Leech

Leech

The reason experienced players walk the long way round in the Swamp.
Biome	Swamp
Alignment	Aggressive
Faction	Undead
Health	60
Damage	Bite: 20 Pierce, 70 Poison
Weak To	-
Resistant To	Poison
Immune To	Fire, Spirit
Stagger	-
Tameable	No
Trophy	Leech trophy
Spawn ID	`spawn Leech`

Wade into black water in the Swamp and something moves. The Leech is a metre of aquatic worm that sits invisible against the muck until it bites. Its bite carries 70 poison on top of the puncture, so the damage keeps coming long after you have climbed out. More new Vikings rot out of the Swamp because of these than because of anything carrying a sword.

Behaviour

It is aggressive, but only in its own element. A leech swims slow loops just under the surface and closes on anything that enters the water. It then extends its head and bites in a short arc a metre and a half in front of it, once every two seconds, for 20 pierce plus that heavy dose of poison. That is all it does: no ranged attack, no call for help, and no pack tactics beyond the fact that swamp water usually holds several at once. Force one onto dry land and the fight goes out of it, since beached it is slow, harmless and only trying to get back in. It cannot be staggered at all, so you get no parry window and no stun to buy a breath. Worst of all is visibility. The common leech is black and red against black water, and even the purple two star that takes 140 poison off you is hard to pick out from three metres away.

Where to Find It

Leeches spawn anywhere there is standing water in the Swamp, which means nearly everywhere: the channels between the ancient trees, the flooded ground at the door of a Sunken Crypt, and every shallow stretch you have to cross to get anywhere useful. They are common, with up to ten active at a time, and the hour makes no difference to them, though the biome's gloom and rain make them far harder to spot than the numbers suggest. One and two star leeches spawn naturally and hit for half again and double, a serious jump on an attack whose poison ignores your armour anyway. Nothing gates them beyond setting foot in the biome, which is exactly why they are so often a player's first taste of it.

Where and When	At Once	How Often	Stars
Anywhere in waters of Swamps	10	-	Yes

Strengths and Weaknesses

Fight them from dry land or not at all. Ashore you hold every advantage: they cannot reach you, and a bow, a spear or an atgeir finishes one at the water's edge in a couple of hits, with everything physical landing at face value. In the water you hold none, and you have no parry to fall back on because nothing staggers them. Fire Arrows are the classic mistake here and do nothing at all. The Abyssal Harpoon is the neat answer, dragging one onto the bank where it goes from lethal to helpless in a second. Failing that, raise a dirt causeway with a Hoe and walk over the problem. Bronze tier gear plus a Poison Resistance Mead makes the marsh survivable; without the mead, one bad wade means a corpse run.

It shrugs off Poison.
It ignores Fire and Spirit.

Drops

Bloodbags are the payoff. A stack of them becomes Blood Pudding, one of the sturdiest foods available before the Plains.

Item	Image	Base	1 Star	2 Star
Bloodbag		1	2	4
Leech trophy		10%	10%	10%

Level Variants

A creature can spawn at one of three levels, shown as stars beside its name. Each level is rolled separately at spawn, so a two-star is rarer than a one-star. The difference goes beyond the numbers: a starred leech is recoloured, though the dark Swamp water often hides the colour.

Level	Stars	Health	Damage	Drops
1	-	60	100%	x1
2	⭐	120	150%	x2
3	⭐⭐	180	200%	x4

Notes

Regular leeches are black and red, one-star leeches are a bright, poisonous green, and two-star leeches are purple and bright magenta.
Despite those bright colours, the darkness of the Swamp often makes it very hard to tell a leech's level, especially at a distance. Checking with the targeting reticle up close is usually the most reliable way.
Leeches are in the undead faction because the undead have no blood to drink, so the two ignore each other.

All Creature Categories

All Swamp Creatures

Name	Biome	Alignment	Health	Very Weak To	Weak To	Resistant To	Very Resistant To	Immune To	Drops	Level Variants	Spawn ID
Abomination	Swamp	Aggressive	800	-	Fire	Blunt	Pierce	Frost, Poison, Spirit	Abomination Trophy, Guck, Root (item)	-	`spawn Abomination`
Blob	Swamp	Aggressive	50	-	Blunt, Frost, Lightning	Slash, Pierce, Fire	-	Poison	Ooze, Blob trophy	-	`spawn Blob`
Draugr	Swamp	Aggressive	100	-	-	Fire	-	Poison	Draugr trophy, Entrails	⭐ ⭐⭐	`spawn Draugr`
Draugr Elite	Swamp	Aggressive	200	-	-	Fire	-	Poison	Draugr Elite trophy, Entrails	⭐ ⭐⭐	`spawn Draugr_Elite`
Kvastur	Swamp	Neutral	700	Fire	Chop	-	-	Poison, Spirit, Pickaxe	Resin, Wood, Kvastur trophy	-	`spawn BogWitchKvastur`
Leech	Swamp	Aggressive	60	-	-	Poison	-	Fire, Spirit	Bloodbag, Leech trophy	⭐ ⭐⭐	`spawn Leech`
Oozer	Swamp	Aggressive	150	-	Blunt, Frost, Lightning	Slash, Pierce, Fire	-	Poison	Ooze, Scrap iron	-	`spawn BlobElite`
Surtling	Swamp	Aggressive	20	-	Frost	-	-	Fire, Poison, Spirit	Surtling core, Coal, Surtling trophy	⭐ ⭐⭐	`spawn Surtling`
Wraith	Swamp	Aggressive	100	-	Fire, Spirit	Blunt, Slash, Pierce	-	Frost, Poison	Chain, Wraith trophy	-	`spawn Wraith`
Writhan	Swamp	Aggressive	400	-	Slash	Blunt, Fire	-	Poison	Writhan Roots, Writhan Trophy	⭐ ⭐⭐	`spawn Writhan`

All Categories