They're surprisingly common
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- Опубликовано: 15 июн 2024
- They may not be particularly imposing or majestic, but slugs have a weirdly enduring presence in the Souls series, and add some unusual aspects to each game's setting in a strangely understated fashion.
Song used: Character Creation - Demon's Souls OST 
Игры
Important note: The Blighttown leeches aren't slugs.
Thanks of course to Lance, for letting me use the hollow slugs footage.
Alongside all the slugs, there are also quite a few slug-adjacent creatures, especially snails, which would add to the ranks if you counted all of them as well. It seems like not every Phantasm is a slug either, with some looking more like sea butterflies or other strange aquatic creatures, but slugs apparently tend to be found wherever the Great Ones have tread.
Great video! Something to point out: there are certainly slugs/leeches in Blighttown from Dark Souls
Werent there totally slugs near the entrance to the Darkroot Basin in DS1?
@@cjman7 Yeah, they're leeches.
@@sargerules20 You may be thinking of the frograys.
It may be that they and other invertebrates are associated with the great ones in part due to how ancient they are. Life originating from the sea and existing at it's greatest diversity within it, it makes sense that invertebrates are associated with the great ancient beings. It's like they're the ancient parasites, commensalists, and mutualists of knowledge and wisdom itself since they and the great ones have become so intertwined with the workings of the universe.
I can picture Miyazaki holding a slug saying "I just think they're neat".
Next to poison swamp
I bet he really liked Junji's Slug Girl story. 😆
I read this comment before knowing what the video was about and I thought it was shotgun related
Given his admission to other inclusions relating to his "proclivities", I doubt it's that wholesome...
He love slugs and swamp, the day when Miyazaki will retire i bet that will buy a ticket to Louisiana and live there the rest of his days
Man I do love my slug likes, Elden Slug, Slugborne, Dark Slugs, and Demon Slugs.
it's actually Demon's Slugs
Slugiro: Snails Die Twice
Armored Slug
@@Crabgar😔I will never recover from this minor spelling mistake
@@lox.168 Metal Slug?
The furtive slug, so easily forgotten
..effervescent...
If only I could be so grossly incandescent
best comment
Lmaooo
Another entry to the Souls bingo, next to:
- curse
- disgraced kings
- giants being oppressed
- barefoot priestesses
- morphing into dragons which causes horrible consequences
- status quo relying on death of a group of demiurgic entities
- "it's not a glitch but a misunderstood mechanic"
- bells
- gargoyles
- ancient civilizations going extinct
- magical feminine boys
- king's right hand being a crazy magician-scientist
- timeline and space falling apart
- dogs
- funny NPC with horrible future
- hardest boss being a warrior woman who wants to be alone
- easy boss with sad backstory
- best boss being a DLC addition
- drinking from magical flasks
- moonlight sword
Only missing one thing: *SWAMP*
forgot patches and fire symbolism
*Barefoot Priestesses*
Me over here sweating:
🥵
Also get this dudd more likes, so Zulie has a better chance to see this list.
Pale-skin female companion, who aids the hero & helps them level up, has a soft-speaking voice, hangs out at the main hub area & knows more about the world & you than you do initially 😁
Holy moly that unused DS3 slug is insane!
This is why I watch Zullie's videos. Just when I think I've seen every bit of unused content in these games, she drops something buck-wild that I've never seen before.
I hope it gets used in their next game honestly.
Yeah, that is so cool tbh. kinda a shame it got cut.
They probably had their reasons though still, shame that it was.
Wait is there not slugs in Blighttown?? Isn’t there? At the bottom in the swamp?
@@ryankeith2712 Those are leeches
Bloodborne's use of slugs and squids as an indicator of cosmic awareness is interesting. Almost as if "ascending" to a higher plane of existence like in one ending, also induces a "reset" on your evolutionary path.
A little bizarre yeah. Like you would "de-volve" in a sense. You wouldn't need your normal body and limbs anymore, so you turn into some sort of space faring jelly critter.
