Thread by @MintisMusings

The tragic story of Miquella - a thread

Likes and RTs appreciated! Sources/credits listed at the end.

#EldenRing #EldenRingLore #FromSoft

Long before the Shattering, during the Golden Age of the Erdtree, the goddess Marika gave birth to two twin children. The sister, Malenia, had fiery red hair, and the brother, Miquella, was golden-blonde like his mother.

But the two of them were conceived through unknown means, born to Marika and Marika alone. Being born to a single deity gave them incredible power, and instantly made them Empyreans - candidates for godhood, one of whom may eventually take their mother’s place inside the Erdtree.

Originating from a single being is not without consequence, however. The siblings were born afflicted: Miquella was cursed with eternal childhood, and Malenia harbored a great Rot within.¹

Needless to say, they didn’t lead normal lives.

Malenia was far too dangerous to be kept in the capital city, so Marika sought out the Blind Swordsman, a legendary warrior who’d famously fought the Scarlet Rot back with his ever-moving blade.

By training under him, Malenia would learn to control the Rot inside her, temporarily keeping it at bay.

Miquella, on the other hand, would remain in the capital city of Leyndell, and train under Marika’s new consort, Radagon.

Under Radagon’s tutelage, he learned the ways of Fundamentalism, and how to draw his faith in the Golden Order into powerful incantations. Miquella had a natural aptitude for this, but was also motivated by his desire to cure Malenia of her affliction and save her life.

The two siblings soon became known as the Twin Prodigies: one of the greatest minds, and one of the fiercest warriors the world had ever seen.

Miquella’s search for a cure eventually led to him creating two of his own incantations, but he didn’t find his answer there.

He gave these incantations to Radagon as a gift.

Radagon used his greater understanding of the Golden Order to refine these spells further. He created the incantation Radagon’s Rings of Light, and gifted it to Miquella in return.

Unfortunately, this “refinement” showed Miquella all he needed to see: if 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 was the best the Golden Order could offer, then there was no hope for his sister within the Erdtree.

So he began searching for another source of power.

A power, not only outside the influence of outer gods, but with the ability to repel them, or even neutralize them altogether. This search eventually led him to the ancient Beastmen civilization of Farum Azula, and to the rediscovery of unalloyed gold.²

Pure gold, when fashioned into a needle, could drive out the influence of an outer god, and in most cases, that was all it took. Malenia’s curse was not so easily cured, however.

Miquella would go on to create needles, armor, and prosthetic limbs of unalloyed gold to replace what the Rot took from his sister.

These masterpieces of craftsmanship,³ combined with the flowing style she learned from her mentor, would slow the Scarlet Rot’s progression significantly.

The boy soon became known as The Unalloyed, and Malenia became his Blade, his sworn protector.

But Miquella knew that the Rot’s stagnation wouldn’t last forever, and his faith in the Golden Order had long faded. So he began searching for a place, far outside the Order’s influence, where he could plan, undisturbed.

This would lead him beyond the Mountaintops of the Giants and through an icy wasteland, where he began cultivating a sapling of the Erdtree, watering it with his own Empyrean blood.

It was likely around this time that Miquella discovered another use for unalloyed gold.

When combined with his deep knowledge of incantations, he could use it to compel absolute loyalty. He fashioned delicate, golden water lilies in imitation of his favorite flower,⁴ and with them, began amassing a fiercely loyal group of followers.

For these followers, he chose those who had been shunned by the Golden Order and deemed “impure”. This included the man-made Albinaurics, the horned Omen, and eventually, the undead.

Miquella knew the Order’s discrimination stemmed from corruption, and he wanted to grant his companions another chance at life, free from his mother’s oppression.

So he disguised himself, assuming a feminine alias named St. Trina, and went to his chosen followers in their sleep.

He would leave a variant of his golden lilies behind, garnering support and spreading the message of hope along the way. St. Trina herself would go on to become a well-loved, yet enigmatic figure throughout the Lands Between.

