Tears of the Kingdom Lightroot Locations Guide: Mapping the Depths

The Depths is the biggest, darkest chunk of Tears of the Kingdom, and lightroots are what turn it from a black wall of noise into an actual map. There are 120 of them down there. Every one you touch lights a permanent circle around itself, opens a fast travel point, and patches up hearts that gloom has rotted through. And the whole layout is a copy of the surface, so the shrine map you've been building all game is secretly a lightroot map too. That's the trick this whole thing runs on.

Entering the Depths Safely

Finding a hole and dropping in

Chasms are the way down. They're the ragged, gloom-ringed holes the Upheaval ripped open all over Hyrule, and there are 39 of them if you count the three hiding at the bottom of wells. They're spread across every part of the map, so you've usually got options nearby.

The drop itself is long. Pop the paraglider early and ride the shaft down, because the walls are smeared with gloom and scraping against them costs you the same way the floor does. The landing zone at the bottom is often gloom-coated too, so have a plan for where you touch down. Somewhere dark and rock-colored is fine. The red and purple stuff is not.

What to pack

• Brightbloom Seeds, as many as you can carry. Throw one and it sprouts into a glowing plant that sticks around. The giant versions light a much bigger bubble.
• A few sunny meals. Those come from cooking Sundelions, the golden flowers that grow up on the sky islands. Each one in the pot repairs three gloom-broken hearts.
• Normal healing food too. Gloom cures bring back your max hearts but leave them empty, so you still need real food to fill the wheel back up.
• Arrows, and something decent to swing. The Depths has plenty of both lying around, but the first hour goes smoother with your own gear.

Heart count matters more than armor down here. Gloom attacks your max hearts directly, so a bigger wheel is a bigger buffer. If you've been sitting on Lights of Blessing from shrines, this is a fine time to cash in four of them for extra containers.

A clean first trip

Want a guided first run? Take Robbie's Camera Work in the Depths quest from Lookout Landing. It funnels you toward the Great Abandoned Central Mine, which sits directly under the Great Plateau's Temple of Time, and the nearest lightroots (Koradat and Kogoir, both out west of the mine) are easy pickups while you're in the area.

The statue at that mine is broken until you finish the A Call from the Depths side adventure and bring its eyes back. The payout for that quest is a full Heart Container or Stamina Vessel, your pick. Free stats are free.

How Lightroots Match Surface Shrines

One shrine up, one lightroot down

Tears of the Kingdom has 152 shrines: 120 on the surface and 32 in the sky. The sky ones don't matter down here. Each of the 120 surface shrines has exactly one lightroot sitting under it, which is why the lightroot count is also 120.

Same spot, flipped upside down

The Depths uses the same map coordinates as the surface. A shrine's position above ground is its lightroot's position below, minus the altitude. The catch is that everything is vertically flipped. Mountains up top become deep canyons below, and water up top tends to turn into solid rock, so lake edges become walls.

The numbers make it obvious. Lightroots out in the flatlands sit at depths of roughly -0400 to -0500. The ones under mountain ranges sit way lower. Mustis Lightroot, under Death Mountain, hangs at -0949. Mu-ufatar, under the Hebra range, is down at -1006. If a shrine sits on a peak above, expect a climb below.

So the routine is simple. Open the surface map, pick a shrine you've found, note where it is, then walk to that same spot underground. Here's an easy one to test: Jiosin Shrine sits right beside the Hyrule Field Chasm. Drop in, and Nisoij Lightroot is minutes away at -0240, -0372, -0478.

The names are spelled backwards

Every lightroot's name is its shrine's name in reverse. Jiosin becomes Nisoij. En-oma by Lake Hylia becomes Amo-ne. Sitsum up by Death Mountain becomes Mustis. It works as a sanity check that you're standing under the right shrine, and it runs in both directions. A lightroot on your Depths map tells you exactly which shrine is overhead, even one you haven't found yet.

