This is my first video, and will serve as the first in a series entitled "The History of the Lands Between." We'll use the construction of the Gold Road as a major benchmark to create a timeline. Shadow of the Erdtree's release is imminent, I already have a bunch of ideas how things fit together. Get hype! MAJOR UPDATE (7/2/24): We may know which demigod was responsible for building the Gold Road. I was going through the text dumps of the base game and found a cut content item "Carrier Pigeon Letter [2]", which says "Traces of silvery slime found on Godwyn's Highroad." "Highroad" seems to be another name for "Highway", but most highways in the game are PLACE names. Calling it Godwyn's Highroad, a person not a place, suggests that GODWYN was responsible for building the Gold Road. This suggests that the original name for the Gold Road was "Godwyn's Highroad". Though, Carrier Pigeon Letter [2] did not make it into the actual game. Maybe not the best idea to rely on pigeons to deliver important lore. EDIT (SPOILERS FOR DLC): - I sincerely apologize for misgendering Ymir, but he seems like he might be genderfluid at least. - The gameplay trailer was misleading in who the "Erdtree faithful losers" were. It is not Messmer's culture, though he was certainly a victim, he and his army were the ones performing the genocide, the hornsent were those on the losing side of a war. However, as Enir-Ilum shows, there was a tree-worshipping culture in the Shadow Realm which may have been related to the later Erdtree culture. - I found Gold Road tiles in the Church of the Crusade near the Shadow keep, suggesting that Messmer's invasion happened post-Goldroad creation, supporting evidence in this video. - Each of the churches with headless Marika statues have the same pillars as those we find in Sellia, Lower Leyndell, and Ordina.
I was thinking that the knight statues in the Gold Road near Leyndell have similar designs as the Death Knights (helmet + longhaft axes/halberds) -- perhaps the DK, or a previous iteration of them, were those rendered in those statues. Or, the Death Knights as we see them in game, have styled themselves post facto after the character's rendered statues. This could further establish a further link between Godwyn and the Gold Road you suggest. What do you think?
13:52 that Hexafoil is Radagon's sigil. That's why, in his statues, he is portrayed with the hexafoil behind him. Additionally, the hexafoil closely resembles the type of trellis one might use to help a tree grow. This might be symbolic of his chosen role as a "supporter" of the Erdtree.
I like the trellis idea a lot, actually! The regression matrix as the trellis that the causalities grow in... that also fits with what we see in Elphael where it is the "brace" of the Haligtree.
Personally, I think Radagon adopted the trellis sigil after his time studying sorcery with Renalla. He was the originator of Golden Order Fundamentalism, which requires Intelligence to cast and can launch fast projectiles (not unlike sorcery), so it makes sense that sorcery might be part of Golden Order Fundamentalism. I'd also note that if Radagon studied Carian astrology at all, he would know about the power of the stars to guide fate, which seems similar to the determinism implied by the Law of Causality incantation (which Tarnished Archaeologist noted is more or less Newton's Third Law).
Its also angular in shape which could represent his opposition to Marika? Or rather his opposing nature and personaility. I'm not articulating that very well, but there's a point there somewhere. i really like the trellis metaphor though. Hadn't thought of that. Nice! I've also seen a "stitching" or "patching" comparisons made too that make sense.
@@Nemo12417 I agree that Radagon likely adopted his sigil from the magical barrier on Raya Lucaria's gates, but I don't think he founded Golden Order Fundamentalism. Based on the "echo" of Marika at the Minor Erdtree Church, Marika likely founded Golden Order Fundamentalism there, though Radagon's time in Liurnia no doubt helped those pursuits.
Your missing out on probably George Martins best story. And Fromsoft has a rather unique way of telling stories, which I feel only serves to add to the immersion. If you showed up in these lands, what are the chances that the first person you meet is going to be 100% clued in on the history and and events that have taken place over the last 5,000 years, and what lead to them being so busy trying to survive a world that's been chaotic hell, forever.
Excellent video! My dad is a Roman history buff, and when we visited Italy together he pointed out a lot of what you mentioned here. You nailed it! Great attention to detail!
Walking around Rome was like being transported to Leyndell, it was like I was walking around inside Elden Ring. I can't wait til I actually get to use some of the photos I took
This is how it's done! Not dreaming up "theories" about this or that aspect of the game, but carefully analyzing the geological, archaeological and architectural features of the Lands Between. After all, that's how we piece together the history of the real world.
Well it's a bit of both, you craft a theory to explain what you observe, then continue observing and shaving off/ adding on/ abandoning your theories as needed
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. NGL the amount garbage that is now vomited on youtube by ignorant fools is ridiculous and frankly, insulting to the game, its creators and audience. If i hear the word evidence one more f****** time... Instead of judgment they display impetousness and diminish us in the eyes of our enemies. Ill-considered! Trifling!
@@frozengoat5834 For me, theory crafting needs to come last, downstream from careful analysis. We need to understand what we're looking at before asking ourselves what it might mean.
@BBRocker75 This video, which is very good, includes about 10 minutes of wild theorycrafting based on the trailers for the DLC, all of which was completely wrong. Speculation and theorycrafting will always be at the heart of Fromsoft analysis. For better or worse, that's often how real world history is, too, just on a slower timescale.
11:17 my immediate thought of the different depictions of the elden ring, was that the one less “missing” ring is the rune of death. Since during the time of the dragons, the elden ring still included all four of those major rings which could include the rune of death. So then once marika sealed it away with maliketh, she completely changed the way it was depicted.
I think that is a good analysis of what happened! Maybe a reason why Maliketh is in Farum Azula and we find him with the Rune of Death in the room with that design.
The DLC added even more weight to your previous observations on the links between Snakes and the Giants/Fell God, I hope you'll be covering it ! It definitely feels like there's something tying Marika, GEQ and the godskins, the Fell God, the Serpents (base and Gelmir), Messmer and Melina together in motifs somehow.
Yes there absolutely is. I am so excited to revisit the Serpents/Giants connection with the new DLC information! The DLC's lore was deeper than I expected, and it's great to see!!
Nameless Singer, your contribution is massively appreciated. I bet I speak for us all when I say that a post-DLC part 2 would be lovely. Your presentation is of a high standard. Keep going. We're here for it.
Thank you so much. I will keep going, for as long as it takes, until we get a timeline that we are happy with. We will be doing a post-DLC part 2, possibly in context of figuring out when exactly Messmer's Crusade took place. It won't be for a while, because I want to flesh out some more parts of the architectural analysis first, but we will get there. I also need to figure out how to keep track of the timeline. Idk if just a big graphic would do it, or if I need some sort of timeline software, but I think I need to really look into that.
This may just be me, but i assumed the large main road from leyndell to raya lucaria was built far later in the timeline over a similar simpler road akin to the one that meets up with it outside the gate. Likely as a symbol of the "new" unification of the sorcerers and leyndell and to allow nobles to get to raya lucaria faster
Yeah many people have pointed this out and I am totally fine with that interpretation. I had it in my notes and should have included it as an alternative explanation. I'll be sure to mention it in the future!
I love vaati and the work behind the scenes that he and his team and all the other TH-cam creators do is top fucking notch; his cinematic-ness is bested by none but you have taken the cake in terms of academic-ness. The fact that so much of the evidence used to support your assertions comes from in game renders of architecture, symbology, and the like took me straight back to Humanities 110 and by god I loved it. Absolutely everything you said was backed up by incontrovertible evidence presented in a clear and straightforward manner. To have all that presented with excellent framing/cinematography and very clear voice work is the icing on the cake. In short, lovely view ahead!
The "lovely view ahead" just made me smile so big. I was taken right back into the game, but that imagery was convolved with my own channel's future and I feel it so hard. I do work in academia and I try really hard to only present stuff that I think has strong evidence. That is the main goal of this channel, to present the patterns that my friends & I have found, and do our best to present the most likely story, and offer alternative explanations when we don't have that. Thank you so much, this comment made my day!
By this timeline, the Golden Order was the Byzantine Empire to the Farum culture's Roman Empire. A remainder empire that inherited the massive infrastructure and culture of a previous larger empire that suffered a massive catastrophe to it's capital. Rome fell to the barbarians, Faurm Azula got nuked by a meteor.
I am not super well read on the Byzantine Empire but I think I will need to brush up because there likely is something to this. i think the GO connection is far more to Christianity in the west post-Roman Empire. I don't find enough Greek influence in the game to make me believe that we're dealing with too much Byzantine influence, but that also may be because IMO the map of TLB itself is Italy reversed. I wouldn't be surprised if a future Fromsoft game was about Greek/Byzantine influence though, that would be SUPER interesting. Oh but I do think the barbarians thing is legit and in the game's historical influence somewhere, but I don't have a complete theory for this yet.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing The Byzantine Empire was where Emperor Constantine I adopted Christianity as the state religion, convenined the Nicean Council to ratify the Christian religion as single inflexible creed, shifted Christianity into a more fundementalist arm of the state and established the militant Orthodox church. Replace Constantine with Marika/Radagon and you've got some solid parallels. If you follow Tarnished Archeologist, he points out the later division in the Orthodox Church was a conflict between the nature of a particular hand ritual blessing. One that turned quite bloody. The difference was between whether the gesture used two fingers or three fingers. Sounds familiar. 😎
Great video documentary. Im surprised you're still a small channel, the production and narration is professionally done. Wish you great success and exposure to grow. You already have the skill in video production and investigation to do so.
