Bonfireside Chat 316: Abyssal Woods and Midra's Manse
Added 2025-01-12 17:50:34 +0000 UTCThough the Abyssal Woods and Midra’s Manse aren’t huge areas gameplay-wise, we adore their lore and story so much that we had to camp out for some extra time. So this episode concludes our discussion of Midra’s Manse, and a long talk about what Midra and Nanaya’s deals were. Next episode we hit the big man himself and talk about the rules of Frenzy in The Lands Between.
Comments
The best area in the game for me. I find it a bit sad that there has been such a negative reaction to this area for "emptiness" when it feels to me in the vein of the Great Hollow descent/Ash Lake moment in DS1. Kind of makes me feel like From may shy away from this kind of thing going forward. Elden Ring is so so packed with gameplay, interesting set pieces, lore bits, etc. that I don't mind at all that they chose to give us something a bit different. More than enough fast paced action in the game - and regardless, this one gives us a large dungeon at the end with an incredible boss fight so it's not entirely lacking in that either.
Daniel Runfola
2025-07-15 12:22:32 +0000 UTCAbyssal Woods is the second most disappointing area of the DLC after the Finger Ruins; it's oversized, empty and boring to navigate. I agree that it's great visually, however any potential for a spooky atmosphere was immediately ruined by developer messages that do not feel diagetic, at least to me - they might as well say "Stealth section coming up, that's we you can't use Torrent". Said stealth section is too easy and brief to justify aforementioned annoyances. And yes, all this feels even worse on subsequent playthroughs. Considering Midra's Manse is very short and bland (gameplay-wise, the vibe is actually great), I'm usually skipping Abyssal Woods.
K
2025-01-20 22:50:12 +0000 UTCI was wonderfully horrified at first by the Abyssal Woods and Aging Untouchables. However, I had trouble finding the map marker and Manse and ended up doubling back a few times and having to get by them repeatedly. Tedious. Familiarity breeds contempt with these guys. Why are they spending their immortality patrolling the grass, anyway? I finally got one stuck on a root and threw everything I had at him, all my flasks of FP worth of spells and weapon arts. He staggered a few times but never died. I later find out about the parry and... why? It's so arbitrary and dumb that that's the trick. I don't understand the story that's supposed to explain it. Every other enemy in the game dies after taking enough damage, so there was no precedent. Clearly lots of potential here. I definitely got the wrong dose.
Joseph
2025-01-16 05:04:24 +0000 UTCSo whats everyones thoughts on the three fingers in light of what we learn in the DLC? Are they also born of Metyr? Did they get chaos pilled after birth? Perhaps they were discarded as defective and that opened space for the flame of frenzy to make them their avatar. Pretty fun to ponder!
MeltyHam
2025-01-15 07:21:46 +0000 UTCI am also going through the DS2 backlog! I just beat DS2 last fall and am listening through now.
MeltyHam
2025-01-15 07:17:50 +0000 UTCI have a couple of theories about the aging untouchables myself. One is that they're former subjects or attendants or members of Midra's "court" turned test subjects, fellow scholars. Another is a bit folktale-ish: "All manners of death wash ashore"- the aging untouchables as the smoldering remnants of those who died in the embrace of the Three Fingers, ushered to the deep forest by the Lady of the Wood and clothed in the fabric of her home. Another is that they were there before the Manse. Especially that like, if the three fingers somehow WERE here, added with some of the subtle finger stuff coming up further into the manse- I love a "dug too deep" story so much. Recently rewatched Fellowship of the Ring and was doing backflips during the Mines of Moria like Gary here. I've never tried this out for myself, but apparently the destined death status effect (like with maliketh's blade I think & the black knives) works on the aging untouchables. Adds a lot at least symbolically to Melina's unsealing, and even her sealing in the first place. Sooooo much of the horror element around them reminds me of the Others from ASOIAF. Seemingly isolated, remarkably existential, and old.
Goldie
2025-01-14 03:13:41 +0000 UTCI love the Abyssal Woods. Huge shoutout to the soundtrack- another gem from Yuka Kitamura. Evocative, eerie, and I honestly saw it as diegetic- one of those places that made me stop and wonder who, or what, was singing. It's self-indulgent, but before the Abyssal Woods was forbidden, I imagine it was called Carcosa.
