Dark Souls – Chronological Narrative of Lore

I recently finished a video series on my YouTube channel for a complete walkthrough of Dark Souls focusing on hard-to-find items and especially the game’s lore.  As I played the game, pieced together its story and prepared the videos, I found myself creating my own personal story for the game.  I am sure this was intended by the game developers to allow each player to become more vested in the game.

By telling an incomplete story through item descriptions, cut scenes and NPC dialogues, Dark Souls encourages you to dive as deeply as you want into its lore and fill it out based on your interpretation of the partial story.  After thirty hours of gameplay and just as many more researching the community blogs, I have come up with the narrative for Dark Souls tying the lore plot lines in chronological order.

The series was a long but fun project and I thought this plot and lore summary is an excellent way to wrap it up.  In case you are curious, here is my complete version of the Dark Souls Lore, told over 11 Chapters, from the beginning of time to the point where the player wakes up in the Northern Undead Asylum and begins exploring this fantastic game.

Dark Souls Lore Timeline Narration for Video

Chapter 1 – The Rise of Lord Gwyn

In the beginning of time, the primordial imperfect serpents live in the abyss.  Then followed the Age of Ancients, where the everlasting dragons ruled over a world that was still unformed and shrouded in fog.  There are archtrees, grey crags, giants, divine lords, and the lowly and mortal humans spread throughout the lands.

Then came a great fire that arose spontaneously, perhaps as the world started to form itself or perhaps as a type of yin-and-yang response to the dark.  Fire and light, and life and death, exist because they are opposites to cold and dark, and are interconnected: one cannot exist without its opposite.   The fire was great and held Lord Souls of immeasurable power.  The Lord Souls were obtained by Nito, the first of the Dead, the Witch of Izalith and Lord Gwyn.  The furtive pigmy, a lowly human, also obtained a special Lord Soul, the Dark Soul, but he chose to go into the Dark of the Abyss.  He joined in a covenant with the primordial serpents, who allowed him passage into the Abyss and tried to teach him and ply him to their will.

With the power of the Lord Souls within them, the Lords challenged the mighty everlasting dragons.  Aided by the traitor albino dragon Seath the Scaless, most of the dragons are defeated and Lord Gwynn becomes the ruler of this newly formed world.  He rules from Anor Londo, where he is joined by his family and other lords.  He establishes a court with Lords of royal lineage and those that distinguished themselves during the war.  He elevates Seath the Scaless to a duke and allows him to pursue arcane research in his archives.  He also gives the wise Four Kings of New Londo a portion of his soul.

From his knights, Gwyn selects the 4 top lieutenants to act as his personal guard: the Giant Hawkeye Gough who is infallible and can fell a dragon with a single arrow of his great bow; the Lord’s Blade Ciarin, the leader of his assassins and a deadly fighter with gold and silver tracers; Artorias, who is the best swordsman in the land; and Ornstein, the captain of his guard and a deadly fighter with a lightning spear.  Ornstein is the captain because he has the ability to temporarily absorb the power of a fallen comrade to increase his own power and size immensely.  Each of the knights of the guard is given a special ring to augment his unique abilities, making the guards even more formidable and feared than ever.

Lord Gwynn holds all the reigns and subjugates humans and other peoples and is worshipped as a living God.  The Age of Fire has begun.

Chapter 2 – The Furtive Pigmy and the Imperfect Serpents

The furtive pigmy does not care for Lord Gwynn and is angry that humanity worships the Lords, whose power comes from the Lord Souls pillaged from the great fire.  He thinks of himself as being just as powerful since he himself holds a Lord Soul.  Besides, he knows there are humans who are the equals of the Lords.  In particular, there is a heroic human archer, Pharis, who ranks alongside Hawkeye Gough with her prowess with a bow.  After his long exile the pigmy has become old.  As death closes in, the pigmy hatches his plan.  With the help of the serpents and his Lord Soul, he brings about the curse of the undead onto humanity.  He foretells that someday an undead will dethrone Lord Gwyn and that man will rule the land.  The primordial serpents begin spreading the tale of the return of man.

