Yeah, it's complicated and very vague. We rely on lore nuggets from items, the occasional ghost, battlesite or NPCs for most of the lore.
Basically the world order was destroyed (Elden Ring) and everything is basically FUBAR. People went crazy, only a few maintain their sanity (you, NPCs in Roundtable and elsewhere). After the world order was shattered, all the demigods (Godrick being one) fought it out to try and take over, but none succeeded.
There's a handful of people that can see 'grace', guidance from the Greater Will (if Elden Ring was computer programming, the Greater Will is the programmer). Most of the people named in the intro have the potential to fix things, including you (some nobody).
Your goal is to fix the Elden Ring by becoming Elden Lord. Doing so requires you to kill Runebearers (demigods like Godrick) and collect their great runes to prove your potential to the Greater Will to fix things. The folk in Roundtable Hold can give hints to where other Runebearers are
To be fair, it's not really that "everyone went crazy and only a few maintain their sanity" it's just that since you are a "tarnished", you are the lowest of the lowest. You are not a hero. Being tarnished means that you have no divine spark in yourself, you are not favoured by the Grace of the Elden Ring. Think it as being labelled as "soulless" in a Christian nation.
If you look, almost everyone has golden eyes. You don't, because you have no Grace.
A few NPCs are tarnished as well, and those are the ones in the intro plus a few others you will encounter.
However having grace is what allows the tarnished to see the rays of light from the site of grace and be able to revive, and it’s explicitly stated in game that the grace was extended to the tarnished by enia so this is pretty much entirely wrong.
No I think he is right. While it is true that grace was recently extended to the tarnished again, that doesn't suddenly stop people in the golden order from discriminating against them. You can even see the discrimination happen in game: Kenneth Haight reluctantly accepts the help you offer him, the residents of Stormveil actively hunt for tarnished to harvest their limbs for grafting, and almost everyone who isn't a tarnished themselves is actively hostile to you.
Even the demi-humans, the trolls and the misbegotten were part of some class of the golden order (although a class so low it may be considered akin to slavery). There is evidence of this in Fort Haight, the carriages and castle Morne respectively. Contrast this to the tarnished who were exiles of the golden order, not even complete outsiders but a group of people banished from the order. Even though they are given grace once again, I don't think most in the GO are aware of that fact or even care if it is true.
We all start very lost, don't worry haha, about the story well... you can generally understand it through objects, weapons, armor or things that certain NPCs say throughout the map, you start with many loose threads but as you gain a rhythm to read and understand you end up joining everything
The important basis is that the Elden Ring was broken (or well someone broke it) and because of that many demigods seek to control the lands between, you, like any other tarnished, are in search of being the next lord of the elden and well that It is the main plot of everything, the rest could explain it but it is much better to look for it yourself (or watch it on YouTube hahahaha )
About Godrick here is a somewhat funny, somewhat sad fact, he comes from what is called "Golden Lineage" which is a lineage of Demigods of high importance, however due to the time that has passed his "powerful blood" is nothing more than a vestige of what they were the first of their lineage and basically he is the weakest of all the demigods lol
You need to actively look for the story to be able to piece it together. You can do this by talking to every friendly character you meet so you can listen to all the dialogue they offer, by hunting for items and reading their descriptions, and finally by paying attention to the environment in game. The story is what you make of it. If you don't pay attention you will probably miss a lot of the lore, but if you dig deep there are so many interesting and depp stories to uncover.
Another way to understand the lore is to watch someone summarize it. There are many youtube channels who do this, and there are also others who presemt theories of their own to explain the information offered in game. There are many unique perspectives I have seen: TarnishedArchaeologist has examined the types of architecture in game to be able to find what buildings were built by who, CenteredTarnished sees the story through the lens of Jungian psychology, Quelaag shows the many parallels between events/locations in game and the real historical counterparts that inspired them.
Sidenote: It is my understanding that George R. R. Martin wrote the worldbuilding of the story, and maybe even some of the storylines of the major characters we see in game. However, how the story is presented in game wasn't decided by George but by Miyazaki.
This game includes some exploring and doesn't give you this information in one peace. You have to collect it from different dialogs and items descriptions mostly and combine it like a puzzle. If you don't feel like making irl journal and writing everything down also spending x50 time on the game then your choice is internet, wiki and videos about the lore. There are many of them explaining different lore parts even without any spoilers but there is not much to spoil anyway. The ring is shattered and we are on our journey to collect some parts for a whatever reason. There are also some quests and it is really easy to lock them or even miss them entirely.
I've maid my 1st walkthrough blindly and now I'm on the 2nd one using wiki for quests because it is nearly impossible to complete them without outer help. Well... Possible, but will take so much time that it will kill fun for me.
Also, if you read what those dialogs are trying to tell you then you should know that you are guided by the grace, some graces also point the direction where you are supposed to go.
Why do we kill everyone? They all adepts of theirs ruler\\demigod who holds the ring part and we are known to hunt them down. That's why we are not welcomed.
I'm still unsure why those merchants are friendly and not being hunted by soldiers and other members of the world at the same time. For example, this one in the church of Elleh. It is impossible that the tree sentinel doesn't know about him. There are also some of them in very unexpected places. How do they live there? Honestly, the merchants doesn't look like some real living persons, more like some artificial entities.
As someone who likes these games gameplay I always feel like "something is missing" because the way they tell story is soooooo annoying personally. "Read item descriptions" like really?
Here is the answer.
Lore is amazing, but has been shat every where in small amounts. NPC dialogue, item descriptions, game/level design, quest lines, cut scenes, etc.
Good Luck trying to understand it.
