Demajen put together a very useful map. All room numbers in this guide will be based on this map.

In order to start the run, you must activate the Alter of Redemption[darkdevotion.fandom.com]. This is done by killing "First One - Fallen Bulwark[darkdevotion.fandom.com]" in The Purged Hamlet. While it isn't strictly required to have beaten all of the bosses and find all of the tablets, the more you find and beat the better. At minimum, you should defeat all of the bosses along the route you plan to take. See the path below for the suggested route. You will also want to unlock all of the tiers of the Filthblood Crystal.

While other consumables may be tempting, nothing is going to make a bigger impact than holding on to the Porous Gemstone[darkdevotion.fandom.com] until right before the final fight. Without it you will need to complete an additional 7 boss fights. Note that you can replace it once you make it to the Snow-Covered Walkway since there are no other skippable bosses at that point.

The core strategy of this guide is to abuse the damage bonuses from Blood Peddler and Basilius' Guide. With these two, it is trivial to add over 100 to the minimum damage and 200 to the maximum damage of any one handed weapon obtained early in a run. With a bit of focus it can add over 200 to the minimum and 400 to the maximum damage which will allow you to one-shot most basic enemies and take out the final boss in only a handful of hits. For context, the final boss has somewhere around 4000hp.

Blood Peddler[darkdevotion.fandom.com] is a blessing obtained as a tier 5 option from the Filthblood Crystal. It adds +1 to the minimum damage and +2 to the maximum damage of the equipped weapon shortly after entering each room. While this doesn't seem like much, it adds up over a long run. Due to this, you will actually want to enter as many rooms as you can. For example, entering a secret room and then coming back out will trigger 2 additional bonuses.

Similar to Blood Peddler, Basilius' guide[darkdevotion.fandom.com] is a spell book that will apply the same +1/+2 bones to the weapon equipped in your main hand for a cost of 25 faith (or 20 with the Scholar blessing). To maximize this, you will want to kill as many enemies as you safely can. Once you get the two bonuses rolling, you will be able to kill many enemies in 1-2 hits. Keep in mind that you can only apply the guide's bonus 4 times per room. Casting the spell additional times will have no effect and just waste your faith.

A big boost to the number of casts that you can do is from Faith Statues[darkdevotion.fandom.com]. When you walk in front of one of these, your faith will immediately begin to fill up and will continue until it is full. If you are quick while your faith is filling, you can cast the spell while it is filling which allows you to get more than your max faith from a single statue.

Normally getting Basilius' guide is dependent on having a Godless idol[darkdevotion.fandom.com] available so you can break the cracked wall, but there is a trick that will allow you to get it every time. For whatever reason the hammer on anvil animation that plays when you get a damage boost breaks cracked walls. Due to this, you can use the animation from the boost from Blood Peddler to break the wall by immediately walking to the left upon entering the room. You can then use the spell to break walls later in the run.

Alternative approach
If you are struggling to make it through the Temple, one option is use the Treatis on Protection spell instead of Basilius' Guide. This will miss out on a significant amount of damage, but will make you significantly more survivable. This will make the final boss harder by requiring more hits, but will make it easier to reach him. Keep in mind that unlike the shields from the Protective Sphere consumable, shields from Treatis on Protection disappear when you leave the room. Thus, you will need to recast it. You likely won't have enough faith to cast it in every room so try to consider which rooms have more challenging enemies. The Scholar blessing from the Filthblood Crystal will reduce that casting cost and make sure that it is available more often.

Wiki[darkdevotion.fandom.com]
As previously noted, you will definitely want to start with the Porous Gemstone and a 1 handed weapon. While staggering enemies can be useful, getting a slashing crit from a boosted weapon will 1-shot many regular enemies. With this in mind, Adonias' Glinting Gladius is the best option. It is fast and has good stats. It's only drawback is 10% miss chance, but the Redeemer’s Curse gives -20% miss so this is a non-issue. Your off-hand item will quickly be replaced by Basilius' guide so it doesn't really matter what you pick. Your max armor will always be 1 so you will want to pick your armor based on the stats. Due to this, your best option is Rags. It has one of the highest stamina regen in the game and, due to being light armor, the highest speed. It has slightly lower crit stats than some of the other options, but 2% crit chance is a reasonable cost for the other bonuses. For your second consumable, if you have unlocked them, Protective Spheres are your best bet. They are not restricted by the 1hp limit and will give 2 hits of safety per consumable.

