The Lore & Forge Reviews

The Fire Knight's Greatsword is a colossal sword from Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree, carried by the Fire Knights who served Messmer the Impaler and dropped by them at a 4% rate inside the Shadow Keep. Its blade is a long, narrow ribbon of steel that twists along its whole length, and it comes pre-blessed with a flame incantation.

Here is the number that broke our expectations of it. In game, this thing is a colossal sword — the heaviest weapon class in Elden Ring, 16.0 weight units, the category built for people who like watching stamina bars empty. Our replica of it is 30 cm long and weighs 75 grams. For comparison, our Grafted Blade Greatsword is a colossal sword too, one centimetre shorter — and it weighs 262 g. Same class, same length, three and a half times the mass. The Fire Knight's Greatsword is lighter than several of our 22 cm swords.

Quick Facts

How Does a Colossal Sword Weigh Only 75 Grams?

Look at the blade. It isn't a slab — it's a narrow band of steel that spirals as it runs, so the profile is thin in every direction at once. Then look at the guard, which is where this design gets genuinely unusual: it's openwork, a cage of curved metal strands splayed out around the grip like something growing rather than something forged. There's more air in that guard than metal.

Cast that shape in zinc alloy at 30 cm and you get 2.5 grams per centimetre. Our 30 cm Magma Blade, which is a broad solid slab, runs about 9.4. That's the whole explanation: this is the only colossal sword in our catalogue that's mostly negative space.

What that means in practice is a piece that reads much bigger than it weighs, and one you should pick up by the grip rather than by the guard — those strands are the most delicate casting we've done. It's still zinc alloy, so it does the thing all our pieces do: it pulls the heat out of your fingers within about a second of contact, which is a strange sensation on a sword whose entire lore premise is fire. If you want the opposite experience at the same length, the Greatsword of Solitude is 159 g of Shadow Realm knight steel and sits on the shelf like a brick.

Who Were the Fire Knights?

This is the part the build guides skip, and it's the best story in the Shadow Keep.

The Fire Knights answered directly to Messmer the Impaler. Every one of them came from a distinguished family in the Erdtree's upper society — and every one of them was cast out of that family for swearing themselves to him. That's the deal they made. Their own armour describes them as the only people who genuinely understood their lord: the serpentine flame he carried, and the cursed thing living inside him that came with it.

They're recognisable at a glance once you know: tall, lean, red-haired like Messmer himself, soot on the armour, a crimson cape, twin golden serpents coiled at the throat. Their captain, Kood, wore a winged serpent on his helm — the winged serpent being the wiser creature, the one that holds the base serpent's power in check. An entire order defined by proximity to a curse they chose on purpose.

And here's the turn. The Fire Knights burned their way through the crusade into the Land of Shadow, and then, at the end of it, they argued their own lord out of finishing the job — persuading Messmer to spare the Ancient Ruins of Rauh and the relics inside them. Two knights in particular, Salza the sage and his friend Hilde, refused the order to put the specimen collection to the torch. Hilde didn't survive it. Her ashes were enshrined in the storehouse as a protective charm, which is a very FromSoftware way of saying she's still on shift.

The other order Messmer bent for was Rellana's. She left the moon behind to follow him into the Shadow Realm, and the twin blades she carried there are the closest thing the Fire Knights had to a colleague from another department. We keep the whole crusade's arsenal mapped in the Elden Ring Armory Hub .

Why Does the Blade Undulate Like That?

Because it's supposed to be shaped like flame, not like a sword. The in-game description says as much: the Fire Knights' greatswords and shortswords both use that long, waving, spiralling profile. It's a design decision that reads as decorative until you notice it's the visual signature of an entire faction — you can identify a Fire Knight from across a room by the silhouette of what they're holding.

Mechanically it scales with Strength, Dexterity and Faith, which is an unusual spread for a colossal sword and the reason it became a fixture in faith builds after the DLC landed. It ships with a flame blessing already applied, and — this is the important bit — any further fire imbuement stacks on top of that rather than replacing it, which is why Flame Art affinity plus a Fire Knight skill turns it into something disproportionate. It takes standard Smithing Stones to +25, not Somber ones, so it's one of the more affordable DLC weapons to actually max out. Full stat tables and scaling curves live on the Elden Ring Wiki .

