At 7:10, I think the mother of fingers started birthing finger creepers after the malformed birth of the 3 fingers, as the "womb cavity" looks wounded, and the gash about the cavity is there the nox used the finger slayer blade when they found out that the fingermother wasn't receiving anymore from the greater will and was twisted
I see it as more than the one thing. Your past video on this had me thinking..Each and every comparison has an equal and an opposite. Elden ring is about cycles whether it be growth/decomp, life/death, light/shadow etc but instead of exploring that dichotomy, Miyazaki is putting their journeys on the story circle. This gives everything in the game a reason for being. Everything has a full arc. Items, weapons etc. If not directly written, it is assumed.
I fuckin miss that man sooo much... I still listen to his lectures... actually have a dope shirt of him sitting on an amanita...wish it was a psilocybe he was sitting on, but I'll take it lol
Yeah I'm confused how, to me it looks like a gigantic glowing golden tree with illusory hints at some distance. But yeah looks like a big ass tree to me lol.
I've been thinking similar things recently, after reading the epitaph at the Tower of Suppression. The Lands Between was once a place where the dead of the world were drawn, their spirits gathering together in one huge melting pot, then bursting back out in one massive current of spiritual power to give new life to the world. The true nature of the Crucible, a fountain of life from death (probably not dissimilar to the spirit springs spread throughout the lands actually) Upon becoming a God, Marika turned the Crucible from a fountain of life to a tree of life, but it was never meant to be separated from the Scadutree, they were supposed to balance one another, and after she did that and subsequently removed the Rune of Death as well to create a world of eternal light and life, she inadvertently removed the source for the Erdtree's power and its life-giving sap dried up
You're cooking. This could also explain why the Erdtree is illusory. It's physical self is in the land of Shadow perpetually dying yet dripping life(the gold sap from the scadutree) while its spirit is in the lands between Eternally living but no longer able to dripping life giving sap. What a game this is.
The spirit grave stones in the shadow lands behave like mushrooms too. When you see them at night surrounding a larval tear they form a fairy circle around the larval tear.
also fun fact: the Paleozoic Age, when lots of forms of life that we know today originated (around 400 million years ago), is divided in six fragmented periods: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian , Carboniferus and Permian. It's curious for me to see the reference to the Crucible with the 3 main Crucible Knights shown in game having the names of these periods when life was evolving at its fullest and most of the ecosystem and life of the earth as we know was formed
Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but during the Devonian, there were mushroom 'trees' that could reach 20' (6m) tall called prototaxites, which greatly resemble the two fingers
@@sixkittensinatrenchcoat didn't know that, it's crazy since I know that fact lots of things are going in that direction haha Michael Zaki shroom head confirmed
I agree, Elden Ring is based on a collection of things that is a reflection of our reality and existence that can be broken down and interpret in ambiguous ways
Miazaki: Ok George, what do you think the story should be lik- R.R. Martin: Shrooms. Miazaki: ... what? I mean the story of this new game we are collab- R.R. Martin: Giant. Shrooms. Miazaki: ... R.R. Martin: And feet. Miazaki: SAY LESS.
Martin definitely did not have anything to do with that. He gave From an outline of a few pages for the history behind the world of ER, and then Miyazaki and his team did all the rest, probably changing the base story as they saw fit. I see Martin's contribution as marginal at best.
I'd like to note that the finger notrum gives the effect of not only Miquella's circlet but also Trina's flower that you also get after their deaths. Not sure if that affects the theory at all but it felt important.
@@-TriP- That doesn't really matter, it's a distinction without a difference. Increasing mind and increasing fp directly are effectively the same thing: increasing fp. What I was responding to in the video was Ziostorm bringing up that Miquella's circlet increases the same stats as the finger nostrum. They also don't increase by the same amounts either, but that's missing the point. I was just saying that they affect the same stats, not that they are identical buffs. Mind is intrinsically linked to fp so the distinction is effectively meaningless. The point was that the unique armor pieces of both of Miquella's identities end up giving the same effects as the finger nostrum, which they do. The way they go about doing so is kind of irrelevant to the theory, we were just trying to make connections.
Soooo, we can also find the gigantic ants which I assume to be Fungus-growing ants. Their habits are quite similar to what the Golden Order stands upon - collecting dead material in one place in order to create food/life
Well, in Deeproot depths there’s a cave with lots of the big ants with large white abdomen. Scattered around the cave floor are remains of people. Killing the white-abdomen ants gives you a Numen rune. Ever wonder why its got that name? The ants hunted & fed Numen to the white-abdomen ants to store as food. Look up Honeypot Ants, which is the real world inspiration for the white-abdomen ants in game.
@certifiedcib7958 the warrior jars collect dead warriors and break at the foot of minor erdtrees to feed them. The crypts in the game terminate at the roots of the erdtree where bodies are piled high. They're feeding the tree people
Everything was layed out from the start and yet I never thought about Erdtree's gold being like slime mold and Erdtree Seed behaving like a spore. Oh man, it makes so much sense now.
very interesting theory. one interesting thing I myself noticed is that the fingers in the DLC have a lot of comparisons and similarities to parasitic worms. things like the nostrum's description about "something wriggling inside" and the small nodule that looks similar to a botfly, the finger-weaver desire to "turn their bodies into fingers", how metyr "births" her children out of her flesh and the worms that she spews from her wound, ymir's horrific transformation into a "mother", etc. it also creates new interpretations for things that already existed in the base game, like the term "glistening with life" essentially meaning "infested with parasites" in comparison to metyr being described as "magnificently gleaming" as well as the large amounts of worms that she spews from her chest wound, "host of fingers" as a title, the unexplained worms that leave godwyn's body upon his death in the original story trailer, etc. A lot of the effects attributed to grace are seen particularly in insect parasites, like mind control/manipulation, drastically extended lifespans, and "undead" bugs. it could be that in some cases, "finger" is more-or-less an in-game term for worms.
Looking at the Grace of Gold through this lens, I'm reminded of the parasitic 'mind control' worms that infest some species of snail. When they've fully infected a snail, they change the appearance of their _eyes._
I like this because it also ties in with the alchemical themes; with equivalent exchange and the idea that only death can pay for life meshing with the mushroom imagery so well
Botanically speaking I've seen lots of people try and identify plants from around the game On that note, the Miranda flower always reminded me of a giant pinguicula. Rosette shaped in appearance often with flower stalks protruding from its crown, these plants are carnivorous in nature and have often been noted to "crawl" by using its roots to anchor in a location it prefers to be
Your theory is very much on point. Life from death is the central idea of the game and the great debate of whether death should be a boundary or not is touched upon multiple times. But to relate all this to an actual real life representation like the mushrooms takes a very keen understanding. Good work.
