Chalice Dungeons

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page revision: 11, last edited: 06 June 2022

Description

Underneath Yharnam there is a vast underground ruins spread wide and deep across multiple floors. Horrifying and ancient, it appears to have been created by something not quite human. It’s at once both a graveyard, and a place of slumber. What’s more, these ruins change their appearance for each visitor. The seal to these underground ruins can be broken by conducting a special ritual using a holy chalice. Every time the ritual is performed, the dungeon’s structure changes.

The Chalice Dungeons are a large part of Bloodborne, but they are an entirely optional part.The role they play in the game's overall structure is another mystery for players to solve.

Preset Chalices: These labyrinthine dungeons must be unlocked through rituals, each of which carries a cost in materials and Blood Echoes - the deeper the dungeon, the more costly the ritual is to complete. Reaching their deepest depths is no small undertaking, and your path there begins when you acquire your first Chalice, by defeating the Blood-starved Beast in Old Yharnam. This Chalice lets you perform the ritual to create the Pthumerian Labyrinth.

In order to craft the first labyrinth you'll also need a 'Ritual Blood (1)', which you can find in Old Yharnam at an Altar on your way to the boss. You can also purchase them from the Messenger Bath shop in the Hunter's Dream after acquiring the Pthumeru Chalice defeating the Blood-starved Beast.

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos

Root Chalices: Many dungeons will reward you, upon defeating bosses, with either a Preset Chalice or a Root Chalice. Root Chalices always have the word 'Root' in their names and are used to create randomly gen¬erated versions of the dungeon the Chalice is named after. So the Central Pthumeru Root Chalice, for example, will create a randomly generated version of the Central Pthumerian Labyrinth.

Ritual Altars: To conduct your rituals, you can use any of the six 'Ritual Altars' lined along the path to the left of where you always enter the Hunter's Dream. These altars are where you'll be able to craft or dismantle Chalice Labyrinths and search for other player-created labyrinths online. Treat this area of the Hunter's Dream essentially as the Chalice Labyrinth hub. There are only six Ritual Altars, so you will eventually have to dismantle some of your crafted labyrinths by selecting the 'Remove Chalice' option when you wish to craft newer labyrinths, or improve root labyrinths by performing additional rites with newer materials when re-crafting them. Preset labyrinths will always remain the same when re-crafted, which is worth bearing in mind in case you wish to hunt for specific items and materials.

How to use Makeshift Altar

Before you can use the Makeshift Altar in Hunter’s Dream, you have to acquire the item – Short Ritual Root Chalice. Patch Notes v1.04: Players can now acquire a Short Ritual Root Chalice by trading Insight. The Chalice will become available after completing the Pthumeru Chalice dungeon. Players can now use the Short Ritual Root Chalice’s quick matching feature in the early part of the game. It is also available if you defeat the last boss in Lower Hintertomb Chalice (the order of the chalices is the following: Pthumeru Chalice » Central Pthumeru Chalice » Hintertomb Chalice » Lower Hintertomb Chalice). Makeshift Altar has three Quick-search options:

Dungeon Quick-search: Quick search and join an accessible Chalice Dungeon.
Co-op Quick-search: Quick search a Beckoning Bell chime to begin co-op
Adversarial Quick-search: Quick search a Sinister Bell chime to become an adversary.

Updated: When using a Short Ritual Root Chalice for co-op play, the guest player will always start from the Lamp room of each floor rather than in random locations.

Online Sharing

When conducting the Chalice Ritual each fixed shared dungeon and root dungeon has "messengers" icon indicating how much is the dungeon shared online. The more messengers on the icon, with maximum five, the more players used this dungeon online.

Fond of Chalice Dungeons spelunking? Why not join the Tomb Prospectors then.

The Tomb Prospectors seek the nether reaches of Root Chalice Dungeons, in order to find the strange, the weird, the undiscovered.
The Tomb Prospectors Discoveries wiki page lets you unearth the profound Root Chalice Dungeon expeditions.
If you love running Root Chalice Dungeons, the Tomb Prospectors Covenant will gladly take you in! Join us on Reddit and Discord.

