Seed 1109: Crater, Balancers

Record details

Special event

MausoleumGrant you the right to duplicate one piece of equipment.

Churches

4/

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. There is no Township in this seed, so every key has to be found on the map.

Mausoleum

This is one of the three events that are already in the map when you drop rather than triggering partway through the run, so you can fold it into the route instead of reacting to it.

If nobody has found it, a red circle eventually appears marking where it is. Entering lets the party duplicate any weapon they are holding, legendaries included, one copy per player for the whole expedition.

Outside Noklateo and the Great Hollow, which carry duplication of their own, this is the only way to copy anything. A seed with a Walking Mausoleum on it is the difference between having that option in the run and not having it at all.

The copy does not have to be of your own gear, which is where a squad gets more out of it than a solo player. Three players can put all three uses on the same find: three copies handed to whoever it suits best, so they finish holding four of it and stack the effect, or one copy each so everybody carries the thing that keeps them alive.

You do not knock it down. Breaking the debris off its legs to topple it is Elden Ring behaviour and it does not carry over: here the Mausoleum is stationary, and the mobility Nightfarers have means you climb its legs and enter from above.

Only one event can happen per expedition, and which ones are possible depends on the Nightlord. So this is the event for this run, with nothing else queued behind it.

Bosses in this seed

The castle, the night bosses and the bosses placed around the map are fixed for seed 1109: 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 Trolls

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.

Trolls are the version that ruins runs. They carry by far the largest health pools of the three and, oddly, hand back the fewest runes. The bigger problem is their size and their reach: they throw giant pots at range, so even a route that only passes near the castle on the way to something else can get someone sniped.

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.

• Red Wolf

  Basement

  A giant wolf that casts. It alternates between closing for bites and throwing sorcery from across the arena, and the one to watch is the glintblade: it sidesteps, leaves a floating orb behind, and the orb fires at you a moment later, homing.

• Tree Sentinel

  Rooftop

  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.

Field bosses (6)

• Ancestor Spirit

  Field boss

  A spectral deer. The antler sweep covers a wide arc to either side, so the space beside it is the dangerous place to stand, but the windup is slow enough to read.

• Leonine Misbegotten

  Field boss

  A greatsword swung with more strength than technique, fast and heavy, but the bigger attacks leave openings wide enough that patience beats trading. Watch the stomp, which rolls straight into a spin and a half with the blade out. Slash and fire both work.

• Draconic Tree Sentinel

  Field boss

  A golden-armored knight on horseback with lightning and fireballs at every range. The raised shield means a single-target bolt; the hammer planted behind him means a wide wave. Poison and Scarlet Rot work unusually well.

• Black Knife Assassin

  Field boss

  The feint is what gets people: she leaps in with a counterclockwise slash that is not real, then follows with the clockwise one that is. Most physical damage lands, pierce least of all. Let her come to you rather than chasing.

• Royal Revenant

  Field boss

  Cast a healing incantation near it and the cast itself damages and stuns it. Part human, part spider, which is what makes its movements hard to read, but the flurries leave clear gaps, slash cuts through it, and holy does not.

• Black Blade Kindred

  Field boss

  Most of what it does is slow and well signposted. The exception is Fury of the Kindred, a five-hit combo with awkward gaps between the slashes; when the sword comes up to the left of its face, sprint out rather than roll.