Another detail that draws a fairly direct connection between Azur and Lusat, and the Karolos and Olivinus crowns are the actual glintstones seen on both crowns. While, for some reason, the glintstones on the Karolos crown are white for the NPCs, they're the same deep green as Azur's on the player version, and the same shape as well. Similarly, there are round, blue glintstones on the Olivinus crown, much like the giant blue glintstone that has overtaken Lusat's head. I've seen some people speculate that they were the Twinsages, but it seems much less likely, all things considered.

Azur >Says nothing >Gives you the most OP spell in the game >Dies

Azur and Lusat: turn into a barely living thing with crystals replacing their brains. Sellen: "This primeval current sounds like a great thing to study."

I love their animations when they give you the spell. The way Lusat and Azur's hands just sort of creak to hand you the sorcery. Like they've been petrified.

I honestly like the idea that they’re so crystallized in the head, that it prevents them from properly utilizing their sorcery. It’s kinda like something out of HP Lovecraft where they reach a new plain of existence but their bodies are nothing more but a empty husk.😺

I bet these two are so far up the skill tree, they are existing in a different plane of being. Considering that Selena projected herself to a different location, while being tortured, i think these two probably live a decent life someplace else and only come back for a brief moment, when you inconvenience them.

You cast Magic until Magic cast you.

Bloodborne: Eyes in brains. Elden Ring: Replace brains with crystals.

Look into alberich, because his altered hat shows red crystals on it, could he have also been becoming a primeval sorcerer? but instead of gazing at the primeval current he gazed at the blood star because he had red glintstones on him. His set does describe him as an aloof yet heretical sorcerer

I like how Sellen is still able to teach spells after her transformation, she even asks for runes for it, welp I guess people still have to pay taxes in the abyss

What a harrowing experience when you first come upon these lads. The slightest animation when you gain their spell, character design off the charts. Elden ring provides so many memorable subtle moments

I love how Selene's questline has so many red flags and ominous foreshadowing. Between her telling you why she was expelled and seeing the state of the two sorcerers you get a clear picture that even if she succeeds her quest wont end well.

Completing sellen's questline to the end without being spoilered allowed me to experience a special kind of shocking twist.

Part of why I find Lusat and Azur fascinating is that, given the connections between sorcery, stars, and glintstone, both of them can truly be said to have achieved Galaxy Brain status.

The part of this game that is so interesting to me is how most of the NPCs we see in the game were normal looking humans at some point. It's so bizarre how normal looking humans (tarnished) and all these crazy looking half human/ half whatever the heck else creatures exist simultaneously.

So I’m not sure if you’ve covered this already but in caelid, There are massive skeletons jutting out of the scarlet rot. One can be seen when beside the massive warrior far and the other in sellia

These guys were my favorite discoveries in elden ring.

It's a testament to Sellen's will that she remains somewhat lucid after her transformation into a star seed.

I interpreted that Karolos and Olivinus were the first "students" of Azur and Lusat respectively, as the Karolos crown states "The Karolos Conspectus is the oldest of the academy's lineages of study, begat by the sorcerer Azur. Scholars who follow in his footsteps pursue the mysteries of comets", and Olivinus's crown says the same thing. Also, I find it intriguing that Rennala can cast Comet Azur, as that would mean Azur imparted the sorcery to her somehow.

I think it's worth mentioning that Sellen is a crystal herself. As part of her questline you transplant her from her original imprisoned body(or maybe she snatched that one as well) into one of Seluvis' s mindless puppets. Perhaps Azure and Lusat are just what happens if that core crystal is allowed to grow long enough to overtake the meat. In fact, Crystalians are described as "close to the ideals of the primeval current". It feeds into my theory that glintstone is a form of crystallized soul, or something like soul amber. All mined glintstone seems to have come to The Lands Between with meteors, perhaps remnants of dead worlds. Maybe even worlds untainted by Outer God influence. Which is part of my fringe belief that runes are souls and that's why originally the Golden Order perceived sorcerers as a threat, seemingly sidestepping the god harvest. And maybe the Carian-Golden alliance was predicated on making Primeval Current research illegal.

Maybe considering they studied the early sorcery that came from the stars, they attempted to evolve in a way similar to the Onix Lords of the Fallen Star Beasts Obviously it wasn't successful, but they were able to become "pure" glintstone beings, even Lusat's helm looks a bit like the Astel's eye

Well i did find it odd that in Sellen's quest she told us to "Bring back the bodies of Master Azur and Master Luset"

Forget returning to monke, these guys went back to rocke

I would love a video explaining the Graven-Schools. I was shocked when I came across the one in the hidden area of that tower in Caelid. Definitely one of the most unique enemy designs in the game.