Maybe it's just easier to be a slug in space vs. A more complex organism.
Evolution is beastly, lmao.
I think it’s not a physical devolution at all, but rather adopting a form better suited to the higher planes which are implied to be ocean-like and space-like.
@@WASDLeftClick Bloodborne rather clearly cuts the dichotomy between mind and body (in some philosophical circles it's called a dichotomy between Dionysian and Apollonian, with Dionysus representing carnal aspects of a man and Apollo representing mind and reason.) Beasts devolve in mind department (they are unable to even comprehend their descent to beasthood) while enlightened madmen devolve physically (students from nightmare building are turning into snail-creatures.)
They're both mollusks. I wonder if that's deliberate.
Confirmed salt shaker weapon for shadow of the erdtree DLC
It's funny cause you're almost right
Try perfume shaker. Yes, really. :D
Perfume Shaker? You mean I can finally live out my dream of using Axe body spray to defeat my enemies?
@@Wario-The-Legend no joke: yes. Just use the one that inflicts poison lmao
ono please
Armored Core 6 has the big Coral Mealworms too, which feel like they fit in to this trend nicely
Also literally had a dude named SNAIL
Mealworms aren't slugs.
@@Jormyyy Still not a slug though just like the mealworms. That said, he gets his name as part of a different motif. The Vespers get their callsigns from painters, poets, playwrights, philosophers, and such- Snail's is presumed to be attached to Freud, coming from a Dali quote "Freud's cranium is a snail". V2 is "Snail" and the de facto leader of the team despite "Freud" being V1; V2 Snail is for all intents and purposes Freud's cranium, giving him his marching orders as Freud himself doesn't actually care for leadership duties.
I was thinking the same thing. They aren't slugs, but honestly easily mistaken given that we just fly straight past them.
I like to think they are slugs, so that I can have the image that at one point in development someone went "shoot, we forgot to add slugs! Quick, chuck some in this cave!
Those luminescent slugs in Demon's Souls exist solely to trip you up so that a floating orb of C4 can detonate on top of you.
The slugs and snails of Bloodborne are perhaps the most inventive use, I think, in how they pertain to an even more unusual symbol-the One Third of the Umbilical Cord.
Oddly, the "umbilical cord" resembles an eye-laden cochlea, or the inner ear. "Cochlea" is a Greek word meaning "snail's shell;" the center of a snail's whorled shell is called the umbilicus.
Sound plays an unusual role in Bloodborne's cosmology, particularly in the Research Hall, where "the cerebral patients imbibed water and listened for the howl of the sea." The most successful of these patients is St. Adeline, who marvels upon the "sticky sounds" indicating the presence of her guide. Later, she begins to see their voice as it "bends and bleeds," ultimately culminating in the Caryll rune, Milkweed, which transforms the Hunter into a nursery for phantasm slugs. (And of course, Caryll runes are themselves visual transcriptions of the Great Ones' "inhuman voices.")
Shoutout also to V.II Snail being perhaps another reference to the inner ear, lol. As we know from the story trailer, Coral is administered into augmented humans' brains via the ear canal. Like the sticky whispers, Coral contains the voices of formless consciousnesses, who may serve as guides to those with whom they come into Contact. V.II Snail is himself an augmented human, the result of several generations of lethal experiments...
How is this not at the top of comment section
It's amazing how there are aspects to the Souls series, as "silly" as they look (snails) to play such a role of deep thought never imagined. I mean, who sat in their room one day and wondered "what about snails? Why are they present in the series"? That could be the person running this channel, but the information given in the comment section may indicate otherwise! Another whole bunch of people partake in the snail, slug matter talked about in the video. It's fascinating to me. The Souls series made people think about so much else, that's more present in various manners: from Characters' and the world's backstories, specific items such as swords and armours, to specific placement of rocks and/or rooms as if they are intentional to another occurence! It all makes me wonder how much time is put into these details, or if they are just luckily placed there.
