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Merm/DST
< Merm
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“Smells fishy!”
“Eww, it's all swampy.”
“Is fishy man!”
“Horrid swamp thing!”
“ANIMATED SEAFOOD”
“A piscean biped!”
“What foul sea did that crawl out of?”
“They were already here when I arrived.”
“A marvelous humanoid. Perhaps it has evolved from the marshy depths.”
“Die söggy beast fish!”
“I would've thought they would bathe more often!”
“Go dunk your head, guy.”
“Fishmongers!”
“Ye scalawag.”
“UNPIG O' TH' SEA”
“Glub Glub Man”
“Hi, I'm Wheeler. And you are... not human?”
“You sure are ugly!”
“Aren't you intimidated by my massive horns?”
“Hello, flort!”
–Wurt
“A bog monster! I knew they were real!”
“You run along now, pay me no mind.”
Merms are semi-aggressive Mobs that can live in Leaky Shacks, which are found in Marshes, or in player-created Craftsmerm Houses. They are humanoid fish-like creatures covered in dark green scale with bulging eyes, gaping mouths, and gills on the sides of their heads.
Merms drop raw Fish and Frog Legs when killed, and these remains can often be found scattered around Marshes in the aftermath of their battles with Tentacles.
When the King of the Merms is alive, all Merms will gain a boost of +60 Health and +10 damage
The King's Pauldron Quest
The King's Pauldron QuestWurt with "The King's Pauldron Quest" skill can give to Merm King a Marble Suit. If there is a Merm King with Marble Suit, all loyal Merms with head armor will have 15% damage protection. This 15% protection works the same as Warly's Garlic Powder protection effect. Wurt will also have this effect, but with only 10% of protection.
The King's Crown Quest
The King's Crown QuestWurt with "The King's Crown Quest" skill can give to Merm King a Thulecite Crown. If there is Merm King with Thulecite Crown, all loyal Merms will learn to dodge. They will dodge in fighting with 10s cooldown. Wurt will also lose 5% less sanity from monsters.
The King's Trident Quest
The King's Trident QuestWurt with "The King's Trident Quest" skill can give a Strident Trident to the Merm King. If there is Merm King with a Strident Trident, all loyal merms, as well as Wurt, will deal 5% more damage. All tamed Loyal Merm Guards also have 33% to use a triple attack. (Each strike deals 26.3 damage.)
Lunar Mutated Merm
Lunar Mutated MermWurt with "Lunar Mutated Merm" skill can give loyal Merms and Loyal Merm Guards a Moon Shard or Infused Moon Shard. After that, the Merm will transform to Mutated Merm, and Loyal Merm Guard will transform to Mutated Merm Guard. Wurt with this skill can use Pure Brilliance, so for all loyal mutated merms their damage will be replaced with planar damage. This buff will work only 4 minutes. All mutated merms with this buff will have glowing eyes.
Shadow Resurrection Merm
Shadow Resurrection MermAfter death of loyal to Wurt with "Shadow Resurrection Merm" skill Merm it will drop Shadow Merm. Player can use Pure Horror, so for all loyal shadow merms their damage will be replaced with planar damage. This buff will work only 4 minutes. All mutated merms with this buff will have glowing eyes.
Behavior
Merms spawn from Leaky Shacks, which can be found in Marsh Biomes. Leaky shacks can hold up to four Merms and spawn a Merm every four days if any Merms are killed. Typically only one Merm per Leaky Shack will be outside during the day. However, If that Merm engages in combat or if the house is struck with a Hammer, the rest of the Merms will emerge to help it fight. When Dusk comes all Merms will leave their home to wander around in the vicinity, much like spiders. Similar to Pigs, when Merms are provoked, they will attack in groups and will kite.
One Merm will spawn from a Craftsmerm House. Merms spawned this way will naturally regenerate their health in a speed of 5.2 health per 10 seconds.
Merms are aggressively territorial and will attack any non-Wurt players or followers that wander too close to their home. However, Merms are neutral toward Wurt and any players wearing the Clever Disguise. Merms and Frogs are also neutral toward each other.
When the King of the Merms is alive, Merms will become neutral towards all players and mobs.
When playing as Wurt or any other character wearing the Clever Disguise They can be recruited as followers by feeding them vegetarian food or live Fishes for 25 
per day (14.2 per day if King of the Merms is alive) with a max loyalty time of up to 3 days (5 days if the King of the Merms is alive). Merms will play a hungry animation when their loyalty time drops below 80 seconds. Murdering any live fish as Wurt will immediately dismiss all current Merm followers and make them return to their house.
Merms eat Fruits, Vegetables, Seeds, Mandrakes, and even Crock Pot Recipes. Just like Wurt, Merms can eat Kelp or Durians without taking damage.
Merms can also spawn in specific set pieces, including a set piece where they're spawned alongside pigs, resulting in them fighting.
