Call and Response: Crumbling Farum Azula and Mohgwyn Palace
Added 2023-07-26 19:53:50 +0000 UTCHey folks! It's time to hear your responses to Crumbling Farum Azula and Mohgwyn Palace, for the upcoming Bonfireside Chat Roundtable Roundtable that covers those areas. This includes all related bosses, NPCs, and questlines that might wrap up in these places.
Directions:
- Leave your response as a comment on this post.
- Try to keep it brief (about two paragraphs).
- Try to keep it specific.
The deadline is Monday, July 31.
Thank you!
Comments
Previously you both stated The Frenzied Flame is a much more interesting and engaging expression of nihilism than the Troublesome Turd Taster, but Mohg performs the double-tap by completely overshadowing him as the game's true greatest edgelord. Incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, hematolagnia, mommy-kink, stabbing an invisible mommy-kink; nothing is off-limits as an expression of depravity. What I love most about Mohg is that he isn't all about lashing out at society or wallowing in self pity like the Contemptible Caca Cruncher... he revels in creation, extends a hand to the downtrodden, and promotes unwavering optimism. Hardly qualities you'd expect from the ruler of an underground blood castle. Mohg could have ended up a simp to his own oppressor like his brother Morgott, or simply could have sought to spread as much pain and suffering like the Peepee Poopoo Man, but instead he chose to create something new. A brand new Dynasty that would welcome all comers with a warm embrace, led by an Outer God in the form of a Mother. I found that beautiful and certainly purposeful, as it was ultimately the refusal to provide love and care from Mohg's biological mother that began this chain reaction. The Formless Mother isn't the step-mom, she's the mom who stepped up! There's a reason why the MohgWYN dynasty name shares the suffix of Marika's favorite son: GodWYN. Mohg is simply a little boy who wants to be loved.
Mansoor
2023-07-31 04:34:21 +0000 UTCTell me if I’m wrong, but I thought that the large stone circles around Mohg’s arena were inner parts of the Evergaol. Like they may be used for trapping Miquella. Lol, you know how circles are "associated" with Evergaols? Big if true.
Steven Meadows
2023-07-31 02:22:58 +0000 UTCHoping against hope that the Miquella egg isn't the gateway into Shadow of the Erdtree. What a total pain in the ass it would be to have to fight Mohg again before playing the DLC.i mean, I'll do it if I have to, but, c'mon, that would suck so much.
Matthew Bennett
2023-07-30 23:31:33 +0000 UTCI recently watched a Tarnished Archaeologist video on Farum Azula that dives surprisingly deep into the real life inspiration for the area: the Varna Necropolis, an ancient Bulgarian gravesite that was discovered in the 1970’s and is regarded as one of the most important archaeological finds of world prehistory. The shared details are nearly 1:1, the most obvious being the entombed beastmen clad with jewelry and other gold artifacts. When compared with reconstructions of the real-life graves found in the Varna Necropolis, the inspiration is clear as day. Even more fascinating to me, Tarnished Archaeologist researched exhibitions all over the world during the time after the discovery of the Necropolis, particularly a stretch of months in 1982 where the exhibit was shown in a Tokyo Museum where an 8-year old Miyazaki surely could have seen something he’d never forget. Pretty cool to imagine things from so early in his life become inspirations for stories told today. And I think it rocks that everyone hates Mogwhyn Palace because if any place in the game should make people feel that bad, it’s this one.
MIKEISTKRIEG
2023-07-30 21:37:09 +0000 UTCAm I the only one who calls it Faramazool, rhymes with “pastafazool”? Maybe that’s just me. I can’t say Mogwyn Palace was my favorite area in the game, but as From poison swamps go, I like it in that there’s a lot of very weird things to see. Seeing it from Siofra River did the classic From promise of something interesting and the place did not disappoint in terms of being an Ancient Greek Jurassic Park full of freakish fauna. That said, I wish it was a little easier so that taking in these sights was fun instead of exhausting.
