Sin, Covenant Betrayals & Absolution — Dark Souls Dissected №1+2

The guide is part of the «Dark Souls Dissected» series, dedicated to the secrets and mechanics of the Dark Souls trilogy.

Introduction

Greetings and welcome to the first episode of Dark Souls Dissected, a series of guides dedicated to unraveling the mechanics of the Dark Souls trilogy. Today, I'm going to talk about the Sin mechanic and the rest of the features related to it.

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This guide is a translation of two videos from Illusory wall:

1. Dark Souls Dissected #1 - Sin
   
2. Dark Souls Dissected #2 - Covenant Betrayals & Absolution

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Sin is probably the most misunderstood mechanic in the game.
Except for the servants of the Gravelord, I guess...

I think many players have a general idea of how it works. For example, they may have heard that you can get sin:

• by killing another player in PvP,
  
• by attacking an NPC,
  
• or betraying a covenant.

And that there are Dark Moon covenants that target sinners for invasion (to them).
And in addition, there is a NIP named Oswald who can deliver you from your sins.



The problem is that all of the above is true, to a certain extent... But here we should put an asterisk (*) next to each of these points.

Because without further clarification, all these facts are quite misleading.

The most important thing to take away from this video is that there are actually two different types of sin.

There is PvP sin (Player versus Player) and PvE sin (Player versus Environment).
And the game doesn't try to distinguish between them, and that's where the confusion comes in.

Well, it means that how you get each type of sin, how you get rid of it, and the types of penalties for having them are completely separate from each other.

PvP Sin

Let's start with the PvP sin.

This sin works according to a system of points that are recorded in the Guilty Book. So if you are interested to know how much PvP sin you have, you can simply check the book.



There are two ways to get it.
The first way, of course, is PvP.

Red phantoms, forest hunters, and phantoms that have invaded through the Eye of the Dragon have a chance to get the accusation from the host when he lose in PvP. When the host decides to use the accusation, the alien's PvP sin will increase by one point.



And the second way to get PvP sin is to exile from the covenant. Note that I emphasized the word "exile from the covenant". This is not the same as simply replacing one covenant with another.

So I'll save the topic of «covenant betrayal» for later, but in short, if you do something like attacking Alvina while still in the Forest Hunters covenant, you will be awarded a point towards PvP sin, as if you were accused.

So you know the causes of PvP sin - so how do you get rid of it?

Actually, the only way is to die from an alien from the Dark Moon covenant. Each time this happens, your PvP Sin score is reduced by one. And once this figure drops to zero, you will be removed from the Book of Guilty and Blue Eye invasions will no longer target you.

Then you might ask:

What about Oswald? Can't you pay him to take away your sins?

And the answer here is

No, not really.

Every time Oswald talks about sin, he is actually referring to a different kind of sin. So if you're interested in managing your PvP sin, just ignore Oswald, he's not going to help with that.

And one more thing - when you are invaded by a Dark Moon player, you don't have to die by his hand to lose a PvP sin point. The game only checks if someone is present in your world at the moment of your death.

So, for example, if you accidentally fall off a cliff while a Dark Moon follower is elsewhere in your world, your PvP sin value will still be reduced by one.

So remember: the only purpose of PvP sin is to allow Dark Mooners to invade your world through the Blue Eye. So if you don't mind potential invasions or feel comfortable knowing how to avoid it all... there's no downside to having this (PvP sin). Moreover, moving up the Guilty List is a good thing.

It helps keep you active in PvP and can even make you feel cool, albeit superficially.

PvE Sin

So what about another type of sin? PvE sin?

Actually, it can't be counted or recorded. In fact, it's just a kind of «off/on» switch. You either have it or you don't.

And you get it by attacking NPCs. It doesn't make any difference to the game:

• whether you unintentionally provoked one NPC,
  
• or you went on a rampage, killing everyone in Lordran

for PvE sin, it is the same.

You either have this sin or you don't.

All of this is actually a kind of switch that allows you to pay Oswald to be freed from sin. Once PvE sin is enabled, he is ready to accept payment. So that's pretty much it. Moreover, PvE sin does not do anything. There are no negative consequences.

Of course, paying for forgiveness is very important here if you want to appease the NPC. But if not, then there is no point in paying for it.

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Dark Anor Londo

Last but not least, we should tell you about Dark Anor Londo. This place has its own rules, and here they are somewhat different.

Earlier I said that the host must have a PvP sin to be hunted by the followers of Dark Moon. Again, this is a feature of the Blue Eye.

In the case of Dark Anor Londo, it is not necessary to have a PvP sin to get invaded by Dark Moon. So if you're a host in Dark Anor Londo, plunging the city into darkness is enough to get an invasion, but through the Dark Moon Covenant Ring.

In all other cases, it has no further negative consequences.
You will not be able to be invaded by followers of the Dark Moon in other locations in the game.

