Boss Hunting

Some of the town’s old stories never ended. Six legendary creatures wait in their arenas, each in its own far corner of the world, and Reb Yehoshua the Archivist keeps their stories. Every boss is a quest: travel to its arena, find its clues, wake it, and beat it with your friends.

How a hunt works

1. Find Reb Yehoshua. He stands on the town square, by the fountain at spawn.
2. Talk to him and choose Hunt bosses. A menu of heads opens. A boss you have beaten shows its head, stacked to how many times you won. One you have not beaten shows a black head with its name.
3. Pick a boss. He tells you its story, gives you the quest, and tells you which way its arena lies and roughly where.
4. Make the journey. The arenas are far apart and far from town, so pack food and a bed. The Boss Hunt bar at the top of the screen points the way. It shows when your quest moves on and when you get near the boss you are hunting, and stays out of the way the rest of the time. /bosses bar turns it off or back on.
5. Find its three clues in or around the arena.
6. Bring them back. He gives you the item that wakes the boss.
7. Wake it and fight. Each boss wakes in its own way (below).
8. Tell Reb Yehoshua you won. That opens the next boss.

The bosses open one after another. A boss that is not out yet shows as “Coming soon” in his menu.

The first time you come to fight a boss you can watch its story: a short scene, told by Reb Yehoshua. Press Space three times quickly to skip a story that is playing. /bosses story off stops stories from starting on their own, and /bosses story on brings them back.

The arenas

Boss	Arena	Which way from town
The False Scholar	The Silent Library: a ruined beis midrash and its court, deep in the taiga	North-east
The Golem Gone Awry	The Clay Pits: a great clay stadium by a river, with the pit as its sunken floor	North-west
Og, King of Bashan	The Hills of Bashan: a ring of giant stone dolmens in an old birch forest	South
The Ziz	The Peak of the Ziz: a needle of rock with the nest on its summit	Far west
The Leviathan	The Bay of the Leviathan: a walled sea pool on the coast, beside an old harbor town	Far south-east
Behemoth	The Thousand Hills: a wide meadow in a ring of hills, with the river it drinks from	Far north

Arenas are protected: nobody can build or break blocks in them, and there is no PvP inside.

Getting there

Reb Yehoshua tells you the rough coordinates when he gives you the quest, and press F3 to see where you are. The Peak of the Ziz is a climb: a stone stair winds up its cliffs from the foot of the mountain to the summit.

The six bosses

The False Scholar

The town’s old beis midrash. Its brightest student learned only to win, never to understand. When a traveller asked him a question he could not answer, he sealed the doors with every sefer inside so no one could out-learn him again. He is still in there, not alive and not dead, still arguing.

• Clues: three torn pages on the lecterns in the court outside the library.
• To wake him: Reb Yehoshua gives you the Candle of Humility. Light it in front of him and he asks you a question no one can answer.
• His question has three answers. “I do not know” shakes him: he starts at 85% health and hits softer. Chazal teach us to say “I do not know”. “Six hundred thousand” makes you one of his, and he hits harder. “More than you have read” is a normal fight.
• Watch out for: spilled ink that slows and burns, rows of his handwriting across the floor (stand in a gap), falling bookshelves, a wall of flying pages with gaps in it, and The Question: get most of the party onto “I do not know” and he is stunned and takes extra damage.

The Golem Gone Awry

The old Rav who built the town gate shaped a golem from river clay to guard it, and wrote אמת, truth, on its brow. He died before he could put it to rest, and with nobody to tell it the danger is over, it guards against everyone.

• Clues: three shards of the Rav’s last instruction, in the clay pots on the walkway around the pit.
• To wake it: read The Rav’s Last Instruction to it. It tries to obey and cannot.
• Getting down: the stadium’s gateway is on its east side. Stairs lead from the walkway down to the pit floor on the east and the west.
• The letter stones: three stones rise around the pit, one letter of אמת each. While any of them stands, the Golem cannot be hurt and heals. Break all three and it staggers. In the end you rub out the Alef, so that Emes (truth) becomes Mes (dead), and it can finally rest.
• Watch out for: glowing cracks that throw up clay spikes (step sideways), a black circle that follows you and turns into a fist, mud that sets hard, golden beams sweeping round the pit (jump them), and “Turn away from the Golem!”: turn your back or be blinded.

