"Hearing a shuffling sound coming from behind a wardrobe, you decide to push it out of the way. You discover a niche in the wall. Someone has put three dusty dolls in there.
When you try to reach and grab one, however, they jump off and scatter around the room, giggling!"
Puppet Matron is an Enemy encounter in World of Horror.
Description[]
A trio of small, puppet-like dolls, the foremost Puppet Matron acts as the main threat. Wearing a vest and prayer beads, she attacks the player character with a knife. The other two, presumably daughters, lack eyes and stand behind her. All three share a disturbing amount of flesh-like substance on their face despite being puppets, including appearing to have nosebleeds. The souls of a lynched family of cannibals appear to have been trapped in these dolls, and it's likely they intend to slaughter the player character for a meal.
Strategy[]
The Puppet Matron is an above average enemy in terms of difficulty. They possess a sturdy 20 health, up to 26 for the final mystery. Furthermore, they deal -1ALL damage, increasing to -2ALL by the final two mysteries, effectively doing 4 points of damage. A saving grace is the Puppet Matron's low Power of 10 making them easy to hit.
The Puppet Matron poses a sizeable threat to characters with poor combat viability, who might consider running from combat instead. At 20 or more health, they're sturdy enough to survive long enough to dish out their dangerous ALL damage. Characters with decent combat and a good weapon on them should be able to break them down well enough however.
As puppets, they are vulnerable to being set on fire. However, as the DIY Flamethrower is difficult to obtain and the Torch is just plain bad, it's unlikely this weakness will be exploited.
The Puppet Matron is an Eldritch enemy, rendering it vulnerable to the Can of Acid or Flare Gun. It is probably more advised to run from them instead if they're too difficult for normal melee combat and save those trinkets for an Eldritch boss.
Location[]
Puppet Matron can be encountered while investigating the Mansion.
Combat Actions[]
- "PUPPET MATRON stabs you in the shin!"
Trivia[]
- The sentient puppets could be a reference to Junji Ito's House of Puppets/House of the Marionettes, which includes sentient puppets in a mansion. The Mansion event Cadaver Theater also directly references this story.
- The arrangement of the puppets might also be a reference to game developer Puppet Combo's profile picture. Puppet Combo is also referenced in several of the game's palette options.