Through the curse of the pigmy, some humans are destined to become undead.  All humans have a soul and can also hoard humanity.  But they can only die once.  However, there are some humans that are marked with a darksign.  When they die, they can replenish their soul with stocked humanity and be revived back to human form.  As they add to their humanity stock, they become more resistant to disease and curses, and fate favors them with added luck.  If they die but do not have any humanity, they can survive and be sane for some time, although their body is shriveled and looks like that of a long deceased human.  Unless he can find humanity, an undead will eventually become hollow.  He becomes crazy and obsessed with finding humanity and attacks any one he sees.  However, hollows can never be cured.  When killed, they die for good.  Normal humans fear the hollows and are jealous of the undead’s ability to revive and cheat death.  In particular, the land of Thorolund is especially hateful of the undead.

Over time, the great initial fire in the abyss, and the source of the power of the Lords, begins to die and the flames start to dwindle.  The Age of Fire is ending.  As this happens, the fog and darkness of the abyss advance.  Anor Londo is bathed in twilight.  New Londo is the first great empire to be consumed by the abyss.  The primordial serpents come out of their long hiding.  As the first beings of the world and creatures of the darkness and the abyss, they consider themselves the true rulers.  The serpents hated the dragons who supplanted them, since dragons are more perfect than serpents in every way.  The serpents are ambivalent about the Lords but at least these new Gods can be manipulated unlike the mighty dragons.  The serpents seek their true lord, one that can counteract the light of the fire through the absorption of humanity.  Humanity is primordial and a solid manifestation of the soul and a direct result of the abyss, just like the serpents.

The serpents believe that the pigmy’s foretold human king is also their long sought dark lord.  The serpents await the return of he who can hold an immense amount of humanity, more than even the furtive pigmy could.   The pigmy was not their true lord.  He longed to return to the world and interact with other humans during his exile in the abyss.  His melancholy prevented him from exploiting his humanity and the power of the Lord Soul to the fullest.  In his last years, he was fixated on the half of the pendant his mother had given him.  The broken pendant reminded the pigmy of everything he had lost during his exile in the abyss.  He eventually died of grief.  The serpents were upset when it became clear the pigmy was not their true lord. They returned the body of the pigmy back to his land of Oolacile, and returned the broken pendant to his family, a noble family that had an affinity for magic, even in Oolacile, a peaceful land that valued magic above all else.

Chapter 3 – The Fall of New Londo

Although not as strong as the dragons, the serpents have magical powers and tempt the Four Kings of the port city of New Londo with the power of life drain.  Darkstalker Kaathe seduces the once mighty and wise Four Kings and their knights with the power to steal humanity and add it to one’s stock.  Kaathe seeks the foretold One that can hold enough humanity to counteract the flames and the Lord Souls.  The Four Kings descend into madness as they absorb more and more humanity.  It turns out that humanity is poisonous and can only be safely absorbed by the undead.

Kaathe turns to the knights of New Londo and tempts them with the power of life drain and the ability to fast travel through the use of cracked red eye orbs.  He tests each one, searching for the chosen one.  The knights have high capacity for humanity.  But they all fail the test so his search continues.  Kaathe advances out into the world along with the abyss. Just like their king, the knights become mad and turn into darkwraiths, hideous creatures that hunger only for humanity and hunt any human they encounter.  They terrorize New Londo and invade the lands beyond.  Word quickly spreads of the advancing abyss and Darkwraiths.

The great remedicians of New Londo are faced with a hard choice.  They sacrifice the entire city to contain the Darkwraiths.  The water locks are closed and the city is flooded.  The denizens of New Londo drown and their ghostly forms swim about forever after.  The remedicians stand guard over the lock to prevent anyone from draining New Londo and stand guard as the keepers of this watery seal.  But the threat is only partially contained.  The Four Kings and the Darkwraiths recede to the Abyss, thanks to their covenant with the primordial serpent.

