Wandering monsters

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Wandering monsters are monsters that can show up in almost any zone that uses adventure.php. They can only show up under special circumstances, such as on holidays, world events, certain quests, special challenge paths, or created through various Mr. Store methods.

Wandering monsters all have a fixed window where they can appear (as well as some with an exact timing). For instance, FoB and El Dia monsters have ranges of 25-35, while monsters hit with the Obtuse Angel's badly romantic arrow have ranges of 15-25. More specifically, the game sets a turncount number equal to your current turncount plus a number in that range, and once your turncount exceeds that set number and you adventure in an adventure.php zone you will get the monster. This means that it is possible to guarantee a wandering monster on a specific turn; provided that you have spent enough turns in non-adventure.php or no-wanderer locations (such as the Tavern Cellar).

Free runaways (such as those granted from the Stomping Boots) or free combats (such as Bricko Monsters, Hipster Monsters or Infernal Seals) will not change the number of turns needed to encounter a wandering monster.

Wandering monsters are capable of overriding normal combats and noncombats, and others (see Encounter for a detailed explanation), but NOT clover adventures, superlikely adventures, or semirares. This has practical consequences to the adventurer; wanderer-ineligible circumstances can reduce the encounter counter without triggering it, leaving a wanderer ready to ambush in the next eligible zone. This can also be exploited for massive benefit: if you're using Dreadsylvania-specific item drop effects, you'll get the massive item drop bonus even against monsters that are not native to the area.

Uses

Burning Delay

Many zones feature "delay" as a mechanic wherein particular adventures in the zone that give quest progress cannot begin appearing until after a certain amount of encounters in the zone. Wandering monsters, if encountered in these zones, will advance the "delay" even if the wanderer is a free fight. Depending on the zone, the quest-relevant encounter may be a "forced" adventure that occurs immediately once the delay is up, or may simply be able to begin appearing. For more details and a comprehensive list of zones with delay mechanics, see Conditional Adventures.

Advancing Quests

Depending on the quest, it may be able to be advanced either by fighting a monster regardless of where the monster is encountered, or by fighting in a zone regardless of what monster is encountered. This can create opportunities to efficiently progress quests by completing objectives for two separate quests by fighting one quest-relevant monster while in another zone, or by fighting free monsters in a zone to further the zone-based progression. Examples of these would be:

Quest Relevant Factor Notes
Spookyraven Manor Quest Zone Drawers toward finding the Spookyraven billiards room key in the The Haunted Kitchen can be found regardless of what monster is defeated in the zone.
Monster Once recipe: mortar-dissolving solution has been read with Lord Spookyraven's spectacles equipped, bottle of Chateau de Vinegar can drop from Possessed wine rack and blasting soda can drop from Cabinet of Dr. Limpieza regardless of where the monster is fought.
Monster If the Unstable fulminate is equipped, Monstrous boiler can be fought anywhere to progress toward the fulminate being turned into a Wine bomb.
Boss Bat Quest Monster Once The Bat Hole is unlocked, Screambats can be defeated anywhere to open the next side-zone, similar to using a sonar-in-a-biscuit.
Undefile the Cyrpt Quest Monster Once the quest is started and you possess the Evilometer, defeating monsters from each Defiled zone in the Cyrpt will reduce the evil in the zone that monster is normally located in by 1, regardless of where the monster is killed.
Orc Chasm Quest Monster Bridge parts from non-pervert smut orcs will drop regardless of where the smut orcs are fought, up until you finish building the bridge.
Monster Once the quest is started, pressure at Oil Peak can be reduced by killing the Oil monsters regardless of where the Oil monster is killed.
Quest for the Holy MacGuffin Zone Wanderers can be fought in The Arid, Extra-Dry Desert count toward exploration progress. However, using Monster Changing abilities on enemies will cause them to not count for exploration progress.
Monster Once the quest is started, The Red Zeppelin mobs that give credit toward finding Ron "The Weasel" Copperhead can be fought wherever for progress. (On the other hand, Glark cables can only be used while adventuring in the Zeppelin, regardless of monster being fought.)
Monster Once The Palindome is unlocked, defeating Palindome-native Dudes count towards getting the "I Love Me, Vol. I" (and photograph of a dog, if you aren't using the disposable instant camera) to drop.
Mysterious Island Quest Monster Battlefield Hippies/Frat Orcs can be fought wherever and it will give the appropriate amount Battlefield progress based on the amount of sidequests you have completed (i.e. 8 kills if you've completed 3 side-quests). Note that all war monsters have a condition that can be true only on the Battlefield, so the effects like Be Gregarious or Recall Facts: Monster Habitats will not provide any wandering copies and will make you unable to use that source further. (However, most other methods of generating wandering copies do *not* repeatedly check for the monster's appearance conditions, and are therefore safe to use on these.)
Monster Lobsterfrogman defeated anywhere can drop barrel of gunpowder, even prior to starting the the Recover the Lighthouse Keeper's Gunpowder subquest.
Naughty Sorceress Quest Monster The materials necessary to craft Richard's star key can be gathered by fighting The Hole in the Sky monsters wherever, even if the zone is not unlocked. If the wanderer was generated by Be Gregarious or Recall Facts: Monster Habitats and you choose a male-based wanderer monster (i.e. Skinflute) while in an even-numbered ascension, you will be unable to encounter any wanderer copies of the monster, and visa versa for female-based wanderer monsters (i.e. Camel's Toe) and odd-numbered ascensions, preventing further use of Be Gregarious/Monster Habitats.
Zone Any monster can be fought in the 8-Bit Realm zones in order to earn the points necessary to earn the rewards at the Treasure House such as the digital key and fat loot token. Note that if a monster with no base Meat drops in encountered in The Fungus Plains, then a Meat bonus from a familiar will be ignored when calculating the score.

