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Elden Ring lore and story explainedTime for a refresher of the entire Elden Ring mythos, ready for Shadow Of The Erdtree
Time for a refresher of the entire Elden Ring mythos, ready for Shadow Of The Erdtree
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Want to brush up on your Elden Ring lore?It’s certainly a good time to revisit the story, with the colossalShadow Of The ErdtreeDLC mere days away. Over the past two years,Elden Ringhas become just about my favourite game of all time, and a large part of that came from diving deep into themythos and story of Elden Ringand learning just how much I missed on my first couple of playthroughs.
Elden Ring’s mythos was constructed as a joint project between FromSoft head Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R. R. Martin, which should give you an idea of just how deep and deranged the story gets. But we’re going to break it all down into easily absorbed chunks of lore in this, our ultimateElden Ring lore guide.
Below, we’ll take you from the prehistoric times before the Erdtree and the Golden Order, back when there was nothing except Dragons, Giants, and otherworldly Outer Gods. And from there, we’ll explain Marika’s rise and conquest of the Lands Between, the various demigods that rose during this time, the fateful Night Of Black Knives and the Shattering; and finally the player character’s journey through the world of Elden Ring, and what it all means.
The story of Elden Ring:
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Chapter 1: The Time Before The Erdtree
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The entirety of Elden Ring lore seems to begin with an entity called The Great One. Sadly, it’s an entity about which we know basically nothing, except that The Great One was the source from which all things split. And that includes two Outer Gods known as the Greater Will, and the Frenzied Flame (who loosely represent Order and Chaos respectively).
Left: The Two Fingers, vassal of the Greater Will. Right: The Three Fingers, vassal of the Frenzied Flame. Note that together, they make a full five-fingered hand. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
The Greater Will’s envoys are creatures called the Two Fingers, while the Frenzied Flame’s envoy(s) are the Three Fingers. Throughout Elden Ring the player encounters many Two Fingers, most of them dead. One of the only ones remaining lives inside theRoundtable Hold. It’s unknown whether there were multiple Three Fingers in the world once, but during the events of the game, only one is known to exist deep belowLeyndell, the Royal Capital.
But the Greater Will, true to its name, went a step further in imposing control over the world. It sent a star hurtling into the world carrying anElden Beast. Imbued with some of the Greater Will’s power, the Elden Beast immediately set about its task: to transform itself into a structure called The Elden Ring.
But sending the Elden Beast down to transform itself into the Elden Ring was only one part of the Greater Will’s plan. The next step was to recruit a viceroy who could rule over The Lands Between as the Greater Will’s representative. Enter Queen Marika.
When all’s said and done, Queen Marika is probably the most important character in all of Elden Ring. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 2: The Golden Order Begins
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We only know of one other Empyrean chosen at this time - a person (or creature) called The Gloam-Eyed Queen. You know how the Greater Will and the Frenzied Flame were like two sides of the same coin? Order and Chaos? Well, Marika and the Gloam-Eyed Queen represented a similar duality. Marika represented Life Eternal, while the Gloam-Eyed Queen represented Destined Death.
Every Empyrean gets a loyal Shadowbound Beast, and Marika’s was the creature known as Maliketh. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/FromSoftware
Marika sent Maliketh to fight the Gloam-Eyed Queen, and Maliketh dutifully slew his mistress’s rival. Marika then retrieved from the dead queen’s corpse the Great Rune governing death itself, and gave it to Maliketh to guard forevermore. Maliketh stowed Destined Death inside his giant sword, earning him the moniker: Maliketh, The Black Blade.
Godfrey, First Elden Lord, carries the Lord Of Beasts, Serosh, upon his back. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 3: Godfrey And The First Demigods
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Just about every corner of The Lands Between had factions and races who didn’t take kindly to the idea of this new Golden Order coming out of nowhere to rule over reality itself. Marika was about to begin a series of long and savage wars for control. And for that, she needed an army, and a leader.