For example, there are certain rooms in Elden Ring with water infiltrations, but the one who built them knew that, so built the room at an angle so the water flows outside of it, and there is mold and weird green plants growing on the top corners of the room. Like, what? Obviously someone knew what they were doing when creating that room. And it is also placed closer to the entrance of the building so that the water goes out easier, or so it can be dealt with faster, in case of a flood. These are details so small, that create such depth to attention... And then there are slugs, and this whole video. Bro, this is an amazing community.
So "eyes inside the head" is really the resemblance of an "eye-laden cochlea"
Where was it shown in the trailer that coral is administered through the ear canal? I think I missed that.
armoredd core rference nice
2:34 This actually seems to quite closely resemble the 'Cramped Casket' enemy found in Yahar'Gul in Bloodborne
Exactly what I was thinking.
Maybe it’s because of that it was cut, considering how they were released 1 year apart
I'm a little surprised Zullie didn't mention this connection.
@@swordrushI wouldn't blame her if she blocked them out of her memory, those things are awful.
If I'm not mistaken the DS3 version was cut from the game BECAUSE they were used in BloodBorne, as the two games had some development time overlap at some point, I dunno when or where I heard this information, might've been another Zullie video from a while ago, but it's something to bring up
Really interesting thing about those slugs in Elden Ring where their eyestalks are replaced by parasitic worms; That also happens in real life! The parasite is called Leucochloridium, and their preferred hosts are in the mollusk family, such as slugs and snails, which they use to get eaten by birds to reproduce!
There is a bunch of different types of them and they vary in color a lot. The most well known coloring is a bright green with a red tip, and you can see one of these guy in the opening of Chainsawman!
came to the comments looking for this, that was my first thought too! (To clarify the mental image, I think the eyestalks don't get "replaced" so much as that the worms enter them from the inside and fill them, so the stalk still exists but you see the worm clearly from the outside)
@@lachouette_et_le_phoqueexactly this, they use their coloration and the pulsing movement to attract birds by looking like caterpillars (tasty to birds) instead of a snail (taste terrible) so the eye stalks will get bitten off and eaten with the worm inside, letting it reproduce inside the bird's digestive tract. interesting example of evolution not always creating a straightforward solution to a problem. survival of the good enough!
Slugs to me always felt like a way to "humble" the grand and royal nature the of worlds we go through. The basic and somewhat "gross" nature of slugs stands to counter the gold, and armor and regality of the kingdoms who were all rotten at their core in some way. I hope I expressed my idea well enough haha. Wonderful content as always!
"To be realistic, i feel something beautiful needs something ugly- something that's depraved or tragic to heighten and embolden that beauty. I think that's a much more realistic depiction of beauty, to have something small and beautiful inside something tragic and decaying. Something that just plainly, outwardly always beautiful doesn't have a sense of reality to me. I like to try to create something beautiful within that tragedy." - Hidetaka Miyazaki
I literally just typed a comment similar to this lol. These games take you to the lowest lows and the highest highs, and I feel like the slugs tend to be in the lowest low areas throughout these games.
There's a notable historical connection between slugs and royalty since "royal purple" or "tyrian purple" was made of secretions of a certain type of sea slug and horrendously expensive to make.
From the wiki article: "The pigment was expensive and time-consuming to produce, and items colored with it became associated with power and wealth. This popular idea of purple being elite contributes to the modern day wide-spread belief that purple is a "royal colour". (...) The dye was greatly prized in antiquity because the colour did not easily fade, but instead became brighter with weathering and sunlight. It came in various shades, the most prized being that of black-tinted clotted blood"
ah yes, my favorite from software enemy: pile of goop
I can't believe Zullie made a whole video just for me.
Okay now tell me about RATS
Rat appreciation video when
They're actually dogs.