Introduction: Frequently Asked Questions

[By Esper_Row, with input from the Tomb Prospectors’ Discord]

Getting Started

How do I begin dungeon-diving?
The first obtainable chalice is the Pthumeru Chalice, dropped by the Blood-starved Beast in Old Yharnam. The two Ritual Blood (1) needed to create it are found earlier in the level, on an altar in the church with the crucified beast corpse and horde of beast patients. To use it, conduct the ritual at any of the six altars to the left of the headstones in the Hunter's Dream. This is where you will always be creating dungeons. You’ll be able to obtain all of the remaining chalices for Pthumeru by progressing past this one.

Other chalices obtained from the main game are the Ailing Loran Chalice from Amygdala in the Nightmare Frontier and the Great Isz Chalice from Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos in Upper Cathedral Ward, although these will be significantly more difficult and should be saved for much later in your playthrough.

What is a chalice dungeon?
A chalice dungeon is a series of three-to-four layered floors, each containing an individual level and a boss at the end of it. Each layer requires the hunter to navigate a series of varied rooms to find the lever that opens the gate to the boss, in order to proceed to the next floor. The difficulty of a dungeon is dependent on its depth, represented by a number from 1-5, with 1 being the easiest and 5 being the hardest. They are divided into two categories: fixed dungeons (sometimes referred to as story dungeons) and root dungeons.

What is the difference between a fixed dungeon and a root dungeon?
A fixed dungeon has the same appearance every time for every hunter, with no change in layouts or enemy placements. If you are following the intended path of unlocking each chalice, you will always traverse the fixed version of a chalice before you obtain the root from within it.

A root dungeon will almost always be a different experience every time you create one. To do so, you must obtain the root variant of the chalice from a boss of the corresponding fixed dungeon (ex: Keeper of the Old Lords on Layer 2 of Central Pthumerian Labyrinth will drop the Central Pthumeru Root Chalice when killed the first time). When a root dungeon is generated, the game will pull from a large list of dungeon layouts for that particular chalice and select one. When compared to one another, each root variant will have a unique arrangement of rooms and differing placements of items, enemies, and bosses.

When should I tackle the fixed dungeons?
Depth 1 is scaled to be accessible as soon as you defeat the Blood-starved Beast, so you can begin the journey as soon as you get your first chalice. You will likely want to have a +3 weapon by this point, which is easy to accomplish with the abundance of them found in Old Yharnam and Cathedral Ward.

Depth 2 is similarly scaled, and most players will be comfortable with going there as soon as Depth 1 Pthumeru is completed.

Depth 3 provides a noticeable spike in difficulty and is generally recommended to be saved for around the time you reach Yahar'gul, Unseen Village after the blood moon descends. A +6 weapon is highly recommended before entering here.

Depth 4 is where the dungeons really start to kick into high gear. This is where the infamous Defiled Chalice resides, and as such, you will absolutely want to save it in particular until after you complete the Nightmare of Mensis and obtain a fully upgraded weapon.

Depth 5 amps the enemy scaling even further than Depth 4, although most players still consider the Defiled Chalice to be the hardest section of all the fixed dungeons by merit of the Curse rite alone. Consider Depth 5 the endgame of the fixed dungeons.

If you choose to save the fixed dungeons until after you complete the main game, expect Depths 1-3 to go by quickly. Depths 4-5 will likely still provide a substantial challenge.

What are ritual materials?
Ritual materials are necessary ingredients for creating a chalice dungeon. As you descend to lower and lower depths, the material requirements for the later chalices will become larger and rarer. If following the intended dungeon path, you will need to diligently explore each layer and find the materials scattered throughout in order to create the next dungeon in the line. Farming appropriate enemies that drop materials may also be a necessity sometimes. Thankfully, all materials will eventually become purchasable in the Hunter’s Dream from the two messenger’s shops by reaching certain checkpoints.