Doug Lief
2023-07-30 15:51:30 +0000 UTCI enjoyed both Farum Azula and Mohgwyn Palace, as well as the bosses within. But I didn't enjoy how disconnected they were from the rest of the game. I had spent so long gazing up at the strange, glowing structure off in the distance of Siofra River. I was desperate to get up there and find out what it was. I spent many hours poking around the river and Nokron trying to find a way across. I'd assumed I'd found it when the Four Belfries waygate took me next to it, but no dice. The Four Belfies also gave me a tantalising glimpse of Farum Azula. I spent most of the latter half of the game wondering when I'd find my way there. I thought it might be a broken path from the capital, or a tunnel from the Forbidden Lands. As I climbed higher up the Mountaintops I was sure I would find some floating rocks I could climb down. So waking up in Farum Azula with no explanation of how you arrived there was very disappointing. It felt sloppy. Having to take an obscure waygate from way across the map to get to Mohgwyn Palace felt very similar. I felt like the zones themselves weren't a part of the Lands Between in the same way the rest of the world was. By contrast, the Moonlight Altar is also distant and inaccessible for a long time. But you find a physical path up there, one that makes some amount of sense and piques your imagination. The Haligtree isn't connected, but you find its waygate in an appropriate location. Farum Azula and Moghwyn Palace feel like missed opportunities by comparison.
Jack Darcy
2023-07-30 08:25:12 +0000 UTCFor me Mohgwyn Palace is the biggest drop in enjoyment on subsequent playthroughs. The first time I got there after Varre's quest it felt mysterious and cool; being able to see the Palace back in the ancestral followers camp in Siofra Rivera added the anticipation. Now that I beat the game three times, Mohgwyn Palace is a boring detour with uninteresting visuals, horrible Varre invasions in the blood pool and awful encounter with the blood desciples in the dark cave. Whenever I get here I speed run to grab the swarm of flies, easy somber ancient dragon stone and Albinauric farm grace. And then there is Mohgwyn. As you keep saying these games find your weakness. On my first playthrough I beat him no problem, but the next two have been hour long challanges making me question my sanity. Over all the location is a cool idea wasted by its execution.
Mateusz Swietoslawski
2023-07-30 07:10:14 +0000 UTCRegarding Placidusax as Elden Lord and his god: It is my position that the "god" he is referring to is not an outer god, but the "vessel god" (like Marika) that is gone, and that The Greater Will was still the capital "G" God, or however the fuck you want to try and sort through all these gods in Elden Ring. So the Elden Ring existed and was in the vessel god, and them leaving/dying made it possible for Marika to become the new vessel down the line. As others have mentioned, Tarnished Archeologist has a decent theory about the Greattree being the tree of the dragons. You can see something that looks like a depiction of the Elden Ring in Maliketh's arena, and it has been speculated to be the shape of Elden Ring during the rule of the dragons, as it takes different forms that correlate with the age that it is in, which of course you can loosely tie to different eras of our real world history.
thelorehunter
2023-07-29 12:22:47 +0000 UTCI've been playing co-op to get some extra rune arcs for the character I've been getting ready for the dlc, and Maliketh has by far been the hardest boss to complete while helping other players. Once phase two starts his aggro is all over the place. He will be focused on one player so much you think there is no way the next attack is coming for you, and all of a sudden you get 360 no scoped by the black blade attack from the other side of the arena. Bad dog
Kevin Sottek
2023-07-29 08:27:47 +0000 UTCYeah, egg on our face. In the back of my mind, I knew there was something I was forgetting. -GB
Duckfeed.tv
2023-07-28 00:24:07 +0000 UTCThere's one very important detail in Farum Azula you didn't mention, which is easy to miss. In Maliketh's boss room we find a depiction of the Elden Ring that is very different from the one associated with Marika's Golden Order, which you can see here: https://i.redd.it/ngudtyr5kqt81.png There is a ton of speculation about what it represents (and how it differs from other versions of the Elden Ring we see in other places in the game) but a fairly straightforward conclusion to make is that this is the Elden Ring from the age of Placidusax, supporting the idea that they were in fact a legitimate Elden Lord. Personally, I agree with the idea that the Elden Ring is a symbolic construct that is both physical and metaphysical at the same time, and its particular configuration determines the characteristics of the world (For example, Marika removing the rune of death from it literally removed death from the world, until it was stolen). It seems like Placidusax's age was probably a lot more vibrant and diverse than that of the Golden Order, but it's hard to conclude much more than that. Also, isn't it weird that none of the ancient dragons talk? They seem to have been able to negotiate with Leyndell but they never talk to the PC. I don't think that's an important bit of lore but it always seemed like a strange creative decision to me.