For this task, she chose a legendary warchief called Hoarah Loux. Hoarah Loux became one of Marika’s foremost weapons alongside the more recondite Maliketh. His only shortcoming was his bloodlust, to which end he made a pact with a Lord Of Beasts called Serosh. Hoarah Loux would carry Serosh on his back henceforth, to quell his lust for battle. Seems a bit extreme, but who knows, maybe that’s the mental health cure we’ve all been waiting for.
It was also at this point that Marika chose Hoarah Loux to become her husband. And Hoarah Loux adopted a new name befitting Marika’s new Golden Order: Godfrey. And as Marika’s husband, Godfrey became known as the land’s first Elden Lord.
Marika and Godfrey had three children: Godwyn,Morgott, andMohg. Godwyn was the golden child (no literally, he was known as Godwyn The Golden), and he became a powerful warrior like his father. The twins Morgott and Mohg, however, were born with deformities: horns sprouted every which way from their bodies; so too did tails and wings.
The Omen Twins: Morgott (left) and Mohg (right). |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
These deformities made them “Omen”, and according to Marika’s Golden Order, Omen were shunned. Too much of a reminder of the melting pot of life that was the Crucible, in the age before the Erdtree. Omen are usually killed at birth - that’s how taboo it is. But because they were Marika’s own, she simply cast them out into the sewers beneath the capital, as would any decent caring mother.
Thus, the Golden Lineage - the first demigods - was formed. And while Mohg and Morgott were too horny to be of much use, Godwyn would prove himself useful to Marika and Godfrey in the wars ahead.
Fire Giants once dominated the lands north of Leyndell. Now there is only one left. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 4: The Fire Giants
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One of the most powerful creatures in Elden Ring is the Dragonlord Placidusax, whose stone scales can alter time itself. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 5: The Ancient Dragons
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Look up while in Leyndell and you can see the remains of Gransax, the largest dragon ever to exist. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Unlike the Fire Giants, several of the Ancient Dragons managed to survive this war (though many didn’t). Placidusax retreated to its seat of power in Farum Azula and continued to await its god’s return. The Ancient Dragon Fortissax fought a legendary one-on-one fight against Godwyn The Golden, and lost. But Godwyn spared Fortissax’s life, and the two became friends. In fact, it was this union more than anything which resulted in the end of the war, and the rise of the Ancient Dragon Cult as an accepted teaching within the Golden Order.
There is also mention of a mysterious “Stormlord” which Godfrey himself faced alone at some point. We don’t know who the Stormlord is for sure, but many (I included) suspect it was Placidusax, who after all is lord of Farum Azula, where an endless storm rages beyond time. So, it sounds like perhaps Godfrey and Placidusax clashed, just as Godwyn and Fortissax clashed, and Godfrey forced Placidusax into hiding. When the player sees Placidusax in-game, the Dragonlord is missing three of its five heads. Potentially they were lost at the hands of Godfrey.
Unexpectedly, Marika faced her greatest threat in Liurnia, against the Carian Royals. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 6: The War Ends
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There were really only a couple more major threats that Marika needed to take care of after the Giants and the Dragons. One was the Nox - a grey-skinned people who sought to combat the ever-growing influence of the Greater Will. They fashioned Mirrorhelms - helmets made from a crystalline glass, which “wards off the intervention of the Greater Will and its vassal Fingers”. And perhaps even more significantly - they created a weapon called the Fingerslayer Blade, which is “said to be able to harm the Greater Will and its vassals”.
Of course, that didn’t go down too well with the Greater Will, so Marika banished the Nox deep underground, where they remained in their Eternal Cities ofNokronand Nokstella, awaiting an age that would take them beyond the influence of the Greater Will and other Outer Gods.
