Ancient Fuelweaver

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“Why'd it have to be so big?”

–Wilson, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“It's just bones and shadow.”

–Willow, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Scary man!”

–Wolfgang, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Do you mourn, too?”

–Wendy, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“I WILL DESTROY YOU”

–WX-78, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“We could have learned much from each other.”

–Wickerbottom, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“That fuel stuff's gone to its head.”

–Woodie, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“The Atrium's power restored his mind.”

–Maxwell, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Tis nö mindless beast!”

–Wigfrid, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“We'll defend ourselves if we have to.”

–Webber, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“This won't be an easy fight.”

–Warly, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Aggh! Big Bone Roarer!”

–Wormwood, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“You got a bone to pick with me, bub? Ha!”

–Winona, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Shall we dance, dearest demon?”

–Wortox, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Glurp, i-it real!”

–Wurt, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“Maybe he knows something about the bug people that lived here!”

–Walter, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

“This was a VERY bad idea.”

–Wanda, when examining the Ancient Fuelweaver.

The Ancient Fuelweaver is a Boss Monster exclusive to Don't Starve Together, introduced in A New Reign.

The Ancient Fuelweaver is spawned using a Shadow Atrium on a fully completed Odd Skeleton in the Atrium near when the Ancient Key is in the Ancient Gateway and will instantly reduce the player's Sanity by 40. Its quotes imply that it was a being from the Ancient Civilization. When killed, the boss will drop 8 Fossils, 2-4 Nightmare Fuel, the Shadow Thurible, the Bone Helm, the Bone Armor, and a Rose.

Following its defeat, the Ancient Gateway will start to destabilize, consuming the Ancient Key and killing all nearby Shadow Creatures. After 4 minutes, the ruins regenerate.

The gate will have a recharge time of 20 days before being able to insert another Ancient Key. If the player leaves the fight, then it will decay, leaving behind 8 Fossils, 2-4 Nightmare Fuel, and a Shadow Atrium.

As the Ruins begin to regenerate, a Beckoning Hand, visually identical to a Shadow Hand, will appear in the Fuelweaver arena until the regeneration is complete. Giving 5 Dreadstone to this hand will begin the Shadow Rift in the Caves.

Behavior

The Ancient Fuelweaver will immediately start chasing and attacking the player, it will confine the player in a bone cage if the player is too far away. In second stage, it will spawn multiple Woven Shadows that it will eat to regain health.

If a player telepoofs out of the Atrium's arena or gets killed, the Fuelweaver will pull the key out of the Ancient Gateway and disassemble into the normal skeleton drops, while saying "Please".

The Ancient Fuelweaver has two stages:

Stage 1 (Health 16000-10000)

The Ancient Fuelweaver can snare its target like the Caves Reanimated Skeleton does and spawn Fossil Spikes to attack enemies.

Stage 2 (Health 10000-0)

The Ancient Fuelweaver has all skills from Stage 1 and the following skills:

Dozens of Woven Shadows will be spawned from the Ancient Floor with only 1 health. Woven Shadows will walk to the Ancient Fuelweaver and each will heal him for 400 health when eaten. Woven Shadows are immune to Fire and are also immune to being Frozen. Woven Shadows can be destroyed quickly by things like Winona's Catapults, Abigail, a Weather Pain, the Bramble Husks' AoE damage, the Brightshade Staff and more.

A Shadow Shield will be spawned by 6 Unseen Hands around the Ancient Gateway to protect the Ancient Fuelweaver, which blocks 100% of incoming damage. The Shadow Shield will be broken when all Unseen Hands are destroyed. The Unseen Hands have 1 health and can only be attacked by Insane players.

The Ancient Fuelweaver can Mind Control insane players for 3.5 seconds. This can be avoided by restoring Sanity quickly once the Shadow Creatures appear.

Below is the number of hits it takes with each weapon to kill a Ancient Fuelweaver when playing with characters with a default damage modifier. The Weather Pain, Brightshade Staff, and Bee Mine are not included due to their random natures. This table does not take into account the damage bonus gained from characters with a lunar or shadow affinity.

