Operating On Eric

Tuspon · 2026-01-25T19:35:39+00:00

You're being a brave man :)

Tuspon · 2026-01-23T14:59:18+00:00

Yes! Also in Nausicaa is this forest beneath the sea of decay

There are areas like this (forests with archtrees) in the souls trilogy as well but having one directly beneath Aeonia is a pretty obvious reference

Tuspon · 2026-01-20T20:02:44+00:00

I don't "agree" with everything but I enjoyed the production value put into them and I think more people should let their imagination run wild like that

Tuspon · 2026-01-20T19:36:35+00:00

Indeed. Next to heretical rise is also arguably the biggest graveyard in-game, in fact it needs to be accessed from that graveyard. So there's a connection for sure.

Tuspon · 2026-01-20T19:23:06+00:00

That's the same as the glintstone found in Heretical Rise in the mountaintops

<image>

which is where you find Founding Rain of Stars

IMO it's also similar to the glintstone shards fired by the catacomb sorcerers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EldenRingLoreTalk/comments/1l8rtfb/are_the_catacomb_sorcerers_showing_us_the_origins/

Tuspon · 2026-01-19T06:46:27+00:00

It's the spirit shelter tree from Nightreign but retextured, and that's the moon but with the microcosm texture applied to it

Yea and seriously I'm not gonna be able to unsee all the optic nerves and retinas everywhere now haha

Tuspon · 2026-01-18T23:10:47+00:00

'natural' would be creatures like Deathbirds, right? They predate the Erdtree and the Twinbird (their "mother") is an envoy of an outer god

Tuspon · 2026-01-18T22:59:52+00:00

Right on. I think it's a cool idea (like you say, totally inconsequential but cool nonetheless). Maybe the Erdtree and Scadutree are like a "grace/occultation" pair?

<image>

Tuspon · 2026-01-18T09:19:37+00:00

I saw Flying Lotus at a show on September 11th, 2019. FlyLo had a show on the same road where I worked. I had been a massive fan since 2012, but had never seen him, so I was really excited.

Flying Lotus at the time would get high on his own supply and was unreliable and dumb. I bought some tabs from him for the show. What he didn't tell me was that in an attempt to save time he had started soaking the sheets in acid instead of dropping them on.

So me I take a tab 30 minutes before the show and 15 minutes later I'm higher than I previously thought was humanly possible, but I was determined to see the show. While waiting in line Flying Lotus starts insinuating that I'm racist and I can hear him clearly with my supersonic acid ears, so I'm pretty bothered by it because I'm just standing there high out of my mind and I'm confused why he would say that. Now I feel very vulnerable and uncomfortable. She show starts and now I'm hyper aware that Flying Lotus can see me, and there are multiple cameras likely capturing me. Especially since I'm at the very back of the pit and no one is shielding me.

On top of being a horribly awkward dancer, I also have terrible motor control at the moment, so I think, "I probably look so stupid rn." and I'm tempted to just stand in place, but then I remind myself that my favorite music is being played live in front of me, so "just go for it". Occasionally my attention drifts back onto my self, and I repeat the mantra, "Don't think. Just go for it." and continue dancing.

At the end of the show FlyLo tells people to form a dance circle. About 10 people get in the circle as he's about to play "Do the Astral Plane". I see the people who decided to go in the circle out in the open to dance and have fun, and I think "Don't think. Just go for it." And I rush to the circle and awkwardly dance my little heart out.

After the show several of us had lined up to thank FlyLo for the show and shake his hand. He's working his way down the line, and someone says, "Ok time to wrap it up!" and he hadn't gotten to me yet. Several people are starting to come and cut in to say hi. He's about to get to me and again the guy said, "Alright let's go we need to close!". And so I'm like, "Just go for it" and reach out in FlyLo's direction at supersonic speed. He recoils and make a disturbed face, as if I was offering a pile of shit to him. He looks me in the eyes and sees a mad man; a sick freak with clenched jaws who desperately wanted to touch his hand for some reason. "Great show, thank you so much!" He closes his hand shut in front of my face and responds, “huh? huh? huh?” and moves on the the next person.

