#vinheim dragon school

[knightscanfeeltoo]

When Two Soulsborne Characters have "RICK" in their Names...

(I Love Rickert more than Andre and I'm Not a Huge Fan of Godrick Nope...)

[palebloodcvrse]

Vinheim and raya lucaria are MY hogwarts <3

[go-go-devil]

14, 22, and 40 for Lei :]

14) Do they look up to anyone?

When Lei was a little girl she used to look up to a lot of people. This came from the fact that her immense social anxiety combined with her internalizing her parents’ belief that she won’t amount to anything more than a house servant gave her abysmally low confidence in herself. Thus, she put her trust in nearly everyone who were willing to engage with her or were what she considered amazing, like knights and sorcerers and especially dragons! Her Aunt Tabitha was and still remains the one shining light in her life, and she also undeniably looked up to her far-more sociable and scheming big brother, though definitely not anymore…

Nowadays Leiurus rarely holds such adoration for others. All the failures and traumas of her life have left her soul hardened to the idea of wanting to follow the path of another seemingly-spectacular person. However, after becoming an undead exile in Lordran she’s found herself experiencing strange feelings toward a certain sun-drenched knight. How could one of his ilk ever dare put his faith and trust in a lowly dreg like herself, let alone offer her help in her own battles? Perhaps she might like to talk with him again.

22) Have they ever hurt or lost anyone?

Oh boy...

The chaos in Leiurus's life first started when her brother ran away when she was but 10 years old, taking their parents' savings and some of their most precious trinkets with him. Her father went after him in a murderous rage, only to be found dead days later, having seemingly fell down a cliff. With no means of supporting herself, Lei's mother made the decision to join up with her sister Tabitha on the road despite her distaste for her lifestyle and the sneaking suspicion that she's hiding something from her. Several months later Lei's mom also perished via unknown circumstances, Lei wasn't there to see it, so her Aunt Tabby took her in and raised her as she would her own child.

Leiurus loved her aunt more than anyone in the world, finally getting to soak up the feelings of encouragement and adoration her own parents had never fully given her. She was the one who helped Lei realize she was capable of preforming magic, and even scrapped tooth and nail for enough gold to send her to the prestigious Vinheim Dragon School so that she may further excel in her abilities. Even when Lei ended up dropping out after seemingly losing her magical abilities, she knew she could safely return to live with her aunt.

Unfortunately, her precious Aunt Tabby had a terrible secret she'd been hiding from her niece-daughter: she was undead. While for over a decade since her death she'd been able to slow the hollowing to a crawl, it was slowly weakening her soul, and by the time Lei returned home she had fully turned into a mindless, violent creature. Lei found her in her bedroom, clutching the bandit's knife that had originally slain her long ago and rocking back and forth, only to charge at her niece when she finally noticed noticed her presence. She struggled to defend herself, but was able to take the knife from her aunt and jam it into her heart several times until she became a still carcass on the floor.

Even if the killing was in self-defense, Lei will never forgive herself for what she did.

40) What is their moral alignment?

Certainly a dark shade of moral grayness.

Leiurus The Scorpion is a professional thief. Her entire livelihood revolves around stealing from others, sometimes even having to hurt or in worse case scenarios kill to get what she wants. While Lei likes to assert that she has standards in her practices, those noble rules of her can and have occasionally fallen to the wayside in hard times.

She could mostly follow her code of refusing to hurt the innocent and not taking a scrap from the poor, but when she's starving and see's a unoccupied kid carrying some smoked ham home to his sickly father she's going to take the easy meal, and when a vigilante tries to catch her to relive their neighborhood of her robberies she's going to defend herself, even if that means delivering unto them a fatal backstab.

Yet the one thing that Leiurus dreads most about her morality is the fact that, despite all the pain and grit, she does enjoy the title she's gained as a feared thief. Never in the past had she ever believed she'd be capable of not only being independent, but also having any notable power within her. That long-awaited, vile pride was simply too intoxicating for her let go of. Of course, now that she's been granted the title of Chosen Undead she's been wrestling with her morality to an even harsher degree than before. Maybe her life fell apart, but now she can truly be a hero to those around her?

