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After completing Dragon Age: The Veilguard Companion Quests and working for the Grey Wardens faction, you’ll gain access to the Rivain Coast, you’ll eventually unlock access to the ruined Warden Castle area. This vast fortress is where you’ll find one of the trickiest puzzles in the game — and it’s all to unlock a vault filled with valuable loot. If you explore the Warden Castle long enough, you’ll find a locked door. Approaching the door begins the quest ‘The Warden Vault‘ without giving you any further clues. If you want to open all three locks and get the treasure inside, here’s what you need to do.
For more Veilguard valuables, learn where to get all the Unique Weapons and Unique Armor in the game. Or track down three secret Mysterious Circles to unlock a secret ending cutscene.
How To Open the Warden Vault
To begin ‘The Warden Vault‘ quest, you’ll need to reach the Warden Castle area of the Rivain Coast. This area becomes available as you complete most of the Grey Warden Faction quests and your Companion Quests associated with the area. Eventually you’ll get a quest that grants access to this section of the map. Inside the castle, you’ll find a locked door that begins ‘The Warden Vault‘ quest.
The Vault is located near the large hallway with the lowered gate. You’ll need to use a switch above the gate to open it. On the left side of this grand hall, there are stairs blocked by red crystal. Remove it and go down all the stairs to find the vault quest. To open the vault, we’ll need to release three locks.
- Lock #1: From the vault, go upstairs and climb the ladder to the room with the lever that opened the gate. On the right side, there’s a door with three shields.
- To open this door, drop down to the area behind this room and look in a small alcove. There are three shields here. Activate the shields in this order: middle, left, right, middle.
Return to the locked room and use the lever inside to disable the first lock. Don’t miss the treasure chest and pile of resources.
- Lock #2: Next, go to the back of the large hall where the Vault entrance is located. There’s a narrow hallway that leads to a small room with a skeleton you can investigate.
- Activate the spirit and follow the ghostly image through the walls — climb the ladder and drop down to the exterior area (where we find the shield torch puzzle) to locate another skeleton body in the corner. Activate this too.
- Run past the Shield Torch Puzzle alcove to find a third skeleton that’s glowing green. Find all three spirits, then return to the large hall. Near the first door leading to the first skeleton, you’ll spot a spirit beside the wall. Approach it to unlock a secret door.
Once the secret door is open, the second lock lever is located directly ahead.
- Lock #3: Travel to the southern exterior of the castle. There’s an upper level we can’t reach here due to a raised ladder. To lower it, ignite the red vase visible on the ledge. The explosion will knock over the wall and lower the ladder.
- Climb up to collect a Wisp. Drop back down and backtrack slightly inside — there was a door we passed earlier that leads to a room with a red crystal. Dispel the crystal to find a broken wall with a skeleton. Bring the Wisp to the skeleton to animate it.
The skeleton will come to life and activate the switch. This unlocks one final room with a large treasure chest and the last vault lever.
What’s Inside the Warden Vault?
With all three locks disabled, the Warden Vault is now open for your Rook. All three shields should now have an eerie green flame. That means the vault can be looted at your leisure.
- The vault contains x3 chests — two chests that spawn random gear and one large chest that gives you a unique item.
- There’s also a Memento in this room, on the left side. Don’t miss it!
The large chest contains a unique accessory called Crookytail’s Crest.
- Crookytail’s Crest: While Flaming Weapon is active, Charged attacks deal Fire damage in an area around the target but remove Flaming Weapons.
The accessory powers up your fire-based attacks significantly, launching an AOE burst of fire whenever you’ve unleashed the Flaming Weapon skill. But this dissipates the magic, so you’ll only want to use it when you’re ready to deactivate fire.
While the rewards aren’t mind-blowing, this is still a fun little puzzle quest that’s worth doing for the EXP, the gear and the memento.
