----------DARK SOULS 1 and 2 SPOILERS, obviously----------
----------DARK SOULS 3 SPOILERS and speculation in the third post down----------
edit: all posts are done, feel free to reply, if it please you
===============================================
I have seen a lot of requests in DS threads lately for summaries or refreshers on DS1 and 2 lore, to help people prepare for the upcoming game DARK SOULS 3. In addition to people who played the first game or its sequel but maybe haven't played in a while, I am sure there will also be converts straight from BLOODBORNE to DS3. Even if you do not fall into the "needing refresher" category, maybe this will entertain you for a little while at work.
I made this topic to cover the main storylines of the first two games. I originally wrote the DS1 part in response to one of the summary requests, but I have cleaned it up a bit for this topic. This is meant to be a standalone summary, ideally you don't need any resources nor are required to have ever played a DARK SOULS game to understand it. Screenshots are not mine, gathered from GAF/google/4chan/Steam/etc.
===============================================
DARK SOULS begins with a creation myth, but it might be better to think of its world as a place where creation has never really gotten off the ground. The primordial description of the universe is: gray, always in balance, but always equaling out to null. This gray fog is populated solely by "everlasting" (read: immortal) creatures, the dragons and the archtrees, both immobile as stone, as untouchable as gods or ghosts.
Then there was Fire. We don't know why it appeared, but it caught on something in the fog and began to burn. In DS terms "Fire" is the fundamental introduction of both life and possibility of death. It is also very small, and fragile. If you look at the world before Fire in the video, you see it is ashen, and I don't imagine archtrees burn well.
So, Fire needs some tinder to keep going.
But to back up a second, consider that opening scenario. Fire appears, and with it new life. The lifeforms that are born are drawn to Fire, their creator, the reason for their existence. Though we have established that Fire is weak and transient, some of the lifeforms divide the flames up among themselves. They gain great power by doing so, but they also leave a smoldering, grimy ember behind. One small wretch collects the remaining ember for itself, and exits the story for now.
To be alive is to be vulnerable, and the fiery Gods are no exception. ~[Dragon Eye]
The Lords, the official holders of the Fire's pieces (remember, we're ignoring that little guy at the end), wage war with the everlasting dragons, probably better known now by their other name "stone dragons". They remain mighty, but with the arrival of Fire they are no longer immortal. The reason for the war is unknown, though I expect the dragons were trying to snuff out Fire, and return the world to a formless fog, their Age of Ancients. This would of course not kill the new lifeforms, but remove them from existence, perhaps a far worse fate.
One of the dragons, Seath, who was born deformed and scaleless, betrayed the rest of his kind, and with his help the Lords destroyed the dragons. There was now no one left to quash the Fire, and the Lords claimed dominion over the world. It was now the Age of Fire.
But even left alone, Fire dwindles. As it fades, its grip on its constructions- life and death -begins to blur. People are born with a curse where they cannot die properly, but nor can they live normal lives, as their souls have been twisted. Half-alive, half-dead, Undead, they lose their memories and go mad, becoming Hollows. Their fates vary: some countries lock them away so they can't hurt anyone, some countries are so devastated by the curse that the Undead, and thus the Hollows, roam their decrepit ruins freely.
Likewise, if you consider that it is only from Fire that various nations and peoples sprang forth, then when the Fire is dying, these disparate existences begin to melt together. Times and places start weaving into a single formless pool: a formless gray fog. Gwyn, the leader of the Lords, took it upon himself to revive his piece of the Fire with his own body and soul. He burned himself as tinder for Fire, and reverted all this tentative gray gloom back to distinct lands and times.
We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land. The flow of time itself is convoluted, with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and the relations shift and obscure. There's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact. ~Knight Solaire
The other Lords hung on to their own dwindling pieces of flame, and lost their way. They never meant to use Fire for the gain of the world, only their own power. It was solely Gwyn that understood their fate, but unfortunately he revived only a piece, and because the Undead curse was already upon him, he was forced to burn for eternity, reviving endlessly, and going Hollow.
