The Lore of Elden Ring is Mesmerising

Deep in the forest by Bonny Village lies the shed skin of a great serpent. Why it's here is a mystery, one the community has yet to unravel. We know from Rykard's lore that serpents like this are reviled, but we don't know why.

We don't know why Messmer has his two winged companions. We don't know why an abyssal serpent writhes within him, nor why Marika, in her fear, sealed it away. But the less we know, the more infinite the possibilities.

And that is what makes Elden Ring's lore so mesmerizing. The circumstances of Messmer's birth are the most fascinating thing about him. Who was his father?

When was he born? Why was he the vessel for both a malevolent snake and an unquenchable fire? That first question is probably the easiest to answer.

Messmer's father is most likely Radagon. For one, Messmer bears Radagon's signature red hair. Second, his boss music seems to carry similar leitmotifs from Radagon's own theme.

And third, most importantly, Messmer has his own butterfly. This is the black pyrefly, which burns in dark and slender ribbons of fire. Named so for Messmer's habit of making a pyre out of his defeated foes.

This butterfly is symbolic of his identity and it's a dark counterpart to the butterflies of Melina, Malenia and Miquella, who are the other children of Marika and Radagon. But this parentage poses a problem for us. Usually we can place Marika's children along the timeline based on her consort.

We know that Godwyn, Mohg and Morgott were born of Marika's union with Godfrey as the age of the Erdtree was beginning. We know Ranni, Rykard and Radahn were born of Radagon's union with Rennala at the conclusion of the Liurnian Wars. And we know that Miquella & Malenia were twins born of Marika's marriage to Radagon, after Radagon returned to become the second Elden Lord.

But since Marika could immaculately conceive with her other half at any time, Messmer, like Melina, could have been born whenever it was convenient to Marika, which makes it way harder to place him upon the timeline. Fortunately, though, we do have some clues. The first comes from the statue of Marika with Messmer in her arms.

Here, you'll notice that Marika's left braid of hair has been severed. The loss of this hair is an important moment in Marika's story, for after she ascended as a God, she returned home and made an offering of her golden braid to the grandmother of her old village. So, from this statue we know that Marika had already ascended as a God when she had Messmer, though perhaps that goes without saying.

Our next clue comes to us from the remembrance of the wild boar rider, which especially in the Japanese description, makes it quite clear that Messmer was an elder brother to Radahn. For context, Radahn was the son of Radagon and Rennala, the Champion of Gold and the Queen of Caria, who were wed at the Church of Vows following the first and second Liurnian Wars. So Messmer was born early enough that Radahn looked up to him like an older brother.

But what else can help us place him? Well, one great suggestion comes from the community. As the theory goes, Messmer the Impaler might have been present during Godfrey's war against the Fire Giants.

The main piece of evidence? The giant corpses are impaled upon spears, a signature of Messmer the Impaler. Perhaps this is where he earned his title.

Further support for this theory comes from the fact that Messmer is technically a knight, referred to as Sir Messmer, and such knighthood is typically earned through notable deeds in battle. Perhaps these were the deeds that led to him becoming known as the Impaler. All that said, this theory isn't perfect.

You'll note that the spears impaling the giants don't perfectly match Messmer's own. Instead, they're actually a perfect match for these stakes in the nearby camps of the Thorn sorcerers. This strongly suggests that it was the Thorn sorcerers, not Messmer, that may have been responsible for the giants impaling.

However, if you still prefer to believe that Messmer was involved here, then there is still a way to argue for it. User TyrionBananaster on Reddit makes the great point that Messmer's modern spear was remade by the forging arts of the Realm of Shadow, a fact that might help to account for this visual discrepancy. It really comes down to you.

Did Messmer develop his impaling technique here alongside the Thorn sorcerers? It's possible, but it's far from a bygone conclusion. Let's move on to the other evidence surrounding Messmer's birth.

According to Godrick's great rune, the first demigods were the Elden Lord Godfrey and his offspring, the golden lineage. If we take this at face value, it certainly seems to suggest that Messmer wasn't Marika's firstborn. Instead, it seems like that title would go to one of Godfrey's children, most likely Godwyn, though perhaps even Mohg or Morgott.

That said, while I do take most item descriptions as absolute truths, this line about the first demigods gives me pause because it reminds me of that other item description that claims Godfrey is the first Elden Lord when he's not. Placidusax is. In truth, Godfrey was merely considered the first Elden Lord, and so I wonder if calling Godfrey and his golden lineage, the first demigods, might be a similar piece of propaganda.

So was Messmer formally considered a part of the golden lineage? Or more likely, was he a bastard demigod born before Godfrey or after, and shunned by him? It's certainly up to your own interpretation.

