Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 18 Marrowism 2 – Knowledges (Patreon)

I must confess a lot of excitement about getting to break down and discuss this particular group of knowledges, they have parallels with how Blood Paint, Gorment Armor or People of the Skull can change your game experiences if you embrace them in that they offer a very striking alternative play style when compared to the usual routes one takes in the game.

Expansion of the mechanical space in this manner is always a thrill to encounter and it means there's an area of the game here which is going to always offer something new, unique and packed with extra things to explore. In short, Marrowism is going to cause wild and exciting survivor builds, forever.

Osteophage - Core Tenet

• Type: Consume Resources for benefits

• Stages: 3

• Observations Required: 3/1/-

• Advancement: Consume a Bone/Consume a Bone/-

• Lumi Costs: 0/2/5

• Bonuses: Consume bone to gain Marrow Hunger/Consume bone to gain Marrow Hunger & bonus armor points when departing without armor or shield in gear grid/ Consume bone to heal (once per Lantern Year) & 6 armor points when departing without armor or shield in gear grid.

• Parallels: Crystalline Skin

While initially this Knowledge does nothing except ask you to invest three bone (and gain Marrow Hunger) in order to advance it. What we get once we are past that is an exciting alternative to armor/shields as a form of protection. At stage 2, Osteophage gives the departing survivor an increasing amount of armor points equal to the bones they consume in this stage/observations made. Fully evolving at the 8th total bone consumed to result in 6 armor points plus a full heal if you consume a bone (shout out to the Flower Knight's satchel that allows you to depart with a resource).

The downside of this is the bonus is only provided without shields and armor; but items that provide armor points or damage reduction can still be employed. However, that is balanced by your “armor set” taking up a Knowledge slot instead of 5 gear grid slots. That is an incredible deal and offers you so much flexibility and options for builds, you trade in your armor options and set bonus for a lot more freedom in your item. It is in essence a grown up version of Crystaline Skin, but without the severe injury downside.

As a final note, because there is no timing limitation set on the consume ability you should try and complete this knowledge as soon as is reasonable, you do not want multiple survivors at Rank 1 or 2 because their eating all those bones is far more inefficient than spending the 6 Lumi for max Rank. Pick one Marrowist, push this to completion with them and then purchase it for the other Marrowists/survivors at the highest level (8 bones for a set of “armor” even with the downside of no shields allowed, is really good). Also, never forget that Rolling armor is not 'armor' keyword gear.

I love it.

Stone Skin

• Type – Protection

• Stages: 3

• Observations Required: 9/1/-

• Advancement: Take a heavy injury/Become Rank 4 Marrowist/-

• Lumi Costs: 2/4/8

• Bonuses: Heavy Injury stops remaining damage from that hit/Light and Heavy Injury stops remaining damage from that hit/Light and Heavy Injury stops remaining damage from that hit and gain an additional light injury box.

• Parallels: None really, Unbreakable maybe? Ish?

What a seriously cool ability Stone Skin is right? Each injury box can become a “hard stop” that soaks all remaining damage, even if the monster hit for an infinite amount, you'd still get to avoid the severe injury when filling in that box. This is an incredibly fun knowledge that really comes to life at max rank due to giving you 3 boxes (2 on head) on all hit locations. That's a lot of additional hits the monster needs to chunk through to harm your survivor.

The real stumbling point for this one is that first rank, it is quite a risky and time consuming thing to complete with all those observation boxes, the main thing I found that helped was utilising Silk Armor because that lets you direct the hits around to locations that have not yet suffered the heavy hit result (though Silk Armor is a PITA to get quickly). Most of the time though I think this is something you'll have to let evolve naturally over time. However, once you have it, the second Rank advancement is relatively straight forward as long as you are conservative with your Marrowist survivors, they're a pretty tanky bunch so you should be able to get there.

This is a unique and powerful form of damage soak and it is the kind of stuff that makes me very excited.

Perfect Physique

• Type: Temporary Statistical exchange

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: -

• Advancement: -

• Lumi Costs: 1

• Bonuses: Start of act, may choose to gain +3 strength and -3 movement until end of the round.

• Parallels: None

For 1 Lumi this is a heck of an excellent knowledge; because it is optional you effectively have +3 strength whenever you do not need to move more than 2 spaces during your act. Given how large a bonus +3 strength is, this one is incredible for damage dealing survivors (especially Archers, who do not care about movement when activating a cumbersome ranged weapon). Need the movement? Don't use this. Don't need it? Use this. It is great, though it does have anti-synergy with set bonuses such as Phoenix Armor that give extra benefits based on spaces moved.

It is also a nice little 'get' from the Forum when you are looking just for something decent to put on a damage dealing survivor. 1 Lumi is a very low cost to acquire and you will not be upset with replacing it further down the line if you need to.

All in all this is cheap, simple, elegant and powerful so get your flex on.

Surgical Precision

• Type: Strength Gain

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: -

• Advancement: -

• Lumi Costs: 2

• Bonuses: If all gear in grid is bone, weapons lose Frail and Gain Sharp

• Parallels: People of the Skull, Bone Earrings

Bone keyword items have always chugged along in the background by picking up synergies here and there; Surgical Precision provides us with a large pay off for following this strategy while also being synergistic with People of the Skull (I hope we get an updated People of the Skull that leans into Marrowism in the future). One of the larger limitations for Bone keyword builds has been the lack of armor protection, but Marrowism solves that nicely with Stone Skin.

