Shifting Earth Bosses – Elden Ring: Nightreign

Some of the most challenging regions in Elden Ring: Nightreign are the Shifting Earth events, where a quadrant of the map will change radically into a different kind of region. These areas have some of the best loot in the game, but also some of the most powerful enemies — especially at the end of the Shifting Earth Event.

Thankfully, we have this guide, which will let you know all the Bosses that you can encounter in each of the 4 Shifting Earth events, as well as how hard they are and what you’ll be awarded for defeating them.


Shifting Earth bosses are, as their title implies, bosses that show up in Nightreign’s Shifting Earth Events. There are four possible Shifting Earth Events (The Crater, Mountaintop, The Rotted Woods, and Noklateo, The Shrouded City), each of which drastically alter a quadrant of the map and which give a very strong Power upon completion (which is different for every type of Shifting Earth Event).

Unlike other Bosses, Shifting Earth bosses are static, meaning that any given Shifting Earth event will have the same bosses in the same places, giving the same rewards. This makes learning them much simpler than most of the game, which is good because of how difficult several of these fights are.

Three of the Shifting Earth Events (all except the Rotted Woods) have a final boss that is usually very difficult (with one of them, the Mountaintop Ice Dragon, being the toughest non-Night-Lord enemy in the game). Of those, both the Crater and Noklateo’s final bosses must be defeated in order to get access to the Shifting Earth Power, while the Mountaintop final boss can (and often should) be avoided.

The crater features 5 bosses. The Fallingstar Beast, Demi-Human Queen, and Valiant Gargoyle patrol its edge, the Fire Prelates block a fog gate that must be openned to progress into the Crater, and the Magma Wyrm guards the Legendary Smithing Table at the very bottom of the crater.

Boss Name
Runes
Dormant Powers
Effort
Demi-Human Queen
15000 ernr runes
2x Blue+ Armaments, 1x Blue+ Upgrade
Easy
Fallingstar Beast
50000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Hard
Fire Prelates
23600 ernr runes
14000 + (4800 x 2)
2x Blue+ Armaments, 1x Blue+ Upgrade
Medium
Magma Wyrm
45000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade,
Access to the Legendary Smithing Table:
Upgrades one armament to Gold quality.
Hard
Valiant Gargoyle
45000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Hard

The Mountaintop has 3 static bosses — the Demi-Human Swordmaster, the Flying Dragon, and the Snowfield Trolls — that can be defeated for Runes and Dormant Powers, but don’t need to be in order to progress. The Mountaintop Ice Dragon can also be avoided, but it will descend upon Nightfarers in several locations, inflicting Frostbite around the arena as they climb the mountain. While the Ice Dragon does not need to be defeated to get to the Mountaintop’s Power, it does need to be actively avoided.

Boss Name
Runes
Dormant Powers
Effort
Demi-Human Swordmaster
18000 ernr runes
2x Blue+ Armaments, 1x Blue+ Upgrade
Medium
Flying Dragon
18000 ernr runes
2x Blue+ Armaments, 1x Blue+ Upgrade
Medium
Mountaintop Ice Dragon
104500 ernr runes
1x Gold and 1x Purple+ Armament, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Very Hard*
Snowfield Trolls
18000 ernr runes
9000 x 2
2x Blue+ Armaments, 1x Blue+ Upgrade
Medium
The Mountaintop Ice Dragon is the only non-Night-Lord bosses that can be considered “Very Hard,” due to its excessive difficulty

The Rotted woods has 6 static Tier-2 Field Bosses that are always in the same locations. None of these bosses need to be dealt with in order to access the Rotted Woods’ Power, though they can be for a great amount of Runes and strong Dormant Powers. There is also a weak Lordsworn Captain boss in the Rotted Fort deep in the Woods, who stands next to the tower that houses the map that reveals the location of the Power.

Boss Name
Runes
Dormant Powers
Effort
Ancestor Spirit
30000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Medium
Bell Bearing Hunter
30000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Medium
Black Blade Kindred
45000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Hard
Erdtree Avatar
30000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Medium
Lordsworn Captain
3600 ernr runes
2x Blue+ Armaments
Trivial
Royal Carian Knight
45000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Hard
Ulcerated Tree Spirit
30000 ernr runes
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Medium

Noklateo features several bosses dotted around its cityscape, but the boss in the Cathedral at the end of the city will always be the Naturalborn of the Void. Defeating this boss is required in order to gain the Favor of Noklateo power.

Boss Name
Runes
Dormant Powers
Effort
Black Knife Assassin
???
???
Easy
Dragonkin Soldier
???
???
Medium
Headless Troll
???
???
Medium
Naturalborn of the Void
???
2x Purple+ Armaments, 1x Purple+ Upgrade
Favor of Noklateo, the Shrouded City Power:
Rise from near-death, unaided, a single time, and become more powerful for a short time
Hard
This section of the guide is a Work in Progress as well continue to explore the Shrouded City
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Graves
Graves

Graves is an avid writer, web designer, and gamer, with more ideas than he could hope to achieve in a lifetime. But, armed with a mug of coffee and an overactive imagination, he'll try. When he isn't working on a creative project, he is painting miniatures, reading cheesy sci-fi novels, or making music.

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