We already know about mimics; in my opinion, they're the mascot of Dark Souls, along with basilisks. Fake chests that, when opened, reveal a living creature, ready to devour the unwary and greedy adventurer seeking treasure within them.

They're inspired by the classic creature from D&D and are present in almost every fantasy story. Dark Souls, being a unique fantasy world, loves to twist classic fantasy tropes and give them a new spin. Humans are portrayed as beings of darkness instead of being beings of light created by the gods. Gods who were born as humans ascended and now pose as superior beings. The dragon who aids the king keeps the princess as his prize instead of a dragon slayer knight. The dark god of death is the most tranquil and innocent of the gods. Demons are humans transformed by an abundance of chaotic life force. And so on and so forth.

So, what's behind the mimics of Dark Souls? Many probably don't know what they are or where they came from, but if you're reading this on this lore channel, you probably already know at least what they are: the description of the symbol of greed in the first game tells us straight up that they are a clan of gods punished for the sin of greed. In the third game, this description doesn't explicitly state that they are a clan of punished gods, but the enemies do possess a characteristic that betrays them as gods: all Mimics are vulnerable to dark damage, just like divine beings or beings of a divine nature: gods, Silver Knights, the Dancer of the Boreal Valley, the Nameless King, Black Knights, etc. There are cases where beings of a fiery nature are weak to darkness, but I think that's more due to the fire-versus-shadow dichotomy than a divine nature. Mimics lack any fiery characteristics, so that's not where their weakness to shadows comes from.

Well, that was easy: Mimics are cursed and punished gods. But who did this to them? Well, given the magnitude of the punishment and the fact that they were once gods, the most obvious answer is that they must have been punished by entities as powerful as, or even more powerful than, the gods. And in this world, the gods are at the top, so it was surely other gods. But that's not all. The Mimics are so closely linked to the gods of Anor Londo that they are always found in or around divine territory. In DS1, we find the first one in Sen's Fortress, what I would call the lobby of Anor Londo. Within the walls of Anor Londo, there are six Mimics in total: one in the upper part of Anor Londo, next to the statue of Smough; three are in the main cathedral; and two more are in the Duke's Archives. The last two Mimics appear in the DLC in Oolacile, the human city favored by the gods, built right at their feet.

In Dark Souls 3, while not as exclusive as in the first game, most Mimics are concentrated in the domains of the gods: Lothric, the city of the new gods, has the first Mimic we encounter and about five more. The other majority are in Irithyll, the city of the old gods. And the rest can be found in places of a debatable divine nature, such as the Cathedral of the Deep, which was once a cathedral of the White Way, or the defiled city with monstrosities that used to be divine maidens. Like Mimics, they are weak to darkness despite resembling the Hand of Manus.

So, mystery solved? We already know what they are and who's responsible... right? Well, I think there's a figure who's primarily responsible for the mimics, and I'll reveal that when I answer one last question... what are mimics? Yes, we already know they WERE gods, but why are they these deadly chests today? Why do the gods keep so many mimics so close instead of cursing them and banishing them far away?

Well, going back to the original mimic and the tendency to subvert fantasy classics in Dark Souls, mimics in D&D are living creatures that pretend to be chests to lure adventurers and devour them, like a carnivorous plant does with flies. I think the mimics in Dark Souls are the opposite; they don't seek to lure unsuspecting victims, but instead seek to keep thieves at bay and protect the treasure inside. Mimics, especially in Dark Souls, hold important and valuable treasures: silver and gold coins, a cursed club capable of harming the gods, enchanted weapons, a key to access the giant archer, and a talking stone (the treasure is in the Beholder's eye, I suppose).

In other words, mimics are a safe, a security system for treasures... but there's a curious detail: we know they work well to keep thieves at bay and prevent them from getting their hands on the treasures they protect. But how do the owners deposit and retrieve their treasures without dying in the attempt? Well, you probably already know the answer, which also answers the question of who among all the gods conceived of mimics. Lloyd, creator of the eponymous talisman capable of preventing the undead from using Estus, but that's not all; there's a secret use that is never told or referenced anywhere, a secret you can only discover by accident. Lloyd's talisman is the key to unlocking the Mimics, allowing the safe removal of treasure and its placement within them.

