'Superior incantation taught by Gurranq, the Beast Clergyman. Hurls a boulder before the caster. This incantation can be cast repeatedly. Long ago, Gurranq was a beast of such terrifying ferocity that his former name meant "Death of the Demigods."' Gurranq is the canon's hidden truth about Maliketh. The Black Blade, Marika's shadow, executor of Destined Death, sealer of the Rune of Death after Ranni's theft, was once a beast called Death of the Demigods, the realm's most fearsome warrior-ascetic. The Bestial Sanctum at the easternmost edge of the Dragonbarrow houses a cleric named Gurranq, who is in fact this same Maliketh in his quiet aspect, fragmented from the Shattering and starving for Deathroot.

'A source that gives rise to Those Who Live in Death. The beast clergyman, found at Bestial Sanctum in the distant east, collects and devours these roots. On the night of the dire plot the stolen Rune of Death enabled the first Death of a demigod. Later, the Rune of Death spread across the Lands Between through the underground roots of the Greattree, sprouting in the form of Deathroot.' Each Deathroot the Tarnished brings him is a piece of the Rune of Death he had been charged to seal away. Gurranq devours them and pays the Tarnished in beast incantations, Bestial Sling, Beastclaw, Stone of Gurranq, that draw on the older, pre-Erdtree theology of beasts who had gained intelligence and used stones as their first weapons. He thanks the Tarnished and claims, between mouthfuls, to be a calm cleric. He is, briefly, telling the truth. After the first few Deathroots his hunger overflows, and the Death-of-Demigods returns to his face.