Revision 10

Overview

The Reed Devil Faction is a hostile group based in the reed fields of the Hernand region in Crimson Desert. Known as the demons of the reed fields, this faction controls marshy territory and terrorizes the surrounding population. The faction is distinct from The Reed Devil boss encounter, though the two are closely connected; the boss is the faction's most feared figure, while the faction itself encompasses the broader group of followers, minions, and evil spirits operating under that banner.

Within the game's faction system, the Reed Devil Faction is classified as hostile. Players will encounter its members while exploring the southern portions of Hernand, particularly around the reed fields and Sunset Valley.

Details

Lore and Background

The Reed Devil Faction occupies a strange space in Hernand's social landscape. The faction is simultaneously a source of terror and, for some, a symbol of hope. The group harbors people afflicted by illness, taking in those whom mainstream society has cast out. Sunset Valley, a village at the southernmost area of Hernand, was formed by the sick and the poor and exists in isolation from the outside world. The people of Sunset Valley tell a legend of a demon who stained the reed fields with blood. The faction's connection to this community of outcasts gives it a tragic dimension that goes beyond simple banditry.

The faction's leader, The Reed Devil, embodies this duality. According to the game's lore, the Reed Devil was once a slum-dweller of Hernand cursed with a leprous face and exiled by his own father. His exile drove him to become the masked figure that haunts the reed fields, turning his suffering into a weapon. The narrative frames the Reed Devil as a product of systemic cruelty: the sinful world that bred the very hatred that feeds this spirit bears responsibility for the monster it created.

Deep within the Mountain of Frozen Souls lies the village of the sick, a place where no one dares to venture. Despite the mountain's ominous name (legend says the souls of the dead are frozen on its snowy peaks, unable to leave), it is actually an ordinary mountain lush with greenery. The faction uses the fearful reputation of the location to keep outsiders away from its community of outcasts.

The Scarecrow Minions

What makes the Reed Devil Faction uniquely dangerous is its minions. The faction's foot soldiers are not ordinary bandits or fighters. They are evil spirits inhabiting scarecrow bodies. These constructs do not fall no matter how often they are stabbed or cut, because the animating force is supernatural rather than biological. Conventional weapons can damage the scarecrow shells, but the spirits within simply keep the bodies moving.

This mechanic has gameplay implications. Fighting Reed Devil minions requires different tactics than fighting human enemies. Players need to find ways to disrupt or banish the spirits rather than relying on raw damage output. The wicker totems that The Reed Devil boss summons during his fight may be connected to the same folk magic or ritualistic practices that bind spirits to the scarecrow bodies used by the faction's rank and file.

Territory and Locations

The Reed Devil Faction controls territory in the southern reaches of the Hernand region. Their presence is concentrated in three areas.

The Reed Devil Boss

The faction's leader and most powerful member is The Reed Devil, a mandatory boss encountered on the Mountain of Frozen Souls during the main quest "Dance with the Devil" on Kliff's story path. The boss is a short, fast swordsman who fights with iaijutsu (quick-draw sword techniques) and retreats into the surrounding reed fields between attacks.

The boss fight was first shown at Gamescom 2024 and is widely considered one of the most memorable encounters in the game's preview builds. The Reed Devil's combat style, which emphasizes terrain-based stealth and rapid strikes from concealment, reflects the broader faction's approach to warfare. See the The Reed Devil article for full combat details, phase breakdowns, and strategy tips.

Sunset Reed Armor Set

After defeating The Reed Devil boss, players receive the Sunset Reed Cloth Gloves as a direct reward. The remaining pieces of the Sunset Reed armor set and the Hollow Visage sword are scattered across the Hernand region and must be found through exploration. These items are thematically connected to the Reed Devil Faction and carry abilities related to reeds and dodge-based combat.

Related Quests

Relationship with Other Factions

The Reed Devil Faction is hostile to the player and to most established factions in Hernand. The noble houses, particularly House Celeste, view the faction as a persistent threat to regional security. The Greymanes encounter the faction during their time in Hernand, and dealing with the Reed Devil is part of the main storyline.

The faction's relationship with the wider world is complicated by its role as a refuge for the sick and outcast. While the Reed Devil Faction is classified as hostile and its scarecrow minions attack travelers on sight, the community of ill and exiled people sheltering under its protection adds moral complexity. The faction exists because Hernand's society failed these people first.

Gameplay

As a hostile faction, the Reed Devil Faction cannot be befriended through the Contribution system. Players will be attacked on sight by scarecrow minions when entering faction territory. The faction's quest line is mandatory as part of Chapter 3 of the main story, so all players will need to confront the Reed Devil at some point during their playthrough.

Combat encounters with the faction's scarecrow minions are distinct from fighting other human factions. The scarecrows cannot be killed by conventional damage alone; players must find ways to disrupt the spirits animating them. This adds a puzzle-like element to what would otherwise be standard combat encounters.