Gwyn dispatches Knight Artorias into the Abyss to stop the Four Kings and their Darkwraiths.  Artorias, overconfident in his power, is seduced by the serpent Kaathe and secretly gives up his allegiance to Gwyn.  He is granted the ability to traverse the abyss and is given a ring to allow safe passage to his companions, the Grey Wolf Sif, and the magical great feline Alvina.  Artorias traverses the abyss and returns to Anor Londo, where he is hailed as a great hero, even though the keepers of the seal are responsible for containing the Four Kings and the Darkwraiths.

Chapter 4 – The Church of the Way of the White

Lord Gwyn and his uncle All-Father Lloyd are desperate to delay the advance of the dark, and they turn to humans and exploit their pettiness and jealousy.  All-Father Lloyd heads the Church of the Way of the White in Thorolund.  The Church is devoted to the worshipping of Gwyn and other Lords.  Havel the Rock, the old battle compatriot of Lord Gwyn, is made a bishop in the church and the church’s highest ranking human.

Lloyd and Gwynn concoct their plan of using the church and exploiting Thorolund’s hate for the undead.  The undead have humanity within them.  Their bones will be used to kindle great bonfires throughout the land.  The bonfires are related to the first great fire which sprung up in the abyss.  All-Father Lloyd finds very devout undead women, who have a very high capacity for pain and for holding humanity, and assigns them as keepers of the fires.  The firekeeper is bound to her bonfire, and the life of the keeper maintains the flame of the fire.  The bonfire can only be relit by the keeper.  The devout women are forbidden to ever meet.  They can replenish humanity from the bones of the undead by using special Estus flasks, but only at the bonfires.

Lloyd decides that the undead will be singled out as the culprits for the dying flames.  The Church’s new mission is to hunt undead, burn their bones to replenish the fires and prolong the Age of Fire as long as possible.

However, all is not well in Anor Londo.  There is infighting and intrigue in the court and some of the Lord’s, like Velka, are completely outside the control of Gwyn.  Gwyn’s firstborn, the God of War, is derelict of his duties and loses the annals.  Gwyn is forced to punish him severely for this betrayal.  He banishes him from Anor Londo and removes his status as a God.  Seath continues his search for immortality and is becoming more powerful but crazier every day.  He has the temerity to kidnap the maidens that attend to Gwynevere, Gwynn’s daughter, for his macabre experiments.  By using the Lord Souls shard, he creates powerful spells, weapons and even a crystallized catalyst. Seath casts a large shadow over Anor Londo.

Chapter 5 – The Chaos Flame and Lost Izalith

The Witch of Izalith feels compelled to do something about the dying flames.  Her domain, the great city of Izalith adjacent to the archtree swamp, is also closest to the abyss and the advancing dark.  She has mastery over fire arts and can call on the power of her Lord Soul.  After having borne 7 daughters, the Witch is pregnant with her first male child.  But she decides to attempt to recreate the first flame.  The result is a complete disaster.  The flame she creates combines with the Lord Soul and becomes chaotic and uncontrollable. She is tainted and consumed by the flame. She seeks refuge in an archtree where she gives birth to the horribly disfigured Ceaseless Discharge, who has been tainted by the Chaos Flame.

The Chaos Flame engulfs her and the archtree and the 3 are fused into a new being called the Bed of Chaos.  Uncontrollable flames spring forth from the Bed of Chaos and tap into the chaotic nature of the residents of Izalith and the swamp itself.  All but the strongest ones are tainted and turned into demons.  The daughters of the witch are affected as well.  Quelaag and Quelaan are turned into spider demons, and some of the daughters are killed by the taint.  The eldest daughter is unaffected and she watches over her mother.  Another daughter, Queelana, is separated from her siblings and is unaffected as well.  She cannot bear to see her mutated sisters and mother and stays hidden in the swamp, teaching pyromancy to humans she deems worthy.  She becomes known as the mother of pyromancy.