I can't help but wonder if harnessing the more "primal" magics always has a profound effect on the body. Primevil Current magic, Dragon spells, Madness, always transform the user in some way as an end result. The only seeming exception is Erdtree incantations, but that's how you get Elden Lords, so?

this is a certified frenzied flame moment

Sellen is one of the most well written characters in the game imo and I really wish she had a mending rune attached to her quest. Restoring the primeval current would have probably made for an interesting ending.

It's interesting that Hex sorcery turns sacrificial blood into Red Glintstone, while other paths of sorcery are the green & blue that transform the sorcerer's own life essence and essentially their soul into Glintstone. Rarer still is the amber colour of stars like the shard Seluvis has you obtain and the egg Rennala is holding. I've always found it interesting that, like the Mass Graven-School, Astel is formed of shards of other stars with even a few of the rare amber shards being present on his body. Given that he looks so unlike the Fallingstar Beasts, and the eye that replaced Astel's brain and peers out through his cracked skull looks like the Primal Glintstone in Azur's head, I wonder if, back when they could be fought, if there were more plans to detail the Graven-Schools and artificial stars, as they seem to be a key element of Astel. Lastly, their unused attack animations look like the Sorcery of the Crozier weapon skill from the Watchdog's Staff. Of all the weapon skills, it's the one I've found most unexpected as the links to Erdtree burial guardians and sorcery aren't very significantly emphasized. It would make sense if some elements of that were initially meant to be explored with Lusat & Azur, and how the crystals are used to control the Imps, Watchdogs, & Golems, and why the Crystal Darts are able to short circuit them.

"You know what you guys need? Knowledge of the Primeval Current."

These uploads are like a mini chill-out session I use to shove the world back, even if only for a few minutes. Thanks for that.

I would love to see them as DLC bosses like the Godskin duo. The sorcerer bosses have been my favorite since it makes counterspelling with Eternal Darkness so fucking cool on full int builds.

Personally, I don't think they lost their minds necessarily but more had their wills broken by what they saw and that they couldn't share it with anyone in their current state. "When Azur glimpsed into the primeval current, he saw darkness. He was left both bewitched and fearful of the abyss." - Comet Azur "When Lusat glimpsed into the primeval current, he beheld the final moments of a great star cluster, and upon seeing it, he too was broken." - Stars of Ruin I believe that Azur and Lusat didn't lose their minds by the time we found them, rather I believe they had lost all hope because they couldn't share their discoveries. We don't know how much they actually saw outside of their signature spells but they both were deeply changed by what they saw then - perhaps the astrologer who discovered the first sorcery had a similar reaction but was able to share those findings with others. I say this mostly because of what they both do when we go up to them: they give us their primeval spell. I don't imagine they just wrote it down and we happened to see it on their lap or in their hands - but Azur actually turns his hand to give it to us (can't remember with Lusat, I was staring at that head). They probably were either dying or turning into a Crystallian (I refuse to check the spelling on that, I hate those things) so I wouldn't be surprised if they thought there was no chance to pass on what they saw to others so the study could continue. That's the end of my weird theory, maybe next time I'll have something else to mention

it’s always incredible to me that you have so much stuff to talk about with these games

The theme of staring into the abyss and the abyss stares back at you has always peaked my interest, ever since Bloodborne's Insight and frenzy. Shows the fragile foundation humanity has been built upon. No matter how much you pack, how big of a breakthrough you create, there's always this lingering Abyss that will put you back in check and make you understand that there are higher things that cannot and must not be fathomed. Just best to be left well alone. "In much Wisdom, is much Grief. And He that increaseth Knowledge, increaseth Sorrow."

It is amazing how this game manages to tell so much with so little. Other games may have thousands of lines of dialogue, this game has depth.

Be careful Zullie this could happen to you, peering into the unknown...

Azur's subtle hand motion before going utterly still gave me CHILLS. It was like watching the last breath of a dying man being used to whisper his final secret, and secure his legacy.

Sellen's questline seems to me like a play on transhumanism. The replacement of their bodies with anorganic material, as well as the merging of mind into one entity, may seem like a tragic fate to some, though it is probably exactly what Azur, Lusat and Sellen wanted to achieve.

