Dung Eater quest Elden Ring walkthrough (2024)

For your first several dozen hours in Elden Ring, the Roundtable Hold will taunt you with a locked door just past the Twin Maiden Husks merchant. Nothing you do will open that door, until you’ve reached Altus Plateau — at which point, the chamber beyond is revealed.

It hosts the Loathsome Dung Eater, who talks of little besides killing innocent people and defiling their corpses so that all their descendants will be cursed forever. In this guide, we’ll explain how to help him and where to find the Seedbed Curses you’ll need.

Chapter 1: Making (Friends With) a Murderer

Step 1: Meet the Dung Eater

All you need to do for Dung Eater to appear in Roundtable Hold is reach the Altus Plateau, which means either climbing up the Ruin-Strewn Precipice at the northern tip of Liurnia, or finding the two halves of the Dectus Medallion and taking the Grand Lift up. If you aren’t at that point in the game yet, just keep playing and come back here when you’re ready.

Step 2: Obtain a Seedbed Curse

In order to progress the Dung Eater’s story, you must obtain at least one Seedbed Curse. There are six of these items total in the game, and you’ll need to locate at least five of them to see the Dung Eater’s story through to its conclusion.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Luckily, two are easily accessible in the Royal Capital, Leyndell, which you’ll need to explore as part of the game’s main story:

• From the East Capital Rampart Site of Grace, take the normal path into the city past the Envoys and the flame-spewing Broken Statue enemy. Ride the lift down, and head into the room ahead with a Perfumer. Go up the ladder and the staircase, and you’ll find this Seedbed Curse on a corpse tied to a chair.
• In the Fortified Manor — the part of Leyndell that looks like a deserted Roundtable Hold — you’ll find a Seedbed Curse in the same room that Dung Eater uses in the real Roundtable Hold.

Grab both of these, then return to the Roundtable Hold.

Step 3: Speak to Dung Eater again

Our loathsome friend will finally open up to you when you return with a Seedbed Curse in hand. He’ll give you the Sewer-Gaol Key and request that you free his corporeal form from the sewers beneath the Capital.

Getting there is a bit of an ordeal, though.

Chapter 2: Unspeakable Things

Step 4: Locate Dung Eater’s prison

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

To enter the Capital’s sewers — the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds — you need to find a nondescript-looking well in Leyndell itself. Start at the Avenue Balcony site of grace and head downstairs and out the door. Turn left and walk along the railing until you’re past the first set of rooftops below you. Jump down into the shadowed plaza. Watch out for Crawling Albinaurics and look for the well here.

Head down and explore the sewers until you reach the Underground Roadside Site of Grace. Use care, as the Omen enemies here are particularly deadly.

From the Underground Roadside, dash left toward the two Omens and jump down a hole in the floor to an area filled with rats. Follow this corridor past the Miranda Sprouts (poison flowers) and up a ladder. Your last obstacle is a quartet of Fingercreepers, including one biggun. Use fire to make them roll around helplessly.

At last, the Dung Eater’s prison is dead ahead.

Step 5: Set the Dung Eater free

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Unlock the door and speak to the Dung Eater, commanding him to leave his cell. It can be tempting to kill him here, given what he informs you he’s planning to do, but you must resist the urge if you’re going to complete this quest.

Step 6: Return to the Roundtable

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Back in the Roundtable Hold, you’ll find a message in the Dung Eater’s quarters kindly requesting that you head to Leyndell’s outer moat so that you, too, can receive the wondrous blessing of the Dung Eater’s defilement.

Step 7: Get Blackguard Big Boggart in place

One of Elden Ring’s funniest characters is a ruffian named Blackguard Big Boggart. You may have met him already in Liurnia; if not, head to his shack, a short jaunt northwest of the gazebo next to the telescope icon on your map.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Speak with him, buy everything he has to offer, then speak with him again until his dialogue is exhausted, and he’ll move to Altus Plateau.

