Londor, they call it the Hollow Realm and it has links to a primordial serpent, to New Londo, to Velka, the Goddess of Sin, and to the most intriguing, hard to get ending of Dark Souls 3. It's a hugely significant location from a lore point of view, and I'm confident that this is where the DLC will be based. "Make Londor whole..." Let me paint a picture of Londor for you. Londor is a society of undead, comprised
of corpses and shades who have led unsavory lives. As such, these hollows are deeply detested, and
hated, which is nothing new for hollow-kind, really. It's even been recorded that sometimes a
hollow will use a purging stone to remove the physical effects of the
undead curse, temporarily reversing their hollowing. And occasionally a hollow will
even fool himself into thinking he's no longer cursed, and will turn on his own
kind. Which reminds me of what Hodrik says down here. "This pit is for hollows, not for the
likes of you sane folk. Or perhaps you are a hollow posing as otherwise?" And I tell you these things because even
though the hollows of Londor are hated, even though they sometimes fight amongst themselves, they still remain a truly unique example of hollows forming
a society, and that is interesting because undead are a powerful force if
they have a purpose. We see that in the Undead Legion who
fought the abyss, and we see that in every protagonist from a Dark Souls game really. So it begs the question, what are
the undying hollows of Londor fighting for? And what are they bound by? "The Age of Fire was founded by the old gods, sustained by the linking of the fire. But the gods are no more, and the all-powerful fire deserveth a new heir. Our Lord of Hollows it shall be, who weareth the true face of mankind." This is Yuria, seeker of the Lord of
Hollows, and one of the three maidens who founded The Sable Church of Londor.
The Sable Church translates to "The Black Church", and it's towers are said to
resemble the eight jagged branches of the Morian Blade. The
church is said to offer salvation to hollows, which must be a pretty
attractive tagline for cursed individuals. I'd wager that if I was cursed with
undeath, then I'd be pretty open to a little bit of faith to keep me from
hollowing. So it's very clearly implied that the Sable Church is what keeps the
hollows of Londor grounded. This faith is not an oath taken lightly however, because those who fuck up are
exiled and they're given the words to the Atonement miracle. Hollows who recite
this miracle think that they're reciting words of forgiveness, but in reality the
Atonement miracle makes you attract more attention from foes and increases enemy agro range. That's a
pretty evil punishment! Not only are you exiled, you're exiled and you
have death following you everywhere. The three maidens who founded the Sable
Church, they cut an imposing figure. All three are highly skilled fences. So
skilled in fact, that they were able to found the Sable Church between just the
three of them. The third eldest daughter is named
Lillian, a woman who seems to have contributed a lot of the theology behind
the church. She was the first to speak the words of
the Londor Braille Divine Tome, and is also set to recount tales that portray
the suffering and conflict of hollows. Lillian is not featured in game, not yet anyway. The second eldest is Yuria,
and if Lillian was the speaker than Yuria would be the swordswoman, as she is said
to have claimed a hundred lives with her weapon Dark Drift, this legendary cursed
sword with an unseen blade that penetrates straight through shields. Nothing can defend from Dark Drift. And
the eldest? The firstborn daughter? She's not been named, but we know that she
exists because these three daughters founded the church, and the only others
in this equation that go without names.. Well, they're the mother and the father
of the three daughters and surely these parents are important right? Because why else would there be
three founders that are referenced as "daughters", with mentions to their order
of birth? So the only reason I can think of that
they would do this is that the parents are important, and I think I know who the
mother might be, but that speculation will wait till the end of the video. At
any rate these three daughters are described as maidens of a primordial
serpent, and when we murder Yuria we figure out who this serpent is. "Kaathe, I have failed thee..." "Greetings undead warrior. I am the primordial serpent, Darkstalker
Kaathe. I can guide thee, and illuminate the
truth. Your ancestor claimed the Dark Soul and
waited for fire to subside, and soon the flames did fade, and only dark remained.
