In Elden Ring there is an item that promises a lot: A talisman is said to make you completely immune to fall damage. It does, but not in the way you might think. Therefore, many players are currently happily jumping off high buildings and cliffs, landing painfully on the ground of reality.
Talismans give players in Elden Ring passive abilities that can help with their build. Some increase your carrying capacity, others grant you more damage under certain circumstances, a powerful talisman heals you slowly in the background.
However, a talisman in Elden Ring promises something very special in its item description. The item with the long name Longtail Cat Talisman promises to make the user immune to fall damage.
Repeatedly, stories emerge in the Elden Ring community from players who find this talisman and joyfully celebrate it. They jump off cliffs and high walls believing they are immortal gods. But the developers at FromSoftware are very precise with their wording.
Players Leap to Their Deaths Like Lemmings
What does the talisman promise? You can find the Longtail Cat Talisman by taking a gigantic round lift all the way down near the classroom in Raya Lucaria.
This is the object effect of the talisman according to the item description: “Makes the bearer immune to fall damage.”
Players assume from the description that they will survive falls from any height without a scratch. However, when they jump off a cliff, they land very painfully on the ground of reality and respawn shortly after at the last Site of Grace.
There are often threads on reddit from players who initially celebrate the talisman and then have this unpleasant experience. In the Elden Ring subreddit, one writes with a picture of the talisman: “Never again these problems! What a find.” Shortly afterward, he posts a comment under his own post: “Omg I just found out the hard way that this doesn’t work, guys.” (via reddit)
This YouTube video captures this emotional roller coaster very well.
Why do players still die? Accordingly, players wonder: How is this possible? Is the description wrong, or is the item bugged?
While there is no official statement on this, the community believes it has found the solution. The item is neither bugged nor is the description wrong – on the contrary. The item does exactly what it promises, but no more.
Talisman Does Not Promise Too Much, But is Artfully Worded
The community is firmly convinced that FromSoftware has played a very nasty trick with this short description of the talisman. Because the talisman promises to protect from fall damage – but not from falling to your death.
When players fall from heights where they would only incur little damage, the talisman works as promised. However, in falls that are inevitably fatal, the effect of the talisman does not take hold.
That this exception exists becomes clear when reading the detailed description of the talisman. However, clearly most players check the description for the supposed effect only when they have painfully fallen on their face at least once.
Whether a fall would be fatal or not, you can test for yourself with a clever trick:
What do players think of the talisman? Players see little value in the talisman. The moments when you only take little fall damage are too rare. A meme on reddit illustrates how binary the zones for fall damage feel, and that simple fall damage is very unlikely:
Even though the talisman is quite useless: The community can laugh about the fact that FromSoftware seemingly played a nasty trick on them with a description. Because they know this kind of joke too well.
Trolls have long used the messaging system in the game, which the community should actually use to leave helpful information in the game world, for malicious trolling attempts. Even Patches, an NPC that appears in almost every FromSoftware game, lures players into the same trap every time.
While some players deal with the nuances of fall damage and the exact details of item descriptions, others race through the game world at high speed. Just a few days after the release of Elden Ring, one player manages to complete the extensive game in only 2.5 hours:
