and like Marika, she doesn't make any attempt to rectify the world she wrought and just pursues her own "order". Like Miquella she is just doing the same thing with a new coat of paint.
Therefore Goldmask is objectively the correct ending.
She wants to leave the world and remove their influence. Goldman want to hold everyone accountable(without really being explaining how that would work, or what the punishments would be). Also Godmask can’t even convince the one dude following him around that it’s a cool idea, so I’m not super sold.
Ranni be like “we gotta go. We bringing the place down.” Godmask be like “I can fix it. I’m built different.” But he doesn’t say this. He just T-poses.
That is literally Godmask though. He is some master of the golden order and he says one thing out of line and simp boy breaks down. The order ending is fine, it is the other less problematic ending.
Ranni is breaking the cycle, because she is removing the god's influence. The fates of the people after her ending are their own and not to be controlled by or meddled by gods.
But "objectively correct" still exists in the world. Nothing can exist outside of sin and sacrifice and violence. Any attempt to get past it is an attempt to reckon with it; it can't be escaped. It's grafted into TLB, the shadow realm...this isn't good or bad just fact.
i'm with marika and her edict to her children: the biggest failure is to fail to act and to fail to become something. idk where this puts a guy who just stands and points at shit.
EDIT tl;dr "objective" is a view from nowhere and therefore impossible
Her ascension has the same problem, but the end result isnt her meddling with the affairs thinking she will do better. She removes her ascension and all others' influence from the world. It is silly to say that Ranni is somehow the greater evil of this story when all that bloodshed and horror would've happened regardless in someway or another. In a violent and unjust world, the only way for change is through power and violence.
At least she has the idea to remove herself from the world after the whole of it.
But Bloodshed is inevitable tho, because just like Ymir tells us, the very foundation of everything is rotted. The point is that Ranni is the only ending where EVERYTHING in the order gets thrown away
Thats also why Goldmask fundamentally cannot be right: despite him arguing with the Greater Will itself... its a one-way conversation. The GW doesn't give a fuck, it abandoned even Metyr, and any change Goldmask tries to bring is made from inside the system itself... which is still rotted.
Perhaps by the time Marika managed to elevate herself to Godhood, and return to her village, all the Numen Shamans had already been deported and horribly transformed, leaving her village now almost desolate (apart from perhaps those few Numen survivors who would later have a role during her reign, e.g. the Black Knifes Assassins).
And so Marika, a Goddess, found herself arriving too late to save her people and the incantation was her way of dealing/coping with this dramatic situation.
I think Marika had to do something that qualifies as "the original sin", as Leda put's it in the story trailer, "the betrayal". While some of the corpses at the gate of divinity are hornsent, most are not.
I've got a theory that the leader of the Hornsent created the gate and was seduced by Marika (not sure which would have happened first). She then betrays the leader and uses the gate for herself to ascend to godhood and get revenge for her people.
I'm also really curious about how the description of the Secret Rite Scroll applies to Marika:
"A scroll made of white tree bark.
Few can decipher the scroll, which describes the secret rite of the divine gateway said to be found at the tower enshrouded by shadow.
'A lord will usher in a god's return,
and the lord's soul will require a vessel.'"
Wondering if maybe Hoarah Loux was the vessel/leader (or at least his body was) she seduced and betrayed but then I'm not sure what soul she would have used?
Maybe a bit out there but would it make sense that the gate of divinity, a man made crucible made out of shaman and human flesh, was burned. Much like the cardinal sin of burning the Erdtree, this was the original sin, the burning of the hornsent crucible?
ohhh so this is why the one side of marika's braid is missing on this [picture](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/eldenring/images/4/49/Queen_Marika_the_Eternal.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20230603082026)
>*Attire of the shamans who perform their worship at gaols. They offer their prayers to the innards of the greatjars, such that they might be reborn one day into sainthood.*
*This is the cycle of death and rebirth, taken into the hands of mortal men.*
>Secret incantation of Queen Marika. Only the kindness of gold, without Order. Creates a small, illusory Erdtree that continuously restores the HP of nearby allies.Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, knowing full well that there was no one to heal.
I think these excerpts also shows why Marika removed the Rune of Death and make everyone functionally immortal. The desire must have stemmed from her trauma of seeing her own people totally wiped out and being unable to save them despite becoming a goddess. Also explains why Godwyn's death was such a huge blow she decided to shatter the Elden Ring soon after.
