I'm sure you're all heart-broken by the prospect of losing out on a fight against an Ancient Hero of Zamor that can inflict Madness. The connection between the Merchants and the Frenzied Flame is somewhat understated in the current version of the game, but Kalé used to have a more substantial role in interacting with it. If the knights had still been a summon, maybe he'd have been the one to reward you with their ashes.
I bet most of you know this allready, but VaatiVidya made brilliant Video about Kalés cut questline. The music of Alex Roe is fitting so perfectly as well.
Small detail of chronology, but did Godfrey have Serosh with him when he went to war with the Fire Giants? I didn’t think that was until later, but I noticed the way he’s portrayed in the video he has Serosh with him.
I think saying the Merchants worshipped the frenzied flame is pretty reductive, since their lore throughout the development history of Elden Ring, continuing to this day, is that they were falsely accused of worshipping it and punished anyway. It was only after being locked in the tomb beneath Leyndell's sewers that they actually summoned and began to worship the flame of frenzy out of spite after being wrongfully punished by the golden order.
I'd argue that the Zamor defeating their eternal foe actually worked out quite badly for them. All that remains of their civilization is a few ruins and some desolate knights, with a 'great hero' imprisoned as far from home as possible. It's another example of the way the Golden Order consumed other cultures and threw them away.
@@dannywatson4253 I think the reason their towns are in ruins and their king is imprisoned is likely due to the events of the Shattering, not the Fire Giant war. They might have gotten caught up in a Shattering conflict and been on the losing side
@@ETBrooDNobody won, the shattering splintered the factions - the order ate itself alive vying for what remained. Literally in snakedad's case. Not sure that's a factor with Zamor though...
An interesting thing to note is that the Zamor set has amongst the lowest Focus of any armor set in the game, with some pieces having even having 0 Focus! This further implies the possible intended tie at some point between the Knights of Zamor and the Frenzied Flame.
I always suspected that these knights were connected to the three fingers somehow. After all, there is a weird guy literally right outside their base of operations yelling about how great chaos is all day and none of them seem to mind. Heh.
more likely it's along the lines of "oh look it's the madman again." "ignore him Jimmy!" "but Booooob! he's spouting genocidal nonsense again, shouldn't we do something about it?" "shut up Jimmy, if we ignore him long enough he'll just go away and bother somebody else that cares enough to run him through so we dont have to."
Yah the video claims the merchants worshiped the frenzyied flame but that it wrong. They were sacrificed to the flame by the crazy guy you are talking about, shabriri,
I love it when people acknowledge how batshit crazy and unhinged shabriri sounds. The frenzied flame in itself is just evil incarnate, using shallow excuses like "life is pain" or "save melina" to justify the gruesome murder of all life that exists and can exist on the future. Life is pain for you and you can't bear keep fighting or looking for meaning and happiness? End your own life... _only your own,_ others are not yours to consider not worth it, you selfish bastard. You care about Melina? Then let her fulfill the purpose _she chose for herself_ and listen to her will, selfish bastard. The frenzied flame ending is a really good ending, but it is absolutelly evil
@@yurimaldonado4966true it’s cool if you like it and want to go the way of chaos but I hate when you get these simp frenzy flame defenders trying to spin it to not seem like the literal worst thing to do. Although the dung eater ending is a very close second I’ll add
Merchants didn’t actually worship the frenzied flame, Shabriri just accused them of it. That act of slander led to them being all thrown deep underground, causing them all to despair and the flame of frenzy to take hold in them, but they never WORSHIPPED that abhorrent thing!
Shabriri is actively malicious influence in the world, fulfilling temptir's niche, seemingly corrupting people; tempting Vyke, the player, and orchestrating merchants to be hosts for the flame. Shabriri might even be responsible for the rebellion in Castle Morne, just to acquire Irina and Edgar as hosts as well. Irina is crucial for the Frenzied Flame ending after all.
I believe they ended up worshiping it *due to* their being incarcerated underground. Forever locked away by the Golden Order, their hatred in turn led them in an ironic twist to worship the heretical force they were originally falsely accused of supporting. I seem to remember there was more explicit evidence in Kale's cut quest dialog (you may be able to search RUclips for that).
I wonder if there’s any connection, whether in the final game or behind the scenes, between the Zamor Knights, the Onyx/Alabaster Lords, and Goldmask. They all share this tall, gray-skinned, emaciated appearance (though with metallic body parts on the Onyx/Alabaster Lords). Goldmask is most likely a human given that he’s Tarnished, the Onyx/Alabaster Lords are either from space or a product of the stars’ influence, and we’re never given any indications of whether the Zamor Knights are human or not. Are they all from the same species or human race? Also, I don't think it's quite accurate to say the Merchants worship the Frenzied Flame and were punished for it - rather, it seems that they were falsely accused of doing so (possibly by Shabriri), punished for this, then ended up possessed by the Flame for real due to their despair.
There are the commoners, including Gostoc, who are also these rather lanky, tall humans, sorta like the Zamor. As for the Nomads, it's not a farfetched idea to think that they were, or at least some of them, got in contact with the Flame of Frenzy before their punishment, because if you attack the merchants, they can use Frenzied Flame attacks, even though they are the ones that are not locked up.
@@dantoki6371 also the strongest lies are those sprinkled with some truths. Shabiri may have put the world against the merchants with the lie but they still knew or even followed the frenzied flame. After being slaughtered they dedicated complitely to it.
Thing is, that might not be entirely true. In Kale's cut questline, we find that the merchants that we find in the lands between were unaware of the fate of the great caravan. If we assume that this is still true for the merchants in the released game, that would mean that they would have no connection to the ritual that brought the 3 fingers to the lands between (supposedly the event that brought the frenzied flame) and be spared from the despair that caused it. Yet they all know frenzied flame incantations, how do they know those incantations? This means that either they submitted to the frenzied flame after the great caravan was buried under Leyndell due to the discrimination (But I don't think that would make sense considering their code) or they were followers of the frenzied flame before the great caravan was buried.
Its interesting that it was originally called "redeye" considering the red eye effect that demihumans get at night as well as other enemies. It's possible at some point it may have just been a generic "berserk" effect before being fleshed out
And there's also some Ashes we get where the summon by default has red eyes with an accentuated aggression programming. There's at least the uh wolven knight on all fours, they have red eyes, same with one of the i think Redmane Knights with the greatbow. Both have glowing red eyes and will attack on sight. They might've had a version of that for a Zamor Knight.
And I think it's really cool to see just how much work and effort goes into their worldbuilding, and how it's affected by natural game development. There's always these little nuances and deviations, reused or entirely scrapped concepts. Reminds me a lot of my own writing and how often I change or move things around to make a more cohesive narrative. Or to just make something cooler. lol
@@lsfaraone it's unsettling, how this reminds of ds2. That game also had so much things cut or repurposed, it's incredible. I wish that maybe Zulie comes back to ds2 someday to unearth it's many secrets.
This game is good and all but it certainly feels very unfinished in certain areas and the sheer amount of cut content kinda puts that into perspective. If only they didn't have to rush it for a quicker release
honestly, this doesn't even feel like that big of a deal to me. It's a frigging MASSIVE game, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a lot left on the cutting room floor through the creative process. Maybe that's just me.