Some believe she’s a young girl, and others say he’s a boy,⁵ but precious few know the saint’s true identity.

What his followers held most dear, however, was a prophecy: that one day, Miquella would shed his affliction, grow into adulthood, and rule over the Lands Between, ushering in a new age.⁶ And so it was that the first of Miquella’s supporters made the long pilgrimage:

beyond the Mountaintops of the Giants, through an icy wasteland, which they now knew as the Consecrated Snowfield, and to the sapling that he’d been growing.

They called it the Haligtree.⁷

Miquella and his first companions worked to create a Brace for the Haligtree: a holy city, inspired by the Royal Capital of Leyndell. They named this city Elphael, and they carved the Demigod’s prophecy into its walls in architectural relief.

The statues depict an adult figure, features obscured, wielding a massive unalloyed gold needle and plunging it into the roots of the Erdtree.

It was within the sanctity of these walls that the Empyrean would begin his plan: not only to cure his sister, but to purify the Golden Order, creating it anew, untainted by the influence of the Greater Will.

Instead of traditional “Erdtree burials”, his followers would be buried in sarcophagi, shielded from absorption into the tree’s roots.

Those who wished to be reborn would be wrapped in cocoons, undergoing a transformation that would grant them a fair second chance, free from any genetic complications due to their original race.⁸ ⁹

This moth-like metamorphosis is most likely what formed the Cleanrot Knights, Miquella and Malenia’s fearsome military force.¹⁰

Things were going well for the residents of the Haligtree, and Elphael grew larger as more followers of Miquella and St. Trina made their way to the hidden city; but the boy knew it couldn’t last.

After all these years of eternal childhood, the Empyrean had finally reached the limit of his power.

He knew this day would come, and indeed, his prophesied destiny: the autonomy of his followers’ resurrection, the cure to his sister’s rot, and the Age of the Haligtree, were all tied directly to his ascension into godhood. So he finally turned his eyes to his own affliction.

He began carving the figure of a woman, in painstaking detail, into the heart of the Haligtree. And within the womb of this wooden mother he would weave a cocoon, with himself inside, and enter a deep sleep while his metamorphosis took place.

Unfortunately, before he was able to set this plan into motion, another demigod enacted her own uprising. The Night of the Black Knives, as it became known, was a plot involving a group of assassins stealing a fragment of the Rune of Death from under Marika’s own nose.

A fearsome ritual was performed, imbuing the assassins’ blades with the power to slay a god in both physical and spiritual form. Many demigods were killed on that night, but the first and most twisted of the murders was that of Godwyn the Golden.

The assassins carved exactly half of the Cursemark of Death into the demigod’s back, and carved the other half into someone else, far away. This allowed them to kill 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 Godwyn’s soul, leaving his body hollow, but still living.

That fateful night, and the subsequent loss of her firstborn child, was the final straw for Queen Marika. She shattered the Elden Ring, and each demigod claimed a shard in the form of the Great Runes.

Radagon made a vain attempt to repair it, but without the Runes, he was unable to mend what the goddess had broken. A bloody war broke out among the demigods, and Marika was imprisoned within the Erdtree for her crimes against the Greater Will.

The Shattering war waged to the south, but the Twin Prodigies were safe within the secluded Haligtree. It couldn’t stay that way for long, though.

Godwyn’s body was buried deep within the roots of the Erdtree, a tradition generally considered to be the highest level of honor under the Golden Order. But Godwyn wasn’t completely dead, and without a soul, his body was no longer governed by natural laws.

His latent power sought only to expand as far as possible, unconstrained by physical space, or even time.¹¹

Godwyn’s Death Blight spread throughout the roots of the Erdtree itself, bringing the lifeless bodies in Erdtree burial grounds back to wander as Those Who Live in Death.¹² Although Miquella foresaw this, it was not in detail, and he could do nothing to prevent it.