...Right?

[lunarbrambles]

I mean it would be cool to get into that non-Undead AU for DS3 Adrian but I don't think I'd ever actually roleplay it on tumblr because of how limited it would be given he super can't leave Vinheim. Dragon School literally will not let him even if his chronic pain didn't limit his mobility. But also, non-Undead!DS3 Adrian using his catalyst as a mobility aid.

[boltcreature]

The teens of Lordran don't have a lot to work with for pranks seeing as the orange soapstone only has pre-written phrases.

(I know Vinheim is not IN Lordran but its much easier to phrase ti this way for a joke)

[mrslittletall]

I have a lot of thoughts about the dragon school All make it a place of fleshy corruption and more like a brothel/sex party than a school, though leaning does go on. Logan was always the exception (as was his master) (refusing to sleep around with other wizards , paying for actual sex workers in nearby cities when he wanted to)and Griggs was the first apprentice he ever wanted and first person to love him and be loved in return,

This makes their relationship so much cuter and romantic in that place of corruption. You are really good with world building. 

[belongsinthetrash]

Alright, with Elden Ring around the corner and my Soulsborne hyperfixation threatening to take over when it releases (apologies in advance to my Omori mutuals), I feel it is time for me to say my thoughts on how I envision a crossover with two favorite medias would be like:

Omori characters in the Dark Souls universe

(As it is said, I may be cringe, but I am free.)

Sunny and Mari would hail from the Far East, with both knowing some basic sorcery. But while Sunny would be alright with just being a shinobi/ninja with access to stealth spells, Mari would pursue higher knowledge of sorcery, somehow earning herself a invitation to the Vinheim Dragon School despite its gatekeeping and snobbery. She becomes a sorcerer of some renown before she leaves the college because of the environment, but while she wanders the ruined kingdom she and her party of friends find themselves in (most likely Lothric), she may or may not get pulled into the allure of the dark and may or may not become a witch~.

Kel and Hero are Jugo-born, but are Undead refugees that had found their way to Melfia, with them enrolling within the Magic Academy, Hero majoring in sorcery, Kel in pyromancy. Kel has made the academic purists mad with willingly using a weapon along with magic. Hero plays a bit more safe by focusing purely on his magic studies. When he finally meets Mari in the group's combined travels, he is enamored with not only her, but knowing another sorcerer who is well accomplished (not to mention deadly with a curved sword). They both compare teachings they've learned in their tenures of sorcery and even teach their exclusive spells to the other.

Aubrey and Basil have teamed up before their run in with the rest, but Aubrey is from Forossa and Basil is from Astora. Aubrey's life in the kingdom taught her to fight at a young age and she slowly went up the ranks in the Forossan militia, even becoming a famed Lion Knight to fight off outside aggressors. Basil, meanwhile, was born a noble within one of Astora's elite families and was forced against his will to pick up a sword and learn to become a knight so his parents would get some praise for their offspring being a well regarded Elite Knight, which worked out in the end, because of how quickly he was disowned and banished after he became cursed with Undeath. Despite their personality differences, they get along quite well, but Basil always is intrigued when he hears Aubrey talk about her god Faraam, like he's heard of a god of war similar to him from his kingdom before.

All of them are part of one big group out to slay the Lords of Cinder and send them back to their thrones, with all of them being Unkindled Ash that can't find peace until their task is done.

They come across other strange characters across their journey as well, including:

- An excitable young lad from Zena that's own little shop is full of funny little trinkets to trade and talks of his beast of a sister, but clarifys not an actual beast.

- A towering yet quiet miss from the Great Swamp that has become in tune with the nature of the world and would like to teach some pyromancies to help you become in tune too.

- A shady and arrogant miscreant from Lindelt that offers miracles at frankly absorbent prices but is also apparently hiding away from his Archdrake siblings that wish for him to come back home.

- A pair of jovial Catarina Knight siblings that find playing a few pranks to be fun and good for bonding with other travelers, usually compensating them with sweet delicacies that they've accrued.

- A timid but otherwise friendly mage from Vinheim that undermines her teaching skills, but finds the willingness of others to learn to give her enough strength to do it for them.

