Elden Ring - Insects growing inside your flesh 

It's a great theory, personally I think you're 100% correct

It would be creepier if the runes we left on the ground after getting blighted were all corrupted and covered in death, or your corpse got left there as a reminder like old games! I miss the statues of crystal in the sewers.

I wonder. If these insects are created by Deathblight - which appears to be an affliction related to an Outer God if I remember correctly. And (Aeonian) Butterflies are seemingly created around Scarlet Rot, which is the affliction of a separate Outer God. What does the Formless Mother create? What did the Greater Will create?

Bit of a reach considering they don't spontaneously appear - they're a direct result of being infected by deathblight, which comes from Godwyn's mutated flesh. I suppose the question is whether the insects have bodies and souls (as animals do have spirits in Elden Ring) - in which case Godwyn's death would directly be creating life which is interesting - or if they're manifestations of his mutation, lacking either in body, being incorporeal, or soul, being mindless husks.

Another interesting thing to think about is the theme of tree terminology in Elden Ring too. When a tree gets infected from the inside by either worms, beetles, etc., it's hard to recover the tree, and it's normally permenantly damaged in some way. So with your observation of it being bugs that causes death from the inside, it kinda fits the tree mottif too.

This game really needs DLCs to expand its amazing world. I know From Soft can’t explore everything, but I feel Miquella and Godwyn is a must!

Pathologic's "Sand Pest" comes to mind. A world where the Earth itself is alive. A cosmological Bull that has been warped and melted into bedrock - a cursed petri dish from which civilization sprung. Hell, come to think of it, the whole concept of the Old Blood in Bloodborne is eerily similar to the inevitable despair & tragedy seen in Pathologic.

@@timsohn7057 Agreed. Zullie tweeted it a while ago and it’s still true, that statistically speaking, given past fromsoft games, we haven’t played the best part of elden ring yet. I can’t wait to see this game’s version of the old hunters lmao

@@Momgetoftheroof omg I JUST watched that the other week it FUCKING SLAPS!!! Great taste lmao, what are the odds I was just thinking about that! I disagree that it’s a direct parallel, more emotions and echoes of humanity in there where Godwyn is a lot more of a black hole with nothing behind the eyes, but yeah the machinery is really similar in that way.

It's not too similar. But it reminds me of Shin Godzilla

Bugs under your skin take it off take it all off there are 1,000 species of bug writhing under your skin take off your skin tear it off

​@@undergroundkfc2316 -Godskin apostle

@@undergroundkfc2316 lmao imagine reading this tripping balls

@@poetato5331 that's how the vikings figured out how to blood eagle someone

you should remove your skin

Especially in the other games.

*sees deathblight* Me then: oh its thorny plant-like thing protruding from cursed beings and stuff Me now after watching this video: heurgh heeby jeebys

They never do.

Yeah, that shit was haunting to witness for the first time. I feel horrible for my character whenever that happens to them. Death Blight and Madness are probably the most visceral ways to die in this universe

@@nickhard7615 well there's something worse. Look at the lore behind the brainsuckers in Bloodborne.

Oh fukken wow. In DS3 there were multiple instances where the Dark/Deep was mentioned as insect-like. Pontiffs Curved Sword was "strangely worn out, as if gnawed on by insects".

@@quint3ssent1a Don't forget the "locusts" in the Ringed City, some of the oldest beings of the Dark eager to feast on the world.

Let the feast begin

That was the Irina of Carim's dialouge from ds3

@@doruk7125 wonder if that could've been a hint towards Elden Ring somehow.

The Dung eater approves.

Thanks Ranni

But in the end, Godwyn successfully retained a permanent place within the Lands Between, unlike the rest of the demi-gods, who had all outlived their usefulness and thrown to the ditch by the Greater Will. This is probably Marika's intention all along.

@@kneeofjustice9619 still better than scarlet rot girl who also has a name with M at the beginning. "I'm going to condemn the entire planet to rot and force anyone who actually wants to save this planet choose the frenzied flame." Seriously, that's the end conclusion. Don't want a scarlet rot take over? Burn everything down to ash, let the dragons have the world.

Godwyn’s whole role of his death triggering a world ending event reminds me a lot about how Baldur’s death from Norse myth kickstarted the events of Ragnorok.

