Rune.01: Genesis and Cosmology - The Greater Will and the Primordial World

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At the foundation of the historical events and belief systems in The Lands Between and the Realm of Shadow lies an extremely complex and metaphysical cosmology. This report, as the first part of a comprehensive four-part project, aims to elucidate the “macro-foundation” of this world’s lore. Specifically, it provides a systematic and exhaustive analysis of the nature of “The One Great” and “The Greater Will,” which are the origins of all things; the positioning of the “Outer Gods” that interfere with the world; the state of the “Crucible,” a primordial melting pot of life that existed before the Erdtree; and the collapse of cosmic communication brought about by the arrival of “Metyr, Mother of Fingers,” as revealed by recent investigations.

In this analysis, a strict distinction is made between “established lore (facts)” derived from item descriptions and character dialogue, and “inferences (speculations)” logically and philosophically deduced from them, clarifying the causal relationships between proper nouns and their historical inevitability.

1. The Genesis of the Universe: The “Fracture” by The Greater Will and “The One Great”

The most fundamental yet most misunderstood concept in the creation myth of The Lands Between is the relationship between “The One Great” and “The Greater Will.” Although they are often treated synonymously, a close examination of the text proves that they possess distinctly different roles and natures.

1.1 Established Facts from the Text

Hyetta, a missionary of the Frenzied Flame who becomes the maiden of the Three Fingers, speaks of clear facts regarding the origin of the universe as the doctrine of the Frenzied Flame: “All that there is came from the One Great. Then came fractures, and births, and souls. But the Greater Will made a mistake.” She continues, “Torment, despair, affliction… every sin, every curse. Every one, born of the mistake. And so, what was borrowed must be returned. Melt it all away, with the yellow chaos flame. Until all is One again.” This explicitly states that the ultimate goal of the Frenzied Flame is to incinerate the diversity of life and regress it to its primordial, singular state.

On the other hand, astronomical and cosmological facts regarding The Greater Will can be confirmed from the words and actions of Count Ymir, the High Priest seated at the Cathedral of Manus Metyr in the Realm of Shadow. He preaches to the player, “We are all born of stardust. We were born of a great rupture, far across the skies. We, too, are children of the Greater Will.” Furthermore, according to the text of the “High Priest Hat” he wears, the circular design at the crown is specified to represent “the Greater Will and its lightless abyss.”

1.2 Deduced Inferences and Philosophical Speculations

The logical inference drawn from these textual facts is a cosmological interpretation that The Greater Will is not merely a personal god, but the “metaphysical first cause of creation” that triggered the Big Bang (the great rupture) of the physical universe and booted up reality.

“The One Great” is presumed to refer to a primordial Singularity where concepts of individuality and physical boundaries did not exist, and matter and soul were completely fused into one—a state akin to the “Pleroma” (absolute fullness) in alchemical and Gnostic terms. As a result of The Greater Will actively interfering with this singular point and causing a “Fracture,” individual life forms, physical laws, and the concepts of emotion and soul (mind) emerged in the universe.

The ideology of the Frenzied Flame (the Three Fingers) logically positions this “fracturing” itself as an absolute cosmic tragedy. It is the manifestation of extreme antinatalism and nihilism, seeking to reverse the arrow of history and force a regression to “The One Great” in order to eradicate the torment and despair that life inevitably entails. The fact that “The One Great” and “The Greater Will” are clearly distinguished in the Japanese text strongly supports the structural difference that The Greater Will was the creator (or divider), while The One Great was the primordial state (the material) subjected to it.

2. The Essence of the Outer Gods: Excluded Immanent Laws of Nature

In the world fractured by the first cause known as The Greater Will, there exists a peculiar dynamic later referred to as the “Outer Gods” by those who uphold the Golden Order. Although they never manifest with physical substance, as invisible entities they exert a profound influence on the ecosystems of The Lands Between and the Realm of Shadow, as well as on the faith of the people.

2.1 Established Facts from the Text

The existence of the Outer Gods is recorded as fact in numerous item descriptions. Currently, the entities explicitly defined as “Outer Gods” or referred to in a similar capacity in the in-game text are as follows:

These gods each preside over specific “Divine Elements” and constantly interfere to reshape the world through their worshippers and supernatural natural phenomena.

2.2 Deduced Inferences and Philosophical Speculations

Although they are referred to as “Outer Gods” in the text, whether they are Lovecraftian aliens or invaders arriving from outer space is a subject of deep contextual speculation within the community.

