So I took a bit of a break from exploring the rest of Stormveil Castle, for no real reason other than the fact that I was kind of bored of the same old enemies and basically more or less the same type of environment over and over again. The Grafted Scion room was cool, but it's otherwise just kind of... just not the most interesting location. I need more runes to buy my sorceries and level up anyway, so I wandered around the Lands Between more. I tried to explore a bit out of Limgrave this time around, clearing out a bunch of shorter dungeons and also venturing south to the Weeping Peninsula (which I guess is kinda still part of Limgrave).
I also dipped my toes into Caelid, the scary red lands to the eastern side of Limgrave, which is notorious for being a kinda-late game area located in a very accessible location to you. I didn't really do much there, just fought against a bunch of the area-starter enemies which yielded a bit more runes for my time.
I also stumbled into the long, long magical elevator that led me down into the underground depths area called the Siofra River, which I guess is meant to be a reference to the four underworld rivers of Greek mythology? That one also had enemies that are perhaps a bit too tough for me.
Anyway, it's going to be a bit before I actually challenge Godrick the Grafted, or actually move on to the next big area. Hope this haphazard monster review is at least somewhat entertaining!
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Skeletons
It is quite interesting that I played so long and never actually encountered the Skeletons even though they're quite a few areas infested with them in Limgrave. there are, as this small selection can show you, quite a fair bit of variety. Some are naked, some wear haggard armour or pieces of clothing corresponding to living enemy types, and they've got a bunch of different weapons. Also called as "Those Who Live In Death" by the game descriptions as well as one of our allies D, I guess I was a bit mistaken on how death works in the Lands Between? Other than how it works for our Tarnished, I guess people simply can't die of old age or whatever, and only by being physically killed? It's not quite terribly clear, and it's also not terribly clear how these guys fit into all of it. Are these like 'traditional' undead that are the results of some dark magic, or are these undead the 'final form' of people who can't die?
In any case, while skeletons tend to usually be the weakest enemies ever in a video game, these guys are a fair bit more difficult to fight than a regular human in that they don't stay down. And it's not a "they get one extra life" deal either. These skeletons will actually infinitely resurrect, reconstructing themselves after you shatter them into a pile of bones, and the only way to stop it is to attack and destroy them while in the process of reforming. In the chaos of a dozen of them fighting you, expect at least one or two that get missed in your skeleton-shattering.
I thought this was pretty great. One of the now kinda-forgotten bits of how the undead are supposed to be terrifying is that you can't keep them down. That whatever dark force animates them can animate them over and over and over again. But thanks to game mechanics, so much of that has been kind of put aside in favour of the skeletons and zombies being the weakest undead enemies. These guys at the end of the day aren't the biggest threat in the Lands Between, but I still find this pretty cool.
They also actually pretend to be corpses in the scenery, with some hiding underground or hanging off of the side of bridges until you pass them and they drop on you and attack you. Bastards!
Bloody Finger Nejirus
This guy's a glowing-red assassin fellow with two very cool daggers. The 'Bloody Fingers' are an organization briefly mentioned in the prologue that managed to kill the Demigod Godfrey, who's one of the few unambiguously good demigods out there.
Nejirus here is treated as an 'invader', which is meant to represent (and probably introduce) the players to the PVP side of this game, where you and your friends can enter each other's worlds to either cooperate against a boss, or to 'invade' and fight each other. It's neat that the game itself tries to sort of mimic this experience with NPC foes?
Highwayman
Apparently, we've got highwaymen in this game too, though I'm not sure who they're robbing. The Godrick Soldiers? The Wandering Nobles? I guess there are still some lucid people, like the friendly NPCs we meet in our journeys, so these Highwaymen probably prey on them. They're found in the Murkwater Cave, and their leader (who becomes a friendly NPC) gives some backstory about them -- they used to be footsoldiers that are tossed aside by Godrick and eventually turned to banditry. They also are noted to not be able to speak much, but are able to understand enough orders to pillage stuff.
Patches the Untethered
I'm much more interested to talk about their leader, Patches, who is introduced in a rather unique way -- the traditional boss room is empty sans a bunch of camping equipment and a chest. And as you open the chest (which contains some ragged clothes), Patches comes in sauntering with his spear and shield and gets royally pissed off that you're stealing through his belongings. "The gods demand vengeance. Vengeance!" And he fights you with poison gas as well. And... halfway through his health bar, Patches actually surrenders.
And you'd think that this is just a cowardly tactic for him to backstab you later on, but he actually just surrenders and becomes a relatively friendly NPC. He's got a great, obvious greasy swindler vibe to him, and it's clear that he's just saying whatever is convenient for him to survive, but he's also doing so in such a likable fashion that you can't help but like him, you know?
Of course, he gets his revenge later on, because he leaves behind a chest with totally valuable stuff that you should totally not look into. And I guess it actually is honestly well-deserved karma. I mean, Patches is still a dick about it, but I did root through his stuff after he specifically warned me not to. Said booby-trapped chest sends me all the way into the Runebear forest, which I honestly find hilarious more than anything.
