This is a post about illusions, disguises, espionage, and spirit horses. Which will ultimately make a case for a connection between Preceptor Seluvis and Mad-Tongue Alberich. The Carian Silver regalia is the most convenient signpost to tie everything together, but otherwise there’s still a lot of other background context to get through.
One of the alternate Torrent forms from the Tarnished Edition DLC is a Carian white horse, altogether bringing into sharp focus that indeed the Knights in Liurnia all ride white horses. Which is rather similar to the Heralds of Valdemar. Who are all of them “Chosen” by white spirit horses called “Companions”. And these spirit horses are not above taking temporary disguises as more mundane horses in order to gain access to a “Chosen One” who is in a volatile situation and surrounded by people who would be superstitious about the Heralds and their horses.
If we can generally recognize the “Funeral Night” spectral steed regalia as being a homage to the horses ridden by the Nazgûl from the Lord of the Rings (derivative from the Night’s Cavalry in general), then why not consider another fantasy book series known for its distinct horses?
“Torrent has chosen you. Treat him with respect.”
:Heralds are what they have to be. They do what the Queen and the country need….We Choose those who are best suited to do those things and supply those needs. And what makes you think that the Queen and country might not need the skills of a thief?:
– Take a Thief, by Mercedes Lackey
There’s a running theme that every villain in the Valdemar series is driven to frustration by the Heralds because their bonds with the Companions make them so incorruptible to infiltration tactics. And the ruler of the country must also be Chosen to be a candidate for rulership. It’s basically the fantasy of “what if the people responsible for public service and safety were actually willing and able to be selfless and work at a dangerous job because they’ve refined a robust social structure to address physical health, mental health, training and education, etc?” But the Valdemaran monarchs are not all naive idealistic rulers, and do maintain their own intelligence network aimed at neutralizing hostile actions by their neighbouring countries.
Comparison: Heralds of Valdemar and Elden Ring
- The Heralds of Valdemar books began publication in 1987 and include stories spread across hundreds of years, but the highest concentration of action takes place during the reign of Queen Selenay. In real-world context she’s named for Selene the Greek personification of the moon. Similarly, Queen Rennala of the Carians is associated directly with the moon, and in terms of real world mythology the Caria region has significant historical connections to Hecate – goddess of witchcraft and the moon. Selenay had 3 children similar to Rennala, although Selenay’s family drama differs in the details. The father of her first daughter was prince of a neighbouring kingdom and tried to have her assassinated, and then several years later the father of her twin children was the brother of her first husband who she met on the battlefield as an ally defending Valdemar.
- Regarding how the Frenzy Flame ending can happen if the Tarnished being Chosen by Torrent is analogous to a Companion Choosing their Herald, it’s not true that the Companions are so flawless that they never make mistakes. In “Magic’s Pawn” even as one Companion says “I will never leave you” when choosing her Herald, it’s only a few chapters after a Companion repudiates her Chosen. Extenuating circumstances being that the twin of a Herald trainee was violently assassinated while the two of them were linked by magic. In his grief and rage the Herald trainee had summoned a pack shadowspawn dogs and was on the edge of slaughtering an entire noble household for the actions of their leaders. So his Companion disowned him and then sacrificed herself to kill as many of the dogs as possible.
- Dark Souls III has heralds. “A former herald who journeyed to finish a quest undertaken…employs a gentle restorative miracle.” They are distinctly known to wear white, which is also a key distinguishing feature of the Heralds of Valdemar. “Steel Armor with a pure white cape, the signature of Heralds of the Way of White.”
- Blood-path mages. From a certain point of view, the main antagonist of the Heralds is Ma'ar the mage of Dark Flames, who extended his influence long after his death by hiding in a pocket dimension and bodysnatching the bodies of his descendants. The spell he set is keyed so that when a blood descendant of sufficient magical potential casts their first fire basic fire spell it’s the trigger for him to take their body, before said person has been trained in how to shield against outside influence. And I wonder about the choice to equip Stormveil soldiers with “Marred” shields, considering the phonetic similarity. “Some say it is the curse of grafting which causes such affliction, while others talk of its root being something altogether more sinister hidden deep within the castle.” Similarly, in the contemporary timeframe of the story Ma’ar calls himself “Mornelithe Falconsbane (and also did a lot of body modification to make himself into a lion man, for the aesthetic) which has naming resonance with Castle “Morne” on the Weeping Peninsula.
