Welcome to the Elden Ring Walkthrough for the Mountaintops of the Giants region! The northernmost area of the game world, this can only be reached through story progression unlike most of the other large regions. It then includes the side area Castle Sol, along with the Forge of Giants, the location you are aiming to reach to progress the story to its conclusion. The westernmost area is part of the region leading to Haligtree and is locked off until you find the two halves of the secret medallion (one of which is located at Castle Sol).
For all other regions refer to Elden Ring Walkthrough.
Mountaintops of the Giants
Progression Order:
- Forbidden Lands
- Grand Lift of Rold
- Zamor Ruins
- Ancient Snow Valley Ruins
- Freezing Lake
- Snow Valley Ruins Overlook
- Castle Sol Main Gate
- Church of the Eclipse
- Commander Niall
- Castle Sol Rooftop
- First Church of Marika
- Whiteridge Road
- Giant’s Gravepost
- Church of Respose
- Foot of the Forge
- Fire Giant
- Forge of the Giants
Forbidden Lands
After exiting Leyndell and crossing the bridge to the east, you will take a lift down and enter the Forbidden Lands area. This area before reaching the Grand Lift of Rold is covered in fog and filled with Militia enemies so it can be mildly annoying to navigate.
Continue to the northeast following the ground and the red ashes swirling in the air. You’ll know you’re going in the correct direction because you will see red Tearadrop Scarabs on the ground, along with going past a phantom tree where you can pick up a Golden Seed.
Continue following the path, and you will reach a large staircase similar to the one before the Grand Lift of Dectus. Before you can get up the stairs though, a Gargoyle boss named Black Blade Kindred will appear.
This field boss is entirely optional, it doesn’t stop you from going into the lift. If you don’t want to deal with it you can just run past up the stairs and into the building ahead. If you decide to fight it, it basically has the exact same moveset as the Twinblade Gargoyle from the Valient Gargoyle fight in Nokron. It starts out attacking with the twinblade, then switches to the axe once its health is lowered to half. It can be slightly more annoying to fight than the one in Nokron due to the much smaller area. If you do choose to defeat it, it drops the Gargoyle’s Black Blades and Gargoyle’s Black Axe weapons.
Whether you fight the Gargoyle or run past, continue up the stairs into the lift itself where you can activate the next site of grace on the right.
Grand Lift of Rold
Head up the ramp onto the lift itself, and standing in the center of the circle closest to the statues to activate the lift.
After the cutscene, you will now be in the Mountaintop area proper. Follow the path a short distance ahead to find the first map stele for this area, where you can obtain Map: Mountaintops of the Giants, West.
Jump over the short cliff on the left of the path, and you can find the next site of grace.
Zamor Ruins
Just beside the site of grace, you might spot a familiar-looking NPC. They will tell you a bit about the steps required for one of the game’s endings, but speaking with them is entirely optional if you choose to do it, just hints at what to do if you didn’t already know.
Continue to the east, directly through the middle of the Zamor Ruins.
You will need to follow the path through the middle, then winding back to the left to continue further north.
Head through the hole in the mountain, and you will reach the other side, where there is a large thin path leading further north. This is where you will need to cross.
Watch for the point where you reach the body sitting in the chair on the left. Once you pass this point there is a Guardian Golem on the far side that will start shooting arrows at you. Make use of the lower areas you can hide in when waiting for the arrows to reach you, then start moving again right after the hit.
Continue to the north, and you will need to climb up the incline over some broken stone structure to reach the next area.
Just on the left beside the large pillar, you can find the next site of grace.
Ancient Snow Valley Ruins
Continue north through the valley ahead. You will shortly reach a section of a frozen river, leading to the left and right with a Golem walking around on it.
The first goal we’ll aim for is going to Castle Sol for the optional boss in this area. You can reach it either going to the left or right, but it’s quicker to head to the right to also grab a further site of grace. Follow the frozen river until you see a second Golem walking around. To progress, you need to follow the left side of the cliffs up the short hill, but you should make sure to head up the short path on the right as you go buy to pick up another Golden Seed.
Continue up the path along the left of the river to reach the next site of grace.
Freezing Lake
Heading across the lake to the east leads to the Forge of Giants, so first you want to follow the left cliff around and start moving further up the hill to the west.
Follow the path through the sparse graveyard area continuing west. Watch out of the left once you get close to the bridge going across the valley, as you can find another site of grace by the cliff.
Snow Valley Ruins Overlook
Keep continuing to the west over the hill. You’ll reach an area with a larger number of gravestones. You can follow the path through the middle, then head to the north where you need to reach the lower level where the walking Mausoleum, then make your way towards the castle.
Just outside the main gate (and outside of the stepping range of the Mausoleum), you can find the next site of grace.
Castle Sol Main Gate
Just inside the gate, you can find a pair of Lion Guardians hanging around, one wandering in the center of the area and one sitting off to the right in the corner. If you choose to fight these or not is up to you, as you can just run past the middle one to the stairs to continue to the next area. If you do decide to fight them they won’t respawn, so you can work on one at a time if you can avoid alerting them both at once. This can most easily be done by either going left into the courtyard to only fight the farther one on its own, or fight one through the doorway of the castle at a time. If you defeat them they each drop a Somber Smithing Stone [7], which might be helpful at this point in the story.
