Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree Church District walkthrough
Here's how to drain the water in Shadow Keep's Church District
Looking for a Church District walkthrough in Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree? The Shadow Keep is one of the most complicated and confusing legacy dungeons that From Software has ever created, not just in Elden Ring - and the Church District accounts for a fair bit of that confusion. Conquer the Church District, and an unprecedented number of new pathways will open themselves up to you, some of which lead to entire regions within the Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC that you can't reach any other way. It's an important place, is what I'm saying.
In this Elden Ring Church District walkthrough, we'll explore how to reach the Church District of the Shadow Keep, how to lower the water level to explore it fully, and how to reach every other area that the Church District adjoins, including the Tree-Worship Passage, so you can move on in whichever direction you prefer within Shadow Of The Erdtree.
In this guide:
- How to get to the Church District
- Church District walkthrough
- How to drain the Church District
- Where to go after the Church District
How to get to the Church District
You can reach the Church District in Elden Ring by following the path northwest from the Church District Highroad Site Of Grace in eastern Scadu Altus. If you haven't yet reached Scadu Altus, you can get there either by making your way through the Castle Ensis legacy dungeon, or by following the lower path east of the Castle Front Site Of Grace and using the Spiritspring Jump up into the Fort Of Reprimand.
To get to the Church District from there, you need to drop down the giant hole in the southern side of the Moorth Ruins. At the bottom of the hole is a pathway that leads out into Bonny Village. From there, cross both the bridges to the east and follow the path all the way north (past the Furnace Golem) until you reach the Church District Highroad Site Of Grace.
From there, the path forks. If you turn left, you'll reach the Cathedral Of Manus Metyr. But if you take the righthand path, you'll be taken all the way into the Church District of the Shadow Keep, where our walkthrough begins.
Elden Ring: Church District walkthrough
The Church District is flooded, and going into the water will instantly kill you. Your first task is to drain the Church District of water, and to do that you will need to jump across a few rooftops.
From the Site Of Grace, jump off the end of the ledge and onto the rectangular roof in front of you. Make your way around to the other side, and do a running jump off one of the little jutting out dormers on the rooftop to reach the next building's roof.
Walk around the edge of this second roof, and make your way up to the far right corner, where the edge inclines. A few Burning Putrid Corpses will spawn on the rooftop as you walk; you can either kill them or ignore them. Just make sure they don't explode on you.
Once you're at the far right edge of the roof at its highest point, jump off the edge northeast and onto the ledge abutting the castle wall. More Putrid Corpses will spawn as you land there, but you can ignore them completely; turn left and run-jump onto the third rooftop.
This rooftop is guarded by a prowling Fire Knight. If you haven't fought one before, these guys are tough. Probably the toughest humanoid non-boss enemies in the entire DLC (at least until you get to the final area). So don't underestimate this Fire Knight. Kill it or sneak past it, and then proceed to the southwest edge of the roof.
At the end of the roof, look to your left and you'll see several stone pillar struts leading up to the rooftop of the Church proper. Do a running jump off the roof and onto the nearest strut. Walk up the strut and jump onto the Church roof.
There's a large hole in the centre of this roof, and just below it is a criss-cross of support beams. Carefully drop down onto the beams. While you're up here you can loot 3 Stormhawk Feathers from a corpse on the far end of a beam if you wish. Either way, you should then drop down onto the upper floor with the large hole in it, and then drop down the hole.
How to drain the Church District
Once you've dropped down the hole in the Church's upper floor, head west towards the nearby doorway. As you near the doorway, a Fire Knight will approach from beyond and head in your direction. There's a small room to the left you can hide in so you can wait for the Fire Knight to go past and then backstab them. Either way, defeat the Fire Knight, and then just beyond the doorway, turn left and cross the bridge outside to the castle wall.
There will be a few bats along this path; kill them as you go. This path is very short - just keep going until you reach a doorway with a ladder next to it. Go up the ladder, and at the top there will be a mechanism with a lever you can interact with. Crank the lever, and a cutscene will play showing you opening the Shadow Keep's dam and draining the entire Church District of water.
Where to go after the Church District
Now that the Church District has been drained, you have a total of three different paths to take in order to progress. These three paths lead you to:
- The Prayer Room.
- The Church District grounds.