- The interplay between basilisks and gryphons. One of the traits of Ma'ar is that he created monsters for destruction – many varieties of what in another worldbuilding would be called “dragons”, and he created basilisks to eat all of the other failed experiments. He is juxtaposed against Urtho the mage of Silence who created forms of intelligent living creatures who would be able to live in equilibrium with their environment despite being equipped for war against Ma'ar. The gryphons are considered one of Urtho’s greatest achievements, and the one of which Ma'ar is most envious. Basilisks: are found in every Dark Souls game and in Elden Ring. Gryphons: are circled around despite not being fully present in any games. There are stone statues of gryphons in both Dark Souls II and Bloodborne. There are monstrous experiments in Bloodborne that swap the heads and bodies of crows and dogs, as if trying and failing to recreate the gryphon.
- In some other ways Torrent also has physical traits of the Dyheli. A species of white-furred deer created by Urtho with large brown eyes and spiralling horns, and who will allow themselves to be ridden by humans. Both Dyheli and Companions are proficient in mindspeech, but while the Companion bond is distinctly supernatural (as in, the spirit horses are actually a mix of being avatars of a goddess and being reincarnations of previous Heralds), the Dyheli integrated into nature and sometimes ally with humans as an extension of their herd social structure. The strongest Dyheli mindspeakers are in extraordinary circumstances able to control the bodies of the other members of the herd or directly transfer knowledge into the brains of humans.
- Roderika is initially outfitted with the Noble’s Travelling Garb and the Crimson Hood. Either piece alone can have its distinct meanings, but combined together with Roderika’s practice of spirit tuning and there might be something. Essentially, the Valdemar setting is one where many people develop mind magic, and one of the functions of the Herald/Bardic/Healer Collegium system is to train these people in the ethical use of their gifts. If the white colour and fine materials of the Noble’s Garb might be compared to the Herald’s dress uniform worn by the Queen at royal functions, then the red hood draws comparison to the Bards trained in Valdemar who wear Scarlet red uniforms. “Tuning” is normally applied to musical instruments. But rather than having a Bardic Gift (which is a mind magic ability to sway an audience’s emotion), Roderika’s “gift for spirit tuning” is telegraphed by her green eyes. And green is the colour of the Healers in Valdemar, who are sometimes drawn upon to train the rare mind magic gift of “empathy” that is typical of “mindhealers”. Roderika shows off her empathetic connection to tortured spirits when she speaks of the Dungeater’s presence in the other hall of the Round Table Hold.
All this to say: upfront there’s a fair amount of circumstantial evidence at this point that Heralds of Valdemar is something worth thinking about in connection to the subtext of Elden Ring.
Also, a lot of these books are translated to Japanese editions and subsequently quite accessible to the video game developers.
All of the above is information that I assembled before the Tarnished Edition pack had been released. So, at that time I did not yet have the context of the name, item description, or location of the Carian Torrent Regalia. But there’s one other major point of comparison I noticed.
There's a character name that overlaps between the two worlds: Elden Ring has "Mad Tongue Alberich" and Valdemar has "Herald Weaponsmaster Alberich". Based on superficial appearances, there is not much to connect these two characters. But what about thematically? Subtextually? So, I re-read the first Alberich book "Exile's Honor" (2002), which I only vaguely remember from some several years ago. And did find many interesting details.
First point to address: as the Tarnished Edition was officially released there are three pieces of information that became available:
1) The official name for the Liurnian Torrent regalia is the "Silver of Caria".
2) Item description: “The richly ornamented white silver armor of the Carian Royal line is a one-of-a-kind item made for a certain spectral steed, once forged in the lands of the Three Sisters. It is through grace that the spectral steed Torrent's appearance may be changed. Though a spectral steed's form will change when vested in this garb, their heart will remain the same.”
