# Lord Gwyn vs King Vendrick



## Atem (May 4, 2014)

_vs_​
Through some unusual twist of fate these two mighty rulers meet each other in mortal combat. Their strength, skill, and sorcery is tested against the others for supremacy and only one may walk away from the fight to tell the tale. 

Scenario 1) These two face each other at the height of their strength, and have foreknowledge on their opponent. No preparation and they fight in the Forest of Fallen Giants. 

Scenario 2) They fight as the shells of their former selves, eroded by the test of time and the curse of the undead. Their fights takes place in the Kiln of the First Flame.

Naturally, this plays as their grudge match ensues.


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## Alucardemi (May 4, 2014)

At the height of their power?

Well, let's see. Gwyn had one of the original Lord Souls, the "Light Soul" that guided the Age of Fire, stronger than Nito's, Izalith's or Seath's souls, and matched in power only by its counter-part; the Dark Soul of the first human, who scioned other humans and gave them humanity(shards of the Dark Soul), much like how Gywn shared his power with his children and subjects.

So Gywn is one of the OG heavy-hitters, and the only thing he actually feared was a potential Lord of Dark being born in the human race and leading mankind out of his vanglorious lie that looked to extend his age. That's pretty powerful.

Vendrick is really different. Vendrick is best looked at by the spectacles of "he's like the player character". Vendrick's story mirrors your own in alot of ways. He vanquished the four Old Ones, built Drangleic on their souls, and over time, peered at the essence of the Soul and made many other souls's powers his own. He was just some human like us, who by strife, acheived great power. Eventually, it did him no good, however, as the cycle of fate dictates that he and his whole kingdom would be cursed and destroyed so that history would endlessly repeat it'self. And the whole central plot of Dark Souls; Aldia's, Vendrick's, and Shanallote's struggle, is about trying to stop the seeming cycle of fate by peering at the truth of the soul. They failed, of course, and it's unclear if you succeed where they once failed at the end of the game.

But what that means is, it's said that the four Old One's that the player vanquished were more or less re-incarnations of the Lords; the same person, but in a different package, doing similar things as their first selves over the eons, their souls still exerting a similar influence over the world as they did at first.

Re-incarnations, but it still says that their souls were reduced to remnants over the eons, in the endless cycle being reborn over and over again. Those souls may never dissapear, but many of their power had already been poured elsewhere.

So, I kinda wanna lean towards Gywn at first, but I also have no clue how powerful [Vendrick's Soul + 4 Old One's Souls + Giant's Souls] would be, as that's the power Vendrick, and eventually the player character, acheive as the Heir to the Throne of Want.


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## Atem (May 4, 2014)

I kind of half-thought King Vendrick was the Chosen Undead because Chancellor Wellager's dialogue also alluded to their age being the dark one. There's stuff that contradicts that of course what with King Vendrick having a brother but I'm not sure how much that effects whether King Vendrick is the Chosen Undead or not. It's not like we get much of a backstory for the Chosen Undead anyway. Maybe he did have a brother. 

Albeit, Straid's dialogue implies that the cycle has turned over more than a few times by the time we take the Great Sovereign's role in DSII. Straid's kind of a suspicious bastard though. We also don't know what age he is from. Just that the witches of izalith are known of as legend from whatever period he comes from. 

There's also the fact there are still remnants of the Age of Fire might also mean it's not too many cycles after the one in DSI. Heck, Ornstein is still alive even and seems to have gone all dark with the theme. The Lord Souls and Great Souls both come from the same source when you collect them at higher bonfire levels or NG+. There's that but I don't know what that means. Maybe they're the same thing or the Great Souls are just what the Lord Souls have become? 

Anyway, I am thinking King Vendrick should at least be as powerful as end game Chosen Undead considering that he fought four equivalents to the Lords and made Drangleic what it was. Definitely was not normal either the guy is huge when you fight him in the game so I wouldn't call him a normal human. That, and the only way to effectively fight what was left of him was to have a lot of giant souls on you.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 4, 2014)

King Vendrick's not *THE *chosen undead he's *A *chosen undead.

"Thou who art Undead, art chosen... In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords... When thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know..."

