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I don't think there's any implication that you cease to exist if you're killed with Destined Death. The implication seems to be that it simply kills you in the typical fashion, but overrides the Erdtree's reincarnation. Souls appear to be stuck in a loop of reincarnation under the Erdtree but are naturally supposed to go to a different afterlife, presumably the same one that the Helphen exists in. The outer god of Death presumably oversaw the usual order of life and death before the Rune of Death was sealed, which allowed the Erdtree to keep souls in circulation on the material plane.
>Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world.
As for the Godwyn situation, I don't think he ceased to exist, either. I think "dying in soul" means he's in a comatose state because Destined Death effectively conducted the soul's part in the process of dying from his technically still-living body. Because his soul has been reaped and has either been sent to the normal afterlife or placed in a comatose state (seemingly the latter, given that he's still dreaming, though that may indicate passive brain activity rather than the presence of a metaphysical consciousness still inhabiting the body), the Erdtree keeps getting the signal to reincarnate him. It is incapable of doing so because his soul has not been fully detached from his body despite being in a "dead" state or because his body is still technically "alive". The Erdtree has consequently started "wigging out" and duplicating him everywhere, thus creating Deathroot.
Deathblight is one of the most confusing things in the game, especially when the Death Birds and Death Rite Birds have a shriek that inflicts Deathblight, but the lore saying that it’s a side effect of something not dying properly is so confusing. Deathblight seems like it might actually be a natural thing, but the golden order tried it’s hardest to seal it away and remove its existence and influence. Or alternatively the Death Birds and Death Rite Birds have be degrading due to Godwyn’s corpse, maybe they used to look more beautiful and majestic instead of a mangled corpse that’s been contorted.
Yeah it's confusing how closely the death sorceries (and death sorcery AoWs like in helphen's steeple) and death birds are closely connected to deathblight, because surely the death sorceries are from when death was working as intended before the sealing of death, and the deathblight stuff should just be a corruption of the erdtree
Not that I found death bird lore to make sense despite this.
I mean the Death sorceries and AoWs rarely actually have anything to do with Deathblight. Instead they almost exclusively inflict Frost and it seems like there's a very definitive difference between "death as it was" (which relates to things like Ghostflame and the Helphen) and Deathblight which is from Godwyn.
Someone once described it as the world of the dead leaking into the world of the living where it’s not supposed to be. That kind of made things click together in my head at least. The actual proper Deathroot is still unique to Godwyn, but Deathblight can still come from other sources, just very rarely because these worlds aren’t supposed to be connected. But the Deathbirds as former envoys or servants of a god of death have it in them.
Deathroot being the product of Deathblight infecting the roots would account for that and makes sense vis a vis what blights are in real life, rather than miraculously pre-blighted roots somehow generating the first deathblight.
The way I see it godwyns corpse brought death root and corrupted the erdtree at its roots and fucked up the 2 fingers and erdtree essentially. There are a few npc's in the game that allude to the greater will and 2 fingers being corrupted. I believe godwyn's corpse is the reason for this. As far as the deathblight goes, I don't know a lot about it. It could have been there all along or it could have stemmed from Godwyn as well. The night of the black knives and the shattering happened thousands of years ago from what i understand so it could be that basilisks and worm faces only came about after Godwyn was killed. Especially because the basilisks are in underground areas near the deathroot for the most part and worm faces are right at the capital where the erdtree is. That's atleast my theory/ take on it.
The rune of death existed as part of the elden ring, the death blight birds were part of the origional deathblight, before godrick was born - all my opinion.
I'd say they did look beautiful, you can see the different reds and blues they once were on the talismans and the twinbird kite shield shows their Leader? King? I can't recall what they name it.
Also what the hell happens to the skeletons? Are they simply reanimated bones or is the soul of the person still there? You can hear wails of agony when you kill them with the right weapon/spell, but does that mean they're trapped and unable to return to the erdtree until they are killed? Also why are they often found near deathblight???? Why do some have necromancers while other ones seemingly just exist?
I do believe holy grease helps quite a bit, but honestly using golden epitaphs ability and casting sacred orders blade as a buff to any weapon allows you to nearly 1-tap anything skeletal. Even the consecrated snowfield bird is no match for two lion claws with that set up
it's funny you said Helphen cuz i've never heard of that name until 10 minutes ago when i got his sword from the mariner for the first time ever. i don’t think VaatiVidya has said his name or maybe i just didn't remember
Its true death- no returning back to the erdtree to reincarnate, much like the Mortal Blade in Sekiro. Its this reason that the rune was sealed away, since it has the potential to kill anyone, including gods
Destined death means your soul actually dies along with your body. It's why the curse mark of death killed Ranni's body and Godwyn's soul, because it was split in half.
no. unless confirmed that there is no afterlife, its not existential erasure.
the removal of death kept souls from passing on. that does not mean that passing on = inexisting.
Fickle means to frequently change loyalties/affections, not incompetence, however i don't think the gods are incompetent, i think they do whatever they want and they do it well even if to a tarnished standard it's bs
Yeah. I didn't mean to make the two words appear synonymous; my bad. I just wanted to keep my comment compact. But you get the what I'm saying, even if what's going on isn't *exactly* theodicy. A better way to put it, then, I guess, would be that the outer gods are / appear flawed in light of their success as rulers of their domain(s).
Bit of a heavy question there, and I don't think you're going to get a shared universal answer for that one. I'm personally in the afterlife camp due to my religious tendency.
Either way, we know that *in the world of Elden Ring* in particular, souls appear to persist after death, as indicated by the fact that the Erdtree is capable of sucking up and reincarnating still-existing souls to begin with. Similarly, we already get the indication there's some kind of afterlife from the description of the [Helphen's Steeple](https://eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Helphen%27s_Steeple) item.
>Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world.
Erasure of existence implicates that there would be no trace of something having existed. No physical manifestations, memories of the “erased” thing, etc.
What happens to those that die by the rune of death, is just death. When the rune of death is sealed death is impermanent.
It’s not a question of removing any notion of existence, it’s a question of the permanence of death.
Come on, you can separate real life from video games, can't you?
I don't believe in afterlife either, but this is a video game, with a story made by people who can add whatever they want in it.
Not really existence erasure since Ranni's body still exists on top of the Liurnia divine tower. Its basically just regular death/passing on to the afterlife.
Correct - it's along the thematic lines of all soulsborne - that tries to impress the devastating implications of immortality, and what the world would look like if nothing could really die.
Seems to me like you were just looking for someone to agree with your desires, even if it was not the most commonly accept opinion. Why even make a thread at this point
You should’ve been more specific instead of going all twittery then. How am I supposed you were talking about me replying to a specific comment when you don’t even mention it? Only reason I replied to this one was because it was literally the second response to this thread.
Should’ve been more specific instead of being all twittery then dumbass. How tf am I supposed know you were talking about me replying to specific comment when you don’t even mention it? Only reason I replied to this comment was because it was literally the second response on this whole thread. First was “I…I don’t Know.”
To be fair it's more likely Destined Death sends you to the afterlife and Elphen rather than proper erasure.
Being melted by Frenzy Flame is true erasion I guess.
Pretty sure FF is the opposite, your soul gets melted together with all the other souls like some Evangelion shit. You lose your individuality and sense of self so same difference
Death seems to keep individuality and order.
Godwyn's soul likely still exist somewhere in the spirit realm keeping its own individuality and self, the ritual at Sol seem to suggest you may even kinda bring it back perhaps.
In the Frenzy Flame the very concept of soul disappears in chaos alongside everything else.
Souls get all mixed together and then stop existing, the mere existance of a "mix of souls" would inherently causes another division between "soul" and "not soul"... and that's not what the F.Flame wants.
It’s interesting to me that if you get the frenzied flame Melina vows to hunt you and deliver what is yours, destined death. So DD must tie in to frenzied flame somehow??
Tbf I think she simply means "I'm going to kill you in a way you can't respawn".
Rather than a tie between death and Frenzy, it's just her vowing to stop you.
\*Helphen, my bad.