3) This Torrent regalia is obtained from the Three Sisters region, in Ranni's Rise.
An immediate note is that in fact Mad Tongue Alberich could always be linked to the Three Sisters. Two of the three spells that he casts are "Glintstone Icecrag" and "Freezing Mist", which are spells sold by Seluvis.
More abstractly, the prologue to "Exile's Honor" was originally published as the short story "Stolen Silver" in 1991, not long after Alberich's first appearance in the "Arrows for the Queen" trilogy (1987). The short story details the sequence of events where Alberich – a Karsite from a nation neighbouring Valdemar – exposed himself as a "witch" for having a foresight vision that allowed him to lead his cavalry company to saving a village from bandits. He attracted the attention of the Sunpriests who will not tolerate use of self-taught magic outside of their control and subsequently tried to burn him alive. "Silver" was the name of a stallion acquired in a border skirmish and recently gifted to Alberich, who at this moment revealed himself to be a Companion named "Kantor" as he came to the rescue of Alberich. “Stolen Silver” vs. “Carian Silver”.
Also, a nice detail is that relative to the location of the site of grace, the chest is partially obscured by a stack of books. Like the books that I am referencing to try and gain some further insight into the Carian Silver regalia.
Highlights of Exile's Honor
To start off, I'm collecting the story ideas that I thought interesting. After that will be a follow up on potential implications for Elden Ring.
- In contrast to Valdemar being in the domain of the Star-Eyed Goddess (but welcoming to people of all religions), Karse is a land historically under the domain of Sunlord Vkandis. But by the time of the present conflicts the Sunlord has been effectively absentee and most of the high-ranking sunpriests had become corrupt and seem more concerned with terrorizing the people with demons and othering their enemies as witches to keep the people isolated and under control. The answer that Vkandis gives when his people of true faith ask why he would allow this is that he will not interfere with the free will of his people unless the fate of the world is at stake.
- Alberich's personal history is explored. He was born a bastard and lived in poverty with his mother, while also being taken under the protection of a sunpriest who taught the old ways of Vkandis from before the corruption spread. Wanting to make a better life for himself, his foresight ability ensured that he was presentable at the right place and time when the Sunguard came recruiting as they selected half of their officers from the common people (the thinking being that a person wanting to increase their status will work harder than a person who came from luxury). He left his mother and never looked back, and from that point was mentored by two Weaponsmasters who left a good impression on him. The novel begins with Alberich having recently become a Cavalry Captain with a commission to address bandit activity after 7 years as an Officer (Karse had let the bandits flourish in their territory as part of a proxy conflict with Valdemar, but their numbers had grown too many). He was starting to become uneasy with the politics as he became aware that he had few allies among his peers who were envious of his successes.
- Overall, the first half of the novel is a story much concerned with the balance between integrating into a new culture and retaining one's beliefs and principles, of re-learning how to think for oneself to overcome indoctrination by humans who make false claims of serving a higher power, of the personal satisfaction of finding a place where one is needed rather than being tolerated, and of diplomatically defusing tensions with people who misplace their anger and suspicion onto individuals when it's the tyrannical leadership who has caused them harm in the past.
- Alberich has earnest introspective discussions about the pitfalls of sophistry. Soon after, Alberich discusses with a Valdemaran Sunpriest about how things got how they were in Karse, and the Sunpriest catches him up on a debate he's been having with the most senior Sunpriest in the city as to whether it's due to the "Will to Power" or the congregation corrupting the priests.
"The laity wanted absolute answers, and the priesthood finally elected to give them answers – the simpler the better…the writ took second place to the rule….The answers took away uncertainty and what is more, took away the need to think."
"Above all the writ demands that a man, or a woman for that matter, learn how to think….The old ways require that each person come to the Sunlord having thought through everything for himself. The current rule requires that men become sheep herded in one direction, following one path, pastured in one field….The Sunlord was reshaped from the unknowable into the remote and predictable patriarch. From the whirlwind to the windmill that grinds exceedingly small."