Man this quest is so underrated. Barely no one talks about it but it's my favorite questline Sorry ranni, sorry Alexander

There seems to be a recurring theme in FromSoft's works about the dangers of power and not to get greedy with it. But specifically in Elden Ring - Many incantations derive power from outer gods who can and will take you over for their own ends. (Think Fell God, Frenzied Flame, Formless Mother.) Finding the primeval current does awful things like what happened to Sellen, Azur and Lusat. Apparently consuming even one dragon heart will doom you to becoming a Wyrm. Rykard basically got taken over by the God Devouring Serpent. Radahn wound up fighting the greatest warrior in the Lands Between and getting consumed by Scarlet Rot as a consequence. Marika lost her kingdom via her male essence. Ranni has to undertake a 1000 year journey to achieve her goals.

two things of note with these guys, the first is that both there crowns state "removed from his body, it is all but dead" implying there crystal brains are somehow still alive(if only barely), the second is that the concept of there skull bursting open with glintstone inside replacing the brain resembles Astel who has a very human looking skull for a face, which is cracked open revealing what appears to be a crystaline eye inside, which Lusats crown also resembles a giant crystal eye, perhaps at one point they were connected but the idea was abandoned? or perhaps even that they were intended to be one in the same, with the moveset we see here being phase 1(almost certainly a deacons of the deep scenario where the swarm of ads are more threatening then the main boss) and Astel originally being phase 2

Another great video! The sorcery stuff in this game remains so thematically incredible even if the various spells in execution can get a bit outclassed by the variety of faith options at times.

Given this information, I can imagine a questline that was cut in development where another NPC who followed the two would ask us to kill them since that's no way to live, or maybe their physical forms were the last thing keeping them from merging with the Primeval Current. Something along those lines

Dunno if the general sentiment has changed since, but I remember people getting PISSED at Sellen's ending, because they wanted a happy ending for her. They were saying things like, "C'mon From Soft, just give us one happy quest line!" I recall thinking it was an odd reaction to specifically Sellen. She is not a good person, even if she is genuine with her intentions. Her studies were heretical largely because she sacrificed many. I like her, because she just wants to understand things. But she also deserved her fate 🤷 (Plus, we do get a few happy endings in From Soft games. Solaire gets past his depression and helps the player out for the final boss fight, possibly linking the flame himself in his own world 🙂)

Would be nice if the 2 of the very specialized spells each of them gives, are designed to end their miserable torment one may call life. and those where the only things in game to be able damage them. Thus the fact they give you their spell away so easily would be cry for help.

This is an example of a questline that seems fully fleshed-out from a lore perspective, without any huge chunks of important content missing from it. The player is given enough information to form coherent theories on their own. There's some criticism for how obscure some of the steps are, in a way that nobody would guess without a guide. And Sellen herself does somewhat fall victim to the same "offscreen death" problem that plagues most other questlines. But at least in her case, we can reasonably guess that her transformation was the result of meddling with the Primeval Current.

Azur is the more disturbing case to me. It looks like rigor mortis set in while he was meditating.

I'm constantly in awe of the implications of sorcery in this world, with the threat of the Graven Schools, Azur, Lusat, and people slowly turning into rocks, glintstones, as if the study of sorcery itself is a process of glintstoneification, it's truly fascinating

when you realize the soul of the sorcerer is on the primal glintstone so they can just change bodies if they wanted to, its intentional they are trying to learn how to mimic stars like the elden beast, its the dragon communion but for sorcerers and I guess it has similar levels of success, i prefer the magma wyrm over the star seed graven mass but its implied they will hatch so who knows? maybe it will turn out better in the end

Funny part is when Sellen thanks you for helping her out and says Rennala is gone for good, but the moment you rest at the Grace Rennala is there again and so is the giant ball thing.

the animations likely were to show that this is what happens when you go too far in your pursuit of the beyond. you become part of the beyond , no longer yourself. they are still all powerful , but they are not themselves. theyve taken on a singular look , similar to the crystalians slim face. not feature related just more how thin they are , how very thin and covered in crystal they are. this is why when they move , it is but a slow flinch of their arms. i think it shows how little of themselves are left after their research. they ward off those who would share their fate , a fate theyd never wish on any of their beloved students. Raya Lucaria is almost like a family , we see so much art of faces like family photos all over the castle and carian manor. magic , was like the love a family shares. but these two saw something so tempting they had to meet it. Selfish maybe to keep such wisdom to themselves , only passing down bits and pieces to their students. But in the end I think they were not banished , I think they left on their own after rennala had a talking to them about the forbidden magic only she was allowed to endure. (her talisman says the moon is in direct contact with her , so something very powerful is keeping rennala safe from the physical corruption that comes with her studies) But because they used forbidden magic , and rennala was very clear about that, they have to be "banished" or removed from the school to show the students that even the masters are to follow the rules set by the Full Moon Witch

I kind of wish they kept the attacks, I love the idea of these mighty sorcerers being so immobilized they can only shoot basic magic

Well, that was beautiful. Honestly, I think I've come to enjoy your videos more than the actual game; you find a sort of majesty and elegance in the story/lore that I just can't find on my own anymore. Thanks for that.

