This game can be pretty hard sometimes, but when it comes to playing as a Cultist it's REALLY tough. This is mostly due to the fact that her runs play so differently than the other guys. You're not going to have a lot of gear options. Your strength and constitution will likely be terrible. Most shops and all guilds will shun you. You'll really have to use that brain of yours in order to survive in many different ways.

The Cultist is ETL's 5th class and the only one that is locked to new players at the beginning. The class becomes playable to you once you've found at least 25% of the game's items. And seeing as of right now there's 500 different items to find, it may take a while. You can check your progress on the Found Items Log from the start menu:

You want to go into a Cultist run as prepared as possible, and as such there are a couple built in ways to help you.

Daily Bonus - Cultist Special

There are many days throughout the year that offer prizes and bonuses to players who want to start a new run on them. That being said, if you only have one day out of the month to try this I would highly recommend playing on the 15th of any month.

On every 15th of the month is the "Cultist's Special" bonus, which gives her a free White Knife and +1 CON. These two things directly address any starter Cultist's weaknesses: Lack of weapons and no natural CON growth.



This weapon is nice because it will always critically hit any undead enemy. At the start of the game, that means plague-inducing zombies and skeletons. Also by choosing to collect the White Knife it makes things a little easier when it comes time to choose your starting gifts.

Your skills are amazing

You begin the game right off the bat with RUST, a spell which never misses its target and reduces any enemy's DEF to -5. That means any hit afterwards will actually do more damage than if you were to hit it with zero defense at all!

At level 4, you'll learn RITUAL. In essence this is a skill where you huck a billion knives at the enemy, causing great damage. This skill can also never miss. The actual damage can vary pretty wildly however it scales off your DEX stat and thankfully that's one area you do pretty well in.

Lastly at level 7 you'll learn the dreaded DEATH spell. It costs a whopping 9 STM to cast but in most cases will instantly kill most any non-undead foe in a single casting. This can even work on champ and boss monsters (though they do have some resistance to it). In these cases your MAG stat will help to counteract champ / boss death resistance and potentially score an easy kill!

Evil Blessing can hit like a truck
Unlike the other classes, when you auto kill a weaker enemy you'll gain some temporary ATK power as part of your pact with your evil god. Evil blessing damage scales off your character level and can reach tremendous numbers. By purposely auto killing weaker enemies you can buff yourself up before tough fights or bosses. Upon a successful melee attack this bonus damage is applied and reset to zero. You'll also lose any Evil blessing ATK bonus at the start of a yellow lantern phase.

You gain the Instant Kill buff on the yellow phase
Instant Kill is an incredibly lethal buff where you'll assassinate anything 10% of the time, each time you attack with melee weapons. And that means ANYTHING, including the game's most powerful bosses. The other classes can only dream of getting some rare items that offer this power- and you get it for free at the start of each yellow lantern phase!

Auto Killing an enemy gives you health
That's right! Simply walking into a weaker enemy and killing them will heal you +1 HP. It's a great way to conserve food and potions, and necessary since you can't stay at guilds to recover like everybody else.

You can eat rotten food
Cultists have the 'Iron Stomach' ability, meaning no rotten or spoiled food will hurt you. In actual fact, you'll even gain double the STM bonus from this nasty stuff!

Even enemies are repulsed by you
Starting at level 4, Cultists will gain a chance to repulse enemies. If successful the enemy will miss its turn and refuse to act. You're just that popular.

You'll lose less maximum HP at cultist dens
Basically the only place you'll normally be able to shop at are cultist dens. Makes sense, right? But membership has its privileges and that means anything you want to trade for your maximum HP will be less than somebody else.

You can donate money for stats
Additionally, a new third option becomes available to Cultists at the cultist den where you can donate cash for a chance to gain stats in all 4 main categories (STR / DEX / MAG / CON). The lower you go into the dungeon, the higher the donating costs and potential stat increases get. The three levels are $200, $1000, and $5000.



