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The Noble Goldmask is an NPC in Elden Ring you may have encountered in Altus Plateau, though you may not have thought much of him - unless you pursue Brother Corhyn's questline. Goldmask is a mute man who spends his entire life gazing at the Erdtree in an attempt to discern its secrets. Ironically, his staring is a wasted effort, as the Tarnished provides him with every answer he needs during his quest.
Who is this seemingly fanatic man, and how can we figure out his motivations if he only communicates with finger movements? The answers are somewhat simpler than they appear. As with any From Software game, the answers to our questions are hidden subtly throughout the world.
What Is The Golden Order?
Before we delve into Goldmask, we must first understand the religion he adheres to. Goldmask subscribes to a religion known as the Golden Order Fundamentalism. This religion is almost as old as The Lands Between themselves, as Elden Lord Radagon founded it. Radagon, of course, is the godlike figure who created the Erdtree in the first place. The religion essentially believes that an invisible force known as the Greater Will controls everything that happens in the world and that the Erdtree is the physical manifestation of that being's power.
Golden Order Fundamentalists value scholarship and prayer almost equally, so you will see high Intelligence and Faith requirements for their incantations. They also believe that the beings known as the Two Fingers can interpret the words of the Greater Will directly and communicate those thoughts to others. One other ideology that the Golden Order explores is the idea of what "death" is. This is a significant topic in a world where no one can die.
For the Golden Order, death is considered complete when both your body and soul are "hewn into the Erdtree." Basically, this means that both your body and soul must die close to the Erdtree (or be brought there) in order for you to stop reanimating and for your essence to be returned to a sort of primordial soup so that the Erdtree can recycle you into new life. Those Who Live In Death - the undead enemies you'll find all over the Lands Between - are inherent enemies to this ideal, and why the two factions are at war.
The Great Schism
As with all religions, there will be those who don't fully agree with the teachings of the church. In Radagon's case, it would turn out to be his son, Miquella. Miquella was highly regarded as the smartest and most powerful of the Demigods. Using his infinite wisdom, he came to see something that his father could not: The Greater Will was not a benevolent ruler but rather an iron-fisted dictator.
The Lands Between hold a secret war that many will never be privy to. For whatever reason, multiple Outer Gods targeted this world, and all of them are trying to wrest control of it. These Gods are The Frenzied Flame, The Formless Mother, The Dark Moon, the God Of Scarlet Rot, The God Of Destined Death, and The Greater Will. Those are just the primary six, but other nameless Gods lurk in the darkness. Each of them is pulling strings behind the scenes to try and overthrow The Great Will and usher in an age more to their liking.
Miquella came to see that free will was truly impossible as long as the Outer Gods meddled. He also harbored a particular hate for them as the Scarlet Rot God was sealed in his sister Melania, and he had to watch as it slowly consumed her. As a result, Miquella developed his own sect of the Golden Order, the Order of Unalloyed Gold. His religion sought to permanently remove the Outer Gods' influence from the world. Miquella was very close to his goal, it seems, as the Unalloyed Gold Needle can remove the influence of an Outer God. The Noble Goldmask did not know of Miquella's sect as he kept it very secretive, but it is important to have background knowledge of the Outer Gods to understand the tragedy of Goldmask.
What Drives Goldmask?
Typically, we might ask the question, "who is Goldmask?" Frankly, we don't know. He doesn't wear any identifiable armor other than his iconic mask and has taken so completely to the life of a monk that he has forsaken his own name and only goes by a moniker. All we really know about him is that he once had followers, and now he doesn't. Maybe he was a priest, or perhaps he was just some loon on the streets of Leyndell. What we need to be asking is: What drives Goldmask to such fanaticism?
It seems that Goldmask has taken a page out of the book of the Two Fingers, and countless hours of gazing into the Erdtree have allowed him to commune somewhat with The Greater Will. Evidently, Brother Corhyn can interpret this and follows Goldmask along his journey. Even Goldmask does not know what he is looking for, other than a nebulous need to understand the Erdtree until he appears outside the arena of the capital city of Leyndell. There he realizes that something about the current order of things doesn't quite add up.
If the Tarnished decides to help Goldmask out here, a fascinating secret can be discovered. Using the Law of Regression Incantation on a certain statue in the city, a message will be displayed: Radagon is Marika. This message can be brought to Goldmask, and he will finally find his true motivation. In order to understand the Erdtree, the mystery of Radagon and Marika must be unraveled.
What Goldmask Finds
Goldmask was, perhaps, the closest to anyone outside of the Demigods themselves to arriving at the whole truth of the plight of The Lands Between. At this point, we have to draw some conclusions about Goldmask's state of mind from Corhyn's dialogue and the lore attached to the Mending Rune of Perfect Order. It seems that Goldmask concluded that the Golden Order was, in fact, imperfect. He decided that its imperfections come from the fact that Radagon and the Demigods were imperfect beings who were prone to fickleness.
This is heretical thinking, as we can see by Brother Corhyn's distressed dialogue at this point in the questline: "I've finally come to understand. The master was nothing more than a madman. Enchanted by a vain and ruinous delusion, he rejected the perfection of the Golden Order, seeking to supplant our glorious faith with his own!"
It seemed that Goldmask realized that the Gods are imperfect beings and sought to create a world ruled by truly perfect and impartial Gods.
The Tragedy Of Goldmask
Though Goldmask had noble intentions, even his great mind could not comprehend the whole truth that was at play. Goldmask understood that the Gods were imperfect beings. What he failed to realize was that The Greater Will was an external force and not one inherent to the creation of The Lands Between. Goldmask never uncovered the truth of the Frenzied Flame, or the Formless Mother, in a capacity strong enough to realize the greater machinations at play.
At the time of the Tarnished vying for the throne of the Elden Lord, there was no one for Goldmask to look to for these answers. Miquella was long ago kidnapped by Mogh, Lord of Blood, and his ideals of thwarting the Outer Gods disappeared with him.
The true tragedy of Goldmask is that Miquella's ideology was the correct answer for the Lands Between, and had Goldmask been able to find him, he certainly would have agreed and helped make Miquella's dream a reality. Thanks to the meddling of Outer Gods, though, Goldmask will usher in a truly Perfect Golden Order - one that will cement The Greater Will as a ruling force for eternity.