Monsters, while they can do a lot of damage, are actually one of the coolest parts of the game! You can gain gold, land, artifacts, and magic items from them!!

Monsters show up randomly in covens. Watch your coven news because it'll warn you when they are spotted approaching your coven! At the top of every hour while monsters remain in a coven, they have a chance at possibly attacking one of your covenmates or worse... YOU! Later in this section, we'll explain this in more detail.

If monsters still remain in your coven after 20 hours, their chance to bounce jumps to 20% per tick. This way they won’t be in your coven indefinitely.

There are five different types of monsters: Orcs, Vampires, Giants, Spiders, and Dragons.

Attacking Monsters

Attacking monsters is much like attacking other kingdoms. The best way to find monsters that you can attack is to look for them at the top of your Clan's forums (if you're not in a clan, get in one, or you can find monsters in the coven displays).

One difference is that your attack bonuses, rage spells, speed spells and or fury potions will not work against monsters (lesser demon does function normally).

A successful hit on monsters will kill 7% of the monster population.

Newb Monsters

In addition to our regular monsters, Geoff was nice and thought about you newbies that are starting late! He has created a weaker version of the monsters, which we'll call "Newb Monsters". Monsters strength is based off of the military units in a coven and how many kingdoms are in the coven. As you can imagine, if you start late, you normally would have no chance at breaking them. With "Newb Monsters" now you do!!

If you are under 1,000 land or under the Newb Monster limit, you can fail on the monsters and get both types of full experience (some based on your level, and some for the military casualties you suffer). After you are outside of the New Monster limit AND over 1,000 land, failing on the monsters will only garner you experience based on the military casualties you suffer.

Only people within the range to hit and be hit by Newb Monsters can see them. They are invisible to the rest of the universe although the coven will be able to see them coming in the coven news. To see the land size needed for you to attack and be attacked by Newb Monsters, check out the Competition page. For those mathematicians out there, the formula for the allowed size range to hit New Monsters is: (Average Land of all kingdoms in the game times .75 where land is greater than 249 *Kingdoms under 250 land are excluded*)

Monster Strength

Now let's talk about these nasty monsters in detail. You can just hit the monsters and hope for an item or two, but if you really want to understand how they give magic items, read on!

As mentioned earlier, monster strength is based on total military units in a coven. Because there are different sized covens, the game has a "Monster Factor" as well. Covens with 5+ kingdoms get the monster strengths cut back and have a Monster Factor of .75. This happens once again with a coven of 10+ kingdoms; they have a monster factor of .50. Covens with fewer than 5 kingdoms have a monster factor of 1.0. Larger covens will yield larger monsters. So the formula for how many monsters will be appearing in your coven is the following:
Monsters strength = total military units in the coven multiplied by the monster factor. (Scholars are not factored into the formula)

Let's do an example of the above. Say there is a coven with 7 shaman. If they each have 2,245 rock throwers, that makes 15,715 total military units (2,245 x 7). Take 15,715 and multiply it by the Monster Factor for 5+ kingdoms (.75) since we have 7 kingdoms total. That gives us 11,786.25. We need round it down to 11,786, that is the total monster strength that will be coming to the coven. Remember, that's the strength and not the number of monsters.

Now to calculate the actual number of monsters that would attack your coven, you would take that above calculated "monster strength" and divide it by the monster type's specific strength value and you get the number that will attack. I'll use Vampires because their value is 10 and that's easy. So you would look at the strength you calculated as 11,786.25 and divide that by the monster value of 10 and you would expect 1,179 (1,178.625 rounded up) Vampires to arrive. All of the monster values are as follows:

• Orcs = Strength/0.33 (actually multiplying strength by 3)
• Giants = Strength/200
• Vampires = Strength/10
• Spiders = Strength/150
• Dragons = Strength/1500

Definitions

The formula's can be complicated to understand. To make this a little easier, first we'll go through a few definitions, followed by the monster specific information, and then some examples.

• FRACTION: This is a number that is going to be multiplied by the monster specific formula. If you successfully break the monsters, the FRACTION = 1.0; if you fail on the monsters, the FRACTION = your attack points divided by their defense points.

• Boost: Using a hero, dark knight, or prince to attack the monsters provides a boost. The Boost is the following formula: Boost = Character Level divided by 2.

• Aggression: This refers to how aggressive a monster is. Basically, how often they may attack the coven. It's in a percentage. Example: Spider aggression is .45 which means that there is a 45% of a chance they will attack a kingdom on the hour.

• Rolls: This basically can mean chances. If a monster gives 2 rolls. That means that you have 2 chances at obtaining an item.

Now that you know the terminology, we'll explain the monster specific information. Be patient, we'll give examples at the end to help you understand the formula.

Monster specific formulas and stats

ORCS
• Item Drop Formula for Orcs: ORCS = (25% + Boost) x FRACTION
• 2 rolls (which means 2 chances at gaining an item)
• If you roll a 100 and the FRACTION is greater than .5, you will gain an artifact instead or a regular magic item (if there are artifacts left).
• Anyone in the game can attack Orcs. They make aggressive attacks against the coven they are in and if they break the kingdom, they can take 10% your land and kill 10% of your military.
• Orcs have 1 offense point and 1 defense point.
• There needs to be at least 400 orcs in order to hit them. Near the beginning of the game, they sometimes fall below this number and you will not be able to hit because they are too small.
• Orc aggression is .40. This means that 40% of a chance that at the top of the hour, they will attack a covenmate.

