How to unlock the Ancestral Forge in V Rising

V Rising Ancestral Forge - a vampire's castle
(Image credit: Stunlock Studios)

The V Rising Ancestral Forge is a new crafting station that was introduced as part of the recent Gloomrot expansion. Though you have to jump through a few hoops to unlock it, what makes this forge special is that it can restore legendary shattered weapons that high-level V blood bosses drop, letting you use them for yourself.

Repairing these legendary weapons is a costly process and quite the grind, so it's definitely not worth undertaking until you're firmly in the endgame. That said, there aren't too many steps to unlocking the Ancestral Forge itself so you can start making plans, gathering what you need, and pondering which legendary shattered weapon you might want to restore based on its randomised attributes.

How to unlock the Ancestral Forge 

To get the crafting diagram for the Ancestral Forge, you first need to take down the Raziel the Shepherd boss. He's located in the Dunley Monastery in the west of the Dunley Farmlands region, but in order to beat him you're going to need to be around level 60, plus have a way to deal with the Holy Radiation present in the area. 

It's recommended that you defeat the Christina the Sun Priestess boss near Dawnbreak in the Dunley Farmlands to unlock the Holy Resistance Potion recipe, or at least loot some from the surrounding area. To craft one you need: 

  • 45 Mourning Lily
  • Two Scourgestone
  • One Water Filled Bottle

These potions help mitigate the Holy Radiation damage around the monastery for long enough to fight Raziel. Once you beat him, you'll unlock the Ancestral Forge for building. This requires: 

  • One Primal Blood Essence
  • Eight Radium Alloy
  • 16 Iron Ingots

To make Primal Blood Essence you need to defeat Jade the Vampire Hunter in the Dunley Farmlands. Radium Alloy is one of the new materials added with Gloomrot and our guide explains how to craft it, but long story short: you're going to need to defeat at least one of the new bosses to get the crafting recipe. Once you've got all of the necessary ingredients, you can build the Ancestral Forge. 

How to use the Ancestral Forge

The Ancestral Forge can restore shattered weapons, which you get by defeating high level V blood bosses. Each of these has randomised attributes and when you slot it into the forge, it'll tell you what materials you require in order to restore it to use. The most important resource you're going to need for legendary shattered weapons is Onyx Tears, which you can craft at the Anvil after you've defeated Nightmarshal Styx the Sunderer in the east side of the Cursed Forest region.

Sean Martin
Guides Writer

Sean's first PC games were Full Throttle and Total Annihilation and his taste has stayed much the same since. When not scouring games for secrets or bashing his head against puzzles, you'll find him revisiting old Total War campaigns, agonizing over his Destiny 2 fit, or still trying to finish the Horus Heresy. Sean has also written for EDGE, Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, EGMNOW, and Inverse.