Pepper Rex

Pepper Rex

Type	Monster
Location	Skull Cavern
Floors	Prehistoric floors (mostly)
HP	300
Damage	15
Defence	5
Speed	2
XP	7

The Pepper Rex is the Skull Cavern's dinosaur, a plodding green reptile that stops, braces and breathes a jet of flame at whatever is in front of it. It keeps to the prehistoric floors, the jungle-looking levels where the cavern suddenly fills with foliage, and it is usually in company: three to five of them on one floor is normal, and their fire arrives in a chain if they are taken on together. Every Pepper Rex gives up exactly one bone or egg when it dies, and one of those is the Dinosaur Egg, which is the only way to put a Dinosaur in a Big Coop. Fifty of them complete the Adventurer's Guild bounty that Gil pays with the Knight's Helmet.

Behaviour

A Pepper Rex moves slowly around the floor and only becomes dangerous when the farmer gets close. At that point it halts, and the halt is the tell: a Rex that has stopped moving is about to breathe fire, and it will keep breathing in one direction for several seconds.

While the flame is out it does no contact damage at all, so standing beside a breathing Rex is safer than standing beside a walking one. That is the key to the fight. The moment the pause begins, stepping out of the line of fire and attacking from the side costs nothing, and the Rex is committed for the length of the breath.

There is one trap. During the pause before the flame, a Rex can still swing round to face a new direction, and moving to its flank too quickly simply turns it. The reliable version is to stand diagonally next to it, wait until the flame actually starts, and then attack from the side the fire is not coming out of. Once a Rex is breathing it cannot change its mind.

Groups make this harder because the direction each Rex faces decides where its flame goes, and in a cluster those lines cross. Pulling them apart and taking one at a time is slower and far cheaper than wading in.

Location

Pepper Rexes belong to the prehistoric floors of the Skull Cavern, beyond the Calico Desert. Those floors look nothing like the rest of the cavern: dense green foliage, dinosaur bones and a jungle colour scheme instead of bare rock. They appear at random depths, and a Rex can turn up on an ordinary floor now and then, but the prehistoric levels are where they gather.

Mutant Flies share those floors, which is an awkward pairing: the fly is fast and ignores walls while the Rex is slow and needs line of sight, so the two demand opposite kinds of attention. Cutting the foliage on a prehistoric floor is worthwhile on its own, since Dinosaur Eggs and Ancient Seeds can be foraged out of it.

Reaching the prehistoric floors means diving from the top each time. Farmers chasing the bounty tend to bring Staircases, drop quickly until a jungle floor appears, and then clear it properly rather than hunting floor by floor.

Drops

A Pepper Rex always drops exactly one item from a short list, and the roll decides which. Three of the four are prehistoric bones: a Prehistoric Rib, a Prehistoric Tibia or a Prehistoric Vertebra. All three are Museum artefacts, and donating the right combination earns pieces of the Sloth Skeleton display, so a bounty run doubles as a Museum trip. Any of them can also go into a Bone Mill, which turns bones into Quality Fertiliser, Speed-Gro, Deluxe Speed-Gro or Tree Fertiliser.

The fourth outcome is the Dinosaur Egg, and it is the reason most farmers hunt a Rex at all. The egg counts as an artefact, so one can be handed to Gunther, but the better use is an incubator in a Big Coop or a Deluxe Coop. Eleven days later it hatches into a Dinosaur, and a fed, grown Dinosaur lays an egg of its own every week. Those eggs go through a Mayonnaise Machine to come out as Dinosaur Mayonnaise, which is one of the better paying artisan goods for the work involved. The sensible order is therefore to incubate the first egg and donate the second: the Dinosaur then supplies the Museum copy for free.

A Burglar's Ring changes the maths here more than almost anywhere else. Because the drop is a single roll from the list, wearing the ring makes the game roll twice, which doubles the chance of an egg from every Rex killed.

Items this monster can drop when it is defeated, with the chance of each.

