Dark Souls LORE THREAD

I ran an arc shortly after bloodborne came out that cribbed a bunch of stuff from it. Our villain had a hugely impractical Ludwig Greatsword because he was using necromancy to create giant deathmonsters out of corpses in an effort to level a city, and hopefully lure out a Faerie Wild Hunt to chase after said monster and level the country the city was in. He had the sword because in order to actually really damage the monsters he made in the even they got out of his control, he needed a weapon that was stupidly big and heavy.
He also had a mask designed after the Bone Ash set, because fuck if that wasn't cool as hell, and worked really well with the aesthetic we were going for.

So. How do you think Anri would exactly act as the Champion of Ash/Ashen One's Queen/King?

Like would (s)he be bro about it?

Would Anri go Lady MacBeth on Ash?

Also, would Anri be ok with having the Fire Keeper around as a concubine?

I think that they'd spend their eternal lives 'consumating their marriage' so to speak.

I basically stole Heide's Tower of Flame and the Cathedral of Blue for a random dungeon on a crumbling island in my Pathfinder game.

Basic idea was that it was the home of a bunch of isolationist priest-scholars of an obscure knowledge god, but they were forced to teleport out and the earthquake's damage took the teleportation circle offline after they escaped (pre-established teleportation circles between major locations exist, although they're costly and inconvenient to use). The map was mostly the same, except I added the option to climb down to the half-submerged wreckage where the island had crumbled. The Old Knights were animated statues, while the others were all bound outsiders - Shaitan Genies for the Heide Knights, a rather pissed-off Jyoti for the Old Dragonslayer, and a Zuishin Kami for the Dragonrider. The outsiders had, after discussing it with one another, decided that they didn't want to be stuck guarding a crumbling island with no company and nothing to do, so they'd decided to interpret their orders to "Protect this temple from those who would harm it" in the most creative manner, in the hopes they'd get defeated and released from their bindings earlier rather than later.

I'm also planning on stealing the Shrine of Amana, albeit with some bigger changes (since, y'know, players can swim).

Is Priscilla Gertrude?

can Undead/Unkindled even do it anymore?

I assume so, Chloanne does imply she wants to fuck the barer of the curse, maybe its only when hollowing has been reversed

It would be a hollow marriage

>What content from souls lore have you cribbed for other games?

I blatantly stole their magic system; if only because it GROSSLY stream lined the "sources" of magic in the setting and how both me and my players understand it.

Now there's only three sources of magic as inspired by the souls schools:

-Arcane/Sorceries
It's all you. It's all coming out of you and your intelligent manipulation of your own soul: this includes alchemy and enchantment. Arcane casters deal in LIGHT, ENERGY AND SOUND only- They can't "make" fire, move earth, or cast lighting bolts, etc.. I know, I know, "fire is energy, etc" but it's a cosmological thing- bare with me.

-Nature(Elementalism, druids, etc)/Pyromancies
It's a little bit of you and a little bit of earth, fire, plants, air and so forth. You're symbiotically entrenched in the world around you and so on and so forth. Naturalists can manipulate the elements: fire, earth, water, air and they can fuck around with plants as well.

-Divine/Miracles
Literally reciting the stories or instructions written by gods or their followers to cast spells borrowed from gods. I really like how Dark souls completely admits that Miracles are just stories you recite and they only work if you actually "believe" and "believe HARD enough".

I'd imagine so, until they hollow they can basically do anything a normal human could.

Since New Londo and Londor are both said to be undead cities, I'd imagine that there are still some children born and some copulation between undead to pass the time.

kickstarter.com/projects/steamforged/dark-soulstm-the-board-game

niggers

those faggots need to show people the long term stretch goals, would probably make people more exited about it

No.

they already surpassed their long term stretch goals they have to come up with new ones, the goal was 50,000 hitting 2,000,000 shows people were really excited

they've said that they have planned up to 4,000,000

>Yes, the concept art shows him without his gown on.
POST

You literally replied to it

I honestly don't know for the first two question, because DS3 did a terrible job at making me care about the most prominent ally NPCs. Anri has less chemistry with the Ashen One than Solaire did with the Chosen Undead. For all I know it'll be a strictly political thing where she fucks off to repair Astoria while the Ashbro MAKES LONDOR GREAT AGAIN!

And for that reason, I'm going with who cares and yes for the last two questions.

Okay, I just want to make sure I'm reading this right before backing the kickstarter.

If you back at £80, you get the core game + the non-boss stretch goal expansions (Player Characters + Iron Keep + Core Game Expansion + Armour sets + Invaders)?

And to compound my apparent lack of reading comprehension, does this shit all ship at the same time? Also, with kickstarters do you normally have to pay separately to your pledge for shipping?

Not only is he still wearing a gown, but there are no breasts in that picture.

the middle part.