It's all tied to the stoned ape theory. God/greater will = mushroom. It comes in contact with the Crucible which had been exploring several evolutionary paths and raised up humans to the point that they created Marika and radagon. The golden order is the alchemical process of turning lead to gold, which is a metaphor for the evolution the greater will is attempting.
This got me reading the Wikipedia page on fairy rings, and this paragraph stood out to me: ”In Tyrol, folklore attributed fairy rings to the fiery tails of flying dragons; once a dragon had created such a circle, nothing but toadstools could grow there for seven years.” I wonder if this could relate to Godwyn and Fortissax somehow, if a fairy ring was created that caused deathroot to sprout within it?
Take a look at what the rune items look like, and then do an image search of what mushroom mycelium looks like in a petri dish. It's pretty obvious it's the same thing.
What if Godwyn was born infected with Deathroot and his title of "The Golden" was a front to the Realm for his growing weakness? What if Godwyn was in on his own murder and sought to embrace his curse instead much as his sibling had?
I think you're on to something. I never considered he might have sacrificed himself to further the spread of his infection. Though I don't see how the black knife fit in. I also wonder about the other children of Marika (Radahn, Rykard, Morgott) and then how others not so attached to the golden order like the Carien fit into this mushroom narrative though.
I understand you're theory, but since the dlc has shown us the mother of all fingers, and the guy who's guarding her chamber, I forgot his name, even tells us the mother of all fingers have been communing with all the other two fingers, the two fingers we use in the roundtable hold has only ever been speaking to the mother of all two fingers, and not the greater will. It's even possible that marikas two fingers in fact communicated with the mother of all fingers, and not the greater will, which means all the events set off by marika was caused by the mother of all fingers
I think it is interesting that mushrooms are used to craft throwing pots. The throwing pots are similar to the living jars. Not sure if there is any true relation between them though.
@@Tortuga2223a good catch the description reads The flesh of the mushroom is similar to raw meat, and can serve as pot innards. I think we are on to something!
I think this theory is heading in a great direction, mostly agree with everything but think the Golden Seeds could still be actual seeds. Just because thats how conniferous trees spread their seeds after experiencing release factors like trauma or more commonly, fire. The pinecones are shunted sealed with sap from the tree, and fire heats them up until the sap melts away, the cone stays dried but filled with seeds in it, rehydrates from rain and moisture and slowly releases seeds to fall into the soil. The process of Serotiny, very common in trees and plants and in lands that experience wildfire. The wow factor for this video for me was the nokron/nokstella false night sky and them being spores, marvelous! Loved it Zio, keep being awesome!
Mushroom theory was mind blowing when I saw the first video. It just made way too much sense. Now when I play I’m just like “of course” - mushroom theory is all over the DLC. Well done!
I saw a video earlier where someone proposed the idea that Marika’s children are actually cursed because she was the only successful saint created by the warrior jar process. She was put into the jar with other animals and stuff, and that might be why her kids are cursed. There might be snake in there (snake skin is found near shaman village) and that’s why messmer has the base serpent. Further, we could figure that mushrooms were packed in and that’s why millenia has the rot curse. Maybe hornsent were packed in, and that’s how we ended up with mohg and morgott
Idea: All the Outer Gods are actually just people contacting the Greater Will in different ways and it communicating to them how it would ask them to reform the Eldin Ring anew
I think you're right. Consider- outer gods are all the greater will, in the form it appears to the dying and desperate. Each outer God corresponds to a different mass death event. Their view of the world shapes the idea of a God they reach out to in prayer.
Every once in a while You find a gem of a video on youtube, whether it’s the guy methodically explaining how the Oak Island Money Pit is actually a buried medieval Viking longship, or the one where they quite convincingly advocate that the ship we knew as Titanic was actually the Olympic, it’s sister ship.
It really does evoke a special feeling. I remember playing through almost the entirety of DS2 blind during a 2 week mushroom binge when it was new. That was an experience.
@@xm4339 I think a lot of people were disappointed with ds2 in the context of ds1. As a stand alone game it's amazing. Aldia's dialogue and presence is crazy for sure too.
Found your channel randomly the other day in bed and the metroid prime music threw me baaaaaaaack. The amount of dopamine that rushes through my system when this video started and the music started playing was insane.
It makes sense then why Marika locking away the Death rune caused the world to stagnate. Death was a part of cycle of the world. She tried to prolong her rule, but she severed the world's connection to the Greater Will when she stopped the cycle of Death.
But Ymir's quest and related items tell us that the Fingers had stopped being contacted by the Greater Will long before Marika came around, otherwise I agree that her sealing the Rune of Death DEFINITELY stirred some shit
@@BusinessSkrub exactly, the greater wil is actually a sneaky controlling entity that no longer had use for metyr once she could no longer produce any more fingers
@@BusinessSkrub Greater Will is almost certainly the "God that fled" during the time of Placidusax. If Ranni could do it at the end of ER, that's probably what it did too.
12:04 interesting thought: I just asked my dad (who has extensive experience in metalworking!) if silver and mercury can decay. He responded (paraphrased) that silver can indeed oxidize, but that while mercury can as well, the moment it returns to its natural liquid form, it stops being oxidized. That being the case, maybe that’s the reason the Nox couldn’t make their Lord of Night: that the Mimic Tears couldn’t truly decay!
I clicked on this video because I could kind of see what you meant--thinking mostly of the huge number of fungal items in the game, and places like Caelid--but I expected your ideas to be, at best, kind of a stretch. It's actually really compellingly argued, though, including some interesting in-game imagery I myself have never noticed. Very well done. Fromsoft has always had an interest in cycles of decay and rebirth, so it makes sense that their biggest game would contain the most intricate links to that theme. Also, I always appreciate the Metroid Prime music in your videos. I just played Remastered with my son. So many good memories of my teenage years in Prime 1 and 2.
Its also very important to note that, the fingers of the finger ruins are specifically described to be GROWING out of the ground. They aren't carved rock, they are growing things.
