Queen Marika the Eternal

Between, and vessel for The Elden Ring. Her offspring possess demigod stature and are bearers of Great Runes.

Lore

The goddess Marika originally came from the lands of the Numen. She was an Empyrean who ascended to godhood and became ruler of The Lands Between with the assistance of an Outer God: The Greater Will. Marika had a male half by the name of Radagon. The exact nature of their relationship is unclear, but while the two had separate bodies and wills, they were in truth one and the same. As an empyrean, she was gifted a Shadow, her half-brother Maliketh. Achieving godhood as the vessel of the Elden Ring, Marika took a consort, Godfrey, who thus became the first Elden Lord. Desiring a world free of Destined Death, she removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring and had her shadow Maliketh guard it. In the early days of The Erdtree, everything was in opposition to it and Marika's order. But with Godfrey at the head of her armies, Marika persevered and the Erdtree would reign supreme as the embodiment of order itself. One of these wars was waged against the Fire Giants, who met defeat when Marika slew their fell god. Unable to extinguish the Flame of Ruin atop the frigid northern mountains, a credible threat to the Erdtree, she cursed the last of the giants to forever tend to it. With the Erdtree now supreme, Marika and Godfrey would rule together and had at least three children; Godwyn the Golden and the twins Morgott, the Omen King and Mohg, Lord of Blood. Morgott and Mohg were born cursed as Omens, and were hidden in the depths below the capital. With her rule secure, Marika announced her intention to search the depths of The Golden Order, declaring the early days of blind belief in the Greater Will a thing long past. when Godfrey's last foe fell, Marika banished him and his kinfolk and robbed them of the guidance of grace, creating the first Tarnished, in the hope that they would grow stronger by waging war in lands outside her rule, dying, and then being revived and brought back with the guidance of her grace. After Godfrey's banishment from the Lands Between, Marika took her male half, Radagon, as husband and King Consort. Radagon already had several children with Queen Rennala of the Carian Royal Family, and after Marika's "engagement" to Radagon, Marika lifted his children to demigod status. Marika and Radagon had twin children, Malenia and Miquella, who like Marika herself and Radagon's daughter Lunar Princess Ranni, were born empyreans, and thus potential successors to Marika. However, as the twins were in truth the children of a single god, they were both born cursed; Malenia with a rotting sickness and Miquella

The Night of the Black Knives

In an event that would come to be known as the Night of Black Knives, a group of assassins, all of them Numen women and associates of Marika, fell upon the Royal Capital. Wielding weapons imbued with the power of Destined Death, stolen from Maliketh, the assassins slew several demigods before the attack could be thwarted. The first to fall was Marika's first-born, Godwyn the Golden. Some time after this, Marika finally turned against the Greater Will. She lifted her hammer and shattered the Elden Ring; while Radagon simultaneously tried, and failed, to repair it. Unable to remove Marika as its vessel, the Greater Will imprisoned her in the Erdtree along with Radagon, the two bound together in a single body. Fragments of the ring splintered into Great Runes and spread across the Lands Between, starting a conflict between her demigod children to determine who would be Marika's successor. War after war was fought, but there would be no victor. And even in shackles, Marika would remain a god. True to her promise to Godfrey and his warriors, Marika restored grace to the banished Tarnished. They would rise from their graves, and journey to the Lands Between to once again brandish the Elden Ring. The Tarnished formed the Roundtable Hold, where they worked to realize the goal given them by Marika. The tarnished would be served by the blacksmith Hewg whom Marika had charged with smithing a "god-slaying weapon" before his imprisonment inside Roundtable Hold.