Personal Housing

Overview

Personal Housing is a feature in Crimson Desert that gives the player a permanent home base within the game world. Rather than constructing a house from scratch, the player receives a pre-built residence as part of the Greymane storyline. The house is a personal space where players can display collectibles, arrange furniture, and set up a Cauldron crafting station for brewing elixirs and wines. Housing ties directly into character progression, evolving alongside the story as new features unlock over time.

Upon arriving at Howling Hill for the first time, the player is greeted by Barden Middler, who is overseeing preparations for the camp. In the same scene, Barden introduces Damiane, the second playable character in Crimson Desert. This moment marks the start of the camp's development and sets the stage for the player to claim their own house nearby.

It is worth noting that gaining access to the house and being able to decorate it are two separate milestones. The house becomes enterable partway through Chapter 3, but the furniture placement system only opens up after completing a follow-up quest later in the Greymane storyline. Some players have reported going dozens of hours before realizing they could furnish their home, so it pays to keep an eye on your quest log after settling into the camp.

How to Unlock Your House

Personal housing becomes available during Chapter 3 of the main story. As Kliff progresses through the Greymane questline, Marquis Serkis grants the Greymanes an area called Howling Hill, located south of the City of Hernand. This triggers the establishment of the Greymane Camp, and the player's personal house becomes accessible nearby.

The key quest that initiates this process is First Step to Rebuilding, during which Kliff receives an audience with Marquis Serkis and the Greymanes are formally granted the Howling Hill territory. Once this quest concludes, the camp begins to take shape, and the house on the nearby hilltop becomes available to enter.

The Pioneering Quest Chain

After arriving at Howling Hill, the Pioneering quest chain walks you through setting up the camp. There are four setup tasks scattered around the area:

1. Drive the Stakes: Pick up the mallet and hammer the pillars into the ground to secure the tent.

2. Clear and Push the Wagon: Use the pickaxe to break apart the rocks blocking the path, then push the wagon into the tent.

3. Move the Stacks: Carry three supply stacks to their designated storage spots.

4. Serve the Food: Place the prepared dish at the communal table so the Greymanes can eat after the long day.

Once all four tasks are done, you need to dispatch Luke and Ronald on the Howling Hill Camp Expansion mission from the Mission List (tab over with RB/R1). This dispatch takes roughly 17 in-game hours to complete. You can pass time by sleeping at the nearby pot or completing side quests while you wait.

After the expansion finishes, the Rustling Hill quest becomes active. This is the direct trigger for unlocking your base. Open the map, highlight the Howling Hill marker, and press the Inspect button to complete the quest. Your house is now accessible.

Reaching the House

The house itself is a small, three-room wooden structure positioned southeast of the main camp, across a ravine. It sits on a hilltop overlooking the camp, separate from the rest of the Greymane settlement. The Greymane leader lives in this area apart from the main encampment. The house comes pre-furnished with basic items such as beds and a table, and the structure is already standing when you arrive; there is no building or construction phase.

To get to the house from the camp, you need to cross a ravine using Axiom Force. The path goes downhill toward the southeast, where a gap separates the camp from the hilltop. The steps are as follows:

1. From your tent in the Greymane Camp, look across the ravine to spot the small wooden home on the other side.

2. Approach one of the large trees on your side of the gap.

3. Press the left stick to activate Axiom Force and aim the blue targeting circle at the top of the tree.

4. Latch onto the tree and rotate the right stick in a circle to slowly bend the tree downward.

5. When prompted, perform a high jump. This launches Kliff both forward and upward into the air.

6. Press the glide button (Square on PlayStation, X on Xbox) to glide across the gap and land near the house.

Once you have crossed the ravine, simply walk up to the house and enter through the unlocked door. The door is never locked, so you can return at any time.

After fast travel is unlocked at the Greymane Camp, you can teleport directly to the camp area and walk a short distance to the house. The Axiom Force tree-crossing method is only required the first time.

Unlocking the Decoration System

While the house itself becomes accessible during the Greymane Camp setup, the ability to decorate it does not unlock immediately. The decoration feature is gated behind a short quest called Luke's Request, which is part of the Grounds of the Sunrise mission list from the Greymanes faction.

After you have secured resources for the camp, speak with Luke at the Howling Hill Greymane Camp. He will mention that he found a flower basket and asks you to place it inside your house as a display. This simple task is the tutorial for the decoration system.

