'A fetid pustule taken from facial flesh. Raises vitality. (Vitality governs resistance to the effects of Death.) It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots.' Godwyn the Golden was the demigod loved above all others, Marika and Godfrey's eldest son, the realm's ideal. On the Night of the Black Knives, the Numen assassins under Alecto used a Black Knife imbued with the stolen Rune of Death to kill not his body but his soul. His body could not die afterward ; the corpse was buried beneath the capital, fused into the Erdtree's deep roots, where it began the slow corruption that would make of the cycle of rebirth a long, drowning malformation.

'Cursemark carved into the discarded flesh of Ranni the Witch. Also known as the half-wheel wound of the centipede. This cursemark was carved at the moment of Death of the first demigod, and should have taken the shape of a circle. However, two demigods perished at the same time, breaking the cursemark into two half-wheels. Ranni was the first of the demigods whose flesh perished, while the Prince of Death perished in soul alone.' The Cursemark of Death is the canon's tightest paradox. Two demigods perished simultaneously: Ranni in body and Godwyn in soul. The complete cursemark would have been a circle ; the two half-wheels are the formal record of an asymmetric murder, body and soul broken apart in the same moment. The Prince of Death's pustules sprout from his immortal flesh wherever Deathroot grows, and Fia the Deathbed Companion's mending rune is the only canonical proposal for restoring his soul to its body.

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Item / MiscPrince of Death's Pustule

A fetid pustule taken from facial flesh. Raises vitality. (Vitality governs resistance to the effects of Death.) It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots.

Item / MiscCursemark of Death

Cursemark carved into the discarded flesh of Ranni the Witch. Also known as the half-wheel wound of the centipede. This cursemark was carved at the moment of Death of the first demigod, and should have taken the shape of a circle. However, two demigods perished at the same time, breaking the cursemark into two half-wheels. Ranni was the first of the demigods whose flesh perished, while the Prince of Death perished in soul alone.