Dark Souls LORE THREAD

Doll isn't even best girl though.

Truly Bloodborne is Miyazaki's masterpiece.

>all the interesting things to do in the game world have already been done.
I don't know, there's some stuff that hasn't been explored yet. The Souls games only cover a very narrow type of time period--the end of an Age of Fire. Tooling around in an Age of Darkness, Age of the Deep, or Age of Ancients campaign could be interesting. Plus, there are some interesting lore tidbits that could be spun into campaign material. For instance, what's up with Gertrude, the Angels, and the Winged Knights? And why are the Winged Knights so fucking fat?

The Problem is a lot of what makes Dark Souls great is the mystery surrounding those things.

If you expand on the setting too much, you destroy it. At least, that's my opinion.

>what's up with Gertrude

Out of all the fucking things in Dark Souls 3 there's two things I still know next to nothing about despite them being mentioned constantly:

-FUCKING GERTRUDE. LITERALLY WHO

-THE PROFANED FLAME.

>If you expand on the setting too much, you destroy it. At least, that's my opinion.
True, though the Artorias and Crown Trilogy DLCs were pretty good about it. They answered some questions but potentially left the player with even more.

>why are the Winged Knights so fat

because LOL BERSERK IS SO BASED CHECK OUT THIS SICK REFERENCE BRO HURR DURR. pretty much 60% of Miyazaki's designs are like that.

Shanalotte was adorable, especially when you could see her kicking her feet when she was sitting down.

HERALD A BESTE
everyone else a shit

Quentin, pls. Don't you have movies to make?

Seek, seek, lest.

maybe I do...

Maiden in Black, easily.

Bonus points for likely being the mother of the BBEG

>Who the best girl?

If speculation is to be believed: Shanalotte.

Rumor circulate that the Cursed Undead from DS2 ended up marrying/breeding with Shanalotte to originally produce the line of Lothrics up to Ocerius, the consumed king.

FAKE
A
K
E

Is there anybody more badass than Pontiff Sulyvahn? Dude took over the Knights of the Darkmoon and the church surrounding Gwyndolin. He manipulated a Lord of Cinder. He combined the moon miracles of Gwyndolin with his own sorcery and the pyromancy of the Profaned Flame which is either an ever burning fire from Yhorm's Linking gone wrong, the Old Chaos beneath Eleum Loyce or simultaneously both of those things. Oh, and he grew the six wings of the Storytellers in phase two so he somehow harnessed those pseudo-miracles as well. He also managed to confine Yorksha but I don't know if that was actually hard given how little we know about her.

Dude is the closest thing we have to an outright villain in the series.

>Is there anybody more badass than Pontiff Sulyvahn
The Ashen One kicked his ass, so the answer is yes.

Take a look at the cage she was trapped in and all those feathers strewn about. Then take a look at all those feathers strewn about in the Twin Princes boss arena. They must have done some terrible things to that woman in the pursuit of juicing Lothric up and that must have been the source of his crazy resurrection magic. There is also some speculation that Gertrude was a descendant of Gwynevere. We just don't have any idea what the fuck the Angels were.

We see a statue of a Primordial Serpent hanging around and I thought that he was depicted with angel wings but that just turned out to be sweet shoulder pads for the robe with empty sleeves he was wearing. Also, that statue of the drippy looking guy. Was that Aldia? Or did the First Scholar just cover himself head to toe in wax.

Well, here's my proposal for such a game.

The game would be set in a Humans only fantasy world. About 2,000 years before the campaign starts the world was consumed by Elemental Frost. The Gods appeared first and with the aid of the Dragons drove back the endless darkness and cold. However, the Dragons coveted the power of the gods, so the gods plotted against them and sealed them away, thus began the Age of Gods.

In this age; the gods were physical beings who walked among the people and ruled them directly. The Gods reigned for a thousand years, sending their kingdoms to war with one another. However, about 800 years before the campaign starts, a great cataclysm rocked the human kingdoms that the gods seemed powerless to prevent. Most of the human kingdoms were devastated and all but one was over-run by legions of Demons. The Age of Gods came to an end when the gods disappeared and the demons retreated for unknown reasons.

Today, there is only one human kingdom left. Its borders are sealed by a high wall. The world outside is a hostile wilderness of overgrown ruins, vile monsters, demons and the undead. Worse, the world is about to end. Its whispered that the Eternal Winter is returning, as the northern reaches have seen their summers grow shorter with each passing year.

