The Alchemical Awakening Update is our biggest update yet, introducing a completely new biome, NINE new monsters (that will open up so many new possibilities for your teams), a new Monster Deity and more!
New biome: Alchemical Woods! The new biome is an alternative tier-1 biome which can be unlocked after having beaten the base difficulty and having collected 15 monster mementos
9 new Monsters! All unique to play with, all beautiful, all viable new companions - waiting in the new biome, making it a total of 40 monsters in the game (not counting the shifts)
One new Monster Type!Echo introduces a new buff, which lets you repeat support actions
A new Monster Deity! The second Monster Deity Khepri will truly test your skills as an Aethermancer - use everything you’ve learned so far to withstand blazing heat
Changed Difficulties! We have renamed the difficulties to "Vestiges" and there is a new, higher difficulty
Food at the Merchant's! The Merchant now sells food items to help you on your journey
The Alchemical Woods - a new biome
Once you have beaten the game on the base difficulty and have crafted at least 15 monster mementos, Sir Tiberion will offer a new meta upgrade, which unlocks access to the Alchemical Woods for you.
Alchemical Woods is an alternative tier-1 biome - letting you choose how you want to start your run. It has a mysterious feel to it and inhabits many support-focused creatures. The alchemical environment comes with new interactables and Monsterkin to gather for Pilgrim's Rest.
Echo - the newest monster type
We are introducing a new monster type, which can mainly be found in Alchemical Woods!
Echo enables new support action builds and introduces a new buff:
On Support Action, if it costs X or less Aether: Consumes X Echo to trigger that Action again. Doesn't trigger if this monster doesn't have enough Echo stacks. Echoed Actions can't trigger Echo.
That means, as long as your monster has enough stacks of the Echo buff, it will cast the support action it just used AGAIN! This strongly enables support monsters but can also make offensive teams go wild with the right buffs!
9 new Monsters
9 new Monsters are joining the Aethermancer roster with this update, making it a total of 40 monsters not counting the shifts (which is 9,880 different teams you can make, woooah)! All unique to play with, all beautiful, all viable new companions. Among these 9 new monsters you find 2 different champions for Alchemical Woods and, of course, all of the new monsters will have a shifted version, resulting in 18 new monsters to try in your team.
Ranger
Elements: Earth / Fire
Types: Sidekick / Burn / Force
Take care not to step into the ambush of this sneaky protector of the wilds! Ranger’s unique feature is its ability to apply Stealth to itself, protecting it from single-target attacks. Not only that, Stealth also helps it break extra poise! Combined with its application of Sidekick, Force, and Burn, Ranger excels at staggering enemies and dealing constant damage.
Kullervo
Elements: Fire / Wind
Types: Echo / Force / Aether
Kullervo embodies the edgy anti-hero trope of mythology! Living by the rules is for the normies, and so Kullervo breaks the rules of the game by making its big attacks count as “support actions”. This allows Kullervo to use Echo stacks to double its attacks as if they were support actions, as well as enabling a lot of other unique builds. The perfect damage dealer for an Echo-based team!
Caduceus
Elements: Earth / Wind
Types: Echo / Poison / Sidekick
Caduceus can heal, but it can also harm! It primarily plays the role of an Echo-enabling support, but also boosts your damage output with Sidekick and Poison. It also cleanses all of your debuffs, too. This monster can just do everything!
Ettin
Elements: Earth / Water
Types: Echo / Tank / Weakness
This slumbering giant proves that two is better than one. Like no other monster, Ettin excels at doubling its own actions thanks to Echo. The catch? Ettin cannot attack directly - it is the first pure tank monster in the game, relying entirely on Retaliate damage. Don’t worry - that doesn’t stop Ettin from being the main damage dealer of your team!
Living Armor
Elements: Fire / Wind
Types: Echo / Shield / Weakness
This cunning monster helps you build up the perfect defense! Living Armor is a heavily Shield-focused support monster that excels at protecting allies from harm, as well as applying Echo stacks to them. It also helps you redirect attacks to your mightiest monsters and breaks poise on enemies. Another great monster to try out the new Echo stacks with!
Snallygaster
Elements: Water / Wind
Types: Terror / Weakness / Critical
The Merchant’s pet joins the battle! Snallygaster is a dangerous attacker that debilitates enemies with Weakness stacks, which deal damage to enemies each turn thanks to its “Howl of the Damned”. Visit the Merchant for special Snally Snacks to boost your Snallygaster’s debuff damage even further!