Kyle Thompson
2023-07-28 00:10:49 +0000 UTCI feel like I only understand 30 percent of any souls game after beating it the first time. It's only after multiple playthroughs and engaging with the community that I feel like I hit about 85 percent understanding and the rest is ambiguous. I like piecing it together/internalizing it over time though. In my head cannon, my first character doesn't understand any of it either and they are just being led around like a patsy. I agree the naming conventions are needlessly confusing. Edit: I just realized these are comments on the Call and Response so feel free to disregard.
EzekialJeans
2023-07-27 16:05:24 +0000 UTCFarum Azula, while aesthetically amazing, also culminates in a good representation of my biggest negative of Elden Ring: The names in this game were so confusing for me. It wasn't until we were literally fighting each other that I realized Maliketh, the Black Blade, was the name of a guy and not a sword like Excalibur. This kind of stuff is all over Elden Ring and made the story very difficult for me to track over a 100 hour playthrough. Is The Black Blade a guy or a sword? Is Destined Death a concept or a force or a god or a a literal runic object? Is the Elden Ring and actual ring that one could literally shatter? Or is it a conceptual ring? Or a magical ring? For so much of my playthrough I thought the Greater Will was, like, a general idea. Not realizing til I looked online that is is a specific deity. I love the game, but this kind of thing really made me feel like I had no idea what I was doing right up until the end.
William
2023-07-27 15:52:47 +0000 UTCYou guys mentioned that it is strange that Placidusax is referred to as an Elden Lord. Kole then used the analogy that it’s like calling Caesar ‘The Pope’. This kind of unlocked something for me because Julius Caesar and later Augustus both held positions as the head of the Roman religion. Their title was Pontifex Maximus, the same title the Pope uses today. It very well could be that during the age of Marika and The Greater Will, they took a title that already had meaning and power and used it for themselves. Over time the association became tied to their empire, not the ones previous. In the Bloodborne season Gary said something that I believe holds as a theme for many FromSoft games: “It’s the new order pretending to be the oldest order”. I feel like it also applies here as well.
Matt DiTomaso
2023-07-27 14:55:21 +0000 UTCMaliketh is my most divisive Soulsbourne boss. I love his visual design and flare of attacks, but I have a hard time reading those attacks and his large size doesn't help. His glass cannon nature makes the fight fast and fun, but it's also incredibly punishing especially with a Phase 1 that has a completely unrelated moveset. I love the lore and his presence as a character I've known for most of the game, but why the hell is Gurranq still in the sanctum after? Maliketh (like Malenia) feels like a boss I'd prefer to just select on a menu and fight while also being able to parry ala Sekiro, and I didn't even particularly love Sekiro. It's confusing, I'm confused. F you Maliketh, my dear, sweet doggo.
Jonathan Yih
2023-07-27 13:21:55 +0000 UTCThe Tarnished Archeologist has done an amazing amount of work to uncover Farum Azula's lore and though you've not gotten around to it, I strongly urge you to check out his "Empires Risen and Felled" series for elaboration of what I'm going to discuss. To start, there are tree reliefs littered all over the place. Not Erd Tree reliefs, which you'll find all throughout most of Leyndell. But the previous regime's tree; informally, Great Tree. There are also depictions of the elden ring. Not the same Elden Ring depicted in Leyndell, but one of a different configuration. This points to Marika's conflict with the Gloam Eyed Queen. Thus the presence of the Godskin Duo (scions of the Gloam Eyed Queen). Thus the presence of Banished Knights (on loan from the Stormveil Collection, but previously a vassal state of the Great Tree Regime). And all pointing to Placidusaxx as the Gloam Eyed Queen's Elden Lord.