Patches himself is a recurring character through most of FromSoftware's works, usually acting as this kind of 'lovable asshole' archetype. I didn't know this before playing the game, but the amount of interactions they gave to Patches here really does set him apart from the other gloomy, dreary, world-weary NPC's in the land!
Misbegotten
I found these guys having taken over a castle in the Weeping Peninsula, having apparently been enslaved by the humans there and ultimately doing a rebellion and taking over the fortress. Again, we don't really get any real context of where these Misbegotten came from, other than that they were once enslaved, and have broken free of their chains and slaughtered their captors. In all honesty, I actually felt a bit bad slaughtering them just to loot some reward.
Are they mutated humans? Just another species like the Demi-Humans? The result of some magical experiment? Actually, they might be Godrick's creation, and that was what I thought initially. Hell, these are the types of enemies I would've expected to see in Godrick's actual base, instead of just knights and birds. But the Wikis tell me that the Misbegotten are 'cursed humans', and actually as I explore Castle Morne (which is itself quite sizable) you see the remnants of Godrick's soldiers fighting the Misbegotten. So the Godrick soldiers have been enslaving these guys, and they've finally thrown off their shackles.
...or have they? It does seem that, just like the Demi-Humans, the Misbegotten are actually quite intelligent, they're just not interested in talking to us. There are huge swathes where the Misbegotten seem to be clutching their heads in... regret? The implication is that not all the Misbegotten hated their human masters, and are horrified at the brutal carnage that went on in Morne. Some Misbegotten are also clearly vengeful enough to know to travel halfway across the Weeping Peninsula to hunt down and murder one of the survivors.
Visually, the Misbegotten are an interesting bunch? They look like kind of chimeras of sorts, but humanoid instead of the traditional quadrupedal lion-goat-snake form. They've got deformed-ape faces, raggedy hair, reverse-jointed reptile legs, snake tails, long monster arms and wings. They're honestly pretty wretched-looking, and I like their model a fair bit more than the Demi-Humans and that one lone Beastman.
Over the course of Castle Morne, we've got two variants of the Misbegotten that're a bit more powerful -- the Winged Misbegotten have far more prominent wings and can actually fly, flapping around like they're Hawkman or something. They shoot arrows that take the form of comically large feathers. Comically large feathers that pierce you, though, and are no less dangerous than the crossbow bolts fired elsewhere.
The axe-wielding guys are called the Scaly Misbegotten, with much longer reptilian tails and I think no wings at all? In lieu of wings, they've got spiky bone protrusions from their back. The Scalies are a bit more tougher than their regular Misbegotten kin, taking around double the amount of punishment before going down.
Interestingly, our buddy Hewg the Blacksmith, turns out to also be using the Misbegotten model, at least from the neck down. I've always assumed he's just a regular person who's a bit deformed, but he also has all the same bent legs and tail as a Misbegotten. He's also very chatty and clearly sentient, confirming that, yes, these enslaved Misbegotten are a sentient race that has either been driven to mindless bestial behaviour by their mistreatment or their rage.
Leonine Misbegotten
The boss of Castle Morne is a single, powerful Misbegotten identified as the "Leonine" Misbegotten, intelligent enough to steal the treasured sword of Castle Morne... which is not the claymore it's holding. It's one of the more ridiculous-looking (in a good way!) weapons in the game, and most likely a nod to George R. R. Martin's more famous work... but we're not here to talk about weapons. We're here to talk about the Leonine Misbegotten. He's... he's sure a bit more 'leonine' all right, with that wild mane of red hair. He's larger and faster than all the other Misbegotten, and dodges pretty quickly!
There's not much else to really say about him that I haven't said with the other Misbegotten, but he's pretty cool and powerful as far as these bosses go.
Spirit Jellyfish
Finally I get to talk about these guys! Jellyfishes are cool, right? I got a 'Spirit Jellyfish Ashes', which allows me to summon one to fight alongside me, pretty early in the game, but I wasn't going to put them into this review list until I fought them as enemies! And apparently these ghostly, ethereal giant jellyfishes just hang around on the coastal areas of Castle Morne, just bobbing around. Behaviourally, they're rather simple. They're very peaceful and docile, until you attack them. At which point they glow red and shoot poison globs at you. Simple enough, about what you'd expect from a giant floating jellyfish enemy. The ones in Castle Morne have longer outer tentacles.
What's interesting, however, is the description of our Spirit Jellyfish Ashes. "A floating spirit that illuminates its surroundings. Prone to tears, the jellyfish girl searches for her distant home... It seems her name is Aurelia."
So yeah, the Spirit Jellyfish is actually a spirit girl that's searching for her home. She's even got a name and everything! There are a lot of regular ghosts that retain their humanoid appearances that we meet all over the Lands Between, but apparently some of them actually turn into ghost jellyfishes upon their death? How does that work? There are some theories out there that think Spirit Jellyfishes are meant to represent the spirits of children specifically, which... maybe? It's creepy, and raises the question why some people turn into ghostly avatars of their living selves, while some turn into jellyfishes. Okay?