Rats
Rats
They're the rats
They prey at night
They stalk at night
They're the rats
King Rat is the giant rat that makes all of the rules
Let's see what kind of trouble they can get themselves into
I always presumed the slugs were referencing old Medieval margin drawings, which hosted some fun drawings of snails and slugs that were also clad in knight armor or breathed fire like dragons. Mostly drawn by monks who were just bored of having to transcribe the same tome all the time, I always just that the slugs n snails were a nod to that
These snails symbolised the Lombards, who used to be associated with the same stereotypes the Jews are currently associated with.
An inspiration could be that Japan used to suffer from slug based parasites back in the days. But sometimes in the -20 -30 they had a big campaign to get rid of them by diking out wetlands. This in combination with anti-parasite medicines like Ivermectin managed to pretty much clear the island of these parasites and the disease they caused. But they are still remembered in media and how disgusting they were.
This seems the most likely reason, I seriously doubt they're included because some dev has a "fondness" for them, they're clearly meant to invoke decay/disgust in most scenarios.
Damn you just recontextualized one of the most iconic Junji Ito stories for me. Thanks a lot!
What I get from this is Bloodborne has literal brainworms
And insight in that game also means eyes literally on the inside.
@@CelestialDraconis specifically eyes lining the inside of your skull case peering into your brain. Insight. *In-Sight*.
@@patriciapandacoon7162god damnnnnnnn that's so cool, sucks i cant appreciate it cus it never had a PS4😮
@@patriciapandacoon7162 The eyes grow ON the brain, as seen in the winter lanterns and the Mensis brain. They don't look into your brain, they see past your skull and into the deeper levels of the reality where the Old Ones live.
The cut content of the Dark Souls 3 slugs, when fully burst out, remind me heavily of those corpse piles crawling through Yaharghul in Bloodborne. Those things that burst out the boxes and chase you
Miyazaki pointed out in an interview that he was inspired by Hiroaki Samura’s Blade of the Immortal for Bloodborne and Sekiro, in that manga bloodworms were used to make some people "immortal".
Thanks for showing the unused animation for the slugs in ds3!
2:33 so, we're not going to point out that this is almost a 1:1 replication of the Bloodborne Carrion Caskets? Nothing seems lore-related tho, just visually speaking
I wonder if, at least in regards to Bloodborne, it has any relation to a particular old theory from the 1850s that mollusks were telepathic, forming a permanent mental connection through fluids excreted when mating. Seems to line up well with Bloodborne's own themes.
As a side note, that same theory also inspired the transponder snails from One Piece.
I wonder if it also inspired Illithids/Mind Flayers in D&D... Hmm.
I thought they were used as phones in One Piece because they look like old timey phones.
immortal beings and slugs.. hmmm where have i seen this
Where?
@@mcbuckets813 There's one of those thought experiment things about "What if you were immortal, but there was also an immortal snail chasing you down and if it touched you it would instantly kill you"
With people coming up with various methods of dealing with said snail without touching it so as to maximize their theoretical immortality.
So did anyone ever say "I throw salt at it!" ? 😏
Immortal just means it can't die of aging, doesn't mean the same thing as Invulnerable or Invincible.
@@ButcherGodit depends on the definition of "immortal"
to some "immortal" means one cannot die of old age, but can die through other means.
to others, "immortal" means it cannot die *at all*. period. I believe the "immortal snail" is commonly thought to follow the second definition of "immortal"
@@ButcherGod I'm afraid you're confusing the definitions here. Immortal means literally that something cannot die. After all, if something is mortal it means it can die, so immortal being the opposite, means it cannot die.
Not dying of old age but otherwise still dying would be eternally young or ageless, but not immortal.
It's so strange, slugs in real life prefer the shade, and warm moister areas under tree leaves or dead logs. Yet in fromsoft games, they love the light.
Weird.
Only on demon's souls
@@drewpeacock9087 Cough Cough, Lava Slugs in Volcano Manor
The reason they avoid the light is that they lose humidity much quicker under direct sunlight exposure. It dries them up, which, as a slug, is something that you'd like to avoid. As the demon's souls slugs are sitting in a pool of water, I don't think they should worry too much about the light.
