Dian Cécht Cathedral

The Dian Cécht Cathedral is a location in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It is an immense Gothic-styled cathedral that is now the haunt of many types of demons.

Progression[]

Early in the game, your way east through the Garden of Silence on the Coachman's stagecoach is blocked off by an object that requires picking up and dropping, which forces you to head west back through the upper level of the Entrance zone. While traveling west, you will enter the southwest corner of this zone, the lower reaches of which are the only accessible part of the zone at present. The first 2x5 room full of stairs and Poltergeists features both the first Shortcut shard and a red door leading back to the Entrance zone, into the midpoint of its very tall opening chamber. Once you've collected the second Shortcut shard across the gap in that zone, proceed east through the Cathedral grounds.

Take note of the shining squares in the first open chamber you pass through. The next 2x2 chamber east of that features a warp room at its upper right corner; opposite of that is the room featuring Todd the friendly Killer Barber, who will adjust Miriam's appearance on demand. The Hair Apparent I, the first such book you can collect to unlock a hairstyle at his service, lies in a green chest in the tall cathedral chamber east of the warp point.

This cathedral chamber's lower left exit, leading past a background painting with a moving eye, leads back into an extra portion of the Entrance zone with a hidden Santa Hat. Going east from the cathedral area instead leads you to the Craftwork boss, which awards you the Craftwork shard. You can now take either the southwest hallway or the warp room back to the warp room just below it in the Entrance so that you can quickly return to the Coachman in the garden and use Craftwork to clear the way for his stagecoach.

Much later in the game, winning the Reflector Ray shard from the Bathin boss in the Underground Sorcery Lab unlocks two separate routes through the upper reaches of the castle. Typically, players will explore the rest of the Livre Ex Machina zone that then connects to the Hall of Termination zone, but then leave the potentially "final" Gebel boss unfought. In fact, the Hall of Termination's lower-left exit leads into an enclosed area way up in the Cathedral zone's northeast corner where you can fight an Archdemon.

Once you feel you have gathered enough from those two zones, you can return to the left part of the Cathedral zone and use Reflector Ray on the shining squares mentioned earlier to explore the Cathedral's upper reaches. You will find that the top of the zone consists of four "bell towers" of varying heights. You can make two bells crash down onto the ground in the shortest bell tower, opening the way to both the Cake/R off to the left and the Hair Apparent X under a piece of the floor that becomes breakable. Deft use of Double Jump kicks at the upper left corner of this bell tower can bring you to the Very Fine Equipment/R green chest above the top bell.

Heading east through the final bell tower's base portion leads you to the Bloodless boss fight, which rewards you with the Blood Steal shard. This allows you to drain the blood fountain in the Entrance and descend into the west half of the Forbidden Underground Waterway.

When you gain Invert late in the game, it becomes easier to collect hidden upgrades inside the bells themselves, and the roofs of the other bell towers can now be reached. One green chest at the top of the rightmost tower (where the Archdemon from earlier is flying and you can now open the locked door) contains the Carpenter's Key, which opens the secret fight with the boss-like Master Carpenter enemy in the Oriental Sorcery Lab. Speaking of which, that zone's east exit leads to an enclosed portion of the Cathedral zone's left bell tower, where you can find the Hair Apparent II.

Sequence break[]

The upper portion of the Cathedral zone is positioned in the game's route progression model to align with the premise that it is the beginning of the route toward the "true ending", where once you get the Reflector Ray shard and use it to explore Livre Ex Machina and Hall of Termination, you can put off fighting the "early final boss" battle with Gebel and use Reflector Ray to explore the rest of the Cathedral next.

When you first get Double Jump, getting to Reflector Ray is a matter of exploring the rest of the Towers of Twin Dragons and defeating Valac, giving the Silver Bromide to Dominique, giving the Identification to Orlok Dracule, using the Passplate to progress past the Bridge of Evil, and beating the boss in the Underground Sorcery Lab. With the Reflector Ray in hand, you are then expected to explore the upper part of the Cathedral zone and defeat Bloodless, use her Blood Steal shard at the Entrance's blood fountain to explore the west half of Forbidden Underground Waterway, farm an Aqua Stream shard and use it to reach the Hidden Desert, and defeat its boss and gain the Deep Sinker shard. What then happens is that you will be forced to use Reflector Ray standing underwater at the west end of the Waterway zone to get into the Secret Sorcery Lab and beyond.

