As of writing there is a lack of complete guides for The Consuming Shadow anywhere on the internet, at least searching in english. This game has a lot of complexity that can easily be missed, and there are a lot of achievements that can be confusing if they aren't bugged outright.

There are two main purposes for this guide. One is to act as a handbook to generally inform and improve your play. The second is to act as a guide for achievement hunters who are just here to finish all of the achievements.

This guide has a lot of sections, this is because Steam guides have a hard character limit per-section so I had no other choice. I hope this guide helps.

There are four characters you can play as. Each character gains XP for their own level. Each time they level they gain a birth star. When the game begins you can get boosts on the constellation map for each birth star you have.

Challenges are unlocked per-character, that is you will have to spend one birth star to open the challenge for the first time, for each character you want to do it on.

Unlock: Unlocked by default
Texts: From the Ministry and from random numbers.

The most balanced character who can use both guns and magic, but also has a solid amount of time to work with. Don't underestimate the pistol whip melee because you can easily get through the entire game with it. Note that you can run while pistol whipping and it is quite spammable.

You will get texts from family which tend to give small amounts of money or sanity. Some malicious texts taking advantage of this will cost your sanity. Generally though, it's not a bad idea to open every text you get.


The Wizard does not lose sanity when casting spells successfully, although invalid casts will still incur a heavy penalty. She starts with knowledge of all spell combinations. She can also use the pistol.

The trade-off is that she has no melee ability, and whenever you cast a spell, all runes used in the cast will 'degrade.' After a rune degrades 5 times it will not be usable until it is renewed. You can renew a rune by interacting with the same rune on the walls (the ones you find on the walls of every dungeon).

Other characters only see runes on the wall that match one of the three gods in play. The Wizard also sees 'neutral' runes (written sideways) that do not correspond to any gods in play. This means that all of your runes can be replenished. Unlike the other wall runes, these neutral runes actually respawn (randomly) and can be farmed; they tend to reappear when travelling through a vertical door, so you can farm them, but be wary of the inherent danger travelling vertically (you may get unlucky and have something spawn on top of you).

Runes will not degrade when used for non-spell purposes, i.e countering the Cultists' spells, or sealing the rift. However, note that a depleted rune is totally unusable, so if it already has depleted but it appears in either scenario, you will be completely helpless. For that reason you should be very careful about depleting the runes that match gods in play - i.e if Eu was Chzo's rune, and it was depleted, but you needed Eu to close a dimensional rift, you may have to abandon the objective entirely if there is no Eu rune on the walls of the dungeon.

This does not apply to the banishment ritual at Stonehenge, as interacting with the candle lit altar in the final room will replenish all of your runes.

Unlocking the Wizard:

During three-hostage rescue missions, sometimes one of the hostages will be a woman in office attire (this will be noted in the interaction text if it is not visually clear). After rescuing her you will be prompted to bring a pentagram necklace to a certain town on your map. If you're able to get the necklace and make it to the town, you'll unlock the Wizard when the run reaches its ending (any ending counts).

Unlock: Deliver the kit

The Warrior is the most difficult character to master, at least for the harder challenges. Instead of a gun, the Warrior's standard attack is a kick. It reaches farther than the pistol whip would. Since his melee is the main attack, the pistol whip button will instead cause you to dodge. The dodge moves him backwards about one step, and gives a few frames of invincibility (i-frames).

The kick melee is a bit more nuanced. It's not a flat upgrade over the pistol whip melee by any means. In fact it leaves you worse off in some cases. While it reaches farther out and higher up, you cannot move during the animation. The kick is also slower, which requires you to attack with it much more deliberately. Floaters and Spitters can be more dangerous as a result because you won't be able to take out all their projectiles with melee. There is no 'cleave' damage, i.e the melee will hit exactly one enemy in range even if multiple enemies appear to overlap the kick.

Sometimes the kick will glitch out and your animations will freeze up. This can be fatal (or even cause a soft-lock), as you may find yourself unable to move in one direction and completely unable to attack, at least until you get hit or change rooms. It is usually caused by interacting with things while in the middle of a kick, so make sure you never do that.

The Warrior receives texts from Boss, but also the Ministry and random numbers.
Ministry texts are standard. Texts from Boss can be a moderate Sanity penalty or a moderate cash payout. Rarely, a moderate sanity boost. Random numbers can give information but are often sanity penalties for the Warrior, so they are really not worth it. As the Warrior I prefer to open all texts from Boss and Ministry but no random numbers.

Unlock: Beat the game.

aka. Trilby or T. It seems that T has taken up a desk job since the Chzo Mythos games. He is as capable as the Scholar in combat. You can see the status of all towns on the map from the beginning and you start with 100 in cash, which gives plenty of room for decision making. You also start with the banishment ritual already assembled so all you have to do is identify the rune of the invading god.

The catch is that you only have 24 hours. This is actually pretty generous, but you certainly can't afford to mess around. If you're getting the feeling that the Ministry Man is just "the Scholar but better"... well, he is. Or at least, much easier to get ending A with.

A hidden negative (but minor) aspect is that most of the texts the Ministry Man can get are negative. The Ministry can still wire you cash but you will get a lot more negative sanity messages from them. Unknown numbers almost always cause sanity loss. I generally avoid opening the phone at all unless I have no sanity to lose.

There are a total of 12 equipment items in the game, each of which providing a unique effect that can be active in dungeons or while in the car. You cannot get duplicates within a given run (until you already have all 12 items), so if you get an equipment drop it is essentially on a random 'knock out list'.

Every unconsumed town has the option to search an hour for supplies, which will provide a choice of 2 bullet types if you can use them (each in limited quantities) and one equipment item. This equipment item is determined at the start of the game as part of the run's RNG 'seed'.

"Halves physical damage"

A rule of thumb for physical damage - if it's not a projectile it's usually physical damage.
Because sanity loss on damage is based on the amount of damage you receive, this effectively also reduces sanity damage from enemies.

Random encounter use: Guarantees a good ending for the store robbery, making this a superb item as both default options risk you taking damage otherwise.

"Halves toxic damage"

Spitter spit, cougher coughs, morass fumes, fumes from gasbags, and the like. Again like the body armour this effectively reduces sanity loss from these damage types alongside the health damage reduction.

Random encounter use: Guarantees that you will rescue the mother from the burning building, giving sanity and money.

"Prevents broken limbs"

Misleading description. The skate pads protect you from getting broken limbs from taking damage in dungeons only. In events where the status effect is applied directly, you can still have your limbs broken.

Random encounter use: Lets you rescue the kid trapped in the flipped car.

"Prevents severe wounding"

By "severe wounding" it means the Bleeding status effect which reduces your health over time. That makes this item a pretty good one, because bleeding can end a playthrough if you're not careful. Unfortunately this description is not entirely true. You can still be severely wounded from events (i.e unlucky outcome of pulling over for cop)

Random encounter use: Allows you to save the wife who is about to be stabbed by her suspicious husband.

"Prevents anxiety"

Prevents you from getting the Anxiety status effect, which can happen after any sanity loss. This one actually works in all scenarios, unlike the Stabproof Vest. It's a bit unfortunate that out of all of the equipment, this is the item that works consistently because the benefit is not as helpful. Anxiety does mess up your aiming but it tends to disappear fast while driving and goes away on its own.

Random encounter use: None.

"Halves sanity loss from spellcasting"

Unless you're playing as the Wizard casting any spell will reduce sanity, a cost which depends on what the actual spell being cast is (i.e open lock costs less). This halves that cost.

This item is required to get the Wizard in the first place as part of her quest.

Random encounter use: Guarantees safe passage through the mob of possessed on the road. Since this event has a chance of sending you to a random dungeon otherwise, this is actually an exceptional item even for the Wizard who does not benefit from the item's main effect!

"Lockpicking always succeeds"

... but it still costs a lockpick, so while this is a great item, it doesn't give you unlimited lockpicking use. In most dungeons you should still consider searching for the keyring even if you have this (unless you have a lot of lockpicks). This item is great if you need to get through Stonehenge quickly, especially considering it has a bunch of trap rooms.

Allows you to pick the businessman's car in the sports car encounter. This grants a nice chunk of cash.

"Halves general sanity loss"

It's actually about 70% of sanity damage, not 50%.
Applied to sanity reduction. In the case of damage this halving effect is applied after damage calculation (i.e body armour halves damage, damage applied to sanity, that sanity damage is halved by rosary). That makes this an exceptional item, as sanity effects can be annoying.

