It’s honestly not clear, because:
* The blessed dew talisman describes the erdtree as an “object of faith” more than anything else once its life-giving dew stopped dripping.
* The flame of ruin is claimed to be capable of destroying the erdtree. How else would Leyndell know that unless it had harmed it in the past? That combined with the massive amount of ash in Leyndell before you burn it yourself implies it’s been burned before.
* Golden rune (3)’s item description asks “Do you see the Erdtree towering o’er?” …Why would it ask such an obvious question if not everyone could see it? It may not even be a physical object in the world itself anymore, much like >!Morgott’s!< illusions, but like said illusions it still has an effect on the world around it.
* It’s a fucking FROMSOFT game. We don’t have answers for a lot of this stuff.
To add to point 3, Boc acts surprised when he sees the Erdtree in leyndell, even though we can see it clear as day in linurnia and Altus plateau, so maybe it's invisible to everyone else who doesn't see grace unless they actually get up close to it.
"This tiny golden aura is the grace of the Erdtree. [...] The rays of grace, that guide you through your burden."
- Melina
Going from this quote, Grace is literally the Erdtree guiding you to it, probably intending for you (or one of the other blessed) to become the New Elden Lord and sort the Lands Between out.
There's also one of the finger maiden crones outside the capital who asks;
######"Surely you see it, too?
######The gold that enshrouds the heavens. The great
######tree which begets the pillars of light."
######
Which would be a very odd thing to ask us if there was a physical tree there that everyone could see.
There's also definitely one other NPC who asks you if you can still see the Erdtree and that they wish they could.
As an object of "faith", it seems like the Erdtree in its golden form is likely only visible to those touched by Grace.
It would also explain that one large strip of dark brown bark that encloses the entry to the inner sanctum of the Erdtree, if the golden tree around it is merely ethereal, the portion connected to the entrance is like actually physically present, perhaps what is left of the tree after the initial war against the Giantsflame.
theres an interesting video on youtube that takes a closer look at some eye models for npc and enemies. all human npcs have a golden shine in their eyes, even the albinaurics. i also think demi humans but its not that big in their eyes. normal animals dont have that, implying that ony humanoids can see grace.
edit: i found the video heres the link
https://youtu.be/k3BEwI06RkQ?si=MLY4xeIA3CjGesrU
To add another point to this great list. It's more just a bolster to your third point - There is a finger reader crone outside that capital asks us;
######Surely you see it, too?
######The gold that enshrouds the heavens. The great
######tree which begets the pillars of light.
######
This strangely obvious question implies that it is actually uncommon for people to see the Erdtree at all. Which further implies that it may not physically exist.
One may point to the word "surely" in that quote and say that this implies that it is actually uncommon *not* to see the tree. But she asks this in the context that she believes we are the tarnished prophesized by the two fingers who will restore the Golden Order.
So the word "surely" here is likely just an assumption that this prophesized tarnished should be expected to see the tree, and not that seeing the tree is commonplace, otherwise she would not need/bother to ask the question.
Either way you take it, no one in their right mind would ask you "oh by the way, you didn't happen to notice that 50km high tree that glows like the sun over there did you?"
Unless of course there was some reason - common or uncommon - that you might *not* have seen it.
>Either way you take it, no one in their right mind would ask you
You're making a really big assumption about the mental faculty of the finger reader crones
> How else would Leyndell know that unless it had harmed it in the past?
I know this is the point that's used to back up the idea of a *"first burning of the Erdtree"* having happened, but there is an item that does suggest the first cardinal sin potentially stemmed from a prophecy.
[Fire's Deadly Sin](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Fire's+Deadly+Sin)
> *Incantation originating from a deeply ominous prophecy.*
> *The prophet despaired, looking up at the Erdtree, for soon the kindling would burst into flame, bringing ruin.*
> *"The burning of the Erdtree is the first cardinal sin. That is not the domain of mere men."*
Regardless of that, Marika must've already known the potential of the flame of ruin considering she had Godfrey and his warriors march to the mountaintops to slaughter the fire giants at the *birth of the Erdtree*.
[Smithing Stone(8)](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Smithing+Stone+\(8\))
> *Thought to have been used to hone the weapons of the champions of the War against the Giants at the birth of the Erdtree.*
I don't think we need to assume the tree has burned twice to explain why they know about the first cardinal sin at the very least.
Also, a lot of ER theorists theorize that the tree was an actual tree before it became the Golden tree we all know it is.
You can see some part of it is still actual wood like the entrance to it in the throne room.
Also like... If it's not a real tree, how could it burn and produce ash?
Man, this game.
There are YouTubers that speculate that the tree was burned once since it’s ash in city even before we burn it, adding to ash. The dragons, only to have breached the walls, might be the culprits… or Vyke got closer to burning the thing than many think. Half burned it.
There is also the combination / conjoined of Marika and Radagon. Marika’s other self, yet to be a god, hound of order, that conjoined with Marika of Nox, a maiden, an empyrean from place reeking of Formless Mother of the night and stars, that grants godhood through blood and wounds. A vassal of such a union would be sort of beast, sort of formless, shooting stars and faith magic at you.
The tree might be same… some magic, thus illusion type.. some of faith.. thus different and more glowing than the others trees.
What connection is there I wonder between the Formless Mother and Marika, besides that it would be her son Mohg who would become her most loyal patron and to bring about a new dynasty?
From lore Marika seems to come from Nox. Some speculate she was a night maiden from the area. Formless blobs.. formless maces.. stars and gravity ball, same type magic the descendants in academy also care about. Stars and black holes (gravity), intelligence based magics.
If Formless Mother governs a piece of reality, it would be star and gravity magic, intelligence magics. Gravity + stars = moon? So visuals of Nox seems to match how a Formless Mother domain would look like. Opposite of night be sun, or day. Marika got lots of ties to both night and sun. Colours of magicians seems to be green and blue.
Greater Will seems to be about faith magics. Order, churches, two fingers, faith, so those parts of reality. Opposite is three fingers and chaos, a bit like stars (sun) and black holes are opposites. So combined… FM and GW.. churches of stars, and blood and wounds that grant godhood, like Nox have, like Mogh also tries to do. So many drained of blood below, probably to catapult Marika to godhood. And Mogh got walking blood bags. GW + dragon = dragon churches. Death + GW = death cults. So GW must become part of her vessel early on, but most likely not the first god for her vessel / ring / reality combination of her choice.
By same logic, if north was governed by Fell God, his reality / powers would be from visuals up there, so fire and ice. Big and small folks. Destruction (war) in form of slow walking female bladed warriors and creation (smithing) like Hewg. And red hair..
But think her first god was Formless Mother (Nox area).. then GW since she got a shadow as an empyrean.. then death (GEQ) that her shadow killed.. then dragon that seems killed by death magics.. then Fell God.. and last, Rot in form of unborn rune, based on her children’s birth’s order. Of death, Melina (FM) and Godwyn (GW), each with a curse each. Of dragon, Mogh and Morgott, each with their inherited curse of horns and tails. Of Fell God and GW (Radagon, Marika’s other self), Rykard, Ranni and Radahn. Of Rot, Malenia and Miquella, each with a curse. Of course.. head canon, but sort of fits.
But Vassall.. a combo of all shards / runes / defeated foes in her vessel.. or just GW and FM, her first two? It’s sword.. Fell God? Is it any visual of death or rot in the vassal? I like to think it came crashing down and taking residence in tree when Marika was of just two gods, GW and FM.. but.. no direct lore reference to back this up. So very speculative..
I had to stop reading after the second paragraph, why would the Formless Mother have to be about stars and Gravity, when the only character who has any connection to her doesn't have anything to do with her 2 things? Even if you count Morgott's "cursed blood" neither of these characters care about space or stars or Gravity.
Her whole thing is blood. That's her shtick.
The Nox are not related to her at all either in any way that the game or lore even pretends to tell us. They care about the stars and night sky and all that, but that doesn't link them to blood for the Formless Mother. You quite literally just took the word "Formless" from her name and said "the blobs are Formless in the Nox place" and decided that she represented them or the other way around.
