#wego fire knight elder

[nuadha-airgeadlamh]

concerning the specimen storehouse

Since the DLC released, I've seen some thoughts floating around about the Specimen Storehouse, Messmer, and how the Crusade contingent viewed the Hornsent. Specifically, I think it's quite a common idea to think of the Storehouse as a good thing, a sign from Messmer that he harbored a modicum of sympathy for the Hornsent and wanted to preserve their culture. I want to explain why I think this idea is very flawed, and why, on the contrary, I view the Storehouse as another testament to the horrors delivered upon the Hornsent by Messmer and his Crusade.

The ashes of Fire Knight Hilde give a glimpse into the construction of the Specimen Storehouse:

Hilde was a dear friend to Salza the sage, and joined those who urged that the specimens be preserved. Hilde's ashes were enshrined as a charm to protect the storehouse.

Hilde and Salza were part of a faction of Fire Knights who wanted the specimens to be preserved. This faction had to "urge" for this to occur; therefore, this must not have been a universal opinion among the Fire Knights, and a convincing case had to be brought forward in order for the Specimen Storehouse to go ahead. As this same item description points out, the Fire Knights answer directly to Messmer, so he would most likely have the final say. However, this makes it clear that the Specimen Storehouse was not his idea. If it was, there would have been no urging needed— he is the ruler of this keep and he makes the decisions.

The information on Salza further characterizes this faction within the Fire Knights. The item description for Salza's Hood sketches out his stand against violence:

"A disciple of the elder Wego, he refused to burn down an old ruin, at the risk of his own life."

Given Salza's positioning and its relative lack of damage, I would hazard that the "old ruin" in question here is Rauh. The description states that Salza protects this ruin "at the risk of his own life", and his placement puts him directly in opposition to Shadow Keep. He attacks at the end of the bridge and faces towards the keep; he targets us, and we are coming out of the keep. I think all of these facts point to the conclusion that Salza's instincts towards preservation estranged him from the rest of the Fire Knights, and that he is literally standing in defense of Rauh at the moment you encounter him. Why else would he be standing directly in front of Rauh, facing Shadow Keep, if he was not defending Rauh from Shadow Keep?

The description for Salza's incantation "Rain of Fire" reiterates his less violent outlook, but also importantly points out his hypocrisy.

"Salza's disdain for barbarism never waned, even as he burned more villages and scorched more land than any other."

Salza didn't want to engage in such violence, and he protected Rauh at the risk of his own life. But that doesn't erase the reality that he leaves behind a disgusting legacy of destruction and death. It begs the question: why do these specimens need preserving in the first place?

If the Crusade had never been waged, then the Specimen Storehouse would never have needed to exist. It sounds all nice and sweet on paper that there are Fire Knights out there "preserving Hornsent culture", but they are the very reason why this culture needs protecting. The Specimen Storehouse is a monument to their own atrocities: its very existence depends on an annihilation they orchestrated. Hilde, Salza, and the rest of them can be disgusted by their own actions as much as they want, but they are ultimately responsible.

It's also important to point out that neither Hilde's ashes nor Salza's Hood mentions any sympathy for the Hornsent themselves. They wanted the specimens to be preserved and protected a ruin from destruction; nowhere do these descriptions mention Salza and Hilde's great sympathy for the Hornsent's plight. Salza's big stand against Shadow Keep is protecting a ruin— not a city full of people, a ruin. He has a "disdain for barbarism", not a bleeding heart for those who are dying. In the Salza's Hood description, Salza is described as the "sage of the Fire Knights", and the term "sage" describes a person of great wisdom. The Specimen Storehouse is a giant library, a great depository of stolen Hornsent scholarship. I would hazard to say that Salza and Hilde's moves towards preservation stem more from a thirst for knowledge than a humanitarian urge to save Hornsent culture.

