I love that her quest takes much longer and is pretty obscure at times, but is by far the most commonly achieved ending. FromSoft apparently knew that waifu is the strongest motivator in gaming.
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Soulslike - Discussion, News, Memes
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Ranni's quest line is one of the least obtuse quests in the game. While Mlicent's is the most esoteric; especially the final part because why the hell would you expect that and not to summon her to help fight Melenia?
Millicent's actual quest is almost un-failable, it's just a touch weird that you can't summon her for the two most obvious fights that you would think you could summon her for. I imagine the Malenia one is basically a gameplay-based decision in that literally the entire point of Malenia's boss fight is for her to be an optional extra-tough challenge, so having any NPC available to summon diminishes that. It's really confusing that she can't be summoned for Niall though, especially when Niall gets summons of his own and you even get to summon one of her sisters against O'Neil
I think Sellen has to be my pick for the weirdest quest progression. Why can't I ask her about her apparent duplicate if I find it early? Why do I have to go all the way to Mt Gelmir to get Jerren to show up in the Weeping Peninsula to advance the quest? Does anything ever hint at where you get her a new body or am I just meant to stumble across it and make the connection? Who the hell progresses through the game in an order that lets them actually use Sellen's summoning sign for the red wolf of Radagon in Raya Lucaria? Why is she then not available as a summon against Rennala? The whole thing is baffling
With Jerren's BS: You can actually complete Sellen's quest in a way that the only time you would even know that Jerren is involved is when SHE tells you he is after her. You never actually need to talk to or encounter Jerren to get her all the way to the end of her quest. I almost always skip his parts because I forget about them lol
The weirdest thing with her to me is something I just noticed this last time through the game where I paid attention to the dialogue again since it's been a while; When you get her back to Raya Lucaria after defeating Jerren, she claims that Rennala and all her loyal knights are now dead and defeated, leaving her in charge of the castle. But then you reload the area, Rennala is back and Sellen is a Graven Mass in a corner. What the hell's up with that?
It does feel awfully abrupt, doesn't it? I generally explain it to myself as that Sellen really did succeed in taking control simply because Rennala was too broken to meaningfully fight back, but she gazed a bit long into the abyss and got graven massed. When the rest of Raya Lucaria saw what happened to her they then collectively said "welp guess we were right to ban that primeval current nonsense, lets just pretend none of this ever happened"
It really could have done with an intermediate stage where Rennala is visibly imprisoned somewhere, Lusat and Azur actually are moved to the academy, and Sellen begins to show signs of turning into something else
I played though Elden Ring blind (with a couple beginner tips someone online gave me, like what stats to level and some good early weapons)
I went through the whole quest basically accidentally. I didnβt realize it was supposed to be obscure, I just thought it was normal parts of the game that everyone did. Elden Ring is also my first Souls game I really got into (I beat two bosses in PS3 Demonβs Souls before quitting.)
I didnβt know until now itβs tied to an ending! I never beat the final boss. I got pretty okay at the first form, but I could never finish off his last form.
Yeah FromSoft has a long habit of telling their stories in the most obtuse ways possible. They're perfectly capable of doing normal storytelling (see Armoured Core, for example), they just choose to do it like this for their Souls-like games
That said, I actually think that a blind playthrough is a good idea for the first time! The world is meant to be mysterious. It's okay if you don't see everything
I kind of prefer when they do just tell a straightforward story, sekiro is one of my favourites for that reason.
I don't mind the incomplete story when the world is done well ahead of time. I think that after seeing dark souls 3 tack on a bunch of stuff to the original story, it mildly soured me on the concept. Elden ring is fortunately a lot better about it.
Yeah, the Souls style works for me but I totally get why it would be offputting to others. I love worldbuilding and lore theorising, so getting heaps of that with very little in terms of character development is fine by me
Tough bosses ruining the end of a game are a pet peeve of mine. Thankfully I've suffered enough Soulslikes that ER wasnt too bad for me (Sekiro on the other hand...)
