Wickerbottom

"Knowledge is power!"

- Wickerbottom

Wickerbottom is the fifth playable Character in Don't Starve that can be unlocked via Experience, with 1280 XP, and one of the 12 playable Characters in Don't Starve Together (DST). She is an old, intelligent librarian who apparently self-publishes and is able to identify many different types of fauna and flora by their scientific names.

Wickerbottom starts the game with 2 Papyrus in her inventory and (due to her vast knowledge) she is able to craft Science Items with a lower tier Crafting Station than other Characters. She is able to craft Books that give different effects when read in exchange for Sanity, with a maximum Sanity of 250. Wickerbottom suffers from insomnia (the inability to sleep), and should only eat fresh Food due to her old age. Wickerbottom is suited for both early and late game playthroughs, providing an easy start with her knowledge and interesting strategies with her Books in the later days.

Special Power


Wickerbottom's special power is a Crafting Tab called "Books". This gives her the ability to craft 5 different magical Books with Papyrus and other different ingredients. She can read these for beneficial effects, but at the cost of a lot of Sanity.

The Books that she can craft are :
 * Birds of the World - When read, this Book will summon 20-30 Birds in a circle around Wickerbottom.
 * Applied Horticulture - When read, most Plants and Farms around Wickerbottom will advance to the next stage of their growth.
 * Sleepytime Stories - When read, this Book acts the same as a Pan Flute putting all nearby Mobs to sleep.
 * On Tentacles - When read, this Book will summon 3 Tentacles at random locations near Wickerbottom.
 * The End is Nigh - When read, this Book will summon 16 Lightning strikes at random locations near Wickerbottom.

The Books can be read a maximum of 5 times each and drain 33 or 50 with each reading session. This is somewhat offset by Wickerbottom's higher maximum Sanity, but eventually some Sanity restoring means will be required for continued usage of the Books.

Wickerbottom can make all Science Machine recipes without having to build the Science Machine, but does not gain the 15 per prototype for those since she already knows them at the start of the game. The rest of the recipes can be prototyped with a Science Machine even though they would normally require an Alchemy Engine. Therefore, only a Science Machine is needed to unlock all Science recipes for prototyping. The one exception is the book "On Tentacles" - she needs an Alchemy Engine to prototype it. This free tier of knowledge does not apply to Magic research machines though.

Disadvantage
Wickerbottom lacks the ability to sleep in a Tent, Bed Roll, or Fur Roll due to her being an insomniac. This means that crafting those Items and Structures would be a waste of resources and the player will need other means to restore Sanity.

She also hates spoiled Food, causing her Sanity to suffer greatly. Eating stale food costs her no Sanity, but neither does it restore any. Stale Food also restores less Hunger and less Health than fresh Food of the same type. Raw Food has no penalties outside of its normal ones (e.g. Green Caps) if it is fresh.

Downloadable Content
In the Reign of Giants (RoG), Don't Starve Together and Shipwrecked (SW) DLCs, Wickerbottom will be unable to sleep in the Siesta Lean-to.

In Shipwrecked, due to the lack of Tentacles in the world, the "On Tentacles" Book has been replaced with Joy of Volcanology. When read, this Book will summon 4 Dragoon Eggs to fall at her location, dealing massive Fire damage. Players can still craft and use "On Tentacles" but only if they use the Seaworthy and travel to a non-Shipwrecked world.