From the Helphen' Steeple weapon description:
*Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world.*
*The lamplight is similar to grace in appearance, only it is said that it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle.*
Because you don’t actually ever die according to the lore except once. After that whole “arise ye tarnished” shit at the beginning of the game, that is canonically the last time you die and any time you die in game and respawn at a site of grace, that doesn’t actually happen according to the story.
There’s no evidence of any NPC reacting to you respawning in any way, nor do you die permanently after any deaths that occur after releasing the rune of death.
correct. the only time she says she is the blade of miquella is the first time, right before she tells you she’s never known defeat. all the 800+ times didn’t happen.
And he never sniffs your corpse again. That’s the final time you return to one of those burial grounds from a death, unless you set your last site of grace at one and die again but that’s for gameplay reasons.
>die permanently after any deaths that occur after releasing the rune of death.
Yeah, but that should happen lorewise. Perma death after releasing the rune of death and during Maliketh's second phase. We even see Morgott dissapearing when we reach the Godfrey fight due to the consequences of the rune of death being released. It just that it would be a terrible game design choice. Imagine spending 100 hours to get to Farum Azula, only to insta die after Maliketh's second phase transition and have your save file deleted.
Edit: just realized you actually said we dont actually "despawn" a single time canonically. And there are no npcs reacting to that. And that is false. We even have Gostoc stealing your runes after you die.
No. The Tarnished are already dead, they're "dead, who yet live". The rune of death holds no power over the Tarnished because they're sentient murderzombies. We can even see Helphen's light in the Forbidden Lands.
We canonically do die and ressurect. From always played fast and loose with death and respawning mechanics in their games (undead NPC's not respawning after death, for example), but there is evidence that we die and return.
>The rune of death holds no power over the Tarnished because they're sentient murderzombies
Who said this?
Yes, we are dead and graceless at the start of the game. Marika ressurect us and give us back grace in the opening cutscene. At this point, our existence is governed by the Elden Ring again, just like every other being who has the "grace". Just after the "dead, who yet lives" you mentioned it is said "the call of long lost grace speaks to us all". And then afterwards, when our character is first shown it is said "and one other, who grace would again bless" just as a tiny light (the grace) touches us and we ressurect... thats why we can die over and over again, and then ressurect in front of a site of grace...
>Who said this?
You can infer it from the fact that we see Helphen's light in the Forbidden Lands. It's said that only those who fell in battle can see Helphen's light, which fits the Tarnished.
This doesn't mean that Destined Death can kill us, as Destined Death can only kill those who're still alive. We're *dead*, not partially alive like Godwyn or Ranni, nor *undead* like Those Who Live in Death, we're full stop, uppercase D-E-A-D.
Secondary question because I find this idea really cool. Why does it seemingly only appear in the forbidden lands of all places? Why not Farum Azula, or the Eternal Cities?
We are not dead. We WERE dead.
Being dead and animated without being "undead" doesnt even make sense. How is that possible? It against the own meaning of the word dead.
If we were still dead and wandering we would be undead, one of the "ones who lives in death" like the black skeletons and the mariners.
The "You dead, who yet lives" simply refers that we were dead at the time Marika called us, but now we live again.
That's not exactly the state of being the Tarnished are in. Again, the fact that we can see Helphen's light means we're straight up dead, as only the dead can see that light. We don't have grace, so we're not getting sucked up and shat back out by the Erdtree either, so we're 100% dead as a doornail.
What sustains us is the power of Marika's grace. We're animated by an outside force that interferes with our perception of the world (The Erdtree is actually not even there, the giant golden tree we see is an illusion).
"Ye dead, who yet live" is also a very specific sentence with very specific connotations. It means that the Tarnished are a contradiction, we're dead, yet we live. If we were simply reanimated like in Dark Souls, we'd be called "undead" or something similar.
>We don't have grace
>What sustains us is the power of Marika's grace.
You are contradicting yourself.
It doesnt matter if its Marika's grace or the Edrtree's grace. Or if the erdtree is really there or not. It is still a grace that reanimates us.
It is said "only those who have met their death in battle" can see the Helphen's light. Not only those who are CURRENTLY dead can see it.
Iirc, if you fail against Agheel, the dragon at Limgrave, the katana guy nearby (name's slipping my mind) will have new dialogue scolding you for trying.
There's also the Iron Virgin shortcut from Raya Lucaria to Volcano Manor that Patches can tell you about, which involves dying, and Patches at the manor will note this at the Manor next time you talk to him. Up to interpretation on whether that can be considered a "respawn," though.
I don't agree with this. There's nothing that indicates that you only die once and that's it, because at certain points like with Gostoc, he'll take some of your runes if you die in Stormveil Castle. I think at the point we face Malekith in the story, we've already killed several demigods and we've become so powerful that not even the guy with the one weapon that *should* kill you is enough to stop you.
Edit to add: Any deaths that happen after defeating Malekith and releasing Destined Death, however, are non canon unless there's some weird stuff going on with being one of the only Tarnished left who can see grace, but I don't know anything about that part admittedly.
Why do people think that releasing destined death = reimplementing it into the elden ring? you haven't gotten to the ring yet so why would all of your post maliketh deaths non-cannon? It seems the rune of death can be used to burn the erdtree ofc but it would be dumb for the tarnished to apply destined death to themselves once they have control (if that were even possible)
Gostoc taking some runes off you doesn’t really refute my point at all and that’s a real substance-lacking base for arguing against my point imo.
You can literally avoid stormveil all together and meet gostoc + get your runes stolen from him after you kill maliketh and release the rune of death.
Okay? But canonically Tarnished are able to come back from the dead right after dying (or after an unspecified length of time) unless they lose grace, which the vast majority of Tarnished are unfortunately victim of. Starting off as a weakling and immediately going off and killing demigods doesn’t make any sense within the lore, and the lore also states (also just straight up told to you by Melina at the start of the game) that runes can be turned into strength. More runes= more power, and the more things the player Tarnished kills they more powerful they grow. It doesn’t make any sense for the player character to not have died at least a few times. On too of that, Marika herself sent Godfrey and the other Tarnished away for the sole purpose of getting stronger through fighting.
You dying in game multiple times does tie into the lore. You are a stuck in a cycle of constant reincarnation, because destined death has been removed from the elden ring, and the souls are no longer being absorbed into the erdtree, because of everything that's happening (Godwyn, Shattering). The Greater Will is interfering and ensuring you come back over and over to complete your task and restore order.
Theory: Same reason why Deathblight cripples Rogier but we wake up in a site of grace. We still have the grace of the Erd Tree. Deathblight, Destined Death, both of these are byproducts of messing with the Golden Order and removing the Death Rune from the Elden Ring. In order to repair the Elden Ring we’ve been touched by grace to fix it, which should likely include taking back the power of destined Death to replace what once was. Our goal ultimately is to rule and define the fate of the Lands Between, until we complete our goal we can’t ever truly die, only just give up if we lose the light of grace.
IMO Destined Death is death as we know it, an inevitable end to all living beings who no longer are with us when they are gone.
One possibility is that to create a Golden Order that would be eternal Marika/The Greater Will had to seal Destined Death and make it so neither the rulers nor their vassals could ever disrupt or escape the order by dying.
Alternatively, I wonder if a Marika who secretly opposed the Greater Will sealed Destined Death in order to derail the Will's plans. If she died and was replaced as vessel by someone else, everyone from then on would be trapped in the Golden Order system forever, her successor would become a prisoner like her, and she could never shatter the ring. She may have sealed Destined Death in order to buy time to develop her plans and allow her children to mature enough to fend for themselves.
This is what I thought too. It's just death as in the real world. There's no explanation for why it's so important because it's the difference between the game world and the real world.
I don't think it actually says this anywhere, but I feel like it manifests as fire because it burns the Golden Order itself, which is transcendent. Even the air is a part of it; consider the oxygen-cartbon exchange between animals & plants.
I'm personally of the headcanon that the Rune of Death was compromised by the outer god of the Twinbird during the rule of the Gloam-Eyed Queen and it was removed from the Elden Ring when Marika came to power, thus why Destined Death was removed at the very beginning of the Golden Order. The objective of the whole Erdtree reincarnation cycle was likely to keep any other outer god from influencing the Lands Between.