Origin of the Wraith

The faction did not begin as a faction. It began as a wraith, and the wraith began as a piece of the abyss. Before the Reed Devil walked, the Reed Fields had been used for generations as a place where society discarded what it did not want to acknowledge: lepers cast out to rot, victims of secret killings, witnesses who had to be silenced, all buried in shallow nameless graves where no one would find them. Then a great stone fell from the heavens, an abyssal shard, and the soil where it landed soaked up its power. The shard had the same effect on the burial ground that the wider abyss had on the world: it reflected what was buried under it back as a single consciousness. What was buried under it was loneliness, malice, and a thousand thousand grudges. The wraith that rose is the Reed Devil itself.

From that moment on, the reeds themselves grew unnaturally thick and lush, the way fertilized fields do, and dying whispers began to ride the breeze when the wind moved through them. The book Tales of the Sunset Valley, kept in a shrine in sunset valley village, is the in-world source for this account. The same book describes the wraith as reaching for the living, particularly for those whose hearts are eaten through with hate, and warns that anyone who heeds its whispers feels their soul hollowed out until they are no longer human.

Scarecrow Recruitment

The faction's scarecrow minions are the recruitment tool, not the army. Tales of the Sunset Valley calls them "straw men" and "silent companions to the broken and lost." They appear next to people whose lives have collapsed (the abandoned, the betrayed, the dying alone) and speak as if they were the only kind voice left. As long as the broken soul resists, the scarecrow stays still. The moment the soul accepts that the scarecrow's whisper is its only counsel and that the rest of the world has turned away, the effigy starts to move, the spirit inside it animates the wicker, and the soul has joined the faction whether or not it understands what has happened.

This explains why the scarecrows resist conventional damage. The wicker shell is not the enemy; the recruited soul inside it is. Repeated strikes on the body do nothing because there is no body in the usual sense. The combat answer is the same as the recruitment answer: deny the spirit the conditions that made it possible to recruit in the first place, which in gameplay terms means disrupting the wicker enough to expose the spirit to the daylight the village healers offer.

Aldrin of House Grace

The current Reed Devil is the bastard heir of Count Alistair Grace. Aldrin was sired during the count's traveling affairs and brought into house grace as a possible successor, but fell sick with the plague in early youth. Rather than continue caring for a disfigured heir, the count and his wife had Aldrin locked away inside Glenbright Manor and ordered the butler to take him to the Reed Fields and dispose of him. Whether the butler obeyed in full or took pity and let Aldrin run is not certain, but the eventual mask of the Reed Devil was found later in the village of sunset valley, suggesting that Aldrin survived long enough to live among the laper community before the wraith claimed him completely. The faction calls him their leader; he is also the wraith's most articulate vessel, the one in which a noble's son and a burial ground's grudges fit together cleanly.

The Sunset Valley Shrine

sunset valley is the small village immediately south of the Reed Fields, populated by lapers and the healers who care for them. The village is also the geographic center of the faction's quieter side. A single house in the middle of the village is a shrine to scarecrows wearing reed devil helms identical to the one Aldrin once wore. Tales of the Sunset Valley is kept there, alongside the definitive mask of the Reed Devil himself.

After Kliff defeats Aldrin in the reed fields and returns to this house, the villagers' reactions complete the picture. They describe the masks as crafted by a nameless man, observe that sorrow is etched on every one, and remark that the lonely lad must have needed a friend. None of them name him as the Reed Devil out loud. The shrine reads less like a recruiting station and more like a memorial: the part of Aldrin that was their neighbor before the wraith finished taking him.

Why the Faction Survives Aldrin's Defeat

The Reed Devil himself does not resurface in the rest of the present cycle once Kliff defeats his body, but the lesser scarecrows still patrol the fields. The wraith's own line during the boss fight, "You may kill this single form, but you cannot kill me. The grudge born by this mask shall live on within every hateful heart," is the faction's operating principle. As long as the burial ground exists, as long as societies continue to discard their unwanted, and as long as the abyssal stone remains soaked into the soil, the wraith has the raw material it needs to grow another Aldrin in time.

The closing dialogue with the villagers ends on a hopeful note in spite of this. The fact that the named Reed Devil does not return in the cycle is taken as a sign that this particular form has been put to rest, even if the faction itself has not been undone. Sunset Valley, sitting in a tranquil paradise next to the killing field, becomes a small monument to the best of humanity neighboring a monument to the worst.

Connection to Umbra

The faction's place in the larger story is structural rather than political. Umbra, the consciousness at the heart of the abyss, speaks in the final chapter for a long list of mortal longings. One of them is the longing for a friend amidst overwhelming loneliness. The Reed Devil faction is the case study for that line. Both the wraith and Umbra are abyssal consciousnesses formed by reflecting the worst of mortal hearts back at the world; they differ only in scope. The Reed Devil is what Umbra would look like if it had only one burial ground to feed on instead of an entire continent.