- An amicable and soft spoken lady from Lanafir that has a fascination of the seas of the world and offers grand rewards to warriors for the collection of shells to her covenant.

- And an ominous, grim, dead-eyed boy from Londor that offers the group a way to wrest the control of the cycle from the gods, but at a price that not a lot are willing to pay; it's not helping that he looks all-too-familiar to one of the people within the group.

And I don't know how the hell to end this post except... thanks for reading the most self-indulgent shit I've ever made I guess?

[cursed-ever-to-wander]

Dragonseeker Nox, part I

First of three parts detailing Nox’s life during the Age of Fire and beyond... Abridged and does not include the entirety of her antics, obviously, just the key points

Humble Beginnings

Nox, and she doesn’t actually remember if this is her birth-name or just something that stuck, hails from Vinheim and once upon a time was a student of sorcery at the Dragon School. Not a stellar one, mind me; barely scrapping by is more like it. However, her studies did lead to her first death among the thousands when she attempted to combine self-taught pyromancy with sorcery in an attempt to recreate a glimpse of the fabled and lost fire sorceries. It... backfired.  

Exiled and Hunted

Soon enough discovered as an Undead, she was promptly kicked out of the Dragon School and by extension the entire Vinheim, marking the start of her troublesome journey across the world.  For obvious reasons not particularly welcomed by people, she eventually was sent to the Northern Undead Asylum, spending unknown amount of time there, slowly hollowing out, before being eventually rescued by Oscar.  By this point, however, in an attempt to keep herself whole, Nox started to slightly obsess over dragons. 

To the Land of Gods

Upon arriving to Lordran Nox sets her eyes on meeting Paledrake Seath and mostly works toward this goal, while assisting Solaire in his journey of the Chosen Undead.  She eventually makes good friends with Laurentius and gets taught actual pyromancy, most likely leaving the poor man either fascinated or horrified by what she managed to figure out on her own. She eventually ends up preferring pyromancy to her, still present, sorcery skills.

As for other people and... not entirely people, she generally gets along with others at the Firelink pretty well, snatching her Dragonseeker moniker from good old sleepyhead Frampt the Kingseeker.  

Shattered Dreams

Let’s pour one out for Nox’s hopes and dreams ending up completely shattered by her visit to the Duke. It could not be right, it should not be right, but the images Dragon School and her own imagination painted were a bit off compared to reality.  Choosing denial and bargain over anything else Nox then sets her eyes on the elusive dream of finding any dragons that remain still in the world, studying any information to be found in the Duke’s Archives on the matter. The brief mentions of the Ash Lake send her exploring Blighttown, where she, despite never finding her goal, runs into Quelana, thus fully transitioning from an aspiring sorceress to prodigal pyromancer.  And inadvertently, through a series of seemingly unrelated events, saves Solaire’s life.  

His Very Own Sun

As mentioned before, Nox was hardly the hero of the Chosen Undead story, Solaire happens to be, she however gladly dropped by for some jolly cooperation and just to check on how his life is going, this eventually leading to them challenging Gwyn together.  And so next comes the Linking of the Fire, becoming Solaire’s eventual demise and yet another moment of hope coming crushing down for Nox. Leaving Kiln with the full intention to sue Frampt for the false advertising, she is unable to locate him and eventually, after some time passes, is left at the Firelink Shrine mostly alone, as everyone does move on.

Oh, Aimless Wanderer

She does as well, tagging along with Laurentius towards the Great Swamp, however she does not make it there, separating from him at some point. Her path eventually leads to taking revenge on those, who put her in the Northern Undead Asylum, but this is a whole other story...

[nightprince]

Day 19: Shadow

Day 19 of @oc-growth-and-development OC-tober. Featured here is my Sorcerer character from Dark Souls 3. Not going to lie, this one was really hard to figure out. I am, once again, shouting out my wonderful wife @nightsminx for assigning the characters and editing the prompts!

________________________________________________

Sriethlann did not fear the fading of the fire like so many others. She wondered if that was because she was a sorcerer. Wondered if, because unlike the pyromancers, the flames never called out to her. Wondered if it was because the heat and the light of the flames repulsed her. The magic of the arcane - and the crystal magic - were cool and precise. Not wild and rash like the flames.