A bit of story from cut content (thanks to SekiroDubi): The merchants were not servants of the frenzied flame. That flaming but hole Shabriri falsely accused them of this and they were pretty much pushed into almost extinction and right into the grasp of the 3 fingers. If kept, I think The Great Caravan would've been quite a sight to behold. I really don't understand why FromSoft decided to cut Kale's quest and mechanics, the end was beyond heartbreaking which is pretty much the default with most of their characters. Instead we got blind grape lady.
I think they were worried that Kale would basically lock most new players into the frenzied flame ending due to sympathy for him and they wanted more variety.
One theory I heard regarding the change is that the merchants would have you burn the world for vengeance, while Hyetta wants you to burn the world because she believes it's a kindness (life is inherently painful, please just end it). While Kale had the better emotional story, the theory goes that From wanted the choice to embrace the Frenzied Flame to be more about philosophy than personal revenge. Just a theory, and even if it's correct that doesn't mean you have to like it. Philosophical debate can be compelling but it's not always conducive to a good narrative.
@@MrRawrCEO That makes sense. They could have just added another NPC to tell the player revenge is bad and the Frenzied Flame is an asshole, and whatnot. They've done this kind of thing before, with two NPCs telling the player opposing stories and trying to convince the player to side with them.
Wasn't there also some lore or cut content that said that the reason why the merchants now have to live a nomadic lifestyle (besides being persecuted by the golden order) is because when the caravan was falsely accused of frenzied flame worship by shabriri and locked in the shunning grounds they summoned the frenzy flame/submitted out of desperation+anger, however they plagued all of the nomadic merchant race in the process, and the remaining ones that are free now have to keep a nomadic lifestyle bc stagnation allows the frenzy flame to fester and overcome them? 🤔
Honestly, I love the design of the Zamor knights. They have an elegant fighting style and effeminate features without either being too overstated. They’re an amazing enemy and I’m excited to see what else comes from Elden Ring
But wait, didn't the merchant only summon the flame AFTER they were wrongfully imprisoned? So if they were never imprisoned, the flame would never have been summoned, hence Leyndell is responsible for the flame?
Yes, given what has been implied and what can be seen in the final cut of the game: the nomadic tribes were falsely accused of worshiping the Frenzied Flame by Shabriri, resulting in their imprisonment beneath Leyndell. That in turn proved to be a self-fulfilling prophesy because that drove them to actually embrace the Flame, evidenced by the merchants using Frenzy spells on you when made hostile and their death quotes mirroring Shabriri/Yura's banter about burning the world all away.
That's just merchant propaganda. They summoned the Frenzy flame when they were imprisoned underground, but how did they summon it if they were imprisoned? It only makes sense if they were dabbling in it already and the imprisonment empowered the heretics among their merchants to convert the rest of their kin to the service of the frenzied flame.
From what I can tell the Japanese name used for Zamor is ザミェル (zamieru). This might be in reference to Zamiel, the demon huntsman in Count Karlstein who haunts the Alps on windy nights, but that’s just a google search so perhaps there are better theories.
Love how your videos provoke thought about connections that I'd otherwise never notice. Even if (as others are so quick to cry) details might not be correct, you always send me on deep lore searches and I am left very satisfied by the end result of these info binges. Great work!
Great work as always. For what its worth, the Golden Order was created when Destined Death was plucked from the Elden Ring, and so did not exist yet at the time of the war against the giants. They were just the armies of Marika and the Erdtree at that point, despite gold and order already being central to their cause.
The Golden Order is the Order of Gold. It existed before the Rune of Death was removed, it existed when Placidusax was Lord, it was just in a different form. It's only not the Golden Order when a different god, like the Dark Moon or the Frenzied Flame, claims the Elden Ring.
Excellent choice of soundtrack given the topic discussion. I've always found the Ancient Zamor intriguing since not much is known about them so this sheds some much needed light on them.
My read on the nomads was that they were locked away for something unrelated to the Frenzied Flame and as their "from hells heart I stabbeth thee" revenge they essentially made contact with the flame through the sheer force of their anger/spite/desire for retribution. Like... I read it as the frenzied flame came after they were locked up and they serve it as a giant middle finger finger to the rest of the world for what it did to them.
Shabriri accused them of being part of the frenzied flame, which is why they were buried alive. He probably did that to get them to actually summon the flame through anger, and now the remaining merchants despise the golden order for it, meaning in the end Shabriri wins because he let the flame loose
I think that it was less that they called it specifically so much as they were wanted revenge and the Frenzied Flame has a thing for despair and revenge. I do think it was Shabriri's doing that they were imprisoned, since he's an immortal Frenzied Flame devotee known for manipulation and slander.
@@5chneemensch138 Not strong emotions in general, the Frenzied Flame is specifically attracted to despair. Soldiers stuck in the longest and most brutal siege of the entire Shattering, villagers who have lost absolutely everything, merchants buried alive for a crime they didn't commit, a man who lost his castle and his daughter, a champion who lost his maiden. The Frenzied Flame targets people at their lowest, when they are filled with despair, since that's when it has a chance to convince people that the despair they're feeling is the only truth in the world.
Never noticed the shackle on them, I guess that implies that their mask was also designed as a form of punishment ala Man in the Iron Mask. Brings to mind the Lost Sinner, just in a comparatively far less important narrative role.
I mean, now that I think about it, the Zamor heroes do fit in aesthetically with the Merchant Caravans. Perhaps the caravans once originated in Zamor, long ago. And perhaps the Frenzied Flame incident predates Godfrey's campaign. Which could perhaps explain why there's a Zamor hero in an Evergaol, and why they're otherwise never outside of the Mountaintop of Giants (excluding that one Zamor Hero in an Altus Plateau catacomb). Perhaps the Zamor heroes were first called such because they led the remaining members of the Merchant Caravan to safety, to escape persecution for the Frenzied Flame. They were heroes and champions of their people, bravely making an exodus. This somehow led to conflict with the Fire Giants, and when the time came, Godfrey and Leyndell decided to make allies of Zamor, seeing the Fire Giants as the bigger threat and/or perhaps forgetting Zamor's connection to the Frenzied Flame, legitimate or no. Which brings to another point... if this is the case, and the Zamor Heroes and the Merchant Caravan are from the same civilization, then it begs the question why the Zamor Heroes never use Frenzied Flame incantations. Perhaps they refuse to, and use frost magic to sorta... step away from that bleak advent in history. In other words, perhaps it's a distancing act, to put the past and its associations behind the people of Zamor. Alternatively, perhaps the frost magic predates the Frenzied Flame incident. This makes sense too. While the Merchant Caravan wallowed in their imprisonment and summoned the Frenzied Flame, perhaps the Heroes of Zamor, who may have been imprisoned with them, did not turn to the Frenzied Flame. Perhaps their own... inner strength of will allowed them to carry on, so they never learned Frenzied Flame incantations. Afterwards, they jailbroke whoever they could. Maybe Hard to say, really. Anyway, this idea of the Frenzied Flame incident coming before Godfrey's campaign in Mountaintop of Giants could still line up with Morgott and Mohg guarding the Frenzied Flame. No one else ever did - but both Omen Twins were raised in the sewers. They definitely would've learned of the Frenzied Flame down there. Further, it also can sorta explain why the Merchant Caravan is able to travel so freely. If they were publicly associated with the Frenzied Flame, there's a significantly higher chance of their people being ostracized even further, perhaps hunted down for association with the Three Fingers and the Flame. All just a bunch of threads to a theory right now, really. But interesting to think about it.
