Darknest

**Darknests** are enemy NPC Castles. They spawn in random locations throughout all Kingdoms, in five (six once the kingdom's protection phase is over) different levels, and remain on the Kingdom Map for 24 hour periods, matching the cycle of the 24h Challenge. Darknests can be rallied by members of the same Guild, to obtain Dark Essence. The rally length can be set to either 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, or 8 hours.

Darknests differ from ordinary Castles in a few aspects:

* Scouting and rallying a Darknest will not deactivate shields, or initiate Battle Fury. The same applies for joining a Darknest rally.
* Victory against a Darknest does not reward any player EXP, kills, or might destroyed.
* Failing to defeat a Darknest will cause it to revert to its original state before the attack.
* In a Darknest Battle, 99% of the player Troops are unharmed and 1% are wounded. This is shown by the additional text in the Battle Report stating: "*The goddess is pleased with your efforts. Many of the wounded and dead have been saved!*"
* A minimum of two players are required to partake in the rally.
	+ If the rally captain is the only player in the rally, or if another guild defeated the Darknest before your guild's rally could reach it (timed out or reached by a Lords Cup ball, the current rally will automatically be cancelled and everyone who joined the rally will receive a system message stating the following: "*My Lord, the rally against the Lv.X Darknest has been canceled! Either because not enough allies joined the rally, or our troops lost track of the target. A shameful display!*"

## Darknest Leaders

Tapping on a Darknest will reveal the Leader, Might and Countdown Timer. The coordinates can be also shared in chat from this window.

Players can scout the Darknest to obtain a detailed troop composition and reveal the Dark Essence level without activating battle fury or dropping their shield. On occasion, the Darknest will be equipped with Anti-Scout (Darknests with the highest level essence will always have anti-scout), and the Scout Report will only reveal the Dark Essence level. The troop composition in a Darknest will often correlate with the Darknest Leader.

When battle begins, leaders are on top of the wall. Only  ranged leaders use ultimate on top of the wall, while the rest of the leaders stand by. After wall is destroyed, they moves into their squad.

## Rewards

 *Main article: Transmutation Lab*

Every player who participated in a successful rally will receive a Dark Essence. It can be transmuted in the Transmutation Lab, and after the countdown is up, the player will receive a random reward, detailed on the Transmutation Lab page.

There are currently six Darknest levels. Higher Darknest levels will have higher Might, and more powerful troops, heroes, and familiars. They spawn in different areas on the Kingdom Map, corresponding loosely with the Resource Tile areas.

During the Lords Cup event, Darknests can be used to earn points. When the player kicks a Lords Ball and it hits a Darknest or a tile next to it, the Darknest will instantly disappear (cancelling any rally on it), and a new one will respawn close by. When the ball lands, points are given for the tile it lands on, plus the eight tiles around it. So if a player kicks the ball in the middle of two Darknests, they will get points for both.

## Tips

* 8 hour Darknest rallies are usually only used to hide troops from opponents, as they can't be attacked when they are in the rally. These are called "Fake" or "Ghost" rallies. This tactic is however not accepted in many Guilds, as it has a number of drawbacks for example;
* A player who mistakenly joins the rally will be unable to leave until the rally captain manually removes them, the rally ends, or they leave the guild.
* Secondly, if another guild destroys the darknest being rallied, the rally will instantly cancel, leaving the captain's troops at risk.
* Other Guild members may miss any real darknest rallies, because the Guild icon is flashing non-stop.
* Setting this way can save unnecessary treatment costs.

## Trivia

Darknests were added to the Kingdoms during the "Darknest Rising" update on January 24th, 2017.

## Bugs

When tapping on a darknest on the kingdom map, the Might number will sometimes be shown as 0. If the player waits a few seconds, and taps on the nest again, the actual Might will be displayed. This has been reportedly fixed by IGG but still occurs (v2.88.174, updated Nov 2022)