Part Two: Sins, Sickness, and Sanctuaries

A not-so inviting light at the end of the tunnel — or bunker.

In Dead Money, the Sierra Madre is a resort casino built prior to the war that annihilated the entire planet in nuclear devastation. It’s immediately clear to the player that the Sierra Madre is emblematic of the world in Fallout at large: rife with danger, littered with grim reminders of a lost past, yet also containing small shards of hope — or, in the Madre’s case, treasure.

Before the war, the Sierra Madre was a secluded, special resort, whose very invitations were a sign of exclusivity. It has its own form of currency, a highly specialized holographic security force, and a casino containing all the promises of entertainment. It’s a place for people to find pleasure and comfort — and yet the recorded message urging people to find the Sierra Madre is both enticing and haunting, like a pre-War siren song reaching out to troubled, sorrowful souls:

“So if life’s worries have weighed you down, if you need an escape from your troubles, or if you just need an opportunity to begin again, join us, let go, and leave the world behind at the Sierra Madre grand opening this October…” (Source)

The important part are the arc words: begin again. Through this we can safely state that the Sierra Madre was both a place of comfort and retreat — in short, a place of belonging.

The Ashes of Ariandel DLC takes place in a Painted World, similar to the Painted World of Ariamis from Dark Souls I. These Worlds are havens for the unwanted, the outcast, and the Forlorn — i.e., anyone who has no place in the outside world.

Sound familiar?

It’s unknown how people enter the Painted World. Maybe they hear about it in stories passed around from the mouths of travelers. Legends are, after all, a fantasy world’s version of a radio broadcast. Maybe they feel drawn to the World through some eldritch compulsion, similar to the natural curiosity that would bring the Courier (and the player) to an abandoned bunker in the first place. The point is, if they feel like they belong in the Painted World, they end up in that very place and call it home.

Furthermore, this World is a place for dreamers. According to Daisuke Satake, one of the art designers in Dark Souls I, the Corvians of the Painted World were people who wished to grow wings. This wish was so powerful that it transformed their bodies into pathetically horrific creatures. In Ariandel, the Corvians’ gruesome appearances are offset by their passive, almost timid nature. They are meek, emaciated, sickly beings, some barely able to stand, who squawk pitifully as they lay collapsed on the ground.

Most of them are passive, and barely defend themselves.

The Painted World is also a haven for those who worship the goddess Velka, an obscure figure in the already vague world of Dark Souls lore. From in-game text, Velka is said to be the goddess of sin, and her statue in the Undead Settlement also possesses the ability to absolve you of both wrongdoing and remove any Hollowing.

In game mechanics terms, “sin” happens if you attack another character (say, a merchant) and accidentally aggro them. To undo that damage, you go to this statue and offer souls to have your “sins” forgiven. But the fact that Velka can also remove Hollowing is rather interesting. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it, but I do want to point out that the only other Unkindled Hollow we meet in the game is Friede, the main boss of Ashes of Ariandel. It doesn’t surprise me that she would gravitate towards a world that was the center of Velka’s worship, nor does it surprise me that she would sit rapt and attentive at the feet of Velka’s statue.

Being the goddess of sin doesn’t mean Velka venerates or glorifies in it. Sin has to be Velka’s domain and within her control if she’s able to remove it from those who worship her. How else could she get rid of sin, if she didn’t fully understand and grasp what sin is?

Despire her obscurity, Velka is a merciful figure in the world of Dark Souls, and her presence and the power of her worship is similar to the Sierra Madre broadcast, inviting the forlorn and the downtrodden to take comfort within its walls. Also, as a fun side-note, the Sierra Madre broadcast was made by Vera Keyes, who is herself a central figure of the Sierra Madre’s secrets, including its treasures and its tragedy. Vera Keyes, Velka.

But I digress.

The Sierra Madre, wreathed in its trademark toxic cloud.

