We're near the end of this entire endeavor (outside of the capstone article with visual article) and it's time to mop up the remaining weapons, we have in here Scythe - which is currently the Nuclear Scythe (and discussion on why early game scythes should not exist for you budding designers); the Twilight Sword and an examination of why it's such a disliked part of the Lantern experience and the Katana which demonstrates how to do the "destined weapon" experience the right way (the weapon itself has some issues though, all of its options are not really great at the moment).

Scythe

Scythe is by design a rare, late game weapon, which is why currently we just have the upgrade-able Nuclear Scythe as the only option. Scythe has an absolutely insane combination of weapon specialisation and mastery and as a consequence of this the Nuclear Scythe is hard to build, late game and doesn't really work well without the power stone(s).

People often comment on how the Nuclear Scythe should be buffed, but after a lot of consideration I think it really only needs a small strength buff, everything else about it is absolutely fine because of the insanity of these two weapon proficiency powers.

We've talked about powerful proficiencies here and there before, but these two are pretty much near the top of the tree. The specialization allows you to essentially "dodge" the trap as long as you build for critical hits and play correctly, it's a conditional "Crest Crown" on a stick and that gear card needs an L3 Phoenix, you can get your Scythe from an L1 or L2 Dragon King if you're willing to pay the price.

The mastery is just straight up an extra attack each turn on your scythe, it's pretty basic, but powerful as heck, especially when you remember that it's going to be stacked onto the specialization as well.

This is why there should NEVER be an early game scythe (not from anything earlier than the level of an L2 Dragon King or a rare occurrence like the L1 DK Deathblow which also has an 80% chance of killing a survivor). Scythes are strong, like really, really strong and that's why they are rare and statistically underpowered.

Nuclear Scythe - Dragon King

Power Level: Mid to End Game

Speed: 2 Speed has strong synergy with the Cat's Eye Circlet, given how the Scythe Specialization works, this is extremely strong. 3 speed wouldn't let you bury the trap and shuffle it away 50% of the time on a crit.

Accuracy: Very middle of the road, which is fine I guess, but it wouldn't have hurt to have this weapon on a 5+

Strength: This is the single issue with the Nuclear Scythe, it's been designed with the Dragon Armor and Red Core buffs in mind, which means that by itself it is just a bad weapon for when you can make it. Remember this is in essence a Node 3 L2 weapon that rarely pops out the L1 and has a chance of death when collecting the resource from the Deathblow (it's not clear if it kills when collected via victory rewards because those are not specifically received by any one survivor).

As a consequence this weapon has 2 points of strength less than it should have, even at strength 6 it is still baseline on par with the Zanbato, but its harder to craft.

With the Red Core/Cycloid Scale it climbs up to a mean wounding roll of 14.5, which is very respectable, and that can be buffed further with Phoenix or Dragon Armor, but that's still a lot of work to get the weapon working and the loss of slots is problematic.

The Blue Core requires killing an L3 DK, which is absolutely no mean feat as he hits like a truck at that level, and when you have it, it represents an upgraded Lucky Charm that's stackable with it (or Death Mask) - so you can pivot your Scythe into becoming a crit weapon if you prefer.

The temptation is to go Nuclear with both cores, but I've tried that out and I think you're better off being very flexible with your options and running just one core at a time and specializing hard into what it does. On the whole the Blue Core is stronger.

Affinities: Lots of affinities, all of which need to be connected in order to give you the option of the Activated Scythe. We'll discuss that more in the ability section, but as the ability is optional even when activated, this is all good.

Ability: So as mentioned before with the Nuclear Dagger, this ability - "spending" insanity to gain Devastating 1 for your next attack is a high price to pay. But it is optional and that means that you are in charge of when to use Devastating. I think that's a very powerful choice, it allows you to drop your insanity down when it's too high and it also means you don't have to always be devastating the way that weapons such as the Zanbato force you to be. Feels like a weak ability, but it's better than it looks.

