Editing v0.31:Bogeyman

{{quality|Exceptional|17:22, 6 January 2011 (UTC)}}{{av}}
A Bogeyman is a creature of the night who attacks unwary adventurers who travel or sleep outside at night alone.  They can be avoided by being accompanied by companions, by sleeping the night away inside of a building, or by traveling in the more desolate biomes, such as mountains or deserts.

When you are ambushed, you will get the message:
{{gametext|You are surrounded by incessant cackling|5:1}}

And will receive the message:
{{gametext|You are still surrounded by cackling|5:1}}
if you try to travel or sleep/rest while you're still being attacked.


If you've added high agility during character creation, you may be able to run away from them. However, no matter where you run, they may spawn near you endlessly and attack you. The only way to stop their attacks is by entering a town, hamlet, keep or lair (not a camp), waiting until dawn, or killing them all. Bogeymen also seem to not ambush players on beaches, sleeping on the beach is a safe way to avoid them in the night.


After they're gone or all dead, you'll get the message:
{{gametext|The cackling fades away|5:1}}
And then you can get back to adventuring.

Bogeymen are created procedurally at the start of world gen, so several different types exist, and ambushes are of mixed types of bogeymen. They are fast and can kill an inexperienced adventurer easily.

Bogeymen dissolve into smoke shortly after being killed, but will not light objects on fire. Bogeymen body parts can be picked up but they too vanish shortly. You may be able to keep some, though, if you dispatch them fast enough, pick up, and fast-travel away before they start smoking.

One of the best ways to kill or get away from them is throwing objects if you have high thrower skill. This helps in two ways, lightening your load so you can run away faster if need be, and it has the chance of lopping off a limb and possibly the head. if you do manage to kill them you cannot butcher them, as it gives a "you are not that hungry" display.
{{Creatures}}