Elden Ring is full of monstrous entities. There are machines of war like the Virgin Abductor, the many-fingered Fingercreepers, giant birds with knife-edged prosthetics, lumbering Trolls rotting from the inside out, and much worse yet. What FromSoftware is especially talented at is creating creatures that only become worse the more that's learned about them. That's why deep delves into these enemies, like the latest video from Zullie the Witch regarding Elden Ring's gargoyles, are especially intriguing.
Zullie the Witch is a YouTube content creator and FromSoftware dataminer that loves taking a closer look at in-game assets and analyzing them with lore in mind. Her new video does exactly this, zooming in on the models for Elden Ring's various gargoyle enemies. What may look like statues at distance are actually complex monstrosities, constructions combining humanoid corpses with more unsettling elements. And therein is a connection to Elden Ring's dark themes of duality and stolen identity.
The first detail worth pointing out when zooming in on any given Elden Ring gargoyle is that a significant portion of them is flesh. It's clear that these gargoyles were, at one point in time, human or humanoid. They aren't entirely flesh, however. Their wings, as well as other parts of their body, are made from a different substance that's either white or black. The gargoyles even have two faces, one flesh and one made of this strange substance, with a shared eye.
The substance is revealed in an item description for the Gargoyle's Greatsword, which says, "Just like the wielder, the missing parts have been mended with corpse wax; a patchwork of champions." Zullie the Witch explains that corpse wax is a substance taken from human bodies that forms only under special conditions. In other words, the white/black substance gargoyles are made of isn't marble or even stone. It's hardened, waxy human fat.
Zullie the Witch theorizes this wax could be gathered from the many stone caskets found across Elden Ring's The Lands Between. Alternatively, it may be created and farmed within Living Jars, given they're stuffed with dead flesh with no other clear intention.
That's where the answers end and the questions begin, however. Fans still do not know who made the gargoyles or who they serve. Like most everything in Elden Ring and From Software's games, only the developers likely understand the entire story. It's just yet another example of Elden Ring having surprising depth to so much of its content.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