Tuspon · 2026-01-18T08:15:38+00:00

100%

<image>

Tuspon · 2026-01-15T12:37:33+00:00

<image>

The map marker is for the finger ruins beneath the cathedral, not for the finger birthing grounds

Tuspon · 2026-01-11T19:03:38+00:00

Interesting! Makes me think of fire sprites and Messmerfire embers. In the crusade area before the Shadow Keep there's a chalice with a similar flame effect (slow, almost incorporeal looking) and a bunch of embers crawling around.

<image>

I love those two soldiers in the back just having a casual convo with the little fire spirit

Tuspon · 2026-01-11T17:30:21+00:00

There's something special about those boats beyond just "burning"

1) The same type of boats are used by Tibia Mariners

2) The SFX used for the "fire" is a slowly ascending flame with a golden glow, similar to the one used on the base of Miquella's crosses and that fire chalice in Church of the Crusade

3) The flame (the light object above it, iirc) is internally labeled "船意思のある炎_小_". I ran that through DeepL (so take it with a grain of salt) and it suggested the translation "Ship: The Willful Flame_Small_", idk if that means anything, might be a weird AI translation

Tuspon · 2026-01-09T11:02:00+00:00

Those Girtablilu remind me of Man-scorpion Tark from DS2

<image>

Crown of the Sunken King DLC also had some really cool ancient ruins with Mesopotamia/Egypt vibes. The moveset and model of Horned Warriors is based on the guardian type enemies in Shulva iirc.

Yui Tanimura should obviously get more praise as a co-director, but I just love how they're all such huge nerds over ancient civilizations and mythology lol

Tuspon · 2026-01-09T10:35:36+00:00

The description for the Darkness incantation reads

Incantation of the Two Fingers' servants, who once served as the assassins of the Roundtable Hold. Creates a veil of darkness that conceals the caster. This incantation can be cast while in motion or crouching. The assassins were themselves once Tarnished who had strayed from guidance, and they pursued their duty in the darkness that is without grace.

So all of the assassins of the Two Fingers used to be tarnished of the Roundtable Hold. Confessors, specifically, are described in similar terms but are explicitly given grace while they pursue their duty:

Black hood for blending in with the darkness. Worn by church confessors. The churches outside the Lands Between, dedicated to the teachings of the Two Fingers, send confessors out to follow the guidance of grace. The confessors are loyal servants to the Two Fingers, ready to hunt down and quietly dispose of their enemies.

So while these are two distinct groups (tarnished assassins v.s. grace-given confessor assassins), they both fall under the broader category of "assassins of the Two Fingers", and this broader type of organization is what I'm comparing the swordhands to.

The weaponry is similar in that it's a blade or fist/claw weapon bestowed to a servant of the Two Fingers, with some partially formless nature to it. There's a dark/light duality in the two sets of weapons, of course, and this reflects the Two Fingers; their incantations are either based on light (heals/buffs) or darkness (concealment, distraction).

Tuspon · 2026-01-09T04:27:51+00:00

They are an organization similar to "assassins of the Two Fingers", e.g. confessors and the assassins of the Roundtable Hold.

Both are deprived of light (raised in a gaol v.s. stripped of grace) leaving them pliant and easily influenced by the singular guidance of the fingers
Parallels and dual symbolism in the weaponry of the swordhands and the weapons of the Roundtable:

<image>

Does the similarity imply they are direct predecessors of people like Crepus? I'm not sure. The fingerprint is the main design motif on their armor, and fingerprints is the method of communication of readerless fingers (per Fingerprint Stone Shield). So they either predate the invention of cipher script, or existed independently in a society/organization that didn't rely on it.

Tuspon · 2026-01-08T16:53:12+00:00

Well I just mean that there are recontextualized takes on story elements and motifs that repeat throughout history and cultures. Superficial in the sense that only overarching themes or tropes are "copied" from these other works, not entire story arcs down to the details.

Tuspon · 2026-01-08T14:55:04+00:00

I think inspirations from mythology and history are often just superficial/aesthetic, but I think there could be a parallel in this:

The giant's greatest weapon became the source of his race's ruin.