So if pyromancy was out of the question, and she had learned all other sorceries, then what was left to study and learn?

The fools of the Vinheim Dragon School would argue that there was none. They’d turn in their undead graves if they knew she had learned crystal sorcery. Not that they would care. Not that anyone from that wretched school would care what she did anymore.

One pointed purple fingernail traced the dragon tattoo burned onto her face. The last humiliation before they exiled her. For daring to question. For daring to look at other sorceries. For daring to think there was more than what they taught.

So she left to find what she could. To find and master all sorceries. It didn’t matter to her if they had been considered heretical. She cast away the beliefs of the Vinheim Dragon School just as easily as they cast her out. After all, why should heresy concern an exile? After all, why should an exile care about how things should be done?

Sriethlann reached into her witch robes and drew out the tome of so-called Dark Sorceries. The Dragon School were fools for banning these sorceries. Fools for fearing what it meant in order to cast them. Such hypocrites the lot of them. After all, souls were the currency of the world. What did it matter if the sorcery was fueled by the soul? What did it matter if the sorcery was a reflection of humanity?

But that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Humanity was so feared that it was the first thing to be discarded. So feared that the darkness which lurked within everyone was constantly denied and ignored. So feared that anything which drew upon it was branded heresy. So feared that anyone who even glances at it is branded a heretic.

Sriethlann pulled the wide brim of her purple witch’s hat down, casting a dark shadow over the dragon brand. She had already been branded and exiled. What did it matter to her? She had sworn to master all sorcerers.

Nothing would stand in her way.

[luckyberet]

‘  are  you  a  helpful  wizard,  or  the  kind  that  sits  in  a  tower  reading  moldy  books  ?  ’

SCENARIO PROMPTS

✧* ░  “ Is that what you think sorcerers of Vinheim are about? Maybe those moldy books may teach something helpful. ” Chuckling at the latter option, her head shook for a no. Even if that description could eerily fit her in a way - how many times she isolated herself in one of the Dragon School towers with her books. In silence, in peace, with the most wonderful sight outside. She could hardly call herself a wizard. Anyone who could even relatively gain that title would be the Big Hat Logan, the hermit was often hard to approach, yet as much as Marylin learnt to know him, he had a kind heart.

Staff in her hand, pressing it against her chest, she created a smile towards him. “ I'd like to think I am helpful, as much as my sorceries and I can be. ” || @through-fire-and-flame

[louie-gaming]

On Orbeck of Vinheim

I posted this on reddit, but I’m sharing it here too.

First things first, fanart: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0XxlPw

Orbeck was absolutely my favorite character starting in three. His call back to Griggs is painstakingly obvious. He has the same jaw length black hair. He has the same outfit-- the old sorcerers gloves and legs as well as the black coat. Dark Souls has a major theme of cycles, and reoccurring NPC tropes is a part of that. We have Eygon mirroring Petrus, Leonhard mirroring Lautrec, Irina and Reah, Cornyx and Laurentius, and each one of them feels like their predecessor with character development.

Eygon does actually stick to protecting Irina. Irina makes it to becoming a firekeeper (if you let her). Cornyx continues to tutor you until the very end even after he learns the chaos pyromancies.

Orbeck is no different.

Griggs may or may not have been an assassin, but he wasn't out to kill Logan. He had ample time to do that and never did. But he does constantly chase the man's coat tails. He gets locked in a room and is trapped until someone else saves him. He's horribly incompetent, he's always beating himself up, and he eventually dies still trying to chase after "Master Logan". Griggs has no self respect, and it's a tragedy.

Orbeck knows he got screwed over. He knows the dragon school used him and spat him out. He doesn't waste time feeling sorry for himself in Lothric. He goes right out hunting down the magic the school denied him. When he leaves you and goes to the Archives, he doesn't appear to die a traumatic death. He's slumped backwards in a chair. However he died, he died doing what he loved.

And he brings up a lot of interesting things about Vinheim.

