Elden Ring Lore | The Ancient Dragons

in fantasy there is no greater symbol of power than that of the dragon an elden ring is no different the ancient dragons are primal yet sophisticated brutal yet elegant they were the first custodians of the elden ring and bearers of the greater wells gold immortal beings of tremendous power who have carved out an indelible legacy on the lands between the greater well did not always have america as its chosen vessel nor did the archery even exist before then the greater well chose to exert it well through a more bestial primal power the dragon placidus axe being chosen as eldon lord long before godfrey even swung an axe under the rule of these immortal custodians civilization took root with feral beastmen being granted intelligence and producing craft and architecture humans of the modern era could only dream of yet no age lasts forever and the rule of the dragons faltered eventually being replaced with the archery and their rule would collapse and their god would flee yet the dragons did not go quietly into the night and eventually would come into conflict with the lands of the archery and would forever leave their mark on the lands between as a result reminders of their majesty might and influence are everywhere in the lands between even in lane dell itself with many seeking to grasp even a fraction of the power that these immortal beings once possessed so join me this week as we bask in the magnificence of the ancient dragon civilization remember guys if you enjoy eldon ring lore then consider subscribing to the channel as i now have hours of lore content for you to listen to in addition i'd really appreciate it if you threw the video a like as it helps me out immensely when i now think of the timeline in eldon ring i begin to see distinct epochs that in some way mirror the evolution of life and the growth of civilization on our own planet while i see there to be different periods within these ages the three main stages of life and civilization that i see in the lands between are the primordial era the age of the dragons and the age of the archery the dragons are so intensely tied with the early history of elden rings world as well as the gestation of life itself representing one of the first forms of dominant life and most likely the first civilization in our own planet irl the dominant theory by scientists is that we evolved from a primordial soup essentially a hot broth of molecules that would go on to be the building blocks of life however in elden ring the development of life on this earth seems to have started with something called the one great and this is something we learn of via hyeta an adherent of the frenzied flame she says the following the words of the three fingers as your maiden allow me to define them all that there is came from the one great then came fractures and births and souls for the greater will made a mistake torment despair affliction every sin every curse every one born of the mistake so life on this planet once took a singular form this one great there is no disparity or division of life that is until according to hayeta the greater well decided to make desperate life with this one source of life fracturing into a multitude of different life forms that would form the basis for the world that we know today i personally find it very interesting that the greater well is powerful enough to have started this change and is even more interesting when we consider that the elden beast was sent to the earth via the greater well we learned this by the elden star's incantation which reads as follows it is said that long ago the greater well sent a golden star bearing a beast into the lands between which would later become the elden ring i find this interesting because i believe it was this act that began the greater wills influence over the mortal plane for we learn from the remembrance of the elden beast that this is the living incarnation of order the greater wells order one of the reasons that i believe that this is how the greater world fractured the one great and begat diverse life is because the greater well never directly acts on the mortal world it acts through vassals such as america its vassal god or the elden beast which is referred to as its vassal beast in the elden remembrance and so it makes sense that this vassal beast was sent to the earth to enact its master's vision and credit to sin and sophie at the sinclair lore podcast in their american death video where they made this nuance pretty clear and i'll link that below the greater wells main objective in any era is to impose its order upon the world the elden ring is clearly the main instrument through which the greater will achieves this a power to command the stars and the world around it and i now believe that the greater wills decision to divide the one great and the arrival of the elden beast are two coinciding facts i speculate that it could have been this arrival of the beast of the elden ring that influenced the division of the one great in the first place influencing the evolution of new life from the resulting fracturing of that life governed by the elden ring evidently one of the first forms of life that would evolve out of this would be the dragon and as we will see later these are almost the perfect vehicles for the greater wells vision almost as if they are custom built for that very role perhaps directly influenced by the elden ring and the greater will itself obviously the evolution of life on a planet is something that takes millions of years and while i am simply stating that there was once the one great there was in a division of life and then there was the dragons is quite arbitrary we can't really know the exact time skills but suffice it to say there was probably a long period of time between life first fracturing from the one great and the dragons taking command of the world indeed when we look at a later chapter and analyze tarnished archaeologists work we will see that the dragon civilization takes up the prehistoric era tracing from the stone age right up to possibly the iron age and allegorical to our own world the difference between the stone age and the first emergence of life is of course millions of years so that should give you some understanding of the timescales we're talking about but now it has moved to the age of the dragons as i have just mentioned we consider it the prehistoric era not only because of some of the evidence we will look at later but because it is directly referenced as such in game for example any of the dragon talismans that we find read as follows the ancient dragons who ruled in the prehistoric era before the archery would protect their lord as a wall of living rock so there we have it is dated as prehistoric and again we will further dive into this in a later chapter but for now suffice it to say the archery was only a twinkle in the greater will's eye really showing how long the greater will has ruled over life and indeed i argue that a greater will is actually responsible for all life on this earth an idea that i will discuss in the next chapter but for now i want to discuss the general purpose of the ancient dragons and their relationship with the elden ring the ancient dragons were the first instruments of the greater well and while this will seem obvious to many people i do need to cover it because i have actually seen people disagree on this fact and believe that the ancient dragon served some outer god so i do think it's relevant at the onset of this video to discuss the dragon's relationship to the greater will and their relationship to the elden ring my main source for the dragons being tied to the greater will of course comes from presidio sax's remembrance which reads as follows the dragon lord whose seat lies at the heart of the storm beyond time is said to have been elden lord in the age before the archery once his god was fled the lord continued to wait its return placidju sax was an elden lord and that's a position that would later be held by godfrey and rarigan and then potentially ourselves eldon lord isn't just a generic title for any lord of any outer god it is a specific title for our lord associated with the greater will associated with the elden ring i believe a lot of the confusion surrounding this comes from the part that says once his god was fled which people assumed to be an outer god but remember marika is a god and godfrey was her elden lord and this is the same relationship that's been described here it isn't an outer god it is a vessel god of the greater well and besides that the association with the elden ring for the dragons should be clear by the presence of a pretty prominent elden ring engraving in the center of pharah mozilla albeit an elden ring that has a different makeup an elden ring for a more primeval and primordial era and if you'd like to watch a video assessing this different elden ring and the differences between the modern elden ring i'd highly recommend rataskar's video called the greater well doesn't care about the golden order and i will link that below if you want to see the elden ring dissected in a more dedicated lore video but this elden ring is representative of the dragon's rule it even looks more primeval and primordial far more wild in its appearance than the refined elden ring of the golden order and this is fitting of both eras the dragon's era was one of chaotic primeval life whereas the golden order is a more sophisticated refined era of convergence and regression however these are both sanctioned eras of the greater will they are both orders of the greater will and as raditascore so aptly put it the greater