Please note that the above table is not comprehensive as it primarily does not list non-quest item drops such as the sonar-in-a-biscuit and parts of various outfits used as part of quests that can be acquired in the same manner every ascension regardless of quest progress.

Sources of Wanderers

Free-selection of Copiable Monster

The following table is for methods of generating wanderers that allow the player to choose the monster that is made into a wandering monster (as long as that type monster can be copied).

Sources that don't interact with the Adventure Queue

These sources are copies that appear after a certain amount of turns within a certain range guaranteed, with a certain priority given as a "wandering monster" (based on the Encounter priority hierarchy) that let the encounter supersede the normal encounters.

Skill How to acquire/use Notes
Fire a badly romantic arrow Skill usable in combat with Obtuse Angel equipped 2 copies (3 if quake of arrows is equipped on the Angel) appearing 15-25 adventures apart. Copies are cleared by rollover. Shares usage counter with Wink at (Familiar Name).
Wink at (Familiar Name) Skill usable in combat with Reanimated Reanimator equipped 3 copies generated appearing 15-25 adventures apart. Copies are cleared by rollover. Shares usage counter with Fire a badly romantic arrow.
Digitize Skill usable in combat with ownership of installed Source Terminal Able to be cast 1-3x per day depending on Source Terminal upgrades. Wanderer appears 7 turns after combat, then 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. turns after the previous wanderer. Unlimited number of copies. Re-casting skill resets duration between wanderer copies. Copies are cleared by rollover.
LOV Enamorang Single-use combat item generated from The Tunnel of L.O.V.E. Single copy generated that appears as a wandering monster 14 turns after the fight in which the item is used. Effect persists past rollover.
Spooky VHS Tape Single-use combat item generated from 2002 Mr. Store Catalog Single copy generated that appears as a wandering monster 7 turns after the fight in which the item is used. When copy is encountered, it is free-killed and all of its non-conditional drops are forced to drop. Monster must be instakillable to be eligible to be VHSed.

Sources that interact with the Adventure Queue

Monster copies created by these sources, rather than being encountered as wanderers, are added directly to the Adventure Queue. This means that unlike wanderers in the section above, these monsters are treated like any random other combat encounter in the zone. As a result, you will be able to encounter the copies in locations that block wandering monsters (e.g., The Dire Warren, though some of the nowander locations are also set to explicitly block Gregarious Copies from being encountered, e.g., The Shadow Rifts.) Rules regarding the monster being able to be encountered naturally can prevent these copies from showing up, i.e. even if the monster copying skill is successfully cast on a Skinflute, if the player is in an even-numbered ascension the Skinflute will be unable to show up, and the skill will be unable to be re-cast.

