Darkest Souls

The Darkest Souls modification presents a dark fantasy inspired by the Souls series of games: Elden Ring, Bloodborne, the Dark Souls trilogy, Demon Souls, and Sekiro. This is the successor to the older Blood and Madness mod.

The mod offers a deep progression system based on world exploration and combat. You'll find a huge variety of weapons with special attacks and abilities, a magic system, and many new enemies.

Gameplay Mechanics

Poise

All mobs from the mod have a poise indicator. When it drops to zero, the enemy is stunned for a few seconds. Currently, only special weapons from the mod can damage enemy poise.

Special Effects

Different mobs have immunity to various special effects. This can be configured using entity type tags.

Blood Loss

The blood loss effect intensifies with each application. It doesn't cause damage by itself, but when it exceeds a certain threshold, it inflicts significant health damage and resets. Some enemy attacks and the player's special weapons can cause blood loss. All mobs have different blood loss resistance, increasing the number of hits needed to activate the effect. Regular mobs (and mobs from other mods) have the same resistance of 14, except skeletons which are completely immune. The player has a resistance of 10. Armor sets increase the player's blood loss resistance.

Toxic and Rot

Damage over time effects, stronger than regular poison, and of varying intensity.

Frost

Slows the affected creature and makes it more vulnerable. Also deals minor damage over time.

Weapons

Common and Special Weapons

Weapons differ in attack speed, range, damage, poise damage, movement speed, and knockback strength. All weapons have special attacks that allow hitting multiple enemies simultaneously, each with its own range and number of targets. Some weapons also cause blood loss or have other innate properties. Special weapons are stronger and have more unique properties but require rarer materials for crafting. Some weapons have innate properties such as applying debuffs (poison, bleed, etc.) or being more effective against specific categories of creatures (Abyssal, Beasts, Demons, Hollows, etc.).

Trick Weapons

Trick weapons are special types of armament that can change form (left alternate button). Currently, only the Saw Cleaver, Hunter Axe, Chikage, and Holy Moonlight Greatsword are added to the mod.

Sorcery Staves

Sorcery staves are weapons that consume small soul fragments to cast a variety of magical attacks. Each staff has two magical attacks—for left and right mouse buttons. They are enhanced with the Starpower enchantment for flat damage increase and the Moon Blessing enchantment for percentage damage increase.

Guns

Guns come in different sizes and varieties. They vary in damage, speed, range, and amount of consumed projectiles. Among the already implemented types are Pistol, Blunderbuss, Gatling Gun, and Repeating Pistol. They use Quicksilver Bullets. There are many different enchantments for their improvement, such as Firepower and Greater Firepower to increase damage, Ophidian Bite and Expanding Shot to apply poison and bleed, and others.

Alchemy Tools

Alchemy tools are a separate category of magical weapons. Currently, only the Flamesprayer is present. They are enhanced by the same enchantments as staves.

Throwables

Consumable weapons that can be thrown at enemies with various effects. There are Throwing Knives of different strengths, capable of applying various debuffs, and Firebombs of varying potency that can ignite mobs and the environment.

Armor

There are various armor sets that provide bonuses corresponding to different classes:

• Knight Class: High defense, bonus to attack damage, penalty to walking speed
• Hunter Class: Medium defense, bonus to movement speed
• Sorcerer Class: Low defense, bonus to sorcery
• Specialist Class: Medium-low defense, bonus to guns and throwing knives
• Alchemist Class: Low defense, bonus to alchemy tools and throwables

Enchantments

The mod adds various enchantments with diverse effects that combine with the innate properties of weapons. Some also work on standard equipment.

Melee Weapon Enchantments:

• Serrated: Increases damage against Beasts by 10% and beastly entities by 5%
• Abyssal Cleanser: Increases damage against Abyssal entities by 10%
• Beast Hunter: Increases damage against Beasts by a fixed amount
• Bloodblade: Inflicts blood loss on hit
• Poisoned/Toxic/Withered/Rotten/Frozen Blade: Applies mob effect on hit

Gun Enchantments

• Firepower/Greater Firepower: Increases gun damage by fixed/percentage value
• Gunslinger: Decreases gun cooldown
• Sharpshooter: Increases projectile range
• Ricochet Shot and Piercing Shot: Increases ricochet/piercing capability
• Flaming Shot: Sets entities and blocks on fire
• Exploding Shot: Explodes on impact
• Ophidian Bite and Expanding Shot: Inflicts poison/bleed
• Child of the Thunder God: Summons lightning on impact

Other Enchantments:

• Starpower/Moon Blessing: Increases staff/alchemical tool damage by fixed/percentage value
• Miser Souls: Chance not to consume ammo for guns, staves, etc.

Mobs

Hollows

Hollows are basic enemies that spawn at night on the Overworld surface. Depending on the type, they may drop Soul Fragments, Rune Fragments, and, more rarely, titanite fragments, iron, or their weapons.

Mad Hollow

Weak and armed only with a Broken Straight Sword. They are almost naked and pose little challenge to the player. Come in different clothing variations.

Gravetender Hollow

Slightly stronger and clad in black cloaks. Come in different weapon variants.

Hollow Soldier

Stronger Hollows equipped with various types of armor. Currently, only Longsword, Axe, and Crossbow variants exist. Can throw Firebombs at the enemy.

Hollow Assassin

Fast and agile, can inflict the blood loss status effect on the player and throw Blood Knives.

Huntsmen

Spawn in groups at night. Come in different variants (Axe, Pitchfork, Axe and Rifle). Hunt beasts and monsters such as zombies.

Church Doctors

Strong, grim mobs that come in several variants (Normal, Lantern, Scythe, Flamesprayer, Pistol, Crucifix). Hunt beasts and are allied with Huntsmen.

Skeletons

Skeletons spawn underground below Y level 48. They are stronger than Hollows and come in different variations: Falchion, Spear, and Double Curved Swords. Immune to blood loss.

Bonewheel

A special variant of skeleton that can roll toward the player, crushing everything in its path.

Skeleton Swordsman

A larger and stronger variant of skeleton. Very fast and agile, spawns underground or in deserts at night. Attacks with bleed-inflicting strikes, throwing knives, and can dash around in a cloud of smoke.

Beasts

Beasts are a category of stronger enemies. They take increased damage from fire sources and are more susceptible to all damage while on fire. They take more damage from items with the Beast Hunter enchantment and from weapons with a Serrated property or the Serrated enchantment.

Beast Patient

Beast patients are the weakest beast enemies that can spawn in the world. Spawn underground or at night on the surface. Come in a normal variant and a slower, slightly more powerful cloaked variant.

Ashen Blood Beast Patient

A stronger variant of the Beast Patient, can scream to alert all nearby beasts of the player's position and give them stronger, venomous attacks and red eyes.

Abyssal Entities

Corrupted, dark spawn of the Deep. They take more damage from weapons with the Abyssal Cleanser enchantment.

Darkwraith

Dark and powerful emissaries of the Abyss that spawn deep underground.

Sewer Centipede

Spawn deep underground or in swamps.

Leech

Spawn deep underground or in swamps and oceans, and afflict the player with blood loss.

Monstrosity of Sin

Very strong, spawn deep underground. Very weak to blood loss.

Upcoming Content

• New enemies and weapons
• Pyromancy, Miracles, and Dark Sorcery
• Classes: Summoner, Cleric, Pyromancer, Paladin, Tank, Berserker, Dark Sorcerer, Enchanted Knight, and Dark Knight
• Armor transmog
• New bosses, structures, and dimensions