well does not care what form order takes only the order is imposed whether life be represented by the greater will in the form of the crucible or in the form of the archery and with that said let us talk about the crucible and its relationship with the dragons thanks to the godskin noble set we know that the crucible is the primordial form of the artery meaning the crucible grew into what we know is now the artery they are one and the same just different stages of its life cycle they are both a manifestation of the elden ring they are both nexuses of life energy but where the archery represents ordered coalesce converged life the crucible represents a chaotic churn of primeval life energy if there are those who are wanting to learn more about my take on the archery and what it represents i would refer you to my america an archery lore video where i go into that subject in extensive detail but returning to the crucible it is described not only as the primordial form of the archery but the primordial source of life this is something told to us by the crucible scale and not talisman both of which read a vestige of the crucible of primordial life born partially of devolution it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced the crucible of primordial life suggests that not only was the crucible a source of life but it may have been the source of all life this idea of the crucible being tied to all life itself is backed up by the description of celeria's spear that describes the crucible as being close in nature to life itself here is a narrative that i'm going to suggest the elden beast was sent to the lands between and became the elden ring which began to exert its power upon the land and it was thus that fractured the one great and begat the churn of life known as the crucible and from this all life would come while this is a course speculation it does make sense to me and it pieces together how the greater well created diverse life in the first place these types of thoughts have also led me to consider the nature of the greater will itself often i see the greater world described as an outer god but is never directly referred to as an outer god what other outer god would actually have the power to do what the greater will has done divide the one great and create diverse life what if the greater well is more like eluvitar from lord of the rings the supreme creator deity and the outer gods are no more to the greater will than a vassal god like america this is an idea that i am slowly coming around to and i think i will cover it in my next lore theory video anyway the foundational point that i'm getting at here is that i believe the crucible had to have existed at the time of the dragons if it was the source of all life on this planet and again i am going over this because some people disagree on the fact that the crucible existed at the time of the dragons there are also other artistic hints that the dragons existed at the time of the crucible we learned via celuria's spear that this spear is modelled after the crucible therefore a wild looking tree quailag in one of her lore videos brought attention to some of the reliefs that can be found in pharah missoula that appear to show two beings to me either beastman misbegotten or some form of dragonkin flanking a tree-like formation given we know the crucible's importance and its appearance it would appear likely then that these reliefs depict the crucible lending credence to the fact that the crucible was indeed around during the age of the dragon for these reliefs to have been carved in the first place this may also explain the depiction of the elden ray inscription we talked about earlier is it possible that the branches overlaid the elden ring are in fact a rune embedded into the elden ring that was tied to the crucible or perhaps it is merely an artistic overlay meant to depict the importance of the crucible at this stage regardless of the artistic facets the very abilities of the dragons themselves seem to belay a connection to the crucible one made apparent to me thanks to last protagonist excellent video on the great tree crucible and golden order which i highly recommend and we'll link below in that video last protagonist quite correctly points out that the lightning of the ancient dragons is red and the gravel stone seals description implies that this is a red gold for it reads as follows the worship of the ancient dragons does not conflict with belief in the archery after all this seal and lightning itself are both imbued with gold so if the lightning is imbued with gold it must be imbued with red gold and this is important because red gold is closely associated with the age of the crucible we learn this from the weapon of crystal knight or dovis for his greatsword reads as follows this sword is imbued with an ancient holy essence its red tint exemplifies the nature of primordial gold said to be close in nature to life itself and is further backed up by the gilded great shield which reads the red tinge in the gold coat mirrors the primordial matter that became the earth tree so while it is clear the dragons are tied to the greater well gold and the elden ring i think there is enough evidence to suggest that they were tied directly to the power of the crucible and they are excellent avatars for its power and this more primitive bestial era of chaotic life with that said let us now look at the form of these dragons these avatars of primal life and the power that they were able to muster we get a great overview of the two main symbols of the ancient dragon's power lightning and stone via the lightning strike item description which reads ancestors of the modern dragons the ancient dragons had scales of gravel stone and wielded lightning as their weapon so clearly the most important aspect of their form is their gravel stone scales for as these scales that give them their immortality and this is something we learn via the dragon scale blade which reads as follows a weapon made by sharpening a gravel stone scale thought to be the source of ancient dragon immortality what is interesting is that the immortality granted by the scales may be a result of the stone's manipulation of time for the ancient dragon smithing stone reads as follows smithing stone made by polishing a golden gravel stone a scale of the ancient dragonlord and hidden treasure of farm azula the ancient dragon lord's seat is said to lie beyond time this stone lightly twists time allowing the creation of a weapon capable of slaying a god as we will see later in the video this power over time is clearly tied to how vara mozilla exists beyond time while this item description only refers to the dragon lord i.e placed your sax i believe that we can extend it to all gravel stone as being able to slightly twist time can explain their immortality because what if the stones mean that the dragons do not really exist in time or the timeline as we do as mortals do what if like fire in missoula they exist beyond time and thus never actually age in effect making them immortal this is certainly one of the main sources of their power and is what sets them apart from their lesser modern mortal kin and indeed we see that the gravel stone covering their entire body actually gives them protective strength and it becomes legendary this protection because in time dragons would come to represent protection and this is something we learn from any of the dragon talismans which read the ancient dragons who ruled in the prehistoric era before the archery would protect their lord as a wall of living rock and so it is that the shape of the dragon has become symbolic of all manner of protections this association with physical defense of course makes sense as their scales are literal stone and despite being part of a living being it still behaves like regular stone something that we can see if you look carefully at the remains of grand sax who now has moss growing on him unlike a regular soft tissue body that would decompose after time and certainly not have moss growing on it this stone corpse remains just as any other stone construction would just as the walls that surround it the gravel stone is a remarkable gift indeed for not only does it provide them with immortality but also great protection and i believe we can see how central this stone is to their own identity by analyzing their names in an interesting post on the etymology subreddit a commenter called snowpeppers9223 broke down some of the words found in eldon ring including the names of the ancient dragons the four named ancient dragons we come across are forta fortisacs landsax placeedu sex and grandsex in this post snooper breaks down the latin beginning participle of each name fortisacks is the strong grand sax is the large lan sacks the bearer of the lance and placed your sacks the cam or peaceful i think this is fitting for each of them fortisacks is mighty landsax does bear her lance or glaive grand sacks is undeniably massive and procedure sax is became when we first meet him or perhaps as an indicator of his style of rule while he was ill in the lord however it is the second participle that is of interest to me sax which new pepper breaks down as stone and i do think this is a correct interpretation because the description of forta sax's lightning spear does appear to transliterate his name in the same way forte sacks mightiest bolder stone another interesting facet of their physiology is of course their golden wings a subject touched upon by zuli in her a horrible nightmare video and as always i will link that below if you're interested however in the course of that video zully essentially