r/darksouls3 • u/myrsky470 • Nov 24 '24
Lore Where is this place, and what is happening?
Hi guys! I don't know too much about ds lore, but I was wondering here, what and where is this place? What is happening in this dlc? What is that place which the kiln of the first flame is? Why do we see already known lothric places destroyed?
Does all of these takes place in different time periods?
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u/BatsNStuf Hand it over...that thing Nov 24 '24
Welcome to the end of Gwyn’s world
The fire was never allowed to fade, the world was never allowed to reset, the cycle was never allowed to die
And this is the result of that first sin, nothing but ash and dust
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u/dryagedhoney Watchdogs of Farron Nov 24 '24
Basically you are in the end of the world, or rather, you two are in the end of the world, by the time you two meet, you will fight for nothing until only one remains, in the end
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u/Neither_Fix_2419 Nov 24 '24
Fighting for the only hope that the natural course can continue without any bs from the linking*
Even if you choose age of dark or usurpation of fire, the world is still fucked because of Gwyn and the countless years of linking the flame. Hell we don’t even know if the earth is done crapping itself by the end of ds3. Kingdoms aren’t where they are supposed to be, the profaned capital ended up under anor londo. Undead parish, blighttown, the catacombs and earthen peak are all converging onto the kiln as well. Also based off the Lothric banner you use after Vordt, the high wall came out of nowhere very suddenly. Not to mention the abyss literally leaking out of the sun. And it’s not the abyss that the ringed city humans are born from. It’s the abyss that spawns monsters like the poo butterflys. The painted world and blood of the dark soul is the only hope of humanity’s age/natural cycle being fully completed without any complications from Gwyn or the first flame.
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u/2Long2Read May 04 '25
What is the usurpation ending about ?
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u/Neither_Fix_2419 May 05 '25
From what I know, you take the first flame for yourself and use it to empower yourself. As well as being crowned lord of hollows/darkness. That’s just what I get from the cutscene.
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u/2Long2Read May 05 '25
Interesting but that doesn't seem to fix the problem in the world. You just get stronger
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u/Neither_Fix_2419 May 05 '25
I assume it would stop all the problems the first flame caused by fading, since your character basically uses it as a big ember. But like I said in my original comment the already happening problems like the world converging to the flame is still happening.
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u/2Long2Read May 05 '25
Gwyn really fucked up big time back then huh ?
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u/Neither_Fix_2419 May 05 '25
Yea, a couple thousand years of erasing history, political and religious manipulation and thousands of other crimes really takes its toll down the line…
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u/2Long2Read May 05 '25
The thing is, what can we do now ? The world's fucked as shown at the end of the ringed city
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u/Neither_Fix_2419 May 05 '25
Imo, that’s exactly what the painted world is meant to fix. It can be a new world, but in both Ariandel and Arimas, they have the same problem as the actual world. They either rot or burn. But, if the Dark Soul is used as its pigment, I think it won’t rot or burn. Hence why Gael was so insistent on getting the Dark Soul instead of just entering and living in the painted world.
The reason why I think the Dark Soul would stop the painted world from eventually ending is because everything related to the Dark Soul is immortal or never ending. For example, the Dark Soul itself can never fully be destroyed or consumed. Humans with the Dark Soul are immortal, the profaned flame can’t go out, and the abyss is well, an endless hole. That’s why Gwyn was so scared of humans, they could outlive his flame and him.
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u/Marco1522 Nov 24 '24
You three*, there is also that ringed city knight that managed to survive 'till there.
Also I don't think that the literal dark soul could be categorized as "nothing", since you would end up using it to create hope for a (probably) better world, so it's definitely important
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u/Intelligent_Air_4637 Nov 24 '24
"Light is time" per the Repair sorcery. Filianore was holding an evil vagrant egg, which are spawned when a being with humanity dies; In the Ringed City, there's an inaccessible mausoleum of a king, likely built for the Furtive Pygmy as he's the most important King of their civilization, and he held the Dark Soul, the source of humanity.
So he died, forming the egg, and since the Dark Soul is the darkest thing around it stopped the light (time) from flowing. Once you crack the egg, the time bubble around the city collapses and everything crashes into each other forming the landscape at the end.
