Many players were probably deeply traumatized by the Kindred of Rot in their first playthrough thanks to an innocent little chest in Limgrave. Song used: Great Underground Rivers - Elden Ring OST
"I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella" "And we are the Children of Rot, Blades of Malenia" "Ugh, y'know what. I'd rather not. I was just kidding. I'mma go buy some cigarettes... my.... children..." And that's how Malenia went to Mexico and became "Malenia la espada de Miguella".
@@ZullietheWitch I hated that trap so much. And I hated that mine so much, easily the worst dungeon in the game. I don't know if it was in the network test, but there actually is another chest in the same ruins with a good weapon inside, one of the first dual blades you get in the game.
@@en-men-lu-ana6870 The moment the game could be played I beelined there so I could show my friends this cool weapon that I knew would be there because of the NT, only to end up running for my life during the next 10 hours of gameplay or so while my friends were chilling in the academy lol
I had a thought about this. People afflicted with the rot missing limbs is a reoccurring thing. Malenia'a limbs, Milicent's arm, Radahn's missing his feet. And yet these rot pests are almost the opposite. they have a multitude of limbs. Im not sure what it could mean but it does seem odd that there's this duality.
radahn was always missing his feet, that's why he had the horse. i think the arm thing with malenia and milicent is just supposed to be a disturbing way of expressing how long-term rot affects people that aren't immortal like tarnished.
Maybe the extra limbs represent growth, and the loss of limbs signifying maturity, at least in terms of strength. Like how tadpoles lose their ability to breathe underwater as well as their tail after growing up.
I noticed their resemblance to termites, too! And there are some termites that farm fungi just like some ants do! I also discovered recently while puzzling over their snail shell hats that there is a species of snail that uses fungi to break down reeds before they eat them! They're called Marsh Periwinkles, and while their shells don't look like the ones worn by Pests, there are other kinds of Periwinkle snails that have that exact cone-shaped style!
@@chrisprescott2273 oh they're definitely that, too. Their many arms also remind me of house centipedes. They've got the elements of several species to them, like a lot of the critters in this game.
@@elleofmusic agreed. They are a combination of similar gross bugs. House centipedes and silverfish are definitely both in there. And termite mandibles for good measure.
I love how their glaive description states that they are intelligent, but humans will never understand them. In Sekiro centipedes were a motif of corruption and stagnation, where some of enemies were infested by centipedes to gain immortality, but here they are heralds of even worse things (a whole god of decay).
Using centipedes to gain immortality in Sekiro is also a possible nod to the manga Blade of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura, where the main character is essentially cursed with immortality via "blood worms". Seeing the near endless Berserk references in all of the FromSoft games it wouldn't surprise me if that was another homage
Centipedes as symbols of rot and corruption is actually an old Japanese cultural relic so it's not surprising that it shows up again and again. Also the Curse Mark of Death resembles a centipede.
@@AP-qu2li weren't centipedes already symbols of immortality in a lot of folklore and legends in Japan? The manga you're talking about may have taken similar inspiration from folklore.
I always called them "shrimp wizards" they give me nightmares. Ill never forget getting trapped in the crystal tunnel and seeing them for the first time.
The Dagger you find under the lake of Rot is said to be part of the Rotting Outer God, so that leaves me to believe that it's some kind of Scorpion or some other arthropod
@@arcanaobscura3519 The name of the dagger is "Scorpion's Stinger" and its description reads: 'Dagger fashioned from a great scorpion's tail, glistening with scarlet rot. A ceremonial tool used by heretics, crafted from the relic of a sealed outer god.'
And Astel is one of very few scorpion-like enemies in game, despite there being a whole slew of talismans that look more like straightforward scorpions
"Meat" is the single most ominous mesh on any of the NPCs so far. Seems simple but wtf is it and why is it called meat? I assumed it was just some mushroom type growth until I saw it close up.
I have a running theory that the rot works much like cordyceps - basically it takes a host, feeds on the host and then sprouts from the host. So the meat on the children of rot is just left over "shelling" of the corpse it used to grow in.
they rise from the ground in caelid or wherever theres a ton of rot. it seems to be chunks of infected biomaterial that grows over them when theyre in the ground
I've never actually managed to get a good look at the Pest's glaives. It's actually quite gorgeous when I don't have a hundred pest threads **aggressively homing at me**
My first playthrough I opened that chest and got sent to the hell that is Caelid before I even got the pop-up that tells you what the map button is and that you can teleport to Sites of Graces, so I thought I was just stuck in hell forever
@@samfivedot Melina will appear to give you torrent (and then invite you to Round Table) pretty quick once you find a grace or two. So, given you're inside a cave and find a grace on the way out, you're not that much worse off without torrent.
@@CheshireSwift Funny enough because i already play all other souls i just got used to run past most things on hard areas to look for the site, but i missed it, so i went for a good 50 minutes running around scared sh***less of everything trying to find a way out of the Eclipse Area. Honestly, it was quite fun to feel like a survivor scraping by. (but fuck the dogs at low level holy fuk)
I thought these were pretty cute when I found out about them and hoof'd it to Caelid early to get their ashes. While I don't blame Malenia for disowning them, I did feel bad to hear them described as orphaned/abandoned. I named mine Pope Fransico the First.
I think they’re cute too! Especially since they seem to be Sapient, but just… too “alien” to fully understand Humans? I feel bad for them, honestly, it’s not their fault that they give us diseases and/or most people seem to find them scary… they’re just trying to live their lives 😔
The pest threads are the spiky hairs that grow from their backs. Flinging hair as a projectile is actually a behavior found in real life Tarantula spiders.
Their glaive's description mentioning their "keen intellect" made me assume the Pests were former humans transformed by the rot, in the manner that the giant dogs and crows in Caelid were probably also once normal fauna before Malenia's bloom. There are ruins of a human settlement in Aeonia (as well a mass of corpses in O'Neil's arena), so the idea that the 'survivors' of the bloom eventually crawled out of the swamp twisted into new, inhuman shapes feels plausible.
Caelid fauna also shows up in the Mountaintops and the Crows in Moghwyn's Palace too. It's easier to explain them as just endemic of the Lands Between.
my assumption is that pools of rot (like the swamp of aonia) are just what's left after something has fully decayed and the pests form by rearranging the muck to form their bodies.
@@Eclipsed_Embers This I could concede, if there was any other sign of the Rot spreading to the Mountaintops. Plus the Giant Dogs have collars and are found before the Fire Monks' settlement.
@@c.l.a.u.d.e fair enough, I've never spotted the giant dogs there (I must've rushed past them) so I thought you were just talking about the raven things.
With each time I playthrough the game, I get more disturbed by the more I learn about the nature of Scarlet Rot. Biggest reveal for me was when I tried killing Gowry fairly early on to witness a bit of his true nature. Put into perspective how much these "children of rot" had been haunting Millicent and Malenia.
I put it in it's own comment but i think you and I have a lot of the same questions here. "...so What does Gowry have to do with all of this? he sells the spell pest threads which the kindred use, if you kill him at the wrong time a kindred of rot's corpse appears from his body. At the end of Millicent's quest he says "Millicent, my daughter. Why would you take out the needle? You were so close. So very close. To becoming the fairest of all flowers. Would you disown us too? As your Mother did? We children of the scarlet rot?" This implies that the kindred of rot were more humanoid maybe before??? I have soooo many questions from that questline and the kindred of rot are only one piece of the puzzle."
There are also the smaller kindreds of rot that only appear in a few areas in Elphael, and I wonder if their design is any different aside from being smaller and having different animations
The smaller ones seem to be immature specimens, they're actually in that hatchery area as well. They crawl around because they don't have the larger developed limbs to walk around on and hold things with.
@@ZullietheWitch are the cocoons in the haligtree connected to them? if Millicent turns into a flower then maybe followers of rot turn into those bugs, almost all sorts of miracles and even magic seem to turn you into something whether its a ball of heads , magma wyrms, undead, misbegotten, omen or whatever the godskin apostles are turning into, even the giants have their god's face in their chest
With their six members plus little arm-like extensions and tails that end in long bristles, the kindred are more similar and probably inspired by Zygentoma (silverfishes) than in thermites. Zygentoma are also cave-dwelling insects that feed of decaying matter and plants that they can find, some are so poorly studied that we still have no idea what some eat
I wonder if they really were abandoned. Malenia fell unconscious from her battle with Radahn. While it is difficult to say how long she was out, it is implied she 'slumbered' for a very long time. It certainly could have felt like she left them.
personally I was always under the impression that she was carried off by Finlay after the Radahn battle and then slept all the way until the player turns up.
They were abandoned in the sense that she doesn't recognise them as her followers. Despite what it may seem like Malenia was against the rot, she used it against Radhan for the first time and after that she still didn't care about it, she just cared about her brother
They are abanoned because Malenia rejects her nature as a rot Goddess,thats why Gowry plans in using Millicent given how similar she is to her mother she could maybe the Goddess they wanted.
