Larval tear locations in Elden Ring: every source and how to plan a respec
A larval tear is the only consumable that lets a Tarnished rebuild a character at Rennala’s library in Raya Lucaria, and the list of larval tear locations in Elden Ring is short enough that a bad plan is easy to spot in a finished save. A single playthrough yields eighteen tears, and most players spend the first one on impulse long before they understand the respec economy. This article is written for players who want to treat each tear as a deliberate design choice, with a clear view of where to find them, what each source actually costs, and which order makes sense for a first or second playthrough.
You will not need a second character, a NG+ cycle, or an exploit to collect all of them. The challenge is sequencing. Some larval tear locations sit behind late-game bosses, others hide behind illusory walls in underground rivers, and a few are sold by isolated merchants who can be skipped if you move through a region along the main path. The remainder of the article walks through the respec system, the regional grouping, the sources that are easy to miss, and the planning questions that decide whether a tear is worth spending at all.
How Rennala’s respec actually works
Respeccing is gated behind a single NPC, which is why the resource exists at all. After defeating Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon, in the Academy of Raya Lucaria, she remains seated in the grand library and offers a “Rebirth” option. Offering a larval tear lets you redistribute any stat increases you have earned, including the stats gained from leveling up and any points added at the start of a new character. The mechanic is more permissive than a traditional respec in other action RPGs because it does not require a separate respec vendor, a currency sink, or a fee per attribute: the only cost is the consumable itself.
The menu behaves predictably. You enter Rebirth, move points between attributes freely, and confirm the change. If you back out before confirming, the tear is preserved. If you confirm and dislike the result, the only practical recovery is to earn or buy another tear. The “Rebirth” text is the same one used at the start of the game when you create a character, which is why returning players sometimes mistake the option for a soft reset rather than a mid-game respec.
Because each tear is finite, the design intent of the system is to discourage frequent reallocation and to encourage commitment to a build path. Players who use all eighteen tears across a single playthrough are rare outside challenge runs. Players who plan two or three reallocations around specific boss fights or weapon access tend to get the most value from each one.
One practical note: Rennala herself does not move, does not reset, and does not gate Rebirth behind any dialogue choice after the first interaction. As long as she is alive in the library, the option stays open for the rest of the run, including after major story events that would normally lock out an NPC. That stability is part of why the tear economy is so forgiving to plan around.
Larval tear locations at a glance
Eighteen tears can be acquired in a single playthrough, distributed across the open world, vendors, and questlines. The table below groups them by access tier so a player can plan a route. Costs are listed in runes where the tear is sold; quest-locked entries are marked with the NPC or step that releases them.
| Access tier | Region or source | Acquisition type | Approximate cost or trigger |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | West Limgrave (Agheel Lake South) | Field enemy, disguised Wandering Noble into Lesser Runebear | Free, combat |
| Starter | Siofra River merchant | Vendor | 3,000 runes |
| Starter | Liurnia of the Lakes, academy approach | Field discovery, roadside ruin | Free, exploration |
| Mid-game | Liurnia, Caria Manor grounds | Field discovery near royal area | Free, exploration |
| Mid-game | Liurnia, Raya Lucaria interior | Dungeon or academy campus loot | Free, exploration |
| Mid-game | Caelid, around Sellia or the Aeonia Swamp | Field enemy or hidden area | Free, combat |
| Mid-game | Altus Plateau, broken tower or windmill area | Field discovery | Free, exploration |
| Mid-game | Mt. Gelmir, near the Hermit Village | Field discovery or hidden cellar | Free, exploration |
| Mid-game | Underground: Ainsel River or Lake of Rot shores | Field discovery, underground zone | Free, exploration |
| Mid-game | Underground: Siofra River, additional camp | Field enemy or miniboss | Free, combat |
| Late-game | Capital Outskirts, before Leyndell | Field discovery near wall patrols | Free, exploration |
| Late-game | Leyndell, Ashen Capital (endgame) | Field discovery in capital interior | Free, exploration |
| Late-game | Mountaintops of the Giants, western area | Field discovery near frozen river | Free, exploration |
| Late-game | Mountaintops, far northwestern shack | Field discovery in shack | Free, exploration |
| Late-game | Consecrated Snowfield, hidden area | Field discovery off the hidden path | Free, exploration |
| Quest-locked | Seluvis questline, puppet room | NPC quest reward | Progress Seluvis’s quest |
| Quest-locked | Gurranq / Beast Clergyman, after feeding enough Deathroot | NPC quest reward | Feed Deathroot to Gurranq |
| Quest-locked | Witch-Hunter Jerren or companion quest chain | NPC quest reward | Complete associated side quest |
Two reliable reference hubs confirm this total and the general structure of the route. The pickup order below matches a standard first-run path; players on alternate routes may reach the same sources in a different sequence. Vendor entries have hard caps per playthrough, and quest-locked entries are gated by specific dialogue or item steps, which is why neither type can be farmed without reloading or repeating the cycle.