1:59 Last time I checked the merchants didn't worship the frenzied flame, Shabriri slandered them with that lie and the ones who were locked away in the shunning grounds sang a song of despair that summoned the three fingers. Those who weren't locked underground didn't worship the frenzied flame it spread to them like an infection after their entire civilisation was destroyed. Or did I get something wrong?
They worship the frenzied flame now. Personally I think Shabriri's lie was half true. Some of the merchants probably worshiped the frenzied flame, and their imprisonment probably empowered those heretics to convert the others to become the dominant faith among them.
I don't agree with this interpretation. Here's mine. I believe Shabriri was a noble with some connection to the Merchants before their marginalization. He may have been a diplomat. I believe he had a pretty good understanding of their theology and their criticisms of the greater will, (that it made a mistake) were probably something he understood. I believe he, accidentally or not, let slip these critiques on a court who would not hear them, and this resulted in the "Slanderous Lie" he spread, namely, "That the greater will made a mistake" In other words, he didn't lie about the merchants, his crime was in revealing a critique that the state wasn't ready to hear, wrapped up as they were in their dogma around Marika and the Elden Ring. The Notion that the Greater Will made a mistake is what he "lied" about, and was summarily punished for. Shabriri's own madness starts here, as he's exiled from Court in Leyndall and ends up wandering around the Lands Between. Simultaneously, the Merchants are rounded up and imprisoned beneath Leyndall, and ultimately, summon the Flame of Frenzy and some eventually escape into Deeproot Depths. Shabriri's life comes to an eventual end in one of the frenzied villages (I suspect the one in Liurnia, but I am not sure, it's very difficult to tell.) As well, the reason my theory casts Shabriri and the Merchants this way is that there's reason to suspect that the Merchants and Shabriri may have been inspired by Roma and Jewish people, and I think this context lends support to my view. The lore surrounding Shabriri and the Merchants is quite hazy indeed, but there are little turns of phrase and framings that suggest that I'm right, as well. Though FROMsoft probably cannot be expected to explicitly come out and say what actually happened, I think the assortment of dialogues we get from varied characters, and the implications of various lines of flavor on items also support this view. Further, there's a roaming speculation with almost no support that implies that the Two Finger and Three Finger may be pieces of a Whole Five Finger, whose influence has been left. I think this is also implied by the rampant use of 6+ finger hands in the imagery. It may be possible that the Greater Will's mistake was, then, dividing Order (2F) and Chaos (3F), and if we accept this, we can understand the Merchants as Greater Will worshippers who still respected the presence of Chaos as a part of the Greater Will, something which could not be accepted by the dominant society of Leyndall, who had already invested themselves in the Golden Order as an organization devoted to opposing Chaos. In this way, the themes also support Shabriri's blasphemous position, given that the Golden Order's belief system can be shown to be flawed in multiple ways by multiple representatives including Goldmask and Brother Corhyn.
Look again at the description for the Nomad Ashes, aka the Forsaken Depths merchants. They were buried because they were already spreading the madness disease and it was an attempt to contain the disease. And how do you spread madness disease? By having become a worshiper of Frenzied Flame. This is their heresy - worshiping the Yellow Flame and spreading the madness disease - they were never falsely accused of it. So it is not that they only became followers of the Frenzied Flame because they were in desperation of being buried alive. They were pissed off that their lifestyle of turning regular people into Cyclops is persecuted, so they summoned the very god of Frenzied Flame itself. The merchants we see are only chill because they are keeping their heads down after the persecution, but some of them clearly sound like they're not really right in the head. Also try attacking them, they'll use the Frenzy attacks just the same.
I know you get this a lot, but I really do love your videos. Unlike many other youtubers, you actually look at the plot with an open mind,and try to understand it from a lore perspective. You don't jump to conclusions. And the very FEW times that you have been wrong, you immediately correct it. You're the best! I wish more Elden Ring youtubers were like you, Zullie.
Perhaps the Zamor knights and the merchants are from the same culture just different sects of their civilization. The knights are clearly of a warrior cast, while the merchants could be your standard denizen. The merchants clothing looks very suitable for a northern environment and the two’s physical appearance is pretty similar in my eyes( grey hair, dark skin, and lanky bodies). The knight don’t wear much to protect against the cold however, I suspect that being a fighter was more of a punishment or a penance in their culture hence their clothing and the “symbolic” shackle. Or they believed that their icy magics worked better if one’s body temperature is lower than normal. As for the knights mask I have two theories: it is either the visage of their own old god of ice or it is Myrika. There aren’t any item descriptions that support these speculations( that I know of), just trying to piece together things that I have noticed between the two.
I think it's interesting to see that the shackle's shape would imply that they were chained to someone else as well, seeing as the shackle is split in the middle. Don't know whether that means anything though and I missed some lore, but hey
Most likely, the shackle is meant for both hands, not for two prisoners. This is the real point of this design, essentially serving as handcuffs you can chain down to a wall/post.
@@nelyeth1 You're compeletely right, I realised that shortly after leaving the comment. Makes more sense. The orientation of the shackle still seems like it's meant to imply something since it's facing away from the hand instead of inward to the other hand, which may have led me to my original conclusion.
@@majorwind Considering one of them drops the Scarseal which is referred to as symbol of eternal duty, you could make a case that they are "bound" to forever serve the GO.
i haven’t played any soulsborne games because they’re not my style but i love learning about the lore. frankly your videos have been my largest source of exposure to that and as an outsider i love how your explanations illustrate things, re: both in-game and cut content, code/mechanics breakdowns and stripping back layers of model mesh for a (quite literal) deeper look, it makes everything very easy to parse for my detail-oriented brain, and the little bite-sized chunks you put out makes it all very easy to digest. keep up the good work 💙
From a gameplay perspective, it requires a huuuuuge suspension of disbelief to accept that these little dudes were in a STALEMATE with a bunch of fire giants.
I find very strange that if the Zamor where victorious with the golden army, why is their village in ruins and so small? if it was destroyed by the war, why didn't they rebuilt it?
I always assumed there just weren't very many of them. It seems like they only ever lived in the town of Zamor. Maybe all of their villagers died in an assault by the fire giants, leaving just a few hardened warriors who linger on to embrace an ultimately pointless victory.
Tbh as much as they are called "heroes" one of them is imprisoned in weeping peninsula and the only sign of their once civilization is now in ruins only hardened warriors are left as the comment above me says that ultimately it was a moot victory if we can even call it a win in the first place
Always know it's about to be a extra-juicy vid when the thumbnail says Zullie already did this topic, but has sense learned more, and more disturbing details. Makes me extra gossip-hungry! :3
Maybe the Frenzied Flame and Giants' Flame were enemies ("there can be only one"-like) and the Knights of Zamor tried to control/hide/restrain the Frenzy by living in the cold, since chaos is forever changing and moving while the cold is related to stagnation and imprisonment. Just a thought.
