Waking Nightmares Field Guide: All 33 Dungeons, the Hidden Crypt, and How to Reach Tristram in Diablo IV Season 15

Season of Hell's Legacy is built around one idea: take the best rooms from 30 years of Diablo and drop them into Diablo IV. Blizzard calls them Waking Nightmares, and there are 33 of them spread across 27 locations. Fourteen come from Diablo II, seven from the original Diablo, five from Diablo III, four from Hellfire and three from Diablo Immortal.

If you've been running the same Helltide loop and wondering what everyone in voice keeps talking about, this is your map.

The six kinds of Waking Nightmare

Campaign Majors (3). These are the seasonal questline dungeons Deckard Cain walks you through, and each one gives you your first Splinter of Evil:

The Labyrinth (Diablo I), quest "The Brother's Keeper," ends with the Echo of Diablo beneath Tristram Cathedral.
Worldstone Keep (Diablo II), quest "The Horadrim's Fate," ends with the Echo of Baal at Arreat Summit.
Durance of Hate (Diablo II), quest "The Burning Shepherd," ends with the Echo of Mephisto.
Nightmare Capstones (3). Harder replays of those same three dungeons at fixed difficulties, and each one unlocks a Season Rank:
Worldstone Keep at Torment IV unlocks Season Rank VI
Durance of Hate at Torment VI unlocks Season Rank VII
The Labyrinth at Torment VIII unlocks Season Rank VIII
Hell Capstones (3). The pinnacle versions of all three. Blizzard says they open at Torment 10 and up, and most guide sites list Torment XII as the target tier. Clearing them drops the three Splinters of Evil you need for Wirt's Lucky Coins (more on that below).

Standard Nightmares (9). These are the farmable ones. You open them with a Chronicle of Nightmares sigil, which is account bound and comes with random affixes. The community has counted about 54 so far, including empowered elites, material and gem chests, treasure goblins, and Echo of Pindleskin, who can drop any item in the game. The list:

Halls of the Blind (Diablo I), gates Season Rank II at level 30 on Expert
Unholy Altar (Diablo I), boss Archbishop Lazarus
Den of Evil (Diablo II), boss Corpsefire, gates Rank III at level 60 on Penitent
Tal Rasha's Tomb (Diablo II), boss Duriel
Forgotten Tower (Diablo II), boss The Countess
Crystalline Passage (Diablo II)
The Scouring of Caldeum (Diablo III), boss Belial, gates Rank IV at Torment I
Horadric Library, boss Sandstone Golem, gates Rank V at Torment II
Lester's Farm (Hellfire), boss The Defiler
Popup Nightmares (14). No map icon. They spawn as temporary portals and show up in your quest tracker, so keep an eye on it while you're out in the world. Old friends here include Gharbad the Strong, Rakanishu in the Stony Field, Nihlathak's Temple, Queen Araneae, Captain Xiaal from Immortal, and a Hellfire boss who is literally named Complete Nut. There's also one listed only as "??????" with the objective "Slay the Prime Evils." Uber Tristram veterans will know what that means.

Hidden (1). The secret one. Keep reading.

How to open Na-Krul's Crypt

There's no marker for this one. Here's the order that works:

Open a Chronicle of Nightmares that rolls Lester's Farm.
Find Na-Krul's Door. It has a lever and three spellbooks next to it.
Read the books in this order: "In Spiritu Sanctum," then "Praedictum Otium," then "Efficio Obitus Ut Inimicus."
Pull the lever.
That starts the quest "A Trial by Hellfire." Kill Na-Krul on Torment V or higher for the Season Journey objective. He also drops the Splinter of Hellfire, one of the new Soul Splinters you socket into jewelry.

Getting to Tristram

This is the real endgame of the season, and it takes a few steps.

Step one: Wirt's Lucky Coins. Put one Splinter of Terror, one Splinter of Destruction and one Splinter of Hatred in the Horadric Cube. It's a hidden recipe, so it won't show in the list, and it costs no gold. Coins stack to 99 and only exist this season.

Step two: Deckard's Memory. Find all 10 of Deckard Cain's journal satchels scattered across Sanctuary, then go back to Cain at the Imperial Library. He opens a portal into the original Tristram.

Step three: the fountain. It's in the southeast part of town. Use a coin and it opens a red portal. Be on Torment VI or higher. Below that you get a "minions of Hell are too strong" message, and the coin can still get eaten.

Early in the season the fountain was eating coins even at the right Torment. Blizzard fixed that in Hotfix 4 on September 22.

The Prime Evil Council

On the other side of that portal, the Echoes of Diablo, Baal and Mephisto fight you at the same time. Baal's lightning and tentacles act on their own, Mephisto has three phases, and all three can be staggered. Bring a squad that can split damage.

The payoff is Mythics plus the Hellfire Torch, a unique charm with 10 to 20 percent to all stats and +1 to +4 to all skills. The Council has a loot cooldown of at least 15 minutes. If you kill them again before it's up, the timer resets and nothing drops. Hotfix 4 made that cooldown longer, but Blizzard hasn't said by how much.

What drops in there

Waking Nightmares are the main source of Splinter reputation and Soul Splinters. They're also a good place to hunt the new Legacy Uniques, classic items brought forward from older games. Blizzard's list includes Leoric's Crown, Nemesis Bracers, the Stone of Jordan, Arioc's Needle, Henri's Perquisition, In-Geom, The Furnace and Messerschmidt's Reaver. They're in the normal unique pool, so they can also drop from Helltide chests, ambushes and bosses.

The squad play

Waking Nightmares are the best group content in the game right now. Run Chronicles as a team, shout when you spot a popup portal in your tracker, and plan a Tristram night once enough of the crew has coins. Post your runs on the ops board and bring the new folks along. Watching someone walk into the Den of Evil for the first time never gets old.

By CNC Gaming

Sources: Blizzard: Celebrate 30 Years of Diablo in Season of Hell's Legacy; Blizzard Hotfix 4 notes; d4guides: All 33 Waking Nightmares; AOEAH: Season 15 secrets; AccountShark Waking Nightmares guide; d4guides: Echo of Tristram; Auscraft: Echo of Tristram; Mobalytics: Hellfire Torch.