Where to find each tear, in route order
The list below follows a typical first-playthrough route from the opening beach through to the end of the Mountaintops of the Giants. The intent is to give an editor’s view of the path, not a copy of patch-tested coordinates: every step assumes only that the player is in roughly the right region and looks for the listed trigger. A small number of entries are vulnerable to softlocks, and those are flagged below.
West Limgrave: the disguised Wandering Noble
The earliest source is hidden in plain sight. From the Agheel Lake South Site of Grace, walk a short distance southeast and look for a cluster of Wandering Nobles. One of them stands on a slightly higher ledge, isolated from the small groups that huddle together. That single noble is not a noble. When defeated, it transforms into a Lesser Runebear, and the Runebear drops the first larval tear of the run. The fight is short and a useful warm-up for the heavier beasts encountered later in Caelid.
Players who skip the lake on their way to Stormgate or to the Weeping Peninsula often miss this source. It is worth doubling back for, because it lets you fix a starter-class mistake before leaving the tutorial region. The transformation is also a useful teaching moment for players who have not yet seen how the game disguises high-tier enemies as low-tier mobs.
Siofra River: the merchant behind the waterfall
The Siofra River Well in East Limgrave is the first descent into the underground portion of the map. The lift drops you into a wide river region with multiple merchants. One of them, seated in an aqueduct west of the Worshipper’s Woods Site of Grace, sits up a ladder and behind a waterfall. He sells a single larval tear for 3,000 runes, which is the cheapest vendor source in the game. Because the well is accessible from East Limgrave, this tear can be obtained before the first major shardbearer, and it is the most common “early correction” tool used by players who regret their level-up order at the very start.
The merchant is easy to miss on a first visit because his stall is partly hidden by the waterfall’s spray. Players who are already inside Siofra for a different reason, such as the Boitii quest trigger, often walk past the ladder without realizing it leads to a usable vendor. The 3,000-rune price is also low enough that it is worth buying the tear even if the player has no immediate plan to respec, since the option to use it later costs nothing to keep.
Liurnia of the Lakes: academy approach and Caria Manor
Liurnia is unusually rich in larval tear pickups, which is convenient because the region also introduces the Academy of Raya Lucaria, where Rennala is fought. Once Rennala is defeated, the respec is unlocked, and several tears in the surrounding area become available to a player who is already in the region. Tears in this area come from roadside discoveries, ruin interiors, and the academy campus. Most of them are placed in soft-by-the-path spots, but the Caria Manor grounds contain a tear that is easy to miss if you move through the manor quickly to reach the optional boss at the back.
The academy interior itself is also worth a second sweep after Rennala is defeated, because the area remains accessible and the loot respawns. Players who enter the academy only to fight Rennala and then leave through the main gate can miss one or two pickups that sit on the upper balconies and in the side libraries. A patient run through the upper walkways usually recovers them.
Caelid: a hostile early detour
Caelid is the first region where most players are likely to feel over-leveled, and the larval tear here tends to come from a field encounter near Sellia or from a hidden corner of the Aeonia Swamp. The area’s high-level enemies can make a casual pickup feel like a boss fight, and it is reasonable to skip the region entirely until later. Returning for the tear after a power spike, or after acquiring torrent-friendly spirit summons, is the safer plan.
The pickup near Sellia is gated by the town’s own defenses: the streets are patrolled by elite caster enemies, and the tear sits in a side building rather than the main square. Players who clear the town quickly and head straight to the dungeon at the back often walk past the building. Approaching Sellia from the northern road and clearing street by street is the slower but safer route.
Mt. Gelmir and Altus Plateau: volcanoes and broken towers
Mt. Gelmir and the Altus Plateau host several pickups. The hermit village on Mt. Gelmir contains a hidden cellar with a tear, and the broken tower or windmill area on the plateau hides another. These regions sit at roughly the same level curve, so a single sweep can cover both. Players who rush to the capital often miss one or both of these tears, only to remember them during a second pass after unlocking more checkpoints.
The Mt. Gelmir cellar is one of the more punishing pickups in the mid-game, because the surrounding NPCs use sleep and poison status effects that can chain into a death before the player reaches the chest. Carrying a resistance-boosting item or a spirit summon that can tank a hit is the practical way to clear the path. The Altus pickup is easier by comparison and usually falls within a few minutes of the main road.