Once they are dealt with (or if you run past them) go up the two sets of stairs at the back of the courtyard to the upper level. There are some dogs wandering around this platform you can deal with along with a falcon or two, then head to the doorway at the far end of the area to proceed.
Follow the stairs up to the next level, and you will encounter a number of summoned Exile soldiers (like the enemies from Stormveil). These appear in this area when you approach, along with a Knight that will appear at the top of the stairs between you and the doorway you are heading to.
Deal with or avoid the knight, then head into the building at the top of the stairs and to the left to find the next site of grace.
Church of the Eclipse
This is the point you will spawn from when going to the boss ahead, so you will aim to open a shortcut before the boss just in case so you don’t need to do the next run each time. Continue out of the building from the opposite side to where you entered and you will be in a church building. Go up to the front where you can pick up the Eclipse Shotel, one of the legendary armaments.
Continue out the side door of the church and into the next building directly across. Watch out in here as there are screaming enemies hanging from the ceiling that summon more Exiles as you go by, and they can attack from behind if you aren’t watching.
Out the other side of the building, you can see the gold fog wall leading to the boss. You should first though make sure to pull the lever on the left to enable the elevator, which is the shortcut back up here. You should immediately jump don’t the middle button of the elevator and send it back down though before jumping back onto the upper level. This way you can rush past the enemies coming out of the church if needed to get back up here without having to pull the lever at the bottom and wait for the elevator while dealing with enemies.
Commander Niall
Reward:90,000 Runes, Veteran’s Prosthesis
You can one-shot / instant kill this boss with a mage build. Simply use Comet Azur spell (from Mt. Gelmir: Primeval Sorcerer Azur). Use Flask of Wondrous Physick with “Cerulean Hidden Tear” (from Mt. Gelmir Minor Erdtree) & Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear (from Bellum Highway Minor Erdtree). This gives you infinite FP and stronger magic for 10 seconds. As soon as the fight starts, use the Comet Azur Spell. If yourweapon isn’t maxed out yet you may need to use the spell a 2nd time, but with a maxed weapon you can instantly kill the boss in one use.
If you aren’t running a mage building or can’t use Comet Azur, you’ll have to try and deal with Niall in a more normal manner. He summons two knights immediately during the fight, which will try and attack you until they are dealt with. Summoning your Mimic or another choice of summon immediately is recommended, then you can get them to bait one of the knights. Try to deal with the dual sword one first, because it is more dangerous outright, then deal with the other while avoiding Niall. He stays in his first phase either until he reaches half health or you defeat both knight summons and is relatively easy to deal with if you put some distance between yourself and him. Once the second phase starts he becomes much more aggressive, performing more jumping attacks and not getting winded after large slams. Try to play this safe if possible, staying out of his general area if he starts swinging his spear around, and only getting in hits during safe spots such as once or twice immediately after the jump attack which you can dodge forward into to avoid.
Once he is defeated, you can activate the site of grace in the middle of the area and gain access to the final area of the castle.
Castle Sol Rooftop
Continue out the far door then up the elevator in the tower ahead. There’s only one further item to grab here so don’t worry about exploring around the rooftop. At the top you find a spirit sitting looking off in the distance, along with Haligtree Secret Medallion (Left).
This is one half of the Medallion you need to enter the secret Haligrtee side area, which can be reached through the Grand Lift of Rold once you have both halves.
If you’re done exploring around Castle Sol, head back to the Freezing Lake site of grace, and you will now be continuing to the Forge of Giants.
The lake ahead is a large open expanse that leads to a cliff edge on the left, so to continue you can hug the cliff wall on your right. Midway across the lake, the area will become extremely foggy, then you are likely to run into Borealis the Freezing Fog. This dragon will attack you around this area of the lake, but can be ignored if you wish and doesn’t really get in your way once you run past.
Once you progress along the lake to where the fog clears there will be a path leading up to the right, but you should first make a detour off to the site where you can spot a church a short distance away.
On a body directly in front of the church you can find the Somberstone Miner’s Bell Bearing [3], allowing you to purchase Somber Smithing Stones [5] & [6] from the Twin Maiden Husks at Roundtable Hold.
Head inside the church where you can find a site of grace, along with the usual Sacred Tear at the foot of the statue.
First Chuch of Marika
Head back out of the church head directly west. You will pass through an area of stone coffins, with a Spiritspring jump spot just on the other side allowing you to reach the cliff above.
Keep following the past leading directly west, and you can find the next site of grace just before the camp in the middle of the path with all the wooden pillars sticking into the air.
Whiteridge Road
There isn’t a lot of stuff worth grabbing in the area ahead unless you feel like exploring the Guardians’ Garrison building to find the Giant’s Prayerbook at the top. Most of the enemies in the area are just Fire Monks, so if you’re just aiming to run through the camp to the other side you can basically just ignore them all, as they are very slow to react.