Look off to the left of gwyndy's pic.
The silhouette?

Oh fuck, that's a side view. It looked like a general background pattern or something. Sorry, my mistake, looks like you're right.

I guess that ring in DS3 does have a direct link to Gwyndolin, then, that must be their explanation for that image from DS1. Gwyndolin was still born male, the ring must have been part of how he was forced to be raised as a girl. I thought they just threw it in as a general character-mod thing, I didn't realize it was meant to be a direct lore tie-in.

Is the Ring of Reversal good for... anything at all?

I can't think of anything in the game it actually affects other than your walking animation, and even that is barely noticeable.

I can't think of any items or actions that are gender locked in the game.

Yeah, it's pretty much purely cosmetic. But given how popular Fashion Souls can be, "purely cosmetic" is a perfectly valid use for an item.

I'm kind of surprised that it doesn't fulfill the same role as the coffin from DS2, actually changing your gender.

Yeah, I always sucked at making female PCs in DS2, so I'd always make a handsome male and hop into the coffin.

Is my headcanon of DS3 Firelink being the Kiln of the First Flame from DS1 total bullshit? Or is it something that should be looked into?

Given how screwy time and geography are in DS3, the answer could be yes, no, and maybe all at the same time. DS3's Kiln is a separate geographical area from the endgame version of Firelink but within visual range. The Soul of Cinder in the DS3 Kiln also uses Gwyn's theme and moves during the second phase. This implies that Firelink is not DS1's Kiln.

How come there is never anything good in the DS world? It always leads to shit.

The PCs' adventures are always set long after the good times have rolled. There's not much need for adventurers when the flame is still burning bright.

It's probably pretty good for a while before things go to shit. I mean, all those grand cities have to be built, and there has to be plenty before the decadence can set in.

It wouldn't be the end of the world if everything was still okay and happy.

If you want to see the good times come again, you gotta be willing to link that fire, bro.

Besides, it's not like the apocalypse is all bad. Look on the bright side.

>At least one loyal waifu per adventure
>Several bros (Solaire, Onionbros, Lucatiel, Benhart, etc.)
>No taxes
>No need to eat
>Respawns
>Teleports cutting down on travel expenses
>All that fashion
>All those cool toys and spells to play with ad nauseam

Living the dream, baby.

Why is Priscilla so best? Is it because she's fluffy cuddly and you can use her as a chair?

Bitch please. Reah best waifu for laifu!

>Solaire
>the only one who actually flirts with you
>not the loyal waifu of DaS1

What are gods?

>Reah
>Best Waifu
Sure if you like someone who's only fate is to die. Might as well waifu Lucatiel of Mirrah, she's way better then Reah.
Best fluffy waifu is best.

So what's the connection with her and Yorshka? Yorshka says Gwyn is her father and Gwynevere her sister, and she's found in the same area that the Painted World would have been. So is Priscilla not Gwynevere and Seath's daughter?

All I know is she was suppose to be the Firekeeper and do all your upgrading and shit for you, but eventually got removed and placed in the Painted World.

Quelaag stretch goal when?

Compelling.

I meant that, Gertrude certainly seems to be the daughter of Gwynevere, and appears to have had white feathers. She was said to have been very caring, and founded her own heretical faith after being visited by an angel. The Corvians that wield pricilla weapons that directly reference her are outcast in part because of their mutations, but also their heretical views. Mentioned in the lifehunt scythe spell description, Aldritch gleamed the knowledge of the spell while consuming Gwyndolin when he dreamt of a pale imprisoned girl, and while that sounds a little like the painting, Arimais itself is fucking NOWHERE to be found (and it's contents, which may have been the forefathers of the corvians, seem to have spilled in the absence of the painting guardians or gods.) During this time it's very plausible that the vision of Priscilla was of her imprisoned NOT in the painting, just at the same time that, presumably, Gertrude was imprisoned in the archives.

Gertrude herself was also imprisoned in the archives in part because of her heresy, but also so she might be invasively experimented upon, by none other than the heretical scholars that worshipped Seath (the pale drake.) We also know that her own chime was the "Crystal" chime.

I mean, I don't understand why the name would be different for any reason other than trying to hide her heritage, but some of the pieces seem to fit fairly well to me. I suppose it's possible that Gertrude was just another one of Gwynevere's daughters, but why then all these other references to crystals and dragons?

They're pygmies that contain the Light Soul, making them immortal but tied to the First Flame's strength.

Except dragonslaying, warfare, tomb delving and undead squashing were time-honored past times during the Age of Fire.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I preferred it when I just imagined a literal boy with tentacles being under there. It added layers of weirdness to the character that I thought were important.

I guess it's kinda like Smough actually being swole as fuck under his armor instead of fat.

So why did Aldritch eat Gwyndolin? Man was my favorite part of DS1. Definitely muh waifu!