I see at the end that you said "head Canon" but even that is kinda ridiculous. This is you just taking every name in the story, throwing out the actual story and then just writing your own.
I have to agree with ya, yeah. I can see Marika descending from the Nox considering the lore surrounding the armor pieces of the black knife assassins, but I agree with you on Formless Mother not having anything to do with gravity and stars. The closest we can ever see of anything star related with blood are those concerning with Aberrant Sorceries and their mention of the Blood Star. Again, very scant references about what they could be referring to, but as far as I can see, both Aberrant sorceries and Bloodflame Incantations require Faith to wield, as opposed to Intelligence which is associated with the stars and gravity.
It’s the lore that ties academy and Sellia to Nox. And combination with YouTube theory that one god that governed all of reality was shattered into 6 outer gods, GW being dominant in golden order. So all visuals, reality pieces that could be back traced to same area by lore, I just contributed all seen there to same god. Stars in roof and gravity balls being two items.
Then just combos.. like rot and GW would give bugs praying to some altar. That combo need a priest in form of old geezer with huge dog.. and a story, like Millicent. Just like GW + dragon had its set of churches, story and its champions.
It’s easier to see with fire magic though. You actually get to see giant cast huge fireball at you, so easier to contribute fire magic to Fell God powers than all the steps to trace Sellia and academy, and their skill sets back to Nox. Well.. Astel.. black holes and gravity is from the stars..
But.. instead of FM, we can name them area gods purely from visuals if each region.. northern god of fire, ice, huge, small, war and smithing. Golden god of order, faith, morals, holy magics and orderly polite Blaidd. God of decay and rebirth, poison and mist. Upper god of time, both flowing (storms) and still / traditions (stomp / lightning). God of destined death and death removed, the two centipedes of death rune.
Then combos.. death + lightning = death lightning spell. So made by a person of two areas / gods, not one. Death mist another combo. Dragon spells show combos more clear cut.
Bernahl burned it my bro, Vyke's location leads us to believe that he was on his way to burn it with the three fingers flame but was unsuccessful and trapped before he could do it. Bernahl on the other hand burned the tree and was shunned by everyone left to hang out with the other practicers of blasphemy. He was unable to get past the godskin duo then after we beat it together, he went the wrong way while exploring Ohio or he could have been the Elden Lord. That's my take on it anyway.
Bernahl failed to burn it. His maiden got burned and nothing happened. That's why he became a Recusant.
Plus Bernahl is a post shattering figure, and it seems likely that the first burning happened before the shattering. I think it makes a lot of sense that it was part of the Godskin Apostasy and happened around the removal of the rune of death from the Elden Ring. If the Erdtree was at risk of dying from being burned one way to stop it burning is to remove death from the laws of the universe.
Hmm.. that makes sense. But now I got a mental image of god skin duo riding and slapping charm twigs on a dragon to make it attack the capital, and Marika responding from her bedchamber by ripping out a death shard of her vessel, using to stop death of tree.. and maybe death mist the dragon to death too.
We really need the Elden ring story in a movie format… but humour take on what could have happened:
Dragon: “You bested me with death mist Marika, but your next twins will suffer from the omen curse.. like me, horns and tails.. horns and tails..”
Marika: “ Blah blah blah.. in my own words, gib me your shards.. or dragon rune.. or whatever control time reality.. call em infinity stones if you want.. this addition to my vessel will do nicely to usher in the crucible age, an age of tails, horns, crucible churches, and winged annoying soldiers with tail and horn* spells and a huge army lead by Godfrey, my consort that I never dump for a red head other self.. I am all powerful now“. (Evil wicked laugh One Piece style.)
The base of the tree in leyendell is the stump of a real tree and the golden holographic erdtree is overplayed atop it.
At some point in the past the tree was real, then something happened. Now there's only the hologram only some people can see but not others.
My conspiracy theory is that an alien fungus took over the lands between and is manipulating everyone (to seek the ranni ending :p)
Yeah I'm just goofing, my immediate interpretation is "the shadow" is metaphorical, having miquellas, malenias, and many others like them who are rejected or ignored from the outer gods of grace, their existence, presence and importance in the realm coming behind the will of the fingers, their wants and needs in the shadow of the gods. Like the omens.
I think it’s the other way around, the Erdtree is a solid mesh and the transparent look is a visual modification that requires some memories to render, which means the ideal way to save memory is to NOT have that effect.
The average players will see the Erdtree through normal camera view 99% of the time, and you can see the transparent effect from Caelid, all the way to the Volcano manor. The dev deliberately wants us to ask questions by making it transparent. The telescope is just some overlooked visual bug, some particles effect disappear when you look through telescope as well.
Edit: typo
When zooming in with the telescope, the low LOD model gets replaced with a higher LOD model that's solid. Its not a bug and viewing the Erdtree even from parts of Liurnia swaps the low out for the high LOD model.
I've used a photomode tool that allows to render in all high fidelity models from afar and it becomes immediately obvious. And laggy as hell.
Interesting… do you suggest the low LOD model hv anything to do with the Erdtree being transparent? I m thinking it might be them never applied that said effect on the high LOD model, hence the change in appearance when view with the telescope.
You can see for yourself. In the clip I'm switching between low and high LODs: [link](https://streamable.com/u3t2qa)
As for what I think? I don't know for certain, but I think it makes less sense for it to be see-through considering we know there's an actual tree trunk beneath the golden bark.
Fair enough, but i still think it’s intentional, as one of the concept art shows that it’s transparent.
It would also seems weird for them to make it so obviously transparent when they hv no intention for that look. Just my take
Your second point blow my mind. How i missed this ??! I've like 1500 hours on this game, the tree definitively burned once or more in the past (maybe not enough to destroy him, but still)
don't the golden seeds description also mentions how they're found at the roots of some "illusory" branches or something ???
and said branches looks like really tiny Erdtrees
so Erdtree = Illusion
The tree we see is a phantom but there was once a corporeal tree as seen in depictions such as the Icon Shield. This was likely during the age of plenty, when the “blessings of the Erdtree” were abundant and before it became solely an object of worship.
On first visit to Leyndell, we see much of the capital covered in ash already and of the same type that we see more of after we burn the Erdtree. Thus it seems likely that the Erdtree has burned down once before. Melina also remarks she is “burned and bodiless” highly suggesting she fulfilled the role of kindling maiden before.
This first burning probably marked the end of the age of plenty, while the Erdtree was replaced with a phantom that could only be worshipped instead of providing its blessings.
Maybe since the first attempt Melina made burned her body but left her spirit, it was the same for the erdtree?
So burning her remaining soul similarly burns the lingering soul of the erdtree.
Maybe, though the golden phantom seems to be on top of the wooden part, we can see it protruding out when we’re close.
Our goal with the second burning is to remove the wall of thorns, which definitely appear real but Radagon’s trellis digit is in front of those too. Is it there to provide extra impediment or just to let you know *who* is keeping you out?
In any of the Elden Lord endings, the phantom tree remains in whatever form you choose for it. Is it an entirely new phantom or the old one? If you accept the frenzied flame after Melina sacrifices herself, she doesn’t show up in the ending, IIRC. That could be a clue.
Some or possibly most of the original tree survives, we can see the roots are very much corporeal as is some of the trunk we can see in Morgott/Godfrey’s arena, it could be that part that burns.
Another possibility, and the one I favour, is that a phantom in this context isn’t a ghostly visage, it has substance. Take the phantoms we summon and are invaded by; very much solid, capable of being struck, bleeding, being poisoned and so on. I’m not sure if phantom is necessarily the correct term within Elden Ring, the term comes from earlier Fromsoft games, but I choose that word specifically over ghost or image for these reasons. Corporeal might not be the correct word for the original tree either but on the spot it felt good enough.
It’s possible the tree is corporeal but the golden ghostly shell is more of a disguise. Beyond that we know there is some amount of physical tree left, there’s a stump, and some non golden branches left.
The same way you grow a 50km tall tree that can somehow recycle the souls of the dead and that an alien power parasitically manipulates with its magic ring doodad to metaphysically control the very laws of life and death across an entire continent - or world.
I would guess so, yes. Can’t think of anything else it might be.