However, making Anor Londo dark will permanently switch your PvE sin meter to "on".

And here's the strange thing: if you go to Oswald for forgiveness, he will still charge you.
And all this is to make the sin automatically turn on again.

But it doesn't matter anyway-because, as I said, everything that happens in Dark Anor Londo stays within Dark Anor Londo. And it doesn't affect anything else in the game.

Betrayal

Now I'm going to talk about covenant breaking and absolution.

There are actually two different ways to betray a covenant, and when it comes to this topic, communities are not always ready to confirm it. So, to further distinguish between the types of betrayal, I propose to call one type "light betrayal" and the other "hard betrayal".

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Light betrayal

Light betrayal occurs when you switch from one covenant to another. When you betray a covenant that has a level system, your progress is halved.

This is what happens when I leave the Sun Warriors covenant for the Chaos Servants:

You will see that the 50 sunlight medals I donated drop to 25 as soon as I leave the covenant. And unfortunately, there is no way to avoid it.



Please note that light infidelity is not really a sin and does not require absolution.

No covenant will be mad at you for simply leaving them. So the only punishment for doing so is halving your progress.

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Hard betrayal

So what about "hard betrayal"? This refers to when a player is expelled from a covenant, not just when you left it. This means that when you were in a covenant and based on your actions, the head of the same covenant decides to expel you, your status will change to "absent".

In fact, it will be easier for you to understand if you think of these two ways of betrayal as changing jobs or being fired. Where a hard betrayal is the last option, and you definitely don't want it.

And that's because there is a harsher penalty for severe betrayal: the system will give you 1 point of PvP sin, as if you were accused by a player, but more importantly, your covenant progress will be canceled.

And actually, there are only 4 covenants that can be "hard betray", namely:

• Blades of the Dark Moon
  
• Forest Hunters
  
• Servants of Chaos
  
• Protectors of the Princess

A player from other covenants cannot be excluded.

For example,

• The White Way will not care if you attacked Petrus or Rhea.
  
• The Sun Warriors covenant doesn't care if you provoke Solaire of Astora.
  
• The Servants of the Lord of the Graves, ironically, don't care about Nito's death either.
  
• And the level in the Dark Spirits covenant won't change if you piss off Kaas.

"Hard Betrayal" will also turn your PvE sin meter to "on", allowing you to pay Oscar for forgiveness. In most cases, this gives you another chance to join the covenant if its leader is still present.

And here are the results:

Light betrayal	Hard betrayal
It is not a sin to leave a covenant, but your covenant progress is halved	When you are expelled from a covenant. It gives you 1 point of PvP sin and also nullifies your covenant progress

And that's basically what is meant by «leaving a covenant» — changing from one covenant to another immediately, using the new mechanic at the bonfire in Dark Souls Remastered OR using Oswald's «Leave the covenant».

And actually, yes, this feature of Oswald is absolutely useless, it makes no sense.

Absolution

It's time to tell you a bit about the «Absolution» mechanic - it allows you to calm down the NPCs.

Let's say you throw the controller on the couch and accidentally attack Andre, and you don't want to kill him. Then just run away and pay Oswald for the forgiveness of sins and he will solve this issue.

Alternatively, if you "answered wrong" to Alvina's question (choose NO), Absolution will allow you to answer again.

However, keep in mind that Absolution will not revive any dead NPCs.

Sometimes this mechanic produces very strange results that are worth considering:

• If you kill someone from Rhea's team, including Petrus, Absolution will not help you with this - they will continue to be aggressive and there is nothing you can do about it.
  
• If you have disappointed the Primary Serpent with your choices, then that is the end of your relationship.
  
• Forgiveness will also not calm the Knight of Blades if you have killed Gwyndolin.
  
• However, Forgiveness will help you enter the Dark Moon covenant even if you have dispelled the illusion of Guinevere, i.e., provoked the Dark Anor Londo. Thus, it formally de-aggro Gwyndolin.

That's basically it. Is it possible that Absolution has some other secret properties?

I can't be 100 percent sure here, since I still haven't identified all the switches that relate to absolution.

📝 Other Dark Souls guides

• №1+2 — Sin, Covenant Betrayals & Absolution
  
• №3 — Vagrant Mechanics
  
• №4 — Fall Damage
  
• №5 — Spawning Quelana
  
• №6 — Q&A: Dead Snakes in Sen's Fortress
  
• №7 — More than Meets the Eye: Hidden Designs
  
• №8 — Humanity Drop
  
• №9 — Lordran's Layout Explained
  
• №10 — Out of Bounds Exploration
  
• №11 — Miracle Resonance
  
• №12 — The Secret of Gwyndolin's Hallway (and other cutscene trickery)
  
• №13 — Poise Mechanics (and glitches!)
  
• №14 — Object Health and Defense (some breakable stuff)
  
• №15 — Vagrant Lore
  
• №16 — Gravelording Explained & Reviewed