Rune.09: Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy - Rebellion Against Order and Tragic Sublimation

© FromSoftware

Introduction: Rebellion Against the Golden Order and the Definition of “Blasphemy”

In The Lands Between, the setting of Elden Ring, the word “Blasphemy” does not merely refer to a religious taboo or immorality. It signifies an absolute rejection of the fundamental principles of the Golden Order that rules the world, and a rebellion accompanied by the use of force against The Greater Will that governs it. Reigning at the pinnacle of this ideology, having offered his own flesh, soul, and even the fate of his lineage as sacrifices, is “Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy” .

Why did Rykard, who was once an enforcer of the law as a Praetor, come to cast himself into the belly of the most abhorred great serpent in the world? This article comprehensively analyzes his life and psychological evolution. The underlying principle of his actions is not mere lust for power or madness. Beneath it lies a deep ressentiment toward the absolute other (the gods), a twisted obsession with “Family” born from the fear of loss, and a tragic spirit of self-sacrifice, willing to discard his own dignity to strike down a great evil. His story is a highly literary and tragic piece of mythology, illustrating how the children of the gods, tossed about by fate, struggled to escape their curses.

1. Lineage and Curse (Blessing): The Fate Born Between Gold and the Full Moon

1.1 The Transition from Carian Prince to Step-Demigod and the Collapse of the Family

The first turning point that determined Rykard’s life lies in his lineage and the subsequent dissolution of his family. He was born to Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, and Radagon, a hero of the Golden Order, with General Radahn and Lunar Princess Ranni as his siblings . This bloodline, which crystallized the Academy of Raya Lucaria and the Carian royal family—whose supreme goal was the pursuit of sorcery—and the pinnacle of martial valor of the Erdtree, was originally meant to reign as the blessed elite in The Lands Between. In fact, they all inherited the “red hair” symbolic of their father Radagon, and there are traces that Rykard, too, took pride in his lineage in his youth .

However, his fate changed drastically when his father Radagon suddenly abandoned Rennala and left for Leyndell, Royal Capital, to become Queen Marika’s king consort. Through the union of Radagon and Marika, Rykard and his siblings were integrated into the Golden Lineage as “step-Demigods” . Superficially, this elevation in status was a “blessing.” Yet for Rykard, it was nothing less than a “curse”—a formative experience that drove his biological mother Rennala into heartbroken madness and irreversibly destroyed his happy family, laying bare the selfishness of The Greater Will.

His deep hatred for the way individual destinies and family bonds were toyed with for the convenience of the gods sowed the seeds of ressentiment toward the Golden Order within him. This trauma of a “torn family” served as the psychological foundation that later led him to the bizarre logic of unification: “Let us devour the gods together and become family” .

1.2 Contrast and Relationships with His Siblings (Radahn, Ranni)

Despite sharing the same trauma, the paths taken by the three siblings were starkly contrasting.

While Radahn found a warrior’s honor within the system of the Golden Order and became the establishment’s strongest general, Ranni and Rykard explicitly bared their fangs against The Greater Will . Initially, Rykard, alongside Radahn, supported the second-generation power base of The Greater Will and the Golden Order, but inwardly, he quietly fanned the flames of rebellion. When his sister Ranni orchestrated the Night of the Black Knives, Rykard was chosen as her most trustworthy accomplice because the two shared the ideology of “overthrowing the rule of the gods” .

2. His Role as a Breaker of History and Major Actions: The Fall from Praetor to Rebel

2.1 Complicity in the Night of the Black Knives and the “Blasphemous Claw”

Rykard’s decisive first step as a “breaker of history” was his direct involvement in the Night of the Black Knives led by his sister Ranni. In this incident, where a fragment of the Rune of Death—the foundation of the Golden Order—was stolen and the first Demigod, Godwyn the Golden, was assassinated, Rykard played a crucial backup role .

On the night of the execution, Ranni gave Rykard the Blasphemous Claw . This was a slab of rock engraved with traces of the Rune of Death, serving as a “last-resort foil” against Maliketh, the Black Blade, who controlled Destined Death, in preparation for the coming day of ruin . This indicates that if the conspiracy were exposed and Maliketh came to execute them, Rykard was resolved to repel the power of death and mutually strike down Maliketh . Just as his sister resolved to discard her own flesh, Rykard, despite holding a key position in the establishment as Praetor, was also preparing to risk his own life to overturn the divine order.