Danni's quest isn't so obscure, but it is a little more hidden than just rushing to the Erdtree and fighting the boss as directly as possible. I think that she's the most compelling (and best written) character in the game, which probably contributes a lot to her ending being more popular. She helps you early game, obviously has her own agenda but doesn't really act like she doesn't, which pulls off the fun trick of making the character both mysterious yet also trustworthy.
Welp I started Sekiro today. Verrry different playstyle. I got gakked by the second mini boss like 15 times. Im now at a giant and heβs kicking my ass. I went back into the past after finding a lady and got fire, but that only seems to stun him for a couple seconds.
Neat game.
I almost started Sekiro today, but I felt too sleepy. I really need to play it. I own every souls game except Bloodborne now and really need to branch out hahaha
I bought my PS5 specifically because I needed BB and DsS π€£
Hell I haven't done her ending but I've still done the quest each time. There's cool stuff in there. I want to poke about in Nokron and fight Astel and Alecto
Sorry, you actively want to fight Astel? I don't know how to feel about that :D The first time around I had the displeasure of experiencing that fight, I must have had to try beating them for hours on end. That bullshit teleport grab attack was the bane of my existence. It came to a point where I looked up cheese strategies, like scarlet rot, to have a fighting chance. On repeat playthroughs, it's usually fine but still such a slog
I will admit it's more just because the design is so wild than the actual mechanics of the fight, but I didn't find the mechanics too bad! My first run through was str/fai melee and I managed to get it after a few attempts. I don't mind the bits where you have to run after it because they usually present some interesting dodging challenges and it still hangs about in one place long enough to let you get some good hits in (looking at you, every red wolf). The teleport grab is definitely one of the nastier ones but I figured out the timing and just counted down for a blind dodge after it did the initial teleport. The biggest frustration I had with Astel was actually on my second run through simply because the weapon I was using really struggled to actually hit all those spindly limbs high off the ground
The design is pretty awesome and otherworldly - I'll give you that. But yea, gameplay-wise there are definitely fights I enjoy more. But also some which are wayy worse lol (Commander Neil or Niall or whatever can go step on a Lego and his other Commander friends too)
The commanders bug me a bit because I really enjoy fighting the actual commanders themselves, I just can't be done with their backup squads. I found Niall (Castle Sol) way less troublesome since there's only the two knights, so I can just nuke down the dual wielding one as it gets summoned and handle the spear & shield one while Niall edgywalks in the background. I know there's the bewitching branch option but I have the RPG player allergy to consumables, especially if it's a very rare one that I can't easily replace when Niall lightning-dropkicks me in the head and I have to start the fight over. O'Neil over in Caelid, though, I just kind of resign myself to the fact that I'll be getting chipped by arrows for the entire fight. If he wasn't a mandatory obstacle on the Millicent quest I'd probably skip him more often than not
I don't like either of them. The rot one is awful because of rot and because his attacks deal way too much damage for how much reach they have, and the Castle Sol one is awful because of that lightning drop kick and because, you guessed it, his attacks deal way too much damage for how much reach they have :D
I think by the time I got to Niall himself, the rest of Castle Sol had already fully desensitised me to watching 90% of my healthbar disappear in an instant. At least he isn't that one goddamn banished knight. Everyone knows which banished knight.
I know which one you mean, but I actually found the castle itself ok overall. I just didn't bother clearing it fully and mostly just ran by the enemies at some point. Niall was a huge nuisance, though
Who? I don't remember any of the characters in ER.
Ranni on the left (the blue witch with four arms), Goldmask on the right (the mute guy who points at the Erdtree, Corhyn follows him around). They're the characters associated with the two most popular endings
Oh I kinda remember her. She showed up once, said a bunch of nothing, and never showed up again.
Goldmask I ran into a couple of times, but found him boring and dumb. I just ignored him after a while because I didn't find anything interesting about a dipshit pointing at a tree.
Yeah Goldmask is basically not a character when you actually meet him, he's essentially just a plot point for Corhyn and a reason to examine some of the nature of Marika and the Golden Order. He's the one that enables my favourite ending, but it's my favourite for the mending rune that Goldmask makes rather than Goldmask himself. Ranni's quest is pretty fun though. It has some good characters and takes you to some cool places, and it's nearly impossible to accidentally lock yourself out of it
That's a shame I missed Ranni's quest then because nothing and no one I came across was interesting. Hence why I can't remember anyone's name.
