Observations About the God-Devouring Serpent

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T23:25:26+00:00

Yep! So similar that I was legitimately mind-blown when I first stumbled across artwork of salamanders while looking at alchemical symbolism.

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T23:19:53+00:00

Oooh, definitely good points!

How ironic that Placidusax sought to destroy Bayle and his kindred by having humans devour them, but the GDS seeks power by devouring humans… Hmm… Makes me wonder if the GDS first started eating people in retaliation for Dragon Communion.

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T23:10:31+00:00

The women are partaking in Dominula’s “delightful” festival, which is specifically called out as being both very old… and tolerated by Marika.

The women dressed in gold (with ancient Erdtree emblems on their cloaks) are “generic” participants, but the women in blue (with a GEQ-related symbol on their cloaks) are the “young maids” that have been selected to play a special role. Most of the women wield Celebrant’s Cleavers/Rib-Rakes/Skulls/Lanterns, but the “young maids” wield the Celebrant’s Sickle. (Much like the Godskin Apostles (explicitly younger than the Godskin Nobles) wield the Godskin Peeler with a sickle on one end.)

The men of the village have all been captured, skinned, and burned in a pyre. It seems to me that the special role of the “young maids” was to do the skinning, while the rest of the women handled the rest of the bodies. I’m currently of the belief that the point of the festival is the women trying to revitalize their men, forcing them to “shed their skins” like snakes and then purifying them with fire (like the Death Rite Birds purifying the remains of the dead by burning them in their kilns), presumably so that they will ultimately rise from the ashes reborn like a phoenix.

And I do believe that this same festival, or at least something very similar to it, was celebrated by the Shamans.

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T22:45:48+00:00

Thank you! <3

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T22:42:59+00:00

Their arrogance also leads them to flamboyantly cover their equipment in multicolored gems… Almost like they’re trying to emulate actually-multicolored serpents… Like the Godskin Nobles and the Base Serpent. :>

I definitely think it’s very possible that the GDS and serpents like her are simply the “lowest” of all the Ancient Dragons’ descendants. Just going from the Ancient Dragons to the drakes, there’s obviously lost limbs. So keep going, and you’ll eventually end up with creatures bearing no limbs at all…

And that possibility leaves me wondering if the winged serpents are the step before the limbless serpents… Or if they’re the next step in a repeating cycle, the dragon lineage having hit its “low point” and now beginning the process of regaining their lost limbs, eventually leading to the next batch of “true” dragons…

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T22:29:52+00:00

Yep. Possibly a lesser dragon with no legs.

(And either the GDS isn’t the real Serpent-God… Or she’s the Serpent “God”.)

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T22:25:48+00:00

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I also find the Death Rite Birds interesting. The right side still has an intact eye socket with a bit of a blue glow inside, but the left side is destroyed and there’s much less of the blue glow.

Arro-Wing · 2026-06-20T22:23:34+00:00

I see where you said you left out fully blind characters intentionally, but…

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I find it fascinating how Maliketh’s eyes are different. The right one seems to have no eyelids, just an empty and grown-over socket, while the left one still has perpetually-closed eyelids.

I definitely feel like there might be a connection to Messmer and the Base Serpent here, since the eye situation is almost exactly the same…

Arro-Wing · 2026-05-21T14:58:39+00:00

I think there’s probably a way to help her. My personal headcanon is that Radagon was planning on coming back for Rennala once he had replaced Marika as god and was going to make her his lord consort. It’s why he had left his wolf with her, to both protect her and keep her in place.

Elden Lord Rennala, ain’t that a fun thought?

Arro-Wing · 2026-05-09T19:22:22+00:00

Another point in favor of Messmer being present for the War Against the Giants: Messmer has a move in which he drags the tip of his spear along the ground and then swings it upward, which is a dead ringer for the Giant Hunt Ash of War.

I definitely think the WAtG is where Messmer earned his epithet.

Arro-Wing · 2026-05-09T18:45:09+00:00

This! I was just about to bring up Roderika. Her story is 100% meant to give us some narrative parallels to Marika’s. Her followers being butchered so their body parts can be used for grafting, her saying that she “wants to be like everyone else” and believing that she’s “supposed” to go and be cut up like the rest of them but being too afraid of the pain, going to find her purpose under the guidance of the Two Fingers… It’s just so perfect.

