| Type | Zombie |
|---|---|
| HP | 40 |
| Attack | 7 |
| Defense | 3 (+1 per standing pillar) |
| Speed | 2 / 6 beyond casting range |
| Size | 2×2 |
| Phase 2 | ≤ 50% HP |
| Dimension | Overworld |
The Hollow King
Underground Caverns biome boss, lord of the deep dark.
The Hollow King is a corrupted miner, and he fights by unmaking the room. He drives timber support pillars into the floor, draws his armour from them, and then knocks them out to bring the ceiling down. His Lights Out ability turns the surrounding darkness into an offensive buff for every enemy in the fight.
The pillars are the fight. Every pillar still standing gives him +1 DEF, and loads the entire row and column it stands in for his collapse. You can knock a pillar down yourself with a pickaxe on an adjacent tile - that takes a point off his armour and removes two lanes from the collapse he is winding up.
Abilities
- Shore Up: Drives in 3 support pillars (5 in Phase 2), three blocks of timber each, spread so no two share a row or column. Grants +1 DEF per standing pillar, recalculated every turn - mine one out and the armour goes with it.
- Total Collapse: Knocks his own pillars out and drops the ceiling down the full row and column of every one at once. Telegraphed a turn ahead, and only fires once the pillars have stood for 2 turns. Rubble lands on the floor and stays for a few turns.
- Shrapnel: Shatters one of his own pillars and fires it down the lane at you, hitting everything in between. Costs him the armour that pillar was giving.
- Demolition Cache: Telegraphs and places 2 TNT caches (3 in Phase 2) around your position, detonating at the start of the next round. A charge primed on a tile you are standing on goes off immediately.
- Miner's Fury: 3-tile directional charge dealing ATK+2 damage, ploughing through any obstacles in its path - his own pillars included.
- Swarm Call: Summons 3-4 Silverfish from the arena edges.
- Lights Out: Projects a darkness field. Darkness negates player vision. Counterplay: Place Torches (radius 2 light), Lanterns (radius 3), or Campfires (radius 3 + healing) to negate darkness in their zones.
- Mines through walls: If he cannot path to you at all, he cuts through the rock and keeps coming. He will not cut through his own pillars or the arena boundary.
Range Bands
Where you stand decides what he does:
- Within 3 tiles: the spells go away entirely. He comes at you with the pickaxe.
- 4 to 5 tiles: his working distance. He plants his feet and casts - no moving and casting in the same turn.
- 6+ tiles: he closes and casts in the same turn, at Speed 6. Backing off does not buy you a free turn.
Phase 2, "Total Collapse"
Triggers at ≤ 50% HP. Shore Up raises 5 pillars instead of 3 (so up to +5 DEF, and ten loaded lanes), collapses hit harder, Demolition Cache increases to 3 TNT charges, Swarm Call summons 4 Silverfish, and the darkness field becomes permanent.
Strategy
Decide about the pillars. Every turn you spend mining one is a turn you are not hitting him - but leaving them up means fighting through his armour into a collapse that covers most of the floor. A pickaxe only reaches one tile, so getting to a pillar means standing in the very lanes it loads. That trade is the fight.
Read the room, not your feet. The collapse covers the row and column of each pillar, so the safe tiles are the cells that are in no pillar's line. With 3 pillars up, over half the floor is safe - but you have to look at the pillars to find it.
Early Phase: Place light sources preemptively to prepare for Lights Out. Torches are cheap and fast to place; Lanterns and Campfires provide more coverage (3-tile radius) plus detection/healing respectively.
TNT Timing: If a cache is primed near you, spend your movement to clear blast distance before ending turn. Never end a turn standing on one - it detonates on the spot. Clear Silverfish quickly so they do not body-block your escape path.
Closing him down: Inside 3 tiles he cannot cast at all, so pressing him is a real option - but he is at his tankiest with pillars up, and stepping away hands him a Speed 6 charge.
Phase 2: Darkness becomes permanent. Maintain at least one active light zone to stay combat-effective. With 5 pillars loading ten lanes, mining one or two is far more valuable than it was.