Elden Ring features a wide variety of enigmatic characters, from Yura, Hunter of Bloody Fingers to White Mask Varre, and more. D, Hunter of the Dead also falls in this category and is arguably the most memorable of the bunch thanks in no small part to his iconic armor.
D doesn’t play a huge role in the story and doesn’t get nearly as much screen time as he should have, but it’s still worth completing his questline regardless. The NPC sells a couple of good Incantations, can be summoned to help you fight two mini bosses, and introduces you to Gurranq, Beast Glergyman. Even more importantly, you can get your hands on D’s sweet armor set toward the end of his questline.
Those Who Live In Death
Players can encounter D in eastern Limgrave on the road that leads to Summonwater Village. When you first interact with him, D will introduce himself as a hunter of undead creatures and warns you to stay away from Summonwater Village because it is infested by Those Who Live in Death. If you visit Roundtable Hold before exploring this area, you’ll first run into him there instead. He won’t mention the village if you talk to him there, but he will still warn you to stay away from the undead.
Needless to say, you’re going to ignore D’s warnings and head straight for Summonwater Village. In addition to skeletons, the village is also home to a Tibia Mariner. You can fight the Tibia Mariner while mounted to make things easier on yourself. Kill the mini boss and you will be rewarded with some runes, the Skeletal Militiamen Ashes, and one Deathroot.
Your next order of business is to return to D with the Deathroot. If you use the nearby Site of Grace after the fight, you’ll find D at the entrance of the village. Otherwise, you can go speak with him at Roundable Hold. Either way, once you show him the Deathroot, D will tell you about Gurranq and will mark a place on your map that shows the location of a waygate in Mistwood, just behind the Third Church of Marika. The waygate will teleport you to the Bestial Sanctum in Caelid where you can meet Gurranq and feed him any Deathroots you come across in your travels.
The Weathered Dagger
After you speak with Gurranq, D will become available as a merchant and will tell you a bit more about himself. Progressing his questline from this point on is less straightforward as it involves first completing some quests for a couple of other NPCs. Namely, Fia and Rogier. The questlines of these two NPCs are connected to each other and are intertwined with Ranni’s questline.
If you’re planning to do all of them, you should start with Rogier’s questline and progress it until the point where he mentions the “black knives plot”. Next up you’ll need to make your way to Altus Plateau in order to start Fia’s questline. You can access the area either by collecting the two halves of the Dectus Medallion and activating the Great Lift or by going through the Ruin-Strewn Precipice in northeastern Liurnia. Once you’re in the Altus Plateau, rest at any Site of Grace and then return to Fia at Roundtable Hold.
Allow Fia to embrace you and ask her about the Black Knifeprint to continue Rogier’s quest. Exhaust all the other dialogue options and Fia will eventually give you a Weathered Dagger and ask you to find its owner. It’s finally time to talk to D again. Once you show him the dagger, D admits that he knows who the owner is and promises to return it to them. Unfortunately, we never get to learn how the owner was because D will die shortly after.
The next time you return to Roundtable Hold you’ll find D in a newly-opened room past the smithy, with Fia sitting next to his body. D looks like he was killed by something akin to Death Blight and Fia confesses that she’s one of the beings that live in death, the very same beings D was hunting. You can put two and two together and figure out what happened here. Perform a Prayer gesture if you wish and loot the body to find D’s Bell Bearing along with the Twinned Set armor.
(Optional) D Story
At this point, D’s questline is technically over, but you can continue the story by completing a little side quest involving D’s twin brother. You learn about the existence of D’s twin and his approximate location in Nokron, Eternal City after finishing Rogier’s questline and reading the letter he leaves behind. However, you can find the NPC even before finishing the quest.
If you travel to Nokron you’ll come across an NPC called D, Beholder of Death sitting in the area leading up to the Great Waterfall Basin. The Beholder of the Death won’t interact with you unless you have the Twinned Armor in your possession. If you do, you can give him the armor, and he’ll immediately vanish, but can be summoned to help you fight the Valiant Gargoyles.
D, Beholder of Death will then show up again near the end of Fia’s questline to seek vengeance for his brother’s death. Once Fia is no more, talk to him and then reload the area once you’ve exhausted all his dialogue options. The Beholder of Death will be gone when you return, but he’ll leave behind the Twinned Set armor along with the Inseparable Sword as a reward.
