There's a Starman Waiting in the Sky: Gaining Constellations in People of the Stars (Patreon)

(This is a repost of my guide put up on Board Game Geek, collected here to keep it with the other works I have completed).

People of the Stars is in general regarded as the best of the three campaigns currently available. It has the most interesting mechanics for 'super survivors' (Thank you Zennith), the best story arc, an interesting ending (it's actually open to interpretation) and the single most well rounded, detailed and fun antagonist in the main nemesis The Tyrant.

I'm not going to touch on the basics of survival, fighting and gear acquisition in this, that is best left for other guides. However there are some pieces of Gear that I will mention in this guide as very useful.

The Story:

I'm sure by now you will have figured out the rough outline of the story, but for those who haven't here's a rough outline:

WARNING: This contains a HUGE spoiler for Kingdom Death as a whole. Skip the first three paragraphs if you do not want to know it.

Spoiler

Survivors are effectively crops, scattered about the plain of faces like seeds by The Scribe. As the entry for the Scribe itself mentions

"The Scribe is the power behind the Kings and their armies. To men, he is a god made flesh, appearing in repose atop his throne with his tome hoisted by a grotesque tableau of slaves. In his book his words are writ into reality, sewing the seeds of small human settlements into existence with the stroke of his quill. Once the humans grow and reproduce the Scribe will return to harvest his crop."

This is the entire reason survivors exist, they are crops. However the Scribe's method in this is very haphazard, he's just throwing out lots of material and seeing what grows. Perhaps he needs the strongest survivors/settlements, perhaps he is just not that bothered. Who knows what purpose he has at time time... Not I.

End of Spoiler

Many of the survivors who are sent out there never even get as far as meeting their maker, they fall victim to hunting animals like the White Lion, are subjugated by beings like the Manhunter, deceived by the cuckoo Sunstalker or eaten by Watchers. They are very low on the food chain indeed.

However, some of the other monsters who gather up groups of survivors for their own purposes have goals other than sustenance and deceit. The Tyrant is one of these. The Tyrant is the last surviving Dragon King, a virtually immortal shape changing Nuclear powered Dragon of insane power. He is weary of living life, seeking to die while also leaving a legacy across the world. This is where the survivors come in.

The Tyrant's goal during this campaign is to awaken the dragon spirit inside his people and let them become powerful enough to defeat him once and for all. It is speculative what happens after this, but it seems most likely that at the end of a successful campaign the surviving People of the Stars become Dragon Kings themselves.

(Note from Italics: See my review on the Dragon King expansion herefor an additional take on The Tyrant and his philosophy/role in the world.)

The Goal:
So with that in mind, you have one goal in People of the Stars. You need to ensure that you have at least one non-retired survivor with a Constellation per player in place for the final fight against the Dragon King himself. If you don't have them, you're not going to make it and the campaign will end in automatic failure because without a Constellation a survivor is not powerful enough to stand up to The Tyrant's true form.

Rule 1. Never risk a survivor with a Constellation in a fight you do not think they have a close to 100% chance of surviving.

Star Bingo:
This is the way that you gain constellations and before we discuss each one (and the values of each) I'm going to run through the basics and then how you achieve each different criteria.

Star Bingo (as I like to call it) is the little grid on your People of Stars specific survivor sheet. It is 16 conditions that you cross off as you meet them and when you get a complete row or column of 4 you get to become one of the People of the Stars, gaining a bunch of large benefits (along with at least a small drawback).

Here is the table
          Witch             Rust         Storm          Reaper
Gambler    9+ Understanding  Destined     Fated Blow     Pristine
Absolute   Reincarnated      Frozen Star  Irid. Hide     Champion's Rite
Sculptor   Scar              Noble        Weapon Master  +1 Base ACC
Goblin     Oracle's Eye      Unbreakable  3+ Base STR    9+ Courage

These criteria vary in how challenging they are to achieve. But rest assured, not one of them is impossible. I'll go through how you reach each one separately.

Note: Once you hit a criteria you mark off the entry and it remains marked off, even if you lose the surname/disorder/fighting art later on.

9+ Understanding:
Useful Gear: Cat's Eye Circlet, Founding Stone or Deadly Gear (Lion Beast Katar/Zanbato), Rawhide Headband

This one is either completed gradually over time, or by fighting a White Lion. What you need to do is use the Rawhide Headband to 'scout' the AI deck and when there is an AI card with the 'Lost Hand' reaction at the top everyone needs to stop and let that card happen. You do NOT want to remove that card from the AI deck under any circumstances.

The second half of the process is to use the Cat's Eye Circlet to scout the Hit Location deck and find the Strange Hand and put it on top of the deck for the next person to attack. You then want to critically hit this location - a Founding Stone is perfect for this as it cannot fail in the job. As such I recommend you save 2 to 3 of your Founding Stones specifically for this task. If the White Lion gets low on wounds before you find the strange hand, consider switching to low speed attacks that are likely to fail like Fist and Tooth in order to cycle through the deck. Just remember to avoid standing in front of the White Lion when doing this as it often runs forward as a reaction.

Once the hand has been critically hit and the deck has been depleted down to just the ! Lost Hand AI Card then the White Lion will just sit in one place and cry sadly about it's missing hand. The survivors then just need to sit next to the White Lion and study it, they will gain 1 understanding each turn and max out their Understanding!

The best ability to get from max understanding is Ageless. But you do not have much control over this.

NOTE: This is a lot more irritating to pull off vs a level 2+ White Lion. So in general you want to do it on a level 1. Oracles Eye will help you determine if you can achieve this against a particular White Lion.

Destined - Disorder
Breedable (see Breeding Down the Bloodlines below)
You can gain this one via the Disorder Deck. There are also a few specific points in the game where someone can be given it automatically.

These include:
Beating the level 1 Tyrant (2 Survivors get it)
Losing to the Tyrant (Avoid this at all costs)
During Unveil the Sky

Noble/Reincarnated
Breedable
Useful Gear: Cat's Eye Circlet
You gain these via fights with The Tyrant (see his section below) or via story events. Because they are breedable it should not be hard to ensure that the right surname lands with the right abilities/fighting arts.

Fated Blow/Champion's Rite/Unbreakable
Breedable
Useful Gear: Dragon Vestments
These three Fighting Arts are very easy to get. You will receive Champion's Rite from The Foundlings event, but you will also get these if you gain a random Fighting Art while wearing the Dragon Vestments. As such all you need to do to get the fighting art you want is to make sure that the survivor wears the Vestments just before they Age.

Unbreakable is super useful for any survivor and should probably be permanently kept.

If you fail to beat the level 1 Tyrant then you are in a harder spot. To be honest, if you can't beat the level 1 Tyrant then I'd recommend restarting the campaign and trying again with what you have learnt.

Frozen Star
Frozen Star is rather difficult to achieve, it is available during fights against The Tyrant and randomly in the Unveil the Sky event. It is a secret fighting art, so it cannot be passed on, which means that the two constellations that are based around Frozen Star (Rust, Absolute) are very limited in opportunity.

The other way you can get it is via the Arena innovation, but there is risk involved in rolling on that table.

Getting Frozen Star is a challenge, I will discuss the strategy for getting it in the section about the showdown against the tyrant..

Iridescent Hide & Oracles Eye Ability
Breedable

If you have a Hovel and Protect the Young then these abilities are relatively easy to get, you have a 19% chance of getting one of them each time you have a baby. In general Iridescent Hide is more useful than Oracles Eye. You don't need more than one Oracles Eye per hunting party, but you want as much Iridescent Hide as possible. As such when breeding (see below) you should favour 1 Oracles Eye breeder and the rest as Iridescent Hide.

If you have taken Survival of the Fittest, these are going to be very hard to get initially. The way you play it is as follows: When you beat the level 1 Tyrant, the survivor who dealt the killing blow picks Iridescent Hide and then does not leave the settlement until you have the Bloodline Innovation. Once you have this, you breed them (preferably with Founder's Eye from Face Painting active) and use your 1.4 Survival of the Fittest rerolls to make sure that a baby is born. This baby will get Iridescent Hide via Bloodlines and from now on you will always make sure that at least one Survivor with Iridescent Hide remains safe in the settlement as a breeder. Repeat this process at lantern year 9 with the level 2 Tyrant with Oracle's Eye and you should be good to go.

Pristine Ability
Useful Gear: Cat's Eye Circlet
Breedable
Pristine is given via the Empire Innovation, which is a reason for prioritising the Hovel innovation (after Symposium). You can also gain Pristine via the Deathblow of The Tyrant (see The Tyrant below).