As someone who is spooked by IRL centipedes.. these monsters really gave me the heeby-jeebies.. even more so than the DS3 sewer centipedes. To think they might be able to eat a house while the person inside is sleeping is naturally even more unsettling.
I imagine the Kindred are more or less an incidental byproduct of the rot itself that Malenia doesn't care about. Most likely existing as servants to the Outer God that caused the rot in the first place that cursed Malenia, and now the kindred worship her without fully knowing the situation. After all, she's deific in her own right anyway, makes sense they'd further see her as their goddess. Even when she's more or less just a pawn and unwilling avatar of the Outer God. Their appearance also seems more aquatic, like shellfish than insect. It could be connected to the themes of water that the game has, though that's more associated with Death. Considering Scarlet Rot has some connection to leprosy, it being a rot and the people suffering from it missing limbs, I could see Fromsoft wanted an insect-like monster but didn't want to go with a standard fly design. Even Malenia has her rot-butterflies, perhaps to add beauty to something so horrific.
Well butterflies actually do eat rotting things and even drink blood so it still fits with the insect motif with everything having to do with Scarlet Rot.
While they do bear similarities I think Death is more associated with water/aquatic themes, while Rot is more associated with fungi/insects (pests, giant ants, Scorpion’s Stinger weapon, etc.)
In the Lake of Rot, right above the kindred there's a unique statue covered by fog and very difficult to observe. There's any chance to have close screenshot of it? It's a woman, covered in vines holding something in the hand.
The architecture in the lake of rot is the same as the Eternal cities. I don't know about the specific statue you are talking about but in the area there is a bunch of the long beard guys statues covered in rot so maybe it's one of these
Probably the coolest enemies imo, the lore, the spine-chilling design, how the game states they are intelligent, but in a way that is too alien for us to understand, it’s so cool. The Kindred Of Rot spirit summon also greatly helped me in pretty much every boss fight before Godfrey in my first playthrough, which makes them even cooler.
"Those who dwell within poison know rot all too well. The death that begets life, that comes to all equally. That is to say: it is the cycle of rebirth put into practice." -poison mist and poison armament descriptions Considering the above quote I believe that pests are the results of people that got rotted down to nothing and then converted into a kind of rot lifeform. This is further reinforced by comparing them to other things in this game that have way too many arms, Rykard (who eats people and absorbs their spirit) and the ulcerated tree spirits (which are probably amalgamations of spirits returned to the Erdtree).
When I first met them they gave me the impression of prawns wearing pope hats. Turns out there is a prawn sometimes called the Cardinal Prawn, which does not have a cardinal's hat, but it is bright scarlet... Hmmm...
I love that despite the way that many other souls lore creators seem to really be reaching with their theories, yours seem to be very grounded and plausible. I'm usually pretty good at catching details and symbolism, but the termite symbolism flew right over my head in all my playthroughs. Good stuff.
Thinking of how the kindred come from Scarlet Rot, and therefore Malenia itself, I wonder what would happen if the Scarlet Flower were to bloom once more even after when it does during our battle with Malenia. If she went from being pretty much humanoid to growing flower-like wings, I can't help but think what would Malenia become if she fully gave into the Rot. Would she become some insect like goddess, like the kindred?
Well, the Scorpion Dagger states that it is supposedly part of the Outer God of Rot, so I would stand to reason that the Outer God of Rot is some sort of amalgamation of insects, which represents the decomposition Scarlet Rot causes.
@@dogmat8733 Yeah, that's fair. But then again, the Golden Lineage does seem to take on some of the characteristics of the deities they are envoys to, right? Radagon/Marika literally have the Elden Ring inside of them, Godwyn's body, as the First of the Dead, takes on a horrendous merman clam-like appearance and all. So it'd make sense if Malenia were to evolve into something more closely resembling the Outer God of Rot as well, at least to me.
Malenia is more like a avatar for the scarlet rot than it actually coming from her. Pretty much everything revolves around the theme of outer gods. Gods so cosmic in scale that we humans are less than ants. So the scarlet rot is a by product of one of these gods who according to the game is sealed away.
@@despinhabarda IMO the Outer Gods have their champions, augurs and followers, but they don't necessarily even have a physical form. Only outer god who'se physical form is mentioned is the Fell God, who was defeated by Marika. Then again, it could have been a some sort of vassal like the Elden Beast, or just a metaphor used to emphasize Marika's victory. Also, the Rot doesn't necessarily turn everything into insects, but it's effect seems to be that of corruption. I think that Malenia wouldn't turn into a insect or anything, but the Rot would just keep corrupting her, turning her into a thing that could represent the Rot and help it spread across the world.