I would love to see coverage of the unused areas in DS3 such as the God's Grave or the fact that Irithyll used to connect to Smouldering Lake
There is a slug enemy in Bloodborne, called Labyrinth Mole. It is very rare though, many players never meet them even once.
I think they're meant to be based on star-nosed moles.
Didnt slugs appear in Ds1 in blighttown?
@@AlexHerrera-wk6lqThose are leeches
@@AlexHerrera-wk6lq No, those were leeches.
Honestly the thing gives me sea cucumber vibes.
mound of hollows looks like the undead amalgam in the unseen village in bloodborne
I always thought the things near the ash tree entrance in DS1 were slugs, but I guess they are leeches. still.. pretty much slug-like in both form and function in game. Not sure what it means that they like to hang out there and the also drop lots of titanite.
Same, I was super confused cause that’s the first thing I thought of
There's also the slime blobs that are very similar and I think they're both in DSI and DSII
They probably hang out there due to stagnant water. As for the titanite... no idea. Best guess is that they ate people who were carrying titanite or that it is nothing beyond gameplay.
0:30 you could also possibly count the Overgrown Mealworms in AC6.
4:12 Whole squad vibin'
"Unbothered, moisturized"
This episode is for RKG and the rest of my fellow slugs.
We are legion, a slimy, slimy legion.
Michael
These videos are always so well done and insightful. Thank you for making them.
That "Mound of Hollows" slug model looks extremely similar, if not outright identical, to the Corpse Bucket enemies in Yahar'gul from Bloodborne.
If I'm not mistaken, in the Fishing Hamlet in Bloodborne, the slugs are also used as candles in some of the houses you can enter. And as most know by now, you get turned into a slug/squid in one of the endings in Bloodborne. I never noticed that the white shape in the Madman's Knowledge icon are slugs, that's pretty interesting.
It's something I think is taken from Berserk as well as other archetypal dark fantasy. The idea that your quest will not just involve facing brave knights and terrible dragons, but also trudging through a sewer full of rats, slugs and other bottom feeders. I've always seen it as an atmosphere setting device.
also, the obligatory video game sewer level
For some odd reason, a lot of medieval art depicted knights fighting slugs and snails. There's a video doc someone made on that.
Love your content Zullie! Please keep it up, can't get enough of it!
Idk what it is but this is one of your chillest videos
Miyazaki didn't choose the sluglife. The sluglife chose him.
Aren't slugs supposed to be magical beings in Japanese folklore? Remember, Tsunade (the folklore one, not the Naruto one) was said to have learned slug magic in order to beat Orochimaru's snake magic.
I truly love these videos, keep it up! A hug from Italy!
This was super neat, the type of interesting and revealing deep dive that made me subscribe to you in the first place, and that nobody else can do but you. Great stuff, Zullie.
I find the return of the rat enemies a bit more interesting because of the reason why they look the way they look. In DS1 they look big a slightly deformed because they feed on humanity, it gives interesting implications on how the humanity still affects the other ds games where humanity doesn't exist as an item and you can't see the humanity ghosts. They look almost the same in Elden Ring, there might be a connection in this world to the Dark Souls humanity. Well, besides Fromsoft shamelessly reusing assets.
Babe wake up etc etc
Babe be asleep. It's too early to get up.
Babe doesn't want to wake up she's going for the become slug ending
Bayblade wake up
Thank you for including the song! 🙏🏼😌
It’s amazing to me how you can always bring my attention to aspects I’ve never ever thought of, even though I’ve played all the soulsborne titles.
Wow
There's a lot of enemies that seem to just re appear because Miyazaki likes the idea (or for smart asset usage...) such as those physical resistant sewage piles
They're just a given and we don't question them anymore despite them appearing in multiple different universes
As a guy with weird phobia with mollusk,
This video is kinda scary
EDIT:
relevant to my comment, I think Miyazaki PURPOSELY added these slugs to his games because he's also aware some people have phobia against them - in addition to other common fears that already exist in the games like dark places, giant bugs, ghouls, etc.