While the Japanese expression “Sotonaru Kami” (Outer God) certainly carries a translational nuance reminiscent of the “Outer Gods” in H.P. Lovecraft’s works, a compelling inference is that their functional reality is closer to the “fundamental laws of nature (Kami)” in animism. Rot governs the cycle of decomposition and reconstruction in the ecosystem (as Sage Gowry describes it, “the cycle of decay and rebirth”); the ghostflame of the Deathbirds is a processing mechanism for souls; the blood of the Formless Mother signifies the flux of life and the acceptance of pain; and the fire of the Fell God is the energy of destruction and creation (forging).

The “Golden Order” established by Queen Marika was a system that pursued eternity and perfection to the utmost limit. Consequently, it thoroughly excluded “inconvenient laws of nature for maintaining the status quo”—such as death, the cycle of decay and rebirth, combustion and transmutation, and the acceptance of bloodshed and pain—from its doctrine, literally banishing them to the “outside” of the system. Therefore, it can be logically explained that the primary reason they are called “Outer Gods” is not because they are absolute outsiders of cosmic origin, but because they are primordial laws that were “externalized and branded as heretical” by the paradigm of the Golden Order, which currently holds a monopoly on the world.

The only deviation from this rule is the “Frenzied Flame.” Rather than presiding over a specific natural phenomenon, the Frenzied Flame acts as a counter-concept to The Greater Will, denying creation itself and aiming for a regression to “The One Great.” In this sense, it is speculated that only the Frenzied Flame is a true cosmic outsider genuinely opposed to the order of The Greater Will.

3. The First Arrival: Metyr, Mother of Fingers and the Revision of the Timeline

The greatest achievement obtained from the investigation in the Realm of Shadow is the revelation of the origin and truth of the “Fingers,” which physically and magically connect The Greater Will to The Lands Between. This discovery fundamentally revises the community’s understanding of the timeline of The Lands Between.

3.1 Established Facts from the Text

Crucial facts of cosmic history have been brought to light from the Remembrance of “Metyr, Mother of Fingers” and the texts of related items crafted from her bodily tissues.

First, the Remembrance of Metyr explicitly states: “The mother of all Two Fingers and Fingercreepers was in turn a magnificently gleaming daughter of the Greater Will, and the first shooting star to fall upon the Lands Between.” Meanwhile, the incantation “Elden Stars” reads: “It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring.” Through this unambiguous textual description of “the first shooting star,” it is established as a fact that Metyr arrived in The Lands Between chronologically prior to the Elden Beast (the Elden Ring).

Second, the text of the “Staff of the Great Beyond,” crafted from Metyr, states: “The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Even after she was broken and abandoned, she kept waiting.” In contrast, the text of the “Maternal Staff” possessed by Count Ymir notes: “The crystal ball, said to model a microcosm, receives no signs at all,” indicating the fact that its current receiving function has completely ceased.

Third, Count Ymir of the Cathedral of Manus Metyr makes a clear accusation regarding the current state of the world. He tells the player, “I presume you’ve seen it all. The deceit at the base of the Erdtree. And the flaw. It was all broken from the very beginning. Marika, and the fingers that guided her,” suggesting as a fact that the Two Fingers were not correctly receiving oracles from The Greater Will.

3.2 Deduced Inferences and Logical Construction of Causality

The first interference by The Greater Will in The Lands Between was not the establishment of laws (the Elden Ring), but the installation of “Metyr” as a cosmic receiver. However, as the text explicitly states she was “broken and abandoned,” communication between The Greater Will and Metyr was permanently severed at an extremely early stage of history. Regarding the cause of this and the subsequent arrival of the Elden Beast, the following causal relationships can be logically inferred.

The Cause of Being “Broken”: The Rebellion of the Nox and the Fingerslayer Blade It is inferred that the physical cause of Metyr being “broken” is the massive, gouged-out scar present on her abdomen (or chest). It is highly probable that this wound was inflicted by the “Fingerslayer Blade” hidden in Nokron, Eternal City. The text of the Fingerslayer Blade reads: “This blood-drenched fetish is proof of the high treason committed by the Eternal City and symbolizes its downfall. Cannot be wielded by those without a fate, but is said to be able to harm the Greater Will and its vassals.” Furthermore, the armor “Nox Monk Hood” states: “Long ago, the Nox invoked the ire of the Greater Will, and were banished deep underground.” Connecting these facts logically establishes a historical causality: the Nox used someone with a fate (or a blade forged from a specific corpse) to attack Metyr, and physically destroying her cosmic communication organ was the very act of “high treason.” In retaliation, The Greater Will sent a meteor-born creature like Astel and banished them underground.