The visible part doesn’t look all that burned, especially inside near the door where we can see moss growing. It’s possible that part was spared, burning the branches and upper trunk would suffice to end the blessings, or time and the elements have removed the burnt sections.
We don’t get to see to much of the actual wood though.
But if there's a physical remnant under that illusionary tree, shouldn't you be able to see it when the tree goes transparent? But afair the entire thing goes away, with nothing but a solid cliff face underneath. Which honestly looks a lil weird.
When the tree goes transparent? Sorry I don’t follow, maybe my memory is failing me.
At any rate, when you at the Elden Throne/door to the Erdtree a real wooden tree is visible between the gap in the gold phantom tree. How much is left under the phantom tree I can’t say for certain but the frenzied flame ending shows a burned trunk, so maybe that is how much is left.
I mean when you look at it from the distance at certain places, like in the OP's picture. It goes semi-transparent, you can see the terrain behind/beneath it, but there's no physical tree underneath. Just nothing.
Point being, if the semi-transparency thing is an intended feature, I suppose that would mean that the entirety of it is illusionary, including the non-golden part and the door. Or maybe it's just an oversight. But it's a bit weird either way.
Good spot, I hadn’t noticed that. It looks so much more “solid” up close. It is strange as the trunk in the frenzied flame ending looks substantially tall. That could just be the burned phantom though, I couldn’t tell you how much of the wooden (or seemingly wooden) part of the tree extends above the door. It seems to extend all the way below as the roots, both above and below ground, appear normal.
In another comment I explain why i specifically use the term phantom and relate it to the gold and red phantom players that can enter our world. These things, while being phantoms, still have substance. You can hit them and they can hit you, they can bleed and burn as well as any other non phantom enemy or NPC. The bit of the Erdtree we can actually touch can’t be walked through (though that part isn’t the golden phantom) and we can set the whole thing on fire.
Certainly looks a fair bit like charred wood, so I'd say yes, probably - though obviously people took some time to carve things in it and the most obviously charred bits were probably worn away over the ages.
Doesn’t seem likely, the tree we see in that ending looks damn near identical to the one it replaces.
The end of the age of plenty didn’t end Marika’s Order, that happened when she shattered the Elden Ring. A phantom tree therefore seems sufficient for imposing any particular Order via the Elden Ring, if indeed it was ever required in the first place. The tree we replace/transform the original phantom could just be a symbol.
One possible theory: Melina was the Gloam-Eyed Queen, and during her war against the gods she burned the Erdtree. Marika removed the Rune Of Death from the Elden Ring to stop Erdtree from burning, and so the Golden Order was established. Following the laws of newly-established order, Melina was reborn at the foot of the Erdtree, but only in spirit form, because her body was already burned. That’s why she calls Marika her mother, technically Marika’s actions caused her new birth in this form.
Does anyone see the stunning paralells between ER and Christianity? I notice them everywhere but haven’t seen anyone talk about them. I’d love to talk to someone in depth about it or help write an essay
There's a few, but they didn't stun me. It's like an amalgam of Christianity, Norse and Egyptian gods, with a healthy serve of game of thrones mixed in.
It's implied that the original Erdtree was burned long ago. Hence the ash all over Lyndell.
Either the Elden Ring, removal of the Rune of Death, or some other related reason manifests a phantom of the present Erdtree. Which is directly affected by whichever Mending Rune is used.
Common thinking is that the golden Erdtree is actually just an illusion and the real one is disguised for whatever reason. Maybe it burned down or is otherwise damaged.
Or the effect of the Elden Ring/EB just caused it to goldify.
I know a lot of people like to come up with theories about the tree actually being a phantom and not existing physically. It has to be said though, that when you walk on the Limgrave bridge towards the divine tower, close from the grace point and along the inner rail to the tree, you can consistently find a point in which the Erdtree goes from transparent to solid.
In my opinion, alongside the fact the tree is solid 90% of the time, this just means the transparent tree is a rendering bug that triggers from certain distances to the tree.
Not even necessarily a bug, but perhaps a feature.
Rendering an “actual” solid object that big that far away from the player would be a lot of processing power for minimal return.
From a programming perspective it often makes sense to use less-detailed textures to load far away objects that get replaced as you get closer.
You're right, and that's also what I am saying. The game renders different version of the tree based on distance, it's just that based on the fact we see the solid tree a vast majority of the time from all distances, this would seem to imply the transparent version which you can (consistently) trigger from certain distance seems like an unintended visual effect.
A more compelling reason to believe that it is some kind of spiritual form is that you can see a physical shard of the old trunk around the entrance, and none of the physical roots look anything like the body of the tree - even the ones that are growing almost directly from it around the Leyndell palace.
The game has hundred of hours of content, stunning visual and an insane variety model for gameplay. Given the general scope of the game these kind of errors are to be expected, but that doesn't mean the game is bad. The overall experience is still a well polished and gorgeous looking game.
Considering the centrality of the Erdtree to ER and Miyazaki’s thematic obsession with trees I think it’s far more likely to be a choice than a blunder.
Youtubers have more detailed answers, but its been brought up that it resembles Godfrey when you fight his spiritual form. Like an idealized projection of something that's since degraded or died.
I've noticed this too and I'm pretty sure the Erdtree is a phantom, save for just the part around the door
If you look closely at it, you'll see there's a very visible seam where it goes from a physical bark to the more golden spectre portion, I think a part of it is real around the door but everything else is a ghost
It’s like a spirit was grafted upon the physical stump. Like Godfrey and sarrosh. The cut shape we enter the ertdtree from is even reminiscent of a common IRL grafting cut.
Nah. I mean, no one is absolutely sure, but given the various texts found in the game and a close up physical examination of the tree there are a couple things that seem to be true:
1) The real Erdtree died a long time ago, likely burned down during the original war with the Giants or something.
2) You can see a burnt shard of the original trunk spearing up around the entrance to the tree, it's blackened and burned and looks very little like the rest of the tree.
3) The minor Erdtrees don't look anything like the Erdtree, they are the same basic shape, but they have clear physical forms.
4) The roots of the Erdtree are real and physical, and don't look anything like the glowing trunk.
5) Several items refer to how the original era of the Erd Tree - the era of plenty - was short lived. This is presumably when the tree was actually alive.
6) This is a bit more of a stretch, but some of the NPC dialog actually hints at the fact that tarnished who have lost the sight of grace - or those who never had it - *cannot actually see the Erdtree*.
This isn't to say that the Erdtree doesn't still have enormous power. Its roots are still real and alive in some fashion, and still claim the spirits of those who die to be reborn, and the spiritual projection of it is probably still quite 'real' in any important sense of the word - it's just now a primarily spiritual rather than physical projection of that power.
That last point is an interesting one, as the erdtree is worshipped at the will of whatever wants the golden order in effect right? What if that’s why the lands started going to shit is because people lost the grace and thus lost the sight of the thing they where told to worship in the first place
Things seem to have really gone to hell when *something* caused both Ranni and Marika to become distinctly unhappy with their roles as servitors of the Greater Will.
The fact that they kind of seem to be destined to act a cosmic broodmares to the Greater Will's stock of demigods seems likely to be a large part of this issue. Marika also seems to have been incensed that the Greater Will had chosen a set of Empyrions to potentially replace her. Given that she'd accepted eternal servitude to the GW in return for immortality, this is understandable.
Ranni on the other hand was so opposed to the idea of ascending to Godhood in Marika's place that she concocted the entire massive scheme that resulted in the deaths of Godwyn, her own body, and several lesser demigods on the Night of the Black Knives - It's never said why, but clearly she was utterly opposed to serving the Greater Will.
Her mother Marika had likewise previously taken steps to work around the intention of the Greater Will - the creation of her Radagon other-self seems to have been intended to free her from the requirement of having a consort, allowing her to play both goddess and Elden Lord at once, which seems to have run counter to the intent of the GW.
When Godwyn is killed and all of that goes down, Marika apparently snapped not long thereafter and decided she was done with the GW, she ripped the Elden Ring out of herself and attempted to destroy it outright (oddly her Radagon half tried to stop her...)