Next, travel to the Capital Rampart site of grace, but instead of heading into the Capital, retrace your steps back to the area where you fought Draconic Tree Sentinel and the two Golem Archers. Find the path down from there into the deep moat surrounding the city, and you should find Boggart nearby.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Exhaust his dialogue here; you may need to reload the area after receiving the message from Dung Eater. Boggart should say something to you about seeing evidence that Dung Eater is in the area; that’s your ticket to reload the area and prepare for a fight.

Oh, and buy some crab from Boggart if you want to, because he won’t be around much longer.

Chapter 3: Defiance Through Defilement

Step 8: Defeat the Dung Eater

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

The next time you return to Boggart’s camp, you’ll find him at death’s door. Speak to him until he expires, and pick up your third Seedbed Curse, plus the Blackguard’s Iron Mask, Blackguard’s Bell Bearing, and the Iron Ball fist weapon.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

Be quick, though, because the Dung Eater will shortly invade you. He isn’t too hard to defeat, although you do have to watch out for the Giant Crab that pops up out of the water here.

Once Dung Eater’s disposed of, return to Roundtable Hold yet again.

Step 9: Speak to the Dung Eater

Dung Eater will be back in his usual spot, still in his red phantom form. Speak with him several times and he’ll request that you feed Seedbed Curses to his physical form, which can once again be found in the sewers under the Capital.

Image: FromSoftware/Bandai Namco via Polygon

He’ll also reveal more of his plan, which involves defiling enough corpses that everyone who gets reborn through the Erdtree is cursed, and then all their children and their children’s children will be cursed, and so on until the end of time. He’s nothing if not ambitious.

Step 10: Seluvis’ Potion

You have a choice here. If you have Seluvis’ Potion in your inventory still from the Nepheli questline, having not yet given it to either Nepheli or Gideon, you can choose to give it to the Dung Eater at this stage. If you do, this storyline will end here, though you’ll be able to buy the Dung Eater puppet as a Spirit Ash from Seluvis, which is extremely cool. You can also attack Dung Eater directly after giving him the potion, which allows you to claim his armor as well as the Spirit Ash — according to the character’s Wiki entry at least (we were unable to test this particular outcome).

Step 11: Gather Seedbed Curses

If you’d rather continue Dung Eater’s quest, take note that you’ll need to have access to the Haligtree.

You’ll find the remaining Seedbed Curses in the following locations:

• From the Temple of Eiglay site of grace in Volcano Manor, proceed toward the teleporter that takes you to the Rykard boss fight until you find a Stonesword Key fog door. Inside, drop downward to the ground, where you’ll find this Seedbed Curse on a corpse surrounded by foes. Check our comprehensive Volcano Manor guide for more detailed directions here.
• From the Prayer Room site of grace in Elphael, Brace of the Haligtree, follow the path north until you reach the northernmost room on the path, an enclosed space with two Haligtree Soldiers. Jump over the railing onto a narrow walkway, and then down to the platform with the floating Crimson Scarab. Jump to another narrow walkway on the other side, and head up to a narrow ledge. Follow the ledge north to a seated corpse holding this Seedbed Curse.
• For the final Seedbed Curse, take the same path from the same site of grace, but continue following the stairs downward instead of jumping over the railing when you reach the small room with the two soldiers. You’ll reach a room with two Cleanrot Knights, one of which you can see from the doorway. Don’t enter. Instead, jump over the railing onto a narrow walkway to the east, and then drop down to a lower platform from there. Head down some flights of stairs here and you’ll find yourself in a dark room with a Seedbed Curse on a corpse behind a pillar. Try to avoid falling all the way down, as the Rotted Crystalians and Revenants below you are no joke.

Step 12: Feed the Beast

Once you have all the Seedbed Curses in your inventory, visit the Dung Eater in his sewage-filled prison and hand them over to receive the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse. Reloading the area will cause the Omen Armor set to appear in his place.

With that, you’ve completed the Dung Eater’s side quest and unlocked an alternate ending for the game.

For more Elden Ring NPC quest goodness, check out our guides to feeding Hyetta eyeballs, getting revenge against Patches, and learning everything Sellen has to teach. The Dung Eater quest itself is a pre-requisite for just one of Elden Ring’s finales. Here’s how to get all endings, and everything to know about new game plus.