Conquering Elden Ring Nightreign's Great Hollow: Secrets, Crystals & Ultimate Power

The very earth groans and shifts beneath the Tarnished's feet in Elden Ring: Nightreign, and none of the Shifting Earth events is quite as breathtakingly terrifying – or transformative – as the Great Hollow. This ain't your grandma's Legacy Dungeon; it's a quarter of the map ripped open and remade into a treacherous labyrinth of yawning chasms and unstable platforms. One misstep, and it's a long, long way down. 😱 For warriors aiming to stand tall by the end of Day 2, mastering this colossal event isn't just optional; it's a bloody necessity. The power it offers? Oh, it’s a game-changer, especially when you're staring down the DLC's nastiest bosses with empty Sacred Flasks. Talk about clutch! Your scribe nearly threw their controller more than once navigating this vertical nightmare, feeling that familiar Souls-like mix of dread and exhilaration.

🔓 Unlocking the Abyss: Triggering the Great Hollow

Getting this show on the road requires a bit of legwork back in the relative safety of the base camp:

1. Chat with the Iron Menial: This stoic fellow is your first port of call after booting up the DLC. He sets the stage.

2. Find the Small Jar Merchant: This quirky little vendor holds the key, literally pointing you towards a specific, ominous door.

3. Face the Dreglord: Interact with the door, and brace yourself! The ensuing fight against the Dreglord is... intense. Here's the kicker, though: win or lose, it doesn't matter. Seriously! No loot, no special reward for victory. It's purely a gatekeeper. Survive (or not), and the real magic happens.

4. Unlock the Event: Post-fight, chat with both the Scholar and the Undertaker (the DLC characters). This conversation is what finally activates the Great Hollow Shifting Earth Event.

Crucial Note: Activating it doesn't instantly warp the world. The Great Hollow only manifests when you load into a specific downloadable content target area, like the Balancers' domain or the Dreglord's haunt. Step into one of these zones, and bam – the familiar landscape is gone, replaced by the dizzying depths of the Hollow. Getting your bearings and optimizing your path through this death-trap to reach Level 15 by Day 2's end? That's the real challenge, mate. Expect some trial-and-error (read: lots of falling).

💎 Resonating with Ruin: Hunting Blue Crystals & Claiming the Favor

The Great Hollow's power isn't handed to you; you gotta earn it through exploration and a bit of resonant destruction. Scattered across the remade map are pulsating Blue Crystals.

• The Hunt: You'll need to scour the nooks, crannies, and perilous ledges of the Hollow. These crystals aren't always in the same spots – each expedition has multiple potential spawn locations. Keep those eyes peeled!

• Resonate and Destroy: Find a crystal? Interact with it to resonate. This shatters the crystal into shimmering dust. Feels pretty satisfying, honestly.

• Chain Reaction: Here's the cool part: destroying one of these smaller crystals causes visible damage to crack across the surface of the massive Great Crystal looming in the map's center. It's a visual progress bar etched in light.

Smash enough of the smaller crystals, and the Great Crystal itself will shatter spectacularly. Your map will now mark its location. Head there, and you'll find two ethereal crystal pathways spiraling down into the heart of the broken giant. Take the plunge (carefully!) and at the bottom lies your prize: the Favor of the Great Hollow.

⚡ The Power Unleashed: Favor & Breaking the Curse

So, what does this Favor actually do? It's a two-parter, and both halves are seriously sweet:

1. Primary Power - Art Gauge Savior: "When you're running on empty, this thing's a lifesaver." The Favor significantly boosts your Art gauge regeneration when you have zero Sacred Flasks left. It turns those desperate, flask-dry moments into windows of unexpected opportunity. This buff persists for the entire expedition. Absolute game-changer for endurance fights!

2. Secondary Power - Shattering the Crystal Curse: The power doesn't stop there. Head to the northwest and southeast corners of the Great Hollow map. Here lie imposing towers, shrouded in a visible crystalline curse, surrounded by treacherous structures.

   • Tower Trials: Each tower is a multi-floor gauntlet. And yep, you guessed it – each floor houses a powerful boss. These ain't pushovers; they demand everything you've got.

   • Ultimate Reward: Conquer all the bosses in both cursed towers? You break the curse and gain a second, potent boon:

     • Increased Murk gained during this expedition (essential for progression).

     • Faster auto-charging for your Ultimate Art. Get ready to unleash devastation more often!

🗺️ Navigating the Unknown & Final Musings

Finding all the blue crystals can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack, especially since not all potential locations spawn a crystal every run. Don't sweat it if you check a spot and come up empty – just move on to the next marked location. Persistence is key.

(Conceptual Image: Tarnished Warrior resonating with a Blue Crystal on a precarious ledge)

Mastering the Great Hollow is a quintessential Elden Ring: Nightreign experience. It's punishing, it demands spatial awareness and combat mastery, and the sheer scale of the environmental shift is jaw-dropping. That moment when the Great Crystal explodes, revealing the path downwards? Chef's kiss. 👌 The Favor's Art gauge boost feels like a secret lifeline woven into the game's brutal fabric, and the tower challenges... well, let's just say the victory rush after clearing them is pure dopamine.

But conquering it leaves one pondering... The Shifting Earths are presented as fundamental, almost elemental forces reshaping the Land of Shadow. The Great Hollow is just the first. What deeper lore connects these cataclysmic events to the Nightreign itself? Are we merely harnessing these powers, or are we, the Tarnished, becoming unwitting agents of a larger, more terrifying transformation? The sheer ambition of this mechanic makes one wonder if Miyazaki's team has even more profound world-altering secrets waiting in the wings for future expansions. The Lands Between keep shifting, and the mysteries only deepen. What tectonic secrets will the next Shifting Earth reveal?