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[Thomas Finch]

Aldritch was just a cleric that ate people. He ate so many people that he became engorged. Eventually, he gained cult followers that worshipped him and brought him people to eat. He shared with them as well. At some point, he started to become his own little abyss basically because he was so fucked up. He was somehow forced into becoming a Lord of Cinder, then slept in his coffin for a while. Shortly before the game starts, he left his coffin and went to Anor Londo in search of gods to devour. Pontiff Sulyvahn even helped him in hopes that he'd gain complete control of Anor Londo. Aldritch and his clerics won a battle against the knights of anor londo and he began to devour Gwyndolin. While devouring him, he napped and dreamt of priscilla. You arrive before he's even finished devouring Gwyndolin.

All of that is from various item descriptions and observations.

[s0]

Yeah Sulyvahn's goal was to purge the old royal family from Anor Londo/Irithyll. He sent the dancer (a distant relative to Gwyn according to her soul description) into exile and imprisoned Yorshka (who I'm now convinced is a relative of Gwyn as well) in a tower. The last one who resisted his efforts, despite being isolated in the remnants of the old Anor Londo, was Gwyndolin. So Sulyvahn brought in the "big guns", namely Aldrich, to devour Gwyndolin.

Also THEORY: Aldrich somehow entered Anor Londo via the painted world (Yorshka says the tower hasn't been turned in a long time) and also devoured priscilla. Aldrich uses a scythe attack and you also get the Lifehunt Scythe, Priscilla's signature weapon, from his soul.

Why would he have eaten Nito tho? The Dark Souls 1 protagonist KILLS Nito and takes his soul. The soul was later inherited by the Rotten in dks2.

Btw I think Wolnir probably tried to become some kind of replacement for Nito but fucked up somewhere along the way and got swallowed by the abyss

[ag radley]

Aldritch was just a cleric that ate people. He ate so many people...

ah ok, that makes a lot of sense.

Also THEORY: Aldrich somehow entered Anor Londo via the painted world (Yorshka says the tower hasn't been turned in a long time) and also devoured priscilla. Aldrich uses a scythe attack and you also get the Lifehunt Scythe, Priscilla's signature weapon, from his soul.

yeah, that's why i said he has clearly eaten priscilla - he has her scythe. though actually I should take a step back since he may have acquired it some other way. but clearly there has been some interaction there.

Why would he have eaten Nito tho? The Dark Souls 1 protagonist KILLS Nito and takes his soul. The soul was later inherited by the Rotten in dks2.

the nito thing is just some speculation that I saw on reddit or the wiki, i forget. people were comparing aldritch's halberd to nito's weapon and all the bones and everything. i totally forgot about the rotten though (i've purged all memory of dks2 from my mind at this point.) one interesting thing is that it seems like you have to travel through the catacombs to get to irithyll (unless there is a way by boat). so if aldritch did go that way he would have had a chance to interact with grave wardens or some kind of nito descendant.

i suspect yorshka is related to priscilla somehow. was priscilla's lore that she was the secret daughter of gwyn's wife and seath? that makes her gwyndolin's half-sister. i wonder if yorshka might be the daughter of priscilla and gwyndolin. she also mentions her brother, the former darkmoon captain... which on the surface sounds like gwyndolin, but yorshka seems pretty young relatively speaking so i suspect she isn't from the same generation as him. i have to go back and read the lore in more detail.

[quantumpotato]

I have just learn about darksouls hitbox porn trend

Try dodging attacks with the white soapstone!

[quantumpotato]

Aldritch was just a cleric that ate people. He ate so many people that he became engorged. Eventually, he gained cult followers that worshipped him and brought him people to eat. He shared with them as well. At some point, he started to become his own little abyss basically because he was so fucked up. He was somehow forced into becoming a Lord of Cinder, then slept in his coffin for a while. Shortly before the game starts, he left his coffin and went to Anor Londo in search of gods to devour. Pontiff Sulyvahn even helped him in hopes that he'd gain complete control of Anor Londo. Aldritch and his clerics won a battle against the knights of anor londo and he began to devour Gwyndolin. While devouring him, he napped and dreamt of priscilla. You arrive before he's even finished devouring Gwyndolin.

All of that is from various item descriptions and observations.

Can someone explain exactly what a lord of cinder is? Seems like the dudes who were cinder lords said "fuck it" and went off to become monsters..

[s0]

lords of cinder are just really powerful beings who need to sacrifice themselves in order to kindle ("link") the first flame. unfortunately, all the lords except ludleth weren't so keen on that idea and fucked off to their separate realms instead. you're a guy who needs to get them back to the shrine so the fire can be linked, and it turns out the only way to do that is by killing the lords and taking their skulls. that's the plot of the game.

btw their status as lords says nothing about their moral character. aldrich pretty clearly evil, while yhorm is a good guy.

