Sanctums are the puzzle dungeons scattered across Idyll, and they are the one type of content in Aniimo that will quietly punish you for rushing. Each room hands you a sealed trial Aniimo, builds its entire layout around that creature’s one ability, and tracks your optional chests separately from the actual clear. Finish the puzzle, restore the Vein, walk out — and the chest you skipped is gone from your run.
Quick answer: Idyll has 17 Sanctums — 14 solo and three co-op — holding 54 optional chests. Read the entrance card, match its chest counter, and only then touch the Terminus.
All 17 Sanctum locations and optional chest counts
Every entrance sits in the open world as an interactable ruin cube. The counter shown on the card before you enter is the number you need to beat, and it never changes.
| Sanctum | Area | Players | Chests |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Spark | Nimbus Fields | 1 | 4 |
| Chasing Clouds | Nimbus Fields | 1 | 4 |
| Blazing Wings | Sea of Flowers | 2 | 5 |
| Soaring Glide | Forest of Falling Stars | 1 | 3 |
| Rising Wind | The Argent Strait | 1 | 3 |
| Rising Flames | Beast Fang Ridge | 1 | 2 |
| Frigid Waters | Beast Fang Ridge | 1 | 3 |
| Burning Brambles | Mistwoods | 1 | 2 |
| Twisted Roots | Mistwoods | 1 | 1 |
| Rushing Rapids | Echoback Landing | 1 | 3 |
| Electric Flow | Blitzwood | 1 | 3 |
| Lightning Gale | Berylline Causeway | 2 | 4 |
| Vigilant Eyes | Russet Highlands | 1 | 3 |
| First Sight | Russet Highlands | 1 | 5 |
| Stonebound Sword | Russet Highlands | 1 | 1 |
| Courageous Wit | Zephyrus Landbridge | 2 | 5 |
| Shattering Stone | Zephyrus Landbridge | 1 | 3 |
These two entrances are particularly easy to mix up. Chasing Clouds and First Spark are both in Nimbus Fields, with four chests displayed for each, so the counter cannot distinguish them; check the name shown on the card.
Sanctums broadly follow the level curve of the area around them, which is the cleanest way to judge when to attempt one. The Forest of Falling Stars runs from level 18 to 25, The Argent Strait from 28 to 32, and Zephyrus Landbridge from 47 to 57.
How to clear a Sanctum and restore the Vein
Restoring the Vein does nothing for the chest counter, and the two layers are tracked separately. The activated entrance stays on your map, but do not gamble a skipped chest on being able to come back for it.
Sanctum puzzle solutions by mechanic
Rooms repeat a small set of mechanical families. Once you can identify which family you are standing in, the solution usually follows from the clue on the wall.
Fire Sanctums: First Spark, Rising Flames, Burning Brambles
First Spark in Nimbus Fields is the clearest starting room and the game’s Fire tutorial. Twine with the trial Emberpup and burn the vine tangle blocking the opening for the first chest. The second sits above you behind an explosive barrel — shoot the barrel to drop the high platform. The arrow markings up the stairs lead to a block of ice you melt for the third, and the right-hand arrow points at a chimney fireplace that lowers the fourth chest once you light it.
Rising Flames in Beast Fang Ridge gives you a trial Flameruff and two obstacles to read at once. Movable blocks let you plug the timed flame jets so you can pass, and the Flameruff burns the wooden gates and root walls — the first chest hides behind a wood pile. The second sits past a fiery hallway you clear by shoving a weighted crate through it, after which you swim across the water to the final platform and the Vein core. Four Fire obelisks and the dark-room bonfires anchor the rest of the route.
Burning Brambles in Mistwoods is the carrying version of the same idea. You bring fire to each thorn-held ball pad, keep the rolling fire carriers alight, and re-ignite after every water crossing. Two chests total.
Ice and water Sanctums: Frigid Waters and Rushing Rapids
Frigid Waters in Beast Fang Ridge runs on trial Fenrier. Swim the first stretch, then freeze marked water into floating platforms. The first chest waits on a stone pedestal; the second needs an ice slab lifted with Grab and carried into a side corridor; the third means pushing a frozen block through a narrow wall slot so you can step over fire pillars. Drop a final slab under the exit gate to reach the ledge with the Vein device.
When a receiver needs holding down, move one complete Ice block onto it. Do not try to break a finished block into pieces, and do not wait for an unrelated water lane to thaw.
Rushing Rapids in Echoback Landing is a timed surf course with trial Popota. Its chest access is tied to the 2:00 and 2:30 deadlines, so learn the line through the canal obstacles on your first attempt rather than fighting for speed, then sweep all three chests off the final platforms after the result screen.
Wind and flight Sanctums: Soaring Glide, Rising Wind, Chasing Clouds
Soaring Glide in the Forest of Falling Stars supplies a trial Celestis with Climb and Fly. Two opening climbs up marked columns get you the first chest, a glide between towers onto a raised rear ledge gets the second, and a third marked pillar plus a platform jump reaches the last. Stacked updraft fans then carry you straight up to the exit altar.
Rising Wind is located along the shore of The Argent Strait, with thorns blocking it that you remove from outside. Trial Chirpi controls the air currents. Put a boulder in the floor socket to claim chest one, then follow the rising updrafts and fire wind blasts to steer a rolling sphere into a far-off switch, opening the bars around chest two. Find chest three behind wooden crates in an alcove across the water.
Chasing Clouds is the longest approach of the three. A Fire attack burns the vines over the cliffside entrance, and inside, trial Turbo’s Cloudwalk lets you adjust your height between floating platforms. Carry each Ancient Battery to its charging plate to open the two gates. The first chest is right of the entrance platform, the second on an isolated rock left of the first battery puzzle, the third behind a pillar at the second docking station, and the fourth underneath the last platform before the exit.
