#including this pest gowry

[alberichfanpage]

Gowry's little spy.

[catcas22]

Millicent's Sisters Theory(?)

Obligatory "this is 10% theory and 90% headcanon."

This started as a discussion with @thatboreddrake about the Egyptian concept of the soul. By my surface-level understanding, there are five parts: Ren is your name, your true name which encapsulates your identity, Ka is your living essence, your life force, Ib is the heart or the seat of the soul, the part of you that is judged upon death, Ba is the thing that makes you "you," your personality and reputation, and Sheut is your shadow, or the mark that you leave on the world.

Drake suggested that Millicent carries Malenia's Ba, her pride, her sense of self, the thing that made her herself. Meanwhile Malenia has been left with only her Ren, her name. Hence why she repeats her "I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella" mantra with every battle. It's the last part of herself she has left.

However, that presents a problem -- only the Ka, the Ib, and the Sheut remain, but there are four sisters to account for.

Although we don't know much about the sisters, I'm going to take my best guess based on their only real differentiating characteristics -- their weapons.

Amy bears the same blade as Malenia's teacher, the blind swordsman. I think the Sheut would fit her best. Just as the shadow the swordsman cast upon the world lives on in Malenia, Malenia's shadow lives on in Amy. I was also thinking about their names. While three out of five have "M" names like Malenia, Amy and Polyanna stick out. Then I realized that "Amy" might be a reference to "Aeonia," as in the Aeonian Bloom, the most obvious and ever-present shadow that Malenia cast upon the world.

Although there's less of a solid connection here, I'd link Mary (wields a Cleanrot Commander's Halo Scythe) with the Ka (living essence), as her weapon represents Malenia's life's work as the defender of the Haligtree. And I'd associate Maureen (wields a Golden Order Treespear) with the Ib (the heart which carries the weight of one's sins and is judged upon death).

By just about every metric, Polyanna is the odd man out. Her name doesn't fit with the others at all. She is the only one we can interact with as an ally. And she's specifically referred to as an "adopted daughter."

At first I just assumed this to mean that she's Gowry's adopted daughter, drawn from the swamp and raised like the rest. But when the sisters all show up together, they're labeled by birth order. And given that Gowry is a representative of the pest hivemind, a race born entirely from the Scarlet Rot, it could be argued that he's the closest thing the sisters will ever have to a biological father.

So here's where I abandon all pretense of evidence and dip into pure headcanon.

What if Polyanna is not Millicent's (or the others') biological sister? Sure, they all look similar, but could she be a different relation?

Is it just me, or does Malenia look a lot like her dad? Not just the hair, but her lips, her cheekbones, and her nose.

So the sisters (including Polyanna) take after Malenia. But it's fair to say they also take after Radagon a bit. Maybe Polyanna isn't their biological sister. Maybe she's their cousin, via another of Radagon's children.

Put yourself in Radahn's shoes for a moment. You go soft no-contact with your toxic family. You move to the furthest reaches of the Caelid Wilds to start your own fiefdom. As the family feud seems to be getting ready for another round, you meet someone and get married. Would you maybe be reluctant to tell your scheming siblings, your genocidal stepmother, your backstabbing father, and your dubiously trustworthy half-siblings that you now have a wife and a baby on the way?

It would add so much context to Radahn's impossible defense of Sellia and his oath of honorable death with Jerran if the big guy had a family of his own in Caelid. It would explain his half of the Aeonia clusterfrick -- Malenia refused to hold back because her twin senses told her Miquella was imprisoned in Caelid. Radahn refused to hold back because he was protecting his new family. As much as both may have hated to assume the worst of the other, neither felt that they could afford to take chances.

When the population of Caelid becomes afflicted with Scarlet Rot, Sellia becomes a ghost town, and Polyanna becomes one of many orphans left behind, Gowry takes her in because hey, you never know when a half-demigod might be useful.

It would explain why he sends her to help the Tarnished against O'Neill. While the other three sisters are potential vectors for a Bloom if Millicent fails, Polyanna would be essentially expendable to him.

[bri-the-nautilus]

Hi there! I saw your reply to that ask about Malenia being a milf, really enjoyed reading it all (it was all just right!). Especially a passage on Gowry. Do you have more detailed headcanons/theories on him? Can you share them?

