Hey there! This is a new community for all those who enjoy the lore and worldbuilding of Elden Ring, an incredible game developed by FromSoftware and published in 2022. Feel free to post any theories, questions and ideas you have!
I believe that Placidusax is/was a true Rebis, an alchemical melding of the White Queen and the Red King... and then some.
In Zullie the Witch's examination of Placidusax, they call out the fact that Placy once had five heads, and that one of his remaining heads is female
Next is Zullie's look at Bayle and the fact that 2 of Placidusax's heads are still bitten down into Bayle's flesh and hanging off of him. I don't recall if those heads are gendered in the files.
This is known and uncontroversial
What I put forward that is raw speculation:
Placidusax was a grafting of five dragons likely the FIRST ever living grafting, one being the god that would eventually 'was fled' That head being the missing one between what Placid has now and the two attached to Bayle. This is the template for the Rebis that Marika was trying to recapitulate with Radagon and why when we meet them they share a single body
The god 'fled' in the battle with Bayle, likely being torn off as well but not having bitten down was lost to the ages. Likely dead as whatever snake Marika stole her initial Grace from.
There is some evidence that Farum Azula technology was not made with forges, and the way that dragons and the honored dead are embedded into solid rock implies that Dragon culture technology manipulated matter directly to shape stone and metal into structures and tools, and that dead things being embedded would act as some form of protection for 'their lord'. This feels like a precursor to grafting that I will call dragonmelding. Dragonmelding is the source of all the structures and weapons originating in Farum Azula. I am not sure exactly what the mechanism is but the Cleaver and the ruins greatsword are implied to have been made without fire or tools.
Since those ancient dragons were 99% superock then melding would work with them if as it seems it only works on nonliving matter, I wonder if that means under Placidy's rocky surface there are 5 dragons all stacked on top of each other a-la Pinwheel
I believe there is some connection between dragonmelding and grafting, and that they both might be gifts of their various Greater Will's Children patrons, as a requirement to contain the Elden Ring. Maybe since the Elden Beast seems inorganic and Metyr is excessively organic, the clients of the Elden Beast (beastmen, dragons) became more rocky, while the clients of Metyr (trees) became more fleshy
MAYBE FLESH IN ELDEN RING ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE OF METYR!
In any case, TL;DR: Placidusax's 'god who fled' is one of the heads he lost in the battle with Bayle, and may be the first ever grafted being as an 'even truer Rebis'
Spoiler warnings if you haven't beaten the Primordial Nightlord yet!
::: spoiler spoiler How do you interpret the ending cutscene (without Remembrances/character-specific alternative choices)? The most popular interpretation I've seen is that the giant represents the night, and through our actions we essentially go back in time and make it leave The Lands Between, undoing the whole timeline and setting things up for Elden Ring proper. But that's making a bunch of assumptions without much evidence.
We know that the giant represents darkness, since the swirls on his textures are the same as on the Sword of Darkness from SotE. But that still leaves the question of his connection to the Night. What do you think? :::
Most of these connections were not made by me, I'm just gathering them here together for ease
The architecture in Dominula and Shaman Village are VERY similar technology and theme wise, as well as the patterns of wild flowers and the later association with 'festive grease' which is the same effect as the rare drop Dominula weapons provide
In-game lore describes the celebrations at Dominula were 'so old that Marika couldn't forbid them'. This is a VERY important clue when what that ritual entails is examined.
It's flaying, they're flaying people, and presumably gathering the skins as an offering for the Godskin Apostle waiting up the hill.
Why was flaying a ritual so old that Marika, the god of this age with power over the literal laws of the universe, could not prevent its practice despite evidently wanting to? (will go over that later, just keep it in mind)
Because it predated her ascendance to godhood, and was a part of Shaman culture long before being co-opted by the Hornsent to make their snake god consort.
The Numen -> Shaman connection is irrefutable, and on the oldest numen structures, the Coffin Ships, we see depictions of people being melded into and birthed from trees. The Two Fingers dead bodies are depicted as rotting wood, and so is Ranni's true corpse
I believe the Numen were trees uplifted by Metyr like the Elden Beast uplifted beasts to dragons.
This explains the origins of grafting, and why they are a client race for the Greater Will, and the affinity with tree burial. I believe that 'Empyrian' requires one to be a client race that has been previously altered by the children of the Greater Will and that covers a lot of the unusual things around empyrians like 'being born from a single god', and the fact that the Two Fingers can just up and create a perfect guardian soul mate with apparently no effort.
So Numen, being ascended trees, can be grafted, melded into trees, and can contain the Elden Ring. This suggests to me that the knowledge of this grafting was probably passed down through the culture as part of ritual and that they likely practiced selective grafting and considered it sacred (the reverence for the 'grandmother')
This is why it is such an affront that the Hornsent perverted this ritual to forward their own power, and heaped untold suffering on unwilling victims.
Same mechanic, in Shaman hands a sacred ritual that interred their most honored matriarchs and in the hands of the hornsent, a license to wantonly slaughter and inflict suffering on an industrial scale.
No wonder Marika found grafting to be abhorrent after being forced to become a Jar Saint herself. No wonder almost all knowledge of it was lost and buried except for two absolutely detested rejects of the Golden Order.
No wonder she tried to stop the Dominula celebrations, even thought they were part of her culture before being tainted by Hornsent inhumanity.
So when one of her unnamed daughters sought her own rulership, she adopted the ancient neglected skinning celebrations of her mother's Shaman roots and gained adherents by offering a new way of life. The Godskins were her transformed adherents, and they sought to return to the old ways and old powers
It may have even been that the GEQ didn't seek godhood, but Marika was forced to end her for controlling a threat to the Erd Tree and representing a way of life abhorrent to her
Hey all! I thought it might be fun to do a Q&A thread.
If you have any questions about the lore, feel free to ask them!
If you know a bit about the lore and see an interesting question, feel free to answer!
And as a bonus, I'm doing a small giveaway. In one week, the most interesting question asked, and the most interesting answer given, will both get one shitty MS paint drawing of their choice from me! I have no artistic talent, so the shittiness is guaranteed™.
Okay, title might sound a bit crazy, but hear me out.
When you cross the bridge to the Divine Tower of East Altus, you're pulled into a boss fight with two Omens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVuAtY6Lq8M
I think that this fight happens inside the veil which separates the Shadow Lands from the Lands Between. There are a bunch of reasons for this:
All of this leads me to believe that this fight happens inside the veil! What do you think?
