People of the Stars: Facing the Tyrant (Patreon)

Without a doubt, this one contains heavy spoilers for the strategies involved in fighting Kingdom Death's best boi - The Tyrant. This nemesis fight is key to the entire People of the Stars campaign and success in the campaign almost entirely revolves around your performance during his 3 appearances.

While I do respect people's desire to avoid spoilers and I will not talk about any before the bold warning text below but I do think that there is one important point that anyone who wants to avoid disappointment should know. It'll be the first paragraph in the spoiler section.

Before we begin I should make sure you are aware of the following things which are often overlooked.

Innovations:

TL;DR: Dragon Language, Radiant Orb, Bloodline, Empire and Arena are Stars only. This is why they have The Tyrant crest

p. 2 Remove Language, Lantern Oven, Family and Clan of Death. They should be replaced by Dragon Language, Radiant Orb, Bloodline and Empire, which are the campaign specific versions.  

p. 2 Arena is an additional campaign specific innovation that's added in only during stars.

Tyrant Showdown

Missing: The Tyrant should always start with the Trait Destiny's Marrow in play. It does not work correctly without it. This is what all the purple icons are about. I have attached a correct version of the card (bleed and non-bleed versions) to this post - it is the same as the original, but with Destiny's Marrow trait included.

p. 3 You cannot Heart Flute the Tyrant or use him in the Hunt Reenactment. 

p. 3 The Tyrant has special ranged attacks for some actions, and unlimited range on the Mood attacks.

Constellations

p. 3 A survivor can have only 1 constellation.

You have been warned. Spoilers Ahead!

The largest pitfall in People of the Stars (PotStars) is the fact that without Children of the Stars, the special constellation based survivors in the campaign you cannot face the final nemesis. Only children of the stars may apply, in fact everyone else will die. This happened to TWIST (despite my warnings) and they had to go with 1 survivor vs the final nemesis. Talk about anti-climactic.

Light Spoilers over.

So, yeah. Getting Children of the Stars (aka Constellations) is VERY important in Stars, so much so that the very first recommendation I have is the first 4 constellations you unlock you should bench (keep in the settlement) except for when they go out on super safe hunts. When you are past 4 constellations, you can consider the excess to be somewhat disposable and start to rotate them so they can gain additional age, courage, understanding and fighting arts. 

So the ideal number of constellations that should be out on a hunt at any one time is 4 less than the total number available (T-4) and should never contain any constellation that's about to retire. Once you have a constellation that's one step from retirement they're absolutely ready for the final showdown and should be saved for that.

In Stars; anyone without a constellation, and without a reasonable chance of gaining a constellation is a completely disposable Pleb, they're even more useless than Plebs are in Lantern/Sun because they are going to die either randomly during the LY21+ portion of the campaign or they will 100% die when they hear the dragon's roar just before the final battle. Their spirits are weak and weakness is anathema to strength (to paraphrase the Tyrant).

All of this said, how do we get constellations unlocked? Well it's completed via gaining a row or column in the Star Bingo on each PotStars survivor sheet.

Some of these can only be gained via hunts, settlement activities or passage of time (9+ Understanding, 3+, +3 STR, +1 ACC, 9+ courage, Scar, Frozen Star SFA), can be tutored via a campaign specific gear card (All the Fighting Arts). But the vast majority are either gained via birth (Hovel is very important in this), the replacements for Family/Clan of Death (Bloodline/Empire) and fighting the Tyrant. Some timeline events will give you things, but these are one time deals and shouldn't be relied on alone.

So, The Tyrant is the simplest way to gain access to Noble, Reincarnated, Scar, Iridescent Hide (outside of breeding), Oracle's Eye, Destined (if you somehow lost your first copy of that Disorder because you sent your founder out to hunt - don't do that until she can breed) and a very fast way to get early access to the Frozen Star SFA. But he's not going to just give this up nice and easy. The Tyrant wants you to work for it, you have to impress him to get his gifts.

The Tyrant showdown fight is almost like a silly dating sim in that respect, except you've got to be tough as nails and willing to stand up to this monster, rather than win his heart (that comes later). Yeah, in case you didn't realise it, one of the silly 'layers' of Stars is that it's a big long extended satire of the dating sim genre, with combat and prowess allowing you to win the heart of your master - literally rather than figuratively. On top of all the fantastic religious and historic references this campaign has, it's also Tyrant Dating Sim 2000.

Tyrants are like onions, they have many layers, and we're going to peel them back so you can see the "proper" way to fight the Tyrant. With these methods you can actually get constellation(s) in LY4 (Tom achieved Absolute in last year's mega campaign in the first Tyrant fight). So lets get into it.

The Showdown

This showdown happens in LY4 (Level 1), LY9 (Level 2) and LY19 (Level 3), once you hit LY20 it can become very, very difficult to unlock constellations, so you should generally consider that you have 19 years to get as many of them as possible. The more, the merrier.

Understanding the Fight in general

We're going to first run through the important points of how The Tyrant works, what his 'objectives are' (based on his programming) and then we'll look at fight level specific aims a bit further down the line. 

