The Knight’s journey into Hallownest
begins with it jumping off a huge cliff.
This is fitting because the whole game deals
with the main character traveling further
and further downward, through strange
and dangerous lands full of deadly foes
and unlikely allies until
it uncovers the dark truth
shrouded in the depths of Hallownest. It’s like
the whole game is us jumping off a giant cliff.
Hornet’s journey into Pharloom begins much
the same way, with her falling off a huge
cliff. However, instead of descending down,
Hornet will be climbing back up, making her
way to the top of Pharloom and defeating the big
baddie in charge of everything… except we don’t
really know who the big baddie is, and we don’t
really know what path Hornet takes to get there.
So in this video, we’re going to take a leisurely
stroll through everything we’ve seen of Pharloom
so far. From the lush greens of the Moss Grotto
to the dull grays of what I assume is supposed
to be Maine, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for
any clues about how these areas are connected.
And by the end, we’ll have nice little map all
put together. I should also mention that since
my last video, about 10 seconds of extra
Silksong footage was shown off by Xbox.
Man, that already feels like so long ago.
Of course, we’re trying to solve a
jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces,
so our chances of actually getting things
mostly right are probably pretty slim. But
that’s never stopped me before. I once
said Silksong was coming out in 2020.
Before Hornet falls off that cliff in the
opening cutscene, we see a brief glimpse of the
entrance to Pharloom. There are large, opulent,
pear-shaped doorways leading the way to this thin,
dinky bridge. I guess Pharloom couldn’t
even spring for some guardrails or anything.
On the opposite side of the path, we
can see vines all along the cave wall.
From this location, there’s a chasm that runs
through lower Pharloom all the way down to
the Moss Grotto, an area we saw extensively in
footage of the Silksong demo from E3 2019. This
area appears to be like the King’s Pass portion
of Hollow Knight. So basically a tutorial level.
An important thing to note about this area are
these two strange doors we’ve seen nowhere else
in the game so far. Obviously, they’re tied to
the Weavers, the spider tribe which played a
pretty big role in the events of Hollow Knight.
They were very invested in Hornet’s birth,
but there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding
them. We know that they left Hallownest for
their old home, and I think it’s a safe bet to say
that Pharloom is where they originally came from.
In Silksong, Hornet can find Weavers throughout
the world that help her restore her lost power,
but it’s weird to see two of these gates
right at the very start of the game.
So perhaps there’s something
else hidden behind these doors.
Or the areas as shown in the demo don’t actually
reflect how the map will look in the final game.
At the end of this portion of the demo we
see Hornet approach a dark figure in a church
until she collapses from what I assume is
severe iron deficiency. Here, a mysterious
figure teaches Hornet how to play her needolin.
We’re not really sure what purpose playing this
instrument will serve in Silksong. We see some
doors are opened by playing melodic tunes,
but we have yet to see Hornet opening any doors
this way. We do see her jam out with a few
characters, so maybe she can learn different
songs to get certain reactions out of NPCs,
unlocking new dialogue and quests, sorta like
what the Dream Nails does in Hollow Knight.
What’s interesting about the Moss Grotto
is that there is more footage in trailers
of areas that look like the Moss Grotto that we
don’t see in the demo. Luckily, the Edge magazine
interview from December 2020 gives us quite a
few details about the early parts of Silksong.
The Druid of the Moss Temple is described as being
found in a place called the Overgrown Village.
These shots shown in the reveal trailer look like
they might belong in this Overgrown Village area.
We also get a clip and a screenshot
of some strange clover area.
We can see for a brief second that this region
is directly connected to the Moss Grotto,
so I assume it might be some sort of subarea.
But it’s not clear how this clover area,
or the Overgrown Village for that matter, connect
to what we saw in the demo. My guess would be that
they are a bit higher up, since I doubt we’d
go much further below the spot Hornet landed.
From the Moss Grotto, Hornet
arrives in Bonebottom,
which serves as the entrance to the
Boneforest. It also connects to the Marrow,
which is the bell tunnel system that
seems to run throughout Pharloom,
sorta like bone marrow? I don’t know if that was
intentional. When Hornet arrives in this area,
she’ll find the Bell Beast tied up in silk,
although she won’t be able to free it yet.
As Hornet travels further into the Boneforest
she meets Shakra, this game’s cartographer
who might also be a boss fight, maybe,
it’s hinted at anyway. Hornet might also
have a boss encounter near here with this hermit
crab-like bug that we see a few times in trailers.
There seems to be tiers of these black ball
creatures that hide themselves in leaves
and skulls throughout Pharloom. Yup, black
balls are an enemy type in Silksong it seems.