In Dark Souls 3, we are introduced to the Blade of Justice and Lloyd's Duels of Justice through a ring and another talisman, suggesting that Lloyd may have also been the one who pronounced the sentence that cursed the Mimics.

In conclusion, the Mimics are a clan of cursed gods condemned to serve as safes to keep important treasures safe from thieves. Lloyd is the architect of this monstrosity and possibly the judge who condemned them.

Thank you for reading.

This is a popular idea that I’ve seen pop up again and again within the lore community: that Twin Humanities are the souls of female humans. In this post I’m going to try to explain why people think this [hopefully without strawmanning the idea] and then make the case against it.

On a female corpse in the lower undead burg, surrounded by torch-wielding hollows, is a soul-item that turns out to be Twin Humanities when picked up. Female corpses are rare in Dark Souls, but can be distinguished by the fact that they wear a “bra strap”, while male corpses do not. Those who noticed that this particular corpse is female inferred that the associated item was intended to communicate the suggestion that she was pregnant. It led to the subsequent inference that twin humanities are actually required for the reproductive process, with one of the two becoming the soul of the offspring. It is certainly true, of course, that reproduction within humans would require a duplication of the Dark Soul at some point in the process. Fans also noticed a wider association between Twin Humanities and female characters, with Quelaag, Priscilla, and Pharis all dropping them. Furthermore, all firekeepers are women but the reason for this has never been made clear. We know that firekeepers are hosts to the humanity sacrificed to them so that the bonfires can keep burning, and it sometimes assumed that this might require the person to have two Dark Souls in order to work, although I have never heard a satisfactory explanation [or any explanation for that matter] as to why. This, I think, is the totality of the argument. If there is anything else then you can let me know in the comments.

But now I am going to argue against these points. Twin Humanities are found on male corpses as well as female. There is one in Lost Izalith on the broken bridge above the main bonfire. Granted, that area was rushed so this could be dismissed as a developer oversight. However, there are two more male corpses in the DLC which also yield Twin Humanities. One is on the roof of the large building in Township, the one where the bloat-heads start to get the red eyes. You have to drop down onto a section of roof and then turn around and walk back up the roof and you’ll find a male corpse with Twin Humanities. The other one is in the Chasm of the Abyss at the base of the fallen pillar that you walk down, again it’s a male corpse with Twin Humanities. Now I want to point out two things here:

1-part of the narrative purpose of the DLC is to provide additional clarification regarding elements of the story and lore that people did not pick up on because they were too obscure in the base game. A big part of this is the nature of humanity and the dark, so for the developers to have flubbed these particular item placements seems unlikely.

2-as mentioned before, there aren’t many female corpses in DS1. But every single one [as far as I know] is deliberate and has been included for a clear reasons. They always represent a character who is supposed to be female. Ciaran, Beatrice, Yulva, Dusk, one of the daughters of the witch of Izalith, a maiden of the way of white who was captured by Seath, and all four firekeeper corpses. Not a single mistake has been made here despite the fact that the developers default to male corpses if there isn’t a clear lore reason. And not only this but corpses known to belong to male individuals [such as Tarkus or Jeremiah] are always male, again without any mistakes. It seems that the developers have been very careful to get this right, so for there to be three mistakes [which is what you have to assume if you want to insist on Twin Humanities being female souls], all coincidentally associated with Twin Humanities, seems unlikely to me to say the least.

