Among the various spiritual entities we encounter, revenants are perhaps the most grotesque. Not the kind encountered in evergaols, of course, but those lurking around graveyards and ruins bearing that same name. The royal servants among them are already alien with their second torso jutting out of the first, complete with an extra set of arms. Then there is the blue skin as if postmortem, occasionally riding atop even more corpse-like horses. But none are so monstrous as the actual royalty, these pale-skinned giants sprouting several new torsos to go with their five limbs, all the while their pelvis twists the wrong way around so they end up walking on all fours — or sevens, in this case — like some kind of insect. They possess the substance of the living, able to be poisoned, bled, and frozen; however, they are undoubtedly spirits of the dead. Much like creatures of the spirit world, revenants can credit their physicality to the density of spiritual energy they have absorbed. For them, it is cursed spirituality, otherwise known as wraiths.
Despite how the localization labels generic spirits (霊) for the game’s message system, “wraith” typically refers to a spirit which died whilst cursed. This “cursed spirit” (呪霊) functions like rancor, mindlessly attempting to destroy the living even at the destruction of itself. But unlike rancor, it doesn’t appear to be the specific state of a spirit reacting to external stimuli. Rather, the wraith seems to lack even a semblance of individuality, manifesting as nothing more than a sickly mass of black spiritual power with yellow aura. Compared to rancor which forms at least a skull, the wraith is little more than a living curse permanently bound to its grudge against people from the moment of death. In fact, that grudge is likely what inflicted the curse in the first place. In most circumstances where we see wraiths, it is because they are summoned with special bells, like other spirits. And yet, the locations of these summonings tend to be areas replete with death, especially the unjust kind which might breed deep resentment. In other words, the spirit may curse itself as it dies in a manner stewing such bitterness, more than passing rancor.
Bell rung by revenant attendants.
Consumes FP to ring and call wandering cursed spirits. Can be rung continously.
It is said that cursed spirits are vengeful spirits who died cursed.
If so, then it explains why revenants come to be so commonplace across the Lands Between. When enough wraiths accumulate, they can manifest in physical form, such as a revenant with substance of being. Whether or not the revenant has memories of life, it regains individual will as a collection of curses, albeit forced to manage extraneous body parts as an extension of its composite nature. The royal revenant is just a rarer, more extreme example of this phenomenon, amassing so many wraiths that its multiple sternums are cracking open as the body leaks cursed energy. (in Elden Ring: Nightreign, one gets so big, it can explode with the spirits) The curses are so overwhelming, the royal expels trails of toxic bile from its wailing jaws. It doesn’t matter that the result is a sickly body bringing screeching pain — if there are enough wraiths inhabiting an area, a revenant is liable to take shape. That criteria is easy to accomplish when an entire community is massacred in one place; subjects of genocide, plague, or some other unnatural disaster. Besides graveyards, we can credit lands such as these for so many revenants.
Another factor to consider is the nature of the underlying spirit. Wraiths inflict holy damage except when we summon them via magic bell, which might simply be to reflect its creator’s methods. Revenants likewise possess holy resistance rivaling demigods while lacking in all other areas. And yet, their cursed bodies are, in fact, vulnerable to certain kinds of holy power, specifically the healing kind; Erdtree and Two Fingers recovery spells do harm to them upon contact with their area of effect. This unique interaction indicates a special connection. After all, plenty of corruptions to the Golden Order exist without also harboring high resilience to general holiness. Why is this curse so special? Perhaps the yellow aspect of wraiths indicates the curse’s root in gold, a blessed soul rendered cursed solely because of personal sentiment. That would explain why healing a revenant performs the inverse of its intended effect, the power of gold grinding against its twisted counterpart like misaligned gears. That power of life is twisted in death to create an unholy spirit which can only synchronize with similar curses.
Note of a wandering people merchant. The information is written succinctly.
The royal revenants who crawl over land and their attendants are cursed.
They are wounded by the power of recovery.
With that in mind, it is telling how revenants structure their social order. All don crowns, but only the royals wear one so regal, garbed in an additional fur raiment unsurprisingly tattered covering their bizarre physiology. They naturally show greater mastery over the curses comprising their being, creating portals to travel across dimensions for more than just entering the field as with their lessers; occasionally, they even warp short distances like ghosts. That shows the power at a revenant’s disposal. But the ones styling themselves king of the wraiths want more, the desire to attract spirits to them demonstrated in the ghost glovewort each carries. The king’s smaller attendants abide by that will, crafting bells which resemble the glovewort to call the wraiths. They have become rather adept at invoking spirits, picking grave violets to further feed the curse’s rancor; even restoring long-dead horses to be their steeds, with only a harmless spiritual exhaust to imply any imperfections reviving rotted flesh. Hunting for the corrupted power of the Elden Ring, it is only appropriate that these enemies’ be internally named Nazgûl, (ナズグル) the so-called Ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings.
