An in depth follow-up here m.kzfaq.info/get/bejne/asulm5yIt7PcYo0.html

Love how the NPC Hornsent is like "Marika betrayed us" as if his kind didn't turn her people into living jar abominations

The alien-looking blobs in the jars are shamans from the shaman village where Marika is from (can see their symbol on the forehead) - and apparently the hornsent did this to her people which was a reason she asked her son Mesmer to go obliterate them

It's ironic that Marika's people were made into jar people. After all, all things can be conjoined.

The way in wich the hornsent meld people inside the jars could be a predessesor of grafting an thats why they consider it heretical

The idea of people getting put in jars has been ruined for me by the internet. When i got to the cave where the ghost says "please, anything but the jar" i had to stop for a sec cause i was laughing my ass off

I guess this is why omen were hated they reminded Merika of the Horndsent and that bleed over because people noticed

The Greater Potentates' Cookbook describes one Potentate as being so disgusted with the practices of his brethren in Bonney Village that he left and tried to find different ways to create living jars. So it's safe to assume that the jars in the Lands Between are created in a different way with dead flesh instead of living creatures like in the Lands of Shadow.

Leda's paranoia goes deeper than just distrusting the other followers. It's implied that she's the reason you don't find any other Needle Knights.

Got a crackpot theory about the Hornsent. Their horns associate them with the Crucible which is basically described as an amalgamation of life and they also seem to have an Empyrean (the old lady that gives you Watchful Spirits) and they have a cultural fixation on the divine (dancing lion is referred to as divine) and Belurat itself is connected to Inir Ilim which seems to be a place where would-be Gods ascend to Godhood (we see Marika do it in the trailer and Miquella do it during the final boss fight) The Hornset of Belurat attempted to recreate the Crucible by conjoining life together (stuffing their victims into pots) and sacrifice them to raise their Empyrean to full Godhood. They failed this, Marika retaliated and started a crusade. In the end she sacrificed the Hornsent to become a God (we see horned corpses all sround the gate of divinity)

Honestly, based on what happened to Marika's people at the hands of the 'Hornsent', its no wonder she came back with a vengeance and murdered them all, then barred all Omens from her society. Not saying what she did was good, but yknow- I understand it now. Either way, Great video Madman!

It seems Marika children were "cursed" by most people she prosecuted. Godwyn/Melina - Death, Rykard/Mesmmer ( who also got fire giant god ) - Serpent, Malenia - Rot ( apparently the rot god awoken because Mesmmer genocide ), Ranni - Moon ( because she fucked up the Carians ), Mohg/Morg - Hornsent, Radahn seems to follow up the exiled Godfrey footsteps of lust for war. And Miquella it seems to mirror her the most, seducing/manipulating people into his quest to become a god and enforce his own views into the lands between.

interested in how the hornsent and midra/frenzy tie in - it seems like his 'punishment/damnation' was enacted by them - his grace site is also called 'discussion parlor' iirc which i found intriguing

i liked how they made Marika more human. The description of the minor erdtree is very sad especially "Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, knowing full well there was no one to heal" I imagine that was her last act as human before ascending to Godhood

This is a random connection I made, but the Bayle Mountain peak looks a bit like horns, or fingers... I wonder if the Hornsent saw it as religious, I think it's pretty visible from Belarat.

One thing I noted is that the old lady calls Merika a harlot in the opening to the dancing dragon fight. While innocuous on it's own the spell Minor Erdtree says its light is gold without order, kindness. In other words its gold magic which is only gold, pure unalloyed gold like what Miquella used to make prosthetic and resist the power of outer gods. This unalloyed kind gold seems to have only been able to heal, so my thought is that after her village was destroyed when she was a girl, Marika eventually worked her way up through Hornsent society using this unalloyed gold but eventually betrayed them by taking some power from their Lord or god and alloying that power with her own gold to improve upon the Minor Erdtree spell, creating the original Erdtree.

