Through the trailer and various information we've extracted from NPCs and item descriptions, Radahn is one of the most martially powerful demigods, and he faced off against one of his most powerful half-siblings, Malenia... and it was the fight between the two that unelashed the gigantic plume of Scarlet Rot that turned Caelid into the lichen, fungus and rot-covered wasteland that it is now. Radahn's soldiers still patrol Caelid, and they're trying to set up a festival of battle in honour of their liegelord. Which... which makes the Radahn boss fight rather unique. I thought I was going to have to go through a whole dungeon like what I did with Godrick and Rennala, but unlocking this 'festival' is the hard part, apparently. The actual Redmane Castle is almost deserted when I go through it, with only a handful of enemies before I walk straight into a bunch of warriors ready to fight Radahn. It's a nice change of pace, if nothing else.
Separately, Radahn is also somehow 'holding the stars in place', which also causes a bunch of 'fate' related events to be frozen in time. I'm not entirely sure what this is all about, honestly, but I guess it's going to be explained, and it might be one of the various themes of 'stasis of death' that Elden Ring seems to really like.
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Starscourge Radahn
So Starscourge Radahn was displayed rather prominently in the most epic part of the cinematic story trailer, where he fought against Malenia, as two of the most powerful demigods that fought in the Shattering. Radahn seemed like an archetypical brutish warrior. Gigantic, bulky frame, massive armour with prominent tusk-horns, and two gigantic swords to contrast against Malenia's speedy form. He's a picture-perfect tanky, burly barbarian type character... which is surprising when most of the descriptions that note Radahn's actual battle style talk about his ability to control gravity magic. Which he admittedly does show when he pulls his swords out of the ground telekinetically.
So powerful, in fact, was this gravity magic, that Radahn was able to stop the movement of celestial bodies and hold them in place in the skies. That was the crux of the reason why Ranni's faction needs us to take down Radahn. And... the Radahn that we see in the actual boss fight, as explained by the remnants of his forces, has been driven mad by the explosion of Scarlet Rot that originated from his fight with Malenia, driving him insane.
We also learn a rather sweet part of him that I think is easily missed but is crucial to understanding his character. Radahn learned gravity magic just so he could continue riding his horse. See his horse in that image? Yes, it's tiny. It's like if an adult man sat on his child's rocking horse. It is a bit hard to see in battle, but Radahn does have a constant purple gravity aura on his legs, which means that he can continue riding his teeny-tiny horse around the battlefield. I love my pets dearly, and I honestly can relate a bit to this. And, in fact, even though the mindless Radahn has been driven to killing apart all the soldiers sent against him and even cannibalize them, he's still just hanging out with his horse. His mind is gone, his nobility is gone, but his love for the horse isn't gone.
The fight against him? We're sent into this dunes with weapons stabbed all over the place, and... and if you're like me, you immediately die because Radahn's stupid sniper arrows slam onto you. In fact, that's the most irritating part about this fight. Radahn is located several dunes away from you, and he snipes you with these gravity-enhanced arrows that you need to dodge perfectly. And if you get a bit closer, he summons like a couple hundred spears raining down onto you.
There is one part of this fight that makes Radahn commonly cited as one of the best, if not the best, of the demigod fights. You can summon a bunch of NPC's through teleportation signs, and they will help you gang up on Radahn. There is a point of contention from my end, though. While Blaidd and Alexander are certainly NPC's I'm attached to, I don't know any of the others so it does ruin a bit of the Witcher III's Battle at Kaer Morhen vibe of having all our allies help us out.
Radahn primarily fights with his two giant fuck-off cleavers, and at one point he slams them into the ground and uses gravity magic to bulk them up with rocks. It's a bit less common, but he can also cause little singularities to pull you and your allies in and knock you away.
Hitting around 50% health has Radahn go into a second phase, because of course he does. What a way of doing so, though. Godrick and Rennala merely had cutscenes. Radahn? Radahn just disappears briefly, and then you look at the skies and he's rocketing down like a flaming motherfucking meteorite, like he's Human Torch or Superman or something. The resulting explosion will kill some of your summoned allies, and then he summons four gravity meteors around him.
I really did find this fight to be pretty cool, particularly his animations, his surprise meteor attack and the ability to summon allies. Not so much the bullshit first arrow phase, which killled me more times than I care to admit. If not for that, I would've liked the Radahn fight more. As it is, though, I really do like that in addition to having a badass design, Radahn's actual fight scene features a mix of different stuff -- gravity magic, ranged archery -- that really showcase that Radahn is as rounded out as your average Elden Ring protagonist. I appreciate that. Also love the cutscene shown to us when Radahn falls, where a gigantic meteor shower rains down upon the Lands Between, showing that all the talk about 'holding the stars' wasn't hyperbole.
Redmane Knight
After Radahn is defeated, his castle is filled again with some enemies... though the castle is relatively pretty small compared to Godrick, Rennala and even Ranni's castles. Most minions are the generic Soldiers of Radahn, as well as some returning minibosses like Pumpkin Head, Iron Virgins, Trolls, and two of the weird grafted lions. But these guys, I think, merit an entry. The Redmane Knights are a bit cooler with their armour and weirdly shaped shields, but they also wield these spears that are always on fire. Some of them even can cast gravity black hole arrows, just like their master. Not much to say, I just respect them for having flaming swords... which actually does have a lore justification -- it staves away Scarlet Rot.