Number of hits

Weapon
	73	0	0
()	113 (Old) 164 (Middle age) 197 (Young) 589 (Out of fuel)	0 (Old) 0 (Middle age) 0 (Young) 0 (Out of fuel)	0 (Old) 0 (Middle age) 0 (Young) 0 (Out of fuel)
()	170 (122 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	150 (120 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	214 (190 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	214	0	0
	160	0	0
	178 (107 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	295 - 1600 (256 - 1033 )	0 - 0 (0 - 0 )	0 - 0 (0 - 0 )
	236	0	0
	247	0	0
	267	0	0
	269 (180 ) 216 (144 ) ()	0 (0 ) 0 (0 ) ()	0 (0 ) 0 (0 ) ()
Note	269	0	0
	269 - 538	0 - 0	0 - 0
	236 (204 )	0 (0)	0 (0 )
()	251	0	0
	314	0	0
	314 (Melee on land) 210 (Melee on ocean) 189 (spell)	0 (Melee on land) 0 (Melee on ocean) 0 (spell)	0 (Melee on land) 210 (Melee on ocean) 189 (spell)
	314 (Direct hit) 471 (AoE)	0 (Direct hit) 0 (AoE)	0 (Direct hit) 0 (AoE)
	370 (222 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	377 (216 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	377	0	0
	400	0	0
	471	0	0
	589	0	0
	628 (Direct hit) 942 (AoE)	0 (Direct hit) 0 (AoE)	0 (Direct hit) 0 (AoE)
	942	0	0

Quotes

Battlecry A pity. You will not suffer. It must be this way. My world... threadbare. My city... in tatters... This will be quick. How we've fallen. Player Battlecry You will fall as we did. This is for the best. You will be unraveled. They are coming. It cannot be stopped. This world's fabric is frayed and torn. They are unfathomable. I will save you. Summoning Woven Shadows Be woven. How long have I slumbered? Let the fuel take shape. I will not be defeated so easily. I will make you understand. Let us end it. You will rip apart at the seams. Summoning Unseen Hands I will stop this. You cannot win. Lend me your power, one last time. You cannot hurt me. Protect me. You have been betrayed. Turning off the Ancient Gateway I will save us. Curse Their name! It cannot end like this. I was wrong. Return them to me! Why? Metheus... I must do this, for your sake.

Decaycry (from leaving the battle or spawning the skeleton via console) Please... Deathcry Fools! Who are you? Release me, shade! You are not Them... Are you so easily deceived? Ha... You deserve this. You've made your choice. Battlecry (If Ancient Gateway Fixed) This world is unraveling. It's all happening again... I tried to stop it... it seems I learned nothing... Player Battlecry (If Ancient Gateway Fixed) You fools! What have you done? You've doomed yourselves. You have brought about your own end. Please. Let me save you from what is coming. I recognize your arrogance. I possessed it myself. Turning off the Ancient Gateway (If Ancient Gateway Fixed) Not again... not again... They are coming. Deathcry (If Ancient Gateway Fixed) They will not show mercy as I have. You will understand. But it's already too late. I couldn't stop it... History will repeat itself... It will all come to pass again... You've made your choice.

Tips

The difficulty of the Ancient Fuelweaver fight, as with most bosses, exponentially lowers with player count, and typically 4-5+ players will make the fight substantially easier. The tips below assume a player count of 1-3 players of around average skill, and as a result some suggested preparations may be overkill with more players or depending on individual player skill.

