#land of shadow

[hoarah-babylon]

what’s ur take on the shadow people in the land of shadow? i’m intrigued by what other people think. i haven’t thought about it too much but my impression was that it’s quite literally the phrase “a shadow of their former selves” made manifest. these people have been stripped of everything, their way of life, their people, their culture, their right to live freely. they’ve fallen into despair similarly to how people become ‘infected’ with frenzy, but it feels colder… there’s a sadness to them. some of them sit and build little towers out of rocks.

when i first ran into them i assumed they were ghosts that we couldn’t interact with, and then they started throwing rocks at me and brandishing knives. these people are hurting and have done for a long time. maybe they were burned with messmer’s flame and can’t die thanks to marika’s removal of the rune of death? it’s quite ironic that her action of removing death meant she could never fully enact her intended ‘revenge’ on the hornsent, because no one can truly die.

[blackblooms]

Got two theories for the land of shadow locations

1st: Since there appears to be some kind of veil in the sky, the land of shadow could be located under the sea in the middle of the land between. Kind of like Hyrule in Wind Waker 2nd: The land between is a flat world and the land of shadows is located in its flipside. You might say it exists, in a way, in the shadow of the Erdtree.

[azotho]

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

[soporificlily]

I was running around aimlessly in the Shadow Keep, past the Jars in what looked to be some kind of hospital wing of the Keep? and then I shot down this spicy red fire sorcerer Salza were the devs hungry? and found this place! the Ancient Ruins of Rauh.

As soon as I opened the gates, I saw this beautiful landscape. There's something truly magical and enchanting about this game. I've played so many open world games with beautiful lands, but there's just something about Elden Ring that has charmed me.

Maybe its the low-to-the-ground fog, the pastures and trees with animals peacefully going about their days, the tranquility amidst all the disorder and pain of the world.

The Lands Between are cruel and unforgiving, but on the way from one killing to the next, there are so many beautiful things to appreciate.

[locuas642]

Having finished all of the DLC, something that comes to mind is that I feel there is some ambiguity as to the real reason the Land of Shadows was casted away.

There is, obviously, the simple explanation that Messmer's campaign of vengeance upon the hornsent was so horrific and brutal, that Marika had no choice but to erase it completely, and Messmer with it.

But it could also be that she wanted to hide away her home village, the only memory left of her time before being a goddess. And it might have been to protect it from undeserving eyes, or it might have also been to hide away the trail of how she became a goddess.

And it might have also been to hide away the Gate of Divinity, the place where she became a Goddess, so no one else could have done the same. And depending on your reading of Marika, this might have been her paranoia that someone might try to use it and become a challenger to her rule, or what she saw as the biggest mercy she could give anyone.

[theargoninja]

Day 25 of Drawlloween 2024; "Dismembers Only"

Throughout the Land Of Shadow in Elden Ring, the Tarnished finds crosses where Miquella abandons (or dismembers) parts of his physical being.

[cyberneutral]

In that forsaken place, blood must spill - The blood of your fellows, the Erdtree faithful.

[drondskaath]

Ghül | Land of Shadow | 2023

UK Black Metal

Artwork by Heather Turner

[doraingrid]

Ketheric Thorm The Undead General Myrkul's Chosen

[onlyhurtforaminute]

GHUL-THE BURDEN OF SORROW EVERMORE

[hinamie]

i don't normally participate in these redraw challenges but it's megumi so i'll make an exception

[n0ahsferatu]

ℑ 𝔪𝔢𝔱 𝔞 𝔩𝔞𝔡𝔶 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔰,

𝔉𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔟𝔢𝔞𝔲𝔱𝔦𝔣𝔲𝔩—𝔞 𝔣𝔞𝔢𝔯𝔶’𝔰 𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔡,

ℌ𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔞𝔦𝔯 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔩𝔬𝔫𝔤, 𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔣𝔬𝔬𝔱 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔩𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱,

𝔄𝔫𝔡 𝔥𝔢𝔯 𝔢𝔶𝔢𝔰 𝔴𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔴𝔦𝔩𝔡

- John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1819)

(based on the eponymous painting by Frank Dicksee (1901))

(prints available on my inprnt ! :))

[aur07a]

while I don’t ship shadowvanilla I do think shadow milk would be the shittiest wingman of all time

[sausage-rolll]

The quiet tragedy of shadow of the erdtree is playing through the DLC, encountering cross after cross along your journey and slowly coming to the haunting realisation that Miquella, the person you’ve been tailing throughout the entirety of the DLC, the creator of the Haligtree and protector of its denizens, the most fearsome and kind demigod of them all… Is long dead.

He’s not at the divine gates seeking godhood. Not really. The person known as Miquella is buried at the base of each and every cross in the land. Survived only by a few select ailing entities. St. Trina, slowly wilting at the bottom of the world, The Scadutree avatar who inherited his greatrune, and Miquella the Kind at the very peak of Enir-Ilim.

He not only abandoned his flesh, but went so far as to fracture his very soul. His doubts, his fear, his love. All abandoned in an attempt to fashion a perfect god. To right the wrongs of his mother and people and finally bring the world peace.

His flesh, his power, his birthright, his fate, his fear, his doubts, his love… after leaving all that behind, how much of what’s left is actually Miquella?

Miquella may have hurt many people in his quest for godhood, but he himself was never spared from that very same pain. He may have stripped Radahn and Mohg of their dignity and sense of self to fashion into the perfect consort, but he was just as willing to do the same to himself to fashion into the perfect god.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of Shadow.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" - J.R.R. Tolkien

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Something something Merlin is Arthur's bane.