The blade of calling refers to Melina
as the one who walks alongside flame. But what happens
if she sits alongside flame? What happens if you kill her? At the very beginning of the game,
with fire's deadly sin and the blood flame glitch. This is possible, but don't worry, she doesn't state it
and it doesn't ruin your game. But it does get us a really close look at
what is a very unique death animation. With her dying breath,
Melina casts one last incantation, and a golden tree
erupts and remains here for a while, healing you in an AOC from all of the burn
damage that you just took. Giving you back some health over time. Melina can also cast this unique incantation if you summon her
for the fight with more God. And while it's rare
she can cast this spell during the fight as well,
not just when she dies. Gameplay and law wise,
this is very similar to the spell Blessing of the Earth Tree,
which also heals you with the odd tree's
warmth and grace over time. And Melina,
who was born at the foot of the oak tree, certainly has a really good claim to this
powerful manifestation of its power. Even if she does feel compelled
eventually to burn it all away. In my last video about Mikayla,
we talked a lot about his unalloyed gold needles, which can be used to repel
the influence of outer gods. Of course,
you can give a needle to Millicent, who inserted into her body to fight off
the scarlet rot of the rot God. But you can also use the final version
of this needle to repel the influence of the outer God of frenzy
and remove the frenzy from your eyes. But what you might not have known
is that the original item descriptions for this needle originally said that
to repel the interference of the outer God, you should pierce this needle
into your eyes. I wonder if they changed this details
so they wouldn't have to create a specific animation for it. Can you imagine? Number three Did you know that
the winged design of the Mausoleum knights is clearly inspired by the armor of the winged hussars
who were the Polish cavalry? Between the years 1503 and 1702, user faithlessness
Lucky 55 said this side by side comparison of the two on Reddit
and I love seeing just how similar the armor design is because it's
such a grand excuse to talk about why Elden Ring and Poland as well
decided on such extravagant designs. So in Elden Ring,
the winged ornamentation of the mausoleum Knights
is intended to evoke the death bird. And so this feathered part of their armor
acts as and I quote, a self-inflicted curse
that ties their spirits to the land. And this is also that they might better
serve their masters in death. And as for the Polish cavalry,
the rear wings were intended to simply demoralize enemies
during their charge, as the Hussars
were the elite of Polish cavalry. And I assume they were not a force that
you would want to see charging your way. The Polish assembled these wings
from the feathers of raptors. Raptors are a bird of prey
who appear to exist in Elden Ring as well as these are the birds that provided their feathers for the Raven
Mount Assassins in Elden Ring, who also evoke the death bird
and actually have a chest piece called the Raptors Black Feathers,
which states that it is a ritual implement for transforming into a death bird,
if only by imitation. Number four is something I decided
not to mention in my video on Elden Ring's Cosmic Sorcerer's,
and it's that Ratigan shares a very compelling connection
with Real Carrier's Knights of the Cuckoo. Who are the characters that bear this
twinned cuckoo bird as the coat of arms. So a cuckoo is a bird
that lays eggs in foreign nests so that other birds can raise its children
instead. This, I discovered,
is something called brood parasitism, which is kind of messed up
when you think about it. Cuckoo birds even go so far
as to push eggs and other baby birds out of the foreign nest so that there's
less competition for their own offspring. And Ratigan kind of exhibits
this cuckoo behavior with Renova. He doesn't go so far
as to push other children out of the nest. But you could argue that he does use her
knowledge to birth three demigod children, only to eventually leave her
with a parting gift of a giant golden egg, which Rinella would then treasure,
seemingly at the neglect of all else. The egg is just such a curious symbol
for this reason, and you could take this theory
further and argue that Ratigan Marica might have helped
to establish the Knights of the Cuckoo. They were, after all, a part
of the Academy for a very long time, and the Knights of the Cuckoo
were established on behalf of the Academy. For one, the crest of the cuckoo
knights is the twinned cuckoo, which you could argue represents
the twinned body of Rattigan and Marica. Second, the cuckoo circles
item description even says that the cuckoo knows
the insignificance of physical bodies. Now, there is counter evidence
to this theory, and it's that the cuckoo seems to date back to Nook Stella,
as there is a legendary black bird of Knox Stella talisman that features
that signature twin cuckoo design. So you kind of have to decide,
Did Rattigan Marica simply co-opt this ancient cuckoo
icon for their own purposes? Or is the cuckoo just its own thing? And is coincidentally similar
to the whole situation with Rattigan and Renoir's Golden egg? Whatever the case, you have to admit
that it is a pretty compelling theory and it offers a very welcome
bit of characterization for Rattigan. This hero who only really appeared
during the war with Leonia. And I think you could argue
that it was almost rattigan's sole purpose to get close to Renata
and undo her from within. And another little topic
that I just keep talking about are the crucified folk
that are found all throughout limb grave. Many of these where the guilty hood item
which has a description that reveals that it's
the garb of those accused of lesser crimes indicated by the collar of sharpened
branches. But back in version 1.0 of the game,
the description read that it was the garb of spurned tarnished who were forced
into slavery in the lands between. It goes on to say that the tarnished
have been wandering into the lands between from beyond the sea of fog in dribs
