Seed 065: Crater, Adel

Record details

Churches

4/

Township

Present in this seedA small settlement built around a merchant. He looks like the ones scattered across the map, but his stock is deeper. He sells a Stonesword Key to each player, so a squad that stops here leaves with one apiece. Nowhere else in the game is a key certain, and squads running Evergaols route through a Township for that reason alone. He is also the only merchant who sells talismans, and the only one who sells a +2 smithing stone, which is as far as an ordinary smithing table can take a weapon. Buying it can save the squad a run through a Tunnel, the mine that otherwise guarantees that stone. Bring runes.

Stonesword Keys

4 to open every EvergaolThis map holds 4 Evergaols, and opening one is the only thing a Stonesword Key does in the game. What is sealed behind each one stays hidden until the key goes in, which is the part the seed settles ahead of time. The Township in this seed sells a key to each player, the only guaranteed source in the game, and the rest have to be found on the map.

Scale-Bearing Merchant

Present in this seedHe deals in offers rather than goods, and every one of them takes something back. What he puts up is drawn at random. Killing him is also an option: he drops a talisman, rolled the same way the castle chest rolls one, but he does not go down easily.

Old Gaol

Present in this seedAn optional encounter rather than a scheduled event, and from outside it looks like any other Evergaol. Without the seed, a squad spends a Stonesword Key to find out what is sealed inside, and keys are the part of an Evergaol route that runs short. The flag on this record is the difference between spending one blind and choosing to. The boss behind it comes from outside the normal Evergaol set and is harder than the standard ones, and clearing it pays a golden Dormant Power worth 30,000 Runes of the Strong, against the 10,000 or 20,000 a normal Evergaol returns. Three bosses pay that much and grant the achievement: Ancient Dragon, Godskin Duo and Death Rite Bird. Of the three, Death Rite Bird is usually the most manageable, especially with a holy weapon.

Bosses in this seed

The castle, the night bosses and the bosses placed around the map are fixed for seed 065: open it again and the same bosses are waiting in the same places. A field boss marker points at the ground it holds rather than the exact step it stands on, so expect to find it moving around nearby. Knowing which ones you are walking into decides what damage type to build and which detours are worth the time.

Castle, held by Crucible Knights

This is the Limveld Castle, the fixed structure near the centre of the map, and the pattern behind it never changes: a guard faction, one chest, one boss in the basement and one boss on the rooftop. What the seed decides is which of the three factions is holding it and which bosses are inside. Noklateo is the one Shifting Earth that removes it. The Great Hollow has castles of its own, but they are built to a different plan and hold a different spread of enemies, so nothing described here applies to them.

Crucible Knights are the draw most squads hope for. They hit harder and take more punishment than Banished Knights, but the runes and the rarity of what they drop make clearing this castle one of the best trades of time for value in the game. They are also a long-standing Elden Ring enemy, so players who know the base game tend to get through them without much trouble.

The chest holds a talisman, and the path to it does not open until the basement boss is dead. That there is a talisman in it is fixed. Which talisman is not: it is rolled when the chest opens, so the same seed can hand you any talisman in the game, which is why nothing on this page names it. It pays out as a Dormant Power, so in a trio all three players get one.

Neither castle boss is unique to the castle. Both are stronger versions of bosses that also appear as field bosses, with more health, more damage and bigger rewards. Killing the basement one opens the path to the chest, and with it a shortcut that lets you cross the castle from the inside. The rooftop one is the reason to make the climb: every boss carries a small chance of dropping a legendary, and this one carries a higher chance than normal. It is a chance and not a guarantee. The only guaranteed legendary comes from the Crater event, which converts an item you are already carrying rather than leaving it to a drop.

• Grafted Scion

  Basement

  Fast swordwork from one or two blades at once, coming from angles that change each time, with sudden area attacks mixed in. The pause at the end of a combo is your window.

• Royal Carian Knight

  Rooftop

  Breaking its stance or parrying it only stuns it for a moment, with no critical at the end, which makes it unusual. Armored knight and armored horse together, glintstone sorcery mixed into the melee, and lightning is the damage type that passes through cleanly.

Field bosses (5)

• Flying Dragon

  Field boss

  It does not lean on fire the way other dragons do, and every move has a clear cue. Pierce is what works, the head takes extra, and the bite is a feint: it turns its head one way, roars, then snaps from the other side.

• Death Rite Bird

  Field boss

  Most of its attacks are slow enough to read, but it leaps and flies to reposition constantly, so a fair part of the fight is spent chasing it. Back off for the ghostflame.

• Miranda Blossom

  Field boss

  It does not move, which makes it easy to leave alone. When the petals close it is about to release pollen across a wide radius that builds poison fast, so back out and come back once it clears.

• Night's Cavalry

  Field boss

  Getting it off the horse is most of the fight; on foot it loses the charge and the repositioning. It still swings wide, and the hilt slam puts out a shockwave that knocks back everyone inside the circle.

• Tree Sentinel

  Field boss

  Heavily armored and mounted, with a halberd that reaches further than you want it to, and a horse that hits you as well. It takes full damage from lightning and shrugs off fire and holy.