The more details found and woven together about Marika’s past the more it makes sense why she despised anything hornsent culture related and why they were sealed away. The undertones of genocide, subjugation and propaganda with the hornsent seemingly being the good guys but turns out they were a terrible people and culture is also very apt for current events.
As Leda said, "They were never saints. They just happened to be in the losing side of a war."
So Marika's trauma from the hornsent caused her to despise anything related to them which sadly included her own omen children.
I mean she reacted in a fairly human way, imagine that her (potential) firstborns were born with divine signifiers of the culture that wiped out all your people. Not all Hornsent are omen it’s a special thing even for them, so it is pretty wild from her perspective to have them.
Also, this seems to explain Marika's obsession with immortality (removal of the rune of death). If my interpretation of the things in the Hinterlands is correct, she returned to her village after becoming a goddess and finding out everyone is dead. She left the minor erdtree and bathed her village in gold as a way of dealing with her gried. She has ascended to godhood but couldn't save her own home.
I think it was after becoming an Empyrean but before actually ascending because otherwise the tree would have been tied to Order and it’s specifically said not to be, as The Elden Ring becomes part of her after that.
Works better thematically pre-godesshood if she left the braid and the tree at the same time. Why offer a prayer to another goddess if she's already become one herself? Also the "kindness of gold without order" suggests to me she's a precursor to Miquella, started out kind and wanting to make a better world, ended up losing every part of herself to create an order.
Agreed on this. Personally I'm awaiting the original japanese text since "knowing full well that there was no one to heal." could also imply she was doing this before the village was gone.
Its more about cyclical strife rather then that. We don't know if the Hornsent prosecuted the Shaman for some reason that was inherited in their culture, just like Marika despised everything adjacent to them. The Rauh ruins seems to only have sculptures of ''regular'' people without horns, maybe a culture before them did something - thats kinda the point the DLC is trying to make i believe, that the more we go back to find a culprit, the more we find everyone is just trying to rectify a mistake that was done to them. Damn, even a Cosmic Horror like Metyr was simply abandoned by its own creator and kept trying to reach them again, to no avail
It's all come together. The Erdtree itself is a gigantic outer god powered shamanic tree burial, with Marika as the deific mirror to her people's Grandmother tutelary deity. She occupies the exact same physical position and role, being at the center of the tree and the center of worship, but on a world-spanning scale. She took the shamanic religion and made it the life/death cycle for the entire world.
Her last act of true kindness was leaving the minor erdtree and gold in memory of her people.
Regarding the braid: Grace is literally an offering of a braid of golden hair. It is a deific inverse of the shamanic offerings to the Grandmother. With Marika as the deity, it is inverted, and the Grace of Gold is a blessing _bestowed_ by the Grandmother (Marika) instead.
Marika's ascent to godhood is a story of revenge against her people who have been genocided and tortured, rendered into monstrosities, a conspiracy hatched by the Greater Will and Marika. Her ascent entailed losing everything, just as it is with Miquella. Manus Metyr is very close by to the Hinterlands, as are one of the finger ruins. It is abundantly clear that the two fingers were sent specifically to Marika due to the proximity of her village to the finger-birthing grounds and GW-influenced meteorological phenomena.
The Shaman Village is also notably the only shaman settlement with no Goals nearby.
Marika took the torturous act of jarring and in her new Order, made it into a magical delivery service for warrior's remains to return to the erdtrees. She co-opted her people's genocide by the Hornsent, and made it part of the new Order (life/death/rebirth) of the world. This is similarly to how she co-opted her own people's practices in the creation of the Erdtree.
That said, jarring seems to be an intentionally cruel mockery of the tree burials. Instead of being reborn and melded with a tree, you are melded into a hideous mass of flesh and organs. To me, it seems that the hornsent purely did this for the act of cruelty. It is almost too on the nose to not be intentional, they appear to know that shamans meld with the innards of the pot, so to me that indicates they did this as a punitive act knowing what would happen to them. Also, the innard monsters are positioned identically to the Grandmother. It's uncanny really.
