Everyone was shocked to learn that simply accepting a hug in Elden Ring could actually harm you without much fanfare, but it turns out that’s not the only negative thing that can happen when you’re dealing with anything related to Deathbed Companions. In what is perhaps the funniest adjustment in Tuesday’s big 1.06 patch, there are two bullet points that pertain to the attire worn by everyone’s favourite goth wife, Fia.
I don’t know how many people this actually affected in practice, but if you ever ran around with the Deathbed Dress within Elden Ring, you my friend were playing on hard mode. Up until now, wearing the dark attire actually made enemies notice you more easily, even if you were crouched. What’s worse, if you happened to use any charge attacks while wearing the Deathbed Dress, ally characters would somehow take damage. Uh, what. And mind you, part of the item description for the dress promises that, “The touch of the fabric is exceedingly soft, so as not to harm even the most withered corpse, while still sharing her warmth.”
Well, that’s been fixed now. But the former glitch is funny to consider within both the fandom itself and the larger lore of the game. Fia, one of the characters you meet in the Roundtable Hold, is a Deathbed Companion who “lays” with dead dudes. She would basically collect life energy from champions and then channel all that healthy vigour into the deceased, allowing them to take breath once more. You later learn that, spoilers, Fia intends to use this ability to revive none other than Godfrey himself, the first demigod to die in the world of Elden Ring.
At first you don’t really know any of this. Fia just offers you hugs and you probably say yes because, um, it’s a hug and FromSoftware games are evil things where you get punished for literally going up to a butterfly on a cliff. Except Fia uses her powers on you when she does this, which in practice means that your maximum HP decreases in exchange for better poise. While some considered this a great betrayal, others used Fia’s powers before going off on tough battles that might benefit from having a slightly stronger constitution.
It’s almost fitting, then, that the actual uniform worn by people like Fia kind of mess you up, too. I mean, Those Who Live In Death aren’t really natural, are they? Plus, with how much thirst is thrown around when it comes to Fia, it kinda makes sense that enemies would have a sixth sense for when the sex witches are roaming about. The description for the dress does state, “Extremely thin and sheer white dress worn by the Deathbed Companion as she embraces the dead.” Remember how data miners found literal underwear tied to Fia that, while cut from the actual game, still had lovingly-rendered lace and small frills? Yeah.
You can find the Deathbed Dress inside a church residing in Leydell. Notably, the dress is a different item from the robe left behind by Fia at the end of her quest. However, the Deathbed Dress very literally what Fia is wearing during the game.
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