#age of the duskborn

[formerly-wraith-caller]

Fia's ending is not the restoration of a natural death : a theory

There are plenty of confusing things going on in the Elden Ring lore. Given that we learn it piecemeal through dialog, cut scenes,, and various item descriptions, it's understandable that we don't all end up with the same interpretation of what's happening. One thing I frequently see is the claim that Fia's ending, "The Age of the Duskborn", is a return of the balance of life and death to the Lands Between. I strongly disagree that this is what is being communicated by her ending, and would like to posit the opposite. It is the insertion of an alternative yet equally unnatural lifecycle, one of death unending.

🚨Spoilers Ahead🚨

So we can all agree on this much: Fia is allied with Those Who Live in Death. Per her dialog:

"I wished to be a mother to Those Who Live in Death. So it is that any loathing, any hatred that overshadows them, I must bear, as a matter of duty, with my own flesh."

"I am the guardian of Those Who Live in Death."

Her goal is to uplift TWLID from what she feels is persecution, and to lay with Godwyn and give him another life:

"We, who humbly live in Death live in waiting to one day welcome our Lord. What right does anyone have to object? Our Lord will rise, the Lord of the many and the meek."

"With [the cursemark], Godwyn can take his rightful place as First of the Dead, and claim a second, illustrious life."

"The new life of the golden prince, and first Dead of the demigods, as the rune of Those Who Live in Death. Please, do one thing for me. Brandish this child, my rune, and take for yourself the throne. Stay the persecution of Those Who Live in Death by becoming our Elden Lord."

What are Those Who Live in Death? Per the Skeletal Militiamen Ashes:

"These are the spirits of militiamen who live in Death, and will continue to rise again until properly finished off. This is the grotesque fate of those who come into contact with deathroot."

So we can take a few pertinent bits of information from this. Becoming one of TWLID is likely often involuntary. Corpses buried in the ground aren't going out huntiing for deathroot to rub up on, after all, and we know that the deathroot spread through the lands by infecting the Erdtree after Godwyn's half-death. I won't rule out the possibility that there are living people who voluntarily choose to become TWLID, but given that the majority (if not all) of the undead we encounter are at an advanced stage of decomposition, we can assume that's not terribly common. This is relevant because the nature of TWLID is a point of contention between Darian, Fia, and Rogier.

Darian describes TWLID in no uncertain terms as a blight upon the world:

"Those Who Live in Death fall outside the principles of the Golden Order. Their mere existenece sullies the guidance of gold, tainting its truth. And so it is the vermin must be exterminated, down to the very last."

They run counter to the tenets of the Golden Order. Death was sealed from the Lands Between, and souls of the dead are intended to return to the Erdtree. It's also worth noting that, well, TWLID aren't exactly a friendly bunch. The Skeletal Militiamen Ashes refer to their fate as "grotesque" for a reason, and they don't limit their aggression to the player character. We first encounter Darian apologizing to the body of a person killed by TWLID for being unable to give them their "proper rites".

Fia describes TWLID as "meek", yet their acts seem anything but. Darian describes them as vermin, yet the undead have no control over their fate. Interestingly, Rogier does not clearly throw his lot in with either of these ends of the spectrum, and claims to want to "save them". While it would seem that he feels the best way to do this involves working with Fia somehow, it's less clear what it means to him to save TWLID. He doesn't mention Fia (though she mentions him, making it plain they trade information), so it's harder to understand his motivations. It's tempting to think he wants to save the dead by integrating life within death the way Fia does, but I'd like to suggest an alternative: he wants to put them to a real, proper death. He is the midpoint between the extreme alternatives offered by D and Fia, extermination or prolilferation.

Rogier gives a little insight into what motivates him when he says:

"I've spent many an hour scouring the archives for knowledge of that fateful plot. The world has grown crooked, and if you intend to put it to rights, you'd better understand what happened to make it that way, hm?"

