ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2024
- An enemy which the game doesn't even deem fit to name. In this video, I explore Elden Ring's most mysterious enemy, what Fextralife calls Abnormal Stone Clusters. We will find out though, that they have an actual name, and that isn't it. Come join me on the search!
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The Tarnished Archaeologist: • Found in Farum Azula |...
Rocketlucco's Reddit Post: / some_realizations_abou...
Music:
Christopher Larkin - Resting Grounds (Emphase Remix)
Megaman & Bass OST [SNES] - Ground Man's Stage
Super Metorid OST - Lower Maridia (Swampy Caverns)
Elden Ring OST - Limgrave
Stray OST - Trash Zone
#eldenring #lore #eldenringlore
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Glad to see more people checkin this video out! And plenty of small catches I missed in the comments, nice. If you really like the content, considering supporting me on Patreon! As it really helps me dedicate more time and resources to the channel. Thanks again! www.patreon.com/madluigi
Sentry Stone has a better ring to it :)
"runes, scripts or etching" looks like the Coded Sword or those Hand things you find in the Roundtable Hold , though those are Faith based soooo i don't know how that would fit in. just off the cuff, where I've seen similar markings , cant think of anything else right now.
Is it possible to spawn the prisoners aboveground?
Maybe you could compare the runes on the entrance to evergaols to the ones found on the coffins that transport you to other areas. When they go up in the cutscene, they glow orange and show a lot of different runes on them.
Loved the video. There's another "special" Ever Gaol without sentinels this time : the one that gives access to Malenia's Haligtree, populated by Black Knife Assassins and Albunoric Rangers in West Mountaintops.
I also wondered, the rune patterns on Ever Gaols kinda looks like Ghiza's Wheel, although i don't think there's a connection.
My theory is that they're maintaining the evergaol at an ethereal level, as inn they are constantly replenishing the jail by absorbing cosmic/gravity energy from the eather or absorbing it from the stars like solar panels and feeding it to gaol to keep it's pocket dimension going.
Thats a pretty interesting theory, and would somewhat explain their lack of doing much in general
Considering what radahn was capable of with gravity magic this seems likely but it does make it weird why they are watching the well
@@TheNova258 Comparing it with Radahn, perhaps what he did was the same technique that makes an Evergaol. Using the power of gravity magic to sustain a prison.
I mean you can enter the gaol even after you kill them, and we've got to remember that although they don't react to you or in general, they do have an eye and therefore a purpose for that eye. They're also seemingly living beings which doesn't make much sense if all they do is "absorb gravity". There must be a reason why they're alive and not literal rocks.
Any clue as to why they migrate? You can find one close to warmaster shack worming it's way presumably to the stormhill evergaol. From west to east. As if it were making a pilgrimage from summonwater village to said mentioned evergaol.
I bet that during early testing devs noticed that evergoals were easy to miss, because they don't stick out from afar, so they added these things as an indication that there's a point of interest nearby.
Then why are they at other places if it was only for the everjails to be more visible
@@summonersriftgarbage4426outside of evergoals they are fairly rare.
@@n0vitski but they are still at other places.. so your theory can't be true if they JUST wanted them to be landmarks, its obvious theres something deeper than just "its hard to see so i'll create those things"
@@summonersriftgarbage4426 They definitely wanted to use them as landmarks. Once that has been taken care of, there's nothing stopping devs from dropping a couple here and there just because, knowing full well that people are going to start theory crafting. Just because they create intrigue with tiny details like this, knowing full well that they absolutely don't have to explain it, doesn't mean there's deep lore behind it. This is extremely common in fantasy, even outside of something deliberately cryptic, like souls games.
@@summonersriftgarbage4426if you want a grounded answer, it's probably because they make good filler. They probably realised that they are simple enough enemies to fit as general filler in some areas so scattered them about. The Japanese name is something along the lines of guard stones, so maybe someone thought of some cool lore for them, but it wasn't integral to the overall story and instead acts as a mystery for players to theorise about.
Might not actually be meant to be defenders. Them being "Lookouts" might just mean they are bascially security cameras. Meant to alert someone who probably isn't even around anymore if one of the inmates somehow got out. Like a silent alarm system that doesn't actually reach anyone.
my thoughts as well, that's why theyre just a big eye :D if they were meant to guard or defend the jails then surely they wouldve been designed in a way that gave them some form of attack beyond just exploding
@@SpydersByte yeah they could have just glued some spikes on them and turned em into big living flails if they wanted them to fight lol.
Exactly, seems pretty obvious since we know they have actually usefull guards like the stone golems who can destroy anyone who isn't a demigod slayer
It is a jail.
16:32
I like the theory that they're basically security cameras, and the guy who's supposed to be watching them to raise the alarm is just not there anymore, it's a nice and straightforward theory that makes sense
I feel like this is most likely what they are.
I like that theory. Simple and believable.
In a game full of complex theories, this one is nice and simple
Makes more sense that they're maintaining the evergoal. They emit the same purple glow that the evergoal does
No one broke out so what makes everyone assume the guy is no longer there? For all we know he is doing his job and its just no one escaped
There are also some of the clustered 'guard' variant in the Sealed Tunnel in Altus Plateau, a dungeon which happens to end in a boss fight with an Onyx Lord!
Thats a great catch! Ill have to go check that out. I missed an exception!
I was totally coming down here to say the same thing haha.
The Sealed Tunnel also leads to a divine tower
That is more learned along the lines what I was thinking less fleshed out on how but definite same use
It's also worth pointing out that one of those pale, upside-down Astel-looking enemies that hurls rocks at you with gravity magic also makes an appearance in the Sealed Tunnel.
i love that now that we’ve had Elden Ring for awhile now we get to see all these cool videos about the obscure characters, loved the video !
Glad you enjoyed so and thanks for the kind words!
I'm sad that these creatures werent called Caterpillars. They certainly do look like pillars.
Personally it's a relatable creature. Mechanically doing a 9 to 5, on the lookout for the Boss, Has a goofy but explosive self defense mechanism, Falls apart when punched. Truly relatable.
