#spectral steed torrent

[gamingcreatures]

Don't worry Torrent, fortune is on her side. We found her here, after all...

Elden Ring (2022) | dev. FromSoftware

[dominaarts]

Very first Elden Ring-based post 😅 a quick little Torrent sketch while I work up the courage to reveal my Tarnished 😅❤️

[eldintower]

the specimen storehouse to me is the vile crux of so much... it represents a violence that is almost (visibly) absent from marika's reign, which is the violence of museums, except there is an unavoidably visible example of this, which is the corpse of gransax preserved in defeat upon leyndell. so following a train of thought the storehouse could be seen as a distortion of farum azula, or its legend, or what has become of its legend under marika's reign- architectures of entombment, and its verticality mirroring what's left of farum azula (the structure of its crumbling provokes a sense of verticality), and even messmer lurking at the top vs maliketh in his cathedral. but i think too that the storehouse is meaningful for marika's character, as it could stand in microcosm for how exactly she has utilized the land of shadow- as a god she is gaoler and entomber and the land of shadow is where she has buried. Buried messmer, who is reached through the storehouse, and buried her home, which is reached through the storehouse, and buried the jar innards, with the clinic being in the storehouse basement, and, most of all, buried an entire culture and an entire people. the storehouse is symbolic of environmental devastation tracing back to a god of life and abundance- there were great horned beasts which once ran wild. and miquella following the path of the god marks his own trail in the horror which is the specimen storehouse

[ratcoon]

Melina wondering why Torrent would choose such a young tarnished and Daenerys the horse girl just adores him.

Also she gets flashbacks to Quaithe every time Melina appears.

[cute-sweet-corgo]

Wha da dawg doin

[kirango-rouge]

I can't express enough how happy i am that i get now to ride my best friend in the elden beast fight!

he was with me from the very beggining in my worst and best moments and beating the final boss with him made me feel very emotional.

just for this moment becoming elden lord was worth it!

i love you Torrent, my best boy who deserves the world!

[ancient-names-pt-i]

[old-hunter-henryk]

pony,,,

look vvv

[lttleghost]

FUCKING WINTER LANTERNS AGAIN?

okay I can't be mad at this concept being re-used the lead-up to them was neat and eerie and they work a lil different but like oooh my god

[rubyhellneon]

⋆⁺‧₊☽ Ranni the Witch ☾₊‧⁺⋆

„ A pleausre to meet thee, Tarnished. I am witch Renna. I'd heard tell of a Tarnished hurtling about atop a spectral steed. And upon looking into the matter, the talk, I surmise, is of thee. Thou'rt possessed of the power, no? To call forth the spectral steed named Torrent…“

[kirango-rouge]

entering abyssal woods after deafeating jory and his horde of simps was definitely one of the aspects of the dlc i enjoyed the most!

i unfortunately didn't experience torrent's throwing me off because the area was after a long catacombs and i thought i was still in a no riding zone (i also went too far and saw that i couldn't use the whistle too late and just assumed it was a post catacombs area).

indeed this place goes against all of your instincts of running and fighting you learned so far and i instantly tried to fight back that winter lantern the moment it saw me even though i had read one minut prior that combat was not an option xD (and yet you may learn in a quite unintuitive way afterwards that you're supposed to parry these guys to touch them argh).

the atmosphere was so cool i was expecting threats everywhere and at any moment, to the point that once i reached midra's mense i felt like an idiot who let fear overwhelm them because in retrospect, Abyssal Woods is a pretty empty area, save for four winter lanterns, a few sheep and rats, a bunch of inquisitors and a homeless man.

i kinda wish we could have summoned torrent back once we clapped midra's cheeks and run arround abyssal woods at full speed just for the joy of it and show him the danger is gone now and that he's safe, while in insight we're still the bigger frenzied threat still brewing in this world here.

Turn back. While you are yet able.

I think whether Elden Ring's Abyssal Woods scared you probably says something about your relationship to the fear of the unknown. They certainly scared me.

At least for me, a lot of the fear came from reading the mischievously placed devnotes and seeing that Torrent was too scared to come out, and wondering what the correct interpretation was before I had even really entered the level. After all, with all the horrific ways we've died in this game, what could they possibly be signaling was scarier?

Don't let it see you.

