'Black iron armor adorned with ashen cloth. Attire of the Blackflame Monks. The Blackflame Monks, enthralled by the god-slaying black flame, became traitors, abandoning their posts as guardians. The seduction of a taboo is never easily spurned.' The Blackflame Monks are the canon's clearest study of guardians seduced from their post. They were Fire Monks, keepers of the flame of ruin: the Giants' Flame, forbidden by the Erdtree, kept high in the Mountaintops of the Giants where its ruinous blaze had been sealed after the War against the Giants. Their vow was to watch over that flame. What broke them was a different fire, the god-slaying black flame. Enthralled by it, they became traitors and abandoned their posts.

'Mail hood of iron links covering a headband engraved with flames. Attire of the Blackflame Monks. The Blackflame Monks, enthralled by the god-slaying black flame, became traitors, abandoning their posts as guardians. The seduction of a taboo is never easily spurned.' The canonical sentence is the whole of the tragedy: the seduction of a taboo is never easily spurned. In the game's own words, fire beguiles those who gaze into it, and so the guardians of the flame are also its worshippers; after many years of solemn duty at the edge of a forbidden blaze, their watchfulness curdled into obsession, and the black flame found monks already prepared to fall. The Monks' apostasy is the Order's quietest argument that some fires cannot be policed by anyone made to stand guard over them.