Cultists

A Cultist is a Hardmode, post-Golem 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 of the Cultists causes the Lunatic Cultist boss to spawn instantly at their location, destroying the Mysterious Tablet in the process. Defeating the Lunatic Cultist then initiates the Lunar Events.

Until one of the Cultists is attacked, they are passive and deal no contact damage, and players can walk through them freely without activating them. Attacking any of the four will awaken the Archers, who will begin to fire Wooden Arrows using bows and will deal contact damage. Lunatic Devotes are always passive and never deal contact damage.

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, when all 4 Celestial Towers are destroyed, or when the world is closed and restarted. Restarting the world can be the fastest option to reset them to their original state.

Trivia

 * Attacking any of the Cultists will cause the Devotes' animation to speed up and the music will change to the Golem theme. This a relatively easy way to get the Music Box for the boss music, since you don't actually have to fight a boss for it.
 * 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.
 * 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. Aside from appearance, the White Cultist Archer will act identically to a Blue Cultist Archer.
 * The cultist archers will not despawn, so they may follow the player large distances if there is a clear path.