A new Elden Ring video offers a datamined look at what's inside Rennala's egg. FromSoftware is known to create rich worlds and stories with an incredible amount of mystery baked in. Players don't know where intentional worldbuilding ends and development limitations begin. Sometimes finding out the truth requires dataminers to explore a game's files after launch to see if FromSoftware left any clues, and Elden Ring is especially ripe with such secrets.
Elden Ring players will already be familiar with Rennala, one of the game's most important bosses. Rennala is the queen of the Carian Royals and leads the Academy of Raya Lucaria. She also holds a Great Rune, a fragment of the Elden Ring, which she carries in an amber egg. Rennala uses this egg to grant rebirth, perhaps driven to do so after the bodily death of her daughter Ranni. Yet Rennala's egg hides a disturbing secret just beneath its shell that provides some further context to its usage.
In her latest two videos, Zullie the Witch takes a close look at the model and textures of Rennala's egg. The first video takes a closer look at the egg seen after Rennala has been defeated, as she sits in the center of her boss room. This version of the egg features strange black vein-like growths within, as well as white egg-like bulbs. There's also, strangely, some hair strands, which Zullie speculates on but doesn't discover the secret of which until her second video.
The second video looks at Rennala's egg from in-engine cinematics that play during cutscenes. This version of the egg is more complete, indicating that FromSoftware edited it for Elden Ring but forgot to change the cutscene versions of the egg. This version of the egg, terrifyingly, is full of baby-sized Juvenile Scholars. They are nude, have a stub instead of legs, and lack definition. In other words, Rennala is quite literally re-birthing the scholars. This is also where the hair in the other egg comes from.
It can perhaps be assumed that the amber egg is a magical womb of sorts. Rennala uses it to grow people all over again, though the process isn't perfect as seen by the Juvenile Scholars that fill Rennala's room.
It's unclear why FromSoftware chose to remove this detail from the amber egg players were able to closely interact with. Perhaps FromSoftware thought such a literal example of rebirth was too on the nose, or maybe it wanted Elden Ring players to be more mystified by the process and the magic Rennala performed. The change also granted more mystery to Radagon, who gave the egg to Rennala. If the egg, bearing a Great Rune, was always specifically for rebirth, then Radagon's intentions when giving it to Rennala become somewhat more cruel and malicious given the death of their daughter.
Elden Ring is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.