Random encounter use: Allows you to inspire the desperate priest in the church encounter, guaranteeing that he gives you ammo, as well as providing a bit extra.

"Improves fire rate"

With this item your gun can fire faster. As an effect this is just ok. Bonus fire rate can be useful when swarmed by enemies, but this does not happen often. Note that this does not boost the Warrior's attack speed, it only works for firearms.

Random encounter use: For the gunman hostage encounter, guarantees that you will hit the correct target.

"Increases loot"

The game description is quite unhelpful. What this actually does is increase the chance that enemies will drop random loot chests. This is a great effect and means you will get more ammo, small health boosts, and even (rarely) pieces of equipment! You can use the Smith birthsign to improve the chance of equipment drops further.

Random encounter usage: Allows you to comfort the girl in the traffic jam, which provides a significant sanity boost.

"Reduces random events while driving"

For normal play, this is actually a bit ♥♥♥♥; there are many random encounters which have a chance of giving useful supplies. For the one shot difficulties like China Shop or Scourge of the Ancients, this is one of the best equipment items possible as we prefer to avoid all events because a number of them have unavoidable damage if you're unlucky.

Random encounter usage: Allows you to safely tow your truck in the noisy ATV encounter.

"Improves visibility"

Substantially improves your light radius whenever you are in a dungeon. Remember that enemies "awaken" when they fall within your light radius -- meaning that you will aggro them from farther away too. While this makes the effect more of a tradeoff than a flat upgrade, I think the increased visibility is exceedingly helpful in avoiding damage and making decisions on how to get through a room. So I think it is worth using.

Random encounter usage: Also allows you to confront the voice in the intimidating voice encounter, which has a number of annoying/dangerous outcomes. (another good reason to like this item)

There are 6 different spells in the game. The runes needed to cast them vary from run-to-run, being determined by the RNG seed at the beginning of play. For most of the characters it costs sanity of varying quantities to cast a spell. The Wizard starts with all of the spell combinations known and does not need to use sanity, but each rune can only be used so many times without being 'renewed' by inspecting the corresponding rune on a wall.

The runes to cast a spell can be the clue given at the end of a successful objective completion which can either be super clutch or totally unhelpful. However you will never receive duplicates.

Cost: ? sanity

Removes the anxiety status effect. Anxiety is undesirable if you're using your gun so this isn't a bad idea, though I generally find myself untempted to use it.

Cost: ? sanity

For the remainder of the dungeon, you will have a 'night vision' effect on your screen which allows you to see the room without darkness. Note that this means every enemy will be activated the moment you enter the room. This can be a worthwhile tradeoff when trying to avoid damage, because you have more time to assess the situation, but it does mean you will always take the sanity hit for leaving a monster alive.

This can be especially useful when rushing an escape (i.e being chased by a Stalker boss) so you don't sprint into something unpleasant - especially on either of the 1 HP challenges.

Cost: ? sanity

Shows the entire dungeon map as if you had explored it already. It's important to note that 'trap rooms' that show up as red (trying to fool you into thinking they are objectives) still appear in the granted map. It's usually not hard to explore an entire dungeon so this effect is sometimes redundant, but it can be helpful sometimes.

Cost: 6 sanity

Opens any locked doors in the room. Often not necessary since a dungeon will always contain the relevant key, though particularly great for Stonehenge if you don't have a key yet and are trying to minimize travel.

Cost: ? sanity

Releases a pulse of spikes from your position in both directions, which will instantly kill enemies that it hits. The collision for this is very inconsistent so be careful about depending on it in life or death scenarios. However, it can even kill boss enemies in one shot, including the Tree despite its unconventional damage process.

Note that the damage pulsewave does not travel instantly, with it taking longer to hit enemies that are further out. Although it can technically kill enemies higher than you (floaters, ceiling pukers etc.) it is especially inconsistent at actually hitting them. Also note that any enemies that spawn more enemies upon dying will still do so when killed by the Circle.

Cost: ? sanity

Although the description implies that this will just instantly kill everything in the room, it's really just a Circle of Death that goes farther out. That means it has the same weakness as its lesser form, and will sometimes fail to kill enemies it doesn't properly collide with, for any reason.

Mass Death also still has travel time. All in all this version of the spell is a bit ♥♥♥♥; by the time Mass Death would have reached the other end of the room, you could have just walked over and cast Circle of Death on that side instead -- which is probably more likely to actually hit something with the inconsistent collision.

Generally then, avoid using Mass Death because it kind of sucks. It is not worth the extra sanity/rune consumption over Circle of Death which is already good on its own. The main exception is for the Wizard during the final boss. Since she has infinite rune usage there, there is no reason not to spam Mass Death anytime a monster appears during the fight.

The runes that spells use are part of the run's 'seed'.
The spells follow fixed patterns of runes values, but what value each rune is will vary.

For example strange calm uses R1, R2.

... more details to come on this section later (sorry)

Sanity can be lost when:

- you read any negative text message
- you take damage from an enemy
- you leave a room while a monster is still alive
- you get a bad outcome from a random encounter
- you cast a spell (whether it works or not)

There are some notable details to this.

The monster has to be 'awake' when you leave the room to get the penalty. This means the monster is making sound, moving and attacking. It's possible you can see the edges of a monster without waking it, in which case you will not get the sanity penalty for moving.

Sanity loss from texts seems to directly impact your actual value rather than boosted narcotics value.



* I think this might actually be wrong ,and it contradicts a different point in the guide, but I need to double check this.

When you take damage from an enemy, your sanity reduces by approximately the base damage divided by 5. So items like Body Armor and Breathing Mask do not help us with sanity loss from damage. Beyonders deal around 3-6 more sanity damage depending on enemy type. Ghosts deal about 10, and the Tall Man does not deal any sanity damage.



While driving you will see hands, silly cartoon faces and the like while driving. This is just flavor and doesn't impact you aside from alerting you that your sanity is lower.


Just meant to distract you. This will get old quick and I have never even found it to do the 'distract' part well. But oh, how it will get annoying.

Slight static and noises are usually some of the first sanity effects you will encounter, happening even at about 60% sanity. yay...


By far the most destructive sanity effect in my opinion. Left will start moving you right and vice versa. It can start at basically any moment, including being chased by a stalker enemy or in combat. While this is happening you cannot sprint in either direction. It will persist through rooms as well. This can happen at really bad times. Probably the best reason to maintain your sanity as best you can. Definitely a good reason to pause the game.


Your character will fade out. This makes dodging attacks difficult but at least your light is unchanged so you know you are at the center of the light circle.

If you have night vision then finding yourself becomes much harder, so you will have to orient yourself based on where door/container prompts are.


The light will flicker like a strobe light for about 8 seconds. This persists through room and dungeon changes. If you have a safe spot to wait at within the dungeon, do so. Alternatively you can just pause the game and it will continue to time out with the pause menu up.


Enemies will appear complete with sound and will seem to attack but fade out. These enemies do not respond to bullets whatsoever (Though I think they do actually 'take' the shot?)

This is only really a problem in two circumstances. First you might waste a bullet if you're trying to take it down from afar. Second, you might be swarmed by multiple targets and waste time on an enemy that is not actually in your way.


At low sanity menu options will begin to change to "Kill myself". Pressing the button will start the suicide minigame. If the gun reaches your jaw then your character will pull the trigger.

The gun moves up automatically; clicking will lower it. Getting the gun to the bottom is a success. (I think just lasting a while counts too?) Every time you survive the minigame, it will get even faster next time. After about 3 or 4 you may find it unmanageable.

Succeeding may result in sanity gain and the suicide prompts to leave you alone for a while. But never for long.

One important note is that if you are totally out of bullets of all types, if your character pulls the trigger the gun won't fire which counts as a success. However, I have never gained sanity from doing this method.

Caused by: Losing sanity (anywhere)
Treatment: Passes after enough in game time, or cured with the Strange Calm spell.

While you have anxiety your gun will be wildly inaccurate, often missing regardless of your distance to the target. This is often inconsequential but it can be a bit disastrous in certain scenarios, like monster nests where you want to quickly dispatch enemies with AP rounds.

This effect does not harm the Warrior since he can't use a gun.


Caused by: Random when taking damage in combat, or being shot in the cop pull over event.
Treatment: 10 cash at hospital, or Restoration spell

Bleeding is the most dangerous effect because of how fast it drains your health when driving. It's always wise to have the cash, and knowledge of nearby towns, so that you can treat it when it happens.

