Thème « controlled male chastity » abordé dans cette vidéo disponible sur YouTube

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La vidéo dure 02:09:22 secondes, porte le titre Demon’s Souls (Truly) and Completely Explained. et provient de [vid_author_name]. La description qui suit mérite également votre attention :« Thank you for watching!
If you have any questions regarding Demon’s Souls’ lore, please feel free to share them in the comment section. I will be reading and answering them.

*If the (manual) subtitles aren’t working for you yet, it’s likely because YouTube is still processing them. Sorry for the inconvenience.

00:00 – 03:08 Mird
03:09 – 07:53 The First Scourge
07:54 – 13:01 The Nexus, Boletaria’s Founding
13:02 – 15:33 Soul Arts & Demons
15:34 – 23:07 Church of God, the Giants
23:08 – 25:10 Vanguard
25:11 – 27:35 Phalanx
27:36 – 29:49 Tower Knight
29:50 – 32:13 Penetrator
32:14 – 33:53 Fat Officials
33:54 – 37:34 Old King Doran
37:35 – 38:07 Dragons
38:08 – 39:46 Armor Spider
39:47 – 43:26 Flamelurker
43:27 – 45:46 Dragon God
45:47 – 51:56 Fool’s Idol
51:57 – 53:56 Maneaters
53:57 – 1:04:20 Old Monk
1:04:21 – 1:08:04 Adjudicator
1:08:05 – 1:09:57 Old Hero
1:09:58 – 1:12:46 Storm King
1:12:47 – 1:13:39 Leechmonger
1:13:40 – 1:14:19 Dirty Colossus
1:14:20 – 1:20:13 Maiden Astraea
1:20:14 – 1:30:06 King Allant
1:30:07 – 1:32:36 Maiden In Black
1:32:37 – 1:38:25 Old One
1:38:26 – 1:40:25 Archstones & Eye Stones
1:40:26 – 1:40:46 Overlapping Squares
1:40:47 – 1:41:55 Orestones
1:41:56 – 1:43:20 Moon Grasses & Lotuses
1:43:21 – 1:44:00 Sticky White Stuff
1:44:01 – 1:45:54 World Tendency & Primeval Demons
1:45:55 – 1:46:27 Executioner Miralda
1:46:28 – 1:48:32 Sage Freke
1:48:33 – 1:49:20 Lord Rydell
1:49:21 – 1:51:20 Saint Urbain
1:51:21 – 1:51:31 Patches the Hyena
1:51:32 – 1:54:25 Yuria
1:54:26 – 1:55:07 Mephistopheles
1:55:08 – 1:55:58 Yurt, the Silent Chief
1:55:59 – 1:57:18 Twin Fangs Biorr & Vallarfax
1:57:19 – 1:58:17 Scirvir, the Wanderer
1:58:18 – 1:59:47 Satsuki
1:59:48 – 2:00:33 Filthy Woman
2:00:34 – 2:01:33 Ed & Boldwin
2:01:53 – 2:05:04 The Last Monumental
2:05:05 – 2:09:21 Prince Ariona Allant (Ostrava of Boletaria) ».

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Saisir le concept de chasteté dans le cadre contemporain. Définir et comprendre la chasteté dans un cadre contemporain.

Au fond, la chasteté est la capacité à gérer ses pulsions sexuelles. Ce n’est pas seulement l’abstinence, mais un contrôle délibéré des désirs sexuels dans un contexte moral ou spirituel. Dans le contexte actuel, la chasteté ne se réduit pas à supprimer les désirs, mais à les diriger vers des buts supérieurs comme le respect de soi et des valeurs spirituelles. Pour l’homme d’aujourd’hui, la chasteté ne signifie pas abandonner le plaisir, mais choisir de vivre sa sexualité de manière réfléchie.

Les avantages de la chasteté se manifestent dans le bien-être personnel et moral. Étudier comment la chasteté influence le bien-être personnel et moral.

Un engagement conscient dans la chasteté a des répercussions importantes sur le bien-être personnel. En pratiquant la chasteté, on développe une meilleure maîtrise de soi, une clarté mentale accrue, et une paix intérieure résultant du respect des convictions personnelles. Pratiquer la chasteté mène à une relation plus harmonieuse entre le corps et les désirs. En développant la maîtrise de soi, la chasteté permet une plus grande liberté en éloignant les pulsions et les pressions sociales sur la sexualité. En cultivant la chasteté, on développe un sens de pureté morale qui renforce la dignité et l’estime de soi. Les effets de la chasteté sur la santé mentale sont notables. La chasteté offre aux individus une plus grande confiance en eux et une meilleure préparation pour surmonter les défis.

La chasteté et la spiritualité sont intimement liées dans de nombreuses traditions.

Dans de nombreuses religions, la chasteté est liée à la dimension spirituelle. La chasteté est vue comme une voie de sanctification dans plusieurs croyances. La discipline des désirs sexuels aide à dédier plus d’énergie à son bien-être intérieur. Ainsi, la chasteté est interprétée comme une offrande de soi et un acte de vénération de Dieu. Dans ce contexte, la chasteté est vue comme un choix pour élever l’âme plutôt qu’une simple privation. Chaque tradition religieuse a sa propre approche de la chasteté. La vertu de chasteté est primordiale pour les prêtres dans le christianisme catholique. L’islam valorise la chasteté en imposant des règles strictes pour la sexualité. Dans l’hindouisme et le bouddhisme, la chasteté est souvent pratiquée par les ascètes pour atteindre l’illumination. À travers les religions, la chasteté forge une quête commune parmi les croyants.

Questions Fréquemment Posées (FAQ) sur la Chasteté.

La chasteté est-elle réservée uniquement aux personnes religieuses ? Non, la chasteté est une vertu qui peut être pratiquée par tout le monde, pas seulement les religieux. Quelle est la dissemblance entre chasteté et abstinence ? L’abstinence signifie se priver de relations sexuelles. La chasteté implique souvent le port d’un accessoire tel qu’une ceinture ou une cage, et suit une démarche orientée vers le progrès et la réussite, semblable à celle d’un athlète. Comment la chasteté se manifeste-t-elle dans le mariage ? La chasteté dans le mariage est souvent une démarche commune ; si l’un des partenaires adopte une pratique de chasteté, cela est généralement abordé avec le conjoint. Pourquoi la chasteté est-elle si cruciale pour l’Église ? La chasteté est jugée par l’Église comme une vertu primordiale pour vivre selon les principes de la foi chrétienne. Comment la chasteté peut-elle contribuer à l’épanouissement personnel ? En pratiquant la chasteté, on développe une meilleure maîtrise de soi, une clarté mentale et une paix intérieure, ce qui favorise l’épanouissement personnel.

Étudier les bases historiques et culturelles de la chasteté.

Les racines de la chasteté plongent profondément dans diverses traditions religieuses et culturelles. Dans le cadre du christianisme, la chasteté est fréquemment associée au vœu de continence des prêtres et religieux. Les traditions islamiques et les Églises catholique et orthodoxe valorisent la chasteté comme une vertu fondamentale, non seulement pour les religieux mais aussi pour les laïcs, notamment avant le mariage. Dans les temps antiques, la chasteté était vue comme un moyen de maintenir l’intégrité personnelle et la pureté morale. La chasteté, donc, transcende les âges et les cultures, restant une vertu vénérée et respectée.

Incorporer la chasteté dans son quotidien.

Pour ceux qui veulent vivre la chasteté, il existe plusieurs approches possibles. Comprendre ses valeurs et motivations passe par une introspection initiale. Éviter les situations susceptibles de provoquer des désirs incontrôlés, comme les médias sexuels, peut aider. Chercher un groupe de soutien ou un mentor avec des convictions communes peut aider à suivre le bon chemin. La chasteté peut être un défi dans une société où la sexualité est omniprésente. Les tentations et la pression sociale sont des défis importants dans la pratique de la chasteté. Maintenir une discipline personnelle rigoureuse est crucial pour surmonter ces obstacles. Ne pas se décourager après une chute et recommencer avec une volonté fraîche est crucial. La chasteté n’est pas une fin en soi mais un parcours nécessitant patience et persévérance. La chasteté, intégrée dans la vie quotidienne, peut apporter une liberté accrue, une maîtrise de soi meilleure, et une réalisation spirituelle profonde. Bien qu’elle puisse sembler restrictive dans un monde où la sexualité est souvent plus valorisée que la spiritualité, la chasteté offre une voie vers une vie plus authentique, fidèle à ses valeurs et sa foi.

Évaluer les répercussions de la chasteté sur les relations avec les autres et les liens familiaux.

La chasteté améliore également les interactions avec les personnes autour de soi. En portant une cage de chasteté, un homme revitalise ses compétences de séduction et modifie son attitude envers ses partenaires. En raison de leur utilisation plus rare, les capacités physiques et sexuelles sont particulièrement puissantes durant l’acte. Il est possible de pratiquer la chasteté sans nécessairement informer ses partenaires, en gardant le secret. La chasteté peut renforcer les liens matrimoniaux en promouvant un amour plus authentique, loin de la quête du plaisir charnel.

La chasteté : Une valeur à réévaluer dans le contexte actuel.

La chasteté est perçue comme une qualité taboue dans le monde contemporain. La chasteté, pour ceux qui la pratiquent, peut apporter une paix intérieure accrue, renforcer les relations et offrir une connexion spirituelle plus profonde. Dans le passé, la chasteté était davantage acceptée et débattue. Cet article explore la question de la chasteté . Cet article explore différents aspects de la chasteté, fournissant aux hommes les outils nécessaires pour comprendre et intégrer cette vertu dans leur vie quotidienne.

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#Demons #Souls #Completely #Explained

