Elden Ring’s lore is a complex web of characters affiliated with different gods and groups, and what makes the story even harder to understand is that the game will never outright explain any of this to the player. Gamers are left to compile information from dialogues and item descriptions in order to put together a timeline of events and the many characters involved. Something players have figured out is that the most powerful beings in Elden Ring’s lore are known as Outer Gods, which are formless, and often elemental, entities with unclear objectives in The Lands Between.
One of the most mysterious of these Outer Gods in Elden Ring is the Outer God of Scarlet Rot, which is responsible for the flowering rot that infests many characters in Elden Ring and the entire area of Caelid. The Outer God itself is said to be sealed away below the Lake of Rot and so the player will never encounter it directly. Scarlet Rot, therefore, has become much more synonymous with another character who players can encounter, Malenia, Blade of Miquella.
Aside from Malenia being the most difficult boss fight in Elden Ring, the character is also incredibly important to the game’s story, as she is one of the shardbearing demigod children of Queen Marika. Specifically, Malenia is one of two cursed twins born to Marika and Radagon, and has been afflicted with Scarlet Rot since birth. A Reddit user named legatii has used Elden Ring's character creator to create what they believe Malenia would have looked like without this Scarlet Rot curse.
Scarlet Rot can be seen corrupting Malenia’s entire body, and she has already lost an entire arm and leg to the affliction, along with her other leg below the knee, but legatii's custom character shows what Malenia could have looked like without the Scarlet Rot. The Reddit user says they took inspiration for the character not just from Malenia as she exists in game, but from her in-game father Radagon, as it is from him that Malenia also gets her fiery red hair similar to her half-brother Radahn.
Malenia is still an Empyrean character capable of becoming Elden Lord, which means that Malenia was not only powerful enough to hold back the Scarlet Rot that has been consuming her for her entire life, but she also became one of Elden Ring's most powerful warriors at the same time. A much stronger and Scarlet Rot-free version of Malenia should therefore be a terrifying concept for players that have already struggled with Malenia’s boss fight in Elden Ring.
Although Malenia fights against her Scarlet Rot curse, she has been known to wield it as a weapon when faced with defeat. The first time this happened was against General Radahn in the events before Elden Ring’s story, and the second time is in the second phase of her boss fight with the player.
Elden Ring is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Reddit