Most of these connections were not made by me, I’m just gathering them here together for ease
The architecture in Dominula and Shaman Village are VERY similar technology and theme wise, as well as the patterns of wild flowers and the later association with ‘festive grease’ which is the same effect as the rare drop Dominula weapons provide
In-game lore describes the celebrations at Dominula were ‘so old that Marika couldn’t forbid them’. This is a VERY important clue when what that ritual entails is examined.
It’s flaying, they’re flaying people, and presumably gathering the skins as an offering for the Godskin Apostle waiting up the hill.
Why was flaying a ritual so old that Marika, the god of this age with power over the literal laws of the universe, could not prevent its practice despite evidently wanting to? (will go over that later, just keep it in mind)
Because it predated her ascendance to godhood, and was a part of Shaman culture long before being co-opted by the Hornsent to make their snake god consort.
The Numen -> Shaman connection is irrefutable, and on the oldest numen structures, the Coffin Ships, we see depictions of people being melded into and birthed from trees. The Two Fingers dead bodies are depicted as rotting wood, and so is Ranni’s true corpse
I believe the Numen were trees uplifted by Metyr like the Elden Beast uplifted beasts to dragons.
This explains the origins of grafting, and why they are a client race for the Greater Will, and the affinity with tree burial. I believe that ‘Empyrian’ requires one to be a client race that has been previously altered by the children of the Greater Will and that covers a lot of the unusual things around empyrians like ‘being born from a single god’, and the fact that the Two Fingers can just up and create a perfect guardian soul mate with apparently no effort.
So Numen, being ascended trees, can be grafted, melded into trees, and can contain the Elden Ring. This suggests to me that the knowledge of this grafting was probably passed down through the culture as part of ritual and that they likely practiced selective grafting and considered it sacred (the reverence for the ‘grandmother’)
This is why it is such an affront that the Hornsent perverted this ritual to forward their own power, and heaped untold suffering on unwilling victims.
Same mechanic, in Shaman hands a sacred ritual that interred their most honored matriarchs and in the hands of the hornsent, a license to wantonly slaughter and inflict suffering on an industrial scale.
No wonder Marika found grafting to be abhorrent after being forced to become a Jar Saint herself. No wonder almost all knowledge of it was lost and buried except for two absolutely detested rejects of the Golden Order.
No wonder she tried to stop the Dominula celebrations, even thought they were part of her culture before being tainted by Hornsent inhumanity.
So when one of her unnamed daughters sought her own rulership, she adopted the ancient neglected skinning celebrations of her mother’s Shaman roots and gained adherents by offering a new way of life. The Godskins were her transformed adherents, and they sought to return to the old ways and old powers
It may have even been that the GEQ didn’t seek godhood, but Marika was forced to end her for controlling a threat to the Erd Tree and representing a way of life abhorrent to her
Please do! I’m also looking to do more - especially once Nightreign is released, since that should tell us more about the time before the Shattering.
One idea I’ve been thinking about for a long time that I’d like your feedback on: what if Marika cutting off her braid symbolizes her killing Melina/the GEQ? Messmer and her were probably Marikas first children. My theory is that her killing her daughter proved her resolve to become a god, and her braid symbolized that.
I think it’s an interesting concept but the Marika statue in Messmer’s arena, holding the infant Messmer has the cut braid, and if Melina is the GEQ (which I kind of think is true, will add below) there are other timeline concerns as how could her daughter be invested with such power before Marika became a god?
For me the whole ‘she cut it off to grieve her lost people, and left it to show her resolve to become a god’ still seems like the most likely reason.
As for Melina, if my timeline is accurate:
Metyr chooses Marika as her empyrian candidate based on her desire for vengeance for her lost people, and teaches her how to command Grace (the story trailer where she holds up the golden strands)
Marika becomes (willingly or unwillingly) a Jar Saint, and scraps of (at least) a fire giant and the serpent who shed the skin in Bonny Village are added to the pot
Using the knowledge from Metyr, wile in the jar Marika becomes the perfect consort for the Hornsent Serpent God
Leaving the jar she is presented to the serpent at the Gate of Divinity, where she betrays the Hornsent and takes Grace from the serpent god and THEN conquers the sun (what we see her doing as she holds up the strands)
From the Serpent she absorbed the essence of what would become the Gloam Eyed Queen, and from the sun she absorbed fire.
Then she goes back to her village, cuts her braid, leaves the Erd Tree and vows to avenge her people
First thing she does is try and save the ones already jarred, and herself, using her growing mastery of Grace and Grafting (inherent to her people) to ‘expel’ the parts she absorbed or were jarred with that she no longer wants as part of her.
The serpent, that abhorrent thing she was to marry, was expelled as Melina and parts of Messmer. Likely Melina didn’t immediately rebel against her mother, but eventually took the title of the Gloam Eyed Queen as her power grew
And for her rebellion she was killed, and Erd Tree recycled and her death rune bound. Since Marika has full control of Grace, and understands the lore of memory and dreams, she likely erased much of Melina’s memory of her rebellion
My guess is the GEQ’s rebellion happened before the war with the Fire Giants was over, and didn’t really get very far considering only two items in the game even mention her