"Then came the power from giving people what they wanted instead of what they needed."
- Some philosophy on ForeSight: "The writ said that the future was mutable and unknowable until one passed through it and it became the past. That was why the writ spoke against the witch powers of those who tried to predict the future. Not because the attempt to know the future was wrong in itself, but because being told a future closed some people's minds to the possibility of any other. And they focused all of their attention – their hopes and their fears – on that future to the exclusion of other possibilities. Which defeated the entire prime principle of free will, upon which all of the Sunlord's writ was based."
- Major components of this story are telling how Alberich came to be weaponmaster of the Collegia, his activities as an undercover intelligence operative for the Heralds in Haven city, and generally filling in the events of the Tedrel Wars which were a significant backstory event to the Arrows (late 1980's) and Mage Winds (early 1990's) trilogies. He becomes an occasional bodyguard to Selenay during public functions at the time when she is still the heir and in-training. The sequel book "Exile's Valor" covers the other major backstory event from this period of time, in which Alberich kills Selenay's husband who was plotting against her.
- Notes on the espionage thing. Aberich is doing a master of disguise routine with several different outfits that he wears when hanging about various parts of the city and developing alternate identities. It is left up to the imagination how well he is accomplishing this, considering that he has one of the most obvious verbal quirks (adds verbs to the ends of sentences because that’s how Karsite grammar is structured). It is discussed how his accent and confusing way of speaking results in him saying as little as possible when in disguise. He also has noticeable healed burn scars on his face from that time that his people tried to burn him alive, and makes a point of covering them up.
- Alberich's weaponsmaster philosophy sounds familiar and useful to any Elden Ring player: "And he had never been the sort who got attached to one particular chunk of metal. As far he was concerned one blade was as good as another, so long as it was balanced and sharp. He'd never had any patience with those sagas wherin the hero found or was given or created a famous blade with a name of its own. Ridiculous. These things were just pieces of steel, not something sentient. And when you focused too much on 'my famous blade…' you were apt to forget that it was a tool to be used and as readily left behind as need be."
plain functional weapon \"Great Knife\" vs. named blade \"Reduvia\" (Reduvia meaning \"hangnail\")
- A surreal segment where the Heralds are trying to solve the problem of getting agents into Karse without having them be instantly recognized as foreigners for having not enough knowledge of either the language or customs. The solution ends up being mind magic. Let's take all the little cultural quirks from our guy Alberich's head and blend them with the memories of the volunteer Herald agents to speedrun cultural understanding. Making the agents aware of unconscious thought patterns of a person raised in another time and place while having conscious memories of a narrative that isn't accurate to the specific details of history, but does mirror the emotional impact of the history.
- There are two sets of “Chronicles” kept in the Kingdom of Valdemar. The public record of history and the secret Chronicles of information too sensitive to be common knowledge. It’s not wise for covert operations or detailed reports of cases of ambiguous moral judgement to be widely distributed, and instead these are kept for the reference of trained specialists.
- Nice quote: "Perhaps that was why she was so focused on needing to know the why of things. If you always knew that something was true or false, maybe your focus shifted from finding out the truth to finding out the reasons behind it. If you knew that something was true, maybe that impelled you to talk to others, as well as listen to them."
- Important quote: "People…saw mostly what they expected to see. And if they saw something that ran counter to their expectations, they tended to rationalize it away."
Personally, I can say that I did not ever “expect” for Elden Ring to be doing some low-key adaptation of a book series like the Heralds of Valdemar. In fact, up until 2 weeks ago, I was pretty certain that “Mad-Tongue Alberich” was primarily named for the dwarf Alberich who forges the ring in Der Ring des Nibelungen. With a design intended to evoke iconography of Bloodborne's Formless Oedon through the position of the 3 blood red gemstones on the brim of the hat over his eyes. Then digging deeper into the character model and his eyes and hair are modelled like that of albino Elric of Melniboné. Through the surface-level marketing people are “expecting” to see A Song of Ice and Fire, through past FromSoft works people are “expecting” to see allusions to both Lord of the Rings and BERSERK!, and reading between the lines of other dev team comments about Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champions people might even “expect” to see Elric here. And then proceed to rationalize away all evidence of other fantasy series that have not been directly mentioned.