Thank you so much!! Yes I am very proud of the production and I am suprised by how much I actually like capturing the footage and doing the editing. Only issue is that it takes a long time haha
Thank you so much for explaining the hexafoil design! We also see it where we find the cinquedea, in the midst of a sacrificial beastman ritual (with the dragoncrest shield talisman nearby). I was wondering why these hexafoil stone circles ended so abruptly on the way to Leyendell...Marika probably built over it...great video, looking forward to seeing more
while watching, I was thinking “how have i never heard of this creator???” until i saw this was your first vid 😂 fantastic insights and look forward to more!
This was a really cool video! At first I hesitated to watch because I'd seen TA's video on the road network, but this is on a whole different level. Love the detailed architectural breakdowns and analysis. Have fun with the DLC! The lore implications of some things I've seen are already incredible.
TA was referencing my original lore post from Reddit in that video! I hope that our videos won't overlap too much and I don't think they will because the lore goes so deep
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Oh awesome, I totally missed that! I think your videos compliment theirs perfectly and have a charm all their own. Keep up the great work!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Even if you cover some of the same topics, I really value different perspectives on this stuff. As a student, not a researcher myself, it helps to have multiple "professors"
The Gold Road predating Godfrey's crowning as Elden Lord fits right in with the idea that what is modern Leyndell was built around the nameless Eternal City, which was originally on the surface.
This is dope. The Gold Road is what I followed on my very first play through, always referring to it on my maps. The Tarnished maybe centuries later, walks the road that was paved by The Golden Order to eventually become the New Elden Lord.
You know, Cellia and Laynedell being of the same culture and the same construction (and maybe even of similar age) might go a ways to explain why Radahn was so loyal to Laynedell. Sister cities, basically. It also adds a bit more weight to Miquella's betrayal.
Yeah I like that a lot actually. I need to revisit how the cultures would have interacted pre-Shadow Realm disappearing, may help explain how Sellia came to influence Lower Leyndell better
Bloody impressive work especially for a first video ! As a Roman/Byzantine enthusiast I think the parallels between the Roman road system and the Pseudo Rome/Constantinople architecture in Leyndell itself adds further evidence to your video. The curved dome architecture in Leyndell is very similar to the Hagia Sophia a key surviving piece of Byzantine building design.
Making a note of this for the future Leyndell video, because I haven't looked deep enough into the Byzantine side of the Roman Empire. I went to Rome last year and found a TON of shared visual motifs between Leyndell & Rome, which was amazing, but there's other motifs unaccounted for and I truly believe that many of them in the game have IRL historical parallels
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing The Roman theme continues with the games own theology as well. Before the rise of the Golden Order its very clear there a multitude of Gods ; The fell God of the Fire Giants, The Serpent God of Mt Gelmir, The Dragon God who abandoned Placcidusaax, potentially even a Moon God in Raya Lucaria as well as the Gloam Eyed Queen. This reflects the Pagan Pantheon of Gods before Christianity in the Roman Empire be they Mars/Ares, Athena etc. Marika conquers all the others or they are quite literally driven underground. Spreading her faith by the sword or by diplomacy just as was done by the Romans after Emperor Constantine adopts it as his own faith. On the surface you now have 'Churches of Marika' whereas the Greek style temples are buried under the earth. Marikas symbol being akin to a Crucifix combined with her literally being Crucified with a spear through the abdomen completes the parallels between the Golden Order, Christianity and the Romans.
I've spoken about this gold road sigil and its implications for the 'primeval crucible era' that even predated the Farum azula ring sign we see in Maliketh's room. Similar to how the early erdtree sigil predated Marika's current golden order sigil. Great video. Really happy to see a new channel get traction
Yeah I've seen some posts on the FA symbol looking like the Crucible, its definitely related, though I am not exactly sure how yet. I feel like I don't truly know the lore until I've written a theory up about it (or in this case now, a video). It's like the lore won't solidify and is just a bunch of loose connections in my brain. But there is legit some cool fucking stuff with the FA ER design.
Yes in that Church along with the other two churches that look like it you can find Gold Road tiles (so 3 locations iirc). The pillars in those churches are the same ones as the ones in Sellia/Lower Leyndell. Which makes me believe that the crusade came after Lower Leyndell was already built and part of the Gold Road was as well.
You might have noticed it but around the 4 Elden Ring circles on the golden road pavement there seems to be an other circle that looks like Marika’s braid from the Shaman Village!
OOH that's good! OOH that gives me a spike of dopamine. I hadn't heard that before. Someone else had been saying how it looks more like a Celtic knot, BUT... given how we now know that on Messmer's sigil there is a golden circle braid, that is particularly compelling that THAT is actually the symbol we are looking for.
Yes I have wanted to do this for a long time, so I wanted to come out of the gate with some high quality stuff. Next one will include lore from the DLC, I am super stoked!! Thanks for the sub!
Wooooooow Holy crap, I found myself here by accident, It was just on my recommendeds but.. I'm not disappointed. Just earlier today I came to the conclusion that I could start peacing together a timeline based on the fact that farum azula broke apart after the roads were made. I think there is a lot of really good connections here that are going to strengthen a lot of already ongoing theories that got a lot more clear when the dlc hit. Great job! Im really impressed that this is your first video because the quality and execution was mind blowing.
I have been doing lore since the game came out but I waited until I felt I had enough to make high quality content, and then I tried out a bunch of video stuff until I felt I had the right quality level. I hope you the takeaways from this video help you in your timeline! There is much more to come
@NamelessSingerEldenRing it really has! You, tarnished archeologists video about a great flood and a video I found about the fall of the sun realm from someone.. I think they were called occultonion I'll have to check whe. I'm not at work but those two videos absolutely shook my knowledge of what I thought I knew about the game lol I highly recommend giving them a watch they are very very recent
I'm not a big commenter, in fact I can count on my two hands how many times have I ever written a comment. But I really hope this channel will do well 🙏🏻 and I felt that I had to express my appreciation for it. I would watch a video of this quality even if it was hours long while about the most mundane topic ever 😃. One can immediately tell that there was a lot of thought, time and effort given in the process of making this content. Seamless narration, a nice mellow sounding voice as a bonus, unique view of the lore, interesting remarks, there's no volume fluctuation throughout the videos whatsoever (sadly it's a rarity), carefully selected beautiful and eye catching shots from the game. Overall impact on par with professionally made documentaries in my opinion. Your work, extraordinary ... The mark of a true creator. Hope your endeavour will be rewarded. Thank you! ☺️
This was a fantastic video, the level of research and detail was incredible. It's so cool to see how some of the item description text is proven here. The Ritual Sword/Shield talismans state that the practice of ritual combat at the colosseums had died out by the time of Radagon's rule, pointing to it being a large part of Godfrey's rule as first Elden Lord of Marika's Golden Order. The three places we find colosseums in the Lands Between are Leyndell, Limgrave, and Caelid, places we also see the Golden Road, potentially implying those 3 lands were under Marika and Godfrey's rule when the colosseums were built.
Yes you are getting into some of the Leyndell stuff we'll eventually talk about. I LOVE the colosseums, I think that lore was my first Reddit post that I made in this community. They hole many clues to the timeline and i can't wait to get to talk about them in more depth
I would have assumed the more advanced road to Raya Lucaria is a later built road, possibky after Radagon and Rennala’s union forged peace between Leyndell and Raya Lucaria.
Yes some other folks have brought this up and I may rethink the timeline in the future. I found some of the dragon evolution motifs in the RL Grand Library, so it seemed like there was dragon/Farum influence at that point, which made me think it was earlier. i also thought the statues in the road made me think it was earlier. but maybe what happened was that there was a war, the Liurnian Wars, which could have destroyed the OG road and let to the fancier one being built. The name of that part of the road is called the "Bellum" Highway, and "bellum" ~ "war" in Latin. We'll have to revisit it in a future vid!
The Goldroad! Love that name. Of all the Elden Ring lore I heard recently, this is my new favorite. Interesting analysis with great source to compare. Looking forward to more content
Awesome video =) Love the deep dive into seemingly inconsequential details that create deep lore implications. The style of Farum Azula stones compared the ones found in Caelid basically confirm the theory of Radahns arena being the ol' non-crumbling location of Farum Azula. This channel got me hooked!
Oh yeah I remember that essay. I still kinda like the idea that it was floating in the middle, but perhaps the truth is that it started out on that beach in Caelid and then floated on over to the middle, was destroyed, and went out east.
Ay, "Yellow Brick Road," was sittin' right there for ya! I love that these hyperspecific videos are coming out now for the game. I just released one about how the environment design has been designed around the 4 seasons.
I HAD A LINE WITH IT I don't know why I took it out!! I decided to just use the Wizard of Oz clip instead. Gonna watch the 4 seasons video because I agree that that design is everywhere
Glad you liked it! I want to try to do cool shots and I kinda can but the free cam mod I am using is not perfect, but it's good enough for stuff like that
I see the "Old Gold Road" as part of Radagon marrying Rennala and combining their cultures. He couldn't defeat or assimilate them with military might, so instead he slowly parasitized them under a guise of cooperation.
It's great to be here - to witness the first in what I'm sure will be a long line of badass lore explorations. And my comment will be here to mark this occasion long after you blow up.
