Cultists in 99 Nights in the Forest — Every Type, Raid Nights, Damage and What They Drop
The Cultist is the enemy you fight most: the Melee, Crossbow and Juggernaut variants and their weapons, raid nights from Day 4 and how they escalate to eight attackers, the Cultist Gem rule that decides who drops it, and the Caverns and Jungle variants.
Cultists are the enemy you will actually fight most in 99 Nights in the Forest. Not the Deer, not a boss — these are the human followers who guard every valuable building on the map and who walk into your camp on a schedule.
They matter for two reasons beyond survival. The last Cultist killed in a raid drops a Cultist Gem, the material that gates the Cultist King and high-tier crafting. And their corpses are a resource in their own right. This page covers every type, how raids escalate, and what you get out of them.
Last verified: 2026-10-02. For the Stronghold itself and its difficulty ladder, see Cultist Stronghold.
Quick Answer
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What they are | Human cultists who worship The Deer; the game's main recurring enemy |
| Main types | Melee, Crossbow (crimson jacket) and Juggernaut (helmet, huge) |
| Open-world health | 100–150 |
| Stronghold health | 120 → 180 → 240 → 300 by Stronghold level |
| First raid | Day 4, melee cultists with Old Axes only |
| Raids after that | Roughly every 4 days, up to 8 cultists, better weapons |
| The key drop rule | The last Cultist killed in a raid drops a Cultist Gem |
| Can you stop raids? | No — they are on a schedule |
The Three Types You Will Actually Meet
Melee Cultist — the common one. Brown clothes, a dark jacket, bald, wearing a deer skull on its head. It carries an Old Axe, a Spear or, later, a Morningstar. It walks at speed 12 and dies fast up close. Individually weak; dangerous in numbers.
Crossbow Cultist — kill this one first. Identical to the melee variant except for a bright crimson jacket. It carries a Crossbow, stays at range, hits for 15, and moves faster than the melee variant (speed 16 against 12). That speed gap is the whole problem: you cannot simply walk away from it, and it chips you down while you are busy with the crowd. Every raid guide says the same thing — clear crossbows first.
Juggernaut — the rare one. Roughly twice the size of a normal cultist, in a red-trimmed shirt and a metal helmet with antlers and glowing yellow eyes. It wields a Morningstar and is far tankier and harder-hitting than the other two. It normally appears only in a Level 3 or 4 Cultist Stronghold or in a Hard Mode night raid. It was added on 4 July 2025 alongside the Stronghold itself.
Weapons and Damage
A Cultist's damage depends entirely on what it is holding, which is why the same enemy feels trivial early and lethal later:
| Weapon | Damage | Who carries it |
|---|---|---|
| Old Axe | 7 | Early melee cultists |
| Spear | 15 | Mid-tier melee cultists |
| Crossbow | 15 | Crossbow Cultist (ranged) |
| Morningstar | 30 | Late melee cultists and Juggernauts |
Note that 30 is also the damage of the Morningstar you can pick up — if a raid is hitting you that hard, they are carrying a weapon you would very much like to have.
How Much Health They Have
Health scales with where you meet them, not with a fixed value:
| Where | Health |
|---|---|
| Open world and normal night raids | 100–150 |
| Stronghold level 1 | 120 |
| Stronghold level 2 | 180 |
| Stronghold level 3 | 240 |
| Stronghold level 4 | 300 |
That ladder is the reason a level 4 Stronghold feels like a different game. See Cultist Stronghold for the full breakdown.
Night Raids
The first raid is scripted for Day 4. The day before, the info bar flashes red: "Something evil is approaching your campfire… it arrives tonight." With about 20 seconds left before nightfall it changes to "You will be attacked tonight, return to your campfire."
Then drums, then a cutscene. One detail worth knowing: The Deer shows up for the first raid and only watches — it stands near the crafting bench and does not attack you. The first raid is melee cultists with Old Axes and nothing else.
How raids escalate. After the first, raids come roughly every 4 days (about 20 minutes of play) and get worse in three ways at once:
- Crossbow Cultists start appearing.
- Melee weapons upgrade — Old Axe → Spear → Morningstar.
- Numbers grow, up to a maximum of 8 cultists.
The failure state matters. If any cultists are still alive at morning, your campfire depletes faster in proportion to how many survived, and you get the warning "Some Cultists are still alive near your fire." Finishing the raid before dawn is not optional.