They’re really cute looking. I can’t wait
to find out what their tragic lore is.
Hornet also meets a character named Sherma, who is
able to help us open this door by jamming out with
a little jingle. On the other side of this door
is an elevator that leads back down to Bonebottom.
According to the Edge magazine interview,
at some point along this circuit,
Hornet will also discover a Weaver
chamber, opened by some series of levers.
Perhaps the chamber looks
like what we saw earlier?
We do see a few shots of Hornet standing in
front of a Weaver resting in some kind of cocoon.
This weaver gives Hornet the Silk Spear,
which allows her to free the Bell Beast
trapped in the Marrow. This leads to a boss
battle, which Team Cherry describes as an exam
fight before the player can get out into the
rest of the world. However, once defeating the
Bell Beast, she actually runs away, meaning Hornet
still won’t have access to public transportation.
After this, Hornet will find a bell that she can
activate, which rings out the notes, E, F# G E.
Structures like this will appearly
be scattered throughout Pharloom,
and we even see a structure just like it at the
end of the Deep Docks portion of the E3 demo.
This musical progression gives a sense of closure,
making it an appropriate way to end a
level. It stands out as a nice contrast
to the main motif we’ve heard hidden
throughout Silksong. You know the one,
right? This is heard several times throughout
the reveal trailer, notably at the very end.
It also plays after Hornet defeats a boss.
And a lower pitched version of it can
even be heard in the opening cutscene.
This phrase, which is sometimes
referred to as the Dies Irae,
gives off a sense of foreboding danger. The
name originates from a poem describing the
Last Judgment of God, and the theme used to
be closely tied to religious institutions,
making it a fitting theme for Citadel
caste. As for the theme played by this bell,
I’m guessing we’ll be hearing it plenty
in other places throughout Pharloom.
The Edge magazine interview ends with Hornet
reaching a bridge that looks over where she
met Shakra earlier. There isn’t much to go
on with the one Shakra screenshot we do have,
other than these metallic walls found in
the room. This is somewhat reminiscent of
the bronze-like structure of the
Deep Docks. Which makes sense,
because it seems like the Deep Docks are
the next area the player will likely visit.
There are even several sections that
appear to be where the Boneforest connects
into Deep Docks. We know that the Deep Docks
appear early on in the game, according to the
Nintendo Life Treehouse event. There’s this
room that seems to have pathways set up,
this long ass platform with literally zero
guardrails, and these areas that appear to be just
on the outside of the Docks. Of course, we’ve seen
quite a bit of the inside thanks to the E3 demo,
but we do get one clip of footage from
somewhere inside the docks we haven’t seen yet.
The Deep Docks are our first real good look at
Pharloom’s active industrial infrastructure.
In Hollow Knight, the miner bugs in the Crystal
Peak were basically mindless zombies, but it seems
like the bugs of the Deep Dock are a bit more
aware of their surroundings and are still working.
According to the lore tablet found here, the
workers are being required to send materials
and even pay fealty to the toll of some
bell, presumably connected to the Citadel.
There are even a few friendly NPCs here, including
Forge-Daughter, who acts as a vendor that can
upgrade Hornet’s tools. In Hollow Knight, bugs
seemingly could avoid the Radiance’s infection
as long as they had strong wills, but it’s
not clear what makes the certain bugs in
Pharloom hostile or friendly. When enemies
are hit, they give off threads of silk,
and on death we see what might be
threads leading up towards the sky.
So it seems like silk is like the infection
in this game, but instead of becoming mindless
zombies, the bugs are being instructed and
guided by some kind of bell toll. Of course,
this raises the question of how some NPCs don’t
seem affected by it. But we just don’t know yet.
At the end of the Deep Docks, we encounter Lace
who says the iconic line “BLANK
CELL (Wanderers/LACE_MEET_3)”.
Lace taunts Hornet about the fate she would
face higher up in Pharloom and offers to help
by murdering her. So it seems Lace is not aligned
with the bugs that originally captured Hornet.
This lines up with the fact that we see Lace
conducting these white butterflies which look
awfully similar to the one that broke the Seal of
Binding on Hornet’s cage at the start of the game.
So Lace might be working with some other faction
within Pharloom. Beyond the Lace fight room lies
a mysterious shrine dedicated to another giant
bell. The bell rings out those same four notes.
This is where the Deep Dock demo
level ends. Before we move on,
I should mention this scene with the giant
robot-like creature from the reveal trailer.
The area looks more like the Boneforest
than the Deep Docks, but the enemy itself
looks like it belongs in the Deep Docks, so I’m
not exactly sure where this scene takes place.
