Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 14

So it's been a while, actually, between Elden Ring playthrough sessions for me. I took around two months' worth of break between when I did episode 13 and 14 of this monster review series -- it's just that because some of the reviews were pre-written that these reviews still manage to be relatively close to each other. 

But last we left off, I think I reached around what's approximately the one-thirds point of the game. Which really does speak to how long the game is! I unlocked the keys to the Grand Lift that lets me go up a gigantic mountain to reach the next batch of areas. There is gloomy Mount Gelmir, where the Volcano Manor and its insane cult is located... but the bulk of what I'm going to discuss here is the rest of Atlus Plateau. Atlus Plateau is where Leyndell, the Royal Capital, was located. It's where all of these gods and demigods and whatnot hung out and ruled over the Lands Between... at least before all this pesky Shattering war happened and everything got shot to shit. After Caelid, it is admittedly nice to be back in some bright-coloured plains, but Atlus Plateau does have a nice, different "this used to be the Seat of the Gods" vibe with all the architecture and the gigantic royal city being a visible part of the location. 

Right now, I'm spending most of my time just exploring the Atlus Plateau, unlocking waypoints and slowly grinding out runes. But I'm also doing quests for the Volcano Manor (some of the targets were retroactively added to the previous part since I really don't have much to say about 'just another Tarnished') and exploring deep into Nokron the Eternal City. Still not sure which parts of the game's interconnecting storylines I should tackle next, and I think that's my least favourite aspect of this game; that you really do need a guide about the many different NPCs' varying questlines because doing something before the others can lock you out of some quests without warning. Boo!

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Leyndell Soldier, Leyndell Knight & Perfumer

I've technically encountered some of these guys before. A Leyndell Knight was wandering around a location in... Liurnia, I think? It's the latest reskin of the various Soldiers and Knights, but with the golden colours associated with the royal family of gods. Regular Perfumers also show up, which is differentiated from the Depraved Perfumers in their armour and their lack of glowing demon eyes. These ones haven't overdosed from their drugs and gone mad! I don't have much to say about the soldiers, but the Knights are actually quite neat -- I like the little fan ornamentation they have on top of their helmets, and they can can some lightning skills. 

Flowering Guardian

The unofficial Wikis all categorize them under the banner of the same 'Guardians' we meet in Liurnia and the Weeping Peninsula, but the Guardians found in Atlus Plateau are all markedly different! The trees that grow out of their backs have flowers on them which shoot out poison-powder clouds, and they also cover their faces with golden masks. Most interestingly, however, is the fact that they pull off a 'mimic' and some of them are buried underground with only the flowers showing up, and then rise up like some kind of zombie once you get close by.

I thought that it's important enough to note here -- Atlus Plateau is much closer to where the world tree, the Erdtree is, and it makes sense that the cultists protecting all the Minor Erdtrees we've been seeing also become more powerful the closer they are to the main plant. Now, of course, the question is whether the Guardians are utilizing their flowers as an ambush tactic, or if they're actually turning into plants, and being either fanatics or simply brainwashed, they're 'planting' themselves in preparation of abandoning their humanity and being a plant full-time? 

Celebrant

Oh, these giggling fuckers! I normally don't have much to say about humanoid enemies, but these guys are special. In the ruinous monster-filled Atlus Valley, where Omens roam and dragons fly overhead, there is a single settlement that isn't filled with nasty zombies or hostile soldiers -- Dominula, the Windmill Village. The farming buildings are ramshackle, yes, but the windmills still function and the entire place is blanketed with pink flowers... and many, many giggling, dancing women who are initially non-hostile. It's like they're celebrating harvest season or something!

You can actually walk through most of the town, no problem, and in a refreshing break for this game, none of the Celebrants will attack you unless you attack them first. And sure, their giggling is unbelievably creepy. But laughing creepily is hardly a sin worthy of instant death, surely? That is, until you peek around and find piles of corpses in stables and behind buildings. A ghost, whose last moments had him be terrified of the capricious music and begging not to be skinned. And if you go to the edges of the village, some of the Celebrants are eating them. And at this point, they're hostile. Their eyes glow, you realize their faces and arms are actually caked red with blood, and they pull out clubs and sickles made out of human bone. One of them has a rake made up of a ribcage, which is creative! The game actually splits them up into various sub-types: Gardener, Harvester, Butcher, Thresher and Grenadier, but it's just the difference in the weapons they carry and this isn't exactly a weapons-review post. 

