The Complete History of Elden Ring, Part 1: The Outer Gods, Greater Will, and World

Welcome to the first video in our series covering all of Elden Ring's lore and history! With this series, I aim to explore every nook and cranny of the Lands Between, giving thought to factual information and (carefully-separated) theories alike to help you better understand FromSoftware's latest massive world.
This first video sets the stage for our future series by exploring some preliminary information about Elden Ring's world and exploring some of the larger concepts at play, focusing specifically on the Outer Gods, the Greater Will, and the world of the Lands Between.
Thank you so much for watching!
CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction
0:52 The Outer Gods
4:08 The Greater Will
8:42 The World
SPECIAL THANKS
‪@NebuloreYT‬ , ‪@miss_chalice‬ , and ‪@The_Red_Scholar‬ for their help in my lore research, video production, and general goodwill, as well as everyone else in the Raya Lucaria and Ward Discord servers.
Also, a special shoutout to Edgar the Cat for giving me the final push on my production. :)
Thumbnail art by Vinnie--
/ enterbr0th
www.artstation.com/atomicjest
SOCIALS
TikTok: / jarrettsales
Discord: / discord
Music is all licensed from Epidemic Sound. All in-game footage and screenshots were taken by me (and a friend or two. Thanks Brendan and Pip).

[@blackfyre7900]

This guy beat the shit out of me with a nerf super soaker in a Walmart parking lot before stealing my wallet and telling me to play Fortnite. Always meet your heroes, love this guy!

[@JarrettSales]

Can confirm

[@elathe2351]

can confirm, this sick and twisted fuck almost killed me (he put gasoline in the squirt gun)

[@BoRice82]

Dafuq?😂😂😂

[@The_Red_Scholar]

Hmm, who is this rather dashing and handsome fellow I see making Elden Ring lore content on KZbin? I have never seen him before in my entire life...

[@jw1773]

Showing support from tiktok

[@natereid2899]

Hey bruh. Coming over from tiktok. Thanks for untangling all of this!

[@Melody1x23]

Great video, cant wait for the greattree to show up

[@DeathDaddy]

Of all the videos explaining that history behind the game I’ve enjoyed yours the most . It’s simple and straight to the point . And it’s not a hour and 30 mins long lol… I look forward to the Rest

[@jacjulian273]

I love your Videos man! Hope your KZbin takes off!!

[@Evan-oz1dq]

been following u for a while on tiktok this a great video to start a series

[@wenderzxanthome1465]

Very solid pacing. It's nice to have this aspect of the lore clarified in a short video format. Great job Jarret!

[@JarrettSales]

Much appreciated Wenderz!

[@FroliksWMonkeys]

I’ve watched the entire Elden Ring Bestiary and alllll your videos on TikTok, so looking forward to this long form content explaining all the Elden Ring lore! Happy to subscribe and excited to see what comes next! 🎉

[@NebuloreYT]

Can’t wait for the rest of this series. Fantastic first video

[@oup6009]

Very disappointed that I discovered your video 3 days after it came out. This means I will have to wait lord knows how long for Part 2 :( I want to mention that along with Outer Gods, I think it is worth mentioning the Blue Fairy/Blue Dancer of Siofra River as well as the Blind Warrior thought to be representing the Fairy of the Ainsel River. Hope to see these 2 important historical characters mentioned as their regions are where pre-erdtree civiliization are in ruin. Not to mention they seem to have worked together to defeat the God of Rot that was impeding on their territories through the Lake of Rot (the blue fairy/blue dancer gave the blind swordsman the curved sword and taught him the moves to defeat the Rot God).

[@agopessimist1335]

One reason the Greater Will isn’t considered an Outer God, is that the original Kanji used to describe it in the Japanese text is the same Kanji used to describe a Creator God/the Christian God. Whereas for the Outer Gods, the Kanji used is the same used for ‘Lovecraftian’ gods. But it is undeniable that the Greater Will and the Outer Gods do share similar traits, in their way of manipulating the world and how they need envoys to enact their will. Fantastic video btw, can’t wait to see more

[@davisiotta489]

I don't believe that, the greater will in reality doesn't seem any different from the other outer gods, I believe that this termology is only used because the greater will is the outer god currently in charge of the world and can very well be dethroned and replaced, the outer gods are only called that because they are outside the current order

