Ancient Dragon Soul

soul of the king

Use the dragon soul, created by those who peered into the essence of the soul, to acquire numerous souls, or to create something of great worth.

Ancient Dragon Soul is a consumable Boss Soul item in Dark Souls 2 (DKS2)Ancient Dragon Soul, the essence of the majestic ancient dragon that serenely occupies the depths of the shrine. This formidable soul emanates from a powerful being that patiently awaits visitors Boss Souls are materials used to trade for unlocking various upgrades and abilities, spells, as well as for crafting unique equipment. These Boss Souls are obtained by defeating the various Bosses of the game.

 

Soul of the great ancient dragon that stands magnificently, deep within the shrine.
This powerful being stands and waits, for whoever may visit him.
Use the dragon soul, created by those who peered into the essence of the soul, to acquire numerous souls, or to create something of great worth.

Ancient Dragon Soul Usage in DKS2

 

Dark Souls 2 Ancient Dragon Soul Location

  • In order to get this soul, you need the Ashen Mist Heart, which you will get near the end of the game. After that, go to the boss room of The Duke's Dear Freja and examine the statue below the Dragon head. You will be transported to Memories of a Dragon with a giant Dragon Corpse. Examine the head of the Dragon to get the Soul. NOTE: The Ancient Dragon only drops a Giant Soul.

 

Ancient Dragon Soul Notes and Tips in Dark Souls 2

  • It's likely that this soul was supposed to be dropped by the Ancient Dragon as it describes the NPC who "stands magnificently, deep within the shrine." It may have been moved into the memory due to the difficulty of the boss battle or some other development reason. Alternatively, there are many theories supported by in-game evidence that the Ancient Dragon NPC is an imposter or a fake, implying that the NPC does not possess a legitimate Ancient Dragon Soul, which is why it is obtained elsewhere.
  • The fact that this soul was "created" is in fact in par with the lore of Aldia, scholar of the First Sin, and what we can guess of his experimentation. The reason that this soul is not dropped by the Ancient dragon is most likely due to problems during the developement of the game. We have the Soldier's Rest area, with a bonfire, but with nothing of importance in it, except a "Giant Tree", with no memory attached to it. It is very likely that we should have had another memory there, with the fifth giant soul. That didn't happen, most likely due to time constraint. So the dev's decided to make the Ancient Dragon boss drop the giant soul, and move his soul to another memory. From a developement perpespective, that memory is easy to create, as it his purely static with a lot of re-used assets. This is pure speculation of course, but it explain the lack of interest in Soldier's rest.
  • This soul will NOT be respawned by using an ascetic on the bonfire.

 

DKS2 Origins of the Ancient Dragon:

This dragon bears the most resemblance to the dragons in the opening cutscene of Dark Souls 1, which combined with the destroyed archtrees and the overall grey setting, suggests that it was killed in battle by the army of Gwyn, Lord of Sunlight in the "Age of Ancients." It is unlikely to be Seath or the Everlasting Dragon from Dark Souls 1, due to the difference in appearance between them. It is highly likely that the Ancient Dragon was formed by Aldia from the likeness of this dragon, and that the two would have looked almost exactly the same, with similar powers and strength.

However, the Duke's Dear Freja does drop the soul of Seath, suggesting that the Duke himself was somehow influenced by Seath's soul which was channeled by the body of this dead dragon underneath Brightstone Cove Tseldora. There is a possibility that this dragon could have been one of those killed by Seath himself. Ultimately he seems to have used this power to create Freja.

 

 



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    • Anonymous

      Lord Aldia kept Giants in his keep. We know that he experimented with lots of creatures as well as humans, since "those invited to the keep were never seen again". We find petrifying rats in his garden, and inside there are ogres, brummers and basilisks, as far as the naturally occuring beasts are concerned. Then you see mimics, gargoyles, swollen mongrels kept in cages, and a beast resembling Tark and Najia, which are all clearly man-made (we know of mimics and gargoyles from Anor Londo in ds1, we know of Tark in ds2).

      We know that Aldia experimented with giants, as he did with anything else, himself included. We know that the dragons in the shrine are not real ones. They lay eggs and reproduce, but have no connection to the immortal ancient dragons. The Ancient Dragon in the shrine drops a Giant's Soul, just like the fallen giants in the memories and the Giant Lord does.

      We know Seathe envied his brethren, for he was malformed, pale, scaleless, and part serpent from the waist down. He was bound to die at some point, lacking the other's immortality. He betrayed them initially for their scales, and upon finding out that wouldn't work for him, he dived into research on the primordial crystal, which provided invincibility to him, but was ultimately no guarantee. Seathe wanted to reproduce the ancient dragons and thus conducted experiments in the events of DS1, by using humans to create beasts (and continuing to do so in DS2), creating sorcery in the meantime, and hunting females around the world, whom he transformed to dragonkind and tried to have them carry his seed.

