Mapping out the world of Silksong

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.