Guide to Elden Ring

Hello! Today we're going to play Fromsoftware's Elden Ring. This guide is a bit of a proof-of-concept: there's a popular idea that the game's quest design is obtuse and it's impossible to follow the 'intended' path. So we're going to get through the game following only item descriptions, instructions in dialogue, and context clues. I'll also generally being applying some of my knowledge to make this a serviceable beginner's guide.

Character Creation

Choice of starting class matters a lot less than you might think. The main thing you care about here is what equipment you start with¹. Pick the one that looks the coolest; I'm picking Vagabond as it gives you a nice straightforward knight. For a keepsake, I'm choosing the Lands Between Rune² for some extra starting money, but choose anything you like based on your impression from the descriptions. It won't have far-reaching consequences. I recommend against Shabriri's Woe as for now it's mainly a downside³. Take a moment to read the descriptions of each item, class, and character preset for a bit of lore, then alter your character's appearance as you see fit. Let's begin! Click start. Watch cutscene.

Chapel of Anticipation

Before we start moving, let's review what we know from that cutscene. We learned a lot of history and got a lot of hints about characters and events, but the most important thing are this: you're a Tarnished, a sort of undead, blessed by "grace". You're wanted to get to the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord. With that goal in mind, let's move for- hey what's that item over there?

Tarnished's Wizened Finger and... a message. To get to the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord. So that seems pretty clear so far. Reading this thing and looking at where we got it, it seems like some woman died fairly recently and scrawled this message before she went. For us? Who knows? Open the big door. I'll take this opportunity to suggest you revise your equipment and try to get your weight down to "Medium Load" by unequipping, in order of priority: redundant weapons, helmet, gauntlet, boots, chestpiece. I was able to simply unequip my Halberd to meet the requirement. This will massively improve your dodging capabilities; you'll notice another marked increase at "Light Load", but that requires being basically naked. Everything I'm telling you is conveyed in-game, by the way, using the "Help" menu. Now might be a good time to open that and click through everything, highlighting your stats the stats of your gear. Some are obvious, some are not. Step outside. Take in sights.

A castle in the distance and a big tree. Is that the Elden Ring? Maybe, maybe not. Progress the only way you can. I guess that woman wasn't kidding about the path being broken and uncertain. Cross the bridge, enter the courtyard, die. Be informed, once more, that we must seek the Elden Ring. This time, however, the instruction is accompanied by a warning: that it violates the "Golden Order". Uh oh. We receive a flask upon standing up which, for a fourth time, tells us to seek the Elden Ring. Got it. My vagabond armour also tells me that I was banished from my motherland, and the Memory of Grace says we were once guided to the Lands Between. It also says to seek the Elden Ring. Let's do that. Talk to a ghost. Take the plunge. Simple instructions. How do people get lost in this game?

Touch grace, rest, move on. If you have tutorials enabled, you'll be getting popups to accompany the "Help" menu I had you read earlier. That should cover the gameplay basics. Get through this section on your own initiative. Depending on your choice of starting class, I recommend circling enemies to their left to perform backstabs after they attack you, or blocking and then performing guard counters. You'll eventually come to a Stake of Marika and a golden wall of fog. Step through and apply your technique to this guy. Claim your reward, the gesture Strength, and drop back down. Proceed forward, because our ghost friend's dialogue is exhausted (you may confirm this for yourself if you like). Open door, proceed, ascend stairs, rest. Lift. Door.

Limgrave

Suddenly the world is open to us. I will remind you of the point of the guide: follow directions. Since we don't know where this "Elden Ring" is, let's go in a straight line until we find someone to tell us. Light this grace and talk to this gentleman. He informs us that we need the guidance of a "maiden" (which explains the dead woman we saw earlier) to reach the "Roundtable Hold", and from there, the Elden Ring. He tells us that in the absence of one such maiden, we should follow the golden rays of grace (if you touched the one right next to you, you'll notice that this man has elected to set up shop right in front of its ray). The guidance of grace, and Varré here, both indicate "Castle Stormveil" in the distance as our destination. Let's make a beeline for that! Follow the path down the hill, die to that horseback knight, and realise you should sneak around him. Do so, and find yourself at the Church of Elleh. If you picked up the Golden Rune outside, you'll also be informed that you should be seeking a (new, I guess) "Finger Maiden" to apply the strength of runes. We did see a woman recently, riding a goat. We'll keep an eye out for her. Grace, item, talk to Santa.

