The Major Factions of the Lands Between
Who's who among the game's warring powers.
The Lands Between isn't one kingdom - it's a patchwork of territories held by demigods and other powers, each with their own followers and their own idea of order. Here are the main ones you'll run into.
The Golden Order
The official state religion, centered on the Erdtree and Queen Marika, enforced (at least nominally) from the capital, Leyndell. Most "ordinary" NPCs you meet still follow it in some form, even as its royal family tears itself apart.
The Frenzied Flame
A rival force tied to chaos and the Three Fingers, worshipped by a scattered cult found mostly in Caelid and beneath the capital. It represents one of the game's most extreme alternate endings and is generally treated as a corrupting, dangerous influence rather than a sympathetic faction.
House Carian and the moon sorcerers
Based in Liurnia, House Carian follows a rival philosophy built around the moon rather than the Erdtree's sun-and-grace order, led by Ranni and her allies. They're generally depicted as opposing the Golden Order's dominance, if not exactly "good" by conventional standards.
Volcano Manor
A faction led by the demigod Rykard operating out of Mt. Gelmir, publicly offering "absolution" for a price while secretly recruiting the player (and others) as assassins against fellow Tarnished.
The Two Fingers and the Fingers' Reader
Not a political faction so much as the mysterious force that summons the Tarnished in the first place and evaluates them as potential Elden Lords, operating out of the Roundtable Hold.
The Haligtree and Miquella's followers
A smaller, more secretive faction built around Miquella and defended fiercely by his sister Malenia - reclusive, protective, and central to the larger mystery of what Miquella has actually been planning.