The whole "there's no good guys but really no bad guys either" thing that fromsoft usually does reminds me a lot of... well, real life

The shaman flesh easily melding with others makes me think about marika radagon. I’m in the camp that they weren’t always one being.

man, the quest for the carian guy was so awesome. being stumped on finding the last hallowed ground, sitting at the grace in the room before gaius, decided to go make a sandwich and think. i did the o mother emote in front of the marika statue as a funny little "lord give me a sign" and then BOOM! I yelled "YYYYYOOOOOO!" so loud i scared my neighbor lmaoo then pulling up to the shaman village, (i immediately thought of the spirit in that shack) seeing the baby erdtree, then grabbing the hair talisman. 10/10

13:17 poor phantom guy suffering messmer's rage 😣

I think the shaman/numen connection is the most important piece of the game's lore. Considering Marika marrying/merging with Radagon seemed to have elevated Radagon's previous children somehow, it makes me wonder if Marika somehow did that to the Tarnished in general. Maybe having Marika's grace is how the PC Tarnished can safely learn so many heretical incantations, why we can learn Dragon Communion without succumbing to addiction, hell maybe Melina and Torrent literally merge with us when not in use.

The only thing I wanna argue is about the “end goal” of the Hornsent. I don’t think the status afforded to the “Sculpted Keepers” is the end. I think being like the Curseblades is almost an initiate level, and the Sculpted Keepers were chosen from highly skilled Curseblades. So they are directly connected but the true end goal in my opinion was becoming a “Tutelary Deity”. With all the places we find the mummified Hornsent statue things, where we find the Revered Spirit Ashes, we can assume that a LOT of people were attempting that. And with all the various places we find them it kinda seems like they all were taking a different path to that transformation and they chose to do it in many different places. Tutelary Deities are a concept that comes from real life. It means to be a protector, guardian, or patron of something, usually associated with land, a specific place, a person or their bloodline, or a specific culture. I believe the Hornsent trained and practiced asceticism to become more attuned to a specific location to reach this status of protector deity and possibly become a kind of spirit of the land itself, melding with it in a sense, mimicking somewhat the Potentates practice with the jar burials. Buuuut that’s also just speculation on my part you might know something I don’t that proves that all wrong lol.

So basically, the Ancient Dragons needed an army to fight their mutated Drake kin, so they used the Crucible of Life to uplift a bunch of humans to be Dragon-Men, and their descendents became the Hornsent. The Hornsent were basically mutants themselves, but they revered their mutations and shunned the people born without them. Their use of helix motifs show they had an abstract understanding of genetics, and either engineered or discovered a new kind of lifeform in the Numen. Numens' bodies were incredibly malleable, and seemed to have mutagenic properties as well, so the Hornsent harvested them to try and build a Divine Gate that would allow them to ascend to an even higher existence than the dragons themselves. Unfortunately, one rogue Numen rebelled when they came for the people of her village...

It's interesting to consider the possible reasons why Marika chose to remove Destined Death. Maybe she was traumatized by the tragedy of her village, and demanded that she never see those she loves die. Perhaps she was immeasurably selfish, and she knew that if she could never die, then her reign would be eternal. Most concerning is that she may have removed Destined Death because of her hatred. She did not want those she hated to simply die once and be reborn, she wanted them to suffer eternally. Destined Death did allow for one to lose people, but it also meant stories had endings and things could be completed. It is its removal that resulted in the curses placed upon Malenia, Miquella, Mesmer, Mohg, and Morgott, and her children were doomed unless either Destined Death was returned or something usurped the Greater Will. I doubt Marika was so foolish as to not connect the lines, so it begs the question: why did she willfully keep Destined Death stricken from the Golden Order? I think this question proves Marika did not do it for love.

Best Elden Ring creator. Top quality production and narration.