They can only equip knives*
Cultists will only be able to use knives and other sharp, dagger class weapons. The only exception to this rule is the regular Pickaxe, which can double as a low-powered weapon if need be.

They can only wear robes, hats, and super lightweight stuff
As an active Cultist on the go, she doesn't really have time for all that heavy crap. As such, gear like cloaks, hats, robes, and gloves are what you're going to be keeping an eye out for. And if you're thinking about shields forget it that's right out!

Low STR
Physical damage through melee weapons and potential for critical hits. You will have almost no pop when it comes to hitting things with knives, however it's important to not totally neglect your physical attack power if possible (ATK).

Zero CON
They're super pathetic when it comes to CON, which she'll get no natural growth from at all. Since CON governs your max HP, stamina, and physical DEF, this is a big deal. Since most of your powerful skills require lots of stamina to use, you will always be on the lookout for anything that can permanently raise your CON (or STM) while playing.

Everybody hates you
It's true! Guilds and Shops will refuse to let you into their establishments, that's the way it is. Unfortunately being a member of an evil cult isn't a very popular dungeon pasttime with most folks.

In my quest to provide this guide, I'll list the starting gifts that I usually choose however by all means feel free to choose whatever you want instead.


My thinking is since the Cultist can't really fight her way out of a paper bag at the start of the game she should concentrate on items for survival. So for this run I picked the Potion of Speed, Torch, and Shovel.



For my character bonus I chose All Stats +1 for the extra STR and CON boost I won't easily be able to get otherwise.

Dev's Note: As of March 2021 three of the starting bonuses were improved: XP +20%, Gold +30%, and MDEF +4. Might make it a tougher choice, but I'd probably still go with +1 to all stats for a Cultist!


If you have any Xtoli Points to spend you can do that here next. The good thing about these points is you can play with stronger characters to kill bosses prior, and then hoarde points up for your Cultist run. One of the best prizes to choose here is Quick Study, which gives you +3 to all stats.



And at the outset of floor 1, here's my stuff so far. The white knife allows me to deal critical damage to any zombies I can't avoid and I'll be all set with the torch in case a Darkness Floor pops up. The potion can grant me extra turns in battle (should I get into any I can't handle) and otherwise lets me move 2 spaces for every 1 of the enemies on the map. Not bad!

If I get hopelessly stuck then it's Shovel time.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG??

These joints are going to be where you'll do almost all of your shopping. Like I said before, the third choice in these places for cultists are options to donate money. Donate different amounts of cash to have a great chance to increase each one of your stats. Since shops and guilds won't let you inside, all your gold can be saved specifically for donations like these.

Like other classes you can also straight up trade your max HP for items here too. Being a cultist, you'll have to trade substantially less max HP than the other guys. You lucky cultist you.

Everything in here is worthwhile but Shovels should always be purchased whenever possible, as they're one of the best auxiliary items in the entire game.

These are special statues of your dark god. Only cultists can use them, and a multitude of different effects (and gifts!) can be bestowed upon you when touched. Of course since your dark god is also a jerkwad there's a chance something bad will happen to you too!

It should be noted that there's a small chance touching one of these statues can warp you down 1-2 floors, so you might want to finish up exploring the area or visit the cultist den before activating it.

Mystery Rooms will begin to show up starting at Floor 6. Upon picking the lock successfully, you'll be WHISKED AWAY to a special mini event. While these do appear to be quite randomized there are several that are designed for a particular class, who will always pass with flying colors.

In the cultist's case, it's this one above. You'll always be able to cross the bone pile without waking up the skeleton and causing a battle, so always choose YES and grab that damn diamond of course!

Though overall your gear selection may be limited there are lots of great things you can use to lay waste to the dungeon. I'll list some of the better things to look for while playing:

• Cunning Disguise: Though as a helmet this is pretty terrible it will somehow disguise you enough to let you enter and purchase things in both shops and guilds. Being able to rest at inns is of course HUGE. Being able to go shopping like everyone else is ALSO HUGE. Even if you find a helmet that's better for your cultist for fighting things, if you own this disguise always keep it with you for entering buildings later!
  
