Elden Ring: What does absolution do?

Elden Ring's absolution works in a similar way as previous Souls games. When a person is absolved, two things occur. To begin, all hostile NPCs who have become enraged as a result of the player's actions revert to a neutral state and interact normally. Second, any merchant NPCs who do not discard Bell Bearings upon death will be resurrected, allowing them to sell their stock once more.

A rare essential item called Celestial Dew is required to request absolution. Once you have it, go to Liurnia of the Lakes' Church of Vows.

When prompted, pick Atone and use the Celestial Dew to complete the absolution at the back of the church, which is surrounded by water.

However, there is one stumbling block. You only get a few vials of Celestial Dew per game in Elden Ring, thus you can only kill and annoy NPCs so many times. The majority of them may be discovered in Ranni's questline locales, with most of them in Nokron or Nokstella. Ainsel River's trader also sells a single vial.

Keep in aware that NPCs that drop Bell Bearings, particularly those with names like D, Rogier, Iji, and others, will not resurrect after absolution. Because these NPCs have such a big role in the tale, the decisions players make around them have a lot more weight.

These and other NPCs are inextricably linked to Elden Ring's multiple endings, and their deaths make achieving those endings impossible. FromSoftware made this deliberate design choice because critical NPC death in Souls games is almost usually irreversible.