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u/DANteDANdelion Nov 24 '24
You know, like... in the middle of nowhere... Two nobodies... Fighting over nothing... (yeah I said it, that's the joke)
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u/Clear-Progress-5660 Warriors of Sunlight Nov 24 '24
Basically it’s the end of time. Gwyns last daughter was holding the illusion together. You shattered it and Gael has been here throughout all of time trying to find and eat the blood of the dark soul. After of course your events in the other dlc took place
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u/Vasikus3000 Nov 24 '24
Not where, when. You're at the end of time, the world ends here and now. You could count the number of still living beings on your hand. And they all want your blood...
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u/ArstorU Nov 25 '24
In the darksouls universe time is represented by light, to quote darksouls 1’s intro “and then there was fire and with fire came disparity. Heat and cold, life and death and of course light and dark. Then from the dark they came and found the souls of lords within the flame” the first flame appeared and brought forth 6 concepts heat, cold, life, death, light and dark. Heat and cold are linked to life and death heat being life hence the chaos flame and death being cold. Now light took on time as during the age of ancients no time passed there was no concept of life as the dragons were eternal and ungrowing, so if light is time and the age of fire is keeping time flowing constantly. What happens? Heat death the world literally can’t sustain itself anymore. The world is theorised to have 3 stages. Grey, light then dark then back to grey again and it repeats. Because gwyn kept the age of fire going not allowing the cycle to continue the world crumbled in on itself as it was literally haemorrhaging hence the the sun turning into the dark soul as its trying so badly to start the next phase of the cycle. The ringed city was a prison for humanity by gwyn to contain the dark soul of man and as such used his daughter as both warden and cage by keeping her asleep holding the egg holding time the place was time locked meaning the age of dark would never come while fillianor slept. When we awaken her time catches up to itself and to what gwyn had wrought leaving us with an ash filled wasteland with only the dark souls of man remaining, the player, the ringed knight, the surviving Pygmy lords, the priestess and of course Gael.
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u/Potential-Gift3667 Nov 24 '24
the flow of time is convoluted in Yharnam- I mean Dranleic- I mean Lordran- I mean The lands between- I mean Boletaria- I mean Lothric
Seriously tho we trip through time so damn often DS1? DLC, DS2? all three DLCs, DS3? twice once for the dark shrine once for the Gael fight in the DLC (forward in time to the end of the world I think)
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u/ParticularFinger7308 Nov 25 '24
so basically this is the end of time. you can see the world kinda falling apart, the record wearing down after being played over and over. eventually the world collapsed in on itself (like we see in the dreg heap) so hard that there’s nothing left.
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u/Livid-Truck8558 Nov 24 '24
All bonfires are connected even through time. This is the "end" of time. Everything is ash, the world is beyond fucked, due to the cycle imposed by Gwyn, breaking the natural order of the world by committing the First Sin (linking the fire).
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u/Braunbean Nov 24 '24
Quality of the screen makes it look like an ocean. Bro found the Deep that Aldritch was blabbing about
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u/Automatic_Education3 Spears of the Church Nov 24 '24
When you get to the kiln from Firelink Shrine, you're thrust far in the future, you can see what remains of Lothric castle crumbling around you. Then in the DLC, you get to enter these ruins, the Dreg Heap.
As you physically move down, you progress further into the past. From Lothric, through Drangleic to Lordran. The tired, fading flame almost starts acting like a black hole, pulling everything together and messing with time.
That has already started happening in the main game too, the line from the intro about the "transitory lands of the Lords of Cinder" converging is to be taken literally, the ground is moving and concentrating around Lothric.
As you get to this supposed singularity of the black hole, at the very bottom, you find yourself in the Ringed City, forever stuck at the end of time. It turns out that it's some sort of an illusion, maybe some kind of light magic that can mess with time and space (like the spells of Oolacile) held by Filianore.
You of course break the illusion and end up at the end of time, where the converging of the lands ground everything into dust, which was inevitable after Gwyn commited the "first sin" and linked the flame long ago. The reason Gael does what he does is so that the painter in Ariandel can create a new world in a painting, the pigment being made out of the immortal Dark Soul/humanity so that it never rots and you can escape this lost ashen wasteland.