  
• Rol's Hat: DEF +2. This is a great hat with +12% evade. It's also part of the Hero gear (orange text).
  
  
• Voltia's Ring: DEF +2, MAG +2, Max STM +8, Use Effect: Spell Boost. This top-tier Hero gear ring is excellent for anyone and especially cultists. You can use it from your backpack to give you the Spell Boost effect (MAG +5) to help your chances that your DEATH magic will work against champs or bosses as well.
  
  
• Mage Cap: MAG +4. Though it has no defenses to speak of that MAG boost is great for increasing your chances of landing your DEATH spell.
  
  
• Black Potion: Refills HP/STM and gives +3 to all stats permanently... Or kills you. Black Potions are the ultimate "Oh sh!t" item when you get hopelessly stuck. If you're in a situation where you're definitely going to die (and you'll know when you are) you can always drink one of these and hope for a miracle. You can also dump these into a pond to pollute the water supply, which kills all plant life on the floor. This is very handy for floors with lots of poison grass or killer plants on it. Additionally, you can then fill your new empty bottle up at the polluted pond to get some Stagnant Water- which is an excellent healing item for cultists!
  
  
• Alchemy Hat: DEF +1, Max HP +2. Wearing this thing while filling up empty bottles at a cauldron can get you some very nice rare potions.
  
  
• Warlock's Hat: DEF +1, MAG +1, CON +1. A fantastic hat that has defense and extra stats to boot.
  
  
• Wizard Crown: DEF +1, Can reflect enemy elemental spells 10% of the time. Chances are low you'll get your grubby mitts on this rare crown, however if you do it can also be used to provide a +10 permanent MAG boost!
  
  
• Dodge Ball: DEF +1, Evade +10%. Equipped in your left hand, this not only gives you a whopping +10% chance to evade attacks it allows for the DODGE ability in battle too. This thing can last you the entire run, potentially.
  
  
• Gloves of Evasion: DEF +3, DEX +3, Evade +5%. Since you can't use shields these gloves are a good alternative if you don't find a Dodge Ball first.
  
  
• Rabbit Rune: +5% Evasion. A common rune as far as runes go, this will let you dodge enemies more easily by a small amount. When coupled with your repulsion rate however it can really start to add up!
  
  
• Black Rune: CON +5. This is essentially the ultimate rune for Cultists. It will greatly boost the amount of attack power you get with evil blessing auto kills.
  
  
• Ritual Dagger: ATK +9, MAG +1. One of the best weapons you'll be able to use that increases the amount of attack power you get with evil blessing auto kills. It's usually seen in cultist dens for a very high max HP cost.
  
  
• Grim Ring: DEF -10, Max HP +25. This cursed ring can be surprisingly awesome on a cultist, if you have some other gear with decent evade%. If the enemy can't hit you that DEF penalty won't be a factor, and 25 extra HP to deal with dungeon traps and etc. is really nice. Best of all like the Ritual Dagger this ring increases the evil blessing ATK power gained through auto kills too!
  
  
• Evasion Cape: DEF +2, Evade +10%. The best body armor you'll be able to wear as far as Evade % goes. Couple it with Rol's Hat for a whopping +22% chance to avoid melee attacks from enemies.
  
  
• True Magic Robe: DEF +8, MAG +15. Though primarily for wizards, if you find this it provides the best overall physical defense and MAG boost in the game for a cultist.
  
  
• Weebish Robe: DEF +5, Max HP / STM +10, XP earned +200%. All weebish stuff is excellent but there's not much of it you'll be able to wear. The robe has the highest single XP bonus percentage in the whole game.
  
  
• Weebish Cowl: DEF +3, Max STM +9, Regenerates +1 STM per step. It regenerates stamina every step, 'nuff said.

In the very beginning you're going to be pretty weak, but luckily most of the enemies you'll face are too. If you remember your skills and abilities you should have no issues dealing with the tougher fights, and if you're up against something that's just too hard to take on right away you should of course avoid it!