 Movement: 

The Tyrant has the ability to use microwave radiation to form temporary wormholes and use these to rapidly traverse the battlefield. Doing this leaves behind an obsidian "gate" shaped in the form of the Tyrant. You can use these gates to follow through the wormhole by smashing them, but this is not ideal and we'll discuss it more in the Gates section.

A lot of The Tyrant's movement is done via this Crooked Step, you'll notice that it ends up placing The Tyrant 6 spaces away from the survivor who was previously furthest away and as far away from all the other survivors as possible. 

Essentially, when crooked stepping The Tyrant is picked the survivor who is most "cowardly" (furthest away) and moving in range to test them (by having them hit The Tyrant and be hit).

Instinct: 

When the Tyrant performs its instinct, it will teleport via crooked step, which places it 6 spaces away from the furthest survivor and then move right next to that survivor. 

In short, the Instinct is how you 'recall' the Tyrant when he's gotten too far away, you don't go chasing him all around the board by smashing gates, you simply wait it out for a turn and he'll come back. This stops you ending up with a split party and a Tyrant who blips from one side of the showdown board to the other. 

Needless to say, it is good to have activated items such as Rawhide Headband, Bandages, Whisker Harp (more on that later), Cat's Eye Circlet and Shields so you have something you can do during the downtime. 

Don't go chasing The Tyrant, he'll come back.

Gates:

These are the Tyrant showdown specific terrain that is left by Dragon Jesus as he teleports around the board and you'll notice already that Heavy or Club weapons have a bonus here. They are the key form of how The Tyrant interacts outside of his direct attacks and they are a way of getting close to The Tyrant if you need to.

So, the initial instinct one has is to smash these as soon as they come up and then chase after The Tyrant. But I can tell you, that is incorrect. It's counter intuitive, but because The Tyrant has locations like this:

Note: These are typically critical wound locations, so Lucky Charms and Deadly are great.

You should be aiming to always have at least 5 gates on the board (there are a maximum of 8 possible). Now, this does have a few consequences, the purple icon is set by Destiny's Marrow (as mentioned previously):

Now you'll see why this card is an essential trait and the Tyrant's showdown AI breaks without it.

As the number of gates build, the danger the Tyrant presents increases, but the rewards increase also. This is why the sweet spot is 5 gates. It is the break point where the rewards start to come in, and those rewards are how you get to trigger early constellations, without them it can be very difficult.

Gates number 6, 7 and 8 can be smashed up without any concern and should be. But 1 through to 5 are precious and must be kept intact.

However, there is a scary cost to this...

Moods:

The Tyrant's Moods are its most dangerous attacks, these "infinite" range attacks are triggered when there is a certain number of gates in play. Like this:

This stuff is the most frightening of The Tyrant's actions. When they trigger, they can feel devastating. But they are moods and they can be handled, either by pre-emptively stripping them from the deck via AI manipulation wounding (you activate the rawhide headband before someone attacks and make sure the moods are removed as wounds) or removing them from play with a gear or weapon that can do that. The main methods here are the Whisker Harp and Whips (Silk Whip is great).

How to Do it!

So, before we do the specific level notes, we're now going to put together everything above and explain an ideal Tyrant fight.

The objectives you have here are:

• Unlock as many Dragon Traits (red text) as possible. In order to do this you will allow the gates to build up to 5, and then start managing them. 
• Survivors will stay as close together as possible for maximum efficiency, when the Tyrant moves to an awkward position, survivors will re-position to trigger the Instinct and bring him back in for another round of pokes.
• Ranged/Reach weapons help a lot with how The Tyrant behaves.
• Moods should be either preemptively removed via wounds, buried before the monster acts via end of turn AI manipulation or discarded from play via the Whisker Harp/Whips.
• Any hit locations without Dragon Traits (Red text) should be 'scrubbed' if possible, this is done by attacking them with low strength weapons in order to get them discarded without causing a wound.
• Always try and go for the Deathblow when The Tyrant is on his last wound. The benefits are too high.

In short, leave the gates at 5, huddle up, remove/stop moods from hitting play and try not to wound the Tyrant unless you'll get some Dragon Trait benefit from it.

Now we'll look at the Lantern Year specifics. Including gear goals and any special notes caused by the changes in how the Tyrant behaves.

Lantern Year 4 - Level 1

 Key Tyrant Stats:  

• Toughness: 8
• Wounds: 12
• Maximum of 5 moods

Key gear: 

• King Spear (White Lion)
• Riot Mace (Gorm)
• Rib Blade (Gorm)
• Lion Beast Katar (White Lion)
• Bone Club (3 Bones)
• Cat's Eye Circlet (White Lion)
• Cat Gut Bow (White Lion)
• Bone Darts (Bone Smith)
• Wisdom Potion (Gorm)
• Rawhide Headband (active - Skinnery)
• Lucky Charm (Organ Grinder)
• Whisker Harp (White Lion)
• Silk Whip (Spidicules)
• Knuckle Shield (Gorm)
• Bandages (Skinnery)
• Monster Grease (Organ Grinder)

Notes:

It is unreasonable to expect the Weapon Crafter open at this time, but it is possible and you can add the Weapon Crafter gear from the L2 to the list below. While Stars says 'you should not add any expansions to it' the gameplay experience is shallow and very bland without extra quarry monsters. The only expansions I do not recommend are the Slenderman on the first pass and the Lion Knight (outside of Green Armor). Spidicules can make the game harder, you will be sacrificing a Pleb every other hunt, but there are benefits to having it in the game if you do not remove the Screaming Antelope (Dried Acanthus is super important for Stars as you want protection for your constellation survivors).

