Dark Souls 3 Covenant Rewards Guide: Proof Farming and Rank Requirements

Covenants hand out some of the best stuff in Dark Souls 3, and almost none of it drops from bosses. A staff that casts sorceries off Faith, a ring worth two free attunement slots, one of the strongest weapon buffs in the game - it all sits behind proof items. Hand enough to the right NPC and you get a reward at 10 turn-ins, then a better one at 30. Simple on paper. The catch is that most of these tokens drop from enemies at around 1%, and the online routes depend on catching matches at the right level. So here's the whole picture: where each faction lives, how the game counts your offerings, the offline farm for each token, and what you get at each rank.

Joining Each Covenant

Every covenant works the same way. Find the insignia, equip it in your accessory slot, done. Swap between any badges you own whenever you like, and leaving never wipes your rank progress. A few have fiddly requirements, and one can be missed outright.

The easy pickups

• Way of Blue: Talk to Emma, the high priestess in the cathedral across from Vordt's arena in the High Wall of Lothric. Exhaust her dialogue and it's yours. No ranks, no offerings - it exists so blues come rescue you when you're invaded.
• Warrior of Sunlight: In the Undead Settlement, run from the bonfire through the corpse-house toward the burning tree, then straight past the houses at the bottom of the stairs and through the stone archway into the first house. A gap in the floor hides under boxes - drop through and grab the talisman off the table across from the Estus Soup pot.
• Blue Sentinels: Anri and Horace give it to you at the Halfway Fortress bonfire in the Road of Sacrifices. Miss them there and it shows up at Firelink Shrine after Deacons of the Deep is dead.

The missable one: Mound-makers

This is the covenant people lock themselves out of. You join by climbing into the cage strapped to a huge hollow wandering the Settlement - it teleports you to Holy Knight Hodrick, who hands over the insignia. To find him: cross the wooden bridge past the burning-tree camp, smash the crates, go around behind the stables, up the small house ladder, and drop off the roof on the right.

The cutoff is the Curse-Rotted Greatwood. Kill that boss first and the cage route is gone. Your backup is Sirris: after beating Aldrich, her summon sign appears at the Greatwood's boss door, and surviving that fight gets you the badge. If the Greatwood is dead and Sirris's quest is already broken, the insignia is gone until next playthrough. Two gotchas: the cage won't work while you're summoned or invaded, and the only way out of Hodrick's pit is a Homeward Bone (he gives you one if you keep talking).

Cathedral and swamp factions

• Rosaria's Fingers: Rosaria, Mother of Rebirth waits in her bedchamber in the Cathedral of the Deep, reachable after the Deacons. Talk and you're in. Big warning though - offering a tongue to rank up makes Sirris abandon Firelink forever and kills her whole quest. Respeccing or changing your face there doesn't count; only the rank-up offering flips that switch. Finish everything you want from Sirris first, then feed the tongues.
• Watchdogs of Farron: Deep in Farron Keep's poison swamp there's a ruined tower with a long ladder. Pray to the Old Wolf at the top and the insignia is yours.
• Aldrich Faithful: From the Pontiff Sulyvahn bonfire, go straight through the door, left up the stairs, right through the valley of dead giants, into the far door. An illusory wall sits on your immediate left - smack it, climb down the ladder, and get past the two Sulyvahn's Beasts. Archdeacon McDonnell is in the corner with your badge.

Blade of the Darkmoon

Company Captain Yorshka lives in the Prison Tower above Anor Londo. Reach her by aligning the rotating staircase's broken platform toward the tower left of the Anor Londo bonfire, then walking the invisible path across. Problem: she won't deal with you until you perform the Darkmoon Loyalty gesture, and that gesture comes from Sirris at Firelink Shrine after you give the Dreamchaser's Ashes to the shrine handmaid. One more reason to keep her quest breathing. Killing Yorshka for the insignia works too, but then you can't turn anything in until next cycle, which defeats the point.

Spears of the Church (DLC)

Ringed City only. The insignia drops when you kill Darkeater Midir below the Inner Ring Wall bonfire. The turn-in altar sits outside the Church of Filianore, next to the Ringed Knight carrying paired greatswords.

