Essentially, the Souls universe is in a constant cycle. Between the age of fire(lords), age of dark(man), and...ill call it the grey age, when dragons exist. At the beginning, there was no fire. No light, no dark, just dragons, trees, and that's it. These dragons had scales that gave them immortality. Life was...grey... Until, a flame, deep within the earth, was started. The first undead who reached into the flame were granted lord souls. Gwyn, lord of cinder. The Witch of Izalith, lord of chaos. Nito, lord of death. And the Pygmy, who was granted the [i][b]dark soul.[/b][/i] Because darkness is associated with humanity, the Pygmy gave birth to humans. He split his dark soul up, and the little black sprites known as humanity are pieces of the original dark soul granted to the Furtive Pygmy. Nito, Gwyn, and the Witch teamed up with Seath, a dragon born without scales(who was jealous because of this) to destroy the dragons. After this war ended, the age of fire started. They prospered, built great cities, etc. But eventually, the flame began to fade. Remember how the world is on a cycle? And how darkness is associated with humanity? Well, whenever the flame begins to fade, and the world begins to descend into the age of dark, the undead curse breaks out. Lords, fearing the undead, round them up and send them to prisons in the north. This is where we begin. Our undead character is chosen by an ancient prophecy to leave the asylum, and go to the land of the lords(Lordran). Our end goal of the quest to do one of two things. First, we can let the flame fade out, and rule the world in darkness, and let man prosper. However, along our journey, we have collected many powerful souls. You could say we are a lord at this point. You can choose to sacrifice your powerful soul, and kindle the first flame, and extend the age of fire, however futile this is. Either way, the world descends into darkness. People say that Dark Souls has no story. This is a baseless claim and is completely false. The game has a different style of story telling. Instead of cinematic cutscenes, it tells its story through the world, item descriptions, character dialogue, and our own experience. Our story is closely intertwined with the lore of the game. And this is why I believe the lore and story of dark souls is ingenious. It's one of the most detailed games I've ever played. The game is a masterpiece. [spoiler]If I got anything wrong or if I forgot something, tell me. It's been a while.[/spoiler]