Before I get into that, I need you to understand that he does appreciate the player character. He suffers from the one line syndrome that all NPCs do, but his one line is a bit more bitter and nasty. One set of lines another user pointed out, "I take it you understand the weight of a promise. In connection with his regular parting dialog "Promise to stay safe." Implies a deep caring. He does value the player character as something more than a source of scrolls.

He opens up more than any other NPC at the shrine to the player character going deep into his resentment of the dragon school, how he was an assassin (twice he mentions his regret for careless killing and a third time he mentions the way assassins greeted each other), and he gets so excited about each scroll. With each scroll he gives a little bit more lore.

When he leaves, he calls his time in Firelink as a pleasant memory. If you kill him while he's in firelink, he says "But, why... Is that all I'm worth?" And if he kills you... "Gods, what have I done?" Both heart breaking phrases.

So yes, he does very much care. And he respects himself.

But back to Vinheim...

He mentions that if it were the dragon school, you would be overtly despised. That might be because you're undead-- after all the undead are exiled, but then Orbeck feels he has to leave. He cannot stay lest the relationship turn sour. But... why? Here you are, two academics (or someone who's just buying spells just cuz). Why the hell would your relationship turn sour? If I were in Firelink shrine and I finally met another academic peer, I would be damn sure to keep in regular contact with them. So why does he assume it's going to go sour?

Because academia in Vinheim is toxic. You would be overtly despised out of jealousy. Why haven't they recreated Logan's work? Because all of their academics are at each other's throats. They can't seem to work together. This is such a problem that Orbeck, who considers you a friend, leaves when he feels you begin to outshine him. Academia is murderous, maybe literally so, in Vinheim.

He does die, yes. But he does so academically fulfilled. The Dragon School denied him a proper education, so he achieves it in Lothric beside you. I like to think that one day, in the Age of Dark, someone finds his scrolls.

[headcanontheshitoutofsoulsborne]

A lot of students from the Vinheim Dragon School would often call Rickert by his nickname “Rick”.

[lunarbrambles]

For the Botanical Headcanons; acanthus (for DS and BB), angelica and begonia (for DS and ER)

botanical headcanons - accepting

acanthus :   is your muse deceptive ,   or willing to lie or deceive to achieve certain means ?why or why not ?

Darkmoon Knight Adrian, now that he isn't a clandestine scholar, doesn't have too much of a need to be overly deceptive— most of the time. There's still parts of his past he'd rather be elusive about. But when he's wanting to be deceptive, he's more fond of using words in cunning ways that make it where he isn't technically lying, but he's still being misleading and deceptive.

With Vileblood Adrian, it's all contextual. They will lie through their teeth to anyone from Yharnam, but especially the Healing Church if it means they survive an encounter or someone they care about gets out of hot water. They are not above "lie, cheat, steal" if it keeps the Forbidden Woods free of interference from the Healing Church, keeps them safe, and keeps them able to continue pursuing their medical and scientific pursuits.

angelica :   where does your muse draw inspiration in life ?what motivates them ?

For Darkmoon Knight Adrian the answer is a bit... well, dark. What keeps them going is essentially atonement for their past as a clandestine scholar and, as an Undead, a rogue assassin. He definitely care about justice and revenge, but trying to make up for their past is at the absolute top because he is definitely very aware that he what he used to do for the Dragon School as well as Vinheim wasn't very, well, great, but it took essentially being thrown away and abandoned (since Vinheim exiles all their Undead), then actually being treated like a human being instead of a weapon ten years later for him to realize that. And that's not getting started on the Ringed City AU I have for him where he is essentially a Nietzschean Overman that said fuck the gods and fuck Londor NO ONE is linking the First Flame... or the AU I have yet to delve into here where he didn't die and never became Undead, so Dragon School's "punishment" for failing to die like he should have (and becoming very disabled because the chandelier basically mangled his body so bad even miracles weren't enough to heal his joints being ground to dust) was to serve as a prime example by teaching future clandestine scholars.

In a roundabout way, Carian Knight Adrian's motivations touch on similar themes, though he's way more explicitly about freedom and justice than anything about revenge or vengeance or atonement for pretty severe crimes and arguably took far less time to figure it out after feeling crestfallen. Of course, he's considerably softer and generally less lethal about it than my DS3 verses.

begonia :   how cautious is your muse ?are they prone to noticing red flags ,   or paranoid to the point of untrusting most everyone ?why or why not ?