Summary: Missing just a couple of points in strength, the Nuclear Scythe is a lot better than it looks. It is easy to look at the cores and say 'pfft they should have affinities' or 'why would I ever bother with spending these slots. But we're a community who will use the Monster Tooth Necklace or Lucky Charm to help push weapons past break points and the cores are just better versions of those gear cards.

However, as before I do enclose my "upgraded" versions of the two cores for those of you who feel disillusioned that the cores do not include an affinity each. (See attachments).

Twilight Sword

One of my largest issues with the People of the Lantern campaign revolves around the Twilight Sword and the Hooded Knight. Apart from the Twilight Order being a nasty bunch of antagonists posing as 'protectors' (there are a lot of hints that they are controlled by an entity and at best, dupes but at worst, irredeemably evil - hence why they get deserters).

However the problems with the Twilight Sword in game revolve not around its lore, but its mechanics in game, in specific the way that it is given out, its nature, its progression design and most of all, the Hooded Knight's event.

At its heart, the progression design of the Twilight Sword is very cool, it's a bad weapon that gradually gets stronger and stronger as you become more proficient in it. I actually have no complaints about the sword's design in isolation. I even really like the 'destiny weapon' design where the survivor who completes the journey departs the settlement.

Though this 'completion departure' could have been done better if the sword referenced a story event on completion instead of just telling you in advance that 'once you're done, you leave'. Even a legacy style envelope would have worked a lot better here. What can you do about it though? The cat is out of the bag and unless you're using my idea of small weapon proficiency cards that can hide the mastery until you get the job done, you know that completing the mastery removes your survivor from the story.

That's a free custom idea for you next time you play with new people. Give them my small reference Specialization card and put the mastery version in a small black envelope that they get to open once they complete the mastery. Just make sure that they're not going to freak out over the departure though, people do get attached to their survivors.

The largest problem with the design of the Twilight Sword is the Hooded Knight event itself. I'm not going to go into all of the details, but the fact that the sword is forced onto the most experienced returning survivor is an absolutely awful mechanic. Your most experienced survivor typically has the highest level of weapon proficiency and suddenly they're stuck with a cursed weapon that isn't in their chosen weapon category. It sucks to have this inflicted on you and it's resulted in a meta-game of taking out newbies the year that you get your 5th innovation. (Or go get Crystal Skin so you can dodge the curse and slap it into storage).

On top of that, if you have the sword in your grid the Hooded Knight is going to turn up every once in a while and kill/beat the living heck out of you if you've not been training the Sword. It's just a horrible situation, especially for a game that is so sandbox in nature.

Ultimately it's this forced non-choice with punishment for not obeying that makes the Twilight Sword so disliked. As we'll see when we look at Katana, it could have been done in a much better way.

Twilight Sword - Rare (Hooded Knight, Hunt Events)

Power Level: All campaign

Speed: Initially Slow, this weapon picks up to 3 speed at Rank 4. That's a very interesting design element and one that I like a lot.

Accuracy: Accuracy starts at 9 and gradually improves more and more as you rank up. Again that's a very cool design element and I love it a lot.

Strength: 9 Strength is absolutely bananas, this weapon turns up as a 1/9+/9 weapon and that's powerful, but later on it becomes a 3/3+/9 weapon and its ridiculous then. There cannot ever be any complaints about its strength.

Affinities: N/A

Ability: Loads of abilities here to unpack. It's got a huge pile of drawbacks, including being Cursed, Cumbersome, Sentient (need to be Insane to use) and its Irreplaceable (which is how I usually deal with the situation, I get the sword onto some newbie and wait for the Hooded Knight to butcher them - ignoring the entire experience). It also gains Deadly at Rank .

The big issues are the Cumbersome, which disappears at Rank 2 and Sentient. Cumbersome can be worked around with clever use of the various Monster Move/Attack Armors (White Lion, Screaming, Dragon, Phoenix, Membrane) and Sentient. In the core game the best way to handle Sentient is to make sure that one of your survivors has the Screaming Armor (Screaming Horns) - often the Sword wielder themselves is the best choice for that outfit. The other option is to purchase the Allison White Box, which gives you access to this accessory.