So what comes after the Deep
Docks? During the Lace fight,
we can see moss growing on the right side of
the giant statue in the background, and in one
trailer shot we also see Hornet walking into a
green forest area, leaving behind what appears
to be a bell shrine. So the Deep Docks might
actually be sandwiched between the Boneforest,
and another, more regular boneless forest,
which I like to call the Dark Forest.
This forest is crawling with ant enemies
as well, and it seems their main fortress
is located somewhere in the more lava rich
section of Pharloom albeit higher up in the air,
which means these two areas probably aren’t
far apart. This will be where Hornet fights
Hunter Queen Carmalita. The ants seem like
they’ll be the mantis tribe of this game.
Except ants are little assholes so I doubt
they’ll be as nice as the mantises are.
This forest region is also
where Hornet meets this bug.
If I had to guess, this guy is dressing
up like an ant to avoid getting attacked,
which is an insanely common phenomenon in real
life because, like I said, ants are assholes.
It also appears that the Huntress
might show up in this area as well.
Other than that, when Hornet first enters the
region, we see a sign for what is probably a city.
It’s not clear what city this is supposed to be,
so I’m guessing it’s a city
we haven’t actually seen yet.
Anyways, we have one teeny tiny lead
about where the map might go from here.
In this region of Pharloom we see these green
vines in a few locations, and we can actually
see these same vines growing in a dark section
of Greymoor. It’s very subtle but there is a
connection here, and it’s our only lead right now.
So the top of the Dark Forest might connect to the
bottom of Greymoor, which according to Team
Cherry is the largest area they’ve ever made.
Greymoor can be broken down into a few subareas.
There are wide open fields with nothing but
gravestones and distant towers and windmills
in the background. There’s the indoor sections
with tight hallways and large, open rooms. There
appears to be a small village or rest area of some
kind. And of course there’s this dank basement
area that appears to connect to the forest region.
From Team Cherry’s blog posts, it is explained
that the tenders of the land have become haunted,
and that the place is infested with Dustroaches.
Despite that, we do catch glimpses of what
the bugs of Greymoor have been doing here.
I’ve mentioned before that these objects seem to
be able to catch silk that floats through the air.
This area in Greymoor is also filled
with enemies carrying around scissors,
and we can see several empty spools discarded all
over the place. In this basement room we can even
see stacks upon stacks of these spools. So these
bugs seem specifically equipped to deal with silk.
The only spools we ever see that actually have
silk on them can only be seen in the background
of this cropped screenshot from a Team Cherry
blog post. I’m guessing that these giant spools
are related to the windmills we see. They use
the wind to wind up these giant spools. These
spools or their silk are possibly transported up
to the Citadel. It seems the Citadel is always in
want of silk, since it's what they desire from
those who would choose to pilgrimage there.
And the whole capturing Hornet thing might
be related to their desire for silk as well.
Another strange section of Greymoor is this boss
encounter. I originally thought this character
was some kind of chef, cooking some kind of
mosquito soup. But the Discord user, Arch_Imedes,
made a very interesting connection between
this character and medieval candle makers.
Strap in, boys, cuz we’re about
to learn about candle lore.
Candle wax can be made by rendering fat in a big
vat, which can then be poured over wicks hanging
above. We can see what appears to be a vat stored
in the floor, and there’s also bug corpses which
would serve as a source of fat. This would also
explain the off-white color stains on the bug’s
apron. And it would even explain where all these
candles came from seen in this room in Greymoor.
That said, this could just be a repeat of what we
already saw in Hollow Knight with the cannibals
in the City of Tears. But the candle theory
seems a bit more unique and interesting to me.
There’s one room in Greymoor that gives us
a connection to another area in Pharloom.
This room appears to lead left into this
bell heap city. There isn’t much to see here,
other than it seems Hornet can unlock a series
of platforms to get higher up into the city.
But we don’t know exactly where this leads.
This city reminds me of the Marrow, the pile of
bells that make up the tunnels we fast travel
through throughout the game. But we also know
that there are other sections of the Marrow that
Hornet can actually traverse through. Perhaps the
Marrow connects the Boneforest to the Bell Heap?
I’ve been going through Pharloom fairly linearly
in this video, but I think we all know that there
will be multiple routes through the world. In
fact, Team Cherry has even said that during
the game Hornet “may” pass through Greymoor.
It’s literally the largest region in the game,
and you apparently don’t even have to go through
it. If you’ve seen Mark Brown’s video about Hollow
Knight, you’ll know how many different routes
you can take through that game, and how certain
areas can be completely skipped. And I’m sure
Silksong will be similar, if not even more crazy.