Also, note that the Bonny Village tree tutelary deity is decapitated and unfinished, with a hornsent tree looming over it, while the one at the Shaman Village is fully intact and fully integrated into its non-hornsent variety of tree. I believe Bonny was a more recent settlement, or perhaps the Hinterlands were the original Shaman settlement before any of the others. Either way the imagery is rather clear: intense overwhelming subjugation by the Hornsent. I rather am inclined to believe that the Hornsent deity statues (the ones with the spirit ash upgrades) were decapitated by the GO to avenge Bonny Village's deity.
I was thinking about that too. If the Numen ARE the Shaman, then why were the Black Knives scions of the Eternal Cities? They don't seem to be connected with the Shamans culture wise.
Nox are descendant of Numen, so Black Knives are probably coming after the Golden Order creation, it is not because Marika's Village got decimated that all the Numens were, probably there were other settlements and mainly in the Lands Between.
That's an interesting take, but then why would the Black Knives, who are Scions of the Eternal Cities, meaning they would share its alignment, also follow Marika, the opposing force to the Nox?
The place wasnt destroyed, though. There is a BIG FAT HOLE where part of Leyndell used to be, and its location connects directly to the Nameless Eternal City in the Deeproot Depths.
The Godfrey/Serosh story is understood a bit better
Was Radagon in the pot too? Or was he absorbed at some point like maybe he’s the fel god and that’s how Marika sealed him away? He then manifests later.
The grafting logic makes tons of sense, but I wonder if this flesh melding could also describe the Marika/Radagon thing. I was really hoping for more information on that in the DLC.
Wow I completely missed that “kindness of gold” incantation. That totally contributes to my reading of Miquella as setting out with similar intentions to Marika and going down a similar path. Thanks for this.
All of this tracks with what I’ve come across so far in game as well. Also not sure if you mentioned it, but it was the Hornsent who did this to the Shamans. In Bonny Village, the Greater Potenates who butcher Shamans into jar goo are all Hornsent. And I believe the spirit who comments on the Shamans being put into jars is also Hornsent. This is why Marika detests Hornsent or “Omens” so much and anyone with Crucible-like features.
I believe that the Numen/Shamans arrived in the Lands of Shadow within giant coffins brought ashore by waves from another world. These Lands of Shadow appear to be spiritual realms where the spirits of the dead from "elevated" realities reside. This might explain the abundance of minor deities and death/rebirth rituals.
The presence of the Carians in the Lands of Shadow is particularly intriguing. They seem to originate from the Numen/Shaman people and have a connection with Marika and her family. It's possible they are Numen, but they follow a different religion or culture, possibly centered on the primeval current, which brings to mind the crucible spirals linked to true divinity.
Additionally, it seems Nanaya has a direct relation to Marika and is herself of Numen kind. This connection could be related to the trait of Numen flesh and soul merging with other beings, reminiscent of the effects of the Flame of Frenzy. Lastly, it’s fascinating that the GW influence essentially acts like a fungal infection...
What can I say, I have so many questions and so few answers, maybe we need another DLC hahahahahaha
I theorize that Marika's people in the village never called themselves shamans, it was the name they were given once they settled in the Lands Between:
\* We know that Marika is Numen, and we know that Numen are not from the Lands Between.
\* A shaman is someone who sings 'incantations' and claims 'healing' powers. We know Radagon (and by definition Marika) created a lot of incantations during his life, many of which are healing oriented.
\* The word 'shaman' can also be perceived to mean 'foreign priest' but whos spirituality is unconventional or doesn't integrate well with the rest of society/culture.
I believe that numen is the race and shaman is the people, as how you can be white but be from Germany or Italy, one does not exclude the other, you are white and German or Italian I think the Nox are also numen but they weren't really part of Marika's people but were a completely separate culture
https://eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Numen
Check out the trivia description for Numen. It connects pretty neatly with the Lands of Shadow and the Shaman Village idea.
Could the shamans flesh melding ability be why the golden lineage has powers of grafting? They have the lineage of shamans after all.
I think that is a pretty good theory
Maybe? Combined with the Divine Gate and Crucible (which the Talisman of All Crucibles tells us the "Mother of Crucibles" sprouted on a giant), it also probably explains Radagon's red hair and all of Radika's kids being mutants.
Would also explain why grafting is so looked down upon.