It's just that he plays an important role in my own postcanon story, being sort of a rematching villain. So I'm always open on any info on him and the Rot in general, even others' headcanons. Do you think there could be other humans worshipping the Rot? (not just kindreds/pests).

I meself stick to the theory of him being a Carian sorcerer who's studied the Rot and went too far (then even farther to turn back).

Thank you!

(editing this in at the end. This got LONG. I dug up so much stuff as I was compiling my thoughts, and this post took quite a turn. Thanks for getting me thinking, and I apologize for how ungodly long this post is. This was fun!)

Gowry is an interesting one. He doesn't talk much about himself, and his adopted daughters don't really like to talk about him either for obvious reasons. And as far as sane residents of Caelid to converse with go, it's really just him and the girls, a few merchants, Maliketh, and Jerren. Not exactly a wealth of lore.

Let's start with his armor set. Gowry wears the Sage Set, which can be found in Liurnia's Stillwater Cave. It's worth noting that this cave is home to several Rot-themed enemies, including mushroom priests and a Cleanrot Knight. From the description of the Sage Armor:

Thick burgundy robe. Attire of the wise sages who were deemed heretical. Evidence that the wearer was driven from town.

This is interesting. It's also worth noting that Gowry isn't the only character who wears this armor. Necromancer Garris, the boss of the Sage's Cave, also wears pieces of the set. Their faces are also quite similar. There could be a connection here, but we're getting sidetracked.

So the Sages were driven from a town. The question is, which town? The answer is of course Sellia, Town of Sorcery. Gowry lives just outside the city walls. For confirmation, we need only look at his inventory. Gowry sells Night Shard and Nightmaiden's Mist, whose descriptions both say that they were invented in Sellia. The third spell he sells is Glintstone Stars, which is a Raya Lucaria sorcery, but its description also says that it's a spell of the Olivinus Conspectus, "which attracts sorcerers from Sellia."

So Gowry lived in Sellia as a sage, where he learned the town's signature brand of magic. Then he was kicked out for heresy, per the Sage Armor's description. The next question we have to ask is, what heresy did he commit? Let's take a step back and examine Liurnian orthodoxy. Astrological worship is the basis for all of Liurnia's science and religion. The Academy worships the stars, while the House of Caria and Lazuli Conspectus worship the moon as well. The description of the Lazuli Robe calls this star-moon worship heresy. I don't think what Gowry did was heresy in the Liurnian sense of the word, however. Sellia is a town descended from the Nox and heavily associated with the Olivinus Conspectus. The Nox were star worshippers, and the Olivinus are an orthodox Conspectus with a focus on meteors. If Gowry grew up here, the odds of him converting to moon worship are slim.

Rot worship is a possibility. The only real evidence of pre-Shattering Rot worship is House Marais, who clandestinely worshipped the Outer God of Rot in their castle. The Haligtree venerated Malenia, but didn't worship the Rot because Malenia herself suffered at its hands and would like nothing more than to be rid of it. Rot worship doesn't go mainstream until after Aeonia when an entire civilization of shrimp cultists crawls out of the nuclear swamp and decides Malenia is their goddess. So while Gowry worshipping the Scarlet Rot in prewar Sellia would be kind of heretical, it would also be a really weird thing for anyone to be into given the time and place. Also, notice that the Rot is only ever worshipped by people actively suffering from it. "The sons of House Marais are all sickly born" (probably because they decided to build on top of a poison swamp), and the mushroom priests and shrimpbros speak for themselves. It would be very odd indeed for a healthy Sellian man in a lush, unblighted Caelid to suddenly say "hey screw the stars, we worship super skin necrosis now." You know what I think he did?

Necromancy.

Oh yeah, you thought we were done with Gary.

So let's talk about our friend Necromancer Garris for a second. While it's not in his name like it is for Gowry, Garris is almost definitely a Sellian sage. He looks like Gowry, he wears the requisite robes, and the cave where he lives is called the "Sage's Cave." Unless the Black Knife lurking nearby has some scholarly qualifications we don't know about, the Sage in question has to be Garris. Now what exactly is his deal? What can we learn about heresy from this guy?

Garris is a necromancer. He summons bone snails in battle and uses the Prince of Death staff to cast a spell similar to Rancorcall, whose description claims that it's an ancient death hex presumed lost to the annals of history until Garris rediscovered it. Most interesting, however, is his weapon. Garris wields the unique flail Family Heads.