Item	Image	Chance
Dinosaur Egg		10%
Prehistoric Rib		30%
Prehistoric Tibia		30%
Prehistoric Vertebra		30%
Diamond		0.05%
Prismatic Shard		0.05%

Notes

The Knight's Helmet that Gil hands over for fifty Pepper Rexes is a cosmetic hat, so the bounty is chased for the reward list and the Protector of the Valley achievement rather than for a combat bonus. Marlon sells spares once the first has been collected.

Every single kill produces something, which makes a Pepper Rex one of the most reliable monsters underground. That makes the prehistoric floors a good place to fill a Museum shelf and a fertiliser chest at the same time.

Monster Musk doubles the monsters on a floor. On a prehistoric floor that means more eggs and more fire, so it pays best for a farmer who can already kill a Rex in two or three swings.

All Monsters

Every entry in this group, with its key details.

Name	Location	HP	Damage
Armored Bug	Skull Cavern	1	8
Armored Bug (dangerous)	Skull Cavern	250	20-27
Bats	The Mines & Skull Cavern	24, 36, 80, 300,; 268, 277	06, 07, 15, 30, 13, 14
Blue Squid	The Dangerous Mines	310	18
Bug	The Mines	1	8
Bug (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	250	15-16
Carbon Ghost	Skull Cavern; The Dangerous Mines	190	25
Cave Fly	The Mines	22	6
Cave Fly (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	266	13-15
Duggy	The Mines	40	6
Duggy (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	280	8
Dust Sprite	The Mines	40	6
Dust Sprite (dangerous)	The Mines	280	13-15
Dwarvish Sentry	Volcano Dungeon	300	18
False Magma Cap	Volcano Dungeon	290	15
Ghost	The Mines	96	10
Grub	The Mines	20	4
Grub (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	265	12-13
Haunted Skull	Quarry Mine; The Mines random dungeon floors	160	15
Haunted Skull (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	310	19-26
Hot Head	Volcano Dungeon	215	18
Iridium Crab	Skull Cavern	240	15
Iridium Golem	Wilderness Farm	430	15
Lava Crab	The Mines	120	15
Lava Crab (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	340	19-26
Lava Lurk	Volcano Dungeon	220	15
Magma Duggy	Volcano Dungeon	380	16
Magma Sparker	Volcano Dungeon	310	15
Magma Sprite	Volcano Dungeon	220	15
Metal Head	The Mines	40	15
Metal Head (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	280	19-26
Mummy	Skull Cavern	260	30
Mummy (dangerous)	Skull Cavern	445	38-55
Mutant Fly	Mutant Bug Lair, Skull Cavern	66	12
Mutant Grub	Mutant Bug Lair	100	12
Pepper Rex	Skull Cavern	300	15
Putrid Ghost	The Dangerous Mines	500	25
Rock Crab	The Mines	30	5
Rock Crab (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	272	13
Royal Serpent	Skull Cavern	150 + (50 × tail segments)	32-48
Serpent	Skull Cavern	150	23
Shadow Brute	The Mines	160	18
Shadow Brute (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	370	22-32
Shadow Shaman	The Mines	80	17
Shadow Shaman (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	310	21-30
Shadow Sniper	The Mines	300	18
Skeleton	The Mines	140	10
Skeleton (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine	655	16-18
Skeleton Mage	Dangerous Mines, Quarry Mine	355	20-25
Slimes	The Mines, Skull Cavern, Quarry Mine, Secret Woods, Tiger Slime Grove, and Volcano Dungeon	Varies	Varies
Spider	The Mines (Shrine ON)	200	15
Squid Kid	The Mines	1	18
Squid Kid (dangerous)	The Dangerous Mines; Skull Cavern	250	22-32
Stick Bug	The Dangerous Mines	700	20
Stone Golem	The Mines	45	5
Stone Golem (dangerous)	Dangerous Mines	283	13
Truffle Crab	The Farm	30	5
Wilderness Golem	The Farm	30	5