Malenia is one of the best written characters in the whole game, mogh is a follower of the blood, which miquella is part of, so he’s completely obsessed with him, but malenia, suffered so much, and caused so much trouble to everyone because of her outer god and she’s still treated like a villain of this gamr
To add to Malenia abandoning or being uncaring towards the Kindred of Rot, one must remember she never chose the rot infecting her. She never chose their form, she wanted to be cured of rot alongside Miquella being cured.
When I first entered the Lake of Rot, I was gobsmacked. Felt like it was going to be a hell of a place to get through, and the fact that it was so far from Caelid made me feel like it was a sign that the rot ran so much deeper than anyone realized. I really thought that something monumental and terrible was bound to happen here. Shame that there really wasn't a whole lot to it.
Here's my advice to make pests less pesky (copied from a reply): 1. The noise they make before they fire is the "rot incantation" noise, so you can know it's coming even if they're off-screen. The threads move + accelerate at a constant pace, so dodge timing is generally always the same. 2. 100% phys block shields work wonders, as Kindred of Rot deal only physical damage (even Pest Threads). Greatshields are even better because their glaives bounce off! 3. They're slippery bastards with little poise. If they're crawling sideways, don't bother attacking -- just prepare to dodge/block their attack as soon as they stop (or just back up lol). 4. Their best attack (for you) is when they arch backwards, walk forward a bit, then slam down. Easy to walk around them and backstab then, but only then. 5. If fighting more than one at a time, either become Neo or use a greatshield. In most cases you can avoid this, though (even in the Grand Cloister, as their eyesight is horrible there for whatever reason). Bonus: The Pest Threads incantation is one of my favorites. It's actually incredible. It's one of the few incants that deal physical damage, it's homing, it doesn't cost much FP, and most importantly: it DESTROYS big targets because the threads pierce infinitely. Seriously, they melt dragons and the final boss (cast closer so they fly inside the enemy for longer). Try it out!
I use cruicible tail, pest threads, bestial sling and beast claw so often because they're all physical and handy spells. debating working on boulder of gurranq so I have a beefy poisebreaker projectile
The link to termites sounds very plausible with the consistent tree theme influencing many enemy designs and names, like the Grafted Scion in your previous video
I absolutely love your content!!! Straight to the point and you bring new cool and interesting aspects of the game. The lore is so already deep and rich and some parts you’d have to literally go in game files and investigate just to get another lil bit of it. Not everyone is willing or capable of doing that so thank you for diving in and showing us just how deep this game goes with its lore and awesome secrets! This is one of my favorite series (elden ring stuff ) :)
I think that the _Outer_ God of Rot is somewhere in Cosmos, like the other Outer Gods. The kindred are IMO praying to the relic that they have in the altar there.
Wait, what reference is there for the outer god represented by scarlet rot being sealed away? I just thought the Goddess of Rot was the outer god essentially possessing/cohabiting Malenia?
The Blue Dancer Charm and the map for the Lake of Rot. "A great lake of standing water downstream of the Ainsel River. It is said that the divine essence of an outer god is sealed away in this land."
@@leviklopfenstein8158 Also worth mentioning it's the blind swordsman that defeated the Outer God of Rot who also mentored Malenia per the Prosthesis-wearing talisman, flowing curved sword and blue garb set item descriptions. The Blue Dancer Charm describes how he was granted a flowing sword to defeat the Outer God, and he became known for his flowing style.
There’s basically a whole mini-story about a blind swordsman garbed in blue and wielding a flowing sword who sealed away the Outer God associated with Scarlet Rot deep underground and then went on to become Malenia’s mentor, and it’s told exclusively through item descriptions. I would check out the Flowing Curved Sword, the Blue Cloth armor set, the Blue Dancer Charm, the Prosthesis-Wearer Heirloom, the Scorpion Stinger, and the Lake of Rot map fragment for more context.
Centipedes, Ants, Termites, Stag beetles, Antlions, Dung beetles… I’m starting to think it should be called Elden Bug. Also, I suggest you look more into similarities between Astel and the dobsonfly, which tend to live near water, a common theme in both Astel fights and the link between water and the dark/deep, where Astel is arguably the only Elden Ring enemy that uses magic similar to Dark/Deep sorceries in past souls games
kind of remind me of some crustacean races from other fantasy games... tend to be the sort which have a strong adherence to natural order as well as greatly valuing the strength/resilience required for survival. one thing I noticed about this game is the many examples of various niches being filled wherever the will for such exists. in that sense I find their worship of rot fitting.