Goldie
2025-01-14 03:02:42 +0000 UTCI’m given to understand that there are plenty of FPS games set in contemporary / postapocalyptic Russia, but early modern Russia (circa 1750-1800) would be a fantastic setting for a FromSoft game. The religious imagery alone would be worth the price of admission, and the particular Russian style of neo-Baroque architecture with tiled and painted interiors would be a lovely place to die horribly, I think.
Kathryn
2025-01-13 23:30:22 +0000 UTCI’ve spent the past day thinking about the suggestion that FromSoft should make a horror game in a setting other than Bloodborne. I agree, but Bloodborne is perfect. Bloodborne has everything. Bloodborne is the earth and the moon and the stars and the sky. What more could you want? But then I thought, Also there is Russia
Kathryn
2025-01-13 23:29:55 +0000 UTCGreat episode guys. I have missed the more headcannony lore-ish episodes. It speaks less about you and more about the DLC that there hasn't been one in a while. I've been playing through DS2 recently and playing along with some of those episodes, and I really liked it when occasionally you got guests on to talk about particular areas. I know it doesn't always work brilliantly, but there are nice bits here
Charlie Frame
2025-01-13 20:12:47 +0000 UTCAs someone not as fond of this section, this area was amazing on the first run, but I found it to be the most disappointing in the game on replays. The initial warning about the Winter Lanterns made them seem far scarier than they are, and it proves to be mostly false - if they see you, you can run away, and you can kill them. The scared tip-toeing of the initial run got replaced by “hey, over there there will be three easily avoidable patrolling lanterns.” A roving, invincible monster would have been a better choice, and made all the empty space in the woods map more useful. After going through Shadow Keep, racing past a Furnace Golem or two, descending down multiple cliff faces, fighting through a 3 tiered catacomb, killing a mediocre boss, running through a large empty area on foot past with a few uninspired stealth sections, the reward is finding a very small dungeon with no unique enemies outside of a great boss. The atmosphere and lore tidbits don’t make up for how mechanically boring this area is, though that’s personal taste of course.
Lucas West
2025-01-13 17:09:53 +0000 UTCI really liked the vibe of the woods and the visuals of it, but there isn't really much going on in it to keep me interested. The dungeon was wall to wall fantastic, a bright spot for me in the dlc, and I have no idea how anyone could dislike it.
Fringleton
2025-01-13 14:45:32 +0000 UTCI really liked this whole section, i totally did full stealth mode the whole forest, i never found the note about parrying the untouchables so i never fought one. My only disappointment in the whole area was that my build / playstyle was strong against Midra, so i killed him in like 3 tries, so it was a little underwhelming difficulty wise.
erix84
2025-01-13 04:20:20 +0000 UTCAlso shoutout to Kole for the FernGully reference. I was convinced that I was only person in the world who remembers that movie.
Kathryn
2025-01-12 22:59:42 +0000 UTCI’m here for the compulsion to fill in the narrative gaps of an environment that suggests an especially evocative story, and I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a 25k word novella about Midra’s Manse filled with Lovecraftian purple prose. There’s just something about a crepuscular forest hiding a ruined library littered with burned books that hits me straight in the heart.
Kathryn
2025-01-12 22:59:24 +0000 UTCI was so careful and slow the first time I went through this area. It was a fantastic experience because I had no clue what they were going to throw at me next. It felt actually hostile in a really tasty way. Going through it again it doesn't ruin or dispel that initial experience, but man it sure is different. Going through again I just run around care free.
Paul
2025-01-12 22:37:24 +0000 UTCLol I forgot to hit the link. https://x.com/CraizyShy/status/1807514484711559657
E E
2025-01-12 19:37:05 +0000 UTCNo worries, I figured not, but if you're at all interested this tweet zoomed in and brightened up a bit gives a great visual on it.
E E
2025-01-12 19:36:10 +0000 UTCWe did not mention that, though we talk about the connection generally!
Duckfeed.tv
2025-01-12 19:34:44 +0000 UTCIdk if you guys are going to mention this on the next part, but something that gives credence to Nanaya being an agent of the frenzy flame is also her eyes in her painting. They're wide open like Yuri from Doki doki literature club, like she's been staring into madness for a long time, a real thousand yard stare.
E E
2025-01-12 19:32:19 +0000 UTCThe line of headless awaiting you at the door with the terrifying, alien yellow crystals protruding out of their neck holes is a very profound memory for sure
Sage Beatty
2025-01-12 19:30:36 +0000 UTCYes. YES!
Richard Cochnar
2025-01-12 17:56:06 +0000 UTCWest of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight
Goldie
2025-01-12 17:54:58 +0000 UTC
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