Merm

Merm
Stats
	250
	500 (560 with alive )
Combat
Damage	30 (40 with alive )
Attack Period	3
Movement
Walking Speed	3
Running Speed	8
Traits
Special Ability	Eats fruits and vegetables from the ground.
Loot	( ) ()
Spawns from	() ()
Code
"merm"

“Smells fishy!”

–Wilson

“Eww, it's all swampy.”

–Willow

“Is fishy man!”

–Wolfgang

“Horrid swamp thing!”

–Wendy

“ANIMATED SEAFOOD”

–WX-78

“A piscean biped!”

–Wickerbottom

“What foul sea did that crawl out of?”

–Woodie

“They were already here when I arrived.”

–Maxwell

“A marvelous humanoid. Perhaps it has evolved from the marshy depths.”

–Wagstaff

“Die söggy beast fish!”

–Wigfrid

“I would've thought they would bathe more often!”

–Webber

“Go dunk your head, guy.”

–Walani

“Fishmongers!”

–Warly

“Ye scalawag.”

–Woodlegs

“UNPIG O' TH' SEA”

–Wilba

“Glub Glub Man”

–Wormwood

“Hi, I'm Wheeler. And you are... not human?”

–Wheeler

“You sure are ugly!”

–Winona

“Aren't you intimidated by my massive horns?”

–Wortox

“Hello, flort!”

–Wurt

“A bog monster! I knew they were real!”

–Walter

“You run along now, pay me no mind.”

–Wanda

Merms are semi-aggressive Mobs that live in Mermhouses, which are found in Marshes. They are covered in dark green scales, and have bulging eyes, gaping mouths, and gills on the sides of their heads.

They take two blasts from the Ice Staff to be frozen and just one Sleep Dart to be put to sleep. Merms drop raw Fish and Frog Legs when killed, and these remains can often be found in Marshes after Merms battle with Tentacles.

Merms eat Fruits, Vegetables, Seeds, Mandrakes, and even Crock Pot food.

Behavior

Merms spawn from Mermhouses, which can be found in Marsh Biomes. They also spawn in specific set pieces, including a set piece where they spawn with pigs, resulting in them fighting. A Mermhouse can house up to 4 Merms, and it respawns a Merm in 4 days after it's killed. During the Day, only 1 Merm per Mermhouse is normally outside (unless it gets into combat, in which case all the other Merms come out), and when Dusk comes, all Merms go outside, much like Spiders.

Merms will only become aggressive if a mob or player gets too close to their house. Similar to Pigs, when they are provoked, they will attack in groups and will kite. They only react to incoming players, Pigs, Bunnymen, Chester, Hutch, Gobblers, Rock Lobsters, Abigail, MacTusks, Wee MacTusk, and Mandrakes.

Shipwrecked

A Merm's home in Shipwrecked.

Merms also appear in the Shipwrecked DLC, with minor differences. In the DLC, they will drop Tropical Fish instead of Fish and Frog Legs. Merms in Shipwrecked live in and spawn from Merm Huts, instead of Mermhouses. The DLC also introduces a passive variant of Merms, called the Fishermerm.

Don't Starve Together

In Don't Starve Together, one Merm will spawn from a Craftsmerm House Wurt can build.

Merms will naturally regenerate their health in a speed of 5.2 health per 10 seconds. Merms are neutral toward Wurt, players wearing the Clever Disguise, and all their followers. Merms and Frogs are also neutral toward each others.

As long as the King of the Merms is alive, Merms are neutral towards all players and mobs and gain +60 Health and +10 damage.

Wurt, or any character wearing the Clever Disguise, can recruit Merms as followers by feeding them vegetarian food or raw Fishes for 25 per day (14.2 per day if King of the Merms is alive). Just like Wurt, Merms can eat Kelp or Durians without taking damage. They can follow up to 3 days without eating. If Wurt kills a fish while Merms are following her, they will immediately stop following her and go back to their house.