We already know:

Solaire
Tarkus
Lautrec
Leeroy
Kirk
Ricard
etc

all rung the bells of awakening and are thus "chosen undead"

Solaire even makes it all the way to gwyn.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 4, 2014)

Anyway we know Vendrick overcame the owners of the Lord Souls, but we also know that Lost Sinner and people who own Lord Souls in Drangleics time had mere remnants of them.

"Soul of the ineffable.
This once magnificent soul continues to exert influence over the land, even after the eons have reduced it to these remnants."

As far as I'm aware the Timeline goes something like:

Lordran>Straid's kingdom and any number of other kingdoms<Drangleic

Essentially the thrust of my argument here is that Vendrick never had to take on the full might of the Lord Souls and that aside he certainly never had to fight Kalameet or Manus.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 4, 2014)

On the other hand the presence of Ornstein in DaS2 complicates matters, as far as I'm aware nothing suggests Ornstein lost power of the years, his soul mentions his legends and his spear says it's used to crack dragon scales, considering his relatively early placement in the game and the fact he was one of Gwyn's Four Knights it's suggestive of how powerful Vendrick and the heir to the throne are.

On the other other hand the Final boss is a fragment of manus and no matter how you slice it, a fragment will never be as strong as the whole.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 4, 2014)

actually on the topic of the Lord Soul holders in DaS2, the Old Iron King was driven from his keep by the Smelter Demon and no Demon in DaS1, where they were arguably at the height of their strength, would have been able to take on Gwyn.


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## Atem (May 4, 2014)

Well, yeah Nashandra was a pansy but it's not like King Vendrick ever fought her to get the throne. It was the Great Sovereign who did that and that's probably applicable to his/her strength rather than Vendrick's. 

Dude is even optional as a boss fight and if you do fight the only reasonable way to do so is with the giant souls weakening him so you can damage him significantly. That's a hallowed and washed out King Vendrick too. Going to be much stronger in general I think to the Great Sovereign. 

Basically, the pecking order in DSII is probably:

King Vendrick > Great Sovereign w/ giant souls > Hallowed Vendric > Nashandra 

Considering that she asked the Great Sovereign to take care of him since Nashandra could not finish Vendrick off even as a hollow.



Nightbringer said:


> actually on the topic of the Lord Soul holders in DaS2, the Old Iron King was driven from his keep by the Smelter Demon and no Demon in DaS1, where they were arguably at the height of their strength, would have been able to take on Gwyn.



I thought the Old Iron King was killed by the Smelter Demon and became that thing we fought some time afterwards. 

_The Old Iron King's life was taken by a mass of iron that had been given a soul. Was this metal goliath there from the beginning, or was it a product of the king's conceit?_

Also, that the Iron King may have created it.


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## Alucardemi (May 4, 2014)

I'd say it would make sense to say that The Heir to the Throne would be stronger than Vendrick by the end, since not only would he have all 4 great souls, the power of the Giants, he'd also have embraced Vendrick's soul, which Vendrick left in Amana before he Hollowed in the crypt.

Of course, this speaks nothing for Nashandra, she needed us to do all the hard work so she could get to the Throne.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 4, 2014)

wait are you using Great Sovereign to refer to Heir to the throne here?



> Well, yeah Nashandra was a pansy but it's not like King Vendrick ever fought her to get the throne. It was the Great Sovereign who did that and that's probably applicable to his/her strength rather than Vendrick's.



This is true, but it speaks of the various power levels that the final boss of the second game is a shard of manus, it's certainly not conclusive, but there's almost certainly a huge margin between shard of manus and even a fucked up Gwyn.



> I thought the Old Iron King was killed by the Smelter Demon and became that thing we fought some time afterwards.



well at some point he turns into Diablo, not quite sure of the exact chain of events, not really important though, either way someone nominally in possesion of either Gwyns Lord Soul or the bequeathed ones the 4 Kings had, lost to a demon and was then overtaken by demonic stuff, not really a sterling effort on his part.


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## Atem (May 4, 2014)

Alucardemi said:


> I'd say it would make sense to say that The Heir to the Throne would be stronger than Vendrick by the end, since not only would he have all 4 great souls, the power of the Giants, he'd also have embraced Vendrick's soul, which Vendrick left in Amana before he Hollowed in the crypt.
> 
> Of course, this speaks nothing for Nashandra, she needed us to do all the hard work so she could get to the Throne.



