In Elden Ring, weapons can do a lot of different things. They’ve got different attacks, skills, movesets, and elemental effects with which to slice, pound, freeze, burn, stun, poison, or shock your opponents.

You can also find various types of “grease,” substances with which you can coat your regular, non-elemental weapons in order to temporarily add an elemental effect – just like Hamlet does in the final act of Hamlet. This stuff can be looted from sites around the game world, or crafted out of materials found on enemies or growing out of the ground. It’s everywhere, and it’s powerful stuff when used in the right scenarios.

Greases are also, like many items in FromSoftware games, kinda gross – and in this case, they’re gross because of the implications for use. Can you imagine literally rubbing grease onto your weapon as you prepare for a fight? Furiously rubbing your great stone axe while facing down a horde of attackers? It’s disgusting.

Or is it? Grease, after all, is something typically used to lubricate things, and anyone who’s taken a furtive peek inside a sex shop will know that lubrication is a big business. There are hundreds of varieties, all with different textures, flavours, properties, and intended applications. Elden Ring‘s greases are merely a reflection of this phenomenon, and I choose to believe From Software intends these as multi-purpose products, for pleasure as well as combat. Hell, you even need something called “Root Resin” to craft these things. What is lube if not resin for rooting?

So it is in this spirit that I present a list of Elden Ring weapon greases, ranked for your pleasure.

1. Magic Grease

Magic Grease: it almost sounds like it could be a real brand name, for a brand with a particularly self-aware sense of humour. Combining old-timey medical straightforwardness with even more old-timey mysticism, “Magic Grease” can mean whatever you want it to mean. Does it act as an aphrodisiac? Is it supernaturally slippery? Is it just a placebo? It doesn’t matter – you’d buy Magic Grease and you know it.

2. Shield Grease

Lube does a lot of things, but protecting one’s self is not really among them (unless you count “avoiding burny friction sensations” a form of protection). Spermicidal lube, obviously, exists, but it’s not the most effective contraceptive there is, and crucially, it also offers no protection against sexually transmitted disease. Enter Shield Grease, more than capable of shielding your weapon (and your whole body, should your so desire) from whatever may befall it – without sacrificing lubrication. It’ll fly off shelves.

3. Lightning Grease

Chicks’ll cream for Greased Lightnin’, and the same holds true for Lightnin’ Grease, which imbues your weapon with the power of electricity. Lightning Grease earns points by existing, to a certain degree, in real life, in the form of conductive lube for electro play. If you’ve never experimented with the joys of electro (it’s what it sounds like), you’ve got a major life experience ahead of you – the people who like it really like it, and it’s a sensation like little else.

4. Holy Grease

There are a few ways to interpret this. Is it grease for (but) holes? In which case: great product, does what it says on the tin, no notes. Or is it more of a blasphemous situation, a product claiming to imbue your junk with the power of the very gods themselves (and as a bonus, angering religious types in the process)? The ambiguity of the name sets it back, but either of these are solid options for a liquid option.

5. Fire Grease

While having a burning sensation “down there” is often frowned upon, temperature play is totally a thing. Hell, “warming” lubricants are even a thing. The only potential issue is that fire damage in Elden Ring is, quite literally, fire – not just a pleasant warm fuzzy feeling. Often, it’s associated with lava. So your mileage may vary with that. Good for removing body hair, though.

6. Freezing Grease

On a similar tack, Freezing Grease is the lubricant equivalent of using ice cubes in foreplay, or putting a sex toy in ice water to give it a fresh sensory kick. Plenty of people around into that. Again, though, the potential downside, depending on the extremeness of your taste, is that Freezing Grease doesn’t just chill a weapon – it causes the weapon to inflict frostbite. So it’s probably best used in tiny, tiny doses.

7. Blood Grease

Your opinion on this will be almost completely determined by your interest in the use of blood in sexual play and, in particular, as lubricant. The former is an extreme taste, and the latter is something anyone who has periods has likely experienced, intentionally or not. If you’re into bloodletting, a pre-purchased blood lube won’t be enough for you, but if you’re looking to capture that feel in a safe, hopefully synthetic way, Blood Grease might be your jam.

8. Dragonwound Grease

Dragonwound Grease is the most esoteric of the weapon greases, given that it offers no benefit at all unless you happen to be dealing with dragons. As such, it falls many places on this list, purely for its limited appeal: I have to assume that the dragon-fucking community is an even smaller subset of the already niche nonhuman-fucking community, and while the Lands Between’s equivalent of John McAfee will surely get a lot out of such a product, your average Tarnished will not. Anyway, if you are having sex with dragons, adequate lubrication is probably the least of your concerns. It’s also made from gravel, and nobody really wants their lube to be exfoliating.

9. Poison Grease

We’ve reached the straight-up perplexing section of the list: the words which in combination would guarantee a total failure to sell any product, let alone one meant to be applied genitally. “Poison Grease is just one of those ideas that is hard to put a positive spin on; in the context of personal lubricant, it suggests that its use promotes the spread of disease. Maybe it and Shield Grease mutually annihilate on contact, but I’m not volunteering to find out.

10. Rot Grease

In-game, this applies a status effect called “Scarlet Rot,” which is like poison went to the gym, put the time in, and worked hard on ways to really beat your ass. Specifically, it’s a fungal disease that causes your body to literally rot away, including (and perhaps especially) your brain, and it appears to originate from some kind of eldritch beast. In other words, it’s really not something you want to come into contact with your genitals. Unsightly red colour, too.

11. Soporific Grease

Hey, at least you can have a good time contracting Scarlet Rot. Not gonna happen if you fall asleep in the middle of everything. Sleepy sex is a thing, of course, but generally people want to go in the direction of waking up in the process, not falling asleep.

Practice safe and consensual sex, everyone.