The single Living String needed for Pthumeru Ihyll is dropped by the Brain of Mensis on death. As such, it is recommended that you do not enter NG+ until you obtain this material, as you will otherwise need to progress all the way back to Mensis in NG+ to obtain it.

Note as well that there is a common bug associated with the Brain of Mensis where it will not drop the Living String while in co-op, but it will respawn afterwards for you to receive it anyways.

What are rites?
Rites are additional modifiers you can add to a root dungeon to increase its challenge and reap better rewards within. The lower the depth, the more rites become available. There are four in total that are all available by the time you reach the Depth 5 dungeons:

Fetid Rite will strengthen certain enemies, giving them a distinct red aura.

Rotted Rite will add one or a combination of the following new enemy types:

Eye Collectors, who routinely summon Mad Ones to aid them until killed
Hunter NPC’s of varying builds
Tall Labyrinth Ritekeepers, each flanked by a small crowd of Pthumerian watchers

Cursed Rite will halve the hunter’s HP while they remain within the dungeon, but also cause all enemies to drop Cursed Gems with stronger effects at the cost of a debilitating negative effect.

Sinister Rite will add a guaranteed Bell Ringer to every layer of the dungeon, regardless of whether the hunter has summoned cooperators or not. Attempting to beckon will still spawn another Bell Ringer, allowing two invaders to join at once for more hectic PvP scenarios.

What is the point in doing chalice dungeons if they are completely optional?
Players who seek the coveted Platinum Trophy for Bloodborne must complete the Depth 5 Pthumeru Ihyll and defeat Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen for an additional trophy. Doing so via the intended path will at bare minimum require traversing the four previous Pthumeru fixed dungeons and (unless in NG+) a detour into Ailing Loran about halfway through.

Otherwise, the most common motivator for accessing the lowest depths of the dungeons is the Blood Gems found within. To give a basic example, the strongest physical damage gems from the main game are 22.3% Cursed Temperings, dropped by Winter Lanterns in the Fishing Hamlet. Meanwhile, in Depth 5 cursed dungeons, the Merciless Watchers boss can drop Temperings as powerful as 27.2%, resulting in a noticeable leap in damage for your build. This difference in gem strength is exacerbated even further for non-physical builds like pure arcane, as the gem options they have from the main game are much more restrictive.

There are, of course, many more reasons to go deeper. The chalice dungeons are home to many unique enemies and bosses, not found anywhere in the base game or DLC. Most will pose a significant challenge to even the most experienced of hunters. Other benefits include Uncanny or Lost variants of each weapon in the game with different gem slots to better suit your build, the strongest versions of every rune from the base game, a few unique sets of attire, efficient blood echo farming locations, and the allure of uncovering rare occurrences within.

Dungeon Navigation

How are chalice dungeons structured?
As mentioned earlier, a chalice dungeon consists of three or four layers, each of which will always have three distinct sections. These are commonly referred to in order as the pre-lamp, the main area, and the pre-boss, all leading towards a boss encounter at the end.

The pre-lamp is the corridor leading from the beginning of the layer to the layer’s starting lamp. There will sometimes be a bronze door or open path on either side of the hallway that leads to an additional side area. These will always contain a heavily guarded treasure coffin, which will contain rare loot like runes, ritual materials, and weapon variants. Although they are 100% optional and not needed to complete the dungeon, the rewards found within are often enough to make them worth exploring, especially at the later depths. Fixed dungeons will often tuck the ritual materials needed for the next fixed dungeon in side areas like these as well.

The main area is the middle section of a layer, immediately following the layer lamp. There will always be a locked gate very close to the lamp, and your task is to find a lever within this section to unlock the gate and continue forward. The lever will usually be tucked away in a far corner of the main area, although there can be exceptions to this rule. Explore diligently and check every corner and closed door to find it. Once you have done so, return to the start of the main area and open the boss gate to enter the pre-boss.

