Cultist Stronghold: Floor-by-Floor Raid Guide

The Cultist Stronghold is a three-floor stone fortress guarded by waves of cultists, and it is the only place in 99 Nights in the Forest that reliably pays out Diamonds. It appears on your map once the campfire reaches level 3.

It is also the single most misjudged location in the game. Most players either never attempt it, or attempt it once at the wrong moment and write it off. The difference is almost always understanding two mechanics: the difficulty ladder and the staircase.

Last verified: 2026-09-29. This page covers the location itself — the layout, the enemies and the loot. For the repeatable Diamond-farming loop built on top of it, see How to Get Diamonds Fast.

Quick Facts

How to Find It

The Stronghold does not exist on your map at the start of a run. You need campfire level 3, which is why this location is really a wood problem before it is a combat problem — see How to Get Wood Fast if the campfire is the thing holding you back.

Once the campfire is high enough, craft a map at the crafting bench (3 wood) and look for the three-diamond icon. During the original Stronghold Update this icon carried an exclamation mark; the current icon is just the diamonds in a grey circle.

Place a teleporter at the entrance — before your first raid, not after your third. You will be running this location repeatedly, and the walk is dead time every single time. A teleporter at the door and one at your camp turns a failed attempt into a minor inconvenience instead of a wasted night.

The Difficulty Ladder Is the Whole Fight

This is the mechanic most players miss, and it is the one that decides whether the Stronghold is farmable or impossible.

The Stronghold has four difficulty levels. The level goes up only when you complete a raid — and it never comes back down. Once you have cleared level 4, every subsequent raid stays at level 4 forever. There is no reset to level 1.

What goes up with the level is cultist health:

For comparison, cultists encountered in the open world and in normal night raids sit at roughly 100–150 HP. A level 4 Stronghold cultist has double to triple that.

Two consequences worth planning around:

A weapon that works at level 1 may simply stop working at level 4. If a raid that was comfortable suddenly isn't, the cause is almost always the ladder, not your aim.

Server size matters as much as the level. Cultist health and the number of cultists both scale with how many players are in the server. A full server at level 4 is a very different fight from an empty one at the same level.

The Cultists You Will Fight

Three variants appear inside the Stronghold, and they are not interchangeable:

Melee Cultist — the most common. Carries an Old Axe, Spear or Morningstar. Weak one-on-one, dangerous in numbers. Damage: 7 (Old Axe), 15 (Spear), 30 (Morningstar).

Crossbow Cultist — instantly recognisable by the crimson jacket. Stays at range and fires accurately. Damage 15, and it moves faster than the melee variant (walkspeed 16 vs 12). Kill these first, every time. They are the reason a raid spirals: you cannot out-walk them, and they chip you down while you are busy with the crowd.

Juggernaut — roughly twice the size, wearing a metal helmet with antlers and glowing yellow eyes, always carrying a Morningstar. Far more health and far more damage than a normal cultist. It only appears in level 3 and level 4 Strongholds (and in Hard Mode night raids), so seeing one is a reliable signal that you are deep in the ladder.

A fourth variant, the Mega Cultist, is admin-spawned only during Update Parties and is not part of normal play.

Cultists drop Revolver Ammo, Rifle Ammo and Mossy Coins, and the last one killed in a location drops a Cultist Gem.

Floor by Floor

First floor. A closet on your left sometimes holds loot. The hallway to the right of it leads to the spiral staircase. Walking past that hallway is the trigger — a message appears telling you the Stronghold's difficulty level, and the first wave spawns.

Second floor. A concrete barricade gives you cover, and there are two tables with four chairs you can loot. Cultists spawn here in larger numbers than on the first floor.

Third floor. The largest wave of the raid. Clearing it unlocks the prize room, which also contains your exit route.

The rule that matters: clear each floor completely before going up. Climbing with cultists still alive behind you is how you get pincered between two waves with nowhere to stand.

