You can find pest Larvae in Caelid, they’re in one of the Ruined shrines with a bunch of unearthed coffins. It almost implies that the larvae are born from corpses, which would make sense, because Ionia is basically a giant battlefield.
Came straight to the comments after he mentioned them being in the Haligtree to point this out too, lol. I think it's where you get the Meteoric Ore Blade, or the Sword of St. Trina. Can't remember which.
Honestly, a lot of NPCs are interesting when you don't aggro them. Have you ever heard the omens crying in their sleep? It's pretty sad and makes me not want to murder them
I feel like the Godskin Duo needed more mechanics that made them feel like a proper team and not just two bosses shoved in a room together. Hilarious that they had such a mechanic afterall but it bugged out instead.
well they are not trully dead, we might get the chance to fight them again. They will try to stop us again and we will get to fight God Slayer Trio in a poison swamp
Personally I think the shadow of the erdtree refers to the people who aren’t accepted or shunned its beliefs so they are cast into a realm of dark or unknown purgatory. Miquella shunning the golden order in search of a power to save malenia from the rot may have scorned the erdtree and golden order in a way that once his body perished it cast him into said purgatory where he searches for a way out or to reach the lands between.
I may be hoping too much but since Miquella's body is all jacked up I assume he can't really come back from wherever he is, so maybe we have to go into the spirit realm of the Helphen to help him somehow? Though knowing Miyazaki "helping" probably means killing him in an epic boss fight lol
@@Reiginleaf it would be awesome if that happened but i doubt miyazaki is gonna do that and on top of that. its my personal belief that stories that dont end the way we want them too are better. and i think miyazaki thinks that as well. in all of his dystopian worlds nothing good comes of it. even all the endings possible. none are necessarily good. none of them really fix anything worth while.
@@sempernun1285 oh I know that...however... he knows we know that he knows.... so maybe he will do what we don't know because he knows what we don't know. Follow?
Shadow also refers to characters like Maliketh as all Empyreans have to have a shadow in order to rule. Marika had Maliketh, Ranni had Blaidd. Maybe we become a shadow for Miquella!
It would be rather interesting if Miquella acted like Gwyndolyn in the DLC. A sort of neutral boss that you can join in a covenant (or quest in this game), or just fight straight upl Everyone expects them to be the final boss of the DLC, but who knows if they'll give them higher relevance throughout the whole expansion.
I think the godskin waking up his friends from sleep is a very important discovery. it reinforces the theory that the devouring serpent Eiglay is actually the Lord of Chaos: Apep. Apep was a serpent who waited for Ra in a western mountain, (Mt. Gelmir?) to devour him. The godskins are immune to madness but very weak to sleep. In the game sleep and madness are at the two opposite sides of the same coin (see st. trina relieving nomadic merchants affected by madness with sleep). I always thought godskins being so weak to sleep was a bug and they were going to patch it, but now that we see the godskins actually having a way to counter the sleep status effect, it means that they actually are meant to be weak to it. And this is also similar to the man-serpent enemies in volcano manor, also immune to madness that are also weak to sleep. At the same time the godskins have snake features and protect the temple of Eiglay. it is also very strange that there is a troll with noble garments who's main attack is the franzied flame right in front of volcano manor. that also draws a sinister picture at who the godskins' gloam eyed queen might be....
I dont understnad the Apep serpent Ra and Egily. Im assumeing either Eiglay or Apep where the serpent that devoured Ryakrd, but im completely lost on who Ra is
@@Chvddy_Bvddie Ra and Apep are deities from ancient Egypt. This person was using that as a way to explain the relation of rykard and mt gelmir and whatnot
The double helix is a really classic thing, it's a concept much more older than DNA. The duality of things is really old and it's a constant topic in humanity, so it makes sense to have so many examples of duality, duality doesn't mean two things separate, it means two parts of something.
If anything, the dual-helix form of DNA has always struck me as oddly poetic considering humanity revered that shape far before it was known to be within all living things.
The double helix reinforces my theory of an ongoing theme of duality within the game, starting with Marika/Radagon, Miquella/Malenia, Ranni/Renna(or Melina). Mohg/Margit.. etc.