Skill Upgrades

Merms can receive different upgrades depending on the skills Wurt has mastered:

Skill	Effect
The King's Pauldron Quest	When Wurt gives a Marble Suit to the King of the Merms, all loyal Merms with head armor will receive additional 15% damage protection.
The King's Crown Quest	When Wurt gives a Thulecite Crown to the King of the Merms, all loyal Merms will learn to dodge. The dodge has a 10 seconds cooldown.
The King's Trident Quest	When Wurt gives a Strident Trident to the King of the Merms, all loyal Merms will deal 5% more damage.
Lunar Mutated Merm	Wurt can give loyal Merms a Moon Shard or Infused Moon Shard to transform them into Mutated Merms.
Shadow Resurrection Merm	On death, loyal Merms will transform into Shadow Merms.

Loyal Merms can also be transformed into Mutated Merms, when a Wurt with the Terra Mutation skill uses the Brilliant Mudslinger to create mutated Marsh Turf.

Hunting

A Mermhouse.

Merms can be kited, very similarly to Pigs. Thanks to the hostile nature of the Marsh Biome, Merms are often discovered in pitched battle with Tentacles, Spiders, or both. For this reason, they make for an excellent source of Tentacle Spikes, Tentacle Spots, Monster Meat, Fish, Frog Legs, Spider Glands, and Silk: Simply wait for the Merms to finish fighting, then clean up what they leave.

It isn't recommended to fight several Merms at once, as they run faster than the player and will kite, like Pigs. Once the player runs some distance apart from a Merm, it will stop being aggressive and will walk back to its house.

To start a battle between Merms and Tentacles, Fruits or Vegetables can be used as bait. When a Merm finds the food, it will approach and eat them one by one. Placing a few Fruits and Vegetables near a Tentacle close to a Mermhouse will increase the chance of a Merm getting attacked by the Tentacle while going after or eating the food. When the Tentacle attacks the Merm, more Merms will come out to fight. Alternatively, Merms can simply be lured towards a Tentacle while they are chasing the player character.

Since Merms are always wet, weapons like the Morning Star and Electric Blow Darts are excellent choices as they do bonus damage to wet mobs.

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

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

Number of Hits

Item
	1	-	0	0
	1	-	0	0
	1	-	0	0
	2 - 2	-	0 - 0	0 - 0
	2	3	0	0
	≥2	≥4	≥0	≥0
	2 as	-	0 as	0 as
()	-	4 (elderly) 6 (middle-aged) 7 (young) 19 (unfueled)}}	0	0
	3	-	0	0
	3 - 5	-	0 - 0	0 - 0
	3	5	0	0
	-	6 (4 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	-	8	0	0
	4	8	0	0
	4	-	0	0
	5	9	0	0
	8, 6 or 5	-	0, 0 or 0	0, 0 or 0
	-	9 (6 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	5	9	0	0
	5 - 9	9 - 17	0 - 0	0 - 0
	5 - 10 -	-	0 - 0 -	0 - 0 -
	5	10	0	0
	5	10	0	0
	6	-	0	0
	6 (4 )	12 (7 )	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	6	12	0	0
	7	13	0	0
	8	15	0	0
	8 (3 on )	-	0 (0 )	0 (0 )
	9	17	0	0
	9	-	0	0
	-	15 (5 on )	0 (3 on )	0 (3 on )
	10	19	0	0
	13	-	0	0
	13	-	0	0
	15	30	0	0
	19	37	0	0
	59	118	0	0

Merm Names

In Don't Starve Together, Merms are assigned a random name. They can be viewed by mousing over the Merm.

Possible Merm names:

• Flargle
• Flop
• Flot
• Flugh
• Flupt
• Flurgle
• Fopt
• Furp
• Furt
• Glogh
• Glop
• Glot
• Glugh
• Glup

• Glurp
• Glurt
• Glurble
• Gogh
• Gop
• Gopt
• Gorp
• Gort
• Gugh
• Gup
• Gupt
• Gurble
• Gurp
• Gurt

• Audrey
• Jeffrey
• Johnny
• Isabella
• Madeline
• Michael
• Penelope
• Sarah
• Simon
• Trevor

Quotes

In Don't Starve Together, follower Merms have quotes:

Allied

• Will come with you.
• Flort glut.
• Make Mermfolk strong!
• Blut gloppy Glurtsu!
• You help Mermfolk!
• Glut Glurtsu flopt!
• You okay.
• Florpy flort.