The only reason Rogier comes back is because after he dies to the Deathblight, he accepts becoming One Who Lives in Death. He can longer see the Guidance of Grace and so cannot be ressurected by the Erdtree. In fact, one could argue he intentionally sought out Godwyn's corpse to be infected because he feared his now impending true death. D even tells us as much in the Roundtable, that though once friends they now are fundamentally at odds with each other.

Um, are you dumb? The rune of death is not seated in the Elden Ring. No one can die unless the entirety of the rune of death is carved into you, or you are scorched by the red black flames of destined death.

this kind of makes me worry about what that means for us players who died to Deathblight. XD

i think he is afflicted by deathblight because he is spurned from the golden grace again, very few tarnished can see the guidance of grace, and so they will be resurrected by the greater will everytime they fall, but rogier no longer sees the golden rays, so when he gets killed by the deathblight, what resurrects him i think its not the greater will, but godwyn's same death blight, so rogier is now another who lives in death, thats why he doesnt want you to tell D in which state he is, because D hunts those.

@@raelkvasiir9704 We still have grace so maybe the Greater Will is saving us from ultimately succumbing to it, though maybe just long enough to fulfill their wishes.

Pretty gnarly for a children’s book o_o

Didn't expect an insect version of the Tower of Babel

That’s so insane! Wow 😶

oh my god I read that book as a child, too, it was all yellow, and it made me very sad as a kid

@@thant0s IKR!? I must admit it's one of those things that really gives a kid their first taste of emotional devastation 😂 It's not quite as intense as The Giving Tree, but the illustrations of the caterpillars climbing on each other and falling to their deaths was distressingly visceral.

Sort of. The axe you get from regal ancestral spirit says something about waiting for winged envoys of death to weed the world. Sounds like it was clearly referring to death birds. Just like the winged scythe. I believe the ancestral spirits tie into death birds though they may not directly worship death. It’s also interesting to note that ancestral worship stuff ties in to crystals, magic damage arrows etc. and death sorceries do magic damage and favor intelligence.

Honestly, a bunch of the Erdtree stuff seems like it's trying to ape the Ancestor Spirits. The Ancestor Spirits, when they first ascend, are marked by their horns growing and sprouting more horns, and they can copy the abilities of other animals. And then we have the Crucible, which lets people be born with a lot of horns, and lets anyone copy the body parts of animals. Instead of the Ancestor Spirit's death stuff, where new life sprouts from death, and where beings can become spirits, the Erdtree has Erdtree burial, where death is used to give the Erdtree more life.

@@holyspear26 I don't think they're very tied to the deathbirds, since deathbirds are associated heavily with ghostflame and the ancestor spirits aren't. Also, the Ancestor Spirit equipment makes a point about life sprouting from death, which it can't do if that death gets burned into ash instead. Also, it is tied to magic, but the Siofra magic is tied more to life and mist than crystals. The Ancestral Spirit's horn isn't crystallized, it's flowering.

I don’t think we get a normal look at natural death in the game outside the Ancient Spirits. They exist from before the Golden Order after all.

@@jackreacher7495 Sorcery doesn't require a replacement heart, just intelligence and the proper tool. Sorcery is also not required for magic, see ghostflame, Ancestor Spirit magic, etc. Magic damage is connected to a large number of mostly unconnected things, being found in crystals, in flowers, in horns, in ghostflame, etc. Like how things can deal fire damage without being of the same source, things can deal magic damage while deriving it from different sources. The Flame of Frenzy deals fire damage, as do blackflame and bloodflame. Glintstone does magic damage, as do ghostflame and spirit vapor. The magic damage of Siofra river is connected to mist and spirits, not glintstone stars. Magic is far less connected to souls than it sounds, since it relies primarily on a physical medium to be present in some way. Most things can be conjoined (there's no conjoining the Greater Will and the Frenzied Flame without effectively destroying one), and not everything is inherently conjoined.

Even later to the party, but your comment came to mind during my replay last night when I came across a ghost at the top of Castle Sol, where you find the Eclipse Shotel, who says "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed, our prayers were lacking. Your comrade remains soulless... I will never set my eyes upon it now... Your divine Haligtree..." the item description and the kanji spelling for eclipse that they used gave a very interesting connotation to what he could mean by "the sun has not been swallowed".

Also, love your videos Zullie, just recently found you after I just recently started Elden Ring. Your content is something else :) Hopefully you don't overwork yourself :)

Fromsoft as a studio seems far more happy than most to spent effort on parts of their games that a bulk of the playerbase will not experience. Whether because its hidden, hard to access, or just really labyrinthine and obscure like all this Godwyn lore; there seems to be a lot of stuff built into Elden Ring that they must have known only the crazy fans like Zullie (and all of us by extension) would ever know.

