Lunatic Cultist

"The fanatical leader of the Dungeon coven..."

The Lunatic Cultist is a Hardmode, post-Golem boss summoned by killing the Cultists that spawn at the Dungeon's entrance after Golem is defeated. It is somewhat considered to be the penultimate boss of Terraria, seconded only by Moon Lord. Defeating the Lunatic Cultist initiates the Lunar Events.

After all four Celestial Pillars have been destroyed, the Cultists respawn at the Dungeon entrance, allowing you to fight the Lunatic Cultist and initiate the Lunar Events again.

While the Lunatic Cultist is alive, music Boss 5 will play.

Behavior
The Lunatic Cultist makes its first brief appearance at the Mysterious Tablet as soon as the Cultists are defeated. It is not vulnerable to attack at this time. It then warps to a new location in midair and summons one of three attacks:


 * A burst of three homing that explode on impact
 * An ice ball that fires in six directions four times over as it flies in one direction before slowly fading away
 * An that fires bolts of lightning at the character

As the Lunatic Cultist becomes damaged, it adds two spreads of five destructible projectiles as part of its attack cycle.

In Expert mode, it may also spawn numerous that fire four purple projectiles in a cross pattern.

The Lunatic Cultist cycles through its various attacks, performing four to five of them before proceeding to spawn phantom duplicates of itself called Ancient Cultists, along with a larger version of the Mysterious Tablet via a "ritual". Unless the one true Lunatic Cultist is interrupted by an attack from a player during this ritual, the duplicates fly in formation and add their homing attacks.

Attacking a duplicate results in the summoning of the Wyvern-like. If there is already a Phantasm Dragon inbound, attacking a duplicate triggers an, which resembles a miniature Moon Lord head. Duplicates can be eliminated by hitting the true Lunatic Cultist during the ritual, but if not, large quantities of duplicates can amass.

Tips

 * Avoid defeating the Lunatic Cultist if you are not yet ready for the Lunar Events. Beating the Lunatic Cultist causes the Lunar Events to begin immediately, and there is no way to de-summon them thereafter (aside from defeating them).
 * The real Lunatic Cultist can be distinguished from its fakes in a number of ways:
 * The real Cultist is the only one with a health meter.
 * The real Cultist has a reflection in its eyes, making them appear like sharp triangles, while the clones have round blank eyes.
 * The real Lunatic Cultist has a line on its hood while the fakes don't.
 * Most minions and homing weapons will only attack the real Cultist.
 * The real Cultist does not emit light, while the decoys do; however, this may only be apparent if fought at night.
 * The decoy Cultists are named "Ancient Cultist" instead of "Lunatic Cultist".
 * Using a Hunter Potion will only highlight the real Cultist.
 * Using Autopause grants as much time as needed for identifying the real Cultist.
 * Attacking a decoy Cultist is not a bad idea if you use the Vampire Knives. The resulting Phantasm Dragon is very long and may be easily targeted to restore some life.

Trivia

 * The Lunatic Cultist's attacks appear to be based on the four pillars from the Lunar Events.
 * It is a common belief that the Cultists' design was inspired by Crowno's clothes. However, according to Crowno, the Lunatic Cultist was designed first.
 * The boss appearance resembles a plague doctor costume, which was a garment worn by doctors which in turn was based off 14th century plague doctor bird-like masks.
 * It is the smallest boss, and the only one without an awakening message.
 * The Lunatic Cultist's mask, trophy, and achievement refer to him as "Ancient Cultist" rather than "Lunatic Cultist", as they are still using an early development name. Several other enemy drops from 1.3 also retained their early development names until later patches.
 * The Lunatic Cultist has an Expert mode Treasure Bag in Terraria 's game files, but it is currently unobtainable as it does not actually drop it.
 * This is the only boss to use music specifically titled after another boss, Golem, and the only boss whose music starts before the boss itself spawns.
 * The term lunatic is nowadays usually used as an informal synonym for "insane", "mentally ill", etc. The word itself, however, originated from the fact that diseases were historically thought to have been caused by the moon, tying in with the moon-themed events following this boss.
 * The Lunatic Cultist, Brain of Cthulhu, Moon Lord, King Slime, and, in Expert mode, Duke Fishron are the only bosses that can teleport.
 * The head icon displayed on the map is also shown for the Ancient Cultists.
 * When the Lunatic Cultist first spawns, glowing particles start flowing to it from the Mysterious Tablet, and it makes a noise that sounds like a heavily edited voice clip. After this, he makes a laugh-like sound (also altered) and tilts up its mask and shakes, to appear as if it is laughing at the player.