Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Lore

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article contains spoilers for Elden Ring - Shadow of the Erdtree.

In Elden Ring, players arrive at The Lands Between as soon as they start the game. Our character, a Tarnished, is brought back to this place after the breaking of the Elden Ring, to gather the fragments and become the new Elden Lord, to restore order to the world.

With the rupture, the demigods, children of Marika and Radagon, went to war for power in the absence of their parents.

One of the claimants to the throne was Miquella, the most feared of the Empyreans, son of Marika and twin brother to Malenia, who swore to serve and protect her brother. Miquella was looking for a different path to become Lord of The Lands Between and create a kingdom where everyone could be accepted and have a place in the world, entering a kind of cocoon, where he would be able to grow and become the god he longed to be, since he was cursed with eternal youth, but ended up being kidnapped by his brother Mohg, who wished to become his consort.

Apparently, Mohg's plan failed, and we found Miquella's cocoon in Mohgwyn Palace, where we also found Leda after defeating Mohg and unlocking the contents of Shadow of the Erdtree.

Miquella, the Kind

Leda reveals to us that Miquella seeks to ascend to divinity in his own way and to do so he went to the Shadow Realm and must abandon parts of himself to achieve his goal, which is why the body inside the cocoon is motionless, since Miquella is no longer there.

Leda received Miquella's call to go to the Shadow Realm and help him on his journey, as well as others we meet when we get there. Sir Ansbach, Mohg's servant, tells us that, actually, it was Miquella who manipulated and used his master to reach the Shadow Realm and use Mohg's body as a receptacle for the one who would be his true consort.

Just like the others, we were also called to the Shadow Realm to serve Miquella in his ascension, and along our journey we find the pieces which the demigod discarded to disconnect from his lineage and become a pure spirit.

Miquella gets rid of his body, his love and even his grace, which was what made him a god, a grace that we later find with the avatar of Scadutree, the shadow of Erdtree. Everything he did was to be able to reach the Tower of Shadow and there ascend to true divinity, bringing about the Age of Compassion to the Lands Between. On our way following the steps of the demigod we find these abandoned pieces, and his love takes shape and became Saint Trina, Miquella's incarnate love, who asks us to free him and prevent his ascension because just like Marika, Miquella would end imprisoned in his own divinity. However, to get to Tower of Shadow you need to burn the tree that seals the place.

Shadow Realm, the place where the DLC takes place, is a land hidden in the shadows of the divine tree, the Erdtree, a place ravaged by a war which took many lives, as we can see as soon as we arrive.

This is Elden Ring’s realm of the dead, home to the people called Hornsent, beings with horns, just like the brothers Morgott and Mohg, who would later be called Omen. The Hornsent were a society linked to the Primordial Crucible, a force as old as the world tree itself. This invisible entity doesn't even actually appear in the game, but it’s an essential element in the story. For some reason, the Hornsent waged war on Messmer, another son of Marika, sent to the Shadow Realm to destroy the Hornsent.

Marika’s Origins

In addition to the Hornsent, the Shadow Realm is also home to the Shaman, a people whose bodies’s properties caught the attention of the Hornsent, who used them in their ascension rituals, with which they sought to create a perfect deity. The Shaman's special flesh was the reason for their total extinction at the hands of the Hornsent and Marika belonged to these people before becoming a goddess.

It is here that we understand Marika's motivations and can deduce that she is likely the result of one of those rituals, the one that succeeded and created the perfect being that would become the god of the Lands Between. That's why Marika abhorred the Omen, descendants of the Hornsent, that's why she banished her sons Mohg and Morgott underground and that's why she sent Messmer to the Shadow Realm, to avenge her people and eliminate those who caused them so much suffering.

It was in the Shadow Realm, in the Tower of Shadow, that Marika ascended to divinity and there became the bearer of the Elden Ring. We can also deduce that, because she was a Shaman, Marika's body was different and that was how Radagon appeared, with him and Marika being two parts of a single body.

Messmer, the Impaler

Messmer was born with a primordial serpent within himself, and as he grew, the serpent grew stronger. For fear that this being would take control of her son and destroy everything, Marika sent Messmer to the Shadow Realm to wage war against the Hornsent, but left him trapped there on purpose, so the serpent would remain away from the Lands Between.

Messmer remained there, still faithful and obedient to his mother, waiting for one day to be freed by her, but that day never came, and we found Messmer in his fortress, where the battle against the boss is fought and is at that moment, about to be defeated by the Tarnished, that the demigod lets the primordial serpent out and assumes that part of himself that he tried to hide for so long.

However, the demigod was not alone, as he had companions in his army who were like family to him. Rellana, Rennala's twin sister, from the house of Caria. Both Rennala and Rellana had a claim to the Carian throne, but Rellana rejected her lineage to follow Messmer, for whom she nurtured strong feelings towards,which is implied in her swords, one imbued with lunar magic and the other with Messmer's fire.

