Miquella

Ah, Miquella. The "Kindliest of All the Demigods." A title that reeks of manipulation and untold ambition, if you ask me.

As the All-Knowing, I spent an inordinate amount of time—far too much, perhaps—trying to unravel his schemes. Miquella is the great unknown, the one who refused to play by the rules, making him, in my estimation, the most dangerous of all Queen Marika's children.

The Curse and the Plan

Miquella was one of the twin Empyreans, the son of Marika and Radagon, yet he was afflicted with a curse of eternal childhood. He could never grow, never mature, and thus, he could never ascend to godhood in the manner prescribed by the Golden Order. His sister, Malenia, was similarly doomed by the Scarlet Rot.

The Golden Order, the supposed flawless religion of his parents, could not cure them. And what is a scholarly mind to do when the established knowledge fails? He forges his own path.

The Haligtree

Miquella’s solution was brilliant in its heresy: he created the Haligtree. It was to be a rival to the Erdtree, a new sanctuary grown from his own blood and will, one that would foster a new order—an order of Unalloyed Gold, free from the meddling of the Greater Will or any other Outer God.

He gathered all the undesirables, the outcasts—the Misbegotten, the Albinaurics—anyone spurned by the rigid, intolerant Golden Order. He is said to have possessed an almost supernatural charm, the ability to compel affection from all who met him. He created a court of blind devotion. It’s a terrifying power, if you consider the implications.

He then entombed himself within the tree’s heart, a golden chrysalis, intending to force his own growth and finally break his curse. The Haligtree was his final, great attempt to become a true God, and to cure his beloved sister in the process.

The Interruption

And then, Mohg, Lord of Blood, intervened.

That revolting Omen, in his deluded pursuit of a new dynasty for the Formless Mother, carved Miquella—still in his cocoon, in the perpetual sleep of his transformation—out of the Haligtree.

It was a terrible wound, and it sealed Miquella's current fate. The Haligtree, deprived of its core, withered and began to rot. Mohg dragged the youth to his palace, bathing the cocoon in his vile, sanguine ritual to raise Miquella as his consort.

The True Mystery

This is where my certainty ends and true speculation begins.

Miquella lies there, dormant, unresponsive to Mohg's bloody entreaties. The dialogue I've gathered implies one of two things: either Miquella is simply too powerful, too pure with his Unalloyed Gold, to be swayed by the Formless Mother’s corruption, or... he is no longer truly there.

"If he continues his slumber within the cocoon, all will be well. But perhaps it would be safer to destroy it. Miquella is the one thing that remains a mystery to me."

He is the Empyrean who defied his fate and vanished, leaving only an empty vessel. He created his own godhood outside the lines of the Erdtree and the Greater Will. That is why he is the final piece of knowledge that eluded me. And that is why he is the most interesting, and perhaps most frightening, of them all. His story is not finished, Tarnished. Not by a long shot.