Whatever the case, one thing is certain. Messmer has lived for a very long time, what his Helm description calls "an eternity of suffering". Another thing that helps convince me of Messmer's old age is the fact that we know so little about the dark Kindling and the wicked serpent within him.

Thus, I feel like his birth could have been closer to a dark period within the lore where we know little. Messmer isn't the only child of Marika cursed with unwelcome entities inside of him. Many of Marika's other children with Radagon too appear to have been suitable hosts.

The clearest example of this is Malenia, who was inhabited at birth by the Outer God of Rot, and her lore seems to suggest that being the child of a single god is the precursor for this phenomenon, where they can be inhabited or cursed. It's as if these children are born more vulnerable than others, and it's as if Marika is able to put this vulnerability to use sometimes. A great example of that is Melina, who I'd hazard is an incarnation of a certain Gloam Eyed Queen.

Since Marika is said to have defeated the Gloam Eyed Queen, Melina's existence may have been a deliberate act with Marika, allowing her enemy to be reborn within her own child, perhaps as a means of wielding the fire within her. For Melina was given a purpose by Marika to burn down the Erdtree. Incidentally, Messmer too bore a vision of fire, and like Melina, the fire within Messmer was fated to incinerate a significant tree.

Perhaps Marika had learned from Messmer just what birthing other entities into her children could be used to accomplish. But I digress. It's currently unclear whether Marika knew that Messmer would be cursed from birth, but cursed he was, cursed to harbor both a wicked serpent and a kindling that would not be extinguished.

The serpent in particular filled Marika with such terror that she plucked out his eye and put in its place a seal of grace. Even so, her fear compelled her to secret away her child within the realm of shadow. Now, there is no lore that talks directly about how or why, or even if the malevolent snake was his curse.

But the lore surrounding such serpents is fascinating. So let's talk about that and compare these other serpents to Messmer. Both the serpent hunter and the serpent god's curved sword speak of an immortal serpent deity that once existed in the distant past, worshipped through sacrifice in a long forgotten religion.

a God so feared that a special weapon was forged to hunt it. And what appears to be this same serpent is what eventually devours Rykard, becoming one with him. Now, Messmer's serpent is physiologically different from the Great Serpent, but there are still some very noteworthy similarities between the two.

Like Rykard's, Messmer's serpent still displays that same propensity to devour the world, stretching its maw over a giant orb, a visual that mirrors the world devouring serpent depicted upon the Devourer's scepter. So perhaps there is not just one undying serpent, but many. After all, Rykard's concept art shows two unbroken eggs beside the broken shell of the Great Serpent.

A hint, perhaps, that others were yet to hatch. And as Rykard himself says, it's not the serpent that never dies, but a serpent never dies, suggesting the immortal Great Serpent was not the only one of its kind. But what else connects this ancient Great Serpent to Messmer?

Well, we also see winged serpent statues throughout Gelmir, which could suggest a connection to Messmer's own. And upon the peak, we find snakes embellishing an ancient artifact of the Giants, tying serpents to the Fell God and and his flame, which could conceivably be the same flame within Messmer. And that's a very interesting theory I want to discuss.

As a reminder, the Fel God is the entity that lurked within the Fire Giants, and sometimes even within fire itself. Its fire is able to burn the Erdtree. So unsurprisingly, it was painted as corrupt and malformed by Queen Marika's regime.

The One Eyed Shield actually goes so far as to say that it's believed Queen Marika killed this evil deity. But that's probably just another example of Golden Order Propaganda. The Fell God inhabits the last Fire Giant when we fight it, so it clearly still lives on, slowly obsessing the minds of the Fire Monks who were tasked with watching over its flame of ruin.

So it's curious that there are snakes embellishing this ancient bowl of the Fel Gods Fire. But there's more to connect snakes to the Fel God. So the giant's flame incantations of the Fire Monks, you may recall, have really distinct names.

This is a common pattern among the incantations of the Flower Fire Monks. And curiously, this same naming scheme is also present on the Serpent Flail, a weapon intended to burn Hornsent with coiled snakes, branding them with agony and fear. Its description says nothing about the Fel God, but its skill is named echoing the incantations of the Fel God's flame.

It's an impressive piece of storytelling to hide a connection to the Fel God in the name of a weapon skill of all things. Credit to user 'callmeclaire' for making me aware of this amazing discovery. So is there still any doubt that Messmer has a connection to the Fel God of Fire?

Messmer's flame does manifest as an orb not unlike the literal flame of the Fel God. Messmer's furnace golems, too, were designed to evoke it. Their masks are surrounded by curled horns depicting the fell God of fire that haunts the sagas of the Hornscent.