Electric Flow: Lightning circuits in Blitzwood
Climb up to the cube entrance, then work the room from the power source outward. Grab moves conductive metal and wooden boxes into the circuit path; the first chest appears once the platform is powered. Trial Bolty energizes the shock charge pads for the second, and a shifted metal box becomes the steps up to its ledge. The third needs blocks repositioned and power plates held until a gated chamber opens, revealing an energy sphere. Carry that sphere back to the main circuit node, align the last conductive block, and the door to the Vein opens.
Some movable cubes are not part of the circuit. Follow the source’s line and position the devices by dependency, rather than treating every pushable block as electrical.
Perspective Sanctums: First Sight and Vigilant Eyes
First Sight in Russet Highlands is the biggest chest haul in the game at five. Trial Helmut’s Detection reveals hidden rails inside the walls, and remote ram consoles move the tracks. The first chest sits in a raised side alcove near the ram switches. For the second, inspect the wall cutouts in Detection, align the tracks and roll a guide ball through the slots into its receptacle. The third uses the same trick on a further set of levers, sending a heavy sphere down ramps into the switch. Open the remaining side chambers for chests four and five before climbing to the central platform.
Vigilant Eyes is the harder of the pair and also sits in Russet Highlands. Trial Helgon’s Bilateral view lines up separated shapes into a single symbol across eleven sightlines. The first chest comes after a perspective alignment breaks a wall. The second is past a flooded chamber where aligning the wall emblems drains the water and exposes cracked stone blocks. The third is near the exit, behind alignment puzzles spread over sliding pillars reached by flying up the water columns. Two Mechanical Ball runs and a drag-and-drop raft fill out the rest of the room.
When a Bilateral symbol refuses to resolve, move the camera, not the geometry. The object is almost always already in the right place.
Shattering Stone, Twisted Roots and Stonebound Sword
Shattering Stone is a timed solo room behind a cave mouth in Zephyrus Landbridge. You borrow a Magmarex and use its Hustle to smash through lava obstacles, with each of the three chests sealed behind a timer tied to a different section of the run.
Twisted Roots in Mistwoods is the shortest room in the game. Three Vine Cores out in the overworld open it, and the interior is a straight corridor with a single chest. It is tied to the “A talking Hummin?” quest line, so it usually gets cleared as a detour rather than a trip of its own.
Stonebound Sword in Russet Highlands is a Pawney monument riddle rather than a mechanical puzzle. It supplies no trial form, holds one chest, and ends at a Touch prompt on the monument slab.
Co-op Sanctums: Lightning Gale, Blazing Wings, Courageous Wit
Three rooms will not open for a single player, and together they hold 14 of the 54 chests. Their entrances offer matchmaking, so you can queue for a partner instead of organizing one in advance.
- Lightning Gale (Berylline Causeway, 4 chests) — paired cubes, co-op pads, Wind launches and wet-conductor routing.
- Blazing Wings (Sea of Flowers, 5 chests) — Gracewing holds the pads while Sparki burns the thorns, plus fans on sliding platforms, Fire-switch fan aiming and two-player stela gates.
- Courageous Wit (Zephyrus Landbridge, 5 chests) — Cozite target toggles paired with Pawney crossings, timed spike sweepers and moving components.
The failure mode in all three is identical: both players leave a held switch before the return route is open. Name the holder and the runner out loud at every single mechanism, not once at the start.
Sanctum rewards: chest grades and first clear
Chest grades are fixed per chest rather than rolled, so a room’s Premium chest always pays the Premium line no matter when you open it.
| Grade | Glimmer | Credits | Sparkling Crystal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 5 | 5,000 | 5 |
| Standard | 10 | 10,000 | 10 |
| Premium | 20 | 20,000 | 15 |
Standard chests add one Rare held item drawn from a pool of 15, and Premium chests add one Epic held item from the same pool. Basic chests carry nothing beyond the currencies above.
The first clear gives every Sanctum the same reward, regardless of its size: one Lumin Amber: Breezy Plains and 500 EXP. You can see it in the entrance card’s First Clear Reward slot. Revisiting preserves the Transport destination but grants nothing further, so this is not a repeatable farm. Completion still advances the Sanctum Delver badges, awarded at 3, 5, 10 and 15 rooms.
Old Sanctum names and current names
The September 2026 relaunch renamed 14 of the 17 rooms, which is why an older checklist can send you looking for a Sanctum that no longer exists under that label. The current names are what appear in game.
| Current name | Closed-beta name | Older alias |
|---|---|---|
| Frigid Waters | Water to Ice | Frozen Crossing |
| Lightning Gale | Chasing Stormwinds | Lightning and Wind |
| Electric Flow | Electric Surge | — |
| Rushing Rapids | Rushing Rapids | Full-Speed Surfing |
| Soaring Glide | Wings Unfurled | — |
| Burning Brambles | Through Flame and Thorn | — |
| Twisted Roots | Rigged Maze | — |
| Chasing Clouds | Mistrider | Cloud Riding |
| First Spark | First Flame | Fresh Fire |
| Vigilant Eyes | Double Vision | Keen Gaze |
| Stonebound Sword | Sword in the Stone | Sandy Cliff Fort |
| First Sight | All in Sight | Clear Sight |
| Blazing Wings | Flaming Wings | — |
| Rising Wind | Windborne | — |
| Shattering Stone | Shatterstone | — |
Rising Flames and Courageous Wit kept their names through every version, so those two need no translation.
The habit worth building is small: glance at the chest number on the card, then count it off before you walk to the Terminus. Nothing inside a Sanctum is hidden well enough to defeat a second lap of the room, but nothing about the exit stops you from leaving one behind either.
