How do you enter a Trial of N’kuhana?

N’Kuhana’s followers hang gongs in the stages. Finding one proves you are worthy of the trial and ringing it takes you in.

Can you chain Trials back to back?

Yes. Ringing the gong again in the reward area starts the next trial, and the timer is shared across every trial in the chain, so a long chain gets progressively tighter.

What is the Soulbound Threshold?

It is the boss-rush trial. Waves of enemies and bosses stand between you and survival; slay them all inside three minutes and you return to your run with the power you collected.

Do you keep the items you pick up inside a trial?

The power you gather during a trial is what you carry back out of it, which is why the developer frames the Soulbound Threshold as returning to your run with the power you collected rather than banking a separate reward.

What is the reward for a trial?

One Page of the N’Tormat per trial. Pages expand the Curio’s ability set, and they are also affected by Dream Crucible, which can be consumed in place of a Page’s use to let you spend it more than once per stage.

Trials of N’kuhana

Getting in

N'Kuhana's followers hang gongs where Her Gaze lingers. Finding one proves you worthy of the trial; ringing it takes you in.

The three Winnowings

Winnowing of Survival

Endure the pain

Winnowing of Predation

Hunt down your prey

Winnowing of Mortality

Race for your very soul

Named trials and their objectives

Trial	Flavour	Objective
Trial of Broken Glass	Winnowing of Predation	Smash enough lanterns to satisfy N'Kuhana
Trial of Infernal Greed	Winnowing of Predation	Turn a fortune before time runs out
Trial of the Abyss	Winnowing of Survival	The fog demands to be fed
Soulbound Threshold	Boss rush trial	Slay waves of enemies and bosses within three minutes to return to your run with the power you gathered

Confirmed by official sources — objectives as described by the developer.

Chaining and the shared timer

Clearing a trial opens a reward area. Ringing the gong again there starts the next trial immediately, and the clock carries over instead of resetting — so chaining trades a bigger payout for a shrinking margin. Deciding when to stop is the real skill check.

Rewards

Each trial yields one Page of the N'Tormat, the fastest reliable way to grow that ability set during a run. The Pages unlock named powers such as Dark Alchemy, Warp Gates and Fanatic Summons.

See what each N'Tormat Page does →

Pocket realm integration with active run builds

A trial is not a side stage you queue into from a menu. It is a pocket realm hung off the run you are already playing: you find the gong mid-stage, ring it, do the work, and come back to the stage you left. That design choice matters, because it means the trial inherits your current build rather than resetting it — whatever you are carrying when you ring the gong is what you fight with.

The three Winnowings give the set its shape. Survival asks you to outlast, Predation asks you to go and take something, and Mortality asks you to move faster than the clock. Read the flavour before you commit: a build that deletes a single target and a build that clears a room are not equally good at all three.

What to settle before ringing the gong

Know how long you can stay. The timer is shared across a chain, so a second trial starts already short of time. If your build cannot close out a fight quickly, stop after one and bank the Page.
Bring single-target damage. The Soulbound Threshold is explicitly a wave-and-boss fight on a three-minute clock, which punishes builds that only clear trash.
Check your goal first. Predation trials want something done — enough lanterns smashed, a fortune turned. Those are objectives you fail by fighting, not by dying.
Do not ring it on the way out of a bad stage. A trial borrows the run you are in. Entering one after a rough teleporter fight compounds the problem rather than escaping it.

This checklist is our own framing of the mechanic, assembled from the developer's description of how trials work. It is not an official list of prerequisites.

Frequently asked

How do you enter a Trial of N’kuhana?: N’Kuhana’s followers hang gongs in the stages. Finding one proves you are worthy of the trial and ringing it takes you in.
Can you chain Trials back to back?: Yes. Ringing the gong again in the reward area starts the next trial, and the timer is shared across every trial in the chain, so a long chain gets progressively tighter.
What is the Soulbound Threshold?: It is the boss-rush trial. Waves of enemies and bosses stand between you and survival; slay them all inside three minutes and you return to your run with the power you collected.
Do you keep the items you pick up inside a trial?: The power you gather during a trial is what you carry back out of it, which is why the developer frames the Soulbound Threshold as returning to your run with the power you collected rather than banking a separate reward.
What is the reward for a trial?: One Page of the N’Tormat per trial. Pages expand the Curio’s ability set, and they are also affected by Dream Crucible, which can be consumed in place of a Page’s use to let you spend it more than once per stage.