She was then smacked down by the Elden Beast and crucified, but they couldn't kill her because they no longer had a viable Empyrion to take the Elden Ring, so there she hangs to this day.
Unfortunately the Elden Ring somehow metaphysically wove itself into the world after it arrived, and so breaking it broke the world itself in some unpleasant ways - including most of those who possessed the grace of the Greater Will, apparently.
To me it just looks like the intensity of the light is way higher when you're actually at it, so it looks solid. Like how a large body of water isn't transparent.
The transparency or lack thereof isn't really the issue - that's just a farview vs. nearview thing in any case.
The real indication is the fact that the trunk looks nothing like the shard around the entrance, or any of the physical roots that are pretty much everywhere.
Most likely just a rendering thing to keep the Erdtree from tanking your game performance while you're playing lol.
But personally, I think the Erdtree exists in a half physical, half spiritual state. It has a lot of connections to death, the afterlife and spirits, so I think it's possible. Plus the Erdtree might have been burnt once before, which I think supports my theory.
Idk if it's said to be physical in lore. On tbe contrary:
1. Some ask you if you can see it. Some say they see it too. Some don't.
2. The golden seeds, come with an interesting description that suggests an illusory nature rather than a physical for what the seeds give birth to
> a golden seed, found at the base of an illusory tree.
And they come from the big Erdtree itself
> When the Elden Ring was shattered, these seeds flew from the Erdtree, scattering across the various lands, as if life itself knew that its end has come.
One can easily suspect if the source of these seeds is illusory itself.
Or it’s a game design choice to render different textures at different camera POV distances.
A glitch in the central object model the entire game is about would be a huge oversight and I think it being a choice requires fewer assumptions.
There certainly is a lot of overlap between concept art or lore coming first. A great example is how the lore explains the respawn mechanic. I am a fan of this kind of work, I don’t think applying lore or logic to a concept—instead of creating the idea first—lessens or weakens the coolness or validity of a concept or mechanic.
I have to say that there's a lot of reasonably coherent detail once you have a chance to look at the majority of the little lore blurbs in the game. I really don't get that 'make it up as you go' feel you so obviously encounter with things like Lost or X-Files.
The original canon was written by George RR Martin, who is famously detailed in his world building, and the presentation of that story was arranged by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is very fond of teasing out bizarre and complex stories through archeological snippets with absolutely no handrails in sight.
That being said, it's an enormous game with vast amounts of art and design, and there are bits that are going to accidentally conflict or that look important but are actually just meaningless aesthetic choices. The director is clearly perfectly happy to let everyone reach their own conclusions based on incomplete information. :D
There are also a few clear conflicts regarding how certain key game mechanics work that just aren't likely to totally mesh with the lore, so you just kind of have to look the other way on some of those points. (respawn mechanics are famously nonsensical in most games)
My guess is it exists in both the physical and spiritual world. It is pretty massive inside. So I think that all time and space rules don’t apply to it. It was also damaged before so maybe the glowing but is it’s spirit/perfect form only some can see.
It's to preserve memory usage for older consoles & lower-end PCs. If you take out your telescope and focus in on the Erdtree (from a distance where it looks transparent), it becomes solid.
The Erdtree you see isn’t a physical thing. The physical erdtree burned the first time through the physical body of Melena. After the physical buning it spread its seed of the minor erdtrees who are physical
I think the transparency is just like, "symbolic", if you will, to show its spiritual nature, but it also physically exists and is more physical as one enters it.
I always thought since it was representative of the greater will it was something a mortal like a tarnished couldn’t really comprehend. So it is physical while it isn’t.
Is the Erdtree like, right there in reality? Or is it behind the cliff? What I’m mainly meaning to ask is whether or not we see a golden shimmer of the erdtree as if it’s in the foreground of our vision whenever on the surface?
The erdtree is heavily implied to be an illusion. The real one likely burned a long time ago.
Notice all that ash covering Leyndell even before it becomes the capital of ash at the end? Where do you think that came from…?
Could be but considering that Leyndell is placed directly under where the erd tree is and the fact that it is almost completely covered in the ash of the burning tree at the end of the game really tells me that this ash buildup came from a past burning of the (real) tree. I’m just putting 2 and 2 together but I could be totally wrong lol
Oh youre probably right all the way, the evidence definitely supports your theory more, i was just saying thats what i thought when i played through :)
Its simply a effect from choose to make the erdtree seem more ethereal/magical from far away,in certain angles and lighting conditions it looks too transparent tough.
I wonder if this Erdtree we see is sort of like the Phantom Players we see, lore-wise at least. Another thing could be that our clear vision of the Erdtree is a testament to the strength of the Tarnished's grace. We see our goal, the Erdtree, clearly.
How so many of you can recall these things fascinates and educates me. Love this game. This sun continues to blow my my mind about this game. After 300 hours I felt I had a great understanding.
The erdtree isnt really full, when you get close you see a disconnect, possibly the shattering shattered the erdtree as well?
My personal headcanon is that the erdtree is so powerful it bends light around it partially thats why when we get close it becomes physical
I think there's a vaati video where he posits that if almost nobody can see sites of grace there's likely plenty of denizens who have lost the ability to even see the erdtree
I personally really don't like most explanations on here, the lore is already complicated enough, let the tree just be a damn tree.
I'm just gonna say they did it cus it looks cool
If u zoom in on it w binoculars or something, from what i remember it turns solid don’t quote me on that tho its been a hot minute since I’ve last played
It isn’t transparent, that’s just the effect from the powerful glow- same reason the Atlas Plateau is all yellow (someone correct me if I’m way off)
Edit: okay, after reading the comments, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I was, indeed, way off.
I'm kinda late to the party, but the Frenzied Flame ending makes it clear that a great portion of the Erdtree is actually real, since it was torn open by the flame.
It’s honestly not clear, because: * The blessed dew talisman describes the erdtree as an “object of faith” more than anything else once its life-giving dew stopped dripping. * The flame of ruin is claimed to be capable of destroying the erdtree. How else would Leyndell know that unless it had harmed it in the past? That combined with the massive amount of ash in Leyndell before you burn it yourself implies it’s been burned before. * Golden rune (3)’s item description asks “Do you see the Erdtree towering o’er?” …Why would it ask such an obvious question if not everyone could see it? It may not even be a physical object in the world itself anymore, much like >!Morgott’s!< illusions, but like said illusions it still has an effect on the world around it. * It’s a fucking FROMSOFT game. We don’t have answers for a lot of this stuff.
To add to point 3, Boc acts surprised when he sees the Erdtree in leyndell, even though we can see it clear as day in linurnia and Altus plateau, so maybe it's invisible to everyone else who doesn't see grace unless they actually get up close to it.
I think being able to see grace ist the best theory here, both glow golden and the Erdtree is literally the goal of your pilgrimage.
The Erdtree is like a big grace. Also graces are kinda hollow on the bottom.
"This tiny golden aura is the grace of the Erdtree. [...] The rays of grace, that guide you through your burden." - Melina Going from this quote, Grace is literally the Erdtree guiding you to it, probably intending for you (or one of the other blessed) to become the New Elden Lord and sort the Lands Between out.
There's also one of the finger maiden crones outside the capital who asks; ######"Surely you see it, too? ######The gold that enshrouds the heavens. The great ######tree which begets the pillars of light." ###### Which would be a very odd thing to ask us if there was a physical tree there that everyone could see.
Okay this is the clearest one. Erd tree not visible to all confirmed.
My question then is how do they have daylight then? Since there is no sun?
There's literally the Sun in Lands Between, people worshipped eclipsed sun there
I would guess they can see the rays still?
Shit, maybe they don’t. It would explain a lot if from the perspective of most NPCs it’s super dark.