Underground rivers: Ainsel, Lake of Rot, and the deeper Siofra
The underground zones are where most players lose track of their tear count. Ainsel River, the shores of the Lake of Rot, and the deeper camps along Siofra each contain at least one pickup. The Lake of Rot itself is a hostile area, and the tear near its shore is sometimes mistaken for a glittering reward after a boss kill. Picking it up requires crossing a substantial portion of the underground map, so the practical advice is to combine the underground sweep with whatever quest or item is pulling you down there in the first place.
The deeper Siofra camp sits in a section of the river that many players never reach on a first run, because it is past a confusingly placed illusory wall and a long ladder climb. Returning to the area after a teleporter is unlocked is the more efficient route. Ainsel River is shorter, but its pickups are spread across several small islands, and a few are placed on ledges that are only reachable with Torrent.
Capital Outskirts and Leyndell, Ashen Capital
Leyndell is the first major city, and the capital outskirts and the ashen capital variant together contain two pickups. The ashen capital appears only after a specific story trigger late in the Mountaintops, so the second of these tears is effectively an endgame pickup. It is worth remembering because it is one of the last chances to respec before the final boss and its memory-allocating variants.
The outskirts pickup is in a corner of the wall patrols that most players pass through only once, on the way into the city proper. The chest is partly hidden by a siege tower and is easy to miss if the player is focused on the main gate. The ashen capital pickup is more obvious but appears only in the transformed version of the city, so a player who finishes the game before the transformation will not see it at all.
Mountaintops of the Giants and the Consecrated Snowfield
The Mountaintops contain two open pickups: one near a frozen river in the western part of the region and one inside a far northwestern shack. The hidden Consecrated Snowfield, which is reached by using a secret haligtree medallion, contains another tear off the hidden path. Because the snowfield is optional, so is this tear, but the rest of the pickups in the same area justify the detour for players who want to maximize their respec budget.
The shack in the far northwest is the easiest of the three to miss, because the road that leads to it is not signposted and most players are funneled toward the main dungeon entrance. The frozen river pickup is on the path between two Sites of Grace and is usually picked up on the way to the dungeon, but it sits in a side alcove rather than the main road, which is why it is sometimes left behind on a quick run.
Quest-locked sources
Three tears are tied to NPC questlines rather than to fixed locations. Seluvis, the preceptor found in the western region of Liurnia, eventually rewards the player with a tear as part of his puppet-related quest, although the specifics of his quest mean players may need to weigh whether to cooperate with him at all. The Beast Clergyman Gurranq, found in the Bestial Sanctum in northern Caelid, offers a tear after the player has fed him enough Deathroot. A third quest-locked tear is connected to a side chain in the Mountaintops area, often associated with Witch-Hunter Jerren or related characters. All three are vulnerable to quest progression, so reading ahead before committing to a path is sensible.
Seluvis in particular has several softlock points where the player can permanently lose access to his rewards, including his larval tear. The most common is progressing Ranni’s quest past the point where Seluvis is no longer reachable, or choosing a specific dialogue branch that closes his shop. Gurranq’s reward is more forgiving but still gated by Deathroot, which is a finite material that cannot be bought after the player has exhausted the available stock. The Mountaintops chain is the most fragile, because a single boss fight can kill the relevant NPC and lock out the reward entirely.
How to plan a respec around the tear budget
Knowing the larval tear locations is one half of the problem. The other half is choosing when to spend a tear so that the rebuild is actually useful. A rebuild that solves a problem a player never had is a wasted tear, and there are only eighteen available in a standard run, so each one is meaningful.
Respecs that pay for themselves
The classic case is a caster-to-hybrid conversion. A character built around pure intelligence may want to add a small amount of faith to access specific incantations or weapons. That kind of small redistribution can be done with a single tear and can unlock entire weapon families without needing to start a new character. A second classic case is a faith-only build that wants to add arcane to scale a specific weapon or a dragon communion incantation.
The third case is the opposite: a hybrid build that wants to commit to a single stat for a specific boss. Some late-game bosses are far easier when the player can invest heavily in one damage type, even at the cost of a more general-purpose stat spread. Players who plan for a final-boss respec around a specific weapon or spell usually find that one well-timed tear is worth more than three mid-game corrections.
A fourth, less obvious case is the equipment-gate respec. Some late-game weapons have stat requirements that a mid-game build cannot meet without a small redistribution, and rather than grind levels to meet the threshold, a single tear can move a few points into the right stat and unlock the weapon. This is the most economical use of an early tear, because it does not change the build’s identity, only its equipment options.