In the description of her swords, we can read that only there were fire and moon together, implying that Rellana's love was not reciprocated by Messmer and that he saw her only as a war companion.

Among Messmer's followers, we find Gaius, commander of the demigod's armies and after fighting him we discover that Gaius and Messmer had a strong relationship with Radhan, with Gaius using gravitational magic, just like the General.

Messmer is one of the central characters in the DLC, even appearing in various promotional materials and in the trailer. His importance in the story continues after his death, as his flames are used to burn the roots of the divine tree which seals the passage to Shadow Tower, where Miquella is.

The Mother of Fingers

The Two Fingers are entities who select candidates to inherit the Elden Ring and are sent by the Greater Will, the primordial force that gave origin to everything, including the Elden Ring and the Elden Beast.

The mother of the Two Fingers is Metyr, Mother of Fingers, who is also an avatar of the Greater Will and fell to the Lands Between a long time ago, as did the Elden Beast and the Elden Ring. However, Metyr lost contact with the Greater Will and remained hidden in the depths of the Shadow Realm, waiting for the primordial force to call upon her again.

Its last order was to create her offspring, so that candidates for bearers of the Elden Ring could be chosen, but everything points to Metyr being behind all the events that we followed in the main game.

By creating the Two Fingers, Metyr used them to pass on her will, which she believed to be the word of the Greater Will. However, Greater Will had abandoned Metyr. The Greater Will was never giving orders to the Fingers and Marika probably knew that and, after the events of the Night of the Black Knives, which led to Godwyn's death, she attempted to destroy the Elden Ring, disgusted by the machinations of the fingers, who had lied from the beginning.

We meet Ymir, Rennala and Rellana's teacher, in the Shadow Realm and discover that he abandoned the teachings of the Moon and came to believe that he should become the new Mother of the Fingers, replacing Metyr, but he is destroyed with Metyr.

The Scarlet Rot

Among the victims of Messmer's crusade through the Shadow Realm we have Romina, Saint of the Bud, who had her church burned. In the wreckage of this church, it is said that she found an unknown element, which she used to create the Scarlet Rot.

The Scarlet Rot is a plague that afflicts the Lands Between and that has its origins in the God of Rot. It’s said that Malenia's master was the one who fought against and sealed this God so that it would not spread its evil throughout the world and Malenia was born afflicted by this evil, it being the cause of her limbs falling off and her self-imposed exile.

Apparently, Romina gave rise to the rot and the fact that she is considered a saint by the Hornsent raises interesting questions that still need to be answered. What if Romina is actually the God of Rot? In the base game, it’s said that Malenia's master sealed the God in the Lake of Rot, in the underground of Liurnia of the Lakes, and there we find the Scorpion's Stinger, whose description tells us that this dagger was made from the stinger of a large scorpion and a lost relic of an ancient god. Romina is a Scorpio, and she is responsible for creating the Scarlet Rot.

The Winged Dread

Another boss that we face in the DLC, but who doesn't necessarily play a fundamental role in the main story like Romina's case, is Bayle, the Dread, one of the most difficult bosses in the game and who delivers an incredible battle.

Bayle was a black dragon who rebelled against Placidusax and the ancient dragons, facing the dragon lord in a battle that left them both injured. Bayle fled to the Shadow Realm and hid there, having lost his wings and one of his legs.

At the end of the DLC, after burning the roots that seal the Tower of Shadow, the tower reveals its true form, Enir-Ilim, the tower that leads to the Divine Gate and Miquella's destiny. The tower is filled with Hornsent and the shapes of the architecture is very reminiscent of the spiral pillars that we found in the city of horns, Belurat, with the structure itself having a spiral shape, making it possible that, perhaps, the tower of Enir-Ilim is a physical representation of the Primoridal Crucible itself, being the path that leads to divinity.

When we arrive at the top of Enir-Ilim, at the Divine Gate, we encounter the final boss, Promised Consort Radhan. Radhan is brought back by Miquella, and together they will be the new gods of the Lands Between. Here it is revealed that Miquella made a vow with Radhan, to have him as his consort to become the new god, but it appears that this vow was not mutual and that is why Miquella sent Malenia to face Radhan and defeat him, causing the demigod to end up in the Shadow Realm, and there he could be persuaded by Miquella to consummate the union between brothers.

During the battle, we can notice that Radhan is cured of the scarlet rot and that his arms and armor have horns, indicating that Mohg was used in some way in his resurrection and that the ominous brother was fundamental in Miquella's plans, who wanted to get where he was. Everything was designed by Miquella from the beginning.

And here we come to the end of the DLC’s story. There are still many points that can be explored in the future, but which leave many things open. Like Malenia, for example, who is she anyway? Or about the Three Fingers and other entities like God of Rot.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree takes us back to the world of Lands Between in an exquisite way, taking all the feelings that the base game gave us and intensifying them with even more striking characters and answers to several questions, although leaving others open.

And here I finish another article. Leave your suggestions, criticisms and/or compliments in the comments. Thanks for reading, and see you next time.