Tracking Offering Items

Here's the annoying part: the game never shows a progress bar. It counts your offerings silently, per covenant, and the counter survives badge swaps. It even carries into NG+, so 8 proofs offered in your first run still count as 8 in the next.

A few habits make that survivable. Count backwards from rewards - if you're holding the Darkmoon Ring but not Darkmoon Blade, you're somewhere between 10 and 30, and that last reward is your only in-game receipt. Blue Sentinels and Blade of the Darkmoon share a single rank, both turning in to Yorshka, so don't count them as two separate grinds.

Watch for the double items, too. Proof of a Concord Well Kept (killing an Aldrich Faithful as a blue) and Forked Pale Tongue (killing a blue as an invader) each convert into two of the regular item - but only if you use them from your inventory like a soul item. Yorshka won't take the Well Kept directly, which trips people up. And don't turn in while being summoned - a known Watchdogs bug can eat a swordgrass reward if the offering lands the moment an auto-summon fires.

Free pickups exist too, and every one is a turn-in you don't farm:

| Token | Free pickups | | --- | --- | | Proof of a Concord Kept | 2 - one on the altar at the Church of Yorshka bonfire, one by the clerics on Anor Londo's left stairs | | Wolf's Blood Swordgrass | 1 - down the ladder from the Old Wolf bonfire, right, in the corner near the Estus Soup | | Human Dregs | 1 - center of McDonnell's room | | Sunlight Medal | 1 - on a corpse near the Sunlight Altar, with a view of Dragonslayer Armour's fog | | Pale Tongue | 3 - hanging corpse where you fight the Fire Demon with Siegward, plus two around the Cathedral of the Deep | | Vertebra Shackle | 1 - kill Hodrick when he invades you near the Dilapidated Bridge in the Settlement |

Two caps worth knowing: Rosaria stops taking tongues at 99 offered, and consuming a Forked Pale Tongue while holding 98 or 99 regular ones just deletes the overflow instead of storing it. Keep a few tongues in reserve - respecs at Rosaria cost one each, five per cycle, and respec is how you pump Luck for farming (safe for Sirris, since it's not a rank-up offering).

Offline Farming Routes

Every farm below leans on Item Discovery first. Your stat screen shows it: 100 base, plus one point per Luck, plus gear on top.

| Source | Bonus | | --- | --- | | Covetous Gold Serpent Ring | +50 | | Covetous Gold Serpent Ring +3 (Ringed City, base NG) | +115 | | Symbol of Avarice | +100 | | Crystal Sage's Rapier (each, works sheathed) | +50 | | Rusted Coin (buy from Patches) | +50 | | Rusted Gold Coin | +70 |

A realistic endgame setup - the +3 ring, the mimic head, one rapier, a respec into Luck - lands you between 425 and 500. Wiki testing on silver knights puts the proof drop at 1% base, about 3.4% at 350 discovery, 4.12% at 425, and 4.8% at 500. A second rapier in the other hand stacks, and the same multiplier logic applies to every token below.

Pale Tongues - Farron Keep Perimeter (5%)

The best drop rate in the game. Walk out of the Farron Keep Perimeter bonfire and two Darkwraiths are right there - they'll happily brawl the local Ghrus on their own while you watch. Kill them, reset at the bonfire, repeat. Every Ghru they murder on the side is a free swordgrass ticket too.

Sunlight Medals - Lothric Castle (2%)

From the Lothric Castle bonfire, a Lothric Knight marches into the doorway right in front of you. Kill him before the cleric up the hall can buff him, then reset. Big weapons stagger him, parry-ripostes delete him, and lightning damage hurts him extra. The friendliest grind after tongues.

Vertebra Shackles - Catacombs of Carthus (1%)

From the first Catacombs bonfire, head out and right past the rolling skeleton ball. Two big red-eyed Gravewarden skeletons wait there. The trick is dragging them into the path of the returning ball so it does the killing for you, then bonfire-resetting. Community testing measured 1% at base discovery climbing to about 4.2% at 490ish. You'll bank Titanite Shards and Carthus weapons along the way, which softens the mood.

