Monsters of the Wilds

A Bramblewalker at the edge of the woods.

What it is

Six magical monsters live beside the zombies and skeletons, and fallen knights walk the deep old places. Each has a tell before its big attack and a way to beat it. None appear on Peaceful, and they’re never common.

Monster	Where	Watch for	Beat it with	Drops
Bramblewalker	Forests at night	It rears back, vines glowing	Fire; step aside	Living Bramble
Gloomstalker	Dark forests at night, deep caves	Violet eyes flare before a pounce	Light	Shadow Pelt
Thunderwing Harpy	High peaks and windswept hills	A shriek, wings flung wide	Dodge the dive; earth spells	Storm Feathers
Geode Crawler	Caves, near amethyst geodes	It curls up and rattles	Mace, pickaxe, blasts, storm	Geode Grit, amethyst
Bog Witch-Frog	Swamps at night	Its throat swells and glows	Pop the bubble; raise a shield	Bog Gland
Mana Ooze	Deep caves, caves under ley lines	It drinks spells and swells	Blades, arrows, fire	Mana Gel
Fallen Knight	Strongholds, ancient cities, expeditions, dungeons	Blade raised, a line of light on the ground	Step off the line; break its guard with an axe	Manual Pages, Aura Shards

Any of the six can also be Runebound. Their magic counts as spells, so armour, Warding and the spellguard all help. Your Grimoire’s Bestiary fills in each one’s affinities as you strike them. Each has a spawn egg in creative mode.

Bramblewalker

A hunched, walking thicket. Found on forest floors at night, most of all in dark forests and the pale garden.

• Its lash: it rears back with glowing vines, then whips a vine at where you stood. If it hits, you’re rooted for a moment.
• Beat it: step aside as it rears. Fire hurts it extra, and while burning it panics and runs.
• Affinities: weak to fire; resists earth and life.
• Drops: Living Bramble. Throw it to root whatever it hits for two seconds.

Gloomstalker

A shadow panther, nearly invisible in the dark except for two violet eyes. Found in dark forests and the pale garden at night, and in deep caves below height 0.

• Its pounce: it circles unseen, crouches (its eyes flare), pounces, then slinks off to try again. A missed pounce leaves it sprawled for a moment.
• Beat it with light. It can’t hide in torchlight or daylight, right next to you, while glowing, for 6 seconds after a fire, storm, arcane or life spell hits it, or for 2 seconds after any wound.
• Affinities: weak to arcane; resists void.
• Drops: a Shadow Pelt. Brew it into an Awkward Potion for Invisibility.

Thunderwing Harpy

A storm-blue hunter of the bare peaks and windswept hills, from about height 90 up, at night or in a thunderstorm.

• Its dive: it circles high, shrieks with wings wide, then dives at you. In a thunderstorm it also marks a yellow ring under you, and lightning strikes there.
• Beat it: dodge the dive. A miss leaves it stunned on the ground. Any earth spell drags it down and holds it.
• Affinities: weak to earth and frost; resists storm and wind.
• Drops: Storm Feathers. Use one to be lifted a few blocks and drift down.

Geode Crawler

An amethyst-shelled beetle of caves below about height 50, most often near geodes.

• Its roll: struck, it curls into a ball and takes only a fifth of each blow. It rattles, then rolls at you. Hitting a wall leaves it dazed.
• Beat it: a mace, pickaxe, explosion, lightning or storm spell cracks it open. Sidestep the roll.
• Affinities: weak to storm; resists earth and arcane.
• Drops: Geode Grit (an earth reagent) and amethyst shards.

Bog Witch-Frog

A huge warty frog with a lily-pad hat, found in swamps and mangrove swamps at night.

• Its bubble: its throat glows, then it lobs a slow bubble of poison that bursts into a poison mist.
• Its tongue: up close it drags you in. It also swallows small animals to heal and power up its next bubble.
• Beat it: pop bubbles in the air with an arrow, snowball or blade. A raised shield stops the tongue. Milk clears the poison.
• Affinities: weak to frost; resists life.
• Drops: a Bog Gland. Brew it into an Awkward Potion for Water Breathing, or a Thick Potion for Leaping.

Mana Ooze

A pink jelly slime that eats spells. Found in deep caves below height 0, and in caves below about height 40 under a ley line.

• How it fights: its touch hurts and drains a little mana. Spell damage doesn’t hurt it; it feeds it. Full, it grows. Full at its biggest, it bursts into two.
• Beat it: don’t cast at it. Use blades, arrows or fire, which hurts it extra. It doesn’t split when it dies.
• Drops: Mana Gel. Eat one for 15 mana.

Fallen Knight

A fallen knight who once breathed Crimson Breath.

Empty armour still moved by a swordsman’s aura, glowing in the colours of its old breathing method. Found in strongholds, ancient cities, expeditions and dungeon spawner rooms. Deeper places have tougher knights.

• Its slash: it raises its blade, and a line of light marks where the slash will fly. Step off the line, clash it with your own Aura Slash, or turn it with a perfect guard. Strike while it recovers.
• Its guard: up close it braces its blade. Swinging into it staggers you. Wait it out, strike from the side or behind, or break it with an axe.
• Drops: always a Manual Page for its method (four pages and a book bind into its Breathing Manual), and about one time in four an Aura Shard for aura-forged gear.

Mage-Hunter (0.13)

Hooded illagers in grey coats stitched with broken runes, who hunt casters. Once your heart holds five circles, a band may come for you at night in the overworld. Chat warns you when they set out. One comes at first, and more often two as your circles grow (always two from the 15th).

• Null field. Bolts come apart in the air within 6 blocks of a hunter. Shapes that don’t fly, like touch, cones, zones and beams, still land.
• Spellproof. Spells and other magic hurt a hunter half as much.
• Mana-draining axe. Each blow that lands takes 15 mana.
• 32 health, quick on its feet, and harder to knock back. It is never Runebound.
• Drops: 1 to 3 emeralds, and one time in four a Mana Crystal (more with Looting).

Fight them with a blade, or step back and cast at close range with something that isn’t a bolt.

Tempering (0.12)

Every hostile creature is tempered when it first appears near players, to the strongest of them: their circles plus three for each aura stage, up to 32. Each point adds 10% health (at most 4x) and 5% damage (at most 2.5x, counting its arrows, blasts and spells). The first hours are the world as it was.

• Elites appear from threat 4, up to one creature in five at the top: Swift (a third faster), Ironhide (heavy armour), Vampiric (heals half what it deals), Brutal (half again the damage, and it throws you) and Splitting (breaks into two lesser copies when it dies). An elite has half again the health, a coloured name and leaves more experience.
• Bosses grow by half their health for each extra challenger nearby, up to six. A boss without phases of its own enrages once at half health: faster, harder hitting, and briefly shielded.
• Wildercord’s monsters spawn twice as often, mostly in packs.
• Frost and Ash. A Bramblewalker or Gloomstalker born in freezing land is Frost (a quarter more health; its blows slow and chill); born in scorched land, Ash (a fifth more damage, fireproof; its blows burn).
• Packs. A Gloomstalker that finds prey calls its kin within 16 blocks. The first of a group is often an Alpha: bigger, stronger, and heard from 28 blocks.
• Giants. Rarely, one of them wakes three times its size and roams the overworld: see Roaming Giants.

Tips and counterplay

• Learn each tell: the sound and pose come before the big hit.
• Fire handles Bramblewalkers and Mana Oozes. Light handles Gloomstalkers.
• Server owners can make these monsters rarer or more common, or switch any of them off.