To tell the story of Gwyn's children is to tell the story of Gwyn himself.
For his children were all born to fulfill a purpose.
Gwyn's first daughter, Gwynevere, was a maternal figure cherished by all.
She was born to soothe the kingdom after a period of intense war against the Dragons.
Gwyn's son, Gwyndolin, was a master of illusion.
After Gwynevere fled the failing kingdom in, fear it was Gwyndolin who disguised the fading of the light.
And finally, Gwyn's youngest daughter, Filianore, was truly a product of her father's pride.
For, as long as she slumbered, Gwyn's world would not end.
But there was a fourth child a nameless king erased from history. The God of War.
Gwyn's firstborn son.
The first war ever fought
was the war for disparity,
a war for the right to flesh and blood where before there was only stone.
A war for the right to the surface where before there was only the below.
A war for the right to a beginning, and to an end, for before there was neither.
The everlasting dragons were to be introduced to the concept of the end
And it was Gwyn's firstborn son, like his brothers and his sisters to come
who was divinely conceived for this purpose.
So it was that the Sun's eldest born inherited the lightning from his father along with this powerful
predisposition for war and arms.
His weapon was an ingenious sword-spear that leveraged the user's own bodyweight,
allowing it to be trodden remarkably deep into tough dragon hide;
this was the earliest form of what would become the cross spear which went on to inspire the
legendary weapon wielded by the Dragonslayer Ornstein, who was,
unsurprisingly anointed the first Knight to the Nameless King himself.
The Nameless King also wore an attire woven of sharp dragon scales, as they were themselves
impervious to fire, and it seems that the best tools against the Dragons
were taken from the Dragons themselves.
A philosophy that another legendary figure, Havel, clearly took to heart as the man cased himself in stone
and took a legendary dragon tooth as his weapon.
Havel too, not only served the Nameless King in the war, but also his first knight Ornstein as well.
becoming the third member of a legendary trio of Dragon Slayers
who would eventually come to inspire the miraculous tale
known as "Sacred Oath."
And so, it was with strength, courage cunning and unity that the war for disparity was won.
"Dragons"
"shall never be"
"forgotten. We Knights fought valiantly,"
"but for every one of them,"
"we lost three score of our own."
"Exhilaration,"
"Pride,"
"Hatred,"
"Rage."
"The dragons teased out our dearest emotions,"
"thou will understand, one day."
"Me? There is very little to be said."
"What good is a dog, with no hares to hunt?"
"I am lucky to be alive, I suppose."
With the war won, these Lords were the first to face an uncomfortable truth
that their glory, much like that of the Dragons, would not last forever.
The everlasting dragons were vulnerable, now, and were forced to adapt to this unfamiliar and hostile world.
So they gave birth and slowly began to mutate and deviate in their evolution.
Wyverns,
serpents, man serpents, and basilisks.
The imperfect, the crossbreeds, and the wretches.
Dragons that spit fire, lightning, poison, and corrosion.
Some even caught the undead curse.
And, so it was that despite Gwyn's best efforts,
dragons and their kin lived on.
Some, as unchanged as ever.
"Rumor it may be but I have heard of a surviving ancient"
"dragon who resides in this land."
"A coterie of undead serves the dragon as they trained to become dragons themselves."
"Sounds unlikely,"
"but you never know, do you?"
As the gods really should have known, faith always finds a way,
and ironically, it was the gods, and not the Dragons, who failed to adapt.
A war had been fought in the name of disparity, but Gwyn's age of fire was nothing of the sort.
Darkness was the enemy now, and Gwyn would do anything to prevent his age of fire from ending.
Anything.
So how righteous, truly, could their war against the ancient, unchanging dragons have been,
when Gwyn himself refused to cede to the natural order?
Thus began the betrayal of Gwyn's firstborn son,
his God of War who allied with the remaining ancient dragons.
Ashamed by his firstborns betrayal,
enraged at his disobedience, and
driven by that famous desire to erase all that opposed him, Gwyn, disowned his firstborn son,
his royal blood was denied.
His legacy was expunged from the annals of history,
and the altars of his worship were smashed beyond recognition.
His name was lost forever.
But as the gods ought to know, faith always finds a way, and the Nameless King had some faithful knights indeed.
Look within the rubble of these statues; look amidst the traces of the Nameless King's foot wrappings;
His braces, his attire, and you might just spy a familiar cross spear design
belonging to the firstborn's first Knight:
The Dragonslayer Ornstein
In the dragonless age that followed the Nameless King's betrayal,
Ornstein was assigned to guard the Grand Cathedral.
And for the captain of the Four Knights of Gwyn, this must have been a lowly role indeed,
as he wasn't even guarding Gwyn's daughter,
he was guarding an illusion.
Nor was he alongside his fellow Knights,
instead, he was partnered with
Executioner Smough, a cannibal and a glutton, someone who could never call himself Ornstein's equal.
So as his fellow Knights faded away, as Gwyn burned to cinder for his age,
Ornstein eventually left the ruined Cathedral and
abandoned his post in order to search for the nameless King that he once served.
Funnily enough,
Smough, of all people, was the last Knight of Gwyn to remain at his post.
We know this, for, after defeating Aldrich
we can purchase his armor, which implies that Smough the Cannibal, may well have been cannibalized himself,
an ironic twist of fate that Ornstein was lucky to avoid and we don't know exactly where or for how long
Ornstein set off in search of his nameless King.
But if one attempted to trace his path, one would find evidence
of the influence that these two men may well have left upon the world.
In Furossa, for example, we witness an order of Lion Knights with armour blessed by a certain war God.
Even more curiously, the figure depicted on their helmet stands his own against a dragon.
In the Drowned Ruins of Heide, there's a being who
aspires to the great legacy of the old Dragonslayer.
So is this Ornstein himself?
Probably not, though...
How curious is it, that a man inspired by a dragonslayer
would be allied with the dragons that are right outside his gate?
The world was changing and, in truth, those who aspire to conquer dragons
overwhelmingly end up with them their allies.
Look to our Nameless King, who was born for a war against them only to ally with the vestiges of their race.
Look to Vendrick, who inherited Gwyn's legacy yet aspired to recreate their power.
Look to the kingdom of Lothric, whose Knights were originally hunters of dragons,
yet they ended up taming them and fighting at their side.
Look at Prince Ricard, who fought in a stronghold
filled with serpents and ended up being summoned as their champion at Arch Dragon Peak.
Looked to Havel who adopted a spine of stone and a dragon's tooth,
only to uphold a sacred oath with their nameless King.
And finally, look to Ornstein, the Dragonslayer,
who, laden with duties and oaths,
decided that the only one that would matter, was his pledge to Gwyn's exiled son.
And so it was, that the Way of the Dragon led him to the Nameless King's stronghold.
In the years after his exile, the Nameless King had tamed a Storm Drake,
upon which he had led a lifetime of battle.
Eventually, he settled here, upon Archdragon Peak.
This, it appears, was a place where dragons and their kin
could worship and live in peace.
It was only a matter of time, after all, until Gwyn's Age of Fire would burn down to ash,
and dragons, as we know, have both time and patience in abundance.
Alas. an Unkindled would eventually find his way here to Archdragon Peak,
driven, by this unstoppable desire to claim the strength of a War God,
and to claim the strength of his ancient
companions, so that Gwyn's Age of Fire could, finally, be brought to an end.
For war is supposed to be waged for what we believe in,
not to erase our opposition from existence.
*Ominous music fades out*