Elden Ring is a game with many mysteries. There are glowing runes that seem to move in circles around certain areas, random caves with secret passages, and unique items that have a strange connection with certain bosses of the game.

One of the weird, strange things that players have seen early in the game is the glowing skulls they come across from time to time.

If you wonder what the glowing skulls in Elden Ring are and if they serve any purpose, you’re about to find out.

What Do Glowing Skulls Do in Elden Ring?

These skulls aren’t here for decoration. To be honest, they aren’t any big mystery either. You can interact with them by walking near them, but you can also break them. Once it’s in pieces, a glowing skull will drop a Golden Rune.

In order to break a Golden Skull, you must either hit it, walk over it when mounting Torrent, or roll over it. The first one can be a bit annoying to perform, so rolling over it or making Torrent step on it can save you a lot of frustration.

Runes are both the game’s currency and your character’s experience points. This might be a weird concept for many people, but soulsborne veterans are already used to it. 

You mainly get runes by defeating enemies. However, there are a few other ways to get them. One of them is by selling some of your belongings. This is a great way to get those few runes you need to buy an item, but there’s another way. You can get runes by using a consumable item called Gold Runes.

“Grace that dwells within the inhabitants of the Lands Between; The lingering trace of gold. Use to gain a small number of runes. Runes are nourishment for the development of any Tarnished. Provided a Finger Maiden can be found…”

There are many different kinds of Golden Runes. The ones that come from the glowing skulls come with a “[1]” next to its name. That’s is the item’s category, which means that this one only grants you a small number of runes once you consume it.

The Golden Runes [1] grants you 200 runes if you either consume it or sell it to a merchant. This is an excellent item to have when you need just a few more runes to level up a character or buy something. Greater Golden Runes are harder to come by than the first type that you find from the glowing skulls, but they provide many more runes and might be great to level up when you need a few more attribute points to use a specific item.

Final Thoughts

Elden Ring sometimes can surprise you with some weird things that you didn’t expect to see. Taking down an odd animal might grant you Ashes of War, taking the wrong turn might cause you to find a secret area, and breaking random glowing skulls makes them drop an item that helps you level up and buy better gear.

I suppose that this is the beauty of FromSoftware games and Open World games combined in a single, majestic title.