Elden Ring rune farming is the key to leveling your character from a lowly Tarnished to a boss-slaying champion, and there are several viable places to farm runes, even as soon as you get to the Lands Between. We’ve covered several great early rune farming locations in Elden Ring already, but arguably the best of them is so good that we worry it may be patched out soon. With that in mind, take your best sword, staff, or axe and head to Fort Faroth to slay a very generous dragon. Here’s how to nab 80,000 Runes with one morally dubious trick.
Elden Ring rune farm – Fort Faroth dragon
Typically in a From Software game, everything wants you dead. Sure, some human NPCs may be friendly (or at least they appear that way), but if it looks like a beast, it’s probably content to kill you. That’s not the case with the Fort Faroth dragon, however. This apparent mother dragon is surrounded by her babies, and strangely puts up no fight when you go to kill her.
Doing so will net you 80,000 Runes, though she won’t respawn like most other enemies after you rest at a Site of Grace. Still, a bounty of 80,000 Runes is massive at any point, especially early in the game. That’s good for several character levels. What’s more, if you elect not to harm the mother dragon and instead focus on the offspring, they each net you 3,500 Runes and they do respawn after resting at a Site of Grace. They will, however, stop spawning if you kill their mother.
This setup gives you two options:
- Kill the mother dragon once for 80,000 Runes
- Repeatedly farm the babies for 3,500 Runes per dragon
Really a third option would be to walk away and leave these creatures be–they didn’t do anything to you!–but if you’ve made it this far, I imagine you’re hellbent on slaying the group in some fashion. Truth be told, assuming this simple Rune farm isn’t bugged, it may very well prove that killing this dragon alters or even prematurely ends a questline players have yet to discover. Therefore, slay the dragons at your own risk–and for potentially greater consequences than just seeming ethically bankrupt.
How to get to Fort Faroth
So you’ve decided to kill dragon mommy. Okay then, for that, you’ll first need to get to Caelid, which is east of Limgrave, the game’s opening area. You can find Fort Faroth by taking the road out of Summonwater Village and through the following areas:
- Northeast to Smoldering Church
- East-by-southeast to Caelum Ruins
- South to Caelid Waypoint Ruins
- East to Sellia Gateway
- Northeast to Fort Faroth
This path largely follows a designed road, so it’s easy enough to stay on target, even as the enemies might not be as helpful. If you’re not willing to trek this distance, you can also take a teleporter that rests slightly northeast of the Third Church of Marika. In the map below, the blue markers indicate your on-foot path through Caelid, while the red markers indicate where the teleporter starts (left) and transports you to (right), followed by the shorter, safer path south to the dragons’ location outside of Fort Faroth (purple).
However you get there, a Site of Grace rests right outside the fort, which makes resetting nice and easy should you elect to spare the mother and repeatedly target the offspring instead.
Eventually, you’ll slay the dragon and pocket a heavy 80,000 Runes. Her apparent disinterest in defending herself means getting there is the only hard part, though also note that if you elect to target the smaller dragons, they’ll be a tough fight for a low-level player.
There’s a lot to consider when embarking on this dragon-slaying quest. Do you spare the dragon for now in case it irreversibly changes a questline later? Do you only target the small dragons–assuming you can reliably defeat them on repeat? Do you rush in and get your 80,000 Runes before this possibly bugged encounter is patched out of the game forever? While the moral implications may sway very few players, more tangible but so far unseen consequences likely await. The choice is yours, Rune farmer!
For more Rune farming opportunities–without destroying families–try our Elden Ring rune farming guide.
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