Of course, it is true that Humanities and souls in general can be in the possession of individuals they didn’t originally belong to. You can buy Twin Humanities from Patches, and he’ll even give you one as an apology gift in the tomb of giants. Obviously these are not his own Humanities, but those he has looted from others. Lautrec will drop a firekeeper soul if you follow his questline and kill him at the end of it, but this does not mean that he is a firekeeper. However these are both cases where we have contextual information for why these characters are in possession of these particular souls. We don’t have any such context for why Twin Humanity would be found on a random corpse somewhere. There’s nothing that tells us that this specific person was a thief who went around looting and murdering before he hollowed. So while it’s perfectly possible for any random individual to be in possession of a soul that originally belonged to a woman, the developers would not put female souls on random male corpses if they wanted to make it clear that the soul in question is female. Notice that we don’t find any firekeeper souls on male corpses despite the fact that just about everyone has a clear motivation to steal this type of soul. So if the developers intended for us to infer that Twin Humanities are indeed supposed to be female souls then they’ve gone a funny way about it.

The second point that needs to be addressed is the fact that Twin Humanities drop from certain female characters. It’s true that the characters mentioned do drop Twin Humanities, but a wider examination of exactly what every character and boss drops will collapse the “pattern”. For one thing, Oswald of Carim will drop Twin Humanities despite being a male character. And every female NPC besides Pharis will either drop regular [single] humanities or none whatsoever. Rhea drops seven, but these are all single individual sprites, and Mildred drops three with one more that can be absorbed via her bloodstain. Sieglinde, Dusk, and Ciaran all drop none.

Then, of course, there’s the bosses. Quelaag and Priscilla both drop Twin Humanities and are also both female. But here’s the thing, the Gargoyles drop Twin Humanities as well, and that’s obviously just a reference to the fact that there’s two of them. In the same way, you get four Humanities from beating the Four Kings. So we can infer that Quelaag drops Twin Humanities because she’s actually two beings fused together, a woman and a spider. Sif is female, but drops only one Humanity, and Gaping Dragon drops Twin Humanities despite no clear indications of gender whatsoever. We might as well associate Twin Humanities with dragons since Priscilla is half dragon, and the Gargoyles look a bit like dragons. Just in case anyone takes that too seriously I’ll also point out that Seath drops 1 Humanity, Kalamete drops none, and neither do other dragons such as the Hellkite. In terms of lore, none of the bosses [besides Manus and Four Kings] should drop humanity at all because none of them are human, and in fact they didn’t in the original release of the game.

http://darksouls.wikidot.com/game-patches#toc4

On this page, if you scroll down to Version 1.05, specifically under “PvE Changes” you’ll see that the following alteration was made:

“Bosses drop Humanity and Homeward Bones”

Of course, this is not so specific as to clarify that only certain bosses drop Homeward Bones, some drop Twin Humanities rather than just one, and two of them don’t drop either. But the point is that this change has been made for gameplay reasons, specifically for the sake of easing progression. We do not assume that Sif is undead because she drops a Homeward Bone, neither do we conclude that she’s human because she drops a Humanity. Therefore we also cannot infer that Priscilla drops Twin Humanities because she’s female. In terms of lore, our character actually isn’t obtaining any Humanity from these bosses.

A further argument against the idea that Twin Humanities are female souls can be extrapolated from the item description, which calls it “very unusual”. This is certainly consistent with our in-game experience, Twin Humanities are much rarer than regular Humanities. Before the DLC there were only a finite number that could be obtained [the DLC makes it possible to farm them from the Humanity Phantoms], and before the 1.05 patch they would have been extremely rare indeed. But here’s the thing: women are half the population, so if Twin Humanities are indeed supposed to be female souls then we’d hardly expect them to be rare. We certainly wouldn’t expect them to be “very unusual”, as their item description claims.

What needs to be made clear is what Humanities actually are. We all know that they’re fragments of the Dark Soul, but it’s not the case that one Humanity sprite is one person’s Dark Soul. Rather, a sprite is a small and rare thing which is occasionally found on corpses, or looted from an undead that you’ve murdered. Of course these corpses are not really corpses as they don’t rot, but are in fact hollows who are so far gone that they’ve stopped moving entirely. And if you kill an undead NPC then they're canonically supposed to resurrect [although probably just as a hollow] because they've still got the immortal Dark Soul within them. Humanity sprites are therefore tiny accumulations of dark that have leaked out from the body due to a weakening Darksign. In that case, a Twin Humanity is probably nothing more than a pair of accumulations which have occurred close together without combining. We can see why this would be very unusual, but the DLC seems to clarify the phenomenon.

