Escalation and bosses

Every wild zone is split into twenty named regions, and the world is keeping count. The zone's map (M) draws where each region ends, and the line under the zone's name over the minimap says which one you are in.

1. Kill 25 creatures in one region within 10 minutes and a warden comes out. It is an Ogre, grown large, and it turns up next to whoever provoked it, already fighting.
2. Put down 3 wardens in one zone within 30 minutes and the zone itself answers with a Dragon.
3. A region that already has a warden out does not send a second. Kills there count toward the one that is loose.
4. A boss left alone for 1 hour goes home.

Kills age out as well, so a region you stop fighting in slowly calms down.

Each region is known for a couple of its zone's creatures: one hill is wolf country, the next belongs to the dead. Most of what you meet in a region is of its own kinds, the rest are the zone's wanderers, which can be anything on its roster, and anything chasing you will follow you out of its region. The zone's rare creature wanders too.

Neither is a fight for one. A warden is built for a full party of five, with a tank and a priest; a zone boss for ten or more, which means two parties that happen to be in the same place.

Bosses are raised to suit their zone. A warden in Ashmoor is level 7 with 3,017 health; in The Frostmark it is level 18 with 6,034. Each zone's page lists its own.

They hit to match. Ashmoor's warden lands 24.57 a blow every 3 s: two of those put down a tank nobody is healing, and one puts down anyone else. Ashmoor's dragon lands 39.6 every 2.8 s, which only a tank behind Shield Wall lives through, and not for long without more than one priest.

Both have heavy moves on top of their blows: a warden swats its tank aside, and a Dragon buffets everyone near it back with its wings and knocks its tank down with its tail (see thrown back and knocked down). Those moves never miss and cannot be dodged, parried or blocked.

Bosses call for help

A zone boss never fights alone. Every 24 seconds it calls a wave of its zone's own creatures up out of the ground round it, already fighting whoever it is fighting. In zones whose creatures reach level 7, wardens do the same, every 30 seconds. The first wave comes half that long into the fight, and a boss stops calling once 8 of what it called are standing.

The higher the zone, the harder the help:

• More of them. A wave starts at 2 and grows by one every 3 levels, up to 6.
• Tougher. They come at the top of the zone's levels and tougher again for it, a zone boss's more than a warden's. They are still ordinary creatures when they fall: they pay what the wilds pay, and they count toward no region.
• Archers and casters. From level 9, a third of each wave keeps its distance and shoots, where the zone has anything that does.
• Menders. A zone boss always brings at least one, and one more every 8 levels; a warden's waves bring one from level
  12. A mender heals the most hurt of whatever fights beside it, the boss included, every 3.5 s instead of swinging. Each heal on the boss is small; a mender left alive for the whole fight is not. Kill it first, or silence, stun or put it to sleep: a mender that cannot cast cannot heal.

If a boss loses interest and goes home, everything it called goes with it.

A warden always drops something uncommon or rare, and a zone boss something rare.

Their base stats, before a zone raises them: