Breath of the Wild Great Fairy Fountain Locations and Costs

Tera is not the 10,000-rupee Great Fairy. Neither is Cotera, Kaysa or Mija. In Breath of the Wild the price on a fountain is set by how many of the four sisters you have already paid, so the fourth bud you open costs 10,000 whichever fairy is sleeping inside it, and the first costs 100. Zelda Wiki's pages for Kaysa and Tera give the same four possible asks, 100, 500, 1,000 or 10,000 rupees, and the same rule for choosing between them.

That one rule changes how you plan the whole thing. This is where all four fountains are, the quest that points at each one, what every fairy you free actually unlocks, and the material bill each upgrade tier hands you once the rupees are paid. Which armor is worth upgrading in the first place is the armor guide's job; this is the fountain side of it.

The price follows your count, not the fairy

Each fairy introduces herself from inside a closed bud, explains that travellers stopped bringing her rupees, and asks for an offering sized by how many of her sisters have already received one. Pay it and the bud blooms. So "which Great Fairy is the expensive one" has no answer. "Which one do I open last" does.

One NPC will pay part of the bill for you, and it is worth collecting before you go anywhere near Kaysa. At Tabantha Bridge Stable, a traveller named Toren gives you 500 rupees, which he calls his life savings, and asks you to offer them to the Great Fairy on his behalf. That is the side quest A Gift for the Great Fairy, and its objective is only that an offering is made to her. Take his money and the four fountains cost you 11,100 net. If Kaysa happens to be the second fountain you open, his 500 covers her to the rupee.

Each fairy you free raises the cap by one star

The Armor entry on Fandom's Zelda Wiki puts the mechanic in one sentence: most clothing can be enhanced up to four times, and how many of those upgrades are available depends on how many Great Fairies have been restored. The fairies narrate it themselves as their power grows.

Three practical rules come with that:

• The ceiling is shared. Any of the four will do any upgrade up to the current cap. When Mija runs out of power mid-session she tells you that restoring her sisters is what lets her go further.
• From here on it is materials, not rupees. The offering is a one-time payment; each enhancement after it is paid in materials: monster parts, critters, plants, fish, gems and the like.
• You can read the bill before you have it. If you turn up short, the fairy still lets you look through your armor's enhancements to see what is missing.

The defense numbers follow a fixed curve set by a piece's base value. These are the four curves the sets in this guide sit on, from Fandom's enhancement tables and, for the Champion's Tunic, Zelda Wiki's:

Read across any row and the fourth star is the biggest single jump on it. A base-3 piece gains 2, then 3, then 4, then 8. Over a full three-piece set that is 36 total defense at ★★★ and 60 at ★★★★, so the 10,000-rupee fairy is buying the largest defense step in the system, not a rounding error.

Two fairies switch on the set bonuses

Cotera, Mija and Tera all spell out the set-bonus rule in their dialogue: enhance every piece of a set twice and some sets pay a bonus on top, and Cotera and Mija add that it only applies while you wear the set. Two revived fairies, 600 rupees, is enough to reach ★★ on everything in this table:

Seven of those nine rows are built from jellies, Keese wings, plants, fish, critters and common monster parts, the kind of thing you pick up while crossing Hyrule. Barbarian is the one that needs Lynel fights before ★★ (the Lynel guide has the farm), and Ancient is a Guardian-parts sink covered in the Guardian guide.

One naming trap on the Flamebreaker row. Fandom's Flamebreaker Set page points out that the trait on each piece, Flame Guard, is what protects you from Death Mountain's scorching air, while the ★★ set bonus, Fireproof, is what stops you catching fire. That is why the field bosses guide wants Flamebreaker at two stars before you climb an Igneo Talus. The Hylian and Soldier's sets have no set bonus at all, so for them ★★ is defense and nothing else.

Where the four fountains are

Zelda Wiki's Great Fairy Fountain entry places all four. Unlike older Zelda games, none of them is hidden in a cave: each is a giant flower bud out in the open, ringed by glowing orange mushrooms.

A fifth bud that looks like a fountain sits at Malanya Spring. That one belongs to the Horse God, not a Great Fairy, and what Malanya does is in the horse guide.

Cotera, up the hill from Kakariko

Kakariko is where the main quest sends you to meet Impa, and Cotera's bud is in the woods just above the village. Impa says only a few villagers still know it, but Kakariko was built under Cotera's watchful eye.

The signpost is Pikango, a travelling painter from Kakariko who has come home to find the fountain. Once your Sheikah Slate's Camera is back, he opens the main quest Find the Fairy Fountain and leads you uphill. Just past Ta'loh Naeg Shrine he runs out of breath and tells you the fountain is along the path beyond it. Photograph the bud and show him; he finds it less elegant than he hoped, and pays you back by identifying one of Zelda's album pictures, the gate at the base of Mount Lanayru. The other eleven album locations are in the memory locations guide.

Kaysa, at the end of a tower's shadow

Toren sits at Tabantha Bridge Stable, convinced the Great Fairy from the old stories is real. His tip is the whole route: climb the tower beyond the Tabantha Great Bridge in the afternoon and follow its shadow. Zelda Wiki puts Kaysa's fountain on Piper Ridge, south of Tabantha Tower, and the quest log text tells you to follow the shadow.

Make the offering, then go back to Toren to close the quest. Do not expect a reward from him. Hint at one and he points out that you only got to meet the Great Fairy thanks to his tip.

Mija, south of Tarrey Town

Mija's bud is in the woods south of Tarrey Town, near the edge of Lake Akkala. Monari, a Tarrey Town resident, has heard about it, but after talking it over with Moggs she decided not to disturb something she does not understand. Her tip is not a quest and nothing goes in your log, so the practical move is to fold the fountain into a Tarrey Town trip; the Tarrey Town guide has the build that puts Rhondson's armor shop and Granté's restocks in the same town.