Beyond offering it up for the king’s favor, the bell ringers might also use the wraiths to empower themselves, or create new servants. Outside the Frenzied Flame Village (Site F2) in Liurnia, we can spy a circle of chairs seating commoner corpses. As we approach, a similar number of half-naked revenants will climb out of their portals by each chair, backed by their hooded and cloaked counterparts further out. Factor in the lack of wraith-calling bells on the semi-clothed, and we can infer that the robed spellcasters have used their collection of wraiths and the resentment of deceased refugees from Site F2 to add to their number. We see something similar down south, where the revenants have moved into Laskyar Ruins. The king makes the town square on the north side his audience chamber, the flooded ground adorned with appropriately black and yellow flowers. From there, his servants spread out to collect more wraiths, with bareheaded revenants lurking on the ruins’ furthest edges southside. Clearly, this new “kingdom” is beefing up its ranks, the “palace” training up the newborns before supplying them with bells like the one we find stored in a nearby basement. It is the birth of a spirit nation.
One might deem it odd for spirits born of hate to concern themselves with kingly domains, but that neglects the exact motivations to this royalty’s hatred. After all, whose death would breed a grudge which includes those delusions of grandeur? Actual royalty. And to that point, the regal revenants also harbor Sacrificial Twigs on their person, suggesting some relation to the Erdtree. That is consistent with their appearance in different parts of Altus Plateau, but the talisman’s connection to the Crucible imply a particular yearning for the height of the age, which suits Leyndell’s elite specifically. Indeed, who else would have first pickings of the Erdtree’s pruned branches except for the royalty and clergy immediately surrounding it? Put another way, the royal revenants seem to be sourced mainly from the Golden Lineage, the resentment in missing out on all the privileges and luxuries afforded to these demigod princes in life animating this creation of a new kingdom in death.
Such an illustrious origin definitely comports with these revenants’ presence in the Lunar Estate and Kingsrealm Ruins. Recall the intermarriage between the Erdtree and Carian elite after the Liurnian Wars. If some in the Golden Lineage joined the moon nobility, then it wouldn’t be unusual for places the nobles stay to produce revenants after their deaths. The same holds true for the moon nobles in Caelid. We can come across a revenant pacing the bottom of the Sellia Hideaway, behind the local graveyard. Perhaps the royal wishes to enjoy the clean water pooling beneath Greyoll’s Dragonbarrow after narrowly escaping the Scarlet Rot, which could justify the lack of servants in the town’s area. Still, the appearance of that many wraiths for one king is conducive with the teleporting nobles who had visited Sellia. Even for the Laskyar Ruins, it is reasonable for the settlement to be inhabited by one or more of the aristocrat families somewhere in Caria’s history. That leaves the potential for lesser known offshoots of Marika’s bloodline to become entangled with the lunar nobility before meeting their end as wraiths.
That said, the reason for demigods becoming royal revenants is doubtful because they are Golden, but because they are Numen. Much as the long-lived race mixes well with flesh, their spirits must also link extra easily with spirits, in which case a dead and cursed Numen should act as an exceptional draw for other cursed spirits. This means that it isn’t just demigods descended from Marika, but theoretically any progeny of the original visitors from the stars who have become a greater mass of wraiths. We are able to witness a Tibia mariner summon a single revenant king at Charo’s Hidden Grave, extending this potential to even the divine line of the ancient civilization. In Sellia, too, the reason for the one revenant may alternatively be due to the town’s descent from an Eternal City. (add in Nightreign, where Noklateo, with its former Nox population equally dedicated to creating a Lord of Night, is also home to a royal) Overall, it is clear that Numen heritage is the deciding factor that makes the self-proclaimed kings a cut above the rest of their ilk, whichever branch of the tribe does the yielding.
In short, Numen reigning over other humans is as true for cursed spirits as it is for living ones. But whatever may remain of their old identity, it has nonetheless been consumed by the curse of individual enmity. The royal revenants might be obsessed with gathering power, so can focus their lessers to assist to this end. They all are nevertheless driven to mercilessly destroy the people yet thriving in this world, the kings relentless in this regard. An empire built on hate may take them far, but no sooner will it crumble to dust in their jealous pursuit of vengeance. They are spirits who should have passed on long ago, earthbound by the negativity which exists in the shadows of gold. That is the ugly part which Marika tried to hide from her Order, but it will always remain in the hearts of men. It is the contradiction of life which can never seek its own stop, even when it is natural and inevitable. Forever true: the dead don’t belong with the living, no matter how much golden life wish it so.
