Elden Ring: The Tragic Tale Of Hewg And Roderika

In the Lands Between setting of Elden Ring, FromSoftware’s newest RPG, friends and allies like Hewg and Roderika are few and far between. From the beginning of the game to its epic climax, these two NPCs stick with the player from beginning to end – Hewg is a blacksmith, a Misbegotten prisoner of the Roundtable Hold, and Roderika is a Tarnished noblewoman who becomes the player’s Spirit Tuner. The narrative arcs of these two Elden Ring NPCs create an endearingly tragic tale, but item descriptions and dialogue also help reconstruct the life stories of Hewg and Roderika before they came to the Roundtable Hold.

As the two most important utility NPCs in Elden Ring – the blacksmith who can upgrade a player’s weapons and the Spirit Tuner who can upgrade a player’s Spirit Ashes – both Hewg and Roderika are coded to be impossible to kill by a player who swings their weapons accidentally or maliciously. Hewg is literally shackled to the Roundtable Hold where violence is impossible, forbidden by the allegiance of Tarnished who use it as a base, while Roderika is protected by a magical barrier when players firsts meet her in Limgrave. Even without these in-game safeguards, few players would want to harm these two NPCs, who have genial personalities and sad backstories that evoke a lot of sympathy.

Related: Every Elden Ring NPC You Can Accidentally Kill

Hewg the Blacksmith’s Pre-Elden Ring History

The Misbegotten enemies tragically encountered in Elden Ring – misshapen in stature, with strange growths of horn, scales, wings, and tails – were once despised and enslaved by the human ruling class of the Golden Order. Within the open-world setting of the Lands Between, players can find Misbegotten rising up against their human masters in Castle Morne and seeking refuge within the all-accepting society of the Haligtree, grown by Miquella to challenge the Erdtree’s power. When players first encounter Hewg, the Misbegotten blacksmith explicitly states he bears them no ill will for his imprisonment. Indeed, it may not be his iron leg shackles keeping him bound to the Roundtable Hold.

Hewg’s formative years living under Elden Ring‘s Golden Order were likely miserable, as a Misbegotten raised in a society that despised and enslaved his kind. The rest of Hewg’s backstory can be uncovered by interpreting enigmatic statements Elden Ring players can overhear. In his first conversation, Hewg talks about his love for the art of blacksmithing, and how forging weapons helps him “forget the sheer terror of her.” After teaching Roderika the art of Spirit Tuning, Hewg mentions how he’s “indebted to a Spirit Tuner” he met long ago. Finally, after players progress through their Elden Ring playthrough, they can overhear Hewg muttering this prayer, rich in game lore:

“Your divinity, have mercy, and grant me forgiveness. The road is yet long. A God not easily felled. But one day, without fail, you will have your wish. So please, grant me forgiveness, Queen Marika…”

If Hewg’s words here are true, then at some point in his past, the Misbegotten blacksmith must have been approached by Elden Ring‘s Queen Marika at the peak of her power – a golden haired goddess as bright and terrible as the sun. Whether through magical enchantments or sheer charisma, Marika bound Hewg to the task of crafting a god-slaying weapon (either for Radagon, the Elden Beast endgame boss, or both). Initially, Hewg might have accepted Marika’s mission for fear of divine punishment. By the time of Elden Ring‘s campaign, though, Hewg seems to view the crafting of a (max-upgraded) god-slaying weapon as the ultimate test of his blacksmithing skills and decisive proof of his worth as a sentient being.

Roderika The Spirit Tuner’s Pre-Elden Ring History

When players first encounter Roderika and her quest early in Elden Ring, the young Tarnished lady is at her wit’s end and teetering on the brink of despair. She rambles on about how her companions, who crossed the sea with her to fight by her side in the Lands Between, were brutally dismembered and grafted to a “spider” in Stormveil Castle (either Godrick the Grafted or one of his Grafted Scions). Seeing herself as nothing more than a useless coward, Roderika keeps trying to talk herself into returning to Stormveil and “joining” her fallen comrades, but hints at her affinity with spirits when she gifts the player a Spirit Jellyfish Ash.

Related: Elden Ring’s Best Spirit Ashes, Ranked

In the depths of the Stormveil Castle, Elden Ring‘s Limgrave legacy dungeon, players can find two keepsakes of Roderika’s followers atop a corpse-pile. The Chrysalid’s Memento key item, tinged with the lingering voices of Roderika’s companions, will restore her will to live if gifted to her, as she senses their belief and faith in her potential. The other item, a Crimson Hood headpiece identical to the one worn by Roderika, contains this very revealing description:

A hooded cloak of vivid crimson. Worn by expatriated royalty. Increases vigor.

Such cloaks were gifted to those who departed on journeys without specific orders, to faraway lands from which they would never return. In other words, the gift of a cloak made it easier for undesirable to be on their way.

Roderika never once saw the guidance of grace.

Before the events of Elden Ring, but likely some time after the extensive histories of the game’s setting penned by author George R.R. Martin, Roderika seems to have been the unfavorite child of a royal family outside Elden Ring‘s Lands Between – unskilled at the art of combat, too skittish and full of doubt to be a decisive ruler. When she was revived from death by a fragment of grace, her royal kin seized on this blessing as an excuse to permanently banish Roderika from whatever land she called home. And yet, for all the contempt Roderika received from her peers, her underlings seem to have held her in the highest esteem – for being kind, sensitive, and caring when her fellow royals were cruel and callous. It’s through Hewg’s tutelage that Roderika finally lives up to her follower’s faith, becoming a Spirit Tuner who upgrades the Spirit Ashes Elden Ring players can use to conjure spectral allies.

The Fate Of Roderika And Hewg In Elden Ring

Roderika was a human member of royalty, while Hewg was a menial blacksmith. Despite these differences in origin, these two Elden Ring NPCs actually have a lot in common, being individuals who overcome the rejection of their societies by mastering their respective crafts. As other supporting characters die, abandon, or kill each other in Elden Ring‘s Roundtable Hold, this found family of two continue to assist the Tarnished protagonist until the end of Elden Ring‘s storyline, even as the Roundtable Hold burns down and Hewg’s memories burn along with it.

More: Elden Ring: Best Fist Weapons And Ashes Of War For Hand-To-Hand Builds

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