I beat her in like 5 tries my first play through not because of skill but because I discovered the Godslayer's Greatsword ash of war could topple her even in phase 2 so I just started stunlocking her with my mimic lol
*Some other interesting details potentially worth noting on Pests and their insectoid design:* • The Pests all wear snails on their heads, which appear to still be alive as the shells grow as they age. The conical shape of the snail's shell also the shape of heretical wizards' hats. This is likely aiding in allowing Gowry to assume the guise of a human while he actually occupies a Pest's body. • The younger Pest variants have no legs, only forearms arms which makes the fact that the "fully grown" versions appear to be two different bodies attached to one another especially disturbing, as those are the sections that wiggle independently when they're laying prostrate in worship. This two-sectioned body does give them another familiar insect of inspiration. • Like the Wraith-Callers, the adult Pests have four primary arms and two legs. The Malformed Stars also have six humanoid limbs, and their Gravity attack uses the same sort of arcing projectile paths as Pest Threads. This body shape and the dragonfly wings makes a potential inspiration for them being the nymph forms of Dragonfly or Caddisfly larva - especially as they use silk threads to form their cocoons. • The silk from their cocoons adhere to the stones from the river bottoms, giving the transition stage a very similar appearance to Astel and the other Malformed Stars. Astel being below the Grand Cloister is also matching the themes of Rebirth from the Children of Rot as Astel's body is formed of shards of other stars. • After defeating the Ravenmount Assassin in Liurnia, if you wait when approaching him, Yura speaks a line before you talk to him which is, _"Wretched worms, leave me be."_ In Japanese this line is, _「ざざ虫めが、苛みよるわ… うっ…、ううっ…」_ where the word ざざ虫 refers to larval dragonflies and not earthworms. The most common form is a Stenopsychidae caddisfly commonly called a Blackworm and they're taken from rivers and eaten in some regions of Japan. • These are the larval forms of the Snake Dragonfly 蛇蜻蛉 also known as a River Centipedes 川ムカデ because of how ravenously they attack all other types of aquatic larvae. The fully grown versions look identical to the large black & gold dragonflies all around _Elden Ring,_ and they're easily identifiable by the enormous mandibles on their heads that they drop when killed. This also shows how it helps to relate that underlying theme of living on in another form to the Centipedes symbolizing Death, as well as the Snakes representing Blasphemy. • This is one of those types of subtle differentiations and cultural-specific references that is impossible to translate 1:1 which is why designs mix and match several elements together to help a global audience pick up general themes. The Children of Rot focus on Decay leading to necessary death & rebirth, so Gowry is able to continually be reborn into new Pest bodies. With Yura's overtly Japanese design, this is subtly foreshadowing how Shabriri is going to be reborn in Yura's body, and helps give context to why Astel, Stars of Darkness is surrounded by individuals afflicted by Madness at the location of his impact under Yelough Annex Ruins. Hopefully that makes for some interesting insight in looking at other designs and details of these things. Most of this came from me cross-checking references to the terminology used for "worms" in the game when researching Wormfaces, and making sure I wasn't conflating connections that weren't intended. This is one of the reasons why looking at multiple languages can help suddenly make certain terms stand out that are identical in others, and why Zullie's knowledge of miscellaneous Japanese mythology often aids that significantly, so hopefully this can do a bit in return.
The way they crawl around making chittering noises is really unnerving, but ateast they look kind of adorable when you see them curled up, sleeping or something.
a pest is simply a form of life that one finds troublesome. they have a keen intellect, but it may never be understood by man. I wonder if they've ever really tried.
Babe, over here. Zullie dropped another video. I always love to see your breakdown of the visual lore of FS games. I keep up with almost every single one I can find-- and I've never even played Dark Souls yet.
I would really love it if you could do these types of videos for locations, like the architecture of Raya Lucaria, Ephael or even the Lands themselves. Elden Ring is so beautiful.
the fact that normal exploration, encouraged by the setting, can end up with you deposited in a mid game area full of terrifying bug people is a bait and switch worthy of dark souls mimics (and helps to assuage my disappointment at the lack of mimics in ER)
They remind me of little mites you find in compost, the way their shells look and how they scurry about. Also I love the ones with the little pope hats, very cute
Uses its hand a lot, shoots out sticky substance, simps for Malenia (even though she abandoned them). Damn Miyazaki really hitting us maidenless gamers where it hurts...