A list of the most interesting bone keyword gear cards (Bold & Italics indicates additional bone synergy pay-offs):

• Acid-Tooth Dagger

• Armor Spikes

• Beast Hunter Helm

• Blast Sword

• Blood Sheath

• Bloodglass Weapons

• Bone Smith Weapons

• Bone Charm

• Bone Earrings

• Bone Pickaxe & Sickle

• Rolling Armor Pieces

• Crimson Helm

• Cruel Cleaver

• Diamond Scab Katar

• Digging Claw

• Dragonskull Helm

• Fear Spear

• Fingernail Whip

• Gaxe

• Giggling Scythe

• Green Helm

• Griswaldo

• Gusk Knife

• Heartseeker

• Hollow Sword

• Hooked Claw Knife

• Immortal Arm

• Lance of Longinus

• Lantern Festival Mask

• Lion Skin Cloak

• Lion Slayer Cape

• Lucky Cat Fang Knife

• Mask Maker Masks

• Mighty Bone Axe

• Monster Tooth Necklace

• Ornate Bone Blade

• People of the Sun Weapons

• Royal Decorations

• Royal Scalpel

• Scrap Shield

• Screaming Horns

• Shawl of Determination

• Skleaver

• Skullcap Hammer

• Sprinter Helm

• True Lantern Halberd

• Violet Phoenix Gear

• Whistling Mace

• Zanbatos

While a lot of these are helmets or weapons, so not something we want too many of in our gear grid (Scrap Shield is a notable exception that is an exciting second weapon if we are not an Ostephage) though gaining access to Block through the Blast Sword or Blood Sheath are certainly useful options to keep in mind. There's also a lot of gear that helps Marrowism survivors amongst the Bone Eater rewards, so despite the Royal Invitation neurosis issue, you are going to almost certainly want Bone Eaters around if you are intending to play with Marrowism survivors.

Quick final note, does anyone know how this interacts with the Unrestrained Neurosis from Impermanism? Does a Neurosis always trump Knowledges or can they be mitigated?

Marrow Monarch

• Type: Pseudo-Surge

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: -

• Advancement: -

• Lumi Costs: 6

• Bonuses: All Marrowist Survivors gain an additional activation after an attack with a Perfect Hit.

• Parallels: Inner Lantern, Amber Edge, Bone Eaters, Blood Paint

Marrow Monarch is unusual in that it is a kind of “leadership” style buff that impacts not just the survivor who has it, but all Marrowists that go on the hunt with them. This means that the relatively steep 6 Lumi cost is a lot lower because you don't need this on every single survivor, just one per hunt party. 6 Lumi to impact multiple survivors in such a profound manner is quite a high potential return on investment depending on how much you lean into using Marrowism survivors.

As a perfect hit based ability, this one of course has synergy with Deadism's Dark Eye II (and Timeless Eye, but Fighting Arts are mostly erased in Arc Campaigns); but it also scales with anything that provides more Speed or Attacks (Such as Dual Wielding Blood Paint Damage Dealers to let you get a third and fourth attack in). Another excellent element of this ability is you get an activation, not another attack. Which means you can use that activation to set up a defensive move like Deflect, or some form of support/control. There's a lot of depth and texture to this one, every single gear card with an activation that benefits from being used around attacks can be considered, not just the simplest version which is more attacks.

I also like the Limit once per Round (per survivor); as this means it is powerful without potentially resulting in exceedingly long individual survivor turns. This is a strong, but well thought out Knowledge that marries both theme and mechanics in an excellent manner. Also the card art is hilarious in a way that surpasses words.

Summary

Marrowism is a philosophy that offers a tremendous amount of offensive and defensive knowledges while also freeing up gear grid slots (normally a large brake on survivor power) to utilise more items. This creates a new play space for players to experiment with for builds and I greatly appreciate that, being forced to move away from Armor gear cards is a breath of fresh air and I love both the mechanics and thematics of that.

While I haven't written about it elsewhere here, I also want to absolutely praise the art direction for this particular Philosophy, the Knowledge cards in particular look so uniform in colour pallet that this is a very striking and beautiful set of art that stands out even though this is an expansion filled with incredibly talented artists illustrating card art across the board.

The main "issue" with Marrowism is not exactly a problem, however it is tightly bound to the Bone Eaters both thematically and significantly mechanically, these Knowledges absolutely benefit from access to Bone Eater reward gear cards and that does mean Arc Survivors as a whole are kind of bound to the Bone Eaters forever, but more on that next time because it is Bone Eater time next week!

Due to its unique flavour, interesting mechanics and fun factor Marrowism is one of the top Philosophies that I want to play with along with Faceism, Verminism, Gourmundism, Regalism and Romanticism. All of that combination with its surprises like the “secret” unlock, BEEG miniature contributes greatly to why that I love to play with Arc Survivors despite all the extra bookkeeping and the way that they erase Fighting Arts from the game experience.