Other than the scary horror-movie-witch noises they make, they aren't any tougher than the soldiers in the area. Hell, even 'killing some people' is peanuts compared to the amount of gore we've seen in Caelid. But the horror movie vibe they bring into the mix with the execution of the area and the sinister giggling really does make them stand out very well. 

Godskin Apostle

Get to the clifftop of the Windmill Village, and epic boss music plays. This guy is a 'Godskin Apostle', which is a name I didn't think of much. He's a tall, creepy hooded guy with a sickle; and context clues tell us that he's the one that's corrupting and instructing the insane women of Dominula. He shoots blasts of black-and-white fire. Intimidating enough, sure, but for something with a grand name like Godskin Apostle, and especially with that boss music, he doesn't feel all that, design-wise. 

That is, until you reduce his health below the halfway point, and the Godskin Apostle begins to chant and create a shockwave. Sure, his black flame attacks are stronger, but he also has the rather unexpected ability to stretch his body in unnatural ways. During the chaos of the fight the sudden increase in aggressiveness is pretty terrifying, but in practice it's him extending and stretching his abdomen like Plastic Man or Monkey D. Luffy. Which... is kind of more surreal than the traditional kind of terrifying. 

It's not until afterwards when I realize that it's not quite "god's kin", but "god skin". It's not obvious at all when I'm busy dodging this lunatic's attacks, but item descriptions makes it clear that the Godskin Apostle's robe is actually made of flayed skin. Flayed god skin, which was the source of his weird stretchy powers. Although I guess some of them probably came from Dominula's victims as well? Zooming in to the character model also makes it a bit more obvious that the 'hoodie' part was someone's face. It's a surprisingly... tasteful take of something that would normally be schlocky and gory? As tasteful as wearing the flayed skin of serial-killer victims can be, anyway.

Giant Skeletal Slime

Found in one of the ruins filled with multiple Skeletal Slimes is this big thing! The Giant Skeletal Slime is a gigantic building-sized amoebic blob that just... blobs in place. It's just a mount of bones and viscera and flesh, and it's notably a lot bloodier than its smaller minions. It attacks by sprouting gigantic spikes of bone-tentacles... but it doesn't actually move around from where it's rooted. It's more of a sentient pile of mushed-up corpses instead of a 'slime', isn't it? 

Giant Skeleton Spirit

Meeting a Tibia Mariner isn't something particularly new -- these recurring surf-wave-summoning,  canoe-enthusiastic trumpeters have been showing up every now and then as a recurring enemy for one of the many collection quests in the game. But the one in Atlus Plateau isn't content on just summoning random skeletons. Instead, with his trumpet, he summons a gigantic ghost skeleton that rises from the ground... and shoots a gigantic Dragon Ball Z beam from one of his eyes. This giant skeleton will then periodically phase in and out of the ground to try and beat you with eye-beam lasers or just plain ol' fisticuffs while you go on a mad dash to kill the toot-tooting summoner. 

The look reminds me of the classic yokai Gasha-dokuro, which is very likely intentional. The Giant Skeleton Spirit does really make the Tibia Mariner variant a lot more threatening without the Mariner itself just getting more damage and/or HP, which I thought was pretty a neat way to buff a summoner-type enemy in a significant manner.

Elemer of the Briar

Elemer of the Briar is the boss of the 'Shaded Castle', which is located in the Atlus Plateau. It's overgrown and and taken over by revenants, slugs and zombies. The Shaded Castle stands out by being so differently coloured from the rest of Mt. Gelmir and Atlus Plateau around it; and Elemer is the first non-demigod-related character whose armour set shows up in one of the vendors in our base, the Roundtable Hold. Item descriptions explain Elemer's story to us -- he was once a criminal that was sentenced to be executed by the House Marais... but he took his own executioner blade and executed his executors. In his boss fight, he's able to telekinetically manipulate his giant sword. He's also got a whole armour set surrounded by thorns, which implies... something, I'm sure, though I don't think he's aligned with any of the factions who styles themselves with vines or brambles.

