From Software's Soulsborne series has a minor theme of occasional enemies that for some reason do not aggro. My favorite example is the large number of crows on Hemwick Charnel Lane in Bloodborne, all but one of which will attack you, while the rest just sit there in a daze. In this world where everything is trying to exterminate you, the crows that don't attack you are like friends.

The equivalent in Eldenring is Reindel's dog, which is next to another enemy, Leonin Misbegotten. When the player approaches, the latter enemy is activated as usual and the fight begins. He just sits and watches (unless he attacks, in which case he defends himself).

The fact that it is a dog is particularly exciting, since dogs are irredeemable bastards in "Souls," but it also has the effect of creating a mini-mystery. Why, of all people, is this dog friendly?

Turns out it's not. Longtime FromSoft content creator and data collector Witch Zooley, with the help of thefifthmatt, investigated and found that this popular dog in Tarnished is not necessarily friendly. Triggers that would normally react first to the player's presence and then to an attack are not.

As explained in the video, Elden Ring's enemies become aggro based on the player's position. When you enter certain zones near certain enemies, an animation is triggered that essentially wakes up the enemy, and then the AI takes over and starts attacking you. However, in the case of this dog, if the player enters a specific zone outside the Reindel Colosseum on the way to the dog's location, the dog will soft-lock and repeat the animation, becoming as docile as a lamb.

A possible explanation for this is the Grey Warden, an enemy that was once placed in the zone that soft-locks the dog, but was removed in the final version of the game. Why this affects the dog's function is one of the mysteries of the game developers, but it is clear that the zone itself causes this behavior: if the player does not pass through the zone, the dog will not soft-lock and will attack with Leonin Misbegotten.

This is a glitch by all accounts, but as Zooley himself mentions, it is the result of a bit of mystification in what is otherwise just an enemy encounter. Oddly enough, I played "Bloodborne" so much that I fell in love with those non-aggressive crows that I would sometimes throw them gifts after I had killed all of their friends. In "Dark Souls 3," the crabs in the nightmarish "Smoking Lake" are just so cold that they clearly have a special place in my heart.

If it weren't for this soft rock, Reindel's dog might have been bugged and desperate to rip you to shreds. Or maybe this is one of the little Easter eggs that From Soft allows itself, an unexpected respite from the camaraderie, one of the touches that make such a world so memorable.