The stab-proof vest prevents you from getting the effect in combat, but it does not prevent you getting the effect from random events (argh).

Bleeding will only reduce you to 1 hp while in a dungeon, but if you are out of medkit you will be dead as soon as you start travelling.




Caused by: Random when damaged in combat, or getting the bad outcome when holding the frightened woman.
Treatment: Restoration or 10 cash at the hospital

Causes sanity damage when you attack. (TODO forget if this affects warrior.)


Caused by: Randomly when damaged in combat
Treatment: Restoration, or 10 cash at hospital (cannot be treated while you have a broken arm)

Although you must repair a broken arm first (they occupy the same button) the broken leg causes more problems. You rapidly lose sanity while sprinting. Does nothing if you're already at 0 sanity.

Every dungeon will have an objective. If and when you complete the objective you will receive a helpful clue. This may be one of the pieces of the banishment ritual or a spell etc.

Completing the objective has a chance to spawn a Stalker enemy after you (see Enemies section for details), at which point you will be unable to use the Escape Dungeon option.


One room will contain a colored smoke with two runes floating around it. You have to cast both runes (left to right) in one spell to remove it. You can be anywhere in the room when casting. While the rift remains in the room it will spawn small buzzers over time, so you should dispel as soon as you enter.

Sometimes the rift will have a 'seal' located in another room. If there is a seal and it hasn't been dispelled, you won't be able to see what runes the rift has. The seal looks like a rune floating in the air on its own. When you can see the runes of the seal, cast them like a spell and you're done.

You won't be able to tell if the rift has a seal until you encounter one or the other. If the run is at a high 'danger level' it is basically guaranteed to have a seal. It is possible that both are behind separate locked rooms.

This is generally the safest objective because if you act quickly (i.e cast from the door as soon as you see the runes) both the seal and the rift rooms will have no enemies to deal with. Unless you are in grave danger you should always try to complete these dungeons if you still need clues.


Rescue missions take two forms. Either you are tasked with finding one person or three. Three person rescues follow the same (odd) rules just with three separate targets.

The hostages will be placed in random rooms. Expect at least one to be behind a locked door but they can be anywhere.

The hostage might already be dead by the time you get there. In this case you need to interact with the body to get progress on the objective.

If the hostage is alive they will appear as a bound man sitting on his knees. Be careful; some hostages are armed and hostile to you. You won't be able to tell unless they draw their gun but you can kill innocent hostages if you're not careful.

When a false hostage draws their gun, it will make a click and you have a short window to kill them before you get shot. They should only take one hit, bullet or melee. Their shot does a good chunk of damage to you. Fake hostages never drop loot when killed.

If you're limited to melee for whatever reason, be careful because sometimes a false hostage will be able to shoot you before you could possibly close the distance.

Friendly hostages just need to be interacted with and they will run out. That will progress the objective. You don't need to protect them from monsters, they automatically 'escape' when they leave the room. You can still kill them yourself while they're running but there is no benefit to this.

Whether or not a live hostage is hostile is determined any time you enter the room -- even if they have already pulled a gun on you. So you can re-enter the room until a hostage is friendly. It doesn't matter that much but this is a better option if possible to get the loot.

Be careful firing your weapon in a room with a hostage if you don't know they've turned. Sometimes your character will stupidly aim at the hostage even when there are better targets on the ceiling. I have no idea why this happens. If you kill an innocent hostage, you will lose about 20 sanity.

There will be a chest on the ground of a random room that looks like a random mob drop (with a sparkling star on top). Opening that fulfills the objective.

Marked Boxes

3 boxes, each marked with a colored rune, will be scattered around the dungeon. At the start of the dungeon you will find a body that, when inspected, says something like "Open only the box with the [color/rune] of X ancient". This is actually intended to help you; it's a hint as to what the color or rune of the named ancient based on the box that completes the objective.

As far as I know there is no negative consequences for opening the wrong box.

Nest Extermination

In one room of the dungeon, there will be a lumpy 'nest' sticking out of the floor or ceiling. It will spawn parasites over time so kill it quickly. Usually guarded by two or so other enemies. The nest takes a few hits to destroy. Armor-piercing rounds are exceptional for this.

Nests are awful if you cannot afford to take damage. It is not uncommon for a nest room to place enemies on top of you as you enter, and you can't even be sure that you are entering one without the use of Clairvoyance. For China Shop and Scourge of the Ancients I usually leave.

3 Nest Extermination

Every strategy above applies, but you need to do it 3 times total. Yay.
Same as the regular nest, but you need to do it 3 (2?) times total. Hooray.


Boss monster spawns in one room. It will not change if you re-enter the room. What type of enemy the boss is depends on threat level; at lower levels it could be a regular puker or a big birther, end game could still be a big birther, or even a Tree or Morass.

Note that the 'objective complete' sound will actually play upon entering the room with the boss, which is a great indicator that you're in a dangerous room.

Generally, the map generation seems to prefer putting objectives farther away from the entrance. If a dungeon has a bunch of locked rooms and a key, it's likely that an objective is behind a locked door. Note that it is perfectly possible for none of the dungeon objectives to be behind a locked door even when a keyring has spawned.

"TRAP" ROOMS

These rooms will either be filled with enemies, or contain a boss monster. Their monsters will respawn each time you enter, and only exist to mislead you. That's why I call them "trap rooms".
They can appear in any dungeon but you will usually only see them late-game when the danger level is high. However, Stonehenge is guaranteed to contain two of them, both of which having locked doors.

On the dungeon map their squares appear red, like how an objective room would. They will also appear red if you use Clairvoyance (meaning you will not be able to discern the true objective room using the spell).

In Stonehenge, it is possible for two trap rooms to both be locked and neighbour each other.


Most enemies spawn in when you enter the room. However they are not 'awake' until you get close enough. "Close enough" is a little bit more than being at the edge of your light -- at times you can see the edges of enemies without actually waking them up.

Until an enemy wakes, they will usually not move and not attack, nor make noise. You do not lose sanity if you leave the room with a 'sleeping' enemy.

Enemies do not persist across room transitions. That is to say if you leave the room and come back, it will be a newly determined spawn (but potentially of the same monster type). In boss rooms the enemy will remain the same type, although it is technically a new enemy with its health filled.

The game prefers to not spawn in enemies where you're looking. Generally. For fixed spawns such as bosses and nests, there is no checking for this and it is possible to enter the room on top of them taking damage upon entering. For normal rooms if you enter from the left or right side, you probably won't see any enemies until you are near halfway.

Ambushes

Enemies can spawn randomly 'ambushing' you when you cross the threshold of the middle of the room. They are not constrained by any rules when doing so; for example you could have cleared out all of the dungeon leading up to that point and they will still appear to come out of nowhere.
Note that Hoppers and Spitters spawning behind you might hit you if you keep running without responding. You really just have to be prepared to react quickly in any room.

At any point while moving in your car there is a chance you get stopped for a random encounter.
There are a number of possible encounters all listed here. Generally encounters have two choices with multiple random outcomes for each choice, as well as a third choice that can be used if you have a specific item in your inventory (the item does not need to be one of your 3 equipped ones). This third choice is always positive and pretty much always the best if you can afford to do so.

Prefer: Tell the truth if on a one-shot challenge, because you can take health damage from lying.

Choice: Tell a lie

Outcome 1) Attacked
The priest assaults you, you take a few points of health damage.

Outcome 2) Nothing
The priest doesn't believe you, no stat changes occur.

Prefer: Leave, but consider chancing it if you are really struggling with low sanity.

Choice: Come in and listen
3 outcomes, 1/3 odds each

Outcome 1) Defiance
The community remains strong, major sanity boost (approx. 20-40)

Outcome 2: Shrieking vicar
Minor sanity loss (approx 5-10)

Outcome 3: Hostile sermon
You get kidnapped losing an hour of time and transported across the map to a dungeon with Escape objective.

Choice: Get back on the road (1 outcome)
Outcome: Leave

"I find myself outside a small garage..."
The mechanic offers to increase your car speed for 15 pounds, and at the cost of 2 hours.

Prefer: If you have the time and money this is good, the earlier in the run the better.

Choice: Accept the offer (1 outcome)
Lose 2 hours of time and 15 pounds.
If your car has been wrecked, it will fully be restored to its original base speed but doesn't get extra (this is actually very helpful)
otherwise, car speed +0.2 (todo: update to mph.)

Choice: Reject
Leaves the event

"I was drawn by the sight of illuminated windows and discovered a petrol station..."

