Elden Ring Dung Eater Quest and Blessing of Despair Ending Guide (2024)

A step-by-step guide on how to complete the Dung Eater quest line in Elden Ring and unlock the Blessing of Despair Ending.

Quests in Elden Ring are a bit different than other open-world games. The characters provide limited information about their needs, and the missions often feature vague objectives, none of which are written down for you. Most characters in Elden Ring have a dedicated quest associated with them.

The Dung Eater is a proper psycho. He wishes to defile the entire world and curse everyone and their descendants with Omen horns. He is unable to do this on his own, but you have the power to make it so by becoming Elden Lord.

Step 1: Meeting the Blackguard (Optional)

The Blackguard is a ne’er-do-well that has personally interacted with the Dung Eater in the past. You don’t need to interact with him to unlock the Blessing of Despair ending, but his dialogue adds more weight to your actions, so I recommend doing his mini-quest.

You can first meet the Blackguard at the Boilprawn Shack in southern Liurnia. In order for him to open up a bit, you must talk to Rya, located at the gazebo near the Bird’s Eye Telescope to the southeast. She informs you that the Blackguard has stolen her necklace and wants you to kill him to retrieve it.

You can do as Rya requests and attack him, or you can buy the necklace for a paltry sum of Runes. Again, I recommend buying it, as Rya will be none the wiser. I also recommend purchasing some delectable prawns and exhausting his dialogue.

Step 2: Reach the Altus Plateau

The Dung Eater appears at the Round Table Hold once you’ve reached the Altus Plateau. He will appear in a now-opened door past the Twin Maiden Husks and Gideon Offnir. Roderika, the Spirit Tuner, will make a remark about his presence as well.

Step 3: Obtain and Present a Seedbed Curse

To progress the Dung Eater’s quest, you must procure a Seedbed Curse and present it to the Dung Eater at Roundtable Hold. Any of the Seedbed Curses will do, though the one located at Lyndell, Royal Capital, makes the most sense.

This Seedbed Curse is located on the third floor of the first building you enter after taking the lift down from the rampart into the city proper.

Once you have a Seedbed Curse in hand, return to the Dung Eater at the Roundtable Hold and speak to him. Just as one would expect from a pervert, he already knows you have it and will give you the key to unlock his gaol cell in the Subterranean Shunning Grounds.

Step 4: Blackguard’s Crab Shack

After you’ve reached the Altus Plateau, the Blackguard will relocate to a lake beside the East Capital Rampart at Lyndell. Now he’ll have both crabs and prawns for sale! He’ll also tell you more about the Dung Eater.

The crabs do what they say on the tin, but I would definitely ask the Blackguard where he sources his ingredients, as the local variety doesn’t look very appetizing, even as glorified water insects go.

Just so we’re clear, there is no real shack. I’m just trying to help out the Blackguard with a bit of marketing for his food service endeavor.

Step 5: Reaching the Subterranean Shunning Grounds

If you want to unleash the Dung Eater upon the world, you’ll need to head to the Subterranean Shunning Grounds beneath Lyndell.

Technically, you can wait until the end of the game, but it makes a lot more sense to go there as soon as possible.

To reach the Subterranean Shunning Grounds at Lyndell, Royal Capital, you’ll need to drop down a well in the bad part of town. The closest Site of Grace is Avenue Balcony.

The district is right below the decomposing dragon’s wing, but it’s cut off and is only accessible by jumping over the railing or doing roof-hopping elsewhere.

The same district has a dung beetle that drops Ash of War: Thunderbolt. Keep an eye out for tormented Albinaurics–they bite!

Once you’ve reached the well, the path becomes pretty linear. You’ll see a couple of gates, one of which is openable. That’s the only way you can go, and it will take you to the Subterranean Shunning Grounds. The gate (and the item behind it) exist to pique your interest so that you can discover this path on your own.

You’ll step out onto a ledge with a ladder. If you look up to your right, you’ll see a rather tantalizing bit of loot that you can’t get until you set the Erdtree on fire.

When you reach the end of the path, you’ll see an extra rotund Omen that’s loitering about. He can murder you pretty easily, so I highly recommend interacting with the nearby Site of Grace first, just in case things don’t go as planned.

Step 6: Freeing the Dung Eater

Now that you have arrived at the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, you can head to the Dung Eater’s gaol. First, you’ll need to head towards the middle of the 3 loitering Omen. On your left, there will be an open area you can drop down into.

This area is infested with rats. Going left, towards the Site of Grace you discovered earlier, is a dead end. You want to head right, towards the large Flowers. You can defeat them or run past them. Then, climb the ladder.

The ladder leads to a wide-open area that seems empty at first glance, but be ready to fight some spider hands that will ambush you.

After dispatching the spider hands, you can use the key the Dung Eater gave you to open his cell. Exhaust his dialogue. If you want to save the Blackguard, you must kill the Dung Eater here.

Step 7: Making a Mess at the Rampart

If you return to the Roundtable Hold, you’ll see that the Dung Eater has left a note with his whereabouts, though you don’t need to go here to progress the quest.

Head over to the Blackguard’s Crab Shack and speak to him. If he’s the same as he was the last time you spoke to him, reload the game.

Something will have changed. Speak to the Blackguard again. The Dung Eater will invade shortly. Defeat him and loot the freshly defiled corpse nearby.

Step 8: Reconnecting with the Dung Eater

After you’ve defeated the Dung Eater, you can talk to him back at the Roundtable Hold. He’s convinced himself that you are the Dung Eater, so it’s your turn to (presumably) eat the dung.

You’ll find him back in his cell at the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, conveniently tied up for you. At this point, you can also make him drink Seluvis’ Potion to turn him into a puppet, though that will lock you out of the Blessing of Dispair ending.

Step 9: Gathering the Seedbed Curses

The remainder of the quest is about gathering all 5 of the Seedbed Curses scattered throughout the Lands Between. For more information, check out our guide to the Seedbed Curse Locations.

Step 10: Unlocking the Blessing of Despair Ending

In order to unlock the Blessing of Despair ending, you need to defile the Dung Eater with the Seedbed Curses you find. The Dung Eater will drop the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse once you’ve defiled him after having collected all 5 of the Seedbed Curses.

Each time you defile the Dung Eater, all of the Seedbed Curses in your inventory will be consumed, so you can go and violate him every time you get a Seedbed Curse, or you can wait until you have some or all of them and then you only have to do it once.

After picking up the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse, you can reload the area and loot the Omen armor set. Strangely, stealing the victim’s clothes does not seem to be a mandatory part of the defilement ritual.

Once you defeat the final boss, you will have the option to use the Mending Rune of the Fell Curse to repair Marika.