Yeah I waited a long time to make the vids because I wanted to 1) learn enough to produce high quality vids and 2) to have high quality lore theories with evidence that would hold up. Thanks for being a fan of the theories from way back when!
I have a lot of theories, more than 1000 hours into the game I’ve become mad at this point, but is always welcoming and cool to have new perspectives and more importantly people wit passion to find the lore
the road was most likely built when marika rose to power and conquered the lands between, tiles look like one of the sacred seals used to cast incants and gold overall is usually the sign of marika and the golden lineage
Yeah I think you are right about this. But I am not 100% on the timeline, we'll have to come back to it in the future once we've done some more investigation.
The few descriptions of the reason the dragons attacked Leyndell does suggest it was done out of revanchism, like they sought to reclaim lost territory.
Yeah probably a similar betrayal to Marika coming for Raya Lucaria/Rennala during the Liurnian Wars. There's also Protection of the Erdtree which says "In the beginning, everything was in opposition to the Erdtree. But through countless victories in war, it became the embodiment of Order."
I actually found those as I was already in the process of making this video. I love that detail because it goes to show how deeply the devs thought about this lore.
Oh neat. This video comes to the same conclusions that I did when I tried to map this road and posted my thoughts 3mo ago. But you explain everything 800% better.
I have read & enjoyed many of your Reddit posts. So glad to see you add video! Very detailed and specific; you also have a clear, pleasant voice & speaking style. Great work! I look forward to more from you & your lore-spelunking group, so I’ve liked & subscribed. Thanks! 👍✌️🎉💜
Thank you!!! I am looking forward to turning the published Reddit posts into videos, along with a ton more stuff i didn't put on Reddit. I've got a whole plan to build up to figuring out who built the divine towers, but first up is the Leyndell puzzle
This was so interesting! Elden Ring is such a deep game and it's awesome to see people try to learn more about it. For a first video, this is an awesome start!
I love archaeology and i can’t wait for the road video part 2 including SotE. If you lay the maps over each other it’s clear that the land of Shadow was once a part of the lands between, so you could probably find gold road connections.
I’ve always thought that the Altus and Bellum Highways were constructed during Marika’s reign to link Leyndell and Raya Lucaria after the marriage of Radagon and Rennala, as a sign of the alliance between the Erdtree and the Carina Royals
I think that's a fair point and is probably true. I didn't want to get into it fully in this video because I didn't have all the evidence to say for sure.
Lore videos like these are pretty much the only reason I got Elden Ring. It makes me want to get back into it and go wander around the Lands Between, just observing everything. :)
You should :) a lot of the architecture is pulled directly from real life architecture so wandering around TLB is a bit like taking a tour of the world. And its such a beautiful game. I remember when I first played Twilight Princess I would just ride around on my horse after I had beaten the game because it was just all so pretty. This game gives me the same feeling.
This is such a good video! I can't even imagine how you began to think about this road and what implications for the history of lands they hide, but I am happy that you did. I loved this 25 minute video about a road in a video game
Dude how did I find that originally....? I think I looked down and noticed the design on the tile and then realized the road was special. But the bigger reason is that I've done ASOIAF lore theorizing for many years and the Valyrian roads gave me a heads up when it came to these roads. This video loves you too.
Dude GRRM is such a big history nerd and obviously he was involved in the world building here but Miyazaki was a big fan of his for a long time before that. GRRM's The World of Ice & Fire/the books themselves have so much IRL archaeology, anthropology & history I think ER basically did the same thing. TLB map is legit Italy but reversed and a big part of me thinks that the history is highly influenced by Italian history as well
Well done. I enjoyed it a lot. The visual story telling is so important in Fromsoft. We know stuff is placed for “Game reasons” sometimes, but honestly, very few things are placed without a lore purpose in Fromsoft games. I liked the ideas, I like how you don’t overreach and say any “so this definitely means x-y.” You show what you’ve found, and ask questions and invite us to ask too. Brilliant.
Thank you so much. Yeah I am trying to keep a skeptical voice to say "this possibly means X" or "this means Y if X" etc etc. It's just safer and so much more true to be skeptical because you never know what you might be missing because there's so much lore in the game and so many pieces to fit together. I think I want to lean more into the "asking questions" part in the future and drawing up more counterpoints, but this can be dangerous because if you aren't confident then neither will the viewers. But that's why this is a learning process!
I loved this video! It's an extremely well made video, interweaving real world historical practices as well as lore from the game itself. You're extremely talented, and as your first video it's extremely impressive what you've accomplished.
This comment made me emotional. I think especially in the context of "what you've accomplished." It does feel like a real accomplishment. For so long I wanted to make videos but wasn't ready and I thought it would be too late and the community would move on but I finally did it and it wasn't too late. I finally did it, I accomplished this thing, and I am so so deeply happy and grateful for everyone's kind and supportive words. Thank you.
What an amazing essay with such dedicated work. The team did great and the narration is awesome! It blew my mind a couple times how things are so connected and it makes so much sense from a perspective of architectural history. Applause all around
This gave me amazing vibes. Reminded me of the narration from some of the older Templin Institute vids but it’s about my favorite game. Instant subscribe. Plus the research that went into this is incredible.
I am hoping to make each vid this level of quality. Maybe get some more people to help with the production because it takes a while. I'm working on it!
I’ve been on an Elden Ring lore binge, these past few weeks. I continue to be astonished at how much detail Fromsoft packed into this game! Layers upon layers. I wish that it was a bit less opaque for dummies like me, but then again, when channels such as yours go on these deep dives, it makes the revelation all that more impressive. Thanks for what you do! 🖖😀
Excellent video! I especially like the positing that the two and three fingers were once a five fingered hand. I know that’s a contentious theory, but it seems to me like the “creative” two fingers and “destructive” three fingers seem to go together (hand in hand, to make a pun). It would make sense that Marika attempted to excise the destructive power of the three fingers by locking it away at the bottom of Leyndell, perhaps as part of her attempt to seal away destined death. Regardless, I’m going to enjoy seeing more of your videos and how the dlc content expands upon all of our lore theories. Good work!
I love you pointing out the "creative" 2F and "destructive" 3F, I don't think I had heard it phrased like that before but that totally checks out. Creative also fits with the "causality" of the 2F, and destructive kind of fits with the "regression" of the 3F because regression is all about pulling things back to one meaning. And yes, I totally agree that she wanted to lock away the "destructive" aspect of flame, to just have causality, just creation, just life. Yet she clearly doesn't watch Game of Thrones, where a key law of the universe is that "Life comes from death." I suspect this could be a big part of her oversight and why the Lands Between ended up in the state that its in.
Incredible! While I wondered about the gold road while playing it always was more of a passing thought. Cool to see how much lore was hidden behind it all!
yeah I was shocked when I went back to Sellia to double check the road tiles and found the whole Sellia section of the road was super weird and it led me to look into it deeper which led to that entire section of the video. There's a LOT of intention put into the environmental storytelling, especially the architecture, in this game!
I think of Elden Ring as our dimension right around the beginning of self awareness forming. When darkness was turning to light, now we are way more in light than before.
Spot on love these architectural lore videos. And given how often it rains in the Lakes that could be why the drainage channels are more prevalent in that area
Oooh i kinda like this, that would make sense. Actually an interesting detail I didn't leave in is that the gold coloring of the stone tiles in the Weeping peninsula has worn away, likely because of all the rain
Beautiful video, I even came across your old Reddit post just because I wanted to do research mid video. Beginning to end absolutely perfect, can’t wait to see you up their with vaati and zullie
Thank you so much. I will try to maintain a high level of quality always. And I appreciate you saying beginning to end perfect when I know that I misgendered Ymir and made some bad predictions using just the DLC trailer info. But also some of it does seem to have held up so I am proud of that.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing eh those are minor details, depending on who you ask lol but really everything else, the research, the presentation, feels like the entire video can almost be taken as factual
yeah i may know more about the architecture than anyone on the planet outside of the devs. the characters, items, religions, they are ever changing. but rocks and buildings? they just kinda chill in the same place. so i think there's a level of reliability there
Fantastic video! I just went back to your old reddit threads and made some remarks, this is super well done! I think the fact that the road itself also progressed in stages and at one pointed updated the tiles, and that the tile design itself stops at the 4-way symmetrical motiff which seems to be of Farum's origin and not the 3-way symmetrical motiff of Marika's order is a huge detail, that shows that the road itself has not been updated since Marika's order usurped the world OR that Marika changed the Elden ring from the 4-symmetry to the 3-symmetry at one point, without updating the road. It might be that was when Marika did something to anger Farum Azula, maybe that's when Farum was attacked by a meteor and crumbled, with debris falling on the road, and maybe that's when Marika also changed the Elden Ring to reflect the 3-way symmetric design we see today. After this event, when Marika takes over Leyndell completely, we basically see a branching off between the Farum culture and the Leyndell culture, to the point they eventually become enemies, but also a branching off with the Eternal City culture of Nokron and Nokstella, which still maintain similarities with Farum Azula in architecture but cleary have now adopted the full night theme, probably as a response to their submergence. This truly was a global empire at one point, and i think that empire was united together by the Elden Lord of that time, Placidusaxx, and whichver "God" fled it, which held the old Elden Ring in its body. Also, the DLC speculation now is that Metyr, mother of Fingers, might have been the God of Placidusaxx that fled, although i haven't researched this deep enough yet, some speculated that Metyr's abdominal area is a gashed wound as a result of the FingerSlayer Blade.
