The Sanctums, and the One That Wins

The game's building list names six kinds of Sanctum and they do two different jobs. Four of them are a ladder — Dawn, then Daylight, then Twilight, then Light — each one gating the next, with the last one deciding the season. The other two are battlefields that pay points while you stand in them.

⭐ The win condition

Rules → Special Rules → Team Introduction, verbatim:

“In Valhalla, Kingdoms will be divided into two Teams, [Radiant Sun] and [Shadow Moon]. The Teams will battle against each other. The Team that occupies the Level 8 Sanctum: [Sanctum of Light] at the end of the event wins.”

⭐ Three things about that sentence. The win is occupation of a building at a moment — not a total, not a sum over the season, not a count of anything. The building is named after what the season is about. And it carries a level: Level 8, the top of the Sanctum ladder.

⛔ What it means in practice is harsher than it reads. “At the end of the event” means a Team can hold the Level 8 Sanctum for the entire season and lose it in the last hour. The whole season is a qualifier for one fight.

The ladder

Each rung's own rule text names the next one as the one it gates, so the order is the game's, not an inference:

Sanctum	Contention cooldown	What its own text says
Sanctum of Dawn	every 1 days	“one of the trial locations in [Baldr's Redemption]. Warriors must conquer the Sanctum of Dawn before advancing to the Sanctum of Daylight.”
Sanctum of Daylight	every 1 days	“Warriors must conquer the Sanctum of Daylight before advancing to the Sanctum of Twilight.”
Sanctum of Twilight	every 2 days	“This sacred site marks the place where Baldr fell, struck in the heart by a mistletoe-turned-spear. Defeat the Sanctum of Twilight's defenders to accumulate fighting spirit for the Light.”
⭐ Sanctum of Light	every 3 days	“the sacred dwelling of Baldr, the God of Light. When the people's collective fighting spirit ignites the golden peak of the Sanctum of Light, the God of Light shall be reborn.”

All four end with the same sentence: “Once occupied, all members of the occupying Battalion will receive buffs.”

⚠️ every 1 days is the game's own wording, plural after the numeral. It is reproduced here exactly because searching your own Rules screen for that string is how you find the entry.

⭐ What the cooldowns are actually telling you

The cooldown doubles and then grows as you climb: 1 → 1 → 2 → 3 days. Read that as a planning fact rather than trivia:

• The low rungs churn. A Sanctum of Dawn opening daily means losing one is cheap — you get another go tomorrow. Do not overcommit to holding it.
• The top rung does not. The Sanctum of Light opens for contention every three days. Lose it and your Team waits three days for the next attempt, which late in a season may be the last attempt there is.
• ⭐ So the arithmetic of the endgame is the three-day cycle. Count backward from when your own hub says the season closes, and you know how many swings at the Level 8 your Team actually has left.

The two battlefield Sanctums

These are not part of the ladder and they work differently. You take one by clearing the area rather than by beating a garrison, you hold it only temporarily, and it pays the whole Team standing in it rather than the Battalion.

Sanctum	Opens	For
Mistletoe Sanctum	every 51 hours	for 1 hours
White Night Sanctum	every 75 hours	for 1 hours

Both carry the same rule, with only the name changing. The Mistletoe Sanctum entry, verbatim: “Defeat all Troops from enemy Teams' Chiefs within the Mistletoe Sanctum to temporarily occupy it. Once occupied, all members of the same Team within the Mistletoe Sanctum area will continuously earn points.”

⭐ So these are the season's set-piece battles, and three details make them that:

1. A one-hour window on a multi-day cycle. 51 and 75 hours are not daily — they drift around the clock, so the window lands at a different time of day each cycle. ⛔ Somebody in your Tribe has to track it, because the one that opens at 3am for you is still worth points to whoever shows up.
2. You clear the area, you do not capture a building. The condition is defeating all enemy troops inside. There is no flag to plant.
3. The reward is to the whole Team present, continuously. Not to the Battalion, not to the finisher — everyone from your Team standing inside earns while the hour runs. ⭐ That makes it the one objective where simply bringing bodies is the right answer.

And the schedule confirms their role: on the hub timeline read for this guide, the Mistletoe Sanctum was the first dated node after the opening node — before any ladder Sanctum and before any Pass. On that run it was the season's opening fight.

What a Sanctum is worth

• Buffs, to the occupying Battalion — on all four ladder Sanctums, in each one's own text.
• Points, continuously, to the Team present — on both battlefield Sanctums.
• “Fighting spirit for the Light” — the section's own intro: “In Valhalla, Viking warriors can challenge powerful Sanctums. Battle the Sanctum's defenders, claim victory, and occupy the Sanctum to harness its power. By doing so, you will accumulate fighting spirit for the Light.”
• ⭐ Season Summons for your whole Tribe — “The levels and quantity of Sanctums occupied by each Tribe at the end of the Trial will determine the number of Season Summons the Tribe's members can perform.” See how the season pays out.
• The season itself — if the one you are holding at the end is the Level 8.

⭐ Note what that list does to the last week of a season. Even a Team that cannot win is still playing for Sanctums, because every Sanctum its Tribes hold at the close multiplies their summons. There is no point at which abandoning them is correct.

What is not known

• Where any of them is. No screen ties a Sanctum to a position, and the Map Preview marks none of them. The center region is the obvious candidate for the Level 8 and nothing states it.
• How many Sanctums of each kind exist. The building list says what kinds exist, never how many.
• What the buffs are. “Will receive buffs” is all four entries say — no name, no value, no duration.
• What the defenders are. Every entry mentions defenders; none describes them.
• Whether the lower rungs carry levels of their own. Only the top one is given a level in any text, as Level 8.