He isn't talking cursemarks and new overlords here, he is talking about understanding what broke everything to begin with. We don't hear talk about the might of the Golden Order(though he does spare it a little admiration in spite of his apparent heretical ties), nor about uplifting the meek undead, nor any reverence for the Prince of Death. In fact, Rogier refers to Godwyn's corpse as "that thing", hardly in line with the sort of respect Fia holds for Godwyn. In order to save the dead, he knows he first has to work out why they exist to begin with. He tells us that if he could inspect Ranni's cursemark, he will "have the answers [he has] sought for so long."

Of course we get a bit more of an explanation for Rogier's interests when we ask him why he wants the cursemark. He tells of us his desire to save TWLID, explaining that in his research he has discovered something of their nature. Again, I think this relates to the fact that TWLID didn't intentionally become what they are, coming into being by random chance through no fault of their own.

"These souls have committed no offense. They have every right to life, only, they happened to touch upon a flaw in the Order."

It's hard for me to decide what he means by this. The SOULS have committed no offense, but TWLID are what they are because they are bodies persisting without the soul. They have a right to life, but does this mean life within death? Or does it mean a proper death, so that they may be given back the life stolen from them when their souls couldn't be returned to the Erdtree due to their affliction as one of TWLID? Something pointed out to me by elden_things is that, in the original Japanese version of this part of his dialog, he says:

"They violated nothing. They only lived in earnest, and thus, they came in contact the law's flaw."

"They only lived in earnest" is A LOT different than "They have every right to life". One is simply understanding that TWLID are not necessarily malicious fiends but an unfortunate accidental byproduct of Godwyn's death, the other more explicitly sympathetic. Taking the Japanese version could lend more credence to the idea that Rogier is not necessarily advocating for the integration of life within death into the Order. He understands that the Order needs repaired, that it is broken, but also that it is able to adapt:

"In the past, [the Academy of Raya Lucaria] obeyed laws which contravened the Golden Order, or so I'm told. Fascinating, isn't it? That the Golden Order was pliable enough to absorb practices that contradicted itself in the past. With the Order broken, twisted, and in need of repair, such adaptability is more important now than ever."

Interestingly, Rogier doesn't ever deride the Golden Order the way Fia does (referring to them as "dogmatic brutes" seeking to deny Godwyn's ascension and, well, murdering Darian). He actually appears to admire its ability to change with the needs of the current age, and he doesn't talk about upending it or tearing it down, but repairing it. He feels this can be achieved by understanding the things that broke it to begin with. He must understand why TWLID exist, and to do that he must understand deathroot, and to do that, he must understand the nature of Godwyn's death, and to do that he must understand the cursemarks, and so on until we get to the knifeprint and the Night of the Black Knives itself, the genesis of the Shattering and the origin of TWLID. This is how ends up pointing us towards Ranni's cursemark, rather than Godwyn's. It's unclear if he knows Darian had the latter, but I personally assume he didn't, and that this is why he went to inspect the corpse beneath Stormveil. He wanted the cursemark for his research, and Darian knew better than to let anyone know what he had, especially Rogier who he would know was working alongside Fia at this point.

Returning to Fia's ending. Her story culminates in her fashioning the Mending Rune of the Death Prince. Right away its description can cause some confusion:

"Formed of the two hallowbrand half-wheels combined, it will embed the principle of life within Death into Order. The Golden Order was created by confining Destined Death. Thus, this new Order will be one of Death restored."

It's understandable to see the phrase "Death restored" and assume this means that people will be able to die naturally again whereas before they couldn't, both due to Marika's removal of the Rune of Death, and because of the curse of the deathroot causing TWLID. But let's back up to the first half of that item description: "it will embed the principle of life within Death into Order". So which is it? A restoration of real death, or the integration of the living dead into the Order of the world?

Reviewing Fia's dialog would strongly indicate the latter. She states she wants to be like a mother to them, a guardian, to bear the scorn they receive. She wants Godwyn to have a new, "illustrious" second life, calls for his rise as the Lord of the meek and many undead. If it were merely a matter of his second life as the mending rune putting the living dead to rest, how is that significantly different from what the Golden Order is doing with its hunters? Why oppose them instead of joining them in their quest to end TWLID if you both seek to give rest to the dead? The Order wants to "eradicate" them, but we see what this means in practice when we fight a Mariner alongside Darian: sanctifying the undead so they can't rise again, and weeding deathroot so more can't be made. In what way is this not being put to rest? Beyond that, what would Godwyn/the rune be lord of if his meek and many are dead and buried? What persecution needs to be stayed if there are no undead to receive mistreatment?

Then there's the actual cut scene from the Age of the Duskborn ending. Everything in grey shades and shrouded in mist, the light of the Erdtree dimmed, and most worthy of note, the swarms of flies at our Tarnished's feet. We've seen these flies before in the Deeproot Depths before Godwyn's body, as well as on Rogier when he's dying of deathblight. The flies are very heavily connected with deathroot and TWLID, another indication that this is not an ending of a peaceful and natural death, but the inclusion of the living dead in the world order. These same living dead who we have already established are unlikely to have chosen this fate for themselves. Is it really a mercy to be left to what the game itself refers to as a "grotesque" fate, one which you have no control over and don't choose for yourself?

A final nail in the "this is a return of true death" coffin for me is the simple fact that there already is a rune for giving people natural deaths. It's the Rune of Death, the same one the player can obtain from Maliketh. If Fia's intention was simply to give a peaceful death to people in a world plagued by the immortality given to it by Marika, wouldn't it be more sensible to seek this rune instead of fashioning a new one altogether, one that it kills her to create? (I know people believe Devin killed her, but I'm pretty confident she's already dead. She gives us a farewell before laying with Godwyn to create the rune, and talks to us like she won't be there when she asks us to take the rune, and the other two NPCs who fashion mending runes die in the process as well.)

If you've made it this far, feel free to share your thoughts. It's always interesting to read new perspectives, and I'm sure there are things I've missed or even totally misunderstood. There's a huge amount of information tucked away in this game and it's very exciting to learn something more about it.

[thefellomen]

⊱ Eluric | Liaison of Omens ⊰

[alberichfanpage]

Thoth, Master of Heretical Sorceries, has ushered in The Age of the Duskborn in honor of the Prince of Death. Well, until New Game Plus Plus.

Before the DLC was announced, I finished my first playthrough of Elden Ring. I wanted to do a NG+ run where I explore every cave/catacomb and fight every boss. The INT/FAI sorcerer build has been so fun to play that I might just do another new game plus.

Alas, there are so many builds to try out, especially with the dlc, so I will be exploring those before inevitably respeccing back.

[wraith-caller]

it's been a minute since ive worked on it, but ive been assembling a sorta lore reference sheet for myself. i was focused on collecting anything that had to do with death and TWLID in the lands between. it's a work in progress, and i haven't looked over my little notes in a long time, but idk if you're bored and looking for death lore, it may be of interest to you?

[deathpoke1qa]

Beat Elden Ring lets goooooo

All hail the new Elden Lord: Thoth the Heretical Witch

[voidhollow]

Finally did Fia’s ending.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

Godwyn and Miquella. count me out.

(or; Godfrey’s golden son who will serve only one God, Radagon’s golden son who wants to be God himself)

[bowietea]

🖤💀The Age of Duskborn💀🖤

[prettymediocrewizard]

Only a few weeks til DLC time, so here's an old frenzied flame tarnished concept from last year. I made Wester my tarnished in Elden Ring and was talking about this particular route with a friend and wanted to draw how I imagine it would manifest on him.

[ruthimages]

[little-red-fool]

[harrycollins]

I really can't choose between the Age of the Duskborn and the Age of Order endings lmao

[rebellious-loyalty]

@deathblightprince continued from here

Though they had only seen the look a few times over their long existence (and had hoped, perhaps foolishly, to never see it in their children's eyes), Marika knew the discomfort -- the repulsion, that the truth their form inspired. And so, they acted in accordance; only for their children -- and Godwyn especially -- would they do so. Any and all trace of androgyny or masculinity was erased from their form, flesh molding like clay into the indisputably female Queen Eternal, along with any trace of copper fading from their hair as well. Beyond the cracks that fiddled their otherwise marble-smooth flesh, which seemed to be filled with something akin to black corpse wax, the God of Order stood before their son as close as they could come to the mother he likely remembered.

