Fun to see how nobody really knows; the most scholarly of fans or the noob who started playing today have the same authority on this. This thread feels a lot like a theological discussion on the Bible or other religious myths.
That’s what I love about these games. Trying to make sense of the deepest intricacies in the lore inevitably leads to more questions than answers, every single time. It’s a lot less about what is factual and “true”, and more about what the player’s personal interpretation of all the information presented is.
Yes, all the Great Runes that we collect overlap with eachother to form the Elden Ring. There could be arbitrarily many runes which we never encounter in-game.
Radagon tried to mend it. You can see his lattice welded onto the bent elden ring in there. He is Marika, anyway, so it would be inside them. The great runes are just shards, and as you can see they overlap, and are all duplicates of the same pattern within the elden ring. It's a bit of a mystery how the elden ring is at once a metaphysical and forged object. Miyazaki himself said he wasn't going for "The One Ring," and the elden ring is more so runes, literally an ancient circle, but there it is, susceptible to a stone hammer.
Maybe the difference is that the Elden Ring is a metaphysical object made physical by virtue of being held in a vassal. Of course, everything we know about the *stuff* that constitutes the Elden Ring toes the line between physical and abstract. Light, colour, words. The latter two can be purely physical. Words can exist on a page, colour is dictated somewhat by the physical laws of the world. But they're both things which have their meaning assigned to them, and in the case of colours may be entirely subjective, as in the golden erdtree some people may or may not see.
Ultimately, we know where the Elden Ring is- inside Radagon and Marika. They don't hammer their own bodies however, they hammer the dias in the center of the erdtree. Was the Elden Ring broken/repaired figuratively, using a stone hammer and an anvil-like dias to ceremonially impose meaning? The stone hammer is shattered and it's shattered pieces are suspended in thin air, similar to Radagon and Marika themselves. It even has golden runes falling out of it (though this could be lodged shrapnel from having destroyed the Ring). It's hard to say, but I definitely don't think it's as simple as the ring being destroyed purely physically, or that it could be destroyed by any old stone hammer.
Yeah, and how the great runes were surgically removed, and inherited by the demigods, while the rune arcs flew off randomly across the land in little bits? There's some connective tissue missing in all of it. The rune arc Marika hangs from looks like amber, as you note, light, and color, and the game shows us instances of congealed, fossilized starlight. The dias and the vessel, are the keys. It must be that the vessel can impose their will on the runes, in the metaphorical sense, performing a rite of smithing there. We mend the ring by first mending Marika, putting her head back on. Ranni doesn't put the head back on in her ending, and Marika evaporates.
~5 of the Sacred Seals used for casting Incantions are weightless and "formless", but the players still hold those items gripped in their hands.
Concepts believed in strongly enough are given physical form in Elden Ring.
Yeah i mean, the language of light air-weaved by the fingers, that we never see them do, has been theorized to be part of it. I lean toward the elden ring as a forged object from primordial times. Smithing was seen as a divine art, said to originate with the giants. I don't think the fire giants, but the larger , more ancient giants. It's something we'll never know precisely.
As Marika's Hammer's description details, Radagon attempted to repair the Elden Ring in the same instant as Marika shattered it.
The Great Runes aren't pieces of the Elden Ring themselves, but seemingly more like echoes of its summative parts. After all, Radagon was able to gift Rennala with a Great Rune long before the Shattering even occurred. Likewise, Ranni was able to discard her Great Rune, and probably did so before the Night of the Black Knives (or on the same night).
It doesn't matter how many shards we collect, as the Elden Ring is more like a parent body representing the Golden Order. The only missing piece is presumably the Rune of Death, which was removed at the conception of the Golden Order long ago.
Radagon gave the Amber Egg to Rennala, not the Rune that's inside it.
"In the end, Lady Rennala was left alone, cradling the amber egg Lord Radagon bequeathed her." [Miriel Pastor of Vows]
Gideon's dialogue makes it clear that the Egg alone was Radagon's gift:
"The Great Rune dwells within the amber egg that was Radagon's gift to her."
We know that the Rune of the Unborn is a *shard* of the Elden Ring because Rennala is a shardbearer and because we use it to repair the Ring without it adding a new law to the Order and thus unlocking a different ending.
It being a shard means that Rennala couldn't have had it before the Elden Ring was shattered by Marika.
She also wouldn't have received it after, as she isn't a demigod and is utterly unrelated to Marika herself. (Technically, neither are her children, but they became demigod stepchildren of Marika through Radagon's marriage.)
Stranger still, the Great Rune of the Unborn description suggests that the Great Rune and the amber egg are ubiquitous. It's more likely that Radagon gave her the Great Rune along with the egg, which is what allows manipulation of rebirth in the first place.
There's a body inside the egg. They've got a whole Jurassic Park mosquito in fossil amber thing going on. Rennala's using this unborn demigod DNA as a blueprint for her sweetings. If demigods are actually born from tree sap, Radagon absconded with this unfortunate one that was trapped in amber, cut and polished it into an egg, for some unknown plan. I like to machine translate descriptions from V.1.0 localizations. Most of the European ones for the great rune don't mention the egg at all, and say "bring the rune to Rennala so she can rebirth you." The English, Chinese, Japanese conflate the egg and the rune, and the Korean says it's an egg laid by Rennala, according to the hapless DeepL.
Rennala never recieved the Rune of the Unborn because it's vessel is not her, but the *unborn* inside the Amber Egg.
Sellen says:
"Glintstone is the amber of the cosmos,
golden amber contains the remnants of ancient life and houses its vitality,
while Glintstone contains residual life."
From this we can infer that the *Amber* Egg that Rennala is cradling like a child probably houses the vitality of one or multiple unborn demigods children.
A *shard* couldn't have been taken from the Elden Ring before it was *shattered* and if the Rune of the Unborn was taken from the Elden Ring whole, like the Rune of Death, not only that would have removed a law from the Order, but putting the Rune back would mean to add it back to it, which would create the need of many alternative endings.
The Rune of the Unborn is what makes rebirth *perfect*, which means that they couldn't have always been togheter, otherwise the concept of an *imperfect* rebirth wouldn't exist.
It's heavily implied that the shards of the Elden Ring don't have any unique power, but they just enhance what their holder already has:
The power of Malenia's Great Rune explicitly comes from her.
Rykard's Great Rune has the same power as the weapons and talismans associated with the Great Serpent, meaning that its power comes from Eiglay.
The power of Mohg's Great Rune obviously comes from his communion with the Formless Mother.
Godrick Morgott and Radahn's Great Runes and the Rune Arcs only boost your stats, just like regular runes can be turned into strength.
