Call and Response: Elden Ring, Ranni's Questline
Added 2022-11-27 19:49:27 +0000 UTCHey folks! It's time to write in with your responses on Ranni's questline in Elden Ring. The relevant areas are everything we've talked about since defeating Radahn, so Nokron, the Carian Study Hall, Deeproot Depths, Nokstella, the Lake of Rot, and the plateau with the Cathedral on it. Submit your response as a comment on this post! As always, keep some guidelines in mind.
1. Keep your responses and stories specific to Caelid, the Dragonbarrow, and Redmane.
2. Please keep your responses brief. Think two short paragraphs, or around 200 words.
3. Specificity is preferred over generalities.
4. We tend to get a lot of responses, so please don't feel bad if we omit your response, or edit it for length.
The deadline is the end of the day, Tuesday, December 6.
Thanks!
Kole
Comments
I love how as soon as you wrap Rannis quest, you stumble out of the cave onto a serene Liurnian hillside with snow gently falling. It’s a poetic moment where you soak in the gravity one of the best quests we’ve ever had in a game. Have fun with your moonlight greatsword
Steve White
2022-12-11 16:50:20 +0000 UTCWhen we meet Cabbage Patch Ranni outside Nokstella again, she says that her name has been "sullied" by us. What is your opinion on what she means by that? Does it relate to the assumption that we have grabbed her cursemark and revealed her secret, or that we defeated the illusion she set up to protect her mother Rennala? Also in that dialogue is the order to take out the Baleful Shadows, a plural term but confusing to me because we only fight the one projection of Blaidd. Sorry for the sneaky double-question, and I know it's too late for the episode, but still curious about thoughts! Loved the show for forever!
Blake Waller
2022-12-08 14:48:59 +0000 UTCIn my opinion, the underground areas all feel more like classic souls style level design found between the “legacy” dungeons in the trilogy. It’s obviously not as open as the world above ground, but not as dense and controlled as a legacy dungeon. It’s somewhere in the middle, I don’t even know what you’d call it? Darkroot garden, Hemwick charnel lane, road of sacrifices, etc. It seems every title card in the game is vast and open, or a tightly crafted wireframe. But this is…. Different?
Coty Davis
2022-12-06 17:13:11 +0000 UTCDuring Ranni's quest, I felt a real sense of comradery with the members of her gang. Working alongside Blaidd while consulting Seluvis and Iji for guidance made me really feel like I was part of something bigger. This all led to a journey underground alongside Ranni herself where she opens up to us, culminating in the first marriage in a souls game that doesn’t end with someone getting stabbed in the face. At this point, I was completely on-board with Ranni. She wanted to uproot the existing establishment, and I wanted to be there by her side when she flipped the table. What threw me for a loop was revisiting Blaidd and Iji after this ordeal, with Black Knife assassins strewn about in what appeared to be a botched assassination attempt. At the time, I had no reason to assume that the Black Knife assassins were serving anyone other than Ranni, and I was perplexed as to why she would go so far as to cut off those who were devoted to her, and who she clearly and explicitly told us she loved in return. It made me stop and think “was this really the work of the woman that I married, and what will happen when she no longer has a use for me?” In hindsight, it may not have been Ranni who put out the hit on her gang. Do you guys have any theories as to what the Black Knife assassins are doing there, and who commissioned them to assassinate Blaid and Iji?
ChipHand_Z
2022-12-05 20:50:05 +0000 UTCCould you please talk more about your respec experiences in this part of the game? I’d never played non-melee and was intimidated by the idea of respec—you say you are old, but I have a generation on you, completed my first video game ever last year, and have played only one other Soulslike game (DS1). Upgraded Bloodhound’s Fang, Brass Shield, and Horn Bow worked well for my Hero class… until I literally died for more skills/tools with Baleful Shadow (Artorias led to similar a revamping). So I respecced to dex/faith and began upgrading a seal--play on a loop “I took you for dead. No matter. It's all the same. Lay out your arms, then.” Having no shield makes me feel super vulnerable, so I use either shield/seal or shield/BF and am loving the new options. Not sure if it can take me through the rest of the game, though. Sidenote on fashion: I love the simple, altered Snow Witch Robe, which gives a chance of fast-rolling and for whatever reason doesn’t get nearly as dirty as my previous Cloth Garb. Maybe it’s infused with Soap or the Snow Witch has a germaphobe thing going on.
