Slugcat

Slugcats are both the primary protagonists and the main playable characters of Rain World. They are small creatures that can come in various colors, and with black or white eyes, thin arms, broad legs with small feet, broad-ended ears, and a thick tail that tapers at its end. The player must keep the Slugcat alive as they explore the world, confront strange Creatures, and work towards challenging Achievements. The Slugcats have a variety of movement abilities, which can be seen in detail on the Controls page.

When first starting the game, the player has the option of playing as two different Slugcats: the and the. After finishing the game as either, the player unlocks the ability to play as the.

If the Rain World Downpour DLC is installed, and the More Slugcats mod is enabled, five more Slugcats may be unlocked. The, and are unlocked along with Hunter. After finishing the game as either the Gourmand, Artificer, or Hunter, the player unlocks the ability to play as either the or the. Once both of their campaigns have been completed, the will be unlocked.

=Gameplay Basics=

Food
In order to hibernate, the 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 pips to its left), and the food pips that will be saved for the next cycle (all pips to its right). The amount of food required to hibernate varies between Slugcats. There are many different kinds of Food, providing varying amounts of food pips. ,, and  can eat most insects and fruit. They can also eat any size of, though larger ones must be killed prior. 's diet is more varied, allowing them to eat from the corpses of most creatures. However, fruit and small insects such as, , , and provide less value, and will only fill a quarter of a food pip when eaten. also has this ability, but only gains half the normal amount of food pips.
 * Monk :
 * Survivor:
 * Hunter :
 * Gourmand:
 * Artificer:
 * Rivulet:
 * Spearmaster:
 * Saint:

is able to combine two food items into a meal, providing an additional food pip to their base amounts. is unable to eat food like other Slugcats, instead having to throw spears grown out of their tail at live prey. 's diet is much more limited, being completely incapable of eating meat.

Incapacitation & Death
While both death and incapacitation disable the player's input and cause a game over, Slugcat is still alive when incapacitated, and is able to come back. This potentially allows the player to continue without restarting the current cycle. The two states can be differentiated by looking at the Slugcat's eyes- they are shut when incapacitated, but crossed out when dead. Additionally, death will play two bass notes, while incapacitation will only play one.

,, and , among other creatures, 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, then killed if brought into a den.

There are a few ways to get out of incapacitation. A creature is likely to let go if already wounded, or attacked by another creature. When bitten by most creatures, there is a short grace period where or a  can be thrown to stun it, allowing escape. Tamed Lizards or friendly s will attempt to save the Slugcat.

Graph of Slugcat Differences
[*] Saint can understand Iterators and Echoes even without the Mark of Communication.

[†] A full list of food and pips given can be found on Spearmaster's page.

[‡] Saint is unable throw regular Spears like other Slugcats, instead tossing them aside.

[§] Spearmaster is lighter than all other Slugcats, but is weighed down by their tail.

[**] Monk's lung capacity is increased to 1.25x when 'Monk Extended Breath' is enabled under Remix's Assists config.

The following are the raw statistics for each slugcat, exactly as they are found under SlugcatStats. [*] lungsFac determines how much air is drained per frame. This means lower values grant a larger lung capacity.

[†] Damage value is randomized on throw between 0.6 and 0.9, with a bias towards 0.9

[‡] 3.0 only when not exhausted - reduced to 0.3 when exhausted.

The following are the raw statistics when starving, showing the stats that change only. Note that most slugcats share these stats when starving, only Gourmand and Rivulet are unique. [*] bodyWeightFac is clamped to 0.9 - for Spearmaster and Slugpups who are already lighter than 0.9, their weight does not change.

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.