Elden Ring Fan apparently sees winter lanterns when he's out shopping

Important takeaways

  • An Elden Ring fan has stumbled upon two mannequins resembling Bloodborne's Winter Lantern enemies while Christmas shopping.
  • The mannequins also bear a resemblance to Elden Ring's Aging Untouchable, triggering flashbacks and panic among players.
  • The Elden Rings DLC includes a nod to the Bloodborne Winter Lantern enemies, and both these creatures and the Aging Untouchable wear similar, bulbous designs.



A Fire Ring fan has encountered an unexpected Soulslike boss out in the wild that sees Christmas shopping dolls that resemble winter lanterns. These specific enemies are known from the 2015 game Blood bornebut Fire Ring's Aging Immobile monsters resemble the bulbous form of the creatures. Some Soulslike fans are so ingrained in these dark fantasy titles that they begin to see elements of Lands Between or Yharnam manifest in the real world.

Fire Ring was first released in 2022 and was an instant success, and the same story applied to its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC that launched in June 2024. Blood borne has gone almost 10 years without a new DLC, a sequel, or an expected PC port. Fire Ring is among Soulslike games that keep players busy for months, thanks to its vast open world and rich lore. Therefore, it is understandable why players are easily consumed by its world, so much so that Christmas dolls begin to look like enemy encounters.


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Posted by obi-juan-kenobee, a photo was shared on Fire Ring subreddit showing two mannequins in a shop window. Both mannequins had their faces covered in a cluster of celebratory gold and red orbs, and this bizarre headpiece sparked the fan's encounter with two of the more disturbingly designed Soulslike bosses. Fire Ring's Aging Untouchable bears various similarities to Blood borne's Winter Lanterns, but the most notable design detail they have in common is the grotesque, onion-shaped heads that the Christmas decorations managed to capture.



Fire RingAging untouchables also give a callback to another Dark souls manager in addition Blood borne foe, and it's clear FromSoftware favors the bulging designs prominent in both. Soulslike Redditors noted that baubles gave them unwelcome flashbacks to the Abyssal Woods, and another fan noted players' instinct to panic and roll away from Aging Untouchables, instead of trying to hide and then rush the Winter Lanterns under Blood borne combat.

The Aging Untouchable enemies are found in the Abyssal Woods, a Shadow of the Erdtree place that Torrent is afraid of, while Blood borne's Winter Lanterns populate Nightmare Frontier, Nightmare of Mensis, and Fishing Hamlet. Fire Rings DLC contains a more obvious nod to Blood borne creatures, as the heralds of the Aging Untouchables are called Winter-Lantern Flies. Additional trivia says that the winter lanterns are named after an actual plant in Japan, used as both food and sedative, with their bright casing named after the Chinese paper lanterns.


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