The most lovely thing about these lore videos is that I can watch them with the sound off during boring MS Teams meetings... I do miss the awesome musical selections, though.
Okay, baseless speculation time from me: What if... what if burning the tree down wasn't always the default story endgame? What if we were originally meant to take the throne and the game ended there? But if we followed the Frenzied Flame questline... it led us to the Forge and led to the burning of the tree. I'd always found it curious that the Frenzied Flame ending cinematic differed so much from the others... where we simply sat on a throne. This could also explain why the normal ending, Ranni's ending, and the Frenzied Flame endings all have achievements... but the others don't. What if actually burning the tree and getting inside was originally intended to be a secret alternate/extended story *path* entirely?
I always thought that there were supposed to basically be three endings, give or take some changes The Returning Order, where the elden ring is reinstated as the true order. The Rising Moon, where you bring in the age of the stars, giving people their own fate. The End of All, where you burn it all away, truly ending this cycle of the world, forever
The way it would have worked is, base ending, you just fight radagon/Marika, ranni ending you fight elden beast, chaos ending you fight the frenzied flame. Burning the tree would have been necessary for all, but the way it would burn would differ, with the chaos flame for the chaos ending, black flame for rannis ending, and the flames of destined death for the order ending
The presence of fire and flame as this constant ever-present entity, in every faction, just really lends itself to the idea that there was *a lot* more content, and all that's been cut
It might also explain why the late game kinda sucks aside from boss design, cuz it's basically rushed and cobbled together to stop accounting for the other parts of the game/story that were removed
Could be that the merchants originated in Zamor. You do explore the ruins of Zamor after all. Speculation: After aiding the Golden Order in defeating the giants, Marika and Godfrey turned against the Zamor population for serving the Three Fingers and the Frenzied Flame. We already know that Marika has no qualms in betraying people.
Every time I read Zamor all I can think of are the Zamor Spheres and their launchers used by the Piraka and the Toa Inika during the Ignition storyline of Bionicle.
Honestly it would have been cool having the Zamor Knights acting as a sort of bodyguards for the merchants, knowing how they were treated and the danger they put themselves wandering in the Lands Between.
I think the Zamor Knights at one point were bodyguards that once walked with the merchants during the time of The Great Caravan considering how valuable Kale makes it sound, then Shabriri showed up and slandered them both causing the Zamor to be exiled to the mountaintops
Could you imagine just fighting one random Knight of Zamor, ready to face the freezing onslaught, just for it to howl in madness, and fire out the flame of frenzy from its eyes.
So you fight a few Zamor knights as burial guardians, but I was always confused as to why there was one imprisoned in the evergaol on the Weeping Peninsula. This video definitely sheds some light on that
It almost seems like there was an idea similar to the Abyss Watchers. An order of knights dedicated to eradicating fire only to have the frenzied flame infect them from within.
I'm sure you're all heart-broken by the prospect of losing out on a fight against an Ancient Hero of Zamor that can inflict Madness. The connection between the Merchants and the Frenzied Flame is somewhat understated in the current version of the game, but Kalé used to have a more substantial role in interacting with it. If the knights had still been a summon, maybe he'd have been the one to reward you with their ashes.
I bet most of you know this allready, but VaatiVidya made brilliant Video about Kalés cut questline. The music of Alex Roe is fitting so perfectly as well.
Small detail of chronology, but did Godfrey have Serosh with him when he went to war with the Fire Giants? I didn’t think that was until later, but I noticed the way he’s portrayed in the video he has Serosh with him.
@@talongreenlee7704 Hoarah Loux + Serosh = Godfrey, he had to have Serosh at that time if he was called Godfrey
I think saying the Merchants worshipped the frenzied flame is pretty reductive, since their lore throughout the development history of Elden Ring, continuing to this day, is that they were falsely accused of worshipping it and punished anyway.
It was only after being locked in the tomb beneath Leyndell's sewers that they actually summoned and began to worship the flame of frenzy out of spite after being wrongfully punished by the golden order.
All hail the flame. 🔥💛
I'd argue that the Zamor defeating their eternal foe actually worked out quite badly for them. All that remains of their civilization is a few ruins and some desolate knights, with a 'great hero' imprisoned as far from home as possible. It's another example of the way the Golden Order consumed other cultures and threw them away.
i know its 8 months old and all, but what hero?
@@toobig7150 The hero king of Zamor in the Weeping Peninsula Evergoal.
@@dannywatson4253 I think the reason their towns are in ruins and their king is imprisoned is likely due to the events of the Shattering, not the Fire Giant war. They might have gotten caught up in a Shattering conflict and been on the losing side
@@epicshibexd5049 How could they be on the losing side if they were allies of the Golden Order?
@@ETBrooDNobody won, the shattering splintered the factions - the order ate itself alive vying for what remained. Literally in snakedad's case. Not sure that's a factor with Zamor though...
unrelated but i like how godfrey's axe is repaired at 0:23 since that's portraying a past event, a minor but nice detail
Man, the Twilight Princess music is always so pleasantly atmospheric for your vids.
And its nostalgic
It’s also thematically a great choice from the game, as the music used in the video is from Twilight Princess‘ snow level!
Twilight Princess bangs. One of my favorite Zelda titles.
Finally managed to get my little brother to play it after ten years of asking, he's gotten to Snowpeak as of me writing this.
@@jacobanderson8219 Love the atmosphere of Snowpeak, and the rest of the game in general.
An interesting thing to note is that the Zamor set has amongst the lowest Focus of any armor set in the game, with some pieces having even having 0 Focus! This further implies the possible intended tie at some point between the Knights of Zamor and the Frenzied Flame.
I always suspected that these knights were connected to the three fingers somehow. After all, there is a weird guy literally right outside their base of operations yelling about how great chaos is all day and none of them seem to mind.
Heh.
more likely it's along the lines of
"oh look it's the madman again."
"ignore him Jimmy!"
"but Booooob! he's spouting genocidal nonsense again, shouldn't we do something about it?"
"shut up Jimmy, if we ignore him long enough he'll just go away and bother somebody else that cares enough to run him through so we dont have to."
@@sekira4516 "...Boooooob" 💀
Yah the video claims the merchants worshiped the frenzyied flame but that it wrong. They were sacrificed to the flame by the crazy guy you are talking about, shabriri,
I love it when people acknowledge how batshit crazy and unhinged shabriri sounds. The frenzied flame in itself is just evil incarnate, using shallow excuses like "life is pain" or "save melina" to justify the gruesome murder of all life that exists and can exist on the future. Life is pain for you and you can't bear keep fighting or looking for meaning and happiness? End your own life... _only your own,_ others are not yours to consider not worth it, you selfish bastard. You care about Melina? Then let her fulfill the purpose _she chose for herself_ and listen to her will, selfish bastard. The frenzied flame ending is a really good ending, but it is absolutelly evil
@@yurimaldonado4966true it’s cool if you like it and want to go the way of chaos but I hate when you get these simp frenzy flame defenders trying to spin it to not seem like the literal worst thing to do. Although the dung eater ending is a very close second I’ll add
Encountering a Zamor knight that suddenly uses frenzy flame spells would be awesome as hell
Merchants didn’t actually worship the frenzied flame, Shabriri just accused them of it. That act of slander led to them being all thrown deep underground, causing them all to despair and the flame of frenzy to take hold in them, but they never WORSHIPPED that abhorrent thing!
