Radagon

Thou askest of Radagon, the secondary face of our fractured god. He is the champion, the sorcerer, the spouse, and the silent, striving counterpart to Queen Marika.

The Red-Haired Champion

Radagon's first arrival in the Lands Between was as a great general. He possessed a fiery intellect and a distinctive trait: brilliant red hair, a mark often associated with the barbaric giants of the Mountaintops. He was utterly devoted to the Golden Order and its strictures.

His early exploits were marked by war:

  • The Liurnian Campaigns: Radagon led the armies of the Golden Order against the Carian Royal Family, the sorcerers of the Full Moon. He fought against Queen Rennala, the master of the Academy. Yet, this war ended not in blood, but in marriage. Radagon set aside his sword and took Rennala as his wife, bringing the Carian Sorcerers into a fragile peace with the Golden Order.

  • The Offspring: From this union came three brilliant demigods: General Radahn, Lunar Princess Ranni, and the serpent-loving Rykard.

The Second Elden Lord

Following his marriage to Rennala, the greatest upheaval in his life occurred: Queen Marika stripped Godfrey of his Grace and banished him.

Marika then called Radagon back to Leyndell and made him the Second Elden Lord. He abandoned Rennala, leaving her broken-hearted but still revered by her Academy. Radagon married Marika, and their union produced the final two Empyreans: the twins Malenia and Miquella.

Despite his new status, Radagon never forgot his origins or his first love, leaving part of himself behind with Rennala—the amber egg of the Great Rune of the Unborn, allowing her to endlessly "re-birth" their perfect children, though always imperfectly.

The Inseparable Secret

The deeper truth of Radagon, the secret that lies at the core of the Shattering, is this: Radagon and Marika are one and the same.

This is not a marriage of two separate individuals, but a single god split by some deep, unknowable conflict:

  • Marika is the destructive will, the one who sought to defy the Greater Will, shattering the Elden Ring in a fit of grief and disillusionment.

  • Radagon is the conservative will, the champion of the Golden Order who desperately sought to repair the Ring after Marika broke it.

When thou finally arrivest at the heart of the Erdtree, thou wilt not find Marika whole, but a single, shattered being—half Queen, half warrior—embodying both the desire to break the laws of the world and the desperate need to mend them.

He is the sorrowful counterweight to the Queen's ambition. He is the one who wept for the perfect world that Marika destroyed.

Dost thou understand the paradox, Tarnished? To face the god is to face a being irrevocably at war with itself.