Retranscription des paroles de la vidéo: Prologue
Mird was a vast empire located at the center   of the world. It was so great as to contemplate 
most of human civilization. Through its discovery of the Soul Arts, mankind ushered in an age 
of unprecedented enlightenment and prosperity. Enormous spiraling towers were built to 
serve as schools dedicated to the study   of the arts by royalty. They were a statement 
by men; an announcement that they’d reach the heavens through elucidation. A Tower of Babel.
Mird was divided in three parts – the underworld, which was the realm of the slaves who worked 
on the mines and forged weapons to the empire’s   military; the middle-earth, which was the realm of 
the plebeians, who served as soldiers and mid-rank warriors; and the highlands, which hosted 
the higher nobility, the blue-blooded royals who lived in material excess and debauchery.
The miners were a deeply superstitious people who both worshiped and feared the bones they 
discovered in the earth’s bosom. They believed   the bones belonged to Dragons, to mythical 
beasts of yore; and that they could wake at any moment to unleash upon men their 
wrath, for their wickedness – after all,   the burrowers were the meekest within the 
empire, and they suffered all their lives by the hand of their oppressors. They excavated 
temples to appease the mythical skeletons. The middle-earthers were diligent and 
kind-hearted. The most affluent among them, who were nobles of lower birth, lived in relative 
abundance to the poor, who struggled tremendously, but no man among them could claim to be as rich as 
their highlander counterparts. The royal family, who lived in the inner palace, was 
loved and respected by their subjects;   their banners displayed a two-headed 
yellow dragon over a purple background. The highlanders lived above the world’s surface, 
atop the mountains; there they built ivory towers so they could physically reach the heavens. The 
two most influential families were House Vinland, which was represented by gold – and true to its 
identity, they were the richest men in the world; they named themselves after their trade of wine, 
and House Yormedar, which was represented by silver – and true to its identity, they were the 
scholars, the alchemists who uncovered the Soul Arts. Both Houses shared a supreme heraldic 
symbol – the Sacred Tree, representing both abundance and knowledge; the highlands were 
like the Garden of Eden, a paradise on earth. The two highlander families intermarried to 
preserve their bloodlines and ranks. House   Vinland financed the empire, the research of House 
Yormedar, and was responsible for Mird’s military, which it empowered with elite warriors of their 
own; House Yormedar was behind the alchemical   research that brought upon Mird unprecedented 
prosperity and power, and created, through the use of Soul Arts, special weapons and armor for House 
Vinland – such as the iconic Dark Silver set, which was forged with a special metal invented 
by the alchemists, and the legendary armaments, each of which is uniquely magical – and all 
of which became part of Vinland’s legacy. There was a clear hierarchy in Mird between 
the three realms: the lower, middle and upper worlds. It was like hell, earth and heaven.
Mird’s age of plenty would not last forever. The Queen, who was a prodigal sorcerer, 
would, along with her coven of witches,   congregate, in secret, in the tallest 
tower in Mird – a place that’d later become known as the Nexus. Their ambition was 
to transcend mortality and truly find paradise. The Queen at first was a fool – she’d suck 
the souls of her fellow men for herself,   to restore her youthfulness and avoid the gaze 
of death. But she’d snap out of her materialistic delusion, which was wholly unquenching. The 
answer to her plight wasn’t in the flesh, but in the soul. She’d then realize the formula 
to bring about heaven – distillment of light from darkness. Segregation of soul from matter.
Her mind was turned upside down, as she realized she’d been oblivious to the 
only path to true freedom. It was death. To fulfill her dream, she would create a Golem – 
a thing that would later be called the Old One, a God-like creature whose purpose was 
to extract the souls of all so that his   insides would host a completed entity of pure 
light, paradise made manifest; the rejoined, revived God whose light was scattered throughout 
the world, shackled within living creatures. The Old One gave agency to men’s darkest 
thoughts, fears and desires, weaponizing the evil of men against themselves, birthing the Demons.
But this destruction would call upon an equivalent response; the apocalypse beckoned humanity to 
cooperate for the sake of what they perceived   to be the greater good. Mankind ceased their 
inner conflicts to fight against the Scourge; they called for unity against a greater enemy.
The Witch Queen had left behind a tool for humanity, should it wish to attain mastery 
over its own fate; to earn its freedom and fight against doom itself, should it restore 
hope – or to call upon it, should it embrace the world’s end. The Northern Regalia, the 
ultimate weapon that is composed of two halves, one of light, one of darkness. The weapon was 
hidden within the Old One’s stomach – and only a hero most brave and powerful would be capable 
of pulling it from within the belly of the beast. The king of Mird prepared himself to face the 
Dragon – he wielded an enchanted and golden   sword and shield, which protected him from magic 
and inflicted not physical, but magical damage, as he intended to strike the monster’s very soul.
The elite of the Mirdan army, the forces of House Vinland, pierced the beast with 
soul-sealing artillery and brought it   to heel, and the king slipped into its 
belly. He was ready to slay the Demon, and hopefully rescue his queen from its insides.
But he failed, and was devoured – for he gave in to despair upon meeting his beloved queen, and 
learning she was the source of the hell that was   unleashed upon men – his heart was too pure, too 
bright, and he couldn’t slay the love of his life, his other half, the silver to his gold. He 
expected to defeat the Dragon and save his queen; he was innocent, pure-hearted, and knew 
not of her true, hidden self – the Dragon was her own creation, and she had betrayed 
him, his people and his empire. His soul, which once shone as the sun, had been tainted 
by darkness, had been eclipsed; and so, he wouldn’t be able to wield the Demonbrandt 
anymore. And with him died humanity’s hope. Vinland’s troops were dying one by one, until 
few remained. The middle-earthers had to come to the frontlines and fend off the spawn of the Fog – 
they, the lower-ranking warriors and soldiers were the last remaining units of the Mirdan army.
That was until a brave warrior rose to fight against the Drakes and other Demons without regard 
for his life; a berserker whose sheer will to power rivaled the Demons themselves. A relentless 
Shadowman who sought heaven through glory in   death – a barbarian called, simply, ‘stranger’, or 
‘wanderer’ – that is, Doran – by the Mirdans who saw him on the battlefield. He fought side-to-side 
with heroes of the middle-earth in the making, with the Tower Knight and the Knight of the Lance.
He wielded the Stormruler, a magical sword that could conjure cataclysmic winds – the winds his 
people believe take warriors to the heavens; he’d used them to quell the storm 
which afflicted his homeland.  And this stranger became more and more 
powerful as he felled Demon after Demon; until he’d become stronger than them all.
He was ready to face their master – the Dragon, the being later known as the Old One. 
With the support of the middle-earthers, Doran rushed into its belly, the beast weakened by 
the previous effort by Vinland’s men, and pulled the Excalliburian sword that was hidden within 
it and used it in its entirety – for his soul   was both the brightest and the darkest of men 
– to smite the Witch Queen, and alongside her, the heart of the Beast, of her Golem.
The Old One reduced most of Mird to ash, destroying half of the world, but was 
eventually defeated. They sealed the Old   One by removing the chunk of the world 
from which he spawned from the physical plane and confining it to the astral realm.
A united mankind decided to collectively banish the Soul Arts; if knowledge brings about 
chaos upon the Earth, it should be censored. The tallest Ivory Tower where the Queen used 
to host her secret meetings with her coven of   witches would become the Nexus; it would 
be subverted from a temple which called upon the destructive rejection of a broken 
world into a place dedicated to universal   understanding and the fraternity of men.
The Witch Queen who triggered the First Scourge was punished for her avarice, and 
sentenced to become the candle maiden of   the Nexus for eternity. Her eyes were covered 
with wax, and her mind was destroyed; she, who was once the most enlightened of all humans, 
was now a mere Golem, her function being a mockery of her past self – she tended to the candles of 
the Nexus, which are a symbol of occult knowledge. Her coven of witches was punished as 
well; they were made to become bald,   crippled, half-living dolls, whose appearance 
symbolizes purity – they look like monks –, in direct contrast to their original character, and 
sentenced to meditate for eternity to mend the   fabric of reality, to mend their sin, the 
destruction they brought upon the world. As Mird was fractured, both physically and 
figuratively, its former empire was divided   into smaller kingdoms. Archstones were created 
to stitch the world, as half of it was lost; a gigantic void stood where Mird was once 
located. The last act of the witches as users of the Soul Arts was the creation 
of the Archstones which mended the world. As previously explained, the Nexus exists in a 
dream-realm, in a place beyond the material world; the Archstones exist to provide men with a way 
of traveling from one kingdom to the other,   as they are separated by a huge 
void at the world’s center. Boletaria rose from Mird’s ashes in a coalition 
with Latria – its flag contains a symbol made from two distinct crosses – the Maltese and 
Moline crosses –, to represent the dual, renewed nature of Boletaria, the middle 
earth; the old empire and the new kingdom, with leaves – for they were the leaves which fell 
from Mird’s Sacred Tree – and sparkles over a yellow background, and white doves, symbols of the 
Church, representing Latria – Boletaria’s newly founded parallel in the highlands – over a blue 
background, separated – or rather, united – by a soul-sealing magical sword. Above the two symbols 
are patterns that relate to sky and earth. The Boletarian Royal Family – now the head 
of a semi-independent kingdom – would earn prestige where Vinland lost, and their princes 
would marry with Yormedarian princesses to seal their political union – a union of gold and 
silver, of the sun – which adorns the armors of the knights of Boletaria – and the moon. It was 
the middle-earthen kingdom which claimed victory over the Old One; Doran, the stranger, fought 
alongside their men, and was identified to have been one of their own; the credit was theirs, and 
they took it. A crown was warranted with strength; and thus, Boletarian kings earned the 
right to rule alongside Yormedarian queens. House Vinland had lost a substantial portion 
of its power; the middle-earthen royals had   stolen their Yormedarian princesses, and 
their army had lost most of its resources; even their famously abundant reserves were 
emptied as a result of the Scourge. They’d   become the right-wing of the Church, but, 
in reality, they’d become its pawns; House Yormedar had betrayed them, and would betray them 
again in the distant future – and resentment would be festered within the clan against Boletaria.
Doran had sacrificed himself to seal the Old One, but the Boletarian royal family would deify 
him as their god-like founding father,   and they’d rename their house Allant in homage 
to him – a name which means to move forward, referencing his relentlessness, his bravery. 
Its new heraldic symbol was portrayed over a blue background, symbolizing the junction with 
Latria and House Yormedar; though the purple banner of yore was still displayed in the 
palace’s walls and towers to honor the past. Stonefang would choose to stand on its own, 
and avoided joining this new covenant – it was a nation traumatized by centuries of 
oppression; but its relations with the   two paired kingdoms were peaceful and fair.
The truth about the events of the Scourge was obscure to begin with but was gradually 
lost with time; story was made myth, and men thought both the Northern Regalia 
and the Old One were created by God Himself. The last king of Mird was canonized by the Church 
as the First Saint, and would be portrayed as   the warrior king who wields a spear on one 
hand and a soul-sealing sword on the other. The Soul Arts are based on the emancipation of 
the human mind – magic can originate from either the study of nature and men’s consciousness 
or from their feelings and unconsciousness. Through the Soul Arts, one can conjure 
spells, create magic artifacts and weapons, become inhumanly strong and vigorous, heal any 
wound; one can become a Demigod. But power does not come for free – the Arts are fueled, as their 
name betrays, by men’s souls. The more one desires power, the more one is inclined to resort to 
satanic means to acquire it – the more one is likely to prey on his fellow men.
Through men’s supreme enlightenment,   the Old One was created, and later, deliberately 
awakened from its slumber, and granted agency to mankind’s darkest thoughts and desires, birthing 
the Demons. The Fog that then embraced the world would hyperbolize nature and incite every living 
thing to feed on souls. That’s what it means to be ‘demonic’; to greedily steal the souls of others.
The powers and properties of most Demons are tied to the collective of the human mind. 
Many Demons are born from egregores,   as in, they are given shape by symbols, ideas or 
ideals that exist in the collective psyche of men. It’s important to note that souls are amplified 
by human perception; the consumable souls we get are specifically ranked with descriptors that 
denote the ‘acclaim and adoration’ of their   previous owners; the lesser souls are those of 
unknown soldiers and heroes, the heftier ones are those of storied, renowned, and legendary 
soldiers and heroes. The Archdemons owe their vast power to their prominent egregores, which 
have been fermented in mass by the minds of men. The discovery of the Soul Arts parallels the 
eating of the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil   by Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis; through 
knowledge, men can become God-like; but knowledge and power entice men to sin. The discovery of the 
Soul Arts, then, is equivalent to the First Sin, and once men fell prey to corruption because of 
it, the Old One symbolically rose from the depths   to destroy them in divine retribution, just as 
the God of the Old Testament cast curses upon men. The Sacred Tree was the symbol of both 
Vinland and Yormedar; but to Vinland,   it was the Tree of Life – which is also the Tree 
of Ignorance; and to Yormedar, it was the Tree of Knowledge – which is also the Tree of Death.
The Rise and Fall of the Church of God The Church of God was founded 
after the First Scourge with the   purpose of preventing a Second Scourge.
It was founded by the new council of the Highlands, in the newly established kingdom 
of Latria; its headquarter – its Apostolic Palace – was Latria’s Ivory Tower, the home of 
said council, where the queen’s throne stands above all other seats. Latria’s queens – 
who belonged to House Yormedar – were the supreme figures of the Church, its popes, 
with Boletarian kings being their spears. Latria’s name refers to the 
absolute adoration of God;   the foundation of Latria as a semi-independent 
nation is the foundation of the Church itself. This historical development mirrors 
the conversion of Rome to Christianity.  Practitioners of the arts were branded heretical 
and persecuted by the Church. Inquisitions were routinely conducted, and witches and alchemists 
were sent to the Prison of Hope in Latria. A church was built at the complex so that every 
convict had a chance to repent and convert to   the Faith; its glass panels depict the queen 
of Latria as a merciful, motherly figure. The Faith preached forgiveness and absolution 
from sin; they wished only for the good of men. Upon the reintroduction of the Soul Arts 
to the world by King Allant the Twelth,   and its subsequent leak to Latria, and then, 
to the rest of the world, the Church became increasingly severe in its punishments, and 
increasingly corrupt, for they wished to hold   a semi-monopoly over the occult; Boletarian and 
Latrian nobility were turning to avarice and sin; the Church, which had become but an 
instrument of the pursuits of Latrian   royalty, was turning more and more corrupt.
Indeed, the Church’s corruption is expressed in their miracles – which are, simply, manifested 
by the Soul Arts. A holy sage named Urbain had taught the holy men the Soul Arts, claiming he 
learned them from God Himself, through his voice which whispered in his ear – and for the so-called 
miracle he performed, he was canonized as a Saint. Paganism was on the rise not just in the West, but 
also in the East, as the Soul Arts were leaked to the four corners of the Earth. The Northern tribe 
of the Giants had revived not only the Soul Arts, but their practice of cannibalism, which was part 
of their culture since ancient times – they grew and grew the more they consumed men’s flesh, thus, 
why they had become gigantic in the first place. The Giants were the fiercest rivals of 
the Shadowmen; in fact, the Shadowmen   made cannibalism a taboo in their culture in 
response to their conflict against the Giants, portraying them as covetous demons in their 
mythology, and prohibiting the practice.  The Mirdans were enemies of the Giants as well – 
Dark Silver is referred to as ‘the oldest metal’ and is said to ‘exorcise malice’; and the Bramd 
weapon was designed to slay Giants. The set of gear was created by House Yormedar as a gift to 
House Vinland precisely to aid them in their fight   against the pagan tribe of the Northern Limit.
And then, in modern times, the Giants had restored their old traditions, and, with them, their 
warring nature, as cannibalism was co-dependent on it. They ate, primarily, enemy warriors; 
the more powerful the warrior, the greater his soul. The Giants parallel the Aztecs and 
their sacrifices – the warrior-priests of both tribes ate the hearts of enemy warriors to 
absorb their vigor, their courage, their souls. The Giants attacked with black 
magic – they conjured mists of   poison and rained fire against their enemies.
The target for the Giant’s aggression was their neighbor tribe, the Shadowmen; and the Shadowmen 
were nearly wiped out, if it weren’t for a brave hero who fought like a berserker and chose to 
become a cannibal, a monster like those which he   fought against to protect his people.
The Church would officially declare war upon the Giants, and bring ruin to their land.
The holy men were able to hunt Giants through the use of Soul Arts – they enhanced their 
strength so they could wield the magical weapons forged by their Mirdan ancestors; they performed 
Miracles to heal their wounds, and to call upon the Wrath of God against their enemies.
King Allant fought valiantly alongside   his round table of knights, all of 
whom had been enhanced by the Arts, and were equipped with magical weapons and armor.
This first great war waged by the Church caused   the Archstone which hosted the 
land of the Giants to crumble. This event mirrors the Spanish war against 
the Aztecs, in which natives – which the Shadowmen mirror in this context – helped them 
overthrow the aggressive and expansionistic   pagan empire that ran on human sacrifice.
Since before the First Scourge, the valley situated between Mird’s territory and the Northern 
(AQUI) land of the Giants would absorb all the   filth, suffering and death which resulted from 
their battles. It earned the name Valley of Defilement for this reason; the river which 
flowed through it had absorbed so much blood,   death and organic dejects its water darkened and 
became poisonous, like a depressed Ganges river. Above it stood the Highlands, which hosted the 
Church’s core; the world’s filth and depravity were covered by the shadow of the heavenly realm 
of men, by the shadow of the Vatican. This ironic contrast is emblematic of the nature of the 
world itself, of humanity, of society, of nature. In the valley, we encounter Depraved Ones of 
enormous sizes, as well as shamans, who cast poisonous mists, and a black phantom of a cannibal 
witch who wields the Butcher’s Knife. In fact, the very title of ‘Depraves Ones’ comes from their 
practices of cannibalism and malicious witchcraft. As a result of the war, the Valley saw 
an influx of newcomers, of rot and decay, and its corruption increased exponentially.
The war was waged on relatively sober terms; but, importantly, the politicians who 
orchestrated it benefited from it; they bolstered their wealth and claimed 
slaves, and ensured their domain over the Arts. The holy men similarly claimed the souls 
of their fallen enemies to increase their   strength and the potency of their miracles.
However, the crusade against paganism and witchcraft wouldn’t stop at the destruction of 
the ever-aggressive nation-tribe of the Giants; Boletaria would also invade its neighbor, 
the Shadowmen, who had long abandoned their   hostility toward them, the same tribe who 
had been victimized by the Giants, because   they too had been restoring their pagan ways.
The Church of God first sent missionaries to combat the resurging pagan practices of the 
shamans of the tribe. Indeed, the Shadowmen   were infringing the universal law – the priests 
of the Shrine were degenerating into Demons, greedily absorbing the souls of the dead 
for themselves to acquire immortal life.  When those missionaries were met with hostility 
from the native inhabitants – some of them were killed – Boletaria sent its army to ravage 
the island. The expressed motive was the eradication of dangerous paganism, which risked 
a new Scourge, but the higher ups of Boletaria and the Church of God would benefit from more 
slaves, the natural resources of the island, and – like Demons themselves –from absorbing the 
souls of their enemies. They were becoming more and more like the monsters they were facing.
Of course, most within the Church knew nothing of the occult; they were ignorant of 
the fact that they served the Devil,   believing to be enacting the will of God. But 
evil and ignorance are brother and sister. Vanguard’s appearance informs us of the gluttonous 
nature of the demon: they have a bloated body and a gaping mouth. They’re not as simple as they 
appear, however; they possess a third eye; and their eyes emit an ominous glow. It’s hinted that 
the Vanguard of the Tutorial Area is enslaving the soul-starved knights and soldiers of the outpost 
to feed it. They’re cooking a soup made of the corpses of their victims. There’s an enormous 
cauldron which is filled with red soup near   Vanguard’s resting spot. There’s drops of blood 
around it, and hanging chains, which could’ve been used to transport the bodies into the soup.
The Vanguard, the very first Demon we encounter, parallels the Old One – a creature that appears 
to be no more than a simple-minded beast,   but one that, at the same time, has control over 
the minds of men. Both make men their slaves, and are fed by them, like parasites.
Vanguard wields an axe bigger than a man; he’s barbaric in nature, as he embodies 
the bloodlust of men; men’s basic,   animalistic instincts of violence and gluttonous 
hunger. Thus, he has domain over those who, like him, desire bloodshed and thirst for souls.
The Vanguard has a special relationship with the Giants, for its character and appearance 
was based on them – a great-axe-wielding barbarian cannibal with an opened third eye, as 
the Giants wielded giant axes and other weapons, were cannibals, and users of the Arts. Its 
horns are identically shaped to those of the Giant chieftain’s helmet as depicted on the 
Archstone. Both also demanded human offerings, which they’d consume to grow stronger and 
bigger. When the Fog came to Boletaria,   it animated the egregor of the fallen nemesis 
of the empire, of a tribe that left a mark upon the soldiers and knights who fought in the war, 
or who’d heard stories of it. A second Vanguard appears at the Shrine of Storms – and the Giants 
terrorized the island before their eradication. The Phalanx were originally a unit of spearman who 
descend from the Shadowmen, and their leader was   the warrior woman known as Long Bow Oolan. 
She’d command her men to perform defensive formations while she sniped their enemies from 
behind their protection – in accordance with the   more civilized Mirdan ways of war.
She wielded a magical bow crafted from the special, soulful white 
trees of her homeland – a fitting   weapon for a legendary figure in the making.
Oolan was a Shadowman who joined Boletaria’s Round Table of Knights by disguising herself 
as a man and proving her worth – her prowess was seen by all in an international tournament 
that was hosted within Boletaria’s main castle. The more simple-minded among the order – and 
most common Boletarians – never learned of her identity, and the sharpest did, but never 
snitched out of respect or self-interest. She was a living legend, and lived happily in 
Boletaria, the prosperous land of opportunity, the paradise on Earth, looking up to the king above 
all. But tragedy would befall her: she was ordered to partake in the Boletarian invasion of the 
Shrine of Storms – to destroy her own people. She ultimately sided with Boletaria, but trauma would 
taint her soul, and she would never be the same. Oolan saw her own unorthodox ranged 
combat tactics as cowardly, as they   go against the traditions of her Shadowmen 
ancestors, and that self-perception shaped her demonic form – the Phalanx is composed 
of blobs of goo that must rely on defensive   formations to compensate for their fragility.
However, Oolan was also ashamed of her pagan   heritage; she practiced witchcraft in secret 
to connect with her ancestors – her black phantom can cast the Fire Storm spell –, but 
the Mirdan side of her identity resented it. The Phalanx are exceedingly vulnerable 
to fire because of this insecurity.  Oolan was a woman who disguised herself as a man 
to join Boletaria’s round table. Thus, stories of   Boletaria’s Round Table of knights refer to her 
as a he, inconsistent with the hidden truth. This   is yet another layer of her identity crisis.
The Phalanx Demon reflects the Old One – as all Demons do to greater or lesser extents; 
its core, which is a bright, bluish soul, is protected by wooden branches; and its exterior 
is a chaotic mess of minor Demons who fight to feed and protect the main body.
Oolan is a tragic figure;   she faced a shackling inner conflict, 
and this is reflected in the Phalanx. The phalanx military tactic was employed by the 
middle-earther army since before the Scourge, and   was used extensively in the First Scourge; their 
fight against the Demons became stuff of legends. The Phalanx slimes are protected by shields which 
bear the sigil of the Boletarian Royal Family. The Tower Knight is based on the egregore of a 
middle-earther Mirdan hero of the First Scourge,   who’d become known in legend 
for his superhuman feats, who fought alongside King Doran; statues of 
him adorn the entrance to the Royal Palace. The Fog transformed one of the knights of 
Boletaria’s round table – Alfred – into this ancient figure of Boletarian history 
and myth; into the Tower Knight Demon. Alfred, as a knight, wielded the Scraping Spear 
– a magical weapon that destroyed the armor of those it scraped. Thus, he, who was the ultimate 
defense, had with him a weapon that ruined his opponent’s defense, and was thus nigh invincible.
Shields as big as his were scarcely seen until the Soul Arts resurged in Boletaria; like the other 
knights of the round table, Alfred employed the arts to Enhance his own strength, thus enabling 
him to carry such heavy equipment. The Tower Knight can also conjure a magic impression of 
his spear to throw like a javelin at his enemies. Alfred, much like Biorr, who he 
parallels, was a simple-minded,   but powerful and good-hearted warrior. As such, 
even as a demon, he stood as Boletaria’s wall, protecting it from invaders – but he was no more 
than a puppet of the Fat Ministers, just as, in life, he had been played – made to fight 
excessive wars – by the crooked politicians. And, in the macrocosm, all Demons are played by the Old 
One, who’ll eventually consume all life on earth.  Alfred’s weakness being his head – which is, 
proportionally, tiny in his Demon form – may be emblematic of how he perceived 
himself as a simpleton, who had to   compensate his lacking wit with brute force.
The encounter with the Tower Knight mirrors the configuration the Old One has with its 
Demons, and, simultaneously, the configuration of Boletarian society – the Fat Official is 
the Old One, ordering it all from behind, and feeding itself through the chaos; the Tower 
Knight is the Archdemon; and the soldiers are the lesser Demons. And the Fat Official represents 
Boletaria’s politicians, the Tower Knight, its warrior king and its knights, and 
the soldiers… well, Boletarian soldiers. The Penetrator is based on the egregore of a 
middle-earther Mirdan hero of the First Scourge,   who’d become known in legend for his superhuman 
feats; statues of him adorn the entrance to the Royal Palace alongside those that depict the 
Tower Knight. The Fog transformed one of the   knights of Boletaria’s round table – Metas – 
into this ancient figure of Boletarian history and myth; into the Penetrator Demon.
Metas is the son of Lord Rydell, cousin to Prince Ariona Allant; he was raised in 
the southern region of Boletaria. The Penetrator is referred to as the Silver Demon – a 
material associated with House Yormedar,   while Ariona wields a golden shield and 
sword; Metas inherited Latrian qualities, while Ariona inherited Boletarian. The 
gold-silver pairing symbolizes the contrast   of Metas and Ariona. Metas’ distinctly large 
penetrating sword, which specializes in thrusts, is reminiscent of the rapiers wielded by 
Latria’s noblemen. The Fluted chest piece worn   by Metas – and by Ariona – is said to originate 
from the “relatively advanced” region of southern Boletaria. The Fluted Set is also the armor which 
Doran was depicted as wearing in his statue; it is a symbol of the Boletarian-Latrian alliance.
Latria is a very wealthy place at the south of Boletaria’s empire, thus, the 
southern region of Boletaria is   culturally and materially related to it.
Contrary to Alfred, Metas wielded a long, long sword that could pierce any defense. 
Together, the pair was unbeatable – as was the alliance of Boletaria and Latria.
Metas’ avaricious, cold, violent nature is, in part, also the reflection of his upbringing – 
his father, Lord Rydell, was an adventurer, a free spirit who had little time to care for his own 
son. Thus, he was raised by his mother’s family, who’d later become part of the Soul Society.
Metas was the inverse of Alfred – an intelligent, but cruel warrior, who wished to be on top of 
the food chain from the start, and played a part in the politics of Boletaria. Unlike the Tower 
Knight, who is being manipulated by a Fat Minister from behind, like a shadow, the Penetrator is the 
shadow that pierces the Fat Minister in the back. The Fat Officials or Fat Ministers are based on 
the wicked nature of Boletaria’s politicians, jailers, colonial officers and executioners. 
They wield enormous axes, chibatas – tools for corporeal punishment – and carry with 
them rings of keys and tools for torture.  When Allant came back from the Nexus 
with knowledge of the Soul Arts, he confided it to his inner circle of politicians, 
and tasked them with employing the Arts to better the lives of the Boletarians, and to strengthen 
their military; and that they did, competently, for a time – but their hunger for power, for 
souls grew and grew. Their souls darkened; and their domain over the occult caused them 
to feel above the common men. They persecuted,   relentlessly, all pagans, all who practiced 
the Arts like they did, for much like the Soul Society – though to a lesser degree –, 
they desired to keep the powers to themselves; above all, they began to enjoy their acts 
of needless cruelty; they devolved into a   group of characters like those written by the 
infamous Marquis De Sade, oppressing men for sadistic pleasure; they were becoming demonic.
Their appearance reflects their true character, which was brought to the surface by the 
powers of the Fog; their bodies are bloated,   their faces disfigured; they compulsively laugh 
as they perform sadistic acts, as if they’re caricatures of their human counterparts. They 
were some of the first demons to have spawned   by the Second Scourge due to being the evilest, 
the greediest, most materialistic among men, as well as to their proximity to 
Allant, the king who awoke the Old One. Old King Doran was a hero of the First 
Scourge; a brave slayer of Demons who   fought demonic wyverns and absorbed Demon’s 
Souls to enhance his vitality so he could fight more Demons, much like the player character.
He was humanity’s final hope after the death of their king – and he dived fearlessly into 
the belly of the beast and sent it to slumber. He was originally a barbaric-looking 
Eastern warrior; within the Boletarian   mausoleum there is a statue made on his 
image that informs us of his appearance. Before he’d confront the Dragons and their master 
on the West, he faced off against the Dragons of   his own homeland – he quelled the storms and 
felled the Storm King with his magical weapon, the Stormruler, by conjuring supremely 
powerful gusts of wind which split the   clouds and revealed the heavens.
The survivors of the fallen land of Mird viewed him as the world’s 
savior and venerated him as a demigod;   and believed he hailed from the middle-earth. 
From the ashes of Mird, Boletaria was born, with Doran as its symbolic founding father.
His mythical reputation gave rise to an   instance of the ‘Divine Right of Kings,’ a 
‘Mandate of Heaven’ for the Boletarian royal family – their kings being ordained by God, and 
they were thus married to the Yormedarian popes which led the Church in Latria –, which 
is ironic considering Doran was not even   a middle-earther in the first place; this 
premise was based on a misunderstanding. When the Old One awakened once again and his 
fog spread through Boletaria, the so-called old king was brought back from the dead, as legend 
had produced a powerful egregore in his image. His artificial, revived self bears little 
resemblance to his original person; he became a character straight out of a fable, 
speaking in a refined, archaic, regal manner, and behaving as the noblest of knights – in 
life Doran was a barbarian warrior of the East, whose silence puzzled the simple-minded and 
impressionable middle-earthers. In fact, even the name Doran is false; Doran means ‘stranger’ or 
wanderer’, for that was what the pre-Boletarians saw in him, they knew not of his origins; but 
would embrace him as one of their own as he fought beside them and sacrificed himself in an act of 
ultimate courage and martyrdom. After the event, he was spoken of as a Boletarian hero, as the 
man who saved the world, as the first knight, as the founding father of their nation – and 
that granted them legitimacy and propelled them   to their new status as Vinland’s replacement 
–, and they built a mausoleum in his honor. The revived Doran looks like the popular, 
idealized image of a warrior king of antiquity, his armor excessively adorned with jewelry – when 
in truth he was but a simple Shadowman berserker, the opposite of that image.
He wields the Northern Regalia,   a legendary sword that draws its 
strength from both Good and Evil, thus, from the whole nature of Man.
In legend, it was said that the sword had   two halves, one which befouls men, and another 
which banished men itself. The sword would   later be split into two – the Soulbrandt and the 
Demonbrandt. Thus, the copy wielded by the revived King Doran was manifested by the powers of the 
Fog, as to portray him as the figure of legend, the original user of the Northern Regalia.
Boletaria’s chivalric culture was based on the mixture of Mirdan and Shadowmen traditions; 
a knight was a warrior who chose to act only on the behalf of peace, of the greater good, molded 
after Doran, who fought against the Demons and called upon world peace. However, this knighthood 
would be subverted by the corrupt politicians of Boletaria in the distant future; knights would 
be made into Demons, their strength would be used for evil.
Dragons The dragons that were spawned by the Fog 
during the First Scourge were born of   legends that spoke of the ancient creatures 
whose fossils were found deep underground; they were subject of many myths and speculation. 
Miners of ancient times excavated shrines in   their worship, fearing they’d one day return. 
The myth of the dragon was ingrained into the collective minds of men, and was, in turn, 
manifested by the powers of the Old One. The Stonefang cave ecosystem was altered 
by the coming of the Fog. Its resident creatures have unnaturally grown due 
to the consumption of souls. The Armor   Spider was the apex predator of that 
ecosystem. Its design is inspired by the Japanese Spider Crabs – big crabs that 
inhabit deeper parts of the ocean floor, much like the Armor Spider originally inhabited 
the deeper parts of the volcanic cave system. It migrated to the more external parts of 
the cave, where most of the miners worked,   to consume more souls; it began to prey upon men.
Due to having absorbed an abundance of souls, it mutated into its demonic armored form 
– which was influenced by the miners, by their thoughts and minds, thus, why it acquired 
a mineral-like exterior; its exoskeleton hardened and became like the minerals of the cave.
From its Demon soul, we can create the Lava Bow, a magic-scaling special weapon; and two magic 
spells based on its abilities. We find a Kris Blade – a ceremonial sword that amplifies 
the powers of sorcery – near its location. The spider fought and slew the original user 
of the sword and bow and consumed its soul, inheriting her magic abilities. We can infer the 
sorcerer was female because of the association of femininity and fire magic and archery. This 
witch challenged the spider, failed in her quest. After killing and devouring the witch 
– whose soul was wondrous, powerful,   not unlike that of a Demon –, the Armor Spider 
grew so much that it trapped itself in its lair. The Big M. was a hero of the First Scourge, and 
the founding father of the burrower kingdom of Stonefang – which was, before the Scourge, part of 
Mird’s territory, but after the fall of the Mirdan empire, the territory gained autonomy.
During Mirdan rule, the Stonefang Mine operated under slavery – the miners who 
provided raw materials for the Mirdans,   as well as the blacksmiths who 
forged weapons for them, were slaves. Big M. was one such slave blacksmith. When the 
Scourge came, he employed the Soul Arts to both strengthen himself and to craft magical weapons 
fit for Demon-slaying. He crafted the Dragon Bone Smasher, an excessively big, enchanted sword 
which requires inhuman strength to be wielded, and grants its wielder resistance against fire.
He brandished his massive sword to slay the demonic dragons, and his prowess was deified 
by legend; he’d be remembered as a man so strong he could kill dragons with his fists. 
A flaming altar would be built in his honor, and his sword was stored as a precaution, 
should the dragons rise once again. Big M. earned Stonefang’s liberation by proving 
his might and helping save the world from the   spread of the Colorless Fog. His people saw him as 
their savior; they who were once slaves could now have pride of their work, of their craft, of their 
strength and diligence; they would now trade with Boletaria – Mird’s successor – as an equal nation.
As generations went by, the banishment of the Soul Arts caused the descendants of the miners to 
forget about the practicality of the sword,   thinking that it was too big, too thick, 
too heavy and too rough. The legend of the Big M. began to be interpreted literally, 
as it adapted to their limited perception. They thought of the Big M. as a man who killed 
dragons with his hands, and shaped their culture   around this idealization. They crafted the 
Hands of God, weapons that require great strength and faith to be used effectively, 