Respecs that are usually a mistake
The most common wasted respec is the early “I picked the wrong starter class” rebuild. Starter class has almost no long-term impact on a finished character because the level-up system eventually overcomes small starting-stat differences. Spending a tear at level 20 to move five points out of arcane rarely affects the build at level 100, and the tear could have been used to fix a real mid-game mistake instead.
The second common mistake is the build-completion respec. Players who have nearly finished a build sometimes want a final redistribution to perfect an end-game weapon. The honest answer is that 90 percent of a build is already determined by the time the player thinks about a final respec, and the small gain rarely justifies the cost of an irreplaceable consumable.
The third is the panic respec. After a rough boss fight, players sometimes want to redistribute their stats to match a strategy they read about online, only to find that the new spread is worse than the old one. The tear is spent, the boss is still there, and the player has less budget for the next genuine correction. A 24-hour pause is a better response to a tough fight than an immediate respec.
When to use the last available tear
Holding the final tear for the endgame is a popular habit, and it has a logic: late-game enemies and bosses have a different rhythm than mid-game ones, and a small respec can give the player the exact tool they need for the final fight. The risk is that the player never gets to that fight, or that the final tear is held forever and never spent. A reasonable rule is to use the last tear only when the player has identified a specific build that they cannot access with their current stat spread and the final boss is the only thing standing between them and the credits.
Players who routinely end a run with one or two unspent tears are usually making one of two errors: they are waiting for a perfect moment that never arrives, or they are afraid of spending the resource on a real correction because the next one “might be more important.” Both habits cost the player value. A tear used on a genuine mid-game correction is almost always worth more than a tear hoarded against an imagined final build.
Common mistakes that cost a tear
There are several failure patterns that show up across playthroughs. None of them are bugs, and all of them are caused by decisions the player made before the respec happened. Identifying the pattern is more useful than memorizing a checklist.
- Spending the first tear before Rennala is fought. The respec is locked behind Rennala, so any tear used before that fight is unavailable for the rebuild. Players who buy the Siofra River tear before the academy can still use it later, but if they use it at the wrong moment they lose the early-correction option.
- Confirming a respec that includes accidental points in unused stats. The Rebirth menu is permissive, and players sometimes allocate a few points into mind or endurance “just in case” and end up with a build that is mediocre in two directions instead of strong in one. Backing out before confirmation is free.
- Softlocking a questline by progressing too far in one path. Seluvis’s quest, in particular, can reach points where certain NPCs no longer accept the player’s help, and the associated tear may become unreachable. The same is true for Gurranq if Deathroot is not delivered in time.
- Skipping the underground river pickup because the area looks empty. Ainsel River and the Lake of Rot contain several pickups that look like decorations on a long, dull route. Returning later with a teleporter already unlocked makes the run cheaper.
- Selling a larval tear by accident. The item is a key consumable, but the menu can be navigated quickly, and it is technically sellable. The cost of buying it back is high enough that the mistake is permanent for the run.
- Forgetting that the respec also affects equipment requirements. A respec that drops strength below a weapon’s requirement will unequip that weapon on the next menu, and re-equipping it requires a second tear to fix the mistake. Reviewing the equipped items before confirming is the cheaper habit.
How the respec system fits Elden Ring’s design language
Elden Ring sits in a tradition of action RPGs that gate respecs either behind a high rune cost, a single NPC, or a finite consumable. The larval tear system is the consumable variant, and it shares design DNA with the soul items in earlier FromSoftware titles and with the limited respec currencies in many Western RPGs. Compared to a vendor-based respec, the consumable model has two effects: it forces the player to think before respec-ing, and it gives the player a small but visible list of things to look for during exploration.
From a game design perspective, the system is also a soft difficulty knob. Players who commit to a build from the start have a harder run against some bosses but a more efficient long-term progression. Players who respec often spend more total resources on the tear economy and benefit from the freedom. The developers chose to balance the two styles by making the consumable rare, not expensive, which keeps the economy intact without pricing the casual respec user out of the system.
The system also interacts with how the game handles level scaling. Because enemies are leveled in fixed ranges per region rather than scaled to the player’s level, a poorly invested mid-game character can be punished hard in a late-game area. The tear is the developer’s answer to that punishment: a small, finite lever that lets a player who invested badly catch up without starting over. That is also why the tears cluster in the regions where the level curve is steepest, rather than at the end of the game.