In regards to the 4-way symmetry ER design, I think that its more likely that Marika had something to do with the design changing. We know that something set off Gransax's attack, and we know that at one point, everything was in opposition to the Erdtree and Marika set out on a war of conquest. My instinct is that the meteor strike had something to do with it. Radahn idolized Godfrey, and we know Godfrey led the Crucible Knights, and we find Crucible Knights fighting Beastmen in Farum Azula. Maybe Godfrey attacked Farum Azula on the order of Marika. Radahn studied gravity magic as a youth. Plus, the pattern of destruction of the ruins all over Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula, and only some in Liurnia/Caelid, make it seem like the hit must have come from a north to south direction. And just north of where Farum Azula was theoretically floating IS Leyndell. But yes, I think you are correct that everything used to be united under Plac. Excellent point about the old Elden Ring being in its body, I hadn't thought of that. Do you think there was a "Shattering", physically, like with Marika/Radagon? How would Marika become the vessel if the ER was in another's body? Body stealing? Eating it like Tanith? We know that works because the Great Serpent ate Rykard, Great Rune and all. Or, is it possible that Marika just IS the same god? And maybe was a dragon and took human form. After all, both are said to be "fled" at some point. Marika fled, Plac's god fled. Or, perhaps the truth is that "fled" just means "dead"? The GEQ was said to be an Empyrean, I had always kinda thought that that meant that Marika was also an Empyrean at that time and they were in competition. Yeah idk about the Metyr thing. She's a daughter of the GW. She is the Mother of Fingers, but idk if that makes her a god. She's like, SO weird. Honestly I can't imagine her and Plac dating. Jk. The Fingers of it all do make sense with the GW/Cinquedea. And if she really is the GW's daughter,
I haven't finished the video yet so you might already mentioned it but I'm gonna say it anyway lol. I love that you can see the road of the long march Godfrey and the tarnisheds took from Lyndell to the weeping peninsula.
Yeah like I kinda feel like the Long March was along this road. Or maybe the Long March was the name of his campaign which is when this road was first built, and it ended with him deciding to fight Placidusax and become Elden Lord.
Yes TA has cited some of my essays in his videos, including the one that this video is based off of. I think there is still so much lore to be found in the architecture and I have so many videos to make, but I think he & I will do a collab in the future. Fingers crossed!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing omg i just realised you are THE "nameless singer" he mentioned from reddit i think. nice to see you on youtube - hope to see you grow :D
This is so good! I feel like when Placidusax was elden lord farum azula was the home of the dragons and the people built leyndell. Then way later marikas lot moved in and the ancient dragons attacked.
Yeah I think this is getting at the truth. Like Leyndell could have originally been a place with a ton of Farum influence when the Erdtree was around and it didn't become the "Age of the Erdtree" until Marika officially took over and conquered everything else. Not totally sure!
14:49 I think that Serosh played an important role in this alliance: he's referred to as "lord of beasts" in the hammer given by Gurranq, and there are some decorations in the shape of a lion head in Farum Azula (18:16), so I think that he was once a vassal to Placidusax and the lord of the beastmen. The beastmen have five fingers so I think that they built Farum Azula for the dragons, so it makes sense that their lord influenced the architecture of the new "elden capital" Leyndell
Damn, this video is an absolute banger. Your scholarly style is such a great addition to the Elden Ring lore community, thanks for making such a killer piece! Wild this is your first video lol
I tried to start strong!! I do want to try out vids that are less scholarly but at the same time there is also a lot of architectural evidence that benefits from the scholarly look so that will always be a part of it
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing it seems like that’s the way you view information at large, so I’m sure the more casual stuff will still have a lot of that scholarly angle to it. Wish you nothing but success as you keep making videos! Was a quick subscription for me haha
Love this video! I’ve been working on a timeline and I fully believe that there was a period of time where the greater will’s “will” was peacefully transferred from beast and dragon culture to the erdtree. This video presents some strong evidence of at least a period of peace. The symbol on the road alone shows that there is a missing time period that people aren’t discussing
There does seem to be some evidence that there is a missing piece of history. Plac not being remembered as being the first Elden Lord. Mentions of forgotten lands. Little things here and there.
Is it possible Granssax attacked Leyndell when Marika removed the Lands of Shadow? It seems incredibly likely that a huge portion of dragon territory was obliterated (the giant peak), and Farum Azula was unceremoniously ejected into the sky, and also Bayle’s escape was facilitated. For another empire to throw around nuclear bombs next door and all over your territory is a great reason to attack!
I do think there could be some truth to this because we have the Land of "Shadow", which is described as Shadow because it is obscured by the Erdtree, and Farum Azula which appears to be the realm of "light" - it's always sunny there, we find sun realm shields, Plac is all about light etc. So perhaps the creation of the Land of Shadow, the separated Land of Light (Farum Azula) and the "Lands Between" came from this split. However, it was also pointed out to me that the "Lands Between" may just be the lands in the center of all of the other lands beyond the fog like the Land of Reeds. The alternative explanation is that Gransax attacked when Farum Azula was struck by a meteorite. Based on the pattern of debris being mainly in Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula the meteorite likely hit from a line opposite to the densest parts of the debris field... which does kinda seem like Leyndell.
Second video I have seen. Your voice, strong! I like the parallel here with Roman Roads of old, The Appian Way. Great to see new fresh eyes on Miyazaki's work! Thanks for the video!
I LOVE Roman history, it is fascinating what a civilization they were. I got to go to Rome last year and I felt like I stepped into Leyndell. There are so many shared architectural motifs, and I took so many pictures, and I am going to use them in the Leyndell video. Thank you for watching!
This is my first video, and will serve as the first in a series entitled "The History of the Lands Between." We'll use the construction of the Gold Road as a major benchmark to create a timeline. Shadow of the Erdtree's release is imminent, I already have a bunch of ideas how things fit together. Get hype!
MAJOR UPDATE (7/2/24): We may know which demigod was responsible for building the Gold Road. I was going through the text dumps of the base game and found a cut content item "Carrier Pigeon Letter [2]", which says "Traces of silvery slime found on Godwyn's Highroad."
"Highroad" seems to be another name for "Highway", but most highways in the game are PLACE names. Calling it Godwyn's Highroad, a person not a place, suggests that GODWYN was responsible for building the Gold Road. This suggests that the original name for the Gold Road was "Godwyn's Highroad". Though, Carrier Pigeon Letter [2] did not make it into the actual game. Maybe not the best idea to rely on pigeons to deliver important lore.
EDIT (SPOILERS FOR DLC):
- I sincerely apologize for misgendering Ymir, but he seems like he might be genderfluid at least.
- The gameplay trailer was misleading in who the "Erdtree faithful losers" were. It is not Messmer's culture, though he was certainly a victim, he and his army were the ones performing the genocide, the hornsent were those on the losing side of a war. However, as Enir-Ilum shows, there was a tree-worshipping culture in the Shadow Realm which may have been related to the later Erdtree culture.
- I found Gold Road tiles in the Church of the Crusade near the Shadow keep, suggesting that Messmer's invasion happened post-Goldroad creation, supporting evidence in this video.
- Each of the churches with headless Marika statues have the same pillars as those we find in Sellia, Lower Leyndell, and Ordina.
I was thinking that the knight statues in the Gold Road near Leyndell have similar designs as the Death Knights (helmet + longhaft axes/halberds) -- perhaps the DK, or a previous iteration of them, were those rendered in those statues. Or, the Death Knights as we see them in game, have styled themselves post facto after the character's rendered statues. This could further establish a further link between Godwyn and the Gold Road you suggest. What do you think?
Godwyn is my favorite demigod. He was both an amazing warrior and an amazing statesman. He was clearly Marika's favorite too.
Can you connect the goldroads with the ones inthe land between?
FIRST!? This is fantastic and I look forward to seeing more!
That's hot
13:52 that Hexafoil is Radagon's sigil. That's why, in his statues, he is portrayed with the hexafoil behind him. Additionally, the hexafoil closely resembles the type of trellis one might use to help a tree grow. This might be symbolic of his chosen role as a "supporter" of the Erdtree.
I like the trellis idea a lot, actually! The regression matrix as the trellis that the causalities grow in... that also fits with what we see in Elphael where it is the "brace" of the Haligtree.
Personally, I think Radagon adopted the trellis sigil after his time studying sorcery with Renalla. He was the originator of Golden Order Fundamentalism, which requires Intelligence to cast and can launch fast projectiles (not unlike sorcery), so it makes sense that sorcery might be part of Golden Order Fundamentalism. I'd also note that if Radagon studied Carian astrology at all, he would know about the power of the stars to guide fate, which seems similar to the determinism implied by the Law of Causality incantation (which Tarnished Archaeologist noted is more or less Newton's Third Law).
Its also angular in shape which could represent his opposition to Marika? Or rather his opposing nature and personaility. I'm not articulating that very well, but there's a point there somewhere.
i really like the trellis metaphor though. Hadn't thought of that. Nice!
I've also seen a "stitching" or "patching" comparisons made too that make sense.
@@Nemo12417 I agree that Radagon likely adopted his sigil from the magical barrier on Raya Lucaria's gates, but I don't think he founded Golden Order Fundamentalism. Based on the "echo" of Marika at the Minor Erdtree Church, Marika likely founded Golden Order Fundamentalism there, though Radagon's time in Liurnia no doubt helped those pursuits.