What you get for touching one

Walk up and tap a lightroot and it does four things. It lights the area around itself for good. It paints that circle onto the Depths map, the same way a Skyview Tower stamps the surface map. It becomes a fast travel point. And it restores gloom-broken hearts, not just the first time either. Any later visit underneath it works too. What it doesn't do is hand you a blessing or a puzzle. There's nothing inside a lightroot. It's a lamp with a travel gate on it.

Regional Lightroot Routes

Here's how the 120 split across the biggest regions:

| Depths region | Lightroots | | --- | --- | | Central Hyrule Depths | 19 | | Eldin Canyon Depths | 10 | | Hebra Mountains Depths | 10 | | Gerudo Desert Depths | 8 | | Gerudo Highlands Depths | 8 | | Lanayru Great Spring Depths | 8 | | Tabantha Frontier Depths | 8 | | Great Hyrule Forest Depths | 7 | | Akkala Highlands Depths | 6 | | East Necluda Depths | 6 |

That's 90 of them in the ten biggest regions. The other 30 are scattered across smaller pockets, places like Lake Hylia Depths, which has exactly one. Work one region at a time, and when your hearts go gray, pop out through the nearest lightroot instead of pushing through on fumes.

Start in the middle

Central Hyrule Depths holds 19 lightroots, more than anywhere else, and the story drags you through it anyway. Enter by the Hyrule Field Chasm next to Jiosin Shrine or the big one up on the Great Plateau and start chaining them. The Plains Eargaine bargainer statue sits east of Hyrule Field at about 0457, -0803, -0472, a short walk from Stakijat Lightroot at 0343, -1008, -0468. Good place to dump your early Poes.

Loop the northeast

Eldin Canyon holds 10, and the surrounding northeast pocket (Eldin Mountains, Akkala Highlands, Deep Akkala, Akkala Sea, Death Mountain) carries another 14 on top of that. This is where the terrain gets weird, since you're under the most mountainous part of the map. Mustis, the lone Death Mountain Depths lightroot, is basically a vertical climb at 2371, 2594, -0949. For the far corner, the East Akkala Plains Chasm drops you near the Wellspring of Power statue and Akinatanis Lightroot at 3841, 2302, -0488.

Sweep the west

Hebra's 10 plus Tabantha's 8 make the northwest a meaty trip, and Hyrule Ridge tacks on 5 more on the way down. The Drena Canyon bargainer statue up here is the highest one in the game. You climb almost to the ceiling of the Depths to reach it, near Yisuayam Lightroot at -1167, 2602, -0350. Down in the Gerudo sections (16 lightroots split between desert and highlands), swing by the Abandoned Kara Kara Mine northeast of Tatayam Lightroot. The chest there, at -3230, -2476, -0475, holds the Miner's Helm.

Clean up the east and south

Lanayru stacks 15 lightroots across the Great Spring, the Wetlands, and Mount Lanayru. The Naydra Snowfield Chasm is your way in for the Wellspring of Wisdom statue and Usukaz Lightroot at 3526, -1482, -0612. For the south, Tobio's Hollow Chasm at 1305, -2397, 0048 leads toward the Wellspring of Courage and Muokuij Lightroot at 0867, -2276, -0556. Faron, West Necluda, and East Necluda split another 14 between them, and the Necluda Sea floor gets exactly one.

And don't skip the one-lightroot regions. Amo-ne at 0102, -2518, -0414 is the entire lightroot population of Lake Hylia Depths, sitting directly under En-oma Shrine.

Getting around down there

Once a few regions are lit, switch from walking to riding. A two-fan hover bike is the community's favorite Depths transport, and sticking a Giant Brightbloom Seed on the frame lights your whole flight path. Watch the battery, though. The Depths eats Zonai charge, so pack charges and mine zonaite as you go. Watch for Yiga outposts too, since they love setting up camp down in the dark.

Preparing for Gloom and Darkness

What gloom actually does

Stand on gloom for about two seconds and you lose one maximum heart. It grays out and cracks on your wheel. Gloom-touched enemies drain max hearts the same way, and the stronger the enemy, the bigger the bite. Lose every container to it and it's a game over, same as running dry on health normally. The nasty part is that grayed hearts stay gray until you actively fix them.