suggests that it is the fleshy skin of the dragons that is made of gold pointing out that it appears on the wing membrane and under the wounded portions of procedure sax's skin this makes me wonder about the very nature of the dragons themselves clearly they are exceptional beings immortal powerful intelligent and even seem to have some latent abilities related to time and now we see that gold literally this symbol of the greater well is part of their very flesh these truly are the greatest and most perfect servants of the greater well as though they were custom designed by the greater well or formed directly by the elden ring with the basic forms of these majestic dragons covered i do want to touch upon their elden lord and god procedure sax is obviously a being far greater than the rest of his kin far different he is the elden lord and seems so connected to the power of the greater well in the elden ring that he breathes literal golden fire as we learn via the procedure sax's rune item description indeed there is another beast that also breathes golden fire a beast so tightly tied to the elden ring and the greater well that it should highlight just how important it is that placed your sax breathes this gold flame it shows how close he is in nature to the elden ring and the greater well alongside his ability to breathe golden fire he also has four heads or maybe five that sets him far apart from the rest of his kin while he only has two now we know he had more thanks to the depiction on the old lord's talisman as well as the neck wounds that we can see on his body four or five doesn't really matter because it is clear which myth that placed your sacs is evoking and by examining this myth we may in turn learn more about this dragon lord and their enigmatic god i of course believe that placentia sax is drawing on the myth of tiamat the mesopotamian god of the sea and to quote wikipedia the symbol of primordial creation sounds fitting does it not we have at length discussed how the dragons are the very symbol of chaotic primordial life these symbols of the crucible era and so is it not fitting that their elden lord is drawn from a real world myth that also represents this idea to explain why placed your sax draws upon tiamat we need to go down a little bit of a weird rabbit hole because as you can see from these more ancient depictions of tiamat the imagery doesn't quite match up as tiamat appears more like a serpentine manticore type character yet despite the original source most people in popular culture associate tiamat with a multi-headed dragon and this is thanks to dungeons and dragons in the 1970s when tiamat was reintroduced as the multi-headed dragon we all know and love yet despite that linking placidus acts to tiamat feels right for a number of reasons tiamat is an important figure in mesopotamian mythology firstly she creates a number of beasts including dragons and a note that in dnd mythology she is directly the mother of dragons and this fits in with placidus sax being the lord of the dragons in nailed in ring perhaps even suggesting he was the first of their kind and actually birthed them into the world through the coupling with the enigmatic god he is consort ii procedure sax is possibly the father of all dragons the greatest of their kind he also appears to be the first to have commanded the lightning stretching the semantics of the wording found in the dragon king's crag blade it refers to his lightning as primeval lightning reinforcing the idea that he was the first of his kind to master the lightning and indeed his mastery over the lightning is far beyond anything else we see with the other dragons while they are able to fashion it into spears he is able to divide it into claws even becoming a storm of lightning himself the way in which placed you sacks fights the way in which he wheels the lightning and the way he can fade into a storm is truly remarkable and gives the impression that he himself is a force of nature his lightning manipulation exceeds the abilities of any other dragon by a mile and makes it look pretty pathetic in comparison to his powers he is a manifestation of power and life and this is reflected in his mastery over the storm and primeval lightning and in his unmatched power with the myth of tiamat in mind let us try and address the god mentioned in presidio sax's remembrance for there is no other mention of this god in the lore as discussed this god is presumably comparable to marika a vessel god of the greater will supported by its zelda and lord placidus axe and ruling over a more primal era of greater will rule in mythology tiamat was married to abzu now abzu as a concept is something i discussed a long long time ago on my lore video for dark souls where i discussed the deep and i will link that below if you are interested however we are talking about the personified abzu in this sense who is married to teyamat abzu is the sumerian god of the deep sea of the abyss the primeval sea below the underworld in the enumera elish a babylonian epic on creation tiamat and her husband asbu are representative of the overland sea and the deep sea respectively and the two mate by mixing their waters giving birth to some of the first deities before they are in turn murdered by their children who overthrow them in all of the mythologies the abzu and tiamat appear in they are seen as primordial gods who bore the first generation of deities given procedure sax's association with creation and early primeval chaotic life it is fair to assume that this missing god will have taken a similar form and ultimately will have been a god representative of primordial life perhaps the enumera elish also gives us insight into what happened to placidu sax and his god tiamat and abzu were overthrown by their children after all perhaps placed your sacks and his god face an insurrection as well from the other dragons their children at the end of the day something did cause the terrible wind on procedure sax's form and cut off his missing heads something drove their god away we will discuss the collapse in dragon society in more detail but let these speculative ideas percolate for now overall i do view placentia sax as the progenitor the leader of an age of primordial life and with that said let us now turn to the civilization that he and his children built or should i say the civilization that the beastmen built on behalf of them so now it is time for us to discuss the basement of farm azula at the start of this chapter i would just like to shout out an excellent video by an extraordinary channel and that channel is tarnished archaeologist and specifically his video on pharah missoula people have been recommending this channel to me for weeks and boy is it a special one the tarnished archaeologist goes hard in analyzing environmental details and their attention to detail is remarkable i'm going to directly reference their video in a moment for some specific details however i think it's important to note that their ideas have definitely influenced my ideas on beastman's society and the timeline as a whole so props to tarnished archaeologists in their fire mozilla video tarnished archaeologists makes a series of connections that lead us to conclude that farm mozilla and the civilization therein was the earliest civilization in the history of eldon rings world tarnished archaeologists does this by analyzing the burial practices of the beastmen within pharmazilla burial practices being one of the first indicators in human history of society becoming more complex beyond the basics of hunter-gatherers ta likens these burials to a real-world burial cache known as the varna necropolis in bulgaria and one cannot deny that these are clearly their real world inspiration the site is a fifth millennium bc burial site where one of the burials showed a person of great importance surrounded by many gold trinkets and objects ta even goes out the way to do a side by side comparison which highlights that the golden bracelets and the flat gold objects are identical to the burial found in pharah missoula ta's conclusion as to what this means is that this society far mozilla society must have been the earliest to realize the significance of gold for the gold found in these graves must be unalloyed gold due to the period of which the varna burials took place the calcalithic period appeared in which allies were still not a thing so the gold found in the varna burials and in pharmaceutic were unalloyed gold the natural source of gold found throughout both of our worlds this is a really insightful basis for the rest of this chapter as it allows us to fully comprehend how truly ancient this civilization really was as i've said the tarnished archaeologist refers to this as the calcalithic period a transitional period between the neolithic and the bronze age thereby fitting into the notion of prehistory that we had discussed earlier in the video and again for comparison in the real world the varna burials are dated back to the fifth millennium bc this is a truly old civilization and again i commend the tarnished archaeologists for this really insightful video and really would plead with you to go and give them a subscribe and watch their content these ideas of ancient burials and the allegorical comparisons to our own early cultures really gives the impressions of the first complex society resulting from the first sentient species evolving and becoming more intelligent this prehistoric society of the dragon empire can be broken down into two component parts the beastman and the ancient dragons and as we can see from stature the dragons quite clearly held the dominant position