If you’ve done a bit of exploring in the world of Elden Ring, you’ve probably seen a stone turtle-looking thing that has a mausoleum on its back and a bell on its belly. You really can’t miss one of these if you happen to be in the area; the bell is pretty hard to miss.
There are actually several of these across Elden Ring‘s world; these are the walking mausoleums. So what do you do when you encounter one? Well, I’ll walk you through how to lower the mausoleum, and then explain what these actually do.
Where do you find the mausoleum clue?
The first walking mausoleum you’ll encounter will likely be on the Weeping Peninsula, in the area shown on the map above. The game doesn’t really explain what you need to do here, but it also doesn’t leave you completely directionless. There is one clue you can find that will give you the information you need. Of course, you have to buy that clue, but it’s a clue nonetheless.
To get the clue, you want to visit the merchant who hangs out in a shack to the south of where you’ll find the mausoleum. He’s right next to the Isolated Merchant’s Shack Site of Grace, shown on the map below.
For 600 runes, he’ll sell you a scrap of paper called “Note: Walking Mausoleum.” On the one hand, 600 runes is kind of a lot to pay for a scrap of paper. On the other, what’s written on this paper did help me solve the mausoleum puzzle. Besides, 600 runes really isn’t that much, when you really get down to it (especially if you’ve been boulder farming — 600 runes is less than 1/3 of a boulder).
I’ll save you the 600 runes, though, and show you what this note says:
“To stop the mausoleum’s stride, you’ll need to clean up around its feet first.”
How do you clean up the mausoleum’s feet?
So what does this mean exactly? Well, at first I thought it was being vague, like maybe it was telling you to kill all the Mausoleum guardians that wander the area? But nope, it turns out this is quite literal. You’ll need to get in really close and knock those skull barnacles off its feet.
Here’s a video of me doing this:
You don’t have to clean all of them. I think I had mostly cleaned just
What does the walking mausoleum actually do?
But we’re not done yet. Once you get inside the mausoleum, you’ll find a corpse on a slab, and no treasure in sight. The final mystery to solve is figuring out what the point of all this was in the first place.
I should say right away that if you’ve not defeated a Shardbearer yet, you won’t have a lot of use for this. But once you have taken down a Shardbearer (Godrick the Grafted will almost certainly be your first), these mausoleums will prove to be invaluable resources.
If you interact with the corpse, you will have the opportunity to duplicate a Remembrance — even one that you’ve already spent. Once you take down a Shardbearer, you will get that character’s Rememberance, which can be traded for sweet gear. However, you’re typically presented with two options, and you only have one Remembrance.
For example, Godrick’s Remembrance can be traded for the Axe of Godrick, a mighty battleaxe, or the Grafted Dragon, a weapon that attaches to your arm and spits bursts of flame. It’s a tough choice, isn’t it?
So now, you can claim one of these items, then go to the walking mausoleum and reclaim your Remembrance, which you can then go trade for the second item. That way, you can get both items on a single playthrough (oh, if only Dark Souls had such a feature…)
Note that you can only use each mausoleum once, so you’ll want to find as many as possible.
Where are the walking mausoleum locations?
So where can you find these things? Here’s a complete list:
Weeping Peninsula
So, I already gave you the first location, but I’ll repeat that here. Your first walking mausoleum is located on the Weeping Peninsula in this area:
Raya Lucaria Academy
The second one can be found in the northern part of Liurnia of the Lakes, northwest of the Raya Lucaria Academy:
For this mausoleum, you’ll have to approach it from the cliffside above and leap onto the roof. The skull barnacles are located around the main door to the mausoleum. Here’s a video of me completing this one:
Mausoleum Compound
There are two more in the northern part of Liurnia of the Lakes (south of the Grand Lift of Ductus), and both are really close to the Mausoleum Compound Site of Grace, one to the north and one to the south:
The process for lowering both of these is the same as the first one — knock the barnacles off the feet. There’s an added wrinkle, though, because both of them like to jump straight up into the air, so be careful to not get smooshed as they come crashing back down.
There’s another wrinkle, as these ones will only duplicate Remembrances from secret bosses, not the main Shardbearers.
Deeproot Depths
Yeah, there’s a walking mausoleum all the way in the Deeproot Depths. Don’t ask me how it got there. What you can ask me, though is how to lower it, because I made a video:
As you can see in the video, this is similar to the Raya Lucaria mausoleum, in that you’ll need to find your way up to it instead of hammering away at its feet. Thankfully, there’s an updraft that sends you into some branches, which will take you where you need to go.
Castle Sol
The next one is way up in the Mountaintops of the Giants, just west of Castle Sol. It’s the same process as before: Simply clean the skull barnacles off its feet to lower the mausoleum.
Ordina, Liturgical Town
There is one more walking mausoleum up in the Mountaintops of the Giants, northwest of Ordina, Liturgical Town. I marked the previous mausoleum (the one by Castle Sol) on the above map, with the final mausoleum also marked to the west of it.