The catch is the 4% drop rate. There is no chest, no boss, no quest reward — you kill the same knight, take the elevator, kill him again. Most players get theirs at the one guarding the lift up to the Specimen Storehouse, because there's a grace point right there and the loop is short.

What Are All Those Skulls Doing on the Shelves?

That's the set, and it's the reason we wanted to build this one.

The Specimen Storehouse is the tallest tower in Messmer's keep, and it is not an armoury. It's a library — floor after floor of stone tablets, scrolls, and preserved specimens of lifeforms nobody can name, a collection of knowledge older than the Golden Order itself. The Fire Knights weren't just garrisoned there. They ran it. They catalogued it. The order of exiled nobles who set half a realm on fire spent their off-hours as librarians and curators of monsters.

So we built a corner of it: shelves of books in mismatched bindings, rolled scrolls, ranks of stoppered bottles, a skull on one shelf and a length of vertebrae on another, a suit of armour standing sentinel, a lantern, a reading table with a manuscript still open on it. Books and bottles spilled across the flagstones, because something happened here recently. And on the left, at the edge of frame, the cages — because a storehouse of specimens implies that some of the specimens arrived alive.

Every photo on this page is a real shot of the real replica inside that handmade set. No CGI, no renders, no stock backgrounds. Our whole studio is two people and a table, and the table currently has a library on it.

If the Specimen Storehouse is the part of the DLC you think about more than the boss fights, the Fire Knight's Greatswor belongs on a shelf with books on it.

The Honest Corner

The openwork guard is the thing to know before you buy. Those curved strands are cast metal and they hold their shape fine, but they're the finest structure we produce — pick the piece up by the grip, not the guard, and don't let a curious houseguest bend one to see if it bends. It won't spring back.

Otherwise, the standard honesty: this is a 30 cm display collectible, not a functional weapon. Every edge is cast blunt from the mould and we recommend it for ages 14+. The blade does not glow, ignite, or undulate; it's cast metal catching light, and no amount of Flame Art affinity will change that. It's a fan-made, independently designed piece from a two-person workshop — not licensed by, affiliated with, or endorsed by FromSoftware or Bandai Namco. Display stands are optional add-ons (Small +$2, Large +$3, Vertical +$4); for this one the vertical stand is worth a thought, because the twist in the blade only really shows when the sword is stood up.

FAQ

Where do you get the Fire Knight's Greatsword in Elden Ring? It drops from greatsword-wielding Fire Knights inside the Shadow Keep in Shadow of the Erdtree, at roughly a 4% rate. The usual farming spot is the knight guarding the lift to the Specimen Storehouse, near the Storehouse, First Floor site of grace — you can reset him quickly from the nearest grace.

Is the Fire Knight's Greatsword good? For faith builds, yes — it scales with Strength, Dexterity and Faith, arrives with a flame blessing already applied, and stacks further fire imbuement on top of that rather than overwriting it. It also upgrades on standard Smithing Stones to +25, which makes it cheap to bring up to speed relative to most DLC weapons.

Who were the Fire Knights? An order sworn directly to Messmer the Impaler, drawn from noble Erdtree families who disowned them for it. They fought his crusade into the Land of Shadow — and also managed and preserved the specimen collection in the Shadow Keep's storehouse, talking Messmer out of burning it.

How big is 30 cm (11.8"), really? About the length of a sheet of A4 paper on its long edge, at 75 g (2.6 oz) of die-cast zinc alloy. That's unusually light for the length — it's the openwork guard and the narrow spiralling blade. The ruler photo above is the honest read.

Is it sharp? No. Every edge is cast blunt from the mould. Display collectible, ages 14+, not a weapon.

Is this an officially licensed Elden Ring product? No. It's an independently designed fan-art collectible from our two-person studio, with no affiliation with or endorsement from FromSoftware or Bandai Namco.

Building the crusade a shelf? The Greatsword is the other Shadow Realm knight's sword we cast, and the full Elden Ring collection has the rest of the Land of Shadow in it. Everything we've ever made with an edge and a crossguard lives in the sword collection . Free worldwide tracked shipping, foam-lined gift box, 30-day returns. Spare the library on your way out.