Pilgrims of the Dark is a PvE Covenant in Dark Souls 2. This is a unique covenant that allows players to test their worth in a series of challenges. 
Covenant members have exclusive access to the Dark Chasm of Old areas (see the Dark Chasm of Old page for more information).
Covenant Leader: Darkdiver Grandahl
Where to Join: Black Gulch, Shaded Ruins, Drangleic Castle
How to Join Pilgrims of Dark
In order to access this Covenant one must talk to Darkdiver Grandahl in all three different locations:
- Black Gulch: Drop down near the two worms, you should see a gate. In order to open it, drop down again. Continue into the cave to see two Giants, killing them will give you the key to the door. He can be found behind it.
- Shaded Ruins: Go right from the giant basilisk until you come to the path to the Boss between the two buildings. Instead of going through, look around the nearby grassy area, there is scaffolding where you will drop down to the area with him.
- Drangleic Castle: In the other room outside the Under Castle Drangleic Bonfire.
After talking to him in these locations, he will offer you to join the Pilgrims of Dark. Note that it doesn't matter which order you visit these locations to join.
The first time you join the covenant, Darkdiver Grandahl will open that Dark Chasm for free and will give you an Abyss Seal.. To open the Dark Chasms after that, you must speak with him and give him a Human Effigy. You are then able to go to special Abyss dungeons in these three locations by offering a Human Effigy to him. The dungeons themselves contain four dark phantoms. They are very fast and deal high damage, and you will often have to fight them simultaneously, so doing this in the endgame is recommended. The goal in these dungeons is to light a bonfire with a torch, so bring flame butterflies. When you light all three beacons and defeat the Darklurker, all three Dark Chasms of Old will be opened permanently for that NG cycle, allowing free access as long as you're in the covenant (they will be closed again when you enter the next NG+ cycle).
- Pilgrims of the Dark Video Walk-through (All Locations) - Lucians_sword
Abyss Invasions
If you use a Cracked Red Eye Orb while in a Dark Chasm of Old, you will invade another player who is in any of the three Dark Chasms as an abyss spirit. If you use a Red Sign Soapstone, your red sign will appear in other player's worlds exactly where you left it, and they can use your red sign to summon you as an abyss spirit (there is a rumor that the red sign soapstone will allow you to automatically invade players in the dark chasms similar to the Looking Glass Knight; this is false. Aside from causing you to invade as an abyss spirit instead of a dark spirit, the red sign soapstone does not function any differently than normal). Defeating another player while in a Dark Chasm of Old (either as a host or as an invader) will award you with a Bonfire Ascetic and a human effigy. Since other players drop Bonfire Ascetics 100% of the time, this can be a very fast and effective way to farm for Bonfire Ascetics, provided you have Cracked Red Eye Orbs or a Red Sign Soapstone. Killing players as an abyss spirit does not give you sin.
Note: invading and killing invaders has no bearing on covenant rank, but the Dark Chasm must be completely cleared of enemies and invaders before the host can progress through the area. Invaders basically act as additional enemy phantoms for the host to overcome.
Invasions in the Dark Chasms of Old function differently than invasions in any other area of the game:
- Only members of the Pilgrims of Dark covenant can enter a Dark Chasm of Old, so only Pilgrims of Dark covenant members can invade there. Players in other covenants cannot invade into a Dark Chasm under any circumstances, even if they have global invasion (such as the Blue Sentinels).
- You cannot use the White Sign Soapstone in a Dark Chasm of Old, so it is impossible to summon another player for assistance while there. In fact, the Dark Chasms of Old do not have summon slots at all, and instead have additional invasion slots to replace them. This means that it's entirely possible for a player to be invaded by up to three human players simultaneously, or up to five in the Scholar of the First Sin edition! But invaders may not necessarily be hostile towards the host, since they can simply kill another invader to receive a Bonfire Ascetic (at which point they'll be returned to their world). If you are hosting multiple invaders in a Dark Chasm, a simple solution is to just let them kill each other.
- If you are invading in a Dark Chasm of Old, your goal is to defeat a player, be it the host or another invader. Once you have landed the killing blow on a player the "Target Destroyed" message will flash on your screen and you will be returned to your own world with a Bonfire Ascetic and souls, and your equipment durability, Estus Flask uses, and spell charges will all be restored. Players are not rewarded for player deaths if they did not land the killing blow. But this is not an easy goal, since the enemies will attack invaders along with the host. Make sure you can deal with anything the Dark Chasm can throw at you before invading!
- The enemies in the Dark Chasms of Old are hostile to invaders, and will attack them as if the host had used a Seed of a Tree of Giants. This means that while you can use a Seed of a Tree of Giants while in a Dark Chasm, it will have no effect and the seed will effectively be wasted.