Tarnisha
2022-12-05 16:57:10 +0000 UTCI think it’s interesting that your interpretation of Iji’s death is that he killed himself, and I wonder if this is related to patch differences, but in my play through Iji was surrounded by dead black knife assassins and had a weapon in his hand. For me this was chilling: my interpretation was that Ranni was cleaning up “loose ends”, and it made me question the nature of our relationship, especially considering how poorly the rest of her companions ended. I still completed her quest line as it seems to be, hilariously, the most hopeful of the endings. But it painted her warm and almost loving thanks and offer of marriage in a more sinister light. Had she said these things to Blaidd or Iji too after good service was rendered? She’s focused on her goals to the point that she considers even the people who love her most to be no more than tools to be disposed of once their usefulness was over. Is the epilogue of your story a similar end? Overall I thought it was an interesting and layered approach to your relationship with an important NPC. Very From.
Geoffrey Vanderlinden
2022-12-05 12:28:04 +0000 UTCI spent like 20 minutes trying to jump into the crater from the nearby Spiritspring. I'm sure it would just kill me but I would love if it was just a little closer and they let you get away with that nonsense.
Zaynation
2022-12-04 21:32:40 +0000 UTCHey guys, love what you do. Was an interesting piece in deep root depth where you were discussing D and his brother and how they were essentially reviled by all other than the golden order. You had potentially dismissed the two bodies one soul premise as more metaphorical, but even so I find it interesting that the golden order was the sect to accept these two. Do you think there is any relevance to the dual nature of Marika / radagon at the head of the order and the sanctuary these two might have found there? Also, is there room for the narrative that the D’s were simply pawns, and that their less than stellar morals and overall personalities could have been at least in part a result of them being rejected by so many sects due to their condition… only making them that much easier to radicalize by the golden order and exacerbate their innate faults to the level of the dogmatic punishers they became?
Graham Bergsma
2022-12-02 05:11:17 +0000 UTCArguably the best questline in the series, but I’m glad we can start talking about Altus now!
Ethan Preheim
2022-12-02 03:38:15 +0000 UTCRanni’s quest is exceptional, but I want to talk a little bit about Fia’s quest and Godwyn. I do think that it’s debatable that the Mending Rune of the Death Prince restores regular death, as the Rune of Death does. It states that it will “embed the principle of life within Death into Order“ as well as “This new Order will be one of Death restored.” Life within death isn’t possible with normal death, but “Death restored” implies that Destined Death will come back. I tend to lean towards the idea that this rune is not essentially the Rune of Death 2.0, since the Rune of Death is with Maliketh in a form powerful enough to break the immortality of the Erdtree. Fia also mentions giving Godwyn a second life, and asks you to stay the persecution of Those Who Live in Death by becoming their Elden Lord. With normal death restored in the Lands Between, wouldn’t that kill Those Who Live in Death, including Godwyn? If it just brings Those Who Live in Death into the order, does that mean they now can return to the Erdtree for rebirth? I don’t have the answers, and wish that it was more clear overall.
Lucas West
2022-11-29 19:47:43 +0000 UTCWhen I got there, I just said to myself, "oh we've reached the Bloodborne area."
Jordan Loeffler
2022-11-29 18:01:13 +0000 UTCFortissax... Forti-ssax... Fortissax's Lightning Spear requires forty-six Faith. Coincidence?
Jordan Loeffler
2022-11-29 18:00:14 +0000 UTCHey guys, just wanted to mention an obscure piece of lore from my home state, that surprisingly coincided with Godwyn's appearance at the base of the Erdtree. I live in Rhode Island, and when Roger Williams (the founder of our state) died, it was said that the roots of the tree he was buried under grew into a resemblance of his body. I read this in a Ripley's book when I was younger, which showed a drawing of a ball of roots grown into a well defined resemblance of a person, and I just accepted this as a fact. After listening to the Deeproot Depths Pt. 2 episode, I remembered this weird fact and wanted to see it for myself. I did some research, and apparently what happened was the roots of an apple tree grew along his skeleton and vaguely took the outline of his spine, legs, and feet. So,not exactly a monkey-fish Prince of Death, just a natural phenomenon occurring to a historical figure. Thanks for all of the content, and keep up the good work. PS see below for the root if you're curious https://www.nps.gov/rowi/learn/news/the-tree-root-that-ate-roger-williams.htm
Eric
2022-11-29 15:58:05 +0000 UTCAs much as I don't care for all the fanmade timelines trying to make all the FromSoft games fit into one big universe, I have to say that the moment I entered Nokron for the first time with its underground cathedrals and these messenger-like looking sculptures I did stop for a moment and ask myself: are we sure that it is NOT some sort of Bloodborne sidequel?
Mateusz Swietoslawski
2022-11-29 12:35:58 +0000 UTCFirst playthrough I thought Godwyn’s finned lower half was a huge reveal. In every depiction I could remember of Godwyn, we intentionally don’t see the lower half of Godwyn’s body. I thought that Godwyn was imperfect like Mohg and Margit. If Godwyn was malformed in life, then it would give credence to Marika disliking Godwyn. I think those primal aspects of Godwyn were probably less pronounced before The Rune of Death defiled his body. You joked about ants being Numen, but there’s a fun parallel between Marika (A Numen) and ants. The Sites of Lost Grace and the Guidances of Grace are reminiscent of ant drones using chemical signals to guide fellow ant drones to conflict and sustenance. I can follow a Guidance of Grace strand and either find a Lost Grace near a merchant or directly to a boss’s site of lost grace. Thanks for that one-off joke, it made me appreciate the game in a new way.