When chopping

• Will come with you.
• Flort glut.
• Make Mermfolk strong!
• Blut gloppy Glurtsu!
• Chop, choppy, chop!"
• "Grop, groppy, grop!
• Work hard, florp!"
• "Glort blut, florp!

When mining

• Will come with you.
• Flort glut.
• Make Mermfolk strong!
• Blut gloppy Glurtsu!
• Break rock, easy!
• Wult wop, florty flort!
• Work hard, florp!
• Glort blut, florp!

When finding food

• This do fine.
• Glort grolt flut.
• Find something tasty!
• Glurt florpy flut!
• (Sniff) Smell good!
• (Sniff) Groph flort!

Battlecry

• Glorp! Go away!
• Glorp! Glorpy glup!
• Destroy you!
• Wult glut!

Panicking at boss

• Something coming!
• Gloppy flort!
• Aaah!! Bad thing! Bad thing!
• Gloooorph!! Glurph glot! Glurph glot!
• It come to destroy us!
• Flort wult Glurtsu!

Panicking at boss ( alive)

• Rally to King!
• Glurtsen blut flort!
• Hurry! Protect kingdom!
• Flurph flrot! Gloppy Glurtsam!
• S-stay brave!!
• G-glop blut flrot!!

Tips

• In Shipwrecked DLC, normal Merms drop significantly less valuable loot (only 1 Tropical Fish) and can be a nuisance to players trying to collect resources in the biome they inhabit. They are also not a very effective defense against Crocodog waves, preferring to attack the player instead. Their kiting pattern also makes them inefficient for use in an Elephant Cactus farm. It may therefore be practical to demolish their houses and drive them to extinction
  • Their Fishermerm counterparts likewise should be kept alive: Merms do not spawn in Fishermerm's Huts, and Fishermerms do not eat the fish that they periodically catch. The difference between Merm Huts and Fishermerm Huts is the blue paint and the fish and trident symbols adorning the Fishermerm's Hut.

Trivia

• Merms were added in A Little Rain Must Fall update.
• "Merm" is an abbreviation for "Merman", a man-sized creature with the tail of a fish.
• Merms are almost certainly based on the Deep Ones, a race of fish-like humanoids from the horror fiction of American author H. P. Lovecraft, who live in Innsmouth, a run-down town similar to Merm villages. They may also be based on the Gill-Man, the antagonist of the famous movie, The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
• Kevin (Klei's lead developer) answered the question "Why do Merms drop Fish?" in the ShannonZKiller's pre-release Twitch video. The answer was "They are made of fish".
• Merms are not created by Maxwell like other monsters, judging by his quote: "They were already here when I arrived."
• Pig Heads, as of The End is Nigh update, spawn in Merm villages, and along Roads passing through Marshes. This suggests some kind of hostility between the two tribes of animals. Similarly, Merm Heads spawn inside some Pig Villages.
• Merms are instantly hostile (unless fighting something else) when spawned via the Console because they have no house to placate them.
• Merms feature in The Gorge event for Don't Starve Together are the result of a plague inflicted on the beings of this Gate Realm by the Gnaw. When players let the Hangry Meter go completely empty, they will succumb to the plague and turn into Merms themselves.

Bugs

• Merms may continue to attack the location of a Tentacle after the Tentacle has been killed.

Gallery

A frozen Merm.

Merm eating Butterfly Wings.

Merms attacking Tentacles.

Merms attacking and kiting a Tentacle.

A Merm taking damage.

Wilson with a dead Merm and its loot.

A Merm sleeping.

Merm artwork produced for A Little Rain Must Fall update.

A Merm as seen in a drawing from Art Stream # 3.

Merms as seen in a drawing from Art Stream # 38.

Two pig houses placed near a rundown house.

Everything that we have from the lost Art Stream with Merm

Steam Animated Sticker Merm

Merm concept art

Animations

dancing

angry

buff

site idle in royal tapestry

eat

abandon

hungry

pickup

reject

take

sleep

transform

atk down

atk up

atk side

atk down combo unused

atk up combo unused

atk side combo unused

• DS
• RoG
• SW
• Ham
• DST
• All