Prefer: Going inside, because if you get attacked and don't want to fight you can return to the car easily. Though I wouldn't risk it with low HP or on a 1-hit challenge.

Choice: Forget it and leave
Leaves the event

Choice: Continue inside

Outcome: Attacked
Random combat encounter with enemies.

Outcome: Corpse picked clean with note
You get info on an enemy operation in a random town.

"An emergency clinic has been set up in the waiting area of a local hospital..."

Not to be confused with the emergency hospital, which can go wrong, this will always work out well for you.

Regardless of your choice, there is always a chance you get another encounter as you leave, the Organ Transplant.

Choice: Receive treatment
Costs 5 pounds
Treats bleeding and broken limbs, maxes out health (Can trigger for Hospital Drama achievement.)

Prefer: If you need any of these things this is a steal so consider the event a blessing.

Choice: Back to car
Leaves the event.

"An emergency hospital has been set up here, and it is in rather desperate condition."
Not to be confused with the emergency clinic, this event has negative outcomes even if you pay.

Regardless of what you pick, there is a chance you get offered the organ transplant encounter afterwards.

Prefer: Definitely worth it if you need a bone fixed, otherwise weigh health recovery against potential sanity loss.

Choice: back to car
Leaves the event

Choice: Receive treatment
2 outcomes

Outcome 1) Not enough anesthetic
Lose about 30 minutes
Broken limbs and bleeding are treated, health is maxed. Minor sanity loss (5-10)

Outcome 2) Some scarring
Lose about 30 minutes
Broken limbs and bleeding are treated, health is maxed. Scarring is just flavor text.

"As I was passing a seemingly functional hospital, the front doors burst open"...

Escapee has a friend still in the hospital, you are offered a hostage rescue mission.

Prefer: If you're in good enough shape to do the dungeon, hostage rescue objectives are among the safest to get which makes it a lucrative opportunity.

Choice: Run back to car
Leaves encounter

Choice: Agree to go in
Outcome: Enters a hospital dungeon with the Hostage Rescue objective

"As I was leaving, I was stopped by a member of staff with a plastic cooler box"
You're asked to transplant an organ. This gives you a Delivery sidequest.

Choice: Refuse
Leaves the event.

Choice: Accept
Gives a delivery sidequest to a random town. Should be anywhere from 8-12 hours to get there.

Potential outcomes only happen upon reaching the town: either you deliver the organ legit (+30 or so pounds) or it turns out to be a cultist which gives you the option of tracking into a dungeon.

A random item is generated, as far as I can tell it should always be one you don't have. If you have every item, your only option will be to leave.

Prefer: If the item helps, buy it if you can afford it. In case you don't see this item again, it's worth stealing if you can't afford it, but the potentially broken leg will likely cost more cash down the line (so weigh that accordingly).

Choice: Buy it
You pay the amount specified and get the item.

Choice: Decline and leave
Leaves the event.

Choice: Grab it and run
2 outcomes

Outcome 1) Get away safely
You get the item for free.

Outcome 2) Take a bat to the leg
You still get the item, but you get a broken leg.

In any game there will be three ancients in play. Each ancient has its own

1) name (Chzo, Kthoth, Byarla, Gnix)
2) color (Red, yellow, orange, purple, white)
3) rune (BTI, SHM, EU, KZ, AGN)
4) aspect (Pain, Madness, Fear, Disease, Lust)

There is always one god who is invading, one god who is allied with the invading god, and one god against the other two.


The banishment ritual is the most important part of completing a run successfully. It is always comprised of four runes. Three of them will be 'fixed', where you are explicitly told what rune they are, and none of these three will repeat each other. However, one of the four will be the rune of the invading god: for example if the complete banishment ritual is
EU KZ (God's rune) SHM
and the invading god is Chzo with the rune AGN, then the banishment ritual would be
EU KZ AGN SHM

It is possible for the god's rune to be one of the runes already in the sequence. If Chzo is AGN, you could also get a banishment ritual that goes:

AGN KZ AGN (<-- God's rune) EU


Some clues aren't explained directly in game and will not be recorded in your journal automatically.
But they can be vital for identifying the invader in time.

Every dungeon is 'controlled' by one of the three ancients in play.

Runes on the walls

You may notice some runes on the walls, that when inspected tell you the name of the rune and what it might mean. First note that you can cast that rune as a spell nearby and it has a chance to give you sanity. But in terms of a clue, the rune will always be the color of the god controlling the dungeon.

Cultist shield colors also indicate the color of the god indicating the dungeon. Within Stonehenge, cultist shield colors should be that of the invading god. (It's possible that they could also be that of the god's ally, but I don't remember ever seeing this.)

In the final hours before the invasion, the symbols on the walls of the Banishment Chamber in Stonehenge will start glowing of the color of the invading god. Also, the corpse within that room is guaranteed to be a victim of the invading god.

Corpses give a hint towards what ancient is influencing the area. Note that in Stonehenge, it's possible that the effects are from the allied god and not the invader itself (exception noted in next section).

Corpse descriptions that belong to pain
- ... "as if something was eating from the inside"
- ... "silent scream of agony"
Corpse descriptions that belong to fear
- ... "blisters on feet, running as if for no regard for the pain"*
*Be careful that you don't mistake this for pain itself, despite the use of the word.
Corpse descriptions that belong to disease
- "scarcely recognizable"
- "lttle more than oozing deformity:"
Corpse descriptions that belong to madness
- "I'd swear the wounds were self-inflicted"
- "...abstract symbols"
Corpse descriptions that belong to lust
- "... repeatedly violated in unspeakable ways"
- "... due to exhaustion"

It's important to note that within Stonehenge you might encounter corpses affected by different gods; for example you may find a corpse that shows signs of the Pain ancient being responsible. That does not necessarily indicate what god is invading; Stonehenge can also contain signs of the invading god's ally.

What does indicate the god's aspect is the corpse in the final chamber, after descending the ladder. This should always match the invading god and serve as a last confirmation that your clues or correct -- or a warning that you've made a critical error and may need to go over your notes again.


It's possible and having played the game a lot I have experienced this a few times. For example I have had:
Chzo is identified with EU
Yushg is an enemy of Chzo
Yushg is identified with KZ/white
Byarla is an enemy of Chzo
Byarla is identified orange/disease
but
EU is marked as a prayer in white (not insult)

So the rune indicates EU is allied with or belongs to the god of white color, but the clues explicitly state that Chzo is EU and Chzo is an enemy of both. Indeed Chzo's color is yellow...

I've also had a funnier one:

The rune EU is associated with the color red
EU is written as a curse in red (apparently this god hates itself)

This is a really, really nasty bug to have in a game where you are expected to make logical deductions. What you should remember: the clues in your logbook will always be superior to contextual environment clues, so if you have contradictions, ignore whatever is not in your clue logbook. This seems to primarily be an issue with the runes, so runes should be considered unreliable.

With all different clues in mind, here are some deduction rules:
- If a god is allied with another, you know that one of those two gods is the invading one.
- If you see an upside-down "insult" rune, that means there is an active god of the color of that rune, and there is a separate active god that the rune belongs to. And these two are enemies.

The ancient fight is surprisingly uncomplicated compared to how the end game can often play out, and after a few goes the fight should come easily. Just make sure you don't walk into the black smoke the ancient is occupying -- you'll die instantly. The right half of the screen has a black background so it can be hard to tell where it is, but at that point you shouldn't be pushing that far ahead anyways.

At its core, the fight is a tug of war and whoever pushes the other to the end side will win.


Spawning a monster
What monster it is depends on the aspect of the god you are banishing.

Madness - Spawns two small buzzers. One thing to watch out for is that there are decent odds they spawn in the same spot and move as one so you can't tell there are two. Just make sure that you don't push into it after killing one because there might be another one behind it.

Fear - Single buzzer

Tendrils
The ancient sends tendrils out to your home side. When they reach the left side they will latch onto the wall.

Sometimes the tendrils will be far enough out that you cannot get at them both while they travel and while latched. When this happens you have to wait for them to shimmy back towards the center of the wall.

When you counter the ancient's spell cast, all of the currently attached tendrils will detach from the wall for a second which will also move them towards the center. This still doesn't guarantee that they will land in a reachable area. But they should pretty much always be reachable after two counter spells.

Rarely you will just get really unlucky and the ancient will throw some unreachable tendrils while it's already really close. The only way to survive this is to prevent this scenario from occurring outright by never giving the Ancient too much ground.

