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Darklight Catacombs

Darklight Catacombs is an optional dungeon in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, found beneath Scadu Altus in the Realm of Shadow.

Importancemajor

Key takeaways

  • Darklight Catacombs is DLC-only It does not appear in the base-game Lands Between.
  • It is reached through the low ground beneath Scadu Altus, normally by following the Recluses’ River south from the Castle Watering Hole and Recluses’ River Downstream.
  • It is the gateway to the Abyssal Woods Defeating or bypassing the dungeon’s internal enemies does not remove the need to deal with Jori, who guards the exit route.
  • The lantern is strongly recommended Several enemies attack from darkness, including Catacombs Sorcerers and Bigmouth Imps.
  • Important loot is easy to overlook The Death Knight Set, Viridian Amber Medallion +3 and Bigmouth Imp Ashes are all found away from the obvious main path.
  • The dungeon uses switches rather than a traditional locked-door puzzle Levers illuminate sections and alter the position of a central platform, changing how you reach loot and enemies.

Note

Game: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree Region: Scadu Altus, Realm of Shadow Type: Optional catacomb dungeon and passage to the Abyssal Woods Main rewards: Viridian Amber Medallion +3, Death Knight Set, Bigmouth Imp Ashes, Great Ghost Glovewort, Barbed Staff-Spear Boss: Jori, Elder Inquisitor Sites of Grace: Darklight Catacombs; Forsaken Graveyard Recommended preparation: Lantern, ranged option, fall-damage caution and enough healing for a long descent

Overview

Darklight Catacombs is an optional dungeon in Shadow of the Erdtree. It lies at the southern end of the Recluses’ River route in Scadu Altus and forms the only conventional route into the Abyssal Woods. The dungeon is not simply a small catacomb attached to the surrounding river: its entrance approach, internal multi-level complex, boss arena and exit into the Abyssal Woods are best treated as distinct connected spaces.

The dungeon’s defining feature is darkness. Its early corridors are navigable with a lantern, but later rooms use switches and moving platforms to reveal routes and expose enemies. The layout is largely a one-way descent, interrupted by optional ledges, hidden rooms and return paths. Its final chamber contains a Giant Bigmouth Imp and the route to Jori, Elder Inquisitor.

Scope and boundaries

Darklight Catacombs should not be confused with the wider Recluses’ River, the Ruins of Unte, the Village of Flies or the Abyssal Woods. These are neighbouring or connected locations rather than parts of the catacomb itself.

The wider route begins much farther north at the Castle Watering Hole, below Shadow Keep. From there, the Recluses’ River descends past the Ruins of Unte and other landmarks before reaching the catacomb approach. The catacomb begins at its own sealed entrance and ends beyond its boss arena, where the player emerges into the Abyssal Woods. The river, its cliffs and the forest are therefore useful route markers, but should not be counted as internal catacomb subareas.

Not included as part of Darklight Catacombs

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Included in this guide

Not included as part of Darklight Catacombs

The normal route

The most reliable route begins at Recluses’ River Downstream. From that Site of Grace, follow the low river route south. The approach involves descending from the upper cliff path onto a lower series of ledges and tombstone platforms. The entrance is in a misty, wooded section near the end of the river, with braziers helping to distinguish the dungeon approach from the surrounding terrain.

The route is easy to miss because the catacombs are below the ordinary Scadu Altus paths. If you are standing on the higher plateau near Bonny Village or the river cliffs, look for a route that continues down rather than across. The large drops are intentional, but take them in stages rather than jumping directly to the bottom.

Route checklist

The Recluses’ River itself is reached from a concealed passage in Shadow Keep. A hidden room and coffin carry the player down to the Castle Watering Hole, after which the river can be followed south. The river is described as the only route to the Abyssal Woods, with Darklight Catacombs occupying its terminal passage.

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Darklight Catacombs is a deep, vertical dungeon rather than a broad maze. Its principal movement pattern is:

The dungeon is commonly divided into three functional levels by walkthroughs, although the game does not present these as formally named floors. The important distinction is between the upper corridor section, the middle platform-and-ledge section and the lower Bigmouth Imp section.

