#Miquellan Incantation

[azotho]

Togeda✨✨✨!! Man I love the visual effects of this game

[hacknet]

im complaining about the fextrashit website again what do you mean their own pages arent consistent with labeling. What the fuck is a "foe boss". nothing from the dlc is labeled consistently. golden order and miquellan incantations are referred to as separate things on their respective spell pages but not on the incantations list page, miquellan isnt even a category there. everything from the dlc is listed first on every list page which makes it a nightmare for someone who doesn't own it. they have confusing or straight up false info about every fucking questline in the game. if anyone is trying to make an actually worth a damn wiki i would edit it instantly but until then we're stuck with this piece of shit

[hoarah-babylon]

2nd DLC session round-up yupppp

Started to explore a settlement called Belurat, v beautiful, I love all the draped cloth over the buildings and the beautiful trees. I found a key and unlocked a door that opened a storeroom, with an old woman and a horned lion head inside. She wasn't too happy to see me

damn they really hate Marika lmao. I find it so interesting that these 'hornsent' people are identifying me as something aligned with Marika/Messmer, and cursing me for it. We go through the whole game being shunned for being Tarnished because we are people stripped of grace, now we're being shunned for (I'm assuming) being a creation of Marika. It's super interesting. no one fucks with me fr

I continued on through the settlement and climbed the tower, and eventually got to the first major boss!! It's the Lion-Dancer we saw in the DLC trailers, and it's a really beautiful boss fight. It takes place on a stage, and the theatrics of it all are really so awe-inspiring. It wields different elemental damage in different parts of the fight - lightning, wind/storm, and frost. There's also lion sculptures with horned heads dotted around the stage and settlement. You can summon Freyja to help fight it :) not an easy fight at all, but eventually he went down and I got the reward of its remembrance, along with the lion head itself as a helm.

I absolutely love that this culture took their skills in theatrical performance and repurposed these skills for battle, that's just. I love it it's so cool. Another helm that makes you weaker to sleep, like the golden mask I found previously. The prayer it's talking about is heard at the beginning of the fight in the opening cutscene, and it is said by the old woman I found earlier. The map identifies her as 'Hornsent Grandam'.

I did something I'm not super proud of. But I read messages that alluded to it and mama I'm trying to research. I put the lion head on and went to talk to her again to see if anything would change. Her reaction made me feel really bad... she was so relieved to see a 'sculpted keeper' and was overcome with emotion. She mentioned something about wanting her son to fight alongside me (the keeper) against Messmer, and take revenge. And then she promised to sing for me and gave me an incantation.

Now the description of the incantation just about blew my head off. It referred to this woman as the 'Empyrean Grandam'. Empyrean??? I was not expecting to see that. I looked up grandam and apparently it's an old word for grandmother. Empyrean grandmother... does this mean she is/was an Empyrean, or she's the grandmother of an Empyrean? I'm surprised that Empyreans exist in this realm, considering how hidden everything and everyone is in this place. Can the Greater Will still reach this place? She does mention her son, does he have children? Empyrean children? So intriguing. I assume it's not her son because it seems like TGW/two fingers choose non-men as Empyreans (Miquella has ambiguous gender and a feminine alter-ego St. Trina).

Went back to the second Miquellan cross and met Sir Moore. I love him. I love him I would die for him if anything happens to him I'm going to scream from the rooftops

!!! I explored the river running through Gravesite Plain and found a couple of sleep/night adjacent items. The deep purple lily got me super excited because TRINAAA I could use some tbh I haven't been sleeping well. can you tell

Found a ghost down there too, these lines are making me Think about the connection between sleep and death. What if Miquella is really dead in some way, and this gives way to St. Trina being alive in his place... or something. I don't know but I'm Thinking

Even the turtles have horns here!! Found a new more powerful stamina talisman that depicts a two-headed turtle. There's a lot of depictions in this realm of two converging intertwining objects like trees, turtles, Miquella's sigil/needle is intertwining too.