as an homage to their deific ancestor. As Boletaria’s higher ranks fell prey to Demonic 
temptation, they became increasingly aggressive, expansionistic, greedy. Boletaria’s crusades 
against paganism increased the kingdom’s demands for raw materials, tools, weapons and 
armor, prompting an invasion of Stonefang. The Boletarians resorted to restoring slavery in the 
region; the proud miners and blacksmiths were made slaves once more, all so Boletaria’s wars cost 
less for the men who only got fatter year by year. The Flamelurker was born out of the egregore of 
Big M, spawning from the altar of flames that   was built for him; the name Flamelurker being 
a literal descriptor. He embodies the anger of Stonefang; their violent, Demonic anger of the 
enslaved, their explosive rebellious spirit. Additionally, it’s interesting to note that 
the explosions the Flamelurker triggers with   his punches also mirror the explosions caused 
by the concentration of souls within the ores found in Stonefang. His rounded head 
is similar to the round crown-like hat   of the Burrower King as featured on the 
Archstone; and his body is as muscular as the miners believed Big M’s must have been.
A strange growth seals his mouth and one of   his eyes; it’s as though a cage has 
been constructed around his skull; a cage that looks like the exterior of 
the temple that kept the Dragons at bay.  The Demon looks half man, half Dragon – which is 
fitting, as Big M. absorbed the Demon Souls of the Dragons he was slaying to become stronger.
His skin has melted away, revealing a layer of flesh that looks like rock, like 
mail, like the skin of the Dragon God. During an older age, miners found the fossils of 
gigantic creatures of times past within the deeper layers of the caves, and stories of mythical 
dragons were incorporated into their culture. They excavated a temple as a means of sealing 
and worshiping what they believed to be Dragon   bones. They feared that a Dragon would one day 
be reborn from the remains of his fallen kin. Ironically, it was from those stories that the 
ancient fossils acquired, because of the Colorless   Fog, astral, ideal energy and rose to life in the 
form of the Dragon God. It is an egregore fed by the legends that mystified the ancient fossils, 
and of their worship by the Burrower civilization. That also explains why it bizarrely attacks with 
its fists – as the miners valued fist-fighting and raw masculinity in their tradition. Just 
like the Flamelurker, who was based on Big M., was part Draconic in nature, the Dragon God – 
who is based on the egregore around the Dragon bones – was also shaped by the astral, ideal 
form of Big M; they are like ying and yang. The Mirdan soul-trapping contraptions that serve 
as the temple’s defense mechanism were crafted   with the use of Soul Arts, like the Dragon 
Bone Smasher; they were created as a means of combating the original spawn of the Fog.
The Dragon God we kill isn’t the only one of   its kind; there are multiple Dragon Gods which 
spawned from sites of worship of dragon bones. In fact, if we manage to beat the Vanguard in the 
outskirts of Boletaria, we get to see a different Temple that is host to a different Dragon God.
The Dragon God is – like all Demons – a microcosmic Old One; a false deity which 
men fear – who is fed by their collective fear –, a creature who’s asleep but may wake 
at any moment to bring calamity to mankind. Both the Dragon God and the Old One were 
defeated the same way – Mirdan contraptions impaled and sealed them with magic spears.
Ironically, the Dragon God contains the Wrath of God miracle within his soul; for the Demons 
are the wrath of God, which is but the wrath of men made manifest by the true, supreme Dragon 
God, the Old One, a fabricated being who’s both anti-messiah and messiah. The Church unknowingly 
fights against the very being it worships. Latria is a land that can be characterized by 
contact with the spiritual world; after all, its territory was originally where the Mirdan 
schools of alchemy and magic were constructed;   it was there that royalty became infatuated 
with the occult. It can also be characterized by its material abundance; after all, it 
was the richest territory in the world. After the First Scourge, men banished the Soul 
Arts and founded in Latria the Church of God; and the Prison of Hope was built to jail those 
who engaged in heretical studies of the soul. Upon Allant’s return from the Nexus, he taught 
his council the Soul Arts so they’d employ them, secretly, to bring prosperity to Boletaria. They 
were still forbidden by decree of the Church, by universal law, and the king didn’t want to 
cause chaos. Watching the politicians’ every move was a rogue Boletarian spy – a member of an 
elite organization of assassins and spies – who leaked the secret to the Yormedarian queen he was 
hired by to spy her allied nation. She formed the Soul Society to study the Soul Arts with her 
peers, to discuss the harnessing of souls, and organized secret masked meetings in 
the central tower of her kingdom. Instead   of employing the Soul Arts to better the lives of 
her people, or legalizing them through the Church, which she led, she hid them instead and went to 
great lengths to ensure they wouldn’t be spread. They began to produce spice – a commodity that 
helps stimulate the mind and is noteworthy for its magic-aiding properties – but presented it merely 
as an exotic and costly sort of spice, which was reserved for the consumption of the wealthy. The 
spices in question were produced from human blood; the nobles had turned into vampires – and 
the blood they consumed was taken from those   arrested in the Prison of Hope, who, in great 
part, were people who practiced the Soul Arts. They were tortured cruelly so that in despair, 
their blood would leak even more of their souls; they justified their torture – their 
blood-draining practices – by claiming   it to be part of an inquisitory process, 
claiming they did it all in the name of God, to prevent witchcraft, to combat the devil. The 
Iron Maidens were symbolic of the queen of Latria. The Queen of Latria had proven 
herself a prodigal sorcerer,   as the Soul Ray sorcery discloses. 
In the bowels of the Ivory Tower, of Latrian’s Vatican Palace, in the Church’s 
underworld, operated a nefarious cabal composed of the world’s most powerful people.
This secret society of Latrian nobles would murder any person who was outside 
its ranks and knew the truth of Soul   Arts, hiring assassins and occasionally 
engaging in assassinations themselves. When the Old Monk had his revenge against 
the royals of Latria, the Queen, its greatest   authority, and his lover, who’d betrayed him, was 
the one he chose the harshest sentence for – he’d abduct and murder her, and make a doll out of her 
pale corpse; revive her through necromantic magic; and command her to eternally punish 
the convicts of the Prison of Hope,   as an ironic mockery of her hypocrisy.
The design of the Fool’s Idol perfectly represents the Luciferian nature of the corrupt 
queen. A queen who acted as pope, as an angel of light, but who was a princess of darkness.
Her elucidation was, inversely, ironically, foolish. As she pursued satanic Gnosis and 
eternal youth, as she devoured the souls of her fellow men, as she studied the dark 
arts, she was becoming but a pawn, a Golem, a slave to the Old One, to Satan. The Old Monk 
wanted to mock her grand enlightenment. Thus, the doll lacks a brain. The name of the Demon, 
Fool’s Idol, describes both the queen as she lived, the doll, the dead, distorted Demon born 
out of her corpse, as well as the Old One – who’s   the god of the Church – and every Archdemon.
The church where the Fool’s Idol resides was built in times past to convert those who engaged 
in heretical studies of the soul. During the queen’s rule, the whole of the system that managed 
it was profoundly corrupt; innocents were tortured and made to confess crimes and sins which they 
did not commit, all so the nobles could produce spices from their blood and feed upon their souls, 
and so the secrets of the Arts wouldn’t be spread. During the Old Monk’s rule, the path to the 
church was filled with various obstacles,   and escapees would have to engage in a game of 
death and torture to attempt to reach salvation and ascend to the upper strata of Latria.
The prison corridors were filled with golden-robe   wearing nobles turned demonic jailers who 
gruesomely impale their victims – they were the holy men who tortured the prisoners to 
produce spice, their sham was exposed before all, and they now tortured and preyed upon the corrupt 
nobles who ran the prison before. House Yormedar was imprisoned, turned into mask-wearing 
Demons, and eradicated, and the men of House Vinland were made into chimeric punishers.
The main road to the church was blocked by   an iron contraption modeled in the Queen’s image 
that permanently shoots arrows to strike down any escapees; and of course, those who manage to 
enter the church despite the tribulations are struck down by a satanic, but ironically honest 
manifestation of the figure they once worshiped. However, the soul-starved prisoners kept 
idolizing the Fool’s Idol as their queen,   not having the wits to realize she is a mere 
instrument of torture who happens to bear her body and a part of her soul. And even in the 
circumstance that one managed to defeat the Idol, she’d be revived by necromancy once again, 
ruining the chance of an escape – this too is a mockery of her eternal youth and life, 
which she achieved through dark magic. There’s a chance the soul-starved would be 
selected by the gargoyles to ascend; in which   case, they’d be met with even greater horrors 
in a false paradise that is, in reality, a hell. The Maneaters were two of the four 
counselors of the Queen of Latria. Like her,   they were members of House Yormedar. The 
queens always had wise men by their side who acted as their advisors; they 
are depicted by the figures shown   beside the queen on the mosaic murals of the 
church – one Vinlandian, one Yormedarian. The men who occupied the position of 
counselor, after the Church of God’s   creation, began to be revered as saintly 
figures, just as the queen herself. The four counselors, divided into left 
and right wings of the throne – into   Vinlandian and Yormedarian wings – represent the 
archetype of the twin serpents of the Caduceus, the two sides of the whole that must be 
understood so that a synthesis is made.  The Old Monk turned the two counselors who’d 
opposed his wing into man-eating chimeras, whose bodies act independently of their minds – their 
snake tails constantly biting at their backs. They’re another example of the twisted, ironic 
punishments devised by the Old Monk to Latria’s   hypocritical royalty. Much like other monsters of 
Latria, their demonic forms reflect the avaricious nature of the royals, as they’re condemned to eat 
men for their souls, and their faces have been   melted and turned into masks – representing 
their deceitful nature. They were vampires, cannibals, they consumed men’s blood and souls as 
depraved, aristocratic occultists; the Old Monk merely brought their concealed, monstrous selves 
to the surface; thus, they were made Maneaters. Other examples of this design trend, which 
connect them to the Latrian secret society, are seen in the Demon Centipedes and the imprisoned 
Noble Woman – her melted face being particularly reminiscent of the Gold Mask. The Noble Woman 
sells us the Ring of Avarice, a treasure which is also found along the Epee Rapier and a Gold 
Mask at the Yellow Womb Heart Demon’s lair. The Old Monk used to be Geri, an enthusiast of 
the Soul Arts who believed in their potential   to emancipate mankind. He was a lover 
of the Queen of Latria, and sat amongst her three other counselors in the throne room.
Geri was among the higher ranks of the Vinland   clan. His name means ‘’Spear’’, or ‘’Spear 
King’’, and the iconic helmet of the Dark Silver armor set is decorated with a crest 
in the shape of a spear tip. Vinland is an   ancient and powerful family that was at 
the root of the Mirdan empire, alongside the Yormedars. It is at the core of the Church – 
it provides the institution many priest-knights   and finances it with their trade of wine.
Another interesting hint at this connection is the design of the Jailers, who were holy men of 
the Church: their squid heads were inspired by the spear-tip-like, squid-like design of the helmets 
of the Dark Silver set, a symbol of Vinland. The Filthy Woman calls Garl Vinland ‘’squid-headed’’. 
The Dark Silver shields depict a spear tip   coming from the skies and exploding in bolts of 
lightning; and the Jailers can conjure paralyzing bolts of lightning from their bells. Their robes 
are golden; the material associated with Vinland. The men of Vinland were, for the most part, devout 
to their Faith. They were useful idiots to the system that was being corrupted from within by 
a cabal of the Latrian nobility at large – some   members of their clan included. Their warriors 
fought in the wars of the Church, and the Prison of Hope was guarded by their lower-ranking men 
– many of whom fell for bribes by the Yormedars. Geri was a cardinal; a man sworn to chastity, and 
exceptionally ranked within the institution. But, as is so common with powerful holy men, he was a 
hypocrite, a liar; he was having an affair with Latria’s queen, who was married to King Allant of 
Boletaria, who was always away at war – fighting battles which the queen had started – and couldn’t 
give proper attention and love to his wife. And because of that affair, Geri was invited 
to the Soul Society. Being part of the foolish wing of the Church, he was appalled by what 
he saw at the secret meetings of nobility; the Church persecuted all who studied 
the Arts, be they good men or bad men,   but the powerful men and women who de-facto 
ran the institution were the worst of heretics. Seeing the hypocritical and exclusionary nature of 
the prohibition of the Soul Arts, a fire was lit within him, and he rebelled. He employed the Soul 
Arts to craft numerous artifacts, which quickly spread around Latria, so much so that he earned a 
reputation for his magical handicrafts. He shared the fruits of the knowledge he acquired in the 
secret meetings of the Latrian coven of witches   with his people. A part of him wanted to compete 
against Boletaria, against Allant, and win, and restore the kingship of House Vinland. He resented 
him and his brother, and what they represented as Boletarian royals: the downfall of House 
Vinland. He wanted his house to be elevated once more to the peak of the world; he wished to 
become a king like his distant ancestors were. The queen was vain and materialistic, and went to 
great lengths to preserve her youth – she drained the vigor of her own people, like a vampire – 
like Elizabeth Bathory – to fill her void. Geri, however, allowed age to do its course 
on him; after all, he employed the souls   he acquired on his artifacts. And over 
time, he lost his favor with the queen, and began to be called, derogatorily by nobles 
in the know, the ‘’old man of the queen’’. And so, their falling out came to bite 
him. He’d be punished for spoiling the   secret practices of the Latrian royals. The 
counselors of the opposing wing denounced his practices under the guise of universal law, and 
advocated for his execution; the true reason for their attacks was that he’d infringed upon 
the oath of secrecy of their organization.  The other member of his wing, a prodigal sorcerer 
named Freke, his partner in crime, stood up for his cause. But ultimately, all he could do 
was alleviate the sentence, which went from execution to exile; the Queen sided with his 
political adversaries and sentenced him to be banished from the land for his betrayal.
He’d go from a cardinal who preached   emancipation and who lived in extravagance to an 
ascetic, criminal monk in torturous repentance. This decision caused Freke to abdicate his 
seat at the council, and roam around the   world to spread the knowledge of the Soul 
Arts, following his friend Geri’s ideals. This earned him the title of visionary.
Geri, who was universally hated in Latria, who was being tortured by bribed men of his clan, 
felt, deeply, that his punishment was unfair. He reminisced of a time when men of his rank, of 
his house were kings; in those times, a huge gap stood between Vinland and the middle-earthers; 
Vinland had the most prestige, it was on top of the world. If only he were a king like his 
ancestors, he’d be wed to the woman he loved, to the Yormedarian queen. But now, everyone 
had betrayed him: his lover, House Yormedar, the Church, and worst of all, his own house.
In his penitence, he was made to wear a crown of thorns as a mockery of his ambitious nature; 
and it was true, a part of him envied Allant, and wished to be like him; he emulated him; in part 
because he hoped to attract the queen’s attention. He was inflicted physical and mental pain; 
he could barely resist his anguish. But the suffering did not sanctify him; it 
tainted him, it pulled him into darkness. When the Second Scourge came, the Colorless 
Fog empowered him. His yellow robe was granted life by the powers of the Old One, and 
wrapped itself around his head like a crown. Geri returned to Latria to enact upon it divine 
retribution. However, the Demonic influence of the Yellow Robe took a toll on his already frail 
sanity, and he went too far; he struck a Faustian bargain with Satan and paid the price – as he 
drained and tortured the souls of the Latrians, his own soul was being drained by his living 
crown, which was like a tick that was sucking   him dry. The more he lost his soul, the crueler 
he became. The more he lost his light, himself, the greater the void that’d be filled 
with mindless rage and evil, with shadow.  Latria – the Highlands – was represented 
by the flying white doves – the Old Monk turned it into a birdcage, as chains 
inexplicably surround the entire area. Latria’s collective suffering nurtured a Demon at 
its center, which became like a Heart of Darkness, a distilled Idea of Evil. A microcosmic Demiurge, 
a replica of the Old One; a parasite that fed on souls. The Mephistophelian crown of the Demon 
King was not just a tick to the man himself, but to his nation; and its blood was 
converging into this chaotic abomination. Geri’s reign of tyranny would go on to punish 
all those who had opposed him in the past with   excessive cruelty; the nobles who practiced 
sorcery in secrecy would be imprisoned and tortured, their souls gradually sucked out of 
their bodies, and fed to the Heart of Darkness, which would then rebirth them into hideous 
monstrosities; and the warriors who dared to   challenge him would have their souls 
grafted into statues of gargoyles, and sentenced to serve him as demonic slaves.
When Rydell, Allant’s younger brother, learned about the state of Latria, he recklessly 
invaded the Prison of Hope to rescue his wife   of House Yormedar; and Geri seized the opportunity 
to unleash upon him a great punishment – his sentence would be special, for he was a symbol 
of Boletaria. He’d be made to watch the death   of his wife. His soul would then be split from 
his body, which would be left to rot in a cell; his spirit would remain locked away, forever 
desperate to find even a keepsake of his wife so he could rest in peace.
Even Freke was imprisoned and   left to rot in a cell; Geri had been 
blinded by evil and couldn’t recognize his former friend – just as Freke couldn’t 
recognize his, for Geri had become a Demon. Geri, who was once an envious, ambitious noble, 
was now the most avaricious Demon of all. His soul can be transposed into the Soul Thirst 
spell, which has a more powerful version of the   effect of the Rings of Avarice which the nobles 
of the Soul Society concocted for themselves. (This is why the Gargoyle enemies have 
such high drop rates for souls – their   souls were precariously stuffed into 
the gargoyle statues, as hinted by the   nails sealing the cracks on their heads.)
From the Heart of Darkness flows its veins,   which are like tentacles, like roots; 
they extend to Latria’s swamp which was turned into an execution ground. The demonic 
heart was also a womb of chaos, and it birthed defiled chimeras from the remains of the dead, 
from the energy it absorbed from the Latrians,   by mixing it with the many insects – such 
as bookworms, as Latria was a nation of scholars – and the properties of Mercurystone 
– an ore native to Latria – within it. The Ivory Tower inversely parallels the Nexus, 
the original and tallest Ivory Tower that was, at first, a temple which hosted the 
secret meetings of the Witch Queen and   her coven, but that would, upon their defeat, 
be subverted into a temple of world peace, overseen by the image of the Warrior King. Geri 
now sat at the throne – Vinland’s kingship was at last restored, but its gold had now become 
pyrite; his golden robe was but a bright yellow, and he had no queen beside him, and his army 
was not of elite holy men, but of Demons. The nobles of Latria who managed to escape the 
accursed kingdom tried to reclaim the throne by   using a portion of their remaining wealth to hire 
the shadow organization of spies and assassins to dispose of Geri – but all the mercenaries failed. 
A woman who brandished the Baby’s Nail, a knife with a powerful poison, and worn a copy of the 
Thief’s Ring, was slain by the Fool’s Idol, and her soul was enslaved – her Black Phantom guards 
the Church. Yurt was captured and jailed near the Ivory Tower. The most skilled of them all, a rogue 
spy of Boletaria, who led the organization – the same man who’d leaked knowledge of the Soul Arts 
to the queen of Latria – managed to reach Geri,   but was killed in action; his spirit was trapped 
and became the Old Monk’s personal guard. Once the slayer of demons faces the Old Monk, 
the Yellow Robe decides to leave his shriveled, drained body, causing Geri’s immediate 
death. The Robe thought it had found a   worthy vessel in the protagonist, and 
so attempted to make him his new host. The Shadowmen were a tribe of warriors 
who had as their core virtues bravery   and might. The Adjudicator is a pagan 
deity worshipped by them. It is the Demon butcher commanded by the Golden Crow.
The Crow would pass judgement upon the warriors of the tribe, and those who acted cowardly or 
ate bird flesh would be eaten by the glutton. Through the powers of the Old One, the mythos 
of the Shadowmen were manifested as Demons. The Adjudicator represents the mortal rivals of 
the Shadowmen – the Giants. The Giants ate the flesh of their enemies so they’d inherit 
their strength and bravery, their vigor;   and cannibalism made them enormous and their 
lives longer. However, it also made them covetous – their customs fueled endless war, 
and, eventually, caused their destruction. The ’eating of bird flesh’ also serves as an allegory 
– as a euphemism – for cannibalism – with proud, worthy warriors symbolically turning into 
birds after an honorable death in battle   so they can fly and reach the heavens.
The Golden Crow is a psychopomp, the gatekeeper of heaven, and the key to the gate 
he guards is martyrdom. Thus, enacting the role of judge, he commands an executioner monster – 
a headless, cannibalistic, vain creature, whose gluttony caused his body to bloat and dissolve 
into slime. The monster’s tongue is enormous, as is his belly. His body is adorned with jewelry, 
and he brandishes a giant cleaver, emblematic of his raw thirst for flesh and violence, and the 
literal tool which the Giants used to butcher men. Birds were deified by the Shadowmen for they 
could fly beyond the Storms and enter heaven; and crows are omens of death, as they appear 
whenever there is war to feast on the bodies   of fallen warriors. It’s only fitting that a crow 
would be the one to judge the souls and declare if they deserve to reach the heavens; by eating 
the bodies of deceased warriors, the Crows absorb their souls, which flow through their blood; 
the eyes, especially, are windows to the soul, and a prized delicacy for such scavengers.
It is for this reason that Sparkly, the Crow, has acquired enough intelligence 
to speak the language of men.  In a way, the dichotomy between the Giants and the 
Shadowmen is like that of Antichrist and Christ; the Giants wished for material power 
and immortal life, and for that, they   devoured their fellow kin, while the Shadowmen 
were warriors who wished not eternal life, but glory in death through martyrdom. The 
Shadowmen saw their eternal rivalry with the Giants as a trial of the Heavens, and their 
culture, their religion reflected that notion. The relationship of the Golden Crow with the 
Adjudicator mirrors that of the Witch Queen   and the Old One; the Golden Crow commands its 
golem, which butchers and eats men’s flesh, but sends them to Heaven forcefully, as they 
couldn’t reach it on their own, saving men of their own wickedness by confronting them with it. 
It is like the Jungian concept of the symbolic death; a man has to face his own shadow, to 
enter the belly of the beast, to be reborn. With the ressurgance of paganism 
preceding the Second Scourge,   the clergy of the Shadowmen subverted their 
own traditional virtues and culture by sucking the life of the warrior class to attain 
immortal life. They mirror the corrupt   clergy of Boletaria which went on to hunt them 
down and bring ruin to their civilization. The Shadowmen that had their souls sucked by 
the priests after their deaths were manifested   by the Fog as literal men of shadow, who roam 
the shrine as condemned souls – the inversion of their desired fate; their deformed 
heads are similar to that of the Old One. The Old Hero is the spirit of a mighty 
berserker warrior of the past that was   conjured by the powers of the Old One.
His body was gravely scarred as a result of his performance in the defensive 
battle against the invading Giants.  His Sword of Searching’s name means that he 
was eager to reach the heavens. The birds and warriors flow through the wind to find it, and 
his sword conjures gusts of wind with every swing. However, he was greedy, and from his eating 
of bird flesh, he was severely punished. The priests mutilated his lips as an 
omen of his avarice, and blinded him,   as both a symbolic punishment for his spiritual 
blindness, and so that he could never find the heavens and his soul would keep searching 
for eternity. His body was adorned with   jewelry to make him look like his mortal 
enemies which he emulated – the Giants; he was made into a totem of the Butcher Demon in 
death, as he’d acted like the Demon in life. As explained before, bird flesh is an euphemism 
for human flesh; thus, the Old Hero was a cannibal. This explains his massive size, which 
is the result of eating the flesh of his fallen foes to steal their might – a great taboo for the 
Shadowmen. Indeed, in his search for the heavens, the hero became just like the monsters he 
was facing, betraying the very essence of   his people – a recurring trend in Demon’s Souls’: 
the descent into corruption, the hypocrisy of men. The Old Hero was forced to become even more 
demonic than the enemies that were eradicating his   people. He broke every law, every taboo to defend 
his land – and was punished for it. Though the men who’d order his punishment would become even 
greater Demons than him – even greater hypocrites. The Old Hero is a tragic figure; upon the death 
of his spirit, he howls at the sky one last time. The Storm King is the Adversarial 
deity of the religion of the Shadowmen;   their Satan. It is the being responsible 
for the storm itself; the creator of the material realm. The Storm King was manifested 
by the fog as the embodiment of its egregore. The birds – more specifically, the crows – were 
deified as heavenly gatekeepers, as angels; in opposition to them stood the Manta Rays, 
who flew – or rather, swam with their wing-like protrusions – in the abyss below, in the deep, 
dark sea. They were perceived to be like fallen angels, unworthy angels who fell from paradise 
and into the earthly world of suffering. Thus, the Storm King, their ruler, is the Lucifer 
– in fact, Lucifer is often represented by the thunderbolt as a symbol of his fall –, the 
Demiurge, the Satan of the Shadowmen; the God of Demons, a microcosmic Old One – as are all Demons.
The Stormruler is an enchanted sword fitting for a warrior of legend. It was crafted during the 
First Scourge to be wielded against the Demons. Its magical powers awaken when in the presence 
of the graves of mighty Shadowmen warriors of   yore who fought against the spawn of the Fog.
The faith of the Shadowmen is Gnostic in nature; they believe the material world to 
be the flawed work of a fallen angel,   who’s a false God of Chaos, of the Storm; 
and thus, aim to free themselves of their corporeal prisons through glorious deaths 
in combat against demonic evildoers. When the corrupt priests of the Shrine 
rediscovered the Soul Arts – they saw the   Giants performing them in their battle against 
their tribe – they turned the Shadowmen religion upside down; the rituals of purification of the 
dead turned into rituals of soul-absorption of the dead by them; and the offerings to the heavens, 
which were intended to send the souls of brave   warriors to paradise, turned into offerings 
to the Storm King. They created, through the use of the Soul Arts, weapons from the marrow 
of the Storm Beasts – the Morion Blades, black   swords shaped like stings that, like the Demonic 
Manta Rays venerated by the satanic Priests, take pleasure in the wielder’s suffering. All the 
brave warriors who died fighting the Giants, who died protecting their island, their people, were 
doomed to perpetual confinement in material hell, in a fog-covered Shrine of the Devil. Souls of 
fallen warriors who were never buried possessed skeletons that fought against invaders, 
in eternal search of a glorious death. The Leechmonger is a Demon composed 
of numerous leeches that stick   together to form a human-like body.
The Leechmonger was born out of Holy Knight Lizaia’s body – we find her enchanted 
spear near the Leechmonger’s arena, but, notably, her corpse is absent from that 
location. She was one of the Church’s high-ranking holy women, and like Vito 
and Selen, she wore the Dull Golden set. Her spear Istarelle is also said to be 
one of the few holy revelations of God,   as is the Moonlight Greatsword, which was Vito’s 
weapon, and the Blind, which belongs to Selen. Her corpse fell to the bottom of the Valley, 
and a billow of leeches feasted on it. However, her gleaming soul triggered the birth of a Demon, 
who acts as gatekeeper to the Valley’s core. The Leechmonger is perfectly emblematic of 
corruption; a Demon born from the body of a   saint, whose shape is formed by the 
parasites which feed upon its soul. The Dirty Colossus is a Golem constructed 
and animated, through dark magic,   by the inhabitants of the swamp to serve as the 
last line of defense of Astraea’s hiding place. Its body is composed of a round core, protected 
by wooden armor, and an amalgamation of nests of flies – symbols of pestilence and 
material decay –, which it weaponizes. Much like the Leechmonger, the Dirty Colossus was 
born from the corruption of a saint – of Vito, whose soul was stolen by shamans 
and used to animate the Golem. Astraea is a maiden who abdicated from her duty 
as a saint of the Church of God to stay in the   Valley of Defilement and care for its inhabitants.
Despite the corruption and moral wickedness of many of the swamp’s inhabitants, she could 
not bear to witness their pitiful state   of being and volunteered to heal their pain 
and suffering; she abandoned everything and corrupted her own soul to help those in need.
However, the road to hell is paved with good   intentions. The mercy granted by her to the 
meek was Demonic in nature. She employed the Soul Arts to suck the souls out of their bodies, 
eliminating their pain, yes, but also their minds; they became but empty, violent, idol-worshiping 
husks; when killed, they drop barely any souls, for they are not unlike golems themselves.
Conversely, while their bodies may be but mere   hollows, their souls are, indeed, experiencing 
perfect joy in a microcosmic paradise which Astraea built for them. Astraea parallels the 
Witch Queen of Mird, who understood the Earth to be a prison and corrupted herself, turning into 
an Archdemon, to send all living souls to heaven. Astraea inversely parallels the Chieftain of 
the Valley that is represented in its Archstone;   he was a doctor who healed the sick and 
wounded through the use of Soul Arts. Both had the greatest of intentions, and were seen as 
saviors, but one wished to emancipate the flesh, the other to free the soul. It’s interesting 
how this duality is expressed superficially; Astraea looks like a beautiful Holy Woman on 
the surface, but is, in truth, an Archdemon; and the Witch Doctor looks like a Demon, a 
scary pagan on the surface, but is, in truth, a healer; however, Demon’s Souls goes one 
layer deeper, as Astraea is indeed angelic, and the doctor, though good-intentioned, 
is merely a servant of darkness, enabling   matter; or perhaps it is the other way around.
The valley’s inhabitants have organized themselves as a militia to protect Astraea; barring access 
to those who seek to rescue her and from those who come to take her Demon Soul. Like her, 
they had good intentions; they wished only to guard the sanctuary of their Messiah. 
But like her, their good intentions fueled sin – they killed invaders alongside saints.
The faces of the Depraved Ones were distorted into the shape of a Baku’s head – and the 
Baku is an imagetic representation of the   Old One which has also informed, as will be 
discussed later, the design of the Eye Stones. Their eyes are like those of a Dragon.
Astraea sits at the end of the swamp, caressing the souls of the Depraved Ones. She 
turned the Valley of Defilement into an even greater hell, that she did, as she distilled 
all light from it. But, at the same time, that distilled light is free from darkness.
Astraea was canonized as a Saint for discovering healing miracles – the same type of sorcery 
employed by the witch-doctor that cared for   the sick within the swamp, the chieftain 
of the Valley depicted on the Archstone. But she would subvert her own saintly 
deed by discarding the body altogether.  The Depraved Ones began to capture all sane men to 
offer their souls to Astraea, who’d relieve their suffering and take them to heaven by draining 
their lives from their vessels. Human sacrifice   was part of the culture of Northern barbarians 
– men were captured and offered to the Giant chieftains so they’d devour their flesh and souls. 
All material riches that were found in the swamp were taken to the Saint as well; she was worshiped 
as a pagan idol as well as an angel of salvation. Astraea parallels the Old One, and the Depraved 
Ones the holy men of the Church of God. Just like how the holy men of the Church worship Satan 
believing him to be God, the Depraved Ones worship   Astraea believing her to be a Messiah, when she 
is an Archdemon. And just like how the warriors of the Church fight in the name of God against 
paganism, the pagan inhabitants of the Valley   fight in the name of their savior against 
the Slayers of Demons. Garl Vinland, then, parallels King Allant, the final obstacle between 
the world’s savior and the Old One. However, as I’ve explained, there is yet another layer 
to this scheme – in the end, the Demons will, indeed, take all to heaven; and 
in this sense, the Old One – and Astraea – are indeed like merciful Gods.
Astraea was truly pure of heart, as innocent as a child – and her bright, immaculate 
soul wasn’t fit for such a corrupted,   sinful world. Before she knew the truth of 
the Earth, she lived in safety and abundance, a wholly pampered existence. Seeing the depravity 
and suffering of the meekest among men triggered within her a desire to take them to paradise, 
to free them from all pain; she became a saintly All-mother, disregarding the foolish, inverted, 
materialistic morals of the Church, corrupting, martyring herself in the process, so that she 
could create her own microcosmic paradise. The Churchmen used to venture into the Valley 
during their crusades against paganism;   they treated the sinful, but meek and 
suffering inhabitants of the swamp as Demons to be slaughtered; some were even crucified 
– and they’d later fight invaders with the nails from the crosses as weapons. Astraea looked 
at them as lost sheep to be herded instead,   and guided them to Paradise through distillment of 
the soul from matter. Though she is an Archdemon, she is, simultaneously, an Angel; the way one 
perceives her is dependent on his values – should he be a fool who values matter over spirit, or be 
too attached to the earthly world, he’ll perceive her as a mad witch; should he value spirit over 
matter, to him she is a true, enlightened Saint. King Allant the Twelfth is the successor 
of Doran’s royal lineage. He was seen as   a particularly great and kind king who 
was affectionate toward commoners. His profile points to him being a sensitive 
soul, a leader with a pure heart who   doesn’t belong in a world as cruel as his.
As was tradition since Boletaria’s founding, the then prince was wed to Latria’s princess, – 
who was an elite member of House Yormedar. Their marriage was political in nature; the king could 
see taint within the soul of the vain princess, and couldn’t trust her, and she saw him as a 
tool. From the start she was working with a   double agent within Boletaria’s spy network.
His younger brother, Lord Rydell, was an adventurer who set out to explore the world. 
During one of his travels, he found a chunk of an Archstone, which transported him to the Nexus.
There, he met with the Maiden in Black – who he identified as a witch – and stole 
her staff, returning to Boletaria with   it. Upon learning about Rydell’s exploits, 
Allant traveled to the Nexus himself. There, the Monumental decided to teach him the Soul 
Arts, as he appeared to be a good-hearted leader. She claimed to Allant she believed he 
could save the world with kindness,   that he would bring a new renaissance to mankind, 
that he was the chosen one. She could see within him resided a gleaming, immaculate soul. She 
told him she believed humanity was ready to   learn the Arts once more. In truth, her act was 
a sham; her true intentions lied somewhere else. When Allant returned to Boletaria, he employed 
the Soul Arts to better the lives of his people; artifacts such as the Rings of Great and 
Herculean Strength were crafted during his rule,   and distributed around Boletaria. We’re shown 
this period was so abundant that such magical artifacts were commonplace, to the point that 
one can find them discarded on the main road. During Boletaria’s peak – during its age of 
unprecedented prosperity –, Allant organized a series of games with the purpose of filtering 
suitable warriors for a project he envisioned –   Boletaria’s Round Table of Knights, an elite 
order of the world’s most capable combatants. Warriors from every nation came to Boletaria, 
which had opened its gates to the world, to take part in the tournament; and it was the 
greatest championship the earth had ever seen. Many fighters had distinguished themselves in 
combat; the finalists were Biorr and Vallarfax, two strongmen of Stonefang; Long-bow Oolan, 
an archer of the Shrine of Storms – who was a woman in disguise; Alfred, Boletaria’s shield; 
and Metas, Boletaria’s sword, the king’s nephew, who lost to his uncle in a duel – it was the last 
fight of the event. Allant’s son, Ariona, didn’t participate in the tournament – and in this time, 
he couldn’t truly understand him, his weakness. That would change after he’d be faced with the 
harshness of the world and fall to melancholy.  King Allant was awarded the gold medal; Metas 
the silver; Alfred, the iron; Oolan, the lead. The finalists were thus ordained knights of the 
Round Table, and would serve the king, directly. The goal of the organization was to protect the 
world from chaos, to secure the fraternity of men. The Round Table was universal in its composition, 
as it was in character – its members can be traced to all of the world’s remaining nations. Oolan 
to the Shrine of Storms; Biorr and Vallarfax to Stonefang; Alfred to Boletaria and Metas to 
Latria. Allant believed in the ideals of chivalry; from childhood he was infatuated with legends 
of past heroes who fought dragons, with stories   of knights who saved the innocent from evil. 
His soul was the purest and brightest of all. Despite his incredible achievements, which have 
propelled Boletaria’s well-being so plentifully,   the Soul Arts – in large part the source 
of their newfound prosperity – were also fomenting avarice within the powerful.
The politicians he’d taught the Soul   Arts too were going rogue, were turning to 
