Tarnished

Description

The Tarnished are individuals who lost the grace of The Erdtree and were consequently banished from The Lands Between by Queen Marika the Eternal. Following the breaking of The Elden Ring, the Tarnished were beckoned by lost grace, fragmentary divine light from the Erdtree, to return.

Lore

Tarnished who have proven themselves are allowed to enter the Roundtable Hold, a hidden place of refuge where violence between Tarnished is forbidden. A rare few Tarnished are chosen to be sponsored by a Finger Maiden, a human representative of the Two Fingers, granting them the power to convert Runes into strength and setting them on the path to become the new Elden Lord by seizing the Great Runes from the demigods and restoring the Elden Ring.
Most Tarnished can perceive grace only faintly, and lose sight of it altogether after arriving in the Lands Between, leaving them directionless and without hope. Some of these Tarnished fall prey to a form of corruption called cessblood and become Bloody Fingers, frenzied killers who obsessively hunt their fellow Tarnished and revel in their blood.
Since The Shattering, an age has passed in stagnation; no demigod was able to claim the mantle of Elden Lord, and no Tarnished was able to defeat any of the demigods. This might change with the arrival of certain Tarnished of no renown.

"Arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live. The call of long-lost grace speaks to us all."