This was an intentional act of terror by Messmer to mimic the visage of a God that the Hornscent feared in the form of these walking furnaces. Sure, this could have been nothing more than a strategy to terrorize his foes, but it fell feels so significant that it's Messmer and his flame that brings these avatars of the Fel God and its furnaces to life. I just wish we knew more about these Hornsent sagas that spoke of the Fel God.

The lore on this topic is just so tantalizing. It's just enough for us to start forming theories, but it's not enough for us to land on any one in particular. But there is a fascinating story being teased here of Fel Flame and Serpent gods that could conceivably have crossed paths with Marika and played a part in Messmer's birth.

But how you imagine that story is up to you for now. Can they announce Elden Ring 2 already? But back to what we know for certain.

What we know is that the serpents had an extremely ill reputation in the age of the Erdtree, to the point where in the arena gladiators would be adorned with bronze snakes, for the audience delighted in seeing these bronze effigies beaten and battered. Whether this hatred was justified or manufactured by the Erdtree's order is unknown, but it must have surely shaped Messmer's life. His snakes wouldn't exactly have been easy to hide.

Sure, they're not visible on the statue of him as a baby, but Messmer's helm makes it clear that the winged snakes in particular were his constant companions, wise friends which keep the base serpent at bay. That would have been a crucial role, especially before Marika sealed the base serpent away with her grace. The word 'base' in this context means to lack higher qualities, to be morally low or despicable.

This is probably in reference to the serpent's desire and its propensity to endlessly devour. The base serpent thus stands in contrast to the winged serpents, which are benevolent by comparison. We get the briefest glimpse of the base serpent behind Messmer's eye.

It appears to be knotted, visually similar to the knot that Rykard's great serpent forms. And in that dark hollow, it's feeding on something. Messmer's kindling, a dark thing eaten away at by a wicked serpent.

We know a few things about this fire. First, it's ever burning, not unlike the giant's flame. Second, it can burn the ceiling tree.

Third, it ties Messmer to Melina, who shares a similarly burning butterfly and kindling that is similarly capable of burning the Erdtree. If I had to guess, it's this ever burning flame that has caused Messmer's eternity of suffering. And Messmer's orb reads, So wait, what exactly was Messmer doing to rid himself of his flame?

I wonder, is it possible that in an attempt to rid himself of his fire, Messmer could have fed his kindling to the base serpent? This spell does depict the orb that's inside of the serpent's maw. So, I wonder if there could be a story being told here.

The story of a dark serpent that consumed Messmer's essence. Not unlike the great serpent that consumed Rykard and became one with him. Indeed, Messmer and the base serpent are one entity, as you can see in phase two of his boss fight.

Look closely and you'll notice that the snake shares his greasy red hair and that same savaged right eye. Under this interpretation, the serpent would not have freed him from his flame. Instead, Messmer's fire would have become serpentine, attaining those serpentine black streaks from the abyssal serpent that had become one with him.

But to be clear, this is just speculation. It's entirely possible that Messmer was just born with the twin snakes and born with the abyssal serpent and his kindling altogether. Without learning the circumstances of his birth, we may never know for sure.

At some point, Messmer tried to offer his serpentine fire to his knights, but alas, it would not find purchase within them. I think this phrasing is deliberate, since finding purchase within is wording that Tanith also uses when she wishes that the serpentine Rykard would find purchase within her. "Dear Rykard, please find purchase within me.

" Since it would not inhabit them, Messmer's knights honoured their bond with him by incanting his flame instead. This serpentine fire bends and curls in pursuit of its foes, evoking other pursuit spells like death Rancor or hexis from the Souls series. Pursuit spells such as these are typically alive in some way, whether they're vengeful spirits or dregs drawn to life.

Messmer's embers were found all over after the Crusade, and they were smoldering as if crawling across the ground. So his fire really does appear to be alive. So alive, in fact, that it can actually substitute the role of a spirit calculus and fit inside a raw burrow to release a boisterous fire sprite.

The spirituality of this fire is what led an elder of the Fire Knights, a man named Weigo, to use Messmer's flame in a rite of resurrection, bringing soulless bodies to life. "Fire, take seed in death and rise again! " This was done in a bid to quell his loneliness.

But the walking corpses were of no comfort to the poor man. Interestingly, no lore mentions Marika fearing Messmer's fire. Rather, it only mentions that she fears the malevolent snake.

She so feared it that she plucked out her son's own eye and replaced it with a seal of grace instead. Yet, even having done so, her fear still compelled her to secret away her child within the realm of shadow, where he could be hidden. The Seal of Grace given to Messmer is a sort of crystal eye engraved with Marika's own Elden rune.

It's essentially identical to Marika's saw seal, which has a description that's particularly relevant to Messmer and his his role in The Realm of Shadow that reads, And to a degree, this seal appears to exert an influence over Messmer, for it's only when he shatters it that he lets forth his true feelings. "Mother. Marika.