The double unbroken Helix I think is a representation of the laws of Causality and regression in action. Its's an unbreaking continuous helix, an eternal cycle, life and rebirth (no death), causality (the two lines separate from a point) and regression ( the two lines return to a similar point or state), gravitational push and attraction, and it seems to be a primordial symbol since it is present in the Elden Star incantation too. However on the Godlsayer sword, the Helix is broken, symbolising the "shattering" of these laws, or the end of the greater will authority on life altogether, so true death.
Very cool video, thank you man! Under the shadow of the Erdtree means those who do not receive the light of the Erdtree, aka the tarnished, the omen, the misbegotten, those who live in death, etc.
@@23Butanedione Tarnished are called Tarnished because they lost the guidance of grace, the light of grace. We were brought back to the Lands Between & given the guidance of grace again, to go collect great runes & become the Elden Lord. That’s why everybody makes such a big deal about how we can see it, including other Tarnished.
3:22 their names are not the same in japanese though, Miquella is ミケラ (Mikera) while Quella is ネラ (Nera), for some reason they completely changed his name in the english translation. Still, that's a very interesting coincidence
"for some reason they completely changed his name in the English translation" I assume "his" here is referring to Quella? Because as far as I can recall Quella isn't gendered Very interesting to know though
@@OG-ColorfulAbyss. I think I understand. Are you claiming that the boy was Quella? Because I don't see anything in the English description that says so. The language seems to leave both the tree and the boy open to being the God The tree is said to have "divine powers", and being "of the dream world", on top of it being the "Grand Spirit Tree". It seems perfectly possible to me that Quella is the tree
The double helix seems to repeatedly appear on things related to fire, black flame, the crucible, holy objects, and items relating to powerful entities. This must mean that the double helix could be a sign of extreme power or divinity in the lands between.
One way to view fire is that since it is a force that can get rid of all that divides (Flame of Frenzy) it can divide the boundary between itself and one other thing thus resulting in a combination of attributes. This lends itself nicely to the double helix concept where it is fire + X attribute (Bloodflame, Godslaying Black-White Flame, Holy Flame, Sleep Flame, etc). Also, anytime Fire is involved the Faith attribute is linked to it. A side note, I always wondered if there is any reason that the only time Sleep is connected to Faith (as opposed to Intelligence) is because it is combined with Fire in a torch and whether or not this is a tie-in to Miquella being St. Trina because we know Miquella was well-versed in Golden Order Fundamentalism (having created an incantation for it as well) and that requires investment in both Faith and Intelligence.
The significance of the double helix probably has something to do with this game's focus on lineage and potentially genetics. The crucible being a primordial soup of sorts, the golden lineage being associated with godhood and the way genetic mutations can occur like with the Omen twins, Malenia and Miquella. Just a thought.
There's a lot of scientific/mathematic symbols and concept used in this game so it isn't that farfetched, in particular considering the helix is either the start or the end of an age, as in the start or end of life. Gravity Sorceries have the magnetic field as a seal, the 2 fingers talisman shows an X chromosome, the rot kindred glaive back part is similar to a Mandelbrot fractal (which gives more sense to the " incomprehensible keen intellect" quote), the laws of Causality and regression come from mathematic theories, and there's probably more.
@@MitridatedCarbon WAAAAY more insight than I had, that's really interesting. I know how much From games leave up to interpretation but they are likely trying to keep a certain theme. I was thinking of the idea of lineage and genealogy but you mentioning the idea of birth and death (beginning and end of an age, beginning and end of life) ties perfectly into lineage thru the things we pass on. Like how we choose what elements are brought into the new order or whether we burn it away entirely. Isn't it fascinating when a story is open to interpretation and not just A to B storytelling? YO!!! Is Elden Ring just Metal Gear Solid 2?!?!?
Or it's a caduceus. Probably a caduceus. It's been around since 4,000 or 3,000 BC, and considering the layers and layers of symbolism that fittingly apply to the themes of alchemy and hermeticism in the game, just makes way more sense than a strand of DNA.
@@MitridatedCarbon I'm gonna rip off Smoughtown here but as far as math is concerned there's also the pulley bow and crossbow which were developed using "advanced mathematical theorems," as well as the fact that for all intents and purposes, it appears that Goldmask is trying to solve the problems of the Golden Order not as a religion, nor as a system of governance, nor even as a philosophy, but as a straight up mathematical equation that's just not adding up. After all a wise man once said that maths are the language of God :D
@@benadrylcumbersplatch6448 yeah the fundamentalists are all about order and logic, as well as understanding in a scientific way how the Greater Will works. which is why all their incantations use intelligence and why the 2 laws require only intelligence.