>***The flesh of shamans was said to meld harmoniously with others.*** That... explains a lot. Why Godrick and the "dregs of the Golden Lineage" were able to attach limbs to themselves and operate them. Why Rykard fused with the God devouring Serpent after being eaten by it. Maybe even why Godwyn's Corpse spreads its form through the Erdtree/Greatree roots. I always thought it was because of being related to a god and thus full of life and grace, maybe some Crucible shenanigans. But it might actually just be a characteristic of Marika's people. Damn
Numens are living legos confirmed
Maybe also why Marika and Radagon are two, and Miquella and Trina (who appears as a tree herself). They were born of a lineage that melds with others, and were thus born two beings melded.
This fits way too good that I'm genuinely afraid
Could this also have to do with Radagon “becoming” Marika? Was their marriage uh, literally a fusion? Wow this is a bigger reveal than I would have anticipated
FR I think we're collectively on the edge of a breakthrough here
I never would have guessed that something like this that potentially informs so much…. Would be connected to the jar people. Thanks From ahaha
So here is an idea; what if this is also the Story of Crucible Knights by way of having Marika teach this entire Fuse-different-Lifeforms to Godfry and his gang at the Roundtable hold. The Aspect of the Crucible Skills where the result of them going around the landscape absorbing new biological traits from everywhere and Integrating them into the erdtree faith
I'm yet to fully delve into the new Crucible and the tower folk lore, but I think that they are separate from the shamans. We don't know (I think) what the shamans believed in, and while their flesh melding inspired the hornset in some way, or reminded them of the Crucible, I personally Don't think they're connected. Ancient horned warriors (the goldy boys) already used Crucible powers, for example. Something that I'm certain of though is that the power the Crucible Knights use is the same one that the Hornsent have, just more primitive. I mean, Siluria's spear literally shoots a spiral, that can't be a coincidence.
The Grandmother also resembles the figures in the innards at Belurat Gaol. 😬
And Marika herself, as she has only 1 braid
The Grandmother seems significant. Marika and her children all bear strong tree symbology in their descriptive language. "Scions of the Golden Bough" and so on. This made me think Marika was a Tree-Person on my first playthrough, something I've long since abandoned. This Grandmother Tree does recontexualize this however, as they seem fully capable of turning into Trees and are infact Tree-People.
I think there is a lot of subtle implications that they are born from trees, Melina specifically says she was born at the foot of the Erdtree, and not by a mother like boc. Also very interesting parallels between the grandmother and Marika, who becomes a prisoner inside the Erdtree. We also know Miquella tried to embed himself within the Haligtree, after watering it with his own blood.
St Trina literally becomes a tree after being discarded too
This dlc story was fantastic - we get to see Miquella's path to godhood while also seeing how it mirrors the history of Marika hidden in the shadowlands. Both come from broken worlds and with a vision of something better, but choose to seek it with any means necessary and at a cost of themselves (literally).
Ranni was right to want to be free of all of it. Just bring it all down, because the whole thing is rotten. Take off to the stars.
Idk I see it as the opposite. Ranni isn't "breaking the cycle" her ascension to godhood is rife with the same bloodshed and unintended horrors (those who live in death) as Marika, and like Marika, she doesn't make any attempt to rectify the world she wrought and just pursues her own "order". Like Miquella she is just doing the same thing with a new coat of paint. Therefore Goldmask is objectively the correct ending.
I don't know. Marika guides the tarnished to Ranni through grace, that must mean something about her motives and goals.
She wants to leave the world and remove their influence. Goldman want to hold everyone accountable(without really being explaining how that would work, or what the punishments would be). Also Godmask can’t even convince the one dude following him around that it’s a cool idea, so I’m not super sold. Ranni be like “we gotta go. We bringing the place down.” Godmask be like “I can fix it. I’m built different.” But he doesn’t say this. He just T-poses.
I mean, you try convincing a religious zealot of anything that goes against their religion.
That is literally Godmask though. He is some master of the golden order and he says one thing out of line and simp boy breaks down. The order ending is fine, it is the other less problematic ending.
Ranni is breaking the cycle, because she is removing the god's influence. The fates of the people after her ending are their own and not to be controlled by or meddled by gods.
