Welcome to the first part of our walkthrough for Death Howl, a soulslike deckbuilder by 11 bit Studios.
The first part of our walkthrough will cover the first realm, called the Realm of the Distorted Hollows, and show you the way to defeat the first boss of the game.
For more information on the game, check out their official website here.
Table of contents
The Forest of Howling Shadows
Unlocking The First Sacred Grove
After the intro cutscene and waking up in the dark forest, you’ll see a Stag and a Fawn up ahead. Go towards them.
Ro will call out to her son a few more times, and the two deer will run off. This will give you your main quest: Death, Release My Child.
Keep moving forward, and you’ll trigger your first combat encounter against a Grimsnout. Choose your Starting Position first and then take it down.
Keep moving forward, and you’ll spot a wounded Moose on the ground up ahead. You’ll also notice four rocks arranged in a square formation on the right. This is a Sacred Grove, this game’s version of a Bonfire or save point.
Stand at the center of the Sacred Grove and press the prompted button when the screen turns black to activate it.
This will also revive the Moose. It’ll walk up to you and explain how the Sacred Grove also revives every creature in the Spirit World, including the enemies you’ve defeated earlier.
Using the Sacred Grove also unlocks the map for the region: Forest of Howling Shadows.
The map gives you an overview of all the Spirits and Elder Spirits (enemy encounters) along with Nests (item drops) in the area. It also marks all the Sacred Groves in the area, including the ones you haven’t visited yet.
Unlocking The Northern Sacred Grove
At this point, you can spend some time fighting the Spirits to farm up Death Howl (experience points). You can use Death Howl to both get Teardrops (upgrades) or new cards to add to your deck. We suggest focusing on unlocking your abilities first, or at least until you get the Spirit Cards upgrade.
Start heading north towards the next Sacred Grove site. You’ll have to get through two more Spirit encounters along the way.
There’s a Nest to your north as you cross the river, but it’s guarded by an Elder Spirit. We recommend skipping it for now and coming back when you have more cards and Teardrop upgrades.
When you activate the second Sacred Grove, you’ll see the Moose again. Run through its dialogues. It’ll tell you to head towards the eastern bridge. The location will be marked on your map with a green X.
Heading To the Eastern Bridge
To get to the bridge, you’ll have to go through two more Spirit and an Elder Spirit encounter. There’s a Sacred Grove just before the Elder Spirit. After crossing the bridge, head south for a few steps to spot it. Activate this Sacred Grove before you initiate the Elder Spirit encounter.
For the Elder Spirit encounter, you’ll want to use the terrain to your advantage. The red spirals on the ground will cause anyone standing on them to turn Fragile. During this state, the unit standing on it will take double damage.
Position yourself so that the enemy units are forced to stand on the circles, and you should win the fight easily. You can also take advantage of the Push effect from the Quick Strike card to push enemies into the red circles.
After completing this encounter, you can proceed north towards the bridge. When you get close, you’ll see the Fawn again. Ro will call out to Olvi, but the bridge will collapse, blocking your path ahead.
As Ro falls to her knees, the Moose will appear again. A cutscene will trigger shortly after, during which you’ll see four areas marked on the World Map. These are your primary objectives.
After this, the Moose will open the path to other realms from the Forest of Howling Shadows.
How to Get the Bird Nest (Totem)
Return to the Sacred Grove that you activated before fighting the Elder Spirit. This time, we’ll make our way south toward the Sacred Grove at the bottom section of the map. This will make it easier for us to move around later on.
But before you do that, we suggest taking out the Nest just southeast of your current Sacred Grove. You’ll find the Totem: Bird Nest here.
| Bird Nest (Totem) | Each Turn: Draw one card. It costs 1 more this turn. |
How to Get the Tree Root (Totem)
Once you activate the final Sacred Grove of the region, fast travel to the northern Sacred Grove of the Forest of Howling Shadows.
Head south toward the Elder Spirit marker on the map. By now, you should be strong enough for the fight.
Check the Nest past this encounter near the river to find the Tree Root Totem. This is entirely optional, but it’s one of the strongest early-game Totems in the game. So we recommend picking it up before you leave the zone.
| Tree Root (Totem) | Kill: +1 Attack Damage this turn |
Return to the Northern Sacred Grove and follow the path opened by the Moose to the north to enter the Meadows of Delusion.