Comparison between Alberich and Alberich
- Connection to the Sun. Herald Alberich originated from Karse which is a mountainous land dedicated to worship of the Sunlord. Mad Tongue Alberich uses the Staff of the Guilty and Thorn Sorceries associated with the Thorn Sorcerers who accompany Fire Monks and Fire Prelates.
- Philosophy on weapon usage. Mad Tongue Alberich is among the category of Invader who doesn't have a unique weapon, and instead has a generic grave-scythe infused with cold to complement his cold spells, and equipment tailored to strengthen thorn sorceries. Herald Weaponmaster Alberich has a philosophy that the best weapon is always the one that is best for the job at hand.
- Sharing of memories. Under his hat, Mad Tongue Alberich’s head is styled as a glintstone crown of red glintstone, similar to the Primeval Sorcerers Lusat and Azur whose heads had grown into glintstone. It is implied that when a Sorcerer’s head should grow glinstone like this, harvesting and studying the glintstone is analogous to studying the master’s thoughts. Reminds me of that bit where Alberich shares impressions of his memories with the spies to help them understand and empathize better with his people.
- Outfit. Herald Alberich is a notable outlier for being the only Herald who prefers to wear dark grey instead of the bright white of a typical field Herald. Altering Mad Tongue Alberich's outfit to remove the cape and pauldrons results in a far simpler and more neutral dark outfit.
- Also I found this note on the wikia for Alberich’s trousers: “Fire Emblem Pegasus Knight boots???” The similar design of the thigh-high boots could have been a low-key hint that he does ride a horse of some kind.
- Relationship with the daughter-heir. As the contemporary times weaponmaster, Herald Alberich also trained Selenay’s daughter Elspeth. And there’s a particular angle by which I could make an argument that Elden Ring’s Alberich did the same for Lunar Princess Ranni.
And since I’m personally satisfied that this is a true intentional allusion, I’m going to consider “why” there is value from strengthening the allusion to Herald Alberich with the Carian Silver regalia.
Possible Implications for Elden Ring
In a way, I expect that playing through Elden Ring and encountering all of the item text and dialogue is like having access to the public record chronicles of the Lands Between. But there is another layer of "secret chronicles" – of all of the "covert operations" carried out by the development team – which at this point in time can only be perceived by reading between the lines.
The item descriptions would have one believe that Alberich "was an aloof yet disturbed heretical sorcerer said to have been driven mad by jeering tongues during his service to the Roundtable Hold long ago". How does he actually behave? He grants the player the "Reverential Bow" gesture upon encountering him, and his fight is like a tutorial on how to fight an invader – effectively he's teaching. Defeating him grants the player the "Taunter's Tongue" which invites invasions, and in doing so has one niche ability that allows a player to coordinate with an Invader to activate the lift and infiltrate Leyndell via the Fortified Manor. Like some kind of covert espionage operation.
There's a bit of a meme in Elden Ring discussion that "character [x] is secretly character [y]". But in this case there's actually a decently good chance that "Alberich" was a constructed alter ego of Preceptor Seluvis. A few supporting points:
- Seluvis is a master of disguise and espionage. That's what the puppets are all about. Seluvis would control them like an actor playing a persona, similar to how the player is free to loot an NPC for their gear and then adjust the appearance of their Tarnished to match. The fandom typically assumes that Seluvis is purely there to be a creep because they are thinking in fleshy human terms of desires and motivations, expect the trope of drama with a token evil vizier who aims to betray his mistress, and don't look below the superficial first impressions. People see what they are manipulated to see, and they don't consider the possibility that Seluvis is playing a role as part of Ranni's scheme to test the player.