justainm
2023-07-27 13:15:55 +0000 UTCThis is the only thing in my brain when I think about the Mohgwyn Dynasty. https://twitter.com/_als_dk/status/1526195246379708419
Bryan Wade
2023-07-27 11:16:06 +0000 UTCfarum azula has one of my new favorite fromsoft statues: beast clergymen (like regular beastmen in the clergy and not god's pet left out in the rain gurranq). they're adorable. I like maliketh a lot—his relationship to marika is deliciously tragic. his loyalty was his doom. death is an old goth hound. Fuck yeah I beat the godskin duo like my second-ish try. I'm not trying to brag or be "that guy", it was one of those instances where the gravity of what had just been accomplished didn't set in until later. Bernahl + Mimic, tank build with bloodhounds fang which carried me all the way to radagon, okay-ish arcane stat for any bleed (+mimic) buildup excuse. If memory serves, I still had like a shield from limgrave. I think I seriously just tanked through them. There was a bird/dragon gauntlet in farum azula that had me going crazy, and the godskin duo gave me no trouble. I don't know.
Goldie
2023-07-27 05:34:36 +0000 UTCIs Blood-Tainted Excrement the worst thing From Software has us pick up as treasure? Surely it’s up there with the Red Jelly in Bloodborne. May Chaos take the World!
Mystic Referee
2023-07-27 02:39:37 +0000 UTCThis is more of a general comment on the lore, but thought it an interesting connection to real world religion. The three fingers and two fingers orders seem quite abstract, but in the Eastern Orthodox church you make the sign of the cross with three fingers, while in the Russian Orthodox Church, "Old Believers", you make the sign of the cross with two fingers. The Old believers (two fingers) were very opposed to the new Eastern Orthodox church's use of the three fingers and it caused a rift between the two traditions. https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/335130-orthodox-christians-cross-themselves-3-fingers
Christopher Bush
2023-07-27 02:13:52 +0000 UTCAdmit this game is related to the dark souls series.
Coleman
2023-07-27 00:19:54 +0000 UTCI never did beat Elden Ring. The furthest I got was that horse-riding hard ass outside Maliketh’s fog wall. I just could not beat him. I tried respeccing, I tried gitting gud (whatever that means), but I just could not. And then the few times I ran past him to fight Maliketh, he was also an ungodly terror. Only got to his 2nd phase once, and he immediately leaped into the air and one-shot me into oblivion with what I can only describe as a giant red “laser” like he’s Dr. Evil. I don’t want to take away anyone else’s enjoyment of the game, but after 120+ hours of banging my head against it, I finally said, “Fuck that shit forever.” Crumbling Farum Azula? More like Crumbling Farum Asshole-a.
Al
2023-07-26 23:53:52 +0000 UTCMe, who responsibly refrained from lighting the forge until after I had defeated Mohg, done the whole Haligtree, and spent four days bashing my head against Malenia: WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK. WHY IS THERE ANOTHER AREA HERE?? But seriously, I can't give a critical take on Faram Azula because by the time I got there I was well beyond ready for the game to be over--not that I don't love Elden Ring, but I had been ready to move on for about fifteen hours by then, having had a miserable time with a lot of the later bosses (fuck you, Fire Giant, get down here so I can see your wind-ups). I knew it was going to be there, but I really wasn't emotionally prepared for it to be a FULL legacy dungeon, and I EXTRA wasn't emotionally prepared for the basic enemies to be handing me my ass even after I'd gone and done all that semi-secret endgame content. My shit was plenty leveled, but I was still getting shut down by a single patrolling storm knight guy. However well-designed it may or may not be, I really would have preferred Faramazoo be more limited--like maybe one or two set pieces with just a bit of level around them--given it's position as an unavoidable semi-surprise at the end of an already grueling (but still very good) game. P.S. At least I was one of the two people who didn't have much trouble with the Godskin Duo.