[InfiniteStateMachine]

lords of cinder are just really powerful beings who need to sacrifice themselves in order to kindle ("link") the first flame. unfortunately, all the lords except ludleth weren't so keen on that idea and fucked off to their separate realms instead. you're a guy who needs to get them back to the shrine so the fire can be linked, and it turns out the only way to do that is by killing the lords and taking their skulls. that's the plot of the game.

btw their status as lords says nothing about their moral character. aldrich pretty clearly evil, while yhorm is a good guy.

haha that was very concise and cleared a lot up for me

[Dragonmaw]

lords of cinder are just really powerful beings who need to sacrifice themselves in order to kindle ("link") the first flame. unfortunately, all the lords except ludleth weren't so keen on that idea and fucked off to their separate realms instead. you're a guy who needs to get them back to the shrine so the fire can be linked, and it turns out the only way to do that is by killing the lords and taking their skulls. that's the plot of the game.

btw their status as lords says nothing about their moral character. aldrich pretty clearly evil, while yhorm is a good guy.

it's unclear whether the lords of cinder are just people powerful enough to link the flame, or people who already did and must be sacrificed for an unkindled to link the flame.

[quantumpotato]

lords of cinder are just really powerful beings who need to sacrifice themselves in order to kindle ("link") the first flame. unfortunately, all the lords except ludleth weren't so keen on that idea and fucked off to their separate realms instead. you're a guy who needs to get them back to the shrine so the fire can be linked, and it turns out the only way to do that is by killing the lords and taking their skulls. that's the plot of the game.

btw their status as lords says nothing about their moral character. aldrich pretty clearly evil, while yhorm is a good guy.

Yeah, I got that, just unsure how they became "lords" in the first place.

[DJFloppyFish]

the fact that all of anor londo is missing except for the cathedral makes me think two things a) the theory that the painted world spilled out seems even more plausible and b) gwyndolin was protecting the cathedral area with some kind of magic in order to preserve the darkmoon tomb.

i really think the painted world theory is true, the usage of snow seems very delibrate and yorshka's tail signals that priscilla's kind are no longer contained.

also does anyone else think there's a connection between lothric and the irithyll people? pontiff sulyvahn and aldrich (if the humanoid part is him and not gwyndolin's corpse) both have spindly, pale figures, as does prince lothric. 

there are so many interesting directions they could take the DLC 

[beetleking22]

I have been gaming since baby and I still havent played Dark soul.. Feel like I have done big sin..

[Thomas Finch]

Also THEORY: Aldrich somehow entered Anor Londo via the painted world (Yorshka says the tower hasn't been turned in a long time) and also devoured priscilla. Aldrich uses a scythe attack and you also get the Lifehunt Scythe, Priscilla's signature weapon, from his soul.

I don't think so. I mean, he was sleeping in his coffin in the Cathedral of the Deep, then went to Anor Londo. I don't see why he would have had to go into and out of the painting to get there. We also never see the painting. The tower not being turned is odd though. The reason he has Priscilla's scythe is because he dreamt of it. If you read the item description it says so. I also personally subscribe to the theory that Anor Londo and the painted world merged at some point. That's why its so snowy and that's why Irithyll exists.

Btw I think Wolnir probably tried to become some kind of replacement for Nito but fucked up somewhere along the way and got swallowed by the abyss

Wolnir was a conquerer that killed kings, took their crowns and merged them into one. Then he tried to invade New Londo and underestimated the abyss. As he was being swallowed by the abyss he prayed to the gods that he would be saved. They gave him three bracelets and a sword that would protect him from the abyss. Which is why when you find him, you only fight the top half of him. The bottom half is in the abyss. And when you defeat him, you're not killing him, you're destroying his protection from the abyss. That's why his death animation is him being dragged into the abyss. I fucking love that lore.

[ag radley]

The reason he has Priscilla's scythe is because he dreamt of it. If you read the item description it says so. I also personally subscribe to the theory that Anor Londo and the painted world merged at some point. That's why its so snowy and that's why Irithyll exists.

well, you're wrong. he didn't dream of the scythe, he dreamt of a young, pale girl in hiding, which could be yorshka or priscilla. assuming your theory that the scythe would just pop into existence in front of him when he had a thought about it is true, if the young pale girl refers to yorshka, how he could have acquired the scythe is left unexplained. it also says nothing about what actually happened after he dreamt of the girl (it could have been that he dreamt of her just prior to the player arriving, as he is still in the process of devouring gwyndolin, and it seems like he was probably acquiring gwyndolin's memories during that process).

something still would have to happen for the scythe to fall into his possession beyond just having a thought about priscilla/yorshka. the two most likely cases are that either gwyndolin had it for some reason and aldrich got it when he devoured him, or he took it directly from priscilla.

