Marika ended the last Age of Stars
TLDR
This post seeks to provide evidence of the following:
- The Crimson Seed Talisman +1 doesn't show an Erdtree seed and a Two Fingers: it shows a vision of the Elden Ring through Metyr's microcosm.
- The Two Fingers revealed the Elden Ring, floating in outer space, to Marika through the microcosm and convinced her that all the problems of the world would be fixed if she summoned it brought back to earth.
- The Elden Ring had been entirely forgotten for thousands of years before Marika called it back.
- Marika summons the Elden Ring from space at the Gate of Divinity, ending the previous Age of Stars.
- Ranni's solution doesn't fix anything. She may have defied the Two Fingers but she's still the pawn of the cycle.
I'm working on a theory involving a slave-girl at a Viking funeral. The subject of this post started to take too long to explain so I decided to make a separate post.
INTRO
Many of us watched Marika brandishing fistfuls of mysterious golden strands in front of the Gate of Divinity during the Shadow of the Erdtree story trailer and noticed the gust of wind which blew just as the golden glow of the sky beyond the entrance shone brightest.
Marika brandishing her strands.
Some of us would have had the brief thought that the glow and the gust of wind looked very much the shock-wave of a meteor impact. We might even have started speculating that it was caused by a golden meteor (the Elden Beast) crashing into the earth.
This notion was easily dismissed as it contradicts the fact that Farum Azula contains a depiction of the Elden Ring long, long before Marika's Age of Plenty.
This post tries to provide evidence to suggest that maybe the idea isn't as impossible as it initially seems.
After all: in a setting where one of the possible endings is that we send the Ring into outer space, why can't meteors fall twice?
THE BIRTH OF THE ERDTREE
The Crimson Seed Talisman +1 item description reads as follows:
A crimson-colored talisman pattered after an Erdtree seed. Greatly boosts HP restoration from the Flask of Crimson Tears.
The Erdtree seed of this talisman was presumed to be an object of myth. This age-old artifact also depicts the Two Fingers, perhaps harkening back to the birth of the Erdtree.
I have reasons to believe that almost ever part in the talisman's description is ever-so-slightly wrong.
Firstly, the description claims that the talisman depicts the Two Fingers. This might be true but, if so, the Two Fingers are taking a pose we've never seen them adopt; split very far apart and holding what we're told is a mythical Erdtree seed between them.
What it looks more like are Metyr's tail-fingers, complete with her microcosm.
I'm certainly not the first to point this out. Image credited from a Reddit post by u/Reez810
Since no one but Ymir and, likely, the Two Fingers appear to be aware of Metyr's existence, and the Two Fingers are closely tied to Marika's reign it makes perfect sense for anyone looking at the talisman to assume it depicted the Two Fingers.
If it is actually depiction of Metyr's tail-fingers, then the Two Fingers might still have a part to play in "the birth of the Erdtree". They were likely the ones who brought Marika to Metyr in the first place.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the Crimson Seed Talisman +1 is depicting Metyr's tail-fingers: how does this change how the 'Erdtree seed' is interpreted?
Well if that's true then this 'Erdtree seed' starts looking very much like **Metyr's microcosm**. Not only is it round, it's also show with little spikes emerging from it just like the corona of light surrounding the microcosm.
Notice the 'spikes' of light around the microcosm.
I accept that it's possible that the Two Fingers might also have the (unrevealed) ability to create microcosms: there are hints that the Two Fingers (when they grow into hand-trees) have the ability to cradle mini-dimensions/realms like the roundtable holds and divine towers between their limbs.
If they did have this ability then we don't need Metyr's microcosm: the Two Fingers can show a microcosm to her.
We get the full picture of what the talisman is actually showing when we put the depictions of Metyr's tail-fingers, her microcosm and the thing shown inside her microcosm together: the talisman is depicting a vision of the Elden Ring as seen though Metyr's microcosm.
This, I believe, is the pivotal moment that the description of the talisman notes "harkens back to the birth of the Erdtree".
This is the guidance that the fingers provided to Marika when Count Ymir says:
"There never was any hope. They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start. Marika herself. And the fingers that guided her."
If you take Ymir's quote into account, we get a better idea of who peered into Metyr's microcosm and saw the Elden Ring: the talisman is depicting what Marika saw.
This is the first time I noticed that Ymir said that "fingers" guided Marika, not the Two Fingers. Perhaps this is another small detail which supports the idea that the talisman depicts Metyr's tail-fingers...
To summarize this part: Marika seeing the Elden Ring inside Metyr's microcosm laid the foundations for her eventual growing of the Erdtree.
If this is correct, what else can the talisman tell us?
MARIKA COULD ONLY SEE THE ELDEN RING THROUGH THE MICROCOSM
Firstly: it suggests that Marika's seeing the Elden Ring was important.
I believe that it's possible the Marika didn't even know that the Elden Ring existed before this point. It's existence was a revelation to her.
Marika's revelation, combined with guidance which the Two Fingers offered, placed her on the path which lead to the birth of the Erdtree.
Count Ymir, of course, thought this was a horrible idea.
THE MICROCOSM IS LINKED TO OUTER SPACE
Secondly: consider what we know about Metyr's microcosm.
The description of the [Staff of the Great Beyond] states the following:
"The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come."
When you combine this description with the fact that Metyr's microcosm appears to summon pulsar beams, black-holes and asteroids, all objects that can only be found in outer space, I believe that the microcosm isn't just a portal to any-old-place, it's a portal to "the Great Beyond" i.e., space.
THE ELDEN RING WAS IN OUTER SPACE
Thirdly: putting the previous two points together, it starts to make sense why Marika hadn't seen the Elden Ring before and why seeing it through Metyr's microcosm was so special: the microcosm was the only way anyone could see the Elden Ring since, at the time, the Ring was floating in outer space.
I know that the idea that Marika saw the Elden Ring in space sounds far-fetched, especially since we know that it was in The Lands Between during Placidusax's Age.
Please bear in mind though: the Age of Stars ending has us sending the Ring into outer space.
If Ranni and her Dark Moon can do it, who's to say that an earlier god didn't do the same thing using a similar method?
It is merely a cycle.
THE MICROCOSM ONLY SHOWED A PART OF THE ELDEN RING
Fourthly: I believe that if Marika used Metyr's microcosm to see the Elden Ring floating in space then, like a view-port, the microcosm might have only been able to show a part of the Elden Ring, rather than the entire thing.
After all, we know of two versions of the Ring, its current state and the state as it appeared during Placidusax's Age and the depiction on the talisman certainly doesn't look like either rings in their entirety.
THE ELDEN RING IN SPACE WAS PLACIDUSAX'S RING
Fifthly: if my previous point is correct, then which of the two versions of the Elden Ring does the part depicted in the talisman belong to?
Which of the two version does the part of the Ring in the talisman belong to?
It's clear (at least to me) that the talisman's depictions of the golden, wavy threads inside the microcosm is an extremely close match to parts Placidusax's Elden Ring and doesn't seem to resemble any part of Marika's Ring at all.
The Ring which Marika saw floating in outer space was Placidusax's Ring.
The implications of this are quite large: this would mean that the Elden Ring has been almost entirely unchanged since the end of the Age of Ancient Dragons. Has it been floating in outer space for all this time?
And, if so, doesn't this sound very much like exactly what Ranni's planning to do with the Ring?
To quote her:
"I thought I might expound a little further...
Upon the order I envision.
Mine will be an order not of gold, but the stars and moon of the chill night.
I would keep them far from the earth beneath our feet.
As it is now, life,
and souls,
and order
are bound tightly together,
but I would have them at a great remove.
And have the certainties of sight, emotion, faith and touch...
All become impossibilities.
Which is why I would abandon this soil,
with mine order."
And when we choose the Age of Stars she says the following:
"Now cometh the age of the stars.
A thousand year voyage under the wisdom of the Moon.
Here beginneth the chill night that encompasses all,
reaching the great beyond.
Into fear, doubt, and loneliness..
As the path stretcheth into darkness."
THE ELDEN RING DISAPPEARED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS
I know that to claim that the Elden Ring had disappeared for thousands (possibly tens of thousands of years) after the Age of the Ancient Dragons sounds far-fetched but consider the following:
If the Elden Ring is so pivotal to the fate of all who live in The Lands Between, why did none of the intervening cultures and civilisations that arose and died since Placidusax's reign leave a single image of the damned thing?
Isn't it strange that the Fire Giants, the Shaman, the Nox, the Ancient Dynasty, Zamor, Raul, the Hornsent, the Giant Stone Ship-builders, the Highlanders and who-knows-how-many others, none of them left us a single clue that they knew the Ring even existed.
All this leads me to theorise that Placidusax's 'fled' god didn't just flee, they took the Elden Ring with them into outer space, just like Ranni intends to do.
MARIKA SUMMONED IT BACK FROM SPACE
Based on the above, I believe that the trailer cinematic for The Shadow of the Erdtree shows Marika summoning Placidusax's Ring back from outer space, causing it to fall back to earth as a golden meteor.
In doing so, Marika ended the last Age of Stars.
It is merely a cycle.
CLOSING COMMENTS
If this theory post is correct, it suggests that Ranni's ending will, at best, only temporarily remove the Elden Ring from The Lands Between.
This theory also suggests that removing the Elden Ring doesn't even solve things in the short-term. Horrible things like the Shaman genocide will still continue to happen regardless of how far away the Elden Ring taken. This does not bode well for Ranni's Age of Stars.
The cyclical nature of the setting leads me to also believe that the Tarnished will one day need to defend Ranni and the Ring from another god-to-be and their champion who wishes to summon it back to The Lands Between.
Sooner or later, the Tarnished's fate is to end up as skinned pelt adorning the shoulders of some muscle-bound thug.
As for **how** Marika managed to call the Ring back, that is the topic of the 'viking-slave-girl' theory I'm working on.
P.S. There's a very large gap between the Farum Azula and Marika's ascension with no depictions of the ancient dragons.
Is it possible that the ancient dragons had isolated themselves from the rest of the world in Farum Azula and only returned once the Elden Ring fell back to earth?
Did the dragons want their Ring back?
If so, why did they Godwyn's defeat and 'befriending' of Fortissax immediately make the ancient dragons amenable to peace, despite not achieving their primary objective?
Posted Dec 14, 2025, 3:55 AM UTC