Three ways to un-gray your hearts

1. Stand under a lightroot. Works on every visit, not just the first tap.
2. Fast travel to the surface. Sunlight up top resets gloom damage for free. Both of these leave the restored containers empty, so follow up with real food.
3. Eat a sunny meal. Cooked Sundelions repair three broken hearts each, and Sun Pumpkins do one apiece. Cook them together with meat and you refill the hearts in the same bite.

Sundelions grow on the sky islands, usually a couple per island, so do a sky run before a long Depths session.

Soaking gloom before it bites

Dark Clumps, which the bargainer statues sell for 10 Poes each, cook into gloom-resistant meals. Those give you blue-outlined buffer hearts that absorb floor gloom instead of your real max hearts. Two catches: the buffer doesn't cover gloom from enemy hits, and it wears off with time like any food effect. Still worth a slot for long slogs across red ground.

Lighting the dark

• Brightbloom Seeds are the workhorse. Toss them as you go, or fuse one to an arrow to plant light on a distant wall or ceiling.
• Giant Brightbloom Seeds throw a much wider glow. Save them for big caverns and vehicle builds.
• The Miner's set is the endgame answer. Each piece glows on its own, the glow stacks, and upgrading all three to two stars adds the Shining Steps bonus, which leaves lit puddles in your footprints. The Top is in Daphnes Canyon Mine at -1075, -0558, -0514, the Trousers in Hylia Canyon Mine at -1287, -2250, -0707, and the Helm is that Kara Kara chest mentioned earlier.

The Poe economy

Poes are the blue wisps floating all over the Depths, and everything good down here is bought with them, so grab them constantly. Regular ones count as a single soul, Large Poes are worth five, and Grand Poes are worth twenty. The full statue stock once you've woken all seven:

| Item | Price in Poes | | --- | --- | | Dark Clump | 10 | | Bomb Flower, Muddle Bud, Puffshroom | 16 each | | Dark Tunic | 150 | | Tunic of the Depths | 150 | | Dark Trousers | 200 | | Gaiters of the Depths | 200 | | Dark Hood | 300 | | Hood of the Depths | 300 | | Tunic of Memories | 400 |

Stock unlocks piece by piece as you find more statues, and each find opens the new stock at every statue, including the little one back in Lookout Landing.

Finishing the Depths Map

How the map fills in

No shop sells a Depths map. The only thing that paints it is lightroots, each stamping its own circle the way towers stamp the surface. Anywhere the map is still black, there's a lightroot you haven't touched, and usually a surface shrine you haven't found either.

Work the checklist from above

The fastest way to finish is a paired audit. Open your surface map and your Depths map side by side. Every shrine icon up top should have a lightroot icon below it, same coordinates, backwards name. Whatever's missing on both lists is your next target: drop into the nearest chasm, walk to the shrine's coordinates underground, and tap it.

Robbie's quest line helps here. Finishing Camera Work in the Depths and A Mystery in the Depths, then visiting him at the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, gets you the Shrine Sensor, which pings when a shrine is near and tops off your surface list fast. Sensor+ after that can track materials instead, which is handy for zonaite runs.

The medal

Light all 120 and the game hands you the Dispelling Darkness Medal, a key item whose whole description amounts to congratulations. It doesn't do anything. No buff, no glow, no bonus. It's a trophy for the shelf, and honestly that fits the Depths' whole mood.

What the finished network is worth

The real payout is logistics. A complete lightroot grid means you can drop anywhere in the Depths in one loading screen, which suddenly makes the place farmable. Zonaite for energy cells, Poes by the hundred, Bomb Flowers and Muddle Buds in bulk, and pristine weapons off the shadowy soldier figures scattered around, which are uncorrupted versions of some of the best base gear in the game. Once travel is free, all of that turns into a quick loop instead of an expedition.

If you're down to the last few dark patches, hunt the lonely ones first. Amo-ne under En-oma Shrine at 0102, -2518, -0414 is the only lightroot in the whole Lake Hylia Depths, and Mustis under Death Mountain at 2371, 2594, -0949 is the only one in its region too. Single-lightroot regions are where everyone's 119-out-of-120 run goes to die.