Cultists

A Cultist is a Hardmode enemy that spawns along with a Mysterious Tablet at the entrance to the Dungeon after Golem has been defeated. Four Cultists will appear there: Two Cultist Archers and two Lunatic Devotes. Defeating all four Cultists causes the Lunatic Cultist boss to spawn instantly at their location. Defeating the Lunatic Cultist then initiates the Lunar Events.

Lunatic Devotes are passive characters, while Cultist Archers fire Wooden Arrows at any player that attacks any of the four Cultists. Archers initially stand still when they see a player, but begin chasing if the player then moves out of sight. Minions will not attempt to attack Cultists who are still in their passive state, although Minions that deal contact damage may incidentally damage Cultists.

Unlike the Cultist Archers, the Devotes can't deal contact damage to the player. Even when attacked, they will not try to defend themselves or even to move. Instead, the Archers will start attacking the player. Attacking any of the 4 cultists will also cause the Devotes' animation to speed up and the music to change.

All four Cultists respawn and reset their location and initial passive state after one in-game day, if the Lunatic Cultist was not summoned, if the player runs away or dies during the fight, or when all 4 Celestial Towers are destroyed.

Trivia

 * As they won't move on their own and they are insensitive to knockback, the only way to move a Devote is by destroying the blocks under their feet.
 * They will not spawn during the lunar event.
 * A White Cultist Archer character appears in the game files, but never actually spawns. The source code also contains statistics for the following characters, although no graphics are included for them, and they similarly never spawn: Blue Cultist Caster, Blue Cultist Fighter, White Cultist Caster, and White Cultist Fighter. Banners (along with Banner graphics) are included for these, but are currently unobtainable. Only the white cultist archer can be spawned only with hacks or mods. It works the same as the Blue Cultist Archer though.

History
Cultiste