Thanks to a purposefully placed sequence break in the Cathedral, it is actually possible to begin the "true route" at the Cathedral as soon as you get the Double Jump (by Double-Jump-kicking off several purple lanterns placed on the right side of the tall tower opposite the Reflector Ray surfaces on the left side). Doing this, it becomes possible to play all the way up through the point you can earn Deep Sinker in the Hidden Desert before even battling Valac and beginning the chain-of-trades quest leading up to the Bridge of Evil train ride. This is not to mention that the hallway east past the Bloodless fight exits into the upper region of Livre Ex Machina, above the barriers that ostensibly require you to make use of Reflector Ray to pass, making it also possible to reach Gebel without that shard.

Characters[]

Todd

Enemies[]

Enclosed area reached from Hall of Termination:

Archdemon

Upper reaches, requiring Reflector Ray:

Bosses[]

Craftwork
Bloodless (upper reaches)

Items[]

Weapons[]

Macuahuitl
Red Umbrella (upper reaches)

Armor[]

Crusader's Armor

Accessories[]

Shards[]

Shortcut
Familiar: Silver Knight
Familiar: Silver Knight (upper reaches)
Familiar: Silver Knight (requires Invert)

Consumables[]

Recipe Books[]

Hair Apparent I
Very Fine Equipment/R (upper reaches)
Cake/R (upper reaches)
Hair Apparent X (upper reaches)
Hair Apparent II (from Oriental Sorcery Lab)

Blue Chests[]

Possible contents of earlier blue chests:

Possible contents of later blue chests:

Bookcases[]

Critical Swing technique
The journal of an unnamed alchemist Vol. 2
Rapid Fire technique
Lunging Serpent technique (upper reaches)
Back Steal technique (from Oriental Sorcery Lab)

Key items[]

Carpenter's Key (requires Invert)

Other modes[]

Bloodless Mode[]

A playthrough with Bloodless begins in her boss room in this area. She can go in either direction from there, either through the remainder of the Cathedral or into the Livre Ex Machina. Regardless of which path she chooses, she should first acquire the Blood Shard for Sliding, which stands right next to her bathtub.

Blood Shards[]

Aurora Mode[]

Aurora comes to this area after going through the same basic sequence as Miriam. By defeating Craftwork here, she gains the ability to fly, which gives her extreme freedom in exploring the map from there. Aside from that vital ability, the Dian Cécht Cathedral also contains two Shards that enhance Igniculus.

Gallery[]

Map[]

Trivia[]

This area comprised the 2017 E3 beta demo version of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
The name of the area refers to the Irish god Dian Cécht, who acts as the god of healing.

References[]

↑ The player first briefly explores the Garden of Silence, but their path is soon hindered by an obstacle blocking a long chasm which the Coachman can't jump across, so they are forced to return to the Entrance (fighting the second boss of the game along the way) and take a detour through the Dian Cécht Cathedral.
↑ After defeating Bloodless in this stage and obtaining her shard, Blood Steal, the player needs to return to the blood fountain located at the Entrance and cast it to drain the fountain and open a secret entrance to the Forbidden Underground Waterway to continue progressing through the game.

External links[]

100% Map Exploration for the Cartographer Achievement by πth0n at Steam - Source of the map.
Bloodstained Ritual of The Night - Stage 3 Dian Cecht Cathedral

[1] The player first briefly explores the Garden of Silence, but their path is soon hindered by an obstacle blocking a long chasm which the Coachman can't jump across, so they are forced to return to the Entrance (fighting the second boss of the game along the way) and take a detour through the Dian Cécht Cathedral.

[2] After defeating Bloodless in this stage and obtaining her shard, Blood Steal, the player needs to return to the blood fountain located at the Entrance and cast it to drain the fountain and open a secret entrance to the Forbidden Underground Waterway to continue progressing through the game.

[1]

[2]