What Happens In Elden Ring? The Game's Story, Part 10: Crumbling Farum Azula
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Loading... - Tiffany Drivas
- 20 Jun 2022
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Finally, it's time. We've bested all the demigods in Elden Ring, explored the entire world of the Lands Between, delved into the depths beneath the land and their history, and learned all we can about the Outer Gods. It's time to finally stand before the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord.
Unfortunately, there are still several people standing in our way, trying to keep that from happening. Shocking, I know.
With a handful of Great Runes in our possession, we have almost everything we need to repair the Elden Ring. But if we've learned nothing else from our experiences in the Lands Between, witnessing the horrors and stagnation created by the Golden Order and the demigods, and from our stalwart companion Melina, it's that removing Destined Death from the Elden Ring was a mistake. This is a story about death, after all. We've been dealing out death all over the Lands Between. It's time to restore it as a natural part of the world. To do that, we have to head to the strange mausoleum city of Crumbling Farum Azula.
Farum Azula, seat of the dragons
After kindling the Flame of Ruin with Melina, fulfilling her purpose (and, perhaps, the plans of Marika--we'll get there), you find yourself awakening in Crumbling Farum Azula. This is a city literally floating in the air, but also in an endless state of disintegration. The place itself makes little or no sense, and it's hard to say exactly what's going on here.
What lore we can glean about Farum Azula is that it's an ancient city, existing outside the normal flow of time. It's also a mausoleum meant to honor an ancient dragon, which seems to be Dragonlord Placidusax, since you can find and fight the two-headed monster dragon as an optional boss as you make your way through here. (To access him, though, you have to lay down and get pulled into a strange tornado--this moment seems to suggest that to find and take on Placidusax, you have to take some kind of magical pathway, possibly involving time travel, to reach the Dragonlord.) It sounds like Farum Azula could be the ancient home or birthplace of the dragons before they made their way to the Lands Between. It's also home to the beastmen, who you might have encountered here or there. Gurranq, the Beast Clergyman, is seemingly one of these, and it seems very possible that Blaidd, the wolf-man raised as Ranni's brother who acts as her "shadow," is another. The beasts have their own religion, they forge weapons the likes of which are beyond human understanding, and they seemingly protect and serve the dragons, at least to some extent.
Farum Azula gives us a look into the past of the Erdtree and the Golden Order that we've only seen hinted at in other places. First, we learn here from the Remembrance of the Dragonlord that, in the age before the Erdtree, Placidusax served as Elden Lord--which suggests that Marika is perhaps not the first god chosen by the Greater Will to serve it in the Lands Between. Placidusax is also implied to have been immortal, "unlike the paltry dragons of today."
It's tough to say exactly what happened to Farum Azula and where it fits into the world of the Lands Between, but we can freely speculate with some of the associations, so here's what I think is the deal with Farum Azula. Before the age of the Erdtree--which Marika established by defeating the giants and their Fell God--there was the age of the dragons. Placidusax, Elden Lord among the dragons, ruled from Farum Azula, a city that existed beyond time. Because of that, like Marika after she removed Destined Death from the Elden Ring, Placidusax was immortal. That immortality guaranteed that the Greater Will's agents would be in place to run (most of, or at least part of) the Lands Between forever, while still leaving Destined Death in place to allow death to happen naturally in the world, something a lot of characters suggest was very important. Removing Destined Death from the Elden Ring seems to have been the start of all the problems that led the Lands Between to the state we find them in today.
At some point, however, Farum Azula was attacked, perhaps by a cosmic creature similar to Astel, Naturalborn of the Void, or through the machinations of another Outer God. The Ruins Greatsword says it came from a ruin that "crumbled when struck by a meteorite," and the use of the word "crumbled" to talk about ruins feels pretty specific--that word only seems to appear in any lore entries that are related to Farum Azula. The sword also seems to resemble the aesthetic of the buildings in Farum Azula. Again, we're speculating, but even though Farum Azula has been crumbling "from time immemorial," it sounds like it got walloped by a meteorite at some point. The Placidusax's Ruin incantation, meanwhile, says the spell is made up of "the dying wails of the Dragonlord who once dwelled eternal beyond time." Finally, the Remembrance of the Dragonlord says that Placidusax's god "fled," and the dragon awaited its return.
Taken all together, we can guess that Farum Azula got nailed by a meteorite, an attack from outside force. Placidusax's was Elden Lord, which means he was consort to a god, just like Godfrey was Elden Lord to Marika--and that god fled from the attack, though we have no idea who or what it was or where it ended up (although there's a compelling theory on this, which we'll get to). With the dragons' home devastated and their Elden Lord ravaged, the Greater Will looked for a new god to run the Lands Between. That god would be Marika, marking the start of the Golden Order and the era of the Lands Between that we know.
This line of thinking fills in a lot of potential gaps. Remember back in Part 5, when we discussed the ancient dragon cult of Leyndell? People worshiping dragons makes more sense if you consider the dragons had a god and an Elden Lord before the rise of Marika. And the dragons getting abandoned by the Greater Will and losing their claim to power, as it seems probably happened, provides a pretty good motivation for the great dragon Gransax to attack Leyndell, home of those the Greater Will now favored, triggering the war in which Godwyn fought and defeated them.
The beastmen, too, make a pretty good case for Farum Azula to be the first seat of power for the Greater Will. According to Ranni, all of the Empyreans chosen by the Two Fingers get a "shadow," a beastman protector. Also according to Ranni, if any Empyrean goes against the Greater Will, those beastmen become "baleful shadows," assassins meant to hunt and eliminate their Empyreans to stop them. If you follow Ranni's storyline to its conclusion, you see this happen to Blaidd; he loses his mind and becomes hostile, even as his dialogue suggests he doesn't believe that to be possible. Blaidd's transformation into a baleful shadow happens against his will, suggesting he's under the control of the Greater Will. It sure sounds like the Greater Will instituted a failsafe with these shadows, to ensure that no Empyrean would ever try to go against it--suggesting that perhaps such an insurrection happened in the past.
We know Marika had a beastman shadow, in fact, and meeting him is your goal in Farum Azula. Read More...