What gets me about this is how much depth the lore has in Fromsoft games, whilst at the same time, it's not like they're continuing a singular narrative through them all. Sure, Dark Souls spanned 3 games, but Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro and Elden Ring are all unique games with their own lore, each going into such great depths means they have to come up with the ideas and fill them out with each game. It seems so crazy that they actually prefer stand alone games to sequels, when it means starting from scratch in terms of lore and worldbuilding every time and yet, they pull it off to a remarkable degree.

I don't think anyone at From Software has ever asked "But what if the players don't get it?" They're unafraid of being impenetrably obscure and weird, in a way most studios shy away from. If you scour the entire map, read all the lore, and speak to every NPC and you still feel like you're missing something, you're right where they want you.

@@ZullietheWitch FS doesn't worry about details passing out inadvertently, because their gameplays are so solid, that they don't need to force players to "discover" the insane amount of details

Which would also explain the rot shrimps guys.

@@lucasvallet4487 and the smoldering butterflies that spawn around fire and ashes too.

@@vanquisher4700 By the Grace of Gold... 😮 That would definitely explain the _variety_ of exotic butterflies found around the lands between.

Malenia herself spawns butterflies out of herself so that would explain that

I doubt it just because of the level of death he has faced lol

A new Godwyn crawling out of his old corpse like some type of deathblighted Orphan of Kos would be horrifying.

There won't be any DLC.

@@MammalianCreature Gee, thanks for THAT image. (I kinda wanna see it, though.)

Wow, I have never heard this sentiment before. Very original. /s

I was thinking about this as well, if we could get a closer look at the animation we could see if the spike comes from the ground first or the players body first. Pretty morbid either way

Woah. Love this idea and could totally see that being the case.

It would also help explain why the Deathroot only sprouts in places that were formerly inhabited by large numbers of people

So you need to be close to the ground or on it for the deathblight roots to reach you, & theoretically it wouldn't touch you if you weren't close enough to the ground for the roots to penetrate you?

I'd have to disagree it looks to me like it's the spike that shoots out your chest first, then it shoots out your back and stabs into the ground propping you up as it grows

Like how the Kindred of Rot spawn from rot corruption?

Don't forget that fire and ashes also spawns smoldering butterflies, yet we don't know what actually spawns the nascent butterflies.

@@vanquisher4700 yeah exactly Insects are everywhere it seems. I just mentioned the ones from rot and death, because both are the elements of their respectable demigods and are a more "potent" form of power in the lands between. But you´re absolutely right!

Does glintstone invert the usual relationship on this? As it's related to the insectoid fallen stars (ie Astel), but seems to come from them rather than produce them.

Considering it's a game about a big tree insects being important enemies and creatures makes sense. Also the death blight bugs kinda look like termites to md

maybe deathblight is not be able to go where there is scarlet rot because the rot is related to an outer god?

The order of rot describes rot as the cycle of death and rebirth, so it's entirely possible that it could conflict with death blight. Deathblight is different in that it's living, animated death like a tumor.

Godwyn’s corpse is under the erdtree and it spreading around the tree and caelid is still far from its reach

@@bazah23 So is Crumbling Farum Azula, but it has Deathroots all over the place

This is a really interesting idea. Nice observation!

Swarm of Flies: "The new palace of the Lord of Blood lies in a swamp of festering blood, and these flies are said to spawn from excrement in that land."

@@RashFever26 And the blood tinged excrement description says it's filled with rotting meat and "lined with innumerable eggs"

On the other hand, the description of blood tinged excrement, which is used to craft swarm pots, says it contains eggs in it, which seems like it contradicts the idea of spontaneous generation.

If it means int/faith builds get some new spells and especially weapons it'll be a great dlc

@@menialbee int/faith already has the majority of spells in the game... Definitely need weapons though.

@@randconfig8626 true, people tend to forget that 45 in both opens up pretty much all spells save for legendary ones. They just want to use ones that the Prince of death/magma/golden order boost. Death in particular fits right into all sorcery builds talismans because it deals magic damage, same for golden order.

The insects being tied to deathblight might be caused by the Japanese idea of kegare, basically spiritual corruption. Insects, corpses, and stagnant water are big sources of kegare, so it makes sense that the deathblight would be full of flies and worms, things that live in corpses, and stem from a giant fishman

Centipedes in Japanese mythology mean corruption and ritual uncleanliness. That's the reason why the vermin from bloodborne were centipedes.