One odd mechanic: if you heal The Deer during a raid, it will sometimes turn on the cultists and attack them.
What They Drop
| Drop | When |
|---|---|
| Cultist Gem | Dropped by the last cultist killed in a raid — this is the one that matters |
| Gem of the Forest fragment | Also from the last cultist, but only on raids past night 99 |
| Mossy Coins | 0–1; currency for the Furniture Trader |
| Revolver / Rifle Ammo | 0–1 |
| Morningstar | The weapon itself, from a cultist carrying one |
The "last one killed" rule is the important part, and it is why raid order matters: if you are farming Gems, you cannot simply kill them as you find them — the Gem comes from whichever cultist dies last, so you control it by leaving one alive and finishing it deliberately.
Drops are per raid, not per cultist. A room full of eight cultists pays one Gem.
Where Else You Meet Them
Beyond raids, cultists guard most of the map's valuable structures: the Cultist Stronghold (marked with three blue diamonds), the Cultist Base (also called the Military Base — four melee and two crossbow cultists), the Cultist Laboratory, Cultist Church, Cultist Hunter Camp, Cultist Ritual Circle, Cultist Tree and the Dilapidated Building. There are frozen ones in the Ice Temple, and the Volcanic Biome adds them to nearly every structure alongside the Cultist King.
Variants in Other Biomes
The surface roster is not the whole family. Deeper content adds its own cultists:
| Variant | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow Cultist | Caverns | ~120 HP, low damage, jagged knife, comes in groups of 2–4 |
| Brute Cultist | Caverns, Final Cave | 400–450 HP, 40 damage, battleaxe. About 10–12 spawn at once, but its slow attack cooldown makes melee viable |
| Darkstring Cultist | Caverns (ranged) | Fires two shots per volley |
| Jungle Cultist | Jungle Temples, Mother Temple | ~120 HP, Poison Spear (30) or Blowpipe (45), with poison armour that punishes meleeing it |
The Cavern variants answer to The Bat rather than The Deer. Shadow and Brute arrived with The Bat on 22 November 2025; the Jungle Cultist came with Jungle Biome Part 1 on 28 February 2026.
The Ones You Cannot Fight
Mega Cultist. A giant, red-skinned version roughly the size of a large tree, dealing over 100 damage per hit. It is admin-spawned only, during Update Parties — you cannot meet it in normal play and there is no strategy for it. Treat any "how to beat the Mega Cultist" content with suspicion.
Trick or Treat Cultist. A Halloween-event reskin found at the Trick or Treat House, passive while inside. Just a cosmetic variant.
Resurrected Cultists. The Necromancer class can raise dead cultists with the Cultist Staff (three cultist souls each). Worth knowing: a resurrected Crossbow Cultist attacks in melee — it cannot fire.
Corpses Are a Resource
Do not leave the bodies lying around:
- Campfire fuel. Cultist corpses can be thrown into the campfire.
- Volcano sacrifice charges. At the Volcanic Biome altar, a normal cultist body is worth 1 charge, and a large cultist (Brute or Juggernaut) is worth 2. One source puts the Cultist King's corpse at 5 — flagged as a single source below. Since payouts land every 8 charges, knowing which corpses are worth double changes how many you need to haul.
- Stronghold cultists do not leave usable corpses for this purpose, so farm raid and open-world cultists for the altar.
How to Fight Them
- Kill crossbows first. They are the only variant that punishes you for standing still, and you cannot outrun them.
- Fight melee cultists in the open, where you can back up. They walk slower than you.
- Do not let a raid run to morning — the campfire drain is the real penalty.
- Bring ranged for Juggernauts. They hit for Morningstar damage and take far longer to drop.
- Control which one dies last if you are farming Cultist Gems.
Where Sources Disagree
Health. The fandom wiki and our own Stronghold research give the 100–150 open-world range and the 120/180/240/300 Stronghold ladder. One mob list gives a flat 100 HP for every type including the Juggernaut, which contradicts the Stronghold ladder and the Juggernaut's whole purpose. We use the ladder.
Juggernaut damage. Sources agree it carries a Morningstar and "much more damage", but only the weapon's own 30 figure is published. Treat 30 as the floor rather than a confirmed Juggernaut-specific number.
Raid frequency. "Every 4 days" and "about every 20 minutes" are the same claim measured two ways — one source states both. We present them together.
The Cultist King's sacrifice value. The 5-charge figure comes from a single source and is not repeated on our Volcanic Biome page, which lists 1 for normal and 2 for large cultists. Flagged, not adopted as fact.