Went back to Roundtable hold to see what the Remembrance rewards are. I wasn't sure in my last session but after watching some old lore videos to refresh my memory - divine in the context of ER seems to refer to the Crucible or aspects of it. What does it mean that they are messengers of the heavens though? The only other thing in game that I could relate to that are Two Fingers considering they commune with TGW. I have no idea

Was exploring and MET ANOTHER TRAILER GUY. He was sitting by another Cross of Miquella. Identifies himself as a Tarnished named Thiollier. Has 0 self confidence, says he's unintelligent and bad at fighting. Kinda weird for a Tarnished? Makes me wonder how he got there too, he's literally like just behind an encampment of Messmer soldiers. His special interest is poison, and sells you poison things. His armour is super interesting, the cloth/white hair is braided a lot like Miquella/Radagon's, and there's a gold figure in the middle of his chest. The mask is the most striking to me though, and looks like its lined with silver thorns. I just had a thought - who else do we know that wears masks like this and is all about poison? House Marais! Idk what the link could be but, something to keep in mind I guess

Got jumpscared by this guy yelling in pain. He yelled about someone he called 'vile Bayle' so I assume they're the person that maimed this guy. "Exquisite pain" though... reminds me of Mohg/Varré. Then I got invaded by an 'Ancient Dragon-Man'. I followed that path down and found a draconic cave, where I fought the real Dragon Man at the end. He was kicking my ass I can't lie. But I got him eventually and the reward was hmm-inducing

Anti-dragon spray. Wait what, what is the Dreaded One???? And what do you mean it's devoured by people?? What does any of this mean bruh. It sounds like an outer god but if people eat it (?) it can't be. Uhhhhhhhh ok I don't understand and I'm tired. I opened the door at the back of the boss room and...

Hell yeah. It led me out to a precipice overlooking the jagged peak I could see in the distance from where I entered the DLC. There's dragons sleeping below. I took some baller pics of my Tarnished.

I have so much to figure out I still can't really believe all this, it's so jarring running around not knowing anything. it's awesome i love this game

[also small PSA it's fine if anyone reading this wants to reply with their thoughts, but please don't spoil anything, this is my blind playthrough and i want it to stay that way :)]

[valehour]

Just had a dream about going to Caria manor, and finding an interaction there. Opening the menu I see something that says “acquire starlight shards”. Selecting it asks if I want “to exchange a god’s tooth to become an open finger and invade Miquella the kind to earn starlight shards. Elden Ring Reforged has a thing where if you gather all starlight shards in the game, you can trade the miniature Ranni for the Lunar Princess Exultation, which buffs you for a short while whenever frostbite happens nearby, which is why I selected it.

Next thing I know I’m at the divine gate arena fighting promised consort Radahn with a random selection of sorceries and incantations and panicking as I’m trying to find the openings to hit him with spells. One spell I had is effectively “what if carian sovereignty but a miquellan incantation that does holy damage?”. That isn’t a thing. It did a shitload of damage tho.

EXCEPT THEN THIS FUCKER HAD A SECOND PHASE AND NOW IM BEING CHASED AROUND THE ARENA BY A FEMBOY’S PET BLENDER, TWO MURDER SPHERES (claiming to be moons but one of them was red and furry) AND SEVERAL OTHER THINGS I CAN’T REMEMBER

Then I woke up. Chat what the fuck was that. Why am I dreaming about fighting promised consort radahn 2 now with more bullshit. Why was that in response to wanting more starlight shards. Chat what the fuck is that supposed to mean???

[maletofujoshi]

amazing that one of the only miquellan incantations is a ring of light described to be from a different tradition than golden order fundamentalism. and it requires only faith as opposed to fundamentalist incantations. and its acquired from killing a golden shade of a red-haired leonine misbegotten, just above the garden of deep purple. like idk something about all of that + how the needle has the effects of law of regression... its so fun to realize how over it was for miquella. rip bozo.

[sillovn]

Adventures of the Aurora Saint

Became inspired to play ER again, so I finally finished the game on the Int/Fth character. Here's some thoughts.