greed and manipulating him and his knights for their benefit. The secret had leaked from 
Boletaria, for there was a spy overseeing the council; first it was Latria, and later, other 
nations began to practice the occult as well. On his queen’s – or rather, the Church’s –, 
and on his politician’s orders), he was sent to various wars; he was forced to enact the role of a 
warrior king, as was tradition within his lineage, from his coronation onwards; for that, he yielded, 
however unwillingly, to the Demon stirring inside him. In order to face monsters, he thought, he’d 
have to become even more monstrous than them. He split the Northern Regalia in twain 
– into white and black. He kept the half that drew its power from humanity’s blackest 
impulses, and condemned the half symbolizing   their goodness to rest forever in Doran’s 
mausoleum, an act emblematic of his Luciferian fall. This was the path Allant chose.
The people of Boletaria were known for being hardworking, honest and simple; they were 
diligent and good-hearted – but that was changing; the soldiers were becoming increasingly cruel, 
wielding unorthodox weapons designed to cause   pain – such as the spiked shields – and 
taking dogs trained to maim their enemies and made to wear sharp metallic dentures 
to war. The executioners and jailers began to enjoy the smell, the taste of blood. 
The powerful desired to devour the world. His responsibility overwhelmed him; he’d become 
increasingly disillusioned with his kingship, with life and the world the more he aged. Scars 
covered his body and face. While he was at war, fighting for a corrupt and hypocritical 
Church ran by avaricious and cruel nobles,   his wife was having an affair – and rumors 
of which likely spread through nobility. He felt as though he was truly alone in the world.
Behind his back, his ministers were plotting the destruction and subjugation of all nations – they 
even restored slavery in Stonefang, and Allant felt powerless against their machinations.
He realized his mistake; he was like a dog; he was manipulated by everyone around 
him, and his realization came too late. And everyone had betrayed and disappointed him.
He ultimately snapped, and traveled to the Nexus once more – this time, not with the intention 
of empowering humanity, but of destroying it. He awakened the Old One from its ancient slumber 
to free mankind from its own wickedness – to bring about the end of the world, though he 
believes it to be an act of divine mercy. He is the inverse Doran, the subversion 
of the legend of the Last Hero;   instead of fighting Dragons, he summons them 
and orders them to breathe fire to destroy men. He who was once the savior of mankind was 
now its adversary; (REGRAVAR FINAL) but,   unbeknownst to him, he shared an epiphany the 
Witch Queen of Mird – though, in his case, it wasn’t born from intellect, but from feeling. 
Theirs was the path to true salvation, to heaven. If you hold on to corporeal existence, 
you’ll fear the Demons that tear it away. But if you’ve made your peace, and attained 
enlightenment, if you value soul over matter, then the Demons are really angels freeing you 
from Earthly existence and taking you to paradise. While Allant’s demonic spirit embodies the 
qualities of a king of Boletaria – and his soul   emanates angelic wings of aether –, his true form, 
which we face at the root of the Old One, reflects his self-perception, as well as his nihilistic 
outlook. The Demon King is nothing but a puny, dark, crippled worm, a slave to the Old One. But, 
alternatively, he is a martyr who volunteered to bear the burdens of the world, to bear all sin 
and darkness so he could bring all to heaven; and thus, he stands as the gatekeeper of Paradise.
Allant is not the first name of the King, but the name of his House; his son is named Ariona Allant, 
and his full name may be Rendal Allant – according to internal files. Rendal is also the name 
of a warrior king of Astora in Dark Souls; and the relation of Astora to Anor Londo and the 
World of Men is similar to that of Boletaria and Latria, the land of the wealthiest of 
nobles; both Boletaria and Astora are   the middle-earths of their worlds.
Rendal means ‘’wolf’’ and ‘’shield’’, a fitting name for a warrior king who was loyal, like a 
dog, to his masters. Though in the end Allant subverted its meaning upon becoming the highest 
Demon and destroying the world; the wolf is a symbol of loyalty, and Allant betrayed his people.
Though the king chose to surrender to the Old One, he left his son the key to the Boletarian 
Mausoleum, where he sealed the white half   of the sword of legend. He knew Ariona 
had the brightest, warmest soul of all; the sword’s power would grow exponentially on 
his hand, and be enough to vanquish his father, should he preserve his good nature, embrace hope 
and wish to save the world. And in saving the world, he’d be seen as the greatest hero of 
humanity. This decision mirrors that of the   Witch Queen of Mird, who left the Regalia as a way 
to give humanity one last chance of redemption. Allant recognized that the world is cursed with 
duality; and he wished to break that curse. He would either ruin the earth, distilling light from 
matter and sending all to paradise, or he would be stopped by a man he deemed fit to be a monarch 
of peace, a truly worthy and perfect king with a soul even brighter than his who’d lead humanity 
to a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity, to a new dawn, a new golden age. Allant would win 
if he felled humanity or if he was felled by it. The Maiden in Black was originally the Witch 
Queen who created the Old One and triggered the   First Scourge. She was once the oldest, most 
dangerous demon, who sucked the souls of men through her witchcraft. After the Old One was 
banished by Mird, she was punished accordingly; her soul was sealed, causing her mind to 
regress to a child-like state, as her eyes were covered with wax, symbolically denying her 
enlightenment – the eyes are windows to the soul. She was sentenced to eternally tend to the 
flames of the Nexus as a candle maiden,   and aid the future generations of men with her 
ritual magic, with her domain over souls – she can convert the souls of others into vitality and 
power, which was what she used to do when she was   a Demon Queen –, should the Old One awake again.
The First and Second Scourges inversely parallel each other – the first was triggered by a 
witch-queen, and ended by a warrior king;   the second was triggered by a warrior-king, and 
ended by a witch-queen. The statues of the Nexus reference the occult motto of as above, so below 
– a warrior-king is above, brandishing a sacred weapon, and the witch-queen standing upside-down 
– just as the witches which the Church captured and killed in Boletaria –, as she was defeated 
by her male opposite. Those statues were built when the Nexus was reformed from a temple which 
hosted the coven of the Witch Queen – there’s a   smaller statue near its center depicting her as 
a shadowy figure, one of the preferred resting spots of the Maiden in Black – into the 
prison for the rehabilitated witches – now Monumentals – and queen – now the Candle Maiden.
Her function as a Candle Maiden of the Nexus also has the symbolic significance of her being the one 
who’ll keep the whole world alive – as she keeps   the flames of the Nexus lit; souls are light, 
and life depends upon souls. This is, of course, an inversion of her actions as the Witch Queen 
– she wished to blow out the candle of humanity. The Maiden in Black is the hidden heroine of 
the story, a redeemed Demon. Just as Allant represents the fallen Saintly warrior, whose 
symbolic ancestor is the God King who defeated   the Witch. And his wife was a Yormedarian Queen, 
like her distant descendant, the Witch Queen of Latria. Allant and the Maiden in Black are 
like Ying and Yang. Or, one could think,   Allant is the true hero, and the Mirdan 
Queen, who was reduced to a mindless doll, is enacting the will of the foolish men who 
can’t let go of the world to find heaven. The Old One is the eldritch source of all 
Demons. It is like the raw energy of nature   manifested as a Dragon, as the Beast of the 
Apocalypse, which was summoned – or rather, created – by the Witch Queen; a Frankenstein’s 
monster, a supreme Golem of sorts. Its fog isn’t a mere corrupting force; 
it grants agency to men’s destructive,   evil desires and emotions, which go on to birth 
Demons. It is perfectly symbolic of the liminal merging of material and astral planes – after 
all, it is a fog; it obscures and diffuses light. The Fog is the pendulum of karmic justice striking 
upon men for their sins – the Wrath of God; so, the creator of that chaotic God – the 
witch – is like a God of Sin herself, a hidden, occult, rogue deity.
The Old One dualistically parallels both the Tree of Life and the Three of Knowledge of 
the Book of Genesis – and it is, quite literally, a colossal Tree of Life, hosting all of 
men’s souls within its beastly belly,   that is, inversely, a harbinger of Death 
and Chaos –, just as the Soul Arts parallel the Fruits. It dualistically parallels the 
Serpent as well; it is the alchemical Dragon, the raw energy of nature manifested, Satan. The 
stupid, blind false God. The Sacred Tree is the main symbol of House Vinland and House Yormedar, 
who ruled the Mirdan Empire. As explained before, Vinland is the life, Yormedar the knowledge.
All Demons are reflections of the Old One. The more Demonic one is, the darker his 
soul, the simpler his mind; a Demon will act increasingly on instinct, which tells it to 
devour souls and cause destruction. All Demons, like the Old One, are parasites; they prey upon 
the souls of the world to feed themselves. In a way, they are as evil as nature itself.
The Old One’s first awakening was triggered by the empire of Mird, during an age when it was 
the hegemonic power. It ravaged half the world, summoning mighty demons and devastating 
firestorms. Mird attempted to send it back to slumber by attacking it with powerful 
soul-trapping weapons. These magical Mirdan weapons are what power the Archstones and 
trap the souls of the Demons we slay within   them – like dream catchers, tying it all back to 
the surreal, subconscious background. They’re also what causes souls to be trapped and linked to the 
Nexus; in truth, they are like conduits to light, to energy, to souls. The player character 
gets trapped by the Nexus due to their   magical influence over the Tutorial Area, which 
is the ancient border of Mird; the tallest Ivory Tower that became the Nexus stood precisely at 
the world’s center – and it became the world’s magical center upon its conversion into the 
Nexus, as all Archstones transport men to it. The soul-trapping artillery is perfectly symbolic 
of the ideals of the other side of the coin: while the Queen wanted to free all souls through 
corporeal death, the King wanted to shackle them. One side seeks distillment of light from darkness, 
separation; the other wants light and dark to be fused together. One is foolish, but pure, 
the other is enlightened, but sinful. The   Northern Regalia being the weapon of Doran, 
the King who mended the world, is emblematic of that as well – just as its splitting by 
Allant, who wished to rupture the world. Allant left the white half in Doran’s mausoleum, 
and took the black for himself – just as the Old One hosts the brightness of humanity within 
itself, but casts its shadow to the outside. Once the Old One was defeated, the Monumentals 
removed a chunk of the world from the physical   plane and sealed it within a dream-like 
astral realm. The Old One rests at the bottom of the realm, surrounded by Mird’s ashes.
Within the belly of the beast lies paradise; a realm of pure light, freed from the darkness 
of matter. Though the Old One fed upon the souls of humanity, and subconsciously, 
instinctually employed Demons to feed it, it was all for the sake of the greater good 
in the end – even if it merely wanted to   feed itself. To force a conflict of light 
against darkness is to rupture the paradox, the shackle which binds all life on Earth; men 
were confronted with the blackest shadows, and, as a result, taken to the brightest light, 
to a Garden of Eden. Beaches are symbolic of the transition from the world of matter to the 
world of soul, thus, the Old One rests at one. The Maiden in Black treats the Old One as her pet 
– and, in a way, that’s what it is, her mindless Golem. It may, at first, have been built as a mere 
Human Effigy; though it was cursed by the Witch to feel eternally void, infinitely lacking, and thus, 
doomed to eat the world in search of fulfillment – a curse that is simply an extrapolation of 
men’s own nature; of the nature of all living   beings. As Saint Urbain describes it, the Old One 
is like a poor, hungry child. In a way, it is the supreme and ultimate martyr of Demon’s Souls; the 
supreme Demon, the darkest and most impure of all, the only being excluded from paradise, but the 
purest – as pure as a puppy or a human infant, as pure as men before the fall; as pure as Saint 
Astraea, or King Allant the Twelth; and through its chained existence, it saved everyone. After 
all is ruined, and all life is found within its belly, it will slumber, never to wake again, and 
light will have been fully split from darkness. The Archstones hold within them an abundance 
of light; they are linked to the inhabitants   of the locations they host, or rather, to the 
memories, to the egregores, to the ideas of the locations themselves. They are literally and 
figuratively emblems of the nations of the world, and serve as magic gates to them. When a 
nation is destroyed, so is its Archstone. The Archstone which hosted the Land of the 
Northern Giants broke down because of the war   of the Church of God against the tribe; the North 
was invaded by Boletaria through the very Nexus, through the world’s tower of peace and unity; 
the Church was subverting its function – breaking universal law – and walking toward darkness.
Over the ages, as the Soul Arts were forgotten, men ceased to visit the Nexus, 
and forgot about it; fragments   of Archstones became exceedingly rare, 
lost artifacts. Rydell found one of them, and used it to visit the Nexus, and 
there he met with the Maiden in Black,   stole her staff, and went on to spread 
his adventurous tale throughout Boletaria. The Eye Stones are but crystalized, 
twisted remains of souls. They seem   to naturally morph into the shape of a Baku’s 
head; Baku is a dualistic Dream and Nightmare eating Demon of Japanese and Chinese 
mythology – which the Old One reflects. The minor Archstones that transport the player 
to the Nexus are made of unbroken Eye Stones   that were pierced by soul-sealing swords – their 
configuration parallels the Old One’s defeat by the hand of the Mirdans; the Beast was lulled 
to slumber by their soul-trapping artillery,   as the minor Archstone features a resting 
Eye Stone impaled by a magical weapon. The colors of the eye stones are significant 
– the blue and white are tied to virtue,   the red and black are tied to sin.
Overlapping Squares The overlapping squares are symbols of Mird. 
They’re present on Rune Sword and on the candle stand of the Mirdan Queen, and all over 
the Nexus. The Rune Sword also features   an abstract representation of the Sacred 
Tree of Vinland and Yormedar on its blade. The various upgrade materials of Demon’s Souls are 
a microcosm of its world – they follow its logic. They attain the qualities of the astral elements 
– of the ideas – which they interact with; thus, the ores of Latria have incorporated qualities 
of the mercury which the Latrians use for their   alchemical endeavors, their potions and 
poisons, and became Mercurystones – some, which were guided by the moon’s shade, 
became Moonshadestones, and had powerful   magic properties; the ores of Stonefang are 
either raw – not affecting a weapon’s scaling, and merely reinforcing it –, like the miners 
which mine them, or flaming like the Dragons whose bones hide within the caves – and lava 
being an expression of chaos, of the raw energy of nature, removes all scaling from a weapon 
–; the Cloudstone from the Shrine of Storms, which the Shadowmen believed originates from 
the sky, absorbed the diffused light that   passed through the thick clouds, and thus, 
acquired the properties of Cloud itself, diffusing light – that is, increasing 
magic negation on shields – and so on. Both the Moon Grasses and the Lotuses derive 
from the death of men – from the soil that was fertilized by men’s souls, from which 
flora spawned under moonlight – the moon   being related to sleep and death, but it also is 
integral to one’s rebirth, to the cycle of life. Thus, the Grass and the flowers that were 
nurtured by men’s souls are special – they   heal the living. It is poetic, indeed.
The greater the soul of the man who nurtured the soil, the greater the potency 
of the Grass that grew on it; and its color   too is related to the color of the man’s soul.
The appropriately named Soldier’s Lotuses were given as gifts to Boletarian soldiers leaving 
for war by their loved ones for both practical   reasons – they do help to mend wounds, to 
stop one’s bleeding – and symbolic ones – to wish them good fortune in battle, to say to them, 
‘’please, come back safely’’; and also, inversely, as a symbol of rebirth – their deaths in battle 
would help create new life, nurture new flowers. Due to the influx of dead bodies into the 
Valley of Defilement, most of whom belonged   to Boletarian soldiers, plenty of Lotuses can be 
found in the area. Through the powers of the Fog, some Lotuses turned into jellyfish-like 
Demons, coveting after men’s flesh and souls. Sticky White Stuff is the slime and/or the 
excrement of the slugs which have grown   exponentially by devouring the souls 
of the courageous warriors that were buried – as martyrs who found the heavens 
– at the Shrine of Storms. The island in its entirety was imbued with the life, with the 
light of the souls of soulful heroic Shadowmen, which is why its water is supernaturally 
bright; the slugs, which dwell and bathe   in caves full of that Brightwater, thus, have 
grown beyond natural sizes, and their bodies have acquired magical properties.
World Tendency & Primeval Demons Souls are aethereal light, thoughts, 
feelings, ideas, memories, life. Darkness is the opposite – it is empty, it is the 
shadow cast by the light, it is stupidity and death. Under the influence of the Fog, one’s 
soul affects how he experiences the world; should his own soul be bright, his world too 
will be lightful, and he will be protected from all harm, from all beings of Darkness. Should 
his soul be dark, his world too will be dark; as the void within him is greater, he will thus 
absorb more light, more souls – and more items, for all items are actually souls which 
contain the essence of a thing. However,   this void also calls for other Dark Souls – 
it calls for Dark Spirits; and its leeching property will also increase the damage taken by 
him. Death causes loss of soul, loss of self, drifting the world to Black tendency; and 
slaying great Demons causes gain of soul   to one’s true astral core, drifting the world 
to White. The souls superficially held by one, not integrated to his astral self, aren’t part 
of this relationship with the World’s Tendency. When one sees the world at its darkest, Demons 
most primordial will appear to him. As primordial as early life, as the first cellular organisms; 
creatures so dark, so devoid of life itself their souls are colorless, they have no thought, no 
personality, no identity, they know only to parasitically prey upon souls like filter feeders 
through the Fog. Their Colorless Demon Souls are, however, able to increase the potency of weapons 
derived from particularly colorful Souls, as their lack of will makes it so they’re 
seamlessly integrated into the host item. Even among Boletaria’s cruel executioners, Miralda 
stood out for her sadism. She killed so many men her strength enabled her to wield her giant axe 
with one hand. Her soothing, beautiful voice was made to reflect her inner self by the powers 
of the Fog – the Old One exposed her demonic   nature, as he exposes the nature of all men by 
opening the curtains to their minds and souls. Freke was Geri’s best friend, both belonging 
to the Vinland clan. Freke and Geri are the names of the twin wolves of Odin; in a passage 
of Grímnsismál, Odin is said to feed the wolves while he himself drinks only wine – tying 
the mythological inspiration to Vinland. The wolves, then, represent the raw energy of 
nature, the primal desire, the animalistic hunger, while Odin represents – and is the God 
of – wisdom. Thus, this passage hints at the nature of Vinland’s relationship with the 
powerful politicians who ran the Church – they   were the useful idiots, the foolish, manipulable 
zealot warriors they needed to fuel their corrupt system – and the wine of wisdom they drank 
was human blood – their red liquid spices. Wine is a symbol of enlightenment since ancient 
times; though it can also be symbolic of desire, excess, and perversion, as it 
can cause drunkenness – the   other side of the coin that is knowledge.
When Freke was confronted with the satanic reality of the Church, with the skeletons it hid, he, who 
was once a high-ranking cleric, a man most devout, lost his faith, and saw the God they worshiped 
for what it was: the Devil, the very Dragon the Church was created to quell. This is betrayed by 
his attire, which is very similar to the robes worn by saints – but is dirt-covered and worn-out.
Upon his departure from Latria, he was determined to spread the Soul Arts to the world. During his 
unholy – but simultaneously holy, depending on perspective – pilgrimage, he had to deal with 
assassins sent after him by the Soul Society; one of whom tried to kill him with a Baby’s 
Nail, which he promptly took for himself. Freke’s character arc ends with him becoming 
so infatuated with power and knowledge he   wishes for the player to become an 
all-powerful, God-like Demon King, not too dissimilar from Geri himself – which 
is possible to do through the alternate ending. Rydell, much in the spirit of his lineage of 
warriors, (inspired by Doran, the secretly Shadowman symbolic ancestor of theirs, and thus, 
by Shadowman customs of willingly, courageously facing death in battle,) His Rat Rings are 
emblematic of his cleverness and reckless bravery; they enhance his strength and defense when 
he’s wounded, facing death. His nickname was ‘’Little Allant’’ or ‘’Errant-Allant’’ 
for he was Allant’s younger brother. He was an absent father, for he had little 
time to be with his son – he was always in   search of adventure. But that meant his 
son had to be raised by Latrian royals; and Metas’ nurture made him an archontic monster.
Saint Urbain is a man emblematic of the Church of God. A man overly judgmental and 
strict, but a fool and a hypocrite. Urbain, a high-ranking member of House 
Vinland, taught the holy men the Soul Arts,   claiming he learned them from God Himself, through 
His voice which whispered in his ear – and for the so-called miracle he performed, he was canonized 
as a Saint. He called the Soul Arts Miracles of God to differentiate them from the demonic 
dark arts which the Church abhorred – but, in essence, both are the same, and he’d 
learned them from the Soul Society,   and was simply laundering them onwards to the 
benefit of the royals. He is exactly like Freke, his rival in the Nexus – except he’s dishonest.
Urbain fell for the cheap allure of Patches, meaning he loomed over the 
treasures and got kicked down   the murder hole as any other greedy simpleton.
In fact, treasure-hunting seems to be the main motivation for his journey beyond the Fog; as 
soon as he heard the world’s core was in ruins, he thought of the riches he could loot. He carries 
with him boxes full of jewelry. He is but a mirror image of Patches – though he comes from the 
wealthiest noble House in the world, one famous   for its riches, and from its devotion to God, he’s 
both extremely greedy and extremely unfaithful and the greatest of liars and backstabbers. Which 
is why Patches dislikes him – he knows they are   the same, yet Urbain pretends to be holier than 
thou – he views him the same way Freke views him.  Urbain cares little for his subordinates – in 
fact, if you kill his Acolyte in front of him, he won’t react; but do the 
opposite and you’ll be attacked.  The attire worn by him – named ‘’Saint’s robe’’ 
– is fashioned after the white dove, a symbol of Latria and the Church, a symbol that is featured 
on the banners of Boletaria, representing Latria. Mird used this symbol as well – the Dark 
Silver set is modeled after the dove.   It represents the Highlands, as opposed to 
the cross, which represents the Middle-earth. Patches’ face looks like a Baku’s 
head to show how demonic he is. Yuria is a redeemed witch; she was once 
determined to become a powerful Demon, as Freke asks the player to do, and as he does 
should he get the alternate ending – her lust for Demon Souls guided her to the Fog. But she 
was chained up by Miralda and tortured by the Fat Officials. In the dark, she was made to 
introspect about her condition, and abandoned her nefarious ambition. Her sorcery is based on 
raw human emotion; it is a feminine kind of magic, according to traditional Esoteric notions of 
gender. Thus, Yuria thinks it to be dangerous, as it is explosive, fiery, uncontrollable. She 
asks of the player to try Freke’s magic instead, which is logic-based. The abuse she suffered 
under the hand of the Ministers defeminized her; she was too extreme to one side before, and 
her trauma made her embrace the other extreme. It was her mother who instructed her 
on the Soul Arts from an early age;   they were of poor origin, and likely wished to 
heal the sick and wounded through it, to alleviate their suffering. She states that she didn’t 
have any ill-intent when practicing witchcraft. But as she and her mother were branded witches 
by the Church; it may be that her mother was   hunted down while she managed to escape; and 
she went on to become the Demon they claimed she was – her sorcery, which was once warm and 
soothing, a relief to the meek, had become chaotic and vengeful, like the wrath of God itself; as 
is above, so is below – her soul had darkened. Paradoxically, though she knows she had the best 
of intentions by studying the Arts at first, she’d later believe them to be malicious by 
nature, for she was traumatized and failed to   see reason, and decided to believe in the words 
of the priests who denounced her, saying the arts cause corruption, inherently – and the same is 
true for her femininity, which was expressed in her manifestation of the Soul Arts. Her having 
fallen prey to corruption certainly contributed to her notion, making her think they must’ve 
been evil all along; she, who was persecuted for being a witch, was, in reality, one of the 
most pure-hearted people – but was made to become a witch by her persecution. She parallels Maiden 
Astraea; and from Astraea’s Demon Soul, she can transpose the Relief spell, which, like a great 
miracle, heals another from sickness and wound. Yuria also parallels the daughter of 
Stockpile Thomas, and her mother, his wife; both were branded witches and killed by the 
inquisition, but they too surely were practicing   the Arts for good reason, for they had hearts of 
gold. Witches were hanged upside-down, a fitting punishment for forbidden enlightenment, as all 
blood rushes down to one’s brain until death. Mephistopheles was one of the highest-ranking 
members of Latria’s occult Soul Society. She   disposes of all who know of the Soul Arts, 
wishing to be the sole bearer of the torch of hidden knowledge – as did her Order, for the 
sake of universal control. As her name suggests, her bargains are Faustian in nature, and end 
with your death by her hands – after all, you too know of the Arts, and is thus her 
competition. The Epee Rapiers, the favored weapon of Latrian occultists, is imbued with 
the same magical flame that reduced Mird to ash. Yurt was a high-ranking member of the shadow 
organization of spies and assassins that was   hired by the Soul Society to dispose of all who 
knew of the Soul Arts. The organization had its roots in Boletaria; and so it was that even 
the opportunists, the schemers and agents of   darkness among the Boletarians were used as 
tools by the Latrians. That is the relation between the middle-earth and the highlands.
The Gloom set is covered in symbols of old   Boletaria; the horns are thorny like the blade 
of the Stormruler, the legendary sword wielded by Boletaria’s symbolic founding father; throughout 
the set are present the twin lines which seem   to be an abstract depiction of the twin dragons 
painted on a purple background that represented the ancient Boletarian royal family.
Biorr and his brother Vallarfax were members of the Boletarian Round Table, which 
was founded by King Allant as a gesture of   universal understanding, back when he had faith 
in humanity, early in his rule. The twins mirror the blacksmith twins Ed and Boldwin.
Their epithet, ‘Twin Fangs’, refers to their Stonefangian origin, to them being twin 
brothers; and it esoterically traces a connection with the ancient middle-earth, with the old royal 
family that used as its emblem the twin dragons. Biorr lived in Boletaria and was oblivious 
to the evil that would later infect his own   nation of Stonefang. He didn’t know his 
own people were being enslaved once more; he would never suspect the great Boletaria to be 
behind it, nor the gentle King Allant to allow it. Biorr defeats the Penetrator Demon, a member of 
his own order, though he fails to recognize him as Metas in his demonic form; it is a symbolic 
confrontation of the poorest against the richest, of the simple-minded, brave, pure-hearted knight 
against the perverted, sadistic knight of Latria. Just as Ariona, a pure-hearted fool, believed 
Oolan to be a man, he couldn’t tell the twins apart and thought it was Biorr who crossed 
the fog and disappeared instead of Vallarfax. Scirvir was a warrior of the 
Church who learned of the hidden,   uncomfortable truth – he understood his God was 
Satan all along. His disillusionment caused him to abandon the institution and wander throughout the 
lands in search of exceptional artifacts, in the hopes of finding shiny things to fill his inner 
void. Though he learned the truth of the Church, he is still a fool – he can’t see the true purpose 
and soul of the Dragonbone Smasher, thinking it is a craft exceptional in its uselessness. 
True to his nature since he was a holy man, even after learning the truth, a side of him 
still admires the Old One, be it God or Demon, for he is partly demonic himself, walking the 
thin line of human greed – he wonders if the world ruined by chaos, by the Fog isn’t 
preferable to the mundane peaceful earth. Satsuki is a master swordsman who seeks the 
Makoto, a legendary sword which he believes   to be the finest of all. Makoto was named after 
a Giant of the North, though it got its name because it was used to slay that Giant; and upon 
slaying him, it acquired, according to legend, magical properties that emulate his cannibalistic 
essence. The sword is described as having teeth which pierce the skin of its wielder; but that 
grants it its extraordinary power, just like how the Giants ate human flesh to grow stronger.
However, the curse of the blade is also a Faustian bargain; it draws the soul of its user, just 
as the user symbolically cannibalizes men by slaying and taking their souls. And, in accordance 
with that Faustian principle, Satsuki’s offer is such a bargain – should you give him the sword, 
he attacks you. Satsuki’s sword, the Hiltless, parallels Makoto – it too is finely crafted, and 
drains the health of its master with each swing. Satsuki himself is an heir of the Giants; he 
is a shaman, and his attire was coated with a foul-smelling tallow made from human bodies. 
His father was not the original owner of the   sword – but Makoto, the Giant himself; he is an 
orphan of war, thirsty for revenge. The sword is, truly, a keepsake of his father – 
just not in the way it seems at first. The Filthy Woman resisted Astraea’s allure out of 
bitterness and envy; she used to be the center of men’s attention within the Valley, but since the 
Sixth Saint had come, she, who was young and most beautiful, the woman had been pushed aside. As the 
inhabitants gave up their souls to their savior, they turned more aggressive, and began to capture 
all sane men they could find to offer their souls   to the Archdemon – and the woman’s child 
was among the people they sacrificed. She would never accept the loss of her child, and 
pretended – or thought – she was still with her,   in denial. She never ceased to beg in the name 
of her child, even after the kidnapping – be it out of madness or shamelessness.
With the coming of the Fog, the twin blacksmiths Ed and Boldwin began to turn into scaly demons 
like the miners; Boldwin, who was nostalgic of his youth – he says he was as strong as an ox, 
and could grapple Bear Bugs in the mines – tried his hand at slaying Demons; but he was not in his 
prime anymore, he was old, and the monsters killed him. His soul was trapped in the Nexus, where 
he works as a blacksmith once more. Boldwin, on the other hand, chose to stagnate in Stonefang 
even as scales grew on his body. He was obsessed with his work, and cared little for the world 
around him, or had little hope. He always begins his dialogue remarking, rudely, he has no time 
for chit-chat – yet he immediately engages in conversation with the Slayer of Demons, 
for he does feel solitude and appreciates   the company of a brave warrior he respects.
The Cresfallen Warrior claims that it was the Monumentals who must’ve awoken the Old One on 
a whim, and not King Allant. Though the theory may have been voiced by his insecurity, 
he knew not of its terrifying veracity. The Monumental is a pathological liar; lies 
are her native tongue. But to be effective, a lie must blend in with the 
truth. Half of what she tells   the player is misleadingly 
phrased or outright false: -She says the rule of Mird was benevolent – when 
it was evidently corrupt, it was an expansionistic empire that enslaved an entire people, and was 
highly inequal (though it wasn’t wholly evil, of course; it was half and half);
-She uses ‘’we’’ to refer to those   who sealed the Old One, when in truth 
she was among the witches who created it; -Again, she employs ‘’we’’ to claim she had 
authority over the elders that were given   Archstones, when, in truth, they the heroes were 
the ones who held authority over the Monumentals, having punished them for their wickedness 
by locking them in the Nexus for eternity;  -She employs ‘’we’’ once more to refer to those 
who banned the Soul Arts, when, in reality, the Monumentals were the protagonistic practitioners 
of the Arts, and used them to their fullest; -She lectures the Slayer of Demons 
by saying men’s memory is short,   when she was the one who taught Allant the Soul 
Arts and caused, indirectly, the Second Scourge; -She claims the Maiden in Black became 
a Demon to seal the Old One – when the   Maiden was the oldest and most dangerous Demon 
of them all; she was the maker of the Old One; -She simultaneously says the brave warriors fight 
to reverse their sins, allowing the truth of the   past of the Monumentals to slip at last; yes, 
she didn’t outright deny they were in part to blame for the Scourge alongside the avaricious men 
they condemned, but she was sly about her wording.  The truth is as follows: the last-living 
Monumental never forgot her covenant with the Witch Queen – with her Queen. She merely awaited 
for a perfect opportunity to awake the Old One; she waited for all her colleagues to die, 
holding on to her own miserable existence out of sheer will for three hundred years, and 
waited for the world to forget about the past,   entirely, so she could reintroduce the Arts and 
thus entice men to sin once more – for she knew   power would corrupt men as it had 
before. She played Allant like a fool, like a dog – she could see his soul was pure, 
that he was innocent and gullible, that he was hopeful and would not be as cautious or as 
skeptical about doing what he believed was right. As the Second Scourge began, the Monumental placed 
the portal to Boletaria within the Fog near areas that would surely slay aspiring heroes, so 
their souls would be trapped in the Nexus. The last-living Monumental was truly the most 
demonic of all living beings. Or perhaps she   was the greatest heroine of humanity, who endured 
centuries of torturous confinement with her will of iron intact, a martyr who could be freed from 
her shackles by death, like her peers were, but chose to live, and fulfilled her and her queen’s 
dream at last – the Old One was awakened, and humanity would perish, and all souls 
would find heaven and live eternally in peace. The witches of Mird uncovered the law of entropy; 
they laid bare human nature. Life is suffering; the true paradise is outside the chaotic earth. 
So isn’t accelerationism merciful? To embrace the heat death of the universe? Why delay the 
inevitable, and prolong the suffering of all, instead of sending them to heaven at once?
Ostrava of Boletaria – or rather, Prince Ariona Allant – is the son of the king. He is an 
archetypal fool who’s confronted and eclipsed by the harsh truth which he sought in his journey. 
He was raised in the southern region of Boletaria alongside Metas, his cousin. Unlike Metas, who 
was a fiendish, cold-hearted, intelligent man, Ariona was innocent and had a heart of gold, 
like his father. He was somewhat rebellious and enjoyed exploring and traveling the world 
instead of training and studying with the royals while his father was away at war or busy with 
politics; he was a free-spirited, kind-hearted, but pampered and simple-minded prince; he felt he 
didn’t belong within the upper ranks of nobility, for he had inherited, in part, a uniquely 
middle-earther mindset from his father’s side. Though he wished to become 
a hero and save humanity,   he wasn’t fit for war – he was a delicate young 
man, neither brave, nor cunning, nor strong. In fact, he was as inept in combat as 
the last Mirdan king, the First Saint,   who he parallels – the sword and shield they 
share scale pitifully with strength and dexterity, and require mostly faith to be wielded.
But regardless he mustered enough courage to proceed into the unknown and cross the 
Fog. And with the help of the protagonist,   he reached the Boletarian Palace.
The prince couldn’t bear to witness his loving father, a man he respected above all, falling 
to corruption. After confronting King Allant, he ended his own life in sorrow, and his spirit 
rose in bitterness to haunt the palace’s end. His soul, which was once as bright as the sun, 
had been tainted by darkness. And so, even if he wished, he wouldn’t be able to pull Soulbrandt 
anymore – even though, before, the sword’s power would make him mightier than any Demon, elevating 
him from weakling to hero –, and sent in his place his friend, who he trusted the world upon.
Like the last King of Mird, who wielded the same sword and shield as Ariona, 
his heart was too pure, his soul, too bright, and he couldn’t endure to face the 
cruelest betrayal by the person he loved most. In the king of Mird’s case, it was his wife, who 
had become the mother of all Demons, a Lilith; and in the case of Ariona, it was his father, 
who had become humanity’s death, the Antichrist. Though the king chose to surrender to the Old One, 
he left his eldest son the key to the Boletarian   Mausoleum, where he sealed the white half of the 
sword of legend. He knew Ariona had the brightest, warmest soul of all; the sword’s power would 
grow exponentially on his hand, and be enough to vanquish his father, should he preserve his 
good nature, embrace hope and wish to save the world. Ariona crossed the Fog, traveled to the 
ruin of Boletaria, and searched for his father, but couldn’t complete his journey. Thus is the end 
of House Allant, a family of kind-hearted heroes. It is up to another Brave Slayer of Demons 
to succeed the prince and protect humanity   from death – just as Doran had to succeed the 
king of Mird who failed to defeat the Beast. And this is the end of this upload. Thank 
you for watching! Demon’s Souls is beyond special to me; I hope this video deepens your 
appreciation of this magnificent work of art. I’ve made a Discord server exclusive to 
my supporters, both YouTube members and Patreon subscribers. I hope to see some of you 
there! Oh, and by supporting me, you also get access to a Substack-like blog in which I post 
esoterically-oriented analyses literature, movies, music clips, and other games, as well as articles 
about philosophy, religion and occult symbolism. .