FAQ
When is the first cultist raid? Day 4. You get a red warning the day before, and a second one about 20 seconds before nightfall.
How often do raids happen after that? Roughly every 4 days, or about 20 minutes of play. They escalate to a maximum of 8 cultists.
Who drops the Cultist Gem? The last cultist killed in the raid. Not a random one — finish the final cultist deliberately if you are farming Gems.
What is the crimson jacket for? It marks the Crossbow Cultist — the ranged variant. Kill it first.
How much damage do cultists do? 7 with an Old Axe, 15 with a Spear or Crossbow, and 30 with a Morningstar.
Can you stop raids from happening? No. They are on a schedule from Day 4 onward.
What happens if you do not finish a raid? Your campfire drains faster in proportion to how many cultists survived the night.
Are cultists tameable or recruitable? Not in normal play. The Necromancer class can resurrect their corpses, but that is not the same thing.
Sources
Checked 2026-10-02. The type list, weapons and damage figures (Old Axe 7, Spear 15, Crossbow 15, Morningstar 30), the walkspeeds (12 melee, 16 ranged), and the crimson-jacket identification for the Crossbow Cultist are identical across the fandom wiki, BloxSwaps and Finding Dulcinea, and match our own Cultist Stronghold page. The health ladder (100–150 in the open world and raids; 120/180/240/300 by Stronghold level) is the fandom wiki and matches our Stronghold research; the flat-100 reading from Finding Dulcinea is flagged above. The raid schedule and escalation — Day 4 for the first raid, the two warning messages, The Deer only observing, melee-with-Old-Axes only on the first raid, then crossbows, better weapons and up to 8 cultists, roughly every 4 days — is the fandom wiki and BloxSwaps. The failure state (faster campfire drain proportional to survivors, and the "Some Cultists are still alive near your fire" warning) is the fandom wiki and BloxSwaps. The drop rule — Cultist Gem from the last cultist killed, Gem of the Forest fragment after night 99, Mossy Coins and ammo — is the same pair, with the ammo and Morningstar drops from the fandom wiki and BloxSwaps respectively. The Juggernaut details (twice the size, antlered metal helmet, Level 3–4 Strongholds and Hard Mode raids, added 4 July 2025) are the fandom wiki and BloxSwaps. The Caverns and Jungle variants (Shadow, Brute with 400–450 HP and 40 damage, Darkstring firing twice, Jungle with Poison Spear 30 and Blowpipe 45, added 22 November 2025 and 28 February 2026) are BloxSwaps alone and are flagged as a single source. The Mega Cultist being admin-spawned at over 100 damage is the fandom wiki and BloxSwaps. The corpse-as-resource uses (campfire fuel, 1 charge for a normal cultist and 2 for a large one at the Volcano altar) follow our Volcanic Biome page; the 5-charge Cultist King figure is BloxSwaps alone and is flagged. One wiki that publishes otherwise-consistent cultist data was excluded from this page because it has previously published fabricated material for this game.
Related Pages
- Cultist Stronghold — the difficulty ladder, floor by floor, and where the Gems come from
- The Cultist King — how to summon the boss with 4 Cultist Gems
- Volcanic Biome — the sacrifice altar, and what the corpses are worth
- How to Get the Morningstar — the weapon late cultists carry, and how to get your own
- How to Get the Infernal Helmet — where a Gem of the Forest fragment leads
- All Locations — every cultist-held structure on the map
Keep Reading
Frogs in 99 Nights in the Forest — The Four Types, the Split Mechanic and How to Stop the Swarm
How frogs work in 99 Nights in the Forest: when they emerge from the ponds, the Green, Blue, Purple and King variants, why every kill spawns two more frogs, what they drop including Frog Keys, and how to tame one.
The Scorpion in 99 Nights in the Forest — Spawns, Poison, the Shell Drop and How to Tame One
Where Scorpions spawn (Volcanic Biome, nests and pits), their 50 HP and 20 damage plus poison, how to fight them without bleeding out, the rare Scorpion Shell drop that gates the Infernal Helmet, and the Old Flute taming route.
The Alpha Wolf
The Alpha Wolf in 99 Nights in the Forest is the upgraded Wolf: where it spawns (Snow biome at night, Forest with a Level 3+ campfire, Locked Caves), its stats, what it drops (Alpha Wolf Pelt, Blue Key), and how to tame it with a Good Flute.