Shrine of Winter
Shrine of Winter is a Location in Dark Souls 2. A door leading to Drangleic Castle can be found here that requests very 
powerful souls, the player may enter either by defeating acquiring the Great Souls (obtained by defeating The Four Old Ones) or accumulating one million total souls throughout their travels.
General Information
- Previous: Shaded Woods
- Next::Drangleic Castle, Frozen Eleum Loyce (optional)
- Recommended Levels: 95 to 105
- Bonfires: 2
Shrine of Winter Map
NPCs
- Head Bell Keeper Puppet
- Drifter Swordsman Aidel (NPC Summon)
Items
ConsumablesEnemies
- Roaming Soul (Ghost)
- Royal Soldier
- Crystal Lizard
Notes
- ??
Shrine of Winter Walkthrough
Access
The gate to Shrine of Winter will open once you've obtained the four Old Souls and lit four Primal Bonfires. The souls of The Rotten, The Lost Sinner, Old Iron King, and Duke's Dear Freja, need to be collected.
Alternatively the above requirement may be bypassed by obtaining a certain amount of Soul Memory in your current playthrough. It is important to understand that this is not your total Soul Memory, but the Soul Memory obtained during your current NewGame playthrough. The number required to pass through the Shrine of Winter starts at 1,000,000, and increases by 1,000,000 for each successive NewGame, capping at 8,000,000 for NG+7. For example, If you start New Game++ with 3,000,000 Soul Memory you will be required to obtain another 3,000,000 to make it a gran total of 6,000,0000 Soul Memory for the Shrine of Winter to open in your current playthrough. Consuming hard souls from previous NewGames will contribute to the total Soul Memory required to pass through the Shrine of Winter in your current NewGame playthrough.
| NewGame State | Souls Required |
| NewGame | 1,000,000 |
| NewGame+ | 2,000,000 |
| NewGame++ | 3,000,000 |
| NewGame+++ | 4,000,000 |
| NewGame+4 | 5,000,000 |
| NewGame+5 | 6,000,000 |
| NewGame+6 | 7,000,000 |
| NewGame+7(cap) | 8,000,000 |
The Shrine
Inside the Shrine, you'll also find the portal that takes you to the Crown of the Ivory King DLC.
The path here is linear. After you go down the slope, turn right to pick up a Soul of a Hero. Head back and continue to follow the path until you approach two Roaming Soul and grab the Divine Blessing from the nearby corpse. Continue forward to find another corpse holding a Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier, and a Human Effigy. After crossing the tunnel, follow the path up and defeat several Royal Soldiers. Note that the rain here is not only for visuals, but actually drenches you in water, which causes your fire resistance to rise, but your lightning resistance to fall, which should be remembered as some of the Soldiers will shoot lightning infused bolts at you. Behind the boulder ahead, you'll find a corpse containing 2x Holy Water Urn. Just before the bridge there will also find a Crystal Lizard, holding a very nice 3x Titanite Chunk, and a Titanite Slab. Follow the path across the bridge to reach Drangleic Castle.
General Information
- Previous: Shaded Woods
- Next::Drangleic Castle, Frozen Eleum Loyce (optional)
- Recommended Levels: 95 to 105
- Bonfires: 1
Shrine of Winter Map
NPCs
- Head Bell Keeper Puppet
- Drifter Swordsman Aidel (NPC Summon)
Items
ConsumablesEquipment
- Heide Lance (Heide Knight Drop)
Enemies
Notes
- ??
Shrine of Winter Walkthrough
Access
The gate to Shrine of Winter will open once you've obtained the four Old Souls and lit four Primal Bonfires. The souls of The Rotten, The Lost Sinner, Old Iron King, and Duke's Dear Freja, need to be collected.
Alternatively the above requirement may be bypassed by obtaining a certain amount of Soul Memory in your current playthrough. It is important to understand that this is not your total Soul Memory, but the Soul Memory obtained during your current NewGame playthrough. The number required to pass through the Shrine of Winter starts at 1,000,000, and increases by 1,000,000 for each successive NewGame, capping at 8,000,000 for NG+7. For example, If you start New Game++ with 3,000,000 Soul Memory you will be required to obtain another 3,000,000 to make it a gran total of 6,000,0000 Soul Memory for the Shrine of Winter to open in your current playthrough. Consuming hard souls from previous NewGames will contribute to the total Soul Memory required to pass through the Shrine of Winter in your current NewGame playthrough.
| NewGame State | Souls Required |
| NewGame | 1,000,000 |
| NewGame+ | 2,000,000 |
| NewGame++ | 3,000,000 |
| NewGame+++ | 4,000,000 |
| NewGame+4 | 5,000,000 |
| NewGame+5 | 6,000,000 |
| NewGame+6 | 7,000,000 |
| NewGame+7(cap) | 8,000,000 |
The Shrine
Inside the Shrine, you'll also find the portal that takes you to the Crown of the Ivory King DLC.