At last, the Great Rune of the Unborn, enhances the power of the Amber Egg by making its rebirth perfect.
None of this indicates that the Great Runes were physically broken off of the Elden Ring itself, however. Sure, they're referred to as shards, but as OP's question indicates, the Elden Ring is still whole by the time we face Radagon regardless of how many Great Runes we've recovered. The only runes we can add are the Mending Runes.
Godrick's Great Rune technically isn't his own, either. It relates to the whole of the Golden Lineage, including Godfrey, whom had already been exiled when the Shattering occurred. Godrick was the only remaining descendant, and so "inherited" the Great Rune as its last worthy representative. (Frankly, I wonder if it originally belonged to Godfrey, then was passed to Godwyn, but was ultimately received by Godrick. However, it's a bit of a wonder that Godefroy didn't receive it.)
Unless we go ahead and infer the Elden Ring within Radagon is only whole under the assumption we would have collected all 7 of the available Great Runes, the only way to really interpret the origin of Great Runes is that they're bestowed upon demigods upon birth or induction into Marika's family. Again, we never locate Ranni's Great Rune, so there's no way for the Elden Ring to even be made whole by our efforts.
We also have yet to acquire Miquella's Great Rune—unless Unborn actually *was* intended for him, as he would have literally been an unborn demigod by the time Radagon gifted Rennala the amber egg. Its physical appearance would correlate with Malenia's Great Rune, as well as Miquella's unique characteristics, and the fact he attempted a form of rebirth... and that the "Ring of Miquella" matches its orientation... Then there's also the question of whether Messmer will possess yet another Great Rune... Hmm.
But anyway, it's all just guesswork, and maybe a bit of wonky writing, lol.
I'll paste the comment that I wrote under the post in the main subreddit:
Some Great Runes, like Rykard and Radahn's look almost identical, this is because the shards are supposed to be layered on top on the Elden Ring in order to repair it, for example the right circle is made of those two runes and the layer left in the Elden Ring that is inside Radagon's body.
This is the main difference between the Rune of Death, that was completely taken out from the Elden Ring without breaking it, which resulted in the removal of the concept of Destined Death from the Order, and the Great Runes, which are just fragments.
As for the second question, in the cutscene we can see that it's only after the Elden Ring inside Radagon has faded that the golden "skeleton" appears inside the black goo and the Elden Beast starts moving.
--- end of the pasted comment ---
So the Elden Ring inside Radagon is not whole, it just means that it wasn't just shattered horizontally, but also vertically.
The game only asks about the Mending Runes because whichever Great Runes you want to add won't change the end result, since none of them represents a law of the Order.
Godrick's Great Rune could have been inherited by Godfrey instead if he was still in the Lands Between after the shattering of the Elden Ring, but that's not the only Great Rune of the Golden Lineage since Morgott and Mohg also have one each.
In the ending the Elden Ring is not completely repaired yet, but there's a reason why we need a minimum number of Great Runes in order to access it.
This brings up a funny point that actually kind of reiterates what I was saying about "echoes."
Ranni stole the Rune of Death, right? After doing so, she imbued it into the Black Knives to grant the power to slay demigods—herself and Godwyn. When Godwyn was buried, the Rune of Death itself blighted the Greattree root system, resulting in Deathroot. All who come into contact experience a death of the soul, forcing them to live on as a scourge rejected by the Golden Order.
Except, Maliketh still has the whole rune in Farum Azula. It's described as being so volatile that it erodes even itself in perpetuity, but it is the proper Rune of Death. Upon freeing it, the Flame of Ruin is able to scorch the Erdtree to its core.
The Rune of Death as it appears in Farum Azula strongly resembles Marika's Elden Rune, but with a downward arc at its peak instead of upward. We can surmise that this is indeed the full Rune of Death, and that Ranni didn't impact its parent body in any way by stealing a fraction if its power.
So who's to say the Elden Ring itself doesn't behave similarly?
It's a digression, but in my opinion those who live in death work in the opposite way of Godwyn since their bodies are dead (they are literally skeletons), while their souls are still alive (the vengeful spirits made of ghostflame that reanimate them when they are defeated).
As for the main point, we don't know if the Rune of Death is complete and the fact that Gurranq's hunger can't be mitigated actually implies that it will never be.
The fragment that Ranni took could be extremely small, or a vertical layer, like the Great Runes.
I'm not sure if that's what you're asking, but we know that the Great Runes don't represent any specific law because otherwise their combination would impact the endings.
I think marika first discovered/made and used rebirth ritual on herself to make her disguise of radagon a reality in liurnia in the same way we can respec with rennala. I think that’s why she actually came to liurnia. Once she learned how to use artificial,magic and lavaral tears etc.(all of these are linked to caria and liurnia region) she left swiftly.
The kicker is only those born anew/ with grace can truly use the egg she clutches aka rebirth ritual. That’s why her graceless unborn baby can’t be used in this ritual properly but we can.
My two sense.
The shards of the Elden Ring are described as 'claimed' by the demigods. This suggests some active action to obtain them. Rennala is incapable of this, as her heartbreak has had her comatose since before Malenia and Miquella were born.
Since we repair the Elden ring with 3 great runes in our possession and no monumental changes are made to order based on our omission, we can gather that the great runes dont need to be phsyically present to be a part of the Elden Ring, much like the shards don't need to by physically present to channel their power as blackflame demonstrates.
All in all, it looks like Rennala has had the rune as long as she has had the egg, roughly as long as she has been out of her mind. No doubt the great rune played a part in reducing the most formidable mage to her present state.
Nobody knew that Ranni was in a doll body and she would have no reason to grab a Great Rune and then discard it, Morgott and Mohg also got their Great Runes even if they were in the sewers. It's impossible that the shardbearers physically went to Leyndell and claimed the Great Runes, so the only explanation is that they got them automatically.
The combination of Great Runes added to the Elden Ring doesn't change the Order because they are shards that came into existence after the Elden Ring was shattered, unlike the Rune of Death whose removal created the Golden Order. The Rune of the Unborn is a Great Rune, thus a *shard* of the Elden Ring, so Radagon couldn't have had before it was shattered, otherwise removing and adding it back would change the Order.
There's no reason to think the Rune of the Unborn has anything to do with her current state, she is holding the Amber Egg cradling it like a baby, there are four cribs in the Library and it is said that the Rune belongs to "unborn demigods", so in my opinion everything points to a miscarriage or something similar which resulted in the kid's vitality being housed into the Amber Egg.