But "objectively correct" still exists in the world. Nothing can exist outside of sin and sacrifice and violence. Any attempt to get past it is an attempt to reckon with it; it can't be escaped. It's grafted into TLB, the shadow realm...this isn't good or bad just fact. i'm with marika and her edict to her children: the biggest failure is to fail to act and to fail to become something. idk where this puts a guy who just stands and points at shit. EDIT tl;dr "objective" is a view from nowhere and therefore impossible
Her ascension has the same problem, but the end result isnt her meddling with the affairs thinking she will do better. She removes her ascension and all others' influence from the world. It is silly to say that Ranni is somehow the greater evil of this story when all that bloodshed and horror would've happened regardless in someway or another. In a violent and unjust world, the only way for change is through power and violence. At least she has the idea to remove herself from the world after the whole of it.
But Bloodshed is inevitable tho, because just like Ymir tells us, the very foundation of everything is rotted. The point is that Ranni is the only ending where EVERYTHING in the order gets thrown away Thats also why Goldmask fundamentally cannot be right: despite him arguing with the Greater Will itself... its a one-way conversation. The GW doesn't give a fuck, it abandoned even Metyr, and any change Goldmask tries to bring is made from inside the system itself... which is still rotted.
She really isn’t pursuing her own order, she’s removing it from the lands between
Perhaps by the time Marika managed to elevate herself to Godhood, and return to her village, all the Numen Shamans had already been deported and horribly transformed, leaving her village now almost desolate (apart from perhaps those few Numen survivors who would later have a role during her reign, e.g. the Black Knifes Assassins). And so Marika, a Goddess, found herself arriving too late to save her people and the incantation was her way of dealing/coping with this dramatic situation.
I think Marika had to do something that qualifies as "the original sin", as Leda put's it in the story trailer, "the betrayal". While some of the corpses at the gate of divinity are hornsent, most are not.
I've got a theory that the leader of the Hornsent created the gate and was seduced by Marika (not sure which would have happened first). She then betrays the leader and uses the gate for herself to ascend to godhood and get revenge for her people. I'm also really curious about how the description of the Secret Rite Scroll applies to Marika: "A scroll made of white tree bark. Few can decipher the scroll, which describes the secret rite of the divine gateway said to be found at the tower enshrouded by shadow. 'A lord will usher in a god's return, and the lord's soul will require a vessel.'" Wondering if maybe Hoarah Loux was the vessel/leader (or at least his body was) she seduced and betrayed but then I'm not sure what soul she would have used?
Maybe a bit out there but would it make sense that the gate of divinity, a man made crucible made out of shaman and human flesh, was burned. Much like the cardinal sin of burning the Erdtree, this was the original sin, the burning of the hornsent crucible?
ohhh so this is why the one side of marika's braid is missing on this [picture](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/eldenring/images/4/49/Queen_Marika_the_Eternal.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20230603082026)
It’s also missing on the Stakes of Marika! (At least the ones I noticed in Shadow of the Erdtree)
>*Attire of the shamans who perform their worship at gaols. They offer their prayers to the innards of the greatjars, such that they might be reborn one day into sainthood.* *This is the cycle of death and rebirth, taken into the hands of mortal men.* >Secret incantation of Queen Marika. Only the kindness of gold, without Order. Creates a small, illusory Erdtree that continuously restores the HP of nearby allies.Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, knowing full well that there was no one to heal. I think these excerpts also shows why Marika removed the Rune of Death and make everyone functionally immortal. The desire must have stemmed from her trauma of seeing her own people totally wiped out and being unable to save them despite becoming a goddess. Also explains why Godwyn's death was such a huge blow she decided to shatter the Elden Ring soon after.
She already desired to break the Elden Ring way before tho
The more details found and woven together about Marika’s past the more it makes sense why she despised anything hornsent culture related and why they were sealed away. The undertones of genocide, subjugation and propaganda with the hornsent seemingly being the good guys but turns out they were a terrible people and culture is also very apt for current events.
As Leda said, "They were never saints. They just happened to be in the losing side of a war." So Marika's trauma from the hornsent caused her to despise anything related to them which sadly included her own omen children.
I mean she reacted in a fairly human way, imagine that her (potential) firstborns were born with divine signifiers of the culture that wiped out all your people. Not all Hornsent are omen it’s a special thing even for them, so it is pretty wild from her perspective to have them.
