Dark Souls Part 1: An Introduction to Lordan

Prepare to die...

I have started this blog after inspiration from a friend's analysis of The Legend of Zelda, Majora's Mask. Dark Souls is a game that has been made famous mostly by its intuitive gameplay and unforgiving difficulty, but many rightly believe that these things are hardly all a game needs to be a great game. Unfortunately, one of my favorite parts about Dark Souls - the story - is most often overlooked. Not because it is intangible or bad, but because Dark Souls has a rather nontraditional form of storytelling. The game only outright shows you the bare bones of the universe you are cast into. It is as such that I believe this blog will help bring out the story of this great game so that it may be appreciated by those who have missed it.

Without further ado, let's begin...

After personalizing your character, the game introduces you with a cutscene - one of very few in the game, and the only one to be computer generated. It tells of the creation a fantasy world, a formless land ruled only by dragons. Then, in something that could only be related to either Creationism or the Big Band Theory, there was something else - Fire. No, not fire like what cavemen discovered, or fire like what Prometheus gave to man in Greek mythology. This "Fire" is some kind of life force for the world that brought life with it.

From this creation, four entities discovered the four Souls of Lords. Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, Nito, the Lord of the dead, the Witch of Izalith, and a mysterious entity known only as the Pygmy - whose only defining trait is how little is known about it. The three other entities (Gwyn, Nito, and the Witch) united, and rose against the rule of the dragons. With the help of a defecting dragon, Seath the Scaless, the Lords were able to all but eradicate the dragons from the world.

And thus began a sort of golden age - The Age of Fire. The gods have ruled over mankind from their mountaintop city of Olymp- I mean Anor Londo, and humanity has prospered throughout the land for thousands of years. However... the world is growing darker. The Fire that brought this world to its prosperity is beginning to die. To make matters worse, several humans start to become afflicted with the Darksign - an incurable ailment that slowly kills the bearer, and then turns them into a mindless Hollow (zombie).

It is unknown if Nito did anything to stop this (I imagine you have to be rather apathetic to be the Lord of the Dead), but Gwyn and the Witch began to fight to keep the world that they had fought to create. The Witch of Izalith attempted to duplicate the first spark that had created the Fire - but this had disastrous consequences when it instead created a monstrous entity known as the Bed of Chaos. From this place, demons were born, and they ravaged through the now lost city of Izalith.

Seeing no other choice, Gwyn took a platoon of his faithful knights, and marched to the Kiln of the First Flame - the very place where this Fire was born. He then sacrificed himself and his power to the flame in order to greatly extend the Age of Fire. Of course, this only delayed the problem, it did not fix it. We are finally now to the present day. The Fire is continuing to die. The other gods who inhabited Anor Londo have all fled, deserting the world to its fate. Hollows, demons, and other terrifying creatures ravage the land. Everyone is slowly dying. Welcome to Dark Souls.