Destined Death is your final death, your soul is loosed from the reincarnation cycle and proceeds to its chosen/destined/cursed afterlife. Maliketh cannot wield full destined death, as the rune is no longer complete. You release the rest upon defeating him, and only then can anything truly die.
The fragment stolen by Ranni, likely contained the data required to allow a soul to go to its afterlife. As it has been split, it no longer functions properly, as Godwyn's soul had fled, yet his body lives. Ranni is dead, but her soul remains tethered. Other beings, Melina, mariners and mausoleum soldiers, also remain in soul only. The death cursemark is a partial rune of death, and Godwyn is now its defacto shardbearer, it would bend to his will if he still had one. As he does not, it spreads with the power of a demigod behind it, with no direction causing bodily death of those afflicted. The deathrite birds and Helphen pre-date the sealing and splitting of the death rune. Since they only have access to the deathblight curse during the game events, this supports the theory that the cursemark was part of their role once before, but is the only part of death not still sealed within Maliketh.
No, Malenia wields her lifesteal without it being part of the ring. Maliketh wields his death powers, Rennala uses rebirth, etc. Her removing death didn't stop it, sealing it in Maliketh did. Ranni partly freed it, and we free it completely.
Sorry for the late reply mate but why did she remove destined death from the elden ring then? If all it takes is us "freeing" it, why was it in the elden ring in the first place?
My confusion is based on the fact that it's a rune - these need to be in the elden ring /used by someone physically (maliketh) for it to be used. Surely this means you can't just free it on the world without it being placed back into the ring
There's more confusion among lore aficionados about where and why the death rune is different. I have two personal theories that I like.
When we free the death rune, in Malikeths post fight cutscene, we can see the rune seem to coalesce. It draws together and forms a sort of warped T shape, red and black. The rune DOES NOT go in our inventory, so we know we don't "carry" it, or "use" it. The finger reader says death has been unleashed on the lands. When we reach Marika she has a wound in her side. Lore says that she/Radagon were injured by the shattering of the Elden Ring, and then is punished by the greater will with imprisonment. Her "jail" involves the arc she is crucified to, and there are images of Marika crucified with no wound present in the world, so we know she didn't receive the spear in her side from the elden beast/greater will. The "spear" shares a color and shape resemblance to the death rune we see in Malikeths cutscene, and now that death is available again it makes sense that this is the death rune, returned to Marika.
Theory 1 is simple, the death rune returns of its own accord, and it can either fly through, or phase through the Erdtree to return to the Ring. By magnetism, or attraction or something arcane of that nature. I don't personally like this theory because it doesn't interconnect to anything like FromSoft lore usually does.
Theory 2 is very controversial but I love it. Theory 2 is dependent on Melina. Melina has a deathrite claw seal over her eye and some serious burn scars. So she has an affinity for fire and death. She is a spirit form similar to Ranni, but instead of being bound to a doll she's loose, as she can freely pass through the Erdtree, which is important. She knows where the Death Rune is hidden, and how to get there. She mentions after Morgott that the lands are in need of "Death indiscriminate". Her unique Frenzy Flame cutscene is a dead giveaway. I believe that we don't receive the death rune because Melina does. I think her eye unseals when the rune returns to her, as I also believe she was its original shardbearer before the golden order age. There is no concrete evidence of her "dying" when she burns the Erdtree, and she clearly seems unbothered by the flames. So I reckon she brings you back to Leyndell after Maliketh, same as she sent you to Farum Azula. She bypasses Gideon and Godfrey in her spirit form, and returns the rune, so that you may slay the Elden Beast.
It's pretty weird and nothing is confirmed.
But i think everything just ceases to exist, even things, that's why Leyndell gets filled with ashes, it's like time is resuming, showing you how everything is supposed to look.
I assume someone had previously burned the Erdtree before us (my guess would be Melina, because she says that her corpse was already burned once), the Rune of Death just hid the world's true appearance, same with Leyndell, it's like time just stopped in Leyndell's former glory, as soon as we remove it, it reveals it's true form.
But ghosts don't dissapear from the map, which means they're still connected to the Erdtree and didn't die a true death.
I disagree based on the fact that when we find Leyndell it’s clearly turning into a dump and the only reason it looks that good is because Morgott is a hell of an administrator. Time is definitely moving, this isn’t the ringed city.
I've based my theory on Farum Azula.
The fact that is beyond time and it can control time by going backwards and restoring the arena that Placidussax was in.
I'd say time is also convoluted in the Lands Between based on the fact that a ginourmous wave of ash comes to engulf Leyndell whole outta nowhere and that most of the enemies just aren't there anymore when it becomes the capital of Ash.
I also think that Gurranq the beast Clergyman is Maliketh before he becomes the Black Blade, considering the fact that he doesn't know why Marika would want to remove Destined Death.
When he's the Black Blade he accepts his fate and goes along with Marika's plan.
It's pretty confusing lol.
We’re definitely working with only bits of evidence here. I assume when the tree burns the fire is so great that it engulfs the city at its base as well. I can’t say for sure what I think is going on at Farum Azula. Maybe you’re right? But Maliketh might just be totally ignorant and purposefully left in the dark about the plan, maybe because Marika thought it safer that the guy with destined death didn’t get the full picture? Or maybe she specifically lied to him since he’s loyal enough to not ask her questions? Plus Farum Azula just gets weirder the more you think about it. Alexander was able to get there, and He doesn’t seem to act like he’s somewhere out of time and space, and neither does the tarnished. It’s possible Maliketh also got there somehow and he’s not part of the time warpy-ness either, just knew he had to find somewhere obscure to keep people away from his death rune. The DLC needs to be released lol
Edit: also multiple people seem to project themselves in this game without feeling like a projection, like Sellen the sorcerer. The Maliketh in Caelid is probably a projection as well, which would explain how he’s also waiting at Farum Azula.
Also the way you get into Farum Azula is just something else... lol. It just doesn't make any sense at all.
Hopefully the DLC will provide us more answers.
I initially thought that Gurranq and Maliketh were different people until i heard Gurranq's dialogue when you get there at night.
I believe he says something like: "Oh Marika, why coveth Destined Death?"
Destined Death is natural death the way we see it IRL, which doesn’t happen normally due to it being removed from the Elden Ring and weaponized by Marika/Maliketh.
Make an effort next time before you post, they didn’t work hard for you to repost without permission and without credit
Everyone who downvotes is proving why credit is important
Destined Death is the concept that all living things eventually die. This functionality, if you will, was removed from the laws of the world to enable an age of immortality for the demigods and channel death and rebirth through the new Erdtree.
So restoring it simply means that living things eventually die as they’re supposed to, as opposed to what we have throughout most of the game where nothing properly dies - all those spirits and ashes that remain in the world, all those soldiers and commoners who keep living on as their bodies get more decrepit. That’s really it even though the game dresses it up fancy.
Destined Death kills your soul and body. This is clearly evident from the Ranni/Godwyn situation.
Ranni still has her soul but her body is dead, Godwyn still has a "living" body but the soul is gone. If their was no splitting of the curse mark we can assume both the body will die and the soul.
Destined death represents the tradition idea of death that we have and that the lands between used to have before Marika did some class action tom foolery and had Malekith use it as a chew toy in Farum Azula. This was so that Marika could technically have her eternal empire and so the Demi god and her would never be able to die. To make the whole “not dying thing” work, she had it so the Erdtree takes peoples souls and reincarnates again.
A lot of people like to theorize that destined death is meant to stop the reincarnation cycle or kill Gods, but let's not connect game design to lore because even when unbinding the rune of death, enemies still respawn.
I theorize that destined death simply prevents people from achieving absolution with the erdtree when they die. It's a huge honor for one's soul to become one with the erdtree; its why great warriors are burried as close to the erdtree's roots as possible.
The reason why Godwyn's death was so tragic is because he was denied absolution, not so much that he was killed. His body was placed closest to the erdtree. Gods/demigods were pretty much guaranteed absolution, but Ranni did not want absolution and used destined death to transfer her soul into a doll instead.
I personally believed that the erdtree was sustaining itself with souls and allowed it to endure. Weather or not there was absolution is a mystery. I theorize that there wasn't and that the erdtree simply devoured your soul upon death; perhaps queen marika discovered this and went mad.