Essentially, prioritise getting Empire early and you will be fine on this front. It only becomes awkward if you want to get Pristine on a survivor who wasn't born with it (see The Tyrant below).

3+ Base STR
This is a relatively easy condition to hit. The game is very keen to give you as much +STR as possible anyway. Cards like Survival of the Fittest and Empire get you most of the way there from the start. Most survivors should be able to tick this box.

1+ Base ACC
This is normally gained via levelling up. However if you struggling to hit this criteria there is a relatively simple way to do it. Fighting and surviving against The Hand will give you +1 ACC automatically. As such, when you have the choice of which Nemesis to fight I would always recommend picking The Hand (Or the Butcher, Never the King's Man).

Additionally, if you can make it, the Heart Flute innovation will allow you to summon The Hand as special showdowns to beat on. Just be careful and make sure you are OK with the downsides to Heart Flute before you use it.

You can also gain +1 Accuracy via the Arena, but there are risks.

Scar
Scar is either gained via The Throne (bad/risky way to get it) or via fights against The Tyrant (see below). It is not hard to get overall, but it is very useful as it is attached to two amazing Constellations.

9+ Courage
I do not have any specific tips on how to gain Courage apart from visiting the Wizard of Oz. There is no mechanic like the White Lion Understanding one. This is one of two reasons why the Reaper Constellation is so hard to make. In general the White Lion hunt events give you more courage gains than most other places.

Weapon Mastery
Useful Innovations: Nightmare Training
You will gain this one over time by surviving. I recommend that you attempt to master the following Masteries: Fist and Tooth, Shield, Spear, Axe, Grand Weapon and Bow. They provide the most power for a settlement when completed.

If you have Nightmare Training and a lot of spare survival you can accelerate this process. This is a great way to get a survivor who is 'nearly there' to their mastery more safely, just do not push your luck too far.

The Constellations:

Witch
10/10
The Witch is an absolutely insane boost in power. Combined with the Cat's Eye Circlet you get massive bonuses every attack and carve up all the monsters in the game apart from a few of the toughest.

Rust
5/10
Rust isn't a good constellation. It's an OK ability, but hard to control. There is not much really to write here,

Storm
10/10
Storm is an odd one, at first it doesn't seem that powerful, but in truth, if you get this one early on in a campaign it will give you a ridiculous amount of Weapon Masteries and Iron as well (it is Insane if you ever loop with it). It is probably my favourite Constellation as a consequence.

Reaper
7/10
Considering how hard it is to get the Reaper, it is surprising that it is as weak as it is (relatively speaking that is). This is one of the few constellations that has both an upside and a downside. It is at its best if you pick 'Accept Darkness' as your principle, because then you can make sure that no survivor ever has 3 disorders.

Otherwise the Reaper creates a psychiatrist kind of survivor. You send them out with survivors who have debilitating disorders and cure those disorders by eating them.

Gambler
10/10
This is probably the best of all the Constellations, you gain massive damage soaking abilities and a great deal of power in exchange for not being allowed to use two handed weapons. It is also not that difficult to unlock compared to others. In general this is the Constellation you should aim for.

Absolute
9/10
Very, very difficult to unlock, but amazing once you have it. This gives you the Rawhide Headband ability for free each turn, that will make monsters far less deadly! In addition you get +1 Luck, so you're going to be shredding monsters to pieces.

Sculptor
7/10
Sculptor is a relatively low power constellation, however creating a back up of your existing character is very useful, they end up missing both the surname and scar, so it is difficult to turn them into a sculptor again, but what it does mean is you can keep your constellation survivor safe in the settlement ready for the final battle and use the stone duplicate instead.

The ability to replace lost limbs is not that valuable as you should have a lot of Pristine survivors in the campaign.

Goblin:
-100/10
This one is one of those annoying 'Gotchya' moments that the designers seem to think are worth including in the game. It is not funny, it is not clever, it is just an annoying piece of crap. Avoid this card, chuck it in the box and forget about it.

Breeding Down the Bloodlines
Required Innovations: Hovel, Bloodline, Empire
Useful: Face Painting

There isn't much more to write about breeding here, except that breeding is the best way to make powerful survivors and expect that your founding survivors will not be as useful as their children.