Aurelia (named after a genus of moon jellyfishes in real life), by the way, is easily the best summon for fighting early-game bosses. She tanks reasonably well, and her poison status is pretty useful against a single powerful enemy. She helped me kill Margit, she helped me kill that demon cat statue, she helped me kill the Leonine Misbegotten, she helped me kill the boss I'm going to talk about at the end of this review. She's pretty cool!
Rotten Stray
So I went to Caelid a bit to sneak around and steal some of the higher-end items while avoiding all of the big, scary demon crows that patrol the area. But the weaker enemies? The weaker enemies I can handle. These Rotten Strays are the 'upgraded' versions of the Strays we find in Limgrave. I'm probably not going to talk about all of the upgraded variants unless there's something particularly interesting about them...
And the Rotten Stray here is almost the same thing as the Stray. Same mangy model, but with extra health and damage, and the addition of some bonus debilitating effect onto its bites (the 'Scarlet Rot' effect, which I'll probably get deeper into when I explore Caelid proper) but what's particularly cool about them is that we can see the real reason why they're so wretched -- those red pocks on their body? Those aren't like, rotting flesh or whatever. Those are mushrooms. The same mushrooms that cover a lot of Caelid's terrain, and the cause (or maybe the symptom) of the Scarlet Rot. Very cool. I like this additional bit of design a lot!
Putrid Corpse / Toxic Putrid Corpse / Rotten Putrid Corpse
Speaking of enemy variants, let's go into three at once. These guys are basically more or less the same thing, and they're adapting zombies. And unlike the Skeletons, there's... there's really nothing particularly noteworthy about them other than how, as always, cool the viscera and the creepiness of the rotting, shambling corpse with exposed bones and flesh are.
The regular Putrid Corpse is just a zombie, and the Toxic Putrid Corpse is found around a poisonous lake in the Weeping Peninsula, that can eject poison attacks from its open ribcage. And the one on the left is the Rotten Putrid Corpse -- hordes of them wander Caelid aimlessly, and their body seem to still retain some kind of musculature that's tinged red with... blood? Or rot?
They sure are zombies!
Tree Guardian
This is an interesting one. These guys are humans, at least on the surface. They wield these cool giant golden spears, and... they've got a whole-ass tree trunk sprouting out of their back. They sometimes breathe poisonous spores. As I mentioned in previous articles, the game has a huge botanical leaning to it, and these Guardians appear to have been taken over by the trees. A tree god? Parasitic seedlings? Trees animating corpses in the ground?
It turns out that it's none of these things, and that the Guardians are actually willingly being transformed into these warriors, entering into a pact with the Erdtree -- the giant golden tree that I now realize is basically taking over the role of a sun in this world. There are a bunch of 'Minor' Erdtrees all over the Lands Between, and these Guardians, well, guard it. Apparently, whatever pact they made transformed them and causes them to grow into these beings after death. I mean, well, if they consented to it, sure!
Erdtree Avatar
Ooooh, this big tree thing! This big angry tree thing! This is a boss that hangs out in one of those aforementioned Minor Erdtrees, just a clump of gnarly wood that... that moves and starts jumping around and swinging that giant piece of... what is that thing, even? A hammer? Just a chunk of ruins that the Erdtree Avatar picked up? It's just this massive tree-thing, but it also looks so alien. Tolkien's Ents have inspired a great number of different tree-humanoids across different media, perhaps most famously the 'Treants' from Dungeons & Dragons and other material that copied them, but look at this Erdtree Avatar! The first time I saw it, I can only call it as being 'vaguely humanoid'. The only real 'human' part are the spindly arms holding the weapon, whereas the rest doesn't really give an impression of a human at all. It almost looks like it's got a giant skirt, but it's just a mass of brambles. And it defintiely has no face, just an exploding yawning hollow... trunk? The lack of a traditional 'face' does really make this thing look a fair bit less 'human'.
The concept art shows a bit more clearly what they're going for, which isn't really clear when I'm trying to void its jumping around and crazy swings. It's meant to be an upside-down tree, as seen by the 'skirt' and 'arms' ending in leaves. You can kind of see it, right? That blown-up non-head is like, some kind of a ripped-up root system?
Interestingly, in addition to the quintessential giant Dark Souls boss fight ability of being deathly fast and jumping around, the Erdtree Avatar is able to cast a whole magic rune spell that launches a literal machinegun of holy light. As mentioned with the Miranda Flowers, the Erdtree is the source of this setting's holy magic, and it makes perfect sense that a sprout of the pretty gigantic Minor Erdtree would have access to it as well.
Very impressive-looking boss, honestly. I like this one. These Erdtree Avatars drop rather specific items that enhance a specific mechanic called the Flask of Wondrous Physick, which allows you to create a potion with differing effects based on what you mix into it.
Anyway, next time, we return to our regularly scheduled Stormveil Castle assault!
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