YES I will always be a merchant defender those guys were treated horribly
@@cwill14 Considering what can happen to Irina and Yura in one's playthrough, it's possible that merchants could have had some similar experiences.
Shabriri is actively malicious influence in the world, fulfilling temptir's niche, seemingly corrupting people; tempting Vyke, the player, and orchestrating merchants to be hosts for the flame.
Shabriri might even be responsible for the rebellion in Castle Morne, just to acquire Irina and Edgar as hosts as well. Irina is crucial for the Frenzied Flame ending after all.
it seems to me like a “well if we are falsely imprisoned for summoning the frenzied flame why not actually do it because fuck these guys”
I believe they ended up worshiping it *due to* their being incarcerated underground. Forever locked away by the Golden Order, their hatred in turn led them in an ironic twist to worship the heretical force they were originally falsely accused of supporting.
I seem to remember there was more explicit evidence in Kale's cut quest dialog (you may be able to search RUclips for that).
I love how otherworldly and elf-like the Zamor knights are.
They remind me of how the White Walkers from GOT are described in the books.
@@shayposting And like the Others they are intrinsically opposed to fire.
one of my favorite looking factions, totally. the second i got that set, thats all my character wore my first playthrough
@@shayposting this is actually what I assumed they were a reference to considering GRRM world built this
I love the cinematic shots you composed through out the video
I wonder if there’s any connection, whether in the final game or behind the scenes, between the Zamor Knights, the Onyx/Alabaster Lords, and Goldmask. They all share this tall, gray-skinned, emaciated appearance (though with metallic body parts on the Onyx/Alabaster Lords). Goldmask is most likely a human given that he’s Tarnished, the Onyx/Alabaster Lords are either from space or a product of the stars’ influence, and we’re never given any indications of whether the Zamor Knights are human or not. Are they all from the same species or human race?
Also, I don't think it's quite accurate to say the Merchants worship the Frenzied Flame and were punished for it - rather, it seems that they were falsely accused of doing so (possibly by Shabriri), punished for this, then ended up possessed by the Flame for real due to their despair.
Vaati watcher spotted
I always assumed Alabaster was the name of a Land outside the lands between like Reed
There are the commoners, including Gostoc, who are also these rather lanky, tall humans, sorta like the Zamor.
As for the Nomads, it's not a farfetched idea to think that they were, or at least some of them, got in contact with the Flame of Frenzy before their punishment, because if you attack the merchants, they can use Frenzied Flame attacks, even though they are the ones that are not locked up.
@@dantoki6371 also the strongest lies are those sprinkled with some truths.
Shabiri may have put the world against the merchants with the lie but they still knew or even followed the frenzied flame. After being slaughtered they dedicated complitely to it.
Thing is, that might not be entirely true.
In Kale's cut questline, we find that the merchants that we find in the lands between were unaware of the fate of the great caravan. If we assume that this is still true for the merchants in the released game, that would mean that they would have no connection to the ritual that brought the 3 fingers to the lands between (supposedly the event that brought the frenzied flame) and be spared from the despair that caused it. Yet they all know frenzied flame incantations, how do they know those incantations?
This means that either they submitted to the frenzied flame after the great caravan was buried under Leyndell due to the discrimination (But I don't think that would make sense considering their code) or they were followers of the frenzied flame before the great caravan was buried.
Its interesting that it was originally called "redeye" considering the red eye effect that demihumans get at night as well as other enemies. It's possible at some point it may have just been a generic "berserk" effect before being fleshed out
That falls in line with Sekiro and its red eye enemies. Although in Sekiro red-eyed means adverse to fire and this game it's the opposite.
Reminds me of the Red eyes of khare from the sorcery series
One of the Red Eye invaders were the Chaos Witch faction in Dark souls. I wonder if there's a connection there too?
And there's also some Ashes we get where the summon by default has red eyes with an accentuated aggression programming. There's at least the uh wolven knight on all fours, they have red eyes, same with one of the i think Redmane Knights with the greatbow. Both have glowing red eyes and will attack on sight. They might've had a version of that for a Zamor Knight.
maybe it is the demon's souls redeyed knight reference ?
Man, this game sure has A LOT of cut content, it's really something.
And I think it's really cool to see just how much work and effort goes into their worldbuilding, and how it's affected by natural game development. There's always these little nuances and deviations, reused or entirely scrapped concepts.
Reminds me a lot of my own writing and how often I change or move things around to make a more cohesive narrative. Or to just make something cooler. lol
@@lsfaraone it's unsettling, how this reminds of ds2. That game also had so much things cut or repurposed, it's incredible. I wish that maybe Zulie comes back to ds2 someday to unearth it's many secrets.
This game is good and all but it certainly feels very unfinished in certain areas and the sheer amount of cut content kinda puts that into perspective. If only they didn't have to rush it for a quicker release
honestly, this doesn't even feel like that big of a deal to me. It's a frigging MASSIVE game, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a lot left on the cutting room floor through the creative process. Maybe that's just me.
A bit of story from cut content (thanks to SekiroDubi): The merchants were not servants of the frenzied flame. That flaming but hole Shabriri falsely accused them of this and they were pretty much pushed into almost extinction and right into the grasp of the 3 fingers. If kept, I think The Great Caravan would've been quite a sight to behold.
I really don't understand why FromSoft decided to cut Kale's quest and mechanics, the end was beyond heartbreaking which is pretty much the default with most of their characters. Instead we got blind grape lady.
I think they were worried that Kale would basically lock most new players into the frenzied flame ending due to sympathy for him and they wanted more variety.
One theory I heard regarding the change is that the merchants would have you burn the world for vengeance, while Hyetta wants you to burn the world because she believes it's a kindness (life is inherently painful, please just end it).
While Kale had the better emotional story, the theory goes that From wanted the choice to embrace the Frenzied Flame to be more about philosophy than personal revenge.
Just a theory, and even if it's correct that doesn't mean you have to like it. Philosophical debate can be compelling but it's not always conducive to a good narrative.
His quest being cut sucks so much because the voice actor did such an amazing job at the end. He truly sounded full of sorrow and hate.
@@MrRawrCEO That makes sense. They could have just added another NPC to tell the player revenge is bad and the Frenzied Flame is an asshole, and whatnot. They've done this kind of thing before, with two NPCs telling the player opposing stories and trying to convince the player to side with them.