Probably 'cause bugs cause diseases and devastate crops, leading to famines and other catastrophes upon humanity. They've always been considered unclean and we've learned to naturally fear them. Makes perfect sense.

sekiro moment

@@jaxwarp8373 That reminds me a lot of the concept of the Deep from Dark Souls 3

DS1 DLC has actual time travel, DS2 has time travel in it via memories (one of which is in the DLC, also DLC deals with the past events in other kingdoms.) BB DLC is time travel basically via memories/dreams. DS3 DLC sort of has time travel (both forward to the end of time at the end as well as the dreg heap, but also the ringed city deals with events from before the start of the series). Sekiro has no real DLC but you do time travel to the events of the Hirata Estate again via memories. So it seems like that ER DLC will incorporate some kind of time travel (maybe via memories/dreams again. You already fight Fortissaxx in a dream and Placidussaxx via time shenanigans).

@@TheCrewExpendable oh yeah definitely could see a time travel backwards or a time travel forwards. I feel like Godwyn would be more of a travel forward to see the spread of his blight on the lands between. But there's also room for a miquella DLC which is very likely to be dream based. With the whole st Trina lore and the cut dreams content.

It probably will. The teaser for the Elden Ring DLC seems to say it will focus on the Crucible Knights' master. Given that they can be found countlessly in the Eternal Cities and in Godwyn's area (that among other things), it can be reasonably assumed he is the one the Crucible Knight serve.

The blood-lickers I think we're inspired by the Akaname creature from Japanese myth, just like the lickers from resident evil.

@@xernymon what teaser do you speak of, last I checked there hasn't been any official teaser released for elden ring DLC. The only ones I've heard was shown to be a fake which seemed to indicate that the DLC had to do with the badlands. It was very obviously a hoax tho because the title was way too on the nose for a fromsoft DLC. Also the game strongly hints at Miquella for a DLC considering he's the only demi-god who is still alive and there's a bunch of cut content pertaining to miquella and the dream. Plus we could easily enter the DLC from Miquella's egg. I think a Godwyn DLC is also likely because of how his influence is spreading. I also think that there could be a DLC focused on the outer gods as a whole.

Even the flies and the like seem to be dead, making it an entire cycle of misery. It's akin to Malenia's wings being made out of dead butterflies, with the ones that fly off apparently dying within seconds to boot. It all seems rooted in sheer malice and sadism, akin to the cruelty of the Formless Mother. The early rancor spells seem to stem from the cruel Deathbirds, and the Rune of Death is from the godskinners.

@@nightscout9979 Didn't know that about Malenia as I am yet to reach her, though it is very cool to hear.

@@nightscout9979 I feel like those spells aren't the intended, primordial versions. Death in the very beginning was a part of nature, and the Deathbirds and Godskin were merely servants. Now, after an age under the Erdtree, after an age in the Golden Order determined what it meant to die, nobody knows what death is supposed to do anymore. Long ago, those spells had some ritual significance, but now they're just cudgels used by servants with no purpose. Basically, Patrick Star smashing a dollar bill with a computer.

@@davidhong1934 The Deathbirds, judging from the item descriptions of their branch sword talismans and axe, were malicious and didn't care about death as a function of nature. The Deathbirds also wield the Ghostflame spoken of in the rancor Incantations as well, and all the Ghostflame seemed to achieve was tormenting souls and making them hostile to anything and everything.

@@davidhong1934 This holds weight when you factor in the cut line after Maliketh’s fight, claiming the Erdtree is being burned by black flame, the theory going that you needed the Rune of Death to essentially kill the Erdtree cause it couldn’t die otherwise. It leads me to believe in another comment I saw theorizing that the black flame of the godskins were actually at one point the same red and black hue of Maliketh and The Black Knives, but once, like the incantations says, they’re source of power was locked away they lost that hue and resorted to the black and white flames we use and see. The godskin apostasy, Godwyn, and Mequila are like the 3 most interesting things imo that could greatly be expanded on. The Gloam Eyed Queen being chosen and gifted the Rune of Death as an emperyan only to be defeated in Marikas first act against the golden order, Godwyns body being this massive tumor on the lands between that no ending really has a way of properly fixing without killing everything else or just running away, and Mequila being set up as the most obvious reference to Griffith ever, a quite literally godlike charismatic being with a seemingly good natured yet dangerous level of ambition. I hope the DLCs if there are multiple and the leaks are true don’t just go the Badlands route and go full DS2, expanding on everything while tying up the final loose ends.