The Meadows of Delusion
Unlocking the Map and the First Sacred Grove
After entering the Meadows of Delusion, continue heading north till you fight the first group of Spirits.
Continue forward after defeating them to find the first Sacred Grove. Activating it automatically reveals the entire map.
How to Complete Balancing the Scales Side Quest
Balancing the Scales is the first side quest that you’ll find in Death Howl. To unlock it, you’ll have to head toward the big pond to the west, as you enter the Meadows of Delusion.
You’ll reach a pond with a Giant Fish up ahead. Talk to the Giant Fish to activate the side quest.
To complete the quest, you need to find five Scale Shields. What makes things complicated is that as you pick up the Scale Shields, they transform into cards in your deck that can clog up your cycle. If you discard the Quest Cards, they go back to where you found them in the world.
All five Scale Shiels can be found in the western section of the region. We’ve marked their location in the above image.
From the first Sacred Grove in the region, head north a few steps to find the first Scale Shield.
The second Scale Shield is located immediately after crossing the river to reach the western island.
The third Scale Shield is found immediately to the north after a Spirit encounter
The fourth Scale Shield can be picked up after the same Spirit encounter, but it’s on the south side.
The final Sacle Shield is located after the Elder Spirit encounter in the zone, next to the Nest.
Once you’ve collected all the Scale Shields, return to the Giant Fish and talk to it. This will complete the quest, and you’ll get the Pearl Totem as a reward.
| Pearl (Totem) | Each Turn: Discard a random card and gain its cost in Shield. |
Catching up with Olvi
When you’re ready, start heading towards the Sacred Grove in the northern part of the area.
There will only be two Spirit encounters along the way, so you shouldn’t have any trouble reaching the place.
As you activate the Sacred Grove, Ro will say that the rocks make her uneasy.
From the Sacred Grove, continue heading north through the narrow passage till you see the Stag. You’ll get ambushed by a group of Spirits right after this.
If you keep heading north after defeating the enemies, you’ll reach a new Realm called The Breathing Chasm. But we’ll leave that for later. For now, return to the last Sacred Grove you rested at.
How to Get the Reptillian Eggs (Totem)
From the northern Sacred Grove, head southwest for an Elder Spirit encounter. Take down the enemies.
Then click on the Nest past the Elder Spirits. This will give you the Reptillian Eggs Totem. Pick it up and return to the north Sacred Grove to heal up.
| Reptillian Eggs (Totem) | First Turn: Choose 1 of 5 cards. |
Reaching the Next Zone
You can spend some more time exploring the Meadows of Delusion if you want. There are plenty of enemy encounters that you can use to grind up Death Howl for more Teardrops and cards.
When you’re ready, take the eastern path and head south till you hit the next Sacred Grove. There’s an Elder Spirit along the way, so be prepared for a fight.
From the Sacreds Grove, head southeast for another Elder Spirit battle.
Continue along the path to enter the next zone: Creek of Spectral Falls.
Creek of Spectral Falls
Unlocking the First Sacred Grove & Map
The Creek of Spectral Falls is the final and also the shortest zone of the Realm of Distorted Hollows. As soon as you enter the zone, you’ll spot a Spirit encounter up ahead.
This encounter has a Totemite that spawns. It has 15 Hitpoints, and if left alive for seven turns, you’ll automatically die. So make sure you take it down as quickly as possible.
Defeat the enemies and continue forward. The path splits into two directions: North through the waterfall, or South along the bridge. We suggest taking the bridge. The northern part leads to an Elder Spirit encounter.
Continue east along the bridge to spot another bridge leading north. There’s another set of Spirits waiting for you on the other side. Take them down.
You’ll find the first Sacred Grove for the zone just past this enemy encounter.
Deeper Into the Creek
From this point, we have to head to the top section of the zone toward the Sacred Zone to the north. But as you can see, there are three Elder Spirit encounters you have to get through.
If you’ve been setting up your decks properly with new Cards and collecting Teardrop upgrades, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Besides, you can always go back and grind some Death Howl in the previous zones if you want.
