Last updated: 25 June 2026

Elden Ring Rune Farming: Level Up Fast

Runes are Elden Ring's universal currency for leveling, purchasing gear, and upgrading equipment — and earning enough of them quickly can transform a punishing boss wall into a manageable fight. The fastest path is a two-part setup: equip the Golden Scarab talisman (roughly +20% rune income) and consume a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot before each farming loop, then farm the right location for your current progress. Mohgwyn Palace's Palace Approach Ledge-Road is the endgame gold standard, but solid early-game options exist too.

01 Set Up Your Rune Multipliers First

Before you grind a single location, maximize what each kill pays out. Two items work independently and stack with each other: the Golden Scarab talisman and the Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot consumable. Together they can push rune income well above what bare-hands farming yields, turning a decent spot into an excellent one.

• Golden Scarab talisman — Increases runes earned from killing enemies by approximately 20%. It occupies one talisman slot permanently while equipped, making it a constant passive bonus for any farming session. See Section 02 for how to obtain it.
• Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot — A consumable that temporarily boosts rune gain for a fixed duration. Use it immediately before you start your loop so you don't waste the timer. You can craft these from a Fowl Foot + Four-Toed Fowl Foot + Gold Firefly using the Missionary's Cookbook [2], or buy Fowl Feet and related materials from merchants.
• Stacking both — The talisman and the consumable stack additively. Popping a Fowl Foot while wearing the Golden Scarab gives you the highest achievable multiplier without external exploits.

If you're not yet at a point in the game where you can spare a talisman slot, even using the Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot alone is worth doing before long farming sessions, since the boost applies to every kill during its duration.

02 Get the Golden Scarab from Abandoned Cave, Caelid

The Golden Scarab is locked behind a mid-difficulty dungeon in Caelid, but determined players can access it earlier than the region's overall threat level might suggest — especially if you ride Torrent and avoid combat on the way in.

1. Head east from Limgrave into Caelid and locate the Smoldering Wall Site of Grace on the southern road through the region.
2. From that grace, ride or run west toward the large ravine that cuts through the center of Caelid. Look for a tree root bridging the ravine — it crosses from the west ledge to an eastern cave entrance. The root is narrow, so move carefully to avoid falling.
3. Inside the Abandoned Cave you'll face Scarlet Rot buildup throughout. Bring Preserving Boluses (craftable or bought from merchants) or have the Flame, Cleanse Me incantation memorized to purge rot buildup before it procs.
4. At the end of the cave, defeat the dual Cleanrot Knight boss. Using a Spirit Ash summon to occupy one knight while you focus the other is strongly recommended, since fighting both simultaneously in the cramped arena is dangerous.
5. After the fight, open the chest to claim the Golden Scarab talisman.

The dungeon itself rewards a player of around level 30–50 in difficulty, but with good preparation — upgraded flask, a reliable weapon, spirit summon — players even below that range can succeed.

03 Early Game: Greyoll the Elder Dragon in Caelid

If you're still in the first quarter of the game and need a significant rune injection without fighting your way through a palace full of endgame enemies, Elder Dragon Greyoll offers a relatively accessible one-time windfall. Greyoll is a massive, motionless dragon found south of the Bestial Sanctum in Dragonbarrow, northern Caelid.

The key detail: Greyoll herself does not fight back. She lies still while five smaller guardian dragons patrol nearby. You can reach her by riding Torrent past the entrance to Dragonbarrow via the sending gate in east Limgrave — this bypasses most of the dangerous enemies in southern Caelid entirely.

• Attack Greyoll on her tail or flank to avoid aggro from all five guardian dragons at once. The guardians will still notice you eventually, but focusing on Greyoll's body while staying away from the pack reduces how many rush you simultaneously.
• Killing Greyoll outright rewards 50,000 runes plus 5 Dragon Hearts. The five guardian dragons yield roughly 3,500 runes each (17,500 total) if you also defeat them.
• Greyoll does not respawn after death. This is a one-time event per playthrough, not a repeatable farm — but those 50,000 runes early on can fund several character levels when they'd otherwise cost 800–2,000 each.
• Equip the Golden Scarab and use a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot before the kill to push the payout even higher.