Your RUST skill is excellent as it never misses the enemy and lowers their physical DEF to -5. Yes, that's 5 points worse than zero. What this effectively does is add 5 points of damage onto your normal melee attack. That knife that was doing 1 or 2 damage will now do 6 or 7. This is a mini godsend you should familiarize yourself with straight away.

Another thing to keep in mind, though you shouldn't necessarily rely on it, is that you'll gain the Instant Kill effect at the start of every yellow phase. This effect is normally hard to get (for non-cultists) and can be very powerful as it will instantly kill anything in the game 10% of the time when you hit them. This includes champs and even bosses. No one is safe!

To fuel your RUST (and future) skills, try to open every barrel you see as oftentimes the starter areas will be loaded up with stamina-boosting fruits like watermelon slices, bananas, and cherries. The game has a high chance for Storage Room floor events anywhere from floors 2-6 that has a much higher chance to spawn barrels. Use these to stock up on food for later!

• Weapons like Biff's Dagger or the Dirty Fork that have a minor enchantments
  
• Torches are always good as darkness is always bad
  
• Empty Bottles can be filled at cauldrons for potions or at ponds, which can be used to lessen disease later
  
• STM-boosting food items like watermelon slices or cherries
  
• If you didn't choose the Cultist Robe for a gift you'll even want tee shirts, believe it or not!

Many times you'll find rotten apples, eggs, and other nasty food while exploring. For a Cultist with the 'Iron Stomach' passive ability these are excellent healing items. So don't scrap them if you're only used to playing other classes as you'll be getting rid of food that will help you down the road!

For the love of god, if you can lure and trap an enemy* in a room with a door remember you can close it and seal it inside. This tactic is viable all the way down to floor 50, and can really save your @ss!

*An exception to this rule are all thief-class enemies, who can open closed doors. To stop them, you'll have to further protect yourself by locking a closed door with a Padlock. Padlocks aren't too super rare, thankfully.

Upon reaching level 4 you'll gain 3 additional abilities and a new skill.

Auto-Kill (level 1) is an awesome ability that will let you automatically kill and win any fight vs. an enemy weaker than you. In this case, that'll be guys like bats, snakes, kolbolds, slimes, rats, and etc. To perform this, simply have the required 1 point of stamina and walk right into the enemy to splatter it into mush. For Cultists however auto-kill is upgraded significantly. You'll gain +1 HP per enemy killed this way as well as gain some ATK power to fuel your Evil Blessing.

Evil Blessings are the powers bestowed upon you by your dark god, the Dragon King. With each enemy killed via auto-kill you'll gain a bit of ATK power. You can keep auto-killing enemies and keep gaining more and more ATK power this way, and the cap is pretty high. This huge attack boost lasts until you successfully strike an enemy (and deal the damage) or until the yellow lantern phase first shines. It's a great idea to try and 'farm' wussy enemies for evil blessing power before tackling a tough monster or boss fight!

Repluse Foe is a passive defensive mechanic where the enemy has a chance to get so disgusted at your vile self that it'll completely forget to attack and miss its turn! Though you'll gain this ability at level 4, it will increase in effectiveness with each level thereafter. Couple with with some good evasion items and enemies will either miss you or skip their turns an awful lot!


Your new skill is called RITUAL. It's an attack where you huck a billion knives at the enemy with a 100% hit success rate. How nice! The damage varies widely however it does scale with your DEX stat. Keeping some DEX-boosting items on hand wouldn't be the worst of ideas. For any enemy you fight that can't be taken out with your basic piddly knife attacks you're going to you be using this skill most likely.

I consider the early game to be the first 10 floors, though your mileage may vary!

Purple Potions can be dumped out on bone piles found on the floor. Doing this brings them back to life and triggers a fight with a Skeleton Warrior. Do this and huck some RITUAL knives for great early XP and a chest drop.