especially when one considers what we have discussed in the prior chapters and the importance that the elden lord and the dragons had to this era the beastman's lore really backs up the idea of an early formative society as their minds begin to develop as their lore gives us the impression that they were newly raised to intelligence at this time and this is something we learn via the bestial vitality incantation which reads having gained intelligence the beasts must have felt how their wildness slipped away as civilization took hold so these men were granted intelligence and that means instead of having gained it naturally via evolution and over time it seems as though instead they were granted their intelligence most likely by the greater well or the dragon's god this is of course speculation but i personally prefer the latter explanation that it was the god of the dragons that granted the intelligence to the basement apart from anything else it would explain why the basement venerate the dragon so dearly as we can clearly see in the statuary found around pharmazilla and by the very existence of pharmaceutical clergy via the cinquadea regardless of whoever granted their intelligence the intelligence granted to the basement allowed them to behave much as our ancestors did by using their hands to use tools and as tarnished archaeologist points out this advent of tool use is celebrated by the cinque de a which reads as follows the design celebrates a beast's five fingers symbolic of the intelligence once granted upon their kind the cinquadea is based on an italian short sword of the same name in real life with its name meaning five fingers so named as a result of the width of the blade as it is next to the guard which is fitting given the design a nailed it ring as we can see five fingers along the bottom of the blade and symbolically this sword is clearly meant to represent the advent of tool use the advent of using their five fingers to wrap their fingers around tools such as this blade the use of tools in this manner is the pivotal divider between beings of higher sentience like humans and more basial life forms indeed the whole advent of basement taking up the tool and being granted intelligence is extremely reminiscent of the famous scene from the classic 2001 a space odyssey this film from 1968 is based on a short story called the sentinel and in essence charts humanity's history from primate to space travel with one main notable difference the film suggests that our evolution was guided by an alien intelligence marked by strange unnatural obelisks or sentinels that appear at pivotal moments in human development to guide and teach us in the film the first instance of this happening happens to our ancestors the hominins the film opens with a tribe of homonyms being driven from their watering hole by a rival tribe before coming across this unnatural alien obelisk they eventually find the courage to touch the obelisk before they all retreat not long after one of their number is inspired for some reason to take up a bone and use it as a tool a smashing implement with tools in hand the tribe of these hominins returned to the waterhole they had been chased away from and easily defeat and drive off their rivals with these new weapons the film then cuts away and skips forward millions of years later to an era of space travel the implication being that it was intelligent intervention that put the tool in the hands of our ancestors and thus provided the foundations for our development into a sentient intelligent species and it is how i see the relationship between the beastmen and the dragons slash the greater well upon being granted intelligence it looks as though the beastmen will have used their five fingers to pick up stone tools as suggested by tarnished archaeologist who points out the bestial sling incantation which reads as follows it is said that in the time before the archery stones were the first weapons of the beasts who had gained intelligence this again reinforces the extremely early period of civilization that the beast men represent using stone tools and weapons much like the real world stone age which marked the beginning of our ancestors use of tools of which many are believed to first been built from stone but it is fascinating because we see the beastmen developing more and more advanced tools and working with more advanced materials as time goes on and in essence their journey represents the entirety of the world's prehistory period i.e the stone age moving from the use of stone tools into the later periods of the calcalithic as we discussed earlier however we can also track their development beyond this into what we would know as the iron age or the early ancient historical era for the basement that we actually fight do not use stone weapons they use weapons made of iron such as described by the beastman's cleaver which reads as follows carved greatsword of colossal sized forged of dull iron and wielded by the beastmen of pharah mozilla the blade is incredibly heavy but well balanced comparatively easy to wield for the damage it delivers it is clear the beast men possess knowledge beyond humankind this makes us think of the iron age which followed the bronze age and is really seen as the true transitional period from prehistory to ancient history while iron is a natural element using iron in a manner that allows it to be used as a tool or weapon requires more advanced science and i think in this case wikipedia is apt in describing why the use of iron and the advent of the iron age marked a true transitional period in human society as it states the following in archaeology the iron age refers to the advent of ferrous metallurgy the adoption of iron coincided with other changes in some past cultures often including more sophisticated agricultural practices religious beliefs and artistic styles which makes the archaeological iron age coincide with the axial age in the history of philosophy although iron ore is common the metal working techniques necessary to use iron are very different from those needed for the metal used earlier through the beastman we can get a clear timeline of the earliest civilization in elder ring lore that is allegorical to the rise of our own human civilization the granting or gaining of intelligence the use of stone tools the use of unalloyed metals and more advanced burial techniques and finally the use and development of iron weapons the full track of a civilization right from the early stone age to the iron age fully cementing the idea that this civilization of the dragons and the beastmen was the earliest civilization in this world even pre-ancient civilizations of the old palace etc for while the old palace civilization and its kin are ancient civilizations based upon the greeks and the sumerians the ideas we have discussed read the stone age bronze age and iron age far predates even these ancient civilizations that the old and old palaces were based upon yet despite the primitive nature of their origins the beast men evidently were capable of building some wonders and even outpacing the abilities of later civilizations as hinted at by the description of the beastman's cleaver that we just read this is once again reinforced by the baseman's jar shield the item description of which reads shield fashioned from a tall broken jar carried by the basement of fire missoula the basement have always fired earthenware jars for the express purpose of making shields such are their ways strange though they are the bizarre practice of firing pots and being able to wield them as shields is a lost art something that is again beyond human craftsmanship then of course we have to consider the magnificent fire mozilla itself a glorious construction that is far more grand than many of the constructions that would come from later civilizations millennia later this is something that is reflected in the real world today many do not comprehend how ancient societies built the structures that they did as i mentioned at the beginning of this chapter i speculate that the intelligence of the beastmen was tied to their lords the dragons tarnished archaeologists suggest that the beastmen have now reverted to their bestial nature losing their intelligence and they suggest this due to the animations and appearance of the basement in pharmaceutic they are crawling around and acting far more like beasts if their fate and intelligence is truly tied to the dragons then i certainly agree with this assertion with the collapse of the dragon empire and the disappearance of the god that likely granted them that intelligence it would make sense that their minds have dimmed and they are a shadow of what they once were yet we can still marvel at their great works and with that said let us have a look at pharmazilla itself while the beastmen venerated the dragons as seen in the statuary and by the existence of the clergy it is clear that the dragons needed the beastmen as mighty as the dragons were and as intelligent as they were surely they were not builders and craftsmen themselves their bodies are not built for it they have predatory four-legged bodies without opposable thumbs or fingers and this would have restricted their ability to use tools and craft by comparison we have already just seen that the basement have numerous examples of being able to wield tools and weapons and i would suggest this is why they were given intelligence in the first place and granted the power of the dragon's lightning to help defend their civilization they were the workers of the dragon civilization the craftsmen the builders the priests and the warriors as such i