Crucible Knight
Interestingly, outside of the 'festival' -- which can be before or after slaying Radahn -- his castle has a separate boss fight. A dual boss fight with a Misbegotten Leonine Warrior (who we've met before) and one of these guys, the Crucible Knight. He's yet another knight in armour, which... okay, the horned helmet looks kinda cool, but you can probably tell that at this point any humanoid enemy just gets a 'neat, moving on' from me. It's a dual boss fight, which is an interesting but not exactly groundbreaking change.
And then the Crucible Knight starts using its attacks, and he starts creating these gigantic angelic wings, and I'm like "okay! We're going somewhere!" ...and that somewhere isn't the holy-themed paladin that I expected the Crucible Knights to be. No, those are the trees in this setting, silly! No, the Crucible Knights are druids, because their other attacks involves them manifesting beast legs to leap across the battlefield, or summoning a giant tail to whack me in the head. I initially confused this with the draconic magic that I've seen as spells that I can use, but turns out that the Crucible Knights are more 'perfect' versions of humans that made contact with whatever this Primordial Crucible is -- it's whatever created the Misbegotten as animal chimera-people, explaining why the two of them hung out together.
This particular Crucible Knight isn't super difficult, especially not coming off of Starscourge Radahn, but apparently they were extremely popular due to being prominently featured in the demos and trailers leading up to the release of Elden Ring.
Elder Dragon Greyroll (and her Lesser Dragons)
So I guess let me just talk about all the other monsters I meet as I explore Caelid! So a huge part of the area of Caelid is just called "Dragonbarrow", and this big momma is the reason why. Where most of the dragons we've met so far -- Agheel, Smarag, Adula -- are the size of large dinosaurs to fighter jets, Elder Dragon Greyroll is the size of a small hill. You actually see just how utterly large she is and how much she just looks like one of the many gigantic lichen-mountains that dot Caelid itself. And when you approach her, and she notices you, Greyroll unleashes a gigantic roar and a half-dozen regular dragons with menacing red eyes unfurl from where they are hiding against the terrain and, likely traumatized by all the other dragons you've met so far, you run away. Or at least that's what I did.
I really do like the idea of a dragon so big that she's essentially the size of terrain itself. Done too much and it loses its meaning, but with how sparse dragons have been so far, having size as the big surprise is quite interesting. I also really like how the sheer size of Greyroll makes some of her anatomy -- like her many feathers on the tips of her wings and tail -- a bit more prominent.
And it certainly was an experience, the first time I fought Greyroll and was chased around by her children. Having an entire area named after you tends to lend into you being quite impressive.
Except... Greyroll's roar is far, far worse than her bite. Or rather, she doesn't even bite at all. You can stand in front of her, and she doesn't have a token bite attack or a firebreath attack or whatnot. No, she only relies on the five Lesser Dragons that patrol the area around her... except that these Lesser Dragons don't have the breath weapons that made Agheel and Smarag so difficult to deal with. At which point they become rather predictable to take down.
And while Greyroll herself has a HP pool that matches her ginormous size, her health is tied to these rather weak dragons, meaning that all you have to do is to take out her children to bring down the big dragon. Which... isn't easy, but I most certainly had more trouble with a lot of the other bosses and minibosses I've fought on this part and the previous one. It is a fun little puzzle boss, and the presentation of a giant mountain-dragon awakening and summoning all her children who were perching in the cliffs and crags around her is really, really great.
But, and I can't believe I'm saying this... I kinda wish she was harder!
Kindred of Rot / Pests
Oh, these guys are cool. They wander around some parts of Caelid, but I've just... never really fought them before? Most of my experience in Caelid has been running from one point to another. These guys They're these long, centipede-like beings that stand up on two particularly long, humanoid legs. It's like someone took a look at the term 'human centipede' and decided that the coolest-but-still-kinda-disturbing way to execute it was to make a long centipede, drape it over a humanoid frame, and then replace all the bug legs with human hands. It really is just a bit surreal that they only ever use those super-long humanoid legs to walk, while the arms that don't hold the spear just hang uselessly off his thorax and abdomen.
The overall design just looks so much creepier than just having bug parts. They all look super cool and creepy, with the exception of the strange dunce-cap-looking horns or hats that they have growing out of their head. With better screenshots I found online, I have now been made aware that those hats are actually giant snail shells. Now it kinda fits with their design a lot better. That's glorious.
Also, they can be hella annoying to fight. In addition to their spear, they attack by casting this spell that shoot like ten threads that have insane tracking and will curve around walls to hit you. Fucking homing missile threads! I love it. Their idle animation is also quite weird, with them posing in a vertical position that I'm not entirely sure is meant to be a gesture of prayer, or if it's referencing an actual biological thing that centipedes do.