I've also seen it claimed that the shadow-men who attack with Messmer-fire in the Specimen Storehouse are Hornsent, and use this information to extrapolate about the Storehouse at large. However, this isn't true:

Here are images of Hornsent shadow-men in Belurat and Gravesite Plain. Their horns are clear, defined, and opaque, even with the shadow filter over their models.

This is an image of the spirit in front of Scorched Ruins without the shadow filter. You can see that the style of the horns remains consistent across designs.

Compare this with images of the shadow-men in the Specimen Storehouse:

Their head designs are markedly different from those of the Hornsent in Belurat. Their supposed "horns" are wispy and vague.

You can best see it in this photo where I'm clipping into his head that these "horns" are actually a layer of unruly hair. The little tufts of hair poking out from their heads can easily be mistaken as horns, but they do not match the other shadow-men in Belurat. Furthermore, their clothing also differs. While the Hornsent shadow-men wear tunics, the men in the Storehouse wear garments similar to togas. I think it's far more likely that these are Crusade scholars who are under the same shadow effect that happens to the other spirits in the Shadowlands. There is no Hornsent presence in the Storehouse.

Finally I would like to come to what Messmer thinks about the Specimen Storehouse, and for that, there's little that's actually textual. We know from Salza and Hilde that there was backlash to the construction of the Storehouse and the preservation of Hornsent knowledge from the wider Crusade contingent, and we know he must have consented to the Storehouse's construction, but there's no hard evidence as to what he truly thought of it. What we can do, however, is take a look at Messmer's characterization in-game and speculate from there what his opinions might have been, and what we can see about Messmer is that he clearly despises the Hornsent.

We know from our vengeance-seeking Hornsent that he thought of them as "savages"; the furnace golems are tailor-made to prey upon the Hornsents' fears through their references to the fire giants; the existence of the jar clinic and the protections around the shaman village imply he has knowledge of what happened to Marika and her people, which would only intensify his hatred. And we can't forget that he has taken it upon himself willingly to literally annihilate them from the face of the earth. Now, that's not to say that Messmer isn't a person capable of empathy and kindness; we know that through his relationships with Gaius, his Fire Knights, and his common soldiers. However, just because he can have sympathy for these people does not mean that that translates to the Hornsent. If I went into all the details of this I would double the length of this post (in fact I will probably make a whole separate post expanding on this), but I think Messmer as a character is allowed to contain contradictions— he can be capable of great cruelty and great kindness. I think it's clear from everything I've explained above that there are many pieces of evidence to indicate that Messmer did not harbor secret sympathy for the Hornsent.

Therefore, I would guess his approval of the Specimen Storehouse aligns with what I theorized for Salza and Hilde. The Storehouse is useful. It's a depository of an entire culture's knowledge; it would be foolish to throw that all away. As I've stated, the Storehouse's entire existence depends entirely on the genocide being enacting by Messmer and his Crusade. They are engaging in preservation only for their own benefit. The Hornsent gain nothing by having their own scholarly work snatched away from them and hoarded by the very ones who are murdering them.

[swallowtail-ageha]

Minor npc that i rotate in my head of the week fire knight salza like

A disciple of the elder Wego, he refused to burn down an old ruin, at the risk of his own life.

And

Salza's disdain for barbarism never waned, even as he burned more villages and scorched more land than any other.

Like yes! Embody the whole hypocrisy of the crusade!!! Cry about barbarism and civilization and the need to preserve ancient cultures while slaughtering mercilessly the members of said culture because you yourself deem them barbaric!

[luminaryofblood]

A scroll made of white tree bark. Few can decipher the scroll, which describes the secret rite of the divine gateway said to be found at the tower enshrouded by shadow. "A lord will usher in a god's return, and the lord's soul will require a vessel."

Helm of Wego, elder among the Fire Knights. Two warped death masks stacked one atop the other. Reduces FP used to summon spirits. Gnawed at by loneliness, the old man turned his attention to the spirituality of Messmer's flame, using it in a rite of resurrection. Yet the soulless bodies he brought to life were no comfort to poor Wego.