Wasn't there also some lore or cut content that said that the reason why the merchants now have to live a nomadic lifestyle (besides being persecuted by the golden order) is because when the caravan was falsely accused of frenzied flame worship by shabriri and locked in the shunning grounds they summoned the frenzy flame/submitted out of desperation+anger, however they plagued all of the nomadic merchant race in the process, and the remaining ones that are free now have to keep a nomadic lifestyle bc stagnation allows the frenzy flame to fester and overcome them? 🤔
Honestly, I love the design of the Zamor knights. They have an elegant fighting style and effeminate features without either being too overstated. They’re an amazing enemy and I’m excited to see what else comes from Elden Ring
These are the kinds of fascinating discoveries I love to learn from this channel. Love your videos Zully
same
0:37 the scene you made of the zamor knights bowing to your boy Godfrey looks so good.😺
But wait, didn't the merchant only summon the flame AFTER they were wrongfully imprisoned? So if they were never imprisoned, the flame would never have been summoned, hence Leyndell is responsible for the flame?
Yeah, I thought that was the idea behind it. Pretty sure they were falsely accused and their suffering brought around the frenzied flame?
Yes, given what has been implied and what can be seen in the final cut of the game: the nomadic tribes were falsely accused of worshiping the Frenzied Flame by Shabriri, resulting in their imprisonment beneath Leyndell. That in turn proved to be a self-fulfilling prophesy because that drove them to actually embrace the Flame, evidenced by the merchants using Frenzy spells on you when made hostile and their death quotes mirroring Shabriri/Yura's banter about burning the world all away.
@@jadewedge6082 Shabiri’s woe talisman states that he ‘slandered’ the merchants implying very clearly that it wasn’t true
That's just merchant propaganda. They summoned the Frenzy flame when they were imprisoned underground, but how did they summon it if they were imprisoned? It only makes sense if they were dabbling in it already and the imprisonment empowered the heretics among their merchants to convert the rest of their kin to the service of the frenzied flame.
@@Aei144 i don't think the item description says who shabriri slandered, just that he had his eyes cut out as punishment
I was waiting for it, thanks...
From what I can tell the Japanese name used for Zamor is ザミェル (zamieru). This might be in reference to Zamiel, the demon huntsman in Count Karlstein who haunts the Alps on windy nights, but that’s just a google search so perhaps there are better theories.
Sounds too relevant to be a coincidence, i think you might be onto something here
Zamor in russian is death of cattle
@@ЕгорИванов-ю3ж5р or beyond sea.
I love the Zamor knight design and move set. Just beautiful, creepy and elegant. Deadly dancers....
Zelda + FromSoftware is so much of my gaming experience, and it's always so refreshing to experience them both in your videos/audio
And yet another nostalgia blast with that snowpeak ruins music. Works every time. Reconyzed it instantly
I love that spirits are internally called "buddies"
The knights of Zamor are one of the coolest enemies (pun intended) in the game, yet I know basically nothing about them..
At least they have multiple items referencing their existence unlike other enemies like Wormfaces
@@aswifte5743 lol, true. Wormface is so gross even Miyazaki doesn't like to acknowledge they're in the game
Great job with the shots, you directed this one impeccably
Love how your videos provoke thought about connections that I'd otherwise never notice. Even if (as others are so quick to cry) details might not be correct, you always send me on deep lore searches and I am left very satisfied by the end result of these info binges. Great work!
Great work as always. For what its worth, the Golden Order was created when Destined Death was plucked from the Elden Ring, and so did not exist yet at the time of the war against the giants. They were just the armies of Marika and the Erdtree at that point, despite gold and order already being central to their cause.
The Golden Order is the Order of Gold. It existed before the Rune of Death was removed, it existed when Placidusax was Lord, it was just in a different form. It's only not the Golden Order when a different god, like the Dark Moon or the Frenzied Flame, claims the Elden Ring.
Excellent choice of soundtrack given the topic discussion. I've always found the Ancient Zamor intriguing since not much is known about them so this sheds some much needed light on them.
"Oh shit we forgot White Walkers" -Hidetaka Miyazaki
My read on the nomads was that they were locked away for something unrelated to the Frenzied Flame and as their "from hells heart I stabbeth thee" revenge they essentially made contact with the flame through the sheer force of their anger/spite/desire for retribution. Like... I read it as the frenzied flame came after they were locked up and they serve it as a giant middle finger finger to the rest of the world for what it did to them.
Shabriri accused them of being part of the frenzied flame, which is why they were buried alive. He probably did that to get them to actually summon the flame through anger, and now the remaining merchants despise the golden order for it, meaning in the end Shabriri wins because he let the flame loose
I think that it was less that they called it specifically so much as they were wanted revenge and the Frenzied Flame has a thing for despair and revenge. I do think it was Shabriri's doing that they were imprisoned, since he's an immortal Frenzied Flame devotee known for manipulation and slander.
@@watchfulwanderer6443 It's more a case of the FF feeding off of strong emotions.
@@5chneemensch138 Not strong emotions in general, the Frenzied Flame is specifically attracted to despair. Soldiers stuck in the longest and most brutal siege of the entire Shattering, villagers who have lost absolutely everything, merchants buried alive for a crime they didn't commit, a man who lost his castle and his daughter, a champion who lost his maiden. The Frenzied Flame targets people at their lowest, when they are filled with despair, since that's when it has a chance to convince people that the despair they're feeling is the only truth in the world.
Never noticed the shackle on them, I guess that implies that their mask was also designed as a form of punishment ala Man in the Iron Mask. Brings to mind the Lost Sinner, just in a comparatively far less important narrative role.
It makes sense why shabiri standing there, near zamor ruins
As usual, perfect music choice
Twilight Princess music fits these videos so well
I mean, now that I think about it, the Zamor heroes do fit in aesthetically with the Merchant Caravans.
Perhaps the caravans once originated in Zamor, long ago.
And perhaps the Frenzied Flame incident predates Godfrey's campaign.
Which could perhaps explain why there's a Zamor hero in an Evergaol, and why they're otherwise never outside of the Mountaintop of Giants (excluding that one Zamor Hero in an Altus Plateau catacomb). Perhaps the Zamor heroes were first called such because they led the remaining members of the Merchant Caravan to safety, to escape persecution for the Frenzied Flame. They were heroes and champions of their people, bravely making an exodus.
This somehow led to conflict with the Fire Giants, and when the time came, Godfrey and Leyndell decided to make allies of Zamor, seeing the Fire Giants as the bigger threat and/or perhaps forgetting Zamor's connection to the Frenzied Flame, legitimate or no.
Which brings to another point... if this is the case, and the Zamor Heroes and the Merchant Caravan are from the same civilization, then it begs the question why the Zamor Heroes never use Frenzied Flame incantations. Perhaps they refuse to, and use frost magic to sorta... step away from that bleak advent in history. In other words, perhaps it's a distancing act, to put the past and its associations behind the people of Zamor.
Alternatively, perhaps the frost magic predates the Frenzied Flame incident. This makes sense too. While the Merchant Caravan wallowed in their imprisonment and summoned the Frenzied Flame, perhaps the Heroes of Zamor, who may have been imprisoned with them, did not turn to the Frenzied Flame. Perhaps their own... inner strength of will allowed them to carry on, so they never learned Frenzied Flame incantations. Afterwards, they jailbroke whoever they could. Maybe
Hard to say, really.