Lol i just got ornis ashes. So the horned warriors claim to descend fron the original bird man

One of the things about the hornsent is that they only represent part of the Crucible, there ARE other aspects fo it, there are more. The Horn, The Feather, The Scale and The Flower. If the crucible is like the wellspring of all life then even Marika's people were also touched by the crucible, very like the Flower(or tree) crucible. Their flesh was able to meld with other's very easily, like trees and flowers. It's possible they reproduce asexual, see millicent and her sisters (but this could be speculation on my part lol). I think most of them are weak to fire, and ice with messmer, things that plants are very susceptible to. Numens were long lived, much like trees. Golden order has an affinity for plants and flowers. See the amber, dew, seed and erdtree talismans. It cultivated miranda flowers for their pollen in the perfume arts. For whatever reason the Land of Shadow had a preference for the Horn and feather crucible and likely looked down on the others.

The Furnace Icon and the new Lion headed Imp make me think that the Fell God of Fire was actually supposed to be the "Lion God of the Sun." It must have been either banished or it left on its own, because the Sunflowers (which are supposed to be it's floral avatar hence the Scadutree Avatar being a Sunflower instead of a Tree) only face the Erdtree. I feel this is in relation to the Original Sin; the banishment of the Lion God of the Sun and the invasive planting of the Erdtree, forever casting those that worshiped the Divine Beasts _under it's shadow._

In many religious imagery across the world especially in buddhist religious imagery, sinners in hell are depicted as being stuffed into pots together so as to punish and cleanse them in hell in pots so that they can be born as saints in the next life. It seems the hornsent did the practice in actuality to whom they considered sinners so as to punish and cleanse them and then turn them into "saints". It also seems like the corpse/statue inside the tree might have been some sort of parental figure to Marika and Marika became a god and got vengeance so hard that omens are still hunted when we arrive. She might have also created an immortal order so as to escape her past of losing her family and people which may be why she plucked out the rune of death so none of her family dies. This may also provide an insight as to why she broke the Elden ring when Goldwyn died.

The Blood Star and the Mother of Truth are not the same god as far as we are concerned. The Mother of Truth has bloodflame, communes with those who can and cannot see alike, and is the patroness of those considered to be "cursed" by the society (Omens, Misbegotten, Bloodfiends, etc). The Blood Star has thorns, communes only with those who cannot see, and doesn't care if you're being ostracized from society.

I appreciate you putting together some of lore. Even if the dlc didn't answer many of our questions there's still lore to be had

I look forward to more on this. The Hornsent, Ornis Birdmen, and the Crucible are really interesting. I kinda wish the DLC delved deeper into that pantheon. I doubt they'll ever make another DLC. But, something that would allow you to shrive the world of the existing Gods influences, and become one yourself, would be quite interesting to me.

Thst bong rip towards the end got me to sub, hardest confused laugh ive had in a while. Hope we're all enjoying the dlc :D

I love this channel. It’s like chatting with a friendly stranger that you just met at a bar; finding common interest in Elden Ring lore over some drinks.

Bro is singlehandedly puttin SmoughTown and Vaatis slackin asses outta business

Adding to the list of things i forgot, midras spear, the hornsent are the ones who "executed" his ass

Its been a while since I've tuned in due to the lack of new elden ring content but with all this stuff in the dlc that gives us so much important context to things we already know while embellishing on it further, I'm very excited for further videos from you, you always give a focused analysis of just enough information for me to handle, a perfect meal of knowledge to enjoy

you're a king for uploading these so fast. truly an honored madman

Best Elden ring lore videos fr. Idk how ur so underrated, keep it up

i’ve been thinking that maybe both the cut/uncut omen in and around leyndell appear much more mangled and savage powers than the hornsent because the crucible has funneled their life force into them. Being described as both an amalgamation of all life and a spiral, it could mean that the crucible works as a kind of reincarnation. The hornsent probably had to deal with it but maybe on a lesser level, instead having rituals and cultures built on it instead of being literally haunted by the amalgamation of souls within them. Point being, the new generations of omen born under the order of the erdtree after the banishing of the shadow realm are born with the added masses, both physically and psychologically, of the massacred civilizations of crucible peoples by marika