I know what they are now, humans
Craterpillars
😂😂😂😂😂😂😭
Imagine shooting the caterpillars out of catapaults.
Similarly, I was disappointed when "handcreepers" weren't called Handtulas
14:40
interesting note about gravity magic holding up faram azula. After defeating Radahn, the entrance to nokron opens up, and above the hole is a bunch of floating rocks. Those floating rocks have no purple. Looking at them side by side, its VERY similar.
Imagine the blacknife assassin escaping her evergoal, and these things spinning around and pummeling her back into the evergoal. They're like living billy clubs made of sanctuary stones.
It doesn't give much hint to the origins but I just love that Miquella mastered a bit of every type of magic to the point that he stuck a whole copy of a town in an evergaol.
miquella is mr.worldwide
I swear we are getting a time traveling to the past map with Miquella as our "melina"
i feel thats coming as well with a dream working as a kind of time travel like with the ringed city in ds3@@cullysloy2705
They also appear around the colosseum in Limgrave, as well as mixes of the proximity mine and regular variants around several of the graveyards of stone coffins that are filled with Golden Rune items!
I wanted to make this very comment! They are found in quite a few places around the world beyond gaols and divine towers.
And the canyon in caelid where a graven school is found
Some skeletons in the tombs have a chance to drop a Rune Shield, a medium wooden shield with runes etched in around the circumference. Wonder if there’s something to do with death. Or destined death.
They are also in the mine with the star beast on the other side of a chasm
Literally just made came here to comment about this because I randomly stumbled across them while doing the first volcano manor quest.
these guys are also found in the altus plateau, specifically in the tunnel leading to the west altus divine tower, whose boss is an onyx lord
Also in northern Limgrave north of the Warmaster's Shack site of grace once you pass under the bridge. Doesn't seem like there's anything they're watching there either.
@@stimulanttree theres a lot of places where we can find them actually, if i remember theres the crack leading to caelid's coliseum, also liurnia i found some in some dark crevasse with like a living ball head i still don't see any link between those places
I found one in the middle of the woods in Limgrave. You could argue it was near the hound evergaol, but it was pretty far away compared to the rest and I don’t think it was close enough to count. It was right next to some random ruins though.
When I first found an evergaol, I thought the fight would change if I found and killed all the stone worms that paired with it. I guessed that they were the projectors manifesting the "VR" gaols into existence, and eliminating then would free or otherwise effect w/e was inside.
Ditto. Well I thought killing them might make the fight *worse* (but i was fighting the crucible knight before even entering stormveil
@@sebastianrochefort6763 I don’t see how you could have made that matchup worse under those circumstances
Maybe if you kill them all and wait around long enough the evergaol will fail and the boss will just emerge from it on its own? As in, its lost its power source and will then drain its battery over time until it fails. I wonder if anyone has tried killing them all and then waiting around for like an hour. Probably not.
@@asonofhoruslegionary theres nothing worse than those fucking knights. Except for those owls with swords and a flamethrower on their head
A quick observation, when you come out of Siofra in Caelid the path littered with these enemies leads to the Arsenal Charm, a talisman which effects how gravity exerts it's influence on the player, or reduces weight, either way this is a gravity magic effect.
They glow with gravity magic, drop the same ruin stones found in pieces from farum azula, and seem to be drawn to the evergaols if they are not directly connected to them?
Evergaols do seem to work on some form of spatial magic and have very similar stonework to the dragon ruins, so they could easily be directly connected.
So my question is were they built there along with the evergaols or are they extraterrestrial/dimensional in nature and simply drawn to the evergaols energy?
They also seem to be made of space rock like the alabaster lords, but they seem man made and can fold into a tiny pyramid that looks like a canonball pile.
Can't wait for this to go live, I must know more about the squiggly rock bois.
That's one insightful comment! Hope you'll be able to find some satisfying answers in the video
@@MadLuigi i will keep calling them squiggly rock bois tho
@@BaalFridge if i could get fextra to change what they call it, ill happily join the community in calling them squiggly rock bois
What if they are larval fallingstar beasts?
Well If Faruum Azula is in a Pocket out of Time, maybe that is the connection to the Ever Gaols. Instead of Gravity magic, it's Subspace magic.
I always thought they were related to the fallingstar beast lineage, because of their eyes, and association with gravity magic.
It's also worth noting that the eye on this enemy is pretty visually similar to the eye in the skulls of Astel and the Fallingstar Beasts. The description of the Ruins Greatsword is probably also topical here, as it mentions a meteor striking Farum Azula and infusing the rubble with gravity magic.
Considering astel/the fallingstar beast/the big astel looking things you find in underground river are all dedcribed as bug like (have mandabulls and such) it could be that argue its an evolution where the lookout stones are the tiny baby grubs. And eventually grow into fallingstar beasts (as the one on mount gelimir is called "full grown" i think. Then astel might be like a queen Bee situation (which would explain the 2nd one in the snowfeilds u can fight, its just evolution
What if that meteor was Radahn?
@@padraigconordenisbrazilcar4973 I should have scrolled down before posting. I theorised that a meteor hit Farum Azula or another sky temple, and that this caused both to rain down in small pieces. The Ruins Greatsword confirms that.
I don't think they're directly related to the star beings, but rather that they're the meteor and the sky temple and the ground they rained on fused. They're in their final form with a little bit of lifeforce and basically no intelligence. They're given the task to look over these evergoals and they just kept doing that, never questioning it.
The Onyx were parts of the meteor that took after the beings of the land it rained on. Astels are exclusively found underground and far from civilisation so they're big parts that buried themselves deep and never had contact with the beings on the land.
Fallingstar beasts are its larval stage, and the hanging from the ceiling is the end of their crysalid stage. The underground cities and mines where these are found are likely built during its true crysalid stage when they just looked like a piece of stone.