A curse upon thee! " After all, similar to Messmer's eye is the Iris of Grace, an item that you can find in game. It features Marika's rune overlaid with an incantation of the Erdtree, granting a fleeting blessing when placed upon the eye.

Its counterpart is the Iris of Occlusion, something that can deny one light in all its forms. In the realm of Shadow, these artificers were employed by the priests of the Erdtree to quell or intensify the fears of their flock to magnificent effect. And speaking of the priests of the Erdtree, we've heard of them before.

The Flask of Wondrous Physick is described as a relic of these same priests who are said to have been physick chemists, utilizing in their brews crystal dew that would weep from the boughs of minor oak trees. Marika herself practiced such physick chemistry, and her ultimate creation was the Blessing of Marika, the ultimate healing item to Messmer, who likely suffered thanks to the fire within him. These physics offered rare relief, for Marika once created several of these physics for Messmer's sake, but then never again.

Presumably this mercy ended when Messmer was sealed away in the realm of Shadow. So perhaps there was real affection between the two. For all of Marika's fear, she did offer him relief.

Messmer also had his soldiers and black knights, some of whom he even considered brothers in arms. But perhaps his closest companion was Gaius, described as both Messmer's friend and the leader of his men. Like Messmer, Gaius was as an elder brother to Radahn, and the two trained under the same alabaster lord, whose tutelage led them to discover powerful gravitational sorceries, products of their friendly rivalry with each other.

And just like Messmer, Gyas was cursed from birth. He was a warrior of albinauric extraction. And as we know, first generation Albinaurics like this famously have no control of their lower body, relying instead on mounts like wolves, horses, or in Gaius case, a boar.

That was his other half. In spite of this Albinauric curse, or perhaps because of this very reason, there was a kinship between Gaius and Messmer. Indeed, the lore makes quite a few mentions of Messmer valuing friends and brothers in arms.

He seems to have had a pretty amicable nature, which must have made his fate all the more painful. For, on his mother's wishes, Messmer made himself a symbol of fear, undertaking the cleansing crusade she desired. In doing so, Messmer declared, Yet Messmer was not the only one to suffer the consequences of his ill reputation.

His Fire Knights, who each and all hailed from a renowned family of the Erdtree's upper echelons, were shunned and chased from their homes after pledging allegiance to Messmer as their master. Twinned golden snake snakes adorn the necks of these knights. Yes, they have the gold of order, and yes, these knights are aligned with the Erdtree.

But the snake clearly remains a despised symbol. And allegiance to Messmer was thus a stain on the reputations of these highborne families, who probably believed their children could do better. Yet the Fire Knights were the only ones who truly knew Messmer, his flames like serpents, and the painful fate that accompanied his accursed form.

A part of this painful fate was likely having to make himself a symbol of fear without ever revealing that truth to the masses. As there was a reason Marika instructed her son to make himself a symbol of fear. It's because she had a task for him.

One that she should not be closely associated with. A vile crusade unbecoming of a queen. A purge without grace or honour.

A crusade started by Messmer, son of Marika. Have you ever noticed how bored Messmer sounds in his voice lines? "Those stripped of the grace of gold shall all" "meet death in the embrace of Messmer's flame.

" Some people have chalked this up to bad voice acting, but I don't think so. FromSoftware has a painstaking process for recording NPC dialogue. There's an excellent interview on that.

I'll link in the description. And every line is recorded with Miyazaki himself overseeing the situation. So if Messmer sounds tired, disinterested, it's deliberate.

And I think it's because they aren't really his words. They're the words of the crusade. Thus, Messmer exhaustedly, almost sarcastically, intones the words, even as he faces off against the graceless tarnished.

"O lightless creature, embrace thine oblivion. " "As shall I. " Now compare this to the way Queline speaks.

A man who zealously serves the crusade. So desperate is he to become a second Impaler. "Queen Marika.

" "Behold. " "I have excised another. " "Another Cancer to thy joy.

" While the tarnished are graceless, it's clear that the true targets of the Crusade were the Hornsent. For, as you may know, they were the ones who wronged Marika and her kin long ago. And so, Messmer's army burns them with his fire in return, branding them with agony and fear.

When I say it like that, it's easy to think that this crusade took place not long after Marika ascended to godhood at the Hornscent's Gate of Divinity. But that can't be right. There had to have been a period of peace between Marika and the Hornscent.

A time to set the stage for what was their eventual betrayal. So there's debate over when exactly the crusade took place, but there is a consensus that it must have at least have been some time before Rennala was broken by Radagon, abandoning her. For Rennala, Queen of Caria, was lucid enough to give away a lock of her lustrous black hair, a gift to her sister Rellana, who renounced her lineage to chase after Messmer and follow him into war.