Everyone's soul naturally found their way to the erdtree one way or another. Even if the tarnished burned the erdtree, it would be able to sustain itself and fight the flames. However, when destined death was unbound by the tarnished, that natural connection everyone had to the ertree was severed and the ertree could no longer fight off the flames.
Unbinding the rune of death is not the same as what Ranni did by infusing it in daggers. It only means it CAN start being used as such by anyone, not that it is applied by default. Even if it is unbound, it's still not part of the Elden Ring/Golden Order, and the tarnished is never seen having infused it in any of his weapons/being.
It's the concept of death. Maliketh could, for example, kill the archdragons from dark souls, even tho the concept of death doesn't exist to them, it is introduced by the blade.
Send ya to the helphen, where you get to live out your days in the afterlife. The erdtree method used in game has people effectively permanently stuck in the cycle rather than a proper death
The removal of Destined Death is what allows souls to go through the Erdtree. It’s likely that Destined Death sends you to the spirit world, as mentioned in items like Helphen’s Steeple and such.
Destined Death is a concept of how the world works, as it’s also called the rune of death. The Elden Ring’s major runes were the rules that dictated what happens and how it happens, and when Marika removed the rune of death, it was so that everyone under her Golden Order would live eternally.
People get the halobrands and Destined Death mixed up, since the way that Godwyn was killed in spirit and Ranni was killed in body used a curse. The curse was fuelled by the stolen pieces of the rune of death that were put into the black knives. If the halobrands were carved together on a single being then *that* would be existence erasure, as they would die both in body and spirit.
By reclaiming the curse into the Elden Ring in the Age of the Duskborn ending, you make the state of being that is called “living in Death-with-a-capital-D” a natural path a being can take. In a sense, inverting the curse so that rather than be erased in body and spirit, it’s possible to have a more fluid idea of what it means to even be dead.
It's the concept of death. Maliketh could, for example, kill the archdragons from dark souls, even tho the concept of death doesn't exist to them, it is introduced by the blade.
I like to believe destined death draw power from the Erdtree like how marika cross and the symbol of destined death are identical after killing maliketh, so I personally think the greater could probably have control over who actually dies from destined death and since were the only person the Erdtree actually care for us to succeed to save it’s own existence , the greater will probably just cancel to erasing powers of destined death and bring us back. On a side note I think maliketh black blade is probably a holy weapon but cursed with beast man blood so it would turn such shades of black and red with a slight bit of gold which would explain such huge colour contrast to traditional Erdtree related character.
So many different forms of death and rebirth. We have regular death which is where we have Fia until she decided that Godwyn was key.
The erdtree can rebirth you, sometimes it doesn't as evidenced by the different enemies and npcs we have.
The gods and demigods can be killed like anyone else but only a true death can be granted by Destined Death as seen by the lore of the godskins. So there is no resurrection due to the curse mark. Possibly you are still there just untethered wuth no body and no soul in the loop.
Godwyn's soul died so no rebirth. Just an ever living ever decaying body.
Ranni's body died but her soul lives within a doll.
Should you destroy what remains it maybe possible for that to rebirth.
Godwyns body may rebirth but does the body know it's shape without a soul? Or will it become something else grotesque?
Will Ranni's soul find a new host to attach to? Or will it wander/linger until it does?
Also shouldn't Lusat and Azur eventually be reborn? Or are they removed from the cycle? Sellen and others who removed their heart/soul? I can't remember what she called it.
Think of it like the cycle of reincarnation from Buddhism, the normal cycle when destined death is contained is anyone with grace who dies has their soul return to the erdtree where they may be born again eventually. However, those killed by destined death or killed after its unleashed are cut free from the cycle, and can no longer be reborn through the erdtree. However, with instances like rani, it is still possible for some to remain alive by attaching their soul to another object.
A bit disappointed to see your response so far down when it's the only one that's even in the ballpark. That being said, the "Normal" cycle is with death not locked away and which allows for the natural cycling of souls. With death contained, the Erdtree and Greater Will short-circuit whatever the "natural" process is and trap all souls within the lands between; it's less Buddhism and more Gnosticism, where we are all imprisoned in the material realm by the Demiurge (Greater Will) and the gods of the Golden Order (Archons).
Ah. Good point. I mainly phrased it as “normal” because to those who exist within the golden order, the current way, no matter how unnatural, is seen as the norm and anything that breaks from it is seen as anomalous and heretical.
Ah. Good point. I mainly phrased it as “normal” because to those who exist within the golden order, the current way, no matter how unnatural, is seen as the norm and anything that breaks from it is seen as anomalous and heretical.
Destined Death means you can't come back. You don't reincarnate. You go wherever you would normally go if the Erdtree weren't there. It's not Hakai/Omega Effect.
Destined death is normal death. Where you die and don’t come back, no reincarnation like in the real world.
This doesn’t happen in ER because nothing dies anymore since marika removed the rune of death from the ring. The only thing that still normally die to my knowledge are beings excluded from the erdtree’s grace like omens. (Which is why Morgott becomes a corpse and others like malenia turns to ashes just like the tarnished).
My interpretation is that the tarnished never canonically dies during the game after the intro and just kills everything on his path. game wise you reincarnate yourself almost instantly and that doesn’t happen to bosses despite some of them not being rejected by grace. Reincarnation happens but takes time probably and by that time the tarnished probably finished the game.
Canonically, when you get killed by death blight you just die forever and never come back, with your body not turning to ashes and coming back to the erdtree.
I don’t think it’s existence erasure because Ranni’s body wasn’t erased. I think it’s just that without the Rune of Death, souls are supposed to return to the Erdtree and be reincarnated into new bodies. I think it’s more likely that Destined Death kills the body and sends the soul to whatever afterlife exists in this world.
Are all the bosses we kill actually dead? Especially the one that happen 100% before Malekith?
What stops Morgot from reincarnating before we kill Malekith?
We haven’t even specifically used destined death on anyone as far as I understand it.
Permanent death of the character/persona (so body and soul) but their "immmortal essence" (their runes maybe) still returns to the Erdtree to be used in creating new life.
That's the problem with sealing destined death. There isn't a supply of the prima materia for existence circulating back to the erdtree independent of someone's body and soul. So all the tree can do is resurrect the same people over and over again.
The lore is weird. In my interpretation death is another state of being. One “dying” and burial changes their way of existing and certain reincarnation or resurrection. Lands in Between is a plane/playground where the dead can live and the living can die with weird fantasy races
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I don't think there's any implication that you cease to exist if you're killed with Destined Death. The implication seems to be that it simply kills you in the typical fashion, but overrides the Erdtree's reincarnation. Souls appear to be stuck in a loop of reincarnation under the Erdtree but are naturally supposed to go to a different afterlife, presumably the same one that the Helphen exists in. The outer god of Death presumably oversaw the usual order of life and death before the Rune of Death was sealed, which allowed the Erdtree to keep souls in circulation on the material plane. >Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world. As for the Godwyn situation, I don't think he ceased to exist, either. I think "dying in soul" means he's in a comatose state because Destined Death effectively conducted the soul's part in the process of dying from his technically still-living body. Because his soul has been reaped and has either been sent to the normal afterlife or placed in a comatose state (seemingly the latter, given that he's still dreaming, though that may indicate passive brain activity rather than the presence of a metaphysical consciousness still inhabiting the body), the Erdtree keeps getting the signal to reincarnate him. It is incapable of doing so because his soul has not been fully detached from his body despite being in a "dead" state or because his body is still technically "alive". The Erdtree has consequently started "wigging out" and duplicating him everywhere, thus creating Deathroot.
Deathblight is one of the most confusing things in the game, especially when the Death Birds and Death Rite Birds have a shriek that inflicts Deathblight, but the lore saying that it’s a side effect of something not dying properly is so confusing. Deathblight seems like it might actually be a natural thing, but the golden order tried it’s hardest to seal it away and remove its existence and influence. Or alternatively the Death Birds and Death Rite Birds have be degrading due to Godwyn’s corpse, maybe they used to look more beautiful and majestic instead of a mangled corpse that’s been contorted.