>So why did Aldritch eat Gwyndolin?
Wouldn't you?

Did we ever figure out why the sun was bleeding dark stuff, or what Pilgrim Butterflies actually are?

Also, how many gods was Aldrich confirmed to eat? Was the demons' extinction because he ate what was left of the Witch of Izalith at one point?

Where in the world is Papa Nito?

Nigga got religion, saw an age of deep water and decided he had to start eating gods to make it happen.

All the guards in his area bleed dark goo, implying he ate the originals and spat out some sort of weird dark dopplegangers.

Yes but not in the way he did. I haven't gotten it yet waiting for the game of the year edition with all the dlc on it so forgive me if it's stated in game.

See! Religion makes ya eat people! Stay atheist and just fuck them instead!

DS2 takes the cake even if it had the worst plot overall though.

>gather the crowns of ancient kings, incidentally stopping one Child of the Dark's vengeance on the world and helping another fulfil her old flame's (no pun intended) benevolent wishes, which Vendrick sorta fuses together to make a super crown presumably charged by exposure to their hella buff souls which protects you from going Hollow.
>allowing you to live forever as a human

But user being atheist also makes you rebel against the gods' order, it just means you start turning into dickwraiths, running amock performing experimentations on primordial man and teaming up to gank some noobs' humanity to keep turning into a bigger and badder dickwraith

Nito died in DkS1, along with Seath, the Bed of Chaos, and 4kids.

The only god confirmed to be eaten by Aldrich (as far as I know) is Gwyndolin, but I believe I read something in the past about a theory of him having eaten Irithyll's pantheon as well. Not sure if that's true though.

Pilgrim Butterflies are what the Pilgrims of Londor's corpses became, I think. How or why, I do not know.

I know, but the OG Lords reincarnated in DS2. But in DS3 Gwyn seems to be all that's left, and his soul is kinda clumped with all the other sacrificed undeads'.

Who was Irithyll's pantheon?

Well that's...weird. Why are those a thing now? That never happened in the other games. Is it just an Unkindled thing since the other games just had undead with darksigns?

>Why are those a thing now?
If you're referring to Pilgrim Butterflies, the answer is probably Abyss weirdness. Remember the turtle shells on their backs? They're presumably keeping the corruption from exploding outward. For some, losing the shell seems to result in the hollow tree stage then the butterfly stage. For others, like Gundyr, it becomes the Pus of Man instead.

Aldrich ate the Silver Knights.

Silver Knights are gods.

I'd engage in some jolly co-operation with him.

>2016
>not cordially intruding

Nito pls

Someone last thread mentioned that the evangelists taught the people of the Undead Settlement to plant seeds in the hollows to try and cure them.

Judging by the item description on the Greatwood soul, the attempted cure involved transferring the undead curse into the tree rather than seeding people.

Also, the cleric set lore says:
>They bore large covers on their backs to ensure that they would not become seedbeds for spreading darkness.

Since pilgrims and clerics wore those turtle shells even before they arrived in Lothric, it either means that the "seeds" are implanted by something else or that the evangelists traveled far and wide. The lack of evangelists beyond the settlement and cathedral areas, however, doesn't lend credence to the latter idea.

I blatantly stole Gwyn as an optional boss.

The Evangelists instructed the people of the Undead Settlement to do a lot of terrible things to the cursed and the undead (which could be either or both depending most likely)

-The at first began to decapitate, cut up, bleed out and simply process the bodies as best they could. The Deep Cathedral grave warden's blades says that bleeding a body dry and essentially dismembering it seems to make bodies take longer to "revive" when they're hollowed. It's a sort of torture and execution.

-They also began to put them in cages so they could do 2 things: some of them were sent down to the cathedral of the deep on the road of snack-rifices to be fed to Aldrich. The others were thrown into that pit where the mound maker's covenant is to be used as fertalizer or stored in the Cursedwood tree.

-The third thing the did was to plant trees into the darksign of the undead: some people simply died and stayed dead as the tree grew up and out of them as you can see from all the dried out bodies sitting around in the settlement. I believe though that other people kept growing even in death and eventually revived into those "pilgrim butterflies".

>They bore large covers on their backs to ensure that they would not become seedbeds for spreading darkness.

This is referring to the turtle shells the Londor pilgrims wear and the cleric pilgrims wear: If you have a look at any of those hollows or IUDEX GUNDYR you'll notice the Abyss has grown on their backs.
My only guess is the Abyss crawls onto you FROM YOUR SHADOW and burrows into your darksign or something while you're not looking- slowly, very slowly over time.

If you encounter the two dragons, the Abyss actually grows on their rear, toward the leg. You're right about it taking a lot of time though. First gameplay, I waited and the dragons simultaneously died to the Abyss. Second time, I raced up and found the abyss still festering and attacking it resulted in the dragon's immediate death.

So is this any good, you guys think?