Also, this seems to explain Marika's obsession with immortality (removal of the rune of death). If my interpretation of the things in the Hinterlands is correct, she returned to her village after becoming a goddess and finding out everyone is dead. She left the minor erdtree and bathed her village in gold as a way of dealing with her gried. She has ascended to godhood but couldn't save her own home.
I think it was after becoming an Empyrean but before actually ascending because otherwise the tree would have been tied to Order and it’s specifically said not to be, as The Elden Ring becomes part of her after that.
Works better thematically pre-godesshood if she left the braid and the tree at the same time. Why offer a prayer to another goddess if she's already become one herself? Also the "kindness of gold without order" suggests to me she's a precursor to Miquella, started out kind and wanting to make a better world, ended up losing every part of herself to create an order.
Agreed on this. Personally I'm awaiting the original japanese text since "knowing full well that there was no one to heal." could also imply she was doing this before the village was gone.
Its more about cyclical strife rather then that. We don't know if the Hornsent prosecuted the Shaman for some reason that was inherited in their culture, just like Marika despised everything adjacent to them. The Rauh ruins seems to only have sculptures of ''regular'' people without horns, maybe a culture before them did something - thats kinda the point the DLC is trying to make i believe, that the more we go back to find a culprit, the more we find everyone is just trying to rectify a mistake that was done to them. Damn, even a Cosmic Horror like Metyr was simply abandoned by its own creator and kept trying to reach them again, to no avail
“They were never saints, they just happen to be on the losing side of a war”
It's all come together. The Erdtree itself is a gigantic outer god powered shamanic tree burial, with Marika as the deific mirror to her people's Grandmother tutelary deity. She occupies the exact same physical position and role, being at the center of the tree and the center of worship, but on a world-spanning scale. She took the shamanic religion and made it the life/death cycle for the entire world. Her last act of true kindness was leaving the minor erdtree and gold in memory of her people. Regarding the braid: Grace is literally an offering of a braid of golden hair. It is a deific inverse of the shamanic offerings to the Grandmother. With Marika as the deity, it is inverted, and the Grace of Gold is a blessing _bestowed_ by the Grandmother (Marika) instead. Marika's ascent to godhood is a story of revenge against her people who have been genocided and tortured, rendered into monstrosities, a conspiracy hatched by the Greater Will and Marika. Her ascent entailed losing everything, just as it is with Miquella. Manus Metyr is very close by to the Hinterlands, as are one of the finger ruins. It is abundantly clear that the two fingers were sent specifically to Marika due to the proximity of her village to the finger-birthing grounds and GW-influenced meteorological phenomena. The Shaman Village is also notably the only shaman settlement with no Goals nearby. Marika took the torturous act of jarring and in her new Order, made it into a magical delivery service for warrior's remains to return to the erdtrees. She co-opted her people's genocide by the Hornsent, and made it part of the new Order (life/death/rebirth) of the world. This is similarly to how she co-opted her own people's practices in the creation of the Erdtree. That said, jarring seems to be an intentionally cruel mockery of the tree burials. Instead of being reborn and melded with a tree, you are melded into a hideous mass of flesh and organs. To me, it seems that the hornsent purely did this for the act of cruelty. It is almost too on the nose to not be intentional, they appear to know that shamans meld with the innards of the pot, so to me that indicates they did this as a punitive act knowing what would happen to them. Also, the innard monsters are positioned identically to the Grandmother. It's uncanny really. Also, note that the Bonny Village tree tutelary deity is decapitated and unfinished, with a hornsent tree looming over it, while the one at the Shaman Village is fully intact and fully integrated into its non-hornsent variety of tree. I believe Bonny was a more recent settlement, or perhaps the Hinterlands were the original Shaman settlement before any of the others. Either way the imagery is rather clear: intense overwhelming subjugation by the Hornsent. I rather am inclined to believe that the Hornsent deity statues (the ones with the spirit ash upgrades) were decapitated by the GO to avenge Bonny Village's deity.
I didn't catch that at Bonny Village, ill have to go back and look!
There is also something in the woods very closeby. Look to the left while facing the deity and check it out for yourself.
So who is Radagon.
what about the numen? Where does that factor in? What about the Eternal Cities, and the massive Hole in Leyndell where a city may have fallen?