- If you have ranks in the Brotherhood of Blood or Blue Sentinels covenants while invading in a Dark Chasm of Old, your invasion aura will carry over as an abyss spirit. For example, if you have reached rank 2 as a Blue Sentinel then join the Pilgrims of Dark covenant and use a Cracked Red Eye Orb in a Dark Chasm, you will have the blue aura while invading. (To you your character will simply look blue, but other players will see the full rank 2 aura).
- If you are wearing Black Dragon Armor and using any of the Black Dragon weapons, you will look like a Dragon Spirit while in a Dark Chasm.
- Abyss spirits can use Estus and other healing items just like the host can.
- Abyss spirits (Dark Chasm invaders) DO NOT have a timer, and can stay in a host's world until either they have died, the host has died, or the invader has landed a killing blow on another player (either the host or a different invader).
- There is no cooldown time on invasions in the Dark Chasm of Old. This means if you kill an invader, you have until their loading screen is gone before they can invade you again. And if there are no other players for them to invade except you, that is exactly what will happen.
- If there are any abyss spirits in your world, the fog wall blocking the exit will not lift until they are either dead or gone. This means you cannot leave the area or challenge the Darklurker until all invaders have been defeated. If the fog wall is still there even though you've killed all enemies in the area, it is a sure sign you're being invaded.
Rank
| Rank | Requirement | Reward |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Initial | Abyss Seal |
| 1 | Clear one of the three Abyssal Dungeons (3 locations) | Resonant Soul (Hex) |
| 2 | Clear all three Abyssal Dungeons (Also: Light up the fire beacons inside each dungeon) | Great Resonant Soul (Hex) |
| 3 | Defeat the boss Darklurker | Climax (Hex) Xanthous Set Unlimited access to Dark Chasm Dragon Chime (After talking to him) |
Notes, Hints, and Tips
- When you teleport out of the dungeon area versus going out the correct way (the blocked off hole) the game glitches and the player won't rank up above rank 1 regardless of number of completions to each and every dungeon (360 & PS3 version / using a bonfire ascetic does not seem to fix it). On Console (Xbox 360) I fixed it by going back into every dungeon and re-lighting the fire. (If you port out, it will un-light the fire)
- Players have reported that joining another covenant and then abandoning the covenant will allow the player to rank up in the Pilgrims of Dark covenant again. Note that you must not rejoin the Pilgrims of Dark. Just join a random covenant and abandon it, then return and Darkdiver Grandahl will treat you as if you were in the Pilgrims of Dark covenant and allow you to rank up.
- if you get stuck on rank 2 after defeating Darklurker, re-entering the Black Gulch dungeon and doing it again seems to fix it and you can get rank 3 after talking to Darkdriver Grandahl.
AnonymousHelp! I can´t invade in any of the Chasms. Tried to restart, different rings and all multiplayer items.
What could that be?
- Anonymous
dont get me wrong i like fighting darklurker but these chasms are the worst part of the whole game
- Anonymous
i am only doing this once so i can say i've killed the boss and never again. **** sounds awful
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
"I love this covenant" It's a bunch of empty hallways filled with basic player NPCs that ends with a bland boss with like 3 animations. I like this game, but Pilgrims of the Dark is one of the parts that's pure slop.
- Anonymous
As someone who only plays offline it sucks that the one PvE covenant in the whole game has rewards that are useless to me as a melee build. And no, there's no way I'm doing NG+. One trip through this nightmare is enough.
- Anonymous
by far the easiest way to get the selfless giver achievement, plus u need to kill darklurker for all bosses anyways, don't even consider other covenants with how high the max is
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
"...first time you join the covenant, Darkdiver Grandahl will open that Dark Chasm for free..." That is not true at least in SotFS.
- Anonymous
for anyone struggling with darklurker just respec and use profound still and css, invalidates it's magic so it can only use that terrible sword move it has and css hits both of it so that means double damage and you'll be done within 2 minutes or less
- Anonymous
I made a serious mistake in making Black Gulch my third dungeon. This means every time the Darklurker spreaded my cheeks, I had to run back through that hell hole just to try again. Don't be like me; do Black Gulch first or second, and leave Drangleic Castle for last due to ease of access.
- Anonymous
So if I do two of the dungeons, leave the pod do to something with a different covenant then come back, do I need to redo those two or can I go on to the third keeping progress?
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
as the rumors go... if you hit rank 3 and kill the dark lurker past ng7 and have 99 int/faith then the darkdiver grandahl will continue dialogue and ask you for a kiss and then if you accept his kiss he will then ask you to sit on his lap and if you accept that... well.. you'll just have to see what happens
- Anonymous
I did enjoy this boss until it split and became mass RNG garbage lol
- Anonymous
i got a +! iten from him i dont which obs:i play on old ds2 version from ps3
- Anonymous
Not a fan of the fact i gotta use a human effigy every time i want to challenge darklurker, but was still a good questline and boss. Only took 2 attempts as i got blasted by fire point blank.