~ Background ~

I still very much like (and stuck with) the character theme of "Snowfield Paladin". The idea being Cold status and the Light spells (ie. auroras) would be central to the build.

Lore wise, I imagined him as an ex-fundamentalist or "proto-Miquellan Knight"; a servant of Miquella who traveled into the northern snow in search of a place to plant the (future) Haligtree. He dies on expedition, but is revered as a minor saint in future times.

~ Build ~

Character ended being a spellsword+support incants. We had a very distinct Int=offense, Fth=defense split in our kit; both for lore and ease of control reasons. As per usual, I don't like pure-caster or 'dual-caster' sorc+incant styles, hence the focus on melee.

Here's the final stats...

Mainhand: Glintstone Kris

Offhand: Zweihander + Golden Order Seal

We want to use Glintstone Kris' projectile weapon art quickly in fights. Meanwhile, buff incants and using 2H Zweihander (we cannot use it 1H) is something done before combat (or at least requires a big disengage during fights). Put simply, Mainhand = "fast actions", Offhand = "slow actions".

This works because Mainhand takes priority for weapon arts (when off-hand has 'No-Skill'). By soft swapping to our 2nd Offhand (Seal), we get to immediately fire Glintstone Kris. Thus, if you do the reverse (Offhand - Kris), one also needs to 2H the Kris to use it's weapon art. Having G.Kris + Seal out at the same time also lets us easily access all our ranged combat tools in the same place.

Essentially; swap "style" from melee to ranged with 1 button. Though switching back to melee requires 2 buttons (swap Offhand > 2h grip). Its not that big of a deal though, since ranged combat gives you space from the enemy; and thus time to switch back to melee.

-

Zweihander was used with magic infusion. The original cold infusion idea is not very good on our stats. Still, its possible to have most of both worlds thanks to 'Freezing Mist' AoW. It procs cold more less in 1-hit, and there's few other weapon arts that pair well with colossal sword class anyway.

Feeding into this, we had Banish Knight Halberd as a 2nd melee weapon (Offhand hardswap). Here, we had a ranged frost attack in 'Ice Spear'. Ended up using the Halberd sparingly, mostly because I enjoy the distinct melee/range swapping style the main weapon setup had - having another range attack was excessive IMO.

Some alternatives to Glintstone Kris as a 'bullet stick' were any light weapon + Glintblade Phalanx. And of course, Sword of Night and Flame.

-

Spell options were largely lore-driven, I used support incants + Golden Order sanctioned offense spells (ie. Golden Order discs + assorted Dragonbolts). Though, having assorted Int weapon arts meant that 'generic projectile' Incants had no real use. By the end, incants were largely for buff, though the occasional Discus/Lightning Spear still had a use (namely, evasive enemies don't dodge them well).

Which then brings up the question; is it a good idea to run such an odd hybrid just to use some buffs? Unlikely.

Yeah, Golden Vow is good. But what if instead of spending FTH for a temporary dmg/def buff - we just add INT for more damage, or END to wear better armour?

-

Since we finished the game before hitting Meta-level, there's still a few points to spend. The current MIND/END values are not optimal, and one can easily throw more END for better armour. Alternatively, more STR to 1H Zwei.

In the end, Im really fond of the character. Sure, hes mostly a 'jank spellsword' with support spells - nothing that a pure 60 INT character couldn't do better. At least, if you only count offense in solo play. The weird combo of Int missiles/frost + Fth buffs, IMO make him a very interesting PVE coop phantom - and Ill taking him to the DLC as such.

Below is some discussion about INT+FTH hybrid weapons.

~ 50 for Damage ~

One common statement about Int/Fth is the lack of weapons besides Sword of Night+Flame. And while its true that Int/Fth has no dedicated infusion, consider that in ER - damage is pretty free.

What Im trying to say is; ER lets you have way more damage than you ever need. Also, plenty of weapons/spells will hit hard without optimal stats.