Three bludgeoning copper heads attached to a handle by chains. Signature weapon of Necromancer Garris, the heretical sage. The heads were made to resemble those of his wife and two children.

Oh. Oh. Oh.

Here we have confirmation that Garris is not only a Sage, but a heretical one. Much like good old Gowry. A wife and children, you say? Let's take a look at the weapon's unique Ash of War: Familial Rancor. This ash behaves similarly to Rancorcall, the spell that Garris rediscovered and uses. And its description?

Gently rattle the copper heads to summon vengeful spirits that chase down foes. The anguish of a spouse and children invites accursed wrath.

Alrighty. It's the classic story of a magician and his dead family. This is just Fullmetal Alchemist now. We don't really have the evidence to say one way or another what happened here. Did Garris lose his family and resort to necromancy to try to get them back? Or is the "wrath" and "anguish" of his family a result of him using them as human sacrifices or guinea pigs in his experiments with the dark arts? But enough of that.

The trouble we were having with Gowry is that we couldn't pin down what he was doing that would have gotten him banished from Sellia. Sellia, per the Night Shard description, is a town of assassins that habitually kill other sorcerers. You'd have to do something nuts to get kicked out of a place like that, and we just didn't have anything that points towards a sensical explanation for Gowry's heresy. This is where Garris saves us. We know he was also a Sage who got kicked out of Sellia for being a heretic, but unlike Gowry, we know EXACTLY what Garris was doing. And now let's look back at Sellian theological law and try to apply it to necromancy.

Of course necromancy is heretical! The Lands Between broadly speaking venerates the dead. Dead people are buried at the roots of the Erdtree to return to its grace. The burial watchdogs are statues built to watch over these dead, and while the Erdtree is a Golden Order concept, the fact that some watchdogs use glintstone attacks implies that the Liurnians also build them. Liurnia does have its own Erdtree burial catacombs, despite not worshipping the Erdtree or any other Golden Order figures as deities. We know from Fia and Lionel that people in the Lands Between see the Deathbed Companions as disgusting heretics. What do Deathbed Companions do? Raise the dead. Necromancy seems like an amazing way to get yourself kicked out of just about any dignified society in the Lands Between.

And when we look at Gowry through the lens of necromancy... things start to add up.

If you try to kill Gowry, he turns into a Kindred of Rot on death and his disembodied voice casually mentions that he can keep coming back. Upon reloading the shack, Gowry's there again. You can repeat this ad infinitum until reaching the end of his and Millicent's questline. He doesn't stay dead.

Hmm.

We can't really say for sure what Garris was doing with his necromancy outside of the fact that he was researching ancient hexes. Gowry, on the other hand...

Here's my theory. Gowry, either together with Garris or on his own, starts researching methods of achieving life after death. When what he's doing comes to light, he gets banished from Sellia, but his work is far enough along that he can finish it alone without the resources of a town of sorcery. But as an outcast, there's not much he can really do with that.

Enter Malenia.

Malenia's bloom is said to have been awe-inspiring and divine. We can find ghosts who witnessed Aeonia ranting about the divine splendor.

Sublime, I tell you. The very first flower of Aeonia bloomed on this very spot. Malenia, may you blossom into a goddess.

For Gowry, who is by now thoroughly disillusioned with the Sellian orthodoxy that kicked him to the curb for being a necromancer, the Rot may well have been a religious experience. Especially when the necrotic death bomb starts creating life.

Life from death. The goal of every necromancer.

And oh boy does Caelid have it.

Gowry has found a Goddess who he thinks can create life from death. He has an entire cult worth of shrimp people who also worship her, and who he can manipulate as he pleases with his superior intellect. And best of all, he has Malenia's daughters, who he can raise into Goddesses of Rot themselves.

Gowry is of course just a man. An old man whose condo is six feet away from Ground Zero for the Aeonian Bloom. His body is dying as he experiences all this wonder and finds the infant buds amidst the fallout of the Bloom. But for a Necromancer, who has cracked the code, this is no trouble. Even as his body gives out, Gowry's spirit possesses a lowly Kindred of Rot, projecting an illusion of his human form. As a Kindred, he can survive indefinitely in rotting Caelid. As an illusory human, he can deal with outsiders and raise Malenia's daughters. If his Kindred is slain... no matter. There's more where that came from.

