The Punished DLC: Monolith, Archus and Zariel paths

The Punished deal damage to their own units on purpose. Punish triggers when a friendly spell, trigger or ability damages a unit, Bloodshed triggers when any friendly unit on the same floor takes damage, and enemies with Chained take half of the damage your unit took per stack. The Monolith is the clan’s run-long resource: every Monolith Level makes your units enter with more Zeal (+1 Attack and +1 max Health per stack, losing one stack each turn).

The DLC costs $7.99 on Steam (app 4739980) and adds the clan from the start of a run once installed: Archus, Zariel, 43 cards counting the three Darkshards, 11 artifacts, the Darkstone upgrade and three achievements.

How the Monolith works

Step	Rule
Gain Devotion	Click the Monolith on your turn: spend 1 Ember and discard a random card for 1 Devotion. You need a card in hand. Repeatable each turn.
Other Devotion sources	Zariel on the Devout path (Siphon: 1 Devotion when an enemy dies on her floor), Venerate (6 Devotion, Consume), Unheard Confession artifact (1 Devotion per 10 damage you deal to your own units).
Monolith Level	Level 1 needs 3 Devotion; each later level needs 3 more than the one before (3, 6, 9…). Devotion is kept between battles.
Effect of each level	Units enter with Zeal 2 per Monolith Level. Potent Chalice adds 1 more per level.
Cards that scale with the level	Dark Initiate (+15 Attack and +5 Health per level on summon), Forsaken Berserker (Multistrike 1 per 2 levels), Agonize (30 damage per level), Divine Punishment (20 damage to every enemy per level), Initiate Sermon (Zeal 2 per level to every friendly unit), Zariel’s Devout Incant.

The random discard is a cost, not a purge. Players in the Steam thread on Monolith discards point out that it can throw away a Blight, but it can also discard a Permafrost card you were holding, and the Blight returns on a later draw. Railforged’s Smelt lets you choose the card; the Monolith does not.

Spend spare Ember on the Monolith at the end of a turn once your plays are done. Early levels come quickly (3, then 6 more), and every level after that raises the Zeal on every unit you summon for the rest of the run.

Archus: three paths

Path	Tier III stats	What it does
Zealous	50/60	Lifesteal 4. Punish: gain Zeal 20 (Zeal 5 at tier I). Flight moves him to any floor.
Dark Worshipper	100/40	Grim Flight: move, then summon a Darkshard at the back of that floor, one per floor. Archus’s Darkshards are upgraded with his tier.
Inquisitor	40/90	Friendly units gain +3 Attack for each missing Health (+1 at tier I). Flight.

The three Darkshards are 0/10 units that Retreat to the back on summon:

• Blinding Darkshard: enemies on the floor have −3/−5/−7 Attack. Against a boss, the tier III shard removes 7 Attack from every hit.
• Looming Darkshard: Bloodshed gives friendly units +1/+2/+3 Attack, so each self-damage spell on that floor grows every unit there.
• Shattering Darkshard: Sacrifice to deal 40, 120 or 300 damage to an enemy, a way to remove a sweeper or a backline caster.

Zealous Archus wants repeated friendly hits: a cheap self-damage spell such as Cruel Lesson or Flagellate each turn gives him Zeal 20 per hit at tier III, and Lifesteal heals the damage back.

Zariel: three paths

Zariel has 0 Attack on every path and works as a tank with a support effect. She unlocks at Punished clan level 5.

Path	Tier III stats	What it does
Matriarch of Chains	0/130	Turn start: apply Chained 3 to enemy units (Chained 1 at tier I).
Pain Maiden	0/80	Starts with Pain 10. Bloodshed: gain 1 Pain per point of damage friendly units take. Paintouch III: deal 3 damage per Pain stack to an enemy, cooldown 1.
Devout	0/90	Siphon: gain 1 Devotion. Incant: deal 10 damage to the front enemy, plus 10 per Monolith Level.

One Steam player’s favourite is Devout with a kill floor on floor 1, because every kill there adds Devotion and every new Monolith Level makes the Incant hit harder. The Pain Maiden plan in Irene’s Easy Win guide uses her Paintouch to delete sweepers while she tanks.

First Punished picks

• Scarred Justicar (1 Ember, 30/20): Punish +15 Attack. With the clan’s Merchant of Steel stone, Darkstone (Punish: +8 Attack), each friendly hit gives +23.
• Flagellate (1 Ember): deal 5 damage, then restore 25. It triggers Punish and leaves the unit 20 Health better off. With Keepstone (Holdover) and Twinstone (Spellchain) it hits twice every turn.
• The Condemned (rare, 0/10, Tenacious): Punish deals 4× the damage taken to the front enemy. Tenacious stops friendly damage from killing it, so Drag Them Down (25 self-damage, Chained 4 on enemies) becomes 100 damage to the front enemy plus the Chained returns.
• Gloomstone artifact: every friendly unit enters with Tenacious, which removes the risk from self-damage spells.
• Penitent’s Sanctuary (room): units on the floor restore 3 health and gain +3 Attack on each Punish.

What to avoid

• Self-damage spells with no Punish or Bloodshed unit on the target floor only weaken your units.
• Arbitrary Verdict sets every non-boss unit, yours included, to half Health. Cast it when Inquisitor Archus, Zealot’s Halo or Shackles of Spite turn missing Health into Attack.
• Collective Punishment hits all units twice for 3. Units with low Health and no Tenacious die to it.