Remember when you could transform your character into a dragon form in the Dark Souls series? Well, FromSoftware decided to bring that back for Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. There are a total of 2 dragon forms in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree that you can get pretty early on. In addition to being cosmetically cool, these can boost incantations of the capital’s ancient dragon cult. So, we’ll take you through how to acquire both forms in one run to transform your character into a dragon.
Acquire the “Domain of the Dragons” Painting in Shadow Keep
Most of our journey to hunt for these forms will take place in the Jagged Peak area of the Land of Shadow. Before we embark, there’s a certain painting, which is actually a quest item, you have to acquire from the Shadow Keep.
Start by reaching the Shadow Keep’s Main Gate, take a right from the main courtyard, and go up the steps. Once you reach the top, turn right and keep going forward till you see a ladder going down on the left side.
Once you reach the bottom, hug the wall on your left till you reach a room with another ladder going even further down. After descending the ladder, you’ll reach a storeroom where you’ll need to take the painting, “Domain of the Dragons.”
Reaching Jagged Peak
Now let’s set out towards Jagged Peak to meet the Dragon Priestess down at the Grand Altar of Dragon Communion. She’ll be giving us a quest that’ll lead to cool rewards, a dragon form being one of them.
So start your journey at the Castle Front Site of Grace located in front of Castle Ensis. From there, you’ll need to head towards the road on the southwest that leads out of the enemy camps and towards the Dragon’s Pit Dungeon.
On your way towards the Dragon Pit, you’ll be invaded by the Ancient Dragon Man. Fighting him is relatively easy as his attacks are easily dodgeable and you’ll be able to inflict good damage on well-timed strikes.
After defeating the Ancient Dragon Man, follow the straight path ahead until you see a cavern on your left which is the entrance to the Dragon Pit. Follow the tight space until you reach an opening with skeletal dragon enemies and try to slow your pace down. You can choose to ignore them and keep going forward.
After traversing through the caverns and steep cliffs and descending down a few levels, you’ll arrive at an old Altar with a gaping pit in front of it. Without hesitation, you can proceed to jump down and you’ll land safely down.
Here, you’ll have a full boss encounter with the Ancient Dragon Man after traversing the mist ahead. This is relatively difficult compared to the invading Dragon Man you’ve fought before. He’ll jump and use his katana to slash you down. However, his attacks are easy to dodge and you’ll have to take him down.
After defeating him, you’ll get his weapon, Dragon-Hunter’s Great Katana which is a very effective weapon against, you’ve guessed it, fighting dragons. You’ll need to open the doors in front of you to exit the Dragon’s Pit and finally enter the Jagged Peak area of the Land of Shadow.
Meeting The Dragon Priestess in the Grand Altar of Dragon Communion
Keep following the rocky terrain on the right until you come to a crossroads with a Jagged Peak Drake boss sleeping in the middle. You can either quietly walk past the boss to avoid confrontation or you can go ahead and fight it, your choice. But from this section, you’ll need to go to the path on the right side which leads to the Dragon Priestess.
Once you traverse the path on the right, you’ll come across a huge dragon’s lifeless body and the Grand Altar of Dragon Communion near its head. The Dragon Priestess is standing right beside the Dragon Altar so all you have to do is go near her and exhaust all her dialog options.
After an initial conversation, she’ll give you a choice to Devour Draconic Essense. Accepting this will begin the Dragon Priestess questline as she grants you the Ancient Dragon’s Blessing. She’ll then send you off to seek our Bayle the Dread at the summit of Jagged Peak.
Reaching Bayle the Dread on the Summit of Jagged Peak
To reach Bayle, all you need to do is backtrack to the crossroads you’ve encountered before and this time keep moving ahead through the “M” shaped stone arch. This path will have you climb and summit the Jagged Peak. The path ahead is pretty linear and you’ll need to traverse the rocky mountain until you reach the first spiritspring that will propel you up.
After crossing the rope bridge and activating the site of grace, you’ll come across an area where you’ll see two dragons fighting each other. You can either wait for one of them to die, engage both of them together, or simply run past them and reach two spiritsprings, one after the other.
Once you reach the top, follow the path until you reach a canyon with falling boulders that you need to avoid. After safely going through the canyon, you’ll reach the Ancient Dragon Sennesax boss. Similar to other encounters, you can either choose to fight it or simply run past it as this encounter is optional. I’d recommend saving your strength for the Bayle boss fight as you’ll need it.
There will be a path on an upward incline right behind where Sennesax was sleeping that you’ll need to climb up. Once you reach the top, activate the site of grace and go towards the left path. Lightening will be falling so avoid it as you traverse this path as you reach another spiritspring.
Once you reach the top of the spiritspring, keep going left until you see a rock protruding off the side of the cliff. Stand on it and then carefully jump down to the lower platform and reach the area marked in the image above.
After standing here a while, a ghostly chair with an apparition will spawn and then disappear leaving you with the Rock Heart item.
The Rock Heart is an infinite-use item that will transform your character into one of the two dragon forms in the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Remember when we collected that Domain of Dragons painting from the Shadow Keep’s basement storage? We get the Rock Heart item as a reward for the completion of a quest from the apparition in the Ghostly chair.
I don’t recommend using the Rock Heart item right away as you’ll need to strip your armor. This isn’t great as you still need to face Bayle the dread, one of the toughest bosses in the expansion. Now continuing our journey to the summit of the Jagged Peak, go back to the spiritspring and onto the platform above.
Keep moving forward until you come across another spiritspring and after traversing the lightning hazard area, you’ll propel yourself from the final spiritspring onto the summit of Jagged Peak. Activate the site of grace and go forward into the entrance to the bossfight arena.
Now get ready to face off against one of the most toughest optional bosses in the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Bayle attacks via stomps, breathing fire, and at one point destroying the whole arena with fire and lightning.
You’ll need to be on your toes and use bleed or rot-inducing weapons (Dragon-Hunter’s Great Katana is an extremely good option). We dual-wielded Rivers of Blood katanas which took good chunks off Bayle’s health. The best place to inflict the most damage is Bayle’s head so time your attacks well on it.
After defeating the great dragon, you can activate the site of grace and fast-travel back to the Grand Altar of Dragon Communion. The Dragon Priestess won’t be there anymore but in her place, there will be a Priestess Heart and a Flowerstone Gavel weapon.
Transform Into a Dragon in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree
You’ve finally made it to the end, a big round of applause. What better way to celebrate the completion of a long questline than to finally transform your character into a dragon in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree?
First things first, you need to remove all your armor/clothing by going into the equipment menu. After that, you can choose either the Rock Heart or the Priestess Heart to transform your character into a dragon.
The Priestess Heart will turn you into a similar dragon form as the Priestess herself. You can also equip the Flowerstone Gavel weapon which is a great arcane weapon that shoots red thunderbolts at enemies.
You can transform into the other dragon form by using the Rock Heart item acquired from the Ghostly Apparition. This one is my personal favorite as it simply looks cooler, especially when you use dragon magic with it.
We hope that you were able to acquire both forms and turn yourself into the dragon in the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. Do know that once you become a dragon, your character will only revert to human form after dying.
If you’ve had fun fighting Bayle, here are all remembrance bosses in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree ranked that you may want to face next.
