Owlboy Owl Cloak and Anti-Hex: Items Explained
What the Owl Cloak and Anti-Hex items do in Owlboy, how they fit Otus's kit, and how they relate to the Hex Machine.
What do the Owl Cloak and Anti-Hex items do in Owlboy?
The Owl Cloak is described in the community wiki as an advanced relic inherited through family lines and able to lift big weights, while the Anti-Hex is a machine built to counter the land rising into the sky and, in the story's climax, the device tied to Molstrom's destruction. Both connect to the game's backstory about the Hex Machine and The Loop, though the community wiki notes that whether the Hex or the Anti-Hex had any effect on The Loop is unknown.
What is the Owl Cloak and who wears one?
Owl Cloaks are advanced relics inherited from other family members, and each cloak comes from a house lineage. The cape can also lift big weights, according to the community wiki. Because a cloak means so much to a family's lineage, the wiki states that Owls would never allow a non-owl to wear one.
Otus owns one, and Asio's Owl Cloak and a Spectre Cloak are shown in the gallery. One small visual quirk noted by the community wiki: in the first flight scene during the tutorial, Otus's cape seems to flap faster than later in the game. Early on, Alphonse attacked Otus to steal his cloak, even though Alphonse's first reaction to seeing Otus was to kindly say hello.
What is the Anti-Hex and why does it counter the Hex?
The Anti-Hex is a machine meant to counter the rising of the islands. The community wiki records that the remaining owls created it after the Hex Machine failed, and that the Relics which first powered the Hex Machine were re-purposed for it. It was intended to bring the floating islands back down from the sky to the planet's surface.
Solus nearly completed it himself but was interrupted by Otus and his party, and then by Molstrom. Solus gave the relics to Otus, who completed the Anti-Hex and successfully brought the islands back down. As Alphonse, Twig and Geddy held Molstrom back, Otus crawled over to the Anti-Hex totem and activated it. Molstrom underestimated its power and threatened to destroy it before it fully activated, and completing it disintegrated him.
How does the Hex Machine fit into all this?
The Hex Machine was created by the Ancient Owls, specifically Noctae and Aegolius, to stop The Loop, and one account places its creation in the Great Owl Space Library above Mesos. The community wiki notes it was only completed in concept at the time of Noctae's death, and his notes were too complex for Aegolius to parse completely. Aegolius went ahead with a version that only had a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding, and the machine failed, sending all the landmasses on the planet up into the sky, where they floated until the Anti-Hex was completed by Otus.
Aegolius had warned that if it failed, the planet would never look the same again, and decided to lie to the other owls rather than tell them of the danger. The wiki also records that the Hex Machine functions as a channel for the absorbed power of the owl relics to create both the Hex and the Anti-Hex.
Do these items matter during normal play?
The Owl Cloak is tied to Otus and his family line, and the Anti-Hex is tied to the story's ending rather than to routine exploration. Neither the official material nor the community wiki documents concrete in-game stats or upgrade effects for either item, and the official store description only mentions flying, exploring and carrying friends as gunners. For the basics of the game itself, see the Steam store page.
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