Apart from the gear list, there are no additional specific notes here, the combat is as described above.  It is worth noting that the Knuckle Shield in particular really trivialises a lot of the danger in fight when combined with a good evasion tank, but most of the best gear comes from hunting the White Lion, so that should be your primary quarry until you get what you need.

Lantern Year 9 - Level 2

 Key Tyrant Stats: 

• Toughness: 10
• Wounds: 15
• Maximum of 6 moods
• +1 speed and +1 damage
• Gains the Quickened Trait (see below)

Key gear:  

• Support gear as per L1
• Skullcap Hammer* (Weapon Crafter)
• Whistling Mace* (Weapon Crafter)
• Hunter's Whip* (Leather Worker)
• Leather Armor (Leather Worker)
• Leather Shield (Leather Worker)
• Zanbato (White Lion/Weapon Crafter)
• Vespertine Bow (Flower Knight)

*Needs a good Strength stat on the survivor to make viable

Notes:

The Tyrant's toughness climbs up at this stage and you're going to be wanting weapon + survivor strength to total around 6 if you are not using Deadly to score wounds. The ideal route remains Deadly however, so the Zanbato/Rib Blade/Riot Mace + Lucky Charm are pretty top choices. LBK is solid if you want to 'scrub' the hit location when you fail to score  a crit (i.e. you either wound via a crit or not at all). The Vespertine Foil would be amazing for this fight, but the upkeep on it is very prohibitive in the official rules.

Quickened is mostly a benefit as it means you're going to get to 5 gates very quickly in comparison to the L1. In essence the Tyrant starts 'pooping' out a gate behind him every turn. This does make his blind spot protected a lot of the time, but you shouldn't need that extra accuracy by this stage.

It is unlikely that you will have much in the way of Phoenix/Sunstalker/DBK tier gear by this stage, but if you do. See the L3 gear notes for a list of what is good.  Armor at this point will probably be a mix of Rawhide, Leather and Screaming regardless of expansions.

This is probably the point where the Tyrant is toughest vs the potential power of the survivors because of how weapons fall off in the mid game and become weak compared to monster toughness.

Lantern Year 19 - Level 3

  Key Tyrant Stats: 

• Toughness: 14
• Wounds: 21
• Maximum of 9 moods
• +2 speed and +2 damage
• Retains the Quickened Trait and this becomes threatening.
• High, fatal danger if you let there be 8 Gates in play at the start of the Monster's turn. AVOID.

Key gear:  

Support gear remains the same plus the following extras become available

• Trash Crown (Dung Beetle Knight)
• Crest Crown (Phoenix L3 - for really powerful groups)
• Blue Ring (Spidicles)
• Beacon Shield (Blacksmith)
• Gloom Hammer (Slenderman)
• Cycloid Scale Armor
• Rolling Armor
• Lantern Armor (?)
• Phoenix Armor
• Skleaver (Skyreef Sanctury) 
• Sunshark Bow (Skyreef Sanctury) 
• Arc Bow (Plumery)
• Sunshark Arrows (Skyreef Sanctury) 
• Denticle Axe (Skyreef Sanctury)
• Lantern Glaive (Blacksmith)
• Dragon Slayer (Blacksmith)
• Calcified Digging Claws (DBK)
• Calcified Juggernaut Blade (DBK)
• Slender Ovule (Slenderman)

Notes:

14 Toughness represents a point where the wounding rolls need to be an average of 14.5. Which is a total of baseline Strength 9 (Survivor + weapon). It is easier to continue to follow the route of aiming to wound via critical wounds if you cannot get the right weapons together.

8 Gates has an instant failure death result on the draw of one legendary AI card. Avoid it either by a combination of AI manipulation and keeping the gates between 5 and 7. 

Any armor sets are fine for this fight, Cycloid Scale is VERY Strong with Iridescent Hide though, so it's probably going to be your primary choice if you have the Sunstalker in. 

Devastating 1 is useful if the fight starts to turn south and you need to close it out quickly, but otherwise it should be avoided. 

Essentially you should have the widest range of options and choices by this point, use the best stuff you have available to you. That's always why later game guides get a bit fuzzy, because of the branching nature of how sandbox crafting games work it's difficult to provide specific guidelines that always work. One can say, this gear is objectively good, but not say what's best for a given settlement.

Conclusion

And there we have it. A primer on how to unlock the most from Dragon Jesus, for players who want to get it "right" first time, or players who are struggling after a few attempts. You should click with how this works by the L2 fight, but the more experienced players (and early adapters) will get it within a few turns of the L1 fight. Whatever speed works for you best is great! Everyone learns at different rates and there's no stigma involved.

Except for being weak, The Tyrant has no time for the weak.