How to Complete the Elden Ring Varre Quest and Reach the Church of Inhibition
The Elden Ring Varre questline is one of the first you’ll encounter, Varre being the masked NPC who waits outside of the game’s tutorial area. Though you don’t have to do the Varre quest, it’s worth doing as it’s comparatively short, easy(ish), and offers many useful rewards, including early access to a great rune farming area and an especially cool boss.
There’s no doubt that you’ve spoken to Varre at least once already. Return to him once you’ve successfully learned how to beat Godrick in Elden Ring and put down the grafted monstrosity to properly begin the quest. Note that this quest does involve player-versus-player invasions, so you will need to be playing Elden Ring online.
So if you’re wondering how to start the Varre questline in Elden Ring, we’ll take you through the whole quest and how to reach the final stage at the Church of Inhibition – a challenging and frustrating moment for many perplexed players.
Elden Ring Varre Questline Locations and Walkthrough
1. Speak to Varre after defeating Godrick. He’ll congratulate you and tell you to seek an audience with the Two Fingers in the Roundtable Hold.
2. Head to the Roundtable Hold main chamber, which is directly behind you from where you spawn in, and speak to the Finger Reader sitting next to the giant fingers. Make sure you exhaust her dialogue options. You’ll also be shown the Power of Remembrance menu in the process.
3. Find and speak to Varre at the front entrance of the Rose Church. If you return to The First Step, you’ll see that Varre has left you a message that beckons you to the Rose Church to the west of the sunken Academy Gate Town in Liurnia. You can get this church by fast-travelling to the Academy Gate Town Site of Grace and riding Torrent directly west. You’ll come across a small island in the middle of the wetlands with a ruined church on it – beware of the bloody duelist that will appear if you go into the ruins.
4. Tell Varre that you thought the Two Fingers “didn’t seem right” to progress the quest. If you tell him that you thought they were magnificent, the conversation will end, but you can talk to him again to say that actually something “seemed off” about the Two Fingers to get back on track. Varre will then share his opinion that the Two Fingers can’t be trusted and are apparently corrupt. Keep talking to him and he’ll give you five Festering Bloody Fingers – a consumable item that allows you to invade the world of another player to hunt and kill them.
5. Use three Festering Bloody Fingers to invade other players. It doesn’t matter if you defeat the player or not, just so long as you invade three times. Open your inventory, find the Festering Bloody Finger item and then select ‘Use’. You should be transported to another Elden Ring player’s world shortly after.
6. Return to Varre at the Rose Church and choose to be anointed as a knight of Mohg, Lord of Blood. Varre will then give you a piece of white fabric called the Lord of Blood’s Favor which you must soak with the blood of a maiden for your final test.
7. Go to the Elden Ring Church of Inhibition in northern Liurnia and find the dead maiden sitting on a chair, then follow the button prompt to dye the cloth with the maiden’s blood. This is an incredibly tricky process that we’ve actually outlined in its own section below.
8. Go back to Varre at the Rose Church and he’ll officially name you a knight of Mohg. However, the next bit is pretty grim but necessary to fully complete the quest.
9. Follow the button prompt to offer your finger to Varre so that he can cut it off. Keep talking to him afterwards to get all your rewards for the Elden Ring Varre questline which we’ve mentioned a little further below.
How to Reach the Church of Inhibition
Reaching the Church of Inhibition is incredibly hard, mainly because there’s a tower nearby that inflicts the Madness status effect via a cosmic fireball above it. We’ll explain some basics on how to get there and survive.
1. Assuming you’ve found the East Raya Lucaria Gate Site of Grace (marked on the map above), follow the main road North until you reach the Grand Lift of Dectus. You probably won’t know how to use this yet, but we put together a guide on how to use the Grand Lift of Dectus in Elden Ring if you want to try it out.
2. Once there, head from the Lift in the North and go off-road to the Southeast, where there’s a slope rising up to a higher cliff. You’ll be able to see the madness-inflicting “Frenzy Flaming Tower” with its deadly, flaring sun turning on and off above it.
3. The Tower is deadly. When the flame is present, it inflicts the Madness status effect on anybody it has “line of sight” on, for lack of a better term. You’ll need to find cover to stop gaining madness, using rocks or landscape to block the effect.
4. Madness does major damage to the player when the Madness bar is filled, as well as taking away FP. Not only will it hurt you, but it’ll limit your combat and magic options as a result.
5. Once you’re level with the tower, approach it cautiously – once you’re inside, you should be safe.
6. Climb up the Frenzy Flaming Tower and there’ll be a spell halfway up called the Howl of Shabriri. At the top will be three NPC enemies – kill them and it’ll permanently stop the tower’s madness-inducing magic.
7. From there, head South to the Frenzied Flame Village and ride through it (or kill the enemies), and go past the buildings to the path that rises up again at the back, taking you Northwest.
8. At the top will be the Church of Inhibition. You’ll be invaded by an NPC when you get close called Festering Fingerprint Vyke, but if you’re fast you can trigger the Site of Grace inside the church first, meaning a much shorter commute to fighting him.
9. Vyke uses madness magic and AOE effects with a large sword. Play evasively rather than blocking, or fight him from a far distance for the best results.
Elden Ring Varre Questline Rewards
In letting Varre cut off your finger, he’ll give you an Elden Ring Bloody Finger in return – an item that functions exactly like the Festering Bloody Finger except it is never consumed, allowing you to invade infinitely.
Keep talking to Varre afterwards and he’ll also give you a Pureblood Knight’s Medal that will allow you to get an audience with Mohg. When you use this item from your inventory, it will teleport you into Mohgwyn Palace – a very high-level area that’s technically under Caelid where you can clash with Mohg in a boss fight. The only other way to access this area is through a portal in the very late-game stages of Elden Ring. Despite Varre’s warning to not use it yet, there’s no negative consequence of doing so, other than that you will likely die if you’re not a high enough level, so don’t push your luck in the perilous palace.
Mind you, if you can survive it, the entrance to the area marks one of the best Elden Ring Rune farming locations in the whole game! Check out our guide for how to make use of that potential properly.