Spearmaster

''An abnormality who feeds using needles pulled from its body. A traveler from a far away land; A feeling in your depths sets you out once again, messenger...''

The Spearmaster is one of five playable Slugcats in the Downpour DLC. They begin the game in Outskirts, and have a variety of unique mechanics, including the ability to grow organic spears from their tail, which can be used to impale and drain life from other creatures. This is required to gain food pips.

Food
5 food pips are required to hibernate, while up to 5 may be stored for the next cycle.

Opening
The Spearmaster starts the game with a gate to closing behind them in a dimly lit subterranean part of, with a red  watching and directing them forward.

General Changes

 * Predators are more common and difficult.
 * Spear damage is increased.
 * The Spearmaster moves generally similar to the, with a slightly faster walk speed.
 * Smaller creatures and plants only fill 1/4th of a food pip.
 * The Spearmaster is much lighter than any other Slugcat, being a similar weight to that of if another Slugcat was starving. This isn't immediately obvious due to their heavy tail weighing them down. Spearmaster is so light, in fact, that by doing a backflip while holding onto a, they can fly indefinitely with it, typically only possible by starving with any other Slugcat.

World Changes

 * is at its most dangerous, with blue rot, a, and some rooms filled with lethal acid instead of water, which is instantly lethal to Spearmaster. Some entirely new rooms can be accessed.
 * 's structures are in better condition, instead named . The Precipice is also more intact and no longer a dead end, now connecting to as well as the rest of the region.
 * has not collapsed yet and is still whole.
 * The Unfortunate Development part of Five Pebbles contains much less rot, and the zero-gravity doesn't turn off.
 * The Exterior is completely free of Rot.

Crafting
The Spearmaster can create spears at no cost by pressing and holding pick up if they have an empty hand, and is able to hold 2 of them at the same time.

Hunger
Having no mouth, the Spearmaster instead siphons nutrients from living enemies using self-made spears, filling up to 1 food pip per hit. Spears must be self-made to leech and lose this ability if they are dropped or thrown, signified by a gradual color transition from white to black.

The amount of hunger pips filled by each creature per hit varies as listed below: [*] Giant Jellyfish instantly die upon being speared. [†] Mushrooms and Karma Flowers still grant their regular effects upon being speared. [‡] Popcorn Plants are rendered unusable upon being speared. [§] Rain Deer and Stowaways are immune to Spearmaster's Spears, as they fall out.

Tips

 * Spearmaster's ability to create spears makes it very easy to befriend scavengers, as spears can be traded with them indefinitely.
 * Spearmaster is highly adept at movement tech that requires throwing objects, such as throw-boosting and extended slides, as they can simply create spears to serve as those objects.

Trivia

 * Spearmaster has a habit (or hobby) of drawing on the ground what they have come across during their journey, using their own-created spears.
 * The sketches Spearmaster draws include: themselves holding two spears, a Scavenger, a Lizard, a Pole Plant, an Eggbug, an Iterator (Likely Seven Red Suns), and a small depiction of an outside landscape.


 * Seven Red Suns (SRS), one of the Iterators, is the one who sent Spearmaster on their quest. SRS makes an appearance on the campaign page after one of Spearmaster’s endings.
 * Through LttM commenting that Spearmaster’s body adaptation seemed impossible via natural means, along with multiple communications that the Spearmaster can find along their journey saying so, it can be discerned that Spearmaster is a purposed organism, designed for survival in the harsh environment.
 * No Significant Harassment, through one of the transmissions, also implies that there were more purposed organisms sent out as messengers by Iterators even before Spearmaster.