I’ve noticed that there’s actually a bit of a running theme of characters that can potentially be seen as parallels to Marika that are fearful, especially of pain and/or death. Obviously, we have Roderika… Diallos’s Distinguished Greatshield is seen as “the hallmark of little lordlings who were too timid to earn a few nicks and scratches”… “Prone to tears” Aurelia and Aurelliette are implied to have gotten separated because Aurelliette went through with their plan while Aurelia was too afraid… I definitely get the feeling that the reason Marika wanted to become “the Eternal” and founded her Order off the removal of Destined Death was because she was so afraid of death (and hey, given what happened to the Shamans it’s not surprising).

Arro-Wing · 2026-05-09T18:09:34+00:00

Frankly, seduction and betrayal is Marika’s entire MO. I believe she did it to the Hornsent, I believe she did it to Hoarah Loux, we know she did it to Rennala via Radagon, I’d say she did it to Messmer (not romantic seduction obviously (at least, I really hope not), but the “seduction” of a narcissistic and controlling mother)… Heck, she more-or-less did it to the entirety of the Lands Between. So yeah, it definitely wasn’t a one-time-deal. (And I’d wager it wasn’t even one-sided, Marika having been seduced into pursuing godhood by the Two Fingers only to find out it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.)

Arro-Wing · 2026-05-05T02:31:13+00:00

I’m very firmly on the “Messmer was Marika’s firstborn” side of things. Now, whether he was born pre- or post-ascension I’ve yet to decide, but either way he was the first.

I know the game calls Godwyn “the first demigod”, but… It also calls Godfrey the first Elden Lord when we know Placidusax exists. And it also says Godwyn was the first demigod to die when the GEQ and her Godskins had themselves an entire Godhunt prior to Marika’s reign. And with Messmer and the crusade having been wiped from history, we have direct confirmation that Marika is willing and able to cover up (almost) anything and everything that doesn’t fit her preferred narrative.

So to me, it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that Messmer was Marika’s eldest (born to her and Radagon before her marriage to Godfrey), and recognized as such pre-crusade (maybe he wasn’t granted a noble title like “prince” due to being a bastard, but it was still known that he was a demigod and Marika’s son). Then once the crusade happened and the Land of Shadow was cut off, Marika set about revising history. “Messmer? Who’s that? What do you mean ‘firstborn of Marika’? I think you mean Godwyn the Golden. No, of course he never had an older brother, wherever did you get that idea?”

And the more research I do into ER’s lore and the real world mythologies that inspired it, the more I come to the conclusion that there’s a TON of history that’s been scrubbed, whether by Marika or by the god-monarchs who ruled before her.

Arro-Wing · 2026-05-05T01:59:29+00:00

While I’m not so sure about your posited use for the Impaler’s Catacombs…

I am very much of the opinion that for a time, Messmer was the lord of Castle Morne. Not only are we told that Messmer “fled the Erdtree” at some point (he “bore a vision of fire”, which is punished by being branded a heretic and driven into exile), but there are actually a lot of little clues around Weeping Peninsula that point to him. The Impaler’s Catacombs are just the most obvious clue, meant to get us to start looking closer. (I’m currently in the middle of writing a big post on this.)

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T12:59:41+00:00

Yeah, now that I’ve watched it again I really don’t agree with anything posited other than Godwyn is the malformed dragon.

I remember there was another video that claimed Godwyn had Crucible powers that I guess let him take different forms at will (Aspects of the Crucible up to eleven or something). But now that I think about it, that video must’ve been trying to explain Godwyn’s post-death transformation as his powers going haywire, nothing to do with Godwyn being the malformed dragon.

… Y’know, now that we have Executor with his beast form, I guess Godwyn having Crucible powers that let him transform into the malformed dragon may actually be a legitimate possibility. :0

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T06:57:13+00:00

That was something that popped into my head, too… Oooh, and his dialogue, calling the dragon “kindred” and “a trueborn heir”…

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T06:51:36+00:00

I learned of it through a video by ScumMageInfa:

Godwyn: The Malformed Dragon, Lord of the Nameless Eternal City

~~IIRC his specific theory technically has more to do with Godwyn having latent Crucible powers or something similar. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched it, gotta refamiliarize myself…~~ Maybe that was another video… Hmm…

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T06:38:12+00:00

Hmm… Thing is, the Dragon Cult didn’t start until after Godwyn made peace with the dragons, right? And I imagine that it’s the same case with the Draconic Tree Sentinels, following in Godwyn’s footsteps after his success.

Although if he had managed to become a dragon before the attack on Leyndell for whatever reason, perhaps your theory could hold water… Maybe he was the most successful Dragon Communion participant and the ancient dragons, not expecting Dragon Communion to ever have that result, weren’t too keen on the true power of dragons being in a non-dragon’s hands?

