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FromSoftware may be popular for its Soulslike gameplay formula and unforgiving difficulty, but the developer is no slouch when it comes to eccentric and unconventional NPC design. Friends and foes will come into contact with players throughout their adventures, and their contributions to worldbuilding or quest guidance are unparalleled in terms nuance. Each NPC outdoes the last with regard to how bizarre or mischievous they may appear, and Elden Ring continues this pattern with its own colorful cast.
Elden Ring’s ‘Turtle Pope’ is a great example of how an odd design choice can often produce the most beloved NPCs. This character’s in-game name is Miriel, Pastor of Vows, but has taken on a separate title from fans due to their unique appearance. However, Miriel is not the only FromSoftware character to feature a unique look, with examples of intriguingly designed characters apparent in every FromSoftware Soulslike to-date.
Dark Souls’ Frampt
FromSoftware fans would have a difficult time finding an NPC more unique and bizarre than Dark Souls’ Kingseeker Frampt, the Primordial Serpent. Frampt is an NPC who players talk with and eventually sell items to at Firelink Shrine, and is unmistakable after seeing their massive eyes, grin, and elongated neck.
Dark Souls 3’s Pickle Pee
Dark Souls 3’s Pickle Pee, similar to Dark Souls’ Snuggly, is a truly odd NPC who players can trade items with when they go to a particular crow’s nest location. Pickle Pee chirps an onomatopoeia of their namesake and only accepts certain items, which makes interacting with them unintuitive for most players given the exchange of potentially beneficial items is not a guided interaction.
Sekiro’s Pot Nobles
Sekiro has the most relatively normal NPCs out of FromSoftware’s catalog, but their designs still tend to be comprehensive and intriguing. However, the characters who easily take the cake as the most dubious and strange would likely be Sekiro’s Pot Noble Harunaga and Pot Noble Koremori.
Harunaga is found on a rock bed at the Hirata Estate, while Koremori is found at the Fountainhead Palace. Both NPCs are only seen as a long arm stretching out from the tiny pots in which they reside, and they accept Sekiro’s Treasure Carp Scales in exchange for items and consumables.
Bloodborne’s Iosefka
Basically any Bloodborne NPC could make a list of the strangest FromSoft characters, but Iosefka’s significance and role reversal is one of the game’s most exciting beats to pursue. Bloodborne’s Iosefka is replaced by an imposter who seems like an endearing and trustworthy NPC at first, even if they can only be heard from behind a locked door in her clinic.
Players later choose whether to send NPCs they meet to Iosefka’s Clinic or Oedon Chapel, but this is likely before they learn Iosefka has been an impostor. This leads to a thrilling mini-boss fight if players revisit the clinic further into Bloodborne, where they can make a horrible discovery if any characters were sent there.
FromSoftware’s Patches
Patches is perhaps the most notorious FromSoftware NPC due to his frequent appearances throughout all of FromSoftware’s Soulslikes - besides Sekiro. Patches is always featured with the same name, but his appearances have varied. Bloodborne’s Patches has his ordinary head on the body of a massive spider, for instance. Patches is always a nuisance to the player and attempts to trick them into an unfavorable circumstance, but in Elden Ring he appears as an NPC players can purchase items from.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