Congrats on being thr first lore creator to even mention the horrifying lamprey aliens in the finger ruins. Could you imagine the devastation caused by such a predator being introduced to the lands between?
Their description says they're more simmilar to fingers than to humans, but to me they don't look like either. Zio said they look and behave like leeches, which is kind of true. What do you believe they are and where did they come from?
@@mistakai4226 The eggs make the most sense to me because we literally only see them in the finger ruins (unless I'm mistaken). If people were becoming lampreys you'd think they would be elsewhere too. The only other person we see trying to become a finger or finger adjacent is Ymir, and Ymir looks nothing like the lampreys at any point in his uh... 'journey'. Thanks for the input.
This video was absolutely awesome, Zio! I love how you leaned away from the literal and into the symbolic and thematic. How ER's developers are using mushroom motif and symbolism to communicate to the player. I think you're spot on, this was super great!!
The Erdtree looks like the dead husk of the tree that lived during the time of the Crucible, now taken over by a fungus. That would make alot of sense i belive
Reminds me of the one TA video about how Shabriri is the name of a Demon of Blindness in Jewish mythology, and how the Shabriri grapes seem to describe Onchocerciasis, an irl condition where a parasite gets into your eyes and causes blindness. Fungi can also be parasitic, I wonder if the grace in the eyes of the lands between is caused by consuming spores from the Erdtree. After all, we know grace given used to consume the blessed sap of the Erdtree.
If you google-transalte ”enir ilim” from latin to english it says ”he entered it”. That might not mean anything but it is pretty sick. Like miquella entered the divine gate
I literally remembered your video when I found the mimic fingers. I was like, “Ziostorm’s theory was right!” Edit: if you look at where the mimic fingers grow, the egg things look like the thing in the dlc trailer.
Yes! Love this! Been thinking about Grace itself as spores recently. The way it floats into our hands, guides us, you can see grace (infection) in our eyes and only because we have grace is it able to guide our sight, we see what others can't cuz these spores are in our eyes making it appear
Literally when I saw the 'flesh' mushrooms I was like okay it's not even subtle anymore. Mushrooms Replace Flesh, it's right there in the text. Also, I really enjoyed getting to the base of the scadutree and seeing a message that says 'likely mushroom' with a guy pointing up at it. We should all be sharing our lore insights via the limited vocabulary of the message system.
At the moment when Mushroom crown fashioned my head, i know i was the chosen fungal avatar... Destined to invade and nourish the soil with innards of the other tarnished...
Erdtree is not a mushroom. Look up Banyan Tree/strangler figs. They do not grow from the ground but rather germinate on the nooks of other trees, growing upwards and downwards around the host tree and eventually strangling it to death, hence the name. This is very apparent on the scadutree where you could see 2 trunks that merges in a slant, which usually happen when host tree dies and the strangler is left to carry the weight alone. I honestly don't know how lore guys missed the banyan tree. In indian myths, banyan tree symbolizes the cycle of life, death and rebirth, you know, like the erdtree, so it's kind of obvious where FS got their inspiration.
Elden Ring is one of those well written projects where the writers chose abstract details that as a whole, can mean so many different things. I'm on my 7th playthrough, 2nd playthrough for dlc
I was whistling when the video started and the song at the start matched the exact notes I was just on, trippy enough to make me stay on the vid for a sec lmao
Physarum (the slime mold) only creates fruiting bodies and spores when conditions are poor and nutrients are low, which seems just like the golden seed description
Miyazaki: let me prove living forever is bad in every way I possibly can within several unique fantasy storylines. Everyone: it’s about mushrooms or parasites or religion or something
As someone who is a fan of psychedelic mushrooms and someone that literally took their life retirement to open a mushroom business this year, this is some good stuff.
@@yerpderp6800 I got some gummies. Been holding on to em because I'm scared they may not be legit or that they are the real deal and I have a whack trip. Any advice? Edit: nevermind they are muscaria
The inside of the Elden Beast looks just like a star cluster we find in space. I remember Zullie did a great video on how they were inspired by the cosmos and I really like that many of the things in space when it comes to the Lands Between, are sentient or conscious and can actually effect the people and places in it.
For me, personally, the answer to all our real-life theories on ER, sadly, is clear. There never was any lore. They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start. Myazaki himself. And the FromSoftware that guided him. There never were any mythological, alchemical or botanic references that causes huge impact on lore, except most obvious, simple and lying-on-the-surface things of course. Unfortunately, most of the sources used in worldbuilding of Elden Ring - "Berserk" manga, here we go again. Great amount of bosses and enemies, their looks, their lore, and even big conceptions of lore in general.
They move stuff around to accommodate gameplay and what works and doesn't. Been this way since the beginning. Elden ring has interesting aesthetics and motifs but there are no real characters or human choices being made. There is a very very basic plot, everything after that is just people projecting their favourite tropes and stuff onto the game and picking out little references/egg hunting. But this truly is the most facile way to interact with any story, the fact that people are making hour long videos on stuff like the colour red meaning blood/physicality. Like holy hell how much spoon feeding do you need this is so superficial and silly. Literally red oni blue oni crap off tv tropes a third grader could infer.
Elden Ring, O Elden Ring. Is this why this lowly tarnished has been seeking shrooms? I type my intent to anyone who reads this - I'm ready for mushroom consciousnesses again. Don't alter your mind, kiddies. Shrooms aside, Elden Ring is some legit magick thing, I don't know how to describe it. My life has been improving since 2022, ER is somehow related in a mysterious way. I hope this wizardry is affecting everyone else too. Pay attention to meaningful coincidences in your life. Find your gold.
One thing that always tickled me in the first playthrough and lore vids was how the Farum Azula erdtree symbol looked almost like a giant root system more than anything else, the mycelial network would make a lot of sense for it being 'almost entirely underground' as depicted backnwhen people really understood it better
Mushrooms/fungi are some of the coolest forms of life on the planet. They're the closest living thing to us physically, they form their own neuro networks and preserve and use information across generations. The largest life-form in the world is a fungal network which stretches under the amazon rainforest and is kilometers long. It's so satisfying to see this concept represented in the Lands Between. Well formulated.