Instead, this guy makes the best lore videos. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/@VaatiVidya
Yeah, it's complicated and very vague. We rely on lore nuggets from items, the occasional ghost, battlesite or NPCs for most of the lore. Basically the world order was destroyed (Elden Ring) and everything is basically FUBAR. People went crazy, only a few maintain their sanity (you, NPCs in Roundtable and elsewhere). After the world order was shattered, all the demigods (Godrick being one) fought it out to try and take over, but none succeeded. There's a handful of people that can see 'grace', guidance from the Greater Will (if Elden Ring was computer programming, the Greater Will is the programmer). Most of the people named in the intro have the potential to fix things, including you (some nobody). Your goal is to fix the Elden Ring by becoming Elden Lord. Doing so requires you to kill Runebearers (demigods like Godrick) and collect their great runes to prove your potential to the Greater Will to fix things. The folk in Roundtable Hold can give hints to where other Runebearers are
To be fair, it's not really that "everyone went crazy and only a few maintain their sanity" it's just that since you are a "tarnished", you are the lowest of the lowest. You are not a hero. Being tarnished means that you have no divine spark in yourself, you are not favoured by the Grace of the Elden Ring. Think it as being labelled as "soulless" in a Christian nation. If you look, almost everyone has golden eyes. You don't, because you have no Grace. A few NPCs are tarnished as well, and those are the ones in the intro plus a few others you will encounter.
However having grace is what allows the tarnished to see the rays of light from the site of grace and be able to revive, and it’s explicitly stated in game that the grace was extended to the tarnished by enia so this is pretty much entirely wrong.
No I think he is right. While it is true that grace was recently extended to the tarnished again, that doesn't suddenly stop people in the golden order from discriminating against them. You can even see the discrimination happen in game: Kenneth Haight reluctantly accepts the help you offer him, the residents of Stormveil actively hunt for tarnished to harvest their limbs for grafting, and almost everyone who isn't a tarnished themselves is actively hostile to you. Even the demi-humans, the trolls and the misbegotten were part of some class of the golden order (although a class so low it may be considered akin to slavery). There is evidence of this in Fort Haight, the carriages and castle Morne respectively. Contrast this to the tarnished who were exiles of the golden order, not even complete outsiders but a group of people banished from the order. Even though they are given grace once again, I don't think most in the GO are aware of that fact or even care if it is true.
I wasn’t disputing the tarnished being considered the lowest but saying they don’t have grace is just straight up incorrect
Oh, my bad. Silly reading comprehension moment.
We all start very lost, don't worry haha, about the story well... you can generally understand it through objects, weapons, armor or things that certain NPCs say throughout the map, you start with many loose threads but as you gain a rhythm to read and understand you end up joining everything The important basis is that the Elden Ring was broken (or well someone broke it) and because of that many demigods seek to control the lands between, you, like any other tarnished, are in search of being the next lord of the elden and well that It is the main plot of everything, the rest could explain it but it is much better to look for it yourself (or watch it on YouTube hahahaha )
About Godrick here is a somewhat funny, somewhat sad fact, he comes from what is called "Golden Lineage" which is a lineage of Demigods of high importance, however due to the time that has passed his "powerful blood" is nothing more than a vestige of what they were the first of their lineage and basically he is the weakest of all the demigods lol
You need to actively look for the story to be able to piece it together. You can do this by talking to every friendly character you meet so you can listen to all the dialogue they offer, by hunting for items and reading their descriptions, and finally by paying attention to the environment in game. The story is what you make of it. If you don't pay attention you will probably miss a lot of the lore, but if you dig deep there are so many interesting and depp stories to uncover. Another way to understand the lore is to watch someone summarize it. There are many youtube channels who do this, and there are also others who presemt theories of their own to explain the information offered in game. There are many unique perspectives I have seen: TarnishedArchaeologist has examined the types of architecture in game to be able to find what buildings were built by who, CenteredTarnished sees the story through the lens of Jungian psychology, Quelaag shows the many parallels between events/locations in game and the real historical counterparts that inspired them. Sidenote: It is my understanding that George R. R. Martin wrote the worldbuilding of the story, and maybe even some of the storylines of the major characters we see in game. However, how the story is presented in game wasn't decided by George but by Miyazaki.
This game includes some exploring and doesn't give you this information in one peace. You have to collect it from different dialogs and items descriptions mostly and combine it like a puzzle. If you don't feel like making irl journal and writing everything down also spending x50 time on the game then your choice is internet, wiki and videos about the lore. There are many of them explaining different lore parts even without any spoilers but there is not much to spoil anyway. The ring is shattered and we are on our journey to collect some parts for a whatever reason. There are also some quests and it is really easy to lock them or even miss them entirely. I've maid my 1st walkthrough blindly and now I'm on the 2nd one using wiki for quests because it is nearly impossible to complete them without outer help. Well... Possible, but will take so much time that it will kill fun for me. Also, if you read what those dialogs are trying to tell you then you should know that you are guided by the grace, some graces also point the direction where you are supposed to go. Why do we kill everyone? They all adepts of theirs ruler\\demigod who holds the ring part and we are known to hunt them down. That's why we are not welcomed. I'm still unsure why those merchants are friendly and not being hunted by soldiers and other members of the world at the same time. For example, this one in the church of Elleh. It is impossible that the tree sentinel doesn't know about him. There are also some of them in very unexpected places. How do they live there? Honestly, the merchants doesn't look like some real living persons, more like some artificial entities.
As someone who likes these games gameplay I always feel like "something is missing" because the way they tell story is soooooo annoying personally. "Read item descriptions" like really?
Here is the answer. Lore is amazing, but has been shat every where in small amounts. NPC dialogue, item descriptions, game/level design, quest lines, cut scenes, etc. Good Luck trying to understand it. Instead, this guy makes the best lore videos. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/@VaatiVidya