2.2 The Gruesome Defensive War of Mt. Gelmir

During The Shattering, when the Elden Ring was broken and the Demigods engaged in a bloody conflict over the Great Runes, Rykard explicitly raised the banner of rebellion against The Greater Will and the Erdtree forces. His righteous indignation over The Greater Will abandoning the Demigods and forcing family members into meaningless slaughter drove him completely down the path of blasphemy .

The battle between the forces of Leyndell, Royal Capital, and the Gelmir forces led by Rykard is recorded as “the most appalling battle” of The Shattering . Utilizing the geographical advantage of sheer cliffs and toxic volcanic gas, the Gelmir forces built a formidable stronghold, and the war devolved into an endless, quagmire-like war of attrition . The clash between the Leyndell forces, who had no choice but to advance over mountains of corpses, and the Gelmir forces, who had completely lost their sanity, turned the battlefield into a hellscape devoid of glory. Cannibalism became a daily occurrence, and soldiers of both armies were afflicted by the disease of the Frenzied Flame out of sheer despair .

2.3 The Inquisition and the Evolution of Torture Devices: From Guardian of the Law to Executor of Blasphemy

As he waged this gruesome war, Rykard’s methods gradually became radicalized and tinged with madness. Originally a Praetor who commanded Inquisitors and enforced the law, he began repurposing his torture devices into weapons of mass slaughter . The most prominent example of this is the Abductor Virgins (Iron Virgins) .

Inspired by “Ghiza’s Wheel,” a torture device used by Inquisitor Ghiza that flayed flesh and forced severe bleeding, these massive automatons were developed not only to slaughter enemies on the battlefield but also to function as devices to abduct victims into the depths of Volcano Manor . Some speculate that the design of these virgins was modeled after his mother Rennala, suggesting a link between his internal fixation on motherhood (an Oedipus complex-like element) and his hatred for the Golden Order .

What began as an inquisition to enforce the laws of the Golden Order gradually transformed into “abductions” to gather sacrifices for his own ambition (devouring the gods). This process illustrates his descent into moral corruption and cold rationalism, justifying any atrocity for the sake of his goal .

3. Inner Mind and Conflict (Love, Hate, and Conviction): The God-Devouring Serpent and Tragic Self-Sacrifice

The most important element in deciphering Rykard’s inner mind is his motive for allowing himself to be consumed by the God-Devouring Serpent, and his subsequent relationships with those around him (Tanith, Zorayas, and the Gelmir Knights). While his actions superficially brim with maddening greed, deep down, “love,” “a sense of duty,” “despair,” and “the fear of eternal loneliness” are intricately intertwined.

3.1 Encounter with the Great Serpent and the Ancient Faith of Gelmir

On Mt. Gelmir, long before the Golden Order ruled the world, there existed a forgotten, indigenous religion that worshipped a Serpent-God . The Serpent-God possessed the power to restore vitality through sacrifices, and ritual implements modeled after its form, such as the “Serpent-God’s Curved Sword,” remain . Although serpents were abhorred as “traitors” to the Erdtree , Rykard studied this ancient hex and weaponized it as the new “magma sorceries of Gelmir,” which required both intelligence and faith .

Amidst the stalemate of The Shattering, perhaps realizing his limits or seeking a more absolute power, Rykard committed the atrocious act of feeding his own flesh and his entire Great Rune to this great serpent, known as Eiglay . Within the serpent’s belly, Rykard’s consciousness assimilated with the serpent, and with the conviction that “A serpent never dies,” he was reduced to a monster that would hunt the gods for eternity .

3.2 The Mad Logic of Devouring Gods: Eternal Unification as “Family”

During battle, Rykard speaks to the Tarnished: “我、蛇の王の家族となり、共に神をも喰らおうぞ（Now you are family. Together, we will devour the very gods!）”.

On the surface of the “Blasphemous Blade” he wields, the corpses of countless heroes he has devoured writhe. The text notes that “they are now family, sharing the same blood, and when an enemy is defeated, HP is restored” . Normally, predation is the act of unreasonably stealing another’s life. However, in Rykard’s mad logic, being swallowed into the serpent’s stomach and living on eternally was the realization of the ultimate “family bond” that would never be separated.

It is not difficult to infer that the trauma of having his family dismantled by his father Radagon in his childhood birthed a thirst for an “eternal community that could never be torn apart” within him. A man who had his family stolen by a god (The Greater Will) turned his own belly into a massive Crucible, forcibly dragging others into it to create an “irreversible family.” This act was his extreme expression of “love and salvation,” and the manifestation of ultimate ressentiment against an unreasonable fate.

