Silksong Worldbuilding Explained – Bells, Threads & the Living City of Pharloom
Bells, Threads & Silence: Inside Silksong’s Living World of Pharloom
Every kingdom sings its own hymn.
Hallownest sang of ruin — its echoes buried in stone and sorrow.
Pharloom, however, sings of perfection. Its bells toll with devotion, its silk glimmers under holy light, and its citizens move with ritual precision.
But beneath that beauty lies a stillness that hums like a warning.
Hollow Knight: Silksong transforms worldbuilding into a living dialogue — between sound and silence, faith and decay, movement and paralysis. Pharloom isn’t just a setting; it’s a philosophy wrapped in architecture, a civilization built on the belief that order can save what emotion destroyed.
The Design of Devotion — How Pharloom Was Built to Feel Alive
From its earliest teasers, Team Cherry described Silksong’s world as “a kingdom of song and silk.”
That pairing — sound and texture — defines its worldbuilding DNA. Everything in Pharloom is handcrafted to convey ritual and rhythm.
- Bells replace echoes: where Hallownest resonated with memories, Pharloom resonates with ceremonies.
- Silk replaces decay: instead of fungus and bone, the world is built on strands — delicate yet unbreakable.
- Light replaces shadow: yet every glow in Pharloom conceals the fear of imperfection.
Architecturally, the cities resemble inverted looms — bridges suspended by tension, domes threaded with gold filaments, altars woven into spires. Each layer feels pulled taut, as if the entire kingdom might collapse if one thread frays.
This visual tension is deliberate. It mirrors the moral architecture of Pharloom: a society sustained by control.
The Hierarchy of the Bell
Bells govern everything in Pharloom.
They are timekeepers, wardens, and deities.
The lore suggests the Kingdom of Bells was founded on the belief that “sound binds the soul.” Every tower rings for a reason: dawn, prayer, birth, death.
NPCs reference “The Calling” — a ritual chime that defines purpose. To live without a bell is to live without meaning.
But as with all faith systems, the bells have become chains.
They dictate who ascends, who labors, who is forgotten.
The deeper Hornet explores Pharloom, the clearer it becomes that sound has replaced freedom — and silence has become the last rebellion.
The Aesthetic of Constraint – How Silk Shapes Civilization
If bells give Pharloom rhythm, silk gives it form. Silk is both material and metaphor. It decorates, heals, traps, and connects. It’s the kingdom’s greatest art — and its greatest illusion.
Silk as Technology and Faith
In the lore fragments and environmental storytelling, silk is revered as divine.
Craftsmen call it “the mother’s gift.” Monks weave prayers into fabrics. Even Hornet’s needle is a relic of sacred craftsmanship — a tool of control forged from faith. Silk is alive. It remembers what it binds.
That’s why Pharloom fears unraveling: to break a thread is to destroy memory itself.
Architecture as Theology
Buildings in Pharloom aren’t merely structures — they’re sermons.
Bridges hang like hymns. Towers curl upward in imitation of the loom’s spiral. The visual repetition of threads and knots acts as visual scripture — each stitch a verse, each bell tower a chorus. Through this architecture, Silksong transforms faith into geometry.
Every line, every strand, becomes a form of worship — and a warning against chaos.
The Emotional Ecology – Sound, Silence, and the Living City
The genius of Silksong’s worldbuilding lies in its sound design — the invisible architecture of feeling.
Composer Christopher Larkin and Team Cherry crafted Pharloom’s identity through contrast:
- Bells that sing in radiant major keys, then fade into hollow dissonance.
- Wind that echoes through silk corridors like whispered hymns.
- Sudden silence that follows every ascent — the world holding its breath.
These choices aren’t aesthetic; they’re psychological. Pharloom communicates emotion through acoustics.
When bells ring, you feel order. When silence falls, you feel truth.
The Language of Bells
Each bell tone signals a specific narrative beat:
- Low chime: revelation or warning
- High trill: completion or ascent
- Muted tone: corruption, loss, or hidden sin
The deeper you explore, the more off-key these bells become — subtly implying the kingdom’s dissonance.
It’s worldbuilding through sound decay: harmony fading into unease.
Citizens of Silk – How NPCs Reflect Pharloom’s Values
Pharloom’s inhabitants are both devout and afraid. They speak in verse, whisper prayers, and repeat mantras — not out of peace, but obligation.
Each region reveals a social layer of the loom:
🏗️ The Loom’s Edge
- Dominant Class: Workers & Weavers
- Role: Labor, faith, repetition
- Symbolic Thread: The cost of devotion — endless work as a form of worship.
🔔 The Bell District
- Dominant Class: Priests & Scholars
- Role: Authority, doctrine
- Symbolic Thread: The illusion of harmony — order maintained through belief and sound.
🌿 The Garden of Still Hands
- Dominant Class: Healers & Makers
- Role: Art, preservation
- Symbolic Thread: The worship of perfection — beauty pursued until it becomes stillness.
⚙️ The Clockwork Spire
- Dominant Class: Nobles & Watchers
- Role: Control, surveillance
- Symbolic Thread: The fear of entropy — obsession with precision to deny decay.
Through dialogue and design, every NPC embodies one question: what do you serve when the bell stops ringing?
That question haunts Pharloom — and Hornet.
Fan Theories – Is Pharloom Alive?
Among fan communities, one enduring theory claims that Pharloom itself is sentient — a living organism that hums through its bells and heals itself through silk.
Evidence includes:
- The synchronized timing of environmental shifts (bells change pitch when you enter new biomes).
- Subtle pulsations in architecture — walls that “breathe.”
- The lore phrase “The Kingdom mends what it mourns,” suggesting self-repair.
If true, Pharloom isn’t a kingdom — it’s a cocoon.
A vast organism trapping its people inside a ritual of rebirth that never ends.
Common Questions About Silksong’s Worldbuilding
Q1: What inspired Pharloom’s design?
A: Team Cherry drew from religious architecture, clockwork aesthetics, and the duality of beauty and bondage — a place where art becomes confinement.
Q2: Are Pharloom’s bells magical or mechanical?
A: Both. They function as religious artifacts and devices that regulate time and behavior — blending science and faith.
Q3: Does Pharloom connect to Hallownest?
A: Yes. Environmental motifs suggest shared ancestry — Pharloom feels like Hallownest’s reflection through a mirror polished by obsession.
Q4: What is the main message behind Pharloom’s design?
A: Order without compassion becomes decay in disguise. Pharloom’s beauty hides its rot.
Q5: Why do silence and sound matter so much?
A: Because they mirror life itself: every moment of stillness defines the next note of existence.
Reflection & Emotional Resonance
Pharloom stands as Silksong’s greatest paradox — a world that breathes perfection yet chokes on its own precision.
Its bells are lullabies and alarms, its threads both protection and prison.
As players, we climb its towers thinking we’re escaping, but the truth is subtler: we’re learning to hear.
To hear the faint hum beneath the ritual.
To feel the pulse that still beats under order.
To realize that silence is not emptiness — it’s the space where meaning grows.
When Hornet finally stands at the summit, she doesn’t conquer Pharloom.
She listens to it.
And maybe, for the first time, it listens back.