Stiltskin
Elements: Earth / Wind
Types: Dodge / Sidekick / Critical
When you face this deadly trickster, you’d wish to have it on your side instead! Stiltskin’s game plan is simple: Apply Dodge to allies, let enemies attack you, then punish your enemies with the new Tether stacks - increasing both Crit Chance and Crit Damage against those enemies! Stiltskin goes well with anything, like Critical synergies, Tank & Retaliate synergies, Dodge, etc.
Faerie
Elements: Earth / Wind
Types: Heal / Force / Dodge
Life is easy when you have the magic of the fae on your side! Faerie’s Glamour duplicates random buff stacks on your monsters each turn. The best part about it? It’s free. On top of that, Faerie excels as a healer that builds up Force stacks on itself for big attacks. Faerie goes well both with teams that are heavily support- or buff-focused - which are the general themes of Alchemical Woods.
Bronze Lion
Elements: Earth / Water
Types: Echo / Power / Purge
Driven mad by the crimes of the past, Bronze Lion guards the path to the ruined Holy City! It utilizes Echo stacks in a unique way: It can bind another monster’s soul to it, enabling it to use the bound monster’s starting actions by spending Echo stacks instead of Aether - and without spending your turn! Quite strong especially in combination with other Echo monsters, but can fit into any team quite flexibly.
Khepri - the new Monster Deity
Delve deeper into the Void’s inner core to uncover a broken Deity. Use everything you’ve learned so far to withstand blazing heat. Khepri is the new Monster Deity in Aethermancer that will truly test your skills!
The difficulty you choose for you run determines which Monster Deity you will encounter at the end - Chernobog or Khepri. At higher difficulties the Monster Deity is random.
This will not only be a challenging encounter with a foe wielding the sun and life itself, it will also reveal more aspects of the story.
The difficulties are called Vestiges now
We have renamed the difficulties to "Vestiges" and added a new, higher difficulty.
By changing our difficulty naming system, we have a clearer progression in difficulty as well as in the story of the game. The name "Vestige" stems from the lore in the game, as you collect the Monster Deity's Vestiges to delve deeper into the Void.
The Merchant sells food now
Food items for your monsters are sold by the Merchant now to help you on your journey.
Updated Music
More tracks in the game have been updated! The new versions use live recordings of instruments.
What else?
To read the full list of changes, head over to our Patch Notes.
Here is a brief list of other noteworthy changes and quality of life features in this update:
Unlocked meta upgrades can be disabled now when interacting with the NPC where you buy the respective meta upgrade
You can disable "White screens and flashes" now in the Accessibility Settings (which replaces them with grey screens)
Small improvements of the combat inspector
Improved in-combat menu navigation when playing with controllers
New actions and traits for existing monster types
More actions have VFX and SFX now (more and more will come!)
New NPC dialogues
A LOT of balancing changes
EVEN MORE bug fixes
The Early Access Roadmap
Have a look at our updated Early Access Roadmap:
As you can see above, we've made some adjustments to the roadmap compared to our last update. We will be delaying the last Early Access Update, as well as the Full 1.0 Release of the game. Part of our reason is because our last two updates ended up a bit bigger in scope than we anticipated, and we want to focus on polishing that existing content more before we continue to add new content. We feel that moving these planned releases now, and letting you know as early as possible, allows us to not rush things and to avoid disappointment closer to release. It also lets us maintain our own health and well-being while working on the game, ensuring we can deliver high quality content along the way as well as plan for major console releases for the full release of the game and additional language support.
We truly believe that the current 40 monsters (80 including their shifted versions) as well as the next update will provide you with a lot of content and replayability to bridge the time until our full release and want to thank you in advance for your patience!
Aethermancer is 30% off now!
We are releasing this update right in time for Steam's big Summer sale and our biggest sale yet! So, in case you have not gotten the game yet, now is a good moment :)
When can I play the game?
A free demo is available on Steam. It is not being updated along with the development.
Alternatively you can buy the Early access version for a fully up to date experience!
When is the game set to release?
Aethermancer released into Steam Early Access on September 23, 2025! The full release is planned for 2027.
What are the plans for the Early Access period?
You can check our Roadmap here
Will demo progress carryover to early access?
Yes, your progress carries over (although if you are mid-run your run will be ended).
What platforms are planned?
Currently we have plans for PC-Steam and Nintendo Switch (on official launch). For other consoles, we'll see!
Is this connected to the story of Monster Sanctuary?
No, Aethermancer is an original universe with new monsters to find. However, Monster Sanctuary fans will find some design similarities as we stick to our core strengths.
Will there be PvP or Co-Op?
Since Aethermancer is a Roguelite game, we plan for it to be a 100% single-player experience.
Will there be modding support?
Official modding support is not planned at this time, but the community will be able to mod the game as they like.
Why we decided to partner with a publisher.
