Realms of Yomi

Yomi is divided into seven major realms, each corresponding to a mode of death. This page describes each realm in turn: its geography, its inhabitants, the lore that explains its existence, and the practical dangers a Warder should be prepared for. For the cosmological overview, see The Underworld.

The Banks of Sanzu

The Banks are the arrival zone for all souls entering Yomi. Geographically, the Banks are a wide, misty shoreline stretching in both directions along the river Sanzu. The mist is permanent and thick; visibility rarely exceeds fifty paces. The river itself is black and slow-moving, with no apparent current. There are no fish, no birds, and no wind.

The Banks are populated by two groups: the newly-arrived dead, who wait on the shoreline in varying states of confusion, and the Wandering Hollows — souls that arrived without a coin and could not cross, who have lingered long enough to lose most of their coherence. The Hollows are the primary enemy in the early game and are the lowest-threat foe in Yomi. They are not malevolent; they are simply vacant, and they lash out at anything that moves because movement is the only stimulus they still respond to.

The Ferryman’s dock is at the centre of the Banks. The Ferryman herself is rarely seen; she appears only when a soul is ready to cross, and she does not speak. Her toll is taken silently and her boat departs without ceremony. The player character meets her only once, at the very end of the main story quest, in a scene that the wiki will not spoil here.

The Field of Tethered Bones

The Field is the zone of those who died with unfinished business. Geographically, it is a vast, flat plain covered in short grey grass and dotted with the skeletal remains of its inhabitants. The bones are not buried; they lie where they fell, often in the posture of their final moments. The Field is perpetually overcast, neither day nor night, and the air is still.

The souls of the Field are agitated. They repeat the patterns of their final moments, endlessly, without variation. A soul that died reaching for something will reach forever; a soul that died running will run in circles until it dissipates. This is the source of the zone’s name — the bones are tethered to the patterns of their owners, and the patterns are tethered to the bones.

The primary enemy type in the Field is the Tethered Skeleton, a melee fighter with moderate defence and a tendency to grab and hold the player’s Shades. The grab is the dangerous mechanic: it immobilises a Shade for 2 seconds, which is long enough for other skeletons to land several free hits. The counter is to bring a Shade with a knockback skill, which breaks the grab and creates space.

The Field drops Bone Ash, the Ascension-tier-1 material. The drop rate is roughly 1 ash per 8 skeletons killed, which works out to about 12 ash per hour of active farming. The Field is also the only zone that drops the Old Coin, a rare item (roughly 1 in 500 kills) that can be used in place of a Sanzu Coin for the first Ascension only.

The Hollow Shrine

The Shrine is the zone of those who died in service to a god. Geographically, it is a vast, dim temple complex — endless corridors of dark wood and paper screens, lit by paper lanterns that cast more shadow than light. The architecture is non-Euclidean in a way that the game’s engine makes subtly unsettling: corridors loop back on themselves, rooms are larger inside than outside, and the shrine’s central chamber can be reached from any of three entrances but only one at a time.

The souls of the Shrine are at peace. They move through the corridors in slow, deliberate patterns, performing rituals that no longer have recipients. They do not attack unless attacked first, and even then their retaliation is perfunctory — they seem more interested in completing their rituals than in combat. This makes the Shrine the safest zone in Yomi for low-level parties, and the preferred location for early-game crafting material farming.

The Shrine is the only zone where the pantheon’s influence is direct. The lanterns that light the corridors are each dedicated to one of the gods, and a Warder who pauses at a lantern can receive a small blessing — a temporary buff to one of their Shades. The blessings rotate on a 6-hour cycle and are documented on the Pantheon page.

The Shrine’s boss is the Head Priest, a soul so devoted to his god that he persists as a coherent being long after his god has stopped answering. The fight is mechanically simple — he summons waves of lesser shrine-souls and buffs them — but the lore drop after the fight is one of the most significant in the game.

The Drowning Marsh

The Marsh is the zone of those who died by water. Geographically, it is a flooded forest — dead trees rising from black water, paths of floating debris that shift and sink without warning. The water is opaque; nothing below the surface is visible. The Marsh is the most navigable-hostile zone in the game: paths that exist on the minimap frequently do not exist in the world, and paths that do exist often lead in circles.