This item says we should seek out "mining galleries" to find more of the stuff, and a tutorial popup suggests we should be looking for a blacksmith. Santa has a lot to say. Kalé recommends we buy a Crafting Kit, so we'll do that with our runes from "Soldier of Godrick" earlier. We can also read the item descriptions for the other things, even if we can't afford them. Apparently there's a "Carian royal family" suffering due to the fettering of the night skies, a man who wanted to become a Finger Maiden, and information about "Waypoint Ruins" and a "Flask of Wondrous Physick". Those seem important. So important that we're going to use our Golden Rune to buy them, if we can't already. Exhaust Kalé's dialogue while you're here for some lore, then read these notes. Finally, two concrete objectives: find a "Physick" and a "Someone". Let's make a list of goals here.

Goals

• Find the Third Church of Marika, north of the Mistwood, by crossing the highway bridge and following the animal trail north.
• Find someone lurking among the waypoint ruins on the roads
• Find a Finger Maiden
• Reach Stormveil Castle on the road to the Elden Ring

Lots to consider. Let's keep an eye out for a highway; for now, follow the guidance of grace along the vague path indicated on your map towards the little obelisk traced on it where it seems to intersect some other road. Is that our highway? We shall see. We also pass by an Erdleaf Flower, which gives us a name for the big tree in the distance: the "Erdtree". The path takes us north through a copse where a few soldiers patrol, seemingly guarding some kind of cave to the west. We can explore that if we like, but it doesn't seem to be in the way of any of our objectives. Proceed through the copse to the crest of a hill. Coming down the hill, a message informs us that the ruins ahead have some kind of "chamber" below, so we'll add that to our little list of goals: find the basement of the ruins. As we proceed through the ruins, depending on how stealthy we are, a soldier will blow a horn and summon up a gazillion of his fellows to pursue us; including one very large partisan-wielding knight. Fortunately, the rays of grace converge on a spot to the north. Run for your life. Light the grace. Rest. Oh, a cutscene!

Goat girl is back, and she suggests we should have a maiden. Heard that one before. She says Tarnished have maidens appointed by the "Two Fingers", and that these maidens let them leverage the strength of runes to find the Elden Ring. We knew that already, but it's nice to have it spelled out. Then she offers to be our maiden! Accept, and one of our objectives is complete! We also get the goat-horse for ourselves, but we'll come back to that.

Levelling up

Melina will allow us to level up, which is a process that should be done carefully. You can see the effect of increasing an attribute when you try out incrementing them in the level-up menu. Use the "Help" menu again to review all of this information, then heed my advice. There are a few things to be aware of. You'll notice that as you increase attributes, the benefits they confer per point decrease the higher they get. These diminishing returns are a good reason to level carefully, and stop levelling stats at specific "breakpoints": levels where the benefit from the next level would be significantly less than the previous. For Vigor, for example, the amount of health you gain per level increases until 40, at which point it drops off sharply. As such, we can focus on levelling Vigor to 40 (called the "softcap"), and then stopping until we find ourselves flush with levels. For damage the effect is even stronger, since points in your damaging stats provide an almost negligible benefit already. While you may eventually want to softcap your damaging stats, you should first focus on getting the health and FP you need to play the game effectively. For now, a basic heuristic is to level your damaging stats to the minimum amount required to wield your desired weapon, then put the rest into Vigor until around 20, then into FP if you need it. You might find a new weapon with higher requirements, so prioritise that when you need to. When that's taken care of, return to levelling Vigor until 40. You can push Vigor to 60 in the late game, at which point it drops off so severely that you have no reason to level beyond that. One more word: when two-handing your weapon, your Strength is temporarily multiplied by 1.5. As such, you can level to 50% less than the required Strength for your weapon if you intend to two-hand it. Also, levelling Endurance is less worth it than it sounds, especially at low levels. Use your best judgment and don't put your points all over the place. I'm not going to level at all right now, because Vagabond has excellent starting stats and because I'm broke. Sorry Melina. Stand. Review goals.

