First Principles: Death - Bury or Harvest? (Patreon)

This is going to be a four part series running through each of the principle choices that you have for your settlement, including a little bit of discussion on the timing of triggering them (because some of these are more easily controlled than others).  We are going to start with the one which can happen during the prologue fight - Death.

Each of these two principles can be broken into four elements, and in order to evaluate the cards, this is how I am going to do it.  The Elements are Milestone Event, Passive Bonus, Activated Bonus and Triggered Extras.

Milestone Event:

This is the book event which is triggered when you update the milestone.  In both cases you chose how you will handle the first dead survivor and this event will then make you roll on a table with two outcomes (50/50 split on the odds).

The First Harvest triggers Cannibalize and gives you either a founding stone and +3 insanity for departing survivors (making them all insane) or; it gives one survivor +1 Speed.

The First Grave triggers Graves and gives either all departing survivors +1 survival and +1 understanding or; it gives one survivor +1 Luck. In both cases the nominated survivor is chosen, so you get a lot of control over how you are going to resolve this.  You can ensure that the survivor who gets the bonus is best placed to make use of it.

The 1-5 result for Cannibalize is a double edged sword, gaining a founding stone early on is quite useful, but everyone having +3 insanity means that your party is entirely insane and vulnerable to the Feet event unless you have the birth principle Survival of the Fittest (SotF) already chosen.  The insanity gains do help a great deal in allowing you to hunt The Gorm early on, but the risk without SotF is huge - losing an entire hunt party in the first 3 years will set you so far back that the nemesis encounters are going to be quite the hurdle to overcome. (Nemesis encounters tend to be "solved" via gear).

In contrast the Graves result has no downside whatsoever, +1 survival and +1 understanding has no drawbacks at all and also has some benefits because it speeds you towards potential stat gains and useful abilities in Insight.  Survival is also great, +1 is a large amount in the early game, especially when most L1 monsters really only need 2-3 survival per survivor in order to beat them safely.

On the stat gain front it's not even close; while +1 Speed can be useful on survivors, these survivors need to have very high strength weapons or tricksy things such as the Counter Weight Axe that trigger off perfect hits.  You're not going to be able to make good used of +1 Speed early on.  However if you do pick this route I recommend putting it onto the survivor with +1 Strength from the First Story and selecting Survival of the Fittest.  +2 strength combined with a Bone Axe for a total of +5 to your wounding rolls.  That will help carve up monsters faster.

Graves gives us +1 Luck, luck is an absolutely dominant stat in KD:Monster - it's the foundation of all hugely successful settlements because more luck means more critical hits which means safer fights and more resources gained.  Early game you can combine this with a Deadly Weapon (Rib Blade/Lion Beast Katar), Lucky Charm and Rawhide Armor and you will have a total of +3 Luck. Meaning you score critical hits on a 7+ (40% of the time)!  

Milestone Event Winner: Graves

Passive Bonus:

Cannibalize's passive is an increase in the settlement's Survival Limit of 1. Graves gives all new survivors +1 understanding.  

Cannibalize has the more powerful early game impact, an additional survival onto the survival limit means that you can gain more benefits from the survival gains that Rawhide Armor provides.   

Graves on the other hand has zero impact in the early game, but it strengthens the next generation(s) of survivors.  Combined with Saga (from the most broken Innovation Tree Music) you can have survivors being born at the first level of Insight immediately.  This means they become Tinkers (strongest of the Insight abilities) and have a chance of improving your innovations or giving you extra endeavors.    It is this combination of Graves + Saga which can be used to break the game.

Passive Bonus Winner: Graves in the long run. Though Cannibalize is not far behind and is likely stronger here for groups that struggle in the early game with survival.

Activated Bonus:

Note: 1.5 Cannibalize clarified that it does not trigger for exiles, erased from existence or lost survivors, the art at the top is from the 1.31 version.

Cannibalize gives you a basic resource whenever a survivor dies (specifically dies). Graves gives you an endeavor whenever a survivor dies in the settlement phase and two endeavors when they die on the hunt/showdown.  

There is not much to say about Cannibalize really, it gives you an extra boost in the early game and is useful if you are going to focus on the 'generic' weapons and armor (Leather, Weapon Crafter, Blacksmith) because they do not need monster specific gear for the most part.  

Graves on the other hand has a massive amount of utility, not only does it ensure that you are not stuck in a diminishing returns situation without enough endeavours to replace lost survivors, but it also allows you to 'churn' survivors into activities that might be deadly to them and know that you have a fair chance of recouping the losses.  

Also there is the Heart Flute nonsense, where you can gain +7 endeavors by activating the Heart Flute and sacrificing 4 newbies to a King's Man (just call the showdown a loss and move on).  

Endeavors can be used for all sorts of things - often to generate new population with better stats (Graves is the best way to maintain and protect your population numbers outside of your Birth Principle) or to improve existing survivors with Drums/Forbidden Dance/Cooking.  

Activated Bonus Winner: Graves

Triggered Events

This category is for all of the little things which happen on the hunt based on which principle you have.  I can't cover everything here and I am just going to summise quickly.  

There are roughly the same number of events where having Cannibalize is the same as Graves. However, there are a fair few where you would get your Graves bonus but not your Cannibalize one (because the survivor's body is lost - such as Statue).

There are hardly any events where Cannibalize is of a benefit and Graves is not.

Triggered Events Winner: Graves

Summary

For me there really is not much contest between these two principles. Graves is significantly stronger in almost every aspect and also it's more interesting to use.  The endeavor gains on lost survivors are more powerful and flexible than basic resources, so while I really wish Cannibalize was an interesting and valid option to use against Graves but it isn't.