Most walkthroughs tell you White Mask Varré requires three separate invasions before he’ll hand over the Pureblood Knight’s Medal. That’s technically true and also the slow way to do it — land one specific kill and the counter reads 3/3 immediately, no matchmaking and no other players required. New players who want the basics first should start with our Elden Ring beginner guide; this one assumes you already have a character in Liurnia.
Quick Start: The Fastest Route to Mohgwyn Palace
- Defeat a Legacy Dungeon boss for your first Great Rune, then report to Enia at Roundtable Hold.
- Find White Mask Varré at Rose Church, on an island in southwest Liurnia of the Lakes.
- Take his Festering Bloody Finger(s) and answer “I don’t trust them” when he asks about the Two Fingers.
- Travel to Writheblood Ruins on the Altus Plateau and use a Finger on Magnus the Beast Claw’s summon sign.
- Kill Magnus on that first attempt — this alone satisfies the entire invasion requirement.
- Return to Varré and accept the Lord of Blood’s Favor, a plain strip of white cloth.
- Soak it in maiden’s blood at the Church of Inhibition in northern Liurnia — the only cost-free source.
- Bring the blood-soaked cloth back to Varré for the Pureblood Knight’s Medal.
Verified against the current Shadow of the Erdtree-era build. The Writheblood Ruins NPC-invasion alternative to PvP has existed since Patch 1.06[8], so it works on any modern save regardless of whether you play online.
Where Varré Actually Is (And When He Moves)
Varré first appears at the First Step grace in Limgrave — the game’s opening Site of Grace — but he has nothing meaningful to offer there beyond flavor dialogue. His questline doesn’t actually begin until you’ve beaten a Legacy Dungeon boss, claimed a Great Rune, and reported to Enia at Roundtable Hold. Only then does he relocate to Rose Church[1][4], on a small isle in the southwest corner of Liurnia’s main lake, south of Raya Lucaria Academy. It’s reachable on foot or horseback along the marsh shoreline; Fallen Ruins of the Lakes is the closest grace if you need a fast way back.
On your first visit, Varré hands over a Festering Bloody Finger and starts the invasion dialogue. Answer “I don’t trust them” when he brings up the Two Fingers — that’s the choice that keeps this questline’s ending path open.
The Invasion Requirement, Explained Correctly
Kill Magnus the Beast Claw on your first try and you’re done. Most guides don’t say it that plainly, and a couple say the opposite.
Varré’s condition is phrased as three invasions, and every walkthrough repeats that number. What actually changes the math is a specific NPC fight: Magnus the Beast Claw, whose red summon sign sits in the northeastern corner of Writheblood Ruins on the Altus Plateau. Per the item’s own wiki notes, you don’t need to defeat Magnus at all — “consuming the Festering Bloody Finger 3 times (via invading him 3 times) counts for completion” even if you lose every fight. But the same page is explicit that a kill shortcuts the whole thing: “killing him on the first or second invasion still progresses Varre’s quest the same as invading three times would, you are not obligated to drag it out to three,” per the Magnus the Beast Claw wiki page. Invade his sign, land the kill, and the requirement clears in one trip instead of three.
If you’d rather not risk the fight — Magnus hits hard in close and punishes greedy trading — you can still burn the Finger on him three separate times without a kill and get the same result. Either version of this path is entirely offline: Magnus is a scripted NPC encounter, not a matchmaking session, so it works the same with your network cable unplugged.[9] The only reason to use real player invasions instead is if you specifically enjoy PvP; defeating the invaded host isn’t required there either, only that the Finger gets used three times.[8]
Getting Maiden’s Blood Without Wrecking Another Quest
The Church of Inhibition’s corpse is the only blood source with zero downstream cost. The other two aren’t free.
Once Varré hands you the Lord of Blood’s Favor, you need to soak it in a maiden’s blood before he’ll finish the ritual. The wiki lists four options: the dead Finger Maiden at the Church of Inhibition in northern Liurnia, a similar corpse behind the Chapel of Anticipation portal at the Four Belfries, or killing Hyetta or Irina outright. Only the two corpses cost you nothing. Kill Irina to soak the cloth instead, and per Irina’s own wiki page, “if you killed Irina by your own hand, Hyetta will never appear in your entire playthrough” — permanently, for that save, if you haven’t met Hyetta yet. Most Varré walkthroughs list Irina as just another blood source and never connect it back to the NPC she’s tied to.
The Church of Inhibition isn’t risk-free either — Festering Fingerprint Vyke ambushes you on arrival with madness-stacking attacks, and a nearby Frenzy-Flame tower adds passive madness buildup on top of that. Disable the tower first if your build doesn’t have madness resistance to spare.[5]
What the Medal Actually Skips (And Why That’s Risky)
The Pureblood Knight’s Medal doesn’t shortcut a path inside Mohgwyn Palace — it deletes an entire late-game chain from your run.