I don't think the fallingstar beasts we see are from this same massive meteorite. I think they're later impacts. The ground where you find them is pretty fresh after the impact, and it explains the age difference if fallingstar beasts are indeed previous stages of Astels.
Important note about Farum Azula's "anti-gravity": Dragonlord Placidusax (among other dragons) rest there and in his boss fight cutscene it seems more like Farum Azula is held together in some kind of timeless stasis, which he controls (and reverts in the cutscene). That might also explains while some rocks travels around the tornado, they never spin around their own axis, same with all the ruins/buildings/platforms, they stay in perfect stasis.
I spent a couple weeks back in March trying to decipher the runic scripts found throughout the game. Those look most similar to the ones found on the St. Trina torch and graves found throughout the game (best example o can think of is the grave pile by the red dog and albanuric rise puzzle in the mountaintop of giants).
From my research, all the runic scripts in the game seem to be based off two base scripts found in the real world: some variant of Futhark and the Carian runic alphabet. The interesting thing about Carian (aside from the obvious lol) is that it has multiple regional variations. My current working theory is that they made their own version for the game, but that’s just conjecture.
One thing that gave me a lot of trouble was that it seems they took the time to uniquely stylize each instance of runic script to match the material it was carved or etched into. Script on stone is rounded and less defined (also sometimes appearing heavily weathered) while script on metal (eg St Trinas sword) appears to have flourishes.
My best guess is that it’s all either the same runic script stylized and adjusted based on the in game time period the item came from or it’s two separate runic scripts (the variants of Futhark and Carian).
It’s also been a few months since I let myself think about this out of fear of falling back down this rabbit hole, but I’m pretty sure I still have my notes somewhere. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around looking at walls and weapon textures while doing my research. If want to chat about it some time let me know and I’ll see if I can dig them up. Hope this helps!
(PS. Has anyone made a connection with the giant stone man being a creator deity yet? His depiction across the game, especially in the Haligtree city, really peaked my interest. Especially the fact that it seems to be him modeled on the tombs outside Malenia and those appear to be identical to the headless ones in the walking mausoleums. I had to stop digging back in April because it was taking up too much of my time lol. If anyone has a video or post talking about it I’d love to know!)
This is cap they used yi an ancient Chinese language
your last paragraph is something i never even heard of my guy, but isnt malenia the goddess of rot/incarnation/vessel ? is it the rot god?
afaik the mausoleum is associated with the death birds, maybe its the outer god that the death birds are the envoys to?
I also did the same. But theres no consistancy. Some stuff seems to be in Eldar Futhark. Some in Younger. Some looks Anglo-Saxon. Etc. I think that plays into the themes of religious and cultural evolution.
Im gonna point this out to you, because I feel a connection, you being the only other person who said they tried to work out the Runic language of Elden Ring.
But at some point the Carians were the most powerful faction in the Lands Between. The Nobility, they practice Glintstone Sorcery, not Erdtree incantations. Which indicates the Carians were the source of Political Power in the lands between.
A few things about the Runic language connections. "Ulcer" as in tree spirirts, is a base Rune. Also Marikas crucified symbol means "Man"
@@darkhobo 3rd paragraph, can you elaborate, you didn't provide enough information
@@alighieri99g81 yeah. Basiclly im saying the various mobs. The nobles roaming around the lands between. Scavenging ruins and whatnot. They practice glintstone sorcery.
This is a feudal system right? So the monarch, a queen in this case, bestows land and titles on nobles in return for a promise of military service. Thats feudalism. Well we got Queens and Nobles. So thats likely the political system in place.
Well the majority of the nobility we see are using Glintstone sorcery.
Meaning they practiced at raya lucaria and therefore were more likely made noble by Rennala than by Marika.
If the nobility was all going around using Erdtree, Two Finger, or Golden Order incantations it would indicate that political power was flowing through Marika.
Like, why would Marika be making people who practice glintstone sorcery and therefore likely loyal to Rennala, her Nobles? She wouldnt.
Plus there just, tons or archeological clues. Churches im Liurnia that were converted to worship Marika. Churches where Marika is not the central figure (shes off to the left or right of the central alter) of worship. Mainly in Liurnia.
Yeah. Basiclly the Carians spent a good deal of time as powerful if not MORE powerful than Marika was.
I hope that made sense. Its hard to communicate what you gather from environmental storytelling lol.
There is an Alabaster Lord in Raya Lucaria, found just past the first evidence of a rudimentary elevator system (the giant cog wheels). This suggests that they may have been brought in to the Academy to perfect the system by sharing their gravity magic. And as for the runes found on the ever gaol, I will scour the Academy for any similar writing to see if this has weight.
You guessed that the lookouts might be broken or malfunctioning based on the fact that they don't appear to respond to meddling with the evergaol, but consider that a 'lookout' typically isn't expected to personally take action against what they're looking out for. Rather, they are supposed to raise an alarm so that others can respond. Maybe whatever alarm or security system was in place that they were meant to activate isn't working anymore. they're sending a signal just fine, but nobody's listening. this would also potentially explain the lack of response to the crystal darts, unlike the other construct enemies, they weren't built for combat, so scrambling their targeting doesn't really affect them since they were only ever supposed to respond when attacked.
As for why the security measures are missing for every single evergaol, one possible explanation is that they were destroyed or dismantled by later civilizations. In particular, the erdtree forces seem to have been able to 'reprogram' them, hence the presence of giant golems guarding various places important to them. the burial watchdogs are possibly the result of reverse-engineering, since the name implies that the erdtree forces made them.
Is agree with your assessment. I think because we kill them while in the gaol, they essentially never break out, thus an alarm was never sounded to whoever originally sealed the inhabitants. Or... Like mentioned, the alarm system is now broken and has faulted. Would be cool to know what the actual purpose of these gaols were, who crested them etc!
One could say that if it's not a glitch, then it at least shows that there was something missing to them which led people to feel like "they should do something else when I deal with the evergaol".
Probably a DLC boss who gets alerted and decides to eventually invade the tarnished after finally being notified
Has anyone compared thier resistance to gravity magic to the other elements?
