Ancient Guardian

"My my, the fuel has changed you."

- Maxwell

The Ancient Guardian is a boss mob only found within the Labyrinth region of the Ruins. It looks and acts similarly to the Clockwork Rook, but it appears to be an actual creature covered in fur. Since this is a Boss Monster, it has much higher health and hits much harder than a normal mob. When attacking, the Guardian will charge the player similarly to the Clockwork Rook. Up close, however, it will do a quick close-range uppercut with a very small attack delay.

The Ancient Guardian drops 8 Meat, a Guardian's Horn and a large Ornate Chest when killed. This chest can contain various loot, so killing one does not guarantee any specific item. However, as seen on the Ornate Chest page, the chest usually contains a worthy amount of loot.

Strategy
There are two easy ways to deal with an Ancient Guardian:
 * The character should take about a handful (5) of Rock Lobsters and no less and have them storm the ancient Guardian, making sure to let the Rock Lobsters tank its hits and hit it in between his attacks.
 * If there are the resources, the player should make 12 Gunpowder, 1 Blow Dart and 1 Ice Staff. First, the character should freeze the Guardian, then he/she should the gunpowder as close as he/she can to it's body. After igniting the gunpowder with a Torch, the player should retreat. Once the gunpowder ignites, the Ancient Guardian will be on fire, so the character should NOT hit him during this stage, and instead wait until the fire is out and then use the Blowdart pipe, he will be dead after that.

Below is the number of hits it takes with each weapon to kill the Ancient Guardian when playing with characters with a default damage modifier. The Weather Pain is not included due to the random nature of its projectile.

Trivia

 * The Ancient Guardian was released in The Stuff of Nightmares update. Six Feet Under gave it the ability to do a close-range attack.
 * Its current form is apparently the product of Nightmare Fuel, as suggested by Maxwell's examination.
 * The Ancient Guardian was an old friend of Maxwell.
 * That the Ancient Guardian spawns in the "labyrinth" and is named "minotaur" in the console means that it is most likely a reference to the Greek mythological story of Theseus and the Minotaur.
 * The Ancient Guardian does the second most amount of damage standing at 100 damage per hit (less if the player is wearing armour), and it has the fastest running speed out of every single mob in the game. The most amount of damage is done by Bigfoot.
 * It takes only 2 hits with an Ice Staff to freeze an Ancient Guardian, making it the boss with the lowest amount of charges required to be frozen. This is probably an oversight by the developers as the Rook takes the same amount of hits to be frozen.
 * The Guardian is the first Boss Mob that doesn't have an Insanity Aura, the second being the Moose/Goose.