u/Estrangedkayote

Of every bit of lore in the game nothing comes close to the God Devouring Serpent. who has a staggering 8 items, not counting the shared ones with Rykards stuff, dedicated to it and 6 soft lore dedicated to it. It's so important that it defines everything that came after it. With it you can very clearly create a timeline of the world leading all the way up to current day.

Let's start with the cultures that had to deal with this thing. This is where the snake's soft lore comes into play there is snake imagery in every culture in the world but two, the Nox and the Dragons.

Rauh

Fire Giants

The Uhl

The Carians

The Hornsent

The Giant snake found on the side of the Fire Giants, The Serpent God's Curve Sword found in the Ruin Strewn Precipice, an Rauh ruin, on the top of the Uhl Coffin ships, and even on the Preceptor's hat of the Carians. And then of course, the gladiator set of the Golden Order. The before, and after the snake.

Then there is it's location, and natural magical affinity. Look at Mount Gelmir, think about the path you take to get to the top, Mt Gelmir is a natural spiral, it is a natural Crucible and it brings that power to itself by making it gain the traits of what it eats, on top of that it has a natural affinity for the volcano that's so strong that you can tell how strong it is just by looking at the volcano.

Volcano Manor

All of that structure was clearly built on solid ground at one point and it wasn't until the Serpent came into power that the Volcano became active again.

God Devouring Serpent.

Then there's this imagery when we come into it's arena. It's a fist. 5 fingers, a sign of intelligence but also 2 and 3 fingers. Chaos and order, feed yourself to the snake and there will be order again.

Moving away from facts we've got to put this knowledge into some kind of order and this is where I'm going to go a little wild. It's name and the fact that it isn't in Dragon culture at all opens up a crazy story option. We have Placi's missing god, and a serpent that eats gods. I believe that the God Devouring Serpent ate the Elden Ring and was the vessel for it from Placi's time to Marika. The next culture in line after the dragons is The Fire Giants and the Rauh. This is punctuated by Borealis's Mist stating that the ice dragons were kicked off the mountain by the giants for the Forge of the Giants. What is the God Devouring Serpent called by the Rauh? Serpent God, a completely different name then what it is now.

Because of the coffin ships we also know that the Uhl were also in the Giant's age. The Coffin ships help us put an end to the Age of the Giants as we see it from a joint Rauh and Fire Giant culture. The Rauh ruins engulfed in stone matches with the coffin ships which are also in a similar fashion. There are two great calamity items in the Eternal Darkness spell and Gelmir's Fury but it's Gelmir's Fury we're going to focus on, "This sorcery is held to represent the fury of the volcano, but the arrogance of attempting to harness it is solely that of men and serpents." The Uhl knew that a calamity was coming, they build specific boats to try and survive it, They had the Volcano blow putting a soft end to the Age of the Giants. Many of the Uhl survived, enough to restart civilization.

The Snake can never die though, reborn it no longer has the sacrifices brought to it. Forced to hunt again after an age it goes out into the world till it smells a familiar scent. Chopped up bodies, the snake has found Bonny Village where a young Shaman girl chances upon it.

There is a bunch of odd loose threads here. not facts, just hints but they tell a story none the less. First off there's Hewg and Marika. Hewg has met Marika and owes her from something. There is a story there, why does Marika put Hewg on the task of killing a god? What makes him qualified to attempt to make such a weapon in Marika's eyes?

The Gelmir Hero's grave gives us a dead former knight of Rykard before he fed himself to the serpent. After we take out our first invasion in Volcano Manor we're greeted by a spirit that tells us to Kill Rykard and that he left the spear in the arena. We know this spirit couldn't have been eaten by the snake because of Rykard's Rancor, Anything eaten by the snake stays in the snake. If the spirit is the same as the one found dead in the Gelmir's Hero grave then that's where the Serpent Hunter was originally there. It's boss is a red wolf of Radagon named Red Wolf of the Champion. Champion being Radagon's title in the Liurnian wars.

Finally there's Messmer, Marika's children pay the price for when she messes with the world. Kill's the Giants and messes with the Fell god, Melina is the Kindling Maiden, Genocides the Hornsent, Omen cursed twins ( this event sequence can also be flipped where the Crucible can just make people like that and that causes Marika to genocide the Hornsent), Remove the rune of the Unborn from the Elden Ring get the twins afflicted with Abundance and Rot. Messmer's abyssal snake could be because she took the Elden Ring out of the Serpent God.

Finally I leave with this head canon as Rykard is getting eaten he sees a vision of the future, this is then made into the Devourer's Scepter, "Scepter in the shape of a serpent devouring the world. This weapon will one day become the very symbol of the Lord of Blasphemy. One of the legendary armaments. A vision of the future briefly seen by Rykard in his final moments before being devoured by the great serpent." This is potentially the true end of the Lands Between, of the world, of the universe. All will eventually become the serpent, all will become one in the serpent until the serpent is the only thing left in the universe, The One Great and like Ouroboros the snake that eats its own tail the great cycle of the universe will start again.

small than the rest.