Correction: at 12:41 the image shown is actually of a blue pinkgill mushroom (entoloma hochstetteri) Indigo milk caps are more robust and do not have that pointy hat shape, as they belong to the lactarius group (lactarius indigo)
Just a small correction, the living jars practice in the Lands Between uses dead bodies and corpses (especially those of soldiers and heroes), whereas the original more barbaric practice by the hornsent used living shaman people mixed with dismembered and flayed body parts from criminals and prisoners (including hornsent people as well). So they aren't exactly the same even if the end results are similar, also the purpose of the practice is completely different, in the Shadowlands it's to create a saint, in the Lands Between it changed to be used as a form of erdtree burial for the dead, since we see the jars the mostly around minor erdtrees or in catacombs. Speaking of minor erdtrees, not sure whether you mentioned that or not in your original mushroom video, but the fact the erdtree sprouts smaller versions of itself all over the place that are all connected through the roots highly suggests it behaves like a mushroom and how they network together underground to share food and communicate.
Minor erdtrees are definitely products of rhizomes. Basically stems that shoot out underground and produce clones of the mother plant. Lots of plants use those in real life, like mint species (which is part of why mints are so aggresively invasive, they just spread everywhere).
Ah yes I saw someone bring up this theory a long while ago. I believe Zullie talked about doing a video about the mushrooms of the lands between as well
Thinking about the Erdtree vs the Gold in the Erdtree, my mind pops to the prior bounty the Erdtree provided - the sap - yet no longer does. Trees release sap when they're damaged, but they don't if its literally dead. so, my thought is, the "primordial form" of the Erdtree is literally THAT tree, and Gold acted as a fungus - damaging the tree, releasing it's sap, but also killing it. I honestly think its one of those intersectional themes that Elden Ring uses, like it does with cosmology.
The erdtree not liking fire makes so much sense in this context since mushroom cannot eat burnt bodies. It is also to be said that cultures before the erdtree used to burn their dead, this practise would infere heavily with the erdtree mushroom
![Marika's Ascension was NOT legitimate; AND IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING [Elden Ring Lore]](/img/n.gif)
Spread the spores of this theory🍄
Zioshroom
This will be fun(gus)
Miyazaki did strike me as a “Life-is-a-fungus” kind of guy…
At 7:10, I think the mother of fingers started birthing finger creepers after the malformed birth of the 3 fingers, as the "womb cavity" looks wounded, and the gash about the cavity is there the nox used the finger slayer blade when they found out that the fingermother wasn't receiving anymore from the greater will and was twisted
I see it as more than the one thing. Your past video on this had me thinking..Each and every comparison has an equal and an opposite. Elden ring is about cycles whether it be growth/decomp, life/death, light/shadow etc but instead of exploring that dichotomy, Miyazaki is putting their journeys on the story circle. This gives everything in the game a reason for being. Everything has a full arc. Items, weapons etc. If not directly written, it is assumed.
"Why is it always mushroom?"
Ask Terence McKenna
Or Paul Stamets @@RadAlarm
@@droppindabs6497Paul’s a weirdo. Dig deeper
@@indiedinoa weirdo yeah, but also on the cutting edge of mushrooms helping with a multitude of ailments that modern medicine exacerbates
I fuckin miss that man sooo much... I still listen to his lectures... actually have a dope shirt of him sitting on an amanita...wish it was a psilocybe he was sitting on, but I'll take it lol
One science guy years ago said that the Erdtree looks more like a mushroom than a tree
It definitely looks more like a tree than a mushroom...
@@D..S.. probably talking about the way the erdtree needs to be "fed" and can't just photosyntgesize
Yeah I'm confused how, to me it looks like a gigantic glowing golden tree with illusory hints at some distance. But yeah looks like a big ass tree to me lol.
Some "science guy"...
Zio made a video about that as well
I remembered your mushroom theory as soon as i picked up a finger mushroom in those finger ruins... XD
SAME
FAXTS
Same here
I didn't remember the channel name, but I was like "oh shit the mushroom guy is gonna love this dlc!"
I've been thinking similar things recently, after reading the epitaph at the Tower of Suppression. The Lands Between was once a place where the dead of the world were drawn, their spirits gathering together in one huge melting pot, then bursting back out in one massive current of spiritual power to give new life to the world. The true nature of the Crucible, a fountain of life from death (probably not dissimilar to the spirit springs spread throughout the lands actually)
Upon becoming a God, Marika turned the Crucible from a fountain of life to a tree of life, but it was never meant to be separated from the Scadutree, they were supposed to balance one another, and after she did that and subsequently removed the Rune of Death as well to create a world of eternal light and life, she inadvertently removed the source for the Erdtree's power and its life-giving sap dried up
You're cooking. This could also explain why the Erdtree is illusory. It's physical self is in the land of Shadow perpetually dying yet dripping life(the gold sap from the scadutree) while its spirit is in the lands between Eternally living but no longer able to dripping life giving sap.
What a game this is.
@@ATC43 that’s cool it would be the opposite of Godwyn who is dead in spirit but body lives on forever
@SunDogGod exactly!.
Indeed! The fallout was catastrophic as removing death also removed procreation. Marika's world is one of unchanging stasis.
@@ATC43 i was fairly sure the gloam-eyed queen burned the physical erdtree at one point, and it was replaced with an illusory one
The spirit grave stones in the shadow lands behave like mushrooms too. When you see them at night surrounding a larval tear they form a fairy circle around the larval tear.
also fun fact: the Paleozoic Age, when lots of forms of life that we know today originated (around 400 million years ago), is divided in six fragmented periods: Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian , Carboniferus and Permian. It's curious for me to see the reference to the Crucible with the 3 main Crucible Knights shown in game having the names of these periods when life was evolving at its fullest and most of the ecosystem and life of the earth as we know was formed
Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but during the Devonian, there were mushroom 'trees' that could reach 20' (6m) tall called prototaxites, which greatly resemble the two fingers
Well this 100% sells me on the mushroom theory
@@sixkittensinatrenchcoat didn't know that, it's crazy since I know that fact lots of things are going in that direction haha
Michael Zaki shroom head confirmed
@@wreck-creation Lol yeah, case closed don't have to watch the video, I'm convinced.
Wait 3? I know Siluria and Ordovis, but who's the third? Sorry if it's meant to be obvious
I believe this is 100% the right direction for overall theme.
I agree, Elden Ring is based on a collection of things that is a reflection of our reality and existence that can be broken down and interpret in ambiguous ways
Miazaki: Ok George, what do you think the story should be lik-
R.R. Martin: Shrooms.