Eradicating the Blight would 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 require his ascension to godhood, but he infused a sword with a prayer for his brother’s salvation to temporarily keep the blight at bay.¹³

The reason Miquella was prepared for this at all was, of course, the final piece of the prophecy he’d been chasing this whole time. Godwyn’s Death Blight had poisoned the Erdtree beyond repair.

The tree had to be killed at its roots, driving off the demigod’s influence with a massive needle of unalloyed gold pierced straight through its source.

There wasn’t enough gold in the world to make such a device, but during this period of turmoil, the intersection of three prophecies gave the boy a chance.

Nearby, in the snowy Mountaintops of the Giants, lies Castle Sol: a fortification built around an ancient legend.

The people of Sol believe that one day the sun would become eclipsed, and that this eclipse would drain the star of its color. On that day, the sky would bleed gold.¹⁴

By harnessing the power drained from the sun, Miquella could create the tool needed to grant his brother a true death, and to perform the assassination of the life-giving tree.

Miquella gifted Castle Sol’s ruler one half of the Haligtree Secret Medallion, promising full access to the hidden city once the eclipse had occurred and he’d awoken from his metamorphosis. Sadly, this wasn’t quite possible yet.

General Radahn, the Red Lion, the Starscourge: widely considered to be the most powerful of the demigods.

Radahn trained in Sellia, the Town of Sorcery, from a very young age, and wielded powerful gravitational magic.¹⁵ In an unfathomable display of strength, Radahn halted the movement of the stars, and continued holding them, even as he fought with his armies in the Shattering.

The Red Lion’s motives for doing this were of little import to Miquella, however. Without the stars’ movement, there could be no eclipse.

Just before he sealed himself within his cocoon, the young Empyrean sent Malenia and an army of loyal Cleanrot Knights to Caelid to join the Shattering war. They marched with a single goal: put an end to General Radahn, and free the stars from their celestial prison.

What ensued was the gruesome Battle of Aeonia, depicted in cinematic form below.¹⁶

Alas, even Malenia could not bring the Starscourge to his knees. And by unleashing the full force of the Scarlet Rot, she 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 the once-beautiful land of Caelid, leaving it scarred and infested for the foreseeable future.

The One-Armed Valkyrie fell, comatose, to the ground. And in the aftermath of the battle, a lone Cleanrot Knight remained standing. Her name was Finlay, and she carried Malenia, on foot, from Caelid to the Haligtree.

That’s a distance of roughly 50 miles (80km) through harsh terrain, during a devastating war, fighting off enemies along the way as the Rot ate into her flesh.¹⁷

Radahn also survived Malenia’s Scarlet Bloom, but was irreversibly infected with the Rot. Though he continues holding the stars in place to this day, he mindlessly wanders the battlefield, feasting on the bodies of comrades and enemies alike.¹⁸

Miquella wasn’t known for making mistakes. Yet, in the scramble to set his destiny in motion amidst multiple near-apocalyptic catastrophes, he’d finally spread himself too thin. By sending away his sworn protector and beginning his transformation, he’d left himself vulnerable.

Perhaps he’d grown too comfortable in the perceived safety of his Haligtree. Whatever the reason, the Shattering was a war of succession, and Miquella was hardly the only demigod vying for the title of lord.

Mohg, the rejected Omen child, older half-brother to Miquella, and self-proclaimed Lord of Blood, envied his siblings’ Empyrean status.

When an omen is born into divinity, they are banished to the sewers beneath Leyndell and shunned by the Golden Order.¹⁹ Most omens grow to hate their horned skin, but Mohg embraced it.

And it was within those Subterranean Shunning Grounds that he stood before an Outer God known as the Formless Mother, and his accursed blood burst into flame, granting him incredible power.²⁰

Mohg sought to change the course of Miquella’s transformation halfway, corrupting his physical body with the power of the Formless Mother, and raising him to godhood as a ruler of the nonexistent Mohgwyn Dynasty.