[zcrayas]

// out of curiosity, how would you describe rya's human form? is it just a magic illusion, or is there more to it than that?

This is a very good question, for I have been thinking about this! I include her human form as a very strong illusion, that seemingly changes her form. Something that can fool all senses. Even the clothes she wears are part of it. You see, and feel her as she appears to outside. She couldn't kiss someone as a snake similar way humans do, but could do it in her human form.

But the illusion in a way is incomplete - reflecting some of her serpent features. Perhaps, sometimes coming half way off. Even if what she resembles in disguise, is a human reflection of what she would be, should she always have been human. Since it is illusion, for example, fire wouldn't cause harm to her. I also believe beings like demigods could sense it immediately.

I would say, it works very much like Mimic's veil. The illusion can be broken by Rya herself, or upon harm caused to her (player in game can kill her very easily during questline and her illusion breaks - I imagine it would require hurting her really bad / her getting hurt enough). Other known ones using similar illusion aside mimic's veil to turn into human are Lansseax and pests mimicing Gowry. It could be a form of spell. Then again, Rykard seems to be the only one who had spell potential present in Manor, even after being devoured.

I do believe some kind of an item is what Rya uses to disguise herself. It would be easy, for Tanith to give it to Rya who struggled to make contact with humans in her serpent form.

[luminary-vazre]

OK so genuinely? I think Malenia's other half died in Caelid. The way Miquella discarded parts of himself, including St Trina- and the way Millicent describes herself as Malenia's pride that she discarded in her attempt to slay Radahn. I think in that moment of realization that she'd lost the fight, that moment that she realized she had to do everything in her power to win there and then, Malenia basically speedran the 'empyrean discarding everything to become a god' process. She discarded everything that made her Malenia except for her loyalty to Miquella. She discarded her pride, and whatever each of Millicent's sisters represented, and that likely means she also discarded her other half, leaving them to die in the blighted wasteland Caelid would become.

Alternatively, her other half is Gowry, who is bodyhopping between the rot pests because his actual physical body died.

me: ambiguity is such a powerful and intentional part of storytelling in elden ring! also me: so like.........how does the mitosis of the self work exactly. can marika just shapeshift into radagon at will. did she spend 50 years shacking up with rennala in raya lucaria while godfrey ruled her kingdom?? why doesn't malenia have an alter? miquella got one. speaking of which did everyone just know that miquella and trina were the same person? was it just that miquella walks into the breakfast room one day and ope nevermind she's trina today, how did you sleep honey?

[dr-ladybird]

Faith early game weapons: grab pretty much anything (morning star, estoc, uchigatana, Great Epee, or Banished Knight’s Halberd are all great options), upgrade it and leave it set to standard scaling until Godrick or so when you’ll start getting better damage from faith scaling, then put Sacred Blade or Golden Vow on it. That’ll work well until you can break into Redmane Castle to get the Red-Hot Whetblade (you can’t get the Whetblade when the festival’s active, so if you start the festival early, go back to the castle after you kill Radahn and talk to Jerren). Once you have that, you can start using strength/dex type ashes of war like Sword Dance or Lion’s Claw with faith scaling and fire damage. Or stick with Sacred Blade, it’s a good skill as long as the enemy isn’t too holy resistant.

(A lot of enemies have serious resistance to either fire damage or holy damage, and a few things have minor annoying resistance to both, but nothing has serious resistance to both.)

There’s also the Winged Scythe - better on a faith/dex hybrid build, but still good with just enough dex to use it - which is in an easy dungeon in the Weeping Peninsula, and the Cipher Pata which is in the Roundtable behind Alberich. Don’t use either of them as your only weapon - they both vary wildly between OP and terrible depending on what you’re fighting - but they’re usually good and always very cool.

Later on, definitely get the Black Knife and definitely try using it as a L2 stick. Stop doing that if it makes the game too easy! I hear the Blasphemous Blade is just as OP - never tried it myself, but that’s just because I didn’t like the aesthetic and don’t like the normal greatsword moveset, that’s me.

Faith-focussed builds tend to be primarily casters, though - one of the biggest advantages of the build is its ability to do any kind of elemental damage you want, avoid getting bored, and make everything elementally weak to you. Become a completely different flavour of wizard just by resting and memorising a different set of spells, maybe changing your talismans or physick.