Skill How to acquire/use Notes
Be Gregarious Skill usable in combat with usage of Extrovermectin™ (2 spleen) Able to be cast once per Extrovermectin™ consumed. Creates 3 copies. Cannot use additional Be Gregarious charges while you already have a Gregarious monster active. Charges of skill AND copies persist across rollover. Charges and copies are only cleared by ascension.
Recall Facts: Monster Habitats Skill usable in combat with Just the Facts learned. 3 casts per day, generating 5 copies each. Cannot be cast again until all 5 copies have been encountered. Copies are cleared by rollover.

Source-determined monster

The following table is for wanderers where the monster type is predetermined and cannot be freely chosen by the player, and where the wanderer appears after a certain amount of turns within a certain range guaranteed, with a certain priority given as a "wandering monster" (based on the Encounter priority hierarchy) that let the encounter supersede the normal encounters.

Source How to acquire/use Notes
"I Voted!" sticker Submitting voting ballot at the Daily Loathing Ballot Wandering monster able to be encountered once every 11 adventures all day, but only when "I Voted!" sticker is equipped. The sticker does not have to be equipped between fights to increment the 11-turn encounter. First 3 encounters are free fights. Monster is chosen by previous day's election choices.
Aware of Bees Buff obtainable from owning an August scepter and casting Aug. 19th: Honey Bee Awareness Day!. 30 adventure duration buff with ~25% chance per adventure of encountering a wandering bee from the Bees Hate You path.
Bees Hate You Special challenge path for Summer 2011 For the entire duration of ascension while in-path, wandering bee enemies (type based on level of zone) are encountered every ~15-20 adventures.
Me and My Nemesis During the The Secret Tropical Island Volcano Lair part of the quest Upon reaching this part of the quest, a series of four wanderer "assassins" will begin to appear once the player is eligible for each (based on current main stat), with the first one appearing 5-15 adventures after reaching this part and each other occurring 35-50 adventures afterward. If lost to, each assassin will reappear as many times as is needed for the player to defeat them, but once defeated each assassin cannot appear again during that ascension.
El Dia de Los Muertos Borrachos On every Martinus 2 During the holiday, holiday-specific wanderers appear all-day every ~25-35 adventures.
Feast of Boris On every Boozember 7 and American Thanksgiving During the holiday, holiday-specific wanderers appear all-day every ~25-35 adventures.

Notes

Many wandering monsters that are created by the player (Obtuse Angel, Reanimated Reanimator, Digitize) require that an adventure in a wanderer-eligible adventure.php zone, that fulfills that wanderer's priority, is first used to initialize the wanderers, although whether this initialization costs a turn or not does not matter.

If the wanderer was generated by Be Gregarious or Recall Facts: Monster Habitats, the miniature crystal ball's encounter predictions can be utilize to encounter an additional copy from wanderer sources. Inversely, if your wanderer is predicted by the crystal ball and you clear the prediction, you will lose that last encounter, thus making it possible to for you to use the crystal ball to fight anywhere from 0-4 wandering copies of a monster you have used Be Gregarious on and generated 3 wandering copies of, or 0-6 for Recall Facts: Monster Habitats.

The priority sequence in which wandering monsters is encountered is detailed in the encounter flowchart

Wandering monsters will never appear in the following adventure.php zones, and will be pushed back to the next eligible adventure.php location:

As of 2020/04/16, 'nowanderer' zones also suppress Eldritch Attunement, Hallowiener Dog adventures, and Turtle Taming adventures. However, monsters generated by Habitat/Extrovermectin™ can still be encountered in traditional nowanderer zones. The following zones are 'nomonsterfreqmods' (super nowanderer), suppressing all of the above, any form of Adventure Queue sniffs or banishes, as well as June cleaver dreams and Habitat/Extrovermectin™:

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