Og, King of Bashan

The Gemara (Zevachim 113b) says Og lived through the Flood holding on to the outside of the Teivah, and Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer says Noach passed him food through a hole in its side. The Gemara in Berachos (54b) says he tore up a mountain to drop on Klal Yisroel’s camp, until Hashem sent ants to eat through it; look for that mountain near his hills. His bed was iron, nine amos long. Here his bed is broken, so he has not slept in a thousand years.

• Clues: three bolts from his bed, under the anvils inside his ring of stones.
• To wake him: drive the Reforged Bolt into his broken bed. He wakes furious that you fixed it crooked.
• Watch out for: a stomp that sends a ring of stone out with gaps in it, falling rocks, boulders rolling down lanes, ants, and The Mountain: he lifts a whole hill over his head. Get out from under its shadow.

The Ziz

The Gemara in Bava Basra (73b) tells of a bird that stood in the sea with the water only up to its ankles while its head reached the sky. This Ziz has lost an egg (it just rolled away) and circles its peak screeching.

• Clues: three pieces of giant eggshell in the hay nests on its summit.
• To wake it: blow the Nest Whistle on the summit. It sounds like a hatchling, and the Ziz comes home, not pleased to be fooled.
• It flies. It circles over its peak and dives at someone every few seconds, so keep moving, and bring a bow, crossbow or trident. Now and then it lands on its nest for a few seconds: that is when a sword reaches it. Boulders on the summit give you somewhere to duck, and a rocky wall runs round the edge. It is a long way down.
• Watch out for: gusts that throw you back, a shadow that follows you before it dives, a falling egg the size of a house, and Eclipse: it hides the sun, and only a few shrinking pools of light are safe.

The Leviathan

Sailors once saw an island with sand and grass on it, went up and cooked there, until its back grew hot and it rolled over (Bava Basra 73b). In our bay, the sailors’ tale goes, it was the Leviathan, and it has sulked there ever since. Their wrecked ship still lies at the edge of the pool.

• Clues: three pages of a sailor’s log, in the barrels around the bay.
• To wake it: cast Yonah’s Rope into the bay. Reb Yehoshua tells why: Yonah told the Leviathan that one day he would put a rope in its tongue, and it fled.
• It lives in its pool. It dives, and bubbles show where it will come up. Do not be standing there. It likes to come up right beside anyone swimming, so you can fight it in the water, from the rim, or from the ends of the four old piers. While it is deep under, nothing can hurt it.
• Watch out for: whirlpools that pull you in, water spouts racing towards you, a wall of water with gaps, and waves rolling across the whole bay in lanes.

Behemoth

Iyov says it eats grass like an ox, lies in the shade of the reeds, and drinks a river without hurrying. A Midrash says that every Tammuz it lifts its head and roars, and every wild animal that hears it stays gentle for a year. This year it slept straight through Tammuz, so the rams are butting fences and the wolves come right up to the gate. You will see its hoofprints in the meadow, each as big as a room.

• Clues: three tufts of its coat, at the mud hoofprints in the meadow.
• To wake it: set down the Sheaf from a Thousand Hills. Its smell wakes it, very cross. Beat it and it finally roars, and the hills go quiet.
• Watch out for: quakes under its hooves, flying clods of earth, haystacks kicked down lanes, rams, a Charge in a straight line (get out of its path), and Graze: it stops to eat and heals. Hit it hard enough and it chokes and is stunned.

Things every fight has

• The floor warns you. A see-through patch fills in, then it hits when it is full. Stand where nothing is filling.
• The boss holds still while it winds up, so where the warning is, the hit lands.
• Every boss has a weak spot. One kind of weapon hurts it far more than the rest. Finding out which is part of the hunt, and a message tells you when you have it.
• Spread or Stack. One player gets a sign over their head. SPREAD: their blast hurts everyone near them, so move away from them. STACK: the blast is shared, so everyone huddles on them. Alone, you take all of it.