I thought most people already knew about spontaneous generation. I learned about it back in middle school.

Noita got me reading up on alchemy for fun and it was such a great surprise to see Elden ring based on so many of its concepts

Brother you might be on to something, that makes a lot of sense actually.

Think the ants are just a natural animal, as much as a giant insect can be. They are underground because that is their habitat. The Nox make use of them because they are there to be made use of. Something that seems to inform their natural inclinations is they will deliberately seek out rot. Maybe for food? Anyway this seems to be why we find them in several locations. They are feeding on the rot in these places. And certainly the haligtree is referenced as a rotting husk. So it would draw the hungry ants.

This is going to sound like a stupid statement the ants may very well have some kind of immunity or resistance to the influence of the gods because whether it be deathblight or Scarlet rot they seem to thrive in these areas uncorrupted, they may even consume it to become more powerful

Also the queens at the Deeproots drop not any rune but Numen's Runes. The runes of the race that Marika and the Black Knives are said to come from. Are the queen ants related to the Numens, or did they eat them?

With all the mushroom stuff going on in the game, I wouldn't be surprised if the ants have something to do with the real life phenomena of ants being turned into zombies by a particular type of parasitic fungus. Can't put my finger on it but it feels close to something.

makes sense

Doesn't make sense, has no evidence

We do talk to fia right next to the corpse in deeproot depths though and she's like "Yep this is godwyn the prince of death, im gonna do my deathbed companion thing with him." additionally we find D the beholder of death before the entrance to deeproot depths and its "said he beheld the prince of death not far from that spot"

SO TRUE LOL

I think the Wormfaces are bodies that had tried to return to the Erdtree roots only to be corrupted by Godwyn's influence and forced to wander the Lands Between. They spread, and appear to suffer from, deathblight. Their appearance is like an emaciated, almost cachectic corpse. They really bring into focus the themes of 'Immortality Sucks' and 'Stagnation' that underpin a lot of Elden Ring's history.

They're the Charlie Kellys of the Lands Between

Visually? Yes, but in game it's not as bad as being curse in ds1 and have to make all the way back from the great hollow to New Londo to get half of your max hp back.

Yeah, the Deathbirds and the Gloam-eyed Queen are evil as hell, this certainly isn't some circle of life thing. Ranni might have felt terrible over what Radagon did to her mother, but unleashing the Deathblight on the entire planet goes too far, and her lack of a plan to cure it is abominable. She might have even created a new Deathblight plague when she carved only half a centipede rune in her Two Fingers.

The first time I remember being deathblighted was when I fought the giant wormface boss for the first time. I wasn't paying attention to the meter, so when the status effect hit I just stared at the screen in aw of just how gruesome the animation is. It feels so raw. I love it lol

@@nightscout9979 I don't know why the deathbirds and the Gloam-Eyed Queen come into this. They have nothing to do with deathblight, the deathbirds collecting and burning dead souls is just how death used to work as a natural part of the world before the Golden Order.

@@Chaffee738 The Deathbirds, which descend from the Twinbird, which is depicted all over Farum Azula, the oldest known civilization in the setting, wield the Deathblight. The scream attack of the Deathbirds fills the Deathblight meter and inflicts the Deathblight instant kill status. As such, the Deathblight might be one of the oldest things ever in Elden Ring, and the Gloam-eyed Queen might have designed the Rune of Death after observing that. Also, judging from how the rancor spells in the game only resulted in tortured souls that attack everything, the Ghostflame didn't actually deal with the dead, it merely tortured them into a universal agony.

They seem to try to kill themselves by smashing their heads on the ground unless they can find something or someone else to gruesomely, evilly murder, so they sure don't seem to have adapted to anything.

"You're talking mad shit for someone in parasiting distance"

@@AntiCensorshipGamer Fia to D. after he disses the twlid community for the 100th time

I feel like fighting Godwyn kind of undermines what he's supposed to be. He's not really alive - he's a massive lump of corrupted flesh that spreads decay. He's not a boss for us to fight, unless it's something like the Bed of Chaos fight.

Godwyn isn't even truly there to fight. His soul is gone and his body seems to have eventually died of its injuries, leaving behind only a concentrated spot for the hellish plague that stems from the Rune of Death. The Gloam-eyed Queen also appears to be dead, by Maliketh's hand, so there's no actual person to fight anymore, unless there was a boss fight with the Rune of Death itself and its blight.