The behaviour of the Humanity Phantoms in the Chasm of the Abyss is quite interesting, because they will sometimes move toward you and sometimes move away. It’s almost as if they’re driven by two conflicting motivations, one which desires to consume your soul, and another that fears destruction. So they can’t seem to decide if they want to “attack” you or avoid you, and this may explain the Twin Humanities. They’re driven to recombine, but also driven apart, and this combination keeps them in a perpetual “stalemate” where they end up doing neither. For this reason you can pick them both up together as though they were a single item. u/BarryTheButcher has some further thoughts on this in an interesting post that I’ll link here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarksoulsLore/comments/1t76bs1/the_hedgehogs_dilemma/

BTW you guys would not believe how many times I accidentally wrote “Twin Humanitities” and had to correct it. I guess there’s such a thing as a Freudian typo lmao.

In this text I will explain what the will of Velka is. Instead of going off deep speculation, I think 4 setpieces of the games and 1 lore description paints her story.

So first, it is obvious that she punishes sinners, but she also provides absolution. In exchange of souls, any sin is forgivable. Oswald of Carim indeed represents a pardoner, but everything about it speaks corrupt.

This line of thinking reveals her actions. Why? Because of the most mysterious item of hers, ring of sacrifice:

"This mystical ring was created in a sacrificial rite of Velka, the Goddess of Sin.
The magenta-shaded ring is especially rare. Its wearer will lose nothing upon death,
and will be freed from any curse whatsoever, but the ring itself breaks"

First, the magenta shows that this relates to Velka based on her description. But what is less obvious is that this expands on the less effective ring. Mechanically it prevents curses, but the original, green ring, prevents death the same.

You will lose nothing on death! She sold this premise to the humans, as a mockery and revenge to Gwyn's curse.

The painting confirms how she achieved this. And yes I mean the one in Friede's room. There are 2, and this is important, two witches of izalith, given away by their tattered clothes, with a sword that looks related to Carim or the Sable Church.

They have stabbed two white snakes, representing covetous ring: covetous souls!

They are also burning humans. They are in dark woods, a common and plausible area, close to a church. This could represent the church of Londor.

There are 3 sable sisters, and I think this is also important. As the ring of sacrifice, prevents curses, but has three people. So I presume what is happening here reflects on Friede.

She left her sisters and gave up on choosing fire. Meaning she gave up on sacrificing humans.

It should be clear that the witches of Izalith are the ancestors of the 3 sisters, and they have carried on their will!

Yet, their will seems to be burning and killing humans and greedy serpents? There is an answer to this too: The new londo and ringed city soul masses, look like they are a burnt, melted mass of souls.

CONCLUSION:

Velka gave humans a mean to fight the gods via sacrifice. The implication is that she is a witch of Izalith, behind the disasters of flame in the games. I think that her soul could not die due to her powers, but then it transformed into the soul of Rosaria over time. Because there wasn't humans to sacrifice. Her sacrificial rite involved burning someone who had a dark soul. This likely caused the Izalith incident (possibly ending her life, at least for an age).

I’ve been looking around for high-quality renders or official artwork of the Witch of Izalith in her original form, but there doesn’t seem to be anything out there apart from what’s shown in the opening cinematic. I can’t even find anything that depicts her entire body in detail.
So where can I find something? I’d be interested to see stuff from the Japanese art books or developer materials if they exist as well.

I don't believe I'm discovering anything new, I've known people who also believe this and you could even say that the (likely) relation between Filianore and the Grass items is easy to make. But it's a topic that I've rarely seen being discussed, hence why I'm posting about it.

First, I'm just quickly showing the items and environmental context around Filianore in DS3, and connecting the dots (I'm not sure if we can consider this entirely a theory, but we'll see). For items, I'm only using the original JP descriptions and its translations (with context on the relevant characters, if needed).