My theory is that Marika's betrayal may actually be two betrayals. She betrayed both the Hornsent and her own people, the Shaman/Numen. I think that Marika gave the hornsent the idea of using the Shaman/Numen as the foundation for the gross mass of flesh inside the living jars. So, why would Marika do this to her own people? I think she knew that through this process, it would eventually create what she needed to become a god. I think that the thing Marika pulled the golden strands out of in the story trailer, which she used in the Divine Gate to become a god, was one of those living jar creatures. As we follow Miquilla's journey through the land of shadow, all of the crosses that he leaves behind talk about his sacrifices. Sacrificing his body, sacrificing his love, etc. all to become a god. So, what did Marika sacrifice to become a god? I think it was her own people. Her second betrayal, this being her betrayal of the Hornsent, is her lie that these living jars would create "saints" when actually the living jars were just a tool to make her a god. And once she had obtained her godhood, she sent Mesmer to destroy the Hornsent and lock their lands away so that no one would ever discover her betrayals and what she had done to obtain godhood. I may be completely off base, but it just seemed odd that Marika had survived and had been labeled a betrayer by the Hornsent, a race who slaughtered Marika's own people. The Golden Braid item found in the Shaman village talks about it being Marika's prayer, her wish, her confession. What did she have to confess? Why would the Black Knife Assassin's, who we're told are also Numen, kill Marika's golden child Godwyn? Perphaps it was revenge for what Marika had done to their people? Marika tells her demi-god children to make something of themselves, but if they don't they will amount only to sacrifices. I think she knows very well the power that can come from these kind of sacrifices...

I don't think Marika left her son Mesmer in the land of shadow out of malice or to use him as tool. It's clear that she loved and cared about him greatly from "Blessing of Marika" description. We know that event in land of shadow happened before main game, so it is likely that Marika left Mesmer in the shadowland to reduce the influence of Fell god and sealed Fell God in order to save Mermer.

Using the omen mask and omen cleaver is so diabolical

Hell yea!Finally dlc lore videos!Looking forward to future videos

6:45 It is quite possible that the misbegotten are descendants/clan of Hornsent or a clan of different origin around Hornsent turf as the Grafted Greatsword reads: "A lone surviving champion from a country now vanished was so determined to continue fighting that he claimed the swords of an entire clan of warriors." -"A country now vanished" aligns with the Shadow Land being veiled out of existence. -"Continue fighting" could imply that Messmer's crusade at some point tackled a misbegotten clan OR the misbegotten were wronged by the Hornsent similarly to the bloodfiends; "Long ago, a subjugated tribe discovered a twisted deity amongst the ravages of war, and they were transformed into bloodfiends. The mother of truth was their savior." - Bloodfiend Hexer's Ashes -The name "Grafted Greatsword" goes in hand with the practices committed by the Hornsent, I.e; grafting shamans and criminals to "create" saints -The appearance of the misbegotten is rather similar to that of the Hornsent, and additionally misbegotten can be found throughout the Shadow Land. Most notably around mines. The DLC kinda implies the Hornsent were trying to 'achieve divinity' yet not all methods were considered legitimate by those of the tower (presumably the capital/center) as the Lamenter's Mask reads: "This transformation tallies with the state of a denizen of paradise, but the people of the tower denied and hid it from the world. In their foolishness, they viewed true bliss with deep fear." Could be that the misbegotten at large were a sect of Hornset who deemed their way of achieving divinity would be grafting themselves with aspects of the crucible. Some have wings "The Aspects of the Crucible: Wings" All have tails "Aspects of the Crucible: Tail" That could also be why we see a misbegotten warrior fight alongside a crucible knight in Redmane Castle. Alternatively they could've been a tribe in the Shadow Land that transformed into the creatures we now know due to subjugation, war, or w.e else and found their savior in what we know as the crucible or what its progenitor would be.