In order to prove her loyalty to the Erdtree, Rieanna entered the arena. Ritual combat was once a custom performed to honour the Erdtree. And so she donned her Carian thrusting shield and proved her loyalty alone.

It's clear Rellanna went on to have a huge impact in the realm of Shadow. And I mean that literally, for here at the town of Morth, the buildings have fallen into the broken earth. The town's lynchpin stone, intended to prevent earthquakes, has broken, and one eyewitness account claimed that the moon itself had come tumbling down.

This was the impact of Rellana's twin moon. In her youth, she and her elder sister Rennala met the twin moons, overlapping as though nestled against one another. So, just as her elder sister had the full moon and Ranni had the dark moon, Rellanna had the twin moons.

Many Carians pledged to follow Rellanna wherever her lunar vessel would take her, and left their homeland behind in this act of unparalleled devotion. The wolf was engraved on the wolf crest shield for them as a symbol of the moon's pride that none can forget, no matter what remote lands they may arrive in. Ymir was here too.

He once instructed Rellanna in the sorceress arts and had an allegiance to the moon, though he would later abandon it, claiming, Even the Trolls came, sworn to service. Fighting alongside them was Moonrithyll, the Twin Moon Knights Chamberlain, who was a friend to the Trolls, proudly wielding their weapons as she fought arm in arm with her gargantuan comrades. Speaking of the Trolls, once the astrologers who studied the night sky were neighbours with the Fire Giants.

And the Sword of Night and Flame was forged to commemorate that unity. A unity between the Night sky and the Fell God of Fire. Those times are long past.

But here, in the realm of Shadow, would Moon and Fire be ever together? For Rellana remained loyal to the Twin Moon and to Messmer and his Flame. Her helmet description claims that she chased after him, which I think suggests that she had an affection for him.

Just like her elder sister, who also clearly had a thing for men with red hair. But just like Radagon, who would abandon Rennala for Marika, Messmer doesn't give any signs that he returns Rellana's affection. Nor does he seem comforted by her presence.

And Rellana seems to have anticipated this as she pursued him, Indeed, Messmer keeps to himself in the dark, brooding over betrayal and the painful fate that his mother left him to fulfill. Sadly, unbeknownst to Messmer, his mother is long gone and could not return to him even if she wanted to. A phantom in Castle Ensys laments.

"Oh Marika! I beg, embrace your child and give us a sign. " "How long must this holy war stretch on?

" If it sounds like I've skipped over the actual battle against the Hornsent, you're right, I kind of have. Because I'd argued that the defining element of the war was not the fight against the Hornsent. Everything seems to point to this being a very one sided battle.

No, instead, I think the defining element of this war was how long it was forced to stretch on, leading to the fatigue of all involved. That said, of course the Hornscent did fight back with the sculpted Keepers, whose lion dance ritual was turned towards martial ends, and with the Cursed Blades, who were a scourge to the Hornsent and the invaders both. But they were ultimately defeated.

The sculpted keepers were impaled and burned in an act witnesses later described as a funeral pyre for the tower itself. And the Tower of Anir Elim was sealed away in shadow. Sealed by a tree that is actually a scaled down version of the Scadutree.

Just as Marika and the two Fingers have control over light, so too do they often wield Shadow. And with shadowy thorns encasing Enir Ilim, Hornsent culture was broken beyond repair. Even if some Hornsent live on, it's as Hornscent himself.

"Indeed, I think it rather plain to see. " "Things once broken can never be the same. " Before the tower was sealed, it towered over the invaders.

And as the people of the Erdtree sacked the land of the Tower, the majesty of the Tower was burned into their memory, even inspiring a secret faith in some. Though it was not enough to sway them, for the soldiers who joined the crusade had been showered in runes and rewarded with grace aplenty. Still, the catch was that these soldiers could not be properly honored in death.

They would not return to the Erdtree's roots and to the faithful citizens of the lands between who hope to cheat death. This is a dire fate indeed. But they still had the Scadutree, the shadow of the Erdtree.

The Scadutree is this enduring curiosity in Elden Ring lore, so omnipresent in the dlc, and yet so devoid of any significant detail in the game's many item descriptions? Figuring out when it came to exist has been something I've been trying to puzzle out. In a previous video, I proposed that it came to exist in the moment that Marika sealed away the realm of Shadow behind the Veil.

But I'm starting to change my mind. I'm starting to think that it's been there since the Erdtree's own beginnings. After all, it's born of dark notions that bear no sense of order, and this duality is the reason Grace shines ever so brilliantly.