Usually the higher resistance can atleast give you a hint of to what they have an affinity to
10:11 the Evergaol gateways have markings similar to those found on the marais exececutioner greatsword. The Evergaol gateways seem to be related to gravity magic, and the eochlaid markings on the executioner greatsword cause the sword to float, much like the siofra river elevators. Might be worth looking into, but is probably all coincidence.
12:44 there's also "guardstones" at one of those little coffin areas with all the free rune items. Can't remember exactly where, but i think its Weeping Peninsula or Liurnia of the Lakes
14:30 Farum Azula is definately not powered by gravity magic. This distiction is made clear by the Ruins Greatsword description, which states that the gravity magic found in the greatsword is only present because a meteor struck Farum Azula while it was already floating in the air. Therefore, that means Farum is otherwise unassociated with gravity magic.
Great video as always, though
Would have been amazing to have a giant one as a meme boss. Maybe at Vista points just looking out at the landscape for trouble .
You'd see it to the spinning attack towards you from a distance only to realize how huge it is.
No
Maybe each evergaol had a guardstone minefield with lookoutstones as triggers, but all the explosive guardstones were already exploded?
smart
Neat
There's also a cave on the outskirts of Leyndell, which has an Onyx Lord in a fancy boss room, and these little stone creatures are used as self-destructing traps in that dungeon.
Glad to see I didn't imagine that cave lol
@@lordjim7920 yeah its the one that leads to a divine tower, first time i ever saw it i was summoned to help, i guess i activated the statue without even clearing it
I do want to point out that I’ve found many that arent around evergaols, they just dont do the stare thing. Usually around some graveyards but theres also some randomly scattered in a few forests and even a cave I think
The big stone guys that have the bows were definitely made by people from Farum Azula, you can see in different places that the big stone guys fell from the sky along with some architecture from Farum Azula
Couple things. 1, we find some of the guard stones in the sealed tunnel, leading up to the Onyx Lord fight at the very end of the tunnel. Secondly, in regards to the golems and the sanctuary/ruin stones coming from a sky temple, they are very likely from the same temple that we find ruins of scattered about the lands between. This temple is not Faram Azula; items like the Ruins Greatsword make mention of a flying city that was destroyed by meteor strikes; the meteoric blade, imbued with gravity magic, was forged specifically to fight the creatures born from these meteors. I believe that there were likely multiple sky cities at one point, and that their inhabitants were the ones that created the various golems we find throughout the lands between, which have long since been repurposed by more modern civilizations.
It's possible that the old sky cities and the culture that built them were connected with the people that built the ruins we find along the shorelines of Limgrave and Caelid; and that these may also be connected with the Onyx lords. There is a cave in Limgrave which features many of the same architectural cues that we find in the coastal ruins, and at the heart of this cave we find a giant golem, forging a (tenuous) link between them. Given that the remains of golems are often found alongside the ruins of the sky city, ad if they collapsed to earth at the same time, we now have some connection between golems, coastal ruins, and sky cities. The Onyx lord connection is much more tenuous, mostly just owing to the fact we randomly find one on the beach in Limgrave near the coastal ruins; what it is doing there, and why, is a mystery.
Another semi-related mystery is the Golem in Caelid near the painting ghost for that area. It is not only significantly more resilient than any other golem we encounter, but has technological capabilites beyond most of what we find in the lands between, shooting lasers and imbuing its weapon with the wgat appears to be the same energy that powers its laser orbs. We do see the golems guarding the path to the coliseum imbuing their bows with a similar power, as they too glow blue. I speculate that this blue energy is somehow tied to the cosmos/the primeval current, as glintstone magics are of a similar hue. It's likely that whoever built the golems had advanced knowledge of the stars and the cosmos, and used this knowledge/power extensively. If my wild speculation is correct, it makes their demise by meteor strikes ironic, and given that we know meteors are not always simple space rocks, but are vessels for cosmic horrors like the Astels and the fallingstar beasts, it is even possible that these creatures were sent to the lands between intentionally by an outer God or similar such cosmic entity/scoiety/group. If this is the case, it makes a bit more of a case for the Onyx lords being behind the flying cities and the golems, for it is very likely them that forged the meteoric blade, as it is imbued with gravity magic, and I cannot think of another single gravity-infused weapon aside from the Ruins Greatsword that does not have an explicit direct connection to the Onyx lords (radahn was taught by the alabaster lords, explaining his gravity weaponry; the rest are the actual weapons used by the onyx/alabaster lords). Of course, mastery over gravity is clearly a teachable ability, as radahn learned it and then taught it to his knights, so its definitely possible that the meteoric blade was forged by a resident of Caelid, in preparation for Radahn's war against the stars, a conflict that we frankly get far too little info about given how insanely badass it sounds.
Anyways, that's my train of thought tangent over, if anyone has thoughts/critiques I'd love to hear them
Sorry, a bit intoxicated so I can't properly process all of your ideas right now, but one in particular is grabbing me:
"This temple is not Faram Azula; items like the Ruins Greatsword make mention of a flying city that was destroyed by meteor strikes. . . "
Why couldn't the ruins be from Farum Azula? The Ruins Greatsword's flavor text says "The ruin it came from crumbled when struck from a meteorite. . . " which seems to provide a subtle link to "Crumbling" Farum Azula. From my understanding, Farum Azula is almost primordial in nature, existing long before most of the other entities of the game. It makes sense to me for the meteors that carried the Alabaster/Onyx Lords to have also collided with Farum Azula far in the past and shattered parts of it, causing a rain of ruins across the Lands Between. Then, from the ruins that their meteorites happened to create, they took bits and pieces and crafted the Watchstones.
Maybe there were multiple old sky cities, or maybe Farum Azula was originally far bigger than the crumbling remains we see and the arrival of the Lords were part of its shattering. It would also make sense mechanically, as ruin fragments and sanctuary stones can be collected from them repeatedly, as if they frequently revert to a certain point in time, a dimension that Farum Azula is known for being weird at.