Tips

 * During the early days, it is advised to craft a Backpack and Shovel as soon as possible to start storing dug Grass Tufts, Saplings and Berry Bushes for the player's future base, saving them the time to go back and acquire these items.
 * Making a Top Hat and eating Cooked Green Caps is highly recommended during the early days, as well as going after the Tam o' Shanter in Winter for later days, in order to get good use out of the Books.
 * Cooked Green Caps are a cheap way to restore Sanity early on when dapper clothing is not available. Later on, making Taffy is the best way to restore Sanity quickly.
 * In RoG or DST, eating cooked Cactus Flesh is also a good way to quickly restore Sanity.
 * In SW some of the above Clothes are available, but there are also different Crock Pot recipes that provide big amounts of Sanity like Banana Pop and Surf 'n' Turf.
 * Thanks to the "Applied Horticulture" book, Wickerbottom can mass-produce Dragon Fruits to make Dragonpies as her main source of sustenance. It is also advised to plant resources around a central point as to be able to grow all the Plants with one reading session.
 * If the player has planted a Meat Bulb, they can carefully place hard Turfs (see Eyeplant) around it in a way that all the summoned Eyeplants around the Bulb form a circle that can match the circle of summoned Birds from the "Birds of the World" book. This way, when Wickerbottom reads the book next to the Meat Bulb, the spawning Birds will get eaten by the Eyeplants. At this point, the player can quickly kill the Meat Bulb to get its loot.
 * Alternatively, the player can use either book, "The End is Nigh" or "Sleepytime Stories". The Lightning from "The End is Nigh" will hit most of the Birds, resulting in many Cooked Morsels with no increase in Naughtiness. If instead the player needs Feathers, reading "Sleepytime Stories" will put all the Birds to sleep, making them open to melee attacks. Note killing Birds in this manner does increase Naughtiness and can summon Krampus.
 * This can also be an Advantage as such a Disadvantage, since the player can farm many Krampi for the Krampus Sack.
 * When not playing SW, the Book "On Tentacles", can provide a replacement for Tooth Trap fields, as long as the player takes care when collecting the loot. It can also be used to provide a "kill zone" of sorts around points of interest like Spider Dens or Walrus Camps for easy loot.
 * If the player can find the Reed Field Trap Set Piece and dispatch the Tentacles, it is possible to easily make the Blow Dart Wickerbottom's main weapon through the use of "Applied Horticulture" and "Birds of the World" (in Winter).
 * Hound's Teeth can be farmed in RoG or DST by using "On Tentacles" near Hound Mounds.
 * The Lightning from "The End is Nigh" can be used to deal some bonus damage to Boss Monsters or deal with lesser monsters that are not worth engaging otherwise. It should be noted that Lightning Rods will absorb all the Lightning and using it near valuable flammable objects is not advisable.
 * The same applies to "Joy of Volcanology" in SW, except that Metors cannot be absorbed by anything.
 * "Joy of Volcanology" in SW can be used to easily farm Obsidian by extinguishing the Lava Pools that form, with Ice.
 * Due to her insomnia she cannot sleep under Winter's Feast Tree in Don't Starve Together to get presents. This can be remedied by putting her to sleep in other ways, such as eating Mandrakes. The gifts may contain Pan Flute, and using a Deconstruction Staff would allow retrieving Mandrakes from them, making Mandrakes unreliably renewable.

Trivia

 * Wickerbottom is played by an oboe.
 * It is confirmed that "Wickerbottom" is her last name. Her first name remains unknown, however.
 * This is seen when one is about to free Wickerbottom from the Nightmare Throne
 * Wickerbottom's eyes are shut by default, but open sometimes, like when she exits a Worm Hole or is low on Sanity.
 * In Don't Starve Together Wickerbottom is able to be put to sleep by the use of the Pan Flute in PVP mode by another player, or by Bearger's yawn. Due to this, players are able to see that Wickerbottom sleeps with her eyes open.
 * She is the most literate of the Don't Starve Characters and always refers to animals by their scientific names. The only exceptions to this are the creatures that are completely unknown to her. This can provide information as to what creatures in The Constant exist in her homeworld.
 * While unable to sleep, Wickerbottom is still able to be knocked out by cooking a Mandrake or consuming a Cooked Mandrake.
 * Wickerbottom has a skull in the game files.
 * Wickerbottom's previous perk, before the Strange New Powers update, was to be able to prototype one tier higher than the other Characters, including Magic Items.
 * Wickerbottom's favorite food is Fishsticks, judging from her examination quotes.
 * Her Curio Cabinet description from The Forge beta is "A woman of curious mind and stern air, Wickerbottom thrives on the lifelong pursuit of knowledge.".
 * When struck by Lightning in DLCs, Wickerbottom, like most other Characters, is shown to have bones in her hair. In addition to this, she also has bones in her skirt and shoes.
 * Wickerbottom is the only female playable Character to have pupils and black, beady eyes, before Winona's release.
 * Wilson believes that Wickerbottom has, or at least used to have, a pet cat. When Wickerbottom examines the Lucky Cat Jar, she sighs, and when she examines a Kittykit, she says "Now it feels like home.", which provides further evidence to this.
 * When examining her book "Birds of the World", she says that the Western screech owl is her favorite. This is also the creature in The Screecher.
 * She may have kept a garden at home, given her quote for a Potted Succulent ("I wonder how my garden is doing without me.").
 * her quote on the old licence plate trinket shows that she entered the constant before 1918
 * She is the only character to wear glasses.
 * In Addition she is most likely nearsighted as she does not exclusively wear her glasses when reading one of her books.

Gallery
Wickerbottom Wickerbottom Уикерботтом 薇克伯頓