It takes a bit of digging to realize, but Elemer is a recurring boss fight that I've met various times throughout the Lands Between -- as the 'Bell-Bearing Hunter', showing up where merchants hang out at night to presumably hunt the bell bearings that they carry. It's a recurring theme in FromSoftware's other games of a 'stalker' enemy that you eventually corner and defeat. There's no real explanation to why he does this, although the context clues of Cleanrot Knights surrounding Elemer's castle, and many unique-looking relics that worship Malenia, Goddess of Rot, imply that he's a fanatic that worships her. Not sure why this translates to him going around killing merchants, though. I like finding things out for myself with in-game sources, but with Elemer I find him kind of unsatisfactory.

Maleigh Marais

The Shaded Castle used to belong to House Marais, and when Elemer took over the castle he kicked out the former noble house of Marais. At least one guy survives in the fields outside of the castle's slug-infested poison moat, Maleigh Marais, Shaded Castle Castellan. Maleigh was born sickly (and apparently all the men of House Marais are born sickly), and he's worshipped the goddess of rot... or at least her current incarnation. 

Witch Hunter Jerren

As I progress through some of the side-quests and complete them, one of the questlines has me side with one of two characters -- the Grave Witch Sellen, or the Witch Hunter Jerren. I picked Sellen and had to fight Jerren as a boss... and I think by this point you know I don't have much to say about what are functionally reskinned player characters. Jerren is interesting because he dresses like a weird mix of hermit Jedi and a harlequin... which doesn't really match either of his professions: a witch hunter or an attendant for the Radahn Festival. 

Anyway, without going too much into recapping the long story, the end of this questline shows just how the Schools of Graven Mages -- the giant heads of sorcerer stone-mask-heads -- are formed. Part of the questline shows that certain sorcerers that delve too deep into the 'primeval current' would have their heads and upper bodies replaced by crystals. Sellen herself also gets transformed (off-screen) into a giant head-ball after getting carte blanche to do whatever experimentation she wants. It's kind of an interesting twist on the Lovecraftian "forbidden knowledge breaks your mind" trope, which fits with a lot of the themes of the Raya Lucarian Academy. 

Miscellaneous Enemies:

I guess I'll juts have to stuff some things in an 'others' category, because... sometimes I just don't have anything to say about them but I'd want to at least acknowledge them. I've had some trouble with just trying my best to talk about all the enemies I meet, but some of them really don't have anything to them, or are just reskins with an extra name. 

I would also like to note that Margit, the Fell Omen, randomly shows up disguised as a generic Wandering Noble within the corpse-filled courtyards in Leyndell. It's a lot easier to beat him now, for the simple matter that there's so much more space to navigate on a horse! Who else did I face? I faced another Sanguine Noble. Some named variants of bosses I've met before, like Magma Wyrm Makar two different Demi-Humans -- Demi-Human Queen Gilika and, hilariously, Maggie. Some of the other Evergaols had an Onyx Lord (basically the same thing as the Alabaster Lords we've seen before), and what I think is a reskinned Fire Priest called Adan, Thief of Flame. 

And with that, let's go to the final two enemies in this episode!

'Worm' Slug

We've seen Magma Slugs before, but Atlus Plateau's central basin is home to regular giant slugs. Pretty nasty-looking slugs, too, with their body looking like it's made up of clumps of tumorous growths. Either growths, or they're pancaked in feces or sludge or something. They're not particularly dangerous in combat, more of an annoyance as they vomit out slime that either deal status effects or just slow you down. Some of them hang off walls, and they tend to hang around and feed on corpses. Very sluggy behaviour!