I will however discuss Birth Principles, as this will flavour your decisions more than anything else.

Protect the Young vs. Survival of the Fittest
Under the current rules (1.31) there is no decision to be made. You always take Protect the Young.

However, in 1.4, the improvements to Survival of the Fittest mean that you can play with it, in fact it's rather good because the PotStars Intimacy table has less chance of causing deaths and even the lost fertility that females might receive can be fixed at The Throne location (if you don't mind the risk).

However, if you do take Survival of the Fittest then you are going to want to be very careful with your Iridescent Hide and Oracles Eye survivors (see the Iridescent Hide/Oracles Eye entry above for more details). Face Painting with the Founder's Eye is very useful for this. The Optimal strategy is to stockpile Love Juice as much as possible, then trigger Founder's Eye as many times as you can for a big bonus to breeding then guzzle up all that love juice and make the rolls while playing the B52s hit Love Shack on the stereo.

Knowing your Outs
In the horrific case that you are approaching lantern year 25 and you do not have enough People of the Stars for the final fight, there is one thing you can do to salvage victory. This is to aim for a time loop. You achieve this by hunting Phoenixes finding one with Deja Vu (it's easier to do this if you have Oracles Eye), then making sure that the Deja Vu attack is not lost and piling up Age tokens until it sends you back to the start of the campaign. Having Ageless survivors will make this process a lot easier. You can achieve this with any level of phoenix, the higher the level, the higher chance you have that it will be able to Deja Vu - but the more lethal it is.

The other option you have no control over and that is in the Clinging Mists settlement card. Because it is out of your control I won't write much about it except to say, pull up the Guidepost if you ever manage to somehow get it. You don't want that thing around, it will stop you having the option of looping via Clinging Mists if you want to.

Also, remember that If a survivor with a constellation retires, you can bring them back for the final battle via the Hours Ring.

The Tyrant Showdown:
So, I have left the meat and potatoes of how you get a Constellation till last. It's taken a while for me to fully figure out the optimal way of fighting The Tyrant in order to reap the most benefits.

Most people I have read fight the Tyrant by smashing his gates with clubs/heavy weapons and then surging to attack him. However I have come to realise this is NOT the optimal way you fight the Tyrant.

Gates:
OK, so serious talk now. We do not want to smash up these gates, we want as many of these gates in play as possible. This is because the gates are the tool that will allow you to gain the Frozen Star Secret Fighting Art (and other bonuses), you want to let at least 5 of them stick on the board at all times.

The issue with doing this is it makes The Tyrant's moods very dangerous. However, that can be mitigated with careful manipulation of his AI deck via the Rawhide Headband along with applications of the Whisker Harp (I recommend having 2) to remove Moods that sneak into play. The entire fight against the Dragon Tyrant becomes a lot calmer and easier when you stop him getting in a mood via charm and music.

As such, in order to maximise chances of getting the Frozen Star I recommend using 1-2 Rawhide sets along with multiple Luck Charms, Whisker Harps and a Cat's Eye Circlet.

Trials
Trials are an interesting one, they are uncrittable First Strike locations that provide benefits if you succeed. In general terms you want to use the Cat's Eye Circlet to identify when the Trials are coming up and then ensure that the right survivor hits each one. Trials can become very difficult to beat when you've picked up a lot of Dragon Traits, so high STR weapons help a lot. You may also want to have a set of Bandages around in case the Bleeding becomes an issue.

Deathblow
You WANT to hit the deathblow in every fight you have against the Tyrant if possible. In order to do this the usual deck manipulation Deathblow method applies, I will provide more detail about this if you do not know how to do it.

Make sure the person who hits the Deathblow will benefit from gaining Pristine.

Expansions:
A quick word about expansions. The book recommends that you don't use any of them with it. This can be ignored, only the Slender Man expansion has any negative repercussions when combined with People of the Stars and even that can be played around.

(Note from Italics: We unlock constellations in LY4, LY9 and LY19 easily these days. Expansions do not make it harder, in fact some of them, which add extra showdowns, help.)

In particular the Gorm, Sunstalker and Dung Beetle Knight are very beneficial for People of the Stars.

Conclusion
So there we have it, everything you need to know about becoming one of the People of the Stars. You should now be better prepared to reach the ending of the game and theorise on what the victory conditions actually mean for your survivors and the world of Kingdom Death in general!