- Anonymous
I aint sure if this is the precursor to chalice dungeons in bb or to mound makers in ds3. Anyway, a good pvp covenant disguised as a pve covenant.
- Anonymous
I just had to to talk to Darkdiver Grandahl and sit on a bonfire and do it again. (I did it on the last portal, Under Castle Drangleic.)
Thank god I didn't encounter the glitch of not being able to rank up to 3.
- Anonymous
i didn't light the flame in the first area and still got a rank up after i talked to the beard boy??
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
So I beat all three dungeons in a row, including darklurker. I haven't talked to Grandhal in between Chasms, I only talked to him after I defeated Darklurker. He gave me the Dragon Charm but I never received the Hexes Great Resonant Soul and Climax. I'm on NG+ and I have beaten Darklurker on NG where I got the hexes. I did it to have more instances of Great Resonant Soul. Is this a bug?
- Anonymous
So... Can anyone help me? I haven't played DS2 yet (only 1 and 3) and I want to 100% this game like the other two. Is it possible to encounter darklurker after beating the game? I heard he is tough and want to make sure I am prepared enough. So, is the quest to get to him always available or do I need to get to all places when I'm walking through the story? Oh, and does DS2 final boss suffer the same way DS1 does? (Beating final boss = NG+) I hope someone can help me because I have no clue.
- Anonymous
Umm.. just in case if someone feel they stuck in one dungeon abyssal dungeon over and over, and they feel already lit up all the fire beacons, or defeating darklurker... which mean they don't gain rank up above 1... Try to relocate in another portal where u meet grandahl and start doing his covenant quest again... it works for me.. after trying to solve the struggle that i think this is a glitch :)
- Anonymous
I just encountered the Bug of not being able to rank up.. I think what caused is that when I met Grandahl the 3rd time, I replaced my current covenant for Pilgrims of Dark, he opened the portal, but I ignored it, boned out and rejoined my covenant.. When I wanted to kill darklurker and do the covenant stuff, I again replaced my covenant with Pilgrims at the gutter or gulch or w/e it is, entered portal (was still open), lit the flame, got out, I got the +1 rank.. Then I proceeded to light the flame in other two instances however I didnt rank up anymore, thus being stuck cos of the bug.. (All the flames were lit, I double checked) My solution then was to again replace pilgrims with another covenant, abandon the covenant via the cat in Majula and then rejoin the Pilgrims.. I checked the forest and drangleic instances, the flame was lit, but the flame for which I got the +1 rank, at the gutter or gulch or w/e guess what... It wasnt lit.. I lit it up.. Jumped the fog and Darklurker spawned.. I died (yeah fkin n00b), talked to grandahl, it progressed to +2, then I went to kill darklurker, and succesfully progressed to +3 Hope this helps to someone.. Again.. Replace covenant, abandon, join pilgrims, check all fires again.. GL HF
- Anonymous
I have the same problem as the person from June 12th. I can't rank up and wheels is no help. I've done all the chasms several times.
- Anonymous
The very first phantom is Havel on a very small pathway. Great *****ing balance
- Anonymous
No matter how many times I go back through the casams no darklurker and talking to wheels doesn't increase my rank
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
This convenant should be considered a pvp covenant seeing how it's based on fighting phantoms who resemble players and invading is a main aspect in the dark chasms.
- Anonymous
i killed the one from black gultch, can i still join the covenant?
- Anonymous
I just beat Dark Lurker but it only awarded me with rank 2 in the covenant, did I do something wrong?
- Anonymous
So going there with a red eye orb IS essentially a auto coop summon formula, since ennemies are hostile to you. Why doesn't the sunlight medal do the same thing than red eye orb, in the dark chasm but for regular coop ? Wouldn't be nice ?
- Anonymous
cleared all three dungeons. pretty sure i set a fire in each. now what? mr. wheels hasnt reacted.
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
So you would be able to essentially co-op through the dungeons, as you would just be a phantom capable of attacking the host?
- Anonymous
Ranking up here makes your vision in dark better with every level, at rank 3 you dont need any llight at all since you can see perfecly clear in dark! But im not sure if it applies outside of Dark Chasm of Old.
- Anonymous
I invaded 5 players in the chasm and killed 3 hosts not once did I receive a bonfire ascetic. I had 9 bonfire ascetic before killing the three hosts and still only had 9 after the three kills.
- Anonymous
well ive been looking for them and i cant beat the rotten so thats hard and im level 89
If someone struggles with those i can do aka co-op trough a red sign pc sm 2.0m
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