I think they’ve achieved a level of intelligence that surpasses the human experience, and live on a different plane similar to bloodbornes dreams and nightmares

You've heard of lining your brain with eyes, now get ready for *replacing* your brain with *crystals!*

Absolutely love the designs on these dudes. The academy sorcerers can fuck right off with their bs attacks, but these dudes, they're cool. I use their armor in a battlemage build.

Yeah coming across the body of Lusat in that cave is certainly creepy. It does make me wonder about the implications of all the Glintstone stuff could be. Those Graven-school things creep my out too, and I had no idea Sellen could become a part of one. Is that where she goes if you complete her questline and side with her? I feel like I must go find her now if that is the case...

Azur’s set might be my favorite set in all of Fromsoft’s games

I used to find the stone heads a bit laughable and of goofy design, but digging into the lore of the academy it's just astoundingly interesting and I love it.

There hats do be looking fresh if I'm being real. Especially lusat and his fishbowl

I'm sure they'ld get along really well with Master Willem. Heh.

Methinks the original plan was for you to encounter them in their sorry states and you're expected to.. put them out of their misery. Would explain why their gear drops upon death.

these guys are so cool they're what got me to stop and really read every description in sight

Those death animations are likely used when we complete sellen qchain and load into Caelid and Gelmir

Imagine standing in that tiny prison cell and the last thing you witness, is a Comet Azur out of nowhere, absolutely blasting the living shit out of your char. Sounds fun.

I always wonder what was going on in the location we find Azur in. First there's the Craftsman's Shack which presumably refers to some off-screen genius who constructed the pulley (cross)bow and likely the abductor virgins as well. This also may have been the hermit of the Hermit Village (which is a pretty contradictory name in itself, as a hermit is someone who lives alone and a village are people living together); other options would be errant sorcerer Wilhelm, whose set is found here, or Azur himself. Then there are a bunch of dead windmill celebrants lying around, a family of demi-humans somehow allied with sorcerers, and finally Azur just sitting there out in the open. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Everything has got me hyped for the dlc especially waking miquella up

I think it's very possible that not only Glintstone itself is sentient, but also parasitic and it spread much like a fungus or slime mold. I think it might also explain why glintstone deposits respawn when smithing stone doesn't. It came from outer space, too, so it makes it even more likely, like how the Fallingstar monsters seem to be mineral-based, and use similar "magic-based" powers. It "infects" things in a similar way the Scarlet Rot does, physically changing their attributes, like the Miralda flowers, and the dragons you find in the area.

"The primeval current is a forbidden tradition of glintstone sorcery. To those who cleave to its teachings, the act of collecting sorcerers to fashion them into the seeds of stars is but another path of scientific inquiry." So... wait... was this Sellen's goal?... did she... succeed??? I made the assumption that this was a surprise punishment

Video 14 of asking zullie to show what the hell is going on in leyndell catacombs.

I felt so bad for what happened to Selen , i remember going back to the school a while after finishing her quest, and there she was moaning and deformed, it was sad...

"Feeble cursed one! Do you think you can manage the glories that are my spells? Hahahaha!"

I hope we can touch on the Graven Schools. It's an interesting concept, and I don't know if there are many clues as to how it happens and why. Also, while it's distinctly possible Sellen was deserving of some kind of retribution, as she no doubt had no small part in creating Graven Schools, I feel like there was hope for her. She wanted to open up the Academy. She wanted to allow knowledge to be more readily available to all who wished to learn. And in the end, whether you were a blunstone or a genius, she appreciated what you did for her and swore her loyalty to you. :( She would've loved Thops.

Considering the state they are in, it would be cool if using the Law of Regression spell would actually kill them or otherwise revert them to a state where they are more mobile. It'll be great to see a more in-depth look at the Primeval Current in future DLCs for Elden Ring.

"Azur" is a shade of blue. Yet he's the one with the Green glintstones.

