Elden Ring DLC – 10 RIDICULOUS Secrets We Missed (Until Now)

There are just too many secrets in the Realm of Shadow – so we’re going back for one more round-up of ridiculous secrets we absolutely missed in the Elden Ring DLC. These are the tiny details we haven’t covered anywhere else.

For more Shadow of the Erdtree secrets, learn about the weirdest Easter egg items, how to farm infinite runes and Easter eggs that blew our minds.

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#10 Disabling Basilisk Statues

One of the worst threats in Shadow of the Erdtree only appears rarely – but they’re so awful, you’ll remember them. Found in the Scorpion River Catacombs, there’s a weird statue that’ll kill you just by looking at you. There are Basilisk statues that generate deathblight buildup whenever you’re in their line-of-sight. If the meter fills up completely, you’ll die instantly. It’s one of the nastiest threats in the DLC, but there’s a surprising way to stop it. This is something we’d never guess even after a thousand playthroughs, but the intrepid community has figured out a way to destroy these statues. Sort of.

When you encounter the Basilisk Statue, using the Weapon Skill of the Black Knife will permanently disable blight build-up. That’s really all you have to do. The Black Knife’s default skill is called the Blade of Death, a leaping attack that launches a projectile that lowers an enemy’s max HP. It’s connected with Deathblight and dropped by Black Knife Assassins, which are important to the lore but don’t ask us to fully explain why. Just trust me, they’re really important.

Using the Black Knife disables the statue – it doesn’t break it, it just stops working. I guess using some of that Deathblight on a Deathblight Statue is like giving it a taste of its own medicine. To get your own Black Knife, go to the Sainted Hero’s Grave in Altus Plateau from the vanilla Lands Between map. The optional dungeon is to the north of the big road leading to the giant city to the east, and south of the Minor Erdtree in the lowlands. The miniboss spawns outside, and defeating him guarantees a Black Knife drop. Once you’ve got it, you’re free to blind those big weird ugly statues for good.

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#9 A Coat of Arms (Or Fingers)

Here’s one so strange we never imagined it would actually work. The longest and weirdest sidequest in the DLC is the story of Count Ymir, the weird priest guy that wants to become the new Mother of Fingers.There’s something off about this guy the first second you see him, and he only gets weirder as the story progresses. You’ll find him cradling a Finger Creeper at one point – this guy loves fingers so much, he becomes a big weird pile of them at the very end.

After finishing the quest and defeating the hidden Metyr, Mother of Fingers boss, you’ll take on Count Ymir himself. He’s taken up the mantle, and his normal religious vestments are bursting with gross new fingers. Defeating him scores his normal robes, but there’s one detail we never really guessed would be true here. If you choose to alter the High Priest Robe anywhere, it becomes the Finger Robe – his literal boss outfit that’s both super gross and super cool that we actually get to wear it. Most alterations cause your knight helmet visor to flip up, or add a fancy cape to your chest piece. This turns you into a weird monster. That’s interesting enough that we had to put this on the list. The Finger Robes are also totally different – wearing them increases Finger Sorcery effectiveness by 8%, which is totally unique to the altered version of the outfit.

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#8 Hidden NG+ Difficulty Curve

As if Elden Ring needed to get any harder. Every time you beat the main story and start fresh, there’s a New Game Plus modifier that ups the challenge slightly, and that same modifier continues with each successive cycle, challenging players more and more if they finish the game multiple times with the same character. That’s something we’ve all known since the early Dark Souls games, but there’s another hidden feature that specifically makes the Realm of Shadow harder, but only one time.

After beating the last boss of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, then finishing the main game and restarting for a new cycle, you’ll unlock a special enemy health and damage modifier that affects everything in the expansion map. Enemies deal more damage and have a lot more health, but this special effect only triggers the one time. Basically, it forces you to track down those tree fragments even more diligently if you want to progress. Even the most basic enemies can one-shot your all-powerful hero with this difficulty modifier active. The damage output can increase anywhere from 5% to 105% percent, turning simple enemies into absolute beasts. We don’t know why FromSoft added the cruellest new feature we never knew about in the Elden Ring DLC, but we’re kind of impressed by their dedication to pure torture.