If the Great Sovereign has gotten King Vendric's soul sure but that's a different topic entirely. 

Though I am still kinda confused about what shorty was trying to say about King Vendric being a chosen undead instead of the. Speaking of that let's go into that. 



			
				Nightbringer said:
			
		

> Essentially the thrust of my argument here is that Vendrick never had to take on the full might of the Lord Souls and that aside he certainly never had to fight Kalameet or Manus.



So, basically you're saying King Vendrick did the pilgrimage except stopped after offing Gwyn and did whatever? I think I may be misunderstanding here. There's different time-lines and stuff, and time is convoluted in Lordran/Drangleic so I suppose there could many more failures and successors if that's what you mean.   

Or, do you mean that King Vendrick's pilgrimage was entirely different or the like the Great Sovereign's otherwise?



Nightbringer said:


> wait are you using Great Sovereign to refer to Heir to the throne here?



Yes, mostly because it sounds cooler.



> This is true, but it speaks of the various power levels that the final boss of the second game is a shard of manus, it's certainly not conclusive, but there's almost certainly a huge margin between shard of manus and even a fucked up Gwyn.



How powerful was Manus in comparison to Gwyn at his height anyway? I don't remember any statements regarding it. 



> well at some point he turns into Diablo, not quite sure of the exact chain of events, not really important though, either way someone nominally in possesion of either Gwyns Lord Soul or the bequeathed ones the 4 Kings had, lost to a demon and was then overtaken by demonic stuff, not really a sterling effort on his part.



The Iron King got possessed by the things that "lurked below" his castle or something. Unless that included the Lord Soul I suppose that wouldn't matter all that much in long run. Though, we don't know when he acquires it IIRC.


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## Alucardemi (May 4, 2014)

That depends. If Manus is the Furtive Pygmy, Manus and Gywn at their heights had the undivided strongest souls. Of course, though, eventually they divided alot of their power to their subjects anyway(Gywn gave alot of his knights Sunlight Spears and bequeathed souls to his children and such Seath + 4 kings, Pygmy split the Dark Soul so humans could be).

But even then, they were stil the bossest guys around.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 4, 2014)

Manus is probably the Pgymy and if not at least posses a huge portion of the Dark Soul, that which empowered the Chosen Undead.



> So, basically you're saying King Vendrick did the pilgrimage except stopped after offing Gwyn and did whatever? I think I may be misunderstanding here. There's different time-lines and stuff, and time is convoluted in Lordran/Drangleic so I suppose there could many more failures and successors if that's what you mean.
> 
> Or, do you mean that King Vendrick's pilgrimage was entirely different or the like the Great Sovereign's otherwise?



We have no idea what Vendrick's 12 labours were.

We know the Chosen undeads and we know the Heir to the Thrones, but Vendrick's, as someone set between those two cycles, is unknown.

All we know is that he defeated the owners of the Lord Souls and built his kingdom with their power. What I'm saying to you is that the Lord Souls were not in their prime when he fought them, like they are in Dark Souls 1.


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## Atem (May 4, 2014)

Alucardemi said:


> That depends. If Manus is the Furtive Pygmy, Manus and Gywn at their heights had the undivided strongest souls. Of course, though, eventually they divided alot of their power to their subjects anyway(Gywn gave alot of his knights Sunlight Spears and bequeathed souls to his children and such Seath + 4 kings, Pygmy split the Dark Soul so humans could be).
> 
> But even then, they were stil the bossest guys around.



So, lots of speculation then. 



> We have no idea what Vendrick's 12 labours were.



Twelve what? I don't remember any labors getting mentioned like Hercules or something. I just figured that since there were still remnants of the Age of Fire we were still near the Dark Age and that King Vendrick might have been the Chosen Undead. 

That, and what was left was all dark like Ornstein was with the new motif and Chancellor Wellager compared King Vendrick and Nashandra's rule as something deep and like the dark. Dark age allusions, et cetera. 

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ9FGr6vmPg[/YOUTUBE]

1:29~2:16

That might have just been foreshadowing on what Nashandra actually was though. We do know she is of the Abyss and a fragment of Manus after all. 