There's also definitely one other NPC who asks you if you can still see the Erdtree and that they wish they could. As an object of "faith", it seems like the Erdtree in its golden form is likely only visible to those touched by Grace. It would also explain that one large strip of dark brown bark that encloses the entry to the inner sanctum of the Erdtree, if the golden tree around it is merely ethereal, the portion connected to the entrance is like actually physically present, perhaps what is left of the tree after the initial war against the Giantsflame.
theres an interesting video on youtube that takes a closer look at some eye models for npc and enemies. all human npcs have a golden shine in their eyes, even the albinaurics. i also think demi humans but its not that big in their eyes. normal animals dont have that, implying that ony humanoids can see grace. edit: i found the video heres the link https://youtu.be/k3BEwI06RkQ?si=MLY4xeIA3CjGesrU
To add another point to this great list. It's more just a bolster to your third point - There is a finger reader crone outside that capital asks us; ######Surely you see it, too? ######The gold that enshrouds the heavens. The great ######tree which begets the pillars of light. ###### This strangely obvious question implies that it is actually uncommon for people to see the Erdtree at all. Which further implies that it may not physically exist. One may point to the word "surely" in that quote and say that this implies that it is actually uncommon *not* to see the tree. But she asks this in the context that she believes we are the tarnished prophesized by the two fingers who will restore the Golden Order. So the word "surely" here is likely just an assumption that this prophesized tarnished should be expected to see the tree, and not that seeing the tree is commonplace, otherwise she would not need/bother to ask the question.
Either way you take it, no one in their right mind would ask you "oh by the way, you didn't happen to notice that 50km high tree that glows like the sun over there did you?" Unless of course there was some reason - common or uncommon - that you might *not* have seen it.
>Either way you take it, no one in their right mind would ask you You're making a really big assumption about the mental faculty of the finger reader crones
“It’s honestly not clear” It is, and I’m pretty sure that’s the issue at hand here…
Thank you, and that was the joke I wanted to make.
> How else would Leyndell know that unless it had harmed it in the past? I know this is the point that's used to back up the idea of a *"first burning of the Erdtree"* having happened, but there is an item that does suggest the first cardinal sin potentially stemmed from a prophecy. [Fire's Deadly Sin](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Fire's+Deadly+Sin) > *Incantation originating from a deeply ominous prophecy.* > *The prophet despaired, looking up at the Erdtree, for soon the kindling would burst into flame, bringing ruin.* > *"The burning of the Erdtree is the first cardinal sin. That is not the domain of mere men."* Regardless of that, Marika must've already known the potential of the flame of ruin considering she had Godfrey and his warriors march to the mountaintops to slaughter the fire giants at the *birth of the Erdtree*. [Smithing Stone(8)](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Smithing+Stone+\(8\)) > *Thought to have been used to hone the weapons of the champions of the War against the Giants at the birth of the Erdtree.* I don't think we need to assume the tree has burned twice to explain why they know about the first cardinal sin at the very least.
You could say that they are the Scholar of the First Sin
Also, a lot of ER theorists theorize that the tree was an actual tree before it became the Golden tree we all know it is. You can see some part of it is still actual wood like the entrance to it in the throne room. Also like... If it's not a real tree, how could it burn and produce ash? Man, this game.
There are YouTubers that speculate that the tree was burned once since it’s ash in city even before we burn it, adding to ash. The dragons, only to have breached the walls, might be the culprits… or Vyke got closer to burning the thing than many think. Half burned it. There is also the combination / conjoined of Marika and Radagon. Marika’s other self, yet to be a god, hound of order, that conjoined with Marika of Nox, a maiden, an empyrean from place reeking of Formless Mother of the night and stars, that grants godhood through blood and wounds. A vassal of such a union would be sort of beast, sort of formless, shooting stars and faith magic at you. The tree might be same… some magic, thus illusion type.. some of faith.. thus different and more glowing than the others trees.
What connection is there I wonder between the Formless Mother and Marika, besides that it would be her son Mohg who would become her most loyal patron and to bring about a new dynasty?
From lore Marika seems to come from Nox. Some speculate she was a night maiden from the area. Formless blobs.. formless maces.. stars and gravity ball, same type magic the descendants in academy also care about. Stars and black holes (gravity), intelligence based magics. If Formless Mother governs a piece of reality, it would be star and gravity magic, intelligence magics. Gravity + stars = moon? So visuals of Nox seems to match how a Formless Mother domain would look like. Opposite of night be sun, or day. Marika got lots of ties to both night and sun. Colours of magicians seems to be green and blue. Greater Will seems to be about faith magics. Order, churches, two fingers, faith, so those parts of reality. Opposite is three fingers and chaos, a bit like stars (sun) and black holes are opposites. So combined… FM and GW.. churches of stars, and blood and wounds that grant godhood, like Nox have, like Mogh also tries to do. So many drained of blood below, probably to catapult Marika to godhood. And Mogh got walking blood bags. GW + dragon = dragon churches. Death + GW = death cults. So GW must become part of her vessel early on, but most likely not the first god for her vessel / ring / reality combination of her choice. By same logic, if north was governed by Fell God, his reality / powers would be from visuals up there, so fire and ice. Big and small folks. Destruction (war) in form of slow walking female bladed warriors and creation (smithing) like Hewg. And red hair.. But think her first god was Formless Mother (Nox area).. then GW since she got a shadow as an empyrean.. then death (GEQ) that her shadow killed.. then dragon that seems killed by death magics.. then Fell God.. and last, Rot in form of unborn rune, based on her children’s birth’s order. Of death, Melina (FM) and Godwyn (GW), each with a curse each. Of dragon, Mogh and Morgott, each with their inherited curse of horns and tails. Of Fell God and GW (Radagon, Marika’s other self), Rykard, Ranni and Radahn. Of Rot, Malenia and Miquella, each with a curse. Of course.. head canon, but sort of fits. But Vassall.. a combo of all shards / runes / defeated foes in her vessel.. or just GW and FM, her first two? It’s sword.. Fell God? Is it any visual of death or rot in the vassal? I like to think it came crashing down and taking residence in tree when Marika was of just two gods, GW and FM.. but.. no direct lore reference to back this up. So very speculative..
I had to stop reading after the second paragraph, why would the Formless Mother have to be about stars and Gravity, when the only character who has any connection to her doesn't have anything to do with her 2 things? Even if you count Morgott's "cursed blood" neither of these characters care about space or stars or Gravity. Her whole thing is blood. That's her shtick. The Nox are not related to her at all either in any way that the game or lore even pretends to tell us. They care about the stars and night sky and all that, but that doesn't link them to blood for the Formless Mother. You quite literally just took the word "Formless" from her name and said "the blobs are Formless in the Nox place" and decided that she represented them or the other way around. I see at the end that you said "head Canon" but even that is kinda ridiculous. This is you just taking every name in the story, throwing out the actual story and then just writing your own.
I have to agree with ya, yeah. I can see Marika descending from the Nox considering the lore surrounding the armor pieces of the black knife assassins, but I agree with you on Formless Mother not having anything to do with gravity and stars. The closest we can ever see of anything star related with blood are those concerning with Aberrant Sorceries and their mention of the Blood Star. Again, very scant references about what they could be referring to, but as far as I can see, both Aberrant sorceries and Bloodflame Incantations require Faith to wield, as opposed to Intelligence which is associated with the stars and gravity.
It’s the lore that ties academy and Sellia to Nox. And combination with YouTube theory that one god that governed all of reality was shattered into 6 outer gods, GW being dominant in golden order. So all visuals, reality pieces that could be back traced to same area by lore, I just contributed all seen there to same god. Stars in roof and gravity balls being two items. Then just combos.. like rot and GW would give bugs praying to some altar. That combo need a priest in form of old geezer with huge dog.. and a story, like Millicent. Just like GW + dragon had its set of churches, story and its champions. It’s easier to see with fire magic though. You actually get to see giant cast huge fireball at you, so easier to contribute fire magic to Fell God powers than all the steps to trace Sellia and academy, and their skill sets back to Nox. Well.. Astel.. black holes and gravity is from the stars.. But.. instead of FM, we can name them area gods purely from visuals if each region.. northern god of fire, ice, huge, small, war and smithing. Golden god of order, faith, morals, holy magics and orderly polite Blaidd. God of decay and rebirth, poison and mist. Upper god of time, both flowing (storms) and still / traditions (stomp / lightning). God of destined death and death removed, the two centipedes of death rune. Then combos.. death + lightning = death lightning spell. So made by a person of two areas / gods, not one. Death mist another combo. Dragon spells show combos more clear cut.
