The Helphen is the underworld's analogue to the Erdtree, a great black-steepled tree, said to grow somewhere in the spirit world, whose lampwood lights the dead. The Helphen's Steeple greatsword preserves the only canon description of it : 'Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world. The lamplight is similar to grace in appearance, only it is said that it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle.' Two thoughts in those lines matter. First, the Helphen is a tree (a tree-of-the-dead opposite the tree-of-the-living). Second, its grace-like light is only visible to soldiers who died fighting, it is the war-dead's own funerary illumination.

After Godwyn the Golden was struck on the Night of the Black Knives, slain in soul but not body, becoming the Prince of Death, his body began to root through the Erdtree's underground network and emerge as the Death Roots that the hunter D pursues. Lichdragon Fortissax, his sworn dragon-friend, descended into the underworld to defend his body 'when no other dragon would.' Where Fortissax descended is implied : the Helphen, the lampwood of the dead, is the spirit-world tree his fight took place inside. The Tarnished, walking the Deeproot Depths, is walking the same root-network that connects the Helphen below to Godwyn's slow corpse-blossom above.

◆ Sources

WeaponHelphen's Steeple

Greatsword patterned after the black steeple of the Helphen, the lampwood which guides the dead of the spirit world. The lamplight is similar to grace in appearance, only it is said that it can only be seen by those who met their death in battle.

Boss LoreRemembrance of the Lichdragon

After Godwyn the Golden became the Prince of Death, the ancient dragon fought long and hard against the Death within its companion. Alas, victory was never achieved and its only reward was corruption.

WeaponPrince of Death's Staff

Staff embedded with sullied amber, said to be a very part of the Prince of Death. Enhances death sorceries.