A club-wielding warrior who talks like a champion and hides underground from her own enemies.
The ground rumbles, and Cloth pops up swinging a club. Per the wiki, that is the canonical Cloth entrance at every location. The rumble uses the same sound effect as the Knight walking on a breakable floor, which is the cue most players miss the first time and recognise from then on.
Cloth talks like a hardened warrior and hides like a coward. The wiki specifies that despite her bravado about seeking mighty foes to test her strength, she frequently hides underground to escape combat, snoring loudly (her snore is a cicada click). After the Ancient Basin encounter, she admits to the Knight that all her bravado was false.
The Traitor Lord fight is where the arc cashes in. Per the wiki, if Cloth is met at every location and saved in the Ancient Basin, she joins the Knight in the Queen's Gardens Traitor Lord boss fight. She dies in that fight. Her spirit then speaks excitedly before fading on to the afterlife to rejoin her friend Nola.
This guide covers the six fixed locations in order, the Ancient Basin saving decision that gates her Traitor Lord appearance, the alternate Dirtmouth ending if she is not saved, the Nola references the wiki documents, the Dream Nail dialogue on her spirit, and the Godhome echo of her death.
Cloth, a cicada warrior who travels Hallownest looking for mighty foes to prove her courage.
Fungal Wastes, above the entrance to the City of Tears, sleeping underground.
the Ancient Basin. Saving her here gates her Traitor Lord appearance; skipping sends her to Dirtmouth instead.
the Traitor Lord fight in Queen's Gardens, where her spirit appears after death.Cloth is a cicada. Per the wiki, her snore makes the trademark cicada click and the rumble before she emerges from the ground uses the breakable-floor sound effect. Visually she carries a heavy club rather than a nail, which makes her unique among Hallownest's named warriors.
According to the wiki, Cloth is from outside Hallownest like Quirrel and Zote. The three foreign travellers form a small group of pilgrim NPCs, each with a different reason for entering the kingdom. Cloth wants combat, Quirrel wants memory, Zote wants glory.
The wiki notes that Cloth references a friend named Nola several times in her dialogue, but Nola is never seen in the game. The circumstances of Nola's death are unknown. Cloth's spirit eventually goes on to join Nola in the afterlife after the Traitor Lord fight, which is the implied destination her whole journey was aiming toward.
Cloth appears in six fixed places. Per the wiki, the order is fixed by progression rather than first-visit. The table below maps each encounter to its trigger and the dialogue cue that distinguishes it.
| # | Location | Trigger / context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fungal Wastes | Above the entrance to the City of Tears; she warns of the Mantis Tribe |
| 2 | Resting Grounds | Among the gravestones; talks about needing to test herself further |
| 3 | Deepnest Failed Tramway | Exhausted after fighting Nest creatures; plans to leave for an easier challenge |
| 4 | Ancient Basin | Hiding underground; admits to the Knight that her bravado is false |
| 5a | Queen's Gardens entrance (if saved in Ancient Basin) | Ready to fight the Traitor Lord alongside the Knight |
| 5b | Dirtmouth next to Sly's shop (if not saved) | Resting permanently; gives up on her quest |
| 6 | Traitor Lord arena (spirit) | After her death in the fight; speaks to the Knight as a fading spirit |
The wiki specifies that the Resting Grounds appearance can be missed easily, since most players push through the area in a single visit. The Failed Tramway is gated behind Crystal Heart, so most runs hit it after the Ancient Basin route opens up; players who do not detour back miss the tramway encounter entirely.
The Ancient Basin encounter is the only branch in Cloth's arc. Per the wiki, she is found hiding underground in the Basin, snoring loudly. The Knight can wake her by walking nearby and dropping down into her chamber.
When approached, Cloth admits her bravado was a front. According to the wiki, she confesses that all her warrior talk was an act and asks the Knight whether she should continue. Sitting near her or interacting again is the save action; walking away without engagement is the skip.
Per the wiki, the consequences split:
| Choice | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Save (engage her in the Basin) | She moves to Queen's Gardens; joins the Traitor Lord fight; dies; spirit appears |
| Skip (walk past) | She moves to Dirtmouth next to Sly's shop; no Traitor Lord appearance; no spirit scene |
Engage with Cloth in every prior location before the Ancient Basin save. Per the wiki, the Traitor Lord appearance flag depends on Cloth having been spoken to at all earlier locations as well as the Basin save. In actual play, players who skip the Resting Grounds or the Deepnest tramway sometimes find Cloth absent from Queen\'s Gardens even after the Basin save fires.
The Traitor Lord fight is Cloth's narrative payoff. Per the wiki, if the full chain is completed, Cloth waits at the entrance to the Queen's Gardens boss arena. When the Knight enters the fight, she leaps in beside them and attacks the Traitor Lord with her club.
According to the wiki, Cloth is killed by the Traitor Lord during the fight regardless of how the player approaches the boss. Her death is canonical, not a fail state. The Traitor Lord swings his greatsword and lands a finishing blow on Cloth; her body drops in the background of the arena.
The wiki specifies that the fight continues normally for the Knight after Cloth's death. Her body remains in the background for the rest of the encounter. In real runs, the death animation is brief enough that players sometimes miss it, especially during high-pressure phases of the Traitor Lord pattern.
After the Traitor Lord falls, Cloth's spirit appears beside her body. Per the wiki, she speaks excitedly to the Knight about finally finding the kind of fight she had always claimed to want, and about going on to rejoin her friend Nola in the afterlife.
According to the wiki, the spirit is invisible if the Knight has not yet acquired the Dream Nail. The dialogue still plays, and the prompt is still interactable, but the visual sprite of her spirit only renders for Knights who have completed the Awoken Dream Nail chain through the Seer and the Resting Grounds.
The wiki notes that Nola is never seen in the game itself. Cloth references her by name across multiple encounters, but the circumstances of Nola's death are unknown. The community reading is that Nola was Cloth's prior travelling companion, killed before Cloth entered Hallownest, and the journey itself was a slow walk toward an honourable death that would let Cloth rejoin her.
The Godmaster DLC echoes the Cloth ending. Per the wiki, in the Godhome Pantheon version of the Traitor Lord fight, the grave of the Traitors' Child can be seen in the background of the arena. If Cloth was killed in the original world's Traitor Lord fight, her club rests on top of that grave in the Godhome version.
According to the wiki, this is one of the most specific cross-DLC echoes in the game. The Godhome Pantheon arena is normally a clean re-rendering of the original boss room; the club detail is a deliberate continuity reference between the base game ending and the Godmaster DLC dream version.
In real runs, most Pantheon completionists notice the club only on second or third viewings. Per the wiki, the visual is small and the fight's pace pulls focus toward the Traitor Lord's greatsword pattern.
Cloth's arc crosses paths with the foreign-pilgrim trio and ends in the Traitor Lord arena. These spokes pick up the connected stories.
Game data and screenshots adapted from hollowknight.fandom.com, used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Original content remains the property of the wiki contributors and Team Cherry.