Elden Ring - The risks of Blood magic

Although Astel is a "malformed" star, it's interesting that parts of its own body somewhat resemble glintstone as well. What a "correctly" formed star might look like is open for speculation, but glintstone may be actual remnants of their physical forms.

how tf they expect me to pay attention to these details when invaders are all solid red 😭

I have some "good" memories of Alberich reminding me why leveling vigor is a good idea

I really like the idea of Mohg only finding the Formless Mother because his eye was torn out accidentally. It always struck me as strange that he just 'found' an outer god, with no further explanation given, when they otherwise only seem interested in Empyreans. I'd never thought to connect his missing eye to the guilty being blinded.

A red star you can only see if burdened with guilt is such a cool Fantasy concept. Almost Lovecraftien outright, considering that it seems to grant insight into blood and its power, too.

Mohg really just watched that horn grow into his own eye.

One neat thing about Alberich is that while you can absolutely take your build in Elden Ring in any direction you think of, he shows you a very strong combination in ice + bleed potentially as early as reaching Roundtable Hold.

A star... only visible to the guilty? That's absolutely horrifying.

One thing I'm always struck by with Elden Ring's lore specifically is how every element is linked to something else you initially think is conceptually a thousand miles away. I've always found the Blood Star and the briar sorceries interesting, if undeveloped, but somehow never thought to connect them to Mohg. It's like how the Misbegotten, who you might initially think are bit players in the world and the lore, actually serve as crucial links between Radagon and the Crucible. It's hard to think of any 'islands' in ER's lore, things that don't connect to anything else.

Thats why magic is op, its balanced by turning yourself into a pebble

Holy shit the framing of mentioning that maybe only the blinded can “see” while having Mohg in the background is incredible. Literally gave me a “oh shit” moment before you mentioned his horn piercing his own eye.

The part about characters losing their sight in order to gain some forbidden insight/ knowledge might be in reference to Odin, who has sacrificed one of his eyes in order to gain great wisdom. The whole concept of losing one of your senses/ becoming physically crippled and in return expanding your mental capabilities or seeing hidden thruths is prevelent in many mythologies, and Fromsoft surely do tend to make use of this fact, although in their own twisted, malformed way.

On the topic of the potential overlap of blindness between the Blood Star and the Formless Mother, it’s interesting to note that blindness also plays a role in the Frenzied Flame with Irina/Hyetta, (and also maybe Yura, as his eyes are also quite cloudy which could be seen as early signs of blindness that enables him to be possessed by Shabriri in a manner that mirrors Hyetta “possessing” Irina’s corpse). I like the idea that since The Lands Between are primarily influenced by the Greater Will, one has to lose the ability to perceive the reality it has crafted in order to see beyond the bounds of its creation. Almost a direct contradiction to how the greater beings of Bloodborne function, where a lack of eyes grants insight as opposed to an excess of them.

The fact that you are able to connect details from glintstone sorcery to Mogh and his cult is just amazing. The most I'd thought of the glintstone skulls is like it was turning humans into imperfect Astels, with eyes in their skulls. But human heads literally can't contain what they've grown, they can't become a higher state of being. Very eldritch. Astels themselves remind me of glowworms, groups of larvae hanging in caves from sticky silken threads that form star-like patterns to confuse and trap night insects to devour (Deep Look has a great video that shows it clearly). So maybe Astels are also fake stars and misled humans become their meals.

Glintstone. Not even once.

I always got the sense that Alberich's hidden red glintstone brain implied that he had begun to achieve sorcerous mastery on a level equivalent to Lusat and Azur, just in the school of heretical Blood Sorcery, implying that there's a Primeval Current of blood (Guilty Star?) running a sort of parallel to the one glimpsed by Lusat and Azur.

I kinda felt like the formless mother and the blood star were similar, this kinda gives credibilty to my hunches. If you think about how Mohg describes it as "formless" could be due to him being half blind, meaning he is only aware of the blood star's presence but unable to actually see it, whereas those who lost their sight completely studying blood sorceries can see it. Also I believe since Mohg is a child of Marika he uses faith to communicate with the Blood star, hence why he refer to it as "Formless Mother", whereas those who study sorceries refer to it as the blood star. It's as if two different point of views coming to the same conclusion under diffe rent beliefs and names.

"One invader can attack the player within it, Mad Tonque Alberich" This is Ensha erasure and I will not stand for it On a serious note, great video as always, Zullie! Blood magic is one of the more underutilized yet cool concepts in Elden Ring and I hope From expands on it both lorewise and gameplay-wise in the DLC

its a shame that aberrant sorceries are so limited in Elden Ring. Feels like a missed opportunity to, since they modeled a whole outfit for the school of magic, and it has all of 2 spells to use lol

Personally, I take this as more evidence that Sorceries and Incantations are one and the same, as proven by Thops. The stars in the sky, the primeval current, all of it is just Outer Gods like the Formless Mother, taking shape in different ways. Some see stars. Some see a current. But the true nature of them remains the same. What really matters is how humanity perceives them, and how they utilize their blessings.