attribute the construction of fire mozilla to the beastmen it must only have been them that built it this is an extraordinary feat that must seem impossible to the later factions of the lands between given the time disparity between this era and the lane daily era there is one other detail of interest to me found within farm mozilla and that is the engravings and depictions of human characters these human characters also appear to be of high standing as they are dressed in what we could consider aristocratic robes and garbs some carrying items associated with royalty like scepters so what are we to make of this well as far as i see it there are two plausible explanations one humans also lived within this society and held high positions within the hierarchy or number two these are dragons in human form for we learn via lan sax's glaive item description the ancient dragons are able to take human form however we do get some evidence that humans may have lived amongst the ancient dragons for when creating your character you have the option of a number of base template appearances and one of these appearances is called draconian and the description of that reads as follows the stony face of the people of the ancient dragons among whom life is typically short now this is obviously really interesting because it does suggest that these people have some sort of association with the dragons they are the people of the ancient dragons suggesting they were humans that lived among them and this is certainly who i can attribute these human characters being and perhaps they did hold positions of authority within dragon society and perhaps they maybe helped the beast men build for missoula but ultimately i leave it to you to decide what is your truth in regards to these depictions given its grandeur and its legend it's obvious that this is an important construction for the beastman and dragon civilization so what was it to them well we know from the azula beastman ashes that pharmazola is a mausoleum for an ancient dragonlord and the fact that this is a muslim is very interesting we have just discussed in length after all how complex burials became a core part of this new fledgling society and as such it makes sense that they would build a mausoleum for not only does it house the mighty dragons but we can see that this is the burial place for the beastmen and their kin no doubt venerating people of importance with jewelry and ornate burials however pharmazola is not just referred to as a mausoleum is also referred to as different titles and i believe that this is because pharmazola is the apex of this civilization it was the center of their entire world this was the religious and cultural heart of the dragon civilization we've discussed numerous times how the beastmen venerated the dragons and indeed we see the statuary throughout farm mozilla suggesting it is a holy place as well and this is reinforced by the fact it is referred to as a temple in the ruined fragment item description but it's also the seat of their lord the dragonlord plusedu sax and it is a royal city as stated by the old lord's talisman which reads it is said that the ancient royal city of pharah missoula has been slowly crumbling since time immemorial it is a capital a temple and a burial ground all in one indeed the dragon kin must still hold it in reverence or sense its importance for the majority of the ancient dragon survivors still appear to be found here we could even speculate that their degenerate cousins the modern dragons also feel the pool of their people here as the models showing circling the ruins in the sky box of fire mozilla have modern dragon physiology though admittedly i may be just looking too closely it's something the developers didn't intend us to but whatever species the dragons are in the skybox their purpose is to show how important this site is still to the dragonkin thousands of years later after the civilization's collapse let us attempt to look at the etymology of the term pharah mozilla to try and grasp what this city truly is and what it means to the dragons in an interesting post on reddit which i will link below a commenter called shibriri grape broke down the root words behind fire mozilla in which they concluded that farm in latin comes from the greek word for lighthouse and azula has ties to azure meaning in totality blue lighthouse or lighthouse of blue so what could this possibly mean well i'd suggest that the lighthouse is actually something that fits given what i've just discussed regarding the dragons fire mozilla is almost like a beacon for their kind and in this way it is their lighthouse and azula or azure could be in reference to the fact it is in the sky in the blue this is just speculation of course but i certainly feel like the lighthouse part does make sense as i see this as a beacon for all dragon kind however despite its current relation to the sky it's clear to me that pharmaceutical was not always a floating construction we can see huge chunks of earth still attached to its underside as if it was torn from the very earth including large swathes of land that actually have natural trees growing on it in addition we can see pathways or bridges that look to have been broken as if they were once connected to something else but have been broken apart now that damage may have come during the city's destruction but in tandem with chunks of earth attached to his base leads me to conclude that this was once an earth-bound construct possibly part of a larger city but where this then takes us back to one of the earliest community theories that was going around near the launch of elden ring that has to do with the divine towers in the lands between now i cannot remember exactly who first circulated the ideas but they certainly weren't my theories and the earliest post that i can still find is on reddit by a user called webs who quite rightly points out that the divine towers have a very curious placement they are all aligned and they are all around a coastal basin and this basin almost looks like a chunk ripped out the side of the continent the placement is clearly not random but why is it possible that this central part of the map was once where farm azula sat and these towers flanked the entire city possible for sure but i'm not sure i fully agree with some who say the divine towers were definitely once part of greater farm mozilla as while the architecture is similar they are not exactly the same however i could buy that this was once where pharmozilla sat and that the divine towers were built upon the ruins of what was left or placed to ward against the gap that once contained the seat of the greater wells chosen god an elden lord however despite these terrors not been an exact match for pharah missoula architecture there is one earthly bound example that does exactly match this style of architecture from farm missoula and i of course refer to the bestial sanctum in dragon barrow off kaelin the dwelling of garank beast clergyman not only is the sanctum itself an exact match architecturally inside and out but in the surrounding area we also find familiar burial practices of deceased beastmen posed in a dramatic fashion after death a practice we also see throughout pharah mozilla the location of this building is no less significant hanging on the edge of the basin we have just identified adding weight to the argument that this basin this gap in the map was once where far mozilla's capital actually lay as the last remaining piece of pharmaceutical architecture on earth is right on the edge of this area furthermore the bestial sanctum sits on a cliff with a really sheer face almost as if the landmass that it was attached to has fallen or has been torn away i believe that the bestial sanctum is the last remaining structure on this earth of the farm mozilla metropolis and it greatly adds weight to the idea that the capital would have once sat here in regards to grant malakith i have a full video on his relationship to the beastman and i will link that below indeed if any doubts remain that this was once the site of fire mozilla then one day though they looked at the site of grace near the beastial sanctum called farrum great bridge and by reviewing the details of this bridge we do indeed see that it follows the same architectural style as far mozilla therefore it is almost a certainty that pharmaceutical was once situated in this basin once attached to the landmass of dragon's barrel before being ripped away i also note that this is called farrum great bridge not far missoula great bridge going back to what i said about fire mozilla before and azula being related to the blue of the sky is it possible it was renamed farah missoula when it was brought into the sky due to azura being linked to blue and that it was just called faram when it was earthly bound all speculation of course but one cannot deny that the chunk in the middle of the map is pretty glaring what is more important to consider is why farmer mozilla seems to be flying and why is wreath than storms now what follows is of course my speculation given we don't have actually any in-game lore that directly tells us why it is floating in the air but i believe it must have something to do with pharmaceuticals relationship to time we've already discussed that the ancient dragons have a nascent power over time and farm mozilla is frequently referred to as being beyond time such as in the ancient dragon smithing stone item description i believe that putting it beyond time was an action taken by placidu sax to prevent the collapse of their empire to prevent his own death we know that procedure sax like his kin