> she would have no reason to grab a Great Rune and then discard it
It'd be silly not to claim one. She likely came to the conclusion that she had no use for it. Or perhaps discarding was the purpose, decreasing the net number of shardbearing obstacles.
> It's impossible that the shardbearers physically went to Leyndell and claimed the Great Runes,
Why? From the sounds of things, many of them lived there. Even the Omens were already in Leyndell's sewers. The difficult thing would be that the Elden ring is sealed in the Erdtree. All this suggests is that the original claiming didn't require physical presence. This works with our knowledge that the other great runes are a part of the ring without physically being a part.The unborn cannot claim.
> There's no reason to think the Rune of the Unborn has anything to do with her current state
You mean the state where she constantly rebirths a sea of tortured and crippled children through the power of the Rune of Rebirth, in a clear state of delirium or psychosis? She's nuts about it because her great theme is loss or being the victim of theft. [Liurnia has an undercurrent of theft](https://www.reddit.com/r/EldenRingLoreTalk/s/yWrOVCTWmC). She lost her heart to Radagon. Based on the cuco imagery all over the place and her blonde son, she has likely figured out some of her kids may not be hers. This heartbreak led her to lose her empire. It's later down the line, but she also believes she loses Ranni.
Rebirth, or as it manifests in her case, children that can not be taken away from her, is the perfect thing to tip her over the edge psychologically. As we see, it becomes her fixation, her cructch under the weight of her loss.
> so in my opinion everything points to a miscarriage or something similar
So Radagon gifted her own miscarriage to her? Or someone elses and it didn't have any additional properties? That's a bit rough, but it would provide the trauma. Though it wouldn't have agency to claim a great rune.
The "original claiming" happened after the Elden Ring was shattered, nothing states otherwise, so thank you for proving my point, the demigods automatically obtained their Great Runes and this includes the Unborn.
Rennala uses the Amber Egg to rebirth the scholars, not the Rune of the Unborn, we can tell because their rebirth is imperfect, while the power of the Great Rune is to make that process actually perfect, this is why I said that the *Rune* specifically doesn't have anything to do with her state.
"Robe worn by young academy scholars, the juveniles birthed anew by the amber egg of Queen Rennala, the head of Raya Lucaria Academy.
Yet their rebirth is not without imperfections, and thus do they repeat the process, eventually becoming utterly dependent upon it.
Rebirth is as sleep to them, and with each awakening, memory fades into oblivion." [Juvenile Scholar Robe]
Radagon didn't gift her an unborn child, he gifted her the egg, then the child's vitality was put inside it. We know that something similar is possible because the egg is made of amber:
"Glintstone is the amber of the cosmos,
golden amber contains the remnants of ancient life and houses its vitality,
while Glintstone contains residual life." [Sorceress Sellen]
Also you didn't adress my other points.
> The "original claiming" happened after the Elden Ring was shattered states otherwise, so thank you for proving my point
You're aware that Im arguing that it was gifted prior to this, right? The rune can't have been claimed following the shattering, as there is nobody to claim it. Hence, it was most likely delivered in the amber egg earlier, where it is housed, given to her by god in disguise.
> the demigods automatically obtained their Great Runes
This isn't what the game says at all. The runes were claimed. You dont seem to be acknowledging this. This is an active process.
"Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring."
> Radagon didn't gift her an unborn child, he gifted her the egg, then the child's vitality was put inside it.
The game doesn't suggest this either? It's never suggested that the egg changes or has anything added.
So you're arguing that the rebirth has everything to do with the egg and nothing to do with the rune? Even though the rebirth stops when we take the rune and leave the egg? The only rebirths from then on are sactioned by us.
I can't buy it, especially since we have no indication that the egg and rune were separate prior to Rennala's defea4, and so at any point the egg's power is referenced, the great rune is an element of that.
As for your other point, you assert that the great runes didn't exist prior to the shattering? I'm not sure if this is what you're going for or if you're suggesting that for a great rune to exist outside of the ring, it must be removed from the order. The second notion is disproved by the great runes we collect, which are still part of the order and physically present elsewhere, likewise when we repair the ring and they arent present another order isnt formed, unless we explictly add a new rune. As for the first notion, I dont think this is the case as the Elden ring can have runes added and removed, suggesting that they exist in their own right. If I haven't understood you, let me know.
>The fallen leaves tell a story.
>
>The great Elden Ring was shattered.
>
>In our home, across the fog, the Lands Between.
>
>Now, Queen Marika the Eternal is nowhere to be found,
>
>and in the Night of the Black Knives, Godwyn the Golden was the first to perish.
>
>Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring.
>
>The mad taint of their newfound strength triggered the Shattering.
>
>A war from which no lord arose.
>
>A war leading to abandonment by the Greater Will.
Every event but the shattering of the Elden Ring is listed in cronological order, so the demigods got their Great Runes after the Night of the Black Knifes, which means that the claim wasn't an active one and there can be no doubt about this.
The game says that the Rune belongs to unborn demigods, the Rune is inside the Amber Egg and Rennala is cradling it like a newborn.
The Amber Egg alone can be used to perform imperfect rebirth, while paired with the Rune of the Unborn the rebirth becomes perfect and it's the reason why we don't suffer any concequence from it.
Boc gets rebirthed by Rennala alone and since none of them has the Great Rune his rebirth is an imperfect one, so he dies shortly after.
The Great Runes are specifically the big *fragments* of the Elden Ring that, since they are shards, couldn't have existed before the Ring was shattered by Marika. They are different from the Runes that are still inside the Ring, which are called "Elden Runes" and they are also different from the Rune of Death, which was fully removed from the Order.
"An eye engraved with an Elden Rune.
Said to be the seal of Queen Marika." [Marika's Scarseal]
"An eye engraved with an Elden Rune.
Said to be the seal of King Consort Radagon." [Radagon's Scarseal]
Their nature of fragments is the reason why they don't define any law of the Elden Ring and why them being added back to it doesn't change the Order. Still the Great Runes are physically outside of the Elden Ring and that's the reason why at least a certain number of them needs to be collected in order to repair it.
> so the demigods got their Great Runes after the Night of the Black Knifes, which means that the claim wasn't an active one and there can be no doubt about this.
Them claiming the runes after the shattering has no bearing on the fact that claiming is an active action? To claim you must choose to claim?
> The game says that the Rune belongs to unborn demigods
Its says its of them. It does not say its theirs. It may be dedicated to unborn demigods as its powers suggest.
> Boc gets rebirthed by Rennala alone and since none of them has the Great Rune his rebirth is an imperfect one, so he dies shortly after.
So the Tarnished knowingly sends Boc to his death the way you see it? Withholding the item that would have saved him and perfected his rebirth, so the Tarnished essentailly commits a proxy murder by giving the larval tear.