I personally think that the placement of the ruins, along with the enemies distributed among them, would suggest that the meteors that carried Astel and the Lords were, at least partially, responsible for the destruction inflicted upon Farum Azula.
@@brocksteele7475 there's a few reasons, the biggest being A) when we fight placidussax, we see the city being destroyed by the storm (in reverse), and the storms don't seem to have anything to do with meteors; indeed the city itself seems to have intentionally been built around the storms, outside of time, where it is both destroyed and not. B) if you look closely at the architecture of faram azula, you see specific design cues and motifs; none of these are present in the ruins we find scattered along the ground. These ruins have completely different designs etched into them from what we see in Faram Azula, and not a single piece of rubble contains anything resembling the many Graves we find in F.A. By comparison, the beast temple has identical symbols and design cues/motifs as F.A., so its definitely not by accident that the ruins are completely different.
C) This applies mostly to Limgrave, but we find the broken remains of many of the giant golems scattered about, often in proximity to the ruins from the sky. This suggests they fell at the same time/were from the same place, yet we don't find any of these golems in F.A.
D) The greatest concentration of ruins are in Limgrave, geographically one of the furthest regions away from F.A. The only way they could have possibly flown the as far as they would have had to if they were from Faram Azula is if they were impacted with tremendous force. Remember, the game is scaled down; each region is essentially a country, so we are talking about hundreds of miles. If the meteor was large enough and coming with the kind of force needed to do that, there would not be any ruins left, it would have pretty much caused F.A. to explode and shrapnel in all directions, raining chunks of temple across the lands between. Instead, we get a very localized area of debris coverage (mostly limgrave, and a bit in Liurnia I think). Also, there is no meteor impact zone in Limgrave. Now, I can concede that it's very possible that this meteor landed in the ocean, and while I cant quite recall where on the map it's located, perhaps the meteor landed where that big whirlpool on the map is. In any case, Limgrave is suspiciously absent of any space debris, just flying city debris.
It's very possible that there was originally meant to be more flying cities, and that the difference in appearance between the ruins and F.A. is simply a holdover from that time, but I don't think this is the case. While there is evidence that the ruins are from FA, namely the presence of ruin and sanctuary stones in the ruins and as drops from the beastmen. This can also be explained as both places were built by the same people or with the same materials. At this point it really just comes down to what you prefer to beleive, since there's nothing definitive either way. For me, the completely different designs on the ruins vs what's in FA is what seals it for me that they are separate locations, along with the cutscene showing us FA being destroyed by tornados in reverse. I also recall some item description or another mentioning that FA was forever doomed to be in the process of being destroyed by the very storm it was built in the midst of, I'm guessing this was the tradeoff for being able to reside outside of time, but tbh the fact that it's beyond time yet we very clearly visit it during a specific time and our actions have very real impacts in the surrounding world, and in FA itself really just confuses things
@@Coast2CoastFlyin True, Limgrave has the harshest concentration of ruins, but that also kind if makes sense? Limgrave is significantly lower in height compared to Caelid, while still being significantly closer to F. A. than Liurnia. It doesn't necessarily seem out of place for the area closest to but still lowest on the ground to Farum Azula to collect most of its fallen ruins. Like, the meteorites clipped right over the high ground and gathered in the low ground.
I'll have to jump into the game and get a closer look soon, but I can't help but feel that the fallen ruins are F. A. -esque. I'll edit my comments if I'm wrong, but IIRC, the various fallen ruins are pretty dang close to, at the very least, the Farum Azula-adjacent architecture present in the Beatial Sanctuary in Caelid.
@@brocksteele7475 in particular look for the twin dragon and what looks sorta like 2 misbegotten in F.A., and try to find them in the ruins on the ground
very interesting stuff. I've always wanted to know more about the war against the stars as well, it *does* sound very badass :D
Also that blue golem by the painting ghost was *such* a pain in the ass. I swear that thing has more HP than the majority of bosses. It also has ridiculous range with it's axe plus the multi-glintstone spell it does in a tiny area where you have like 50 sq ft to move around without falling off a cliff; so its super hard to evade them. I fought him quite a few times but my last attempt had me dying at like 1% hp. Considering you *also* have to do the damn jump puzzle every time you go back, I looked up what he drops, found out it was nothing but runes, and then said fuck it, Ill let him live :P
I always assumed they were a magic created entity that's really just used like a camera.
Basically whoever was in charge of the evergaols or other important areas would be able to scry and see through their eye.
I don't know if it's a big deal, but there are 11 of these creatures on the road in Caelid, and they're all made of 11 stones, and LB has a total of 11 evergaols.I wonder if the Stone Clusters in that area control the evergaols in LB.
Something interesting about these things is that in Elden Ring Randomizers they are completely uneffected, they will always remain at the Evergaol sites. The only version of these things that get randomized is the pile that explode when you get close to them.
The Giant Stone Golems seem to have a fiery engine or core in their chest that functions like a power source. This reminds me of the Fire Giant as there is a similar fiery aura that comes from the Fire Giant during the fight.
We see several golems in the Mountaintops of the Giants. Perhaps they were used in the war against the giants. One of the first places we see one is guarding Morne Castle. Which was loyal to Godrick who allied with General Radahn.. I don't know if that leads anywhere... It was Godfrey that persecuted the giants and Godrick is of his lineage.
What’s most interesting is that the tip of these things have an almost uncanny appearance to something in the game called “The Beast Eye”, which is given to us by Gurranq, aka Maliketh.
It’s hard to make a connection but the color purple in the game is heavily associated with Sleep. I’ve always theorized that the Ever-goals are “dream jails” and the purpose of these things are meant to ward off intruders who wish to meddle with whatever prisoner that Ever-goal holds.
Another connection is the “Gloam-eye” that Melina reveals in the flame of frenzy ending. It may just be a cinematic trick, but it’s interesting that the screen fades to black right after she reveals the eye, possibly hinting sleep. I believe she does this to us many times in the game also. Most notably the Fire Giant Cauldron cutscene, and maybe before she teleports us to the Roundtable Hold.