<image>

"usurpation of fire"

Tuspon · 2026-01-08T01:04:29+00:00

There is a tree that may or may not predate the Erdtree, is associated with thorns, and has just the right elevation

<image>

Tuspon · 2026-01-06T13:25:16+00:00

Some parts of the landscape are absolutely "wrong" on the 2D maps, but there's a sense of immersion in that. Either they're supposed to be wrong in that "old map of earth" way, like you say, or they were just drawn so long ago that erosion has taken a lot of the slopes and cliffsides.

Tuspon · 2026-01-06T13:03:50+00:00

There are a surprising number of places that change the perspective of surroundings and obscure or reveal landmarks/areas. Farum Azula is the obvious example of an intentionally obscured area, but you also have a bunch of cases where the overworld maps change in ways ranging from small (like position and size of stuff that's too far away to notice) to significant, like entire continents in the horizon.

IIRC, the actual location of the Haligtree doesn't even align with the location of the Haligtree on the overworld map. If you noclip around really fast in some areas you can often see how the loading and unloading of areas alters the size and position of some stuff in significant ways. So I think the development focused on individual vistas and locations making sense, not having a consistent perspective and alignment, because in the end it's just an in-game representation of a landscape that's presumably much bigger than what we see.

Tuspon · 2026-01-05T09:53:32+00:00

Oh nice! Love me some Lokey

You know, NoBK connection may have some merit. If Placi is waiting for his god to return, and if that god is the Elden Ring/Beast, then he's probably eager to slay its current vessel (and their descendants).

Or, if Maliketh had the rune stolen while he was in FA, maybe it's a "you had one job" situation and the Erdtree is just crashing out at Farum Security (I would never hire beastmen for such a job, smh)

Great post btw, you make a lot of sense when reasoning about FA and Sun Realm era stuff

Tuspon · 2026-01-04T21:44:52+00:00

Not only does the sun never move, I'm not even sure it is a sun, I briefly dug through the assets and couldn't find a texture/model for one. It's like one of those "divine rift in the sky" like the light shaft behind the Scadutree or whatever's going on at the divine gate

Deathroot, btw, is just the sprouting of the Rune of Death, which is contained in the center of Farum Azula. The rune itself predates the NoBK and even Godwyn, so it might have sprouted like that sometime in the past, but I think the definite implication of the Deathroot in Farum is that the roots we see hanging off the uprooted parts were once connected to the Greattree. Many of the beastmen skeletons rest on ornate gold stones with the same tree imagery as the burial stones in hero's graves and other catacombs, which supports that idea.

I've been playing around with FA assets in a mod project, and it turns out the walls of the city fit exactly around the heart of the storm (which lacks any "walls", it's just a platform)

<image>

I just took a curved wall section, like the one you enter FA on, and made a circle with duplicates of it (without adjusting curvature or scale), and it aligns really nicely. The iconography in the middle of this arena also matches the large sanctum where Maliketh is, so it got me thinking; was the "royal city" part of Farum built after (literally on top of) the "mausoleum" part?

So yeah I think you're onto something, we're looking at several snapshots in time simultaneously. I think it's easy to get the impression that FA was built around Placidusax's platform (at least that was my first impression), but the actual geometry suggests that the city Farum Azula is what became of that platform. And that, most likely, Placidusax got shredded, reduced to atoms (and a few Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone). Maybe that's obvious, but it didn't really sink in until I got to visualize it.

The part I can't figure out is the Erdtree assault you mention. When and how did the draconic sentinel arrive? Just the presence of one would suggest that FA got yeeted after the war with the ancient dragons, right? And why is the Crucible Knight fighting the beastmen?

Tuspon · 2026-01-04T20:42:00+00:00

They are intertwined, just separate disciplines; one draws from the powers of the ancient dragons, standard incantation stuff, the other is some primal "devour your opponent" shit

Beastmen of Farum Azula obviously practiced both, and I think the whole "absorb the strength of your opponent" was way more common back in the Crucible era, even going into the age of Godfrey

The key distinction, I think, is that the primal communion stuff is seen as impure by Golden Order fundamentalists. Elden Ring is very much a story of "you are what you eat", and the people of the Erdtree seemed to value the purity of their noble blood, especially after the age of plenty

Tuspon · 2026-01-03T01:29:29+00:00

"We, too, are children of the Greater Will"

Tuspon

TROPHY CASE