Creatures

When they come

• At night. While it is night and you are out in the world, a creature (or a group) arrives every 7 to 13 seconds, out of sight 190 to 240 px from you, as long as fewer than 4 are already about. See Day and Night.
• In the dark they come faster: in the deepest dark the wait is up to three times shorter, they arrive a little closer, and up to 2 more can be about. See The Dark.
• The Haunted Wood's gloom: deep in the Haunted Wood the gloom counts as night even by day. Creatures come there in daylight too, half as often, and only while fewer than 2 are about. They do not leave at dawn there. The Grave Knight is the one creature of the wood that waits for real night.
• At dawn the night creatures out in the world fade away over 2.5 seconds. Dungeon creatures and wild animals stay.
• Firelight: night creatures will not step into the light of a torch, campfire or other fire. Lair bosses and dungeon creatures ignore this.
• Peaceful worlds: no night creatures come at all.

On about 1 night in 4, if you are in the Haunted Wood 40 to 90 seconds after dark, the Hollow Stag comes for you.

What comes, by land

Every land has a base mix of Gnawlings, Longlegs, Crawlers and swarms of Scuzz. On top of that, each land has its own creatures. A few of the big ones come only one at a time.

The lair bosses live in their own lairs: Silvetus (the Woods), Giggos (the Highlands), Nivora (the Tundra), Fulgoria (the Desert) and the Hollow Stag (the Haunted Wood). See Lair Bosses.

How they find you

• Each creature has its own sight range (from 70 px for a Bear to 220 px for a Werewolf; most see 130 to 200 px). It notices you inside that range if it can see you. Coats with stealth shorten the range.
• Once it is after you, it finds its way round walls and obstacles. It gives up if you stay more than 1.7 times its range away for 4 seconds, or at once if you get more than 3.5 times its range away.
• Many creatures go for the village folk and your animals too, when those are nearer to them than you are.

How tough they are

In the open world

Each creature's page gives its health with no Jewels held. For every Jewel you hold, night creatures get 70% more health and their blows hit 40% harder, so they keep up with your gear:

In dungeons

Down a dungeon, creatures follow the dungeon's difficulty and the Jewels you hold, the two multiplied together. Their health there starts from a lower base than out in the world, so a Breeze dungeon's creatures are weaker than the night's.

A tougher creature also teaches you more experience when you beat it.

Champions

A dungeon may hold one champion: a single creature (never a swarm) in one of its rooms, wearing a gold crown, with gold motes rising round it and a gold ring at its feet. Compared with the others in that dungeon it has:

• 7 times the health, and it takes only half the damage from each blow;
• blows 3 times as hard;
• 35% more speed, and it attacks about twice as often;
• 5 times the experience.

A champion shrugs off most blows: it only flinches on every 6th blow, or every 3rd from a Greatsword or War Hammer (more with other players in the dungeon). When it falls, a chest rises where it fell (85% a middle chest, 15% a rare one). See Chests.

Flinching and staggering

• Most creatures flinch when struck, which interrupts what they were doing. Big ones flinch less: the Yeti and the Grave Knight only on every second heavy blow or every fourth other blow.
• A parry (right-click or R raised just as the blow lands, within about 0.22 seconds of raising it) turns the blow aside and your counter-attack follows by itself. Each creature answers a parry in its own way: a Grave Knight staggers, a Rime Owl drops out of the sky, a Turned-Coat opens its front. Guarding later than that blocks: you take a third of the blow.
• Lair bosses flinch only each time another quarter of their health has gone. See Lair Bosses.

More on fighting in Combat.

In online play

With more Wanderers near, creatures get more health (not in full proportion):

Down a dungeon, each other player there adds a share of a creature's health instead: 60% in a Breeze dungeon, rising to 80% in a Fatal one. See Online Play.