New Silksong Riddle Characters Examined

It's been approximately 3000 years since Team Cherry gave us a blog update on Silksong. It almost seemed like Silksong was just a shared fever dream that we've all been hallucinating for the past year. I was about to bomb the channel and become a foster parent. But fortunately, a very unlikely ally, Leth, has thrown a juicy bone to the Hollow Knight community. In case you didn't know, Matthew Griffen, aka Leth, has started giving us Silksong updates in the most unusual way. Remember when I mentioned the theory that Silksong would release on June 12? Well, this resulted in another theory that Team Cherry was going to make an announcement on May 29, as the trailer for Hollow Knight was released two weeks before the game came out.

Of course, nothing was announced on May 29. But Leth posted a puzzle on the Hollow Knight Discord. He thought giving our hungry community something to do would help ease the pain of Team Cherry's deafening silence. The

riddle

didn't reveal anything, but it was nice to be able to interact with Leth while people tried to piece together the meaning of the

riddle

. But it turns out that William and Ari really liked what Leth was doing. So they started giving Leth content that could actually be revealed from these riddles. These revelations occurred every Monday for the past four weeks.

And Leth even gave me a part of one of these puzzles to post on my Twitter for people to find. Now, I'm not going to spend much time discussing these riddles. I would recommend watching the fireb0rn and TacoTV channels if you want more details on what these puzzles were and how they were solved. They've done a good job documenting all of this. And I know I've talked a lot about the Hollow Knight Discord on this channel, but I really have to say it's a great community. The people there cracked Leth's riddles incredibly quickly and have done a lot of research into Hollow Knight history and Silksong speculations.

So yeah, it's a good group. For this video, we'll just focus on what was actually revealed and what stupid nonsense we can speculate from it. First of all we have this character, commonly known as the Huntress. Basically, Leth would post a zip file along with a puzzle. The answer to the riddle would be the password needed to open the zip file. The answer to this zip file was Huntress, hence the name. Inside the file is a portrait of the character, a short animated gif, as well as a few lines of dialogue and a brief description. The Huntress appears to have set up camp in this small alcove, possibly somewhere near Bonebottom.

We can also see that bags have been hung in the room. Also, notice how these objects slowly sway around the room. It's a pretty cool detail that wasn't actually used for hanging items in Hollow Knight. The Huntress begins by noting that Hornet is carrying "others' organs" and asks her if she would be willing to offer those organs or even her own as "birth food" for her offspring. The Huntress is described as an imposing old predator who awaits the arrival of her children. She despises the Citadel above and the hapless pilgrims who ascend to it. We have all met people like this in real life, who ask to feed our organs to their babies.

In this case, Hornet could give this character some type of collectible taken from other enemies. We know that quests will play a big role in Silksong, so we may see a lot more of these elements. But as of now, the only items we've seen thrown at enemies are rosaries and shell fragments. She also says that Hornet could offer her own organs to her, but I doubt she'll agree to that. An interesting note about this character is that she vaguely resembles the creatures we saw in one of the images Team Cherry gave us for the Forest of Bones when she was going to be in Hollow Knight.

Could these horrible monsters of nature be her children? The Huntress is also very aware of what's going on in Pharloom and she doesn't seem to be a fan. She despises the Citadel, which we saw briefly in the trailer. This area is likely controlled by the bell cult and appears to be the destination of many insects traveling through Pharloom. So the Citadel probably isn't a great place, but then again, this lady wants our organs, so maybe we shouldn't value her opinion. One last point, the HUD in this gif looks a little strange. For some reason the right end of the spool is missing and the silk itself is thicker.

This could simply be a buggy UI issue, since the game is still in development after all. Or it could be possible that the silk spool breaks, similar to how the soul vessel breaks in Hollow Knight. However, this spool symbol in the corner is also not illuminated, and as we have seen it is supposed to illuminate once you have a full spool of silk. We even see him light up in a later reveal. So I wouldn't be surprised if this UI was still buggy. The next character revealed appears to be called Grindle. Grindle is a snitch who can be found locked in a cell somewhere in what I assume is the golden city.

Once freed, he will offer information to Hornet in exchange for rosaries, but his intelligence is apparently not very good. So most likely he will tell us something stupid, because God forbid we have a character who gives us a real story. From his dialogue we know that Grindle has been locked up for a while. We also know that Grindle plans to take advantage of Pharloom's health status, although there are no further details on what exactly is happening to Pharloom. We know that he is obsessed with silk and singing, but the exact details about it still remain quite murky.

Grindle is described as a snitch, which isn't real according to Google, but his head has a similar design to the enemy we saw in the Silksong reveal trailer, indicating that we might see more of this insect species throughout the series. game. There are quite a few other details in the gif provided that we should talk about. First, we see another prisoner in this area. This bug looks like some of the other enemies we've seen in the trailers, except this guy isn't wearing a headdress. He may be a deserter from the cult, or perhaps they simply removed the sheet as punishment.

However, they allowed her to stay with his bell staff, so that's good. We also see that in Grindle's cell there is a workbench covered in throwing daggers. I'm not sure what weapons like that would do in a jail cell. Was Grindle about to stab some bitch? Regardless, this could be the place where Hornet gets the throwing dagger. Finally, there's another additional HUD element that we haven't seen before. There appears to be a small green bead at the end of Hornet's silk spool. This could be the result of some sort of tool that Hornet has equipped, but I'm not sure what he would do.