Miazaki: ... what? I mean the story of this new game we are collab-
R.R. Martin: Giant. Shrooms.
Miazaki: ...
R.R. Martin: And feet.
Miazaki: SAY LESS.
Except you got them backwards, it definitely would've been the other way around haha
Kind of would of been Zaki-san who would have proposed all the feet stuff lmao
to be honest feet and mushrooms are a nasty combination lol
🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄🍄
Martin definitely did not have anything to do with that. He gave From an outline of a few pages for the history behind the world of ER, and then Miyazaki and his team did all the rest, probably changing the base story as they saw fit. I see Martin's contribution as marginal at best.
I remember one of the first Elden Ring theories I watched was about the Erdtree being a parasitic mushroom
I also remember that.
the eerdtree would be the fungus, and the dead tree consumed from the golden mycelia is the primordial crucible, which was consumed, marking a new era
I listened to a guy speak for 25 minutes rambling that elden ring world lore is a mushroom....and it makes sense....man....i need mushrooms now
I hear Death's Angel is hella fire bruh
Considering the video is only 15 minutes, I question your perception of time
@@SetariM lay off him, he's on shrooms...
now while we're on the topic..
@andresouzar can you share some?
Like, as food, right?
Right?
@@yosi572Golden Teachers if you really want the Elden Ring experience
I'd like to note that the finger notrum gives the effect of not only Miquella's circlet but also Trina's flower that you also get after their deaths. Not sure if that affects the theory at all but it felt important.
Trina's Blossom gives 6% extra FP, the Fingerprint Nostrum raises Mind by 6 points, these are not the same thing.
@@-TriP- That doesn't really matter, it's a distinction without a difference. Increasing mind and increasing fp directly are effectively the same thing: increasing fp.
What I was responding to in the video was Ziostorm bringing up that Miquella's circlet increases the same stats as the finger nostrum. They also don't increase by the same amounts either, but that's missing the point. I was just saying that they affect the same stats, not that they are identical buffs. Mind is intrinsically linked to fp so the distinction is effectively meaningless.
The point was that the unique armor pieces of both of Miquella's identities end up giving the same effects as the finger nostrum, which they do. The way they go about doing so is kind of irrelevant to the theory, we were just trying to make connections.
Soooo, we can also find the gigantic ants which I assume to be Fungus-growing ants. Their habits are quite similar to what the Golden Order stands upon - collecting dead material in one place in order to create food/life
Huh?
@@certifiedcib7958 huh indeed
Well, in Deeproot depths there’s a cave with lots of the big ants with large white abdomen.
Scattered around the cave floor are remains of people. Killing the white-abdomen ants gives you a Numen rune. Ever wonder why its got that name? The ants hunted & fed Numen to the white-abdomen ants to store as food.
Look up Honeypot Ants, which is the real world inspiration for the white-abdomen ants in game.
Oh I hope there are deathroot cordycepts infected ants in elden ring 2
@certifiedcib7958 the warrior jars collect dead warriors and break at the foot of minor erdtrees to feed them. The crypts in the game terminate at the roots of the erdtree where bodies are piled high. They're feeding the tree people
Furthering your point about the spores underground:
Those big white "trunks" in siofra look a lot like ancient fungi that used to look like trees
I kinda thought they look petrified, having kinda similar jagged edges to petrified wood
Everything was layed out from the start and yet I never thought about Erdtree's gold being like slime mold and Erdtree Seed behaving like a spore. Oh man, it makes so much sense now.
It not that deep god you from soft fanboy just love coming up with these terrible theories about the game miyazaki is a hack
@@_CrimsonBlade Yeah yeah yeah sure. We can have opinions after all. Therefore even though I disagree with your opinion, I respect it.
@@_CrimsonBlade Lil bro is so mad
@@_CrimsonBladebait used to be believable
@@_CrimsonBlade 10/10 bait, would rage reply
very interesting theory. one interesting thing I myself noticed is that the fingers in the DLC have a lot of comparisons and similarities to parasitic worms. things like the nostrum's description about "something wriggling inside" and the small nodule that looks similar to a botfly, the finger-weaver desire to "turn their bodies into fingers", how metyr "births" her children out of her flesh and the worms that she spews from her wound, ymir's horrific transformation into a "mother", etc. it also creates new interpretations for things that already existed in the base game, like the term "glistening with life" essentially meaning "infested with parasites" in comparison to metyr being described as "magnificently gleaming" as well as the large amounts of worms that she spews from her chest wound, "host of fingers" as a title, the unexplained worms that leave godwyn's body upon his death in the original story trailer, etc. A lot of the effects attributed to grace are seen particularly in insect parasites, like mind control/manipulation, drastically extended lifespans, and "undead" bugs.
it could be that in some cases, "finger" is more-or-less an in-game term for worms.
Cordyceps fungus fits
Looking at the Grace of Gold through this lens, I'm reminded of the parasitic 'mind control' worms that infest some species of snail. When they've fully infected a snail, they change the appearance of their _eyes._
I like this because it also ties in with the alchemical themes; with equivalent exchange and the idea that only death can pay for life meshing with the mushroom imagery so well
Botanically speaking I've seen lots of people try and identify plants from around the game
On that note, the Miranda flower always reminded me of a giant pinguicula.
Rosette shaped in appearance often with flower stalks protruding from its crown, these plants are carnivorous in nature and have often been noted to "crawl" by using its roots to anchor in a location it prefers to be
Your theory is very much on point. Life from death is the central idea of the game and the great debate of whether death should be a boundary or not is touched upon multiple times. But to relate all this to an actual real life representation like the mushrooms takes a very keen understanding. Good work.
It's all tied to the stoned ape theory. God/greater will = mushroom. It comes in contact with the Crucible which had been exploring several evolutionary paths and raised up humans to the point that they created Marika and radagon. The golden order is the alchemical process of turning lead to gold, which is a metaphor for the evolution the greater will is attempting.
I eff with that heavily ❤
Try mushroom, then seek enlightenment.
The Elden Beast is Terence McKenna's spirit animal.
Dropping your typical intro is a good change - jumping straight into the content is an improvement.
Idk, I felt there was a "aight whats goin' on guys" missing somewhere
This got me reading the Wikipedia page on fairy rings, and this paragraph stood out to me:
”In Tyrol, folklore attributed fairy rings to the fiery tails of flying dragons; once a dragon had created such a circle, nothing but toadstools could grow there for seven years.”