The souls of the Marsh are confused and hostile. They remember their drowning and they resent the living, particularly Shades that breathe air. The primary enemy type is the Drowned Wraith, a fast, low-HP fighter that applies a stacking slow on hit. A single Drowned Wraith is trivial; three of them can lock down a Shade indefinitely, and the Marsh spawns them in groups of 4–6.

The Marsh drops Drowned Silk, the Ascension-tier-2 material, and is the only source of Marsh Lilies, a crafting component for several key late-game items. The drop rate for Drowned Silk is roughly 1 per 12 Wraiths, but the Wraiths’ slowdown mechanic makes effective farming slow even with a strong party.

The Marsh is the first zone where the affinity wheel becomes essential. Every enemy in the Marsh is Water-aspected, which means Fire-aspected attacks are heavily penalised. A party built around Kagaribi (Fire) will struggle here; a party built around a Wood-aspected Shade will trivialise the zone. This is the strategic incentive to diversify your roster before pushing tier 2.

Mount Kagura

Mount Kagura is the zone of those who died in celebration — dancers, musicians, and festival-goers caught in disasters. Geographically, it is a mountain covered in festival debris: paper lanterns, broken taiko drums, scattered fans, and the bones of those who celebrated here. The mountain is perpetually lit by a soft, warm light that comes from no identifiable source. The air smells faintly of saké and ash.

The souls of Kagura are paradoxically joyful. They dance through the ruins of the festival, singing songs that the player cannot quite hear. They are not hostile by default, but they will attack if their dance is interrupted — and the zone’s encounters are structured around interrupting them, because the only way to harvest the zone’s resources is to break up the dance circles.

The primary enemy type is the Festival Ghost, a fast, evasive combatant that applies a stacking “Merriment” debuff to the player’s Shades. Merriment reduces damage dealt but increases XP gained, which makes the zone uniquely suited to levelling new Shades — the debuff hurts clear speed but accelerates levelling, and the trade is favourable for low-level parties.

Kagura drops the Kagura Bell, the Ascension-tier-3 material, at roughly 1 bell per 15 ghosts. The bells are also the only currency accepted by the Bell Keeper, a vendor in the zone’s central shrine who sells unique cosmetic items and a small number of rare crafting components.

The Frozen Peak

The Peak is the zone of those who died of cold or exposure. Geographically, it is a towering, snow-covered mountain with a single winding path to the summit. The snow is permanent and the wind is constant; the ambient temperature is mechanically irrelevant but the visual effect is striking. There are no structures on the Peak — only the snow, the wind, and the occasional frozen corpse.

The souls of the Peak are slow. They move at half the speed of souls in other zones, and their attacks have a long wind-up. This makes them easy to dodge but punishing to tank — a single hit from a Peak soul can take 30% of a Shade’s HP, and the slow attack pattern means you cannot rely on dodging forever.

The primary enemy type is the Frostbound, a high-defence, slow-attack combatant that applies a stacking “Frostbite” debuff. Frostbite reduces Speed, which is the most punishing debuff in the game (see Combat Basics). The counter is to bring a Fire-aspected Shade, whose attacks melt the Frostbite stacks; without one, the Peak is nearly unplayable.

The Peak drops Frozen Tears, the Ascension-tier-4 material, at roughly 1 per 20 Frostbound. The Peak is also the only source of Heartfire, a crafting component required for the strongest fire-aspected items in the game. The combination — high-tier Ascension materials plus best-in-slot crafting components — makes the Peak the most valuable farming zone in the late game, and the most contested on the world-boss leaderboards.

The Sunless Throne

The Sunless Throne is the innermost zone, where the dead who have been entirely forgotten by the living world drift. Geographically, it is an empty, lightless void — no floor, no ceiling, no walls, only the sensation of falling slowly through absolute darkness. The game’s engine handles this by rendering the zone as a starfield with the player’s Shades as the only visible objects.

The souls of the Sunless Throne are the Unmade: souls that have lost so much coherence that they no longer have names, faces, or memories. They exist as patterns of metaphysical potential, slowly dissolving into nothing. They are not hostile in the conventional sense — they do not attack, they do not pursue — but their mere presence erodes the coherence of nearby coherent souls, which makes the Throne a slowly-lethal environment for the player’s Shades.

The Throne is the endgame. It contains a single boss, the Unmade King, who is the most difficult fight in the game as of patch 2.4. Defeating the King weekly is the primary endgame activity for high-Ascension accounts. The fight is mechanically complex and lore-dense; a dedicated page exists for it in the Bestiary section.