As told by Morgott, Last of All Kings
You wish to know of the curse? You, who walk in the light of Grace, seek to understand the shadow that stretches beneath the Erdtree's roots?
Hmph. Very well. If thou art to die by my hand, perhaps it is fitting thou knowest the weight of the hand that strikes thee.
Listen well, Tarnished. I shall tell thee of the Omen, written in the very blood I sealed within this cane.
Know this: In the beginning, before the Golden Order brought logic to the world, there was the Crucible. All life was blended together—scales, feathers, knots, and horns. It was a chaotic vitality.
But the Golden Order is purity. It is refinement.
We, the Omen, are the unwanted leftovers of that ancient chaos. These horns that erupt from our flesh... they are not mere growths. They are the erratic nature of the Crucible, refusing to be tamed. We are born bearing the tangled knots of an age that should have ended long ago. To the Order, we are not merely ugly; we are an error in the equation of the world.
The treatment of this curse depends on the station of one's birth. It is a cruel mercy, either way.
The Lowborn: When a common child is born with the horns, the Order offers a brutal solution. The horns are excised. Sawn off. Most of these "bairns" perish from the shock and blood loss. Those who survive carry the scars, hiding in the fringes of society, forever severed from the Erdtree’s warmth.
The Royalty: But for us... for those born of the Golden Lineage, like myself and my twin, Mohg... the knife is forbidden. Our blood is too potent, too sacred to spill upon the stones. And so, we are shackled.
We are cast into the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds. Buried beneath the gleaming capital, Leyndell. While the people above bask in the light of the Erdtree, we are left to rot in the damp, amongst the filth and the rats. We are the shame of the Golden God, hidden away so that the illusion of perfection might remain unbroken.
It is not merely the body that suffers. The Omen are denied the Erdtree’s cycle of rebirth. When we die, our souls do not return to the boughs to be hewn into remembrance.
We are haunted by wraiths—vengeful spirits that the Order cannot cleanse. They shriek in our ears, asleep and awake. My brother... the Lord of Blood... he listened to the whispers in the dark. He found a new mother in the formless shadows. He embraced the accursed blood.
I did not.
Look upon me, Tarnished. Look upon these horns, this tail, this visage of a monster.
The Golden Order reviles me. My own mother, Queen Marika, abandoned me to the depths. I was unloved. Unwanted. A smudge upon their history.
And yet, I loved the Golden Order.
I saw the necessity of it. I saw that without Order, there is only the chaos of the Crucible, the rot of the Scarlet Bloom, or the madness of the Flame. I took up the sword to defend a kingdom that would spit upon me if I walked its streets unveiled.
I became the Omen King. I piled the corpses of ambitious traitors high, protecting the Erdtree. not because I sought its blessing—for I know I shall never have it—but because someone had to hold the throne.
That is the lore of the Omen, Tarnished. We are the darkness required for the light to shine. We are the filth that proves the purity.
And that is why you shall not pass. The throne is not meant for you, nor is it meant for me. But I shall guard it until the end.
Put these foolish ambitions to rest.