Pridemoor Keep is a fortified tower ruled by King Knight and guarded by soldiers, wizards and flying rodents. It is one of the earliest and easiest stages of Shovel Knight.
Due to King Knight's presence inside the puzzle box, an illusory copy of Pridemoor Keep can be found inside the Pocket Dungeon.
Description[]
Pridemoor Keep is a large, golden and lavish castle, sitting in the first quadrant, the western side of the Valley. Its flooring is mostly composed of red carpets, and is littered with red banners with cross symbols, Goldarmor statues, dangerously unstable chandeliers, pots of boiling lava, and other dangerous or purely aesthetic features. The castle is guarded by two Griffoths, Plume and Beaky.
In Shovel of Hope and Plague of Shadows, Pridemoor Keep is explored at dawn, as suggested by the purple hue of the sky. In Specter of Torment and King of Cards, the sky is set at dusk, and Pridemoor Keep has stone bricks banners depicting gryphons.
Story[]
Pridemoor Keep was once ruled by King Pridemoor and kept sentinel over the entrance to the Valley and the nearby villages. King Knight overthrew the king in his quest for glory and sat on its throne when he joined the Order of No Quarter. Specter Knight later visited him when the Enchantress noticed King Knight's irresponsibility to pursue the keep's renovation. When the Order was completely formed, King Knight used the Enchantress's forces to change Pridemoor Keep to gold, in accordance to his lavish lifestyle.
Later, Shovel Knight or Plague Knight forced their way through the keep's army to confront King Knight on his golden throne. After the defeat of the Enchantress, King Pridemoor takes back his now golden throne and King Knight is forced to clean the keep's floors.
Obstacles[]
In Pocket Dungeon[]
Pridemoor Keep is the second level encountered in a run of the game; directly following the Plains, it is the first location that features Chester's shop and a Room Portal, thereby being the first location that a player can buy Relics for use throughout the rest of the run. A shortcut for Percy's cannon can be purchased for 10,000 Gems once the stage has been reached in a normal playthrough.
Pridemoor Keep has similar spawns to the Plains, featuring Blorbs and Beetos. Replacing the brown Boneclangs are now Goldarmors, the first instance of shielded enemies in the game. In addition, a mini-boss Griffoth may spawn later in the stage. The Legendary Path introduces Blitzsteeds to the spawn pool, and adds Cauldrons as a potential stage hazard; a Cauldron sits atop the second rows from both sides, and occasionally drops three tiles worth of falling lava that passes through objects and deals one damage to the player if intercepted.
If a boss is added to the stage, such as with a Hat, the boss will be King Knight.
When any playable character scores 100 or higher on Mona's minigame for the first time, Pridemoor Keep's Room Portal will lead to a special bomb-dodging minigame. Once this event is successfully survived by any Knight, Mona appears, and becomes a playable character. From that point on, her minigame is run by a Plague Minion.
Trivia[]
- Pridemoor Keep is the only stage where the special Plague Knight section isn't marked with a Cipher Coin embedded in a wall.
- Pridemoor Keep is the only stage that features a revolving wall with a Shovel Knight silhouette engraved into it. While Shovel Knight and Body Swap Shovel Knight need just to be still for the wall to activate, Custom Knight wearing either the Baron set or the Fish Head costumes is forced to do completely different poses in order to fit in it. This also applies to Plague Knight, who by default does not fit the silhouette even less so while wearing the Boomtech costume.
- These revolving walls would later make a reappearance in Shovel Knight Dig.
- In the beginning of this stage, the Yacht Club Games logo can be found in the section immediately to the left, after destroying the large wall above the rightmost screen.
- In the PAX 2013 demo, Yacht Club Games had yet to have its own logo. The secret area displayed instead "YCG!" in gold bricks.[1]