Déroulement de la vidéo:

3.901 Prologue
Mird was a vast empire located at the center   of the world. It was so great as to contemplate 
most of human civilization. Through its discovery
12.8 of the Soul Arts, mankind ushered in an age 
of unprecedented enlightenment and prosperity.
18.56 Enormous spiraling towers were built to 
serve as schools dedicated to the study   of the arts by royalty. They were a statement 
by men; an announcement that they’d reach the
27.52 heavens through elucidation. A Tower of Babel.
Mird was divided in three parts – the underworld,
34.64 which was the realm of the slaves who worked 
on the mines and forged weapons to the empire’s   military; the middle-earth, which was the realm of 
the plebeians, who served as soldiers and mid-rank
44.56 warriors; and the highlands, which hosted 
the higher nobility, the blue-blooded royals
50.16 who lived in material excess and debauchery.
The miners were a deeply superstitious people
55.6 who both worshiped and feared the bones they 
discovered in the earth’s bosom. They believed   the bones belonged to Dragons, to mythical 
beasts of yore; and that they could wake
65.04 at any moment to unleash upon men their 
wrath, for their wickedness – after all,   the burrowers were the meekest within the 
empire, and they suffered all their lives by
73.76 the hand of their oppressors. They excavated 
temples to appease the mythical skeletons.
79.92 The middle-earthers were diligent and 
kind-hearted. The most affluent among them,
85.12 who were nobles of lower birth, lived in relative 
abundance to the poor, who struggled tremendously,
91.36 but no man among them could claim to be as rich as 
their highlander counterparts. The royal family,
97.2 who lived in the inner palace, was 
loved and respected by their subjects;   their banners displayed a two-headed 
yellow dragon over a purple background.
106.48 The highlanders lived above the world’s surface, 
atop the mountains; there they built ivory towers
112.0 so they could physically reach the heavens. The 
two most influential families were House Vinland,
117.36 which was represented by gold – and true to its 
identity, they were the richest men in the world;
123.12 they named themselves after their trade of wine, 
and House Yormedar, which was represented by
128.48 silver – and true to its identity, they were the 
scholars, the alchemists who uncovered the Soul
133.92 Arts. Both Houses shared a supreme heraldic 
symbol – the Sacred Tree, representing both
139.44 abundance and knowledge; the highlands were 
like the Garden of Eden, a paradise on earth.
145.52 The two highlander families intermarried to 
preserve their bloodlines and ranks. House   Vinland financed the empire, the research of House 
Yormedar, and was responsible for Mird’s military,
156.32 which it empowered with elite warriors of their 
own; House Yormedar was behind the alchemical   research that brought upon Mird unprecedented 
prosperity and power, and created, through the use
166.72 of Soul Arts, special weapons and armor for House 
Vinland – such as the iconic Dark Silver set,
172.64 which was forged with a special metal invented 
by the alchemists, and the legendary armaments,
178.0 each of which is uniquely magical – and all 
of which became part of Vinland’s legacy.
183.28 There was a clear hierarchy in Mird between 
the three realms: the lower, middle and upper
188.32 worlds. It was like hell, earth and heaven.
Mird’s age of plenty would not last forever.
195.44 The Queen, who was a prodigal sorcerer, 
would, along with her coven of witches,   congregate, in secret, in the tallest 
tower in Mird – a place that’d later
205.28 become known as the Nexus. Their ambition was 
to transcend mortality and truly find paradise.
212.0 The Queen at first was a fool – she’d suck 
the souls of her fellow men for herself,   to restore her youthfulness and avoid the gaze 
of death. But she’d snap out of her materialistic
222.48 delusion, which was wholly unquenching. The 
answer to her plight wasn’t in the flesh,
227.52 but in the soul. She’d then realize the formula 
to bring about heaven – distillment of light from
233.52 darkness. Segregation of soul from matter.
Her mind was turned upside down,
238.88 as she realized she’d been oblivious to the 
only path to true freedom. It was death.
244.08 To fulfill her dream, she would create a Golem – 
a thing that would later be called the Old One,
249.68 a God-like creature whose purpose was 
to extract the souls of all so that his   insides would host a completed entity of pure 
light, paradise made manifest; the rejoined,
259.68 revived God whose light was scattered throughout 
the world, shackled within living creatures.
265.76 The Old One gave agency to men’s darkest 
thoughts, fears and desires, weaponizing the evil
271.2 of men against themselves, birthing the Demons.
But this destruction would call upon an equivalent
277.92 response; the apocalypse beckoned humanity to 
cooperate for the sake of what they perceived   to be the greater good. Mankind ceased their 
inner conflicts to fight against the Scourge;
287.92 they called for unity against a greater enemy.
The Witch Queen had left behind a tool for
293.36 humanity, should it wish to attain mastery 
over its own fate; to earn its freedom and
298.88 fight against doom itself, should it restore 
hope – or to call upon it, should it embrace
304.48 the world’s end. The Northern Regalia, the 
ultimate weapon that is composed of two halves,
309.92 one of light, one of darkness. The weapon was 
hidden within the Old One’s stomach – and only
315.52 a hero most brave and powerful would be capable 
of pulling it from within the belly of the beast.
321.04 The king of Mird prepared himself to face the 
Dragon – he wielded an enchanted and golden   sword and shield, which protected him from magic 
and inflicted not physical, but magical damage,
331.68 as he intended to strike the monster’s very soul.
The elite of the Mirdan army, the forces of
337.36 House Vinland, pierced the beast with 
soul-sealing artillery and brought it   to heel, and the king slipped into its 
belly. He was ready to slay the Demon,
346.32 and hopefully rescue his queen from its insides.
But he failed, and was devoured – for he gave in
352.2 to despair upon meeting his beloved queen, and 
learning she was the source of the hell that was   unleashed upon men – his heart was too pure, too 
bright, and he couldn’t slay the love of his life,
362.4 his other half, the silver to his gold. He 
expected to defeat the Dragon and save his queen;
368.64 he was innocent, pure-hearted, and knew 
not of her true, hidden self – the Dragon
374.24 was her own creation, and she had betrayed 
him, his people and his empire. His soul,
380.64 which once shone as the sun, had been tainted 
by darkness, had been eclipsed; and so,
386.88 he wouldn’t be able to wield the Demonbrandt 
anymore. And with him died humanity’s hope.
392.72 Vinland’s troops were dying one by one, until 
few remained. The middle-earthers had to come to
398.08 the frontlines and fend off the spawn of the Fog – 
they, the lower-ranking warriors and soldiers were
404.48 the last remaining units of the Mirdan army.
That was until a brave warrior rose to fight
409.52 against the Drakes and other Demons without regard 
for his life; a berserker whose sheer will to
414.8 power rivaled the Demons themselves. A relentless 
Shadowman who sought heaven through glory in   death – a barbarian called, simply, ‘stranger’, or 
‘wanderer’ – that is, Doran – by the Mirdans who
427.12 saw him on the battlefield. He fought side-to-side 
with heroes of the middle-earth in the making,
432.8 with the Tower Knight and the Knight of the Lance.
He wielded the Stormruler, a magical sword that
438.4 could conjure cataclysmic winds – the winds his 
people believe take warriors to the heavens;
443.68 he’d used them to quell the storm 
which afflicted his homeland.  And this stranger became more and more 
powerful as he felled Demon after Demon;
451.28 until he’d become stronger than them all.
He was ready to face their master – the Dragon,
456.96 the being later known as the Old One. 
With the support of the middle-earthers,
462.16 Doran rushed into its belly, the beast weakened by 
the previous effort by Vinland’s men, and pulled
467.44 the Excalliburian sword that was hidden within 
it and used it in its entirety – for his soul   was both the brightest and the darkest of men 
– to smite the Witch Queen, and alongside her,
477.76 the heart of the Beast, of her Golem.
The Old One reduced most of Mird to ash,
483.68 destroying half of the world, but was 
eventually defeated. They sealed the Old   One by removing the chunk of the world 
from which he spawned from the physical
490.72 plane and confining it to the astral realm.
A united mankind decided to collectively
497.04 banish the Soul Arts; if knowledge brings about 
chaos upon the Earth, it should be censored.
502.88 The tallest Ivory Tower where the Queen used 
to host her secret meetings with her coven of   witches would become the Nexus; it would 
be subverted from a temple which called
511.44 upon the destructive rejection of a broken 
world into a place dedicated to universal   understanding and the fraternity of men.
The Witch Queen who triggered the First
521.28 Scourge was punished for her avarice, and 
sentenced to become the candle maiden of   the Nexus for eternity. Her eyes were covered 
with wax, and her mind was destroyed; she,
532.32 who was once the most enlightened of all humans, 
was now a mere Golem, her function being a mockery
537.68 of her past self – she tended to the candles of 
the Nexus, which are a symbol of occult knowledge.
544.4 Her coven of witches was punished as 
well; they were made to become bald,   crippled, half-living dolls, whose appearance 
symbolizes purity – they look like monks –, in
555.52 direct contrast to their original character, and 
sentenced to meditate for eternity to mend the   fabric of reality, to mend their sin, the 
destruction they brought upon the world.
566.24 As Mird was fractured, both physically and 
figuratively, its former empire was divided   into smaller kingdoms. Archstones were created 
to stitch the world, as half of it was lost;
577.28 a gigantic void stood where Mird was once 
located. The last act of the witches as
582.96 users of the Soul Arts was the creation 
of the Archstones which mended the world.
588.24 As previously explained, the Nexus exists in a 
dream-realm, in a place beyond the material world;
595.12 the Archstones exist to provide men with a way 
of traveling from one kingdom to the other,   as they are separated by a huge 
void at the world’s center.
605.92 Boletaria rose from Mird’s ashes in a coalition 
with Latria – its flag contains a symbol made
611.2 from two distinct crosses – the Maltese and 
Moline crosses –, to represent the dual,
616.48 renewed nature of Boletaria, the middle 
earth; the old empire and the new kingdom,
623.04 with leaves – for they were the leaves which fell 
from Mird’s Sacred Tree – and sparkles over a
628.48 yellow background, and white doves, symbols of the 
Church, representing Latria – Boletaria’s newly
635.12 founded parallel in the highlands – over a blue 
background, separated – or rather, united – by a
641.36 soul-sealing magical sword. Above the two symbols 
are patterns that relate to sky and earth.
648.24 The Boletarian Royal Family – now the head 
of a semi-independent kingdom – would earn
653.28 prestige where Vinland lost, and their princes 
would marry with Yormedarian princesses to seal
658.4 their political union – a union of gold and 
silver, of the sun – which adorns the armors
664.48 of the knights of Boletaria – and the moon. It was 
the middle-earthen kingdom which claimed victory
669.52 over the Old One; Doran, the stranger, fought 
alongside their men, and was identified to have
676.16 been one of their own; the credit was theirs, and 
they took it. A crown was warranted with strength;
682.48 and thus, Boletarian kings earned the 
right to rule alongside Yormedarian queens.
687.6 House Vinland had lost a substantial portion 
of its power; the middle-earthen royals had   stolen their Yormedarian princesses, and 
their army had lost most of its resources;
696.96 even their famously abundant reserves were 
emptied as a result of the Scourge. They’d   become the right-wing of the Church, but, 
in reality, they’d become its pawns; House
707.68 Yormedar had betrayed them, and would betray them 
again in the distant future – and resentment would
713.28 be festered within the clan against Boletaria.
Doran had sacrificed himself to seal the Old One,
719.52 but the Boletarian royal family would deify 
him as their god-like founding father,   and they’d rename their house Allant in homage 
to him – a name which means to move forward,
729.2 referencing his relentlessness, his bravery. 
Its new heraldic symbol was portrayed over a
734.64 blue background, symbolizing the junction with 
Latria and House Yormedar; though the purple
739.84 banner of yore was still displayed in the 
palace’s walls and towers to honor the past.
745.44 Stonefang would choose to stand on its own, 
and avoided joining this new covenant – it
750.56 was a nation traumatized by centuries of 
oppression; but its relations with the   two paired kingdoms were peaceful and fair.
The truth about the events of the Scourge was
760.24 obscure to begin with but was gradually 
lost with time; story was made myth,
765.28 and men thought both the Northern Regalia 
and the Old One were created by God Himself.
771.28 The last king of Mird was canonized by the Church 
as the First Saint, and would be portrayed as   the warrior king who wields a spear on one 
hand and a soul-sealing sword on the other.
788.08 The Soul Arts are based on the emancipation of 
the human mind – magic can originate from either
793.28 the study of nature and men’s consciousness 
or from their feelings and unconsciousness.
798.48 Through the Soul Arts, one can conjure 
spells, create magic artifacts and weapons,
804.4 become inhumanly strong and vigorous, heal any 
wound; one can become a Demigod. But power does
811.92 not come for free – the Arts are fueled, as their 
name betrays, by men’s souls. The more one desires
818.56 power, the more one is inclined to resort to 
satanic means to acquire it – the more one
823.92 is likely to prey on his fellow men.
Through men’s supreme enlightenment,   the Old One was created, and later, deliberately 
awakened from its slumber, and granted agency to
835.76 mankind’s darkest thoughts and desires, birthing 
the Demons. The Fog that then embraced the world
842.16 would hyperbolize nature and incite every living 
thing to feed on souls. That’s what it means to be
847.6 ‘demonic’; to greedily steal the souls of others.
The powers and properties of most Demons are tied
853.92 to the collective of the human mind. 
Many Demons are born from egregores,   as in, they are given shape by symbols, ideas or 
ideals that exist in the collective psyche of men.
865.36 It’s important to note that souls are amplified 
by human perception; the consumable souls we get
870.56 are specifically ranked with descriptors that 
denote the ‘acclaim and adoration’ of their   previous owners; the lesser souls are those of 
unknown soldiers and heroes, the heftier ones
879.6 are those of storied, renowned, and legendary 
soldiers and heroes. The Archdemons owe their
885.6 vast power to their prominent egregores, which 
have been fermented in mass by the minds of men.
891.2 The discovery of the Soul Arts parallels the 
eating of the Fruit of Knowledge of Good and Evil   by Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis; through 
knowledge, men can become God-like; but knowledge
901.12 and power entice men to sin. The discovery of the 
Soul Arts, then, is equivalent to the First Sin,
908.08 and once men fell prey to corruption because of 
it, the Old One symbolically rose from the depths   to destroy them in divine retribution, just as 
the God of the Old Testament cast curses upon men.
919.04 The Sacred Tree was the symbol of both 
Vinland and Yormedar; but to Vinland,   it was the Tree of Life – which is also the Tree 
of Ignorance; and to Yormedar, it was the Tree of
929.84 Knowledge – which is also the Tree of Death.
The Rise and Fall of the Church of God
940.0 The Church of God was founded 
after the First Scourge with the   purpose of preventing a Second Scourge.
It was founded by the new council of the
947.36 Highlands, in the newly established kingdom 
of Latria; its headquarter – its Apostolic
953.52 Palace – was Latria’s Ivory Tower, the home of 
said council, where the queen’s throne stands
959.12 above all other seats. Latria’s queens – 
who belonged to House Yormedar – were the
964.48 supreme figures of the Church, its popes, 
with Boletarian kings being their spears.
970.72 Latria’s name refers to the 
absolute adoration of God;   the foundation of Latria as a semi-independent 
nation is the foundation of the Church itself.
979.92 This historical development mirrors 
the conversion of Rome to Christianity.  Practitioners of the arts were branded heretical 
and persecuted by the Church. Inquisitions were
990.8 routinely conducted, and witches and alchemists 
were sent to the Prison of Hope in Latria. A
996.56 church was built at the complex so that every 
convict had a chance to repent and convert to   the Faith; its glass panels depict the queen 
of Latria as a merciful, motherly figure.
1007.28 The Faith preached forgiveness and absolution 
from sin; they wished only for the good of men.
1013.44 Upon the reintroduction of the Soul Arts 
to the world by King Allant the Twelth,   and its subsequent leak to Latria, and then, 
to the rest of the world, the Church became
1022.64 increasingly severe in its punishments, and 
increasingly corrupt, for they wished to hold   a semi-monopoly over the occult; Boletarian and 
Latrian nobility were turning to avarice and sin;
1034.72 the Church, which had become but an 
instrument of the pursuits of Latrian   royalty, was turning more and more corrupt.
Indeed, the Church’s corruption is expressed
1044.72 in their miracles – which are, simply, manifested 
by the Soul Arts. A holy sage named Urbain had
1052.0 taught the holy men the Soul Arts, claiming he 
learned them from God Himself, through his voice
1057.68 which whispered in his ear – and for the so-called 
miracle he performed, he was canonized as a Saint.
1064.8 Paganism was on the rise not just in the West, but 
also in the East, as the Soul Arts were leaked to
1070.24 the four corners of the Earth. The Northern tribe 
of the Giants had revived not only the Soul Arts,
1075.92 but their practice of cannibalism, which was part 
of their culture since ancient times – they grew
1082.32 and grew the more they consumed men’s flesh, thus, 
why they had become gigantic in the first place.
1088.96 The Giants were the fiercest rivals of 
the Shadowmen; in fact, the Shadowmen   made cannibalism a taboo in their culture in 
response to their conflict against the Giants,
1098.16 portraying them as covetous demons in their 
mythology, and prohibiting the practice.  The Mirdans were enemies of the Giants as well – 
Dark Silver is referred to as ‘the oldest metal’
1108.56 and is said to ‘exorcise malice’; and the Bramd 
weapon was designed to slay Giants. The set of
1114.48 gear was created by House Yormedar as a gift to 
House Vinland precisely to aid them in their fight   against the pagan tribe of the Northern Limit.
And then, in modern times, the Giants had restored
1125.28 their old traditions, and, with them, their 
warring nature, as cannibalism was co-dependent
1131.36 on it. They ate, primarily, enemy warriors; 
the more powerful the warrior, the greater
1138.32 his soul. The Giants parallel the Aztecs and 
their sacrifices – the warrior-priests of
1144.32 both tribes ate the hearts of enemy warriors to 
absorb their vigor, their courage, their souls.
1150.24 The Giants attacked with black 
magic – they conjured mists of   poison and rained fire against their enemies.
The target for the Giant’s aggression was their
1159.2 neighbor tribe, the Shadowmen; and the Shadowmen 
were nearly wiped out, if it weren’t for a brave
1166.4 hero who fought like a berserker and chose to 
become a cannibal, a monster like those which he   fought against to protect his people.
The Church would officially declare war
1175.92 upon the Giants, and bring ruin to their land.
The holy men were able to hunt Giants through
1181.04 the use of Soul Arts – they enhanced their 
strength so they could wield the magical weapons
1186.24 forged by their Mirdan ancestors; they performed 
Miracles to heal their wounds, and to call upon
1191.36 the Wrath of God against their enemies.
King Allant fought valiantly alongside   his round table of knights, all of 
whom had been enhanced by the Arts,
1200.32 and were equipped with magical weapons and armor.
This first great war waged by the Church caused   the Archstone which hosted the 
land of the Giants to crumble.
1208.8 This event mirrors the Spanish war against 
the Aztecs, in which natives – which the
1214.16 Shadowmen mirror in this context – helped them 
overthrow the aggressive and expansionistic   pagan empire that ran on human sacrifice.
Since before the First Scourge, the valley
1225.12 situated between Mird’s territory and the Northern 
(AQUI) land of the Giants would absorb all the   filth, suffering and death which resulted from 
their battles. It earned the name Valley of
1235.2 Defilement for this reason; the river which 
flowed through it had absorbed so much blood,   death and organic dejects its water darkened and 
became poisonous, like a depressed Ganges river.
1247.36 Above it stood the Highlands, which hosted the 
Church’s core; the world’s filth and depravity
1253.28 were covered by the shadow of the heavenly realm 
of men, by the shadow of the Vatican. This ironic
1259.12 contrast is emblematic of the nature of the 
world itself, of humanity, of society, of nature.
1266.24 In the valley, we encounter Depraved Ones of 
enormous sizes, as well as shamans, who cast
1271.68 poisonous mists, and a black phantom of a cannibal 
witch who wields the Butcher’s Knife. In fact,
1277.6 the very title of ‘Depraves Ones’ comes from their 
practices of cannibalism and malicious witchcraft.
1283.44 As a result of the war, the Valley saw 
an influx of newcomers, of rot and decay,
1289.2 and its corruption increased exponentially.
The war was waged on relatively sober terms;
1295.28 but, importantly, the politicians who 
orchestrated it benefited from it;
1300.72 they bolstered their wealth and claimed 
slaves, and ensured their domain over the Arts.
1306.48 The holy men similarly claimed the souls 
of their fallen enemies to increase their   strength and the potency of their miracles.
However, the crusade against paganism and
1315.68 witchcraft wouldn’t stop at the destruction of 
the ever-aggressive nation-tribe of the Giants;
1320.8 Boletaria would also invade its neighbor, 
the Shadowmen, who had long abandoned their   hostility toward them, the same tribe who 
had been victimized by the Giants, because   they too had been restoring their pagan ways.
The Church of God first sent missionaries to
1329.76 combat the resurging pagan practices of the 
shamans of the tribe. Indeed, the Shadowmen   were infringing the universal law – the priests 
of the Shrine were degenerating into Demons,
1340.08 greedily absorbing the souls of the dead 
for themselves to acquire immortal life.  When those missionaries were met with hostility 
from the native inhabitants – some of them were
1348.96 killed – Boletaria sent its army to ravage 
the island. The expressed motive was the
1354.24 eradication of dangerous paganism, which risked 
a new Scourge, but the higher ups of Boletaria
1359.92 and the Church of God would benefit from more 
slaves, the natural resources of the island,
1365.04 and – like Demons themselves –from absorbing the 
souls of their enemies. They were becoming more
1371.2 and more like the monsters they were facing.
Of course, most within the Church knew nothing
1376.48 of the occult; they were ignorant of 
the fact that they served the Devil,   believing to be enacting the will of God. But 
evil and ignorance are brother and sister.
1395.44 Vanguard’s appearance informs us of the gluttonous 
nature of the demon: they have a bloated body and
1400.48 a gaping mouth. They’re not as simple as they 
appear, however; they possess a third eye; and
1406.48 their eyes emit an ominous glow. It’s hinted that 
the Vanguard of the Tutorial Area is enslaving the
1411.76 soul-starved knights and soldiers of the outpost 
to feed it. They’re cooking a soup made of the
1416.96 corpses of their victims. There’s an enormous 
cauldron which is filled with red soup near   Vanguard’s resting spot. There’s drops of blood 
around it, and hanging chains, which could’ve
1427.28 been used to transport the bodies into the soup.
The Vanguard, the very first Demon we encounter,
1433.2 parallels the Old One – a creature that appears 
to be no more than a simple-minded beast,   but one that, at the same time, has control over 
the minds of men. Both make men their slaves,
1444.48 and are fed by them, like parasites.
Vanguard wields an axe bigger than a man;
1450.56 he’s barbaric in nature, as he embodies 
the bloodlust of men; men’s basic,   animalistic instincts of violence and gluttonous 
hunger. Thus, he has domain over those who,
1461.36 like him, desire bloodshed and thirst for souls.
The Vanguard has a special relationship with the
1467.28 Giants, for its character and appearance 
was based on them – a great-axe-wielding
1472.56 barbarian cannibal with an opened third eye, as 
the Giants wielded giant axes and other weapons,
1478.4 were cannibals, and users of the Arts. Its 
horns are identically shaped to those of
1483.68 the Giant chieftain’s helmet as depicted on the 
Archstone. Both also demanded human offerings,
1490.0 which they’d consume to grow stronger and 
bigger. When the Fog came to Boletaria,   it animated the egregor of the fallen nemesis 
of the empire, of a tribe that left a mark upon
1500.08 the soldiers and knights who fought in the war, 
or who’d heard stories of it. A second Vanguard
1505.76 appears at the Shrine of Storms – and the Giants 
terrorized the island before their eradication.
1517.52 The Phalanx were originally a unit of spearman who 
descend from the Shadowmen, and their leader was   the warrior woman known as Long Bow Oolan. 
She’d command her men to perform defensive
1527.84 formations while she sniped their enemies from 
behind their protection – in accordance with the   more civilized Mirdan ways of war.
She wielded a magical bow crafted
1533.36 from the special, soulful white 
trees of her homeland – a fitting   weapon for a legendary figure in the making.
Oolan was a Shadowman who joined Boletaria’s
1542.24 Round Table of Knights by disguising herself 
as a man and proving her worth – her prowess
1547.68 was seen by all in an international tournament 
that was hosted within Boletaria’s main castle.
1552.72 The more simple-minded among the order – and 
most common Boletarians – never learned of her
1557.84 identity, and the sharpest did, but never 
snitched out of respect or self-interest.
1564.16 She was a living legend, and lived happily in 
Boletaria, the prosperous land of opportunity, the
1570.48 paradise on Earth, looking up to the king above 
all. But tragedy would befall her: she was ordered
1576.56 to partake in the Boletarian invasion of the 
Shrine of Storms – to destroy her own people. She
1582.16 ultimately sided with Boletaria, but trauma would 
taint her soul, and she would never be the same.
1588.4 Oolan saw her own unorthodox ranged 
combat tactics as cowardly, as they   go against the traditions of her Shadowmen 
ancestors, and that self-perception shaped
1596.96 her demonic form – the Phalanx is composed 
of blobs of goo that must rely on defensive   formations to compensate for their fragility.
However, Oolan was also ashamed of her pagan   heritage; she practiced witchcraft in secret 
to connect with her ancestors – her black
1606.16 phantom can cast the Fire Storm spell –, but 
the Mirdan side of her identity resented it.
1611.6 The Phalanx are exceedingly vulnerable 
to fire because of this insecurity.  Oolan was a woman who disguised herself as a man 
to join Boletaria’s round table. Thus, stories of   Boletaria’s Round Table of knights refer to her 
as a he, inconsistent with the hidden truth. This   is yet another layer of her identity crisis.
The Phalanx Demon reflects the Old One – as
1619.2 all Demons do to greater or lesser extents; 
its core, which is a bright, bluish soul,
1625.52 is protected by wooden branches; and its exterior 
is a chaotic mess of minor Demons who fight to
1631.36 feed and protect the main body.
Oolan is a tragic figure;   she faced a shackling inner conflict, 
and this is reflected in the Phalanx.
1640.96 The phalanx military tactic was employed by the 
middle-earther army since before the Scourge, and   was used extensively in the First Scourge; their 
fight against the Demons became stuff of legends.
1651.44 The Phalanx slimes are protected by shields which 
bear the sigil of the Boletarian Royal Family.
1662.8 The Tower Knight is based on the egregore of a 
middle-earther Mirdan hero of the First Scourge,   who’d become known in legend 
for his superhuman feats,
1670.24 who fought alongside King Doran; statues of 
him adorn the entrance to the Royal Palace.
1675.44 The Fog transformed one of the knights of 
Boletaria’s round table – Alfred – into
1680.48 this ancient figure of Boletarian history 
and myth; into the Tower Knight Demon.
1686.0 Alfred, as a knight, wielded the Scraping Spear 
– a magical weapon that destroyed the armor of
1691.6 those it scraped. Thus, he, who was the ultimate 
defense, had with him a weapon that ruined his
1698.08 opponent’s defense, and was thus nigh invincible.
Shields as big as his were scarcely seen until the
1704.24 Soul Arts resurged in Boletaria; like the other 
knights of the round table, Alfred employed the
1709.76 arts to Enhance his own strength, thus enabling 
him to carry such heavy equipment. The Tower
1715.2 Knight can also conjure a magic impression of 
his spear to throw like a javelin at his enemies.
1720.24 Alfred, much like Biorr, who he 
parallels, was a simple-minded,   but powerful and good-hearted warrior. As such, 
even as a demon, he stood as Boletaria’s wall,
1731.04 protecting it from invaders – but he was no more 
than a puppet of the Fat Ministers, just as,
1736.8 in life, he had been played – made to fight 
excessive wars – by the crooked politicians. And,
1743.6 in the macrocosm, all Demons are played by the Old 
One, who’ll eventually consume all life on earth.  Alfred’s weakness being his head – which is, 
proportionally, tiny in his Demon form – may
1749.76 be emblematic of how he perceived 
himself as a simpleton, who had to   compensate his lacking wit with brute force.
The encounter with the Tower Knight mirrors
1758.88 the configuration the Old One has with its 
Demons, and, simultaneously, the configuration
1764.24 of Boletarian society – the Fat Official is 
the Old One, ordering it all from behind,
1770.0 and feeding itself through the chaos; the Tower 
Knight is the Archdemon; and the soldiers are the
1775.2 lesser Demons. And the Fat Official represents 
Boletaria’s politicians, the Tower Knight,
1780.96 its warrior king and its knights, and 
the soldiers… well, Boletarian soldiers.
1794.32 The Penetrator is based on the egregore of a 
middle-earther Mirdan hero of the First Scourge,   who’d become known in legend for his superhuman 
feats; statues of him adorn the entrance to the
1805.76 Royal Palace alongside those that depict the 
Tower Knight. The Fog transformed one of the   knights of Boletaria’s round table – Metas – 
into this ancient figure of Boletarian history
1816.0 and myth; into the Penetrator Demon.
Metas is the son of Lord Rydell,
1821.52 cousin to Prince Ariona Allant; he was raised in 
the southern region of Boletaria. The Penetrator
1827.6 is referred to as the Silver Demon – a 
material associated with House Yormedar,   while Ariona wields a golden shield and 
sword; Metas inherited Latrian qualities,
1837.36 while Ariona inherited Boletarian. The 
gold-silver pairing symbolizes the contrast   of Metas and Ariona. Metas’ distinctly large 
penetrating sword, which specializes in thrusts,
1848.32 is reminiscent of the rapiers wielded by 
Latria’s noblemen. The Fluted chest piece worn   by Metas – and by Ariona – is said to originate 
from the “relatively advanced” region of southern
1858.16 Boletaria. The Fluted Set is also the armor which 
Doran was depicted as wearing in his statue;
1864.16 it is a symbol of the Boletarian-Latrian alliance.
Latria is a very wealthy place at the south of