and drabs since times of old. Most are killed on arrival, but the few
unlucky survivors are taken as slaves. I wonder why this was changed. The one point of description
seems so much better for number six. There are some interesting details
on the Odd Tree Sentinel as well. If you look close enough at them,
you'll notice that they're actually chained
to their horses. Use a Groom Grimm on Reddit pointed out
that if you look at their waist, you can see how an ornate chain wraps
from around the Sentinel down and then around the horse,
which I think helps to explain from a gameplay point of view anyway, why
they can't be dismounted like other large enemies can be on horseback,
like the Knights Cavalry. Beatrice Sentinels, on the other hand,
are unable to be separated
from each other for very good reason. So one aspect of Elden Ring
that isn't talked about
very much is the game's hardness stat. This dictates whether or not a weapon
will bounce off of an enemy when the weapon is wielded with one
hand fixed or life has a very helpful list explaining all of these tiers
if you want to learn more. But what I really want to talk about
is that did you know that this one enemy in the game that absolutely no weapon
can match in terms of hardness. All hail the crystal crab of real lucario
not even the coded sword. The cipher part or whips are a match
for the hardness of its shell. Another lesser
known mechanic is called Overkill, and it's something that you can use to massively boost the amount of runes
that you receive in-game. So this is actually been around
in the Souls Series for quite a while. But basically
if you first hit on An Enemy, does damage that exceeds its 150% of their maximum HP, then you will receive
20% more runes as a result. This is a nice perk
for strength builds, or maybe magic builds
that do a ton of damage in one hit. But in general,
I think this mechanic exists because it kind of helps the game scale
rewards to the strength of your character a little bit as you continue
to level up and get stronger. But with this overkill mechanic really comes in handy
is when you're engaging in rune farming. So 20% more runes is a lot
when it comes to something like farming. The Albion Oryx at Mogo Palace. So if you're currently not making
use of this, you should consider ways to make your character
just that little bit more powerful so that you can hit that threshold where
you deal more than 150% damage in one. Go to number nine. Everyone knows about the doctor's
medallion at this point and how having two halves of it allows for easier access
to the Altus Plateau. But did you know that's not all that
it does? If you have this in your inventory,
it also prevents the two guardian golems at the top
from attacking you for number ten. Have you ever wondered why certain enemies
drop ball bearings? Like what even is a bell bearing? Right? So it's a term that, as far as I can tell, doesn't
actually exist in the real world. When I first read it though,
I thought it said ball bearing, and I thought it was referring
to those little steel balls that go inside of an enclosure
to serve a purpose like rolling, to reduce friction
or to roll inside of a pen and apply ink. So if I had to guess, a bell bearing
might also be the little ball
that goes inside of a ball bell enclosure so that it might function
as the clapper part of a bell, which is the part that gives the bell
its ring. This would make sense as we do
give these bell bearings to the twin maiden husks who are finger maidens
that hold staffs that, if you look closely,
are actually full of such ball bells. But why do we do this? Why do we give these maidens
these bell bearings? Well, Bell's and the Elden Ring Universe are a tool that can be used to summon
or call to spirits. The best example of this is the spirit
calling bell that the player uses. But this mechanic exists
in other fromsoftware games as well. Like the bell ringing
woman in Bloodborne who also rings a bell for spirits to fight on her behalf. So when the twin maiden husks receive
an NPC bell bearing, we speculate that this enables us
to interact with their spirits and learn additional spells from them or receive
their items as if they were still alive. After all, many Bell bearings seem
to kind of hold the essence of perished and pieces they might have even been born
or held by these in pieces. As many bell bearings appear to have like
a fingerprint design upon them. So after really thinking about this
for this video, I realized that the word bell bearing
is quite an impressively loaded phrase
for these little items. It suggests that it's part of a bell. It suggests that it's been borne
by NNPC or held, and it tells us that it provides
a bearing, pointing one towards the spirit with a signature chime,
perhaps. So really, props to the translation
or the writing team for this one. I always find it beautiful when they use
this kind of wordplay to describe things. So number 11. Recently, Twitter user D D said this video and it seems like the statue
in the shaded castle watches you whenever you have your back turned only
to turn away when you get closer. It's extremely creepy until you figure out
what's actually going on here. So after going to investigate,
I realized that this was actually being caused by textures
or assets being loaded in, depending on how close
your character is to them. When getting close, it's
simply loading the assets that make it look like
the statue is looking towards you. That's not to say
this isn't creepy as hell. I remember
something similar, actually happened to me with the inanimate doll in the Hunter's
workshop in Bloodborne. I entered the room
and I swear the doll's face moved and looked towards me
and it's the absolute hell out of me. But now I finally understand
why that might have happened. One thing I've always wondered
about is the sequence of events that leads to you ending up in the stranded graveyard
at the beginning of the game. Remember when you were defeated
by the Grafton sign and you heard this? It's as if you're dragged, then thrown through the air,
only to be submerged underwater. Then you hear nothing until you
