AWKWARD ZOMBIE

ohkay THEORY TIME

The Old Dragonslayer's spear descrption heavily suggests that it is actually Ornstein, so lets go over what we know about the whole situation in DS1.

In DS1, if you defeat either Ornstein or Smough first, they vanish into a giant flash. This does not see particularly unusual on it's own.
But, take into consideration that you're in Anor Londo. All those silver knights are illusions made by Gwyndolin, so is the sun, and Gwynivere. The possibility becomes open that Ornstein and Smough are illusions, created by Gwyndolin to test the Chosen Undead.

Now lets skip back a bit, under the assumption that this is true, and that Ornstein is an illusion.

When Manus cast Oolacile into the Abyss, Artorias went to stop him. Artorias fell to the darkness, lost his arm, and gave Sif his greatshield to protect him. Then the Chosen Undead kills Artorias.

Artorias' corruption gave him powers he did not have before, mainly the ability to control dark magic. After he's lost to the darkness, Ciaran find his remains and mourns there.
If Ciaran could find Artorias, we can probably assume that Ornstein could too.

Even after you beat Manus, Oolacile is still cast into darkness. It does not recover, it's just abandoned. Nobody knows that Manus is dead until Dusk recovers and manages to get word out somehow, if we even can assume she does and she doesn't just remain in Oolacile and die.

Until that point, as far as the Knights are concerned, Manus is still down there and he felled one of the knights.

There's a heavy chance that Ornstein went down there and fell to the darkness the same as Artorias. His armor was blackened like Artorias', he gained control of dark magic, and he went insane. But unlike Artorias, nobody came to kill Ornstein. Gough stayed in his tower, if Ciaran is alive she mourns for Artorias.

Eventually, Ornstein somehow ended up in Heide's Tower of Flame, probably from just the massive changes that happened to the land since Lordran fell. Like Artorias, he was insane and undead, and just waited there, like all the other forgotten knights.

so there's plenty of possibility that it's actually ornstein, and DS2 heavily suggests that it is, but dosen't make it completely clear

decided the second boss wasn't worth the trouble and explored. Saw my little bro make his way to Heide's Tower and figured, fuck it, let's check this shit out.
After having to deal with The Pursuer most of the enemies went down without much of a fight including the Dragonrider. But all the shit people have said about Ornstein has me spooked.
With the souls i got i grabbed the kitty cat ring to explore the big hole in Majula. I took all of my junk off since i heard fall damage is based on weight only to realize my rad battle beard was gone from the last time i went hollow. And i grew a pair of tiddies. Dunno what happened.
Soooo, yeah, Dark Souls II is p. fun.

the coffin in things betwixt, guarded by those orc hippo things, changes your gender

if you hop back in it you'll get changed back

some armor has changes depending on gender, so that's why that's there

i thought that was a boat. I tried to take out the one cyclops guarding it only to be blindsided by the second one. I ran around a bit jumped in the coffin thinking i'd sail away only to bury myself.
I jumped out and booked for the nearest getaway, didn't notice anything different.
Also, where can i find a bow? I stumbled upon a crossbow but i'd like some more options range wise.

And thnx for all the info galaxy.

there's a pretty basic bow in the blacksmith's shop in mejula, behind the door. you can buy the key from the merchant lady in the giant's forest's second bonfire (also to note, go through all her conversation options and she'll move to mejula and start selling unlimited lifegems. most if not all NPCs give you free items or update stock when you go through their whole conversation, so always hit "talk" until they stop having new things to say.)

however the best bow i've found so far is the dragonrider bow, scales with strength, dex, and int with a B/D/C scaling. really good for strength builds, and you don't need to fuck with the magic at all because that just scales the magic damage, not the physical damage. very helpful for people with big giant swords who don't want to get too close to things and have no pyromancy left.

however you have to get to straid to get it, but that starter bow in the blacksmith's is pretty good and will provide what you need for the time being.

edit: also if anyone is curious as to elite knight armor, because we all love it because holy shit the poise from DS1

they nerfed the shit out of it, statwise it's still pretty good, but it lost a lot of the poise it used to have

HOWEVER the faaram armor set, the boxart armor, has basically taken it's place, with slightly higher stats and higher poise

i'm rocking the faaram chest, havel's arms and legs, and penal mask and it's still light enough to mid roll, and every piece but the mask is giving a solid 270 minimum physical defense

anyways faaram is pretty fantastic if you get to drangleic castle be sure to pick it up

what
THAT'S what the coffin is for? When you say some armor has changes you mean just visual changes right? Why would something so simple be so (relatively) heavily guarded?

I know there is at least one piece of armor, part of a later-game mage set, that talks about how the male and female versions are different somehow. There's also one armor set that I am fairly sure is female only but it never dropped for me so I couldn't test it. It's a very, very minor amount of armors, but the option to change genders for one is still there.

most armors though yeah are like DS1, where they don't change much for gender, just kind of change shape slightly.



that is a decent hole in the theory, but there's actually some precedent from in-game mechanics to explain it!

DS2 states that larger souls like those are simply stronger souls, because they've consumed and taken more souls than others. Your own soul growing into one of those major souls is a big part of DS2, and it's not just counting the boss souls you get, it's dependent on all the fluid souls you've collected too. At one million, the game counts you as having a soul naturally strong enough to open the door to Drangleic Castle.

So if Ornstein in DS1 is an illusion, he's still made up of souls. The Silver Knights are made up of souls too, we know this because they drop souls like everything else. It's not a stretch to imagine that the Fake-Ornstein is made of a particularly strong soul that Gwyndolin crafted.

edit: yo i guess the forum jumped back like six pages and i didn't notice



Not that he made a soul, but used a particularly strong soul. Hard souls, like a Soul of a Hero, aren't just one soul they're made up of hundreds of smaller souls. There's no reason Gwyndolin couldn't do the same thing, take a ton of souls and kind of smush them into one. Or he did it like Gwyn, and just split up his own. There's plenty of ways.

First day of Demon's Souls. Rolled a temple knight, died to the knight guy on top of the castle wall in 1-1.

I'm surprised how different the combat feels compared to DaS. It's kinda difficult to explain, but your movement and attacks kinda lack the same feeling of heft. Or maybe it's because I'm not used to it yet.

I'm afraid to go into NG+ sorta, I don't want to miss any secrets.
Also dang Brotherhood of Blood covenant duels are fun.