DRAGONS
• Item Drop Formula for Dragons: Dragons = (60% + Boost) x FRACTION
• 1 roll (which means 1 chance at gaining an item)
• If you roll a 97 or higher and the FRACTION is greater than .8, you will gain an artifact instead or a regular magic item (if there are artifacts left).
• Only people within the clan that has the dragons may attack them. Dragons will attack structures of a kingdom within the coven they appear in, destroying 5%-10% of buildings when they attack. You can rebuild the land that is destroyed. No experience is received for Dragons that attack.
• Dragons have 2,500 offense point and 2,500 defense point.
• There needs to be at least 2 dragons in order to hit them. Near the beginning of the game, they sometimes fall below this number and you will not be able to hit because they are too small.
• Dragon aggression is .30. This means that 30% of a chance that at the top of the hour, they will attack a covenmate.

GIANTS
• Item Drop Formula for Giants: Giants = (35% + Boost) x FRACTION
• 2 roll (which means 2 chances at gaining an item)
• If you roll a 99 or higher and the FRACTION is greater than .75, you will gain an artifact instead or a regular magic item (if there are artifacts left).
• Only people within the clan that has the giants may attack them. Giants are VERY nasty and even if your defenses hold them back when they attack you, they may injure a few of your characters. I've had up to 4 characters injured at one time from one attack by them. That wasn't fun!! (An injury will keep your character from defending for up to 6 hours. Kind of like how possession works.) Giants also, on breaking you, will take 5% of your land and destroy 5% of your buildings.
• Giants have 500 offense point and 500 defense point.
• There needs to be at least 5 giants in order to hit them. Near the beginning of the game, they sometimes fall below this number and you will not be able to hit because they are too small.
• Giant aggression is .60. This means that 60% of a chance that at the top of the hour, they will attack a covenmate.
• NOTE on Giants Injuring your characters: If you have a character at home on defense, lagged for a few hours, when a giant injures that character, it won't add 6 hours to what it is lagged at currently and then move it off base. Instead, if uses 6 hours as the minimum. For example: You are a necro and you cast a possession which lags your character for 12 hours, yet he is home on defense. The giants hit you and move your character off base (similar to possession). Instead of adding the 6 hour lag that Giants give to the already 12 hours lagged (which would make it 18 hours), it just moves the character off base for 12 hours. If the character had only been lagged for 3 hours but home on defense and the giants struck, it would move the character off base for 6 hours.

VAMPIRES
• Item Drop Formula for Vampires: Vampires = (20% + Boost) x FRACTION
• 4 rolls (which means 4 chances at gaining an item) IMPORTANT: You MUST break a vampire in order to obtain any chance at gaining a magic item.
• If you roll a 100 or higher and the FRACTION is greater than .75, you will gain an artifact instead or a regular magic item (if there are artifacts left).
• Only people within the clan that has the vampires may attack them. Vampires are very hard to kill. The only way to widdle them down to an easy attackable force at times, is to fail on them with only 10 military units and a character. If you successfully attack them or fail on them WITH military, they bring back some of your military casualties as vampires. This technically can make the vampires grow stronger and in turn, make them harder to kill. If vampires successfully attack you, they destroy 5% of your buildings and take 5% of your land.
• Vampires have 50 offense point and 50 defense point.
• There needs to be at least 50 vampires in order to hit them. Near the beginning of the game, they sometimes fall below this number and you will not be able to hit because they are too small.
• Vampire aggression is .50. This means that 50% of a chance that at the top of the hour, they will attack a covenmate.

SPIDERS
• Item Drop Formula for Spiders: Spiders = (15% + Boost) x FRACTION
• 3 roll (which means 3 chances at gaining an item)
• If you roll a 100 or higher and the FRACTION is greater than .75, you will gain an artifact instead or a regular magic item (if there are artifacts left).
• Only people within the clan that has the dragons may attack them. Spiders will kill off population in droves if they succeed.
• Spiders have 250 offense point and 250 defense point.
• There needs to be at least 10 spiders in order to hit them. Near the beginning of the game, they sometimes fall below this number and you will not be able to hit because they are too small.
• Spider aggression is .45. This means that 45% of a chance that at the top of the hour, they will attack a covenmate.

Item Drop Formula Examples:

1. You attack a force of 100 Spiders and break their defenses and in the attack you sent your level 20 Hero along. Your chance of getting a magic item would be as follows: (0.15 + 0.10) x 1.0 = 0.25 or a 25% chance of receiving an item. This would be rolled for three times so you could receive up to three items if you're lucky! Note: the base chance for Spiders is 15% you got an additional 10% for sending a Level 20 Hero (level/2), since you broke their defenses, your multiplier is automatically 1.0.

2. You attack a force of 100,000 Orcs and send only 50,000 offensive points and no Hero/Dark Knight/Prince. Your chance of getting a magic item would be as follows: (0.25 +0) x 0.5 = 0.125 or a 12.5% chance of receiving an item. This would be rolled for two times so you could receive up to two items if you're lucky! Note: the base chance for Orcs is 25%, you got no character bonus because you did not send the right unit type and your chances were cut in half because you only sent a force half as strong as the monsters' defenses.