Like maybe the whole "Using Mohg's Body as a vessel for Radahn's Soul" wasn't necessarily part of the secret rite and was just sort of its own thing?

Because Fire Knight Wego's got some similar stuff going on in resurrection, though the bodies were soulless.

[eldintower]

melina messmer resurrection & the frenzied flame brief post

death mask helm - "Helm of Wego, elder among the Fire Knights. Two warped death masks stacked one atop the other. (...) Gnawed at by loneliness, the old man turned his attention to the spirituality of Messmer's flame, using it in a rite of resurrection."

ember of messmer - "Serpentine, cord-like ember, (...) A remnant of Messmer's flame, the symbol of the crusade, it continues to smolder as if crawling across the ground."

Messmer and Melina as the cosmic causality of Flame -> Death / Death following Flame

theory: melina as Death (ash) is sealed by Resurrection (ember). The association of the three fingers and flame and the sigil of messmer's flame resembling the outline of the frenzied flame. Pic related

notice how the spiral or rather the space it silhouettes within the frenzied flame is absent from messmer's. i think that's melina

now onto the meat of this, so idk why i made this one post but whatever. no yes I remember cause I wanted to reiterate that connection between messmer and frenzy. i've been thinking about how the frenzied flame is much more present throughout (key word here) the lands between as opposed to the concentration of it within the abyssal woods, cause like of all the places to run into frenzy you'd think it'd be the land subject to messmer's crusade, but then i realized that's it. i think in a sense the frenzied flame's niche is already occupied. the realm of shadow has already been subjected to flame. it's already burnt. it's still smoking. messmer's flame burns body and soul alike. it scorched everything. the lifeless land of the lord of frenzy

[space-blue]

Actually these is proof in the fire knights item descriptions that the storehouse is there because some knights wanted to preserve and study the culture and Messmer allowed it. This may be a little strongly worded, but I'll try and find the context.

Fire Knight Hilde ashes:

A spirit who belonged to the Fire Knights; an order which answers directly to Messmer. Hilde was a dear friend to Salza the sage, and joined those who urged that the specimens be preserved. Hilde's ashes were enshrined as a charm to protect the storehouse.

Hood of Salza :

A disciple of the elder Wego, he refused to burn down an old ruin, at the risk of his own life.

The implication is that they urged the person directly above him, with all the power : Messmer.

So it feels less like the British Museum, and more like a preservation effort in the face of their own genocide. I bet Marika allowed it because she's on such a quest for knowledge. But Messmer could have destroyed it any time since their exile/the Shattering, but chose not to.

the stone tablets in Shadow Keep’s Storehouse are the exact ones in Marika’s bedchamber in Leyndell 😂

Messmer was bringing all those documents back to his mom 😂😂😂

This supports my theory that during the start of the Crusade, Messmer was still going back and forth between Leyndell and LoS. The upper echelons must have confronted him in one of those trips and that’s the last time he could see Marika.

Also, while I see why people will view the Specimen Storehouse as glorified trophies for the Crusade, if you connect it to Marika’s bedchamber in the base game it doesn’t seem to be the case. because back then when we walked in Marika’s bedchamber no one knew wtf are those tablets 😭 if they were merely glorified trophies, they would have been displayed differently, not hidden in her room taking up more than half of her bed…. I think Marika is srl trying to understand why the Hornsent did all those things to her people and other clans in Land of Shadows (the Curseblade, the Frenzy Flame followers, Lamenters, etc…)

[katyspersonal]

nobody:

Kood: Oh, so, you "like" Messmer? Say the exact amount of strength applied which it took him to impale every single Dancing Lion that he hunted. Name the day he finished reforging his spear for it to become throwable and how many times did he have to throw it. Say the exact timing, down to tens of second, which it took him to cu-

Queelign: I am literally lurking in the cemetery waiting for those graceless Hornsents to visit the graves of their killed ones to ambush and kill them too, Queen Marika would be so proud of me! :D

Wego: Man I wish I had friends, too bad I literally have no one, I am so lonely I'll have to resort to resurrecting dead people :( *spoken literally nearby fellow Knights, including his literal pupil*

Salza: Hey just because I take #1 place amongst everyone else in the Crusade in terms of how many villages and houses I've obliterated doesn't mean I am no longer an intellectual elite. I am the most civilised, cultured and intelligent person here.