Several uncalculated millenia later, enter the protagonist of DARK SOULS. The protagonist is an Undead, which surely means that Gwyn hasn't much left to burn, and Fire is fading again. The protagonist is charged with enhancing Gwyn's original aim of reviving Fire by collecting the souls/pieces of Fire from the other Lords as well. Upon doing this, and setting themselves alight in Gwyn's place, the protagonist provides another few thousand years of stability to the world.
But this is a conundrum. It is not the world's natural state to possess life and death and disparity. The Fire will always fade, given enough time. And the protagonist's decision to relight the Fire did not spring out of nowhere. Originally, the protagonist was simply another Undead placed in a prison, waiting to go Hollow. They are freed by the kindness of a knight whom they later find dying of unknown causes. The knight asks them to make a pilgrimage to Lordran, the game's overworld, in his stead. Apparently there's a story passed down by his family that gives the Undead curse a rather appealing spin: the Undead are the chosen ones, and by ringing something called the "Bell of Awakening" they can learn their true fate.
The protagonist is an ex-con by way of curse. They cannot return to where they came from, so they agree to take off to this distant land. The knight dies with hope in his heart.
Upon arriving in the new land, the protagonist immediately meets a second knight that greets them as follows: "Well, what do we have here? You must be a new arrival. Let me guess. Fate of the Undead, right? Well, you're not the first. But there's no salvation here. You'd have done better to rot in the Undead Asylum… But, too late now." Yikes. But despite his pessimism, the crestfallen knight gives the protagonist directions on where to find the Bell. Bells. There are two. The hopeful knight you met first didn't quite have his story straight.
Ringing both bells wakes up the architect of the game's overall mission: an ancient being named Frampt. Frampt is a serpent, described by the game as "an imperfect dragon and symbol of the Undead; its habit of devouring prey even larger than itself has led to an association with gluttony". Frampt has a counterpart the protagonist can meet under certain special conditions, another serpent named Kaathe.
When an evil serpent dangled the art of Lifedrain before them, they were unable to resist, and became pawns of evil. ~Sealer Ingward
Frampt tells you your fate is straightforward, to "link the Fire [this is an important word, it means to sustain the Fire to create another age of proper life, death, and disparity], cast away the Dark, and undo the curse of the Undead". This is the best possible outcome of the hopeful knight's family saying: that by making the pilgrimage, an Undead can undo their curse. And that other stuff too- that's not too important right? By the way, Frampt calls himself "Kingseeker" Frampt, and indicates that he is a friend to Lord Gwyn. How flattering it must be to find out you, a nameless dumb cursed scrub, are in fact the successor to a king. Frampt says "may the Age of Fire perpetuate".
Kaathe, Frampt's counterpart, claims himself friend to a very different kind of Lord. Remember that wretch who clutched the grimy ember way back after the other Lords had all taken their fill? That is the Furtive Pygmy, the progenitor of humankind. By claiming the dark ember, or to put it another way, by claiming the absence/ashes of the Fire, the Pygmy became a secret Lord, a Dark Lord. The Dark Lord naturally has no fear of Fire going out, and as the Fire fades, Darkness and the Pygmy's descendants (humans) become increasingly stronger.
This is our introduction to the notion that the Fire going out does not necessarily return the world to a formless null state. Rather, the very first spark of Fire immeasurably altered the world, burnt and scarred it. As an example, consider that the world in the Age of Ancients was filled with those everlasting dragons, but Gwyn and the other Lords killed every last one, and even the beasts they destroyed were not quite the same as they once were. The game has you visit even further descended mutants of dragons, children of Fire just like the Lords. Even if the environment changed back, the world would no longer have true dragons. It would not balance. The Age of Ancients, the formless gray fog, is no longer possible.
