To spawn Quelana in Blighttown the requirement is having a Pyromancy Flame that is upgraded to +10 or higher.

In order to do that you need:

1. to obtain a Pyromancy Flame
   
2. and have it upgraded by Laurentius or Eingyi...
   
3. and this all has to happen before defeating the Bed of Chaos.

She'll appear by the pillar that is located here.



Now this is widely understood and won't be a surprise to anyone.
This was known pretty much as soon as the game came out.

But for years there was speculation about another trigger that might cause her to spawn.

Players who didn't have a Pyromancy Flame at all would see her so clearly something else was going on.

Because of this inconsistency there was confusion about Quelana for a very long time.

More than two years after the game came out Wikidot was stressing that her exact causes for spawning weren't fully understood.

And ideas like having enough Intelligence were being suggested.

And over three years after its release...

...Fextralife life still had a lot of back and forth discussion and even more ideas being put forward.

---

Thankfully someone in the community discovered an exception, and if I remember correctly, it went something like this.

1. They noticed that Quelana wasn't present in their game while they were exploring Blighttown.
   
2. Then they got invaded and one-shot by an invader with a powerful Pyromancy Flame.
   
3. Then on their way back to the boss they noticed Quelana was there after the invasion.

The logical conclusion was that another player bringing a +10 Pyromancy Flame into their game, even only temporarily, caused Quelana to spawn.

It's like the game failed to notice who the item belonged to, and only that it was present in some way or another, was all that mattered.

This turned out to be correct.

---

So before updating the wikis I also checked to see what would happen if you met that same player outside of Blighttown.


So it seems like we finally had it all figured out.

These random online encounters explained the inconsistencies.

And our understanding on what makes Quelana spawn:

• changed to either having a +10 Pyro Flame or higher yourself
  
• or meeting someone else who does (while you're hosting in Blighttown)

Now it all seemed good for a while until eventually more reports started trickling in.

There were players who didn't have the Pyro Flame and they didn't get invaded or summon anyone while they were in Blighttown.

By this point had already tested all the ideas that were thrown at the wikis and none of them worked.

I began using special tools like debug to confirm and watch in real time that getting the +10 Pyro Flame was the trigger.



So as you can imagine I was really confused about what the remaining options could be.

---

Thankfully one report came with more specific information.

A player mentioned that while they weren't invaded in Blighttown, they were invaded while they were in The Depths.



I thought I had ruled out multiplayer connections in other levels so this was somewhat of a eureka moment.

The requirement wasn't only being in Blighttown.
It was being in OR NEAR Blighttown.

And as it turns out, it works if you're in three other certain locations.

So to recap, the possible triggers for spawning Quelana are as follows:

BEFORE DEFEATING THE BED OF CHAOS

• A) Obtain a +10 (or higher) Pyromancy Flame, or
  
• B) Encounter another player who has one, while hosting in one of the following areas:
  
  • Blighttown
    
  • The Depts
    
  • The Beggining of New Londo Ruins
    
  • The Demon Firesage boss room

---

You might be wondering why does it work in those exact locations and not other levels...
...or other parts of those levels for that matter?

This has everything to do with how Dark Souls loads content.

While I don't know exactly what's going on on a deeper, more technical level, I can say that Dark Souls will sort of pre-load content from nearby areas.

Things like map data, objects, and enemies and NPCs will pop up in such a way that the game becomes aware of them.

They may not be fully rendered or loaded yet but at the very least a complete list of the content in those levels is retrieved behind the scenes.

Let's use New Londo Ruins as an example.

While we're in the heart of the level, the game isn't the least bit worried about other locations in the game.



So at this point in time the game is aware of Quelana's existence.

At this very moment if we had an upgraded Pyro Flame, or another player showed up with one, that would make Quelana appear.

---

Remember I said that "most" of The Depths work.

This is a bit strange because this means that information on Blighttown is retrieved for basically the entirety of the level.

The only place it doesn't work is here at the very beginning of the level.



It works as soon as you approach the first room with the Butcher.

I find this pretty weird because The Depths are totally contained level.

It's not like you can see Blighttown from the entrance of The Depths. So why they queue it so far in advance, I'm not really sure.

---

The Demon Firesage is another one that's kind of funny.

So the Demon Ruins are actually three completely different levels as far as multiplayer is concerned.

You can summon or be invaded:


But none of these areas pre-load Blighttown outside of the Demon Firesage room itself.

This is because above the boss is that shortcut elevator to Quelaag's Domain. It's that sort of central area that preloads Blighttown.



So to trigger Quelana through multiplayer from here, a co-op summon would actually have to follow you into that boss fight.

This latest finding happened fairly recently. It wasn't until over five years after the game came out that I tested this and wrote about it.

---

So despite the immense popularity of these games there's often confusion about their mechanics which can last for a surprisingly long time.

That's part of what makes me so fascinated by their mechanics and why I enjoy trying to get to the bottom of them.

I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope it was informative, and until next time...

...don't add a bunch of untested ideas to the wikis.

• №1+2 — Sin, Covenant Betrayals & Absolution
  
• №3 — Vagrant Mechanics
  
• №4 — Fall Damage
  
• №5 — Spawning Quelana
  
• №6 — Q&A: Dead Snakes in Sen's Fortress
  
• №7 — More than Meets the Eye: Hidden Designs
  
• №8 — Humanity Drop
  
• №9 — Lordran's Layout Explained
  
• №10 — Out of Bounds Exploration
  
• №11 — Miracle Resonance
  
• №12 — The Secret of Gwyndolin's Hallway (and other cutscene trickery)
  
• №13 — Poise Mechanics (and glitches!)
  
• №14 — Object Health and Defense (some breakable stuff)
  
• №15 — Vagrant Lore
  
• №16 — Gravelording Explained & Reviewed