The Chaos Flame extends into the swamp and past it.  A great and wise fire art master is mutated into the Demon Firesage.  A Centipede Demons springs forth from the magical ring tainted by the chaos lava that pours out of Ceaseless open sores.  These two great demons demolish Izalith and the once great city is turned into ruins and becomes lost.  Other beings of Izalith and the swamp are also mutated into spider crags, capras, demonic statues, chaos bugs and the terrible chaos eaters.  Even the headless bodies of the dragons that perished in the battle fields of Izalith are reanimated and become the boundless demons of Izalith.

Lord Gwyn decides to act and leads a troop of his knights into Izalith.  They confront the chaos demons and try to prevent them from escaping out of the swamp.  As they deflect fire and acid from the mutated chaos beasts, the knights’ armor and shields gain a black patina and become highly resistant to fire.  Lord Gwyn is beaten back.  The power of the Bed of Chaos, the Demon Firesage and the tainted Daughters of Chaos is too much.  The final blow is Yulba’s death, a healer from New Londo that provided remedies for the poisonous swamp, but eventually falls in battle.  The demons and the chaos flame advance out of the swamp and into the rest of the world, tainting everything and everyone along the way.

Chapter 6 – The Great Rebellion

Gwyn is ashamed and depressed.  He cannot stop the darkness nor the chaos flame and his newest ally, the primordial serpent Frampt, tells him an undead will one day rise to challenge his rule.  Gwyn returns to Anor Londo in shame.  He seeks advice from his uncle Lloyd who tells him that more and more undead are being born, even in the holy land of Thorolund.  Worse yet, there is a growing number of Thorolunders that repudiate the church’s teachings.  As undead are born into even the powerful aristocratic families, the mandate to hunt the undead is becoming unpopular.

The Church assigns a very devout undead, the Paladin Leroy, the first undead born in Thorolund, a special assignment to head into the Catacombs and look for the Rite of Kindling.  Because of his strong faith, he is given a divine armor, shield and the Greathammer Grant, all crafted by the divine blacksmith who serves the Gods.  With the Rite of Kindling, the bonfires can be kindled higher using humanity from the heretical undead. The Rite has been stolen by the powerful pyromancer Pinwheel, who was able to steal some of Lord Nito’s power.  Nito allows Pinwheel to rule in the Catacombs but remains in firm control of the Tomb of Giants and the land of the dead.  Pinwheel uses his stolen powers to reanimate skeletons that serve as his personal guard.  Leroy reaches Nito’s domain but falls in battle and never finds the Rite of Kindling.

Paladin Leroy’s travels ignite a rebirth of devoutness in Thorolund.  The Church is inundated with requests by followers to go on a crusade for the Rite of Kindling and undead hunts.  The devout are trained as battle clerics and sent out.  In this pious environment, undead Thorolunders and anyone challenging the divinity of Gwyn are repressed.  Lloyd decrees that those that are undead or challenge church dogma must purify their faith by joining the devout in the crusades.  Few ever return from the crusades and undead hunts.  Eventually only the undead or the occult heretics are forced to go into these suicide missions.

Many nobles in Thorolund fear for family members that are born undead.  They secretly plot a rebellion.  Havel the Rock’s niece, Rhea, is born undead and forced into a suicide crusade.  Her family is the most prominent and powerful in Thorolund.  Havel lobbies Gwyn to stop her travels, since he knows it is a suicide mission.

After consulting with Lloyd and the mad Seath, Gwyn only allows Rhea a guard of battle clerics but orders that she too must travel.  Rhea leaves never to be seen again.  This is the last straw for Havel the Rock, himself an undead.  He has never trusted Seath, the betrayer, and now his hate for Seath grows.  He becomes the leader of the secret rebellion and swears to avenge his niece.  He travels seeking an alliance with the Stone Dragon, one of the last remaining dragons who has been hiding in Ash Lake.  Ash Lake is hidden by an illusory wall inside an archtree and has avoided detection from Gwyn and the taint of the Chaos Flame.  The dragon helps Havel create a ward that is especially strong against magic but refuses to leave his sanctuary and openly battle the Lords.