• The bone cage attack is arguably the most powerful attack in Ancient Fuelweaver's arsenal, as it denies ensnared players from dealing with other important factors in the fight. As such, making preparations to counter it can mean the difference between winning and losing the fight.
  • The Lazy Explorer/Wanda's Backstep Watch/Wortox’s Soul Hop can free the player from the cage. This can be crucial in preventing the player from taking too much damage from Fuelweaver while trapped or lets them more easily kill Woven Shadows before they are consumed.
    • If the player is using Lazy Explorers, they should decide on whether it is better to use it or to wait until the bone cage expires. Using it every single time they become trapped will quickly exhaust it all of its charges. The sanity drain from using it should also be put into consideration.
  • It is possible to dodge the bone cage attack by standing just inside the range where the Fuelweaver can begin the cast animation, then quickly stepping out of the ensnare range before it completes. This can be made much easier with speed boosts.
• If allowed to reach Ancient Fuelweaver, Woven Shadows can completely reset any progress the players have made in mere seconds due to the extreme amount of HP they can provide the Fuelweaver.
  • As they only have 1 HP, they can be easily killed with a Walking Cane/The Lazy Explorer, saving the durability of other weapons.
  • Using a Weather Pain on Fuelweaver does not do much damage to him by itself, but will easily shred through any nearby Woven Shadows. This can save an otherwise dire situation where the number of woven shadows has become hard to control or players are trapped in bone cages.
    • Fuelweaver can still be targeted by the Weather Pain when protected by his Unseen Hands.
    • Due to its very limited amount of charges, bringing more than one Weather Pain (2-4) is suggested, as well as reserving them for aforementioned dire situations.
  • Abigail is incredibly efficient at dealing with Woven Shadows.
• As Unseen Hands can only be attacked when sufficiently insane, this can be problematic when combined with the usual Shadow Creature attacks and the Fuelweaver's Mind Control ability when at low sanity.
  • A Nightmare Amulet or two is recommended for this reason. Players still need to be mindful of taking it off before any undesired effects take place as well as to conserve durability, as it may be easy to forget to do so in the midst of the fight.
• Fuelweaver's -400 per min insanity aura only takes effect when a player stands very close to it, though it's still possible to hit him from a slightly further distance. This distance incurs a much lower sanity penalty (about -60 per min), making it much easier to fight it without as many sanity items.
  • Conversely, when wearing a Bee Queen Crown, the player has to stand very close to the Fuelweaver to gain full sanity benefit.
• As always, mountains of sanity and healing items is recommended. Examples include Pierogis, Healing Salves, Bee Queen Crowns, Green/Blue Caps (both raw and cooked), Banana Shakes, and more.
• Bundling Wrap can be used to stockpile perishables and other items in bulk for the fight without needing to worry as much about spoilage or inventory space.

After defeating the Fuelweaver, the player gets access to a few new abilities:

• The Bone Helm can be used to farm Shadow Creatures as well as stay insane for prolonged periods of time without fear of attack.
• The forest Reanimated Skeleton can be used to quickly destroy and farm Trees and Marble Trees by luring it through forests with the Shadow Thurible.
• The Shadow Thurible can also be used in future Fuelweaver fights to prevent him from using the bone cage attack at all, by dropping it on the floor and keeping it fueled with Nightmare Fuel, making the fight considerably easier.

Trivia

• The quote 'Metheus' is used to find the Metheus Puzzles.
• The Ancient Fuelweaver has two boss themes, the original and one when Woven Shadows are being summoned.
• The Ancient Fuelweaver is confirmed to be male, both from a Rhymes With Play livestream and the description for A New Reign.

Gallery

• 

  Reanimated Skeleton as seen in Stream Smash #017
• 

  Willow with the Forest Skeleton.
• 

  Ancient Fuelweaver.
• 

  Mind Control.
• 

  A Caves, Forest, and Ancient Fuelweaver Skeleton.
• 

  An Ancient Fuelweaver as it appears in the A New Reign trailer.
• 

  A hidden image of the Ancient Fuelweaver alongside the Ancient Gateway in the A New Reign trailer.
• 

  Concept art of the Reanimated Skeleton.
• 

  Concept art of the Reanimated Skeleton.
• 

  Concept art of the Reanimated Skeleton.
• 

  Concept art of the Forest Skeleton shown in Rhymes With Play #128.
• 

  Concept art of the Cave Skeleton shown in Rhymes With Play #128.
• 

  Concept art of the Ancient Fuelweaver skill.
• 

  Concept art of the Ancient Fuelweaver skill.
• 

  Concept art of the Ancient Fuelweaver skill.
• 

  A drawing of the Forest Skeleton's arm being stolen by Chester from Rhymes With Play #130.
• 

  An image posted by the developers of Wes and a Reanimated Skeleton.
• 

  A Reanimated Skeleton of the Caves variant as seen in a drawing from Art Stream # 12.
• 

  Unused early version of medium Reanimated skeleton spikes
• 

  Unused early version of short Reanimated skeleton spikes
• 

  Unused early version of tall Reanimated skeleton spikes
• 

  Chat icon for NPC
• 

  Ancient Fuelweaver, as seen in a drawing from Weekly Art Stream # 120.

Sounds

The voice of a Reanimated Skeleton.
The Ancient Fuelweaver's battle theme.
The Ancient Fuelweaver's battle theme when the Woven Shadows appear.

References

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