The pre-boss is the corridor leading to the boss arena. Just like the pre-lamp, there may sometimes be a side area with a treasure coffin. The end of the layer will always cap off with a boss fight. Defeat the boss, proceed to the next layer, and repeat the process until you reach the dungeon’s end.

Are there any deviations to the general dungeon structure?
Yes. Sometimes the main area will contain its own bonus area, either behind a closed door or through a seamless transition. The pre-lamp and pre-boss areas may also sometimes connect to the main area via alternate routes, and in the case of the pre-boss, this can allow the hunter to bypass the locked gate and open it from the other side without ever touching the lever. These changes to the structure can make root dungeons much more confusing to navigate.

There is a chest in a doorway blocking my way forward, what do I do?
Break it with your weapon or firearm. This will take several swings, but doing so will let you past while not damaging the item inside. Shotgun firearms like the blunderbuss are especially good at breaking chests quickly due to their multi-hit properties.

Sharing and Accessing Roots

I just made an interesting/useful dungeon, how do I share it with the community?
Interact with the ritual altar holding said dungeon, and press square to share it. This will enable other players to access it once you have shared it with either an Open or Closed privacy setting.

What is a glyph?
When a hunter creates a root dungeon, a unique 8-character code will be generated for it, visible in the bottom right corner of the dungeon menu. Think of this as a password that can be entered to access that exact dungeon again later. To enter a glyph, interact with any of the six primary ritual altars and select “Search by Chalice Glyph”.

What is the difference between a dungeon being Open or Closed?
An open glyph can be accessed easily by any player ringing at the Makeshift Altar, allowing hunters to summon cooperators or be invaded by adversaries directly from the Hunter's Dream. This is especially convenient for hunters looking to help a friend who is already on a later layer of the dungeon. Bear in mind however that it takes significantly longer to be summoned when using the Makeshift Altar, so be very patient when trying to connect via this method as a cooperator or adversary.

A closed glyph can only be accessed by inputting its corresponding glyph at a regular ritual altar. Hunters will not be able to enter this dungeon via the Makeshift Altar, and must instead ring their bells near your proximity on the exact layer of the dungeon you are on. Most save-edited farming glyphs are closed.

Why was my glyph deleted from the server?
Glyphs that are not routinely accessed by hunters will eventually expire and be removed from the server to maintain space for others. Even to this day, the community does not entirely understand the time frame it takes for a glyph to die like this. Unfortunately, there is no way to recover a glyph once it is gone. If you want to keep your glyph alive as long as possible, consider sharing it with the community on Reddit and/or Discord to increase the chances of other hunters accessing it.

Why don’t I meet the requirements for entering a dungeon?
Two conditions must be met to enter any root dungeon:

First, you must have already obtained the corresponding root dungeon for the glyph you are trying to enter. (e.g. pwmf22gu, a very old dungeon traditionally used for farming the Merciless Watchers on L1, is a Pthumeru Ihyll, so you will need the Ihyll root dungeon in your inventory to enter).
Second, and the one that trips most newer hunters up the most, is that you must have created a root dungeon of your own with all three of the primary rites: Fetid, Rotted, and Cursed. This dungeon does not need to be from the same chalice that you are trying to enter; making any dungeon with all three of these rites applied will guarantee that you can enter glyphs with any combination of those three, so long as you have also met the first condition.

Note as well that to enter a sinister dungeon, the same rules apply, you’ll just need to make a sinister root dungeon of your own instead.

Multiplayer Interactions

Why can’t my friends connect to me in [insert dungeon]?
Bloodborne’s summoning system is significantly more obtuse than the other Souls games’, so there are a number of possible factors that could be tripping you up. Below is a list of things you can check to troubleshoot issues with summoning:

Ensure you all have a matching password; this sounds obvious, but you would be surprised how many times experienced players forget to switch their password over from time to time.
Set your matchmaking to “Worldwide” if you have not already.

If your cooperator is ringing into an Open dungeon via the Makeshift Altar, remember that summoning this way will take longer than it would if they were ringing inside the dungeon, so do not expect to connect for at least a few minutes most of the time.

