A lair is a special dungeon with a lair boss waiting in its last hall. Every land has lairs, and the first lair you clear in a land gives you that land's Jewel, which opens the next metal tier. Lairs are harder than ordinary dungeons, and each one rolls its own difficulty: Normal, Fatal or Abyssal.
Where lairs are
Each land is made of huge regions. Every region has one lair, so you will find several lairs in a land as you explore. A lair is never close to where the world begins: it is always at least 1,500 pixels (about 94 tiles) from the starting point.
A lair's entrance is a great gate cut into a sheer rock outcrop, bigger than an ordinary dungeon's mouth. Each land's lair holds that land's boss:
| Land | Lair name | Boss |
|---|---|---|
| Woods | Woodland Lair | Silvetus |
| Rocky Highlands | Highland Lair | Giggos |
| Tundra | Tundra Lair | Nivora |
| Desert | Desert Lair | Fulgoria |
| Haunted Wood | Haunted Lair | The Hollow Stag |
Finding one
- The Lair Reading, bought in villages: read it from your pack, and when you put the pack away the lair of the land you are standing in is shown to you and pinned on your map.
- The Dungeon Reading shows every dungeon within a long walk, and any lair among them.
- Once you know where a lair is, its mark on the map (M) shows its name, whether you have entered or beaten it, its boss (and FELLED once it is down), and whether its land's Jewel is still waiting in it.
Lair tiers
Every lair has a tier, rolled when the world is made. It never depends on how far out the lair is. The tier is part of the lair's name (a Fatal Desert Lair, an Abyssal Tundra Lair), and the map calls a Fatal lair HARD and an Abyssal lair VERY HARD.
| Tier | Chance | Boss health | Boss blows | Experience |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 1 in 2 (50%) | x1 | x1 | x1 |
| Fatal | 35% | x1.5 | x1.25 | x1.25 |
| Abyssal | 15% | x2 | x1.5 | x1.5 |
The tier also makes the creatures in the lair's rooms tougher, and makes the lair stay sealed longer after you beat it (see Fighting it again).
The Jewels you hold make every lair harder
On top of its tier, a lair's boss grows stronger with every Jewel you hold when you go in. The tier and the Jewels multiply together. These are multiples of the boss's own base health and base blows (see Lair Bosses for each boss's base).
| Jewels held | Boss health | Boss blows |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | x1 | x0.75 |
| 1 | x2.8 | x1.9 |
| 2 | x5 | x2.5 |
| 3 | x13 | x3.7 |
| 4 | x22 | x5.4 |
| 5 | x28 | x7.7 |
For example, Giggos has 500 health in a Normal lair with no Jewels held. In an Abyssal lair with 2 Jewels held he has 500 x 5 x 2 = 5,000.
Inside a lair
A lair is laid out like a dungeon: rooms joined by passages, torches on the walls, chests to find and the land's night creatures in the rooms. The creatures in a lair are stronger than in most dungeons:
| Lair tier | Creature health | Creature blows |
|---|---|---|
| Normal | x2 | x1.5 |
| Fatal | x2.8 | x1.9 |
| Abyssal | x4 | x2.5 |
Like every dungeon's creatures, they also grow with the Jewels you hold (see Jewels).
The boss gate
The boss's hall has only one way in, from the south, and a gatehouse with an iron portcullis stands across it. While the boss lives the gate is shut and nothing passes it, not you and not the creatures in the lair.
- Walk up to the gate and press E. The runes on it light up and the portcullis sinks into the floor.
- Every Wanderer in the lair is walked through together. While you walk in, nothing can hurt you, and the boss holds still.
- The gate rises and slams shut behind you. You get control back, and the fight begins.
When the boss falls
- The words LAIR CLEARED appear.
- If this is the first lair you have cleared in this land, its Jewel comes down to you first, and the next metal tier opens.
- The boss leaves its drops: 2 of its trophy and 1 Endurium.
- Its echo may pass into a piece of your gear and make it Forged.
- The lair's own chest rises out of the hall's floor in a pillar of light, the way out opens in the hall's north wall, and the gate opens for good.
The lair's chest
The chest in the boss's hall is always a Rare chest (see Chests). It holds 3 finds (gear, charms, coat fibre or Spirit Gems); its first find is always a weapon or tool. A lair's chest is more likely to give gear of the next metal up than an ordinary chest:
| Lair tier | Next metal up (first find) | Next metal up (the others) | Spirits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 90% | 71% | 263 |
| Fatal | 90% | 74% | 306 |
| Abyssal | 90% | 77% | 350 |
"Next metal up" means one metal above what your Jewels have opened (see Jewels). With 4 or more Jewels everything found is Endurium. The spirits are of all four kinds, split at random.
Fighting it again
A beaten lair is sealed once you open its chest and leave. Its doorway shows a pale veil, and E tells you how long is left. When the time runs out, everything comes back: its creatures, its chests, its boss and the boss's chest.
| Lair tier | Sealed for |
|---|---|
| Normal | 4 days |
| Fatal | 6 days |
| Abyssal | 8 days |
A land's Jewel and what it opened come only once. Every fight after that still gives the boss's trophies, its Endurium, its chest and a chance at its echo, so fighting lairs again is how you collect trophies for plaques and Bind the Echo.
Tips
- Clear the lair's rooms before the gate. Once you are in the boss's hall, the gate keeps you in until the fight is over.
- A Normal lair is the gentlest place to win a land's Jewel. Any lair in the land gives the Jewel the first time, so if the nearest one is Abyssal, it can be worth looking for another.
- Each Jewel makes every lair harder, so the order you clear lands in matters. Upgrade your gear with the new metal before you take on the next lair.