For a true early-game repeatable farm, the Gatefront Ruins in Limgrave (soldiers and a knight near the main road) or the trolls pulling the carriage on the road northwest of Limgrave offer modest but consistent returns in the 1,000–5,000 rune range per loop while you're still in the single-digit levels.

04 Reach Mohgwyn Palace via Varré's Questline

Mohgwyn Palace is the premier rune farming destination in Elden Ring, and White Mask Varré's questline gives you access to it far earlier than the alternative route through the Consecrated Snowfield. Completing it takes a modest amount of effort but pays dividends for the rest of your playthrough.

1. Meet Varré at the First Step — He's the NPC who greets (and insults) you at the very start of the game. After you have at least one Great Rune from a major boss, he relocates.
2. Find him at the Rose Church — Located on a small island in the southwest of Liurnia of the Lakes. Speak with him and accept his request to invade other players three times using Festering Bloody Fingers (which he provides). You don't need to win the invasions — just complete them.
3. Soak the Lord of Blood's Favor — After the three invasions, Varré gives you a cloth called the Lord of Blood's Favor and asks you to soak it in maiden's blood. The nearest accessible option is the dead maiden inside the Church of Inhibition in northern Liurnia, past the Frenzied Flame Village. Interact with the body while the item is in your inventory.
4. Return to Varré — He rewards you with the Pureblood Knight's Medal. Using this item from your inventory teleports you directly into Mohgwyn Palace, regardless of your current progress in the main story.

If you skipped or killed Varré, Mohgwyn Palace is also reachable via a sending gate in the far west of the Consecrated Snowfield — but that area isn't accessible until much later in the game. The questline route is almost always faster.

05 Mohgwyn Palace: The Best Rune Farming Locations

Once you arrive in Mohgwyn Palace, locate and activate the Palace Approach Ledge-Road Site of Grace. It sits on a high ledge overlooking a blood-soaked valley full of sleeping Albinaurics. Two farming methods operate from this single grace — one accessible immediately, one reserved for late-game characters with the right weapon.

Monstrous Crow Method (any build)

From the Palace Approach Ledge-Road grace, look out to the far side of the valley and you'll spot a large Monstrous Crow perched on the ledge across from you. Equip a bow (even a basic short bow works), nock an arrow, and shoot the crow. It will charge toward you across the gap — and if you step back slightly toward the grace without falling off your own ledge, the crow's momentum carries it over the cliff edge and it plummets to its death. Each kill grants approximately 11,000 runes at base. With the Golden Scarab equipped and a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot active, that figure climbs to roughly 13,000–14,000 or more per kill. Rest at the grace to reset the crow and repeat. The loop takes under a minute.

Albinauric Field Method (late-game)

This method requires the Sacred Relic Sword, which drops from Elden Beast — the final boss of the game. Its Ash of War, Wave of Gold, sends a massive golden shockwave across a wide area. From the Palace Approach Ledge-Road grace, face down toward the field of sleeping Albinaurics and trigger Wave of Gold from a position where the arc covers as many of them as possible. Most of the field dies in a single use, yielding 30,000 to 50,000+ runes in roughly ten seconds before you rest at the grace and repeat. This is the fastest consistent rune farming method in the game that doesn't rely on glitches.

For both methods: always activate the grace first, always have the Golden Scarab equipped, and pop a Gold-Pickled Fowl Foot at the start of a prolonged farming session rather than between every individual kill.

06 General Tips to Farm Runes Efficiently

• Never carry runes you can't afford to lose. Level up or spend at a merchant before each farming run. If you die in Mohgwyn Palace, your bloodstain is retrievable, but accidents happen — especially near ledges.
• Rest at the grace before every loop. It resets enemies and replenishes your flasks. Skipping it to save a few seconds sometimes costs you a full loop when something goes wrong.
• Don't sprint past the grace to retrieve a bloodstain unless you're confident. Many players lose rune pools by dying a second time on the retrieval run. If the amount is recoverable through farming, it may be faster to simply start fresh.
• Upgrade your weapons between sessions. Runes spent on Smithing Stones compound faster than extra character levels in the mid-game. A +8 weapon hitting Mohgwyn enemies beats an under-upgraded weapon with five more character levels.
• Specific glitch-based exploits (duplication tricks, animation cancels for infinite spawns) change with patches. The methods described in this guide rely on standard enemy behavior and persist across updates. If you find a method online that sounds too fast to be true, verify it's current before investing time.