Darkmoon Knight Adrian is the less trusting of the two verses here. He has the real world experience about the darker aspects of human psychology, and what people are really capable of when they want power considering his entire occupation is only possible due to corruption and greed. And they can very well identify red flags in behavior out of experience, either with seeking it out or doing it himself. Certainly, he's good at masking this considering how polite he is and how upbeat he is. A lot of that is a facade. At the end of the day, being a Blade of the Darkmoon means acknowledging there are true scoundrels out there, and who better to know that than a former Vinheim assassin who has killed countless in cold blood for a school founded by perhaps the most infamous traitor bastard? That being said, I wouldn't call him paranoid, just skeptical, if a little pessimistic.

While Carian Knight Adrian is a little cautious, I'd consider him far more optimistic about motivations than the DS3 iterations. Sure, he knows politics often involves a lot of deception, but he doesn't have the same behind the scenes experience that DS3 Ade does. He can recognize red flags, but not to the same alarming and disarming extent the Blade can. Even then, he'd rather trust people to be honest even if they are lying rather than disbelieve someone telling the truth.

[loganfeliciano]

Vinheim Dragon School. The illustrious academy that rules the neighboring land from the shadows teaching adept students the many disciplines in sorceries. This is my interpretation of the Main Hall during the Age of Fire. The soul series obviously takes inspiration from Europe with it's architecture, but one style I thought would be fun to explore was Rococo, with it's inlaid golden filigree, statues and bold light colors on the building facades. The base for the building was modeled in Modo and rendered in Photoshop. . . . . . . . . . #art #artistoninstagram #digitalart #conceptart #conceptartist #environment #environmentdesign #darksouls #videogame #vinheim #ageoffire #painting #paintingoftheday #picoftheday #2d #3d #modo #photoshop #fantasyart #worldbuilding #sorcerer #sorcery #magic #rococo #architecture #illustration #illustrator #praisethesun #dragon #dragonschool https://instagr.am/p/B_PtDkDjBGm/

[underthekillingmxxn-a-blog]

I rly need to do plot threads with the other Blades of the Darkmoon sometime because it would be interesting to see how different (or similar) he is to them

[invokingbees]

how do i cast spell??

The post about magic in Dark Souls nobody asked for but I'm sure two or three people will read.

Been thinking a lot about magic in Dark Souls and how it's never really given more than some passing references. I bothered fellow lore-fiend @thetygre​ about it. But the question keeps me awake at night, so after doing some research and asking some questions, here I go. This is a long ass post.

First, we need to understand the First Flame. I've been told a better translation for it is something like 'Foremost Flame', same way Micolash's title in Bloodborne, Host of the Nightmare, is more akin to 'Manager of the Nightmare'. The Flame is where all souls come from, and according to one person I talked to, it can likened to, essentially, a massive burning lump of souls, or animating force, or funky primordial force. This isn't too strange, because soul items themselves resemble little flames, with stronger souls resembling flames more and more. So, the Flame is THE soul, and we know souls can be broken up and split and passed around, just like fire can be spread. This where the Lords and the Pygmy got their souls, right at the beginning when everything was fresh and weird, they split bits of the Flame (or got lit on fire or something) and took on the roles of gods when the big shit was just there for the taking. The other souls, like the consumable soul items we find, are essentially an animating force, something that seeped into the world of disparity when the Flame happened. The Lord souls are just bigger bits of animating force, as they animate parts of disparate reality - the state of the world (light and dark) and the state of things within that world (life and death).

