Slugcat

Slugcats are both the primary protagonists and main playable characters in Rain World. They are small multicolored creatures with black or white eyes, thin arms, comparatively broad legs with small feet, broad-ended ears, and a thick tail that tapers. The player must keep the Slugcat they play alive as they explore the world, confront strange creatures, and take part in completing challenging achievements. The Slugcats have a variety of movement abilities which can be seen in detail on the controls page.

When a player starts their game they have the option of playing as two different Slugcats: the Monk and the Survivor. After finishing the game as either the Monk or the Survivor, the player unlocks the ability to play as the Hunter, the Artificer, and the Gourmand (The Gourmand, Artificer, and following slugcats are all only available if the Rain World Downpour DLC is installed). After finishing the game as either the Gourmand, the Artificer, or the Hunter, the player unlocks the ability to play as either the Rivulet or the Spearmaster. Once both the stories of the Rivulet and the Spearmaster are finished, the Saint will be unlocked.

Monk and Survivor both spawn in the same location and have the same story (being led by the yellow overseer to the same destination) with the only gameplay differences being features or changes that make Monk easier than Survivor. The Hunter spawns in the Farm Arrays with a pearl in its stomach and a green Neuron Fly in its hand. Monk (Yellow), Survivor (White), and Hunter (Red) correspond to easy, medium, and hard difficulties, respectively. The other, Downpour exclusive Slugcats have much more varied spawn locations and stories that can be read about more at their respective pages.

= Gameplay Basics =

Food
In order to hibernate, Slugcat must find and eat enough food each cycle. This amount is represented by the food meter, which can be viewed alongside the current karma level by pressing and holding the map button.



The food meter is made up of several food pips - circles which fill up as Slugcat eats, and a vertical line that separates the food pips required to hibernate (all found to the left), and the food pips that will be saved for the next cycle (all found to the right). The amount of food required to hibernate varies between Slugcats: Monk and Survivor eat mostly smaller creatures and fruit. They can also devour any size of Centipede, though larger ones need to be dead first. A full list of all the different foods can be found here. Hunter's diet is more varied, as it also includes the corpse of any killable creature, however, certain foods such as Batflies, Blue Fruit, Slime Mold, Bubble Fruit and Neuron Flies provide less value, and will only fill 1/4th of a food pip when eaten. Gourmand is a bit more complex when it comes to food, requiring more food pips before being ready to hibernate while also having the ability to combine food items into "meals." When two food items are combined into a meal, it increases the amount of food pips they give compared to if they were eaten separately. The Artificer is similar to the Hunter, requiring more food to hibernate than the average slugcat whilst also having the ability to eat the corpses of larger creatures to gain extra food pips, and gaining only 1/4th of a pip from small food. The Spearmaster cannot eat food like a regular slugcat, instead having to throw self-made spears at live prey to gain food pips. Each hit on a creature garners one food pip, with the only limit on how much you can extract from a creature being the creature's health. The Saint has a more limiting diet compared to the other slugcats, being completely unable to eat any meat, severely limiting their diet.
 * Monk :
 * Survivor:
 * Hunter :
 * Gourmand:
 * Artificer:
 * Rivulet:
 * Spearmaster:
 * Saint:

Incapacitation & Death
While both disable the player's input and make the game over text appear, when incapacitated the player is still alive, just unable to do anything. Knowing when that is the case could potentially allow the player to continue on without the need to restart the current cycle. You can differentiate between them by looking at Slugcat's eyes (they'll be shut when incapacitated, and crossed out when dead) and listening for bass notes (incapacitation plays one, death plays two).

Lizards, Dropwigs and Big Spiders have an RNG-based kill system, which means that when bitten/grabbed there is a percentage chance that Slugcat will die. If this check fails, the player will be incapacitated, killed if brought into a den. Vulture bites always incapacitate the player, unless de-masked, in which case they are always lethal.

There are a few ways to get out of incapacitation. A creature is likely to let go if wounded, or attacked by something hostile towards it. Throwing a rock or spear in the short period of time where inputs aren't disabled to stun the creature, or having a tamed Lizard or friendly Scavengers nearby are some of the more reliable methods, and usually the only ones that work when grabbed by a masked Vulture.

Graph of Slugcat Differences
* Saint can communicate with Iterators and see Void Spawn even without the mark.

** Spearmaster is lighter than all other Slugcats, but is weighed down by their tail.

Trivia

 * All three vanilla Slugcats as well as the otherwise unused Nightcat are playable in the game's Arena modes, but they all handle similarly to how the Survivor does in Single Player.
 * Slugcats have a few different facial expression apart from the ones mentioned in the incapacitation and death section. For example, when throwing or swallowing an object, Slugcats briefly closes its eyes, and when regurgitating an object it keeps its eyes closed for a longer period of time. Slugcat also keeps its eyes shut when close to a threat. While idle, Slugcat has widened, circular eyes which blink occasionally.
 * Slugcats will actively move its tail away from threats, such as lizards, in situations that allow it (such as resting at the top of a pole).
 * When faced by a lizard, Slugcats may hold their hand out in an attempt to briefly stop the creature from biting it.