Human Dregs - the Pontiff elevator (1-2%)

Ride the elevator up from the Pontiff Sulyvahn bonfire and nine Devout of the Deep shuffle along the courtyard overlook. The regular ones drop dregs at 1%, the tall ones at 2%, so prioritize the tall ones. If you'd rather loop somewhere quieter, three Devouts stand with their backs turned just outside the Aldrich boss room.

Wolf's Blood Swordgrass - the Keep Ruins bridge (about 1%)

Warp to Keep Ruins and kill the three Ghrus on the bridge. Sampling over 195 runs put the poison-spitters at 1.68% and the shieldbearers at 0.92% - roughly a 1.2% shot per three-kill loop. One-shot spells make this painless: cast Hidden Body so they don't aggro, then Chaos Fireball or a Crystal Soul Spear, standing so a single cast clips two of them. One Rusted Coin lasts about four loops - that's 12 dead Ghrus a minute when it's flowing.

Proofs of a Concord Kept - the Anor Londo stairs (1%)

The famous one. Two Silver Knights guard the stairs up from the Anor Londo bonfire; kill both, sit at the bonfire, go again. A clean loop runs 35 to 40 seconds, about 3.3 knights per minute. Skip the third red-eyed knight up on the right - adding him drops your kills per minute.

Silver Knights take 26% more damage from Dark, so a dark-infused weapon speeds things along. Parry the spear knight's thrust and riposte with a dagger plus the Hornet Ring; the sword knight charges into easy backstabs after his lightning rush. Casters can one-shot both with Crystal Soul Spear (60 INT, a +9 Court Sorcerer's Staff, Magic Clutch Ring, dragoncrest rings), pushing four kills a minute with a coin rolling.

Thirty proofs at one-in-twenty-five is 750 knight kills - a full afternoon. It's the worst token grind in the game, which is why the online tricks below exist.

Filianore's Spear Ornaments - basically online-only

Ringed Knights drop ornaments rarely, and nobody serious farms that - the covenant's whole economy is PvP defense. Offline, treat the Spears as a bonus.

Online Matchmaking Options

Two hidden numbers decide who you match with: soul level and the highest weapon upgrade you've ever held. Co-op signs connect roughly across your level plus or minus 10% plus 10, and password summons skip the check, with the phantom's damage scaled to fit. The auto-summon covenants pull from wider bands - territorial defenders like the Watchdogs and Aldrich Faithful can land in worlds from 20 under 80% of the host's level up to 10% above it.

That band is why level discipline matters:

• Watchdogs of Farron hit hardest around soul level 25 with weapons no higher than +2 or +3, because that's where the Farron Keep crowd sits. Park near the Abyss Watchers boss door, a known hot spot. The host's side needs an area boss (Abyss Watchers or Crystal Sage) still alive.
• Aldrich Faithful want roughly natural Irithyll levels - the Pontiff-to-Anor-Londo crowd. Badge on, idle near the Pontiff bonfire, and the game does the rest.
• Blues can wear the badge anywhere and still get pulled, though waits are shortest around post-Pontiff Irithyll. Flashing white covenant icon means you're searching.

A few mechanics that pay out extra:

• Escorting counts. If your host walks through a boss fog with the invader still alive, the game scores that as a win and pays you a Proof. Body-blocking a nervous host all the way to the boss room is a real farming strategy. An invader who crystals out on their own pays nothing, mind.
• Stay for seconds. Each banished invader pays one Proof, and you stay in the world while any invader lives - a gank squad of three is three ears off one summon. Killing an Aldrich invader with the badge on pays a Well Kept, worth two more proofs once you use it.
• Sunlight pays both ways. Beat a boss as a gold phantom and you and the host each get a medal - drop your sign at whatever boss everyone's stuck on. Killing a host as a golden invader pays a medal too.
• Mound-makers cheese: two players, one Red Sign Soapstone, a password, and a bonfire. Summon, kill, repeat - shackles at friendship speed, with no soul risk if the host dies next to the bonfire.
• Spears of the Church: use any online item in the Ringed City - white sign, red sign, cracked orb - and you can get drafted as the Halflight boss fight itself. You can't sip Estus as a Spear, but your stats scale up per phantom the host brings, and wins pay ornaments.
• Way of Blue plus Dried Finger resets the invasion timer, allows a third friendly phantom, and opens the door to a second invader. That's the recipe for the giant Pontiff brawls, and every invader who shows up is billable work for nearby blues.