1869.84 Boletaria’s empire, thus, the 
southern region of Boletaria is   culturally and materially related to it.
Contrary to Alfred, Metas wielded a long,
1880.4 long sword that could pierce any defense. 
Together, the pair was unbeatable – as
1885.68 was the alliance of Boletaria and Latria.
Metas’ avaricious, cold, violent nature is,
1892.8 in part, also the reflection of his upbringing – 
his father, Lord Rydell, was an adventurer, a free
1899.92 spirit who had little time to care for his own 
son. Thus, he was raised by his mother’s family,
1905.68 who’d later become part of the Soul Society.
Metas was the inverse of Alfred – an intelligent,
1912.48 but cruel warrior, who wished to be on top of 
the food chain from the start, and played a part
1917.52 in the politics of Boletaria. Unlike the Tower 
Knight, who is being manipulated by a Fat Minister
1923.12 from behind, like a shadow, the Penetrator is the 
shadow that pierces the Fat Minister in the back.
1936.56 The Fat Officials or Fat Ministers are based on 
the wicked nature of Boletaria’s politicians,
1941.92 jailers, colonial officers and executioners. 
They wield enormous axes, chibatas – tools
1950.72 for corporeal punishment – and carry with 
them rings of keys and tools for torture.  When Allant came back from the Nexus 
with knowledge of the Soul Arts,
1958.88 he confided it to his inner circle of politicians, 
and tasked them with employing the Arts to better
1963.92 the lives of the Boletarians, and to strengthen 
their military; and that they did, competently,
1969.68 for a time – but their hunger for power, for 
souls grew and grew. Their souls darkened;
1976.4 and their domain over the occult caused them 
to feel above the common men. They persecuted,   relentlessly, all pagans, all who practiced 
the Arts like they did, for much like the
1986.4 Soul Society – though to a lesser degree –, 
they desired to keep the powers to themselves;
1992.0 above all, they began to enjoy their acts 
of needless cruelty; they devolved into a   group of characters like those written by the 
infamous Marquis De Sade, oppressing men for
2001.04 sadistic pleasure; they were becoming demonic.
Their appearance reflects their true character,
2006.72 which was brought to the surface by the 
powers of the Fog; their bodies are bloated,   their faces disfigured; they compulsively laugh 
as they perform sadistic acts, as if they’re
2016.48 caricatures of their human counterparts. They 
were some of the first demons to have spawned   by the Second Scourge due to being the evilest, 
the greediest, most materialistic among men,
2026.16 as well as to their proximity to 
Allant, the king who awoke the Old One.
2037.04 Old King Doran was a hero of the First 
Scourge; a brave slayer of Demons who   fought demonic wyverns and absorbed Demon’s 
Souls to enhance his vitality so he could fight
2045.92 more Demons, much like the player character.
He was humanity’s final hope after the death
2051.6 of their king – and he dived fearlessly into 
the belly of the beast and sent it to slumber.
2057.6 He was originally a barbaric-looking 
Eastern warrior; within the Boletarian   mausoleum there is a statue made on his 
image that informs us of his appearance.
2066.32 Before he’d confront the Dragons and their master 
on the West, he faced off against the Dragons of   his own homeland – he quelled the storms and 
felled the Storm King with his magical weapon,
2075.92 the Stormruler, by conjuring supremely 
powerful gusts of wind which split the   clouds and revealed the heavens.
The survivors of the fallen land
2084.16 of Mird viewed him as the world’s 
savior and venerated him as a demigod;   and believed he hailed from the middle-earth. 
From the ashes of Mird, Boletaria was born,
2093.84 with Doran as its symbolic founding father.
His mythical reputation gave rise to an   instance of the ‘Divine Right of Kings,’ a 
‘Mandate of Heaven’ for the Boletarian royal
2103.2 family – their kings being ordained by God, and 
they were thus married to the Yormedarian popes
2108.48 which led the Church in Latria –, which 
is ironic considering Doran was not even   a middle-earther in the first place; this 
premise was based on a misunderstanding.
2117.76 When the Old One awakened once again and his 
fog spread through Boletaria, the so-called old
2122.96 king was brought back from the dead, as legend 
had produced a powerful egregore in his image.
2128.32 His artificial, revived self bears little 
resemblance to his original person;
2133.36 he became a character straight out of a fable, 
speaking in a refined, archaic, regal manner,
2139.28 and behaving as the noblest of knights – in 
life Doran was a barbarian warrior of the East,
2144.56 whose silence puzzled the simple-minded and 
impressionable middle-earthers. In fact, even
2150.08 the name Doran is false; Doran means ‘stranger’ or 
wanderer’, for that was what the pre-Boletarians
2156.08 saw in him, they knew not of his origins; but 
would embrace him as one of their own as he fought
2161.52 beside them and sacrificed himself in an act of 
ultimate courage and martyrdom. After the event,
2167.92 he was spoken of as a Boletarian hero, as the 
man who saved the world, as the first knight,
2173.76 as the founding father of their nation – and 
that granted them legitimacy and propelled them   to their new status as Vinland’s replacement 
–, and they built a mausoleum in his honor.
2184.24 The revived Doran looks like the popular, 
idealized image of a warrior king of antiquity,
2189.52 his armor excessively adorned with jewelry – when 
in truth he was but a simple Shadowman berserker,
2195.2 the opposite of that image.
He wields the Northern Regalia,   a legendary sword that draws its 
strength from both Good and Evil,
2203.44 thus, from the whole nature of Man.
In legend, it was said that the sword had   two halves, one which befouls men, and another 
which banished men itself. The sword would   later be split into two – the Soulbrandt and the 
Demonbrandt. Thus, the copy wielded by the revived
2212.96 King Doran was manifested by the powers of the 
Fog, as to portray him as the figure of legend,
2218.72 the original user of the Northern Regalia.
Boletaria’s chivalric culture was based on
2232.48 the mixture of Mirdan and Shadowmen traditions; 
a knight was a warrior who chose to act only on
2237.6 the behalf of peace, of the greater good, molded 
after Doran, who fought against the Demons and
2243.28 called upon world peace. However, this knighthood 
would be subverted by the corrupt politicians of
2248.72 Boletaria in the distant future; knights would 
be made into Demons, their strength would be
2254.0 used for evil.
Dragons
2263.12 The dragons that were spawned by the Fog 
during the First Scourge were born of   legends that spoke of the ancient creatures 
whose fossils were found deep underground;
2271.28 they were subject of many myths and speculation. 
Miners of ancient times excavated shrines in   their worship, fearing they’d one day return. 
The myth of the dragon was ingrained into the
2281.28 collective minds of men, and was, in turn, 
manifested by the powers of the Old One.
2294.24 The Stonefang cave ecosystem was altered 
by the coming of the Fog. Its resident
2299.44 creatures have unnaturally grown due 
to the consumption of souls. The Armor   Spider was the apex predator of that 
ecosystem. Its design is inspired by
2308.0 the Japanese Spider Crabs – big crabs that 
inhabit deeper parts of the ocean floor,
2313.36 much like the Armor Spider originally inhabited 
the deeper parts of the volcanic cave system.
2318.4 It migrated to the more external parts of 
the cave, where most of the miners worked,   to consume more souls; it began to prey upon men.
Due to having absorbed an abundance of souls,
2330.4 it mutated into its demonic armored form 
– which was influenced by the miners,
2335.6 by their thoughts and minds, thus, why it acquired 
a mineral-like exterior; its exoskeleton hardened
2342.32 and became like the minerals of the cave.
From its Demon soul, we can create the Lava Bow,
2347.92 a magic-scaling special weapon; and two magic 
spells based on its abilities. We find a Kris
2353.6 Blade – a ceremonial sword that amplifies 
the powers of sorcery – near its location.
2358.96 The spider fought and slew the original user 
of the sword and bow and consumed its soul,
2364.72 inheriting her magic abilities. We can infer the 
sorcerer was female because of the association
2369.92 of femininity and fire magic and archery. This 
witch challenged the spider, failed in her quest.
2375.68 After killing and devouring the witch 
– whose soul was wondrous, powerful,   not unlike that of a Demon –, the Armor Spider 
grew so much that it trapped itself in its lair.
2393.48 The Big M. was a hero of the First Scourge, and 
the founding father of the burrower kingdom of
2399.04 Stonefang – which was, before the Scourge, part of 
Mird’s territory, but after the fall of the Mirdan
2405.52 empire, the territory gained autonomy.
During Mirdan rule, the Stonefang Mine
2411.44 operated under slavery – the miners who 
provided raw materials for the Mirdans,   as well as the blacksmiths who 
forged weapons for them, were slaves.
2420.56 Big M. was one such slave blacksmith. When the 
Scourge came, he employed the Soul Arts to both
2425.76 strengthen himself and to craft magical weapons 
fit for Demon-slaying. He crafted the Dragon Bone
2431.28 Smasher, an excessively big, enchanted sword 
which requires inhuman strength to be wielded,
2436.56 and grants its wielder resistance against fire.
He brandished his massive sword to slay the
2441.76 demonic dragons, and his prowess was deified 
by legend; he’d be remembered as a man so
2447.36 strong he could kill dragons with his fists. 
A flaming altar would be built in his honor,
2452.4 and his sword was stored as a precaution, 
should the dragons rise once again.
2457.44 Big M. earned Stonefang’s liberation by proving 
his might and helping save the world from the   spread of the Colorless Fog. His people saw him as 
their savior; they who were once slaves could now
2468.16 have pride of their work, of their craft, of their 
strength and diligence; they would now trade with
2474.0 Boletaria – Mird’s successor – as an equal nation.
As generations went by, the banishment of the Soul
2481.52 Arts caused the descendants of the miners to 
forget about the practicality of the sword,   thinking that it was too big, too thick, 
too heavy and too rough. The legend of the
2491.28 Big M. began to be interpreted literally, 
as it adapted to their limited perception.
2496.48 They thought of the Big M. as a man who killed 
dragons with his hands, and shaped their culture   around this idealization. They crafted the 
Hands of God, weapons that require great
2506.96 strength and faith to be used effectively, 
as an homage to their deific ancestor.
2512.08 As Boletaria’s higher ranks fell prey to Demonic 
temptation, they became increasingly aggressive,
2517.36 expansionistic, greedy. Boletaria’s crusades 
against paganism increased the kingdom’s
2522.64 demands for raw materials, tools, weapons and 
armor, prompting an invasion of Stonefang. The
2529.44 Boletarians resorted to restoring slavery in the 
region; the proud miners and blacksmiths were made
2535.04 slaves once more, all so Boletaria’s wars cost 
less for the men who only got fatter year by year.
2541.2 The Flamelurker was born out of the egregore of 
Big M, spawning from the altar of flames that   was built for him; the name Flamelurker being 
a literal descriptor. He embodies the anger of
2551.68 Stonefang; their violent, Demonic anger of the 
enslaved, their explosive rebellious spirit.
2558.32 Additionally, it’s interesting to note that 
the explosions the Flamelurker triggers with   his punches also mirror the explosions caused 
by the concentration of souls within the ores
2567.36 found in Stonefang. His rounded head 
is similar to the round crown-like hat   of the Burrower King as featured on the 
Archstone; and his body is as muscular as
2577.04 the miners believed Big M’s must have been.
A strange growth seals his mouth and one of   his eyes; it’s as though a cage has 
been constructed around his skull;
2586.08 a cage that looks like the exterior of 
the temple that kept the Dragons at bay.  The Demon looks half man, half Dragon – which is 
fitting, as Big M. absorbed the Demon Souls of
2596.16 the Dragons he was slaying to become stronger.
His skin has melted away, revealing a layer
2601.36 of flesh that looks like rock, like 
mail, like the skin of the Dragon God.
2613.12 During an older age, miners found the fossils of 
gigantic creatures of times past within the deeper
2618.32 layers of the caves, and stories of mythical 
dragons were incorporated into their culture.
2623.68 They excavated a temple as a means of sealing 
and worshiping what they believed to be Dragon   bones. They feared that a Dragon would one day 
be reborn from the remains of his fallen kin.
2634.08 Ironically, it was from those stories that the 
ancient fossils acquired, because of the Colorless   Fog, astral, ideal energy and rose to life in the 
form of the Dragon God. It is an egregore fed by
2646.0 the legends that mystified the ancient fossils, 
and of their worship by the Burrower civilization.
2651.52 That also explains why it bizarrely attacks with 
its fists – as the miners valued fist-fighting
2656.72 and raw masculinity in their tradition. Just 
like the Flamelurker, who was based on Big M.,
2662.64 was part Draconic in nature, the Dragon God – 
who is based on the egregore around the Dragon
2668.24 bones – was also shaped by the astral, ideal 
form of Big M; they are like ying and yang.
2675.28 The Mirdan soul-trapping contraptions that serve 
as the temple’s defense mechanism were crafted   with the use of Soul Arts, like the Dragon 
Bone Smasher; they were created as a means
2684.4 of combating the original spawn of the Fog.
The Dragon God we kill isn’t the only one of   its kind; there are multiple Dragon Gods which 
spawned from sites of worship of dragon bones.
2695.04 In fact, if we manage to beat the Vanguard in the 
outskirts of Boletaria, we get to see a different
2700.24 Temple that is host to a different Dragon God.
The Dragon God is – like all Demons – a
2706.08 microcosmic Old One; a false deity which 
men fear – who is fed by their collective
2711.36 fear –, a creature who’s asleep but may wake 
at any moment to bring calamity to mankind.
2718.08 Both the Dragon God and the Old One were 
defeated the same way – Mirdan contraptions
2723.6 impaled and sealed them with magic spears.
Ironically, the Dragon God contains the Wrath
2729.44 of God miracle within his soul; for the Demons 
are the wrath of God, which is but the wrath
2734.88 of men made manifest by the true, supreme Dragon 
God, the Old One, a fabricated being who’s both
2740.88 anti-messiah and messiah. The Church unknowingly 
fights against the very being it worships.
2753.68 Latria is a land that can be characterized by 
contact with the spiritual world; after all,
2758.88 its territory was originally where the Mirdan 
schools of alchemy and magic were constructed;   it was there that royalty became infatuated 
with the occult. It can also be characterized
2768.88 by its material abundance; after all, it 
was the richest territory in the world.
2774.48 After the First Scourge, men banished the Soul 
Arts and founded in Latria the Church of God;
2779.6 and the Prison of Hope was built to jail those 
who engaged in heretical studies of the soul.
2785.04 Upon Allant’s return from the Nexus, he taught 
his council the Soul Arts so they’d employ them,
2790.24 secretly, to bring prosperity to Boletaria. They 
were still forbidden by decree of the Church,
2795.84 by universal law, and the king didn’t want to 
cause chaos. Watching the politicians’ every
2801.36 move was a rogue Boletarian spy – a member of an 
elite organization of assassins and spies – who
2807.52 leaked the secret to the Yormedarian queen he was 
hired by to spy her allied nation. She formed the
2813.44 Soul Society to study the Soul Arts with her 
peers, to discuss the harnessing of souls,
2818.48 and organized secret masked meetings in 
the central tower of her kingdom. Instead   of employing the Soul Arts to better the lives of 
her people, or legalizing them through the Church,
2827.84 which she led, she hid them instead and went to 
great lengths to ensure they wouldn’t be spread.
2833.68 They began to produce spice – a commodity that 
helps stimulate the mind and is noteworthy for its
2839.12 magic-aiding properties – but presented it merely 
as an exotic and costly sort of spice, which was
2845.04 reserved for the consumption of the wealthy. The 
spices in question were produced from human blood;
2850.88 the nobles had turned into vampires – and 
the blood they consumed was taken from those   arrested in the Prison of Hope, who, in great 
part, were people who practiced the Soul Arts.
2862.24 They were tortured cruelly so that in despair, 
their blood would leak even more of their souls;
2868.88 they justified their torture – their 
blood-draining practices – by claiming   it to be part of an inquisitory process, 
claiming they did it all in the name of God,
2877.84 to prevent witchcraft, to combat the devil. The 
Iron Maidens were symbolic of the queen of Latria.
2884.48 The Queen of Latria had proven 
herself a prodigal sorcerer,   as the Soul Ray sorcery discloses. 
In the bowels of the Ivory Tower,
2892.0 of Latrian’s Vatican Palace, in the Church’s 
underworld, operated a nefarious cabal composed
2897.92 of the world’s most powerful people.
This secret society of Latrian nobles
2903.6 would murder any person who was outside 
its ranks and knew the truth of Soul   Arts, hiring assassins and occasionally 
engaging in assassinations themselves.
2912.88 When the Old Monk had his revenge against 
the royals of Latria, the Queen, its greatest   authority, and his lover, who’d betrayed him, was 
the one he chose the harshest sentence for – he’d
2924.16 abduct and murder her, and make a doll out of her 
pale corpse; revive her through necromantic magic;
2930.4 and command her to eternally punish 
the convicts of the Prison of Hope,   as an ironic mockery of her hypocrisy.
The design of the Fool’s Idol perfectly
2938.48 represents the Luciferian nature of the corrupt 
queen. A queen who acted as pope, as an angel
2943.84 of light, but who was a princess of darkness.
Her elucidation was, inversely, ironically,
2950.32 foolish. As she pursued satanic Gnosis and 
eternal youth, as she devoured the souls
2956.72 of her fellow men, as she studied the dark 
arts, she was becoming but a pawn, a Golem,
2963.04 a slave to the Old One, to Satan. The Old Monk 
wanted to mock her grand enlightenment. Thus,
2969.36 the doll lacks a brain. The name of the Demon, 
Fool’s Idol, describes both the queen as she
2975.44 lived, the doll, the dead, distorted Demon born 
out of her corpse, as well as the Old One – who’s   the god of the Church – and every Archdemon.
The church where the Fool’s Idol resides was
2985.84 built in times past to convert those who engaged 
in heretical studies of the soul. During the
2990.88 queen’s rule, the whole of the system that managed 
it was profoundly corrupt; innocents were tortured
2996.4 and made to confess crimes and sins which they 
did not commit, all so the nobles could produce
3001.6 spices from their blood and feed upon their souls, 
and so the secrets of the Arts wouldn’t be spread.
3008.48 During the Old Monk’s rule, the path to the 
church was filled with various obstacles,   and escapees would have to engage in a game of 
death and torture to attempt to reach salvation
3017.36 and ascend to the upper strata of Latria.
The prison corridors were filled with golden-robe   wearing nobles turned demonic jailers who 
gruesomely impale their victims – they
3027.28 were the holy men who tortured the prisoners to 
produce spice, their sham was exposed before all,
3032.88 and they now tortured and preyed upon the corrupt 
nobles who ran the prison before. House Yormedar
3038.4 was imprisoned, turned into mask-wearing 
Demons, and eradicated, and the men of House
3043.6 Vinland were made into chimeric punishers.
The main road to the church was blocked by   an iron contraption modeled in the Queen’s image 
that permanently shoots arrows to strike down any
3052.88 escapees; and of course, those who manage to 
enter the church despite the tribulations are
3059.04 struck down by a satanic, but ironically honest 
manifestation of the figure they once worshiped.
3064.96 However, the soul-starved prisoners kept 
idolizing the Fool’s Idol as their queen,   not having the wits to realize she is a mere 
instrument of torture who happens to bear
3073.84 her body and a part of her soul. And even in the 
circumstance that one managed to defeat the Idol,
3079.6 she’d be revived by necromancy once again, 
ruining the chance of an escape – this too is
3084.64 a mockery of her eternal youth and life, 
which she achieved through dark magic.
3107.6 There’s a chance the soul-starved would be 
selected by the gargoyles to ascend; in which   case, they’d be met with even greater horrors 
in a false paradise that is, in reality, a hell.
3124.48 The Maneaters were two of the four 
counselors of the Queen of Latria. Like her,   they were members of House Yormedar. The 
queens always had wise men by their side
3133.6 who acted as their advisors; they 
are depicted by the figures shown   beside the queen on the mosaic murals of the 
church – one Vinlandian, one Yormedarian.
3143.44 The men who occupied the position of 
counselor, after the Church of God’s   creation, began to be revered as saintly 
figures, just as the queen herself.
3152.64 The four counselors, divided into left 
and right wings of the throne – into   Vinlandian and Yormedarian wings – represent the 
archetype of the twin serpents of the Caduceus,
3163.28 the two sides of the whole that must be 
understood so that a synthesis is made.  The Old Monk turned the two counselors who’d 
opposed his wing into man-eating chimeras, whose
3172.64 bodies act independently of their minds – their 
snake tails constantly biting at their backs.
3178.24 They’re another example of the twisted, ironic 
punishments devised by the Old Monk to Latria’s   hypocritical royalty. Much like other monsters of 
Latria, their demonic forms reflect the avaricious
3189.04 nature of the royals, as they’re condemned to eat 
men for their souls, and their faces have been   melted and turned into masks – representing 
their deceitful nature. They were vampires,
3199.52 cannibals, they consumed men’s blood and souls as 
depraved, aristocratic occultists; the Old Monk
3206.16 merely brought their concealed, monstrous selves 
to the surface; thus, they were made Maneaters.
3212.88 Other examples of this design trend, which 
connect them to the Latrian secret society, are
3218.32 seen in the Demon Centipedes and the imprisoned 
Noble Woman – her melted face being particularly
3223.84 reminiscent of the Gold Mask. The Noble Woman 
sells us the Ring of Avarice, a treasure which
3229.12 is also found along the Epee Rapier and a Gold 
Mask at the Yellow Womb Heart Demon’s lair.
3241.52 The Old Monk used to be Geri, an enthusiast of 
the Soul Arts who believed in their potential   to emancipate mankind. He was a lover 
of the Queen of Latria, and sat amongst
3250.8 her three other counselors in the throne room.
Geri was among the higher ranks of the Vinland   clan. His name means ‘’Spear’’, or ‘’Spear 
King’’, and the iconic helmet of the Dark
3260.8 Silver armor set is decorated with a crest 
in the shape of a spear tip. Vinland is an   ancient and powerful family that was at 
the root of the Mirdan empire, alongside
3269.6 the Yormedars. It is at the core of the Church – 
it provides the institution many priest-knights   and finances it with their trade of wine.
Another interesting hint at this connection
3279.2 is the design of the Jailers, who were holy men of 
the Church: their squid heads were inspired by the
3284.4 spear-tip-like, squid-like design of the helmets 
of the Dark Silver set, a symbol of Vinland. The
3290.742 Filthy Woman calls Garl Vinland ‘’squid-headed’’. 
The Dark Silver shields depict a spear tip   coming from the skies and exploding in bolts of 
lightning; and the Jailers can conjure paralyzing
3298.08 bolts of lightning from their bells. Their robes 
are golden; the material associated with Vinland.
3304.4 The men of Vinland were, for the most part, devout 
to their Faith. They were useful idiots to the
3310.32 system that was being corrupted from within by 
a cabal of the Latrian nobility at large – some   members of their clan included. Their warriors 
fought in the wars of the Church, and the Prison
3320.24 of Hope was guarded by their lower-ranking men 
– many of whom fell for bribes by the Yormedars.
3326.24 Geri was a cardinal; a man sworn to chastity, and 
exceptionally ranked within the institution. But,
3333.2 as is so common with powerful holy men, he was a 
hypocrite, a liar; he was having an affair with
3339.36 Latria’s queen, who was married to King Allant of 
Boletaria, who was always away at war – fighting
3345.6 battles which the queen had started – and couldn’t 
give proper attention and love to his wife.
3351.28 And because of that affair, Geri was invited 
to the Soul Society. Being part of the foolish
3356.88 wing of the Church, he was appalled by what 
he saw at the secret meetings of nobility;
3361.92 the Church persecuted all who studied 
the Arts, be they good men or bad men,   but the powerful men and women who de-facto 
ran the institution were the worst of heretics.
3371.28 Seeing the hypocritical and exclusionary nature of 
the prohibition of the Soul Arts, a fire was lit
3376.48 within him, and he rebelled. He employed the Soul 
Arts to craft numerous artifacts, which quickly
3382.72 spread around Latria, so much so that he earned a 
reputation for his magical handicrafts. He shared
3388.72 the fruits of the knowledge he acquired in the 
secret meetings of the Latrian coven of witches   with his people. A part of him wanted to compete 
against Boletaria, against Allant, and win, and
3399.44 restore the kingship of House Vinland. He resented 
him and his brother, and what they represented
3405.2 as Boletarian royals: the downfall of House 
Vinland. He wanted his house to be elevated
3411.04 once more to the peak of the world; he wished to 
become a king like his distant ancestors were.
3416.32 The queen was vain and materialistic, and went to 
great lengths to preserve her youth – she drained
3421.76 the vigor of her own people, like a vampire – 
like Elizabeth Bathory – to fill her void. Geri,
3428.48 however, allowed age to do its course 
on him; after all, he employed the souls   he acquired on his artifacts. And over 
time, he lost his favor with the queen,
3438.48 and began to be called, derogatorily by nobles 
in the know, the ‘’old man of the queen’’.
3444.8 And so, their falling out came to bite 
him. He’d be punished for spoiling the   secret practices of the Latrian royals. The 
counselors of the opposing wing denounced his
3454.32 practices under the guise of universal law, and 
advocated for his execution; the true reason for
3459.92 their attacks was that he’d infringed upon 
the oath of secrecy of their organization.  The other member of his wing, a prodigal sorcerer 
named Freke, his partner in crime, stood up for
3469.92 his cause. But ultimately, all he could do 
was alleviate the sentence, which went from
3475.12 execution to exile; the Queen sided with his 
political adversaries and sentenced him to be
3480.32 banished from the land for his betrayal.
He’d go from a cardinal who preached   emancipation and who lived in extravagance to an 
ascetic, criminal monk in torturous repentance.
3491.04 This decision caused Freke to abdicate his 
seat at the council, and roam around the   world to spread the knowledge of the Soul 
Arts, following his friend Geri’s ideals.
3500.16 This earned him the title of visionary.
Geri, who was universally hated in Latria,
3506.56 who was being tortured by bribed men of his clan, 
felt, deeply, that his punishment was unfair.
3513.12 He reminisced of a time when men of his rank, of 
his house were kings; in those times, a huge gap
3519.2 stood between Vinland and the middle-earthers; 
Vinland had the most prestige, it was on top
3524.64 of the world. If only he were a king like his 
ancestors, he’d be wed to the woman he loved,
3530.16 to the Yormedarian queen. But now, everyone 
had betrayed him: his lover, House Yormedar,
3537.28 the Church, and worst of all, his own house.
In his penitence, he was made to wear a crown
3543.84 of thorns as a mockery of his ambitious nature; 
and it was true, a part of him envied Allant, and
3549.6 wished to be like him; he emulated him; in part 
because he hoped to attract the queen’s attention.
3557.04 He was inflicted physical and mental pain; 
he could barely resist his anguish. But
3562.4 the suffering did not sanctify him; it 
tainted him, it pulled him into darkness.
3568.48 When the Second Scourge came, the Colorless 
Fog empowered him. His yellow robe was
3573.6 granted life by the powers of the Old One, and 
wrapped itself around his head like a crown.
3578.8 Geri returned to Latria to enact upon it divine 
retribution. However, the Demonic influence of
3584.48 the Yellow Robe took a toll on his already frail 
sanity, and he went too far; he struck a Faustian
3590.96 bargain with Satan and paid the price – as he 
drained and tortured the souls of the Latrians,
3597.28 his own soul was being drained by his living 
crown, which was like a tick that was sucking   him dry. The more he lost his soul, the crueler 
he became. The more he lost his light, himself,
3609.44 the greater the void that’d be filled 
with mindless rage and evil, with shadow.  Latria – the Highlands – was represented 
by the flying white doves – the Old Monk
3619.76 turned it into a birdcage, as chains 
inexplicably surround the entire area.
3625.36 Latria’s collective suffering nurtured a Demon at 
its center, which became like a Heart of Darkness,
3630.88 a distilled Idea of Evil. A microcosmic Demiurge, 
a replica of the Old One; a parasite that fed on
3638.16 souls. The Mephistophelian crown of the Demon 
King was not just a tick to the man himself,
3643.52 but to his nation; and its blood was 
converging into this chaotic abomination.
3648.72 Geri’s reign of tyranny would go on to punish 
all those who had opposed him in the past with   excessive cruelty; the nobles who practiced 
sorcery in secrecy would be imprisoned and
3658.08 tortured, their souls gradually sucked out of 
their bodies, and fed to the Heart of Darkness,
3663.76 which would then rebirth them into hideous 
monstrosities; and the warriors who dared to   challenge him would have their souls 
grafted into statues of gargoyles,
3671.52 and sentenced to serve him as demonic slaves.
When Rydell, Allant’s younger brother,
3677.76 learned about the state of Latria, he recklessly 
invaded the Prison of Hope to rescue his wife   of House Yormedar; and Geri seized the opportunity 
to unleash upon him a great punishment – his
3688.32 sentence would be special, for he was a symbol 
of Boletaria. He’d be made to watch the death   of his wife. His soul would then be split from 
his body, which would be left to rot in a cell;
3698.56 his spirit would remain locked away, forever 
desperate to find even a keepsake of his
3703.68 wife so he could rest in peace.
Even Freke was imprisoned and   left to rot in a cell; Geri had been 
blinded by evil and couldn’t recognize
3712.96 his former friend – just as Freke couldn’t 
recognize his, for Geri had become a Demon.
3719.6 Geri, who was once an envious, ambitious noble, 
was now the most avaricious Demon of all. His
3725.6 soul can be transposed into the Soul Thirst 
spell, which has a more powerful version of the   effect of the Rings of Avarice which the nobles 
of the Soul Society concocted for themselves.
3736.443 (This is why the Gargoyle enemies have 
such high drop rates for souls – their   souls were precariously stuffed into 
the gargoyle statues, as hinted by the   nails sealing the cracks on their heads.)
From the Heart of Darkness flows its veins,   which are like tentacles, like roots; 
they extend to Latria’s swamp which was
3744.8 turned into an execution ground. The demonic 
heart was also a womb of chaos, and it birthed
3750.32 defiled chimeras from the remains of the dead, 
from the energy it absorbed from the Latrians,   by mixing it with the many insects – such 
as bookworms, as Latria was a nation of
3759.68 scholars – and the properties of Mercurystone 
– an ore native to Latria – within it.
3766.16 The Ivory Tower inversely parallels the Nexus, 
the original and tallest Ivory Tower that was,
