Gardens are worlds created and controlled by the Great Ones. They’re their own personal playgrounds where they play the role of God. Usually, gardens reflect the personality and the overall aesthetic of the Great One who created one of them.
Gardens are places where the games take place. It’s usually on the player, i.e. Grimm, to overcome them, defeat the enemies, and save who needs to be saved.
There are multiple known gardens, and here are their owners:
- Elysium – Mary Sue (Leaf)
- Shatranj – Mabel
- Queensland – Prickett
- Winterbell – Node
- Wonderland – The Crawling One (Alice)
Elysium
Elysium is Mary Sue’s Garden, who’s also known as Leaf. It’s also the main place where the first BLACKSOULS game takes place. This garden is also sometimes referred to as the Lost Empire.
By nature, it’s a chaotic place run by multiple tyrants, such as the Demonic Princesses. Only at one of the endings in the game, do you find out that Leaf is the cause of everything bad going on in the game.
She’s actually a Great One, Mary Sue and she’s in love with the player, who’s also known as Grimm, and she wants to have plenty of fun with you in the wicked world she created.
Shatranj
Shatranj is Mabel’s garden, also known as the Chaos Dungeon. It’s vastly different from all the other gardens because it doesn’t have a constant structure, but rather is scattered across various dungeons filled with familiar and unfamiliar dangerous enemies.
The Chaos Dungeon is divided into 10 layers, and in the lowest layer, you will be able to fight the Old King, who’s also known as Uther Pendra.
Mabel says how she uses Shatranj to keep important souls alive, saying “It’s a truth of this world that death creates nothing. Even after death, I want to keep souls alive”. If Grimm objects to her not putting the souls to rest, she will say how they aren’t conscious and that “it’s only memories playing on repeat”. Mabel really values the souls she keeps in Shatranj, and speaks of wanting to bring back the ones she lost.
In the game, Shatranj is one of the best places for farming souls and other valuable items. There are a lot of strong weapons you can find in the deeper layers of the game even if you’re early on in your playthrough.
Queensland
Queensland is Prickett’s garden. In the garden, she’s referred to as the Red Queen. The garden is different from Wonderland by being a properly organized giant amusement park that has a lot of fun things you can do in it.
The garden itself isn’t that big. To get to it you need to board the train at the Abandoned Station Hanover and reach the Cliff of Night-gaunts area where you will be properly escorted to Queensland.
Queensland used to belong to Node a long time ago when she was still the White Queen, the garden back then was called Winterbell.
One of the clown NPCs in Queensland describes Winterbell as “terribly boring”, but the Red Queen made it more fun by driving everything out, filling up the ocean, and building the giant amusement park.
Winterbell
Winterbell used to be Node’s garden – Node was then known as the White Queen. Node stepped down from the throne and gave her garden to Prickett who turned it into Queensland.
A big part of the DLC3 takes part in Winterbell. When you first arrive at Winterbell it will be a large snowy area where Unis and Leiden are waging a war for the rule over the kingdom since the White Queen stepped down from her throne.
Their two factions are up against each other and they cause a lot of bloodshed. There are also other strong creatures in Winterbell you also want to look out for.
The Winterbell area where Mabel leads you is quite mundane and you can see a vast ocean landscape.
Wonderland
The Wonderland is Alice’s garden – Alice is commonly referred to as the Crawling One as that is how the other Great Ones usually refer to her.
The Wonderland is where the majority of the game takes place, it’s a grotesque place full of dangerous creatures and madness. The appearance of this garden vastly depends on the amount of SEN you have – the lower your SEN the more morbid it looks.
It’s in total chaos and basically everyone can do whatever they want in there, and the Crawling One is almost always watching.
