Giants and the Age of Ancients (Massive speculation)

I've had this theory that isn't provable but is very slightly possible and I just need to get out of my system even though it's probably nonsense.

Ok so basically I think that giants existed during the AoA. The serpents aren't mentioned in the opening but were alive during the AoA and I think the same may be true of the giants. 

Souls are the source of all life (based on the descriptions of every soul item like soul of a lost undead) and the opening says that "they found the souls of lords within the flame" which most likely just means these were the souls the 3 lords we know used. A small part of me however wonders if these were the souls of lords prior to Gwyn and Co finding them. 

When it says they were within the flame I think this could be the flames of the dragons. And basically the powerful souls belonging to the giants were combined with the flame of the dragons becoming much more powerful and granting Gwyn ect the power to defeat the dragons. 

We know some drakes breath lightning while others breath fire and Kalameet breathed something completely unique so I think depending on the dragons flame which killed the giant affected which powers the Lords used. 

Nito is called the first of the dead which in this theory means he is the combined souls of the first giants to die fighting the dragons and their souls all combined within the flame to create a twisted form of life. This is why he guards the Tomb of the Giants as it is the resting place of his people and he has summoned the strongest giants possible to ensure they are allowed to rest in peace. This would also explain why he doesn't care about the flames fading as he has no purpose left(I might expand on this later)

I think the main population of the giants lived in the Kiln of the first flame which I believe they built. I think this was the first city as it is deep underground and isolated. It is not connected to the main part of Lordran and has giant walls surrounding it suggesting people didn't want to leave or be exposed to any of the surrounding area unless necessary. Also the way the city is burnt in a circular motion suggests that it wasn't the fire from the link the flames ending as the buildings would be burnt facing away from the center rather than around it (again most likely just a design thing but I enjoy imagining). It could be dragons circling the city like vultures circling their prey.

With the new found power of the dragons and the giants I think Gwyn was finally able to kill the dragons crucially with the help of Seath who told him their weaknesses. We don't actually see Nito or the Witch kill the dragons directly but just their homes unlike Seath and Gwyn who directly kill them so just a bit more food for thought. 

I think the reason the Dark Soul is unique is that it is the combination of the fire from a primordial serpent and a dragon as the dragons probably looked down on the serpents for being "deformed" and may have killed them if they found one. The serpents may breath abyss or have it within them or it could be they actually have a soul unlike the dragons. 

After Gwyn defeated the dragons I think he recruited what few giants remained such as Gough who wanted revenge against the dragons and those that maybe lost their minds from the war or who simply would not serve a man were enslaved leading to Nito wanting to spread disaster to mans world? Gwyn built miles above ash lake or the kiln to forget the giants and their heroics and to promote himself as the hero king that defeated the giants.  

Ok so this whole theory is pretty ridiculous so if anyone actually read through it all I hope it was at least entertaining or interesting in some way and even if this is nonsense I think there is a massive piece of lore missing from the game regarding the giants. 

Also a possible explanation of the Lords sizes below... 

The intro says "then from the dark they came" and shows hollows/humans appearing. I think Gwyn and the Witch were originally just human but due to consuming the souls of giants or their lords made them larger hence the Witch is larger than her daughters in the video as only she consumed the souls but then taught her daughters to use pyromancy whereas Gwyns knights not only gained miracles but physical strength. (Yeh size in this game just confuses me so this paragraph may be even worse than the rest.)

That first sentence you said.....


You've come to the right place. I generally don't interject much these days on lore but I like to encourage anyone who does. Good read and keep on speculating

Always interesting to read people's theories. It's what I love about the game's lore. So many ways to interpret it and noone can be entirely sure. Obviously there's popular opinions that people hold, but there's such a number of ways to look at this stuff.

The giants are a bit of a mystery. I guess looking at some of the stuff you can find in the tomb of the giants could give clues about them, as well as the armour and weapon/shield of giants you can get.

Interesting idea about Nito's origin especally. He is the right size for a giant who has assimilated the skulls (presumably metaphoric for the souls of the dead he has also incidentally obtained) , on his body to make him look how he does. It is certainly possible.

Thanks for all the positive feedback and for reading and yeh I really hope some lore is added to the Giants in Dks2 since there's so much potential I think.

To be honest I'm predicting a larger focus on dragons than giants in DkSII, but we'll see. I'm sure they'll expand upon the lore in many aspects

Yeh we've seen a lot of advertising for dragons but they sell extremely well and I'm hoping Dks2 will be much bigger than Dks so I think there'll be some giants although how much they expand on the lore is a bit less likely I guess :/

Pretty cool ideas.

You can find a giant skull much larger than any in the Tombs on the beach in Ash Lake. It has horns and massive fangs.

I don't think the Kiln was a city, it is called the Kiln or furnace, and it is evident that the flame engulfed the entire kiln, I imagine the flame was a chaotic and powerful vortex (as the chaos flames imitate this and they were specifically meant to imitate the first flame. The bonfires resemble this 'spiral' affect aswell.) that is why the scorch looks the way it does. You can also note that the flame sits on top the stump of an Archtree, this makes the Firelink Altar where you place the lordvessel seem to represent a mini-Kiln replica, and the way the Lord Souls burn i can guess is relative to how to Flame of Disparity burnt. Another topic of curiosity is the anti-abyss looking realm surrounding the Kiln.

Also Primordial means the first of something. This indicates the serpents came before the dragons and their imperfect form is a result of them being a prototype. Being Primordial Serpents this makes them the origin and first of all serpents.

Undiscovery wrote:Pretty cool ideas.

You can find a giant skull much larger than any in the Tombs on the beach in Ash Lake. It has horns and massive fangs.

I don't think the Kiln was a city, it is called the Kiln or furnace, and it is evident that the flame engulfed the entire kiln, I imagine the flame was a chaotic and powerful vortex (as the chaos flames imitate this and they were specifically meant to imitate the first flame. The bonfires resemble this 'spiral' affect aswell.) that is why the scorch looks the way it does. You can also note that the flame sits on top the stump of an Archtree, this makes the Firelink Altar where you place the lordvessel seem to represent a mini-Kiln replica, and the way the Lord Souls burn i can guess is relative to how to Flame of Disparity burnt. Another topic of curiosity is the anti-abyss looking realm surrounding the Kiln.

Also Primordial means the first of something. This indicates the serpents came before the dragons and their imperfect form is a result of them being a prototype. Being Primordial Serpents this makes them the origin and first of all serpents.

I never really thought about the skull in Ashe Lake. When I first saw it I assumed it was a dragons due to the large connection to dragons the area has (I wasn't into the lore when I first went to Ashe Lake and I have rarely visited it since quite tragically :/). Since Kalameet (and the Gaping Dragon I think?) show there are ancient dragons that differ in appearance it seems more likely but it does look more humanoid now that I've found a picture. Wow thanks for reminding me of that it actually goes with the theory pretty well, since the skull is bigger than Goughs it could represent one hell of a strong and most likely ancient Giant. Presumably Gwyn never discovered this area due to the Ever Lasting Dragon being there and the fact that it is Ever Lasting not just Ancient would show it would have fought the Giant Lords if my theory is right. 

You're right about the spiral within the bonfires. I knew it was a weak idea to begin with but now I know the design wasn't just random so thanks for the closure at least  

The area where you place the lordvessel has annoyed me since my first playthrough. The stairs going down that are broken imply an equally old area used to exist and I've been trying to figure out what all of those chalices mean that are lined up out of reach. I thought maybe they represent the main Lords and the lesser lords or something but I'm still thinking of it and it could just be a random idea put in by FROM to fill space. 

As for the Anti Abyss space I've come up with 3 ideas:

1.Either it is made of pure souls from all the lands that don't transfer from dead person to murderer but from natural deaths which allow the souls to leave their bodies peacefully and then go there acting like a form of heaven/soul disposal area? 

2. It's a barrier made by Gwyn to stop the Abyss getting into the kiln (similar to the orange fog barriers only stronger due to the strength of the abyss. I've assumed the kiln is extremely important to the Lords since none of the big 3 moved to other areas or lands where they might have more land/space. Nito being the god of death is actually a really weird concept since souls represent life but souls never die only peoples bodies. Souls are transferred and if Nito has power over their transference and can bring skeletons back by putting souls back into them then can't he absorb all souls? (And now my head hurts...) 

3. It's a form of portal combined with the lordvessel that acts as a gateway considering we seemingly drop straight underground from firelink shrine (if you don't take a life with the serpents) yet when you enter the kiln it has a sky suggesting it could be in an entirely different place (although this could just represent the fake weather/skies in dark souls that can potentially exist anywhere from what I've seen). Again the kiln seems extremely important to the Lords as Gwyn can use his soul there to prolong the age of fire by creating an artificial sun in the sky or something? So presumably someone could do the opposite and create an artificial night or even spread the abyss in this way as you potentially do at the end of the game? Therefore the Lords abandoned it in a far away land away from all form of life that could only be accessed by offering an extreme amount of power and walking through this weird area.   

Finally I took Primordial Serpent to mean they are the first of the imperfect dragons not the first of the dragons themselves. This could just be my poor understanding of English but I also see no reason to believe all the serpents we see in game are the only primordial serpents to have ever existed. Others could have lived as well but died they would still have been among the first but we wouldn't know of them. 

This probably doesn't entirely make sense and is hard to follow so my apologies

Well they are called/seen as (by others) imperfect dragons. However, They're title is Primordial Serpent. Serpent encompasses a large array of reptile. Primordial implies they were the evolutionary inception of serpent-kind, this doesn't mean there couldn't have been variants as you said. They could more accurately be Everlasting Dragons who never transcended to that status by some reason or another. So in that sense they are 'failed' Dragons.

I like your ideas on the 'anti-abyss' I guess we'll call it. It could very well be a heaven-esque place or a barrier. Time is convoluted in Lordran and by the theory of relativity, Space can be too, so it could just be a wormhole-esque area to a different sacred location to hide and secure it further. Or as you said a fake sky. But then again it would make more sense to have a flame to the open sky. But then again, again, it is on an archtree stump and we're shown they exist deep under the crust (Are they holding it up?)

Also before pyromancy there was Flame Sorcery which being sorcery came from the power of the soul, where as pyromancy, its successor, came from the corporeal body. The flame of disparity event could be analogous to a 'physical creation' when all souls were granted physical existence (there are allusions to this in the Dark Magic descriptions), after all there was now light to see the physicsl. Life and Death are physical representations of Light and Dark, The Witch of Izilith could create life so its presumed she attained the opposite to Nito; a 'Life Soul' if you will. Nitos duty then would be to administer death as stated by his soul. Following that, Gwyn used and granted light for foundation of existence, the witch granted physical bodies, Nito granted their demise, and the Dark Soul will end the foundation of existence, end the cycle. Philosophical metaphors, you see. The Serpents are tired of biting their tails. (Oroborus reference, meaning eternity)

The location of the kiln really confuses me. Based on the intro it appears to have been a cave at the bottom or in the middle of an arch tree from what I can tell? Human/Hollow beings then rise out of the darkness right next to the fire and presumably find souls within it. With the new found power they build around this magical area but after the war with the dragons is won the lords separate and found their own lands/cities. Then they could have moved the kiln or tried to hide it's existence as much as they want with any number of techniques I suppose. 

Whether the kiln was sealed off prior to Gwyn returning there or not is another big point as is when the lordvessel actually came into existence. Gwyn divided his soul amongst his children and followers and then offered the rest to link the fire so I don't think he could have also had enough power to open the door. Presumably he created the door to make sure no one would come and steal his power or abuse the kiln so he made a lock which not only required a special key (the lordvessel) but also the power of the other lords. Even Gwyn couldn't have stopped such power from breaking into the kiln however whether he wanted someone to get in or not I guess we will never know. With the Witch having failed to recreate the kiln, Gwyn had to fight a horde of chaos demons and find a way to preserve the flame. He may not have fully known what the result of his actions would be and didn't want anyone attempting to save him or to replicate his actions. Hell he might have sealed the door to stop the explosion from devasting the structure of the land since we don't see how far the fire spreads at the end when we link the flame.

I don't doubt the flame is gigantic and consumes the entire Kiln. The Lordvessel may have been what held the Lord Souls in the Flame at their inception? Also since we don't know what caused the First Flame, it can't be said whether or not it would have to be rekindled a certain way. Just as the Witch failed and created Demons, maybe Gwyn really failed and created the Undead. The only difference is that the Witch tried to recreate the flame and Gwyn tried to revive it. Reviving it seems like a less arduous task then recreating the entire thing. If Gwyn did 'fail' in a way, then the Gods are trying to get you to relight it properly, ending the undead curse. Maybe to relight it properly it requires all Lord Souls, not just Gwyns, or a burning of the Dark Soul itself.