Valor Mortis Eternal Guard Locations: All 7 Guards

There are seven Eternal Guards to hunt in Valor Mortis, one each in the Battlefield, Valley of Ashes, Fallen Village, Caverns, Cursed Hollow, City of Orphans and Fortress, and beating all of them completes The Oathbound side quest. Each guard drops a named Emblem and a Mysterious Stone Pyramid; once you hold all seven pyramids they merge into a Mysterious Stone Slab that opens a hidden chamber in the Fortress. Three of the seven need a tool you get later, so a straight first pass will not catch them all.

We checked these locations against PowerPyx's side quest guide, All Things How's Oathbound walkthrough, the metabot.gg quest and missables data, the update 1.005 patch notes and Steam's achievement page in November 2026. Where guides disagree on a sub-area, we say so.

All Seven Eternal Guards at a Glance

The guards are named officers of Napoleon's Eternal Guard, and each Emblem carries the name of the soldier it belonged to. The quest journal starts once you defeat your first guard and find the emblem hidden beneath his shirt. The table lists each one in the order you can reach them, with the tool you need to get there.

Valor Mortis Eternal Guard locations for The Oathbound

Guard	Chapter	Region and area	What you need
Valen Duroc	I	The Battlefield, Onslaught Arch	Pistol (Chapter II) to shoot a growth
Lucien Lafontaine	II	Valley of Ashes, Demolished Path	Nothing extra
Etienne Vauclair	III	Fallen Village (Fields or Marketplace route)	Grapple and a Nephtoglobin platform
Jean Pierre Polnaire	IV	Caverns, Old Mine	Stasis Transmutation
Severin Susse	VI	Cursed Hollow, near the Village Church	Nothing extra
Adrien Casell	VIII	City of Orphans, Shamble Street	Shield Transmutation
Bastien Beaufort	X	Fortress, Courtyard	Nothing extra

The two gates that catch people are the first and the sixth. Valen Duroc is walled off behind a red growth that only the Pistol can pop, and the Pistol arrives in Chapter II, so you will come back to Onslaught Arch later. Adrien Casell sits behind toxic fog that you cross with the Shield Transmutation, and the Shield is picked up in a story scene in the University, the region that follows the City of Orphans.

Guards One to Four: Battlefield to Caverns

Valen Duroc (The Battlefield, Onslaught Arch). From the first Lantern, cross the broken bridge and take the right path at the junction, then keep left past the enemies until you reach a wall with a red growth on it. PowerPyx describes the same spot as a wall with a weak point to shoot, left at the split past the camp. Shoot it with the Pistol and the guard is behind it.

Lucien Lafontaine (Valley of Ashes, Demolished Path). Grab the Epic Catalyst Clot by the lower pool, climb the ladder, cross the plank bridges and follow the ridge past the marked boulder, then go under the slanted structure into the flooded clearing. PowerPyx's shortcut version: behind the group of three enemies, take the left path. Lucien is a posture fight; deflect his attacks to break his guard and the execution knocks off his mask.

Etienne Vauclair (Fallen Village). This is the one guides place differently. All Things How routes it from the Fields: follow the muddy track to the chasm, use the platforms and grapple points to reach a cave, drop to the ledge and shoot the orange vein to open a wall. PowerPyx starts from the Marketplace Lantern, past the carriage and left along the Nephtoglobin structure path to a cave. Both describe a cave reached by Nephtoglobin traversal, and PowerPyx notes the chest there holds a note, a Legendary Catalyst Clot and a Pure Transmutation Material.

Jean Pierre Polnaire (Caverns, Old Mine). Climb the walkways to the lever, freeze the cog with Stasis, ride the crate up, knock down the ladder and enter the dark tunnel past the bend. Without the Stasis Transmutation, which arrives in Chapter IV, the cog will not hold.

Guards Five to Seven: Cursed Hollow to Fortress

Severin Susse (Cursed Hollow). All Things How lists him near the Village Church: take the flooded route, clear the enemies, follow the blue wall past the boat, jump across, avoid the poison and go around the house. PowerPyx places the approach in the Deep Water area on the long straight before the church, around the hay-bale circle on the right island. It is the same stretch of map described from two directions.

Adrien Casell (City of Orphans, Shamble Street). Pass the archways toward the toxic fog, raise the Shield Transmutation, sprint across, climb the boxes, enter the broken wall and shoot the red bulb. Since the Shield comes from the University, plan on reaching this guard on a return trip once you have it.