Player-style comparison: how different builds use the tears
The same eighteen tears support very different play styles. The table below compares four common build archetypes and how they tend to use the respec budget. The numbers are planning guidance, not recommendations, and they assume a single-playthrough standard run.
| Build archetype | Common stat priority | Typical respec triggers | Estimated tears used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pure caster (intelligence) | Vigor, mind, intelligence, endurance | Mid-game pivot to hybrid; late-game arcane splash | 2 to 3 |
| Faith-only caster | Vigor, faith, endurance, mind | Early correction at Siofra; late-game weapon scaling | 1 to 2 |
| Strength or quality melee | Vigor, endurance, strength, dexterity | Mid-game scaling fix; final-boss optimization | 1 to 2 |
| Arcane bleed or dragon communion | Vigor, arcane, faith or dexterity | Stat pivot to access a specific incantation | 2 to 3 |
| Challenge run (e.g., low level) | Adaptive, often very narrow | Frequent corrections for boss access | 3 to 5 |
The challenge-run column explains why a player might use more tears than the consumable count seems to allow: a small number of tears are earned from soft-skipped areas that a normal run ignores, and a few can be recovered by carefully reloading from a recent save after a misallocation. Neither approach is a substitute for planning, and most players do not need to optimize that aggressively.
For a more practical read of the same table, the takeaway is that a single tear spent at the right moment is worth more than three tears spent on low-stakes corrections. The most efficient players tend to spend one or two tears total, and they spend them on either an early starter-class correction or a late-game weapon-scaling fix. The middle of the run is usually the worst time to respec, because the player is still in the middle of the level curve and the next region can change the build’s needs again.
Verification and source notes
The pickup count, the Siofra River vendor price, and the West Limgrave Noble-into-Runebear trick are confirmed against a current walkthrough of larval tear sources in Elden Ring published by IGN. The regional grouping and quest-locked entries reflect standard first-run progression; players on alternate routes or in modified seeds may reach the same sources in a different order, and a small number of pickups are gated by story events that can vary between patches.
Frequently asked questions
How many larval tear locations are there in total in a single playthrough?
There are eighteen accessible larval tear locations in a single standard playthrough, distributed across open-world pickups, vendor sales, and quest rewards. The list above groups them by region, and the total does not change between patches in a way that affects the count.
Can larval tears be bought after they have been purchased once?
The Siofra River merchant, who sells a tear for 3,000 runes, stocks only one per playthrough. Once sold out, the merchant does not restock the tear in the same save. The same is true for any vendor source: each sells one tear, and a second visit will not show it in stock.
Do larval tears carry over into New Game Plus?
Yes. Larval tears that have been collected but not spent are carried into the next cycle along with the rest of the inventory. The respec option at Rennala is available from the start of NG+ because Rennala remains in the library, so a player who hoards tears into a new playthrough can use them immediately.
What happens if I back out of the Rebirth menu at Rennala?
Backing out before confirming the change does not consume the tear, and the stat spread remains as it was. This makes the respec a free preview, which is useful when a player is comparing two stat distributions and wants to see how the new spread would look before committing.
Are any of the larval tear locations missable?
Yes. The quest-locked tears are the most clearly missable. Seluvis’s tear, the Beast Clergyman’s tear, and the Mountaintops side-chain tear can all be locked out by progressing past the relevant NPC without delivering the right item or choosing the right dialogue. The Mountaintops tear in particular can be missed if the relevant NPC is killed during the boss fight, so it is worth reading ahead before that encounter.
Is the Siofra River tear worth the detour before Rennala?
For most first-time players, yes. The well in East Limgrave is reachable within an hour of starting the game, and the 3,000-rune price is well below what a level-up costs at the same level. The early respec option is one of the more economical uses of the resource, especially for players who discover that they hate their starting class after the first two or three boss fights.
Do larval tears stack in the inventory?
Yes, collected tears stack as a single consumable, and the inventory shows the total count. There is no cap on the number you can hold, so a player who wants to save every tear for the endgame can simply not visit Rennala until they are ready to spend them.
Can larval tears be dropped or lost to a death that is not recovered?
Like most key consumables, a larval tear on the ground after death is recoverable on the same run by returning to the death location. The recovery is identical to any other lost item and does not require a special mechanic.
Does the respec affect armor, talismans, or weapon requirements?
Stat changes from the respec immediately change whether the player can wield a weapon, wear armor, or equip a talisman, because the equipment check happens against the current stat spread. A respec that drops strength below a weapon’s requirement will unequip that weapon on the next menu, so a careful player should review the equipped items before confirming the respec.
Are there more than eighteen tears in any version of the game?
The standard count is eighteen per playthrough. There are no additional secret tears beyond the quest-locked and pickup-based list above, and no DLC source has been added in the regions covered by the main game. A player who has reached eighteen has the maximum respec budget for a single standard run.
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