Poison can really put a damper on your exploration in Elden Ring. But do you know what will kill you faster than poison? Blood loss.
Blood loss works pretty similarly to poison: While you’re getting stabby-stabbed, you’ll see a red meter filling up. Once it’s completely full, you’ll succumb to blood loss and die pretty dang quickly. If you’ve explored any catacombs, you’re probably familiar with the effect, because those little gargoyles dish it out like free samples at the grocery store on Saturdays.
Thankfully, there’s a cure.
How do you cure blood loss?
There’s an item called Stanching Boluses that will alleviate impending blood loss. You can actually purchase these from the Nomadic Merchant in West Limgrave, near the Coastal Cave. They cost 600 runes a piece, and this merchant has three of them. If you want details on his exact location, check out my Neutralizing Boluses guide.
But you don’t want to buy your Staunching Boluses, do you? You want to craft them, don’t you? That way, you can make as many as you want (so long as you’re willing to farm all the ingredients). You can absolutely craft these meaty red balls in Elden Ring, but first, you’ll need the recipe.
Where do you get the recipe for Stanching Boluses?
Thankfully, you don’t need to buy the recipe for Stanching Boluses; you can find it hidden in the world.
This one is located to the east of Stormveil Castle. In case you were unaware, there’s a path that goes around the castle, allowing you to go directly to Liurnia of the Lakes without having to complete the Stormveil Castle dungeon first.
On that path is a crumbled bridge, and at the end of a bridge is a poor fellow who must have died while gazing longingly into the chasm below. On him, you will find the Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [7], which will allow you to craft the Stanching Boluses.
How do you craft Stanching Boluses?
Once you have the Nomadic Warrior’s Cookbook [7], simply open your crafting menu and select the Stanching Boluses to get crafting. The recipe requires:
- 1 Herba
- 1 Cave Moss
- 1 Land Octopus Ovary
I’ve already given a pretty detailed explanation for how to get the first two ingredients in my guide to crafting the Neutralizing Boluses, but I’ll give you a quick rundown here as well.
First up, the Herba. I swear, this stuff seems exceedingly plentiful until you actually need some of it, then it seems to disappear entirely. Thankfully, I’ve mapped some locations. If you’ve not seen it before, Herba is a plant that glows a light green, and it looks like this:
You can find Herba in these specific locations near the Church of Elleh:
You can find more of it closer to where you got the cookbook if you’d rather look for it there. If you follow the road north of Stormhill Shack, you’ll find one to the west of the road, and two more under the bridge (also west of the road). The exact locations are illustrated in the map below.
Note that it’s probably faster to farm these ones than the ones closer to the Church of Elleh, since you can find three, then rest at the Site of Grace, then farm the three over again. You can stockpile it pretty fast this way. I haven’t timed both runs to compare them, though, so this is just a hunch.
Also, you’ll find even more Herba if you wind your way up the path toward the castle, but there are tons of soldiers here, so you might not want to go that route.
Next up is Cave Moss. Cave Moss also glows green, and it looks like this:
As the name implies, it can be found inside of caves. A couple good locations for it are Coastal Cave and Murkwater Cave, shown on the map below.
Cave Moss is quite plentiful in Murkwater Cave, but there are also quite a few bandits camping inside. Coastal Cave isn’t quite as rich in Cave Moss, but there is still some of it inside, and it’s much safer to farm it here.
The Land Octopus Ovaries are a bit trickier, because you’re going to have to kill land octopuses. There are a whole bunch of them north of the Coastal Cave along this shore:
You’ll want to kill the larger ones primarily, as they tend to drop the Land Octopus Ovaries at a higher rate than the small ones. The smaller ones will drop them occasionally, but the larger ones seem to drop them almost every time you kill one. They tend to be weak to magic, though only if you shoot them directly in the face. You’ll know the face when you see it — it has a beak. The rest of their body has a protective shell that resists magic.
Herba, Cave Moss, and land octopuses will all respawn when you rest at a Site of Grace, so you can farm as many of these items as you deem necessary. Go absolutely bonkers, you wild Tarnished, you!
And that’s how you craft Stanching Boluses to deal with blood loss in Elden Ring. May you find this knowledge useful, fellow traveler.
