Thing from the Stars

"A shard of alien malignity!"

- The Ancestor

The Thing from the Stars is a large Eldritch miniboss from The Color of Madness DLC that can be found in whatever region it is patrolling for the week (this is visible on the map when embarking). It has a 50% chance to spawn in any of that region's dungeons (including bosses), and will appear as a fight in any hallway. It is a very powerful enemy, capable of inflicting massive stress damage, blight, and diseases all within a few rounds. As the Thing is attacked, its combat ability increases, granting incredible resistance to direct damage and even more offensive power.

Behavior
Dungeons where the Thing can be encountered during the week will sometimes have a corridor showing two red battle squares on the map. Usually one of those squares will be the Thing encounter, but both squares can also be normal random encounters.

The Thing from the Stars has 2 actions per round, and an automatic action at the start of each round (but not when the battle starts) that triggers Return to the Stars, a skill that hits all party members with Stress damage. This attack also spawns a Crystalline Aberration, deals a small amount of damage to the Thing, clears all bleed and blight effects from the Thing, and, if used against a party with only one hero remaining, causes the target to lose their turn, permanently stun-locking them. This attack does not trigger bleed/blight damage on the Thing, but all other attacks do.

After using Return to the Stars at the start of the second round, the Thing receives a permanent buff for +80% PROT, +6 SPD, +40% DMG, and +13% CRIT when below 45% HP.

It can open the battle with any move, but Paralysing Shard, Weakening Shard, and Transfixing Shard all have a 1-turn cooldown, meaning it will never use them twice in one round.

The Thing has an unforgiving set of targeting biases, prioritizing heroes with the lowest stun resistance with Paralysing Shard and stressed heroes with Phase Gnaw.

Strategies
All of the Thing's attacks inflict significant stress damage, and with multiple actions per round, you are in far greater danger from Afflictions and accumulated stress than HP loss in this fight, especially in the first phase before its DMG buff is applied. In addition to causing massive stress, the Thing will regularly deliver powerful debuffs, stuns, and blight. Weakening Shard reduces all relevant resistances and Transfixing Shard reduces DMG and SPD.

The Thing has high accuracy on many of its attacks, with Return to the Stars being effectively undodgeable. Dodge-based strategies, such as utilizing an Antiquarian's Invigorating Vapours, or the Houndmaster's Guard Dog are likely to be ineffective. Similarly, Phase Gnaw, while it does much less damage than Vorpal Strike, is actually armor piercing, rendering any PROT buffs from skills like the Leper's Withstand useless.

For the first phase, focus primarily on mitigating and preparing for high stress, and bringing the Thing down to its 45% HP threshold. Its damage in this phase isn't much to be worried about aside from the possibility of a crit from Vorpal Strike.

Arguably the biggest problem of a battle with the Thing is the possibility of contracting Sky Taint, a disease that grants +20% Stress and -20% Blight and Bleed Resist that can be obtained from the attack Phase Gnaw. If a hero gets Sky Taint early, it will dramatically lower their defensive ability as they build up even greater levels of stress and deal with a large vulnerability to the powerful blight from Phase Gnaw.

For the Thing's second phase, blight and bleed are highly effective at bypassing the 80% PROT buff. Note, however, that the Thing automatically clears all damage-over-time effects from itself at the beginning of each round, when casting Return to the Stars. Thus, in order to get the most out of bleeds and blights, characters will have to have enough speed (and luck) to act before both of the Thing's turns; no damage will be applied from the damage-over-time effects if they are applied after the Thing's second action, as Return to the Stars, being an Auto-Action, does not trigger them.

Outside of blight/bleed damage, the Grave Robber's Pick to the Face or the Shieldbreaker's Pierce also completely ignore the Thing's 80% PROT, allowing those heroes to deal full damage. Consider bringing them along if the Thing is patrolling a particular region.

Debuffs can reduce the Thing's PROT to a manageable level. The Houndmaster's Target Whistle stands out as the most useful of these. Firstly, it has a staggeringly high base debuff chance, meaning it does not require any additional trinket investment to be effective. Secondly, the debuff applies for four turns, one turn longer than usual, and even with the Thing's multiple turns per round, it is often possible to stack the debuff with itself. Lastly, it applies a mark; this dovetails neatly with the Houndmaster's already strong synergy with other mark-based damage dealers like the Arbalest and the Bounty Hunter.

The Thing will summon a Crystalline Aberration every turn with Return to the Stars, so you'll need to deal with it in good time to prevent it from exploding—it has very low HP and no dodge, so using a dedicated hero, preferably with AoE damage, is recommended to keep it destroyed. Aberrations have no resistance to blight, but you only get one turn to kill them, so ensure you can stack enough damage to finish them if using a blight-based strategy; the Plague Doctor's Noxious Blast, the highest-damage blight in the game, is the best option, as it will kill the Aberration even on Champion level.

It is worth mentioning that upon creation of the Crystalline Aberration, the Thing will take a small amount of damage and have a chance at causing party-wide stress. It is possible to stall out the fight until the Thing kills itself by using Return to the Stars, but be wary, as stalling for too long may result in multiple heroes receiving Sky Taint and massive stress for your party.

It is, in fact, possible to prevent the Thing from using Return to the Stars by stunning it after its second turn; this will cause it to start the next round stunned, thereby skipping both its Auto-Action and its first turn. With a sufficiently high stun chance, you can prolong bleeds and blights while negating the damage and stress that would otherwise be dealt. One niche strategy takes this to the extreme: since the Thing's powerful self-buffs are only applied when it uses Return to the Stars for the first time, if you stun it at the end of every round, you can completely bypass the second phase. This is tricky to pull off, requiring a powerful, but slow stunner; a sufficiently high stun chance can be attained with the right trinkets, whilst heroes can be artificially slowed by consuming The Blood.

Loot
After defeating the Thing from the Stars, you will receive 15, 20, or 25 Comet Shards alongside a randomized amount of gold. There is additionally a chance the Thing will drop one of its unique Trinkets or Ancestor Trinket. The exact chance is 1/7 (~14%) on Veteran missions, and 1/5 (20%) on Champion. There is an equal chance the Thing will drop a Memory on death instead, which is otherwise only obtainable by defeating The Sleeper. Neither will drop on Apprentice missions, but you will still get shards.

Prismatic Quirks
Heroes who survive the battle with the Thing from the Stars may receive one of several new quirks after the mission is over. These quirks are unique; they can only be on one hero in your whole roster. Only one hero will receive a quirk on a given mission, and gaining more requires defeating the Thing once again. They are automatically locked, and the Sanitarium will only offer the option to remove them. Removing Prismatic quirks allows them to be obtained again the next time the Thing is defeated. Facing the Thing as a boss on the Farmstead can also reward a member of your party with one of the quirks.

The following list is of the quirks in the order they can be obtained, and their effects:

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

Trivia

 * It may be a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space." It can be seen to have incorporated the body parts of at least two small humans and a large farm animal, the same as were found in the farmstead well at the end of Lovecraft's story.