3.3 Tanith’s Unconditional Love and “True Valour”

While Rykard’s actions are generally perceived as a “descent into boundless greed,” Lady Tanith, the proprietor of Volcano Manor, held a completely different interpretation.

Rykard, who fell in love at first sight with Tanith, a foreign dancer, favored her, and they loved each other deeply . To Tanith, Rykard’s fusion with the great serpent was not madness, but “proof of ultimate valour and self-sacrifice, selling his soul and dignity to a devil to defeat the gods” . To fight the gods and destroy the Golden Order, one cannot remain a pure hero. It requires a cold-hearted resolve to walk through hell, fall into a monster, and carry out the objective even at the cost of forever losing fundamental human joys (friendship and love). Tanith saw in him the tragic resolve of a lord willing to discard himself to free the world from its curse .

Rykard himself understood how much pain his choice would force upon Tanith. Before being swallowed by the great serpent, he gave Tanith a “Tonic of Forgetfulness” to make her forget her pain and miserable memories . However, Tanith rejected it, stating, “My Lord, there could be no greater pain than to forget you” . This episode vividly illustrates that Rykard was not a monster completely devoid of emotion, but a man who retained deep affection for his consort and his conscience until the very end.

3.4 The Abominable Offspring Zorayas (Rya) and the Blasphemy of Life

An even darker secret exists within Volcano Manor. This is the existence of “Zorayas (Rya),” a man-serpent girl raised by Tanith as her adopted daughter .

Rya believed she was born by the “grace of a glorious king,” but the truth was that she was the product of a “repellant birthing ritual” unblessed by anyone . It is highly likely that this ritual was performed using a woman (or her corpse) named Daedicar, who is said to have indulged in every form of adultery and wicked pleasure, giving birth to countless grotesque children . The “Serpent’s Amnion” left on an altar guarded by a Godskin Noble deep within Volcano Manor serves as proof of this .

Some of the grotesque children born to Daedicar were man-serpents, and Rya was one of them. Some speculate that the partner Daedicar copulated with was none other than Rykard himself after he was swallowed by the great serpent . If so, the very act of degrading himself into a serpent and further spawning its cursed bloodline was the greatest spite against the Golden Order, which holds life sacred, and a thorough ritual of “blasphemy.” The sight of Rya sinking into the depths of despair upon learning the truth highlights just how many sacrifices and distortions the righteous cause of “family” championed by Rykard was built upon .

3.5 Parting Ways with the Knights: The End of Heroic Ambition

In contrast to Tanith’s unconditional love, the Gelmir Knights who had sworn loyalty to Rykard could not tolerate their lord’s transformation . For those who had once harbored “heroic ambition” and raised the banner of rebellion against the Erdtree, seeing Rykard surrender himself to the great serpent and devolve into a hideous monster that merely devoured life endlessly was nothing less than the loss of their righteous cause .

The despairing knights sought out the Serpent-Hunter, an ancient weapon meant to hunt the great serpent, in order to stop their lord. This spear is a legendary weapon said to have been forged long ago to hunt an immortal great serpent . However, they could not bring themselves to strike down their lord, and the spear was left in the lord’s chamber. A spirit remaining in Volcano Manor (a knight presumed to be Bernahl’s brother) pleads with the visiting Tarnished: “He is no longer Rykard,” and asks them to kill him “so as not to disgrace his ambition any further” .

From the knights’ perspective, Rykard had fallen into a “monster of gluttony” who had forgotten his cause . However, from Tanith’s perspective, it was a “necessary defilement” to achieve that cause . This fatal discrepancy in perception demonstrates just how lonely and incomprehensibly abyssal the path Rykard walked truly was. He betrayed even the subordinates who adored him, bearing the eternal karma of swallowing the entire world all alone.

4. Philosophical and Thematic Significance: Eternity and Change, Liberation from Fate

Rykard’s way of life functions as a powerful antithesis to the “cycle of the Golden Order” depicted throughout Elden Ring.

4.1 Contrast with Messmer’s “Abyssal Serpent”: Acceptance and Rejection of Fate

Messmer the Impaler, who appears in the DLC, is also a Demigod who harbors the curse of a serpent within his body. However, their approaches to the serpent are polar opposites . Messmer abhorred the Abyssal Serpent dwelling within him as a curse, sealing and suppressing it out of loyalty to his mother Marika . Even after being abandoned, he tried to live within the framework ordained by the gods .