Regardless, we actually have
another connection to the Bell Heap.
This swamp-like region appears to
be located to the left of the city.
This region of Pharloom is extremely
fascinating for a couple reasons.
First of all, this appears to be where the player
can fight Seth. Seth is said to reside at the
“Base of the Citadel” where he guards a hidden
secret, one that the Citadel’s caste seem to be
interested in as well. Seth believes he has been
chosen by a mysterious force known as “The Voice”.
We don’t know what Seth is protecting, but
Team Cherry points out that the base of
the Citadel is covered in tangled roots, and
this region of Pharloom is where we see these
strange white flowers growing naturally. These
flowers have some significance in Silksong,
given that they appear prominently during
the Lace fight, but also because floral
patterns also appear frequently in the
architecture of the Citadel. There’s likely
a connection here, and it’s a connection
Team Cherry has never really commented on.
Another interesting detail in the Citadel base
area are these giant plants sticking out of the
ceiling. This tells us that whatever plant
life lives here at the base of the Citadel
is quite encompassing. I’m not quite sure if
these are vines or roots or if they come from
multiple plants or one big one, but they appear
to be pretty barren. One possibility is that the
Citadel covets these flowers, and perhaps they
stripped these once lush vines of their flowers.
This would reinforce how
industrially driven Pharloom is,
eating up natural resources to fuel their society.
Either that or this plant life is naturally dying
out. That could explain why we see an unending
stream of flower petals falling from the sky.
It seems like this overgrown temple is
located somewhere in this region as well.
The more muted colors match this area better than
something like the Moss Grotto. We can also see
floating flower petals in this boss fight
arena. So that pretty much seals the deal.
Finally, all the vines located here are
reminiscent of the vines seen right at the
entrance of Pharloom, so it seems the base of the
Citadel might actually be close to this doorway.
But if that were the case, why do pilgrims
like Sherma end up way lower than this
in places like the Boneforest? Maybe
his stupid ass fell off the cliff too?
Now this is complete speculation on my part, but
I think this area might also be where the player
can find this elevator up to the Citadel. It is
the base, after all. That said, we also see the
elevator crashing back down at some point. This
implies that Hornet might get to explore a bit
of the Citadel before being locked off from it, or
it breaks the first time she even tries to use it.
And we’re pretty much out of leads at this point.
Honestly, I think we’ve done pretty good so far.
We were able to connect quite a few of
Pharloom’s areas, but there’s still a few
stragglers left before we reach the Citadel, so
let’s just do some guess work for these last few.
We’ve got the barnacle area, the coral forest,
this sandy desert, Grindle’s prison cell,
the Last Judge boss arena,
the room with the penis dude,
the room with Trobbio, and
this giant grinding pit room.
I’m going to place the barnacle area above
Greymoor for one simple reason: there's rain
in Greymoor. This is probably wrong but it's
the only lead we really have. Unfortunately,
there’s also rain in the barnacle area, and
I really don’t know what could be above it.
There’s the coral forest, but this area
doesn’t really seem to have much water
at all. It’s kinda like Fog Canyon where it
kinda looks like it’s underwater, but it’s not.
That said, it’s really our best bet so… I’m
just gonna put it above the Barnance area.
This might be controversial, but I’m
going to roll all of these rooms into
the desert region of Pharloom, as I think
they are all in relatively the same place.
This room shares architecture with what we see in
the Weaver’s Den and other Weaver-related areas.
This might be a mini-dungeon where Hornet can
find another Weaver to gain a new spell from.
We don’t really know anything about the
Last Judge, but we do know that he bears
some resemblance to these three enemies shown
off in a Team Cherry blog post. These enemies
are described as the former tenders of a
dusty vault of ancient knowledge. However,
it appears that one of them can be seen in what
might be a church somewhere in the Citadel. The
similarity in design to the Last Judge might imply
that he is the current tender of the dusty vault.
Dusty. Desert. I dunno, it’s kinda similar.
As a side note, maybe these three characters
were the other Judges, who abandoned this guy,
because he was stupid or ugly or something,
explaining how he got the name “Last Judge”.
I think Grindle is in the same facility as
the Last Judge, like some sort of prison.
As for where the desert is as a whole, I’m going
to put it just above the Moss Grotto. I feel like
it’s somewhere on the outskirts of the Kingdom, so
that’s where it’s going. Cry about it, liberals.