So perhaps there was always the Erdtree and this Scadutree that was everything Marika did not want, and thus the Erdtree was everything that shone brilliantly. Like the Erdtree, the Shadow Tree still seems to draw from the gold of the Crucible SAP that was proudly collected at the Black Keep with this giant structure that broadcasts to the entire land that the SAP is theirs, and in it went into the chalice of the Sharu Tree, where that SAP was later scattered to the Furnace golems who drop such crystal tears. So if we assume that the furnace golems of Messmer's Crusade always had the sap of the Scadutree within them, as the DLC Crystal Tear description states, then the Scadutree kind of has to have existed before the start of the war, which the furnace golems were created for, and thus the Scadutree probably existed alongside the Erdtree since its inception as well.

Its existence has probably just been a secret until now, but let me know if you guys think that I'm off base with that one. To many, in the realm of Shadow, the image of the misshapen Scadutree became an edict, a proclamation that one should spurn all that exists and wound all that exists. So read the Thorn spells which were the sorceries of those who abandoned the practice of incantations after devout faith rewarded them with only despair.

Denounce their ways, do them harm, for we have been abandoned. Blessed boneshards are found throughout Messmer's fortifications. These are special bone fragments that can be turned into light by the Rite of the Golden Vow, which honours the comrades who placed the faith in the distant Erdtree and gave their lives in the Crusade.

Their bone fragments have this power because they've been touched by the gold of the Scadutree. It's a reminder of the Scadutree's power, and indeed, there's something to be said for merely being in its presence. Take the Shadow sunflowers, for example, which only bloom when facing the Scadutree and are suffused with profound holiness much akin to the Scadutree itself.

Thus, to be hidden from the Scadutree's sight would be a severe indictment of an individual. And one such instance of this exists with Messmer's soldier ashes, which read, An ignoble penal battalion would have been a unit comprised of disgraced soldiers, warriors assigned to fight as a form of punishment, maybe, or perhaps as a path to redemption. If it's the latter, the fact that their ashes were disgraced with a hidden burial would be all the more tragic.

Now, it's unclear whether all of Messmer's soldiers comprise the penal battalion or whether it was just these two, but I'm inclined to think it was just them. Either way, it's very interesting that Messmer was willing to send the guilty to war, especially if you believe that Messmer was a part of the war against the giants, because that war, or the aftermath at least involved the sinful Thorn sorcerers as well. The Scadutree is all many in the realm of Shadow have left.

The armour of those soldiers as well as the Black Knights has a gold Scadutree motif engraved on the chest plate. It was a small consolation to those forced to wage a war without grace or honour. Yet for some, the Scadutree wasn't enough.

In a small cave on Scadu Altus, a fledgling Erdtree grows surreptitiously, being tended to by the most proficient of gardeners, perfumers. And elsewhere, another golden tree grows in a courtyard of the Shadowkeep. These are akin to minor erdtrees, or illusory trees, which, early in the age of the Erdtree, likely were not around, as the Erdtree was thought to have been perfect and eternal.

And thus was it believed that Erdtree seeds could not exist. But exist they did, scattering across the various lands when the Elden Ring was shattered, as if life itself knew that its end had come. And in that moment, too did the Erdtree avatars emerge from the minor erdtrees, determined to protect the withering Erdtree's offspring.

So for a long time, I thought that minor erdtrees across the entire lands between only came to exist when golden seeds flew from the Erdtree in the wake of the Shattering. But that can't be true, because then how could these trees be here? The Shattering happened after this realm was split off for the Crusade, so the trees here must have been planted before the Shattering, right?

Unless you believe that people and things like Erdtree seeds could be brought across the Vale, in which case a lot of the timeline becomes extremely complicated. Anyway, now, I think that the Age of Plenty with the Erdtree came swiftly to a close, and then minor erdtrees like these were grown all across the lands, with their sap being collected in basins by the physick chemists. I think one of these trees was even grown here in the Shadowkeep itself, where we can see Hornsent.

Loyal to the Erdtree are accustomed to praying. But this tree that the Perfumers tend to is smaller, suggesting, I think, that it was grown more recently, perhaps after the Perfumers were brought to the Realm of Shadow. Gardening certainly wasn't what they were brought here to do.

The Crusade was a violent purge, and the Perfumers were not called there to heal. Still near the Perfumers, we loot heal from afar, which is an erdtree incantation discovered in the Realm of Shadow. It reads, Their faith persists, but their practices suffer because erdtree enchantments are all but a lost art in the Realm of Shadow.

And truthfully, even the faithful have begun to suspect how bad things are outside. For when the Elden Ring was shattered, the people of the Realm of Shadow felt it too, and feared it as a sign of the Erdtree's wrath. This is information learned from an incantation that's found in the rafters of the specimen storehouse.

