Anyone knows exact triggers for Cursed Hounds?

What I found out so far, at specific points in the game a hidden timer starts. When it ticks down to 0, you will get ambushed by Cursed Hound.

Example. Sporia Forest. When you enter it, you can run around at entrance of area fighting shrooms. When you start venturing a bit deeper in, you trigger Cursed Hounds' timer.

Talisman of Golot wanrs you about hounds far too late, when timer has already started. So if you saved and then got warning from talisman, reloading will change nothing you will still get warning, though with savescumming you can prolong the inevitable by few minutes of ingame clock.

AFAIK the timer clocks down in non sand, non snow (not including cunavarn), non castle and non temple terrain, as soon as it reach near 0, the talisman will warn you, if it hits 0 it spawns, after you kill them the timer clocks up again (by how much i dont know). Somebody else mentioning fleeing from them counts, not sure about this.

Personally they are easy and free food (with gaulen hunting skill) after your initial few combats once you gained some levels and hp for your backline party.

From my own observation, spawn timer is triggered like from invisible trap. E.g., you can walk for days in Sporia Forest or Golden Woods, without going too deep in their territory, but moment you pass some specific passage, timer is started.

I looked in the scripts but didn't find anything outside of hound formations and hound quest, perhaps I need to dig deeper in the scripts.

I think that is for the first encounter, for next encounter after the first AFAIK it was on timer clocking down. I could be wrong though, as since for me they are free food lol, so let em come

I had an experience that helped clue me in to one of the triggering parameters. I was reloading a run to a tower, where I previously had camoflaged past 2 fights, and then I did those fights instead, on another reload, and after the 2 random encounter fights, I got attacked by hounds. It definitely wasn't a timer only or where I walked only; it was definitely tied to how many random encounters in the wilderness that I did.

Then once I knew to look for that, I saw the pattern over and over. There may be other factors, but random encounter kills definitely are part of what triggers the hounds. I hope that helps.