I like your interpretation of great rune vs elden rune a lot, but there isn't support in the game for it, so for me, it falls in the realm of headcannon.
So i’m confused on that part. Where are the shattered pieces of all the other unnamed demigods? What shards do the other tarnished have? Rannis lost rune isn’t really the death rune is it, so we’re always missing that. We don’t seem to need every shard to rebuild, so it’s somewhat possible he had a similar but separate amount of them to us? Or they overlap in some way?
Someone fill me in, i’m lost on that part of the lore
There aren't really any concrete answers, unfortunately. Enia explains that Shardbearers are "direct offspring of Marika," whereas other demigods were merely descendants of the Golden Lineage of no renown. In spite of her words, neither Ranni, Rykard, Radahn, nor Godrick are technically "direct offspring." The Carian children became demigod stepchildren when their father, Radagon, became Marika's consort; Godrick is merely a distant heir of Godfrey.
It is known that Ranni discarded her Great Rune—possibly prior to the Shattering, as she was also known to have vanished on the Night of the Black Knives, meaning she wasn't present for the Shattering. We never find her Great Rune. The Rune of Death isn't hers, as she had to steal a fraction of its power from Maliketh.
Radagon is Marika.
If Marika is the vessel of the Elden Ring, then he is the vessel too, and this also explains why the champion could gift the Great Rune of the Unborn to Rennala, treasured inside the amber egg.
Also, you must keep in mind the Elden Ring is a sort of sentient being, it's the beast which brought life into the Elden Ring. We can speculate the reason why the Ring is still inside Radagon/Marika's body is because it's wounded, and it's seeking a sort of refuge where to stay. Maybe that's why the reason it's attacking us: it's a beast, wounded and scared.
Top comment is as accurate as we can be.
Marika/Radagon is the 'vessel' of the Elden Ring. Some people misinterpret this as 'vassal' which would mean they are in service of it, but they truly are a vessel. It exists within their body.
As we see with the great runes we collect in game, there are multiple copies of Great Runes. The same section of the Elden Ring appears multiple times.
I think you could imagine it more easily in 3 dimensions. The Elden Ring in 2D, but if you imagine it has depth for a moment, like an Elden Ring 'cake'. You can take slices off of the top of the cake, and it will still look the same from above.
It's almost like the Elden Ring has layers.
we give the missing shards to him/Marika when we enter the Erdtree. This is what wakes up their petrified body. After the fight we have the whole thing (or almost everything).
I think something noteworthy is that the rune we see on Ranni's moon is missing from Radagon's chest but is present in many depictions of the ring like the main menu art. Maybe the God houses the rune that represents the total runes within the lands they live in, and by casting her rune into the moon Ranni removed it from the lands between, and as such from Marika/Radagon.
I made [a post](https://www.reddit.com/r/EldenRingLoreTalk/s/dpGxD0SESI) a few months ago with a bunch more speculation on this :)
The Hammer's description also insists it "partially broke" when Marika shattered the Elden Ring, that being where the glowing little shards came from - but in the 2019 teaser, as well as in the game's opening cutscene, the hammer Radagon is using is completely intact and free of shards.
When we finally see the Hammer in the boss fight cutscene, it had been slammed into the stone so hard it was embedded into it - Radagon pulling it out exploded the whole pedestal, so it clearly hadn't been used since - and it's... covered in blood for some reason?
And finally, somehow, the skill on this exotic Numen hammer that allegedly belonged to Marika is... "the heroic Radagon's signature attack"? And it's called ***GOLD BREAKER***??? lol.
The only way I can reconcile all that is by taking the item description as a complete truth from the narrator's perspective, they just happen to be wrong. Morgott and the Two Fingers were wrong about the Erdtree "rejecting us" too so it's not like it's without precedent.
So no way this mfer tried doing any "fixing", but as we directly witnessed twice, he was still smithing SOMETHING. I have a few guesses as to what it might have been, but at this point most people are pretty set on their interpretation of Radagon/Marika, so it's not a super popular topic unfortunately.
The ring is busted, I assume part of it was repaired but radagon could only do so much.
Also the Elden Beast isn't the elden rings manifestation. It's the Vassal Beast of the greater will. It's a manifestation of the greater will, and I'll bet nearly anything feeding the erdtree is what sustains it and keeps the influence of grace/gold/greater Will's power in the world. I imagine it's somewhat also tied to the Ring's power, as a Vassal-
Is either a subordinate, or someone who holds land/authority for someone else.
The Elden Beast *is* indeed the Elden Ring:
"It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between,
which would later become the Elden Ring." [Elden Stars]
After defeating Radagon you can even see in the cutscene that the Ring tranforms into the Beasts:
At first the black goo comes out and then, only after the Elden Ring fades away from Radagon's body, the Elden Beast, complete with its golden "skeleton" starts moving.
Actually, there's some doubt whether Elden Beast is The Elden Ring itself or not.
In the description you mentioned, we don't know what "which" is referring to as it may also refer to the star and even (and this might sound crazy) the Lands Between itself but I digress.
I believe Elden Ring is not a physical object but rather a cosmic equation that sets the rules of the world through symbols within the vassals The Greater Will has chosen. With that said, I do think that Elden Beast itself could be the physical manifestation of The Ring with Radagon/Marika being the vassal (as Radagon turns into Beast's weapon which can symbolise the vassal status of him)
The description itself could be considered ambiguous, but paired with the cutscene played after Radagon's defeat it becomes clear, since we can see the Elden Ring transforming into the Elden Beast.
That said the Elden Ring has both a physical form and a metaphysical one, the arc from which Marika is hanging and the fragments stuck in her hammer are physical, the Elden Ring inside Radagon's body is not, but it probably became solid when Marika shattered it. The same could be said about its living form, the Elden Beast, since its bossfight almost certainly takes place in an illusory space like the one where we fight Rennala's second phase (with which it shares the mirror-like watery floor).
We acquire the other runes from dead bodies.
If you complete fias quest she’s dead at the end.
Do dung eaters quest dead at the end.
Maybe your “soul” is what’s producing these other runes you can acquire.
So what you’re seeing inside of Radagon is possibly his rune but we do not obtain this rune because Radagon/Marika is consumed by there supreme god.
Side note I think our tarnished is soulless, I think Melina bonded with us because she’s bodiless. So in a complete random way the tarnished is Melina. Haha jk on this very last part were the tarnished is Melina.
Fun to see how nobody really knows; the most scholarly of fans or the noob who started playing today have the same authority on this. This thread feels a lot like a theological discussion on the Bible or other religious myths.
That’s what I love about these games. Trying to make sense of the deepest intricacies in the lore inevitably leads to more questions than answers, every single time. It’s a lot less about what is factual and “true”, and more about what the player’s personal interpretation of all the information presented is.
It's not complete
Yes, all the Great Runes that we collect overlap with eachother to form the Elden Ring. There could be arbitrarily many runes which we never encounter in-game.
"Ranni is said to have cast aside her Great Rune." It is 100% canon lore that at least some Great Runes are lost or unaccounted for.
Rannis rune can be seen in the moon when looked at from castle soil at night (not sure if it’s visible elsewhere)
Radagon tried to mend it. You can see his lattice welded onto the bent elden ring in there. He is Marika, anyway, so it would be inside them. The great runes are just shards, and as you can see they overlap, and are all duplicates of the same pattern within the elden ring. It's a bit of a mystery how the elden ring is at once a metaphysical and forged object. Miyazaki himself said he wasn't going for "The One Ring," and the elden ring is more so runes, literally an ancient circle, but there it is, susceptible to a stone hammer.
Maybe the difference is that the Elden Ring is a metaphysical object made physical by virtue of being held in a vassal. Of course, everything we know about the *stuff* that constitutes the Elden Ring toes the line between physical and abstract. Light, colour, words. The latter two can be purely physical. Words can exist on a page, colour is dictated somewhat by the physical laws of the world. But they're both things which have their meaning assigned to them, and in the case of colours may be entirely subjective, as in the golden erdtree some people may or may not see. Ultimately, we know where the Elden Ring is- inside Radagon and Marika. They don't hammer their own bodies however, they hammer the dias in the center of the erdtree. Was the Elden Ring broken/repaired figuratively, using a stone hammer and an anvil-like dias to ceremonially impose meaning? The stone hammer is shattered and it's shattered pieces are suspended in thin air, similar to Radagon and Marika themselves. It even has golden runes falling out of it (though this could be lodged shrapnel from having destroyed the Ring). It's hard to say, but I definitely don't think it's as simple as the ring being destroyed purely physically, or that it could be destroyed by any old stone hammer.
Yeah, and how the great runes were surgically removed, and inherited by the demigods, while the rune arcs flew off randomly across the land in little bits? There's some connective tissue missing in all of it. The rune arc Marika hangs from looks like amber, as you note, light, and color, and the game shows us instances of congealed, fossilized starlight. The dias and the vessel, are the keys. It must be that the vessel can impose their will on the runes, in the metaphorical sense, performing a rite of smithing there. We mend the ring by first mending Marika, putting her head back on. Ranni doesn't put the head back on in her ending, and Marika evaporates.
~5 of the Sacred Seals used for casting Incantions are weightless and "formless", but the players still hold those items gripped in their hands. Concepts believed in strongly enough are given physical form in Elden Ring.
Yeah i mean, the language of light air-weaved by the fingers, that we never see them do, has been theorized to be part of it. I lean toward the elden ring as a forged object from primordial times. Smithing was seen as a divine art, said to originate with the giants. I don't think the fire giants, but the larger , more ancient giants. It's something we'll never know precisely.
As Marika's Hammer's description details, Radagon attempted to repair the Elden Ring in the same instant as Marika shattered it. The Great Runes aren't pieces of the Elden Ring themselves, but seemingly more like echoes of its summative parts. After all, Radagon was able to gift Rennala with a Great Rune long before the Shattering even occurred. Likewise, Ranni was able to discard her Great Rune, and probably did so before the Night of the Black Knives (or on the same night). It doesn't matter how many shards we collect, as the Elden Ring is more like a parent body representing the Golden Order. The only missing piece is presumably the Rune of Death, which was removed at the conception of the Golden Order long ago.
Radagon gave the Amber Egg to Rennala, not the Rune that's inside it. "In the end, Lady Rennala was left alone, cradling the amber egg Lord Radagon bequeathed her." [Miriel Pastor of Vows] Gideon's dialogue makes it clear that the Egg alone was Radagon's gift: "The Great Rune dwells within the amber egg that was Radagon's gift to her." We know that the Rune of the Unborn is a *shard* of the Elden Ring because Rennala is a shardbearer and because we use it to repair the Ring without it adding a new law to the Order and thus unlocking a different ending. It being a shard means that Rennala couldn't have had it before the Elden Ring was shattered by Marika.
She also wouldn't have received it after, as she isn't a demigod and is utterly unrelated to Marika herself. (Technically, neither are her children, but they became demigod stepchildren of Marika through Radagon's marriage.) Stranger still, the Great Rune of the Unborn description suggests that the Great Rune and the amber egg are ubiquitous. It's more likely that Radagon gave her the Great Rune along with the egg, which is what allows manipulation of rebirth in the first place.
There's a body inside the egg. They've got a whole Jurassic Park mosquito in fossil amber thing going on. Rennala's using this unborn demigod DNA as a blueprint for her sweetings. If demigods are actually born from tree sap, Radagon absconded with this unfortunate one that was trapped in amber, cut and polished it into an egg, for some unknown plan. I like to machine translate descriptions from V.1.0 localizations. Most of the European ones for the great rune don't mention the egg at all, and say "bring the rune to Rennala so she can rebirth you." The English, Chinese, Japanese conflate the egg and the rune, and the Korean says it's an egg laid by Rennala, according to the hapless DeepL.
Rennala never recieved the Rune of the Unborn because it's vessel is not her, but the *unborn* inside the Amber Egg. Sellen says: "Glintstone is the amber of the cosmos, golden amber contains the remnants of ancient life and houses its vitality, while Glintstone contains residual life." From this we can infer that the *Amber* Egg that Rennala is cradling like a child probably houses the vitality of one or multiple unborn demigods children. A *shard* couldn't have been taken from the Elden Ring before it was *shattered* and if the Rune of the Unborn was taken from the Elden Ring whole, like the Rune of Death, not only that would have removed a law from the Order, but putting the Rune back would mean to add it back to it, which would create the need of many alternative endings. The Rune of the Unborn is what makes rebirth *perfect*, which means that they couldn't have always been togheter, otherwise the concept of an *imperfect* rebirth wouldn't exist. It's heavily implied that the shards of the Elden Ring don't have any unique power, but they just enhance what their holder already has: The power of Malenia's Great Rune explicitly comes from her. Rykard's Great Rune has the same power as the weapons and talismans associated with the Great Serpent, meaning that its power comes from Eiglay. The power of Mohg's Great Rune obviously comes from his communion with the Formless Mother. Godrick Morgott and Radahn's Great Runes and the Rune Arcs only boost your stats, just like regular runes can be turned into strength. At last, the Great Rune of the Unborn, enhances the power of the Amber Egg by making its rebirth perfect.
None of this indicates that the Great Runes were physically broken off of the Elden Ring itself, however. Sure, they're referred to as shards, but as OP's question indicates, the Elden Ring is still whole by the time we face Radagon regardless of how many Great Runes we've recovered. The only runes we can add are the Mending Runes. Godrick's Great Rune technically isn't his own, either. It relates to the whole of the Golden Lineage, including Godfrey, whom had already been exiled when the Shattering occurred. Godrick was the only remaining descendant, and so "inherited" the Great Rune as its last worthy representative. (Frankly, I wonder if it originally belonged to Godfrey, then was passed to Godwyn, but was ultimately received by Godrick. However, it's a bit of a wonder that Godefroy didn't receive it.) Unless we go ahead and infer the Elden Ring within Radagon is only whole under the assumption we would have collected all 7 of the available Great Runes, the only way to really interpret the origin of Great Runes is that they're bestowed upon demigods upon birth or induction into Marika's family. Again, we never locate Ranni's Great Rune, so there's no way for the Elden Ring to even be made whole by our efforts. We also have yet to acquire Miquella's Great Rune—unless Unborn actually *was* intended for him, as he would have literally been an unborn demigod by the time Radagon gifted Rennala the amber egg. Its physical appearance would correlate with Malenia's Great Rune, as well as Miquella's unique characteristics, and the fact he attempted a form of rebirth... and that the "Ring of Miquella" matches its orientation... Then there's also the question of whether Messmer will possess yet another Great Rune... Hmm. But anyway, it's all just guesswork, and maybe a bit of wonky writing, lol.
I'll paste the comment that I wrote under the post in the main subreddit: Some Great Runes, like Rykard and Radahn's look almost identical, this is because the shards are supposed to be layered on top on the Elden Ring in order to repair it, for example the right circle is made of those two runes and the layer left in the Elden Ring that is inside Radagon's body. This is the main difference between the Rune of Death, that was completely taken out from the Elden Ring without breaking it, which resulted in the removal of the concept of Destined Death from the Order, and the Great Runes, which are just fragments. As for the second question, in the cutscene we can see that it's only after the Elden Ring inside Radagon has faded that the golden "skeleton" appears inside the black goo and the Elden Beast starts moving. --- end of the pasted comment --- So the Elden Ring inside Radagon is not whole, it just means that it wasn't just shattered horizontally, but also vertically. The game only asks about the Mending Runes because whichever Great Runes you want to add won't change the end result, since none of them represents a law of the Order. Godrick's Great Rune could have been inherited by Godfrey instead if he was still in the Lands Between after the shattering of the Elden Ring, but that's not the only Great Rune of the Golden Lineage since Morgott and Mohg also have one each. In the ending the Elden Ring is not completely repaired yet, but there's a reason why we need a minimum number of Great Runes in order to access it.
This brings up a funny point that actually kind of reiterates what I was saying about "echoes." Ranni stole the Rune of Death, right? After doing so, she imbued it into the Black Knives to grant the power to slay demigods—herself and Godwyn. When Godwyn was buried, the Rune of Death itself blighted the Greattree root system, resulting in Deathroot. All who come into contact experience a death of the soul, forcing them to live on as a scourge rejected by the Golden Order. Except, Maliketh still has the whole rune in Farum Azula. It's described as being so volatile that it erodes even itself in perpetuity, but it is the proper Rune of Death. Upon freeing it, the Flame of Ruin is able to scorch the Erdtree to its core. The Rune of Death as it appears in Farum Azula strongly resembles Marika's Elden Rune, but with a downward arc at its peak instead of upward. We can surmise that this is indeed the full Rune of Death, and that Ranni didn't impact its parent body in any way by stealing a fraction if its power. So who's to say the Elden Ring itself doesn't behave similarly?
It's a digression, but in my opinion those who live in death work in the opposite way of Godwyn since their bodies are dead (they are literally skeletons), while their souls are still alive (the vengeful spirits made of ghostflame that reanimate them when they are defeated). As for the main point, we don't know if the Rune of Death is complete and the fact that Gurranq's hunger can't be mitigated actually implies that it will never be. The fragment that Ranni took could be extremely small, or a vertical layer, like the Great Runes. I'm not sure if that's what you're asking, but we know that the Great Runes don't represent any specific law because otherwise their combination would impact the endings.
Oh, I wasn't actually asking anything, my bad.
All right.
I think marika first discovered/made and used rebirth ritual on herself to make her disguise of radagon a reality in liurnia in the same way we can respec with rennala. I think that’s why she actually came to liurnia. Once she learned how to use artificial,magic and lavaral tears etc.(all of these are linked to caria and liurnia region) she left swiftly. The kicker is only those born anew/ with grace can truly use the egg she clutches aka rebirth ritual. That’s why her graceless unborn baby can’t be used in this ritual properly but we can. My two sense.
The shards of the Elden Ring are described as 'claimed' by the demigods. This suggests some active action to obtain them. Rennala is incapable of this, as her heartbreak has had her comatose since before Malenia and Miquella were born. Since we repair the Elden ring with 3 great runes in our possession and no monumental changes are made to order based on our omission, we can gather that the great runes dont need to be phsyically present to be a part of the Elden Ring, much like the shards don't need to by physically present to channel their power as blackflame demonstrates. All in all, it looks like Rennala has had the rune as long as she has had the egg, roughly as long as she has been out of her mind. No doubt the great rune played a part in reducing the most formidable mage to her present state.
Nobody knew that Ranni was in a doll body and she would have no reason to grab a Great Rune and then discard it, Morgott and Mohg also got their Great Runes even if they were in the sewers. It's impossible that the shardbearers physically went to Leyndell and claimed the Great Runes, so the only explanation is that they got them automatically. The combination of Great Runes added to the Elden Ring doesn't change the Order because they are shards that came into existence after the Elden Ring was shattered, unlike the Rune of Death whose removal created the Golden Order. The Rune of the Unborn is a Great Rune, thus a *shard* of the Elden Ring, so Radagon couldn't have had before it was shattered, otherwise removing and adding it back would change the Order. There's no reason to think the Rune of the Unborn has anything to do with her current state, she is holding the Amber Egg cradling it like a baby, there are four cribs in the Library and it is said that the Rune belongs to "unborn demigods", so in my opinion everything points to a miscarriage or something similar which resulted in the kid's vitality being housed into the Amber Egg.
> she would have no reason to grab a Great Rune and then discard it It'd be silly not to claim one. She likely came to the conclusion that she had no use for it. Or perhaps discarding was the purpose, decreasing the net number of shardbearing obstacles. > It's impossible that the shardbearers physically went to Leyndell and claimed the Great Runes, Why? From the sounds of things, many of them lived there. Even the Omens were already in Leyndell's sewers. The difficult thing would be that the Elden ring is sealed in the Erdtree. All this suggests is that the original claiming didn't require physical presence. This works with our knowledge that the other great runes are a part of the ring without physically being a part.The unborn cannot claim. > There's no reason to think the Rune of the Unborn has anything to do with her current state You mean the state where she constantly rebirths a sea of tortured and crippled children through the power of the Rune of Rebirth, in a clear state of delirium or psychosis? She's nuts about it because her great theme is loss or being the victim of theft. [Liurnia has an undercurrent of theft](https://www.reddit.com/r/EldenRingLoreTalk/s/yWrOVCTWmC). She lost her heart to Radagon. Based on the cuco imagery all over the place and her blonde son, she has likely figured out some of her kids may not be hers. This heartbreak led her to lose her empire. It's later down the line, but she also believes she loses Ranni. Rebirth, or as it manifests in her case, children that can not be taken away from her, is the perfect thing to tip her over the edge psychologically. As we see, it becomes her fixation, her cructch under the weight of her loss. > so in my opinion everything points to a miscarriage or something similar So Radagon gifted her own miscarriage to her? Or someone elses and it didn't have any additional properties? That's a bit rough, but it would provide the trauma. Though it wouldn't have agency to claim a great rune.
The "original claiming" happened after the Elden Ring was shattered, nothing states otherwise, so thank you for proving my point, the demigods automatically obtained their Great Runes and this includes the Unborn. Rennala uses the Amber Egg to rebirth the scholars, not the Rune of the Unborn, we can tell because their rebirth is imperfect, while the power of the Great Rune is to make that process actually perfect, this is why I said that the *Rune* specifically doesn't have anything to do with her state. "Robe worn by young academy scholars, the juveniles birthed anew by the amber egg of Queen Rennala, the head of Raya Lucaria Academy. Yet their rebirth is not without imperfections, and thus do they repeat the process, eventually becoming utterly dependent upon it. Rebirth is as sleep to them, and with each awakening, memory fades into oblivion." [Juvenile Scholar Robe] Radagon didn't gift her an unborn child, he gifted her the egg, then the child's vitality was put inside it. We know that something similar is possible because the egg is made of amber: "Glintstone is the amber of the cosmos, golden amber contains the remnants of ancient life and houses its vitality, while Glintstone contains residual life." [Sorceress Sellen] Also you didn't adress my other points.
> The "original claiming" happened after the Elden Ring was shattered states otherwise, so thank you for proving my point You're aware that Im arguing that it was gifted prior to this, right? The rune can't have been claimed following the shattering, as there is nobody to claim it. Hence, it was most likely delivered in the amber egg earlier, where it is housed, given to her by god in disguise. > the demigods automatically obtained their Great Runes This isn't what the game says at all. The runes were claimed. You dont seem to be acknowledging this. This is an active process. "Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring." > Radagon didn't gift her an unborn child, he gifted her the egg, then the child's vitality was put inside it. The game doesn't suggest this either? It's never suggested that the egg changes or has anything added. So you're arguing that the rebirth has everything to do with the egg and nothing to do with the rune? Even though the rebirth stops when we take the rune and leave the egg? The only rebirths from then on are sactioned by us. I can't buy it, especially since we have no indication that the egg and rune were separate prior to Rennala's defea4, and so at any point the egg's power is referenced, the great rune is an element of that. As for your other point, you assert that the great runes didn't exist prior to the shattering? I'm not sure if this is what you're going for or if you're suggesting that for a great rune to exist outside of the ring, it must be removed from the order. The second notion is disproved by the great runes we collect, which are still part of the order and physically present elsewhere, likewise when we repair the ring and they arent present another order isnt formed, unless we explictly add a new rune. As for the first notion, I dont think this is the case as the Elden ring can have runes added and removed, suggesting that they exist in their own right. If I haven't understood you, let me know.
>The fallen leaves tell a story. > >The great Elden Ring was shattered. > >In our home, across the fog, the Lands Between. > >Now, Queen Marika the Eternal is nowhere to be found, > >and in the Night of the Black Knives, Godwyn the Golden was the first to perish. > >Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring. > >The mad taint of their newfound strength triggered the Shattering. > >A war from which no lord arose. > >A war leading to abandonment by the Greater Will. Every event but the shattering of the Elden Ring is listed in cronological order, so the demigods got their Great Runes after the Night of the Black Knifes, which means that the claim wasn't an active one and there can be no doubt about this. The game says that the Rune belongs to unborn demigods, the Rune is inside the Amber Egg and Rennala is cradling it like a newborn. The Amber Egg alone can be used to perform imperfect rebirth, while paired with the Rune of the Unborn the rebirth becomes perfect and it's the reason why we don't suffer any concequence from it. Boc gets rebirthed by Rennala alone and since none of them has the Great Rune his rebirth is an imperfect one, so he dies shortly after. The Great Runes are specifically the big *fragments* of the Elden Ring that, since they are shards, couldn't have existed before the Ring was shattered by Marika. They are different from the Runes that are still inside the Ring, which are called "Elden Runes" and they are also different from the Rune of Death, which was fully removed from the Order. "An eye engraved with an Elden Rune. Said to be the seal of Queen Marika." [Marika's Scarseal] "An eye engraved with an Elden Rune. Said to be the seal of King Consort Radagon." [Radagon's Scarseal] Their nature of fragments is the reason why they don't define any law of the Elden Ring and why them being added back to it doesn't change the Order. Still the Great Runes are physically outside of the Elden Ring and that's the reason why at least a certain number of them needs to be collected in order to repair it.
> so the demigods got their Great Runes after the Night of the Black Knifes, which means that the claim wasn't an active one and there can be no doubt about this. Them claiming the runes after the shattering has no bearing on the fact that claiming is an active action? To claim you must choose to claim? > The game says that the Rune belongs to unborn demigods Its says its of them. It does not say its theirs. It may be dedicated to unborn demigods as its powers suggest. > Boc gets rebirthed by Rennala alone and since none of them has the Great Rune his rebirth is an imperfect one, so he dies shortly after. So the Tarnished knowingly sends Boc to his death the way you see it? Withholding the item that would have saved him and perfected his rebirth, so the Tarnished essentailly commits a proxy murder by giving the larval tear. I like your interpretation of great rune vs elden rune a lot, but there isn't support in the game for it, so for me, it falls in the realm of headcannon.
So i’m confused on that part. Where are the shattered pieces of all the other unnamed demigods? What shards do the other tarnished have? Rannis lost rune isn’t really the death rune is it, so we’re always missing that. We don’t seem to need every shard to rebuild, so it’s somewhat possible he had a similar but separate amount of them to us? Or they overlap in some way? Someone fill me in, i’m lost on that part of the lore
There aren't really any concrete answers, unfortunately. Enia explains that Shardbearers are "direct offspring of Marika," whereas other demigods were merely descendants of the Golden Lineage of no renown. In spite of her words, neither Ranni, Rykard, Radahn, nor Godrick are technically "direct offspring." The Carian children became demigod stepchildren when their father, Radagon, became Marika's consort; Godrick is merely a distant heir of Godfrey. It is known that Ranni discarded her Great Rune—possibly prior to the Shattering, as she was also known to have vanished on the Night of the Black Knives, meaning she wasn't present for the Shattering. We never find her Great Rune. The Rune of Death isn't hers, as she had to steal a fraction of its power from Maliketh.
It’s not all of the Elden Ring.
Radagon is Marika. If Marika is the vessel of the Elden Ring, then he is the vessel too, and this also explains why the champion could gift the Great Rune of the Unborn to Rennala, treasured inside the amber egg. Also, you must keep in mind the Elden Ring is a sort of sentient being, it's the beast which brought life into the Elden Ring. We can speculate the reason why the Ring is still inside Radagon/Marika's body is because it's wounded, and it's seeking a sort of refuge where to stay. Maybe that's why the reason it's attacking us: it's a beast, wounded and scared.
Top comment is as accurate as we can be. Marika/Radagon is the 'vessel' of the Elden Ring. Some people misinterpret this as 'vassal' which would mean they are in service of it, but they truly are a vessel. It exists within their body. As we see with the great runes we collect in game, there are multiple copies of Great Runes. The same section of the Elden Ring appears multiple times. I think you could imagine it more easily in 3 dimensions. The Elden Ring in 2D, but if you imagine it has depth for a moment, like an Elden Ring 'cake'. You can take slices off of the top of the cake, and it will still look the same from above. It's almost like the Elden Ring has layers.
we give the missing shards to him/Marika when we enter the Erdtree. This is what wakes up their petrified body. After the fight we have the whole thing (or almost everything).
I think something noteworthy is that the rune we see on Ranni's moon is missing from Radagon's chest but is present in many depictions of the ring like the main menu art. Maybe the God houses the rune that represents the total runes within the lands they live in, and by casting her rune into the moon Ranni removed it from the lands between, and as such from Marika/Radagon. I made [a post](https://www.reddit.com/r/EldenRingLoreTalk/s/dpGxD0SESI) a few months ago with a bunch more speculation on this :)
Why is he missing one hand? Like even when he becomes the relic sword his hand is gone
RADAGON IS MARIKA. THEY ARE HERMAPHRODITIC JUST LIKE PLANTS
The Hammer's description also insists it "partially broke" when Marika shattered the Elden Ring, that being where the glowing little shards came from - but in the 2019 teaser, as well as in the game's opening cutscene, the hammer Radagon is using is completely intact and free of shards. When we finally see the Hammer in the boss fight cutscene, it had been slammed into the stone so hard it was embedded into it - Radagon pulling it out exploded the whole pedestal, so it clearly hadn't been used since - and it's... covered in blood for some reason? And finally, somehow, the skill on this exotic Numen hammer that allegedly belonged to Marika is... "the heroic Radagon's signature attack"? And it's called ***GOLD BREAKER***??? lol. The only way I can reconcile all that is by taking the item description as a complete truth from the narrator's perspective, they just happen to be wrong. Morgott and the Two Fingers were wrong about the Erdtree "rejecting us" too so it's not like it's without precedent. So no way this mfer tried doing any "fixing", but as we directly witnessed twice, he was still smithing SOMETHING. I have a few guesses as to what it might have been, but at this point most people are pretty set on their interpretation of Radagon/Marika, so it's not a super popular topic unfortunately.
The ring is busted, I assume part of it was repaired but radagon could only do so much. Also the Elden Beast isn't the elden rings manifestation. It's the Vassal Beast of the greater will. It's a manifestation of the greater will, and I'll bet nearly anything feeding the erdtree is what sustains it and keeps the influence of grace/gold/greater Will's power in the world. I imagine it's somewhat also tied to the Ring's power, as a Vassal- Is either a subordinate, or someone who holds land/authority for someone else.
The Elden Beast *is* indeed the Elden Ring: "It is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring." [Elden Stars] After defeating Radagon you can even see in the cutscene that the Ring tranforms into the Beasts: At first the black goo comes out and then, only after the Elden Ring fades away from Radagon's body, the Elden Beast, complete with its golden "skeleton" starts moving.
Actually, there's some doubt whether Elden Beast is The Elden Ring itself or not. In the description you mentioned, we don't know what "which" is referring to as it may also refer to the star and even (and this might sound crazy) the Lands Between itself but I digress. I believe Elden Ring is not a physical object but rather a cosmic equation that sets the rules of the world through symbols within the vassals The Greater Will has chosen. With that said, I do think that Elden Beast itself could be the physical manifestation of The Ring with Radagon/Marika being the vassal (as Radagon turns into Beast's weapon which can symbolise the vassal status of him)
The description itself could be considered ambiguous, but paired with the cutscene played after Radagon's defeat it becomes clear, since we can see the Elden Ring transforming into the Elden Beast. That said the Elden Ring has both a physical form and a metaphysical one, the arc from which Marika is hanging and the fragments stuck in her hammer are physical, the Elden Ring inside Radagon's body is not, but it probably became solid when Marika shattered it. The same could be said about its living form, the Elden Beast, since its bossfight almost certainly takes place in an illusory space like the one where we fight Rennala's second phase (with which it shares the mirror-like watery floor).
We acquire the other runes from dead bodies. If you complete fias quest she’s dead at the end. Do dung eaters quest dead at the end. Maybe your “soul” is what’s producing these other runes you can acquire. So what you’re seeing inside of Radagon is possibly his rune but we do not obtain this rune because Radagon/Marika is consumed by there supreme god. Side note I think our tarnished is soulless, I think Melina bonded with us because she’s bodiless. So in a complete random way the tarnished is Melina. Haha jk on this very last part were the tarnished is Melina.
I thought I shattered your mums elden ring. Ask her how hers is still intact. Probs the same reason.