I realized I was one deathroot short and rather than go back for it...I gave him death. Got the Somber Smithing Stone and all was good. (I already had all of his spells).

I want to hug him

The black blade kindred only attacked first after I handed over 3 deathroot, any lore reason for this?

Gurranq reminds me of a Wendigo, at least in one of the many interpretations of them. Giant beasts that are cursed with an insatiable hunger, than only grows more severe the more they eat.

Gurranq occasionally moves to the right side of his sanctum outside if the blade blade kindred is dead but only on rainy nights

Whoever lied about him being weak to Poison and Rot needs to be ****ing shot through the head

Since I'm a wimp, another way I've found to cheese him, granted you've already taken out the gargoyle and can't bait him into hitting Gurranq, is immediately run outside once he's hostile, whip out a bow and bop him a few times with some poison arrows to proc poison on him until he's non-hostile without taking any hits

if you kill him here can you just skip the maliketh fight?

Most of his attacks weren't too bad to dodge, but when he does the rock sling move, it kicks up so much dust that I straight up can't see my character anymore and had to hail mary dodge. It's more manageable when you fight him as a boss, but his actual room is too damn small to fight in. What's weird is, after he killed me with said rock sling attack he "calmed down" and I was able to continue to give him deathroot even though I didn't even get him to half HP.

I just calmed him in one hit with a frost weapon, looks like the cat doesn't like cold...