The “Abandoned” Mother and the “Elden Beast” as a Replacement Having abandoned Metyr, whose communication network was physically destroyed and who lost her function as an oracle receiver, The Greater Will is thought to have dropped a second golden star bearing the “Elden Beast”—a new vassal beast and the very concept of order—to bring the situation under control and directly govern physical laws. This inference is strongly supported by the skill text of the “Gazing Finger,” a weapon obtained upon defeating Metyr. It reads: “A violent prostration that rubs the belly of the finger against the ground. The forced prostration accumulates resentment, which then explodes.” The abandoned Metyr was forced into a “forced prostration” before the new proxy of The Greater Will that usurped her position (the Elden Beast, or the order of the Elden Ring it brought), and this can be considered the true nature of the deep grudge and resentment manifested in the skill.

The Fiction of Oracles and Fanatical Deceit The most cruel conclusion drawn from this chain of facts is that for the vast majority of the age of the Erdtree, The Greater Will had already severed direct communication with The Lands Between, and the Two Fingers were fabricating fictitious oracles while pretending to pray to an “empty microcosm receiving nothing.” Even after being broken, Metyr continued to wait for the beyond of the sky, and the Two Fingers born from that maddened mother acted as if speaking for a voice they could not hear, manipulating Empyreans, Demigods, and the Tarnished. The “deceit of the world” that High Priest Ymir pointed out with despair refers to the very fact that the “guidance of the Greater Will,” which formed the foundation of the Erdtree’s order, was in reality nothing more than the malfunction of a broken antenna or the product of blind self-justification. Regarding the reason for the birth of the Three Fingers (Frenzied Flame), a prominent theory within the community is that it was the result of the Two Fingers mutating due to the despair and resentment of the abandoned Metyr.

4. The Primordial World Before the Erdtree: The Life of the Crucible and the Spiral of Evolution

How did life in The Lands Between develop amidst the fracturing of the world by the interference of The Greater Will and the arrival of Metyr and the Elden Beast? Before the establishment of the absolute artificial order known as the Golden Order, the dynamism of life known as the “Crucible” existed at the center of the primordial world.

4.1 Established Facts from the Text

The “Crucible” is the primordial form of the Erdtree, referring to a chaotic state where literally all life was blended together. The power of this Crucible is physically expressed as reddish “Primordial Gold,” which is said to possess an essence close to life itself (as explicitly stated in the texts of Ordovis’s Greatsword, Devonia’s Hammer, and the Crucible Hornshield).

The culture of the Hornsent in the Realm of Shadow fiercely worshipped this Crucible and built a unique religious system. The facts forming the core of their faith and ecology can be confirmed from the following items:

1. Aspects of the Crucible and the Worship of Blending: The “Talisman of All Crucibles” is a giant mass of blended Crucible attributes said to have grown on a giant, referred to in the lore of the ancient tower as the “mother of crucibles.” In Hornsent culture, the manifestation of multiple biological traits on the human body—such as horns, scales, feathers, and tails—was considered a blessing of the Crucible and a gift of evolution, and was revered as sacred (as described in Divine Bird Feathers, Crucible Feather Talisman, etc.).

2. The Faith of the Spiral and the Incantation “Spira”: The text of “Spira,” an excellent sorcery and incantation used by the tower priests, states: “The spiral is a normalized crucible current that, one day, will form a column that stretches to the gods.” In Hornsent culture, the motif of the double spiral is used almost obsessively, from the architectural structure of the temple town (Enir-Ilim) to the currency used for trade (Horned Coin).

3. The Awakening of Intelligence and the Beastmen: The text of the “Cinquedea,” a short sword given to high-ranking clergymen of Farum Azula, states: “The design celebrates a beast’s five fingers, symbolic of the intelligence once granted upon their kind.” It is confirmed as a fact that the beastmen of Farum Azula were granted five fingers (intelligence) in the ancient past and served Dragonlord Placidusax, the Elden Lord before the Erdtree.

4.2 Deduced Inferences and Philosophical Speculations

From these factual relationships, extremely deep structural speculations can be made regarding the “evolution of life” in the primordial world and the “reversal of values” accompanying the transition to the Golden Order.