However, there are two different variations of Slugs, which are entirely cosmetic. Can you see the difference? No? Look at the eyestalks. The first picture has regular, anatomically-accurate eyestalks that extend out and end in little bulbs. These are found in most areas, like the Shaded Castle; and this model is the one that got reskinned a bit to form the Fire Slugs we met in Liurnia. The second picture also has eyestalks... or are they? On closer inspection, they eyestalks are rigid, a bit more engorged, and has the consistency of... can it be? Earthworms, yes. Worms!

I don't think I've ever spoken about this, but one of my favourite parasites in real life is the snail-parasitic flatworm of the genus Leucochloridium. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to this thing at a young age from a big bug picture book, and it has fascinated me forevermore.

Their eggs are consumed by snails, and after getting into the snail's system, the flatworm migrates into the snail's eyestalks and causes it to become engorged and pulsate in colourful green and black patterns. This picture from Wikipedia show a snail with a single Leucochloridium-infested eyestalk, and another one that's regular. Why the engorgement? This is to make the snails' eyestalks look like caterpillars, which in turn would attract birds that would swoop down and pluck off the eyestalks (and sometimes the snail). Being eaten by the birds is what the Leucocholoridium wants to, since they can ensure that their next generation would be spread elsewhere when the bird takes a poop. 

After that brief biology lesson... Elden Ring's worm-snails have their eyestalks resemble more common earthworms instead of the vibrant colours of this real-world snail parasite. And I think people would've just brushed it off as artistic license or coincidence, if not for the fact that the worm-eyed slugs are found near these guys: 

Wormface

Ooooh yeah. The Wormfaces! Infamous among the Elden Ring community for being one of the very few enemies with no descriptions whatsoever about what they are. Many of the other enemies in the game are mysterious, but some obscure NPC or some rare-drop item would shed some light about what their natures are. Wormfaces have nothing. Most of the 'lore' people talk about are based on datamined file names and inferences, and while it's fascinating I'm not about to really talk about those. And it's not like they're a rare enemy either, because a bunch of them are clustered around the center part of Atlus Plateau, with a particularly large Wormface acting as a replacement for the requisite Erdtree Avatar boss fight. 

But what are the Wormfaces? They're these giant, gangly humanoids with distorted proportions. Super-long arms, and a torso that tapers off into something large near the head. And instead of a human head, the neck trails off into a hunchbacked, trumpet-like appendage that terminates in a giant howling mouth surrounded by a lot of gigantic writhing earthworms arranged like long hair or a creepy tentacle-beard. 

Just like the Celebrants, the context of where we find them is extra creepy. These giant, gaunt figures are experts at keeping still in the foggy forest that they live in, huddling around themselves or listlessly looking at overturned carriages or hanging around their slug friends... before they see you and suddenly rush in a burst of speed to vomit out wormy goop at you. The Wormfaces' vomit have the chance to cause the Death Blight status -- if the status is completely filled, you instantly die... by having a tree branch impale you from the back, and then branches of wood and maggots erupt from your body. Again, another thing that plays to the themes of trees and life and death in this world... only with extra worms thrown in. 

Some of the Wormfaces are completely naked, while some have giant cloaks draped around their bodies. The area they're located around is, as mentioned before, around an Erdtree, where they seem to have replaced the regular 'Erdtree Avatar' enemies there. Did they kill the Avatar and take its place; as representatives of deathblight and rot, ready to corrupt the Erdtree? Or were they transformed from the Erdtree Avatars and Guardians due to some corruption? Muddying things is that there's a ruined settlement called the "Woodfolk Ruins" nearby, and we don't know if the Wormfaces killed the Woodfolk and moved in; if the Woodfolk were transformed by some malevolent force into the Wormfaces... or if the Wormfaces are just the Woodfolks in the first place. 

Closer examination show that the worms seem to burrow into cavities around this central mouth-ring, and even closer examination show that these guys have human ears in their very inhuman heads. Even after the DLC, there is still no canon explanation to the presence of the Wormfaces, but the presence of the worm-eyed slugs nearby does make me wonder if these are just the result of a particular type of parasitic worm that mutates its hosts in ways more exaggerated than just a mere eyestalk?

Regardless, very creepy, very cool, and a nice little example of how keeping something unexplained can really ramp up the creep factor of a monster.