The path here is linear. After you go down the slope, turn right to pick up a Soul of a Hero. Head back and continue to follow the path until you approach the Heide Knight and grab the Divine Blessing from the nearby corpse. Continue forward to find another corpse holding a Large Soul of a Nameless Soldier, and a Human Effigy. After crossing the tunnel, follow the path up and defeat several Royal Soldiers. Behind the boulder ahead, you'll find a corpse containing 2x Holy Water Urn. Just before the bridge there will also find a Crystal Lizard, holding a very nice 3x Titanite Chunk, and a Titanite Slab. Follow the path across the bridge to reach Drangleic Castle.
AnonymousThe reason it is called shrine of winter is because it’s a shrine dedicated to Eleum Loyce. The only DLC entrance that’s not shafted to some dank dungeon. Speaks volumes the level of respect even Vendrick shows to Ivory King
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
I wish there was some way to tell how many souls were collected during the CURRENT playthrough ... really sucks to have to keep running to the shrine only to find out I don't have enough souls to open the door in NG+ and beyond if I forgot to note the number at the end of the prior playthrough
- Anonymous
It really sucks that you still have to grind for SM on NG+ runs, otherwise it’d be a nice way to speed run the Castle to collect all the DLC and NG++ goodies
- Anonymous
I'm at 15 million SM on NG++ and the door won't open, it keeps saying that I must seek more powerful souls.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Well i thought that the soul memory from my last playthrough would carry over and I didn't need to farm more. I was mistaken. I thought the wiki was wrong and went to kill the great ones starting with Freja. I died. And so my no death run was over.
- Anonymous
iiIiIiIiIiiIiIiIiiIiIiIiIiiIiIiIIiIiIiIIiIiiIiIiIiIiHow do I kill the lost sinner in NG+++ it’s really hardish. IIiiIiiIiIiIiIiIiIiIIiIiIiIiIiIiIiIiiIiIiIiIiiIiIiI
- Anonymous
I didn't kill The Rotten but i was able to get in the door. In my experience 3 soul is enough for NG. If i am wrong pls reply this comment.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
Can someone help me I’m in ng+
With 11m souls and killed the four old ones but the gate said that i need to sick mightier souls
- Anonymous
I wish the Shrine of Winter and the Shrine of Amana had more lore associated with them. What caused Winter/Amana to be worshipped to be point that they had shrines made? Who or what was Amana? And why are the Milfanito & the flame of Nito associated with it? That seems like a hell of a major place, considering the castle was built near it and had a secret passage tied to it. I get that it ultimately leads to the Undead Crypt, but if the King and his people disliked the undead enough to send them to the Lost Bastille, why keep such a path tied to the castle? The more I think about it, Vendrick built his castle above the Shrine of Amana, the Undead Crypt, and the Throne of Want. I can understand why he would want to guard access to the Throne, but not the Shrine and the Crypt. Both of the latter are more than able to repel unwanted intruders and their meaning seems antithetical to Vendrick's goals. He only went to the Crypt to hide himself away from Nashandra, passing through the Shrine to get there. It wasn't a place of pilgrimage for the monarchs, like the Kiln of the First Flame would have been. So much of DS2's story is so alien to the series' canon and left unexplained. I know FromSoft likes to leave unknowns in their lore, but DS2 has so much of it.
- Anonymous
Very confusing because of the lack of description in the 1st part. The Shrine of Winter is in The Shaded Wood. From Ruined Fork Road bonfire, take the left path (opposite to the foggy wood). At the end of of the path, a pile of brick blocks your path (this is why you thought it was a better idea to go kill some huge monsters and harvest their souls instead of just climbing it). At the blocked path, there is a narrow path on the left that leads to the Shrine. Having the requirements the wiki explains well, the doors open. Inside the doors is a fountain you can 'examine' and will teleport you to a DLC area, locked if you dont have the key. To continue your progression to Dragleic Castle, ignore the fountain and keep going through the little shrine and exit on the other side.
- Anonymous
Okay people seem confused about a couple of things.
1) Opening the Shrine of Winter with souls (instead of primal fires) is NOT--I REPEAT--NOT BASED ON TOTAL SOUL MEMORY. It is based on the number of souls collected in the current NG cycle. For first play through, that will be equivalent to your soul memory. On NG+, you need to collect 2 million souls IN ADDITION TO what you ended NG with. If you end NG with 3 million soul memory, you need 5 million soul memory to open the shrine, because that would be 2 million new souls in the NG+ cycle.