Doug Duggerson
2022-11-29 02:42:56 +0000 UTCShoutouts to the time I decided to kill Seluvis as a favor to Ranni, and he vanished instead, unharmed. I didn't realize this counted as betraying Ranni (who had already left), so I was very confused as to why the teleport into the Ainsel River was blocked off. Hours later, I took the turtle forgiveness bath on a whim, returned to Seluvis' Rise, and he was dead. I guess two moves ahead was one move too many.
Sid Menon
2022-11-28 22:26:57 +0000 UTCCan we all just take a minute to appreciate how well Ranni is designed from a purely artistic perspective? I feel like Melania was the "mascot" of the game in the pre release marketing, but I think it's safe to say fans have chosen Ranni as the posterchild for this game. Everything about her looks so cool: the blue skin, the giant floppy hat, the way her hands are sewn roughly onto her arms, the fact that you can see her soul outside her doll body overlapping at the right eye, like a mirror image. Absolutely 10/10 shit right here. Hats off to the FromSoft artist who first doodled our favourite blue princess likely several years ago and realized they had something.
Matt DiTomaso
2022-11-28 17:05:28 +0000 UTCRanni's questline was a bit emblematic of the extremely confused and patchwork experience we had of Elden Ring's story. We met Rogier at some point after Raya Lucaria, and got about one line of dialogue from him before he slumped over and went silent. We stumbled upon and beat Astel hours before meeting Ranni, only to be befuddled by the sealed passage behind him. We met Blaidd for the first time *at the Radahn Festival* and missed out on any interactions and dialogue from before. We never figured out where the hell to take Selivus' potion, but after we handed it over to Gideon, Selivus was fully puppetified - not that we knew, since we never saw his Doll Dungeon. Somehow, we managed to keep the questline intact, and Ranni left us the key to her tower, and a very perplexing Wooden Garry - I mean, Ranni. By this point, we'd missed the path to the deathblight zone, and had absolutely no leads to follow, so as best we knew, that was it for us. No clues as to who this pretty blue lady was, no idea what conspiracies she may or may not have been involved in, very little understanding of what events and actions had been part of her quest, and absolutely no leads for what we had missed. How much of this was ADHD plus completionist tendencies resulting in us hunting down every bit of side content before the main content, but in a truly chaotic order? How much was due to our DID-based amnesia? Who could say.
Fenreliania
2022-11-28 12:10:17 +0000 UTCRanni's quest is the richest and most involved in the game. Her story weaves through some of the most interesting areas of the game, providing narrative reasons to visit many otherwise peripheral locations and uncover many of this world's most fascinating historical secrets. My best experience following her quest on my own first playthrough happened after defeating Radahn and seeing the comet descend. I knew that finding the comet's destination would be the next goal, but had no idea where to go, so after searching around somewhat randomly I decided to forget about it for now and try to make progress elsewhere. Instead, upon returning to Limgrave to visit a merchant, I spotted a strange suspended trail of rocks hovering in the sky, seemingly in the direction of the Mistwood, which I hadn't returned to for many hours at that point. I jumped on Torrent and rode into the woods towards the floating cosmic debris, soon coming upon the giant crater ripped through the ground. This moment, and the subsequent tense descent into the subterranean splendor of Nokron, was an absolute highlight of my playthrough. I feel bad for players on later patches who won't be able to make this discovery so organically, since now a red dot simply shows up on the map for the crater's location. I get that some players feel positively towards this type of change but for me, the risk that some players may miss the crater and Nokron is worth the joy felt by those who do stumble across it on their own, without the intrusive "help" that Elden Ring so studiously avoids almost everywhere else in its design.
Edward Howard
2022-11-28 05:31:01 +0000 UTCYou mentioned being frustrated by the two terms ‘cursemark’ and ‘hallowbrand’. But I think it’s very appropriate that different people in the game have their own terms for something like this. It’s notable that ‘hallow’ is a linguistic cognate with ‘holy’ (by way of the Old English term ‘halig’, *wink*). To the Golden Order it is the mark of the curse of death, to the pro-Death people it’s literally a sacred brand on the flesh. It’s another great example of item names and descriptions exhibiting subjectivity, to show you that there are no moral absolutes in the world of Elden Ring.