So it's hidden way out of sight. And I imagine that the shattering might have been one truth too many for the people of the Realm of Shadow, whose faith was already waning. Indeed, it's rare to find a statue of Marika in this place that is not defaced.

Literally. A phantom in the Shadowkeep gives voice to this wavering belief. "No, such a thing is utterly inconceivable.

" "We have not been abandoned. " Messmer is the son of Queen Marika. Her Grace would never abandon her own flesh and blood.

Maybe this is why there needed to be a fort of Reprimand. A place where many were reprimanded. Even those blessed with Marika's own grace were hunted down and slain like Omen.

But remarkably, rebellion did rise from a Black Knight of all people. The Black Knights were the primary force of Messmer's army. With weighty shields meant to symbolize their iron conviction in the crusade.

The Black Knights will never yield, nor will they ever doubt their purpose. Wishful thinking, for the Black Knights didn't even fully understand the nature or potential of the impurity they were facing. Thus does the pearl shield talisman boost all types of non physical damage reduction.

Or for all they knew, tainted by their own blackened souls festering after endless slaughter. Is it any surprise then that once the dust had settled, the Black Knights began to question their purpose? A Japanese description here makes it clear that like the other soldiers in the war, Andreas was driven away from the Erdtree.

But that despite being a devout follower of Messmer, he would rebel after learning of his leisure's serpentine nature. This is strange, considering the winged serpent is literally the token creature of Messmer's military forces. So surely it was obvious that Messmer had a serpentine nature.

Either Andreas was totally oblivious, or he glimpsed something deeper. Or more disturbing. Maybe he glimpsed the abyssal serpent.

We know this happened sometime after the Divine Beast Hunt, thanks to the ashes of Andrea's son, Hugh, who afterwards followed his father Andreas into rebellion against Messmer, only to be rewarded with imprisonment in an underground tomb. Messmer mourned the loss of a brother in Arms. How bad must the snake's reputation have been for it to have made Messmer's most devout knights rebel?

It wasn't the the shrieks of sorrow from those they were killing. It wasn't the horror of the Crusade itself. Instead, it was their commander's serpentine nature.

I guess, to many of the Erdtree, the Crusade itself was beyond questioning, for they were certain of the sanctity of their campaign and invigorated by each cry of death. But Messmer was a different matter entirely. Ironically, it was actually those closest to Messmer, his Fire Knights, who questioned the Crusade on moral grounds.

One of them still stands guard at the bridge to Roar, risking his life to protect an old ruin. This is Saltzer, the sage, disciple of the elder Wego, who we mentioned earlier. Soltzer are asked if we reduce to ash this land, this land against which we hold no grievance, no ill will, are we any better than barbarians?

And his disdain for barbarism never waned, even as he burned more villages and scorched more land than any other. I suspect it was Saltzer who prevailed upon Messmer to create the specimen storehouse with within the Black Keep, a place for the preservation of Hornsent culture, a museum of sorts, actually tended to by loyal Hornsent scholars, folk of burned body and soul, who ironically incant coils of Messmer's own fire, the same fire thrown by Messmer's rank and file soldiers. A dear friend of Saltzer was the fire knight Hilde, who joined those that urged that the specimens be preserved.

And so Hilde's ashes were enshrined here, a charm to protect the storehouse. Messmer, for his part, showed his compassionate side within the Black Keep as well, curating a wing dedicated to the care of the Jar Saints, the shaman, his kin, who were tortured by the Hornsent long ago. Though it has long fallen into ruin, it's a reminder of the real reason for the crusade against the Hornscent.

A cycle of vengeance that goes on and on, of curses realized and placed anew. "Mother. Marika.

A curse upon thee! " As we close out this video, I'd like to go over a few topics that are more open to interpretation. I'd like to talk about who Messmer's soldiers might have been in an age long past, what the Black Keep might have meant, and why the serpent skin in Bonny Village might be there to begin.

There was a time before Marika's ascent to godhood, where the realm of shadow was not separate, but rather simply a part of the lands between. Back then, here roamed the Highlanders, fierce axe wielding warriors who hunted bears and chased glory. In our previous video, I discussed their connection to Hoarah Loux, their greatest warrior, who would later abandon his Highlander roots to become Elden Lord Godfrey.

And naturally, I suspect many of his Highlander kin followed suit, leaving their past behind. Yet, perhaps, traces remain in the men who became Messmer's soldiers, though they now serve the Impaler, wielding spears. I suspect there's more to them than meets the eye, for like Godfrey, they favour axes.

Like Godfrey, they specialize in charge attacks. And like Hoarah Loux, they roar. And like Hoarah Loux, they can shake the earth itself with their stomp attacks.