Route checklist

  1. 01
    Reach the Recluses’ River route beneath Scadu Altus.
  2. 02
    Activate Recluses’ River Upstream and Recluses’ River Downstream if possible.
  3. 03
    From Downstream, continue south and descend via the visible tombstone platforms.
  4. 04
    Watch for vulgar militiamen and other ambushes around the lower route.
  5. 05
    Follow the river and braziers towards the catacomb entrance.
  6. 06
    Open the large doors and ride the first lift down.
  7. 07
    Activate the Darklight Catacombs Site of Grace before exploring further.

Route checklist

  1. 01
    Entrance lift and first checkpoint
  2. 02
    Upper dark corridors
  3. 03
    Lever room and illuminated middle section
  4. 04
    Ladders, ledges and optional loot rooms
  5. 05
    Lower chamber with Giant Bigmouth Imp
  6. 06
    Final descent and Jori’s arena
  7. 07
    Forsaken Graveyard and the Abyssal Woods route

Darkness and lighting

Equip a lantern before entering. The lantern does not solve every navigation problem, but it makes ledges, stairs, hostile silhouettes and item corpses much easier to identify. The dungeon also contains levers that light areas and modify the position of a central platform.

Do not assume that every illuminated area is safe. Several enemies are positioned to attack as soon as the player enters a room, while Bigmouth Imps can fire across open spaces before the player has a clear view of them.

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1. Entrance and first descent

After opening the entrance doors, ride the lift down and activate the Darklight Catacombs Site of Grace. The first corridor is comparatively straightforward. Continue along the main route until you reach the stairs and lower passages.

A Grave Glovewort pickup lies along the early route, with an imp positioned to ambush players who enter the adjoining room without checking the corners. Keep the lantern active and search the dead ends before descending further.

The first section is intentionally linear. If you reach a stairway and are unsure whether you have missed a branch, turn around and inspect the area beneath the path you used. One of the dungeon’s early switches is reached through a concealed or easily overlooked return path rather than by simply following the corridor forwards.

2. The first lever

Proceed down the stairs and ladders until you enter a larger room occupied by imps and a Catacombs Sorcerer. The route to the first lever is off to the side of the main descent.

This lever makes the room easier to read and helps reveal the routes around its pillars and platforms. It does not simply unlock a door. The switches in this dungeon are part of its lighting and platform system.

A practical sequence is

  1. 01
    Enter the room and drop to the lower floor.
  2. 02
    Turn back towards the entrance.
  3. 03
    Look for the archway beside the stairs.
  4. 04
    Follow the short side passage to the lever.
  5. 05
    Pull the lever to illuminate the room and open up the next section.

3. The Viridian Amber Medallion +3

Continue through the middle section while checking the ledges below the main walkway. The Viridian Amber Medallion +3 is in a chest reached by dropping from the railing onto a narrow lower path and then descending into a side room. It is not obtained by following the safest-looking central route.

The talisman raises maximum stamina. It is a useful exploration reward, particularly for builds that rely on repeated attacks, blocking, charged movement or heavy equipment. The item is fixed dungeon loot rather than a random enemy drop.

Take care when dropping. The correct route uses controlled falls onto ledges, not a blind leap into the darkness. If you miss the narrow path, you may die or be forced to repeat several lifts and ladders.

4. The Death Knight Set

The Death Knight Set is found in an optional room reached from the middle section. Look for a gap in the balustrade and drop to the lower ledge. From there, enter the side room and loot the corpse.

The set is fixed loot from the corpse, not a random reward from the surrounding enemies. Several guides describe the room as being on or near the route below the illuminated stair and railing section.

Because the room is below the obvious route, it is one of the easiest major rewards to miss. If you reach the lower lift without checking the railing gaps and ledges above it, backtrack before continuing.

5. Lower lifts and upgrade materials

After collecting the middle-section loot, continue down through the next lift and ladders. The lower section contains additional Ghost Glovewort and Grave Glovewort pickups. These are fixed collectibles, while enemy drops and runes should be treated separately.

Some walkthroughs describe slightly different pickup routes because several items are on ledges or beside ladders rather than directly on the central path. Search behind pillars, below balustrades and around lift landings before moving on.

6. The Giant Bigmouth Imp chamber

The lower chamber is dominated by a Giant Bigmouth Imp. It can detect and fire at the player across the room, even when the chamber remains dark. Its projectiles are large and dangerous, so avoid standing still in the open.

First locate the lever near the far side of the chamber. Pulling it lights the room and changes the position of the central platform. This is the critical platform adjustment for reaching the chamber’s optional chest.