I thought Radagon's sigil was a square diamond grid, not triangular/hexagonal. It is an interesting similarity in design motifs though
This game must trully be something else when the fans can make videos of this quality about the STONE TILES on the ground
From software is one of those game companies that truly value their product and customer.
Your missing out on probably George Martins best story. And Fromsoft has a rather unique way of telling stories, which I feel only serves to add to the immersion. If you showed up in these lands, what are the chances that the first person you meet is going to be 100% clued in on the history and and events that have taken place over the last 5,000 years, and what lead to them being so busy trying to survive a world that's been chaotic hell, forever.
Saying it's George Martin's best story is laughable it's a good story but damn it's not even close to his best@@johneverimanne3986
Excellent video! My dad is a Roman history buff, and when we visited Italy together he pointed out a lot of what you mentioned here. You nailed it! Great attention to detail!
Walking around Rome was like being transported to Leyndell, it was like I was walking around inside Elden Ring. I can't wait til I actually get to use some of the photos I took
This is how it's done! Not dreaming up "theories" about this or that aspect of the game, but carefully analyzing the geological, archaeological and architectural features of the Lands Between. After all, that's how we piece together the history of the real world.
Well it's a bit of both, you craft a theory to explain what you observe, then continue observing and shaving off/ adding on/ abandoning your theories as needed
Whole agree. People talking bull$hit about wacko theories forgetting the lore and the facts are disgusting. Here is a whole world to analyze.
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. NGL the amount garbage that is now vomited on youtube by ignorant fools is ridiculous and frankly, insulting to the game, its creators and audience.
If i hear the word evidence one more f****** time...
Instead of judgment they display impetousness and diminish us in the eyes of our enemies. Ill-considered! Trifling!
@@frozengoat5834 For me, theory crafting needs to come last, downstream from careful analysis. We need to understand what we're looking at before asking ourselves what it might mean.
@BBRocker75 This video, which is very good, includes about 10 minutes of wild theorycrafting based on the trailers for the DLC, all of which was completely wrong. Speculation and theorycrafting will always be at the heart of Fromsoft analysis. For better or worse, that's often how real world history is, too, just on a slower timescale.
Farum and Lyndell being linked would also explain why Gransax, Fortisaxx and Lanseax beelined to Lyndell when Placidusax fell as Elden Lord
11:17 my immediate thought of the different depictions of the elden ring, was that the one less “missing” ring is the rune of death. Since during the time of the dragons, the elden ring still included all four of those major rings which could include the rune of death. So then once marika sealed it away with maliketh, she completely changed the way it was depicted.
I think that is a good analysis of what happened! Maybe a reason why Maliketh is in Farum Azula and we find him with the Rune of Death in the room with that design.
The DLC added even more weight to your previous observations on the links between Snakes and the Giants/Fell God, I hope you'll be covering it ! It definitely feels like there's something tying Marika, GEQ and the godskins, the Fell God, the Serpents (base and Gelmir), Messmer and Melina together in motifs somehow.
Yes there absolutely is. I am so excited to revisit the Serpents/Giants connection with the new DLC information! The DLC's lore was deeper than I expected, and it's great to see!!
Nameless Singer, your contribution is massively appreciated. I bet I speak for us all when I say that a post-DLC part 2 would be lovely.
Your presentation is of a high standard. Keep going. We're here for it.
Thank you so much. I will keep going, for as long as it takes, until we get a timeline that we are happy with. We will be doing a post-DLC part 2, possibly in context of figuring out when exactly Messmer's Crusade took place. It won't be for a while, because I want to flesh out some more parts of the architectural analysis first, but we will get there.
I also need to figure out how to keep track of the timeline. Idk if just a big graphic would do it, or if I need some sort of timeline software, but I think I need to really look into that.
This may just be me, but i assumed the large main road from leyndell to raya lucaria was built far later in the timeline over a similar simpler road akin to the one that meets up with it outside the gate. Likely as a symbol of the "new" unification of the sorcerers and leyndell and to allow nobles to get to raya lucaria faster
Yeah many people have pointed this out and I am totally fine with that interpretation. I had it in my notes and should have included it as an alternative explanation. I'll be sure to mention it in the future!
I love vaati and the work behind the scenes that he and his team and all the other TH-cam creators do is top fucking notch; his cinematic-ness is bested by none but you have taken the cake in terms of academic-ness.
The fact that so much of the evidence used to support your assertions comes from in game renders of architecture, symbology, and the like took me straight back to Humanities 110 and by god I loved it. Absolutely everything you said was backed up by incontrovertible evidence presented in a clear and straightforward manner.
To have all that presented with excellent framing/cinematography and very clear voice work is the icing on the cake.
In short, lovely view ahead!
The "lovely view ahead" just made me smile so big. I was taken right back into the game, but that imagery was convolved with my own channel's future and I feel it so hard.
I do work in academia and I try really hard to only present stuff that I think has strong evidence. That is the main goal of this channel, to present the patterns that my friends & I have found, and do our best to present the most likely story, and offer alternative explanations when we don't have that.
Thank you so much, this comment made my day!
This is super well made! Youre about to get a whole lot more lore to study with DLC in two days, good luck!
The trailer already gave us so much, I already have a bunch of ideas how everything fits into the timeline!!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing the dlc will probably also habe gold road part considering the land of shadow wasnt always seperate
With this, i'd like to add Yura's vouceline: "it's no wonder dragon comunion brings ruin" said by him after slaying agheel
By this timeline, the Golden Order was the Byzantine Empire to the Farum culture's Roman Empire. A remainder empire that inherited the massive infrastructure and culture of a previous larger empire that suffered a massive catastrophe to it's capital. Rome fell to the barbarians, Faurm Azula got nuked by a meteor.
I am not super well read on the Byzantine Empire but I think I will need to brush up because there likely is something to this. i think the GO connection is far more to Christianity in the west post-Roman Empire. I don't find enough Greek influence in the game to make me believe that we're dealing with too much Byzantine influence, but that also may be because IMO the map of TLB itself is Italy reversed. I wouldn't be surprised if a future Fromsoft game was about Greek/Byzantine influence though, that would be SUPER interesting.
Oh but I do think the barbarians thing is legit and in the game's historical influence somewhere, but I don't have a complete theory for this yet.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing The Byzantine Empire was where Emperor Constantine I adopted Christianity as the state religion, convenined the Nicean Council to ratify the Christian religion as single inflexible creed, shifted Christianity into a more fundementalist arm of the state and established the militant Orthodox church. Replace Constantine with Marika/Radagon and you've got some solid parallels. If you follow Tarnished Archeologist, he points out the later division in the Orthodox Church was a conflict between the nature of a particular hand ritual blessing. One that turned quite bloody. The difference was between whether the gesture used two fingers or three fingers.
Sounds familiar. 😎
Great video documentary. Im surprised you're still a small channel, the production and narration is professionally done. Wish you great success and exposure to grow. You already have the skill in video production and investigation to do so.
Thank you so much!! Yes I am very proud of the production and I am suprised by how much I actually like capturing the footage and doing the editing. Only issue is that it takes a long time haha
Thank you so much for explaining the hexafoil design! We also see it where we find the cinquedea, in the midst of a sacrificial beastman ritual (with the dragoncrest shield talisman nearby). I was wondering why these hexafoil stone circles ended so abruptly on the way to Leyendell...Marika probably built over it...great video, looking forward to seeing more
thanks so much!!
while watching, I was thinking “how have i never heard of this creator???” until i saw this was your first vid 😂 fantastic insights and look forward to more!
Yes it was! Working on the next one!!!
This was a really cool video! At first I hesitated to watch because I'd seen TA's video on the road network, but this is on a whole different level. Love the detailed architectural breakdowns and analysis. Have fun with the DLC! The lore implications of some things I've seen are already incredible.
TA was referencing my original lore post from Reddit in that video! I hope that our videos won't overlap too much and I don't think they will because the lore goes so deep
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Oh awesome, I totally missed that! I think your videos compliment theirs perfectly and have a charm all their own. Keep up the great work!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Even if you cover some of the same topics, I really value different perspectives on this stuff. As a student, not a researcher myself, it helps to have multiple "professors"
The Gold Road predating Godfrey's crowning as Elden Lord fits right in with the idea that what is modern Leyndell was built around the nameless Eternal City, which was originally on the surface.
sorry but what video are you talking about? i’d love to learn more :)
The world building in this game is actual insanity.
Loooool I made this comment about 30 seconds before you did your world building speech 😂
LOL it is seriously insane!!! god i wish all games were like this. it's just, in a whole other universe of lore compared to every other game
This is dope. The Gold Road is what I followed on my very first play through, always referring to it on my maps. The Tarnished maybe centuries later, walks the road that was paved by The Golden Order to eventually become the New Elden Lord.
Yeah I like it! We find many lost groups of aristocrats wandering along it, that has something to do with it too. Definitely a Pilgrimage type deal
I can’t help imagine Scarlett Johansson talking. Amazing analysis and editing 👌 thanks for adding to my never-ending love and wonder of ER lore
WOW that is a huge compliment!! i was incredibly self conscious about my voice but everyone has said its good!! I really appreciate it.