On the far side of the camp will be a cliff edge with a large chain going across to the other side. You need to carefully make your way across to reach the next area.
Just to the left at the end of the chain, you can find the next site of grace, along with the map stele where you can pick up Map: Mountaintops of the Giants, East.
Giant’s Gravepost
Your goal now is reaching the red circular area on the map, the Forge of Giants. Start making your way southwest, through all the frozen Giant corpses.
There is an assortment of enemies wandering around this area, including a few trolls and some of the giant scavenger animals that can be found in Caelid. You can ignore most of them if you wish and continue making your way up the hill. You will though want to make your way to the west to where you can spot another church at the top of the hill.
You’ll get booted off your horse as your get close, and the NPC invader Bloody Finger Okina will appear. They aren’t a huge struggle, as they don’t heal at all so you can chip them down safely. The main thing to watch for is the large slashes they can do with their weapon that inflicts bleeding. Once defeated, they drop the Rivers of Blood katana, a very strong katana due to the bleed building and the prior mentioned weapons skill that does a number of large blood slashes.
Once they are dealt with, head inside the church to find a site of grace along with another Sacred Tear. Make sure you’ve used these recent two before heading to the boss!
Church of Repose
Head out of the church and continue up the hill to the east towards the forge. When you reach the edge there will be two more chains leading across the other side. Instead of going across though make sure you go down near the lower one to grab the final site of grace before the boss.
Foot of the Forge
From the site of grace, head across the nearby chain to the next area. If this takes more than one try, the gold fog door will be across the opening directly after the chain.
Fire Giant
Reward:180,000 Runes, Remembrance of the Fire Giant
One of the hardest bosses in the game if you fight him legit. He has a ton of health and 2 phases, and he deals a lot of damage per hit. For the first phase, you’ll have to focus on his foot which is his weak point (the one wrapped in a rope that breaks after enough damage) and ride on your mount to get around quickly. You can evade all his attacks by dismounting just before an attack hits (you are invulnerable during the standing dismount animation). This is a tricky fight for mages because he has so much health and you’ll need a lot of mana, so you won’t be able to carry many health flasks into the fight, and you should also have found all Flask Upgrades so far to stand a chance. With melee chars this is slightly easier, can ride to his feet and land a few melee hits from your mount and you can just carry lots of health flasks and don’t have to worry about mana. In his 2nd phase, he will start to cast fire, especially his fast-flying fireballs are trouble but you can stand behind trees or rocks to avoid being hit, dodge just before they reach you, or again dismount when they hit to be invulnerable. His other fire attacks are easy to dodge, such as when he sprays fire directly at the ground you can just run away. When he makes magma rocks fly out his chest you can also just move away to avoid them, but if you can get directly underneath him during this animation if you are already close then you can get some decent free damage in. When he summons a pair of orbs they will track you around, and they can either be avoided by just moving away from them until they explode on their own, or move towards them to start the explosion then dodge away quickly.
If you are playing the game unpatched or prior to update 1.03, there is an easy cheese method to instant kill him. When the fight starts you’ll want to ride to the top right corner of the arena where some rocks are. Lure the boss there and get him stuck behind the rocks, then jump down the rocks and wait for the boss to do his jump-attack, which will make him jump down the rocks. The fall instant kills him. This triggers a 2nd boss phase where he has another full health bar, repeat the exact same process to instant kill him a 2nd time. See the video for the exact path and where to stand.
Once he is defeated, you can activate the site of grace in the boss area, then make your way up towards the forge.
On top of the forge don’t attempt to go into the middle area, as you will instantly die. Instead, follow the outside edge around the left side until you reach the far end where the gap in the forge rim is.
Here you can find the final site of grace for the area.
Forge of the Giants
Once activated, sit at the site of grace and chose the “Speak to Melina” (or the other option if you already inherited the Frenzy Flame, but this doesn’t matter for progression here). You’ll then have the choice given to you to commit the cardinal sin. You can wait on this if you want, but note that committing will immediately transport you to Crumbling Faram Azula after the next cutscenes occur.
Mountaintops of the GiantsSide Areas – All Sites of Grace & Named Locations
Zamor Ruins
Ancient Snow Valley Ruins
Freezing Lake
First Church of Marika
Whiteridge Road
Snow Valley Ruins Overlook
Church of the Eclipse
Castle Sol Rooftop
Spiritcaller’s Cave (requires 2Stonesword Keys)
Zamor Ruins(Named Location)
Stargazer’s Ruins(Named Location)
Shack of the Lofty(Named Location)
Heretical Rise (Named Location)
Lord Contender’s Evergaol(Named Location)
Guardian’s Garrison(Named Location)
Minor Erdtree (Named Location)
Giant’s Gravepost
Church of Repose
Foot of the Forge
Fire Giant
Forge of the Giants
Giants’ Mountaintop Catacombs
Giant-Conquering Hero’s Grave
For all other regions refer to Elden Ring Walkthrough.
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