Normal bullets take two hits to kill tendrils, hollow points will one shot them.

Eyes
The effect the eye has will depend on what aspect the god is.
Madness - The screen is filled with the insanity static, even when you're in your spell menu.
Pain - Your health rapidly reduces to 1 (does nothing when health is already 1)
Disease - Spitter projectiles will fire from the ceiling
Lust - You get pulled towards the boss.

Incantation
The Ancient will incant 3 runes. You have to respond with those same 3 before it casts. If it succeeds it will get a huge chunk of territory on you. If you succeed, the Ancient loses a ton of territory, and any latched tendrils will detach for a moment. If you cast a different spell while the ancient is casting, it will start casting again but with different runes.



Scholar and the Ministry Man

I prefer to stick with melee here as bullets can be surprisingly inconsistent in this game considering how precious they are. You will probably get more mileage out of using the bullets on approaching enemies and also on far away eyes. Not a bad idea to use them on the tendrils either though.

Wizard

Apparently the proximity to so much magic allows for the Wizard to cast spells without cost. Take advantage of this; obliterate enemies with Mass Death or Circle of Death as often as you'd like. If you have bullets left when you're fighting, save them for when one of the attacks is giving you trouble. It's reasonably likely that a few eyes that pop up will be out of your immediate reach and it helps to immediately delete them.

Warrior

As always the fighter is fun button mashing, nothing really changes here. Don't forget you can melee the tendrils out of the air while they're still trying to latch on the wall, so try to do that as much as you can so you don't have to run back and forth so much. If a monster is still really close to the ancient, be careful about running too far and getting killed by the Ancient.

Successfully banish and survive the ancient, while your current sanity is above a quarter of maximum. Any sanity from narcotics counts towards that total, so even if you're at 1 sanity before Stonehenge if you take a syringe you will probably be fine -- even if you lose some in the dungeon.


Just as Ending A, successfully banish the Ancient and survive the battle afterwards. However, you get Ending B if your sanity is less than a quarter of its maximum. Again, sanity granted by narcotics is included in this count, which is something to be aware of if you are specifically targeting this ending.


Successfully banish the ancient but die at any point in the final battle. Oh well. It still counts as a completion for the completion achievements, and you will still get a decent amount of XP, so you're still much better off for having tried.


Cast the Ritual of Banishment in the final chamber, but the God's rune you use is not that of the invading Ancient. The rune does not have to be one of the ones in play i.e neither of the other two gods are using it.

The clock strikes 0 while you are inside a dungeon. This shares its achievement with ending F so either will do.

The clock strikes zero while you are in the car (driving or not). This shares its achievement with ending E.


Any death in game before getting to the battle with the Ancient will trigger this (unless you get a different ending). You get pitiful XP for this one.

Looks like: Lumpy lady without a head
Damages on touch: No

The cougher will deal toxic damage in a frontal cone when you get close. It takes a second to charge.

The first cough will always hit you if you try to run past, because the first will always 'charge up' faster. Bait out a cough by approaching it until it stops moving, then quickly retreat. After that first cough, run to its back. You want to be close enough to melee but not too close as the cough can hit you from behind if you're too close. Start whacking it, and every time it coughs rotate to its back the same way, repeating the process until it dies.

Looks like: Also a lumpy lady without a head

Spitters fire a projectile which deals toxic damage. The projectile will be destroyed if it takes any damage, and you will not take damage if you melee the projectile out of the air.

Spitters are dangerous especially for how common they are. If they are out of sight when they attack it is much harder to destroy or avoid their projectiles. Unless you are hastily leaving the room, try to kill them before they get out of your sight.

Looks like: The pope
Damages on touch: No

Cultists spawn with a shield color matching the god controlling the current dungeon, and this shield makes them mostly invulnerable (armor piercing rounds will ignore the shield). They walk around the room until they decide to start casting a two-rune spell. The casting process will pause completely while you are in your own spell menu.

The spell they cast will either be a circle of death, or a summon of a generic small monster (cougher, spitter, hopper etc.) It's possible for the summon to spawn right on top of you and damage you instantly, so it is a bad idea to let it go through.

Fortunately we can cancel the spell completely, and doing so also cancels their shield. To counter the spell you need to cast the same spell they are casting when both runes have appeared. After the shield has broken they will go down in a few melees. It's only a short period of time before they cast again though.

Because they can't hurt you without casting, and they are easy to counter, Cultists are basically just (potential) loot piñatas. Just be careful about the ones that have buzzer eggs in them, as it can be hard to hear over their footsteps sometimes -- giving a bit of space when you kill them is never a bad idea.

Looks like: A big wasp or bee thing
Damages on touch: Yes, except during i-frames

Buzzers hover in air and then charge. If you melee them during the charge that will stop them in place but they have a short period of invincibility when taking damage. The timing on swatting them out of a charge can be deceptively tight, and if you haven't mastered that, it's never a bad idea to make distance and wait for them to reach the end of their charge before attacking.

Looks like: floating lumpy circle
Damages on touch: Always

Breaks into 2 or 3 little floaters when you kill it. These are the problem causers. If a mini floater goes too far off screen it will despawn outright - this applies on an individual basis so you might have to deal with less or none of them.

The mini floaters are especially unpredictable and love to change direction on a snap. For this reason if I'm low on health I will never take on a floater (just leave the room). When you are facing them, I would generally recommend moving away from the mini floaters as you melee them. This does require having an idea of the timing on when they will arrive.

Floaters are even more dangerous for the Warrior. Sometimes you might not even have the time to melee all 3 in succession. Consider (bravely) running away.

Looks like; Smushed dude crawling on the ceiling like Spider-Man
Damages on touch: No, but the puke spawns from the head so running past while it is attacking will cause damage.

Like the Spitters, Pukers can be especially dangerous when they're not in flashlight range because it's hard to tell if a projectile will hit you or not. Therefore we don't want to lose track of them, and if you see one handle it promptly but cautiously.

You cannot reliably protect yourself by meleeing the projectiles out of the air as there are too many spawning too fast. You might be able to get some at the edge, but don't count on it.

In most cases these guys should be your highest priority to kill first.

Looks like: Lumpy bubbly thing crawling on its stomach.
Damages on touch: No

The top will appear to bubble and a little bug enemy will pop out. When a Birther dies it will also spawn three bugs (two jumpers and one mini buzzer). Avoiding damage from this is annoying and inconsistent (if you're meleeing them you are almost guaranteed to take damage), so birthers are arguably more dangerous than Big Birthers and generally not worth fighting. But since they do not damage on touch you should be able to flee without much trouble.


Looks like: Doesn't have anything resembling a gender but posed legs splayed out like a pregnant woman giving birth. Very lumpy with a head sticking out. Not to be confused with a regular birther.
Damages on touch: No

Big Birthers will... 'birth'... a series of 3 parasites, which can be swatted away in one hit each.
They have a lot of health too, and can take half a clip or more of standard pistol rounds. Circle of Death / Mass Death still instantly kills them, so they are probably one of the best uses for the spell.

As a pseudo-boss, you will see them as single enemies in local leader extermination quests, or as a part of larger groups in congregate rooms for extermination objectives in late game. You may also find them in trapped Stonehenge rooms.

Looks like: A pudding with limbs sticking out
Damages on touch: Yes

Not only does the Morass damage on touch it has a deceptively large cough attack. To avoid taking damage you basically have to start sprinting away the moment it starts squishing up and preparing its spray. Otherwise, it can be meleed relatively safely from the side, but try and use the maximum reach of your melee.

When a Morass dies it will spew out a cough for a while and it is still dangerous while it's going. (TODO) I am not sure if this lingering damage area is counted as physical or toxic damage. Make sure it has completely vanished before you walk through the area it was occupying.

Looks like: A tree.
Damages on touch: Yes

It has one main attack. Rumbling will appear on the floor or ceiling nearby you, and after some time a spiked root tip will emerge. If your body is over any part of the root then you will take damage. A sort of fleshy lump will be on the end which you can quickly shoot or melee twice; doing so will break the lump and the tree will take damage, even if it's not really indicated that the tree itself is being damaged. Note that you can still be damaged by the root even after it's emerged and even after you've destroyed the flesh part, so stand clear.

Some roots will move to track you down, others will barely move, so just watch your footing. Also note that the hitbox can be deceptively large, so stand a good distance away from the root.

As the tree gets more desperate and closer to death it will start spawning them quickly so they begin to overlap, just stay moving and take opportunities to break them as you see them.