So, were these Highlanders drafted into Messmer's ranks after Godfrey became Elden Lord, or did their culture simply evolve over time? Or am I completely wrong? Now, I feel pretty confident, at least, putting forward this theory, considering we never see the old Highlanders as an enemy type in game.

So I love the theory that they might have slipped into becoming something else in the age of Godfrey, a people aligned with grace, though later they would become divorced from it. To them, the grace of gold would be a distant memory. Messmer's Black Knights, too, seem tied to the land that they would later forever occupy.

According to Ashes, they had command over the powers of the Crucible, which flourished in this region. Godfrey's Crucible knights, too, were in tune with the powers of the Crucible. And since we can place Godfrey's heritage in this region, it makes sense that we might be able to trace his Crucible Knights back here as well.

So if all of these factions were long standing in this area, who's to say the structures in the realm of Shadow weren't long standing too? This brings us to the Black Keep, for it also contains signs of an older culture, one related to death, as it was in the age before the Erdtree. Here in the Black Keep, Messmer is cremating his warriors, turning their remains into light.

But what's curious is that this ritual is taking place within boats, funerary boats that are an exact match for those piloted by the Tibia Mariners, the oldest gravekeepers and boatsmen who can summon the dead. We've learned a little bit more about the mariners in the shadow of the Erdtree. Interestingly, they're quite sad beings.

The Polter Stone is this contrivance they devised, and it creates a noise imitative of human presence where it lands, which was used by the Gravekeepers to distract themselves from their longing for company. But the most important piece of lore for them isn't an item description. It's a place.

where one river-boatsman remains watching over those at rest. What's important here is the name Charo, for Charon is a figure from Greek myth, the ferryman of the underworld, whose role is to transport the souls of the dead across the River Styx. This confirms what we've long suspected, the Mariners are a guiding lantern in the mist to the dead, who are in sore need of leadership and have long been left to wander.

So the similarity of the boats used by the Mariners and Messmer suggests the Black Keep might have had a deeper tie to the culture of death in this land. But that's not the only connection. Helphen's steeple is an extremely curious item that was dropped by a mariner in the base game.

It's a greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world. For years, we've wondered what the Helphin might be exactly, and now we have another theory to add to the list. What if the Helphen was once the Black Keep?

As I learned from Quelaag in her video about the Shadowlands, Helphen's serrated steeple kind of looks like the jagged steeples of the Black Keep, making us wonder whether this keep had a different role in the past and that it might have been a place that was simply taken over by Messmer rather than being built by him. While a lot of this is circumstantial evidence and speculation, you can't deny that there's signs of older traditions enduring here. The Highlanders, the Helphen, funerary rites, the Serpent's reputation.

It's these things that make the world of Elden Ring feel real and lived in even across all of the ages, that we don't get to witness in game. Let's end this video with one of the biggest secrets in the DLC, the Shed Serpent skin found by Bonny Village. Man, what is it with FromSoftware and leaving us unanswerable questions about serpents at the end of their DLCs?

I'm not going to pretend to know exactly what's going on with it yet. Instead, I'm going to leave you with a few observations and let those inspire your conclusions. My first note is that the Serpent skin is found near the statue that reveals the "O Mother!

" emote, which you later use to gain access to the shaman village hidden behind the Black Keep. For this statue to be so close to the serpent, I think suggests a connection to either Messmer or Marika. My second point is that this serpent is not physiologically similar to Messmer's serpent.

Rather, it's a perfect match for the God Devouring Serpent's visage and Iglay as well for that matter. As a reminder, Iglay is that flayed serpent skin that's spread over the altar in her church at Gelmir, and below it we loot the serpent's amnion, an item that's tied to Raya, who was the poor unwanted offspring of this repellent birthing ritual. It's a common trend in Elden Ring for smaller NPC stories to mirror and help explain more important stories, and so I wouldn't be surprised if Raya's repellent birthing ritual could help to explain the circumstances of Messmer's own birth and what's going on with the serpent that took root inside of him.

Perhaps Messmer was born of a repellent birthing ritual as well. It's also worth noting that a godskin dwells in the church of Iglay, which could in turn suggest a connection to the Gloam Eyed Queen. The godskins are somewhat serpentine, with bodies that can stretch much in the same manner as a man serpent.

The godskin noble robe states that nobles are the most ancient apostles who are said to have assimilated inhuman physiology not unlike the Crucible. And there's even a spirit calling snail, which is actually a serpent that summons godskins in your battle with it in the Spiritcaller Cave. That's a fair amount of overlap, but it's impossible to be sure.

If you'd like to share what this story might look like to you, drop your ideas in the comments and I'll pin my favorite interpretation at the top for everyone to read. Thanks for being here and I'll see you in the next one.