The gap between entering your house and unlocking decoration can be confusing. Because the two milestones are tied to different quests, it is possible to walk around your house for a long time without realizing that furniture placement exists. If you cannot find the decoration option, check whether you have completed Luke's Request. The feature only becomes active after that quest is turned in.

Luke's Request Steps

1. Talk to Luke at the Greymane Camp to receive the flower basket.

2. Travel to your house on the hill southeast of the camp.

3. Enter the house and open the decoration mode by pressing Start.

4. Select the flower basket from the installable items list and place it anywhere inside.

5. Return to Luke at the camp to report that you placed the basket.

Quest Rewards

After completing this quest, the full Home Decoration feature becomes permanently available. You can return to your house at any time to rearrange or add new items.

Decoration Mode

To enter Decoration Mode, stand inside the house and press the Start button. You can also look for the house icon that appears on the right side of the screen when you are inside your home. Selecting this icon opens the same furniture placement view. The camera shifts to a bird's-eye perspective with the roof removed, giving you a clear overhead look at all three rooms. A list of installable items appears in the upper-right corner of the screen.

Only items in your inventory that are marked with a house icon can be placed as decorations. These include collectibles, furniture, and decorative objects gathered through exploration, purchased from vendors, or obtained through quests. Items without the house icon cannot be used in decoration mode.

The house icon on items in your inventory is small and easy to overlook. If you are unsure whether a particular item can be placed, open your inventory and look for the tiny house symbol next to the item name. Anything with that symbol will appear in the decoration menu when you enter placement mode.

Decoration Controls

Placement Rules

• Each of the three rooms can hold multiple items. There is no strict per-room limit, but space is finite.

• Items can be placed freely within the rooms. There do not appear to be grid snap restrictions; you position items by moving them around with the analog stick or mouse.

• You cannot move an item that has another object placed on top of it. Remove the top item first, then move the one underneath.

• Any unwanted item can be stowed back into your inventory at any time.

• The Undo button only reverses the most recent action, so plan your layout carefully before confirming multiple placements.

Where to Find Furniture and Decorations

Decorative items come from multiple entries throughout Pywel. Some are purchased from vendors, while others are discovered during exploration, earned as quest rewards, or obtained by hunting wildlife.

Vendors

Alden is the earliest furniture vendor you can access. His shop is located near the center of Hernand, across the street from the blacksmith. He stocks a range of smaller items such as bowls, cups, lanterns, candles, and kitchen tools.

The Furniture Shop sells larger pieces of furniture including cabinets, chairs, and beds. It also sells the Cauldron, which is a significant purchase that transforms your home into a crafting station.

The Timberham Sawmill, located southwest of Hernand, has a dedicated furniture store that focuses on larger household furnishings. If your house feels too empty after the initial setup, this is one of the best places to visit for substantial pieces like tables and chairs.

Exploration and Other Sources

• World exploration: Decorative items with the house icon can be found scattered throughout Pywel. Keep an eye out for interactable objects in towns, dungeons, and wilderness areas. Shelves, crates, and cabinets in houses and shops often hide collectibles.

• Quest rewards: Certain side quests and faction missions reward furniture or collectibles that can be displayed in your home.

• Hunting and animal drops: Some decorative items come from hunting wildlife. Legendary herbivores in particular can drop cosmetic rewards such as trophies and mounted decorations when defeated. These are purely visual items meant for home display rather than combat upgrades.

• Stealing: Some decorative items can be stolen from homes and shops. Be aware that theft may trigger the crime system and result in a bounty.

Collectible Categories

There are over 60 collectibles in Crimson Desert that can be placed inside your house. These items span multiple categories, each representing a different type of decorative object crafted by artisans and found across Pywel. Collectibles serve a dual purpose: they can be displayed in your home for decoration, or they can be gifted to NPCs to build trust and strengthen relationships.

Collectibles can be found by searching towns, homes, and points of interest throughout Pywel. Many are hidden inside interactable objects such as shelves, crates, and cabinets. Some vendors across the continent sell collectibles for Silver, and their stock may rotate over time.

Gifting Collectibles to NPCs

In addition to decorating your home, collectibles can be gifted to NPCs to build relationships and increase trust. Each NPC has different preferences, so not all collectibles carry the same value when given to a particular character. Gifting the right items can unlock new dialogue, quests, or other rewards.