3771.84 at first, a temple which hosted the 
secret meetings of the Witch Queen and   her coven, but that would, upon their defeat, 
be subverted into a temple of world peace,
3781.6 overseen by the image of the Warrior King. Geri 
now sat at the throne – Vinland’s kingship was
3787.68 at last restored, but its gold had now become 
pyrite; his golden robe was but a bright yellow,
3793.76 and he had no queen beside him, and his army 
was not of elite holy men, but of Demons.
3800.0 The nobles of Latria who managed to escape the 
accursed kingdom tried to reclaim the throne by   using a portion of their remaining wealth to hire 
the shadow organization of spies and assassins to
3809.12 dispose of Geri – but all the mercenaries failed. 
A woman who brandished the Baby’s Nail, a knife
3815.92 with a powerful poison, and worn a copy of the 
Thief’s Ring, was slain by the Fool’s Idol, and
3821.36 her soul was enslaved – her Black Phantom guards 
the Church. Yurt was captured and jailed near the
3827.84 Ivory Tower. The most skilled of them all, a rogue 
spy of Boletaria, who led the organization – the
3834.88 same man who’d leaked knowledge of the Soul Arts 
to the queen of Latria – managed to reach Geri,   but was killed in action; his spirit was trapped 
and became the Old Monk’s personal guard.
3845.2 Once the slayer of demons faces the Old Monk, 
the Yellow Robe decides to leave his shriveled,
3850.24 drained body, causing Geri’s immediate 
death. The Robe thought it had found a   worthy vessel in the protagonist, and 
so attempted to make him his new host.
3868.64 The Shadowmen were a tribe of warriors 
who had as their core virtues bravery   and might. The Adjudicator is a pagan 
deity worshipped by them. It is the
3877.6 Demon butcher commanded by the Golden Crow.
The Crow would pass judgement upon the warriors
3882.88 of the tribe, and those who acted cowardly or 
ate bird flesh would be eaten by the glutton.
3889.2 Through the powers of the Old One, the mythos 
of the Shadowmen were manifested as Demons.
3894.48 The Adjudicator represents the mortal rivals of 
the Shadowmen – the Giants. The Giants ate the
3900.24 flesh of their enemies so they’d inherit 
their strength and bravery, their vigor;   and cannibalism made them enormous and their 
lives longer. However, it also made them
3910.4 covetous – their customs fueled endless war, 
and, eventually, caused their destruction. The
3916.4 ’eating of bird flesh’ also serves as an allegory 
– as a euphemism – for cannibalism – with proud,
3922.8 worthy warriors symbolically turning into 
birds after an honorable death in battle   so they can fly and reach the heavens.
The Golden Crow is a psychopomp,
3932.24 the gatekeeper of heaven, and the key to the gate 
he guards is martyrdom. Thus, enacting the role
3938.96 of judge, he commands an executioner monster – 
a headless, cannibalistic, vain creature, whose
3945.12 gluttony caused his body to bloat and dissolve 
into slime. The monster’s tongue is enormous,
3950.8 as is his belly. His body is adorned with jewelry, 
and he brandishes a giant cleaver, emblematic of
3957.2 his raw thirst for flesh and violence, and the 
literal tool which the Giants used to butcher men.
3963.52 Birds were deified by the Shadowmen for they 
could fly beyond the Storms and enter heaven;
3968.56 and crows are omens of death, as they appear 
whenever there is war to feast on the bodies   of fallen warriors. It’s only fitting that a crow 
would be the one to judge the souls and declare
3977.68 if they deserve to reach the heavens; by eating 
the bodies of deceased warriors, the Crows absorb
3983.2 their souls, which flow through their blood; 
the eyes, especially, are windows to the soul,
3988.72 and a prized delicacy for such scavengers.
It is for this reason that Sparkly, the Crow,
3994.0 has acquired enough intelligence 
to speak the language of men.  In a way, the dichotomy between the Giants and the 
Shadowmen is like that of Antichrist and Christ;
4003.52 the Giants wished for material power 
and immortal life, and for that, they   devoured their fellow kin, while the Shadowmen 
were warriors who wished not eternal life,
4012.64 but glory in death through martyrdom. The 
Shadowmen saw their eternal rivalry with
4017.76 the Giants as a trial of the Heavens, and their 
culture, their religion reflected that notion.
4024.32 The relationship of the Golden Crow with the 
Adjudicator mirrors that of the Witch Queen   and the Old One; the Golden Crow commands its 
golem, which butchers and eats men’s flesh,
4034.56 but sends them to Heaven forcefully, as they 
couldn’t reach it on their own, saving men of
4039.68 their own wickedness by confronting them with it. 
It is like the Jungian concept of the symbolic
4045.44 death; a man has to face his own shadow, to 
enter the belly of the beast, to be reborn.
4052.4 With the ressurgance of paganism 
preceding the Second Scourge,   the clergy of the Shadowmen subverted their 
own traditional virtues and culture by sucking
4060.8 the life of the warrior class to attain 
immortal life. They mirror the corrupt   clergy of Boletaria which went on to hunt them 
down and bring ruin to their civilization.
4070.32 The Shadowmen that had their souls sucked by 
the priests after their deaths were manifested   by the Fog as literal men of shadow, who roam 
the shrine as condemned souls – the inversion
4080.32 of their desired fate; their deformed 
heads are similar to that of the Old One.
4092.24 The Old Hero is the spirit of a mighty 
berserker warrior of the past that was   conjured by the powers of the Old One.
His body was gravely scarred as a result
4100.64 of his performance in the defensive 
battle against the invading Giants.  His Sword of Searching’s name means that he 
was eager to reach the heavens. The birds
4109.2 and warriors flow through the wind to find it, and 
his sword conjures gusts of wind with every swing.
4115.12 However, he was greedy, and from his eating 
of bird flesh, he was severely punished.
4120.56 The priests mutilated his lips as an 
omen of his avarice, and blinded him,   as both a symbolic punishment for his spiritual 
blindness, and so that he could never find the
4129.6 heavens and his soul would keep searching 
for eternity. His body was adorned with   jewelry to make him look like his mortal 
enemies which he emulated – the Giants; he
4138.08 was made into a totem of the Butcher Demon in 
death, as he’d acted like the Demon in life.
4143.92 As explained before, bird flesh is an euphemism 
for human flesh; thus, the Old Hero was a
4150.24 cannibal. This explains his massive size, which 
is the result of eating the flesh of his fallen
4155.84 foes to steal their might – a great taboo for the 
Shadowmen. Indeed, in his search for the heavens,
4162.24 the hero became just like the monsters he 
was facing, betraying the very essence of   his people – a recurring trend in Demon’s Souls’: 
the descent into corruption, the hypocrisy of men.
4174.64 The Old Hero was forced to become even more 
demonic than the enemies that were eradicating his   people. He broke every law, every taboo to defend 
his land – and was punished for it. Though the
4185.28 men who’d order his punishment would become even 
greater Demons than him – even greater hypocrites.
4191.52 The Old Hero is a tragic figure; upon the death 
of his spirit, he howls at the sky one last time.
4205.68 The Storm King is the Adversarial 
deity of the religion of the Shadowmen;   their Satan. It is the being responsible 
for the storm itself; the creator of the
4215.12 material realm. The Storm King was manifested 
by the fog as the embodiment of its egregore.
4220.32 The birds – more specifically, the crows – were 
deified as heavenly gatekeepers, as angels;
4227.28 in opposition to them stood the Manta Rays, 
who flew – or rather, swam with their wing-like
4233.28 protrusions – in the abyss below, in the deep, 
dark sea. They were perceived to be like fallen
4239.6 angels, unworthy angels who fell from paradise 
and into the earthly world of suffering. Thus,
4245.44 the Storm King, their ruler, is the Lucifer 
– in fact, Lucifer is often represented by
4251.44 the thunderbolt as a symbol of his fall –, the 
Demiurge, the Satan of the Shadowmen; the God of
4257.68 Demons, a microcosmic Old One – as are all Demons.
The Stormruler is an enchanted sword fitting for
4264.56 a warrior of legend. It was crafted during the 
First Scourge to be wielded against the Demons.
4270.08 Its magical powers awaken when in the presence 
of the graves of mighty Shadowmen warriors of   yore who fought against the spawn of the Fog.
The faith of the Shadowmen is Gnostic in nature;
4280.72 they believe the material world to 
be the flawed work of a fallen angel,   who’s a false God of Chaos, of the Storm; 
and thus, aim to free themselves of their
4289.6 corporeal prisons through glorious deaths 
in combat against demonic evildoers.
4296.16 When the corrupt priests of the Shrine 
rediscovered the Soul Arts – they saw the   Giants performing them in their battle against 
their tribe – they turned the Shadowmen religion
4304.48 upside down; the rituals of purification of the 
dead turned into rituals of soul-absorption of the
4310.0 dead by them; and the offerings to the heavens, 
which were intended to send the souls of brave   warriors to paradise, turned into offerings 
to the Storm King. They created, through the
4320.48 use of the Soul Arts, weapons from the marrow 
of the Storm Beasts – the Morion Blades, black   swords shaped like stings that, like the Demonic 
Manta Rays venerated by the satanic Priests,
4330.24 take pleasure in the wielder’s suffering. All the 
brave warriors who died fighting the Giants, who
4339.28 died protecting their island, their people, were 
doomed to perpetual confinement in material hell,
4345.28 in a fog-covered Shrine of the Devil. Souls of 
fallen warriors who were never buried possessed
4351.12 skeletons that fought against invaders, 
in eternal search of a glorious death.
4363.52 The Leechmonger is a Demon composed 
of numerous leeches that stick   together to form a human-like body.
The Leechmonger was born out of Holy
4370.88 Knight Lizaia’s body – we find her enchanted 
spear near the Leechmonger’s arena, but,
4376.56 notably, her corpse is absent from that 
location. She was one of the Church’s
4381.6 high-ranking holy women, and like Vito 
and Selen, she wore the Dull Golden set.
4387.68 Her spear Istarelle is also said to be 
one of the few holy revelations of God,   as is the Moonlight Greatsword, which was Vito’s 
weapon, and the Blind, which belongs to Selen.
4399.68 Her corpse fell to the bottom of the Valley, 
and a billow of leeches feasted on it. However,
4405.28 her gleaming soul triggered the birth of a Demon, 
who acts as gatekeeper to the Valley’s core.
4410.64 The Leechmonger is perfectly emblematic of 
corruption; a Demon born from the body of a   saint, whose shape is formed by the 
parasites which feed upon its soul.
4427.84 The Dirty Colossus is a Golem constructed 
and animated, through dark magic,   by the inhabitants of the swamp to serve as the 
last line of defense of Astraea’s hiding place.
4438.24 Its body is composed of a round core, protected 
by wooden armor, and an amalgamation of nests
4443.84 of flies – symbols of pestilence and 
material decay –, which it weaponizes.
4449.52 Much like the Leechmonger, the Dirty Colossus was 
born from the corruption of a saint – of Vito,
4454.96 whose soul was stolen by shamans 
and used to animate the Golem.
4467.36 Astraea is a maiden who abdicated from her duty 
as a saint of the Church of God to stay in the   Valley of Defilement and care for its inhabitants.
Despite the corruption and moral wickedness of
4477.76 many of the swamp’s inhabitants, she could 
not bear to witness their pitiful state   of being and volunteered to heal their pain 
and suffering; she abandoned everything and
4486.56 corrupted her own soul to help those in need.
However, the road to hell is paved with good   intentions. The mercy granted by her to the 
meek was Demonic in nature. She employed the
4496.96 Soul Arts to suck the souls out of their bodies, 
eliminating their pain, yes, but also their minds;
4502.8 they became but empty, violent, idol-worshiping 
husks; when killed, they drop barely any
4508.88 souls, for they are not unlike golems themselves.
Conversely, while their bodies may be but mere   hollows, their souls are, indeed, experiencing 
perfect joy in a microcosmic paradise which
4518.64 Astraea built for them. Astraea parallels the 
Witch Queen of Mird, who understood the Earth
4524.0 to be a prison and corrupted herself, turning into 
an Archdemon, to send all living souls to heaven.
4530.64 Astraea inversely parallels the Chieftain of 
the Valley that is represented in its Archstone;   he was a doctor who healed the sick and 
wounded through the use of Soul Arts. Both
4540.0 had the greatest of intentions, and were seen as 
saviors, but one wished to emancipate the flesh,
4546.56 the other to free the soul. It’s interesting 
how this duality is expressed superficially;
4552.08 Astraea looks like a beautiful Holy Woman on 
the surface, but is, in truth, an Archdemon;
4558.8 and the Witch Doctor looks like a Demon, a 
scary pagan on the surface, but is, in truth,
4564.48 a healer; however, Demon’s Souls goes one 
layer deeper, as Astraea is indeed angelic,
4570.64 and the doctor, though good-intentioned, 
is merely a servant of darkness, enabling   matter; or perhaps it is the other way around.
The valley’s inhabitants have organized themselves
4578.96 as a militia to protect Astraea; barring access 
to those who seek to rescue her and from those
4584.16 who come to take her Demon Soul. Like her, 
they had good intentions; they wished only
4589.44 to guard the sanctuary of their Messiah. 
But like her, their good intentions fueled
4594.88 sin – they killed invaders alongside saints.
The faces of the Depraved Ones were distorted
4602.32 into the shape of a Baku’s head – and the 
Baku is an imagetic representation of the   Old One which has also informed, as will be 
discussed later, the design of the Eye Stones.
4612.88 Their eyes are like those of a Dragon.
Astraea sits at the end of the swamp,
4618.56 caressing the souls of the Depraved Ones. She 
turned the Valley of Defilement into an even
4623.6 greater hell, that she did, as she distilled 
all light from it. But, at the same time,
4630.16 that distilled light is free from darkness.
Astraea was canonized as a Saint for discovering
4635.6 healing miracles – the same type of sorcery 
employed by the witch-doctor that cared for   the sick within the swamp, the chieftain 
of the Valley depicted on the Archstone.
4651.6 But she would subvert her own saintly 
deed by discarding the body altogether.  The Depraved Ones began to capture all sane men to 
offer their souls to Astraea, who’d relieve their
4661.44 suffering and take them to heaven by draining 
their lives from their vessels. Human sacrifice   was part of the culture of Northern barbarians 
– men were captured and offered to the Giant
4671.04 chieftains so they’d devour their flesh and souls. 
All material riches that were found in the swamp
4676.56 were taken to the Saint as well; she was worshiped 
as a pagan idol as well as an angel of salvation.
4683.36 Astraea parallels the Old One, and the Depraved 
Ones the holy men of the Church of God. Just
4688.72 like how the holy men of the Church worship Satan 
believing him to be God, the Depraved Ones worship   Astraea believing her to be a Messiah, when she 
is an Archdemon. And just like how the warriors
4698.88 of the Church fight in the name of God against 
paganism, the pagan inhabitants of the Valley   fight in the name of their savior against 
the Slayers of Demons. Garl Vinland, then,
4709.68 parallels King Allant, the final obstacle between 
the world’s savior and the Old One. However,
4715.68 as I’ve explained, there is yet another layer 
to this scheme – in the end, the Demons will,
4722.08 indeed, take all to heaven; and 
in this sense, the Old One – and
4727.12 Astraea – are indeed like merciful Gods.
Astraea was truly pure of heart, as innocent
4733.36 as a child – and her bright, immaculate 
soul wasn’t fit for such a corrupted,   sinful world. Before she knew the truth of 
the Earth, she lived in safety and abundance,
4743.68 a wholly pampered existence. Seeing the depravity 
and suffering of the meekest among men triggered
4750.08 within her a desire to take them to paradise, 
to free them from all pain; she became a saintly
4755.92 All-mother, disregarding the foolish, inverted, 
materialistic morals of the Church, corrupting,
4761.84 martyring herself in the process, so that she 
could create her own microcosmic paradise.
4774.32 The Churchmen used to venture into the Valley 
during their crusades against paganism;   they treated the sinful, but meek and 
suffering inhabitants of the swamp as
4783.28 Demons to be slaughtered; some were even crucified 
– and they’d later fight invaders with the nails
4788.56 from the crosses as weapons. Astraea looked 
at them as lost sheep to be herded instead,   and guided them to Paradise through distillment of 
the soul from matter. Though she is an Archdemon,
4798.96 she is, simultaneously, an Angel; the way one 
perceives her is dependent on his values – should
4805.84 he be a fool who values matter over spirit, or be 
too attached to the earthly world, he’ll perceive
4810.96 her as a mad witch; should he value spirit over 
matter, to him she is a true, enlightened Saint.
4828.4 King Allant the Twelfth is the successor 
of Doran’s royal lineage. He was seen as   a particularly great and kind king who 
was affectionate toward commoners. His
4837.52 profile points to him being a sensitive 
soul, a leader with a pure heart who   doesn’t belong in a world as cruel as his.
As was tradition since Boletaria’s founding,
4847.36 the then prince was wed to Latria’s princess, – 
who was an elite member of House Yormedar. Their
4852.88 marriage was political in nature; the king could 
see taint within the soul of the vain princess,
4858.56 and couldn’t trust her, and she saw him as a 
tool. From the start she was working with a   double agent within Boletaria’s spy network.
His younger brother, Lord Rydell, was an
4869.68 adventurer who set out to explore the world. 
During one of his travels, he found a chunk of
4874.96 an Archstone, which transported him to the Nexus.
There, he met with the Maiden in Black – who
4880.96 he identified as a witch – and stole 
her staff, returning to Boletaria with   it. Upon learning about Rydell’s exploits, 
Allant traveled to the Nexus himself. There,
4892.64 the Monumental decided to teach him the Soul 
Arts, as he appeared to be a good-hearted leader.
4898.32 She claimed to Allant she believed he 
could save the world with kindness,   that he would bring a new renaissance to mankind, 
that he was the chosen one. She could see within
4907.2 him resided a gleaming, immaculate soul. She 
told him she believed humanity was ready to   learn the Arts once more. In truth, her act was 
a sham; her true intentions lied somewhere else.
4919.52 When Allant returned to Boletaria, he employed 
the Soul Arts to better the lives of his people;
4925.2 artifacts such as the Rings of Great and 
Herculean Strength were crafted during his rule,   and distributed around Boletaria. We’re shown 
this period was so abundant that such magical
4935.28 artifacts were commonplace, to the point that 
one can find them discarded on the main road.
4940.8 During Boletaria’s peak – during its age of 
unprecedented prosperity –, Allant organized
4946.64 a series of games with the purpose of filtering 
suitable warriors for a project he envisioned –   Boletaria’s Round Table of Knights, an elite 
order of the world’s most capable combatants.
4956.72 Warriors from every nation came to Boletaria, 
which had opened its gates to the world,
4962.0 to take part in the tournament; and it was the 
greatest championship the earth had ever seen.
4967.36 Many fighters had distinguished themselves in 
combat; the finalists were Biorr and Vallarfax,
4972.72 two strongmen of Stonefang; Long-bow Oolan, 
an archer of the Shrine of Storms – who was
4978.32 a woman in disguise; Alfred, Boletaria’s shield; 
and Metas, Boletaria’s sword, the king’s nephew,
4985.84 who lost to his uncle in a duel – it was the last 
fight of the event. Allant’s son, Ariona, didn’t
4992.64 participate in the tournament – and in this time, 
he couldn’t truly understand him, his weakness.
4998.64 That would change after he’d be faced with the 
harshness of the world and fall to melancholy.  King Allant was awarded the gold medal; Metas 
the silver; Alfred, the iron; Oolan, the lead.
5011.6 The finalists were thus ordained knights of the 
Round Table, and would serve the king, directly.
5017.28 The goal of the organization was to protect the 
world from chaos, to secure the fraternity of men.
5023.28 The Round Table was universal in its composition, 
as it was in character – its members can be traced
5029.04 to all of the world’s remaining nations. Oolan 
to the Shrine of Storms; Biorr and Vallarfax
5034.72 to Stonefang; Alfred to Boletaria and Metas to 
Latria. Allant believed in the ideals of chivalry;
5042.0 from childhood he was infatuated with legends 
of past heroes who fought dragons, with stories   of knights who saved the innocent from evil. 
His soul was the purest and brightest of all.
5053.36 Despite his incredible achievements, which have 
propelled Boletaria’s well-being so plentifully,   the Soul Arts – in large part the source 
of their newfound prosperity – were also
5062.72 fomenting avarice within the powerful.
The politicians he’d taught the Soul   Arts too were going rogue, were turning to 
greed and manipulating him and his knights
5071.6 for their benefit. The secret had leaked from 
Boletaria, for there was a spy overseeing the
5076.64 council; first it was Latria, and later, other 
nations began to practice the occult as well.
5083.12 On his queen’s – or rather, the Church’s –, 
and on his politician’s orders), he was sent to
5089.2 various wars; he was forced to enact the role of a 
warrior king, as was tradition within his lineage,
5095.52 from his coronation onwards; for that, he yielded, 
however unwillingly, to the Demon stirring inside
5101.84 him. In order to face monsters, he thought, he’d 
have to become even more monstrous than them.
5108.56 He split the Northern Regalia in twain 
– into white and black. He kept the half
5113.92 that drew its power from humanity’s blackest 
impulses, and condemned the half symbolizing   their goodness to rest forever in Doran’s 
mausoleum, an act emblematic of his Luciferian
5124.0 fall. This was the path Allant chose.
The people of Boletaria were known for
5129.52 being hardworking, honest and simple; they were 
diligent and good-hearted – but that was changing;
5136.16 the soldiers were becoming increasingly cruel, 
wielding unorthodox weapons designed to cause   pain – such as the spiked shields – and 
taking dogs trained to maim their enemies
5145.84 and made to wear sharp metallic dentures 
to war. The executioners and jailers began
5150.96 to enjoy the smell, the taste of blood. 
The powerful desired to devour the world.
5157.893 His responsibility overwhelmed him; he’d become 
increasingly disillusioned with his kingship,
5163.28 with life and the world the more he aged. Scars 
covered his body and face. While he was at war,
5169.84 fighting for a corrupt and hypocritical 
Church ran by avaricious and cruel nobles,   his wife was having an affair – and rumors 
of which likely spread through nobility. He
5179.68 felt as though he was truly alone in the world.
Behind his back, his ministers were plotting the
5185.36 destruction and subjugation of all nations – they 
even restored slavery in Stonefang, and Allant
5191.28 felt powerless against their machinations.
He realized his mistake; he was like a
5196.8 dog; he was manipulated by everyone around 
him, and his realization came too late.
5201.84 And everyone had betrayed and disappointed him.
He ultimately snapped, and traveled to the Nexus
5208.24 once more – this time, not with the intention 
of empowering humanity, but of destroying it.
5214.24 He awakened the Old One from its ancient slumber 
to free mankind from its own wickedness – to
5219.36 bring about the end of the world, though he 
believes it to be an act of divine mercy.
5225.28 He is the inverse Doran, the subversion 
of the legend of the Last Hero;   instead of fighting Dragons, he summons them 
and orders them to breathe fire to destroy men.
5235.84 He who was once the savior of mankind was 
now its adversary; (REGRAVAR FINAL) but,   unbeknownst to him, he shared an epiphany the 
Witch Queen of Mird – though, in his case,
5246.16 it wasn’t born from intellect, but from feeling. 
Theirs was the path to true salvation, to heaven.
5252.96 If you hold on to corporeal existence, 
you’ll fear the Demons that tear it away.
5258.0 But if you’ve made your peace, and attained 
enlightenment, if you value soul over matter,
5263.52 then the Demons are really angels freeing you 
from Earthly existence and taking you to paradise.
5269.76 While Allant’s demonic spirit embodies the 
qualities of a king of Boletaria – and his soul   emanates angelic wings of aether –, his true form, 
which we face at the root of the Old One, reflects
5281.28 his self-perception, as well as his nihilistic 
outlook. The Demon King is nothing but a puny,
5287.28 dark, crippled worm, a slave to the Old One. But, 
alternatively, he is a martyr who volunteered to
5294.96 bear the burdens of the world, to bear all sin 
and darkness so he could bring all to heaven;
5300.4 and thus, he stands as the gatekeeper of Paradise.
Allant is not the first name of the King, but the
5307.12 name of his House; his son is named Ariona Allant, 
and his full name may be Rendal Allant – according
5313.92 to internal files. Rendal is also the name 
of a warrior king of Astora in Dark Souls;
5320.96 and the relation of Astora to Anor Londo and the 
World of Men is similar to that of Boletaria and
5330.4 Latria, the land of the wealthiest of 
nobles; both Boletaria and Astora are   the middle-earths of their worlds.
Rendal means ‘’wolf’’ and ‘’shield’’, a fitting
5335.76 name for a warrior king who was loyal, like a 
dog, to his masters. Though in the end Allant
5341.04 subverted its meaning upon becoming the highest 
Demon and destroying the world; the wolf is a
5346.56 symbol of loyalty, and Allant betrayed his people.
Though the king chose to surrender to the Old One,
5353.2 he left his son the key to the Boletarian 
Mausoleum, where he sealed the white half   of the sword of legend. He knew Ariona 
had the brightest, warmest soul of all;
5362.8 the sword’s power would grow exponentially on 
his hand, and be enough to vanquish his father,
5367.84 should he preserve his good nature, embrace hope 
and wish to save the world. And in saving the
5373.68 world, he’d be seen as the greatest hero of 
humanity. This decision mirrors that of the   Witch Queen of Mird, who left the Regalia as a way 
to give humanity one last chance of redemption.
5384.08 Allant recognized that the world is cursed with 
duality; and he wished to break that curse. He
5389.68 would either ruin the earth, distilling light from 
matter and sending all to paradise, or he would be
5394.96 stopped by a man he deemed fit to be a monarch 
of peace, a truly worthy and perfect king with
5400.32 a soul even brighter than his who’d lead humanity 
to a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity,
5406.32 to a new dawn, a new golden age. Allant would win 
if he felled humanity or if he was felled by it.
5422.0 The Maiden in Black was originally the Witch 
Queen who created the Old One and triggered the   First Scourge. She was once the oldest, most 
dangerous demon, who sucked the souls of men
5431.6 through her witchcraft. After the Old One was 
banished by Mird, she was punished accordingly;
5437.36 her soul was sealed, causing her mind to 
regress to a child-like state, as her eyes
5442.48 were covered with wax, symbolically denying her 
enlightenment – the eyes are windows to the soul.
5448.32 She was sentenced to eternally tend to the 
flames of the Nexus as a candle maiden,   and aid the future generations of men with her 
ritual magic, with her domain over souls – she
5457.68 can convert the souls of others into vitality and 
power, which was what she used to do when she was   a Demon Queen –, should the Old One awake again.
The First and Second Scourges inversely parallel
5468.72 each other – the first was triggered by a 
witch-queen, and ended by a warrior king;   the second was triggered by a warrior-king, and 
ended by a witch-queen. The statues of the Nexus
5478.56 reference the occult motto of as above, so below 
– a warrior-king is above, brandishing a sacred
5484.4 weapon, and the witch-queen standing upside-down 
– just as the witches which the Church captured
5491.12 and killed in Boletaria –, as she was defeated 
by her male opposite. Those statues were built
5496.72 when the Nexus was reformed from a temple which 
hosted the coven of the Witch Queen – there’s a   smaller statue near its center depicting her as 
a shadowy figure, one of the preferred resting
5505.68 spots of the Maiden in Black – into the 
prison for the rehabilitated witches – now
5511.6 Monumentals – and queen – now the Candle Maiden.
Her function as a Candle Maiden of the Nexus also
5518.64 has the symbolic significance of her being the one 
who’ll keep the whole world alive – as she keeps   the flames of the Nexus lit; souls are light, 
and life depends upon souls. This is, of course,
5530.24 an inversion of her actions as the Witch Queen 
– she wished to blow out the candle of humanity.
5536.0 The Maiden in Black is the hidden heroine of 
the story, a redeemed Demon. Just as Allant
5541.44 represents the fallen Saintly warrior, whose 
symbolic ancestor is the God King who defeated   the Witch. And his wife was a Yormedarian Queen, 
like her distant descendant, the Witch Queen of
5551.6 Latria. Allant and the Maiden in Black are 
like Ying and Yang. Or, one could think,   Allant is the true hero, and the Mirdan 
Queen, who was reduced to a mindless doll,
5559.44 is enacting the will of the foolish men who 
can’t let go of the world to find heaven.
5570.32 The Old One is the eldritch source of all 
Demons. It is like the raw energy of nature   manifested as a Dragon, as the Beast of the 
Apocalypse, which was summoned – or rather,
5580.48 created – by the Witch Queen; a Frankenstein’s 
monster, a supreme Golem of sorts.
5586.72 Its fog isn’t a mere corrupting force; 
it grants agency to men’s destructive,   evil desires and emotions, which go on to birth 
Demons. It is perfectly symbolic of the liminal
5597.36 merging of material and astral planes – after 
all, it is a fog; it obscures and diffuses light.
5605.04 The Fog is the pendulum of karmic justice striking 
upon men for their sins – the Wrath of God; so,
5611.44 the creator of that chaotic God – the 
witch – is like a God of Sin herself,
5616.56 a hidden, occult, rogue deity.
The Old One dualistically parallels both
5621.6 the Tree of Life and the Three of Knowledge of 
the Book of Genesis – and it is, quite literally,
5627.2 a colossal Tree of Life, hosting all of 
men’s souls within its beastly belly,   that is, inversely, a harbinger of Death 
and Chaos –, just as the Soul Arts parallel
5638.08 the Fruits. It dualistically parallels the 
Serpent as well; it is the alchemical Dragon,
5643.84 the raw energy of nature manifested, Satan. The 
stupid, blind false God. The Sacred Tree is the
5651.6 main symbol of House Vinland and House Yormedar, 
who ruled the Mirdan Empire. As explained before,
5657.52 Vinland is the life, Yormedar the knowledge.
All Demons are reflections of the Old One.
5663.68 The more Demonic one is, the darker his 
soul, the simpler his mind; a Demon will
5669.6 act increasingly on instinct, which tells it to 
devour souls and cause destruction. All Demons,
5676.32 like the Old One, are parasites; they prey upon 
the souls of the world to feed themselves. In
5682.32 a way, they are as evil as nature itself.
The Old One’s first awakening was triggered
5689.2 by the empire of Mird, during an age when it was 
the hegemonic power. It ravaged half the world,
5695.52 summoning mighty demons and devastating 
firestorms. Mird attempted to send it
5700.56 back to slumber by attacking it with powerful 
soul-trapping weapons. These magical Mirdan
5705.6 weapons are what power the Archstones and 
trap the souls of the Demons we slay within   them – like dream catchers, tying it all back to 
the surreal, subconscious background. They’re also
5716.72 what causes souls to be trapped and linked to the 