This was a great video to watch while eating my breakfast. Good catch with the whole Quella/Miquella thing. Regarding the double-helix... that's something we've been seeing since Dark Souls with the Caduceus. I wonder if the double helix might actually be a reference to that, given that we see the double helix/caduceus in at least one place in Elden Ring: on the robes of the Depraved Perfumer. You can see the hissing tongues of the snake on there.
Glad you enjoyed it! I have a feeling the helix/caduceus goes back to all the alchemy symbolism and themes. I’m sure if anyone could figure it out, you’d be the one
About the Erudition notes: as a musician with good ear for tuning, I can hear way more than 4 notes. In fact, it's probably an entirely random pitch within a limited range, so it's very unlikely to hear the exact same tone twice during an entire playthrough (each of the ones in the video were unique). Randomizing the pitch of a sound effect every time it is played is a very common trick in games, because it makes the experience less repetitive for the player
probably randomized, but you can hear fundamental frequencies (and other frequencies, obvi)--I wonder if there is something to do with pitch more so than notes. Looks like the highest pitched tone was the character with the hat that gives you higher intelligence. And you get the gesture from the Thops questline...idk. Ascension n all that...
6:50 Yes, the pitches range from about D7-F#7 (~2300-2800hz), but there really is no meaning to it. Sound designers often apply realtime pitch randomization to sounds to add variation, so that they don't get too spammy or start to phase... here it's pointless because there's only one instance of the sound, but it's possible the designer just copied a sound container that already had this variation in. Or maybe just wanted to mess with us, who knows 😉 (Great vid as always!)
The Quella connection is spurious. It gets even worse when you find out that Quella's name in Japanese is actually Nera. DS2 is full of weird localisation differences like that in names. Vendrick is actually named Vanclad, Aldia is named An Deel, Nahr Alma is named Doroma and Targray is named Garaindook (???).
As pointed out by Queelag in one of her videos (I forget which), there are two models for the Kindred of Rot in the game. One has a red spike in the back of the neck, and the other doesn't. One such Kindred of Rot that has the spike is Gowry. Her theory is that this is spike is akin to the Cordyceps infection from The Last of Us and Gowry is puppeteering the Kindred of Rot and what we kill isn't actually his body.
The pest larvae can also be found in the underground chambers of certain ruins. So one could propose the theory that they require something that's died or dying due to the rot itself.
I think the double helix is meant to represent a duality, two separate things fused together into a greater whole, the Elden Beast & Elden Ring, Radagon & Marika, the greater will seems to really like putting things together to get most of best properties out of both. It’s a good thing the process isn’t quite perfect otherwise the Elden Ring wouldn’t have been a good enough weak point for Marika to fracture the Elden Beast’s outer barrier and leave it vulnerable enough for us to kill
Those things aren't separate from the start though, the Elden Beast is the original form of the Elden Ring, and Marika is the original form of Radagon: he's a basically a clone her. I think the double helix is most likely a result of that symbolism being popular throughout human history, as opposed to being a deeper meaning.
"the shadow of the Erdtree" to me means the future. Living in the shadow of something often means said thing's time has passed. For example "he always lived in the shadow of his father."
The Caelid Waypoint ruins, where the Meteoric Ore Blade is, have the larvae of Kindred as well. I presume that the Servants of Rot used the nearby tombs to imbue dead bodies with the rot. I don't think that the larvae are necessarily larvae though. It's entirely possible that the Kindred are just the Cleanrot Knights, and the smaller versions are tarnished or other beings since they don't wield weapons, as most dead in tombs wouldn't. The Sellia Crystal Tunnel also has Kindred overseeing it, whose boss is a Fallingstar Beast, with 2 Kindred outside revering a shrine where the Faithful's Canvas Talisman is in the complete opposite direction, unlike the worshippers of the beast and its kin outside Leyndell. The Canvas talismans, one of which you get from Gowry, depict red haired, masked people as the "faithful," potentially referring to the daughters of Gowry. Even furthering the guarding theory, they also stand outside revering another aspect of Rot, again facing away from the cosmic creature, just outside of the area that Astel resides in the Lake of Rot. The Meteorite Staff and Rock Sling spell are also found surrounded by Servants of Rot. I presume they are trying to stifle, and guard the areas where you may be influenced by gravity magic, the cosmos and any potential cosmic outer god, and anyone who is tangentially associated with Radahn furthering the association that the Kindred are still serving Malenia, and not just the outer god. Their name Kindred of Rot, referred to as Pests in the 3rd person by their Glaive and Gowry, also aligns them as just associates rather than someone who serves only Rot making them being rot infected Cleanrot Knights even more likely. Gowry calling them Pests makes them seem like nuisances that are getting in the way, or that they may not be entirely devoted to Rot and the will of the outer god, and are just using power of the Rot for their own personal reasons.