This creates a meaningful choice for the player: place a rare collectible inside your home for display, or give it to an NPC to strengthen a relationship. Since some collectibles are limited in availability, deciding between decoration and gifting is part of the strategy. Items gifted to NPCs cannot be recovered, so choose carefully.

The Cauldron: Home Crafting Station

One of the most practical items you can purchase for your house is the Cauldron, available from the Furniture Shop. Placing a Cauldron in your home turns it into a personal crafting station where you can brew wines and elixirs. This saves you from needing to travel to public cauldron locations scattered across the world.

The Cauldron requires a significant silver investment, so it is not typically an early-game purchase. However, having one at home provides long-term convenience. Elixirs brewed at a cauldron provide temporary buffs for your character, while wines and beverages primarily restore Stamina and can grant additional resistances.

Before you can afford a home Cauldron, there are two public cauldron locations available for crafting:

Having a Cauldron at home makes it convenient to craft these consumables between adventures without detouring to a public location. For a full list of recipes and materials, see the Alchemy page.

Private Storage

While the house itself does not contain a storage chest, the nearby Greymane Camp provides access to a Private Storage box. This chest is located in the large tent area of the camp, behind the Quartermaster.

At the start of the game (before Chapter 3), a Private Storage box can be found in your personal tent at the Royal Trading Post outside Hernand. Once the Greymane Camp is established at Howling Hill, the storage relocates there permanently.

To use the Private Storage, approach the chest and hold the interact button. You can then freely transfer items between your active inventory and the chest. It is strongly recommended to store ore, crafting materials, food, and special gear in Private Storage.

Be especially careful with keys; keeping them in your active inventory can cause you to accidentally use them by walking into doors. Storing keys you are not currently using prevents this problem.

The Rest Mechanic

Your house contains a bed that can be used to rest. Sleeping in the bed allows you to pass time and manage fatigue. This can be useful for waiting until a specific time of day before heading out on a quest or traveling to a location where time-sensitive events are happening.

Resting does not cost any resources. Simply interact with the bed and choose how long you want to sleep. The game will advance the clock accordingly.

House Layouts (Patch 1.04)

With Patch Notes version 1.04 the game added selectable house layouts for the player's Greymane home. When entering housing mode the player can now pick one of four layouts, each unlocking based on the current expansion level of the Greymane Camp. Changing layout rearranges the interior walls and available placement space without affecting any items that have already been stored inside the house; placed furniture is returned to the inventory during the swap and can be redeployed immediately.

The Spacious Pailune House is a distinct variant that only appears after the camp is relocated from Howling Hill to Pailune. The move is progressed through the Camp Expansion sequence; the Camp Expansion Guide walks through every milestone that must be completed before the Pailune layout can be chosen.

House layouts are not locked to a character: Kliff, Damiane, and Oongka share the same building and the same layout choice.

Storage Items (Patch 1.04)

Patch 1.04 introduced five dedicated storage items, each placed through housing mode inside the house. Every chest is its own pool, so filling one does not reduce the capacity of the others. Three of the five share a major quality of life feature: their contents can be used for crafting, cooking, or refinement even when the items are not carried in the main inventory, which frees a large number of backpack slots for active adventuring. See Housing and Farming for an overview of how these items fit into the broader home and farming systems.

All five items are placed through housing mode, which means they need to be dropped somewhere inside one of the four house layouts to function. The larger the layout, the more storage items fit without crowding the rest of the decor. Players running the Compact layout often place only the Sturdy Gatherables Chest and one Wardrobe, while the Spacious and Spacious Pailune layouts have room for every chest plus several Wardrobes side by side.

The chests and Wardrobes are furniture items, not crafting stations. The existing home Cauldron, bed, and decorative collectibles all continue to work alongside them; the new storage items simply add dedicated pools for categories that used to live in the regular backpack or at the nearest Private Storage chest.

Housing Mode Improvements (Patch 1.04)

Beyond the new layouts and storage items, the housing mode itself received several improvements in Patch 1.04:

• The housing mode UI and controls were revised for clearer navigation while placing and repositioning furniture.

• A retrieve-all function was added, which pulls every furniture item currently placed through housing mode back into the inventory in a single action. This makes it practical to swap layouts or completely reshuffle a room without picking up each chest and collectible one by one.

