#dpxer

[evilminji]

I recently read your DPxDC post comparing the Ghost Zone to Yggdrasil.

Ans I've been playing Elden Ring again lately, mostly because the Lore in it keeps dragging me back.

And I think you'd like the concept of Erdtree Burial. It even matches up with your post.

Imma try my best to explain the concept so Spoiler starts here:

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Anyways, so Erdtree Burial means to take a recently dead body of someone who committed grand feats and/or is worthy of honor, and place them to rest amidst the roots of the Erdtree (which is basically Yggdrasil vut legally distinct).

The Tree itself will then take the soul and memory of the deceased and etch them upon itself, preserve their soul and remember them.

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What if the Erdtree is that world's link to the World Between Worlds?

So, can you imagine all these Elden Ring Demigods, Honourable Dead and Great Fighters occasionally taking a leisurely stroll out of their Afterlife Home amidst the branches of the Erdtree to go visit the Ghosts that live in the Zone?

Random giant dude passes by, twin Greatswords at his back, and goes to grab a whole 20 barrels of ecto-ale to bring back to his friends.

Danny, coming back from visiting Clockwork, has to do a double take, and ask the bartender some questions.

"While was that guy? He looked a little too golden to be a Ghost"

"Ah, that's just Radahn. He says he's a General or something. That he once held back the stars all by himself. Apparently fought some wars, and they still needed like 20 great warriors fighting together to put him down after he went senile. Hogwash, if you ask me."

Danny hears that the guy used to throw hands with celestial bodies regularly, and knows exactly where he'll be for summer vacation.

If the Tarnished player character is already Elden Lord by then, I can definitely see Danny coming back wearing the Twinned Armor set.

(Especially if it's my Strength/Faith/Arcane character. She used the Butcher's Knife greataxe, with the Stormcaller Ash of War and a Bleed enchantment, plus Rot Dragon and Black Flame spells)

Hello yes! I DO enjoy this thought! You were ABSOLUTELY correct!

Haven't played the game? But? Now? I CAN NOT get the idea of the Zone itself being The Erdtree out of my head?

Great and endless. With roots and manifestations, that may or may not reach into the world it cradles, that will imprint upon itself souls of those buried close. That it may cherish them FOREVER.

Are we within in it? Held by it? Consumed? It is not for our mortal minds to know. Perhaps not even for gods to know.

But, oh. OH! What made Danny so DIFFERENT? No answer found in his world. No answer found anywhere near it. Yet? Here they know it. A simple answer, given freely. It feels almost unfair. Like he has been cheated of catharsis. As though he should have had to fight and scrape and FORCE them to speak.

They can not even begin to understand, what it is like. Being so alone.

Or maybe... maybe they can.

He's not sure which he wants more. Which he fears is true.

For what was the portal? If not sharp blade cut into the celestial earth? Plunging into starlight soil and primordial soup, to the tangled roots of something greater. A tree. THE tree. Dragging back that soil and nicking those tightly woven, buried things. A welling of ichor, golden and green and DIVINE.

A plunging of that blade into his heart.

His lifeblood with the tree's.

A pathway where none could ever have been.

Oh, what rituals we blindly perform. Our ignorance of their meaning does not give them less power, only leaves us unguarded. It does not have to be on ancient stages and with ancient things, to be a ritual. It can be a laboratory. A machine instead of a ritual blade.

Still a thing forged by Father's and Mother's hand, that killed the Son.

And then Again, through the twist of Time, by dear friends hand, first in ignorance now twice in knowing, killed again.

Twice Half Dead, Is A Corpse. And Thus, With The Tree.

Cradled and loved. Etched forever into itself. Perhaps even a bit more so, for the difficulties of his birth. For how rarely does the Erdtree bleed. How rarely the Zone spill its Divine blood. A little starlit snowflake, flitting along its many paths. Cradled in its heart. So clever and bright.

The problem, I imagine? Is that such a Divinity? Has a very distinct nature. You give unto them. They take. They cherish. They do not return.

And Danny is being a Trouble Child. Sneaking off into Worlds, mostly his own, and NOT staying in the Zone. The Tree's domain. Other Gods have power in those places! Child, cease! That is dangerous! It is like a mermaid deciding to go climb the alps. Even if she CAN make legs for herself, that is WAY to far from the safety of her God's domain! Are you mad, child!? Have you heard of acceptable Risk?!

Danny has. It made a whooshing noise as he tossed it out the window.

#dpxelden ring #dpxer #minji's writing #minji's ponderings