# Shrine of Winter

### Quick Reference

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<table id="bkmrk-boss-npcs-notable-lo"><tr><th>Boss</th><th>NPCs</th><th>Notable Loot</th><th>Enemies</th><th>Enemy Drops</th></tr><tr><td>None</td><td>None</td><td>Repair (DS II)  
Soul of a Hero (SotFS)</td><td>Heide Knight  
Royal Swordsman  
Crystal Lizard</td><td>Heide Lance  
Heide Knight Set  
Royal Swordsman Set  
Royal Greatsword</td></tr></table>

### Description

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A matte black shrine, consisting of serpentine pillars and various murals. It can be found from the Ruined Fork Road bonfire of the Shaded Woods, by going up the stairs and exiting the doorway on the left.

The shrine serves as a barrier to Drangleic Castle.

### How to Open

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Obtaining the following 4 boss souls during the current playthrough will allow the door to open:

- Old Iron King Soul
- Soul of the Duke's Dear Freja
- Soul of the Lost Sinner
- Soul of the Rotten

Alternatively, this requirement can be bypassed by obtaining enough souls. It requires 1 million souls in the first playthrough, and in subsequent playthroughs, an additional million each time.

Note that it is **not** based on souls currently held, nor your total Soul Memory. It is based on the total number of souls obtained *during* your current playthrough. If you began NG+ with 5 million Soul Memory, it'll need to pass 7 million in order to meet the 2 million requirement.

In *Dark Souls II*, an easy way to meet the requirement of obtaining 2 million souls in NG+ is to collect 80 Giant Lord Souls in the Memory of Jeigh in NG using the respawning Bonfire Ascetic. This is especially useful for No Death runs. However, note that this will make the fight with the Giant Lord - which is necessary for completing the game - significantly harder.

In *Scholar of the First Sin*, an easier method is to farm the Soul of a Great Hero in the Dragon Aerie in NG, which is on a ledge accessed by dropping from the zip line near the bonfire. A respawning Bonfire Ascetic is also located in the first cave nearby, and the entire area can be bypassed in NG+ and above. Using Soul of a Great Hero exclusively to meet the 2M requirement will require collecting 99; getting the extra 20,000 souls at the start of NG+ should be trivial. Fewer are required depending on how many other types of souls you have available to consume.

<table id="bkmrk-playthrough-souls-ob"><tr><th>Playthrough</th><th>Souls Obtained</th></tr><tr><td>First</td><td>1,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+</td><td>2,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+2</td><td>3,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+3</td><td>4,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+4</td><td>5,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+5</td><td>6,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+6</td><td>7,000,000</td></tr><tr><td>NG+7 (cap)</td><td>8,000,000</td></tr></table>

#### Map (Japanese)

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### Connections

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- Shaded Woods
- Drangleic Castle
- Frozen Eleum Loyce

### Loot

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- In Dark Souls II, the Repair sorcery is near the pile of rubble blocking the road. In Scholar of the First Sin, this is a Soul of a Hero.

### Notes

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- After the Shrine is open, certain merchants will upgrade their stock limits.
- In earlier versions of the game there have been ways to bypass the Shrine by doing a series of out-of-bound jumps. 
    - Shrine of Winter Skip 1.0
    - Shrine of Winter Skip 1.0.5