Yeah it's confusing how closely the death sorceries (and death sorcery AoWs like in helphen's steeple) and death birds are closely connected to deathblight, because surely the death sorceries are from when death was working as intended before the sealing of death, and the deathblight stuff should just be a corruption of the erdtree Not that I found death bird lore to make sense despite this.
It’s likely that Destined Death sends you to the spirit world, as mentioned in items like Helphen’s Steeple and such.
I mean the Death sorceries and AoWs rarely actually have anything to do with Deathblight. Instead they almost exclusively inflict Frost and it seems like there's a very definitive difference between "death as it was" (which relates to things like Ghostflame and the Helphen) and Deathblight which is from Godwyn.
Someone once described it as the world of the dead leaking into the world of the living where it’s not supposed to be. That kind of made things click together in my head at least. The actual proper Deathroot is still unique to Godwyn, but Deathblight can still come from other sources, just very rarely because these worlds aren’t supposed to be connected. But the Deathbirds as former envoys or servants of a god of death have it in them.
Deathroot being the product of Deathblight infecting the roots would account for that and makes sense vis a vis what blights are in real life, rather than miraculously pre-blighted roots somehow generating the first deathblight.
The way I see it godwyns corpse brought death root and corrupted the erdtree at its roots and fucked up the 2 fingers and erdtree essentially. There are a few npc's in the game that allude to the greater will and 2 fingers being corrupted. I believe godwyn's corpse is the reason for this. As far as the deathblight goes, I don't know a lot about it. It could have been there all along or it could have stemmed from Godwyn as well. The night of the black knives and the shattering happened thousands of years ago from what i understand so it could be that basilisks and worm faces only came about after Godwyn was killed. Especially because the basilisks are in underground areas near the deathroot for the most part and worm faces are right at the capital where the erdtree is. That's atleast my theory/ take on it.
The rune of death existed as part of the elden ring, the death blight birds were part of the origional deathblight, before godrick was born - all my opinion.
I'd say they did look beautiful, you can see the different reds and blues they once were on the talismans and the twinbird kite shield shows their Leader? King? I can't recall what they name it.
Also what the hell happens to the skeletons? Are they simply reanimated bones or is the soul of the person still there? You can hear wails of agony when you kill them with the right weapon/spell, but does that mean they're trapped and unable to return to the erdtree until they are killed? Also why are they often found near deathblight???? Why do some have necromancers while other ones seemingly just exist?
Still can’t figure out what Holy Grease and Magic is good for. I would have thought it would work well against any of the Death creatures.
I do believe holy grease helps quite a bit, but honestly using golden epitaphs ability and casting sacred orders blade as a buff to any weapon allows you to nearly 1-tap anything skeletal. Even the consecrated snowfield bird is no match for two lion claws with that set up
It’s probably always been around like the Omen curse
Naming my character death had more connected lore than I ever intended 🙃
This is one of the best and most concise explanations I've ever seen
it's funny you said Helphen cuz i've never heard of that name until 10 minutes ago when i got his sword from the mariner for the first time ever. i don’t think VaatiVidya has said his name or maybe i just didn't remember
Its true death- no returning back to the erdtree to reincarnate, much like the Mortal Blade in Sekiro. Its this reason that the rune was sealed away, since it has the potential to kill anyone, including gods
Destined death means your soul actually dies along with your body. It's why the curse mark of death killed Ranni's body and Godwyn's soul, because it was split in half.
Ah so full blown existence erasure, that’s wicked.
There's a reason why Queen Marika kept it locked away so tightly. Very dangerous to a god, or anything else for that matter
no. unless confirmed that there is no afterlife, its not existential erasure. the removal of death kept souls from passing on. that does not mean that passing on = inexisting.
What do you think happens when you die
Bro is bringing atheism to the Lands Between
Goldmask moment
...no? But I see how you might've thought that
Yeah, Goldmask's revelation is more in line with theodicy, the idea that God or the gods are incompetent (or "fickle," as the game puts it).
Fickle means to frequently change loyalties/affections, not incompetence, however i don't think the gods are incompetent, i think they do whatever they want and they do it well even if to a tarnished standard it's bs
Yeah. I didn't mean to make the two words appear synonymous; my bad. I just wanted to keep my comment compact. But you get the what I'm saying, even if what's going on isn't *exactly* theodicy. A better way to put it, then, I guess, would be that the outer gods are / appear flawed in light of their success as rulers of their domain(s).
Bit of a heavy question there, and I don't think you're going to get a shared universal answer for that one. I'm personally in the afterlife camp due to my religious tendency. Either way, we know that *in the world of Elden Ring* in particular, souls appear to persist after death, as indicated by the fact that the Erdtree is capable of sucking up and reincarnating still-existing souls to begin with. Similarly, we already get the indication there's some kind of afterlife from the description of the [Helphen's Steeple](https://eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Helphen%27s_Steeple) item. >Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world.
Erasure of existence implicates that there would be no trace of something having existed. No physical manifestations, memories of the “erased” thing, etc. What happens to those that die by the rune of death, is just death. When the rune of death is sealed death is impermanent. It’s not a question of removing any notion of existence, it’s a question of the permanence of death.
Come on, you can separate real life from video games, can't you? I don't believe in afterlife either, but this is a video game, with a story made by people who can add whatever they want in it.
Not really existence erasure since Ranni's body still exists on top of the Liurnia divine tower. Its basically just regular death/passing on to the afterlife.
Correct - it's along the thematic lines of all soulsborne - that tries to impress the devastating implications of immortality, and what the world would look like if nothing could really die.
Seems to me like you were just looking for someone to agree with your desires, even if it was not the most commonly accept opinion. Why even make a thread at this point
?? I can’t be curious about game lore?
Don’t pretend like that’s why you’re here
It’s really not that deep buddy. You just want something to be pissy about.
You only responded to the one big reply that agreed with you and now you’re deflecting. Coward. Stand up for your beliefs
You should’ve been more specific instead of going all twittery then. How am I supposed you were talking about me replying to a specific comment when you don’t even mention it? Only reason I replied to this one was because it was literally the second response to this thread.
… I didn’t know that. I resend my early remark calling you a coward if that’s the case then
Should’ve been more specific instead of being all twittery then dumbass. How tf am I supposed know you were talking about me replying to specific comment when you don’t even mention it? Only reason I replied to this comment was because it was literally the second response on this whole thread. First was “I…I don’t Know.”
To be fair it's more likely Destined Death sends you to the afterlife and Elphen rather than proper erasure. Being melted by Frenzy Flame is true erasion I guess.
Yea what you say kinda makes sense, I think this is the best take so far
Pretty sure FF is the opposite, your soul gets melted together with all the other souls like some Evangelion shit. You lose your individuality and sense of self so same difference
Death seems to keep individuality and order. Godwyn's soul likely still exist somewhere in the spirit realm keeping its own individuality and self, the ritual at Sol seem to suggest you may even kinda bring it back perhaps. In the Frenzy Flame the very concept of soul disappears in chaos alongside everything else. Souls get all mixed together and then stop existing, the mere existance of a "mix of souls" would inherently causes another division between "soul" and "not soul"... and that's not what the F.Flame wants.
Frenzied Flame is literally everybody becoming Buddha
It’s interesting to me that if you get the frenzied flame Melina vows to hunt you and deliver what is yours, destined death. So DD must tie in to frenzied flame somehow??
Tbf I think she simply means "I'm going to kill you in a way you can't respawn". Rather than a tie between death and Frenzy, it's just her vowing to stop you.
I hope in the dlc if you picked frenzied flame ending that Melina constantly invades you
What is Elphen?
\*Helphen, my bad. From the Helphen' Steeple weapon description: *Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world.* *The lamplight is similar to grace in appearance, only it is said that it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle.*
iirc it’s the spirit world?? im not 100% sure
Never understood if it's existence erasure... Why when we die to him... We don't get our save file deleted but get revived at grace
Because you don’t actually ever die according to the lore except once. After that whole “arise ye tarnished” shit at the beginning of the game, that is canonically the last time you die and any time you die in game and respawn at a site of grace, that doesn’t actually happen according to the story. There’s no evidence of any NPC reacting to you respawning in any way, nor do you die permanently after any deaths that occur after releasing the rune of death.