TSDR: It's actually not that long, you can just directly go to the last section.

Items Descriptions (JP)

Chloranthy Ring (DS1)

>大輪の緑花を象った古い指輪
その意匠は独特で、由来は分かっていない
An old ring shaped like a large green flower.
Its design is unique, and its origin is unknown.

Chloranthy Ring (DS3)

>大輪の緑花を象った古い指輪
だが美しい緑は、とうに失われている
An old ring shaped like a large, vibrant green flower
But that beautiful green has long since faded.

Grass Crest Shield (same in DS1 & DS3)

>由来の分からぬ、古い中型の金属盾
草紋には弱い魔力が込められているようで
わずかではあるがスタミナ回復速度が上がる
An old, medium-sized metal shield of unknown origin.
The grass crest seems to contain a weak magical energy.
slightly increases stamina recovery speed.

Young Grass Dew

>かつて若草の緑の紋章を飾ったという
澄みきった、小さな半貴石
戦いの後、教会の槍が手にする名誉であり
与えられる加護の力を、僅かに増すという
A small, clear, semi-precious stone that once adorned the green crest of young grass.
said to be the honor held by the church's spear after battle and to slightly increase the power of the protection bestowed upon it.

Spears of the Church

>緑に錆びた若草の飾り
若草は王女フィリアノールの紋章である
A garland of rusted green grass.
The grass is the crest of Princess Filianore.

Connecting the dots

The Spears of the Church covenant item straight up tells us that the grass is Filianore's crest. The Grass Crest Shield, as well as the vegetation surrounding her inside of her chamber should resonate with that idea.

The Chloranthy Ring and the Spears of the Church covenant item share the same green color. The Ring has long-lost its vibrant green and the Spears item is said to be rusted, and yet their colors still look alike, almost as if they were made of the same material.

Also, we can speculate that the green gem-stone in the center of the Chloranthy Ring could be a Young Grass Dew. The Young Grass Dew is a semi-precious stone that, while held, slightly enhances blessing to Spears of the Church (increases stats and poise when summoned by Argo). Although the effects on the playerar are different , that aspect of the Young Grass resembles the stamina recovery effect acquired by the Ring.

The Green Flower was always believed to be a symbol of the Gods. We find it in Anor Londo, Heide's Tower of Flame, Archdragon Peak & Irythill. That's why it was also believed that the Chloranthy Ring's "unknown origins" was the Gods themselves. The previous two points could merge with this one and propose that the Ring was originally representing Filianore.

The doors in Filianore's chamber have symbols that resemble the patterns on the Grass Crest Shield. It might be a stretch, but they're a little similar at least (4th posted image, for reference).

Thanks for reading.

This post is about the Four Humors “theory” of medicine, which was developed by the ancient greeks and remained in use through the middle ages. Though it is currently considered both obsolete and disproven, it does have a psychological element which I suspect to have been part of Miyazaki’s inspiration. At the very least Humorism is known to have some overlap with Alchemy [and the latter is indisputably a major influence on Miyazaki's work], so we shall find some correlation between the Four Humous and elements of Dark Souls lore. In this post I’m going to explain what the Four Humors are, and examine possible in-universe equivalents for Dark Souls.

The Humours are four types of body fluids that were believed to be essential, in the correct balances, to a person’s health. It was therefore believed that poor health was the result of a person having too much, or too little, of one or more of these fluids. This is what led to the practice of bloodletting, which was believed to treat illnesses thought to result from an excess of blood in the patient’s body. It was also believed that a person’s psychology was determined by the balance of these fluids, and this is what we will look at in this post. As a reference, I’m going to leave a link to the Wikipedia page of the Four Temperaments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_temperaments

Blood

the most obvious of the Four Humors, I doubt that I need to explain what blood is or why it has the following associations under Humourism:

“People with this temperament tend to be lively, sociable, carefree, talkative, and pleasure-seeking. They may be warm-hearted and optimistic. They can make new friends easily, be imaginative and artistic, and often have many ideas. They can be flighty and changeable; thus sanguine personalities may struggle with following tasks all the way through and be chronically late or forgetful.”