Chapter 7 – The Rise of Seath the Scaless

Seath learns of the rebellion and tips off Gwyn.  Gwyn is saddened by the news but orders Seath to imprison Havel.  He dispatches a large force of battle clerics to Nito’s domain.  They kill the rebels and find the dark ember but not the rumored effigy shield that can block even Gwyn’s mightiest bolts.  The ember is extremely dangerous as it can make occult weapons that can kill the Gods.  The ember is entrusted to Velka who locks it in a special warehouse in her secret domain, in Ariamis.

Seath finds Havel who is hiding in Oolacile.  He imprisons him in a tower and gives the key to the divine blacksmith for safe keeping.  However, the blacksmith is known to be a good friend of Havel, having made Havel’s divine equipment.  The mad Seath does not take any chances.  He kills the blacksmith and locks the key within the workshop.  He also creates a crystallized moonlight butterfly to prevent anyone from attempting to free Havel.  Havel is imprisoned for the rest of time and eventually hollows out in the tower cell.  The blacksmith’s death leads to another tragedy.  The great titanite slabs used for making the weapons of the gods are left unattended and are tainted by the chaos flame.  Great faceless demons spring from the slabs.  The secret to godly weapons is lost and the titanite demons roam the lands.

Seath gains status in the court after successfully capturing the rebel Havel and stopping the rebellion.  He becomes romantically involved with Velka, to the horror of the other Gods.  Velka is pregnant with Seath’s love child and gives birth to Priscilla, a cross breed between a lord and a dragon.  Because she is a hybrid, Priscilla is borne with the power of invisibility and wields the Lifehunt Scyhte, a dangerous weapon that can be loosed on even the Gods.

She is quickly labeled an abomination by the church and the Gods, and briefly imprisoned in a Lordran Asylum.  Velka rescues Prisicalla from the asylum and decides to hide her in Ariamis.  She quietly plots her revenge on the church and the other Gods.  She casts an incantation on a large painting that serves as the doorway to Ariamis.  Only those that have Priscilla’s doll, a toy from her childhood, may pass.  She leaves the doll in the asylum hoping it is found by the rebels or other undead seeking the dark ember.

Chapter 8 – The Linking of the Flames

Gwyn’s mind continues to deteriorate.  He was not able to stop the demons slowly advancing towards Anor Londo.  The fires continue to die down and the oppressive abyss starts to envelop the world in darkness.  He has banished his eldest born and has imprisoned his old friend.  As Seath spirals into madness, Frampt becomes his closest advisor.  The serpent relentlessly recommends linking the flames as the only salvation for the realm of the Gods.

In this enfeebled state, Gwyn accepts this path as his fate.  He leads the black knights into the Kiln of the First Flame, the place where he found the Lord Soul.  He locks away the kiln by draining the Lordvessel.  He approaches the first bonfire and re-ignites the flame by using what remains of his Lord Soul.  The bonfires are linked and shine brightly but only temporarily since Lord Gwyn is not powerful enough to link the flames permanently.  He dies along with his knights in the great explosion that engulfs the kiln.  But his soul is strong and his spirit remains, roaming the kiln while he waits for the foretold undead who will unseat him.

Once word reaches Anor Londo that Lord Gwyn has died linking the flames, there is much fear and confusion.  There are rumors that the guard will soon break up leaving Anor Londo defenseless.  Ornstein recruits Executioner Smough, a mighty warrior but flawed by a penchant for cannibalism, and teaches him how to absorb the power of the fallen.  Together they are Anor Londo’s last line of defense.