As you might have guessed, the power that the gods used to drive back the Eternal Winter is fading. The Demons and he cataclysm t were birthed from a failed attempt by the goddess of magic to rekindle the power. In the end, the gods sacrificed themselves to keep it burning, but now even that power is starting to fade.

There are a few different schools of thought as to what the Profaned Flame is. School A says that because Yhorm had no humanity, the Capital just exploded like how Gwyn exploded when he linked the flame and wrecked the kiln. The other takes the idea that there was an order of Oracles hanging about responsible for the flame to mean that the Proflame was the Old Chaos but different from it for some reason?

What I want to know is what the fuck were those hand monsters in the Profaned Capital! Jesus. Its like if a Manus Hand replaced the head of one of the Dark Souls 2 trolls.

Miyazaki loves his references. However, I am really surprised by the number of references to Western media in this game.

Such as the "Totally not Jon Snow, I swear" armor set. The one that really surprised me was that he included expies of the Broo from Runequest! Was Runequest even RELEASED in Japanese?

>Such as the "Totally not Jon Snow, I swear" armor set.

It's just the Llewellyn Set from Dark Souls 2 ya dink.

>Game of Thrones TV series premiered in 2011
>Dark Souls 3 came out in 2014.

Yep, no influence whatsoever.

>Dark Souls 3 came out in 2014.

I meant to type Dark Souls 2. Dark Souls 2 came out in 2014.

Fucking typos.

Yeah this is a question that's been bothering me. Who is the goo man statue in Lothric?

>Was that Aldia?

DS2 isn't canon.

>DS2 isn't canon.

I don't understand where people keep coming to this conclusion.

DS2 just took place in a different country- it's still canon.

cry more, butthurt B-Team babby

>Giant Tree right outside Firelink
>Numerous weapons and armor from DS2
>Mentions of a far-off country named "Drang"

By all means, keep trolling, but we all know you're wrong, bro.

doll>MIB>fire keeper=emerald

Been reading Pinwheels lore
Shits pretty fucked, if I do so say.

Or rather, the theories people come up with for it.

He is being a jerk in saying that DS2 isn't canon, but he is right in that DS3 largely ignores 2.

The DLC content of DS1 has left a huge impact on everything since, everything Artorias and Manus related stems from that DLC, shaping the plot of DS2 (Nashandra) and DS3 (Abyss Watchers).

But Basically nothing that happened in DS2 mattered. The Throne of Want? More like the "Throne of What?" The crowns, which were a huge deal in the DS2 DLC, are not even mentioned. Aldia likewise never gets a mention, despite being an entity that would presumably last beyond his own cycle, since he was part of the bonfires.

Maybe we will get more of a connection when the DLC for 3 comes around, but as of right now we are in a weird situation where only a few token references admit DS2 was even a thing, meanwhile shit from DS1 is all over the place despite presumably being much, MUCH older.

It's extremely subtle and I don't want to get into it at the moment (because I'm catching up on Game of thrones) but there are numerous connection to DS2 and DS3.

One thing I noticed the other day during my 3rd character/playthrough of dark souls 3:

The Giant Archer at the top of the tower has a hole for a face: It's VERY easy to miss, so I circled it and pointed an arrow at it for your convenience, but it's there.

He has a hole in his face.

>he doesn't know giant faces are actually just normal humanoid faces
>he doesn't know that the hole face giants are Hollows
>he doesn't know that the "holes" are their Darksigns

She's not even in the list.

user, a corpse should be well left alone...

huh, so the hole in giants' faces are their darksign huh?
That makes a bit of sense for Dark Souls 2's giants.

...

True, there are few tangible connections as of yet, but there are some points where traces, like the filaments of spider webs, can be seen.

You make mention of the Crowns, for instance. What do they do? They allow one to exist outside the curse of undeath, or at least, to negate the effects of Hollowing. What's one of the earliest qualities of note about the Ashen One as well as all other Unkindled? They don't Hollow--they have to be branded with a dark sigil in order for this to occur. Perhaps whatever power is in the crowns has been spread across the world and taken up residence in a new form, much like the Dark Soul itself?

