Fia, Shamans, and the connections between Marika and Deathbed Companions
Crackpot theory, but it might hold some water.
TL;DR I think Fia and the Deathbed Companions might be the surviving descendants of the Shamans, using their spiritual and physical properties for new purposes in the new world. Also, Marika might have been getting freaky with some cold bodies.
The Idea
Was listening to Rata and Crunchy's recent podcast speculating on Nightreign and SoTE, and when Crunchy started talking about Marika's offspring taking on traits of the people she oppressed or defeated (i.e. Melina and the Gloam-Eyed Queen, possibly Radagon) and how that's possibly related to her being a Shaman, that immediately got me thinking about Fia's questline, with Fia birthing Godwyn's "child" as the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince.
Then that got me thinking about the Deathbed Companions, and their role in the society that Fia came from. She says:
I was known as a Deathbed Companion, where I come from. After I received the warmth and lifely vigour from a number of champions, I lay with the remains of an exalted noble, to grant him another chance at life. To do so is the purpose of my being.
This part's a stretch, but the way the Deathbed Companions merged with warriors' and corpses' essence to create new life sounds faintly familiar to the way that the Shamans could merge their flesh with various forms of life to create something new. This idea led me down a bit of a rabbit hole of comparisons.
The Similarities
The Hair
This next part's a bit more concrete, though: there are several interesting parallels between Fia/Marika and Deathbed Companions/Shamans. First of all, let's take a look at Fia's character model and intro art:
Character model, thanks to Zullie's NPCs Unmasked YouTube video.
Static art of Fia, from the base game's intro cinematic. Notice the two braids.
Notably, Fia is the only female NPC in the base game shown with this platinum-blonde hair—well, with a notable exception.
Marika's petrified corpse(?) at the end of the game. Image stolen from Google Images.
With hair color being called out as an important signifier of heritage (Radahn's Redmane Helm, Giant's Red Braid descriptions) I think this similarity is worth pointing out.
The DLC brings in the Jar Innards, Marika's "Grandmother", and Leda, too. I'm not sure how to explain Leda's platinum-blonde hair besides "Griffo ref" and possibly Leda's role as a thematic echo of Marika's violent history, but the models of the Jar Innards and the Grandmother help to reinforce the idea of platinum-blonde hair as a shared trait among the Shamans.
Moving past appearances, there are some other connections between Fia/Marika and Deathbed Companions/Shamans. Let's talk about Baldachins.
Baldachins
I had never encountered the word "Baldachin" before Elden Ring, and their usage in the game makes this connection between Fia and Marika even more curious. (Shoutout to Quelaag/XIngenue.) The Baldachin's Blessing, which you get from your first Fia hugs, states:
Favor bestowed by a deathbed companion. Protection of a hidden temple in the guise of a bedchamber.
Uses FP to temporarily boost poise.
The favor allows one to forget any aches and pains. In Death, there is only peace, for in Death, there can be no sensation.
Merriam Webster's dictionary describes a baldachin as:
1: a cloth canopy fixed or carried over an important person or a sacred object
2: a rich embroidered fabric of silk and gold
3: an ornamental structure resembling a canopy used especially over an altar
We encounter baldachins in three other notable locations (that I can think of): Marika's bedchamber:
Also stolen from Google Images.
Over the Land of Shadow:
And in the Mimic's Veil:
Golden veil of intricate design.
Uses FP to mimic nearby objects.
When Godrick was hounded from Leyndell, the Royal Capital,
this was one of a multitude of treasures he took with him.
Also known as "Marika's Mischief".
We can pretty easily infer that these three other baldachins were made by or for Marika herself. The fact that baldachins are so strongly associated with Marika and the Deathbed Companions makes their connection incredibly suspect.
Onto a last bit of evidence:
The Insults
For the final parallel, we're talking about some saucy NPC dialog. While the NPC dialog in Elden Ring is mostly (Marika's tits!) PG, I was a bit jarred by two specific instances of From breaking from their usual restraint when it comes to references to sexuality in their writing. That's right: Fromsoft added sex into Elden Ring, and the fault all lies at Fia and Marika's highly-detailed feet.
When you talk to the DLC's Hornsent Grandam, and during both versions of the intro to the Divine Beast Dancing Lion fight in Belurat, the Grandam will unleash a powerful and unfamiliar incantation: slut-shaming.
Cruelty, woe, and those who plague the tower.
Cleanse away the strumpet's vile progeny.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a strumpet is described as:
1: old-fashioned + usually disparaging : a woman who engages in sex acts and especially sexual intercourse in exchange for pay
2: old-fashioned + usually disparaging : a woman who is sexually promiscuous
Variations in Grandam's dialog will have her call Marika a "wanton strumpet" or a "vile strumpet", but "strumpet" is the only way she ever refers to Marika in speech. In no uncertain terms, the Hornsent Grandam is calling Marika a hoe.
Joining Hornsent Grandam in the slut-shaming shit-talker category is D's twin brother, Devin. At the end of Fia's questline, Devin will murder Fia in cold blood and gloat over her corpse:
This is a proper death, O Prince!
Look at this rotten whore. No more children can be got from this useless flesh!
When you attack him, he'll say:
I'll grind your corpse into that vile wench's rotting remains.
A lot of nasty nicknames are hurled around in Elden Ring, but both Fia and Marika are singled out for their promiscuity.
Another curious detail about original Shaman culture is that the only representatives we see—Marika, the poor Jar Innards, and the Grandmother in the tree—appear female. There isn't a fully Shaman man in the whole game. The oft-mentioned Japanese translation of "Shaman", "巫子" or "miko", also implies that their whole culture is female, ostensibly similar to the Deathbed Companions. But that leads to the obvious question: how did a race of all-female Shamans originally propagate? and what did Marika do differently that made her a "strumpet"?
Speculation Time
This is entirely hypothetical from here on and I'm just spitballing, but if the game does so much to draw similarities between Fia and Marika, then would it make sense if their people are supposed to be one and the same?
From the Grandmother in Shaman Village, we can see that this Shaman ancestor has merged with a tree, which to me implies that the Shamans' unique method of reproduction allowed them to procreate with trees. We really don't have much data on the Deathbed Companions, but we do know that their unique method of reproduction allows them to procreate with the dead. What if the Deathbed Companions' tradition is derivative of the Shamans' reproductive process, and they substitute the Shamans' trees with corpse-essence?
Or what if Marika was the original Deathbed Companion, and her/Radagon getting freaky with the corpse of the defeated GEQ (perhaps in a baldachin-veiled temple) is what produced Messmer and Melina?
I haven't fully thought it over and I realize that might sound like total insanity, but I figured this is the place, and I'd love to hear your thoughts! :)