@@nightscout9979 I mean it's pretty clear that he's still spreading throughout the world. Who's to say that he can't eventually form into a new being, it could also possibly be the doing of an Outer God for Deathblight. Most of the other status effects are implied to have one, so I think it'd be really cool for Death to get one too.

@@BetrayedTangerine Something is occasionally replicating Godwyn's face and hair, but that doesn't mean it's Godwyn himself doing it. Another corpse in Godwyn's likeness will nonetheless just be an inert corpse, like under Stormveil Castle. It's the Deathblight itself that is the threat. If the Deathblight has an Outer God, it's probably what the Twinbird served, and we don't know if the Twinbird is still around somewhere or was properly killed.

Jacked Godskin is a boss i never knew i needed

deathroot (the full grown ones you can find in some places especially) make me think of spores, and the way godwyn is infecting the roots and spreading through the earth to sprout new growths elsewhere is like a mycelium network

First learned about it from one of my science teachers though it was more of a semi related remark but I remember thinking such superstition as being fairly imaginable. However not too long ago I had fruit flies in my kitchen and my mind recalled the idea because despite whatever I did to get rid of them, it really felt like they were just coming out thin air lol, at least for a few days until we eventually found the actual source

Ooh I think you may be on to something. Isn't the Gloam-Eyed Queen, who used the Black Flame back when it used to have the Destined Death, from the age of the Crucible as well? I'm pretty sure there was an item description that establishes a relation between her and the Crucible. I also like the idea that Godwyn's transformation, as horrific as it appears visually, isn't some twisting of nature but just a natural process that's different from the current rules of nature dictated by the Greater Will. And that jumping to the conclusion Godwyn's body is "twisted and cursed" is making the same mistake as the racism against the misbegottens, omens, Albinaurics, etc.

@@Chaffee738 Is the black flame from the age of the crucible? I was under the impression it was more or less made specifically for the purpose of bringing death to the golden order after Marika messed with the natural order of things? I'd love if you could find that item description

@@Ezekiel_Allium There are a few and I won't list all of them here because RU-vid comment isn't a good interface, but one example is the Scouring Black Flame incantation: "The black flame could once slay gods. But when Maliketh sealed Destined Death, the true power of the black flame was lost." So Black Death was the power that originally contained the Destined Death, but that power was taken away by Maliketh. Also, the Godskin Noble Robe says: "Nobles are the most ancient apostles who are said to have assimilated inhuman physiology. Not unlike the crucible, the Erdtree in its primordial form." So the Godskin Noble has a tail and the Godskin Apostle has elongating waist, and there's an explicit connection made with the Crucible. Now, as you pointed out, Godwyn's transformation may also be related to the Crucible. And considering he was killed by the power that originally belonged to the Black Flame, there definitely seems to be a connection. Maybe killing his soul somehow made his body susceptible to the changes caused by the Crucible. We don't know the exact link between the Gloam-Eyed Queen and the Crucible so this is just a theory based on loose connections, but I feel like this isn't a coincidence.

@@Chaffee738 I think him being warped by the crucible has less to do with destined death and more with his body being tangled up in the roots of the Great Tree, and I am very specifically saying the Great Tree and not the Erd tree, the roots of the deeproot depths don't glow like every other part of the erdtree, I think they might literally be untainted roots of the crucible.

@@Ezekiel_Allium That's also a good point. I also realized something, during the Fortissax fight the sky looks weird like an oil painting with a lot of whirly circles drawn, and the other place that we see such a sky is the Dung Eater ending which is implied to revert death to how it used to work during the age of the Crucible. We still don't know what exactly the dream fight is, but maybe we see the Crucible sky when we're in Godwyn's dream because he's now under the influence of the Crucible instead of the Golden Order.

Well no, maggots can’t suddenly have life from anything, that was just an outdated theory from before the 1800s

If we're thinking of the same stone obelisk object, they're the markers that denote where you can summon spirits.

If you are looking at Candle stick holder with three lit candles, if you interact with it, a spectral spirit will appear and guide to nearby cave/ruins with treasure. The spirit is very slow, it disappears and reappears few steps after. One in Mistwood will lead to ruins with Blaidd and Rune bear. One in Caelid will lead to "Goal Cave". One in Weeping peninsula will lead to a cave with Rune bear as boss.