There’s a new spot to earn lots and lots of runes in Elden Ring and it’s exclusive to the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Instead of sniping monster birds or wiping out armies of frog men, we’re going to turn the worst new enemy into your best friend. By baiting a giant enemy to blow away lots of smaller enemies, you can collect 100,000 runes or more per minute. While the Sacred Relic Sword farm in Mohgwyn Palace might still be the reigning champion, this simple alternate method might be our favorite.
And runes are so much more important in the DLC. Leveling up is going to take a very long time – if you’re sick of dying and want to use those giant Furnace Golem enemies to help you for once, there’s a ridiculous trick you can try. Here’s how to get the Furnace Golem to farm runes for us. We’ll start by explaining the basics and then really get into the details of this genius rune grinding location.
#1 How The DLC Farm Works
To start farming, you’ll need to access the Rauh Ancient Ruins, East Site of Grace. This takes you to the very high plateau jungle with a view of a giant bridge. To make this farm work, we’ll want to bait a Furnace Golem into using its most powerful attack and wiping out a swarm of shadow enemies on the bridge.
After spawning at the Site of Grace, face the bridge and go right. There’s a large ancient stone pillar here. Stand near the pillar and wait. In the far distance across the bridge, you’ll see the Furnace Golem emerge from the ground. After a few moments, the Furnace Golem will bow down and charge its most powerful attack. It will launch a spiral of flames that travels directly toward you – and this giant attack kills everything in its path.
To avoid getting instantly killed, duck behind the ancient stone pillar. The magic attack can’t pass through solid objects in the environment so you’ll be safe. If you stood near the pillar, the fire attack should kill almost every enemy on the bridge and reward you with a respectable 15,000 runes. There are ways to boost those numbers significantly so we’re earning 100,000 or more per minute. To really start earning, we’re going to instantly double the rune drop rate with a trick. This is my favorite part of the rune farm.
#2 Doubling Your Runes
To make this rune farming strategy twice as effective, we’re going to take advantage of the Site of Grace nearby. By resting at the Site of Grace while the Furnace Golem’s giant fire attack is flying forward, you’ll be able to respawn enemies mid-flight and basically kill twice the number of enemies with no extra effort on your part. Instead of running and hiding behind the pillar, all your Tarnished needs to do is sprint back to the Site of Grace and rest. It’s really that simple. To make this work, you’ll need to pay special attention to the timing.
After resetting at the Site of Grace, go to the ledge overlooking the bridge with the pillar. The Furnace Golem will wake up in the far distance and start charging its attack. Wait until the spiral of flame launches forward – then sprint directly back to the Site of Grace. With a little practice, you should rest at the Site of Grace while the giant fireball is still hovering over the bridge. Any enemies that respawned on the bridge will also die, essentially doubling your rune rewards per run. After wiping out two groups with a single fireball, rest and run back to the ledge to start from scratch. With this trick, you’ll be earning 35,000 runes per run. Add more rune bonus consumables or night bonuses to raise those numbers even more. We’ll talk more about how to increase your maximum take from this ridiculous farming method, but before you start doing this for yourself, you’ll want to know the drawbacks.
The most obvious drawback is that this farming method is boring. You don’t need to aim a bow or use an Ash of War. Every time you reset, you’ll need to wait for the Furnace Golem to very slowly rise up and launch its fireball attack. You also can’t linger or go AFK while you’re doing this method – if you wait near the bridge after the giant spiral attack, the Furnace Golem may slowly walk toward you. If you’re not paying attention, the Furnace Golem can drop off the side of the plateau and die. This giant will die permanently, so the moment it dies you’ll no longer be able to farm.
Oh. And that’s another huge drawback. If you’ve already killed this Furnace Golem, this farming method is impossible. You can’t reset. But if you’ve kept the Furnace Golem alive and don’t mind the wait, this is one of the most chill and effective farming methods in the game. You’re very unlikely to die and you don’t need to beat the Elden Beast at the end of the game to get the Sacred Relic Sword. You can earn millions of runes per hour just by running to a pillar and running back to a Site of Grace. It’s incredibly simple – and that trick to double your runes instantly is way too fun.
Now let’s talk about the details. If you haven’t reached Rauh Ancient Ruins yet, here’s how to find it.
#3 Reach The Farm Site of Grace
To access the Rauh Ancient Ruins, East Site of Grace, you’ll need to progress pretty far into the Realm of Shadow area. Progress past Castle Ensis to the Shadow Keep – you’ll need to defeat the boss Rellana in Castle Ensis, then the Golden Hippopotamus boss in the opening courtyard of the Shadow Keep. Past that, navigate to the giant lift that takes you up to the Specimen Storehouse.
At the first Site of Grace, go left and ride the lift down. This leads to a large sick room chamber full of Living Jars. Progress down the stairs and to the end of the sick room. Out the other side, you’ll find a huge bridge and the West Rampart Site of Grace. Cross the bridge to reach the main area of Rauh Ancient Ruins. After that, you’ll need to navigate the labyrinth – you can do this on your mount – and reach the jungle ledge with the bridge.