If you want to go find it, go to Caria Manor (the mansion full of the hand monsters in the north of Liurnia). Get all the way through that and beat up a dragon and she's there
It's way too late for that and I'm not going to reinstall it. I did not enjoy ER.
I really thought Miquella was going to be a true kind of hero... Until I found the cross where he abandoned his love. How the hell you gonna be a benevolent god without that? π€¦ββοΈ
Miquella is in many ways exactly like his mother. Unfortunately, his mother is by and large a pretty terrible person.
Genocide begets genocide.
Miquella actually was bringing people together and avoiding bloodshed up until he left his Haligtree. Although he was also brainwashing everyone to be chill. Which is weird that when you start meeting others who have been charmed by his magic, they are completely aware of this and still don't seem to care. The old Pureblood Knight calls him a monster, but is more sad that he just wasn't good enough to kill him than upset about being under a spell.
Miquella and Marika are both schemers, and they both care deeply (or so it seems) about their PR. They want to appear as benevolent gods while making sure that the blame for bad stuff falls on someone else. (Marika makes sure Messmer is blamed for the genocide she ordered, Melina is blamed for burning the Erdtree, and I'd argue she also is responsible for the Night of the Black Knives that Ranni is blamed for. Miquella males sure Mohg is blamed for his failure to counteract the scarlet rot, and Melania is blamed for anything that happened during the Shattering.)
Their other halves (Radagon and st. Trina) both seem much nicer and more genuine, but they are locked away and suppressed as far as the more powerful halves are able.
I think Ansbach's reaction has two parts to it: the first is that he did already have some idea of what he was going up against. He may not have realised just how powerful Miquella was, but pre-charm he had already made the conscious decision to go fight a demigod. He was a senior enough follower of Mohg that he would have had at least some idea of what that meant. He had made peace with the potential consequences
The other is that he was one of Mohg's top knights, guy has definitely seen and done some awful stuff
I actually was curious about what the Pureblood Knights actually had done in the past. The presentation they (the faction as a whole) are given with Vare and such seems almost like they really are full of love. What terrible things have they actually done? Because they seem to have the same stigma as the Omens, the pre-Erdtree creations, and Those Who Live in Death in that nothing specific is mentioned about wrongdoings they committed, they're just weird, different and gross so everyone hates them.
Not sure if the game goes into a lot of detail about them. The only items off the top of my head that are even related to them are Ansbach's armor, weapons, and the Pureblood Medal Vare gives you. Mogh "kidnapped" Miquella and that seems pretty bad; until you read the description of the Charm consumable thing even before the DLC came out confirming it suggests that maybe Mogh was brainwashed by Miquella to do that so that's not exactly evil or even on Mogh!
Since just joining up normally requires you to murder your own finger maiden I would say that they're off to a bad start. We also know that Mohg's followers are a persistent enough problem for everyone else that Yura made it his career to defend people against their random murder attempts (although he does have personal investment with Eleonora too), and that Varre and the other white masks were "abducted" to enable the invasions. Being a murder & pain cult that seems to attack random people just because the boss says god likes when people get stabbed doesn't exactly stand out as exceptionally evil in the Lands Between, but we definitely know they've done at least some stuff to warrant opposition unlike the omens
My personal belief is that the sanguine nobles just straight up are the pureblood knights. The language used to describe them is very similar, both they and Ansbach have dextrous duellist-like fighting styles, the pureblood knight medal takes you right to the place with the highest concentration of sanguine nobles in the game, and if Ansbach dies before the Enir Ilim showdown then you get a random sanguine noble as a substitute summon.
In a meager defense of the cult of the Formless Mother, the finger maidens are literally working for the Greater Will (although they are low ranking), they can't stick around if you change faith and it seems they are bound to their Tarnished spiritually.
