When I first played Elden Ring back in 2022, I fondly remember that time. I had just returned home from an internship in Ireland, feeling exhausted and burned out. The game provided a perfect escape into another world. I would read all the item descriptions and think about the Lands Between, often after the long play sessions that lasted into the early morning hours. It was a simpler time.
Elden Ring gave me the final push to start my Columnea worldbuilding project. Both Elden Ring and Columnea are deeply influenced by alchemy and its principles. Since my academy years, I have been fascinated by and obsessed with hermeticism, Neoplatonism, Saturn personality and the symbolism of the late Renaissance and Mannerism periods. It's a comfort subject for me that I keep returning to it.
I love the chaotic, distorted, and melancholic yet highly artistic approach of that era. I admire Michelangelo's late works and the distorted skull in Holbein’s painting “The Ambassadors”. I am drawn to the obsession with death, similar to the plague period of quarantacento… All this means a lot to me. And the existence of games like Elden Ring has finally inspired me to create a world where I can incorporate Neoplatonic ideas and late Renaissance perspectives.
I am not sure what to do with my setting yet, but I want to continue exploring and developing it. My partner suggested that I start by making a comic with it.
![World of Columnea [kˈɒləmnˌi͡ə] avatar](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic-storm.tglist.com%2Fda1b354b28a3cd215fbc5731e8fd06cb%2F87908b6b-cd8c-462d-ac6e-c3d1d1f4957e.jpg%3Fw%3D240%26h%3D240&w=640&q=75)