finally awaken in the stranded graveyard. Now what I always assumed
that these sounds meant were that the grafted scion drags
you after, defeats you, then throws
you off the cliff into the ocean below. Then eventually, I thought that your body
might wash up towards this beach here at a sort of high tide, as this beach does have a cave that leads straight
into the stranded graveyard. And I figured that it was here
that Melena eventually finds your body. But another theory was recently
proposed by Shields GUFF in a YouTube short
that reveals that the stranded graveyard is actually right
below this crevasse in limb grave. Now, falling into this crevasse
usually kills you, but if you fly the camera down there,
you do arrive pretty much directly where your character awakens
in the stranded graveyard. So as the theory goes, our character, or at least the coffins that are placed
nearby, these might have been holed down here in years past into that crevasse. There is also a bunch of crucified bodies
near the hole, which does kind of lend credence to the idea that this was a place
that was used to dispose of tarnished or criminals. The counter argument here, however,
is that there isn't actually a hole in the roof of the stranded graveyard
that aligns with this crevasse. I mean, there is a tiny hole,
but I feel like that's not very convincing unless you argue that there was like
a landslide and it covered it up. There are a few caves like this
in Elden ring with clear holes in the ceiling that don't line up
with the outer geography. And I feel like that is a huge missed
opportunity by fromsoftware. I think it would be really cool
if you could fall into a hole and then end up in the middle of a dungeon
and have to find your way out. So there's a free idea for number 13 for a long time amongst the high level
PvP community. People were noticing instances
where they would block an attack and perfectly poised through it as well
without taking any knockback. Now in PvP and PvP,
this sort of technique, this sort of perfect blocking technique
could be extremely useful because it enables the player
to take no damage and not take any movement penalty either. And just poised through an attack in order
to deliver a punish or even a backstab. The only problem was that
it wasn't known how to replicate this seemingly random event,
or at least it wasn't until now, thanks to a discovery by Discord user CMG and thanks to videos showcasing it
by a still of Sky and G9, we now know that to replicate this quote
unquote irregular poison event. What you have to do is be sprinting
and then take your finger off the sprint button
and put it onto the block button in the exact frame
where you would usually take damage. This performs a perfect block with poise, and it allows you
to deliver a punishing blow. I've always craved
some sort of secular style parry system in Elden Ring, so I was really excited
to learn about this. It's difficult to perform for sure,
but it really does heighten the skill ceiling of the game
and that's usually a good thing. It must be hard being a game developer and
learning about things like this though. Do you remove the unintended effect
or do you embrace when your game has the random emergence of complexities
like these? I tend to prefer the latter. I still really wish that Elden Ring
had some sort of chain casting mechanic that was actually baked into the game
instead of being a bug. And speaking of the developers,
I think we should give the animators in particular some credit. Like, yes, when the game first came out,
a lot of people criticize them for reusing a lot of the animations
that existed in previous games. But let's be honest,
that's not really being lazy. That's just being more efficient
because these animators are not lazy. They clearly put a ton of effort into
animating so many other things instead. For example, have you considered that
almost every single anime has a specific animation
for falling and remaining asleep? I know this isn't really a secret,
but I feel like it still bears mentioning. Every animal so many enemies
and so many bosses, all of them have sleep effects designed
specifically for them, even if it's extremely unlikely that any
player would ever inflict sleep upon them. And I bring this up as well,
because in the recent Mikkeller lore video, we talked about how they used
to be a mechanic where enemies could be found sleeping out in the world
and it was required for a questline
to harvest that dream mist. There's a big part of me that wishes that
this mechanic or this questline would be patched into the game,
maybe for ST Arena DLC, or at least it would be cool
to see animals or enemies just randomly falling
asleep out in the world so that all of these animations
could be put to use. Speaking of sleep, have you ever looked up
during your fight with Renata to see where the scholars are respawning
from? Turns out they're all falling out of these
hanging crypts. We've talked before in another Secrets
video about how these beings
are being rebirthed through renown. This great rune of the unborn
and the scholars themselves have dialog that talk about how they're being reborn
within Vinales Umbra or the shadow of her moon, so to speak. But before I go, I'd like to quickly
talk about displaced, who have just introduced
a set of official Elden Ring designs. So having a nice set up
space is really important to me, and hanging a set of displays on your wall can really help
to add personality to a room. Display It's a printed on metal and the color and texture
they achieve is really impressive. And these official Elden ring designs
just look fantastic. Honestly, I love the shot of Godfrey
and Vick in particular. If you recall,
these artworks were first shown off back when Elden Ring was first announced,
and they always give me this real nostalgia kick
for that time whenever I say them. But there are way more official designs
over on their website, so please, if you're interested,
use the link in the description to purchase
these as that really does help me out. And please let me know which ones
you pick up. Anyway, thank you very much for watching.