Spells that you definitely want to try out include but aren’t limited to:

Catch Flame and Flame Sling (basic short and mid range fireballs, buy from Corhyn the first time you meet him)

Flame of Frenzy (fire AOE, in the Weeping Peninsula)

Bestial Sling and Stone of Gurranq (throw rocks for pure physical damage, Gurranq will teach you in exchange for deathroots)

Lightning Spear (the knight near the Artist’s Shack in Liurnia drops the prayerbook)

Black Flame (fireball that does percentage health damage, prayerbook’s in Stormveil next to a seal much better than the starting one)

Blessing’s Boon (health regen buff, sold by Miriel)

Frenzied Burst (carried by a beetle near the Fingerprint Vyke boss fight)

Golden Vow (buff that increases your damage and reduces damage taken, found on Mount Gelmir next to the Anastasia 2 boss fight��� Anastasia also drops her giant meat cleaver the second time you kill her, and it’s not bad on a faith build as long as you don’t mind wasting some levels in dexterity!)

The other blackflame spells - sorry, I forget where you get them! I think most of them drop from Godskin Cultists, I know the big AOE’s in Spiritcaller Cave in the Mountaintops and Gideon gives you that brilliant damage-reduction buff near endgame.

Pest Threads (that thread stuff the Caelid rot centipedes shoot at you, yours has a shorter range but it’s great on large bosses): buy from Gowry after you get Millicent a new arm. You might want to look up the Millicent quest, it’s confusing.

Lansseax’s Glaive and Fortissax’s Lightning Spear: get them from Lansseax and Fortissax (if you can’t find the Fortissax boss fight, he’s behind that horrible duo of toxic gargoyles in Nokron… weird questline, look it up if you get confused)

Discus of Light: very long-range, great tracking, FP efficient, hits multiple enemies if you throw it into a crowd, definitely worth putting a couple of levels into intelligence or wearing Int-boosting gear to cast it. Buy it from Corhyn once you help him find Goldmask. You can find a duplicate version of Goldmask’s mask which buffs it.

All the Giantsflame stuff (there’s a prayerbook in the Guardian’s Garrison once you finally manage to get past Arghanthy - try Lightning Spear, her shield/gun doesn’t block that - plus you can get a great AOE from the fire giant remembrance.)

Scarlet Aeonia (use Malenia’s remembrance to be a pretty flower)

Black Blade (use Maliketh’s remembrance to get an intangible version of his sword)

And I haven’t tried out the blood and dragon spells yet, but they’re supposed to be good - go eat all the dragons, they’re easy with a ranged magic build, and see what you like. If you put 17 points into arcane then decide you don’t like the dragon spells, you can always have Renalla move the arcane points into faith!

Suggested starting build (note: I’m a bit personally obsessed with the starting katana, love that thing):

Start as samurai to get that katana ASAP. Try out your weapons, put some levels into HP, upgrade your flasks, usual early game stuff. Go and steal the Beast Crest or Eclipse Crest heater shield. Get to the Roundtable ASAP to buy the Two Fingers Seal and the basic fireballs. Then put most of your levels into vigor and faith, plus enough endurance for your armour (a lot of fights are easier if your armour has at least 51 poise) and enough mind that you don’t run out of FP much.

For the endgame you want 30-38 mind, 50-60 vigor, and 60-80 faith. 13 Int if you love Discus of light, otherwise dump stat and get the int-boosting talisman. Enough arcane for any blood and dragon spells you really like, otherwise dump stat. Just enough strength and dex for your weapons (so stay at 11/15 all game if you’re only using that katana and the Cipher Pata, but the Winged Scythe takes 16 of each and Anastasia’s giant knife takes 20 Dex…)

Switch to the Erdtree Seal if your faith goes much over 60 for better damage.

am I making sense? Anything I should clarify?

Hey Elden Ring peeps. So I went through the whole game about a year ago and finally beat it about 3 months ago. This was when I was trying to actually 100 percent everything (every item / quest) this sadly didn't end up happening as I ended up missing key things and couldn't do the whole Malenia area thing.

That said my first playthrough was really a mess and I need / want to start over fresh. The thing is I don't have any idea of what even build to do / make. So ideas would be great on good starting weapons / builds anything to help.

I wanted to do a faith build but realized all the early game weapons are kind of really bad. The only weapon I have used to this point is bloodhounds fang which I went through my whole game with. I want to branch out and try new builds / things so any recommendations.