Bastien Beaufort (Fortress, Courtyard). Walk through the stone archway into the ruined cathedral hall; PowerPyx describes the route as the hallway under the hanging flag, then left in the large room. Bastien is a monstrous Eternal Guardsman and the hardest of the seven. Search his body after the duel, because you need his pyramid for the slab.

Fighting an Eternal Guardsman

The guards scale with their placement. At level 1 an Eternal Guardsman has 500 Health and pays 1,200 Catalysts, and at level 6 it has 1,200 Health and pays 2,700. If one crushes a vial mid-fight it becomes Enraged and its Health jumps to 3,200, so pressure them early. Their resistances shape the plan:

• Guns and explosives are weak here. Ranged attacks and explosives deal 50% less damage.
• Fire is halved. Both Ignite damage and Ignite build-up are cut in half, and Infection is reduced by 30%.
• Stasis takes commitment. It takes four Stasis segments to freeze one solid.
• Sustained melee wins. Parry, punish and keep the pressure on rather than trying to kite.

Update 1.005 on 23 October 2026 tuned the damage windows on several enemies including the Eternal Guardsman, so if you fought them on launch week and found hits landing oddly, they should read more cleanly now. A flask with more charges makes the later duels much calmer; the Ferrofluid upgrade guide shows where to find them, and the weapon tier list covers which melee weapon suits a long duel.

A Route With Less Backtracking

Because three guards are gated, the cleanest order is not the order of the table. Lanterns double as fast travel points through the TRAVEL option, so short return trips are cheap once you know where you are going. A plan that keeps detours to a minimum:

1. Chapter II: take Lucien Lafontaine on the Demolished Path as you pass through the Valley of Ashes.
2. Still in Chapter II, once the Pistol is yours: travel back to Onslaught Arch and shoot the growth to reach Valen Duroc while the region is still fresh in your memory.
3. Chapter III: collect Etienne Vauclair while you are clearing the Fallen Village.
4. Chapter IV: once Stasis is in your kit, freeze the cog in the Old Mine and reach Jean Pierre Polnaire.
5. Chapter VI: pick up Severin Susse while exploring the Cursed Hollow.
6. Chapter VIII: note where Adrien Casell's fog crossing is, then come back after you get the Shield in the University.
7. Chapter X: beat Bastien Beaufort in the Fortress and open the chamber right away, before you go anywhere near the High Tower.

Following that order, the only dedicated return trips are the one to Onslaught Arch and the one to Shamble Street, and both are a single fast travel away.

Opening the Hidden Chamber

With all seven pyramids, the Mysterious Stone Slab forms automatically. Go back to the Fortress corridor where you fought Bastien and find the triangular Oathbound mark on the wall at the far end, on the opposite side of the room from the duel. Use the slab on it and the wall opens. Inside, read the Codex of the Oathbound on the round table to finish the quest. All Things How lists four chests in the chamber holding an Empty Ferrofluid Flask, three Sands of Time, three Remnant's Return and a Quintessential Blade Material, one of only three Quintessential Blade Materials in the game.

Completing The Oathbound unlocks We Wear the Same Colors ("Defeat all Eternal Guardists"), which PowerPyx lists as a gold trophy. Only 15.6% of Steam players have it as of November 2026, which makes it one of the rarer story-adjacent achievements; the trophy roadmap shows where it fits in a platinum run.

Do Not Leave It Too Late

Sources disagree on how missable this quest is. PowerPyx lists The Choir as the only missable side quest and notes that free roam returns after the credits. The metabot.gg missables list is stricter: it puts the deadline at the Fortress High Tower in Chapter X, because Napoleon's Prison and Entropy have no fast travel. The safe move is to finish all seven guards and open the chamber before you climb to Captain Raphael. Our boss order guide shows exactly where that fight sits, and the ending explainer covers what follows. If you are pacing a full clear, the Oathbound backtracking is one of the bigger chunks in our playtime estimates.

If You Would Rather Not Farm the Levels First

Bastien and the level 6 guards hit hard if you arrive under-leveled. The store's Valor Mortis Mega Modded Save starts at the very beginning of Chapter I with a level 264 soldier, every skill active, five weapons at Lvl 5 and a Ferrofluid Flask at 12 charges, so the duels become about finding the guards rather than surviving them. You still collect the Emblems and open the chamber yourself.

The save works on PS5 and PC only, not Xbox, and requires your own copy of the game. The full list of services is on the Valor Mortis hub.

Frequently Asked Questions