A lore thread about Vyke

So... This is going to be an incomplete thread, as a heads up, I've hit a roadblock I can't get past.

There is a LOT of information here, and it ties into different characters and questlines. But, hey, that's lore!

#ELDENRING SPOILERS

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Okay, some of you might be like, "who the fork is Vyke?" Well, twitter user, I'm glad you asked.

Vyke is the individual who is kneeling in the box art!

Vyke initially caught my eye because I thought he was the tarnished that came before us, but...

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Spoiler alert, he's not. But his lore is still interesting.

So, Vyke is much like us. He is tarnished and he took a path to becoming the Elden Lord-- He even made it as far as Mountaintop of the Giants.

However, I'm getting ahead of myself...

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Our tale begins in the Weeping Peninsula.

We meet Irina, she asks us to go to Castle Morne to deliver a letter to her father. (Cute reference to DS3)

Of course, as a fresh out of the grave tarnished, our first quest is a delivery quest.

We'll play mailperson for now

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We enter Castle Morne and immediately realize it's overrun by Misbegotten.

So, we fight our way to the tippy-top and find Edgar sitting there sulking. Instead of talking to him, we go fight the BIG Misbegotten in the back, doing Edgar's job for him.

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We deliver Irinia's letter to Edgar, he tells us that he is no longer bound by duty and that he will spend his remaining days with Irinia (:

Happy Ending (:

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Except it's not happy, because when we seek out Irinia we find a corpse instead. Edgar pledges that he will find the foul wretches responsible for this.

Whelp. Nothing more we can do.

We make our way through Stormveil and find a grape on the floor, Score!

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We walk outside and immediately run into a familiar face, except it's not who we think it is. This woman introduces herself as Hyetta, she is journeying for distant lights. She asks if we have grapes we would like to donate.

I'm not even apologizing for the 2011 joke

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We're a kind adventurer & she looks like that girl who was murdered, so we give her our grape out of pity. She thanks us & says she can now see the guiding lights thanks to the grape

We trust her judgment & leave the blind to fend for herself while we go on an adventure

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We come across some ruins & we find another grape. Neat, maybe we'll get to keep this one if-- Nope. We find Hyetta again & she asks for another donation. "I'm on a pilgrimage, and when I eat one of those grapes I can feel the light in the back of my eyes."
weird but ok

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So we run off, find a cute little shack in the woods, and notice a lot of dead bodies.

Suddenly, we get invaded by Edgar. Looks like he found the men, but he's pissed and wants to share his anger with me. Naturally, I beat him up and steal his grape.

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Wow, we sure are finding a lot of grapes, I wonder what the item description says.

ooooh. Cool. We've been feeding a blind lady the eyeballs of the weak, feeble, and frail.

Hey twitter user (yeah, you), remember 'Shabriri,' okay?

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Alright, let's recap:
-Meet Blind Lady, deliver a letter to her dad
-Blind Lady dies, dad is angry
-Find Grape! :D
-Meet new Blind Lady
-Give Grape
-Find & give away 2nd Grape
-Edgar attacks us, drops a grape upon death
-Find out Grapes are Eyeballs of the weak-willed D:

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Imagine being fourteen tweets into a thread about the box art character, only for me to bring them up once.

All of this information is very relevant, I promise. It's about the journey, not the destination.

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We go to Hyetta and give her our third, and final, grape. We proceed to tell her what the grapes really are.

I highly recommend the clip, the detail at the end is just

(TL;DR, she freaks out, cries, takes a moment to accept it, then vomits the moment we step away.)

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Just south of the Grand Lift of Dectus lies a hill with a tower atop that gives off a bright orange-yellow hue. Bodies scattered to the side, Yellow Embers upon their remains.

When we gaze into the concentrated colors, our madness meter begins to rise.
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The Yellow Ember references eye sockets, and refers to itself as a grape. It notes that the victim suffered from the Flame of Frenzy. The image shown seems eerily similar to a Shabriri Grape.

We fight our way to the top of the tower & are rewarded with an incantation.

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The incantation Howl of Shabriri.
Shabriri, that's a name we've heard before.

A shriek that causes madness.

Legends tell of a sickness called "flame of frenzy," and that it all started with Shabriri, the most reviled man in all history.

We continue forward...

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Just past the tower a village is found: Frenzied Flame Village
In this village the Frenzied Cookbook [1] and Shabiri's Woe can be found. Raya Lucaria Knights can be found surrounding Shabriri's Woe. There are bodies littered everywhere, frenzied villagers run rampant.

