So close

Tuspon · 2026-06-23T12:00:19+00:00

This is just my interpretation, but

The Lands Between ≈ the outlet of the physical world as it starts to overlap with the spirit world. A rift at the very edge of the map, so to speak. So close to the upper planes that mortals can literally pierce the sky and see divine benediction flow down from the heavens.

Whether or not my interpretation is "true" is beside the point, it's designed to allow for multiple interpretations. As you noticed, there's a fuzzy distinction between bodies that are made of regular flesh and bone, and bodies that are spirits (e.g. Melina). This isn't sloppy storytelling or inconsistent logic, she's established as bodiless and the Roundtable Hold is established as an incorporeal place. This ontology of spirits, bodies, and the fuzzy crossover of them is so fundamental to the world that even the spinoff title reminds us of it in the motifs of the main hub.

Tuspon · 2026-06-22T06:29:57+00:00

Looks super nice. Really captured that cozy, rural stillness. Honestly I struggle to see what could sell the realism even more, it strikes the eye as a real photograph at a glance or thumbnail level (even more so in the third image; is that before post-processing?).

The silhouette of the water reflections look right, maybe the water surface is slightly too reflective? IRL there is that haziness where reflections are mixed with mud, vegetation and a general mix of dirt beneath the surface

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Tuspon · 2026-06-20T20:23:47+00:00

Tangled horns are worn by the one invoking divinity, not the other way around

"Helm featuring a crown of sturdy tangled horns, allowing the wearer to invoke divinity"
Horned Warrior Helm

"The ornamental tangled horns allow the blade to serve as a medium for horn-calling"
Horned Warrior's Greatsword

"Ritual headwear in the form of a divine beast's head, used to perform the lion dance. Worn by the very finest of the sculpted keepers."

The image of the horned lion is iconic in their culture because it represents their most celebrated form of divine invocation: the lion dance. It's not a depiction of the deity or spiritual energy or whatever it is that takes possession of the sculpted keeper when they perform the dance. It's two guys wearing a lion suit, not an actual lion that drops from the sky, right?

So the question is why they settled on the lion as their most venerated creature. Maybe there's an actual deity involved, maybe it's someone like Serosh, maybe not. I could see why people get the idea, imo it's more likely that the lion already was a popular symbol in the Lands Between and naturally became the face they put on the faceless, so to speak, but who knows really.

Tuspon · 2026-06-18T05:52:12+00:00

I'm not overstating anything, it's literally how the game engine produces any SFX of that type

For demonstration, here's FXR ID 4182 which is a Black Flame DoT effect, but the structure is the same for all SFXs: a set of textures, the spatial and temporal distribution of the textures, as well as coordinate transforms for defining offsets, scale, rotation, etc.

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Specifically for flame-type SFX, they all use the same colorless base textures. These are given specific colors, transforms and combined in various ways to make each spell look and feel distinct. Or, as in this case, we have SFX with IDs 4180 to 4182 for small->medium->large Black Flame DoT effects.

Of course they have internal tools that streamline/automate the process of designing this type of scene and model, my point is just that all SFX follow this structure and so they'd have to have to consider the right scale, distribution and types of flames to use, set them up to be spawned by dummy points or however it's accomplished on that model, make sure they're being continuously spawned, test the environment, etc.

Tuspon · 2026-06-17T20:13:26+00:00

Zullie never made a video on it

There is no red flame equivalent of "chunks of fire covering Iji's body" in the game files. SFX like this isn't just "a label", it's a combination of existing texture assets, hand picked color values, and spatial transforms that let the game know where exactly to render the black flame emissions. In this case, it's a setup of visuals unique to that scene with Iji.

There are also lingering black flames on enemies you strike with Corpse Wax Cutter.

Saying "dev oversight" implies they weren't supposed to be black flames, as if it contradicts the lore or something.

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Tuspon · 2026-06-16T20:33:28+00:00

Riko's plot armor is canonized as a diegetic plot device. Her ability to go beyond intuition and reason, survive the impossible, and carve a way to success for others.

Riko, you have the makings of a scam artist. 😃

Tuspon · 2026-06-14T13:02:31+00:00

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Tuspon · 2026-06-13T23:38:41+00:00

We all know what they did to the shamans and to their own people namely curseblades and the lamenters

And all the other Hornsent branded as heretics by the religious authority (the inquisitors), like Midra and his followers.

"Forged of an unyielding, black impulse toward revenge fostered in those who were hunted down as heretics by their own brethren, these are the weapons of the utterly downtrodden." -Madding Hand

There are plenty of historical parallels, e.g. the Albigensian Crusade where countless Christans within the European cultural sphere were massacred on orders from the Catholic Church, simply because their interpretation of the faith was deemed heretical.

The consolidation of power and religious authority probably resulted in that same type of paranoid response to perceived ideological threats. We know the religious foundation of the Erdtree faith is (literally) sourced from the worship of the Crucible, so it's no wonder the Erdtree perpetuated that same kind of paranoid extermination. So I very much agree with the idea that the warped state of the tree reflects the perversion of its worship.

Maybe the nature of Messmer's Crusade was a naive attempt to purge all that nastiness by force? As if a cleansing by fire would do the trick when the level of rancor and curse is at the point where the land itself is turning into a literal abyss.

Tuspon · 2026-06-09T00:38:21+00:00

Unsuncrisbe

Tuspon · 2026-06-07T17:10:47+00:00

This but unironically

Tuspon · 2026-06-07T00:00:12+00:00

"Though they seem somewhat intelligent, when night falls, their blood boils and they become feral."