Reach the palace the intended way and you first need the Consecrated Snowfield waygate, an underground crossing northwest of Yelough Anix Ruins guarded by the Sanguine Noble NPC invader, which itself sits behind Miquella’s Haligtree or the Grand Lift of Rold — both late-game unlocks. The medal skips every step of that chain: it drops you directly at the Palace Approach Ledge-Road grace, a slope leading through an Albinauric-infested cave straight into the blood lake, well before most builds are ready to fight Mohg, Lord of Blood.
That’s also the catch. The enemies stationed there — Sanguine Nobles that punish greedy dodges with grab combos, aggressive red Albinaurics that swarm in groups — are tuned for a character who’s already cleared most of the open world, not one who just picked up a second Great Rune. Arriving early is genuinely useful for farming runes and Somber Smithing Stones ahead of schedule. It’s a bad idea if your plan is to walk straight up to Mohg on a character who’s only just left Liurnia.
Is Early Access Worth It?
Same medal, four very different answers depending on what you’re optimizing for.
| Player type | Do this early? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New player | Not yet | Sanguine Nobles and red Albinaurics hit hard enough to drop a character without a full Vigor build in just a few exchanges. Get the medal for later, but don’t cash it in until Mohg is already on your radar. |
| Casual player | Kill Magnus, hold the medal | The offline kill costs a few minutes on a natural pass through Altus Plateau. Keep the medal in reserve as a free, mid-combat-safe teleport for whenever you’re actually ready to fight. |
| Hardcore / optimizer | Cash it in immediately | An early blood-lake run is a legitimate rune and Somber Smithing Stone farm before Radahn, and killing Mohg early puts Miquella’s Haligtree content on a faster clock than the Snowfield route allows. |
| Completionist | Do both routes eventually | The medal only skips the waygate crossing — it doesn’t replace Consecrated Snowfield, which has its own bosses and items you’ll still need to visit separately for full completion. |
After the Medal: What Happens to Varré
Getting the medal isn’t the end of Varré’s own arc. After you’ve used it and defeated Mohg, Varré eventually turns hostile and can be found near the Dynasty Mausoleum Midpoint grace inside the palace’s blood lake. Killing him there — not back at Rose Church — is what drops Varré’s Bouquet and a fresh stack of Festering Bloody Fingers; killing him at the church itself doesn’t yield the bouquet, per the wiki’s own note.[1] Nothing in the quest log points you back to him, which is why plenty of players finish the medal step and never realize there’s a second half.
Elden Ring has several NPC arcs where one wrong move locks content out permanently — Ranni’s line is the most notorious example. Varré’s isn’t one of them: every step here requires you to actively hand something over or make a dialogue choice, so there’s no equivalent of accidentally walking past an invisible trigger. If you’re running both questlines on the same character, check our Ranni questline points of no return guide first — that’s the one where sequencing actually matters.
FAQ
Do I need to kill Magnus, or is just invading him enough?
Neither is strictly required on its own, but killing him is the better play every time: one successful kill ends the requirement immediately, while surviving without a kill forces you through all three attempts. There’s no version of this fight where going for the kill costs you anything, so treat the invasion as a real fight worth winning, not busywork to click through.
Can I really do this entire quest offline?
Yes, and it’s arguably the faster route even for players who are online. A real player invasion needs someone actively in your world, which can mean sitting at Rose Church for several minutes waiting for a match. Magnus’s sign is available the instant you walk into Writheblood Ruins, so going offline isn’t just more private — it’s usually quicker.
Does using the medal early lock me out of the normal Mohgwyn Palace route?
No. The medal is a second entrance, not a replacement for the Consecrated Snowfield waygate — you can still find and use that path later on the same character. The only real cost of going early is the level curve, since the enemies stationed at the palace don’t scale down for an early visit.
Should I just kill Irina or Hyetta for the blood since they’re already nearby?
Only if you’ve already finished Hyetta’s questline or genuinely don’t care about it. Killing Irina before Hyetta ever appears removes Hyetta from that save permanently, and killing Hyetta herself obviously ends her own arc early. The Church of Inhibition corpse gets you the identical item for zero cost, so there’s rarely a real reason to spend an NPC on it instead.
Sources
Verified against: Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife) — White Mask Varre; Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife) — Mohgwyn Palace; Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife) — Rose Church; Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife) — Church of Inhibition; Elden Ring Wiki (Fextralife) — Lord of Blood’s Favor; Magnus the Beast Claw (linked above); Irina (linked above); TheGamer — How To Complete White Mask Varré’s Questline; GameRant — White Mask Varre Full Quest Walkthrough.
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.