has a power over time as well as storms we've already discussed that the dragon lord has a connection to primeval lightning and this connection seems so deep that he is able to transform himself into a literal storm the primeval manifestation of lightning and given procedure sax's connection to the storms i find the description of the old lord's talisman interesting for it reads a legendary talisman depicting the ancient king whose seat lies at the heart of the storm beyond time indeed the words found in the old lord's talisman are to be taken quite literally for it states that farm mozilla lies at the heart of the storm beyond time the time locked far pharmaceutical is indeed in the heart of the storm that is bearing fire mozilla aloft for when we enter its heart we only enter the time-locked pharmaceutical when the storm expands and engulfs us in the cinematic and as it expands and touches the rubble time begins to rewind and the damage is undone highlighting that the temporal aspect that is affecting pharmazilla is to be found in the heart of this storm at the center of pharmaceutical so not only is farm azula trapped in time it is in a storm beyond time this for me means it's the hallmarks of procedure sax's power that has created the position that has no trap to pharah mozilla i would speculate that using his powers over the storm and over time placidu sacks at the time of his reckoning ripped pharah missoula using his power of the storm and froze it within time of course i am speculating heavy here and my main source of evidence is due to the fact there's a lot of storms in pharmaceutical and placenta sacs has a relationship with storms so that being said there are definitely other possible explanations for farm pharmazilla's floating abilities a viewer of mine has offered an alternative explanation valerius reinhald has suggested that pharah mozilla may be connected to gravity magic and i will leave a link to their post on reddit if you want to consider this alternate theory there's a lot to this theory so i won't describe it here and definitely recommend you read their theory but one of the points that really interests me is they point out the fact that the meteor that strikes fire mozilla might have something to do with its floating ability and just for reference the ruins greatsword is the source for where we know that a meteorite once struck fire missoula as valeria's quite rightly says gravity magic is often associated with meteorites is it possible then that when this meteorite impacted on pharmaceutical when it was still on the ground that its gravity magic could have affected pharah mozilla somehow or been exploited by its inhabitants later this is certainly an interesting concept and one i'm actually growing to like more than my own theory and so again thanks to valeris for these really interesting ideas and i'll link his original post below regardless of how it ended up in the air and its relationship with time we do know that pharmaceuti does physically exist somewhere in the world as we can see it from various points in the lands between it isn't another realm or dimension however its physical possession does not fully reflect its position in time and while the royal city has been crumbling since time immemorial as is stated by the old lord's talisman this is its state in only one time and these ideas of time that others find confusing thankfully do make sense to me in my head because i watched a lot of doctor who when i was younger so whilst this physical fire mozilla does exist in our time and is crumbling far mozilla truly exists beyond time and thus when we go to farm mozilla into its heart we can step into the fire mozilla of old farm is restored before it was destroyed by the meteorite this is far mozilla of a different time far missoula of no time and this is why placentia sax is still here still alive despite his grievous injuries because he is existing beyond time and thus his body and his realm aren't feeling the effects of time and with that said let us now look at the calamity and collapse of the dragon empire that warranted this time block in the first place as magnificent as the ancient dragon civilization was it did not last forever as we well know and now it is truly ancient history the literal destruction of pharah mozilla's masonry came at the hands of a meteorite something we've just discussed but it's something we can learn up via the ruins greatsword which reads originally rubble from a ruin which fell from the sky the ruin it came from crumbled when struck by a meteorite so i had thought when researching this video that this item description alongside the ruined fragments would discredit the notion the meteorite could have struck pharmaceutical while it was still on the ground and caused its ability to be able to float because of the way that the ruins fell from the sky however that isn't entirely true as it means that it could have crumbled when it was hit and that its ruins fell off it and crumbled off it when it was in the sky an injury from that past meteoric hit however that being said i am still of the notion that procedure sacs made the city float in his desperate attempt to save his civilization alongside locking it in time and it was after this point that it was struck by a meteorite either way on either side of this argument it was not the meteorite that actually caused the collapse and destruction of the dragon kin this just serves as a final nail in their civilization's coffin so no i do not believe this meteorite caused the fall of the dragons and that it was caused by something else and this fall must be tied to the abandonment of this civilization's god either because their god fled or it was an event that led their god to flee which would lead their civilization to collapse and for me there's a number of factors to consider as well as the time scales that we have to look at the first time scale is one i've discussed before something that i've discussed in my archery lore video in that video i discussed the fact that there is evidence that possibly suggests a large vacuum of power a long time period between the collapse of the ancient dragon's rule and the rule of queen america i.e that the ancient dragons didn't relap to the moment that they are tree emerged i suggest this for a number of reasons in that video firstly we have clearly demonstrated throughout this video that the age of the dragons was so far in the past millennia ago to the point where it stretched his credulity that their empire could have lasted all this way to the beginning of the archery era which if we're carrying on our earlier allegories of the prehistory period the lane dale era is more like the medieval era of our world this is a huge stretch of time in addition to this there is an event that is closer to the archery era which is centered around a subspecies of the modern dragons the frost dragons we learn of said event via borealis mist which reads the ice dragons were once lords of the mountaintops long ago until they were defeated by the fire giants and chased from its peak borealis is a modern dragon so we know that these ice dragons were of the same type the fire giants are a civilization that overlapped with the rise of the archery as well as the mountaintop astrologers this therefore places the fire giants and thus this conflict far far far closer to our current era than the ancient dragon civilization the reason that i see this as significant is because i see the modern dragons as a devolution of their distant ancient kin more bestial mortal and less powerful we learn of the modern subspecies via the dragon wound grease item description which reads when the dragons were born from their ancient kin they lost their stone scales which can now be used to cause them mortal harm their name alone conjures the idea that these dragons are far distant ken who have evolved more recently having devolved over time from their mighty more intelligent forebears losing their gravel stone scales their four legs and their ability to wield the power of the greater well i.e the red lightning additionally if the ancient dragons were still reeling at this stage would they really have let the fire giants defeat some of their kin without interference in addition as i pointed out in my american or tree lord video i think there's evidence of practices and civilizations rising and falling that surely would have been hard to achieve with the dragons and the greater will ruling supreme just to name a few civilizations and practices there was the ancient dynasty the rot lords the death rights and potentially the knox as we saw during the early conquests of america and godfrey's reign rival civilizations don't last particularly long and if the greater well was still represented by the dragons of this era why did they not quash all these rival practices and civilizations however that being said i do acknowledge i could just be wrong and that all these developments including the development of the modern dragon subspecies could have happened alongside ancient dragon rule the reason i'm coming around to this idea is twofold firstly i have already contended that the dragon's power was tied to the crucible it did not make sense then that their power and their god would dwindle as the crucible transitioned into the archery marking the end of the primeval era and rule of the dragons and marking the beginning of the ordered rule of the archery in america and that it was the beginning of the archery that marked their collapse this secondary idea may also time better with the war of the ancient dragons this is an event we hear about via grand sax's bowl