The Church of the minor Erdtree has always bugged me. This is because both the Golden Order seal that's found here, the Minor Erdtree's, yeah if you look there are 3 there, not 1.

left one hidden in the trees

There are the spoken words of Marika, "I declare mine intent, to search the depths of the Golden Order. Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased. Those blissful early days of blind belief are long past. My comrades; why must ye falter?"

These are increadibly heavy words.

And then nearby it is a single solitary grave with 3 smoldering butterflies as the pick up.

https://preview.redd.it/3bvj5c4zyash1.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d9f1c37877f94d70d3e8b237ef665a13476d36f

Back to to title though. Why Do I think that the Church of the Minor Erdtree predates minor erdtrees. It's the Guardians there. Many of the Minor Erdtrees have guardians, part tree, part man they get to cheat death by guarding the Erdtree and the Minor Erdtrees. They also age slowly, the oldest at the Erdtree itself have the full bloom, the armor reads, "It is said that the blood-red flowers blooming on their backs mark the senescence of their ancient pact. Perhaps the guardians are part tree already." This is important because the guardians at the Church of the Minor Erdtree are also full bloom guardians marking them as older than the rest of the Minor Erdtree guardians.

As for the significance the location. I think this is where Marika's Golden Order which brought in others became rigid. Where we go from Erdtree worship to Golden Order Fundamentalism as marked by finding the seal there. This is the site, the moment, when the Age of Plenty ended and Radagon's age would begin. This could also be the site where Melina way laid to rest and the reason things had to change.

There are so many things that point to the GEQ rising up during Marika's Reign and like 1 piece that could put her before Marika but immediately runs into problems the second you look at the DLC.

Let's start out with the god line up because it's really the only leg the GEQ has for existed before Marika's time. What gods could the Godskin's have slain? We've got the Old Gods, mentioned in the Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword, who with no real pointing to who or what they were are othen associated with the giant skeletons we find in Caelid and the Mountain Top of the Giants. Too big, their flame could kill them but the face doesn't fit the body. The Outer gods, the big three are the Rot God, who's sealed. The Formless Mother, no body. The Fell god who's on the faces of all the Fire Giants and the Trolls before Marika, so potential there. Then all that's left is the gods of the Elden Ring. Placi's missing god and Marika. So a little potential there but Placi's missing god raises the very big question of where was the Elden Ring from Placi's age to Marika? We know the GEQ didn't have it because she only had the Rune of Death and the story trailer didn't have her wrestling with another woman to get the Ring so, open ended.

Then we start to get into the points that start to work against it though. First and foremost is the line on Protection of the Erdtree, "In the beginning, everything was in opposition to the Erdtree. But through countless victories in war, it became the embodiment of Order." Everything is oppose to it and through Flame Protect Me, Barrier of Gold, and Golden Lightning Fortification we know exactly the wars that were those wars in the beginning. There is no protection spells against black flame and Flame Protect Me! tells you exactly what it was used for with the line, "It is said that this incantation was used during the War against the Giants long ago, during which it protected the champions of the Erdtree." With nothing to show here for the GEQ at this time we move onto the Fire Monks.

The Fire Monks were set as Guardians of the Fell Flame, this order was created after The Erdtree won the war against the Fire Giants gotten from the various Fire Monk related items, "The Giants' Flame is the flame of ruin, capable of burning the Erdtree. "And so, following the War against the Giants, its ruinous blaze was sealed, and guardians were appointed to watch over it," Surge O' Flame. So The Guardians were set up immediate after the Wars ended we have an item directly telling us so. This brings us to Black Flame Monk Amon. who's item description reads, "Ashen remains in which spirits yet dwell. Use to summon the spirit of Amon, the Blackflame Monk.

Amon swore fealty to the god-slaying black flame, and so became the first fire monk to turn traitor. Or perhaps it is better said that he fled from the Giants' Flame—out of cowardice." This help shows that the GEQ came after the Golden Order was set up.

Then there are the Two Fingers and the Fortified Manor. The Two Fingers started as Marika's allies We see this in the original Roundtable Hold in Leyndell, the Fortified Manor, we know through the Coded Sword, "Champions would gather at the Roundtable Hold in days long past, when the Two Fingers were masters of oration, their flesh yet full of vigor." The Two Fingers would orate there spreading their faith so why is the Fortified Manor cold and dark? Black Flame Ritual states, "The Gloam-Eyed Queen led the apostles. It is said that she was an Empyrean chosen by the Fingers." They through their lot in with the GEQ and Marika kicked them out of Leyndell. If the GEQ was before Marika she'd have no reason to trust them from the start nor would it explain why the Fortified Manor is cold and dark with Leyndell soldiers in it.