The Giant Bigmouth Imp rewards Great Ghost Glovewort. Some players report the item appearing awkwardly on a raised platform or becoming difficult to collect if the enemy is killed before the platform is placed correctly. If the reward seems inaccessible, reset the area and revisit the chamber after adjusting the platform. This is a practical recovery method reported in player discussions, but the exact behaviour may depend on the platform state and where the enemy dies.

The chest behind or below the central platform contains Bigmouth Imp Ashes. These Spirit Ashes summon the cannon-like imp described by their item text as an old imp fashioned after a dragon. The ashes are fixed chest loot, not the Giant Bigmouth Imp’s direct reward.

A safe general sequence is

  1. 01
    Enter the chamber from cover.
  2. 02
    Move between pillars rather than crossing the open floor directly.
  3. 03
    Locate and pull the lever.
  4. 04
    Wait for the platform to settle.
  5. 05
    Attack the Giant Bigmouth Imp from range or while using the pillars as cover.
  6. 06
    Check the platform and lower ledges for the chest route.
  7. 07
    Collect the Bigmouth Imp Ashes before leaving.

7. Jori, Elder Inquisitor

The final route leads to the fog gate for Jori, Elder Inquisitor. Jori is a ranged Inquisitor-style boss who uses golden projectiles, ground eruptions and summoned Inquisitor spirits. The arena contains gravestones that can provide temporary cover from some attacks.

Jori’s main threats

Jori is relatively fragile compared with many late-DLC bosses, but the encounter becomes more dangerous when the supporting spirits surround the player. Fast melee builds can pressure Jori directly, while ranged builds should prioritise maintaining line of sight and avoiding being trapped between projectiles and summoned enemies.

Practical tactics

Defeating Jori awards the Barbed Staff-Spear and opens the route to the Forsaken Graveyard and the Abyssal Woods. The boss is therefore both the dungeon’s final encounter and the guardian of the transition into the next major region.

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The following entries are grouped by function and are limited to names verified in the researched location material. The dungeon has no confirmed shopkeepers, ordinary resident NPCs or purchasable properties.

Named places

Connected or neighbouring places

The connected locations above are not internal subareas of Darklight Catacombs. They are included because they define the dungeon’s access route or exit connection.

Dungeon interior

Connected or neighbouring places

Enemies and encounters

The naming of the sorcerer enemy varies between sources. “Catacombs Sorcerer” and “Catacomb Conjurer” refer to the same type of mummified death-sorcery enemy in the researched material.

Enemies and encounters

Boss rewards and equipment

Upgrade materials and minor loot

The minor-loot directory is less consistently documented than the major rewards. The named entries above appear in the researched location lists and walkthrough material, but individual pickup placement should be checked against an in-game map if a full item-by-item collection run is required.

Functional objects

The catacomb contains multiple ladders, lifts and levers. Available sources differ in how they count these objects, particularly where a ladder or platform is treated as part of an adjacent room. For that reason, this guide describes their function rather than presenting a potentially misleading object count.

Services and businesses

No shops, merchants, crafting stations, quest-givers or other player services are verified inside Darklight Catacombs. The location is an exploration dungeon with checkpoints, fixed loot and a boss encounter.

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Falling

The greatest non-combat danger is falling. Many optional rewards are positioned on narrow ledges beneath the main route. Use short drops, not long jumps, and line up the camera before stepping through gaps in railings.

Darkness

The darkness conceals both enemies and safe platforms. A lantern is the simplest solution. Lighting levers improve visibility but do not illuminate every route immediately, so do not treat the first lever as a replacement for the lantern.

Long-range fire

Bigmouth Imps can attack across a room. The Giant Bigmouth Imp is particularly dangerous because its position gives it a broad view of the chamber. Move from pillar to pillar and avoid stopping to collect loot until the immediate firing angle is safe.

Catacombs Sorcerers

Catacombs Sorcerers use death-related magic and are often positioned near corners, ladders or narrow passages. They can be more dangerous than ordinary imps because their attacks punish players who rush through the dark corridors. Try to draw them into a wider space before committing to a close-range attack.

Platform-state problems

The Giant Bigmouth Imp’s reward and the Bigmouth Imp Ashes chest depend on the central platform’s position. If the platform is raised or the enemy dies in an awkward place, the corpse reward may be difficult to reach. Resetting the area and repeating the platform adjustment is the most practical recovery approach reported by players, but it is not a separate quest or missable progression state.