Anyway, this idea of the Frenzied Flame incident coming before Godfrey's campaign in Mountaintop of Giants could still line up with Morgott and Mohg guarding the Frenzied Flame. No one else ever did - but both Omen Twins were raised in the sewers. They definitely would've learned of the Frenzied Flame down there.
Further, it also can sorta explain why the Merchant Caravan is able to travel so freely. If they were publicly associated with the Frenzied Flame, there's a significantly higher chance of their people being ostracized even further, perhaps hunted down for association with the Three Fingers and the Flame.
All just a bunch of threads to a theory right now, really. But interesting to think about it.
1:59 Last time I checked the merchants didn't worship the frenzied flame, Shabriri slandered them with that lie and the ones who were locked away in the shunning grounds sang a song of despair that summoned the three fingers. Those who weren't locked underground didn't worship the frenzied flame it spread to them like an infection after their entire civilisation was destroyed. Or did I get something wrong?
They worship the frenzied flame now. Personally I think Shabriri's lie was half true. Some of the merchants probably worshiped the frenzied flame, and their imprisonment probably empowered those heretics to convert the others to become the dominant faith among them.
I don't agree with this interpretation. Here's mine. I believe Shabriri was a noble with some connection to the Merchants before their marginalization. He may have been a diplomat. I believe he had a pretty good understanding of their theology and their criticisms of the greater will, (that it made a mistake) were probably something he understood. I believe he, accidentally or not, let slip these critiques on a court who would not hear them, and this resulted in the "Slanderous Lie" he spread, namely, "That the greater will made a mistake"
In other words, he didn't lie about the merchants, his crime was in revealing a critique that the state wasn't ready to hear, wrapped up as they were in their dogma around Marika and the Elden Ring.
The Notion that the Greater Will made a mistake is what he "lied" about, and was summarily punished for. Shabriri's own madness starts here, as he's exiled from Court in Leyndall and ends up wandering around the Lands Between. Simultaneously, the Merchants are rounded up and imprisoned beneath Leyndall, and ultimately, summon the Flame of Frenzy and some eventually escape into Deeproot Depths. Shabriri's life comes to an eventual end in one of the frenzied villages (I suspect the one in Liurnia, but I am not sure, it's very difficult to tell.)
As well, the reason my theory casts Shabriri and the Merchants this way is that there's reason to suspect that the Merchants and Shabriri may have been inspired by Roma and Jewish people, and I think this context lends support to my view.
The lore surrounding Shabriri and the Merchants is quite hazy indeed, but there are little turns of phrase and framings that suggest that I'm right, as well.
Though FROMsoft probably cannot be expected to explicitly come out and say what actually happened, I think the assortment of dialogues we get from varied characters, and the implications of various lines of flavor on items also support this view.
Further, there's a roaming speculation with almost no support that implies that the Two Finger and Three Finger may be pieces of a Whole Five Finger, whose influence has been left. I think this is also implied by the rampant use of 6+ finger hands in the imagery. It may be possible that the Greater Will's mistake was, then, dividing Order (2F) and Chaos (3F), and if we accept this, we can understand the Merchants as Greater Will worshippers who still respected the presence of Chaos as a part of the Greater Will, something which could not be accepted by the dominant society of Leyndall, who had already invested themselves in the Golden Order as an organization devoted to opposing Chaos.
In this way, the themes also support Shabriri's blasphemous position, given that the Golden Order's belief system can be shown to be flawed in multiple ways by multiple representatives including Goldmask and Brother Corhyn.
@@HadalStreetlights I always loved the whole Hand theory it just makes too much sense to not be further explained
@@Gary_a_normal_human_being it's also supported by the hand sticks the merchants carry both in the open world, and in the tomb beneath Leyndell
Look again at the description for the Nomad Ashes, aka the Forsaken Depths merchants. They were buried because they were already spreading the madness disease and it was an attempt to contain the disease. And how do you spread madness disease? By having become a worshiper of Frenzied Flame. This is their heresy - worshiping the Yellow Flame and spreading the madness disease - they were never falsely accused of it. So it is not that they only became followers of the Frenzied Flame because they were in desperation of being buried alive.
They were pissed off that their lifestyle of turning regular people into Cyclops is persecuted, so they summoned the very god of Frenzied Flame itself. The merchants we see are only chill because they are keeping their heads down after the persecution, but some of them clearly sound like they're not really right in the head. Also try attacking them, they'll use the Frenzy attacks just the same.
you know, i dont even play any souls like game, but somehow i stumble upon this channel and i cant stop watching these kind of video. help
I know you get this a lot, but I really do love your videos. Unlike many other youtubers, you actually look at the plot with an open mind,and try to understand it from a lore perspective. You don't jump to conclusions. And the very FEW times that you have been wrong, you immediately correct it. You're the best! I wish more Elden Ring youtubers were like you, Zullie.
Yellow was a good idea for the flame. Its so mesmerizing somehow
Perhaps the Zamor knights and the merchants are from the same culture just different sects of their civilization. The knights are clearly of a warrior cast, while the merchants could be your standard denizen. The merchants clothing looks very suitable for a northern environment and the two’s physical appearance is pretty similar in my eyes( grey hair, dark skin, and lanky bodies). The knight don’t wear much to protect against the cold however, I suspect that being a fighter was more of a punishment or a penance in their culture hence their clothing and the “symbolic” shackle. Or they believed that their icy magics worked better if one’s body temperature is lower than normal. As for the knights mask I have two theories: it is either the visage of their own old god of ice or it is Myrika. There aren’t any item descriptions that support these speculations( that I know of), just trying to piece together things that I have noticed between the two.
I think it's interesting to see that the shackle's shape would imply that they were chained to someone else as well, seeing as the shackle is split in the middle. Don't know whether that means anything though and I missed some lore, but hey
Most likely, the shackle is meant for both hands, not for two prisoners. This is the real point of this design, essentially serving as handcuffs you can chain down to a wall/post.
@@nelyeth1 You're compeletely right, I realised that shortly after leaving the comment. Makes more sense. The orientation of the shackle still seems like it's meant to imply something since it's facing away from the hand instead of inward to the other hand, which may have led me to my original conclusion.
@@majorwind Considering one of them drops the Scarseal which is referred to as symbol of eternal duty, you could make a case that they are "bound" to forever serve the GO.
i love the songs you use in your videos. together with how mysterious elden ring is by nature, they fit perfectly.
I really like the Knights of Zamor. They have a really cool design and are fun to fight.
Their armor is ver reminiscent of predator armor.
Snow peak ruins theme is *chef's kiss* arguably my favorite Zelda dungeon ever
Thumbnail: “bruh that wasn’t weed”
i haven’t played any soulsborne games because they’re not my style but i love learning about the lore. frankly your videos have been my largest source of exposure to that and as an outsider i love how your explanations illustrate things, re: both in-game and cut content, code/mechanics breakdowns and stripping back layers of model mesh for a (quite literal) deeper look, it makes everything very easy to parse for my detail-oriented brain, and the little bite-sized chunks you put out makes it all very easy to digest. keep up the good work 💙
A foolish man complains about his torn pocket. A wise man uses it to scratch his nuts.
From a gameplay perspective, it requires a huuuuuge suspension of disbelief to accept that these little dudes were in a STALEMATE with a bunch of fire giants.
This thumbnail is excellent, the hell is it
Amazing choice of music for this video. Love twilight princess
Every time a notification of a new Zullie vid pops up, I smile. Always learn something fascinating! Keep it up ♥️
Given the merchant’s connection to the frenzied flame, you would think they might give the lord of frenzied flame a discount.
I did think it was weird that, despite being a hero, the Ancient Hero of Zamor was imprisoned in an evergaol.
You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain; as they say.
Read this title as Bon Scott howls “shot down in flames” into my earphones. I must watch this video!
Time for every lore channel to salivate over this video
Man, imagining the Zamor with those glaring red eyes is crazy.
Well, not like I needed to sleep tonight anyway
I find very strange that if the Zamor where victorious with the golden army, why is their village in ruins and so small? if it was destroyed by the war, why didn't they rebuilt it?
I always assumed there just weren't very many of them. It seems like they only ever lived in the town of Zamor. Maybe all of their villagers died in an assault by the fire giants, leaving just a few hardened warriors who linger on to embrace an ultimately pointless victory.
Tbh as much as they are called "heroes" one of them is imprisoned in weeping peninsula and the only sign of their once civilization is now in ruins only hardened warriors are left as the comment above me says that ultimately it was a moot victory if we can even call it a win in the first place
I'm guessing they might have gotten caught up on the losing side of a conflict during the Shattering
they are calling gypsies nomads
Now I wonder if Shabriri being located very close to some of the Zamor ruins isn't some leftover of this scrapped Zamor-Frenzied Flame backstory.
Always know it's about to be a extra-juicy vid when the thumbnail says Zullie already did this topic, but has sense learned more, and more disturbing details. Makes me extra gossip-hungry! :3
Maybe the Frenzied Flame and Giants' Flame were enemies ("there can be only one"-like) and the Knights of Zamor tried to control/hide/restrain the Frenzy by living in the cold, since chaos is forever changing and moving while the cold is related to stagnation and imprisonment. Just a thought.
I never even realized that you fixed Godfrey's axe. Thats attention to detail.
these are my favorite enemies in the game. I love the move-set of their sword too.
I love Zullie and her eerie videos about Elden Ring lore.
Makes me fear the night thinking about the deformed Godwyn crawling out from under my bed.
Very atmospheric video, good information, extremely well done, Zullie!
Watching Zullie's vids before going bed became my new habit.
I'd love to know more about House Haslow! Their tale is written in blood after all.
great music choice for the video as always
I love ur music choices
The most lovely thing about these lore videos is that I can watch them with the sound off during boring MS Teams meetings... I do miss the awesome musical selections, though.
I KNEW IT. I always thought, "Zullie Witch, this is more complicated than you know."
"Well if that's what they expect from us, then that's what they shall get from us!"
Also you can Encounter Shabriri right in Front of the ancient zamour Ruins...
Okay, baseless speculation time from me: What if... what if burning the tree down wasn't always the default story endgame? What if we were originally meant to take the throne and the game ended there? But if we followed the Frenzied Flame questline... it led us to the Forge and led to the burning of the tree. I'd always found it curious that the Frenzied Flame ending cinematic differed so much from the others... where we simply sat on a throne. This could also explain why the normal ending, Ranni's ending, and the Frenzied Flame endings all have achievements... but the others don't. What if actually burning the tree and getting inside was originally intended to be a secret alternate/extended story *path* entirely?
This reminds me of Sekiro's endings, where one of them ends the game early and the others introduce more content.
I always thought that there were supposed to basically be three endings, give or take some changes
The Returning Order, where the elden ring is reinstated as the true order.
The Rising Moon, where you bring in the age of the stars, giving people their own fate.
The End of All, where you burn it all away, truly ending this cycle of the world, forever
The way it would have worked is, base ending, you just fight radagon/Marika, ranni ending you fight elden beast, chaos ending you fight the frenzied flame.
Burning the tree would have been necessary for all, but the way it would burn would differ, with the chaos flame for the chaos ending, black flame for rannis ending, and the flames of destined death for the order ending
The presence of fire and flame as this constant ever-present entity, in every faction, just really lends itself to the idea that there was *a lot* more content, and all that's been cut
It might also explain why the late game kinda sucks aside from boss design, cuz it's basically rushed and cobbled together to stop accounting for the other parts of the game/story that were removed
Could be that the merchants originated in Zamor. You do explore the ruins of Zamor after all.
Speculation: After aiding the Golden Order in defeating the giants, Marika and Godfrey turned against the Zamor population for serving the Three Fingers and the Frenzied Flame. We already know that Marika has no qualms in betraying people.
The merchants didn’t worship the frenzied flame, they willed it into existence from their song of despair after being locked away under the capital
good lord, that thumbnail gave me the freaks and made me soil my taarnished pants.
Every time I read Zamor all I can think of are the Zamor Spheres and their launchers used by the Piraka and the Toa Inika during the Ignition storyline of Bionicle.
Honestly it would have been cool having the Zamor Knights acting as a sort of bodyguards for the merchants, knowing how they were treated and the danger they put themselves wandering in the Lands Between.
vaatividya will be taking notes
That thumbnail was terrifying
The Zamor Knights are creepy enough without the frenzied eyes.
One of your best video! Truly inspiring :D
I think the Zamor Knights at one point were bodyguards that once walked with the merchants during the time of The Great Caravan considering how valuable Kale makes it sound, then Shabriri showed up and slandered them both causing the Zamor to be exiled to the mountaintops
A great example of how game development is much more complicated than a lot of people realize.
Ah, I spotted a rare typo in a Zullie video!
Great work as always, loving the content.
to add to the zamor knights/frenzied flame connection, you meet shabriri right next to a bunch of zamor knights
Danm, that thumbnail is staring into my soul
Could you imagine just fighting one random Knight of Zamor, ready to face the freezing onslaught, just for it to howl in madness, and fire out the flame of frenzy from its eyes.
I was thinking "why does this song fit so well with the snowy environment" and then I remembered lol
I love how… long.. the knights are
i like that spirits are called buddies, i think thats cute
So you fight a few Zamor knights as burial guardians, but I was always confused as to why there was one imprisoned in the evergaol on the Weeping Peninsula. This video definitely sheds some light on that
fun lil detail i noticed, all the zamor warriors show advanced stages of frostbite, blackened skin, sagging flesh, etc
It almost seems like there was an idea similar to the Abyss Watchers. An order of knights dedicated to eradicating fire only to have the frenzied flame infect them from within.
The merchant slander is real
Being shackled makes total sense as heroes of Marikas war. Everything she used to win her wars was, in one way or another... disposed of.
This ost in the background reminds me of the Frigid Outskirts video, and due to this one being snow related too makes me trigger my ptsd
It's also interesting that you meet Shabriri outside the Zamor ruins.
Another interesting detail is Shabriri waiting for the player there at the Zamor Ruins Grace. Another connection to the Flame of Frenzy.