[@agopessimist1335]

@@davisiotta489 The Greater Will has never been directly called or referred to as an Outer God in the game, whereas the Formless Mother, Frenzied Flame, Scarlet Rot, and Twinbird creator have all been specifically referred to as Outer Gods. The only entities in-game that have not been directly called Outer Gods besides the Greater Will are the Fell God and the Blood Star, but the Fell God can easily be inferred to be an Outer God, as it was defeated/imprisoned in the same way as the Outer God of Rot, and the Japanese translations/methods of contact the Blood Star use are much different compared to the Formless Mother (and plus the Blood Star is just that, a star). Think about it. If the Greater Will really is an Outer God, then if we use Miquella’s Needle, specifically designed to ward off the influence of Outer Gods, wouldn’t that mean that we would have lost our Grace and the power to use Runes as a consequence of it? The game makes it pretty clear who is an Outer God or not, both in English and in Japanese. And just look at the sheer power difference between the Greater Will and the other Outer Gods. The Elden Ring alone can completely change the Order of the world, can control the stars, death (something that the Outer God of the Deathbirds originally had dominion over), and much more. The Greater Will is clearly very much differentiated from other Outer Gods in the game. SmoughTown did a fantastic video explaining the differences between the Greater Will and the Outer Gods, with evidence from direct Japanese translations pointing out the symbology and the specific nouns and Kanji used to describe both. I highly recommend giving it a watch, as it also describes how the Outer Gods are called ‘Outer Gods’ in the first place.

[@davisiotta489]

​@@agopessimist1335obviously the needle would not work to take away our grace, the needle is made of unalloyed gold, it is basically pure influence of the greater will, why would it take away our grace if it is made basically of the same power as our grace? For me it was always obvious that the needle drives away outer gods specifically because it is the power of another outer god opposing them. And it's obvious that the greater will has more power than the other outer gods, she is the one who has control of the world through the elden ring, erdthree and Marika, if she weren't more powerful in this situation it would be strange

[@davisiotta489]

I don't know if you include this in the timeline you're doing, but I think it's very likely, if it can't even be considered certain that the ancient dragons served the greater will, we have countless evidence of this, whether it's the fact that Placidusax had been an elden lord, title closely linked to the greater will as other outer gods appear to have different titles for the consorts of their respective gods, such as Frenzied lord, lord of blood and lord of night, and the god mentioned in the dragonlord's remembrance is not mentioned with the kanji in Japanese that is used to mention the outer gods (sotonaru kami) indicating that it is a god like Marika and in the original Japanese this god is not said to have fled but rather to have disappeared or to have gone, probably having died, the Dragons have a strong connection with the Crucible as they have all the characteristics of the Crucible, wings, tails, claws, horns and breathe fire as one of the Crucible's enchantments is literally you breathing fire like a dragon, as I think you left to understand in the video the greater will is linked to life dividing itself from the crucible and I think that dragons are a race that had its creation influenced by the greater will, since unlike other beings that present the characteristics of the crucible, dragons have these characteristics in an organized way rather than a mess growing through the body, the golden order itself has accepted dragons and the dragon cult as not conflicting with the beliefs of the golden order so I think it is left to understand that they are believing in the same ideals or god, and the dragons and Farum azula have the presence of gold everywhere, whether through the membrane of the dragons' wings and apparently their flesh as can be seen in the exposed flesh of Placidusax being golden, the beastmen can be seen burying their dead with gold items, so for me this is more than evidence of the influence of the greater will in this society

[@JarrettSales]

100%, there’s countless proof that the ancient dragons served the greater will and the previous wielder of the Elden ring. I plan to include it in the third episode, in which I’ll discuss all of the major ancient civilizations.

[@sageelias1416]

definitely need more of this 🙌 really high quality video for this being a first post

[@cadepetersonnn]

you forgot to dedicate this whole series to me but ill let it slide ig. excited to learn the lore of a game i haven’t even played yet 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 seriously great job editing and putting this together dude.

[@JarrettSales]

My bad, the next video will be the Cade video for sure

[@Smoothieman7]

Great start, always like the straightforward and deliberate style from you. Good length for a first video, given your typical style. Nice easy way to break into KZbin, interested to see you expand on it

[@alyseleem2692]

Yep. Sounds about right. Runes are especially interesting, given the Frenzied Flame's grievance. Think about it; they're words. Words written by the Greater Will. Every single being in this universe has their entire essence, their being, written in a few strings of golden code. This is what the Greater Will did. It took the singular One Great, and used it as ink and paper to write up beasts, people, lands big and small; it used it to create life as we know it. And guess what? It wrote a ###ing tragedy.

