But the two most important and arguably the most powerful are the Greater Will and the Frenzied Flame.
Throughout Elden Ring the player encounters many Two Fingers, most of them dead.
One of the only ones remaining lives inside theRoundtable Hold.
It sent a star hurtling into the world carrying anElden Beast.
These runesliterallydefine the rules of the world of Elden Ring, such as what happens after death.
Before the Elden Beast arrived, The Lands Between were fairly ordinary.
Well, as ordinary as you’re free to call a land dominated mainly by dragons and giants.
We don’t really know what the Crucible was.
Some think it’s merely a name for what life was like before the Elden Ring was created.
You know how the Greater Will and the Frenzied Flame were like two sides of the same coin?
Well, Marika and the Gloam-Eyed Queen represented a similar duality.
Marika represented Life Eternal, while the Gloam-Eyed Queen represented Destined Death.
At least, unless that Empyrean turns against the Greater Will.
But that’s another story.
Marika sent Maliketh to fight the Gloam-Eyed Queen, and Maliketh dutifully slew his mistress’s rival.
Maliketh stowed Destined Death inside his giant sword, earning him the moniker: Maliketh, The Black Blade.
This act marked the beginning of Marika’s Golden Order.
And enemies were plentiful at this time.
Marika was about to begin a series of long and savage wars for control.
And for that, she needed an army, and a leader.
For this task, she chose a legendary warchief called Hoarah Loux.
Hoarah Loux became one of Marika’s foremost weapons alongside the more recondite Maliketh.
Hoarah Loux would carry Serosh on his back henceforth, to quell his lust for battle.
It was also at this point that Marika chose Hoarah Loux to become her husband.
And Hoarah Loux adopted a new name befitting Marika’s new Golden Order: Godfrey.
And as Marika’s husband, Godfrey became known as the land’s first Elden Lord.
Marika and Godfrey had three children: Godwyn,Morgott, andMohg.
These deformities made them “Omen”, and according to Marika’s Golden Order, Omen were shunned.
Omen are usually killed at birth - that’s how taboo it is.
Thus, the Golden Lineage - the first demigods - was formed.
Marika sent Godfrey and his army to conquer theMountaintops Of The Giants.
We don’t know how long the war lasted; we only know that Marika’s side won.
It also couldn’t have hurt that they were aided by a powerful clan of ice-wielding Zamor Knights.
Whether this is true or not remains unclear, yet even Marika couldn’t destroy the Flame of Ruin.
Chapter 5: The Ancient Dragons
The Ancient Dragons hailed from a floating island calledFarum Azula.
They had stone scales with time-altering properties, making them immortal (but not unkillable).
The Ancient Dragons let their feelings on Marika’s Golden Order be known in spectacular fashion.
This marks the only time in recorded history that Leyndell’s walls were breached.
Gransax’s petrified corpse still remains towering over the city.
How it was slain, and who by, we don’t know.
But it marked the beginning of the Golden Order’s war against the Ancient Dragons.
Placidusax retreated to its seat of power in Farum Azula and continued to await its god’s return.
The Ancient Dragon Fortissax fought a legendary one-on-one fight against Godwyn The Golden, and lost.
But Godwyn spared Fortissax’s life, and the two became friends.
There is also mention of a mysterious “Stormlord” which Godfrey himself faced alone at some point.
When the player sees Placidusax in-game, the Dragonlord is missing three of its five heads.
Potentially they were lost at the hands of Godfrey.
One was the Nox - a grey-skinned people who sought to combat the ever-growing influence of the Greater Will.
After that, just one true foe remained - the Carian Royal Family.
But it was during these two challenging wars that the unlikely pair of Radagon and Rennala fell in love.
Their union and marriage brought about an unexpectedly peaceful end to the prolonged bloodshed of the Liurnian wars.
The three children of Rennala and Radagon were:Radahn,Rykard, andRanni.
Yes, all the “R” names are giving me a headache too.
Rykard, meanwhile, fused himself to a world-devouring snake.
There’s always one, isn’t there.
Ranni took after her mother more than her father, inheriting Rennala’s talent for lunar magic.
No longer would Marika be a blind obedient slave to the Greater Will.
Godfrey, too, was affected by the war ending.
The item description of Godfrey’s Elden Lord Crown reads: “And then, there came a moment.
When his last worthy enemy fell.
Ye will wage war in a land afar, where ye will live, and die”.
Godfrey abandoned his Golden Order moniker, and became known as Hoarah Loux once more.
Thus, they grew stronger over the generations.
Turns out, RadagonisMarika.
The two people are one and the same.
Whether this was always the case or whether Radagon somehowbecamepart of Marika, no one is sure.
But viewed in this light, the seemingly happy ending to the Liurnian wars becomes rather more duplicitous.
