The Crucible is the crucible of life, the primordial form of the Erdtree, where all life was once blended together. The Misbegotten carry that blending in their bodies: Winged Misbegotten take flight to loose arrows from a shortbow to which fine fur clings, and the game also gives the names Scaly Misbegotten and Leonine Misbegotten. The Crucible talismans describe the same thing on human flesh, fashioned from scales, feathers and bony knots that embody the aspects of various creatures and said to have grown on the human body long ago; considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, they are now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced.

The Misbegotten are held to be a punishment for making contact with the Crucible, and from birth they are treated as slaves, or worse. The game does not say what labour they were put to. Their weapons carry the mark of that life: iron cleavers commonly used by the maltreated Misbegotten, steeped in resentment and swung wildly and relentlessly, and long-handled axes whose resentment-charged blows are difficult to stop. The Crucible Knights who served Godfrey, the first Elden Lord, drew scorn of another kind, their strength and even their appearance coming to be seen as chaotic. Against that contempt stands the perfumer Tricia, a healer who treated Misbegotten, Omen, and all those seen as impure, and who, when her efforts failed, was their companion as they died, so that they could pass peacefully, free of pain.