what i find interesting is that it is referred to as a better war and i've always interpreted the insult of the dragons as driven by better jealousy we are never really told the reason behind grand sax and the ancient dragon's assault on lane dell and we can only speculate on their true motivations and i do want to make it clear what follows will be my speculation but given that the ancient dragons were once the chosen of the greater well but were later supplanted and replaced by marika and the archery does it not make sense that the dragons would see mark as reign as rival to theirs as taking what was their birthright that they were being replaced by a new order and that they sought to reclaim their lordship it does indeed feel like the earth tree and its followers were meant to defeat the dragons that they were chosen to succeed them for grand sax's bolt makes it clear that this war was the greatest challenge that lane dell ever faced and it seems close to unbelievable that a beast such as grand sax flanked by beings like fortisex and lansecs could even be defeated the answer may come via the golden lightning fortification incantation as this reads an incantation of our tree worship this incantation was used by the knights of the archery during the assault by the great ancient dragon grand sax and the better war of the ancient dragons that followed so the archery had the power to resist the might and strength of the dragons and thus the archery offered protection to its warriors during this war the art tree and the dragons both are creations of the greater well via the elden ring and it is clear which side the greater will chose the time of the dragon and the crucible had passed the archery and its power was ascendant and thus heroes like godwin the golden who possessed the gold power of the archery and descended from its royalty was able to beat mighty dragons such as fortasacks yet it still speaks to the power of grand sax and his fellow dragons that despite the greater wells power going against them they still gave lane dale a black eye that they would never forget either way it doesn't really matter in regards to the timeline because whether the collapse happened thousands of years ago or whether it happens at the advent of the archery the dragon's assault does make sense in both cases they are trying to restore themselves to their former glory the collapse of an empire is not such a simple event look at the collapse of rome for example and while the war of the ancient dragons certainly secured their fate and established archery primacy once and for all there is no doubt that other factors must have played a role in the downfall of their society and empire and one of the theories i would like to suggest goes back to our discussion on placentia sax and the story of his mythological inspiration teyamat tiamat faced a rebellion from her children before both she and her husband were killed by them could the wounds find on placidus acts be the result of a similar insurrection a rebellion by his children by his dragons it has always been interesting to me that grand sacks appears to be leading the assault on leon dale not placidu sacks as it was with tiamat and her children is it possible that grand sax clearly an offspring of immense power could have overthrown placidus axe and the god i do want to make it clear that this is of course my speculation based only on procedure sax's mythological origins as well as grand sacks position as leader during the war of the ancient dragons placidus axe is so savagely wounded that it would take a being of such immense power to cause such dire wounds to a being who itself is extremely powerful possessed of immortal scales that could barely be penetrated by mortal weapons another facet of grand sex that has always interested me is his bolt the weapon he has next to his corpse we don't really see any other dragons using weapons so why does grand sack have this weapon and why in this particular shape well the answer may come from placidu sax himself for if you slow down placeedu sax's attacks you can see that his thunderbolts take the exact form that grand sax's bolt does if i am right about grand sacks overthrowing placidu sacks could it be that this replica of placejo sax's lightning is like a scepter an artificial recreation of that regal lightning a symbol of rule to show that he has taken the dragon lord's place this would make sense to me because grand sacks wouldn't have the dragon lord's mastery over lightning and thus this spear could serve as an artificial surrogate to reproduce the storm lord's power and serve as a powerful symbol for grandsex perhaps it doesn't matter if the war of the dragons happened immediately after their decline or if it was the result of a rebellion perhaps placed due sacks did send grand sack for this final attempt regardless it was clearly a hail mary attempt by grand sacks and his fellows to restore the luster of their empire his death and the capitulation of their kind marked the conclusion to their primacy either way and regardless of my speculation the main factors are this the power and primacy of the dragons failed for whatever reason placidus axe was winded and their god fled placenta sacks would then freeze far mozilla in time in a vain attempt to preserve what was left in the hopes that their god will one day restore them to full glory grand sacks and his fellows attempted a final hail mary to destroy their rivals and become the greater wills chosen once more but all of these failed placidus axe is gravely wounded the god is no more pharmazola is shattered and grand sacks the mightiest of their kind is dead and now with that being said let us move on to the legacy of the dragons in the aftermath of the war of the ancient dragons while the dragons were defeated they were not dishonored by their foes quite the contrary one of the mightiest heroes on the side of the archery was godwin the golden who we've mentioned already clearly at this stage godwin was one of the most prominent members of the archery royal family and one of the greatest shining champions of the archery we hear of his exploits via these sword memorials but more importantly we hear of it via the lightning spear incantation which reads as follows long ago godwin the golden defeated the ancient dragon fortesacks and befriended his fallen foe an event that gave rise to the ancient dragon cult in the capital godwin defeating fortasax is no mean fate for we learned via fortis axe's lightning spear that he was one of the most powerful amongst his kin being able to wield two lightning spears at one time instead of one like his other brethren and as we already discussed the etymology of his name suggests how powerful he really was and so is an incredible feat that he was defeated by godwin the golden yet he was treated with respect and defeat and as such one of the most legendary friendships in history was established the comradeship of fortisacks and godwin which would inspire the people of the capital to respect their defeated foe this is the greatest legacy of dragonkind not only is the friendship of godwin and fortissacks one of the most pure in the whole story of eldon ring as i discussed in my godwin lore video but it shows the best of both human and dragon kind as they create a respectful alliance that spreads throughout the capital and indeed the actions of forty sacks and landsats show how intelligent and magnimineous those of the dragon kind could be they are not just beastial powers of destruction they are far more than that via the dragon cult the adoption of their ways and powers would be passed down wielded by the knights of this new archery order and in a way this is right the defenders of the archery are ultimately the inheritors of the dragons they are taking up the same role the ancient dragons did during their heyday this was a respectful exchange of information knowledge and power and would lead to the rise of some incredible heroes like vike and kristoff the latter even being powerful enough to defeat and subdue the demi-god godifroy the easy integration of dragon worship into the worship of the archery may seem surprising for an order that would eventually become known for its intolerance of others however it is easily explained by the gravel stone seal which we read earlier these beliefs of dragonkind do not conflict with those of the archery because they are both tied with gold they are both servants of the greater will and it wasn't just fortisacks that helped inspire this new order his sister lansax took on a human form and communed with the dragon knights in person as a priestess as we learned via lan sax's glaive which reads lan sax was the sister of fortis axe it is said that she took the form of a human to commune with the knights as a priestess of the ancient dragon cult to this day lansak still guards the earth archery capital showing how close her bond is with her one-time enemies one of her greatest adherents was the round table knight vike something we learn of via vike's dragon ball which reads of all the knights vike the dragon spear was the one lan sax loved the most vike was loved by landsax and called the dragon spear no doubt as a result of his iconic spear and his mastery over dragon incantations we learned via vike's armor set that he was the closest tarnished to achieving lordship no doubt as a result of his powerful dragon incantations and had he become lord the legacy of the dragons could have gone even further placing a dragon cult leader upon the throne this makes me wish that we could have allied with land sacks in the game to become a dragon cult elden lord even the