Thus began the age of men. The age of dark. However, Lord Gwyn
trembled at the dark, clinging to his age of fire and in dire fear of humans, and
the Dark Lord who would one day be born amongst them, Lord Gwyn resisted the course of nature by sacrificing himself to link the fire
and commanding his children to shepherd the humans. Gwyn has blurred your past to
prevent the birth of the dark lord. I am the primordial serpent. I see to right the wrongs of the past. To
discover our true law." The primordial serpent of Dark Souls one,
who corrupted the four kings, who polluted the kingdom of Oolacile with the
abyss, is back. And now through Yuria, through the Sable Church of Londor, the pilgrims, Yoel, Kaathe continues to seek a
ruler of men. "They failed me. Every last one of them. They were strong, but saw not the truth. I am certain that you will prove different." Kaathe and the Sable Church are watching events in Lothric very closely, because the world is on the precipice of the linking of the fire. And
the Sable Church are determined to influence that event. Hundreds of Londor Pilgrims are sent
towards the highest towers of Lothric Castle. So many of them have died on the
way here, and they're presumably coming here because the Lothric bloodline is
obsessed with creating a worthy heir to link the fire, and that's the event that
Londor want to influence. However, they're kind of out of luck,
because Lothric refused to link the fire and you, the unkindled who the linking of the
fire passed down to buy some twist of fate met with Yoel, a pilgrim who had all but given up "Ah, you have attained ample strength. All will soon be clear, my good lord." "Thanks to thee, Yoel's soul is redeemed. Allow me to express my gratitude in his
stead." When we meet with Yuria, she frequently mentions she's keeping an eye on all those who could potentially be a Lord of Hollows. Orbeck
is one; Anri another, but she believes that you are the true Lord of Hollows
and compels you to strike down Orbeck before he becomes a threat, and to claim Anri's Dark Sigils in this ritual,
within the Darkmoon Tomb. If you betray Yuria, you don't do her quest in time, or you straight up attack her then the Pale Shade of Londor will
hunt you down. But if you're allied with Yuria, then
the Pale Shade will assist you throughout the world. Another thing to note is that many
characters associated with Londor use bleed weapons, like Dark Drift, or the
Morian Blade, or the Mannequin Claws, and blood loss is also a proven way to slow
the reanimation of the undying. So that would be a pretty popular weapon in a
land full of hollows. It's amazing, the level of depth in this
game when you look into it. So let's talk about the undying. About
the undead curse, the Dark Sigils, and the Dark Sign. I've noticed a trend. When characters
talk about the Dark Sign, they often call it a shackle. Something weighing men down.
"With dark unshackled, a curse will be upon us." "- and cast off the shackles
placed upon your brethren." "- one who might shatter the shackles of fate." "Shackled by falsehoods, they yearn for love, unaware of it's grand illusion." The undead curse is often referenced as appearing after
Gwyn linked the fire, so we assume that Gwyn is at fault somehow. It's the gods who shackled us. And while
we don't quite know how it started we do know what happens to undead cursed with the Dark Sign. "For when the undead dies it is never truly dead, but only one step
closer to hollowing. Not all undead are hollows, but all hollows were once undead." You might be wondering, "What are Dark
Sigils?". Well I'm assuming that they're synonymous with the Dark Sign. And the
description of the Dark Sigils says that they're a problem because our humanity
literally leaks out of them, and the gap that that creates is filled with the
accumulation of the undead curse. So our character is always in the
process of losing his Dark Soul, becoming more like the hollows that all humanoid
beings appear to have stemmed from. And for ages undead have been shepherded towards the first flame to fuel it, to link it, to sit at it, and reset the world, and keep the
gods in their age of fire. But the world was never meant to be stuck in this age
of fire. It was supposed to go; the age of
ancients, the age of fire, and then the age of man. Natural progression. But this age, this
age of fire, it struggles to die. Much in the same way that the undead
struggle to die. I mean you even see the Dark Sign in the sky towards the end of the game. That's pretty symbolic. "It is all a curse.
And it is your cursed flesh that will inherit the flame." Undead are
literally burned as fuel for the bonfires that perpetuate this age. And I
had a realization, I finally understand that this is what we see in the opening
cutscene. We see the Soul of Cinder burning and undead to ash. assumedly to be buried in the Untended Graves. Which, remember, are not far at all from the kiln. And then we arise from
this undead ash as unkindled. Not just undead, unkindled. In Miyazaki's words, unkindled are undead who failed to link the fire, and were burnt to ash. They exist to inherit the past, and put
an end to this cumulative tale. So, the unkindled is special. We're not
just cinder, we're not just the corpse of an undead,
we're both. We're something new. A new species for lack of a better word that,
has a choice. The undead curse no longer has the power
over us that it once had. We can choose to fuel the bonfires and
burn like charcoal, or we can choose to embrace the undead curse itself. Let's go back to Dark Souls 2, where it
actually foreshadows a lot of this happening. Vendrick, a past Lord
of Light, and a lord of mankind who lost himself to the curse-.. I think he knew
that this was the way it would end, or at least he thought it would. "With fire they say a true king can harness the curse. A lie, but I knew no better. Inherit fire and harness the dark. Such is the calling of a true leader." We
are the unkindled who inherited fire. We are the cursed undead who harnesses the dark. We gain levels through the power of the Dark Sigil, and we even kill other powerful hollows and claim their
Sigils for our own, so that we can be strong enough to claim the first flame
for mankind, and that is a new ending. "Our lord and leige, thine heart is fixed upon
the linking of the fire. But brave usurper, I prithee, when the moment cometh to link