Shockingly, there's nothing actually that scary awaiting you in any objective sense. The worst thing that happens is a loud noise followed by immediate death. But we die about 5000 times in the game before we get there; death isn't really that scary.

Once you are seen, there is no escape.

Maybe the 1HKO guaranteed death evokes a sense of helplessness that other deaths might not. But the first thing the game meets you with is an enemy you're *not* supposed to beat (the Grafted Scion) in order to learn that feelings of helplessness will be a normal part of the gameplay. This isn't really that scary, either.

It cannot even be touched.

So what so scary about it?

Hide yourself. Make not a sound.

The answer for me was, simply, nothing. The fear was entirely made up in my head in imagining all of the horrific ways to interpret those devnotes.

Crouch in the undergrowth.

In a way, the Abyssal Woods drove me mad with my own imaginings, similar to how I speculate being possessed by the Frenzied Flame feels.

Quietly await your chance.

I enjoy that the game gave me a taste of what it might be like to truly *feel* what the Frenzy-afflicted might feel. The Frenzied Flame god wants nothing more than to wipe away all souls from existence. To do that, it simply relies on you ruminating on the horrors you've already experienced in the game. Doing so might make you become profoundly afraid of what life in the Lands Between can offer, to the point where you come to agree that wiping it all away would be preferable. I think the experience may also give you a taste of why the Hornsent were so deeply afraid of the Frenzied Flame.

Combat is not an option.

I do also enjoy the tiny lore nugget that Torrent is probably scared because the Frenzied Flame melts away all spirits, including spirits like him. The Surging Frenzied Flame reads:

Spiritgrave stone burned by frenzied flame. Craftable item. Uses FP to place a stone on the ground, where it spews frenzied flames. Spirits are eternal, and yet frenzied flame melts them away regardless. No wonder the hornsent forbid the flame's use.

But we can only learn this *after* we get to the Manse from an item we can pick up there. So your entire trek through the woods, you're left wondering what scares him so much until you're long past the danger.

[thatpointything]

Screw it, posting a silly crossover I’ve been hyperfixating on for a while here

Poppy Playtime/Elden Ring crossover

Basically, parts of the Playtime Co. factory moments after the Hour of Joy begins are transported to the Lands Between. Of course, things radically change with this sudden new player in the Lands Between as both employee and living toy escape from the chunks of the factory. Another thing to note is that some stuff from Elden Ring such as the Scarlet Rot has unique interactions with some Poppy Playtime stuff. Here’s what I’ve got on the big guys so far. They’re all really just rough drafts but enjoy!

Huggy Wuggy

Experiment 1170’s near-mindlessness made it perfect for it to be maddened by the Frenzied Flame. Nowadays, Huggy Wuggy is known as ‘The Frenzied Candle’ and is the de facto leader of the Frenzied Flame Village. Found as an optional boss there.

Phase 1 theme: A mix of No More Hugs and The Cuckoo Knights

Phase 2 theme: A mix of Happy Room and Formidable Foe I

Mommy Long Legs

Mommy Long Legs, like many other living toys that escaped the pieces of Playtime Co., severely underestimated the Lands Between and she lost one of her arms to Godrick the Grafted (who grafted said arm to himself afterwards) for it. Some time later, she started experimenting with grafting and even magic in an elaborate plan to kill Godrick. Found in the Academy of Raya Lucaria as an optional boss.

Phase 1 theme: A mix of One Last Game and Bloody Fingers

Phase 2 theme: A mix of Arachnophobia and Death’s Kindred

CatNap

CatNap, having left the factory some time after the Hour of Joy, was a staunch follower of the Prototype for the longest time. However, when the Prototype disappeared to seek the skin of gods, CatNap had a crisis of faith. In this state, he was far more vicious than usual, but he later had a change of faith. He turned to worshipping the Erdtree like the inhabitants of the Lands Between. However, he worships the Erdtree in a way that the Golden Order sees as heretical. At some point, he managed to sneak into Leyndell, set up shop in the East Capital Rampart and constructed a crude shrine to the Erdtree there. Nowadays, CatNap is a de facto Golden Order Fundamentalist despite not actually being part of the Golden Order, wearing discarded or stolen pieces of armor from that group. Found as a mandatory boss there, but you can choose not to kill him at the end of the fight and he even has his own questline and ending. The ending is called Age of Madness.