We decided to go with a Publisher to get support with localization, QA-testing, porting, marketing and sales-management. By taking some of this workload from us, we can focus on the development of the game. The people we are working with at Offbrand are amazing, have a lot of passion and experience. Their support allows us to pursue our vision of the game and our community without compromising on quality or timelines.
So if there aren't any Yowie's in Terastae, how do they measure things?
They use Jotunn's instead.
Can I rename my monsters?
Not in the demo build, but you can in the Early Access game.
Where can we follow the development?
We'll actively post news here but if you want you can check the Links side widget for all our social links.
Who is moi rai games?
We are a small, indie game developer based in Germany with a multi-national team located in various parts of the world. Sersch started as a solo developer making Monster Sanctuary in his spare time, which led to him founding the company, running a successful Kickstarter, and now making a second game. Our team has grown to 14 people, and we look forward to bringing you another innovative monster game for you to enjoy!
After doing a few runs as an alchemist and playing around with monster infusions, I've come to feel that messing around with monster elements seems pretty futile. The monsters already have the elements they need for the attacks they already have, so there really isn't a reason to change the default elements.
It's unlikely that a monster will have attacks that require elements you can't afford, as every attack you unlock will use the elements that monster already has, so why would you change the element?
The exception, I realized is in the case where an element has a mechanical difference from the others, but I'm struggling to see what that difference is (besides some obvious stuff like how Burn is associated with Fire).
What are the mechanical priorities of each element, does someone have a list? And why else would someone change the elements of their monsters?
Good afternoon, everyone! Today we finally come to the end of our journey through the Alchemical Woods. It's had its ups and downs, but surely we are through the worst of it. Just have to survive one more champion... the Bronze Lion!
Base HP: 45
Aether: Earth / Water
Trait: Echoes of the Fallen): This monster starts with a random monster's soul bound to it, which can be changed at Monster Shrines. It gains the bound monster's first Perk and can use its Starting Actions as Free Actions, paying with Echo stacks instead of Aether; they count as Echoed Actions.
Perks: Initial Echo +1, Debuff Mitigation +1, Health +5
Starting Actions:
Tonic): 1 Water. Heals target ally for 7. Applies Echo & Temporary Power to target ally.
Tremor Strike): 2 Earth. 3 x 3 Earth damage against target enemy. Purges 1 enemy Aether.
So, what does everyone think of the final member of the woods? Is it the pride of your run, carrying you to victory? Or are the fallen it's memorializing your other monsters as it lets you down time and again? Let us know in the comments below!
The EPIC Alchemical Woods Champion uses the Echo buff in an EPIC way by binding another monster’s soul to itself and using their actions without spending a turn!
I'm having a hard time moving away from my current Wild Aether team in the pic. Chereuf was my man with the staggering flames until I discovered the ridiculousness that is Star Child + Grimoire.
Do y'all have any suggestions on what to look forward to in the full version?
Good afternoon, everyone! Hope you all have your head on straight. We've finished the main monsters of the Alchemical Woods... and now an imposing foe blocks our path. So bring your cold iron, and avoid any deals or food... for now we deal with the Faerie!
Base HP: 30
Aether: Earth / Wind
Trait: Glamour): Aura: For every 15 healing this monster receives or applies to allies: Applies Force to self. At the end of your turn: For each ally, applies another stack of a random buff on that monster to that monster.
Flutter): 1 Wind. Heals target ally for 2 x 5. Applies Dodge to target ally.
Tremble): 2 Earth. 3 x 3 Earth damage against target enemy. Applies Force to all allies.
So, how does everyone feel about this champion? Does it treat you fairly, offering the gentlest healing to your team? Or is that all just a trick of the fae, and this unseelie brings nothing but ruin to your runs? Let us know in the comments below?
My husband and I put hours into Aethermancer, trying out a lot of builds to devastating effects.
We started Monster Sanctuary and really like it but Aethermancer is so fast paced and unrelenting in a great way.
Are there games that scratch the same itch? We love turn-based combat and we love monster catching. Therefore we already know the big ones like Digimon but it's not as exciting as an Aethermancer run to us.
Good afternoon, everyone! We're coming close to the end of our detour through the Alchemical Woods. But we're not quite done yet - there's still someone we've been waiting quite a while to see. Announced many years ago, it's finally time to meet Kullervo!
Base HP: 35
Aether: Fire / Wind
Trait: Sword Song): On Attack, if 3 or more Aether was consumed by it: Applies Echo to self and the Attack additionally counts as a Support Action.
Glow): 1 Fire. Applies 2 Force to target ally. Generates Wild Aether.
