The Regal Ancestor Spirit is a great horned stag-king who walks the underground rivers of Siofra and Nokron alongside the Ancestor Spirit, its smaller sibling. Both are remnants of a faith that predates the Erdtree by ages, a hunter-king cult whose worshippers, the Ancestral Followers, still light bonfires at sunken altars in the Eternal City. The Remembrance of the Regal Ancestor flavour text states what the Erdtree's priests refuse to admit : 'Ancestral spirits exist as a phenomenon beyond the purview of the Erdtree. Life sprouts from death, as it does from birth. Such is the way of the living.'

Two thoughts in that gloss matter. First, ancestral spirits are not Erdtree-blessed and not Erdtree-punished, they are outside the Order entirely, the way the Crucible was once outside, the way the Outer Gods always are. Second, the cycle they teach (life from death, death into life, both at once) is the precise cycle the Erdtree denies : an Erdtree burial is meant to feed grace back into the tree, not let life sprout from death freely. The Ancestral Spirit's Horn, 'cut from the horns of the Regal Ancestor Spirit' where 'new life grow from death, and from death, one obtains power,' is the canon's quietest argument that the old kings of the Lands Between had it right before Marika rose.

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Boss LoreRemembrance of the Regal Ancestor

Remembrance of the Regal Ancestor Spirit, hewn into the Erdtree. Ancestral spirits exist as a phenomenon beyond the purview of the Erdtree. Life sprouts from death, as it does from birth. Such is the way of the living.

TalismanAncestral Spirit's Horn

Item cut from the horns of the Regal Ancestor Spirit. A number of new growths bud from the antler-like horns of the fallen king, each glowing with light. Thus does new life grow from death, and from death, one obtains power.