I now 100% believe Melina is St. trina
I’m sorry, but purple is not at all associated with sleep, purple is gravity. Silvery-blue is most associated with sleep in Elden Ring.
I've been fascinated by the lookout stones since the beginning. They always seemed... alien to the Lands Between. And we have so little information on them. And by focusing on their strangeness, and with an unhealthy dose of confirmation bias, I've cooked up a hypothesis.
There's a space city.
Or at least quite high in the sky. And this city houses a civilization that built the lookout stones, the everjails, but also the golems and the lifts inside the divine towers or leading to the underground. First of all, I think that Farum Azula is not connected to this civilization. Yes, Farum Azula floats in the sky, but thanks to something else since, As MadLuigi put it, there's a noticeable lack of purple glow, there. However, I do believe that the fallen ruins we see here and there come from this space city. Their architecture isn't quite like Farum Azula's.
Now, why do I think that there's a space city? The spot at the intersection of the divine towers. Some say it's the crater left by the Elden Beast, but I find it way too large for that, and the Erdtree's position seem odd, at the edge of the crater. And talking about the crater, that's another clue to me. When we look at the map, we can see that the edges look a bit cut out. And I think this is what it is: cut out. The entire civilization, a civilization that mastered gravity, took out the entire kingdom and lifted it into the sky, maybe even to space. And from it, rained down the Alabaster lords and golems.
It's my understanding that golems fell from a VERY high spot and crashed hard into the ground. For example, in Limgrave, you can see plenty of destroyed (and one severly damaged) golems under the big broken bridge. At first, I tought they were guardians of the bridge and fell when the bridge broke. But why did it brake? I think it didn't. I think golems fell from very high and some of them pulverized the bridge in their fall.
So that's my take on it. We don't know much about the lookout stones, and even the golems, to be honest, because they come from a long gone civilization. Not gone in the sense that it died, but gone in the sense that they left the Lands Between. And I have another hypothesis. We don't know much about them, because there'll be plenty of that in the DLC. I've got a hinch that this kingdom will be the DLC's destination, and there we'll learn more about those constructs, and maybe possibly more about the Lands Between.
hmm interesting, I too have always looked at the map and thought it seems like something used to be in the middle, either a chunk of land or an island or something underground/underwater. ive always found it odd that that sweeping line waterfall we can see on the map, the one stretches from roughly the bestial sanctum straight north to the mountaintops of the giants is one of those few map doodles that actually matches what we can see in the worlds sea.
even the water level in the middle is at a higher level than it is on any of the outer sides, murkwaters 'terminus' is at a level that is higher than the water levels we see on the other sides of limgrave, weeping peninsula, caelid, etc.. idk it might be a red herring, or something they cut out, who knows.
Ruins Greatsword would also come from this space city (as it’s architectural style and gravity magic doesn’t match Farum Azula)
@@jooot_6850 Good catch, I'm not used to that sword!
DLC confirmed
I really like that theory. Elden Ring is inspired by Studi Ghibli films. From Miyazaki to Miyazaki. Also Castle in the Sky is one of the more populare ones, including a castle in the sky, floating through a big anti gravity stone, with no humans but ancient roboters on it, one falls down and kinda starts the story. Also there is a big ass tree on the space city, la puta, which would also fit since we see basically different tree factions in Elden Ring.
I will point out with regards to the lost civilisations that the Clay Men, who you get the bubble sorceries off, are stone-like in apearance, live in areas only accessible by the floating blue elevators and are an ancient society from before the erdtree. All their weapons reference an ancient dynasty and their Spears are made form metiorite shards. It seems that they are a sort of parralell group to the Alabaster lords but they use blue magic like the lifts and golems
I always thought they were very mysterious, they don’t look like they belong in the game, or even Bloodborne. There’s something about them that feels off, even though there are other alien enemies.
They're kind of like that strange green, glowing shortcut elevator in Bloodborne's nightmare frontier. Those always felt totally out of place to me, even in a game with plentiful E.T.s.
One small note of interest is that along the ravine where the Lookout Stones and Stone Golems guard the Caelid Colosseum (we also find Lookout Stones and Golems near the Limgrave Colosseum), you can find a massive amount of gravel stones, perhaps the most that can be found in any single location in the game. However, I'm not certain if this indicates a connection between the Lookouts/Golems and the ancient dragons, or if it indicates that they were guarding *against* the dragons.
I recently started another playthrough, and I could swear I was startled once by one of the guard stones exploding when I was looting one of the coffin fields (those stone coffins where every one has a Rune). I can't remember but I'm pretty sure there wasn't an evergaol near that place, and yet I could see both guard stones in pile form and lookout stones crawling on the floor.
You are correct you can find them close to the first coffin fields you find
This was my first encounter with the lookout stones and scared the shit outta me lol
I remember my first time seeing one of them on Stormhill...accompanied with a message that read: "Be wary of dung."
The text on the evergaol seals are similar to the coffin that transports the player to the Deeproot Depths location from the duo Gargoyle fight, though the effects are red when the coffin levitates.
I appreciate your approach of not being biased by pet theories and staying true to what is present in the game. a bit of a pet peeve of mine when lore vids go on wild tangents and huge conjectures.
My guess is that their job is to inform someone or something of a breakout, as for why they don't react to Blaidd, well he isn't the original prisoner.
We and Blaidd kill the prisoner earlier in his questline.
And i doubt Iji can reprogram them to inform him if Blaidd escapes.
Edit: He said all of this, i need to learn not to comment before the end.
Ok I didn't know the golems were affected by crystal dart. That suggests several connections such as the imp bleed enemies. Awesome lore
The single eye reminds me a bit of the eye in the skulls of the falling star beasts and Astel (and Lusats hat)
Also a connection to gravity magic and Alabaster and Onyx Lords
2:00 what is up with my man on the edge of the screen
Once I realized they have eyes, it reminded me of Godwyn’s eyes creeping up through roots and incorporating themselves into living creatures. Maybe this is a similar thing where ‘eyes’ of Astel (or of a long dead-star prime architect of the constructs) make their way up and through rocks and stone, and a weak form of gravity keeps trailing stones attached to it so they appear like segmented worms. I wondered for a while if they were pre-larval creatures but I could also see it as a kind of ‘eye infection’ similar to Godwyn’s but with stone instead of wood.