The idea I ended going for is "50 damage stat". This something Ive picked up from PvP, where you get 50 in your main damage stat and spread out the rest to wear more armour/use a greater diversity of weapons. Sure, this isn't a PvP char - but the logic here is to do an uneven split of Int>Fth, treating Fth as a utility stat (sort of).

Main reason for Int > Fth stat spread is that you get more utility splashing Fth than Int. Int>Fth gets to use Int offensive tools + Fth utility tools - while the inverse doesn't work since Int doesn't have much in the way of utility.

Since Golden Order Seal scales Int/Fth equally within the 30-45 softcap bracket (eg. there's no difference between 40/30 or 35/35). Thus, the ideal Int/Fth ratio depends on what incants you want, and if offensive spellcasting is your main goal.

Worth noting that for Incantations, going above 30 Fth gives few new spells (above 35, even fewer). For support incants - Protection of the Erdtree (35 fth), is last the major one. There's the advanced heals/regen spells but those are not that much/strictly better than the basic versions. For offense, pretty much all 30+Fth incants are some form of cataclysmic AOE attack (see. Radagon's Ring, the various Dragon Lightnings). How many do you really need? (if any at all).

The 45 softcap also means that our weapon/spell ideal stats are not in sync, which leads to...

~ The 45+5 setup ~

A solution I settled on was 45 Int + Heirloom talisman (Int or Fth). Throw on the +5 Int if you want to swing weapons, hitting the magic infusion softcap (50). Swap for +5 Fth to in you want better offensive casting.

This was because we were squeezed for levels during most of the playthrough. For the final build (depending on target 125-150), you can easily ignore this swap.

-

That is all for today.

[blaiddfailcam]

Adding one more detail I hadn't considered until recently:

Jerren remarks in some fairly obscure dialogue that while Iji's weapons were never particularly sharp, they exhibited a surprising immunity to the Scarlet Rot, which he implies has a natural ability to rust ordinary armaments.

One of Miquella's specialties, of course, was the production of weapons capable of withstanding Scarlet Rot through consecration. The Hand of Malenia is one such example, which may be composed of Unalloyed Gold like Malenia's prostheses, but another is the Cleanrot Spear—more specifically, the roundshield affixed to the stave, blessed with an "incantation" to ward the Scarlet Rot, but otherwise forged from common alloys.

Perhaps then it is possible that Iji's secret to defying Scarlet Rot wasn't just a fluke, but that he employed the rite of consecration unique to Miquellan armory? It wouldn't be surprising, considering Miquella borrowed knowledge from the Carians in turn to devise the Miquellan Knight Sword...

Ranni and Miquella's crossed fates

I've briefly mentioned before my thoughts on Ranni and Miquella's intertwined fates and their potential cooperation, but I swear I keep finding more and more subtle hints and decided I should probably start jotting them down, if only for my own amusement.

Some of these are observations, others are my own theories based on said observations. Take them with a sizeable grain of salt.

Torrent and the spiritcalling bell

The Shadow of the Erdtree promo art appears to imply that Miquella was Torrent's former master. Ranni was entrusted the spiritcalling bell by this enigma.

Torrent was entrusted to Melina, who by deduction is potentially Miquella and Malenia's amnesiac sister. It wasn't just chance that brought the two together, but could have been part of Miquella's plan all along.

The spiritcalling bell shares a similar function to those used by Revenant Worshippers to summon forth wraiths. For whatever reason, Revenants appear numerously in areas associated with either Miquella or Ranni, and seldom elsewhere.

His name calls to mind rushing waters, falling in line with the theme of flowing water to counter stagnation and rot. Malenia was tutored by the Blind Swordsman, after all, whose flowing sword sealed the Outer God of Rot long ago.

Torrent's eyes are the same pure gold color as the Miquellan Albinaurics, differentiated by their uniform pigmentation from the golden irises of "grace-given" beings.

Conescrated Snowfield's relevance to Ranni

It is the only location where Rimed Crystal Buds grow, an ingredient used expressly for crafting Frost Pots, a weapon devised specifically by Ranni's servants.

