Ancient Dragon Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dragon Shrine

At the very tippity top of the enormous shrine is an equally massive dragon. The Ancient Dragon is magnificently huge, in such a way where the player will more than likely marvel at its size if this is the first time they are seeing it. The Ancient Dragon is so huge that it's bigger than two Guardian Dragons stacked atop one another.

It also has more health than three entire Guardian Dragons combined. Needless to say, this is dialing up the stakes!

Answer: Ashen Mist Heart

The Ashen Mist Heart is needed in order to access any Memory areas. There are six Memory areas, five in the base game and one in the "Crown of the Iron King" DLC. One of these memories, the Memory of Jeigh, contains a mandatory boss fight with Giant Lord that the player won't be able to reach without the Ashen Mist Heart.

Answer: No

When entering the boss room, the humungous dragon is initially docile. It can actually be talked to, and if the player talks to it, it will have a short bit of telepathic dialogue for the player before simply giving them the Ashen Mist Heart completely for free.

If the player runs in, does not talk to the dragon, and starts fighting it, killing it will now be mandatory. If attacked before spoken to, the dragon will keep the Ashen Mist Heart and will now have to be killed in order to drop it.

This dilemma can be easily solved by simply talking to the dragon before fighting it, if the player did want to kill it. Some players do not possess the skill to beat the Ancient Dragon, in which case, they will want to simply talk to it, get the Ashen Mist Heart, then be on their merry way to go progress the game.

Answer: 20,000

Specifically, the dragon has exactly 19,984 HP. To emphasize how ridiculous this is, the Guardian Dragon, the boss fought in the area prior to this one, has just a shade over 5,000 HP. The Ancient Dragon has about as much health as four Guardian Dragons. Do not make the mistake of assuming this is just a slightly different dragon with a slightly different name!

Answer: Lightning

The Ancient Dragon's weakness to Lightning is a surprisingly high 30%, giving players a much needed edge in cutting into its enormous health bar.

Players may find the creature to be essentially invincible to Fire however, as between its massive health bar and huge 75% resistance to Fire, they may as well not bother trying. Even the mightiest Pyromancies will fail to even really scratch it.

Answer: Attack the dragon

Because the Ancient Dragon is not initially hostile, the game does not view it as a boss fight. Because there is no boss fight, nobody can be summoned. When there is an actively available boss fight, summons can be had. By attacking the dragon, it will begin to fight back and turn into a boss fight. By attacking it and then immediately quitting out of the game, the player can backtrack and summon who they intend to summon.

Answer: Melinda the Butcher

Astoundingly, this is the only boss Melinda can actually be summoned for. Players are likely to struggle remembering her name, but those who are really good with names may recall being invaded by this very same Melinda all the way back in The Gutter. Slaying her here is actually required for her to be summonable for this fight.

Melinda is, to put it simply, a wee bit out of context in this fight and in some really odd ways. She wears... no clothing, whatsoever, and has nothing to fight with but a simple Greataxe. However, she has a ridiculous resistance of 95% to Fire. 95%! Old Iron King and Ancient Dragon itself do not resist Fire as thoroughly as Melinda does, and she is basically butt-naked!

Sadly, Melinda is a really, really, REALLY poor choice for a summon. Maybe the single poorest summon in all of From Software history. Not only is she completely useless for the boss fight, but she actually makes the trip to the boss fight way more perilous and annoying than it should be, by aggroing every single enemy in a pack where most are docile along the way. Then, when you get to the boss, you find yourself fighting a dragon who likes to fly a lot, and your summon has nothing but a Greataxe to fight with. What, is she supposed to throw the weapon at the dragon?

Sadly, the alternate option for a summon in Head of Vengarl is basically about as useless as Melinda for this fight. If wanting to fight Ancient Dragon, the player seriously needs to get comfortable squaring up with it solo, as their only two options for a summon straight up make the entire experience horrible.

Answer: Soul of a Giant

The Soul of a Giant works differently from any other soul in the game. If immediately consumed, the player will receive 10,000 souls. It also cannot be traded away for anything. However, Souls of a Giant are needed to make a later boss fight with Vendrick progressively more approachable. For every Soul of a Giant in the player's inventory, Vendrick's defenses towards everything get shredded. There are five Souls of a Giant across the game, and one is earned here. They cannot be farmed, even with a Bonfire Ascetic, so the player must ensure to keep hold of their Souls of a Giant until after Vendrick is slain.

In addition to a Soul of a Giant, the Ancient Dragon also drops one Petrified Dragon Bone on defeat.

Answer: Dragon Memories

The Dragon Memories can be found inside the boss room of The Duke's Dear Freja. Of course, Freja must be slain for the player to access the Dragon Memories. After Freja is slain and the player has the Ashen Mist Heart, they can come here, access the Dragon Memories, and find the Ancient Dragon Soul off a corpse inside the area.

Answer: It is a construct; a fake

The evidence directly found in game is that this is the only boss in the game who represents a Boss Soul that is not dropped to the player on defeat. Every single other boss that has a Boss Soul, simply drops it to the player when they're defeated. This implies that the creature the player fought was not in possession of the Ancient Dragon Soul, further suggesting that this was not actually the true Ancient Dragon.

As it turns out, it was a creature of Aldia's creation. This makes sense considering it drops a Soul of a Giant, which is needed to fight Vendrick, who is Aldia's estranged brother. The only true question is, did those who come to pay their respects to it at the Dragon Shrine know of this debauchery?