I wonder if this could relate to Godwyn and Fortissax somehow, if a fairy ring was created that caused deathroot to sprout within it?
Take a look at what the rune items look like, and then do an image search of what mushroom mycelium looks like in a petri dish. It's pretty obvious it's the same thing.
Yes they are Spores.
Imagine the lore is just the tarnished on shrooms and everything was just his trip
Makes sense take 10gs of shrooms and you'd feel the anxiety of fighting malenia for the first time 😂
Tarnished, thou hath been tripping balls
@@DaddyChettyyou mean first hand*
Now that would be an epic trip
@@samsalin tree sentinel activate*
What if Godwyn was born infected with Deathroot and his title of "The Golden" was a front to the Realm for his growing weakness? What if Godwyn was in on his own murder and sought to embrace his curse instead much as his sibling had?
I think you had one too many Finger mushrooms
Don’t ever bring up godwyn ever again not after what from soft did with that lazy dlc trash
@_CrimsonBlade
"The dlc wasn't what I wanted so that means fromsoft is bad and dumb"
I think you're on to something. I never considered he might have sacrificed himself to further the spread of his infection. Though I don't see how the black knife fit in. I also wonder about the other children of Marika (Radahn, Rykard, Morgott) and then how others not so attached to the golden order like the Carien fit into this mushroom narrative though.
@@Tulip_bip but its true that its underwhelming and bit disappointing from narrative perspective
Bit visually its cinema
I understand you're theory, but since the dlc has shown us the mother of all fingers, and the guy who's guarding her chamber, I forgot his name, even tells us the mother of all fingers have been communing with all the other two fingers, the two fingers we use in the roundtable hold has only ever been speaking to the mother of all two fingers, and not the greater will. It's even possible that marikas two fingers in fact communicated with the mother of all fingers, and not the greater will, which means all the events set off by marika was caused by the mother of all fingers
I think it is interesting that mushrooms are used to craft throwing pots. The throwing pots are similar to the living jars. Not sure if there is any true relation between them though.
The white flesh shrooms say that they are a substitute for human flesh, I think.
@@Tortuga2223a good catch the description reads The flesh of the mushroom is similar to raw meat, and can serve as pot innards.
I think we are on to something!
I think this theory is heading in a great direction, mostly agree with everything but think the Golden Seeds could still be actual seeds.
Just because thats how conniferous trees spread their seeds after experiencing release factors like trauma or more commonly, fire. The pinecones are shunted sealed with sap from the tree, and fire heats them up until the sap melts away, the cone stays dried but filled with seeds in it, rehydrates from rain and moisture and slowly releases seeds to fall into the soil. The process of Serotiny, very common in trees and plants and in lands that experience wildfire.
The wow factor for this video for me was the nokron/nokstella false night sky and them being spores, marvelous!
Loved it Zio, keep being awesome!
Mushroom theory was mind blowing when I saw the first video. It just made way too much sense. Now when I play I’m just like “of course” - mushroom theory is all over the DLC. Well done!
I saw a video earlier where someone proposed the idea that Marika’s children are actually cursed because she was the only successful saint created by the warrior jar process. She was put into the jar with other animals and stuff, and that might be why her kids are cursed. There might be snake in there (snake skin is found near shaman village) and that’s why messmer has the base serpent. Further, we could figure that mushrooms were packed in and that’s why millenia has the rot curse. Maybe hornsent were packed in, and that’s how we ended up with mohg and morgott
Baby u got a stew goin
Why would the Hornsent be packed in, if they were the ones doing the packing? Why make up mushrooms instead of just mold, rotten snakes perhaps?
Idea: All the Outer Gods are actually just people contacting the Greater Will in different ways and it communicating to them how it would ask them to reform the Eldin Ring anew
Or how they misinterpreted what they were informed of?
@@Brenden-ll1nu possible it was mistranslation both ways, akin to Bloodborne
I think you're right.
Consider- outer gods are all the greater will, in the form it appears to the dying and desperate. Each outer God corresponds to a different mass death event.
Their view of the world shapes the idea of a God they reach out to in prayer.
Every once in a while
You find a gem of a video on youtube, whether it’s the guy methodically explaining how the Oak Island Money Pit is actually a buried medieval Viking longship, or the one where they quite convincingly advocate that the ship we knew as Titanic was actually the Olympic, it’s sister ship.
This makes perfect sense because this game gives me a similar high that mushrooms do
It really does evoke a special feeling. I remember playing through almost the entirety of DS2 blind during a 2 week mushroom binge when it was new. That was an experience.
@@coreyrachar9694 Damn bro DS2 is my fav game of the series. I always think about Aldia when I'm high
@@xm4339 I think a lot of people were disappointed with ds2 in the context of ds1. As a stand alone game it's amazing.
Aldia's dialogue and presence is crazy for sure too.
Found your channel randomly the other day in bed and the metroid prime music threw me baaaaaaaack. The amount of dopamine that rushes through my system when this video started and the music started playing was insane.
"Armillaria Ostoyae is the world's largest known organism, estimated to be 2,400 years old and it spreads out across 10 square kilometres"
The mushroom video was the vid that introduced me to your channel!!
It makes sense then why Marika locking away the Death rune caused the world to stagnate. Death was a part of cycle of the world. She tried to prolong her rule, but she severed the world's connection to the Greater Will when she stopped the cycle of Death.
But Ymir's quest and related items tell us that the Fingers had stopped being contacted by the Greater Will long before Marika came around, otherwise I agree that her sealing the Rune of Death DEFINITELY stirred some shit
@@BusinessSkrub exactly, the greater wil is actually a sneaky controlling entity that no longer had use for metyr once she could no longer produce any more fingers
@@BusinessSkrub Greater Will is almost certainly the "God that fled" during the time of Placidusax. If Ranni could do it at the end of ER, that's probably what it did too.
So if Elden Ring is about mushrooms and Elizabeth is a mushroom, does that mean that Marika IS Elizabeth!? 🤯🤯🤯
Mind blown😅😅😅😅😅
@@eldensquall6158mind melted
she even sells you Chameleon which is basically Mimic Veil.
Who is Elizabeth?