The Witch of Izalith attempted to duplicate the First Flame from a soul, but instead created a distorted being of chaos and fire. Its power formed a bed of life which would become the source of all demons... ~[Lord Soul: Bed of Chaos]
What then is the fate of the world when the Fire goes out? Kaathe tells you: an Age of Dark that continues endlessly, no tinder required. He paints Gwyn's sacrifice as being for the sake of perpetuating his own kind and the power of his own lineage over that of the humans.
By Kaathe's account, Frampt knew the Dark Lord as well. Perhaps both of them even arose alongside the Dark Lord (consider that their kind are symbols of the Undead). Frampt makes no mention of this association. We know that serpents are reputed to be gluttonous, and perhaps in Gwyn's company Frampt found something he chose to covet: endless Ages of Fire. His motivation then is not selfless, or respectful of you. Ultimately the Age of Fire causes great misery, and the golden splendor of it is unnatural.
You're practically Hollow. But who knows, going Hollow could solve quite a bit. Restoring your humanity? Well, there are a few ways to go about it... Collect it bit by bit from corpses, or you can butter up a cleric, and get yourself summoned. And the quickest way, although I'd never do it, is to kill a healthy Undead, and pillage its humanity. Coveting thy neighbor is only human, after all! Hah hah hah hah... ~Crestfallen Warrior
I would say we don't actually know what happens if Fire is allowed to go out, but luckily DARK SOULS has two ending cutscenes, one of which shows what happens if you depose Gwyn, but do not replace him. You become the Dark Lord, and a legion of serpents praises you as you step out into a formless abyss. Even Frampt joins in the oath to serve you. But other Undead, and the non-cursed humans? Their fate remains unknown. In fact it may be that all those new serpents were born from the end result of the Undead curse in the Age of Dark. But you still came out pretty good right?
Both serpents offer you a personal incentive to do as they ask. The "canon" ending is presumably that you link the Fire to the next age, since that allows for the sequels. On the other hand, if you want to keep holding on to the dream of Edgy McDark, you can always reason that Frampt gently tended all the Fire pieces you collected at the kiln, grabbed the next Undead that showed up and mashed them into him/her, then threw them on the Fire instead.
----------DARK SOULS 3 SPOILERS and speculation in the third post down----------
edit: all posts are done, feel free to reply, if it please you
===============================================
I have seen a lot of requests in DS threads lately for summaries or refreshers on DS1 and 2 lore, to help people prepare for the upcoming game DARK SOULS 3. In addition to people who played the first game or its sequel but maybe haven't played in a while, I am sure there will also be converts straight from BLOODBORNE to DS3. Even if you do not fall into the "needing refresher" category, maybe this will entertain you for a little while at work.
I made this topic to cover the main storylines of the first two games. I originally wrote the DS1 part in response to one of the summary requests, but I have cleaned it up a bit for this topic. This is meant to be a standalone summary, ideally you don't need any resources nor are required to have ever played a DARK SOULS game to understand it. Screenshots are not mine, gathered from GAF/google/4chan/Steam/etc.
===============================================
DARK SOULS begins with a creation myth, but it might be better to think of its world as a place where creation has never really gotten off the ground. The primordial description of the universe is: gray, always in balance, but always equaling out to null. This gray fog is populated solely by "everlasting" (read: immortal) creatures, the dragons and the archtrees, both immobile as stone, as untouchable as gods or ghosts.
Then there was Fire. We don't know why it appeared, but it caught on something in the fog and began to burn. In DS terms "Fire" is the fundamental introduction of both life and possibility of death. It is also very small, and fragile. If you look at the world before Fire in the video, you see it is ashen, and I don't imagine archtrees burn well.
So, Fire needs some tinder to keep going.
But to back up a second, consider that opening scenario. Fire appears, and with it new life. The lifeforms that are born are drawn to Fire, their creator, the reason for their existence. Though we have established that Fire is weak and transient, some of the lifeforms divide the flames up among themselves. They gain great power by doing so, but they also leave a smoldering, grimy ember behind. One small wretch collects the remaining ember for itself, and exits the story for now.
