20 Soulslike Bosses

Axel Saurwald

To fill your dungeons, build your worlds around, and use Skerples' super-helpful boss fight design notes with.

1.Rosary-Keeper Tolhei

No words spill from her cracked lips any more; without the other keepers she cannot afford to stop. Her mantras have not stopped since the cathedral collapsed under the weight of its own reliquaries.
 

2. The Lord of Broken Men

"Where are you going, solider-of-my-kingdom?"
"I seek the Lord beyond the dry hills, for he knows the rest of death."

3. Image of the Beloved

When art outlives the emotions that gave it birth, the artist risks possession by a vindictive muse. See here, the damage was not wrought by time or elements, it is too cruel for that.

4. Gallows Knights

They stood at the foot of the gibbet all through the Dying Years, despite their common birth. There were simply not enough nobles to maintain the estate, is all.

5. The Great Gharial

The canny old pet has grown to fill the lily pool of the palace's abandoned wing. Do not trust the birds, for they all whisper little nothings while cleaning his snagglesome teeth.

6. Bladebreaker Jhan

Broken by the wars he led, he threw himself on his shattered sword and became the first Antiwarrior. He brings the peace-war behind him, a tattered banner to smother all conflict.

7. Face of Mercy

"It is of great use, sirs high and low: we are all sinners, and I the worst of all. Does that not make its purpose self-evident?" - the sculptor Maurien, during his trial.

8. The Lonesome Behemoth

It trudges up and down the riverbank at twilight, calling for a mate that will never come home. It is the last. Are you so moved by pity? It is only an animal.

9. Fleshmerchant Kataz

He set up shop wherever he pleased, but his favorite of all was beneath the Bloodsopped Bastile. Fresh cuts at dawn, every day; sweet meats and chitterlings in the afternoon, marrow in the evening.

10. Frost-Rimed Monolith

It appeared without sound nor warning in the cold mists of autumn. Will you kneel, or approach it with back straightened and sword oiled?

11. Contessa's Dread Desire

The nature of the Contessa's hidden lusts was never confirmed by the gossiping multitude, but the object of her affection could not be questioned; Ash-Face the clown, who suspected nothing.

12. Dollmaker Quill

The princes' demands grew too much for the poor old dollmaker, in time. She retreated to her tower, and her manikin daughters said nothing of the projects worked on within.

13. Glistening Husks

Some higher power scooped out all their innards and soul-stuff, leaving empty skins brittle with want. The touch of the faint-glowing slime is enough to inspire dream desires so strong as to be toxic.

14. Dreameater Matriarch

She wears two faces and two bodies; one the sweet and beautiful-terrible slumbering shape, the other has yet to be seen.

15. Wistful Stargazer

So great is its desire for the heavens that its body has become thin as wires. Moths in their hundreds fill out its patched golden robes.

16. Butcher Rubicon

He supplied the fleshmerchant loyally for decades, until that misbegotten morning when he spied lovely Rachella tiptoeing through the bastard's back door.

17. Royal Librarian

He never misplaced a book, but could never find what shelf he left his soul on. Keep your eyes on the floor, look for the footprints with the freshest blood.

18. Atavist Drole

"I am an animal!" he cried as he leapt upon the banquet table, knife in hand. "All of us, animals!"He carved out a handful of brain and ate it there, happy as a free man can be.

19. Drowned Choir

With their white robes rippling beneath the holy lake, one asks what they did to be drowned so; they are so placid and peaceful! The truth is that they walked in on their own, no reason more.

20. Eater of the Sun

Once upon a time, a young man stumbled across a piece of fallen starflesh. He has wanted for nothing since, besides his youth and his humanity.