#For context: She starts out as a the haligtree follower

[largemandrill]

Fun build sheets I’ve made for my ng+1 faith tarnished (with intelligence for decoration)

My little tarnished guys tend to have very flexible narratives. These builds are the different routes I could see my girl Maisie going down once entering the DLC. She’s just a girl in a world after all :)

Remember to use your healing shrub to hurt as many people as possible! 👍

[lady-byleth]

I've been scrolling through the Elden Ring tag on various websites the last few days and the number of people who bend over backwards to "prove" that Malenia couldn't have possibly been more powerful than Radahn is...very high and the undercurrent of "she's a woman so of course she's weaker" isn't exactly subtle for some of them

They also like to take actions both of them take out of context to prove he's better and it's pissing me off

It's also bullshit cuz if you spend just a few minutes with the lore and also the story trailer, you get a lot of stuff that proves Malenia wasn't at full strength physically or mentally when she fought Radahn

So of course I had to rant about it

One argument I saw a lot was that Radahn was waiting for Malenia to get ready before fighting her and that somehow proves that he didn't see her as a threat or something. But if you go into the lore both Radahn and Malenia were known for being extremely honorable people that inspired deep loyalty from the people around them.

Radahn's followers worked extremely hard to give him a proper send-off and put him out of his rot-eaten misery. Malenia's Cleanrot Knights stuck close to her despite being fully aware the Scarlet Rot would kill them eventually. This is not the type of behavior people exhibit when their leader is the kind of person who would attack an opponent when they aren't ready.

So of course he waited for her to get her arm straightened out, she would've done the same if their positions were reversed.

Another thing is that people accuse Malenia of using the Scarlet Rot unfairly or whatever and that she wouldn't have had a chance without it. But that's without accounting for the fact that she doesn't use magic of any kind otherwise. Radahn is gifted in gravity magic, he displays that in his boss fight, we die to it a whole bunch. Hell, he even seems to use it to pull his weapons out of the ground in the trailer.

When we fight Malenia however she doesn't use any Incantations or Sorceries. Until she unleashes the Scarlet Rot she's a purely physical combatant. She relies solely on speed, agility and her supreme sword skills. She doesn't need anything else cuz she's that good with a blade. Even her life drain ability is explicitly not magic, it's her strength of will.

"But lady, if she's so good, why didn't she beat him?" Good question.

Let's think about the circumstances. It all started when Godwyn was murdered, the Elden Ring shattered and the demigods start warring. This means that technically every region on the map that isn't the Haligtree is enemy territory for Malenia.

Disregarding the fact that she wasn't interested in taking Marika's place or become Elden Lord or whatever, some of the other demigods seemed to be pretty gung-ho about it. Being a shardbearer made her a target for those demigods even though she and Miquella were more interested in growing the Haligtree into an alternative to the Erdtree.

So she had a continent spanning campaign behind her - the Hill of Swords monuments describe her crushing Godrick's forces among other things - so she and her Knights have been on the move for a while before she ever made it to Caelid.

In addition to that the Scarlet Rot is implied to be sentient. It wants to spread. In strong enough concentrations it can create life, namely Millicent and her sisters who consider Malenia their mother. And she's been suppressing it her entire life. Miquella's unalloyed gold definitely helped but the physical and mental fatigue of such a long campaign probably wasn't good for her control over it.

And if we look at the devastation it wreaks, transforming Caelid into a wasteland and turning the Haligtree into a rot-eaten husk, she's constantly surpressing a destructive force the Great Ones in Bloodborne would've been proud of (not to mention that it may in fact be an Outer God).

And then, just before she uses the Scarlet Rot against Radahn he smashes her arm. The biggest piece of unalloyed gold she's got on her, gone, and with it any help it may have been to her.

So after a huge campaign across an entire continent, always having to dedicate part of her mental processes to suppressing a force powerful enough it can turn her into a true Goddess if she let's it bloom three times, she faces her toughest challenge yet armed with nothing but a sword.

And Radahn? An expert gravity magic user, about twice her height, several times as wide, definitely stronger than her physically and in what looks like perfect health physically and mentally. Not to mention that he's fighting on home turf and doesn't have to wrangle down a sentient force of destruction flowing through his veins.

And she fights him to a standstill before she unleashes the Rot.

I'm not saying that if they were fighting on equal terms she'd have won but...I am saying that if they were fighting on equal terms she'd have won.

[threefeline]

Been messing around with shading and lighting a lot recently! This is the first major "big piece" I've done in a While it feels like. It started out as just a little sketch, but I kinda just kept adding more and more, wanting to mess with like... Idk lines and shit. Anyway context is that the magma sword was made by a sanguine noble of the Moghwyn Dynasty, stabbed into a firewyrm and just... Idk sat there until Gislaine came along and killed it. They were like "cool sword I'll take it" And if anyone is interested, a little blurb under the cut :)

Melania's waterfowl dance came at them like a wave; clashing against their scaled greatword with swing after swing after swing. Their guard was going to break.

Too fast

She's too fucking fast

A flurry of strikes smashed against the guard while their feet dragged back in the water from each impact. And then their sword started to chip.

A scale flew off to the side, followed by another, and another and another, until scales began to shatter off their sword like a thin layer of glass.

And then it happened.

At the same time Melania's final strike met their blade, a shattering sound rang out through the Haligtree roots. Gislaine's arm shot outward, and they were wide open.

In slow motion, Melania drew back her sword. She was going to impale them where they stood.

But…As the pitch black scales rained down around them..

Their arm felt featherweight now. Like there wasn't even anything in their hand.

Melania's sword shot forward.

Gislaines foot and tail braced to the right.

And as if simply clawing downward, they brought the sword down, clanging against her blade and halting her attack with only a cut suffered to their cape.

They started to strike back.