The white bowers are only found elsewhere in the regions of Siofra River, surrounding Nokron. Likewise, two Followers can be found in the Snowfield.

Astel reappears in Yelough Anix Tunnel.

Black Knife Assassins lend aid to Ordina to guard the Haligtree from unwanted guests.

Consecrated Snowfield's situation at the northernmost region of the map, west of the Mountaintops of the Giants, parallels the positions of the Dark Moon and the Full Moon in the northern sky, as seen from the Moonlight Altar.

Carian influences in Elphael

Loretta, a knightess of Caria, elected the land of the Haligtree to be the most promising refuge for the Albinaurics of Liurnia, pledging fealty to Miquella while maintaining a protective spell over her former house. She was not marked a traitor to Caria, suggesting an alliance between the two houses.

The Miquellan Knight's Sword illustrates a clear borrowing of craftsmanship by the Haligtree, modeled after Carian weaponry, yet substituting holy amber for glintstone.

On the contrary, the Black Leather Shield, purchased from Pidia the Albinauric, appears to hint at the location of the Haligtree: "From the north, this shield depicts the polar star in rivets of gold." The Celtic motifs typical of Miquellan weapons and armor faintly trace the edges of the shield.

There's also the mystery of the Amber Starlight Shard. Pidia offers a map leading to a hidden statue of Miquella and Malenia where the shard is found; Seluvis requires the shard to try and gain control over Ranni. The shard itself is said to be the lost fate of a demigod...

Ranni and Miquella's lost Great Runes

Certain details suggest the Great Rune of the Unborn had actually been intended for Miquella, from its function as a device for rebirth, to the amber egg that cradles it, even down to how its shape matches Malenia's Great Rune, albeit smaller and pure gold.

The children reborn of the amber egg all possess eyes of mixed gold and greenish-blue. Strangely, this mixed pigmentation only appears elsewhere in the eyes of Revenant Worshippers, again reinforcing that bizarre connection with at least one of the two Empyreans in question.

Ranni also lacks a Great Rune, yet a somewhat commonheld theory is that the moon bears a marking that can be seen within the Elden Ring, yet isn't connected to any of the other Great Runes. It depicts a vertical line intersected with upward arcs, like a sort of ripple.

This sigil is also seen in the Ripple Blades carried by young Albinaurics, and even in the Haligtree Crest itself. Though the number of "ripples" and their curvatures vary, the general symbol remains consistent.

Blind guesses as to what it all means

A sword memorial in Altus Plateau reads as follows:

"A sovereign alliance rots from within.

"Traces yet remain of bloody conspiracy."

At first, I thought this might have been referring to Mohg and Miquella, and that Mohg had sworn an alliance with the Haligtree in conspiracy to abduct the sleeping Empyrean. However, it's not entirely unlikely that it could refer to Ranni and Miquella's alliance, and perhaps their potential conspiracy that would culminate in the death of Godwyn and the shattering of the Elden Ring.

While Miquella had clearly worked to either ensure Godwyn would die a true death, or that he could restore his soul through the rite at Castle Sol, but either failed or was thwarted, just like when Mohg abducted him from the Haligtree. For all we know, maybe Ranni even deceived Miquella with a pact.

As for their missing Great Runes, and the Haligtree's plantation in a region more befitting a Lunar Princess, I almost get the sense that, having clarified her intent to rid herself of her Empyrean destiny, Ranni offered Miquella passage to the north, and possibly even the Great Rune she had inherited. This effectively allowed them to trade fates, but it remains to be seen what Miquella/Trina's plans truly were, if the DLC might offer any hints.

Or, perhaps their fates had been entangled from the beginning, starting with Radagon's sly subjugation of the Carian lineage, and his vow of silence enforced upon the Carian Preceptors to hide what the stars might portend. Either way, it seems clear that Ranni and Miquella harbored a mutual distaste for the stagnation of the Golden Order.

...I'm fully prepared for this theory to split apart at the seams when Shadow of the Erdtree drops (hopefully soonish??????). Still, it's fun to mull over in the meantime.