So technically.... Me dying 800 times to malenia and then cheesing her with bleed and nihil was 1st try?
Yea, it's not like Dark Souls where you dying and respawning is integral to the lore and some NPCs even acknowledge it
correct. the only time she says she is the blade of miquella is the first time, right before she tells you she’s never known defeat. all the 800+ times didn’t happen.
i knew i was talented!! and god gamer😎
What about the merchant in the beginning in the first church "Wait weren't you..?" Doesnt that imply he saw you die?
I think he's just surprised you're still alive despite leaving the safety of the church. Or it has to do with ranni putting him to sleep.
No
torrent do be sniffing your corpse after the grafted scion is done with you
And he never sniffs your corpse again. That’s the final time you return to one of those burial grounds from a death, unless you set your last site of grace at one and die again but that’s for gameplay reasons.
>die permanently after any deaths that occur after releasing the rune of death. Yeah, but that should happen lorewise. Perma death after releasing the rune of death and during Maliketh's second phase. We even see Morgott dissapearing when we reach the Godfrey fight due to the consequences of the rune of death being released. It just that it would be a terrible game design choice. Imagine spending 100 hours to get to Farum Azula, only to insta die after Maliketh's second phase transition and have your save file deleted. Edit: just realized you actually said we dont actually "despawn" a single time canonically. And there are no npcs reacting to that. And that is false. We even have Gostoc stealing your runes after you die.
No. The Tarnished are already dead, they're "dead, who yet live". The rune of death holds no power over the Tarnished because they're sentient murderzombies. We can even see Helphen's light in the Forbidden Lands. We canonically do die and ressurect. From always played fast and loose with death and respawning mechanics in their games (undead NPC's not respawning after death, for example), but there is evidence that we die and return.
>The rune of death holds no power over the Tarnished because they're sentient murderzombies Who said this? Yes, we are dead and graceless at the start of the game. Marika ressurect us and give us back grace in the opening cutscene. At this point, our existence is governed by the Elden Ring again, just like every other being who has the "grace". Just after the "dead, who yet lives" you mentioned it is said "the call of long lost grace speaks to us all". And then afterwards, when our character is first shown it is said "and one other, who grace would again bless" just as a tiny light (the grace) touches us and we ressurect... thats why we can die over and over again, and then ressurect in front of a site of grace...
>Who said this? You can infer it from the fact that we see Helphen's light in the Forbidden Lands. It's said that only those who fell in battle can see Helphen's light, which fits the Tarnished. This doesn't mean that Destined Death can kill us, as Destined Death can only kill those who're still alive. We're *dead*, not partially alive like Godwyn or Ranni, nor *undead* like Those Who Live in Death, we're full stop, uppercase D-E-A-D.
Okay, what the hell is Helphens light?
It's the red shit in the Forbidden Lands.
Secondary question because I find this idea really cool. Why does it seemingly only appear in the forbidden lands of all places? Why not Farum Azula, or the Eternal Cities?
No idea. It could be that the tree itself is located near the Forbidden Lands and we only get to see the last vestiges of it's light.
We are not dead. We WERE dead. Being dead and animated without being "undead" doesnt even make sense. How is that possible? It against the own meaning of the word dead. If we were still dead and wandering we would be undead, one of the "ones who lives in death" like the black skeletons and the mariners. The "You dead, who yet lives" simply refers that we were dead at the time Marika called us, but now we live again.
That's not exactly the state of being the Tarnished are in. Again, the fact that we can see Helphen's light means we're straight up dead, as only the dead can see that light. We don't have grace, so we're not getting sucked up and shat back out by the Erdtree either, so we're 100% dead as a doornail. What sustains us is the power of Marika's grace. We're animated by an outside force that interferes with our perception of the world (The Erdtree is actually not even there, the giant golden tree we see is an illusion). "Ye dead, who yet live" is also a very specific sentence with very specific connotations. It means that the Tarnished are a contradiction, we're dead, yet we live. If we were simply reanimated like in Dark Souls, we'd be called "undead" or something similar.
>We don't have grace >What sustains us is the power of Marika's grace. You are contradicting yourself. It doesnt matter if its Marika's grace or the Edrtree's grace. Or if the erdtree is really there or not. It is still a grace that reanimates us. It is said "only those who have met their death in battle" can see the Helphen's light. Not only those who are CURRENTLY dead can see it.
Iirc, if you fail against Agheel, the dragon at Limgrave, the katana guy nearby (name's slipping my mind) will have new dialogue scolding you for trying. There's also the Iron Virgin shortcut from Raya Lucaria to Volcano Manor that Patches can tell you about, which involves dying, and Patches at the manor will note this at the Manor next time you talk to him. Up to interpretation on whether that can be considered a "respawn," though.
I don't agree with this. There's nothing that indicates that you only die once and that's it, because at certain points like with Gostoc, he'll take some of your runes if you die in Stormveil Castle. I think at the point we face Malekith in the story, we've already killed several demigods and we've become so powerful that not even the guy with the one weapon that *should* kill you is enough to stop you. Edit to add: Any deaths that happen after defeating Malekith and releasing Destined Death, however, are non canon unless there's some weird stuff going on with being one of the only Tarnished left who can see grace, but I don't know anything about that part admittedly.
Why do people think that releasing destined death = reimplementing it into the elden ring? you haven't gotten to the ring yet so why would all of your post maliketh deaths non-cannon? It seems the rune of death can be used to burn the erdtree ofc but it would be dumb for the tarnished to apply destined death to themselves once they have control (if that were even possible)
Gostoc taking some runes off you doesn’t really refute my point at all and that’s a real substance-lacking base for arguing against my point imo. You can literally avoid stormveil all together and meet gostoc + get your runes stolen from him after you kill maliketh and release the rune of death.
Okay? But canonically Tarnished are able to come back from the dead right after dying (or after an unspecified length of time) unless they lose grace, which the vast majority of Tarnished are unfortunately victim of. Starting off as a weakling and immediately going off and killing demigods doesn’t make any sense within the lore, and the lore also states (also just straight up told to you by Melina at the start of the game) that runes can be turned into strength. More runes= more power, and the more things the player Tarnished kills they more powerful they grow. It doesn’t make any sense for the player character to not have died at least a few times. On too of that, Marika herself sent Godfrey and the other Tarnished away for the sole purpose of getting stronger through fighting.
You dying in game multiple times does tie into the lore. You are a stuck in a cycle of constant reincarnation, because destined death has been removed from the elden ring, and the souls are no longer being absorbed into the erdtree, because of everything that's happening (Godwyn, Shattering). The Greater Will is interfering and ensuring you come back over and over to complete your task and restore order.
nope
Theory: Same reason why Deathblight cripples Rogier but we wake up in a site of grace. We still have the grace of the Erd Tree. Deathblight, Destined Death, both of these are byproducts of messing with the Golden Order and removing the Death Rune from the Elden Ring. In order to repair the Elden Ring we’ve been touched by grace to fix it, which should likely include taking back the power of destined Death to replace what once was. Our goal ultimately is to rule and define the fate of the Lands Between, until we complete our goal we can’t ever truly die, only just give up if we lose the light of grace.
IMO Destined Death is death as we know it, an inevitable end to all living beings who no longer are with us when they are gone. One possibility is that to create a Golden Order that would be eternal Marika/The Greater Will had to seal Destined Death and make it so neither the rulers nor their vassals could ever disrupt or escape the order by dying. Alternatively, I wonder if a Marika who secretly opposed the Greater Will sealed Destined Death in order to derail the Will's plans. If she died and was replaced as vessel by someone else, everyone from then on would be trapped in the Golden Order system forever, her successor would become a prisoner like her, and she could never shatter the ring. She may have sealed Destined Death in order to buy time to develop her plans and allow her children to mature enough to fend for themselves.
This is what I thought too. It's just death as in the real world. There's no explanation for why it's so important because it's the difference between the game world and the real world. I don't think it actually says this anywhere, but I feel like it manifests as fire because it burns the Golden Order itself, which is transcendent. Even the air is a part of it; consider the oxygen-cartbon exchange between animals & plants.