The most damning piece of evidence that the GEQ wasn't around before Marika is the DLC though. The DLC deals with a lot of the prehistory of Elden Ring and there is no reference what so ever to the GEQ. With the exception of the Divine Beasts the story of the Hornsent is them looking for divinity, in being divine themselves why would they even try if there was a known god killer roaming the world telling you exactly what they're going to do to you as a god?

So I just don't get why people think that the GEQ was around before Marika it just doesn't seem like the story points or item descriptions lead to that.

So I've been going through the World's Beyond Number backlog, and I got to the naming day. Brennan saying that there's some superstition about the ceremony and how it's structured with naming around a letter made my mind go to a situation where an up and coming Archmage goes up to the dias to change their name, trips on the first stair, falls onto the naming area and screams, "Shit!" As they fall. Thus replacing their name for all time.

Made a Ghangler with King of the Waves, Ace Swimmer, Sleek Stoke and Swift and it was great traveling around the world. Got to the point where I'm farming Coralum and I move so fast that it's actually hard to see the salvage points before I fly by them at mach 2.

In the last dungeon area fighting the guys who counter magic or melee, I have Ursula go down to it's Magma Blast attack. She then gets back up as her normal guts with 1 HP and immediately casts Magma Blast on the enemy, killing it. I have no idea how I did the glitch.

Playing BoF 4 after doing a run of BoF 3 and I've never liked BoF 4's fishing, I always thought it was a step down from BoF 3's in every way. So I figured I was just missing something with how terrible the experience was. Poured through some chats, videos, and FAQs and I don't remember who I saw it from but some guy on a GameFAQs message board said to double tap the reel in button when the fish vibrates the controller. Immediate game changer. This tech stops the fish from going off in what ever direction it wants and makes it go towards you. It made it so much better.

Both Bof 3 and 4 always strike out as outliers to traditional JRPG stories to me. There is no real big bad controlling everything or world ending threat. Just your main character looking for answers to very big questions and willing to go to absurd lengths to get those answers. Along both story progressions you learn how other people have answered those questions, the point of having power, what it means to be strong, dealing with loss. All leading up to a final boss fight that seems less about saving the world and more a conflict of ideals that you can either agree with the final boss or challenge them.

Asked my self this question after filling out the survey. RPGs of today are pretty much nothing like the RPGs of yester year so it's interesting to think of what a modern day BoF would look like. Would it even still be turn based would be the first and foremost question. I was a fan of BoF V's turn based combat, similar to Parasite Eve's. But we've also gotten games now like FF 7 remake which has a pretty good take on the turn based action combat as well.

So I've apprentice Ryu under Bunyan from levels 3 to 20 and now I have access to more masters. Do I try to bolster agi or do I double down and make him slow but near unkillable by switching to Fahl?

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Fighting Emitai in the Null Magic Arena and watching child Nina throwing Molotovs because she can't cast spells paints a very different picture in my head as an adult than it did as a kid.

Basic idea is to put together all the things that Scholar can use and what effects stuff. Question marks will be there for stuff I just don't know.

Pots:
Relics: (attack can roll with other attack relics) Improved throwing pots. (attack) improved affinity. In base each affinity type.
Passives: Affinity up passives either specific or just affinity in DoN. Ranged attack up??? pot talisman and scorpion charms.

Knives:
Relics: (attack can roll with other attack relics) Improved throwing knife damage. (personal) improved dex and endurance. (attack) improved physical attack.
Passives: ranged attack up??? drop off reduction??? Physical attack up

Perfumes:
Relics: (attack can roll with other attack relics) improved perfumes, (attack) Improved fire damage
Passives: Improved fire damage, perfumer's talisman

Grease:
Relics: (attack can roll with other attack relics???) Improved attack power when using greases 0, +1, +2. Each relic doesn't stack with itself, but will stack with other numbers
Passives: none affinity relics do not increase the damage of grease

Tools:
Relics: (attack) improve affinity damage or specifically holy or magic
Passives: Affinity up passives either specific or just affinity in DoN. Magic or holy scorpions

Attack up at full HP and low HP both work on everything but greases.

booted up the emulator BECAUSE IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND IN MODERN GAMING CAPCOM and starting to play BoF 3 again. I missed this gem a lot. Coming at it with a minmax perspective and purposely left Ryu at level 3 till Bunyan became available. I'm going to make Ryu a physical powerhouse this game, most of the time I lean him into support/mage.

a better training ground with the ability to slot passives into weapons so I can check how things work and see what actually is a good build out on the field and what isn't.