Goals

• Find the Third Church of Marika
• Find the waypoint ruins
• Find the basement of the Gatefront Ruins
• Reach Stormveil Castle

This appears to be the highway, and the guidance of grace says to proceed northwest towards the castle. But we have some smaller-scale goals that seem more manageable right now. I'm putting my Spectral Steed Whistle on my top "Pouch" slot for ease of use, and then heading back into those ruins. Spend some time clearing them of enemies, looting them, and finding the basement, then come back when you've done that. My suggestions are to pass time until night at the grace, and then approach it with some stealth tactics. Take out the horn-blowing soldier quickly and from range if possible, to avoid getting attacked by multiple enemies at once. For the big knight, kill all the smaller soldiers before engaging him, then play it slow and careful. Wait for him to attack and circle around for a backstab. It'll take a few. There's also a grace on the other side of the ruins that lets you approach the knight when he's out on his own, so you can retry the encounter from there if you prefer. When you find the basement and have killed all the enemies, pick up from here.

You'll now be in possession of the Whetstone Knife, among many other things. Head back to a grace and let's review. The Lordsworn's Greatsword tells us that these knights are "regulars of a lord's army" and that they've largely gone insane. If any of the soldiers dropped their gear, you'll know which lord they serve: "Godrick the Grafted", who lives up in Stormveil Castle. The map tells us that this is the demesne of Limgrave, and that we're far south of the Erdtree. It must be pretty big, because I thought it seemed fairly close. You'll have also found some Ruin Fragments, which tell of a temple in the sky, and Ash of War: Storm Stomp, which tells us of the "tempests of Stormveil". A tutorial will explain Ashes of War; in short, you can apply skills to your weapons at a grace, and when you do so, you can alter the attribute scaling and damage types of the weapon somewhat. There are some restrictions on this now, and they'll be eased up later. You'll see. Play around with this a bit (consider adding Storm Stomp to your weapon and selecting "Quality" if it'll squeeze out some more damage for you), and then get ready to continue your journey. Open the map. Woah.

The map

Let's take in all the sights, from north to south. Prominently in the northwest corner is what must be Stormveil Castle, towards which points our grace. A huge bridge extends east from it, ending at some kind of circle. Is this the highway bridge? Probably not. The road we're on runs north under that bridge and off the map via what is seemingly another large bridge, this one broken. Is that the highway bridge? Maybe. There's some kind of ring of pillars east of that, reached via a smaller road that leads off our map to the east on, you guessed it, another bridge. Highway? Less likely, since that road isn't as prominently marked out as the one we're on. The structure we're next to is called "Stormgate," and it's surrounded by two little blue circles. One is probably a pond, the other is something strange. We'll remember that for later. Southeast of us, the highway crosses a bridge... huh... and then forks, heading north off the map and south towards another strange blue circle. All this surrounds a large lake filled with ruins and a little orange... cave entrance? Something like that. Finally, there's a telescope-looking thing marked on the map.

Comparing our list of goals to the map, it looks like we should follow the highway and investigate any bridges we come across. Since Stormgate looks scary, and there's a bridge right there, we'll head south for now. If you haven't already, grab the "Agheel Lake North" (excellent, a name for the lake) grace on the far side of the ruins and then proceed towards the bridge. Stop when you reach the telesc- hey what's that?