if my earlier speculation is true, and yorshka is the daughter of gwyndolin and priscilla, gwyndolin could have come into possession of the scythe via his time with priscilla, and then aldrich got it when he devoured gwyndolin.

also this theory assumes gwyndolin would fuck a woman lol


edit:
oh shit, i just reread the dialogue and apparently gwyndolin is her elder brother. if that's the case... priscilla would have to also be her sister, or that she is priscilla. she also says that gwyn is her father and gwynevere is her sister, so she is in the same generation as gwyndolin. very interesting indeed.

it's also mildly interesting that if you tell yorshka you can fly, she says "Then thou'rt a dragon, or perhaps a crow?" dragons and crows are the only flying creatures in the painted world.

i wonder if (assuming the painted world merged with anor londo, creating irithyll), the residents somehow changed to become more humanlike. priscilla could have become yorshka, and the crowhead harpies could have become the corvians, which have human heads.

[Thomas Finch]

well, you're wrong. he didn't dream of the scythe, he dreamt of a young, pale girl in hiding, which could be yorshka or priscilla. assuming your theory that the scythe would just pop into existence in front of him when he had a thought about it is true, if the young pale girl refers to yorshka, how he could have acquired the scythe is left unexplained. it also says nothing about what actually happened after he dreamt of the girl (it could have been that he dreamt of her just prior to the player arriving, as he is still in the process of devouring gwyndolin, and it seems like he was probably acquiring gwyndolin's memories during that process)

Lifehunt Scythe is a spell you get from turning in Aldrich's soul. It's not an item. He didn't actually get the scythe. He passively created a spell that resembled it by dreaming. So it "popping into existence" isn't a problem. Priscilla is a pale young girl and she was in hiding (hidden away by Gwyn). I can understand the idea that that description could mean multiple people. However, it's literally the description found on the Lifehunt Scythe. That alone makes it pretty obvious its describing Priscilla.

[ag radley]

Lifehunt Scythe is a spell you get from turning in Aldrich's soul. It's not an item. He didn't actually get the scythe. He passively created a spell that resembled it by dreaming. So it "popping into existence" isn't a problem.

that's a good point. i was getting too fixated on him having the actual scythe and forgot it was just a spell imitating it.

i still wonder about how he would have been able to get a dream or vision about priscilla out of the blue. i can't remember if the dks1 lore mentioned anything about interaction between gwyndolin and priscilla, but if it did, i suppose it's possible the knowledge of priscilla and the scythe did come to him just from devouring gwyndolin and wouldn't require interacting with priscilla directly.

[Thomas Finch]

Yeah I was thinking about that myself. When he devours someone, is he gaining their knowledge or atleast dreaming about their thoughts? Of course, if Ariamis and Anor Londo did merge, then where did Priscilla go after that? Maybe killing her was canon? That would be strange though since killed Gwyndolin was not canon.

[s0]

t's unclear whether the lords of cinder are just people powerful enough to link the flame, or people who already did and must be sacrificed for an unkindled to link the flame.

ACKSHUALLY it's not really unclear at all. each of the lords has a backstory on how they became a lord (aldrich became a bloated monster by eating people, yhorm sacrificed himself to keep the "profaned flame" in check, the abyss watchers drank some ancient wolf blood, prince lothric is heir to a powerful line of kings, etc). so no they didn't already link the fire and it doesn't imply anywhere that they did. they are "lords" because they have the most powerful souls in the world.

the people who have previously linked the fire don't return from the kiln alive. their souls remain there to burn and the final boss is a physical manifestation of them.

[s0]

also does anyone else think there's a connection between lothric and the irithyll people? pontiff sulyvahn and aldrich (if the humanoid part is him and not gwyndolin's corpse) both have spindly, pale figures, as does prince lothric. 

well i think these people are all from the same "race" of gods, including gwyndolin. the gwyndolin/prince lothric connection is really obvious imo, he even has the same voice actor.

fun fact: both prince lothric and gwyndolin in his "aldrich-ified" form have very thin arms and elongated claw-like fingers.

[DJFloppyFish]

are there any allusions to humanity or the furtive pygmy in this game? i was surprised to not find anything myself.

[s0]

are there any allusions to humanity or the furtive pygmy in this game? i was surprised to not find anything myself.

play yuria's questline and also talk to karla


btw it's funny how there's a character called yuria in this game but it's NOT the character who is a remake of yuria the witch from demon's souls. tho they both share an affinity for the dark so...

the reason humanity isn't a big deal in this game is because the unkindled can't hollow (without the dark sigil anyway). i'm guessing the reason is that their souls are too weak to be burned away by the fire (which i think is what happens when a "normal" undead dies and hollows).

i think in the end it was just an excuse for a thematic shift tho. they already explored the "what does it mean to be human" thing thoroughly enough in dks1 and 2. the central theme in 3 is more about the nature of power, which was already a theme in 1 and 2 of course, but not as prominent.