Storm Slash): 1 Fire, 2 Wind. 3 x 3 Fire/Wind damage against target enemy. Applies 3 Force to self.
So, how has this wolverine been treating you? Is his song one of glorious triumphs as he hits like a truck? Or is he more of a background, occasionally dissonate piece in the harmony of your teams? Let us know in the comments below?
Good evening, everyone! Hope I caught you at a good time. Today, we're going to step into the parlor and take about a monster who clearly would never so much as hurt a fly, Stiltskin!
Base HP: 30
Aether: Earth / Wind
Trait: Tripwire): On Dedicated Support Action: Applies 1 Dodge to target ally. Whenever an enemy misses a Hit: Applies Tether to them.
Pitfall Trap): 1 Earth. Applies Sidekick to self. Target ally gains: "Retaliate: Triggers a 1 x 6 Earth damage attack against the enemy."
Strangling Threads): 2 Wind. 1 x 10 Wind damage against all enemies. Applies 2 Tether to all enemies.
So, what does everyone think of the spider? Does it catch you off guard just how effective he is? Or does picking him feel like too much of a trap with no payoff? Let us know in the comments below?
I am really enjoying the amount of customization and control I can now put into my random teams, so many possible combinations and it adds even more of a draft like feel to the run. If I get a roll that isnt that good or interesting to me I can steer it any which way and thats just really nice and great for game longevity. I just wanted to make an appreciation post because ive been having a blast after recently switching full on to alchemist, it was hard to give up the cushiness of the base class with that 1st death safety feature but Im now a believer in alchemist. I highly recommend trying them out if you havent yet.
Im curious about others experiences with it too or what other class ideas you maybe got. Cheers.
Good afternoon, everyone! Hope everyone successfully slept off the spores last week. I assure you, this week there will be no spores, fumes, or any other form of mind-altering substances... mostly because I'm not really sure whether there's anything here to have a substance. Has anyone actually peaked beneath the helmet of a Living Armor to confirm?
Base HP: 30
Aether: Fire / Wind
Trait: Cursed Armor): Aura: Whenever an ally gets attacked, if 7 or more damage gets absorbed or prevented: Applies 1 Echo to that ally and breaks 1 poise on the attacker.
Singe): 1 Fire. 2 x 3 Fire damage against target enemy. Applies 3 Weakness to target enemy.
Wind Mark): 2 Wind. Shields target ally for 2 x 5. Applies Redirect to target ally.
So, what's everyone's opinions on the sentient metal? The perfect defensive option for all of your runs? Or does it feel like a curse when you randomly start with him? Let us know in the comments below?
I just played the demo and discovered that I missed the sale by 1 week. Now I am not sure if EA is worth playing or is it better for me to wait for the full release.
How is balance and game content compare to 1.0 and how long until 1.0?
Wanted to share this rather ridiculous fight against Khepri using a Heal/Regeneration team (615 Heal Pact with Force!). The fight was brutally trivial with how quickly Heal Pact ramped up. Even after all the nerfs, Heal and Regeneration types are still insanely powerful, if you ever need to cool down and just win a run, I highly recommend it.
I don't think I've ever been less afraid of Khepri than during this run. The fight felt like advanced bullying.
This run was possible one of my fastest runs yet. Flame Skewer is insanely powerful on Kullervo due to his passive. Almost felt bad for Khepri from just how quickly I rammed down his health (Extra tip- having Naga with redirect for this fight is incredibly silly, seeing as how the Flame Bolt ended up being eaten by Naga's guaranteed dodge.
Caduceus was also a particularly strong highlight against Khepri, its passive easily wiping out the fire stacks before Khepri could ever hope to apply them.
Good afternoon, everyone! We're finally past all the shenanigans with finding a monster to interview. Now, we can sit back, relax, and try not to breathe too deeply... Ettin's spores are a LITTLE too potent for that!
Base HP: 45
Aether: Earth / Water
Trait: Earthbound): At the start of your turn: Applies Echo and Weakness to self. Whenever Echo triggers on this monster: Applies Redirect to self. This monster cannot learn any Attacks.
Budding): 1 Earth. Heals self for 2 x 5. Applies Weakness to all enemies.
Mud Trap): 1 Water, 1 Earth. Shields self for 2 x 4. Retaliate: Triggers a 2 x 4 Earth/Water damage Attack against the enemy.
And, because Ettin is unique, he has a replacement for the basic attack:
Basic Retaliate): Retaliate: Triggers a 2 x 3 damage attack against the enemy. Generates Earth/Water Aether.
So, what's everyone's opinions on the shroom? Always a fun guy to run in your teams? Or a little too mellow with his refusal to stack to be worth it? Let us know in the comments below?