- The Tree-Worship Passage.
- The Specimen Storehouse upper levels.
1. Path to the Prayer Room
To get to the Prayer Room, backtrack to the point where you dropped down through the Church roof and down from the criss-crossing support beams. Around the corner you'll see a locked door which leads to the Prayer Room.
The Prayer Room door is locked, and you can only open it using the Prayer Room Key. You can loot the Prayer Room Key from Fire Knight Queelign upon defeating him in his second invasion - once in Belurat, and once at the Church Of The Crusade in Scadu Altus. To learn more about this process and what awaits you inside the Prayer Room, check out our Prayer Room Key guide.
2. Path through the Church District grounds
With the water drained from the Church District, you can safely exit out into the grounds. To do this, go to where you fought the second Fire Knight, and instead of turning left to reach the lever, head straight on, all the way around the circular passage.
You'll meet yet another Fire Knight patrolling the area at the far end; dispatch them, and then use the elevator behind them to reach the ground floor of the Church.
From here, turn left and exit out the front of the Church towards the large planted tree. Be wary though - as you approach the tree, you'll be attacked by an Ulcerated Tree Spirit. Defeat it to obtain the Mantle Of Thorns Sorcery.
There's another Ulcerated Tree Spirit in the Church District grounds, just a few steps north of the first. Defeat this one, and you'll receive an Iris Of Occultation for your trouble (which incidentally you can use inside the Prayer Room, and at the end of Ymir's questline).
Other than the two Ulcerated Tree Spirits, you can activate the Sunken Chapel Site Of Grace inside the building on the southern edge of the Church District, and you can also take on the Giant Crabs in the northern buildings - though the only decent prize you'll receive from these buildings is a Shadow Realm Rune [5]. Finally, you can activate an elevator just outside the first Ulcerated Tree Spirit garden, which leads up to the Church District Entrance Site Of Grace once more.
3. Path to the Tree-Worship Passage
The Church District connects to a secret area called the Tree-Worship Passage, which takes you all the way to the base of the Scadutree. To reach this path, again take the elevator down to the ground floor of the Church, but this time turn right. There will be a small room with a statue in front of you, behind which you can loot the Fire Knight's Seal. After that, exit out of the statue room and turn left.
Follow this path all the way to the end, and you'll see a pair of staircases, one on either side of a balcony. Below the balcony is a door. Open the door and proceed down the elevator to reach the Tree-Worship Passage Site Of Grace.
Beyond this Site Of Grace, you can reach the Tree-Worship Sanctum, which then opens out into the Scadutree Base - an arena where you will face an important Remembrance boss of the DLC.
4. Path to the Specimen Storehouse upper levels
Once you've completed everything else in this walkthrough, the final thing to do in the Church District is to ascend to the upper levels of the Specimen Storehouse. You may already have reached the lower levels of the Specimen Storehouse by progressing through the main entrance to the Shadow Keep, but you can only reach the upper levels and the loft via the Church District.
To reach the Specimen Storehouse from the Church District, head back once again to the circular walkway within the first floor of the Church, where you faced those two Fire Knights. Stop at the point where you fought the second Fire Knight. In front of you is the elevator down to the ground floor. To the right, there should be a statue you can jump atop to loot a Scadutree Fragment. But to the left is the path to the Specimen Storehouse.
Take this lefthand path outside and cross the bridge. At the end of the bridge is an elevator. Ascend the elevator all the way up into the Specimen Storehouse. From there you can take a left turn and easily reach the "Storehouse, Back Section" Site Of Grace.
From here, you can ascend a long ladder which takes you all the way to the upper levels of the Specimen Storehouse, and the Loft. This is the main story path, because it's via the Loft that you can reach the main boss of the Shadow Keep, and head beyond the Shadow Keep into the Ancient Ruins Of Rauh.
With that, you've successfully navigated the Church District of the Shadow Keep, one of the more complex areas within Elden Ring's Shadow Of The Erdtree DLC. If you're struggling to beat those Fire Knights, check out our list of all the Shadow Of The Erdtree weapons on offer, along with our guide to the best weapons in the DLC. If you need more help with the Elden Ring DLC, make sure you check out our other Erdtree guides, including our pages for the Shadow of the Erdtree boss order, Erdtree progression route order and all Erdtree quests.