Of course, we'll have wait for the DLC to make any final judgments, but the simple fact that FROM has acknowledged DS2's existence seems to me like they're planning something for it all.

...

No, no, I buy into that theory completely.

If anything I think that's what Yhorm is supposed to represent: He is an unhollowed giant who is BECOMING hollowed.

-We can see Yhorm's fully humanoid face and that's the point.
-Yhorm's face is starting to disappear and sink into itself to an unnatural degree.
-Yhorm is in the "process" of hollowing sort to speak. Most likely due to all the shit he's had to deal with.

How do you think she would react if the AO like, kissed her or something?

Surely a compromise can be reached ?

That depends... chaste kiss or full tongue invasion?

Chaste

then invasion

Kiss the darkness inside her ?

I often wonder the same thing with the Harold
I imagine she'd just be like 'FUCKING FINALLY.'
The Doll would be confused

...

What is the Profaned Flame? It can't be the flame of chaos, because the game goes to pains to express that it's dead and thus resigned demons to extinction.

...

Doesn't she have her eyes gouged out, though? She's somehow blind, anyway, right?

...

I think its suppose to be, she can see, but not see like, the world around her. She sees it without flame. Or something like that.

...

Whether it was intentional or not, that little too-wide opening of her eyes is such a perfect little bit of characterization.

...

>The Doll would be confused
Kissing is too forward, you should headpat the doll first.
>Oh, good hunter, what is the meaning of this?
>My apologies, I didn't mean you to stop.

My big dumb gay head canon is that the DARKNESS ENDING is basically the firekeeper and the chosen undead settling down in the darkness together: The Darkness binds them and in the Darkness they SMOOCH.

I had been uninterested in the firekeeper, but her single moment of vulnerability asking if you can still hear her voice stirred something in me.

>Age of Ancients
There's literally nothing, user. The point of that age is that there's nothing but eternal stasis. Eternal Dragons sitting around doing nothing all day while hollows crawl in the shadows, mindless, unthinking, unacting, until the First Flame sprung into existence, they were drawn to it, and time became a concept.

What is the Age of the Deep, and how does it differ from the normal Age of Dark?

This is all kinds of wrong, but damn if it isn't cute.

Gertrude is said to be the Queen's daughter (no idea if she's Oceiros' or a child the Queen arrived in Lothric with), who was a holy maiden and priestess. Then she was visited by the 'angels' and grew wings. The angel statues depict a Primordial Serpent with a human lower body and wings for arms, so it's probably Kaathe and his ilk being cunts again. However, this Angel worship is said to have been a heresy, for which she was locked up for with the heretical scholars Oceiros had sought out to try and help him produce a worthy heir, who are even implied to have maybe raped her. So that's pretty much what we know about her.

You know what, I can get behind that

I got a lot of questions.

What happened with Alva? Why did he invade? What's his whole deal?

Why are all the enemies so much bigger than the player and npc's?

What's the deal with the corvians? And the maggot people? And those goat things? What are they, where'd they come from?

Why is the firekeeper so perfectly cute?

>What is the Age of the Deep
I hope to Gwyn that the Age of the Deep heralds the start of a golden age of Dark Sails.

Vulnerable firekeepers are to be cherished.

The Crowns, when put together, form up to become something that looks aaaaawfully like the DS3 Firekeeper's mask.

I think the reason the Unkindled exist is because of this connection of the Crowns to the Bonfires via the Firekeepers. In the opening cinematic we see her picking it up and putting it on, so we can infer that there may have been other Firekeepers to wear it before her.

Dark Souls could produce some fucked up deep sea monsters.

>Why are all the enemies so much bigger than the player and npc's?

The implication throughout the series has been more souls/more powerful souls = larger physical form. This doesn't happen to the player character for obvious gameplay reasons, but it could be slow process for all we know. Or, put another way, a more powerful soul needs a stronger vessel to contain it, and the player's form is already strong enough because they're that badass.

>What is the Age of the Deep, and how does it differ from the normal Age of Dark?

The Deep is something originally prophesized by Aldrich: in his dreams he foresaw an age of the deep- an age of the deep sea. This inspired him to consume the gods in an effort to grow and survive this upcoming age of water and "deep".

The Deep for lack of more information seems to be some sort of ADVANCED. DARKNESS. That is beyond humanity and human's traditional understanding of the abyss.