In contrast, Rykard sought out the God-Devouring Serpent of Gelmir himself, and by letting it devour him, he proactively embraced the curse as a “great power” . If Messmer is a tragic hero bound by fate (his mother’s curse), Rykard is a rebel who willingly reduced himself to a demon lord to destroy fate . This contrast symbolizes the fundamental existential question in Elden Ring: whether the Demigods choose “self-destruction through obedience” or “self-desecration through rebellion” against The Greater Will.

4.2 “Immortal Gluttony” as an Antithesis to the Golden Order

In the worldview of the Golden Order, life is promised a beautiful “eternal cycle” where, after death, it returns to the roots of the Erdtree and circulates back into the world. However, what Rykard chose was a grotesque “eternal stagnation” where beings melt together in the serpent’s belly, never dying (never returning), and continuing to unify in eternal agony.

His utterance, “何者も、我を律せられぬ。蛇は不滅よ（No one will hold me captive. A serpent never dies.）” is a declaration of absolute non-assimilation into the system (Order) of the Erdtree. Having fed even the blessing of The Greater Will—his Great Rune—to the serpent , he rejected living within the framework given by the gods and literally rewrote the very nature of his existence from the ground up. Rather than being incorporated into the divine order, he chose the path of becoming a devil, eternally fusing with others in a quagmire.

4.3 Justification of “Taking” and the Exposure of the World’s Truth

Rykard’s ideology is most plainly expressed in the text of the “Taker’s Cameo,” a talisman modeled after him.

“ライカードが冒涜を誓い、力による略奪がルールとなった。結局のところ、神とて同じであったのだ（When Rykard turned to heresy, taking by force became the rule. The gods themselves were no different, after all.）”

This single sentence sharply pierces the truth of the worldview in Elden Ring. The Greater Will and Queen Marika, who uphold the Golden Order, also once built their order by destroying the giants, defeating the Gloam-Eyed Queen, slaying the ancient dragons, persecuting others, and “taking” The Lands Between by force. Rykard brought the bloodstained truth of “taking by force,” which the gods had concealed, into the light of day, and attempted to devour the gods by the very same rules they used . His “blasphemy” was the ultimate irony directed at the rulers who feigned sanctity, and a mirror embodying the hidden violence of the world.

4.4 Volcano Manor as a Salvation Mechanism for Recusants

The “Recusants” who gather at Volcano Manor, represented by Knight Bernahl and Diallos, are those who doubted the dogma of the Two Fingers, despaired at the hypocrisy of the Golden Order, and chose the path of carnage to hunt their fellow Tarnished . Tanith preaches to them, “英雄の道とは常に汚れており、だからこそ真の勇気なのだ（The way is tainted, but for this very reason, it is the true path to valour.）” warmly welcoming them as “family” .

Objectively speaking, Volcano Manor is nothing more than a cult-like exploitative mechanism designed to make the strong cannibalize each other, ultimately offering the victorious, superior warriors as fodder for Rykard . However, for the Recusants, rather than dancing blindly within the deceitful Golden Order, taking on sin of their own volition and becoming devils who rebel against the gods was a far more autonomous and existential way of life . The existence of the colossal monster Rykard was a “monument of despair and rebellion” that absorbed the ressentiment of those oppressed by the establishment and those who had despaired, crystallizing it into a single, massive stomach.

Conclusion: The Scars Left by the Flame of Blasphemy and the Inextinguishable Curse

Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, is the Demigod who transformed into the most hideous and grotesque figure in the history of Elden Ring. However, when delving into his life and ideology, what emerges is not merely the face of an evil monster.

He was a victim harboring the trauma of having his family destroyed by the unreasonable whims of the gods. He discarded his strict rationality as a Praetor, and while preparing a parting gift (the Tonic of Forgetfulness) for his beloved of his own volition , he cast himself into the belly of the great serpent from which there is no return . Just as the countless corpses writhing in the serpent’s belly are bound as one , the bond of “family” he thirsted for became eternal in the most blasphemous and agonizing form.

His physical body is ultimately slain by a new hero (the player). However, as indicated by his final words, “A serpent never dies,” and the bizarre epilogue where Tanith attempts to rebirth him within herself by devouring his corpse , the very concept of “rebellion against the gods” that he left behind has not completely perished.

The flame of blasphemy that Rykard carved into The Lands Between will burn eternally on the reverse side of the Erdtree’s history—as a hellfire condemning the hypocrisy of the gods, and as a symbol of absolute negation that those trapped in the cage of fate cling to at the very end. His story will be remembered forever in the history of The Lands Between as the ugliest, yet purest, expression of “human will” against divine providence.