The guilty, their eyes gouged by thorns, lived in eternal darkness. There, they discovered the blood star.

There are two variants, one of which has a shorter, merely smoldering Staff of the Guilty; the other, a longer Staff of the Guilty, set ablaze. The latter is stronger and has a flaming thorn slash attack with long reach, as well as the ability to use Briars of Sin and Briars of Punishment. One is found in Liurnia, and drops the Briars of Sin Sorcery once killed for the first time. This lone Thorn Sorcerer can also be farmed for the Staff of the Guilty. Larger groups of the more powerful flaming staff variant of Thorn Sorcerers can be found outside Fort LaieddLandmark and among the barricades leading up to the Guardians' GarrisonLandmark. The flaming staff Thorn Sorcerers are the only ones that drop the Staff of the Guilty, so it is recommended that one farm in one of those two locations. The weaker smoldering staff Thorn Sorcerers only drop Smoldering Butterflies and cannot use Aberrant Sorceries. They can be found in Liurnia and at the south end of the bridge leading from the initial mountaintop with Zamor RuinsGrace on it, to the rest of the Mountaintops of the GiantsRegion. They can screech to alert nearby enemies of the player's presence, like when Foot Soldiers or Old Nobles blow their horn. According to the descriptions of the Aberrant Sorceries (also known as thorn sorceries) they use, Briars of Punishment and Briars of Sin, the guilty, who are exiled criminals, discovered the sorceries. The entries also say that their sorceries are the most reviled by the Academy. The Guilty wear very similar garb to what the Thorned Sorcerers wear, and it is most likely that the Thorned Sorcerers are Guilty that have embraced the Briars of Sin used to punish them. The description for Staff of the Guilty compares thorn sorceries to hex magic, while the description for the sorceries they use imply the sorceries' power draws from the blood star. The Staff of the Guilty's red glintstones are made from the blood of those pierced by the Staff. Furthermore, the thorn sorceries require only Faith, no Intelligence. The Staff of the Guilty also scales with Faith. The Shield of the Guilty description states that the eyes of the maiden depicted on the shield were crushed by Briars of Sin before she was reborn in these lands. This shield inflicts blood loss when it is used to bash an enemy. The description of the Thorned Whip wielded by some Fire Prelates states that the whip is A device of fearsome religious encouragement, it is fashioned in the image of briars of sin. confirming a relationship of some kind between Thorn Sorcerers and the Fire Monks and Fire Prelates.