The Ember Court: a guardian for every tier

How The Ember Depths 0.22 gates World Tiers: 12 Crowned in 3 Circles, Crown Shards with printed odds, a Court Sigil and an Audience at the Effigy.

Version 0.22 changes how the world gets harder. A World Tier no longer opens by playing the campaign again. Each one is guarded by one of the Crowned: the tyrants you broke, re-crowned in the fire below. Vhoruun's Effigy was the Court's door all along.

How a tier opens

The Court opens at level 20. The first time any hero of your realm reaches it, the Court notices you.
Gather Crown Shards. Each gate needs a few (see the table below). They drop from Breach Wardens, chart bosses, Ember Chests and new Descent records, but only from content as deep as the gate you are after.
Shards form a Court Sigil. When it is whole, open the Effigy and seek an Audience with that gate's Crowned.
Win, and the tier is yours. A loss costs nothing: no gold, no sigil. Only a win spends it.
Tiers you have already earned are kept. Nobody loses a tier to the Court, and everything below your tier can be won again for crowns and titles.

The odds are printed

Where Crown Shards come from
Source	Chance	Notes
A Breach Warden falls	50%	Your first Warden each breach hour. Certain for your first one after each gate.
A chart boss falls	10%, or 15% if your chart is still Pristine	Chart Tier at or past the gate's chart tier, on any world tier.
An Ember Chest rolls	5% per roll	In a breach deep enough for your gate.
A new Descent record	Certain	One shard for every new 10 floors at or past the gate's depth, once per realm.
Six misses in a row	The next one is certain	After 6 eligible drops without a shard, the 7th is a shard.

A shard that finds your sigil already whole cools into 3 Emberglass. The Court card at the Effigy shows every number, your own pity count and what you have left to find.

The 12 gates

One Crowned per tier
Opens	Crowned	Circle	Shards	Audience	Chart boss	Descent record
Pyre II	Grukk Crowned	Circle of Embers	1	Level 30	Tier 1+	Depth 20+
Pyre III	Morvaine Ascendant	Circle of Embers	2	Level 40	Tier 2+	Depth 30+
Pyre IV	Gutrot Unbound	Circle of Embers	3	Level 50	Tier 3+	Depth 40+
Pyre V	Seraphel Risen	Circle of Embers	3	Level 60	Tier 4+	Depth 50+
Pyre VI	Vhoruun Enthroned	Circle of Embers	4	Level 70	Tier 5+	Depth 60+
Pyre VII	Grukk, the Ash-King	Circle of Ash	5	Level 80	Tier 7+	Depth 70+
Pyre VIII	Morvaine of the Last Pyre	Circle of Ash	6	Level 90	Tier 8+	Depth 80+
Pyre IX	Gutrot, the Drowned Crown	Circle of Ash	8	Level 100	Tier 9+	Depth 90+
Pyre X	Seraphel Unwinged	Circle of Ash	9	Level 110	Tier 10+	Depth 100+
Pyre XI	Vhoruun Ashen	Circle of Ash	11	Level 120	Tier 12+	Depth 110+
Pyre XII	The Court Assembled	White Fire	12	Level 130	Tier 13+	Depth 120+
Pyre XIII	The White Effigy	White Fire	14	Level 140	Tier 14+	Depth 130+

3 Circles, 3 titles

Win every gate of a Circle to earn its title
Circle	Title	Who
The Circle of Embers	Courtier	The five tyrants you broke, crowned in the fire below.
The Circle of Ash	Ash-Courtier	The same five, re-crowned deeper down: a fourth phase and Breach-touched from the first blow.
The White Fire	Unthroned	The Court Assembled, then the Effigy itself.

The Court has its own leaderboard: it ranks the highest gate you have won.

What else changed

The Descent no longer opens a second tier on top of a campaign clear. Its records now pay Crown Shards instead.
Clearing the campaign again no longer opens tiers.
Foes, loot and everything else a World Tier does are unchanged.