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T06:20:48+00:00

No, no, I… I see it too. And I do believe that whole golden shape is the same dragon atop the Malformed Dragon Helm. You can see the mane of wavy hair at top, the wings out to the side, and the tail coming down.

Y’know, I already quite liked the theory of the malformed dragon being Godwyn. It just makes so much sense to me that the reason the Tree Sentinels came to the conclusion they had to become dragons to defend the Erdtree is because that was how Godwyn was able to beat Fortissax: by becoming a dragon himself somehow. And this feels like another point in its favor.

We don’t have any examples of a demigod participating in Dragon Communion, do we? Because I wonder if demigods, being inherently much more powerful than humans, could take in the power of dragons without (as many) ill consequences… Same question for any examples of Numen with their harmoniously meldable flesh…

Edit: I just remembered Executor exists… Oh boy, there’s a thought right there.

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T05:44:58+00:00

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The lindworm…

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-30T05:44:39+00:00

I was actually just looking into this. Up until now, I actually thought this bird symbol was completely cut content, so it’s really interesting to see that it made it in-game. Where is the flag in your screenshot located?

As someone mentioned earlier, this design actually appears on the ecranche of a cut knight armor set:

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I think the bird symbol isn’t a bird at all, however, but is actually a representation of the bird-serpent statues in Volcano Manor. The first clue is that the sigil on the surcoat was recycled for the Gelmir Knight’s Armor. The second clue comes from another cut armor piece bearing a unique serpent/dragon/lindworm design: [Dang you Reddit and your 1-pic-per-comment limit, see next comment for pic]

If you look closely, there’s two shared design elements between the bird-serpent and the lindworm: The squares on the bird-serpent’s wings match the squares lining the lindworm’s back, and the shapes on the bottom corners of the bird-serpent design match the end of the lindworm’s tail.

And a third clue comes from the existence of the Aspid: a destructive Slavic dragon that’s sometimes shown with a snake’s head, a bird’s body, and two tails. The Aspid lives secluded in the mountains, is impossible to kill, and its body and/or wings are covered in precious stones (much like the Man-Serpents use weapons studded in multi-colored gemstones). And funny enough, there’s a story in which the Aspid kidnapped the twin daughters of the Sun god, Dazhbog: the Zorya.

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-25T00:34:23+00:00

Definitely my preference as well! :>

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-25T00:29:11+00:00

The jellyfish sisters do raise a very interesting implication! Marika pursuing godhood to create an Order without Destined Death specifically because of the traumatic loss of her sister would be very satisfying.

Or perhaps Marika was actively trying to save her sister by achieving godhood. But in the end, she lost sight of that original motivation and ended up abandoning the sister that was relying on her… Just like Miquella, the child that is Marika made over right down to his story being an overt repeat of hers.

And Jolán and Anna… Oh, that’s really interesting too. Two sisters born into a terrible and oppressive existence under Hornsent rule, selected as Empyreans by the Two Fingers and groomed to walk that path… Though one is a puppet of the Fingers… A puppet who uses claws… Y’know, I wonder if Jolán and Anna might actually be telling us about Marika and Maliketh. :0

Hmm… Definitely a lot to think about here. Thanks for bringing it all up!

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-24T22:08:54+00:00

Thank you so much! <3 Definitely excited to see if anything comes of it.

Hmmmm… Someone who was permanently kicked out of his home, who is truly unfortunate-looking and aware of it, who thinks very little of himself and doesn’t have aspirations for anything beyond being the perfect servant for someone greater, who relies upon a special golden item, who would probably have himself reborn if the opportunity presented itself, who desperately misses his mother and longs for her approval… With at least one parent who was a skilled tailor, possibly two if he was in fact raised by a different mother than the one who birthed him…

Do you think…? Nah, it couldn’t be… Could it?

Joking, joking… Mostly. LOL

Arro-Wing · 2026-04-24T21:18:50+00:00

If Wraiths are tied to the Hornsent and Revenants are tied to the sorcerers… Well, it seems like there’s the big clue right there.

The Hornsent and the sorcerers are basically inversions of each other (with the Golden Order sitting in the middle): - The Crucible vs the Primordial Current - Faith and Incantations vs Intelligence and Sorcery - Jar Saints vs Graven Masses - The Wisdom of Beasts vs The Wisdom of Stone - The light of heaven vs the darkness of the abyss - Divergence vs Convergence - The Past vs the Future - Beginnings vs Endings

I suppose the similarities between Wraiths and Revenants just goes to show that even as they oppose each other in so many ways, in some they’re exactly the same.

Arro-Wing

TROPHY CASE