Boss Familiars

The bosses that guard the labyrinth don’t just drop loot. Break one enough times and it kneels. A yielded boss becomes your familiar: it takes the throne beside your legion, rises in battle with its own signature skills, and lends its army aura to every minion you lead.

How a boss yields

Every time you kill a boss, one link of that boss’s chain fills. The chain never goes backward, and it carries over between runs.
After the kill the Rite of Subjugation opens. Choose Bind as familiar and the boss may yield on the spot. If it doesn’t, your chain progress is kept.
When the last link fills, the rite is guaranteed to succeed — so every boss is bound sooner or later.
Deeper bosses have longer chains than the ones near the surface.
The Bone Marshal on floor 10 is special: it always yields the first time you break it.
If you’d rather not, choose Leave the remains. Nothing is rolled, and the chain link still counts.
During Auto-hunt the rite is accepted for you after a moment.
A boss that has already yielded shows Remnant of the Bound instead, and you try to absorb a boss shard from it.
Yielded bosses are recorded for good and stay with you through Reincarnation.

The throne

Your bosses live on the throne to the right of the 3D stage in the village summon window. Tap it to open the boss view.
Here you can browse every boss. Those that haven’t yielded yet appear as a preview.
Choose Seat on the throne to send a familiar into battle, or Unseat to swap it out. You can bind every boss, but only one familiar fights at a time.
The throne is a separate slot outside your three-minion deck, so seating a boss never costs you a minion.
A ! on the throne means a newly yielded boss is waiting to be seated.

Familiars in battle

Tap the familiar card on the battle HUD and your familiar rises beside you. With auto-summon on, it rises by itself as soon as it’s ready.
If it falls, it can rise again after a short wait.
A familiar’s level follows the average level of your unlocked minions, so it grows with your legion. Its HP and attack also depend on the boss and its Binding.
Army aura: while your familiar stands on the field, its aura strengthens your whole legion — no matter how far away your minions are.
Two signatures: every familiar uses two signature skills taken from that boss’s own moves. It casts them in the gaps between its basic attacks, less often than the boss did as an enemy.
Moves that only make sense for an enemy — calling adds, claiming corpses, hunting minions — were left out of the ally versions.
Both signatures and the aura are open from the moment a boss yields.
Familiars don’t join Village Defense.

Bind Deeper

Strengthen a familiar with Bind Deeper, from Binding +0 up to +10. It costs that boss’s boss shards and gold, and every step raises its HP and attack.

Binding	Milestone	Effect
+3	Signature Awakening I	The first signature hits harder and comes back sooner (healing signatures heal more instead).
+5	Command Expansion	The army aura grows stronger.
+7	Signature Awakening II	The second signature takes a stronger form — an extra wave, a wider blast, another corpse or another falling strike, depending on the skill.
+10	Full Binding	The familiar rises again faster after it falls.

Boss shards

Boss shards drop only from bosses that have yielded. The kill that binds a boss always gives you some right away.
A shard isn’t guaranteed on every kill, but each miss raises your odds until one is guaranteed.
When your Harvest Vessel is empty, shards become much rarer.
Shards can’t be bought or traded. Hunt the boss you want to strengthen.
Once a familiar reaches +10, spare shards can be turned into regular minion shards through Soul Refinement.

Gear and growth for familiars

Familiar options on gear: Familiar Damage %, Familiar Health %, Familiar Signature Cooldown -%, Familiar Aura Effect % and Familiar Echo % (a chance for a signature to strike once more shortly after).
Oath of the Throne: greatly strengthens your familiar, but your normal and elite minions deal less damage. It suits builds that lean on one boss.
The level-up card Decree of the Throne, the relic Sepulchral Chain of the Throne and the Dark Covenant fusion Chained Confluence also strengthen familiars.
The Necropolis of Dominion does not apply to familiars.

Your retinue in the village

Your seated boss — together with one of each minion in your deck — follows you around the village. It has no effect in battle; it’s simply your legion walking at your back. On the boss row by the altar, the boss walking with you leaves its place empty.

Every familiar at a glance

Boss	First appears	Army aura	Signature I	Signature II
Bone Marshal	Floor 10	Faster melee minion attacks	Line Breaker Charge — charges a distant enemy, piercing and knocking back everything in the way	Bone Wave — a wave down a straight line
Grave Ritualist	Floor 20	Minions take less damage	Harvest Circle — a blast around itself	Corpse Offering — consumes a corpse to heal nearby allies
Grave Tax Collector	Floor 30	Kills have a chance to leave an extra corpse	Levy — strikes the densest pack of enemies	Ledger Weight — a charge
Soul Legate	Floor 40	Higher Command cap	Host Charge — a charge	Soul Wave — two waves in a fan
Wraith Jailer	Floor 50	Slows elite enemies	Frost Shackles — two waves that slow what they hit	Frost Circle — a blast that slows what it hits
Ash Gatekeeper	Floor 60	Minions deal more fire damage	Ember Wave — a wave that burns	Furnace Nova — a blast around itself
Void Regent	Floor 80	Minions resist the elements	Void Charge — a charge	Void Circle — a blast that leaves enemies taking more damage
Carrion Titan	Floor 110	Minions have more max HP	Carrion March — a charge that makes enemies bleed	Corpse Rupture — bursts corpses near the target and leaves a lingering pool
Kilnheart	Floor 130	Corpse Explosion deals more damage	Corpse Ignition — bursts corpses into flame	Kiln Nova — a blast around itself
Rimemaw	Floor 160	Enemies stay frozen longer	Rime Wave — two waves that freeze	Maw’s Tenacity — once per life, survives a killing blow and turns briefly invulnerable in a frost shell
Glutton Sovereign	Floor 180	Kills restore Command	Devour — swallows a corpse to heal itself and attack harder for a while	Gluttonous Rain — falling strikes around its target

How each boss fights as an enemy, and where it appears, is in the Boss Codex.