Bring friends

Every boss grows with the party, up to 8 players: more health, harder hits, more minions and faster casting. Everyone in the arena is told when it changes. Someone walking in never heals it, because its health percentage stays the same. If everyone leaves or dies, the fight resets after 25 seconds and the waking item goes back to whoever used it. If they have logged off by then, it is waiting for them the next time they log in.

A boss left alone heals. If nobody has been in the arena for 20 seconds, or nobody has hurt it for 40 seconds, it starts to recover a little every second, and everyone in the arena is told. Hit it and it stops at once. So you cannot wear a boss down a few hits at a time over many visits: keep the pressure on.

Loot and Marks

Loot is yours. Nothing drops on the floor for someone else to grab.

Everyone who fought gets the win: the quest, the kill count and the Mark. The spoils go to everyone who did their part of the fighting, at least 4% of all the damage to the boss. Standing at the back and watching does not count.

Crates

Your spoils come in a Crate of that boss, straight into your inventory. Right click it to open it. The crate appears in front of you, rattles, hops, and its lid swings open with a light inside. Then everything in it rises out, one by one, and lands in your inventory.

Each crate is rolled for you alone, so two players beating the same boss get different things. Something rare inside (a boss pet) gets a burst of gold and a title.

The Chitas Pass has its own crate too.

Boss	In its crate	Your first win, as well
False Scholar	Often a sefer you have not learned yet, Ink of Truth, books, XP	Another new sefer, the Mark of the Humble Scholar, the Candle of Humility recipe
Golem	Golem Clay, sometimes a Fragment of the Shem, XP	A Fragment of the Shem, the Mark of the Golem’s Rest, The Rav’s Last Instruction recipe
Og	Splinters of the Iron Bed, iron, copper, XP, sometimes a new sefer	The Mark of Bashan, the Reforged Bolt recipe
The Ziz	Ziz Feathers, feathers, XP, sometimes a new sefer	The Mark of the Ziz, the Nest Whistle recipe
The Leviathan	Leviathan Scales, prismarine, salmon, XP, sometimes a new sefer	The Mark of the Leviathan, the Yonah’s Rope recipe
Behemoth	Horn Shavings, leather, hay, sometimes a golden apple, XP, sometimes a new sefer	The Mark of the Thousand Hills, the Sheaf recipe

Your first win also teaches you the recipe for the boss’s waking item, so you can face it again. Reb Yehoshua hands out a fresh waking item every 20 hours too.

The very first player on the server to beat each boss is announced to everyone, and remembered in the Boss Journal.

Each boss also has a tiny version of itself as a pet. About once in a thousand crates, it is waiting inside. See Pets.

Crafting with the spoils

The drops are worth keeping. Each makes something useful at a crafting table.

Clay Guardian: a Fragment of the Shem and four Golem Clay. Right click the ground and an iron golem rises there to guard the place.

Behemoth’s Fodder: a Horn Shaving and four bone meal make four. Right click a crop and everything growing around it grows at once.

Og’s Iron Shield: a Splinter of the Iron Bed and planks, shaped like a shield. Lasts three times as long as a shield.

Ziz Feather Boots: two Ziz Feathers over two leather. Falls hurt less.

Leviathan Scale Helmet: five Leviathan Scales in a helmet shape. Your breath lasts longer under water.

A copy of a sefer: with Ink of Truth from the False Scholar. See Copying a sefer.

The Boss Journal

/bosses opens the Boss Journal, an old book of tales. Its contents page lists every boss that is out, with a red wax seal once you have beaten it. Each boss has its own chapter: its picture (an ink blot until you have met it), what it is, your record against it, and its tale with the sources. From the journal you can watch a boss’s story again, see how it fights, and turn stories on or off.

Commands

Command	Does
/bosses	Opens the Boss Journal
/bosses story on / off	Lets stories start on their own, or stops them
/bosses bar	Turns the Boss Hunt bar off, or back on

Who built the arenas

Three arenas stand on other builders’ work, used with their permission. Thank you to them.

• The Clay Pits is the Sandstone Arena by Psemata, rebuilt in clay.
• The Peak of the Ziz is the Custom mountain with waterfall by fletchliing.
• The harbor town by the Bay of the Leviathan is the Medieval Harbor by Paulzero.