Cavemother
 |
Warning! Nudity ahead!
This page contains depictions of genitals and / or sex. |
The Cavemother is a boss encounter in Fear & Hunger.
Lore
A female creature that has endured prolonged exposure to the enshrouding darkness within the dungeons of fear and hunger, her physical form presents an amalgamation of avian and mammalian traits: adorned with wings and possessing the ability to lay eggs, while her face bears a semblance to that of a human, accompanied by lactating breasts.
The Cavemother yearns for human beings to impregnate her. These unions purportedly result in the birth of Cavegnomes, diminutive gnome-like beings. Evidently viewing them as expendable and holding them in scant regard, she employs the Cavegnomes to carry out her bidding.
Although the game presents the opportunity to confront only a single Cavemother, there appears to be an additional specimen of this entity within the caverns. This particular specimen is found shackled to a wall, seemingly lifeless and inert.
Location
The Cavemother resides in Level 4 - Caverns, but cannot be found roaming the map. Instead, she will approach the player on the bridge, if the player has either crushed a gnome egg or picked up the shiny object at the bottom of the area. This will trigger a two-phase battle.
Defeating the cavemother will make her descend back under the bridge. She will be found again near the end of the bridge, and will instantly run up to the player, now with her wings missing.
The second encounter is thus against the weakened version of the Cavemother, where her torso attacks will be used by her head once it s recognized as an additional body part, and she will have no wings.
Fighting the Cavemother is necessary to get the Soul stone found by the gnome eggs. It also allows the player to pick up Gnome eggs out of her body, which can be fed to the Salmonsnake to prevent it from acting for the first two turns of battle. Note that a total of x6 Gnome eggs can be looted from her body parts, thus making the fight against the Salmonsnake much easier if all eggs are used. Using a Soul stone on her body will grant the player the Cavemother soul, an accessory that grants the user x1.1 Attack.
Battle
| Body part | HP | Blunt | Slashing | Piercing | Fire | Otherworldly | Ev. Rate | Magic Ev. | Resistances |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Head (Phase 2) | 20 | 100% | 100% | 120% | 100% | 100% | 80% | 40% | Confusion |
| Torso | 375 (1500) | 5% | None | ||||||
| Torso (Phase 2) | 325 (1300) | 5% | None | ||||||
| Left wing | 270 | 5% | None | ||||||
| Right wing | 270 | 5% | None | ||||||
| Breasts | 200 | 5% | None | ||||||
| Left leg | 20 | 5% | None | ||||||
| Right leg | 20 | 5% | None |
- Note: HP in parenthesis is only used for Damage-over-Time calculations.
Strategy
The fight is divided into two phases, and although the second phase has much lower HP, the battle is overall risky since the Cavemother regularly performs One-tooth bite, which is capable to bite off arms or legs. As long as you have one Red Vial on hand before encountering her, you can arguably turn her into one of the easiest optional bosses to battle.
First Phase:
The Cavemother has a 50% chance of using one variant of One-tooth bite that deals 30 damage and bites off an arm or leg, or a 25% chance of performing the same move but with no limb-amputation effects. If her breasts are not destroyed before the end of the first turn and at the end of every three turns, one Cavegnome is summoned to aid her in battle.
There are two ways to defeat the Cavemother in the first phase:
- Dealing 375 (725 in Terror and Starvation mode) damage to the torso.
- Destroying both of her wings. Each wing has 270 HP.
One lone character can singlehandedly defeat her with a strong weapon such as the Eastern Sword with a single strike towards the torso, but the attack can still miss or be evaded. Taking out the wings can work too, but that can take at least two turns and you'll be susceptible to lose limbs. The best method to deal with her is to use one Red Vial towards the torso. In this phase, Cavemother does not have a separate body part for her head, so that means that One-tooth bite is performed by her torso. Once that's blinded, the accuracy of the attack plummets to zero. Take out the breasts next so that Cavegnomes won't be summoned frequently, but if you're swift and take out the torso as soon as you can, any Cavegnome in battle will be immediately defeated.
You could use items to inflict her with varying status effects, but since her HP is so low, you can reserve those items for other enemies. If you don't have a Red Vial, you can perform Flock of Crows as an alternative method. There is a low chance that all three hits miss.
Defeating the first phase will cause the Cavemother to fly away from the main character and drift backwards into darkness. Walking down the nearby bridge that leads towards the elevator will initiate the second phase, where the creature charges at you.
Second Phase:
This phase is slightly different; the Cavemother is wingless, her torso is slightly weaker, Cavegnomes are summoned into battle at the end of every first, second, and third turn if the breasts are not cut beforehand, she has a different body part for the head, and the head only has 20 HP. Regardless, the Cavemother will still attempt to perform One-tooth bite often.
There are two ways to defeat the Cavemother in the second phase:
- Take out the torso.
- Destroy the head.
Since the head is so weak, you could kill her immediately by using magical multi-hitting attacks to increase your odds, such as Flock of Crows or Black Orb. Her head still has high physical evasion and moderately low magical evasion, so as an alternate, you can slash her legs and take out the head. Sometimes, the head will not become vulnerable for some reason, either because of an error or some other unseen factor.
Just like the first phase, you can use a Red Vial on the head (not the torso, only the head performs One-tooth bite this time) to blind her. There's an error in the game where using a Red Vial during battle does not remove it from your inventory, meaning that you never have to worry about running out of Red Vials, so having one vial is good enough against the Cavemother. Using one in the overworld however, such as a locked door or chest, does remove the vial like normal. Once she is blinded, cut off the breasts to prevent any more Cavegnomes from appearing. Cut down her torso until she is defeated.
Misc.
- Once you have a Red Vial, you should kill the Cavemother as soon as you can to cultivate six Gnome Eggs from her corpse. These eggs can be used against the Salmonsnake to distract it for two turns.
- There's a battle script error during the second phase where having three party members can somehow cause the Cavemother to preemptively move first unless one of the party members has a high agility stat, such as having the White Angel soul equipped or having Moonless in your party.
- If you want to avoid her but still access the mines; starting off from the elevator, take the upper route. You'll pass by Pocketcat and an effigy of Sylvian. Cavegnomes roam around the area and Moonless is at the end of a bridge. Another way is to take the lower path from the elevator. Around a certain section between a bridge and a pile of corpses, you'll see flavor text at the bottom of the screen with something along the lines of, "You hear something flying in the darkness." If you return to that spot again, you will encounter the Cavemother.
Trivia
- There is a cut content of this entity that supposed to have an coin flip. The effect of this attack is either used on the One tooth bite move on the previous version or an current unknown move.
- Depending on the size of the party, if the player has 4 party members, the game will prioritize the preemptive initiation on the 4th most slot placed character while having only 3 party members will cause Cavemother to initiate her move first. This is likely due the result of an error script.