I just realized Miquella and St Trina could have a similar situation to Griffith and the Moonlight Boy. In terms of Alter Egos and possibly design. Where Miquela is the dominant ego and will slip into sleep for St Trina to take over briefly. Hoping the DLC covers more on it!
A crucible is a container that allows transformation. A crucible is also a test or challenge to foster transformation. The DNA helix is the Crucible. The melting pot of life in the Lands Between hence the aspects of the crucible utilized by the crucible knights or the mismatched features of the misbegotten.
Holy shit that Godskin wakeup animation kinda blew my mind the most out of everything in this video, like damn, it's been a year and we're still finding whole mechanics that weren't even removed from the game
Regarding the "Erudition Notes," while I can't exactly confirm it, audio middleware like Wwise allows you to easily take a sound, and create slightly pitch altered versions of that sound, so up a higher pitch. Down a lower pitch. Etc. To me, this seems like a sound designer had this whistle sound for the gesture, but didn't want it to be the exact same every time, so with a few clicks, they made some pitch variations, and made it so which one plays when the gesture is done is randomized, which is another easy thing middleware like Wwise can do.
I don't know if this will help but I took my time listening to those whistles and here's what I think I can hear from them. Rennala / Last one on the clip - F Sharp 6 No Helmet - D6 Radahn / Olinivus - D Sharp 6 Ranni / Azur / Lusat - F6 Sellen / Pointed Hat (+Alt) / Twinsage - E6
I respect that you postulate an idea/theory about the Cleanrot knights, but also provide evidence against the theory to be thorough. Good stuff, my man.
played almost every day since release and It was yesterday when i found out that Melina´s dagger is found heading back into the elevator from forbidden lands bf and jump off into the hidden corridor shortly after it starts moving up. Don´t think i have this seen being adressed in any capacity from the lore people so i assume it must be fairly unknown ? Double helix: i think it´s not a double helix but according to the mad perfumers armor it´s a "curse upon the erdtree" (something wrapping around the tree) something we´re most likely gonna see more of in the dlc i assume?
The coil symbol is not a reference to DNA but to to the Caduceus (a rod with two coiled snakes), this being the symbol of the god Hermes and in turn of the later phylosophic system called Hermeticism which is in turn the origin and symbol of alchemy and medicine. There are great videos out there analysing the various conmections and inspirations elden ring got from alchemy, hermetism and gnosticism.
Music/game audio guy here. I don’t think there’s a conspiracy with the erudition gesture tones. There’s also more than four or five tones. It’s a range. Elden Ring’s audio and sound design is implemented in the game using the software Wwise. There you can assign sound effects to events which are basically any action you wanna have a sound for. However for events that can re-occur in quick succession, it can become very synthetic sounding if the same sound plays over and over. So in Wwise you can randomize various parameters like the loudness, pitch, and even frequency content of sounds so that it’s not the exact same sound. You see this pitch randomization also occur when you’re buying and selling stuff and even the pitch of death sounds and rune acquisition gets randomized.
The giant skeletons are the remains of the True giants, from ancient history. It is likely they who crafted the giants forge, as we can tell it's actually a Mobile forge, with the chain now serving as a bridge actually being part of how it was once carried.
It’s starting to feel like Dark Souls 2 was the foundation for what would become Elden Ring both in gameplay and conceptually. It just feels like Elden Ring really resonates with it’s older sibling
That dog attacked me when the Leonine Misbegotten roared. But there WAS one friendly dog in the other part of Leyndell. There were a couple of dogs, one big and one small. The small one didn't attack me. And I left him with meats and bones. Such a swell guy.
