Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy

About

Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy is a non-playable character and optional main boss in the FromSoftware 2022 video game Elden Ring. Presented as a half-man, half-giant serpent entity, Rykard is known for his voice lines and his obsession with "devouring the gods," which came as a result of merging with the God-Devouring Serpent in order to acquire power. Upon the game's release in late February 2022, Rykard became the subject of various memes, fan art depictions and discussions around the web, similar to other Elden Ring bosses like Malenia and Godrick.

Origin

Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy, is both an optional and main boss within Elden Ring due to the nature of how the game's progression system works. Within the game, two main bosses must be defeated as part of a mid-game checkpoint, with Rykard counting as one of them. However, due to the complicated nature of getting to Mt. Gelmir and proceeding with the questline to reach Rykard, it is likely that a player will have already beaten two other main bosses, making Rykard optional.

Upon the game's release on February 25th, 2022, Rykard was discussed by the player base online almost immediately. For example, Twitter^[5] user SweatieAngle tweeted about Rykard that same day, receiving 160 likes in roughly one month (seen below).

Similar to other main bosses, Rykard has a mid-fight cutscene that plays, which was uploaded to YouTube on March 3rd, 2022, by the channel Wuh1,^[1] where it received 48,000 views in one month (shown below).

Spread

Voiced by Simon Gregor, Rykard gained virality early on for his low-pitch, guttural voice, with which he delivers several lines of dialogue during the boss fight, resulting in it becoming the subject of memes. For example, on March 25th, 2022, the YouTube channel Rehv's Basement^[2] uploaded a Babe Please Stop meme featuring Rykard, earning 270,000 views in two weeks (shown below).

On March 7th, Redditor prossnip42^[3] uploaded a Disappointed Black Guy meme about the mid-fight cutscene (shown below).

On March 18th, 2022, Simon Gregor was featured on the YouTube channel Dan Allen Gaming^[4] where he was interviewed about the voice performance and asked to reenact certain lines, earning 42,000 views in three weeks (shown below).

Rykard's weapon, the Blasphemous Blade (which the player can acquire as a boss-soul weapon) is rumored to be a reference to the Game Kitchen's 2019 video game Blasphemous due to its name and similar design, and Blasphemous drawing inspiration from previous FromSoftware titles (comparison below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References