In the beginning there was no life or death,

no light or dark,

there was however the Above and the Below.

Above, where the everlasting dragons ruled,

and Below, where there were humanoid beings that would one day become humans,
giants and lords.

Below fire was born.

And some beings found power within these flames and took it for themselves.

Gwyn could be called a lord of Light.

Nito a lord of Death.

And the Witch of Izalith a lord of Life.

These souls were the Disparity.

They represented black and white where everything else was grey before.

And so they cast away the grey and started an age of light and dark,

life and death.

There is was one that I haven't mentioned, who came after the other three lords.

The Furtive Pygmy found the Dark Souls within the flames,

and fathered humanity.

The Pygmy was content to wait,

splitting and spreading his soul while the other lords changed the world.

There are dynamics that exist between the souls.

You can't have one without the other.

Gwyn's age of Fire is built around the First Flame

which was linked to bonfires and spread throughout the world.

However, eventually even this fire began to fade.

It was realised that humanity,

the little black sprite in every human,

could feed the fire.

So Gwyn commanded his children to shepherd the humans.

Maybe there is a reason the Dark Soul was found after the first three.
Maybe it was the fuel.

You already know what happens next.

The grey dragons were cast aside and Gwyn began an age of Fire.

When the Flame started to fade,

the Witch of Izalith attempted to create a new flame with her Life soul.

But it spiraled out of control and demons were created.

Then out of nowhere a curse appeared,

a kind of disease that links humans to the bonfires

causing some to become undying.

Instead of death there is hollowing

and to reverse the hollowing one has to offer humanity to the flames.

Convenient, isn't it?

Some even whispered that the curse was designed by the lords

to keep the humanity of the undead linked to the bonfires.

The more humanity they donate the greater the fire grows.

And the undead are drawn to the flame,

fated to be consumed over and over again

until only a hollow husk is left.

For the purpose of shepherding the humans, the Church, the Way of White was formed.

An influential covenant devoted to serving the gods,

they condemn the undead as a plague.

The cleric knights of Lloyd are praised for their undead hunts,

using Lloyd's talismans to prevent the undead from recovering

allowing the knights to kill with impunity.

Afraid of the threat that the Dark Souls pose

Gwyn effectively sets humanity against itself.

Undead are caught and shipped to the asylum to await the end of the world.

So, what happens when a member of the Church becomes an accursed undead?

When this happens it isn't seen as a curse.

It couldn't be. How could such a thing happen to the member of the Church?
No, becoming an undead Way of White member means you are blessed.

It means you must devote yourself to a pilgrimage in service of the Way of White,

something that gets you out of the Church

but still serves the Church's purpose.

Undead clerics are given a quest for kindling.

The art of feeding bonfires with humanity.

Is there humanity hidden within the catacombs?

Maybe,

but its much more likely that they are searching for a secret rite of kindling.

A method of feeding bonfires with humanity

that was stolen from an ally of Gwyn.

And this brings us to Nito,

who was rumored to hold the rite of kindling

until it was stolen by Pinwheel.

Nito is a strange entity.

Unlike the other lords, he seems to only have one motive.

Above all else we see his desire to spread death.

He doesn't concern himself with the politics of the outside world.

Except for once when he brought death to the undying.

The everlasting dragons had their stone scales ripped apart by Gwyn

and Nito delivered the death blow.

But why did he do this?

Well, disparity is in Nito's best interests, because if life exists so too must
death.

After the successful alliance with Gwyn,

Nito gained dominion over the dead and the Catacombs

with a vast army of dead servants defending his tomb,

and another army of Gravelord servants actively spreading death to others through
the Eyes of Death.

Nito seems content to wait in the darkest depths of the Catacombs,

slowly growing his army of the dead

Like all the other Lord Souls, his power is distributed among his servants.

But is there nothing more to Nito?

The first undead cleric was Leeroy.

He was given glorified set of armor

and the most powerful relics the Church possessed.

In a grand gesture he was sent into the Catacombs to retrieve kindling.

You fight with him to kill Pinwheel and the mission is successful.

You retrieve the rite from the Catacombs which was stolen from Nito.

But there's more.

Attempt to kill Nito and Leeroy will defend him.

Leeroy will fight against you.

Assume then that Nito is important to the Way of White.

Perhaps his purpose of spreading death is what Gwyn wants.

It makes sense.

Spread death and the undead have to burn humanity to feed the bonfires and keep
themselves human.

Feed the bonfires and Gwyn's age of Fire can last a little longer.

The real tragedy here

is the deceit.

We are all in the dark.

Humanity has no idea what caused the undead curse but it's spreading.

Entire lands are becoming infected with the mysterious Darksign,

which keeps undead reliant on the bonfires, unable to die.

No one knows where it originated,

no one knows who created it,

or if there is even a who behind it.

All we do know is that you could be a regular human before you turn undead.

You'd be unable to die but unable to stop deteriorating,

becoming more and more hollow with every death.

Suddenly, you are threat to those around you.

The Way of White busies themselves with purging the undead from the world,

but they don't know if the curse is a threat.

They don't know how it came about

or if they're just been sent into the Catacombs to die.

And you,

you're being led by serpents who tell you different things

encouraged to kill all of the lords in your path regardless of whether they're in
your way.

Just so you can get enough souls to satiate the Lordvessel

in the hope that killing Gwyn will give you answers

There are no answers... yet.

At the core of everything is the curse.