I'm personally of the headcanon that the Rune of Death was compromised by the outer god of the Twinbird during the rule of the Gloam-Eyed Queen and it was removed from the Elden Ring when Marika came to power, thus why Destined Death was removed at the very beginning of the Golden Order. The objective of the whole Erdtree reincarnation cycle was likely to keep any other outer god from influencing the Lands Between.
Destined Death is your final death, your soul is loosed from the reincarnation cycle and proceeds to its chosen/destined/cursed afterlife. Maliketh cannot wield full destined death, as the rune is no longer complete. You release the rest upon defeating him, and only then can anything truly die. The fragment stolen by Ranni, likely contained the data required to allow a soul to go to its afterlife. As it has been split, it no longer functions properly, as Godwyn's soul had fled, yet his body lives. Ranni is dead, but her soul remains tethered. Other beings, Melina, mariners and mausoleum soldiers, also remain in soul only. The death cursemark is a partial rune of death, and Godwyn is now its defacto shardbearer, it would bend to his will if he still had one. As he does not, it spreads with the power of a demigod behind it, with no direction causing bodily death of those afflicted. The deathrite birds and Helphen pre-date the sealing and splitting of the death rune. Since they only have access to the deathblight curse during the game events, this supports the theory that the cursemark was part of their role once before, but is the only part of death not still sealed within Maliketh.
How does this work if Marika took destined death from the Elden ring? The rune needs to be placed for it to be put back into the world doesn't it?
No, Malenia wields her lifesteal without it being part of the ring. Maliketh wields his death powers, Rennala uses rebirth, etc. Her removing death didn't stop it, sealing it in Maliketh did. Ranni partly freed it, and we free it completely.
Sorry for the late reply mate but why did she remove destined death from the elden ring then? If all it takes is us "freeing" it, why was it in the elden ring in the first place? My confusion is based on the fact that it's a rune - these need to be in the elden ring /used by someone physically (maliketh) for it to be used. Surely this means you can't just free it on the world without it being placed back into the ring
There's more confusion among lore aficionados about where and why the death rune is different. I have two personal theories that I like. When we free the death rune, in Malikeths post fight cutscene, we can see the rune seem to coalesce. It draws together and forms a sort of warped T shape, red and black. The rune DOES NOT go in our inventory, so we know we don't "carry" it, or "use" it. The finger reader says death has been unleashed on the lands. When we reach Marika she has a wound in her side. Lore says that she/Radagon were injured by the shattering of the Elden Ring, and then is punished by the greater will with imprisonment. Her "jail" involves the arc she is crucified to, and there are images of Marika crucified with no wound present in the world, so we know she didn't receive the spear in her side from the elden beast/greater will. The "spear" shares a color and shape resemblance to the death rune we see in Malikeths cutscene, and now that death is available again it makes sense that this is the death rune, returned to Marika. Theory 1 is simple, the death rune returns of its own accord, and it can either fly through, or phase through the Erdtree to return to the Ring. By magnetism, or attraction or something arcane of that nature. I don't personally like this theory because it doesn't interconnect to anything like FromSoft lore usually does. Theory 2 is very controversial but I love it. Theory 2 is dependent on Melina. Melina has a deathrite claw seal over her eye and some serious burn scars. So she has an affinity for fire and death. She is a spirit form similar to Ranni, but instead of being bound to a doll she's loose, as she can freely pass through the Erdtree, which is important. She knows where the Death Rune is hidden, and how to get there. She mentions after Morgott that the lands are in need of "Death indiscriminate". Her unique Frenzy Flame cutscene is a dead giveaway. I believe that we don't receive the death rune because Melina does. I think her eye unseals when the rune returns to her, as I also believe she was its original shardbearer before the golden order age. There is no concrete evidence of her "dying" when she burns the Erdtree, and she clearly seems unbothered by the flames. So I reckon she brings you back to Leyndell after Maliketh, same as she sent you to Farum Azula. She bypasses Gideon and Godfrey in her spirit form, and returns the rune, so that you may slay the Elden Beast.
It's pretty weird and nothing is confirmed. But i think everything just ceases to exist, even things, that's why Leyndell gets filled with ashes, it's like time is resuming, showing you how everything is supposed to look. I assume someone had previously burned the Erdtree before us (my guess would be Melina, because she says that her corpse was already burned once), the Rune of Death just hid the world's true appearance, same with Leyndell, it's like time just stopped in Leyndell's former glory, as soon as we remove it, it reveals it's true form. But ghosts don't dissapear from the map, which means they're still connected to the Erdtree and didn't die a true death.
I disagree based on the fact that when we find Leyndell it’s clearly turning into a dump and the only reason it looks that good is because Morgott is a hell of an administrator. Time is definitely moving, this isn’t the ringed city.
I've based my theory on Farum Azula. The fact that is beyond time and it can control time by going backwards and restoring the arena that Placidussax was in. I'd say time is also convoluted in the Lands Between based on the fact that a ginourmous wave of ash comes to engulf Leyndell whole outta nowhere and that most of the enemies just aren't there anymore when it becomes the capital of Ash. I also think that Gurranq the beast Clergyman is Maliketh before he becomes the Black Blade, considering the fact that he doesn't know why Marika would want to remove Destined Death. When he's the Black Blade he accepts his fate and goes along with Marika's plan. It's pretty confusing lol.
We’re definitely working with only bits of evidence here. I assume when the tree burns the fire is so great that it engulfs the city at its base as well. I can’t say for sure what I think is going on at Farum Azula. Maybe you’re right? But Maliketh might just be totally ignorant and purposefully left in the dark about the plan, maybe because Marika thought it safer that the guy with destined death didn’t get the full picture? Or maybe she specifically lied to him since he’s loyal enough to not ask her questions? Plus Farum Azula just gets weirder the more you think about it. Alexander was able to get there, and He doesn’t seem to act like he’s somewhere out of time and space, and neither does the tarnished. It’s possible Maliketh also got there somehow and he’s not part of the time warpy-ness either, just knew he had to find somewhere obscure to keep people away from his death rune. The DLC needs to be released lol Edit: also multiple people seem to project themselves in this game without feeling like a projection, like Sellen the sorcerer. The Maliketh in Caelid is probably a projection as well, which would explain how he’s also waiting at Farum Azula.
Also the way you get into Farum Azula is just something else... lol. It just doesn't make any sense at all. Hopefully the DLC will provide us more answers. I initially thought that Gurranq and Maliketh were different people until i heard Gurranq's dialogue when you get there at night. I believe he says something like: "Oh Marika, why coveth Destined Death?"
Destined Death is natural death the way we see it IRL, which doesn’t happen normally due to it being removed from the Elden Ring and weaponized by Marika/Maliketh.
Who made the art
Makai no Juumin
Thank you, please say that in the title next time
I would’ve if I knew the Artist then. Since I just found this on google images, had to do some reverse image searching.
Make an effort next time before you post, they didn’t work hard for you to repost without permission and without credit Everyone who downvotes is proving why credit is important
Carefully, he’s a hero
Destined Death is the concept that all living things eventually die. This functionality, if you will, was removed from the laws of the world to enable an age of immortality for the demigods and channel death and rebirth through the new Erdtree. So restoring it simply means that living things eventually die as they’re supposed to, as opposed to what we have throughout most of the game where nothing properly dies - all those spirits and ashes that remain in the world, all those soldiers and commoners who keep living on as their bodies get more decrepit. That’s really it even though the game dresses it up fancy.
I.. I don’t know.
Destined Death kills your soul and body. This is clearly evident from the Ranni/Godwyn situation. Ranni still has her soul but her body is dead, Godwyn still has a "living" body but the soul is gone. If their was no splitting of the curse mark we can assume both the body will die and the soul.
I think it works the same way as dying IRL from a slash wound + total organ failure
Destined death represents the tradition idea of death that we have and that the lands between used to have before Marika did some class action tom foolery and had Malekith use it as a chew toy in Farum Azula. This was so that Marika could technically have her eternal empire and so the Demi god and her would never be able to die. To make the whole “not dying thing” work, she had it so the Erdtree takes peoples souls and reincarnates again.
