10 Fascinating Lore Discoveries in Elden Ring

There are slowly uncovering and piecing together the lore of Elden Ring. There is a lot to discover, such as Juvenile Scholar voice lines, Tiny ring on the Queen's Set, there are some fascinating lore discoveries in Elden Ring.

Juvenile Scholar voice lines

While you were fighting Rennala, did you ever wonder what words her children were singing? it's hard to make out with all of the chaos going on around you, but if we extract just those voice lines from this fight, then we can hear or read  "Sleep tight, bound tight by mother's amber", so mother's amber is Rennala's amber egg. Within this egg is the great rune of the unborn - a shard of the Elden Ring given to Rennala by radagon who is her former husband, and with this rune, she rebirths juvenile scholars over and over again. According to the juvenile scholar set, "Rebirth is as sleep to them, and with each awakening, memory fades into oblivion".  Umbra is another word for shadow, specifically though, an umbra often refers to the region of darkest shadow during a lunar eclipse. All of a sudden, this line becomes hugely poetic. Rennala is the queen of the full moon and her children are being reborn in her umbra, reborn in the shadow of her moon.

Tiny ring on the Queen’s Set

One of the tiniest little secrets is hidden in Rennala's bracelets from her queen set and when you equip these bracelets you don't just equip the bracelet, you equip a tiny ring on your little finger as well, but it's been documented before that wearing a single ring on your little finger can advertise the possession of a costlier piece of jewelry that's put away in store and that's certainly the case with Rennala, whose boss room has a locked chest that contains Ranni's Dark Moon Ring. this is a ring of betrothal, "supposed to be given by Lunar Princess Ranni to her consort". this ring was locked away by princess Ranni herself, the warning is engraved within, "Whoever thou mayest be, take not the ring from this place, the solitude beyond the night is better to mine alone", but with this ring, you can become Ranni's consort, and unlock a new ending. The ring goes on to say that "Ranni is an Empyrean, meaning her consort would by rights earn the title of the lord". So obviously, betrothal was a really important concept to the royal family.

What the Moonlight Greatsword represents

Rings aren't the only symbol of betrothal in this family, according to the Dark Moon Greatsword, it is a long-standing tradition for a queen of Caria to bestow a moon greatsword upon her spouse, as such, you receive the Dark Moon Greatsword when Ranni takes you as her consort at the end of her questline, that's why you receive this sword as a reward. Rennala was once betrothed to Radagon, so where then, is his Moon Greatsword? well, it's actually in the game, but it's quite well hidden and you might not have thought this was it when you looked at,it it's in the consecrated snowfields wielded by a misbegotten crusader. It's the golden order greatsword.  "Greatsword made of light, modeled after the Elden Ring itself. Forged by king consort radagon to proudly symbolize the tenets of the golden order", "Telltale signs betray that this was once the greatsword bequeathed to him by his first wife, Rennala". Rennala was once betrothed to Radagon, so it wasn't just forged, it was reforged. Radagon fought for the golden order, but then he married Rennala and was given a Moon Greatsword. Then, when he left Rennala to return to the golden order, he reforged his moonlight greatsword into the golden order greatsword instead.

Radagon’s Seal

At the back of Rennala's room, there is a statue of Radagon, despite him leaving her so long ago, this is the same statue design that was commissioned for the Erdtree capital. the same statue that reveals that Radagon is in fact, Marika. the statue what we want to talk about isn't the statue exactly, rather, it's the backing of the statue, this criss-cross pattern, this mesh it's actually really important to Radagon as a character, it's basically like his seal, it's his symbol technically, it's also his Elden rune and it is something that you start to notice everywhere once you start looking for it. next, we also find it on the Mask of Confidence, in gold thread that's sown over the mouthpiece in a crossed fashion. "When Radagon married Rennala, he ordered the Carian magic preceptors to don these masks, to make it clear that all of their matters were to be kept strictly private". as you probably know, Radagon was indeed keeping a lot of secrets, we want to thank Quelaag, whose work on the lore we respect a lot, for pointing out the masks to us. And finally, maybe most importantly this pattern is found on the main menu and on the Elden Ring itself, so why does the Elden ring have Radagon's seal upon it well, this is probably a new element that was added when Radagon became the vessel for the Elden Ring. It's now housed within him, it makes some sense then that his seal would be represented upon the symbol of the Elden ring in some way, as well but what does Radagon's mesh represent?

 It's very orderly it matches the complete character of Radagon in terms of a symbol and i do think a bit of the character is represented in the design because the scar seal item goes on to clarify that "these seals represent the lifelong duty of those chosen by the gods", so maybe the seal represents the type of duty that the character takes on so we know that Radagon takes on a sort of repairing role at some way, the stronger version of the scar seal is the so reseal and it goes on to read "solemn duty weighs upon one beholden; not unlike a gnawing curse from which there is no deliverance" and the red seals on these eyes become so embedded in the eye that the shape of the seal becomes barely recognizable at this point it's a heavy-duty indeed.

Marika’s Seal

Of course, Marika has seal talismans as well, as with Radagon, the talismans reveal the shape of her seal - crucifix. You would have seen this crucifix all throughout the lands between, it's present in every area as the symbol of the summoning pool, but beyond that, you'll find a ton of crucifixes in limgrave especially, where there are countless undying, screaming bodies pinned up. You could interpret this as her being in shackles for shattering the Elden Ring, the beast also likes to punish us with a crucifix of its own, but beyond these shackles, it's undeniable that the pose did become a symbol of her entire reign. The vertical line coming down through the center of the Elden ring is present in almost all of the great runes symbols, and it really helps you when you're trying to align them all back together in photoshop to form the shape of the Elden ring.

How many great runes do you really need to complete the Elden Ring?

There would have been a point in your playthrough where the two fingers tell you that you only need to collect two great runes to earn the right to become Elden lord and to restore the golden order.

What it means to “complete” the Elden Ring

How can the Elden Ring be complete with just two great runes? you have to remember: Morgott guards the Erdtree, and he's not an optional boss and with his great rune, you have three, so apparently, three is enough and the Elden Ring does start to look pretty complete at that point.

The Mega Elden Ring

In fact, even if you get every great rune in the game and theoretically fully restore the Elden Ring, it's possible that it's still not really complete. From a lore point of view, for example, in Faram Azula, there's an even bigger Elden Ring that has even more rings on it if you count them all, nothing explicitly mentions this mega Elden Ring in the game's descriptions or anything, so speculation is all we have.

Ranni’s Great Moon

Elden Ring will almost certainly receive DLC, so we wouldn't be surprised though if in that DLC we were able to collect more great runes, from a gameplay point of view it makes sense - there is a system for equipping great runes in the game, but from a lore point of view, we do also know that there is at least one other great rune that we haven't found yet.