sentinels of the archery mighty guardians in their own right were inspired by the might of grand sax and his fellows so much so that they too incorporated their power and symbolism into their get-up as we can see from the traconic tree sentinels who are in essence modified versions of the regular tree sentinels who believe that by imitating grand sax's power that they could be strong enough to protect the archery from true enemies then of course there are the ancient dragons dustin ken the modern dragon who take on a far more bestial and traditional draconic form having lost their immortality and stone scales they are far removed from their regal ancestors to the point that gravel stone is now anathema to their existence as told to us via the dragon wound greece i won't be covering the modern dragons in this video as they are beyond the scope of it however i would highly recommend ashen hollow's dragon lore video as he covers each dragon in great detail but in short the legacy of the ancient dragons do live on in these beasts nonetheless for while their bodies might not be coated in gravel stone scales their hearts are as we can see from their dragon heart item description these hearts are power and these hearts are a prize for some as there is a more sinister group that covet the powers of the dragon that are a dark shadow to the dragon cult of the capital we are talking of the dragon hunters of dragon communion whereas dragon cultists have a respectful and almost religious relationship with the ancient dragons the dragon hunters are more obsessed with hunting down the beastial power of the modern dragons and it is fitting that the dragon cult has a relationship with the ancient dragons and the dragon communion hunters have a relationship with the modern dragons as the former pair are more regal and respectful and the latter are more bestial and violent we learn of these practices via euro who says the following on those who hunt dragon hearts beautiful work failing that dragon and as such there's something you might like to know the heart you brought back it's used in dragon communion if you should find yourself overcome by hunger for the heart yearning for its strength then seek the decrypted church on the little island of the western coast you must not forget though those who partake in drug and communion or when they shed their humanity their hunger for dragon they're yearning only worsens until the floodgates burst unleashing eternal torment the strength of a mighty dragon magnificent deadly it's no surprise that drug and communion is ruinous indeed the dragon hunters slay modern dragons and take their hearts before consuming them in rituals at the sights of dragon communion taking the powers of the slain dragon for themselves specifically the powers they gain from consuming the heart are a manifestation of that specific dragon whose heart they have just consumed it's almost as if the dragons themselves live onto a degree in the hearts and when consumed they live on in the dragon hunters and given the heart's item description says that they are covered in the gravel stone scales of immortality this could well be true these dragons literally live on and the hosts that consume them these sites of dragon communion are of interest to me as well they are clearly religious sites with both having the corpse of an ancient dragon and dragon statues all around i think the connection to the ancient dragon cult can be made all the clearer if we look at some of the iconography found at these sites firstly the statues here depict ancient dragons as you can actually find their heads lying about secondly and more importantly the plinths used in the act of dragon communion are of pharam azula design as we can see that if we compare it to similar models found on the bastille sanctum and found in pharah mozilla itself all speculation of course but given the presence of an ancient dragon corpse and the weathered dragon statues to me it suggests that this was the site of a once more respectful cult but the mistreated and unkempt nature of these statues speak volume for their new beliefs it is less about respect and more about power while dragon communion works almost instantly by transferring the power of the dragons to its consumer there is a price to be paid and this is worn to us by europe it begins subtly at first an unquenchable thirst that leads him to consume more and more hearts and in time it changes from a want to have the power of the dragons to be a dragon oneself in time the effects begin to show first with dragon eyes before finally the hunter will become an abomination a pitiful mockery of the dragon form a magma worm we learn of this ultimate dreadful fate via the magma worm scale sword which reads it is said these land-bound dragons were once humans heroes who partook in dragon communion a grave transgression which they were cursed to crawl the earth upon their bellies shadows of their former selves so the first thing to note is that despite being degenerate they are dragons this description describes them as land bound dragons and when we kill them we do get a dragon heart but they are being punished for a transgression according to the magma worm scale sword remember we discussed in an earlier chapter that the dragons almost seem to be the perfect creation made specifically by the greater will for their plans would it therefore not be a transgression to try and pervert god's first creation and indeed this does sound biblical and that's because it is the idea of being cursed to crawl in the earth is a biblical one for in genesis 3 14 god curses the serpent and his kind for his role in misleading adam and eve the passage reads as follows so the lord god said to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals you will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life the language is so similar that it is evident that the author of the item description of the magma worm scale sword is actually directly eliciting the curse laying upon serpent kind by god the magma worms are in the same boat they have transgressed the natural law as set out by the god of this world men aren't meant to be dragons the ancient dragons were divine creations of the greater will at the beginning of time the dragon cult is different because they respectfully learn the skills and incantations of the dragons but they do not take their power and they do not seek to become dragons themselves while the dragons are majestic beings of power and grace who can soar through the skies the magma worms are dreadful serpentine fat shadows with mocking wings which have no hope of lifting up their ungraceful massive bodies into the sky they are cursed to crawl along the dirt a fitting punishment for those who seek to soar amongst the clouds and indeed their fate is also reflective of the dragonkin another attempt to artificially gain the power of the dragons men are not meant to have the strength of dragons and for reaching above their station and perverting the natural order as set out by the greater well at the beginning of time both these pale imitations are cursed ever to stare skyward in a tortured existence it is a lesson that has been taught to us all through myth and religion since time immorial like in the story of the garden of eden greed and coveting that which is not yours is a transgression and while you may get what you want and take it by force it might not be what you expect the time of the dragons is over and the world is much bereft of their regality and power there are those who respect it those who worship it those who fear it and those who covet it in all cases the dragon will ever be a symbol of power and majesty the first chosen of the greater will and one can't help but wonder perhaps they were the most fit to rule and the world has just been on a downward spiral since their collapse and yet they still have a role to play in the great conclusion of our story for within round table hold exists a blacksmith working tirelessly towards a singular goal to craft a weapon capable of slaying a god an impossible task if one is to believe gideon oath near for as he says man cannot kill a god but perhaps a god can be affected by time perhaps they can be moved right to the end of their timeline in an instant having been struck by a weapon that slightly twists time a weapon bolstered by the scale of the ancient dragon lord so thanks guys that is my take on the reign of the ancient dragons their civilization and their impact on the lands between i hope you liked this video guys and if you did please consider giving it a like and a subscribe for more elden ring lore content if you'd like to support the channel in other ways i have a patreon and i also have channel memberships right here but until next time guys please let me know your thoughts below if you think i missed anything if you've got anything further to add and what you'd like me to cover next but until next time guys i will see you on the steps of crumbling farm mozilla take care and have a wonderful night [Music] [Music] you

Channel: SmoughTown

Views: 460,319

Keywords: elden ring lore, elden ring, elden ring story, elden ring gameplay, lore, explained, elden ring lore explained, elden ring endings explained, fundamentalism, golden order, erdtree, marika, elden ring story explained, elden ring explained, fortissax elden ring, placidusax, lansseax, gransax, farum azula, what is farum azula, why does farum azula fly, beastmen, beastman, crucible, agheel, dragon communion, the one great, godwyn, godfrey

Id: oEiF3906wiE

Length: 84min 48sec (5088 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 17 2022