To be alive is to be vulnerable, and the fiery Gods are no exception. ~[Dragon Eye]
The Lords, the official holders of the Fire's pieces (remember, we're ignoring that little guy at the end), wage war with the everlasting dragons, probably better known now by their other name "stone dragons". They remain mighty, but with the arrival of Fire they are no longer immortal. The reason for the war is unknown, though I expect the dragons were trying to snuff out Fire, and return the world to a formless fog, their Age of Ancients. This would of course not kill the new lifeforms, but remove them from existence, perhaps a far worse fate.
One of the dragons, Seath, who was born deformed and scaleless, betrayed the rest of his kind, and with his help the Lords destroyed the dragons. There was now no one left to quash the Fire, and the Lords claimed dominion over the world. It was now the Age of Fire.
But even left alone, Fire dwindles. As it fades, its grip on its constructions- life and death -begins to blur. People are born with a curse where they cannot die properly, but nor can they live normal lives, as their souls have been twisted. Half-alive, half-dead, Undead, they lose their memories and go mad, becoming Hollows. Their fates vary: some countries lock them away so they can't hurt anyone, some countries are so devastated by the curse that the Undead, and thus the Hollows, roam their decrepit ruins freely.
Likewise, if you consider that it is only from Fire that various nations and peoples sprang forth, then when the Fire is dying, these disparate existences begin to melt together. Times and places start weaving into a single formless pool: a formless gray fog. Gwyn, the leader of the Lords, took it upon himself to revive his piece of the Fire with his own body and soul. He burned himself as tinder for Fire, and reverted all this tentative gray gloom back to distinct lands and times.
We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land. The flow of time itself is convoluted, with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and the relations shift and obscure. There's no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact. ~Knight Solaire
The other Lords hung on to their own dwindling pieces of flame, and lost their way. They never meant to use Fire for the gain of the world, only their own power. It was solely Gwyn that understood their fate, but unfortunately he revived only a piece, and because the Undead curse was already upon him, he was forced to burn for eternity, reviving endlessly, and going Hollow.
Several uncalculated millenia later, enter the protagonist of DARK SOULS. The protagonist is an Undead, which surely means that Gwyn hasn't much left to burn, and Fire is fading again. The protagonist is charged with enhancing Gwyn's original aim of reviving Fire by collecting the souls/pieces of Fire from the other Lords as well. Upon doing this, and setting themselves alight in Gwyn's place, the protagonist provides another few thousand years of stability to the world.
But this is a conundrum. It is not the world's natural state to possess life and death and disparity. The Fire will always fade, given enough time. And the protagonist's decision to relight the Fire did not spring out of nowhere. Originally, the protagonist was simply another Undead placed in a prison, waiting to go Hollow. They are freed by the kindness of a knight whom they later find dying of unknown causes. The knight asks them to make a pilgrimage to Lordran, the game's overworld, in his stead. Apparently there's a story passed down by his family that gives the Undead curse a rather appealing spin: the Undead are the chosen ones, and by ringing something called the "Bell of Awakening" they can learn their true fate.
The protagonist is an ex-con by way of curse. They cannot return to where they came from, so they agree to take off to this distant land. The knight dies with hope in his heart.
Upon arriving in the new land, the protagonist immediately meets a second knight that greets them as follows: "Well, what do we have here? You must be a new arrival. Let me guess. Fate of the Undead, right? Well, you're not the first. But there's no salvation here. You'd have done better to rot in the Undead Asylum… But, too late now." Yikes. But despite his pessimism, the crestfallen knight gives the protagonist directions on where to find the Bell. Bells. There are two. The hopeful knight you met first didn't quite have his story straight.
Ringing both bells wakes up the architect of the game's overall mission: an ancient being named Frampt. Frampt is a serpent, described by the game as "an imperfect dragon and symbol of the Undead; its habit of devouring prey even larger than itself has led to an association with gluttony". Frampt has a counterpart the protagonist can meet under certain special conditions, another serpent named Kaathe.