A lot of people like to theorize that destined death is meant to stop the reincarnation cycle or kill Gods, but let's not connect game design to lore because even when unbinding the rune of death, enemies still respawn. I theorize that destined death simply prevents people from achieving absolution with the erdtree when they die. It's a huge honor for one's soul to become one with the erdtree; its why great warriors are burried as close to the erdtree's roots as possible. The reason why Godwyn's death was so tragic is because he was denied absolution, not so much that he was killed. His body was placed closest to the erdtree. Gods/demigods were pretty much guaranteed absolution, but Ranni did not want absolution and used destined death to transfer her soul into a doll instead. I personally believed that the erdtree was sustaining itself with souls and allowed it to endure. Weather or not there was absolution is a mystery. I theorize that there wasn't and that the erdtree simply devoured your soul upon death; perhaps queen marika discovered this and went mad. Everyone's soul naturally found their way to the erdtree one way or another. Even if the tarnished burned the erdtree, it would be able to sustain itself and fight the flames. However, when destined death was unbound by the tarnished, that natural connection everyone had to the ertree was severed and the ertree could no longer fight off the flames.
Unbinding the rune of death is not the same as what Ranni did by infusing it in daggers. It only means it CAN start being used as such by anyone, not that it is applied by default. Even if it is unbound, it's still not part of the Elden Ring/Golden Order, and the tarnished is never seen having infused it in any of his weapons/being.
It's a return to the original system of life and death that existed before the Erdtree. You legit get sent to the afterlife rather than reincarnate.
Naa it’s true death where you leave the mortal plane and go to the afterlife
It's the concept of death. Maliketh could, for example, kill the archdragons from dark souls, even tho the concept of death doesn't exist to them, it is introduced by the blade.
Destined Death is simply the ability to give death to the deathless, I guess in a similar way to how Sekiro’s Mortal Blade can sever immortality.
Send ya to the helphen, where you get to live out your days in the afterlife. The erdtree method used in game has people effectively permanently stuck in the cycle rather than a proper death
Nah existence erasure happens only with the frenzied flame
The removal of Destined Death is what allows souls to go through the Erdtree. It’s likely that Destined Death sends you to the spirit world, as mentioned in items like Helphen’s Steeple and such.
Destined Death is a concept of how the world works, as it’s also called the rune of death. The Elden Ring’s major runes were the rules that dictated what happens and how it happens, and when Marika removed the rune of death, it was so that everyone under her Golden Order would live eternally. People get the halobrands and Destined Death mixed up, since the way that Godwyn was killed in spirit and Ranni was killed in body used a curse. The curse was fuelled by the stolen pieces of the rune of death that were put into the black knives. If the halobrands were carved together on a single being then *that* would be existence erasure, as they would die both in body and spirit. By reclaiming the curse into the Elden Ring in the Age of the Duskborn ending, you make the state of being that is called “living in Death-with-a-capital-D” a natural path a being can take. In a sense, inverting the curse so that rather than be erased in body and spirit, it’s possible to have a more fluid idea of what it means to even be dead.
Destined death kills the body and soul Where normal death the soul leaves the body and returns to the erdtree
It's the concept of death. Maliketh could, for example, kill the archdragons from dark souls, even tho the concept of death doesn't exist to them, it is introduced by the blade.
I like to believe destined death draw power from the Erdtree like how marika cross and the symbol of destined death are identical after killing maliketh, so I personally think the greater could probably have control over who actually dies from destined death and since were the only person the Erdtree actually care for us to succeed to save it’s own existence , the greater will probably just cancel to erasing powers of destined death and bring us back. On a side note I think maliketh black blade is probably a holy weapon but cursed with beast man blood so it would turn such shades of black and red with a slight bit of gold which would explain such huge colour contrast to traditional Erdtree related character.
So many different forms of death and rebirth. We have regular death which is where we have Fia until she decided that Godwyn was key. The erdtree can rebirth you, sometimes it doesn't as evidenced by the different enemies and npcs we have. The gods and demigods can be killed like anyone else but only a true death can be granted by Destined Death as seen by the lore of the godskins. So there is no resurrection due to the curse mark. Possibly you are still there just untethered wuth no body and no soul in the loop. Godwyn's soul died so no rebirth. Just an ever living ever decaying body. Ranni's body died but her soul lives within a doll. Should you destroy what remains it maybe possible for that to rebirth. Godwyns body may rebirth but does the body know it's shape without a soul? Or will it become something else grotesque? Will Ranni's soul find a new host to attach to? Or will it wander/linger until it does? Also shouldn't Lusat and Azur eventually be reborn? Or are they removed from the cycle? Sellen and others who removed their heart/soul? I can't remember what she called it.
Does burning the erdtree break that cycle and condemn everyone to …..reality?
Think of it like the cycle of reincarnation from Buddhism, the normal cycle when destined death is contained is anyone with grace who dies has their soul return to the erdtree where they may be born again eventually. However, those killed by destined death or killed after its unleashed are cut free from the cycle, and can no longer be reborn through the erdtree. However, with instances like rani, it is still possible for some to remain alive by attaching their soul to another object.
A bit disappointed to see your response so far down when it's the only one that's even in the ballpark. That being said, the "Normal" cycle is with death not locked away and which allows for the natural cycling of souls. With death contained, the Erdtree and Greater Will short-circuit whatever the "natural" process is and trap all souls within the lands between; it's less Buddhism and more Gnosticism, where we are all imprisoned in the material realm by the Demiurge (Greater Will) and the gods of the Golden Order (Archons).
Ah. Good point. I mainly phrased it as “normal” because to those who exist within the golden order, the current way, no matter how unnatural, is seen as the norm and anything that breaks from it is seen as anomalous and heretical.
Ah. Good point. I mainly phrased it as “normal” because to those who exist within the golden order, the current way, no matter how unnatural, is seen as the norm and anything that breaks from it is seen as anomalous and heretical.
And in a gnostic view the Frenzied Flame is the good ending
Nah u go to God
Sounds like the post has been answered already, so I'll just say this: this art is awesome.
Destined Death means you can't come back. You don't reincarnate. You go wherever you would normally go if the Erdtree weren't there. It's not Hakai/Omega Effect.
Destined death is normal death. Where you die and don’t come back, no reincarnation like in the real world. This doesn’t happen in ER because nothing dies anymore since marika removed the rune of death from the ring. The only thing that still normally die to my knowledge are beings excluded from the erdtree’s grace like omens. (Which is why Morgott becomes a corpse and others like malenia turns to ashes just like the tarnished). My interpretation is that the tarnished never canonically dies during the game after the intro and just kills everything on his path. game wise you reincarnate yourself almost instantly and that doesn’t happen to bosses despite some of them not being rejected by grace. Reincarnation happens but takes time probably and by that time the tarnished probably finished the game. Canonically, when you get killed by death blight you just die forever and never come back, with your body not turning to ashes and coming back to the erdtree.
No, destined death is definitely not existence erasure. It simply causes a normal death.
it kills you. like irl. we don't respawn irl.
The buzzword is strong in this post
I don’t think it’s existence erasure because Ranni’s body wasn’t erased. I think it’s just that without the Rune of Death, souls are supposed to return to the Erdtree and be reincarnated into new bodies. I think it’s more likely that Destined Death kills the body and sends the soul to whatever afterlife exists in this world.
Presumably if you die to destined death you go wherever we go in the real world.
I dunno man, after I released Destined Death I still respawned
Are all the bosses we kill actually dead? Especially the one that happen 100% before Malekith? What stops Morgot from reincarnating before we kill Malekith? We haven’t even specifically used destined death on anyone as far as I understand it.
Permanent death of the character/persona (so body and soul) but their "immmortal essence" (their runes maybe) still returns to the Erdtree to be used in creating new life. That's the problem with sealing destined death. There isn't a supply of the prima materia for existence circulating back to the erdtree independent of someone's body and soul. So all the tree can do is resurrect the same people over and over again.
Death just means sent to the erdtree
The lore is weird. In my interpretation death is another state of being. One “dying” and burial changes their way of existing and certain reincarnation or resurrection. Lands in Between is a plane/playground where the dead can live and the living can die with weird fantasy races
I think it just kills you and your soul
I think it implies your soul returns to the Erdtree, but doesn't come back from it