One trap: invading with a Red Eye Orb while wearing the Watchdogs or Aldrich badge pays Pale Tongues, not swordgrass or dregs. Territorial factions only pay their token on auto-summoned defense. Along the same lines, blues never answer a Way of Blue host against covenant defenders - only against regular red invaders.

Rewards at Each Rank

Every covenant caps at rank 2, and the counts are totals rather than separate tiers - 30 offered gets you everything, no 10-then-30 nonsense. Way of Blue has no ranks at all.

| Covenant | Token | Rank 1 (10) | Rank 2 (30) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Warrior of Sunlight | Sunlight Medal | Sacred Oath | Great Lightning Spear | | Blue Sentinels / Blade of the Darkmoon | Proof of a Concord Kept | Darkmoon Ring | Darkmoon Blade | | Rosaria's Fingers | Pale Tongue | Obscuring Ring | Man-Grub's Staff | | Mound-makers | Vertebra Shackle | Bloodlust | Warmth | | Watchdogs of Farron | Wolf's Blood Swordgrass | Old Wolf Curved Sword | Wolf Knight's Greatshield and Wolf Ring | | Aldrich Faithful | Human Dregs | Great Deep Soul | Archdeacon's Great Staff | | Spears of the Church | Filianore's Spear Ornament | Young Grass Dew | Divine Spear Fragment |

What the good ones actually do:

• Sacred Oath reads as a flat 10% boost to damage and absorption on your status screen. In PvP it gets cut down to about 5% damage and 2% absorption, so don't burn the FP dueling with it.
• Great Lightning Spear hides a point-blank hit - cast it while hugging an enemy and the cast itself lands along with the spear. As a melee-range execution tool it hits way harder than its reputation.
• Darkmoon Ring grants two attunement slots for free. Build-defining for hybrid casters, and it costs just 10 proofs - the best value per turn-in in the system.
• Darkmoon Blade is a heavy lightning weapon buff that scales with Faith, an endgame pick for miracle builds.
• Archdeacon's Great Staff casts sorceries scaled entirely off Faith, with spell buff 241 at 60 Faith. Suddenly the whole sorcery list opens up for a faith character (you still need each spell's INT requirement).
• Young Grass Dew works passively whenever you're summoned as a Spear: 10% more FP, extra absorption, poise, stamina regen, and one extra homing knife. The Divine Spear Fragment is the boss's signature move - a row of upward-thrusting lightning spears dealing roughly double the Ritual Spear Fragment's damage, unlimited uses on a shared cooldown.
• Warmth slowly heals everything near it, enemies included - great for fight clubs, chaotic everywhere else. The Obscuring Ring hides you from distant players in multiplayer, and the Man-Grub's Staff scales with Luck, which pairs nicely with a farming build.
• The Wolf Ring adds poise and the Wolf Knight's Greatshield rounds out the Old Wolf sword; Bloodlust is a katana whose weapon art trades your own HP for damage.

So which grind first? Tongues and medals are close to free - darkwraiths drop at 5%, and co-op pays medals to both sides. Swordgrass and dregs run you an evening each with discovery gear. Shackles go fast with the ball trick or a cooperative friend. The ears are the wall: even at one-in-twenty-five, rank 2 means 750 silver knights, so milk the boss-fog escort trick and the post-Pontiff fight clubs first. And if you run a faith build - Darkmoon Blade, Sacred Oath, Great Lightning Spear, and a staff that casts off Faith is basically half a kit from turn-ins alone.