Hunting
Lone Merms can be kited very similarly to Pigs. However, their greater numbers make it unwise to engage them directly. Thanks to the hostile nature of the Marsh Biome, Merms are often discovered in pitched battle with Tentacles, Spiders, or both. For this reason, they make for an excellent source of Tentacle Spikes, Tentacle Spots, Monster Meat, Fish, Frog Legs, Spider Glands, and Silk: Simply wait for the Merms to finish fighting, then clean up what they leave.
To start a battle between Merms and Tentacles, Fruits or Vegetables can be used as bait. When a Merm finds the food, it will approach and eat them one by one. Placing a few Fruits and Vegetables near a Tentacle close to a Leaky Shack will increase the chance of a Merm getting attacked by the Tentacle while going after or eating the food. When the Tentacle attacks the Merm, more Merms will come out to fight. Alternatively, Merms can simply be lured towards a Tentacle while they are chasing the player character.
Since Merms are always wet, weapons like the Morning Star and Electric Blow Darts are excellent choices as they do bonus damage to wet mobs.
Below is the number of hits it takes with each weapon to kill Merms when playing with characters with a default damage modifier. The Weather Pain is not included due to the random nature of its projectile.
| Weapon |  
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No. of hits for
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59 | 19 | 15 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 5-9 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Merms take two blasts from the Ice Staff to be frozen and just one Sleep Dart to be put to sleep.
Merm Names
In Don't Starve Together, Merms are assigned a random name. They can be viewed by mousing over the Merm.
Possible Merm names:
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Quotes
In Don't Starve Together, follower Merms have quotes:
Allied
When chopping trees
When mining rocks
When tilling soil
When hammering
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When finding food
Battlecry
Need Healing
Healed by player
Panicking at boss
Panicking at boss (
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Trivia
- Merms were added in A Little Rain Must Fall update.
- "Merm" is an abbreviation for "Merman", a man-sized creature with the tail of a fish.
- Merms are almost certainly based on the Deep Ones, a race of fish-like humanoids from the horror fiction of American author H. P. Lovecraft, who live in Innsmouth, a run-down town similar to Merm villages. They may also be based on the Gill-Man, the antagonist of the famous movie, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
- Kevin (Klei's lead developer) answered the question "Why do Merms drop Fish?" in the ShannonZKiller's pre-release Twitch video. The answer was "They are made of fish".
- Merms are not created by Maxwell like other monsters, judging by his quote: "They were already here when I arrived."
- Pig Heads, as of The End is Nigh update, spawn in Merm villages, and along Roads passing through Marshes. This suggests some kind of hostility between the two tribes of animals. Similarly, Merm Heads spawn inside some Pig Villages.
- Merms are instantly hostile (unless fighting something else) when spawned via the Console because they have no house to placate them.
- Merms feature in The Gorge event for Don't Starve Together are the result of a plague inflicted on the beings of this Gate Realm by the Gnaw. When players let the Hangry Meter go completely empty, they will succumb to the plague and turn into Merms themselves.
Bugs
- Merms may continue to attack the location of a Tentacle after the Tentacle has been killed.
Animations
dancing
angry
buff
site idle in royal tapestry
eat
abandon
hungry
pickup
reject
take
sleep
transform
atk down
atk up
atk side
atk down combo unused
atk up combo unused
atk side combo unused
Gallery
A frozen Merm.
Merm eating Butterfly Wings.
Merms attacking Tentacles.
Merms attacking and kiting a Tentacle.
A Merm taking damage.
Wilson with a dead Merm and its loot.
A Merm sleeping.
Merm artwork produced for A Little Rain Must Fall update.
A Merm as seen in a drawing from Art Stream # 3.
Merms as seen in a drawing from Art Stream # 38.
Two pig houses placed near a rundown house.
Everything that we have from the lost Art Stream with Merm
Steam Animated Sticker Merm
Merm concept art
In DST Loading Screen
Merm on Wurt Skill Tree items concept art from Staying Afloat update stream from Rhymes with Play.
| Mobs | |
| Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/behavior/function/tags of these creatures | |
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| Neutral Animals |     |
| Passive Animals |  |
| Boss |    |
| Follower Animals |  |
| Traders | |
| NPC | |
| Mobs | |
| Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/behavior/function/tags of these creatures | |
| Hostile Creatures |                |
| Neutral Animals |        |
| Passive Animals |                       |
| Boss |     |
| Follower Animals |  |
| Traders |  |
| NPC |   |
| Mobs | |
| Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/behavior/function/tags of these creatures | |
| Hostile Creatures |                      |
| Neutral Animals |            |
| Passive Animals |           |
| Boss |     |
| Follower Animals |  |
| Traders |              |
| NPC |   |
| Mobs | |
| Attention: The following categories are only for the players look up the page based on their first impression, they have nothing to do with the actual categories/behavior/function/tags of these Mobs | |
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| The Forge |                  |
| The Gorge |           |