Villagers

The Villagers are enemies encountered early in Fear & Hunger 2: Termina.

Lore
The inhabitants of the old town outskirts of Prehevil, and currently do not reside within the city itself. They have been burnt by the Moon's Light and since become malformed, as seen on their twisted faces. They seem to be affected by the Festival of Termina, as caused by the Trickster Moon God, Rher. It seems the Old God might have had a hand in their transformation and hostility towards anyone entering the old town, to the point of feeding any trespassers' remains to their pigs.

Encounter
They can be found at the Old Town's village from either outside or inside the houses, including the basement. If the protagonist's party get spotted by a female villager, they will start to make a charging move on them, signalized with their scream.

However, if the player try to interact them without being spotted, they will instead become immobile with their defensive idle animation and the player can fight by interacting them again.

Strategy
They are all hostile to the player characters and they will attack and kill them on sight. One cannot outrun them for long, though one can dodge and weave through them and lose them within the houses. Fight them when necessary as they don't drop much worthwhile loot. Do not get surrounded as the old town parts of Prehevil is crawling with them.

Several villagers will congregate by the path leading up to the basement access area and two pipe villagers and a knife villager will search the basement once the player has gone through it. This can pose a risk to an unprepared player, but the proximity to the sacrifice pool in the basement makes it easy to farm soul stones from them.

The sickle and knife villagers can be defeated with two solid strikes to the torso, although this obviously gives them quite a bit of time to damage the player with their own attacks unless the player has a strong weapon or multiple party members. The pipe villagers are much harder to take down, usually requiring a couple party members or a very strong weapon to take down in a single turn.

The villagers have the following attack patterns:


 * The sickle villager will strike the player with his sickle, dealing 21 slashing damage and potentially causing bleeding or infection. They will lay bear traps with their off hand, which will force the player into a coin toss to avoid taking damage/losing a leg unless they defeat the villager the same turn. They will tackle the player with their torso if the fight goes on for too many turns.
 * The pipe villager operates similarly, but the pipe deals 22 blunt damage and can rarely stun.
 * The knife villager will stab at the player with both knives for about 15 piercing damage, the swings have low accuracy but a very high chance to cause infection to the arm and bleeding.

Having an additional intelligent character in your party will allow you to strike the torso twice in one turn, ending the encounter without any risk; it may be worth it to target the weapon hand in case one of these attacks miss. The knife villager is a greater threat than the other types to a lone character because she'll be able to attack with at least one knife after the first turn. Additionally, according to Daan's diagnosis skill they are weak to fire, piercing, and otherworldly attacks and can be exploited to take them down easier.

The arms and legs of villagers are quite weak, falling to an unarmed strike or attack from Black Kalev. This is less efficient than aiming for the torso, but having a ghoul or Black Kalev in your party will still help to disable the villager's attack capabilities.

Firearms and bear traps will reliably cripple a villager's arms and both legs respectively, although that may not be the best use of such limited tools.

if the player has access to necromancy he can revive a sickle villager to be a companion, he is totally equal to a ghoul in almost every way except appearance. If the player previously severed a villager's head with the bone saw, the player will be informed that the body is too damaged to revive

Loot
Stealing from sickle villagers will provide 5 or so Shillings, a bottle of Vodka, or a Bear Trap. Killing one can provide 2 Shillings, Sickle, Cloth Fragment, or Mouldy Bread.

Stealing from pipe villagers can provide a 12-gague shell or a bottle of Vodka. Killing one can provide 2 Shillings, Rusty Pipe, Small Key, or a Arm and Leg.

Stealing from the knife villagers can provide 5 Shillings or a Blue Vial. Killing one can provide 2 Shillings, Knife, Cloth Fragment, or Mouldy Bread.

Special Death Sequence
If the player is defeated by the pipe-wielding villager, their body will be thrown into a pig pen, visible before at the centre of the village. The player can still crawl around, but the pigs will soon come toward him and eat his flesh off in a gruesome manner. It is possible that these pigs were moonscorched as well, though they do not show signs.

Trivia

 * The villagers have their faces twisted by the moonscorch, and all have a clear partition in the middle of the face that resembles Rher's half moon depiction in his Skin Bible or Needles's face paint.
 * The Sickle wielding villager seems hesitant to fight, but still does it. You can use Necromancy to resurrect them.
 * The pipe villager won't speak to the player as it seems the moon burn affected him the most. Leaving him completely crazy and unhinged.
 * Villagers seems to be visually inspired by Francis Bacon artwork.