> We know the Chosen undeads and we know the Heir to the Thrones, but Vendrick's, as someone set between those two cycles, is unknown.



King Vendrick did not take the throne at least. I am pretty sure that it's explicit that he failed, and that's why Shanolette was hoping the Great Sovereign wouldn't fail. 

We know Vendrick crosses the ocean and wrecks the giants and that might be it if he is not the Chosen Undead. Since soon afterward he creates Drangleic Castle and starts his rule. 



> All we know is that he defeated the owners of the Lord Souls and built his kingdom with their power. What I'm saying to you is that the Lord Souls were not in their prime when he fought them, like they are in Dark Souls 1.



The only one that's probably much weaker is the Old Iron King's with Gwyn's soul, and we already know that one was weak from the fact that it was burning at the Kiln of the First Flame for a thousand years. Now much later it's obviously not going to be that powerful. 

That, and we don't really know when the Old Iron King got it before or after he became "Diablo" as you aptly put it.


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## Alucardemi (May 4, 2014)

Nightbringer said:


> Manus is probably the Pgymy and if not at least posses a huge portion of the Dark Soul, that which empowered the Chosen Undead.



Yeah, Manus definitely possesed a large portion of the Dark Soul, as he was, by all accounts "primeval man/human". Of course, Fromsoft purposefully dodged the question of whether or not he was a primeval man, or the primeval man.

Either way, though, you can see his soul is a "lukewarm lump of gentle humanity", enough power to create the Abyss and possibly threaten the world with it when his humanity/emotions/mind were driven crazy by the citizens of Oolacile snatching and breaking his pendant.

(Kaathe at this point was probably desperate to find the Lord of Dark, since as he said, every single human he tried before meeting the player in Dark Souls failed him)

If he was the Pygmy, and therefore probably had the biggest portion? Only Fromsoft can tell. But I honestly kinda suspect they may be saving the mystique of the Furtive Pygmy to be used in a later title, but that's just personal bias.


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## Nighty the Mighty (May 5, 2014)

> The only one that's probably much weaker is the Old Iron King's with Gwyn's soul, and we already know that one was weak from the fact that it was burning at the Kiln of the First Flame for a thousand years. Now much later it's obviously not going to be that powerful.



Not so sure on this.

Every single Lord Soul we see and even what is essentially a pseudo lord soul (seathes) has this in it's description:



			
				DaS2 Description said:
			
		

> Soul of the ineffable.
> This once magnificent soul continues to exert influence over the land, even after the eons have reduced it to these remnants.



So Nito, Gwyns and the Witch of Izalith's Lord Souls all degraded over time, although I did actually goof when I said they were at their prime in DaS1, Nito's soul has this to say.



			
				DaS1 description said:
			
		

> Gravelord Nito administers the death of all
> manner of beings. The power of his soul is
> so great that it satiates the Lordvessel,
> despite the fact that much of its energy has
> already been offered to death.



So even 1000 years after the first flame began dying out, the souls are already weakening, countless Eon's later they are bound to, and outright said to be much weaker.


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## Atem (May 5, 2014)

Nightbringer said:


> Not so sure on this.
> 
> Every single Lord Soul we see and even what is essentially a pseudo lord soul (seathes) has this in it's description:



Well, if it's any consolation the normal great souls have no such mentioning on being remnants or being any weaker. 

Don't know how the great souls would compare to the lord souls though. They're treated as separate but they do come from the same guys so I don't know how to interpret that. Same or not, or just different altogether and just a tease for fans since you can only get them a higher bonfire ascetics and newgame +. 

Which would also throw out any scaling as well but we do know that in the flavor text for King Vendrick's soul that he linked the fire. So, there's that.  



> So Nito, Gwyns and the Witch of Izalith's Lord Souls all degraded over time, although I did actually goof when I said they were at their prime in DaS1, Nito's soul has this to say.



You're forgetting that Nito had some of his power stolen by Pinwheel whilst he was sleeping. 



> *So even 1000 years after the first flame began dying out, the souls are already weakening,* countless Eon's later they are bound to, and outright said to be much weaker.



Just Gwyn's and Pinwheel was stealing power from Nito so only those two would actually count there.


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