| “ | Behold, the heart of the world! Progenitor of life, father and mother, alpha and omega! Our creator... and our destroyer. | „ |
| ~ The Ancestor about the Heart of Darkness. |
The Heart of Darkness is the main antagonist and final boss of the dark fantasy video game Darkest Dungeon.
The Heart of Darkness is the heart-shaped eldritch core of the Earth responsible for the insanity of the Ancestor and all the monsters and horrors plaguing the land. It feasts on the failures of the Ancestor's heirs and their mercenaries so that it may one day fully awaken and break the planet apart.
Biography[]
Possibly disguised as the Ancestor, the Heart of Darkness is the possible creator of humanity and the representation of the Ancestor's desires. Responsible for the corruption of the Hamlet, it manifested through the evil of your ancestor, causing the man to become it's vessel. The cultists and dark priests who worshiped became warped due to it, become partially elderitch.
The Heart of Darkness can be fought inside the titular Darkest Dungeon, the final challenge and area of the game. It is fought during the last mission of the area, being called Hell is in the Heart. Here, there's only one path to take and only one goal: Defeat the Heart of Darkness. Beating it will cost two of your hero's lives and will not be easy, and even when you win, the ending seems to hint that either the Heart of Darkness traps The Hamlet in a endless cycle of misery or you revive it yourself in the future, seemingly trapping the world in a time loop.
In the Color of Madness DLC it is revealed that its claims of godhood are lies, and it is, in fact, one of a race of similar beings. While this doesn't debunk its claim to have created humanity, the revelation throws much of what it says in doubt. It is strongly implied that the Comet is a sort of incubator for an unborn member of its species, and that if it were to hatch and mature, it and the Heart would battle for dominance of the world. If this happened, humanity likely would not survive.
Boss Fight[]
| “ | You still foolishly consider yourself an entity separate from the whole. I know better. And I... will... show you. | „ |
| ~ The Ancestor as he engages the heroes in battle at the heart of the world. |
In the first phase of his fight, the Ancestor attacks you, with it being unknown if this is a illusion or truly him trying to kill you. This first form is immune to all damage, and will summon Perfect Reflections of himself to attack you. However, he sometimes summons a Imperfect Reflection, which damages him when killed. The first form also has "Time Heals All", a healing move. If you kill enough of the Imperfect Reflections, you should end the first phase.
In the second phase, The Ancestor summons Absolute Nothingness, which has a extremely high dodge-rate but can't attack, effectively making a obstacle. Throughout his other attacks, the main goal of this phase is to successfully attack the Ancestor without the Absolute Nothingness getting in the way between his attacks, with most shuffling his party.
After this phase, he turns into the Gestating Heart. On attacking it, any hero will get some health back at the cost of a chance of being Blighted. After enough turns, it uses the move Ascension, turning into the Heart of Darkness.
The Heart of Darkness has several dangerous attacks. "Know This" is a stress attack, which builds up a characters stress, leading to afflictions and heart attacks if built up. Two other attacks also prioritize characters with low resistance to status ailments and inflicts said status ailment ("Dissolution" for Stun and Blight, "Puncture" for Bleed). However, the real threat is "Come Unto Your Maker", which although only used twice in the fight, forces the player to choose which unit to be instantly (and considering the cost of death in the game, permanently) killed.
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Trivia[]
- Although he is shown to have a eighty percent protection rate, the Ancestor is truly unable to be damaged directly.
- The Gestating Heart is the only fight in the game without music.
- The Heart of Darkness' name is a reference to the Joseph Conrad's novel of the same name, but the creature itself is more similar to Nssu-Ghahnb.
- The Heart of Darkness is actually afraid of The Sleeper, being another eldritch terror. If The Sleeper would mature more, the two would likely fight to have only them be able to control the world, with great destruction being all but certain.
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 Villains
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Heroes Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon II | ||