Elden Ring’s Lands Between hide a lot of secrets for players to discover as they explore the game’s open world. These secrets range from dungeons and caves to interesting puzzles. One thing most of Elden Ring’s optional secrets have in common is that they often end in a boss fight. FromSoftware games are famous for intense and difficult boss fights and Elden Ring holds the most bosses of any in game the series.
Elden Ring has so many bosses that there aren't enough dungeons and side quests in the game to build up to them all. Some areas in Elden Ring simply cut to the chase and confront the player with a boss fight. Many of Elden Ring's optional and often difficult world bosses are found in Evergaols which are scattered across the game's world.
The Evergaols can appear quite cryptic at first, but upon investigating the player will realize that gaol is just an antiquated spelling of “jail.” The Evergaols are prisons and the optional bosses found within them are the prisoners. Elden Ring's visual design is heavily inspired by Scandinavian and Celtic history, and it appears the Evergaols are no exception. It's quite fitting then that a Reddit user named marxama has found a remarkably similar looking design in the city of Uppsala in Sweden. Though unfortunately, instead of an ancient otherworldly prison, this real-world Evergaol is really just a fountain without any water in it.
Found right outside Uppsala Castle, this empty water fountain looks exactly like a miniaturized Evergaol. The Reddit user posted the photo with the caption “about to die in Uppsala, Sweden” in reference to the notorious difficulty of the Evergaol bosses for early game players. Some commenters on the post have looked at the landmarks in the background of the photo and noticed other Elden Ring-esq structures, such as the Uppsala Cathedral, which fans have noted as looking similar Elden Ring’s Churches of Markia where players can find Sacred Tears.
Whether Elden Ring’s Evergaols are based on some real-world piece of medieval architecture is unknown yet. FromSoftware is known for lifting designs from mythology and other works of fiction to put in its games. But FromSoftware is also equally well known for its original ideas and concepts, which fit well into the mythology of the game, and Evergaols may just be one of these.
Evergaols aren't the first “gaols” to be featured in a Fromsoftware game. Players of Bloodborne will remember the Hypogean Gaol which translates simply to Underground Jail. Perhaps the inspiration for Elden Ring’s Evergaols came from this, and the design simply allowed for subtle boss arena in the game’s open landscape.
Elden Ring is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.