These Kindred of Rot (sometimes also called 'Pests') worshipping the Goddess of Rot. Or, well, it seems that any goddess of rot can do for them, because my first encounter with them was at an abandoned church in Caelid, where a group of them are implied to be worshipping this girl Millicent simply because she's suffering from Scarlet Rot. Which is interesting. The first time I saw them, I just dismissed them as yet another mutation in Caelid, but it appears that these guys, being actually intelligent and actively worshipping something, might be the 'true' form of what the Scarlet Rot corruption wants to mutate things into. Apparently, they play a much bigger role in the DLC, which would be quite a while for us to get.
Flame Chariot
I'm pretty sure I've met these motherfuckers way earlier, but thanks to the 'reviews are only written if I defeated them' policy, I've never actually spoken about the Flame Chariots. They're these huge, bizarrely nightmare-faced siege engines with multiple fire cannons -- three on its mouth, and two on either temple. It's also got an impressive array of random sharp blades jutting out of the chin of the giant head, forming a 'beard'. It's so ridiculous, and it totters around on its two rickety wheels...
But then you realize that they're a bitch to take down. Great resistances, annoyingly powerful flame attacks, and the ability to turn around and rotate as fast as your character on horseback. There is a fun but ridiculous way to defeat it, though -- if you pay attention as this chaotic POS rotates around, you can realize that there's a crouching figure on the back of the Flame Chariot. This isn't a demonic sentient fire-breathing robot or whatever, someone's driving the damn thing. The driver dies very easily, but good luck timing up the perfect shot as the Flame Chariot spins around.
The best way to kill it? Sneak up and do a badass plunging attack on its head. There is a specific spot shaped like a fucking fuse, which is such a whimsical, Zelda-like detail on this thing. It's a Death Star weak spot shaped like a vent, but come on. It looks like a bomb fuse from afar. It one-shots the thing, but it also explodes. I love it.
Blackflame Monk
Found in the Divine Tower of Caelid are these guys, who are warrior-priests dressed up in white, wielding a big mean-looking greatsword, and have the ability to unleash the titular 'Black Flame of Death', which is something that is currently supposed to be quite enigmatic. They used to serve the gods, but have betrayed them and now the Blackflame Monks are essentially a part of a cult that really likes killing gods... or, well, lesser gods, I suppose, since it's our protagonist that's going around killing the Godricks and Radahns of the world. I think they look the coolest out of the 'sorcerer' type enemies, though admittedly the competition isn't that stellar with giant stone-statue-helmets being in the vogue for the spellcasters of the Lands Between.
Fallingstar Beast
So wonder why Radahn is challenging the stars? Beyond the typical stuff of 'fate' and whatnot? Turns out that aliens -- or at least star-related beings -- also exist in this setting. Some tombstones and murals around the town of Sellia note that (at least according to their interpretation) Radahn stopped the stars to protect Sellia. Investigate one of the dungeons that lead deep into a mine under Sellia, however, and you find this monstrous creature as the boss, called the 'Fallingstar Beast'. And yes, the implication is that this is a fantasy alien!
And it does look really weird. It's hard to pull off 'alien' in a game with so many weird shit already, and especially if you don't want them to look out of plcae in a fantasy setting. But the Fallingstar Beast is... best described as a weird earwig-bull mutant. It's got a very distinctive head of an earwig or a centipede, with massive claws... but then instead of a regular insect body, it tapers off into this huge, bulky body with four very pillar-like legs. Oh, and finally there is a tail. The texture reminds me of stone, and we have mentioned that beings like the Alabaster Lords (the stone-skinned elf guys) also come from meteors.
Utterly weird, and I still don't really feel particularly strongly about having weird alien bug-horses in Elden Ring, but I do have to commend the design team on making a creature that feels at 'home' in the Lands Between's design aesthetics but there's still an inherent wrongness about it.
Spirit-Caller Snail
Remember the crystal snake-snails from Liurnia? Turns out that one of them serves as the boss for one of the dungeons I've missed in my first runaround of the region. Road's End Catacombs was already a very annoying dungeon with so many random illusion doorways which you need to hit with your weapons to reveal the passage beyond.
In retrospect, I should've seen this boss coming. After being ambushed one too many times by imps and trying to figure out which wall can be poked, I finally reach the boss room, and it's a ghostly Crucible Knight. Okay, one of the scarier and more troublesome knight enemies, but not particularly scary for me. I fight it, kill it... and it comes back. What gives? I fight it, kill it again... and it resurrects. Ultimately I only have so many potions and I get wiped out.
Which beings me to this boss. Hiding in a faintly glowing corner of the room is an invisible snake-snail, and he's the one that constantly summons the Crucible Knight. In fact, the Knight itself is completely surplus to requirements, all I need is to get my own summoned knight to hold him down for a bit while I just whack the Spirit-Caller Snail. He teleports around a bit but still glows, and once I know the gimmick, it's laughably easy. But that was a cruel, cruel gimmick! That was a whole Zelda boss fight gimmick in a game where it's all about dodging and memorizing patterns... which actually, I think, makes this particular boss stand out so much among the many lesser enemies.
And, of course, the fact that this isn't like, a wraith or a sorcerer or something, but a fucking SNAIL with a snake body just really adds to the utter surrealness of this.