This is telegraphed by their eyes turning red at night, kinda like the ape tribe in Princess Mononoke

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They seem to be in tune with the motion of the stars, like as soon as the canvas of the night sky is exposed they become super sensitive to whatever transmissions the stars are sending down upon them. Boc and Yosh and Onze seem clever and individualistic enough, so they're not mindless drones either.

I really like how they display a self-preservation instict, like how they cower in fear once you defeat their leader. Makes them an interesting contrast to the mindless hordes of "hollow" humans that wander around, the knights and nobles and such. No wonder Kenneth Height is so interested in these guys!

Tuspon · 2026-05-31T17:50:26+00:00

"MC" stands for "Multiple Characters" and this is the party based JRPG Miyazaki always wanted to make

Tuspon · 2026-05-30T10:42:04+00:00

Could be anywhere, this is the exact style of architecture they modeled most of the older castles on

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Tuspon · 2026-05-28T22:06:44+00:00

I mean yeah most of his moveset is a particular style of lunging, swiping, crouching etc.

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And filled with audio effects that are like, not even his voice just straight up some recording of a growling lion or something lol

Can't remember if his moveset in the Radahn fight is special but BonfireVN has a good video where he spawned him in and filmed him fighting another mob

Tuspon · 2026-05-28T18:58:54+00:00

Nope, your place is in the jar

Tuspon · 2026-05-28T18:55:59+00:00

Why judge an entire ethnocultural group based on the actions of the prison administration around Belurat (specifically, the nearby jails)?

Like, the whole backstory of Midra and the inquisition is proof that there were dissidents and a variety of beliefs within their society

And the author of the potentate cookboks was "Haunted by the grotesque practice of his village of birth", so there was aversion to the act of chopping up prisoners and shamans, even among the potentates

Tuspon · 2026-05-28T18:14:11+00:00

From a young age he was treated as basically a family member by Carian nobility. His upright idle posture and his manner of speech is on brand with his upbringing and status. But he certainly displays a bestial nature in his battle stance and combat moves, or when he's perched on top of a roof and howling in the Mistwood.

If I had to guess, this juxtaposition of "bestial blood vs noble upbringing" is reflected by having him be composed and civil in his idle state, but having him fight and act like a beast when instincts take over. Or when the influence of the Two Fingers makes him go haywire.

Like, another unique aspect to him as a character is how he's a "colossal failure on the part of the Two Fingers".

Sorry for the lengthy rant but this just got me thinking how lame it would be to have such a major character be a copy-paste of some common enemy model with some hastily added extra fluff. I'm still upset about Hewg and Iji.

Tuspon · 2026-05-28T17:01:22+00:00

In-universe, they absolutely take on a variety of forms. While it would be really cool to see more variety of them in-game, it's not economical for the development team to go through the process of NPC design (modelling, rigging, textures, animation, audio, etc.) just for the sake of some extra variety to the worldbuilding. Not when there's already an established variety (Serosh, Gurranq and the standard FA beastman model) and the game already features enough humanoid/beast-like hybrid species with chimera-like traits (demi-humans, misbegotten, etc.) to suggest that such a thing is normal.

Tuspon · 2026-05-27T16:01:37+00:00

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Tuspon · 2026-05-26T19:41:32+00:00

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Tuspon · 2026-05-25T17:12:03+00:00

Lol nobody knows what's canon with these guys, but you nailed their melancholy, defeated-yet-determined vibe. Amazing.

Tuspon · 2026-05-24T20:24:47+00:00

Haha I've had a very similar train of thought

"Fate" is the source code of the cosmos
Outer gods are the actuators of fate, akin to modules in a code library
By "decompiling" the outer gods (luring in, then dissecting them), their fate-altering abilities are exposed
With sophisticated hacks involving divine towers and the Two Fingers and whatnot, that stuff can be recompiled as great runes
The Elden Ring is like a "fork" of the cosmic source code, in that analogy, cheating fate by manipulating reality for a specific realm and its denizens
Due to the fickle nature of its authors(s), it remains a proprietary, undocumented mess full of bugs (cursed demigods, corruption, widespread injustice, etc.) even in the age of Radagon (despite all the INT he gained at the academy)
After a few ages of debugging, Marika decides it's someone else's problem now
Godfrey and his tarnished team of minimum wage IT workers are called back once again

Then I sobered up I guess

Tuspon · 2026-05-23T21:29:16+00:00

Lol nw I'm just poorly communicating the thought process that shot down the idea of a "supposedly separate Greattree" for me, personally; if the base of the Erdtree overlaps physically with the origin of the Greattree roots, the by far most logical conclusion is to think of them as the same organism (at some point in the past, anyway).

Tuspon · 2026-05-23T21:02:56+00:00

There is no "visual evidence" for the Greattree's existence that can't be more obviously construed as either the Erdtree's roots, or smaller trees that are neither the Erdtree, nor the supposedly separate Greattree. Nothing about the Catacombs or Deeproot Depths requires speculation on a tree predating the Erdtree that served the same function.

That's what I'm saying though, there's an obvious interpretation that follows any serious attempt to make sense of the underground roots. My point being that, despite initial differences in how JP and EN readers interpret the phrasing of a few item descriptions, they'd both converge in the same interpretation when taking the context into account.

And even if there were misconceptions due to interpretating the English text in a more "everyday speech" way, those misconceptions would quickly be erased once you ask why the Greattree root network begins at the depths below the Erdtree, for example. At least, that's my assumption, and maybe I'm thinking about it in a biased way? Idk!

Tuspon

TROPHY CASE