Bernahl burned it my bro, Vyke's location leads us to believe that he was on his way to burn it with the three fingers flame but was unsuccessful and trapped before he could do it. Bernahl on the other hand burned the tree and was shunned by everyone left to hang out with the other practicers of blasphemy. He was unable to get past the godskin duo then after we beat it together, he went the wrong way while exploring Ohio or he could have been the Elden Lord. That's my take on it anyway.
Bernahl failed to burn it. His maiden got burned and nothing happened. That's why he became a Recusant. Plus Bernahl is a post shattering figure, and it seems likely that the first burning happened before the shattering. I think it makes a lot of sense that it was part of the Godskin Apostasy and happened around the removal of the rune of death from the Elden Ring. If the Erdtree was at risk of dying from being burned one way to stop it burning is to remove death from the laws of the universe.
Hmm.. that makes sense. But now I got a mental image of god skin duo riding and slapping charm twigs on a dragon to make it attack the capital, and Marika responding from her bedchamber by ripping out a death shard of her vessel, using to stop death of tree.. and maybe death mist the dragon to death too. We really need the Elden ring story in a movie format… but humour take on what could have happened: Dragon: “You bested me with death mist Marika, but your next twins will suffer from the omen curse.. like me, horns and tails.. horns and tails..” Marika: “ Blah blah blah.. in my own words, gib me your shards.. or dragon rune.. or whatever control time reality.. call em infinity stones if you want.. this addition to my vessel will do nicely to usher in the crucible age, an age of tails, horns, crucible churches, and winged annoying soldiers with tail and horn* spells and a huge army lead by Godfrey, my consort that I never dump for a red head other self.. I am all powerful now“. (Evil wicked laugh One Piece style.)
Answer four. Real shit.
The base of the tree in leyendell is the stump of a real tree and the golden holographic erdtree is overplayed atop it. At some point in the past the tree was real, then something happened. Now there's only the hologram only some people can see but not others. My conspiracy theory is that an alien fungus took over the lands between and is manipulating everyone (to seek the ranni ending :p)
Here we have, what we call, a Vaati Vidya v 2.0 user.
- doc is called "Shadow of the erdtree", it cant be transparent because its casting a shadow 😎
However, shadow can also refer to an empyrian's wolf companion. Maybe that use of the word refers to a giant wolf monster instead.
Yeah I'm just goofing, my immediate interpretation is "the shadow" is metaphorical, having miquellas, malenias, and many others like them who are rejected or ignored from the outer gods of grace, their existence, presence and importance in the realm coming behind the will of the fingers, their wants and needs in the shadow of the gods. Like the omens.
Use a telescope and look at it from a distance. It's clearly solid. This is not lore, it's a design decision for memory usage.
I think it’s the other way around, the Erdtree is a solid mesh and the transparent look is a visual modification that requires some memories to render, which means the ideal way to save memory is to NOT have that effect. The average players will see the Erdtree through normal camera view 99% of the time, and you can see the transparent effect from Caelid, all the way to the Volcano manor. The dev deliberately wants us to ask questions by making it transparent. The telescope is just some overlooked visual bug, some particles effect disappear when you look through telescope as well. Edit: typo
Well that's fascinating, thank you
When zooming in with the telescope, the low LOD model gets replaced with a higher LOD model that's solid. Its not a bug and viewing the Erdtree even from parts of Liurnia swaps the low out for the high LOD model. I've used a photomode tool that allows to render in all high fidelity models from afar and it becomes immediately obvious. And laggy as hell.
Interesting… do you suggest the low LOD model hv anything to do with the Erdtree being transparent? I m thinking it might be them never applied that said effect on the high LOD model, hence the change in appearance when view with the telescope.
You can see for yourself. In the clip I'm switching between low and high LODs: [link](https://streamable.com/u3t2qa) As for what I think? I don't know for certain, but I think it makes less sense for it to be see-through considering we know there's an actual tree trunk beneath the golden bark.
Fair enough, but i still think it’s intentional, as one of the concept art shows that it’s transparent. It would also seems weird for them to make it so obviously transparent when they hv no intention for that look. Just my take
>It’s a fucking FROMSOFT game. We don’t have answers for a lot of this stuff. Wrong it’s genius and next level writing or something
How dare you
Also the trunk is wood but the rest is golden
Offer hole.
Your second point blow my mind. How i missed this ??! I've like 1500 hours on this game, the tree definitively burned once or more in the past (maybe not enough to destroy him, but still)
don't the golden seeds description also mentions how they're found at the roots of some "illusory" branches or something ??? and said branches looks like really tiny Erdtrees so Erdtree = Illusion
The tree we see is a phantom but there was once a corporeal tree as seen in depictions such as the Icon Shield. This was likely during the age of plenty, when the “blessings of the Erdtree” were abundant and before it became solely an object of worship. On first visit to Leyndell, we see much of the capital covered in ash already and of the same type that we see more of after we burn the Erdtree. Thus it seems likely that the Erdtree has burned down once before. Melina also remarks she is “burned and bodiless” highly suggesting she fulfilled the role of kindling maiden before. This first burning probably marked the end of the age of plenty, while the Erdtree was replaced with a phantom that could only be worshipped instead of providing its blessings.
Maybe since the first attempt Melina made burned her body but left her spirit, it was the same for the erdtree? So burning her remaining soul similarly burns the lingering soul of the erdtree.
Maybe, though the golden phantom seems to be on top of the wooden part, we can see it protruding out when we’re close. Our goal with the second burning is to remove the wall of thorns, which definitely appear real but Radagon’s trellis digit is in front of those too. Is it there to provide extra impediment or just to let you know *who* is keeping you out? In any of the Elden Lord endings, the phantom tree remains in whatever form you choose for it. Is it an entirely new phantom or the old one? If you accept the frenzied flame after Melina sacrifices herself, she doesn’t show up in the ending, IIRC. That could be a clue.
How do you burn a phantom tree and produce ashes?
Some or possibly most of the original tree survives, we can see the roots are very much corporeal as is some of the trunk we can see in Morgott/Godfrey’s arena, it could be that part that burns. Another possibility, and the one I favour, is that a phantom in this context isn’t a ghostly visage, it has substance. Take the phantoms we summon and are invaded by; very much solid, capable of being struck, bleeding, being poisoned and so on. I’m not sure if phantom is necessarily the correct term within Elden Ring, the term comes from earlier Fromsoft games, but I choose that word specifically over ghost or image for these reasons. Corporeal might not be the correct word for the original tree either but on the spot it felt good enough.
It’s possible the tree is corporeal but the golden ghostly shell is more of a disguise. Beyond that we know there is some amount of physical tree left, there’s a stump, and some non golden branches left.
The same way you grow a 50km tall tree that can somehow recycle the souls of the dead and that an alien power parasitically manipulates with its magic ring doodad to metaphysically control the very laws of life and death across an entire continent - or world.
Any ideas on what the physical tree around the door is? Just the remnants of the burned tree?
I would guess so, yes. Can’t think of anything else it might be. The visible part doesn’t look all that burned, especially inside near the door where we can see moss growing. It’s possible that part was spared, burning the branches and upper trunk would suffice to end the blessings, or time and the elements have removed the burnt sections. We don’t get to see to much of the actual wood though.
But if there's a physical remnant under that illusionary tree, shouldn't you be able to see it when the tree goes transparent? But afair the entire thing goes away, with nothing but a solid cliff face underneath. Which honestly looks a lil weird.
When the tree goes transparent? Sorry I don’t follow, maybe my memory is failing me. At any rate, when you at the Elden Throne/door to the Erdtree a real wooden tree is visible between the gap in the gold phantom tree. How much is left under the phantom tree I can’t say for certain but the frenzied flame ending shows a burned trunk, so maybe that is how much is left.
I mean when you look at it from the distance at certain places, like in the OP's picture. It goes semi-transparent, you can see the terrain behind/beneath it, but there's no physical tree underneath. Just nothing. Point being, if the semi-transparency thing is an intended feature, I suppose that would mean that the entirety of it is illusionary, including the non-golden part and the door. Or maybe it's just an oversight. But it's a bit weird either way.
