Elden Ring’s Ranni plays a role in the battle with Starscourge Radahn, albeit in an easily missed way. As usual in From Software titles, Elden Ring is riddled with details that could be easily overlooked on most typical playthroughs. While Elden Ring has a lot more of its plot up-front than the Dark Souls trilogy, there is still a lot of world building done by in-game architecture, item placement, and character locations.
Ranni is not only one of the most intelligent characters in Elden Ring, but also one of the most integral. Ranni gives the player the Spirit Calling Bell, and then goes on to be a central character in one of the endings of Elden Ring. She is also an Empyrean and the sister of Rykard, as well as Radahn, who Ranni asks the player to defeat.
Typically, players will assume that the only aid Ranni offers in this battle is Blaidd, her half-wolf protector. While Blaidd is very powerful, and may be the most tragic character in Elden Ring, it could be argued that Ranni is one of the most powerful characters in the Lands Between, and she could probably offer up a little more help. This may actually be the case as pointed out by Reddit user and Elden Ring fan Automatic_Education3, who posted to Reddit to point out that Ranni’s Moon watches over the player during Radahn’s fight.
Ranni’s Moon is a key part of her lore, as it’s widely believed that Ranni’s Great Rune is carved onto the moon. It is also the namesake of a pretty powerful spell that players can use, the implications of Ranni’s Moon watching over the fight are still somewhat unclear apart from the fact that Radahn must be defeated to continue Ranni’s quest line. Automatic_Education3 posted a comment to say that the moon was there “as if to watch its fate to be resumed soon,” while agreeing with the many comments saying that after many playthroughs, this detail has been unnoticed.
Many of the other comments go on to discuss possibilities in the upcoming Elden Ring DLC; with Ranni’s ending being the most popular player choice, many people consider it to be one of the most interesting plot lines to follow. One commenter posted to say that they would enjoy having DLC set on the moon or in the cosmos to further pursue the celestial threads of story connected to Ranni. Another commenter rationalized that From Software DLC typically does not follow after the endings in the games, as that would mark that one ending as the “correct” choice. One thing certain about the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion is that it is doubtlessly filled with rich detail such as this recent discovery of Ranni’s Moon in the Radahn fight.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.