Chapter 843: A World of Grand Synthesis

If you're a veteran Souls-like player, you'll likely experience a strong sense of déjà vu when playing Elden Ring.

In ancient times, the world was ruled by the Everlasting Dragons, until fire was born, giving rise to light and darkness, life and death. Eventually, a group of people gained the power of the First Flame. The most powerful among them, Gwyn, founded the Age of First Fire, while White Dragons and Witches pioneered their respective magic and pyromancy systems.

In terms of background, this seems very similar to Elden Ring. The main storyline also appears to follow suit, with the Tarnished becoming the Elden Lord, either continuing the Elden Age of the Golden Order, ushering in a new era for the entire world, or bringing about its utter collapse.

However, as players delve deeper into Elden Ring and gradually understand the world-building behind it, they discover the differences.

The world is simply too vast, and not just in terms of game content.

From its world-building to its story, Elden Ring can be said to be a grand synthesis of Souls-like games.

Not only Dark Souls, but also Bloodborne and other titles can find similar background settings within the game.

In the distant Primordial Era, the Lands Between had no Erdtree, and there was no life and death, yin and yang in the world, until the appearance of the Crucible of Life and Destined Death. Then, pure life and death came into being.

They were independent yet interdependent. The Crucible needed death for the life it produced to return to the Crucible, just like the Lifestream in Final Fantasy, where beings return to the planet after death.

And Destined Death also needed the Crucible, which symbolized life, to produce believers.

The Gloam-Eyed Queen, as the first master of Destined Death, commanded the Godskin Apostles to hunt down believers of various deities, who were lives emerging from the Crucible.

Thus, lives emerging from the Crucible of Life gradually transformed into Ancient Dragons, Giants, Humans, and Beasts. Life flourished and multiplied, forming alliances and waging war, and in the Lands Between, met their predestined death.

This included the Giants who drove away Ice Dragons from the distant snowy mountains and forged the Fire Giant's Forge, as well as Dragonlord Placidusax, seated in Farum Azula, the Dragon Capital in the time-space anomaly.

This was the earliest era of life, but not the era when civilization was born.

Unlike humanity symbolizing civilization, in the Lands Between, so-called civilization was merely a concept.

The Lands Between needed stable rule, but in a world with deities, theocracy and rule could never be separated. Faith drove the need for a common ruler.

In the Lands Between, there was a peculiar rule: all rule had to be a combination of 'god + king'.

From the Ancient Dragonlord and deities, to Godfrey, the First Elden Lord of the Erdtree Dynasty, after he left, Radagon abandoned his wife and daughters to inherit the throne, to Mogh, Lord of Blood, who attempted to establish a new dynasty by kidnapping Miquella from the Haligtree, and finally, Ranni of the Full Moon and the Tarnished in the Age of Stars.

No matter how eras and protagonists changed, this combination remained constant.

Therefore, to have a king that complied with the rules of the Lands Between, the Dragonkin, possessing the power of storms and lightning, were chosen. The Fingers in the game are the embodiment of civilization, or rather, the deities behind it.

Throughout history, fire has been considered the origin of civilization's birth, as seen in the ancient Eastern Sui Ren's fire-making and Western Prometheus's theft of fire.

Yet, the Fingers are an origin of civilization no less significant than fire. It is precisely because of primates with Fingers that they gained the ability to create various tools, to throw stones, to hurl pointed wooden spears. Even if their own strength couldn't match that of tigers and leopards, as long as skill points were allocated to intelligence, primates with Fingers could torment these powerful tigers and leopards to death.

Thus, under the guidance of the Five Fingers, the embodiment of civilization, the Dragonkin temporarily became the supreme power of the Lands Between, and civilization emerged.

Discipline and self-control — these were the symbols of Dragonkin civilization. Godfrey, suppressing his wildness and burdened by Serosh, the Beast Regent, and Gurranq, shackled in the Beastial Sanctum, both served as embodiments of civilization. They upheld discipline and self-control, locking their 'wildness' within their bodies.

This is why, in the game, when the Tarnished faces Godfrey, in his second phase, he kills the tiger-lion behind him, which the Tarnished initially thought was a pet. That beast was the entity that suppressed his wildness, and he no longer wished to endure the red tape and formalities representing the self-control and decorum of civilization. So, he chose to abandon his identity as Godfrey and return to being the barbarian warrior, Hoarah Loux, a symbol of savagery.

And in the end, they did succeed in bestowing civilization upon life. The Age of Dragons became the first civilization, but it was nothing more than a dream-like illusion.

Because foreign civilizations arrived on the land of the Lands Between.

The first foreign civilization was a race called the Nox. Compared to the natives of the Lands Between, who established the Dragonkin civilization under the guidance of the Fingers, the Nox already possessed their own mature civilization. Worshipping the stars, the Nox quickly established a civilization different from the Dragonkin's, known as the Eternal City.

However, while the Nox established their own civilization, this race disliked conflict and was obsessed with research. They only wanted to return to their homeland: the starry sky.

But unlike the peace-loving Nox people, a golden meteor simultaneously fell upon the Lands Between, carrying with it the Erdtree and the Elden Beast.

If the Nox were like otaku who simply wanted to go home and were content to live quietly, then the Erdtree was the King of Troublemakers. They believed in singularity, and that singularity was themselves.

To purge all other laws in the world and retain only their own as the sole law – this was the Erdtree.

Thus, upon their descent into the Lands Between, the first to fall victim was the Crucible of Life.

When the golden meteor fell upon the Lands Between, the Erdtree's seeds landed in the Crucible of Life. However, instead of being forged by the Crucible into life of the Lands Between, the seeds took root and sprouted within it. They even devoured the authority of the Crucible of Life, giving birth to the First Erdtree using the Crucible as its base.

The Erdtree, having merged with the Crucible of Life, also inherited its characteristics, but in a more radical way.

The Golden Order's law preached singularity, advocating that there should be no true death in the world; both body and soul should return to the tree to be reborn.

This, naturally, conflicted with the Gloam-Eyed Queen, who controlled Destined Death. But at this time, the Erdtree was still quietly developing during its dormant period, preparing to emerge with its full power and pacify the world.

But just then, a meteor disrupted all the schemers' plans in the Lands Between.

And the culprit was the peace-loving Nox people. External matters such as the Gloam-Eyed Queen, the Erdtree and the Crucible of Life, and the collapsing Dragonkin civilization — none of these had anything to do with the Nox, as they had no ambition.

However, their other addiction to research stirred up a massive mess.

(End of Chapter) <>