Elizabeth is the hidden greater will, appointing gods as she sees fit. 🍄
12:04 interesting thought: I just asked my dad (who has extensive experience in metalworking!) if silver and mercury can decay. He responded (paraphrased) that silver can indeed oxidize, but that while mercury can as well, the moment it returns to its natural liquid form, it stops being oxidized. That being the case, maybe that’s the reason the Nox couldn’t make their Lord of Night: that the Mimic Tears couldn’t truly decay!
Earned my sub with this one, finally taught me some new stuff!
The shroom around those spirits dont lie
I was sold on fungi the moment I found the finger mushrooms and the dead horn sent in front of Midra’s Manse.
The shadow sunflowers around the scadutree sap collector thing resemble mushrooms way more than flowers
Great video, subbed. Also reminded me about how much I love Metroid.
This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "magic mushrooms".
I clicked on this video because I could kind of see what you meant--thinking mostly of the huge number of fungal items in the game, and places like Caelid--but I expected your ideas to be, at best, kind of a stretch. It's actually really compellingly argued, though, including some interesting in-game imagery I myself have never noticed. Very well done. Fromsoft has always had an interest in cycles of decay and rebirth, so it makes sense that their biggest game would contain the most intricate links to that theme.
Also, I always appreciate the Metroid Prime music in your videos. I just played Remastered with my son. So many good memories of my teenage years in Prime 1 and 2.
Its also very important to note that, the fingers of the finger ruins are specifically described to be GROWING out of the ground. They aren't carved rock, they are growing things.
This my friend. This was great. This was perfect. I think Miyazaki would be proud
Dude, you really kicked it up a notch with this one. Very interesting stuff.
Just realized the fingerslayer blade looks exactly like Elden Beast's sword... hmmm...
I have always fully bought your shroom theory glad there’s more to it!
That moment when Miquella’s special power is just cordyceps.
Congrats on being thr first lore creator to even mention the horrifying lamprey aliens in the finger ruins. Could you imagine the devastation caused by such a predator being introduced to the lands between?
Their description says they're more simmilar to fingers than to humans, but to me they don't look like either. Zio said they look and behave like leeches, which is kind of true. What do you believe they are and where did they come from?
@@coreyrachar9694 they're either hatched from the eggs in the finger ruins or they are the result of people attempting to become fingers.
@@mistakai4226 The eggs make the most sense to me because we literally only see them in the finger ruins (unless I'm mistaken). If people were becoming lampreys you'd think they would be elsewhere too.
The only other person we see trying to become a finger or finger adjacent is Ymir, and Ymir looks nothing like the lampreys at any point in his uh... 'journey'.
Thanks for the input.
Shamans of old did use mushrooms to receive spiritual guidance from their ancestors, so Marikas people being named shamans does make sense
Oh yes. Psilocybin has been used for THOUSANDS of years to gain wisdom of God/the gods, by many, many cultures from across the world.
No they just poisoned themselves and had people get high off drinking his pee. People like that are why Messmer rightfully impaled people
I think its a translation thing. In Japanese the word for shaman also means shrine maiden.
+ the Two Fingers being mushrooms themselves seeking "spiritual guidance" from The Greater Will in a realm beyond. :)
@@lostprophet8888 but the two fingers dont speak to greater will
It speaks to metyr the eldrich horror
Ita basically a chud
9:28 Casually breezing past the word "Tooth-Whip" is pretty much the epitome of FromSoft lore.
I think you hit the nail on the head with a lot of this
This video was absolutely awesome, Zio! I love how you leaned away from the literal and into the symbolic and thematic. How ER's developers are using mushroom motif and symbolism to communicate to the player. I think you're spot on, this was super great!!
2 minutes in and I'm 100% convinced, that's crazy good 🤯
The Erdtree looks like the dead husk of the tree that lived during the time of the Crucible, now taken over by a fungus. That would make alot of sense i belive
Not to mention Ranni's hat looks like a mushroom cap
Yura/Shabriri too
He did mention that haha
Reminds me of the one TA video about how Shabriri is the name of a Demon of Blindness in Jewish mythology, and how the Shabriri grapes seem to describe Onchocerciasis, an irl condition where a parasite gets into your eyes and causes blindness. Fungi can also be parasitic, I wonder if the grace in the eyes of the lands between is caused by consuming spores from the Erdtree. After all, we know grace given used to consume the blessed sap of the Erdtree.
If you google-transalte ”enir ilim” from latin to english it says ”he entered it”. That might not mean anything but it is pretty sick. Like miquella entered the divine gate
Elden beast is called X parasitbeast in the files
I literally remembered your video when I found the mimic fingers. I was like, “Ziostorm’s theory was right!”
Edit: if you look at where the mimic fingers grow, the egg things look like the thing in the dlc trailer.
Yes! Love this! Been thinking about Grace itself as spores recently. The way it floats into our hands, guides us, you can see grace (infection) in our eyes and only because we have grace is it able to guide our sight, we see what others can't cuz these spores are in our eyes making it appear
I have a love for mushrooms and I don't know why. I don't know anything about mushrooms, but still love them. This theory made me unreasonably happy.
Literally when I saw the 'flesh' mushrooms I was like okay it's not even subtle anymore. Mushrooms Replace Flesh, it's right there in the text. Also, I really enjoyed getting to the base of the scadutree and seeing a message that says 'likely mushroom' with a guy pointing up at it. We should all be sharing our lore insights via the limited vocabulary of the message system.
fantastic theory. i never thought if it like that before.
while ive been seeing serpents everywhere, ziostorms been seeing mushrooms everywhere.
At the moment when Mushroom crown fashioned my head, i know i was the chosen fungal avatar... Destined to invade and nourish the soil with innards of the other tarnished...
Erdtree is not a mushroom. Look up Banyan Tree/strangler figs. They do not grow from the ground but rather germinate on the nooks of other trees, growing upwards and downwards around the host tree and eventually strangling it to death, hence the name. This is very apparent on the scadutree where you could see 2 trunks that merges in a slant, which usually happen when host tree dies and the strangler is left to carry the weight alone.
I honestly don't know how lore guys missed the banyan tree. In indian myths, banyan tree symbolizes the cycle of life, death and rebirth, you know, like the erdtree, so it's kind of obvious where FS got their inspiration.
Elden Ring is one of those well written projects where the writers chose abstract details that as a whole, can mean so many different things. I'm on my 7th playthrough, 2nd playthrough for dlc
I think the main theme here is that the greater will is a parasite. It may be a symbiotic parasite, but it’s still a parasite.
