'Mask worn by Tanith, Lady of the Volcano Manor, in the image of a foreign queen. Increases dexterity. Long ago, when Rykard first set eyes on Tanith, she was working as a dancer in a foreign land. Soon, he made her his consort.' Volcano Manor sits halfway up the slopes of Mt. Gelmir, an old castle whose lord is the demigod Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy. Rykard has by the time of the Tarnished's arrival given himself to the great serpent of Mt. Gelmir, the God-Devouring Serpent, becoming a great worm-flesh boss. Tanith, his consort, presides over the manor as if nothing has happened. She runs an order called the Recusants: an alliance of Tarnished, knights, and exiles who have decided that the Erdtree's cause is wrong and that any Tarnished who would carry it forward must die. Their tools are assassination contracts. Their cause is heresy.

'Silver armor engraved with tiny beasts. Worn by Bernahl the Recusant. Beasts are drawn to champions, and to lords. And this armor befits a champion worthy of becoming a lord.' Bernahl, the Recusant who arms the Tarnished with war arts and hands out the order's contracts, was the knight of the Warmaster's Shack before he took up the manor's revolt against the Erdtree, his contracts sending the Tarnished to hunt some of the first Tarnished who once sat at the Roundtable Hold. The questline mirrors the Bloody Finger covenant of Mohg: both are non-Order paths offered to the Tarnished, both reward heresies, both judge the Erdtree itself as the enemy. Tanith ends her arc by climbing into Rykard's serpent-corpse to consume his last flesh, the only food she will accept after his death. The recusants disperse. Bernahl, abandoned, carries the revolt on alone, invading the Tarnished at Crumbling Farum Azula and swearing to the Greater Will itself that 'you will fall to my blade.'

◆ Sources

ArmorConsort's Mask

Mask worn by Tanith, Lady of the Volcano Manor, in the image of a foreign queen. Increases dexterity. Long ago, when Rykard first set eyes on Tanith, she was working as a dancer in a foreign land. Soon, he made her his consort.

ArmorBeast Champion Armor (Bernahl)

Silver armor engraved with tiny beasts. Worn by Bernahl the Recusant. Beasts are drawn to champions, and to lords. And this armor befits a champion worthy of becoming a lord. And that is what Bernahl was. Until his maiden threw herself into the fire.