Suggested loadout

• Adonias' glinting gladius
  
• -anything-
  
• Rags
  
• Porous Gemstone
  
• Protective sphere

Wiki[darkdevotion.fandom.com]
Tier1
Cat’s eye (-5% miss) isn’t really needed due to the -20% from Redeemer’s Curse. Any of the other options are defensible based on taste. Cat's paw will help make the run not take as long. Schist stone (+5 damage) will help with the beginning of the run but fall off. Cat’s Claws (+5% crit) will provide much more damage in the long run.
Tier2
Skilled Speaker doesn't seem useful but provides a very interesting benefit. As noted above, you can get more than a full refill at a Faith Statue if you manage to cast while it is refilling. Skilled Speaker allows you to get 4 boosts while your faith is refilling (the max you can get in a room). Using the trick of visiting the three subboss rooms in the Heraldic Lily (see below in the route section), this can allow you to get 14-21 additional boosts. Just make sure to use up all of your faith before you enter each room with a Faith Statue.
Tier3
There are two main options. If your playstyle keeps you up close to enemies, Nitrogen aura can provide a consistent slowing effect. Alternatively, Hobnailed armor reinforcement will give you 3 additional hits of protection. These are kept even after Redeemer’s Curse reduces your armor to 1, though they can’t be restocked once they are lost.
Tier4
The best option is Scholar. It will reduce the cost of Basilius' Guide from 25 down to 20 which can add as many as 50 additional boosts over the course of the run.
Tier5
Blood Peddler is leaps and bounds better than any of the other options.

Alternative Options
If you are struggling towards the start of the run, you may want to try Schist stone (tier1), Knowledge of Weakness (tier2), or Self Esteem (tier4). Self Esteem will provide a flat +1 damage for every boss you have beaten at least once, up to a max of +18. Each of these will provide a bigger bonus towards the start of a run, but fall behind as the run goes on. Occult Pleasure(tier4) can provide a stream of Pieces of Armor and Yellow Fireflies, but also a bunch of useless items. This will help give a little bit of additional survivability, will put you significantly behind in damage.

Wiki[darkdevotion.fandom.com]
Cross Beset with Topazes - (chest in room 86) - This trinket is fairly easy to obtain and has good stats. +1 stamina regen is solid and +1% crit is a nice extra bit.

Beset Dead Man's Ring (altar in room 69 - 20 faith) - This item has a hidden bonus where while you are at 1hp, you get a blessing called Suicidal[darkdevotion.fandom.com] that doubles your damage. This still works while under the effects of shields and Yellow Fireflies, but not while you have any armor. Doubling your damage is a massive boost that multiplies the Blood Peddler and Basilius' guide boosts, but letting yourself get down to 1hp is very dangerous. It is worth considering intentionally taking damage down to 1hp right before the final boss so you can follow it up with shields and fireflies without needing to do so in the middle of a boss fight. The tinket has ok, but not amazing, stats otherwise so I wouldn’t suggest using it unless you intend on using the boost.

White Gold Brooch (altar in room 94 - 30 faith) - +10% crit chance is the highest you are going to get withoout some serious drawbacks or heavy luck on drops. +0.5 stamina regen is middle of the road.

Crackling Ember (dropped by Lava Spitters[darkdevotion.fandom.com]) - +26% crit chance is massive, but you need to get quite lucky for it to drop and -0.8 stamina regen is a bit rough as well.

Wiki[darkdevotion.fandom.com]
The Rags that you got from the forge will continue to be one of the best possible options. Unless you get a lucky drop, you will likely stick with them for the entire run.