The tree appears as a potential boss enemy for the 'local leader' objective, and can appear in trapped locked rooms in Stonehenge. In the Descent mode, you will sometimes find one guarding the ladder down to the next floor.

When you complete a dungeon by fulfilling the objective, there is a possibility that a hunter enemy begins pursuit. This is indicated by your objective being updated after the "return to your car" text, with something ominous like "GET OUT" or "ESCAPE" etc. The background music will change corresponding to the stalker enemy. While the stalker is active, you cannot use Escape Dungeon from the menu. Since the indicating text often appears a few seconds late, the inability to escape the dungeon can be an early sign of the pursuer.

Note that you are always safe from any hunter enemy when you are in the 'entrance room' of a dungeon. They will never follow you into the entrance or spawn in the entrance. Since normal enemies can spawn in the entrance room, you should always slow down so you don't sprint into unnecessary damage. Also note that while the chase music stops upon reaching the entrance room, the stalker enemy will still be active if you go return to the depths of the dungeon.

Appearance: The fat man appears as a man in a hat who is fat.
Musical cue: Slow synth pounding like a heart beat.

Probably the easiest one to manage. When you enter a room, a few moments later the Fat Man will follow through the door you entered the room from. He walks quite slowly, but you can tell he is in the room because he laughs constantly. If you get too close he will melee you which does do a decent chunk of damage, but it also stops him from moving for a second.

He can be killed and consistently drops loot. When killed he will be gone for the rest of the dungeon, and you will even be able to use Escape Dungeon again. If you are able to kill him without spending resources or taking damage, it can be worth it (on China Shop challenge he will die to a single punch or even a bullet). If you know what you're doing you can just keep your distance and whack him while slowly moving back to your car.

Appearance: Lanky
Sound cue: oooooo

Follows you through the last door you entered. Does very fast health damage when you're too close, although this is direct health damage that does not reduce sanity. He is essentially unkillable and there is no point in damaging him because he does not suffer knockback and does not grant file progress from taking damage (a bug).

Appearance: Giant male head that vertically fills the room
Musical cue: Sounds like wind rushing

The Overseer spawns at one end of the room and advances slowly through the hallway with a cracking noise. If you're too close to him he will snap at you with his mouth. There's a decent chance the Overseer actually spawns where you're trying to go, because the spawn is random each room. In that case you'll need to detour through a different room. You should have enough time to cross an entire hallway horizontally before he appears, so unless you are delayed by enemies he shouldn't be a problem at all. In practice then, when the overseer is out to play you want to move through rooms methodically but with haste. You can melee him but this is unhelpful as it doesn't push him far enough back to be worth it. You can shoot him to push him near the edge of the room, which is not a bad way to use a bullet. I'm not sure about magic.

If you get stuck inside the Overseer you will take a major hit to both sanity and health, will lose about 3 hours of your remaining time, and will be transported to a random town. In the Descent, you will be sent to the start of the floor if this happens, and also given the option to change or keep the floor's layout for your new attempt. The harsh penalty for being caught means you should try very hard not to be.

Appearance: Varied, but always floating, and always flickering like a specter.
Musical cue: Frantic noise

If they touch you you'll take a good chunk of health and sanity damage.
Ghosts make a distinct groaning sound while they are in the room. They will come from either end. Although there are a few different sprites for them, they always flicker. Ghosts look different from any other enemies (If you encounter a familiar looking enemy that seems to flicker, that is actually a Beyonder.) Usually, they should only take a hit before dissipating entirely. Note ghosts plural, as they are not stopped by killing them, and you should expect one in about every room you visit. If you are fast they shouldn't get in your way too much. There is no sanity penalty for leaving any of them behind so get moving.

On their own they shouldn't pose a problem for most players, but they can viciously complicate rooms containing a swarm of enemies.

For any given day, things will be pretty much the same for the Scholar, Wizard and Fighter. So you can play on one character, get the banishment ritual and spells for one, and it will work on the others. That's great for farming XP.

Ministry Man has the same modifiers as the others and I believe the same spells, but because he gets the entire banishment ritual he gets a completely different ritual to begin with. You can't just look at his and then sprint down to Stonehenge on another character, so don't waste your time.


You start the game with an untreatable bleeding wound.

This just means that you have the Bleeding status effect but it can't be cured in any way (no option at hospital and restoration does nothing). Events that would normally cause it (ie bad random encounter outcomes) will just do nothing because effects can't stack.

The challenge here is more about the bigger picture of how you choose to navigate the road map. Though you should be careful to leave a dungeon with enough health to get to a hospital if you don't have a filled medkit.

In practice you play pretty much normally, but it is more important than usual to keep your medkit stocked. Try and shy away from using the finding supplies option in safe towns (1. because its an hour of damage, 2. because you should save money to always have enough for medkit refills)

Note that damage still ticks in any event where you lose time, including being interrogated by police (6 hrs) being kidnapped (2-6 hrs) getting lost or consumed by an Overseer etc. I suppose the police just call your bluff when you say you need medical attention. Regardless make decisions in random encounters accordingly -- hey, there's a neat little section right in this guide that tells you all their potential outcomes...

You have no dungeon map and town status is not displayed on the road map

By town status it means you can't see green if a town is friendly, and you won't see red to indicate a town is cursed. You can still determine this easily when you actually drive close though. You also can't see the X marking a cursed town has been cleared. Another thing you can't see is the orange square that normally indicates side quest destinations -- you should make sure to jot down the name of a town if you get a text sidequest worth following up on.

Start with Body Armour and a Breathing mask but the medkit cannot be refilled.

On one of my Caution Advised runs, the medkit started empty. On another it started full. I have no idea why.

Both of the hospital events (makeshift hospital and clinic) will still heal you to maximum if you pay, and for the makeshift hospital you will still be healed to maximum even if you get the 'bad outcome'. Don't count on these events actually appearing in your run though.

You cannot enter Stonehenge until 10 cursed towns have been saved

Ironically despite the name this pretty much necessitates leaving people behind, and by that I mean you want to let side quests run out of time on purpose so the town falls to shadow. Completing enemy operations does not count towards this total; having completed 9 dungeons I found that doing an enemy operation for my tenth resulted in Stonehenge remaining closed. So then, this 10 cursed towns is only counting the towns marked on your map with the red circle.

There is no unique flavor text for visiting Stonehenge before then, you just don't have the option to enter.

[For the Scholar and Ministry Man only.]
Play by the rules of the Warrior; you cannot buy or scavenge ammunition
Not mentioned: Start with no ammo
Not so bad considering these two are plenty capable melee only. Both of these characters can get the Bull birth sign which caps at +100% melee damage. But if you're doing challenges starting with the harder ones first, this is a decent one to save for last as it is straightforward to get through when you're out of birth stars.

Everything dies in one hit, including you.

While yourself dying in one hit is applied very consistently, other enemies dying in one hit is not.
Overseer and Tall Man remain unkillable. Ghosts will usually take multiple hits. The Fat Man does get one shot, and you should use that bullet not just to get him off your tail (he is fully removed from the dungeon when killed) but for a decent shot at loot. The ancient one's tendrils do get one shot which can make the fight a lot less tedious.

I'd recommend you read advice on Scourge of the Ancients below before getting into this one. All of that information will be invaluable here. I would strongly recommend you do this one after Scourge, half because it's satisfying to get revenge on those little ♥♥♥♥♥ and half because you won't form bad habits from being able to one shot enemies.

The Hunter becomes especially good here.

Armor piercing rounds become amazing, hollow points are no longer worth the extra cash (but since your bullets one shot anyways, having more is better!). Minion leaders and even nests are realistically doable here if you have fast reflexes and some luck, but I would avoid doing them late into a good run because there is always the risk of instant death.

You should still minimize time spent in dungeons and use the escape option whenever possible; hoppers and the like can still pose basically unavoidable doom if you get unlucky with a spawn.

Some challenges are specific to certain characters so I am putting them in their own section since all of the challenges won't fit in one guide section anyways.

You take 10% more damage for each clue and you cannot use the notebook.

The notebook we can easily live without with a scrap of paper and a pen. I prefer to use Steam's Note feature which you can access from the SHIFT+TAB overlay. Super helpful and will persist across sessions also.

The problem is that getting clues is random. If you're moving very methodically through dungeons and opening every loot container, you will get a ton of clues and take a ton of damage. But of course it's not unusual to need a fair amount of clues to be able to identify the ancient you need to banish. There's a lot of luck there, be prepared to restart.