Gwyndolyn, the youngest born of the royals, prepares a great mausoleum and tomb for his father.  The God of War returns from exile briefly and is wrecked with pain.  His mishandling of the annals and resultant banishment surely played a part in his father’s immolation.  He leaves his ring and sunlight spear miracle at his father’s tomb.  He is stricken with grief and goes mad.  He uses the last of his power to become a human undead and erase all ties to divinity.  In his madness, he seeks to fulfill the prophecy of the chosen undead who will one day supplant Lord Gwyn.  He awakens in the Northern Lands with his mind overcome with the desire to be the chosen one.  He does not remember his past but he is obsessed with the Sun, whom he considers his Father.

Chapter 9 – The Fall of Artorias and Oolacile

There are even worse news from Oolacile.  A great beast has arisen and is destroying the city.  He is a true creature of the abyss and his darkness taints the land and any who comes near him.  He seems to be searching endlessly for someone or something.  Apparently, the serpents tempted the people of Oolacile into disturbing the resting place of the long dead furtive pigmy.  The people of Oolacile are obsessed with magic and cannot pass up a chance to tap into this source of great magical power.  The Lord Soul has merged with the pigmy’s humanity and soul.  The pigmy’s body may be dead but his immense and powerful humanity is only resting.  When the Oolacile sorcerers disturb his tomb, his humanity re-awakens but it is now uncontrolled and feels a very heavy longing for his lost pendant.

Without the pigmy’s body to contain it, the great pool of humanity literally explodes from the pigmy and turns into phantoms.  These phantoms seek out human vessel to inhabit, even though the merging will destroy both the humanity and the humans.  Only the pigmy’s true descendants, marked with the furtive pigmy’s darksign, can accommodate humanity phantoms but only small ones.  Over time the large phantoms break up into smaller humanity bits that wonder the entire world seeking out humans and undead to inhabit.

The body of the pigmy himself has been changed by the Dark Soul into that of a beast.  The pigmy is transformed into the beast called Manus, who is one with the dark of the Abyss.  The Abyss spreads forth from him and he can cast powerful dark sorceries making use of the immense pool of humanity and the Dark Soul within him.  The taint from the abyss changes all Oolacilians into morphed creatures with multiple eyes and mucous-filled bloated heads.  Oolacile quickly falls into ruins.

Because of his abyss walking abilities, Ornstein sends Knight Artorias to seek out and destroy the threat to Oolacile.  The guard breaks up when Ciarin, Artoria’s lover, follows him into the abyss.  The giant dragon slayer Hawkeye Gough also follows seeking out further adventures now that the dragons are no longer a threat.  Gough has heard rumors that Kalameet, the most dangerous dragon with the power of calamity, is roaming the Oolacile ruins.

No one knows what happened in Oolacile but the tales spread that Artorias saved Dusk and killed the great beast but he was also slayed himself.  Unfortunately, Artorias was not in time and the city was completely destroyed, with Dusk as the only survivor.  Ciarin and Gough never return to Anor Londo.  Gough is imprisoned by the crazed denizens of Oolacile, who mock him by filling eye holes in his helmet with wax.  Over time, his eyes grow weak accustomed to the dark and he is eventually blinded.  In one last act of valor, he wounds and grounds Kalameet with one arrow shot from his great bow.  He takes up carving as a hobby during his long imprisonment.  The myth of Artorias grows and many warriors pilgrimage to his purported grave to try to follow in his footsteps.  Alvina and Sif know the truth and each one fiercely guards the secrets of Artorias and his tomb.

Chapter 10 – Illusions in Anor Londo

Into the Anor Londo power vacuum steps in the completely mad Seath the Scaless.  His studies and experiments have led him to create incredibly powerful sorceries and artifacts.  Without Lord Gwyn to curb his advances, Seath ruthlessly kidnaps humans and gods for his experiments.  Dusk, the royal princess of Oolacile is said to own a magical ring. This mystical family heirloom can double the strength of sorceries in exchange for a portion of your life force.  The mad and blind Seath sends outs his Six-Eyed Channelers to all the lands in search of Dusk, and to kidnap subjects for his experiments.