So, Sorcery. Sorcery is a 'logical discipline', and is governed by one's intelligence, one's understanding of the soul and how it works. It was invented by Seath the Scaleless, a massive fuck up loser dragon looking to make itself immortal by messing about with souls. Sorcery life energy magic in a raw form, used, mainly, to create physical constructs, like your blue pew pews. By the use of a catalyst (an interesting word that implies some object must be used to draw, shape or disperse soul energy or change it into a usable form) sorcerers can shoot lasers, create hovering tracking projectiles, they can also create silent pads on their feet to sneak or absorb the impact of a long fall, they can coat weapons and shields in it to empower them, they can also make massive swords out of the stuff, too. The Oolacile sorcerers had created 'golden sorceries' with a more utilitarian bent, a far cry from the offensive Vinheim/Melfian (haha fuck you I like Dark Souls 2!) style sorcery, that seemed to work with light. Now, in Dark Souls, light is said to be time, so they had some sort of weird time magic. But light is also the purview of Gwyn, BUT he also handed bits of his soul to a lot of people, so it's possible they used some shard of his to understand the soul as a flame with a light (items do cast a radiance, but this is videogames). In truth, I believe the golden sorceries of Oolacile are basically intelligence-based miracles, their golden hue is closer to the colour scheme of miracles and their time/light deal must hold some connection to Gwyn. Souls ultimately share the same source, though, and Oolacile was a wizard city that messed with Manus the primeval human that ended up creating the Abyss, so they were likely up to shenanigans anyway, despite their golden sorceries being 'gentle'.

Now, so far it seems as if sorcery is performed by shaping one's own soul, or channeling the energy of one's soul, into various bizarre projectiles, but this isn't really it. Several spells in the game mention that their projectiles are made of souls. The Soul Greatsword is a giant blade 'formed of souls'. Plural. So, it doesn't seem to be one's own soul that goes into creating a sorcery, sorceries are fueled (mostly, at least) by exterior forces. Or perhaps, living sorcerers, meaning those that aren't soul-consuming undead, do use their own souls but aren't capable of much casting lest they just kill themselves from overuse. But of course Vinheim is also a literal assassin corporation, and being in the death trade, may very well have much access to the souls of the dead. Undead sorcerers, we can assume, are capable of using the souls they absorb to cast spells. The undead scourge has been around for a long enough time that undead sorcerers likely popped up in Vinheim and they started experimenting. So, in conclusion, sorcery as a practice is the drawing, formation and release of actual souls, sometimes crystallized, into semi-physical constructs as either projectiles or coatings.

Next, we come to Miracles. Miracles are tales of the gods (read: Gwyn and his brood of shits) repeated by believers who, by sheer power of faith, can reproduce their effects, they also require a talisman or chime, likely as a focus, or indeed, a potential catalyst. Put simply, miracles are a type of sorcery under a different guise or avenue, drawing upon that common source of the soul as a flame. Considering the gods of Lordran are long gone or dead, it would be difficult to draw upon their power, and how one might draw upon their power doesn't really make sense unless you go down some Ringed City seal of fire thing, but there's not much to support it. However, there is evidence to support miracles drawing off the same power source as sorcery - there's a number of items in the game that allow users to channel their intelligence for miracles. This implies a kind of theurgic deal, a perhaps heretical understanding of the 'the divine' in the world. Furthermore, there's even a tool for channeling faith for sorcery! As for how the Way of White, Dark Souls' de facto church faction, are able to cast their miracles, I imagine it being similar to how Vinheim learned to cast theirs, through bits of their own soul energy, but the Way of White are also quite famous for their undead hunts, and it isn't too crazy to think they weren't experimenting with extraneous fuel sources, either. One last note about miracles is their rigid structure. Miracles are set spells, tales of the gods that come in the form of excerpts and full blown epics, memorized for ease of casting. However, unlike the more fluid school of Sorcery, open to experimentation and innovation, miracles pretty much stay the same through time, with few new ones ever really coming to light. This is the big divide between the practices. In a nutshell, miracles are user friendly “sorceries”, highly specific 'spells' handed down by the powerful Lords to whom this was nature.

Lastly, we have Pyromancy. The weird one. I think Pyromancy is the odd one out. What a Pyromancy flame actually is, is never gone in to. It's been my belief that it was a piece of the Chaos Flame, the Flame created when the Witch of Izalith tried re-creating the First Flame with her soul, the Life Soul, but accidentally spawned a whole race of malformed demons. Pyromancy is like a more raw, primal form of life magic, but completely unlike Sorcery's more scientific approach to the energy within souls. Pyromancy hails from the Great Swamp, a place utterly teeming with life, and in Dark Souls 3 it's mentioned that pyromancers wear furs and bones and things due to the link pyromancy has with life. Cornyx, the pyromancy teacher in 3, surrounds his little corner of Firelink with bones and things.

