Honkai: Star Rail gradually teaches you to manage your Trailblaze Power, a rechargeable resource that lets you reap rewards from challenges like Calyx and Caverns of Corrosion. These challenges appear as the story goes on, forcing you to strategize about how to spend your Trailblaze Power as it recharges. One of the last challenges to appear is Stagnant Shadows, which rewards you with important materials for leveling up characters.
Some players might be confused on where to find Stagnant Shadows because they don’t pop up until later in the game. Here’s how to unlock Stagnant Shadows and where to find them.
How to unlock Stagnant Shadows
A Stagnant Shadow quest appears immediately after you reach Equilibrium Level 2, so you need to be at least Trailblaze Level 30 for them to even be relevant to your adventure. You can only raise your Equilibrium Level to Level 2 after reaching TL 30.
Stagnant Shadows are the only way to get certain Character Ascension materials for your characters. You wont’ be able to level up your party members without them, so they become a necessary investment of your Trailblaze Power later on in the game.
Where to find Stagnant Shadows
You start with seven Stagnant Shadows, one for each of the Elements in Honkai: Star Rail:
- Shape of Fulmination (Lightning)
- Shape of Quanta (Quantum)
- Shape of Gust (Wind)
- Shape of Blaze (Fire)
- Shape of Spike (Physical)
- Shape of Rime (Ice)
- Shape of Mirage (Imaginary)
You can navigate to them from the Interastral Guide under the Survival Index, which has a separate tab for Stagnant Shadows. More Stagnant Shadows will appear as you explore different worlds. Check under the Stagnant Shadows tab after unlocking a new area. For example, more Stagnant Shadows appeared after I traveled to Xianzhou Luofu that weren’t there before.
Stagnant Shadows are hard to miss. They appear like black masses of corrosion in the middle of spacious areas, typically with a mirage of the enemy standing in the muck. Like with Calyx and Caverns of Corrosion, they automatically activate after you approach them on the map. You can teleport to them at any time from the Interastral Guide or World Map after you initially unlock them.