It was during these wars that a Golden Order warrior namedRadagoncame to renown, leading the armies while presumably Godfrey was busy with Giants or Dragons (or making wee little demigods with Marika). The red-haired champion Radagon proved himself as worthy of Marika’s Golden Order as any who came before him, even Godfrey himself. But it was during these two challenging wars that the unlikely pair of Radagon and Rennala fell in love. Their union and marriage brought about an unexpectedly peaceful end to the prolonged bloodshed of the Liurnian wars.
The three children of Rennala and Radagon. From left to right: Radahn, Rykard, Ranni. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 7: Rennala’s Demigod Children
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In the years following the end of the Liurnian wars, Rennala and Radagon had three children, all of them demigods. The three children of Rennala and Radagon were:Radahn,Rykard, andRanni. Yes, all the “R” names are giving me a headache too.
Radahn grew to be a mountain of a man, a fierce warrior like his father, and an exceptionally powerful practitioner of gravitational magic. Rykard, meanwhile, fused himself to a world-devouring snake. There’s always one, isn’t there.
After the war, Godfrey and his army were banished from the Lands Between, becoming the first Tarnished. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 8: The Long March Of The Tarnished
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With the Carians pacified, Marika’s conquest of The Lands Between was more or less complete. And it was around this time that she began to look inward, towards the Golden Order and the Greater Will itself. Melina repeats Marika’s words to us at one point in-game: “Those blissful early days of blind belief are long past”, she states. No longer would Marika be a blind obedient slave to the Greater Will.
As it happens, the moment the war ended and the armies were no longer necessary, Marika had divested Godfrey and his armies of theirGrace, their holy connection to the Erdtree and the Golden Order. She banished them from The Lands Between: “With thine eyes dimmed, ye will be driven from The Lands Between. Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live, and die”.
Godfrey abandoned his Golden Order moniker, and became known as Hoarah Loux once more. And he and his armies became known as “Tarnished” - those who have lost the Grace of the Erdtree. They left The Lands Between and entered the realm known as the Badlands, where, as Marika stated, they would live and die away from the eternal life of Marika’s Golden Order. Thus, they grew stronger over the generations.
Chapter 9: The Betrayal
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One of the great secrets of Elden Ring is revealed to us via a statue of Radagon found in Leyndell, into which the sculptor apparently buried a secret he found about Radagon. Stand in front of this statue and cast the Law Of Regression Incantation towards it, and the truth is revealed as the statue turns from Radagon into Marika.
Turns out, RadagonisMarika. The two people are one and the same. Whether this was always the case or whether Radagon somehowbecamepart of Marika, no one is sure. But viewed in this light, the seemingly happy ending to the Liurnian wars becomes rather more duplicitous. Having encountered more resistance than expected from the Carians, Marika instead seduced Rennala under the guise of Radagon in order to bring about peace.
The only thing Radagon left behind for Rennala was an amber egg, containing the Great Rune Of The Unborn, a small part of the Elden Ring associated with rebirth. The heartbroken Rennala would cradle this amber egg, using its power to rebirth her scholars again and again until they became husks of their former selves.
Malenia and her brother Miquella were both born from a single god: Marika herself. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 10: The Pure Demigods
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In a rather incestuous twist, Marika and Radagon - both the same person, remember - ended up having two more children. Don’t think about that too much.
Second: Malenia and Miquella were both born cursed, presumably because of the unusual and slightly incestuous nature of their birth. Miquella was cursed with eternal youth, while Malenia was cursed with aScarlet Rotsickness.
The stage, now, is more or less set for the Shattering. A quick roundup: we have Marika, and her Golden Order. Her greatest assets: Radagon, Maliketh, and the backing of the Greater Will. Godfrey and his armies have been banished from The Lands Between, and they have become the first Tarnished.
Meanwhile, we have three sets of demigod children. Godwyn, and the Omen twins Morgott and Mohg, were born from Marika and Godfrey. Then later, Radagon (who is Marika) and Rennala had three more children: Radahn, Rykard, and Ranni. And finally, Marika and Radagon has the cursed twins, Malenia and Miquella.
