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slavonicrhapsody · 6 months

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a deep dive into Rykard’s belief system

We all know that Rykard wants nothing more than to devour the very gods… but Rykard had despised the gods long before he ever became the serpent of blasphemy. Within dialogue and item descriptions, you’ll notice many details that indicate Rykard had quite specific grievances against the gods during the Shattering war and before. It was his audacious campaign against the gods that won him the loyalty and admiration of his soldiers: we meet the spirit of a Gelmir knight in Volcano Manor who tells us, “Praetor Rykard's ambitions, though blasphemous, marked him a worthy sovereign.” Though he was despised by many as a traitor and a blasphemer, Rykard’s beliefs before his devouring were seen by his followers as heroic and worth following. Let’s go through what those specific beliefs were according to the text, and why he might have believed those things…

When we officially join the Volcano Manor, Tanith gives us this speech about Rykard’s beliefs:

“Now, perhaps the time has come to tell you. Of the true ruler of this manor, Lord Rykard. The Erdtree blessed the Tarnished with grace. But it was all too meagre, in the fate of the enormity of their task. The Tarnished were forced to scavenge, squabbling for crumbs. Like the shardbearers, vying for power in the wake of the Shattering. Our Lord, indignant, had refused. To scurry about, fighting over what miserly scraps they allow us. If the Erdtree, and indeed the very gods, would debase us so, then we are willing to raise the banner of resistance, even if it means heresy. We at the Volcano Manor, under Lord Rykard, have sworn no rest until it is done.”

Essentially, Tanith recounts to us Rykard’s view of the Shattering war: the demigods are compelled to struggle against each other for the ultimate seat of power. However, this struggle exists at the behest of the gods, and is for the power that they see fit to grant. The war is fundamentally under their terms. To “win” the conflict is still to serve the whims of the Greater Will. This is what Rykard finds so deeply insulting… the gods treat them like dogs fighting over scraps of meat from their high table that they can never reach. So why should Rykard engage in petty conflicts for the gods’ miserly scraps of power, when he can raise his banner against the very gods themselves?

Displayed on the walls of Volcano Manor are these paintings depicting the Erdtree aflame, visualizing Rykard’s intentions to destroy the gods in a very literal and direct way: he has declared war on all that is holy. He has accepted the fact that in order to achieve his goals, he must carry out such grievous acts of violence: “The road of blasphemy is long and perilous. One cannot walk it unprepared to sin.” (Remembrance of the Blasphemous)

From the Taker’s Cameo, we learn that,

“When lord Rykard turned to heresy, taking by force became the rule. The gods were no different, after all.”

This description tells us a few things. Essentially, under Rykard’s worldview, “might makes right.” This philosophy is continued by the recusants of Volcano Manor as well: Bernahl tells us, “The strong take. Such is our code.” If one is strong enough to take what they wish, then they are entitled to it. Rykard believes that this is how the gods have always operated (and with good reason… more on this later). From Tanith’s speech, we know that Rykard resents the gods’ absolute authority… so essentially, Rykard making a point of imitating the gods’ displays of power is asserting that the gods have no special right to do these things – he is challenging their monopoly on power and violence. He also imitates the gods’ own practices to expose their hypocrisy: though the gods present themselves as virtuous, in reality, they have always taken what they pleased through violent conquest.

We know that Rykard was allied with his sister Ranni (herself on a quest against the gods) through the Blasphemous Claw item description. It reads,

“On the night of the dire plot, Ranni rewarded Praetor Rykard with these traces. Should the coming trespass one day transpire, they would serve as a last-resort foil, allowing Rykard to challenge Maliketh the Black Blade, the black beast of Destined Death.”

The main takeaway from this description is that, since the description implies that Rykard had some involvement (or at the very least, knowledge of) the Night of the Black Knives, Rykard and Ranni closely shared their beliefs on the gods with each other. The phrase “Should the coming trespass one day transpire” even seems to imply that the two had hoped they might openly “trespass” against the gods, culminating in Rykard challenging Maliketh.

Furthermore, Rogier gives us some pertinent details on the timeline of the Night of the Black Knives:

“It happened during the Golden Age of the Erdtree, long before the shattering of the Elden Ring. Someone stole a fragment of the Rune of Death from Maliketh, the Black Blade. And on a bitter night, murdered Godwyn the Golden. That was the first recorded Death of a demigod in all history. And it became the catalyst. Soon, the Elden Ring was smashed, and thus sprang forth the war known as the Shattering.”

Since Rogier’s dialogue places Ranni’s collaboration with Rykard before the Shattering, this means that there must be more to the story that Tanith tells us in her speech – Rykard’s resentment of the gods and his blasphemous intentions go back long before the Shattering war.

This line from Rykard’s unused dialogue lines may give some context to the source of his beliefs… take this with a grain of salt because it is technically not canon, but I believe it is worth mentioning: he says,

“Oh shapers of gods, meddlers in fortune, I do not abide by your suffocating order.”