You will hear an unlocking sound when a floor is cleared. It is the same sound as the doors to the missing children's caves — see Missing Kids Locations — so if you have done any rescuing, you will recognise it immediately. Treat it as your cue to move.

The Prize Room

Behind the locked room on the third floor:

Two details that trip people up:

The Ruby Chest changes for other players. If someone has already opened it, it appears to everyone else as an unopened Gold Chest. The good loot is not necessarily gone from your run — but do not assume a Ruby Chest is still a Ruby Chest just because of how it looks.

The two Cultist parts are scrap only. Cultist Prototype and Cultist Experiment have no other use — they go into the crafting bench.

The Spiral Staircase Is a Safe Room

This is the most useful thing on this page, and most guides skip it.

The Deer does not spawn inside the Cultist Stronghold. Players inside are safe from it, whether or not it is in its aggressive state. There is one exception: if your campfire goes out, the Deer can appear inside.

And if it does get in — either through that exception or because you deliberately lured it — it cannot climb the spiral staircase. Going up to the second floor makes you untouchable.

That combination makes the Stronghold a genuinely strong night shelter. If a night is going badly and you are near it, going inside and upstairs is a legitimate escape rather than a desperation move. For more on how the Deer behaves, see The Deer.

Tactics

Use the walls. You can stand behind a wall with a ranged weapon and damage cultists through the gap without them attacking back. This is the closest thing the location has to a safe strategy, and it works.

Fight into bottlenecks. Stairways and narrow passages turn twelve enemies into two. Pull back to a stairway rather than fighting in the open.

Clear crossbows first. They are the only variant that punishes you for standing still.

Bring a second weapon. Ammo runs out mid-raid more often than health does.

Know the high-level bug. At higher difficulty levels there is a reported bug where, after you kill a certain number of cultists on the third floor, the remaining ones simply disappear and the prize room unlocks. Do not rely on it, but do not panic if it happens either.

Solo or Team? The Honest Answer

Sources genuinely disagree here, and both sides have a mechanism behind them.

Team guides recommend 3–4 players. More players means more damage, more revives, and someone to watch your back.

Farming guides recommend going solo. Cultist count and health scale with the number of players on the server — but the chest rewards do not. A solo raider fights a smaller, weaker wave for the same 5 Diamonds and the same Ruby Chest.

Both are correct, because they are optimising different things. Go solo if you can reliably clear it — it is strictly more efficient per minute. Bring a team if you cannot, because a failed raid pays nothing at all. The mistake is bringing a team when you didn't need one and making the fight harder for no extra reward.

Where Sources Disagree

How many cultists per floor. Reports range from roughly 10–15 per floor to 15–20 across all three floors. These are not compatible, and neither figure is corroborated. Treat enemy counts as approximate — the health ladder above is the number worth planning around.

The 300 HP figure at level 4. One wiki lists it and simultaneously labels it unverified; another lists it plainly. The 120 / 180 / 240 / 300 progression is consistent across both, so we have used it, but it is worth knowing that the top of the ladder is the least confirmed step.

Recommended party size. Covered above — the disagreement is real and comes from different goals, not from bad information.

FAQ

When does the Cultist Stronghold appear? At campfire level 3. Before that it is not on the map at all.

How often can I raid it? Every 20 minutes after a completed raid.

Does the difficulty ever reset? No. It only ever goes up, and after you clear level 4 it stays at level 4 permanently.

Is 5 Diamonds per run worth it? It is the only reliably repeatable Diamond source in the game. Full breakdown of the loop on the Diamonds page.

Can The Deer follow me inside? Not normally — but it can if your campfire goes out. If it does, go upstairs; it cannot climb the staircase.

Do I need a specific class? No, but ranged damage and a second weapon matter more than class choice. See Best Class and Best Weapons.

When was it added? 4 July 2025, in the Stronghold Update. That patch also added the Hunter and Brawler classes. Full timeline on Update Log & Patch Notes.