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Behind the village lies a church on a hill. On our approach up to the church, we find a ghostly NPC who speaks about Vyke

Vyke wasn't a lord, not a Lord of Frenzied Flame.
He seems to be wondering where the true Lord of Frenzied Flame is.

cool, we found a psychopath!

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Festering Fingerprint Vyke invades our world.

All the destruction, madness, and flames that we've seen up to now is confined within the tarnished that has just invaded us. The sick and twisted teachings of the three fingers is pitted against us.

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A tarnished following the will of the Two Fingers pitted against a tarnished following the teachings of the Three Fingers.

Now let's shift to a different topic at the most interesting moment, as it's the most natural way to tell a story :^)

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We shift our focus over to Lyndell, The Royal Capital. An age of prosperity from beneath the Erdtree. The Elden Ring has graced the lands between, and those within Lyndell.

That was... until the dragon nation attacked.

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We reference the harpy song. (Thanks to u/Nyrun and u/MAGISTER-ORGANI for helping to translate the harpy song)

The land, formerly blessed, now withered (The rise of the Golden Age)
But now we have become disfigured (Ancient dragons becoming mortal)

Because of The Order

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Gransax and his kin attacked Lyndell, beginning the war against the Ancient Dragons.

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With Lyndell now under attack, the sentinels came to the conclusion that something needed to change. If they were to continue protecting the Erd Tree, they would need to become dragons themselves

Using weapons crafted from fallen dragons, Lyndell's soldiers fought back.

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At some point the Ancient Dragon Gransax perished, leaving his corpse in Lyndell. A reminder of the battle that had taken place

Godwyn defeated the Fortissax, the Ancient Dragon, and befriended what once were foes. This culminated in the birth of the Ancient Dragon Cult

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It is said that Gravel Stone had once been thought to be the source of the Ancient Dragon's Immortality. It has also been used to create tools and weaponry.

The Cult realized they could have faith in the Erd Tree as well as worship the teachings of Ancient Dragons.

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Vyke the Dragonspear, such unassailable devotion to the ways of the Ancient Dragons.
It is known that the dragons specialize in lightning & thunderbolts, rumor has it that only those loved by dragons can survive the ordeal of cladding their bodies in lightning.

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Vyke was admired, channeling such skill

But Vyke caught the attention of more than just the Ancient Dragon Knights. He caught the attention of Lansseax, sister of Fortissax, who commonly took the appearance of a human priestess to commune with the Ancient Dragon Knights

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Only those loved by dragons can survive the lighting on their bodies.

No knight compared to The Dragonspear. That earned Vyke Priestess Lansseax's favor, for she loved him the most.

His own spell taught through the techniques of the ancient dragons, for she loved him.

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However, like every tarnished, Vyke gathered to The Roundtable Hold. He heard the horn sound for his destiny & he answered the call. The Dragonspear came to seek out the path to becoming Elden Lord, with all of the other tarnished for the chance at becoming Elden Lord.

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Vyke ventured with a maiden, finding the path to becoming Elden Ring. If it was anything like our journey, he ran into trouble as well...

Now that we're at the peak of this tale, we'll be shifting gears again

"But Hazel, that's two cliff hangers"
Some things take time.

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Do you remember Shabriri from Tweet 12?

Tall-tales tell of an affliction called the Flame of Frenzy, it all began with a man by the name of Shabriri

The Frenzied Village, the Frenzied Tower, and the frenzy found throughout the lands between, all stems from this man

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The Flame of Frenzy was set into motion, but it only came to fruition due to a punishment. Slander was the crime committed, of which doomed the Lands Between to hear the most reviled man's name at every mention of the madness & the chaos of which it wrought.

(Read pic)

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We hear whispers and tales of Shabriri while on our journey, but we never expect to meet him.

We meet Shabriri once we enter The Mountaintop of Giants, he's using the body of Yura. Ominous, though Yura was dead. But Shabriri still found a way to talk to us.

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He tells us we're about to sacrifice something precious, the life of a fair maiden. The maiden can be spared, so long as we inherit the Flame of Frenzy.

Shabriri must be a really good salesman... Because I believe that he found Vyke first.

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Vyke was encountered by Shabriri, he promised his maiden would be spared so long as he inherited the Flame of Frenzy deep below the capital...
Vyke believed him.
He made pilgrimage to the capital and descended the labyrinth, navigating to the forgotten depths of Lyndell.

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Enough foreplay.

The photo speaks for itself, Vyke made up his mind.

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But wait, there's more!

Vyke's armor has fingerprints dug into it.

Thanks to @ZullieTheWitch's datamining (3rd pic), we can see that no burns were inherited, much unlike us. All of his burns only afflicted the armor, but I do believe the flames left an impact.

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As much as Vyke tried, he was unable to control the Flame of Frenzy. The once proud Dragonspear, and Roundtable Knight, had succumb to madness. If we look at the incantations he used in the invasion, it's clear he resisted; He did so kicking and screaming.

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...We move past Shabriri on our way up The Mountaintop of Giants, the temptation of sparing our maiden dancing behind eyelids when we shut our eyes.

We are on our journey to the Forge of Giants, we must press on to become Elden Lord.

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We find an interesting location going by the name of Lord Contender's Evergaol. Whether this references Elden Lord or Lord of Frenzied Flame, I'm unsure. It comes with a great view of the Forge of the Giants tho.

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Upon entering the Evergaol, we are met with Roundtable Knight Vyke. Vyke still wears the armor plagued with scars of the Three Fingers, but he is using Dragon Cult incantations: Lightning Strike & Vyke's Dragonbolt, if we're going off of how the spells look.

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Though, he uses an incantation that we only see from a boss: Fortissax's Lightning Spear

"Of all the knights, Vyke the Dragonspear was the one Lansseax loved the most" -Vyke's Dragonbolt

She loved him enough to entrust Vyke with her brother's ancient dragon incantation

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I'm unsure of who locked Vyke away, but it's an eternal jail

My Theory: Lansseax is an ancient dragon looking for a way to buy time until she finds a way to end his suffering. The only place to alleviate the Frenzied Flame is Farum Azula, in a storm beyond time.

Maybe.

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I'm not married to the theory above, it's just the only thing that sticks out in my mind. If you know anything, please let me know.

What isn't a theory though: He clings to his Gravel Stone Seal, made of gold, in the same way he clings to sanity.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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If we slay him in the evergaol, we can still find him back at the Church(Tweet 21)

Inside the church, just past where we get invaded, we can stumble upon a dead maiden. I theorize this is what ate Vyke up the most. He killed his maiden, he felt regret & emptiness.

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The maiden he attempted to protect is the maiden who's life he took with his own hands.

It drove him insane, manifesting into the invasion that we come across. We slay the invader of madness, and claim our rewards.

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Vyke had been tormented by the Frenzy and Madness. Though now, the Roundtable Knight's flame has been extinguished.

And... That's a wrap on Vyke. The rest of the thread will focus more on Flame of Frenzy + Hyetta
If you want the last info on vyke, it's in tweet 57.

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We return to Hyetta with sorrow in our hearts, understanding what Vyke had gone through... Yet we still feed her a grape because we're complete sociopaths.

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We descend to the furthest depths of the capital...
Oddly enough, we see Hyetta, the blind woman.

The Blind woman who somehow made it all the way down here.

A little far fetched, but okay From Soft, really breaking my immersion.

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We talk to Hyetta, and...

She is sure that we will become a Lord, and she will be our Maiden.

She tells us to get naked, and open the door leading to the Three Fingers

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Literally ThreeFingersBurn.mp4, you can skip this tweet if you've seen the cutscene.

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Hyetta notices that the flame of frenzy is nestled within us. We put our fiery fingers to where her eye sockets would be and she begins to writhe in pain, screaming about her eyes being on fire.

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All that there is came from the One Great.
Then came fractures, and births, and souls.
But the Greater Will made a mistake.
Torment, despair, affliction. Every sin, every curse.
Every one, born of the mistake.

As lord, we are tasked with burning this mistake away.

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Melina notices we've inherited the flame and she is not happy. She refuses to travel with us any longer, telling us she will kill us just as sure as night follow days.

I'm curious if Vyke was met with the same tone, is that what drove him to kill her?

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Long thread, I know.

I threw a lot of information at you, but I hope it was a fun read and informed you more about the Lands Between.

Vyke was such a sad tale, a tarnished who sacrificed his own life for his maiden, and then paid the consequences.

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Wow
My Vyke thread is REALLY gaining traction

Thank you all for your kind words and praise, but honestly lore hunting is fun & I love to show the community. I love taking fun photos + piecing together a puzzle.

You should check out @xIngenue & @sindraen, they also do lore!