You know, Cellia and Laynedell being of the same culture and the same construction (and maybe even of similar age) might go a ways to explain why Radahn was so loyal to Laynedell. Sister cities, basically.
It also adds a bit more weight to Miquella's betrayal.
Yeah I like that a lot actually. I need to revisit how the cultures would have interacted pre-Shadow Realm disappearing, may help explain how Sellia came to influence Lower Leyndell better
Bloody impressive work especially for a first video ! As a Roman/Byzantine enthusiast I think the parallels between the Roman road system and the Pseudo Rome/Constantinople architecture in Leyndell itself adds further evidence to your video. The curved dome architecture in Leyndell is very similar to the Hagia Sophia a key surviving piece of Byzantine building design.
Making a note of this for the future Leyndell video, because I haven't looked deep enough into the Byzantine side of the Roman Empire. I went to Rome last year and found a TON of shared visual motifs between Leyndell & Rome, which was amazing, but there's other motifs unaccounted for and I truly believe that many of them in the game have IRL historical parallels
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing The Roman theme continues with the games own theology as well.
Before the rise of the Golden Order its very clear there a multitude of Gods ; The fell God of the Fire Giants, The Serpent God of Mt Gelmir, The Dragon God who abandoned Placcidusaax, potentially even a Moon God in Raya Lucaria as well as the Gloam Eyed Queen. This reflects the Pagan Pantheon of Gods before Christianity in the Roman Empire be they Mars/Ares, Athena etc.
Marika conquers all the others or they are quite literally driven underground. Spreading her faith by the sword or by diplomacy just as was done by the Romans after Emperor Constantine adopts it as his own faith. On the surface you now have 'Churches of Marika' whereas the Greek style temples are buried under the earth. Marikas symbol being akin to a Crucifix combined with her literally being Crucified with a spear through the abdomen completes the parallels between the Golden Order, Christianity and the Romans.
I've spoken about this gold road sigil and its implications for the 'primeval crucible era' that even predated the Farum azula ring sign we see in Maliketh's room. Similar to how the early erdtree sigil predated Marika's current golden order sigil.
Great video. Really happy to see a new channel get traction
Yeah I've seen some posts on the FA symbol looking like the Crucible, its definitely related, though I am not exactly sure how yet. I feel like I don't truly know the lore until I've written a theory up about it (or in this case now, a video). It's like the lore won't solidify and is just a bunch of loose connections in my brain. But there is legit some cool fucking stuff with the FA ER design.
Well done. The only other person I've seen pay this much attention is The Tarnished Archeologist. Awesome video!
Thank you so much!!!
I never even thought to look at the architecture of the roads. Fascinating aspect to focus on. Great job.
It was right in front of us this whole time
“Old gold road” is gonna be stuck in my head rent free for a while. Anyways you got one more sub. Excellent video.🎉
I love a pun. Though I said "gold road" so many times in this video I would be happy never saying it again. Thanks for the sub!
Can you imagine being the creators of a game a watching the fans piece it altogether. So much pride
god i would love it if they did. i wish i could translate this to japanese but idk how to go about that besides paying someone lol
This is it! The Gold Road is finally out!
WOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I spotted at least one instance of these road tiles at the Church of the Crusade in the DLC. Perhaps a part 2 is in store? Solid video, by the way.
Yes in that Church along with the other two churches that look like it you can find Gold Road tiles (so 3 locations iirc). The pillars in those churches are the same ones as the ones in Sellia/Lower Leyndell. Which makes me believe that the crusade came after Lower Leyndell was already built and part of the Gold Road was as well.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Dang you're already on it!
Very surprised when i heard this was your first video. I was sucked in. great quality and excited to see more
You might have noticed it but around the 4 Elden Ring circles on the golden road pavement there seems to be an other circle that looks like Marika’s braid from the Shaman Village!
OOH that's good! OOH that gives me a spike of dopamine. I hadn't heard that before. Someone else had been saying how it looks more like a Celtic knot, BUT... given how we now know that on Messmer's sigil there is a golden circle braid, that is particularly compelling that THAT is actually the symbol we are looking for.
This is your FIRST VIDEO!? This is a great lore deep dive! Instant Sub!
Criminally underrated, I dare say!
Yes I have wanted to do this for a long time, so I wanted to come out of the gate with some high quality stuff. Next one will include lore from the DLC, I am super stoked!! Thanks for the sub!
Wooooooow Holy crap, I found myself here by accident, It was just on my recommendeds but.. I'm not disappointed.
Just earlier today I came to the conclusion that I could start peacing together a timeline based on the fact that farum azula broke apart after the roads were made.
I think there is a lot of really good connections here that are going to strengthen a lot of already ongoing theories that got a lot more clear when the dlc hit.
Great job! Im really impressed that this is your first video because the quality and execution was mind blowing.
I have been doing lore since the game came out but I waited until I felt I had enough to make high quality content, and then I tried out a bunch of video stuff until I felt I had the right quality level.
I hope you the takeaways from this video help you in your timeline! There is much more to come
@NamelessSingerEldenRing it really has! You, tarnished archeologists video about a great flood and a video I found about the fall of the sun realm from someone.. I think they were called occultonion I'll have to check whe. I'm not at work but those two videos absolutely shook my knowledge of what I thought I knew about the game lol I highly recommend giving them a watch they are very very recent
I'm not a big commenter, in fact I can count on my two hands how many times have I ever written a comment. But I really hope this channel will do well 🙏🏻 and I felt that I had to express my appreciation for it. I would watch a video of this quality even if it was hours long while about the most mundane topic ever 😃. One can immediately tell that there was a lot of thought, time and effort given in the process of making this content. Seamless narration, a nice mellow sounding voice as a bonus, unique view of the lore, interesting remarks, there's no volume fluctuation throughout the videos whatsoever (sadly it's a rarity), carefully selected beautiful and eye catching shots from the game. Overall impact on par with professionally made documentaries in my opinion. Your work, extraordinary ... The mark of a true creator. Hope your endeavour will be rewarded. Thank you! ☺️
Feels like you've just begun with ER lore videos, looking forward for more. Great start!
More to come for sure. And thank you!!
This was a fantastic video, the level of research and detail was incredible. It's so cool to see how some of the item description text is proven here. The Ritual Sword/Shield talismans state that the practice of ritual combat at the colosseums had died out by the time of Radagon's rule, pointing to it being a large part of Godfrey's rule as first Elden Lord of Marika's Golden Order. The three places we find colosseums in the Lands Between are Leyndell, Limgrave, and Caelid, places we also see the Golden Road, potentially implying those 3 lands were under Marika and Godfrey's rule when the colosseums were built.
Yes you are getting into some of the Leyndell stuff we'll eventually talk about. I LOVE the colosseums, I think that lore was my first Reddit post that I made in this community. They hole many clues to the timeline and i can't wait to get to talk about them in more depth
I would have assumed the more advanced road to Raya Lucaria is a later built road, possibky after Radagon and Rennala’s union forged peace between Leyndell and Raya Lucaria.
Yes some other folks have brought this up and I may rethink the timeline in the future. I found some of the dragon evolution motifs in the RL Grand Library, so it seemed like there was dragon/Farum influence at that point, which made me think it was earlier. i also thought the statues in the road made me think it was earlier. but maybe what happened was that there was a war, the Liurnian Wars, which could have destroyed the OG road and let to the fancier one being built. The name of that part of the road is called the "Bellum" Highway, and "bellum" ~ "war" in Latin. We'll have to revisit it in a future vid!
The Goldroad! Love that name. Of all the Elden Ring lore I heard recently, this is my new favorite. Interesting analysis with great source to compare. Looking forward to more content
Yeah I love how much lore there is about a single road, it makes me so happy.
Awesome video =) Love the deep dive into seemingly inconsequential details that create deep lore implications. The style of Farum Azula stones compared the ones found in Caelid basically confirm the theory of Radahns arena being the ol' non-crumbling location of Farum Azula. This channel got me hooked!
Oh yeah I remember that essay. I still kinda like the idea that it was floating in the middle, but perhaps the truth is that it started out on that beach in Caelid and then floated on over to the middle, was destroyed, and went out east.
I never thought I would watch a documentary about the Elden Ring roads
I know even to me it's wild that I made a whole video about roads lol
Ay, "Yellow Brick Road," was sittin' right there for ya! I love that these hyperspecific videos are coming out now for the game. I just released one about how the environment design has been designed around the 4 seasons.
I HAD A LINE WITH IT I don't know why I took it out!! I decided to just use the Wizard of Oz clip instead. Gonna watch the 4 seasons video because I agree that that design is everywhere
That close up of the cobblestones into the wide shot of limgrave was so cool
Glad you liked it! I want to try to do cool shots and I kinda can but the free cam mod I am using is not perfect, but it's good enough for stuff like that
Fantastic breakdown!! Such a small detail has gone unnoticed for so long and was waiting to tell a story. Thank you for making this video!
Right under our noses :^D
I never thought about this. I was literally going to make a comment on Roman built roads and you covered it anyway
18:47 and I'm enthralled by every second of it
:D!!!!
*_~ "ONE DAY WE'LL RETURN!!!! TO OUR ROAD'S. BAAAATHHHEEEDDD IN TILE'S OF GOLLLLDDDD!!!!" ~_*
LOL
I see the "Old Gold Road" as part of Radagon marrying Rennala and combining their cultures.