Follow the voice to the nearby stand of trees, grabbing the item along the way. Figure out where it's coming from and roll into the source (hint: it's not a sheep). Have a chat with the mysterious voice until he mentions something of interest: a cave on the shore he intends to visit, by way of thanks. Apparently the place is terrifying. Looking at our map, we can see a few shores. One of them even has what might be a cave marked out on it! But we'll let this fellow run off to his cave on his own time, and check back later. For now, return to the telescope. With a bird's-eye view, we can see that our enormous bridge leads to a colossal tower. Not only that, several similar towers can be seen lurking in the distance, as well as the spires of some far-off city behind the Erdtree. More immediately, smaller golden trees dot the landscape, including one emerging from a mist-filled forest to the east. A "Mistwood", if you will. Highway. Bridge. Mistwood. Best lead we have so far. Even better, with a sharp eye we can spot some ruins along the roads to the southeast. There's a second lead. The orange ring on our map doesn't seem to be a "cave on the shore" after all; that spot looks like a sheer cliff. Still worth investigating sometime, but it's probably not where our friend is going. Oh yes, and highest above all (except the Erdtree): a big... stone bowl? The Elden Ring, maybe? Maybe, maybe not. Make a mental note of the many ruins, castles, and towers dotted about the landscape, then step away from the telescope. Let's pursue our two notes: the church north of the Mistwood, and the "someone" in the waypoint ruins. Ride towards the bridge.

You'll notice something. You'll notice two things if it's night. The first thing is a glittering white ball. Chase it down and kill it, being mindful of the nearby soldiers, unless it's night. If it's night, shift your attention to the enormous black rider dominating the bridge. Then turn and run and pass time until morning to make him go away. If he notices you, make a note of his name: "Night's Cavalry". In either case, killing the glittering ball (a "scarab") will net you your second Ash of War. Feel free to continue experimenting when you find another grace. Take out the much more manageable enemies on the bridge in the daytime and then assess the road ahead. To the left, a trail descends into the woods we saw earlier; this must be our "animal trail". To the right, the highway continues towards... something scary? Two giant figures pulling a big cart, headed your way. A soldier with a spyglass oversees their approach. Depending on how long you've taken to get this far, the cart might be getting fairly close by now, so head off the road to spy on the procession. If the cart is nearly to the bridge, the soldiers that ordinarily guard it will have fallen behind, so you can order the trolls to halt by attacking their legs, then pilfer the chest at the back of the cart. If it's still a ways off, just leave it alone for now. That's a sufficiently intimidating obstacle that we're probably better off leaving the highway for the moment. Follow the trail north, fighting enemies along the way.

Just before the path passes under a large ruin, you'll find a grace by the wayside, at the edge of the forest. Touch, rest, proceed. A figure atop the ruin will catch your eye, and then your ear as he exclaims his name and asks for help. Go have a chat! This gentleman, "Kenneth Haight", is apparently a local lord. He asks you to go south of the Mistwood and reclaim his fort from a blood-obsessed Knight commander. He also warns you to avoid Godrick's "Tarnished hunts" (a bit late for that) and name-drops several figures, all of whom we'll keep in mind as we proceed. Are you writing this down? While you're at it, revise our goals.

Goals

• Church, Mistwood, north
• Fort, Mistwood, south
• Someone, ruins, highway
• Cave, coastal, Boc
• Ring, Elden, Castle

Also, from this vantage point, look southeast, and there's the church. Head over there, passing another scarab (this one is red, and only refills your red flasks) and a rare male boar, which is actually hostile. Inside the church are two glowy items and a grace. Light, rest, take, take. Wait, back up. Talk to Melina at the grace. Listen. This is where Queen Marika took some warriors' "grace" and banished them. Given all we've heard about Tarnished being banished and then returning to their home, we seem to have a pretty clear picture now: Marika took grace from all these Tarnished and then sent them away to die in a war. Then, according to the introductory cutscene, the Elden Ring was shattered, Queen Marika disappeared, Godwyn the Golden and many others were assassinated, and a war called the Shattering started and ended in stalemate. Finally, the Tarnished were called back by someone, to find the Elden Ring and become "Elden Lord". On it! Incidentally, combining that with what we've just heard from Kenneth Haight, Godrick doesn't seem like the sort to have this Elden Ring. So while the guidance of grace still says to head up to the castle, we'll probably have to go quite a bit further to reach the end of our journey. Oh well.

Take, take. Our Sacred Tear tells us a bit about the Erdtree, and our Physick lets us make customised potions with various effects. Right now we can only make one that heals us, but according to the description we should seek out "Minor Erdtrees" to find more of these Crystal Tears. We've seen several large trees, including one right nearby in the Mistwood, so we'll keep that in mind. Mix the Crimson tear into your flask at a grace and use the Sacred Tear to increase the amount regenerated by your blue and red flasks. Now what?