MrReciprocity
2023-07-26 22:13:16 +0000 UTCI first saw Farum Azula when I teleported there from the Four Belfries. I was totally shocked. I remember checking my map and going, how the hell will I get here? Frankly I was hoping the eventual answer would be better than what I got, but that first surprise was still something special. The enemies there destroyed me in the early game, and then they still did when I finally came back. The bosses here, also counting the Draconic Tree Sentinel guarding Maliketh, kicked my ass around possibly more than anything else in the game, barring Malenia. Gotta admit, Maliketh was so cool I almost forgive it all, but I needed Tiche’s help to get through that one. Overall cool looking area but I could do with less Godskin duo and more connective lore.
Thomas
2023-07-26 22:04:47 +0000 UTCThe giant skeletons in Mohgwyn's Palace are summoned by albunarics with horns. So on my second playthrough I imagine the Tibia Mariners as albunarics who got "tainted" with whatever makes those "Live beyond Death" and spread across the world to spread their ways
The Wolf, The Wood, and the Trafalgar
2023-07-26 21:47:02 +0000 UTCOn my first blind play-through I was massively underpowered in Farum Azula. I wasn’t leveling my vigor enough, and was getting demolished by everything. I ended up doing a lot of the bad dark souls behavior of suicide-running past everything to pick up items and grab bonfires. Overall I think the difficulty curve of the game is pretty uneven, with the huge spike starting at mountaintops, that continues here.
mwh
2023-07-26 20:56:31 +0000 UTCI think a fitting epitaph for Diallos, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, would be "We are all in the gutter, but he's looking up at the jars."
Robert Leininger
2023-07-26 20:31:53 +0000 UTCMaliketh is one of the best fromsoft bosses of all time. It’s always under 2 minutes and either I die, or he does. It’s brutal and fast and his design combines wolf and tiger into a tragic beast man that I fuckin love. His armor is also the best.
Mateus Silva
2023-07-26 20:31:05 +0000 UTCFaram Azula always echoed Archdragon Peak for me with its emphasis on grey, white, dragons, and height. Maybe even difficulty. I love how this legacy dungeon curbs your expectations of progression because you’re going up, down, around, and under. Very next-level level design. Mohgwyn’s Palace, despite the benefit of evoking Greece and Knights of the Zodiac was actually my least favorite level in the entire game. It’s just a valley and temple with pools of blood and enemies all over. The invasions don’t even make much sense and opening up the game with Varre, I would’ve thought his spoke would’ve been more substantial and like theoretically because of Miquella; it is. But it doesn’t feel like it. Mohg is one of the best bosses though so it does have that going for it.
Mateus Silva
2023-07-26 20:28:07 +0000 UTCI never worked out why it's so bright in CFA. Is it because we're nearer the top of the Erdtree? Anyway, the only thing I don't love about this area is the fact it's non-negotiable in any playthrough. And while places like Stormveil (and to a lesser extent Raya Lucaria) seem to play out differently each time, CFA is a lot more linear. I've explored the whole place. I've done Placidusax* twice. And you can't just run through it either. So every time, I've got to methodically traipse through that whole bit with the knife eagles and the lightning (I haaaaaate that bit), and all the parkoury bits where you have to jump from platform to platform. Great the first time, not so great on subsequent plays. Also, I know people complain about Maliketh and the Godskins in this level - piece of piss. The real tough boss of this area is the Sentinel before Maliketh - screw him to hell and back. *First time was ridiculously tough, second time was a joke - he really hates his own Ancient Dragon's Lightning, as well as holy bubbles
Charlie Frame
2023-07-26 20:16:17 +0000 UTCIt may not be specifically about the area in question, but did you guys ever find out who's voice that was when you recover HP after fighting a group of enemies?
Joe Binson
2023-07-26 20:10:27 +0000 UTC