- A Preceptor is a category of teacher such as "a skilled practitioner or faculty member who supervises students in a clinical setting to allow practical experience with patients." Similar to Mad Tongue Alberich delivering a practical lesson in fending off Invaders, Seluvis teaches a practical lesson on the metaphysics of puppetry and summons in the Lands Between. And as mentioned way up at the beginning of the Alberich section, Seluvis is the sole source for two of the spells that are used by Mad Tongue Alberich, "Glintstone Icecrag" and "Freezing Mist".
- The Preceptor's Robe and Alberich's Robe share that feature where they can be altered to strip away the showy outer layers and be left with a more modest and functional inner layer. In fact, altering Alberich’s robe even removes its boost to thorn sorceries, as if that’s just a temporary effect that he’s putting on as part of that particular guise. The Preceptor's Gloves are also among the category of gauntlets that will layer over Alberich's robe (altered) to hide the few remaining red gemstones that remain. In accordance with their description: "Black and perfectly discreet."
- Gideon is head of the Round Table Hold and Seluvis is known to him. They had a falling out over an archer puppet named Dolores. The first trilogy in the Valdemar series was the “Arrows” trilogy in which there is a whole complex system described for Heralds to send coded messages using arrows. Which I believe then never comes up as relevant again through the rest of the series. Instead the focus shifts to Herald Mages and the Mage Storm that is a reverberation from a Cataclysm 3000 years ago.
Seluvis also fits that principle that “people see mostly what they expected to see”. When one takes his theatrical performance at face value and has him squared away as that one perverted potion-master inspired by Severus Snape or Big Hat Logan 2.0, one ignores signs pointing to the other character inspirations. I’d expect that Herald Alberich from the Heralds of Valdemar series is one. And I expect that poisoner Chade Fallstar and/or skillmaster FitzChivalry Farseer from the Realm of the Elderlings is another, going by the venn diagram of “bastard child”, “teacher”, and “master of disguise”. Especially because remotely taking over the bodies of other people is a capability of the Skill magic, and Fitz shares the wolf theme of the Carians in general, and parallels Ranni's Rise in specific. Ranni has three retainers: Preceptor Seluvis, Blaidd the wolf, Iji the smith, and is implied to have had a fourth being Dariwill the bloodhound knight. There are also 3 wolves who sit in front of her rise. Fitz similarly had 3 bondbeasts sequentially: Nosy the hound, Smithy the terrier, and Nighteyes the wolf.
There are at least 5 other inspirations for Seluvis that I’m aware of from other perspectives. So, there's much more to his character than being the Carian's personal assassin and spy. It just happens that this is the one that I wanted to point out today.
One last note:
“Though a spectral steed's form will change when vested in this garb, their heart will remain the same.”
The Carian Silver regalia makes a point to emphasize that it’s an illusion through the visuals. It gives Torrent a nose more closely proportioned to that of a horse, and allows the noseband of the bridle to clip right through the horse nose – if you’re paying attention you can see it through the nostrils.
This is also something that is done in the Heralds of Valdemar books – specifically on a mission to assassinate Ma’ar as Mornelith Falconsbane (while also attempting to keep intact the captive mind of the host who he is possessing). From “Winds of Fury”:
“‘Good. Then here’s what we’ll have. You…are a very minor mage…but able to cast illusions. You put them on the Companions, the dyheli, and possibly yourself. Only you layer the Companions; top is a pair of glossy matched bays, under that is what any other mage will think is the reality, an illusion of a pair of nasty, old, spavined geldings. You layer the dyheli the same way; top is the way it really looks, under that is a donkey.”
Overall, I find that one way of looking at Torrent is as being roughly equivalent to a cross between a Companion and a dyheli. Sure, the regalia is an illusion, but perhaps the normal appearance of Torrent can also be considered a kind of unassuming “illusion” hiding the true “heart of gold” of Torrent.
Also I just noticed that the spectral steed whistle is modelled as two golden horse hoofs & forelegs coming together – that’s just a really satisfying visual design.
Source: r/EldenRingLoreTalk · by /u/miirshroom