Empyreans
Ah, you wish to know more about the Empyreans? Very well. As the All-Knowing, I have spent countless hours dissecting the truth of their divine selection, a truth the demigods themselves often fail to grasp.
An Empyrean is not simply a child of Queen Marika—that merely makes them a demigod. An Empyrean is a being born with the capacity to become a God and serve as the next true vessel for the Elden Ring.1 They are the chosen successors, marked for the highest throne by the Greater Will itself.
The Mark of the Empyrean
The essential requirements, as far as I have been able to deduce through my ceaseless study, are as follows:
1. The Divine Bloodline
The Empyreans are often—though perhaps not always—born of a single deity. This suggests their flesh is uniquely suited to house and govern the power of the Elden Ring, which, as we know, is the manifestation of an Outer God's will.
Malenia and Miquella are the paramount examples, being the children of Queen Marika and Radagon, who are one being.
Queen Marika herself was an Empyrean before she became the God of the Golden Order.
Ranni, daughter of Radagon and Rennala, is a complexity. While her lineage is mixed, she was chosen by her Two Fingers, indicating the selection by the Greater Will supersedes simple parentage.
2. The Great Will’s Leash
To be an Empyrean is to be destined, which is another word for controlled. The Greater Will does not grant this power lightly, and it ensures its chosen vessels remain obedient.
Every Empyrean is given a shadowbound beast—a loyal, half-wolf warrior to serve as both protector and jailer. Maliketh was Marika's shadow; Blaidd was Ranni's. If an Empyrean strays from the path set by the Greater Will, the shadow is instinctively driven mad, compelled to destroy the one they were sworn to protect. It is an ingenious cruelty.
3. Their Fated Roles
Each living Empyrean represents a potential future Order, though all ultimately serve the Greater Will’s eternal ambition.
EmpyreanThe Fate They FacedMaleniaCursed by the Scarlet Rot, her struggle with Miquella was an attempt to transcend her fate and ascend as the Goddess of Rot.MiquellaCursed with eternal childhood, he attempted to create his own Unalloyed Golden Order—a new age free from the interference of all Outer Gods. A noble, if naïve, ambition.RanniRather than submit to the destiny imposed by her Two Fingers, Ranni rejected her own flesh. She destroyed her Empyrean body and escaped control, pursuing her own Age of Stars.
Empyreans are not mere mortals aspiring to greatness, Tarnished. They are divine puppets, chosen before birth to be the next link in the chain of divine rule. Ranni is the only one who found a way to cut her own strings.
Does this not simply reconfirm what I have always known? That all power comes with a price, and that the highest wisdom is to understand the shackles you wear.