When an evil serpent dangled the art of Lifedrain before them, they were unable to resist, and became pawns of evil. ~Sealer Ingward
Frampt tells you your fate is straightforward, to "link the Fire [this is an important word, it means to sustain the Fire to create another age of proper life, death, and disparity], cast away the Dark, and undo the curse of the Undead". This is the best possible outcome of the hopeful knight's family saying: that by making the pilgrimage, an Undead can undo their curse. And that other stuff too- that's not too important right? By the way, Frampt calls himself "Kingseeker" Frampt, and indicates that he is a friend to Lord Gwyn. How flattering it must be to find out you, a nameless dumb cursed scrub, are in fact the successor to a king. Frampt says "may the Age of Fire perpetuate".
Kaathe, Frampt's counterpart, claims himself friend to a very different kind of Lord. Remember that wretch who clutched the grimy ember way back after the other Lords had all taken their fill? That is the Furtive Pygmy, the progenitor of humankind. By claiming the dark ember, or to put it another way, by claiming the absence/ashes of the Fire, the Pygmy became a secret Lord, a Dark Lord. The Dark Lord naturally has no fear of Fire going out, and as the Fire fades, Darkness and the Pygmy's descendants (humans) become increasingly stronger.
This is our introduction to the notion that the Fire going out does not necessarily return the world to a formless null state. Rather, the very first spark of Fire immeasurably altered the world, burnt and scarred it. As an example, consider that the world in the Age of Ancients was filled with those everlasting dragons, but Gwyn and the other Lords killed every last one, and even the beasts they destroyed were not quite the same as they once were. The game has you visit even further descended mutants of dragons, children of Fire just like the Lords. Even if the environment changed back, the world would no longer have true dragons. It would not balance. The Age of Ancients, the formless gray fog, is no longer possible.
The Witch of Izalith attempted to duplicate the First Flame from a soul, but instead created a distorted being of chaos and fire. Its power formed a bed of life which would become the source of all demons... ~[Lord Soul: Bed of Chaos]
What then is the fate of the world when the Fire goes out? Kaathe tells you: an Age of Dark that continues endlessly, no tinder required. He paints Gwyn's sacrifice as being for the sake of perpetuating his own kind and the power of his own lineage over that of the humans.
By Kaathe's account, Frampt knew the Dark Lord as well. Perhaps both of them even arose alongside the Dark Lord (consider that their kind are symbols of the Undead). Frampt makes no mention of this association. We know that serpents are reputed to be gluttonous, and perhaps in Gwyn's company Frampt found something he chose to covet: endless Ages of Fire. His motivation then is not selfless, or respectful of you. Ultimately the Age of Fire causes great misery, and the golden splendor of it is unnatural.
You're practically Hollow. But who knows, going Hollow could solve quite a bit. Restoring your humanity? Well, there are a few ways to go about it... Collect it bit by bit from corpses, or you can butter up a cleric, and get yourself summoned. And the quickest way, although I'd never do it, is to kill a healthy Undead, and pillage its humanity. Coveting thy neighbor is only human, after all! Hah hah hah hah... ~Crestfallen Warrior
I would say we don't actually know what happens if Fire is allowed to go out, but luckily DARK SOULS has two ending cutscenes, one of which shows what happens if you depose Gwyn, but do not replace him. You become the Dark Lord, and a legion of serpents praises you as you step out into a formless abyss. Even Frampt joins in the oath to serve you. But other Undead, and the non-cursed humans? Their fate remains unknown. In fact it may be that all those new serpents were born from the end result of the Undead curse in the Age of Dark. But you still came out pretty good right?
Both serpents offer you a personal incentive to do as they ask. The "canon" ending is presumably that you link the Fire to the next age, since that allows for the sequels. On the other hand, if you want to keep holding on to the dream of Edgy McDark, you can always reason that Frampt gently tended all the Fire pieces you collected at the kiln, grabbed the next Undead that showed up and mashed them into him/her, then threw them on the Fire instead.