He couldn't defeat or assimilate them with military might, so instead he slowly parasitized them under a guise of cooperation.
Yeah I think that's totally fair and something many people have pointed out so I'll have to include that in a future video.
It's great to be here - to witness the first in what I'm sure will be a long line of badass lore explorations. And my comment will be here to mark this occasion long after you blow up.
screenshotting this comment for posterity. it's gonna be a great journey, fellow tarnished
Really well done. I recall seeing some of your reddit posts 2 years ago and I'm not surprised at the high quality of the video.
Yeah I waited a long time to make the vids because I wanted to 1) learn enough to produce high quality vids and 2) to have high quality lore theories with evidence that would hold up.
Thanks for being a fan of the theories from way back when!
When the game is so good, we out there looking at the roads for lore. Fucking love it! 🔥🔥🔥
I have a lot of theories, more than 1000 hours into the game
I’ve become mad at this point, but is always welcoming and cool to have new perspectives and more importantly people wit passion to find the lore
I have spent so much time thinking about this game I have lost track, and there are still so many questions to answer!
this was a joy to listen to, the part where you said I was watching a 20 min lore video about roads got me good lol
hehehehehe
the road was most likely built when marika rose to power and conquered the lands between, tiles look like one of the sacred seals used to cast incants and gold overall is usually the sign of marika and the golden lineage
Yeah I think you are right about this. But I am not 100% on the timeline, we'll have to come back to it in the future once we've done some more investigation.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing good job w the theory and good luck in the future
Insert yellow brick road joke here
I think i had one in the original script hahaha but settled for the wizard of oz shot alone
The few descriptions of the reason the dragons attacked Leyndell does suggest it was done out of revanchism, like they sought to reclaim lost territory.
Yeah probably a similar betrayal to Marika coming for Raya Lucaria/Rennala during the Liurnian Wars. There's also Protection of the Erdtree which says "In the beginning, everything was in opposition to the Erdtree. But through countless victories in war, it became the embodiment of Order."
Extremely well done. It inks so many things together
Great video! Looking forward to more.
The use of surplus gold road tiles in places where roads already existed is a fascinating observation.
I actually found those as I was already in the process of making this video. I love that detail because it goes to show how deeply the devs thought about this lore.
Oh neat. This video comes to the same conclusions that I did when I tried to map this road and posted my thoughts 3mo ago. But you explain everything 800% better.
Nice job on connecting the pieces!! I workshopped this theory for a while so I was able to word things very precisely
I have read & enjoyed many of your Reddit posts. So glad to see you add video! Very detailed and specific; you also have a clear, pleasant voice & speaking style. Great work! I look forward to more from you & your lore-spelunking group, so I’ve liked & subscribed. Thanks! 👍✌️🎉💜
Thank you!!! I am looking forward to turning the published Reddit posts into videos, along with a ton more stuff i didn't put on Reddit. I've got a whole plan to build up to figuring out who built the divine towers, but first up is the Leyndell puzzle
This was so interesting! Elden Ring is such a deep game and it's awesome to see people try to learn more about it.
For a first video, this is an awesome start!
I definitely made some mistakes but will learn from them for future videos! I can't wait to explore the depths of Elden Ring with you all!
Elden ring's world building and details really are something!!
Great analysis and attention to detail btw!!
Thank you so much!!! I love how deep this game's lore goes
This was amazing. The team really did a great job. It's so fascinating how much information we can get through aesthetics and architecture
I'm really proud of everyone I've done lore theorizing with over these past two years. The entire ER community is incredible
I love archaeology and i can’t wait for the road video part 2 including SotE. If you lay the maps over each other it’s clear that the land of Shadow was once a part of the lands between, so you could probably find gold road connections.
I’ve always thought that the Altus and Bellum Highways were constructed during Marika’s reign to link Leyndell and Raya Lucaria after the marriage of Radagon and Rennala, as a sign of the alliance between the Erdtree and the Carina Royals
I think that's a fair point and is probably true. I didn't want to get into it fully in this video because I didn't have all the evidence to say for sure.
Lore videos like these are pretty much the only reason I got Elden Ring.
It makes me want to get back into it and go wander around the Lands Between, just observing everything.
:)
You should :) a lot of the architecture is pulled directly from real life architecture so wandering around TLB is a bit like taking a tour of the world. And its such a beautiful game. I remember when I first played Twilight Princess I would just ride around on my horse after I had beaten the game because it was just all so pretty. This game gives me the same feeling.
I rarely watch lore videos but this one kept me glued to the screen
Make sure to blink hahaha. And thank you so much!
This is such a good video! I can't even imagine how you began to think about this road and what implications for the history of lands they hide, but I am happy that you did.
I loved this 25 minute video about a road in a video game
Dude how did I find that originally....? I think I looked down and noticed the design on the tile and then realized the road was special. But the bigger reason is that I've done ASOIAF lore theorizing for many years and the Valyrian roads gave me a heads up when it came to these roads.
This video loves you too.
I like the Anthropology approach to this. Taking it on like a case study
Dude GRRM is such a big history nerd and obviously he was involved in the world building here but Miyazaki was a big fan of his for a long time before that. GRRM's The World of Ice & Fire/the books themselves have so much IRL archaeology, anthropology & history I think ER basically did the same thing.
TLB map is legit Italy but reversed and a big part of me thinks that the history is highly influenced by Italian history as well
Well done. I enjoyed it a lot. The visual story telling is so important in Fromsoft. We know stuff is placed for “Game reasons” sometimes, but honestly, very few things are placed without a lore purpose in Fromsoft games.
I liked the ideas, I like how you don’t overreach and say any “so this definitely means x-y.” You show what you’ve found, and ask questions and invite us to ask too.
Brilliant.
Thank you so much. Yeah I am trying to keep a skeptical voice to say "this possibly means X" or "this means Y if X" etc etc. It's just safer and so much more true to be skeptical because you never know what you might be missing because there's so much lore in the game and so many pieces to fit together.
I think I want to lean more into the "asking questions" part in the future and drawing up more counterpoints, but this can be dangerous because if you aren't confident then neither will the viewers. But that's why this is a learning process!
Wow! You took the VERY GROUND we walk upon and take for granted into a cohesive and amazing theory video! Bravo!
Thank you so much!! I am happy the ground got to have its day to be appreciated hahaha
I loved this video! It's an extremely well made video, interweaving real world historical practices as well as lore from the game itself. You're extremely talented, and as your first video it's extremely impressive what you've accomplished.
This comment made me emotional. I think especially in the context of "what you've accomplished." It does feel like a real accomplishment. For so long I wanted to make videos but wasn't ready and I thought it would be too late and the community would move on but I finally did it and it wasn't too late. I finally did it, I accomplished this thing, and I am so so deeply happy and grateful for everyone's kind and supportive words. Thank you.
What an amazing essay with such dedicated work. The team did great and the narration is awesome! It blew my mind a couple times how things are so connected and it makes so much sense from a perspective of architectural history. Applause all around
Thank you so much!
This gave me amazing vibes. Reminded me of the narration from some of the older Templin Institute vids but it’s about my favorite game. Instant subscribe. Plus the research that went into this is incredible.
I am hoping to make each vid this level of quality. Maybe get some more people to help with the production because it takes a while. I'm working on it!
I’ve been on an Elden Ring lore binge, these past few weeks. I continue to be astonished at how much detail Fromsoft packed into this game! Layers upon layers. I wish that it was a bit less opaque for dummies like me, but then again, when channels such as yours go on these deep dives, it makes the revelation all that more impressive. Thanks for what you do! 🖖😀
This is what we're here for!! Lore content is its own industry now hahaha
This was incredible work! Massive fan. This helps me massively with a theory about Marika. Much love.
Thanks so much, much love to you as well and good luck with the theory!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing could I pick your brain a bit? Do you have discord?
Excellent video! I especially like the positing that the two and three fingers were once a five fingered hand. I know that’s a contentious theory, but it seems to me like the “creative” two fingers and “destructive” three fingers seem to go together (hand in hand, to make a pun). It would make sense that Marika attempted to excise the destructive power of the three fingers by locking it away at the bottom of Leyndell, perhaps as part of her attempt to seal away destined death. Regardless, I’m going to enjoy seeing more of your videos and how the dlc content expands upon all of our lore theories. Good work!
I love you pointing out the "creative" 2F and "destructive" 3F, I don't think I had heard it phrased like that before but that totally checks out. Creative also fits with the "causality" of the 2F, and destructive kind of fits with the "regression" of the 3F because regression is all about pulling things back to one meaning. And yes, I totally agree that she wanted to lock away the "destructive" aspect of flame, to just have causality, just creation, just life. Yet she clearly doesn't watch Game of Thrones, where a key law of the universe is that "Life comes from death." I suspect this could be a big part of her oversight and why the Lands Between ended up in the state that its in.
The fact Fromsoft even makes it possible in their games to do this is a testament to their ability and dedication to their craft and their fans.
They are seriously gods at this. I am even shocked by the attention to detail that we keep discovering
Great work. Incredible eye for connecting details. Can’t wait to see more!😊
I am so glad I was recommended this video on my lunch break.
I hope it was delicious!
I love how you use froms environments to try and piece together the story of the world!
Environmental storytelling rocks!!