Hilde: These idiots do not understand that even the Erdtree itself stand on cultural appropriation! How can we fight in the name of Marika and uh... I think that guy literally named Whore at some point, with that big lion...? if we ignore how much was stolen from the Storm Lord and Godskin Apostles? I swear I am the only one who truly gets it smh. Can't wait to get rid of all Hornsent already so we can use their knowledge to build our OWN Divine Spiral, it will be sick af 👀

Messmer: Hahah no one loves my mother as much as I do, I understand what is better for her Order more than she does herself *mood swing* I hate that bitch, why she never loved me?! *crashes a head off a statue of her* *mood swing* Oh god I am the worst being I am more of a curse upon her than any of these graceless barbarians were ever, disowning me was not enough, she should have killed me... *mood swing* I should have burnt her and her Erdtree instead while I had the chance to do so, only in death we could stand equal *mood swing* I love her so much I can at least find comfort in destroying everyone who doesn't fit her world, it is the least I can do to atone for being born graceless myself *mood swing*

Rellana: Pledge to the Golden Order was a weird era but now we are so back, Stars/Moon and Fire have always been together, since the times of Fire Giants and Astrologers! But to think of it, does the 'Fire' that swears to exterminate everything spurned of the grace of the Erdtree count, if it was Erdtree's enemy? Strange, how the very thing that existed as its enemy got tamed to serve it instead? Dammit, my flawless brilliant logic got a crack in it all because of Messmer's mommy issues!!! (still love him and will die for him tho 🥺💙)

Andreas: I can excuse fascism and genocide, but I draw the line at being a SNAKE!

Huw: <prev so real, had I known my bestie was a snake I'd definitely not go and have sooooo much fun hunting Divine Beasts. I am so deceived.

Edredd: To think of it, more soldiers got executed here for no longer wanting to do genocide than fell from the blades of Hornsents, but idk a job is a job 🤷‍♂️

Garrew: *has the most fucking questionable Crucible aspect ever seen except no one wants to actually question it*

[katyspersonal]

So like... thoughts on Messmer's crew? Not the man himself, just the guys he hired.

I actually found the remaining two Fire Knights just recently! :D I didn't post about it yet, but I assume this is all of them! ...I hope. Shadow's Keep has too many turns. Who knows.

This is sweet how they all are close with Messmer and stood with him no matter what.... Unlike THESE traitors:

(Sorry I forgot to copy the screenshots so have bad phone images fshhds) Like @heraldofcrow said earlier, it is really stupid how they could accept like genocides and whatever but drew the line at him being a snake sdfhfghds Well, Fire Knights definitely didn't!

Queelign was the first one I've met, and apparently in the wrong order since I missed him in Belurat and had to go back there! And I instantly hated that zealot, even before I had the picture of what exactly Fire Knights were!

^ As if Queelign's dialogue was not enough, he also dropped THIS! The reason I will ALWAYS respect Miyazaki no matter what is that he always finds the way to throw a jab at this particular grudge at human race fsdhfdsh

He is still a terrible person, but since then I warmed up to him when I've found some potential in him! He is not only the most fleshed out from the Fire Knights, but also in JUST the right way! He is very passionate and fanatical, but also very genuine and naive with his feelings. And he not only wants to be like Messmer, but also has very strong fixation on Marika! Like I keep joking, she is such a bad mother that even people who aren't her children have mommy issues over her fhhdsf

But he also, interestingly, reflects that weaker, childish part of Messmer that still wants his mom to love him. Whereas Messmer is at least good at repressing it, with Queelign it is completely loose and earnest, and the guy is probably not aware! He IS like a little version of himself in this way.. Not sure whether Messmer dislikes him, or pities him, or maybe at least several times told him to NOT try to be like him! In any case, it is really cool how there is the guy who gives that interesting insight. You could write headcanons essays on the psychology between Queeling and Messmer, or just Queelign. I wrote an essay on what could transpire if Tarnished healed him instead (I believe he dies when we find him, from deadly wounds since we only access his chamber after beating him twice).