Still, they found themself smiling, though the expression was small and perhaps just a touch sad. "Would that I had known," they replied, golden gaze roving over his beloved face, memorizing every new detail. They were both changed, after everything that had happened in five millennia, but the brightness of their love for him still burned within them. "Hadst I known, so much of thine suffering couldst have been avoided... thine, and of the Lands Between, both." Perhaps they would have still come to the decision of shattering the Elden Ring, would still have chosen to smash the previous world order for the sake of remaking it, but speculation was pointless now. Here, in the present, they were reunited with Godwyn; anything else could wait. Finally, Marika completed the motion.

Reaching out, they gently cupped their son's cheek.

[alberichfanpage]

This is Thoth, the heretical witch. This is the character I made for my first playthrough of Elden Ring. I bought the game last year when it was on sale and it has unlocked something in my brain ever since. Now that the DLC is coming out, I am starting NG+ with Thoth as I 100% the game before June.

Originally, Thoth was a pure Intelligence build but when I realized that all my favorite sorceries (Death and Aberrant) had high faith requirements, I repecced to an equally intelligence and faith focused build.

His right eye is color matched to the bloodshot effect you get from Varre's quest and his left eye is blind with a scar resembling the mausoleum knights eclipse symbol. It also correlates to which hand he holds the respective staff.

Follow him on his journey back to The Lands Between as he explores all there is to offer!

[wraith-caller]

Elden Ring and the 5 Stages of Grief

The story around Those Who Live in Death is often characterized as being about prejudice. They didn't choose to be what they are, the game paints the Hunters of the Dead as blindly seeking an enemy to contend with, Rogier says they are in need of saving, and Fia seeks to "stay their persecution". Alongside the omens, the misbegottens, and the albinaurics, TWLID are just another rung on the Golden Order's "not fit for life" ladder of being. But there is another lens we could view this story through, and I don't see it brought up very often. I'd like to suggest that this is a story about death and the very human reactions to it, manifest in the behavior and actions of the characters integral to the Duskborn questline.

🚨🚨SPOILERS AHEAD🚨🚨

Darian - Denial

"Those Who Live in Death fall outside the principles of the Golden Order. Their mere existence sullies the guidance of gold. Tainting its truth. And so it is the vermin must be exterminated... Down to the very last."

Darian is presented to us as someone staunch and unflinching in his beliefs, to the exclusion of all other perspectives. The Order has told him that the dead are vermin, and that's all he needs to know. But it's not just their word he's taken. He's witnessed the bloodshed and pain that the living dead inflict on others, and he laments it. We meet him beside a dead man, killed by TWLID, and he tries to keep us from running headlong into the same fate by warning us away from the Mariner. Darian has only seen the cruelty and the violence of death, has been mired in it as a hunter, and relentlessly pursues an end to it. He is denial, resistant not just to death but to change.

Devin - Anger

"Soon you will know, filthy witch! The wrath of D!"

This one's probably simplest to argue. Devin's singular scene in game is all about gaining vengeance for Darian, and he makes repeated use of the word "wrath". Death has forced its way into his life, first in the face of Godwyn that drives him mad, and again when his brother, the other half of his soul, is murdered. When we meet Darian, his sword is planted in the earth and he is praying for the dead. When we last see Devin, his sword is raised high and covered in blood as he curses Fia's mutilated corpse in anger.

Godwyn - Bargaining

"O brother, lord brother, please die a true death."

Like Miquella, Godwyn is more of a presence that hangs over the events of the game rather than much of an active element within it. It's hard to dredge up much about his character to make this link. But there are some pieces connected to him, such as the quote here from the Golden Epitaph, a weapon made in his honor, which come from a place of bargaining. There is Miquella's desire to bring him a true death, the mourning of the Crone in the Deeproots("he should have died a true death!"), and the desperation of Fortissax to forestall Godwyn's death. Godwyn himself may almost seem to be begging us for relief, his deathroots erupting from underground as cries for help, spreading his face on the backs of crabs and the castle of his descendants so that someone may see him and take notice of his agony, and possibly deliver him from it. While the bargaining stage is generally geared in the opposite direction, begging for life, Godwyn and those few who know of his fate, may know it is too late for that, and so they beg for a true death instead.