If you are in a Closed dungeon, make certain you are meeting the following criteria on top of the first two bullet points above:

All participants must ring on the same layer of the dungeon to connect.
Ring in the same general area as your cooperator(s) (e.g. if they are ringing on the stairs leading to the layer boss, make sure you ring there too).

Check what oath runes you and your cooperators are wearing. Executioners and Vilebloods connecting to each other takes demonstrably longer than ringing with any other combination of runes. Hunter of Hunters also appear to take longer to be summoned on average.

Do covenants interactions carry over from the main game?
Yes. Vilebloods and Executioners will still be enemies when summoned onto the same team and Hunter of Hunters will sometimes enter as adversaries too. Vilebloods/Executioners will also always be aggressive to Hunters of Hunters as well. As a general rule of thumb, it is a good idea to wear the Impurity rune when cooperating to avoid interactions like these. The Milkweed and Beast's Embrace runes will fulfill this role as well.

Gem Farming

What blood gems will be best for my weapon/build?
Given the large variety of blood gems, weapons, and possible builds, this is a hard question to give a general answer for. Ask in the Tomb Prospectors’ subreddit or Discord server and you will be advised by experienced members of the community on how best to optimize your set-up.

What are abyssal blood gems?
Abyssal gems have the highest gem rank possible of 20 and a unique appearance in the menu. They can only be obtained as a potential (but not guaranteed) drop from bosses on Layers 3-4 of any Depth 5 dungeon. Abyssals are not always the best of their kind and not every gem type can be obtained as one, but they are nonetheless very valuable for most common builds in the game. Save scumming is a highly-recommended practice for farming abyssal gems.

The only exceptions to this rule are the Pthumerian Elder and Pthumerian Descendant when they appear on Layers 1-2 of a dungeon, as they can drop Tempering Abyssals there. This is widely considered to be a bug and they are not even worth farming to begin with.

What is save scumming?
Save scumming as a practice is by no means unique to Bloodborne; it predates the game by a long time. To save scum via the Playstation Cloud, proceed through a dungeon to the boss you’re looking to farm, briefly enter your inventory once you are right outside of the boss gate (to make the game save exactly where you are), and then upload your save in “Application Saved Data Management” within your console’s settings. Re-enter the game and defeat the boss. If you get the gem you’re looking for, then you are good to move on. If not, go back into the Settings and download back the save you just made. This will place you back where you were originally with the boss alive, effectively cutting out the need to constantly re-run the dungeon to get another shot at the desired gem.

Does the Eye rune help for farming gems off of bosses?
No. The Eye rune does nothing to improve the quality of gems dropped and all bosses already have a 100% chance to drop a gem, so it has no effect. When it comes to bosses, it is only useful if you are trying to farm weapon upgrade materials.

What do OOS and OOE mean?
OOS stands for Out of Shape. An OOS gem is a gem that drops in a shape that is not native to the corresponding chalice type (Radial in Pthumeru, Triangle in Hintertomb/Isz, and Waning in Loran). The chances of this happening are significantly lower than in the main game and OOS gems are often considered to be extremely valuable, especially when dropped from bosses. Bloodtinge gems in particular are highly prized as OOS drops for the Bloodletter and Chikage, as they are almost exclusively dropped as circle shape otherwise. There are some choice exceptions, such as the Beast-possessed Soul enemy and all enemies spawned by the Rotted rite each having their own fixed gem shapes regardless of the chalice.

OOE stands for Out of Effect. This refers to primary and secondary effects on blood gems that are not native to the gem pool of the chalice you are in. In layman’s terms, they are extremely rare effects you would almost never see in the corresponding chalice type. For instance, while obtaining a flat blood attack secondary on a gem in unedited Pthumeru Ihyll is technically possible, the chances of it happening are less than a tenth of 1%, so most hunters will never see such a gem effect drop there.

