The uniqueness of Nightingale comes from its Realm Cards, which let players shape the procedurally generated world around them with different biomes, levels of danger, and augments. The Herbarium Card is just one of these Realm Cards, but it’s also essential to your journey home.
While Nightingale is an open-world survival game, it does have a main storyline as you’re trying to get back home to Nightingale City. Your best chance to do that requires you to find an expert at Realm traveling, but you’ll need the Herbarium Card to find it.
How to unlock the Herbarium card
To unlock the Herbarium Card, you’ll need to progress the quest “The Journey Home” to the point where your active objective is to travel to a Desert Herbarium Realm. To reach this point in the questline, you’ll need to establish a footing in your Abeyance Realm, then travel to the Forest Antiquarian Realm to retrieve the Synchronous Lotus, and then return to your Abeyance Realm.
Once you’ve progressed the questline and returned to the Abeyance Realm, there will be a marker on your map for the Herbarium Site of Power. You can claim the recipe for the Herbarium card here. This marker won’t appear in your Abeyance Realm unless you’ve gotten to the specific point in the questline where you’re tasked with traveling to a a Desert Herbarium Realm.
If you’re at this point, you already know what to expect from a Site of Power. The Herbarium Site of Power requires a Gear Score of 40 to bypass the magic gate in front of it, so you may have to return to Antiquarian Realm to earn more T1 Essence for upgrades.
You’ll have to fight your way upwards, taking down Bound Minions until you reach the top. At the top, you’ll fight a Fabled Automaton Knight and its sentries. For this encounter, it’s recommended you bring Healing Salves and an NPC companion, and aim for the Knight’s glowing orb weak spot. Once the Knight and its sentries are defeated, release the Hope Echo to learn the Herbarium Card, and also earn some Essence. Talk to Puck after he appears, and you’ll be able to craft the Herbarium Card.
To craft the Herbarium Card, you’ll need to combine one Coated Paper, one Vibrant Ink, and 25 Essence Dust at a Refined Enchanter’s Focus.