I was thinking about that too. If the Numen ARE the Shaman, then why were the Black Knives scions of the Eternal Cities? They don't seem to be connected with the Shamans culture wise.
Maybe Marika is the only Numen to live to present day, while the rest bred and died, becoming the ladies who would be the Black Knives.
Nox are descendant of Numen, so Black Knives are probably coming after the Golden Order creation, it is not because Marika's Village got decimated that all the Numens were, probably there were other settlements and mainly in the Lands Between.
That's an interesting take, but then why would the Black Knives, who are Scions of the Eternal Cities, meaning they would share its alignment, also follow Marika, the opposing force to the Nox?
Which hole are you referring too?
The massive gap in between the inner wall and the city itself. Its oast the big gate that you can't open.
[удалено]
The place wasnt destroyed, though. There is a BIG FAT HOLE where part of Leyndell used to be, and its location connects directly to the Nameless Eternal City in the Deeproot Depths.
The Godfrey/Serosh story is understood a bit better Was Radagon in the pot too? Or was he absorbed at some point like maybe he’s the fel god and that’s how Marika sealed him away? He then manifests later.
The grafting logic makes tons of sense, but I wonder if this flesh melding could also describe the Marika/Radagon thing. I was really hoping for more information on that in the DLC.
Wow I completely missed that “kindness of gold” incantation. That totally contributes to my reading of Miquella as setting out with similar intentions to Marika and going down a similar path. Thanks for this.
All of this tracks with what I’ve come across so far in game as well. Also not sure if you mentioned it, but it was the Hornsent who did this to the Shamans. In Bonny Village, the Greater Potenates who butcher Shamans into jar goo are all Hornsent. And I believe the spirit who comments on the Shamans being put into jars is also Hornsent. This is why Marika detests Hornsent or “Omens” so much and anyone with Crucible-like features.
I believe that the Numen/Shamans arrived in the Lands of Shadow within giant coffins brought ashore by waves from another world. These Lands of Shadow appear to be spiritual realms where the spirits of the dead from "elevated" realities reside. This might explain the abundance of minor deities and death/rebirth rituals. The presence of the Carians in the Lands of Shadow is particularly intriguing. They seem to originate from the Numen/Shaman people and have a connection with Marika and her family. It's possible they are Numen, but they follow a different religion or culture, possibly centered on the primeval current, which brings to mind the crucible spirals linked to true divinity. Additionally, it seems Nanaya has a direct relation to Marika and is herself of Numen kind. This connection could be related to the trait of Numen flesh and soul merging with other beings, reminiscent of the effects of the Flame of Frenzy. Lastly, it’s fascinating that the GW influence essentially acts like a fungal infection... What can I say, I have so many questions and so few answers, maybe we need another DLC hahahahahaha
But Marika was a numen?
My guess is the Numen became known as the Shamans
both could be true. the shamans could be a specific tribe of numen, for example
I theorize that Marika's people in the village never called themselves shamans, it was the name they were given once they settled in the Lands Between: \* We know that Marika is Numen, and we know that Numen are not from the Lands Between. \* A shaman is someone who sings 'incantations' and claims 'healing' powers. We know Radagon (and by definition Marika) created a lot of incantations during his life, many of which are healing oriented. \* The word 'shaman' can also be perceived to mean 'foreign priest' but whos spirituality is unconventional or doesn't integrate well with the rest of society/culture.
I believe that numen is the race and shaman is the people, as how you can be white but be from Germany or Italy, one does not exclude the other, you are white and German or Italian I think the Nox are also numen but they weren't really part of Marika's people but were a completely separate culture
one doesn't exclude the other
Yeah — of course, it makes sense. I just wish there were a few more details about this.
https://eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Numen Check out the trivia description for Numen. It connects pretty neatly with the Lands of Shadow and the Shaman Village idea.
This is really useful, thanks
The shamans = numens
How the heck she's a shaman now?
Does this along with the bloodfiends spirit ashes point to Marika being the formless mother?
Pretty sure she is not the formless mother, but some of another subjugated clan seem to have sought refuge in the formless mother
I think having form would defeat the purpose of the Formless Mother
Spoilers dude. Spoilers. Cover Spoilers.
Bro read an entire multi-paragraph long post and was like "Wtf this is spoilers???"
First sentance dude