Is it worth getting?

Are the minis Warhammer scale?

Game seems neat, emphasis on boss fights driven by a card deck that isn't shuffled, so you memorize a move set and reach accordingly while trying to get into weak spots. Probably going to keep in the same vein of it being very difficult.

Not sure if worth getting. If you're invested and interested in Dark Souls already, why not?

The minis I'm not sure, but it seems likely they're either 28 or 32mm scale, roughly Heroic or a little larger.

Thanks.

...

where are you getting this info?

Are they making Halfbreed Fluffytail as a model?

>FROM YOUR SHADOW

One theory I heard was that the sun itself was being consumed by the dark and was dripping dark into the land.
IMHC, the pilgrims travel to lothric, where archtree seeds they've planted in their backs turn them into trees, which grow until they break away from the ground into pilgrim butterflies. These grow and flesh themselves out until they become dragons. This is based on the recent return of stone dragons into the series and the fact that anusface Giants have a weird xenomorph like life cycle where a giant dies, becoming a tree, whose fruit grows into a tree that becomes a giant. Archtrees and dragons were always linked, and giants are implied to exist outside of the cycle of regular life and death too.
Nobody knows about Aldrich. Definitely Gwyndolin live, maybe Nito's corpse, judging by that gravelord sword on his catalyst.
Nito probably stopped respawning because Aldrich ate his essence, Gwyn because so many chosen undead killed him that his entire soul entered a closed loop in the kiln, Seath may have reincarnated, as either Oceiros or the stone dragon in the dragon area, the witch, fuck knows. Maybe DLC.

What's the deal with the sewer centipedes in Irithyll?

Also, the shackles of the gods on people's vertebra?

>What's the deal with the sewer centipedes in Irithyll?
They're there to be spooky. Seeing as the ones in the Profaned Capital hang around a toxic morass, they probably just like to live in shit. They're far more fucked up than the rest of Irithyll's inhabitants, so they may have originated in the Profaned Capital and migrated to the surface.

>What's the deal with the sewer centipedes in Irithyll?

They're just some sort of monster that dwells in shit.

If you look around you find them in the sewers as well as the toxic/poison pits of the profaned capital. I don't think they have any lore so much as they're literally just human-centipedes who wallow in poopie.

>Also, the shackles of the gods on people's vertebra?

This is something that the mound-makers believe, but might not necessarily be "true" per-say.

Are those tentacles coming out of it's butt?

Also what the fuck is with the hollow/dead/undead/unhollowed/dark sign/whatever bullshit?

>Are those tentacles coming out of it's butt?

It can be difficult to see, but the snakes come out from -his- legs starting just below the knee.

I do like this a lot about dark souls.

The dark sign brands humans as undead. Some humans don't have the dark sign. They die and they die for good. But when someone with the dark sign dies, an undead, they come back and just lose all their souls. As one keeps dying, however, they start to hollow. Hollowing is a combination of the zombification of their body and the loss of their sanity. Dying over and over in a world as bleak as dark souls isn't good for one's mental health. Hollowing and being hollow are two different things that the first game doesn't do a good job of distincting. Being a Hollow is when an undead has lost all hope and purpose, and turns into a hostile, mindless creature.

Does the DS3 mechanic of Hollowing change the meaning of what it means to be Hollow? Because Londor is said to be a land of Hollows, to the point where it seems Hollow seems to be interchangeable with undedible in DS3.

I think it's the same. Just that the PC, as an Unkindled isn't undead. It's someone who died for good who was brought back by the tolling of the Bell to bring the Lords to their thrones. I think.

Reminder that the Dragonslayer Armor belongs to an unnamed third Dragonslayer who served both Ornstein and Nameless King.
Source: Sacred Oath.
Source on Ornstein being Nameless King's first knight: Leo Ring.

Embered mode in DS3 is apparently called Lord of Cinder mode officially, which implies that the Ashen One is a newborn Lord or was a Lord in a past life. If the "Lord of Cinder" mode is taken literally, what the hell does that imply lorewise for all the embered Ghru hanging out in the Smoldering Lake ruins?

it implies that they are fire themed enemies in a fire themed zone. Its a palette swap.

How is an Unkindled not undead? They have the Dark Sign, right?

theyre just really hot and crispy from living in some hot and crispy ruins

>They have the Dark Sign, right?

VIDEO GAMES.

Unfortunately, the dark sign in your inventory is just a side effect of video game, I think.
When your character dies in dark souls 3, they do not hollow. And you don't see any dark sign on their body.
Only after you get a dark sigil, a mini dark sign of some kind, do you begin hollowing on death. And I think it shows up on your body where a dark sign is.
Unkindled aren't actually undead and by default don't have a dark sign on them, nor can they go hollow.

The machete guys, black knights, and rats lack the ember effects, however. Was this just a dev oversight, then?