the fire, wrest it from its mantle, so that we hollows, in most honest shape of man,
may have it for our own." You want to know what confused me most in Dark Souls 2? I probably avoided talking about it
because it didn't make sense, and I couldn't make an episode on something
that didn't really make much sense, so the Prepare to Cry Episode 4 - Nashandra is missing because I could not figure out her motives at the time, but now I think I get it. So,
she was the fragment of the abyss that usurped the Age of Fire from her Lord
of Light, Vendrick. And after this Drangleic faded into dark, so you think "Great, she won, she got exactly what she wanted right? The world has plummeted into dark, so surely she'd want to keep it that way, right?" Wrong, because she calls us her Undead. She guides us, she tells us where to find Vendrick, she tells us where to find the giants, she guides this bearer of the
curse all the way to the First Flame, and we kill her. That doesn't seem very smart but she
says, And now I think I understand, I think Nashandra needs an Undead. I think she
needed to wed Vendrick to claim the First Flame, but he ran away to the crypt
where she couldn't follow him, so she needed a replacement, the Bearer
of the Curse. I think that's why she led us here. "If you proceed, Nashandra will come after you, knowing that you will take the throne and link the Fire. She covets the First Flame, and the
Great Soul." In a similar manner, I think we wed Anri in this bizarre murder ritual and can subsequently claim the first flame
like a Nashandra wanted to. I always found it strange that a being
of Dark would want to claim the First Flame. I had just thought they would want to stop
people linking it, and let it die but in Dark Souls 3 we learned that you can usurp it, and we learned that those of Londor are making a real push for that to
happen. So Dark Souls 2 aside, in the Lord of Hollows ending of Dark Souls 3 we
stifle the First Flame within our bodies and collapse. When we rise, reborn, you see this beautiful little
detail you see the Sun in the background is no
longer red like the Dark Sign. It's ringed with white, and there's this illusion
where we lift this new Sun into the sky signaling and symbolizing a new age for
mankind This video is crazy long, but the best is
yet to come There's two things i'm very excited
about seeing in the next DLC, and I do think it's really likely that we'll get
Londor DLC. So one is that there's this boss in Dark
Souls one that was called Undead King Jar-Eel, and he was cut from the New
Londo experience of Dark Souls one and I have a lot of fond memories of
discovering Jar-Eel from another Dark Souls Youtuber, Hellkite Drake. He's really good
at digging in the game's files so since New Londo mirrors Londor, which
I guess is New New Londo I'm pretty hyped to maybe fight Jar-Eel in the DLC, who knows. But the biggest curiosity, and you see a clue in the thumbnail, is Velka the Goddess of Sin. Because i personally think it's undeniable that Velka is
heavily involved in Londor, and Velka the Goddess of Sin is one of the
most influential and curiously, the most absent characters of the Souls series. So Velka the Goddess of Sin is a rogue deity, but she is versed in arts both new
and old, and is considered to have a great range of influence even as gods
are concerned. So let me convince you of her
involvement in Londor. So her followers wear uniform black, just like
the three founders of the Sable Church and one of them in Dark Souls 1 was
called Oswald, who was an inhuman swordsman. A fencer to be exact, just like the three daughters who
founded Sable Church. And in Dark Souls 1 & 2, these servants of Velka were called The Pardoners, men who listened to the confessions of sinners, and the key words
being they offered salvation. The Sable Church too, is also said to offer
salvation. So I think if anyone is going to be the
mother to the three daughters of The Sable Church, then I would put my
money on Velka. Hundred percent. Many spells like Vow of Silence are the spells and rights of Velka in Dark Souls one, and in Dark Souls 3 they're said to originate from Londor.
In Dark Souls one also with the Clutch Rings, that were said to reach out to the
Crestfallen, and prevent despair. In previous games they were said to belong
to a dark deity and here, now, in Dark Souls 3, those same rings are fabled in
Londor to prevent the despair of men. Speaking of rings, we get the Sacrifice rings from Yoel's
ashes, the hollow ashes. And the Sacrifice rings also directly reference Velka.
I'm still going on with my list, Velka also oversees the Darkmoon List of
the Guilty in Dark Souls 1 which was a covenant led by Dark Sun Gwyndolin, and
in Dark Souls 3 this could explain why we sacrifice
Anri within the Darkmoon Tomb - she has a relationship with the Darkmoons as well,
so it's crazy the amount of links there are here, but one more. There is a lonely statue of Velka in the
Undead Settlement, and this statue can dissolve hollowing. It can cure hollowing
in the same way that a purging stone does, so Velka is irrefutably linked to the Dark
Sign and the Sable Church of Londor. I think that's pretty undeniable. But most
curious is she is a rogue goddess the other gods feared, and hell I wouldn't be surprised if
Velka is the one that holds the final few secrets of the Dark Souls series. Wouldn't it make sense if Velka was the
one punishing the world for the First Sin? Yeah, food for thought. Time will tell.
Thank you for watching and I'll you all soon. :)
When's Edwad?
I found something and I think you're the best person to share it with if you go to the cleansing chapel there is a altarpiece of the deacons - v obvious I know but it's shoved in front of a different altarpiece, one of VELKA I thought at first it was Rosaria, thinking the church was hers, but she's never pictured hooded, and this woman is definitely hooded and bent over and I cannot find a picture of it you have to stand beside the altar and look behind the panel into the hollow there you can just about see her here http://megapanda.net/images/dj/0416/041216-112449860-big.jpg but I'm sure you can do better, as I haven't even figured out how to share screenshots on my ps4
A bit more context and lore for the ending the SBF reached.
Vaati is awesome as always. His other DS3 Lore videos explain the lore behind the bosses.