Your bravery is noted.
🐌!
I don't think they were intentionally put for people with phobias though I definitely do think they were intentionally made to be creepy like most things and from software games
@@twelvevoltage well, creepy kinda colerated to fear as well
So yeah
@@Master_Xi yeah I get what you mean. I have thalassophobia and ash lake scares the sh** out of me
Always love your use of Darius music 🖤
In fact, all your music selections are excellent 💯
Whoa! A fresh fresh upload!
i always saw Seath as being one giant snail thingy
Interesting that you write that Dark Souls didn't have slugs, because my mind immediately went to the slime/sluglike creatures in the Depths that cling to your face when you open certain chests.
It's more of a slime than a slug
Also the leeches in Blighttown are pretty slug-like
@@JoelHatmakeryes, but they're leeches, not slugs 😅
I don’t understand. The slugs in the depths have the spike attack. How are we so blatantly ignoring that those are slugs lol
@@XK49 because the slimes have that spike attack
I never paid attention to the amount of slugs.. now I will forever see them
Love the content as always Zullie.
Having a FromSoftware dev thinking sluga are cool & interesting in a way enough to add them to the Soulsborne series is such an interesting & wholesome thought 😁♥
Weren’t there slugs in DS1 that dropped green titanite?
Those are leeches.
"little slug of the eclipse" why do i have a feeling we will be seeing those in Shadow of the Erd Tree
I’m a delivery driver. There’s a particular store that I deliver to that has some standing water by their back door. For 3 weeks now, there’s been a little slug friend waiting for me by that back door.
yo, new Zullie drop
DLC spoiler!!!
Vaati's last video showed that there was a new butterfly type specifically for Messmer in the DLC area. Combine that with the fact that the smoldering butterfly mentions 'Kindling', and I think it becomes pretty clear that it's still supposed to represent Melina.
I dare you to edit your comment into something related to the video. 3:55 Never mind! I spoke too soon, my apologies.
Vaatifans try not to bring up their favorite spoonfeeding info-stealer challenge in any souls content challenge [IMPOSSIBLE]
Well, that's the price of trying to avoid more spoilers, I suppose.
@@cosmicrevenant6043 dawg i'm just stating something actually in the game that he noticed.
Just a thought: It’s a common trope in RPGs and adventure games to attach one of the lesser or common creatures to all connecting games. DragonQuest comes to mind with their slimes present through out all of the games.
Idk if you’ll read this Zullie but I want to say thank you for the commitment and effort you put into dissecting and observing these games. I really love binge watching your videos when i’m really stressed, it just calms me down learning some cool facts from my favorite games. Thanks!
Memezaki just hates them for not having feet, so he decided players would need to kill them in every game
b-b-but
they do have a foot
one big naked slimy foot
:c
Kai cenat shouted you out
Almost all gastropods were wiped out during the Permian- Triassic extinction event. We are fortunate to even know about slug life.
I'm glad DS3 didn't use those slugs with hands bursting out of them, because that would have scared the shit out of me.
Zullie using footage of the original Demon's Souls instead of the remake. She is a real one
Almost like a creeping sense of doom that you ignore until there are too many, and then you have to care.
I think the magma slug are powering some of their tech and they just got out. They are found around broken Chariots and Golems both which have a firey interior.
The guys atfromsoft just really like mollusks. I remember some of the first enemies in King's field were squids and snails.
2:42 - Also the Cramped Casket in Bloodborne
I stand by my headcanon that Bloodborne and Sekiro just depict different countries in the same Earth-like setting and the Divine Dragon is literally a Great One. The slugs just fuel me further
I love how this channel, after the release of a souls game, makes videos on very interesting subjects, and now, two years after the launch of elden ring, makes videos about slugs in the soulsborne series.
i never have been interesting in playing any of the dark souls games, but somehow every video on this channel has had me completely captivated to the point i've subscribed
1:50 I sure love that deep whisper voice that's part of that sound effect.