This is a nice balanced option that you can add to the game and I think it's a great choice.

Finally we have the Devastating 2 vs. Watchers, this is basically a theme ability because it's providing a silver bullet for a monster that doesn't really need them. Newer players will likely appreciate the crutch that this bonus provides, but they are not going to improve as players by using it. It's an unnecessary bonus that encourages players to stall on waking the Watcher (and therefore miss out on the interesting content that turns up afterwards).

Summary: Good mastery design, interesting weapon. But held back hard by the punishing way that it is inflicted onto your survivors. As we'll see in Katana below, it didn't have to be this way and the Twilight Order can go eat a bag of white lion ding dongs as a result.

Katanas - Core, Slenderman & Sunstalker

In contrast to how the Twilight Sword is designed I really rate the story event that gives out Katana mastery. I wrote about this in the past and I'm not going to retread it here, so pop over to this link and have a read if you're interested.

This is another 'destiny weapon' which will result in your survivor leaving the settlement, essentially jetpacking their way out of the story and becoming one of the only real survivors in Sun/Lantern because high school nihilism is edgy. I think destiny weapons are very cool ways of telling a larger story.

Katana's story is one of the more 'complete' ones, we understand where the Katana masters originally came from (Sun settlements), what their objective is (killing Suns in revenge for their loss) and the rest is left there for you to fill in the blanks. They're also the most weeby of all masteries by miles and miles, bless those of you who dream of being a samurai badass, now you can.

The event that starts this chain is triggered either by 5 innovations in People of the Sun, or by killing a L3 Sunstalker (something not many people do). Then a Katana master turns up and through the Edged Tonometry event, they test to see if anyone has the potential to become one of them. It's a fun spin on Ocular Tonometry, which you can read about here. The entire event oozes character and the only complaint I have is that it gives out 3 Eye Patches and you only get one in the Sunstalker box.

I love the Eye Patch, its one of my favourite pieces of gear.

The aim of the eye patch is to allow your chosen Katana user, (that's right you get to CHOOSE who gets Katana Mastery :O ) to immediately be able to benefit from Katana Spec without needing to blind themselves.

I am on record saying that I think automatic wounds are a problem mechanic and they should be used sparingly. But I consider this version of the process to be fine, it is limited to a single, story driven weapon type that only one survivor in your party can be using at a time and it's only once per attack on a Perfect hit. Automatic wounds with lots of narrow conditions to trigger are fine. Automatic wounds like the kind on the Counterweighted Axe and Red Ring are not.

Ultimately, when you complete the mastery your survivor will leave, all the comments about how this could have been better handled as a story event in the Twilight Sword section still apply here, but ultimately I am on board with this form of bigger picture via mechanics. Enjoy your walk amongst the darkness my now giant collection of wandering ageless katana masters. You all earned it.

Lets look at the Katanas we have, there are not many at the moment, but Adam's promised at least two more in Campaigns of Death.

Rainbow Katana & Blood Sheath - Basically Plumery, but actually in Weapon Crafter

Power Level: Mid to End Game

Speed: The core game Katanas follow a meme design of X/X/X, which is why the Rainbow Katana has 4 speed. This is altogether too much speed if you are fighting a monster that has Super Dense location(s), because losing your Rainbow Katana due to Frail is far too high a price to pay. However, once combined with the sheath, this situation is removed and it just becomes a fun weapon to slash with. Great if you have Warhamster players who like to roll lots of dice.

Accuracy: 4+ accuracy is really good once you've gotten the Sheath sorted.

Strength: 4 strength is where this weapon struggles a bit, but again it gains +1d10 for a mean strength of 9.5 once you have the sheath. If you haven't already figured it out, I do not recommend using this weapon at all without the sheath on its right.

Affinities: One single left red, which is needed to give the Katana Deadly. Fortunately that's the perfect slot to fit it onto many different things, such as the Monster Tooth Necklace!

Ability: I highly recommend using this weapon with Screaming Armor. That armor set is almost perfect for the job and that's how you can have the weapon active with the sheath and deadly.