There is no such a thing as symbiotic parasite
Youre either a symbiote or a parasite
Those are two opposite terms
Thats like saying alkaline acid lol
I was whistling when the video started and the song at the start matched the exact notes I was just on, trippy enough to make me stay on the vid for a sec lmao
Oh so that is why elden ring sometimes expects us to do the mario.
Physarum (the slime mold) only creates fruiting bodies and spores when conditions are poor and nutrients are low, which seems just like the golden seed description
Miyazaki: let me prove living forever is bad in every way I possibly can within several unique fantasy storylines.
Everyone: it’s about mushrooms or parasites or religion or something
It's about all mentioned.
I love how the implement these Themes in a way that they can reuse in different games.
realy likes the whole Elizabeth Mushroom Thing in DS1
As someone who is a fan of psychedelic mushrooms and someone that literally took their life retirement to open a mushroom business this year, this is some good stuff.
You're my hero
I'm still waiting on the day for more people to take amanita pantherina recreationally 🤡
Did you try finger?
@@yerpderp6800 I got some gummies. Been holding on to em because I'm scared they may not be legit or that they are the real deal and I have a whack trip. Any advice?
Edit: nevermind they are muscaria
@@yerpderp6800why, you want them all dead?
The fusible seal of the fingers culminated in mushrooms. The Greater Will unpacks everything... 😂
Babe wake up! New Ziostorm video
The inside of the Elden Beast looks just like a star cluster we find in space. I remember Zullie did a great video on how they were inspired by the cosmos and I really like that many of the things in space when it comes to the Lands Between, are sentient or conscious and can actually effect the people and places in it.
For me, personally, the answer to all our real-life theories on ER, sadly, is clear. There never was any lore. They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start. Myazaki himself. And the FromSoftware that guided him. There never were any mythological, alchemical or botanic references that causes huge impact on lore, except most obvious, simple and lying-on-the-surface things of course. Unfortunately, most of the sources used in worldbuilding of Elden Ring - "Berserk" manga, here we go again. Great amount of bosses and enemies, their looks, their lore, and even big conceptions of lore in general.
They move stuff around to accommodate gameplay and what works and doesn't. Been this way since the beginning. Elden ring has interesting aesthetics and motifs but there are no real characters or human choices being made.
There is a very very basic plot, everything after that is just people projecting their favourite tropes and stuff onto the game and picking out little references/egg hunting.
But this truly is the most facile way to interact with any story, the fact that people are making hour long videos on stuff like the colour red meaning blood/physicality. Like holy hell how much spoon feeding do you need this is so superficial and silly. Literally red oni blue oni crap off tv tropes a third grader could infer.
Never thought about this. I was sold a couple min in. Subscribed. Good shit
Elden Ring,
O Elden Ring.
Is this why this lowly tarnished has been seeking shrooms?
I type my intent to anyone who reads this - I'm ready for mushroom consciousnesses again.
Don't alter your mind, kiddies.
Shrooms aside, Elden Ring is some legit magick thing, I don't know how to describe it. My life has been improving since 2022, ER is somehow related in a mysterious way. I hope this wizardry is affecting everyone else too. Pay attention to meaningful coincidences in your life. Find your gold.
ohh this also explains why Merika's age started with the tree splitting! Both literally and figuratively building on the dead matter!
Arright whas goin on guuys
This is my favorite elden ring theory and I was losing it playing through the dlc with how much it supports the theory
The theme of “power from death” would fit very well with the Godskin apostasy and the idea of the frenzied flame
One thing that always tickled me in the first playthrough and lore vids was how the Farum Azula erdtree symbol looked almost like a giant root system more than anything else, the mycelial network would make a lot of sense for it being 'almost entirely underground' as depicted backnwhen people really understood it better
Mushrooms/fungi are some of the coolest forms of life on the planet. They're the closest living thing to us physically, they form their own neuro networks and preserve and use information across generations. The largest life-form in the world is a fungal network which stretches under the amazon rainforest and is kilometers long.
It's so satisfying to see this concept represented in the Lands Between. Well formulated.
Subscribed. TH-cam algorithm brought me here. Cool theory.
George really said "anything but finishing winds" 😂
Correction: at 12:41 the image shown is actually of a blue pinkgill mushroom (entoloma hochstetteri)
Indigo milk caps are more robust and do not have that pointy hat shape, as they belong to the lactarius group (lactarius indigo)
The Mushroom video has always been one of my favorite speculations! 💯
Just a small correction, the living jars practice in the Lands Between uses dead bodies and corpses (especially those of soldiers and heroes), whereas the original more barbaric practice by the hornsent used living shaman people mixed with dismembered and flayed body parts from criminals and prisoners (including hornsent people as well).
So they aren't exactly the same even if the end results are similar, also the purpose of the practice is completely different, in the Shadowlands it's to create a saint, in the Lands Between it changed to be used as a form of erdtree burial for the dead, since we see the jars the mostly around minor erdtrees or in catacombs.
Speaking of minor erdtrees, not sure whether you mentioned that or not in your original mushroom video, but the fact the erdtree sprouts smaller versions of itself all over the place that are all connected through the roots highly suggests it behaves like a mushroom and how they network together underground to share food and communicate.
Minor erdtrees are definitely products of rhizomes.
Basically stems that shoot out underground and produce clones of the mother plant.
Lots of plants use those in real life, like mint species (which is part of why mints are so aggresively invasive, they just spread everywhere).
Ah yes I saw someone bring up this theory a long while ago. I believe Zullie talked about doing a video about the mushrooms of the lands between as well
Thinking about the Erdtree vs the Gold in the Erdtree, my mind pops to the prior bounty the Erdtree provided - the sap - yet no longer does. Trees release sap when they're damaged, but they don't if its literally dead. so, my thought is, the "primordial form" of the Erdtree is literally THAT tree, and Gold acted as a fungus - damaging the tree, releasing it's sap, but also killing it.
I honestly think its one of those intersectional themes that Elden Ring uses, like it does with cosmology.
George R R Martin's ASOIAF also has a recurring theme that "only death can pay for life".
The erdtree not liking fire makes so much sense in this context since mushroom cannot eat burnt bodies.
It is also to be said that cultures before the erdtree used to burn their dead, this practise would infere heavily with the erdtree mushroom
I wouldn’t have guessed the game about the giant golden tree is about mushrooms