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#7 Margit’s Shackle Works Here Too

One of the early trick items of Elden Ring can be used in new ways. Margit’s Shackle is a weird tool used for basically one thing – it can shackle Margit for a few seconds during his big boss fight in the starting area of the game. Margit’s Shackle can make your fight with Margit just a little easier, but most of us probably forgot this item even existed after that.

If you’re really deep into Elden Ring, then you’ll already know that Margit’s Shackle has another use. Using this item reveals nearby secrets. Illusory walls will break in a pretty good radiance when using this thing, and that still works in the Realm of Shadow. There are two important Illusory Walls everyone will want to find – one in the hidden painting room, down the ladder in the Shadow Keep, to the right of the lift leading to the Specimen Storehouse. Another Illusory Wall is near the stairs on the upper level of the Specimen Storehouse sickroom. That Shadow Keep wall is really important, because it leads down a very long secret path full of incredible stuff to explore, but we’re not here to talk about Illusory Walls.

Margit’s Shackle has some other uses. It can be used to activate the Spiritspring jump pads that are all over the DLC – using the shackle near a spring will shatter the hidden stone statues connected to them. When the statues are broken, they’ll reactivate. Another handy use for Margit’s Shackle is for something we had no idea even existed. Using the Shackle will shatter hanging pots in certain areas, and these pots are incredibly valuable. They’re so valuable, we’ll talk about the hanging pots in our next entry.

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#6 And Secret Pots Carry Bell Bearings

Look above you, because there might be a secret hanging over your head. Here’s a secret we walked by countless times and never noticed until now. There are breakable pots hanging from cliffs and other locations you can shatter – each secret pot has a bell bearing inside. These bell-bearings can be traded to the Finger Husks at your hub to purchase valuable crafting items. All the bell-bearings make crafting items available, finally freeing crafters from having to hunt down useful items like string. String is required for every roped or drawstring crafting item, and farming it can be a huge pain in the butt. Instead of farming it, just buy as much as you want!

We’ll use the string as an example. You’ll find a hanging pot in Prospect Town – there’s a pot hanging from the side of a cliff in the town itself. Breaking it drops the String-Seller’s Bell Bearing. And there are many more hidden pots just like this. You can get a bell bearing to buy Rada Fruit, one of the most common crafting materials in the game, but it’s so much easier to just buy them with the infinite runes you’ll be earning.

There’s a lot of these, and the best one is probably the Greasemonger’s Bell Bearing.It’s on the cliffs north of Bonny Village, past the Site of Grace. Beyond the Furnace Golem, there’s a pack of wolves – look above them for a hanging pot. Maybe you spotted these things, but there’s so much going on in this game, is a hanging pot really that suspicious?

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#5 Everything, Even Field Bosses Can Get Glowing Eyes

This is one you might already know, but it’s so important. Even after a hundred hours in Elden Ring and another hundred hours in Shadow of the Erdtree, we didn’t know about a secret effect that only occurs at night. When the sun goes down, there’s a chance an enemy will spawn with glowing eyes. These enemies drop exponentially more runes when defeated – and there’s a high chance you’ll encounter them in large enough groups. Just follow our rune grinding guide to learn more about hunting shadow people on the Rauh Ruins bridge. While you might not see any glowing eyes, you’ll know they’re there when you get way more runes than normal.

And while we haven’t seen it ourselves, community and friends have told us that even large enemies can contract the glowing eyes effect. Anything that’s outside, including field bosses, can gain those glowing eyes. If you’re lucky enough to find a Hippopotamus with glowing eyes while exploring at night, you just hit the jackpot.

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#4 The Deflecting Hardtear

If you’re not hunting the giant Furnace Golems in the Realm of Shadow, you might not even realize that these enormous enemies drop tears. These are special items you can mix into your Flask of Wondrous Physick for special effects – like temporarily boosting all types of damage negation after drinking the flask. There are lots of effects, and I really don’t blame anyone for not knowing that Furnace Golems drop these things. Fighting Furnace Golems is entirely optional and they can kill the player in one hit. They’re awful, but the first one you find drops one of the most interesting upgrades in the game.