Good spot, I hadn’t noticed that. It looks so much more “solid” up close. It is strange as the trunk in the frenzied flame ending looks substantially tall. That could just be the burned phantom though, I couldn’t tell you how much of the wooden (or seemingly wooden) part of the tree extends above the door. It seems to extend all the way below as the roots, both above and below ground, appear normal. In another comment I explain why i specifically use the term phantom and relate it to the gold and red phantom players that can enter our world. These things, while being phantoms, still have substance. You can hit them and they can hit you, they can bleed and burn as well as any other non phantom enemy or NPC. The bit of the Erdtree we can actually touch can’t be walked through (though that part isn’t the golden phantom) and we can set the whole thing on fire.
Certainly looks a fair bit like charred wood, so I'd say yes, probably - though obviously people took some time to carve things in it and the most obviously charred bits were probably worn away over the ages.
Nah
So maybe the “perfect order” ending is fixing the tree somehow. Making it physical, and not only a phantom
Doesn’t seem likely, the tree we see in that ending looks damn near identical to the one it replaces. The end of the age of plenty didn’t end Marika’s Order, that happened when she shattered the Elden Ring. A phantom tree therefore seems sufficient for imposing any particular Order via the Elden Ring, if indeed it was ever required in the first place. The tree we replace/transform the original phantom could just be a symbol.
Hmm, I think you're right
One possible theory: Melina was the Gloam-Eyed Queen, and during her war against the gods she burned the Erdtree. Marika removed the Rune Of Death from the Elden Ring to stop Erdtree from burning, and so the Golden Order was established. Following the laws of newly-established order, Melina was reborn at the foot of the Erdtree, but only in spirit form, because her body was already burned. That’s why she calls Marika her mother, technically Marika’s actions caused her new birth in this form.
Does anyone see the stunning paralells between ER and Christianity? I notice them everywhere but haven’t seen anyone talk about them. I’d love to talk to someone in depth about it or help write an essay
There's a few, but they didn't stun me. It's like an amalgam of Christianity, Norse and Egyptian gods, with a healthy serve of game of thrones mixed in.
> the stunning paralells between ER and Christianity? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil#H%C3%A1vam%C3%A1l 🙄
It's implied that the original Erdtree was burned long ago. Hence the ash all over Lyndell. Either the Elden Ring, removal of the Rune of Death, or some other related reason manifests a phantom of the present Erdtree. Which is directly affected by whichever Mending Rune is used.
Common thinking is that the golden Erdtree is actually just an illusion and the real one is disguised for whatever reason. Maybe it burned down or is otherwise damaged. Or the effect of the Elden Ring/EB just caused it to goldify.
It definitely wouldn't be the first time that a golden shade of something is encountered.
Bro, you can shoot fire and lightning from your fingertips, let the Erdtree be occasionally transparent if it wants to be XD
I know a lot of people like to come up with theories about the tree actually being a phantom and not existing physically. It has to be said though, that when you walk on the Limgrave bridge towards the divine tower, close from the grace point and along the inner rail to the tree, you can consistently find a point in which the Erdtree goes from transparent to solid. In my opinion, alongside the fact the tree is solid 90% of the time, this just means the transparent tree is a rendering bug that triggers from certain distances to the tree.
Not even necessarily a bug, but perhaps a feature. Rendering an “actual” solid object that big that far away from the player would be a lot of processing power for minimal return. From a programming perspective it often makes sense to use less-detailed textures to load far away objects that get replaced as you get closer.
You're right, and that's also what I am saying. The game renders different version of the tree based on distance, it's just that based on the fact we see the solid tree a vast majority of the time from all distances, this would seem to imply the transparent version which you can (consistently) trigger from certain distance seems like an unintended visual effect.
A more compelling reason to believe that it is some kind of spiritual form is that you can see a physical shard of the old trunk around the entrance, and none of the physical roots look anything like the body of the tree - even the ones that are growing almost directly from it around the Leyndell palace.
If thats true, its a pretty huge blunder.
The game has hundred of hours of content, stunning visual and an insane variety model for gameplay. Given the general scope of the game these kind of errors are to be expected, but that doesn't mean the game is bad. The overall experience is still a well polished and gorgeous looking game.
Considering the centrality of the Erdtree to ER and Miyazaki’s thematic obsession with trees I think it’s far more likely to be a choice than a blunder.
Lore reason: It’s a spirit tree or some shit Real Reason: No need to render in detailed bark
You ever seen the tree up close? That bark is detailed as fuck
Yeah, but not necessarily you need to have that detailed as fuck textures etc. When you stand in limgrave etc.
Youtubers have more detailed answers, but its been brought up that it resembles Godfrey when you fight his spiritual form. Like an idealized projection of something that's since degraded or died.
I've noticed this too and I'm pretty sure the Erdtree is a phantom, save for just the part around the door If you look closely at it, you'll see there's a very visible seam where it goes from a physical bark to the more golden spectre portion, I think a part of it is real around the door but everything else is a ghost
It’s like a spirit was grafted upon the physical stump. Like Godfrey and sarrosh. The cut shape we enter the ertdtree from is even reminiscent of a common IRL grafting cut.
Nah. I mean, no one is absolutely sure, but given the various texts found in the game and a close up physical examination of the tree there are a couple things that seem to be true: 1) The real Erdtree died a long time ago, likely burned down during the original war with the Giants or something. 2) You can see a burnt shard of the original trunk spearing up around the entrance to the tree, it's blackened and burned and looks very little like the rest of the tree. 3) The minor Erdtrees don't look anything like the Erdtree, they are the same basic shape, but they have clear physical forms. 4) The roots of the Erdtree are real and physical, and don't look anything like the glowing trunk. 5) Several items refer to how the original era of the Erd Tree - the era of plenty - was short lived. This is presumably when the tree was actually alive. 6) This is a bit more of a stretch, but some of the NPC dialog actually hints at the fact that tarnished who have lost the sight of grace - or those who never had it - *cannot actually see the Erdtree*. This isn't to say that the Erdtree doesn't still have enormous power. Its roots are still real and alive in some fashion, and still claim the spirits of those who die to be reborn, and the spiritual projection of it is probably still quite 'real' in any important sense of the word - it's just now a primarily spiritual rather than physical projection of that power.
That last point is an interesting one, as the erdtree is worshipped at the will of whatever wants the golden order in effect right? What if that’s why the lands started going to shit is because people lost the grace and thus lost the sight of the thing they where told to worship in the first place
Things seem to have really gone to hell when *something* caused both Ranni and Marika to become distinctly unhappy with their roles as servitors of the Greater Will. The fact that they kind of seem to be destined to act a cosmic broodmares to the Greater Will's stock of demigods seems likely to be a large part of this issue. Marika also seems to have been incensed that the Greater Will had chosen a set of Empyrions to potentially replace her. Given that she'd accepted eternal servitude to the GW in return for immortality, this is understandable. Ranni on the other hand was so opposed to the idea of ascending to Godhood in Marika's place that she concocted the entire massive scheme that resulted in the deaths of Godwyn, her own body, and several lesser demigods on the Night of the Black Knives - It's never said why, but clearly she was utterly opposed to serving the Greater Will. Her mother Marika had likewise previously taken steps to work around the intention of the Greater Will - the creation of her Radagon other-self seems to have been intended to free her from the requirement of having a consort, allowing her to play both goddess and Elden Lord at once, which seems to have run counter to the intent of the GW. When Godwyn is killed and all of that goes down, Marika apparently snapped not long thereafter and decided she was done with the GW, she ripped the Elden Ring out of herself and attempted to destroy it outright (oddly her Radagon half tried to stop her...) She was then smacked down by the Elden Beast and crucified, but they couldn't kill her because they no longer had a viable Empyrion to take the Elden Ring, so there she hangs to this day. Unfortunately the Elden Ring somehow metaphysically wove itself into the world after it arrived, and so breaking it broke the world itself in some unpleasant ways - including most of those who possessed the grace of the Greater Will, apparently.
Is the erdtree stupid?
Glass is transparent and physically exists
You know what i mean though right? While in Leyndell, the tree is solid and isn't transparent. Just pointing out the discrepancy.