[@davisiotta489]

I've always found myself thinking about this, runes are the essence of the life of the creatures in the lands between, they are the representation of the meaning of that life, I think that's why we don't normally get smaller runes from more animalistic beings and instead we get large amounts of rune fragments, these creatures are full of life and vitality but they are not able to give a meaning to it, that is why I believe that the lesser runes are the representations of the meanings of the lives of these beings that they themselves have arrived at, that is why I think the hero and lord runes are the meanings that these people gave to their lives as being heroes and lords, and that is the meaning they gave to their lives and by extension their runes, the great runes for me are the representations of the very concepts of life created by the greater will, although we do not have an idea exactly what each rune does, they all seem to be at least linked to the concept of life as they are all linked to increasing the character's statistics or providing healing, the rune of Godrick is possibly the origin of the grafting power as it is the central rune of the Elden ring and all other runes seem to have to be "grafted" onto this rune to form the ring, the rune of miquella and Malenia are linked with the concepts of abundance and decay and seem like they are the runes that should be on the left part of the Ring, the Rykard and Radahn runes can thematically be linked to the concept of consuming and growing since apparently when Radahn was at the beginning of the shattering he was about the size of Morgot as seen in the opening cinematic, which leads me to believe that he only started to get so big when he received his great rune, and Rykard is another assumption that it is related to consuming because he is a serpent that wants to devour everything and his great rune seems stay on the right side of the ring next to the Radahn rune and to grow you need to consume it, so they seem to be two linked concepts, as for the Mohg and Morgot runes, I believe that because they give you more life and regenerate your life when attacking an enemy, they can be linked to the concept of vitality/health and regeneration

[@alyseleem2692]

@@davisiotta489 Indeed. Remember; the simplest way to understand any and all Runes, great or small, is to know this: Runes are words. Plain and simple. Everything is pre-written. Written into our very souls. To take on a Great Rune is to take on a word of power that defines the world. In this, the demigods become the words, the words we must gather to form the sentence, the sentence that defines the world. The Elden Ring is but a group of words. A sentence; a spoken and written command. The question, of course, is: Are we all written, or may we write words of our own? Were the Runes of Goldmask and the Dung Eater written by them? Or were they found by them? What was it that " guided" them to these words of power?

[@evilfungas]

You imply that the One Great Hyetta is speaking about is the same as the crucible. I don't think believe these are the same. The One Great seems to refer to the original condition of the cosmos in general. The crucible seems to be a stage in the history of the Land's Between.

[@sandcake]

Nice to have short clear videos. Subscribed.

[@katieschwarz8465]

new video to fall asleep to every night 🤤

[@ashtonforde6152]

Jarrett freakin Sales 🫡

[@katieschwarz8465]

genuinely so enjoyable, good job jarrett ☺

[@nathandaven]

Jarrett fans are eating good today 😬😋

[@KaleLaRune]

Wow this was exactly what I was looking for. When’s the next one?

[@JarrettSales]

Looking to release them once every two weeks, maybe once every week if I have the time

[@KaleLaRune]

Let’s goooo

[@PWNINSWAGMASTER]

Hey, would it be alright if I share with you a theory I have about Melina, Ranni, the GEQ, and the KotBK?

[@kellyreynolds4488]

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[@elathe2351]

hello jar-rat, welcome to the comments!

[@godofultraviolence]

oh my…

[@A.I3]

Oh my god thank you. I was looking for the complete history of Elden Ring today and saw this was just uploaded. ❤❤

[@Josh-ru6kc]

The goat finally did it!

[@nbmoleminer5051]

👏👏👏👏👍

[@SenSad]

Precise and to the point. Very nice

[@padraig4659]

do i hate mars bars

[@leadfaun]

guh

[@jakerune]

What's the lore of why my wife left me

[@JarrettSales]

Jankler the Rankled King destroyed her

[@Am_Kosmos]

You aint packing

[@champion_soap_eater]

lfg🎉

[@TrulyHonest1]

Snail lore ??