As a seasoned Tarnished wandering the Lands Between, I've seen countless wonders and horrors. But one of the most persistent, yet oddly mundane, sights has to be those massive, lumbering carriages hauled by two hulking trolls. You know the ones—they just shamble along, tempting you with their lootable contents, moving at a pace that makes watching grass grow seem like an extreme sport. For years, I, like many of you, just saw them as mobile treasure chests. But recently, a burning question hit me: where in Marika's name are these things actually going? It turns out I wasn't the only one with this peculiar curiosity. Inspired by the legendary investigation of YouTuber ShaggyMcSwaggy, I decided to embark on my own journey of discovery, following these enigmatic processions to their ultimate destinations. What I found was a hidden layer of deliberate, if painfully slow, world-building.
The first thing you need to know is this: these carriages are on rails. Not literal ones, but their paths are absolutely predetermined and unchangeable. It doesn't matter if you've just stepped foot in Limgrave for the first time or you're a post-DLC demigod slayer fresh off defeating Messmer the Impaler. Their itinerary remains constant. Every single journey starts and ends at the exact same points, every time you load into the world. This consistency hints that these aren't just random spawns; they're part of a silent, ongoing logistical operation across the realms, a relic of a world that once functioned with some semblance of order.
The Great (and Slow) Cartography Project
Following them, however, is an exercise in patience that would test the Two Fingers. Their speed is... glacial. I'm talking "molasses in a snowstorm" levels of slow. My first test subject was the carriage in Liurnia of the Lakes. It has one of the shortest routes I've mapped, but even that "brief" trip took a solid several minutes of creeping alongside it. You can't just run ahead and wait, either! I learned the hard way that these processions have a proximity-based trigger. If you stray too far, they just... stop. Frozen in time, waiting for a Tarnished to come close enough to witness their pilgrimage. So, you're committed to the full, plodding escort mission.
| Location | Approx. Journey Time | Notable Hazards |
|---|---|---|
| Liurnia of the Lakes | ~3-4 minutes | Rune Bears, wandering knights, Lobsters (always the Lobsters) |
| Altus Plateau | ~8-10 minutes | Perfumers, Oracle Envoys, the ever-present risk of gravity |
| Mountaintops of the Giants | ~12 minutes | Frostbite, trolls, those annoying Zamor knights |
| Consecrated Snowfield | ~15 minutes | Sniper Lobsters, invisible assassins, giant crows, overall despair |
Speaking of hazards, this isn't a peaceful nature walk. The journey is perilous. Each carriage has its own entourage of guards—usually soldiers or militiamen—who will aggressively defend their charge. But the danger doesn't stop there. The routes themselves are often patrolled by other enemies or traverse through hostile territory. That Consecrated Snowfield carriage, holder of the record for the longest journey, doesn't just battle the blizzard; it weaves through a gauntlet of invisible Black Knife Assassins and albinauric archers perched on cliffs. The fact that FromSoftware placed these guards and environmental threats so deliberately along the path screams narrative significance. These carts are carrying something valuable enough to warrant a dedicated, if slow-moving, defense force.
Decrypting the Destination Code
So, after all that stalking and fighting, where do they end up? The destinations are almost always strategic points: the entrance to a minor dungeon, a fortified outpost, a crossroads, or a seemingly abandoned campsite. They never go to a major legacy dungeon, but they often terminate near points of interest that a player might otherwise overlook. For example:
-
One in Limgrave ends near a cave entrance tucked away behind some ruins.
-
A Caelid carriage concludes its miserable trek at a small fortified gatehouse, as if making a delivery to a besieged garrison.
-
The Altus Plateau procession often finishes near a cluster of soldier tents or a wagon graveyard.
This pattern suggests they are resupply convoys, ferrying goods—perhaps weapons, Smithing Stones, or even the Golden Runes we loot—to various factions and strongholds still clinging to existence in the Shattered world. Their relentless, cyclical journeys paint a picture of a broken world still trying to maintain the bare bones of its old functions, utterly unaware that the Tarnished (that's us!) are the ultimate supply chain disruptors.
The Lore Implications and Player Rituals
This obsessive focus on a minor gameplay element is what makes Elden Ring, and Souls games in general, so special. Nothing in the game tells you to do this. No quest giver, no item description, no spectral jellyfish points you toward becoming a carriage stalker. The significance is entirely player-driven. By choosing to investigate these slow-moving targets, we uncover environmental storytelling at its finest. We learn that the world moves on its own clock, with its own purposes, independent of our quest to become Elden Lord.
For many players in 2026, following a carriage has become a weirdly meditative community ritual. It's a break from the relentless boss fights. You put on a podcast, settle in, and just... walk. You become an observer rather than a destroyer. And when you finally reach the destination, the ambush at the terminus feels earned. You've fought off the guards along the route, you've endured the pace, and now you claim your reward—a chest with some Somber Smithing Stone [3] or a new Ash of War. The loot is decent, but the real treasure was the secrets we uncovered along the way (and the memes we made about the 15-minute Snowfield trek).
In the end, the troll-drawn carriages are a testament to FromSoftware's incredible attention to detail. They are a silent clockwork ticking away in the background of the apocalypse, a small, slow puzzle piece in the grand, chaotic tapestry of the Lands Between. So next time you see one, maybe don't just smash it and grab the goods. Consider walking a mile in its... very, very slow shoes. You might just gain a new appreciation for the quiet, stubborn persistence of a world awaiting its final death or its next lord. \[T]//