i think that like mother like son, marika also employed/charmed people to assist her on her path to divinity, and she probably made some promise to the hornsent in order to access the gate of divinity at the top of enir ilim. after gaining access to belurat and enir ilim, she betrayed the hornsent by tasking messmer with absolutely destroying them as seen in the trailer. im also guessing that miquella would probably not fulfill his promises either. i think hornsent's invasion is weird as well. ansbach's quest informs him to kill miquella. thiollier's quest informs both him and us why miquella must be stopped. when hornsent decided to take his vengeance upon marika's children, i was for sure convinced that he would help me stop miquella, but he didn't. my headcanon is that either he was charmed by miquella again and is now used as a weapon to prevent us from burning the thorns, or he figured out that we were guided by grace all along, making us an agent of marika, and he wanted to start with us first

I love your videos. Feels like I'm discussing lore with a mate rather than being told the story.

Love your stuff I’m glad there’s more elden ring lore for you to cover my man 🤘🏻👍🏻

Whats crazy is the feeling of nostalgia like weve been here before and thats because we have . Ds1 ,2,3 Bloodborne, Sekiro, All storys running concurrent with the other . Bleeding together the worlds like they did in this expansion. Such a beautiful dlc.

Hornsent actually sided with Leda against me before I went to stop Miquella. Leda or Miquella convinced him that I was Marika's champion and Lord of the Erdtree. So he wanted revenge against me by association to Marika, but I think my kindness to him earlier made him think I was setting him up to be betrayed, that's when Leda took advantage and manipulated Hornsent

Caterpillar mask is iconic. The cape is too but the defence is like a butterfly, goes great with the new halberds!

12:40 He loses his mind due to his overwhelming desire for revenge. Leda even says she's not gonna hunt him anymore because he's just gonna get himself killed soon anyway

i always hit the bong with you hahah , stoned lore at 1 am is peak

The more I learn about Marika the more I realize she is just Cersei

Just found your channel dude keep it up. Trying to decipher all this new info is crazy

I wonder if Marika found out what happened to the grandmother in the tree, which I think is nanaya, and then decided to punish the hornsent for that.

GOOD breakdown on the horn ppl. i always like things about the crucible instead of the golden order stuff.

Watching these new lore videos make me so happy 😊

10:32 - this is actually a good point, the jars may be there and empty because they were being used to fertilize the Erdtree and minor Erdtrees to be reborn...

Realizing Miquella is just Jesus Christ mixed with Griffith from Berserk

Interesting stuff. Glad to know I'm picking up the same as the community on my own. I subscribed, looking forward to more!

I’ve been so ready for this video

So people actually can grow horns. Usually when exposed to radiation. I think this is relevant considering the sci fi elements of elden ring and grrms other work.

I'm full on Marikas side after hearing about what they did to the Numen.

Love you for the harbinger reference

i love granma she gives me soup and doesnt die, that is new in souls games

I like it bro. Keep making this. It's good. More lore

The fact that this whole epic, dark, cosmic horror fantasy, with crazy creatures, gods, dragons and what not, comes from the fact that some mofos decided to put people into jars, is kinda funny.

Hornsent were the Elden “Reich”. “Get in the -camp- jar, it’s your prophetic purpose”

ngl this is the first time I ever thought eating scorpion sounds pretty good

I allways saw the Omen as a equivalent of Demons in Elden ring, but with the hornsent in the picture now i'm pretty sure that they are the demons, and their destruction is a reference to Sodom and gomorrah and their tower being the tower Babel

flames just dropped gamers

The horned lions in the main game also have that white hair.

I've seen a theory somewhere that Hornsent and Shamans are both Numen. Different time in a civilization. Crucible affected both the Shaman and Hornsent in different ways: Shamans were made malleable, with long life span, Hornsent were made with horns all over. Quite a theory and explained alot of things.

Yes, new lore just dropped. Major hype

Praise the tree!

Good vid you explain things better than most.