Both of these sanctuary worlds are also home to an unstoppable force of destruction. For the Sierra Madre, it’s a red toxic cloud that permeates the air, slowly eating away at anyone who breathes it in. For the Painted World, it’s the sickly red “rot,” which can be found bubbling out of the ground and spreading fast across the settlement. (Side-note: there’s a fun bit of bilingual wordplay happening with the red rot in the Painted World, and the German word for the color red — which is also spelled rot, albeit pronounced differently. Call me silly, but I think this was intentional on FromSoftware’s part, especially considering the Germanic origins of other names in the DLC {Friede, Vilhelm}, as well as the Millwood knights’ appearance.)

The rot is, unfortunately, completely inexplicable. We never know how it started, or why. Much like the fading of the First Flame, it is simply something that happens, something that cannot be stopped, only responded to. This tragedy is all too familiar to me, in the scope of abuse and trauma, and despite the obviously different scenarios, the feeling of hopelessness and defeat remains the same.

My theory — and take this with a grain of salt — is that the rot has to do with the mental state of the people who live in the Painting. As more forlorn, miserable, lonely people gathered in one place, the more their dark feelings manifested physically, becoming the blood red, maggot-filled rot that is now slowly devouring the Painted World from within. It wouldn’t be the first time something in the Painted World transformed because of powerful thoughts: as mentioned above, the Corvians only exist because they wished to have wings.

And yet, much like our own questions about existence and the nature of our world, will understanding its origins ever get us anywhere? Will knowing why the world exists, and why decay is inevitable, give us the power to stop it? Obviously not. In the Painted World, the rot is just a condition the people have to accept. Like everything involving life and death, it’s something out of their power, something they can only respond to. The rot is a natural state of being— the rot, like death, is the natural progression of life.

The Sierra Madre’s toxic cloud has a less vague origin story. It existed before the War and has been the subject of study both then and now. Father Elijah says that “it decays all it touches,” and even after all his time in the Madre, he hasn’t found a way to stop it. The only people who seem to tolerate the cloud are Dean Domino (since he’s a ghoul), and the feral locals in the Madre: the Ghost People.

Nightmare fuel incoming.

Much like the necromorphs in Dead Space, the Ghost People cannot die by normal means. You need to dismember them to keep them down permanently, a task made all the more difficult thanks to your Courier losing their weapons when they’re taken to the Madre. The Ghost People are, even at their worst, a scary frustration, something to be avoided by stealth or run frantically past (guess which one I did). But they also are a victim in Dead Money, they’re just too far gone to reach out for help or even know they need it.

As we continue through the Sierra Madre, we piece together the story of what happened to the resort before the bombs fell. During the resort’s construction, a gas leak injured several people on the crew. This accident wasn’t the first of its kind, nor would it be the last. Eventually, an airborne toxin started to seep in from the ventilation system, damaging the lungs and tissue of any who were exposed.

As we soon uncover, the source of the toxic cloud wasn’t a natural disaster — it was man-made. Worse, it was man-controlled. Researchers from the Big Empty, a nearby laboratory for some of the most brutal pre-War scientific experiments, purposefully designed and placed the toxin below the Sierra Madre. Like most horrific science experiments in the Fallout series, this was done for no reason other than to satisfy their curiosity. It was decision made with a total lack of compassion for the people who would suffer.

The researchers did this without anyone knowing, and what’s more, it was an experiment within an experiment. They also gave the workers hazmat suits, the very same ones we see the Ghost People wearing, in order to test how well they worked. In short, they didn’t. Exposure to the toxic cloud eroded the metal locks on the suits, forever trapping whoever was wearing them inside.

Holy shit.

But what about the founder of the Sierra Madre? Who funded this ambitious project, and who inspired it all, and why? And how are they all connected to the Madre’s current decaying state, a manifestation of the figurative toxic greed that permeated the resort’s origins? The answer lies with three people: Frederick Sinclair, Vera Keyes, and our very own Dean Domino.