Goals

• Reclaim Kenneth Haight's fort, south of the Mistwood
• Seek minor Erdtrees to get crystal tears
• Find Boc at the cave on the coast
• Find "someone" in the waypoint ruins along the highway
• Reach Stormveil Castle and meet Godrick
• Find the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord

Two of these goals involve going south through the Mistwood, along a path that leads out of the Third Church. Let's head that way. You'll pass by a coast (no cave) and into the woods proper. Touching a candelabra of some kind will cause a ghost to lead you down the road to some ruins, passing all sorts of important things along the way. Let's slow down and touch on each in turn. First off, there's a structure on the left that, upon entry, declares itself the "Siofra River Well". No reason to head in there just now. Past that is the minor Erdtree we were looking for, and at its roots is a stone basin containing an item: more crystal tears to experiment with. Next is the map for this area, which we'll come to in a moment, and then the aforementioned ruins. Now that you have the map, you can see that these are the Mistwood ruins. If you hang around them for a moment, you'll hear a howling and the icon for "Blaidd the Half-Wolf" will appear on your map. You can sneak past the sleeping bear in these ruins to enter the basement and grab a talisman, but there won't be any sign of this "Blaidd" yet. Loot the rest of the ruins and note why the bear has fallen asleep: the Trina's Lilies surrounding it. Then escape the ruins (hope you didn't wake the bear!) and continue on the path.

A pack of horrible little creatures will try to surround you just as you're reading the glowing message here. Kill them, then go in the direction indicated to figure out who's "open for business". Another merchant, like Santa! This one is less talkative, but more desperate. He doesn't sell any notes, but he does sell smithing stones. Buying these should get you enough to use that anvil back at the Church of Elleh to upgrade your weapon. We can also check back in with Kalé, since it's been a while. We'll want a grace first, though, so we can pick up where we left off. Follow the path until you leave the Mistwood, then say hello to the ghost staring up at the fort in front of you (Kenneth Haight's fort, I imagine). The ghost confirms the parenthetical, so ride up to the grace, light it, and head back to the Church of Elleh to prepare for our assault on the fort. Huh?

A voice! Heed the voice and have a chat. Don't lie to the witch and take the items she offers. Keep her in mind, even though she says you won't meet again. If you chose the Fanged Imp Ashes as a starting gift, you can now make use of those. If you didn't, you'll just have these wolves. They're good wolves, though. After that strange encounter, back to the task at hand. Talk to Kalé for an update. Hey, Santa knows about the howling! Kalé suggests you snap your fingers under the howling next time you're in the area to "meet its source", so we'll add that to our goals. Upgrade your weapon and make any purchases you wish (the telescope is a useful tool), then teleport back to Fort Haight. The fort makes an excellent challenge, so approach it with caution and clear it out and loot it. Don't forget your new Spirit Calling Bell! Put some ashes on your quick item or pouch slots and use them when you're in range of a monument, as explained by the tutorials. When the fort is clear, take stock of Haight's treasures: a Golden Seed, which increases the number of uses of your flasks, a Blood Ash of War, and Dectus Medallion (Left). The first is self-explanatory, and probably a welcome sight if you're using a lot of FP for your build. The second is a nice enough skill, but particularly nice because it imparts the Bleed status effect, which causes enemies to take damage equal to a percentage of their maximum health whenever it occurs. This is widely considered one of the most powerful effects in the game, but it scales with the Arcane attribute, which you're unlikely to be focusing on at the moment. Finally we have... whatever this is. Apparently you need to find the other half in "Dragonbarrow" to operate the "Grand Lift of Dectus". We'll put it on our list of goals, but it doesn't tie in to anything we know about at present.

Goals

• Return to Kenneth Haight
• Seek more minor Erdtrees
• Find the coastal cave
• Find "someone" at the waypoint ruins
• Reach Stormveil Castle
• Find the other half of the Dectus Medallion in Fort Faroth in Dragonbarrow to the east and use it at the lift between "Liurnia" and the "Altus Plateau"
• Find the Elden Ring

Yeah, that's a strange one.