Explain it to me as if I was a baby, who was the Elden Ring after all?

The elden ring was a parasitic lifeform that served as the seed for the erdtree. The greater will seeded worlds with these which became elden beasts and took on a sentient being as a limiter.
In ER's case it took Radagon, a hybrid of giant and beast known as a human, and infested his soul, turning him into marika. This built a whole religion meets royal line based on lies. The warrior king of the badlands was brought to heel and bound with his lionid fighting partner to be Godfrey the elen lord and it was all about creating a method to control the people so they would congregate around the erdtree, feeding it their lifeforce and eventually their bodies as compost.

Over time the bullshit got to be too much. Godfrey left, returning to his life as hourah loux and the official company line was he "died in combat", radagon shattered the ring to excise the beast from his soul and fucked off to marry marika but eventually the greater will called them back one by one to the tree and the beast to try and maintain its parasitic infestation.

Then we show up to fuck it all up including the beast thats gone feral. Kill the beast, return it to its primal state as the ring/seed, burn it all or just fucking leave its up to you.

Basically its a big analogy for how the japanese had to worship their royalty as literal gods for a long time but now they know they were just people and the whole thing is corrupt and foolish transplaneted to a game of thrones incest festival. Its all just a facade.

Thank you, but what does it have to do with a sexy dogman?

Me, sorry about giving Malenia AIDs, thought it would be fun.

Everyone with a connection to Marika was a wierd transhuman lifeform called an Empyrean and as such were a potential threat to the order. Each had a twofingers that created some entity to appear as their bodyguard but in actuality exist to cut them down without hesitation the moment they move against the corpo-religion. Its why Ranni has you kill him. He is a sleeper agent that gets activated after she kills her twofingers.

You literally got it all wrong lmao did you even play the game or did you just read a lore recap

>In ER's case it took Radagon, a hybrid of giant and beast known as a human, and infested his soul, turning him into marika.
Except mentions of Marika massively predate anything about Radagon. Lots of points in your post are just headcanon. Kinda sounds like "gospel" anons copied from some faggot e-celeb.

That's not how it works lol. ER's lore isn't that complicated. The lands between is just one among many battlegrounds among the outer gods (ie Lovecraftian entities). The Greater Will is currently in control of the lands between, but that control has been severely weakend since Godwyn's death and Marika's spergout.

The dual blood naginatas.

>godwyns death
nobody died it was all a ruse. You fight shit like the golden illusion for the same reason Gwynnevere is in Anor Londo. Its a life to keep the serfs from panicking. The spells, armour and weapons clearly explain the golden lineage is horseshit and Hourah Loux left Marika and only returned when you killed Morgott to avenge his son. They are just people not gods. Thats the great lie that makes Goldmask kill himself. There is and never was any difference between the tarnish and the golden lineage. Its the same shit with different marketing departments.

Incorrect. Godfrey (and his armies) left on Marika's orders and he knew Marika is gonna recall him some day.

The Elden Beast

>he thinks the Greater Will is real
The Greater Will is a name created during the Golden Order to explain what Radagon/EB were doing.
Its like claiming divine writ by being descended of God personally.