The locked Elden Ring Rennala chest in the Raya Lucaria Academy Grand Library is one of the stranger, and weirdly more frustrating things you'll find in the early phases of Elden Ring. Simply sitting to one side of Rennala after beating her, this locked chest is a total enigma - it won't open, there's no indication of what's inside it, and trying to interfere with it simply tells you "it's locked".
Hardly helpful, but there is a way inside, and what's inside is definitely… interesting. We'll lay out how to open the locked Rennala chest below, what treasure is inside, and how it ties to another sorcerous character you heard from quite recently…
How to open the locked chest in Elden Ring
The locked Rennala chest in Elden Ring can only be opened with a special key called the Discarded Palace Key - and that's something it's going to take you a while to get. The key, the chest and the contents of said chest are all integral parts of the Elden Ring Ranni questline and secret ending, which at one point has the four-armed witch give you the key when she asks you to retrieve something from within the chest that she needs. Technically this means that you have to know how to beat Rennala in Elden Ring to get the contents, but frankly it's very unlikely that anybody gets to that point in Ranni's questline without having defeated the Carian Queen first.
To find out how to get the key specifically, head to our Ranni questline guide linked above, and progress to phases 7 and 8, where defeating the Baleful Shadow bestows you with the Discarded Palace Key. From that point on, you can head to the locked chest and open it.
What's inside the locked Rennala chest?
All the Elden Ring endings you can unlock, including Ranni's, are listed in our guide here!
The locked Rennala chest only contains one object - the Dark Moon Ring. This is a quest item tied explicitly to Ranni's quest, where the player has to effectively find Ranni's real body (not the doll she's currently possessing) and present the Dark Moon Ring to it in order to become her consort, meaning that if Ranni rises to power in her ending, you'll be her Elden Lord.
Sadly the Dark Moon Ring doesn't have any powers beyond that - it can't be used for magic or to boost your stats, or worn as a talisman. It's simply a key item tied to Ranni's quest, and once you've presented it to her at the end of her questline, it's gone for good.
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