The bestiary
A monster's name says its type: its health, damage and swing over the depth curve, the status it deals, and defences of its own.
Every type is priced to the same threat budget — different, not stronger. Its damage is a rate, so a slow swing arrives as fewer, larger blows. A monster's blow is a mix of damage types, and each part carries a flat 12% chance × its share for its own status; its own affixes add on top. Each zone has an element, and every blow carries a share of it — most of a Mage's, a sixth or so of everyone else's. Every zone page names its element, and every type below shows its blow.
Asks for the guard shell, armor against a heavy blow, stalling — it wards off blows from afar and hooks you in.
Asks for Status Avoidance, a Barrier — it swings fast and poisons often, and it is beside you in a blink.
Asks for burst damage — it heals as it fights.
Asks for resistances, Maximum Resistances, breaking a Barrier — and it jails you where you stand while its pack closes.
Asks for chaos resistance, a barrier, accuracy — and nerve: it comes in unseen and strikes from nothing.
Asks for fast builds beware: the more you swing, the more it hits back — and it wards off blows from afar.
Asks for Overwhelm, the elements instead of physical — and a second wind: a big one breaks into two.
Asks for the crit answer, a health pool, cheating death.
Asks for Recoup and Life Steal, elemental defense — kill it first: its chant shields its pack from the elements.
What a boss is
A boss keeps its type’s family and rules but wears its defences at 35% and carries no status of its own — its modifiers and its signature do that work. It carries at least 3 modifiers, never a pace one, and of the seals only the 5 walls. Below half health it enrages: it hits harder and moves faster. 10 gate keepers carry a rule of their own and keep exactly 2 rolled modifiers beside it.
| Boss | Body | Its rule |
|---|---|---|
| The Gravetender The Dying Fields | Wight | every blow leaves two Wounds; your bleeds on it tick at half |
| The Hollow King The Silent Necropolis | Herald | its first blow hexes you: recovery −30% and Exposure to everything |
| Keeper of the Ways The Hollow Ways | Herald | blocks a third of what comes and strikes back |
| The Ferryman The Sunless River | Wraith | while it stands, you recover half as much |
| The Last Judge The Halls of Judgment | Fiend | crits a quarter of its blows |
| Shepherd of the Fall The Fall of the Damned | Herald | its stun meter fills twice as fast, and its stuns are heavy |
| Warden of the Marches The Ashfall Marches | Knight | a tower-shield warden: it blocks, strikes back off its blocks, and the Marches' fire rides its spear |
| The Pyre Marshal The Watchfires | Herald | every blow leaves three stacks of fire Exposure on you |
| Warden of the Wall The Brimstone Ramparts | Knight | always fortified to the full, and it retaliates |
| Warden of the Gate The Gates of Hell | Golem | opens behind a shell of an extra 15% of its health; Overwhelm bites it at half |