Like, you can work with this character, you see what I mean? I never found a similar rambling potential in, say, Alfred or Lautrec. They're religious fanatics too, yet that was exactly ALL I could tell about them. MEANWHILE I've made like FIVE posts about Queelign already and they are all substancial! And, boy, any writer WANTS a strictly cruel, fanatical, irredeemable, negative character to give something to talk about besides just kicking the topic of them being bad. If you are writer, remember to similarly give the topics of discussion to your villains! I agree with what Izunia said earlier:

+ Correction though: Petrus does NOT belong in the list of fanatics xd He has opposite problem! He is a selfish, opportunistic, corrupt, cowardly parasite that benefits from the religious institution and doesn't actually HAVE any beliefs he will kill and die for. He kills for his benefit, like how he killed Reah after her being rescued clearly so she would not rat him out, ie risk his position as elite cleric! There is a good reason why of all cleric/religious/etc characters he is the only one who has no simps!

This guy kicked my ass a couple of times, but if Fire Knights are Messmer's most important people, that makes him second most important person in his army? ...okay third, after his wife Rellana fsdjhdfhssd Really clever how only the captain wears a helmet fashioned after this creature, since he keeps Messmer's military forces in check here

1) I also assume that the "loneliness" Wego experienced was from having outlived the people he held dear as not only being in the military but also elder! Because why else would he be strictly lonely, if he has friends within the covenant? Like look right here, he had a pupil! :p 2) This implies that disagreeing with Messmer was a huge risk.. but not only Messmer spared him, but also actually listened to his request!

So basically, Salza is okay with burning people and their homes, but he draws the line at destruction of like, culture, knowledge and ancient architecture fshfds And not he alone:

It were Fire Knights who asked Messmer to have the Specimen Storehouse, so there is at least historical remains about the species they destroyed! So as funny as the double standard looks, it makes a lot of sense; like it was mentioned earlier, all Fire Knights were nobles at the Erdtree! Of course they have it internalised to preserve culture and knowledge for the future! They all had to be well-educated and well-cultured people, not sympathising with the type of hatred that aims to erase as much as history! And at the same time, being educated didn't help them to consider not participating in the HoLy cRuSaDe to begin with..

And this is so human. It is very realistic. There is a lingering misconception that it is ignorance, poor quality of living, low class, bad past or all at once that makes people prone to crime, but in reality there are criminals in every class and every demographic. We should not attribute the root of all evil, crimes and harmful prejudices only to concrete group, because this is always just a matter of multiple people gathering and deciding to do something. When it is not mistreatment and despair that drives people to evil, it is power and corruption, because people ARE evil by nature.

_______________

So yeah, I really like what they did with this covenant! They did well with giving the sense of each of them being an individual by naming and distinguishing five characters like this! For Soulsborne games, this is rich x) They have some tweaks to their outfits or weapons, they have characterisation that makes them unlike each other, and THIS is what's wild; how so many people that clearly can and always could think for themselves ended up here! Queelign too! I could speculate that Alfred has been indoctrinated and brainwashed since young age, or that Lautrec lost his marbles after some sort of grasp by Fina, but Queelign apparently was no less of a noble that decided to go like his peers, nor he'd be any more embraced by Marika than everyone else with grace! He is Just Like This fshdfhs

They made the covenant very real an interesting. (Also rich for creating OCs if you like writing awful people and want to be close with Messmer 😔)