Incredible! While I wondered about the gold road while playing it always was more of a passing thought. Cool to see how much lore was hidden behind it all!
yeah I was shocked when I went back to Sellia to double check the road tiles and found the whole Sellia section of the road was super weird and it led me to look into it deeper which led to that entire section of the video. There's a LOT of intention put into the environmental storytelling, especially the architecture, in this game!
I think of Elden Ring as our dimension right around the beginning of self awareness forming. When darkness was turning to light, now we are way more in light than before.
That is actually an amazing way to think about it, I love it.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing thanks for understanding my thought process 😄 I appreciate being able to share it with you.
Spot on love these architectural lore videos. And given how often it rains in the Lakes that could be why the drainage channels are more prevalent in that area
Oooh i kinda like this, that would make sense. Actually an interesting detail I didn't leave in is that the gold coloring of the stone tiles in the Weeping peninsula has worn away, likely because of all the rain
Nice to see someone else analyzing the basic architectures other than Tarnished Archeologist. Keep it up!
There's a LOT to be said about it!!
Beautiful video, I even came across your old Reddit post just because I wanted to do research mid video. Beginning to end absolutely perfect, can’t wait to see you up their with vaati and zullie
Thank you so much. I will try to maintain a high level of quality always. And I appreciate you saying beginning to end perfect when I know that I misgendered Ymir and made some bad predictions using just the DLC trailer info. But also some of it does seem to have held up so I am proud of that.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing eh those are minor details, depending on who you ask lol but really everything else, the research, the presentation, feels like the entire video can almost be taken as factual
Been waiting for someone to analyse the architecture. I always felt it could fill in the gaps in the current knowledge of the game.
yeah i may know more about the architecture than anyone on the planet outside of the devs. the characters, items, religions, they are ever changing. but rocks and buildings? they just kinda chill in the same place. so i think there's a level of reliability there
Fantastic video! I just went back to your old reddit threads and made some remarks, this is super well done!
I think the fact that the road itself also progressed in stages and at one pointed updated the tiles, and that the tile design itself stops at the 4-way symmetrical motiff which seems to be of Farum's origin and not the 3-way symmetrical motiff of Marika's order is a huge detail, that shows that the road itself has not been updated since Marika's order usurped the world OR that Marika changed the Elden ring from the 4-symmetry to the 3-symmetry at one point, without updating the road.
It might be that was when Marika did something to anger Farum Azula, maybe that's when Farum was attacked by a meteor and crumbled, with debris falling on the road, and maybe that's when Marika also changed the Elden Ring to reflect the 3-way symmetric design we see today.
After this event, when Marika takes over Leyndell completely, we basically see a branching off between the Farum culture and the Leyndell culture, to the point they eventually become enemies, but also a branching off with the Eternal City culture of Nokron and Nokstella, which still maintain similarities with Farum Azula in architecture but cleary have now adopted the full night theme, probably as a response to their submergence.
This truly was a global empire at one point, and i think that empire was united together by the Elden Lord of that time, Placidusaxx, and whichver "God" fled it, which held the old Elden Ring in its body.
Also, the DLC speculation now is that Metyr, mother of Fingers, might have been the God of Placidusaxx that fled, although i haven't researched this deep enough yet, some speculated that Metyr's abdominal area is a gashed wound as a result of the FingerSlayer Blade.
In regards to the 4-way symmetry ER design, I think that its more likely that Marika had something to do with the design changing. We know that something set off Gransax's attack, and we know that at one point, everything was in opposition to the Erdtree and Marika set out on a war of conquest. My instinct is that the meteor strike had something to do with it. Radahn idolized Godfrey, and we know Godfrey led the Crucible Knights, and we find Crucible Knights fighting Beastmen in Farum Azula. Maybe Godfrey attacked Farum Azula on the order of Marika. Radahn studied gravity magic as a youth. Plus, the pattern of destruction of the ruins all over Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula, and only some in Liurnia/Caelid, make it seem like the hit must have come from a north to south direction. And just north of where Farum Azula was theoretically floating IS Leyndell.
But yes, I think you are correct that everything used to be united under Plac. Excellent point about the old Elden Ring being in its body, I hadn't thought of that. Do you think there was a "Shattering", physically, like with Marika/Radagon? How would Marika become the vessel if the ER was in another's body? Body stealing? Eating it like Tanith? We know that works because the Great Serpent ate Rykard, Great Rune and all. Or, is it possible that Marika just IS the same god? And maybe was a dragon and took human form. After all, both are said to be "fled" at some point. Marika fled, Plac's god fled. Or, perhaps the truth is that "fled" just means "dead"? The GEQ was said to be an Empyrean, I had always kinda thought that that meant that Marika was also an Empyrean at that time and they were in competition.
Yeah idk about the Metyr thing. She's a daughter of the GW. She is the Mother of Fingers, but idk if that makes her a god. She's like, SO weird. Honestly I can't imagine her and Plac dating. Jk. The Fingers of it all do make sense with the GW/Cinquedea. And if she really is the GW's daughter,
I haven't finished the video yet so you might already mentioned it but I'm gonna say it anyway lol. I love that you can see the road of the long march Godfrey and the tarnisheds took from Lyndell to the weeping peninsula.
Yeah like I kinda feel like the Long March was along this road. Or maybe the Long March was the name of his campaign which is when this road was first built, and it ended with him deciding to fight Placidusax and become Elden Lord.
Wait what? This was your *first* video?! This is incredible! Bravo for the quality, complexity and detail. Absolutely subscribed for more!
I tried very hard and worked on it for a few months until I was happy with the quality! Thank you so much for the encouragement!
awesome video with very interesting comparison of 2 empires and their similarities, great job everyone who contributed to this
tarnished archeaology has some amazing stuff on that theory. revealing an ancient history
Yes TA has cited some of my essays in his videos, including the one that this video is based off of. I think there is still so much lore to be found in the architecture and I have so many videos to make, but I think he & I will do a collab in the future. Fingers crossed!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing omg i just realised you are THE "nameless singer" he mentioned from reddit i think.
nice to see you on youtube - hope to see you grow :D
Ahhhh the Flower of life. I was waiting for someone to bring it into elden ring since I first saw the cover lmao.
This is so good! I feel like when Placidusax was elden lord farum azula was the home of the dragons and the people built leyndell. Then way later marikas lot moved in and the ancient dragons attacked.
Yeah I think this is getting at the truth. Like Leyndell could have originally been a place with a ton of Farum influence when the Erdtree was around and it didn't become the "Age of the Erdtree" until Marika officially took over and conquered everything else. Not totally sure!
14:49 I think that Serosh played an important role in this alliance: he's referred to as "lord of beasts" in the hammer given by Gurranq, and there are some decorations in the shape of a lion head in Farum Azula (18:16), so I think that he was once a vassal to Placidusax and the lord of the beastmen. The beastmen have five fingers so I think that they built Farum Azula for the dragons, so it makes sense that their lord influenced the architecture of the new "elden capital" Leyndell
Damn, this video is an absolute banger. Your scholarly style is such a great addition to the Elden Ring lore community, thanks for making such a killer piece! Wild this is your first video lol
I tried to start strong!! I do want to try out vids that are less scholarly but at the same time there is also a lot of architectural evidence that benefits from the scholarly look so that will always be a part of it
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing it seems like that’s the way you view information at large, so I’m sure the more casual stuff will still have a lot of that scholarly angle to it. Wish you nothing but success as you keep making videos! Was a quick subscription for me haha
Love this video! I’ve been working on a timeline and I fully believe that there was a period of time where the greater will’s “will” was peacefully transferred from beast and dragon culture to the erdtree. This video presents some strong evidence of at least a period of peace. The symbol on the road alone shows that there is a missing time period that people aren’t discussing
There does seem to be some evidence that there is a missing piece of history. Plac not being remembered as being the first Elden Lord. Mentions of forgotten lands. Little things here and there.
Is it possible Granssax attacked Leyndell when Marika removed the Lands of Shadow? It seems incredibly likely that a huge portion of dragon territory was obliterated (the giant peak), and Farum Azula was unceremoniously ejected into the sky, and also Bayle’s escape was facilitated. For another empire to throw around nuclear bombs next door and all over your territory is a great reason to attack!
I do think there could be some truth to this because we have the Land of "Shadow", which is described as Shadow because it is obscured by the Erdtree, and Farum Azula which appears to be the realm of "light" - it's always sunny there, we find sun realm shields, Plac is all about light etc. So perhaps the creation of the Land of Shadow, the separated Land of Light (Farum Azula) and the "Lands Between" came from this split. However, it was also pointed out to me that the "Lands Between" may just be the lands in the center of all of the other lands beyond the fog like the Land of Reeds.
The alternative explanation is that Gransax attacked when Farum Azula was struck by a meteorite. Based on the pattern of debris being mainly in Limgrave/Weeping Peninsula the meteorite likely hit from a line opposite to the densest parts of the debris field... which does kinda seem like Leyndell.
Second video I have seen. Your voice, strong! I like the parallel here with Roman Roads of old, The Appian Way. Great to see new fresh eyes on Miyazaki's work! Thanks for the video!
I LOVE Roman history, it is fascinating what a civilization they were. I got to go to Rome last year and I felt like I stepped into Leyndell. There are so many shared architectural motifs, and I took so many pictures, and I am going to use them in the Leyndell video.
Thank you for watching!
This is very impressive work! Didn't realise that there were everywhere pieces of Farum Azula... :o