Rogier - Depression

"This is unfortunate...Couldn't change a thing."

While Rogier is a character described as concealing his anger, regret, grief, and fear, his aloof bearing is most reminiscent of someone a bit more numb than anything else. Yes he is friendly and polite, but we're told by the game that this is a mask, and it's something not entirely uncommon in high functioning individuals afflicted with depression. He's someone that has lost everything else - the higher purpose a tarnished may find in the sight of grace, his friendships, whatever past he left behind before either dying or being exiled to TLB, even his life. He gives us, a near perfect stranger, his belongings, easily admitting he has no further use for it, reminiscent of the way a dying/suicidal person might start wrapping up the loose ends of their life. All he has left is his research, which, without our help, he'd have lost the ability to continue. Rogier clings to this final thread, hopes of seeing it through to the end, but his parting words to us are about a void he feels himself falling into, something deep and fathomless, and in the end that void consumes him.

Fia - Acceptance

This is goodbye, my dear. But I am satisfied.

Fia's quest revolves around not just the acceptance of TWLID, but uplifting them, mothering them, weathering the blows an unkind world would rain on them. Death is not an idle interest or a vague abstraction to her, but her profession, her purpose. Where Darian looks at what the dead have done and sees violence and blood, Fia sees the meek in need of a merciful mother. Death is not something to be reviled, but embraced. She even goes to her own end with grace and poise, knowing that the creation of the rune will kill her. She is content with her place at Godwyn's side, and readily accepts her end.

[eldenrat]

Yeah I think I accidentally concluded this halfway through the ramble but was too sleep-deprived to realize that.

It would be much more honest of me to put this post forward as a reason I disagree with a specific interpretation of the story that says we, the tarnished, are definitively in the right for putting a stop to Miquella’s ascension. This is in addition to my hesitation to call the Age of Stars the definitively good ending. It’s not a definitively bad one either, but there are consequences and they are worth considering

tbh the one problem that I keep having with SotE even after coming around to being much less critical is a rather simple bit of narrative dissonance. The story of the DLC condemns (and not wrongfully!) Miquella using Mohg and Ansbach as mere means to an end against their will. It also seems to want to say that we the player have the potential to choose to not follow this path.

My issue with this is that we’ve already likely made this decision several times already. We have slain most of Marika’s demigod children, including Mohg and Radahn, for the twofold purpose of taking their shards of the Elden Ring and claiming further strength via the runes they give us upon dying. We are essentially cannibalizing the demigods in order to take power for ourselves. Not that much different from what Miquella has done, be it charming Mohg and bringing about the ruination of his dynasty, or ordering the disastrous bloodbath at the Battle of Aeonia. There is a great deal of value to be had in analyzing the ends of the actors seeking to take the throne, but to try and argue about who in the story is the most moral based on Deontological grounds is going to be a losing battle.

Something far more compelling to me is the question that Miquella poses to us about the value of lordship and godhood, and to convey the idea that our aim to try and “fix things” with our mending rune of choice is as flawed a choice as any he has made. It might be possible to Ship of Theseus the Golden Order, but the process is still a long one and will still cause a great deal of suffering so long as the Rune of Death remains detached from the world and those who do not have a Fia or Dungeater to bring them into the central order remain outcasts. Can we the player rule more compassionately than Miquella with Marika in seemingly no condition to pull any strings on her own? Can we rule as a Lord of humanity that Ansbach pleads for us to? One might argue that Ranni’s ending is the clear solution to all of this by removing the Elden Ring and the lynchpin of Marika’s empire, but even that creates a whole new list of woes. The shattering would be replaced by a new explosion of conflict between the beneficiaries of the old order and those that they oppressed, another series of brutal wars and ethnic reprisals as the realm continues to tear itself apart.

Yes, something better may emerge, and the uncertainty of what the world will look like is why Ranni’s ending can be seen as the liberatory one when dogma and power have been used to enforce one vision over all others. Yet we cannot say that this is the definitive “good ending” without acknowledging its shortcomings. There is no perfect world, only a better one than existed yesterday.