-Wikipedia

Blood is associated with the “element” of air, and in Alchemy it’s equivalent is apparently Tin/Jupiter. This does not make sense to me, as Tin is associated with material wealth and power, and this is why Gwyndolin’s catalyst is made of Tin. I would think that the Humor of Blood would align better with the Alchemical associations for Copper/Venus, which include youthful energy and fertility [since blood is understood to be life-giving] among other things. I’d propose that in Dark Souls blood should be equated to the element of light, especially since there is an association between white souls and blood. You retrieve your souls from your bloodstain, and touching another person’s bloodstain shows you their ghost. Miyazaki doubles down on the association between blood and the soul in Bloodborne, but it’s roots are already present in DS1.

Bile

this is a yellowish liquid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. It’s main function is digestive, but it also acts as an irritant if your skin is exposed to it, causing a burning sensation. Small wonder then that should have the following associations:

“People with this temperament tend to be egocentric and extroverted. They may be excitable, impulsive, restless, with reserves of aggression, energy, and/or passion, and try to instil that in others. They tend to be task-oriented and are focused on getting a job done efficiently; their motto is usually "do it now." They can be ambitious, strong-willed, and like to be in charge. They can show leadership, are good at planning, and are often practical and solution-oriented. They appreciate receiving respect and esteem for their work.”

-Wikipedia

Bile is associated with the “element” of fire, and in Alchemy it’s equivalent would be Iron/Mars. It probably goes without saying that fire, in Dark Souls, has many of the same associations. If Gwyn is any judge then we’d undoubtedly describe fire as being active, aggressive, and egocentric.

Phlegm

this is an umbrella term for several different body fluids, especially if they are white/clear in colouration. Examples include saliva, pus, mucus, and sweat. The brain may also have been associated due to it’s white colour, and because it’s consistency is almost liquid. As for it’s associated temperaments:

“People with this temperament may be inward and private, thoughtful, reasonable, calm, patient, caring, and tolerant. They tend to have a rich inner life, seek a quiet, peaceful atmosphere, and be content with themselves. They tend to be steadfast, consistent in their habits, and thus have steady and faithful friends.”

-Wikipedia

Phlegm is associated with the “element” of water, and in Alchemy it’s equivalent is Silver/Luna. Thinking of Dark Souls, this type of temperament reminds me most of Big Hat Logan. It is appropriate that this Humor is the opposite of Bile, which is associated with fire. In Dark Souls the sun is a manifestation of fire, so it is appropriate that fire’s opposite [water] corresponds to Luna [the Moon] also. Furthermore, the moon in Dark Souls is associated with sorcery, so you can see how these associations are beginning to add up.

Black Bile

of the Four Humors, this one seems to be entirely imaginary. There is no real body fluid that this corresponds to, but it’s association is with depression and death. In fact, the word “melancholy” is literally greek for “black bile”.

“People with this temperament may appear serious, introverted, cautious, or even suspicious. They can become preoccupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world and are susceptible to depression and moodiness. They may be focused and conscientious. They often prefer to do things themselves, both to meet their own standards and because they are not inherently sociable.”

-Wikipedia

Black Bile is associated with the “element” of earth, and in Alchemy it’s equivalent would obviously be Lead/Saturn. Given the item descriptions for the dark sorceries, I’m increasingly inclined to think of the dark as a conceptual stand-in for Alchemical Lead as well as the Jungian concept of the Shadow. Black Bile is therefore a dead ringer for both Alchemical Lead and the dark in Dark Souls. The description for the Dark Orb sorcery describes the dark as being physically heavy, and dark sorceries also deal split magic and physical damage. The weightiness of dark, as specified by this sorcery description, helps to tie it to lead [which is known for being heavy, even among metals] as well as the "element of earth", which Black Bile is associated with.