For birth stars then, I would stack mostly health, 60 will help a lot. It sounds overkill but late game you will be taking extreme amounts of damage. I would highly recommend setting aside some cash so you can always refill the medkit if needed (you will burn through supplies late game).



You cannot use the medkit, but you regenerate health for dodging

It's one health for dodging. A singular point. If you're inexperienced with the Warrior you're probably going to take more damage trying to do the dodge anyways. As a result I strongly recommend you avoid combat whenever possible, playing as if it were China Shop or Scourge of the Ancients challenge. To that end, you should read the Scourge of the Ancients challenge guide for advice on avoiding damage.

If you are experienced with the Warrior, yes you can farm a single enemy to refill your health to full if you know what you're doing (going back and forth and abusing the invincibility frames).

Runes will degrade more slowly, but you cannot purchase ammunition or use illegal drugs.

You still start the game with a full magazine of 9mm, and you can still scavenge ammunition of all types from loot drops. You do not start with any syringes, and although you can buy more syringes you cannot use them, so don't waste your cash.

Our biggest concern here is sanity, because we want ending A. We need to end the game with at least a quarter of our maximum sanity. What this challenge is pushing you towards is to stand and fight in as many encounters as you can, and use circle of death to do so.

Although Dark Vision is generally a really helpful spell, there is one thing to be careful of. If your runes degrade renewing them will probably drain your sanity, because you won't be able to enter rooms without monsters waking up. While this can happen to the Wizard in any run, it normally wouldn't be a concern because of how strong narcotics are at mitigating low sanity, but we don't have those here.

You start with 10 lockpicks and a locksmith's kit, but keys do not spawn in dungeons.

Straightforward and definitely the easiest of the challenges. You can still scavenge lockpicks from enemies and loot chests. 10 lockpicks should be more than enough, but it would still be prudent to avoid picking locks until you've exhausted all of the other unlocked rooms in the dungeon.

This challenge warranted its own section as due to the merciless nature of the mode there are a lot of things you want to be aware of that might not need mention in other areas of the game.

First, be aware this mode sort of sucks, even if you like high difficulty. The game is not polished enough for one-shot combat to work well. You will notice every source of damage, and there is a lot of damage that just happens due to bugs.

You die in one hit and the game world begins at maximum threat level

What this means: You have 1 health at all times regardless of any health bonuses. A higher threat level means you will see the most dangerous enemies at the start, with Pukers, Birthers, Beyonders and Gasbags in play from the get-go, cultists moving at max speed, etc. Dungeons will be at their most complex and sprawling, and you should expect stalker enemies after most objective completions.

You have to play Scourge completely differently than the other modes, but you will improve at the game a lot.

- Be very deliberate in your movement; traverse rooms with intention. Don't forget about potential 'ambushes' when you cross the middle of the room.
- Abuse the fact that you can leave and re-enter rooms. Make fights fair by always avoiding ones that risk you dying. Get used to playing with low sanity so you can have it drop without worrting.
- Do not hesitate to abandon towns to the shadow and flee. Getting any clues or spells from a dungeon is still a big help even if you can't follow through with the objective. The hour penalty for escaping a dungeon via menu is often worth it.
- >>Avoid vertical doors<< whenever possible as they have a tendency to place you in danger you do not have time to react to (the action starts earlier when going vertically for whatever reason). Vertical doors have a chance of locking out your input or disabling your gun for whatever reason. And it is not uncommon for rooms to have enemies in the doorway when you enter vertically, which means instant death.
- Be very careful when a stalker enemy is chasing you. Move as fast as you can without reaching a speed where you will sprint right into a lethal hit from an enemy hidden in the room. Don't forget you can weave between rooms to reset the timer on the stalker's appearance.
- It's a very good idea to have a 'return route' to the entrance of a dungeon planned in case you get a stalker enemy (which is likely). It helps to have rooms that have 3 or 4 doors because you can weave in and out to avoid stalkers and force enemy respawns.
- There are times where it can be helpful to fire a bullet to light up a room. (For example, when you're trying to get away from a stalker and want to check if you are safe to sprint.) Some enemies like Cultists do not always activate even when being shot.

Pick objectives carefully:
- Dimensional rift & Occult text recoveries are our favourites because the objective rooms tend to be less dangerous.
- Hostage rescue is good, but make sure you have some bullets in case a hostage turns. This makes it more dangerous for the Warrior but usually survivable if you know what you're doing
- AVOID nests; because of bad dungeon generation it is possible and likely that the nest rooms will deal damage to you upon entering. If you have to do a nest objective (I would usually just prefer to guess the banishment ritual) armor-piercing rounds are very helpful and you should keep your distance.


It's probably a good idea to practice battling the ancient in other difficulties if you're not very comfortable with it already; it's enough of a struggle to even get to Stonehenge so why not try to go the distance to ending A?

Stay at the very left side of the wall. Press up against it, but face the right -- you can set up in this position as the banishment animation happens, so run over as soon as you cast the ritual spell. Melee all tendrils as they come. Shoot enemies and eyes immediately, try to avoid moving from your wall. And pray. Some are a lot harder to fight than others depending on what enemies they spawn.

Unfortunately the Warrior has a much, much harder time with this (as if he didn't for the rest of the run.. jeez) because Floaters and Spitters are disproportionately harder for him to fight against and that's on top of all of the other chaos that can happen during the fight. Expect to die during the fight on your first try.

In the Daily Challenge and the Descent, you will be faced with a variety of challenge modifiers. Most are unique to these modes.

Start at 0 sanity

Annoying, but remember there is no penalty from reading texts or fleeing combat when you're already at 0.

It is permanently night

I am still not sure what this actually does. I think it might affect the light visibility in dungeons but I really struggle to tell.

Health and sanity bars are invisible

This includes the numbers on the bars, so you have no feedback on your health or sanity, and you cannot check them in your car either.

Your overall time is reduced by one quarter

Not too bad to get. The Ministry Man starts with 18 hours left.

You cannot see the status of different towns.

Unlike the Amnesiac challenge you don't lose the dungeon map. So this isn't nearly as bad but it can still be dangerous - mainly if you need the hospital but don't know where to find it. Just try and note any safe towns as you see them.

Towns where you have been alerted to enemy operations forming, or deliveries, will still say as such when you are actually pathing to them on the GPS, it just doesn't display as an icon on the map.

Hunter monsters will appear in every dungeon

Hunter enemies will randomly appear in dungeons before you have completed the objective. The hunter that spawns will be random.

Start with a broken arm and a broken leg.

In a hospital you can only treat one at a time, and that will always be the arm first. So annoyingly, you will have to pay 10 to fix the arm before you can treat the leg. (it's generally much more important to fix the leg).

Equipment items cannot be purchased at shops

Illegal drugs cannot be used

Player has a permanent anxiety effect

Player does not receive texts or Ministry jobs

Ammunition cannot be purchased from shops

Equipment items cannot be purchased from shops

All player attacks do half damage

General tips and advice for the achievements that are not hidden on Steam.

See the Endings section for more details on how to get each ending. You can do this on any character in any mode.


There are a LOT of these. Each character has one achievement for each challenge, which requires completion of the challenge. By completion the achievement means Ending A, B or C. Failing to banish the Ancient, dying, or banishing the wrong Ancient will not count.

In the Challenges section of this guide numerous helpful details for each challenge, with character specific details where relevant. There's also a section that covers the character specific challenges.

Cast the correct banishment ritual

This is just doing the game properly. Reach Stonehenge, get to the final chamber of Banishment, and cast the Ritual of Banishment, using the rune belonging to the invading Ancient.

Reach level 10 with any character

Straightforward but quite grindy. Level and XP is separate per character. If you're doing challenges for different characters, you should be most of the way there by the time you're done. The XP needed for level up increases a lot around level 8. You will get the most XP by getting a lot done in a run (clearing dungeons, killing monsters etc.) and then getting Ending A or B.

Because Daily Challenges are deterministic based on the date, you can take notes on different clues and good dungeons to run and then repeatedly do that for the day.

Rescue 20 unbrainwashed survivors

This accumulates over time so you don't have to do it within one run.

If a hostage pulls a gun on you, you can actually just leave the room and come back. This seems to re-roll the RNG of them being turned or not, so you can do it again. (In fact, the final hostage I rescued for this achievement was brainwashed the first time, and re-entering the room by accident led me to discover this quirk).

