Box of beasts

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Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.
Type Miscellaneous item
Name box of beasts
Icon Box of beasts.png
A box filled with the bizarre leftovers of a depraved wizard's magical experimentations. Opening it might set loose a friendly mutant beast: bizarre creatures, each with their own combination of traits. Increased skill with Evocations will allow stronger beasts to be released.


There are six known traits:

  • Bat beasts fly and move very quickly, but erratically.
  • Fire beasts resist and breathe fire.
  • Ox beasts resist cold, are armoured with thick fur, and can knock back foes.
  • Shock beasts resist electricity and can transform into living lightning.
  • Sting beasts resist poison and have a reaching poison-tail attack.
  • Weird beasts can see invisible and attack with constricting tentacles.


As far as anyone knows, all beasts have exactly two of these traits.

A box of beasts is a miscellaneous magic item which can summon an irregular, albeit friendly, monster, classified generally as a mutant beast.

The box of beasts becomes empty after one use; it can be recharged by gaining experience. Like with other miscellaneous evocables, only 1 box of beasts will spawn in a given game.

Mutant Beast

A mutant beast usually combines two random traits/facets:

Each beast also has one of five tiers, corresponding to HD and melee attack damage.

  • Larval (HD 3) (12 damage)
  • Juvenile (HD 9) (19 damage)
  • Mature (HD 15) (26 damage)
  • Elder (HD 21) (33 damage)
  • Primal (HD 27) (40 damage)

HD of mutant beasts is roughly (Evocations skill + 1d7 - 1d7), rounded up to the nearest tier & capped at 27.

History

  • Prior to 0.26, boxes of beasts had a 1/3 chance to fall apart after every use and didn't recharge with XP.
  • Prior to 0.19, boxes of beasts didn't stack.
  • Prior to 0.17, a box of beasts would instead summon a chimera.
  • In 0.16, box of beasts became considerably stronger than before.
  • Prior to 0.13 this item summoned individual (non-chimera) monsters.
  • Prior to 0.9, it appeared as a small ebony casket while unidentified.
Miscellaneous Evocables
Figurine of a zigguratHorn of GeryonLightning rodPhantom mirror
Phial of floods / Gell's gravitambourineCondenser vane / Tin of tremorstonesBox of beasts / Sack of spiders