      His soul is one that transcents time and place, taking on hosts and molding them to his will. According to Tark, he cannot die, only change forms. At some point, in Brightstone Tseldorra, a place of crystal abundance, he took Duke Tseldorra, build another library and continued the research, this time, dark included. He had a pet, on whom he carried experiments, and something fascinated him about spiderkind. So after using Tseldorra to the fullest, the soul jumped bodies into the spider, and created the infestation.

      The Dragon we see in the back, suspended via spider-web must be his pursuit of recreating his body. We take the Great Soul not by killing the spider, but by interacting with the dragon afterwards. This tells me, he was almost successful in his revival.

      We enter the memories of said dragon, to find out about the Ancient Dragons. This is a memory of a time long past, one nobody actively alive, lest the 4 ancient ones, could possibly be having. Seathe is transversing back to a time when he already had committed his own sins, but still not the turning point. There we find the real ancient dragon, one that poetically now is only a memory. We see nothing else of significance, simply because Seathe sees nothing else AS significant.

      • Anonymous

        i think the reason for the ancient dragon in the shrine not giving you the ancient dragon soul its because for the experiments with the souls of the giants, in fact when u kill him it gives u one....

        • Anonymous

          hmmm yeah this is probably a descendant of the everlasting dragon because everlasting dragon doesnt have a soul they existed before the fire and the fire birthed souls

          • Anonymous

            Before you guys complain about DS2 lore and assume Miyazaki and other DS1 creators never bothered to check this one, READ the item description!
            "[...] Use the dragon soul, created by those who peered into the essence of the soul, to acquire numerous souls, [...]" This soul was created by Aldia and Vendrick to create a fake dragon.

            • Anonymous

              Why the hell does this being have the essence of life (Soul), even though it existed before life itself has. I feel this is a huge contradiction to DS1 Lore. True Ancient Dragons aren't supposed to be living beings, they're immortal so they can't be considered to be alive or dead.

              DS2 ****ed up here.

              • Anonymous

                So, does the Ancient Dragon Soul count as one of the souls you need to lower Vendrick's defenses? I'm guessing not, as the one in the Dragon Shrine drops a Giant Soul and the rest of the souls you collect to drop V-dawg's defenses are Giant Souls, but I did want to ask.

                • Anonymous

                  It’s obviously the Everlasting Dragon, area tells us that alone, that’s CLEARLY Ash Lake from DS1, and the heads actually do look similar, it’s just that the DS1 version was covered in fur and feathers and stuff

                  • Anonymous

                    There's kindof a glitch, not sure how to put it, in SOTFS if you use a bonfire asthetic before grabbing the soul it will disappear from that NG cycle.

                    • Anonymous

                      The thought of a dragon having a soul is a bit off to me. Dragons (especially those from the age of ancients) didn't have souls. Or at least shouldn't have. Souls as we know the late born of fire, so how could something that has lived forever without a trace of flame in the world, bear something that have never existed before.
                      Also, in the dks1 opening cinematic, you can see many ancient dragons that all look alike. Seeing this evidence suggests that they all looked alike beside a few minor things such as horns or fur patterns/colors. Example, all dragons from the age of ancients had four wings, two horns, beaks, etc, while the "ancient" dragons of dark souls two look nothing alike.
                      This dragon looks similar to the dragon atop the shrine that gives you the ashen must heart, so it's entirely possible that it was yet another of Aldias experiments to make a dragon with the soul of a giant. The dragon atop the shrine give you an ashen must heart, yes? So who's to say that other dragons made by giants souls do not contain one of their own, built by the ascension to An immortal state. I believe it's entirely possible that the dragon of the memory, contained an ashen must heart of its very own, used it to travel to a memory, (of whom I don't know), and die in the memory. No longer being tied to the curse, it wasent sent back upon death, (maybe even by the hand of Gwyn himself) and stayed in the memory.
                      I'm not doubting the fact that dragons can have souls, no, but I feel they cannot have a soul, that much is proven by Kalamet alone, not even mentioning Seath, but I don't feel they can have souls unless they take them from others, by killing, just as we do.

                      So to racap, the dragon of the memory was a creation of Aldia. Being born of the soul of a giant, like that of the dragon in the shrine, (based on apperence alone), the dragon had an ashen mist heart alike his brother at the shrine. He traveled to the past via memory of an unnamed entity. No longer being an undead, as is a dragon, when he was killed in the memory he did not travel back to the present time. Staying in the ruined land we find him in today.

                      Thank you all for reading this and taking it into consideration, some real thought and speculation went into this and I'm open to disscussion of you're willing. Thank you again
                      -Zatheos

                      • i've tried respwaning the ancient dragon soul and it didn't work by burning an ascetic in either the place unbeknownst or dragon shrine, for some reason I can't edit this page. playing on pc version

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