Augurs and messengers of the divine. Two antennae sticking up, like two fingers trying to make contact with the world above.
Genuinely interesting. Thanks for this.
Zullie i was eating! i did NOT want to see the slugs in detail. nice video
Thank you Zullie, very cool!
Slugs, so easily forgotten
Slugs: exist
Zullie: WRITE THAT DOWN, WRITE THAT DOWN
slugs are just neat lil critters.
All this time I thought those creatures in the fishing hamlet were fish, but looking at that insane they're definitely slugs
god you make the coolest videos
I can see it now as clear as day, The Slug Lord.
I find myself impressed by Demon’s Souls constantly even though I think I already know everything about it. There’s always something new. 😊
They do have rather versatile designs, able to be applied to many contexts and environments
Now, a video on oozes and slimes!
From the thumbnail I thought it was a little guy jumping for joy with his arms up.
it took me so long to realize that slimes and slugs are different, it was thanks to a video that talked about enemy names
A common thread in FromSoft games is the environments affect on both wildlife and mankind, as shown by enemies featuring adaptations relevant to their surroundings (fire slugs, wormfaces, the various butterflies, even the crafting ingredients in elden ring). I like that the slugs are always there, feasting on the detritus and mirroring civilizations impacts, reminding us that consequences of our actions steep all the way down to the lowliest of lifeforms.
Didn't know those were slug shaped lights bursting out of the skulls, thanks for that nightmare fuel🐌
Zullie is cooking with dlc rn
4:14 this room always stood out to me for having a pathetically easy upgrade shard amidst a bunch of slugs that barely attack you. It would have been quite a challenge and surprise if they started sprouting arms or even transformed into the mass of bodies that went unused.
There's also a point in the wormface forest where you can find a smaller wormface "talking" to a slug
Those things that drop from the ceiling in the depths are the honorary slugs of DS1
The Basilisk is the true link between Souls games. Those little fellas are everywhere.
this instantly made me think of one of fromsoft's lesser known titles, Kuon, where the central plot revolves around silkworms with their ability to metamorphose and around the process of cultivating the silkworms to make silk (called sericulture, super cool word) i know silkworms are not slugs, but they are small wriggly creepy crawlies nonetheless so i would say they are pretty similar, or slug-adjacent as i now notice you said the pinned comment! lol
you mentioned the slugs in bloodborne could either be representative of insight and help in communing with the cosmos, or simply a parasitic byproduct. with fromsoft's track record i would personally be more inclined to believe the former to be true! fromsoft has always done a really good job at linking entities, places, things, etc. with ideas or concepts to create a consistent mythology within the setting of each of their games and its lore, which i love.
in Kuon, the worms process of metamorphosing is a direct representation of rebirth and, without being too spoilery and keeping it vague for anyone reading who is interested in the game, the Kuon ritual that the game is named for entirely embodies this mythos within the setting's lore and is obviously very integral to the plot. i feel the link between insight and the slugs in bloodborne could easily be equally as important!
the ritual in Kuon is analogous to the life cycle of silkworms and the processes of sericulture, which makes for a very fascinating narrative! (in fact this is very similar to another horror game with a japanese setting where the rituals are analogous to various children's games like tag or a japanese one called kagome kagome, and it is also very interesting the way they handled this idea. that game would be none other than Fatal Frame! it does do this one thing similarly and i love it, but it is otherwise unrelated so i digress lol) if anyone is interested in hearing more i think the video titled "FromSoftware's Flawed Survival Horror Masterpiece | Kuon" by Dungeon Chill did a great job covering a lot of interesting stuff about this and more from the game so i def recommend!
another amazing vid Zullie! i live for these strange lore links and analogies that make up the mythologies of these games, fromsoft's world building never disappoints and neither do your deep dives and analyses of it!! :)