I forgot which weapon description it was but it said something to the effect of “man has grown weak compared to his ancestors” and I instantly thought of Godfrey and the fire giants if ancient man was stronger than what we are now currently in the game then the Giants must of been massive. I think those are the skulls of those ancient giants we see in the game
Great stuff as always man! Your take on the DS2 shields was very insightful, thanks for including it! I can't wait for DLC to drop and even more discoveries to be made 👍
Ive always looked at the double helix as an symbol of ying and yang, light and dark, chaos and order, marika and radaghon, life and death. like its there to symbolize the pattern of the world in the lands between.
I have probably played this game about 10 times and just the other day I noticed you can summon Melina for the Morgott fight. She does a crazy Tree healing spell and acts like a Black Knife.
I think,the cleanrot Knights might have a needle of Miquella inside of them,thats why they are not as affected by scarlet rot that much,while the kindred of rot did lose the needle or didnt have one in the first place.
The main use of shadows in the game are the shadows of the empyreans. Fromsoft tends to reuse language very specifically in their games, so I don't know what the title would be in Japanese but my guess is that it's thematically the same. In both cases they're protectors (Empyrean shadows, baleful shadows of the fingers) so I think it's the hidden protector of the erdtree, or something like that.
That's a pretty solid explanation. I took Shadow as influence/impact cast over something (all great basketball players live in the shadow of Michael Jordan). But your explanation is a bit more specific to the game lore itself. It will be interesting to see what it means.
According to my husband, a professional musician in like three performing bands right now, the four notes associated with the Erudition gesture are D, D#, E, and F. It's four consecutive notes of a basic scale, not associated with any chord progression or traditional melodic sequence. Maybe I'll commission him to write an assonant metal song. Great find! Also in regards to the double helix, I think underneath it's crypticism, it's actually pretty simple. From my point of view the game actually does a lot to spell it out for us: solve et coagula. Causality and regression, push and pull, separation and coagulation. Divergence and convergence, and all that implies 👀...
11:11 To quote Miriel, "All things can be conjoined", perhaps this is just a motif of that philosophy? One of the major themes of Elden Ring is duality, like Radagon and Marika, the split Hallowbrand, the Twin Hunters D, and so on. And if the Godslayers stand against the Erdtree, and this conjoined philosophy, it would make sense that they would have a weapon that reflects unraveling
i always thought the helix is just a visual representation of the rule of 2 entwined the game had. 2 trees, 2 idendeties or marika, 2 fingers (thats why 3 chaos), 2 omen brothers and so on.
The double helix is actualy more likly to be a dipiction of the caduceus. Elden ring is full of ocult and alchemical references. The best example is Marika/Radagon. Its literaly a Rebis.
great video, i think the cleanrot knights were the first of the insects and possibly in the haligtree they fond a way to reprodices. the Turtles name should be alvin which means friendly :)
"SHADOW" of the erdtree refers to the theme of Jungian Archetypes and the shadow self present in the game. You even literally fight shadows. And MIquella, the subject (we assume) of Shadow of the Erdtree (and his shadow self st. trina) is himself an archetype described by young: Puer Aeternus
Erdtree Grace makes living things bigger as part of the healing, strengthening and renewing effect it has. The giants skulls are probably part of an ancient civilization that got so full of erdtree grace for so long that they became huge. (This civilization must pre-date the Erdtree, but the Greater Will and the Elden Beast both predate the Erdtree).
In the shadow of is a common expression that means under the influence of. For example, the people of Gaul lived under the shadow of Rome even before the conquest. So it likely means relating to all influenced by the Golden Order.