• After relocating the Greymane Camp to Pailune the player receives the Private Storage item itself as a placeable furniture piece. It can be dropped through housing mode inside the Spacious Pailune House, which means the standard 240-slot Private Storage chest no longer lives only at the Quartermaster's tent.

• A Well was added at Howling Hill, giving the Howling Hill camp an on-site source of water for cooking, alchemy, and other water-based recipes without having to travel to a distant pond or river.

Patch 1.04 Changes

Personal Housing received one of the largest overhauls in Patch 1.04. The core changes affecting the housing feature are summarized here:

• Selectable house layouts: Compact, Standard, Spacious, and Spacious Pailune (the Pailune layout unlocks after the camp is moved to Pailune).

• Five dedicated storage items placeable through housing mode: the Sturdy Gatherables Chest, Kuku Cooler, Enhanced Kuku Cooler, Collectibles Chest, and Wardrobe.

• Crafting, cooking, and refinement can now pull from the Sturdy Gatherables Chest and the cooler chests without requiring the materials to be in the active inventory.

• Housing mode UI and controls updated, including a retrieve-all function that returns every placed furniture item to the inventory at once.

• The Private Storage item is granted after the camp is relocated to Pailune and can itself be placed through housing mode.

• A Well was added at Howling Hill, providing an on-site water source that complements the home Cauldron and any cooking stations placed in the house.

Existing save files carry the new features forward automatically. Players who had already built out a Compact house will still have their placed decorations and the home Cauldron after installing the patch; the new layouts, chests, and Wardrobes appear as options in housing mode once the relevant expansion tiers or quests are completed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I build or upgrade my house?

No. The house at Howling Hill is a pre-built structure, and there is no construction or upgrade system. Customization is limited to interior decoration through furniture placement.

Can I own more than one house?

No. The player has a single house at Howling Hill. There is no option to purchase or own additional properties elsewhere in Pywel.

Is there a limit to how many items I can place?

There is no strict numerical cap per room, but the physical space in each of the three rooms is finite. Larger furniture pieces take up more floor area, so you will eventually run out of room if you try to fill every corner.

Can other players visit my house?

No. Personal Housing is a single-player feature. Other players cannot enter or interact with your house.

Do I have to cross the ravine every time I visit?

No. Once fast travel is unlocked at the Greymane Camp, you can teleport directly to the camp area and walk a short distance to your house. The initial tree-crossing method is only required the first time.

I am inside my house but cannot find the decoration menu. What do I do?

Make sure you have completed the Luke's Request quest from the Grounds of the Sunrise mission list. Decoration mode is locked until that quest is turned in. Once unlocked, press Start while inside the house, or look for the house icon on the right side of your screen.

Why can I not place an item I just picked up?

Only items with a small house icon in your inventory can be placed in decoration mode. If the item does not have this icon, it is not a decorative object and belongs to a different category such as consumables, equipment, or crafting materials.

Tips

• Once fast travel is unlocked at the Greymane Camp, reaching your house becomes much quicker. You do not need to cross the ravine with Axiom Force every time.

• Check vendor inventories regularly as you progress through the story. New decoration items may become available as you advance, and some vendor stocks rotate over time.

• Plan your furniture layout before committing. While you can always stow and rearrange items, the Undo button only works on the most recent action.

• Purchasing the Cauldron early can save time in the long run, as having a home crafting station eliminates trips to public cauldron locations for brewing elixirs and wines.

• Explore thoroughly. Many collectible decoration items are hidden in out-of-the-way locations and can be easy to miss during main quest progression. Check every shelf, crate, and cabinet in towns you visit.

• Think carefully before gifting a rare collectible to an NPC. Once gifted, the item cannot be recovered, so if you also want it for your home display, you may need to find a duplicate.

• Visit the Timberham Sawmill southwest of Hernand if Alden's shop does not have the larger furniture pieces you are looking for. The sawmill specializes in tables, chairs, and bigger household items.

• Store keys in Private Storage when you are not actively using them. Carrying keys in your active inventory can cause accidental usage when walking through doors.

• If you enjoy hunting, keep an eye on drops from legendary herbivores. Some of these animals yield cosmetic trophies and decorative items that look great on display inside the house.

• The decoration menu can be hard to discover on your own. Remember that pressing Start inside the house, or tapping the house icon on the right side of the screen, opens the placement interface.