2) There is a water-well looking thing inside the Shrine of Winter that you can inspect which leads to a different set of doors. This page is NOT about that. If you found the well/circular thing, you HAVE opened the Shrine of Winter. The doors inside the well are for the DLC. The non-spoiler answer for how to open those is that you need to explore further in-game. If you just reached the Shrine of Winter, you don't need to backtrack--just keep heading forward. You can beat the game WITHOUT exploring the doors inside of the well, by the way. It's optional content.
- Anonymous
I am ng+ with 5M sm and it's not opening. What am I doing wrong?
- Anonymous
I know this is old but maybe he's still playing on the 360, ps4 versions of scholar? Cause on the 360, it's just given to you straight up at the start of the game. Maybe it's in your item box, idk, it's been YEARS since I've played the 360 version.
- Anonymous
On a ng++ If i went and killed the rotten 4 times with bf asthetics. It still says to seek mightier souls. Do the 4 different souls need to be aquired to get to drangelic ?
- Anonymous
if it won't open and u killed the 4 remember Freja the big spider boi docent give u his soul you need to pick it up off the ground after he dies
- Anonymous
Just a reminder that your player character kills 4 demigods just because they can't climb over a waist high pile of rubble
- Anonymous
Do I need the souls on my inventory or I can consume them and still have acces?
- Anonymous
so why are Old Iron King, The Rotten, The Lost Sinner and Duke's Dear Freja not Optional boss fights if you can get past door by obtaining a certain amount of Soul Memory in your current playthrough.
- Anonymous
Can someone edit this with a better explanation? Here's the deal: This article is NOT talking about the DLC area the fountain teleports you to. It's talking ONLY about the shrine itself, which you need to pass through to get to Drangleic Castle. If you come early to the shrine with the snake fountains (which is the Shrine of Winter), the door will be closed. Once you have the four Old Souls OR 1 million soul memory (2mil NG+, etc.) for this playthough, it will open. AGAIN: NOT THE DLC DOOR. JUST THE SHRINE.
- Anonymous
if you get hit to the ground by one of the giants and the head rolls over you it is possible to get stuck in it
- Anonymous
So, here's a proper answer for all the confused ppl (as I was until I found wtf is going on) that get even more confused by dumb rushed answers by ppl that don't have their facts straight.. There is one requirement to open the shrine room gate which is, as stated in wiki, to either kill the four bosses or get to 1m SM for NG( I had both done). Then there is a second requirement to open the gate of the castle outside of which you are teleported using the shrine of winter. This requirement is a key which if you don't have on you, you get the "closed" message when you get close to the castle gate. Now, for this key (Frozen Flower) to be obtainable, you need to have the Crown of the Ivory King DLC for DS2 or have the DS2:SotFS(which includes the DLC by default). In either case, the key is to be found inside the Drangleic Castle two rooms to the right exiting the first bonfire room.
- Anonymous
oh so i have to acquire about 12m souls to bypass the old ones?
- Anonymous
So this is my first playthrough I have acquired over 2m souls and lit all primal bonfires it doesn't work.
- Anonymous
All 4 primal fires lit, 1mil total souls, consumed the 4 souls, door won't open. I can't get more bonfire ascetics either to refight those bosses. Did I basically brick my game on my first playthrough?
- Anonymous
I am on NG+ and I have 5 m souls, still closed so the above figures are false
- Anonymous
Do you need to have 1,000,000 souls at the moment or just collecting 1,000,000 souls over time?
- Anonymous
You don't have to light the primal bonfires. Just didn't feel like editing this out.
"The gate to Shrine of Winter will open once you've obtained the four Old Souls and lit four Primal Bonfires. This is achieved by killing The Rotten, The Lost Sinner, Old Iron King, and Duke's Dear Freja. The doors can still be opened if the Dukes Dear Freja has not been killed, but when you speak to the Emerald Herald before the bridge to drangleic castle she explains that the journey will be significantly harder."
...
Does not work for me on PS4... Think i will have to kill Freja anyway...
- Anonymous
I have aquired the 4 souls needed and have also colected over 1m souls yet cant get the door to open in winters keep, what should i do?
- Anonymous
Why is this accessible for people without DLC? All you get is a thick white fog and death if you walk away from the teleporter.
- Anonymous
I have over 11 million soul memory and the Shrine of Winter is still locked. IDK if it's because your data is from the original (as I'm playing on the SOTFS edition). But none the less I think its something worth noting.
- Anonymous
guys i absorbed the lost sinner's soul, will i be able to open the gate if i kill other 3 ??
Auff well going for the plat now are on ng ++ and was thinking of going straght to chnselour tonget the 3 last spell but my soul memory was on 33 mill on first playtrough ( grinding levels because ai suck) so I guess I need around 100 mill souls to get past the winter shrine
1
+11
-1