Now, let’s watch Marika’s Golden Order unravel.
Radahn used his legendary gravitational powers to conquer the stars themselves. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 11: Radahn Defeats The Stars
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Radahn, son of Radagon and Rennala, was a giant of a man. And in an act that instantly makes him one of my favourite characters in the entire Elden Ring mythos, he learnt gravitational magic in order to still be able to ride his scrawny little horse without crushing it. Isn’t that just brilliant?
He wasn’t a self-taught gravity practitioner though. His mentor was an Alabaster Lord hailing from the sorcerous town of Sellia, in Caelid. Through the Alabaster Lord’s guidance, Radahn became extremely powerful in the gravitational arts. And his power was already formidable, even for a child of Marika. The Starscourge Heirloom item description in-game calls him “mightiest hero of the demigods”.
In any case, Radahn’s conquering of the stars had massive implications, particularly for a certain other demigod: his sister, Lunar Princess Ranni. Ranni had a strong affinity with the stars and the night sky; indeed, her ending in Elden Ring is called the Age Of Stars. Her destiny is wrapped up in the movement of the stars - and with the stars in stasis, so too was Ranni’s destiny. It’s unknown whether either of them were aware of this, but from the moment Radahn conquered the stars, it became impossible for Ranni to fully realise her goals while Radahn still lived.
Possibly the most fateful night in the entire Elden Ring mythos was the Night Of Black Knives, where Godwyn The Golden perished. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 12: The Night Of Black Knives
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Armed with such powers, Ranni made her move. One night, she visited Marika’s Shadow, Maliketh, in Farum Azula. And somehow, she stole a fragment of the Rune Of Death that Maliketh had sworn to guard with his life.
Ranni was the architect behind the Night Of Black Knives, and as such, it was Ranni who indirectly caused the Shattering. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Ranni’s plan was swift and brutal. She employed a group of female Numen warriors called the Black Knife Assassins, and using a ritual, she imbued their Black Knives with the stolen fragment of Death, turning them into blades powerful enough to kill a god. That very night, the Black Knife Assassins set upon their many targets scattered across The Lands Between, all at once. It’s said they targeted many of Marika’s kin (presumably lesser unnamed demigods generations into the Golden Lineage), but the most significant death of all was Marika’s firstborn, Godwyn The Golden.
Godwyn’s body, without a soul, became known as The Prince Of Death: a horrific entity that would mindless spread death everywhere, without end. Through the demigod’s malformed soulless body, the Rune Of Death spread like a disease, sprouting what’s known as Deathroot, which gives rise toThose Who Live In Death(the undead).
At some point, Radahn attacked the forces of Leyndell, but Morgott/Margit would meet him in battle and fend him off. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 13: The Shattering Begins
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Whether this was part of an age-old plan or the product of her grief at losing her son and her control over Death itself, Marika shattered the Elden Ring into pieces. After that, Radagon attempted to repair the Elden Ring, but to no avail. Which is interesting in itself, because, lest we forget, RadagonisMarika. The prevailing theories are: either Radagon is still more of a puppet of the Greater Will, and sought to immediately undo Marika’s treason; or it was always Marika’s intention to shatter the Elden Ringand thenrebuild it, perhaps to fix the issues that she had seen within the Golden Order.
Of the nine Shardbearers who managed to take Great Runes from the shattered Elden Ring, most of them would end up at war with one another. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Power corrupts, and the Great Runes that once made up the Elden Ring were pretty much the greatest bits of power in the world at this time. It’s also thought that the Greater Will wished for the remaining demigods to war among themselves in order for one to rise above the rest and prove themselves worthy of becoming the god of the new age. So there may have been some sort of Ring Of Sauron-esque corruption happening to all the demigods with Great Runes, forcing them to act more warlike.