Oh, the loop detail is actually very clever now that I look at all of these side by side: they're counting with the eras. Something to think on: Aries - Two Fingers and/or splitting of the Ainsel and Siofra rivers - open ended split - no loops Taurus - Placidusax - 1 full loop + 1/2 open ended loop Gemini - Fingerslayer Blade - 2 full loops + 1 merged loop Cancer - Elden Ring - 3 full loops + 1/2 open ended loop (count only below overlapping rings detail) Cancer - Miquella's needle has 4 full loops and a gnarly merged end - it picks up where the fingerslayer blade tails off and it's effectiveness will run out after the era of Scorpio Leo - Crucible Knights armour - 4 full loops + chaotic mess Virgo - Godslayer blade - 5 full loops + 1/2 open ended loop Libra - Sacred Relic Sword - 5 full loops, and then the first merged loop lands on this age - makes sense since Libra is about the desire to merge Scorpio - Envoy's Long Horn - 4 full loops and one open ended loop - this one is not about the past, but rather a prophesy that something will happen in 4 ages (i.e. at the end of the line - at Pisces) Sagittarius - Sacred Relic Sword has 8 loops total counting both open and closed. Merging of Marika and Radagon is complete by the end of this age. Capricorn: Unalloyed gold needle has 9 full voided squares and one open square. The discontinuity at the 3rd square is meaningful placement. The braided loops above are also meaningful, I think but I can't tell exactly how many there are from image quality on the wiki. Aquarius and Pisces: Not sure if there are any loop items matching these. Also Radahn probably stopped the stars at the era of Capricorn and even though the era of Pisces arrived (present day, in game), the prophesy of the Envoys was never fully realized. Edit: added Miquella's needles, because why not.
I’ve always wondered about the massive skeletons, as in who are they? What happened to them? As nothing in the game comes close to them except maybe a few dragons
My thought about the double helix in reference to Elden Ring is that perhaps it's DIRECTLY rooted the the main two laws of the Golden Order. The Law of Causality and Regression-- an unfurling (Causality, an action occurring), then coming back together (Regression, stated that all things have a desire to return to their roots). Cause and effect, happening in a loop, which is exactly what the Golden Order preaches as the fundamentals of reality.
The Cleanrot Knights seem to slump in pain and prop themselves up on their sides, whereas the Kindred of Rot stand normally, just with a natural hunch, and hold their weapons at the ready in a body-crossing pose. Between this and the Kindred larvae also in Caelid, the Knights probably don't become the Kindred. However, I've heard that the Knights possibly have vermin mixed into their vomit attack, if those aren't mushroom chunks, so the Cleanrot Knights might be infested a la the Chestburster in Alien. Also, the wing-like design on the Cleanrot Knights' armor appears to just be cloth, though they do have mushrooms winding around their bodies, and said mushrooms are named "cordyceps" in the game's files, which Zullie discovered in a video. Regarding the peaceful dog in Leyndell, wasn't it reported that if you quit out of the game in front of him, then load back into the game, his aggressive AI will activate? To elaborate on the double helix, one of the first major enemies in the game, the Tree Sentinel, has the double helix pattern on the spike atop his Golden Halberd, and the weapon features a lot of winding, overlapping layers in general. This double helix design can also be seen on the tree symbol depicted on the Tree Sentinel's cape. These details are shared across all Tree Sentinels (not the Draconic ones though), and there are even small double helix patterns running along the bottom and up the sides of some Erdtree banners throughout Leyndell. This is significant because fans have speculated that the Golden Order shunned the double helix, yet this is not the case, as the symbol actually appears throughout the Golden Order's military and is likewise in plain sight, albeit not as prominently as with other banners, symbols, etc. It's cool to learn that there are even more tones for Erudition! Do those additional tones also line up with Astel's theme, as you mentioned in the separate Erudition video? Finally, regarding the secret Godskin interaction, wasn't it also said that the hidden enemy governing the Godskin Duo's shared HP bar also caused the "wake up ally" ability to glitch out? This means that even if you kill every enemy around the Godskin Duo's boss fight, the HP bar enemy will nonetheless cause the ability to not work. The reason the ability works in some randomizers is that the HP bar enemy will be loaded in a spot further away from the Duo than it is in Farum Azula. Thanks again for the videos, Ziostorm!
I attribute the double helix as being symbolic of the fingers and the denizens of the lands between ascending to the cosmos together. This is why the finger slayer blade undoes this helix, because it stands in defiance of the fingers. It severs it from finishing.
In case nobody else mentioned this. Zullie the Witch did a video with cleanrot knights, they have wings hidden in the texture of the tassels hanging from their waist.