Either way, this will probably happen naturally if you're achievement hunting.


Achieve ending A for all four player characters

You first have to unlock the other player characters (see the section on Characters for how). Then you need to get ending A on each of them. You can do this in any challenge mode, so this will probably happen without effort if you're doing the challenge mode achievements.

Decrypt 100% of the bestiary

By "bestiary" it means the "files" tab when you select a character. Monster files are shared across all of your characters. If you're trying to progress the fastest then the Scholar has the birth sign The Priest which gives percentage increase on file progress. You get file progress for a specific enemy every time it spawns, and you also get file progress every time you damage it. It's something like 0.2% each.

The Tall Man has bugged progression. For whatever reason he does not give any progress when damaged. Arghhhhhh. Your best bet is probably to stack birth stars on The Priest as the scholar and then hope you get lucky enough to see him. Unfortunately I am currently unsure if moving between rooms will trigger this.

Lose a total of 1000 sanity points

Should happen on its own while you're playing, but if you need to speed this up you can just cast random combinations of runes, and incorrect combinations will tank your sanity. You can't cast spells while your sanity is very low so you would have to keep restarting the game if you're doing this.

Heal a total of 1000 points with the medkit

Should also happen on its own. If you're trying to hurt yourself intentionally in a dungeon to heal more, you should probably stay close to the entrance if you're going to get critically wounded.




Treat bleeding while you are less than 5 health

You can do this at any hospital, and random encounter hospitals count (emergency clinic or shady emergency hospital). If you're hunting this one, wait until you inevitably get the bleeding effect, then find your way to a nearby green town, and drive back and forth a little bit.

Wise Scourge, Magic Scourge, Cunning Scourge

See the Challenges section for a guide on how to do this mode without dying so fast.

Like the other challenge achievements, 'completion' requires you to successfully banish the invading ancient. You do not need to survive or get ending A for completion - that's only needed for the A rank.
Getting the ending for banishing the wrong ancient does not count.

A number of achievements in this game are "hidden" on steam, so here they are listed with guides.

Kill a cultist with a death spell

Use either Mass Death or Circle of Death to kill a cultist TODO I believe their shields need to be lowered for this to work. The Wizard starts with these spells.

Get through Stonehenge with the Exhaust Muffler equipped

The Exhaust Muffler is useless in a dungeon but you shouldn't need any items to navigate Stonehenge. Just make it to the banishing chamber and the achievement should pop before you even cast the ritual.

Shoot a total of 20 enemies to death while under the influence of anxiety

Tracked across runs. Anxiety can trigger any time you lose sanity, and it makes your gun wildly inaccurate. To actually hit stuff in this state you want to be close but not too close to the enemy you're trying to hit. Bigger enemies like large floaters and coughers will probably always get hit. Probably.

Attempt suicide a total of 4 times in one game

When your sanity is low some buttons in towns and events will flicker between their usual uses and "kill myself". Clicking that starts the suicide minigame which requires you to prevent your gun reaching your head by clicking fast. You pull your gun down less per click each time. If you have no ammo at all the gun will fail to shoot. Or surviving long enough will automatically end the minigame.

Inject drugs a total of 3 times in one game

This isn't particularly hard but it's not as simple as it might seem. You can't use drugs while you are currently influenced by them (indicated by your sanity bar filled with yellow). While under their effects you take reduced sanity loss as well. The effects fade over time.

Kill an enemy within half a second of them spawning behind you

Enemies can spawn 'behind you' when you cross the middle of the room (assuming you entered from the left or right side). Try shooting them ideally with hollowpoints and going for another shot or a quick melee to finish them off.

Have 200 pounds in unspent cash

You just need a bunch of money, so scavenge through as many dungeons as you can. Don't forget the Ministry Man starts with 100. Otherwise use the Wizard to save on hospital costs.

Discover a spell by incanting randomly

This does work if you just guess a completely random combination of runes, but it doesn't need to be remotely uncertain. Both Restoration and Mass Death have 'lower level' versions (healing touch and Circle of Death). If your character knows those but not the lower level one, just cast the spell without the first rune and you'll get the lower level one.

But this works because of the way spells are generated at the start of the game. See the Spells section for how you can determine spell combinations with different ones.

As the Ministry Man, banish Chzo, the God of Pain

In reference to the Chzo Mythos games. This is RNG; there is no guarantee Chzo appears in a run, nor of a certain aspect. You will still get the achievement if you die during the battle with the Ancient.

Note that banishing Chzo the God of Pain who is not an invader and getting the bad ending does not count). But I may be mistaken on this one, so if you get the chance please give it a try. (TODO)

Avoid trying to farm this achievement until you have completed all other challenges. It may randomly happen during those.

When you are farming, Chariot (+mph) and Crab (+hp) are great birth stars. The main concern is either that we die while running dungeons or we run out of time. Optional.

Make sure to use the deduction rules to see if a run is worth continuing. If Chzo is not one of the three aspects- time to restart. If there is no God of Pain - restart. If there is a God of Pain that isn't Chzo - restart. etc.

Banish the Ancient with less than ten minutes remaining on the clock

It's worth noting that time actually passes sitting in your car, so if you're preparing items for your Stonehenge run do it before running down the clock. The Locksmith's kit is not a bad idea especially if you're very close to running out of time.

Also note you probably don't want to attempt this if you also want to get Ending A. As far as I understand the closer you are to the invasion the harder the Ancient's battle will be. So doing this with minutes left on the clock results in a hilariously chaotic battle where the Ancient will be sending out 3-6 tendrils at a time, many of which you won't even be able to shoot or melee -- don't count on surviving this one.

Get to Stonehenge first, and then drive back and forth. When it is down to the last 3 hours or so, start making very short drives away from stonehenge and immediately returning. Even 10 minutes should be enough but give yourself as much time as you think you'll need to make it to the banishing chamber.

The ladder to the final banishment chamber will always be behind a locked door so the locksmith's kit is a great choice if you have picks.

You can't see the clock in the banishment chamber so you can also go back up the ladder if you want to see the exact timer.

Have the stab proof vest, skateboard pads and bullet proof vest at the same time

You will get this doing It Pays to Be Prepared, but if you just want this one, the Ministry Man is probably the best way to get all three items. Stack birth stars on the Emperor for huge shop discounts and restart until you have a good density of green towns nearby. Then visit all of them and buy the items if you see them.

Alternatively you can use the Smith sign for bonus equip chance and farm out dungeons. But this could take longer.

Get all 12 items in one game

This one is a real pain and will always come down to luck ultimately. My luckiest run at this still had only 6 hours and 30 minutes remaining and that was with the Scholar's time as well as using the Chariot. Your mileage may vary, and hopefully you have an easier time with this one. I'm just saying be prepared for a long haul.

Ensure the Exhaust Muffler is not equipped because there are a few events that can give equipment.

The best way I found is to use birth stars on the Smith (+equipment drop%). If it is not on the star map at game start, immediately go back to main menu and retry. The bonus caps at 9%, max it out.
This will give a noticeable boost to the chance of getting equipment items from loot drops.

Use your preference of Scholar, Warrior or Wizard, and kill as many enemies as you can in the run. The Ministry Man does not have enough time for this so do not use him.

If you have extra birth stars, Chariot (+speed) is best if available, but you can never go wrong with Crab (+health) or Lion (+sanity).

The seeded Daily Challenge may seem tempting but I have found you are worse off in that mode. Just do a regular run.

A number of times now my guides have been copy pasted onto other websites. On the off chance that these pasters are that lazy... if you are reading this outside of Steam, the link to the original is here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3152561927

I write these guides to benefit other players. Making a guide good takes a long time. Because of that I am happy to have them reach more people outside of Steam! What makes me unhappy is that these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ copy+paste jobs always end up being drastically out of date, forever abandoned by said copy-pasting website host. This makes me crazy! (And the formatting too. I try hard to get a lot of data condensed while still being as readable as possible. They always ♥♥♥♥ up the formatting.)

For those wanting to redistribute in another language: Please do so!!! You don't need to ask me, although heads up is always appreciated. I think it would be best to link back to the original though, and credit is always nice.


This is a big game, it's basically a given that a guide of this scale will contain errors despite my best efforts. Still, if you have any problems following it, my sincere apologies.

Please feel free to write a comment
- Any typos
- Confusing or ambiguous language
- Factual errors
- Useful advice that is simply missing
- ... or any other feedback that isn't listed above!


1) 02/12/2024 - Released as a work in progress.