Pyromancy is the result of a mistake and a continuous reminder of the danger of flame and the power of souls. Chaos is to Flame/Light (same shit) what the Abyss is to Dark, wild and monstrous, an unnatural extreme. Pyromancy has a bunch of weird effects from throwing fireballs to giving you a Dragonball-esque Kaioken technique to boost your power beyond its natural limits, literally harming you in the process. Being a little bit of Life Soul, or Chaos Flame, naturally it would have such life-altering (rather than purely physical) properties. It should be noted there once was Fire Sorcery, practiced by the Witch of Izalith and her daughters before the Big Accident happened and it all got perverted into dangerous Pyromancy. Indeed, Seath the Scaleless' experiments into immortality that resulted in Sorcery my have been inspired by the Life Soul Fire Sorcery of Izalith. But what fuels Pyromancy? Surely it's the Life Soul shard in your hand, a seething little ball of life - and not just the generic animating force of souls, skeletons have souls animating them, but capital L Life. I think Pyromancy has a somewhat shamanistic or trance-like angle. Before casting, the pyromancer always looks to their flame, as if in contemplation of what they're trying to achieve. Pyromancy flames are also said to be apart of yourself, and when Laurentius in 1 gives you a flame, he says he's giving himself a part of you. Pyromancy is personal, passionate, visceral, it's very Life-y. Casting appears to be using the flame as an extension of yourself. So what keeps the flame burning? It's an extension of your life, your soul, perhaps it really is just that nebulous. Perhaps it is drawing off your life, or the life around you. In the Great Swamp this wouldn't be a problem, but it makes me wonder how exactly the Desert Pyromancers or the Carthus skeleton funtown fellas had such powerful Pyromancies.

It should be noted that by the time of Dark Souls 3, the Chaos Flame has actually died, the demons still roaming about being little more than clumps of ash, with no fire of their own. Apparently they also had their own tradition of linking the Chaos Flame like humanity/the lords had with the First Flame. I'm not sure what repurcussions this has for the practice of Pyromancy. Pyromancy flames may very well be fueled or linked to their users or surroundings to keep going. Pyromancy may very well die out once the soul/energy it burns is also gone. In Dark Souls 1, pyromancy didn't scale with any stats, you just upgraded the flame with titanite (go figure). But in Dark Souls 2 and 3, pyromancies scaled with intelligence and faith, and in 2 fire seeds were used to upgrade the flame. I have to wonder if the slow death of the Chaos Flame didn't contribute to the need for extensive study of pyromancy flames to get them to work.

Lastly, of course, there are Dark sorceries, miracles, and pyromancies. This is the really truly weird shit. Dark sorceries and miracles more or less make sense. Instead of taking the usual animating force route, you delve right into the power of the Dark Soul, the soul with the ability to propagate and spread, the seething, living soul of man that seeks things out (normal sorcery does too, but this is usually an applied property, Dark sorceries just do it) because it's creepy and weird, it's envious or just wants to hug you. You take bits of Dark and let it out in all its over-enthusiastic power. Too much Dark, concentrated, is bad, we know this, so we weaponize it into violent, heavy projectiles, poisonous fogs or corpse-violating bombs. Then there's Dark miracles, but what they could be tales of, who knows. In 3, the Londor Braille Tome promises salvation for hollows, and the Deep Braille Tome is tales about the Deep, when it was gentle and sacred. Then there's Dark pyromancies, and frankly I just have no idea how that even works. In Dark Souls 2 there was a Dark Pyromancy Flame that got stronger the more hollowed you were. Do we use the pyromancy flame, a piece of Life Soul, to channel the Dark Soul? Is it something to do with the shadow cast by fire? No one knows, not even Miyazaki.

There’s also Hexes from Dark Souls 2, its own school of Dark-based magic that required the use of either a staff or a chime and scaled with intelligence and faith, or rather, scaled with the lesser of the two stats. Dunno what that’s about.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!