The Children of the Honkmother are an odd bunch. Not just the Clown get-ups and tendency to bonk passersby with squeaky hammers; their whimsical philosophy will come across as either annoying or oddly endearing. Today we’re covering the second of the Clown Quests in Barotrauma, including how to bop an Abyss Creature with a toy hammer.
Barotrauma: Clown Quests Guide
To complete the Clown quests, players need to befriend the Children of the Honkmother and do a small fetch quest for Mother’s Countenance. After finding the item in a wrecked submarine, bring it to any Clown enclave. Then it’s time to grab a hammer and take your sub to the depths of Europa to bop an Abyss Creature.
Befriending the Clowns
Clowns stick to small sections of different stations. If you find one, make a note of it so you can easily get more tasks from them. Sometimes there will be standard missions; other times, there will be events.
The events will also grant Reputation if you play your cards right, namely encouraging their shenanigans and taking part yourself. Their main missions are transporting Clowns and Clowning Supplies from one station to another. If you’re doing the former, ensure they don’t get into trouble; keep them away from sensitive materials like weapons and explosives.
Be careful; any reputation you gain with the Church of Husk will decrease your standing with these jesters. As before, befriending both is possible but time-consuming.
Meeting a Jestmaster and Getting Mother’s Countenance
Eventually, you’ll meet the closest the Clowns have to a higher-up: a Jestmaster. You’ll know them by their more elaborate masks and costumes. They seem to be more common in later biomes. The first Jestermaster you can interact with will give you some dialogue options; as usual, humor them. After some back and forth, they’ll task you to find one of their masks, Mother’s Countenance.
If you’ve been clearing wrecked submarines, you may have one already. They can be found in the containers on board, along with their costume counterpart. If not, keep an eye out for wrecks on the sonar as you continue traveling; check as many as you can. Return to the Jestmaster and work through more dialogue to get the next task.
How to Bop an Abyss Creature with a Toy Hammer
Toy Hammers can be bought at Clown enclaves or crafted with Plastic and a Bike Horn. Abyss Creatures are guaranteed to spawn in any Abyss area outside the first biome. They only spawn 1 at a time. There’s a dialog box telling you when you’ve gotten the hit.
The problem is managing this without casualties. Player characters can respawn in multiplayer, but it’s still a setback, and anyone dead in single-player is gone for good. So we’re going to make this less of a death sentence. Abyss Creature bites range from “most likely fatal” to “guaranteed fatal” so we focus on not giving them a chance.
To defeat an Abbyss Creature, run the following Talents:
- A Captain with Helmsman and Leading by Example
- Combat/Abyss Diving Suits (Needed for the pressure of the Abyss)
- A Tier 2 Submarine with an upgraded hull
- Underwater Scooter
- Mounted Railgun with several shells (For killing the Creature after)
- Portable Sonar
The important part is which creature you’re going to try this on. The Charybdis is a non-starter; it bites hard enough to kill instantly and is both fast and agile. That leaves us with the Latcher and Endworm. The Latcher is more common in early biomes, and later biomes lean towards Endworms.
Hitting a Latcher
We are going to use the Latcher’s slower speed and attack patterns against it. Its main move is to grapple the submarine with its tongue. We want the tongue occupied because it will also target divers and stun them for 5 seconds. 5 seconds is a long time next to a giant sea spider.
When the Latcher grapples the sub, do not attack it with the mounted guns. This can force it to let go and leave your divers open. Give it a moment to start biting the hull, and go for it. Divers should go for the legs rather than the main body. This way you’ll have more time to react if the Latcher targets you. Get in, get the hit, and get back inside.
Hitting an Endworm
We prefer this approach. Endworms are fast, but they’re huge and can’t turn well. There are 2 approaches. The first is to swim out to the Endworm and hit it along the side as it circles the submarine. You’ll want the Portable Sonar if you do it this way. The Endworm can send the sub flying on impact, and you don’t want to get eaten because you couldn’t find your way back.
The second is to use the islands that spawn in the Abyss to disrupt its movement. The Endworm will occasionally butt its head against the rocks and slow down. This approach makes it simpler to get back to the sub; the Endworm won’t be knocking it around as much. As before, don’t dally outside.
Between this and otherwise boosting your Clown reputation, you’ll have access to more items from the store. This includes more Mother’s Countenance/Providence items and the disorienting Dementonite Cymbals. This also leads into the final Clown quest, which involves the Fun Bringer 3000 mentioned in previous conversations. We won’t say more than that, but it’s a fun time.
That was our guide for hitting an Abyss Creature with a Toy Hammer. This is one of the toughest quests in Barotrauma, so we wish you luck!
For more guides on the game, see our Barotrauma Section.
