Elden Ring: Who Are Those Who Live In Death?

gamerant.com:

Elden Ring has a lot of undead running around in the Lands Between. They make up many of the enemies players have to fight against, from skeletal boatmen to specters. They all fit under the umbrella of Those Who Live in Death, a group that is demonized by the Golden Order.

Those Who Live in Death were not always around in the Elden Ring'stimeline. In fact, they began to exist not long before the Elden Ring was shattered by Queen Marika. This is due to their connection with Godwyn the Golden, his death, and how it affected the Lands Between.

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Originally, in the Lands Between, the souls of people who were blessed by Grace were immortal. This means if their bodies died, their souls would not. Objects like Spirit Ashes that players can use to summon help are actually these sorts of immortal souls. Most souls were absorbed back into the Erdtree, which fans think may be a sign that the Erdtree reincarnated these souls. So basically, bodies could die, but souls were immortal. This was due to Queen Marika taking the Rune of Death and sealing it away.

This did not last. Godwyn the Golden was a demigod whose soul was killed in the Night of the Black Knives by Numen assassins. The Numen had fragments of the Rune of Death, and that gave them the ability to kill his soul. This devastated the Lands Between and the demigod was buried right at the roots of the Erdtree (like most important people), in hopes that his soul will somehow still be absorbed back. Since Godwyn's soul was destroyed, this did not happen.

Instead, the roots of the Erdtree were corrupted. This created Deathroot and gave rise to Those Who Live in Death, which are undead souls that can neither truly die nor be absorbed back into the Erdtree.