You’ll spot a Nest along the way, past two Elder Spirit encounters that give you a free Teardrop point.
When you reach the Sacred Grove, make sure you spend the Death Howl you have to do any last-minute upgrades that you want. You’ll be heading into a boss battle next.
Continue moving forward, and you’ll spot a weird flower/mushroom up ahead. Interact with it. Run through the dialogue to start the first boss battle of the game.
How to Beat Cantharsis, Great Spirit of Distorted Hollows
The fight against Cantharsis is a test of patience and strategy. The boss continuously summons minions and disappears from the arena. On top of that, since the grid layout is tight, you need to position carefully to negate as much damage as possible while being able to deal damage to the boss.
Just like any other fight, the battle against Cantharsis starts with you choosing your starting position. Don’t position yourself at the center. Instead either choose one of the left or right tiles.
When the fight starts, Cantharsis will summon two Giant Puffballs in the arena. They only have 4 Hitpoints, but if you don’t destroy them within three turns, they’ll explode, releasing spores that poison you regardless of your position.
On his second turn, he will summon some Dire Shrooms. Unlike the Giant Puffballs, they actually attack you. On top of that, they can also pull you toward them, which can mess up your positioning.
The only way to damage the boss itself is to hit its face. It has 60 Hitpoints, which means you need to be smart and not focus solely on the boss. You need to make sure you won’t take extra damage the next turn from the additional enemies.
Don’t stand directly in front of the boss, as that is the only spot where it can attack you directly. If you stick to the sides of the boss, you only have to worry about the ads.
However, the boss will periodically burrow its head underground. When it burrows underground, if you’re standing in an adjacent tile, you’ll get pushed back and take damage. The damage is pretty low, so if you’ve got HP to spare, you don’t have to worry about dodging it.
Other than that, the boss will periodically spread spores throughout the arena, which adds one of three cards to your hand: Distorted Hand, Fungal Manipulation, or Infected.
Infected is the only card that you’ll have to worry about, as it will inflict the Poison debuff if you draw it. Having a debuff remover card, such as Cleanse, can help you dispel the Poison effect from the
As for strategy, you’ll want to manage the board and take the additional enemies down as quickly as possible while damaging the boss. You can use Quick Strike to push the Dire Shrooms into the boss so that both of them take damage.
Having a few ranged Cards like Aim for the Heart, Fireball, or Rabid Attack is great. If you’re using multi-hit cards like Double or Triple Strike, make sure to stack Damage Buffs such as Overwhelmed or the effect from the Take Root Totem.
When the boss’s HP goes down to around half, it will start to spawn Elder Direshrooms. While these enemies are a bit tankier, the overall fight remains the same. Keep up the pressure and manage the board, and Cantharsis will eventually be defeated.
After defeating the boss, it will turn into a friendly NPC. He’ll also open the path to the Howling Mountain. He’ll also give you a new card: A Stream of Thoughts.
| A Stream of Thoughts (Card) | Push: 4 | Exhaust | Last: + 4 Draw | Empty: Fill 4 Mana |
The Howling Mountain (First Visit)
Use the map to Fast Travel to the western Sacred Grove in Forest of Howling Shadows. You can see an X on the map where the path to Howling Mountain is located.
Head along the path. This was previously blocked by a black energy. But after defeating Cantharsis, you can head through.
As you move forward, the Moose will appear. He’ll tell you that you’re not strong enough to brave the Howling Mountain yet and must defeat the other Great Spirits to make yourself stronger. Leave the zone for now. We’ll have to return here once you find the other Great Spirits.
This concludes the first part of our walkthrough for Death Howl. For other interesting articles related to indie games, check out the links below:
- Into Indie Games Home Page
- Routine Walkthrough Hub
- Sleep Awake Complete Walkthrough – All Chapters
- Marvel Cosmic Invasion Review
- Winter Burrow Review
Muhit Rahman lives off two things: gaming marathons and endless cups of tea. He writes guides, reviews, and occasionally forgets that real life doesn’t come with checkpoints. His favorite genres are Soulslike and Metroidvania, with Dark Souls III, Hollow Knight, and Dota 2 forever holding top spots on his all-time list.
