Kingdom Death: Monster - ACG Campaign Group
Kingdom Death
Monster is a co-operative survival horror miniatures board game with tactical
turn based combat that takes elements from tabletop RPG games and dungeon
crawlers. In video game terms, it can be described as Dark Souls meets Monster
Hunter meets X-COM. I will be running a campaign at the Auckland City Guard
club and hope to have one or two play sessions run each week during the club on
Sunday.
What is Kingdom
Death?
KDM is a
campaign based game that takes place over 25 game sessions. Each game session
takes about 30-90 minutes and covers three phases, the Settlement Phase, the
Hunt Phase and the Showdown Phase. After 25 'Lantern Years' the game comes to a
climax with a final showdown against an entity known as "The Watcher".
During the
Settlement Phase, players manage a settlement of multiple survivors, playing
through story events, and spending resources to built locations and gear for
their survivor characters.
During the
Hunt Phase, players choose a monster to hunt for resources and travel through
the dark world of Kingdom Death to find and take down their prey.
During the
Showdown Phase the players face their quarry and attempt to take it down.
The game is
about building and maintaining a popualtion and a settlement, and surviving;
rather than an adventure based on single characters. Player characters will die
and retire as the campaign goes by, and players will constantly create new
survivors kit them out and gain new skills, abilities, mental disorders and
permenant injuries.
Below I have
written up an account of the first one and a half lantern years played through
so far. These write ups will be written after every session, so that players
who miss a session or dont manage to get a spot for a session one week can keep
up to date on the story and progress of our ACG Kingdom Death campaign.
Lantern Year 01
Brushing caked ink
from their eyes, the survivors woke from a dreamless sleep. They had no memory,
no knowlege of who or where they were, no words; nothing but a lantern - their
only source of light. Their bodies felt cold, pressed against the stone floor of carved faces that spread
as far as they could see; stopping to meet a unbroken horizon of darkness. They
had little time take in their surroundings before screams of terror could be
heard a short distance away.
A white lion
attacked from the darkness that surrounded them, rampaging through the confused
and terrified survivors, ripping them apart with its oddly human hands and
devouring them whole with its strange mouth lined with rows of teeth. Refusing
to succumb to this monstrosity, four brave survivors grasped chunks of sharp
shattered stone faces and faced the lion, filled with fury.
Our
campaign started with four survivors, Pythagoras, Orgasma, Hannah and Selina,
fighting back against the lion that disturbed their disoriented awakening.
Stabbing at the lion with their founding stones they managed to wittle down the
lions health. The lion didnt give up with out a fight however, grabbing Orgasma
it attempted to isolate its prey and finish it off before the other survivors could
retaliate. Luckily however, even after being dragged along the cold stone
ground, Orgasma managed to evade the lions grasp and strike back, buying time
for the other survivors to come to his aid. After a lucky encounter, the
survivors took down the beast and scavenged its corpse for resources.
Our
tutorial and introductory showdown was one of the smoothest I had ever run. We
took no injuries and managed to maim the lion, giving it a Lost Hand persistant
injury, and breaking its ribs - which slowed it down.
The Settlement Phase
Exhausted and wounded,
the four survivors walked off into the darkness. Eventually they spotted a
strange calming light emanating from a distance. And when they arrived, they
found a large group of 10 survivors crowded around the piled mass of glowing
lanterns they dubbed "The Lantern Hoard". Realising they must band together to survive,
Selina stood up and uttered the first words. Over time, the survivors developed
language and with it, discovered their 'inner lantern' a source of
spirituality. Spending the resources the four brave survivors managed to carve
from the lion, they built a skinnery, organ grinder and bone smith, and crafted
armour and weaponry to aid them with their survival. After some time however,
food ran low, and a single lantern in the lantern hoard dimmed and died out. A
'Lantern Year' had passed.
Once we
managed to defeat the lion it was time for us to move on to our first Settlement Phase. Our initial story
event happened, and we rolled a super lucky result on the event's table and was
rewarded with 10 additional survivors which we could use to form our
settlement. During our settlement phase we decided to spend resources to build
the first 3 crafting locations and innovate, drawing the Inner Lantern
innovation card. After we had exhausted our resources, we moved onto the Hunt Phase.
The Hunt Phase
Outfitting
themselves with their new weapons and armour, 3 of the original survivors set
out with their new companion John to hunt another lion. Hoping to bring back
food and resources for their settlement.
Wandering through
the darkness, following their quarry's trail, the survivors stumbled accross a
terrifying sight. Infront of them laid a wasteland of smashed and broken stone
faces, strewn with bloody viscera and littered with piles of putrid dung. The
survivors scavenged through the rancid waste, finding a handful of useful
resources.
Our first
hunt phase went rather quickly, as we were lucky enough to roll a result on the
hunt event table to skip a hunt event and move further forwards. Our second
event allowed us to roll to investigate the dung and viscera strewn area around
our survivors, and all of us managed to roll the same result, granting us a
basic resource in exchange for damage to a random location on our body.
The Showdown Phase
Eventually the
survivors found their prey, an adult white lion. With their experience fighting
against their first lion, the lion was no match for the survivors. Using the
tall grass jutting from the ground beneath the stone faces the survivors hid
and evaded the lion, and struck back at the lion. The survivors took some
painful blows, and Hannah took some nasty lacerations to her thighs, but
battered and bruised, they took down the lion and dragged back parts of it's
carcass to their settlement.
We were
incredibly lucky again during this showdown. Managing to find an additional
bone sword on the corpse of some unlucky survivor, and managing to take down
the level 1 lion with no injuries or casualties.
Lantern Year 02
Shortly after the
survivors returned with their supplies, the ground shook violently and cracked
open around the survivors. Luckily the light hide gear the survivors were
wearing gave them enough range of movement to avoid falling into the crevices
around them. But before they could relax an ear peircing scream engulfed the
settlement bringing fear and terror to the population. Selina once again stood,
and calmed the everyone down. Explaining that whatever creature is out there
making this terrible wailing, it can be hunted... and killed.
As the next lantern
year went by, the survivors crafted new gear and weaponry and built the
symposium innovation. And as time went by, bonds formed and two couples of
survivors attempted to bring new life into the world. However, the first couple
was not so lucky, the mother and the child were lost during childbirth - her
partner scared by this trauma, developed a brain disorder leaving him
'indecisive' and weighed down by his regret and choices that lead to this. The
second couple decided that this world was too dark for them and left the
settlement, hands entwined, walking into the darkness. Their corpses found
shortly after.
Bringing the two
survivors corspses back to the settlement, the population decided, after much
debate, that the bodies should be harvested for food and resources, which were
scarce in this cold barren world.
Our lucky
streak continued, rolling a 1 on the settlement story event allowed our
returning survivors to come back to the settlement unharmed, and rolling high
on the story event table, Selina became the voice of reason and gained the
"Orator of Death" fighting art, granting her an ability that will
definitely come in use later on.
After
spending our resources on new gear and weapons, we spent our remaining endeavor
points on rolling on a special table on one of our settlement locations. Twice
this started the Intimacy story event (one where new survivors can be born into
the settlement) and twice we were unlucky and lost survivors. Bringing our
population down to 11.
Our first
survivor death sparked the Principle: Death story event, that required us to
decide whether we should bury dead survivors in graves, or harvest dead
survivors for bonus resources. The group decided on the latter.
This is
where our first gaming session ended.
I hope you
have enjoyed this write up of our first Kingdom Death Monster session at the
club, and if you are interested in participating in the campaign make sure you
reserve a spot in the next game session by letting me know you are interested!
Thats all
for now,
Natanel
Apfel