Tera, inside a leviathan's ribcage

Tera calls herself the eldest of the four sisters, and her fountain is the strangest location: inside the Gerudo Great Skeleton, the bones of an extinct leviathan in the southwest of the Gerudo Desert near Dragon's Exile. Hawa Koth Shrine sits in the same skeleton, so activating it turns the fountain into a warp-and-walk trip for every upgrade after.

Two more things live in those bones. A Korok hides in leaves with fairy dust on a bone tip directly above the fountain. And the Leviathan Bones side quest, from Akrah and his brothers at Serenne Stable, wants a picture of this skull for Garshon; photograph all three skeletons for the three brothers and Akrah pays a Gold Rupee. The Gerudo Desert runs hot by day, so bring the heat protection the armor guide covers.

Zelda Wiki also notes that Great Fairy Fountains are often surrounded by Silent Princesses or Armoranths, and Fandom's material lists for all four fountain areas include the Silent Princess. Pick them while you are there. The next two sections explain why.

Open the fourth fountain when you can pay the fourth star

The fourth fairy does one thing: she lifts the cap from ★★★ to ★★★★. That is the biggest defense step, but it is also where the bills turn rare. These are the third and fourth enhancements for all three pieces of each set:

The ★★★★ column is where gems arrive, and gems are money. At the sell values Fandom's gem pages list (180 rupees a Topaz, 210 a Ruby, 260 a Sapphire, 60 an Opal, 30 an Amber), maxing the Rubber set spends 30 Topaz, 5,400 rupees of sale value, more than half the 10,000 offering itself. Snowquill's 15 Rubies are 3,150, Desert Voe's 15 Sapphires 3,900, Zora's 45 Opals 2,700 and the Hylian set's 45 Amber 1,350. That is the armor guide's case for not selling gems early, put in numbers; for the spares you do sell, the rupee farming guide has the gem buyer who pays over shop rate.

The other heavy rows point at this vertical's farming guides: Lynel Guts for Barbarian and Soldier's, horn shards from the dragon farming routes, and Giant Ancient Cores, which the Guardian guide puts at a 0.5% drop.

So the order that makes sense is not about which fairy. Open the first three whenever you pass them, because 1,600 rupees in total unlocks every ★★★ tier. Hold the fourth until you have both the 10,000 and the materials for the ★★★★ upgrades you actually want, because the fairy who costs the most only does something once those materials are in your bag.

The Champion's Tunic wants a dragon at two stars

Zelda Wiki rates the Champion's Tunic as the piece with the highest potential defense of any armor in the game, 32 at ★★★★. It also has an unusual bill, because dragons arrive at the second star rather than the fourth:

That is 19 Silent Princesses and six horn shards, two from each dragon. So the Tunic is one piece where two fairies are not enough on their own: ★★ also needs Farosh. Impa hands the Tunic over after your first recovered memory, so it is an early reason to learn the dragon farming routes.

What no fairy will touch

Some armor cannot be enhanced at any fountain. These are the pieces whose Fandom or Zelda Wiki pages say so explicitly. Treat it as a list of examples rather than a complete register:

• Thunder Helm. Riju's loaner, covered in the Yiga Clan Hideout guide, deflects lightning with no upgrades at all, and Fandom's Thunder Helm page notes it cannot be upgraded at a fountain.
• Gerudo outfit. The full set gives level 1 heat resistance, and Fandom's Gerudo Veil page notes the pieces cannot be upgraded at a fountain.
• Kilton's goods. The Bokoblin Mask (99 Mon), Lynel Mask (999 Mon) and Dark Hood (1,999 Mon), all from the Fang and Bone.
• Expansion Pass and collaboration rewards. The Royal Guard Uniform, Phantom Armor, Phantom Ganon Armor, Zant's Helmet, Ravio's Hood, Midna's Helmet, Tingle's Shirt and the Salvager Vest.

The pages for Kilton's three pieces and the eight rewards also say they cannot be dyed at the Kochi Dye Shop. The amiibo-exclusive sets go the other way: the amiibo guide covers which figures drop them, and all six sets there take a fairy's enhancements.

If you are playing the sequel instead, the fairies move next to stables and want a band rather than rupees, which the Tears of the Kingdom armor guide walks through. More Hyrule breakdowns are on the Breath of the Wild coverage hub, and the rest of our coverage is on the Mythras blog.

Quick Action Checklist

• Expect 100, 500, 1,000 and 10,000 rupees in the order you open the fountains, 11,600 in all, whichever fairy is which.
• Talk to Toren at Tabantha Bridge Stable before you go to Kaysa. His 500 rupees cut the total to 11,100.
• Free Cotera first if you are near Kakariko: Pikango's main quest walks you past Ta'loh Naeg Shrine to her bud.
• Remember the cap is shared: one fairy is ★, two is ★★, three is ★★★, four is ★★★★, and any fairy can do any upgrade up to it.
• Get to two fairies early. 600 rupees reaches the ★★ tier, which is where set bonuses such as Fireproof, Unfreezable and Climbing Jump Stamina Up switch on.
• Open the fourth fountain only once you can afford the ★★★★ materials too. That tier is the biggest defense jump and the one that eats gems, Lynel Guts, horn shards and Giant Ancient Cores.
• Activate Hawa Koth Shrine inside the Gerudo Great Skeleton so Tera is one warp away, and grab the Korok above her fountain.
• Pick Silent Princesses around the fountains. The Champion's Tunic needs 19 of them, plus two horn shards from each dragon.
• Do not bring the Thunder Helm, the Gerudo outfit or Kilton's masks to a fairy. They cannot be enhanced.