The Abyss or the Darkness is tied to Humanity and the original Dark Soul and all these hexes n' shit we've become inordained with.
The Deep on the other hand seems to have some connection with soul stagnation, the deepest parts of humanity and the bedrock of the earth?

>Why are all the enemies so much bigger than the player and npc's?

Power appears to just be a quick visual representation that your enemy is extremely powerful.

>What's the deal with the corvians? And the maggot people? And those goat things? What are they, where'd they come from?

Corvians appear to be the twisted descendants of the Painted World's crow people. The maggot people may have been Rosaria followers who got remade a few too many times IIRC. The goat things are Ghru, descendants of the acolytes of Farron Keep who have been twisted by the corruption in the area. I still have no fucking clue how they killed all the mushroom people.

Nice fanfic

The Age of Dark is the age of Man (albeit a Man stripped of the positive aspects of the Light as well as its negative, perhaps Age of Hollows would be a better way to describe it), whereas the Age of Deep would be the age of the Abyss.

While Dark is connected to Humanity normally, the Abyss is what you might consider the twisted aspects of that. To get an image of what that might look like, think about how fucked up Oolacile was.

The Deep comes across as something alien, like it's outside of the Pygmy/Manus/Humans and their humanity, like it's the Dark Soul gone rotten or controlled by something outside of its rightful owners.

indeed, let me know when it comes with pictures

In DS1 it was implied that more HUMANITY = bigger (so stuff that ate corpses tended to grow big, large enemies were more likely to drop humanitiy items too) though souls are a factor as well.

Methinks it's internal politics.

Theyre all shit.
Finding out that dark souls not having a true "level up lady" was a fluke that will never happen again was such a disappointment.
I hate them all.

Alright playing through the first game and I keep dying to the fucking gaping maw dragon thing. The one that has half its body a toothy mess in the depths. I do not have hold for Xbox and I keep summoning solaire. Any tips or tricks? Pic incoming of stats and shit

I know you can't get banned for this, but I really wish you would.

>Aldia likewise never gets a mention

except there's direct evidence he was the tutor of Prince Lothric and the one who taught him that linking the fire was BS... but that would require you to read item descriptions and not have actual Alzheimers... too bad

>implying DS1 didn't have a level-up lady and that she wasn't the hottest one of all

Him and his dudes like berserk, but they're also dnd playing western fantasy nerds.

...

>whereas the Age of Deep would be the age of the Abyss.

The problem with this is that the game goes to great lengths to make a distinction between The Deep and The Abyss.

People know of the Abyss, The Abyss isn't some foreign thing people haven't encountered before: The Abyss is associated with hexes and so forth and The Abyss watchers and the undead legion were entirely devoted to routing out the Abyss.

The Main reason though I think The Deep is separate from the Darkness of the Abyss is due to the elemental stuff in Dark Souls 3:

-Dark Gems exist: "A gem of infused titanite. Born of disembodied humanity."
-Dark Gems are infused using the Profaned Coal which is also used for Bleed and Hollow Gems.
-The Darkness cosmologically/elementally speaking is associated with all things Human: Blood, Hollowing, Humanity.

-DEEP Gems exist separate: "A gem of infused titanite. Found in the dregs of the Cathedral of the deep. " "There is a darkness that lies beyond ken."
-Dark Gems are infused using the Sage's Coal which is also used for Blessed Gems and Crystal Gems.
-The Deep though.. Fuck if I know?? Perhaps it's a new dark element?
-Maybe Water??

Anyway, the point is: They went to the effort to make a DISTINCTION. They made them SEPARATE. There has to be something to it.

Normally I wouldn't go for fan theories like that because people just naturally gravitate towards whatever is creepiest, but the concept art and "I'm so sorry" in the boss music really sells those ideas to me.

>descendants of the acolytes of Farron Keep
they aren't demons?

they seem like super weak new demons from their presence in the smoldering lake

Gaping is easy, you just need to run a lot and only strike when it's safe. Also don't get caught in the goo.

What weapon are you using and is is upgraded?

Git gud faggot hells up with those stats idiot.

+5 Longsword
I've tried. But it seems to always just get that last hit needed to kill me. I mean I shanked the moonlight butterfly without much trouble but this guy is just fucking my day up.

You remember that image of all the Zeldas reacting to a love confession? I want to see that with Soulsborne waifus.