This is pretty much most of the game right here, as getting through levels 7 through 9 will likely take most players a while to do (unless they find a Leveling Scroll or something). You'll be attempting to kill bosses by now as well as running into the harder floor events like Graveyards, Monster Infestations, and possibly Plague floors too.

But before any of that stuff-


At level 7 you'll learn the last of your class skills, DEATH. AS you may imagine from its name, this is a DEADLY SPELL, damn it. As you may not know though, unlike most games with death magic in them Equin: The Lantern's death magic is really powerful and works most of the time:

• Vs. The Reaper- He's immune
  
• Vs. Undead enemies- They're immune too
  
• Vs. Regular enemies (including Killer Plants)- Killed 100% of the time
  
• Vs. Champion enemies- Killed 50% of the time
  
• Vs. Bosses- Killed 20% of the time

On top of that, your death magic scales a bit with your MAG stat to the tune of +1% success rate per point. Therfore a cultist with MAG 20 gains a +20% chance that her death spell will succeed. In your travels you'll probably want to pick up items that can give you the Spell Boost effect to use before big boss battles and increase your chances of victory!

By this point you've probably donated gold several times to cultist dens and have some decent stats. Maybe you've found a good weapon upgrade and found a useful rune or two. Keep up the good work, be careful, THINK before you step, and try not to get your @ss killed until the next section of this guide!

Around this time is when Icebox floors may appear. If that happens just keep in mind that any shovel you try and use to get out of a jam will break upon the solid ground, wasting it.

Quiet Floors have a chance to appear from floor 25+ and hold only one enemy: The Reaper. Now I won't tell you what you can and can't do with your own copy of my game, but I will say to PLEASE REMEMBER the Reaper is immune to your death magic. So NEVER CAST IT against him.

If you've gotten your Cultist this far you should be congratulated as it's not easy. Upon reaching level 10 -and gaining that snazzy new red wardrobe sprite- you'll have a choice of course to pick a level 10 bonus.

To recap:

• Nightvision: See way better in the dark and never get ambushed while in it again
  
• Lucky: Chests will have slightly higher chances for better items
  
• Skill Mastery: All class skills will require 1 less stamina to use

You can do what you want, but if I were you I'd choose Skill Mastery for a couple reasons. First, darkness floors can happen but they're not guaranteed. Second, better loot is great however cultists can't use most gear to begin with. And third, you'll always be using your class skills and have a low max stamina count. So skill mastery it is!

By now you're easily on floor 30-40+, and are running into some fierce opposition. The best advice I can give you is to fight if you have to but avoid combat if you can. White potions can be drunk to turn yourself invisible which will allow you to walk right through enemies and sneak past. If you have a warpstone this is also a good way to avoid trouble.

Ogres can hit very hard, possibly even hard enough to kill you in 1 or 2 hits. Your DEATH spell will always kill them so be sure to use it. Ant Warriors are also hard and can call for help (reinforcements) which can surround you. A well-placed RITUAL or DEATH can stop this from happening.


Another late game floor event, the Treasure Floor, will have nothing but chest type enemies to fight. There will be a HIGH chance of Death boxes, which at lower floors are absolutely terrifying and.. uh, DEADLY. Chest type enemies have stats that scale with the depth of the dungeon, so the deeper you are when you run into them the more wary you should be!


While you might be tempted to call these a family reunion, trust me these are NOT the cultists you're looking for! This floor is littered with enemy cultists and their horned leaders, and rarely the Dragon King himself! As everything here also has the same death magic spell you do, I would try to avoid combat if possible. The Dragon King is actually the hardest enemy in the game and can deal huge damage to anyone. If you enter combat with him you can try to cast DEATH yourself and hope for the best. If you succeed in killing it you'll be rewarded with a shadow chest. Yay!

So you've made it to Floor 50 and won the game! That's damn amazing, and very tough to do (even for me). Don't feel bad if you bypassed the Lich and made it straight for the exit ladder instead- that's exactly what I did above.

Make sure to take a screenshot of your accomplishment, and by all means share it to our community board here. And thanks for reading this guide!