Dusk is found near the Oolacile ruins where the Black Dragon Kalameet fell.  She refuses to give up her ring to Seath and throws it into a deep lake, where it is eventually swallowed by a hydra.  Seath imprisons Dusk within a living crystal golem, her soul trapped in another dimension, until she is willing to give up the ring.  One of Dusk’s attendants has a broken pendant that appears to be magical in nature.  When she refuses to talk about it, she is trapped as a golem and brought back to the archives.

Seath returns to Anor Londo and resumes his impudent kidnappings and experiments.  The Gods are no longer safe in Anor Londo and seek out refuge by migrating to the various lands.  When Anor Londo is deserted, Seath finally sneaks back to his archives to continue his search for immortality.

But Anor Londo is not completely deserted.  Gwyndolin has been hiding in Gwyn’s mausoleum and allies with the outcast Velka, the God of Sin. Gwyndolin was born partially deformed and has an aversion to the magical divinity of the sun.  He draws his divine strength from the moon.  Because of his deformity, he has an affinity for Crossbreed Priscilla, Velka’s daughter, and other societal outcast.  He even rescued the disfigured Lady of the Darkling, and made her the fire keeper of Anor Londo and one of his Darkmoon Blades.  Velka will ally with Gwyndolin but only if the Blades are used to punish the guilty and other heretics, which pleases her nature as the God of Sin.  The bargain is struck.

Gwyndolin wishes to prevent Anor Londo from falling into ruins.  He did not follow the other Gods out of the city and prefers to stand guard in Gwyn’s mausoleum.  Using his great magical powers, he creates the illusion of a sun that bathes Anor Londo in warm sunlight and masks the eternal twilight from the advancing dark.

Chapter 11 – The Chosen Undead

With the death of Gwyn, the primordial serpent Frampt seeks out another Lord to manipulate and convinces Gwyndolin to create additional illusions in Anor Londo, including an allusion of his sister Gwynevere.  Gwynevere is to instruct any undead who reaches her about the myth of the chosen undead and to seek the counsel of Frampt.

Frampt is still racing Kaathe to find the true Lord of the Dark.  He has put a great plan into motion.  The church has banished all undead to Lordran, where Frampt hides two bells.  It would take a very formidable undead to reach the bells, since one is located in Quelaag’s domain and the other is guarded by gargoyle demons.  When the bells are rung, he has trained a giant to open the great gate of Sen’s Fortress. Frampt booby-traps Sen’s Fortress, the pathway to Anor Londo and to the illusion of Gwynevere.

His plan is simple.  He proliferates the myth of the chosen undead who will one day supplant Lord Gwyn and link the flames, and renames himself Kingseeker Frampt.  This myth gives a purpose to the undead and they come from all the lands to be tested.  Great heroes flock to Lordran and try to ring the bells and survive Sen’s Fortress: King Rendall and his Balder Knights, Iron Tarkus and the Knights of Berenike, the Earl of Carim, Oscar and Prince Ricard of Astora, and even the great undead sorcerer of Vinheim, Big Hat Logan.  None proves worthy but Kingseeker Frampt and Darkstalker Kaathe continue probing and testing every undead who ventures into Lordran.

One day a special undead is born.  As is the fate of many undead, he is captured and imprisoned in the Northern Asylum.  Oscar of Astora is on a mission to free the undead from the asylum.  He lowers a body into the cell of this special undead and allows him to escape.  The special undead opens his cell and takes a peek at his jailer: a gigantic demon with a great hammer.  He dodges many hollows along the narrow asylum corridors and finds the valiant Oscar, who is mortally wounded in a battle with the Asylum Demon.  Oscar gives the special undead his Estus flasks, the key to the Asylum and begs him to take on his mission, muttering something about the chosen undead.  The special undead does not know what to think and cannot remember his past. He only wants to break out of the Asylum.  He loots some equipment along the way and heads to the courtyard, ready to confront the demon jailer and perhaps his prophesied future.

The End