The Grimm Troupe is a Hollow Knight DLC that adds new charms, new NPCs, a new side quest, and one of the game’s more formidable bosses. Here’s everything you need to know about the Grimm Troupe.
Table Of Contents
How to Summon the Grimm Troupe
To summon the Grimm Troupe, you must make your way to the western section of the Howling Cliffs. Start making your way down, but stick to the area on the right with the floating platforms. Keep descending until you go past Cornifer’s intended location.
You will then come across a breakable wall. Destroy it, continue forward, then head down. Keep to the right and you’ll find another breakable wall. Head inside until you find a body of a large bug. Hit this bug with your Dream Nail.
This will cause the fire pit in the previous room to light. Hit the fire pit repeatedly until the torches around the room light up. This will fire up the Nightmare Lantern and summon the Grimm Troupe, which you can now find in Dirtmouth.
The Grimm Troupe Quest
When you return to Dirtmouth, you can now find two tents to the left of the central area. Enter the bigger tent to meet Grimm. After interacting with him, he’ll give you the Grimmchild Charm.
Equipping the charm summons the Grimmchild. This little fellow will act as your companion and attack any enemies in your vicinity. It will also mark the location of three Grimmkin Novices all around Hallownest. Head to these locations and defeat the three Grimmkins to take their flame.
Once that’s done, return to Grimm and he’ll upgrade the Grimmchild. New sets of enemies called the Grimmkin Masters will also appear around Hallownest. Just like before, find and defeat them.
Return to Grimm once more after defeating the three Grimmkin Masters. A fight with him will then initiate.
Defeating Troupe Master Grimm
Troupe Master Grimm is a fast enemy who will leave you very little room to breathe and heal. Take note of the boss’s attacks and how you should react to them.
- Fireball Barrage – This will always be Grimm’s first attack. He will hover in the middle of the arena, puff up, and spew sets of fireballs towards both directions of the arena. The fireballs come in ones or twos and are fired consecutively, leaving a space between them. What you’ll need to do is to jump to avoid the fireballs. The attack will end after Grimm fires 12 sets of fireballs.
- Fire Bats – Grimm will open up his cloak and fire three fire bats at you. Simply jump over the bats and towards Grimm to avoid receiving damage. This should also allow you to get close enough to Grimm to damage him.
- Forward Slash – Grimm will dash and slash forward, and then launch into the air with an uppercut. At the peak of Grimm’s ascent, he will disappear and summon five fireballs to rain down on the arena. There are safe gaps on the ground between when the fireballs will land. That’s where you’ll want to position yourself. When Grimm dashes forward, you can jump over him and slash downwards or perform a Descending Dark to deal damage to him.
- Dive Attack – Grimm will teleport in the air and dive towards you. He’ll follow this with a dash towards your direction. If you’re close enough to Grimm when he teleports in the air, dash towards the area below him. Then, be prepared to jump when he dashes towards you from the ground. You can sneak in a downward slash or a Descending Dark from here.
- Cloak Spikes – Grimm will burrow his cloak to the ground, causing large spikes to sprout upwards all over the arena. There will be safe gaps in between the spikes. You’ll only have about a second or two to react properly and stand on these safe gaps to avoid being damaged. Once you’re in a safe area, you should have ample time to heal just one mask.
Grimm will hardly let up throughout this boss fight. After he’s done with one attack, he’ll teleport after a second or two to prepare for the next one. Sneak in an attack every chance you get.
After a couple of hits, Grimm will get staggered and transform into a swarm of bats that flies around the arena for about 3 seconds. You can either use this time to heal up or to attack Grimm while he’s in this state.
Continuing the Quest
Once Grimm is defeated, he’ll upgrade the Grimmchild once more. Three more Grimmkins, aptly named Grimmkin Nightmares, will then appear all around Hallownest. You will also be rewarded with one Charm Notch.
From here, you’ll have two options you can follow. You can either complete the ritual by defeating the Grimmkin Nightmares or you can banish the Grimm Troupe altogether.
Banishing the Grimm Troupe
When you open your map, you’ll see four flames instead of three. The one in Deepnest is carried by an NPC named Brumm. If you head to his location, he’ll tell you that he can banish the troupe with your help if you meet him “where it began.”
The place he’s referring to here is the room where the Nightmare Lantern is. If you head back there, you and Brumm can destroy the Nightmare Lantern, banishing the Grimm Troupe from Hallownest.
Once the Grimm Troupe is banished, you’ll find a new NPC named Nymm the next time you return to Dirtmouth. He’ll then give you the Carefree Melody charm.
Continuing the Ritual
You can continue the ritual by defeating the Grimmkin Nightmares and collecting three flames. Be careful, though. The Grimmkin Nightmares deal two masks of damage.
Once that’s done, you can return to Grimm’s tent where you will find him sleeping.
Hit him with your Dream Nail and you’ll be sent to Grimm’s dream where you’ll fight a stronger variant of him.
Defeating Nightmare King Grimm
The Nightmare King Grimm boss fight functions somewhat similarly with the Troupe Master Grimm boss fight. Only this time, Grimm is way more relentless, swift, and powerful. His attacks now deal two masks of damage and most of them are slightly altered to be more dangerous.
- Fireball Barrage – This attack remains similar, although the rate at which the fireballs come at you is much faster.
- Fire Bats – Grimm now fires four bats at you instead of three. The first and third bats take a higher position while the second and fourth fly towards you from below. What you’ll want to do to avoid this attack is to jump over the second bat. The fourth bat won’t be low enough to hit you from the ground. Attack when you get close enough to Grimm.
- Forward Slash – The attack remains the same, but Grimm’s speed is also much faster.
- Dive Attack – Grimm now leaves a trail of fire during both the dive and the dash. Dash away from Grimm, jump when he’s dashing towards you from the ground, strike downwards, then dash away again.
- Cloak Spikes – Grimm won’t be in the arena anymore while performing this attack, making the arrival of the spikes much harder to predict. Before the spikes surface from the ground, however, you should momentarily see where they’ll sprout up, giving you a short amount of time to react.
Aside from these, Grimm also gains one new attack.
- Fire Pillars – Grimm will hover in the air as he summons 4 fire pillars consecutively from the ground up. The first pillar will form directly below your position so be ready to dash away.
Just like the previous boss fight, you’ll need to sneak in an attack every chance you get. He’s much faster this time which means you’ll need to react faster too. You should find opportunities to heal during Grimm’s stagger stage and when you’re safely standing between his Cloak Spikes.
After defeating Nightmare King Grimm, he’ll upgrade the Grimmchild to its most powerful variation. The troupe will then leave Hallownest, with the exception of one NPC.
Divine
Divine is an NPC you’ll find in the smaller troupe tent in Dirtmouth. Her main purpose is to turn the Fragile Charms into Unbreakable Charms in exchange for massive amounts of Geos.
Here’s how much each upgrade will cost.
- From Fragile Greed to Unbreakable Greed – 9,000 Geos
- Fragile Heart to Unbreakable Heart – 12,000 Geos
- Fragile Strength to Unbreakable Strength – 15,000 Geos