It's still a murder cult though, so I don't claim that they are good at all.
im gonna stan for ranni for a second.
her ending is the only one that leaves the lands between to their own devices, separate from the will of the outer gods, and the greater will.
the greater will being a literal alien outer god that came to the lands between to inflict its vision of order upon the crucible. removing death itself to feed its own cycle.
perfect order just maintains that cycle with adjustments to make a more permanent version. cementing the will of an invading outer god that literally wiped all other religions and opposing loyal forces in the lands between off the face of the map (and underground)
fias ending adds death to the cycle, but still maintains the greater will (a colonising force)
chaos ending just destroys virtually everyone and everything. besides i guess you and marikas daughter/separated spiritual half (when she merged with radagon)
rannis ending literally returns the lands between to their own devices, at least for a time.
its the only ending that reverses the will of the outer gods and bans their will (even ranni leaves to cement this, as she would have been a branch of the outer gods will if she stayed), and allows those who live there to be there own boss, for the first time in thousands of years.
ranni is the moral choice.
perfect order is just fascism so good you dont even know its there.
Alright I definitely disagree with a lot of this. I do think her ending is one of the better ones and she's a cool character, but:
her ending is the only one that leaves the lands between to their own devices, separate from the will of the outer gods, and the greater will.
Outer Gods do not need access to the Elden Ring to influence the world. If they did, we wouldn't have a Lake of Rot, the Three Fingers, or the fire giant's extra face to deal with. Was Marika just... letting them do all that before? Even when she actively waged a genocidal war to get rid of the Flame of Ruin?
We also do not actually know anything about the Dark Moon either; it might just straight up be another conscious cosmic entity like the Greater Will. It's certainly talked about in largely the same way the few times it is mentioned. Ranni describes it as wise, so she seems to consider it conscious
removing death itself to feed its own cycle.
Marika did that, not the Greater Will. It doesn't seem to come smite us from above if we pick Fia's ending, even.
cementing the will of an invading outer god that literally wiped all other religions and opposing loyal forces in the lands between off the face of the map (and underground)
Again, Marika's actions, not the GW's. This is like blaming the Christian God for the Crusades instead of the humans that called for and carried out the Crusades. Dog pope even repeatedly makes the point that the order wasn't always like this and can accommodate basically anything. We also know that the GW can tolerate good relations with other faiths because it specifically did with the Carians in the past, and it was Marika that put an end to it.
rannis ending literally returns the lands between to their own devices, at least for a time
But leaves the Elden Ring in the hands of someone that already has a track record of screwing over the entire world for her own ends and running off without even trying to fix any of it. Not to mention that we absolutely know for a fact that space, in this setting, is full of scary monsters that can and will interrupt this voyage
its the only ending that reverses the will of the outer gods and bans their will
The only gods Ranni removes from the Lands Between are Marika, by virtue of having you kill her and taking the Elden Ring from her, and then herself. And I suppose diminishing the Greater Will, but replacing it with her preferred counterpart. She never mentions the Outer Gods at all.
Ranni takes the Elden Ring for herself, leaves, and promises not to come back to mess with anything. That's all. Goldmask's rune puts a password preventing admin access to the Elden Ring so that Marika's successors (starting with you) can't mess with it on a whim like she did. There's no indication at all that his ending enforces any of the shit Marika did, he's trying to make sure that nobody that comes after Marika can do what she did (with the Elden Ring; he obviously cannot prevent all the horrors she inflicted in her capacity as a queen giving orders like a regular queen. The only ending that addresses that sort of problem is the one that sets fire to everything until there is nobody left to commit atrocities or have atrocities committed against them)
To be clear I don't, like... hate Ranni or anything. She's a really interesting character. Part of that character is that she has no interest whatsoever in saving the world; her whole plan from day one was fucking off so she can be left alone, leaving things like Deathblight and the Rot completely unaddressed and also taking away one of the other most powerful entities who might have worked against those. But she isn't making anything worse and her plan does mitigate the risks of someone like Shabriri getting the Ring, so by FromSoft standards that's actually alright
Agree with everything :)
I prefer Fia ending. She's always nice to me
First time arround I got emotionally attached to Blaidd so I commited to see his quest through till the end (tears were shed) , and that's how I got Ranni's ending. Some parts of the quest are so convoluted tho!!
Fuckin saaaame