Interpreting the Duskborn Ending

[Taaj Manzoor, BMX Enjoyer]

Spoiler alert:
Fia was known as a Deathbed Companion. From what I gathered, the Deathbed Companions were a class of priestesses who slept with powerful warriors in order to gather a bit of their life force. They then have to sleep with the corpses of noblemen in an attempt to transfer the life force into the corpse and resurrect the dead nobles. Basically, the Deathbed Companions were girls forced into a sort of religious prostitution in order to help the upper class noblemen live longer. This would explain why the player got a HP debuff when they carried the blessing that they received from Fia's hug.
This practice was made possible because Marika removed the Death Rune from the Elden Ring so that the cycle of life and death no longer functioned properly in the Lands Between.
Therefore, by reincorporating the Death Rune back into the Elden Ring, the Duskborn ending reintroduces the cycle of life and death back into the world. This means that there would no longer be a need for Deathbed Companions and girls like Fia would not be forced into religious prostitution by powerful men who wished to live longer.

There are a lot of hidden lore that would add more emotional weight to which ending that you would end up choosing.

[Goosetave]

I took Ranni's path and uh, wow that ending was cryptic as all hell. Looked fancy tho, not complaining.

[Ariesxs]

Originally posted by Goosetave:

I took Ranni's path and uh, wow that ending was cryptic as all hell. Looked fancy tho, not complaining.

From what i understand, before the Greater Will took control of the Lands Between, that place was guided by the stars and the moon.
So, after Ranni was born, she wanted to get rid of her ''god'' side and then stole the Death Rune from Maleketh (which we help him reconstruct by giving him the deathroot) and made the Black Knife Assassins.
Then, they proceded to kill Godwyn (i dont remember which one was,a demigod) but at the same time Ranni killed herself with a knife. So the Rune of Death was fractured. One body was without a soul (the first demigod that was killed) and one soul was without a body (Ranni, i believe that was the reason she was a doll if u do her quest).
So by restoring Ranni and the Rune of death, looks like we return the Lands between to a point before the greater will manipulated the events.

[Taaj Manzoor, BMX Enjoyer]

Originally posted by Goosetave:

I took Ranni's path and uh, wow that ending was cryptic as all hell. Looked fancy tho, not complaining.

Spoiler:

Ranni was an Empyrean, like Malenia and Miquella, she was one of the few heirs with the right of inheriting the throne from Marika. An Empyrean was born from a single parent and not from a pair of parents. This means that Empyreans were essentially clones of their progenitors. The rulers of the Lands Between were all Empyreans and served as an extension of the Erdtree's will. We can interpret this as the Erdtree enforcing its control over the land through a lineage of rulers who were clones of each other. This would explain why the game referred to Marika and Radagan as the same person. They were the same person since they shared the same DNA. My guess is that the Erdtree needed to ensure the purity of its puppet rulers since its mechanisms of control lies within their DNA. Ranni somehow learned of all this and began to detest her own blood. She knew that she too was an extension of the Erdtree's schemes and devised a plan that ended up destroying her own body whilst preserving her consciousness. The Erdtree was an outer god who came to the Lands Between a long time ago. Before the Erdtree's arrival, the most influential family in the Land's Between were the House of Caria. The Carians were astrologers who formulated glinstone sorceries by observing the stars and the Moon. The Erdtree's arrival and the kingdom that it founded upended House Caria's rule and ostracised the practice of glintstone sorceries. The incantations were a separate branch of magic that derived their power from the outer gods.
Ranni's ending was aptly called the Age of Stars and Moons. This was symbolic of the time before the Erdtree's arrival when the land was ruled via the power of astrology. Ranni's ending is basically an end to the Erdtree's rule and returning everything to the way things were before its arrival.

Side note: Many of Marika's children showed genetic defects which would make them unfit to rule. So this leaves Ranni as the only option. However, she goes and kills Godwyn which also led to the destruction of her own body. Godwyn was the son of Godfrey and Marika. He was not Empyrean since his father Godfrey was not a puppet of the Erdtree. It's unclear why Ranni killed Godfrey. However, with the destruction of Ranni's body, the only legitimate means of extending the Erdtree's rule disappeared. Of course, Marika could have tried to sire more offspring with Radagan. However, she instead chose to break the Elden Ring and completely wreck the Erdtree's rule.

Out of options, the Erdtree chose to recall the exiled Tarnished in an attempt to restore its control over the land.