Nexus; in truth, they are like conduits to light,
5722.4 to energy, to souls. The player character 
gets trapped by the Nexus due to their   magical influence over the Tutorial Area, which 
is the ancient border of Mird; the tallest Ivory
5733.52 Tower that became the Nexus stood precisely at 
the world’s center – and it became the world’s
5738.96 magical center upon its conversion into the 
Nexus, as all Archstones transport men to it.
5745.36 The soul-trapping artillery is perfectly symbolic 
of the ideals of the other side of the coin:
5750.72 while the Queen wanted to free all souls through 
corporeal death, the King wanted to shackle them.
5756.4 One side seeks distillment of light from darkness, 
separation; the other wants light and dark to be
5762.24 fused together. One is foolish, but pure, 
the other is enlightened, but sinful. The   Northern Regalia being the weapon of Doran, 
the King who mended the world, is emblematic
5768.72 of that as well – just as its splitting by 
Allant, who wished to rupture the world.
5774.8 Allant left the white half in Doran’s mausoleum, 
and took the black for himself – just as the Old
5780.56 One hosts the brightness of humanity within 
itself, but casts its shadow to the outside.
5785.92 Once the Old One was defeated, the Monumentals 
removed a chunk of the world from the physical   plane and sealed it within a dream-like 
astral realm. The Old One rests at the
5794.8 bottom of the realm, surrounded by Mird’s ashes.
Within the belly of the beast lies paradise;
5800.56 a realm of pure light, freed from the darkness 
of matter. Though the Old One fed upon the
5806.0 souls of humanity, and subconsciously, 
instinctually employed Demons to feed it,
5811.36 it was all for the sake of the greater good 
in the end – even if it merely wanted to   feed itself. To force a conflict of light 
against darkness is to rupture the paradox,
5821.28 the shackle which binds all life on Earth; men 
were confronted with the blackest shadows, and,
5827.04 as a result, taken to the brightest light, 
to a Garden of Eden. Beaches are symbolic of
5832.96 the transition from the world of matter to the 
world of soul, thus, the Old One rests at one.
5839.44 The Maiden in Black treats the Old One as her pet 
– and, in a way, that’s what it is, her mindless
5845.92 Golem. It may, at first, have been built as a mere 
Human Effigy; though it was cursed by the Witch to
5852.64 feel eternally void, infinitely lacking, and thus, 
doomed to eat the world in search of fulfillment
5859.2 – a curse that is simply an extrapolation of 
men’s own nature; of the nature of all living   beings. As Saint Urbain describes it, the Old One 
is like a poor, hungry child. In a way, it is the
5871.6 supreme and ultimate martyr of Demon’s Souls; the 
supreme Demon, the darkest and most impure of all,
5878.4 the only being excluded from paradise, but the 
purest – as pure as a puppy or a human infant,
5885.28 as pure as men before the fall; as pure as Saint 
Astraea, or King Allant the Twelth; and through
5891.76 its chained existence, it saved everyone. After 
all is ruined, and all life is found within its
5898.56 belly, it will slumber, never to wake again, and 
light will have been fully split from darkness.
5916.48 The Archstones hold within them an abundance 
of light; they are linked to the inhabitants   of the locations they host, or rather, to the 
memories, to the egregores, to the ideas of
5926.72 the locations themselves. They are literally and 
figuratively emblems of the nations of the world,
5932.16 and serve as magic gates to them. When a 
nation is destroyed, so is its Archstone.
5938.56 The Archstone which hosted the Land of the 
Northern Giants broke down because of the war   of the Church of God against the tribe; the North 
was invaded by Boletaria through the very Nexus,
5948.64 through the world’s tower of peace and unity; 
the Church was subverting its function – breaking
5954.32 universal law – and walking toward darkness.
Over the ages, as the Soul Arts were forgotten,
5960.24 men ceased to visit the Nexus, 
and forgot about it; fragments   of Archstones became exceedingly rare, 
lost artifacts. Rydell found one of them,
5969.36 and used it to visit the Nexus, and 
there he met with the Maiden in Black,   stole her staff, and went on to spread 
his adventurous tale throughout Boletaria.
5979.76 The Eye Stones are but crystalized, 
twisted remains of souls. They seem   to naturally morph into the shape of a Baku’s 
head; Baku is a dualistic Dream and Nightmare
5990.08 eating Demon of Japanese and Chinese 
mythology – which the Old One reflects.
5995.6 The minor Archstones that transport the player 
to the Nexus are made of unbroken Eye Stones   that were pierced by soul-sealing swords – their 
configuration parallels the Old One’s defeat by
6005.28 the hand of the Mirdans; the Beast was lulled 
to slumber by their soul-trapping artillery,   as the minor Archstone features a resting 
Eye Stone impaled by a magical weapon.
6014.96 The colors of the eye stones are significant 
– the blue and white are tied to virtue,   the red and black are tied to sin.
Overlapping Squares
6028.64 The overlapping squares are symbols of Mird. 
They’re present on Rune Sword and on the candle
6034.68 stand of the Mirdan Queen, and all over 
the Nexus. The Rune Sword also features   an abstract representation of the Sacred 
Tree of Vinland and Yormedar on its blade.
6051.44 The various upgrade materials of Demon’s Souls are 
a microcosm of its world – they follow its logic.
6057.6 They attain the qualities of the astral elements 
– of the ideas – which they interact with; thus,
6063.92 the ores of Latria have incorporated qualities 
of the mercury which the Latrians use for their   alchemical endeavors, their potions and 
poisons, and became Mercurystones – some,
6074.48 which were guided by the moon’s shade, 
became Moonshadestones, and had powerful   magic properties; the ores of Stonefang are 
either raw – not affecting a weapon’s scaling,
6083.92 and merely reinforcing it –, like the miners 
which mine them, or flaming like the Dragons
6089.2 whose bones hide within the caves – and lava 
being an expression of chaos, of the raw energy
6094.48 of nature, removes all scaling from a weapon 
–; the Cloudstone from the Shrine of Storms,
6100.0 which the Shadowmen believed originates from 
the sky, absorbed the diffused light that   passed through the thick clouds, and thus, 
acquired the properties of Cloud itself,
6109.04 diffusing light – that is, increasing 
magic negation on shields – and so on.
6121.76 Both the Moon Grasses and the Lotuses derive 
from the death of men – from the soil that
6126.8 was fertilized by men’s souls, from which 
flora spawned under moonlight – the moon   being related to sleep and death, but it also is 
integral to one’s rebirth, to the cycle of life.
6138.24 Thus, the Grass and the flowers that were 
nurtured by men’s souls are special – they   heal the living. It is poetic, indeed.
The greater the soul of the man who
6147.68 nurtured the soil, the greater the potency 
of the Grass that grew on it; and its color   too is related to the color of the man’s soul.
The appropriately named Soldier’s Lotuses were
6158.24 given as gifts to Boletarian soldiers leaving 
for war by their loved ones for both practical   reasons – they do help to mend wounds, to 
stop one’s bleeding – and symbolic ones – to
6169.04 wish them good fortune in battle, to say to them, 
‘’please, come back safely’’; and also, inversely,
6175.52 as a symbol of rebirth – their deaths in battle 
would help create new life, nurture new flowers.
6183.28 Due to the influx of dead bodies into the 
Valley of Defilement, most of whom belonged   to Boletarian soldiers, plenty of Lotuses can be 
found in the area. Through the powers of the Fog,
6193.84 some Lotuses turned into jellyfish-like 
Demons, coveting after men’s flesh and souls.
6206.32 Sticky White Stuff is the slime and/or the 
excrement of the slugs which have grown   exponentially by devouring the souls 
of the courageous warriors that were
6214.0 buried – as martyrs who found the heavens 
– at the Shrine of Storms. The island in
6219.76 its entirety was imbued with the life, with the 
light of the souls of soulful heroic Shadowmen,
6224.96 which is why its water is supernaturally 
bright; the slugs, which dwell and bathe   in caves full of that Brightwater, thus, have 
grown beyond natural sizes, and their bodies
6235.2 have acquired magical properties.
World Tendency & Primeval Demons
6244.72 Souls are aethereal light, thoughts, 
feelings, ideas, memories, life. Darkness
6251.2 is the opposite – it is empty, it is the 
shadow cast by the light, it is stupidity and
6257.2 death. Under the influence of the Fog, one’s 
soul affects how he experiences the world;
6262.88 should his own soul be bright, his world too 
will be lightful, and he will be protected from
6267.92 all harm, from all beings of Darkness. Should 
his soul be dark, his world too will be dark;
6274.4 as the void within him is greater, he will thus 
absorb more light, more souls – and more items,
6280.72 for all items are actually souls which 
contain the essence of a thing. However,   this void also calls for other Dark Souls – 
it calls for Dark Spirits; and its leeching
6290.32 property will also increase the damage taken by 
him. Death causes loss of soul, loss of self,
6296.88 drifting the world to Black tendency; and 
slaying great Demons causes gain of soul   to one’s true astral core, drifting the world 
to White. The souls superficially held by one,
6309.28 not integrated to his astral self, aren’t part 
of this relationship with the World’s Tendency.
6315.12 When one sees the world at its darkest, Demons 
most primordial will appear to him. As primordial
6321.44 as early life, as the first cellular organisms; 
creatures so dark, so devoid of life itself their
6328.16 souls are colorless, they have no thought, no 
personality, no identity, they know only to
6334.64 parasitically prey upon souls like filter feeders 
through the Fog. Their Colorless Demon Souls are,
6341.04 however, able to increase the potency of weapons 
derived from particularly colorful Souls,
6346.64 as their lack of will makes it so they’re 
seamlessly integrated into the host item.
6359.2 Even among Boletaria’s cruel executioners, Miralda 
stood out for her sadism. She killed so many men
6365.84 her strength enabled her to wield her giant axe 
with one hand. Her soothing, beautiful voice was
6371.44 made to reflect her inner self by the powers 
of the Fog – the Old One exposed her demonic   nature, as he exposes the nature of all men by 
opening the curtains to their minds and souls.
6393.44 Freke was Geri’s best friend, both belonging 
to the Vinland clan. Freke and Geri are the
6399.2 names of the twin wolves of Odin; in a passage 
of Grímnsismál, Odin is said to feed the wolves
6405.2 while he himself drinks only wine – tying 
the mythological inspiration to Vinland.
6410.8 The wolves, then, represent the raw energy of 
nature, the primal desire, the animalistic hunger,
6417.52 while Odin represents – and is the God 
of – wisdom. Thus, this passage hints at
6422.96 the nature of Vinland’s relationship with the 
powerful politicians who ran the Church – they   were the useful idiots, the foolish, manipulable 
zealot warriors they needed to fuel their corrupt
6432.64 system – and the wine of wisdom they drank 
was human blood – their red liquid spices.
6439.28 Wine is a symbol of enlightenment since ancient 
times; though it can also be symbolic of desire,
6445.12 excess, and perversion, as it 
can cause drunkenness – the   other side of the coin that is knowledge.
When Freke was confronted with the satanic reality
6454.24 of the Church, with the skeletons it hid, he, who 
was once a high-ranking cleric, a man most devout,
6461.6 lost his faith, and saw the God they worshiped 
for what it was: the Devil, the very Dragon the
6467.52 Church was created to quell. This is betrayed by 
his attire, which is very similar to the robes
6472.96 worn by saints – but is dirt-covered and worn-out.
Upon his departure from Latria, he was determined
6480.08 to spread the Soul Arts to the world. During his 
unholy – but simultaneously holy, depending on
6485.76 perspective – pilgrimage, he had to deal with 
assassins sent after him by the Soul Society;
6491.28 one of whom tried to kill him with a Baby’s 
Nail, which he promptly took for himself.
6496.56 Freke’s character arc ends with him becoming 
so infatuated with power and knowledge he   wishes for the player to become an 
all-powerful, God-like Demon King,
6505.36 not too dissimilar from Geri himself – which 
is possible to do through the alternate ending.
6517.84 Rydell, much in the spirit of his lineage of 
warriors, (inspired by Doran, the secretly
6523.36 Shadowman symbolic ancestor of theirs, and thus, 
by Shadowman customs of willingly, courageously
6529.12 facing death in battle,) His Rat Rings are 
emblematic of his cleverness and reckless bravery;
6536.4 they enhance his strength and defense when 
he’s wounded, facing death. His nickname was
6541.44 ‘’Little Allant’’ or ‘’Errant-Allant’’ 
for he was Allant’s younger brother.
6546.72 He was an absent father, for he had little 
time to be with his son – he was always in   search of adventure. But that meant his 
son had to be raised by Latrian royals;
6556.0 and Metas’ nurture made him an archontic monster.
Saint Urbain is a man emblematic of the Church
6569.28 of God. A man overly judgmental and 
strict, but a fool and a hypocrite.
6575.92 Urbain, a high-ranking member of House 
Vinland, taught the holy men the Soul Arts,   claiming he learned them from God Himself, through 
His voice which whispered in his ear – and for the
6586.64 so-called miracle he performed, he was canonized 
as a Saint. He called the Soul Arts Miracles of
6592.24 God to differentiate them from the demonic 
dark arts which the Church abhorred – but,
6597.44 in essence, both are the same, and he’d 
learned them from the Soul Society,   and was simply laundering them onwards to the 
benefit of the royals. He is exactly like Freke,
6606.96 his rival in the Nexus – except he’s dishonest.
Urbain fell for the cheap allure of Patches,
6613.52 meaning he loomed over the 
treasures and got kicked down   the murder hole as any other greedy simpleton.
In fact, treasure-hunting seems to be the main
6621.84 motivation for his journey beyond the Fog; as 
soon as he heard the world’s core was in ruins,
6626.96 he thought of the riches he could loot. He carries 
with him boxes full of jewelry. He is but a mirror
6633.36 image of Patches – though he comes from the 
wealthiest noble House in the world, one famous   for its riches, and from its devotion to God, he’s 
both extremely greedy and extremely unfaithful and
6644.08 the greatest of liars and backstabbers. Which 
is why Patches dislikes him – he knows they are   the same, yet Urbain pretends to be holier than 
thou – he views him the same way Freke views him.  Urbain cares little for his subordinates – in 
fact, if you kill his Acolyte in front of him,
6652.88 he won’t react; but do the 
opposite and you’ll be attacked.  The attire worn by him – named ‘’Saint’s robe’’ 
– is fashioned after the white dove, a symbol of
6663.36 Latria and the Church, a symbol that is featured 
on the banners of Boletaria, representing Latria.
6670.0 Mird used this symbol as well – the Dark 
Silver set is modeled after the dove.   It represents the Highlands, as opposed to 
the cross, which represents the Middle-earth.
6686.48 Patches’ face looks like a Baku’s 
head to show how demonic he is.
6698.0 Yuria is a redeemed witch; she was once 
determined to become a powerful Demon,
6703.28 as Freke asks the player to do, and as he does 
should he get the alternate ending – her lust
6708.64 for Demon Souls guided her to the Fog. But she 
was chained up by Miralda and tortured by the
6714.0 Fat Officials. In the dark, she was made to 
introspect about her condition, and abandoned
6719.92 her nefarious ambition. Her sorcery is based on 
raw human emotion; it is a feminine kind of magic,
6726.48 according to traditional Esoteric notions of 
gender. Thus, Yuria thinks it to be dangerous,
6732.48 as it is explosive, fiery, uncontrollable. She 
asks of the player to try Freke’s magic instead,
6738.64 which is logic-based. The abuse she suffered 
under the hand of the Ministers defeminized her;
6745.04 she was too extreme to one side before, and 
her trauma made her embrace the other extreme.
6750.56 It was her mother who instructed her 
on the Soul Arts from an early age;   they were of poor origin, and likely wished to 
heal the sick and wounded through it, to alleviate
6759.44 their suffering. She states that she didn’t 
have any ill-intent when practicing witchcraft.
6765.04 But as she and her mother were branded witches 
by the Church; it may be that her mother was   hunted down while she managed to escape; and 
she went on to become the Demon they claimed
6773.6 she was – her sorcery, which was once warm and 
soothing, a relief to the meek, had become chaotic
6780.96 and vengeful, like the wrath of God itself; as 
is above, so is below – her soul had darkened.
6788.88 Paradoxically, though she knows she had the best 
of intentions by studying the Arts at first,
6794.16 she’d later believe them to be malicious by 
nature, for she was traumatized and failed to   see reason, and decided to believe in the words 
of the priests who denounced her, saying the arts
6805.28 cause corruption, inherently – and the same is 
true for her femininity, which was expressed in
6811.12 her manifestation of the Soul Arts. Her having 
fallen prey to corruption certainly contributed
6816.72 to her notion, making her think they must’ve 
been evil all along; she, who was persecuted
6822.32 for being a witch, was, in reality, one of the 
most pure-hearted people – but was made to become
6828.56 a witch by her persecution. She parallels Maiden 
Astraea; and from Astraea’s Demon Soul, she can
6834.96 transpose the Relief spell, which, like a great 
miracle, heals another from sickness and wound.
6842.24 Yuria also parallels the daughter of 
Stockpile Thomas, and her mother, his wife;
6847.28 both were branded witches and killed by the 
inquisition, but they too surely were practicing   the Arts for good reason, for they had hearts of 
gold. Witches were hanged upside-down, a fitting
6858.08 punishment for forbidden enlightenment, as all 
blood rushes down to one’s brain until death.
6871.68 Mephistopheles was one of the highest-ranking 
members of Latria’s occult Soul Society. She   disposes of all who know of the Soul Arts, 
wishing to be the sole bearer of the torch
6880.88 of hidden knowledge – as did her Order, for the 
sake of universal control. As her name suggests,
6888.48 her bargains are Faustian in nature, and end 
with your death by her hands – after all,
6894.24 you too know of the Arts, and is thus her 
competition. The Epee Rapiers, the favored
6900.0 weapon of Latrian occultists, is imbued with 
the same magical flame that reduced Mird to ash.
6914.4 Yurt was a high-ranking member of the shadow 
organization of spies and assassins that was   hired by the Soul Society to dispose of all who 
knew of the Soul Arts. The organization had its
6923.92 roots in Boletaria; and so it was that even 
the opportunists, the schemers and agents of   darkness among the Boletarians were used as 
tools by the Latrians. That is the relation
6933.6 between the middle-earth and the highlands.
The Gloom set is covered in symbols of old   Boletaria; the horns are thorny like the blade 
of the Stormruler, the legendary sword wielded by
6943.44 Boletaria’s symbolic founding father; throughout 
the set are present the twin lines which seem   to be an abstract depiction of the twin dragons 
painted on a purple background that represented
6952.88 the ancient Boletarian royal family.
Biorr and his brother Vallarfax were
6965.2 members of the Boletarian Round Table, which 
was founded by King Allant as a gesture of   universal understanding, back when he had faith 
in humanity, early in his rule. The twins mirror
6976.64 the blacksmith twins Ed and Boldwin.
Their epithet, ‘Twin Fangs’, refers
6981.84 to their Stonefangian origin, to them being twin 
brothers; and it esoterically traces a connection
6987.44 with the ancient middle-earth, with the old royal 
family that used as its emblem the twin dragons.
6993.28 Biorr lived in Boletaria and was oblivious 
to the evil that would later infect his own   nation of Stonefang. He didn’t know his 
own people were being enslaved once more;
7002.72 he would never suspect the great Boletaria to be 
behind it, nor the gentle King Allant to allow it.
7009.04 Biorr defeats the Penetrator Demon, a member of 
his own order, though he fails to recognize him
7014.4 as Metas in his demonic form; it is a symbolic 
confrontation of the poorest against the richest,
7020.4 of the simple-minded, brave, pure-hearted knight 
against the perverted, sadistic knight of Latria.
7027.52 Just as Ariona, a pure-hearted fool, believed 
Oolan to be a man, he couldn’t tell the twins
7032.96 apart and thought it was Biorr who crossed 
the fog and disappeared instead of Vallarfax.
7044.64 Scirvir was a warrior of the 
Church who learned of the hidden,   uncomfortable truth – he understood his God was 
Satan all along. His disillusionment caused him to
7053.84 abandon the institution and wander throughout the 
lands in search of exceptional artifacts, in the
7058.96 hopes of finding shiny things to fill his inner 
void. Though he learned the truth of the Church,
7064.24 he is still a fool – he can’t see the true purpose 
and soul of the Dragonbone Smasher, thinking it
7070.08 is a craft exceptional in its uselessness. 
True to his nature since he was a holy man,
7076.48 even after learning the truth, a side of him 
still admires the Old One, be it God or Demon,
7083.2 for he is partly demonic himself, walking the 
thin line of human greed – he wonders if the
7088.88 world ruined by chaos, by the Fog isn’t 
preferable to the mundane peaceful earth.
7101.76 Satsuki is a master swordsman who seeks the 
Makoto, a legendary sword which he believes   to be the finest of all. Makoto was named after 
a Giant of the North, though it got its name
7112.64 because it was used to slay that Giant; and upon 
slaying him, it acquired, according to legend,
7119.04 magical properties that emulate his cannibalistic 
essence. The sword is described as having teeth
7124.72 which pierce the skin of its wielder; but that 
grants it its extraordinary power, just like
7130.0 how the Giants ate human flesh to grow stronger.
However, the curse of the blade is also a Faustian
7135.84 bargain; it draws the soul of its user, just 
as the user symbolically cannibalizes men by
7141.28 slaying and taking their souls. And, in accordance 
with that Faustian principle, Satsuki’s offer is
7147.44 such a bargain – should you give him the sword, 
he attacks you. Satsuki’s sword, the Hiltless,
7154.64 parallels Makoto – it too is finely crafted, and 
drains the health of its master with each swing.
7161.6 Satsuki himself is an heir of the Giants; he 
is a shaman, and his attire was coated with a
7166.88 foul-smelling tallow made from human bodies. 
His father was not the original owner of the   sword – but Makoto, the Giant himself; he is an 
orphan of war, thirsty for revenge. The sword is,
7179.84 truly, a keepsake of his father – 
just not in the way it seems at first.
7192.24 The Filthy Woman resisted Astraea’s allure out of 
bitterness and envy; she used to be the center of
7198.16 men’s attention within the Valley, but since the 
Sixth Saint had come, she, who was young and most
7203.68 beautiful, the woman had been pushed aside. As the 
inhabitants gave up their souls to their savior,
7209.92 they turned more aggressive, and began to capture 
all sane men they could find to offer their souls   to the Archdemon – and the woman’s child 
was among the people they sacrificed. She
7219.04 would never accept the loss of her child, and 
pretended – or thought – she was still with her,   in denial. She never ceased to beg in the name 
of her child, even after the kidnapping – be
7229.44 it out of madness or shamelessness.
With the coming of the Fog, the twin blacksmiths
7241.6 Ed and Boldwin began to turn into scaly demons 
like the miners; Boldwin, who was nostalgic of
7247.44 his youth – he says he was as strong as an ox, 
and could grapple Bear Bugs in the mines – tried
7253.2 his hand at slaying Demons; but he was not in his 
prime anymore, he was old, and the monsters killed
7258.96 him. His soul was trapped in the Nexus, where 
he works as a blacksmith once more. Boldwin,
7265.2 on the other hand, chose to stagnate in Stonefang 
even as scales grew on his body. He was obsessed
7270.96 with his work, and cared little for the world 
around him, or had little hope. He always begins
7277.04 his dialogue remarking, rudely, he has no time 
for chit-chat – yet he immediately engages in
7283.68 conversation with the Slayer of Demons, 
for he does feel solitude and appreciates   the company of a brave warrior he respects.
The Cresfallen Warrior claims that it was the
7299.84 Monumentals who must’ve awoken the Old One on 
a whim, and not King Allant. Though the theory
7304.88 may have been voiced by his insecurity, 
he knew not of its terrifying veracity.
7316.72 The Monumental is a pathological liar; lies 
are her native tongue. But to be effective,
7322.64 a lie must blend in with the 
truth. Half of what she tells   the player is misleadingly 
phrased or outright false:
7329.36 -She says the rule of Mird was benevolent – when 
it was evidently corrupt, it was an expansionistic
7334.4 empire that enslaved an entire people, and was 
highly inequal (though it wasn’t wholly evil,
7339.52 of course; it was half and half);
-She uses ‘’we’’ to refer to those   who sealed the Old One, when in truth 
she was among the witches who created it;
7349.04 -Again, she employs ‘’we’’ to claim she had 
authority over the elders that were given   Archstones, when, in truth, they the heroes were 
the ones who held authority over the Monumentals,
7358.48 having punished them for their wickedness 
by locking them in the Nexus for eternity;  -She employs ‘’we’’ once more to refer to those 
who banned the Soul Arts, when, in reality, the
7368.0 Monumentals were the protagonistic practitioners 
of the Arts, and used them to their fullest;
7373.44 -She lectures the Slayer of Demons 
by saying men’s memory is short,   when she was the one who taught Allant the Soul 
Arts and caused, indirectly, the Second Scourge;
7382.4 -She claims the Maiden in Black became 
a Demon to seal the Old One – when the   Maiden was the oldest and most dangerous Demon 
of them all; she was the maker of the Old One;
7391.52 -She simultaneously says the brave warriors fight 
to reverse their sins, allowing the truth of the   past of the Monumentals to slip at last; yes, 
she didn’t outright deny they were in part to
7401.36 blame for the Scourge alongside the avaricious men 
they condemned, but she was sly about her wording.  The truth is as follows: the last-living 
Monumental never forgot her covenant with the
7410.8 Witch Queen – with her Queen. She merely awaited 
for a perfect opportunity to awake the Old One;
7417.04 she waited for all her colleagues to die, 
holding on to her own miserable existence
7423.44 out of sheer will for three hundred years, and 
waited for the world to forget about the past,   entirely, so she could reintroduce the Arts and 
thus entice men to sin once more – for she knew   power would corrupt men as it had 
before. She played Allant like a fool,
7430.0 like a dog – she could see his soul was pure, 
that he was innocent and gullible, that he
7435.76 was hopeful and would not be as cautious or as 
skeptical about doing what he believed was right.
7441.84 As the Second Scourge began, the Monumental placed 
the portal to Boletaria within the Fog near areas
7447.84 that would surely slay aspiring heroes, so 
their souls would be trapped in the Nexus.
7453.12 The last-living Monumental was truly the most 
demonic of all living beings. Or perhaps she   was the greatest heroine of humanity, who endured 
centuries of torturous confinement with her will
7462.0 of iron intact, a martyr who could be freed from 
her shackles by death, like her peers were, but
7468.16 chose to live, and fulfilled her and her queen’s 
dream at last – the Old One was awakened,
7473.84 and humanity would perish, and all souls 
would find heaven and live eternally in peace.
7479.04 The witches of Mird uncovered the law of entropy; 
they laid bare human nature. Life is suffering;
7487.6 the true paradise is outside the chaotic earth. 
So isn’t accelerationism merciful? To embrace
7493.52 the heat death of the universe? Why delay the 
inevitable, and prolong the suffering of all,
7498.72 instead of sending them to heaven at once?
Ostrava of Boletaria – or rather, Prince
7513.52 Ariona Allant – is the son of the king. He is an 
archetypal fool who’s confronted and eclipsed by
7520.64 the harsh truth which he sought in his journey. 
He was raised in the southern region of Boletaria
7525.68 alongside Metas, his cousin. Unlike Metas, who 
was a fiendish, cold-hearted, intelligent man,
7532.8 Ariona was innocent and had a heart of gold, 
like his father. He was somewhat rebellious
7538.24 and enjoyed exploring and traveling the world 
instead of training and studying with the royals
7543.36 while his father was away at war or busy with 
politics; he was a free-spirited, kind-hearted,
7549.36 but pampered and simple-minded prince; he felt he 
didn’t belong within the upper ranks of nobility,
7555.28 for he had inherited, in part, a uniquely 
middle-earther mindset from his father’s side.
7561.44 Though he wished to become 
a hero and save humanity,   he wasn’t fit for war – he was a delicate young 
man, neither brave, nor cunning, nor strong.
7571.12 In fact, he was as inept in combat as 
the last Mirdan king, the First Saint,   who he parallels – the sword and shield they 
share scale pitifully with strength and dexterity,
7581.68 and require mostly faith to be wielded.
But regardless he mustered enough courage
7586.8 to proceed into the unknown and cross the 
Fog. And with the help of the protagonist,   he reached the Boletarian Palace.
The prince couldn’t bear to witness his loving
7596.72 father, a man he respected above all, falling 
to corruption. After confronting King Allant,
7603.04 he ended his own life in sorrow, and his spirit 
rose in bitterness to haunt the palace’s end.
7608.56 His soul, which was once as bright as the sun, 
had been tainted by darkness. And so, even if
7615.12 he wished, he wouldn’t be able to pull Soulbrandt 
anymore – even though, before, the sword’s power
7621.2 would make him mightier than any Demon, elevating 
him from weakling to hero –, and sent in his place
7627.6 his friend, who he trusted the world upon.
Like the last King of Mird, who wielded the
7633.92 same sword and shield as Ariona, 
his heart was too pure, his soul,
7639.04 too bright, and he couldn’t endure to face the 
cruelest betrayal by the person he loved most.
7644.56 In the king of Mird’s case, it was his wife, who 
had become the mother of all Demons, a Lilith;
7650.56 and in the case of Ariona, it was his father, 
who had become humanity’s death, the Antichrist.
7658.08 Though the king chose to surrender to the Old One, 
he left his eldest son the key to the Boletarian   Mausoleum, where he sealed the white half of the 
sword of legend. He knew Ariona had the brightest,
7668.16 warmest soul of all; the sword’s power would 
grow exponentially on his hand, and be enough
7673.36 to vanquish his father, should he preserve his 
good nature, embrace hope and wish to save the
7679.2 world. Ariona crossed the Fog, traveled to the 
ruin of Boletaria, and searched for his father,
7685.84 but couldn’t complete his journey. Thus is the end 
of House Allant, a family of kind-hearted heroes.
7692.16 It is up to another Brave Slayer of Demons 
to succeed the prince and protect humanity   from death – just as Doran had to succeed the 
king of Mird who failed to defeat the Beast.
7715.76 And this is the end of this upload. Thank 
you for watching! Demon’s Souls is beyond
7720.88 special to me; I hope this video deepens your 
appreciation of this magnificent work of art.
7726.4 I’ve made a Discord server exclusive to 
my supporters, both YouTube members and
7733.28 Patreon subscribers. I hope to see some of you 
there! Oh, and by supporting me, you also get
7740.16 access to a Substack-like blog in which I post 
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7746.0 music clips, and other games, as well as articles 
about philosophy, religion and occult symbolism.
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