You're the only person that isn't just giving Marika the benefit of the doubt. I think her betrayal was that she was supposed to rule the Shadow Lands, but had bigger goals and reached an accord with the Greater Will, which gave her its blessing to conquer The Lands Between, and took most of the Numen with her. For this betrayal, they took an ancient practice and turned the dial up to 10, and when Marika returned after attaining godhood, she left in a rage and never came back, then sent her proxy Messmer (who I think was responsible for the first burning of the Erdtree) both to carry out her wrath and sequester him away from the Golden Order, terrified of his snake curse. I just fundamentally do not trust her, Miquella or Ranni. They've each demonstrated a willingness to inflict significant horror for their own selfish aims, and they each claim its all for the greater good.

Youre great sir! Keep it up fool, great presentations.

Would have been dope, if at the end, one of the endings allowed the veil to be removed and both lands reunited

i am sure that marika hated the hornsent so much that she persecuted anything that even slightly resembles them, which is why omen are so hated in the lands between

Awesome vid man

I'm interested to hear what you think of Messmer and his relationship with Marika once you get to it, honestly their story feels a lot more personal than with her other children, with all the personal blessings she made for him, his army and all (they eye sealing the serpent, the marika's blessing item description, the knights in his army having the same power as her hammer)

There's another clue, "Shaman flesh was said to meld easily with others", therefore since Shamans are Numen that would explain how Marika was Able to meld with Radagon.

Heard the bubbling had to do a double take make sure my ears where cleaned out then instantly hit the subscribe button😂

5:58 Honestly, I think the whole village got put in Jars. Marika included. The Hornsent succeeded. They created a divine and rose it up. It then "betrayed" them for their actions were unforgivable to the one who they made divine. It makes the rest of the "divesting of the self" make sense. How did she do that? Well because it wasn't just her in there. All these people got chopped up and melded together in a big pot where eventually they all lost a sense of who was who, but they all universally held the same scorn.

13:19 That guy being dirtied by Messmer lol, Is there no boss fight in the main game where Hornsent helps us as an NPC? Sounds like an possibility

Explains why Marika treats the omen and her own children, Mohg and Morgott, with such disdain.

20:48 When you think about it, it makes a twisted amount of sense as to there seems to be so many spirits of people and creatures in the Land of Shadow and why Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; It's to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hates the Hornsent so much that she didn't simply want them to die, she wanted them to suffer for all eternity, turning the Land of Shadow, their own homeland, into hell where the crusaders can brutalize, scorch and impale its denizens even when they've long passed into nothing but spirits, all the while Messmer's Shadow Keep looms over the land like Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings and the Scadutree stands tall and mighty as the Erdtree's shadow, a constant reminder that the Hornsent are condemned to an eternity of brutality under Messmer's rule without even the benefit of an afterlife. Since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose her son Messmer to fulfill that role. On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow with his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where Hornsent themselves are stuffed inside to serve as fuel for the machine as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery with its horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.

It’s like the hornsent are a mix of all kinds of life direct from the crucible. Numen are hornsent that rejected the horns and the crucible. Omens are hornsent who’s horns went wild like humanity in dark souls

What doesn’t add up to me is how many bodies there are. There are countless jars which means there must have been countless shaman to stuff into them. Even in the Gaols, there are thousands of bodies piled up

the omen seem genuinely different from the hornsent! They look like a combination of the hornsent and bloodfiends, we do know that unlike the hornsent, the omen have afflicted blood by the formless mother

PLEASE IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE ALDIA VIDEO FOR MONTHS NOW

wake up babe new honored madman just dropped

Looking forward to part 2!

Nice lore video!

all this lore coming out on the DLC is awesome

Finally done w the dlc, catching up on your content 🫡

Could you do a video on the giant dead dragon? Or even bayle

Hey. The old lady's at the start of Dancing Lion boss fight tells it to kill Marika's progeny (it calls her a strumpet, lol). And Hornsent says he wishes to kill all Marika's offspring. And then they attack us.