When chatting with sorcerers and they say they're rock hard right now

I really wish they gave Sellen a unique crystal look like azur and lusat if you side with her, it'd still have the same impact and it'd be cooler than a ball on the ground

Albriech was also starting to grow his own primeval crystals if you removed his hat, he's growing blood star glintstones growths under the wraps. Lusat is growing into a voidborne and wonder if the eye is some how parasitic like the greater will. I don't think it was an accident that envoys look like they're growing bulbous heads too at the haligtree cocoons and use holy version of claymen magic that they also look like astelbubbles/glintstoneorbs (w/e the orbs the marionette play with before dropping) growth has taken place. I wonder how much involvement crystallians have with voidborne beings like alabaster lords also comprised of sediment, and they might be from space too and can be affected by outergod influences like the rot crystals. I also think starcaller followers are growing meteorites through their hoods in similar fashion or maybe everyone is inserting rocks like sellens glintstone core and do not grow them normally.

With their attack and death animations I could see it being a thing where you're sent to kill these infamous heretical sorcerers, but when you get to them you see they're these near immobile husks who are so far gone that they can't even use their powerful sorceries to defend themselves, all they can do is spurt out these feeble little pebbles. Cue you questioning whether or not you're the real monster etc. etc. It feels like a very Fromsoft twist for a quest.

They do react to attacks. If you hit them before they can give you their spell, they’ll reset their animation.

Maybe they originally planned for you to get the staves along with the armor sets but moved them later

What even is the primeval current? I never understood that. Is it something outerworldy, or from some outer god, maybe something from the void like Astel, or a very old star that exploded or something abstract that just is

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing…”

This game has so much mystery and amazing secrets in it, it blows my mind. I’m so excited for DLC for ER. Usually the dlc of souls games are where it gets crazy, but the base game was absolutely bonkers so the dlc is going to be mind boggling.

I like how sorcery always has a very sinister underlying story to it in the series. With Dark Souls, it was created by one of the most evil characters imaginable as a means to corrupt innocent people, driving them down his path. In Elden Ring, sorcery causes one of the most horrid fates in the game, a catatonic state of gradual crystallization.

You kind of need eyes(that is looking at the material world) to aim those signature spells, and all of the showcased spells in the duo's arsenal seem to be undirected or self-guiding. Ranni may have *helped* Sellen a bit, given she watches over the grand library and Rennala, and she seems to have a thing for karmic end for villains(as seen in case of Pidia).

Perfect timing! I'm just getting to this quest now. I stopped at the two abductor virgins boss fight and forgot to go back.

The music is so good dude it really immersed me in the lore for a min

Not only are your videos made with soul, you actually credit the music you use unlike most of the mouth breathers that make vids like this.

I was so sad when I saw Sellen end up that way at the end of her quest line. I genuinely liked her as a character and thought that Sellen was going to use the egg to rebirth herself once more out of her puppet body into a new Rennala. Nope, that didn't happen at all. When I heard her speak in that literally disembodied voice, my heart broke. Thanks FromSoftware...

Ok hear me out: my theory is that every time you cast their sorceries you are conjuring the a part of the master himself, as in, it's a literal piece of the guy manifested in energy. If Sellen can do that stone trick to be transported to a new body then these guys can do something that otherworldly.

Sellen refers to them as nigh on a child of stars by now

I love this kind of "inorganic life" idea they're going for here. It makes them seem truly alien and something genuinely not ken to life on earth, the opposite of Bloodborne's "You're actually related to this horrifying alien thing" idea.

My theory is that Azur and Lusat are the previous forms of Astel, the glintstone consumes their brain and head then mutate or hatch in the forms we know, leaving the arms and skull, last remains of the human they were before. Just like in Brainsuckers or the Winter Lantern in Bloodborne.

1:40 Imagine hitting what is basically a corpse and it annihilates you with a beam of magic

Flying too close to the cosmos on wings of glintstone.

I love your videos, but it's so difficult to watch and read at the same time. It's just an ideia, but you could have one of those google voices or something like that to talk while you show those really interesting things from the games! Anyway, thank you for the video

Zullie, do you know something about the glowing skulls that drop runes? Their location make me think they are multiplayer related like the vagrants but people have seen them offline too

Upon reaching Raya Lucaria, my first thoughts were of Bloodborne, given it’s similar nature to Byrgenwerth and the ornamentation of the environments there (astronomical instruments, mass gravestones, etc.), and the nearly-catatonic state of these two sorcerers just reinforces that with their similarity to Master Willem.

Something I find rather interesting about Lusat's hat is that the unusual formation seems very similar to the eye ball seen poking out of Astel's skull, as well as the skull of the Full-Grown Fallingstar Beast when it enters phase 2. And given how Lusat apparently forsaw a comet in his vision granted by the Primevil Current, it's possible he may have been turning into a star like what powers Astel, or possibly even into a Fallingstar Beast. Or it's just FromSoft reusing assets *Shrugs*