RE: erudition sounds: theres actually 6 or 7 different sounds played in this vid, but its hard to tell them apart, because - musically speaking - some of the tones are legit IN BETWEEN (a clue?!?!) one note and the next. for instance - the first 3 notes are D, D#, E; notes 4 and 5 are again D, D#, followed by a note that is in between E and F, or technically 'E 1/2 sharp (aka E half sharp - or maybe its called 'E double sharp'? cant remember...either way its a note that is inherently 'out of tune' as far as western music is concerned). the rest of the notes are more of the same; they more or less fall between D and F, only some are out of tune and in between each other - in between D# and E, for instance. it almost sounds like there are doubles of each note, only each notes 'double' is out of tune - or the note in between the next. having said that, theyre 'only out of tune' relative to modern western music, which only has 12 notes; there are hundreds of other musical forms, both ancient and very modern, from all over the world, with 15, 20, 30+ notes where the 'out of tune' notes in the game wouldnt actually be out of tune, and these notes have names. common examples westerners might be familiar with would be classical indian music (if you know what a sitar sounds like then you've heard it) or indonesian gamelan music. normally i'd write all this off as meaningless, but considering this is Elden Ring, its probably more likely than not there is meaning to all this. or not
These massive skeleton structures may be Titans from so long ago that no one remembers them and resurfaced from the ground over time. Thats why nothing seems to be written about them, just another mystery in the Lands Between.
I like the idea of the changing tones accompanying the Erudition gesture being cut content associated with finding things. Imagine if the gesture was meant to help you find something or other, and the tone would get higher the closer you were to that thing. I have absolutely no reason to think that's what it is, but just hearing the sound made me think of a metal detector for whatever reason. The gesture is closely tied to magic and intelligence. I think it would've been cool if it was like a free spell used by glintstone mages to locate...something... Idk what. Resources, meeting locations, threat detection, anything really. Again, I have no reason to think this is actually the case, it's just the first thing that came to mind, creatively, and I think it sounds cool and would fit really well with the kinds of things we know about Academy mages and their secrets (that are sometimes revealed by a gesture or incantation, a la the 'Converted Tower' ladder or part of the Coryn/Goldmask quest at Leyndell where a secret is revealed by Law of Regression.)
I began to think about the pure gold of Miquella and the gold in alloy of the Golden Order and I have found out several things. So I have been researching about gold as a material and chemical element and finally I have discovered things like: - It is sensitive and soluble to mercury, which was formerly considered liquid silver (curiously, there are many references to this in the Eternal Cities). - A study claims that it was created in the supernovae of stars (I'm shocked at this) - Formerly it was used to treat the black plague without results. - It was believed that it could delay aging since it is highly resistant to corrosion. - It is associated with the Sun (I have the hypothesis that One Great was the Sun and that the Greater Will is the part of light and the Flame of Frenzy the part of fire and heat). Scientifically speaking the Sun is vital for the development of life.
Deacon's Doggo (shout out to the non-aggro enemy npc from DS3's Cathedral of the Deep) Also, never considered the Godslayer Greatsword was an unraveling helix. Makes PERFECT sense to me and that's dope.
While watching the section about scarlet rot, it came to my mind that maybe haligtree was supposed to suck out the rot that infested malenia, when the process became incomplete due to Mohg kidnapping Miquella, it became a place where larvae were created as some kind of inverted process of what Erdtree does with it's births.
Musical person here. Almost certainly no message hidden in those notes - just a few tones about a semitone apart with some detuned notes in there. As someone who builds musical systems, I can assume that the tone generation is based off of transposing the sound randomly (+/- a certain range) each time the sound file is played. Idk, just speculation - but that is how most audio engines in games work in order to give boring sounds more interest.
I'm just picturing that a secret door gets found for like an Umbrella Laboratory and that the lands between is some kind of Jurassic park, or like a miniature in a larger world or something trippy like that
Personally I maintain the Helix on the Farum Elden Ring image is an artistic representation of the True Storm (tornado represented as a helix) where the Elden Ring once resided during the age of the Dragons and that those aren't roots but lightning. Dragon faith is all about lightning.
As a technical sound designer for videogames I can say that most games uses a slight random pitch when playing assets. Thinking about the different tones; fairly certain this is just slight random pitch on playback while selecting from a list of assets.
Shadow of the Erdtree is probably meant to have multiple meanings. Yes, it refers to underneath the boughs of the tree. Referring to the "shadow of a tree" is generally used to described under it's boughs even if the shadow is literally covering that area at the time. But it probably also refers to other kinds of shadow. For example it could refer to the ruins of the Erdtree after being burnt, it could refer to a lesser twin of the Erdtree (i.e. the Haligtree), or it could refer to a deathblight tree that grows out of the ruins of the Erdtree (which could be what we're seeing in the DLC image - it has the right colours).