Phase 1 theme (Catnap, Erdtree Fundamentalist): A mix of Get Out and Erdtree Knights

Phase 2 theme: A mix of I Had A Nightmare and Godrick, the Grafted

Pianosaurus

Experiment 1163 was one of the first of the living toys from Playtime Co. to be infected by the Scarlet Rot. And thanks to the Rot’s interaction with the exotic materials that make up the outer shell of Pianosaurus, it quickly became one of the more violent creatures to be born from this kind of interaction. Thankfully, the beast shuns the light of the sun. Found in Gaol Cave heavily infected with and mutated by the Scarlet Rot. Fought as an optional boss there.

Battle theme: Omen Illusion

Yarnaby

Found in Limgrave. Can either be fought for his Remembrance or domesticated, which will give you a tool similar to the Spectral Steed Whistle. And to domesticate Yarnaby you need to give him certain meats, which are as follows…

Boiled Crab

Fireproof Pickled Liver

Immunizing Cured Meat

Well-Pickled Turtle Neck

Sacred Bloody Flesh

Opaline Pickled Liver

These can be fed to Yarnaby in no particular order. As a steed, Yarnaby is arguably better than Torrent in some aspects, as he can fight back when attacked and is faster than Torrent. However, Yarnaby’s main drawbacks as a steed are that he’s too big to go some places and he’s weak to fire.

Battle theme: A mix of All Skein And Bone and Old Warriors

The Doctor

After the event that transplanted parts of Playtime Co. into the Lands Between, it was only a matter of time until the reserve power in the chunk that housed Harley Sawyer ran out. This took a long time. Long enough that deathroot began to sprout in the chunk that housed him, but it eventually happened. However, because of the deathroot, one of the reserve bodies was animated by the power of the plant, with Harley’s soul having been forced inside it. As a result, he effectively became one of Those Who Live in Death, but for reasons unknown, Harley retained most of his soul. Found in Bonny Gaol, which he and several other surviving scientists from Playtime Co. had taken over and converted into a sort of laboratory.

Doey the Doughman

For Doey, he was infected by the Scarlet Rot at some point, which affected him a lot more severely thanks to his nature as a mass of living dough. Despite this, he retained most of his sanity and even managed to turn the Erdtree Sanctuary in Leyndell into an equivalent to the Safe Haven from Chapter 4. Depending on the choices of the Tarnished, when the Erdtree catches fire, this Safe Haven will either be evacuated to the Leyndell Catacombs or be attacked by an Ulcerated Tree Spirit. In the former case, there are minimal casualties and Doey will even give you Lord of Blood’s Exultation (provided you haven’t killed Esgar yet) as a thank you for warning him and advising him and his friends to get to safety. His Scarlet Rot symptoms even seem to be fading away in this case. In the latter case, most of the individuals in this new Safe Haven will have been killed by the Ulcerated Tree Spirit, but Doey will have killed it by the time you find him. And Doey has a mental breakdown like he does in Chapter 4, meaning you have to fight him. He fully succumbs to the Scarlet Rot in Phase 3 of his fight, becoming a being known as The Avatar of Rot.

Phase 1 theme (Doey, the Man of Clay): A mix of It’s All Ruined and Morgott, the Omen King

Phase 2 theme (Doey, Beast of a Thousand Shapes): A mix of Catalyst and Lichdragon Fortissax

Phase 3 theme (Avatar of Rot): A mix of Always Hurt Back and Mohg, Lord of Blood

[fallout-lou-begas]

she's spectral on my steed til i torrent

[eldintower]

when you walk you make an echo where they used to be

.

torrent is the last in the same manner that every dragon in dark souls is the last. there may be hundreds but there were thousands once and more. And the silence shall lost long & long

[catcas22]

The Truth about Saint Trina

I can’t take credit for much more than stringing all this together. I’ve heard bits and pieces of this theory suggested by others but this is my attempt to create a coherent narrative.

So we can establish that Miquella never grew to adulthood, having his development stunted by some kind of curse. This hardly even needs to be said, but I’ll cite my sources just because.

Remembrance of the Rot Goddess

Miquella and Malenia are both the children of a single god. As such they are both Empyreans, but suffered afflictions from birth. One was cursed with eternal childhood, and the other harbored rot within.

We can also establish with reasonable certainty that it is common for Misbegotten to seek treatment for their condition from Perfumers. We find a bunch of Misbegotten and Perfumers hanging out together along the main road in the ash-covered section of Leyndell. We also have the description of Perfumer Tricia.

