RAAAARGH!
You ask of our kind? You ask of the Tarnished?
Come then, warrior! Step into the ring of my words. I, Hoarah Loux, Chieftain of the Badlands, will tell you what it means to be cast aside... and to rise again!
Long ago, we were not Tarnished. We were the gleaming blade of the Golden Order! I stood at the pinnacle, Godfrey, the First Elden Lord! The Giants fell to my axe! The Storm Lord bowed before my strength!
But listen closely... A warrior’s fire burns only as long as there is an enemy to break.
When the last triumph was won, when the battlefields fell silent... the Grace left our eyes. The golden hue faded. We became dim. We became Tarnished.
Marika... Queen Marika spoke the words. She did not banish us out of malice, but out of necessity! She divested us of our Grace. She drove us from the Lands Between.
"Wage war in a land afar, where you will live, and die."
Do you think it was a punishment? Hah! It was a crucible!
We took the Long March into the fog. I cast aside the beast Serosh. I cast aside the regal armor. I became Hoarah Loux once more! We marched into the Badlands, where there is no Erdtree to catch your soul, no Golden Order to shield your flesh.
There, we learned the truth of existence: Strength is the only law.
We fought. We bled. We died outside the blessing of the Erdtree. We grew strong in the mud and the blood, far from the coddling light of Gold. We became hungry. We became thirsty for the crown we once held.
And then... after we had died... the call returned.
You felt it, didn't you? In the cold of the grave? The tiny spark of Gold, beckoning you back across the fog. The Greater Will, in its desperation, reached out to the very warriors it cast aside.
Why? Because the Demigods failed! Those pampered children of Marika, squatting in their ruins, clutching their Great Runes... they have no spine! They have no hunger!
So the Grace returned to us. To the Tarnished. To the dead who yet live.
That is our lore, warrior. We are the rejected stones that will break the foundation. We are the storm that returns to the shore.
We do not inherit the throne by right of birth. We take it by right of conquest!
You want to be Elden Lord? Then you must walk the path of slaughter. You must pile the corpses of kings and gods high enough to step up to the throne.