We can see in the tools menu in the reveal trailer that a green object appears next to a Weaver-type tool and some type of device that looks like it could weave silk. I mentioned before that there seem to be different kinds of tools in Silksong: red, blue, and yellow. I assume these blue tools will be related to Hornet's silk reel modification somehow. We can also see that in this gif the right side of the reel is missing, so the bead could be related to that somehow. The third revelation we received from Leth was about a caravan of fleas.

Now, we've seen these fleas before in the Silksong E3 demo. They seem to operate like Hollow Knight larvae, getting stuck in different areas and needing to be rescued. Based on his dialogue, we can tell that the caravan is not from Pharloom and that they only have a single, humble wish. However, the caravan did not realize how dangerous Pharloom was, and instead of watching over his children like responsible adult fleas, they let his children get lost throughout the kingdom. These fleas are said to carry abundant food, potent drinks, and surprising comforts. So these

characters

probably give Hornet these different foods as a reward for giving them back their fleas.

The fact that they are food and drinks makes me think that they are perishable items, which was not a very common mechanic in Hollow Knight. It will be interesting to see how exactly that will work in Silksong if this is the case. These fleas appear to be making a pilgrimage to the Shining Citadel at the top of Pharloom, which is a very common theme in this game. Of course, we have

characters

like the Huntress who are distrustful of the Citadel and everything it represents, but many other characters seem interested in getting there. There's a pretty interesting parallel to this in Hallownest.

The insects would also make pilgrimages to Hallownest to see the Pale King's kingdom. There's even a path in Hallownest called Pilgrim's Way. And while the Pale King is a morally dubious character, it's not as if his promise to the pilgrims was a completely malicious lie. Therefore, it will be interesting to see what exactly these pilgrims expect at the citadel and what they actually get. Looking at the HUD, we can see that Hornet's reel length can in fact be increased. I don't think anyone doubted that this would be the case, but it's good to have it confirmed.

Additionally, we can see that one of Hornet's health masks has another mask placed on top of it. This can be like a vital item that gives you extra health, but honestly it seems a little redundant. This mask has a crack, which could imply that it can take multiple hits before breaking completely, similar to the Balder Shell amulet that everyone forgot exists. And now we come to the final reveal of Leth's riddle madness, Seth. Seth is a boss fight that seems to happen somewhat late in the game. Seth guards a secret located at the base of the Citadel and attacks anyone who gets too close, including the bell cultists.

There seems to be something a little unnatural about this character. He is described as an old man and has somehow been imbued with stamina and strength superior to that of a normal insect. We have a clue as to what the source of this force could be. Team Cherry gave us a line of dialogue from Seth that simply says "The Voice... has chosen me." But this is not the first time we have heard about this voice. Another character, Trobbio, has been described as the Master of stage, brush and voice. And Trobbio and Seth have somewhat similar designs.

In one of the gifs provided, we can see that this feathered thing is actually some kind of cape, which means Trobbio's could be one too, and I honestly don't want to imagine what it would look like without it. The connections between Seth and Trobbio are interesting, but they don't really make sense. Seth is a hardened warrior protecting an ancient secret, while Trobbio appears to be an artist obsessed with fame. I'm not really sure what to make of that. Perhaps the Voice is a more nebulous element that has a broader context that we are not yet aware of.

Looking at the two gifs, we can see that Seth appears in Greymoor as a passive NPC. But we also see it in a boss fight with Hornet, which seems to be a different location. We know this is the base of the Citadel, as it features the tangled roots mentioned in the Team Cherry description. We also see what appears to be some sort of snow falling from above, similar to the ash we saw at Kingdom's Edge in Hollow Knight. So does this mean that Pharloom also contains some type of Wyrm, similar to the Pale King? Well, not so fast.

Another theory about what they could be is flower petals. We've seen at least one area in Pharloom filled with petals, and there's another argument for that. In fact, Leth locked this revelation behind two passwords, which were "protector" and "bloom." The first password obviously refers to Seth, while the second could imply that what we are seeing here is related to plant life. We also have those roots in this area, indicating that plants and trees are growing somewhere nearby. The boss fight itself looks amazing. Seth is fast and uses his saucer as a shield and frisbee. Another small detail of this fight is that we can see Hornet perform a kind of aerial movement where her dress inflates.

This seems to stop his falling speed as a sort of sliding mechanic. We know that Hornet's cape is an actual item in Hornet's inventory, so it seems like the cape itself can be upgraded. Seth is a character designed by Seth Goldman, a Hollow Knight fan who met Team Cherry through a program called the Marty Lyons Foundation, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses. Unfortunately, Seth passed away earlier this year, but his character will live on in Silksong. And I'm sure the Hollow Knight community will remember it for years to come. And that's it for Silksong news.

We've gotten a few glimpses of the new abilities Hornet will gain throughout his mission. And we also met a new cast of characterscolorful, including a thief, a gang of fleas, a boy who hears voices and a girl who wants our organs. I'm excited to see what else the Cherry team has in store for us. Maybe a ladybug committing tax fraud, or a mace-wielding grasshopper, or maybe even Jeff Bezos.