Wildest Elden Ring theory so far explains lore with mushrooms and that makes a surprising amount of sense

Everything Mushrooms in Elden Ring? We’ll enlighten you.

Elden ring relies on a complicated story that is hidden among other things in item descriptions and environmental storytelling. Of course, this leads to the wildest theories about the events of the game and lengthy explanations as well as heated debates and a lot of room for interpretation. Perhaps most of the theories are actually wrong and it is actually about mushrooms. At least that’s what is perhaps the most absurd, but also surprisingly plausible fan theory, which is the subject of this article.

Fingers in the game resemble mushrooms

This mushroom means: There is a mushroom, mainly under the English name Dead Man’s Fingers (in German: Tote Mannshand) is known. Which is because this fungus always appears in clusters and looks just like a corpse’s fingers or toes. Which in turn is very similar to some creatures and items from Elden Ring, as many fans have noticed.

YouTuber Ziostorm shows what the mushrooms look like here on Twitter and also compares them directly to Elden Ring:

link to Twitter content

Striking resemblance to the in-game themes: In Elden Ring we encounter quite a few critters shaped like hands. We can at least fight some of them, but not others like the Two or Three Fingers. In addition, the finger motif can also be found in other places such as multiplayer items or in the game world.

From a lore perspective, that makes sense

But wouldn’t it only fit in appearance if we were mainly dealing with mushrooms in Elden Ring? The Dead Man’s Fingers are said to grow primarily at the foot of dead trees and on tree stumps. This fits with the Earth Tree, in which beings in the Between Lands experience a kind of death that is not final.

Is even a god really a mushroom? One theory even goes so far that the otherworldly god who pulls the strings through his vassals in the Between Lands could be some kind of fungus that has infected and killed the Earth Tree. Hence the many hands in the in-between lands could come.

Malenia’s Scarlet Rot could very well be a fungus as well, namely the so-called Cedar Apple Rust. It actually looks very similar to the scarlet rot and mainly affects apple trees, but also juniper and crabs. It’s actually the fungus Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae and the cedar apple rust is just the effect. Easily recognizable by the large, orange tendrils that really look nightmarish.

Don’t forget how Malenia Bloom / Scarlet Aeonia is weirdly similar to Cedar apple rust, a mushroom eating apple pic.twitter.com/Qt2gkQJj9h

— Plumy (@Little_Yokai) June 29, 2022

link to Twitter content

A lot more about the lore and the “mushrooms” from Elden Ring can be found here:

Apart from the visual similarity, the comparison to the mushrooms also fits to some extent in terms of content. After all, most From Software titles revolve around decay and transience or parasitic relationships, so a theme like the one with these special mushrooms would also fit into the picture. But as always, it’s a matter of interpretation and in the end we can’t be completely sure.

What do you think of the fan theory? Have you ever thought about mushrooms while playing Elden Ring?