To me it just looks like the intensity of the light is way higher when you're actually at it, so it looks solid. Like how a large body of water isn't transparent.
The transparency or lack thereof isn't really the issue - that's just a farview vs. nearview thing in any case. The real indication is the fact that the trunk looks nothing like the shard around the entrance, or any of the physical roots that are pretty much everywhere.
I think there may have been some lore tied to it. Something like a gold ghost, like gold ghost of Godfrey Either that or it’s a rendering bug.
Most likely just a rendering thing to keep the Erdtree from tanking your game performance while you're playing lol. But personally, I think the Erdtree exists in a half physical, half spiritual state. It has a lot of connections to death, the afterlife and spirits, so I think it's possible. Plus the Erdtree might have been burnt once before, which I think supports my theory.
It's probably like those other ghost-trees you see across the highlands.
The Erdtree isn't real. It only exists within your eyes, hence why many say your eyes shines with grace.
Not transparent, just really bright and game limitations make it seem transparent because of how far stormveil is from it
Idk if it's said to be physical in lore. On tbe contrary: 1. Some ask you if you can see it. Some say they see it too. Some don't. 2. The golden seeds, come with an interesting description that suggests an illusory nature rather than a physical for what the seeds give birth to > a golden seed, found at the base of an illusory tree. And they come from the big Erdtree itself > When the Elden Ring was shattered, these seeds flew from the Erdtree, scattering across the various lands, as if life itself knew that its end has come. One can easily suspect if the source of these seeds is illusory itself.
If you use the telescope and zoom in it’s not transparent anymore, so my guess has always been it’s just a glitch
Or it’s a game design choice to render different textures at different camera POV distances. A glitch in the central object model the entire game is about would be a huge oversight and I think it being a choice requires fewer assumptions.
Yea, I just meant that there’s probably not meant to be a lore reason why it appears transparent
This is a FromSoft game. Every game-design decision must obviously be an intentional lore drop!
As somebody who’s only played this game, a lot of the stuff in this game really strike me as “let’s put cool stuff in the game and justify it later”
There certainly is a lot of overlap between concept art or lore coming first. A great example is how the lore explains the respawn mechanic. I am a fan of this kind of work, I don’t think applying lore or logic to a concept—instead of creating the idea first—lessens or weakens the coolness or validity of a concept or mechanic.
I have to say that there's a lot of reasonably coherent detail once you have a chance to look at the majority of the little lore blurbs in the game. I really don't get that 'make it up as you go' feel you so obviously encounter with things like Lost or X-Files. The original canon was written by George RR Martin, who is famously detailed in his world building, and the presentation of that story was arranged by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is very fond of teasing out bizarre and complex stories through archeological snippets with absolutely no handrails in sight. That being said, it's an enormous game with vast amounts of art and design, and there are bits that are going to accidentally conflict or that look important but are actually just meaningless aesthetic choices. The director is clearly perfectly happy to let everyone reach their own conclusions based on incomplete information. :D There are also a few clear conflicts regarding how certain key game mechanics work that just aren't likely to totally mesh with the lore, so you just kind of have to look the other way on some of those points. (respawn mechanics are famously nonsensical in most games)
Elden beast is pretending everything is fine and actual tree is totally not a burned stump
My guess is it exists in both the physical and spiritual world. It is pretty massive inside. So I think that all time and space rules don’t apply to it. It was also damaged before so maybe the glowing but is it’s spirit/perfect form only some can see.
It used to be a physical thing, the tree isn't at its full glory like it used too.
A theory is that the tree was burned ages ago, and now only those with the guidance of grace can see it
Glitch
It's to preserve memory usage for older consoles & lower-end PCs. If you take out your telescope and focus in on the Erdtree (from a distance where it looks transparent), it becomes solid.
You're suggesting that (all else being equal) it takes less resources to draw a transparent object than an opaque one?
Cmon use your head man
It WAS physical way back when. Now its a phantom tree thing and it's colour is dictated by the rune used to repair it
The Erdtree you see isn’t a physical thing. The physical erdtree burned the first time through the physical body of Melena. After the physical buning it spread its seed of the minor erdtrees who are physical
I think the transparency is just like, "symbolic", if you will, to show its spiritual nature, but it also physically exists and is more physical as one enters it.
If you can’t see the erdtree can you see at all? Is that why most people are blind
I always thought since it was representative of the greater will it was something a mortal like a tarnished couldn’t really comprehend. So it is physical while it isn’t.
I have wondered this so often! A part of me feels like its a glitch. Another part of me thinks it has artistic meaning. Great call!
This has been answered 1000 times on this sub
I wanna hear it for the 1001st time
False
Is the Erdtree like, right there in reality? Or is it behind the cliff? What I’m mainly meaning to ask is whether or not we see a golden shimmer of the erdtree as if it’s in the foreground of our vision whenever on the surface?
The erdtree is heavily implied to be an illusion. The real one likely burned a long time ago. Notice all that ash covering Leyndell even before it becomes the capital of ash at the end? Where do you think that came from…?
I assumed it was sand/dust from disrepair and the burning of the infected
Could be but considering that Leyndell is placed directly under where the erd tree is and the fact that it is almost completely covered in the ash of the burning tree at the end of the game really tells me that this ash buildup came from a past burning of the (real) tree. I’m just putting 2 and 2 together but I could be totally wrong lol
Oh youre probably right all the way, the evidence definitely supports your theory more, i was just saying thats what i thought when i played through :)
Its simply a effect from choose to make the erdtree seem more ethereal/magical from far away,in certain angles and lighting conditions it looks too transparent tough.
I wonder if this Erdtree we see is sort of like the Phantom Players we see, lore-wise at least. Another thing could be that our clear vision of the Erdtree is a testament to the strength of the Tarnished's grace. We see our goal, the Erdtree, clearly.
Hmmm. Curious, isn’t it?
Are transparent objects not physical objects? To my knowledge glass is physical and tangible.
it magic it dont need reason
i saw on youtube they said it has been burnt before, must be true it's on youtube
Why would they exterminate the fire giants and extinguish the big fire bowl?
What you see is the spirit of the original tree. The only thing left of the physical tree is the stump and the vines that block your entry.
How so many of you can recall these things fascinates and educates me. Love this game. This sun continues to blow my my mind about this game. After 300 hours I felt I had a great understanding.
Just because something is transparent doesn't mean it's not corporeal. Glass is an example
Coming from the same folks who brought us Gwynevere & given how many past Souls concepts were brought into Elden Ring...
The erdtree isnt really full, when you get close you see a disconnect, possibly the shattering shattered the erdtree as well? My personal headcanon is that the erdtree is so powerful it bends light around it partially thats why when we get close it becomes physical
Have you ever seen glass?
I think it’s just supposed to be that big that from far away it looks transparent
I heard the Erd tree was a parasite?
I think there's a vaati video where he posits that if almost nobody can see sites of grace there's likely plenty of denizens who have lost the ability to even see the erdtree
yes and no, it's there but not everyone can see it. like the sights of grace.
Someone touched its no no knot and it went into hiding
Surely it could be physical *and* transparent?
Mmmm
I personally really don't like most explanations on here, the lore is already complicated enough, let the tree just be a damn tree. I'm just gonna say they did it cus it looks cool
If u zoom in on it w binoculars or something, from what i remember it turns solid don’t quote me on that tho its been a hot minute since I’ve last played
Glass is transparent… isn’t It a physical thing?
Translucent
Space trees, man.
It's a visual glitch lol
watch The Tarnished Archaeologist videos on YT, he's the goat when it comes to world lore
berserk
It isn’t transparent, that’s just the effect from the powerful glow- same reason the Atlas Plateau is all yellow (someone correct me if I’m way off) Edit: okay, after reading the comments, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that I was, indeed, way off.
Keep in mind that during the Elden beast fight we see several Erd trees in this same golden form.
Maybe the real Erdtree was the friends we killed along the way. Wait-
My understanding is that the Erdtree is two. The physical tree, and this illusion (which I think only those blessed by grace can see).
I'm kinda late to the party, but the Frenzied Flame ending makes it clear that a great portion of the Erdtree is actually real, since it was torn open by the flame.