The Sentinel

Hostile

One watcher walks this world. It cannot be hurt. Do not be seen. Do not be held.

At a glance

Kind of world	Hostile
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	Colossus Flake
Quests	None

Screenshot comingthe-sentinel-colossus

Open grassland with boulders and a lone tree, the Sentinel striding on four impossibly long legs on the horizon, the player crouched behind a rock in the foreground

What happens when you arrive

Open grassland stretches away from your Box, dotted with boulders and lone trees. It is quiet, apart from a far-off shudder in the ground now and then. Somewhere out there walks the Sentinel: a gaunt, many-eyed colossus about twenty blocks tall, on four impossibly long legs, with arms that drag the ground and a faceless head that splits open. Nothing you carry can hurt it. Arrows bounce off. The only defence is not to be noticed.

The rule: do not be seen

There is only ever one Sentinel, and nothing else hostile spawns here. It wanders the plain, usually 80 to 128 blocks from you when it first appears.

It notices you by	Range	How to avoid it
Sight, in front of it with a clear line to you	64 blocks	Stay behind boulders and trees.
Sight while you sneak	20 blocks	Sneak whenever it is anywhere near.
Noise: breaking blocks, sprinting, fighting, all of it carries	64 blocks	Keep still and quiet. Don't dig.

Being seen doesn't start a hunt at once. Each glimpse fills its suspicion, and it fades slowly while you stay hidden. First it stops and looks ("The Sentinel has stopped. It is looking this way."), then it comes searching where it last saw or heard you, and only when its suspicion is full does it hunt ("Run, and hide."). Out of its sight for about 10 seconds, it loses you.

When it hunts

Attack	Range	What it does
Stomp	Within 6 blocks of its feet	30 damage, and flattens the ground. Usually fatal.
Lash	11 to 30 blocks	Its crown of tentacles lashes out (4 damage) and drags you in.
Gaze	14 to 56 blocks	Its face opens, and the eyes behind darken your sight and slow you.
Quake	9 to 26 blocks	A hand comes down and a wave runs out through the ground (6 damage).
Grab	Close enough to touch	It picks you up. See below.

Screenshot comingthe-sentinel-gaze

The Sentinel's head split open like petals, rows of eyes inside, looking straight down at the camera

If it catches you (spoilers)

It doesn't crush whoever it can reach. It lifts you to its face, the petals open, and it shows you things. Then it sets you down, gently, and gives you Visions for two and a half minutes.

While the Visions last it ignores you completely. But things only you can see start coming after you (the grey pilgrims, the crawling choir, the drowned saint), and their lunges do hurt. And it doesn't let the Touched go: walking the Corridor with Visions, a door near you may swing open on its own and something reaches out to drag you back across the plain to Lowmarrow, to lie at the foot of the idol at the bottom of the Stillwell.

A home video filmed by someone it has held carries its vision. Play the tape, and a tentacle reaches out of the screen for everyone standing in front of the television.

Lowmarrow, town of the Hushed

Out on the plain, 60 to 80 blocks from the Box, a town is dug in below the grass: Lowmarrow, where the Hushed live in the Sentinel's sight. A wayside shrine beside your Box looks toward it. Its turf roofs barely show above ground, and in the middle is the Stillwell, with the Hushed's idol at its foot.

The Lowfolk can't be hurt. Speak to one and they whisper their next line to you alone. When the Watcher is searching or hunting nearby they crouch low and say nothing but "get down": a warning worth taking.

The people of Lowmarrow: Hush-Priest Obed, Mother Ossery, Corvin the Listener, Hester the Flake-Wife, Jabez the Delver, Silas the Mask-Carver, a child called Little Wren, and Penhallow, the Stranger.

They call the Sentinel the Tall Guest, and they talk differently to someone who has been Touched (held to its face). Read the carved Watcher Steles (use one to read its inscription) and the books on the town's lecterns and in its chests for the rest of their story.

Screenshot comingthe-sentinel-lowmarrow

Lowmarrow's turf roofs dug into the grass, the Stillwell in the middle, a robed Lowfolk crouching as the Sentinel passes on the skyline

What to bring home

Find	Where	Why it's worth it
Colossus Flake	Shed by the Sentinel as it walks, about once every minute and a half of walking.	The native Serum active. The only way to get one is to follow it, unseen.
Watcher Stele, Watcher's Eye	The Hushed's carved stone. The Eye glows faintly.	Eerie building stone.

Serum and getting home

• The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
• Native stand-in: Colossus Flake. It takes the place of Somnium Powder in the Synthesizer. To get one, follow the Sentinel at a distance, sneaking, and pick the flakes up from its trail.

Tips

• Sneak everywhere. It cuts the distance it sees you from 64 blocks to 20.
• Never sprint or dig while it is within 64 blocks. Noise turns it toward you even when it can't see you.
• When it stops and looks your way, get behind cover and stay there. Every moment in its sight fills its suspicion.
• Follow its trail rather than its body: flakes drop where it has already walked.
• If the Lowfolk duck, you duck.

Birds

Birds you can photograph for your bird log here. Open one to turn it round, watch it move and hear its call.

• Flake Finch: common
• Many-Eyed Egret: rare
• Hushwatch Owl: common

Everything this world adds

2 blocks and items (click to open)

Watcher Stele

Watcher's Eye

The traveler's tape

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

There is one thing alive here that matters, and it is taller than a tree and cannot be hurt; I put three arrows into it and it did not notice them. It notices me, though, if I am in the open and close, or if I make noise: breaking blocks, sprinting, fighting, all of it carries. First it stops and looks, then it comes searching where it last saw me, and if it finds me it stamps the ground flat around me. Hide behind the boulders, sneak, keep still; it loses interest in time. It sheds stone flakes as it walks, and the flakes go into the Synthesizer in place of Somnium Powder, so I follow it at a distance. When I have what I need, I walk back to the Box with the Serum still in me and close the door very quietly. It caught me once. It did not crush me; it lifted me to that face and the petals of it opened, and there were eyes in there, and behind the eyes a sea. It put me down as gently as a mother. It would not look at me after that, and I wished it would, because the others had started walking toward me: the grey pilgrims, the crawling choir, the drowned saint. No one else could see them. The Hushed in Lowmarrow, under the grass, could tell at once. They call it being Touched. It does not let the Touched go. In the Corridor the doors near me opened on their own, and something reached out of one of them for me. It dragged me home through the door and across the whole plain, and laid me at the foot of the Hushed's idol, at the bottom of their well.