Interesting you should bring that up, I just realized that the lookout stones are made of rocks that are oddly similar to the boluses that cure deathblight.
I also want to point out that you can also find them near crypts too occasionally. iirc there is a spot in limgrave where they have all 3 variants, explosive, moving, and lookout. Also every single time I've seen an explosive one was in an enclosed space where its possible to get damaged by them
The Meteor cult is also strange.
Only their lords are ever mentioned in the lore, they are completely unique and have they own attacks, and they only spawn in about 3 places (that I know of).
Those being the crater in the weeping peninsula near the rise there, the crater outside of leyndell by the tree sentinel duo and, if I remember correctly, around the edge of the crater leading to nokron.
You're actually missing at least 2 other areas the lookout stones appear, albeit only in their clustered form, ready to explode when approached. There's at least 1 of the sarcophagi clusters-- the one I remember was in Stormhill-- that has several ready to surprise the player as you run or ride around to grab the runes, and there's a line-of-sight trap using them in one of the mining dungeons, though unfortunately I can't remember which and the wiki isn't being helpful. I'll try to remember to update this comment once I've found it again.
when you start a coop session with an effigy, your character draws some runes into the air. they look similar to the ones on the evergaol seal.
They are also on certain parts of the map, but look faded. Another TH-camr discovered it's different rune alphabet or stylization.
"Mihari Ishi" - translates to "Watching Rock or Look Out Rock" which seems fitting for their in game appearance and where they're located on the outside guarding the Everjail's
I always thought that they held up an evergaold barrier wall
Another comment had a similar idea, could be!
The fact that you pronounced Evergaol correctly is impressive on its own.
I have always thought of Farum Azula as kind of a black hole of sorts, in that the tornado is the black hole and the city being a sort of event horizon (I think that's the proper term? Anyway the point in which even light gets trapped in the gravitational pull). It could also explain the weird time travelling that goes on in the area and possibly even its relation to the Alabaster Lords in terms of gravitational magic despite not having the purple colouring.
Before I watch i assumed they were essentially batteries powering the evergaols and they are made of Farum Azulas old broken architecture
I like how willing you are to explore their AI just being broken. Doesn’t happen often enough.
i think he meant diegetically broken
Considering the amount of patches so far I'd say their docile temperament is what was intended
Me personally I’ve always called them “Ruin Watchers”. It rolls off the tongue quite well.
I hit one, backed off to see what it would do, it L'd itself and then fucking flew at me, was incredibly startled to see the wormy guy attempting to be a boomerang
That is a pretty wild attack, I love it
"bloons tower defense" mode activated
When radahn's stars fall, they cause floating rocks above the pit that leads you to nokron. Maybe gravity magic only shows the purpe effect when something is actively being moved, and when there is no color that means that the object is dormant (like the floating city or the rocks above the nokron pit)
It's definitely gravity bases. The worms are individual balls held together. That's as far as I can take it. The jails themselves are interdimensional magic. I only seen that with invasions.
The runic carving pattern on the evergaol seal reminds me of a whirlpool in the ocean, or of the demonstration of gravity with the elastic material and placing spheres of various weights on it. It could be a depiction of a gravity well, a black hole, a singularity. Also, the seal of the evergaol is at the bottom of the structure, which is shaped like a bowl.
Youre gonna fight the boss form of it in the DLC. Maybe the 2nd one. Im calling it.
I won't lie, I did feel that something was off with this enemy as if their AI was broken. I'm usually expecting 90% of the NPCs to be hostile, and I expected them to immediately swarm me upon walking up... but the first one I walked up to kept inch worming itself around.
Idk, there's something about the way they don't attack me to be more unsettling than if they did.
It is kind of weird how NOT displaying hostility somehow makes them feel MORE eldritch, isn't it?
Perhaps they’re looking for someone or something specific? Or they simply keep the gaols working
I was always a little peeved that out of everything it's these innocuous rockworms that don't seem mechanically possible just from the fact that the stones they're made of clip into each other during almost all their animations especially when they inchworm around
If we could manipulate gravity, then we would necessarily be manipulating mass (and perhaps spacetime). Without mass, objects could actually clip through each other, but they might also behave like a photon (as a wave). I think at some point, we just have to accept some magical handwaving.
What if these stone creatures are used as a way to observe certian locations or points if interest by powerful sorcerers? They could be for spying, gathering information or security observation.
I am quite certain that Blaidd was simply entering the evergaol same as you are, so the lookout stones at no point "let you free Blaidd" since he was never trapped.
If you aren't familiar, he specifically asks that you help kill the person trapped in the evergaol.
later on in Blaidd's questline, he actually gets imprisoned in that same evergaol, and the player character is allowed to break them out.
Notice the difference between their geometrically perfect shape and the more humanoid forms the other gravity wielders take. I always thought they were mimicking whatever alien technology they originated from and were made up of the original gravity magic meteorite. The temple in the sky its drops are referring to is NOT Farum Mesula, but rather whatever alien planet/galaxy/dimension the meteorite came from.
Great video, I just want to point out as an Irish person that Siofra is pronounced "She-Fra" rather than "See-Oh-Fra"
But why, exactly, do you think the word siofra has Irish roots?
@@SyntheticShinobi Dude, most of the language in the game is derived from Irish and Welsh. It's really not a hard leap to make (especially if you speak the language)
Also a quick google confirms Siofra is Irish for "Sprite"
Maybe the Irish should spell their words better.