With the phrases “shapers of gods” and “meddlers in fortune,” he must be speaking directly to the Two Fingers (the envoys of the Greater Will) here, because this is precisely what the Two Fingers do. According to Ranni, they are responsible for choosing empyreans to become potential new gods of the coming age, and because they do this, it can also be said that they “meddle” with fortune and fate. This was the source of Ranni’s entire feud with the Two Fingers — they controlled her fate through her “empyrean flesh.” For these reasons, as well as the reasons listed in the previous paragraphs, it makes sense why Rykard might consider the current order to be oppressive and “suffocating.”

I also believe it is implied that, when Rykard refers to “the gods,” he specifically means the Greater Will and its vassals. Indeed, Bernahl calls out the Greater Will directly by name:

“O Greater Will, hear my voice. I am the recusant Bernahl, inheritor of my brother's will, and you will fall to my blade. We refuse to become your pawns. Consider this fair warning.”

Bernahl’s words interestingly echo Ranni’s experience with the Greater Will as a force that controls fate — it is a fair assumption to make that Bernahl came to hold these beliefs about the Greater Will because Rykard passed them onto his followers after learning them from Ranni. And lo and behold, Bernahl turns up in Farum Azula near Maliketh, carrying the Blasphemous Claw, which Ranni gave to Rykard for him to use “should the coming trespass one day transpire.” Before leaving, Bernahl tells us,

“the Volcano Manor is no more. Though we may yet fulfil an old promise. We hunted our own kind, and took what was theirs. And with everything in hand, the time has come to rise, against the Erdtree.”

Perhaps this “old promise” could have been a promise Rykard made to Ranni, to challenge Maliketh, release the Rune of Death, and destroy the Erdtree once and for all?

If we accept the idea that Ranni’s struggle against the Two Fingers caused Rykard to resent the gods on her behalf, then there are plenty of other instances of the gods causing Rykard’s family misery that might have also shaped his beliefs. Rykard cared enough about his mother to place two of his abductor virgins at Raya Lucaria to guard her, and the descriptions for some of his magma sorceries imply that she was an inspiration to him in the ways of sorcery. It is a fair assumption that Rennala’s suffering would have upset him, and the cause of her suffering was Radagon’s departure… who immediately wed the god-queen Marika, and founded Golden Order Fundamentalism. Rykard could have interpreted this as Radagon choosing the gods over them. It is also stated by the telescope item description that the Golden Order was the direct cause of Caria’s decline: “During the age of the Erdtree, Carian astrology withered on the vine. The fate once writ in the night skies had been fettered by the Golden Order.” Though the Erdtree made peace with Caria, it still ended up eroding its strength anyway. Radagon’s departure would have also reopened old wounds from when he originally came to conquer Liurnia: his bond with Rennala that once made peace between the Erdtree and the moon has now been broken, calling into question the Erdtree’s true intentions.

Indeed, the intentions of the realm of the Erdtree have always been characterized by violent conquest; the desire to expand and the elimination of potential threats to its rule. Rykard would have known of his father’s attempts to conquer Liurnia, as well as Queen Marika’s extermination of the fire giants, who were Rykard’s astrologer ancestors’ neighbors (a bond enshrined within the Carian royals’ Sword of Night and Flame). To return to Rykard’s “might makes right” mindset, I believe his time as the head of the inquisition and an enforcer of Erdtree law taught him the true nature of the gods’ power: he would have brutally enforced the laws of the Golden Order and punished those who did not follow its creeds, and would thus have become intimately familiar with the harsh nature of carrying out the order of the Erdtree. Rykard learns that the gods must protect their rule through terror and violence, so the idea of the gods’ benevolence and divine right to rule is in truth, a farce. The one truth in the world is that the strong command the weak, and in order to avoid being commanded, one must become strong. By any means necessary.

To summarize, Rykard’s beliefs are essentially that the gods position themselves as virtuous and holy beings, but in reality, they administer their absolute authority through force and violent conquest, undermining the free will of their subjects. They are the worst kind of hypocrites, and the only way to end their tyranny is to rise in rebellion, using their own ways against them, no matter how high the price may be. Through a deeper examination of the narrative, I believe it is heavily implied that Rykard came to hold these beliefs because of his experiences serving the gods himself, and feeling the gods’ injustice firsthand through how the ones he loved had been treated.

#elden ring #rykard #rykard lord of blasphemy #praetor rykard #elden ring lore #the biggest epiphany i had here was that bernahl straight up says the same thing about the greater will/two fingers that ranni does #“we refuse to become your pawns / ”I would not be controlled by that thing“#and then the next time we see bernahl he's carrying the blasphemous claw which ranni gave to rykard!!#it feels like ranni's influence runs so deep... her hatred of the two fingers must have struck rykard to his core

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