If you defeat the Furnace Golem near the Smoldering Ruins area in the starting field, you’ll get the Deflecting Hardtear. This special tear is designed specifically for players that love spontaneous guard. Basically, it makes your guard stronger – and gives you a huge parry damage bonus when you spontaneous guard multiple times in a row. The damage increases with each additional perfect guard, turning you into a parry machine. Basically, if you’re a fan of all the parrying and deadly counters in Sekiro, you’ll be prepared to use the Deflecting Hardtear how it was intended.

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#3 You Can Talk To Pests

Here’s one we didn’t realize until it was way too late. In the Rauh Ruins and other creepy corners of the Realm of Shadow, there are the always-obnoxious pest enemies. These body-horror monsters that look like human cockroaches spit out tracking spells whenever you’re near, making them ugly and too dangerous to ignore. Whenever you see these disgusting things living in a swampy pile of Scarlet Rot poison, normally you’ll aim to exterminate on-sight.

But there’s a problem with that. In the Realm of Shadow there are peaceful pests that don’t want to attack you. These NPCs will die permanently if you attack and kill them, but if you notice they don’t want to fight and talk first, they’ll each give you a different Forager’s Brood cookbook. These recipes all contain different Pickled Livers to enhance damage negation for basically every element. That’s a nice bonus – too bad we attacked every Pest immediately. They look no different, the only way to tell is to approach and attempt to talk. Attacking the pests will actually end a very strange character questline. One guy wants to make friends with the pests, and if you attack even one, then you’ve just lost one friend. You might have no idea why an NPC has suddenly gone hostile at you for clearing out pests. It turns out, you might’ve killed a totally innocent monster by accident. I hope you feel awful for it. We made the same mistake.

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#2 Make Smith Golems Work For You

Crystal Darts have a special secondary ability – something that we figured out way back in vanilla Elden Ring, but it’s even more useful in the expansion. These little darts have the ability to frenzy stone enemies, making them attack everything including their former friends. If there’s nothing else to attack, they’ll attack you – and even better, it works on the extremely difficult Smith Golems.

To get an infinite supply of Crystal Darts, just by the recipe book from the Nomadic Merchant at the Liurnia of the Lakes Site of Grace. It’s a relatively early recipe that’s worth grabbing, because you only need Cracked Crystals to create a whole pile of Crystal Darts. These darts are found commonly in any of the crystal tunnel mines. They’re plentiful, so you can have fun toying with enemies using Crystal Darts.

The effect takes control of Smith Golems after about four or five hits. Sparks appear on their heads, signaling that they’ve gone haywire. They’ll attack anything nearby first, even other Smith Golems – really useful, because these enemies only have a single hard-to-hit weak spot on their backs. Let the golems beat each other up instead.

And Crystal Darts even work on Furnace Golems. It takes a lot of darts and there’s rarely anything for them to attack, but it works.

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#1 Furnace Golems Are Easier From Above

And while we’re talking about Furnace Golems, here’s a tip to make them easier. These obnoxiously large enemies are found all over the Realm of Shadow, ready to defeat you instantly with a whole lot of fireballs. Literally, they’ll spawn a dozen or more to track you down hundreds of yards away. The best way we found to fight them was just running at their legs and attacking until they fell down. Well, it turns out there’s another way to defeat the Furnace Golems.

In some rocky areas, you’ll be able to see the top of a Furnace Golem’s big bonfire head. In the bowl there’s a huge infinitely burning inferno – and you can fight fire with fire by dropping a Hefty Furnace Pot or a Hefty Fire Pot into the bowl. This is basically the only way to deal massive damage to a Furnace Golem. And it still takes five or six hits to defeat them permanently. Against the Furnace Golem in Charro’s Hidden Grave, this trick is actually required. The golem’s legs are completely armored, so you can’t deal damage by attacking the toes. You’ve got to climb the ridge and go for the head with a very-carefully thrown rare item. Goodluck with that.