@@Kurogumo bruh
crystal darts affect glintstone related enemies.. this means that golems are most likely made by magic people also most elevators that work by levitation are in magic related spots such as the rises around the map. so the golems and elevators probably didnt come from a "mechanical" type of people
I think that 'Guard/Lookout Stone' is not the 'true name' given to them by their creator, but a... descriptive name given to them by the later inhabitants of The Lands Between, since they appear to be standing guard or keeping a lookout around the gaols. (This is probably true for a lot of things, like poor Wormface there.)
I think the internal name "AliveStone" is actually probably more reflective of their 'true nature'.
I actually knew their names from the wiki because I was wondering how I screwed up a dungeon and I read the enemies list and they were there.
There's one other exception. The solitary Guardian Stone (probably better translation) under the bridge in storm hill. Always been the most mysterious thing in the game to me.
The guard stones in their active mode is also found in the Altus sealed tunnel. Where there incidentally also is an Onyx lord at the bottom.
speaking about being hesitant on farum azula being powered by gravity magic because of the absence of color purple, I'd like to make a comment that the Ruins Greatsword is canonically a chunk that fell from that place, and somehow that chunk was found to be imbued with gravity magic as seen in it's ash of war, so to me, it's kind of a big proof farum azula floats thanks to gravity magic infused in it's stones and that it simply doesn't emit visible purple light for some reason
Several times you mention that the "only place" we see them outside of Evergaols is in the ravine outside Siofra river but that's not true. If you go into the Sealed Tunnel you can find a number of them in the room full of large roots, and at the bottom of the pit before the boss room. A boss who is an Alabaster Lord.
I always thought they acted as both a lock and an alarm type thing. I think they exist outside the evergaols but have the ability to look into it. We usually see them all looking towards the gaol. They also act as a kind of power source that keeps the door to an Evergaol locked for the individual they are focused on. I don’t think they sustain the pocket dimension themselves because we don’t see them outside Ordina. I could be wrong on the last part cause I haven’t been in a while. But I always imagined they kept the individual in the Evergaol through some process of constant observation, and would notify someone/something if the individual imprisoned was freed from the Evergaol.
I like the idea the purple magic users made the purple constructs. As for why the Lookout Stones are out of place in Caelid?
The colloseums were used in the age of the Erdtree, so it makes no sense for that way to have been guarded this entire time, but Caelid was owned by someone during the Shattering. The same person who was taught magic by the Alabaster Lords:
Radhan.
That “who’s that Pokémon??” cut just earned you a sub. Nice edit 😂
lol thanks! glad you liked
I think the Lookout Stones were given the abilities of the Guard Stones for when they're attacked but aren't meant to fight, just observe which is why they don't seem to do anything unprovoked
I always took those things as simply being a golem variant. I've never found them dangerous except for the ones that explode, & those strike me as fantasy proximity mines.
It’s like these things were supposed to be removed from the game but they forgot
Have you ever seen the toy consisting of little magnetic spheres? They link together in chains and sheets quite readily. I always thought these creatures resembled the toy. Also, magnetism in my opinion is called "gravity" by the game for some reason, magnetism makes more sense for some of the effects of gravity magic. Also radahn's swords have a pattern like a magnetic field. Maybe magnetism and gravity are not interchanged, but mixed together in Elden Ring.
Maybe they were just creating from or had previously lived on the meteor that hit farram azula?
I've been waiting for someone to make a video on these guys. Their moveset is pretty wild, although you'd never expect it based on how quickly they go down.
i figured the lookouts were more like parasites feasting off the magic of the gaols tbh, since they dont rly do much looking out or guarding
I theorize these stones used to be extremely capable guardians of these jails, but have become defective with age, to the point where some just fall apart when they see you.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but Those creatures were more aggressive when the game first launched. I used to get attacked by them for no real reason all the time. And I’m not talking about the ones that explode when you get near them, the ones that crawled around or stand upright would just aggro on me and shoot lasers in my face whenever I would get near them.
Now, I’ve noticed after the first couple of patches, they are super passive and either die too quickly or don’t even bother to defend themselves when you smack them.
They’re obviously there to keep the Evergoal intact. But they aren’t enemies, as in they don’t attack you….
This video came out a year ago, but my two cents?
Everything associated with the ruins that fell from the sky seem to have association with gravity magic, see also the Ruins Greatsword and its weapon skill, Wave of Destruction. If we assume the ruins came from Farum Azula, it's not actually as much of a stretch as you'd think to associate the sky mausoleum with gravity magic, and as a result, the Onyx Lords. Perhaps the Onyx Lords and the Ancient Dragons were friends, or were born from similar places? Perhaps skin of stone is a common trait among those that came from before the Erdtree.
The light shape in the everjails kinda remind me of the portals you use to teleport, even the light inside looks more like it rather than gravity
Maybe they are not trying to keep you out, maybe they are keeping whatever is in the evergoal IN!
I like to believe they are lookouts not to guard the gaol but to look for strong individuals to take down the prisoner inside. That would explain why they literally stick out so much, standing upright, and with a bright glowing eye almost like a lighthouse. A good way to attract curious individuals to fight the boss.
There's one spot where you can find them, a spot I think is the strangest in the game- the woods between war master's shack and the colesseum. It's a decent sized area, but the thing is, there's absolutely nothing in it. No weapons, no upgrade materials, no dungeons. Nothing, except a bunch of these guys and some wolves. It could be that they planned to put an Evergoal there, but, it's the kind that explodes, not the sentries you see normally. Just figured I'd put this out there
there are also some lookout stones hidden in one of the dungeons of the game, not sure which one exactly, but found some in a cave of sorts.
I think of them as some sorta magic camera considering they tend to show up where people would want to keep an eye on, people might make or attune to them somehow to see through their eyes
The Pokémon cut wit the “Mihari ishi” voiceover had me dying for some reason 💀
As for how Farum Azula is floating, I'd imagine it's something to do with time magic, as an object that is frozen in time cannot move.
under the bride next to Stormveil Castle is a message that reads "likely snake" and tbh that is what I accept it as.
The music from Stray worked really well here.
Took me a while to figure out where I knew it from.