The Duke's Archives

"The Archive Tower, once a trove of precious tomes and letters, became a prison after the onset of Seath's madness. The serpent men who guard the prison know not the value of what they hide..."

— Archive Tower Cell Key

The Duke's Archives, also called the Regal Archives, is a location in Dark Souls. It can be reached by going through a large hall in Anor Londo (the one with two Sentinels, a chest, and a Mimic), and running past the Sentinel on the balcony, after the Lordvessel has been placed.

Adjacent locations[]

Description[]

The Duke's Archives is a massive library fortress located in Anor Londo. It contains vast amounts of knowledge including many spells and magical relics.^[1] Here, players can learn powerful crystal spells, as well as obtain crystal and magic embers, and weapons.

Lore[]

The library is home to Seath the Scaleless, and was granted to Seath by Gwyn, along with a Bequeathed Lord Soul Shard, as a reward for aiding in the birth of the Age of Fire.^[2]

It is here that Seath delves into his experiments and studies. The Six-Eyed Channelers found here are servants of Seath, seeking and kidnapping inhabitants of Lordran for his research.^[3] The Pisaca are among the results of these experiments.^[4]

Archive Tower was turned to a prison; once it had a casual role of storing books.^[5] Cell below, now inhabited by Pisacas, once held countless maidens. Currently it is empty, apart from few key persons.^[4] Prison guardians are serpent men.^[1]

Characters[]

Big Hat Logan (merchant) - Found trapped in a giant prison cell. He may either be freed using the Archive Tower Giant Cell Key or by defeating Seath the Scaleless. He will then be found in a library room located next to the mimic room. Buying all his sorceries will cause him to go hostile in the room where the player first fought Seath.
Sieglinde of Catarina - Found imprisoned in a Golden Crystal Golem.
Reah of Thorolund - If the player purchases all of the miracles that Reah has to offer, she will travel to The Duke's Archives and become hollow there.

Enemies[]

Characters[]

Respawning[]

Non-respawning[]

Boss[]

Seath the Scaleless

Items[]

Miscellaneous[]

Prism Stone x20 (chest)

Rings[]

White Seance Ring (corpse)

Sorceries[]

Strong Magic Shield (chest)
White Dragon Breath (insane Big Hat Logan drop)

Souls[]

Fire Keeper Soul (corpse)

Upgrade materials[]

Blue Titanite Chunk x2 (corpses)
Twinkling Titanite x3 (chests)

Weapons[]

Crystal Knight Shield (Mimic)
Enchanted Falchion (Mimic)
Tin Crystallization Catalyst (insane Big Hat Logan drop)
Logan's Catalyst (chest - after killing insane Big Hat Logan)
Avelyn (chest)

Strategy[]

Almost all of the enemies here have very high magic resistance, and can also deal very high damage. On top of that, the layout of the level means that frequently there will be enemies that the player cannot reach immediately. In summary, it is a good idea to keep moving and not use sorceries or magic-based weapons.
It is possible to skip the forced death against Seath and the sequence of being imprisoned by riding on top of the rail of the elevator just before Seath while it's going down and rolling off onto the second-from-top floor.^[6]