And once peace was established, Radagon betrayed Rennala, leaving her in favour of Marika.
And thus, Liurnia would never again pose a threat to Marika’s Golden Order.
Don’t think about that too much.
Those two children were the twins,Maleniaand Miquella.
And because they were technically born from one godly parent, that meant a couple of things for them.
First: they were chosen to be Empyreans by the Two Fingers.
After all, who better to succeed Marika than the child of Marika and… Marika?
Miquella was cursed with eternal youth, while Malenia was cursed with aScarlet Rotsickness.
The stage, now, is more or less set for the Shattering.
A quick roundup: we have Marika, and her Golden Order.
Her greatest assets: Radagon, Maliketh, and the backing of the Greater Will.
Godfrey and his armies have been banished from The Lands Between, and they have become the first Tarnished.
Meanwhile, we have three sets of demigod children.
Godwyn, and the Omen twins Morgott and Mohg, were born from Marika and Godfrey.
And finally, Marika and Radagon has the cursed twins, Malenia and Miquella.
Now, let’s watch Marika’s Golden Order unravel.
Isn’t that just brilliant?
He wasn’t a self-taught gravity practitioner though.
His mentor was an Alabaster Lord hailing from the sorcerous town of Sellia, in Caelid.
Through the Alabaster Lord’s guidance, Radahn became extremely powerful in the gravitational arts.
And his power was already formidable, even for a child of Marika.
The Starscourge Heirloom item description in-game calls him “mightiest hero of the demigods”.
Why he did this is not clear.
So it’s possible that a “star” or meteor would have struck Sellia had Radahn not intervened.
She had a plan.
Armed with such powers, Ranni made her move.
One night, she visited Marika’s Shadow, Maliketh, in Farum Azula.
Ranni’s plan was swift and brutal.
Godwyn was slain by a group of Black Knife Assassins, led by Alecto, the Black Knife Ringleader.
In so doing, both the demigods suffered a “half-death”.
Godwyn’s soul was killed, leaving behind his body.
And Ranni’s body was slain, but her soul endured.
The reason Ranni slew her own body was simple; she explains it to the player.
“I stole the Rune of Death, slew mine own Empyrean flesh, casting it away.
I would not be controlled by that thing [The Greater Will]”.
After that, Radagon attempted to repair the Elden Ring, but to no avail.
Which is interesting in itself, because, lest we forget, RadagonisMarika.
But the damage to the Greater Will’s influence was done; everything was spinning out of control.
Perhaps the most successful campaign during the Shattering was made by Malenia.
Chapter 14: Miquella And Malenia
As we know, both Miquella and Malenia were born cursed.
He abandoned the Golden Order’s Fundamentalist doctrine after realising it could provide no cure for them.
The sapling grew into a large misshapen tree known asMiquella’s Haligtree.
The culprit who stole Miquella’s cocooned form was none other than Mohg, twin brother of Morgott.
Through this connection, Mohg learned powerful bloodflame magic.
During the Shattering, Mohg escaped the sewers and set upMohgwyn Palaceas his new home.
And it was to here that Mohg absconded with Miquella’s body.
Malenia set off on a conquest across The Lands Between.
Godrick The Grafted, in an act of, well, sheer stupidity, insulted Malenia as she approached.
Malenia met him in battle, handily beat him, and forced him to surrender.
Onward Malenia went, through Limgrave, and into the Caelid Wilds.
By this time, the only true challenger left was General Radahn.
The other Shardbearers were either beaten or in hiding.
We see some of this legendary fight in the Elden Ring story trailer.
The effects were devastating.
Malenia, meanwhile, fell into a coma on the battlefield soon after unleashing the Scarlet Rot.
Chapter 16: The Rise Of The Tarnished
This final chapter effectively describesthe events of the game.
The player plays as one of the Tarnished called back to The Lands Between by the guidance of Grace.
But she is no Finger Maiden really, despite having the power to turn runes into strength.
In any case, Melina remains the Tarnished’s near-constant companion throughout the events of Elden Ring.
The Tarnished eventually defeats enough demigods and earns enough Great Runes to journey to the capital, Leyndell.
Melina sets the Tarnished on a quest to reach the Flame Of Ruin in the Mountaintops Of The Giants.
The Tarnished then awakens in Crumbling Farum Azula.
After that, the player returns to a now burning Erdtree.
But no, the player’s Tarnished proves too much even for the former Elden Lord.
Inside the Erdtree, they see Marika, imprisoned.
But at the Tarnished’s approach, Marika is freed.
Taking Radagon’s form, the god fights the Tarnished, but is defeated.
And that’s just about the entire story of Elden Ring.
At least, until Shadow Of The Erdtree flips everything on its head.
Good grief, you actually reached the end of this massive lore dump.
Then again, we’re Elden Ring players.
We’re used to long and arduous journeys.