Once you’re at the big bridge, you can start farming as much as you want. Don’t defeat the Furnace Golem – some players don’t even know you can defeat these enemies, so you’re better off leaving them alone anyway. As long as that Furnace Golem lives you can farm endlessly. And to make all that farming faster, you’ll want to get a couple of useful items. Let’s start with the Golden Scarab Talisman.
#4 Get The Golden Scarab
Before you start farming, you’ll need to collect the Golden Scarab talisman. This accessory increases rune drops by +20%. That’s too useful to pass up. This unique talisman is also pretty hidden – you’ll find it in an optional dungeon in the Caelid region of the base game.
You’ll need to defeat the Cleanrot Knight bosses at the end of the Abandoned Cave dungeon in the center of Caelid, north of the giant lake of Scarlet Rot. To get to the cave, start from the Smoldering Wall Site of Grace and travel east to a canyon full of tree roots. Dropping down, you’ll be able to cross to the other side on the roots, where there’s an easy-to-miss cave built into the rock wall.
There are a pair of Cleanrot Knights waiting for you at the bottom of the dungeon, but after everything you’ve faced in the DLC area, these enemies shouldn’t be a problem. Defeat them and they’ll drop the Golden Scarab talisman, one of the best talismans in the game. It definitely is for our purposes.
Even better, the Golden Scarab talisman stacks. To get the biggest possible boost of rune drops, you’ll need to equip the Golden Scarab and use two consumable items to boost your rune rewards to the maximum.
#5 Use Consumables
For even more runes, there are two consumables you’ll want to collect. One of them is available in the base game, so you’re probably already aware of it – but there’s a second consumable that’s exclusive to the DLC that boosts your rune drops even more.
The Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot is the first item you’ll want to look for. There are multiple you can collect off the ground in the main map of Elden Ring but we need a consistent source. You’ll be able to craft them yourself by collecting Missionary’s Cookbook [2]. This is sold by Patches in Murkwater Cave. Patches moves all over the map, so finding him can be tricky – we found him in Volcano Manor much later after joining. Even if you kill Patches, you’ll collect his Bell Bearing. Trade it to the Husks in Roundtable Hold to buy anything Patches would’ve sold you. That includes three Gold-Pickled Fowl Feet to get you started farming.
If you’re planning on crafting, the toughest ingredient to get is Four-Toed Fowl Foot. These are only dropped by certain types of birds. Y’know, those ambient birds you’re probably not going to hunt in normal gameplay. Many, many of these birds are found on the beach near the Fourth Church of Marika in the northwest edge of the Weeping Peninsula. Everything else you need for the recipe is pretty easy to find growing in Limgrave and the Peninsula. The Fowl Foot also stacks with the Golden Scarab, so you’ll boost your rune drop rate to +56% if you use both at the same time.
And we’re going to boost those numbers even more with a DLC-only item. The Golden Horn Tender is a rare drop in the Realm of Shadow – they’re located all over the Legacy Dungeons of the Realm of Shadow. They also give a much larger boost than the Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot. Using it with the Golden Scarab equipped gives you a huge +68% rune drop rate. Unfortunately, the Horn Tenders do not stack with the Fowl Feet items, so don’t use both at the same time.
Once you’ve got a few consumables, there’s one final trick you can try to get even more runes.
#6 Wait Until Night For Best Results
At night, some enemies will randomly spawn with glowing eyes. This is also true in the base map of Elden Ring – if an enemy has weird glowing eyes, they’ll drop exponentially more runes when defeated. This phenomenon only happens at night, and even then it doesn’t happen that often. Still, the chances of getting a huge rune bonus are so worth it, you’ll want to game the system and rest until nightfall.
Use the Site of Grace to pass time until night and do all your farming under the moonlight. Because there are so many shadow enemies that spawn on the bridge, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get an enemy with glowing eyes eventually. And if you’re planning on farming for an hour – or even just ten minutes – then that extra big boost is only going to make your farming more efficient.
So, let’s overview the entire process one more time. Reach the Rauh Ancient Ruins, East Site of Grace and rest until night. Equip the Golden Scarab and pop a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot or a Golden Horn Tender consumable to stack the rune bonus as high as it will go, then jog to the left and wait on the ledge overlooking the bridge. In the far distance you’ll see the Furnace Golem stand up out of the water and lower his head. When the massive spiral of fire attack launches, sprint back to the Site of Grace and rest. The fire attack will stop mid-flight until you exit the Site of Grace. The enemies will respawn and die. Rest again to reset the enemies on the bridge, then repeat the process.
Even if this isn’t strictly the most effective farming spot in Elden Ring, it’s still incredible enough that we had to talk about it. This is undeniably an improvement over sniping the monster bird in the Depths, and because we still haven’t defeated the Elden Beast on our replay save file, that makes this the best possible way to farm in the Realm of Shadow.