And he tried desperately to enact this plan, but the Empyrean remained unresponsive.²¹

By the time Finlay and Malenia returned to the Haligtree, Miquella was nowhere to be found. The womb of his intricate carving had been torn open, its contents removed.

Miquella’s half-formed “adult” body, drenched in cursed blood within a split-open cocoon, now lies motionless inside the Mohgwyn Palace.

Years of silence passed. With Radahn alive, the stars remain unmoving. The ruler of Castle Sol eventually died, clutching half of a Medallion in his hand, crying an apology into the wind for a young boy who would never hear him.²²

Miquella’s disappearance came long before the fulfillment of his “destiny,” and without his influence, the Haligtree withered. The cocoons, meant to birth his subjects into new life, have all died.

Malenia lies dormant, dreaming, as her Rot spreads to infect the tree, Elphael, and all the creatures who call it home.

The falling leaves rain upon fading ground, and from the branches, you can still hear the horns of the Oracle Envoys: trumpeting for an unfulfilled prophecy. For the lord who never was.

For all who made it this far, thank you so much. This post represents weeks of work, but just knowing that you’ve read it makes it worth all of that time

It would still help a lot if you could share it too though, since I don’t have much reach here yet 😅

Credits:

Most of my knowledge on the above was taken from two videos. Though we don’t agree on everything, none of this would have been possible without @SmoughTown and The Tarnished Archaeologist, so huge shoutout to both of them.

(If something’s uncredited/unexplained, it’s probably taken from these two videos! I’d encourage you to watch them for yourself if you’re interested)

SmoughTown’s video:

Tarnished Archaeologist’s video:

1) Source: Remembrance of the Rot Goddess

2) This is an extrapolation of the ideas from this Tarnished Archaeologist video:

3) Source: Valkyrie’s Prosthesis

4) Source: Miquella’s Lily

5) Source: Sword of St. Trina

6) St. Trina is initially shown in her prophesied “adult form” on St. Trina’s Torch. It’s described in the item description as “somewhat unnerving”.

7) The name is derived from the German word 𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘨, meaning holy, healthy, or sacred.

8) The first-generation albinaurics, sadly, are fated to die painfully and young, and don’t have use of their legs.

9) Tarnished Archaeologist noted these cocoons’ striking resemblance to those of the silk moth 𝘣𝘰𝘮𝘣𝘺𝘹 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘪. (cont’d below)

9 (cont’d) Notably, this species of moth is incapable of reproduction without human influence.

10) Credit to YouTube user Hinkelstein for sharing this theory in Tarnished Archaeologist’s comments section.

11) Crumbling Farum Azula exists in “the heart of the storm beyond time” (Remembrance of the Dragonlord), and yet Godwyn’s eyes can still be seen staring out from its overgrown walls.

12) The source for this is mainly the environmental evidence shown in the screenshots under the tweet, but also takes concepts from D, Gurranq, and Fia’s questlines.

13) Source: Golden Epitaph

14) Source: Eclipse Shotel (with some creative liberties taken for dramatic effect)

15) Source: Remembrance of the Starscourge

16) Video edited by me, made up of clips from the E3 reveal trailer and Story Trailer.

17) Source: Cleanrot Knight Finlay Ashes, but extra shoutout to reddit user u/ThePhenomenalSecond for bringing this story to my attention.

18) Source: Witch-Hunter Jerren dialogue, the Radahn Festival cutscene

19) Source: Omen Bairn & Regal Omen Bairn

20) Source: Bloodboon (Incantation)

21) Source: Remembrance of the Blood Lord

22) Voice acting & production by me. The spirit is in Castle Sol.

Final note: Thanks so much again for reading 🥹

I actually meant to put this to give context the Miquella’s Lily bit, but I forgor 💀

Here’s the item description of Bewitching Branch: