'Remembrance of Godrick, the Grafted, hewn into the Erdtree. A feeble man sought power through the grotesque act of grafting. One day we'll return together, to our home, bathed in rays of gold.' Grafting is the canon's body-horror specialty : the surgical fusion of severed limbs from many bodies onto a single core body, performed without anaesthetic and powered by ritual. It was originally a desperate medical practice for diluted-blood demigods like Godrick, the great-great-grandson of Godfrey, six generations down from the original Elden Lord, with hardly any divine blood left and no divine strength. Godrick discovered that grafting limbs from any defeated foe could partially compensate. By the time of the Tarnished, he is a hideous many-limbed creature whose original body is barely visible.

'Wooden shield of Stormveil soldiers. Much like the castle, it is marred by mottling and thorns. Some say it is the curse of grafting which causes such affliction, while others talk of its root being something far more sinister.' Stormveil itself is afflicted. The grafting practice has spread to the castle's stone, the soldiers' shields, the very thorns climbing the walls, every surface is mottled with grafted-on growth, neither dead nor properly alive. The rot of Caelid is geographic ; the curse of Stormveil is architectural. Where Caelid's surface is poisoned, Stormveil's surface is stitched. Both are chronic. Neither has a known cure. Godrick himself, in his last seconds before the Tarnished kills him, says he wishes only to return home to bathe in gold, to be, briefly, the kind of demigod his diluted blood would never let him be.

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Boss LoreRemembrance of the Grafted

Remembrance of Godrick, the Grafted, hewn into the Erdtree. The power of its namesake can be unlocked by the Finger Reader. Alternatively, it can be used to gain a great bounty of runes. A feeble man sought power through the grotesque act of grafting. "One day we'll return together, to our home, bathed in rays of gold."

ArmorStormveil Wooden Shield

Wooden shield of Stormveil soldiers. Much like the castle, it is marred by mottling and thorns. Some say it is the curse of grafting which causes such affliction, while others talk of its root being something far more sinister.