These last three rooms I think are somewhere
near the bottom of the Citadel, like you’re in
the lower parts of the Citadel at this point,
but you’re still not to the shining part of the
Citadel. This is what I’m going to call the Gilded
Cities. Keep in mind, this is mostly speculation.
These areas might be in completely different
locations, but this is what I’m going with
for now. This is where we can see a few more
examples of Pharloom’s industrial complex.
Smokerock and Sweetsmelt brought up from
the Deep Docks are placed in furnaces here.
Waste is discarded into
this giant grinding machine.
And finally, there’s the room with Trobbio,
which, as it turns out, is pretty important.
In this room, we see what appears to be
a model replica of the Citadel itself.
The two main indicators of this are the
various bulbous domes and the giant,
winding pipes. So this is possibly representative
of what the entire Citadel looks like.
In this model, we can actually see a few tall
towers on either side of the city. We don’t know
what these towers are, but one possibility is that
one of them is the clock tower level we’ve seen a
few times. This clocktower is probably the driving
force of Pharloom’s productivity, responsible for
the tolls mentioned all the way down in the
Deep Docks. I think the tower might actually
drop down into the underpart of the Citadel,
making a good connection between the two areas.
From this model, we also get a clear view of
these strange pipes that run throughout the city.
These things are everywhere in the Citadel,
just casually hiding away in the background,
and apparently they all converge at the very top.
This leads us to our final shot, the Lace fight.
Now given the sheer amount of pipes in the
background, you’d think this would be the
place where all the pipes converge, but if
that’s the case, why is the room so dark?
Wouldn’t it be close to whatever the light
source of the Shining Citadel is? So perhaps
this is closer to the base of the Citadel, with
lights from up above just barely peeking through.
Regardless of where the Lace fight takes place, we
can guess from the diagram in Trobbio’s room that
at the peak of Pharloom rests this giant ball, a
symbol we see plastered all throughout Pharloom.
It looks like a giant wound up ball of silk
with a curved needle positioned above it.
To me, this symbolizes the control of silk
the Citadel has over the land of Pharloom.
But there’s something the Citadel is up to that
we should talk about, and that’s these pipes.
These things are so weird. What’s inside them? Why
do some of them taper off like this? Why did Team
Cherry change this scene between the two trailers
to remove the threads of silk in the room?
Clearly there’s something between the top of
the Citadel and the bottom of the Citadel that
these pipes help transfer. So… maybe it’s silk?
If we believe the whole puppet idea, that the
threads extend all the way down to the various
bugs across the kingdom, then these pipes that
start from the center and move outwards would be a
good way to distribute the threads across Parloom.
Here’s another idea I originally heard from
another user named Araraura. These pipes have a
vague similarity to something else we’ve seen in
Hollow Knight before: the Beast’s Den shrine in
Deepnest. This contraption also has pipes coming
out of it. Perhaps this device is just a tomb
for Deepnest’s dead king. Or maybe it’s hiding
whatever beast attacked us when we first entered
Beast’s Den. All that said, it doesn’t really help
us solve what these pipes are for. But maybe the
two are related somehow. And the coming reveal
in Silksong will tell us more about this thing.
Another connection we can make with these pipes
is the flowers. The flowers seemingly grow at
the base of the Citadel, yet we see them here in
the Lace fight, and even growing on the sides of
the pipe. If we assume the Lace fight is at the
top of the Citadel, why would flowers be found
all the way up here? So perhaps the vines
that we see tangled at the base of the Citadel
also extend through the Citadel up to the top
through these pipes. This is another theory
suggested by Arch_Imedes, and he thinks that
these pipes are a way of hiding this giant plant
from the bugs of the Citadel, relating back to
the hidden truth alluded to in Pharloom’s Folly,
the poem shown off at the start of the
game. That would be an interesting twist,
and it seems pretty likely that these flowers will
have some greater connection to Silksong’s story.
So there’s a lot going on here. You’ve got the
Citadel caste with their abundance of bells and
weapons for cutting and controlling silk. You’ve
got Lace who seems to have her mysterious motives.
There’s the Conductor Romino, who…
we know nothing about. And like,
we don’t even know what’s creating the
light found in the Shining Citadel.
What is that all about? Lots and lots
of loose threads, to say the least.
But the point of this video wasn’t to
necessarily worry about all that stuff.
We’re just trying to draw a map of Pharloom, and
here it is. I can’t wait to explore every inch
of this game, from its stubbly little feet
to its round head. This potential map for Silksong
really is just so beautiful looking. Like,
this map already looks so familiar to me, even
though Silksong isn’t even out yet. It’s like
I’ve been seeing this map everywhere for years and
never even realized it. It looks… It’s kinda sus.