Perfumer Tricia Ashes Description

Tricia was once known as a healer who dedicated her efforts to treating Misbegotten, Omen, and all those seen as impure.

When her efforts failed, she was their companion as they died, watching over them to ensure that they could pass peacefully, free of pain.

Trina’s Lily Description

A symbol of faith in St. Trina. Dulls the senses, preventing agitation.

Seems like an herb that calms the senses and eases pain would be helpful for a Perfumer attempting to ease the suffering of the Misbegotten, yes?

Hewg is a Misbegotten. Based off of the location of his hammer in the overworld, we can establish that Hewg lived in Leyndell at some point. Given the way the Golden Order is, he probably wasn’t there of his own free will.

We also know that Hewg once knew a spirit tuner who he feels deeply indebted to.

Hewg Dialogue

When asked about Roderika

                "The girl you brought here... She's crestfallen, and can scarcely swing a blade, but she has a gift for spirit tuning. I saw another one like her, long ago. Their eyes share the same hue.”

After speaking to Roderika again

                “I spoke with the girl. She has a gift for spirit tuning. So I told her everything I know. I'm indebted to a spirit tuner I met long ago. It was all I could do to honor her.”

I’ve heard some people suggest that Marika is the aforementioned spirit tuner. But... Come on. Hewg says that Roderika reminds him of the spirit tuner. Love her or hate her, the only thing Marika has in common with Roderika is her hair color.

Looking at it from Hewg’s perspective, he is clearly terrified of Marika, while his feelings toward Roderika (and possibly the other spirit tuner?) are more protective in nature.

Now, basically everything we know about Saint Trina comes from two item descriptions.

Sword of Saint Trina Description

St. Trina is an enigmatic figure. Some say she is a comely young girl, others are sure he is a boy. The only certainty is that their appearance was as sudden as their disappearance.

St. Trina’s Torch Description

Candle-stand torch that burns with a light-purple flame. The carvings depict St. Trina, but in adult form, somewhat unnervingly.

So we can establish that Trina is a person of ambiguous gender, feminine-looking but could also be a young boy. They weren’t around for very long. And the image of them depicted as an adult seems unnatural and unnerving.

One more thing -- Ranni comes to check out the Player character in Limgrave because she heard that Torrent was in the area.

Ranni Dialogue

                “I'd heard tell of a Tarnished hurtling about atop a spectral steed. And upon looking into the matter, the talk, I surmise, is of thee.”

                “I was entrusted this, for thee. By Torrent's former master. 'Tis a bell for calling forth spirits.”

Torrent’s former master was a spirit tuner.

Putting it all together:

                As a young prince in Leyndell, Miquella sees the suffering of the Misbegotten and wishes to use his skills as a healer to help them. Marika, Radagon, or both tell him that treating Misbegotten is beneath his station and would be an embarrassment to the royal family. He either talks them into letting him go out incognito, or just straight-up sneaks out in disguise.

                Under the guise of St. Trina, a humble Perfumer, Miquella does his best to ease the suffering of the Misbegotten. Specifically, he uses the soporific lilies that he originally developed to help soothe Malenia’s Rot-induced nightmares. During this period, Miquella/Trina treats Hewg, a smith “employed” by the Roundtable Hold. Hewg never learns “Trina’s” true identity, but remembers “her” kindness all the same.

                Miquella eventually makes a clean break with the Golden Order and leaves to establish the Haligtree. He now no longer needs to hide his humanitarian work, so the St. Trina disguise becomes redundant, accounting for St. Trina’s sudden disappearance.

                Some time later, Miquella is kidnapped by Mohg and disappears from the Lands Between. No one seems to have any idea what happened to him. When his half-sister Ranni hears that his spectral steed has been spotted in Limgrave, of course she zooms over to check out the rumor -- for a moment, she likely believed that her long-lost little brother, one of the few remaining members of her family that isn’t either dead, insane, or trying to kill her, had finally resurfaced.

Enter Shadow of the Erdtree, where someone who looks an awful lot like Miquella seems to be riding Torrent through the dream/spirit realm.

[blackblooms]

Just reached a peculiar region in the DLC that prevents the usage of torrent. Nothing unusual for Elden ring, but... "the spectral steed is too scared to come out"

...what do you know about this place that i dont torrent?