Elden Ring has many farming spots that will provide tonnes of Runes, but this one may be one of the best.
White Mask Varre is an NPC in Elden Ring that players meet right at the beginning of the game, loitering around the First Step Lost Grace site. He is eccentric even in the annals of other FromSoftware NPC’s so you know that he is very odd and untrustworthy…
He is a major part of being able to access this farming run. The first thing you must do is you must have killed Godrick the Grafted to have access to this farming run, if you haven’t killed Godrick yet… Go do it (Easier said than done.)
Once you have defeated Godrick, return to the Roundtable Hold and find the Two fingers, exhaust all of Enia’s dialogue, and then head back to the First Step lost grace site. Varre will be gone, but there will be a very brightly glowing message telling you where to meet him.
White Mask Varre is out in the Liurnia of the Lakes. Now, the closest Grace site that I could find was the Boilprawn shack, but essentially, the closer a Grace site is, the better, as there is no Grace site next to White Mask Varre for some infuriating reason.
Regardless, ride out to this church and find White Mask Varre standing in front of the church. He will welcome you and speak to you about the Two Fingers… simply agree with what he is saying, do not refute him, otherwise you can’t progress.
Varre will eventually provide you with a Festering Bloody Finger. Now, while it may not sound like the best gift, it is the most important part of this run.
This finger allows you to attempt player invasions, and in order to progress, you will have to invade a player 3 times. You don’t have to win or lose, just invade. If you want to get through this as quickly as possible, like I did, a good spot is the Outer Wall Phantom Tree grace site in the Royal Capital of Leyndell in the Altus Plateau. If you have not reached the Altus Plateau yet, check out our guide on the Grand Lift of Dectus here.
Once you have completed your three invasions, return to White Mask Varre, and he will express how happy he is that you’re enjoying his gift.
He will then request that you take some white cloth and “Dye it in maiden’s blood.” Now that is as cryptic as any Soulslike could be… but luckily I’m telling you where to look.
Players need to head towards the Church of Inhibition. Reaching the church can be complicated, especially if you have a low vigor stat, so lower-levelled characters and mages specifically may find this next step challenging.
The best site of grace to start from is the Grand Lift of Dectus. From there, you want to exit the large chamber and make a very sharp left, leaping over the barriers and ending up on the side of the structure. Leap down into the trees below and slowly head up the hill.
At first, it’ll be like nothing is happening, but soon, an eye that looks eerily familiar to Lord of the Rings fans will appear. The eye will build up the status effect madness as long as you are within its view. Madness does massive damage to both your health and FP stat blocks, so watch yourself and hide in the shadows whenever you can, allowing your madness bar to reduce.
You will keep progressing up the hill until you find a large set of walls ahead of you. There is a little cul-de-sac for you to hide in for a few moments for madness reduction once again. Keep going and head to the right.
You are now in the Frenzied Flame Village. Don’t bother engaging with the enemies, they’re just in your way. The run through the village is essentially a straight line until you find a hill to your right. Head up that hill and turn left, and there you will see the Church of Inhibition.
You may or may not suffer madness growth for a short while on this path, in my experience of running up this hill, the madness bar barely grew.
As you get closer to the church, you will be flung from your horse. Veterans of Elden Ring will know exactly what this means… yes, it is an NPC invader.
The invader arrives spectacularly. Now you have two options. Either run past the invader and sprint directly into the church, touching the grace site, or fight Vyke.
If I am honest, touching the grace site should be the way to go if you lose against Vyke, you will be sent back to the Dectus grace site, which means you have to repeat all of these steps.
If you do plan on killing Vyke, beware of all of his madness-inducing attacks; even his spear causes madness buildup. Players with a high Mind (which provides madness resistance) may find this fight just a little bit easier. Beware of Vykes’ special Ash of War, which sends him sort of floating into the air until he crashes down, maddening yellow flame streaking from the spear.
Whatever steps you take, you are now in the Church of Inhibition. When inside, you will see the body of a Maiden on a chair. Loot the body for the maiden armour set, and you will then be greeted by a prompt to dye the cloth. Press that and you will be rewarded with the Lord of Blood’s Favor.
Once you have the Lord of Blood’s favor, return to White Mask Varre. He will once again commend you and creepily refer to you as ‘My Lambkin’. He will then offer to anoint you, agree, and an animation will play before a bunch of gross noises in which Varre sort of insults you for squirming.
The Bloody Finger you gain from this allows you to invade other players as normal. If that is something you wish to partake in.
But really, what we want is what Varre gives you next, he refers to a ‘Lord Moghwyn’ and experienced veterans of Elden Ring may recognise the name. Varre will mention that the lord is ‘not ready to see you yet’.
This is what we have been searching for this whole time. You want to activate this item in your inventory, and in doing so, it will take you deep, deep underground, similar to the Siofra Aquaduct or Nokron the Eternal City.
Though the area you find yourself in is a little more creepy and way more bloody. From where you teleport, you want to turn a full 180. Head into the woods, be careful of the many summoner enemies around, giant skeletons will be sprouting to hit you left, right, and centre.
Take a right until you find yourself heading towards a small lake of blood.
Charge your way through the blood lake for a short while, stick close to the left cliff face to keep track of where you are, and very soon you will find yourself at a hill. The hill goes up and you can see that it is covered in ‘Albinaurics’, some of them are sleeping, the ones you are familiar with if you have traversed Liurnia of the Lakes, but there are others that are a deep red.
They. Are. Dangerous.
They do a rolling attack that can one-shot you; ignore them. (For Now.)
Ascend the hill and touch the lost grace site, and you now have your respawn point.
The farm is that you essentially kill every enemy on that slope. Many of them are sleeping, so critical back attacks are a good way to go, if you have any AOE spells or incantations, those are also useful. If you wait until nighttime at the grace site, it can increase the rune gain on some of these enemies, so it may be of benefit.
On average, you get about 2044 runes per enemy on this hill, which means you will get around 40,000 runes per run! It is a fantastic farming spot and one that players should become very familiar with.
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