The System Dynamics of the “Normalized Crucible Current” The “spiral” worshipped by the Hornsent was not merely a visual decorative pattern. It is inferred to have been a physical and magical mechanism designed to give a specific direction to the chaotic, violent life force of the Crucible and sublimate it toward the heavens (the gods). The “column that stretches to the gods” mentioned in the incantation Spira refers to the massive religious project itself, where the Hornsent constructed the tower (Enir-Ilim) to reach the heights of a physical and magical spiral in order to invoke a god (or birth a god). The fact that Marika later attained godhood at the Gate of Divinity, or that the Scadutree takes the shape of a giant spiral formed by two intertwined trees, is all thought to be based on this “dynamic of the spiral that converts the life force of the Crucible into divinity.”

The Transmutation and Exclusion from Primordial Gold to “Unalloyed Gold” The fact that “Primordial Gold,” the symbol of the Crucible, is tinged with red indicates that it is an “alloy” heavily containing impurities such as blood, flesh, or copper (the diverse elements and vitality of life). As the Erdtree faith and the era of the Golden Order progressed, the values surrounding the Aspects of the Crucible, such as horns and feathers, completely reversed from “proof of divine evolution” to “defiled impurities.” The Golden Order attempted to reconstruct the world into a single, pure order by excluding the “diversity and blending” of the Crucible as system bugs or impurities. The ultimate form of this is the “Unalloyed Gold” that Miquella later sought to achieve. Unalloyed Gold is pure gold that has utterly excluded the interference of Outer Gods and the chaotic red (impurities) of life, but this simultaneously means completely discarding the primordial vitality and diversity of life that the Crucible possessed, enforcing a static, sterile domination akin to a cleanroom.

The Granting of Intelligence and the Metaphysics of the “Five Fingers” The “five fingers” obtained by the beastmen of Farum Azula strongly suggest that “intelligence” was brought about by supernatural interference from The Greater Will (or the early Metyr). In the chaotic early world, the intervention of the metaphysical concept of order known as “fingers” into the wild ecosystem ruled by Dragonlord Placidusax allowed beasts to gain intelligence and build an advanced civilization (Farum Azula). Within the community, there is a deduction that before splitting into the current Two Fingers (Golden Order/Order) and Three Fingers (Frenzied Flame/Chaos), there originally existed a complete palm with all “five fingers” that guided the beasts, suggesting that the form of hands and fingers functioned as a direct interface for The Greater Will to grant intelligence.

Conclusion: An Artificial Order Built Upon Cosmic Severance and Exclusion

Synthesizing the analysis from the four macro perspectives in this report—“The Greater Will and The One Great,” “The Essence of the Outer Gods,” “The Truth of Metyr, Mother of Fingers,” and “The Crucible and Primordial Life”—it becomes exceedingly clear that the foundation of The Lands Between and the Realm of Shadow is formed by a history of “fundamental cosmic severance” and “the construction of an artificial order through the exclusion of life’s diversity.”

The Greater Will intentionally fractured the primordial singularity, “The One Great,” giving birth to physical laws, life, and souls. It then dispatched “Metyr, Mother of Fingers” as an antenna to manage this created world and transmit its will. However, at an extremely early stage in history, when that communication network was physically destroyed by some event (the rebellion of the Nox and the use of the Fingerslayer Blade), The Greater Will immediately abandoned Metyr and dropped the Elden Beast (the Elden Ring), a direct embodiment of laws, to attempt a reconstruction of the system.

The left-behind Metyr and her children (the Two Fingers), burdened with an “empty microcosm” where oracular communication had ceased, continued to blindly play the role of authorities as proxies of The Greater Will. The Golden Order later established by Queen Marika was nothing more than a cosmic house of cards built upon this “voice that hears nothing” as its absolute foundation. Furthermore, the Golden Order excluded the rich blending of life (the laws of nature such as horns, feathers, blood, rot, and the cycle of death) inherent in the primordial “Crucible” from its system, labeling them as “Outer Gods” or “defiled impurities,” and pursued an extremely purified, unnatural eternity.

The Frenzied Flame’s attempt to burn everything away and force a regression to “The One Great,” Miquella’s attempt to abandon everything and create the quiet age of “Unalloyed Gold,” and Queen Marika ultimately shattering the Elden Ring with her own hands—all of these can be logically explained as the inevitable results of arriving at the despairing cosmic truth that “the foundation of guidance (the oracles of the Two Fingers) was broken from the start, and the world was built upon a fundamental deceit.” The Lands Between is nothing other than an profoundly lonely and tragic miniature garden, where a broken antenna abandoned by god long ago continues to receive into the cosmic void, and the life forms manipulated by it wage endless, blood-soaked struggles.