The Sheath is also super interesting, it's not a shield, but it does provide block on a non-weapon, which helps because if you're using the sheath to activate the katana, you want that slot to do as much as possible. Spoilers, it does.

Summary: My #1 choice for a Katana, I think that the Rainbow Katana is well designed and interesting. It's one of the main reasons why I'd hunt a Phoenix and I think the only frustrating thing about it is that it's on the Weapon Crafter location rather than the Plumery.

Gloom Katana & Gloom Sheath - Slenderman

Power Level: Potentially End Game

Speed: Fixed at 4 speed this time, this weapon can have absolutely massive amounts of strength, so it's not really a downside.

Accuracy: 5+ is good, I never have complaints about a 5+. Though for the memes it should have been 4+ again.

Strength: This one is very difficult to assess, strength could be anything from 0 to millions because of the various insanity exploits that the game contains. So it's going to depend on how good you are at gathering and maintaining insanity. The Sheath helps with this mechanic when its set up right.

Affinities: One up blue on the Katana and One up Red on the Sheath. A pretty basic, and awkward paring designed to try and let you pump up your strength by increasing your insanity each turn. It's worth setting up, but be wary of the L3 Slenderman.

Ability: I am a lot less impressed with the abilities on display here than I am with the Rainbow Katana. Savage is an underwhelming version of Devastating and therefore the only real benefit of the Gloom Katana over the Rainbow one is the choice of monster you are getting it from and the ability to abuse Insanity gains for a ridiculous level of strength. Never forget that Hiccup (Gorm) is an infinity insanity gain loop with the Monster Controller mechanics.

Summary: This one lives in an odd place, it's more the mechanics abusers choice of katana over the Rainbow one and to be honest it is one of the weapons in the game I think is very problematic in design. If you're not looking to abuse it then (again) you're likely using it with the Screaming Armor, but it's never going to surpass the Rainbow Katana without abuse, so why bother? Just make a Gloom Hammer.

Muramasa - Hunt Event Sword & The Statue

Power Level: Suicidal

Speed: 6 speed is absolutely insane on a Katana that is always Frail. But it's downright self-lethal on a weapon with the ability it has.

Accuracy: The meme continues with 6+ accuracy, which is a bit of a god send in some ways, you don't want all 6 attacks to hit most of the time.

Strength: Zanbato tier base strength, but it has sharp so it's actually a mean strength of 11.5 (aka 17 average wounding roll result). Certainly good enough to threaten most monsters you'd typically encounter. Especially with that Deadly 2

Affinities: N/A

Ability: First of all, this one is a PITA to get. Here's the hunt event for it:

So you are NOT getting this one early on, you need at least 4 hunt XP. Which I think is a good way of gating this weapon. It's not clear if this 'statue' is a reference to the Cyclops Knight again, or if it's someone else (Katana users are renowned for having one eye as we learnt above). The CK doesn't have 6 arms, but he tends to be behind the smithing of almost every single rare weapon the survivors encounter.

The weapon itself has a lot of downsides for its power. It is frail, sentient, and unique. But it isn't irreplacable/cursed so unless you break it, you'll have it for a while.

The main drawback however is that 2 Bleeding Tokens when you critically wound. That's a huge problem as it can instantaneously kill most survivors. Even Survivors with Unconscious Fighter or Purpose will struggle to withstand that kind of punishment.

That's where the Last Man Standing 'meme' build came in. The idea is to run away 3 of your survivors and leave the Muramasa Survivor, who has Last Man Standing, to hack the monster down solo.

It's not really the ultimate strategy, because the Muramasa still has Frail (BOOOO), but it is a fun experience until your Katana breaks and you're left trying to punch the monster to death all on your own.

Summary: Hard to use but potentially very powerful. This is the kind of thing that Rare weapons should be. I'm not someone who really gets excited by Katanas as historically they were pretty shoddy weapons (Give me that Milan steel any day over pig iron katanas), but there is no doubt that this weapon is an event and a story all in itself. Especially if you are a huge risk taker who enjoys that.

I just think that Frail on this is a real shame.