How to Get the Climbing Hook and Use Tether Posts in Norgan (Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen)

The Climbing Hook turns the sheer rock faces of Norgan into routes you can walk up. You throw it at a carved wooden tether post standing on a clifftop, a rope ladder unrolls down the stone, and you climb it. You do not have to buy your first one or finish a side quest to get it.

Quick answer: During the main quest Seeking the Sage, Dorin gives you a Climbing Hook at no cost after you retrieve the Spirit Compass from the village tower. Point it at a tether post, fire with R1, and use Ascend to go up the ladder.

How to get your first Climbing Hook in Norgan

The first hook is handed to you inside the story, so it cannot be missed. It arrives while you are chasing the Spirit Compass during Seeking the Sage.

Progress Seeking the Sage until the objective reads “Search the tower for the spirit compass.” Dorin leads you from the Norgandian Settlement up to the village tower.

Climb to the top of the tower and take the Spirit Compass from the chest there. The objective then changes to “Use the spirit compass to seek out the sage.”

Find Dorin outside the tower and talk to him. He tells you the compass’s direction, cautions that a beorcan lair lies that way, points out the tether post by the broken bridge, and hands over his extra hook. The screen displays “Climbing Hook” when you pick it up.

Climbing Hook received from Dorin — Dorin hands over his spare hook once you have the Spirit Compass; the Climbing Hook pickup notice confirms it is in your pack. Shown at 69:58 in Shirrako’s video. Image: CAPCOM Co., Ltd.

Climbing Hook stats and reference

The Climbing Hook is a light Implement you can carry in bulk, so stocking a few before a long trek costs almost nothing in weight. Its item panel describes it as strong rope with a hook on the end, used on a tether post to create a rope ladder, and able to be thrown to distant posts as well.

Field	Value
Category	Implements
Weight	0.20 kg
Stack size	99
Buy price (Aymond)	5,000 G
Sell price	1,500 G
Forgery fee	6,000 G
Can be gifted	Yes

Aymond, the peddler, charges 5,000 G for a Climbing Hook. He carries just one at a time, with another added to his stock every 10 days.

How to use a tether post

Look for a person-height pole of thick wood, painted reddish and bound in rope. Its crossbar has a beast’s head carved at both ends, giving it a T shape when viewed from below. Set right on the clifftop edge, it stands out against the sky when seen from the ground.

At the cliff’s base, point the camera upward toward the post. The “Use climbing hook” prompt appears on the post only while the camera has the post in view, so stand a few metres back from the wall and look up at it. Press Circle on PlayStation, or F on PC, to activate it.

The Use climbing hook prompt on a carved tether post at the top of a grey cliff, seen from the rocks below by day — Seen from below with the camera tilted up, the post shows “Use climbing hook”.

A small Items window opens reading “Select an item to use.” Confirm the Climbing Hook from it.

The camera shifts into aiming mode, with the post glowing blue-green. A dotted white arc shows where the hook will fly.

Aiming view by day: the Arisen holds the Climbing Hook ready below a cliff with the tether post on its top edge — The aiming view from the cliff foot, hook in hand.

Move the aim until the arc comes down on the top of the post and turns from white to blue: a blue arc means the hook is locked on the post.

Aiming view by day below the Lake Norgan cliff with the hook's arc glowing blue where it ends on the tether post at the top — The arc turns blue once the aim is locked on the post.

Then throw with R1 (right mouse button on PC, “Throw” in the hints), or choose “Cancel” (X on PC) to leave aiming mode. Once the hook latches, the game shows it wrapping round the post, and a wooden-rung rope ladder unfurls down the rock face.

A rope ladder with wooden rungs hanging from the tether post down the grey cliff face at Lake Norgan — After a throw that catches, the rope ladder hangs down the cliff from the post.

A throw made while the arc is still white passes beside the post and does not catch: the rope is pulled back and the prompt returns.

Rope ladder hanging on the cliff — A clean throw drops a rope ladder down the cliff, giving you a way up the face. Shown at 73:15 in Shirrako’s video. Image: CAPCOM Co., Ltd.

Go over to the ladder and select Ascend (F on PC), then hold forward (W) to climb.

The Arisen at the foot of the rope ladder on the Lake Norgan cliff with the Ascend prompt beside the rope — At the foot of the rope the prompt reads “Ascend” (F on PC).

From the clifftop, use the same prompt on the post beside you: no throw is needed there, the Arisen ties the rope to the post and the prompt changes to “Descend” (F on PC), which shows while you stand at the rope facing out over the edge; hold back (S) to climb down the rope, making the drop traversable in either direction.

The Descend prompt beside a carved red tether post on a snowy clifftop, with fir trees and castle walls beyond — At a post on the clifftop the prompt reads “Descend” once the rope is tied.

Where the first tether post is at Lake Norgan

Leave the village tower and follow the slope toward the water; the location banner says Lake Norgan. Morgus, a soldier, waits on the shore near a wrecked rowboat and a collapsed stone bridge. The lake is no way across: past the shallows its water belongs to the Brine, along the line of the sunken bridge too, and wading out only puts the Arisen back on the shore.

The Arisen on a shore rock at Lake Norgan facing a sunken stone bridge that slopes into grey-green water below a cliff — The sunken stone bridge at Lake Norgan. The water past the shallows is the Brine’s.

Behind him, a sheer rock wall reaches up to the post on its top edge—the one Dorin indicated.

The Lake Norgan shore below the cliff — the broken bridge marks the first tether post, which sits on the wall's top edge. Shown at 70:13 in Shirrako’s video. Image: CAPCOM Co., Ltd.

Talking to Morgus offers the side quest Sticks and Stones. If you accept it, the first objective, “Scale the cliff,” points at this same wall, and Morgus climbs the ladder himself once it is up. You do not need the quest to use the post, though — the hook works on it either way.

Is the hook used up, and does the ladder stay?

A throw that catches uses one Climbing Hook, and so does tying the rope at a post from the clifftop. A throw that misses does not use one: after seven misses at one post the count in the pack was unchanged. The ladder remains in place afterward, so returning to a post you’ve already rigged gives you only the Ascend prompt; you won’t spend another hook. At the Lake Norgan post the ladder was still hanging on a return the next morning, after travelling back to the settlement and resting at the inn, and “Ascend” (F on PC) worked with no Climbing Hook left in the pack.

The Arisen on yellow lichen rocks at the foot of the Lake Norgan cliff with the rope ladder still hanging down the rock face ahead — The rope ladder at Lake Norgan, still in place the next morning.

Each post costs one hook to set up, not one per climb. With no Climbing Hook in the pack, the Lake Norgan post showed no “Use climbing hook” prompt from the cliff foot; with one in the pack the prompt was there from the same rocks.

A thrown hook and its rope in the air beside the tether post at the top of the cliff, missing it — A miss: the hook passes beside the post and the rope is pulled back.

Keep a few hooks in your pack before a long expedition. At 0.20 kg each they barely register, and running dry at a post you need stops you cold.

Where to find more Climbing Hooks

One more Climbing Hook lies on the floor of a small hut inside the Norgandian Settlement, next to an Arctic Camping Kit and Dried Hare Meat, and Aymond sells them for 5,000 G each. Beyond the Lake Norgan wall, the game’s help notes that the posts dotting the Norgan landscape can be tethered the same way, and “Hook Tether Posts” is one of the layers you can toggle on the Norgan map to find them. With a small stash of hooks in your pack, those posts become shortcuts the moment you throw at them.