Elden Ring DLC Theory: Who Messmer The Impaler Is & How He’s Related To Miquella

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A full year after it was first announced, the DLC expansion for ,, has finally had more information revealed alongside a trailer. The highly anticipated DLC was announced in February 2023, a year after 's release, but its reveal was accompanied by only a single image. As was the case with the base game before it, speculation over has run rampant, but new details have shed light on a central figure known as Messmer the Impaler, who seems to have a close relationship to Miquella.

Now that 's DLC finally has a trailer, the very basics of the narrative in are known. The expansion will take players to the Land of Shadow, seemingly beckoned by Miquella, who remains inside the strange egg in Mohgwyn Palace throughout the entirety of the base game. Other than Miquella, the most prominent character – and perhaps the primary antagonist – is Messmer the Impaler. Messmer did not appear in the base game, nor is he ever mentioned in dialog, item descriptions, or otherwise. A handful of clues, however, indicate he may have a connection to Miquella, and by extension, many other major characters.

The most readily apparent connection to Miquella comes from Messmer's voice lines in the gameplay trailer (via Bandai Namco Europe's YouTube channel). He says, "" It's not exactly explicit, but Messmer's mother is most likely Queen Marika the Eternal, who has beckoned the Tarnished back to the Lands Between after stripping them of their Grace in order for one to ascend the throne of the Elden Lord, i.e. sanctioning the lordship of one who is bereft of light. This referring to the Tarnished is also corroborated by later dialog in the trailer, where an unknown voice says, "."

Marika being Messmer the Impaler's mother immediately makes him at least a half-brother to Miquella and Malenia, the twin children of Marika and Radagon. However, heavily implies that Marika and Radagon are the same person, and Radagon also had three known children with Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, matriarch of the