Zack Voase
2022-11-28 05:13:15 +0000 UTCI may have missed the timing for this comment so my apologies if this doesn't fit with this episode. Quick story: When I played Elden Ring for the 1st time (totally blind) I was caught by the trap chest in the Dragon-Burnt Ruins, almost immediately, and was transported to Sellia Crystal Tunnel. The catch is that because I'm wise to the ways of the souls-borne games I expected to be able to fast-travel from the Grace. Since that wasn't an option I thought maybe I had to unlock fast-travel later. Which is why I was totally blown away about being punted across the map into a seemingly late game area with only starting gear and I didn't even have Torrent yet. Believing it was my only option I trekked across Caelid on foot at full speed with a mob of fucked up giant birds and dogs in tow. After running around wild for a while and yelling "holy shit" around every corner I finally found and cut through the Gael Tunnel Dungeon and back into Limgrave. I had some other excited Soulsheads with me seeing Elden Ring for the first time and everybody was yellin' about the craziness. I got to see some really cool areas (town of sorcery, Aeonia, Dragonbarrow, etc.) and some horrendous enemies in the beginning of my 1st play through and it got me really excited to get back to Caelid and see what it was all about. I felt a bit silly when I realized how easily I could have fast-traveled but it was an amazing experience and I'm glad they included the trap chests. Thanks for the opportunity to share!
Fermented-Sorcerer
2022-11-28 03:01:00 +0000 UTCI may have missed the cutoff for this comment but in case I have not, I only am commenting to mention your discussion of the gold-tinged excrement in an earlier episode reminded me that it might have perhaps been a subtle nod to GRRM's Tywin Lannister, who was rumored to, but did not, in the end, shit gold.
Greyboxer
2022-11-28 01:05:19 +0000 UTCMy vote for hardest boss in ER? Hands down, it's Alecto, Black Knife Ringleader. No co-op or spirit ashes allowed, so you're forced to beat her alone. Its a fight where you spend a lot of time dodging rather than attacking, so learning her moveset and finding attack openings was one of the most satisfying experiences for me in any From game. Not beating her for me is not an option, since I would miss out on the game's best spirit ash, Alecto's awesome daughter Tiche, who can help me rip through entire boss phases like I'm skipping cut scenes. She's an instrumental part of my strategies for beating Malenia, Maliketh, and Radagon, not to mention Placidusax (have you guys beat P-sax yet? Try Tiche + envoy bubbles. Trust me, it works). Beating Alecto and obtaining Tiche is a big incentive for me to complete Ranni's quest, so it doesn't hurt that her quest is amazing, taking you to the coolest hidden corners of the Lands Between, and rewarding you with one of the game's two coolest endings (frenzied flame being the other).
Matthew Bennett
2022-11-28 01:02:54 +0000 UTCNot much to say on the quest as a whole, but i have a wierd experience, after defeating radahn, i was following the questline and blaidd was in the desert as per usual. But when i came back later for the war dead catacombs, blaidd was still there and was agroed as if it was the end of the quest or if ranni had died, which she didnt. It was very strange and i died several times.
Epsilon The Protogen
2022-11-28 00:50:52 +0000 UTCIt's a shame that none of the other endings are half as involved or interesting as Ranni's. The only one that comes close is Fia, but it's so much more impersonal than Ranni's. That said, I do love Rannie's questline and her gang of weirdos. Definitely the first ending I went for.
superkeaton
2022-11-27 22:30:33 +0000 UTCAs much as I enjoyed this and other quests, I didn't get this ending because I screwed something up. We should have some quest tracking interface by now and not have to rely on wikis.
Andrew O.
2022-11-27 20:03:22 +0000 UTCFirst time submitting to: As a trans woman the subtext of Ranni’s quest and story carried a lot of rewarding subtext. For starters she’s one of “ the dolls” which itself is a bit of meme, but act of destroying her given body and taken on the form of a femme role model has very trans undertones. Also the narrative themes of autonomy, self-determination, and resisting the societal expectations thrust upon her spoke to me as a very trans experience. It’s a win that the best ending of the game involves marrying a trans woman. Love the show and love this game all about god killing.
Dani Murano-Kinney
2022-11-27 20:03:05 +0000 UTCRanni’s quest and ending seemed like the logical choice for the player’s character, considering she’s one of the first to help you in your journey. I initially missed the area where you can meet her in the three towers. But later found her in searching online about where to find the cool wolf man I kept seeing in the loading screens. I’d be lying if I said I found this whole questline naturally, it’s good to see Fromsoft has kept the signature esoteric quest structure. It’s also cool to see a love interest for the player character, as weird and maybe other worldly as it is.
Isaac
2022-11-27 20:03:00 +0000 UTCHi guys! First time submitting a response! It seems like Ranni’s quest could easily be considered the “main quest” of the game, given that it gives you reason to visit so many areas. Do you guys agree with this, and what do you think about this structure?
mwh
2022-11-27 19:54:47 +0000 UTC