The following demigods took up Great Runes, becoming “Shardbearers”:
It’s unlikely that the fighting ever reached Volcano Manor itself, but the surrounding mountaintop became littered with dead on both sides. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 14: Miquella And Malenia
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As we know, both Miquella and Malenia were born cursed. Miquella, said to be the most fearsome of the Empyreans, devoted much time to trying to cure both his sister and himself. He abandoned the Golden Order’s Fundamentalist doctrine after realising it could provide no cure for them. He created needles out of “unalloyed gold” to ward away the influence of the outer gods, including the Greater Will, one of which he gave to Malenia to try and forestall her Scarlet Rot sickness.
Miquella also watered a sapling with his own blood, hoping to turn it into a new Erdtree with the power to cure himself and Malenia. The sapling grew into a large misshapen tree known asMiquella’s Haligtree. Miquella cocooned himself within the Haligtree itself, possibly in an attempt to cure himself of his eternal youth, or possibly to help the Haligtree grow into a full Erdtree. Either way, before his plan reached fruition, the Haligtree was cut open and Miquella’s cocoon form was stolen away.
The cocoon in Mohg’s throne room where Miquella is said to reside is also the entrance to the Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Malenia set off on a conquest across The Lands Between. It’s unclear whether this happened before Miquella was kidnapped, or whether she set off in order to find Miquella after the kidnapping. She and her loyal band of Cleanrot Knights proved undefeatable as she marched all the way from the Haligtree, past theAltus Plateau, down the length of Liurnia.
Godrick The Grafted, in an act of, well, sheer stupidity, insulted Malenia as she approached. Malenia met him in battle, handily beat him, and forced him to surrender.
Malenia’s Scarlet Rot is unleashed in full force for the first time during her legendary battle against Radahn. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
The Tarnished - veterans and descendants of Godfrey’s army - are called back to the Lands Between. You among them. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 15: The Tarnished Return
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All in all, the Shattering was a bit of a failure on the part of pretty much every Shardbearer. Let’s do a quick recap:
If you were the Greater Will, who would you choose to succeed Marika? Exactly. That’s why the Greater Will abandoned the idea of one of the demigods becoming the new god, and turned to the Tarnished.
The guidance of Grace encourages the player to follow the Greater Will’s plan. In many ways, the entire game is about learning to do other things beside what the Greater Will desires. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Chapter 16: The Rise Of The Tarnished
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Before we wrap up, I’ll devote a few words to talk about one more major character, one of the most mysterious of them all: Melina. She appears to the player very early in the game, giving them the ability to summon the spectral steedTorrent, and offering to play the role of “Finger Maiden” - a follower of the Two Fingers who can turnrune fragmentsinto strength (i.e.levelling upthe player’s character). But she is no Finger Maiden really, despite having the power to turn runes into strength.
So little is known about Melina, yet she is possibly the player’s greatest ally over the course of the game. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Melina sets the Tarnished on a quest to reach the Flame Of Ruin in the Mountaintops Of The Giants. Once there, Melina puts the Tarnished to sleep, and uses the Flame Of Ruin to burn the Erdtree. The Tarnished then awakens in Crumbling Farum Azula. Possibly because Melina knew that to properly complete their quest, the Tarnished needed to free Destined Death once more. To that end, the Tarnished defeats Maliketh, The Black Blade, Marika’s loyal Shadow, and releases Destined Death upon the world.
And that’s just about the entire story of Elden Ring. At least, until Shadow Of The Erdtree flips everything on its head.
If you choose the Frenzied Flame ending, then the Erdtree is destroyed and the sky is set ablaze with the Flame of Frenzy. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Bandai Namco
Good grief, you actually reached the end of this massive lore dump. Congratulations! Then again, we’re Elden Ring players. We’re used to long and arduous journeys. If you’re just starting another, then take a look at ourElden Ring beginner’s guide, and our guide onwhat to do first in Elden Ring. You can also follow our tips on thebest Elden Ring buildsto become as strong as possible ready for Shadow Of The Erdtree.