I’m farming for [insert gem] and it hasn’t dropped yet, what gives?
Patience, patience, patience. Even with the improved drop rates in save-edited farming glyphs, many gem types are still very rare and can take many hours of dedicated farming to obtain.

Save-Edited Dungeons

What is a save-edited dungeon?
Save-edited dungeons are made by players with access to tools outside of Bloodborne itself, allowing them to tinker with certain aspects within. The most common usage is to help improve the drop-rate of desirable gem effects that normally would be near impossible to obtain in certain dungeon environments. As an example, the Pthumerian Elder in Pthumeru Ihyll by default has an atrocious drop-rate for any elemental secondary effects on his Cold Abyssals, which caused players to settle with far less useful effects originally. However, with the magic of save-editing, specialized farming glyphs have been created that dramatically improve the Elder’s drop-rate for these secondaries.

Additional uses for save-editing include false depth and reverse depth dungeons and strengthening the Curse rite for increased challenge and item discovery.

What are False Depth and Reverse Depth dungeons?
False depth dungeons are lower depth dungeons that have been edited to appear in the menu as a Depth 1 Pthumeru Root. These dungeons can be immediately accessed via glyphs once you have obtained the Pthumeru Root Chalice from Layer 2 of the very first fixed dungeon. This will allow you to obtain uncanny/lost variants of base game weapons, tier 3 runes, powerful blood gems, and even skip directly into later depth fixed dungeons to speed up the process of unlocking Depth 5 FRC’s. Do note however that if you use false depth dungeons on your first run-through of the chalices or even your first playthrough period, the experience will be largely sour. Your character will very quickly become overpowered from the sheer amount of blood echoes and late-game items they’ve accumulated from these dungeons.

Reverse depth dungeons are Depth 1-2 root dungeons that have been edited so that bosses drop upgrade materials normally tied to lower depth dungeons, primarily Blood Stone Chunks and Blood Rocks. These glyphs are extremely helpful for farming these two rare resources, as the bosses will be scaled to have early-game health and damage output, and as a result, will be complete push-overs for a mid-to-late game build. Chunks can be efficiently farmed from the Layer 1 boss and Rocks from the Layer 3 boss of any reverse depth. Be sure to equip at least one Eye rune to improve their drop rates when using these dungeons.

Are there any malicious save-edited dungeons I should be concerned about, and if so, how do I avoid them?
Unfortunately yes, there are a number of unsafe dungeons out there that have been made open for anyone to access by reckless save-editors. Dungeons like these will neither provide a lamp for you to return to the Hunter's Dream nor spawn you back there if you die by gravity, rendering any character trapped within completely lost. While not all dungeons with one or a few of these criteria are dangerous, you should nonetheless make a habit of avoiding any that have these until a trustworthy source confirms otherwise:

A dungeon menu with text like “?PlaceName?” or ?menuText?”
Depth 0, 6, 7, or 8 dungeons
Multiples of the same rite applied, or has all four applied at once (SFRC)

As a general rule of thumb, you should always make it a good habit to back-up your save before entering any dungeon that appears suspicious, either by a separate drive or with the Playstation Cloud. Losing a character with potentially hundreds of hours of total playtime is one of the worst things that can happen to you in the entire game, so be very careful when looking into save-edited dungeons like these.

I see the phrase “Unable to acquire ?GoodName? due to inventory or storage max” while farming, is this something to worry about?
No. This is a harmless message that comes up frequently in save-edited dungeons, you can safely disregard it.

Miscellaneous

Did the community ever figure out what the deal was with Guidance Tier 3 and Revered Great One Coldblood?
They exist in the game files, but cannot be obtained normally in-game.

Does the Yharnam Stone do anything?
No.

Are the dungeons affected at all by NG+ cycles?
No. Chalice dungeons do not scale with NG+ at all and your progress will not be impacted by going to the next cycle either. All of your chalices will be on the same altars they were when you completed the game.

Can Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen be found in the root dungeons?
She is exclusive to the fixed Pthumeru Ihyll.

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