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This route prioritises fixed rewards before the boss and reduces the chance of having to climb back through the dungeon after the final encounter.

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Darklight Catacombs is important structurally rather than because it contains a large NPC storyline. Its major narrative function is to conceal and guard access to the Abyssal Woods. The dungeon’s dark, subterranean design acts as a threshold between the lower river system of Scadu Altus and the forbidden forest beyond.

The Inquisitor presence reinforces that role. Jori is described as an Elder Inquisitor, and the boss fight uses the same general visual and magical language as the Inquisitor enemies found elsewhere in the Realm of Shadow. The location therefore reads as a guarded passage rather than an abandoned burial site occupied only by ordinary catacomb creatures.

The Bigmouth Imp Ashes also give the dungeon a small piece of creature lore. Their description presents the old imp as dragon-like, with a mouth that functions as a cannon and allows it to fire from the rear of a battlefield. This mirrors the Giant Bigmouth Imp’s role in the dungeon, where it controls space from a distant elevated position.

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Darklight Catacombs has no known major world-state transformation comparable to the changes caused by completing major remembrance bosses or advancing the principal DLC faction conflicts.

The following content is fixed and remains available during ordinary exploration:

The main practical missability risks are not quest failures. They are:

There is no verified merchant, resident NPC or mission chain inside the catacombs that can be permanently lost through ordinary progression.

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For a first visit, use this order

  1. 01
    Activate the Darklight Catacombs Site of Grace.
  2. 02
    Explore the upper corridor and collect the early glovewort.
  3. 03
    Find and pull the first lighting lever.
  4. 04
    Search the middle ledges for the Viridian Amber Medallion +3.
  5. 05
    Drop into the side room and collect the Death Knight Set.
  6. 06
    Continue down through the lifts and gather the visible upgrade materials.
  7. 07
    Enter the Giant Bigmouth Imp chamber.
  8. 08
    Pull the platform lever before killing the Giant Bigmouth Imp if possible.
  9. 09
    Collect Great Ghost Glovewort from the Giant Bigmouth Imp.
  10. 10
    Retrieve the Bigmouth Imp Ashes from the chest below the platform.
  11. 11
    Rest or return to the Site of Grace if needed.
  12. 12
    Defeat Jori, Elder Inquisitor.
  13. 13
    Activate the Forsaken Graveyard checkpoint.
  14. 14
    Continue into the Abyssal Woods.

Platform-state problems

Is Darklight Catacombs part of the base game?

No. It is part of Shadow of the Erdtree and requires access to the Realm of Shadow.

Where is Darklight Catacombs?

It is in the low southern section of Scadu Altus, at the end of the Recluses’ River route. The entrance lies beyond Recluses’ River Downstream and below the higher Scadu Altus paths.

Do I have to complete it to enter the Abyssal Woods?

The catacombs are the route to the Abyssal Woods. Jori, Elder Inquisitor guards the final passage, so you must progress through the dungeon and deal with the boss to continue normally into the forest.

Is there a Site of Grace inside?

Yes. The principal checkpoint is Darklight Catacombs. A further checkpoint, Forsaken Graveyard, is associated with the route beyond the boss and before the Abyssal Woods.

What is the best reward?

The most notable rewards are the Death Knight Set, Viridian Amber Medallion +3, Bigmouth Imp Ashes, Great Ghost Glovewort and Jori’s Barbed Staff-Spear. Which is most valuable depends on your build, but the Death Knight Set and +3 talisman are the rewards most likely to justify a thorough search.

Can I skip the Giant Bigmouth Imp?

You can make progress through the dungeon without treating it as the main boss, but defeating it is worthwhile because it provides Great Ghost Glovewort. The nearby chest contains Bigmouth Imp Ashes, so bypassing the chamber risks leaving important fixed loot behind.

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This guide distinguishes the catacomb itself from the Recluses’ River and Abyssal Woods, but published sources do not use perfectly consistent naming for every internal room, platform and checkpoint. Some sources also differ on whether the post-boss Forsaken Graveyard is counted as part of the catacomb location or as the first checkpoint of the Abyssal Woods route.

The major named rewards, enemies, connections and boss are consistently supported. The minor pickup directory is less uniform, especially for individual Glovewort placements and small crafting-material pickups. Those entries are therefore retained as verified names but not assigned rigid room coordinates. No unsupported shop, NPC, faction, mission or service has been added.

Sources