V Rising: Where to find Nibbles the Putrid Rat

Tracking down Nibbles the Putrid Rat in V Rising is one of the most confusing tasks you're likely to encounter early on. Unlike other V Blood carriers—what the game calls its bosses—you can't simply select Nibbles then head to his location. Usually, you can follow a blood trail that leads you directly to their front door. For Nibbles, however, you simply get a few question marks.

While you can skip V Blood bosses if you're not interested in their unlocks, Nibbles' tasty rodent blood gives you the ability to transform into a rat. Here's where to find Nibbles and what you'll need to summon him.

V Rising Nibbles location

If you want to fight the giant rat Nibbles and gain the ability to transform into a rat, you'll actually need to summon him using a certain structure. The vermin nest is a building you use to summon rats so you can harvest their essence in the blood press, but if you look at the third crafting option down in its menu, you'll see you can call up Nibbles.

To summon Nibbles you'll need:

• One Unsullied Heart
• Four Grave Dust

Unsullied Hearts are a potential drop from higher level human enemies, so you'll likely accrue some while clearing bandit camps in the starting area. You can also sometimes get them by defeating bosses, so another potential method is tackling Alpha the Wild Wolf, and the human V Blood carriers dotted around.

Grave Dust is a possible drop for defeating Ghouls—either those you summon via the tomb or that you find in cemetery areas. The easiest way to get it is to defeat the V Blood carrier, Goreswine the Ravager, which unlocks the recipe to craft Grave Dust in the grinder for 64 bones apiece.

Once you've gathered all your ingredients, pop them in the vermin nest and toggle on the option to produce Nibbles.After around a minute, the big rat will appear. Word of warning: don't leave excess materials in the vermin nest as it will keep spawning Nibbles. The good thing about fighting this boss in your base is that your servants can help if you have any. 

Nibbles is particularly aggressive, creates poison AoE explosions, and can summon lots of other rats to attack you. If you're struggling, I recommend getting the Cold Snap counter spell, which you can unlock by acquiring a frost spell point from defeating Keely the Frost Archer. This will freeze all the rats around and give you some breathing room.

After defeating Nibbles, you'll unlock the ability to transform into a rat. Though it can't smash through barriers like the bear form you get later, becoming a rodent will let you be more stealthy and avoid unwanted enemy encounters while out in the world.