Barbaric Harness (dropped by Enraged enemy[darkdevotion.fandom.com]) - If you get lucky enough to have one of these drop, it is perfect for this run. It has the highest speed due to being light armor, one of the highest crit stats, and one of the highest stamina stats.

Disciple's Armor (altar in room 65 - 20 faith) - Relative to the Rags, this trades 5 speed and 1 stamina regen for 10% crit. This is probably a worthwhile trade, but it isn’t on the suggested route. If you happen to take this route, it is likely worth picking up.

Wiki[darkdevotion.fandom.com]
Your best source of runes is Teleport Statues[darkdevotion.fandom.com]. Since you will need to start from the beginning if you die, there is no drawback to destroying any statues you come across. These will drop a random assortment of items, runes and high quality consumables

While getting a Dark Rune is tempting, your crit stat will likely already be high due to the Redeemer’s Curse and your other equipment. Even a level 1 version will likely put you at over 100% crit and a Warrior Rune will generally provide more damage. A Holy Rune can clear any stray curses and remove the need to spend faith to remove them. While your stamina stat will likely already be high, a Rune of Recovery can boost it further.

Other than picking up Basilius' guide, the route you go isn’t super important so go whatever path is most comfortable to you. The path listed here visits the most rooms so you can maximize the number of Blood Peddler boosts.

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Other than picking up Basilius’ Guide, the most important room is #37. This room has a secret room and several jail cells attached. The secret room can be reached by destroying a cracked wall near the bottom left of the room. Prior to entering the secret room, there is a fairly large, interconnected area with enemies to kill and key hooks that can drop cell keys. Clear out the entire space and pick up a few keys. After visiting the secret room all of the enemies and keys will respawn so clear them out again. After doing so, visit one of the cells in the top left corner of the room. Upon coming back, the enemies and keys will have respawned and the secret room will once again be available to enter. Jail cells can only be entered once, but the secret room can be entered multiple times as long as it isn’t the room you just came from. While you will need to break the cracked wall each time, you can use the boost animation from Basilius’ Guide to break the wall without needing Godless Idols. Doing all of this will allow you to significantly boost your weapon in a single room. Once you are done with this room, you can drop any remaining keys since no further rooms need them.

5->6->8(Basilius' guide: 20 faith)->9->10-(20 faith)->25->26-(cracked wall)->42->43->45-(cracked wall)->48->45->37-(cracked wall)->47->37->cell->37-(cracked wall)->47->37->cell->37-(cracked wall)>47->37->13->14->15->30->31->49->17

Based off of Demajen's map

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The only interesting note in this area is if you decide to pick up the Beset Dead Man's Ring.

52->53->54->55->56->78->56->62-(20 faith)->68->69(Beset Dead Man's Ring: 20 faith)->70->80->70->71->72->73->74->66->67->59->60->61->76->81->77

Based off of Demajen's map

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If you have already beaten the Crow Lady, make sure to stop by her room for an extra boost. The boss room doesn't give a boost, but coming back does. There is an extra secret room off of room 93, but it costs 60 faith to reach. This would be better spent casting Basilius' guide 3 more times so that room is skipped. If you intend on using the Beset Dead Man's Ring, you might want to drop down to the threshold in room 96 since this will be the last place to take damage before the final boss.

82->83->84->85->86->87->88->89->88->97->98->99-(blood)->107->99->100->91->92->93->108->93->94->95->96->105->106

Based off of Demajen's map

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Once you reach the Heraldic Lily, make sure to visit each of the three sub-boss rooms. Each one will provide 2 additional triggers of Blood Peddler. The rooms between the hub and the boss rooms don't give boosts, but the boss rooms and the hub do. Also, each time that you return to the Heraldic Lily the Faith Statue will refresh and allow you to get a bunch more activations of Basilius' guide. After you get to the Snow-Covered Walkway, you can drop the Porous Gemstone and hopefully pick up a good item from the chest.

110->118->113->118->110->117->112->117->110->119->111->119->110->120->114->115->116

Based off of Demajen's map