Elden Ring Players can encounter Sellen early on in Eastern Limgrave, but her long questline culminates in a happy ending. Until it doesn't.

Elden Ring players can encounter the exiled witch Sellen fairly early on in their adventure, hidden in her lab in Waypoint Ruins Cellar in Eastern Limgrave, but her lengthy questline offers the sorceress a rare happy ending in the game, before yanking it away unexpectedly. Sellen is the first NPC the player can encounter that is capable of teaching sorceries and accepting the various sorcery scrolls the Tarnished can find scattered across the land. Magic has proven to be extremely powerful even before the recent buff introduced in patch 1.03, with Intelligence scaling weapons such as the Moonveil Katana being in high demand, leading to players killing Elden Ring's bosses with one spell.

Much of Sellen's questline is unlocked further into the game, once the player has traversed the Altus Plateau and learned the powerful Azur's Comet spell. Players must then assist Sellen in finding another lost master, before helping her transfer her essence into a new body. Meanwhile, the castellan from Redmane Castle in Caelid will arrive and tell the player he is hunting Sellen, claiming her to be a dangerous apostate known as the "Graven Witch". Eventually, this questline will culminate in the grounds of Raya Lucaria. Immediately outside the Grand Library, the player will find two summoning signs and must decide to side with Jerran or Sellen in Elden Ring.

Should the player choose to stick with their mistress and defeat the witch hunter, Sellen will claim she has disposed of the queen and taken full control of the academy. She makes some grand promises that the academy will stand behind the player as Elden Lord, once they fulfill their own quest, and will return to studying the stars, and she seems noticeably proud and excited at the thought of leading the academy into a bright new era. And then the player can return, to find Queen Rennala has reassumed her seat, and their former master Sellen transformed into one of Elden Ring's horrifying enemy types, a non-hostile Graven Mass.

Elden Ring - Queen Rennala Ruins Sellen's Happy Ending

Players who use magic regularly will likely have visited Sellen multiple times over the course of their adventure, so it's easy to see how this revelation could upset players who may have grown attached to the errant sorceress. Sadly, choosing to side with the Castellan will also result in Sellen's death, so it appears that there is no true happy ending available for the witch. It's important to note that, although in seeming agony, Sellen is still alive in this form, and can remarkably still teach the player any sorceries they may have yet to purchase from her. Although no further explanation is given as to Sellen's new form, it seems most likely that Elden Ring's boss Queen Rennala is responsible for the transformation.

Players should perhaps not be surprised by this grizzly ending Sellen receives, as many, if not all of the NPCs the Tarnished can encounter in their journey across Elden Ring's Lands Between end up with a similar fate. The main difference with Sellen's position seems to be the state of perpetual agony she now finds herself in, as it's unclear just how long she will continue to exist in her current state. However, the argument could be made that, with an ally as Elden Lord, perhaps someday in the future Sellen could be returned to normal. Tragically, it seems that for now, she will be kept in misery.

Next: Elden Ring: Why Fia Is Working For The Prince Of Death